The Problem with most 9/11 Truthers

The US’s (and the West’s) unhealthy relationship with Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest issues for anyone trying to understand 9/11 and its aftermath. Yet, bizarrely, 9/11 truthers remain largely unconcerned by the US relationship with Saudi Arabia. They’re more focussed on saying 9/11 was a Bush inside job; that it was Israel or Israeli businesses; that if it wasn’t orchestrated by the US Government, they were still in on it in some way and turned a blind eye when they could have prevented it.

There will always be some questions that remain unanswered — elements of doubt to almost any major event in history — but instead of using them to fit a desired or pre-conceived narrative, we can try to use logic to get a better idea of plausibility. If it was an ‘inside job’, what benefit or proposed benefit was it for the US? If it was an orchestrated pretext to invade Iraq, then why would the US blame Saudis instead of Iraqis? If it was controlled demolition, then why did they need to fly planes into the buildings? Why not just blame the controlled demolition on terrorists from the selected countries they wanted to invade? The US have hardly needed to be attacked on home soil in order to invade other countries before, so for what ends would they need to kill 3,000 of their own citizens?

A far more important focus when considering 9/11 is how Bin Laden got to shape Al Qaeda, how they were funded and how they grew. But if you refuse to see Al Qaeda as ultimately responsible for 9/11, then you’re far less likely to consider these questions and much more likely to distract people from even considering them.

Again, a far more important issue than spouting [close to] thoroughly debunked nonsense over ‘inside jobs’ and ‘controlled demolition’ is to focus on the fact that the US didn’t allow any private flights out of the US in the days proceding 9/11 except to fly Saudis back. A real and pivotal issue around 9/11 is that the US attempted to (and continues to attempt to) conceal evidence that they had links to people who funded or worked with the Saudi terrorists. These are the sorts of things that truthers should be concerned about, but they would rather concern themselves in chaotic theories about passports found in debris.

In fact, if you look at a lot of the major world problems in the last few decades, a big proportion of them are strongly linked to the US and its (and to lesser extent, the West’s, particularly UK’s) unhealthy relationship with Saudi Arabia, including weapon supply, ignoring appalling human rights abuses, indirectly sponsoring and turning a blind eye to sectarian conflict, and giving “tacit support” to Wahhabist expansionism.

There are plenty of genuinely important issues to focus on when we discuss 9/11. Yet, nearly all of the main issues truthers concern themselves with have been debunked numerous times, by experts and basic logic. But, sadly, truthers are unwilling to believe the explanations for reasons such as “shill” or “msm” or “government narrative”. Any remaining questions are residually hyped up in importance when they’re a basic triviality to the overall story.

I understand the need to be sceptical but being a 9/11 Truther isn’t about being sceptical – it’s confirmation bias in action whilst blaming the mainly rational explanations (very often of genuine experts) of being from people suffering severe cognitive bias.

Truthers are actually doing a disservice to peace, justice and to the families of victims because the more they throw dirt in the public’s eyes (particularly over whether it was an inside job), the less culpable Saudi Arabia become, and the less culpable the U.S. and West are from having forged, continued and expanded their relationship with Saudi Arabia.

As Washington’s Blog point out succinctly, “the U.S. has backed the world’s most dangerous and radical Muslim terrorists for decades”. Yet, rather than expose real government evils, truthers help to push these sorts of facts out of the limelight.

In a way, truthers, despite thinking that they’re calling the government and establishment to task, actually serve as useful idiots – helping them escape culpability.