Conspiracy theories are notoriously vulnerable to straw man arguments. Think you’ve seen an unidentified object in the sky? An unidentified flying object? Watch me turn you into a Roswell-dwelling, lights in the sky, lizards in the White House stereotype of the UFO wingnut kind. Watch me transform you from an educated, reasonable human being with a question into a laughable mess of paranoia and idiocy.
It’s just that easy.
Of course, it shouldn’t be. Burning straw men are fun for the whole family, but it’s the coward’s way out when you can’t or won’t address the fundamental questions behind an issue.
The 9/11 conspiracy movement is a case in point. Many of the people crying conspiracy and cover-up are undoubtedly ideal straw men, clichéd loners who spend their time arguing semantics on the Net and scrutinizing badly compressed amateur video for artefacts that fit poorly defined patterns. Many no doubt have a pre-existing beef with the United States government, and don’t trust any kind of authority at all. But some conspiracy theorists aren’t as neatly defined.
Take Robert M. Bowman as an example. He’s about 73 years old, so old enough to know better but not old enough to be accused of going senile. A Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force, so we can probably assume he doesn’t have a problem with authority. With a Ph.D. in Aeronautics, Robert Bowman appears to be an all-round intelligent and upstanding American citizen. And Robert Bowman rejects the official account of what happened in the skies of America on 11 September 2001.
The “conspiracy theory”, as the official explanation of what happened has ironically come to be called, asserts that a group of Muslim terrorists planned and executed several attacks on American targets using hijacked commercial airliners. The impact of these airliners on various targets caused massive damage and loss of life, including structural damage to the Pentagon and the total collapse of several buildings in New York City.
A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible. – Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, Ph.D., U.S. Air Force (retired)
And indeed, this is how a very large number of non-stereotypical conspiracy theorists feel. Perhaps the “facts” surrounding the tragedy of 9/11 are 80% true. Or even 90%. But there are questions which remain unanswered.
Now a group of 25 “former U.S. military officers”, among them Robert Bowman, have stepped forward to ask for a new investigation of exactly what did happen on that day.
I’m an old interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I’ve done it. I know how long it takes. I know the rules. … Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: “Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing”. That’s not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive. – Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, Ph.D., U.S. Air Force (retired)
True skeptics have to keep an open mind. Deciding there’s a government cover-up and then searching for circumstantial evidence to back it up won’t wash. But a true skeptic has the stomach to face unpleasant questions, even when it might conflict with previously held beliefs.
As a former General Electric Turbine engineering specialist and manager and then CEO of a turbine engineering company, I can guarantee that none of the high tech, high temperature alloy engines on any of the four planes that crashed on 9/11 would be completely destroyed, burned, shattered or melted in any crash or fire. Wrecked, yes, but not destroyed. Where are all of those engines, particularly at the Pentagon? If jet powered aircraft crashed on 9/11, those engines, plus wings and tail assembly, would be there. – Capt. Daniel Davis, former U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director, former Senior Manager at General Electric Turbine Engine Division, founder and CEO of Turbine Technology Services Corp.
If the basic holes in the plot of what happened on 11 September 2001 were addressed, only the lunatic fringe would be left. But because these very reasonable questions and assertions have never quite been resolved, they linger on in the minds of people who would not otherwise entertain ideas of government conspiracies.
At the Pentagon, the pilot of the Boeing 757 did quite a feat of flying. I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757s and 767s and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described. – Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy pilot (retired)
The list goes on and on and on. 25 men and women, and not a single straw man to be torn down among them. How long will it take before the mainstream media also asks these questions in a non-sensationalist context?
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