The title of that post is "It ain't necessarily so". I suggested only one of the 'permutations' (scenarios), delineated in post 181, but when you want to contradict a universal statement, all you need is 1 counter-examples. Re-read Mackey's statement, that I quoted, and notice that he emphasized the word "ANY".
I took exception by other points of your posting. I totally agree that Saudi involvement not necessarily excludes US involvement in the planning or financing of the 9/11 attacks.
But again, that "something is not necessarily excluded" is a pointless statement. Chinese involvement, Russian involvement, Qatar involvement, Iranian involvement, Israeli involvement isn´t excluded, too. Who cares?
I'm not actually sure about the quality of the LaRouche paper, I give you that. The fact that it is partly based on recently declassified papers is uncontroversial, right?
Yes, see
here.
For that matter, how can I be sure of Sibel Edmonds' claims, unless state power is used to produce the proof, which she has assured us would be easy to do?
You´re putting the card before the horse. It´s not state power, it´s Sibel Edmonds who has to provide proof, she made a claim. At least she has to substantiate her claims: Who told her, when was she told, where was she told, what exactly were/are the ties between UBL and the US – things like that.
Her interview is one large whistle in the dark.
One thing I'm sure of is that investigations are iterative processes, and they depend on testing and investigating hypotheses - call them "speculations" if you like. I'm deeply distrustful of people who pretend to know what an investigation would yield, but who won't allow their minds to raise even the most obvious of questions.
Um, OK. The problem is that these “most obvious questions” are not seen as “most obvious questions” by many people, and they are not seen as “most obvious questions” because you (and the whole 9/11 TM) didn´t show why they should be seen as “most obvious questions”. They are just ... questions.
Actually, they don't need to be enough. They need to be enough, together with all the other facts and reports that contradict the official tales, that have not been shown to be completely without merit.
Don´t know which facts and reports you mean. Probably a topic for other threads.
Having said that, if all there was in the 911 conspiracy theory literature was Edmonds claims, given the US Congressmen who have vouched for her, that is quite enough for me to call for another investigation.
Your standards of buying into something do not seem too high, but I´m glad you´re honest about that.
Let me say, if Edmonds could substantiate her claim in the way described above, and specify which documents she refers to, what the status of these documents is (intelligence reports, whistleblower notes, a US-UBL cooperation contract signed by al-Zawahiri and Reagan, whatever), that would be a good way to force me calling out for an investigation into this issue. By now, she just made a bunch of unsubstantiated claims.
I defy you to find more that a handful of 911 Truthers who, if you asked them "Would you support a full re-investigation into 911, include any possible Saudi intelligence connections?", would say "no". In fact, I defy you to produce more than a handful of 911 Truther who, if you asked them, "Would you support a full re-investigation of just possible Saudi intelligence connections to 911?", would say "no".
Of course, there are no such 9/11 truthers, for obvious reasons. I defy you to show me a handful of important truther webpages/videos where Saudi intelligence connections to the hijackers are presented as central to the 9/11 plot.
Ah, how am I supposed to see what's in the back of anybody's mind?
Easy, by looking at the claims and questions, i.e. the webpages/movies/books.
E.g., look
here or
here or
here or
here.
Besides which, besides about 4 events in NYC, I don't hang out with 911 Truth activists. I've met quite a few people (non-activists) who don't buy the government's BS, but we didn't really discuss it much. However, I don't recall anybody mentioning the CIA.
I do not think it´s significant what a few activists you personally met did or didn´t say.
Besides that (and to equally strenghten an anecdotal case), we seem to have totally different experiences. Unlike you I never met a truther in real life, just a few people who mistrusted official explanations, were unsettled about 9/11 by this or that book, were asking honest questions – no problem with all that; but I discussed with “real” truthers on three different (German) internet platforms, and when it comes to 9/11 initiators
it´s all about intelligence services, especially CIA, and a fortiori in the Atta-ISI case. (If you need an example:
This is a prototypic German essay on the handler issue; every truther in this country seems to love and link it.)
"pure possibilities" is your framing, not mine. Tell me, do you think Senator Leahy would describe Sibel Edmonds latest bombshell claim as a "pure possibility"?
Probably not. But what does it matter? As long as there´s no evidence it´s not more than a possibility.