Follow the money

What were some of the supposed reasons, conspiracy theorists claim, that the government destroyed World Trade Center 7? Something about destroying financial documents? Something about safeguarding a large number of corporations from potential SEC investigations? Their story changes every day – and not in that good, sciencey, “well, I guess new evidence has emerged” kind of way. More like, “well, we’ve already sold a DVD about this claim, so let’s try a new one…”

Now I’m a registered Democrat so you’re going to have to understand my bias here, but I tend to think government is more efficient than that. I think if the Securities & Exchange Commission wanted to destroy some investigation documents (because, of course, the SEC is very corrupt and never successfully prosecutes any large corporations who violate the law), I think they could do a little better than by causing $100,000,000,000 in property damage to do it.

For example, I found this nifty paper shredder at Office Depot for forty bucks.

Oh, but of course, the monetary incentive was great because of all the billions of dollars the arms industry made off of the Iraq invasion. That clearly called for a “false-flag operation” like 9/11 because people need to feel an imminent threat into their own lives before we attack a foreign nation; just like Slobodan Milosevic had to attack us on our own soil first, right?

Never mind that the Administration’s absurd (and knowingly false) case for invading Iraq was its greatest downfall and that, by establishing its premises as “Iraq aided and abetted terrorists” and “is building WMDs” damned them to failure. The war has put a $520 billion strain on the economy and cost Bush’s party the government in 2006. Anyone who looks at this and can honestly claim that Bush intended to gain from 9/11 is a nutcase – to put it politely. Did America’s foreign adventures require the most elaborate hoax in history that would’ve taken decades of work and trillions of dollars in cost, before and after? Somehow, putting “NO!!!” in bold size-72 font still feels like an understatement.

One of the last desperate claims 9/11 deniers have to resort to is “who profits?” Of course, a sane person simply needs to ask, “who profits in ways that required the most elaborate and expensive conspiracy hoax in history?” Do they honestly believe that arms manufacturers were so desperate for cash that they performed this impossibly-complex feat of trickery? The same people who couldn’t keep Iran-Contra under wraps for more than a week conducted the biggest secret operation ever with no one at all coming forward, or publishing a memoir, or going Robert Baer or John Perkins on their asses? Really?

You probably know where we’re going to with this next, but in our forthcoming second “follow the money” installment, we’ll take a look at who’s really trying to profiteer off of the worst tragedy in American history. And just to give you a little sneak peek:



This first little installment covered the people who were stupid. The second one will cover the people who were opportunists.