You’ve probably heard or read these words at some point when interacting with conspiracy theorists, or on a youtube video or comment section. If not, it’s a critique of the 9/11 attacks. The idea is that the collapse of the two World Trade Center towers was a controlled demolition because burning jet fuel doesn’t reach a high enough temperature to melt steel, and certainly not reinforced steel beams that would be used to build a skyscraper. And guess what? That’s completely correct. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, period. There is no debate on that, the conspiracy theorists are completely right on this one.
But wait, a controlled demolition? We’ve all seen footage of the attack, two planes crashed into those towers. That can’t be great for structural integrity, especially in a building with 20 or more levels above the impact site. Those fires in the buildings are from damaged piping, and uncontrolled fires can’t be great for structural integrity either. The fact is, jet fuel didn’t need to melt through steel for the buildings to come down. A weakened building giving out at any one point might, and gravity just has to do the rest. But you can’t tell a conspiracy theorist that. All they’ll say back is the same one phrase: “Jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams”. It’s kind of asinine, if you think about it. They’re so wrapped around this one point that they can’t fathom the idea of anything else being the cause.
I feel like this is the point in the semester where I should defend conspiracy theorists. It’s a big world out there, and it’s scary to think that something this awful could just… happen. It scares me, it scares you, it scared the entire country in the wake of 9/11, and some people didn’t want to live in a world where something this massive in scale is random. There’s this correlation in people’s minds that the bigger an event, the more coordinated and thought out it is. Knocking something over is random, rolling dice and flipping a coin are random, a car crash is random, but the death of 2,977 people from 4 hijacked planes crashing into buildings cannot be some random event that we have no control over. It had to have been greater than that. There’s more significance to this insanely influencial event than some people half a world away are angry with America.
Back to the conspiracy theory, though. A lot of theorists think that Bush orchestrated 9/11 in order to justify going into Afghanistan, and go into Iraq for oil. Have you ever seen the moment in the elementary school when a Secret Service agent whispers to Bush, allegedly “Mr. President, a second plane has hit the tower.”? It’s a brilliant moment. Bush sits there for a second and you can actually see what’s going through his head. But imagine if that wasn’t real. It might be the greatest moment of acting ever done.
So why would he do this? There are two theories: a new US led global hegemony, or oil. Bush sent troops into Afghanistan and later Iraq and this was seen as a war for oil. Iraq wasn’t involved in 9/11 at all, but the theorists postulate that Bush was determined to finish the job his father started with the Gulf War, failing to topple the Iraqi government. Falling into the bigger conspiracy theory of an overthrown world order, George HW Bush took Saudi money and in return promised to topple one of their neighbors and nearby threats, Saddam Hussein. This is reaffirmed by the fact that George W Bush (the younger one) attacked Iraq based on an assumption of weapons of mass destruction, even though none were found and it was discovered he attacked on faulty information. A family business, one might say.
But that’s all postulation. It’s a tall order to prove that the United States hired the terrorists, or that there were no planes, or that the government purposefully swept critical information under the rug to allow it to happen, or that the towers were a controlled demoliton. (all real theories, of course) As for me, the jury is still out on what really happened. Government incompetence played a real part, and government agencies like the CIA, FBI, and NSA didn’t share information and they all had a piece of the puzzle. But I don’t know if the government had any active role in the attacks. I’m skeptical of conspiracy theories, but I’m not confident either way. The decision is yours to be made whether you believe in these theories or not, but one thing is for sure. Conspiracy thinking plays an active role in our civic lives, whether you like it or not.
I’ve never agreed with conspiracy theories personally, although some made about the 9/11 attacks do make some sense. Like you, I am not completely convinced either way. However, the constant repetition of certain phrases does push me away from such theories because if something is to be debated, which I love doing, a single phrase like “jet fuel doesn’t melt steel beams” is just not going to cut it. That is one fact that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the matter, and the more it’s repeated, the less powerful it gets, and the less convincing conspiracy theorists’ arguments get.
I could simply read the title and know I was in for a blast! Yeah, who’d have thought that though jet fuel can’t get that hot when burning, an extra 364 MILLION kg * m/s of momentum (rough estimate for some given airplane) could also do the trick in demolishing a building! One’s ability to deny such obvious facts kinda reminds me of the whole thing with moon truthers and flat earthers! No matter how obvious a counterpoint you have, there is sometimes just no getting through to people when they have made up their minds!
One of the ideas this post touches on without going into significantly is fascinating. One generally helpful tool just in general with life is to follow Occam’s razor, which explains that you should always assume the simplest explanation is the correct one. This is because a lot of conspiracy theories run against this idea by always expanding the non-real conspiracy in question to something even larger than previously believed to justify more and more evidence against it. This also touches on how powerful having an emotional connection to an idea and having someone attack it can often feel like a personal attack and how important it is to always be open to being told you are wrong and that being wrong is simply a part of being human.
Yes, I understand how intense heat can weaken steel. But, if the towers hadn’t come straight down, I’d tend to agree with the “experts”. It still seems to me that something hit from the side would at least list a bit to the damaged side before collapsing.
And that picture of an upright beam in the basement, cut on an angle exactly as they are for a controlled demolition is hard to ignore. I’d like to believe that the government would tell us the truth but…