One Picture Is Worth A Thousand Conspiracy Theories

I've never seen this picture before.

According to The New York Times it was taken by Valencia M. McClatchey and is the only known surviving photograph of the United Flight 93 crash in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.

She gave the FBI a copy of the photo to help in the investigation. She also apparently let newspapers and television stations use the photograph - perhaps to give some visual aid to the horror that took place that morning - not at the financial or military capital of the greatest power on Earth, but someplace, up until then, of no IMPORT at all - the middle of a field.

Now, despite the fact that it's pretty unusual for a plane that big to do a header straight into the ground, apparently the conspiracy theorists are saying the cloud in the photograph would look differently if it were a piloted crash. Apparently the conspiracy theorists think the government shot down Flight 93.

The 9/11 conspiracy nuts continue to baffle me.

I once saw a documentary where they said that there are so many JFK Assassination conspiracy nuts because this is the one event in history that simply doesn't "balance out".

For instance, the Holocaust balances out. There you have the greatest crime in human history perpetrated by the greatest criminal in human history.

With the Kennedy assassination you have the most powerful leader in the world cut down in his prime by, as David Brinkley said so deftly the day it happened, "a punk with a mail-order rifle". It just doesn't balance out. The story, of course, would sound SO much better if the Russians, the Cubans, and the mafia were involved.

Now, at first, it sounded to me like 9/11 "balanced out" much better. It WAS a conspiracy - dozens upon dozens of people involved in secretive meetings all over the world - including, apparently, Malaysia of course - [[ahem]] - huge amounts of money being snuck all over the planet, secret messages shooting about, possible involvement with foreign powers who we THOUGHT were our friends, etc., etc.

But is this a good enough story for the conspiracy nuts? Does it have enough twists and turns?

No.

Of course not.

The story only sounds good to them if OUR government did it.

From the day the bloody thing happened, there were nuts at the Libertarian meeting at the Dubliner carrying on about how "Bush shot those planes down so he can monitor your phone calls." Of course I tried to explain to this nut that, although certainly the Bush Administration is capable of some first class mischief, I just couldn't see them scrambling F-15's to deliberately shoot down commercial aircraft.

However, of course once such a set of events had been launched into place, of COURSE Bush seemed to take great delight in dipping in everyone's business without a warrant.

Did attitudes similar to those of President Bush contribute to 9/11? Most certainly. Are Bush and his cronies SMART enough to pull off such an efficiently executed plot without getting caught? Absolutely not.

19 men from Egypt, the United Arab Emirites, but mostly from Saudi Arabia, hijacked four planes on September 11, 2001 and drove them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington, and an empty field in Pennsylvania.

They were angry at the United States due to a long series of events that started with Sayyid Qutb being hit on by a drunk American bar fly on a BOAT.

Now if THAT doesn't make a good story, I don't know what does ...

Related:
A Sept. 11 Photo Brings Out the Conspiracy Theorists - The New York Times
Picture Made on 9/11 Takes a Toll on Photographer - Flight 93 Photo Fraud
Just how nutty are 9/11 conspiracy nuts, you ask? - JBlog Central