9/11: The Greatest Lie Ever ToldSeptember 11, 2001 knew the most appalling events that the United States has ever confronted in its history. My review is about “9/11: The Greatest Lie Ever Told” an article by Matt Everett from the journal of psychohistory published in 2010. 9/11 attacks is the series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed against New York City and Washington, D.C. In this article, Everett Matt describes major points of the plot theory concerning the 9/11 attacks.
The author supported his theory with a series of testimonials and recommendations. He also offered eight areas of evidence against the official story of the attacks to prove that the twin towers collapsed deliberately by explosives. The first idea that Everett Matt discusses is if Osama Bin Laden was truly the responsible of the attacks. He started by the doubtful video found by the CIA. In this video, Bin Laden took the responsibility for the attacks. However, this proof was dubious for many reasons. First of all, the Bin Laden in that video does not look like the real Bin Laden. According to David Ray Griffin, the video’s Ben Laden had differently shaped nose, shorter hand.
He seemed also much darker, heavier and to have fuller cheeks. Furthermore, the real Ben Laden was left-handed, but in that video he was writing with his right hand. In addition, Bruce Lawrence, a religion professor at Duke University, and his friends working in the U.S government thought also that this video was bogus. Finally, Bin Laden stated that he didn’t plane for the attacks and had no links with the attackers to a Palestinian journalist, Taliban, and Al Jazeera channel before. The second area of evidence that Everett Matt explores in his article is if the suicide pilots (Atta, Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah and Hani Hanjour) could execute that attack. He reveals many confirmations from many persons who have lived with the four alleged.
They have all confirmed that the suicide pilots were inept and unqualified aviators because it was impossible for amateurs to perform that assault. Everett Matt began with the testimony of the owner of Ata and Alshehhi’s flight school, the instructors and the examiner. They have all confirmed that Ata and Alsshehhi (the pilots of the two Boeing 767s that hit the Twin Towers) were average students.
Furthermore, another student, who used the same training plane as the two alleged hijackers, said that Alshhehi had never took the controls of the air craft. The owner of the Florida Flight Training had also confirmed that Ziad Jarrah (the supposed hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 93 that allegedly crashed in rural Pennsylvania) could not fly alone. Everett Matt said “None of them had flown a jet aircraft before September 11. Yet, supposedly, on their first attempt at doing so, they were able to navigate large passenger planes at high altitudes, without assistance from air traffic control. Three of these alleged pilots were apparently able to successfully locate their targets and hit them with pinpoint accuracy (138)”. The third area of evidence that the author debates is that the towers collapsed by pre-planted explosives not by the fire caused by the airplane crashes.
He also confirmed that he is a strong believer of this idea. His strong argument is that a group of Architects and Engineers has listed 14 different ways in which the demolition of the Twin Towers exhibited all the characteristics of a controlled demolition by explosives; to illustrate, the towers collapsed straight down instead of falling over sideways, the extremely fast start, the towers weighing many tons were thrown for 600 feet and at speeds of 60 miles per hour, and many people have informed seeing flashes or hearing explosions throughout the collapses (141, 142). In addition, the World Trade Center that fell on September 11 in just 6.5 seconds. A physicist said that it is impossible for a skyscraper to collapse in this small period of time except with explosives which is true since they found explosive material there (143).
All these factors assure him that it was an inside job using pre-planted explosives. The fifth and the sixth areas of evidence that Everett Matt explores are the failure of America’s air defenses to successfully prevent the aircrafts from reaching their targets, which raised suspicion. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had seven alert but they performed terribly because they have failed to successfully handle those attacks even if they were more than sufficiently prepared to deal with it (144,145). Also, the training exercises might have facilitated the 9/11 attacks. According to the author Webster Tarpley, planners have included scenarios like what happened on September 11 in U.S military training (148). The last question that confuses Everett Matt is what had hit the Pentagon that day.
as stated by the official version, it was the Flight 77 piloted by Hani Hanjour, one of the alleged nineteen hijackers. The author denies totally this declaration by giving logical and coherent explications. First, Everett Matt said that a Boeing 757-200 has a wingspan of 124 feet 10 inches and a tail height of 44 feet 6 inches; however, the official report pointed that the impact point on the Pentagon’s wall is 90 feet in width. He believes that this huge airplane would not fit in that small gap found on the Pentagon’s wall. Secondly, the author signaled the lack of the plane wreckage and debris. Many witnesses that were present seconds after the impact confirmed that they could not see any debris related to such a big airplane. Furthermorer, a nurse who works abroad the Pentagon said “”I expected to see the airplane, so I guess my initial impression was: ‘Where’s the plane? How come there’s not a plane?'”(156). Thirdly, Everett Matt discusses a very important point about this attack, the unseen security videos.
He pointed out that after the events no security camera videotape clearly showing what happened has been made public. The only videos that were released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation were two videos with very poor quality that does not show any airplane falling on the Pentagon; however, the US Government said that around eighty other tapes concerning the Pentagon attack were found but cannot be shared with the journalists. The author visibly believes that something else than a Boeing 757-200 was responsible of this attack, giving a high probability to a missile attack. The article was very interesting, for I learnt lot of things about the 9/11 that I did not know before.
The author wrote this article intelligently because he sorted his arguments and developed well each one. By reading each area of evidence you feel curious to know about the next one. He also used many academic supports to prove more his concept, and we can see that in the endnotes where we find lot of articles, books, and academic sources. I used to read lot about the 9/11 and it’s the first time that I read for a writer who proved that the 9/11 is a lie by developing and linking the events. To conclude, I think that the author successfully succeeded in accomplishing his purpose, which is showing the unseen face of the 9/11 throughout three major points that are the key of the conspiracy theory concerning these attacks. Furthermore, he didn’t follow the wave as the others who strongly trust the credibility of the attacks. This article was full of interesting information, and events.
I really recommend this article to all the students taking this course because I am sure that lot of them never read something that disproves the official story of September 11 attacks.
