The 9/11 Truth Movement

Danielle Terwilliger
People that believe or support the 9/11 Truth Movement, dispute the results of the official
investigations of the attacks on September 11, 2001. This is the day that al-Qaeda terrorists
hijacked four commercial planes and crashed two of the planes into the World Trade Center
towers and crashed another one of the planes into the Pentagon. The fourth plane was
unintentionally crashed onto a field in Pennsylvania. Supporters of this movement suggest that
the official investigation contains inconsistencies that would suggest a cover up by the U.S.
Government. Some supporters even believe that U.S. Government officials were involved in the
planning of the events on 9/11. These people believe that officials used these events as a motive
to start the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These supporters will call themselves truth activists or
skeptics, and will normally strongly reject being called conspiracy theorist. This movement has
drawn supporters from different backgrounds, with different political beliefs, and also from
different countries outside of the United States. Although many people have joined the
movement for different reasons, the one thing that most supporter have in common is their strong
mistrust of the U.S. government and government officials.
Supporters of this conspiracy theory may have slightly different views of how much the
U.S. government was involved, although they will all agree that the government was involved to
some extent. The majority of them will also agree that the motive of the government was to
provide the Bush administration with a pretext for going to war in the Middle East as a way to
ensure future supplies of oil. Some believe government insiders were directly responsible by
planning and executing the attacks. Some will say that while the U.S. government did not
participate in the planning or the execution of the attacks, they did have knowledge that the
attacks were going to happen, and did nothing to stop them. Other views suggest that the World
Trade Center was destroyed by controlled demolition that was placed in the towers prior to the
attacks. They argue that the damage to the buildings could not have been caused by the aircraft
impacts alone. They believe that the impact of the planes were not enough to cause the buildings
to completely collapse, nor at the speed at which they collapsed.
Following the events of 9/11, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden initially denied
involvement in the attacks. However in 2004, bin Laden claimed all responsibility for the
attacks on 9/11. Members and leaders of al-Qaeda, in and out of captivity, have criticized
supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement, saying that their claims were totally ridiculous. On July
22, 2004 the official 9/11 Commission Report released their final report. They determined that
the terrorist group al Qaeda was solely responsible for the 9/11 attacks.