It's characteristic of believers in conspiracy theories to dismiss critics of the theory as not looking at the evidence presented or of being "too insecure and afraid" not to believe the generally accepted explanation. But that is an ad hominem attack geared to undercut what the critics have to say.

I have thoroughly examined the evidence presented, and have concluded that it lacks credibility. Wolfgang and others have pointed out that such a conspiracy would involve hundreds if not thousands of people, and for there to be not one person willing, if not eager, to come forward and blow the whistle stretches credibility beyond the breaking point. And there are many other highly questionable aspects of the so-called evidence offered.

For example, videos of the buildings collapsing have been offered, showing what appear to be a series of explosions many floors below where the collapse is occurring, providing "incontrovertible evidence" that the buildings were brought down by controlled explosions. The fact of the matter is that buildings such as those at the World Trade Center have transformers all through them to serve the electrical needs of buildings that size.

Have you ever seen or heard a transformer explode? This happens when a transformer shorts out, and what happened when the planes hit the buildings and when the floors started to "pancake" would cause many of the buildings' transformers to short out, burst into flame (very hot fire) and then explode violently. That is what those so-called "controlled explosions" really were.

Video of a transformer in a substation shorting out, and description of the process HERE (allow video to fully load, then replay).

One can go through the "evidence" offered by the conspiracy theorists point by point and demonstrate that most of it is bad science or just plain not what happened at all, or that there are more reasonable explanations. When all the ducks are in a row, there is little there to contradict the "official version" that holds up to scrutiny. The buildings were brought down as a result of being hit by aircraft.

Now—that leaves a great deal unexplained, much of which can arouse reasonable suspicion. Considering that the government was forewarned by a number of people, including its own intelligence agencies, and by the outgoing Clinton administration, of such an attack by Al Qaeda and the warnings were simply blown off, and that Norad didn't follow standard procedures when it became known that the planes had been hijacked and a whole variety of other appearances of asinine incompetence makes me highly suspicious that the Bush administration—for whatever reason, quite likely that it was the "Pearl Harbor" they were hoping for—allowed the attacks to take place.

God knows, that would be bad enough, and certainly grounds for criminal action. But is this conspiracy theory that GUEST,froth advocates real?

Not bloody likely!

And anyone who claims that those who get on GUEST,froth's case without reading the material, watching the videos, considering the evidence offered, or merely blowing it off, don't know what the hell they're talking about!

Don Firth