Theories about 911

Ghost Rider

Several people I know take very seriously the theory that the destruction of the World Trade September (WTO) on September 11th 2001 was an "inside job". There are a number of variant theories that can be subsumed under this general heading but they all seem to have one thing in common: the belief that US authorities didn't merely stand by and permit "911" to happen, but actively planned and engineered it.

(NB: in order to encourage reasonable debate, I'm electing to call this "the 911 inside job theory" rather than "the 911 conspiracy theory".)

One apparently very detailed source of arguments for the inside job theory is a book entitled "Crossing the Rubicon: the Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" by someone called Michael Ruppert. His own take on 911 is very specific (it concerns the geopolitical ramifications of the phenomenon known as "peak oil") but he appears to be one of the more influential exponents of the inside job theory, even among those who don't subscribe to all of his positions (e.g. on the politics of oil).

I haven't read Ruppert's book. It is over 1000 pages long and an unwelcoming prospect for someone who (like me) suspects that it may turn out to consist of, at best, a series of unanswerable questions and, at worst, a piece of highly imaginative fiction written by someone with a very sophisticated form of paranoia.

However, I will wade through Ruppert's book, and lots more besides, if someone can show me that the arguments contained in it are compelling enough. A few people have tried but I remain unconvinced thus far.

Is anyone here familiar with the book?

More generally, does anyone here have what might be considered an "unorthodox" opinion on 911?

(I understand the orthodoxy to be a broad spectrum of theories holding one belief in common: namely, that - whether preventable or not - 911 was not an inside job.)