When he delievers a radical address that --in soft tones, yes, but 
        urgent ones-- declares the U.N. to be illegitimate, the war against 
        Israel by Hezbollah to be a creation of the U.S., goes out of his way 
        to alert Christians that Jesus was just a prophet, and then closes 
        with an apocalypse-welcoming appeal to God, that's not just news, 
        it is very crucial news, news that underscores many important facts 
        for the West and the U.S., chief among them that "diplomacy" leading 
        to a "better deal" isn't on this radical's mind.  He wants his nukes.  
        He wants the apocalypse. 

The world has rarely been as stable as it has been throughout most of our lifetimes.  It would appear we are soon to see renewed instability.  Our prayers are needed.

It is amazing to me the lengths to which certain people will go in order to claim the President and his administration are evil.  The conspiracy theorists are willing to believe that these "neo-cons" would do this sort of thing, but unwilling to believe Osama bin Ladin would.

Obviously it would take far more "inside" knowledge than I have available to answer each of these points. I will make an effort, however.

>>In 2000, they released a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses." This document is the neo-cons' "Mein Kampf", their "Communist Mannifesto." It laid out their blueprint for Pax Americana. This document called on America to establish the doctrine of preemption, and to attack any country that had a military or economic buildup. <<

By the year 2000, it would have been fairly clear to many that we had significant enemies in organizations like al-Qaeda, and that serious threats to our national security existed. The previous terrorist attacks, such as the first WTC bombing, the embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole, made it clear that if our enemies could harm us, they would. Perhaps rather than intending to "take over the world," as you seem to assume, these men simply understood that we would need to take action - possibly even military action - in order to prevent more serious attacks in the future. If they had been able to accomplish their goals, it is possible the WTC attacks might have been avoided altogether.

>>"the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor"

As you can see, they are already calling for an attack on Iraq. They also mention that this revolution in American foreign policy will not come about unless there is another Pearl Harbor like attack on America. <<

Sorry, I don't see this here. I see the awareness that there is a possibility there COULD be another Pearl-Harbor-like attack on America, not a call to create one. "The process . . . is likely to be a long one." They appear to be saying that transforming the Middle East into a safer place for the world and for America is going to take a long time, unless an attack on America allows it to move forward more quickly. That doesn't mean they are going to invent an attack on America, any more than my saying, "I'm going to have to argue with my husband for a long time to have a security system put in, unless someone breaks into my house first," means I'm going to hire someone to break into my house! And if someone DOES break into my house in the next few years, it doesn't mean I'm responsible.

>>The missile that hit the Pentagon made a hole 16-20 feet in diameter. About half-n-hour after the Pentagon was hit, the facade collapsed. This is the hole that you are refering to. However, there were other explosions at the Pentagon later on to bring down the facade, because no one would believe that a 757 would have made such a tiny hole. So the initial hole made the "plane" is 16-20 feet in diameter. Explain how a 757 could create such a small hole.<<

Sorry, I completely disagree with this. I was watching TV that morning and saw the hole in the Pentagon as soon as the camera crews got there. Not only that, but the hole I saw was FAR bigger than 16-20 feet, and consumed far more of the building than "the facade." Huge chunks of floors were gone, not only in an area 16-20 feet around. This is a great "conspiracy theory" argument, except I can argue against it from what I saw myself. And many people were killed at the Pentagon - far more than could be accounted for by a 16-20-foot hole. This one just doesn't hold up to scrutiny, sorry.

>>If it was a pancake collapse, after the building fell, one should be able to see a stack of floors, hence pancakes. A pancake collapse normally happens after earthquakes in buildings with weak supports. In the WTC, all the concrete was turned to dust and micron sized particles. You could see these huge pyroclastic flows spreading out from Ground Zero. All this is evidence of explosive charges.<<

OK, but the WTC parking areas extended far below the ground. The "pancakes" would have been underground, buried. Have you ever seen buildings pancaked in an earthquake? I have, twice - once in Nicaragua in 1972, and again in Guatemala in 1976. I can testify that pancake collapses don't look nearly as neat as you seem to think they would. As the building collapses, much of the concrete is in fact turned to dust and tiny fragments, and the air being forced out from between the floors causes the dust and fragments to be blown out for long distances away from the building. Of course a similar thing occurs when explosive charges are planted, because they are planned to "pancake" the building in the same way.

I can't speak to the issue of the steel; I can say, however, that I don't believe anyone has ever seen a huge fire like this, with this amount of heat, in the middle of a building this tall. There are hundreds of variables which are difficult to account for in a disaster of this magnitude, and far too much we don't understand, for us to say definitively that it "couldn't happen" - unless of course we are bent on believing the President and his men deliberately murdered several thousand people, which I am not.

>>What about WTC7? It was never hit by a plane. Yes, some debris fell on it. But debris also fell on WTC 3,4,5 and 6. These buildings are closer and smaller than WTC7. WTC5 had a raging fire in it. It never collapsed. WTC7 collapsed at 5:20pm that day in under 7 seconds!! It looks at exactly like a controlled demolition. It is. If you have not seen WTC7 collapse, look it up at google.<<

I can't speak to this, because I really don't know. It would seem that this is a minor issue, though, if the previous charges can't be proven. I know in earthquakes I've experienced, sometimes a badly damaged building might not collapse immediately; it might take several hours or even several days. I am unwilling to assume that because I can't explain the collapse of WTC 7, therefore the government planned the entire day.

>>If the FAA loses radio contact with an airline, if it goes off course, or if its transponder is turned off, the FAA is suppose to notify NORAD if the problem cannot be fixed within a few minutes. NORAD routinely intercepts wayward aircraft. Mike Snyder, spokesman for NORAD at the time, stated that in 2000 they scrambled jets 67 times to check out wayward aircraft. They do need approval to shoot-down an aircraft, scrambling fighter jets, is part of protocol. <<

The distance between Boston and New York is actually quite small - only 211 miles. An airplane taking off from Boston would arrive in New York within less than an hour, and at least half an hour of that time would be spent in take-off. The 9/11 Commission Report would tell exactly how long the interval was, but air traffic controllers certainly had a very limited time frame to determine that the airplanes were off course and to notify NORAD. Then it would take time to scramble the jets and get to the planes.

I don't necessarily trust "The Path to 9/11" as a historical source, but if they are correct, the jets WERE in fact scrambled, but they did NOT have the authority to shoot down a hijacked airplane. Previous policy, based on past experience, had always been to scramble jets and then accompany the aircraft to wherever it chose to land, in order to protect the lives of the passengers and crew. It would have taken more authority than the fighter pilots had - possibly even presidential authority - to approve shooting down a hijacked aircraft. I'm less confident about the Pentagon attack; I would imagine that the confusion among air traffic controllers and NORAD around the WTC attacks was such that no one was quite sure what to do. Planes were already in the air with authority to shoot down Flight 93, which was some minutes behind the others, before the passengers took care of that for them.

>>The people responsible, Myers, Eberhart, Leidig, were not held accountable. They were promoted and given medals. Why? The neo-cons needed their "new Pearl Harbor". <<

Again, I disagree. There is a perfectly rational explanation for these people receiving medals - they did their job as was required at the time, remaining cool under incredible pressure. They COULD not shoot down the first three planes; there was no time for the necessary approval to be given. We don't know what went on behind the scenes, what these men did or didn't do in the crisis moments. Do you really think, if they had deliberately let these planes go, that the "conspirators" would have called attention to that fact by promoting them and holding a medal ceremony?

>>The story of the dancing Israeli's come from FoxNews reporter Carl Cameron:

"Police received several calls from angry New Jersey residents claiming "middle-eastern" men with a white van were videotaping the disaster with shouts of joy and mockery."

One witness stated: "They were seen by New Jersey residents on Sept. 11 making fun of the World Trade Center ruins and going to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the wreckage." They were eventually arrested by the police. The police searched their van and found flight manuels and box cutters. However, it later turned out that they were members of Isreal's Mossad. Gee, I wonder why they were dressed as Arabs? Israeli's would never commit a terrorist attack and blame Arabs for it would they? After being detained for several months, they were released back to Israel. A US official stated to Carl Cameron, "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." Hmm...

p.s. The motto for the Mossad is, "by deception thou shall wage war." No one does it better.<<

I can't deny this all happened as you say. None of this means the Israelis had anything to do with 9/11. You conspiracy theorists take delight in the idea that if the government stamps something "classified," it must therefore mean they are guilty. And if a handful of Israelis dancing over 9/11 means they did it, what does thousands of Palestinians and Iranians dancing in the streets over it mean? Again, do you really think if this plot were as sophisticated as you seem to think, that the people who did it would be dancing in the streets publicizing the fact?

And you still haven't answered the question of why if this complex plot, so carefully laid, actually happened the way it did, the President was reading to schoolchildren that morning, rather than in his office getting ready to address the nation.

The biggest problem I see right now with the conspiracy theory is its inconsistency.  On the one hand, the President and his "neo-con" men were incredibly sophisticated and secretive, able to plant explosives all over the WTC and to shoot a missile at the Pentagon without anyone noticing; on the other hand, they were stupid enough to declare their intentions a year only ahead of time in a public document, and to reward those who cooperated with their plan publicly.  On one hand, they laid out every step of the plan perfectly; on the other, they allowed the President to be reading to schoolchildren and to come across as totally stunned and shaken in his first speech, rather than the cool, collected leader of a nation about to begin a new empire.

When the conspiracy theorists are able to make up their minds whether the conspirators were smart or stupid; when they propose arguments based on more than a misguided insistence that President Bush is more evil than Osama bin Ladin could possibly be, then perhaps people will begin to listen.