9/11 was an Inside Job

I thank Emilrose for the invitation to this debate. I have double-checked the format and was surprised to discover that there will be no rebuttals until the forth round. So I will not expand too much this round.Summary of my Case:My case is relatively simple:1. The attacks were planned by Al Qaeda2. Hijackers co-ordinated by Al Qaeda hijacked four planes3. Three of the four planes hit their targets, and one missed4. The North, South and WTC 7 collapsed as a result of these attacks and the Pentagon suffered damage.No cover-up, relatively straightforward clear and cut. This is why my burden ought to be significantly less than Pro’s, since it entails far fewer dubious variables, and provides significant explanatory power over the events we have them.What Pro needs to demonstrateAll criminal cases assess the means, motive and opportunity of committing the crime. I will affirm in my case why the Al Qaeda easily fulfils these criterion, however I will state from the outset that a conspiracy of the scale required of 9/11 would entail a completely different mode of means, motive and opportunity. For example:1a.The official report simply requires the means to hijack four planes and crash them into buildings1b. The conspiracy theory requires 1a, but additionally the means to orchestrate this without any unwarranted leaks before or since for an operation that would have required many dozens, or hundreds of people involved.2a. The official report requires motives that are already well-established in Al Qaeda (which I will affirm later)2b. The conspiracy theory requires motives on an individual level that would override the risk of the enormous backlash of a unwarranted leak (clearly a criminal charge of an unprecedented scale). Killing many thousands of your own civilians in a democratic country and political landscape that the US is currently in would obviously not end well on many levels, both personally and politically for the party.Outline1.Identities of the HijackersProbably the most obvious place to start, the nationalities of the 19 hijackers were 15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from United Arab Emirates and one form each of Egypt and Lebanon. None of the hijackers had made much attempt to conceil their identity, with visual recognition, credit card histories, flight seat numbers, phone numbers, recovered passports and even DNA analysis positively identifying all 19 hijackers that are currently upheld by the official report.This process if further simplified by positive “Arabic” characterisations of the hijackers by those who witnessed them on the flight, and a very limited pool of Arabic names on the passenger lists.[ http://www.post-gazette.com..., http://www.scribd.com...] One example of DNA confirmation was of pilot Ziad Jarrah, who was matched with samples taken from his girlfriend’s residence in Germany.[ ibid]2.Connection to Al QaedaConfessionsKhalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-shibh were arrested after the attacks and have both confessed to their involvement in co-ordinating the hijackings with the former confessing to involvement in the 1993 WTC bombings, failed shoe bomber plot, the 2002 attack in Kuwait, and several dozen other conspiracies.[ http://www.newyorker.com...] Moreover a hard drive of his was recovered which contained “code names, airline company, flight number, target, pilot name, background information, and the names of the hijackers”. Needless to say, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was intimately involved with al-Qaeda by heading it’s media committee.The confessions were performed under both legally recognised and informal circumstances, with the latter in an Al Jazeera interview where he also detailed the original plot to attack nuclear facilities.[ http://www.guardian.co.uk...] He has since in custody released a 36 page manifesto aimed at “converting his captors”.[ http://data.huffingtonpost.com...]Furthermore, Bin Laden himself has confessed to Al Qaeda’s involvement in a famous 2004 videotaped message [http://www.washingtonpost.com...]“Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we didn't strike -- for example -- Sweden. And we know that freedom haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19.”Other LinksTwo of the hijackers on AA Flight 77, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, were already known to the FBI with Al Qaeda connections before embarking on their respective hijacking. Both fought in the Bosnian war and were well regarded Jihadists in Afghanistan in 1999 and were photographed at a Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit 2000 where they were photographed.[ http://www.webcitation.org...]Imam Anwar al-Awlaki also directly links the hijackers to al-Qaeda, with a close relationship with Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar and himself was directly linked to al-Qaeda by documents found at Bin Laden’s household,[ http://www.motherjones.com...] and also via. his recruitment actions in later attacks, such as with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day “underwear bomber” which he later confessed his intimate involvement into.[ http://news.blogs.cnn.com..., http://abcnews.go.com...].Assessment of means, motive & opportunityAl Qaeda has well-established motives for launching such an attack on the US, with Bin Laden issuing two fatwas, the former in 1996 directly against the US as a declaration of war and the latter in 1998 identified as a “World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders”.[ http://www.fas.org...] This latter fatwa cited US sanctions against Iraq as positive motives for action.Furthermore, Al Qaeda already had demonstrated aggression towards the US with the well-organised simultaneous Embassy Bombings in Kenya, and Tanzania, killing over 200 in 1998. [ http://en.wikipedia.org...] Later, the foiled millennium attack plots which included airport and destroyer bombings, which was followed by a successful bombing of the USS Cole in the fall of 2000.Implausibility of US InvolvementWhichever interpretation one takes, the basic facts are that four airliners were hijacked by an organised group all of which were piloting with intent to suicidality cause massive civilian damage at the cost of their own lives. Therefore the conspiracy theorist would need to argue that the US managed to co-ordinate 19 Islamic hijackers of Arabic origin, to hijack and commit suicide for US motives. This makes absolutely no sense, given the very extreme belief of the suicide bombers that we already have experience with. Given that these hijackers had access to a plane, they would have willingly attacked on US orders instead of attempting to escape, etc.The simplest explanation was that the hijacker’s motives were essentially in line with their organisation’s motives, which would not be possible with US co-ordination. Furthermore, a US conspiracy on the scale require would have entailed so many people involved that whistleblowers would have been inevitable. For example the Watergate scandal, a conspiracy on the scale of several orders of magnitudes smaller than 9/11, was quickly outed with leaks. Iran-Contra, Enron [http://en.wikipedia.org..., http://en.wikipedia.org...] and of course the NSA & Edward Snowden to name just a few were also leaked operations which again was nowhere near the scale required for 9/11 to be successful.