b_b: If this was a 'bona fide' (!) terrorist attack as claimed by the US authorities, then how did the alleged plotters gain access to so much privileged and classified information, the knowledge of which allowed the attacks to succeed? How did the alleged hijackers even board the four planes, given that there is no evidence of such (ticket purchases, credit card records, boarding passes, video with a certified chain of custody showing them board the planes etc.)? Why did they fly indirect routes to their assigned targets when they must have known that the USAF has an unblemished record for promptly scrambling F-15s and F-16s, capable of Mach II and faster, and challenging any problematic or off course airplane within a few minutes - and there are dozens of air bases within a very short flying distance of the hijacked planes' flight paths.

Your claim that skeptics regard "the US Government" as responsible is disingenuous at best. The US Government consists of many 10s of thousands of federal employees in hundreds of diverse agencies and departments that range from the USPS to NASA , or from the USGS to NSA. Yeah, it took that many incompetent government employees to organize 9/11 on one side, yet on the other story, it only took 19 young rookies with no paramilitary experience and little flying ability, a handful of organizers and a guy in a cave in Afghanistan pull the whole operation? That these kids, with no motivation and in total stealth, somehow ran rings around the entire, $multitrillion US military-defense-security-law enforcement-intelligence apparatus, in their own front yard, for nearly two whole hours, without a response from the world's most professional and highly trained air force?

It makes one wonder why the most senior officials in the Bush Administration did their damnedest to avoid any form of independent investigation into the attacks, especially VP Cheney, who used threatening language against Sen. Tom Daschle when the latter brought up the subject of "inquiry". It makes one wonder why the 9/11 Commission was such a whitewash - a majority of the senior commissioners, including the two co-chairs and lead counsel have said that "we were not told the truth about what happened", and "we were set up to fail" and "we were lied to by the CIA, NORAD and the Pentagon". It makes one wonder why the Joint Chiefs issued a change of protocol (CJCSI3610.01A) regarding the scrambling of planes in response to aerial emergencies on June 1, 2001, which stripped all USAF base commanders of their authority to order a scramble operation, transferring those permissions to the Defense Secretary (Don Rumsfeld) in person. It just happened that Rumsfeld was "unavailable" during the two critical hours that morning. Without that change of procedure, none of those planes would have reached their targets before being challenged. The original protocol was restored on 9/12/2001.

Why did the CIA's field station in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia authorize the quick issuance of US Visas to all 15 Saudi Arabian nationals who were alleged to have been amongst the 19 hijackers?

I don't know the answers to any of these and 1000 other anomalous aspects of 9/11 which make no sense if the official story was the truth and nothing but the truth. The "batshit" elements clearly rest with what the corporate media and the US Government "informed" us. Our comfort zone filled in the gaps.

What is the problem with asking questions to which answers have yet to be given? What is the problem with asking questions that challenge impossible claims? What is the problem with asking questions about claims that have been presented by the US authorities and have since been found to be untrue?

If asking such questions, by some wild stretch, renders me a conspiracy theorist, then I am proud of it.