This still makes me angry.

[BedellBrave]

Bunch of people commenting on structural engineering that have no clue about it.

Are you a structural/civil engineer? If so, are you a VT-grad?

 

[jpx7]

I think the government either knew and/or was complicit in some of the events that took place in an effort to increase the size of our defense and foreign pressence, while gaining universal public support to justify starting multiple wars.

This is a much narrower, more sensibly-circumscribed opinion than what you've been writing, though.

I still think it's dubious, to be honest—as I said, I think there were elements of the federal government, and the neo-liberal think-tanks with which those elements were(/are) intertwined, who (along with corporate defense-industry interests) were "entirely ready to pounce on something they recognized, in the late-1990s, the geo-political climate was ripe for," creating conditions of "universal public support" (as you mention) in order to "increase the size of our defense and foreign presence," expand dramatically the domestic surveillance and "security" state, increase multifaceted surveillance reach abroad, as well, and generally consolidate wealth and power in the name of certain Straussian-school ideals—but it's nonetheless a decidedly different claim than "they secretly placed explosives in buildings to make them go down right and, moreover, masterminded the whole thing."

 

[jpx7]

(I feel like it should be "mastermound".)