What really happened...?

I just came across this interesting critique of the official 9/11 story (H/T to The Gaelic Starover).

It caught my eye in part because I had just commented on the very topic over at Salon today, in response to a review of What Terrorists Want, by Louise Richardson (requires subscription or ad-viewing).

In my comment, I queried whether we really know beyond a shadow of a doubt that bin Laden and al-Qaida were responsible for the attacks on 9/11.

Given the Bush administration's track record for lying, and the obvious benefits for bin Laden of claiming responsibility, I really wonder. I'm not a Bush-blaming conspiracy nut, far from it! But until bin Laden is given due process and a trial--something unlikely to happen--I believe the idea that a defined entity, "al-Qaida," under the leadership of bin Laden, planned and executed the attacks of 9/11 should be treated as open to question.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed explores the question in more depth.

Five years after the terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that shook the world, scepticism [sic] about the Bush administration account of what happened, as well as of the “War on Terror” in general, has increased exponentially. This has accompanied the emergence of all kinds of pet theories about what happened, some of them truly bizarre, others intriguing but vacuous, and perhaps a few based on compelling facts.

For someone not familiar with these theories, it’s difficult to know where, and why, to start. And particular variants of 9/11 “truth”, such as the “no planes” theory that the whole event was merely an audiovisual technicolor chimera concocted on our TV screens, don’t help.

But is it all just a pile of lunacy? If only it was, I could sleep much better at night. Unfortunately, beneath the mountain of theories and speculations, there remain disturbing and persistent anomalies that have yet to be resolved. In this respect, the mainstream media’s approach to criticism of the 9/11 official narrative has been wanting in the extreme, focusing largely on bizarre pet theories and fringe speculations, suggesting that anybody who has doubts about the official story must be delusional, dumb, or both.

His exploration is worth reading, if for no other reason than it raises issues I've not come across elsewhere. Such as the charge that al-Qaida's operational links to the CIA and DEA were (indeed, still are) very much alive and well in September 2001.

Read it here.