They are finally breaking ground for a memorial at Ground Zero, almost five years after the fact. It got me to thinking again about how neatly 9/11 played into the hands of both the Bush/Neocon Cabal and the Bin Laden/Islamofascist cabal. How it played so neatly into Iran and North Korea's hands, how it played into OPEC, Exxon/Mobil and Haliburton's hands.

There are a number of conspiracy theories out there about what really happened that day. Some are wildly outrageous, some plausible, some racist, some fairly reasonable. I do not profess to belief or disbelieve any of them at this point, but the questions raised by the believers are at interesting, provocative and unanswered.

But as with all conspiracy theories the question asked first is: Who benefits?

Webster Tarpley, a leading theorist says his mission is "to debunk the outrageous myth..that 9/11 was the work of 19 fanatics with box cutters sent by a bearded man in a cave.."

New York Magazine ran a feature on the theories/theorists. Some of the questions raised:

-Why is it that no steel-framed building in history ever collapsed from fire, yet three such edifices fell that day, including #7 WTC which was not even hit by a plane?

-Why if the crash destroyed the "indestructible" black box flight recorders was the FBI able to find, in prefect condition, the passport of hijacker Satam al Suquami?

-Why was there NO action on the parts of NORAD and the FAA in the hour between the WTC attack: allowing the HQ of the military industrial complex (THE PENTAGON) get hit in restricted DC airspace?

-Why was a there a selling spree in short stocks (betting they will decline) on UNITED and AMERICAN the day before the attacks?

-7WTC contained the offices of the IRS, SEC, Secret Service and the Giuliani's Emergency Response HQ - In other words, the evidence needed to be destroyed?

-Why is there not a single picture of a plane hitting the Pentagon?

The bottom line is we have far, far more questions than we do answers about 9/11, The Iraq war and "who benefits."

NY Mag Article