The conspiracy narrative surrounding 9/11 can be divided into three levels.
The first level might go like this: The Israeli intelligence service was actually responsible. Mohamed Atta was in fact a Mossad agent. That was most likely not the case, but it is certainly conceivable. History has seen plenty of similar operations.
The second level: Not only did the Israelis carry it out, but they did so with explosives and then persuaded the public that the disaster had been caused by the planes crashing into the buildings. So did everyone merely imagine the planes? Or did they just happen to crash into the skyscrapers that day? Notice that our exposers of hidden truths never quite explain this. But the larger problem is that they fail to explain something else:
What would they have gained from it? Why would Israeli intelligence risk the largest operation in its history when it stood to gain absolutely nothing? It makes no difference whether those thousands of people were killed by planes or by explosives. The effect on the American and global public would have been the same. Either way, the result would have been an equally powerful pretext for the war on terror.
But it goes even further. Israeli intelligence not only carried out the most insane operation in its history for no reason at all; it also blew up one additional building. In terms of public impact, the death toll, and material damage, the collapse of the third tower was insignificant. So why destroy it? Why, of course, to leave a hidden sign for those in the know that the whole thing was a fraud.
And once again, we are back to collective thinking. Any one of us, left on our own, would realize within a minute that someone was having us on. But as a collective, we can swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
It does not matter what anyone thinks about the collapse of some building in New York. What is terrifying is the realization of just how vulnerable our minds are—and that the same kind of failure can threaten us in matters that truly are important.