Video doesn't quell Sept. 11 conspiracies

Plane? What plane? Ever the skeptics, bloggers are doubting whether a videotape released Tuesday of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon will do anything to quell conspiracy theories about what happened on that ill-fated day.

The Department of Defense released the video tape in response to a Freedom of Infomation Act request and related lawsuit brought on by government watchdog group Judicial Watch. The government was apparently waiting for the Zacarious Maoussaoui trial to end before releasing the videos.

"Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement on his organization's site, one of many places online to view the videos.

But bloggers, who note that you can't even make out an airplane in the frame-by-frame clip, beg to differ.

Blog community response:

"Not only does this video show absolutely nothing (from a different angle), but it merely lends itself to the question 'if there were no conspiracy, why would the gov't not release these tapes until now?"
--Shnickens on MySpace

"Basically these videos are the same crap that has been circulated over the past 4 years in various analyses of the attack on the Pentagon. But nonetheless--I'm glad we can finally close the case on conspiracy theories with this conclusive and fully-revealing video! The real question here is: why is the Pentagon's surveillance equipment the equivalent of a camera-phone tied to a stick hundreds of feet away from the very building it's surveying?"
--G7 Welcoming Committee

"This isn't going to calm down the conspiracy nuts though. They can start screaming that the Pentagon delayed these videos so that they could be altered...that there isn't a plane there...that the earth is flat...and that their neighbor had a black helicopter in an underground cavern behind his garage that he only flies at night when there's a new moon."
--Neal Boortz

"Some claim that this 'video' will end the conspiracy theories (such as the plane was shot down by an Air Force missile). However, to be candid, the newly released images raise more questions than answers. For example, it is impossible to see what the object is that strikes the Pentagon...Then, there is still the open question of what happened to the surveillance tapes from other cameras near the Pentagon."
--Notes from the Charcoal Moon