You trip over one fundamental idiocy of the 9/11 conspiracy nuts in the first paragraph of the book by one of their high priests, David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. "In many respects," Griffin writes, "the strongest evidence provided by critics of the official account involves the events of 9/11 itself.... In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes...not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them."

The operative word here is "should." One central characteristic of the nuts is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous, belief in American efficiency, and hence many of them start with the racist premise that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission. They believe that military systems work the way Pentagon press flacks and aerospace salesmen say they should work. They believe that at 8:14 am, when AA Flight 11 switched off its radio and transponder, an FAA flight controller should have called the National Military Command center and NORAD. They believe, citing reverently (this from high priest Griffin) "the US Air Force's own website," that an F-15 could have intercepted AA Flight 11 "by 8:24, and certainly no later than 8:30."

They appear to have read no military history, which is too bad because if they had they'd know that minutely planned operations--let alone responses to an unprecedented emergency--screw up with monotonous regularity, by reason of stupidity, cowardice, venality and other whims of Providence.

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