Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll a 9-11 Truther?

You know, I don’t get the 9-11 truther types. I mean, is it like radical Muslims weren’t and aren’t trying to kill Americans? Last I heard they were pretty serious about it.

And Osama bin Laden did say he ordered the attack on 9-11. It’s not like we forced him to do that, is it?

NRO reports:

Is Seahawks coach Pete Carroll a 9/11 truther? That all depends: Does badgering a former four-star general about whether 9/11 was real make one a truther?

Here’s what happened, according to a couple sources: Late last spring, retired general Peter Chiarelli, who had just finished his term as the Army’s vice chief of staff, visited Carroll at the Seattle Seahawks headquarters. Chiarelli was expecting a pleasant meeting. After all, the pair had what important businesspeople tend to call synergies: Chiarelli—who grew up in Seattle—is a big Seahawks fan. His post-military work concerns traumatic brain injury research, a cause of some significance to the NFL. And both have plenty of experience leading groups of men on grand American stages.

The sit-down between Chiarelli and Carroll started off normally enough. They talked about the team, and then about head trauma. Chiarelli, who commanded the American forces in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom II, talked about the brain injuries he had seen there. But Chiarelli’s mention of Iraq sent Carroll in another direction: He wanted to know if the September 11 attacks had been planned or faked by the United States government.

In particular, Carroll wanted to know whether the attack on the Pentagon had really happened. Chiarelli—who was the top-ranking Army official inside the Pentagon when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into its western side—explained that it had. He said he had lost many colleagues. But Carroll didn’t stop there. He ran through the whole 9/11 truther litany.

“Every 9/11 conspiracy theory you can think of, Pete asked about,” said Riki Ellison, the former NFL linebacker who now runs the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance and introduced Carroll to Chiarelli.