(Cross-posted at JREF, here.)

This was inspired by a snarkier, debunker-laden thread called The Greatest Fiascos of the 9-11 "Truth" Movement

Here's my list:

1) Failure to investigate 911 hijacker associations, where such investigations require no state power, whatsoever. Indeed, the failure is worse than that - there was never (AFAIK) even any attempt to organize a fundraiser for such investigations. I'm thinking particularly of verifying and/or dis-confirming the work of Daniel Hopsicker (madcowprod.com), but also looking into, e.g., who the hijackers were schmoozing with in NJ, the reports suggesting Saudi intelligence handlers of 2 of the hijackers in San Diego, etc.

2) Political naivete. In particular, no attempt (AFAIK) by anybody to explain to 911 Truther Community the enormity of the real task, which would become more obvious if attention was paid to the repeated, long-lasting failure of the peace movement (which is 'non-strange', to boot, unlike 911 Truth) to achieve anything substantial, other than hastening the withdrawal from Vietnam. Or, the lack of results of many other high-minded activist groups.

I understand the psychological predisposition to avoid looking at this, especially for the true believers who genuinely believe that 911 is some sort of Rosetta stone for destroying government corruption and ending US-created or sponsored Middle East wars. However, it's not at all realistic. By analogy, even if a new procedure is discovered to operate on a hitherto inoperable cancer, it won't do you much good if you undergo the procedure after the cancer has metasticized.

Also, if you conclude (as I have), the the root problem is systemic corruption, there are not that many great ideas floating around for how to deal with that. E.g., David Sirota has written what is probably a great book (Hostile Takeover: How Big Money and Corruption Conquered Our Government--And How We Take It Back ) giving not just a good overview of various aspects of corruption of the US government, but chock full of good remedies (from a high level policy perspective). However, the book is notably weak on how to get Sirota's great ideas implemented, when implementation requires passage of laws through a Congress that is already corrupted, and with an enormous lobbying apparatus already in place.

3) "911 was an inside job" slogan. This is related to 2). However, it's particularly off-putting, and so gets special mention. While this slogan may make for great theater for Alex Jones, and have great shock value, if you want to grow a truth movement that has political teeth, I don't see where being so strident about a conclusion (as opposed to a call for an investigation which could lead to this conclusion) makes much sense. As a form of protest, directed directly at the government, I can see it, but directed at the public, it has probably scared more people away than attracted them.

4) Failure to 'bifurcate' the movement, with one branch being educational/activist, and the other overtly political, but with an insider emphasis. One branch should have gone further into other false-flag operations in history, in terms of reaching out to the public. (See 6), below.) I.e., it would have not only embraced the 'hi-strangeness' aspect of 911, but sought to make it less 'strange', over time, by showing how murderous and duplicitous various aspects of the US government have been. I.e., teaching about additional 'high-strangeness' issues. You can think of this as the 'Alex Jones' approach, but without the bullhorn, simplistic reductionism to an overarching conspiracy, and hype, and with better and/or more careful (read: qualified) documentation. More Peter Dale Scott, less Alex Jones, but keep the videos coming, please.

The other branch would have run from any open embrace of any high-strangeness topic, including 911. It would, instead, have concerned itself with reforming the Democratic and Republican parties from the bottom up. (Hopefully enlightened by knowledge of what politics is really like. See here and here, e.g.).

Back-channel communication, kept out of the public spotlight, is OK, but that's it. This branch could, had they started earlier (and can still do so, now), have helped the Working Families Party get even more better people elected to NYC government (they've been successful without help from 911 Truth activists). And, accomplishing that, they could have found more sympathetic ears within NYC government who would not be afraid to fight for a local re-investigation of 911.

5) Failure to 'force the issue' with respect to the recent nano-thermite paper by Harrit, et. al. 911 Truthers could, collectively, have forced recognition of the Harrit paper at universities that have bona-fide researchers in nano-thermite, via taking out ads in the school newspapers. That would make it far, far more likely that at least some of those researchers would go on the record with their opinion of the Harrit paper. It's all well and good that the co-authors of the Harrit paper support their work, but that's standard.

I don't know what the final opinion of qualified critics re the nano-thermite paper would be, but the paper deserves more than obscurity. It deserves either to be seminal, or to be debunked. It's currently in limbo, not doing anybody much good, as far as I can tell.

Another major point, which I have detected being corrected, to some degree over the past few years, (e.g., at 911blogger.com) is:

6) Failure to teach context, by which I mean, teach about other false flags operations. Especially Operation Gladio, which was shown in court to have involved the murder of innocent Italian citizens. However, as per 4), it's not really been fully integrated into 911 Truth actions.