Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.
I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.
I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.
The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.
I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.
The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.
Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.
In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.
But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.
(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).
“how about a fish thread?”
You might have to speak up a bit …
Craig,
I remain sceptical of ALL 9/11 theories, yours as well.
A doctor friend of mine, a psychiatrist, was convinced of the official line that Dr David Kelly committed suicide, in spite of there being circumstantial evidence to the contrary. His reasoning? That people of Dr Kelly’s age have a tendency to top themselves and Kelly was also under considerable stress. Ergo, no need to look further.
Your thinking seems to be in a similar vein: posit a vague generalisation and then rely on it to support your specific assertion.
There are conspiracies all the time. Hell, the Iraq invasion was one. Some get found out and publicised, some don’t. My view is that President Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy but almost 50 years after the event the true story is still unclear. Surely someone would have had scruples, etc, etc? Well, possibly not.
Here’s another incentive to keep quiet: you csan accept our payment of $20 million dollars to shut up or we’ll kill (and your family). I know which one I’d choose.
Mike Rogers
Craig, I’m disappointed but not surprised by your post. I think Sabretache summed up my feelings best.
“Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”
From the PNAC manifesto “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” – September 2000.
This is a rough outline of my understanding:
3 skyscapers exhibit an unprecedented rapid collapse phenomenon after being damaged by hijacked aircraft.
The 2 largest skyscrapers come down within minutes of each other despite significant difference in the height and internal pattern of initial damage.
3rd skyscraper’s unexpected rapid collapse is reported live, 20 odd minutes before it happens by CNN and BBC, this wasnt noticed till 1997. The BBC news editor blogs that is was just a cock-up.
The Pentagon was also hit by a hijacked aircraft perfoming some remarkable manuevers. It had no air defenses due to a wargame. Luckily it was struck squarely in its only section being refurbished, minimising loss of life and damage. Disbelief in the details of the event is later officialy responded to with a few extremely blurred frames of footage showing a white blur and explosive flash at the impact location.
Days following the attacks, a blurred yet very obviously fake video of Bin Laden is released claiming responsibility.
Following documentaries and official reports on the building collapses, misrepresent the buildings structure, the effect of fire, do not explain large amounts of molten steel encountered and photographed in the wreckage. Official reports on the collapse have repeatedly retracted and changed their hypothesis. The nature of the collapses are to this day unmodelled, and unexplained.
Hundreds of relevant academics and proffessionals have gone on record to criticise the official accounts and explainations.
http://williamrmullinsjr.com/myamerica/157/thermite-found-in-world-trade-center-rubble/
..and molten metal attest to the presence of something capable of melting steel..
@Craig: “I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling.”
@Frazer: “We would need approx 1 tonne of semtex, 2.5 miles of det cord, several hundred electronic detonators and about 2 weeks to rig it all.”
Much as I admire your perspicacity on many matters, Craig, you’re clearly not an engineer.
If you want an impressive account of what couldn’t have happened, what must have happened, and what’s still unknown because no proper, honest, unsteered, forensic and police investigation has yet been done, then — as others have suggested — find time if you can to study in depth David Ray Griffin’s accumulated work on this matter. You’ll warm to his intellectual honesty, his truthfulness, and his basic goodness. He’s like you, Craig. But on this matter, unlike you, he’s also right.
There’s a growing network of similarly impressive, calm, honest and competent minds with useful input to offer too; but you’ll come to them through studying David Griffin’s work.
Catch yourself on, mate. This is a hole in your credibility. But despite this one criticism, I’m still a fan who’s routing for all your honest truth-telling work. Keep at it, Craig! Cheers!
I’m with you on most things Craig, but not on this one.
It must be a Coincidence Theory!!
See ‘A Coincidence Theorists Guide To 911’:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yajfj9o
@Frazer: “…the Grassy Knoll…”
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=8440302925206489846#
We have a Russian signed up – after a long contemplation –
?”???? ??????????
“Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? ? NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.”
NIST Responses to FAQs, August 2006
Criag, I’m sure you were just playing Devil’s advocate with your post.
Regardless of all the discussion of the physics of collapsing buildings and the rest, the most obvious question that needs to be properly answered is;
How is it possible for four sets of hijackers to take control of four planes and fly them for over 40 minutes within the USA domestic airspace and not be intercepted by fighter aircraft? The USA is the most technologically militarised country in the world. It is beyond any belief that the airforce would not have been on to them within ten minutes if normal operational procedures were followed. Also the pentagon has radar and anti-aircraft guns in place which would have shot the plane down before it hit.
I suggest you read David Ray Griffin’s books on this. He takes the whole thing to pieces bit by bit. Make up you own mind, however arguments such as this bloke in the pub said that you could do it with a few tons of TNT and some firecrackers are hardly science or a rigorous proof.
@Mark Golding.NTSB did test as part of thier investigation. @January, thanks I need no convincing on that one.
Remember the 1WTC, 2WTC were designed to withstand an off course aeroplane (a Boeing 707 I believe) flying into them according to the architect. I am assuming the buildings were constructed in accordance with the specifications.
The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and
Nano-Thermites
Kevin R. Ryan, 7-02-08
A selection of facts from this paper.
Hratch Semerjian, long-time director of NIST?s chemical division, was promoted to acting director of NIST in November 2004, and took over the WTC investigation until the completion of the report on the towers. Semerjian is closely linked to former NIST employee Michael Zachariah, perhaps the world?s most prominent expert on nano-thermites (Zachariah 2008). In fact, Semerjian and Zachariah co-authored ten papers that focus on nano-particles made of silica, ceramics and refractory particles. Zachariah was a major player in the Defense University Research Initiative on Nanotechnology (DURINT), a groundbreaking research effort for nano-thermites.
NIST has a long-standing partnership with NASA for the development of new nano-thermites and other nano-technological materials. In fact, Michael Zachariah coordinates this partnership (CNMM 2008).
In 2003, two years before the NIST WTC report was issued, the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) and NIST signed a memorandum of understanding to develop nano-technologies like nano-thermites (NIST 2003). Together, NIST and UMCP have done much work on nano-thermites (NM2 2008).
NIST has their own Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST 2008). Additionally, NIST?s Reactive Flows Group did research on nanostructured materials and high temperature reactions in the mid-nineties (NRFG 1996).
So, I ask why was ground zero not treated as a crime scene and the ‘evidence’ quickly disposed of, in fact, shipped abroad to China, India or both I believe?
Disclaimer:
I am not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or ‘truther’ I was a naval engineer and an electronics design engineer formally with Marconi.
As I think was plain, I started this thread so that those commenters who complain when I delete irrelevant 9/11 posts on other threads, can have a full say and not complain about being censored.
Craig,
In my judgement, the substance of your post indicates you are in denial about THE POSSIBILITY of 9/11 being “an inside job” and more specifically, of the collapses of the three WTC towers being “controlled demolitions”.
Why do I think so? Because of the way you are “corralling” to coin a term ?” drawing your statements into a tight circle that prevents an exploration of the facts and assertions as if they were wagons crossing the prarie that had just come under attack from a bunch of screaming injuns.
Indeed, your stance on 9/11 is quite similar to the stances taken by those who argue that David Kelly’s death was a suicide and that “we” did the right thing in getting rid of Saddam. You are not open to argument on the issue, you resort to the argument from incredulity, and you balk at the scale of the deception, let alone the Chutzpah, that would be required to brig off such a coup. In shot, you’ve been caught in an emotional trap that prevents you from thinking about the issue clearly,rationally and in accordance with the scientific method a la Carl Saga, et al.
But let me finish by flattering you a bit. To my mind you are like Luke Skywalker training to be a Jedi. You have learned how to move rocks and pile one atop another down in the swampland of Degoba. But when it comes to moving sunken X-wing out of the water by the power of thought, you just can’t wrap your head around it. “I can’t! It’s too big!” you cry out in desperation.
This is where David Ray Griffin, the truthers’ version of Master Yoda, steps up and gives his “size-matters-not” speech. 9/11 and David Kelly are no different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearned what you have learned.”
YOu know you are on the rigt path when you are calm. You know you are on the wrong path when you find yourself in agreement with Angrysoba.
Craig, we don’t want to loose you to the Dark Side!
Re Frazers advice:
“We would need approx 1 tonne of semtex, 2.5 miles of det cord, several hundred electronic detonators and about 2 weeks to rig it all.”
(explosive demo would require a lot of explosives expertly placed throughout the building)
“crashing a large jet into a skyscraper is enough to weaken the main support structure in itself. Addition of large amounts of explosives would just be overkill.”
(second thoughts, a plane crash in one bit would have sufficed)
@Frazer.
Yes, I agree with you that there were no explosives used in the collapse of the towers. I am not a Truther.
The video I showed was to demonstrate that, despite what is claimed by many Truthers, a building’s lower floors can indeed be crushed by its upper floors through the “path of greatest resistance”. The by-products will be puffs of air that look like “squibs” and even “pyroclastic clouds”.
A form of demolition called verinage is even predicated on the idea that this is perfectly possible.
Thanks also for adding your professional opinion about the amount of explosives and cabling necessary to bring down the towers.
No-one seems to be mentioning the large group of engineers and architects who say that the official story can’t be true: http://www.ae911truth.org/
The official story of collapse is patently absurd to my mind as the chances of asymmetrical damage causing a symmetrical collapse is vanishingly small.
What did actually happen? Well, I don’t know but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was some part of the Illegal Regime involved. They did, after all, manage to pull of a military coup without much fuss.
“This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”
“The Open Chemical Physics Journal”…
http://tinyurl.com/de6448
“Active Thermitic Material”…
tinyurl.com/d4yp5y
Funny how this issue has become more polarised over the years. Doesn’t anyone argue over LIHOP, MIHOP, and “Limited Hangouts” any more?
“It would just need too many people to be involved”.
Well yes, except that every day hundreds of people are flown from Las Vegas to work at Area 51. Not a single one says a word publicly about the nature of his or her work. Are we to conclude from this that Area 51 doesn’t exist?
“The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable”
Why at night? Why not during the day, on one of the occasions during the previous months when thw WTC complex was swarming with workmen attending to ‘elevator maintenance’ and ‘recabling’?
“Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection”
If this were the case with WTC I suspect these dodgy contractors would have been found out much earlier. WTC was built using a ‘tube within a tube’ design. Two ‘tubes’ of steel, one inside the other. Elevator shafts were inside the inner tube, office space occupied the area between the inner and outer tubes. The design is incredibly strong and, being made from steel sections, it is resistant to fire or local damage. But it does have a potential weakness: if the inner tube moves laterally even fractionally within the outer tube then the result is calamity. To prevent this it is an absolute necessity to have strong horizontal beams at each floor level keeping the two tubes rigidly and immovably together.
The reason shoddy or skimpy construction would be found out is because of something far more commonplace and banal than crashing aeroplanes. It’s the wind. It may not seem much but think about it: the sides of those buildings acted as vast sails of several acres in area, every day testing the lateral rigidity of the design with a force far exceeding that of crashing planes. New York can get very high winds but the towers never buckled. Those towers were built to withstand a 150-year hurricane. That’s how much redundancy was built in.
“The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy”
The only reason there is so much continuing debate about the cause of the collapse of the towers is that accident investigators never had a chance to inspect all the rubble. 80% of the steel was immediately cut into bars and sold as scrap to China and India. This was in clear and flagrant breach of the law, which requires that whenever a building in excess of 8 stories collapses the rubble must be retained for analysis. No ifs, no buts.
Sabretache, “I have spent the best part of the past 3 years reading little else. I was drawn into it by the clear, simple principle which has always produced the the most telling and accurate results in any major criminal investigation, namely ‘Qui bono?'”
With all respect, “cui bono” isn’t a particularly useful starting principle given that those responsible don’t always know how things would turn out.
Asking “who benefits?” throws up so many possibilities. It’s clearly not a sufficient principle to work out who was responsible.
For example, A “cui bono” case could be made for China. They’re now opening up copper mines in Afghanistan, have a Trans-Kazakhstan gas pipeline from Turkmenistan being developed and they can point to 9/11 to justify their suppression of Muslims in East Turkestan. They benefitted, so did they do it? Of course not.
A “cui bono” case could be made for David Ray Griffin. Before 9/11 he was an obscure theologian. After 9/11 he got to write six or seven or eight books on the subject and bask in the adulation of adolescent fantasy dissidents the world over. He benefitted, did he do it? Of course not.
But a “cui bono” argument can be made for Osama bin Laden too. He was on T-shirts the world over after 9/11 and jihadist groups the world over want to call themselves “Al-Qaeda in…”
So, not only can “cui bono” be used for a number of people, it is also guilty of the historian’s fallacy. Just because we know what happened after doesn’t mean that those who were responsible intended later events.
If a motive for bin Laden could be given then it is possible he would have thought of Hizbollah’s bombing of the US barracks in Lebanon and Reagan’s subsequent withdrawal from the country. He could have expected a similar retreat for the US following his own stike. He spelt out his intentions in his declaration of war and also with others in the article printed by al-Quds al-Arabi.
Dear Craig,
I don’t feel that you are looking at the events of 9/11 objectively. 9/11 is a very emotionally and politically charged event, that’s why we are scared to discuss such frightening notions as government complicity.
The Manhattan project was kept secret and that involved hundreds of people.
A government can vapourise 75,000 Japanese human beings but cares about its own people? Get real.
As for the WTC buildings, over 1,000 professionally qualified architects, structural engineers and scientists disagree with your short speculative analysis. See http://www.ae911truth.org/ and I highly recommend the presentation video you will find there by Richard Gage.
…Make that 150,000 Japanese human beings, but you get the point.
This comments thread is not the place to discuss 9/11; there are literally hundreds of discrepancies to discuss. Salient points will be lost in the noise.
“FBI says, it has ?No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11?…
http://tinyurl.com/z2uwf
Come and have your fun, boys and girls. Get it out of your system on this thread made specially for you, then, afterwards, we can all go back to the real world where the lying snakes in power would never consider any act so mean as conducting a terror attack on their own people just so that they could deliver Shock and Awe, murder hundreds of thousands, grab territory to build strategic bases for resources and world power, and make acceptable their inflation of military spending to astronomical levels.
“The video I showed was to demonstrate that, despite what is claimed by many Truthers, a building’s lower floors can indeed be crushed by its upper floors through the “path of greatest resistance”. The by-products will be puffs of air that look like “squibs” and even “pyroclastic clouds”.”
Angrysoba,
So at least you admit that there were phenomenna emerging from the sides of the buildings observed during the collapses of WTC 1 & 2 that “look like ‘squibs'” (the puffs sometimes seen when squibs explode)? Have we got your word of honour as a Decent on that one?
I think I must say I’m with Tim Groves on this.
Great compromise on the face of it , Craig. But a tad like the way the American ‘security’ people ‘enable’ ‘democratic protest’ in tiny little corrals well away from the object of their protest – and the media.
And like the UK which now dictates (dictates on pain of arrest for serious criminal offences) when/where one can exercise one’s legal and human rights to peacefully gather to demonstrate one’s dissatisfaction with the powers that be or whatever.
Maybe that’s going a bit far – because I for one need you to be our good-guy!
It’s a very fine line, I appreciate. But there is a difference between those who hijack/derail your posts and comments and those who, after much consideration, use the example of 9/11 and its many anomalies to connect dots to various world calamities in the here and now.
Personally, I have read the PNAC doc end to end, the various papers presented by e.g. all the various professionals for truth, as well as the official 9/11 Commission’s report (as well as the original doc in which the heinous Northwoods idea was posited)..
I’m afraid, for my money, the official version simply doesn’t hold up. There is ample evidence to indicate the ease with which a determined inner cadre can enrol thousands of people in such nefariousness.
You live in the UK…have you experienced the raw end of public services? I mean, REALLY experienced the conspiratorial way in which they stymie ordinary, decent, truth-seeking citizens, refusing service and denigrating various of us? And most of the people involved actually don’t have a clue they’ve been enrolled into such anti-citizen activities.
I’m not going to participate further on this thread because I believe the whole 9/11 project is intrinsically linked (in ways that will never become fully known as well as the more obvious ones – see Chilcot eg.) to all else you honestly blog about.
But at least I’ll know that you have your limitations too. Hey! You’re human!