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).
Mark
I’d be very careful of Fetzer and Wood – they seem to be batting for the other side as disinformation merchants.
Here are some (more respectable) articles from Cornell University Library which may be of interest.
‘Descent curve and the phases of collapse of WTC 7’
http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.4792
‘Mathematical Models of Progressive Collapse and the Question of How Did the World Trade Centers Perish’
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0609105
Thanks Vronsky interesting links.
“He’s gone, he’s gone, whatever will we do-oo!
I said, I said, the singing nun is through-oo!”
Cuppa…?
He’s back, he’s back
From across the big water
Save all your gold
Lock-up your daughters!
Was 9/11 an inside job?
Ask the builder…
Bob
“I’d be very careful of Fetzer and Wood – they seem to be batting for the other side as disinformation merchants.”
The best thing about Truthers is they start debunking each other. The Star Wars people have begun debunking the thermite people. So instead of the thermite people being able to defend their argument they call them ?disinfo?! Ha ha!
The same goes for the other way around.
And the planers call the no-planers disinfo. And vice-versa. The LIHOPpers call the MIHOPpers disinfo. And vice-versa. The CDers call the non-CDers disinfo. And vice-versa. The Israel did-iters call the US did-iters disinfo. And vice-versa. And anyone who thinks it is quite possible that some Arab guys hijacked four planes and crashed them into buildings is a complete shill!
Heaven forbid anyone in Trutherland simply be wrong.
Craig Furlong who appears in yet another of Mark Golding?s cut and paste?s has actually recanted his belief in 9.11 Truth. So I don?t see how his and Gordon Ross?s research paper is of much use.
?Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer?, who also appears in Mark?s piece believes the Twin Towers was brought down by nuclear weapons. You?re free to believe this crap if you really want – despite your fantasies of living in totalitarian Matrix-world and despite your fantasies of being rebel Jedi knights against the evil Dick Cheney-run Galactic Empire ?” but don?t you think it seems a bit childish now that Dick Cheney (and his handpuppet) is no longer president.
Doesn?t it have less of a thrill and seem far less daring to suggest that 9/11 was an inside job these days?
I note that my little ad has disappeared, so here it is again. The special offer is still available.
ACME DEMOLITIONS INC
Fed up with ludicrous quotations for demolition? Ridiculous bills of material? Lead times running into many months? Consultancy fees for hundreds of specialists? Stop worrying – Acme has the solution. With a just few thousand litres of jet fuel and a zippo lighter we can tear down the tallest building with our unrivalled, same-day service. Watch as the top magically turns to dust, and the falling cloud crushes everything below – you won’t believe it until you’ve seen it with your own eyes! Consultancy and engineering costs? We uses only a handful of illegals, and those suckers go down with the building. Total labour bill: zip!
SPECIAL DEAL IF YOU ORDER NOW – BUY TWO, GET ONE FREE!
Yes, let us knock down any two towers and we will demolish any other neighbouring tower entirely free of charge!
As hilarious as your satirical ad is, you?ll find that a Boeing 767 costs somewhere between 130-173 million dollars according to this:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_is_the_cost_of_boeing_767
Could you also explain how the conspirators knew burning debris from the north tower would strike WTC7 and cause it to catch fire. And, more importantly, what the point in demolishing the buildings was in the first place?
Jeez, can’t they find anyone better than you? Isn’t there an organ grinder somewhere? One gets so fed up with the monkey.
Scroll up a bit, and read the (shill-recommended!) ‘analysis’ by Barbara Lane. According to this lady, no planes were needed. Just fires (I’m sure it’s quite irrelevant that she sells fire protection consultancy).
So ACME Demolitions Inc. stands by its promise: show us the towers you want down, and our zippo is at the ready.
Vronsky, the planes had an effect on the destruction of both the towers as they likely removed fire-proofing and weakened the structure.
Even a monkey would know that much.
Barbara Lane?s analysis seemed to be particularly for WTC7 and they may have concluded that fire alone could have brought down the tower given that it had unfought fires burning for over seven hours. Besides, it was realized by the New York fire department that the building would come down due to the destruction and fire so the fact that it did collapse later on can only be considered amazing to Truthers like yourself.
Besides, the ACME demolitions Inc. have apparently already been used before on this building that according to you, Alfred and David Ray Grifter could never have collapsed:
?The 1960 exposition hall was destroyed in a spectacular 1967 fire, despite being thought fireproof by virtue of its steel and concrete construction. At the time of the fire, the building contained highly flammable exhibits, several hydrants were shut off, and the sprinklers proved inadequate suppression. Thus the fire spread quickly and destructively, taking the life of a security guard.?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCormick_Place#History
By the way, which brand of insanity do you subscribe to?
Are you a thermite man? A space beams man? A no-planer? A planer? A conventional explosive demolition man?
I can?t remember if you?ve actually given any particular hypothesis or whether, like most Truthers, don?t even go in for the whole coherence thing.
Do you know what gives you away? You have no curiosity.
I like that too, Vronsky. The child-like faith that the government has told us the total truth, from start to finish. Maybe AngryLarry was one of those kids who started getting really, really fighting mad with other kids, when the notion that Santa wasn’t actually real.
But your ACME demolition firm has a lot going for it – cause some random damage, start a few fires, and down it’ll come neatly into its own footprint within an hour or so.
And Angry… how many times do I have to tell you? I’m not obliged to get a watertight alternative case which you’ll agree is to your satisfaction, before I’m entitled to logically conclude The Official Story (your preferred story) of events is utterly implausible, so wide of the mark that only a wide-eyed true believer could put such complete faith in it.
We both know why you want to try out this tired old tactic, so that I or someone else will run around trying to offer you alternative theories while you sit back snickering and shaking your head. No thanks – you won’t find me playing that game!
On the other hand, you are putting all your faith in one particular theory, that advanced by the Bush administration. Perhaps you could help defend just one small aspect of this highly implausible Official Theory by explaining how these useless, novice pilots all turned into flying aces on Magic Arab day?
?You have no curiosity.?
I don?t want to end up like that cat.
But tell me, why do you say I have no curiosity?
How do you know this?
Do you mean I am curious about nothing at all or do you mean I am not curious about 9/11?
Or do you mean that because I don?t subscribe to your views on 9/11 then I obviously must have had my views fed to me and haven?t been the result of research of my own?
?But your ACME demolition firm has a lot going for it – cause some random damage, start a few fires, and down it’ll come neatly into its own footprint within an hour or so.?
Glenn, none of the towers came down ?neatly into its own footprint within an hour or so.? The massive spread of damage that both of the Twin Towers did confirms that and both of them WERE HIT BY PLANES (remember?)
WTC7 came down after seven hours of burning uncontrolled.
?The Official Story (your preferred story) of events is utterly implausible,?
This is the argument from incredulity which, on another thread, you chastised me for. In fact, I don?t know where I have argued simply on the basis of incredulity. I?ve usually explained why each and every aspect of Trutherdom is either incoherent or just plain wrong and I don?t have to resort, ?Well, I simply don?t believe it!? You have said this many times, ?I simply can?t believe them Ay-rabs can fly planes!? You?ve said. ?They would have to be Magic Muslims!?
I say, no. They don?t have to be magic at all. To say that Arabs or Muslims simply can?t fly planes is stepping over into Alfred-territory.
?Perhaps you could help defend just one small aspect of this highly implausible Official Theory by explaining how these useless, novice pilots all turned into flying aces on Magic Arab day??
Simple. They were neither flying aces nor complete novices. (And they weren?t magic).
Eyewitnesses said they couldn?t believe someone was flying a 757 in the way they were. This doesn?t mean it wasn?t a 757. It means it was being badly handled.
I?ve told you already that three of the four had commercial licenses. That each of them had done training on simulators and that the fourth, Ziad Jarrah (who crashed his plane, by the way) had clocked up enough hours to qualify.
But if you want some more information about it ?” if you are curious ?” that is, then maybe you should read Terry McDermott?s Perfect Soldiers.
Here?s something from an article on Hani Hanjour. This article is often cited as evidence that Hani Hanjour couldn?t fly at all because Truthers have quoted selectively from it. But the whole thing shows, as I said, he wasn?t an ace or a novice:
“At Freeway Airport in Bowie, Md., 20 miles west of Washington, flight instructor Sheri Baxter instantly recognized the name of alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour when the FBI released a list of 19 suspects in the four hijackings. Hanjour, the only suspect on Flight 77 the FBI listed as a pilot, had come to the airport one month earlier seeking to rent a small plane.
However, when Baxter and fellow instructor Ben Conner took the slender, soft-spoken Hanjour on three test runs during the second week of August, they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour showed a federal pilot’s license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons.
In the spring of 2000, Hanjour had asked to enroll in the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., for advanced training, said the center’s attorney, Gerald Chilton Jr. Hanjour had attended the school for three months in late 1996 and again in December 1997 but never finished coursework for a license to fly a single-engine aircraft, Chilton said.
When Hanjour reapplied to the center last year, “We declined to provide training to him because we didn’t think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and 1997,” Chilton said.
Hanjour apparently went to the center after living in Hollywood, Fla., in early 1996 with a couple who knew his older brother. Susan Khalil said she recognized Hanjour in photos the FBI recently showed her and recalled him as “painfully shy” with “really poor hygiene” when he lived with her family for two months in 1996.
Despite Hanjour’s poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot, said Bernard of Freeway Airport. “There’s no doubt in my mind that once that [hijacked jet] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it,” he said.”
http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9-11/suspects/flying-skills/hani-hanjour-cant-fly.txt
Vronsky, haven?t you thought that there are more objections to your ACME Demolitions Inc. than you appear to be aware of.
The idea that controlled demolitions companies would demolish any building by simply dousing it in petrol and setting fire to it is blatantly harebrained because of all the toxic byproducts you?d end up with from burning down a building.
Also, as I?ve pointed out to Alfred, fireproofing is not just a racket (as you implied with your attack on Barbara Lane). It is there to stop fire from burning and collapsing buildings that it is put there to protect.
What do you suppose fireproofing is for, Vronsky?
Six in a row! Sure you didn’t forget to change the name between posts, say to “Larry” or “Chris” or something?
You sure do like one-way conversations. I’d almost suggest you start your own blog, and post in such a way nobody else bothers to comment… but you pretty much already do that.
Glenn,
Angrysoba does have a blog. Google it.
My understanding is that Angrysoba is an Englishman living in Japan. I’m an American living in America.
We’re on two completely different sides of the planet. Yet you think we’re one person.
In any event, you’re a 911 truther who believes that the serious oil problem in the Gulf of Mexico will kill us all. So you’re a nut.
Dare I say (lest I be criticised for being unecessarily provocative) would anyone like a cup of tea?
Yes, Glenn, when proved wrong resort to petulance.
“Who cares if I?m wacky and you?re not! No nobody ever reads yoooooooou!?
heh heh, you guys knock me out. Larry – a monthly reply, I did promise one. WTF would I want to google Angry’s blog, when the link is right there on every one of his posts, given how he’s always trying to drum up publicity on vastly more successful blogs? And how would I have known that he gets “Comments: (0)” so often if I hadn’t looked there? You are one _stupid_ SOAB, Larry!
Angry, when proved wrong, resorts to lying. When did I ever refer to “2012 Apocalypse fantasies” (note your plural), as you stated earlier?
“Angry, when proved wrong, resorts to lying. When did I ever refer to “2012 Apocalypse fantasies” (note your plural), as you stated earlier?”
Well, Glenn. We?ll all be happy to read your blog. We can start with your assertion that:
?This under-reported little item has the potential to kill us all within a year or two.?
It?s 2010 now, right Glenn. ?You do the math!? As they say in St. Louis.
So you don’t deny you were lying, Angry. Very big of you. And I’ll leave the bitchy stuff to Larry from now on, if you’ll do the same.
I’ve not subscribed to any Mayan calendar nonsense, since that’s what you’re clearly angling at.
I’ve put some links into the “Tories – corrupt as ever” thread if you’re interested in what genuinely concerns me about this Gulf disaster.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/05/tories_corrupt.html#comments
But you probably won’t be interested, other than to scan it with the hope of quickly finding some weak point with which to discredit me personally, for even mentioning it as a something to consider.
*
That’s what makes it so tiresome to talk with someone like you, and makes Alfred a breath of fresh air in comparison. You have to pile in, and throw all the crap you can at your perceived opponent, in the hope of some taint by association.
You’re somewhat more subtle than Larry, but you still feel that a sly advantage in associating your correspondents with discreditable positions which have never come up, and that you surely know are untrue, is worth more than your personal integrity. And that really is a shame.
?And I’ll leave the bitchy stuff to Larry from now on, if you’ll do the same.?
I?ve tried some kind of d?tente before and thought we were making progress when we were talking about books and other stuff (Carl Sagan and moon landings etc?) but you can?t say it?s all been one-way traffic. When we first started talking about 9/11, I was genuinely interested in talking about the actual evidence and I wanted to explain why I thought the evidence was weak (as it happens, the reason I became interested in this in the first place was because I thought the Truthers may have had a point about some things and wanted to see if they were correct. When I traced their claims back to the original sources I found that in almost all cases the claims made weren?t supported by their sources at all ?” sometimes the cited sources actually claimed the exact opposite of what the Truthers said it did). But when I said this I was attacked as a ?moron? and a ?shill? and referred to as generally dull-witted and incurious in the obnoxious and supercilious way a lot of Truthers also think of most people (who they believe are brainwashed by MSM and are far more stupid than them).
If I did try to tie people in with anything else it was with the METHODOLOGY of Holocaust denial. I realize that this sounds like I am putting Truthers and Holocaust deniers on the same moral level but that?s not what I meant. The trouble is that then some people here actually DID start defending Holocaust denial and actually did reference those who are Truthers and white supremacists. It annoyed me that they received no criticism at all from the more regular commenters but instead were applauded. Larry is right, by the way, that most of this Truther stuff has been churned out by right-wing groups in the US, some of them very far-right, and this 9/11 thing is just one of the more successful products of a disingenuous (trans: lying) conspiracy theory industry. You were correct about identifying Alex Jones as part of that, but his politics is actually more moderate than many of the others he gives a platform to.
When I looked at Alfred?s site, I didn?t find a breath of fresh air at all but the musty, stale atmosphere of feverish right-wing conspiracism.
But, sure I?ll be willing to lay off the personal attacks on anyone who reciprocates. If you want to continue this discussion honestly then I?d be happy to.
Well, I shall just have to drink it all myself, then!
Stomp…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3rxNCzzJpY