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).
Everyone here except me believes that the Twin Towers came down by controlled demolition, yet no one wants to discuss those buildings’ structure?
And that’s because I’m a bad person, right? It’s OK to shun me and refuse to discuss. Nothing to do with avoiding logical analysis.
Probably comments here will close again through lack of interest. But soon enough, people will insist it’s their right to post their untested beliefs on the front thread, insinuating that Craig has ulterior motives.
Clark…it is what you see! Those twin towers are imploding not collapsing! That is all there is too it really after all is said and done!
Maxter, well I took the claims of “defies the laws of physics” seriously at first, read the arguments back and forth, then I watched and watched and watched, and then watched and thought and watched and thought, and eventually came to be at ease, like after I’ve definitely located the source of an intermittent fault – satisfaction.
The top sections start to move at the damage zones, lose their integrity releasing a cloud of dust (old, very dry concrete up there in the sun and wind all those decades – you know how dry concrete gets) and down they come, stripping out the floors as they fall. Without the floors, a few seconds later the cores fall down…
…that’s exactly what it looks like, and exactly what I’d expect, so by Occam’s razor, no explosives necessary.
And I can’t fit explosives into the scenario. The place they’d be needed would be to sever remaining vertical columns at the damage zone to start the descent of the top sections, but (1) how do you position explosives at just the right height to match the aircraft impacts? and (2) that’s where the fire was, and fire would pre-trigger explosives,
Nah. Cheap, ugly, corporate skyscrapers. Lumbering white-elephant testaments to the overreaching hubris of capitalism, which itself might come crashing down just as suddenly, rapidly, and completely.
Planes can’t be holograms, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eQD05f9ruo
I woke up this morning wondering, “who did 9/11”?
9/11 is a fascinating subject, though somewhat morbid, obviously. I found myself wondering about the symbolism of the targets of the attacks. In a sense, what happened that day was very mundane. Boring, routine domestic flights, hundreds of which pass essentially unnoticed, were crashed into incredibly bland, boring office blocks, of which there must be thousands.
I’m pretty sure the buildings were very ordinary in the sense of not having been pre-rigged with explosives… Digression…
…Glenn, from your comment, 26 Feb, 12:13 pm…
I remember when I was a child, Dad took me to visit his office, high up in an office block. It was probably only the tenth or eleventh floor, but it seemed high, high in the air, looking down on people and vehicles that seemed tiny. I remember feeling the perfectly normal fear of being way, way up in the air, it seemed precarious.
Glenn, or anyone, can you remember feeling this way?
Oh I guess no one will talk to me now. I got pissed off at being called a conspirator to murder, and that’s NOT ALLOWED. I have freedom of speech, but if I want conversatiom I have to say the right things, I have to stay within our local Overton Window by repeating the approved assumptions.
Lonely being me. I’ve thought the locally unthinkable.
Clark. Buildings that collapse due to structural failure whatever the cause of that failure, do not implode! Those towers ejected debris laterally, and that does not happen when the cause of collapse is a combination of structure failure and gravity!
Some psychologists on this youtube video have some information for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f462ya0DC0g
Maxter, doesn’t the extreme editing of that video concern you? Look what they did to Frances Shure in the second sequence from her, from 4.53 to 5.23, goodness knows what her original message was.
Actually, I’ve had a difficult life as regards belief. I was heavily indoctrinated as a child because my mum brought me up as a Jehovah’s Witness – it was heavy duty shit, attendance three days a week, five hours of lectures, two hours study with Mum, as much time out on the doors trying to convince others as possible. I was convinced that my dad, who wasn’t a Witness, would be killed at Armageddon which was scheduled for when I was about twelve, consequently never forming a proper relationship with im. I had to reject all that, and then I was left wondering how much I could trust logic, the scientific method and my own thought processes. Challenging my own belief systems and the resulting cognitive dissonance is something I have much experience with. So please forgive me for feeling somewhat insulted by your implication in directing me towards that video. I certainly have no need to defend to myself the morality of George Bush’s administration – they’re bloody neocons, they engineer consent for war.
Why do you, and all the pro-demolition Truthers, insist that because I reject, specifically, explosive demolition of the Twin Towers, I therefore accept something called “The Official Story”? HOW MANY TIMES MUST I SAY IT BEFORE YOU HEAR? I regard the various official reports as cover-ups, and the mainstream media representation as mostly propaganda. I call for a proper, public, independent investigation. OH JUST KEEP IGNORING ME WHY DON’T YOU? Fuck’s sake…
Yes I’ve watched the “lateral ejections”, as pro-demolition Truthers like to phrase it. They really don’t look particularly energetic. Material doesn’t go far sideways, it arcs downwards, falling. Hardly anything goes upwards apart from dust. The towers do NOT appear to implode, the material from the top appears to smash down through everything beneath.
Look, if there really are good scientific papers proving that those arrogantly ambitious buildings couldn’t have fallen down, please cite the appropriate papers so I can examine the physics and engineering. Or present your own figures and reasoning, that’s fine by me. But please just stop insulting me, OK? And please try to answer my various questions above instead of ignoring it all yet again.
I’m fucking sick of being treated as if I were either a simpleton or a criminal. Fucking sick of it.
How long have I been asking for a physical argument about the collapse of the Twin Towers? Since some time in January, wasn’t it? And all I get is biased YouTube videos, full of straw man arguments and misrepresentations, academics’ statements edited down or cut off, or advice to see a shrink, FFS. Time to put up or shut up, methinks. Time you lot recognised that your belief is a faith with no rational basis.
Prove me wrong. PLEASE! Give me some physics or engineering I can get my teeth into.
Clark, that last sentence coupled with the number of posts you’ve made of late kina suggest, at least to me, that you have doubts as to your theory. If your right and they were not demolished why not just walk away and be relieved at the quasi soporific peace of it not being an inside pre packed demo job. If you conclude that it was an inside demo job then I could understand you getting worked up.
Fwl, a load of things have been getting me worked up,
* I’m repeatedly accused of accepting the “official story” though I have repeatedly and explicitly rejected it,
* It was repeatedly insinuated that I’m covering up on behalf of a criminal conspiracy,
* I’m accused of psychological denial,
* I’ve raised loads of other points for discussion but no one wants to discuss anything other than pre-rigged demolition or faked aircraft,
* I repeatedly ask for evidence but no one provides anything remotely strong enough.
If someone provides me good evidence for pre-rigged demolition of the Twin Towers, I will take it seriously. I just want to stop fucking about and get on with the science. The other people here say that those buildings couldn’t possibly have collapsed the way we saw without assistance. Well it looks genuine to me, so I want the physical argument that has convinced them otherwise. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Or should I start telling everyone that lightning can’t cause thunder and that therefore Thor must do it?
Or, we could discuss other aspects of the crime.
Fwl, a load of things have been getting me worked up,
* I’m repeatedly accused of accepting the “official story” though I have repeatedly and explicitly rejected it,
* It was repeatedly insinuated that I’m covering up on behalf of a criminal conspiracy,
* I’m accused of psychological denial,
* I’ve raised loads of other points for discussion but no one wants to discuss anything other than pre-rigged demolition or faked aircraft,
* I repeatedly ask for evidence but no one provides anything remotely strong enough.
If someone provides me good evidence for pre-rigged demolition of the Twin Towers, I will take it seriously. I just want to stop fucking about and get on with the science. The other people here say that those buildings couldn’t possibly have collapsed the way we saw without assistance. Well it looks genuine to me, so I want the physical argument that has convinced them otherwise. That’s not too much to ask, is it? Or should I start telling everyone that lightning can’t cause thunder – it just can’t – and that therefore Thor must be responsible?
Or, we could discuss other aspects of the crime.
Well a number of reasons. Good people such as John Pilger, Sibel Edmunds, Noam Chomsky, even myself I may add, are written off purely on this question of explosives – though judging by the evidence presented here so far we may as well be written off for not believing that Godzilla did it while invisible.
More seriously, I DON’T accept the official reports, but this zero-evidence insistence upon explosives is so shrill that it discredits all other calls for a proper investigation.
Okay I see where your coming from, but don’t treat people who post too seriously. People can become fanatical, obsessed and lack all empathy and understanding of others. Posting on here is bit like speakers corner ie you will be heckled particularly if your not saying what the audience recognize. I just say my bit and forget about it grateful to Craig for providing a receptacle for me to offload miscellaneous thoughts. I try not to make them unpleasant to others. Don’t let the thoughts and words of others affect you. Treat them lightly. As for the towers I remain dubious but am no scientist and respect your opinion. I don’t really speculate without facts on the what if basis. If I had to vote I would say they were pre-rigged to explode but would be prepared to accept I wad wrong. One thing I’ve been thinking about is last week’s explosion and collapse at Didcot with sad liss of life. That was partly rigged to explode I think but went early. I am not sure to what extent its collapse was caused by fire or explosion or how much was left afterwards. There doesn’t seem to be footage of the actual collapse but of a few seconds later. The inquest may provide some information.
Clark, over at Peak Prosperity there is an excellent thread ongoing regarding the Neocons including much about 9/11. I recommend taking a mosey on over there if you want to engage further regarding 9/11.
http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/95721/guyenot-who-neocons#comments
Clarke – regarding the evidence of controlled demolition, this recent video by John Cole may be of interest to you…. or maybe not (?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJNzaMRsN00
Mog, good on John Cole for trying some experiments. However, I get a strong impression that he’d decided upon his conclusions before he started his investigation.
Scale models have problems because you can’t scale physical phenomena such as the gravitational force to match the scale of the model. Ants can carry objects hundreds of times their own size. Ants scaled-up to the size of humans wouldn’t be able to. John Cole doesn’t mention this, let alone trying to compensate for it.
Short of rebuilding a full-sized copy of one of the Twin Towers, computer simulation is probably the best that could be done.
Maxter, 12:01 pm, I’ve been trying to read the peak Prosperity thread but I’m not really getting along with it. I just don’t think the same way that those people seem to. “Spiral Dynamics meme model”, “But they are GREEN Meme and ORANGE Meme Jews, not the BLUE/RED Meme level, the norm during the middle ages” – sorry, I haven’t a clue about all this.
Certainly 9/11 was a Neocon event of some description. It served the purposes of Israel and the US hawks. Israel clearly had foreknowledge – which the US authorities apparently ignored.
Often overlooked is the US-Israel connection to Saudi Arabia, that Saudi Arabia – and especially its oil – is also central to the Neocon project. One of my objections to much 9/11 theorising is that it seems to attempt to paint Saudi Arabia out of the picture altogether. This may be because the Saudi dynamic is complex and thus confusing.
Neocons have consistently made use of islamist extremists. I don’t see why 9/11 should be treated as an exception.
It’s not so much “false flag” as people not understanding the flags sufficiently.
An obvious problem with John Cole’s models is that the “floors” are too close together. He does some calculation to choose how bendy to make his “floors”, but he says nothing about his choice of spacing. Obviously, the further apart they’re spaced the faster his metal weight would have fallen. If it had only had to break through one “floor” every three metres or so, I bet it would have continued accelerating.
Any ideas how we could adapt John Cole’s experiments to be more realistic? My guess is that the most important matters to address are momentum, and the mechanical strength of the floor structures. Only a few model floors are needed, just enough to determine whether the collapse accelerates or decelerates.
Momentum is fairly easy, it can be done theoretically. So long as the falling material gains more velocity in each between-floor gap than is lost by sharing of momentum when the next floor is entrained into the collapse, the collapse will accelerate, so far as momentum is concerned.
Mechanical strength seems more difficult, and also susceptible to any deficiency in construction of the Twin Towers.
So again I’m sent to Coventry. If I want a conversation I have to repeat the approved script, yes? And that goes…
I don’t need evidence, I just need to parrot phrases from approved videos on YouTube.
You know, my time on this thread over the last few weeks has been quite instructive for me. I now accept that there really is such a thing as the conspiracy-theorists’ mindset, and I understand that people such as Kempe don’t bother trying to engage seriously because it is futile.
Big disappointment.
I actually wish that someone would prove otherwise to me. Forlorn hope.
Fwl, you’ve been all right. You haven’t treated me badly at all.
Not even Kemp wants to claim me for “the other side”.
Kempe, sorry. But then I keep ending up as “Clarke”, so maybe it cancels out.
No sweat.
” I now accept that there really is such a thing as the conspiracy-theorists’ mindset, and I understand that people such as Kempe don’t bother trying to engage seriously because it is futile. ”
I’m sorry it’s taken you so long and so much effort to arrive at this conclusion but you are absolutely correct.
Cole’s experiments are crude and he’s clearly working towards a foregone conclusion so the experiments are designed to fail from the outset. Scaling down mechanical problems like this is not a straightforward task and done properly needs a lot of complex mathematics called dimensional analysis. If Cole’s conclusions were correct this would never have happened:-
http://www.imacleod.com/msa/images/image002.jpg
Keempe, dimensional analysis isn’t so bad…
I think an estimate for momentum would be quite easy to do but it barely seems worth it – see my earlier guesstimates for Glenn.
Any idea how to cobble together an estimate for momentum loss due to mechanical strength? It sorta seems easier to work backwards from the observed collapse rate, see roughly how much momentum that implies was lost in breaking through floors, and then see whether that quantity seems reasonable or not compared with the original static load specification.
Damn, an eextra ‘e’ in Kempe this time. I’ll get it right eventually…
‘Meet Joe Blogs – layman who knows next to nothing about architecture, physics or engineering but reckons the Twin Towers and building 7 came down because of plane impacts and fires’ (sorry, this book and video are not yet ready for public release);
‘9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out’:
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out/
‘Meet the Experts – 40 Extra Interviews from “9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANYMXwFK0C8
‘ZERO: An Investigation Into 9-11 | Full Documentary’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gETF0_SOXcg
‘9/11 Pentagon Attack – Behind the Smoke Curtain – Barbara Honegger’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fvJ8nFa5Qk
‘”USS Liberty: Dead In The Water” (BBC Documentary 20020’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
(I have included the latter because it is a perfect example of elements in the US Government and elements in Israel colluding to take American lives, in order to further US and Israeli interests, which is what I believe occurred on 9/11 – for those interested in further info on the USS Liberty, read ‘Operation Cyanide’ by Peter Hounam).
Paul Barbara, I don’t want to expand the scope into the attack on the Pentagon at present, since essentially no progress has yet been made regarding the Twin Towers. So just considering your first three links, that’s over six and a half hours of video to watch. Look, I don’t even watch telly because I don’t have time. Can’t you summarise?
I don’t really see how videos can contain original evidence – the individual video shots from that day are on the ‘net anyway. Videos can contain testimony I haven’t heard before. Again, summaries with time references would be most helpful.
As I’ve said before, you don’t need to convince me of the reality false flag attacks.
My ability with physics and engineering is pretty good, thanks – my school wanted me to take the Oxford/Cambridge entrance exams but I was too anti-establishment to comply. I dropped out of my physics degree course at London University when I saw that nearly all graduates were being snapped up by ‘defence’ contractors. Are you any good in these fields?
Paul Barbara, please forgive me but I’ve found the discussion on this thread most unrewarding. Many of things I’ve been expected to accept as evidence have been risible. An art group’s ‘balcony’ erected one window wide for twenty minutes on the wrong face of the building is not evidence for the planting of explosives that supposedly blew columns inwards across an entire aircraft impact zone. A passenger jet hitting a skyscraper at hundreds of miles per hour wouldn’t mostly bounce off. Varying colour hues on different TV channels sharing the same camera feeds is not evidence of collusion. And so on and so forth.
And hardly a single point I’ve raised has even been acknowledged, let alone engaged with. What with the accusations I’ve suffered you might understand that I’m feeling somewhat dispirited.
For the discussion to yield anything rewarding I think we need a more rigorous approach. Individual pieces of evidence should be presented and then discussed to get some measure of their reliability.