Myth No. 1: Bin Laden Not On FBI Ten Most Wanted List Because The FBI Does Not Believe That There Is Enough Evidence to Indict Him
http://www.debunk911myths.org/topics/Bin_L...t_Wanted_poster
Claim
Osama bin Laden (listed by the FBI as Usama bin Laden) was added to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list in 1999, for his role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. His wanted poster also notes, "In addition, Bin Laden is a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world", but does not specifically mention the 9/11 attacks, the U.S.S. Cole bombing, or anything else. Some conspiracy theorists insinuate that because the FBI hasn't specifically listed 9/11 on Bin Laden's wanted poster, that they don't have enough evidence to link him to 9/11, or don't think he's behind the attacks.
Fact
In order to be listed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive list, the suspect must have been indicted for the crime. To indict Bin Laden formally for the 9/11 attacks would require presenting evidence in a court of law; such evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11 would include intelligence sources, and Al-Qaeda detainees. Making such sources (and methods) publicly known, perhaps isn't advised. In the Zacarias Moussaoui case, a big deal was made over access to detainee witnesses and about handling evidence from other intelligence sources.
In all, the 9/11 attacks were viewed as an "act of war", and the U.S. government is responding accordingly. During the Clinton administration, terrorism was handled more as a matter of law enforcement. This change in how terrorism is handled may be yet another reason why the U.S. government has not bothered to formally indict Bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks.
Regarding this matter, FBI officials told the Washington Post:
"There's no mystery here," said FBI spokesman Rex Tomb. "They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don't need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it." [1]
The FBI also maintains a list of "Most Wanted Terrorists". This list is accompanied by a note:
The alleged terrorists on this list have been indicted by sitting Federal Grand Juries in various jurisdictions in the United States for the crimes reflected on their wanted posters. Evidence was gathered and presented to the Grand Juries, which led to their being charged. The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. [2]
A document released by the U.K. government, Responsibility for the terrorist atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001 presents facts that link Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the 9/11 attacks.
The U.K. document further notes:
This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Usama Bin Laden in a court of law. Intelligence often cannot be used evidentially, due both to the strict rules of admissibility and to the need to protect the safety of sources. But on the basis of all the information available HMG is confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document.
Disadvantages of the criminal justice approach
Early in 2001, a trial took place involving four Al-Qaeda defendants for their role in the 1998 African embassy bombings. The trial, which lasted four months, highlighted disadvantages to the criminal justice approach to dealing with terrorism and Al-Qaeda.[1]
Cost to intelligence capabilities - Courtroom procedures require significant disclosures of sensitive sources and methods information to the defendants, in order to satisfy due process requirements.
Difficult to persuade informants to cooperate when they know their identities might be exposed in a federal trial.
The criminal justice system presumes that terrorists will be deterred by the prospect of life imprisonment or the death penalty. With Al-Qaeda members seeking "martyrdom", these are no deterrent.
Options for prosecuting Bin Laden
Indicting Bin Laden and prosecuting him for his role in the 9/11 attacks, through the usual criminal justice process in the U.S. is not the only and possibly not the best option.
The terrorist crimes of September 11 violate a host of U.S. criminal laws, including laws that criminalize acts of international terrorism (specifically when such acts include homicide); destruction of aircraft, incapacitating any individual on an aircraft, performing an act of violence against any individual on an aircraft, or conspiring to do so; and forgery of passports or other immigration documents. The terrorist crimes also probably constitute crimes against humanity, namely, multiple acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack knowingly directed against any civilian population in furtherance of a state or organizational policy. The latter would be a novel charge to prosecute in a U.S. federal court, as it derives from customary international law and is not codified as such in the U.S. federal criminal code. But as a matter of international law, the attacks of September 11 could be characterized as crimes against humanity and could be charged against the perpetrators, if not in U.S. federal court then in a foreign jurisdiction or international tribunal that exercises personal jurisdiction over one or more suspects or recognizes such crimes as crimes of universal jurisdiction.[2]
Foreign courts
Prosecution in foreign national courts may prove to be the more likely alternative to U.S. prosecution in a number of cases. British prosecution of the Lockerbie (Pan Am 103) defendants (albeit in a special courtroom established in The Netherlands and adjudicated under Scottish law by Scottish judges) proved in the long run to be a much more attractive option than U.S. prosecution for that particular terrorist crime. Foreign prosecutions may also have important political advantages. In terms of constructing a robust international legal architecture for dealing with terrorism, the optics and the practical consequences of having prosecutions in both U.S. and foreign courts is significant. This may prove crucial to the long-term campaign, and American victims should take comfort from a scenario in which the United States does not have to go it alone; rather a variety of countries, through rigorous prosecutions, would treat the September 11 attacks and their fallout as attacks against all civilized nations. Foreign trials may also prove essential in dealing with persons in the al Qaeda network who cannot be prosecuted for U.S. crimes but are still important parts of the overall terrorist threat to us.
Terrorist suspects may be investigated and prosecuted in one or more foreign courts regardless of U.S. interests or desires, and this is already happening. A foreign government may refuse a U.S. extradition request, for example. This could well be the case if the United States declines to waive the death penalty with respect to a terrorist suspect held in an anti-death penalty jurisdiction. Also, foreign officials may consider it their own responsibility to bring to justice individuals who engaged within their jurisdiction in the planning or commission of terrorist attacks either on their own soil or elsewhere. And the United States may find it preferable for certain low- or mid-level terrorist suspects to be prosecuted before foreign courts, particularly in highly developed jurisdictions where we have confidence in the judicial system.
Spain
In 2003, Investigative magistrate Baltasar Garzon of Spain issued an indictment against Osama bin Laden for his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Along with bin Laden, Ramzi Binalshibh and others affiliated with Al Qaeda were also indicted.[3] The indictment included evidence that Spain was used as a staging ground for the attacks.[4] Spain does not allow trials for suspects in absentia.[4]
References
↑ Wedgwood, Ruth (June 3, 2001) "Cause for Alarm; Legal Action Can Bring Victories, But Preventing Terrorism Calls for Tougher Tactics", The Washington Post.
↑ "Options for Prosecuting International Terrorists". U.S. Institute of Peace.
↑ "Spain indicts bin Laden for attacks", Michigan Daily (September 18, 2003).
↑ 4.0 4.1 "Spain's 11 September 'connection'", BBC (April 22, 2005).
Full Version: Debunking 9/11 Myths
How Skeptics Confronted 9/11 Denialism
by John Ray
Skeptics today bemoan the overwhelming proportion of people who claim to believe in all manner of conspiracy theories from the JFK assassination to the origins of HIV-AIDS. For that reason, it may be worthwhile to take a moment to stop and celebrate one area in which skeptical advocacy has been overwhelming successful: the world of 9/11 conspiracies. Through the work of scholars like Michael Shermer and James Meigs, along with everyday skeptics on the grassroots level, critical inquiry has been overwhelmingly successful in calling these conspiracy theorists to task.
A tragedy on a scale at least comparable to Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination was bound to inspire a conspiracy subculture, but the takeoff success of the viral Internet documentary Loose Change and the movement it created was unprecedented. Looking out on the world in 2005 when Change became one of the most-watched Internet videos of all time, with over ten million unique viewers1, it was hard to anticipate a future that was anything but bleak for those who felt it was their duty to defend history from such pseudohistorians.
Yet, in just under four years, the 9/11 “truth movement” has ground to a halt. Apart from the fundamental incoherence of their theories, the downfall of the 9/11 denier juggernaut was good old-fashioned skepticism at its finest, the kind that conjures visions of James Randi challenging psychics and faith healers on their home turfs and winning. Skeptics are better at their jobs than they think, and its important to give credit where credit is due.
Staking their fortunes almost solely on Internet-based content may have been the 9/11 deniers’ biggest mistake. What seems like a perfect place for pseudoscience — the Internet is un-edited, without fact-checkers or minimum publishing standards of any kind — also became a perfect place for a rapid-response system of blogs and forums to fight back. Drawing on the freely available technical information from the NIST, FEMA, and academic journals which most colleges let their students access for free, skeptical sites like ScrewLooseChange.blogspot.com and debunking911.com are able to defuse 9/11 denier claims as they arise.
The Internet forced many “ground-level” 9/11 deniers — those who spread the gospel on popular social networking sites like Facebook and in their own blogosphere — into a rhetorical corner.
Instantaneous information traps old, well-discussed claims into sheer redundancy. In three years of debating 9/11 deniers, I have encountered almost the exact same laundry list of claims on dozens of occasions. The same resources have been successful in debunking 9/11 myths since their inception, tipping the debate against them. The first Loose Change was a sweeping work that, by this author’s estimation2, implicated roughly 578,000 people in their version of 9/11; the “final edition,” though twice as long, has orders of magnitude less content and almost zero positive claims, drumming up a meager 8,200 suspects3. This is almost certainly a result of Internet-based skeptics bombarding Loose Change’s makers with the facts.
What should go down as a knockout blow to the 9/11 denier movement, what Michael Shermer called “just about one of the best things ever done in the history of skepticism,”4 is the now-famous Popular Mechanics article turned into a best-selling book that debunked many of the top points the conspiracy theorists relied on. Joining a chorus of mainstream publications including Skeptic and taking the central claims head on, the Popular Mechanics article became a cornerstone for the 9/11 denier movement’s undoing.
The spike in 2006, prompted by the live debate between the editors of Popular Mechanics and the producers of the documentary Loose Change, shows that not only was the skeptical perspective more well-accepted than the conspiracy perspective, it began to dictate the conversation. (Graph produced using Google Trends by the author.)
The Popular Mechanics article was published in its March 2005 issue and became an Internet hit after the live debate hosted by Democracy Now! between Popular Mechanics editors Jim Meigs and David Dunbar and Loose Change creators Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas. In the aftermath of that debate — if this is any indicator of which side presented the better case — that article became the most popularly searched item pertaining to 9/11 conspiracies and, from that point on, the skeptical perspective became the dominant voice pertaining to the movement. The conversation was brought to the mainstream, and the mainstream made its decision.
Today, the 9/11 conspiracy movement is a shell of what it once was. The website masquerading as an academic journal, Journal of 9/11 Studies, has dropped from a high of six or seven articles published per issue to one, and its February 2008 edition (it’s supposed to be updated monthly) was simply skipped over, evidently for lack of a single article. The introduction to the main hub of 9/11 denier activity, 911truth.org, welcomes its visitors with a plea that announces, “we’ve cut to the bare bones, but are still far short of our basic budget needs.” Prominent “truthers” like Mark Dice, Dylan Avery, Jimmy Walter (lambasted in Penn & Teller’s Showtime series Bullshit! episode on 9/11), and Kevin Ryan have dropped into obscurity. The well read author David Ray Griffin continues to lecture, but to shrunken audiences, and this year’s big 9/11 rally looks to be set in Ottawa, not New York City — evidently due to lack of interest.
The number of articles on the popular conspiracy site “Journal of 9/11 Studies” has rapidly dwindled since a peak last year. (Graph produced using Microsoft Excel by the author.)
It is rare when those of us in the skeptical community get to celebrate a concrete success in building public consensus on an issue of pseudoscience. In the combination of grassroots Internet support and mainstream media advocacy we have seen one such moment. It was once feared that the 9/11 conspiracies would be the next JFK conspiracies — silly yet pernicious, running unchecked until it was too late. The opposite has happened here. Because the skeptical community gave the public some well-needed straight talk on the issue, pulled no punches, and let no challenge go soundly unanswered, we have won in six years what could have become a half-century long, uphill battle as with JFK conspiracy theories. Here’s to winning once in awhile.
References
Sales, N. “Click Here for Conspiracy.” Vanity Fair, August, 2006, www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/features/2006/08/loosechange200608
Ray, J. “Total Personnel Required for ‘Loose Change’ Version of 9/11: 578,212,” www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=34802512&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=2211830485&aid=-1&oid=2211830485&id=5523995 . Original content created by author of this article based on information presented in “Loose Change: Final Cut.”
Ray, J. “8,157 High-Ranking American, British, and Pakistani Officials are Out to Get You!” http://conspiraciesrnotus.blogspot.com/200...ritish-and.html . Original content created by author of this article based on information presented in “Loose Change: Final Cut.”
“9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.” Narr. Lester Holt. Documentary. The History Channel. 20 Aug. 2007.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-06-04
by John Ray
Skeptics today bemoan the overwhelming proportion of people who claim to believe in all manner of conspiracy theories from the JFK assassination to the origins of HIV-AIDS. For that reason, it may be worthwhile to take a moment to stop and celebrate one area in which skeptical advocacy has been overwhelming successful: the world of 9/11 conspiracies. Through the work of scholars like Michael Shermer and James Meigs, along with everyday skeptics on the grassroots level, critical inquiry has been overwhelmingly successful in calling these conspiracy theorists to task.
A tragedy on a scale at least comparable to Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy assassination was bound to inspire a conspiracy subculture, but the takeoff success of the viral Internet documentary Loose Change and the movement it created was unprecedented. Looking out on the world in 2005 when Change became one of the most-watched Internet videos of all time, with over ten million unique viewers1, it was hard to anticipate a future that was anything but bleak for those who felt it was their duty to defend history from such pseudohistorians.
Yet, in just under four years, the 9/11 “truth movement” has ground to a halt. Apart from the fundamental incoherence of their theories, the downfall of the 9/11 denier juggernaut was good old-fashioned skepticism at its finest, the kind that conjures visions of James Randi challenging psychics and faith healers on their home turfs and winning. Skeptics are better at their jobs than they think, and its important to give credit where credit is due.
Staking their fortunes almost solely on Internet-based content may have been the 9/11 deniers’ biggest mistake. What seems like a perfect place for pseudoscience — the Internet is un-edited, without fact-checkers or minimum publishing standards of any kind — also became a perfect place for a rapid-response system of blogs and forums to fight back. Drawing on the freely available technical information from the NIST, FEMA, and academic journals which most colleges let their students access for free, skeptical sites like ScrewLooseChange.blogspot.com and debunking911.com are able to defuse 9/11 denier claims as they arise.
The Internet forced many “ground-level” 9/11 deniers — those who spread the gospel on popular social networking sites like Facebook and in their own blogosphere — into a rhetorical corner.
Instantaneous information traps old, well-discussed claims into sheer redundancy. In three years of debating 9/11 deniers, I have encountered almost the exact same laundry list of claims on dozens of occasions. The same resources have been successful in debunking 9/11 myths since their inception, tipping the debate against them. The first Loose Change was a sweeping work that, by this author’s estimation2, implicated roughly 578,000 people in their version of 9/11; the “final edition,” though twice as long, has orders of magnitude less content and almost zero positive claims, drumming up a meager 8,200 suspects3. This is almost certainly a result of Internet-based skeptics bombarding Loose Change’s makers with the facts.
What should go down as a knockout blow to the 9/11 denier movement, what Michael Shermer called “just about one of the best things ever done in the history of skepticism,”4 is the now-famous Popular Mechanics article turned into a best-selling book that debunked many of the top points the conspiracy theorists relied on. Joining a chorus of mainstream publications including Skeptic and taking the central claims head on, the Popular Mechanics article became a cornerstone for the 9/11 denier movement’s undoing.
The spike in 2006, prompted by the live debate between the editors of Popular Mechanics and the producers of the documentary Loose Change, shows that not only was the skeptical perspective more well-accepted than the conspiracy perspective, it began to dictate the conversation. (Graph produced using Google Trends by the author.)
The Popular Mechanics article was published in its March 2005 issue and became an Internet hit after the live debate hosted by Democracy Now! between Popular Mechanics editors Jim Meigs and David Dunbar and Loose Change creators Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas. In the aftermath of that debate — if this is any indicator of which side presented the better case — that article became the most popularly searched item pertaining to 9/11 conspiracies and, from that point on, the skeptical perspective became the dominant voice pertaining to the movement. The conversation was brought to the mainstream, and the mainstream made its decision.
Today, the 9/11 conspiracy movement is a shell of what it once was. The website masquerading as an academic journal, Journal of 9/11 Studies, has dropped from a high of six or seven articles published per issue to one, and its February 2008 edition (it’s supposed to be updated monthly) was simply skipped over, evidently for lack of a single article. The introduction to the main hub of 9/11 denier activity, 911truth.org, welcomes its visitors with a plea that announces, “we’ve cut to the bare bones, but are still far short of our basic budget needs.” Prominent “truthers” like Mark Dice, Dylan Avery, Jimmy Walter (lambasted in Penn & Teller’s Showtime series Bullshit! episode on 9/11), and Kevin Ryan have dropped into obscurity. The well read author David Ray Griffin continues to lecture, but to shrunken audiences, and this year’s big 9/11 rally looks to be set in Ottawa, not New York City — evidently due to lack of interest.
The number of articles on the popular conspiracy site “Journal of 9/11 Studies” has rapidly dwindled since a peak last year. (Graph produced using Microsoft Excel by the author.)
It is rare when those of us in the skeptical community get to celebrate a concrete success in building public consensus on an issue of pseudoscience. In the combination of grassroots Internet support and mainstream media advocacy we have seen one such moment. It was once feared that the 9/11 conspiracies would be the next JFK conspiracies — silly yet pernicious, running unchecked until it was too late. The opposite has happened here. Because the skeptical community gave the public some well-needed straight talk on the issue, pulled no punches, and let no challenge go soundly unanswered, we have won in six years what could have become a half-century long, uphill battle as with JFK conspiracy theories. Here’s to winning once in awhile.
References
Sales, N. “Click Here for Conspiracy.” Vanity Fair, August, 2006, www.vanityfair.com/ontheweb/features/2006/08/loosechange200608
Ray, J. “Total Personnel Required for ‘Loose Change’ Version of 9/11: 578,212,” www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=34802512&op=1&o=all&view=all&subj=2211830485&aid=-1&oid=2211830485&id=5523995 . Original content created by author of this article based on information presented in “Loose Change: Final Cut.”
Ray, J. “8,157 High-Ranking American, British, and Pakistani Officials are Out to Get You!” http://conspiraciesrnotus.blogspot.com/200...ritish-and.html . Original content created by author of this article based on information presented in “Loose Change: Final Cut.”
“9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction.” Narr. Lester Holt. Documentary. The History Channel. 20 Aug. 2007.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-06-04
Myth...
Thermite --- only available to the military for demolitions was found at the site...
TRUTH: Rethinking Thermite
http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
One of the pieces of evidence conspiracy theorists use to say the buildings were brought down is a photo with something they interpret as being left behind by a thermite reaction.
There are a number of things they claim with this photo. One is the timeline. They say the photo has firemen which means this was during the rescue operation which only lasted two weeks. Why would they have fireman after the rescue operations? This suggests to them that the cut on the columns were made very close to September 11. The suggestion here is that it was done during the collapse.
They claim that the angle of the cut can't be created by a welding tool and/or is designed to have the building fall in a certain direction.
The other is a yellow substance they claim is residue from a thermite reaction.
Let's examine these claims one by one to see where the evidence takes us...
Timeline and Firemen
The rescue operation took about two weeks. They figured anyone left alive would have died by then anyway, so they started clean up operations and body recovery. During this time there was always at least 50 policemen and 50 firemen left on the scene to recover their fallen brothers. There were even more than that on ground zero until the city of NY told them to leave in November 2001. The city couldn't justify risking the health of 150 police and fireman for body recovery. In fact there was a protest about it which ended with the mayor allowing 50 members of each department on the scene.
Citing safety concerns, Giuliani had sought to scale back the number of firefighters working at ground zero to 25. At one point there had been as many as 150 firefighters and police officers at the site.
The decision angered firefighters still mourning the loss of 343 colleagues in the attacks. Many bodies have not been recovered, and the firefighters said they wanted to help find the remains of their friends and colleagues.
The number of firefighters working at the site was increased to 50 on Thursday.
http://www.firehouse.com/news/2001/11/10_APcharges.html
Below are photos of firemen well after September 11.
October
December 15th 2001
So the fact that there are firemen in the photo doesn't mean anything. That cut could have been done at any time during the clean up and recovery. Lets not forget the building went down some 6 stories underground. The firemen were recovering bodies mainly from the core and some were in the lobby when it happened. So it's not unreasonable to expect firemen there well after the event. Long enough for an ironworker to cut the column.
Angle and yellow residue
Another point is the angle of the cut. The argument here is that it suggests the column was cut at an angle so the building fell in a certain direction, like a tree. But is it possible the column was cut at an angle so just the column fell in a certain direction during cleanup? This can't be, surely the scholars would have asked an ironworker or someone else on the scene. I bet there isn't one photograph someone can find on the internet of a column which is cut at an angle. Remember, we're talking about "Scholars" here.
Once again, a close up of their column...
Maybe I'm being a little unfair. Maybe I just happened to get this from some obscure site. Maybe I work for the government and have a stash of photos the scholars aren't privy to... No, actually I got this from the same place the scholars got their photo.
Scholars Photo:
http://hereisnewyork.org/gallery/thumb.asp...5&picnum=13
The above photo
http://hereisnewyork.org/gallery/thumb.asp...5&picnum=73
Note the yellow smoke and residue left behind by the ironworker.
Thermite in general makes an ugly hole with molten metal drips/blobs. It doesn't make clean cuts. It's a powder that undergoes a violent chemical reaction as seen in the video below.
http://www.guzer.com/videos/thermite_car.php
Note how much thermite is used. The pot is about a liter, but how much thermite is that?
Stoichiometric thermite requires 2 moles of Al per 1 mole of Fe2O3
2Al + Fe2O3 = Al2O3 + 2Fe
2 moles of Al weigh 54 g
1 mole of Fe2O3 weighs 160 g
density of Al=2.64 g/cc
density of Fe2O3=5.24 g/cc
54 grams of Al is equivalent to 20.5 cc of Al.
160g of Fe2O3 is equivalent to 30.5 cc of Fe2O3
Therefore, 51 cc of fully dense powder of 20.5 cc Al and 30.5 cc Fe2O3 weighs (54+160) g = 214 g.
A volume of 1000 cc would weigh (1000/51)*214 = 4.2 kg
For a powder packing density of 50%, the powder would weigh:
0.5*4.2 kg = 2.1 kg = 4.8 lb
That much just to burn a small hole in a small car engine. I bet it's even an aluminum block but lets say it isn't. How much do you think it would take to burn a massive core column? Then add enough to burn for 6 weeks! You see where we're going. You'd need tons.
Here's a Debunking911 Fun Fact!
How much mass would be required to produce molten iron from thermite equal to the same volume of molten aluminum droplets shown flowing from the south tower window:
A mole of Fe weighs 54 g. For every mole of Fe produced by thermite, one mole of Al and 0.5 mole of Fe2O3 is needed.
2Al + Fe2O3 = Al2O3 + 2Fe
One mole of Al weighs 27 g. 0.5 mole of Fe2O3 weighs 80 g.
Therefore, (27 + 80) g = 107 g of Al and Fe2O3 is needed to produce 54 g of Fe.
That means the mass of the reactants to that of Fe produced is a ratio of 107/54 = 2. The mass of thermite reactants (Al, Fe2O3) is twice that of the molten iron produced.
Comparing the weight of molten aluminum droplets compared with iron:
Iron is 7.9 g/cc. Aluminum is 2.64 g/cc. Fe is denser than Al by a factor of 3. For the same volume of droplets, Fe would have three times the mass as Al.
To produce the iron from thermite requires a reactant mass that is a factor of 2 more than the iron produced. Also, Fe is 3 times as dense as Al. So, it would take 2*3 = 6 times as much mass to produce the same volume of molten iron droplets from thermite compared with molten aluminum droplets.
Example:
Assume 3000 lbs of aluminum fell from the towers. If it had been molten iron produced by thermite, then 6*3000 = 18,000 lbs of thermite reactants would have been required to produce that same volume of falling mass.
Suppose 10 tons of molten aluminum fell from the south tower, about 1/8th of that available from the airplane. If it had been molten iron produced from thermite, 60 tons of thermite reactants would have to have been stored in Fuji Bank to produce the same volume spilling out of the south tower. The section of floor would have to hold all of that plus the aircraft.
*Amount of aluminum can be ascertained by counting the droplets and measuring their size compared to the known size of the window. It's not easy to get a good number on this. It's based on the number of slugs seen in video stills, their size relative to the window width which was about 22 inches, and the density of aluminum, assuming this was aluminum.
http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magconda.htm
The weight of a gallon of aluminum is about 22.5 pounds. A hundred of these would already be 2250 lbs. A gallon size is not unlike the size of the slugs that were pouring out the window. Look at them relative to the window size. They look small at first, but when you realize how big the towers were, the slugs were fairly large. It must have been in the thousands of pounds.
Some of the video stills show what look like 50 to 100 slugs in just one frame.
The thermite wouldn't have only needed to make a clean cut like the photo above, it would have also needed to cut sideways. Not an easy feat for thermite. You see, it's a powder which burns chaotically. Maybe with some device but no working device has been proven to me to work to cut a vertical column. You can direct it with a canister but that method wouldn't work to cut a column. The canister only makes a small hole. Nano-thermite has been talked about but its uses fall far short of cutting these massive columns. It's in its research stage. They include possible uses for welding molecular devices and possible use as a heat signature flare decoy. Then there is a patent of a device which has been brought up but as of yet, there is no evidence the idea went any further. Does it even work? Even if it did, they are "Ganged" together to make the cut. You would still need these boxes all over the columns. Once again the answer to this from the "scholars" is "rationalized technology". They need this technology to exist so it exists. There is some secret super thermite which can be placed in a canister which can survive 1,100 degree C so the primary charge doesn't go off. "Gee debunking, you're so dumb."
Update:
Steven Jones:
Actually, the metal-cutting device employing thermite is well known and documented; see the paper by Robert Moore published three months ago (January 2007) in the Journal of 9/11 Studies:
Furthermore, there is a demonstration of a “device employing thermite” cutting through a metal rod, here.
Yet another absurd comparison from Jones. A small metal rod is NOT the same as a large column. See how large that canister is compared to that small metal rod? The canister in that video, while being enough to cut the vertical rod, will only cut a small hole into a vertical WTC column. (Something I said long ago. See bold text above) For the towers columns to have been cut by a similar device you would need much larger canisters wrapped around the buildings at this scale. Absurd!
If Jones wants to salvage what credibility he thinks he has left, he MUST show us a working device which uses thermite and cuts a sizable hollow column. It MUST also be small enough to do the job yet hide from the average World Trade Center worker. Anything less is an attempt to deceive the public.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another of the many examples of deceptive photos produced by the "scholars" and cataloged on this site is the photo of firemen hovering over what they suggest is molten steel glowing from the use of thermite.
As you can see there are firemen standing in this glow. Unless you think the fire department is issued boots which can withstand 2000C, it's a safe bet we are not looking at molten steel. The other absurd logic is that the firemen would be standing around looking at a clump of molten steel while their brothers are trapped or buried. It's obvious they are looking at something which I reasonably suspect is a hole which they shinned a lantern in looking for their fallen brothers.
If anyone's ever hovered over a 200C barbeque in their backyard, they know hovering over a 2000C block of steel would radiate enough heat to make them think twice about putting their face over it. Yet one fireman is almost laying on the floor with his face very close to the glow. Another obvious point is the debris which looks like paper all over the place. Would at least [some] fall on 2000C steel and catch fire? Such careless firemen? Or careless conspiracy theorists?
Update:
This next video speaks for itself...
Much of Jones and the "scholars" evidence is made up of photographs or videos accompanied by suggestions on what they mean. Below is a passage from Jones' document.
An intriguing photograph (below right) taken by Rob Miller, photojournalist with the New York Post, provides additional photographic evidence (Swanson, 2003) for the use of thermite or a sulfur-containing derivative such as thermate. We see debris and dust as WTC 1 collapses, with WTC 7 seen in the foreground, across the street from WTC 1. The photograph on the left shows, for comparison, the thermite reaction with a grayish-white aluminum-oxide dust plume extending from white-hot molten iron "blob" from the reaction. (Experiment at BYU by the author in which thermite-plus-sulfur cut through a steel cup in a fraction of a second. Any thermite reaction is a dangerous reaction and should only be performed by a trained professional capable of assessing the hazards and risks.)
To illustrate how deceptive this is lets see If I can find the use of thermite using this same test.
To be fair I don't know if Gallagher uses a real Nano-thermite coated Sledge-O-Matic.
Alex Jones, professional conspiracy theorist radio host, has said Jones found evidence of thermite. This isn't true. What Jones found was something which would have been in the debris pile anyway. Sulfur...
WTC Thermite
Sulfur
In Steven Jones' PDF "Answers to Objections and Questions", to support his claim for Sol-gels/Thermite he states:
"One molecule, described by the EPA's Erik Swartz, was present at levels "that dwarfed all others": 1,3-diphenylpropane. "We've never observed it in any sampling we've ever done,"
However when you look at the link he uses
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsai...page-right-area
You find out Mr. Jones edits out the VERY next line which states
"He said it was most likely produced by the plastic of tens of thousands of burning computers."
Apparently, Jones felt this was not important enough for his readers to know.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update:
Kudos to an Italian debunker over seas who put an iron slab to the test.
If you still need convincing that the angled cut was done by workers cleaning up ground zero then please read his excellent page on the subject.
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/04/r...ough-steel.html
He also explains the method used in cutting steel in ground zero.
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/02/t...ut-thermal.html
Jones continues to defend the indefensible. In a reply to Screw Loose Change Blog, Jones defends this deception by quote and photo mining while pointing out the obvious.
Jones writes:
The angle-cut beam in the first photo above has been the subject of much discussion. Recently, a first-responder has stated that he saw this particular cut-column (it is rather remarkable in appearance) when he arrived at the GZ scene on 9/11/2001. We are seeking a written statement from him to this effect to hopefully settle this issue. An analysis of the slag seen clinging to the inside and the outside (both) of this angle-cut column would also do much to answer questions about what did the cutting. I think you will agree that in the second photo, the worker is using an oxyacetylene torch to cut the steel.
INCREDIBLE! His argument for using the top photo as evidence seems to be that he has no evidence it's made without thermite... Incredibly, he argues that the photo of the iron worker cutting the column I uncovered is all the evidence he needs for THAT column and that column only. With his absurd logic he is at the same time suggesting that because there is no photo of the iron worker cutting the iron in his original photo, the original photo is evidence of thermite! To put it plainly, if it walk and talks like a duck that doesn't mean it isn't thermite. He doesn't even have a source for the quote from the alleged first responder saying the photo was taken on 9/11, never mind evidence that he was actually there. Because we all know, if there is no photo on the internet then he wasn't there using Jones' logic. And yet this passes Kevin Ryan's peer review! (Editor of "scholars for 9/11 studies.") I say again, INCREDIBLE!
Had he been just an average internet poster I would let this go as gross ignorance of how the scientific method works, but not a professor. I am left to draw no other conclusion than Steven Jones is purposely deceiving his flock or he has a serious mental disease. What other conclusion can a one draw?
Listen to "Demo Dave" Griffin and his crew talk about ground zero and evidence of pancaking.
"For it being two hundred and ten story buildings, the pile wasn't an enormous pile. We were expecting it to be - I think a lot of the guys were expecting it to be a lot more. I cut away a section of the wall - my gang cut into a section of the wall and we - we counted 14 floors compressed into 8 feet."
He also points to perimeter columns with angled cuts which he says his men cut.
"You can see where they made the cuts along - [Dave points to columns with angled cuts] right above - that's the bow tie connection they're cutting at about 3 to 5 foot above the bow tie connection before it starts in to the forming of the candle stick. They've got three candles left to cut."
Sloppy research or purposeful deception by the "scholars"? The evidence for one is growing...
Thanks to Shagster, ScottS and David B. Benson for their research.
Thermite --- only available to the military for demolitions was found at the site...
TRUTH: Rethinking Thermite
http://www.debunking911.com/thermite.htm
One of the pieces of evidence conspiracy theorists use to say the buildings were brought down is a photo with something they interpret as being left behind by a thermite reaction.
There are a number of things they claim with this photo. One is the timeline. They say the photo has firemen which means this was during the rescue operation which only lasted two weeks. Why would they have fireman after the rescue operations? This suggests to them that the cut on the columns were made very close to September 11. The suggestion here is that it was done during the collapse.
They claim that the angle of the cut can't be created by a welding tool and/or is designed to have the building fall in a certain direction.
The other is a yellow substance they claim is residue from a thermite reaction.
Let's examine these claims one by one to see where the evidence takes us...
Timeline and Firemen
The rescue operation took about two weeks. They figured anyone left alive would have died by then anyway, so they started clean up operations and body recovery. During this time there was always at least 50 policemen and 50 firemen left on the scene to recover their fallen brothers. There were even more than that on ground zero until the city of NY told them to leave in November 2001. The city couldn't justify risking the health of 150 police and fireman for body recovery. In fact there was a protest about it which ended with the mayor allowing 50 members of each department on the scene.
Citing safety concerns, Giuliani had sought to scale back the number of firefighters working at ground zero to 25. At one point there had been as many as 150 firefighters and police officers at the site.
The decision angered firefighters still mourning the loss of 343 colleagues in the attacks. Many bodies have not been recovered, and the firefighters said they wanted to help find the remains of their friends and colleagues.
The number of firefighters working at the site was increased to 50 on Thursday.
http://www.firehouse.com/news/2001/11/10_APcharges.html
Below are photos of firemen well after September 11.
October
December 15th 2001
So the fact that there are firemen in the photo doesn't mean anything. That cut could have been done at any time during the clean up and recovery. Lets not forget the building went down some 6 stories underground. The firemen were recovering bodies mainly from the core and some were in the lobby when it happened. So it's not unreasonable to expect firemen there well after the event. Long enough for an ironworker to cut the column.
Angle and yellow residue
Another point is the angle of the cut. The argument here is that it suggests the column was cut at an angle so the building fell in a certain direction, like a tree. But is it possible the column was cut at an angle so just the column fell in a certain direction during cleanup? This can't be, surely the scholars would have asked an ironworker or someone else on the scene. I bet there isn't one photograph someone can find on the internet of a column which is cut at an angle. Remember, we're talking about "Scholars" here.
Once again, a close up of their column...
Maybe I'm being a little unfair. Maybe I just happened to get this from some obscure site. Maybe I work for the government and have a stash of photos the scholars aren't privy to... No, actually I got this from the same place the scholars got their photo.
Scholars Photo:
http://hereisnewyork.org/gallery/thumb.asp...5&picnum=13
The above photo
http://hereisnewyork.org/gallery/thumb.asp...5&picnum=73
Note the yellow smoke and residue left behind by the ironworker.
Thermite in general makes an ugly hole with molten metal drips/blobs. It doesn't make clean cuts. It's a powder that undergoes a violent chemical reaction as seen in the video below.
http://www.guzer.com/videos/thermite_car.php
Note how much thermite is used. The pot is about a liter, but how much thermite is that?
Stoichiometric thermite requires 2 moles of Al per 1 mole of Fe2O3
2Al + Fe2O3 = Al2O3 + 2Fe
2 moles of Al weigh 54 g
1 mole of Fe2O3 weighs 160 g
density of Al=2.64 g/cc
density of Fe2O3=5.24 g/cc
54 grams of Al is equivalent to 20.5 cc of Al.
160g of Fe2O3 is equivalent to 30.5 cc of Fe2O3
Therefore, 51 cc of fully dense powder of 20.5 cc Al and 30.5 cc Fe2O3 weighs (54+160) g = 214 g.
A volume of 1000 cc would weigh (1000/51)*214 = 4.2 kg
For a powder packing density of 50%, the powder would weigh:
0.5*4.2 kg = 2.1 kg = 4.8 lb
That much just to burn a small hole in a small car engine. I bet it's even an aluminum block but lets say it isn't. How much do you think it would take to burn a massive core column? Then add enough to burn for 6 weeks! You see where we're going. You'd need tons.
Here's a Debunking911 Fun Fact!
How much mass would be required to produce molten iron from thermite equal to the same volume of molten aluminum droplets shown flowing from the south tower window:
A mole of Fe weighs 54 g. For every mole of Fe produced by thermite, one mole of Al and 0.5 mole of Fe2O3 is needed.
2Al + Fe2O3 = Al2O3 + 2Fe
One mole of Al weighs 27 g. 0.5 mole of Fe2O3 weighs 80 g.
Therefore, (27 + 80) g = 107 g of Al and Fe2O3 is needed to produce 54 g of Fe.
That means the mass of the reactants to that of Fe produced is a ratio of 107/54 = 2. The mass of thermite reactants (Al, Fe2O3) is twice that of the molten iron produced.
Comparing the weight of molten aluminum droplets compared with iron:
Iron is 7.9 g/cc. Aluminum is 2.64 g/cc. Fe is denser than Al by a factor of 3. For the same volume of droplets, Fe would have three times the mass as Al.
To produce the iron from thermite requires a reactant mass that is a factor of 2 more than the iron produced. Also, Fe is 3 times as dense as Al. So, it would take 2*3 = 6 times as much mass to produce the same volume of molten iron droplets from thermite compared with molten aluminum droplets.
Example:
Assume 3000 lbs of aluminum fell from the towers. If it had been molten iron produced by thermite, then 6*3000 = 18,000 lbs of thermite reactants would have been required to produce that same volume of falling mass.
Suppose 10 tons of molten aluminum fell from the south tower, about 1/8th of that available from the airplane. If it had been molten iron produced from thermite, 60 tons of thermite reactants would have to have been stored in Fuji Bank to produce the same volume spilling out of the south tower. The section of floor would have to hold all of that plus the aircraft.
*Amount of aluminum can be ascertained by counting the droplets and measuring their size compared to the known size of the window. It's not easy to get a good number on this. It's based on the number of slugs seen in video stills, their size relative to the window width which was about 22 inches, and the density of aluminum, assuming this was aluminum.
http://www.coolmagnetman.com/magconda.htm
The weight of a gallon of aluminum is about 22.5 pounds. A hundred of these would already be 2250 lbs. A gallon size is not unlike the size of the slugs that were pouring out the window. Look at them relative to the window size. They look small at first, but when you realize how big the towers were, the slugs were fairly large. It must have been in the thousands of pounds.
Some of the video stills show what look like 50 to 100 slugs in just one frame.
The thermite wouldn't have only needed to make a clean cut like the photo above, it would have also needed to cut sideways. Not an easy feat for thermite. You see, it's a powder which burns chaotically. Maybe with some device but no working device has been proven to me to work to cut a vertical column. You can direct it with a canister but that method wouldn't work to cut a column. The canister only makes a small hole. Nano-thermite has been talked about but its uses fall far short of cutting these massive columns. It's in its research stage. They include possible uses for welding molecular devices and possible use as a heat signature flare decoy. Then there is a patent of a device which has been brought up but as of yet, there is no evidence the idea went any further. Does it even work? Even if it did, they are "Ganged" together to make the cut. You would still need these boxes all over the columns. Once again the answer to this from the "scholars" is "rationalized technology". They need this technology to exist so it exists. There is some secret super thermite which can be placed in a canister which can survive 1,100 degree C so the primary charge doesn't go off. "Gee debunking, you're so dumb."
Update:
Steven Jones:
Actually, the metal-cutting device employing thermite is well known and documented; see the paper by Robert Moore published three months ago (January 2007) in the Journal of 9/11 Studies:
Furthermore, there is a demonstration of a “device employing thermite” cutting through a metal rod, here.
Yet another absurd comparison from Jones. A small metal rod is NOT the same as a large column. See how large that canister is compared to that small metal rod? The canister in that video, while being enough to cut the vertical rod, will only cut a small hole into a vertical WTC column. (Something I said long ago. See bold text above) For the towers columns to have been cut by a similar device you would need much larger canisters wrapped around the buildings at this scale. Absurd!
If Jones wants to salvage what credibility he thinks he has left, he MUST show us a working device which uses thermite and cuts a sizable hollow column. It MUST also be small enough to do the job yet hide from the average World Trade Center worker. Anything less is an attempt to deceive the public.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another of the many examples of deceptive photos produced by the "scholars" and cataloged on this site is the photo of firemen hovering over what they suggest is molten steel glowing from the use of thermite.
As you can see there are firemen standing in this glow. Unless you think the fire department is issued boots which can withstand 2000C, it's a safe bet we are not looking at molten steel. The other absurd logic is that the firemen would be standing around looking at a clump of molten steel while their brothers are trapped or buried. It's obvious they are looking at something which I reasonably suspect is a hole which they shinned a lantern in looking for their fallen brothers.
If anyone's ever hovered over a 200C barbeque in their backyard, they know hovering over a 2000C block of steel would radiate enough heat to make them think twice about putting their face over it. Yet one fireman is almost laying on the floor with his face very close to the glow. Another obvious point is the debris which looks like paper all over the place. Would at least [some] fall on 2000C steel and catch fire? Such careless firemen? Or careless conspiracy theorists?
Update:
This next video speaks for itself...
Much of Jones and the "scholars" evidence is made up of photographs or videos accompanied by suggestions on what they mean. Below is a passage from Jones' document.
An intriguing photograph (below right) taken by Rob Miller, photojournalist with the New York Post, provides additional photographic evidence (Swanson, 2003) for the use of thermite or a sulfur-containing derivative such as thermate. We see debris and dust as WTC 1 collapses, with WTC 7 seen in the foreground, across the street from WTC 1. The photograph on the left shows, for comparison, the thermite reaction with a grayish-white aluminum-oxide dust plume extending from white-hot molten iron "blob" from the reaction. (Experiment at BYU by the author in which thermite-plus-sulfur cut through a steel cup in a fraction of a second. Any thermite reaction is a dangerous reaction and should only be performed by a trained professional capable of assessing the hazards and risks.)
To illustrate how deceptive this is lets see If I can find the use of thermite using this same test.
To be fair I don't know if Gallagher uses a real Nano-thermite coated Sledge-O-Matic.
Alex Jones, professional conspiracy theorist radio host, has said Jones found evidence of thermite. This isn't true. What Jones found was something which would have been in the debris pile anyway. Sulfur...
WTC Thermite
Sulfur
In Steven Jones' PDF "Answers to Objections and Questions", to support his claim for Sol-gels/Thermite he states:
"One molecule, described by the EPA's Erik Swartz, was present at levels "that dwarfed all others": 1,3-diphenylpropane. "We've never observed it in any sampling we've ever done,"
However when you look at the link he uses
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsai...page-right-area
You find out Mr. Jones edits out the VERY next line which states
"He said it was most likely produced by the plastic of tens of thousands of burning computers."
Apparently, Jones felt this was not important enough for his readers to know.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update:
Kudos to an Italian debunker over seas who put an iron slab to the test.
If you still need convincing that the angled cut was done by workers cleaning up ground zero then please read his excellent page on the subject.
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/04/r...ough-steel.html
He also explains the method used in cutting steel in ground zero.
http://11-settembre.blogspot.com/2007/02/t...ut-thermal.html
Jones continues to defend the indefensible. In a reply to Screw Loose Change Blog, Jones defends this deception by quote and photo mining while pointing out the obvious.
Jones writes:
The angle-cut beam in the first photo above has been the subject of much discussion. Recently, a first-responder has stated that he saw this particular cut-column (it is rather remarkable in appearance) when he arrived at the GZ scene on 9/11/2001. We are seeking a written statement from him to this effect to hopefully settle this issue. An analysis of the slag seen clinging to the inside and the outside (both) of this angle-cut column would also do much to answer questions about what did the cutting. I think you will agree that in the second photo, the worker is using an oxyacetylene torch to cut the steel.
INCREDIBLE! His argument for using the top photo as evidence seems to be that he has no evidence it's made without thermite... Incredibly, he argues that the photo of the iron worker cutting the column I uncovered is all the evidence he needs for THAT column and that column only. With his absurd logic he is at the same time suggesting that because there is no photo of the iron worker cutting the iron in his original photo, the original photo is evidence of thermite! To put it plainly, if it walk and talks like a duck that doesn't mean it isn't thermite. He doesn't even have a source for the quote from the alleged first responder saying the photo was taken on 9/11, never mind evidence that he was actually there. Because we all know, if there is no photo on the internet then he wasn't there using Jones' logic. And yet this passes Kevin Ryan's peer review! (Editor of "scholars for 9/11 studies.") I say again, INCREDIBLE!
Had he been just an average internet poster I would let this go as gross ignorance of how the scientific method works, but not a professor. I am left to draw no other conclusion than Steven Jones is purposely deceiving his flock or he has a serious mental disease. What other conclusion can a one draw?
Listen to "Demo Dave" Griffin and his crew talk about ground zero and evidence of pancaking.
"For it being two hundred and ten story buildings, the pile wasn't an enormous pile. We were expecting it to be - I think a lot of the guys were expecting it to be a lot more. I cut away a section of the wall - my gang cut into a section of the wall and we - we counted 14 floors compressed into 8 feet."
He also points to perimeter columns with angled cuts which he says his men cut.
"You can see where they made the cuts along - [Dave points to columns with angled cuts] right above - that's the bow tie connection they're cutting at about 3 to 5 foot above the bow tie connection before it starts in to the forming of the candle stick. They've got three candles left to cut."
Sloppy research or purposeful deception by the "scholars"? The evidence for one is growing...
Thanks to Shagster, ScottS and David B. Benson for their research.
Here is a clearinghouse of links which debunk the 9/11 conspiracy theorists...and their claims...
http://www.debunking911.com/links.htm
http://www.debunking911.com/links.htm
Here's a book for you all...
http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-11-Myths-C...s/dp/158816635X
The Facts Prove 911 was NOT an "inside job", September 1, 2006
By A. Daniels Jr. "artscholar" (Los Altos, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
It is absolutely amazing the kind of reviews people will dare to give. As one prior reviewer astutely noticed, many "reviews" were done by people with an agenda to sell who obviously did not read the book. In fact, even before the book was published you had 911 conspiracy folks writing negative assertions about the book before it was even published. This tells you the mindset of such people and the prejudice they have. There is simply no way you can be objective by trying to trash something before you've even read it. But such is the folly of some. And let me say that I am particularly disappointed with Ed Haas, who appears to be just using this forum to promote his conspiracy agenda instead of reviewing the book honestly.
As someone who came to this issue trying to objectively ascertain what the truth is regarding 911, and as a former native New Yorker for over 30 years, I will now try to render an honest review of this book as one who has actually read it and also has verified many of its points from my own research. I will also point out some of the facts which prove that most of the negative reviewers did NOT read the book.
First, let's dispense with the most obvious nonsense arguments. It is a fallacy of logic to argue that because the book was done by folks at Popular Mechanics (PM), which is owned by Hearst Communications, that this automatically dismisses the evidence from the many independent scientists, engineers, physicists, and other experts. This is known as the genetic "consider the source" fallacy. Such reasoning is flawed and is just a way of avoiding the facts presented by PM.
Second, it has not been conclusively proven that the Ben Chertoff who used to be the head of the magazine's research department at PM is in any way related to Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security. Now, according to Ben's mom, Michael MIGHT be a distant cousin (p. 102). Yet conspiracy theorists unwisely take a MIGHT and turn it into a conclusive fact. Nonsense. If that is the case, then I can argue that the Bush administration is using Bush's baked beans to poison us all in a worldwide conspiracy to dominate the world...LOL. And do I even need to point out that people having the same last name does not necessarily mean they must be related. That fallacy is called the non sequitur. But let's move on.
One argument has been made that the people at PM are not scientists and engineers. Fair enough. But that's a red herring designed to divert our attention from the facts. They CONSULTED many scientists and engineers and reported what THEY said. That is the point. But since we are on the topic of "scientists and engineers," perhaps we are to believe that David Ray Griffin, who doesn't have the first degree in relevant scientific or engineering fields, is a credible source of information about what happened on 911? Mr. Griffin has been shown to be an author with an agenda who cannot see that he has been duped by the likes of French author Thierry Meyssan, who "...never visited the United States for his research" (p.59). So the work of Griffin is highly suspect and lacks real credibility.
It is easy for some reviewers to talk big talk about PM committing "straw man fallacies" while committing their own fallacies, but the facts are otherwise. This book is excellent in its presentation of the facts and documentation. The only problem I had is that it didn't use the standard numerical reference techniques most scholarly books use. I would have also liked it if they made it easier to contact the many experts consulted by providing contact information such as email addresses. That way, it would be easier to verify that these experts really said what it is claimed they said.
However, I have found in my research that if you really want to contact someone, all you need is some basic information and you can usually follow-up and make contact. Other than that, the book does a great job of answering (with credible sources from those expert in the relevant fields) most of the major wild 911 "inside job" conspiracy theories.
The book is divided up into 4 major sections: The Planes, The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and Flight 93, with an afterward by James Meiggs, editor-in-chief of PM, 3 appendices (Appendix A: Experts Consulted, Appendix B: World Trade Center Report, Appendix C: Pentagon Building Report), notes and an index. I will now highlight points from each major section:
The Planes:
The book nicely puts the issue in a conspiracy "claim" vs. "fact" format, which makes things easier to follow. Some claim that the 19 "amateur" hijackers with box cutters taking over planes and flying them and hitting "75 percent" of their targets raises a lot of questions. Perhaps. But you don't need to be an expert flyer to crash a big plane into a big building. That's common sense. But "Debunking 911 myths" points out that "The hijacker pilots...may not have been have been highly skilled, but they were not complete amateurs" (p. 4).
Some have tried to argue that there was a "missile" or "pod" underneath the planes that hit the Towers. However, this assumption was based on an inaccurate interpretation of bad photography. "Debunking" consulted Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography Laboratory at Arizona State University. His findings? "After studying the high-resolution image and comparing it to photos of a Boeing 767-200ER's undercarriage, Greeley dismissed the notion that the Howard photo reveals a `pod'...In fact, Greeley confirms the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear" (pp. 9, 10). So, conspiracy theorists have mistaken lighting angles and pixel distortion on digital images for some kind of "pod" or missile.
Another false claim debunked by "Debunking" is the idea that there was a "stand down" order given to the military so that the hijacked planes could reach their targets. "Debunking" catalogs all the confusion on 911 and shows that even though the hijackers had turned off the transponders, fighter planes were ordered to battle stations. But with over 4,000 planes in the air, and an inadequate ATC system, it is not hard to see why intercepts were delayed (pp.14-19). It was also pointed out the NORAD's more sophisticated radar focused outside the continental US for threats, not inward. No need for wild conspiracy theories.
The World Trade Center:
One claim is that the Towers were not brought down by the combination of large planes full of jet fuel slamming into them and the subsequent damage, but they collapsed due to intentially placed bombs or controlled demolition charges.
However, "Debunking" provides evidence from credible independent sources that this was not the case (pp. 28-58). I have personally watched video of authentic controlled demolitions and the Towers and building 7 do NOT precisely match them. In real demo, the puffs of smoke from the charges going off, sometimes called "squibs," always come first and then the building comes down. With WTCs 1,2, 7 the "squibs" show up only AFTER the building begins to collapse. But conspiracy theorists ignore that little fact to their detriment.
Conspiracy theorists are fond of making mention of the work of professor Steven Jones of BYU. It is claimed that he found something in a sample of the WTC rubble which indicates to him that explosives were used. However, the credibility of Mr. Jones is in question on many counts.
First, his own colleagues at BYU, who are civil engineers while he is NOT, do not find his work credible. Second, "Debunking" consulted metallurgy professors (specialists in metals analysis) who "...found flaws with the evidence Jones uses to support his arguments...Alan Pense, professor emeritus of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University, said: `The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing ...or show materials that appear to be other than steel'" (p. 41).
Third, what really caught my eye was this info regarding the "thermite" allegedly found by Mr. Jones. "Richard Furehan, professor of metallurgical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says that Jones does not provide adequate evidence to show that thermite reactions did take place...even if they did, that would not necessarily indicate the presence of explosives. THE THERMITE REACTION COULD HAVE OCCURRED WITH ALUMINUM METAL AND ANY OXIDE THAT HAPPENS TO BE NEAR IT (p. 42, emphasis added.). So, a thermite reaction can take place in other ways. Interesting that we don't hear that from the conspiracy folks.
And finally, "Debunking" provides more information from various experts showing that Mr. Jones' work is "naïve and unscientific" (as Dr. Thomas Eagar of MIT personally told me in a private email), but space won't permit me to go into further detail.
When it comes to building 7, most conspiracy theorists always mention the words of Larry Silverstein on a nationally televised show using the words "pull it." These words are interpreted to mean that Silverstein was admitting he told a "fire commander" (note not a demolition specialist) to "pull it" (misread to mean demolish building 7). However, "Debunking" points out from 4 different demolition experts that "pull it" is "not slang for controlled demolition" (p. 57). Even after Silverstein clarified his words, saying that his concern was to "pull" the squadron of firefighters from the building, conspiracy theorists still cling to their misinterpretation and misapplication of Silverstein's words. What's more, with all the fuss over the collapse of Towers 1, 2 and building 7, people forget that other buildings and structures either fully or partially collapsed that day (such as the St. Nicholas Church, the North Bridge - wonder if Silverstein owns those too, or if demolition charges were placed in those too).
And yes, despite false claims to the contrary, "Debunking" did address in detail the Empire State Building and the B-25 that crashed into it and listed the vital differences between that incident and the collapse of the Towers (pp. 29-32).
The Pentagon:
One conspiracy theory about the Pentagon, circulated mainly by a French writer who never visited the United States, is that flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon. Some say it was a missile (although no credible witnesses say they saw one) and other say it was a "Global Hawk" (a smaller, unmanned plane, although no one saw that either and no GH parts were found).
Pentagon Video - Some people argue that if flight 77 hit the Pentagon, then the security camera should clearly show it. Yet "Debunking" points out that the Philips LTC 1261 camera filmed at one frame per second, while the plane was traveling at about 780 feet per second. Now, anyone who knows anything about photography can understand what that means; you will not get a clear image of a plane (p. 61).
Small Debris - Although most conspiracy theorists claim that the debris of the Pentagon was too little to be from flight 77, they also do not investigate the fact that most airplane crashes do NOT leave great remains. "Debunking" gives several examples of this fact. So this does not prove flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon.
Intact Windows - Now the idea that regular windows could remain intact after a commercial jet hits a building would seem rather incredible, but not when you know all the facts. "Debunking" explains that the Pentagon windows were blast resistant and weighed "1,600" pounds each (p. 71). Wow! My first reaction was `What the heck kind of window weighs that much?' It seems they wanted them to withstand a powerful missile or bomb. But these were not household windows, and therefore any conspiracy argument from intact windows after the plane crash appear to be based on ignorance.
Flight 93:
"Debunking" deals a death blow to the main conspiracy theories surrounding this flight. Instead of the flight crashing due to the heroics of the brave passengers, the flight is said to have either been shot down by an F16 or a mysterious white jet. But the facts show that the Army Colonel Donn de Grand-Pre lied on the Alex Jones show about knowing the pilot who allegedly shot down flight 93. Mr. Grand-Pre also lied about contacting General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time (pp. 77-80).
"Debunking" also proves, from a credible source, that the white jet that was seen around the wreckage of flight 93 was not a military plane but "a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corporation" (p. 82).
Cell phones - Conspiracy theorists are fond of saying that all those calls were somehow faked because cell phones can't work above 8,000 feet. However, "Debunking" proves from cell phone company sources that this is not true: "While not exactly reliable, cell-phone calls from airplanes were possible in 2001...because cell sites have a range of several miles, even at 35,000 feet...says Rick Kemper, director of technology and security at the CTIA - The Wireless Association" (pp. 83,84).
When it comes to the small amount of wreckage found at the flight 93 crash site, "Debunking" also documents, from experts in air crash analysis, the fact that most plane crashes routinely leave little wreckage (pp. 86-90). The problem, then, is that while conspiracy believers ask many questions, they seem to rarely find credible answers from proper authorities.
So despite what you hear from some fake reviewers of the book, the book does address most of the wild conspiracy claims they tried to say the book did not address (which shows they didn't read the book).
In conclusion, it seems to me that the fake reviews by people with an agenda to push shows the dishonesty and disingenuousness of those in the 911 conspiracy movement. The facts show from this book, and other sources available online, that if the "official story" has holes in it the size of a "hundred pound block of Swiss cheese" (as one reviewer opined), then that goes hundreds of times more for these wild "inside job" theories which have no credible, factual support.
I applaud the people at PM for doing a fine job of putting together a masterful work disproving these nonsensical theories that ultimately dishonor the memory of the lives we lost on 911 and their surviving families. Remember, Remember, the FACTS about the 11th of September...because the Master Himself said it best: "and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).
http://www.amazon.com/Debunking-11-Myths-C...s/dp/158816635X
The Facts Prove 911 was NOT an "inside job", September 1, 2006
By A. Daniels Jr. "artscholar" (Los Altos, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
It is absolutely amazing the kind of reviews people will dare to give. As one prior reviewer astutely noticed, many "reviews" were done by people with an agenda to sell who obviously did not read the book. In fact, even before the book was published you had 911 conspiracy folks writing negative assertions about the book before it was even published. This tells you the mindset of such people and the prejudice they have. There is simply no way you can be objective by trying to trash something before you've even read it. But such is the folly of some. And let me say that I am particularly disappointed with Ed Haas, who appears to be just using this forum to promote his conspiracy agenda instead of reviewing the book honestly.
As someone who came to this issue trying to objectively ascertain what the truth is regarding 911, and as a former native New Yorker for over 30 years, I will now try to render an honest review of this book as one who has actually read it and also has verified many of its points from my own research. I will also point out some of the facts which prove that most of the negative reviewers did NOT read the book.
First, let's dispense with the most obvious nonsense arguments. It is a fallacy of logic to argue that because the book was done by folks at Popular Mechanics (PM), which is owned by Hearst Communications, that this automatically dismisses the evidence from the many independent scientists, engineers, physicists, and other experts. This is known as the genetic "consider the source" fallacy. Such reasoning is flawed and is just a way of avoiding the facts presented by PM.
Second, it has not been conclusively proven that the Ben Chertoff who used to be the head of the magazine's research department at PM is in any way related to Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security. Now, according to Ben's mom, Michael MIGHT be a distant cousin (p. 102). Yet conspiracy theorists unwisely take a MIGHT and turn it into a conclusive fact. Nonsense. If that is the case, then I can argue that the Bush administration is using Bush's baked beans to poison us all in a worldwide conspiracy to dominate the world...LOL. And do I even need to point out that people having the same last name does not necessarily mean they must be related. That fallacy is called the non sequitur. But let's move on.
One argument has been made that the people at PM are not scientists and engineers. Fair enough. But that's a red herring designed to divert our attention from the facts. They CONSULTED many scientists and engineers and reported what THEY said. That is the point. But since we are on the topic of "scientists and engineers," perhaps we are to believe that David Ray Griffin, who doesn't have the first degree in relevant scientific or engineering fields, is a credible source of information about what happened on 911? Mr. Griffin has been shown to be an author with an agenda who cannot see that he has been duped by the likes of French author Thierry Meyssan, who "...never visited the United States for his research" (p.59). So the work of Griffin is highly suspect and lacks real credibility.
It is easy for some reviewers to talk big talk about PM committing "straw man fallacies" while committing their own fallacies, but the facts are otherwise. This book is excellent in its presentation of the facts and documentation. The only problem I had is that it didn't use the standard numerical reference techniques most scholarly books use. I would have also liked it if they made it easier to contact the many experts consulted by providing contact information such as email addresses. That way, it would be easier to verify that these experts really said what it is claimed they said.
However, I have found in my research that if you really want to contact someone, all you need is some basic information and you can usually follow-up and make contact. Other than that, the book does a great job of answering (with credible sources from those expert in the relevant fields) most of the major wild 911 "inside job" conspiracy theories.
The book is divided up into 4 major sections: The Planes, The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and Flight 93, with an afterward by James Meiggs, editor-in-chief of PM, 3 appendices (Appendix A: Experts Consulted, Appendix B: World Trade Center Report, Appendix C: Pentagon Building Report), notes and an index. I will now highlight points from each major section:
The Planes:
The book nicely puts the issue in a conspiracy "claim" vs. "fact" format, which makes things easier to follow. Some claim that the 19 "amateur" hijackers with box cutters taking over planes and flying them and hitting "75 percent" of their targets raises a lot of questions. Perhaps. But you don't need to be an expert flyer to crash a big plane into a big building. That's common sense. But "Debunking 911 myths" points out that "The hijacker pilots...may not have been have been highly skilled, but they were not complete amateurs" (p. 4).
Some have tried to argue that there was a "missile" or "pod" underneath the planes that hit the Towers. However, this assumption was based on an inaccurate interpretation of bad photography. "Debunking" consulted Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography Laboratory at Arizona State University. His findings? "After studying the high-resolution image and comparing it to photos of a Boeing 767-200ER's undercarriage, Greeley dismissed the notion that the Howard photo reveals a `pod'...In fact, Greeley confirms the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear" (pp. 9, 10). So, conspiracy theorists have mistaken lighting angles and pixel distortion on digital images for some kind of "pod" or missile.
Another false claim debunked by "Debunking" is the idea that there was a "stand down" order given to the military so that the hijacked planes could reach their targets. "Debunking" catalogs all the confusion on 911 and shows that even though the hijackers had turned off the transponders, fighter planes were ordered to battle stations. But with over 4,000 planes in the air, and an inadequate ATC system, it is not hard to see why intercepts were delayed (pp.14-19). It was also pointed out the NORAD's more sophisticated radar focused outside the continental US for threats, not inward. No need for wild conspiracy theories.
The World Trade Center:
One claim is that the Towers were not brought down by the combination of large planes full of jet fuel slamming into them and the subsequent damage, but they collapsed due to intentially placed bombs or controlled demolition charges.
However, "Debunking" provides evidence from credible independent sources that this was not the case (pp. 28-58). I have personally watched video of authentic controlled demolitions and the Towers and building 7 do NOT precisely match them. In real demo, the puffs of smoke from the charges going off, sometimes called "squibs," always come first and then the building comes down. With WTCs 1,2, 7 the "squibs" show up only AFTER the building begins to collapse. But conspiracy theorists ignore that little fact to their detriment.
Conspiracy theorists are fond of making mention of the work of professor Steven Jones of BYU. It is claimed that he found something in a sample of the WTC rubble which indicates to him that explosives were used. However, the credibility of Mr. Jones is in question on many counts.
First, his own colleagues at BYU, who are civil engineers while he is NOT, do not find his work credible. Second, "Debunking" consulted metallurgy professors (specialists in metals analysis) who "...found flaws with the evidence Jones uses to support his arguments...Alan Pense, professor emeritus of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University, said: `The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing ...or show materials that appear to be other than steel'" (p. 41).
Third, what really caught my eye was this info regarding the "thermite" allegedly found by Mr. Jones. "Richard Furehan, professor of metallurgical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says that Jones does not provide adequate evidence to show that thermite reactions did take place...even if they did, that would not necessarily indicate the presence of explosives. THE THERMITE REACTION COULD HAVE OCCURRED WITH ALUMINUM METAL AND ANY OXIDE THAT HAPPENS TO BE NEAR IT (p. 42, emphasis added.). So, a thermite reaction can take place in other ways. Interesting that we don't hear that from the conspiracy folks.
And finally, "Debunking" provides more information from various experts showing that Mr. Jones' work is "naïve and unscientific" (as Dr. Thomas Eagar of MIT personally told me in a private email), but space won't permit me to go into further detail.
When it comes to building 7, most conspiracy theorists always mention the words of Larry Silverstein on a nationally televised show using the words "pull it." These words are interpreted to mean that Silverstein was admitting he told a "fire commander" (note not a demolition specialist) to "pull it" (misread to mean demolish building 7). However, "Debunking" points out from 4 different demolition experts that "pull it" is "not slang for controlled demolition" (p. 57). Even after Silverstein clarified his words, saying that his concern was to "pull" the squadron of firefighters from the building, conspiracy theorists still cling to their misinterpretation and misapplication of Silverstein's words. What's more, with all the fuss over the collapse of Towers 1, 2 and building 7, people forget that other buildings and structures either fully or partially collapsed that day (such as the St. Nicholas Church, the North Bridge - wonder if Silverstein owns those too, or if demolition charges were placed in those too).
And yes, despite false claims to the contrary, "Debunking" did address in detail the Empire State Building and the B-25 that crashed into it and listed the vital differences between that incident and the collapse of the Towers (pp. 29-32).
The Pentagon:
One conspiracy theory about the Pentagon, circulated mainly by a French writer who never visited the United States, is that flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon. Some say it was a missile (although no credible witnesses say they saw one) and other say it was a "Global Hawk" (a smaller, unmanned plane, although no one saw that either and no GH parts were found).
Pentagon Video - Some people argue that if flight 77 hit the Pentagon, then the security camera should clearly show it. Yet "Debunking" points out that the Philips LTC 1261 camera filmed at one frame per second, while the plane was traveling at about 780 feet per second. Now, anyone who knows anything about photography can understand what that means; you will not get a clear image of a plane (p. 61).
Small Debris - Although most conspiracy theorists claim that the debris of the Pentagon was too little to be from flight 77, they also do not investigate the fact that most airplane crashes do NOT leave great remains. "Debunking" gives several examples of this fact. So this does not prove flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon.
Intact Windows - Now the idea that regular windows could remain intact after a commercial jet hits a building would seem rather incredible, but not when you know all the facts. "Debunking" explains that the Pentagon windows were blast resistant and weighed "1,600" pounds each (p. 71). Wow! My first reaction was `What the heck kind of window weighs that much?' It seems they wanted them to withstand a powerful missile or bomb. But these were not household windows, and therefore any conspiracy argument from intact windows after the plane crash appear to be based on ignorance.
Flight 93:
"Debunking" deals a death blow to the main conspiracy theories surrounding this flight. Instead of the flight crashing due to the heroics of the brave passengers, the flight is said to have either been shot down by an F16 or a mysterious white jet. But the facts show that the Army Colonel Donn de Grand-Pre lied on the Alex Jones show about knowing the pilot who allegedly shot down flight 93. Mr. Grand-Pre also lied about contacting General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time (pp. 77-80).
"Debunking" also proves, from a credible source, that the white jet that was seen around the wreckage of flight 93 was not a military plane but "a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corporation" (p. 82).
Cell phones - Conspiracy theorists are fond of saying that all those calls were somehow faked because cell phones can't work above 8,000 feet. However, "Debunking" proves from cell phone company sources that this is not true: "While not exactly reliable, cell-phone calls from airplanes were possible in 2001...because cell sites have a range of several miles, even at 35,000 feet...says Rick Kemper, director of technology and security at the CTIA - The Wireless Association" (pp. 83,84).
When it comes to the small amount of wreckage found at the flight 93 crash site, "Debunking" also documents, from experts in air crash analysis, the fact that most plane crashes routinely leave little wreckage (pp. 86-90). The problem, then, is that while conspiracy believers ask many questions, they seem to rarely find credible answers from proper authorities.
So despite what you hear from some fake reviewers of the book, the book does address most of the wild conspiracy claims they tried to say the book did not address (which shows they didn't read the book).
In conclusion, it seems to me that the fake reviews by people with an agenda to push shows the dishonesty and disingenuousness of those in the 911 conspiracy movement. The facts show from this book, and other sources available online, that if the "official story" has holes in it the size of a "hundred pound block of Swiss cheese" (as one reviewer opined), then that goes hundreds of times more for these wild "inside job" theories which have no credible, factual support.
I applaud the people at PM for doing a fine job of putting together a masterful work disproving these nonsensical theories that ultimately dishonor the memory of the lives we lost on 911 and their surviving families. Remember, Remember, the FACTS about the 11th of September...because the Master Himself said it best: "and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
By Richard Hofstadter†
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.
It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.
Here is Senator McCarthy, speaking in June 1951 about the parlous situation of the United States:
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, which it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.…What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence.…The laws of probability would dictate that part of…[the] decisions would serve the country’s interest.
Now turn back fifty years to a manifesto signed in 1895 by a number of leaders of the Populist party:
As early as 1865-66 a conspiracy was entered into between the gold gamblers of Europe and America.…For nearly thirty years these conspirators have kept the people quarreling over less important matters while they have pursued with unrelenting zeal their one central purpose.…Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring are being used to deal a blow to the prosperity of the people and the financial and commercial independence of the country.
Next, a Texas newspaper article of 1855:
…It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.…The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country on a secret commission, the effect of which is an extraordinary boldness of the Catholic church throughout the United States.…These minions of the Pope are boldly insulting our Senators; reprimanding our Statesmen; propagating the adulterous union of Church and State; abusing with foul calumny all governments but Catholic, and spewing out the bitterest execrations on all Protestantism. The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed. Add to this the vast revenues collected here.…
These quotations give the keynote of the style. In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims. I do not propose to try to trace the variations of the paranoid style that can be found in all these movements, but will confine myself to a few leading episodes in our past history in which the style emerged in full and archetypal splendor.
Illuminism and Masonry
I begin with a particularly revealing episode—the panic that broke out in some quarters at the end of the eighteenth century over the allegedly subversive activities of the Bavarian Illuminati. This panic was a part of the general reaction to the French Revolution. In the United States it was heightened by the response of certain men, mostly in New England and among the established clergy, to the rise of Jeffersonian democracy. Illuminism had been started in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Its teachings today seem to be no more than another version of Enlightenment rationalism, spiced with the anticlerical atmosphere of eighteenth-century Bavaria. It was a somewhat naïve and utopian movement which aspired ultimately to bring the human race under the rules of reason. Its humanitarian rationalism appears to have acquired a fairly wide influence in Masonic lodges.
Americans first learned of Illumism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. In May 1798, a minister of the Massachusetts Congregational establishment in Boston, Jedidiah Morse, delivered a timely sermon to the young country, which was then sharply divided between Jeffersonians and Federalists, Francophiles and Anglomen. Having read Robison, Morse was convinced of a Jacobinical plot touched off by Illuminism, and that the country should be rallied to defend itself. His warnings were heeded throughout New England wherever Federalists brooded about the rising tide of religious infidelity or Jeffersonian democracy. Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, followed Morse’s sermon with a Fourth-of-July discourse on The Duty of Americans in the Present Crisis, in which he held forth against the Antichrist in his own glowing rhetoric. Soon the pulpits of New England were ringing with denunciations of the Illuminati, as though the country were swarming with them.
The anti-Masonic movement of the late 1820s and the 1830s took up and extended the obsession with conspiracy. At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the 1790s was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultraconservative point of view, the later anti-Masonic movement affected many parts of the northern United States, and was intimately linked with popular democracy and rural egalitarianism. Although anti-Masonry happened to be anti-Jacksonian (Jackson was a Mason), it manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
The anti-Masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm but also of the vicissitudes of party politics. It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti-Masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statement who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians could not afford to ignore it. Still, it was a folk movement of considerable power, and the rural enthusiasts who provided its real impetus believed in it wholeheartedly.
As a secret society, Masonry was considered to be a standing conspiracy against republican government. It was held to be particularly liable to treason—for example, Aaron Burr’s famous conspiracy was alleged to have been conducted by Masons. Masonry was accused of constituting a separate system of loyalty, a separate imperium within the framework of federal and state governments, which was inconsistent with loyalty to them. Quite plausibly it was argued that the Masons had set up a jurisdiction of their own, with their own obligations and punishments, liable to enforcement even by the penalty of death. So basic was the conflict felt to be between secrecy and democracy that other, more innocent societies such as Phi Beta Kappa came under attack.
Since Masons were pledged to come to each other’s aid under circumstances of distress, and to extend fraternal indulgence at all times, is was held that the order nullified the enforcement of regular law. Masonic constables, sheriffs, juries, and judges must all be in league with Masonic criminals and fugitives. The press was believed to have been so “muzzled” by Masonic editors and proprietors that news of Masonic malfeasance could be suppressed. At a moment when almost every alleged citadel of privilege in America was under democratic assault, Masonry was attacked as a fraternity of the privileged, closing business opportunities and nearly monopolizing political offices.
Certain elements of truth and reality there may have been in these views of Masonry. What must be emphasized here, however, is the apocalyptic and absolutistic framework in which this hostility was commonly expressed. Anti-Masons were not content simply to say that secret societies were rather a bad idea. The author of the standard exposition of anti-Masonry declared that Freemasonry was “not only the most abominable but also the most dangerous institution that ever was imposed on man.…It may truly be said to be hell’s master piece.”
The Jesuit Threat
Fear of a Masonic plot had hardly been quieted when the rumors arose of a Catholic plot against American values. One meets here again the same frame of mind, but a different villain. The anti-Catholic movement converged with a growing nativism, and while they were not identical, together they cut such a wide swath in American life that they were bound to embrace many moderates to whom the paranoid style, in its full glory, did not appeal. Moreover, we need not dismiss out of hand as totally parochial or mean-spirited the desire of Yankee Americans to maintain an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society nor the particular Protestant commitments to individualism and freedom that were brought into play. But the movement had a large paranoid infusion, and the most influential anti-Catholic militants certainly had a strong affinity for the paranoid style.
Two books which appeared in 1835 described the new danger to the ?American way of life and may be taken as expressions of the anti-Catholic mentality. One, Foreign Conspiracies against the Liberties of the United States, was from the hand of the celebrated painter and inventor of the telegraph, S.F.B. Morse. “A conspiracy exists,” Morse proclaimed , and “its plans are already in operation…we are attacked in a vulnerable quarter which cannot be defended by our ships, our forts, or our armies.” The main source of the conspiracy Morse found in Metternich’s government: “Austria is now acting in this country. She has devised a grand scheme. She has organized a great plan for doing something here.…She has her Jesuit missionaries traveling through the land; she has supplied them with money, and has furnished a fountain for a regular supply.” Were the plot successful, Morse said, some scion of the House of Hapsburg would soon be installed as Emperor of the United States.
“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote another Protestant militant,
that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery. A minister of the Gospel from Ohio has informed us that he discovered one carrying on his devices in his congregation; and he says that the western country swarms with them under the name of puppet show men, dancing masters, music teachers, peddlers of images and ornaments, barrel organ players, and similar practitioners.
Lyman Beecher, the elder of a famous family and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote in the same year his Plea for the West, in which he considered the possibility that the Christian millennium might come in the American states. Everything depended, in his judgment, upon what influences dominated the great West, where the future of the country lay. There Protestantism was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Catholicism. “Whatever we do, it must be done quickly.…” A great tide of immigration, hostile to free institutions, was sweeping in upon the country, subsidized and sent by “the potentates of Europe,” multiplying tumult and violence, filling jails, crowding poorhouses, quadrupling taxation, and sending increasing thousands of voters to “lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power.”
****************
The Paranoid Style in Action
The John Birch Society is attempting to suppress a television series about the United Nations by means of a mass letter-writing campaign to the sponsor,…The Xerox Corporation. The corporation, however, intends to go ahead with the programs.…
The July issue of the John Birch Society Bulletin…said an “avalanche of mail ought to convince them of the unwisdom of their proposed action—just as United Air Lines was persuaded to back down and take the U.N. insignia off their planes.” (A United Air Lines spokesman confirmed that the U.N. emblem was removed from its planes, following “considerable public reaction against it.”)
Birch official John Rousselot said, ”We hate to see a corporation of this country promote the U.N. when we know that it is an instrument of the Soviet Communist conspiracy.”
—San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1964
****************
Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan. Whereas the anti-Masons had envisaged drinking bouts and had entertained themselves with sado-masochistic fantasies about the actual enforcement of grisly Masonic oaths,* the anti-Catholics invented an immense lore about libertine priests, the confessional as an opportunity for seduction, licentious convents and monasteries. Probably the most widely read contemporary book in the United States before Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a work supposedly written by one Maria Monk, entitled Awful Disclosures, which appeared in 1836. The author, who purported to have escaped from the Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal after five years there as novice and nun, reported her convent life in elaborate and circumstantial detail. She reported having been told by the Mother Superior that she must “obey the priests in all things”; to her “utter astonishment and horror,” she soon found what the nature of such obedience was. Infants born of convent liaisons were baptized and then killed, she said, so that they might ascend at once to heaven. Her book, hotly attacked and defended , continued to be read and believed even after her mother gave testimony that Maria had been somewhat addled ever since childhood after she had rammed a pencil into her head. Maria died in prison in 1849, after having been arrested in a brothel as a pickpocket.
Anti-Catholicism, like anti-Masonry, mixed its fortunes with American party politics, and it became an enduring factor in American politics. The American Protective Association of the 1890s revived it with ideological variations more suitable to the times—the depression of 1893, for example, was alleged to be an international creation of the Catholics who began it by starting a run on the banks. Some spokesmen of the movement circulated a bogus encyclical attributed to Leo XIII instructing American Catholics on a certain date in 1893 to exterminate all heretics, and a great many anti-Catholics daily expected a nationwide uprising. The myth of an impending Catholic war of mutilation and extermination of heretics persisted into the twentieth century.
Why They Feel Dispossessed
If, after our historically discontinuous examples of the paranoid style, we now take the long jump to the contemporary right wing, we find some rather important differences from the nineteenth-century movements. The spokesmen of those earlier movements felt that they stood for causes and personal types that were still in possession of their country—that they were fending off threats to a still established way of life. But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.
Important changes may also be traced to the effects of the mass media. The villains of the modern right are much more vivid than those of their paranoid predecessors, much better known to the public; the literature of the paranoid style is by the same token richer and more circumstantial in personal description and personal invective. For the vaguely delineated villains of the anti-Masons, for the obscure and disguised Jesuit agents, the little-known papal delegates of the anti-Catholics, for the shadowy international bankers of the monetary conspiracies, we may now substitute eminent public figures like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower., secretaries of State like Marshall, Acheson, and Dulles, Justices of the Supreme Court like Frankfurter and Warren, and the whole battery of lesser but still famous and vivid alleged conspirators headed by Alger Hiss.
Events since 1939 have given the contemporary right-wing paranoid a vast theatre for his imagination, full of rich and proliferating detail, replete with realistic cues and undeniable proofs of the validity of his suspicions. The theatre of action is now the entire world, and he can draw not only on the events of World War II, but also on those of the Korean War and the Cold War. Any historian of warfare knows it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.
The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers would agree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign began with the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.
The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.
Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it was infiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.
Perhaps the most representative document of the McCarthyist phase was a long indictment of Secretary of State George C. Marshall, delivered in 1951 in the Senate by senator McCarthy, and later published in a somewhat different form. McCarthy pictured Marshall was the focal figure in a betrayal of American interests stretching in time from the strategic plans for World War II to the formulation of the Marshall Plan. Marshal was associated with practically every American failure or defeat, McCarthy insisted, and none of this was either accident or incompetence. There was a “baffling pattern” of Marshall’s interventions in the war, which always conduced to the well-being of the Kremlin. The sharp decline in America’s relative strength from 1945 to 1951 did not “just happen”; it was “brought about, step by step, by will and intention,” the consequence not of mistakes but of a treasonous conspiracy, “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”
Today, the mantle of McCarthy has fallen on a retired candy manufacturer, Robert H. Welch, Jr., who is less strategically placed and has a much smaller but better organized following than the Senator. A few years ago Welch proclaimed that “Communist influences are now in almost complete control of our government”—note the care and scrupulousness of that “almost.” He has offered a full scale interpretation of our recent history n which Communists figure at every turn: They started a run on American banks in 1933 that forced their closure; they contrived the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States in the same year, just in time to save the Soviets from economic collapse; they have stirred up the fuss over segregation in the South; they have taken over the Supreme Court and made it “one of the most important agencies of Communism.”
Close attention to history wins for Mr. Welch an insight into affairs that is given to few of us. “For many reasons and after a lot of study,” he wrote some years ago, “I personally believe [John Foster] Dulles to be a Communist agent.” The job of Professor Arthur F. Burns as head of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors was “merely a cover-up for Burns’s liaison work between Eisenhower and some of his Communist bosses.” Eisenhower’s brother Milton was “actually [his] superior and boss within the Communist party.” As for Eisenhower himself, Welch characterized him, in words that have made the candy manufacturer famous, as “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”—a conclusion, he added, “based on an accumulation of detailed evidence so extensive and so palpable that it seems to put this conviction beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Emulating the Enemy
The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)
As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).
It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.* Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.
On the other hand, the sexual freedom often attributed to the enemy, his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and express unacknowledgeable aspects of their own psychological concerns. Catholics and Mormons—later, Negroes and Jews—have lent themselves to a preoccupation with illicit sex. Very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments.
Renegades and Pedants
A special significance attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause. The anti-Masonic movement seemed at times to be the creation of ex-Masons; certainly the highest significance was attributed to their revelations, and every word they said was believed. Anti-Catholicism used the runaway nun and the apostate priest; the place of ex-Communists in the avant-garde anti-Communist movements of our time is well known. In some part, the special authority accorded the renegade derives from the obsession with secrecy so characteristics of such movements: the renegade is the man or woman who has been in the Arcanum, and brings forth with him or her the final verification of suspicions which might otherwise have been doubted by a skeptical world. But I think there is a deeper eschatological significance that attaches to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid’s archetypal model of the world, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. He brings with him the promise of redemption and victory.
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates :evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
Paranoid writing begins with certain broad defensible judgments. There was something to be said for the anti-Masons. After all, a secret society composed of influential men bound by special obligations could conceivable pose some kind of threat to the civil order in which they were suspended. There was also something to be said for the Protestant principles of individuality and freedom, as well as for the nativist desire to develop in North America a homogeneous civilization. Again, in our time an actual laxity in security allowed some Communists to find a place in governmental circles, and innumerable decisions of World War II and the Cold War could be faulted.
The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent—in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world. It is nothing if not scholarly in technique. McCarthy’s 96-page pamphlet, McCarthyism, contains no less than 313 footnote references, and Mr. Welch’s incredible assault on Eisenhower, The Politician, has one hundred pages of bibliography and notes. The entire right-wing movement of our time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes, and bibliographies. Sometimes the right-wing striving for scholarly depth and an inclusive world view has startling consequences: Mr. Welch, for example, has charged that the popularity of Arnold Toynbee’s historical work is the consequence of a plot on the part of Fabians, “Labour party bosses in England,” and various members of the Anglo-American “liberal establishment” to overshadow the much more truthful and illuminating work of Oswald Spengler.
The Double Sufferer
The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon. Studying the millennial sects of Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Norman Cohn believed he found a persistent psychic complex that corresponds broadly with what I have been considering—a style made up of certain preoccupations and fantasies: “the megalomaniac view of oneself as the Elect, wholly good, abominably persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph; the attribution of gigantic and demonic powers to the adversary; the refusal to accept the ineluctable limitations and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissention, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral; the obsession with inerrable prophecies…systematized misinterpretations, always gross and often grotesque.”
This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
† Richard Hofstadter is DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. His latest book, “Anti-intellectualism in American Life,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction earlier this year. This essay is adapted from the Herbert Spencer Lecture delivered at Oxford University in November 1963.
* Many anti-Masons had been fascinated by the penalties involved if Masons failed to live up to their obligations. My own favorite is the oath attributed to a royal archmason who invited “having my skull smote off and my brains exposed to the scorching rays of the sun.”
* In his recent book, How to Win an Election, Stephen C. Shadegg cites a statement attributed to Mao Tse-tung: “Give me just two or three men in a village and I will take the village.” Shadegg comments: “ In the Goldwater campaigns of 1952 and 1958 and in all other campaigns where I have served as consultant I have followed the advice of Mao Tse-tung.” “I would suggest,” writes senator Goldwater in Why Not Victory? “that we analyze and copy the strategy of the enemy; theirs has worked and ours has not.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_th...noid_style.html
By Richard Hofstadter†
Harper’s Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86.
It had been around a long time before the Radical Right discovered it—and its targets have ranged from “the international bankers” to Masons, Jesuits, and munitions makers.
American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. In using the expression “paranoid style” I am not speaking in a clinical sense, but borrowing a clinical term for other purposes. I have neither the competence nor the desire to classify any figures of the past or present as certifiable lunatics., In fact, the idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant.
Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.
Here is Senator McCarthy, speaking in June 1951 about the parlous situation of the United States:
How can we account for our present situation unless we believe that men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? This must be the product of a great conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, which it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.…What can be made of this unbroken series of decisions and acts contributing to the strategy of defeat? They cannot be attributed to incompetence.…The laws of probability would dictate that part of…[the] decisions would serve the country’s interest.
Now turn back fifty years to a manifesto signed in 1895 by a number of leaders of the Populist party:
As early as 1865-66 a conspiracy was entered into between the gold gamblers of Europe and America.…For nearly thirty years these conspirators have kept the people quarreling over less important matters while they have pursued with unrelenting zeal their one central purpose.…Every device of treachery, every resource of statecraft, and every artifice known to the secret cabals of the international gold ring are being used to deal a blow to the prosperity of the people and the financial and commercial independence of the country.
Next, a Texas newspaper article of 1855:
…It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism.…The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country on a secret commission, the effect of which is an extraordinary boldness of the Catholic church throughout the United States.…These minions of the Pope are boldly insulting our Senators; reprimanding our Statesmen; propagating the adulterous union of Church and State; abusing with foul calumny all governments but Catholic, and spewing out the bitterest execrations on all Protestantism. The Catholics in the United States receive from abroad more than $200,000 annually for the propagation of their creed. Add to this the vast revenues collected here.…
These quotations give the keynote of the style. In the history of the United States one find it, for example, in the anti-Masonic movement, the nativist and anti-Catholic movement, in certain spokesmen of abolitionism who regarded the United States as being in the grip of a slaveholders’ conspiracy, in many alarmists about the Mormons, in some Greenback and Populist writers who constructed a great conspiracy of international bankers, in the exposure of a munitions makers’ conspiracy of World War I, in the popular left-wing press, in the contemporary American right wing, and on both sides of the race controversy today, among White Citizens’ Councils and Black Muslims. I do not propose to try to trace the variations of the paranoid style that can be found in all these movements, but will confine myself to a few leading episodes in our past history in which the style emerged in full and archetypal splendor.
Illuminism and Masonry
I begin with a particularly revealing episode—the panic that broke out in some quarters at the end of the eighteenth century over the allegedly subversive activities of the Bavarian Illuminati. This panic was a part of the general reaction to the French Revolution. In the United States it was heightened by the response of certain men, mostly in New England and among the established clergy, to the rise of Jeffersonian democracy. Illuminism had been started in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt. Its teachings today seem to be no more than another version of Enlightenment rationalism, spiced with the anticlerical atmosphere of eighteenth-century Bavaria. It was a somewhat naïve and utopian movement which aspired ultimately to bring the human race under the rules of reason. Its humanitarian rationalism appears to have acquired a fairly wide influence in Masonic lodges.
Americans first learned of Illumism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. In May 1798, a minister of the Massachusetts Congregational establishment in Boston, Jedidiah Morse, delivered a timely sermon to the young country, which was then sharply divided between Jeffersonians and Federalists, Francophiles and Anglomen. Having read Robison, Morse was convinced of a Jacobinical plot touched off by Illuminism, and that the country should be rallied to defend itself. His warnings were heeded throughout New England wherever Federalists brooded about the rising tide of religious infidelity or Jeffersonian democracy. Timothy Dwight, the president of Yale, followed Morse’s sermon with a Fourth-of-July discourse on The Duty of Americans in the Present Crisis, in which he held forth against the Antichrist in his own glowing rhetoric. Soon the pulpits of New England were ringing with denunciations of the Illuminati, as though the country were swarming with them.
The anti-Masonic movement of the late 1820s and the 1830s took up and extended the obsession with conspiracy. At first, this movement may seem to be no more than an extension or repetition of the anti-Masonic theme sounded in the outcry against the Bavarian Illuminati. But whereas the panic of the 1790s was confined mainly to New England and linked to an ultraconservative point of view, the later anti-Masonic movement affected many parts of the northern United States, and was intimately linked with popular democracy and rural egalitarianism. Although anti-Masonry happened to be anti-Jacksonian (Jackson was a Mason), it manifested the same animus against the closure of opportunity for the common man and against aristocratic institutions that one finds in the Jacksonian crusade against the Bank of the United States.
The anti-Masonic movement was a product not merely of natural enthusiasm but also of the vicissitudes of party politics. It was joined and used by a great many men who did not fully share its original anti-Masonic feelings. It attracted the support of several reputable statement who had only mild sympathy with its fundamental bias, but who as politicians could not afford to ignore it. Still, it was a folk movement of considerable power, and the rural enthusiasts who provided its real impetus believed in it wholeheartedly.
As a secret society, Masonry was considered to be a standing conspiracy against republican government. It was held to be particularly liable to treason—for example, Aaron Burr’s famous conspiracy was alleged to have been conducted by Masons. Masonry was accused of constituting a separate system of loyalty, a separate imperium within the framework of federal and state governments, which was inconsistent with loyalty to them. Quite plausibly it was argued that the Masons had set up a jurisdiction of their own, with their own obligations and punishments, liable to enforcement even by the penalty of death. So basic was the conflict felt to be between secrecy and democracy that other, more innocent societies such as Phi Beta Kappa came under attack.
Since Masons were pledged to come to each other’s aid under circumstances of distress, and to extend fraternal indulgence at all times, is was held that the order nullified the enforcement of regular law. Masonic constables, sheriffs, juries, and judges must all be in league with Masonic criminals and fugitives. The press was believed to have been so “muzzled” by Masonic editors and proprietors that news of Masonic malfeasance could be suppressed. At a moment when almost every alleged citadel of privilege in America was under democratic assault, Masonry was attacked as a fraternity of the privileged, closing business opportunities and nearly monopolizing political offices.
Certain elements of truth and reality there may have been in these views of Masonry. What must be emphasized here, however, is the apocalyptic and absolutistic framework in which this hostility was commonly expressed. Anti-Masons were not content simply to say that secret societies were rather a bad idea. The author of the standard exposition of anti-Masonry declared that Freemasonry was “not only the most abominable but also the most dangerous institution that ever was imposed on man.…It may truly be said to be hell’s master piece.”
The Jesuit Threat
Fear of a Masonic plot had hardly been quieted when the rumors arose of a Catholic plot against American values. One meets here again the same frame of mind, but a different villain. The anti-Catholic movement converged with a growing nativism, and while they were not identical, together they cut such a wide swath in American life that they were bound to embrace many moderates to whom the paranoid style, in its full glory, did not appeal. Moreover, we need not dismiss out of hand as totally parochial or mean-spirited the desire of Yankee Americans to maintain an ethnically and religiously homogeneous society nor the particular Protestant commitments to individualism and freedom that were brought into play. But the movement had a large paranoid infusion, and the most influential anti-Catholic militants certainly had a strong affinity for the paranoid style.
Two books which appeared in 1835 described the new danger to the ?American way of life and may be taken as expressions of the anti-Catholic mentality. One, Foreign Conspiracies against the Liberties of the United States, was from the hand of the celebrated painter and inventor of the telegraph, S.F.B. Morse. “A conspiracy exists,” Morse proclaimed , and “its plans are already in operation…we are attacked in a vulnerable quarter which cannot be defended by our ships, our forts, or our armies.” The main source of the conspiracy Morse found in Metternich’s government: “Austria is now acting in this country. She has devised a grand scheme. She has organized a great plan for doing something here.…She has her Jesuit missionaries traveling through the land; she has supplied them with money, and has furnished a fountain for a regular supply.” Were the plot successful, Morse said, some scion of the House of Hapsburg would soon be installed as Emperor of the United States.
“It is an ascertained fact,” wrote another Protestant militant,
that Jesuits are prowling about all parts of the United States in every possible disguise, expressly to ascertain the advantageous situations and modes to disseminate Popery. A minister of the Gospel from Ohio has informed us that he discovered one carrying on his devices in his congregation; and he says that the western country swarms with them under the name of puppet show men, dancing masters, music teachers, peddlers of images and ornaments, barrel organ players, and similar practitioners.
Lyman Beecher, the elder of a famous family and the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote in the same year his Plea for the West, in which he considered the possibility that the Christian millennium might come in the American states. Everything depended, in his judgment, upon what influences dominated the great West, where the future of the country lay. There Protestantism was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Catholicism. “Whatever we do, it must be done quickly.…” A great tide of immigration, hostile to free institutions, was sweeping in upon the country, subsidized and sent by “the potentates of Europe,” multiplying tumult and violence, filling jails, crowding poorhouses, quadrupling taxation, and sending increasing thousands of voters to “lay their inexperienced hand upon the helm of our power.”
****************
The Paranoid Style in Action
The John Birch Society is attempting to suppress a television series about the United Nations by means of a mass letter-writing campaign to the sponsor,…The Xerox Corporation. The corporation, however, intends to go ahead with the programs.…
The July issue of the John Birch Society Bulletin…said an “avalanche of mail ought to convince them of the unwisdom of their proposed action—just as United Air Lines was persuaded to back down and take the U.N. insignia off their planes.” (A United Air Lines spokesman confirmed that the U.N. emblem was removed from its planes, following “considerable public reaction against it.”)
Birch official John Rousselot said, ”We hate to see a corporation of this country promote the U.N. when we know that it is an instrument of the Soviet Communist conspiracy.”
—San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 1964
****************
Anti-Catholicism has always been the pornography of the Puritan. Whereas the anti-Masons had envisaged drinking bouts and had entertained themselves with sado-masochistic fantasies about the actual enforcement of grisly Masonic oaths,* the anti-Catholics invented an immense lore about libertine priests, the confessional as an opportunity for seduction, licentious convents and monasteries. Probably the most widely read contemporary book in the United States before Uncle Tom’s Cabin was a work supposedly written by one Maria Monk, entitled Awful Disclosures, which appeared in 1836. The author, who purported to have escaped from the Hotel Dieu nunnery in Montreal after five years there as novice and nun, reported her convent life in elaborate and circumstantial detail. She reported having been told by the Mother Superior that she must “obey the priests in all things”; to her “utter astonishment and horror,” she soon found what the nature of such obedience was. Infants born of convent liaisons were baptized and then killed, she said, so that they might ascend at once to heaven. Her book, hotly attacked and defended , continued to be read and believed even after her mother gave testimony that Maria had been somewhat addled ever since childhood after she had rammed a pencil into her head. Maria died in prison in 1849, after having been arrested in a brothel as a pickpocket.
Anti-Catholicism, like anti-Masonry, mixed its fortunes with American party politics, and it became an enduring factor in American politics. The American Protective Association of the 1890s revived it with ideological variations more suitable to the times—the depression of 1893, for example, was alleged to be an international creation of the Catholics who began it by starting a run on the banks. Some spokesmen of the movement circulated a bogus encyclical attributed to Leo XIII instructing American Catholics on a certain date in 1893 to exterminate all heretics, and a great many anti-Catholics daily expected a nationwide uprising. The myth of an impending Catholic war of mutilation and extermination of heretics persisted into the twentieth century.
Why They Feel Dispossessed
If, after our historically discontinuous examples of the paranoid style, we now take the long jump to the contemporary right wing, we find some rather important differences from the nineteenth-century movements. The spokesmen of those earlier movements felt that they stood for causes and personal types that were still in possession of their country—that they were fending off threats to a still established way of life. But the modern right wing, as Daniel Bell has put it, feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power. Their predecessors had discovered conspiracies; the modern radical right finds conspiracy to be betrayal from on high.
Important changes may also be traced to the effects of the mass media. The villains of the modern right are much more vivid than those of their paranoid predecessors, much better known to the public; the literature of the paranoid style is by the same token richer and more circumstantial in personal description and personal invective. For the vaguely delineated villains of the anti-Masons, for the obscure and disguised Jesuit agents, the little-known papal delegates of the anti-Catholics, for the shadowy international bankers of the monetary conspiracies, we may now substitute eminent public figures like Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower., secretaries of State like Marshall, Acheson, and Dulles, Justices of the Supreme Court like Frankfurter and Warren, and the whole battery of lesser but still famous and vivid alleged conspirators headed by Alger Hiss.
Events since 1939 have given the contemporary right-wing paranoid a vast theatre for his imagination, full of rich and proliferating detail, replete with realistic cues and undeniable proofs of the validity of his suspicions. The theatre of action is now the entire world, and he can draw not only on the events of World War II, but also on those of the Korean War and the Cold War. Any historian of warfare knows it is in good part a comedy of errors and a museum of incompetence; but if for every error and every act of incompetence one can substitute an act of treason, many points of fascinating interpretation are open to the paranoid imagination. In the end, the real mystery, for one who reads the primary works of paranoid scholarship, is not how the United States has been brought to its present dangerous position but how it has managed to survive at all.
The basic elements of contemporary right-wing thought can be reduced to three: First, there has been the now-familiar sustained conspiracy, running over more than a generation, and reaching its climax in Roosevelt’s New Deal, to undermine free capitalism, to bring the economy under the direction of the federal government, and to pave the way for socialism or communism. A great many right-wingers would agree with Frank Chodorov, the author of The Income Tax: The Root of All Evil, that this campaign began with the passage of the income-tax amendment to the Constitution in 1913.
The second contention is that top government officialdom has been so infiltrated by Communists that American policy, at least since the days leading up to Pearl Harbor, has been dominated by men who were shrewdly and consistently selling out American national interests.
Finally, the country is infused with a network of Communist agents, just as in the old days it was infiltrated by Jesuit agents, so that the whole apparatus of education, religion, the press, and the mass media is engaged in a common effort to paralyze the resistance of loyal Americans.
Perhaps the most representative document of the McCarthyist phase was a long indictment of Secretary of State George C. Marshall, delivered in 1951 in the Senate by senator McCarthy, and later published in a somewhat different form. McCarthy pictured Marshall was the focal figure in a betrayal of American interests stretching in time from the strategic plans for World War II to the formulation of the Marshall Plan. Marshal was associated with practically every American failure or defeat, McCarthy insisted, and none of this was either accident or incompetence. There was a “baffling pattern” of Marshall’s interventions in the war, which always conduced to the well-being of the Kremlin. The sharp decline in America’s relative strength from 1945 to 1951 did not “just happen”; it was “brought about, step by step, by will and intention,” the consequence not of mistakes but of a treasonous conspiracy, “a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man.”
Today, the mantle of McCarthy has fallen on a retired candy manufacturer, Robert H. Welch, Jr., who is less strategically placed and has a much smaller but better organized following than the Senator. A few years ago Welch proclaimed that “Communist influences are now in almost complete control of our government”—note the care and scrupulousness of that “almost.” He has offered a full scale interpretation of our recent history n which Communists figure at every turn: They started a run on American banks in 1933 that forced their closure; they contrived the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States in the same year, just in time to save the Soviets from economic collapse; they have stirred up the fuss over segregation in the South; they have taken over the Supreme Court and made it “one of the most important agencies of Communism.”
Close attention to history wins for Mr. Welch an insight into affairs that is given to few of us. “For many reasons and after a lot of study,” he wrote some years ago, “I personally believe [John Foster] Dulles to be a Communist agent.” The job of Professor Arthur F. Burns as head of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors was “merely a cover-up for Burns’s liaison work between Eisenhower and some of his Communist bosses.” Eisenhower’s brother Milton was “actually [his] superior and boss within the Communist party.” As for Eisenhower himself, Welch characterized him, in words that have made the candy manufacturer famous, as “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”—a conclusion, he added, “based on an accumulation of detailed evidence so extensive and so palpable that it seems to put this conviction beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Emulating the Enemy
The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse. (“Time is running out,” said Welch in 1951. “Evidence is piling up on many sides and from many sources that October 1952 is the fatal month when Stalin will attack.”)
As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention. This demand for total triumph leads to the formulation of hopelessly unrealistic goals, and since these goals are not even remotely attainable, failure constantly heightens the paranoid’s sense of frustration. Even partial success leaves him with the same feeling of powerlessness with which he began, and this in turn only strengthens his awareness of the vast and terrifying quality of the enemy he opposes.
The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind (brainwashing); he has a special technique for seduction (the Catholic confessional).
It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him. The enemy may be the cosmopolitan intellectual, but the paranoid will outdo him in the apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry. Secret organizations set up to combat secret organizations give the same flattery. The Ku Klux Klan imitated Catholicism to the point of donning priestly vestments, developing an elaborate ritual and an equally elaborate hierarchy. The John Birch Society emulates Communist cells and quasi-secret operation through “front” groups, and preaches a ruthless prosecution of the ideological war along lines very similar to those it finds in the Communist enemy.* Spokesmen of the various fundamentalist anti-Communist “crusades” openly express their admiration for the dedication and discipline the Communist cause calls forth.
On the other hand, the sexual freedom often attributed to the enemy, his lack of moral inhibition, his possession of especially effective techniques for fulfilling his desires, give exponents of the paranoid style an opportunity to project and express unacknowledgeable aspects of their own psychological concerns. Catholics and Mormons—later, Negroes and Jews—have lent themselves to a preoccupation with illicit sex. Very often the fantasies of true believers reveal strong sadomasochistic outlets, vividly expressed, for example, in the delight of anti-Masons with the cruelty of Masonic punishments.
Renegades and Pedants
A special significance attaches to the figure of the renegade from the enemy cause. The anti-Masonic movement seemed at times to be the creation of ex-Masons; certainly the highest significance was attributed to their revelations, and every word they said was believed. Anti-Catholicism used the runaway nun and the apostate priest; the place of ex-Communists in the avant-garde anti-Communist movements of our time is well known. In some part, the special authority accorded the renegade derives from the obsession with secrecy so characteristics of such movements: the renegade is the man or woman who has been in the Arcanum, and brings forth with him or her the final verification of suspicions which might otherwise have been doubted by a skeptical world. But I think there is a deeper eschatological significance that attaches to the person of the renegade: in the spiritual wrestling match between good and evil which is the paranoid’s archetypal model of the world, the renegade is living proof that all the conversions are not made by the wrong side. He brings with him the promise of redemption and victory.
A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates :evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it.
Paranoid writing begins with certain broad defensible judgments. There was something to be said for the anti-Masons. After all, a secret society composed of influential men bound by special obligations could conceivable pose some kind of threat to the civil order in which they were suspended. There was also something to be said for the Protestant principles of individuality and freedom, as well as for the nativist desire to develop in North America a homogeneous civilization. Again, in our time an actual laxity in security allowed some Communists to find a place in governmental circles, and innumerable decisions of World War II and the Cold War could be faulted.
The higher paranoid scholarship is nothing if not coherent—in fact the paranoid mind is far more coherent than the real world. It is nothing if not scholarly in technique. McCarthy’s 96-page pamphlet, McCarthyism, contains no less than 313 footnote references, and Mr. Welch’s incredible assault on Eisenhower, The Politician, has one hundred pages of bibliography and notes. The entire right-wing movement of our time is a parade of experts, study groups, monographs, footnotes, and bibliographies. Sometimes the right-wing striving for scholarly depth and an inclusive world view has startling consequences: Mr. Welch, for example, has charged that the popularity of Arnold Toynbee’s historical work is the consequence of a plot on the part of Fabians, “Labour party bosses in England,” and various members of the Anglo-American “liberal establishment” to overshadow the much more truthful and illuminating work of Oswald Spengler.
The Double Sufferer
The paranoid style is not confined to our own country and time; it is an international phenomenon. Studying the millennial sects of Europe from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, Norman Cohn believed he found a persistent psychic complex that corresponds broadly with what I have been considering—a style made up of certain preoccupations and fantasies: “the megalomaniac view of oneself as the Elect, wholly good, abominably persecuted, yet assured of ultimate triumph; the attribution of gigantic and demonic powers to the adversary; the refusal to accept the ineluctable limitations and imperfections of human existence, such as transience, dissention, conflict, fallibility whether intellectual or moral; the obsession with inerrable prophecies…systematized misinterpretations, always gross and often grotesque.”
This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.
We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
† Richard Hofstadter is DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. His latest book, “Anti-intellectualism in American Life,” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction earlier this year. This essay is adapted from the Herbert Spencer Lecture delivered at Oxford University in November 1963.
* Many anti-Masons had been fascinated by the penalties involved if Masons failed to live up to their obligations. My own favorite is the oath attributed to a royal archmason who invited “having my skull smote off and my brains exposed to the scorching rays of the sun.”
* In his recent book, How to Win an Election, Stephen C. Shadegg cites a statement attributed to Mao Tse-tung: “Give me just two or three men in a village and I will take the village.” Shadegg comments: “ In the Goldwater campaigns of 1952 and 1958 and in all other campaigns where I have served as consultant I have followed the advice of Mao Tse-tung.” “I would suggest,” writes senator Goldwater in Why Not Victory? “that we analyze and copy the strategy of the enemy; theirs has worked and ours has not.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_th...noid_style.html
And here is the treatment by our friends at wiki...
9/11 conspiracy theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
9/11 conspiracy theories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_conspiracy_theories
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Sep 19 2009, 10:39 PM) 
“Where, in counterbalance, are the dozens and dozens of articles, books and other analysis that show how mis-constructed, obstructed, flawed, stacked and politicized the 9/11 Commission process, conclusions and reports were (and still are)?
“OK -- you tell me -- where are they? Hmm....maybe they are not around…”
“Explain to me where the books are on this subject.”
“… if you are unwilling to provide links.”
“I hope we can provide a broader set of authorities...”
“You continue to try and insinuate to me all these conspiracies and then when I ask you for the slightest evidence that has been secured from a mainstream source I get nothing...except your statement that you do not have time to develop the response that I am asking for...
Well, provide a link or take two minutes and summarize your point of view.”
QUOTE: A Summary of My POV
The 9/11 Commission process was delayed, dissed, and set up to fail or to engage in a cover-up. Its process was flawed, rigged, and manipulated; parties involved were engaged in cover-up, duplicity, conflict of interest, or at the very least incompleteness and lack of accountability to the plaintiffs, and the victims.
And you know this because you were there?
Multiple crimes (all cataloged) were committed on 9/11 by someone; no criminal or forensic investigation open to inquiry and review has ever been done and, indeed, evidence was destroyed or made unavailable.
What do you mean there was no forensic inquiry?
Hundreds of forensic scientists were dispatched to the site to help identify the remains of the victims...
And what criminal/forensic inquiry did you expect to be done of the 9/11 site anyway?
You saw how long it took to deliberately clean up the site...you wanted to keep the unhealthy material, etc. in the vicinity for another year -- or several more years while a "criminal forensic" inquiry was conducted?
And what were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?
That it was an inside job...and the fact that it was not done makes you think that it was an inside job?
Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?
I have already debunked the silly statement that because 9/11 is not listed as one of Bin Laden's criminal actions and that he was not indicted -- means its because he did not do it....do I really have to g on?
Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored.
Really, and you can provide this...or any basis for this...for a belief that such a statement is true...
The sequelae of the incident (e.g., the USA PATRIOT ACT, and the initial invasion of Afghanistan) were set in motion prior to the supposedly precipitating event. Indeed, the Commission Report was outlined before more than a smidgeon of the testimony had been delivered. At critical moments, testimony was not delivered under oath.
Yes, well, we have our president who did not want to feel like a criminal and be compelled to give testimony under oath...but what he ignored was the reality that a federal statute exists that any statements given in the course of ones duties by a federal official...one can be prosecuted if those statements are not honest....so the oath requirement is superfluous...
Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]
Can you document this?
Since the event and the Commission report, much work and evidence has been gathered and published, but the MSM refuse to even address the question, let alone acknowledge the work or engage in a debate (which is very useful to you when you demand only MSM sources).
Indeed, spokespeople and critics have been marginalized, attacked, made to be suspect by name-calling, harassed and, in at least one case, hospitalized in a psychiatric institution.
I guess I am wondering what the conspiracy theorists are expecting...
They contend that the truth is not as we have been told...and there is slight evidence that this is the case....but nothing to implicate the federal government..we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these peoplel is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?
Come on...
The event itself was forecast by people suspected as having been involved in its execution, and much money (trillions) has been stolen, made in profit, sequestered, or pigeon-holed for use by others elsewhere as a result of the consequences which were "sold" to the American people through propaganda and MSM complicity. Millions of people have died as a result, and the rights of the American people have been put at risk, if not destroyed.”
“OK -- you tell me -- where are they? Hmm....maybe they are not around…”
“Explain to me where the books are on this subject.”
“… if you are unwilling to provide links.”
“I hope we can provide a broader set of authorities...”
“You continue to try and insinuate to me all these conspiracies and then when I ask you for the slightest evidence that has been secured from a mainstream source I get nothing...except your statement that you do not have time to develop the response that I am asking for...
Well, provide a link or take two minutes and summarize your point of view.”
QUOTE: A Summary of My POV
The 9/11 Commission process was delayed, dissed, and set up to fail or to engage in a cover-up. Its process was flawed, rigged, and manipulated; parties involved were engaged in cover-up, duplicity, conflict of interest, or at the very least incompleteness and lack of accountability to the plaintiffs, and the victims.
And you know this because you were there?
Multiple crimes (all cataloged) were committed on 9/11 by someone; no criminal or forensic investigation open to inquiry and review has ever been done and, indeed, evidence was destroyed or made unavailable.
What do you mean there was no forensic inquiry?
Hundreds of forensic scientists were dispatched to the site to help identify the remains of the victims...
And what criminal/forensic inquiry did you expect to be done of the 9/11 site anyway?
You saw how long it took to deliberately clean up the site...you wanted to keep the unhealthy material, etc. in the vicinity for another year -- or several more years while a "criminal forensic" inquiry was conducted?
And what were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?
That it was an inside job...and the fact that it was not done makes you think that it was an inside job?
Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?
I have already debunked the silly statement that because 9/11 is not listed as one of Bin Laden's criminal actions and that he was not indicted -- means its because he did not do it....do I really have to g on?
Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored.
Really, and you can provide this...or any basis for this...for a belief that such a statement is true...
The sequelae of the incident (e.g., the USA PATRIOT ACT, and the initial invasion of Afghanistan) were set in motion prior to the supposedly precipitating event. Indeed, the Commission Report was outlined before more than a smidgeon of the testimony had been delivered. At critical moments, testimony was not delivered under oath.
Yes, well, we have our president who did not want to feel like a criminal and be compelled to give testimony under oath...but what he ignored was the reality that a federal statute exists that any statements given in the course of ones duties by a federal official...one can be prosecuted if those statements are not honest....so the oath requirement is superfluous...
Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]
Can you document this?
Since the event and the Commission report, much work and evidence has been gathered and published, but the MSM refuse to even address the question, let alone acknowledge the work or engage in a debate (which is very useful to you when you demand only MSM sources).
Indeed, spokespeople and critics have been marginalized, attacked, made to be suspect by name-calling, harassed and, in at least one case, hospitalized in a psychiatric institution.
I guess I am wondering what the conspiracy theorists are expecting...
They contend that the truth is not as we have been told...and there is slight evidence that this is the case....but nothing to implicate the federal government..we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these peoplel is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?
Come on...
The event itself was forecast by people suspected as having been involved in its execution, and much money (trillions) has been stolen, made in profit, sequestered, or pigeon-holed for use by others elsewhere as a result of the consequences which were "sold" to the American people through propaganda and MSM complicity. Millions of people have died as a result, and the rights of the American people have been put at risk, if not destroyed.”
The event was forecast?
When and by who?
Millions of people have died as a result?
What are you talking about?
You must be talking about Iraq and Afghanistan...and there is no evidence that I am aware of that millions of people have died in the two wars...
Posts #1-8 are too long, detailed and complex to warrant a quick and possibly flippant response; any response would require additional time, analysis and homework.
Post #9, however, wherein Tazvil reacts to some of my points, can be addressed to some extent, though some of its issues will need to be pursued in depth at a later time as well.
Here's my immediate reaction.
Inside my summary statement, which he requested, probably so he could speciously try to pick it apart as he has done, Taz suggested snarkily that I know what I stated about the 9/11 Commission because I was there. Of course, Taz, I was the fellow in the fourth row, always wearing a blue suit that looked a size small, with a red and blue tie over a white shirt; don't you remember seeing me during the televised hearings?
You asked for a summary statement; I gave you a summary statement. I "know this" because I have read much of the analysis, most especially(but not exclusively) in Griffin's books. There are books emerging even as we speak, though it remains to be seen just what angle these will take and what they will reveal, not reveal, or obfuscate.
And, yes, I did read the report (both volumes), though I don't have a copy of it on my shelves. Nor do I own all of Griffin's books, though I have read many of them; it seems that you have not. Perhaps I should make the investment to buy used copies of them all, and utilize my scanner and voice recognition software to quote long passages. (Richard Ben Veniste was right; libraries are available and useful). If you have them all and have read them, let me know, and give me a few weeks to order and re-acquaint myself with it all, and then we can do a point-by-point, page-by-page taxonomy (with guest appearances by your allies and mine).
Tazman [it's a term of endearment because you have managed, among few, to remain here at CGCS over the duration, which says volumes about you and your perseverance, and it's a tip of the cap to that perseverance and ferocity by hinting at a Tasmanian quality seen in certain cartoon characters ... ] ....
Tazvil, as you prefer, you have questioned me about the "forensic" quality of the investigation. By forensic, I didn't mean the medical forensics of victim recovery, though we know that was difficult, incomplete, and can be questioned on a number of fronts. (A full discussion of that alone would require another thread or two. But that's not what I was referring to.) What I meant by forensic was simply the overall nature of the investigation, the application of forensic science, the use of evidentiary rules of a legal nature, etc. It is my sense (and we could pick this apart in detail if you'd like-- perhaps through the creation of a taxonomy or a concept map) that there are holes in the process that are big enough to drive convoys of trucks through them. Tazvil has suggested that it would have required "several more years" of on-scene work in a dangerous environment but some assiduous process of representative sampling and evidence preservation worthy of the murder of 3,000 people might have been of value. Instead, there was a concerted effort to keep people away, especially those with cameras, and we won't even mention the harassment of the FEMA videographer whose testimony and footage may be -- well, pardon the pun -- explosive. And in many cases the physical or visual records (to say nothing of the black boxes) have disappeared behind the walls of official state secrecy.
Ironically, some of the scientific evidence presented by the Truthers has apparently and presumably been sampled and preserved in a way that meets scientific and legal evidentiary criteria [the debunkers would be correct in asking for proof of same, and perhaps that will emerge as necessary in time], and it is this very evidence that has the debunkers, the cover-up squad and likely the culprits nervous as hell.
Tazvil asks "What were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?", thereby indicating the weaknesses of the actual investigations which are in dispute... the 9/11 Commission, and most notably the NIST stuff ...
I don't expect it to prove anything; I simply want to establish a large database of verifiable data which will stand up to scientific inquiry and legal challenge and from which we can then begin to formulate one or more hypotheses. That's good scientific approach; the development of the findings and then poking through the debris to find the evidence to support that finding is precisely what the 9/11 Commission tried to do, and what NIST did for so long until it had to acknowledge some of its failures and argumentative weakness which bordered on scientific fraud. What 9/11 truthers have done for the most part is to ask a series of questions (whose core now exceeds 250) for which the "official story" and its scant available evidence do not provide logical coherence or consistency. This is addressed in one or more of Griffin's books and, if you hang around long enough, I shall quote chapter and verse. Or you could dial up one of the many videos of his talks and presentations that are out there on this system of tubes and nets we're on.
Tazvil asks "Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?", and I answer most certainly... I want legal and judicial justice and certitude.
The government needs to prove its conspiracy theory; there are simply other alternative hypotheses in the absence of clear proof and actual scientific and legally-valid evidence. The truth critics call them conspiracy theories, but the "official story" is every bit a "conspiracy theory" that theorizes that 19 specific people did the deed (but they can't produce the records of those people -- some of them are allegedly still alive).
Who is the prosecutor in the case, and where is the evidence? [Ah, maybe it's with JFK's brain, huh?}
Because the government has hidden the evidence, delayed the investigation, underfunded the investigation, manipulated the process, pre-written the conclusions, tried the case in the media, and refuses to acknowledge questions or weaknesses, it makes them a prime suspect in the case, or at least suspect. One has to ask what or who is being protected. Official state secrecy? Government intelligence procedures? Balderdash. It is an insult to the people -- the sovereign people -- to suggest that. It is suspiciously like the acts of a guilty party trying to protect itself or some part of itself. That the government will not investigate and prosecute according to its own existent legal processes and standards is a joke on the American system of jurisprudence and law and a slap in the face to the American citizen. I'm sure you've heard (or can look up) that old famous Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark.
Here, by the way, is the search of the History Commons 9/11 timeline using the search phrase "WTC forensic". Have at it.
I won't address the bin Laden question here; it's too complex, too fraught with mystery and speculation. It requires an extended venue. (Wait! Someone's written a book on the subject; but it's one of the ones I haven't read yet.) But the question does beg itself deeply and widely...
Tazvil asks me to provide support for this statement: "Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored." Indeed, this is the meat of the matter, so I will defer answering that in detail now. Again, whole books have been written... Yes, it is supportable, has been supported and, perhaps in time, I will offer up selected passages from places that will make the case. But the case has been made to a very great extent... at least to the point that Time magazine called the 9/11 truth movement a "mainstream political reality". Tazvil is going to have to deal with and accept that fact and it seems like others are going to have to do it as well; WeAreChange is busy scaring the pants off of folks by presenting the evidence and mentioning something called "misprision of treason".
Similarly, Tazvil asks me to document the statement "Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]" As above... Indeed, and in time... but meanwhile the readers of this thread and its cousins can go ahead and look at the evidence, read the books, weigh the arguments, etc. Debunkers, whether officially employed or not, are not the sole "jurors" in this case.
Tazvil states "we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these people is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?" but Tazvil
-- fails to acknowledge the depth and intensity of the propaganda-fueled fervor,
-- does not acknowledge the pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" called on by the media to comment [some of whom were perhaps somewhat complicit in the crimes] [topped off, of course, by Jerome Hauer and Harley-Man],
-- does not acknowledge the presence of the intimidation [remember the mailed anthrax, Taz?],
-- does not acknowledge the record of legislators' blackmail that continues to emerge,
-- does not acknowledge the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both, or any awareness or acknowledgement of the knowledge and research that has been done into black ops operations and techniques, history, etc.
[Google Peter Dale Scott, Alfred McCoy, read the Iran-Contra tales, and numerous other reporters, historians, journalists ...]
Perhaps you are unaware of it, or perhaps you don't wish to acknowledge it, or perhaps you fear it, or perhaps you simply need to deny it for a variety of reasons. I understand this, Taz, and I've been there and talked with a range of people about it. You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.
And, please, Tazvil... lay off the "conspiracism" crap... you know I can and will rebut it if and when necessary and you know -- or ought to know--- that the "psychology" angle can be countered, and that its argument has already been hijacked.
Gosh, almost any minute now, you're going to pull out the False Memory Syndrome stuff and start slopping the walls here with that.
"The event was forecast?
When and by who?
Millions of people have died as a result?
What are you talking about?
You must be talking about Iraq and Afghanistan...and there is no evidence that I am aware of that millions of people have died in the two wars... "
Yes, the event was forecast. Specifically, I refer to the PNAC document, the "Grand Chessboard" theories and statements [do I need to actually quote this stuff to you, or you yanking my chain some more?], and my own experience and personal concerns, expressed along with the lyrics to the jazz standard "For All We Know" in an e-mail to my daughter, a grad student at Adelphi, on 9/10/01 [she was the one who alerted me to the event the next morning].
I also expressly refer to that which can be found over at the History Commons 9/11 timeline where they already have pre-sorted categories for "insider trading/foreknowledge" (47 entries), the military exercises (46 entries), warning signs (415 entries), and Warning Signs: Specific Cases: Foreign Intelligence Warnings (30), Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB (39), and Presidential Level Warnings (30).
Go read through them; I have.
The warnings were simultaneously ignored while exercises were built to prepare for them, said exercises used by the exercise maestro to determine the weaknesses of the system so it could be defeated, hijacked, or subverted. [I am NIMS-certified in exercise design and have personal and professional experience in the field as well as in the field of simulation design.]
This was written about by me years ago; I'm sure you've found it. If not, google "Cheney OODA" and spend some companionable time learning about Boyd's works.
As for the millions of deaths, I appreciate that this is a controversial subject and agree that people tend to throw around numbers wildly, and that high estimates are greatly contested by US government authorities and supporters (but then it's in their interests to do so, yes?), Still, there have been sources... a Johns Hopkins study was noted at one time, as well as British studies, and the work of Nafeez Ahmed:
To refute the truth abut genocide delivered at the hands of the Anglo-American imperial machine is easy if you don't look, but we could argue about that for decades while more die, so I'll just say "war is hell" and move on to the next thread.
Post #9, however, wherein Tazvil reacts to some of my points, can be addressed to some extent, though some of its issues will need to be pursued in depth at a later time as well.
Here's my immediate reaction.
Inside my summary statement, which he requested, probably so he could speciously try to pick it apart as he has done, Taz suggested snarkily that I know what I stated about the 9/11 Commission because I was there. Of course, Taz, I was the fellow in the fourth row, always wearing a blue suit that looked a size small, with a red and blue tie over a white shirt; don't you remember seeing me during the televised hearings?
You asked for a summary statement; I gave you a summary statement. I "know this" because I have read much of the analysis, most especially(but not exclusively) in Griffin's books. There are books emerging even as we speak, though it remains to be seen just what angle these will take and what they will reveal, not reveal, or obfuscate.
And, yes, I did read the report (both volumes), though I don't have a copy of it on my shelves. Nor do I own all of Griffin's books, though I have read many of them; it seems that you have not. Perhaps I should make the investment to buy used copies of them all, and utilize my scanner and voice recognition software to quote long passages. (Richard Ben Veniste was right; libraries are available and useful). If you have them all and have read them, let me know, and give me a few weeks to order and re-acquaint myself with it all, and then we can do a point-by-point, page-by-page taxonomy (with guest appearances by your allies and mine).
Tazman [it's a term of endearment because you have managed, among few, to remain here at CGCS over the duration, which says volumes about you and your perseverance, and it's a tip of the cap to that perseverance and ferocity by hinting at a Tasmanian quality seen in certain cartoon characters ... ] ....
Tazvil, as you prefer, you have questioned me about the "forensic" quality of the investigation. By forensic, I didn't mean the medical forensics of victim recovery, though we know that was difficult, incomplete, and can be questioned on a number of fronts. (A full discussion of that alone would require another thread or two. But that's not what I was referring to.) What I meant by forensic was simply the overall nature of the investigation, the application of forensic science, the use of evidentiary rules of a legal nature, etc. It is my sense (and we could pick this apart in detail if you'd like-- perhaps through the creation of a taxonomy or a concept map) that there are holes in the process that are big enough to drive convoys of trucks through them. Tazvil has suggested that it would have required "several more years" of on-scene work in a dangerous environment but some assiduous process of representative sampling and evidence preservation worthy of the murder of 3,000 people might have been of value. Instead, there was a concerted effort to keep people away, especially those with cameras, and we won't even mention the harassment of the FEMA videographer whose testimony and footage may be -- well, pardon the pun -- explosive. And in many cases the physical or visual records (to say nothing of the black boxes) have disappeared behind the walls of official state secrecy.
Ironically, some of the scientific evidence presented by the Truthers has apparently and presumably been sampled and preserved in a way that meets scientific and legal evidentiary criteria [the debunkers would be correct in asking for proof of same, and perhaps that will emerge as necessary in time], and it is this very evidence that has the debunkers, the cover-up squad and likely the culprits nervous as hell.
Tazvil asks "What were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?", thereby indicating the weaknesses of the actual investigations which are in dispute... the 9/11 Commission, and most notably the NIST stuff ...
I don't expect it to prove anything; I simply want to establish a large database of verifiable data which will stand up to scientific inquiry and legal challenge and from which we can then begin to formulate one or more hypotheses. That's good scientific approach; the development of the findings and then poking through the debris to find the evidence to support that finding is precisely what the 9/11 Commission tried to do, and what NIST did for so long until it had to acknowledge some of its failures and argumentative weakness which bordered on scientific fraud. What 9/11 truthers have done for the most part is to ask a series of questions (whose core now exceeds 250) for which the "official story" and its scant available evidence do not provide logical coherence or consistency. This is addressed in one or more of Griffin's books and, if you hang around long enough, I shall quote chapter and verse. Or you could dial up one of the many videos of his talks and presentations that are out there on this system of tubes and nets we're on.
Tazvil asks "Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?", and I answer most certainly... I want legal and judicial justice and certitude.
The government needs to prove its conspiracy theory; there are simply other alternative hypotheses in the absence of clear proof and actual scientific and legally-valid evidence. The truth critics call them conspiracy theories, but the "official story" is every bit a "conspiracy theory" that theorizes that 19 specific people did the deed (but they can't produce the records of those people -- some of them are allegedly still alive).
Who is the prosecutor in the case, and where is the evidence? [Ah, maybe it's with JFK's brain, huh?}
Because the government has hidden the evidence, delayed the investigation, underfunded the investigation, manipulated the process, pre-written the conclusions, tried the case in the media, and refuses to acknowledge questions or weaknesses, it makes them a prime suspect in the case, or at least suspect. One has to ask what or who is being protected. Official state secrecy? Government intelligence procedures? Balderdash. It is an insult to the people -- the sovereign people -- to suggest that. It is suspiciously like the acts of a guilty party trying to protect itself or some part of itself. That the government will not investigate and prosecute according to its own existent legal processes and standards is a joke on the American system of jurisprudence and law and a slap in the face to the American citizen. I'm sure you've heard (or can look up) that old famous Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark.
Here, by the way, is the search of the History Commons 9/11 timeline using the search phrase "WTC forensic". Have at it.
I won't address the bin Laden question here; it's too complex, too fraught with mystery and speculation. It requires an extended venue. (Wait! Someone's written a book on the subject; but it's one of the ones I haven't read yet.) But the question does beg itself deeply and widely...
Tazvil asks me to provide support for this statement: "Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored." Indeed, this is the meat of the matter, so I will defer answering that in detail now. Again, whole books have been written... Yes, it is supportable, has been supported and, perhaps in time, I will offer up selected passages from places that will make the case. But the case has been made to a very great extent... at least to the point that Time magazine called the 9/11 truth movement a "mainstream political reality". Tazvil is going to have to deal with and accept that fact and it seems like others are going to have to do it as well; WeAreChange is busy scaring the pants off of folks by presenting the evidence and mentioning something called "misprision of treason".
Similarly, Tazvil asks me to document the statement "Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]" As above... Indeed, and in time... but meanwhile the readers of this thread and its cousins can go ahead and look at the evidence, read the books, weigh the arguments, etc. Debunkers, whether officially employed or not, are not the sole "jurors" in this case.
Tazvil states "we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these people is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?" but Tazvil
-- fails to acknowledge the depth and intensity of the propaganda-fueled fervor,
-- does not acknowledge the pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" called on by the media to comment [some of whom were perhaps somewhat complicit in the crimes] [topped off, of course, by Jerome Hauer and Harley-Man],
-- does not acknowledge the presence of the intimidation [remember the mailed anthrax, Taz?],
-- does not acknowledge the record of legislators' blackmail that continues to emerge,
-- does not acknowledge the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both, or any awareness or acknowledgement of the knowledge and research that has been done into black ops operations and techniques, history, etc.
[Google Peter Dale Scott, Alfred McCoy, read the Iran-Contra tales, and numerous other reporters, historians, journalists ...]
Perhaps you are unaware of it, or perhaps you don't wish to acknowledge it, or perhaps you fear it, or perhaps you simply need to deny it for a variety of reasons. I understand this, Taz, and I've been there and talked with a range of people about it. You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.
And, please, Tazvil... lay off the "conspiracism" crap... you know I can and will rebut it if and when necessary and you know -- or ought to know--- that the "psychology" angle can be countered, and that its argument has already been hijacked.
Gosh, almost any minute now, you're going to pull out the False Memory Syndrome stuff and start slopping the walls here with that.
"The event was forecast?
When and by who?
Millions of people have died as a result?
What are you talking about?
You must be talking about Iraq and Afghanistan...and there is no evidence that I am aware of that millions of people have died in the two wars... "
Yes, the event was forecast. Specifically, I refer to the PNAC document, the "Grand Chessboard" theories and statements [do I need to actually quote this stuff to you, or you yanking my chain some more?], and my own experience and personal concerns, expressed along with the lyrics to the jazz standard "For All We Know" in an e-mail to my daughter, a grad student at Adelphi, on 9/10/01 [she was the one who alerted me to the event the next morning].
I also expressly refer to that which can be found over at the History Commons 9/11 timeline where they already have pre-sorted categories for "insider trading/foreknowledge" (47 entries), the military exercises (46 entries), warning signs (415 entries), and Warning Signs: Specific Cases: Foreign Intelligence Warnings (30), Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB (39), and Presidential Level Warnings (30).
Go read through them; I have.
The warnings were simultaneously ignored while exercises were built to prepare for them, said exercises used by the exercise maestro to determine the weaknesses of the system so it could be defeated, hijacked, or subverted. [I am NIMS-certified in exercise design and have personal and professional experience in the field as well as in the field of simulation design.]
This was written about by me years ago; I'm sure you've found it. If not, google "Cheney OODA" and spend some companionable time learning about Boyd's works.As for the millions of deaths, I appreciate that this is a controversial subject and agree that people tend to throw around numbers wildly, and that high estimates are greatly contested by US government authorities and supporters (but then it's in their interests to do so, yes?), Still, there have been sources... a Johns Hopkins study was noted at one time, as well as British studies, and the work of Nafeez Ahmed:
QUOTE
"...Lancet’s figures could be empirically verified if journalists visited several locations at random in Iraq and discovered local reports of 4 or 5 times more deaths (than US-controlled Iraqi Health Ministry figures). This is exactly what was subsequently done by the British polling agency, Opinion Business Research (ORB), which has tracked public opinion in Iraq since 2005. Working with an Iraqi fieldwork agency, ORB conducted face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18 plus. Interviewees were asked how many members of their household had died as a result of the Iraq conflict since 2003. The ORB poll found that 1.2 million Iraqi civilians had been murdered since the invasion. [Tina Susman, “Poll: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq May Top 1 Million”, Los Angeles Times (14 September 2007)] “
To refute the truth abut genocide delivered at the hands of the Anglo-American imperial machine is easy if you don't look, but we could argue about that for decades while more die, so I'll just say "war is hell" and move on to the next thread.
http://www.examiner.com/x-6572-NY-Obama-Ad...0-people-on-911
How Bush, Cheney policies killed 3000 on 9/11
And the evidence of Bush's negligence is this:
During the transition period in January of 2001, Bush had a face to face meeting with then President Clinton in which Clinton told him that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. During the same transition period Bush and Rice met face to face with outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger where Berger told both Bush and Rice that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And to emphasize the point Berger told them the threat from Al-Qaeda was so great he predicted that the Bush Administration would spend more time dealing with Al-Qaeda than any other single issue during Bush's entire presidency.
Continuing during the transition period in January of 2001, Bush was given the usual national security briefings at Blair House given to all presidents-elect by the CIA and FBI. At the CIA briefing, George Tenet and the CIA told Bush that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And in the national security briefing from the FBI, Bush again was told that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the biggest threats to US national security in the world.
When Bush finally took office the first thing he did regarding terrorism was demote Richard Clarke the anti-terrorism czar who served for 20 years under four Presidents from a cabinet level position to a sub cabinet level position.
The reason? Bush, Cheney and Rice as well as the Republicans in general didn't believe terrorism was the threat the Clinton Administration had told them it was. It was the Republicans who accused Clinton of a Wag the Dog ploy when Clinton, acting on CIA intelligence, launched a missile barrage at Bin Laden and an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in retaliation for some terrorist attacks overseas. The Republicans led by Orin Hatch roundly accused Clinton of using a Wag the Dog ploy to take the heat and attention off his Monica Lewinsky problem.
The next thing Bush did after taking office with regards to terrorism, according to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 911 Commission and stated in his book, was to disband what Clarke called the Principals Meeting. As Clarke described it, in the Clinton administration there was a daily meeting chaired by Clarke and attended by relevant cabinet heads who had a role in fighting terrorism: Janet Reno, the Attorney General, Bob Mueller, the director of the FBI, George Tenet at CIA, and directors of ATF,Immigration and other departments directly involved in anti-terrorism.
According to Clarke, the latest intelligence regarding terrorism collected by each agency in the previous 24 hours was shared among the heads of all the agencies present. ( The 911 Commission found during the Bush Administration there was a lack of sharing of intelligence -- but in keeping with their promise not to fix blame they never stated the obvious -- that Bush's discontinuing of the Principals Meeting was a major contributing factor ).
Clarke testified that after each of these meetings, the heads of these agencies would go back to their respective departments and in his words, "shake the trees" for the latest information on terrorism developed over the last 24 hours and then present it at the next meeting. If this had this been allowed to continue this alone could have prevented 911.
The first piece of evidence supporting this is the famous Phoenix Memo. An FBI agent in Phoenix had been called by the owner of a Phoenix flying school who was suspicious of two new students. What made him suspicious was that the two flying students were both middle eastern men who wanted to learn how to fly jumbo jets but curiously didn't want to learn how to take off or land. They were also paying for their flying lessons with cash. One of those two men was Mohammed Atta.
The FBI agent agreed the activity was suspicious and wrote up a report. But the report was never sent up the ladder and never reached FBI Headquarters in Washington. Under the old process during the Clinton Administration where terrorism had the highest priority, that information would have been sent right to the top and would have been something Mueller would have shared with Clarke and the others at the Principles Meeting. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what Clarke, Reno and Mueller would have done with this information.
From that moment on, Atta and all of his associates wouldn't have been able to sneeze without the FBI knowing about it. They would have been under surveillance 24 hours a day. Their phones would have been tapped. The plot undeniably would have been discovered and 911 would have been prevented with this one piece of information alone.
But there was more. There was the Minneapolis Memo that finally came to light and resulted in the prosecution,after the fact, of Moussaoui. But Collen Rowley, the FBI agent most familiar with the Moussaoui case and how it could have prevented 911 wrote this in her memo to FBI director Mueller after the attacks:
"I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mischaracterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons:( italics mine)."
She went on to say,
"The Minneapolis agents who responded to the call about Moussaoui's flight training identified him as a terrorist threat from a very early point. The decision to take him into custody on August 15, 2001, on the INS "overstay" charge was a deliberate one to counter that threat and was based on the agents' reasonable suspicions."
Her memo continued, "Although the last thing the FBI or the country needs now is a witch hunt, I do find it odd that (to my knowledge) no inquiry whatsoever was launched of the relevant FBIHQ personnel's actions a long time ago. Despite FBI leaders' full knowledge of all the items mentioned herein (and probably more that I'm unaware of),
And this:
"In the day or two following September 11th, you, Director Mueller, made the statement to the effect that if the FBI had only had any advance warning of the attacks, we (meaning the FBI), may have been able to take some action to prevent the tragedy. Fearing that this statement could easily come back to haunt the FBI upon revelation of the information that had been developed pre-September 11th about Moussaoui, I and others in the Minneapolis Office, immediately sought to reach your office through an assortment of higher level FBIHQ contacts, in order to quickly make you aware of the background of the Moussaoui investigation and forewarn you so that your public statements could be accordingly modified. When such statements from you and other FBI officials continued, we thought that somehow you had not received the message and we made further efforts. Finally when similar comments were made weeks later, in Assistant Director Caruso's congressional testimony in response to the first public leaks about Moussaoui we faced the sad realization that the remarks indicated someone, possibly with your approval, had decided to circle the wagons"
You can read the entire memo here.
The fact is there was enough known well before the 911 attacks to have prevented it. Under the authority given Richard Clarke in the Clinton Administration and the priority terrorism was given as a serious threat to US national security, that information would have been sent to the highest levels of government and it is virtually impossible that it would have been ignored by Clarke, Tenet and the others had they known about it.
Given Mueller's testimony before the 911 Commission that he had told Bush that Al-Qaeda was the biggest threat to US national security in the world, it is unlikely that the dismissing of the suspicion raised by Moussaoui was the result of official FBI policy.It is a virtual certainty that the "improper political considerations" cited by Crowley in her memo for what she tries not to call a "cover up" involved the negligence of Bush, Cheney and Rice in their dismissal of terrorism as a real threat. Add to this Clarke's testimony that in August of 2001, less than a month before the attacks, he and George Tenet were "running around the White House like men with our hair on fire" because of the big spike in Al-Qaeda intercepts and their translations, and its not likely that there was any official playing down of the threat either by the CIA or FBI. It simply fell on the deaf ears of Bush, Cheney and Rice who did absolutely nothing.
But this wasn't the only chance the Bush Administration had to prevent 911.
A year ago the media reported on George Tenet's statements that the intelligence coming to him in July 2001 pointing to a major Al-Qaeda attack was so disturbing he went to the White House for an emergency meeting with Rice. Rice was so dismissive at the time that when asked about the meeting in 2007 she said she couldn't even remember having it though White House logs show that in fact Tenet did have a meeting with her on the date in July that he claimed. Either she is lying or has a selective memory.
But the two most damning pieces of evidence against Bush, Rice and Cheney is theAugust 4th, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing and declassified in 2004) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" and an August CIA translation of an Al-Qaeda intercept which, when translated, indicated that there was going to be an imminent major attack against the United States and in the words of the CIA memo it was going to be "spectacular".
While the memo could not say where in the world this attack would take place, whether it would be against US interests overseas or in the US itself, the most important thing is that it was completely ignored by Bush and Rice. Together with the August 4th PDB about Bin Laden determined to strike in the United States one would have thought some alarm bells might have gone off and some precautions taken. Bush,Cheney and Rice did nothing.
Rice's flimsy defense of herself regarding the August 4th PDB was that it was, in her words, "a historical overview" of Al-Qaeda and didn't contain any actionable intelligence or specific threats. It's hard to imagine what part of the word "daily" in Presidential Daily Briefing Rice thought was history. Maybe she thought the CIA didn't have anyone smart enough to title a paper "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US: A Historical Overview" if that's what was intended. But on page 2 of that document (which can be found online) there was the mention of "30 current FBI investigations" into Al-Qaeda cells which were known to be in the United States. And as if that weren't enough, Rice's one time claim that they "had no idea Al-Qaeda was going to use airplanes as weapons", is totally undermined on page 2 of that PDB where the joint intelligence report says that Al-Qaeda planned to use hijacked airliners as part of their plan to strike inside the United States. This remember, was on August 4th 2001.
While it does not specifically say they would use those hijacked airliners as missiles, to use that as a defense puts Rice in the position of trying to make the argument that simply hijacking airliners and holding passengers hostage was nothing to get excited about and not actionable therefore she and Bush were not to blame for not knowing that Al-Qaeda would use them as missiles on Sept 11.
At the time of the 911 hearings, the press swallowed this explanation whole though Democrats on the committee didnt and were immediately labeled "partisan" by Republicans trying to do damage control.
But this is what was known before the attack: There were the warnings given to Bush by Clinton,Berger,the FBI, the CIA and Richard Clarke during the Presidential transition about the threat Al-Qaeda posed that Bush and Rice totally ignored. There was the Tenet meeting in July. And in August of 2001 not only was there the August 4th PDB, but Clarke testified that the spike in Al-Qaeda intercepts were the highest he had ever seen in 20 years of fighting terrorism, and the translations indicated a major Al-Qaeda attack against the US was imminent. So imminent that he testified that in mid August of 2001 he and George Tenet were "running around the White House like men with their hair on fire", trying to get Rice's attention and a meeting with Bush to warn him of the impending danger. Their requests for a meeting with Bush who was on vacation in Crawford were denied. And Rice took no action herself.
If Bush and Rice had taken the warnings seriously how simple would it have been to issue an urgent FAA alert to every major airline and airport in the country against possible hijackings by Middle Eastern men? How basic would it have been to issue those directives and warnings and put airline and airport security on alert to be watchful of Middle Eastern men and to report any suspicious behavior or red flags? And if they had, still another opportunity to prevent 911 had presented itself.
On the morning of September 11, Mohammed Atta and another of the 911 hijackers boarded a flight from the Portland Airport in Maine to Logan for the connecting flight to San Franciso. The ticket taker at the Maine airport was taken aback by the fact that the ticket was a $2500 one way ticket to San Francisco, the kind you get when you book your flight at the last minute. It immediately raised his eyebrows and his suspicions. As he told interviewers, "You dont see one of those ( a $2500 one way ticket) very often". And this was at the Maine airport, not a busy hub so Atta and the other hijacker stood out like sore thumbs to begin with. What would have happened if that clerk had gotten an FAA alert for a potential hijacking and to be aware of any suspicious activity by middle eastern men? What are the odds that an FAA alert, the fact that they were middle eastern and the $2500 ticket might have led to him making a call?
And if one wants to make the argument that no one knew exactly when those attacks would take place, and that an FAA alert against a hijacking couldnt be open ended, remember that all of the Al-Qaeda intercepts the CIA translated in August indicated the attack was imminent.
Bush, Cheney and Rice completely ignored these warnings because they didn't take terrorism seriously. That's why you see that stupid expression on Bush's face in that Florida schoolroom the morning of September 11th when he was told the news. He knew he had been wrong and now 3,000 Americans were paying for it with their lives and the country would be thrown into a convulsion.
When Bush came to office, his and the Republicans primary national security concern was getting out of the ABM treaty with Russia so they could re-start the Star Wars program Terorism was dismissed as a major threat. The Bush Administration believed the biggest threat to US national security in the world wasn't Al-Qaeda, but China. And unlike in the Clinton Administration where, according to Richard Clarke, terrorism was the number one national security priority, in the Bush White House, terrorism was virtually dismissed.
Not only was the gross negligence of Bush and Rice totally responsible for allowing the 911 attacks to occur, but thanks to timid Democrats, unpatriotic Republicans too afraid to speak out against a Republican President, and a cowed press who was afraid to hold Bush accountable for fear of being called unpatriotic by the Republicans, Bush, Rice and Cheney were off the hook and were actually able to promote themselves as the watchdogs and saviors of US National security and the leaders in the fight against terrorism when it was their failures that were responsible for the attacks being successful in the first place.
Instead it was open season on the intelligence agencies who, for all of the criticism sent their way, had in their possession and had developed enough intelligence to have prevented the 911 attacks had there been someone at the top who cared enough to take it all seriously..
Three weeks after the attacks Rice held a press conference, the purpose of which was to state that there was nothing they could have done to have prevented the attacks. All they had, she said, was this August 4th PDB and she outlined some of the things in it. Watching that press conference and hearing about that memo I almost fell out of my chair and said to myself, uh-oh, its all going to hit the fan now and Bush is going to get impeached. It wasn't until 5 years later that the press decided this failure on the part of Rice and Bush was news and there was a brief flurry of stories about that memo which quickly died down.
At that same press conference Rice's defense for why they couldn't have prevented 911 was that they didn't know the day or date, didn't know the names of the hijackers, didn't know the target and they didn't know they were going to use airliners as weapons.
The problem with that defense is that there wasn't a cab driver in America who couldn't have prevented 911 with that kind of information and one would think the President of the United States and his national security advisor could have done better. But the irony is most of that information was available and knowable if only Bush or Rice had cared enough to want to know.
And if the press had done their jobs, something we haven't seen in years, and held Bush, Cheney and Rice accountable for their mistakes in judgment, gross negligence and incompetence, even if Bush hadn't been impeached, he never would have had the political capital to invade Iraq, so the value of holding Bush accountable not only would have been a service to history and justice for the families of the people killed that day, it would have prevented all the huge mistakes that occurred since.
The gross incompetence of Bush and his whole administration became even more obvious with the unnecessary Iraq invasion. But unfortunately, when it came to Iraq, the majority of mass media failed to do their jobs again. And this pattern would continue for almost all of Bush's two terms. But it started during the hearings by the 911 Commission.
The truth that none of our institutions have wanted to face is, there were more than enough warnings and intelligence to have prevented 911 had there been an Administration competent enough to act on it, and responsible enough to take it seriously. Bush was neither.
Ever since 911 there has been, as Agent Rowley suggested, a cover-up to keep the truth from being told,. a conspiracy of silence by those who simply felt it better not to have to deal with the whole truth and hold Bush and his administration accountable because it was almost as awful as the attacks themselves. So. instead we heard that the reason for 911 were intelligence failures by the intelligence community. But the only real intelligence failures with regards to 911 occurred at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
How Bush, Cheney policies killed 3000 on 9/11
And the evidence of Bush's negligence is this:
During the transition period in January of 2001, Bush had a face to face meeting with then President Clinton in which Clinton told him that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. During the same transition period Bush and Rice met face to face with outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger where Berger told both Bush and Rice that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And to emphasize the point Berger told them the threat from Al-Qaeda was so great he predicted that the Bush Administration would spend more time dealing with Al-Qaeda than any other single issue during Bush's entire presidency.
Continuing during the transition period in January of 2001, Bush was given the usual national security briefings at Blair House given to all presidents-elect by the CIA and FBI. At the CIA briefing, George Tenet and the CIA told Bush that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the single biggest threats to US national security in the world. And in the national security briefing from the FBI, Bush again was told that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were the biggest threats to US national security in the world.
When Bush finally took office the first thing he did regarding terrorism was demote Richard Clarke the anti-terrorism czar who served for 20 years under four Presidents from a cabinet level position to a sub cabinet level position.
The reason? Bush, Cheney and Rice as well as the Republicans in general didn't believe terrorism was the threat the Clinton Administration had told them it was. It was the Republicans who accused Clinton of a Wag the Dog ploy when Clinton, acting on CIA intelligence, launched a missile barrage at Bin Laden and an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in retaliation for some terrorist attacks overseas. The Republicans led by Orin Hatch roundly accused Clinton of using a Wag the Dog ploy to take the heat and attention off his Monica Lewinsky problem.
The next thing Bush did after taking office with regards to terrorism, according to Richard Clarke's testimony before the 911 Commission and stated in his book, was to disband what Clarke called the Principals Meeting. As Clarke described it, in the Clinton administration there was a daily meeting chaired by Clarke and attended by relevant cabinet heads who had a role in fighting terrorism: Janet Reno, the Attorney General, Bob Mueller, the director of the FBI, George Tenet at CIA, and directors of ATF,Immigration and other departments directly involved in anti-terrorism.
According to Clarke, the latest intelligence regarding terrorism collected by each agency in the previous 24 hours was shared among the heads of all the agencies present. ( The 911 Commission found during the Bush Administration there was a lack of sharing of intelligence -- but in keeping with their promise not to fix blame they never stated the obvious -- that Bush's discontinuing of the Principals Meeting was a major contributing factor ).
Clarke testified that after each of these meetings, the heads of these agencies would go back to their respective departments and in his words, "shake the trees" for the latest information on terrorism developed over the last 24 hours and then present it at the next meeting. If this had this been allowed to continue this alone could have prevented 911.
The first piece of evidence supporting this is the famous Phoenix Memo. An FBI agent in Phoenix had been called by the owner of a Phoenix flying school who was suspicious of two new students. What made him suspicious was that the two flying students were both middle eastern men who wanted to learn how to fly jumbo jets but curiously didn't want to learn how to take off or land. They were also paying for their flying lessons with cash. One of those two men was Mohammed Atta.
The FBI agent agreed the activity was suspicious and wrote up a report. But the report was never sent up the ladder and never reached FBI Headquarters in Washington. Under the old process during the Clinton Administration where terrorism had the highest priority, that information would have been sent right to the top and would have been something Mueller would have shared with Clarke and the others at the Principles Meeting. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what Clarke, Reno and Mueller would have done with this information.
From that moment on, Atta and all of his associates wouldn't have been able to sneeze without the FBI knowing about it. They would have been under surveillance 24 hours a day. Their phones would have been tapped. The plot undeniably would have been discovered and 911 would have been prevented with this one piece of information alone.
But there was more. There was the Minneapolis Memo that finally came to light and resulted in the prosecution,after the fact, of Moussaoui. But Collen Rowley, the FBI agent most familiar with the Moussaoui case and how it could have prevented 911 wrote this in her memo to FBI director Mueller after the attacks:
"I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mischaracterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons:( italics mine)."
She went on to say,
"The Minneapolis agents who responded to the call about Moussaoui's flight training identified him as a terrorist threat from a very early point. The decision to take him into custody on August 15, 2001, on the INS "overstay" charge was a deliberate one to counter that threat and was based on the agents' reasonable suspicions."
Her memo continued, "Although the last thing the FBI or the country needs now is a witch hunt, I do find it odd that (to my knowledge) no inquiry whatsoever was launched of the relevant FBIHQ personnel's actions a long time ago. Despite FBI leaders' full knowledge of all the items mentioned herein (and probably more that I'm unaware of),
And this:
"In the day or two following September 11th, you, Director Mueller, made the statement to the effect that if the FBI had only had any advance warning of the attacks, we (meaning the FBI), may have been able to take some action to prevent the tragedy. Fearing that this statement could easily come back to haunt the FBI upon revelation of the information that had been developed pre-September 11th about Moussaoui, I and others in the Minneapolis Office, immediately sought to reach your office through an assortment of higher level FBIHQ contacts, in order to quickly make you aware of the background of the Moussaoui investigation and forewarn you so that your public statements could be accordingly modified. When such statements from you and other FBI officials continued, we thought that somehow you had not received the message and we made further efforts. Finally when similar comments were made weeks later, in Assistant Director Caruso's congressional testimony in response to the first public leaks about Moussaoui we faced the sad realization that the remarks indicated someone, possibly with your approval, had decided to circle the wagons"
You can read the entire memo here.
The fact is there was enough known well before the 911 attacks to have prevented it. Under the authority given Richard Clarke in the Clinton Administration and the priority terrorism was given as a serious threat to US national security, that information would have been sent to the highest levels of government and it is virtually impossible that it would have been ignored by Clarke, Tenet and the others had they known about it.
Given Mueller's testimony before the 911 Commission that he had told Bush that Al-Qaeda was the biggest threat to US national security in the world, it is unlikely that the dismissing of the suspicion raised by Moussaoui was the result of official FBI policy.It is a virtual certainty that the "improper political considerations" cited by Crowley in her memo for what she tries not to call a "cover up" involved the negligence of Bush, Cheney and Rice in their dismissal of terrorism as a real threat. Add to this Clarke's testimony that in August of 2001, less than a month before the attacks, he and George Tenet were "running around the White House like men with our hair on fire" because of the big spike in Al-Qaeda intercepts and their translations, and its not likely that there was any official playing down of the threat either by the CIA or FBI. It simply fell on the deaf ears of Bush, Cheney and Rice who did absolutely nothing.
But this wasn't the only chance the Bush Administration had to prevent 911.
A year ago the media reported on George Tenet's statements that the intelligence coming to him in July 2001 pointing to a major Al-Qaeda attack was so disturbing he went to the White House for an emergency meeting with Rice. Rice was so dismissive at the time that when asked about the meeting in 2007 she said she couldn't even remember having it though White House logs show that in fact Tenet did have a meeting with her on the date in July that he claimed. Either she is lying or has a selective memory.
But the two most damning pieces of evidence against Bush, Rice and Cheney is theAugust 4th, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing and declassified in 2004) entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Within the United States" and an August CIA translation of an Al-Qaeda intercept which, when translated, indicated that there was going to be an imminent major attack against the United States and in the words of the CIA memo it was going to be "spectacular".
While the memo could not say where in the world this attack would take place, whether it would be against US interests overseas or in the US itself, the most important thing is that it was completely ignored by Bush and Rice. Together with the August 4th PDB about Bin Laden determined to strike in the United States one would have thought some alarm bells might have gone off and some precautions taken. Bush,Cheney and Rice did nothing.
Rice's flimsy defense of herself regarding the August 4th PDB was that it was, in her words, "a historical overview" of Al-Qaeda and didn't contain any actionable intelligence or specific threats. It's hard to imagine what part of the word "daily" in Presidential Daily Briefing Rice thought was history. Maybe she thought the CIA didn't have anyone smart enough to title a paper "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within the US: A Historical Overview" if that's what was intended. But on page 2 of that document (which can be found online) there was the mention of "30 current FBI investigations" into Al-Qaeda cells which were known to be in the United States. And as if that weren't enough, Rice's one time claim that they "had no idea Al-Qaeda was going to use airplanes as weapons", is totally undermined on page 2 of that PDB where the joint intelligence report says that Al-Qaeda planned to use hijacked airliners as part of their plan to strike inside the United States. This remember, was on August 4th 2001.
While it does not specifically say they would use those hijacked airliners as missiles, to use that as a defense puts Rice in the position of trying to make the argument that simply hijacking airliners and holding passengers hostage was nothing to get excited about and not actionable therefore she and Bush were not to blame for not knowing that Al-Qaeda would use them as missiles on Sept 11.
At the time of the 911 hearings, the press swallowed this explanation whole though Democrats on the committee didnt and were immediately labeled "partisan" by Republicans trying to do damage control.
But this is what was known before the attack: There were the warnings given to Bush by Clinton,Berger,the FBI, the CIA and Richard Clarke during the Presidential transition about the threat Al-Qaeda posed that Bush and Rice totally ignored. There was the Tenet meeting in July. And in August of 2001 not only was there the August 4th PDB, but Clarke testified that the spike in Al-Qaeda intercepts were the highest he had ever seen in 20 years of fighting terrorism, and the translations indicated a major Al-Qaeda attack against the US was imminent. So imminent that he testified that in mid August of 2001 he and George Tenet were "running around the White House like men with their hair on fire", trying to get Rice's attention and a meeting with Bush to warn him of the impending danger. Their requests for a meeting with Bush who was on vacation in Crawford were denied. And Rice took no action herself.
If Bush and Rice had taken the warnings seriously how simple would it have been to issue an urgent FAA alert to every major airline and airport in the country against possible hijackings by Middle Eastern men? How basic would it have been to issue those directives and warnings and put airline and airport security on alert to be watchful of Middle Eastern men and to report any suspicious behavior or red flags? And if they had, still another opportunity to prevent 911 had presented itself.
On the morning of September 11, Mohammed Atta and another of the 911 hijackers boarded a flight from the Portland Airport in Maine to Logan for the connecting flight to San Franciso. The ticket taker at the Maine airport was taken aback by the fact that the ticket was a $2500 one way ticket to San Francisco, the kind you get when you book your flight at the last minute. It immediately raised his eyebrows and his suspicions. As he told interviewers, "You dont see one of those ( a $2500 one way ticket) very often". And this was at the Maine airport, not a busy hub so Atta and the other hijacker stood out like sore thumbs to begin with. What would have happened if that clerk had gotten an FAA alert for a potential hijacking and to be aware of any suspicious activity by middle eastern men? What are the odds that an FAA alert, the fact that they were middle eastern and the $2500 ticket might have led to him making a call?
And if one wants to make the argument that no one knew exactly when those attacks would take place, and that an FAA alert against a hijacking couldnt be open ended, remember that all of the Al-Qaeda intercepts the CIA translated in August indicated the attack was imminent.
Bush, Cheney and Rice completely ignored these warnings because they didn't take terrorism seriously. That's why you see that stupid expression on Bush's face in that Florida schoolroom the morning of September 11th when he was told the news. He knew he had been wrong and now 3,000 Americans were paying for it with their lives and the country would be thrown into a convulsion.
When Bush came to office, his and the Republicans primary national security concern was getting out of the ABM treaty with Russia so they could re-start the Star Wars program Terorism was dismissed as a major threat. The Bush Administration believed the biggest threat to US national security in the world wasn't Al-Qaeda, but China. And unlike in the Clinton Administration where, according to Richard Clarke, terrorism was the number one national security priority, in the Bush White House, terrorism was virtually dismissed.
Not only was the gross negligence of Bush and Rice totally responsible for allowing the 911 attacks to occur, but thanks to timid Democrats, unpatriotic Republicans too afraid to speak out against a Republican President, and a cowed press who was afraid to hold Bush accountable for fear of being called unpatriotic by the Republicans, Bush, Rice and Cheney were off the hook and were actually able to promote themselves as the watchdogs and saviors of US National security and the leaders in the fight against terrorism when it was their failures that were responsible for the attacks being successful in the first place.
Instead it was open season on the intelligence agencies who, for all of the criticism sent their way, had in their possession and had developed enough intelligence to have prevented the 911 attacks had there been someone at the top who cared enough to take it all seriously..
Three weeks after the attacks Rice held a press conference, the purpose of which was to state that there was nothing they could have done to have prevented the attacks. All they had, she said, was this August 4th PDB and she outlined some of the things in it. Watching that press conference and hearing about that memo I almost fell out of my chair and said to myself, uh-oh, its all going to hit the fan now and Bush is going to get impeached. It wasn't until 5 years later that the press decided this failure on the part of Rice and Bush was news and there was a brief flurry of stories about that memo which quickly died down.
At that same press conference Rice's defense for why they couldn't have prevented 911 was that they didn't know the day or date, didn't know the names of the hijackers, didn't know the target and they didn't know they were going to use airliners as weapons.
The problem with that defense is that there wasn't a cab driver in America who couldn't have prevented 911 with that kind of information and one would think the President of the United States and his national security advisor could have done better. But the irony is most of that information was available and knowable if only Bush or Rice had cared enough to want to know.
And if the press had done their jobs, something we haven't seen in years, and held Bush, Cheney and Rice accountable for their mistakes in judgment, gross negligence and incompetence, even if Bush hadn't been impeached, he never would have had the political capital to invade Iraq, so the value of holding Bush accountable not only would have been a service to history and justice for the families of the people killed that day, it would have prevented all the huge mistakes that occurred since.
The gross incompetence of Bush and his whole administration became even more obvious with the unnecessary Iraq invasion. But unfortunately, when it came to Iraq, the majority of mass media failed to do their jobs again. And this pattern would continue for almost all of Bush's two terms. But it started during the hearings by the 911 Commission.
The truth that none of our institutions have wanted to face is, there were more than enough warnings and intelligence to have prevented 911 had there been an Administration competent enough to act on it, and responsible enough to take it seriously. Bush was neither.
Ever since 911 there has been, as Agent Rowley suggested, a cover-up to keep the truth from being told,. a conspiracy of silence by those who simply felt it better not to have to deal with the whole truth and hold Bush and his administration accountable because it was almost as awful as the attacks themselves. So. instead we heard that the reason for 911 were intelligence failures by the intelligence community. But the only real intelligence failures with regards to 911 occurred at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
From the bushfamily perspective
NOTHING FAILED ON 9/11
It went down 100% the way it had been planned
and having W out of the way in Florida was a great alibi
there was NO neglegence, because everything happened from Step A to Step Z (the WTC was probably Step H or I or J) was 100% of what they wanted
and Bush left office 100% perfect too. he could not have left a bigger mess for anyone to clean up, hwoever, there was NO mess or mystery to the Bush family.
It was all signed, sealed, delivered. Perfecto.
pity da fool who thinks otherwise and perpetuates such a lie, the same as which says the Holocaust didn't happen.
NOTHING FAILED ON 9/11
It went down 100% the way it had been planned
and having W out of the way in Florida was a great alibi
there was NO neglegence, because everything happened from Step A to Step Z (the WTC was probably Step H or I or J) was 100% of what they wanted
and Bush left office 100% perfect too. he could not have left a bigger mess for anyone to clean up, hwoever, there was NO mess or mystery to the Bush family.
It was all signed, sealed, delivered. Perfecto.
pity da fool who thinks otherwise and perpetuates such a lie, the same as which says the Holocaust didn't happen.
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Sep 21 2009, 11:52 PM)
Posts #1-8 are too long, detailed and complex to warrant a quick and possibly flippant response; any response would require additional time, analysis and homework.
Post #9, however, wherein Tazvil reacts to some of my points, can be addressed to some extent, though some of its issues will need to be pursued in depth at a later time as well.
Here's my immediate reaction.
Inside my summary statement, which he requested, probably so he could speciously try to pick it apart as he has done, Taz suggested snarkily that I know what I stated about the 9/11 Commission because I was there. Of course, Taz, I was the fellow in the fourth row, always wearing a blue suit that looked a size small, with a red and blue tie over a white shirt; don't you remember seeing me during the televised hearings?
You asked for a summary statement; I gave you a summary statement. I "know this" because I have read much of the analysis, most especially(but not exclusively) in Griffin's books. There are books emerging even as we speak, though it remains to be seen just what angle these will take and what they will reveal, not reveal, or obfuscate.
I appreciate your summary...now just because I appreciate it does not mean I agree with it...
And, yes, I did read the report (both volumes), though I don't have a copy of it on my shelves. Nor do I own all of Griffin's books, though I have read many of them; it seems that you have not. Perhaps I should make the investment to buy used copies of them all, and utilize my scanner and voice recognition software to quote long passages. (Richard Ben Veniste was right; libraries are available and useful). If you have them all and have read them, let me know, and give me a few weeks to order and re-acquaint myself with it all, and then we can do a point-by-point, page-by-page taxonomy (with guest appearances by your allies and mine).
Do what you feel you must...I have stated Dr. Griffin could be right...but we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time...
And as far as allies...I think I am alone on this...as far as I can tell...
Tazman [it's a term of endearment because you have managed, among few, to remain here at CGCS over the duration, which says volumes about you and your perseverance, and it's a tip of the cap to that perseverance and ferocity by hinting at a Tasmanian quality seen in certain cartoon characters ... ] ....
Tazvil, as you prefer, you have questioned me about the "forensic" quality of the investigation. By forensic, I didn't mean the medical forensics of victim recovery, though we know that was difficult, incomplete, and can be questioned on a number of fronts. (A full discussion of that alone would require another thread or two. But that's not what I was referring to.)
Indeed it would...and mistakes were made and in the interests of closure...many loose ends were not tied up...and that is unfortunate, but millions of dollars were being spent...and do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?
What I meant by forensic was simply the overall nature of the investigation, the application of forensic science, the use of evidentiary rules of a legal nature, etc. It is my sense (and we could pick this apart in detail if you'd like-- perhaps through the creation of a taxonomy or a concept map) that there are holes in the process that are big enough to drive convoys of trucks through them.
That may be...but I guess you have yet to answer one of my primary questions...what do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...
Do you deny that the planes were occupied by members of al Qaeda?
They entered the planes and they took action...we have audiotape of them shouting orders...it sounds to me like they were hijacking the planes...
But you disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?
Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?
After all, we do have the audio I mentioned from Flight 93 which crashed in PA...sounded to me like there were terrorists on board...
So, we have al Qaeda hijacking the planes -- and we have a PDB which on August 6 outlines that there is a threat from al Qaeda AND we have Richard Clarke and George Tenet telling us that there was a lot of chatter regarding an attack...from al Qaeda -- but you assume that Clarke is lying as well....
Just who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go...there have to be some persons besides Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld involved...that had to execute the plan...
Tazvil has suggested that it would have required "several more years" of on-scene work in a dangerous environment but some assiduous process of representative sampling and evidence preservation worthy of the murder of 3,000 people might have been of value.
You deny this? That it would have likely have taken years more to adequately conduct the forensic research that you feel was necessary?
If you disagree...what is your timetable...
Instead, there was a concerted effort to keep people away, especially those with cameras, and we won't even mention the harassment of the FEMA videographer whose testimony and footage may be -- well, pardon the pun -- explosive. And in many cases the physical or visual records (to say nothing of the black boxes) have disappeared behind the walls of official state secrecy.
Oh come on...8 years ago he took video and he has not released any of it yet...
There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....
Ironically, some of the scientific evidence presented by the Truthers has apparently and presumably been sampled and preserved in a way that meets scientific and legal evidentiary criteria [the debunkers would be correct in asking for proof of same, and perhaps that will emerge as necessary in time], and it is this very evidence that has the debunkers, the cover-up squad and likely the culprits nervous as hell.
At a minimum...I think they have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim...
Tazvil asks "What were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?", thereby indicating the weaknesses of the actual investigations which are in dispute... the 9/11 Commission, and most notably the NIST stuff ...
I don't expect it to prove anything; I simply want to establish a large database of verifiable data which will stand up to scientific inquiry and legal challenge and from which we can then begin to formulate one or more hypotheses.
So, you seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened.
Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself...
That's good scientific approach; the development of the findings and then poking through the debris to find the evidence to support that finding is precisely what the 9/11 Commission tried to do, and what NIST did for so long until it had to acknowledge some of its failures and argumentative weakness which bordered on scientific fraud.
Yes, well hasn't that evidence been destroyed by now? So, wouldn't that make the "truth" you are looking for impossible to find?
And if the evidence is indeed gone...then you and the other truthers will never secure the proof that you believe exists... which is why I say -- what is the point...
What 9/11 truthers have done for the most part is to ask a series of questions (whose core now exceeds 250) for which the "official story" and its scant available evidence do not provide logical coherence or consistency. This is addressed in one or more of Griffin's books and, if you hang around long enough, I shall quote chapter and verse. Or you could dial up one of the many videos of his talks and presentations that are out there on this system of tubes and nets we're on.
This is true...this is what they and Dr. GRiffin have done...they have poked holes in the "official" story...
BUt even if one concedes that the official story has holes in it that does not mean that it was an inside job by the US government...you must concede this...
Tazvil asks "Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?", and I answer most certainly... I want legal and judicial justice and certitude.
Do you realize that there is no such thing as legal and judicial justice and certitude in our or any society...we cannot know the truth of an event once it has occurred...unless we could recreate it which we cannot do...all research can do is give us a hypothetical of what we believe happened...this is all a jury does...it examines the evidence and makes an approximation based on that evidence of what happened...this is what the 9/11 Commission did...it made an approximation of what occurred...it may have been wrong in some areas...but that does not mean that there was anything short of additional incompetence involved...
So, you and the truthers are engaged in a useless exercise....because it is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve the legal and judicial justice and certitude you are seeking...
I know of no trial and even few scientific research that has developed in its conclusion a legal and judicial justice and certitude...it just does not happen...
The government needs to prove its conspiracy theory;
The government has...its known as the 9.11 commission report...and teh NIST report...etc.
there are simply other alternative hypotheses in the absence of clear proof and actual scientific and legally-valid evidence.
In many scientific examinations there are alternatives...and scientists often engage in making their best guess...it does not sound scientific but it does happen...but you and the truthers seem to want to suggest some nefarious intent without any evidence to support same...except that elements of the official story may not be correct...
The truth critics call them conspiracy theories, but the "official story" is every bit a "conspiracy theory" that theorizes that 19 specific people did the deed (but they can't produce the records of those people -- some of them are allegedly still alive).
Yes...and the truthers -- their conjecture isn't a CT at all...
Who is the prosecutor in the case, and where is the evidence? [Ah, maybe it's with JFK's brain, huh?}
Because the government has hidden the evidence, delayed the investigation, underfunded the investigation, manipulated the process, pre-written the conclusions, tried the case in the media, and refuses to acknowledge questions or weaknesses, it makes them a prime suspect in the case, or at least suspect.
The government could be in the midst of still conducting this examination...to what end? To know the absolute infintersimal truth of ever element...spending millions more...of the taxpater dollars...for what purpose? toward what end? your legal and judicial justice and certitude...
The reality is that the truthers WILL NEVER be satisfied with ANY explanation...
One has to ask what or who is being protected. Official state secrecy? Government intelligence procedures? Balderdash.
[b]Well, that is sure a convincing argument...
It is an insult to the people -- the sovereign people -- to suggest that. It is suspiciously like the acts of a guilty party trying to protect itself or some part of itself. That the government will not investigate and prosecute according to its own existent legal processes and standards is a joke on the American system of jurisprudence and law and a slap in the face to the American citizen.[/b] I'm sure you've heard (or can look up) that old famous Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark.
Prosecute who?
The hijackers are dead...or you and the truthers suggest that government should prosecute itself in your CT?
Here, by the way, is the search of the History Commons 9/11 timeline using the search phrase "WTC forensic". Have at it.
I won't address the bin Laden question here; it's too complex, too fraught with mystery and speculation. It requires an extended venue. (Wait! Someone's written a book on the subject; but it's one of the ones I haven't read yet.) But the question does beg itself deeply and widely...
Tazvil asks me to provide support for this statement: "Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored." Indeed, this is the meat of the matter, so I will defer answering that in detail now. Again, whole books have been written... Yes, it is supportable, has been supported and, perhaps in time, I will offer up selected passages from places that will make the case. But the case has been made to a very great extent... at least to the point that Time magazine called the 9/11 truth movement a "mainstream political reality".
Yes, well the Ku Klux Klan for a while was a mainstream political reality as well and so was the Nazi Party in the US...we have a lot of these in our country -- they come and go...you might also call in some western and rural states different militias mainstream political reality...that does not mean that they are credible...only that there is a following...
Tazvil is going to have to deal with and accept that fact and it seems like others are going to have to do it as well; WeAreChange is busy scaring the pants off of folks by presenting the evidence and mentioning something called "misprision of treason".
I have no trouble accepting the fact that people throughout out country spend their time in increasingly...how shall I say it...creative ways....going around and around in circiles...
Similarly, Tazvil asks me to document the statement "Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]" As above... Indeed, and in time... but meanwhile the readers of this thread and its cousins can go ahead and look at the evidence, read the books, weigh the arguments, etc. Debunkers, whether officially employed or not, are not the sole "jurors" in this case.
Tazvil states "we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these people is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?" but Tazvil
-- fails to acknowledge the depth and intensity of the propaganda-fueled fervor,
the truther progaganda is deep...very deep...I acknowledge that....and fervor...I would go so far as to call it hysteria...
-- does not acknowledge the pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" called on by the media to comment [some of whom were perhaps somewhat complicit in the crimes] [topped off, of course, by Jerome Hauer and Harley-Man],
demonstrate the prejudgment..you talk a lot about what tazvil asks for...but you provide very little in response...
-- does not acknowledge the presence of the intimidation [remember the mailed anthrax, Taz?],
the government was behind the mailing of the antrax now too?
-- does not acknowledge the record of legislators' blackmail that continues to emerge,
OK...show me some evidence of this...more wild conjecture...
-- does not acknowledge the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both, or any awareness or acknowledgement of the knowledge and research that has been done into black ops operations and techniques, history, etc.
I will readily acknowledge this when you can demonstrate that these interests had anything at all to do with 9/11...
[Google Peter Dale Scott, Alfred McCoy, read the Iran-Contra tales, and numerous other reporters, historians, journalists ...]
Perhaps you are unaware of it, or perhaps you don't wish to acknowledge it, or perhaps you fear it, or perhaps you simply need to deny it for a variety of reasons. I understand this, Taz, and I've been there and talked with a range of people about it. You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.
No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...
"Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. ... And that is what keeps him out of the abyss."
Keep searching...
And, please, Tazvil... lay off the "conspiracism" crap... you know I can and will rebut it if and when necessary and you know -- or ought to know--- that the "psychology" angle can be countered, and that its argument has already been hijacked.
Gosh, almost any minute now, you're going to pull out the False Memory Syndrome stuff and start slopping the walls here with that.
"The event was forecast?
When and by who?
Millions of people have died as a result?
What are you talking about?
You must be talking about Iraq and Afghanistan...and there is no evidence that I am aware of that millions of people have died in the two wars... "
Yes, the event was forecast. Specifically, I refer to the PNAC document, the "Grand Chessboard" theories and statements [do I need to actually quote this stuff to you, or you yanking my chain some more?], and my own experience and personal concerns, expressed along with the lyrics to the jazz standard "For All We Know" in an e-mail to my daughter, a grad student at Adelphi, on 9/10/01 [she was the one who alerted me to the event the next morning].
Oh come on...Magmak1...I am trying to have a serious conversation with you on this stuff...well semi-serious anyway....and now you want to make the case that soem unspecified event in the Grand Chessboard theories could allow us to move forward with the neocon vision...well how hard is that to do....so suggest that in order to make our neocon vision a reality we actually need some event...
How specific was this prediction Magmak1?
Not very was it...
I also expressly refer to that which can be found over at the History Commons 9/11 timeline where they already have pre-sorted categories for "insider trading/foreknowledge" (47 entries), the military exercises (46 entries), warning signs (415 entries), and Warning Signs: Specific Cases: Foreign Intelligence Warnings (30), Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB (39), and Presidential Level Warnings (30).
Go read through them; I have.
I have...sounds like gross incompetence from an Anything But Clinton arrogant Bush Soviet-centric mindset...
The warnings were simultaneously ignored while exercises were built to prepare for them, said exercises used by the exercise maestro to determine the weaknesses of the system so it could be defeated, hijacked, or subverted. [I am NIMS-certified in exercise design and have personal and professional experience in the field as well as in the field of simulation design.] This was written about by me years ago; I'm sure you've found it. If not, google "Cheney OODA" and spend some companionable time learning about Boyd's works.
As for the millions of deaths, I appreciate that this is a controversial subject and agree that people tend to throw around numbers wildly, and that high estimates are greatly contested by US government authorities and supporters (but then it's in their interests to do so, yes?), Still, there have been sources... a Johns Hopkins study was noted at one time, as well as British studies, and the work of Nafeez Ahmed:
To refute the truth abut genocide delivered at the hands of the Anglo-American imperial machine is easy if you don't look, but we could argue about that for decades while more die, so I'll just say "war is hell" and move on to the next thread.
Post #9, however, wherein Tazvil reacts to some of my points, can be addressed to some extent, though some of its issues will need to be pursued in depth at a later time as well.
Here's my immediate reaction.
Inside my summary statement, which he requested, probably so he could speciously try to pick it apart as he has done, Taz suggested snarkily that I know what I stated about the 9/11 Commission because I was there. Of course, Taz, I was the fellow in the fourth row, always wearing a blue suit that looked a size small, with a red and blue tie over a white shirt; don't you remember seeing me during the televised hearings?
You asked for a summary statement; I gave you a summary statement. I "know this" because I have read much of the analysis, most especially(but not exclusively) in Griffin's books. There are books emerging even as we speak, though it remains to be seen just what angle these will take and what they will reveal, not reveal, or obfuscate.
I appreciate your summary...now just because I appreciate it does not mean I agree with it...
And, yes, I did read the report (both volumes), though I don't have a copy of it on my shelves. Nor do I own all of Griffin's books, though I have read many of them; it seems that you have not. Perhaps I should make the investment to buy used copies of them all, and utilize my scanner and voice recognition software to quote long passages. (Richard Ben Veniste was right; libraries are available and useful). If you have them all and have read them, let me know, and give me a few weeks to order and re-acquaint myself with it all, and then we can do a point-by-point, page-by-page taxonomy (with guest appearances by your allies and mine).
Do what you feel you must...I have stated Dr. Griffin could be right...but we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time...
And as far as allies...I think I am alone on this...as far as I can tell...
Tazman [it's a term of endearment because you have managed, among few, to remain here at CGCS over the duration, which says volumes about you and your perseverance, and it's a tip of the cap to that perseverance and ferocity by hinting at a Tasmanian quality seen in certain cartoon characters ... ] ....
Tazvil, as you prefer, you have questioned me about the "forensic" quality of the investigation. By forensic, I didn't mean the medical forensics of victim recovery, though we know that was difficult, incomplete, and can be questioned on a number of fronts. (A full discussion of that alone would require another thread or two. But that's not what I was referring to.)
Indeed it would...and mistakes were made and in the interests of closure...many loose ends were not tied up...and that is unfortunate, but millions of dollars were being spent...and do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?
What I meant by forensic was simply the overall nature of the investigation, the application of forensic science, the use of evidentiary rules of a legal nature, etc. It is my sense (and we could pick this apart in detail if you'd like-- perhaps through the creation of a taxonomy or a concept map) that there are holes in the process that are big enough to drive convoys of trucks through them.
That may be...but I guess you have yet to answer one of my primary questions...what do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...
Do you deny that the planes were occupied by members of al Qaeda?
They entered the planes and they took action...we have audiotape of them shouting orders...it sounds to me like they were hijacking the planes...
But you disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?
Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?
After all, we do have the audio I mentioned from Flight 93 which crashed in PA...sounded to me like there were terrorists on board...
So, we have al Qaeda hijacking the planes -- and we have a PDB which on August 6 outlines that there is a threat from al Qaeda AND we have Richard Clarke and George Tenet telling us that there was a lot of chatter regarding an attack...from al Qaeda -- but you assume that Clarke is lying as well....
Just who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go...there have to be some persons besides Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld involved...that had to execute the plan...
Tazvil has suggested that it would have required "several more years" of on-scene work in a dangerous environment but some assiduous process of representative sampling and evidence preservation worthy of the murder of 3,000 people might have been of value.
You deny this? That it would have likely have taken years more to adequately conduct the forensic research that you feel was necessary?
If you disagree...what is your timetable...
Instead, there was a concerted effort to keep people away, especially those with cameras, and we won't even mention the harassment of the FEMA videographer whose testimony and footage may be -- well, pardon the pun -- explosive. And in many cases the physical or visual records (to say nothing of the black boxes) have disappeared behind the walls of official state secrecy.
Oh come on...8 years ago he took video and he has not released any of it yet...
There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....
Ironically, some of the scientific evidence presented by the Truthers has apparently and presumably been sampled and preserved in a way that meets scientific and legal evidentiary criteria [the debunkers would be correct in asking for proof of same, and perhaps that will emerge as necessary in time], and it is this very evidence that has the debunkers, the cover-up squad and likely the culprits nervous as hell.
At a minimum...I think they have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim...
Tazvil asks "What were you hoping such an inquiry would prove?", thereby indicating the weaknesses of the actual investigations which are in dispute... the 9/11 Commission, and most notably the NIST stuff ...
I don't expect it to prove anything; I simply want to establish a large database of verifiable data which will stand up to scientific inquiry and legal challenge and from which we can then begin to formulate one or more hypotheses.
So, you seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened.
Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself...
That's good scientific approach; the development of the findings and then poking through the debris to find the evidence to support that finding is precisely what the 9/11 Commission tried to do, and what NIST did for so long until it had to acknowledge some of its failures and argumentative weakness which bordered on scientific fraud.
Yes, well hasn't that evidence been destroyed by now? So, wouldn't that make the "truth" you are looking for impossible to find?
And if the evidence is indeed gone...then you and the other truthers will never secure the proof that you believe exists... which is why I say -- what is the point...
What 9/11 truthers have done for the most part is to ask a series of questions (whose core now exceeds 250) for which the "official story" and its scant available evidence do not provide logical coherence or consistency. This is addressed in one or more of Griffin's books and, if you hang around long enough, I shall quote chapter and verse. Or you could dial up one of the many videos of his talks and presentations that are out there on this system of tubes and nets we're on.
This is true...this is what they and Dr. GRiffin have done...they have poked holes in the "official" story...
BUt even if one concedes that the official story has holes in it that does not mean that it was an inside job by the US government...you must concede this...
Tazvil asks "Do you really think that the government needed to do a complete forensic inquiry here?", and I answer most certainly... I want legal and judicial justice and certitude.
Do you realize that there is no such thing as legal and judicial justice and certitude in our or any society...we cannot know the truth of an event once it has occurred...unless we could recreate it which we cannot do...all research can do is give us a hypothetical of what we believe happened...this is all a jury does...it examines the evidence and makes an approximation based on that evidence of what happened...this is what the 9/11 Commission did...it made an approximation of what occurred...it may have been wrong in some areas...but that does not mean that there was anything short of additional incompetence involved...
So, you and the truthers are engaged in a useless exercise....because it is IMPOSSIBLE to achieve the legal and judicial justice and certitude you are seeking...
I know of no trial and even few scientific research that has developed in its conclusion a legal and judicial justice and certitude...it just does not happen...
The government needs to prove its conspiracy theory;
The government has...its known as the 9.11 commission report...and teh NIST report...etc.
there are simply other alternative hypotheses in the absence of clear proof and actual scientific and legally-valid evidence.
In many scientific examinations there are alternatives...and scientists often engage in making their best guess...it does not sound scientific but it does happen...but you and the truthers seem to want to suggest some nefarious intent without any evidence to support same...except that elements of the official story may not be correct...
The truth critics call them conspiracy theories, but the "official story" is every bit a "conspiracy theory" that theorizes that 19 specific people did the deed (but they can't produce the records of those people -- some of them are allegedly still alive).
Yes...and the truthers -- their conjecture isn't a CT at all...
Who is the prosecutor in the case, and where is the evidence? [Ah, maybe it's with JFK's brain, huh?}
Because the government has hidden the evidence, delayed the investigation, underfunded the investigation, manipulated the process, pre-written the conclusions, tried the case in the media, and refuses to acknowledge questions or weaknesses, it makes them a prime suspect in the case, or at least suspect.
The government could be in the midst of still conducting this examination...to what end? To know the absolute infintersimal truth of ever element...spending millions more...of the taxpater dollars...for what purpose? toward what end? your legal and judicial justice and certitude...
The reality is that the truthers WILL NEVER be satisfied with ANY explanation...
One has to ask what or who is being protected. Official state secrecy? Government intelligence procedures? Balderdash.
[b]Well, that is sure a convincing argument...
It is an insult to the people -- the sovereign people -- to suggest that. It is suspiciously like the acts of a guilty party trying to protect itself or some part of itself. That the government will not investigate and prosecute according to its own existent legal processes and standards is a joke on the American system of jurisprudence and law and a slap in the face to the American citizen.[/b] I'm sure you've heard (or can look up) that old famous Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn't bark.
Prosecute who?
The hijackers are dead...or you and the truthers suggest that government should prosecute itself in your CT?
Here, by the way, is the search of the History Commons 9/11 timeline using the search phrase "WTC forensic". Have at it.
I won't address the bin Laden question here; it's too complex, too fraught with mystery and speculation. It requires an extended venue. (Wait! Someone's written a book on the subject; but it's one of the ones I haven't read yet.) But the question does beg itself deeply and widely...
Tazvil asks me to provide support for this statement: "Evidence of involvement or complicity or cover-up by high government officials likely in conjunction with state and non-state criminals exists but is ignored." Indeed, this is the meat of the matter, so I will defer answering that in detail now. Again, whole books have been written... Yes, it is supportable, has been supported and, perhaps in time, I will offer up selected passages from places that will make the case. But the case has been made to a very great extent... at least to the point that Time magazine called the 9/11 truth movement a "mainstream political reality".
Yes, well the Ku Klux Klan for a while was a mainstream political reality as well and so was the Nazi Party in the US...we have a lot of these in our country -- they come and go...you might also call in some western and rural states different militias mainstream political reality...that does not mean that they are credible...only that there is a following...
Tazvil is going to have to deal with and accept that fact and it seems like others are going to have to do it as well; WeAreChange is busy scaring the pants off of folks by presenting the evidence and mentioning something called "misprision of treason".
I have no trouble accepting the fact that people throughout out country spend their time in increasingly...how shall I say it...creative ways....going around and around in circiles...
Similarly, Tazvil asks me to document the statement "Subsequent attempts to sell or tell the official story are riddled with error and poor science. [Indeed, the official story does not even really exist as it is made up of a lot of disparate 'false-lead' stuff that has never been summarized and presented by the US government in a formal way, and much of that has been shown to be based on highly-suspect sources, situations, or back-up.]" As above... Indeed, and in time... but meanwhile the readers of this thread and its cousins can go ahead and look at the evidence, read the books, weigh the arguments, etc. Debunkers, whether officially employed or not, are not the sole "jurors" in this case.
Tazvil states "we have over 500 elected representatives in Congress....and you are telling me that this stuff is credible and not one of these people is interested in it if there was any potential truth to it?" but Tazvil
-- fails to acknowledge the depth and intensity of the propaganda-fueled fervor,
the truther progaganda is deep...very deep...I acknowledge that....and fervor...I would go so far as to call it hysteria...
-- does not acknowledge the pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" called on by the media to comment [some of whom were perhaps somewhat complicit in the crimes] [topped off, of course, by Jerome Hauer and Harley-Man],
demonstrate the prejudgment..you talk a lot about what tazvil asks for...but you provide very little in response...
-- does not acknowledge the presence of the intimidation [remember the mailed anthrax, Taz?],
the government was behind the mailing of the antrax now too?
-- does not acknowledge the record of legislators' blackmail that continues to emerge,
OK...show me some evidence of this...more wild conjecture...
-- does not acknowledge the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both, or any awareness or acknowledgement of the knowledge and research that has been done into black ops operations and techniques, history, etc.
I will readily acknowledge this when you can demonstrate that these interests had anything at all to do with 9/11...
[Google Peter Dale Scott, Alfred McCoy, read the Iran-Contra tales, and numerous other reporters, historians, journalists ...]
Perhaps you are unaware of it, or perhaps you don't wish to acknowledge it, or perhaps you fear it, or perhaps you simply need to deny it for a variety of reasons. I understand this, Taz, and I've been there and talked with a range of people about it. You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.
No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...
"Man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. ... And that is what keeps him out of the abyss."
Keep searching...
And, please, Tazvil... lay off the "conspiracism" crap... you know I can and will rebut it if and when necessary and you know -- or ought to know--- that the "psychology" angle can be countered, and that its argument has already been hijacked.
Gosh, almost any minute now, you're going to pull out the False Memory Syndrome stuff and start slopping the walls here with that.
"The event was forecast?
When and by who?
Millions of people have died as a result?
What are you talking about?
You must be talking about Iraq and Afghanistan...and there is no evidence that I am aware of that millions of people have died in the two wars... "
Yes, the event was forecast. Specifically, I refer to the PNAC document, the "Grand Chessboard" theories and statements [do I need to actually quote this stuff to you, or you yanking my chain some more?], and my own experience and personal concerns, expressed along with the lyrics to the jazz standard "For All We Know" in an e-mail to my daughter, a grad student at Adelphi, on 9/10/01 [she was the one who alerted me to the event the next morning].
Oh come on...Magmak1...I am trying to have a serious conversation with you on this stuff...well semi-serious anyway....and now you want to make the case that soem unspecified event in the Grand Chessboard theories could allow us to move forward with the neocon vision...well how hard is that to do....so suggest that in order to make our neocon vision a reality we actually need some event...
How specific was this prediction Magmak1?
Not very was it...
I also expressly refer to that which can be found over at the History Commons 9/11 timeline where they already have pre-sorted categories for "insider trading/foreknowledge" (47 entries), the military exercises (46 entries), warning signs (415 entries), and Warning Signs: Specific Cases: Foreign Intelligence Warnings (30), Bush's Aug. 6, 2001 PDB (39), and Presidential Level Warnings (30).
Go read through them; I have.
I have...sounds like gross incompetence from an Anything But Clinton arrogant Bush Soviet-centric mindset...
The warnings were simultaneously ignored while exercises were built to prepare for them, said exercises used by the exercise maestro to determine the weaknesses of the system so it could be defeated, hijacked, or subverted. [I am NIMS-certified in exercise design and have personal and professional experience in the field as well as in the field of simulation design.]
This was written about by me years ago; I'm sure you've found it. If not, google "Cheney OODA" and spend some companionable time learning about Boyd's works.As for the millions of deaths, I appreciate that this is a controversial subject and agree that people tend to throw around numbers wildly, and that high estimates are greatly contested by US government authorities and supporters (but then it's in their interests to do so, yes?), Still, there have been sources... a Johns Hopkins study was noted at one time, as well as British studies, and the work of Nafeez Ahmed:
QUOTE
"...Lancet’s figures could [/b] [b](I read this as MIGHT) be empirically verified if journalists visited several locations at random in Iraq and discovered local reports of 4 or 5 times more deaths (than US-controlled Iraqi Health Ministry figures). This is exactly what was subsequently done by the British polling agency, Opinion Business Research (ORB), which has tracked public opinion in Iraq since 2005. Working with an Iraqi fieldwork agency, ORB conducted face-to-face interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,720 adults aged 18 plus. Interviewees were asked how many members of their household had died as a result of the Iraq conflict since 2003. The ORB poll found that 1.2 million Iraqi civilians had been murdered since the invasion. [Tina Susman, “Poll: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq May Top 1 Million”, Los Angeles Times (14 September 2007)] “
To refute the truth abut genocide delivered at the hands of the Anglo-American imperial machine is easy if you don't look, but we could argue about that for decades while more die, so I'll just say "war is hell" and move on to the next thread.
it is IMPOSSIBLE to follow your color scheme in the above post
as to who wrote it, when they wrote it and the proper order of posts
again WTC on 9/11 was step H not step A B C D E F G and was part of a script that was followd 100%
as to who wrote it, when they wrote it and the proper order of posts
again WTC on 9/11 was step H not step A B C D E F G and was part of a script that was followd 100%
In response to post #13:
Let me say – before I launch into my 28-point counter-statement -- that I also find the insertions of responses inside a post to be troubling and sometimes difficult to read… but I know I do it myself… sometimes when I am in a hurry, or when
a) to “pull apart” the post like a roasted chicken and re-shape it in a WP document to be re-posted later is too much work, or
that effort is not warranted given the breadth and depth of the response…
And I appreciate that indeed you, Tazvil04, do have other things to do in your world and life and that,
conversely and relatively, I have scads of otherwise unencumbered time…
So forgive me if I take the time here and utilize the technique of a new document;
I think it is easier for the peanut gallery to read from the cheap seats…
Now …
Point #1) In response to my offer or suggestion that we jointly do a taxonomy, you said “do what you must”.
I may indeed; I am currently searching for other willing participants, but not many are not willing to spend the time or the brain-power, even from within the 9/11 Truth Community.
But the dismissal of the idea by anyone is not coherent with an expressed desire (or unexpressed) desire to “search for the truth”.
Given the gravitas of the matter, “I don’t have the time or the money” is pretty weak coming from either side of the question.
Point #2) Tazvil states “we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time”.
I disagree.
The first part is okay;“we do not know” is valid as an entry point, the essential obvious hypothesis, even after something has been offered in debate.
“We will never know” is giving up before the search is finished, or even underway – given your unwillingness to do a taxonomy – or suggesting that the effort is futile, which is not a decent, humane and valid service given the deaths of so many (especially for someone committed to law, as you are)(you are, aren’t you?).
“We cannot go back in time” is equally specious, especially in the presence of the preservation of evidence, the current state-of-the-art in forensic science, the efforts of projects like History Commons, the banking of video footage, sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury, the legal discovery process, etc. [You are a lawyer, right?]
Point #3) You said “I think I am alone on this” but, of course, I know you are not, on several counts. Let me enumerate on at least two of them.
A) You have cited information from several debunking sources, and these web sites usually have some place on the home page saying “contact us”; you being an intelligent professional [You are a lawyer, right?] conversant with the skills of communications, the process of discovery and research, and the art of enrollment (and having perhaps some assistance or assistants), you are in a position to contact one or more of those involved in this debunking.
Anyone as experienced as you is surrounded by professionals who have likely spent some time on these matters if peripherally and might be enlisted or “enrolled” into your support, if they are not already supporting you.
Point #4) Tazvil said “Do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?” I will respond by saying that I reserve the right to say “yes” on this on the basis of distant memory, but I also reserve the right to go back and re-examine this, and change my mind. It is a bit strong to say that I suggest that there was conspiracy involved – my concern, subject to that review, is that there were perhaps appearances of conflict of allegiance or interest. This is in the presence of significant information on the use of corporatization/privatization of military and intelligence contractors. Let’s agree to set this aside for the moment, though it certainly ought to be examined.
Point #5) Tazvil said “What do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...?” What I would have liked forensic research to determine is more definitive evidence, but let me be much more specific. Assays or samples of steel, building parts, dust, airplane parts, etc. remain among the missing or are held only by “the state” behind walls of legal evidentiary protection for some future trial or behind walls of “national security”. But you can’t prove the case if the evidence is unavailable to the examination of interested parties. [You are a lawyer, right?] And it is more incumbent on the government to prove its conspiracy theory than it is for the jurors to prove its surmise about the facts of the case.
Now, we do have a case in which it is alleged by the authors of the thermite paper that samples of steel and dust from the scene were properly collected, preserved and analyzed; that is fair game for inquiry and analysis and, if it can be proven that it was improperly preserved, analyzed, etc., than the supposition and finding can be thrown out. I don’t have the answer to those questions; presumably the authors and scientists advancing that theory are prepared to document and prove same.
We do have verbal non-sworn testimony that the so-called “black boxes” from the scene were found and handed over, analyzed, etc.
So, habeas black boxus.
Point #6) Tazvil asks “Do you deny that the planes were occupied by members of al Qaeda?” I don’t deny or assert anything at this point. I can’t prove or disprove that members of al-Qaeda were on the plane. Neither can the government. It has presented evidence of some airport surveillance photos that are very limited in number, possibly questionable. We have a red bandanna (ironed). There is also some other “evidence” that may not be coherent or consistent with the story or what we are told about the alleged perpetrators. We also have a track record in which governments have previously planted evidence or engaged in false-flag ops. We also have very strong information that the airport security companies were owned and operated by former members of Israeli state security agencies. Tazvil asserts that “we have audiotape of [the hijackers] shouting orders” and I have indications that voice morphing and audio faking was state-of-the-art at that very time, so you could tell me that Barack Obama was tape-recorded telling John O’Neil not to go back up those stairs in the Towers and I could show you how that was possible.
Tazvil asks if I “disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?” and offers up the follow-up question “Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?” and I respond, again, I have no proof who was on those planes whatsoever, I don’t know what or who hijacked anything, or whether there was a hijacking at all. It is alleged and it is possible but it is not proven. There are alternative theories that have not been allowed for examination or cross-examination [you are a lawyer, aren’t you?], and no strong evidence worth anything that has been presented in a way in which it can be examined, cross-examined, verified, tested or proven. I am sure you are aware that there are controversial theories that suggest the thing never happened at all. I am also aware that the Israeli state security agencies are quite adept at and have a record of having its agents pose as Arab terrorists. There is also significance indication of Israeli espionage, as well as Israeli involvement in or around 9/11 of one sort or another at least indicating fore-knowledge. These are all questions.
I am also aware that mountains of disinformation and misinformation have been dropped in the paths of pursuers of truth, no doubt by the perpetrators, like bank thieves drop tire-shredding objects onto the road to stop police pursuit.
Point #7) Tazvil says “we have a PDB which on August 6…”, and I ask him if he has seen this PDB, has a copy of it, can guarantee that it hasn’t been tampered with, or has a witness from within the Presidential Daily Briefing process who will testify under oath as to what was said.
At this point, I could also ask my competent debate opponent, the lawyer, if he would stipulate as to the fact that witness Condoleeza Rice lied under oath; I assume he won’t, but that will undoubtedly become a factor in this debate.
See the History Commons entry on the 8/6 PDB here.
Point #8) Tazvil asks “Who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go?” and I answer that I have only questions, not absolute proof, but disturbing appearances, conflicts of interest, unusual and unusually repetitive issues among key and critical players, including many Bush administration figures, at least three and perhaps more key players in the military chain of command that day, key executive branch agencies, multiple corporations, foreigners, critical security staffers, etc. Others have named names. If you are not clear on who has named the names and whose names were named, you aren’t a very good student of the matter and you need to go back and do some more preparation. Maybe you ought to do a legal taxonomy. “A formal taxonomy that classifies legal materials according to rules of order and clarity… is primarily conventional… A predominantly formal taxonomy facilitates legal analysis and communication.”
Point #9) Tazvil asks “what is your timetable?” for the assiduous and prompt collection of evidence. There is no reason why that evidence could not have been collected from the crime scene in a time frame that was nearly compatible with the rescue, fire-fighting and other “stabilization” elements of the early response, and certainly could have been done to reasonable completion at any of the three scenes before the sun set on 9/11. Any emergency response plan worth its name at almost any level outside a small hamlet in northern nowhere allows for the protection of at least part of the scene as a crime scene and allows for, and denotes, a specific role for some personnel from law enforcement to perform this function. I know this because I am experienced in the field of emergency medical services mass casualty incident management, conversant in the field of emergency management response, and NIMS-certified at several levels. You know this. And I can prove that you know it (or ought to know).
Point #10) “There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....”
Oh really? http://www.jobaps.com/de/specs/classspecdi...LinkSpec=MBAB01
Uh huh … http://www.femors.org/about.asp
Sure… http://dev2.globaldisastermgt.com/page.php?7
For Certain … http://www.ehow.com/about_4563985_police-photography.html
Okay… Maybe we should ask Gayle Onnen
For $76, Forensic Science: An Encyclopedia of History, Methods, and Techniques
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576071944
You did say you were a lawyer, right?
#11) Tazvil says that the folks who published the paper on thermite-induced explosive demolition of the towers “have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim”. I agree. Why don’t you get the folks at NIST tofile a motion? Oh, yes, you already know this stuff, don’t you?
to be continued...
Let me say – before I launch into my 28-point counter-statement -- that I also find the insertions of responses inside a post to be troubling and sometimes difficult to read… but I know I do it myself… sometimes when I am in a hurry, or when
a) to “pull apart” the post like a roasted chicken and re-shape it in a WP document to be re-posted later is too much work, or
that effort is not warranted given the breadth and depth of the response… And I appreciate that indeed you, Tazvil04, do have other things to do in your world and life and that,
conversely and relatively, I have scads of otherwise unencumbered time…
So forgive me if I take the time here and utilize the technique of a new document;
I think it is easier for the peanut gallery to read from the cheap seats…
Now …
Point #1) In response to my offer or suggestion that we jointly do a taxonomy, you said “do what you must”.
I may indeed; I am currently searching for other willing participants, but not many are not willing to spend the time or the brain-power, even from within the 9/11 Truth Community.
But the dismissal of the idea by anyone is not coherent with an expressed desire (or unexpressed) desire to “search for the truth”.
Given the gravitas of the matter, “I don’t have the time or the money” is pretty weak coming from either side of the question.
Point #2) Tazvil states “we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time”.
I disagree.
The first part is okay;“we do not know” is valid as an entry point, the essential obvious hypothesis, even after something has been offered in debate.
“We will never know” is giving up before the search is finished, or even underway – given your unwillingness to do a taxonomy – or suggesting that the effort is futile, which is not a decent, humane and valid service given the deaths of so many (especially for someone committed to law, as you are)(you are, aren’t you?).
“We cannot go back in time” is equally specious, especially in the presence of the preservation of evidence, the current state-of-the-art in forensic science, the efforts of projects like History Commons, the banking of video footage, sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury, the legal discovery process, etc. [You are a lawyer, right?]
Point #3) You said “I think I am alone on this” but, of course, I know you are not, on several counts. Let me enumerate on at least two of them.
A) You have cited information from several debunking sources, and these web sites usually have some place on the home page saying “contact us”; you being an intelligent professional [You are a lawyer, right?] conversant with the skills of communications, the process of discovery and research, and the art of enrollment (and having perhaps some assistance or assistants), you are in a position to contact one or more of those involved in this debunking.
Anyone as experienced as you is surrounded by professionals who have likely spent some time on these matters if peripherally and might be enlisted or “enrolled” into your support, if they are not already supporting you. Point #4) Tazvil said “Do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?” I will respond by saying that I reserve the right to say “yes” on this on the basis of distant memory, but I also reserve the right to go back and re-examine this, and change my mind. It is a bit strong to say that I suggest that there was conspiracy involved – my concern, subject to that review, is that there were perhaps appearances of conflict of allegiance or interest. This is in the presence of significant information on the use of corporatization/privatization of military and intelligence contractors. Let’s agree to set this aside for the moment, though it certainly ought to be examined.
Point #5) Tazvil said “What do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...?” What I would have liked forensic research to determine is more definitive evidence, but let me be much more specific. Assays or samples of steel, building parts, dust, airplane parts, etc. remain among the missing or are held only by “the state” behind walls of legal evidentiary protection for some future trial or behind walls of “national security”. But you can’t prove the case if the evidence is unavailable to the examination of interested parties. [You are a lawyer, right?] And it is more incumbent on the government to prove its conspiracy theory than it is for the jurors to prove its surmise about the facts of the case.
Now, we do have a case in which it is alleged by the authors of the thermite paper that samples of steel and dust from the scene were properly collected, preserved and analyzed; that is fair game for inquiry and analysis and, if it can be proven that it was improperly preserved, analyzed, etc., than the supposition and finding can be thrown out. I don’t have the answer to those questions; presumably the authors and scientists advancing that theory are prepared to document and prove same.
We do have verbal non-sworn testimony that the so-called “black boxes” from the scene were found and handed over, analyzed, etc.
So, habeas black boxus.
Point #6) Tazvil asks “Do you deny that the planes were occupied by members of al Qaeda?” I don’t deny or assert anything at this point. I can’t prove or disprove that members of al-Qaeda were on the plane. Neither can the government. It has presented evidence of some airport surveillance photos that are very limited in number, possibly questionable. We have a red bandanna (ironed). There is also some other “evidence” that may not be coherent or consistent with the story or what we are told about the alleged perpetrators. We also have a track record in which governments have previously planted evidence or engaged in false-flag ops. We also have very strong information that the airport security companies were owned and operated by former members of Israeli state security agencies. Tazvil asserts that “we have audiotape of [the hijackers] shouting orders” and I have indications that voice morphing and audio faking was state-of-the-art at that very time, so you could tell me that Barack Obama was tape-recorded telling John O’Neil not to go back up those stairs in the Towers and I could show you how that was possible.
Tazvil asks if I “disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?” and offers up the follow-up question “Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?” and I respond, again, I have no proof who was on those planes whatsoever, I don’t know what or who hijacked anything, or whether there was a hijacking at all. It is alleged and it is possible but it is not proven. There are alternative theories that have not been allowed for examination or cross-examination [you are a lawyer, aren’t you?], and no strong evidence worth anything that has been presented in a way in which it can be examined, cross-examined, verified, tested or proven. I am sure you are aware that there are controversial theories that suggest the thing never happened at all. I am also aware that the Israeli state security agencies are quite adept at and have a record of having its agents pose as Arab terrorists. There is also significance indication of Israeli espionage, as well as Israeli involvement in or around 9/11 of one sort or another at least indicating fore-knowledge. These are all questions.
I am also aware that mountains of disinformation and misinformation have been dropped in the paths of pursuers of truth, no doubt by the perpetrators, like bank thieves drop tire-shredding objects onto the road to stop police pursuit.
Point #7) Tazvil says “we have a PDB which on August 6…”, and I ask him if he has seen this PDB, has a copy of it, can guarantee that it hasn’t been tampered with, or has a witness from within the Presidential Daily Briefing process who will testify under oath as to what was said.
At this point, I could also ask my competent debate opponent, the lawyer, if he would stipulate as to the fact that witness Condoleeza Rice lied under oath; I assume he won’t, but that will undoubtedly become a factor in this debate.
See the History Commons entry on the 8/6 PDB here.
Point #8) Tazvil asks “Who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go?” and I answer that I have only questions, not absolute proof, but disturbing appearances, conflicts of interest, unusual and unusually repetitive issues among key and critical players, including many Bush administration figures, at least three and perhaps more key players in the military chain of command that day, key executive branch agencies, multiple corporations, foreigners, critical security staffers, etc. Others have named names. If you are not clear on who has named the names and whose names were named, you aren’t a very good student of the matter and you need to go back and do some more preparation. Maybe you ought to do a legal taxonomy. “A formal taxonomy that classifies legal materials according to rules of order and clarity… is primarily conventional… A predominantly formal taxonomy facilitates legal analysis and communication.”
Point #9) Tazvil asks “what is your timetable?” for the assiduous and prompt collection of evidence. There is no reason why that evidence could not have been collected from the crime scene in a time frame that was nearly compatible with the rescue, fire-fighting and other “stabilization” elements of the early response, and certainly could have been done to reasonable completion at any of the three scenes before the sun set on 9/11. Any emergency response plan worth its name at almost any level outside a small hamlet in northern nowhere allows for the protection of at least part of the scene as a crime scene and allows for, and denotes, a specific role for some personnel from law enforcement to perform this function. I know this because I am experienced in the field of emergency medical services mass casualty incident management, conversant in the field of emergency management response, and NIMS-certified at several levels. You know this. And I can prove that you know it (or ought to know).
Point #10) “There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....”
Oh really? http://www.jobaps.com/de/specs/classspecdi...LinkSpec=MBAB01
Uh huh … http://www.femors.org/about.asp
Sure… http://dev2.globaldisastermgt.com/page.php?7
For Certain … http://www.ehow.com/about_4563985_police-photography.html
Okay… Maybe we should ask Gayle Onnen
For $76, Forensic Science: An Encyclopedia of History, Methods, and Techniques
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576071944
You did say you were a lawyer, right?
#11) Tazvil says that the folks who published the paper on thermite-induced explosive demolition of the towers “have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim”. I agree. Why don’t you get the folks at NIST tofile a motion? Oh, yes, you already know this stuff, don’t you?
to be continued...
#12) Tazvil says
A) “You seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened.
C) Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself?”
A) Yes. The incompleteness of the truth-telling has been alleged by many; even the 9/11 Commission itself considered follow-up legal action. Even your colleague John Farmer has apparently said http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7409 that what the 9/11 Commission, public and media was told by military and government officials, was almost entirely, and inexplicably, untrue. His book (this quote is from its press release) says
“The Ground Truth draws on Farmer’s experience with the 9/11 Commission as well as recently declassified tapes and transcripts to show a disturbing disconnect between what those in charge of the country’s security knew and what was actually happening on the ground and in the skies. Dean Farmer, one of the principal authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, includes critical evidence omitted in recent reports by the Departments of Defense and Transportation. The Commission, believing that civilian and military officials had not been completely forthright in their information to Congress, the media, and the Commission itself about significant aspects of 9/11, had requested the reports. At some level of government,” says Dean Farmer, “at some point in time, a decision was made not to tell the truth about the national response to the attacks on the morning of 9/11. We owe the truth to the families of the victims of 9/11.”
I haven’t read the book, or listened to that radio show whose mp3 link is above, but then you already know this, don’t you?, since I recommended that you invite him to lunch to discuss it. No doubt, you’ve already had lunch with him once or twice. Your recent thread on the anniversary of 9/11 is remarkably consistent with his statement that “We owe it to the American public as well, because only by understanding what has gone wrong in the past can we assure our nation’s safety in the future.”
Yes. Griffin’s list of inconsistencies (either omissions or distortions of evidence) are the subject of his book and an article called The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions (2005).
Griffin's article http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404
The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-page Lie summarises this book. Here’s a link to an mp3 of his address on 9/10/09: http://www.radiodujour.com/mp3/20090923_bo...draygriffin.mp3
C) Yes. The LIHOP versus MIHOP debate has been printed, aired out and dicussed for some time now (just google the phrase). Various people lean one way or the other. One of the primary arguments (and I believe it is an accurate one) is that if you get to LIHOP, the evidence virtually commands you eventually to get to MIHOP. Here is one of the better discussions: http://www.oilempire.us/lihop-mihop.html . But a subtle distinction may be added: It is entirely possible, and probably likely, that certain parties within the US had assistance from parties (state and non-state) outside the US.
Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-up, and the Exposé “summarizes the 9/11 truth movement's ongoing exposé of those revisions [the 9/11 commission report and the NIST report] as further attempts to cover up the truth about what really occurred on 9/11 -- an exposé that, thanks to the influx of large numbers of intellectuals and professionals into the movement, is now so compelling as to be virtually undeniable by anyone who will take the time to study it."
In Christian faith and the truth behind the 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action, he explained the significance of the 9/11 commission's report in the following way:
###
“The experience of writing my new book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2006), in which I responded to four defenses of the official story that explicitly sought to debunk the claims of the 9/11 truth movement -- led me to speak even more strongly, saying in that book's first sentence: "The evidence that 9/11 was an inside job is overwhelming."
###
"The pejorative use of the term "conspiracy theory" falsely implies that all conspiracy theories are of this irrational type. The genius has fallaciously been equated with one of its species.
Because this pejorative usage has become widespread, however, people can discredit a theory without having to provide any evidence against it, because simply to call it a conspiracy theory is too damn it. Columnist Paul Krugman, commenting on this tactic, has written:
[ Similarly, Taz, the use of the word hysteria ought to be counterbalanced by a little investigation into the etymology and usage of that word. ]
"... and Zelikow appears to have had almost complete freedom to determine the content of the commission's final report. He provided, Kean and Hamilton have told us, the reports "overarching vision," after which he "steer[ed] the direction of the commission's investigation." This steering involved organizing the commission's staff into various teams and telling each one what to investigate -- and hence, by implication, what not to investigate....”
"More was revealed... by Philip Shenon in his 2008 book, "The Commission," which was mentioned in chapter 8 pointing out that Zelikow [and his former professor Ernest May] had prepared the outline [of the final report] secretly, Shannon wrote:
"By March 2003, with the commission's staff and barely in place, the two men had already prepared a detailed outline, complete with "chapter headings, subheadings, and sub -- subheadings."... and Zelikow said the document with Kean and Hamilton, who were impressed by their Executive Director's early diligence but worried that the outline would be seen as evidence that day -- and Zelikow -- had predetermined the reports outcome."
... Shenon continued:
"It [the outline] should be kept secret from the rest of the staff, they all decided. May said that he and Zelikow agreed that the outline should be "treated as if it were the most classified document to commission possessed." And Zelikow... labeled it "commission sensitive," putting those words at the top and bottom of each page." …
"When the staff did finally learn about this outline a year later -- they were given copies in April 2004 -- many of them, Shenon reported, were alarmed. Some of them began circulating a two-page parody entitled "The Warren Commission Report -- Preemptive Outline." One of its chapter headings read: "Single Bullet: We haven't seen any evidence yet. But really. We're sure."
A) “You seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened. C) Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself?”
A) Yes. The incompleteness of the truth-telling has been alleged by many; even the 9/11 Commission itself considered follow-up legal action. Even your colleague John Farmer has apparently said http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7409 that what the 9/11 Commission, public and media was told by military and government officials, was almost entirely, and inexplicably, untrue. His book (this quote is from its press release) says
“The Ground Truth draws on Farmer’s experience with the 9/11 Commission as well as recently declassified tapes and transcripts to show a disturbing disconnect between what those in charge of the country’s security knew and what was actually happening on the ground and in the skies. Dean Farmer, one of the principal authors of the 9/11 Commission Report, includes critical evidence omitted in recent reports by the Departments of Defense and Transportation. The Commission, believing that civilian and military officials had not been completely forthright in their information to Congress, the media, and the Commission itself about significant aspects of 9/11, had requested the reports. At some level of government,” says Dean Farmer, “at some point in time, a decision was made not to tell the truth about the national response to the attacks on the morning of 9/11. We owe the truth to the families of the victims of 9/11.”
I haven’t read the book, or listened to that radio show whose mp3 link is above, but then you already know this, don’t you?, since I recommended that you invite him to lunch to discuss it. No doubt, you’ve already had lunch with him once or twice. Your recent thread on the anniversary of 9/11 is remarkably consistent with his statement that “We owe it to the American public as well, because only by understanding what has gone wrong in the past can we assure our nation’s safety in the future.”
Yes. Griffin’s list of inconsistencies (either omissions or distortions of evidence) are the subject of his book and an article called The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions (2005). Griffin's article http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404
The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-page Lie summarises this book. Here’s a link to an mp3 of his address on 9/10/09: http://www.radiodujour.com/mp3/20090923_bo...draygriffin.mp3
C) Yes. The LIHOP versus MIHOP debate has been printed, aired out and dicussed for some time now (just google the phrase). Various people lean one way or the other. One of the primary arguments (and I believe it is an accurate one) is that if you get to LIHOP, the evidence virtually commands you eventually to get to MIHOP. Here is one of the better discussions: http://www.oilempire.us/lihop-mihop.html . But a subtle distinction may be added: It is entirely possible, and probably likely, that certain parties within the US had assistance from parties (state and non-state) outside the US.
Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-up, and the Exposé “summarizes the 9/11 truth movement's ongoing exposé of those revisions [the 9/11 commission report and the NIST report] as further attempts to cover up the truth about what really occurred on 9/11 -- an exposé that, thanks to the influx of large numbers of intellectuals and professionals into the movement, is now so compelling as to be virtually undeniable by anyone who will take the time to study it."
In Christian faith and the truth behind the 9/11: A Call to Reflection and Action, he explained the significance of the 9/11 commission's report in the following way:
QUOTE
"In a criminal trial, once the prosecution has presented its initial case, the defense asks the judge for a dismissal on the grounds that a prima facie case for guilt has not been presented. However, if the judge declares that such a case has been made, then that if the defense must rebut the various elements in the prosecution's case... if the defense fails to operate convincing rebuttal, the a prima facie case is presumed to be conclusive...
The 9/11 commission, under the direction of Bush administration insider Philip Zelikow, had the opportunity to rebut the [9/11 truth movement's prima facie case against the Bush administration. But as [its]... omissions and distortions show, it completely failed to do so. As a result, the a prima facie that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks of 9/11 remain unrefuted.
The publication of the 9/11 commission should, accordingly, biased as a decisive event: the moment at which the a prima facie case against the Bush administration became a conclusive case.”
The 9/11 commission, under the direction of Bush administration insider Philip Zelikow, had the opportunity to rebut the [9/11 truth movement's prima facie case against the Bush administration. But as [its]... omissions and distortions show, it completely failed to do so. As a result, the a prima facie that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks of 9/11 remain unrefuted.
The publication of the 9/11 commission should, accordingly, biased as a decisive event: the moment at which the a prima facie case against the Bush administration became a conclusive case.”
###
“The experience of writing my new book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2006), in which I responded to four defenses of the official story that explicitly sought to debunk the claims of the 9/11 truth movement -- led me to speak even more strongly, saying in that book's first sentence: "The evidence that 9/11 was an inside job is overwhelming."
###
"The pejorative use of the term "conspiracy theory" falsely implies that all conspiracy theories are of this irrational type. The genius has fallaciously been equated with one of its species.
Because this pejorative usage has become widespread, however, people can discredit a theory without having to provide any evidence against it, because simply to call it a conspiracy theory is too damn it. Columnist Paul Krugman, commenting on this tactic, has written:
QUOTE
"The truth is that many of the people who throw around terms like "loopy conspiracy theories" are lazy bullies who [as one observer put] want to "confer instant illegitimacy on any argument with which they disagree." Instead of facing up to hard questions, they try to suggest to anyone who asks those questions is crazy."
[ Similarly, Taz, the use of the word hysteria ought to be counterbalanced by a little investigation into the etymology and usage of that word. ]
"... and Zelikow appears to have had almost complete freedom to determine the content of the commission's final report. He provided, Kean and Hamilton have told us, the reports "overarching vision," after which he "steer[ed] the direction of the commission's investigation." This steering involved organizing the commission's staff into various teams and telling each one what to investigate -- and hence, by implication, what not to investigate....”
"More was revealed... by Philip Shenon in his 2008 book, "The Commission," which was mentioned in chapter 8 pointing out that Zelikow [and his former professor Ernest May] had prepared the outline [of the final report] secretly, Shannon wrote:
"By March 2003, with the commission's staff and barely in place, the two men had already prepared a detailed outline, complete with "chapter headings, subheadings, and sub -- subheadings."... and Zelikow said the document with Kean and Hamilton, who were impressed by their Executive Director's early diligence but worried that the outline would be seen as evidence that day -- and Zelikow -- had predetermined the reports outcome."
... Shenon continued:
"It [the outline] should be kept secret from the rest of the staff, they all decided. May said that he and Zelikow agreed that the outline should be "treated as if it were the most classified document to commission possessed." And Zelikow... labeled it "commission sensitive," putting those words at the top and bottom of each page." …
"When the staff did finally learn about this outline a year later -- they were given copies in April 2004 -- many of them, Shenon reported, were alarmed. Some of them began circulating a two-page parody entitled "The Warren Commission Report -- Preemptive Outline." One of its chapter headings read: "Single Bullet: We haven't seen any evidence yet. But really. We're sure."
[quote name='Magmak1' date='Sep 29 2009, 02:36 PM' post='1025154']
#12) Tazvil says
A) “You seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
[b]I do not agree that there was a conspracy...I agree that there are inconsistences within the official story......I think there is a difference...
The inconsistencies could be the result of legitimate issues such as national security concerns, incompetence, etc.
I think it is the job of the truthers to prove that these inconsistencies have a more nefarious origin -- an origin which to date none of them --- have been able to prove...
After all, our Dr. Griffin himself says that he has no theory as to why the government would not be honest in this regard...or why they were dishonest...he says that he only is able to show in his opinion that there are inconsistencies in their story...the official story...he contends that there are major inconsistencies...I content there are minor inconsistencies...I think this is where we differ
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened.
Yes. I do.
[i]C) Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself?”[/b]
IMHO from what I have read...it was gross incompetence in their inability to prevent the attack...
I actually think the attack was preventable...and that the Bush Adminsitration and 9/11 commission were at pains to prove that it was not preventable when indeed it was...
More later...
#12) Tazvil says
A) “You seem to have stated or at least strongly implied that you at least believe that there was a government conspiracy to not tell the compete truth on 9/11.
[b]I do not agree that there was a conspracy...I agree that there are inconsistences within the official story......I think there is a difference...
The inconsistencies could be the result of legitimate issues such as national security concerns, incompetence, etc.
I think it is the job of the truthers to prove that these inconsistencies have a more nefarious origin -- an origin which to date none of them --- have been able to prove...
After all, our Dr. Griffin himself says that he has no theory as to why the government would not be honest in this regard...or why they were dishonest...he says that he only is able to show in his opinion that there are inconsistencies in their story...the official story...he contends that there are major inconsistencies...I content there are minor inconsistencies...I think this is where we differ
You also agree with Dr. Griffin's assessments that there are a number of inconsistencies between the official story and what "really" happened. Yes. I do.
[i]C) Do you also contend that the government was responsible for 9/11 as some do...not that their incompetence made them unable to prevent the attack...but rather that they had a hand in the attack itself?”[/b]
IMHO from what I have read...it was gross incompetence in their inability to prevent the attack...
I actually think the attack was preventable...and that the Bush Adminsitration and 9/11 commission were at pains to prove that it was not preventable when indeed it was...
More later...
#13) "Hasn't that evidence been destroyed by now?"
Much evidence has likely been destroyed. Are you stipulating to that? But not all witnesses, participants or perpetrators (alleged) are dead, and thus are subject to subpoena. Again, go back to discovery, and by all means refresh your legal memory on the statute of limitations on the investigation, prosecution, trial and sentencing for the crime of murder.
And you’re a lawyer? Shame on you.
#14) “Even if one concedes that the official story has holes in it that does not mean that it was an inside job by the US government...you must concede this...”
You are asking that a legal or scientific inquiry stipulate that certain areas of inquiry or investigation are off limits.
I am not obligated to or ready to concede that at all. NIce try, though....
“I know of no trial and even few scientific research that has developed in its conclusion a legal and judicial justice and certitude...it just does not happen...”
You might be right; you are the lawyer here.
“The method of reasoning that juries use to reach a verdict is not something that the law is interested in putting under a microscope, a telescope, or a colonoscope. The verdict represents the cumulative effect, great or small, of the evidence, the appearance of the witnesses, the lawyers (some say even the color of the clothes the lawyers wear is crucial), the stirring closing arguments employing striking phrases, romantic metaphors, biblical proverbs, frequent references to common sense, the court’s instruction, and the life experiences of each juror….. Law, like everything else in life, is tentative. It does not deal in absolutes. Even if it did, it would cause a lot of trouble. Those who think they are absolutely correct are the kind of people who fight a war with others who think they are absolutely correct…. The verdict that appeared illogical, on reflection, had a respectable informal jury logic of its own.”
Quote from Jacob A. Stein, who is a senior partner with Stein, Mitchell & Mezines LLP.
http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources...2/spectator.cfm
#15) Tazvil says “The government has [proven its case]...its known as the 9.11 commission report...and teh NIST report...etc.” which of course neatly sidesteps the tremendous body or work which has been done which calls these reports into conclusion, and uses the clear language of “lies”, “omissions” “distortions”, “scientific fraud”, and other strongly-endorsing language.
In addition to the material covered under #12…
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/nist/index.html
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/nist,femar...turalengineerin
Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit
http://www.911blogger.com/node/20013
http://www.ae911truth.org/
#16) “spending millions more...of the taxpater dollars...for what purpose? toward what end?”
Destroying confidence takes only minutes.
Restoring it takes a very long time indeed.*
"The United States faces a fundamental choice of what and in whom to trust."
[Page 246, The Road to 9/11, Peter Dale Scott]
I would like to believe that the trust of the people in its government is worth that small price, a mere pittance, a drop in the veritable bucket, compared to the cost of the Iraq war, the cost of the recent bailout, or even the still-missing trillions of dollars announced by Secretary of Defense Rumsfield (who was AWOL the next morning, along with others on his command staff).
Who the ____ are you kidding, Tazvil?
* Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Random House/Crown Business, NY, 2004. [Kanter is a leading authority on leadership, innovation, transformation and change.]
#17) “You and the truthers suggest that government should prosecute itself…”
No, we suggest that the people should prosecute the government, the way it was intended in the U.S. Constitution. This will admittedly be difficult, given the actions of the security state recently in Pittsburgh, and the fact that the voting processes have been royally compromised, and the fact that the Presidency, the Congress and much of the system itself has been woefully corrupted and thus is semi-complicit in the cesspool of it all. But, then, your recent colleague told the rescuers there were no health problems in breathing the dust, so by all means we must believe the government.
#18) The pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" …
“Composed almost entirely of news broadcasts from 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13, the film shows the media lies that stuck with the public and more importantly, the truths that were quickly forgotten.”
http://www.archive.org/details/Between_the_Lies
#19) “The government was behind the mailing of the antrax now too?”
Google “Francis Boyle anthrax”
See also:
http://www.amazon.com/Biowarfare-Terrorism...e/dp/0932863469
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-...-mas-2008-08-01
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthra..._espionage.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/...itzmueller.html
#20) ”legislators' blackmail … show me some evidence of this.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/hbc-90005403
http://current.com/items/90904598_the-larg...1st-edition.htm
http://www.whale.to/b/mcgowan2.html
Finders Keepers: The Story of the CIA's "Finders" Abduction Operation
By Dave McGowan
June 2000
The CIA Traffics in Drugs, Child Ritual Sexual Abuse, and Global Murder
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ciadr...semurder.shtml
Gannongate threatens to expose a huge GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring
By Wayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer
February 18, 2005
John De Camp's book 'The Franklin Cover-up – child abuse, satanism and murder in Nebraska' updated 2nd edition Printed 2006.
Are politicians being blackmailed?
This explosive question arises from the dynamic new book, The Franklin Scandal: Powerbrokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal by Nick Bryant, coming out in March 2009 from TrineDay.
http://franklincoverup.com/
The approval rating of the United States Congress hit an historic low of 12% in October and is currently under 25%, showing that a vast majority think the Congress is not serving us, the American people. The Franklin Scandal shows a reason why. There is another check-and-balance system in effect— one that has been hidden.
The Franklin Scandal exposes an illicit nationwide network — and ensuing cover-up — driven by a confluence of three powerful entities, the church, the state, and the media to hide the most horrific of crimes: child abuse. The children (now, adults) talk about flights all around the country, and there are hundreds of flight logs to back this up. The most frequent destination? Washington, D.C. — to a party house wired for pictures and sound.
“It’s obvious to me that some of the dirtiest tricks of the spy trade have been used to subvert our national government.”
— Kris Millegan, Publisher, TrineDay.
#21) “I will readily acknowledge [the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both] when you can demonstrate that these interests had anything at all to do with 9/11...”
http://www.monochrom.at/english/pictures/9780520258716.jpg
The Glossary of Open Politics
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Unum...?showtopic=8634
excerpt from the book
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/3242/Exclusive_...ture_of_America
article
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...p;articleId=759
essay
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkg...sDeepEvents.htm
article
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=9511
Deep Events and the CIA's Global Drug Connection
http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20081012142525948
Much evidence has likely been destroyed. Are you stipulating to that? But not all witnesses, participants or perpetrators (alleged) are dead, and thus are subject to subpoena. Again, go back to discovery, and by all means refresh your legal memory on the statute of limitations on the investigation, prosecution, trial and sentencing for the crime of murder.
And you’re a lawyer? Shame on you.
#14) “Even if one concedes that the official story has holes in it that does not mean that it was an inside job by the US government...you must concede this...”
You are asking that a legal or scientific inquiry stipulate that certain areas of inquiry or investigation are off limits.
I am not obligated to or ready to concede that at all. NIce try, though....
“I know of no trial and even few scientific research that has developed in its conclusion a legal and judicial justice and certitude...it just does not happen...”
You might be right; you are the lawyer here.
QUOTE
“The work of deciding cases goes on every day in hundreds of courts throughout the land. Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Let some intelligent layman ask him to explain: he will not go very far before taking refuge in the excuse that the language of craftsmen is unintelligible to those untutored in the craft.”
Benjamin N. Cardozo
Benjamin N. Cardozo
“The method of reasoning that juries use to reach a verdict is not something that the law is interested in putting under a microscope, a telescope, or a colonoscope. The verdict represents the cumulative effect, great or small, of the evidence, the appearance of the witnesses, the lawyers (some say even the color of the clothes the lawyers wear is crucial), the stirring closing arguments employing striking phrases, romantic metaphors, biblical proverbs, frequent references to common sense, the court’s instruction, and the life experiences of each juror….. Law, like everything else in life, is tentative. It does not deal in absolutes. Even if it did, it would cause a lot of trouble. Those who think they are absolutely correct are the kind of people who fight a war with others who think they are absolutely correct…. The verdict that appeared illogical, on reflection, had a respectable informal jury logic of its own.”
Quote from Jacob A. Stein, who is a senior partner with Stein, Mitchell & Mezines LLP.
http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/resources...2/spectator.cfm
#15) Tazvil says “The government has [proven its case]...its known as the 9.11 commission report...and teh NIST report...etc.” which of course neatly sidesteps the tremendous body or work which has been done which calls these reports into conclusion, and uses the clear language of “lies”, “omissions” “distortions”, “scientific fraud”, and other strongly-endorsing language.
In addition to the material covered under #12…
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/nist/index.html
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/nist,femar...turalengineerin
Intellectual Dishonesty In The Age Of Universal Deceit
http://www.911blogger.com/node/20013
http://www.ae911truth.org/
#16) “spending millions more...of the taxpater dollars...for what purpose? toward what end?”
Destroying confidence takes only minutes.
Restoring it takes a very long time indeed.*
"The United States faces a fundamental choice of what and in whom to trust."
[Page 246, The Road to 9/11, Peter Dale Scott]
I would like to believe that the trust of the people in its government is worth that small price, a mere pittance, a drop in the veritable bucket, compared to the cost of the Iraq war, the cost of the recent bailout, or even the still-missing trillions of dollars announced by Secretary of Defense Rumsfield (who was AWOL the next morning, along with others on his command staff).
Who the ____ are you kidding, Tazvil?
* Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Random House/Crown Business, NY, 2004. [Kanter is a leading authority on leadership, innovation, transformation and change.]
#17) “You and the truthers suggest that government should prosecute itself…”
No, we suggest that the people should prosecute the government, the way it was intended in the U.S. Constitution. This will admittedly be difficult, given the actions of the security state recently in Pittsburgh, and the fact that the voting processes have been royally compromised, and the fact that the Presidency, the Congress and much of the system itself has been woefully corrupted and thus is semi-complicit in the cesspool of it all. But, then, your recent colleague told the rescuers there were no health problems in breathing the dust, so by all means we must believe the government.
#18) The pre-judgment inserted into the case by "experts" …
“Composed almost entirely of news broadcasts from 9/11, 9/12 and 9/13, the film shows the media lies that stuck with the public and more importantly, the truths that were quickly forgotten.”
http://www.archive.org/details/Between_the_Lies
#19) “The government was behind the mailing of the antrax now too?”
Google “Francis Boyle anthrax”
See also:
http://www.amazon.com/Biowarfare-Terrorism...e/dp/0932863469
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-...-mas-2008-08-01
http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthra..._espionage.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/...itzmueller.html
#20) ”legislators' blackmail … show me some evidence of this.
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/07/hbc-90005403
http://current.com/items/90904598_the-larg...1st-edition.htm
http://www.whale.to/b/mcgowan2.html
Finders Keepers: The Story of the CIA's "Finders" Abduction Operation
By Dave McGowan
June 2000
The CIA Traffics in Drugs, Child Ritual Sexual Abuse, and Global Murder
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/ciadr...semurder.shtml
Gannongate threatens to expose a huge GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring
By Wayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer
February 18, 2005
John De Camp's book 'The Franklin Cover-up – child abuse, satanism and murder in Nebraska' updated 2nd edition Printed 2006.
Are politicians being blackmailed?
This explosive question arises from the dynamic new book, The Franklin Scandal: Powerbrokers, Child Abuse and Betrayal by Nick Bryant, coming out in March 2009 from TrineDay.
http://franklincoverup.com/
The approval rating of the United States Congress hit an historic low of 12% in October and is currently under 25%, showing that a vast majority think the Congress is not serving us, the American people. The Franklin Scandal shows a reason why. There is another check-and-balance system in effect— one that has been hidden.
The Franklin Scandal exposes an illicit nationwide network — and ensuing cover-up — driven by a confluence of three powerful entities, the church, the state, and the media to hide the most horrific of crimes: child abuse. The children (now, adults) talk about flights all around the country, and there are hundreds of flight logs to back this up. The most frequent destination? Washington, D.C. — to a party house wired for pictures and sound.
“It’s obvious to me that some of the dirtiest tricks of the spy trade have been used to subvert our national government.”
— Kris Millegan, Publisher, TrineDay.
#21) “I will readily acknowledge [the presence of very powerful "deep politics" interests .. elite, wealthy, powerful, criminal statist and non-state actors both] when you can demonstrate that these interests had anything at all to do with 9/11...”
http://www.monochrom.at/english/pictures/9780520258716.jpg
The Glossary of Open Politics
http://z7.invisionfree.com/E_Pluribus_Unum...?showtopic=8634
excerpt from the book
http://www.gnn.tv/articles/3242/Exclusive_...ture_of_America
article
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...p;articleId=759
essay
http://www.history-matters.com/essays/jfkg...sDeepEvents.htm
article
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?con...va&aid=9511
Deep Events and the CIA's Global Drug Connection
http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20081012142525948
#22) “How specific was this prediction Magmak1?”
Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski, echoed
P. 69- 70, “The Road to 9/11”
“… we have to look at one other way in which Brzezinski helped set the stage for 9/11. This was his bringing Samuel Huntington back to the White House in 1979 to draft Presidential Memorandum 32, which created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA.). What Huntington envisaged as FEMA’s future role is uncertain. But hostile critics have pointed to what he had written for the Trilateral commission in the mid-19 70s, and he's co-authored book crisis in democracy: "a government which lacks authority will have little ability, short of a cataclysmic crisis, who all impose all on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary to deal with foreign policy problems and defense... we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy."
Huntington's words were attacked at the time for their unfashionable questioning of democracy. What may have been more significant was the warning that in a full democracy, "necessary" sacrifices can only be imposed by a cataclysmic crisis. Brzezinski echoed this thought in his case for American Empire, in The Grand Chessboard, when he wrote that "democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." What would make the American public willing to sacrifice for "imperial mobilization," he suggested, would be "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." [Page 69-70 in Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11".]
This, as is well known now, was echoed in the PNAC’s document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", in which it reported "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and tantalizing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
A 58-photo slide show [Warning: May be Disturbing]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/282415/Military-...the-Twin-Towers
Another Lawyer from New Jersey
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3...59008768610598# Loose Change, Final Cut
http://www.legitgov.org/911_report_index_m...rds_072504.html
The Index of Words Not Contained in the 9/11 Commission Report
#23) Specificity?
May 2, 1968: Advertisement in New York Times Warns of WTC Danger, Shows Plane About to Strike One of the Towers
Contradicting later claims that no one could have envisioned what happened on 9/11, the pilot episode of a short-lived Fox television program involves a scenario chillingly similar to the attacks that occur six months later. In the episode of The Lone Gunmen, which is a spin-off of the popular show The X-Files, a small, radical faction within the US government takes over a large passenger jet plane from the ground, using remote control, and then tries to crash it into the World Trade Center. Their intention is to blame the attack on foreign terrorists and therefore revive the arms race.
On December 4, 1998, an item in President Clinton’s Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB)
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?...498hijackingpdb
All 30 entries about Presidential level warnings are here:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp..._level_warnings
There are 59 entires about the Able Danger program here:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...rams=ableDanger
30 Foreign Intelligence Warnings:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...ignIntelligence
47 entries on the subject of “insider trading” and foreknowledge:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...=insiderTrading
Who was the Pakistani student at New Utrecht High School, in Brooklyn, New York City? Where is the FBI file on him?
“The story “had been out on the street” and the number of leads turning up later is so “overwhelming” that it is difficult to tell who knows about the attacks from secondhand sources and who knows about it from someone who may have been a participant.”
Specificity? Ask Ernst Welteke.
“The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the New York Stock Exchange sees “unusually heavy trading in airline and related stocks several days before the attacks.” All 38 companies logically stand to be heavily affected by the attacks. They include parent companies of major airlines American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, United, and US Airways as well as cruise lines Carnival and Royal Caribbean, aircraft maker Boeing and defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The SEC is also looking into suspicious short selling of numerous insurance company stocks, but, to date, no details of this investigation have been released.”
“September 6, 2001: New York Student Forecasts Destruction of WTC:
Antoinette DiLorenzo, teaching English to a class of Pakistani immigrants, asks a student gazing out the window, “What are you looking at?” The student points towards the WTC, and says, “Do you see those two buildings? They won’t be standing there next week.” At the time, nothing is thought of it, but on September 13, the FBI will interview all the people in the classroom and confirm the event. The FBI later places the boy’s family under surveillance but apparently is unable to find a connection to the 9/11 plot. An MSNBC reporter later sets out to disprove this “urban myth,” but to his surprise, finds all the details of the story are confirmed.”
““Between 6 and 7 September, the Chicago Board Options Exchange [sees] purchases of 4,744 put option contracts [a speculation that the stock will go down] in UAL versus 396 call options—where a speculator bets on a price rising. Holders of the put options would [net] a profit of $5 million once the carrier’s share price [dive] after September 11. On September 10, 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings, [are] purchased in Chicago. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. Investigators cannot help but notice that no other airlines [see] such trading in their put options.” One analyst later says, “I saw put-call numbers higher than I’ve ever seen in ten years of following the markets, particularly the options markets.” [Associated Press, 9/18/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/2001] “To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also [learned] that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options… on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.” Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc., which was bought by Deutsche Bank. “His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust—Alex Brown’s private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world.” [Independent, 10/14/2001]”
“September 6-10, 2001: Suspicious Trading on Stocks of Two Large WTC Tenants
The Chicago Board Options Exchange sees suspicious trading on Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, two of the largest WTC tenants. In the first week of September, an average of 27 put option contracts in its shares are bought each day. Then the total for the three days before the attacks is 2,157. Merrill Lynch, another WTC tenant, see 12,215 put options bought between September 7-10, when the previous days had seen averages of 252 contracts a day. [Independent, 10/14/2001] Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg Business News, speaking of the trading on Morgan Stanley and other companies, says, “This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence.” [ABC News, 9/20/2001]
September 10, 2001: Alarm Bells Sound over Unusual Trading in US Stock Options Market
According to CBS News, in the afternoon before the attack, “alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the US stock options market.” It has been documented that the CIA, the Mossad, and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs such as Promis. Both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed the use of such programs for US intelligence gathering through at least this summer. This would confirm that the CIA should have had additional advance warning of imminent attacks against American and United Airlines planes. [CBS News, 9/19/2001] There are even allegations that bin Laden was able to get a copy of Promis. [Fox News, 10/16/2001]
September 10, 2001: Suspicious Trading on United Airlines Stock Occurs at Pacific Exchange
The trading ratio on United Airlines is 25 times greater than normal at the Pacific Exchange. Pacific Exchange officials later decline to state whether this abnormality is being investigated. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/2001]
“Staff members at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) are apparently briefed on the possibility of terrorists deliberately crashing a plane into the World Trade Center. According to author Lynn Spencer, when Trey Murphy—a former US Marine who is now a weapons controller at NEADS—first sees the television footage on September 11 showing that a plane has hit the WTC, the news will bring to mind one of his briefings: “What if a terrorist flies an airplane with a weapon of mass destruction into the World Trade Center? It had always been one of the military’s big fears.… [T]he image on the [television] screen certainly reminded him of his briefing.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 179] It is also later reported that, in the two years prior to 9/11, NORAD conducts exercises simulating terrorists crashing hijacked aircraft into targets that include the WTC (see Between September 1999 and September 10, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004] Yet, in May 2002, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will claim, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center… that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile” (see May 16, 2002). [White House, 5/16/2002] And in 2004, NORAD commander General Ralph Eberhart will say, “Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised.” [USA Today, 4/18/2004]
“In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/politics...error.html?_r=1
Deutsche Bank Alex Brown was once headed by “Buzzy” Krongard, who quit that company in March 2001 and became Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). “This fact may not be significant. And then again, it may. After all, there has traditionally been a close link between the CIA, big banks, and the brokerage business.” [Business Line, 2/11/2002]
46 entries on military exercises
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...litaryExercises
Note especially this one:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?...94marrexercises
September 1997: 1st Air Force Operation Centers to Be Modernized; Computer Software Allows Simulations for Training
A modernization program of the 1st Air Force’s air operation centers, which include NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), is started. Over the next several years, Litton Data Systems is tasked with computerizing the way the Air National Guard accomplishes its air sovereignty mission, which is the surveillance of US skies in coordination with the FAA. Until now, flight plans from the FAA have been “compiled in logs and have to be searched by hand to identify aircraft,” according to National Guard magazine. “The new system will mean fewer manual inquiries and phone contact with FAA officials about commercial aircraft. The FAA flight plan is now hooked up via computer with the new R/SAOCs [Regional/Sector Air Operation Centers] so operators can easily track friendly aircraft through our air space without having to get someone on the phone or thumb through written log books of flight plans. Composite air pictures are now shown in real time on the screen with no delay in transmission. Plans on the screen are shown as they are happening.” The software also allows computer simulations to be used for training purposes, so operators can “go through a situation at their terminals as if it were happening.” Col. Dan Navin, the special assistant to the commander of 1st Air Force, says, “It will enhance our ability to do what many say is the most important job of the Air Force, and that is air sovereignty.” The new systems should be fully operational in all seven 1st Air Force air operation centers by 2003. [National Guard, 9/1997] It is possible that this software is being used on the morning of 9/11, when a NORAD training exercise will include simulated information, known as “inject,” being shown on its radar screens (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001]
Between September 1999 and September 10, 2001: NORAD Exercises Simulate Plane Crashes into US Buildings; One of Them Is the World Trade Center
According to USA Today, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conduct[s] exercises simulating what the White House [later] says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the imagined targets is the World Trade Center. According to NORAD, these scenarios are regional drills, rather than regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises. They utilize “[n]umerous types of civilian and military aircraft” as mock hijacked aircraft, and test “track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination; and operational security and communications security procedures.” The main difference between these drills and the 9/11 attacks is that the planes in the drills are coming from another country, rather than from within the US. Before 9/11, NORAD reportedly conducts four major exercises at headquarters level per year. Most of them are said to include a hijack scenario (see Before September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004; CNN, 4/19/2004]
Fighter jets and personnel from the 71st Fighter Squadron, which is stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, are away in Nevada at the time of the 9/11 attacks, participating in the “Red Flag” training exercise, and only return to base about a week later. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/24/2001; 1st Fighter Association, 2003; Langley Air Force Base, 9/15/2006]
The 94th Fighter Squadron, which is also based at Langley AFB, is away on September 11 as well, for a 90-day combat deployment to Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq (see September 2001). [BBC, 12/29/1998; 1st Fighter Association, 2003]
#24) Incompetence…
Provide a list of the people who have been reprimanded, given negative personnel ratings, or fired as a result of their incompetence.
I can provide at least two examples of very high-level people whose “incompetence” (if in fact that is what it was) was rewarded, promoted or honored. Usually it is competence that is rewarded in that fashion. Myers and Tenet are the first fellows who come to mind.
#25)
Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" also discusses at length Bill Casey, the corporate counteroffensive, the Reagan Revolution and the Republican Congress surprise on pages 96--101.
Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" closes the loop back to FEMA by noting the appointment of Joe Allbaugh, the manager of the Bush-Cheney campaign, to the directorship of FEMA. Allbaugh was involved in the so-called 19th floor riot that stopped the ballot recount in Miami-Dade County. Scott says "I consider the appointment of a dirty dirty-tricks specialist to head the supposedly apolitical agency FEMA a symptom that Bush-Cheney had political designs for FEMA from the outset of their administration."
Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" also spends a significant amount of energy -- in Chapter 13 especially -- suggesting that the 9/11 Commission Report, on the matter of Cheney's orders and the "suppressed synchronous pause at 9:45 a.m.,"resorted to "deceptive and contrived misrepresentations of the truth", raising "the important question of what deeper truth is being concealed by these misrepresentations". And in Chapter 14, Scott brings the discussion back to Dick Cheney, FEMA and the plans for the continuity of government started initially by Cheney and Rumsfeld under Presidents Ford and Reagan. On page 242, "in response to Hurricane Katrina, according to the Washington Post, White House senior adviser Karl Rove called the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Polanco, that he should explore legal options to impose martial law "or as close as we can get." The White House tried vigorously, but ultimately failed, to compel Governor Polanco to yield control of the state National Guard." [Reference the recent events in Pittsburgh.]
Later on that same page, "In September 2005, meanwhile, NORTHCOM conducted a highly classified Granite Shadow exercise in Washington. As military affairs analyst William Arkin reported on his Washington Post blog: "Granite Shadow is yet another top secret and compartmented operation related to the military's extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control." Arkin could learn little about the classified operation except that it involved activities "there are highly controversial and might border on the illegal."... "The administration seems quite aware that if opposition emerges to these programs, it will be organized principally through the Internet. Thus a recent US wargame, Cyber Storm, was waged, not just to protect the Internet but to safeguard the American people from "musings about current events":
"The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday [February 10, 2006], its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.
Bloggers?
Participants confirmed parts of the world wide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, whose Web logs included political rantings and musings about current events."
The book also discusses the pre-9/11 cover-up of Ali Mohamed and his links to US intelligence, and his role as the principal trainer for those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, his employment with the FBI, the CIA, and the U.S. Army [he was a sergeant on active duty with the 5th US Special Forces at Fort Bragg]. Scott's book quotes another author who says "Mohamed was one of the primary sources for the infamous August 6, 2001 presidential daily brief... " The book also goes on to explain that the 9/11 commission selected an individual to write its staff reports about 9/11 and the Al Qaeda connection who had a personal stake in preventing the full truth about Mohamed from coming out.
[All of this, and the ignored warnings, support Peter Dale Scott's comment on page 160: "It is time to confront the reality that these agencies themselves, by their own sponsorship and protection of terrorist activities, has aggravated the greatest threats to our national security."]
The book also goes on to discuss Afghanistan, the origins of Al Qaeda, BCCI and more. On page 119, Scott says "... What remains is the dangerous system whereby small cliques of policymakers, acting at the highest levels of secrecy, are able to make it all-considered decisions, focused on the techniques and matériel of violence, that will have a long-term and tragic effects worldwide. The system also preserves itself by cover-up."
#26) I said: “You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.”
Tazvil04 said “No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...”
To which I respond: My reference was to a comment made to me a long time ago on my blog.
#27)
So:
You are a lawyer, aren’t you, Tazvil04?
Or maybe some of the times it’s Tazvil05 .. or 08… or 13…
Your responses, some of the patterns of English usage, and a documented approach within the field of propaganda and disinformation also suggest that someone has hijacked your CGCS password.
Or perhaps you have loaned it out.
Who knows? Who will ever know?
Yes, that’s the role our government and its supports play now…. One of obfuscation….
Yes, indeed, officers of the court and people sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic are now engaged in wholesale obfuscation and hijacking of the law and science. Must make you feel real good at night.
Cut the crap, Taz.
Your support or pretended ignorance of this national ignominy does not flatter you, your organization, or your profession.
18 U.S.C. § 2382
You are a lawyer, aren’t you?
"People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offense cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators."
Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski, echoed
P. 69- 70, “The Road to 9/11”
“… we have to look at one other way in which Brzezinski helped set the stage for 9/11. This was his bringing Samuel Huntington back to the White House in 1979 to draft Presidential Memorandum 32, which created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA.). What Huntington envisaged as FEMA’s future role is uncertain. But hostile critics have pointed to what he had written for the Trilateral commission in the mid-19 70s, and he's co-authored book crisis in democracy: "a government which lacks authority will have little ability, short of a cataclysmic crisis, who all impose all on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary to deal with foreign policy problems and defense... we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy."
Huntington's words were attacked at the time for their unfashionable questioning of democracy. What may have been more significant was the warning that in a full democracy, "necessary" sacrifices can only be imposed by a cataclysmic crisis. Brzezinski echoed this thought in his case for American Empire, in The Grand Chessboard, when he wrote that "democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." What would make the American public willing to sacrifice for "imperial mobilization," he suggested, would be "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." [Page 69-70 in Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11".]
This, as is well known now, was echoed in the PNAC’s document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", in which it reported "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and tantalizing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
A 58-photo slide show [Warning: May be Disturbing]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/282415/Military-...the-Twin-Towers
Another Lawyer from New Jersey
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3...59008768610598# Loose Change, Final Cut
http://www.legitgov.org/911_report_index_m...rds_072504.html
The Index of Words Not Contained in the 9/11 Commission Report
#23) Specificity?
May 2, 1968: Advertisement in New York Times Warns of WTC Danger, Shows Plane About to Strike One of the Towers
Contradicting later claims that no one could have envisioned what happened on 9/11, the pilot episode of a short-lived Fox television program involves a scenario chillingly similar to the attacks that occur six months later. In the episode of The Lone Gunmen, which is a spin-off of the popular show The X-Files, a small, radical faction within the US government takes over a large passenger jet plane from the ground, using remote control, and then tries to crash it into the World Trade Center. Their intention is to blame the attack on foreign terrorists and therefore revive the arms race.
On December 4, 1998, an item in President Clinton’s Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB)
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?...498hijackingpdb
All 30 entries about Presidential level warnings are here:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp..._level_warnings
There are 59 entires about the Able Danger program here:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...rams=ableDanger
30 Foreign Intelligence Warnings:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...ignIntelligence
47 entries on the subject of “insider trading” and foreknowledge:
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...=insiderTrading
Who was the Pakistani student at New Utrecht High School, in Brooklyn, New York City? Where is the FBI file on him?
“The story “had been out on the street” and the number of leads turning up later is so “overwhelming” that it is difficult to tell who knows about the attacks from secondhand sources and who knows about it from someone who may have been a participant.”
Specificity? Ask Ernst Welteke.
“The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the New York Stock Exchange sees “unusually heavy trading in airline and related stocks several days before the attacks.” All 38 companies logically stand to be heavily affected by the attacks. They include parent companies of major airlines American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, Southwest, United, and US Airways as well as cruise lines Carnival and Royal Caribbean, aircraft maker Boeing and defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The SEC is also looking into suspicious short selling of numerous insurance company stocks, but, to date, no details of this investigation have been released.”
“September 6, 2001: New York Student Forecasts Destruction of WTC:
Antoinette DiLorenzo, teaching English to a class of Pakistani immigrants, asks a student gazing out the window, “What are you looking at?” The student points towards the WTC, and says, “Do you see those two buildings? They won’t be standing there next week.” At the time, nothing is thought of it, but on September 13, the FBI will interview all the people in the classroom and confirm the event. The FBI later places the boy’s family under surveillance but apparently is unable to find a connection to the 9/11 plot. An MSNBC reporter later sets out to disprove this “urban myth,” but to his surprise, finds all the details of the story are confirmed.”
““Between 6 and 7 September, the Chicago Board Options Exchange [sees] purchases of 4,744 put option contracts [a speculation that the stock will go down] in UAL versus 396 call options—where a speculator bets on a price rising. Holders of the put options would [net] a profit of $5 million once the carrier’s share price [dive] after September 11. On September 10, 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the other airline involved in the hijackings, [are] purchased in Chicago. This compares with a mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. Investigators cannot help but notice that no other airlines [see] such trading in their put options.” One analyst later says, “I saw put-call numbers higher than I’ve ever seen in ten years of following the markets, particularly the options markets.” [Associated Press, 9/18/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/2001] “To the embarrassment of investigators, it has also [learned] that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options… on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.” Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc., which was bought by Deutsche Bank. “His last post before resigning to take his senior role in the CIA was to head Bankers Trust—Alex Brown’s private client business, dealing with the accounts and investments of wealthy customers around the world.” [Independent, 10/14/2001]”
“September 6-10, 2001: Suspicious Trading on Stocks of Two Large WTC Tenants
The Chicago Board Options Exchange sees suspicious trading on Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, two of the largest WTC tenants. In the first week of September, an average of 27 put option contracts in its shares are bought each day. Then the total for the three days before the attacks is 2,157. Merrill Lynch, another WTC tenant, see 12,215 put options bought between September 7-10, when the previous days had seen averages of 252 contracts a day. [Independent, 10/14/2001] Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg Business News, speaking of the trading on Morgan Stanley and other companies, says, “This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence.” [ABC News, 9/20/2001]
September 10, 2001: Alarm Bells Sound over Unusual Trading in US Stock Options Market
According to CBS News, in the afternoon before the attack, “alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the US stock options market.” It has been documented that the CIA, the Mossad, and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using highly advanced programs such as Promis. Both the FBI and the Justice Department have confirmed the use of such programs for US intelligence gathering through at least this summer. This would confirm that the CIA should have had additional advance warning of imminent attacks against American and United Airlines planes. [CBS News, 9/19/2001] There are even allegations that bin Laden was able to get a copy of Promis. [Fox News, 10/16/2001]
September 10, 2001: Suspicious Trading on United Airlines Stock Occurs at Pacific Exchange
The trading ratio on United Airlines is 25 times greater than normal at the Pacific Exchange. Pacific Exchange officials later decline to state whether this abnormality is being investigated. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/19/2001]
“Staff members at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) are apparently briefed on the possibility of terrorists deliberately crashing a plane into the World Trade Center. According to author Lynn Spencer, when Trey Murphy—a former US Marine who is now a weapons controller at NEADS—first sees the television footage on September 11 showing that a plane has hit the WTC, the news will bring to mind one of his briefings: “What if a terrorist flies an airplane with a weapon of mass destruction into the World Trade Center? It had always been one of the military’s big fears.… [T]he image on the [television] screen certainly reminded him of his briefing.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 179] It is also later reported that, in the two years prior to 9/11, NORAD conducts exercises simulating terrorists crashing hijacked aircraft into targets that include the WTC (see Between September 1999 and September 10, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004] Yet, in May 2002, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice will claim, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center… that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile” (see May 16, 2002). [White House, 5/16/2002] And in 2004, NORAD commander General Ralph Eberhart will say, “Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised.” [USA Today, 4/18/2004]
“In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.” http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/politics...error.html?_r=1
Deutsche Bank Alex Brown was once headed by “Buzzy” Krongard, who quit that company in March 2001 and became Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). “This fact may not be significant. And then again, it may. After all, there has traditionally been a close link between the CIA, big banks, and the brokerage business.” [Business Line, 2/11/2002]
46 entries on military exercises
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp...litaryExercises
Note especially this one:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?...94marrexercises
September 1997: 1st Air Force Operation Centers to Be Modernized; Computer Software Allows Simulations for Training
A modernization program of the 1st Air Force’s air operation centers, which include NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), is started. Over the next several years, Litton Data Systems is tasked with computerizing the way the Air National Guard accomplishes its air sovereignty mission, which is the surveillance of US skies in coordination with the FAA. Until now, flight plans from the FAA have been “compiled in logs and have to be searched by hand to identify aircraft,” according to National Guard magazine. “The new system will mean fewer manual inquiries and phone contact with FAA officials about commercial aircraft. The FAA flight plan is now hooked up via computer with the new R/SAOCs [Regional/Sector Air Operation Centers] so operators can easily track friendly aircraft through our air space without having to get someone on the phone or thumb through written log books of flight plans. Composite air pictures are now shown in real time on the screen with no delay in transmission. Plans on the screen are shown as they are happening.” The software also allows computer simulations to be used for training purposes, so operators can “go through a situation at their terminals as if it were happening.” Col. Dan Navin, the special assistant to the commander of 1st Air Force, says, “It will enhance our ability to do what many say is the most important job of the Air Force, and that is air sovereignty.” The new systems should be fully operational in all seven 1st Air Force air operation centers by 2003. [National Guard, 9/1997] It is possible that this software is being used on the morning of 9/11, when a NORAD training exercise will include simulated information, known as “inject,” being shown on its radar screens (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001]
Between September 1999 and September 10, 2001: NORAD Exercises Simulate Plane Crashes into US Buildings; One of Them Is the World Trade Center
According to USA Today, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conduct[s] exercises simulating what the White House [later] says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of the imagined targets is the World Trade Center. According to NORAD, these scenarios are regional drills, rather than regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises. They utilize “[n]umerous types of civilian and military aircraft” as mock hijacked aircraft, and test “track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination; and operational security and communications security procedures.” The main difference between these drills and the 9/11 attacks is that the planes in the drills are coming from another country, rather than from within the US. Before 9/11, NORAD reportedly conducts four major exercises at headquarters level per year. Most of them are said to include a hijack scenario (see Before September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004; CNN, 4/19/2004]
Fighter jets and personnel from the 71st Fighter Squadron, which is stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, are away in Nevada at the time of the 9/11 attacks, participating in the “Red Flag” training exercise, and only return to base about a week later. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/24/2001; 1st Fighter Association, 2003; Langley Air Force Base, 9/15/2006]
The 94th Fighter Squadron, which is also based at Langley AFB, is away on September 11 as well, for a 90-day combat deployment to Saudi Arabia to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq (see September 2001). [BBC, 12/29/1998; 1st Fighter Association, 2003]
#24) Incompetence…
Provide a list of the people who have been reprimanded, given negative personnel ratings, or fired as a result of their incompetence.
I can provide at least two examples of very high-level people whose “incompetence” (if in fact that is what it was) was rewarded, promoted or honored. Usually it is competence that is rewarded in that fashion. Myers and Tenet are the first fellows who come to mind.
#25)
Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" also discusses at length Bill Casey, the corporate counteroffensive, the Reagan Revolution and the Republican Congress surprise on pages 96--101.
Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" closes the loop back to FEMA by noting the appointment of Joe Allbaugh, the manager of the Bush-Cheney campaign, to the directorship of FEMA. Allbaugh was involved in the so-called 19th floor riot that stopped the ballot recount in Miami-Dade County. Scott says "I consider the appointment of a dirty dirty-tricks specialist to head the supposedly apolitical agency FEMA a symptom that Bush-Cheney had political designs for FEMA from the outset of their administration."
Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11" also spends a significant amount of energy -- in Chapter 13 especially -- suggesting that the 9/11 Commission Report, on the matter of Cheney's orders and the "suppressed synchronous pause at 9:45 a.m.,"resorted to "deceptive and contrived misrepresentations of the truth", raising "the important question of what deeper truth is being concealed by these misrepresentations". And in Chapter 14, Scott brings the discussion back to Dick Cheney, FEMA and the plans for the continuity of government started initially by Cheney and Rumsfeld under Presidents Ford and Reagan. On page 242, "in response to Hurricane Katrina, according to the Washington Post, White House senior adviser Karl Rove called the governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Polanco, that he should explore legal options to impose martial law "or as close as we can get." The White House tried vigorously, but ultimately failed, to compel Governor Polanco to yield control of the state National Guard." [Reference the recent events in Pittsburgh.]
Later on that same page, "In September 2005, meanwhile, NORTHCOM conducted a highly classified Granite Shadow exercise in Washington. As military affairs analyst William Arkin reported on his Washington Post blog: "Granite Shadow is yet another top secret and compartmented operation related to the military's extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control." Arkin could learn little about the classified operation except that it involved activities "there are highly controversial and might border on the illegal."... "The administration seems quite aware that if opposition emerges to these programs, it will be organized principally through the Internet. Thus a recent US wargame, Cyber Storm, was waged, not just to protect the Internet but to safeguard the American people from "musings about current events":
"The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday [February 10, 2006], its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.
Bloggers?
Participants confirmed parts of the world wide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, whose Web logs included political rantings and musings about current events."
The book also discusses the pre-9/11 cover-up of Ali Mohamed and his links to US intelligence, and his role as the principal trainer for those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, his employment with the FBI, the CIA, and the U.S. Army [he was a sergeant on active duty with the 5th US Special Forces at Fort Bragg]. Scott's book quotes another author who says "Mohamed was one of the primary sources for the infamous August 6, 2001 presidential daily brief... " The book also goes on to explain that the 9/11 commission selected an individual to write its staff reports about 9/11 and the Al Qaeda connection who had a personal stake in preventing the full truth about Mohamed from coming out.
[All of this, and the ignored warnings, support Peter Dale Scott's comment on page 160: "It is time to confront the reality that these agencies themselves, by their own sponsorship and protection of terrorist activities, has aggravated the greatest threats to our national security."]
The book also goes on to discuss Afghanistan, the origins of Al Qaeda, BCCI and more. On page 119, Scott says "... What remains is the dangerous system whereby small cliques of policymakers, acting at the highest levels of secrecy, are able to make it all-considered decisions, focused on the techniques and matériel of violence, that will have a long-term and tragic effects worldwide. The system also preserves itself by cover-up."
#26) I said: “You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.”
Tazvil04 said “No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...”
To which I respond: My reference was to a comment made to me a long time ago on my blog.
#27)
So:
You are a lawyer, aren’t you, Tazvil04?
Or maybe some of the times it’s Tazvil05 .. or 08… or 13…
Your responses, some of the patterns of English usage, and a documented approach within the field of propaganda and disinformation also suggest that someone has hijacked your CGCS password.
Or perhaps you have loaned it out.
Who knows? Who will ever know?
Yes, that’s the role our government and its supports play now…. One of obfuscation….
Yes, indeed, officers of the court and people sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic are now engaged in wholesale obfuscation and hijacking of the law and science. Must make you feel real good at night.
Cut the crap, Taz.
Your support or pretended ignorance of this national ignominy does not flatter you, your organization, or your profession.
18 U.S.C. § 2382
You are a lawyer, aren’t you?
"People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offense cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators."
[quote name='Magmak1' date='Sep 29 2009, 03:39 PM' post='1025187']
#22) “How specific was this prediction Magmak1?”
Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski, echoed
P. 69- 70, “The Road to 9/11”
“… we have to look at one other way in which Brzezinski helped set the stage for 9/11. This was his bringing Samuel Huntington back to the White House in 1979 to draft Presidential Memorandum 32, which created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA.). What Huntington envisaged as FEMA’s future role is uncertain. But hostile critics have pointed to what he had written for the Trilateral commission in the mid-19 70s, and he's co-authored book crisis in democracy: "a government which lacks authority will have little ability, short of a cataclysmic crisis, who all impose all on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary to deal with foreign policy problems and defense... we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy."
Huntington's words were attacked at the time for their unfashionable questioning of democracy. What may have been more significant was the warning that in a full democracy, "necessary" sacrifices can only be imposed by a cataclysmic crisis. Brzezinski echoed this thought in his case for American Empire, in The Grand Chessboard, when he wrote that "democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." What would make the American public willing to sacrifice for "imperial mobilization," he suggested, would be "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." [Page 69-70 in Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11".]
This, as is well known now, was echoed in the PNAC’s document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", in which it reported "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and tantalizing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
A 58-photo slide show [Warning: May be Disturbing]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/282415/Military-...the-Twin-Towers
Another Lawyer from New Jersey
More goverrnment conspiracy theories...Magmak1 -- maybe a better approach to this exercise might be to ask...have you ever seen any conspiracy theory/truther argument that you have rejected as being unsupported by fact or unworthy of belief?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3...59008768610598# Loose Change, Final Cut
http://www.legitgov.org/911_report_index_m...rds_072504.html
The Index of Words Not Contained in the 9/11 Commission Report
Just as I said - not very specific...
If you were making a motion in court based on the evidence you assembled here I do not have to tell you that the motion would be denied.
#22) “How specific was this prediction Magmak1?”
Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski, echoed
P. 69- 70, “The Road to 9/11”
“… we have to look at one other way in which Brzezinski helped set the stage for 9/11. This was his bringing Samuel Huntington back to the White House in 1979 to draft Presidential Memorandum 32, which created the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA.). What Huntington envisaged as FEMA’s future role is uncertain. But hostile critics have pointed to what he had written for the Trilateral commission in the mid-19 70s, and he's co-authored book crisis in democracy: "a government which lacks authority will have little ability, short of a cataclysmic crisis, who all impose all on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary to deal with foreign policy problems and defense... we have come to recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the indefinite extension of political democracy."
Huntington's words were attacked at the time for their unfashionable questioning of democracy. What may have been more significant was the warning that in a full democracy, "necessary" sacrifices can only be imposed by a cataclysmic crisis. Brzezinski echoed this thought in his case for American Empire, in The Grand Chessboard, when he wrote that "democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." What would make the American public willing to sacrifice for "imperial mobilization," he suggested, would be "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." [Page 69-70 in Peter Dale Scott's book "The Road to 9/11".]
This, as is well known now, was echoed in the PNAC’s document, "Rebuilding America's Defenses", in which it reported "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and tantalizing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."
A 58-photo slide show [Warning: May be Disturbing]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/282415/Military-...the-Twin-Towers
Another Lawyer from New Jersey
More goverrnment conspiracy theories...Magmak1 -- maybe a better approach to this exercise might be to ask...have you ever seen any conspiracy theory/truther argument that you have rejected as being unsupported by fact or unworthy of belief?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3...59008768610598# Loose Change, Final Cut
http://www.legitgov.org/911_report_index_m...rds_072504.html
The Index of Words Not Contained in the 9/11 Commission Report
Just as I said - not very specific...
If you were making a motion in court based on the evidence you assembled here I do not have to tell you that the motion would be denied.
If just .0001 of the entire official story is wrong, that means it is all wrong
it doesn't matter any other idea
just that once a little bit of the official story is wrong, it makes suspect any of it
and the day 9/11 is step H or I or J out of hundreds of steps
the official story needs ALL 100 STEPS to proven true
NOT TO BE PROVEN FALSE
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Sep 29 2009, 03:39 PM)
#26) I said: “You can look into the abyss, Tazvil, without falling in. What you see there can dismay you, anger you, shock you, and it can also provide the fuel for rebirth and rejuvenation and re-direction.”
Tazvil04 said “No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...”
To which I respond: My reference was to a comment made to me a long time ago on my blog.
Well, I must have missed it...
#27)
So:
You are a lawyer, aren’t you, Tazvil04?
Or maybe some of the times it’s Tazvil05 .. or 08… or 13…
Your responses, some of the patterns of English usage, and a documented approach within the field of propaganda and disinformation also suggest that someone has hijacked your CGCS password.
Oh -- do they...
And your assessment makes me wonder who hijacked the entity previously known as Magmak1 who I initially perceived as a sane and intelligent participant in a mutual dialogue aimed at finding common ground on an issue of mutual concern... was I wrong?
Magmak1 -- if we can't even have a civil conversation without your jumping to more conspiracy theories as we speak...well maybe there is no point to our dialogue...I mean really...
Or perhaps you have loaned it out.
Who knows? Who will ever know?
Yes, that’s the role our government and its supports play now…. One of obfuscation….
Yes, indeed, officers of the court and people sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic are now engaged in wholesale obfuscation and hijacking of the law and science. Must make you feel real good at night.
Cut the crap, Taz.
Your support or pretended ignorance of this national ignominy does not flatter you, your organization, or your profession.
My organization? My profession?
What are you talking about here?
I see that this is degeneratiing into a Graham4Anything name calling...I expected more from you Magmak1 -- I think you have devised one or two too many conspiracy theories...
18 U.S.C. § 2382
You are a lawyer, aren’t you?
"People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offense cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators."
Tazvil04 said “No, Magmak1...you missed the line...its from Wall Street by Hal Holbrook's character...”
To which I respond: My reference was to a comment made to me a long time ago on my blog.
Well, I must have missed it...
#27)
So:
You are a lawyer, aren’t you, Tazvil04?
Or maybe some of the times it’s Tazvil05 .. or 08… or 13…
Your responses, some of the patterns of English usage, and a documented approach within the field of propaganda and disinformation also suggest that someone has hijacked your CGCS password.
Oh -- do they...
And your assessment makes me wonder who hijacked the entity previously known as Magmak1 who I initially perceived as a sane and intelligent participant in a mutual dialogue aimed at finding common ground on an issue of mutual concern... was I wrong?
Magmak1 -- if we can't even have a civil conversation without your jumping to more conspiracy theories as we speak...well maybe there is no point to our dialogue...I mean really...
Or perhaps you have loaned it out.
Who knows? Who will ever know?
Yes, that’s the role our government and its supports play now…. One of obfuscation….
Yes, indeed, officers of the court and people sworn to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic are now engaged in wholesale obfuscation and hijacking of the law and science. Must make you feel real good at night.
Cut the crap, Taz.
Your support or pretended ignorance of this national ignominy does not flatter you, your organization, or your profession.
My organization? My profession?
What are you talking about here?
I see that this is degeneratiing into a Graham4Anything name calling...I expected more from you Magmak1 -- I think you have devised one or two too many conspiracy theories...
18 U.S.C. § 2382
You are a lawyer, aren’t you?
"People who have once collaborated secretly in an impeachable if not treasonable offense cannot dispense lightly with their co-conspirators."
Magmak1 -- if we can't even have a civil conversation without your jumping to more conspiracy theories as we speak...well maybe there is no point to our dialogue...I mean really...
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Sep 29 2009, 02:21 PM)
In response to post #13:
Let me say – before I launch into my 28-point counter-statement -- that I also find the insertions of responses inside a post to be troubling and sometimes difficult to read… but I know I do it myself… sometimes when I am in a hurry, or when
a) to “pull apart” the post like a roasted chicken and re-shape it in a WP document to be re-posted later is too much work, or
that effort is not warranted given the breadth and depth of the response…
And I appreciate that indeed you, Tazvil04, do have other things to do in your world and life and that,
conversely and relatively, I have scads of otherwise unencumbered time…
Do you...this was your feeling it appears when you started this exercise...but at the end it appears that you may have a less accommodating perspective...
So forgive me if I take the time here and utilize the technique of a new document;
I think it is easier for the peanut gallery to read from the cheap seats…
Sounds good.
Now …
Point #1) In response to my offer or suggestion that we jointly do a taxonomy, you said “do what you must”.
I may indeed; I am currently searching for other willing participants, but not many are not willing to spend the time or the brain-power, even from within the 9/11 Truth Community.
But the dismissal of the idea by anyone is not coherent with an expressed desire (or unexpressed) desire to “search for the truth”.
Given the gravitas of the matter, “I don’t have the time or the money” is pretty weak coming from either side of the question.
Point #2) Tazvil states “we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time”.
I disagree.
You think we can go back in time?
The first part is okay;“we do not know” is valid as an entry point, the essential obvious hypothesis, even after something has been offered in debate.
“We will never know” is giving up before the search is finished, or even underway – given your unwillingness to do a taxonomy – or suggesting that the effort is futile, which is not a decent, humane and valid service given the deaths of so many (especially for someone committed to law, as you are)(you are, aren’t you?).
Oh come on...accusing me of inhumane behavior...because I happen to have a different point of view than you have on an issue...
I am committed to the rule of law in any society...aren't you?
Professionally I think most people work with laws...and standards....is there anything bizarre about that?
And I would think that most if not all Americans are committed to the rule of law...
This has been the cornerstone of our foreign policy...for some time now...its nothing special...its just the reality that nations which adhere to international law globally and domestic laws internally are much more likely to be peaceful than those nations that do otherwise...
Why does this appear to be such a foreign issue for you?
“We cannot go back in time” is equally specious, especially in the presence of the preservation of evidence, the current state-of-the-art in forensic science, the efforts of projects like History Commons, the banking of video footage, sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury, the legal discovery process, etc. [You are a lawyer, right?]
Equally specious?
Its a reality...I tried to draw the easiest analogy using a court case for you to express the analogy -- that has not worked...
I know Arne does the best analogies...
But life is not a laboratory...we cannot reproduce every event that has occurred again...this is the point about our not being able to go back in time...not being able to relive an event...all we can do is use the remnants of the event to try and reconstruct what happened...
You contend that
What is this lawyer kick you are suddently on?
If you want to continue to imbue my person with your conspiracy theories like Graham have at it...
You may think my statement is specious...but that is only the case if you are correct that there is something to hide by not conducting a multi-million dollar rehash of what we already know to produce a report that is 90-95% the same as the report we already have...
I happen to disagree and have yet to see anything to make me change my mind...
Point #3) You said “I think I am alone on this” but, of course, I know you are not, on several counts. Let me enumerate on at least two of them.
A) You have cited information from several debunking sources, and these web sites usually have some place on the home page saying “contact us”; you being an intelligent professional [You are a lawyer, right?] conversant with the skills of communications, the process of discovery and research, and the art of enrollment (and having perhaps some assistance or assistants), you are in a position to contact one or more of those involved in this debunking.
I do this as a lark...this is not my profession....its a hobby...
Anyone as experienced as you is surrounded by professionals who have likely spent some time on these matters if peripherally and might be enlisted or “enrolled” into your support, if they are not already supporting you.
What?
I can tell you no one that I work with or have ever worked with having I ever discussed the ideas espoused by the truthers...
I can tell you that...
There is no one enrolled into my support as you call it...
More of your conspiracy theories...
The only person I have mentioned any of my posting to is my wife who refers to this website as "The Kerry Kooks"....
So, you are not going to find any sympathy from my so-called supporters...
Point #4) Tazvil said “Do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?” I will respond by saying that I reserve the right to say “yes” on this on the basis of distant memory, but I also reserve the right to go back and re-examine this, and change my mind. It is a bit strong to say that I suggest that there was conspiracy involved – my concern, subject to that review, is that there were perhaps appearances of conflict of allegiance or interest. This is in the presence of significant information on the use of corporatization/privatization of military and intelligence contractors. Let’s agree to set this aside for the moment, though it certainly ought to be examined.
What is this --- the third degree? You do not have to reserve any rights here...
Fine...though I have not the slightest idea what you are getting at...
Point #5) Tazvil said “What do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...?” What I would have liked forensic research to determine is more definitive evidence, but let me be much more specific. Assays or samples of steel, building parts, dust, airplane parts, etc. remain among the missing or are held only by “the state” behind walls of legal evidentiary protection for some future trial or behind walls of “national security”. But you can’t prove the case if the evidence is unavailable to the examination of interested parties. [You are a lawyer, right?] And it is more incumbent on the government to prove its conspiracy theory than it is for the jurors to prove its surmise about the facts of the case.
It is more incumbent upon the government to prove what they have proven?
Where do you get this from?
Where is this written?
Let us say we have a scientist...like Isaac Newton...who has established a theory of gravity...its widely accepted and used with modern physics...and then we have someone who calls Newton's law a fraud and invalid...
Is it incumbent upon Newton to defend what has been widely accepted or for the challenger to provide a proof that invalidates his theory?
I would submit that it is the latter...and this is the situation that you and the truthers are in and you do not like it...
You are not going to be content -- because there are some inconsistencies in the government's story on 9/11 until we waste millions of dollars to "prove" the government's conspriacy theory...
BUt to what end this?
If the government did everything you wanted...and conducted your examination and research and reached the same conclusion...would you be satisfied?
Of course you would not...you would be calling the investigation a sham...like you are now...
This is the reality that you refuse to accept...
If you do not trust the government....then how can you call upon the government to conduct a review of the issue -- when you do not trust that they will property and completely and competently investigate this issue to your satisfaction?
You cannot...so what you are really asking for is for millions of dollars to be spent to research these issues...only so that you can call the final report a sham all over again....
Now, we do have a case in which it is alleged by the authors of the thermite paper that samples of steel and dust from the scene were properly collected, preserved and analyzed; that is fair game for inquiry and analysis and, if it can be proven that it was improperly preserved, analyzed, etc., than the supposition and finding can be thrown out. I don’t have the answer to those questions; presumably the authors and scientists advancing that theory are prepared to document and prove same.
The bottom line is that you truthers want access yourselves to be able to lend more credence to your theory that it was an inside job...and that is NEVER going to happen...
People are not given access to what evidence remains because of national security concerns AND the need to respect the bodies/remains of persons who might still be contained within the debris....but for some reason you cannot comprehend this...
As I mentioned before...I counselled a number of victim families from 9/11...and it was quite sad...and I think they would be horrified at the thought of redredging up this stuff again...for not valid purpose other than the truthers have another conspiracy theory they want a chance to prove....
Can you see where some might see what you are doing as offensive?
Now, you want access to the dust given to scientists...to what end?
When does it stop?
Can't you see it will never stop...you all will never be satisfied...and the government will say the findings show one thing and you will argue they show another...and on and on and on
We do have verbal non-sworn testimony that the so-called “black boxes” from the scene were found and handed over, analyzed, etc.
So, habeas black boxus.
Its a national security issue...
Let me say – before I launch into my 28-point counter-statement -- that I also find the insertions of responses inside a post to be troubling and sometimes difficult to read… but I know I do it myself… sometimes when I am in a hurry, or when
a) to “pull apart” the post like a roasted chicken and re-shape it in a WP document to be re-posted later is too much work, or
that effort is not warranted given the breadth and depth of the response… And I appreciate that indeed you, Tazvil04, do have other things to do in your world and life and that,
conversely and relatively, I have scads of otherwise unencumbered time…
Do you...this was your feeling it appears when you started this exercise...but at the end it appears that you may have a less accommodating perspective...
So forgive me if I take the time here and utilize the technique of a new document;
I think it is easier for the peanut gallery to read from the cheap seats…
Sounds good.
Now …
Point #1) In response to my offer or suggestion that we jointly do a taxonomy, you said “do what you must”.
I may indeed; I am currently searching for other willing participants, but not many are not willing to spend the time or the brain-power, even from within the 9/11 Truth Community.
But the dismissal of the idea by anyone is not coherent with an expressed desire (or unexpressed) desire to “search for the truth”.
Given the gravitas of the matter, “I don’t have the time or the money” is pretty weak coming from either side of the question.
Point #2) Tazvil states “we do not know...and we will NEVER know...because we cannot go back in time”.
I disagree.
You think we can go back in time?
The first part is okay;“we do not know” is valid as an entry point, the essential obvious hypothesis, even after something has been offered in debate.
“We will never know” is giving up before the search is finished, or even underway – given your unwillingness to do a taxonomy – or suggesting that the effort is futile, which is not a decent, humane and valid service given the deaths of so many (especially for someone committed to law, as you are)(you are, aren’t you?).
Oh come on...accusing me of inhumane behavior...because I happen to have a different point of view than you have on an issue...
I am committed to the rule of law in any society...aren't you?
Professionally I think most people work with laws...and standards....is there anything bizarre about that?
And I would think that most if not all Americans are committed to the rule of law...
This has been the cornerstone of our foreign policy...for some time now...its nothing special...its just the reality that nations which adhere to international law globally and domestic laws internally are much more likely to be peaceful than those nations that do otherwise...
Why does this appear to be such a foreign issue for you?
“We cannot go back in time” is equally specious, especially in the presence of the preservation of evidence, the current state-of-the-art in forensic science, the efforts of projects like History Commons, the banking of video footage, sworn affidavits under penalty of perjury, the legal discovery process, etc. [You are a lawyer, right?]
Equally specious?
Its a reality...I tried to draw the easiest analogy using a court case for you to express the analogy -- that has not worked...
I know Arne does the best analogies...
But life is not a laboratory...we cannot reproduce every event that has occurred again...this is the point about our not being able to go back in time...not being able to relive an event...all we can do is use the remnants of the event to try and reconstruct what happened...
You contend that
What is this lawyer kick you are suddently on?
If you want to continue to imbue my person with your conspiracy theories like Graham have at it...
You may think my statement is specious...but that is only the case if you are correct that there is something to hide by not conducting a multi-million dollar rehash of what we already know to produce a report that is 90-95% the same as the report we already have...
I happen to disagree and have yet to see anything to make me change my mind...
Point #3) You said “I think I am alone on this” but, of course, I know you are not, on several counts. Let me enumerate on at least two of them.
A) You have cited information from several debunking sources, and these web sites usually have some place on the home page saying “contact us”; you being an intelligent professional [You are a lawyer, right?] conversant with the skills of communications, the process of discovery and research, and the art of enrollment (and having perhaps some assistance or assistants), you are in a position to contact one or more of those involved in this debunking.
I do this as a lark...this is not my profession....its a hobby...
Anyone as experienced as you is surrounded by professionals who have likely spent some time on these matters if peripherally and might be enlisted or “enrolled” into your support, if they are not already supporting you. What?
I can tell you no one that I work with or have ever worked with having I ever discussed the ideas espoused by the truthers...
I can tell you that...
There is no one enrolled into my support as you call it...
More of your conspiracy theories...
The only person I have mentioned any of my posting to is my wife who refers to this website as "The Kerry Kooks"....
So, you are not going to find any sympathy from my so-called supporters...
Point #4) Tazvil said “Do you have a problem with the way the victim forensics was done? You suspect a conspiracy in that regard as well?” I will respond by saying that I reserve the right to say “yes” on this on the basis of distant memory, but I also reserve the right to go back and re-examine this, and change my mind. It is a bit strong to say that I suggest that there was conspiracy involved – my concern, subject to that review, is that there were perhaps appearances of conflict of allegiance or interest. This is in the presence of significant information on the use of corporatization/privatization of military and intelligence contractors. Let’s agree to set this aside for the moment, though it certainly ought to be examined.
What is this --- the third degree? You do not have to reserve any rights here...
Fine...though I have not the slightest idea what you are getting at...
Point #5) Tazvil said “What do you expect forensic research to determine that has not already been concluded...?” What I would have liked forensic research to determine is more definitive evidence, but let me be much more specific. Assays or samples of steel, building parts, dust, airplane parts, etc. remain among the missing or are held only by “the state” behind walls of legal evidentiary protection for some future trial or behind walls of “national security”. But you can’t prove the case if the evidence is unavailable to the examination of interested parties. [You are a lawyer, right?] And it is more incumbent on the government to prove its conspiracy theory than it is for the jurors to prove its surmise about the facts of the case.
It is more incumbent upon the government to prove what they have proven?
Where do you get this from?
Where is this written?
Let us say we have a scientist...like Isaac Newton...who has established a theory of gravity...its widely accepted and used with modern physics...and then we have someone who calls Newton's law a fraud and invalid...
Is it incumbent upon Newton to defend what has been widely accepted or for the challenger to provide a proof that invalidates his theory?
I would submit that it is the latter...and this is the situation that you and the truthers are in and you do not like it...
You are not going to be content -- because there are some inconsistencies in the government's story on 9/11 until we waste millions of dollars to "prove" the government's conspriacy theory...
BUt to what end this?
If the government did everything you wanted...and conducted your examination and research and reached the same conclusion...would you be satisfied?
Of course you would not...you would be calling the investigation a sham...like you are now...
This is the reality that you refuse to accept...
If you do not trust the government....then how can you call upon the government to conduct a review of the issue -- when you do not trust that they will property and completely and competently investigate this issue to your satisfaction?
You cannot...so what you are really asking for is for millions of dollars to be spent to research these issues...only so that you can call the final report a sham all over again....
Now, we do have a case in which it is alleged by the authors of the thermite paper that samples of steel and dust from the scene were properly collected, preserved and analyzed; that is fair game for inquiry and analysis and, if it can be proven that it was improperly preserved, analyzed, etc., than the supposition and finding can be thrown out. I don’t have the answer to those questions; presumably the authors and scientists advancing that theory are prepared to document and prove same.
The bottom line is that you truthers want access yourselves to be able to lend more credence to your theory that it was an inside job...and that is NEVER going to happen...
People are not given access to what evidence remains because of national security concerns AND the need to respect the bodies/remains of persons who might still be contained within the debris....but for some reason you cannot comprehend this...
As I mentioned before...I counselled a number of victim families from 9/11...and it was quite sad...and I think they would be horrified at the thought of redredging up this stuff again...for not valid purpose other than the truthers have another conspiracy theory they want a chance to prove....
Can you see where some might see what you are doing as offensive?
Now, you want access to the dust given to scientists...to what end?
When does it stop?
Can't you see it will never stop...you all will never be satisfied...and the government will say the findings show one thing and you will argue they show another...and on and on and on
We do have verbal non-sworn testimony that the so-called “black boxes” from the scene were found and handed over, analyzed, etc.
So, habeas black boxus.
Its a national security issue...
what national security issue is the black boxes?
keeping the bush's out of jail, ah, that's the answer.
keeping the bush's out of jail, ah, that's the answer.
Did anyone address how come WTC 7 fell down into its own footprint? It was never hit, even though it had a pretty good fire.
I watched the First Interstate Bank building in LA burn for en entire day.
Five floors engulfed.
Cost millions to rebuild, but it is still standing, and NO MODERN STEEL BUILDING HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT DOWN BY A FIRE.
I watched the First Interstate Bank building in LA burn for en entire day.
Five floors engulfed.
Cost millions to rebuild, but it is still standing, and NO MODERN STEEL BUILDING HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT DOWN BY A FIRE.
QUOTE(Magmak1 @ Sep 29 2009, 02:21 PM)
Point #6) Tazvil asks “Do you deny that the planes were occupied by members of al Qaeda?” I don’t deny or assert anything at this point. I can’t prove or disprove that members of al-Qaeda were on the plane. Neither can the government. It has presented evidence of some airport surveillance photos that are very limited in number, possibly questionable.
I think we have a matter of disagreement on this issue...
Tickets were purchased...boarding passes were submitted...video camera pictures are there...and it is my understanding that airline personnel have been interviewed and confirmed that they were seen boarding the planes...
So, what we have here is the government which has proven that they were on the planes...and we have you refusing to accept the government's statement on this and the evidence that they have felt comfortable sharing with the public to support it...
You refuse to accept the reality that there is likely evidence which cannot be made public that also supports their conclusions...
We have a red bandanna (ironed). There is also some other “evidence” that may not be coherent or consistent with the story or what we are told about the alleged perpetrators. We also have a track record in which governments have previously planted evidence or engaged in false-flag ops. We also have very strong information that the airport security companies were owned and operated by former members of Israeli state security agencies. Tazvil asserts that “we have audiotape of [the hijackers] shouting orders” and I have indications that voice morphing and audio faking was state-of-the-art at that very time, so you could tell me that Barack Obama was tape-recorded telling John O’Neil not to go back up those stairs in the Towers and I could show you how that was possible.
A "track record" --- come on -- this is just conjecture -- hyperbole...
Tazvil asks if I “disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?” and offers up the follow-up question “Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?” and I respond, again, I have no proof who was on those planes whatsoever, I don’t know what or who hijacked anything, or whether there was a hijacking at all. It is alleged and it is possible but it is not proven. There are alternative theories that have not been allowed for examination or cross-examination [you are a lawyer, aren’t you?], and no strong evidence worth anything that has been presented in a way in which it can be examined, cross-examined, verified, tested or proven. I am sure you are aware that there are controversial theories that suggest the thing never happened at all. I am also aware that the Israeli state security agencies are quite adept at and have a record of having its agents pose as Arab terrorists. There is also significance indication of Israeli espionage, as well as Israeli involvement in or around 9/11 of one sort or another at least indicating fore-knowledge. These are all questions.
You have no proof who was on the planes and you choose not to believe the statements and proof offered by the government, though you have no basis for doing so other than governments have lied in the past....
I am also aware that mountains of disinformation and misinformation have been dropped in the paths of pursuers of truth, no doubt by the perpetrators, like bank thieves drop tire-shredding objects onto the road to stop police pursuit.
This is your opinion...of course others would likely say that mountains of information sustaining the governments explanation have been provided to refute and answer concerns raised by the truthers, but you characterize it any way you like...I guess whichever way ends up giving you the strongest conspiracy theory case...
Point #7) Tazvil says “we have a PDB which on August 6…”, and I ask him if he has seen this PDB, has a copy of it, can guarantee that it hasn’t been tampered with, or has a witness from within the Presidential Daily Briefing process who will testify under oath as to what was said.
So, you contend that the August 6, 2001 PDB which embarrassed the Bush Adminstration was a fake -- and that Administration officials and others who vouch for its accuracy like Paul Pillar who has since come out and made some of the strongest statements against the Bush Adminsitration's efforts to fox intelligence to support their goal of going into Iraq...is lying as well?
I am telling you Magmak1 if you just step back from this for a second...I think you will see that the truthers efforts are a house of cards...just waiting to fall...
Otherwise you are suggesting again that we had a government that fabricated the truth on 9/11 -- and we have a successor government that would likely have knowledge of said fabrication and this is the group that you are calling upon to investigate their own wrongdoing which just seems to me a bit far fetched...
And I tell you regarding being under oath there is a federal statute that government officials do not need to be under oath to be required to tell the truth in acting in their official capacities...if they lie while exercising their responsibilities they can be prosecuted -- thus -- any statements made by federal officials regarding the PDB before Congress in open or closed session is tantamount to being under oath...and we have a number of persons interviewed in the 9/11 Commission report which provide such evidence...just another wild good chase you are trying to create...making a mountain out of a molehill when there is nothing there...
At this point, I could also ask my competent debate opponent, the lawyer, if he would stipulate as to the fact that witness Condoleeza Rice lied under oath; I assume he won’t, but that will undoubtedly become a factor in this debate.
Still on the lawyer jag...huh...
Will I stipulate that she lied under oath?
I do not know her mindset...did she intentionally mislead Congress? I do not know...I would say that she gave misleading testimony...I do not know if it was intentional or just plain incompetence...because as I have repeatedly said...she is the most incompetent national security advisor we have ever had...
See the History Commons entry on the 8/6 PDB here.
I have no idea what your link is intended to prove relating to a 1998 PDB...and only stating that this PDB is referenced in the 2001 PDB which you seem to imply was never even issued...
Why do you believe in a 1998 Clinton PDB and have doubts about a August 6, 2001 PDB ...
Point #8) Tazvil asks “Who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go?” and I answer that I have only questions, not absolute proof, but disturbing appearances, conflicts of interest, unusual and unusually repetitive issues among key and critical players, including many Bush administration figures, at least three and perhaps more key players in the military chain of command that day, key executive branch agencies, multiple corporations, foreigners, critical security staffers, etc. Others have named names. If you are not clear on who has named the names and whose names were named, you aren’t a very good student of the matter and you need to go back and do some more preparation. Maybe you ought to do a legal taxonomy. “A formal taxonomy that classifies legal materials according to rules of order and clarity… is primarily conventional… A predominantly formal taxonomy facilitates legal analysis and communication.”
In other words -- because you and the truthers have not been provided with national security documents you refuse to believe that anything but a conspiracy is involved...
You have no evidence conspiracy but you believe because of denied acccess there has to be something to it...
I think we are starting to run in circles...
Point #9) Tazvil asks “what is your timetable?” for the assiduous and prompt collection of evidence. There is no reason why that evidence could not have been collected from the crime scene in a time frame that was nearly compatible with the rescue, fire-fighting and other “stabilization” elements of the early response, and certainly could have been done to reasonable completion at any of the three scenes before the sun set on 9/11. Any emergency response plan worth its name at almost any level outside a small hamlet in northern nowhere allows for the protection of at least part of the scene as a crime scene and allows for, and denotes, a specific role for some personnel from law enforcement to perform this function. I know this because I am experienced in the field of emergency medical services mass casualty incident management, conversant in the field of emergency management response, and NIMS-certified at several levels. You know this. And I can prove that you know it (or ought to know).
And you prefer to chalk the failure to collect evidence as part of a conspiracy rather than incompetence and a need, desire to try and save lives as a first priority...
Point #10) “There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....”
Oh really? http://www.jobaps.com/de/specs/classspecdi...LinkSpec=MBAB01
Uh huh … http://www.femors.org/about.asp
Sure… http://dev2.globaldisastermgt.com/page.php?7
For Certain … http://www.ehow.com/about_4563985_police-photography.html
Okay… Maybe we should ask Gayle Onnen
For $76, Forensic Science: An Encyclopedia of History, Methods, and Techniques
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576071944
You did say you were a lawyer, right?
Is she an expert on national security or normal crime scene forensics when the lives of people are not at issue?
#11) Tazvil says that the folks who published the paper on thermite-induced explosive demolition of the towers “have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim”. I agree. Why don’t you get the folks at NIST tofile a motion? Oh, yes, you already know this stuff, don’t you?
to be continued...
I think we have a matter of disagreement on this issue...
Tickets were purchased...boarding passes were submitted...video camera pictures are there...and it is my understanding that airline personnel have been interviewed and confirmed that they were seen boarding the planes...
So, what we have here is the government which has proven that they were on the planes...and we have you refusing to accept the government's statement on this and the evidence that they have felt comfortable sharing with the public to support it...
You refuse to accept the reality that there is likely evidence which cannot be made public that also supports their conclusions...
We have a red bandanna (ironed). There is also some other “evidence” that may not be coherent or consistent with the story or what we are told about the alleged perpetrators. We also have a track record in which governments have previously planted evidence or engaged in false-flag ops. We also have very strong information that the airport security companies were owned and operated by former members of Israeli state security agencies. Tazvil asserts that “we have audiotape of [the hijackers] shouting orders” and I have indications that voice morphing and audio faking was state-of-the-art at that very time, so you could tell me that Barack Obama was tape-recorded telling John O’Neil not to go back up those stairs in the Towers and I could show you how that was possible.
A "track record" --- come on -- this is just conjecture -- hyperbole...
Tazvil asks if I “disagree with this interpretation that al Qaeda was actually hijacking the planes?” and offers up the follow-up question “Were these then double agents that boarded the planes?” and I respond, again, I have no proof who was on those planes whatsoever, I don’t know what or who hijacked anything, or whether there was a hijacking at all. It is alleged and it is possible but it is not proven. There are alternative theories that have not been allowed for examination or cross-examination [you are a lawyer, aren’t you?], and no strong evidence worth anything that has been presented in a way in which it can be examined, cross-examined, verified, tested or proven. I am sure you are aware that there are controversial theories that suggest the thing never happened at all. I am also aware that the Israeli state security agencies are quite adept at and have a record of having its agents pose as Arab terrorists. There is also significance indication of Israeli espionage, as well as Israeli involvement in or around 9/11 of one sort or another at least indicating fore-knowledge. These are all questions.
You have no proof who was on the planes and you choose not to believe the statements and proof offered by the government, though you have no basis for doing so other than governments have lied in the past....
I am also aware that mountains of disinformation and misinformation have been dropped in the paths of pursuers of truth, no doubt by the perpetrators, like bank thieves drop tire-shredding objects onto the road to stop police pursuit.
This is your opinion...of course others would likely say that mountains of information sustaining the governments explanation have been provided to refute and answer concerns raised by the truthers, but you characterize it any way you like...I guess whichever way ends up giving you the strongest conspiracy theory case...
Point #7) Tazvil says “we have a PDB which on August 6…”, and I ask him if he has seen this PDB, has a copy of it, can guarantee that it hasn’t been tampered with, or has a witness from within the Presidential Daily Briefing process who will testify under oath as to what was said.
So, you contend that the August 6, 2001 PDB which embarrassed the Bush Adminstration was a fake -- and that Administration officials and others who vouch for its accuracy like Paul Pillar who has since come out and made some of the strongest statements against the Bush Adminsitration's efforts to fox intelligence to support their goal of going into Iraq...is lying as well?
I am telling you Magmak1 if you just step back from this for a second...I think you will see that the truthers efforts are a house of cards...just waiting to fall...
Otherwise you are suggesting again that we had a government that fabricated the truth on 9/11 -- and we have a successor government that would likely have knowledge of said fabrication and this is the group that you are calling upon to investigate their own wrongdoing which just seems to me a bit far fetched...
And I tell you regarding being under oath there is a federal statute that government officials do not need to be under oath to be required to tell the truth in acting in their official capacities...if they lie while exercising their responsibilities they can be prosecuted -- thus -- any statements made by federal officials regarding the PDB before Congress in open or closed session is tantamount to being under oath...and we have a number of persons interviewed in the 9/11 Commission report which provide such evidence...just another wild good chase you are trying to create...making a mountain out of a molehill when there is nothing there...
At this point, I could also ask my competent debate opponent, the lawyer, if he would stipulate as to the fact that witness Condoleeza Rice lied under oath; I assume he won’t, but that will undoubtedly become a factor in this debate.
Still on the lawyer jag...huh...
Will I stipulate that she lied under oath?
I do not know her mindset...did she intentionally mislead Congress? I do not know...I would say that she gave misleading testimony...I do not know if it was intentional or just plain incompetence...because as I have repeatedly said...she is the most incompetent national security advisor we have ever had...
See the History Commons entry on the 8/6 PDB here.
I have no idea what your link is intended to prove relating to a 1998 PDB...and only stating that this PDB is referenced in the 2001 PDB which you seem to imply was never even issued...
Why do you believe in a 1998 Clinton PDB and have doubts about a August 6, 2001 PDB ...
Point #8) Tazvil asks “Who is involved in your conspiracy -- how deep does it go?” and I answer that I have only questions, not absolute proof, but disturbing appearances, conflicts of interest, unusual and unusually repetitive issues among key and critical players, including many Bush administration figures, at least three and perhaps more key players in the military chain of command that day, key executive branch agencies, multiple corporations, foreigners, critical security staffers, etc. Others have named names. If you are not clear on who has named the names and whose names were named, you aren’t a very good student of the matter and you need to go back and do some more preparation. Maybe you ought to do a legal taxonomy. “A formal taxonomy that classifies legal materials according to rules of order and clarity… is primarily conventional… A predominantly formal taxonomy facilitates legal analysis and communication.”
In other words -- because you and the truthers have not been provided with national security documents you refuse to believe that anything but a conspiracy is involved...
You have no evidence conspiracy but you believe because of denied acccess there has to be something to it...
I think we are starting to run in circles...
Point #9) Tazvil asks “what is your timetable?” for the assiduous and prompt collection of evidence. There is no reason why that evidence could not have been collected from the crime scene in a time frame that was nearly compatible with the rescue, fire-fighting and other “stabilization” elements of the early response, and certainly could have been done to reasonable completion at any of the three scenes before the sun set on 9/11. Any emergency response plan worth its name at almost any level outside a small hamlet in northern nowhere allows for the protection of at least part of the scene as a crime scene and allows for, and denotes, a specific role for some personnel from law enforcement to perform this function. I know this because I am experienced in the field of emergency medical services mass casualty incident management, conversant in the field of emergency management response, and NIMS-certified at several levels. You know this. And I can prove that you know it (or ought to know).
And you prefer to chalk the failure to collect evidence as part of a conspiracy rather than incompetence and a need, desire to try and save lives as a first priority...
Point #10) “There is good reason not to allow any photographers or media to examine the wreckage -- its a gravesite...literally....”
Oh really? http://www.jobaps.com/de/specs/classspecdi...LinkSpec=MBAB01
Uh huh … http://www.femors.org/about.asp
Sure… http://dev2.globaldisastermgt.com/page.php?7
For Certain … http://www.ehow.com/about_4563985_police-photography.html
Okay… Maybe we should ask Gayle Onnen
For $76, Forensic Science: An Encyclopedia of History, Methods, and Techniques
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576071944
You did say you were a lawyer, right?
Is she an expert on national security or normal crime scene forensics when the lives of people are not at issue?
#11) Tazvil says that the folks who published the paper on thermite-induced explosive demolition of the towers “have an obligation to produce evidence...to support their claim”. I agree. Why don’t you get the folks at NIST tofile a motion? Oh, yes, you already know this stuff, don’t you?
to be continued...
Why should the folks at NIST have to prove what they have already proven?
Again, you are talking like Graham...the government has offered its proof...its story...nowhere is there a requirement that they need to do anything beyond that...show me one instance where the government has had to prove its conclusions as you suggest...there is none...
From the Lincoln Assassination Investigation, to the Warren Commission Report, to reports involving Katrina and FEMA, to the Walter Read hospital incompetence --- never has the government had to prove its conclusions as you suggest...
On what basis do you know think you can demand such proof?
You cannot...you have no basis...
If you had a leg to stand on...you and your truthers could file your FOIA claims..etc. and sue the government...
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 1 2009, 03:37 PM)
Did anyone address how come WTC 7 fell down into its own footprint? It was never hit, even though it had a pretty good fire.
I watched the First Interstate Bank building in LA burn for en entire day.
Five floors engulfed.
Cost millions to rebuild, but it is still standing, and NO MODERN STEEL BUILDING HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT DOWN BY A FIRE.
I watched the First Interstate Bank building in LA burn for en entire day.
Five floors engulfed.
Cost millions to rebuild, but it is still standing, and NO MODERN STEEL BUILDING HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT DOWN BY A FIRE.
http://www.debunking911.com/WTC7.htm
15 questions 9/11 ‘truthers’ now need to answer
http://counterknowledge.com/2008/12/15-que...need-to-answer/
One of the standard claims of 9/11 “truthers” is that they are merely skeptical individuals with a healthy and understandable desire not to swallow US government propaganda at face value. The mantra “just asking questions” allows them to pose as wary and intelligent souls too accustomed to the concept of duplicity in high places to accept the “official story” of Al Qaeda’s role in planning and perpetrating the largest mass casualty terrorist attack in modern history. It also allows them to adopt an indignant tone when dealing with their critics, and to conflate attempts by debunkers to undermine their claims with both unquestioning acceptance of an “official cover-up” (irrespective of whether the debunker happens to be a supporter of the current US administration or not) and a systematic effort to deprive them of freedom of speech. It goes without saying that in the process the “truthers” set up two straw-men for them to knock down, but then they’re not very good at dealing with tougher critics.
The “just asking questions” approach has three further advantages to those of a paranoid mindset and a less than scrupulous approach to evidence and facts (if George Orwell were alive today, he’d appreciate the irony of serial disinformation merchants like Dylan Avery and David Ray Griffin posing as members of a “truth movement”, given their fast and loose approach to the historical record and scientific fact). Firstly, conspiracy theorists know that mud sticks: if you can make an accusation against an individual or group through innuendo and sly hints the latter has the hard task of proving the calumnies against them to be false. Film buffs will no doubt recall George C. Scott’s performance as the malevolent prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder, and his repeated question to the defendant Ben Gazzara: “Exactly when did you stop beating your wife?” This approach sums up “truther debating tactics nicely.
Secondly, the claim that one is “just asking questions” is liberating, as it frees the truther of the obligation of actually constructing a coherent alternative theory - based on the evidence at hand - which is more convincing than the “official theory”. Why worry if the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions or not? Why worry if the hijackers were patsies or ghosts? Why worry if the Pentagon was hit by a missile or a jumbo jet piloted by remote control? Why worry if the passengers of the four planes are alive or not? With one or two exceptions (notably Michael Ruppert), 9/11 conspiracy theorists and their supporters do not actually outline a scenario which explains how and why the US government (in cahoots with the Israelis, or the military-industrial complex, or whoever else) slaughtered nearly 3,000 people - most of whom were American citizens - in a co-ordinated series of attacks which were then blamed on Arab Islamist terrorists. Most truthers lack sufficient moral courage to produce a real theory about 9/11 being an ‘inside job’ which combines motive with method and which can be tested against the evidence. Deep down, they know that once they venture into specific claims their case will be torn to shreds, and they will be exposed as ignorant frauds.
Thirdly, it makes the task of a truther an easy one: all he or she (there seem to be few female truthers around, which hopefully means that they won’t reproduce) has to do is google to get the appropriate “story” from Prison Planet, 9/11 Blogger, What Really Happened or a similar website. Hey presto, they get what they want: “The FBI said there were no phone calls from AA77!”; “4,000 Jews didn’t turn up to work at the WTC on 9/11!”; “Silverstein ordered the demolition of WTC7!” And so on and so forth.
Any genuine skeptic dealing with truthers - whether online or in the flesh - then has to (1) work out what the hell his or her interlocutor is talking about, and (2) ask themselves how exactly they made this claim, and if it has any substance. Anyone lacking either patience or detailed knowledge of the events of 11th September 2001 may be tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Debunkers are left with the time-consuming task of researching the historical background, and trying to assemble the relevant technical and scientific information, before they can actually verify the facts for themselves. In short, the truther can throw out a red herring or an outright distortion in a matter of minutes, leaving it up to other net users to take the time and trouble to verify their origin and accuracy.
Fortunately, yeoman work has been done by scores of individuals to actually put the record straight. Pat and James from Screw Loose Change, Mark Roberts, 9/11 Myths, Debunking 9/11 and 9/11 Guide in particular provide a valuable resource. The James Randi forum is particularly useful in that it provides commentators with specialist knowledge - military veterans, pilots, flight engineers, physicists, architects, forensic experts etc - with a platform to expose the anti-scientific claptrap and historical illiteracy of the truthers. This is the main reason why the JREF and its commentators arouse such hatred from the 9/11 conspiracy ghouls.
It’s time to turn the tables on the truthers. Rather than accept a situation in which the nutjobs and kooks who subscribe to 9/11 conspiracies can make their accusations willy-nilly, it is high time that their critics decided that they can “just ask questions” too. This particular debunker has decided that maybe, just for once, the onus for actually demonstrating the validity of their theories on the basis of systematic and critical analysis of the evidence belongs to the truthers, not to those who wish to expose their fallacies. As someone whose academic bias is based on history, I would like to pose the following challenge to the conspiracy-mongers:
Let’s take your thesis (that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the Bush administration, and covered up by a coalition of US government agencies, allied powers, big business and the media) as read. The following questions point to logical and factual gaps within that thesis. It is now up to you to answer these questions and explain why your theories are still valid. For your answers to be credible, they need to be detailed and based on verifiable evidence. No suppositions, no speculation, no unsupported assertions, just the facts. Stop “asking questions”, and provide answers. These fifteen initial questions will do for starters.
(1) On 9th September 2001 Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most effective military commander of the anti-Taliban coalition (the Northern Alliance, or NA) was killed by two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists. The assassination of Massoud had taken months to plan, and the latter had received the bogus request for an ‘interview’ in May 2001 (See Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, pp.574-576; Jason Burke, Al Qaeda, p.197; Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections, p.210. Two days before 9/11, Al Qaeda killed the Taliban’s main enemy, who had also played a pivotal role in keeping the NA factions together, and who would have been the obvious figure to liase with if the Americans had decided to effect regime change in Afghanistan. If Al Qaeda were not responsible for 9/11, then why was Ahmed Shah Massoud’s assassination so well co-ordinated with the attacks on New York and Washington?
(2) Conversely, prior to 9/11, the US government had minimal contacts with Massoud and other Northern Alliance figures, much to the latter’s frustration (See Coll, passim). If 9/11 was a “false flag” operation intended to justify a pre-determined plan to invade Afghanistan, then why didn’t the CIA and other US government agencies do more to facilitate ties with the NA?
(3) Just before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other key Al Qaeda personnel left their quarters in Kandahar to hide in Tora Bora (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, pp.356-358). Why did bin Laden and al-Zawahiri suddenly leave their known locations and go to ground, if they were not anticipating imminent military action by the USA?
(4) In the days following 9/11, the Bush administration asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a plan to invade Afghanistan. The JCS had to admit that they had no contingency plan for such an invasion, and in the weeks preceding Operation Enduring Freedom the CIA and the Department of Defense were obliged to improvise a plan of attack against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies (Benjamin Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror; Bob Woodward, Bush At War). If 9/11 had been an inside job, and if there was a long-standing intention by Bush and his advisors to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban, then why did they have to scrabble around for a workable plan? Why was one not prepared beforehand?
(5) We are being asked by the truthers to believe that the 19 hijackers were “patsies”, or non-existent. If that was the case, and if the intention of the real plotters in the US government was to justify military interventions to overthrow hostile regimes in the Middle East, why were 15 out of the 19 ‘bogus’ Al Qaeda terrorists given Saudi nationality? The other four hijackers consisted of an Egyptian, a Lebanese and two citizens of the UAE. We are being asked to believe that the conspirators behind 9/11 decided that they would make the hijackers citizens of allies of the USA, not enemies. Why were they not given Iraqi, Iranian or Syrian identity? Why were they not given forged links with terrorist groups (such as the Abu Nidal Organisation, the PLFP-GC or Hizbollah) with closer links to Tehran, Damascus and above all Baghdad? If we are supposed to believe that the Israelis had a hand in 9/11, then why were none of the patsies Palestinians linked to Fatah or Hamas? What kind of conspirator sets up a plot to frame an innocent party without forging the evidence to implicate the latter?
(6) Following on from this point, if the identities and the nationalities of the hijackers were faked, then why did the Saudi, Egyptian, Lebanese and UAE governments accept that citizens from their own countries were involved? What incentive did Saudi Arabia have for accepting that 15 of its own people had committed mass murder on US soil? Why would the Saudis co-operate in a plot which would blacken their country’s name, benefit Israeli interests in the Middle East, provide the pretext for the overthrow of one fundamentalist Sunni regime in Afghanistan, and contribute to the destruction of a Sunni Arab dictatorship in Iraq long seen by the Saudi royal family as a bulwark against Iran?
(7) Afghanistan is a landlocked country (truthers may need to be reminded of this fact), and any invasion is logistically impossible without the support of its neighbours. Prior to 9/11, Pakistan was a staunch ally of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan (see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, passim). The former Soviet Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan backed the NA, but were also wary of antagonising their former imperial master, Russia. Pre-September 2001 these states would not have contemplated admitting any US or Western military presence on their soil. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin backed the USA’s invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, it took the Americans considerable effort to persuade him to permit the US and NATO forces to use bases on Uzbek and Tajik territory as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. It also took time and considerable pressure to force General Pervez Musharraf to abandon the Taliban - despite resistance from the military and ISI. Given the geo-political realities of Central Asia in mid-2001, there were no guarantees of any host nation support for any attack on Afghanistan. Assuming againt that 9/11 was an inside job, how could the US government realistically presume that the Russians and Pakistanis would actually permit the USA to effect regime change against the Taliban?
(8) Assuming that claims of Mossad complicity in 9/11 (”dancing Israelis”, etc.) are correct, can the truthers suggest a feasible motive for the Israeli government conniving in an act of mass murder on US soil? Since 1967, the mainstay of Israel’s security and survival has been its alignment with the USA, and the military assistance it has received as a result. This relationship is based on a bipartisan political consensus (both the Republican and Democratic parties are predominantly pro-Israeli) and considerable public support in the USA. Why engage in a “false flag” attack against the civilian population of an ally, when you have so little to gain and so much to lose if your responsibility is ever disclosed?
(9) Following on from this, assuming that the “five dancing Israelis” story isn’t a complete fabrication, what kind of secret service recruits undercover agents who compromise themselves by acting so ostentatiously in public? And if the five arrested Israelis were part of a conspiracy organised with the US government, then why did the FBI hold them in custody for over two months, instead of releasing them on the quiet a matter of hours and days after their apprehension?
(10) If the WTC towers in New York City were destroyed by controlled demolitions rigged by US government agencies, then why were the fake terrorist attacks used to cover up these controlled demolitions so insanely convoluted? Why concoct a scenario involving the hijacking of planes which are then crashed into tower blocks (involving complicated planning involving remote controlled flights timed with explosives detonated in the towers, which allow plenty of opportunities for gliches and technical errors)? Why not use a more simple means, such as a truck bomb?
(11) Assuming that Niaz Naik’s account of his alleged meeting with retired US officials in July 2001 is true, then where were the 17,000 Russian troops who were supposedly ready to invade Afghanistan when it came to the commencement of military operations in October 2001? And if the main motive behind the invasion was to build a natural gas pipe-line which would be under US control, then why was no attempt ever made to build one once the Taliban were overthrown?
(12) We are being asked by the conspiracy theorists to assume that NORAD was stood down on the morning of 11th September 2001 so as to enable the success of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. NORAD is a combined command, not a purely American one - it has a binational staff drawn from the US military and the Canadian Forces (CF). We are either supposed to believe that the CF personnel assigned to NORAD were too stupid to notice anything amiss in their headquarters - and query it - or that the Canadian government and the CF were complicit in 9/11. Which of these scenarios is true?
(13) If Al Qaeda were set-up for the 11th September attacks, then why have its leaders and spokesmen repeatedly affirmed their responsibility for - and pride in - these attacks (see here, here, here and here for examples)? Why are we supposed to believe that repeated video pronouncements by bin Laden and Zawahiri are fake, while just one written statement allegedly from bin Laden denying responsibility - which was handed by courier to al-Jazeera without any confirmation of its origins - was genuine?
(14) If the hijacking and crashing of four passenger planes was engineered by the US government, then why did UA93 crash into an empty field in Pennsylvania? Why not crash it into a target which would add to the death toll on 9/11, and further inflame US public attitudes and popular demands for revenge against the supposed perpetrators?
(15) Finally, if the US government is institutionally ruthless enough to organise the massacre of thousands of its own citizens in a series of “false flag” attacks, then why is it too squeamish to arrange for the deaths of the supposed “truth-seekers” (David Griffin, Kevin Barrett, Steven Jones, Richard Gage, the Loose Change team, Alex Jones, etc.) who have exposed their complicity in one of the most heinous crimes a government can commit against its own people? Why are these people still alive and well, and in a position to publicise their “theories” on radio, television, in print and online?
http://counterknowledge.com/2008/12/15-que...need-to-answer/
One of the standard claims of 9/11 “truthers” is that they are merely skeptical individuals with a healthy and understandable desire not to swallow US government propaganda at face value. The mantra “just asking questions” allows them to pose as wary and intelligent souls too accustomed to the concept of duplicity in high places to accept the “official story” of Al Qaeda’s role in planning and perpetrating the largest mass casualty terrorist attack in modern history. It also allows them to adopt an indignant tone when dealing with their critics, and to conflate attempts by debunkers to undermine their claims with both unquestioning acceptance of an “official cover-up” (irrespective of whether the debunker happens to be a supporter of the current US administration or not) and a systematic effort to deprive them of freedom of speech. It goes without saying that in the process the “truthers” set up two straw-men for them to knock down, but then they’re not very good at dealing with tougher critics.
The “just asking questions” approach has three further advantages to those of a paranoid mindset and a less than scrupulous approach to evidence and facts (if George Orwell were alive today, he’d appreciate the irony of serial disinformation merchants like Dylan Avery and David Ray Griffin posing as members of a “truth movement”, given their fast and loose approach to the historical record and scientific fact). Firstly, conspiracy theorists know that mud sticks: if you can make an accusation against an individual or group through innuendo and sly hints the latter has the hard task of proving the calumnies against them to be false. Film buffs will no doubt recall George C. Scott’s performance as the malevolent prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder, and his repeated question to the defendant Ben Gazzara: “Exactly when did you stop beating your wife?” This approach sums up “truther debating tactics nicely.
Secondly, the claim that one is “just asking questions” is liberating, as it frees the truther of the obligation of actually constructing a coherent alternative theory - based on the evidence at hand - which is more convincing than the “official theory”. Why worry if the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolitions or not? Why worry if the hijackers were patsies or ghosts? Why worry if the Pentagon was hit by a missile or a jumbo jet piloted by remote control? Why worry if the passengers of the four planes are alive or not? With one or two exceptions (notably Michael Ruppert), 9/11 conspiracy theorists and their supporters do not actually outline a scenario which explains how and why the US government (in cahoots with the Israelis, or the military-industrial complex, or whoever else) slaughtered nearly 3,000 people - most of whom were American citizens - in a co-ordinated series of attacks which were then blamed on Arab Islamist terrorists. Most truthers lack sufficient moral courage to produce a real theory about 9/11 being an ‘inside job’ which combines motive with method and which can be tested against the evidence. Deep down, they know that once they venture into specific claims their case will be torn to shreds, and they will be exposed as ignorant frauds.
Thirdly, it makes the task of a truther an easy one: all he or she (there seem to be few female truthers around, which hopefully means that they won’t reproduce) has to do is google to get the appropriate “story” from Prison Planet, 9/11 Blogger, What Really Happened or a similar website. Hey presto, they get what they want: “The FBI said there were no phone calls from AA77!”; “4,000 Jews didn’t turn up to work at the WTC on 9/11!”; “Silverstein ordered the demolition of WTC7!” And so on and so forth.
Any genuine skeptic dealing with truthers - whether online or in the flesh - then has to (1) work out what the hell his or her interlocutor is talking about, and (2) ask themselves how exactly they made this claim, and if it has any substance. Anyone lacking either patience or detailed knowledge of the events of 11th September 2001 may be tempted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Debunkers are left with the time-consuming task of researching the historical background, and trying to assemble the relevant technical and scientific information, before they can actually verify the facts for themselves. In short, the truther can throw out a red herring or an outright distortion in a matter of minutes, leaving it up to other net users to take the time and trouble to verify their origin and accuracy.
Fortunately, yeoman work has been done by scores of individuals to actually put the record straight. Pat and James from Screw Loose Change, Mark Roberts, 9/11 Myths, Debunking 9/11 and 9/11 Guide in particular provide a valuable resource. The James Randi forum is particularly useful in that it provides commentators with specialist knowledge - military veterans, pilots, flight engineers, physicists, architects, forensic experts etc - with a platform to expose the anti-scientific claptrap and historical illiteracy of the truthers. This is the main reason why the JREF and its commentators arouse such hatred from the 9/11 conspiracy ghouls.
It’s time to turn the tables on the truthers. Rather than accept a situation in which the nutjobs and kooks who subscribe to 9/11 conspiracies can make their accusations willy-nilly, it is high time that their critics decided that they can “just ask questions” too. This particular debunker has decided that maybe, just for once, the onus for actually demonstrating the validity of their theories on the basis of systematic and critical analysis of the evidence belongs to the truthers, not to those who wish to expose their fallacies. As someone whose academic bias is based on history, I would like to pose the following challenge to the conspiracy-mongers:
Let’s take your thesis (that 9/11 was an inside job perpetrated by the Bush administration, and covered up by a coalition of US government agencies, allied powers, big business and the media) as read. The following questions point to logical and factual gaps within that thesis. It is now up to you to answer these questions and explain why your theories are still valid. For your answers to be credible, they need to be detailed and based on verifiable evidence. No suppositions, no speculation, no unsupported assertions, just the facts. Stop “asking questions”, and provide answers. These fifteen initial questions will do for starters.
(1) On 9th September 2001 Ahmed Shah Massoud, the most effective military commander of the anti-Taliban coalition (the Northern Alliance, or NA) was killed by two Arab suicide bombers posing as journalists. The assassination of Massoud had taken months to plan, and the latter had received the bogus request for an ‘interview’ in May 2001 (See Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, pp.574-576; Jason Burke, Al Qaeda, p.197; Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections, p.210. Two days before 9/11, Al Qaeda killed the Taliban’s main enemy, who had also played a pivotal role in keeping the NA factions together, and who would have been the obvious figure to liase with if the Americans had decided to effect regime change in Afghanistan. If Al Qaeda were not responsible for 9/11, then why was Ahmed Shah Massoud’s assassination so well co-ordinated with the attacks on New York and Washington?
(2) Conversely, prior to 9/11, the US government had minimal contacts with Massoud and other Northern Alliance figures, much to the latter’s frustration (See Coll, passim). If 9/11 was a “false flag” operation intended to justify a pre-determined plan to invade Afghanistan, then why didn’t the CIA and other US government agencies do more to facilitate ties with the NA?
(3) Just before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and other key Al Qaeda personnel left their quarters in Kandahar to hide in Tora Bora (Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower, pp.356-358). Why did bin Laden and al-Zawahiri suddenly leave their known locations and go to ground, if they were not anticipating imminent military action by the USA?
(4) In the days following 9/11, the Bush administration asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a plan to invade Afghanistan. The JCS had to admit that they had no contingency plan for such an invasion, and in the weeks preceding Operation Enduring Freedom the CIA and the Department of Defense were obliged to improvise a plan of attack against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda allies (Benjamin Lambeth, Air Power Against Terror; Bob Woodward, Bush At War). If 9/11 had been an inside job, and if there was a long-standing intention by Bush and his advisors to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban, then why did they have to scrabble around for a workable plan? Why was one not prepared beforehand?
(5) We are being asked by the truthers to believe that the 19 hijackers were “patsies”, or non-existent. If that was the case, and if the intention of the real plotters in the US government was to justify military interventions to overthrow hostile regimes in the Middle East, why were 15 out of the 19 ‘bogus’ Al Qaeda terrorists given Saudi nationality? The other four hijackers consisted of an Egyptian, a Lebanese and two citizens of the UAE. We are being asked to believe that the conspirators behind 9/11 decided that they would make the hijackers citizens of allies of the USA, not enemies. Why were they not given Iraqi, Iranian or Syrian identity? Why were they not given forged links with terrorist groups (such as the Abu Nidal Organisation, the PLFP-GC or Hizbollah) with closer links to Tehran, Damascus and above all Baghdad? If we are supposed to believe that the Israelis had a hand in 9/11, then why were none of the patsies Palestinians linked to Fatah or Hamas? What kind of conspirator sets up a plot to frame an innocent party without forging the evidence to implicate the latter?
(6) Following on from this point, if the identities and the nationalities of the hijackers were faked, then why did the Saudi, Egyptian, Lebanese and UAE governments accept that citizens from their own countries were involved? What incentive did Saudi Arabia have for accepting that 15 of its own people had committed mass murder on US soil? Why would the Saudis co-operate in a plot which would blacken their country’s name, benefit Israeli interests in the Middle East, provide the pretext for the overthrow of one fundamentalist Sunni regime in Afghanistan, and contribute to the destruction of a Sunni Arab dictatorship in Iraq long seen by the Saudi royal family as a bulwark against Iran?
(7) Afghanistan is a landlocked country (truthers may need to be reminded of this fact), and any invasion is logistically impossible without the support of its neighbours. Prior to 9/11, Pakistan was a staunch ally of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan (see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban, passim). The former Soviet Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan backed the NA, but were also wary of antagonising their former imperial master, Russia. Pre-September 2001 these states would not have contemplated admitting any US or Western military presence on their soil. Although Russian President Vladimir Putin backed the USA’s invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, it took the Americans considerable effort to persuade him to permit the US and NATO forces to use bases on Uzbek and Tajik territory as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. It also took time and considerable pressure to force General Pervez Musharraf to abandon the Taliban - despite resistance from the military and ISI. Given the geo-political realities of Central Asia in mid-2001, there were no guarantees of any host nation support for any attack on Afghanistan. Assuming againt that 9/11 was an inside job, how could the US government realistically presume that the Russians and Pakistanis would actually permit the USA to effect regime change against the Taliban?
(8) Assuming that claims of Mossad complicity in 9/11 (”dancing Israelis”, etc.) are correct, can the truthers suggest a feasible motive for the Israeli government conniving in an act of mass murder on US soil? Since 1967, the mainstay of Israel’s security and survival has been its alignment with the USA, and the military assistance it has received as a result. This relationship is based on a bipartisan political consensus (both the Republican and Democratic parties are predominantly pro-Israeli) and considerable public support in the USA. Why engage in a “false flag” attack against the civilian population of an ally, when you have so little to gain and so much to lose if your responsibility is ever disclosed?
(9) Following on from this, assuming that the “five dancing Israelis” story isn’t a complete fabrication, what kind of secret service recruits undercover agents who compromise themselves by acting so ostentatiously in public? And if the five arrested Israelis were part of a conspiracy organised with the US government, then why did the FBI hold them in custody for over two months, instead of releasing them on the quiet a matter of hours and days after their apprehension?
(10) If the WTC towers in New York City were destroyed by controlled demolitions rigged by US government agencies, then why were the fake terrorist attacks used to cover up these controlled demolitions so insanely convoluted? Why concoct a scenario involving the hijacking of planes which are then crashed into tower blocks (involving complicated planning involving remote controlled flights timed with explosives detonated in the towers, which allow plenty of opportunities for gliches and technical errors)? Why not use a more simple means, such as a truck bomb?
(11) Assuming that Niaz Naik’s account of his alleged meeting with retired US officials in July 2001 is true, then where were the 17,000 Russian troops who were supposedly ready to invade Afghanistan when it came to the commencement of military operations in October 2001? And if the main motive behind the invasion was to build a natural gas pipe-line which would be under US control, then why was no attempt ever made to build one once the Taliban were overthrown?
(12) We are being asked by the conspiracy theorists to assume that NORAD was stood down on the morning of 11th September 2001 so as to enable the success of the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. NORAD is a combined command, not a purely American one - it has a binational staff drawn from the US military and the Canadian Forces (CF). We are either supposed to believe that the CF personnel assigned to NORAD were too stupid to notice anything amiss in their headquarters - and query it - or that the Canadian government and the CF were complicit in 9/11. Which of these scenarios is true?
(13) If Al Qaeda were set-up for the 11th September attacks, then why have its leaders and spokesmen repeatedly affirmed their responsibility for - and pride in - these attacks (see here, here, here and here for examples)? Why are we supposed to believe that repeated video pronouncements by bin Laden and Zawahiri are fake, while just one written statement allegedly from bin Laden denying responsibility - which was handed by courier to al-Jazeera without any confirmation of its origins - was genuine?
(14) If the hijacking and crashing of four passenger planes was engineered by the US government, then why did UA93 crash into an empty field in Pennsylvania? Why not crash it into a target which would add to the death toll on 9/11, and further inflame US public attitudes and popular demands for revenge against the supposed perpetrators?
(15) Finally, if the US government is institutionally ruthless enough to organise the massacre of thousands of its own citizens in a series of “false flag” attacks, then why is it too squeamish to arrange for the deaths of the supposed “truth-seekers” (David Griffin, Kevin Barrett, Steven Jones, Richard Gage, the Loose Change team, Alex Jones, etc.) who have exposed their complicity in one of the most heinous crimes a government can commit against its own people? Why are these people still alive and well, and in a position to publicise their “theories” on radio, television, in print and online?
one question taz needs to answer
who are you
and why are wanting to hide the truth?
who are you
and why are wanting to hide the truth?
I still find it hard to believe that ANY building could fall STRAIGHT down during structural failure. Hell, that is why they use demolition experts. They can't afford to have a building topple over into another one.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
QUOTE(graham4anything @ Oct 2 2009, 03:29 PM)
one question taz needs to answer
who are you
and why are wanting to hide the truth?
who are you
and why are wanting to hide the truth?
Who am I?
And inquiring mind which is often skeptical of government but not so paranoid that it refuses to deal in real terms with issues...a mind that refuses to allow itself to be lost in unsupported conspiracy theories...but which is open to examining issues just so one can point to a reasonable basis in fact...
One question Graham needs to ask...why is it OK for the Bush Administration to engage in an alleged lie, but the truthers ignore that the Obama Administration has the means to uncover the truth and they remain silent regarding their supposed obligation to shed light on the issue?
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 2 2009, 03:34 PM)
I still find it hard to believe that ANY building could fall STRAIGHT down during structural failure. Hell, that is why they use demolition experts. They can't afford to have a building topple over into another one.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
I am not an architect, or a structural engineer...
What you suggest is reasonable...
But as you suggest...you have no evidence...
What I would suggest is following the money...
Would an insurance company pay out on a fraudulent claim like a detonated building?
I wouldn't think so unless the liability were such that it would be greated without self detonation...and if that were the case...I would think that people would have to install the self detonation apparati...and they would come forward if they did...unless you are suggesting that the government somehow secretly installed such mechanisms in the buildings...which there is no evidence of...that I have seen...in advance of the planes hitting...
Conjecture is a great thing...we can hypothsize all we want...and we can offer all these theories that --- because things did not happen just this way...what is the explanation...
Well, that is all fine and good...but its just speculation...
an official story has to be 100% true to be true
if even a sliver deviates, then how can it be true?
simple kindergarten logic
there should be NO defender of an official story
like the cow, it should stand alone
that people would defend an official story, means they know it is bullsheet
and anyone defending it, must work for the people who own the official story
pp lied and 2.4 million died.
if even a sliver deviates, then how can it be true?
simple kindergarten logic
there should be NO defender of an official story
like the cow, it should stand alone
that people would defend an official story, means they know it is bullsheet
and anyone defending it, must work for the people who own the official story
pp lied and 2.4 million died.
QUOTE(graham4anything @ Oct 5 2009, 10:33 AM)
an official story has to be 100% true to be true
if even a sliver deviates, then how can it be true?
simple kindergarten logic
there should be NO defender of an official story
like the cow, it should stand alone
that people would defend an official story, means they know it is bullsheet
and anyone defending it, must work for the people who own the official story
pp lied and 2.4 million died.
if even a sliver deviates, then how can it be true?
simple kindergarten logic
there should be NO defender of an official story
like the cow, it should stand alone
that people would defend an official story, means they know it is bullsheet
and anyone defending it, must work for the people who own the official story
pp lied and 2.4 million died.
Is the story about the government's handling of Katrina true?
Is the story about Walter Reed incompetence absolutely true?
Is the story of the Kennedy assassination by the Warren Commission absolutely true?
Is the story regarding the Martin Luther King assassination absolutely true?
Is the story of the Lincoln Assassination absolutely true?
None of these stories is absolutely true...because no one knows exactly what the truth is -- and often as time goes on more and more is learned...
But you are trying to suggest it seems to me that not only is the story incomplete, but it is incomplete because the Bush Adminsitration planned 9/11 which you have no evidence to support...
I will grant you that the 9/11 Commission report seems to have tried its best to cover up the incompetence of the Bush Administration...
I mean the biggest example I can see is that the FAA was given 52 warnings regarding the potential for terrorist attacks..and Condoleezza Rice never saw the need to follow up on what strategies or actions the FAA as taken to secure the safety of the passengers...etc.
This is utter -- blatant incompetence that should have resulted in Rice's dismissal...whether it was her fault or her subordinates...this was a major, major showing of incompetence...
If she had demanded a strategy from the FAA when the first report was issued regarding how they were hardening their targets...or if after the first 10 she had set up a special task force to suggest airport security response to the threat that would be one thing but she did nothing...
Now, you see this as suggesting a conspiracy...and I see this as suggesting incompetence...because I need to see where the Bush Adminsitration intentionally failed to act...and all I have seen so far is negligence albeit gross negligence as in this instance...
And the fact that it is not 100% true does not make all the conspiracy theories necessarily true...
The report was flawed because the commission went out of its way not to assign blame...but to look forward...
You want a report that assigns blame...but that is not what the commission was charged with doing...
The report was flawed because the commission went out of its way not to assign blame...but to look forward...
You want a report that assigns blame...but that is not what the commission was charged with doing...
You want it here? Here it is: http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...howtopic=111727
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 5 2009, 06:24 AM)
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 2 2009, 03:34 PM)
I still find it hard to believe that ANY building could fall STRAIGHT down during structural failure. Hell, that is why they use demolition experts. They can't afford to have a building topple over into another one.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
I am not an architect, or a structural engineer...
What you suggest is reasonable...
But as you suggest...you have no evidence...
What I would suggest is following the money...
Would an insurance company pay out on a fraudulent claim like a detonated building?
I wouldn't think so unless the liability were such that it would be greated without self detonation...and if that were the case...I would think that people would have to install the self detonation apparati...and they would come forward if they did...unless you are suggesting that the government somehow secretly installed such mechanisms in the buildings...which there is no evidence of...that I have seen...in advance of the planes hitting...
Conjecture is a great thing...we can hypothsize all we want...and we can offer all these theories that --- because things did not happen just this way...what is the explanation...
Well, that is all fine and good...but its just speculation...
Assuming the buildings WERE brought down by detonation:
1. Since it was covered up, how can the insurance companies wriggle out? (actually, SwissRe DID try to do so but on the technicality of calling the two trade towers the result of ONE event)
2. It could have been a lot worse. If the buildings (which were clearly a total loss after the planes hit) had fallen sideways, they could have involved many other buildings which also might have been totaled. Perhaps controlled demo was the best choice by mid morning. Same with WTC7 which could have been determined a total by NYFD. There is an audio of Larry Silverstein saying "we decided to just pull it" which he later said meant to pull out the fire fighters. But they had been gone for hours. Nice try, Larry.
Too many mysteries, too few honest answers.
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 7 2009, 10:27 AM)
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 5 2009, 06:24 AM)
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 2 2009, 03:34 PM)
I still find it hard to believe that ANY building could fall STRAIGHT down during structural failure. Hell, that is why they use demolition experts. They can't afford to have a building topple over into another one.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
On a purely theoretical (tin foil hat) speculation, after the first WTC bombing in 1993, during which if that Ryder truck had been parked a few stalls away from where it actually was, WTC 1 would likely have fallen at an angle, colliding with an adjacent buildings and ruining them as well. And it would have tied up traffic for many months before the damaged building could be properly demolished. Therefore, if I were the owner of those buildings (hello Larry Silverstein), I would have installed charges during those 8 years just in case another terror attack occurred.
I can't prove a thing.
Just something to chew over.
I am not an architect, or a structural engineer...
What you suggest is reasonable...
But as you suggest...you have no evidence...
What I would suggest is following the money...
Would an insurance company pay out on a fraudulent claim like a detonated building?
I wouldn't think so unless the liability were such that it would be greated without self detonation...and if that were the case...I would think that people would have to install the self detonation apparati...and they would come forward if they did...unless you are suggesting that the government somehow secretly installed such mechanisms in the buildings...which there is no evidence of...that I have seen...in advance of the planes hitting...
Conjecture is a great thing...we can hypothsize all we want...and we can offer all these theories that --- because things did not happen just this way...what is the explanation...
Well, that is all fine and good...but its just speculation...
Assuming the buildings WERE brought down by detonation:
1. Since it was covered up, how can the insurance companies wriggle out? (actually, SwissRe DID try to do so but on the technicality of calling the two trade towers the result of ONE event)
Do you really think that insurance companies would let this go if they believed that it the buildings did not come down like the government says?
I do not...I think they would be screaming louder than anyone regarding fraud...
2. It could have been a lot worse. If the buildings (which were clearly a total loss after the planes hit) had fallen sideways, they could have involved many other buildings which also might have been totaled. Perhaps controlled demo was the best choice by mid morning. Same with WTC7 which could have been determined a total by NYFD. There is an audio of Larry Silverstein saying "we decided to just pull it" which he later said meant to pull out the fire fighters. But they had been gone for hours. Nice try, Larry.
Too many mysteries, too few honest answers.
Maybe....then again it could be people who were overworked, overstressed and overwrought misspeaking...but if you chalk it up to those things -- you know being human instead of as Michael Jackson would put it -- "devilish[ly]" clever we do not have any conspiracy theories...do we...
Its interesting you say -- "too few honest answers"...but you have no evidence, no proof, no nothing to go on that anyone has been dishonest...you said that your self above...
There may be mysteries remaining, but as for dishonesty -- I have yet to see it...and if you believe its there then how do you explain my question to Graham regarding Obama?
Can the truthers really foresee a plot like this taking place...and being executed without a successor administration having any clue at all that it took place?
I find it very hard to believe...
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 7 2009, 01:30 PM)
Its interesting you say -- "too few honest answers"...but you have no evidence, no proof, no nothing to go on that anyone has been dishonest...you said that your self above...
There may be mysteries remaining, but as for dishonesty -- I have yet to see it...and if you believe its there then how do you explain my question to Graham regarding Obama?
Can the truthers really foresee a plot like this taking place...and being executed without a successor administration having any clue at all that it took place?
I find it very hard to believe...
There may be mysteries remaining, but as for dishonesty -- I have yet to see it...and if you believe its there then how do you explain my question to Graham regarding Obama?
Can the truthers really foresee a plot like this taking place...and being executed without a successor administration having any clue at all that it took place?
I find it very hard to believe...
It is hard to believe.
So is:
1. jet planes flown into the center of buildings scarcely wider than a runway by low-time (bumbling) pilots who didn't know how to land (the very skill needed) at three times normal landing speeds.
2. Steel hi-rise buildings brought down by fire. As for the cutting of the interior steel support beams by an aluminum aircraft, don't get me started. Next they will have butter cutting a knife.
3. Damaged structures NEVER fall straight down. If they did, there would be no controlled demolition industry.
4. The world's greatest (or at least most expensive) air force, built to intercept and destroy Soviet supersonic bombers, could not do their job with a one hour head's up. I want my tax money back. Or, did somebody tell them to stand down?
5. That 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were Saudis; yet we evacuated all the Royal family members when all other planes were grounded. We rounded them up from all over the USA, then flew them to Saudi. Then we attacked Afghanistan and two years later invaded Iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11.
"too few honest answers"
AS usual, Taz just focus' on minutia that is damn unimportant
and ignores the big picture
You can't get to the 1/2 way point without going to the starting line
you can't get to the finish line from the 1/2 way point with 19 bumbling pilots
what bullcrap is the official story
and ignores the big picture
You can't get to the 1/2 way point without going to the starting line
you can't get to the finish line from the 1/2 way point with 19 bumbling pilots
what bullcrap is the official story
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 7 2009, 04:23 PM)
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 7 2009, 01:30 PM)
Its interesting you say -- "too few honest answers"...but you have no evidence, no proof, no nothing to go on that anyone has been dishonest...you said that your self above...
There may be mysteries remaining, but as for dishonesty -- I have yet to see it...and if you believe its there then how do you explain my question to Graham regarding Obama?
Can the truthers really foresee a plot like this taking place...and being executed without a successor administration having any clue at all that it took place?
I find it very hard to believe...
There may be mysteries remaining, but as for dishonesty -- I have yet to see it...and if you believe its there then how do you explain my question to Graham regarding Obama?
Can the truthers really foresee a plot like this taking place...and being executed without a successor administration having any clue at all that it took place?
I find it very hard to believe...
It is hard to believe.
So is:
1. jet planes flown into the center of buildings scarcely wider than a runway by low-time (bumbling) pilots who didn't know how to land (the very skill needed) at three times normal landing speeds.
2. Steel hi-rise buildings brought down by fire. As for the cutting of the interior steel support beams by an aluminum aircraft, don't get me started. Next they will have butter cutting a knife.
3. Damaged structures NEVER fall straight down. If they did, there would be no controlled demolition industry.
4. The world's greatest (or at least most expensive) air force, built to intercept and destroy Soviet supersonic bombers, could not do their job with a one hour head's up. I want my tax money back. Or, did somebody tell them to stand down?
5. That 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were Saudis; yet we evacuated all the Royal family members when all other planes were grounded. We rounded them up from all over the USA, then flew them to Saudi. Then we attacked Afghanistan and two years later invaded Iraq who had nothing to do with 9/11.
"too few honest answers"
So, Jeff - give me a theory then....expalin what really happened if the official story is so weak...
What really happened?
Come right out and say it...if you are so sure of yourself that there is deliberate misrepresentation going on here...
That you do not believe that wide swaths of steel heated to a high temperature could weaken...
What is your theory...stop beating around the bush/Bush...
And tell me how it was done...and how it was covered up...and how the new Administration is clueless or do you believe as some (certainly not this cowboy) that the Obama Administration is now aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in their dishonesty...
QUOTE(graham4anything @ Oct 7 2009, 05:01 PM)
AS usual, Taz just focus' on minutia that is damn unimportant
and ignores the big picture
You can't get to the 1/2 way point without going to the starting line
you can't get to the finish line from the 1/2 way point with 19 bumbling pilots
what bullcrap is the official story
and ignores the big picture
You can't get to the 1/2 way point without going to the starting line
you can't get to the finish line from the 1/2 way point with 19 bumbling pilots
what bullcrap is the official story
Go to the beginning Graham and explain what your theory is...
Focus on minutiae -- that is the role of the truthers...
To focus on every little detail -- and if all the "i"s are not dotted and "t"s not crossed they cry conspriacy...
So, Graham...tell us what your theory is...explain how this all happened from your POV...connect the dots for those of us who do not have your almighty insight...
Have the courage to venture a theory...to explain 9/11...
Stop prattling on about a to z --- and present your perspective....
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 8 2009, 08:46 AM)
So, Jeff - give me a theory then....expalin what really happened if the official story is so weak...
What really happened?
Come right out and say it...if you are so sure of yourself that there is deliberate misrepresentation going on here...
That you do not believe that wide swaths of steel heated to a high temperature could weaken...
What is your theory...stop beating around the bush/Bush...
And tell me how it was done...and how it was covered up...and how the new Administration is clueless or do you believe as some (certainly not this cowboy) that the Obama Administration is now aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in their dishonesty...
What really happened?
Come right out and say it...if you are so sure of yourself that there is deliberate misrepresentation going on here...
That you do not believe that wide swaths of steel heated to a high temperature could weaken...
What is your theory...stop beating around the bush/Bush...
And tell me how it was done...and how it was covered up...and how the new Administration is clueless or do you believe as some (certainly not this cowboy) that the Obama Administration is now aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in their dishonesty...
As far as the planes hitting the towers, well, WE ALL SAW THAT ON TV, so we know it happened. And since we all saw that hideous fireball, we accepted the story that the fire softened the steel and the top floors pancaked down and the buildings suffered "progressive collapse".
I saw it too.
But as a pilot, I can tell you that:
1. there is no way a novice bumbler could have done that. There were either ex-military pilots up front, or the plane was tracking a radio beacon that had been set in the window of a vacant office.
2. Jet fuel burns at 1600 degrees max. The more black smoke, the COOLER the burn temperature. And, because jet fuel is liquid, most of it shot out the side of the towers and burned nothing. The main fire was over in 15 minutes. The rest was burning office interiors. So, that was NOT the cause of the buildings coming down. My theory? I don't have one other than controlled demo which is the only way I know to do that. How to plant the charges without being noticed? Well, for the year prior to 9/11, the Ace Elevator Company was completely reworking the elevators (which were sorely in need of overhaul). From the elevator shafts, which are completely hidden from view, the interior main vertical support beams are on the other side of 1/2 inch dry wall. Charges could most certainly have been installed during that rehab job.
3. No modern steel building has ever been brought down by fire.
Taz, I don't have any proof for my "theories". I just DO NOT BUY THE OFFICIAL VERSION.
It's a little like the "single bullet theory". I know JFK was shot, and I think Oswald may have been a shooter, but I don't think he was the only shooter. It's just too unlikely, even though Oswald was a marksman in the Marines.
We never got the straight story on JFK either.
Mysteries Taz, mysteries.
They are unknown - to US.
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 8 2009, 03:57 PM)
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 8 2009, 08:46 AM)
So, Jeff - give me a theory then....expalin what really happened if the official story is so weak...
What really happened?
Come right out and say it...if you are so sure of yourself that there is deliberate misrepresentation going on here...
That you do not believe that wide swaths of steel heated to a high temperature could weaken...
What is your theory...stop beating around the bush/Bush...
And tell me how it was done...and how it was covered up...and how the new Administration is clueless or do you believe as some (certainly not this cowboy) that the Obama Administration is now aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in their dishonesty...
What really happened?
Come right out and say it...if you are so sure of yourself that there is deliberate misrepresentation going on here...
That you do not believe that wide swaths of steel heated to a high temperature could weaken...
What is your theory...stop beating around the bush/Bush...
And tell me how it was done...and how it was covered up...and how the new Administration is clueless or do you believe as some (certainly not this cowboy) that the Obama Administration is now aiding and abetting the Bush Administration in their dishonesty...
As far as the planes hitting the towers, well, WE ALL SAW THAT ON TV, so we know it happened. And since we all saw that hideous fireball, we accepted the story that the fire softened the steel and the top floors pancaked down and the buildings suffered "progressive collapse".
I saw it too.
But as a pilot, I can tell you that:
1. there is no way a novice bumbler could have done that. There were either ex-military pilots up front, or the plane was tracking a radio beacon that had been set in the window of a vacant office.
OK...and there is no way the terrorists could have set up such a beacon without the involvement of the US government?
2. Jet fuel burns at 1600 degrees max. The more black smoke, the COOLER the burn temperature. And, because jet fuel is liquid, most of it shot out the side of the towers and burned nothing. The main fire was over in 15 minutes. The rest was burning office interiors. So, that was NOT the cause of the buildings coming down. My theory? I don't have one other than controlled demo which is the only way I know to do that. How to plant the charges without being noticed? Well, for the year prior to 9/11, the Ace Elevator Company was completely reworking the elevators (which were sorely in need of overhaul). From the elevator shafts, which are completely hidden from view, the interior main vertical support beams are on the other side of 1/2 inch dry wall. Charges could most certainly have been installed during that rehab job.
After 15 minutes --- it was impossible to have the flames from the jet fuel cause other materials to combust and become engulfed in flames? Other materials whose combined heat might have a similar impact?
I guess they could have...and I await any evidence of that...though we do not have any to date as far as I am aware...but then all this is theoretical --- and none of it is based on experiential data since this is the first time an event like this occurred...
3. No modern steel building has ever been brought down by fire.
Taz, I don't have any proof for my "theories". I just DO NOT BUY THE OFFICIAL VERSION.
It's a little like the "single bullet theory". I know JFK was shot, and I think Oswald may have been a shooter, but I don't think he was the only shooter. It's just too unlikely, even though Oswald was a marksman in the Marines.
We never got the straight story on JFK either.
Mysteries Taz, mysteries.
They are unknown - to US.
Well, until 9/11 no modern steel building was ever brought down by fire...
I bet if more planes crashed into buildings they might be brought down, but thankfully we have been able to prevent that...
Mysteries...yes mysteries...
Well, call me doubting Thomas...in this regard...
Though I can readily believe in Christ...and not so readily believe in the truthers perspective...but heck...I'm reading...and maybe something will catch my eye...that I think is credible and irrefutable as Graham suggests...
I guess you dispute the Popular Mechanics analysis...and explanation...
"Melted" Steel
Claim: "We have been lied to," announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. "The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel." The posting is entitled "Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC."
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."
"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
I also find that this explanation addresses many of your concerns...particularly the idea that buildings do not fall straight down...which is true because most buildings are steel reinforced concrete...and not only steel like the WTC....
http://www.debunking911.com/firsttime.htm
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 9 2009, 12:10 PM)
"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
1832 degrees? Who was standing there with a thermometer?
Nobody mentioned the fact that steel is a very good conductor of heat. The (short but intense) fire caused by the fuel, may have caused pockets of high heat, but that heat soon disappeared into the enormous lattice work that the steel structure represented. And got dissipated. I seriously doubt that many (if any) steel supports got heated to the point of softening. And then, if they really did soften, did all 110 of them soften EXACTLY alike so that the towers would fall straight down? Why wouldn't they topple?
I'm sorrry, Taz. There are some things I just don't believe are possible. This story is one of them.
QUOTE(jeffmoskin @ Oct 9 2009, 04:15 PM)
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 9 2009, 12:10 PM)
"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
1832 degrees? Who was standing there with a thermometer?
Nobody mentioned the fact that steel is a very good conductor of heat. The (short but intense) fire caused by the fuel, may have caused pockets of high heat, but that heat soon disappeared into the enormous lattice work that the steel structure represented. And got dissipated. I seriously doubt that many (if any) steel supports got heated to the point of softening. And then, if they really did soften, did all 110 of them soften EXACTLY alike so that the towers would fall straight down? Why wouldn't they topple?
I'm sorrry, Taz. There are some things I just don't believe are possible. This story is one of them.
Steel reinforced concrete topples...steel structures period...do not...seemed to be the point...
But if you are unwilling to accept the possibility that the temperature could have reached the level necessary to soften the steel sufficient to make it collapse...well we are at odds then...
But how many steel structures...(not steel reinforced concrete structures) have you seen collapse...
I would wager this was likely the first one...
Initial expert opinions
Main article: Collapse of the World Trade Center - Initial expert opinions
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, numerous articles were published in newspapers, with the journalists consulting experts for their opinions on what caused the towers to collapse. The experts included engineers who worked on the design and construction of the towers, and structural engineer experts. They pointed to the fact that steel is substantially weakened at high temperatures, and other factors.
Richard M. Kielar, who was construction manager on the project and spokesperson for Tishman, said that the failure probably occurred with the floor structure, then leading to "catastrophic failures of the rest of the buildings... As the structure warped and weakened at the top of each tower, it -- along with concrete slabs, furniture, file cabinets and other materials -- became an enormous consolidated weight that eventually, progressively crushed each tower below," he said in a statement.[6]
British engineer professor Alastair Soane, who worked on the towers before their official opening in 1973, said "They were extremely robust buildings and built to withstand a tremendous amount. But this was of course a completely abnormal situation and one which would not have been envisaged by the people who built it. The strength of the towers was enormous but they would not have been designed for aircraft strikes."[7]
The enormous heat from the jet fuel fire probably caused the steel trusses holding up concrete-slab floors and vertical steel columns to bend like soft plastic, said Jon Magnusson, chairman and chief executive of Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire in Seattle, a structural engineering firm that worked out the original design.[6] "The subsequent fires caused the collapse," said Jon Magnuson, "What happens in a fire is steel at 1,500, 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, steel loses its strength. Then it just collapses." He said nobody could design a building and account for the possibility of heat generated by burning jet fuel. The impact of the plane could have damaged the sprinkler system, allowing the fire to burn uncontrolled. The combination of the plane crashes and the heat from the fires on the steel columns probably began the collapse. A structural engineer said that after the upper floors gave way, each then overloaded the floor beneath it, continuously to the ground.[8] The skyscrapers had two means of defense against normal fire damage, Mr. Magnusson said. One, thick layers of insulation sprayed onto the steel beams, could have been breached by the initial crash, he said. Another, the building's sprinkler system, may have been disabled as well, or it may simply have been useless in the heat of the jet fuel fire.[6]
Ronald O. Hamburger, a structural engineer and member of the initial ASCE investigative team, explained "Steel is born of fire. As it's reheated, it expands and loses its rigidity. Above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it loses a significant amount of its strength." He said the extreme heat from the fires might have caused the steel floors to expand and bow, which may have caused the support columns to bend inward and buckle. Heat also may have caused the steel flooring to separate from the columns, or the columns themselves may have heated up and buckled outward.[9]
Investigations
Building Performance Study
Main article: World Trade Center Building Performance Study
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) conducted a Building Performance Study for the World Trade Center and nearby buildings. W. Gene Corley served as the lead investigator on the World Trade Center Building Performance Study. This preliminary investigation was initially organized by the Structural Engineers Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers, with the American Institute of Steel Construction, the American Concrete Institute, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers also involved.[10] ASCE also invited FEMA to join the investigation, which later became a joint ASCE-FEMA effort.[10] The investigative team released its report on the collapse of the World Trade Center in May 2002.
NIST investigation
Main article: NIST - Collapse of the World Trade Center
In August 2002, NIST announced that they would lead a multi-year investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center, as well as building #7. The NIST investigation was to look at structural fire protection, life safety, and engineering practice. NIST would build upon the initial work done by FEMA and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The investigation would result in "lessons learned" and suggest revisions to building codes, standards, and practices. The investigation included extensive, ranging from heat tests on structural steel members, computer simulation and modelling of smoke and fire movement, as well as interviews with survivors.
NIST determined that the impact of the aircraft caused fireproofing to be knocked off the structural steel, making the columns more vulnerable to the heat from the resulting fires. The heat drastically reduced the structural strength of the steel; That factor, combined with the fact that 33 external columns and 11 core columns were severed and others damaged significantly, means that the remaining columns took on substantial added load to support the building structure above the impact zone. Other critical structural elements also were extensively damaged, including floor structures. The added load on the remaining, weakened steel columns and floor structure, eventually caused the structure to fail.
http://www.debunk911myths.org/topics/Colla...ld_Trade_Center
Main article: Collapse of the World Trade Center - Initial expert opinions
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, numerous articles were published in newspapers, with the journalists consulting experts for their opinions on what caused the towers to collapse. The experts included engineers who worked on the design and construction of the towers, and structural engineer experts. They pointed to the fact that steel is substantially weakened at high temperatures, and other factors.
Richard M. Kielar, who was construction manager on the project and spokesperson for Tishman, said that the failure probably occurred with the floor structure, then leading to "catastrophic failures of the rest of the buildings... As the structure warped and weakened at the top of each tower, it -- along with concrete slabs, furniture, file cabinets and other materials -- became an enormous consolidated weight that eventually, progressively crushed each tower below," he said in a statement.[6]
British engineer professor Alastair Soane, who worked on the towers before their official opening in 1973, said "They were extremely robust buildings and built to withstand a tremendous amount. But this was of course a completely abnormal situation and one which would not have been envisaged by the people who built it. The strength of the towers was enormous but they would not have been designed for aircraft strikes."[7]
The enormous heat from the jet fuel fire probably caused the steel trusses holding up concrete-slab floors and vertical steel columns to bend like soft plastic, said Jon Magnusson, chairman and chief executive of Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire in Seattle, a structural engineering firm that worked out the original design.[6] "The subsequent fires caused the collapse," said Jon Magnuson, "What happens in a fire is steel at 1,500, 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, steel loses its strength. Then it just collapses." He said nobody could design a building and account for the possibility of heat generated by burning jet fuel. The impact of the plane could have damaged the sprinkler system, allowing the fire to burn uncontrolled. The combination of the plane crashes and the heat from the fires on the steel columns probably began the collapse. A structural engineer said that after the upper floors gave way, each then overloaded the floor beneath it, continuously to the ground.[8] The skyscrapers had two means of defense against normal fire damage, Mr. Magnusson said. One, thick layers of insulation sprayed onto the steel beams, could have been breached by the initial crash, he said. Another, the building's sprinkler system, may have been disabled as well, or it may simply have been useless in the heat of the jet fuel fire.[6]
Ronald O. Hamburger, a structural engineer and member of the initial ASCE investigative team, explained "Steel is born of fire. As it's reheated, it expands and loses its rigidity. Above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it loses a significant amount of its strength." He said the extreme heat from the fires might have caused the steel floors to expand and bow, which may have caused the support columns to bend inward and buckle. Heat also may have caused the steel flooring to separate from the columns, or the columns themselves may have heated up and buckled outward.[9]
Investigations
Building Performance Study
Main article: World Trade Center Building Performance Study
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) conducted a Building Performance Study for the World Trade Center and nearby buildings. W. Gene Corley served as the lead investigator on the World Trade Center Building Performance Study. This preliminary investigation was initially organized by the Structural Engineers Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers, with the American Institute of Steel Construction, the American Concrete Institute, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers also involved.[10] ASCE also invited FEMA to join the investigation, which later became a joint ASCE-FEMA effort.[10] The investigative team released its report on the collapse of the World Trade Center in May 2002.
NIST investigation
Main article: NIST - Collapse of the World Trade Center
In August 2002, NIST announced that they would lead a multi-year investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center, as well as building #7. The NIST investigation was to look at structural fire protection, life safety, and engineering practice. NIST would build upon the initial work done by FEMA and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). The investigation would result in "lessons learned" and suggest revisions to building codes, standards, and practices. The investigation included extensive, ranging from heat tests on structural steel members, computer simulation and modelling of smoke and fire movement, as well as interviews with survivors.
NIST determined that the impact of the aircraft caused fireproofing to be knocked off the structural steel, making the columns more vulnerable to the heat from the resulting fires. The heat drastically reduced the structural strength of the steel; That factor, combined with the fact that 33 external columns and 11 core columns were severed and others damaged significantly, means that the remaining columns took on substantial added load to support the building structure above the impact zone. Other critical structural elements also were extensively damaged, including floor structures. The added load on the remaining, weakened steel columns and floor structure, eventually caused the structure to fail.
http://www.debunk911myths.org/topics/Colla...ld_Trade_Center
http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/AR...9/443801bdadd6e
More critiques of his paper can be seen here.
His other paper is called "Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America". In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.
In his paper, Professor Jones often uses Professor David Ray Griffin as an authority on certain subjects. The so called "Squibs", "Conservation of Momentum and energy" and the speed of the collapse. But what is he a professor of? He sounds like a professor of physics or civil engineering specializing in controlled demolition. But as our friends above note, the experts are not really experts on the subjects at hand. Dr Griffin is a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.
That doesn't mean Dr Griffin's science is wrong. It does explain why he is misapplying it, though. It also explains why his book, "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11" is rife with logical fallacies.
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/...ous_claims.html
Another "Scholar" I would like to address is one touched on by JamesB above. Judy Wood is a mechanical engineer. Yes, it's true she specializes in dentistry but that doesn't mean she's wrong about her Billiard Ball from the towers. She produced a graphic showing how long it would take a billiard ball to fall from every ten floors of the towers. She starts from the 110th floor, drops a billiard ball, goes to the 100th floor, drops another billiard ball and so forth on down to the tenth floor. Apparently, her only experience with pool is hitting the cue ball off the table. She forgets a little ditty called "Transfer of Momentum."
As Greening points out in his paper, the speed of the collapse increased as the floors above collected the floors below. These are not impacts as you would find on a highway. These impacts are being sped up by gravity. Think of billiard balls in a vertical track.
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/AR...9/443801bdadd6e
More critiques of his paper can be seen here.
His other paper is called "Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America". In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.
In his paper, Professor Jones often uses Professor David Ray Griffin as an authority on certain subjects. The so called "Squibs", "Conservation of Momentum and energy" and the speed of the collapse. But what is he a professor of? He sounds like a professor of physics or civil engineering specializing in controlled demolition. But as our friends above note, the experts are not really experts on the subjects at hand. Dr Griffin is a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.
That doesn't mean Dr Griffin's science is wrong. It does explain why he is misapplying it, though. It also explains why his book, "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11" is rife with logical fallacies.
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/...ous_claims.html
Another "Scholar" I would like to address is one touched on by JamesB above. Judy Wood is a mechanical engineer. Yes, it's true she specializes in dentistry but that doesn't mean she's wrong about her Billiard Ball from the towers. She produced a graphic showing how long it would take a billiard ball to fall from every ten floors of the towers. She starts from the 110th floor, drops a billiard ball, goes to the 100th floor, drops another billiard ball and so forth on down to the tenth floor. Apparently, her only experience with pool is hitting the cue ball off the table. She forgets a little ditty called "Transfer of Momentum."
As Greening points out in his paper, the speed of the collapse increased as the floors above collected the floors below. These are not impacts as you would find on a highway. These impacts are being sped up by gravity. Think of billiard balls in a vertical track.
taz- in 6 threads now, you spew the same thing, attempting to mock anyone searching for the truth
your articles are mere propaganda
and YOU TAZ have admitted that the official story has major holes/gaps in it
and there may be other explanations
In essence- YOU YOURSELF don't believe the official story (which should not need defending if its solid as a rock).
so you lose.
your articles are mere propaganda
and YOU TAZ have admitted that the official story has major holes/gaps in it
and there may be other explanations
In essence- YOU YOURSELF don't believe the official story (which should not need defending if its solid as a rock).
so you lose.
QUOTE(tazvil04 @ Oct 15 2009, 05:08 PM)
http://www.debunking911.com/jones.htm
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/AR...9/443801bdadd6e
More critiques of his paper can be seen here.
His other paper is called "Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America". In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.
In his paper, Professor Jones often uses Professor David Ray Griffin as an authority on certain subjects. The so called "Squibs", "Conservation of Momentum and energy" and the speed of the collapse. But what is he a professor of? He sounds like a professor of physics or civil engineering specializing in controlled demolition. But as our friends above note, the experts are not really experts on the subjects at hand. Dr Griffin is a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.
That doesn't mean Dr Griffin's science is wrong. It does explain why he is misapplying it, though. It also explains why his book, "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11" is rife with logical fallacies.
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/...ous_claims.html
Another "Scholar" I would like to address is one touched on by JamesB above. Judy Wood is a mechanical engineer. Yes, it's true she specializes in dentistry but that doesn't mean she's wrong about her Billiard Ball from the towers. She produced a graphic showing how long it would take a billiard ball to fall from every ten floors of the towers. She starts from the 110th floor, drops a billiard ball, goes to the 100th floor, drops another billiard ball and so forth on down to the tenth floor. Apparently, her only experience with pool is hitting the cue ball off the table. She forgets a little ditty called "Transfer of Momentum."
As Greening points out in his paper, the speed of the collapse increased as the floors above collected the floors below. These are not impacts as you would find on a highway. These impacts are being sped up by gravity. Think of billiard balls in a vertical track.
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
April 09, 2006
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/display.v/AR...9/443801bdadd6e
More critiques of his paper can be seen here.
His other paper is called "Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America". In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.
In his paper, Professor Jones often uses Professor David Ray Griffin as an authority on certain subjects. The so called "Squibs", "Conservation of Momentum and energy" and the speed of the collapse. But what is he a professor of? He sounds like a professor of physics or civil engineering specializing in controlled demolition. But as our friends above note, the experts are not really experts on the subjects at hand. Dr Griffin is a professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology, at the Claremont School of Theology in Claremont, California.
That doesn't mean Dr Griffin's science is wrong. It does explain why he is misapplying it, though. It also explains why his book, "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11" is rife with logical fallacies.
http://www.publiceye.org/conspire/Post911/...ous_claims.html
Another "Scholar" I would like to address is one touched on by JamesB above. Judy Wood is a mechanical engineer. Yes, it's true she specializes in dentistry but that doesn't mean she's wrong about her Billiard Ball from the towers. She produced a graphic showing how long it would take a billiard ball to fall from every ten floors of the towers. She starts from the 110th floor, drops a billiard ball, goes to the 100th floor, drops another billiard ball and so forth on down to the tenth floor. Apparently, her only experience with pool is hitting the cue ball off the table. She forgets a little ditty called "Transfer of Momentum."
As Greening points out in his paper, the speed of the collapse increased as the floors above collected the floors below. These are not impacts as you would find on a highway. These impacts are being sped up by gravity. Think of billiard balls in a vertical track.
What I see here is two attacks on people on the basis of their religious affiliations, beliefs or publications, but I don't see much refutation of their science. I see a suggestion that Jones is cookoo and that Griffin can't do deductive and inductive logic because his professional preparation has something to do with God. (If there is evidence that Griffin's works in theology are to be held in contempt, I haven't see that opinion. Forward it if it exists. Someone else can have a different belief or opinion about God, gods and religion without finding fault with Griffin's thoroughness, preparation, documentation or argumentative rhetoric.) But we aren't talking here about whether God exists; we are talking about whether nanothermite existed. No one has to prove how it got there; its mere presence asks and begs the question.
I see a regurgitation of the SOSO theories about steel in the WTC but putting forth a theory as to collapse based on weakened steel does not take into account the findings of nanothermite residue. Was the nanothermite evidence brought in by the commercial aircraft? Nor do I see any discussion of the laws of physics and the conservation of angular momentum or, in lay terms, how it is that 30 floors pivoted out and down and then suddenly -- in mid-air -- turned to dust. Thirty floors of concrete and steel (and whatever else was packed into those floors) don't turn into dust in mid-air without a massive input of energy, and there is no calculation or explanation that I have seen or understand that show how such energy could be injected into that event from a few carbon-based fires (no matter how hot or long) and/or the rippling effects of collapse. Furthermore, the downward rippling effect could not have found its way upward into the thirty stores as they leaned out over the bottom 70 floors. Sorry... Nope. Try again.
What are the logical fallacies in the TNPH, and how is Griffin's "science" misapplied?
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.