9-11, Six Years Later
by Paul Craig Roberts
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
On Sept. 7, National Public Radio reported that Muslims in the Middle East were beginning to believe that the 9-11 attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were false flag operations committed by some part of the U.S. and-or Israeli government.
It was beyond the imagination of the NPR reporter and producer that there could be any substance to these beliefs, which were attributed to the influence of books by U.S. and European authors sold in bookstores in Egypt. NPR’s concern was that books by Western authors questioning the origin of the 9-11 attack have the undesirable result of removing guilt from Muslims’ shoulders.
The NPR reporter, Ursula Lindsey, said that “here in the U.S., most people have little doubt about what happened during the 2001 attacks.” NPR’s assumption that the official 9-11 story is the final word is uninformed. Polls show that 36 percent of Americans and more than 50 percent of New Yorkers lack confidence in the 9-11 commission report. Many 9-11 families who lost relatives in the attacks are unsatisfied with the official story.
Why are the U.S. media untroubled that there has been no independent investigation of 9-11?
Why are the media unconcerned that the rules governing preservation of forensic evidence were not followed by federal authorities?
Why do the media brand skeptics of the official line “conspiracy theorists” and “kooks”?
What is wrong with debate and listening to both sides of the defining issue of our time? If the official line is so correct and defensible, what does it have to fear from skeptics?
Obviously, a great deal considering the iron curtain that has been erected to protect the official line from independent examination.
Some may think that the 9-11 commission report was an independent investigation, and others will protest that we have the National Institute of Standards and Technology analysis, which explains the collapse of the Twin Towers as a result of airliner impact and fire.
The 9-11 commission was a political commission run by Bush administration insider Philip Zelikow. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, the head of which is a member of President Bush’s Cabinet.
Zelikow was a member of President Bush’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a neoconservative stronghold. In February 2005, Zelikow was appointed counselor of the U.S. Department of State. Obviously, there was zero possibility that the 9-11 commission would hold any part of the Bush administration accountable for the numerous failures of U.S. government agencies on Sept. 11, much less would the commission investigate for any complicity.
If one looks at the credentials of skeptics compared to the credentials of defenders of the official line, it is impossible to dismiss skeptics as kooks. There are many people with strong imaginations on the Internet, but serious skeptics stick to known facts, known violations of standard procedures and the laws of physics. The vast majority of the people who call skeptics “kooks” are themselves ignorant of physics and have little comprehension of the improbability that such an attack could succeed without either the complicity or complete failure of government agencies.
Over the past six years, the ranks of distinguished skeptics of the 9-11 storyline have grown enormously. The ranks include distinguished scientists, engineers and architects, intelligence officers, air traffic controllers, military officers and generals, including the former commanding general of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, former presidential appointees and members of the White House staff in Republican administrations, Top Gun fighter pilots and career airline pilots who say that the flying attributed to the 9-11 hijackers is beyond the skills of America’s best pilots, and foreign dignitaries.
Dr. Andreas von Buelow, former West German minister of research and technology and former state secretary of the federal ministry of defense, said: “The planning of the attacks was technically and organizationally a master achievement. To hijack four airliners within a few minutes and within one hour to drive them into their targets with complicated flight maneuvers! This is unthinkable, without years-long support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry.”
Gen. Leonid Ivashov, chief of staff of the Russian armed forces, said: “Only secret services and their current chiefs — or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations — have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. … Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the Sept. 11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or leaders.”
Americans might concede that it is unusual that U.S. airport security would fail four times within a few minutes, that U.S. air defenses would fail across the board to intercept the hijacked airliners and that hijackers lacking in flight skills could conduct the exotic flight maneuvers that top gun fighter pilots say are beyond their own skills. Still, there is some possibility, however remote, that Allah could have blessed the hijackers with unbelievable luck.
But when we come to the explanation of the collapse of the Twin Towers, the official story lacks even a remote possibility of being true. Architects, engineers and physicists know that powerfully constructed steel buildings do not suddenly collapse at free-fall or near-free-fall speed simply because they were impacted by airliners and experienced short-lived, low intensity and limited fires.
Physicists also know that there was not enough gravitational energy to pulverize massive concrete into fine dust, to cut massive steel beams into appropriate lengths to be loaded and removed on trucks, and to eject dust and steel beams hundreds of yards horizontally. Physicists know that if intense fire were present throughout the towers sufficient to cause steel to weaken and suddenly collapse, such fires would not have left unburned and unscorched hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper, which floated all over lower Manhattan.
Physicists have raised unanswered questions about the official explanation’s neglect of the known laws of physics. Recently, Dr. Crockett Grabbe, a Caltech trained applied physicist at the University of Iowa, observed: “Applying two basic principles, conservation of energy and conservation of momentum, the government explanation quickly unravels. NIST conspicuously ignored these principles in their reports. NIST also ignored the observed twisting of the top 34 floors of the South Tower before it toppled down. This twisting clearly violates the conservation of both linear and angular momentum unless a large external force caused it. Where the massive amounts of energy came from that were needed to cause the complete collapse of the intact parts below for each tower, when their tops were in virtual free fall, is not answered in NIST’s numerous volumes of study.”
Some of NIST’s own scientists are questioning its reports. Dr. James Quintiere, former chief of the fire science division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, recently said that “the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable” and called for an independent review of NIST’s investigation into the collapses of the WTC towers.
Quintiere has called attention to many problems with NIST’s investigation and reports: the absence of a timeline, failure to explain the collapse of WTC 7, the spoliation of the evidence of a fire scene, reliance on questionable computer models, the absence of any evidence for the existence of temperatures NIST predicts as necessary for failure of the steel and a Commerce Department legal structure that instead of trying to find the facts “did the opposite and blocked everything.”
On Aug. 27, 2007, a prominent member of the National Academy of Sciences and recipient of the National Medal of Science, Dr. Lynn Margulis, dismissed the official account of 9-11 as a “fraud” and called for a new, thorough and impartial investigation.
On Sept. 5, 2007, U.S. Navy Top Gun fighter pilot and veteran airline pilot Ralph Kolstad said that the flight maneuvers attributed to the 9-11 hijackers are beyond his flight skills. “Something stinks to high heaven,” declared Kolstad.
When faced with disturbing events, the Romans asked a question, “Cui bono?” Who benefits? This question was conspicuously absent from the official investigation.
Who are the beneficiaries of 9-11? The answer is: the military-security complex, which has accumulated tens of billions of dollars in profits; U.S. oil companies, which hope to get their hands on Iraqi and perhaps Iranian oil; the Republican Party, which saved a vulnerable newly elected president, George W. Bush, viewed by many as illegitimately elected by one vote of the Supreme Court, by wrapping him in the flag as “war president”; the Republican Federalist Society, which used 9-11 to achieve its goal of concentrating power in the executive; Vice President Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives, who used the “new Pearl Harbor” to implement their “Project for a New American Century” and extend American hegemony over the Middle East; and right-wing Israeli Zionists, who have successfully used American blood and treasure to eliminate obstacles to Israeli territorial expansion.
In addition to American troops and Iraqi and Afghan civilian casualties, a casualty of the neoconservative “war on terror” is the civil liberties that protect Americans from tyranny. President Bush and his corrupt Department of Justice (sic) have declared our constitutional protections to be null and void at the whim of the executive.
The greatest benefactors of 9-11 are the authoritarian personalities that John Dean says have taken over the Republican Party.
COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Brad C on 11 September 2007:
It’s a shame Chronicles has decided to go down this road. This column is indistinguishable from something written by the kooky Left. Are you guys thinking about a merger with The Nation?
2 Comment by ECHS1967 on 11 September 2007:
“Over the past six years, the ranks of distinguished skeptics of the 9-11 storyline have grown enormously. The ranks include distinguished scientists, engineers and architects, intelligence officers, air traffic controllers, military officers and generals, including the former commanding general of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, former presidential appointees and members of the White House staff in Republican administrations, Top Gun fighter pilots and career airline pilots who say that the flying attributed to the 9-11 hijackers is beyond the skills of America’s best pilots, and foreign dignitaries.”
Hold your horses, Brad. I felt exactly as you do until three or four years ago, when a friend of mine — a journalist with an impressive scientific background — began sharing with me on a regular basis all the dissents from the official story that were being made public by qualified and responsible critics. Sure, there are plenty of fruit loops out there on the Web, but those are ~not~ the people I’m taking about, not the people Mr. Roberts is referring to. The information that I’ve been receiving moved me slowly but surely from “You’ve got to be kidding” to “Please keep me informed.” The more one comes to know, Brad, the more certain one becomes that whatever the truth about 9/11 may be, our government isn’t telling us.
3 Comment by robert akman on 11 September 2007:
It’s a shame that we all voted for this clumsy barbarian prole for President (Gore and Kerry are dillusional flakes). In many ways Bush is even more a loser than Bill Clinton and his goof-ball wife!
Let it be written that the last American President was George Bush the Elder,after him it will always be losers for all infinity!!!
4 Comment by Simon Newman on 11 September 2007:
“National Public Radio reported that Muslims in the Middle East were beginning to believe…”
This is hilariously naive – anyone who knows any Muslims personally knows that the vast majority believe that 9/11 was both (a) a US govt/Mossad conspiracy (the PCR view) and (b) a great victory for Islam (not the PCR view). This is one of the few things Mark Steyn is accurate about.
I think this kind of magical thinking comes from a belief that The Man is both
(a) malign and perfidious, of which there is abundant evidence and
(b) incredibly competent, of which there is not a scintilla of evidence.
For example – did Don Rumsfeld go to work on 9/11 knowing that the airplane/missile would destroy a different wing of the Pentagon, leaving him untouched? That must have taken some cohones, even for him!
5 Comment by Johan Dieckmann on 11 September 2007:
Sincere thanks to Mr. Paul Craig Roberts for his well-informed and timely post.
The criminal cabal in charge has much to answer. With the hindsight of similar events in history, however, the question that comes to mind is, will it?
Speaking out and demanding is a necessity and an obligation. We do have on our side the present information age.
6 Comment by Michael Kenny on 11 September 2007:
There are many inconsistencies in the 9/11 story. To mention but one: the anthrax attacks. The official version is that the, still unidentified, perpetrators had no connection with the 9/11 hijackers and were simply riding on the latter’s coattails, so to speak. However, you cannot just walk out of Fort Detrick with anthrax in your pocket! Or indeed get past security with a container marked “Danger – Anthrax”! To get out even the quantity that was used must have taken a very long time, which means that the process of stealing it must have begun long before 9/11. Are we really expected to believe that two entirely separate attacks were planned in parallel, that the anthrax attackers were taken by surprise by 9/11 but none the less carried on in spite of the intense security measures that they must have known would follow the WTC attack? And, indeed, bearing in mind the heightened security, why has the crime remained unsolved to this day?
7 Comment by jmcnulty on 11 September 2007:
What a foolish article. Paul Craiag Roberts has finally gone around the bend, although I cannot say that I am surprised. I find myself torn — between a paleo-conservatism that recognizes the importance of certain facts (such as, that culture trumps economics on immigration) — but I am repelled by the “9/11 Truther” line that denies Osama bin Laden’s claim of credit for the attack. Or perhaps Paul Craig Roberts thinks that Osala bin Laden is an Israeli agent operating under deep, deep cover. Nothing more than an Islamic provocateur. This is edging into the Bildeburgers, Rothchilds, and CFR conspiracy territory. A tinge of antisemitism and Holocaust denial is there and beneath Chronicles. It’s like Pat Buchanan. In 30 years he had gone from wanting to fight the Soviet Union over the “captive nations” — I remember an anguished column at the time of the Apollo/Soyuz mission — to wanting NOT to fight worldwide salafi Islam, a movement that has been building for more than 60 years (before the creation of the State of Israel). Which one has attacked us and murdered Americans on our own soil? By the way, a physist at Cambridge University announed today that the construction of the towers made them unusually likely to collapse downwards on themselves in only a few seconds if damaged.
8 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 September 2007:
Mr. Akman, “We all” did NOT vote for Bush.
9 Comment by Johan Dieckmann on 11 September 2007:
(Re. comment #8)
“… “We all” did NOT vote for Bush. …”
That is correct. Given the “choice” presented, many of us did NOT vote.
10 Comment by Bertram on 11 September 2007:
A question which should be answered by those who believe that 9/11 was an inside job is – “How many people would need to be involved, or at least ‘in the know’ for such a massive conspiracy to succeed”. I have asked it of several conspiracy-believers, and not been given an answer yet. Surely there would have to be a large number. Is it likely that they all would all keep quiet about the plot for years?
11 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 11 September 2007:
None of us can possibly have enough information to judge the truth about 9/11. Such information will not be available for years and very likely never. What is significant, it seems to me, is this:
the incumbent administration is so incompetent, vainglorious, and systematically secretive and deceitful, that millions can find it very plausible that the government has perpetrated some crime or deception.
12 Comment by Tobias Torgerson on 11 September 2007:
“Applying two basic principles, conservation of energy and conservation of momentum, the government explanation quickly unravels. NIST conspicuously ignored these principles in their reports.”
That is a very stupid and snide comment. There is no demonstration of *how* those principels rule out the NIST report. That is like saying: “I can demonstrate that man never walked on the moon. Two principles prove it: entropy and gravity. There, I just proved it. May I please have my check?”
Bertram is right. It is more believable that a small conspiracy (i.e. the actual guys in the planes) pulled this off than that a larger one did it. As for the claims that all this stuff was impossible, does anyone of these guys pay attention to the news? We know what flight schools the different hijackers went to. We know their identities and backgrounds. Some of their family (Moslem, in the Middle East) have been interviewed.
If the conspiracy wanted to use this attack to justify the invasion of Iraq, why didn’t the “Insiders” employ Iraqis? Why not Baathist agents? If this was false flag, why wasn’t the “right flag” flown? Gah, think a little!
13 Comment by jmcnulty on 11 September 2007:
The hijackings of 9/11 were a “sucker punch” that succeeded because they were so purposeful, vicious, and unforeseen — not that there would be a terrorist act, but that it would be a mass suicide mission. The hijackers were very clever: take transcontinental flights, so the planes had plenty of fuel; take early morning flights unlikely to be full for crowd control purposes; smuggle unexpected, but deadly, items on board (utility knives available at every hardware storee) for the killing; be fast and ruthless. All they then had to do was find some ruse to enter the cockpit (such as, when the stewardess entered the cockpit to serve the crew their morning coffee), kill the crew, and fly the planes to their targets. Their flying skills only had to be minimal, since no takeoffs or landings were involved. They had been to flight school for commercial licenses and spent hours in simulators for large, commericial jets, which could be kept in the air most of the time on autopilot. They were certainly taught about the autopilot during their training. All they had to do is know the heading and how to make a turn while keeping the plane in the air. In fact, all Mohammed Atta had to do is follow the Hudson River. What exactly was skillful or “Top Gun”-like about that? There was no weather to worry about. Getting the plane safely on the ground would have taken some skill, but ramming the tallest building in New York while at full speed only took getting there. If it was a government plot, even a “false flag” one, is Paul Craig Robert suggesting that the hijackers were innocent victims or dupes?
14 Comment by Brian Wheeler on 11 September 2007:
Paul Craig Robets
You are full of …..The 9/11 conspiracy theorist have been obiterated in debate after debate. This is why the American people have no interest in what these insane bastards have to say.
The 9/11 conspiracy theorist continue to bait people into debates. Best thing to do is ignore them.
You are a disgrace Paul Craig Roberts.
If the 1965 Immigration Reform Act had not been passed and if immigration law had been enforced, the probability of 9/11 happening would have been:0. Or very close to 0.
If the LEGAL IMMIGRANT muslim population had not been allowed to grow so large over the past 42 years, there would be no powerfull muslim PACS who buy traitors in the Republican and Dmocratic parties who are oppsed to immigration laws being enforced.
Several of the 9/11 hijackers had green cards,living and breeding in South Florida. That were actively waging demographic warfare against the majority Native Born White American Christian population.
9/11 should be understood in the larger context of the racial transformation of America which is a direct consequence of the passage of the 1965 Immigration refrom act
15 Comment by Harry Wisniewski on 11 September 2007:
Mr. Roberts has reported for years of the colossal failures and incompetence of successive administrations, congresses, courts, and their bureaucracies. Yet, someone this incompent group was able to pull this off?
As for all the paper, there is plenty of film showing the sky full of paper before the towers fell. And it is not surprising that steel beams fit onto trucks. After all, the steel beams were forged and placed on trucks and shipped the TWC construction site during construction.
The scene was quickly cleaned and evidence destroyed because the fear of lawsuits. Millions of towns of debris would have made many trial lawyers rich for decades to come.
Political parties, think tanks, and other opportunists have benefited from the 9/11 attacks but let’s not exonerate or explain away the terrorists. One does not need the American government to plot and execute a criminal act.
What CPR and the rest of should have and continue to demand are the resignations and investigations of incompetent folks, elected and unelected, and a real honest discussion of our disastrous foreign policies.
16 Comment by Tobias Torgerson on 11 September 2007:
“Architects, engineers and physicists know that powerfully constructed steel buildings do not suddenly collapse at free-fall or near-free-fall speed simply because they were impacted by airliners and experienced short-lived, low intensity and limited fires.”
I watched the replay this morning. They did not “suddenly” collapse — it took at least an hour of burning . . . with jet fuel!
I find it absolutely stunning and incredible that an avowed advocate of private ingenuity suddenly thinks that it takes a government’s secret service to pull off something like this. We know where these guys went to flight school! We know they had box cutters! We know that they failed in the fourth plane, so these conspirators clearly were fallible mortals like us all (i.e. no “lucky Allah” necessary).
17 Comment by Steve Radosavljevic on 11 September 2007:
Dear Paul,
This is a great article. I’m finally happy to see the chronicles speaking out on 9/11 issues. There are way to many holes in the 9/11 event and every one of them needs to be examined. Unfortanatly many Americans have a hard time thinking that the “good guy” goverment could never do such a thing to the American people.
Coming from a the balkans we all know to well the extent the governments can go to lie and sacrafice their people for their own gain. I higly recommend watching the movie ” 9/11 in plane sight”. This movie is done very carefully and professionally. It only examines the events and doesn’t blame any particlular group of people. It’s the best of the 9/11 truth movies that exist and it will grab the carefull abserver very quick.
18 Comment by PcH on 11 September 2007:
People “oo” and “ah” at how perfectly demolition experts can bring a 50-story building straight down onto its footprint.
The same people also believe that mad Muslims with no experience flying jets or planting demolition charges can bring down three of the world’s erstwhile tallest buildings with two large commercial jets just as perfectly.
If I hadn’t read the official reports by the Finnish government and other high-calibre studies some time ago, the hysterical, abusive replies here to Dr. Roberts would have convinced me that 9/11 was an inside job.
I think it’s safe to place 9/11 as part of the Terror War on Americans and to place its blame on Bush, our drugged-out despot and clown, and his Israeli bosses.
–W–
Still da prez.
19 Comment by PcH on 11 September 2007:
(By the way, I think that report by the expert in the Finnish government is here: http://www.saunalahti.fi/wtc2001/military.htm )
20 Comment by Ben on 11 September 2007:
A great article.
As for our non-doubting Thomases, check the documentary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501&q=loose+change&total=3049&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
21 Comment by Hirt Kigdon on 11 September 2007:
#14
“9/11 should be understood in the larger context of the racial transformation of America which is a direct consequence of the passage of the 1965 Immigration refrom act”
Brian, I thought you were a cockroach … but you are just plain dumb!…
22 Comment by Ben on 12 September 2007:
Something “interesting” … Browsing the web one comes across the thesis that several specific claims that contradict the government version of 9/11 are in fact government disinformation plants, complete with fake photos, manufactured to discredit truth seeking… Of course, one has no way of checking any of this, even though nothing should surprise one…
It would be prudent to agree with Clyde Wilson’s wise observation that “None of us can possibly have enough information to judge the truth about 9/11. Such information will not be available for years and very likely never.”
However, even in the (astronomically unlikely) event that the official version was true, the fact remains that “9/11″ is used by the administration (with the other two branches’ acquiescence) nefariously, most ominously for an Orwellian shortcutting of our Constitution.
23 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 12 September 2007:
Please note that post #21 is not mine, but that of some anonymous coward trying to stir up trouble with a clumsy play on my name.
On the subject, I think it is a pity that Dr. Roberts has so discredited himself with this nonsense. The idea that the towers were brought down by means other than the planes is simply crazy. The false flag operation theory is more seductive because in the “wilderness of mirrors” of the world of intelligence organizations, where deception and treachery are the currency, such a false flag operation is at least theoretically possible. But thus far there is no evidence for it and no one has come forward to “‘fess up”. And if some one did come forward, his connections would have to be carefully looked at. And it is certainly possible that there is a connection between the towers and the anthrax attacks without either being false flag.
Finally it should be noted that in one of his most recent videos, Osama Bin Ladin very subtly hints at the false flag theory, though not in such a way that would discredit him before his Moslem admirers. This is a very clever man who knows how to play all of his audiences – a fact that the “9/11 truth movement” is sure to use as evidence that he must surely be an agent of the …………… (fill in your own preferred group).
24 Comment by Brian Wheeler on 12 September 2007:
The time and energy spent on promoting the 9/11 conspiracy theory could have been better spent on educating the American public about the very serious war crimes of George W Bush. If their time and energy was spent on doing this, there may be a very real possibility of sending George W Bush to the Hague to be hanged for crimes against humanity.
I have no doubt that Bush administration is very happy that the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are working day and night to distract the American public’s attention away from the obvious fact that the Bush administration has commited very serious war crimes.
9/11 was completely avoidable. They gave us a warning shot in 1993. Nobody paid attention. The warning shot was completely avoidable.
Since 9/11, the legal immigrant muslim population has grown by a million. This doesn’t even include their offspring born here.
Wouldn’t it be wonderfull to see this smirking little punk in a hangman’s nose.
25 Comment by Hirt Kigdon on 12 September 2007:
See, that’s how we National Security plants at Chronicles work :-! Stir things a bit, and when all the cockroaches, dumb and dumb, crawl from under and reveal them secret selves – zaaaaaaappp … job done
Learnt that from Mao, his Let The Thousand Flowers Bloom… (… Cockroaches – flowers… Hmmm…)
Kirt, Kirt, you impostor, I am cousin Hirt on the Kigdon side of the Higdons, Bar Mitzvah to you! Here to save you from Brian
26 Comment by Bertram on 12 September 2007:
BrianWheeler
“If their time and energy was spent on doing this, there may be a very real possibility of sending George W Bush to the Hague to be hanged for crimes against humanity.”
That fate is usually reserved for the leaders of small, weak nations or of nations on the losing side in major wars.
27 Comment by C Bowen on 12 September 2007:
As one who embibed on just about every theory involving Waco, OKC, TWA 800 (all which the gubmint saw fit to at least officially stamp their nothing to see here stamp on), I don’t know why rightwingers would have a problem with the basic critique that no proper investigation of 9/11 has yet happened.
A transparently not independent commission report did not even attempt to answer the basic ‘conspiracy theories’ floating out there.
Whatever one thinks of the JFK Assassination, the gubmint at the very least appointed a Supreme Court member to investigate and while it has obvious flaws that on their own don’t mean anything, they at least demonstrated acknowledgment that it looked bad.
9/11 has no such report. Take the alleged “box cutters” for example. Now, I can tell you everything you would want to know about the gun Vince Foster found since he didn’t own it to kill himself with because of that bad editorial in the Wall Street Journal, but there isn’t even a working theory on these “stabbing” box cutters–which one would think would slice, not stab.
The government isn’t even trying anymore.
28 Comment by 3oka on 12 September 2007:
Dear Brian, Kirt and other believers:
Two plaines – THREE buildings???
Do the math for Christ sake, DO THE MATH!
Can you count to three?
29 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 12 September 2007:
With politicians and bureaucrats it is always difficult to distinguish where the incompetence leaves off and the corruption kicks in.
30 Comment by TBOJ BEPAH on 12 September 2007:
“Dear Brian, Kirt and other believers:
Two plaines – THREE buildings???
Do the math for Christ sake, DO THE MATH!
Can you count to three?”
They obviously can’t … they can only “argue”…
31 Comment by ECHS1967 on 12 September 2007:
I’m amazed at some of the replies here. Rather than attacking Mr. Craig. how about providing credible explanations for the following problems? The U.S. government has completely failed to.
Item: The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the towers down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them, as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, confirmed. The planes that hit were very similar to those the towers were designed to withstand — and they in fact continued to stand after those impacts, with negligible effects.
Item: The melting point of steel at 2,800*F is about 1,000*F higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800*F under optimal conditions. The fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down.
Item: UL certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000*F for three or four hours before it would even significantly weaken, whereas the tower fires burned too low and too briefly at an average temperature of around 500*F — about one hour in the South Tower and one-and-a-half in the North — to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.
Item: If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total collapse that was observed.
Item: William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, reported massive explosions in the subbasements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a 50-ton hydraulic press and the ripping off of the skin off a fellow worker, a report corroborated by the testimony of some three dozen other custodians.
Item: Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse,” which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time.
Item: The destruction of the Twin Towers in approximately 10 seconds apiece is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds.
Item: Why did WTC-7 collapse at 5:20 PM/ET, displaying all the characteristics of a classic controlled demolition, including a complete, abrupt, and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the official account that it is not even mentioned in THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT?
That’s just for starters. Physics is physics, gentlemen. Or are you more knowledgable about these matters than the “scientists, engineers and architects, intelligence officers, air traffic controllers, military officers and generals, including the former commanding general of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, … Top Gun fighter pilots and career airline pilots ” Mr. Craig refers to? These people really exist — and they’re on the record.
32 Comment by Simon Newman on 13 September 2007:
Wikipedia has a discussion of the causes of the 7 WTC collapse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center
33 Comment by Ed Roberts on 13 September 2007:
Amazing how quickly an article doubting the patently absurd government/media “explanation” of the collaps of the three WTC center buildings draws trolls from Free Republic. These inmbeciles actually think they can stifle any discussion anywhere simply by pulling one of their lame online FReeping attacks.
These loudmouths love to repeat the ridiculous claim that “jet fuel fires” melted the steel frames of the buildings as though jet fuel is some exotic, hot burning fuel. The simple truth is that jet fuel is kerosene and must be mixed with air and sprayed form a burner under pressure to power a jet engine.
Kerosene fires can’t produce the temperatures necessary to melt asbestos slurry coated, concrete encased, 4 inch thick support pillars like those found in the core of the WTC towers.
The government’s own 9/11 conspiracy theory is such a lamebrained pack of obvious falsehoods that I have trouble understanding how anyone has ever fallen for it.
34 Comment by PcH on 13 September 2007:
WTC 1, WTC 2, WTC 7.
1 + 1 + 1 = 3
35 Comment by PcH on 13 September 2007:
ECHS1967 and Ed Roberts:
Great stuff!
Saving to disk.
36 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 13 September 2007:
Apparently anyone who doubts 9/11 was an inside job is a “troll from FreeRepublic,” demonstrating conspiracy nuts are no less dogmatic than Freeping idiots.
Also, I would like to point out:
“However, even in the (astronomically unlikely) event that the official version was true, the fact remains that “9/11″ is used by the administration (with the other two branches’ acquiescence) nefariously, most ominously for an Orwellian shortcutting of our Constitution.”
… that those who think the government would bother to orchestrate such a monstrosity for such a purpose have clearly forgotten that the Constitution, if it ever enshrined any decent liberties or political ideals (of which, as an anti-republican/monarchist, I am slightly skeptical), was a dead letter long before these unfortunate events.
37 Comment by ECHS1967 on 13 September 2007:
Mr. Moses, as you may have noticed, I’ve made no claims whatsoever regarding 9/11 conspiracy. There certainly was one, of course — the hijackers conspired, clearly. Whether there were others, well, my position remains agnostic, pending hard evidence. All I’m certain of at this point is that the official explanations don’t hold up to even cursory scrutiny.
You’re a monarchist? Would you also be an American — and how do you square that circle? I mean no ridicule. At this point I have more faith in Her Majesty the Queen than in George W. Bush …
38 Comment by Ben on 13 September 2007:
Nicholas,
“… … that those who think the government would bother to orchestrate such a monstrosity for such a purpose have clearly forgotten that the Constitution, if it ever enshrined any decent liberties or political ideals (of which, as an anti-republican/monarchist, I am slightly skeptical), was a dead letter long before these unfortunate events. …”
Good point, I agree.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that, as a practical and legal matter, our liberties are being shrunk to far beyond whatever the limits were present before “9/11″.
We are embroiled in a decrepit alien country’s (Israel’s) preemptive war, costing us (yes, us, you are paying hefty taxes too) $3 billion a week (!), catalyzing the disintegration of our economy (while already tens of thousands of our soldiers are maimed for life and thousands dead. “Incidentally”, close to 1 million Iraqi civilians are dead and their country is back in Stone Age.)
All of the above at the tune of “our” government’s screaming “9/11, 9/11!”
If that is not nefarious, I do not know what is.
Ben
39 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 14 September 2007:
“Mr. Moses, as you may have noticed, I’ve made no claims whatsoever regarding 9/11 conspiracy. There certainly was one, of course — the hijackers conspired, clearly. Whether there were others, well, my position remains agnostic, pending hard evidence. All I’m certain of at this point is that the official explanations don’t hold up to even cursory scrutiny.”
Not being a scientist, I cannot judge the merits of claims on either side, but granted, “official” statistics can never be fully trusted, and not being able to repeat the experiment of the collapse, there will always be a large measure of speculation as to what went on. Not that my opinion of anyone in Washington is any higher regardless of what they did that day. Their reaction to the incident was shameful in the utmost.
“You’re a monarchist? Would you also be an American — and how do you square that circle? I mean no ridicule. At this point I have more faith in Her Majesty the Queen than in George W. Bush …”
I knew you meant no ridicule. The “square” for that “circle” is the classic lie of the “proposition nation.” I am loyal to my soil, my family and my community, not to the republic that has usurped its seat of government. I see no reason why one must believe in the ridiculous political ideals of the Enlightenment to be attached to his country… lest we question the ethnicity and nationality of a royalist Frenchman.
As for Her Majesty… well… better than Bush for sure, but still a far cry from Francis II. (By the way, I think just looking at Sophie von und zu Liechtenstein is enough to convert anyone to Jacobitism.)
40 Comment by ECHS1967 on 14 September 2007:
I’ve always been curious what monarchists would do with the United States if they ever carried the day. Would they lay hands on some American to their liking and proclaim him sovereign? If that’s how it works, there’s no greater legitimacy in that than in the ballot box. Or would such areas of the country that were once crown propery revert to such crowns as still exist, e.g., Britain and Spain? I mean, how would it work? How can one be a conscientious monarchist in a society where no monarchy is possible?
41 Comment by Big M on 15 September 2007:
For all of the millions of dolts out there, as well as the ones raking Dr. Roberts over the coals on this site, that believe whatever the liars in the federal government tell them, it’s time, once and for all, for you to put up or shut up. I’m sick of all of these “theories” about what happened. The Village Idiot could have figured this out by now, so none of you have any excuses left. What proof have you ever seen of the government’s story? And I mean proof that backs up the story, not the story itself. You can’t use the story to validate the story.
The government’s story is a lie from end to end, and they would only lie about it to cover up what they and/or their accomplices did. Now, I don’t have to prove that the story is false. They, AND YOU, have provided nothing to prove that it’s TRUE. Here are five proofs that neither the feds nor the airlines have never and WILL never show anybody, because they CAN’T:
1) Any video of ANY of the 266 alleged passengers boarding any of the planes in question, at any of the airports in question, on the date in question, much less the “terrorists.”
2) One corpse of any of the alleged passengers, recovered and INDEPENDENTLY identified from any of the crash sites, or one piece of their luggage.
3) One frame of video showing a 757 striking the Pentagon, even though the Pentagon is surrounded by out-facing security cameras, and the FBI immediately confiscated film from three video cameras on the other side of the highway, that were pointed right at the section that was hit.
4) Any credit card company records for the alleged purchases of plane tickets and rental cars. (By the way, the idiotic story that they used their real names to do this, and then used FAKE IDs to board the planes, is utter crap. IT ISN’T POSSIBLE!! It’s just a repeat of the nonsense that Timothy McVeigh used a fake name to rent the alleged truck, and then used his real name to register at a hotel just up the road.)
5) Any phone company records for the alleged phone calls made from the planes.
How about asking some simple questions that any gumshoe would ask when investigating a crime? Who had the means, motive, and opportunity, and stood to benefit from it? Dr. Roberts addresses this quite nicely, I think.
Sure, lots of people on this planet would have a motive to harm this country, which has invaded countless countries in the last fifty years to increase business opportunites for transnational corporations, as well as turning their people into wage slaves, raping their resources, and subverting their governments. But as to means and opportunity, it’s really quite juvenile to think that 19 low-tech losers with carpet knives could pull off a stunt of this magnitude, right under the noses of every “intelligence” agency in this country, while refusing to believe that an unaccountable CIA, with hundreds of billions of off-the-record dollars made from drug running and the like, and a well-documented history of pulling off murderous schemes, and training others to do them, like right this very minute at Fort Benning, Georgia, could possibly be involved.
Let’s make this simple. If the “Arabs” didn’t get on the planes, the entire story is a lie from start to finish. I am completely unaware of either United or American Airlines filing any claims with their insurance companies over the loss of these “jumbo jets,” or any payouts for said claims. Silverstein didn’t waste any time cashing in — what’s the problem here?
There were no people on the planes that were involved in this fraud, and they weren’t the planes that the government claims they were. And if I know it, then so do those two airlines. You’ll never catch my ass flying on either one of them, because they’re accessories to the murder of 3,000 people in this country, which has been used as an excuse to murder hundreds of thousands of innocent people on the other side of the planet, trash civil liberties, bankrupt the country, and inaugurate endless wars of aggression.
And you all know what needs to be done to every person in the Bush administration — right now!!
42 Comment by Bertram on 16 September 2007:
I have heard several variations of the conspiracy story over the years. In my favorite one, it is claimed that the the aircraft that allegedly struck the WTC were, in fact, holograms.
43 Comment by Tim on 20 October 2007:
The govt’s story does not hold water. It really does become blatantly obvious if one applies critical thinking to the official conspiracy theory.
That is square-one.
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