US Releasing 9/11 Flight 77 Pentagon Crash Tape

Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks. The government had previously withheld the tape due to 'ongoing investigations' into al-Qaeda's Zacarias Moussaoui. A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"

Comments

You can't stop the paranoia.

[Kelson]

You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up, so if you release a report that shows...

• No reliable evidence of alien spacecraft has been found, ever.
• The Cydonia region on Mars (the "face") appears to be a natural formation, and not ruins of an ancient Martian civilization.
• We really did land astronauts on the moon.
• An airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, not a missile.

...the conspiracy theorists will just claim you've fabricated or altered the "new" evidence.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Microlith]

Paranoia is self-perpetuating.

Any rational explanation is simply "ignoring the facts" and any evidence that counters is faked.

I bet the Fark article on this is full of references to thermite, missiles, and crazy conspiracy theories all over again.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[christopherfinke]

I bet the Fark article on this is full of references to thermite, missiles, and crazy conspiracy theories all over again.

One of the first comments: "OMG Thermite Thermite Thermite!!"

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Tackhead]

> You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest.

Correct.

Seeing as how these are the same frames that got released a year or two ago, except that today they have the stamp "official" on 'em, the tinfoil crowd's gonna be going nuts today.

So let's recap the ground rules as written by Pynchon:

Proverbs for Paranoids:
1. You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.
2. The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.
3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
4. You hide, they seek.
5. Paranoids are not paranoid because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.

Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

"Is it a plane or a missile" that hit the Pentagon? Did "pull it" in the context of WTC7 mean "destroy the building" or "pull the firemen out for their own safety?" Is that fiery stuff "molten iron" or just melted bits of plastic dripping out of WTC1 and 2?

Anyone seriously asking any of those questions needs to have Proverb #3 pounded into their forehead with a rubber stamp mounted to the nose of 767 until they achieve illumination.

Ditto for Proverb #5. But that's just what they'd expect me to say, because I'm obviously part of the conspiracy fnord too. :)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[MindStalker]

Obviously it was a conspiracy moron.. The issue is was it Al-Quadas conspiracy or the US governments.. OR both..

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[spun]

Why did you put a large extra space in between "conspiracy" and "too" in the last sentence?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Julian Morrison]

Yeah. Bush being eeeevil, has dedicated the last four and a bit CPU-years of the Pentagon's secret beowulf cluster of Crays to rendering the snazziest pseudo-real computer graphics since that Final Fantasy movie they made so much fuss over a few years back. All in order to cover up the huge Texaco oil truck backing up to the wall, a guy in a ten-gallon hat getting out, unreeling and lighting a fuse, and scarpering in an unmarked black helicopter full of G-men.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes, but the point is, plane or missile, something *did* hit the Pentagon, and the government was involved if only by accident by not shooting down planes that failed to transmit transponder codes or follow orders.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[drinkypoo]

Dude, everyone can tell you're faking. The conditioning not only hides the fnords, but also the space that is left behind when you can't see them.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[kanzels]

I agree ... but still I'm curious what did hit Pentagon :(

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[spun]

Fnord! My cover's blown!

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[NutscrapeSucks]

Anyone seriously asking any of those questions needs to have Proverb #3 pounded into their forehead with a rubber stamp mounted to the nose of 767 until they achieve illumination.

Yeah, it's funny how much effort has been put into putting government responsibility on WTC7 and Flight 93 (just to pick some plausible ones), when the correct answer is "It doesn't really matter, does it?"

The Conspiracy Crowd made a humungous effort for 30 years to debunk the Warren Commission. and now polls show that they were successful, with only ~20% of Americans believing the official narrative of the Kennedy assassination. But since they never successfully established an alternate narrative, there is really nothing to take away from it. Ultimately it doesn't matter if there was a lone gunman or not, but if there was even the slightest inkling that a 'hit' was put on Kennedy by LBJ/Nixon/George HW Bush/etc, there would be a revolution.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[inKubus]

Where is the plane?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Martin Blank]

That would be "an airplane." Check with the people on the nearby highway who saw it pass not far over their heads. It's also not hard to see the imprint of the plane in the photographs.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[EdwinBoyd]

Sigh, this has been reported a million times, pre 09/11 Norad had very limited ability to track non transponding aircraft within continental North America. Think of the coverage as a donut, with the most effective sensors on the outside. NORAD was originally designed to track objects trying to enter US airspace, not objects originating from it.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[SpryGuy]

I saw the "mars face" photos that showed it was just a trick of the light, and they were totally believable. Higher resolution, different angle, different time of 'day', and viola, mystery solved.

I've also seen this newly released video tape, and it doesn't solve anything. It still looks more like a missle than a plane. It could be either. It's not definitive. This video won't do a thing to change anyone's mind. Whatever you believe now will likely be reinforced by the video. I doubt it'll change anyone's mind either way.

The question is: why was this kept so secret for so long? What was the point in that? More than the images themselves, it's THIS fact that caused many of the conspiracy theories. If there is no conspiracy, what's to cover up and hide and keep top-secret?

It's within all this secrecy and darknesss that so much festers and grows.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Sigh, this has been reported a million times, pre 09/11 Norad had very limited ability to track non transponding aircraft within continental North America. Think of the coverage as a donut, with the most effective sensors on the outside. NORAD was originally designed to track objects trying to enter US airspace, not objects originating from it.

And is NORAD our ONLY radar installation system in the United States? What about the traffic radar at EVERY FREAKIN' AIRPORT? Or for that matter, that weather radar that every local news channel uses? Plus, why are we depending on our allies to police OUR airspace?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Instine]

Paranoid yeh. Is that what they're saying about me now?

They niether want to increase, nor allay paranoia. They want to keep some paranoid and a bit twichy, and the rest saying, 'don't be so bloody mad, look its on the tape you freak'.

This creates a lovely fog bank of fevered discussion around strategic irrelevancies. That clouds out any real issues "Why are we at war with a country that hasn't attacked us?", "If more Americans kill Americans, than terrorists, why don't we torture Americans to extract 'Intelligence' on their next targets?", "why is 'liberal' a dirty word in the 'Land of the Free'?" etc...

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

While I'm sure that someone is going to state that NORAD could respond within 10 minutes of a plane deviating from its flight plan, this is actually not the case as according to the chain of command that is required to get interceptors in the air will take the better part of 1 hour. Typically someone will cite the Payne Stewart incident but that didn't really happen in 11 minutes, it was more like 1 hr and 11 minutes since the plane crossed from Eastern to Central time; this is documented, though not overtly mentioned in the report so most think it was 11 minutes.

"At 0933:38 EDT (6 minutes and 20 seconds after N47BA acknowledged the previous clearance), the controller instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another Jacksonville ARTCC controller. The controller received no response from N47BA. The controller called the flight five more times over the next 4 1/2 minutes but received no response.

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA. About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet, the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response".
www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm

However, that being said, whether it was negligence or conspiracy, the thing we need to concentrate on is that WE NEED THAT MONKEY OUT OF THE WHITEHOUSE!!!

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[modecx]

You forgot where the guy in the ten-gallon hat says "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker", and where the unmarked black helicopter goes "Wii!"

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

An airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, not a missile.

The alternate conspiracy theory I heard on the Pentagon crash was centered around who flew the airliner into the Pentagon, not whether or not an airliner flew into the Pentagon.

It's not all that hard to believe that an airliner flew into WTC2, since just about everyone on the planet has seen footage from a dozen cameras which show a 767/757 hitting the tower. Four planes didn't reach their destinations, four impacts are noted.

As for the alternate conspiracy theory, there are only a few remotely relevant facts. They are centered around the lack of credible identification for the 19 passengers labelled as the terrorists.

• First fact: the Dulles airport video tapes purported to show part of the Flight 77 check-in lack the camera id and time data that should be present on any airport surveillance capture.
• Second fact: the tapes would have to be taken 30 minutes after sunrise, but appear to show bright sunlight and short shadows for people and cars outside the terminal.
• Third fact: the sounds that appear to be the terrorists on the radio are extremely short and badly distorted, leaving little chance for actual identification.
• Fourth fact: people made several phone calls from the first three aircraft before they crashed, but there has been no public release of information that they physically described the terrorists (as middle-eastern or arabic).
• Fifth fact: flight 77 hit the Pentagon in the most heavily reinforced and least populated part of the building, a side that was not on a direct track from takeoff to the Pentagon.

Personally, I find these facts insufficient to dispute the government's conclusions

• There's no compelling reason to doubt the motive or the opportunity of radical islamist hijackers on 9/11. The presented story of the hijackers successful in seizing the aircraft is less astonishing than any alternative explanation.
• All of the cases where the hijackers were supposedly spotted after 9/11 have been resolved as cases of confused identity (similar/same name) or simply bad original reporting.
• Flight 77 was hijacked well into the flight (unlike Flights 11 and 175). Even though the side of the Pentagon hit was not on a direct track from Dulles to the Pentagon, it is very close to a direct track from where the transponders were disabled to the Pentagon.

As for how the WTC buildings collapsed: I agree, it sounds strange that 1) all three of the collapsed buildings would fall mostly down into their foundations 2) at rates consistent with an unimpeded collapse and 3) the heavily reinforced WTC7 fell while WTC6 remained standing (WTC6 was between WTC7 and WTC1/2).

I don't have an explanation for what happened, but then, I'm not a structural engineer. According to the engineers I've read, however, there simply isn't enough information about the collapse of well-engineered steel structures to accurately predict how they should behave during collapse. I do recall, however, that during the collapse, the bottom of each tower looked normal (windows intact, etc.) until engulfed in the debris cloud. The bottom of the tower did not look anything like the "simultaneous collapse" that deliberate building demolition almost always resembles.

Further, I do know that a puddle of kerosene burning will burn at a much lower temperature than a properly aerated and driven kerosene torch (as in, I know from personal experience that you can run a steel forge on kerosene with a correctly sized blower to supply air to the flame) and so I find it highly credible that a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

Ultimately, though, there's no reason to waste your time wondering if the government actually did the atrocities of 9/11 or if several decades of destructive US foreign po

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

Want something really bizaare to think about? Find the fnord here: "As for racism, I don't know if nor do I care...". Say it and you can hear it. Yes, I know..too many nights stoned with the Pricipia Discordia in hand.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I've looked again and again and I can only see a hole which would fit the entry-point of an ICBM. Nowhere in any of the released footage have I seen an actual plane. These people who saw it, I presume you know them or you were there?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, I'm kind of wondering something- why don't we have standing orders covering this situation that avoids the chain of command and allows towers to call the local air national guard base directly when this sort of thing happens?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Cal Paterson]

Well, you certainly can't put the theories to rest when you don't release the goddamn proof until nearly 5 years after the incident.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[klimax]

Paranoia can be prevented by having a more open climate, one in which citizens are not so eager to believe the worst of their political leaders.

One of the reasons for government-conspiracy theories is that people were aware that these tapes existed and believed that they should have been released long ago. It was their non-release that added to the climate of suspicion.

By the way, all I see in these tapes is a fireball. I don't see an airplane. Am I missing something?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[voice_of_all_reason]

the government was involved if only by accident by not shooting down planes that failed to transmit transponder codes or follow orders.

That's probably really hard to do. I work with a team monitoring a database of corporate documents. We don't even try to catch every problem before something fucks up, and I'm guess it's just as busy as an air traffic station.

(and before you point out that their job is fantastically more important than mine, ask yourself who's most likely better funded?)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

I'm not an expert by any means but I think I read that the reasoning is because it takes quite a while to even determine that a plane has gone off course, etc. I know they supposedly made it a bit more efficient to get jets in the air to intercept but it's still not what most people expect.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[NutscrapeSucks]

That's the cornerstone of the "Let it happen theory" -- Rumsfeld supposedly changed the rules so that only he personally could order an intercept of a hijacked airliner. And on 9/11 there were a large number of drills (including one where an airliner hit a building) which supposedly put most of the domestic air force out of position.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[marcello_dl]

The presented story of the hijackers successful in seizing the aircraft is less astonishing than any alternative explanation.

I respect your own opinion. Personally, after seeing in the released video the dimension of the plane (or whatever it is) I can't believe a rookie pilot could have flown a plane so perfectly. The traces in the screenshots are parallel to the ground. A rookie would have crashed from above, near the center of the pentagon. But the 911 guy first takes the plane almost to touchdown and then crashes it on the side. Cool. How come did the guy fly so well, if they had reportedly problems in landing a friggin piper?
About the alternative explanation of a government killing his own people being strange... I dunno, a war started with fake information means killing your own people together with the bad guys of the month. Not informing the soldiers of the danger of DU (this was Italian army) is killing your own people. Of course you might believe this behaviour is not intentional, while I suspect they needed some oil and rebuilding contracts, and some data about how much DU they can dump in the environment before too many people start to die.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Actually, I wasn't going to say their job was more important than yours- just different. If you see a plane without a transponder on your screeen, that's a red alert emergency to a flight controller- first you instruct all the planes near it to get the hell away from it, then you call the air national guard and ask for an intercept. What other people in this thread have informed me is that part 2 apparently isn't enough- apparently you need to contact Canada for permission first.....

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Hmm, if I'm a flight controller with modern systems and I see something without a transponder on my screen, outside of the flight plans I'm supposed to be watching, I'd think SOP would be:

1. Get the rest of my traffic the hell away from it
2. Contact the miltiary and give them a position and a vector estimate from the position on my screen

And I'd damned well like to think we could scramble an intercept without contacting Canada or the White House!

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

Well life often isn't what we THINK it is. There are many reasons to NOT scramble an intercept in such a case but few looking to say it was a conspiracy will bother finding what they are. Some military exercises come to mind as an example and it takes a lot of phone calls to get a straight answer as to whether one is even happening. Care to take a guess how long you'd have your job if you scrambled jets and didn't check the chain of command?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[thealsir]

see, this is the problem here. Why the delay? The vast majority of people I've talked to have this fallactious attitude of "if you're doing nothing wrong, then you've got nothing to hide." Well, what about the government, then? If they're doing nothing wrong, they've got nothing to hide, dammit! Why all this secrecy? Why do things like wiretapping have to be uncovered by whistleblowers? Why can't there be open discussion and debate instead of groupthink clusterfuck mind-control censorship?

The people who quickly dismiss alternative theories are just as bad as those who believe the government is hiding aliens in the neighborhood playground.

These videos prove nothing and spark controversy. There still is no "airplane" in the video, it could just as easily be a missile. A well-painted, high-speed object flying 20 feet above you could easily be mistaken for an airliner. And if it was an airliner, how the hell did it fly so low without ground force turbulence causing it to slam into the ground? This was either the greatest stroke of luck or a plot much more carefully planned than most people want to believe. And no, it is difficult to believe that someone could hijack an aircraft with NO ONE out of the many passengers taking him down, steer the thing like a fighter jet (research the flight path if you want, the bank is EXTREMELY steep), stabilize it 20-50 feet above the ground while SIMULTANEOUSLY compensating for the ground effect turbulence, to pilot it in a straight line into the pentagon.

This is not to say it was government plotted; that is over-complicating the issue. It could be, but there is not enough definitive evidence for that. I just think there are more players at hand here. Quite possibly there is blood on far more hands than the "al qaida" terrorist group.

All in all, this (and past) administration's excessive secrecy does not lent credence to them.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[geekoid]

because they need to walk away from the piper.
Landing is easy, a landing you can walk away from is not.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[VGPowerlord]

Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, fired from Smuckers's secret headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

There are many reasons to NOT scramble an intercept in such a case but few looking to say it was a conspiracy will bother finding what they are. Some military exercises come to mind as an example and it takes a lot of phone calls to get a straight answer as to whether one is even happening. Care to take a guess how long you'd have your job if you scrambled jets and didn't check the chain of command?

Tactical situations involving national security should *always* err on the side of caution. The side of caution would dictate to *always* scramble- you can always recall later, and of course standard miltiary procedure would be to attempt to contact the off-course aircraft upon intercept, not just shoot it down. In addition to that- ANYBODY putting aircraft, on orders, without a flight plan or transponder and without notifying the people in charge of watching that aircraft, is dangerously negligent and should be court martialed. The fault is with the chain of command- and if they try to fight back against you, well, take your story to the public, we'll see how long that general lasts in his job having endangered civilians for a military exercise.

There is NO excuse, in this day and age of multiple civilian navigation and communication technologies, for having an aircraft off course and not responding to communications. Add to that a flight path into restricted airspace after intercept- and I want those soldiers shooting first, not asking questions of the chain of command. If the current code of military justice doesn't allow our soldiers enough freedom to protect our civilians in the heat of the moment, then it needs a serious reworking until it does. Until then, it's so seriously broken that we might as well not have a military at all.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

It is, in fact, very easy to fly a plane close to the ground without crashing. There is a wonderful thing known as "ground effect" that causes this to happen. Normally when a plane is flying, the air pushing down off the wings forms a circular vortex. However, as the plane approaches the ground (to within 2/3 the width of the wing) this vortex becomes compressed and oval. In that case, the amount of lift on the wing increases because now it requires the extra force to "squash" the vortex. This is why the "Spruce Goose" (Howard Hughe's Hercules airplane) can't actually fly, but went airborne during testing. It was entirely flown within the realm of ground effect. In fact, it cannot generate enough lift to actually achieve free flight.

In this case, a "rookie pilot" with dozens of hours in a simulator, could ease the plane towards the ground and actually find it like "dropping into a pillow" as he got close to ground level and being able to run the plane straight into the Pentagon.

On the other hand, landing a plane involves a ballet of speed, flaps, landing gear, drag, nose angle, angle of attack and half a dozen other variables. Doing everything perfectly in a landing is the *hardest* part of flying.

Ask a pilot about ground effect, and they'll tell you all about it.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Molochi]

404 Not Found The requested URL /essays/pentagontrap.html does not exist.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[nickmalthus]

It is intriguing that they did not uncover this glaring defense weakness when they simulated commercial airliners crashing into the twin towers two years before the attack Perhaps that is why the CIA was conducting a simulation the day of the attack

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[grimarr]

If you see a plane without a transponder on your screeen, that's a red alert emergency to a flight controller

That's not really true. Many planes are not required to even HAVE transponders, much less use them. Transponder use is only required in certain airspace or situations.

That said, it would have been apparent to these controllers that the targets on their screens
should have had a transponder. They were all in either Class A or Class B airspace,
except possibly the one in PA, and were probably moving fast enough that they were clearly
jets, not propeller planes. (All jets are required to file IFR flight plans, which for all
practical purposes means they need an operating transponder.)

So clearly, the controllers could see that something was amiss. Was it mechanical, pilot error, or a hijacking? The first two are the most common, the third really rare. And in the event of a hijacking, controllers (and flight crews) were trained to go along with the hijackers' demands. (That has changed since 9/11!) So they would not have considered scrambling fighters to shoot them down until the much more common explanations had been checked out.

Time ran out on them before that happened.

Today, with new procedures and protocols, it might be different. I'm just a private pilot, with no ATC inside knowledge, but I suspect they are much more proactive about such incursions. The actual response time is probably classified. (rightly so, I think)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

A rookie would have crashed from above, near the center of the pentagon.

I don't see why this follows. The alleged pilot successfully got his instrument rating. This is not an insignificant feat. It takes a lot of work to demonstrate that you're capable of flying an aircraft on instruments alone, including many successful landings. I also heard he abandoned a Piper Cub. I've had my own experiences with flying small aircraft and many of them have "personalities" that require unusual rituals (push this, pull that 1/4 of the way out, pump that twice and then hit the starter) to successfully start the engine. I've stalled a few planes on taxiways myself (though I did manage to get them started again).

This plane was well maintained, already running, and off the ground (most of the hard parts were taken care of). He had specifically trained on flying this plane. He knew the altitude of his target (I know the altitude of his target). According to an airline pilot friend, flying a big plane without checklists is actually rather easy to do. Flying one with minimal risk (following all flight protocols, following all of the checklists, understanding what's going on if any of the checks isn't right) is really hard.

He actually did come in a little low as he struck the helipad before reaching the building. If you have learned to fly a plane, his results just doesn't seem that extraordinary.

Regards,
Ross

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[nickmalthus]

CIA simulations the day of the attack

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[KarateExplosions]

Well at least it didn't manage to get through every single defense available and crash directly into the headquarters of the most advanced and expensive military on the planet. Because THAT would have been embarassing.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[(H)elix1]

There is NO excuse, in this day and age of multiple civilian navigation and communication technologies, for having an aircraft off course and not responding to communications. Add to that a flight path into restricted airspace after intercept- and I want those soldiers shooting first, not asking questions of the chain of command.

True for commercial craft, but there is a lot of variety on the non-commercial stuff. I've got an old Stitts - basically a J3 Cub with low wings - that does not have any electrical system. It prop starts, has a float and a stick for a gas gauge, and some basic instrumentation. It does it not have a transponder, radio, or GPS - just basic compass and elevation. And yes - it is possible to get lost if you are not careful. Not that something like that is a threat...but it is an excuse. (grin)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Meph_the_Balrog]

Fnord! My cover's blown!

Any technology that is indistingushable from magic is just another tool of the conspiracy? :P

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[BitGeek]

You're wasting time. It doesn't matter how often you point out a hole or inconsistency with the official conspiracy theory, they will just ignore it, call you a nut, and believe their conspiracy theory. They wil lsay you're a conspiracy theorist and ignore that what they believe is also a conpsiracy theory, and one which doesn't make much sense.

But since the government said it, and they are unwilling to seriously look at the evidence, or consider anything that doesn't agree with the official conspiracy theory, they will not pay attention to you.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[From A Far Away Land]

If they can fake the Bin Laden audio tape(s), then they can fake a black box tape. How many people know what a hijacked plane black box tape sounds like anyway? And now they just have United 93 the movie to copy the audio from. If they do that, people might get suspicious I guess.

I'm teasing about faking the tape, I'll believe it's real. I don't trust the Bin Laden audio tapes though, it doesn't make sense he'd resort to no video unless he's been wounded, or is dead.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Citizen of Earth]

that Final Fantasy movie they made so much fuss over a few years back.

When is there going to be a Finaler Fantasy movie with more realistic graphics? When can we fire all of those over-paid actors?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[orzetto]

[...] a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

I agree with most of your post, but let me state once and for all: the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it. Steel gradually loses its tensile strength with temperature. It is a known fact and a pretty well researched one, since it is very important in warehouses containing flammable materials—they can easily collapse during a fire. As you could guess, the steel of an extreme building as the WTC is strained to the limit. Since the second tower to be hit was hit at a lower level (more strain because of the weight), it collapsed first (Ok, sorta simplistic).

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[mboverload]

Do you know how much money it takes to even get a jet off the ground?

Sending out a pack of jets every time some pilot fucks up isn't a solution.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[NonSequor]

The bit about melting steel is a response to the fact that the conspiracy theorists often cite quotes from people saying that they saw pools of "molten steel" or "molten metal" among the rubble after the towers collapsed. The conspiracy theorists say that since jet fuel (kerosene) doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel (a claim which can be disputed), something else must have melted the steel.

Of course, the so-called "pools of molten steel" could also have been pools of other metals and most people wouldn't know the difference.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[BobPaul]

You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up, so if you release a report that shows... ...the conspiracy theorists will just claim you've fabricated or altered the "new" evidence.

I just can't believe it took them 5 years to produce that. The special effects were piss-poor at best.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

I agree with most of your post, but let me state once and for all: the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it.

I never meant to imply that the steel had to be melted for the building to collapse, only that I have observed a kerosene fueled furnace fully melt steel.

What I frequently hear by 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that kerosene burns at too low a temperature to weaken steel. Since steel becomes essentially plastic above the annealing temperature and I've observed a kerosene-air fire go well beyond softening steel to melting steel (white hot liquid), the assertion of the conspiracy theorists is wrong.

Regards,
ross

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Deadstick]

Yes on the ground effect, no on the Spruce Goose. Hughes didn't make any effort to climb out of ground effect because the airplane had stability and control problems and very likely would have crashed if he had.

Designing an ultra-big airplane that will lift itself is no big deal: aerodynamic principles scale very well. The unknown area lay in the design of wood structures that big, and it turned out to be so floppy it was hard to control.

The B-36 bomber flew at 410,000 pounds gross weight on six P&W R-4360 engines; the Goose weighed maybe 350,000 on its flight and had eight of the same engines and a longer wing.

rj

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[kcbrown]

I agree with most of your post, but let me state once and for all: the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it. Steel gradually loses its tensile strength with temperature. It is a known fact and a pretty well researched one, since it is very important in warehouses containing flammable materials--they can easily collapse during a fire.

Agreed. And if the WTC towers had collapsed at a rate consistent with that idea, we'd basically be done.

But they didn't. They collapsed at, essentially, freefall speed.

There's NO WAY that could possibly happen unless almost all of the internal support (being provided by the large internal steel structural members) was completely removed immediately prior to the collapse. Simply weakening them isn't enough. The lower floors that were still being supported would have slowed the collapse considerably.

Because of that, the fact that the kerosene fires were relatively cool (fuel rich) as evidenced by the plethora of black smoke from them, the visual evidence of squibs (or something that looks like it) being set off in the lower parts of the building immediately prior to collapse, the still molten and/or yellow-hot steel in the basement rubble weeks after the collapse, the reports of multiple explosions within the buildings immediately prior to collapse, and on and on, I'm completely convinced that the trade center towers were demolished using some combination of thermite/thermate and high explosives.

I'm not a conspiracy nut by most measures. I believe whatever the evidence most strongly suggests. And in this case, it most strongly suggests a controlled demolition of the WTC towers.

See the paper and other supporing material here.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[inertiatic]

Pictures

Explanations

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[hackstraw]

Since the second tower to be hit was hit at a lower level (more strain because of the weight), it collapsed first (Ok, sorta simplistic).

OK, now explain why WTC7 fell.

Before and after 9/11/01, no fire has caused a steel structure to collapse, even those burning for 24+ hours. WTC1&2 are undefined, and I cannot, nor can anyone else make judgement on those. But WTC7 falling at 5:20 in the afternoon at about freefall speeds directly onto its foundation does not make sense to me in any way shape or form.

Also, I would like to see the pentagon crash, but my guess is that its going to be poor quality just like all of the other "evidence".

Like the FBI tape of a fat non-Osama bin Laden looking dude. I simply do not understand how such poor audio and video quality is even possible today. Your average video camera from the early 90s that you see on the funniest home video show is of better quality.

From looking at the size of a 757, I simply do not know how one with two 6 ton motors made of titanium and tempered steel could fit into the hole with no external debris remaining.

The WTC7, the pentagon hit, and the downing of the other aircraft in Pennsylvania make little sense to me. Regarding the Pentagon, I simply do not understand why it did not get more press. To me, it should have gotten as much or more than the WTC hits, simply because the symbolism of an attack on the center of US's military command.

By all accounts, this was a conspiracy, the only thing in question is who was in on the conspiracy.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[The Cydonian]

The Cydonia region on Mars (the "face") appears to be a natural formation, and not ruins of an ancient Martian civilization.

But.. but, there are folks who call themselves "The Cydonians" among us, and they do like to crack the odd self-deprecating joke!

Seriously though, I agree; aliens and such are our generation's superstitions. Area 51, I sometimes like to think, has a historical precedent that still hasn't died down as yet.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[amliebsch]

Before and after 9/11/01, no fire has caused a steel structure to collapse, even those burning for 24+ hours.

Are you joking? I personally watched a steel industrial structure burn and collapse into a pile of twisted metal, in around two hours. I mean, you can't be serious, can you?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Brushfireb]

Actually, he is not incorrect, just not very precise. He is referring to the fact that there have been no modern day skyscraper like buildings that have ever burned down from fire. Many have burned, sometimes for days, with no structural integrity problems resulting. They are all built to withstand the hottest of fires. Obviously, airplanes flying through walls is special condition, but not for Building 7, which was fire only. The (conspiracy) theory is based on the fact that building 7 went down from fire, which I would argue is not a horrible basis for concern.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[kupci]

[...] a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

Sure, like in a blast furnace maybe?

As you could guess, the steel of an extreme building as the WTC is strained to the limit.

No way. All numbers below are estimates as I remember reading from the literatore, do the research for the exact figures, etc, but to put it simply, this building was soundly designed, a fire alone simply would not have collapsed the building. Period.

Couple things:

• Yes, the fire could've weakened the steel. But this was high grade steel, certified to 3000C. A conservative estimate, is that the fire could get to 1200C. And this is ideal conditions, like in a blast furnace. Probably it was closer to 600C, judging from the smoke for example. Still that would not explain that the steel was *evaporated* in some places, nor the *molten* steel at the base of the towers.
• Even at high temperatures, 800-1200C the steel could still support 2-3 times the load - that was the design.
• these buildings were designed to withstand a hit from *multiple* 707s - faster, but smaller than 757s. Did the engineers simply forget about the fuel, or was that taken into consideration?
• Even if the steel weakened, such that the floors collapsed, there are a couple other problems: (1) How did the building collapse in under 10s? This would only be possible if the floors underneath were *gone*, i.e. there was no friction, other than air friction (2) the WTC bldgs had a central core of 47 steel columns and concrete. This is entirely left out from some of the "theories" trotted out by the experts.

• There's an article in Fire Engineering magazine that calls the investigation a "half baked farce". Pretty good assessment.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iocat]

Um dude, when was the last time you saw a plane show up on weather radar?

Don't be retarded (or rather, learn something about how RADAR works before you post). Weather radar shows clouds, it doesn't have the detail to show planes. That would actually be counter-productive. Airport radar isn't that great either; unless the plane is actively transponding, it's going to be difficult to track. Not impossible, but hard. Also, it's simply not what ATC guys are trained for. NORAD, as pointed out previously, is/was aimed out, not in. Presumably military bases would scan for incoming aircraft, but pre-9/11, do you think they a) really expected to see anything, or b) put the best and brightest to check for incoming attacks over US soil?

Bottom line, they reacted fairly quickly given the circumstances. Air Force jets were over NYC roughly 15 minutes after the second plane hit. Had it been a conventional attack, they could have engaged the enemy plane(s) and done fairly well. There were only like 2 military jets in the air in the entire eastern part of the US on the morning of 9/11, which were unarmed training flights from the Ohio Air National Guard. They would have caught Flight 93 before it got to DC, but wtf would they have done? Kamikazied it? Maybe. Fucked it up by flying directly in front of it and putting on their after burners? Maybe. Aimed right at it and ejected? Maybe. None of those were great choices, however.

The whole deal with 9/11 is that we were totally unprepared for it, but even then, we reacted fairly quickly and well. (Much better than we reacted, say, to Katrina.) If this had been an actual war, and not a suicidal attack, we'd have done ok. Go team.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ameline]

>Doing everything perfectly in a landing is the *hardest* part of flying.

Depends on the plane. Landing a Pitts will give you white knuckles and pucker you up but good. A cessna or a piper -- yawn.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Kadin2048]

Well I think it's probably because, up until 9/11, every time a plane had not responded to the tower, it had turned out to be some form of equipment malfunction, pilot error ("oops -- you wanted us on what frequency?"), or an honest emergency.

There are enough stories about small planes wandering off course and into no-fly zones; pre-9/11, just shooting down an airliner full of people because the pilot flew it too close to a military installation would have been really bad PR. I suspect that whatever standing orders allowed such a shootdown would only ever be used once -- after that, the political fallout would be so bad that they'd be immediately rescinded and replaced with a chain of command that included everyone from NORAD to the Junior Congressman from Hawaii's masseuse's dog. In other words, it would turn into a complete goatfuck, and quite possibly make the future situation worse by slowing responsiveness.

Post 9/11, of course it seems obvious that a shoot-first-ask-questions-later policy is the only way to go when every passenger plane is one box-cutter away from becoming a giant guided missile, but that would definitely not have been the public perception pre-9/11, I don't think.

Telling people "we had to shoot the plane down, it might have been terrorism," as an excuse falls pretty flat when there are the charred bodies of passengers shot down by their government all over CNN.

The public doesn't make rational decisions, it makes emotional ones, and such a policy wouldn't have been viable without the giant slap in the face that 9/11 was.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

Because of that, the fact that the kerosene fires were relatively cool (fuel rich) as evidenced by the plethora of black smoke from them,

Actually, this only provides evidence that 1) some of the fuel was burning in fuel-rich areas and 2) there were other things burning besides fuel. I find it plausible that there was a lot of fuel scattered throughout the impacted floors and that the resulting fires did not have a consistent fuel/air mix and resulting temperature from one location to another.

Some unexpected things were going on in the WTC damaged floors, that much is clear. I don't think it's necessary to suppose that there was more than just an airplane in there to expect extraordinary events. Occam's razor and all that.

the visual evidence of squibs (or something that looks like it) being set off in the lower parts of the building immediately prior to collapse

I've heard this and I've seen the tapes, even where people are pointing to what they're seeing, but it doesn't look like the detonation of implosion charges to me. I have seen three building implosions up close and too many windows and walls remain intact in both WTC1 and WTC2 before the cloud of debris reaches them. There are a few strange pixels in the video here and there, but I don't see the effects of implosion charges (critical note: high explosives don't produce flames, low explosives don't cut through structural steel).

Besides, I already think US foreign policy and islamic fundamentalism provided sufficient motivation for a well-planned, highly original, and very possible terrorist attack. Instead of coming up with more people to prosecute, I'd rather focus on what we might be able to change (US foreign policy).

Regards,
Ross

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[shmlco]

And get too parnoid and trigger happy and a young twenty-year old National Guard pilot will be spilling passengers into the sky after he shots a jet with a busted transponder or into a General Aviation flight running under VFR.

Then listen to all the cries about how we have no control and why did we automate shooting down helpless civilians....

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Vitriol Angst]

Well, for every Bigfoot story, we have a really nutty conspiracy like Cigarettes causing cancer. Some really crazy people thought that big tobacco and the government were hiding the addictive and cancerous properties of cigarettes secret. They even paid scientists and doctors to lie -- imagine! A business or government lying for profit and power.

It's a good thing you guys addressed the nutty conspiracies, and not the hard to answer ones -- like how a steel building pancakes into its own footprint from a kerosene fire. Or how flight 93 had wreckage 8 miles away when it supposedly rammed into the ground.

I'm sure there is some site that has bigfoot piloting a 757 and flying it into the WTC as well.

Keep up the vigilance!

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Vitriol Angst]

Utter bullshit. NORAD is a red herring.

The FAA had better be able to track a plane off of transponder -- or we would have had a lot of nasty accidents on the easter seabord. I looked into this and there is extensive documentation about what happens when a plane "goes of transponder." This has nothing to do with NORAD -- the Air Traffic Controller computers highlight any plane on radar NOT on transponder. They know exactly where planes are in the NorthEast.

They knew one of the planes was hijacked before it took off -- an airline attended called and was reporting the hijacking about a half our before they took off.

So, 102 minutes + 30 minutes of inaction. I think the Pentagon owes taxpayers a few Trillion $ of taxpayer money.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

But they *didn't* avoid things on the ground. I believe something like 11 light poles were snapped off at the breakaway bolts when the wing sheared them. Witnesses said he hit the ground just shy of the pentagon and bounced slightly before impact. There's also nothing really around the Pentagon for obvious security reasons. Look at a satellite photo of the Pentagon some time. Then look all around it. It's mostly empty lawns.

The terrorists weren't able to make "amazingly tight turns." The words of the air traffic controller was that they "were making dangerously sharp turns" and that "you shouldn't fly a 757 that way." Rookie luck, or rookie blundering? Turning a plane too hard is typical of rookies. Face it, they didn't really care about how much stress they put on the passengers or the plane. I doubt they were worried about the maintenance record that day.

WTC7 collapsed because debris ignited the 47,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored in the building as part of the emergency command center. The building was burning and belching smoke from nearly every window for three hours before it finally collapsed. No one was surprised by it. The firemen evacuated the area around it two hours before it fell because they knew it was going to come down when huge cracks appeared up and down the facade.

As for the twin towers and why and how they collapsed -- simply look up any of the dozens of engineering studies on the failure mode of the building. The impact most likely knocked away the "blown on" insulation over the steel, and the jet fuel and collateral materials burned long enough to heat the steel. As the steel expanded, it would have snapped the joints connecting the support beams to the floor connections. As soon as one floor collapses, it puts that much more weight on the floor below it, then that floor fails, then the floor beneath, etc. What you get is a perfect "stack of pancakes" collapse, which is exactly the failure mode you see in the towers. The central core stabilizes the collapse and maintains the nearly vertical fall. I've seen interviews with the designer of the building, and he said that the way the building fell is exactly how it was *designed* to fail in a catastrophic event. No one wanted the building to wipe out half a mile of buildings around it in some unplanned catastrophe.

What was Bush doing reading? Perhaps he was scheduled to read to a group of elementary students for weeks or months in advance. Perhaps the terrorists weren't considerate enough to inform Mr. Bush of the impending attack on the World Trade Center. According to reports, when the first sketchy information about a plane hitting the World Trade Center came in, Bush's first reaction was, "That's one lousy pilot." Which, I have to admit was my first reaction upon hearing the news on my clock radio that morning. In fact, I spent twenty minutes getting up and ready before I switched to headline news to see "if they might show the moron". By that time, the second plane had already hit. According to the Conspiracy Theorists out there, I must have been part of the conspiracy because I was brushing my teeth while the planes hit the buildings. It's just as valid as your statement about Bush.

Clearly the terrorists wanted to learn how to fly because they needed the knowledge. Clearly they knew they weren't going to land, so they didn't bother with that part of the training. Was it well rehearsed and well planned out? In retrospect, it was blatantly obvious and amazingly amateurish. In retrospect. Of course, before 9/11 no one thought about flying planes into buildings.

In retrospect, the theory of gravity is blatantly obvious. Clearly we should be calling Newton incompetent and claiming that he was part of the "Gravity Conspiracy". Sheesh.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Vitriol Angst]

Wow -- that's crazy talk. This government would never lie to us.

And look at all the big foot flies Spacecraft stories that are untrue on the web -- see! All conspiracies are bogus. No group of people would meet in secret, and plan something for power or profit -- it's just too farfetched.

[is that sarcasm obvious enough]

Now we get to worry about the manufactured Immigration issue -- the only solution is a National ID Card with biometric data, going to a company named ChoicePoint which rigged the 2000, 2004 elections and is run by James Baker. Oh no -- it isn't a conspiracy, the only solution is more intrusive government and obscene profits for Bush's friends. We couldn't possibly enforce current law, jail CEOs who hire illegals and solve this problem.

I think the nut jobs are those people who cling to the conspiracy that this government can be trusted.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Vitriol Angst]

Bottom line, they reacted fairly quickly given the circumstances. Air Force jets were over NYC roughly 15 minutes after the second plane hit. Had it been a conventional attack, they could have engaged the enemy plane(s) and done fairly well. There were only like 2 military jets in the air in the entire eastern part of the US on the morning of 9/11,

Yeah -- that makes a lot of sense. A government that sends everyone away and leaves us defenseless to run a drill on how to defend us.
Isn't it ironic that Dick Cheney was there and they were doing drills on planes attacking buildings -- how convenient for the terrorists.

And July of 2001, Bush changed the policy so that only 3 people in the united states could allow a plane to be shot down. Bush. Cheney. Rumsfeld. Before that time, field commanders could.

Weather radar would not be as ideally suited to track these planes as Air Traffic Control radar -- that's kind of what IT is designed to do.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

I've read a lot of information that the airfoil of the Goose was too shallow to generate enough lift to get it out of ground effect, but *shrug* I'm sure it wasn't really that stable either. The dihedral was shallow and I can't imagine that the wood was strong enough to prevent massive flexion over those surfaces. A resonant vortex shedding event would have been disastrous. Of course, Hughes didn't have the advantage of massive computers and wind tunnel modeling. He just did things by feel, and he was a hell of an aviator, even if he ended up as a loon.

In any case, I was just using it as an example of the "power of ground effect", that plane was "flying" at something like fifty miles an hour, while actual, non-ground effect flight probably would have required airspeeds in the 90-100mph range.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

Heck, on the Airbus A-380 you just press the "Land" button. Supposedly...

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[bpd1069]

Ultimately, though, there's no reason to waste your time wondering if the government actually did the atrocities of 9/11 or if several decades of destructive US foreign policy and fanatical Islam together motivated the attacks. What's more important is how we respond as a country to 1) make sure that the US puts an end to decades of horrors perpetrated in yours and my name and 2) that in our pursuit of revenge for wrongs, we do not give up the freedoms and liberty which used to so clearly define this country.

Kerosine in optimal conditions can reach very high temperatures, hot enough to seriously weaken steel. But the jet fuel fires were not optimal, and a majority of the fuel was burned up in that massive fireball as witnessed by damn near everyone on the planet. The remaining fuel would not stay pooled on the floors and burn until collapse, most estimate 10 minutes tops. So the office contents must have been the main fuel source, nothing major, after all when you burn wood in a wood burning stove, the stove doesn't collapse into a flaming heap.
And to have reality intrude just a bit more into the scenario, steel will tend to transfer heat away inorder to equalize temperature (the 0th law of thermodynamics), which means it would take a considerable amound of time to heat the steel to the point of failure.

The Government's engineers tossed around 3 different theories before creating this "Pancake" Theory of global collapse (brand new btw), and that had to be later revised by the NIST report, to isolate the failure to the trusses, there by pulling the perimeter panels (3 floors x 3 windows) and the core columns (47 massive H beams). But even this has been debunked.

You don't have to believe ANY of the alternate conspiracies... not one, all you have to do is prove the Government's Conspiracy, which as of today, no one has been able to do... Then you must consider an alternate theory that better explains what was obeserved on that day in our history.

If you don't feel it is important to know which version of reality is a lie, and which is the truth, that's fine, some of us have the courage to know the truth.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[torpor]

So, 102 minutes + 30 minutes of inaction. I think the Pentagon owes taxpayers a few Trillion $ of taxpayer money.


The problem is, America owes the people of other states (and banks) a comparable sum.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Boronx]

Plenty of people did think about flying planes into buildings, and Bush chilled with the school kids for a long time after he was told the country was under attack.

Other than that, interesting post.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[shmlco]

" the visual evidence of squibs "

You don't think q couple of hundred million tons of descending building isn't going to rapidly compress the air in elevator shafts and stairwells, and that none of that air isn't going to blow out doors and windows and vent?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[mpe]

You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest.

Especially with "911" where it's virtually impossible to come up with an explanation which does not involve conspiracy.
Never mind that the officially sanctioned explanation is a rather daft conspiracy theory in the first place.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ALimber]

Very well put indeed, except maybe for the "no reason to waste your time" part. There's always reason to question, and critical thinking is an essential part of democracy. Again, well written.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[shmlco]

BTW, the disintegration "proof" on the one site doesn't hold water either. As the upper portion of the tower started to descend, pancaking the lower floors, the resistance created at that interface would have begun to pancake the lower floors of the upper structure, in reverse.

That collapse would have happened ever faster, in fact, as the floors were never designed to resist loads pushing up from beneath. Hence, the rapid "disintegration" of the upper floors.

Also, the "tossing" a block of concrete off a building wouldn't cause it to pulverize is a red herring as well. Try tossing said block off a building... with about a half-million tons of weight and momentum behind it.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[master_p]

And WTC7 crashed because of?

Can we have an explanation about that, please?

Methinks it was a consortium of CIA, MI6 and Mossad that infiltrated terrorist groups and guided them to the biggest coup of history.

Let's not forget PNAC: "it would take a catastrophic event like Perl Harbor to let America utilise its forces and extend its domination into the 21st century"... and that declaration is before 9/11.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Sir Holo]

You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up...

Exactly. What it boils down to is belief, which is based on emotion, not facts. Believers in conspiracy theories are impervious to reason, logical argument, and facts.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[phiwum]

Tactical situations involving national security should *always* err on the side of caution....Add to that a flight path into restricted airspace after intercept- and I want those soldiers shooting first, not asking questions of the chain of command.

Shooting down a civilian airliner without asking questions is erring on the side of caution?

Suppose that they had intercepted each of those planes. When did they enter restricted airspace? Probably when they were over a heavily populated area. So, your notion of caution is: destroy the civilian airliner and let it crash into a populated area because they might be planning something bad.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[mikael]

You might try a visit to PrisonPlanet

They're one of the major conspiracy theory websites out there, and they do reference
all their sources.

The two major conspiracy theories over 9/11 are that it was either "Let it happen" or "Make it happen". In both cases the desired outcome was that a major terrorist event would give the government freedom to settle old scores.

"Let it happen" was that the terrorists planned their actions on their own, but that any intelligence to suggest something big was going to happen was deliberately ignored.

"Make it happen" was that the terrorists were actually assisted by the government, and that Bin Laden is actually some sort of strawman to allow the "War on Terrorism" to continue.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Kombat]

And WTC7 crashed because of?

Fire and poor maintenance.

WTC7 was constructed using the same materials and methodologies as the other towers. Conventional engineering wisdom indicated that such "foam insulated steel trusses" would stand up to fire. This "wisdom" had never actually been tested on a full-scale, and unfortunately, it turned out to be wrong.

The steel truss supports within the structure of the buildings was coated with a hardened fire-proof foam designed to protect the crucial skeletal structure in the event of a fire. However, given the age of the buildings, the foam protection had been drying out and flaking off for several years. Maintenance had been lax, and the foam had not been replaced. Thus, when the fires broke out, the steel framing did not have the benefit of its insulation, and it could not hold up to the heat of the fire. The steel weakened and collapsed.

As I said, these design techniques had never been tested on a full-scale. They'd simply been assumed to work. Large-scale building designers learned a great deal from the results of 9/11, and you can rest assured that newer building construction takes the lessons into account. Many other buildings in NY had been built using similar designs, and they've since had their foam insulation thoroughly inspected and replaced, where necessary.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[BenBenBen]

Your post is well-reasoned, but I have to point out a couple of things for the sake of argument:

WTC7 collapsed because debris ignited the 47,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored in the building as part of the emergency command center.

I'm having a hard time picturing this screnario. Diesel isn't the most combustible of fuels, and a no-doubt strengthened and shielded tank designed to provide emergency coverage shouldn't just burst into flame because of a fire several hundred metres distant horizontally and even more metres vertically. This assumption seems to depend on a Heath-Robinson style series of events that would be unlikely at best. The collapse of WTC7 remains one of the less sensational unexplained events of that day

What was Bush doing reading? Perhaps he was scheduled to read to a group of elementary students for weeks or months in advance. Perhaps the terrorists weren't considerate enough to inform Mr. Bush of the impending attack on the World Trade Center.

His visit to the school, not 10 minutes from the Sarasota airport, was indeed scheduled and announced. This makes not his inaction, but the inaction of his Secret Service detail very surprising. Contrary to your later assertion, very many people had thought about flying planes into buildings - Tom Clancy for one (had Flight 93 made it to DC it would have flown into the very building that Clancy hit with a commercial airliner, the Capitol building).

At the very least the USSS should have been bundling Bush out of there as soon as it was apparent an airliner had hit the building. Any other building and I'd waver to make this prediction, but the WTC was THE building that UBL was likely to hit, and the August 6th PDB made it clear that he was determined to strike inside the US.

As with that other seminal US event on November 22nd 1963 this controversy is likely to run and run, and thanks to the amazingly inept way in which the 9/11 commission did its job we're unlikely to see the end of this anytime soon.

By the way, "conspiracy theory" is a fantastically Orwellian phrase designed to trigger certain doubt and feelings of probable kookiness in those it is used on. A cynic might wonder just how many of the 9/11 theories are disinformation put about by those with soemthing to gain.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Kombat]

Certainly once you *get* the plane close to the ground, it might be easy. But certainly not a simple task to bring a what, massive plane like a 757 (were not talking a Cessna here) down to the ground. "Ease it to the ground", key word is "ease".

Easing a plane into a smooth descent is trivial. With the plane trimmed for straight and level flight (which it already would have been once they'd taken over), you simply retard the throttles. The plane will maintain the same airspeed, and begin a descent. The speed of the descent is controlled merely by advancing or retarding the throttles.

Elsewhere I've read that these "rookie" pilots were able to maneuver these planes in some fantastically tight turns - beginners luck?

No, merely a complete disregard for the intended performance envelope of the aircraft. Pilots need to keep the various flight parameters (angle of attack, bank, airspeed, G-loading) within certain parameters. If you exceed them, then the plane must be taken out of service and thoroughly inspected before being certified as airworthy again. The hijackers didn't care about this, so they simply exceeded the intended limitations, producing turns and speeds not normally seen in aircraft of that size. Thus, the result looked "extraordinary," because it was not safe, and never seen before.

how did WTC 7, and the others, neatly collapse

You felt they should have tipped over? Do you have any idea how much the upper portion of the towers must have weighed? Without any sideways torquing force, how would the tower have begun leaning enough to "tip over," as everyone appears to have expected it to do? The only force acting on the tower was gravity (OK, maybe a little bit of wind). Gravity pulling straight down on several hundred thousand tons of steel and concrete... where would you expect it to go, other than straight down?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Kadin2048 you got it right. 20/20 hindsight is crystal clear. Prior to this all hijackings ended on a runway somewhere with the bad guys dead and the passengers safe. Blowing up a plane at that time would of enraged people.

(As an aside but on topic - I laugh when folks point to enriching haliburton as a reason to invade Iraq - Guess what country Clinton chose when we invaded Bosnia)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[the_Bionic_lemming]

err - need my coffee - meant "Company" not "Country"

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[mpe]

Actually, this only provides evidence that 1) some of the fuel was burning in fuel-rich areas and 2) there were other things burning besides fuel. I find it plausible that there was a lot of fuel scattered throughout the impacted floors and that the resulting fires did not have a consistent fuel/air mix and resulting temperature from one location to another.

The basic problem is that in over a century of steel framed buildings only WTC1, WTC2 & WTC7 have collapsed in this way. Whereas other buildings have remained standing after much more severe fires. The basic problem with the idea of pockets of intense fire is that steel is a good conductor of heat, in order to even weaken part of a steel structure you need to put in energy faster than it is conducted away.

Some unexpected things were going on in the WTC damaged floors, that much is clear. I don't think it's necessary to suppose that there was more than just an airplane in there to expect extraordinary events.

The "elephant in the room" is WTC7. Even were it the case that there was some factor in the design of WTC1 and WTC2 which made them especially vulnerable to both impact damage followed by fire, WTC7 was built at a different time to a different design. Apart from it's address it was simply a "surrounding building" with respect to the rest of the complex. It was not hit by a plane, nor was it especially close to either WTC1 or WTC2. Why did only this nearby building collapse?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Wolfger]

Right. I mean it's obvious that they are just now releasing this footage because it took them this long to doctor the videotape well enough to endure public scrutiny. It's only a matter of time before some paranoiac video whiz announces that he's found the flaw that shows it to be a fake...

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ktappe]

According to reports, when the first sketchy information about a plane hitting the World Trade Center came in, Bush's first reaction was, "That's one lousy pilot." Which, I have to admit was my first reaction upon hearing the news on my clock radio that morning. In fact, I spent twenty minutes getting up and ready before I switched to headline news to see "if they might show the moron". By that time, the second plane had already hit. According to the Conspiracy Theorists out there, I must have been part of the conspiracy because I was brushing my teeth while the planes hit the buildings. It's just as valid as your statement about Bush.

You contradict yourself. First you admit that Bush reacted to the first plane hit with his "lousy pilot" remark. But the video of him being whispered to while reading to the students shows him saying nothing. This proves what other reports have said; that he was told of the first airplane hit before he even entered the school. Therefore, the alert he received as he was reading to the students was of the second airplane hit. You probably stopped brushing your teeth after the 2nd hit, but Bush kept reading with the students for seven minutes after the 2nd hit. And therefore, his statement about Bush was much more valid than yours.

-Kurt

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[nickmalthus]

I think the Pentagon owes taxpayers a few Trillion $ of taxpayer money.

First they have to find it Notice the date, Sept 10, 2001

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

"The fault is with the chain of command- and if they try to fight back against you, well, take your story to the public, we'll see how long that general lasts in his job having endangered civilians for a military exercise."

Ever heard of a gag order or how long it takes the military to get one? They'd claim it involved national security and so you'd be out of a job and in jail(or Gitmo) if you opened your mouth. And generals don't often lose their jobs for that kind of stuff, or have you not noticed that yet?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

True for commercial craft, but there is a lot of variety on the non-commercial stuff. I've got an old Stitts - basically a J3 Cub with low wings - that does not have any electrical system. It prop starts, has a float and a stick for a gas gauge, and some basic instrumentation. It does it not have a transponder, radio, or GPS - just basic compass and elevation. And yes - it is possible to get lost if you are not careful. Not that something like that is a threat...but it is an excuse. (grin)

After 9-11, that kind of plane is indeed a threat. Pack it full of diesel and fertilizer, and you've got the suicide bomber equivalent of a guided missile.

In addition to that- all three of the items that it does not have, can be added in a single pocket instrument that runs on AA batteries. They're used by hikers all the time in the Cascade range, and they do save lives (hit the button, the transponder goes off, and the radio starts reporting your GPS location- when you're buried in an avalanche it can mean the difference between dying of hypothermia and being rescued). I'd think that carrying such a device would be a requirement for anybody flying such an antiquated plane- and the best part is if everything goes RIGHT, there's no real difference to the pilot- the plane still works the same.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

Bush made his "lousy pilot" comment in an interview after the fact. He said "the first thought that went through my mind was, 'That's one lousy pilot.'" Until the FAA confirmed that the planes were hijacked, everyone, and I mean everyone, thought that the first plane was some terrible accident, not an intentional attack. I'd heard from the radio that it was a small plane that hit the WTC. There was a lot of confusion in the first few minutes. When the first plane was reported to Bush, it was reported as "a plane, we think a small commuter plane, hit the World Trade Center building a few minutes ago." (From an interview with the Secret Service agent who informed him.)

The film we've all seen of Bush with the guy whispering in his ear was when the Secret Service told him there was now information that it was a large, commercial airliner, and that the FAA was saying that it had transmitted a hijack code. They also told him it would take about 5 minutes to get transportation arranged to get him out of the school and set up the motorcade back to Air Force One. There was no one who considered him as being actively under threat, so they were informing law enforcement and the crews that the schedule was changing. As far as this point, it was clearly an attack, but an isolated one. The damage was already done and rushing out wouldn't save anyone or anything.

Now, Bush was with a group of young children, and you can't exactly just leap up and say, "There's been a horrible accident, people are dead, and I have to go." These kids were waiting for months to meet the President, and he wanted to give them a fair amount of time. Remember, no one thought this was anything more than an isolated incident yet.

From the moment Bush was told, you can see his look is much more grim, and he's constantly "looking off to the side". Well, he was looking at his Secret Service detail, who was waiting to signal him when the transportation was ready. A few minutes later, he got that signal, apologized to the children and made his way back to the limosine. He was in the limosine and on his way to the airport when the second plane hit. All this is in the 9/11 commission report timeline, if you'd care to read it.

As for me, I kept on brushing, because I didn't turn the TV on until about 5 minutes after the second plane hit.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[nickmalthus]

Whenever an event happens and the documented evidence does not correlate with the governments account the people have a right to question their government. We the people deserver total honesty from our government in order to make informed political decisions. While you certainly may be indifferent to government cover-ups others are not. At the very least if there is at least a shred of truth to any of the conspiracy theories in the absence of public scrutiny they will be engendered to commit more brazen attacks.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Um dude, when was the last time you saw a plane show up on weather radar?

I actually assumed they simply edited it out of the final video.

Airport radar isn't that great either; unless the plane is actively transponding, it's going to be difficult to track. Not impossible, but hard. Also, it's simply not what ATC guys are trained for.

Are you trying to tell me that ATC guys and their equipment are unable to detect a specific traffic hazard within the airspace that they are supposed to be watching? Using radar specifically designed for detecting large metal objects within that airspace? Seems like you've just identified a new vector for suicide bombers- just fly a small plane with no transponder into the takeoff stream from a major airport, since the ATC guys can't see it....

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[diablomonic]

(almost) None of you seem to be getting the point. They didnt have to shoot it down. they didnt have to do anything except get the fucking planes off the ground and into the air ready to do something if necessary!!!! Also normal rules were that you scramble jet fighters on pretty much ANY sustained deviation/lack of response. The rules were changed to make the bush cheney rummsfeld have the scramble power, and bush spent 10 minutes talking about a goddamn duck or what ever the frack it was to school children instead of getting the planes off the ground after hearing "america is under attack"!!!!

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Well I think it's probably because, up until 9/11, every time a plane had not responded to the tower, it had turned out to be some form of equipment malfunction, pilot error ("oops -- you wanted us on what frequency?"), or an honest emergency.

All three of which can be determined with a skilled intercept.

There are enough stories about small planes wandering off course and into no-fly zones; pre-9/11, just shooting down an airliner full of people because the pilot flew it too close to a military installation would have been really bad PR. I suspect that whatever standing orders allowed such a shootdown would only ever be used once -- after that, the political fallout would be so bad that they'd be immediately rescinded and replaced with a chain of command that included everyone from NORAD to the Junior Congressman from Hawaii's masseuse's dog. In other words, it would turn into a complete goatfuck, and quite possibly make the future situation worse by slowing responsiveness.

Well, I would have put the "obvious" point when a mentally challenged young man crashed a Piper Cub into the White House a few years back- wasn't that during the first Bush Administration? I was amazed that Flight 93 hit the Pentagon- I would have thought such an important area as Washington DC and such an important building would have been ringed with Patriot installations after that first small plane incursion.

There was a previous slap in the face that could of been, should have been, used as proof- if the Bush Administration hadn't have restricted such orders to a small inner circle of three people in July 2001.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

It's amazing that you're willing to believe that the WTC could be intentionally bombed with demolition charges (the only clear alternative) which normally takes days of painstaking set-up work and results in columns wrapped with what are clearly, bulky high-explosive charges, as opposed to, "a chunk of hot burning debris (clearly visible on many videos of the day) plunged into the WTC 7 building, doing extensive damage." You talk about a "strengthened and shielded tank". Sorry, it was a standard set of three tanks, two 20,000 gallon, and one 7,000 gallon tank, made out of thin-walled 1/8" steel. They were in the middle of a building (in the basement actually) and were not, "strengthened and shielded". They were there to provide 15 days of electrical power generation to the emergency command center.

As for not flammible... Diesel fuel is basically kerosene. It burns with a smoky, red flame and can be easily ignited by a match. It's believed that the debris that struck WTC7 was part of the engine of the second plane. That engine typically runs in the 800-1200 degree celsius range. More than hot enough to ignite a little diesel fuel (flash point of about 210 degrees C. In fact, diesel ignites 36 degrees C cooler than gasoline.)

Let's also not forget that there was a 4" gas main in the building that firemen reported as having broken. For three hours, flame and smoke poured out of the WTC7 building. By the time it collapsed it was a gutted shell.

WTC7 was in the direct path of the debris from the second airliner. The idea that somehow it's more believable that some clandestine force snuck in and carefully demolished it without anyone knowing is ludicrous.

As for the second part, yes, there was evidence that OBL wanted to strike in the US. That was in every briefing since 1992. He suceeded in 1993 when Yusef bombed the WTC. What no one expected, or knew, was that the planes had been hijacked, or that they were full of terrorists, or that there were more than one. But I've already answered all this in another post. Read the 9/11 commision report. While it is a crappy job, done by political hacks, they did determine that Bush wasn't "sitting on his hands", he just didn't have enough information.

As for plane attacks, yeah Tom Clancy had one, but quite frankly, NORAD planned to run a test scenario of a plane flying into the Pentagon in April of 2000 and the joint chiefs canceled it as being "too far fetched."

Yes, there will always be questions, but Occam's Razor says we can believe in 19 al-qaeda funded terrorists, for which we have ample information and motivation (Mohammed Atta's luggage with all the plans in it along with his journal and records missed the connection and was recovered by the morning of September 12th. It's why we knew so much about the terrorists so quickly.) and a fundamental hatred of the United States trained for a year and hijacked four airplanes to fly them into buildings in the culmination of 10 years of planning, or you can believe that a shadowy government agency, built in eight months by the Bush Administration, masterminded hundreds of demolitions experts into destroying one of the largest buildings in the world, killing thousands. That thousands of people were involved in secretly building and flying remote controlled jets into the buildings, and that 100+ pentagon people were sacrificed to make it look real. And that somewhere there's about 250 people who were supposed to be on the jets that have been secretly hidden away from the outside world. And that none of these hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of people who were involved in the killings of 3,000 Americans have gotten a nagging conscience and come forward.

I know which way Occam's Razor cuts for me.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

One simple answer: because a small Piper cub crashed into the White House and proved we don't control our own airspace enough.

Why am I the only person who remembers that incident?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[diablomonic]

ok I can see your just joking (I hope your joking?) but a j3 cub is a far cry from 4 jumbo jets with passengers on board (strangely only at 20% occupancy ...... yet another conincidence)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

Whereas other buildings have remained standing after much more severe fires.

All of the other buildings I've heard compared were steel-reinforced concrete and burned from the top (there wasn't a substantial fraction of the building's mass above the burning area). Steel-reinforced concrete is a very different kind of construction from a steel structure. The steel structure is essentially a bridge set on end (a vertical truss), while steel-reinforced concrete is sills, beams, and lintels (a much older style of building construction).

Ultimately, there are too many differences between the other buildings that people are trying to compare. There just haven't been enough steel building failures yet to have any comparison to what happened in Manhattan that day.

The basic problem with the idea of pockets of intense fire is that steel is a good conductor of heat, in order to even weaken part of a steel structure you need to put in energy faster than it is conducted away.

Steel/iron is actually a rather poor heat conductor, which is why the best pots and pans use other metals (usually copper) for part of the pan (cast iron eliminates hot spots just by being thick enough, but it takes a lot longer to heat a cast iron pan than an All-Clad or Calphalon pan). Watch some videos of a smith making wrought iron decorations or a sword. It's quite easy to get one end of a steel or iron bar bright yellow (well past the annealing temperature and quite soft), only a few inches away is dark metal (well below the annealing temperature and full unhardened strength).

Regards,
Ross

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Shooting down a civilian airliner without asking questions is erring on the side of caution?

It is when:
1. the transponder is off.
2. The pilot does not respond to radio calls.
3. The pilot does not respond to visual signals to turn back.
4. The pilot does not respond to a military jet in formation off his left wing, a military jet in formation off his right wing, and a military jet descending on the cockpit fron the front to force the plane down.

ALL of that should have happened *before* the planes got anyplace close to a heavily populated area- and didn't because orders to even scramble fighters had to come from Washington due to an ill timed training mission that tied up all military jets on the east coast except for two that morning. (Which was a mistake to begin with- you NEVER send more than 1/3rd of your troops out on training. NEVER.)

Basically, 9-11 proved that this administration is incompetant.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ever heard of a gag order or how long it takes the military to get one? They'd claim it involved national security and so you'd be out of a job and in jail(or Gitmo) if you opened your mouth. And generals don't often lose their jobs for that kind of stuff, or have you not noticed that yet?

Which would be an even worse mistake in my case- as I'd have auto-emailers set on dead man's switches e-mailing every media outlet if I didn't type in my code on my computer once a day. I've been set up for this for YEARS- ever since sombody mistook my e-mail address as sounding Armenian. Once out on the internet, no gag order can stop the information flow.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Pfhorrest]

Dude, everyone can tell you're faking. The conditioning not only hides the, but also the space that is left behind when you can't see them.

Hides the what?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[BenBenBen]

I never suggested controlled demolition as a plausible alternative - I merely voiced my opinion that igniting a diesel tank in an emergency shelter under the circumstances stated was implausible.

As it turns out, I was right - later, more qualified studies showed that WTC7 collapsed as a result of heavy structural damage, a strange design that put a lot of emphasis on very few columns and the fact that the diesel tank fed a pressurised line to the 7th floor - which was severed.

If you haven't read it yet, the Popular Mechanics article linked to elsewhere within this thread is very informative.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[phiwum]

I see. Rather than defend your previous statement that they should have been shot down over heavily populated areas, you'll make a new hypothetical. You'll assume that three jets could have intercepted each craft in an unpopulated area and forced it down.

Basically, 9-11 proved that this administration is incompetant.

Nonsense. In fact, the immediate response to 9/11 was fairly competent (Bush's goat story notwithstanding). After 9/11, there was actually a ray of hope for the administration. They reacted with surprising restraint. This was the one time when I was pleasantly surprised by the Bush administration.

Failure to intercept the jets was not an indictment of the administration. I'm certain that Clinton's military would have done no better at all.

The proof of incompetence came later. And in spades. And we'll pay for it for a long time to come.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[FurryFeet]

You didn't write what it hides, and that makes me feel oddly perturbed and anxious . Please be more careful with your writing.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

They reacted with surprising restraint.

Which was an error considering the culture that had attacked us. Their "restraint" has given us 5 years of war for what should have been a 24 hour retaliatory strike against a religion. But the Bushies can't actually attack their terrorist friends in Saudi Arabia- so we hit Afghanistan and Iraq instead.

Failure to intercept the jets was not an indictment of the administration. I'm certain that Clinton's military would have done no better at all.

I agree with that- but to me, that's just more damning. There is no reason, even before 9-11, that these men should have been allowed to cross the border into the United States at all, Failing that, there is no reason why a jet leaving it's flight plan and turning off it's transponder should not be intercepted at the very least- shooting down should be a last resort tactic, but there are OTHER tactics intercepting jets can take without actually firing anything at all.

To me, the proof of incompetance started the day a small piper cub crashed into the East Wing of the White House- a decade earlier. That was the warning. The fact that neither Bush administration nor the Clintons did anything to change that, and in fact were so addicted to "free trade" as to actually make the situation worse, is a significant problem.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

After 9-11, that kind of plane is indeed a threat.

I hope you're not recommending that we ban general aviation(privately owned aircraft), because if you are, then I will expect you to buy my ticket everytime I want to go flying to Des Moines for a hamburger. This is usually the response we get any time a schedueled airliner has a mishap. Somehow it's always the little plane's fault, even if none was involved. We find ourselves with more controlled airspace where we don't need it. You're falling into the "post 9/11 world" syndrome. Everything is a threat. We must eliminate this "freedom" thing. The Concorde crashes once after over 30 years without an accident. Statistically, it became one of the most dangerous aircraft in the air, though in reality it is the safest machine that ever flew. So, somebody crashes an airliner into a building, and we should ban small aircraft? I don't think so. Well, a commercial truck was used in OKC. Let's ban pickup trucks. Or at least put U-Haul out of business because a Ryder truck was used. That's the kind of logic we get out of these screaming ninnies.

I'd think that carrying such a device would be a requirement for anybody flying such an antiquated plane...

On the transponder thing. First, an aircraft transponder is quite a different animal than an ELT(Emergency Locator Transmitter). An ELT simply transmits a signal on the emergency frequencies to be located using standard triagulation techniques. Maybe GPS is used now. A transponder transmits an ID selected by the pilot when "hit" by a radar signal, and is quite expensive. I believe an ELT is required on all certified(not experimental) aircraft. A transponder is required if you want to fly into controlled airspace. Don't start laying problems on people who had nothing to do with the incident.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

So the office contents must have been the main fuel source, nothing major, after all when you burn wood in a wood burning stove, the stove doesn't collapse into a flaming heap.

Of course not. Stoves are specifically designed to radiate their heat out through their surface area and offer controls so that you can limit the temperature. You're using the wrong analogy, because when a house burns, the wood stove inside the burning house does collapse into a melted heap.

If you don't feel it is important to know which version of reality is a lie, and which is the truth, that's fine, some of us have the courage to know the truth.

It's not that I'm not curious, or that I won't be upset if the government did stage it. At this point, the questions raised don't cast enough doubt because we don't have enough datapoints to refute any theory (no other steel framed building has collapsed due to severe damage mid-tower, certainly not with sensors keeping track of temperature and movement). We simply don't have enough observations to say that the tower could or couldn't collapse the way it looked on TV. So Occam's Razor comes into play. The least complex story (plane crashed into tower, fuel and offices burned, tower collapsed) wins. The government's lack of certainty as to what happened is a datapoint in favor of the simple story. At this point, the WTC tower structure remains too complex of a system for anyone to clearly understand precisely what happened.

"I don't know yet." has to be a possible answer, and as long as it is, I'm going to put my focus on what was done afterwards (full frontal assault on civil liberties) and do my best to convince my neighbors that rolling back our liberties and freedoms is a bad idea.

You've got to choose your battles.

Regards,
Ross

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iocat]

Are you trying to tell me that ATC guys and their equipment are unable to detect a specific traffic hazard within the airspace that they are supposed to be watching? Using radar specifically designed for detecting large metal objects within that airspace? Seems like you've just identified a new vector for suicide bombers- just fly a small plane with no transponder into the takeoff stream from a major airport, since the ATC guys can't see it....

Yes, that's exactly what I am saying. Again, try doing some *research* before you start spinning your conspiracy theories. Remember Matthias Rust? He flew his Cessna from West Germany to RED SQUARE, during the height of the Cold War, and the Russians only tracked him sporadically, and totally failed to stop him. So yes, a suicide bomber with small plane could do the same thing. Plus, even if his transponder were on, no one could stop someone intent on doing something that stupid with a plane, anyway.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[ehrichweiss]

And how do you backup your statements when they discredit you, as you know they would, if you cease to exist to anyone outside of Gitmo? Remember, we're talking about someone refusing to scramble jets regardless of whether there is an actual life threatening incident to scramble them for. If there was, an incident, you could be dismissed as a prankster(wouldn't be the first), and if there wasn't then there'd be nothing for you to subtantiate your claims since no one would know or care about it. And if you've already been suspected of something as you claim, you will get to watch from your torture chamber as they drag you and your family's name through the dirt. True power is knowing when to just shut your mouth and at least ACT submissive to their power. And besides, if you're locked up for the rest of your life for a Patriot Act "violation" what does it matter? Right now they could say that JFK was killed by the CIA and there aren't going to be riots in the streets because waay too much time has passed...and you're not JFK so getting more than a couple people with signs in front of the Whitehouse isn't likely in even 1 year much less 10. Better think about all the consequences of your actions. I already had a friend who got locked up for threatening Bush...he tells me the first thing they did was give him a psych eval and used that to trash him and his family. But like they say, if you feel froggie...jump...it ain't MY life.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

Which was an error considering the culture that had attacked us.

The "culture" that attacked us could have just as easily been a group of American whackos(including those New American Century weirdos) as any Arab terrorist group. Despite what they insist on the TV, we STILL don't know who paid for the mission. Racisn and revenge has made the decision for us.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iocat]

Do you have actual, verified, *sources* for any of this shit, or just links to other conspiracy web sites? Plus, how many military jets do you think we normally have in the air over the US? Do some freaking research on this stuff.

ATC radar is just not as powerful as you might think. Given that only a freaking lunatic would turn off his transponder, it wasn't something planned for. There are so many transient signals on radar that it's extremely difficult to track something that isn't transponding, it just gets ignored.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[NutscrapeSucks]

Allow me to repeat Pynchon, since it sailed over your head: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I hope you're not recommending that we ban general aviation(privately owned aircraft), because if you are, then I will expect you to buy my ticket everytime I want to go flying to Des Moines for a hamburger.

Not at all. I just expect you to file a flight plan on the correct website and stick to that flight plan, and I expect that if you deviate from it CAP will be looking for your lost ass. In other words- BASIC SAFETY.

This is usually the response we get any time a schedueled airliner has a mishap. Somehow it's always the little plane's fault, even if none was involved. We find ourselves with more controlled airspace where we don't need it. You're falling into the "post 9/11 world" syndrome. Everything is a threat. We must eliminate this "freedom" thing.

Well, at least for non-citizens. But the benefits of a controlled airspace should be obvious to anyone- and has almost NOTHING to do with terrorism or mishaps of large planes. It's mere traffic control- no different than the reason we put stoplights at intersections.

The Concorde crashes once after over 30 years without an accident. Statistically, it became one of the most dangerous aircraft in the air, though in reality it is the safest machine that ever flew. So, somebody crashes an airliner into a building, and we should ban small aircraft? I don't think so. Well, a commercial truck was used in OKC. Let's ban pickup trucks. Or at least put U-Haul out of business because a Ryder truck was used. That's the kind of logic we get out of these screaming ninnies.

Or at the very least, we should keep young arab men from renting U-Hauls and Ryders. This isn't exactly rocket science, nor do we need to go to ridiculous extremes.

On the transponder thing. First, an aircraft transponder is quite a different animal than an ELT(Emergency Locator Transmitter). An ELT simply transmits a signal on the emergency frequencies to be located using standard triagulation techniques. Maybe GPS is used now. A transponder transmits an ID selected by the pilot when "hit" by a radar signal, and is quite expensive. I believe an ELT is required on all certified(not experimental) aircraft. A transponder is required if you want to fly into controlled airspace. Don't start laying problems on people who had nothing to do with the incident.

Why is the transponder so much more expensive? Seems to me it could be simulated in software on any radio that can recieve and transmit microwave signals....It's not like any of this is new tech costing millions of dollars to produce. Isn't that also basically what RFID does short range? Return a alphanumeric string when painted by the proper radio frequency? And that's cheap enough to throw away on tags at WalMart.

I'm not saying your not correct- just that there are some supicious holes in your story. For all I know- those holes are in reality, in which case they are REALLY stupid holes to have from a basic safety standpoint let alone from a secure area standpoint.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[phiwum]

Their "restraint" has given us 5 years of war for what should have been a 24 hour retaliatory strike against a religion.

A retaliatory strike against a religion? Twenty-four hours and we'd have subdued Islam, the fastest growing faith in the world?

I never thought I'd say this to anybody in the world, but I'm happy Bush is in office and not you.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And how do you backup your statements when they discredit you, as you know they would, if you cease to exist to anyone outside of Gitmo?

And discrediting works how? They tried to discredit Wilson- and didn't succeed.

Remember, we're talking about someone refusing to scramble jets regardless of whether there is an actual life threatening incident to scramble them for.

OK, you're talking about a different case than I was. I was talking about the specific case of having multiple radar targets without transponders in civilian air lanes without anybody informing the ATC in charge of that section of the airspace. In other words, the military "exercise" excuse for not scrambling jets. The life threatening incident in that case would be on direct orders from somebody- and the way to release it is to let everybody know we've got a rogue military commander in charge of that airspace. The loss of ticket sales to commercial airlines that use that airspace WILL cause an investigation that can't be avoided by merely silencing the original whistleblower- because to fail to do the investigation will result in a lack of consumer confidence in air travel (much like another thread of this discussion is causing in me- ATC really can't track private experimental planes?)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The "culture" that attacked us could have just as easily been a group of American whackos

In which case a slightly different method would have been called for- but basically the same idea. When faced with terrorism, the correct response is a larger act of terrorism.

Despite what they insist on the TV, we STILL don't know who paid for the mission.

Doesn't matter. If the result of Islamic-involved terrorism was the complete loss of Mecca for the next 1000 years, you can bet you'd very quickly reverse the major theological argument that creates terrorists-for-hire in political Islam. It's a matter of understanding the theology of terrorism.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Chris Burke]

What was Bush doing reading? Perhaps he was scheduled to read to a group of elementary students for weeks or months in advance. Perhaps the terrorists weren't considerate enough to inform Mr. Bush of the impending attack on the World Trade Center. According to reports, when the first sketchy information about a plane hitting the World Trade Center came in, Bush's first reaction was, "That's one lousy pilot." Which, I have to admit was my first reaction upon hearing the news on my clock radio that morning. In fact, I spent twenty minutes getting up and ready before I switched to headline news to see "if they might show the moron". By that time, the second plane had already hit. According to the Conspiracy Theorists out there, I must have been part of the conspiracy because I was brushing my teeth while the planes hit the buildings. It's just as valid as your statement about Bush.

And after seeing that a second plane had hit the second tower and that America was clearly being attacked by unknown forces, did you then return to your morning routine as if nothing had happened?

You are giving Bush way too much credit and not recalling what really happened. When his aide whispered in his ear that a second plane had struck and that "America is under attack", he continued to sit in his seat and read My Pet Goat for another seven minutes. Now if you're anything like me, you don't fancy yourself much of a prime candidate for the job of President. Yet do you not agree that you, I, or just about anyone on hearing the news that the nation you lead is being attacked, would have excused oneself from the publicity stunt and then demanded to hear anything and everything known about these attacks?

Now this doesn't prove anything vis a vis Bush and 9/11 conspiracy. Instead, it proves something much more mundane, and something much more obvious five years later: Bush is a terrible leader. He is a horrible Commander in Chief, he is a horrible leader in times of true urgency. He can't think on his feet at all -- if it isn't handed to him by his handlers and speech writers, then he botches it or as in the case of My Pet Goat completely seizes up, unable to act.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A retaliatory strike against a religion? Twenty-four hours and we'd have subdued Islam, the fastest growing faith in the world?

This religion also happens to be a political system, which is why it's so dangerous and why it is so fast growing. The prophecy that makes it both, the promise that makes it both, is a promise of justice and one world government from one single city. Take out that city- make it so that there is NO hope of establishing the "Nation of Islam" anytime within the next 1000 years- and you will remove that promise. Two cobalt warheads, fired from the US on ICBMs, would do it. For humanitarian reasons, you's want to hold off a bit- give the people time to evacuate first, after all, you're trying to kill the theology not the people. But in the end, the result is the same- the ancient trade centers of Mecca and Medina, and a huge amount of the desert around them, glowing in the dark for the next 1000 years as a testament to all followers of all religions as to what happens when you take money to do terrorism.

It's called "Making an example", and it worked for the Romans when the Jews rebelled as well- the next most significant thing they had to face didn't happen for another 400 years, and even then, it was a threat from outside the empire instead of another rebellion.

I never thought I'd say this to anybody in the world, but I'm happy Bush is in office and not you.

Well, the difference between my tactics and Bush's isn't much. The only difference is that the guilty have gone free and the innocent have suffered under Bush. Oh yeah, and what are we up to now? An additional 2500 Americans dead? Where my method would have required no troops at all.....

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[(H)elix1]

I'm flying VFR when I go up in my playboy. No flight plans required what so ever. Granted there is airspace I cannot fly in and altitudes I can't exceed, but she is build for (basic) acrobatics rather than actually going someplace. For private aircraft - especially the experimental stuff - tracking requirements are not required as 'basic' equipment. Since my plane is built to pull a few more G's than a typical Cessna, I'd call it 'safer' than an electrical laden counterpart under 10k'.

I'd look at it much like a neverlost in a car. Nice to have, not a must have, and definitely not a federal mandate that every vehicle broadcast real time locations. Maybe a better example is an ipass transponder. If you are driving on the toll way, you need one. On the normal streets it is not required. So yeah, uncontrolled airspace the rules are a bit different. I spent about $6.5k to buy and restore my plane. A transponder last time I looked that had a battery pack (ala for folks doing ballooning) was about $1.5k and nothing I care about due to not flying on the flight 'traffic' routes. Never mind the weight, mounting, and storage. I did spend money (due to aerobatic requirements) on a parachute. Dang if that did not make people nervous on NWA when I packed it as carry-on luggage going home.

I'd also argue an SUV has much more potential payload than my aircraft which can only carry a couple hundred pounds (mostly pilot, tragically). You could possibly fly very large aircraft under VFR (and without transponder), but most folks don't. Much like trying to buy a one ton pickup without cruise control.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

Not at all. I just expect you to file a flight plan on the correct website and stick to that flight plan, and I expect that if you deviate from it CAP will be looking for your lost ass. In other words- BASIC SAFETY.

Under visual flight rules, a flight plan is optional. If I'm flying over remote territory, a flight plan is strongly recommended, and I would file one. I don't want to see that be made mandatory. That's just more gov't interference. We suffer enough of that. Most of rules resulting from accidents have nothing to do with preventing similar events. Under instrument flight rules, flight plans are required for obvious reasons to any pilot. They gotta have a pretty good idea where you are when you're in the clouds. Anyway, basic safety should be left up to aviators, not penny pinching bureaucrats.

But the benefits of a controlled airspace should be obvious to anyone- and has almost NOTHING to do with terrorism or mishaps of large planes. It's mere traffic control- no different than the reason we put stoplights at intersections.

You don't have then at every intersection, and not all the airspace needs to be controlled. That's where the gov't gets really weird. After an accident happens within controlled airspace at about 3,000 feet, the gov't decides to extend absolute control over all airspace from a previous floor of 18,000 feet, down to 12,500. This obviously does nothing to eleviate the problem near an airport close to the ground. But that's generally how they operate. More false security, just like TSA and the patriot act. That's because they wnat more control, not more safety.

Well, at least for non-citizens.

That's really sad to hear you say that. Everybody deserves the same freedoms. No matter where they are from. I consider anything less to be racist.

Why is the transponder so much more expensive? Seems to me it could be simulated in software on any radio that can recieve and transmit microwave signals....It's not like any of this is new tech costing millions of dollars to produce.

That may be possible now. The last time I turned a wrench was in the 80s, so I wouldn't know how far things have advanced. At the time, every radio had a distinct function. Your communications equipment was seperate from the navigation equipment, In fact, navigation was further divvied up into seperate radios for direction finding, distance measuring, etc. The transponder was its own little box just for responding to radar. At the time the price was between 1,500 and 3,000 dollars.

What holes are you talking about?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Cyno]

Why are you trying to discourage discussion about this topic?

Do you know what happened?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Cyno]

Did you watch Loose Change?

Funny, there's no mention of ten-gallon hats anywhere in that film, huh. :)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[BitGeek]

I'm perplexed as to why people persist in fantasizing that conspiracies are hard to do, hard to keep secret.

The entirety of the monetary system, including the founding of the federal reserve, and the manipulation of gold prices is a conpsiracy. And its well documented and done in the public eye. Its "conspiracy" because people banded together, and the public remains ignorant.

But you can point people to all the admissions of the conspiracy by the conspirators in the world and their faith in government the benevolant will not be shaken.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

Or at the very least, we should keep young arab men from renting U-Hauls and Ryders.

Forgot respond to this:

Uh, you lost me on that. You are aware that it was an Amreican who rented the truck...oops, wait, you were talking about the first bombing of WTC weren't you? Well then, Ryder was used...twice. Hmmm...could it be that Ryder is our main conspirator here? Who owns them? Maybe we should check up on this. I mean who else would rent a truck to a blind man? :-)

This isn't exactly rocket science, nor do we need to go to ridiculous extremes.

Oh, lordy! But you just did with that other statement. You sure have a way keeping me off balance. Your tribe and possibly your family suffered under horrible discrimination, and you want to perpetrate the same upon others? Yet another example of the oppressed becoming the oppressor. I honestly don't understand why so many people fall into that trap. Maybe the Animal Planet can explain it. It has explained everything else about us up to this point.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Under visual flight rules, a flight plan is optional. If I'm flying over remote territory, a flight plan is strongly recommended, and I would file one. I don't want to see that be made mandatory. That's just more gov't interference. We suffer enough of that. Most of rules resulting from accidents have nothing to do with preventing similar events. Under instrument flight rules, flight plans are required for obvious reasons to any pilot. They gotta have a pretty good idea where you are when you're in the clouds. Anyway, basic safety should be left up to aviators, not penny pinching bureaucrats.

You've got a very different definition of freedom than I do- but we knew that didn't we? I don't see this as penny pinching- I see it as giving the ATC guys, as cops on the beat so to speak, the information they need to do their jobs. It's in situations where information is denied (whether somebody wants their "freedom" or the military wants their "secret training" or whatever) that problems exist. Secrecy and privacy are abuses of freedom to me.

You don't have then at every intersection, and not all the airspace needs to be controlled. That's where the gov't gets really weird. After an accident happens within controlled airspace at about 3,000 feet, the gov't decides to extend absolute control over all airspace from a previous floor of 18,000 feet, down to 12,500. This obviously does nothing to eleviate the problem near an airport close to the ground. But that's generally how they operate. More false security, just like TSA and the patriot act. That's because they wnat more control, not more safety.

More control, more information, leads to better decisions and more safety for everyone. Less information leads to less safety for everyone, and thus, in the long run, less freedom for anyone.

That's really sad to hear you say that. Everybody deserves the same freedoms. No matter where they are from. I consider anything less to be racist.

We've had that discussion before- and you know that I consider racism to be, at this point, the rational decision, and tolerance the irrational emotion-based decision, just due to how human beings evolved. Thus I have no problem with you calling me a racist- because I think the real oppression is in being forced to tolerate others at the expense of safety and security.

That may be possible now. The last time I turned a wrench was in the 80s, so I wouldn't know how far things have advanced. At the time, every radio had a distinct function. Your communications equipment was seperate from the navigation equipment, In fact, navigation was further divvied up into seperate radios for direction finding, distance measuring, etc. The transponder was its own little box just for responding to radar. At the time the price was between 1,500 and 3,000 dollars.

Someone else said similar- I'm amazed at the cost in a day and age where major department stores use a similar system for inventory control and shoplifing prevention (RFID). But then again, I also remember some of the Ham radio guys I hang out with complaining about the FCC not allowing software tuned radios yet- so this may be a part of that (where the cost is increased because the law hasn't caught up with the tech).

What holes are you talking about?

I'm strongly into automation of systems- not allowing human "freedom" or other mistakes to lessen the efficency of the system. One other guy pointed out that in 1987, a German teenager flew a light aircraft with no transponder to Moscow- and the Russians couldn't stop him and had a hell of a time even tracking him. That's a huge security hole in the system- especially post 9-11. The same poster basically claimed that an easy way for terrorists to work around the TSA would be to use an aircraft like yours- no electronics- and simply fly it into a jet that was taking off. The ATC would never see it, claimed that poster, because the tech is just that bad.

I'm not sure if that's still

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Deadstick]

True. Ground effect would be quite strong on that airplane, since it depends on the ratio of wingspan to altitude.

rj

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Uh, you lost me on that. You are aware that it was an Amreican who rented the truck...oops, wait, you were talking about the first bombing of WTC weren't you?

Yep. I consider Oklahoma City the work of a Patriot against a broken system known as the ATF.

Well then, Ryder was used...twice. Hmmm...could it be that Ryder is our main conspirator here? Who owns them? Maybe we should check up on this. I mean who else would rent a truck to a blind man? :-)

Or a man with a criminal background in this day of Total Information Awareness.

Oh, lordy! But you just did with that other statement. You sure have a way keeping me off balance. Your tribe and possibly your family suffered under horrible discrimination, and you want to perpetrate the same upon others?

There's a big difference- those others have a homeland to go back to- be that Mexifornia (let's admit to ourselves that we've lost the Southwest- the Mayday protests proved it's time to give LA back to Mexico) or Saudi Arabia. If they don't want to be discriminated against, they can just go home.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

It's kinda funny how these discussions end up coming aroud to the same old thing. I guess I always end up going back to the most basic motivation, because, ultimately, that's why we do anything at all. I don't want to believe you're racist. That's a very harsh term for what exists in nature. For the most part, we are hard wired that way. Let's just say the force(your DNA) is very strong in you.

Anyway, the penny pinching has resulted in the continued use of antiquated ATC equipment. The controllers have been fighting this since the 70's, culminated with the strike in the 80s. And now the replacements raising the same questions. So in order to keep using that equipment, they lay the problem on us with insane restrictions on the use of our vast amount of mostly empty airspace. I would rather pay higher user fees for better ATC equipment than have to buy another new gizmo that's just adding weight to the airplane. I don't want to "secretly" fly all over the country. I just don't want to be burdened with a bunch of declarations and paperwork that could be handled by up to date ATC equipment. I just want want to go up and enjoy the view and find my $100 hamburger

I'm amazed at the cost in a day and age where major department stores use a similar system for inventory control and shoplifing prevention (RFID).

An RFID is a passive device, and billions of them will be made, driving down the price. Aircraft equipment is a limited market with relatively low volume made up for with the price. Plus, the equipment has to be certified airworthy. This is a very expensive process. Chrysler made competely identical alternators for some of their autos and for most Lycoming(engine manufacturer) powered light aircraft. The car part was less than $50 dollars. The aircraft part was over $500(Can't remember the real price at all. This was, OMG!, thirty years ago). Simply because the aircraft part has to carry an airworthynes certificate.

But then again, I also remember some of the Ham radio guys I hang out with complaining about the FCC not allowing software tuned radios yet...

Mostly due to the scanner laws I mentioned in a previous post.

I'm strongly into automation of systems...

I'm with you there. Most of of our every(work)day activities should be completely automated. This will save many lives indeed, even without factoring in the "terrorism" thing.

So, try not to let your economic situation cloud your mind. I sense a lot of anger. I consider it to be mis-directed, but it's not for me to decide. Maybe, when you can relax a bit, you might be able to see my position a bit more clearly. And I of course might understand you better...if that is what you wish.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[thedletterman]

"the fire did not have to melt steel. It only had to weaken it. Steel gradually loses its tensile strength with temperature. It is a known fact and a pretty well researched one, since it is very important in warehouses containing flammable materials--they can easily collapse during a fire. Agreed.

And if the WTC towers had collapsed at a rate consistent with that idea, we'd basically be done.

I've just got to point out that the building didn't melt down either. The L floor braces that held the concrete floors into place weakened to the point the floor collpsed. When a several ton heavy slab of cement falls twenty or so feet onto another several ton heavy slab of concrete, free fall begins. Coincidently, it also makes a pretty loud boom, and tends to blow out windows, something to do with the air pressure and shock waves. IANACE (I am not a civil engineer) but I did work for the 9/11 commission.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

Yep. I consider Oklahoma City the work of a Patriot against a broken system...

Oh dear!

...known as the ATF.

If you had said "IRS", my response would possibly have been different. Regardless of who he was after, what did those children in the building ever do to you? I don't know how to respond to such repulsive thoughts. I would expect that from the warhawks in my freaks list. But I have higher regard for you, if for no other reason that we can disagree and still keep on talking. The others simply shut me down and go on with their killin'. For them there is no hope, unless they have an epiphany...or a good whack on the head with a fire extinguisher(method of training pilots during the war(so I hear), the big one, WW2). If you want me to go away, just let me know, and I will. But I hope you don't.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[phiwum]

This religion also happens to be a political system, which is why it's so dangerous and why it is so fast growing. The prophecy that makes it both, the promise that makes it both, is a promise of justice and one world government from one single city.

Huh? What prophecy is that? You can give a reputable source that says Islam aims for world takeover, can you?

Take out that city- make it so that there is NO hope of establishing the "Nation of Islam" anytime within the next 1000 years- and you will remove that promise. Two cobalt warheads, fired from the US on ICBMs, would do it. For humanitarian reasons, you's want to hold off a bit- give the people time to evacuate first, after all, you're trying to kill the theology not the people. But in the end, the result is the same- the ancient trade centers of Mecca and Medina, and a huge amount of the desert around them, glowing in the dark for the next 1000 years as a testament to all followers of all religions as to what happens when you take money to do terrorism.

Destroy holy sites in order to stop Islamic terrorism. Great idea! That has to bring peace!

Well, the difference between my tactics and Bush's isn't much. The only difference is that the guilty have gone free and the innocent have suffered under Bush.

Right, no innocents suffer when you attempt to destroy an entire religion by destroying its holy sites. After all, all them muslims are guilty in their hearts, aren't they?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It's kinda funny how these discussions end up coming aroud to the same old thing. I guess I always end up going back to the most basic motivation, because, ultimately, that's why we do anything at all. I don't want to believe you're racist. That's a very harsh term for what exists in nature. For the most part, we are hard wired that way. Let's just say the force(your DNA) is very strong in you.

And as modern society fails to live up to my expectations, it gets stonger- I think because I'm forced to rely more and more on family, Church, and Tribe in that order....the less independant I am, the more fiercely I protect what's left of what I can be dependant on.

Anyway, the penny pinching has resulted in the continued use of antiquated ATC equipment. The controllers have been fighting this since the 70's, culminated with the strike in the 80s. And now the replacements raising the same questions. So in order to keep using that equipment, they lay the problem on us with insane restrictions on the use of our vast amount of mostly empty airspace. I would rather pay higher user fees for better ATC equipment than have to buy another new gizmo that's just adding weight to the airplane. I don't want to "secretly" fly all over the country. I just don't want to be burdened with a bunch of declarations and paperwork that could be handled by up to date ATC equipment. I just want want to go up and enjoy the view and find my $100 hamburger

Funny, I just decided that if I ever pay that much for a meal, I want a room and a soak in a pool as well....I used to take my wife to a fancy french restaurant on her birthday. This year instead I took her to McMinnamen's Grand Lodge in Forest Grove- and for the same cost as dinner for two at the French Restaurant, we got dinner & breakfast & a room & a soak in their hot tub.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

If you had said "IRS", my response would possibly have been different. Regardless of who he was after, what did those children in the building ever do to you? I don't know how to respond to such repulsive thoughts. I would expect that from the warhawks in my freaks list. But I have higher regard for you, if for no other reason that we can disagree and still keep on talking. The others simply shut me down and go on with their killin'. For them there is no hope, unless they have an epiphany...or a good whack on the head with a fire extinguisher(method of training pilots during the war(so I hear), the big one, WW2). If you want me to go away, just let me know, and I will. But I hope you don't.

No, the ATF was clearly his target, being a part of a group (Militias and Cults) that were being targeted by the ATF in previous years (Ruby Ridge and Waco were both reasons given for the Oklahoma City Attack). I personally think he could have made his point with much better timing- hitting the building 90 minutes earlier would have resulted in minimum loss of life (those children bother me too), but still a very powerfull message about the federal government taking over state's rights. In some ways, though, I think that there is a very basic difference between home grown and foreign terrorism- it's the difference between a coup and an invasion.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Huh? What prophecy is that? You can give a reputable source that says Islam aims for world takeover, can you?

Shariah Law and the Koran. Heck, the existance of the religion to begin with- Mohammed started it because he saw what the Christians and Jews had accomplished (a slave race overthrowing an empire was recent history in 600 A.D.) and saw that his own people needed monotheism and a single universal standard of justice if they were going to have their own chance at building empires. Islam is all about peace- at the point of a sword- and justice where none had previously existed. EVERYTHING the religion has done since then has been about expanding territory and evangelization- and pushing religion into a place of governance. Sure, they've had their splits and sects- what we experience as terrorism is really just spillover from the internal Islamic Reformation and Civil War- and every Islamic country thinks they will be *the one* to take over Mecca and rule the world and get rid of those unjust people who are not Ummah- but yes, world domination has been their aim for 1400 years now.

Destroy holy sites in order to stop Islamic terrorism. Great idea! That has to bring peace!

No, not peace. Just demoralization. You can't claim God is on your side if he allowed the destruction of your holiest site.

Right, no innocents suffer when you attempt to destroy an entire religion by destroying its holy sites. After all, all them muslims are guilty in their hearts, aren't they?

Not just in their hearts, but in their Holy Book and their Laws. There is no such thing as a non-fundamentalist Muslim- they take great pride in being "People of the Book", and would at the very least imprison and tax you for not being of the book under Shariah Law.

In addition to that- has it ever occured to you that the basic theology of Islam (that law comes from God, is spoken by prophets and priests, and only interpreted by the Ummah to rule the unbelievers) is basically antidemocratic to the extent that it makes democracy impossible?

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[iminplaya]

Funny, I just decided that if I ever pay that much for a meal...

Most of the money goes into renting the plane. The links explain everything. Most small airport diners are very reasonably priced. But I suppose the hot tub and room is a decent comparison. In my case it's not about the food, it's about finding a excuse to go flying.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[OverlordQ]

What about the traffic radar at EVERY FREAKIN' AIRPORT?

There are almost zero Airport radars that still use skin painting as a method for tracking airplanes, they all use transponders now.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[jnaujok]

Take a look at the satellite photos of the Pentagon and answer the question: What buildings?

For security reasons, the Pentagon is surrounded by a huge amount of open space. The plane flew up the Potomac, over Reagan National Airport and into the side of the pentagon. Look at this image Satellite of Pentagon to get the picture. They didn't fly over anything but highways and parking lots (and they clipped the light poles on the highway.)

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[bpd1069]

as far as the analogy, in either case, the fire does not cause the steel/iron structure to collapse.

If you are still in doubt, and you are curious ignore WTC1, WTC2. WTC7 is the building that was not hit by a plane, and yet it collapsed into its own foot print.

The NIST report claims damage to the front of the building, but has not shown one shred of evidence supporting this. There is NYPD Heli photos from all sides of WTC7 except the one they claim had the most damage. It claims the S and SW Corner sustained massive damage, and yet the building still feel neatly into its foot print.

If you expect to find revealing truth, I suggest looking very carefully at the flash that is present in multiple videos and multiple angles, of the second plane hitting the towers. The importance of that "flash" is something that cannot be underestimated. It cannot be a reflection as it is seen from multiple angles.

If you observe the debris ejected from all three sides of that tower at the point of detonation, you will notice the entrance hole fireball behavior is radically different. This is because of the "Concrete Dust" being ejected from the hole. This is not something that should happen if conservation of momentum has anything to do with it. The Pulverization and ejection out of the entrance hole, of the concrete flooring can only be explained by explosives at the trusses, directly under the 4" light-concrete floors.

Why would that be done, inorder to insure the plane entered completely into the towers and detonated. The planes behavior at the time of impact is strange in that no appriciable amount of decceleration is observed, which supports the explosive "flash".

You state that you have doubts, I think you have fears.

Probably not

[suso]

A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon. Just a streak and a fireball. Kinda like those UFO pictures and videos.

What is that saying? "I want to believe", right?

Re:Probably not

[pcgamez]

"A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"

It doesn't matter. The government can't win. There are two possible scenerios for releasing the tape:

1) They release it immediately after the attack. People claim that there is no way they could release the tape that quick so it must have been fabricated beforehand.

2) They release it well after the attack. People claim they had enough time to fabricate the tape.

It's a no-win situation.

Re:Probably not

[DaHat]

Any evidence of a 747 hitting the pentagon would be quite a surprise and likely fake given that Flight 77 was a 757.

Re:Probably not

[ScentCone]

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon. Just a streak and a fireball. Kinda like those UFO pictures and videos.

Well, yes, that's a problem for people that only believe what they see on what they presume to be un-alterable video tape... but why not just ask the people that watched it happen.

Re:Probably not

[Robotron23]

True, the original "lower quality" version of this tape was released in early 2002. Infact, according to this BBC article, the French had claimed the video a fraud by April 2002. The book regarding the incident was a best seller over there.

Re:Probably not

[Ohreally_factor]

It all depends on what conspiracy theories he was referring to.

I think he meant it would put to rest all those crazy theories that have recently surfaced that the government is engaging in illegal domestic spying.

The timing of the tape release couldn't be more perfect, as a reminder to the populace for the reason why their civil liberties are being curtailed. Hopefully this will re-scare enough people to get Bush's approval rating moving in the other direction.

Re:Probably not

[Eunuchswear]

"The French"...

What all of them?

Or just one loon?

Re:Probably not

[gkhan1]

Yeah, 'cause, the big chunk of a plane found at the side of the building proves NOTHING. They must have built it and put it there when noone was looking >)

Re:Probably not

[equack]

The best solution:

3) Release it just prior to the attack. That way the media can preview the tape but still present it as a live broadcast.

Re:Probably not

[Scrameustache]

possible scenerios for releasing the tape:
1) They release it immediately after the attack. People claim that there is no way they could release the tape that quick so it must have been fabricated beforehand.

What is this? The forties?

This is the age of the live coverage of high-speed chases! I don't see anyone claiming that the footage on the news must be fake since they couldn't get it from the site to the studio in less than a day. Stop making shit up.

Re:Probably not

[pcgamez]

I'm just going by what a bunch of conspiracy nuts have said about other incidents. Sure, it makes no sense to me, but that is still the argument.

Re:Probably not

[grammar fascist]

"The French"...

What all of them?

Or just one loon?

As far as I can tell, "The French" is just one guy with smelly armpits in a country across the Atlantic with a funky symmetrical 1/x-shaped tower. He wears a black beret, form-fitting black trousers, and a red-and-yellow striped shirt. He eats nothing but cheese and drinks nothing but wine, and he has a single opinion about everything to do with the United States: it sucks.

Oh, and he has an amorous pet skunk.

Re:Probably not

[grammar fascist]

Any evidence of a 747 hitting the pentagon would be quite a surprise and likely fake given that Flight 77 was a 757.

Thats what you goons want us to believe. Why do you think we're all suckers?

Re:Probably not

[Cl1mh4224rd]

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon. Just a streak and a fireball. Kinda like those UFO pictures and videos.

Interesting. You're ignoring all the other evidence that points to it actually being an American Airlines 757.

Eyewitness accounts, with sources, the numerous pictures of debris, and the DNA identification of human reamins found at the Pentagon as being passengers from Flight 77.

Re:Probably not

[noidentity]

3) They really screw up and release the tape before the attack.

Re:Probably not

[Mad_Rain]

that's a problem for people that only believe what they see on what they presume to be un-alterable video tape... but why not just ask the people that watched it happen.

As any psychologist will tell you, your memory is pretty easily alterable. Elizabeth Loftus is probably the most prominent name in the area of altering memories, and has done a number of interesting experiments.

My favorite experiment involves counting the number of passes that people make with a pair of basketballs in this video here (someone warn the University of Illinois, they might experience a slashdotting!).



After you've watched the tape, you can read about how perceptive you are (or aren't) in this article.

Re:Probably not

[Jerrry]

Any evidence of a 747 hitting the pentagon would be quite a surprise and likely fake given that Flight 77 was a 757.
 

Everyone knows that the 747 crashed into the Capitol building, not the Pentagon. Oh wait, that was a Tom Clancy novel. Damn it.

Re:Probably not

[spongman]

that's not a skunk, it's his socks...

Re:Probably not

[Bob9113]

The timing of the tape release couldn't be more perfect, as a reminder to the populace for the reason why their civil liberties are being curtailed.

You say the timing is "perfect", and yet, there are so many other times that it could have been released since 9/11 that would have been just as perfect. In fact, can you name a time in the past few years when there wasn't a borderline catastrophe bubbling away in DC? Perfect timing? I think not - our bold DC leaders are truly dedicated to ensuring that every moment is equally perfect for a distracting press release. The rules changed on 9/11 - we can no longer afford to leave months or even weeks unfilled by scandal at the highest levels of government.

:)

Re:Probably not

[Bryan_W]

Isn't that a 1/x^2-shaped tower.

Re:Probably not

[Scrameustache]

Sure, it makes no sense to me, but that is still the argument.

Man, people will come up with the weirdest arguments sometimes.

Re:Probably not

[edsterino]

Yeah. I was quite disappointed with the video. I had seen one before that was as you described - a streak and a fireball. Turns out that it was the same video! I saw it several months ago. I don't know how they got it before it was officially released. You can see it at http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/. Most interesting is the rest of the video. There are quotes from witnesses. These are likely filtered and who's to say these people are trustworthy observers. There's some specualtation too. But, the video brings up some pretty interesting points. I'd be interested if others can debunk what they present.

Re:Probably not

[cold fjord]

The timing of the tape release couldn't be more perfect, as a reminder to the populace for the reason why their civil liberties are being curtailed.

Or, more likely, its in recognition of the fact that United 93 is out which contains images of the rest of the attacks.

Hopefully this will re-scare enough people to get Bush's approval rating moving in the other direction.

Kind of like you are trying to scare people into opposing him with the occasion "tweak" to the facts?

Re:Probably not

[BenBenBen]

They could, of course, release the tapes from the other cameras they confiscated almost immediately (within half an hour)), including the Citgo gas station and the nearby hotel. Even if they didn't capture anything, they're still being withheld for some reason.

Of course, there are literally dozens if not hundreds of witnesses who saw the plane hit the building. These are all conveniently ignored or labelled as co-conspirators by those who have decided their truth is the pre-eminent one, such as that Thierry guy.

Of more interest to me is not what hit the Pentagon, but who was flying it. Despite discussion of ground effect and clipped lightpoles, it was a hell of a feat to level out where the plane did after making the turns it did.

Re:Probably not

[Mixel]

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon. Just a streak and a fireball. Kinda like those UFO pictures and videos.

In my CSI mindset, I would recommend an accurate reconstruction.

Re:Probably not

[Mumia]

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon.

There's an easy explanation for that: It wasn't a 747!
Flight 77 was a Boeing 757-223.

Re:Probably not

[mpe]

They could, of course, release the tapes from the other cameras they confiscated almost immediately (within half an hour)), including the Citgo gas station and the nearby hotel. Even if they didn't capture anything, they're still being withheld for some reason.

It would be likely that if these showed anything the footage would be better than that from a camera very near the impact site.

Of more interest to me is not what hit the Pentagon, but who was flying it. Despite discussion of ground effect and clipped lightpoles, it was a hell of a feat to level out where the plane did after making the turns it did.

If they could fly the plane like that why hit the recently reinforced outer wall rather than the central courtyard? The modifications to the building were intended to protect against truck bombs.

Re:Probably not

[BenBenBen]

I'd posit that they very likely knew nothing about the reinforcing of the Pentagon. It was a surprise to me that it has windows designed to withstand overpressures associated with nuclear weaponry, for instance. I doubt they publicise what are essentially force protection measures.

I wouldn't be surprised if the size of the goddamn thing took them by surprise as well. Quite hard to visualise 757 vs Pentagon, even if you have visited the latter. This crash killed 125(?) on the ground and demolished a facade, but the total destruction they were perhaps going for wouldn't really be possible no matter where you hit it.

I believe the only tacit acknowledgement of involvement in 9/11 from UBL involved him saying they never expected the WTC to fall.

Re:Probably not

[NeuroAcid]

Am I the only one that remembers the video of a plane hitting the pentagon that was crystal clear(too clear if you ask me) being aired on the TV on 9/11. I can not be the only one that remembers this but I have yet to see anyone bring this up. Can someone please confirm that this happened so I know I'm not going insane, or more likely so I know you all are not going insane.

Re:Probably not

[Cyno]

Like the little "tweak" that the government didn't know it was possible planes could fly into buildings?

Seems like we have to investigate this ourselves, they didn't even think it was important to investiage the attack until months/years after the evidence had been removed.

The possibility that the US government played a part in this terrorism is far more scarey than any facts we could tweak.

Re:Probably not

[diablomonic]

I've been researching for some time and no, i've never heard of it. If you did, then it seems you're the only one :) perhaps a computer simulation? on a fuzzy TV? while drunk? and sleepy? (got nothing)

Re:Well thats nice

[955301]

They did release it immediately. The Moussaoui trial just ended. It's common that the government and companies do not discuss details relating to a trial while it's in progress.

The fact is, the integrity of the tape will be questioned more because of what it is and who it's from than how long it took to release it. There would still be skeptics if it was released immediately

Watch **** Space

[nbannerman]

When confidential reports are released in this manner, sections are often blanked out. Will the same thing happen here? This isn't a troll; we've seen this happen before and it isn't as if the technology doesn't exist to make it happen.

"This Frame Blanked In The Interests Of National Security" and a black frame?

Re:Watch **** Space

[amliebsch]

There's not likely to be anything confidential shown in the tapes. It's not like we don't know what the outside of the Pentagon looks like.

Re:Watch **** Space

[christopherfinke]

When confidential reports are released in this manner, sections are often blanked out. Will the same thing happen here?

No. You could have watched the video and seen this for yourself (although you can't even see the plane; the frames are just "normal, normal, normal, huge fireball.")

Re:Watch **** Space

[sidfaiwu]

It's shaped just like a robot's anus.

Re:Watch **** Space

[nbannerman]

My mistake; I thought this was new footage that hadn't already been made available. Cheers :)

Re:Watch **** Space

[Sylver Dragon]

Spoken like someone who has no clue how security cameras work.
Most security cameras don't record continuous 30 frame per second video. It's impractical from a storage point of view and not usually needed. Very often security cameras will only take 1 image every second, this interval changes somewhat though. Looking at the video, this seems to be the case. The only time full 30fps video is captured is when the area needs a high level of security to justify the cost of storage (tapes or hard drives), the side of a building probably isn't going to cut it.

Re:Watch **** Space

[Eunuchswear]

So, video from security cameras is always shot at 30fps in your universe?

Fox News Has It

[Trip Ericson]

It's on Fox News's site, front page.

It doesn't show us anything new. It answers no questions. The frame rate of the camera was too low to catch the plane/missile/emu (take your pick) as it came in.

What would have been good would be a release of the other video tapes that were seized on 9/11. Even if their quality wasn't that good, I'd imagine at least ONE should have something vaguely resembling a plane in it.

Re:Fox News Has It

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd that the idiot conspiracy theorists have yet propose a solutuion to the following:

1) where is American flight 77?
2) where are all the people that were on board flight 77?
3) why are the family members of all the people on board flight 77 not concerned that a plane is missing.

Re:Fox News Has It

[grub]

1) where is American flight 77?
Aliens stopped time, loaded the entire plane into a super-mothership, left Earth orbit and restarted time. Then they blew up the Pentagon.

2) where are all the people that were on board flight 77?
In the aliens' space ship, stupid!

3) why are the family members of all the people on board flight 77 not concerned that a plane is missing.
The explosives used to blow up the Pentagon were loaded with material in quantities similar to what the plane was made from. You all think it was in pieces in and around the Pentagon.

Who's the crazy one?!

Re:Fox News Has It

[mozkill]

yes, exactly. there are many many conspiracy theories concerning our government and the public has yet to expose one of them. Our government therefore has a 100% success rate with tricking the public. Only God himself could do such perfect work.

Re:Fox News Has It

[badasscat]

Odd that the idiot conspiracy theorists have yet propose a solutuion to the following:

1) where is American flight 77?
2) where are all the people that were on board flight 77?
3) why are the family members of all the people on board flight 77 not concerned that a plane is missing.

These are the same questions that (presumably other?) conspiracy theorists are asked about KAL flight 007. Some answers they have given in that case and probably do now about flight 77:

a) There was no flight 77
b) There were no passengers aboard flight 77
c) The "families" are all government employees in on the conspiracy
etc. etc.

I mean none of this can really be disproved; that's the thing. It sounds nutty, and it *is* nutty, but to someone who really believes it, there is no way to definitively prove a person's family member isn't secretly a member of the CIA.

Conspiracy theories rely on the idea that in most cases, you can't prove a negative. They rely on "facts" that are refuted only if you don't believe in the conspiracy.

And they also persist because there are real conspiracies that have gone on and are still going on. We've only just gotten the tip of the NSA domestic spying thing, most likely. There was Watergate. There was Iran-Contra. How many more conspiracies have occurred in government that have never been uncovered?

But that doesn't mean everything is a government conspiracy. Most events have other explanations and you'd have to have a complete inability to objectively look at where the evidence points to think otherwise.

Re:Fox News Has It

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Hmmm....that got me thinking. Where are the conspiracy theorists who think that the appearance that the government is grossly inept is actually a cover up? You know, that the government is actually really super smart and can get away with massively complex operations like 9/11 and completely cover them up? If anyone gets too close to the truth they just leak some wiretapping program or reveal secret prisons to throw you off... Now that's a real conspiracy.

I saw the recording and...

[jasonmicron]

It is a complete waste. It's like a George Lucas remake of the original camera that we have already seen over the last 4 1/2 years. And by "George Lucas" remake I mean it is 99% original material, but from new angles!

No plane can be seen and all you really see is a flash of light then an explosion.

I'm not one of those whack-job conspiracy theorists but for Judicial Watch to make claims of, "this will end all conspiracy theories" and then go on to release this load of steaming dog poo is poor judgement and will only continue to be fodder for the tin foil hatters the world over.

Re:I saw the recording and...

[Hitokiri]

But at least we now know that the Pentagon did in fact shoot first.

Re:I saw the recording and...

[Bios_Hakr]

Maybe we should let Grissom and the other CSIs analyze the tape and recover the "overscan". That should make the entire plane visible; what, with there being 90% overscan in NTSC and all.

After that, a bit of time in the video lab and we'll be able to clearly see everyone on the plane through the windows. Don't worry if their seats weren't perfectly aligned, they can just get the reflection from some dude's glasses and reconstruct the image from there.

By the end of a 45-minute episode, we'll have a complete 3D reconstruction of the crash.

Re:I saw the recording and...

[slashdot.org]

I saw the recording

Yeah right. That's impossible, I have it from authoritive sources that the take is still in rendering. ;) Just kiddin'

Re:I saw the recording and...

[Citizen of Earth]

I'm not one of those whack-job conspiracy theorists but for Judicial Watch to make claims of, "this will end all conspiracy theories"

What they need to do now to placate the conspiracy theorists is Photoshop in a pristine image of a jetliner with a crisp AA logo, just like they need to Photoshop in lots of stars and planets on the pictures taken from the surface of the moon. Then they'll have nothing to complain about.

Re:I saw the recording and...

[miro f]

thank you for your comments,

A new, higher definition ren... video will be available shortly

regards,
The CIA

Re:I saw the recording and...

[Opportunist]

Oh, I can do that. Though, what for? Doing a complete 3D reconstruction only makes the supporters of the governmental point go nod and shrug, telling us they knew all the time, while the conspiracy supporters will call it a cover up attempt and dismiss it as a fake.

No way to counter a conspiracy with facts. If everything else fails, it will be called a test of our faith by God... no wait, that was a different conspiracy.

Absurd

[Poppler]

the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks

We should have had this on day 1. How did keeping this under wraps help the Moussaoui trial?
This kind of secretive attitude creates an environment where conspiracy theories flourish. If the Government wants to disprove these theories, they should release as much information as they safely can, instead of fighting tooth and nail to keep everything secret.

Re:Absurd

[christopherfinke]

If the Government wants to disprove these theories

Regarding conspiracy theories, I believe the burden is on the conspiracy theorists to prove their theories, not for the targeted group to disprove all conspiracies directed towards them. If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human, or should I offer undeniable proof of his extra-terrestriality?

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

But certainly if Bush states "No comment" on question whether he's an alien or not doesn't help the case.

Besides, Michael Jackson IS a zombie.

Re:Absurd

[christopherfinke]

But certainly if Bush states "No comment" on question whether he's an alien or not doesn't help the case.

Has the government publicly declared "No comment" when asked if they orchestrated the 9/11 attacks, or have they declined to comment at all based on the absurdity of the claim? Big difference there.

Re:Absurd

[Poppler]

Regarding conspiracy theories, I believe the burden is on the conspiracy theorists to prove their theories, not for the targeted group to disprove all conspiracies directed towards them.

I agree, and didn't mean to imply otherwise.

I don't believe the theorists are "right" until the government disproves them. As a matter of principle, I think the government should be more open, and I believe that if they were, less people would be susceptible to conspiracy theories.

Re:Absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

They do it to keep you scared. You will see that video repeated on Fox News 24/7 for the next 3 weeks.
Time heals wounds, make you move on. But then they dosify you with some more scare videos/tapes
so you don't forget and give them a new blank check to do anything they want.

What saddens me the most is the relatives of the people that died on that flight. You try to heal, yet
they come back and twist the knife inside you some more. Despicable.

Re:Absurd

[mozkill]

yes. the fact that the government doesn't publicly publish EVERYTHING immediately just shows that they have something to hide. The fact that 300,000,000 americans cannot see the video because of one dork in court is just ridiculous. Someone should be fired for this secretive shit.

Re:Absurd

[Krommenaas]

On the other hand, if they do want to cover up something relating to 9/11, it would be smart to withhold evidence about something they do *not* want to/need to cover up - like the nature of the Pentagon attack - so all kinds of crackpot conspiracy theories arise about that which you can later disprove with the evidence you held back. That would discredit all other conspiracy theories as well, including ones that might be true.

Of course, what I'm saying here is itself a conspiracy theory :)

Re:Absurd

[Nossie]

no difference... if its that absurd then surely it should be easy to deny ?

Re:Absurd

[Cheapy]

If that surgery has a high mortality rate, then yes. Yes he should go under the knife.

  (for those who can't tell)

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

Sorry, I stated wrong answer. It wasn't "no comment"...
"Mr Bush, are you an alien?"
"Sorry but this information is confidential."

Re:Absurd

[Lisandro]

If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human?

    You would be right. And yes, taking him under the knife would be perfectly reasonable. You can never be too sure :)

Re:Absurd

[gkhan1]

There's also the matter of respect for those who died on that day. If I was brutally murdered, I would not want the video of my demise to become public. If it helps the police catch whoever did it, then they (and the people at the trial) can see it, but it really should stop there.

I actually think that this is not something that maybe needed to become public....at all.

Re:Absurd

[Grishnakh]

I disagree. The government is supposed to be serving us, the people; by keeping too many secrets about its actions, the government increases distrust in it, which leads to conspiracy theories. After all, the government most certainly does not have a clean slate in its actions over the last 100 years, especially where the CIA is involved.

100 years ago, were there many conspiracy theories? People didn't blindly love the govt, but there wasn't the incredible level of distrust that there is today. Regular people will readily acknowledge that the government has done all sorts of terrible things, like the CIA importing drugs from South America, the CIA conducting terrorist operations in the middle east, various misdeeds during the Vietnam war such as the US's incursion into Cambodia which is still officially denied, and no one still knows what really happened in JFK's assassination over 40 years ago. The government has grown extremely large in the past 100 years, and gotten entangled into too many things.

The only way to restore any trust in the government is to increase its transparency and openness. If people can see what the govt is doing, so there's some sort of oversight, there will be less conspiracy theories and theorists. While there are circumstances where certain information should be kept secret for a certain (but limited) amount of time, it seems that many in government have forgotten about the meaning of the term "public servant", and that it is we, the people, they answer to.

Re:Absurd

[svkal]

Surely you've heard of the concept of not dignifying something with a response? If the U.S. government were to publicly and explicitly deny that they orchestrated the events of September 11, 2001, then they would implicitly acknowledging that a significant number of people consider that to be a credible theory. If the government were tomorrow to vehemently deny that the moon is green, you would probably be perplexed, because we do not expect people to deny things that we feel extremely confident in believing to be untrue - doing such is more likely to make us begin to entertain the notion of their truth in spite of the denial than the opposite.

(For the record, I think it is pretty clear that the events of that day were not the result of an American conspiracy. As other people have pointed out, the easiest way to explain why this is extremely unlikely is the "house of cards" analogy: such an elaborate conspiracy could be defeated by a single leak, and hundreds or thousands of people would have to be involved in matters that would test their consciences immensely. Furthermore, by Occam's Razor, we should remember that there are people out there who actually had much clearer motives for performing the attacks - even though the stance of the al-Qaeda and similar fundamentalists may not be that of "hating our freedom", there is no denying that there is a significant amount of animosity in the world directed towards western civilization in general and the United States in particular. In other words - there is no need for a conspiracy to explain these attacks.)

Re:Absurd

[beaviz]

"George Bush is an alien"

How can you even say something like that?! Everyone knows he's a machine. Ignorant.

Re:Absurd

[Nossie]

well if they came out and said ...

  home security had been breached and the terrorists fired a missile at the pentagon... I'd buy it !

I also think the government has good reason to keep the above possible event secret. imagine the embarassment of having one of your own missiles fired at you...

Still not seen any evidence of an airliner... and certainly no reason why the original penetration was only 16ft wide.

That is what I call BS on... not who did it but what did it.

Re:Absurd

[Sathias]

Regarding conspiracy theories, I believe the burden is on the conspiracy theorists to prove their theories, not for the targeted group to disprove all conspiracies directed towards them.

So the government has no burden to put forward evidence that their story of events is what happened? I have yet to see concrete proof that the Pentagon was hit by a plane. Even this video that is supposed to debunk all the theories doesn't actually show a plane. Just a smoke or vapour trail, and an explosion. I find it hard to believe that there isn't more conclusive footage of what happened at the Pentagon, and I don't get why they wouldn't release that footage if it better helped their cause. I don't want to jump to conclusions of what this means, I just want to know one way or the other what actually happened, rather than think what they tell me to think. If that is a conspiracy theory then I'm off to find a roll of tin foil.

Re:Absurd

[suwain_2]

But if enough people say it's a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is shifted to the government to prove that it's not. Not in the court of law, but in the real world.

Re:Absurd

[Eggz Factor]

You are correct. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Moussaoui trial. How could it have ANY bearing on his guilt or innocence? Such bullshit. If the government wanted to put this to rest for all time, they would have been better off releasing this material AND the material from the hotel and gas station cameras long ago. Waiting this long just raises suspicions of a government mired in crooked dealings and lying to it's public.

Re:Absurd

[mapkinase]

or should I offer undeniable proof of his extra-terrestriality?

Not to me.

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

explain why this is extremely unlikely is the "house of cards" analogy: such an elaborate conspiracy could be defeated by a single leak, and hundreds or thousands of people would have to be involved

Thousands?
If, as government says, a SMALL group of terrorists pulled it out, why equally small group of government-related people couldn't?
Only 10 or so of them would ever need to know the full set of the true motives behind each of the steps requiring any action from the rest (that's supposedly how Bin Laden did it...). From the rest, whoever could guess the truth, would be called (with big help of likes of you) a wacko conspiracy theorist, or silenced under the Patriot act (arrest without informing anyone, no right for lawyer or contact with outside world, held under arrest indefinitely - a person just vanishes and you can do nothing about it. Unconstitutional, but whoever seriously challenges its constitutionality can be swept under the carpet with the same set of tools.)

Plane piloting manuals in arabic left in abandonned car near the airport. Puhleez.

Re:Absurd

[svkal]

Other comments seem to indicate that some conspiracy theorists believe that the act was not committed with planes at all, but rather by rigging the buildings with bombs or using a missile or somesuch. This was the reason for my "thousands" comment, and though it might have been a slight overestimate; such a plan would be noticed by many people.

Even if the government were to do things exactly as the terrorists did(bear with me here), I stand by my comment that hundreds of people would likely be involved. Government do not operate the same ways as terrorist cells do, and running planes into buildings is at least not usually what they do. Merely debating whether the plan should be put into action, and then planning it and finally finding and hiring contractors unscrupulous and fanatical enough for the job(contractors, I might add, who are somehow willing to take on a suicide mission, which I believe a U.S. government conspiracy would have a very zhard time finding) would likely involve hundreds of people(that is, excluding the agents who actually did the job).

Oh, and, as for your argument about only a few needing to know the true motives behind the act: this is stylish in spy movies, but less efficient in the real world. At some point, some people have to commit acts that are immoral and/or criminal, and while they may not know if these acts were commissioned by the government, they will know whether or not they did them because they were members of al-Qaeda or a similar fundamentalist terrorist organisation. Unless the government eliminates them all(in which case we'd see an abnormal wave of abductions or murders), some of them will eventually talk to the public. (And no, I don't believe that all of this has actually happened, but the contractors are all on Guantanamo. Apply Occam's Razor for a second.)

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

The problem is Occam's Razor makes two rather clean cuts here. Start from motives, proceed through proofs to hypothesis that could work to fulfill these motives while (by-)producing these proofs.

One cut - terrorists, the official version. Mad as a hatter, no need for much more, everything that could feel wrong can be explained by them being mad. Even clues that are TOO obvious (simply stink, nobody intelligent enough would leave THAT visible clues. But... they are mad.)

The other - government. Quite enough of motives are listed by "conspiracy theorists" and most of them quite likely (unlike methods conspiracy theorists "discover", motives they think of are usually quite viable.) People - the government has some methods to "press" people to do things, and good files to find ones that qualify. The "contractor" may be a fellon sentenced for death, with a family to sustain. Or an army officer from the times of cold war, supporter of nuclear attack on Iraq, with cancer. Many, many such. Of course finding them IS difficult and risky, but the small circle of people who planned this (Bush, Rumsfeld, maybe 3-4 more) had enough time and could hand out guidelines of seeking the right people without giving clues what they need them for. So you don't need to put 5000 people in Guantanamo. Just 5, out of 50 involved. About half of them die in the planes. A third got enough $$$ and threats to keep mouth shut. The rest still closely cooperates with the government, producing the tapes etc.
The "Government" as a whole of course couldn't pull it out. But a small group of people on the top - 3-5 people dedicated to the idea - why not?

Re:Absurd

[mSparks43]

I've found most of the news reports make much more sense if you replace AL-Queda with CIA

Re:Absurd

[svkal]

Firstly, you are wrongly presenting the official story to make it look unlikely; obviously the terrorists are not attacking because they are all clinically mad, but because they are, in simplified terms, very, very angry. They have been so for quite some time, and we have been aware of this. (Unless you are arguing that the organisations that claim credit for this don't exist at all? How many conspirators would that take to pull off?) I don't know which clues you are referring to as "too obvious"; remember that real life crimes tend to be rather less perfectly executed than those in crime fiction, and secondly that the terrorists are largely not trying to escape blame for their actions - in many situations they claim "credit" for them quite voluntarily.

Furthermore, hiring killers with nothing to lose for ruthless deeds is probably not quite as easy as in the movies(I mention popular culture merely because it seems to me that a lot of conspiracy theories are inspired by such, rather than the other way around, leading me to further question their credibility). If anyone approached me with such an offer, I would certainly consider talking to the press - especially in a "dying man" scenario where I've nothing to lose by being gunned down by the men in black afterwards. Remember that the top men would have to gauge the consciences of their potential agents perfectly to be able to even approach them without risking their political careers. Misjudge one potential agent out of fifty(I'd still say that a lot more people would have to get their hands dirty, but I'll go with your number), and that one person will start talking to the press, possibly while still pretending to go along with the plan, all the while gathering proof against you. Unwanted publicity, obviously, has devastated more tangible conspiracies before.

I really don't have much interest in debating the technicalities of these theories any further; you seem as unconvinced by my arguments as I am by yours. However, I will comment that the theories are an interesting psychological phenomenon. It seems to me that there is, to some degree, a "Middle Kingdom" syndrome: American conspiracy theorists are having trouble understanding that some political machinations occur outside the United States, and try to link their familiar government to the events in any way possible. Ironically, while I've been accusing the conspiracy theorists of disregarding Occam's Razor, their world view is in many ways simpler than that of the mainstream: All significant events tend to be planned and executed by one single, seemingly omnipotent, body of people.

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

"Obviously the terrorists are not attacking because they are all clinically mad, but because they are, in simplified terms, very, very angry."
But that doesn't explain some awfully DUMB things they did. "errors" that could have compromised the whole plan and person with IQ of 60 would spot them. Either they had some hidden agenda (what?) behind them, or they were made purposedly to be spotted by everyone, as "clues" - not by the terrorists.

"Unless you are arguing that the organisations that claim credit for this don't exist at all?"
Al Quaida never took credit for 9/11. Some hardly known organisation from Japan did, claiming it's revenge for Hiroshima. Some other bullshit and nonexistant organisations did as well. Al Quaida is usually proud to announce their attacks. Sure Bin Laden was happy and voiced it. But he never publically admitted it was him responsible for it.

"I don't know which clues you are referring to as "too obvious""

Videotape found in ruined house in Afghanistan. Why would they LEAVE it there? It's only, unique, a memento of great value, showing the moments of Bin Laden's triumph. There's no other things like this.
Who would leaving it like that, in rubble of ruined house, for US Army to find?
Agents would.

Pilot manuals in arabic, found in an abandonned car by the airport. So they were learning and repeating how to fly for the last moment. Then risked compromising the whole plan by leaving them in the car, where a common thief could pick them and then tip the police (even anonymously) about what goes on. They left the car like that, with all the possible clues (fingerprints, pieces of clothes, whatever) and didn't even bother to have it taken away. They didn't even bother to dump the manuals in the dumpster so that nobody gets the idea that was the car of the terrorists. License plates + traffic monitoring cameras could lead the Police back to their hideouts and contacts for more clues.
Who would leave the car with the manuals?
Agents would.

What do the classified security camera tapes contain to make them classified? Something that a joe average could spot, recognize and give a tip the FBI to catch the terrorists? Or something the government didn't like Joe Average to see?

"Furthermore, hiring killers with nothing to lose for ruthless deeds is probably not quite as easy as in the movies"
I know a phone number. $200 for a joe average within 200km radius. VIPs and difficult hits respectively more. You can specify just normal hit, hit preceeded with serious pain or just some kind of temporary or permanent bodily harm without killing. Almost risk-free, people who do it leave the country within hours, and are never seen again. Sure this is Poland, not USA, you don't have former soviet republics across the border, plus finding a suicidal maniac is harder than hiring a common thug working for russian mafia. But if -I- know such a phone number, then how hard is it for, say, head of CIA to find the right people?

"Remember that the top men would have to gauge the consciences of their potential agents perfectly to be able to even approach them without risking their political careers."

Or keep them closely monitored afterwards. Not taking "no" for an answer. And picking people with far more than just remainder of their life to lose. ("dead man" with a family?)

"Misjudge one potential agent out of fifty"
and they know too little to be of any help for the press. Just insert "schizophrenia" in their medical records and you're safe. Three-four beyond the "core team" would know the plane has to hit the tower - just the pilots, maybe two agents to perform misc duties, two-three CGI gurus preparing the movies. The rest just gets president-signed orders with "top-secret" stamp without explainations of reasons why to arrest some guy, why to confiscate some tapes, why to provide a car without leaving buyer's trail, to pass an investigation to specified CIA agents. You do tiny tasks without seeing the whole image and never realize what you did just helped removing inconvenient witness. Misjudge one agent of ten and you have to kill him. That's about it.

Re:Absurd

[GuloGulo2]

"So the government has no burden to put forward evidence that their story of events is what happened?"

It's not "their" story. This statement alone suggests that you have an unspoken agenda that you try to couch in non-specific language.

And no, they don't. The government doesn't have a responsibility to even have a story, only provide factual information.

Re:Absurd

[EvilBudMan]

--If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human, or should I offer undeniable proof of his extra-terrestriality?--

I don't know if that would help when he is in fact a Cylon.

Re:Absurd

[mpe]

So the government has no burden to put forward evidence that their story of events is what happened? I have yet to see concrete proof that the Pentagon was hit by a plane. Even this video that is supposed to debunk all the theories doesn't actually show a plane.

Even if it did it would be kind of hard for this to debunk all the theories. Since the vast majority don't dispute what hit the Pentagon. (Including those which are not concerned with what happened there.)
The "no plane at the Pentagon" issue is something of a distraction from quite a few of the things which are very obviously wrong with the US Government's explanation.

Re:Absurd

[Grishnakh]

Very interesting, but none of these seem to be actual anti-government conspiracy theories; they all have to do with fear of outsiders or of treasonous or subversive activity by non-government agents. Today, "conspiracy theory" implies that the government itself, or at least some secret part of it, is actively conspiring to do something evil or malicious. While I wouldn't say that people generally loved government at any time, I just don't see in history, 100 or more years ago, any widespread beliefs that the government was actively doing anything subversive the way many people today believe, with conspiracy theories about aliens, political assassinations (JFK), unjust wars (Vietnam, Iraq), etc.

Re:Absurd

[NutscrapeSucks]

Pilot manuals in arabic, found in an abandonned car by the airport ... Then risked compromising the whole plan by leaving them in the car, where a common thief could pick them

Obviously, this smells like a plant. But come on, these guys had lived openly in the US for months, gone to flight school, gotten pilot licenses, etc. Assuming the story is legit, leaving their manuals in the trunk was a pretty tiny risk compared to everything else they were doing.

Re:Absurd

[Cyno]

So what does it take for the people to prove the government wrong? Or can governments ever be wrong in the reality you live in?

Do you have to prove it lied about 1 thing? 2? A dozen? Where do you draw the line?

Does it have to confiscate and classify 1 video? 2? A dozen?

Should I simply trust that my government is doing what is best for me and be content to be ignorant about these events?

I don't know all the facts, but I know the facts I've seen don't sync up with the official story. What would you do if you believed your government covered up something as significant as 9/11?

Re:Absurd

[Vo0k]

Likely if not the manuals, they would never guess -who- they were.
Plus, if they spent months (...as the government says, did they ever mention the location of school?) on learning, why take the manuals -in trunk-? Back seat, last-minute reading, okay. But books in trunk?

About the only explaination I can think of that keeps the government's hands somewhat clean (at least in the matter of WTC) and doesn't get cut by the Razor, is that still nobody has any idea who really did it, but admitting to it would be too much of disgrace, so a probable, convenient "guilty" was chosen, framed and executed.

Re:Absurd

[mozkill]

if the best thing that conspiracy theoriests can come up (which are the only events that occurred with 100% certaintly by the proof which came to be presented) with in the last 20 years is the Monica Lewinsky cover-up and the Abou-Grabe prison scandal, then I stand by my word that conspiracy theorists have hardly anything to go on.

1. no weapons in Iraq (never proved for certain)
2. Carl Rove coverup (such a mess well never know)
3. JFK (still a mystery)
4. WTC being blown up (nothing certain here)
5. federal reserve (we feel it but nobody can prove anything)
6. etc...

Re:Absurd

[Cyno]

then I stand by my word that conspiracy theorists have hardly anything to go on.

Well, alrighty, then. You do that.

Video conspiracy debunking work

[Council]

Most of the traffic I've seen about the conspiracy theories centers around the most recent Loose Change video. The claims in the video are well-argued but absolutely silly. While trying to explain this to several people who had sent it to me (as well as check to see if maybe some of their stuff was true) I stumbled on an excellent viewer's guide in which the video is taken apart line-by-line and fact/logic-checked. I found it on some cached upload site thing whose reliability I can't vouch for, so I've mirrored it here:

http://xkcd.com/911_loose_change_viewer_guide.pdf

Remember: if you can't identify the fake conspiracy theories, you'll never learn who's really out to get you.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Bob Bobbinson]

Funnily enough I was reading this earlier which is just the plain HTML and not in PDF (not sure if it's the original source though).

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lucabrasi999]

While I have not seen "Loose Change", nor had the time to read your PDF. Here is another reference guide that pretty much shoots down the idea that a missle was used at the Pentagon:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Funnily enough I was reading this earlier which is just the plain HTML and not in PDF (not sure if it's the original source though).

Not sure. There are differences between this page and the PDF, though.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

This 'debunking guide' has language just as smarmy and referenceless statements just like conspiracy videos. That degrades its credibility, in my eyes. I was keen on seeing a decent debunking of the loose change video, but this guide is simply a troll. If you want to be taken seriously, speak seriously. Here are a few select quotes:

"You must be thinking of the old Pentagon, which was made of balsa wood and marshmallows" (p. 31)

"KARL! Thank God we've got an expert in the house!" (p. 33)

"And they're all accounted for. You can check yourself if you don't believe me." (p. 41)

"They work for the 'Boss'. (Springsteen?)" (p. 42)

This sloppy scarcastic language is found throughout the guide. Why should I take it seriously?

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Council]

This sloppy scarcastic language is found throughout the guide. Why should I take it seriously?

It's fairly sensible to accept more sloppy language in something disputing an extraordinary claim than in something making the claim in the first place. If you think about it, you see it everywhere. It's the same reason Snopes is reasonably trusted -- debunking a claim doesn't take nearly the credibility it takes to make one. After a claim is made, the incentives shift, and parties previously uninvolved are brought in. The dialogue changes, but the debate also changes to be more fact-check-y and less initial-claim-make-y. This permits sloppier language to be taken more seriously.

But by all means -- and I say this without sarcasm -- take seriously anything you want using whatever credibility metrics work for you.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[TrappedByMyself]

This 'debunking guide' has language just as smarmy and referenceless statements just like conspiracy videos. That degrades its credibility, in my eyes. I was keen on seeing a decent debunking of the loose change video, but this guide is simply a troll. If you want to be taken seriously, speak seriously. Here are a few select quotes:

Yeah, that was my reaction too. I got excited when I read this part in the beginning:

"To keep you from jumping to the end, I'll tell you now that in this hour and twenty-minute video I counted 81 errors of fact (statements like "1+1 = 3"). In additon, I counted 345 instances of conjecture not supported by evidence, logical fallacies, uses of images that do not support the conclusions being drawn, and other flubs. And that's only counting errors of commission. The errors of omission are are far worse."

But he doesn't provide the facts or analysis on these points, just whitty comments. There is some good stuff in here, but it needs alot more work. Weak stuff like this just fuels the tin foil hat brigade.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[NutscrapeSucks]

You see this sort of approach all the time on Slashdot + elsewhere whenever some dork thinks "HRRR. Me Don't Like That! Me Make Point-By-Point Rebuttal!!" And they just HAVE to reply to every single point, even if they've got nothing except for un-witty insults and stupid jokes. It's especially funny when someone responds like this to "*BSD is Dying" or some other blatent troll. Really the Worst Internet Argument Style Ever.

I crashed Firefox in order to download that PDF, and honestly it's worthless set of oneliners. Everything in that movie has already been debated to death, and people aren't going to successfully "rebutt" Loose Change unless they make their own snazzy flash video.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

"It's fairly sensible to accept more sloppy language in something disputing an extraordinary claim than in something making the claim in the first place."

Think about what you have written above. The 'conspiracy' video claims to be debunking the 'extraordinary' official story. As a skeptical, open-minded outsider, who has not already taken a position, how do I know which side I should treat less critically? Your asking me to give the benefit of the doubt to one side, which is not fair.

If you are going to claim you are debunking a story, I am going to treat you more critically as anyone else. I have no reason go go softer on one 'debunking' side than the other. A false flag operation is one of the oldest tricks in the books -- look at military history. 'Extraorniary claims' involving supernatural powers, such as levitiation and eternal life, break the known laws of physics. An 'extraordinary claim' of a false flag operation does not break the laws of physics. So I argue that someone who is being totally open-minded would naturally have a false-flag operation on the list of possiblities in a suprise military attack. In the US, we have had the Boston Tea Party, where they dressed as Native Americans, the Gulf of Tonkin attacks, and the "Operation Northwoods" plan. So, claiming a false flag attacks does not ask us to believe anything that hasn't happened many times over in the history of the world.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[simonfunk]

Out of curiosity, how do you define conspiracy?

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[ShakaUVM]

>>The claims in the video are well-argued but absolutely silly.

I agree with this statement, except the claims are not well-argued.

Their arguments could be picked apart by a three year old.

"In 1997, the CIA released a brochure on terrorism with a picture of the WTC in the crosshairs. The only explanation for this is that the CIA was planning 9/11."

No... the WTC was bombed by terrorists in 1993.

Conclusion: The movie was made by retards.

I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but they don't have a single argument in the whole film that stands on two legs.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[A*OnYourA**]

This "debunking" pdf actually helps the Loose Change video by failing to disprove any facts in the movie. It just adds to the facts like a chef adds garlic to a cheeseburger. Some people would say the garlic doesn't go well with the burger, but the burger still exists and is just as edible.

Here are some examples of the garlic:

Most people don't know NORAD is a joint US/Canadian Organization.

Here's a better view of the free-fall of the debris, in a still not from loose change

Unidentified voiceover and interviewer. We know from other sources that the interviewee is Marc Bimbach

And it goes on like that, sometimes throwing in a quip like "the Islamic Jihadists, that's who." It doesn't debunk anything.

Contrary to the moon landing conspiracy nuts, the makers of Loose Change have undeniable evidence that buildings were blown up by explosives. WTC 7 collapsed for no reason, and they have Larry Silverstein on tape saying that the building was "pulled." There's just to much evidence in the video to ignore.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>I say this without sarcasm -- take seriously anything you want using whatever credibility metrics work for you.

Unless you're doing something that affects me, like flying airplaces or voting, in which case please calibrate your credibility metrics against reality.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>People don't believe in conspiracies if they capable of rational thought to begin with.

I think it's just the opposite. People who can't accept the chaos and absurdity of life, people who are *overly* devoted to rational thought, are the ones tempted by conspiracy theories. Aren't paranoid schizophrenics supposed to sound hyper-rational?

The Evil Conspiracy is always portrayed as cunning, powerful, and never making a mistake. Believing in the Evil Conspiracy offers the comfort that, even though they are evil, there are at least *some* competent people in the world.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Metex]

It's fairly sensible to accept more sloppy language in something disputing an extraordinary claim than in something making the claim in the first place.

I agree however it is usually after showing alot of proof contrary to someones thesis not leaping into sloppy scarcastic language first thing. I chuckled how the debunker's first sorce is the 9/11 commision report.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[nickmalthus]

The most compelling evidence to me that the official government account was incorrect was the videographic evidence of separate explosions in the WTC tower when the second plane hit the tower and visible explosions well below the demolition waves as the towers were collapsing. Also white smoke could be seen at the bottom of the tower before the first collapse and the lobby of the WTC was in shambles before the collapse far below the planes impact. According to the governments report jet fuel fell down the elevator shafts 60+ stories and ignited at the base causing all the visible destruction in the lobby. Building 7 is also an anomaly the government is still working on a report about.

Eyewitness 9/11 is a good video to watch [URL:http://universalseed.org/]
As well as Dr. Jones's research

Both explanations for the WTC collapses have serious consequences. On one hand If the collapses were due to the buildings infrastructure weakening due to fire and gravity did the rest then all future terrorists would have to do is take out a couple of upper floors on a skyscraper and watch the show. People working in 47+ buildings should be afraid that a few small fires in the building would cause a total destructive collapse as it did in the collapse of building 7. On the other hand if the government was complicit in the attacks in order to justify dramatic increased military spending then that presents its own set of ramifications.
Personally I would like to see a new completely independent investigation with full government access into the events of 9/11; everything the 9/11 commission was suppose to be but wasn't.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[suwain_2]

I watched the Loose Change video a while ago. Here's what I took away from it: There are a lot of unanswered questions about 9/11. I think the video was cheapened by their poor attempts to 'prove' a conspiracy theory that I don't even understand.

I don't believe that Bush or Cheney, or even Karl Rove, was behind the attacks. I do believe the buildings were pre-wired with explosives. (Watch tapes of the news that morning. Everyone was talking about the multiple explosions.) I don't believe Hallibuton had a doing in it. I do believe the government has done a terrible job explaining what really happened.

I really wish the video hadn't attempted to do prove anything, but just set out to make you think. It certainly made me think. Not only to question the goverment's stance on what happened (Are you sure there were no bombs in the towers? Where did Flight 93 go?), but also to question the conspiracy theories (Bush blew them up so he could invade Iraq? Flight 93 was landed elsewhere, a jet was hidden, and hundreds of people just disappeared?).

I highly recommend that you watch the Loose Change video, but feel free to ignore their poor attempts of convincing you of any sort of conspiracy theory. (And if you question any part of the video, do your own research, or just assume that part of the video is false. You needn't accept every premise to start to wonder what's going on.)

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[attackiko]

Ok the conspiracy is crap. But how smart is the debunker?

He starts with:

To avoid being harrassed by CTists, I have chosen to issue this guide anonymously.

and ends with:

file:///Users/markroberts/Desktop/911%20Activism/L oose%20Chang...wer%20Guide/911%20Loose%20Change%20 2%20Viewer%20GuideText.htm

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[yoden]

Personally, I think this sort of tone is a perfect response to the subject of the video; if either was intended to be an unbias representation of fact...

Besides, what kind of unbiased person is going to write that entire goddamn thing...

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Jim_Callahan]

"As a skeptical, open-minded outsider, who has not already taken a position, how do I know which side I should treat less critically?"

By following the money. And by this I don't mean it in the conspiracy theorist "any vague benefit means the government is going to eat your babies" kind of way, I mean that, if you want, say, an trustworthy opinion on the failure point of steel, you ask someone whose livelihood depends on knowing about the failure behaviors of steel, not someone who runs dummy corporations on the internet or is a professional writer.

One of these "debunking" reports references a con artist claiming to work with nonferrous materials for a living and a political novelist, as well as a man specializing in water treatment, regarding mechanical failure in metal buildings. The other references reports released by civil and mechanical engineers. Since this pattern extends throughout the entirety of the report in both cases, we know to trust the latter over the former.

Exceptions to this method of evaluation can be made if you know all of the individuals involved, and have the technical expertise (evidenced by successful practice in the relevant field) to evaluate their knowledge as being either above or below what would be expected of their category (successful practicer of their craft vs. random loser off the internet with no experience, in this case). Since literally thousands of people were referenced between the two documents, of a variety of professions, I'd imagine that that's not the case here.

I'll agree with the basic thrust of your argument, that evaluating something on tone alone is a poor means of evaluating the "professionalism" of a given work. I would tend to say that the fact that "Loose Change" is almost completely unreferenced (and the quotes are also undated and not even marked for context, which gave me a headache when i first watched the damned thing), while the counterargument linked above is fully referenced, is the best way to compare the relative reliability of the two works (as, if you haven't noticed, they both have far too many snarky asides to be considered remotely neutral in tone).

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Jim_Callahan]

And Loose Change's first referenced source (if you don't count the picture of the engine part that the idiots making the film didn't bother taking two seconds to look up properly) is a con artist who pretends to be a big man in business on the internet for a living. Report based on the findings of thousands of professional investigators in relevant fields... con man... wow, that's a hard one.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[jdeluise]

Interesting though that Bush's brother was apparently running the company that provided security to the WTC buildings and they had a planned power outage a couple days before the "attacks" (ie. no security cameras....)

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[suwain_2]

That was an interesting part. I'm not dismissing it, but it sounds like the Bushes own half the world, so I wonder if Jeb even knows that his company does it. Certainly something that should have been examined, though.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

Jim, I think we are arguing cross points.

I agree, Loose Change is poorly referenced, full of retorical question and implied conclusions. However, the supposed 'debunking' pdf reader is simply a piece of trash. It lends credibility to Loose Change if the only 'debunking' of it is trollish nonsense. It makes it seem like there are no logical arguments refuting the conspiracy, only name calling and trash-talking. You can say "My opponent has no arguments; he can only make potty talk"

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Jim_Callahan]

Eh, I suppose you're right overall. I tend to give the guy the benefit of the doubt because he posted the stress-strain curves of steel and how they vary with temperature, which kind of summed up my reaction to that section of Loose Change, too. It would definitely have been a better piece if he'd refrained from the direct insults, though.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[kupci]

It's the same reason Snopes is reasonably trusted -- debunking a claim doesn't take nearly the credibility it takes to make one.

Huh? Isn't Snopes in the business of debunking claims? Or did you misword your sentence: what I think you were trying to say is that it is easier (and requires less credibility) to make a claim, and it's harder to debunk it?

Whatever you meant, I think it has more to do with *who* made the claim. If we are told, let's say, that Silverstein, owner of the WTC bldgs., "pulled" them on purpose to collect the his insurance policy by Fox News we'd probably believe that over a bunch of web sites saying 19 arab crazys hijacked a plane with a box cutter, somehow managed to avoid NORAD, outflew fighter jets, hit the towers dead on, and the pentagon, and they exploded and collapsed.

As for Snopes, I like the site overall, but Mikkelson really fell down on the job as far as 911, especially with her bias (see the rather odd personal nicknames at the bottom of each article). Many of the "rumors" she has as false simply because that's what she read in the 911 Commission Report, which claimed to investigate every single scrap of evidence, yet somehow forgot to investigate why WTC 7 collapsed. Others that she has marked as unsubstantiated can easily be verified by querying Google to find severable reputable news services. Her source, whatever it is, says otherwise. And sometimes does not even include interesting, verified, reports - for example she has the govt certified report of the cheering Arabs, but stunningly neglects to mention the 6 Israeli agents who were seen cheering and "high fiving" as they filmed the towers burning, and were subsequently mysteriously released. So Forget Snopes. Start here, at this excellent site: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/index.html

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Metex]

Isnt that the most relevant source if it is a conspiracy?

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[DrXym]

In the sense it is being referred to here. I'm not denying there are real-life conspiracies, but 9/11, JFK, moon landings etc. are a domain all by themselves. No amount of evidence would convince the nuts who believe seem keen to grasp any conspiracy theory no matter how much evidence appears in support of the straightforward and conventional explanation.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[DrXym]

Perhaps if schizophrenics are hyper-rational as you say, it may refer to their ability to rationalize rather than think rationally. The former implies that they will fold any crazy delusion straight into their psychosis and its no good convincing them otherwise. The latter means being able to reason things through which should be enough to know all these 9/11 conspiracies are absurd.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

I'm not sure where I fall with the stress/temperature curves -- the Loose Change video references several steel buildings that burned for days without falling. That doesn't meant that it couldn't have fallen due to fire, but it's far from clear-cut.

What I really want to know is, where are the planes reconstructed from the debris? Here is an image of a section of fuselage in the WTC descrution. Where is the fuselage now? Where are all the parts they pulled from the pentagon? By contrast, here is an image of the reconstruction of flight 800. Why don't we have such reconstructions of the 9/11 planes?

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

Just so I'm clear, why would anyone need to reconstruct the planes? What would be gained?

In the case of plane crashes, there is an obvious need because of the information gained about the specifics of the crash. No one really doubts what happens when a plane hits a building. What they doubt is that the planes hit at all. An accurate accounting of the debris should be sufficient to discredit that.

So, apart from satisfying your personal curiosity, and "debunking" conspiracy theories that will never really be dubunked, why would they invest that kind of time and resources?

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

"Contrary to the moon landing conspiracy nuts, the makers of Loose Change have undeniable evidence that buildings were blown up by explosives."

How is it undeniable when it's been denied by experts? What you meant to say is "convincing evidence for those easily or already convinced".

"WTC 7 collapsed for no reason, and they have Larry Silverstein on tape saying that the building was 'pulled.'"

No, that's a lie. Here's what he actually said

"I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, you know, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is just pull it." And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

It would serve you better to stick to the facts, and not embellish. That's why people don't listen to this nonsense. His statements are explained thusly

"Silverstein's spokesperson, McQuillan, later attempted to clarify:

        In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.

McQuillan has commented that by "it", Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building."

Accept that explanation or don't. One makes perfect sense, one doesn't. You can decide which is which.

Now here's a question for you. How can we take anythig you said seriously when you misrepresent facts in order to bolster your argument. The answer of course is that we can't.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

What would we gain? We would know more about terrorist techniques than we know now. Maybe the terrorists somehow smuggled fuel or explosives into the planes to make their impact more destructive. The only evidence that we have for exactly what went on during the hijacking is the remains of the planes themselves. Why would you want to ignore this very important information when you're waging a war on terror?

When there is a crime, there needs to be a complete investigation of the physical evidence. That's standard procedure for all crime scene investigations. You don't just march in, declare what happened, and throw all the evidence in the trash. If, however, you do decide to violate these age-old procedures, it makes you look extremely suspicious.

"...why would they invest that kind of time and resources?"

Look, they have to clean up the sites. They are going to encounter plane parts in the debris. How much extra time and effort is it to gather all the plane debris into a hangar? Very little.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

That's all true, and none of it addresses why reconstruction is necessary. Everything you suggest could be done without reconstructing anything.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

So what you're telling me is that a terrorism investigator is going to walk into a hangar and make sense of plane parts strewn about randomly? He's going to look at the cockpit windshield at one side of the hangar, and then walk all the way to the other side to look at the instrumentation of the same plane?

No, you at least have to have the parts of the same plane lying next to each other, with the parts lying where they would be if the planes were intact.

It would be like asking a fraud investigator to sift through papers out of order, lying in a pile on the floor, instead of in neat little manilla folders.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

"So what you're telling me is that a terrorism investigator is going to walk into a hangar and make sense of plane parts strewn about randomly?"

Is that what I said, or did I say a reconstruction wasn't necessary. Why put words in my mouth?

"No, you at least have to have the parts of the same plane lying next to each other, with the parts lying where they would be if the planes were intact."

That is not a "reconstruction". If that is what you meant by "reconstruction" then you need to amend your usage of the term. If that is not what you meant by "reconstruction" then you have answered your own question.

"It would be like asking a fraud investigator to sift through papers out of order, lying in a pile on the floor, instead of in neat little manilla folders."

No, it wouldn't be anything like that at all, and analogies are garbage.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

Please define reconstruction.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

No, no no YOU define reconstruction. YOU insisted it was necessary, not me.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

I already defined reconstruction, as far as I was concerned, when I wrote:

" you at least have to have the parts of the same plane lying next to each other, with the parts lying where they would be if the planes were intact."

In turn, you replied:

"That is not a 'reconstruction'".

I gave my definition, and you rejected it. Now, please give us your definition of reconstruction.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[GuloGulo2]

"I already defined reconstruction, as far as I was concerned, when I wrote:"

And your definition is wrong. What's not clear to you?

"Now, please give us your definition of reconstruction."

Why? You argued it was necessary based on an incorrect understanding of what the word meant. I have no responsibility to define it to your satisfaction.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Chris Burke]

That's the problem with 'line-by-line' debunkings. In order to prove the thesis that the entire Loose Change video is 100% nonsense without any glimmer of truth at all, the author of the debunking needs to refute each and every single little comment made in the entire thing. This innevitably involves the same leaps of logic, unreferenced sources, and implication through sarcasm/incredulity that you can legitimately fault the original source for.

The problem is adherence to that original thesis, which is an expression of the intention to crush the conspiracy theorists, rather than to examine the truth -- adherence to an agenda at the expense of rigorous truth being what the debunker is accusing the conspiracy theorist of! There was the same problem with debunkings of Farenheit 9/11 -- in order to prove that nothing Michael Moore said was true, the debunkers had to go out on limbs at least as far as Moore himself did.

Fortunately I don't feel a need to accept or reject anything 100%, and I can read both the original theory and the debunkings with a grain of salt and say "that sounds like BS, that makes me wonder, this is speculation, this has some sources I should check into"... an so forth.

I think you should view the debunking of Loose Change in the same way. Don't necessarily take it seriously, but do look at where it seems to be making valid points.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[lawpoop]

"That's the problem with 'line-by-line' debunkings. In order to prove the thesis that the entire Loose Change video is 100% nonsense without any glimmer of truth at all, the author of the debunking needs to refute each and every single little comment made in the entire thing. This innevitably involves the same leaps of logic, unreferenced sources, and implication through sarcasm/incredulity that you can legitimately fault the original source for."

I don't follow. In order to show that someone is making things up, you have to make things up yourself? That doesn't make sense. I see no reason why you couldn't do a line-by-line debunking that is rigorous, backed by facts where necessary, or at least points out "this is unreferenced", "this is taken out of context", "There is an implied conclusion here", or "the evidence doesn't support this conclusion".

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[Chris Burke]

I don't follow. In order to show that someone is making things up, you have to make things up yourself? That doesn't make sense. I see no reason why you couldn't do a line-by-line debunking that is rigorous, backed by facts where necessary, or at least points out "this is unreferenced", "this is taken out of context", "There is an implied conclusion here", or "the evidence doesn't support this conclusion".

Yes, sorry, I didn't make that clear. The reason that doing a complete 100% line-by-line debunking nearly always resorts to using the same erroneous techniques as the thing being debunked is that it it is extremely rare that the original material is 100% false. A truly rigorous and unbiased debunking would allow for this and admit where it was unable to fault a claim (with rigor). Which should hopefully illuminate my previous post's point: These line-by-line debunkings have as their goal the refutation of everything the original source said, and thus sacrifices rigor in order to be able to say something bad about everything in the source.

Re:Video conspiracy debunking work

[zCyl]

Start here, at this excellent site: http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/index.html

I have not read the entire site. I started with the first article to catch my eye, titled, "Simple Math demonstrate that the Official 9/11 Account is a Fabrication".

The article uses the most boneheaded abuse of probability I've seen in at least a month. By equivalent reasoning, Slashdot doesn't exist, because the odds of a website name starting with "S" is one in 26, and the odds of the second letter being "l" is one in 26, so the odds of Slashdot existing is (1/26)^8, or less than 1 in 200 billion.

I hope the rest of the site is a little more "scholarly", but it certainly hasn't impressed me with that one...

Five years...

[mobby_6kl]

What the hell, did they use a cluster of 386s to render the thing?

Re:Five years...

[Vo0k]

It's times like this when I regret I have no mod points :)

Re:Five years...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, They had to run "emerge Xine" first.
The video rendering only took 5 minutes.

Re:Five years...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but the turbo buttons were turned off.

Response to 911: Loose Change

[Cornflake917]

For those of you unaware of the conspiracy theories floating around, 911: Loose Change is a documentary that claims that the U.S. government planned and executed the attacks on 911. It's obviously all B.S., but it does make you think. The documentary fails to address the fact that no one tried to expose these plans beforehand. If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it. Anyone with a conscience would have exposed this plan and tried to put a stop to it. And there has a to be at least A FEW government employees that have a conscience. Either way it's such a stretch, it almost reminds of the whole "We never landed on the moon" theory. People are willing to say anything to get some attention.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

It's obviously all B.S., but it does make you think.

It makes me think that there way too many looney toons out there...

-h-

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[iminplaya]

If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it.

The plot has been on the table for over forty years. You're not one of those that believe that our government would never do such a thing, are you?

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[mozkill]

yeah. our government has a 100% success rate with tricking the public. tons of conspiracies about and none of them have been exposed. Only God himself could plan things so perfectly.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[corbettw]

And there has a to be at least A FEW government employees that have a conscience.

And this is the fatal flaw for all conspiracy theories. As Ben Franklin said, three can keep a secret if two are dead. And given just how many leaks there have been from this administration, it's completely absurd to believe the government had anything to do with 9/11 and someone hasn't leaked the documents proving that to the media.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Cornflake917]

You're trying to tell me that faking a Cuban attack on the U.S. military is the same as actaully killing thousands of innocent U.S. civilians? Please tell me you're joking.

I do not doubt that theres corruption in our government. But seriously, the government would never do such a thing because they would never get away with it!

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[pHatidic]

what about all the government insiders who have spoken out about the government's role in 9/11 and gotten fired. Do they not count?

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Cornflake917]

Have you even watched it?

Yes I have watched it. I sheepishly admit I almost bought it, but I know better to listen to one side of the story. There are a plethora of websites that points out the hundreds of factual errors with in this documentary. The documentary has so many logical fallacies and biased information, only a fool would make a decision based of this one movie. If you don't believe me look at this viewer guide. If you don't believe the viewer guide, google the responses to this documentary.

If you still aren't convinced. Lets use some common sense for a few moments: Do you honestly think the Bush administration had the ability to keep this plan under wraps. Think about all the manpower that would be used in order to plant and detonate bombs inside the WTC towers (without anyone knowing!!!), all the planning that would have to be involved, the cover up, the paperwork. You don't think someone with half a heart would have exposed this? If you are still convinced that this was planned by the U.S. you're totally insane, and I give up.

Review your facts before you open your mouth.

I have. More than once actually. Have you?

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Unski]

+5 Insightful. Well-argued, impeccably-presented argument against alternative viewpoints. Marvellous. A triumph of human critical-thinking, a sheer, towering tribute to the mercurial genii which frequent this establishment.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[crhylove]

The insurance changing hands mere hours before the attack on the WTC was enough to convince me BEFORE I saw loose change. Let's not forget the "security drills" where regular employees were kept out, etc. There is too much evidence to asuage as a nutty conspiracy theory, no matter how unflattering some random pdf propaganda is to a particular documentary.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Anonymous Coward]

there is POWERFUL evidence supporting the idea that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were fully aware of all attacks on 9/11, and were in fact complicit in them.

If there is evidence, then it should have been included in the film. The film had an abundance of ideas, but was pretty short on evidence.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Robotron23]

The documentary fails to address the fact that no one tried to expose these plans beforehand.

Actually 9/11 conspiracy theories have been around since 9/11. Its only now that they've risen to a relative prominence. A French author released a best selling book in early 2002 which alleges a plane never crashed into the Pentagon. Not to mention the thousands of discussions regarding alleged inconsistancies floating around Usenet, BBSs, IRC etc.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[iminplaya]

Gotta love the wording here:
"The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely published..." Emphasis mine.
Fake? The only fake part is that it would be a Cuban attack, as opposed to actually being American. Please don't try to tell me that intentionally killing innocent Cubans is any less despicable than killing innocent Americans.

But seriously, the government would never do such a thing because they would never get away with it!

Jim Jones is the president and you're drinking his Kool-Aid. Your statement is a perfect explaination of just how they do get away with it. The government covered up the lies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which never happened, specifically to justify a war. It caused the death of over 58,000 Americans and 2 million(!) Vietnamese. Yes, the government will kill ANYBODY that gets in its way. Oh, and "Remember the Maine". Use that as a reminder that we don't really know who was behind 9/11.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[jackbird]

Oh, and "Remember the Maine [smplanet.com]". Use that as a reminder that we don't really know who was behind 9/11.

So 9/11 was an accident?

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[alnjmshntr]

If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it.

Sure, if the hijackers had been cia agents, but they weren't. But very few ppl would need to know if GWB et al merely planned/encouraged/financed/allowed these actions to take place. And if they did do that spreading rumours that they planned *and* executed the actions helps their cause, because it is obviously ludicrous.

Clinton landed troops on the beaches of Somalia to distract U.S citizens from his growing sex scandal, maybe GWB learnt something from that.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[iminplaya]

Yes, the Americans were asleep at the wheel on the 7th of November, 2000(and have been since 1964), and the accident is still in progress. The death toll just keeps on climbing.

But seriously, where did I say anything about an accident?

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Cornflake917]

Please don't try to tell me that intentionally killing innocent Cubans is any less despicable than killing innocent Americans.

A. The U.S. government swears under oath to protect the lives of U.S. civilians, they aren't under such an oath for Cubans.
B. The intentionally killing part was only a possibility of the plan it wasn't set in stone!
C. The plan never happened! While thousands of U.S. civilians actually died because of September 11th.

The government covered up the lies of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, which never happened

The Gulf of Tonkin incident happened. Destroyers fired 3-inch and 5-inch rounds and dropped several depth-charges. They did actually believe they were being attacked at one point. The government decided to exagerate this incident so LBJ could write his blanks check. Get your facts straight please. And to say the war WOULDN't have happened if the government never said anything is also a streatch. We already had thousands advisors there pissing off the Vietnamese; something was bound to happen. Either way this has nothing to do with 9/11.

Whether it was to take Fidel Castro out of power or stop the spread of communism. The ultimate goal of these corrupt plans was to protect American soil. Now of course the goals were terribly misguided, and I'm not saying the ends justify the means. But to think our government would be stupid enough to KILL innocent U.S. civilians in order to protect innocent civilians is just plain fucking rediculous.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

Hey, I did as much research for my comment as the producers of Loose Change did for their documentary!

Oh yeah...it was a joke. Don't take it personally.

Double oh yeah - the first sentence of this post is a joke, too. Don't take it personally, either.

-h-

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[jackbird]

The Maine. Which was an accident. While the Hearst papers spun the explosion into a rationale for war, and it was not investigated until many decades after the fact, I don't think anyone seriously says today the destruction of the Maine was deliberate.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

Powerful, like the evidence that we never went to the moon. Damn straight, brother!

Holy cow, some of you guys just crack me up!

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

A good conspiracy theorist never lets the facts get in the way of a good conspiracy.

I've watched the video, too, and I have to say that the "experts" that they trot out are just hilarious. It also seems odd to me that news reporting of 9/11 stopped in September - oh wait, those pesky facts again.

I never give up on these guys - it's like watching a dog chase its tail - they go 'round and 'round in circles and put on a hilarious show. More power to 'em!

-h-

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[crhylove]

That is an awful strawman. Just because some people are insane does not mean that all people are insane. At this point considering the overwhelming evidence it is very clear that certain segments of our government should not be trusted whatsoever. If you can't see that, then you're pretty clueless.

I believe we landed on the moon. There's overwhelming evidence supporting this, and the documentary was fairly laughable.

Now if you believe that we were really innocent victims on 9/11, then I'd say you're just as clueless.

And to present an even more valid strawman, consider the murder of JFK.

rhY

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Unski]

C'mon admit it you cheap little karma whore (don't take it personally) - dismissing *anything* which has been labelled as conspiracy theory on /., no matter how lazy or lacking the rebuttal - well it's easy points isn't it? It's like shooting fish in a barrel. It's like being at the top of a very tall hill, and then choosing to roll down it. (don't take it personally).

Double oh yeah - my five year-old could shit out a more interesting /. posting. Don't take it personally.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[iminplaya]

Ok, I'll go along with that. Now, replace Hearst with Bush and I believe you get the idea and understand why nobody should believe the "official" stories coming from the government. I could believe that 9/11 was an accident just as easily as the "Bin Laden" thing. Neither scenario is very credible. I cannot believe that 9/11 happened without help from the inside. Somebody like of Tim McVeigh could have hired the hijackers. Many people originally believed that OKC was an attack from foreign terrorists. We have plenty of whackos(right and left wing) right here that could have pulled it off. I'll tell you one thing. 9/11 did a great job of distracting peoples' attention away from the stolen election and the lower than ever credibility of the government in general. Even the IRS was in deep doo-doo before the event. I tried to find a link, but google just gets swallowed up in 9/11 stuff, so feel free to call BS on it.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[iminplaya]

While thousands of U.S. civilians actually died because of September 11th.

And contrary to popular belief, we still don't know who's behind it. And that's my basic premise. The government lied in the past, and I believe they're lying now. There is no reason to believe otherwise. If there was any evidence of government wrongdoing, the lesson of Richard Nixon was taken to heart and it has been destroyed.

The government decided to exagerate this incident so LBJ could write his blanks check.

If you want to call "shooting at ghosts" an incident in the manner applied here, great. The point is that they weren't attacked. That incident(of being attacked) did not happen. And yes, I understand that the Americans were in Vietnam since 1945, but the war might have been finished by 1964 for not the lies. What this has to do with 9/11 is we are hearing axactly the same kind of lies now. We are accusing people who possibly had nothing to do with 9/11 so we can justify the war. We did this for Vietnam, the Spanish-American war, and many others.

The ultimate goal of these corrupt plans was to protect American soil.

The ultimate goal was, and is to protect American business overseas. We will not accept freedom in other countries if it conflicts with American interests. Otherwise we would let Iraq form its own government and possibly split up if necessary. These are colonial wars. Just like the olden days.

But to think our government would be stupid enough to KILL innocent U.S. civilians in order to protect innocent civilians is just plain fucking rediculous.

Yes, it would be if the government was actually doing all this to protect U.S. civilians. But it isn't. It is trying to protect its own power. Our welfare is quite secondary and is only looked after as far as it serves its real intents. I really can't understand why people think the American government is so completely different from others. People are people no matter where you are. It's time to recognize that.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Thing 1]

Clinton landed troops on the beaches of Somalia to distract U.S citizens from his growing sex scandal, maybe GWB learnt something from that.

Funny you say that: last night he said he was militarizing our borders to "keep them farners out."

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[killjoe]

"If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it."

Who says. The govt is perfectly capable of keeping secrets. The military keeps millions of bits of information secret and the NSA, CIA, FBI etc do too. Hell there are entire intelligence agencies that nobody knows about.

I just don't understand this theory that the govt is incabable of keeping secrets.

"Anyone with a conscience would have exposed this plan and tried to put a stop to it. And there has a to be at least A FEW government employees that have a conscience."

It would not be hard to convince a thousand people that sacrifing 300 americans (remember they didn't really know how many people would be killed if any) to ensure democracy in the middle east or cheaper oil forever, or safety of israel, or even to speed up the return of Jesus Christ.

I bet I could convince a thousand people commit some henious act by convincing them that doing so would fulfill some biblical prophecy.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

Easy, there, easy. You're taking this way too seriously.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[HardCase]

Sheesh, I guess I struck a nerve. Lighten up a little.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[bpd1069]

Loose Change is flawed in many of its claims. But the 9/11 Truth Movement is not Loose Change, that's just a video after all. Its appeal is its presenters are 20ish and the sound track appeals to the younger set. The truth lies in the boring research of hundreds of dedicated professionals, phhysicists, engineers, etc. that have put forward well reasoned theories, and peer reviewed papers. Its not so interesting, I agree, but life isn't like "24" you watch on your couch.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[corbettw]

what about all the government insiders who have spoken out about the government's role in 9/11 and gotten fired. Do they not count?

They only count if:

1) They exist.
2) They're not kooks.

Do you have proof that both points are true? If so, I'd like to see it.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[GuloGulo2]

"Double oh yeah - my five year-old could shit out a more interesting /. posting."

Don't be so hard on yourself, your post wasn't that bad.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[GuloGulo2]

"Just because some people are insane does not mean that all people are insane."

Unfortunately for you, they're the same "insane" people for both conspiracies.

I believe you have been "hoist upon your own petard". But man was that funny how you called the OTHER conspiracy theorists insane...

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[GuloGulo2]

"I just don't understand this theory that the govt is incabable of keeping secrets."

No one is saying that. Hell no one beleives that.

But there is a fair bit of difference between running a secret operation involving a few people and what would have been required on 9/11.

It's the scale of the secrecy required that is unbelieveable, to non-nutbags anyway...

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[Darby]

But seriously, the government would never do such a thing because they would never get away with it!

Actually it's possible that they could as long as there are people to whom logic is totally foreign. These would be people like yourself as demonstrated in that sentence.

Re:Response to 911: Loose Change

[killjoe]

"It's the scale of the secrecy required that is unbelieveable, to non-nutbags anyway..."

As I said there are entire intelligence agencies that are secret. Thousands of people work for these agencies and some of them don't even know it.

The trick is to hand out just enough information to each person to get their job done while only a few know what's going on.

You job is to sit here and asnwer the phone with "good morning, sunshine air incorporated how can I help you?" and then take any messages and email them to xxxx@hotmail.com. That person doesn't know that the airplane that is registered to sunshine air ir being used to shuttle people all over to world form one torture chamber to the next. If they knew they would tell or quit but they are an essential piece in the torture flights. Same with every other piece of the puzzle. We would like to hire you to fly this plane from NY to Barcelona. We need to hire you to drive from Barcelona airport to some building and back to pick up a passenger etc.

That's the way it works. Yes you could kill thousands of US citizens to some end, employ thousands of people in the process and not have any of them know what the hell is going on. It's not that hard, it happens all the time.

I am not saying that's what happened, I am simply saying that it's trivial. The govt does it all the time.

Conspiracy Theory

[tgraupmann]

The act of using the term "Conspiracy Theory" is republican code word, for saying the video tape was released because too many liberals were asking for the video.

Re:Conspiracy Theory

[WombatControl]

Judicial Watch is an explicitly conservative watchdog group.

At last...

[Vo0k]

Five years... till the computers finished rendering the tape and it can be released.
Doctoring the tape with Bin Laden commenting on the attack took them much shorter :)

Re:At last...

[Ohreally_factor]

Oh, you've already wathced the DVD? Does the Bin Laden commentary track make it worth renting?

Re:At last...

[Vo0k]

Crappy VHS and poor puns. I mean, what did you expect, the army promoting the enemy by creating a video that would encourage you to join them? The tape HAD to be crappy to keep people from joining Al Quaida!

Re:At last...

[Ohreally_factor]

Oh, sorry. I was confused. I thought you had seen the DVD with footage of the plane hitting the pentagon. In the special features, you can turn on the Bin Laden commentary.

The one thing that I am fiercely curious about, that no one has seemed to mention, is how close the attack came to breaching the magickal containment properties of the pentagon. This could have potentially released the demon that has been trapped there in the center since the pentagon's construction.

Did You Look at the Pictures?

[MikeyTheK]

What do you mean there is nothing on them? Look at the pictures, morons. You might be able to argue that they are fabricated, but maybe you would like to explain what that big round thing that's entering the building, and the other angle showing what appears to be an airplane? Well, the "big round thing" could be an emu, but I'm a little suspicious...

Re:Did You Look at the Pictures?

[GeekDork]

I remember seeing a movie FX specialist shortly after the thing, saying that they could never have used stuff like that in even a crummy TV series. He said that the effects just weren't credible. (I also remember Tom Clancy saying the first sensible thing in the CNN coverage.)

Re:Did You Look at the Pictures?

[barefootgenius]

Yes, and buggered if I can see a 757. Tried to find an alternative source for the video and found this though. Its .swf but quite well done.

let's be honest

[Joe the Lesser]

As much as I don't trust Bushco, I just can't see all those people not being dead. You can't cover up something that big.

I mean, we clearly saw the planes hit the towers, so it's logical to assume that if planes were used in place A, why bother to not use planes in place B.

I think the thurst of the paranoia would be better suited looking at how the towers fell as if internal explosions took them down, and the planes were just for drama. That's the only part that I think I can begin to question, though that's not to say our government is more behind it than any other government in the world. If anything's wrong, it's the towers falling so quickly like they did.

Not that I really believe Bush planned it, (is he smart enough?) but if someone other than bin Laden and his crazies was in on it, I want their heads too.

Re:let's be honest

[Chris Burke]

If anything's wrong, it's the towers falling so quickly like they did.

And the third building (WTC 7, wasn't it?) falling at all. Apparently it was struck by falling debri... which caused it to collapse on itself just like the skyscrapers next to it? This has never made sense to me.

Neither has the apparent lack of damage from the engines of the plane that hit the Pentagon. Those engines contained more concentrated mass than the main fuselage of the plain; should there not be three holes in the wall?

Re:let's be honest

[Ironsides]

WTC 7: http://www.infowars.com/print/Sept11/FDNY.htm

Quote: "In a stunning and belated development concerning the attacks of 9/11 Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish the Solomon Bros. building, or WTC 7, late in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001."

Back to the engines. Airplane engines are relatively fragile pieces of equipment and are full of fuel. Also, given that they are close to the body on a 757 Picture Here The hole made in the pentagon was bigger than the fuselage by a large amount. There was one hole and it makes sense that there was one hole. When objects crash into a building or wall, they do not leave nice clean carboard cutouts like in cartoons, they leave big gaping holes.

Re:let's be honest

[Richard_at_work]

The third WTC building collapsed due to its structure being badly damaged by fires fueled from burst emergency generator storage tanks in the basement.

Re:let's be honest

[Scrameustache]

I just can't see all those people not being dead.

Not being dead? The plane is gone, the people in it were killed. The conspiracy is about how and where the plane was destroyed. i.e. that the order that was given on 9/11 to shoot down any non-responsive airliners was followed before it was rescinded.

it's logical to assume that if planes were used in place A, why bother to not use planes in place B.

That is not even remotly logical.

Not that I really believe Bush planned it, (is he smart enough?)

More like the CIA, or whoever else in the "Intelligence community" that, as a result of 9/11, were granted absolute power. Just watch Bush defend the invasion of Iraq after he admitted that there are no WMDs to be found: He simply says that his actions were right because he did what the intelligence community told him to do.

AND PEOPLE ACCEPT THAT!

God, that drives me nut. Who elected these people? Who's watching the watchers?

Re:let's be honest

[soft_guy]

These same people were watergate criminals.

Re:let's be honest

[gEvil (beta)]

Exactly! What always amazes me is how people sit there drawing comparisons to the Nixon era, but fail to make the connection that it's because it's the same fucking bunch of people!

Re:let's be honest

[Chris Burke]

Quote: "In a stunning and belated development concerning the attacks of 9/11 Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish the Solomon Bros. building, or WTC 7, late in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001."

Wow, thanks. That's fascinating, in that it directly contradicts the official story -- has it been adopted into the official story?

Back to the engines. Airplane engines are relatively fragile pieces of equipment and are full of fuel. Also, given that they are close to the body on a 757 Picture Here The hole made in the pentagon was bigger than the fuselage by a large amount. There was one hole and it makes sense that there was one hole. When objects crash into a building or wall, they do not leave nice clean carboard cutouts like in cartoons, they leave big gaping holes.

They are not relatively fragile compared to the rest of the plane. Look at any other crash -- the engines are usually one of the most recognizable pieces remaining. Now I can't see any reference to the size of the impact hole, but my recollection is that it wasn't much larger than the main fuselage, and while "close" the engines are distanced from the main body by more than half the width of said body. Of course a plane won't make nice clean cardboard cutouts; this is exactly why it looks odd.

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

That's the only part that I think I can begin to question, though that's not to say our government is more behind it than any other government in the world. If anything's wrong, it's the towers falling so quickly like they did.

What was so quick about the collapse? I'm aware of the claim that it was "free-fall speed", but that's just absurd. If the buildings collapsed that fast, then how could there be debris falling faster than the rest of the building?

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Wow, thanks. That's fascinating, in that it directly contradicts the official story -- has it been adopted into the official story?

No, because that interpretation of Silverstein's words is incorrect. The word "pull" is used in demolition to mean manually knocking a structure down using, say, a wrecking ball or cables. The term used for explosive demolition is "shoot".

Re:let's be honest

[Chris Burke]

That's too bad, because that would have made sense. Instead we have the Warren Commision-esque "magic fire".

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

That's too bad, because that would have made sense. Instead we have the Warren Commision-esque "magic fire".

And severe structural damage.

Pictures:
http://wtc7.batcave.net/_webimages/WTC-7_sw_corner _2.JPG
http://www.kolumbus.fi/av.caesar/wtc/wtc7_2.jpg

Firefighter interviews:
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz /hayden.html
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz /boyle.html

Re:let's be honest

[geekoid]

The poster is just an ignorant SOB who can't be bothered with facts, and knowledge.
I think you have been trolled.

Re:let's be honest

[srmalloy]

Not that I really believe Bush planned it, (is he smart enough?)

  More like the CIA, or whoever else in the "Intelligence community" that, as a result of 9/11, were granted absolute power. Just watch Bush defend the invasion of Iraq after he admitted that there are no WMDs to be found: He simply says that his actions were right because he did what the intelligence community told him to do.

AND PEOPLE ACCEPT THAT!

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference. In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars." -- (Gilbert)

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

-- exchange between Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering and Gustave Gilbert, 18 April 1946, published in Gilbert's Nuremberg Diary

Re:let's be honest

[Cyno]

Not that I really believe Bush planned it

Being the Decider, he could have decided to let a General draft it up for him at the Pentagon.

I know he looks like an idiot, but he's really our President. A very powerful man.

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

The debris being ejected by the explosive forces of, erm, explosives?lol. What?

http://911myths.com/assets/images/Collapse.jpg

Re:let's be honest

[Chris Burke]

And severe structural damage.

Except FEMA claims that it was primarily fire damage that caused the collapse. Which makes sense, as for the building to fall straight down as it did the core of the building would have had to have been damaged, while if the damage to the south side was critical to the collapse either that side would have fallen while the rest remained upright or it would have fallen over rather than implode.

I'm not claiming to have all the facts, and I can admit that because unlike that other douchebag, the facts are all I care about. None of us have all the facts. Yet the facts as they have been presented in the official story are suspicious to me, thus my questions. Thanks for the interview links, they were informative.

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

These same people were watergate criminals.

Hmm... I don't know about you, but I'd pick a better bunch of people if I were to carry out a conspiracy. I mean, they couldn't even handle a relatively simple conspiracy as Watergate without being exposed. Are we to believe these same people are capable of some grand 9/11 conspiracy, still going strong after 5 years?

Re:let's be honest

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Except FEMA claims that it was primarily fire damage that caused the collapse.

That was a preliminary report with little investigation.

Which makes sense, as for the building to fall straight down as it did the core of the building would have had to have been damaged, while if the damage to the south side was critical to the collapse either that side would have fallen while the rest remained upright or it would have fallen over rather than implode.

Videos indicate that WTC7 did, in fact, tip toward the side of significant damage during it's collapse. Clearly seen in these frames. This picture shows the north face of WTC7 laying on top of debris pile, which suggests that the collapse did indeed initiate on the south face.

Source, and more info: http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/pull.htm

Re:let's be honest

[MercMan]

I'm not a conspiracy wing nut but I'm also not one to take anything the US government says at face value. You can't assume that because a plane obviously hit the WTC that a plane is what hit the Pentagon, because as the old saying goes assuming something makes an ass out of me and (yo)u!

I have looked over and over again, I can not find the plane in that video. I do see a light streak for a moment that looks to me to be too small to be a commercial jet liner, but I'm not an expert.

What I don't understand is why that's the only video we are seeing? It's the Pentagon for Fox Creek! How many camera's do they have? What about radar? Sattelite pictures? It is ridiculous that these are the only images from the Pentagon. I thought that place was supposed to be secure!?!

Maybe it wasn't a missile that hit the Pentagon, maybe the government didn't plan 9/11 but what are they hiding?

Futile task

[Gadzinka]

A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'

Now, that's really stupid and pointless task. Every conspiracy theory is not falsifiable, so there's no point in disproving it.

In short, there's no proof that you can give to conspiracy theorist, that will convince him he is wrong. Just ask any of them, if there is anything in the world that would make him change his mind.

Robert

Re:Futile task

[basic0]

1. Not that I doubt the Pentagon was hit by an aircraft, but it is documented fact that several security camera tapes were confiscated after the crash. Release them in their entirety.

2. Explain to me why standard operating procedures for NORAD that would normally require specific orders to disregard, were disregarded that day.

3. Explain to me how WTC-7 came to be the only steel-framed structure in recorded history to suffer a complete collapse as a result of fire alone. (FEMA's own report offers an elaborate theory which they say has a "low probability of occurance")

4. In light of the signifigance (particularly to insurers, architechts, engineers) of WTC-7's collapse-due-to-fire, why were the building remains sold to China for scrap before they could be fully analyzed? The building had been evacuated hours before the collapse, it was not necessary for rescue crews. This is a major event in the building industry: if steel structures can collapse from fire alone, insurance rates would have to be adjusted, architects would have to reconsider the design of thousands of structures.

5. If Flight 93 was destroyed by being crashed (intentionally or accidentally) into a field in Shanksville, PA, why did it leave a debris field over 8+ miles?

Answer those questions and I'll change my mind on the subject. And no, "I don't know", "It's not important" and "Maybe you need to adjust your tinfoil hat you crazy moonbat!" aren't valid responses. This isn't some wacky UFO and alien abduction silliness. The known laws of physics and US military standard operation procedure were both apparently out to lunch on 9/11, and we want to know why.

Re:Futile task

[Mr. Flibble]

Bastard Operator From 149.156.96.35
(just do nslookup on this address, dummy)

Oh, what has slashdot come to that you need a disclamer such as that within your .sig? Next thing you know, I will have to put a disclamer in with my .sig explaining it too...

*sigh*

(I am assuming you get lots of people just not "getting" your .sig)

Re:Futile task

[LunaticTippy]

It's not true that every conspiracy theory is unfalsifiable. People can be crazy, granted.

Let's assume there is a conspiracy theory that George W Bush personally piloted the planes into the towers. In order to falsify this theory we just need a well-corroborated alibi for him at that time. Say, he was at a school being videotaped with lots of witnesses.

Presto, conspiracy theory falsified.

You can run into trouble with crazies who keep morphing the theory to accept new evidence, but then the problem isn't that the theory is unfalsifiable. It's that the theory is undefinable.

Re:Futile task

[hey!]

It's worthwhile though, to be careful about throwing the term "conspiracy theory" at anything that seems implausible to us. If throwing the label "conspiracy theory" can falsify any theory of an event, then wrongoing becomes a logical impossibility. In fact, politically the term is thrown around precisely as a cheap way to argue that wrongoing in a particular case was impossible. And we know that in fact people sometimes do wrong. Often as part of a conspiracy.

Strictly speaking, I'd only call a theory a conspiracy theory if it the conspiracy is structurally implausible. Either it has too many players, or it requires parties to trust each other when they have reason to otherwise. The reason I think this is an important point is that this is the weak point of any conspiracy. It's how prosecutors take one vulnerable person and unravel the whole skein. It's how auditors deter people from embezzeling: your force people to trust others, not of their choosing. And since you are talking about a criminal enterprise, you have good reasons NOT to trust.

While the theory that the US government was behind 9/11 may be rubbish, I'd argue it's not exactly speaking a conspiracy theory -- or at least it's a borderline case.

It is quite within the power of the executive branch of the US government to assemble a covert team with the necessary capabilities. Secretly. Think "Bay of Pigs". If you accept that at the political level the desire was there to do this, it is a difficult, but a practical possibility to do it secretly, by carefully screening the participants. It'd pay not to forget this. People in governments doing covert operations are quite capable of elaborate of, and willing to undertake, feats of evil derring-do (e.g., Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. and Iran).

No, the reason the theory in question is rubbish is that there is no shred of evidence that it is true. This is the kind of theory that relies on a kind of naive Bayesian reasoning: the government is SO evil, they're undoubtedly out to kill us. If you accept that at the outset, then what would to an unopinionated obverserver appear to be a natural supply of coincidence can be reasonably perceived as portentious.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Way to demonstrate his point about Falsifiability. Also, I see you have a lot of questions, but you have no answers.

But just for arguments sake, let's pretend that Giuliani admitted that the NYFD "pulled" WTC7 and Rumsfeld admitted the Air Force shot down Flight 93, and they put out incorrect stories simply because everyone was in panic mode on 9/11.

Would that make any difference at all? Does it alter the accepted facts about Bin Laden/Mohammed Atta/Al Qaeda/Afganistan/etc? Would it change the official political narritive in the slightest? I one has to realize that it wouldn't, so therefore harping on this stuff is really a pointless activity.

Re:Futile task

[Cl1mh4224rd]

1. Not that I doubt the Pentagon was hit by an aircraft, but it is documented fact that several security camera tapes were confiscated after the crash. Release them in their entirety.

The videos are property of the companies they were confiscated from. It's up to those companies to publically release the videos, not the government.

2. Explain to me why standard operating procedures for NORAD that would normally require specific orders to disregard, were disregarded that day.

What procedures were ignored?

3. Explain to me how WTC-7 came to be the only steel-framed structure in recorded history to suffer a complete collapse as a result of fire alone. (FEMA's own report offers an elaborate theory which they say has a "low probability of occurance")

The FEMA report was preliminary. Further investigation, not to mention some pictures and some interviews with firefighters on the scene, indicate that WTC7 also suffered severe structural damage, not just fire.

4. In light of the signifigance (particularly to insurers, architechts, engineers) of WTC-7's collapse-due-to-fire, why were the building remains sold to China for scrap before they could be fully analyzed?

This is just plain wrong. http://911myths.com/html/recycled_steel.html

The building had been evacuated hours before the collapse, it was not necessary for rescue crews. This is a major event in the building industry: if steel structures can collapse from fire alone, insurance rates would have to be adjusted, architects would have to reconsider the design of thousands of structures.

Well, if a building couldn't collapse due to fire alone, then what's the point of fireproofing the steel columns?

5. If Flight 93 was destroyed by being crashed (intentionally or accidentally) into a field in Shanksville, PA, why did it leave a debris field over 8+ miles?

It didn't. Indian Lake is not 6 miles from the impact site, as some people would like you to believe. Popular Mechanics has some bits about Flight 93 (continues on next page, too) in their "9/11: Debunking The Myths" article.

Re:Futile task

[antiMStroll]

How about a video clearly showing a 757 hitting the Pentagon? That would put a quick end to this particular conspiracy theory.

Re:Futile task

[QuantumG]

only steel-framed structure in recorded history to suffer a complete collapse as a result of fire alone.

Call me crazy, but I kinda remember a plane crashing into it. I hardly see how that is "a result of fire alone". I would think it would "a result of a plane crashing into it and subsequent fire".

Re:Futile task

[geekoid]

"The building had been evacuated hours before the collapse, it was not necessary for rescue crews. This is a major event in the building industry: if steel structures can collapse from fire alone, insurance rates would have to be adjusted, architects would have to reconsider the design of thousands of structures."

They also over look the fract that there was something besides fire. There were tons of building pressing down on the weakening structure.

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

but you have no answers.

neither do you, so STFU!

I don't care what you think, if I want your opinion I'll watch Fox News.

Re:Futile task

[eh2o]

There was no firefighting effort in WTC-7 -- probably because a significant portion of NYPD had just been killed or was otherwise occupied -- if there was, they probably would have been able to keep the temperatures below the critical point where steel loses its structural strength, which is about 1800 deg c (well below the melting point btw). All of the other fires in steel frame high rises have at least had some firefighting effort.

Incidently its estimated the jet fuel in WTC-1 and WTC-2 burned off within the first 10 minutes, but what is important is that it got the fire very hot very quickly. You don't actually need jet fuel to hit 1800 deg C and bring down a building, just an unchecked fire of ordinary office junk.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Yeah, the term "political narritive" is really popular on Fox News. Good call, Einstein.

Well, I might not have successfully made my point, but least I have the satisfaction of causing some lame slashtroll to spaz out.

Re:Futile task

[damiam]

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure no planes ever crashed into WTC-7.

Re:Futile task

[Cl1mh4224rd]

how come there is no visible part of the plane after the crash, yet all the bodies in the plane were found?

Maybe because the plane had travelled into the building? There are numerous pictures of debris from the Pentagon floating all over the Internet. Also, I think saying "all the bodies in the plane were found" is a bit misleading. They found remains, not whole bodies...

How come so many incredible things happened coincidentally at the same time?

lol. What? You make it sound like they were all disconnected events that just "happened coincidentally at the same time". Give me a break...

How can you be so sure Bush is not related with this episode, since he actually profited from the whole thing big time?

I have to question in what way he benefitted, but now you're subscribing to the absurd idea that anyone who benefits from a tragedy had a hand in it. I suppose you should be blaming the families of the victims, too, since they received life insurance payments and all of their loved ones' possessions. Geez.

why the secret services had fled the WTC right before the collapse?

Got something to back that claim up? I've never heard it before.

Do you know what CIA has been doing in the last 70 years in my country (Italy) and in Sicily in particular?

What's the relevence?

Re:Futile task

[Silencer-7]

Actually, if WTC7 were 'pulled,' as it clearly appears on video( http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html), that changes everything. You can't claim that the fires were too dangerous to fight and still be able to go in and place demolitions charges or thermite that day. Thus it would mean they had been planted in advance. Which means this was not in any sense a surprise attack, and also puts the stories of WTC1 and WTC2 under severe scrutiny.

Re:Futile task

[BlueStraggler]

6. Why didn't the hijackers names appear on the released passenger manifests (example)? Furthermore, why did a number of the purported hijackers did turn up alive sometime after the attacks?

7. We know that Mohammed Atta flew one of the airplanes into the WTC because we found his lightly-scorched passport lying on the streets of lower Manhattan shortly afterward. WTF?

8. Osama Bin Laden allegedly orchestrated the greatest single criminal act of terror in history against the USA, a nation that does not have a history of taking such things lightly, so why, six months later, was no-one interested in catching the guy? As early as March 2002, Bush said "I truly am not concerned about him". Is he the bogeyman or just another operator who takes orders from his handlers?

Just asking.

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

So fire and the collapse somehow caused unexplained seismic disturbance BEFORE the collapse?

http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_03_02/NEW_SEIS MIC_/new_seismic_.html

Why did I have to point this out to you?

Do you believe buildings collapse from fire at near free-fall velocity?

Do you believe a kerosene fire could cause steel to melt, not just bend, into a molten puddle at the bottom of both the world trade center towers as well as tower 7, which was never hit by a plane?

If this is what you believe, give me some of what you're smokin.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Thanks for demonstrating that WTC7 Theory==Link To Web Video and Lots of Hand Waving. Nothing more to it.

No, it doesn't change anything. Unless you can demonstrate WHO demolished WTC7 and WHY (WTC1&2 had already collapsed -- mission accomplished!), it doesn't change the official narrative one iota. It also doesn't put anything under "scrutiny" except in the paranoid conspiracy sense.

It's much like "Oswald wasn't the lone gunman"... So What? Unless you prove who put him up to it and who else was involved, it doesn't really matter. This laser-like focus on irrelvant crap is exactly why the Kennedy Conspiracy movement failed, and why the "911 Truth" movement will never get out of the UFO basement.

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

there's no proof that you can give to conspiracy theorist, that will convince him he is wrong.

Sure there is.. just provide evidence, stop lying, and answer THE questions directly. Is that too much to ask in a free country? What have they got to hide?

That's it, exactly. They're hiding something, and I know it! Why are they hiding things from me? Keeping all these secrets looks really bad, y'know. Terrorists don't care what the tapes of the Pentagon crash show, but I sure do. If they've got nothing to hide...

When they come clean I'll be convinced.

Can you handle the truth? What if you're wrong and your government killed civilians to get you to go to war, while you supported them all along the way? What if someone you know died fighting in these unnecessary wars? Could you handle the truth? Would you have the courage to fight for justice, against all odds? Would you care?

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

Questions for you:

What if you're wrong and your government killed civilians to convince you to go to war, while you supported them all along the way? Would you have the courage to fight for justice, against all odds? Would you care?

Re:Futile task

[Nimey]

Every conspiracy theory is not falsifiable, so there's no point in disproving it.

s/conspiracy theory/religion/

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Cyno -- read my other posts in this story, and then go have your stupid conspiracy theory argument with someone else. Your reactionary peabrain didn't even comprehend the post you replied to.

Re:Futile task

[PenGun]

Jet fuel fire be 'bout 1000 deg C ... max ... eh'.

      PenGun
    Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:Futile task

[Silencer-7]

Wait, you're not suggesting that the same muslim terrorists infiltrated a building that housed the Office of Emergency Management, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Secret Service, and a variety of other interesting tenants (http://www.wtc7.net/articles/FEMA/WTC_ch5.htm) and managed to place explosive charges in the days or weeks leading up to September 11?

That would be completely implausible, of course. There's no possible way that could happen. Any of the abovementioned agencies, though, would be well-placed to do so, especially with Marvin Bush in charge of security for the whole WTC complex.

The videos you denigrate as 'web' were initially broadcast on network television, and if we're going to go down that route then why bother having a Slashdot story about the same shoddy Pentagon video showing up on the web?

Your own "laser-like focus" on WHO did it completely misses the larger point, that the arab hijackers could not possibly have destroyed building 7.

Re:Futile task

[Thing 1]

I think the point is: the buildings were demolished. They fell in 10 seconds, 1 second more than free fall from the top.

Why didn't the 9/11 Report include that information?

They were doing too good a cover-up job, it seems.

Re:Futile task

[Thing 1]

It didn't. Indian Lake is not 6 miles from the impact site, as some people would like you to believe. Popular Mechanics has some bits about Flight 93 (continues on next page, too) in their "9/11: Debunking The Myths" article.

This made me think about the few days we had where no planes were in the sky.

To whose benefit was that?

If there was a cover-up, would it not be valuable to have nobody looking down on you during that time? I wonder what satellite photos show, and whether they're classified.

Especially disturbing is the disappearance of all that gold.

Re:Futile task

[Shelled]

I'm sorry, that post was either an incoherent rant or an illogical ad hominem. No conspiracy was ever proven true? After the fact the name changes to 'history', possibly part of your confusion. Or are you perhaps simply pre-defining 'conspiracy nut' to mean 'those who believe in the unprovable', rendering your statement a tautology and devoid of content? Statements such as "there's no proof that you can give to conspiracy theorist, that will convince him he is wrong" suggest the latter. Given the strength of your statement though I'm guessing nothing I write will convice you otherwise.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

No, if you were paying attention, you would have realized I am not suggesting any theories about WTC7 at all. What I am suggesting is that you and your site is a gigantic waste of time that will amount to nothing, politically. Have fun.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

I think the point is: the buildings were demolished.

My point, which you so deftly ignored, is "So What?". You have a lot more dots to connect before it means anything to anyone other than your fellow loons.

Re:Futile task

[Eggz Factor]

Conspiracy or not, this recent release gives us precious little more information that the original 5 frames released from this angle. What about the rest of the tapes??

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

Your reactionary peabrain didn't even comprehend the post you replied to.

I'm sorry, it was difficult to understand this:

I one has to realize that it wouldn't, so therefore harping on this stuff is really a pointless activity.

please forgive me for being emotional about this subject..

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

I disagree.

It comes down to words like theory and data and scientific method, but I'm sure its just a fad.

Don't worry, go on believing they'll never figure it out. This CSI watching generation will have the wool pulled right over their eyes just like the last. There's no difference about their use of blogs and media and networks that could change a thing.

But what if we're wrong? That's what I want to know.. what do you think will happen if you're wrong?

Re:Futile task

[Rocko's Modurn Life]

No, actually you won't change your mind. Even if all these questions were answered with viable and logical responses you would still hold your beliefs and come up with new reasons why the answers don't work.

There is only one thing everyone agrees on and that is that a plane hit the second world trade center while black smoke was coming from the first. And the only reason we all agree on that is because there is simply too much video, professional and amatuer, for that to be false. other than that everything else is up for debate.

Other than what I named above, if you can give me one other fact you and non-conspiracy-kool-aid-drinking-government-report -believing kooks agree on and I will give you enough "information" to make you doubt that fact.

As for military operations, if you've ever been in an emergency or mass casualty situation, the first thing to go out the door is the plans you made to contend with an emergency or mass casualty because for the most part the situation requires a great amount of flexibility. For instance, remember those emergency broadcast tests with the annoying tone TV stations use? If you aren't going to use those on 9/11, when are you going to use them? So yes, proper operating procedure and the "imutable" laws of physics went out the window. As they should.

In an emergency, I don't want the people I depend on going, "Well in paragraph 3, subsection 8a, it says..." I want them to use their common sense and judgement and get the job done.

Re:Futile task

[solitas]

Do you believe buildings collapse from fire at near free-fall velocity?

Does anyone believe that every time all that falling (increasing) mass hit another stationary floor it dead-stopped and started accelerating at 32 ft/sec/sec all over again?

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Wrong about what? That WTC7 is the "Grassy Knoll" of 9/11? No, that's already been demonstrated.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Sorry, delete the first "I":

One has to realize that [Proving controled demo of WTC7] wouldn't [change the political reality], so therefore harping on this stuff is really a pointless activity.

Re:Futile task

[hackstraw]

6. Why was Bush allowed to finish reading his goat book and not immediately picked up by Secret Service people and stuffed into the limo like Reagan was when he was shot? If I were president I would have had all of them fired and have the protocols of Secret Service reexamined.

Re:Futile task

[khallow]

Especially disturbing is the disappearance of all that gold.

Ok, you hooked me there. What gold?

Re:Futile task

[Thing 1]

See here.

Re:Futile task

[Thing 1]

Don't know why you're calling me a loon for asking questions. Do you disagree with building demolition experts, who say that fire cannot cause a building of such construction to fall into tiny pieces that do minimal damage to surrounding buildings? That, in fact, the only time in recorded history for fire to have done so is those three buildings on that one day?

You're absolutely right. There are more dots to connect. What's the easiest way to connect dots? Sticking our collective heads in the sand, or going out and asking questions and obtaining answers that can then be analyzed?

For the government to ignore this data in its public reports makes the populace wonder why the government is saying what it's saying.

There's a reason. It's purely financial.

Re:Futile task

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Umm, like to defend our country, stuff like that. So no jets were scrambled. They Stood down. You don't find the least problem with that?

Do you have any idea what NORAD was supposed to defend against before 9/11? Apparently not...

NORAD was charged with the identification of and defense against incoming, external threats to the United States.

And, no... NORAD did not stand down.

Since then, Silverstein, the owner, has admitted he had the building "pulled".

False. "Pull" is not a demolitions industry term for explosive demolition; "shoot" is the term. "Pull" refers to mechanically demolishing the building using a wrecking ball of cables, etc. Additionally, Silverstein was talking to the fire commander about the firefighters around WTC7 and their effort to do whatever it was they were doing: "pull [the effort]".

. . .y'all will come up with another theory anyway, and disregard the plain facts as usual.

lol. I'm sorry, aren't you the one that just demosntrated a total lack of understand in regards to NORAD's pre-9/11 mission? Really, who's the one misinformed or uninformed here?

Fact of the matter is, analysts were able to get a *few* peices of steel, and yes, it took a while to clear the site, but the fact of the matter is the area was completely closed off, and the steel *was* sent to India and China to be recycled.

I never said the steel wasn't sent to foreign countries, so I don't know what your point is in mentioning the that. As far as your "*few* pieces" statement, so what? We have at least one investigator stating clearly that what they analyzed was enough. No one but the conspiracy theorists think this is questionable. Why? Because they need it to be. You're grasping...

Do the research, or at least read the work of people have, rather than regurgitating the govt approved "story".

lol. Sf911T... The biggest bunch of non-scholars I've ever seen. Many people are still waiting for anything from these folks that could be considered valid research.

Re:Futile task

[Trogre]

In short, there's no proof that you can give to conspiracy theorist, that will convince him he is wrong. Just ask any of them, if there is anything in the world that would make him change his mind.

Interesting. Let me try it:

Is there any proof I could give you to demonstrate the Theory of Evolution is wrong? Is there anything in the world that would make you change your mind?

Re:Futile task

[nickmalthus]

Actually this is a pissing contest between the People and the government. If a consensus of citizens has doubts about the government's account of 9/11 and demand the government release all the evidence and research they have on 9/11 then they are obligated to do so. If the people demand a new completely independent 9/11 commission with full access then the government must concede. It doesn't matter if the government thinks it is foolish or a waste of time; plain and simple the people demand it and since the governments only purpose of existence is to serve all of its citizens they must comply. We have a right to petition our government and we make no apologies for exercising that right.

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

How much mass and how much reinforced structure is it hitting?

I like physics.. care to hash out the problem for me? I'm lazy..

Besides, seismic data cannot be falsified. Care to explain how a building could create a magnitude 2.3 seismic disturbance moments before its collapse? A truck bomb, or anything not attacked to the ground, doesn't even register.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:mWrTSEreU6UJ:ww w.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/Eq/20010911_WTC/WTC_LDEO_ KIM.pdf+Lamont-Doherty+Earth+Observatory+Sep.+11+2 001&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4&client=firefox-a

In case you don't read it, here's a quote:

An explosion at a gasoline tank farm near Newark NJ on January 7, 1983 generated observable P and S waves and short-period Rg waves (ML3) at PAL. Its Rg is comparable to that for
WTC collapse 2.

Whatever happened on Sep. 11th, it wasn't just planes flying into buildings. To believe the official story you gotta throw the laws of physics out the window. Thus the US government is lying. Duh!

There is proof that the official story is bullshit. So what you got to put this genie back in the bottle, hmm?

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

It wouldn't?

Proving that the government caused the WTC collapse wouldn't change political reality.. hrmmm.

That's interesting.

Re:Futile task

[GuloGulo2]

"The video was doctored"

That's the response from the conspiracy theorists to your video.

Re:Futile task

[Cyno]

9/11 must have lots of grassy knolls, then. Plenty of grass for everyone to sit and discuss what they saw. No harm in speculating about it, is there? Harmless conspiracy theories will never change your reality, so why are you so discouraging? Why even waste your time trying to discredit them?

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

More handwaving, yawn. Let me know when you find the guy who pushed the button.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Why even waste your time trying to discredit them?

I'm not, I just made a meta-comment. You, however, are a rude fuckwit who has repeatedly attempted to stick words in my mouth. That makes you a stupid person, which obviously makes your ideas look stupid. The best thing some people can do to help their belief system is to keep it to themselves.

Re:Futile task

[Darby]

I have to question in what way he (Bush) benefitted,

You've thrown out a lot of credibility with this. You're either pretty much totally uninformed about anything that's been going on in this country since 2000 or you're an apologist. That obviously doesn't lend any credence to any of the particular theories running around, but the one thing that's 100% certain is that the administration had motive in spades.

The primary goal of this administration since prior to the 2000 election was invading Iraq. They stated flat out that to convince the American people to do it, they would require a Pearl Harbor level event.

Also, given the facts coming out at the time about the stolen election in 2000 and the low approval level of the administration, it's quite obvious to anybody that 9/11 was the greatest gift the administration could have ever gotten.

So like I said, all this proves is motive. However all I'm doing is pointing out how completely out of touch with reality you look when you "have to question in what way he (Bush) benefitted" when the motive is clear and obvious and has been for years.

Re:Futile task

[Thing 1]

Wow. Why does it matter whose hand pushed the button?

Isn't it enough to know that a button was pushed, and the government didn't notice it in their investigation?

That says either incompetence or conspiracy. Either way, it stinks. And we don't need to see a hand to smell the stink.

Re:Futile task

[NutscrapeSucks]

Unfortunately not -- like I said unless you can figure out WHY someone blew up WTC7, it's a lot of gumflapping that will not affect mainstream opinions of 9/11.

Re:Futile task

[kupci]

NORAD was charged with the identification of and defense against incoming, external threats to the United States. And, no... NORAD did not stand down.

Sadly you're incorrect. NORAD Stand Down

Since then, Silverstein, the owner, has admitted he had the building "pulled".

False. "Pull" is not a demolitions industry term for explosive demolition; "shoot" is the term. "Pull" refers to mechanically demolishing the building using a wrecking ball of cables, etc.

Ah, straw man argument. These are Silverstein's words. He's not defining the term. That's what he said. Read it again.

Additionally, Silverstein was talking to the fire commander about the firefighters around WTC7 and their effort to do whatever it was they were doing: "pull [the effort]".

Haha. Nice try. If that makes any sense at all to you, fine. Wow, you people really have to try hard don't you?

Re:Futile task

[Gadzinka]

Is there any proof I could give you to demonstrate the Theory of Evolution is wrong? Is there anything in the world that would make you change your mind?

You don't get it, do you?

The "trust" in theory of evolution is just this: trust. Not the belief. If you give me an example that organisms don't change in response to enviromental conditions, than you've proved that evolution doesn't exist.

It will be incompetent design, panspermia or whatever. Just give me the frelling proof, not unfalsifiable conjecture.

Robert

Re:Futile task

[Gadzinka]

Every conspiracy theory is not falsifiable, so there's no point in disproving it.

s/conspiracy theory/religion/

You've noticed that too? I didn't rant about it for the fear of starting flamewar, but yeah... I do believe that every religion is not falsifiable.

Robert

Re:Futile task

[Gadzinka]

I am assuming you get lots of people just not "getting" your .sig

You know, some people do whois on this IP and seem to be convinced that I am some superadmin from AGH (mining and smelter technical university), some do even weirder things, but suprisingly large number of people don't understand (one way or another) that it is just camouflaged "BOFH"...

They don't make the geeks like they used to...

Robert

Re:Well thats nice

[Jugalator]

While I'm of the opinion that just because little of it can be seen doesn't imply that it must not have happened, I must still say that it's strange that this particular building isn't under better surveillance that they can barely catch an entire plane flying into it clearly.

I'm not paranoid! I'm not paranoid! I'm not parano

[fm6]

Bah! You're obviously part of the conpiracy!

right.....

[ngdbsdmn]

... nothing to see here, move along

Re:Where's The Plane?

[bheading]

You are factually incorrect (Google it; there are pictures showing aircraft parts on the Pentagon lawn) but let's assume your theory has some basis.

What happened to the Flight 93 that left the airport with all the passengers and crew on board ?

Re:Well thats nice

[rizzo420]

prove that the 9/11 attacks were planned by the government... please. i'm sick of hearing all this crap about how the government is covering up some big plan they had that would allow them to enact martial law. i have yet to see any sort of concrete evidence or proof or even reason that they would do this without having anyone come out beforehand...

i'm not saying i trust the government 100%, but i trust conspiracy theorists, like yourself, about 1%. guess who wins my trust? the burden of proof is in your hands, not the government. they've given enough proof and reason that this was caused by terrorists.

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I was starting to disapprove of him, but now I have remembered how evil and mean the dark Arabs are, and realize that Dear Leader is protecting us by fighting them over there rather than over here.

And that strategy has worked exactly when in history?

what this video proves

[SocietyoftheFist]

The heart of the US military apparently isn't watched any harder than me when I drive around town. Really.... are those two time lapse cameras really the best they had?

Re:what this video proves

[geekoid]

The outside ameras are not used to pick out details, and they certainly aren't design to capture this kind of event.

Re:what this video proves

[CptNerd]

Yes, it is believable, after all, we were on a footing to prepare for incoming ICBMs, not truck bombers or rogue planes. Hell, I used to drive past there on Washington Blvd every day, and often saw the helicopters taking off and landing on the helipad there, within easy range of any drive-by with a grudge. There used to be at least a half-dozen entrances to the Pentagon's various parking lots, with little more than a guard shack and a simple barrier to block them. The Cold War was over, we could live on the Peace Dividend, no need for "paranoia" anymore. The Clinton Govt. had brought us peace, remember?

Re:what this video proves

[Winlin]

Yeah, after all, it wasn't like there had been this horrific truck bombing of a government building only a few years before that...how could the government have ever thought that could happen.

Re:what this video proves

[Idarubicin]

The heart of the US military apparently isn't watched any harder than me when I drive around town. Really.... are those two time lapse cameras really the best they had?

Presumably Pentagon security is (was?) more designed to deal with security threats from people and ground vehicles. If they spot something funny on the cameras, they can always send out the Marines to investigate.

There's no reason to have a high-frame-rate high-resolution camera solely to capture pretty footage of a 757 hitting the building. It would give you a tenth of a second of warning: utterly useless from the standpoint of preserving live or property. It would allow you to determine that an airplane hit the building--utterly useless because you would already know that an airplane hit the building. Granted, it would allow you to debunk conspiracy theorists--but they wouldn't believe your video anyway.

Re:Where's The Plane?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

What happened to the Flight 93 that left the airport with all the passengers and crew on board ?

Wow, I just noticed this (don't know why I never noticed before) but this plane has the same freakin' flight number as an airplane in The Twilight Zone that never returned- got lost in time.

The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

Many people who rant on and on about 'conspiracy theorists' follow beliefs that are just as questionable. Their position may be supported by certain governments or the mass media in various nations. But on the basis of evidence alone, their stance is often far weaker than that of even the so-called 'conspiracy theorists'.

Talk negatively about conspiracy theories all you want. Just realize that the story you hold dear is just that: a conspiracy theory.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[NutscrapeSucks]

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

Excellent point AC. Most Conspiracy Theories can be dismissed easily because there probably wasn't even a consipracy to begin with. But 911 *was* a conspiracy, so by defintion any explaination is a conspiracy theory.

Note that even the official theory has all sort of bizarre aspects (James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[honkycat]

Yeah, but there's a big difference between a conspiracy between religious extremists to hijack planes and crash them into the buildings of their enemy and a conspiracy of a government to arrange for an attack on its own people. The latter is what people mean when they talk about a conspiracy in this context. The former, yeah, it's technically and legally a conspiracy, but it's not the kind of thing that you can protect against with tin foil.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[NutscrapeSucks]

Well, there's also a big difference between "The government used hologram missiles and controlled demolition to blow up WTC" and "The government used certain bureaucratic mechanisms in order to increase the likelihood of that a known terrorist plot would be successful for ultra-cynical political gain."

Of course, most people in the Conspiracy Theory world don't really understand the difference and there's very much a "ends justify the means" attitude where any crazy idea is good if it will raise doubt on the official theory, and that approach tends to cast the whole lot in tinfoil.

And it still doesn't change the fact that an official conspiracy theory was put forward, and acted on, without a whole lot of evidence. (Not just "religious extremists", but the whole "Al Qaeda==Worldwide Terrorist Network", when the reality is that the conspiracy theory created Al Qaeda rather than visa-versa.)

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Jack9]

Too bad that they are still both conspiracies, all the same.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[grammar fascist]

Yeah, but there's a big difference between a conspiracy between religious extremists to hijack planes and crash them into the buildings of their enemy and a conspiracy of a government to arrange for an attack on its own people. The latter is what people mean when they talk about a conspiracy in this context. The former, yeah, it's technically and legally a conspiracy, but it's not the kind of thing that you can protect against with tin foil.

You can protect against a government arranging an attack on its own people with tin foil? Sweet! Does it, like, burn their skin when they touch it, or do we have some special weapons made out of it or something?

I've never heard of this before. You should get the word out.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[ph1ll]

But the sad truth is that authorities often allow disasters to happen. A couple of examples in American history alone that I can think of off the top of my head:

• There is evidence to suggest Roosevelt knew about the Japanese plans to attack prior to Pearl Harbour to unite the wavering American people in entering World War II. Though this is still somewhat contentious, it is undeniable that he was certainly forcing Japan to attack by refusing to sell them fuel (for example). A sharp operator like FDR would have easily forseen the outcome of that.

• The incident that is generally considered the start of the Vietnam War were two alleged attacks on the US in the Gulf of Tonkin.

  The first involved a single bullet hitting an American boat. The second both sides now agree never happened. At best it was over-eager sailors. At worst, an attempt by the US Military to entangle America in a "proper" war against communism. It depends on your interpretation. But what is surprising is if the banal, first explanation is true, one would have thought there would have been some due diligence before committing the lives of 58 000 Americans to a war the US ultimately lost...

I'm sure many other countries have acted in a similar manner.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[ScuzzMonkey]

While your points are correct, I think it's safe to say they're only really significant in hindsight. One of the classic problems with conspiracy theory is that it retroactively highlights facts that, at the time, no one would necessarily have thought significant. Roosevelt may well have expected a Japanese attack of some sort; he almost certainly never imagined a defeat on the scale of Pearl Harbor and the loss of the Phillipines. Similarly, it's unlikely that anyone in the chain of command responsible for blowing the Tonkin incident out of proportion imagined what a quagmire Vietnam would turn into when we took over the war there and their motivations may have been much less grand than sparking a full-blown intervention anyway.

So I think it's a little off-base to say that anyone allowed disasters to happen. The chain of events leading up to them is always clear in retrospect, but another flaw in conspiracy theory is that it attributes such masterful vision and control to the conspiracists leading into the event, and then presumes such incompetence in handling and covering it up. In reality, no one has such complete control nor such prescience. Things become immensely confusing and fractious around such events, and no one who has ever been in the middle of such confusion could give much credence to these grand theories of shadowy orchestration. The Clausewitzian concept of "friction" is very real and works against such clockwork machinations as most concepts of conspiracy would have you believe.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[rs79]

"You can protect against a government arranging an attack on its own people with tin foil? Sweet!"

Are you saying it never happens, ever?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[myowntrueself]

But the sad truth is that authorities often allow disasters to happen

Coventry.

Also...

Vietnam [snip] to a war the US ultimately lost

I thought that was supposed to have been a draw?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[NutscrapeSucks]

Uh, South Vietnam collapsed and was taken over by the Communists, which is exactly what the US was trying to prevent. How would that ever be considered a "draw"?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[code_monkey_steve]

Most Conspiracy Theories can be dismissed easily because there probably wasn't even a consipracy to begin with. But 911 *was* a conspiracy, so by defintion any explaination is a conspiracy theory.

Ha ha, you consipiracy nuts always make me laugh. If you'd open your eyes, you'd see the obvious: THERE WAS NO CONSPIRACY! The events of 9/11 were all according to the secret plan of *one single person* who, acting completely independantly, crashed the four planes and fabricated the necessary evidence to cover-up his involvement.

You hear that, you rabid conspiracy freak?! JUST ONE GUY.

His name is Fred.

/hates Fred

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[kupci]

While your points are correct, I think it's safe to say they're only really significant in hindsight. One of the classic problems with conspiracy theory is that it retroactively highlights facts that, at the time, no one would necessarily have thought significant.

Well, don't call it conspiracy theory then if that trips you up. Ask the simple question: How did the Towers collapse? Do the research. In the links below, Jones points out that in science, one starts from the facts, from the evidence, then you build your theory. But the main stream media has fed you the theory "19 crazy arab hijackers + jet fuel" (the conclusion we are to draw), from which you build your facts. Any facts that don't fit in, are thrown away. That's bad science. No wonder people are confused. One simple example: take the 911 Report. Didn't even cover the collapse of WTC 7. Why? Because it doesn't make sense, doesn't fit in with their "theory".

The chain of events leading up to them is always clear in retrospect, but another flaw in conspiracy theory is that it attributes such masterful vision and control to the conspiracists leading into the event, and then presumes such incompetence in handling and covering it up. In reality, no one has such complete control nor such prescience.

What incompetence? If "conspiracy" theorists are still relegated to the back pages, if at all, and dismissed as theorists, well they did a very good job. One flaw in the "19 Arab taking out the towers" theory is the military precision required for an effort like this. Moussawi? C'mon.

If you follow the "theory" as trotted out by the Main Stream Media, there was incredible *incompetence* that allowed this to happen. The incompetence of our CIA, such that every other spy agency in the world was warning American officials, yet they were ignored. The incompetence that low-level underlings at the FBI tried to report to their superiors that foreigners trying to learn how to fly, but were stonewalled in their request to investigate - not once, but 70 times! Criminal negligence, or just following orders?

Condi, or maybe Bush said, "Who could've imagined this would happen?". Well, just the military, because that is apparently the reason NORAD was mysteriously shut down, and no jets were scrambled, because the flight control folks were told this was a "training exercise" - involving hijacked jets hitting the towers. So they just happened to be training for an attack that no one could've imagined.

One of the best sources for technical details is the WTC 7 Research site, which is apparently down. Odd. This one is similar, not sure if it's just down or >>> the descent is beginning!

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[shmlco]

"One flaw in the "19 Arab taking out the towers" theory is the military precision required for an effort like this."

Military precision? I'm confused. How much "military precision" does one need to book tickets on four different airline flights that will be taking off at about the same time? And then say, "Okay, twenty minutes into the flight, get up and..."

I once arranged flights for people leaving from NY, San Diego, Indy, and Chicago to go skiing in Denver. We all ARRIVED within 30 minutes of one another, gathered up our gear, headed out to the waiting rental car, and took off to the prearranged condo.

I guess I must be ex-military...

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[honkycat]

No, tin foil never, ever protects against government conspiracies. At least, not any more. The governments all have tin-foil piercing rounds now. Kevlar may protect you, but only against the smaller local governments who can't afford higher power ammo.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[honkycat]

Um, they are both conspiracies, but they are not at all the same. If 9/11 were shown to be one type of these conspiracies, that would be HUGE news and would have inestimable world-wide political repercussions. If it were the other, there would be no surprise at all.

No one questions whether there was a terrorist conspiracy to hijack planes and knock down the WTC. That's why no one is referring to the Al Qaeda "conspiracy" when they talk about 9/11 conspiracy theories. They're talking about whether that conspiracy (or some part of it) involves our own government.

Yes, the word "conspiracy" describes either case, but the implications are very different. Arguing that 9/11 must have been a conspiracy because of this is a silly rhetorical game. No one was arguing that there wasn't some kind of conspiracy, they're arguing whether or not the government was involved in it.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Yvanhoe]

Note that even the official theory has all sort of bizarre aspects (James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

* Intact hijacker passport found in the WTC ruins

* Corpse identification thanks to fingerprints in the pentagon

* Rumsfled making a lapsus about "these terrorists who pilot a plane into the WTC and a missile into this very building" while at the Pentagon

* Tapes that would really show the pentagon plane never disclosed (3 more to go with more than one blurry frame)

* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[mpe]

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

It isn't even an especially credible one, it rapidly falls apart with such matters ast the identities of the hijackers.

Their position may be supported by certain governments or the mass media in various nations. But on the basis of evidence alone, their stance is often far weaker than that of even the so-called 'conspiracy theorists'.

Whilst there are certainly alternative theories which are less or equally credible there are theories which are rather more credible.

Talk negatively about conspiracy theories all you want.

There are plenty of criminal cases where the prosecution presents nothing but "conspiracy theories"...

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[mpe]

Most Conspiracy Theories can be dismissed easily because there probably wasn't even a consipracy to begin with. But 911 *was* a conspiracy, so by defintion any explaination is a conspiracy theory.

It's rather difficult to come up with an explanation which does not involve conspiracy, it's even harder to come up with such an explanation which isn't obviously pure sciene fiction.

Note that even the official theory has all sort of bizarre aspects (James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

Except that the bunker is a cave without even 19th century communications technology...

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[mpe]

Yeah, but there's a big difference between a conspiracy between religious extremists to hijack planes and crash them into the buildings of their enemy and a conspiracy of a government to arrange for an attack on its own people.

These are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It's perfectly possible for a government to not take steps it could do to prevent an attack even to render support to the "terrorists". It's certainly possible to find examples of these kind of things throughout recorded history.

The latter is what people mean when they talk about a conspiracy in this context. The former, yeah, it's technically and legally a conspiracy, but it's not the kind of thing that you can protect against with tin foil.

It certainly isn't much use against the latter.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[mpe]

Of course, most people in the Conspiracy Theory world don't really understand the difference and there's very much a "ends justify the means" attitude where any crazy idea is good if it will raise doubt on the official theory, and that approach tends to cast the whole lot in tinfoil.

Some of the "crazy ideas" may actually come from supporters of the officially blessed theory, as part of a technique called "poisoning the well".

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[caluml]

So can you provide evidence of:
* Rumsfled making a lapsus about "these terrorists who pilot a plane into the WTC and a missile into this very building" while at the Pentagon
* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[mpe]

Ask the simple question: How did the Towers collapse? Do the research. In the links below, Jones points out that in science, one starts from the facts, from the evidence, then you build your theory. But the main stream media has fed you the theory "19 crazy arab hijackers + jet fuel" (the conclusion we are to draw), from which you build your facts. Any facts that don't fit in, are thrown away. That's bad science. No wonder people are confused. One simple example: take the 911 Report. Didn't even cover the collapse of WTC 7. Why? Because it doesn't make sense, doesn't fit in with their "theory".

The fundermental problem is that no such steel framed building has ever totally collapsed due to fire in over a century, except on that one day. Even though there have been fires in such buildings before and since, including one in the 1970's in one of the WTC towers. WTC7 wasn't even hit by a plane, there is even reason to doubt that the impact damage to WTC1 and WTC2 was sufficent to greatly greatly weaken the structure.

One flaw in the "19 Arab taking out the towers" theory is the military precision required for an effort like this. Moussawi?

The most obvious flaw is that several of the alleged hijackers turned up alive and well a few days later, which logically casts doubt on the identities of all 19.

If you follow the "theory" as trotted out by the Main Stream Media, there was incredible *incompetence* that allowed this to happen. The incompetence of our CIA, such that every other spy agency in the world was warning American officials, yet they were ignored. The incompetence that low-level underlings at the FBI tried to report to their superiors that foreigners trying to learn how to fly, but were stonewalled in their request to investigate - not once, but 70 times! Criminal negligence, or just following orders?

If the latter you'd expect some action to be taken at the very least officials to be fired and publically humiliated.

Condi, or maybe Bush said, "Who could've imagined this would happen?". Well, just the military, because that is apparently the reason NORAD was mysteriously shut down, and no jets were scrambled, because the flight control folks were told this was a "training exercise" - involving hijacked jets hitting the towers. So they just happened to be training for an attack that no one could've imagined.

Similarly someone at Fox television used the "unimaginable plot" of crashing an airliner into a certain New York landmark in the first episode of "The Lone Gunmen"; in the TV movie "By Dawn's Early Light" a mid air collision is deliberatly engineered between "Looking Glass" and "NECAP", on the orders of the US President; Stephen King wrote a book called "The Running Man" which ends with a plane being hijacked and used as a guided missile; Dale Brown wrote a book called "Storming Heaven" where terrorists use airliners as both bombers and missiles and finally Japanese military pilots in WWII would deliberatly crash their planes into US ships...
Quite obviously in the history of aviation nobody has ever considered the possibility of a piloted aircraft being used as a "guided missile" :)

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Anivair]

word. My official position is that I don't nessisarily believe the vast majority of the conspiracies about this event, but neither do I believe the official story as presented to us (because it violates the laws of physics in several places). I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Mumia]

It's no longer a "theory" when the plotter(s) admit in videotapes that they indeed did plan and execute the attacks. On the other hand the nuts that claim the Jews, ZOG, and or the Neocons were behind the attacks haven't gotten any such confessions to back up their kook conspiracy theories.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[leonardluen]

also how does "* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar "
prove anything other than we don't know WHO the hijackers were?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[jedidiah]

> Well, don't call it conspiracy theory then if that trips you up.
> Ask the simple question: How did the Towers collapse? Do the
> research. In the links below, Jones points out that in science,
> one starts from the facts, from the evidence, then you build your
> theory. But the main stream media has fed you the theory "19 crazy

          Personally, I take my cue from the half of the family that are all
civil engineers, some of which have 20+ years of practical experience.
None of them seem to be running around fixating on conspiracy theories
about how the World Trade Center towers fell down. If you aren't really
qualified to sort this all out for yourself then anyone can feed you a
convincing line of bull.

          EIT's and PE's are there for a reason.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Jack9]

I am not engaging in an argument, I am pointing out a fact. They are both conspiracies and therefore both have elements of hidden agendas and obscured facts.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Yvanhoe]

Would a .mil reference be enough ? Ctrl-f to "missile"

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2001/t11182 001_t1012pm.html

I cannot find a .gov or .mil link stating the "terrorists" identities are not known and we only know the name of the person from whom they stole passports, I saw that in "9/11 Loose changes", free download anywhere google can find it.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Yvanhoe]

Well, we don't know who they were, we don't even know their names. But we know they are Osama's drones. I am not challenging the conclusions, it still would be nice to be fed with informations and not bullshits...

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[leonardluen]

that is the problem...how would you know when they aren't feeding you bullshit? what if they already are telling you what they really know and you just don't believe it because you think the story you made up is more plausible?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[nickmalthus]

The only people that have the blueprints to the WTC is the government even though they were built with public money and no longer exist. I find it difficult to believe a civil engineer would certify another engineers collapse findings without reviewing the blueprints first hand.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[honkycat]

Ok, that's fine. Parents of my original post seemed to be making such an argument (not sure if they were the ones I responded to directly or not), so I misunderstood.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Yvanhoe]

I am pointing at contradictions in their stories with the list (few posts above) of facts that are reasonally well documented. I am not making a story up, I don't have enough facts for that. All I know is that I don't know what happened on 9/11/2001 and that the official version doesn't hold.

This administration has been seen telling a big lie (Iras has WMD) and getting along with that without even a word of excuse.
It then told another big lie (Iraq-Al Quaeda ties). What is so unbelievable in the fact that they could have lied on another intelligence report ?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[AmericanGladiator]

You probably agree with that wacko Mahmoud Ahmadinijad (sp) that the holocaust was a conspiracy! It's pretty hard to deny eyewitness accounts (via telephones) from the doomed passengers themselves.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[poot_rootbeer]

* Intact hijacker passport found in the WTC ruins

I visited the area around The Pit a few weeks after the attacks, and there was no shortage of intact papers. It's entirely plausible that a passport might be among them.

* Corpse identification thanks to fingerprints in the pentagon

Not a forensic scientist, so I couldn't say whether it's plausible or not. Same is true of most people.

* Rumsfled making a lapsus about "these terrorists who pilot a plane into the WTC and a missile into this very building" while at the Pentagon

Rumsfeld didn't say those specific words, it is misleading for you to put them within quotes as though he had. And if you want to get into semantics, an airplane IS a missile: something thrown or otherwise propelled through the air.

You'd also have to explain where Flight 77 ended up instead, if you want me to believe that it didn't crash into the Pentagon.

* Tapes that would really show the pentagon plane never disclosed (3 more to go with more than one blurry frame)

? SYNTAX ERROR

* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar

Rather, people with the same (or just similar) names as those given for the hijackers on the flight manifests (fake IDs? identity theft?) are living in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. That's not proof, that's coincidence.

Not that the Official Story is all that airtight, but it survives an attack from Occam's Razor better than any other explanation I've heard can.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Colonel Angus]

Rumsfeld didn't say those specific words, it is misleading for you to put them within quotes as though he had. And if you want to get into semantics, an airplane IS a missile: something thrown or otherwise propelled through the air.

Actually, it was pretty well paraphrased. What he said according the DOD's website (emphasis mine):

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.

And the getting into semantics about an airplane being a missile doesn't jive either since he specifically mentions the American Airlines flight directly. It would stand to reason that he wouldn't then refer to a plane as a missile in the next sentence.

I certainly don't subscribe to all of this conspiracy theory, but nor do I fully subscribe to the official version. There are some oddities. But to say that the previous poster was lying for his representation of Rumsfeld's words is false.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Cyno]

No, no, there are no conspiracies. People are generally good, loving and caring. They would never hurt eachother intentionally.

And the President of the United States is a Saint!

In reality, no one has such complete control nor such prescience.

You mean, you can't imagine any organization with such complete control of the WTC and the Pentagon? Not one?

I don't believe in fairy tales and I don't believe in conspiracy theories like the official story. I do, however, believe in facts.

Fact: Governments have attacked their citizens before, often to sway public opinion.
Fact: The US was attacked.
Fact: The US was not attacked by Iraq.
Fact: The US government lied about Iraq's involvement in the attacks, using the attacks to sway public opinion to support the war.
Fact: The US government knows more than you or I about the attacks, is witholding evidence, confiscating evidence and lying.

That's enough for me to distrust. Do I think the US government allowed 9/11 to happen? Yes. Do I think they planned it? I don't know yet, that's what I'm trying to prove.

What we need to do is stop discouraging discussion on this topic. I don't know what happened on 9/11, do you? I assume you have evidence to prove your theories..

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Cyno]

We don't even know if they were on the planes..

but we assume planes don't fly themselves..

But as soon as you start questioning WHO was on the planes, you start questioning WHO might have been behind the attacks. Perhaps it wasn't Osama. He certainly wasn't on the planes. How can you be so sure Al-Qaeda was involved at all? Who do you trust? Seriously, do you trust your government? Why?

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Antaeus Feldspar]

There's a difference between a theory which involves a conspiracy, and a "conspiracy theory". The former suggests that the acts of a conspiracy can be inferred from the evidence. The latter suggests that the existence of a conspiracy should be presumed in order to explain why the acts supposedly committed by the conspiracy ''cannot'' be inferred from the evidence.
Classic example is the supposed Satanist conspiracy of the 1980s. <Nutjobs> There's a huge international network of Satanists committing ritual murders and torture and child pornography at daycare centers! <FBI> We can't find any evidence whatsoever for the existence of this conspiracy. <Nutjobs> There's a huge international network of Satanists committing ritual murders and torture and child pornography at daycare centers, and it's infiltrated the FBI!

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[lawpoop]

The BBC, one of the world's most reputable news service, is reporting that the hijackers identities' are suspect.This is blatantly stolen from another post:

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/15591 51.stm [bbc.co.uk]

BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Hijack 'suspect' alive in Morocco
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/15586 69.stm [bbc.co.uk]

BBC News | AMERICAS | FBI probes hijackers' identities
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1553754. stm [bbc.co.uk]

Did you really think you were going to find any information that disagreed with the official story on a .mil or .gov website? If so, you need to have your critical thinking skills checked.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Cyno]

Occam's Razor

Its interesting you mention Occam's Razor.

So, its either this Osama bin Laden, terrorist mastermind who lives in caves, with expert pilots who could crash 747s through light poles and into buildings without losing control, hitting the lawn, etc. Or its the US Government with all the resources it has at its disposal to make it look like a terrorist attack.

Well, I just don't know.. Jack must have traded his cow for some magic bullets.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[ScuzzMonkey]

I think rational discussion of the topic would be great. I don't think that is possible with anyone who insists on labeling as "Fact:" a lot of things which by their very nature can't possibly be known as such.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[pagej97]

Which of his facts don't you agree with? They all look like fairly conservative statements to me.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[BitchKapoor]

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.

I don't know what actually happened, but given that the "(inaudible)" implies there was some uncertainty in the transcript, "as a" would make a lot more sense in place of "and the," i.e., "using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens as a missile to damage this building"

Further...

[Robotron23]

Further to my article posting...it appears the "new" video is no more than a slightly higher quality and lenghtier version of the Pentagon's CCTV camera tape - released less than six months after 9/11 itself. I won't go in to the inconsistancies here - spot them for yourself at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4987716. stm> the BBC's page.

Will it put the conspiracy theories to rest? No. Did the US government want this footage retained as it simply fuels speculations of foul play; what with a higher quality image of a false looking 747 revealed?

If anything, this new higher definition tape just fans the flames of speculation. What about the CCTV confiscated from nearby establishments such as a high rise hotel? These too are in possession of the US government - yet haven't been released. If they give (as they will, given their position overlooking the Pentagon) clearer pictures, then why haven't these been released as well, to utterly cement US claims of Flight 77's actual crash?

Who knows...maybe I'm just a paranoid android.

WTF?

[Lars T.]

I've seen that video over a dozen times on TV over the years, and now they tell me it was withheld all the time? Just two days ago I saw a documentary about the crash, and they showed the video 3 or 4 times (it was one of those docus where they show everything at least 3 times to save money).

Do I have to report to Gitmo now?

Re:WTF?

[Phillup]

Do I have to report to Gitmo now?

No...

Those troups that are being deployed to "protect the borders" are also meant to keep you inside.

Once the walls are built and your rights removed... they won't need gitmo.

You'll already be there.

Re:WTF?

[Bungopolis]

The video released today is a higher resolution and signifigantly longer version of that same tape.

Re:WTF?

[Lars T.]

So what does that give you? You still can't see the plane hitting, because it happens in the second between two frames. Whoopdy-fucking-doo.

Re:WTF?

[Lars T.]

Well, I'm from/in Germany.

Re:WTF?

[Lars T.]

Yeah-hee, I'm going on one of those CIA flights!

Satellite?

[bill_mcgonigle]

The problem is that there is not a clear view of a 747 running into the pentagon. Just a streak and a fireball. Kinda like those UFO pictures and videos.

By that time they knew which planes were hijacked, right?, even if the destinations were unknown? Do we have reason to believe they didn't train a satellite on each of them?

Anybody know how much work it is to do the above? Any prior public evidence of tracking a flying object from orbit? I expect it's somewhere between 'impossible' and 'just like on 24'.

Re:Satellite?

[Doctor Memory]

Do we have reason to believe they didn't train a satellite on each of them?

Yes, because that would imply that we had satellites in position to look within our own borders — and we know the government wouldn't do that!

Re:Satellite?

[gfilion]

Anybody know how much work it is to do the above? Any prior public evidence of tracking a flying object from orbit? I expect it's somewhere between 'impossible' and 'just like on 24'.

Well, I remember that when the "sniper" was wreaking havoc in the Washington DC area, the DoD offered to the investigators sattelites images of the places of the attacks taken around the time of the attacks. This implies that they have sattelites taking pictures of every place all the time -- at least in DC area.

It's also useful to remember that the communication between air control and the DoD was almost inexistant in the minutes that followed the hijackings. So while this would have certainly been possible from a technological point of view, bureaucratic incompetence was the major problem...

Re:Satellite?

[TheSync]

You can't just "train a satellite" on something, spy satellites are generally in a low earth orbit moving at around four miles per second, and have the capability of only looking in a small region (a few hundred miles on a side). While most parts of the earth are covered once or twice a day by a spy sat, it is only for a brief period of time. It is impossible to follow an aircraft with a spy satellite.

Typical orbits for KH-12's are 202 x 689 km, inclination near 90 degrees (meaning twice a day coverage of most areas).

Re:Satellite?

[bill_mcgonigle]

Thanks for the info. Do we know that there aren't geostationary spy satellites? I wonder which ones are referred to in Gfilion's post about the DC snipers.

It certainly does tell something

[Stevyn]

I saw it on Fox News today and something I noticed should dampen the missile theorists. The low framerate prevented the smoking gun shot of an airplane everyone was hoping to see, however the explosion is key. There was a big red fireball with thick black smoke when it hit the building. This is evident of a fuel explosion, not a missile explosion. Dispite how movies portray ordinances exploding in big puffy fireballs, they're actually like big "bangs". They don't create much smoke, instead just blow dust and material everywhere.

Look at the tapes of the plane hitting the second WTC tower and see how similar the explosions are. Just because there is no hole where the engines should be does not mean a plane didn't hit the building. The building is like a fortrace and could withstand most of the impact of the aluminum plane. This explosion looks like a large amount of fuel exploded, not a missile or bomb.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[inKubus]

Where is the plane?

Take a look at Google's image search for plane crashes. Here you will see images of MANY plane crashes. Notice, please, there is always a tail, a big piece of the body of the plane, etc.

Not that it matters, of course. No one in their right mind would crash a whatever into their own building. I mean, they might get an insurance check, which would suck. Please take my rights away! Praise Jesus!

Re:It certainly does tell something

[TomorrowPlusX]

I work in DC, and lived -- at the time -- in Old Town Alexandria. On Sept 11, given the general state of confusion, I opted not to take the metro home that day, and instead walked home along the GW parkway ( it was such a beautiful day, actually -- and the ten mile walk allowed me to really think about the situation, and how this was pretty much the end of freedom in the US for a while at least, but that's another story ).

Anyway -- here's the thing. I was upwind of the pentagon, maybe a mile away, and I smelled ( what smelled to me like ) burning kerosene. LOTS of burning kerosene. As in, I personally stank of kerosene smoke after walking past.

Frankly, that's enough for me. I understand that jet fuel is more or less like kerosene, and I would expect a crashed airplane to burn up whatever's in its tanks. Hence, the stench of lots of burning kerosene.

Now, regarding the "another story"... as I was approaching National airport ( I will never call it "Reagan National" ), I came across a bunch of toddlers and little kids, surrounded by military personnel. There was another civilian ( like me ) walking past, she had a camera, and took a photo of the pentagon smoke, and another of the military types and the children. The officials immediately stormed her, confiscated her camera and tore out the film. Very rudely, I might add. I saw all this, and after the lady left, I walked up and said to one of the friendlier looking guards "What was that all about?". She said the kids were pentagon employee children from the daycare facilities and they wanted to respect their privacy -- which is commendable, so in principle I understand. But the way they went about it was unnacceptable.

I saw one of the opening acts of our descent into a police state, right there.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[EdwinBoyd]

This is because almost all plane crashes happen either on takeoff, landing or an emergency landing over water/fields. This plane smashed headlong into a large blast resistant building.

A quick google image search on "Wreckage from Flight 77" reveals plenty of smaller pieces clearly from an aeroplane.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[Scrameustache]

Just because there is no hole where the engines should be does not mean a plane didn't hit the building. The building is like a fortrace and could withstand most of the impact of the aluminum plane.

And yet, no plane debris outside.

Funny thing, that.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[ehrichweiss]

No, there *was* debris outside but it's hard to see what you want to ignore in order to further an agenda.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[bj8rn]

Where is the plane?

Right under your nose, perhaps?

Re:It certainly does tell something

[eh2o]

Ok, so first of all we all know that nobody walks home 10 miles. That is just common sense. And just why is it that *all of the sudden* after 9/11 you no longer live in Old Town?? Something smells fishy. Second, kerosene burns in lamps, and the pentagon is a very secretive place, so they probably don't have lights. Therefore they could not possibly have any kerosene there. Third, smoke rises so you couldn't possibly have smelled it from a *mile* away. Like what, the laws of physics just didn't apply that day? Well I asked a physics professor and he said the laws of physics *always* apply! So, just how is it that *you* would smell like kerosene unless, obviously, you had rubbed kerosene on your clothing to make people *think* there was a something like kerosene burning. As for the photograph, its obviously *you* that took the film because you didn't want any documented evidence that you were in fact at the National Airport the whole time! Obviously you were in the mysterious "unmarked white plane" and had just landed.

Nice try, Mr. Three-Letter-Agency, but we can see right through your web of lies.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[DrLex]

Where is the plane?

I wonder why I'm even wasting time on this.
A plane is a giant fragile balloon, made out of materials which are as light as possible while being strong enough to prevent it from breaking apart under normal conditions. This particular plane was freshly filled with kerosine and unlike most plane crashes, the pilot was not trying to reduce the speed to the minimum, on the contrary. Moreover, it was not trying to 'land' on a horizontal surface, but smashed straight into a vertical wall.
Now what happens if you smash a balloon filled with kerosine at a speed of mach 0.8 into a stone wall? Do you think there will be anything left which even remotely looks like a part of an airplane? Try smashing an egg against a wall with all your might and wonder where the familiar oval shape went.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[rossifer]

And yet, no plane debris outside.

Actually, there was a lot of plane debris outside. But it was in really tiny pieces. Almost as if a lightweight aluminum structure full of explosive chemicals was forced into contact with a heavy structure at tremendous velocity.

Almost.

(Sorry about the sarcasm. I'm also really pissed at our government, but I don't see any reason to believe that well-funded wack-jobs couldn't have done this.)

Regards,
Ross

Re:It certainly does tell something

[AC5398]

*** Third, smoke rises so you couldn't possibly have smelled it from a *mile* away. ***

When the Air France or whatever plane crashed at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, I could smell the unmistakeable odour of burnt electronics across the city in the downtown core. I was much more than a mile away.

I can also understand why guards of a group of orphaned toddlers were more than just cranky that day. Their friends were dead/dying, they were standing watch over their friend's children, and some broad decides to suspend good judgement and photograph the children? I'd've probably had a go at the film too had I been in their place.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[inKubus]

Nope, everyone is right. That was a plane that hit the Pentagon.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[Deadstick]

Jet fuel is not more or less like kerosene. Jet fuel is kerosene.

It has certain antifungal and other additives in small concentrations, and the solid crap has been filtered out of it, but other than that it's your grandfather's coal oil.

rj

Re:It certainly does tell something

[Scrameustache]

No, there *was* debris outside but it's hard to see what you want to ignore in order to further an agenda.

1- Of course there's debris, there was an explosion: That scaters debris. There was, however, no PLANE debris to account for an entire airliner.
You can find many pictures of the same lonely piece, but no engines, no luggage...

2- What is my supposed agenda?

Re:It certainly does tell something

[tehcyder]

I personally stank of kerosene smoke after walking past.

Frankly, that's enough for me

Even taking this purely at face value, this is a pretty weak piece of evidence.

I'm sure if I were at the Pentagon I could arrange for a few strategically placed (big) barrels of kerosene to be set on fire easily enough.

Nice try though, I especially enjoyed the detail about not liking the name "Reagan National." Proves it can't be a Republican speaking.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[Kombat]

And yet, no plane debris outside.

Actually, there was lots of plane debris outside. How weak is your conspiracy theory when you have to blatantly lie?

Re:It certainly does tell something

[TomorrowPlusX]

Huh. My father -- when I was a kid -- had told me that jet fuel was kerosene, but I had assumed he was just exaggerating. Learn something new every day, I guess.

Re:It certainly does tell something

[ken0sis]

Never get into a battle of wits with a Sicilian when DEATH is on the line!

Re:It certainly does tell something

[dakryx]

http://www.jokaroo.com/extremevideos/plane_vs_wall .html That is a video of a f-4 phantom being launched into a brick wall. Do you see any engines laying around?

Re:Where's The Plane?

[Deinhard]

I wasn't going to delve into Flight 93 since it was OT. However, if you actually watch the video (it's a frame-by-frame security video) you can definitely tell that there is not a plane in the view. Also, in one frame (conspiracy theorists take note), it look like an ALCM is heading for the building.

On reflection

[Robotron23]

On reflection I'll briefly go over the chief inconsistancy within the video. The alleged 747 plane is too small - the guys who made the 911 Loose Change video have a more in depth analysis regards this. The upshot is that the actual cockpit of the plane does not match that of a Boeing 747 - nor does the overall frame of the aircraft. With the video now released at a somewhat higher quality, this ought to be even more in evidence - which is why the Pentagon was reluctant to release the tape.

Re:On reflection

[Wudbaer]

Sure the alleged 747 is too small, because it is not a 747 but a 757. I mean - you guys make up elaborate conspiracy theories and do not even bother to check the type of the bloody aircraft. Come on, you can do better than that !

Re:On reflection

[Robotron23]

Thank god I didn't put that in the article summary! Apologies for the mishap. The Boeing 757 plane is still very much too large to fit the plane depicted in the video though. :)

Re:Well thats nice

[Nossie]

you prove to me that streak of white was a plane.... and I'll admit to being wrong...

seriously ! if that was a 757 I'm sure there would be enough evidence ALL OVER THE PLACE for people to see such....

but its not....

so its still FUD from the government

Re:Where's The Plane?

[ImaNihilist]

That's as good an explanation as any I've seen.

Mad props for the National Security Archive

[Chris Burke]

Love that place, and love the Freedom of Information Act that allows it to exist -- one of the true strengths of our Democracy.

If you haven't read it, and if you are at all prone to dismissing "conspiracy theories" on the basis that our government wouldn't do that kind of thing, you have to read it. If you've ever wondered: Did the CIA really know and approve of the Contras funding their war by selling drugs in the States? Did the U.S. really know that Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran and the Kurds at the same time Donald Rumsfeld was shaking Saddam's hand and providing cover stories for him? Read it.

Nothing that I know of that is relevent to the current situation, but it is still a fantastic archive and a great resource for putting to pasture any remaining naivete you may have about the nature of governments.

Re:Mad props for the National Security Archive

[iminplaya]

...one of the true strengths of our Democracy.

The really true strength of our democracy is its pragmatism. Yell and scream all you want. As long as you continue to pay your taxes, it's all good. The power and the money are all still there.

Re:Mad props for the National Security Archive

[friendswelcome]

"Nothing that I know of that is relevent to the current situation, but it is still a fantastic archive"
Operation Northwoods is listed in that archive and here and here Northwoods was a plan by the pentagon to hijack planes to incite war with Cuba. I'd say that's relevant and a very dark hour in our history.

"I'm shocked, shocked there is gambling going on here!"
"Your winnings sir..."
"Oh thank you!"

Re:Where's The Plane?

[corbettw]

There's no debris, no fuselage, no tail assembly, no cloud of dust, no nothin'

Bzzt, wrong. http://images.google.com/images?q=pentagon%20fligh t%2077&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:e n-US:official&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi shows dozens of images from the crashsite, all of them with debris clearly visible. Some are dupes of each other, but scroll through, there was a lot of debris scattered about.

On the other hand,

[Peter Trepan]

it's dangerous to discount all conspiracy theories. The Tuskeegee Experiment was a real conspiracy. The Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish doctrine is a real conspiracy. When landlords get together and change a neighborhood's zoning laws, that's a conspiracy too.

These are the kinds of conspiracies that occur without the protection of the federal government. What kinds of schemes might people think up if they're free from any oversight whatsoever?

I'm just saying that a little paranoia is a healthy thing. I'm not saying that our government hides aliens with guitar pick-shaped heads, or that they orchestrated the 9-11 attack, or that they conspired to fool everyone into thinking Iraq had nuclear...

...oh, wait.

Re:On the other hand,

[peterarm]

The Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish doctrine is a real conspiracy.

No, since it is the actions of one company. (Yes, obviously there are multiple people within the company involved, but by that reasoning every action by every company is a conspiracy. And only the most vehemently anti-corporate person would argue that :-)

Re:On the other hand,

[Jherek Carnelian]

What kinds of schemes might people think up if they're free from any oversight whatsoever?

Gerrymandering.

Re:On the other hand,

[MarkusQ]

What kinds of schemes might people think up if they're free from any oversight whatsoever?

I can think of a number of things, all of which feature large-bosomed blondes with ambiguous morals....

You sir, are unlikely to ever be elected to public office.

But if, by some chance, you are, would you please invite me to your poker parties?

--MarkusQ

Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

Why don't they release the black box recordings of the inflight data?

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

Moderation +1
    30% Insightful
    40% Troll
    30% Underrated

TrollMods show yet another reason to distrust the BushCo that now includes the NSA, CIA, DIA and other agencies which failed to protect us through 9/11/2001. And an army of AsTrollMods.

Re:Black Ops

[drawfour]

Dumb question: do they even exist?

Seriously, I can't imagine that with the amount of heat from that fire that they would be in any usable form. I would think that the box would be burned to a crisp from the fire itself, or the interior would have gotten hot enough to melt/etc... I mean, if the fuel burns so hot it melts steel beams, I don't see how a black box would survive.

Or if they found them and they still work, I agree. They should be released.

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

FWIW, jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel.

Lots of plane parts were found mostly intact, without the toughness of the black boxes. I've read several reports, some firsthand, of witnesses in the crater seeing at least 2 or 3 of the 4 boxes (2 per plane) being discovered in the rubble. And other plane-borne material was discovered, including apparently one of the hijackkers' passport.

Re:Black Ops

[Jim_Callahan]

Yeah, magnetic domains on, say, a recording tape or hard-drive type disk are also destroyed way below the temperature required to melt steel. However, bending metal also produces local heating, this is something you have to watch out for in industrial metal forming, as localized melting can weaken or harden your material locally. A third point to consider is that the main destructive force when ramming a large object against a barrier is probably not the increase in temperature, but the deforming force of flinging the fucking object into a barrier at high speed. Things whose scattering pattern did not put them between harder objects which would rip or crush them, and were not exposed to the fire long enough to catch themselves(flammable), or conduct the heat to a point where a significant part of the pbject might melt (nonflammable) would survive.

So, yeah, it's entirely possible that the black boxes were both wiped of magnetic data/crushed between moving debris (it would have been designed to survive a normal crash, which would be significantly slower than the 'ramming speed' stuff the hijackers pulled off) while a passport or letter to grandma might fly free and land unharmed nearby. (Unfortunately for us, a human who is similarly flung free will go splat while a piece of paper will go whoosh and gently settle on the lawn. It's the price we pay for being made of water and membranes.) Just so you know.

On a side-note, what does the melting point of steel have to do with anything? The steel content of airplanes is kept as low as possible to reduce weight, they're mostly aluminium, or, more recently, magnesium-based alloys. And even for the steel parts, increase in temperature reduces the material's resistance to deformation, which is, again, the majority of your destructive occurence when ramming an object into a barrier at high speed. You don't have to melt something to bend it into crazy shapes or shred it like a newspaper at a poodle convention.

Re:Black Ops

[harto]

Yeah, or David Hicks?

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

The government has not reported even discovering the very tough boxes, let alone intact recordings. Though the boxes record on a metal tape designed to survive the firey crash, not the plastic stuff we use at home or a hard disk.

The point about steel's melting point is a reference to the steel that composed the towers, not the boxes. Some credible analyses of the towers' collapse point out that the burning jet fuel wasn't hot enough to melt the steel and collapse the towers.

Re:Black Ops

[Jim_Callahan]

I'd imagine that the jet fuel set other things in the building on fire, I doubt that it was the only source of heat. And, again, steel softens significantly at well below its melting point-- to take an extreme case, it converts to its austenite phase at 750ish (exact temp varies with C content) centigrade, making it significantly less capable of bearing a large load, such as the upper half of a building. This is why structural beams in buildings are generally insulated as much as possible-- unfortunately, running a plane into a building at high speed has a tendency to rip this insulation away in a manner that your average building fire does not.

Regarding cockpit voice recorders, from what data I could find on ye olde internets (tried several sources, they all seemed to generally agree with Wikipedia on the subject), wire-recording hasn't been used in the things since the mid 70s. Since then, it's been analog tape or (more recently) solid-state storage. Magnetic tape (generally mylar with embedded magnetic metals) is subject to the kind of magnetic randomization I cited in GP. Any solid-state device dependent on magnetic storage suffers similar problems: not having researched eough to know the specific type of solid-state storage prevalent in CPRs, I can't comment on their reliabiliy in the event that the insulating protection on the black box is overcome and the data is exposed to increased heat.

I'm not attacking your point as far as "steel doesn't melt at the combustion temperature of jet fuel", by the way-- I don't know about that one way or another, as temperatures in a combustion reaction vary a lot with the transfer properties of the system-- I'm just telling you that they don't have to melt to make the building fall down, even neglecting the ballistic damage to the building.

I have now spent half an hour researching for a forum post when I should be doing related, but not related enough, research for my job. I'm not sure if I should just turn the computer off or if I should go all the way and commit seppuku to redeem my lost self-esteem.

Re:Black Ops

[bpd1069]

The Government claims there is nothing "interesting" on the black boxes at the pentagon...

Re:Black Ops

[will_die]

Before you waste your time with scholarsfor911truth goto this site and learn about the organization, members and multiple rebukings of thier "facts".
Some of the major contributers to scholarsfor911truth exist only on the internet, other real people are assosiated with sites such as Holocaust denial sites and sites that even question if man has ever landed on the moon.

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

Your WTC7 site does wowrk to discredit some members of the ScholarsFor911Truth organization/website. But it does not question the integrity of the basic documents, especially the fundamental work of Steven Jones:

"instead of amplifying the excellent work of Steven Jones and some of the group's other researchers, it promises to undermine that work, and possibly the work of all scholars raising questions about the official story"

I have not researched the WTC7 site's membership and (possibly hidden) agenda. But their premise is that some low-quality (or downright bad) people have attached themselves to the good research challenging the official WTC collapse story. Their analysis is that the S911T group is probably deliberately poisoning the challenge story to discredit it - guilt by association. I think it's at least as likely that many of the losers are just hitching their wagons to the latest antigovernment wave, because their old careers denying or fighting even true government stories in the past is now preempted by the new, popular "9/11" story. None of which discredits the basic research the post to which you replied specified, or which I've read to seriously challenge the official story.

If every bad crazy could discredit a challenge to power by agreeing with it, noncrazy bad guys would recruit them all the time. That does happen, but we can distinguish between that trick and real defects in the challenge itself.

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

Do you have a citation? I'd like the government to release the records, so we can decide for ourselves if we're bored. That's the skill in which Americans lead the world.

Re:Black Ops

[Doc Ruby]

I think it was those meddling kids: the Iran/Contra Reagan Youth Saudi connection.

Re:Black Ops

[kupci]

Before you waste your time with scholarsfor911truth goto this site and learn about the organization, members and multiple rebukings of thier "facts".

WTC7 is a good site too, and I would've posted that link too, but either they are futzing with their pages, they have some differences with their provider, or big brother is cracking down, either way their links were mucked up. I provided the scholars link mainly in deference to the Slashdot viewer, so rather than read they can watch the speeches of Prof. Jones and MIT's King, but admittedly I haven't reviewed the rest of the site so thanks for the tip. I see WTC7 respects the work by Jones - that's good. I did see he quibbles over whether "less than 10s" is not the same as 8 seconds, or something like that with his criticism of Morgan Reynolds.

But both have their flaws. The WTC7 is a little on the "rant" side, which takes away from their otherwise good message. Fact is, they need people like Morgan Reynolds, these are very credible people. Divide and conquer, and this will fall apart.

Re:Well thats nice

[rizzo420]

i've seen all the conspiracy theory stuff...

how about you re-watch that video and read this while watching

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[MrLogic17]

>And that strategy has worked exactly when in history?

Um, WWII ring any bells?

Pentagon crash analysis

[Robotron23]

For those interested, here is an extremely cogent flash clip analyzing the suspicious events revolving around the supposed crash of Flight 77 at the Pentagon. At one point it closely analyzes the Pentagon's camera video. The plane in the first frame of the video looks nothing like an 80 ton 757.

Incredibility

[Doc Ruby]

What happens when the people who release the evidence have been shown to have been lying about everything else important during that time period? Like cooperation between Saddam and Osama. Like Iraq WMD, including Iraq-bound Niger uranium, nuke-only centrifuges, mobile bioweapon labs - none of which existed. Like preparation for the collapsed Iraqi state we broke, and now own, said to be a nation of flower-throwers. Like finishing the Afhanistan war.

Like no one anticipating that someone would use planes as missiles into our tall buildings - or that levees would collapse in Katrina. Like no domestic calls being spied on. Like cheaper, more plentiful oil. Like cutting federal spending. Like securing our borders. Like increasing the integrity and dignity of the White House.

When lying liars lie about all those important activities, there's no reason to trust evidence they produce that merely protects another story they tell, which if exposed would have kept our country from going down the track to hell it's been on for the past 5 years.

Re:Incredibility

[operagost]

When lying liars lie

%SLASH-E-STUSMAL, "Stuart Smalley" talking points detected, read aborted

Re:Incredibility

[NutscrapeSucks]

Oh, let's be friends -- there's no "sides" here. Everyone knows that Clinton and Bush Senior were partners in the CIA/Mena/Iran-Contra drug+gun smuggling operations thing, and they're all buddies down at the Illumanti Country Club.

That having been said GW Bush Administration does tend to rely on "conspiracy theory" to justify his foriegn policies, and while very partisan, Doc Ruby was rightfully pulling that out in context.

Re:Incredibility

[metamatic]

> What happens when the people who release the evidence have been shown to have been lying about everything else important during that time period? .... Like Iraq WMD

To say that Iraq never had WMD is pure non-sense.

That's why he didn't say it. You introduced the word "never", and yes, your straw man is nonsense.

He was referring to the claims that Iraq had WMD circa 2001-2003, which were used as justification for the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq. Those claims were lies.

Yes, we know Iraq had WMD in the past. Of course we know that, we sold them the WMD. But Iraq had used or destroyed all its WMD prior to the illegal invasion.

> ... Like cheaper, more plentiful oil.

I'm guessing you are hiding in a cave somewhere. You obviously haven't bought gas recently.

Oh, do pay attention. He was saying that the claim that oil prices would be controlled was false. The current high prices are demonstration that he's right.

And as for bringing up Bill Clinton: Did anybody claim that the problems started in 2000? No, I don't think so, so once again you're erecting a straw man.

In fact, if you look at the people who complain about the lies used to justify the invasion of Iraq, you'll find that almost all of them were also deeply critical of the Clinton era sanctions that resulted in the lingering death of tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and their children.

Re:Incredibility

[boarsai]

It's true the arseholes are everywhere, they're in the trees man... in the trees!

Re:Incredibility

[radtea]

To say that Iraq never had WMD is pure non-sense. Ask the thousands of living Iranian widows or the Kurdish what gas they or their loved ones were exposed to and when.

Arguing with bellicose right-wingnuts is starting to feel a lot like arguing with Soviet appoligists back in the day. They reply to perfectly ordinary claims of fact--that Bush & co. lied about Iraq's WMDs and much else as a pretext for war--with a completely irrelevant non sequitur.

For those lacking basic English comprehension skills, no one claimed that Iraq never had WMDs, and trying to twist the argument to answer that premise is nothing more than an obvious admission of that fact.

This non sequitur was quickly followed by another: invoking the Ghost of Presidents Past in the form of Bill Clinton. Bellicose right-wingnuts have reached the bottom of the polemical barrel--they are now reduced to waving a stuffed scarecrow of a man from the better part of a decade ago in a desperate attempt to divert attention from the uncontroversial fact that they and theirs have lied American into a pointless and stupid war that has killed thousands of Americans for no discernible purpose.

Give it up guys--every time one of you clowns mentions Clinton it's just more proof that you have lost. Your time is done.

Re:Incredibility

[dbIII]

Those who choose to blindly ignore those facts are doomed

I couldn't have said it better myself - the intelligence gathered in the middle east was ignored and we decided to go with uncorroborated ravings of a drowning man instead as justification for a war.

Now we have people assuming that Bin Laden is the head of some giant secret high tech organistaion out of James Bond getting governments of countries the size of Iraq and Afganistan to bow down before him and give him everything he wants. Unfortunately the reality of a lot of disconnected groups is a lot harder to deal with by sending in a gunboat. I don't think Clinton, Bush Snr or many others would have declared a war in the truck bomb situation above since we are not dealing with nations here but groups of criminals. Why do I think so? Clinton authorised sending missiles in to hit Bin Laden in the past (they missed) and Bush Snr spoke out against the sideshow of going into Iraq. Invading a secular country that has a Christian as second in charge is doing the work for the extremist Islamic groups, so it has to be done for other reasons. I'm not sure if it could have been done as easily at another time since the USA had a lot of international goodwill after 9/11.

Re:Incredibility

[Doc Ruby]

Judging from the other replies to your loaded response, I'm not the only one who sees right through the BushCo apology gibberish you're still spewing, even 5 years into Bush's catastrophic regime. But since it's fun kicking you fascists when you're down (past 29% like a stone), here's some more truth you can ignore.

First, I'm just going to ignore your "but Clinton..." crapola. I'll probably refer to Nixon, or maybe just drop his name as a background context here, but Clinton hasn't been president for over 5 years. Bush has had the whole government his whole miserable term, and your Republicans have had Congress for over a decade - including most of Clinton's term. The rest of the country recently reported that we prefer Clinton over Bush in every category we're asked. So save your "but Clinton..." misdirections for your Clinton-hating Anti-Sex league meetings.

On to some actually relevant lies you spun. I never said "Iraq never had WMD". You made that up. Though the Iraq WMD you're still yapping about was delivered to Saddam during the 1980s Reagan/Bush regime, by current Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld. Who lied when he told us in 2002 that not only did Saddam have WMD then, but that he knew where they were. All he knew was that lying about WMD would get warmongering fascists like you to not only demand invading Iraq, but never admit that it was wrong, even when it's obvious that your Republican government has screwed it up every way they could touch.

The promise of cheaper, more plentiful oil was made by your Bush Republicans testifying to your Republican Congress, leading up to the war. While also saying the war could "pay for itself", through that increased oil output. You are the one who should try applying your brain when you go pump some gas, paying those privatized taxes to both the American oil companies raking unprecedented profits atop unprecedented subsidies, as well as to our enemies like Iran and Saudi Arabia. You're so demented in your Bush worship that you convert my complaint, that the "cheap, plentiful oil" lies were dropped in favor of fatter oil profits, into some kind of promise by me, who has no control over oil supplies, nor claims to any such control - or any promises of such. Your strawman suggestion is even more insane than the strawman you tried in your first blather about WMD.

Then there's your copout that "they're all liars" to you. I bet that's different from what you were saying when you voted for Bush a couple of times, when you get on your knees and pray for more "Conservative politics" to fix the damage that fake Conservatives have already done.

Then you cherrypick history for some warped "perspective", to "even the score". You're getting totally shut out, by my facts and the catastrophic reality they report, and you think you have a chance to "even the score"? With some nonsensical fictional retrospective history of Clinton's foreign policy?

OK, when the WTC was bombed in 1993, in my NYC hometown, Clinton's government caught the terrorists and extracted enough info from them to not only bring them to justice, but also derail the other terrorist plots. There was no further successful attack on the under Clinton, except for two overseas embassies and a ship in a foreign port. The embassies didn't cause a war, but rather counterattacks. Counterattacks that the Republican Congress thwarted, waving a blue dress and screaming "impeachment", and the Pentagon and CIA screwed up by each refusing to kill Osama when in their crosshairs. Nor did the ship attack provoke war, in Clinton's final months, which instead produced instructions for escalating against the Qaeda perpetrators that Bush ignored. Like he ignored further warnings, including his morning briefing saying "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US". So there are actually points where Clinton's foreign/terror policy can be compared to Bush's, and Clinton makes Bush look like a catastrophe.

Clinton sensibly left war as a last resort, to which he didn'

Re:Incredibility

[Doc Ruby]

I didn't mention a government conspiracy to destroy the WTC and the Pentagon, or any of that other strawman crap you just made up, Anonymous prattling Coward. Mere insults are just the icing on the cake when calling out morons by citing the simple facts that are against Bush at every turn.

Re:Incredibility

[Doc Ruby]

I'm not going to bother responding to an Anonymous Coward perpetuating the same Bush bullshit we've seen debunked for years. Especially when you start your screed with insistence that WMD were found in Iraq after our invasion, but don't actually link to them. Then proceed to demand I get facts, which I provided in quantity. Then wind up with some strawman about Bush staging the WTC/Pentagon attacks.

I've already wasted over 5 years dealing with you Bush apologists. When he was riding the popularity of a terrorized nation, it was necessary to confront your PR. Now that the last few wagons are circled, I'm more interested in talking with sensible people about how to rebuild the country, not argue with you about how badly you've trashed it.

Re:Incredibility

[ScarKnee]

I'm more interested in talking with sensible people about how to rebuild the country

I'd suggest ridding the USA of both the Republican and Democrat parties. I'd also like to see fewer (actually, zero) career politicians. I'm sick and tired of seeing Ted Kennedy, Orin Hatch, Arlen Specter, et al. Rid us of the people who are "serving the country" by being Senators/Congressmen only to build up their own mini-kingdoms of power, wealth, and status. There is a congressman from Utah County (Chris Cannon) who is facing a Republican
run-off in the Primaries this year mainly because a gentleman decided to run against him to get Mr. Cannon out of becoming a career politician. Mr Cannon states that his experience is needed the Congress... I look around at all the crap that we're dealing with around the country and think to myself, "Why would we keep electing these fools to represent us... this is what their experience has brought upon us." - just my opinion.

There is no true difference between a Republican and a Democrat - speaking of the politicians, not actual voters. They may say different things and appear to stand for different things, but in the end, they just want to be in power for as long as possible, never mind the consequences to the people their decisions/vote will create. The only potential difference between Republicans and Democrats is the manner of control they wish to extend upon the masses: Republicans seem to want to control your thinking/behavior, your morals - impeding your life, liberty, and pursuit of happieness. Democrats want to control your money and thereby control a large part of your life, liberty, and pursuit of happieness. I don't like either choice.

Opinion polls drive me nuts, too; before any decisions or votes politicians better check the poles for the general popular attitude towards the issue at hand. It's as if politicians have no minds of their own. I know they're elected to represent their consituents (Senators should represent their States, but that's a separate topic), but they supposedly had platforms and personal convictions upon which they campaigned... they should stick to their convictions (conservative/liberal, or otherwise) rather than bending in the wind of the current public opinion.

You see jokes about how Americans get to choose from among 50 women for Miss America, but only 2 people for President. Maybe it's not really that funny. It's quite screwed that we have only two real choices presented to us in any election.

I am a conservative (not too popular on /. - oh well), but I am not a Republican and don't really consider the party as a conservative one at this time. I used to be a Republican, but have since rescinded my affiliation with the party. I am not particularly fond of George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, they're about the same in my thinking. One is a liar, the other is a liar. One wants personal power, the other wants personal power.

Anyway, I'll end my rant, I'm tired and it's likely not too coherent, but I'll post anyway.

Enjoy your early morning (maybe night depending on your TZ)

Re:Incredibility

[ScarKnee]

I'll just have to generally agree with most of your post.

G'day

Re:Time?

[Joe the Lesser]

It's a pity, they should have made a full length feature movie with all that time.

Kinda made me laugh

[Crilen007]

"The documentary fails to address the fact that no one tried to expose these plans beforehand. If the U.S. gov't tried to do something like this, thousands of people would of have to known about it." And we still don't know the price of the Wii. People can do things secretly you know. You only find out about leaked plans because they were leaked.

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[Ohreally_factor]

Do you need to be slapped in the face with a halibut to recognize sarcasm? The sarcasm tag didn't tip you off?

Alien probes!

[hellfire]

If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human?

Fuck yes.

No wonder I feel shafted every day... Bush is in fact an alien who is probing me! It's about time we probed back damnit! See how he likes it!

Re:Well thats nice

[Bungopolis]

Do note that a series of lower resolution frames of this video (the immediate impact) was released just months after the event itself. The video released today is a higher resolution and much longer version of the same recording. The crucial frames, however, have been public for a number of years.

I'm surprised no one has already mentioned....

[xenophrak]

This site: http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/e rreurs_en.htm

Re:I'm surprised no one has already mentioned....

[JoeCodeMonkey]

Or this one...

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_pentagon_7 57_plane_evidence.html

Five years is about right

[gulfan]

A couple seconds of footage, five years in the making ... Did George Lucas produce this one? When can I expect to see the Pentagon shoots first version?

Something about this is off

[Anonymous Coward]

IAAME/FD* My brother pilots 747s. He says an amateur pilot would be capable of pulling the flight manoeuvres that took down the towers. However, the manoeuvre that supposedly took out the Pentagon is another matter altogether. If you believe the gov, the pilot managed to pancake the jet onto the ground about 50-100 yards from the edge of the Pentagon and then "skip" the plane into the side of the pentagon, a bit like skipping a stone off a pond. He says an amateur would NEVER be able to pull off a manoeuvre like that. -Too steep a flight angle and you crater. -Too shallow a flight angle and you miss the rooftop. The government's version would require SUPREME, almost autopilot like, control and accuracy at the speed the aircraft was flying. The chances of an amateur pilot landing a 737(?) on its belly at near full cruising speed without it breaking up on impact is EXTREMELY small. Notice that the nose cone in the first frame is 100% INTACT. Landing a 737 on its belly, at near full cruising speed WITHOUT damaging the nose cone? Aircraft are often pancaked during crash landings but these jets CRUISE at about mach 0.8. Crash landing at (0.66/0.8)= ~90% of cruising speed without damaging the nose cone seems very unlikely? It would be worth looking at a local high-resolution elevation map of the area. If it is ANYTHING other than billiard-table flat, the government's version of the landing sequence is suspicious. Some have said the nose cone looks like a missile, unlikely: http://www.imagedump.com/index.cgi?pick=setandget& tp=414794&poll_id=0&category_id=20&warned=y Proof #1: -Security video frame rate ~0.5s -Nose cone to explosion: One frame -Nose cone to building distance from nose cone frame ~100m => Impact velocity ~ 200 m/s ~ mach 0.66 That's too slow for a missile ... a missile travelling at mach 0.66 would have been seen by many people. If you knew the model of the security camera you could get another estimate of the jet's pre-impact velocity by back calculating from the apparent pixel blur of the nose cone image. Proof #2: Calculate vertical height of nose cone using simple trigonometry, i.e. compare height of Pentagon (known height) in pixels to height of nose cone in pixels as security camera is nearly normal to the flight path. => Check this height against the actual nose cone dimensions of the jet-type that is claimed to have hit. Without actually doing the calcs, it looks about the right size for a 737(?) nose cone... A ~3m diameter missile flying at mach 0.66 would be VERY conspicuous. There is no such missile in the current US military arsenal... http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/index.h tml The nose cone does look distorted/elongated into a "needle-like" shape but remember that at 200 m/s the nose cone would blur in a 0.5 s exposure. Proof #3: Missiles don't fly stably in contact with the ground :) There are many other opportunities to use the available physical/visual evidence to check whether mass, momentum and energy are conserved for the Pentagon crash... e.g. the fire plume, damage to Pentagons structure (~equivalent to car safety "crash testing"). I'm normally the first to laugh at conspiracy theories but the pentagon hit looks dodgy as hell... IAAME/FD*: I am a mechanical engineer / fluid dynamicist ...

Re:Something about this is off

[Pandishar]

IAAME/FD*: I am a mechanical engineer / fluid dynamicist

You might be, but you sure can't type for shit. Mix in a return once in a while.

Re:Something about this is off

[Achromatic1978]

The government's version would require SUPREME, almost autopilot like, control and accuracy at the speed the aircraft was flying.

Like the kind of autopilot such an aircraft would have, Flight Director, and such, and that you'd learn about at a flying school? :)

but these jets CRUISE at about mach 0.8

At CRUISING altitude. Flying at Mach 0.8 at 3000 would have the engines screaming, the cockpit screaming overspeed. It would not be a controlled descent in any sense of the word, nor would it be sustainable / attainable at straight and level at low altitude.

Re:Something about this is off

[Gryle]

I am a mechanical engineer / fluid dynamicist ...
All that college and they never taught you to properly format what you write. So sad....

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Um, WWII ring any bells?

As I remember, we fought WWII primarily on the soil of our allies, and/or in our own territory (or at least, territory Japan had taken from us at the start of the war). It took many years of island hopping and invasions before we reached Germany/Japan- in 1944. And even then, it didn't entirely work- both Japan and Germany had successfull, if relatively unknown, attacks on the US mainland. I live in Oregon where Japan actually attacked three times, once actually even killing people (the other two caused a forest fire and kicked up some sand around Ft. Stevens on the coast).

Conspiracy theory?

[slashflood]

It is hard, _not_ to believe in a conspiracy, if we don't get to see all frames from every video recording. We know, that there are recordings from the nearby hotel and the gas station. Even if there is nothing interesting on it, they should be released to the public.

There are still problems with the footage from the CCTV camera at the parking lot of the pentagon. How many frames are really missing?

A meaningfull conclusion of Jolly Rogers

Re:Conspiracy Theorists paid by the govt?

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

You play the bad guy, I play the good guy
Years before I get to be president? Or have you forgotten the embassy bombings?
Meanwhile you keep threatening the west with more attacks to keep the public in fear.
So what about the London, and Spain bombings?
Except one annoying reporter
you misspelled demagogue.

Are all security cameras like this?

[ChePibe]

Off-topic, I realize, but do all security cameras produce such poor images? I can understand the reduced frame-rate to save space, and most security concerns will not need to be analyzed at 24-30 frames a second. But this video is soooo grainy - could you even spot something like, say, a license plate at a great distance? I understand it won't be like the seemingly 20+ megapixel images we see on TV detective shows, but surely they must be better, right?

Re:Are all security cameras like this?

[geekoid]

yes, pretty much all cameras used for outside security are pretty crappy.
There are used to see unexpected activity, and then someone is sent out to 'check it out'
They are not designed to capture a plane traveling at at least 300MPH slam into the building.

Re:Are all security cameras like this?

[Russ Nelson]

Yes, no, and no respectively.

Um, 9/12?

[Kenja]

So they release a tape toquell the conspiracy theorists, but the footage dosn't realy show anything and has the time/date stamp of the day after the attack?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1861977. stm

I somehow doubt this will resolve anything.

The Video Is Out

[i_am_profiled]

Here are links to the video.

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/foi/index.html

mms:wmworldmii-streamingnetmediadefenseflight77fl7 7-111094135WMV

mms:wmworldmii-streamingnetmediadefenseflight77fl7 7-211094237WMV

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I took it to be the signature line....plus as a nativist, I'm not used to chicano-inspired spanglish.../sarcasmo

Bush must be nervous!

[Zaphod2016]

I've heard something on the news about low poll numbers, but this suprised even me.

Pssss. President Bush, its impossible to prove a negative.

...except that one...

9/11 , International Terrorism and the rest

[unixmaster]

Watch BBC Documentary The Power of Nightmares and it will all start to make sense.

Re:9/11 , International Terrorism and the rest

[chromozone]

That documentary was mental junk food. It was artfully contrived and viewed like a thriller, but was rather devoid of meaningful content. If lazy people were looking for an excuse to dismiss Islamic Fascism that documentary gave it to them. Right from the start it reveals itself as deeply flawed when it totally mis characterises Sayeed Qutb. Qutb,a father of modern Islamic fundamentalism, is a primary inspiration for Al Qaeda since he wrote contemporary Islam would be wrong to consider jihad as only a "defensive option"

  Qutb wrote:

"As to persons who attempt to defend the concept of Islamic Jihaad by
interpreting it in the narrow sense of the current concept of
defensive war, and who do research to prove that the battles fought
in Islamic Jihaad were all for the defense of the homeland of Islam--
some of them considering the homeland of Islam to be just the Arabian
peninsula--against the aggression of neighboring powers, they lack
understanding of the nature of Islam and its primary aim. Such an
attempt is nothing but a product of a mind defeated by the present
difficult conditions and by the attacks of the treacherous
orientalists on the Islamic Jihaad".

The documentary mentions Qutb as if he were a benevolent force and I found such a flaw quite odd since the writings are there for people to see. We are caught up in some form of denial here with this documentary. It has true enough principles but applies them poorly and to some detriment.

Qutb also wrote how Islamic communities in foreign lands would need to take political power when their numbers were sufficient:

"Thus, wherever an Islamic community exists which is a concrete
example of the Divinely-ordained system of life, it has a God-given
right to step forward and take control of the political authority so
that it may establish the Divine system on earth, while it leaves the
matter of belief to individual conscience. When God restrained
Muslims from Jihaad for a certain period, it was a question of
strategy rather than of principle; this was a matter pertaining to
the requirements of the movement and not to belief. Only in the light
of this explanation can we understand those verses of the Holy Qur'an
which are concerned with the various stages of this movement."

Hello France and Netherlands ?!

This is why we would do well not to underestimate the tactics of these people and make excuses for their actions by becoming self condemning democracies (a neurotic trait really). Islamic scholars like Tariq Ramadan also need to be scrutinized since they try to portray a moderate, intellectualism removed from violent fundamentalist sentiments yet they often hold Qutb in high regard - which is a lot like admiring Hitlers theories but claiming to dismiss Nazi ideals.

Re:Where's The Plane?

[bheading]

In this case I'm inclined to apply Occam's razor and pick the simplest explanation given the available facts, which are :

- a plane took off
- bits of fuselage were photographed on the lawn of the Pentagon
- three other hijacked planes were seen crashing into other places
- several eyewitnesses reported seeing a plane

Come up with an alternative explanation if you wish - but you have to make it fit with the above facts. The existing conspiracy theories don't.

knew I'd seen it before...

[GReaToaK_2000]

Here is a few things I am sure everyone has seen but it is very interesting and there are certainly some REALLY good questions and analysis in here.

http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/pentagon.htm
http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/penta gon.php

One question comes to mind seeing these pictures...
Where is the "skid" mark?
The whole (before the collapse of the 3rd and 4th floors) is WAY to small for a 757, so what was it?
There is no wreckage...

I don't really go that deep into the conspiracy thing but looking at this with scale models of planes and the pentagon make it obvious that it wasn't a 757.

Oh well...

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[NeuroManson]

The wings on most aircraft today are made to shear off (eg; snap off of the fuselage) upon impact, in order to reduce the risk of ruptured fuel tanks discharging their burning payload directly into the cabin.

The only reason that the outlines of the planes' wings remained on both of the impacted WTC towers was due to the building materials. Short of the box girders, those sites were covered with a thin stainless steel facade. The underlying girders themselves were in fact a ruddy brown color, which would be invisible to the naked eye under fire conditions, adding to the illusion that those planes somehow punched a huge hole through, when at best it was approximately the size of the fuselage as well. Evidence of this is consistent with the debris left at the Pentagon.

Similarly, you have building materials VS. aircraft design in the Pentagon attack. The Pentagon was initially designed to withstand aerial bombardment during WWII, and retrofitted for nuclear attack in the decades to follow. That translates to LOTS of reinforced concrete and stone which, if anyone else here watched impact testing and missile tests against solid concrete bunkers, et al, showed very similar, if not exactly, the same results when compared to the Pentagon attack. The impacts would not only have sheared off the wings, but the general refusal of reinforced concrete to either snap or bend out of the way would have resulted in a misleadingly small impact site.
As for nonexistant skid marks at the Pentagon, it may just be possible that the plane was either in level flight, or on the rebound (as evidenced by light posts that were snapped off at the base, exactly as they're designed to) before impacting.

Additionally, to all the nutters who claimed the WTC was hit by a missile, those so called pods are in fact the rear landing gear bays, the flash they claim to be a launch is more than likely a high voltage discharge from the radome in the aircraft's nose (visible just as the fiberglas dome comes into contact with the outside of the towers). Just bright enough to arc and trigger theories everywhere from people who have no idea how planes are made, sadly enough.

But nowhere enough to give people the real story about 9/11, just more noise to keep people with real credentials from being heard.

Anyway, the long and short: There's a lot more involved in aerospace than most would imagine, and even fewer bother to verify or study, like much junk science or conspiracy theories. If the idea of aircraft "disappearing" in the process of crashing sounds like a conspiracy, then the Valujet crash in the Everglades a decade or so ago must have come from little green men indeed.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[geekoid]

Yet another situation where it all makes sense if you are educated. Those that are ignorant just either ignore it, or use it to fuel there pet 'government/them' are out to 'get' us.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[PaulQuinn]

The wings on most aircraft today are made to shear off (eg; snap off of the fuselage) upon impact, in order to reduce the risk of ruptured fuel tanks discharging their burning payload directly into the cabin.

Good point.

Um, so where did the sheared off wings go? Oh, and the two 10ton rolls-royce engines attached to them?

Are you saying it is easy for you to believe that the wings (and engines!) sheared off, folded neatly along the body, and vaporized along with everything else on the plane? No leaving impact marks, nor pieces of themselves anywhere outside the building?

There is no rational thought on either side of this subject. The tinhats who thought up the 'hologram' theory are nuts. But the people who buy the official line on this stuff are very delusional as well. Anything to avoid confronting that the US is not the shining diamond on a spire that they were sold growing up.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[PenGun]

Also I remember seeing pictures of a copier right beside the hole with unburned paper in the hopper.

    PenGun
  Do What Now ??? ... Standards and Practices !

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[NeuroManson]

When the wings hit they could have done any variety of things:

(1) Shatter: The aluminum structures of the wings could, and most likely did shatter upon impact. Even the titanium that makes up the engines could have broken apart (which in this case is just the turbine blades, the rest is steel, magnesium, aluminum, plastics and rubber). In a high speed impact (each attack involved pushing the planes to almost MACH 1, for maximum damage), so you already have 500+ MPH in inertia, VS. the weight of the engines and plane itself, impacting reinforced concrete. After that, the plane is just another projectile.

(2) Dispersal: Due to (1), the wings would have more than likely folded along the fuselage, thanks to all that concrete giving all of those recently seperated components no other course to follow, other than their straight trajectory through the outer wall. Anything that could break off would have followed a scattering pattern through the first, second, and third rings of the Pentagon (as seen from aerial photographs after the fact)

(3) Destroyed due to fire: While titanium and steel components are resistant to the heat generated by burning fuel, the aluminum skin of the fuselage and wings would have vaporized shortly after impact (take a look at any picture of a plane that caught fire on the ground while stationary, without the benefit of a fuel explosion, even then almost half of the fuselage is melted away in most cases).

Now as for skids, like I said before, the plane could have hit at near level attitude, there would be no cases for a skid in that case.

And for the lack of burned grass: Lets take the following into account. One, we're looking at an obviously well maintained lawn, correct? How does 99.9% of businesses, governments, and individuals insure a nice, GREEN, well maintained lawn? Especially on a warm summerlike day? Watering, of course. And when do most of the aformentioned entities water their lawns? In the morning, usually over the course of 2-3 hours from sunrise. Wastes a lot of water, yes, but that's how people who can afford their water bills do it. In essense, most of the grass in the area was either damp or well watered. Under such conditions, a flash fire would do little cosmetic harm to the grass, even if the grass died in the process (dead foliage takes a couple of days under direct sunlight to turn brown after the fact).

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[Achromatic1978]

(each attack involved pushing the planes to almost MACH 1, for maximum damage), so you already have 500+ MPH in inertia

Wah? And how did they achieve "almost MACH 1" in near straight and level flight (hint, the aircraft were not kept at cruise altitude and then near vertically dive bombed at their targets) at low altitude? 300 knots at even 3000' is not even close to Mach 1, it's less than Mach 0.4.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[MrRee]

I'm with you 100%. Most conspiracy nuts have no idea that speed+fuel+ground=very little plane left. Look at the remains of the XB-70. Engines gone missing? Yeah--maybe they'll show up on e-bay one day. Strange things happen during a crash because of physics and after because of people.

I once saw the impact of an aircraft in the end of the runway in England. After the impact and fireball, the right seater got out of the cockpit remains and ran for around 100 feet before dropping. The medics said he was dead before he ever left the cockpit. Must have been aliens using a Klingon cloaking device and a sonic screwdriver.

Give it a rest. The planes crashed into the buildings. The government is not nearly coordinated enough to coverup anything much less form a conspiracy. Need proof? Look at ada.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[NeuroManson]

The maximum speed of a Boeing 767 is 550 MPH, or approximately .85 Mach, mainly because of built in safety measures. As I said, close to Mach 1, and oh, did I mention mass VS. inertia?

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[Achromatic1978]

At cruising altitude. Not near sea level. Those speeds, at sea level, will cause massive structural stress, prior to getting anywhere near the buildings. Those builtin safety measures you talk of would prevent any overspeed to that degree. I could not image getting above .5 - .6 Mach. If you wish, I'm more than happy to look at the official Boeing manuals when I get home tonight (while I'm not a commercial pilot, I /do/ happen to have all the Boeing manuals for 737/757/767.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[GReaToaK_2000]

I would be happy if the government would just admit it wasn't a 757. That is was a small commuter jet.

Just looking at the scale model of a 757 matched up with a scale model of the pentagon is enough for me to question what I can see as the damage area.

I shouldn't have put that first link in... It was a bit goofy I'll admit...

BUT that second one had some really interesting analysis. Some was silly but the measurements and angular calculations are fairly solid. Again taking into account the the engines and the size of the plane simply does not match up.

I knew this wasn't going to be a popular stance but I don't really give two shits what most government "sucklings" have to say... They just swallow the Bush Administration shit adgenda without question.

This country needs to question more... Vote more... and participate more in this countries political system...

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[Cyno]

if anyone else here watched impact testing and missile tests against solid concrete bunkers, et al, showed very similar, if not exactly, the same results when compared to the Pentagon attack. The impacts would not only have sheared off the wings, but the general refusal of reinforced concrete to either snap or bend out of the way would have resulted in a misleadingly small impact site.

What's interesting to me is that there is no debrie on the lawn, no wings were torn off by those light posts, and curiously this fragile plane poked a hole through your missile tested steal reinforced concrete barrier. Do you know of anything on a 747 that could have done that? I don't.

So its either the Pentagon was not designed to withstand this type of attack, the 747 buried itself within the reinforced side of the Pentagon, somehow, disentigrating in the process. Or something smaller, like a fighter jet or a missile did this damage, and the light posts were ripped out of the ground/torn off to make it look good.

Why confiscate cameras from all surrounding areas? Why be so secretive? We all know we were attacked, its not a secret, let me tell you. But the governments actions post 9/11 have been dishonest to say the least. Anyone remember those WMDs? Did we ever find those? Did we search the Pentagon? I bet we'll find them next to the 747.

Re:knew I'd seen it before...

[Cyno]

Prove you are educated:

Did Iraq have the Weapons of Mass Destruction our government used as evidence for the cause to start this war?

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[Paladin144]

So, let's forget about the UFO guys and the "it wasn't airplanes it was missiles" nutjobs. What about a much more plausible conspiracy? i.e. Bush (or one of his friends) having an agreement with Osama (Let's not forget that the Bin Ladens DID have business with the Bush family - i'm talking about Oil).

This is not as far out as it seems. What everybody seems to forget is that Bin Laden was a CIA agent for years and years when he was part of the mujahideen that were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was our boy, on our payroll. We gave him cash, weapons, logistical support, equipment and god knows what else. So what I wanna know is this:

When exactly did Bin Laden quit the CIA?

That's all I wanna know. Well, that and how he did it. I just can't imagine that leaving the employ of the CIA is as easy as leaving, say, Sears. Do they hold you an office party where you're blindfolded the whole time or something? Do they just say, "Remember all that classified info you were privy to over the years? Can you, like, not say anything to anyone about that? K, thx, bye."

It all seems a little fishy. Can somebody point me to a document proving Bin Laden is no longer working for the CIA? Otherwise, don't we have to assume that he is still in their pocket?

Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[Nazmun]

Even i remember witnesses saying things like car-bombs, truck bombs, and even missles. Which witness do we actually trust? The ones the government backs up?

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ScentCone]

Even i remember witnesses saying things like car-bombs, truck bombs, and even missles. Which witness do we actually trust? The ones the government backs up?

In what way is the government "backing up" the people that, sitting in traffic, watched the airplane go right over their heads and into the building? You can definitely get people to say anything, but someone who says "truck bomb" is going to have an interesting conversation with the people who were on the phone with TV and radio reporters within minutes of plane hitting the Pentagon and said they saw the airline's logo on the tail, etc. They saw it. Dozens and dozens of people sitting right there, within a hundred or two yards of the actual impact, watched it happen. You want to know which witnesses to trust? How about the ones that, unaware of each other's reporting of events, all said basically the same thing. The odd fruitloop reporting something different in order to get attention, grind some axe, or at the mercy of an addled brain is noise in the information.

If we were talking about 2 witnesses that said "I saw an AA 757 fly right into the building" and just as many that said "I saw truck dive into the building", that would be one thing. But that's not what we have.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ehrichweiss]

Since most people can't distinguish between sudden loud noises and explosions, I wouldn't trust most of them. However eye witnesses can easily distinguish between a 757 and a missile. In that stupid movie Loose Change, the producer's agenda was clear when he repeatedly had cuts of people saying "I heard an explosion" because you never heard someone state "I heard a loud noise" in the video at all. When people are in shock, they do not have the mental capacity to keep track of and remember everything that happens especially events that they didn't have a clear grasp of and if they hear someone on the street utter "explosion" then that's the new word they have for those noises. Think of it as a form of mob mentality or a strange game of "Telephone" where the original message gets mixed up when someone messes it up. I would venture that it's a safe bet to say that most people who experienced 9/11 on a first/secondhand basis were in shock.

To illustrate, you could come hang out by my house when a semi-truck passes over a certain section of the road, they always make a HORRIFIC noise that sounds like gunfire and sometimes explosions. It's loud enough to be heard over my stereo at full volume. I wouldn't trust someone from NY to tell me that the sound was gunfire because, since guns are illegal there, most don't have the experience to know what they are talking about.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[jsight]

I wouldn't trust someone from NY to tell me that the sound was gunfire because, since guns are illegal there...

Er, what?

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[nickmalthus]

Even better then eyewitness accounts would be for the government to release the all of the other video's they confiscated immediately after the attacks. There are at least three others. What would be a valid reason not to?

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ehrichweiss]

How about I put it this way. Around here, we know what gunfire sounds like for the most part because we hear it a "lot" since it's legal to use them for legit purposes but in other parts of the country/world where they are forbidden no matter what use, the people aren't gonna have the experience to know exactly what they heard.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ehrichweiss]

Please note the word "exactly"(I sent that last one waaay too early). If someone has only heard 3 shots in their life but thought they heard 10(say the rest of the episodes were fireworks), they aren't reliable as witnesses for what a gunshot sounds like. I've fired a gun many times at a firing range and know what they sound like, most people from NYC don't have that kind of experience; they have heard things they suspect were gunshots but unless they were eyewitness to it, they aren't good candidates for testimony. Same goes for those who say they heard "explosions". How many in NYC have heard an honest explosion of that magnitude and actually KNOWN that's what it was as opposed to guessing at it?

For example, a lady whose name I now forget did some research on how someone's testimony could be influenced by language. So she showed 20 people a video of a car hitting another car. She split the group in two and asked each 10 the same question but changed one word. "how fast would you estimate the first car was going when it crashed into the other car" and "how fast would you estimate the first car was going when it *smashed*(emphasis mine) into the other car". The people who answered the second question always estimated about 10-20 mph faster than the first.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ehrichweiss]

I'm really not concerned with that, myself. The issue is less about whether there was a conspiracy and more about what are we DOING about it. I don't want to talk about how it happened, I want the monkey and all his cronies out of the Whitehouse since it's more than obvious that it was gross incompetence at the very least. So I can either choose to argue about what happened, or I can choose to do something that sees that it doesn't have much chance to happen again.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[jsight]

I think you missed my point. Your original post claimed that guns are illegal in NYC, which is obviously not true.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[ehrichweiss]

Since when? Last time I was there my friend was arrested for carrying one in the *trunk* of his car(despite my objections) while we were simply passing through the state. The mace and the tiny pocket knife I was carrying were also illegal but I didn't get charged, and neither did my friend who had a "billy club", which was nothing more than a damn stick(we still don't understand that one). The officer was sure to show us the charges in the book of statutes. Has something changed I don't know about? They even made owning a flare gun illegal back in the 90's, IIRC.

Re:Witnesses Stories Don't Match

[diablomonic]

how about a combination? there are 40 witnesses saw a plane (but not the same plane, two different sorts of jumbo and some swore it was a bizjet, semi-explainable, they were in shock and memory is not always 100%):My take, there was a plane of some sort, and it looked at least reasonably like a passenger jet

Next we have a witness who saw a millitary helicopter, from the far side of the building, and it went towards the helipad near the crash site just before the fireball. Only one witness (as far as I know) but its not like you could confuse a plane with a helicopter all that easily and it was coming from the far (hidden from freeway) side. Relevance? unsure. possibility given later

Next we have millitary trained personal claiming to have smelled cordite (explosives), witnesses who claimed the airoplane blew up before impact, witnesses who saw a missile, and a damage pattern more consistant with a combination missile/explosives strike than a plane crash. We also have a video showing:

- no recognizable airplane: the one frame that shows a small white thing doesnt look like a jumbo jet to me (but could be...maybe): wrong size/shape/thickness but its hard to tell. It looks like a missile to me though.
- Fireball is COMPLETELY wrong for a jet crash... isn't it? am I the only one noticing this? a jet traveling at 500 miles per hour flies smack into a building and the resulting fireball looks perfectly symetrical around a vertical center line? not splayed out as I would expect? can someone explain this cos I cant see it
- some people have raised doubts about its authenticity: to do with shadows, lighting, what looks like editing of the colours in one frame (talking about older release here). Me- I think its probably mostly real, but question what it shows, and REALLY would like to know if there is no conspiracy, then why has the other footage not been released, and why did this take so long?

My theory? there was a plane (remote controlled, maybe the original, maybe not) and it was somehow exploded before impact (perhaps the helicopter shot missiles at it? I doubt they would be powerful enough but dont know, or it already had explosives on board, or the anti arcraft missile battery actuallly worked but they havent told us). or maybe overflew the building and kept out of view (Im doubtful of this one, but otheriwse where is all the wreckage?) I think there was a missile involved (either in blowing up the plane before impact or causing some of the damage- wintesses saw it) I'm a bit thrown off by the fireball. It doesnt fit with what I imagine should have happened in a pure plane crash (why symmetrical?) but also cordite is almost smokeless and flashless and so couldnt have caused it. there is the strangely almost perfect edge of the hole supposedly knocked out by part of the airplane (it seems looking at that website that that may have just been a mistake and it was really an access hole made for emergency workers: makes more sense)

ok so what are we left with? confusion. And I think thats likely one of the main purposes of the attack at the pentagon: confusion and misdirection. Get conspiracy theorists confused and making up wild speculation, including the speculation that there wasn't a plane, and most people will just assume they are nuts, cos 40 people saw the plane. maybe the people involved werent sure they could count on the plane not getting shot down at the last minute (eg by the aa missiles), so set up explosives just in case? this particular conspiracy is generally thought NOT to have deeply involved the military in the planning and execution, with the bush administration, CIA and others involved probably relying on confusion due to the wargames and key personel who were in on it to dupe the millitary into letting it happen, which also explains flight 93 getting shot down (not everyone went along with it...)

Re:Well thats nice

[masdog]

Well, if that's true, I guess that clinches what everyone has assumed so far: key people who were architects of the 9/11 attacks, and who are in the custody of the U.S. "somewhere" (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) are never going to be put on trial.

Well, if the government did that, then they would risk one of the defendants making a compelling case that Al Qaeda wasn't behind the 9/11 attacks and drawing even more attention to the Bush administration.

i call bullshit

[ultramrw21]

The release of this video is not about "disproving conspiracy theories". It's to remind the american people of what happened 5 years ago. Approval ratings are plummeting across the board, when were the president's approval ratings at their highest? right after 9/11. It's pretty clever, we havent had any other attacks to scare us into submission, why not bring the terrorist attacks of 9/11 back in the citizen's minds? Thats just my two cents

Re:i call bullshit

[eggman95]

or to take the heat off Bush for wiretaping. "Oh no, we are in trouble again!" "Quick release something about 9/11 again!"

Re:i call bullshit

[swordgeek]

Of course it is. Let's all repeat it again:

9/11! Hard decisions! Terrorism. Iraq. Saddam Hussein. HARD decisions! 9/11. 9/11.

Repeat until people forget what they were suspicious or unhappy about.

Re:i call bullshit

[bpd1069]

We Have a Winner!!!

Re:i call bullshit

[Hillgiant]

Because living in a constant state of fear and paranoia is the only way to defeat terrorism.

Re:i call bullshit

[feed_those_kitties]

My gawd, that's so cynical it's brilliant!

And I'm cynical enough to believe it's probably at least part of the reason the tapes were released.

/salute ultramrw21

Re:i call bullshit

[Cyno]

An interesting cooincidence in all of this is that the Loose Change video on 911, the WTC and the Pentagon, hit number 2 on video.google.com's top 100, and is number 1 today. It had been rising steadily since the Colbert Report's Correspondence Dinner. I think they're trying to counter some of the evidence show in this documentary. A little too late, IMO. This Loose Change video is everyone, already translated into every language.

It almost brings a tear to my eye.

Re:i call bullshit

[Cyno]

When you learn the facts surrounding 9/11, you have no choice but to live in a constant state of fear and paranoia.

My government:

• Diverted all national defense forces out of the country
  
• Refused to launch defense systems and fighters
  
• Bombed the wrong country in retaliation
  
• Lied
  

My president:

• Read a kids book
  

And you're not affraid? Ignorance is bliss, isn't it? :)

You go on believing its possible to defeat terrorism. Don't worry, everyone will live happily ever after now that we've killed the evil arch terrorist Suddam Hussein.

Re:i call bullshit

[joedoc]

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't need reminders of what happened that day. I worked for the Navy as a civilian at the time, and a number of the Pentagon dead were folks from the community (weather) in which I worked. I graduated from a Catholic Long Island high school in 1973 -- at least a dozen alumni from my old school were killed in the towers that day. Many of the fireman victims lived in the burbs of Long Island, around many of my friends and family, who watched the funerals day after day.

That this is a ploy to "remind the (A)merican people" is terribly cynical. Isn't the fact that we were brutally attacked and the loss of over 3000 people who were present at work enough to make you remember?

It does for me....

Re:i call bullshit

[Hillgiant]

I miss the good ole days when satire could be subtle.

Fearing your government may be a natural reaction, but it is hardly a solution.

Re:i call bullshit

[Cyno]

I miss the good ole days when satire could be subtle.

Doh! Sorry about that. :P

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[DragonWriter]

And that strategy has worked exactly when in history?

It rarely works except maybe in the short term, but is frequently tried by government's wishing to distract from domestic problems. Perhaps a good fairly recent examples that avoids partisan bickering in the US is Argentina and the Falkland Islands War.

New? That is an OLD VIDEO

[PaulQuinn]

That video has been out for years. All the conspiracy sites show it. This is creapier than ever - the pentagon is rebranding an old video as 'cooperatively releasing sensative information that proves once and for all that a plane hit the pentagon'? Seriously?

And no, I can not spot a 757 in that video. If I was a man in the desert for 50 years, and never heard of 9/11, then saw that video for the first time and was asked to describe what I saw, it would be: "a stream of smoke, a flash, a ball of flame".

Whatever. This news is an insult. A joke is being played here. Again.

Bushy

[Frostalicious]

Bush or the administration somehow involved? Surely he would have set himself up to look better during the atacks, rather than looking stunned for 7 minutes and reading kids stupid stories.

Re:Bushy

[PaulQuinn]

How about this: Bush is a patsy, a frontman. There is a cabal (PNAC guys - cheney, wolfy, rummy, etc..) that pulled together 9/11. Bush had the basic idea, but was purposely not told so he could have plausible deniability. I base this on the fact that the first 8 months of W's presidency was a whole lot of nothing. No direction, no accomplishments. Just clearing brush. He was probably told he didnt need to worry about doing much of anything, since his real presidency would start after 'a pearl harbour' of sorts (to quote PNAC).

The 7 minutes he sat stunned, his brain was repeating to himself "Holy shit shit shit shit! They did it. They are actually doing it. Holy shit!".
And he knew who was behind it, so he didn't feel compelled to jump up and find out what was going on.

Re:Bushy

[nickmalthus]

Bush keeps changing his account of what happened during the attack that it would be laughable to hear what he would say if he were not publicly visible. Revisiting 9/11 Bush has publicly reported twice that he saw the first plane hit the WTC live on a TV at the school even though it was not televised until a couple days later.

Re:Bushy

[nagora]

I can see where you're coming from, and the "New Pearl Harbour" comment by Wolfie and Rumsfeld back in 1999 certainly does make me wonder sometimes, but I disagree on two points:

1 Bush is not a patsy. He is a member of the cabal who is perfectly happy to be seen as "too dumb to sin". Makes any future trial a LOT easier. But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them. Iran is just sabre-rattling to boost the price of oil and their collective pension funds.

2. I think Bush simply ignored the warnings because he and his friends thought it was going to be a small attack like the van bomb. That would have been enough of a "Pearl Harbour" for the PNAC. He was genuinely shocked when the scale of it became clear. He must have been thinking about what would happen if the story of all the warnings he'd had came out before his friends in the media clamped the lid on it. He had a close shave but Fox et al came to the rescue and people like John O'Neil were literally buried in the bad news and shock.

Now the reality bit: all empires have been founded on economics. They have to be. It is only in the post-WWII era that governments have decided to pretend otherwise (around the time the War Department became the Defence Department). The reality is that America needs Iraq's oil and now it has it. And if they did not, the American economy would be in deep shit very soon. In the old days this would have been explained openly - proudly - and then the troops sent in. Britain did it all the time. Japan did it. Germany and Italy did it. The Romans did it (grain mostly rather than oil). It's a fact of life. What has changed is that an extra layer of hypocrisy has been added. But there's nothing unusual about invading a country with or without a pretext to seize its resources, even if it means letting someone attack you first when you could have stopped them. The alternative is to drastically change your way of life, a way of life that these guys at the top simply worship and can not even imagine changing just because a bunch of dirty foreign rag-heads object! The idea actually makes them feel ill; you can see it on their faces when they talk about countries that have oil and aren't being properly servile. They hate that. They are by their own definition the pinacle of human achievement and despise anyone who does not vocally agree with that assessment. Look at Bush's crack about the London anti-war protests. The rabble are not entitled to an opinion.

A hundred years ago Wolfowitz would have got a medal, now he gets a cushy job in the World Bank. He successfully defended the American Way of Life(tm). And if you read his speeches and letters about why a pretext for invading Iraq had to be found, I think you'll see that's what he thought all along.

Imperialists are all the same in every place and every time.

TWW

Re:Bushy

[swordgeek]

You claim to not comprehend the constant search for 'more,' but then you hit the nail on the head, with your analogy to addiction. The human lives, the people to live or die, the soldiers and terrorists and enemies all come down to nothing more than ballast in the biggest game there is.

Whoever dies with the most marbles, wins. That's all there is.

THe scariest part is that the people playing aren't honest enough to realise that that's all there is.

Re:Bushy

[nagora]

Is it helping us at the gas pump? No? Oh, thats also caused by those "oil men" being so greedy, eh?

Exactly. It's not meant to help you at the gas pump.

Remember that when the price of oil goes up 20 dollars a barrel as it has recently, the cost of producing it hasn't gone up a cent. All that 20 dollars is pure profit.

TWW

Re:Bushy

[PowerMacDaddy]

But profit for whom? Look at the financials of the "big oil" companies and you'll see their profit margins are only around 6.5-7%, and that hasn't changed. (For a frame of reference, Apple's profit margin on the iPod is well into the 20% range.) So Exxon et al are not making any extra money. The retailers aren't making any extra money. So who's making the extra money? The nations of OPEC. They set the price per barrel. So the "oil men" you refer to as being greedy are not people with ties to eeeevil Halliburton and Exxon and BP, but the nations of OPEC.

Oh, and just a refresher from 7th grade sociology class: when demand increases but supply stays level, prices increase. China and India are going through a boost in their economy right now and their demand has soared, while the US stayed flat for a while during the early 2000's as we went through a recession that started in August 2000 and didn't start showing signs of relief until late '04/early '05. So global demand has increased, while global production has stayed flat. Yes, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand and explain more easily than someone who is too busy paying attention to conspiracy theories and Michael Moore to grasp the basic concepts of supply and demand.

Re:Bushy

[nagora]

So who's making the extra money? The nations of OPEC.

Yes, that's right: the government adjourns and goes out to dig for oil and gas. Or maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.

es, the price per barrel has gone up due to simple economics that a 7th grader could understand

A 7th grader might think s/he understands (in fact you apparently do think you understand) but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow. Insecurity about oil supply affects the level of stockpiling, which is a type of artificial demand. Fears over the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners is driving oil prices up beyond the "natural" increase in price caused by China etc.

7th grade economics and 5th grade politics are a poor mechanism for understanding the reality of political decisions in a country like the US.

TWW

Re:Bushy

[PowerMacDaddy]

maybe they outsource it to companies like Exxon and Haliburton. Most oil extraction in Venezuela, for example, is carried out by Exxon.

LOL I don't know where you get your information, but since I personally know several people who have worked in the oil & gas industry for 15+ years and who have spent time in the middle east I can tell you for a fact that oil extraction is not outsourced. Unlike what was portrayed in Clooney's bit-o-fiction Syriana, no western company owns or operates any facility in the Gulf. The majority are nationally-owned companies; the rest have a nationally-owned company as the major shareholder, meaning any outside company -- or country -- plays second-fiddle to the national interest. As for Venezuela.... their continued tax increases on the extraction companies mean companies like Exxon make about $10 per-barrel profit, which is the same as what they were making 10 years ago.

but in real life the price of oil has been fluctuating far more rapidly than a simplistic demand/supply model would allow

Then you don't understand supply and demand very well, do you? We spent about 15 years at an equilibrium price, so I can understand why you forgot some of the economics lessions. Like this one: When supply is at a maximum production point and demand is high, prices will fluctuate within the the envelope of elasticity when there is a perceived shift with suppliers or consumers. Look at Xbox 360 prices on eBay last Christmas. Look at current Alaskan salmon prices. Look at seafood market prices around Lent. Hell, look at any of the commodities markets. I could cite example after example. What's happening in the oil markets isn't anything new, nor is it anything out of the ordinary.

the US's insane support for Iran's hardliners

We're supporting those nuts? Riiiiiight. Don't know what news you've been watching, but time to come back to the really-real world: we've been at odds with Iran since the fall of the Shah in 1979. Or are you too young to remember the whole hostage crisis thing?

7th grade economics and 5th grade politics

Actually, I'm personally way beyond that, but I had to backtrack for you since you needed a refresher in the basics.

Re:Bushy

[nagora]

We're supporting those nuts?

Well, everything Bush has said for the last four years seems designed to make it harder for the "softliners" to do anything about the nutters without looking like traitors, so I'd count that as support. I also think that it's been going on too long and too consistantly to be an accident.

perceived shift with suppliers or consumers

That was my point, in fact. The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality. That's what I meant by the fluctuation being artificial rather than "natural". Fear-led stockpiling is not quite the same mechanism that is at work with, for example, China coming on-stream with a rising genuine demand for oil.

I could cite example after example

Oddly, after making the right point you gave wrong examples. All were of genuine increases in demand/reduction in supply rather than of a perception of a coming shortfall.

Your other assertions generally fall apart in the face of simple economics. Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.

TWW

Re:Bushy

[PowerMacDaddy]

The shift is in perception and not in real production or consumption (which is gradually increasing). That shift is caused by warmongering which makes people worry about supply without actually reducing it in reality.

Did you forget the hurricanes last year and how gas prices spiked then? Oh wait, I guess bush caused the hurricanes, too. My point is this: Regardless of the cause, whenever you're at a max production point (thus constraining supply) and demand is on the rise, *any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter. And the reason we're at a constrained supply point is because China and India have both increased demand. Duh.

Oil prices have gone up and oil company profits have gone with them. You are implying (nay: stating) that there is no connection. That is nonsense.

Let's see here.... oil companies' profit margins have remained constant over the past 15+ years, production costs have gone up, but they make more money. In essence, they make the same amount per gallon sold regardless of the price at the pump. Hmmm. I guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it? Oh heavens no. That would be too simplistic an explanation.

Re:Bushy

[nagora]

I guess bush caused the hurricanes, too.

Funnily enough...

Regardless of Bush's denial of global warming, the hurricanes hit profits at Exxon, for instance, as the drop in production was not matched by the increase in price.

*any* perceived negative influence on supply will cause a spike in price. Regardless of the market.... oil, fish, Xboxes, it doesn't matter.

Yes, I think we've established that we agree on this; you just don't seem to understand that perceved influence is not the same as real demand from industry. Oil is not the same as shares: it is actually consumed in a real process.

guess their profits couldn't be because they have increased number of gallons sold, could it?

No.

Shell's profits, for example, are up a third this year. The company makes almost nothing on the sale of petrol; the vast bulk is from extraction.

Exxon's profits have reached record levels, but again most was not from refined goods but sales of extracted crude.

Like I originally said: when oil prices rise, oil costs usually do not. It is a highly profitable (and old) business to talk up demand in such a situation when you own lots of shares in the oil companies (or are directly employed by them like Chaney is).

I have to say that people like yourself are an endless source of amusement to me. You prattle on about "conspiracy nuts" and "Michael Moore" (none of whom's books or films I have ever read or seen) and ignore facts which are public record.

Wolfowitz has never hidden his pre-2001 demands that a pretext for the invasion of Iraq should be found. The DoD has never tried to suppress the fact that the "mobile chemical plants" were British-made weather ballon trucks which were approved for export by the US DoD. The receipts for Rumsfeld's sales of WMD to Saddam are on record in the minutes of the Senate Banking Committee, and Bush Snr has never denied that Saddam was installed as a puppet who turned on his master. These things are trivial facts which a four year old can confirm.

The conspiracy is not on this side of the argument: it is on the pro-Bush side. That is the side which is not happy with the established record. It is pro-Bushers who scramble around looking for some feeble piece of evidence to refute common knowledge. They are the conspiracy nuts, for they are the ones wanting to pass off masses of very clear evidence as being manufactured.

Meanwhile, Wolfowitz, Rice, Cheney, and Bush happily line their pockets, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to stop them no matter how many Americans (let alone insignificant foreigners) die to let them do it.

TWW

this proves nothing.

[Truekaiser]

it's the same video that was released years ago. all it shows is a intact pentagon, then a exposion, then smoke. it doesn't show what hit it to cause the exposion and smoke.

Where's the other footage?

[daddymac]

OK, the footage they are showing has been released for quite some time now, at least those 5 frames that have the plane coming in from the right, and the explosion bit. Because it is so low quality you can't really tell what hit the building (see Pentagon Strike where thay actually use the footage that was "just released".

So where's the other footage? Where is the footage from the Freeway cameras? Where is the footage from the Sheraton Hotel roof camera? Where are the security tapes from the gas station across the street?

Now, I don't nescessarilly think that it was a missile, and I don't nescessarilly think it wasn't flight 77... I just want to know what is on those other tapes that we are not allowed to see.

Obvious

[diegocgteleline.es]

Like extremists need any help to make a plan to kill thousands of people.

If anything, the US Government could have let terrorist plan the 9/11 attack. Why do it or contribute themselves

BTW, I'm not paranoid, but if there was just a SINGLE camera taking care of the Dep. of Defense of the most powerful country in the world and it had a capture rate so slow that it couldn't grab the frame where the the 747 appeared, you'd need at least to fire somebody because it's insane.

Re:Obvious

[Sylver Dragon]

but if there was just a SINGLE camera taking care of the Dep. of Defense of the most powerful country in the world and it had a capture rate so slow that it couldn't grab the frame where the the 747 appeared, you'd need at least to fire somebody because it's insane.

Why? The type of threat that camera was protecting against wasn't going to be moving at high speed. You don't need to store full motion video when you can be reasonably sure that someone breaking in isn't going to cover the entire field of vision in 1 second. Moreover, there are probably plenty of sensors inside the Pentagon and around all points of entrance to keep things secure. Overall, video is a poor way to secure a building. It's far too easy for a guard to not see something. On the other hand the electronic monitoring devices don't fall asleep and don't blink.
Hell, I would bet that the Pentagon's security system includes enough sensors in the grounds around the building that they would be able to track you as you walked in. There are sensor systems which use a buried cable in the ground and trigger an alarm anytime you walk over the cable. [1] Fact is, you don't just walk into a secured area, without being noticed. Yes, like that one reporter, you might get into an unsecured area of a secure base; good luck getting to anything the military wants secured (inside jobs not withstanding).
It's not suprising at all that this camera is just capturing 1 frame every second. That's fairly normal to keep storage costs down. A camera isn't going to be used to secure an area, it's just used to get pictures of the people who your security system detected comming in.

Re:Obvious

[InsertCleverUsername]

It's not suprising at all that this camera is just capturing 1 frame every second. That's fairly normal to keep storage costs down. A camera isn't going to be used to secure an area, it's just used to get pictures of the people who your security system detected comming in.

Um... Yeah... Having spent all their money on $10,000 screwdrivers, I can see how they'd be really strapped for cash. Maybe the U.S. military could have a bake sale or something to raise the money for better security systems?

Re:Obvious

[Sylver Dragon]

Keep in mind that the security system is installed by the lowest bidder. If that camera wasn't required to have full video capture, the contracter would not go high end where it was not needed, in order to keep his bid down and profits up. Yes, the militray does spend a lot of money on security, and when they have an area they want fully covered, that is in the spec. If they didn't see the need for it though, it would not have ended up there.

Anyone have a link to the damn thing?

[Cal Paterson]

The BBC is great and all, but their link seems to be somehow broken. Realplayer I suspect. Anyone have the video in divx/avi format and willing to share?

Re:Anyone have a link to the damn thing?

[imunfair]

This page has four vid caps, and at the bottom it has links to both of the mss streams from the DOD: http://miniechelon.com/index.php?p=pentagon_911

Re:Well thats nice

[nickmalthus]

Do your own research and form your own independent opinions. If you take all the facts at face value and still believe the official 9/11 story then your views are justified. Just because Wolf Blitzer on CNN didn't spoon feed you all the facts of 9/11 doesn't mean they don't exist.
Here are a couple sites to start your research at.
http://www.pentagonresearch.com/
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.ht ml

Acceptable losses

[Scrameustache]

there's a big difference between a conspiracy between religious extremists to hijack planes and crash them into the buildings of their enemy and a conspiracy of a government to arrange for an attack on its own people

That difference being that the latter has the former to use as scapegoats.

Consider the fact that we're talking about a government that has made its own people ingest plutonium to see what would happen to them before you say they'd never do anything bad. A governement that has sent many, many of their own to die in wars of questionable intent. A government that has predictably gained a LOT of power as result of this attack.

The former didn't gain much.

Re:Acceptable losses

[honkycat]

Yes, there are many examples of governments being parts of conspiracies. I didn't argue that there weren't.

However, it's one thing to argue that the events of 9/11 were part of a conspiracy involving the US government and a very different thing to argue that it was a conspiracy involving terrorists. The former is huge news, the latter is blindingly obvious. When someone talks about 9/11 being a conspiracy, they mean the former, not the latter.

That simple observation was really my point -- the bit about tin foil was intended as a good-natured ribbing of those who take seriously the possibility that this is a case of a conspiracy in the interesting sense. It evidently wasn't interpreted this way by some folks and blurred my meaning. Oops.

Re:Acceptable losses

[mpe]

However, it's one thing to argue that the events of 9/11 were part of a conspiracy involving the US government and a very different thing to argue that it was a conspiracy involving terrorists. The former is huge news, the latter is blindingly obvious. When someone talks about 9/11 being a conspiracy, they mean the former, not the latter.

This is something of a false dichotomy there are plenty of senarios which involve both in one or more related conspiracy.

Re:Acceptable losses

[honkycat]

True enough. I think I put my point better in a different post -- the interesting question is whether or not the US government was involved in the conspiracy, not whether there was some sort of conspiracy at all.

Re:Well thats nice

[rizzo420]

eye witness accounts don't do anything for you, huh?

Re:Well thats nice

[rizzo420]

i read this one

don't try to blame the government for this...

[YesIAmAScript]

There was a time before video cameras, before movies, before photographs. And people still believed things then.

Just because you didn't see it on TV doesn't mean it didn't happen.

These conspiracy theorists state that unless you see it happen, it can't be believed. This tape just plays right into their foolishness.

I say let the crackpots be crackpots. Let them disbelieve everything. That's what they're going to do anyway.

It isn't the government's fault some people are unable to believe overwhelming evidence just because they haven't seen a video yet.

Re:don't try to blame the government for this...

[geekoid]

Bcasue those same crackpots will get a voice and try to enact bad change in the government without understanding why things are.

Always correct crackpots. If nothing else, they wuill stop bothering with the ignorance.

There was a movement to spend million of dollars to test the air and see what is in the "ChemTrails" i.e. ConTrails left by planes.

theories

[atchon]

I have read many of the theories around and though some are blatantly false like the missile one which makes no sense those are the ones people latch onto. Yes a plane flew into the pentagon but was it the plane that supposedly did? The thing that i find hard to believe about the pentagon strike solely is arab terrorists flew 5-10 ft off the ground at 300mph +. The same arabs who could not properly fly a Cessna or whatever they were flying in Florida thats quite an improvement. I'm not saying I believe that it was an inside job just that things should be questioned a little more such as wouldn't it be more plausable that the pilot, ex fighter pilot/counter terrorism trained would be more able to fly into a building at such a height at such speed?

Also its mentioned in Loose Change and various other sites that the highway cameras, gas station cameras, and hotel cameras all should have caught the crash or atleast the airplane on tape, so even if the security camera is normal with only a still every second why not release the other videos and really put a stop to the theories?

I'm not a crazy unpatriotic person I just feel we should question things no matter how straightforward it may seem since if we stop questioning they will start slipping stuff by us.

Re:theories

[geekoid]

Once a plane is in the air, it is prety easy to control, assuming you don't care about surviving the landing.
A correct landing is hard because you are slowing down, need to keep your nose up, etc. . .

Re:theories

[ChronoFish]

Look at the film/freeze frames again. The plane was already on the ground when it enters the frame from the right side. The white bit that *looks* like a plane is just smoke (it's much more obvious in the frames after hitting the building - as it looks like a contrail). The smoke is either from hitting the ground or early and bouncing, and/or the plane was already on fire, probably from hitting the several of the parking lot light polls that were taken out. You can make out (in freeze frames) the planes verticle stabelizer just above the mechanical arm leading the white smoke

I don't know where you got the idea the plane was "flying around at 5-10ft above the ground" - it was 25-30ft above the ground when it started hitting light polls and that was as it started leveling out of a dive. It wasn't a direct-hit - the plane was already on the ground when it slammed into the building (hense the trail of smoke leading out into the parking lot).

-CF

Re:theories

[Alioth]

Flying a plane near the ground is piss easy. My instructor had me fly a few low approaches over the runway before starting on landings - this was perhaps when I had less than 10 hours of instruction.

Re:theories

[diablomonic]

we are not talking about controling a plane in the air, we are talking about powerdiving down from a fair altitude while turning a sharp corner, then skimming along low enough to clip cars and power poles without touching the ground, for hundreds of metres, at full speed/power, directly into a building. and after all that effort, hitting the only section which was almost empty of military personel due to blast proofing renovations, all after having failed to pass a simple flight test to hire a cessna a few weeks before.

Yeah, that NEVER happens.

[biendamon]

It's not like (Cambodia) there's ever been an instance (Germany) of a government (Darfur) arranging violence (Iraq) against its own people. That's unpossible!

Sorry, but you trust the government - any government - way too much when you decide internal conspiracies in it don't happen.

There's even historical precedent for exactly the kind of conspiracy you describe. In Germany, the communists were blamed for the burning of the Reichstag, but it was probably Göring who actually arranged it.

I'm not saying that's what happened this time around. But when you consider how forcefully the Bush administration resisted real investigation into 9/11 for so long - and has failed to fire a single person for incompetency over it - I think it bears closer examination.

If the Bush administration wasn't complicit, it most certainly was incompetent to stop it. I'd like a closer look into that, thank you, because I don't trust the government.

Re:Yeah, that NEVER happens.

[honkycat]

You're reading too much in to my statement. I didn't mean to say anything at all about whether I think the government is actually responsible (directly or through negligence) for the 9/11 events..

My point is just that there are two very different kinds of conspiracies and that the parent posts claiming that "conspiracy theories must be correct, since if it wasn't a conspiracy within our government, then it was a conspiracy of terrorists" are playing a silly word game. No one is arguing that there wasn't a "conspiracy" on some level because that would be an obviously ridiculous position. The people who are worried about conspiracies (and are described as "conspiracy theorists" and as wearing tin-foil hats) are exclusively those worried about the kind of conspiracy that involves our government. Simply, there's nothing interesting or controversial about terrorists being involved in a conspiracy, since that's blindingly obvious -- that being what makes them terrorists and not just run-of-the-mill murderous nut-jobs.

A lot of people seem to have misunderstood my meaning, probably because the statement about "tin foil" didn't come through clearly. I don't mean to discredit the possibility that blame falls on those in our own government.

Re:Yeah, that NEVER happens.

[mpe]

My point is just that there are two very different kinds of conspiracies and that the parent posts claiming that "conspiracy theories must be correct, since if it wasn't a conspiracy within our government, then it was a conspiracy of terrorists" are playing a silly word game. No one is arguing that there wasn't a "conspiracy" on some level because that would be an obviously ridiculous position. The people who are worried about conspiracies (and are described as "conspiracy theorists" and as wearing tin-foil hats) are exclusively those worried about the kind of conspiracy that involves our government.

Not all of the conspiracy theories related to 911 are "High Conspiracies".

Simply, there's nothing interesting or controversial about terrorists being involved in a conspiracy, since that's blindingly obvious -- that being what makes them terrorists and not just run-of-the-mill murderous nut-jobs.

The most unintersting theory is that these are just regular terrorists. Entities like the IRA, ETA, ALF, etc
Things get "interesting" if governments other than than of the US are involved, similarly with some kind of multi-national business (including organised crime) were to be involved. The "Al-Quaeda" as a global terrorist group idea fits in with this, even if there was no connection between Osama Bin-Goldstien and the US (or any other) government.

Trust no one

[technoextreme]

ven i remember witnesses saying things like car-bombs, truck bombs, and even missles. Which witness do we actually trust? The ones the government backs up?

Ahhh.. You have just pointed out a a problem with witness testimony in general with crime. I don't exactly know how it works but generally with very stressful events we tend to screw up our ability to remember things in great detail. We get the gist of what happened but the details get lost. What you are describing is the exact phenomeon. People knew that something went boom but in the chaos they had no idea what happened because they were running for their lives. Booo yaaaa...
http://www.oecd.org/document/12/0,2340,en_2649_149 35397_33813516_1_1_1_1,00.html
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/100/23/13626.pdf

Osama bin Laden is still free.

[biendamon]

One day, Americans will look at the latest reminder of September 11th, 2001. With sad and heavy hearts, we will look to our leaders and cry out, "Why the fuck is Osama bin Laden still free, you grossly incompetent morons, while my own civil liberties are circling the toilet?!?" Then, with the steely resolve of the American people, we will throw these nimrods out on their collective asses.

Re:Osama bin Laden is still free.

[kimvette]

Actually we won't, because we've traded our first, second, and fourth amendment rights away in exchange for a little temporary safety.

This video is *not* new

[teneighty]

I took a look at the video I don't understand why this is being presented as being in public for the first time. I distinctly recall seeing this video a short time after 9/11. I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned that - it wasn't exactly kept secret.

Re:This video is *not* new

[ChronoFish]

I've been thinking the same thing. This video is the *only* video of the Pentagon getting hit and it's been *out there* for quite some time (since hours after the attack).

Regarding the nay-sayers - Nay-say to the victims family - I'm sure they'll be reassured that their loved ones did not die in the Pentagon crash. Nay-say to the eye-witnesses who watch their cars get smashed by light polls.

Regarding the "white blob" - that's smoke. The plane's tail is visible just over the automatic arm and in front (to the left) of the white *smoke*. The plane hit the ground or started to smoke due to hitting light poles prior to hitting the side of the Pentagon. At 300+ mph it really doesn't matter - it's going to do damage (and did) even if it wasn't a direct hit.

-CF

Re:Absurd Sparring Aliens

[davidsyes]

For merely MENTIONING that in an under-three-handed attempt to bush-whack the imperial galactic representative, it will be YOU undergoes the medical examination for trying to OUT his being an extra terrestrial (note two-word vs one-word). It will be YOU who cannot change the channels...

Disclaimer:

There is NO guarantee that during the process, you won't endure unimaginable, extensive, and irreparable, psychological and physical damage, including dementia, tissue necrosis, and neglect of your financial responsibilities. If/when released from examination, you MAY be able to walk -- if you cannot, a Captain Christopher Pike-type wheelchair will be provided, but the ADA does not applie if you are an alien we CHOOSED to release (since if you cannot communicate via blinking eye, utterance or finger tapping, and we shut down any telepathic/telekinesys capabilities, we might release you on your OWN O.R. (own recognizance) from OUR O.R. (operating room).

Also, all your worldly pozzesshuns are now blong to U.S.. Your off-worldly possession and claims thereto will transfer to U.S..

Stand by; we are coming...

Surveillance

[phorm]

How about "secret" rooms with AT&T wiretaps. How long was that around before somebody leaked it? From my understanding it was happening for quite awhile.

Seems to me that a lot of big things manage to stay hidden when the government wants them to.

I would agree (that you haven't seen/read it)

[MarkusQ]

While I have not seen "Loose Change", nor had the time to read your PDF. Here is another reference guide that pretty much shoots down the idea that a missle was used at the Pentagon:

I would agree that you haven't seen Loose Change, or read the PDF. The link that you provide disputes points that were not raised in Loose Change, and does not address the majority of the points it does raise.

For the record, I'm not endorsing either point of view, but I am against throwing straw men around.

--MarkusQ

Re:Well thats nice

[Nossie]

"I heard a very loud, quick whooshing sound. I was convinced it was a missile. It came in so fast - it sounded nothing like an airplane." Lon Rains - editor for Space News (Pentagon eyewitness)

there are eyewitness accounts that state radiation was higher than baseline for that area... after the crash that would suggest a warhead of some form also...

video footage taken by eyewitnesses at the scene show a very small hole 16ft!! (in comparison to a 757) in the pentagon wall before the roof collapsed with no evidence of aircraft wreckage and even half open filing cabinets with papers hanging out unburnt on the interior sides of the damaged building.

I don't pretend to be an expert.... and I'm not even very active in shouting how much of a conspiracy this is...

But you tell me where the wings are? the tail? where is FAA reports of the wreckage they should now have to investigate?

All I'm saying is that planes no matter how small DO NOT fully disintegrate on impact...

Is it pure coincidence that area of the pentagon had been shut for refurbishment that week too?

It's all just so wrong on so many levels. The BBC first reported it to be a light aircraft but suddenly its a 757 ?

the security around the pentagon is a joke ... if that's all the video footage they have..

Look... I really usually don't go by all the conspiracy crap
but I ask you to watch this with an open mind and compare it to what the gov has just released... http://www.911inplanesite.com/

I torrented it, you might want to do the same O:)
Ignore the stuff about the two towers... thats another kettle of fish.

conspiracy aside it really does raise a hell of a lot of questions that have never been answered

Mod parent up!

[Spy der Mann]

OK can anybody tell me why an opinion is labelled as Troll? I'd label this as informative, or interesting, even insightful. Flamebait, I would concede, but TROLL?

Right or wrong, it's an opinion. It seems that there are some overpatriotic mods in here.

Conspiracy Morons

[NokX]

here's a list of all the people who died on flight 77, the flight that hit the pentagon: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/vict ims/AA77.victims.html that would be impressive if the government made up all that info in a short period of time with erasing all records of that flight from american airlines as well.

Re:Conspiracy Morons

[Silencer-7]

I don't see any arab names on that list. Were there any arabs on the plane? On any passenger manifest? Did they even get on the plane?

Re:Conspiracy Morons

[nickmalthus]

analysis of flight 77 passengers

PDF not worth

[Anonymous Coward]

honestly. i think reading the pdf is a waste of time,
i won't say i read it all because it is a 285 page document.
Sounds like there whole documetary doesn't have one single valid proof. everytring is false. and everything the author says seems to be the thuth and he even has a comment for every single footage or line in the movie!!!!
Many of his comments are of the kind of (look for the ***):

177
00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:10,700
If Flight 77 had crash landed and skidded into the Pentagon, it would have looked like this.
*** "Crash landed and skidded?" Haven't you heard that pot makes you dumb and paranoid?

127
00:10:55,500 --> 00:10:57,800 " And yeah, I just look around looking for "
128
00:10:57,900 --> 00:11:02,000
" who had the motive, who had the opportunity, who had the equipment, "
129
00:11:02,100 --> 00:11:04,500
" who had the will... "
**** Islamic Jihadists, that's who.

look for #822 to see more (it is too much text to paste here)

please. don't waste your time.

Re:Well thats nice

[rizzo420]

so where are the passengers?

Pentagon's been reading Make magaine

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The April (IIRC) issue clearly shows how to make aircraft blowing up special effects. This explains the long delay in getting something out.

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[nickmalthus]

Also worth noting is that the Bush family has documented ties to the Bin Laden family and that the Bin Laden family was given preferential treatment when they were evacuated during the flight ban as discussed in Fahrenheit 9/11

Mystery Science Theater 2001 Debunks Loose Change?

[MarkusQ]

That "debunking" PDF you posted is...odd. It reads more like a bad parody of Mystery Science Theater 3000 than a serious rebuttal. At first I was a little put off by the author insisting on staying anonymous, but after reading it I can see why he/she/they went that route.

--MarkusQ

Re:Futile task I'll bite

[davidsyes]

1. The security tapes could have such extremely high resolution that they cannot divulge it; obfuscating it to downgrade the classification might lend to or lead to more comments of "doctored footage", an argument which the Pintuhgun would lose anyway...

2. This is an interesting point. Even if A/F ONE or A/F Two were flying in the area, there would be escorts and airspace clearance, so a PAX plane diversion might have been in order, but since PAX/COMAIR were (or, seemed to be) in normal flight regimes of takeoff and landing, it is interesting. OTOH, with so much commercial aviation and private a/c, is it inconceivable that stray aircraft could get to to p/g/. DISCLAIMER: I don't remember the timeline between WTC 1&2 strikes vs Pentagon. If it was more than 30 minutes, then HELL YESS, the Pentagon should have been RINGED with interceptors and ground-to-air a/a missiles.

3. Even in the movie Towering Inferno and the others, I don't think ANYONE posited the idea of roof-top generator fuel tanks dropping fuel down the elevator shafts and seeping into ventilation plenums. So, from a storyline or movie script, it might have faced the editing block if written, say in May 2001 and put on the Internet, I suppose. But, the planes both were fairly tanked up for the day of flight and it appears the wings remained in each building and I believe one plane banked enough to ensure its fuel load got into several floors. JP-5 or whatever these planes use is quite flammable. So, with the electrics in the building, the emergency stair shafts, the busted fire zone doors... compromised structure, and ensuring fire and explosion must have made for one HELLUVA air shaft to disperse fuel and burn the core out like it did.

4. Yeh, if insurance rates didn't get adjusted, then they WILL be if another WTC happens. But, if they DID adjust them, it would be tantamount to expressing complete and UTTER lack of faith the government and the defense apparatus. That would be a VERY bad signal to send across the country and around the world. Surely Shanghai or Taipei or Beijing or some other place where the Terrorists DON'T mess around would have shunted Wall Street aside.

5. 8-mile trail of debris? WOW I'd forgotten about that... I suppose that by THIS point in the time line of events, that the F-16 (F-16's right?, not F-15s?... I can't remember, but i know F-18 and F-14 are Navy, and though those operate from Patuxent, MD and other bases and stations in the area, I think the USAF or ANG would control that airspace at that moment....let me know if I'm mistaken or off mark...) may have been strafing the plane to "suggest" those in control land the plane, but not intentionally trying to down it. If there is an EIGHT-MILE trail of debris, tho, that would be a LOT of plane. Even if you shot up a 747 or 757 enough to leave a recognizable 8-mile trail of debris, I'd suspect some weird physics, since I don't think (I'm no engineer, BTW) they could remain aloft in a smooth, semi-stable flight regime if the ailerons of flaps or fuselage were shot up. Those 20mm rounds would sure destroy some control lines, puncture the wings, or spontaneously disable the craft. Also, unless the F-16s can disrupt cellular comms, then those pax aboard would have been detailing that bit to the 9/11 infrastructure operators, right?

Just my own ideas...

A fallacy of your own

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC since I already used mod points...

He was referring to the claims that Iraq had WMD circa 2001-2003, which were used as justification for the illegal [guardian.co.uk] 2003 invasion of Iraq. Those claims were lies.

It appears that those claims were false. For them to be considered lies, you need to demonstrate the intent to deceive. Feel free to give it a shot, because it may be true, but everything I've heard so far has been circumstantial.

Re:A fallacy of your own

[dbcad7]

Colin Powell, February 2001:
"[Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq."

Condoleeza Rice, July 2001:
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

The Downing Street Memo, July 2002:
There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

George W. Bush Speech to UN General Assembly September 12, 2002:
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

Ari Fleischer Press Briefing January 9, 2003:
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.

George W. Bush Address to the Nation March 17, 2003:
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

Donald Rumsfeld ABC Interview March 30, 2003:
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.

Paul Wolfowitz Vanity Fair interview May 28, 2003:
For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.

There are more.. blatenly taken from this site.. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WMDlies.html

Re:The official story is not a conspiracy theory.

[Russ Nelson]

Uhhhhhh, it's only a conspiracy theory if a false explanation is publicized while the real facts are kept quiet by a conspracy. What is the false explanation for the 20-1 hijackers and what are the real facts, and who are conspiring to keep them secret?

What do we need demolition companies for?

[Silencer-7]

At freefall speed? So diesel fuel spread through the entire steel structure in an equal distribution, burned evenly, and raised the temperature of every single core column simultaneously, so that the whole structure collapsed in the space of 7 seconds, into its own footprint? Wow...if diesel can do that by itself, what do we need demolition companies for?

Re:Where's The Plane?

[Russ Nelson]

Let's crank up our imaginations here. When the front of the airplane hit the Pentagon, the back of the airplane was still moving at 500mph. What do you think happens to an airplane when one end is not moving and the other end is travelling at 500mph? Ever smooshed an aluminum can with your foot? Ever filled it up with kerosene and smooshed it with your foot? Ever do it with a propane torch running next to it at the same time?

If so, I want to stay far, far away from you, because you're a dangerous fool.

Re:Well thats nice

[Nossie]

where are their relatives?
where are their bodies?
where is their luggage?

I happen to live about 30 miles north west of Lockerbie in Scotland... when the PANAM flight 103 exploded over lockerbie, luggage was thrown miles away from the impact zone, the wreckage sadly landed on the houses obliterating the small town.
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features /lockerbie/story/

I realise a 757 or 767 is a good bit smaller than a 747 but as you can see from this one photo here: http://www.nickdidlick.com/recentpix/favoritepix/F avoritePictures/source/23.html

aircraft just don't disappear no matter how hard they hit.

jimho uneducated opinion.... the tailfin of this supposed aircraft at the pentagon should atleast be visible.... what is left of the wings should probably be scattered across the lawn... but there is no sign of that? just one 16ft wide hole in an unoccupied part of the building that remained there until the structual integrety of that wing collapsed.

There has been so much press about the aircraft that hit the towers.... but so little information was ever given out about this one.... it was just brushed under the carpet.

Re:Well thats nice

[Nossie]

oh remove the space from that link... inbetween favorite

http://www.nickdidlick.com/recentpix/favoritepix/F avoritePictures/source/23.html

Re:Yep.

[Russ Nelson]

Yes, and two wing-shaped slots as well! Because as everyone knows from watching Bugs Bunny, when an object goes through a wall, it cuts out a perfect outline of itself in the wall.

In other words, everyone posting this crap learned their physics from Bugs Bunny.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Robotron23]

Thanks dude, let's hope whoever modded it redundant gets metamodded into outer space. :)

incorrect

[geekoid]

"I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well."

no, it is an established fact.

Re:Futile task I'll bite-- twice

[davidsyes]

Oh, I just realized that an "8-mile" trail of debris is nothing. Suppose they flew that plan at 180 mph, enough to stay up-for a brief while.

Well, 60mph is 1 mile per minute. So, 180 mph is 3 miles per minute. If the interceptors WERE armed with live ammo and strafed the plan solidly for 1 minute (around

Well, the F-15 carries/carried the 20-mm M61A1 Vulcan six-barrelled cannon, which seems to be supplied with about 512 rounds of ammo (appears the F-18 has 570 rds, the F-16A had the same gun with about 511 rds)

See:

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/arm/arm8.htm

Anyway, that gun is *capable* of firing 6,600 rounds per minute, meaning about 110 rounds per SECOND are/could be being expended. That's only about 4.65 seconds per per-second burst until the ammo drum is expended/depleted. Even if TWO F-16 are strafing to scare but not to down, I find it hard to believe they would NOT bring the 757/747 down. So, ...

3 miles per minute flying speed, shot up over 3 minutes, and then witnessed to hit the ground 2 or more minutes later makes me think that some of that debris floated down to the ground. Some of it may have be ripped off by airspeeds after structural compromise over a 10-15 mile distance (I don't have blackbox or other transcripts, so...).

But, I've pretty much been of the thought that the PA flight was gunned down, now I think the pilots half-heartedly and painfully strafed it to not outright KILL the planeload of people. They probably hoped to scare the cockpit controllers (crew, terrorists, or flight-experienced passengers) into bringing the thing down. OTOH, they might have just emptied cannons into it. I don't recall talk about anyone on the ground witnessing missiles being fired... been a while so I can't say. But, I suspect any F-15/F-16-fired missile would bring the plane down in a big ball of fire, if it's an impact seeker vs prox fuse. But, with a plane load of fuel, many many times that of a typical fighter plane, no armor, no evasive capabilities, and no flares (Israel's El Al planes have chaff/flare/decoys: remember the one that was shot at, but it puffed out decoys and the falling flares distracted/seduced/decoyed the missile/s into the building below? Or so went the theory about whey the A/A missile fired at a "commercial" plane dove away from the plane and struck buildings instead....

whew... enough of this thread for me, I think...

Re:Where's The Plane?

[AJWM]

Generally, when an airliner crashes, the crew are doing their damndest to keep it from doing so. That usually means that the impact is at a low enough speed/angle for some debris to survive.

But not always. Some years ago (pre 9/11) there was an airliner (737 I think) that suffered a control surface failure and went into the ground, almost straight down and slightly inverted, short of the runway in Colorado Springs. They had to dig to find the flight recorder, not unlike Flight 93. There wasn't much else left. And there the pilot and co-pilot were trying not to hit, and were going relatively slowly (being on approach) to start with.

Now picture the result of someone deliberately slamming the plane into a building/the ground at two or three times that speed.

Nicely said

[PaulQuinn]

The worlds biggest embassy being built by the US on the banks of the Tigris, and the many military superbases being built around Iraq are testiment to everything you said.

I think too that the PNAC crew that are currently implementing their Plan for a New American Century, believe they are partiots. Patriots to the utmost.

Perhaps they are patriots, whatever that means. But what they are not, are human. They are animals, fighting over a bone. To them the world is lesser, and america is the only. Everyone, including americans, suffers as a result.

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[Anonymous Coward]

check this out:

http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/index.html

It pretty much demonstrate that the witholding of information regarding the Pentagon was done on purpose in order to take your attention away from more compelling evidence. It probably was a plane. They won't tell you so you can keep thinking it's fake and not ask questions about WTC7 or the explosive complete collapse of the other 2 towers.

Then explain this.

[copponex]

First of all, he said the tapes were confiscated. If I have video of Cheney shooting someone in the face, and the FBI takes it from me, how am I supposed to release it? Secondly, the authority to shoot down aircraft was taken away from generals earlier in the summer of 2001. See the Washington Post story below about the confusion of who was authorized to shoot down planes, and notice that Cheney thought a couple had already been shot down. (Flight 93 and 77? Who knows.)

If you want to kill the conspiracy theories, you have to explain WTC7. It was over-engineered because it was the bunker for emergencies for NYC. Then you have the owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, saying that he was sorry they had to "pull" the building. (Link to video below.) Later, everyone denies that the building was pulled, and the government officially "doesn't know" why a 70 story building collapsed.

Why would they disavow pulling the building due to safety concerns? Because it takes weeks to plan the demolition of a building, and you can't really plant explosives to pull a building if the building is on fire. Especially the kind of fire that is melting steel, which occurs at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

So, do us all a favor, and tell us why WT7 collapsed. Explain why every single video shows the core of the building coming down first. Explain why a high rise in Spain can burn for over 24 hours, partially collapse, and still not fall. Explain why the only three steel and concrete buildings in history to collapse from fire do it on a single day in the same square mile.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A507 45-2004Jun17.html

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-775053234 0306101329&q=silverstein+building

Re:Then explain this.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

If you want to kill the conspiracy theories, you have to explain WTC7. It was over-engineered because it was the bunker for emergencies for NYC.

No, the building itself wasn't, and how could it be? The bunker came well after the construction of WTC7. Not to mention that WTC7 was built over an electrical substation, and that required such unique construction that ultimately failed under load, because if significant damage.

Then you have the owner of the building, Larry Silverstein, saying that he was sorry they had to "pull" the building. (Link to video below.)

The word "pull" is used in the demolitions industry to indicate manual demolition through things like wrecking balls and, literally, pulling the structure over or down. When you talk about explosive demolition, you use the word "shoot".

Why would they disavow pulling the building due to safety concerns? Because it takes weeks to plan the demolition of a building, and you can't really plant explosives to pull a building if the building is on fire. Especially the kind of fire that is melting steel, which occurs at 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

There is no evidence "melted steel", especially at WTC7. Of course, steel doesn't have to melt in order to fail. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that at half its melting point, steel has only 25% of its strength.

Explain why a high rise in Spain can burn for over 24 hours, partially collapse, and still not fall.

lol. Wow, awesome. You fell for that claptrap hook, line, and sinker. Did you know that the Windor building is a predominately concrete structure? Did you realize that the steel parts of the building exposed to the fire did fail?

Don't waste my time if you can't be bothered to do basic research.

Explain why the only three steel and concrete buildings in history to collapse from fire do it on a single day in the same square mile.

My God... Why do you people keep insisting that fire was the only cause of these collapses? You only demonstrate severe ignorance and blindness when doing so. Have you forgotten about the two planes that impacted WTC1 and WTC2? How about the severe structural damage (evidence for which I linked to earlier) of WTC7? How many other steel building in history have been subjected to these conditions? You're conveniently ignoring all of this.

Re:Then explain this.

[H0p313ss]

Explain why the only three steel and concrete buildings in history to collapse from fire do it on a single day in the same square mile.

Forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, but weren't the towers also the first skyscrapers ever to put themselves in the path of passenger jets? Do we really have any idea what's supposed to happen in those circumstances? (But that doesn't really explain WTC7 does it...)

Not that that really makes me feel comfortable about the whole thing... too many unanswered questions... too much money made in the "war" that followed... too many civil liberties trampled on in the name of fighting "terrorists"...

Sadly, either we'll never know what really happened, or we already know and it's just too far out there for us to believe. Either way the conspiracy theories will linger on like Elvis, Pyramids on Mars and the Kennedy brothers.

Re:Then explain this.

[Darby]

Forgive my ignorance if I'm wrong, but weren't the towers also the first skyscrapers ever to put themselves in the path of passenger jets?

No, they weren't. The Empire State Building got hit by a B-25

Different type of construction and different type of plane, but that's not what you asked ;-)

Re:Then explain this.

[H0p313ss]

The Empire State Building got hit by a B-25

The B-25 was not a jet, had a range of only 1200 miles and therefore a lot slower, lighter and not quite so full of fuel as the a fully laden passenger jet designed to cross the continent.

Delusions

[PaulQuinn]

(1) Shatter: I'm sure they did shatter. But into vapor? Whatever. And where did you pull this Mach 1+ stuff from? Every commercial airline pilot I've heard talk about manuvering a 757 into and out of a spiral dive at 500 MPH said the plane would not have withstood the forces. It could not make the manuver. Now you come up with, out of your ass, a Mach 1 figure. Use common sense man. Really.

(2) Dispersal: The wings shear near the fuselage, the engines are further out on the wings. Make yourself any model to reflect this setup, and manuver it through a hole the size of the fuselage. You will notice that the walls will not exurt a torquing force to the wings. The massive weight of the engines would also resist a torquing force if there was one. The wings would have been plucked off, or entered the building. But folding along the fuselage is as nutty as anything else. Use common sense and physics.

(3) Destroyed due to fire: Kerosene burns at low temp. You could burn titanium parts for years in kerosene and still tell what the original parts were.

I don't really care if arabs or bushies did 9/11. The only things giving me headaches these days are totally weak stories people are telling themselves and others in order for them to preserve whatever illusions they want to keep about this country. The only thing that is certain about 9/11 is that many people can't make the connection between the what they saw and what they were told. The others will tell themselves anything that is remotely plausible in order to not be burdened with knowing they are being lied to.

Re:Delusions

[Achromatic1978]

Re 1: agree. Also note that these flights were in shallow descents at point of impact, not manic dive bomb attitudes. Mach 1 is just a figure picked to sound impressive, with very little basis in reality.

Re:Yep.

[0xA]

In other words, everyone posting this crap learned their physics from Bugs Bunny.

It is exactly like the conspiracy nuts who insist that there was a problem with video of the moon landing. They say that there is no way the lander would not have kicked up more dust than it did when it touched down. When you point out to them the absence of an atmosphere that would have done the pushing they have nothing to say.

"Common Sense" does NOT trump physics.

Explosives are not very plausible.

[tinrobot]

I think the thurst of the paranoia would be better suited looking at how the towers fell as if internal explosions took them down, and the planes were just for drama.

Why use airplanes if the building is already "rigged?" There's way too many variables in that scenario. It's not very plausible.

Rigging a building for a controlled demolition is not a trivial task, it requires miles of wire and access to the structural components of the building.

Then have to actually hijack some airplanes - not a trivial task.

Then, once you have control of the planes, the airplanes would have had to hit the buildings at the floor where the explosives were placed. Not easy - those pilots have to be good.

Then the impact would have to not set off or destroy the "planted" explosives.

Then the explosives would also have to survive thousands of gallons of burning jet fuel being poured on them -- and the fires could not destroy the wiring/detonators to those explosives.

On top of that... you'd have to have some person or mechanism in a position to trigger the explosives 30-45 minutes later -- probably from a significabnt distance, because the area is quarrantined and the building is being evacuated.

Sorry... way too complex. The airplanes took down the buildings, not explosives.

If there's a conspiracy, it's in how 19 people (some of them on terrorist watch lists) got into the country, took flight lessons and boarded the planes without being detected.

The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[WombatControl]

And it still doesn't change the fact that an official conspiracy theory was put forward, and acted on, without a whole lot of evidence. (Not just "religious extremists", but the whole "Al Qaeda==Worldwide Terrorist Network", when the reality is that the conspiracy theory created Al Qaeda rather than visa-versa.)

That is completely untrue.

Al-Qaeda is Arabic for "the Base" or "the Foundation" - but it's actually a shortened form of the Arabic term "qaedat bayanat" - or database. Al-Qaeda started in the mid 1990s based on Osama bin Laden's personal database of Arab mujihadeen who had fought with him in Afghanistan against the Soviets. His number 2 man, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri was recruited in order to merge al-Qaeda with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

As a side note, the CIA did not fund bin Laden, although they knew of him and knew that some fighters they did fund were also working with him. The CIA's main group in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s was led by a man named Ahmad Shah Masood. Masood was assassinated by bin Laden on September 9, 2001 as a symbol of al-Qaeda's commitment to protecting the Taliban. The group that Masood founded was the Northern Alliance - the same fighters who fought with the CIA in 2001 against the Taliban.

Al-Qaeda has existed as a terrorist organization since at least 1998, and probably earlier. It was 1998 when al-Qaeda launched the attacks against the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, and bin Laden declared his fatwa against the presence of American troops on the Arabian peninsula.

So, no, you are not correct. Al-Qaeda has root well before 9/11, and to insinuate that it was invented afterwards is simply not correct.

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[NutscrapeSucks]

WombatControl -- I didn't mean to imply that Al-Qaeda did not exist, and I'm fully aware of the "The Database" explaination. However, by positioning Al-Qaeda as something much larger than what it actually was, the US Government's propaganda effort essentially created "Al-Qaeda London", "Al-Qaeda Spain", and "Al-Qaeda Iraq" out of random disorganized groups, thus mainfesting a "worldwide" enemy were there simply was not one before.

The BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares", expounds on this theory. You may have seen it already, but I might as well recommend it for other slashdotters:
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmare s

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[WombatControl]

WombatControl -- I didn't mean to imply that Al-Qaeda did not exist, and I'm fully aware of the "The Database" explaination. However, by positioning Al-Qaeda as something much larger than what it actually was, the US Government's propaganda effort essentially created "Al-Qaeda London", "Al-Qaeda Spain", and "Al-Qaeda Iraq" out of random disorganized groups, thus mainfesting a "worldwide" enemy were there simply was not one before.

Except that is also not quite accurate. Al-Qaeda basically operated like a "franchise" - operatives were trained in Afghanistan, but then scattered across the globe. It didn't become nearly as decentralized until after September 11, 2001 when such centralization became too dangerous. For instance, the 9/11 plot was planned in Kuala Lumpur, and executed by a cell originating in Hamburg, Germany that later moved to Florida.

There may be three different McDonald's in a town, owned and operated by different people, but they were still McDonald's. Al-Qaeda's real genius was in taking that kind of model and applying it to terrorism.

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[killjoe]

There are lots of theories as to who assinated Masood and why. Massood was an immensely popular figure and would have been the natural leader of the post taliban Afghan govt. More then likely he would not be a patsy for anyone.

The fact that he died so suddenly just before the US invasion certaintly turned out to be very convenient for both the US and Pakistani governments.

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[NutscrapeSucks]

I hate to argue analogies, but it is more like the US Government declared every burger joint to be a McDonalds, and then just sat back and watched them all put up McDonalds signs. Surely you'll admit that the post-9/11 terror seen is "Al-Qaeda" in name only.

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[Oligonicella]

Of course, no world-wide enemy of civilization. This despite the bombings in Africa, Europe, Indo-Asia and other areas taken credit for by these exact same individuals. No, of course we made them into what they are now.

Re:The Origins Of al-Qaeda

[56]

I was going to say that my aim was not to nitpick, but I guess it is, so I apologize in advance. I agree with your main argument, and you seem generally well informed, however...

As a side note, the CIA did not fund bin Laden, although they knew of him and knew that some fighters they did fund were also working with him.

The US knew there were two main groups opposing the Soviets in Afghanistan in the wake of the 1979 Soviet invasion. One group was mostly Afghani and secular, while the other was composed mostly of foreign fighters of the Islamic fundamentalist persuasion. The US, more specifically the CIA, chose to support the latter (against the wishes of the State Department), ostensibly because they were more effective in opposing the Soviets - a debatable point. Al-Qaeda began as an old boys club of ex-Mujaheddin; those who fought, with US money and arms, against the Soviets in Afghanistan. While the US did not directly fund bin Laden himself, they indirectly funded (through the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI) Islamic fundamentalist foreign fighters in Afghanistan, out of which al-Qaeda formed. So while you are correct in arguing that the US did not fund bin Laden personally, the United States did indeed play a critical role in the creation of al-Qaeda as an entity and bin Laden as a symbol.

For anyone who is interested and does not have access to courses on US foreign policy, an excellent and reliable book on this subject is Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0143034669/sr=8-5 /qid=1147888884/ref=sr_1_5/103-4454032-7143009?_en coding=UTF8

Re:Grandparent is moron.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Really. I mean.... the government confiscates my property so I can release it?

Argh. Communication problem. The government can't release the videos of their own accord. The company who owns them has to give permission. Therefore, it's pointless to accuse the government of "hiding" something by not releasing the video, when it's not their sole decision to do so.

It wasn't an conspiracy, it was a clusterfuck.

[Ayanami Rei]

Basically the problem was that you had a lot of military strategists and polsci Phds hanging around the Pentagon and its associated think tanks who had worked up a whole plan to overthrow Iraq and instill democracy in the aftermath of Desert Storm -- plans that were subsequently shelved.

Of course these gents got promoted but their brain children never saw the light of day.

So when tenous links between Al'Queda and Iraq were investigated... they honed in on these and attempted to find any and all supporting evidence so they could convince the Joint Chiefs that a re-entry into Iraq was necessary on the coattails of the War on Terror. They wanted to dust off their old strategy documents and get to play their hand that they'd been sitting patiently on for 10 years.

So whenever the CIA would say: hey, well we don't really think they have as many WMDs as this ex-patriot scientist says they do, the Pentagon stragists would just ignore that and anything else that didn't further their case.

And when the got everyone convinced, well, it was too late for anyone to say they should have shopped around for a second opinion. You don't blame your corner men because it reflects badly on you... until you retire (i.e. Powell) and then you can badmouth the whole lot of 'em. Cause hey, you got your pension.

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[WombatControl]

This is not as far out as it seems. What everybody seems to forget is that Bin Laden was a CIA agent for years and years when he was part of the mujahideen that were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He was our boy, on our payroll. We gave him cash, weapons, logistical support, equipment and god knows what else. So what I wanna know is this:

The short answer is we didn't.

Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.

The person you're thinking of was Ahmad Shah Masood, who was one of the more successful Afghan fighters during the war. Masood was an enemy of the Taliban, and was assassinated by al-Qaeda shortly before 9/11 to help reassure the Taliban that al-Qaeda would protect them from American reprisals. (Bloody lot of good that did!)

Ahmad Shah Masood was the founder of the anti-Taliban resistance called The Northern Alliance - and that's one of the reasons that the CIA had such good luck in Afghanistan - we were working with the same fighters we had a decade before in fighting the Russians.

theories

[atchon]

"Once a plane is in the air, it is prety easy to control, assuming you don't care about surviving the landing. A correct landing is hard because you are slowing down, need to keep your nose up, etc. . ." I agree totally but this wasn't in the air in a normal sense this was 5-10ft above the ground. I could be wrong considering limited flying knowledge but I would assume the plane would want to move up and down alot at this height due to the engines, and as the air came over the wings and smack down into the ground. It never hit the ground just straight into the building, maybe its just me but I can't fathom how someone who according to all accounts was a horribly pilot could do that.

This footage is worthless and very non-convincing

[inexion]

I dont understand how this footage is supposed to put at ease any doubts of whether or not flight 77 actually hit the pentagon. I mean, come on now - all you need is a pair of eyeballs and common sense. Heres the breakdown basically - Please see the two tapes here @ Judicial Watch

• during the first clip at exactly 1:26 you can see a small white nub enter from the right side of the clip
• during the second clip at exactly 0:24 you can see a small white blob enter from the right as well

obviously after watching these clips there are missing frames, not to mention that the clip itself only plays at 1-2 frames a second, you can easily tell this when a police/security car drives by the gate - besides most cameras, especially a surveillance camera I would hope, would film at nearly 60-80 fps.

anyways, a plane which is travelling at a descending speed of nearly 400mph should be able to be captured by a camera filming at 60 fps. It just makes no sense to me why a surveillance camera would film at such a shitty rate especially at the PENTAGON for christs sake - if I wanted to I could simply run real fast by the damn thing and no one could ever put an id on me......whats the point of the camera. So this means one of two things in my mind .... 1) there are frames missing - and/or 2) the camera was filming at an unnecessarily slow speed (which doesnt make sense, especially in the nations capital)
So when they decide to release the full clip or clips from other cameras that captured the event, I'm still not convinced. I want to see the full body of that 757 slamming into the building

on another interesting note heres a weird web site with someone trying to work out the geometry of the crash site in relation to that very same camera

VID Captures

[imunfair]

Well, I'm late to the party, but I don't see any other top level posts that contain the actual images from the videos (there were two different ones), so here you go - a page with images of the flying object directly from the DOD videos. Saved as a PNG so you don't lose any detail from an already horrid quality video.

http://miniechelon.com/index.php?p=pentagon_911

Boils done to Wish Fulfillment

[DumbSwede]

OK, forget all the crap about flight angles and "how hard" it would be for an amateur to fly Flight 77 into the pentagon, and it must have been a missile instead. Where then did Flight 77 go? It crashed elsewhere and the government was able to cover it up? It was landed safely and all the people "disappeared"?

Jeez, people with cell phones on Flight 93 called loved ones to tell them that terrorists were in control of their plane. Was it a mix of government directed missiles and terrorists simultaneously causing all this havoc? Get real people. Believing the US government had a hand in this is just "wish fulfillment" and is why conspiracy people grasp at any seeming inconsistency they can imagine. That anyone other than the US government could perpetrate such acts invalidates one of the most cherished beliefs on the very far left: that the US is the only and ultimate evil in the world. I am not defending our government in all cases; just pointing out it does have legitimate concerns about external threats, threats we had become too complacent about before 9/11, even if now the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

Re:Boils done to Wish Fulfillment

[Cyno]

Okay, we'll stop throwing rocks in your glass house.

Does that make you feel better?

Oh yeah...

[chaboud]

And here's (video, wmv) a video of me kicking over a box right before another copy of me walks in front of the first and picks the box up.

I made it in about 20 minutes. They've had five years. I'm definitely not saying that the video is faked. I'm just saying that the conspiracy theorists will just look at this as a feeble attempt to fight back a tide of question-worthy evidence.

They might be right, or they might not. I'll be surprised if we ever get solid evidence one way or another. If I had the really good tape of the hit locked up in the Pentagon, I'd just hang on to it to mess with people.

You can't put conspiracy to rest

[Quiet_Desperation]

The conspiracy theory wonks are mentally ill. You could take them back in time to stand and watch the plane crash, and they still wouldn't believe you.

They need medication, not videotape.

Re:Grandparent is STILL moron.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

No, Sir. YOU are not understanding. The government came and forcefully seized the videotapes from several private establishments. Any right they had to release the tape was trampled upon. They were never given a choice and are not allowed to have their own tapes.

At the time, no, because it was potential evidence in a future investigation. Why is evidence gathering suddenly a suspicious activity?

Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[kupci]

James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

Bunker? Then that must be Cheney.

Tell you what. Do some research, especially Jeff King's critique of fellow MITer's "theory", and BYU's Prof. Steven Jones and then come back and tell us which "theory" is more plausible: (1) that the buildings were "pulled" (controlled demolition) (2) 19 losers who could barely fly somehow evaded NORAD, evaded a superpower's "Star Wars" defense system and supersonic jets, hit the towers, and the jet fuel (what was left of it) managed to start a fire that weakened that evaporated steel and "trusses" (whatever) and the building collapsed in under 10 seconds, thus defying basic scientific laws. And WTC 7 collapsed the same day even though no plane hit it, and other building closer to the twins didn't. And PNAC (project for a new american century) whose members include Cheney and Jeb Bush, wrote that Americans were slow to change, a Pearl Harbor incident was needed for faster paced changed (those Americans, always in a rush) - but of course, this is entirely beyond the capability of Cheney.

If the conspiracy whackos are wrong, why all the secrecy? Why did the 911 Commission not even review WTC 7?

Re:Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[shmlco]

Yep. That makes sense. Of course, you probably need ex-military pilots willing to commit suicide as they'd need that skill to hit both towers on the exact levels where sufficient high-explosives were pre-positioned to pancake the structure.

Or is video footage of the towers collapse beginning at the same floors where the planes struck them coincidence? Or did demolition experts also willing to commit suicide and wearing fireproof suits run into the building and onto those floors and, in the middle of a raging inferno, place high explosives in the exact spots need to "pull" the building?

Yeah, I can see how that kind of "theory" is more plausible...

Re:Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[leonardluen]

tell me this, if you think that the government is so malicious and full of such masterminds to pull of a conspiracy of this magnitude while fooling millions of people into thinking it was a ragtag group of terrorists, then why did they not have the foresight to also cover their tracks with building 7? why would they leave such a glaring hole that you could use to pick apart their entire story and make their whole "conspiracy" come crumbling to the ground?

Re:Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[DahGhostfacedFiddlah]

As long as we're tossing around wild theories, why not just a remote control with the numbers 1-100 on it? Press the button, the demo starts there.

Re:Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[shmlco]

Of course, you could do it that way. Then again, you just have to wonder why tons of burning jet fuel wouldn't detonate tons of propositioned explosives...

Re:Of Bunkers and Reichstag fires..

[shmlco]

In all fairness, have you ever seen the amount of work that has to be done to drill, cut, string, and prep a building for the type of controlled demolition the tinfoil folk are insisting had to occur? You'd think maybe a few people would have noticed...

Circular

[MarkusQ]

Yes, obviously there are multiple people within the company involved, but by that reasoning every action by every company is a conspiracy. And only the most vehemently anti-corporate person would argue that :-)

If I understand what you're saying, that's circular reasoning. The point being argued (despite what "everyone knows" conspiracies aren't all that rare) can't be rebutted by saying only extremists would argue that a clear example of them not being rare actually is what it looks like, presumably because "everyone knows" that conspiracies are rare.

A conspiracy is simply a group of people working in secret to do something, usually (but by no means always) something bad (e.g. "I suspect people of conspiring to make me happy."). A typical large corporation generally has several thousand conspiracies going on at once. You don't have to be "vehemently anti-corporate" to see this, but you do have to loose the "conspiracies are impossible" dogma.

It should in any case have already died in this debate long ago, since the official story is also a conspiracy theory. It isn't a matter of conspiracy theory vs. non-conspiracy theory, it's a matter of which conspiracy theory you like better.

--MarkusQ

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[Gryle]

Yes sir! Because you said to, I'll blindly believe! Evidence be damned!

Re:The official story is not a conspiracy theory.

[cicho]

Seen these?

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Hijack 'suspects' alive and well
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/15591 51.stm

BBC News | MIDDLE EAST | Hijack 'suspect' alive in Morocco
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/15586 69.stm

BBC News | AMERICAS | FBI probes hijackers' identities
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1553754. stm

So much for "facts" about your 19 hijackers.

And by the way, you speak of facts, but we have never been shown proof. You know, that thing that establishes facts as such. We were told it was Bin Laden within hours of the attack, and we were told proof was forthcoming. But it never, um, forthcame.

Re:I now approve of Bush!

[Ohreally_factor]

You should just admit that you're inexperienced and that you've never had a sarcgasm.

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[CptNerd]

Where was this alleged gas station? Give us an address, or a Google Maps link. I live in Alexandria about two miles from the Pentagon, and during 2001 I regularly commuted along Washington Blvd, right where the plane hit. I know of no gas station anywhere near nor along the flight path that would have shown anything. If I hadn't procrastinated that morning, I would have been right there when it happened. ZOMG! I must be PART OF THE CONSPIRACY!!!!!11!11

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[YrWrstNtmr]

IT WAS A MISSLE.

You Are High.

Believe it.

Re:This footage is worthless and very non-convinci

[solitas]

Sixty to eighty frames per second? NTSC interlaced video runs at 30 FPS. These were security cameras - 1 frame per second is not unreasonable. MY camera at home (motion sensing) does that (unless something triggers it to run at 30FPS for several seconds). What was the plane's speed? somebody said something like 500 MPH? That'd make it 733 feet/second, easily apparent - considering the apparent size of the building and scale of the images released - that the plane barely registers on two 1FPS frames. It's a shame it DIDN'T show up in the middle of a frame, but that's what happens.

Yep, steel degrades

[tacokill]

All kinds of steel will weaken with high temps. This is certainly true in valves because we deal with high pressures and we have to be able to contain that pressure. So any weakness in materials is a BIG deal. ASME has guidelines for all of this (ie: ANSI 150#, ANSI 300#, etc...). Those guidelines tell you how high you can take the pressure at a given temperature. And it is followed religously throughout the plant and manufacturing world. So I presume it is followed in the structural world as well. You will almost never hear of this balance being "pushed" or violated because it is a very well understood reality.

Carbon steel, 316 Stainless steel, 304L SS, 416 SS, 420 SS. All of them. And it doesn't take a lot of heat for it to start degrading.

Read the article, this was FOIA

[Nerd_52637]

A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"

It was not a government representative. The federal government did not release the video to dispel conspiracy theories. They released it in response to a FOIA request.

Read TFA, it's short!

From TFA: The release of the video, taken from a Pentagon security camera, comes after a Freedom of Information Act request by legal watchdog Judicial Watch. The group said it hoped to dispel conspiracy theories about the crash. "Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77," president Tom Fitton said.

Re:Nope.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

There have been many other fires in predominately steel buildings, and none have collapsed, especially after one hour or even ten hours of fires.

None of them were constructed like the WTC buildings, either.

How is it possible that every building that fell came straight down?

Whoa. You expect them to defy gravity? Straight down is the only the these buildings could've fallen.

When the second tower was hit, the plane didn't hit close to the center as the first one did. Wouldn't the concentration of jet fuel cause one side of the building to collapse and then fall over?

You mean like this?

How is it possible that all three buildings fell in nearly perfect symmetry?

Because only the conspiracy theorists seem to think it was with any kind of symmetry. WTC7 certainly didn't collapse with any kind of symmetry. That's clearly visible from the very video you link to. Once of the mechanical penthouses collapses into the building. Roughly 5 seconds later, the other penthouse collapses, immediately followed by the rest of the building. Additionally, these video frames show that WTC7 wasn't perfectly straight down collapse.

http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/wtc7f1.jpg
http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/wtc7f2.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHZEGutg1FM&search= pull%20building

This is great. Have you even watched the part where Building 6 is taken down? You can clearly see the cables they used to "pull it" down in the middle right of the screen, and watch how those cables fall with the building.

Re:Nope.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

You can clearly see the cables they used to "pull it" down in the middle right of the screen, and watch how those cables fall with the building.

That should be "middle left of the screen". My bad.

Strange, dislocated explosion

[sensemagic]

I've not seen the newly released footage. (My computer doesn't seem to play nice with the BBC viceo service.) But - I've looked again at the "5 frames" in Loose Change. What is going on with the apparent explosion in the extreme foreground (on the left) _before_ whatever it is hits the Pentagon. I've seen no mention of that anywhere... Enquiring minds want to know.

Re:Where's The Plane?

[Scrameustache]

>

1. a plane took off
   
2. bits of fuselage were photographed on the lawn of the Pentagon
   
3. three other hijacked planes were seen crashing into other places
   
4. several eyewitnesses reported seeing a plane

Come up with an alternative explanation if you wish - but you have to make it fit with the above facts.

>

1. A plane took off and was shot down by the airforce when it failed to respond to radio signals, as per the order given by a general, and later (too late) rescinded. As the statement from official channels explained: He did not have the authority to give that order, The United States would never shoot down a plane full of its own citizens.
   
   
2. Bits of fuselage were moved from storage inside the building to the lawn after the events described in 1) in order to coverup that a patriotic aiforce pilot shot down a civilian plane, under direct orders to do so, in order to prevent another sucessfull strike.
   
   
3. I don't think anyone saw the pensylvania crash... but two other planes were seen flying into buildings (both crashes were filmed, and the second hit had millions of newyorkers looking directly at it), and the crashsite of the third is indeed known. But you omited a fact in your post: The first reports from the department of defense were of a car bomb, and later a truck bomb, after planes were seen crashing into landmarks on every broadcast channel in the world.
   
   
4. Plant a few people who will categorically say they saw a plane fly into the building in the crowd. In shock after seeing planes crash into buildings on TV and seeing the explosion or the smoke over the pentagon, a lot of people will convince themselves they saw a plane too.

Still not seeing a plane...

[babbling]

These videos still don't show a plane. There were other video tapes that were confiscated from a gas station and from a hotel on that same day. Where are those videos? Surely a camera somewhere around the pentagon actually got a shot of the plane. Isn't this meant to be a high-security building? If you can't detect a plane coming in, how are you going to detect intruders?

Re:Yep.

[Scrameustache]

Yes, and two wing-shaped slots as well! Because as everyone knows from watching Bugs Bunny, when an object goes through a wall, it cuts out a perfect outline of itself in the wall.
In other words, everyone posting this crap learned their physics from Bugs Bunny.

Wow you need a giant steaming cup of STFU!

We all saw the footage, from multiple angle, of a plane hitting a building ON THAT SAME DAY.

Yes, it DOES make a neat plane-shaped hole.
In a building covered in soft material.
The pentagon is a tougher beast, the plane would go all the way through, but it would make a plane-shaped dent. And leave debris outside (a jet enjine was photographed laying on the ground in new york that day, but no such debris was at the pentagon).

To all non-believers...the truth is always strange

[hrrY]

I don't even know where to begin. I am no engineer or scientist, but do you need to be to see what is happening here? They are lying to us. For those of you that have seen this tape, does it strike you odd that the frames that *would* show any actual collision are missing?! Does it strike you as odd that the brain(pentagon)of any strategic operation this country carries out militarily HAS ONLY 1 CAMERA AT THE ENTRANCE?!! And that camera will not show point of impact. I have an even better question...how do you fit a plane that is 231.5ft long with a 211ft wing span into a hole that is 70+ft wide with a depth of impact that is 24ft deep? Or how do you have a plane that is fully fueled before it exploded NOT EVEN SINGE A BOOK OR THE SHELF IT IS SITTING ON?! You don't, they're lying, and we are letting them do it. A lot of you guys are smarter than me, do the math...

Re:Where's The Plane?

[Scrameustache]

debris clearly visible. Some are dupes of each other, but scroll through, there was a lot of debris scattered about.

Debris.

I always see the same, easy-to-carry, lonely piece of fuselage, from many angles, but the rest of the debris looks like it came from the construction site that was where the explosion took place.

If you look at the earliest pictures of the site, you can clearly see a half destroyed truck and some big spoils of something, a broken fence... All good sources of debris.
Especially the half destroyed truck.

Don't quote Occam

[sensemagic]

I think Occam's razor is useful when trying to work out natural, physical laws. Science.

When it comes to people, and their motives, I don't think it cuts the grade. People have motives and methods more convoluted than nature ever contrives, and Occam's razor, beloved as it is, probably does not come into it.

Perhaps Enron was really just an accounting mistake, and not fraud... sounds simpler.

imho.

Re:Don't quote Occam

[Raenex]

When it comes to people, and their motives, I don't think it [Occam's Razor] cuts the grade.

Occam's Razor applies to all parts of life. In the end, it comes down to probability based on the available evidence. Here's an illustrative story from Chapter 1: Plausible Reasoning, from E.T. Jayne's book:

Suppose some dark night a policeman walks down a street, apparently deserted; but suddenly he hears a burglar alarm, looks across the street, and sees a jewelry store with a broken window. Then a gentleman wearing a mask comes crawling out through the broken window, carrying a bag which turns out to be full of expensive jewelry. The policeman doesn't hesitate at all in deciding that this gentleman is dishonest. But by what reasoning process does he arrive at this conclusion?

Griffin's A New Pearl Harbor

[kupci]

Paranoia is self-perpetuating.

Exactly! And probably the most paranoid folks in the *world* are people like Cheney, Perle, etc. Thus, the weird thing is, if theory #1 (crazy arabs) doesn't hold water, then theory #2 (controlled demolition) also implies that Cheney or someone, in their extremist paranoia, manifested the very nightmare as reality, the very nightmare that keeps them awake at night, to "spur" americans to action. (What I haven't seen much in these threads is Cheney's involvement in the PNAC, project for a new american century.) Yep, you are durn right about paranoia. It's a wicked one. Like some bizarre Philip K. Dick novel, these extremists have sucked us in to their own nightmarish world.

Re:Well thats nice

[nickmalthus]

I too have read that article but have found it to be inadequate in explaining the deficiencies of the official account. Namely:

1. it doesn't explain the hijacking simulations conducted during 911 nor mentions the previous NORAD simulation of hijacked commercial aircraft attacking the WTC. The article did not MSNBC reported the military scrambled jets 67 times to intercept suspicious aircraft the year prior to 9/11. Also remember flight 93 was known to be hijacked for over two hours until it was destroyed.
2. It doesn't explain the localized explosions that occurred during the collapse of the WTC well bellow the demolition wave above falling at the speed of gravity
3. It doesn't mention the vast amount of molten metal reported at the site smoldering weeks after the attack
4. It doesn't explain the governments peculiar behavior towards 9/11 , i.e. Not releasing all videos of the pentagon attack, Sibel Edmunds, government ignoring and blocking Al Qaeda investigation pre-911, blocking out FEMA and NTSB from the attack sites, year late formation of the 9/11 commission, not releasing the WTC building plans to the public,etc

Cheney's Paranoia

[kupci]

You can't stop the paranoia.

Exactly! And probably the most paranoid folks in the *world* are people like Cheney, Perle, etc. Thus, the weird thing is, if theory #1 (crazy arabs) doesn't hold water, then theory #2 (controlled demolition) also implies that Cheney or someone, in their extremist paranoia, manifested the very nightmare as reality, the very nightmare that keeps them awake at night, to "spur" americans to action. (What I haven't seen much in these threads is Cheney's involvement in the PNAC, project for a new american century.) Yep, you are durn right about paranoia. It's a wicked one. Like some bizarre Philip K. Dick novel, these extremists have sucked us in to their own nightmarish world.

One more thing: do not confuse any theory that contradicts the govt approved theory as the work of a bunch of whackos. Do the research, read the links above, figure it out.

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[Paladin144]

The short answer is we didn't.

The long anwswer is, yes we did.

Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.

Source, please? You're incorrect; Bin Laden was funded by the CIA. Even the Identifying Misinformation page, so helpfully and ironically supplied by the government, admits that:

"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.

I love how he tells us that the CIA was engaged in a coverup and then expects us to believe everything that comes after that. The CIA was aiming for that deniability for a reason. There wouldn't've been anything to deny unless they were also directly funding the Afghan Arabs, along with funneling funds through ISI. The CIA is the one with the cash after all. You think just because Bin Laden's daddy was rich that he didn't need money? War is expensive, and rich people need money more than the rest of us because they're used to buying their way through life.

Even the Wikipedia article on OBL mentions the CIA connection. It's a widely known fact, but not one that you're supposed to bring up in public because, just like NSA spying, we don't officially acknowledge that it happened, even though everyone knows it has. That's government for you.

not new

[jesusfingchrist]

this "video" has been out forever. i can't believe they are running this as a "newly released" video. what crap

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[chromozone]

With regard to the US funding fighters in Afghanistan I came across a very interesting interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski in which he admitted it was Carter who started stirring the pot with these people and not Reagan as is so often mentioned in media.

Interviewer: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

Too late

[Maxo-Texas]

I could make a movie of GWB performing oral sex on the duke lacrosse team given 5 years.

I'm sure the videotape is real but come on- who in the conspiracy crowd is going to believe it after five years.

A lot of questions to be answered

[lordvalrole]

Ok, so basically there is a lot of questions to be answered. I find it funny that they released the so called "new" footage of it. It doesn't show squat. Infact the only thing it looks like they did was when they released the first version of it, it was cropped out. I have gone through film school and had several classes in compositing, animation, modeling, cinematography, motion graphics, and taught by some of the best artists in the US. It wouldn't take but a few mins and I mean like 15 mins if that to create a composite of something like a blur on the pictures. One thing is for sure, you CAN fake pictures like this easily. This isn't video here this is only a few frames of anything being shown. I live actually a quarter mile from LAX I see planes take off all the time. There is no way in HELL that is a damn 757 that hit. I don't know how many people have actually been on one but they are damn big. You can see planes a mile away and they are fuckin huge.

So I don't work at the Pentagon but I am pretty damn sure most of their security system is probably the best in the world. You would think they would have badass cameras and badass equipment. One might think that after the attacks on the trade center that the pentagon would be at high alert status on security. You would think that they would switch to some insane security mode to start capturing high quality security camera footage. As it has been said before, show us the evidence. This isn't evidence...these images are bullshit low quality and I want hidef footage here. I want to see that damn plane everyone keeps talking about. One thing for sure No ONE can make out anything with these pictures. Not one single on this earth can make out any plane or anything about what we saw on those pictures. Why exactly have the confiscated the footage from the gas station and hotel? Their answer...because of National Security. WTF? what nation security is that? There is absolutely no reason to not release that footage. Until we figure out force field technology then can the fuckin bullshit national security shit. I am sick of it. All this national security stuff hasn't proved anything. Aparently you can get freakin bomb making materials still on board planes. America needs to wake the fuck up. I think it is funny how Bush has the lowest approval rating ever and they finally "release" this footage which actually showed absolutely nothing. If they want people to shut the hell up. All they have to do is give me hard cold fuckin evidence then I will be happy.

No I do not think our government actually purposefully attacked our nation but on the same end who the fuck knows. People have arguements that this plan is way to smart for Bush to come up with, yet some crazy fanatical crazy middle easterners can? yeah please spare me that bullshit. Bush's administration is not that incredibly dumb, they just keep getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I mean come on I would not put anything past this presidency, after let me see...illegal wire taps, treason with outting a cia agent, katrina, iraq war, breaking nuclear treaties, and the list could continue a long ways. It kinda says something about this administration when it has been the most controversial, laughed at, lying sack of shit presidency it has been. For some odd reason people wanted him in again, which every person who did vote for him again needs to be sent to Iraq. It was a mistake getting him once but actually voting for him again is unforgivable. I suggest people start fuckin getting educated with history and then you will start to see how unforgiveable these actions are. Americans need to fight for fuckin freedom not a Dictatorship like this has been. I have lost absolutely all hope in this government. There needs to be a serious wipe of the government and start from scratch. If it comes to rioting then so be it.

Americans don't understand that we are losing our freedoms everyday that this president and his administration is in office. It hasn't been jus

NORAD stand down

[kupci]

I have no doubt it was reported a million times on Fox or wherever. But it's irrelevant. NORAD was ordered to stand down. In June, Cheney took control of NORAD away from the military for himself. And on Sept, they happened to be running a training exercise, such that the NORAD controllers were told to stand down. So they did nothing, apparently. Why? Do the research. http://standdown.net/

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[forgotten_my_nick]

Paladin 144 post pretty much debunks what you said. To add to that you did see the TV footage of the (AFAIR) the diplomat of Saudi passing on a message saying that OBL thanked the US for helping him in Afganistan?

If I was you, I would also look into the "Northern Alliance" that was just a fancy name put onto them by the US so people wouldn't pry into what they were really like. As people go they make the Taliban look tame.

http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/afghan-bck100 5.htm

Absolutely Jenga !

[kupci]

Obviously you have not been playing enough jenga,

Jenga. That's a great idea. This is all proven by playing Jenga! Brilliant! I didn't have a clue why the bldgs collapsed, but it's all made plain for me! Hmm, if I set the top bars on fire, nothing happens, but if I add a firecracker next to each bar, and a couple big ones at the base, I guess it would collapse mighty quick! Light 'em all *nearly* at once (just so the bar below is out of the way when bar above comes crashing down)

Seriously, take a break from playing Jenga, and read the links I provided above.

Yes, 50 floors of concrete & steel are heavy, so what holds the buildings up in the first place?

Plane lost in the fog, so I guess we'll assume it also ran out of fuel too? That's the thing here AC, too many "well if that then I guess maybe this". Controlled demolition. Simple. Occam's Razor. Do the research.

Re:(conspiracy nut)

[DumbSwede]

I hope this was intended funny --or-- OMG you are ignorant. Cell phones work on planes without a transponder or re-transmitter on the plane. You just are discouraged from using the cell phone while it is in flight. I used my cell phone just last week from inside a plane on the ground. Now it might be at certain altitudes and great distances from city center a cell phone wouldn't connect, but when a hijacking is in progress nobody is going to think "Oh, I can't use my cell phone, it's against FAA rules." They will just flip open and try, and if close enough to a cell tower(s) it will work.

This is exactly what I'm talking about with wish fulfillment. You assume you know something about how something works then assume it is an inviolate law of the universe, which completely upholds and supports your position, but mostly because it is what you want to believe. Perhaps the cell phones had poor connections or experienced frequent drop outs, but work they did. No doubt you will fire back with some other half backed urban nonsense to prove me wrong. But I won't bother responding to what would be a pointless debate the likes of which I've had dozens of other times with conspiracy nuts who believe in things like: crop circle (alien origin), Face on Mars, Faked Moon landings, and Creationism.

You're missing the point

[skyline301]

there's no reason to waste your time wondering if the government actually did the atrocities of 9/11

Your statement makes me sick! If there is even a small chance (given all the contradictions, incredible leaps in logic, and avoidance of true common sense investigation, there's more than a small chance) that the government was involved in the 9/11 atrocities, we as the people of this country should DEMAND answers. Look around you and really drink in all that has been justified because of the attacks on that day.

• War in Afghanistan
• War in Iraq
• Patriot Act I & II
• Bill of Rights eviscerated
• Constitution eviscerated
• Near dictatorial powers given to the Executive Branch
• Homeland Security
• Unprecedented government spending
• Spying on Americans
• Shattered foreign relations
• Possible war with Iran

.......the list goes on, and we are told this our new way of life and that things will get worse unless we blindly follow the will of our leaders.

We're talking about our future and, being the most powerful and influential nation on earth, the future of just about every other person on this planet. Look at who stands to gain from this fanactical agenda. Again, consider the list above.........the events of 9/11 have been used to justify ALL of this.

You tell me......if some or all of the events on 9/11 were allowed or even manufactured by our own goverment, should we stand by and allow these outright treasonous actions to stand? If so, then you've got to ask yourself, at what point do we become 'America' in name only?

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Re:You're missing the point

[rossifer]

Look around you and really drink in all that has been justified because of the attacks on that day.

But how does being laballed a kook help to roll back any of those things that have been justified by 9/11? I want to roll everything on your list back because they're bad ideas, not because the events that supposedly motivated them may or may not have been staged.

Even if you're right, there will never be sufficient evidence to convince the population of the US, not because that evidence isn't there, but because they don't want to be convinced. Find another way around the propaganda. My approach is to point out the specific losses in their privacy, in their future upside, in their daily lives, and make it clear why today, we are less free than we were yesterday.

You tell me......if some or all of the events on 9/11 were allowed or even manufactured by our own goverment, should we stand by and allow these outright treasonous actions to stand?

Much worse things with better documentation have already been done in your and my name by the US government. Indonesia (Timor), Chile, Panama (setting up Noriega), Panama (taking down Noriega), Eduador, Colombia, Iran, Iraq (setting up Saddam), Iraq (taking down Saddam). Millions of peoples lives ended, hundreds of millions more economically ruined or set back decades.

There are a lot of things to be frustrated about. You have to choose your battles, and even if you're 100% correct, convincing any large number of people that your conspiracy theory is true requires too much effort for me to bother. There are undisputed facts that offer more traction into the psyche of people who think that the neo-con agenda is good for them.

If so, then you've got to ask yourself, at what point do we become 'America' in name only?

I'd put the date at about 44 years ago. That's when MacNamara started deliberately using the CIA in horrific acts to further US policy abroad. As soon as it was decided that that was okay, an important part of America was lost.

Regards,
Ross

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[bjoeg]

It was a secret gas station, sculptured as an entrance to Pentagon parking lot

911research.wtc7.net had suggested that

[psiXaos]

Here is the related article from http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagon/video. html which I think one of the few respectable research sites out there.

[It has always claimed that 'no-707' theory is false and is a booby-trap for conspiracy theorists, and a disinformation that may have been intentionally flamed up by the government to cover-up other evidence (thus when they finally prove that a 707 indeed crashed Pentagon, they would have practically discredited all the other theories by the nature of human psychology.]

Video of the Pentagon Attack: What is the Government Hiding?
by Jim Hoffman
Version 0.9, May 16, 2006

Today, the DOD released two videos from Pentagon security cameras, through JudicialWatch.org. One of the videos includes the five frames leaked in 2002. The new frames, including several from a different camera, add almost nothing to the body of public evidence about the Pentagon attack on 9/11/01. Since the new videos don't show an airplane, they promise to fuel debates about what hit the Pentagon, rather than put them to rest.

The US government has for years refused to release video evidence that might undermine the popularity of no-Boeing theories. Today's release did not include video recordings from nearby businesses seized by the FBI within minutes of the attack.

Judicial Watch's Freedom of Information Act Request, filed on December 14, 2004, is similar to another request by different plaintifs, documented at Flight77.info. Both sought to obtain all of the camera recordings of the attack, including those from other Pentagon security cameras, ones seized from the Sheraton National Hotel and Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, and those managed by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The Pentagon had refused to release its recordings before today, claiming they were "part of an ongoing investigation involving Zacarias Moussaoui."

Most people who have heard of challenges to the official account (that cells of al Qaeda operatives were solely responsible for the attack) have heard of the theory that the Pentagon was not hit by a jetliner. The theory has been in circulation since early 2002, with the Hunt the Boeing website and Thierry Meyssan's Big Lie and Le Pentagate. The "no-Boeing" theories, which come in small-plane, missile, and truck bomb, variants, have flourished in the vacuum of video evidence, and served as a straw man with which to smear all challenges to the official account of the attack.

The refusal of authorities to release video evidence has been cited by supporters of Pentagon no-jetliner theories as evidence that Flight 77 wasn't there. If the government has proof that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, why doesn't it make it public? Perhaps because it serves the cover-up to keep the sideshow debate about what hit the Pentagon going. In 2004, I suggested that the question of what hit the Pentagon was a huge distraction. Analysis of physical evidence of the crash shows that what's known of the damage and debris fits the crash of Flight 77.

Today Mike Berger was interviewed on ABCNews.com for the story New Tape Stirs Up 9/11 Conspiracy Theories. Rather than take the opportunity point out that the no-Boeing theory is a distraction, Berger stated:

Four-and-a-half years later, we still don't have definitive proof that a plane hit that building.

Mike Berger may not have grasped the implications of saying there is not proof that a plane hit the Pentagon, but it necessarily implies the following:

1. That the scores of accounts of a large plane are either faked or coerced.
2. That the damage to the Pentagon, including an approximately 100-foot-wide expanse of punctured facade walls on the first floor, were somehow produced by a means other than a plane.
3. That fires that smelled like burning jet fuel, running about 200 feet across the facade of the Pentagon, were prod

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

Objections to the conspiracy theories:

How did they plant the explosives:
the WTC had 12 hour shifts of security with bomb sniffer dogs as standard , RIGHT UP UNTILL A FEW WEEKS BEFORE 9/11 when the bomb sniffer dogs were pulled out of the building and securtiy lowered. HOW? as I said, pres. bush's brother was on the board at the security firm looking after the WTC and united airlines, his contract ran out on the DAY of 9/11

since this was planned long in advance, there is also the possiblility of some setup work being done during the cleanup of the original trade centre bombing, there was rumours of strange workers/activities at the time, which could also be explained in many less conspiratorial ways of course (obviously no explosives of the type that dogs would notice could be placed then, but i wonder if the dogs could smell thermite (aluminium and rust) mixed into say fireproofing sprayon material?

Wouldnt it have required a MASSIVE (therefore almost impossible) conspiracy?): Not according to many researches. It may require: various influential bush administration members (dick cheney, cond. rice and rummsfeld among them) , other bush family members such as the one running security and sitting on the board for the insurance company for the WTC (and security for United airlines), a few high level insiders in the CIA/FBI/SS, larry silverstein owner of WTC, and a few others. The planes could (and most likely were) remote controlled ( think this is not possible? we have had remote controlled planes since the 40's, tesla had a remote controlled boat over 100 years ago, we can remote control spacecraft into comets and distant planets, why the hell couldnbt we control a plane into a building)most likely by overtaking their onboard automatic landing/flight controls or similar, by introduction of a hidden program triggered by who knows what, as an example, a program which kicks in on 9/11 at a particular flying height. Passengers where either NOT onboard, being mostly government agents wanting to destroy old identities and create new ones, who had already excited in a swap manouver, or knocked out by gas (quite possible, a gas was used by the russians to end a hostage situation which knocks out people before they can respond or even know whats happening)

various wierd ocurences, like a newspaper reporting flight 93 landing at an airport after the suposed crash, back up sections of this (ie swapped plane)

one VERY IMPORTANT THING to keep in mind when dealing with this is : the government WANTS conspiracy theorists to be confused, have conflicting stories, and therefore be less likely to be taken seriously keep this in mind when trying to determine what motive behind some of the actions required for this to be a conspiracy, eg the pentagon missile: 40 witnesses saw a plane (although not the same plane: 2 different sorst of jet airliner and a private bizjet), yet conspiracy theorists are saying it was a bomb or missile: government releases footage showing an explosion symetrical around a vertical centre line, not splayed out like should have happened from a jet crash at 500miles an hour that was so hot it vaporised a plane (er,...right vaporised titanium and steel jet engines? whatever), and NOT SHOWING a jet airliner (the white nose of something too small/long and skinny to be a jet, but which conspiracy theorists (including me) think looks more like a missile) thus contradicting their own story! this makes the conspiracy theorists think it must be real (since it contradicts the gov story), and that the gov didnt want to release it, (same with the five frames of this footage that was "leaked" years ago) and therefore there must be a missile, while most people say "if so, what about the 40 witnesses, and so call the conspiracy theorists nuts!

never mind that multiple trained military personel at the pentagon smelled cordite, an explosive, not jet fuel, there was virtually no trace of the 100 tonnes of plane that crashed there, the hole in the inner section where somethin

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[CptNerd]

It was a secret gas station, sculptured as an entrance to Pentagon parking lot

Oh, that secret gas station...

Re:This footage is worthless and very non-convinci

[bj8rn]

t just makes no sense to me why a surveillance camera would film at such a shitty rate especially at the PENTAGON for christs sake

It's quite simple, actually: the tape will last a lot longer if you shoot it at only one frame per one or two seconds. If you're trying to find out at what time did a car enter or exit the compound (which the cameras the footage was taken from seem to be there for, judging from their position), this will just about suffice; with any luck, you'll even see a blurry picture of the driver. You can see a police car in the videos; this is something the camera was meant to take pictures of. You cannot see the plane, but it's hardly surprising as a plane can move a lot faster than a car.

The unignorable reason that is HAS to be true

[Opportunist]

Weekly World News never ever brought a single line about 9/11. And we all know they're the first to know if something fishy is going on.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[c0nman]

why the hell is the parent marked as flamebait ?

most of his facts are true, unlike the ones that the US government is telling you.

Huh?

a curious thing

[circusboy]

good point...
I was on a flight with a guy who worked at a failure analysis company in mountain view back in 2000. As we were talking, we were discussing what he did for a living and in order to demonstrate, he showed me a bunch of the simulations they had done for the military. quite a large number of the analysis animations that he showed me were plane crashes.

According to the simulations he showed me of cargo planes ramming bunkers, what happens is basically this:
1. front of plane accordions until the wings make contact with the surface.
2. when the leading edge of the wings make contact, the rest of the plane stops. The impact of the wings is distributed over the much larger profile, and as a result, do a much better job of braking than the relatively small area of the front profile of the fuselage.
3, the rear of the plane would crumple somewhat due to momentum, but would generally remain the original shape.

Going by his simulations, I would have expected the wings to remain behind... of course the simulations I saw were of an empty cargo plane hitting an armored bunker, rather than a passenger plane with luggage stuffed* into the belly hitting a low lying office building... (*which would provide a certain amount of extra structural integrity.)

all in all a fun thing to watch on a plane just before takeoff...

I am choosing to believe that the populace of the current administration are stupid, selfish, venal, paranoid, evil, money-grubbing, dissembling, vile, lying, irresponsible and incompentent jackasses. I don't currently believe that they actually planned these events. (did I leave anything out?)

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[commodoresloat]

You might also look up Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord the CIA supported directly. He recently pledged allegiance to OBL.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

then 3 steel and concrete buildings completely collapse symetrically into their own footprint from a few small* fires (*see other fires that COMPLETELY ENGULFED BUILDINGS yet they didnt fall down for my definition of large fires) despite this never having occured before, even once, let alone three times, in the history of steel and concrete skyscrapers

Maybe it didn't happen this time, either? Just because you read it on the internet it doesn't mean it's true.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

Sorry to keep babbling but I just keep remembering new coincidences and things that dont make sense about the official explanation: - al queda was originally trained and funded by the CIA, do you think they COMPLETELY lost contact/inside information about their plans? this is the Central intelligence agency, it's their job to keep track of these things!

- THIS VIDEO: why is the explosion perfectly symetrical around a vertical centreline? as you'd expect from an explosive detonation, such as the cordite that pentagon personel smelledbut NOT from a 500 mile an hour horizontal plane crash! we've all seen the footage of the second plane strike at the wtc, how the fireball and debris splashed out sideways from the impact WHY DOES THIS LOOK NOTHING AT ALL LIKE IT

- look at the photos of the pentagon, whole in the wall looks like a missile damage, and does not have holes or damage where the 10 tonne titanium and steel jet engines travelling at the speed of a bullet collided with it.

-I briefly mentioned the melted steel, heres more info: 6 weeks after 9/11, the cleanup crews were pulling out huge lumps (think size of a car or bigger) of white hot and sometimes still molten steel. if steel was this easy to melt (just add some kerosene i.e. jet fuel) then why did it take thousands of years for us to figure out how to smelt iron, after entering the bronze/copper age? why do we use blast furnaces, oxy acetalene torches and arc welders to melt steel, when we can just pour on some kero. I know you might say there was SO MUCH jet fuel, but thats irrelevant, there is a maximum temperature that a particular fuel can attain when burning, known as the adiabatic temperature, which is only attained in absolutley ideal conditions( ie NO HEAT LOSS, stoichiometric ratios of fuel molecules to oxygen etc), not when there is a massive steel heatsink sucking away whatever heat the remaining fuel not burnt up in the initial fireball, and office furniture could create, with limited oxygen, especially in the structural interior that would have had to have got the hottest. It is NOT dependant on the amount of fuel, only the ratio of air to fuel and lack of heat loss: adding more fuel to a fire doesnt generally make it hotter, it makes it bigger. Kerosene(jet fuel) does NOT ordinarily burn hot enough to melt steel. to do so it needs to be in almost perfect stoichiometric mixture with the air(not the case at all, see black smoke indicative of fuel rich and/or cool fire, have virtually no heat loss (not the case at all, heat was radiated away and the building was a massive heatsink) and some preheating of the air without lowering the oxygen content (ie the air has to be heated by passing hot surfaces, not by being in a fire on a lower floor, as the lower fire lowers the oxygen level and therefore makes the latter fire COOLER if any heat was lost in between the two (which it would be)

- please look at the following diagram showing HOW HUGE the centre support column of the building was wtc and then look at the following EXTREMELY MISLEADING diagram given by the bbc to explain the collapse misleading page ok enough now, for more info, like I said before, watch 911 loose change(and other similar videos) on google video and keep an open mind.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

Since the whole of the US's gold reserves add up to less than $160bn, how plausible do you think it is that $160bn was in the WTC? Bonus question: what does this say about the plausibility of the sources you are relying on?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

are you saying that they didnt collapse straight down

I'm not saying anything as I'm really not educated at all in these matters (construction engineering etc). You clearly seem to be more knowledgeable than me, which is why I'm a bit surprised that you've failed to notice how, in the second picture, the collapsed building has dealt quite significant damage to at least one building next to it. But that's all I'm saying, as I can only comment on what I can see and I can see only what I know to look for.

PS: Bold letters and fancy titles don't intimidate me. Way back when, it may have added some credibility to a conspiracy theory, but these days, there's so many professors and Academy members in the conspiracy crowd that the title hardly gives any cred to you anymore.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

Your post is so full of lies, deception, manipulation and general nonsense and unfounded claims that you would be best off ignored. But it is dangerous to ignore kooks, so just to show anyone who might read your drivel and believe it how wrong you are. Examples:

"No steel/concrete skyscraper has EVER completely or even nearly completely collapse from fire before or after 9/11"

No steel/concrete skyscraper has ever had huge planes smash into them.

"video/pictures of PEOPLE HANGING OUT OF THE GASH IN THE BUILDING where temperatures hot enough to melt steel are supposed to be present"

Straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

"hydrocarbon (jet fuel/carpet/paper/wood etc) flames CANNOT reach the > 1500 C temperature needed to melt steel"

Which is irrelevant, since steel doesn't have to melt to be significantly weakened.

"Another first: No steel/concrete building has ever collapsed Symetrically into its own footprint without carefully placed explosives."

No steel/concrete building has had the top part partly separated from the rest of the building, only to give in and fall down on the floors below.

"Do you even remember tower 7?"

Yes. It was severely damaged by falling debris from the other buildings.

"MANY MANY WITNESSES AND NEWS REPORTS on the day talked about many multiple exlosions inside the buildings."

If you are implying that "explosions" == "bombs", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron. Many things can cause explosions.

"Fire fighters talk about what looked like controlled detonations coming down the side of the building"

If you think that "looks like" == "actually is", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron.

"The huge flowing dust clouds that formed in the collapses are called apyroclastic flow they require HUGE amounts of energy to form"

You are delusional. When a building collapses, there is lots of air which suddenly finds itself in a lot less space, so it finds its ways out, resulting in what people observed - puffs of smoke, or puffs of dust, debris, etc.

Re:You are incorrect.

[mpe]

Don't forget that this very story concerns the release of a very small piece of evidence, five years after the fact! And even then, it is of very suspect quality.

A small piece of evidence which is unlikely to show much anyway. Security cameras are intended to record people, not high speed aircraft at close range. Even the best possible images are likely to be of poorer quality than those from New York, where people have made claims that wing fairings are some kind of pod and that communications antenna are sprays of fuel.

An interesting parallel

[Kombat]

You can't put the conspiracy theories to rest. They already believe you're covering something up. [...]The conspiracy theorists will just claim you've fabricated or altered the "new" evidence.


Sounds a lot like how religion deals with evidence supporting evolution.

I love conspiracy theories

[Kombat]

The fundermental problem is that no such steel framed building has ever totally collapsed due to fire in over a century, except on that one day.

This is a fact that has greatly troubled architects and engineers since 9/11. The collapses of WTC 1, 2, and 7 invalidated many assumptions that had been used in building construction. Building designers have used to the lessons 9/11 to improve future building construction.

That said, the buildings probably would have stood up to the heat of the fire if the insulating foam on the steel skeleton had been maintained, and not allowed to flake off over the years, leaving the trusses vulnerable to fire and intense heat.

Even though there have been fires in such buildings before and since, including one in the 1970's in one of the WTC towers.

The fires the buildings were designed to withstand (and, as you point out, had withstood in the past) were not nearly as intense. A fire in a building like that was expected to be started by a careless cigarette butt (it was the 70's, after all) or an electrical short, or a grease fire in the kitchen. Whatever the case, the fire's fuel was expected to be limited to the furniture and carpet already in the building, thus limiting the potential intensity of the fire.

They never expected to need to stand up to a fire fueled by thousands and thousands of gallons of jet fuel.

WTC7 wasn't even hit by a plane, there is even reason to doubt that the impact damage to WTC1 and WTC2 was sufficent to greatly greatly weaken the structure.

You know what else is scary? I've seen video of buildings collapsing when they weren't on fire at all! I think something called an "earthquake" shook the ground a teeny tiny bit, and the buildings just fell down all on their own!

Hey... wait a minute ... do you think maybe the nearby collapse of two massive skyscrapers might cause enough of an "earthquake" effect to weaken a building, such that subsequent debris damage and fire might cause it to collapse?

Naaaaaah.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

Please show your working.

How much force would be required to push the tower to one side as it fell? Where would this force come from?

Given the inertia of the lower floors compared to the mass of the upper floors, by how many m/s/s would you expect the acceleration of the upper floors to be retarded compared with free fall? Is it practicable to measure this from videos of the collapse?

If you can't do the math, all you have is wild speculation.

Re:Bin Laden and the CIA

[Kirth]

The short answer is we didn't

*Cough*. Please get our sources straight. The BBC thinks you're wrong, too.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

The point is that it is completely implausible that anywhere near that amount of gold was stored. Gold was approx $275 per ounce at the time, so $100bn of gold = approx 10,000 metric tonnes.

The conspiracy loons would know this if they'd done five minutes research, but of course they don't bother. Anybody who trusts anything they say is an idiot.

It's a gate camera

[Kombat]

The two cameras are at a security gate leading into the Pentagon. They're intended to capture images of cars and drivers passing through the checkpoint. For example, at one point in the video, a police car passes through the gate. The video very clearly captures this.

It's not intended to capture anything far away. Just who/what passes through that particular checkpoint.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[GuloGulo2]

"Nice, mark me flamebait without reading through and coming up with a coherant argument against what I'm saying."

You're a nutjob, that's all the argument that's required.

People don't debate anything with the guy standing on the corner talking to himself because he's a kook.

You're the guy standing on the corner.

Re:Speaking of which...

[TripMaster Monkey]

Well, I guess that's my cue.

Since I was on an on-site call for much of yesterday, this is the first opportunity I've had to post here. Sorry for the delay.

Well, I've looked very carefully at the newly released video (as I'm sure everyone else in the nation has by now), and like most others, I'm rather disappointed. I was really hoping for some sort of conclusive evidence (one way or another) so we might finally put one of the 9/11 controversies to bed.

Unfortunately, the newly released video shows nothing conclusive...quite the contrary. There is only one frame that contains new information...the alleged 'nose cone'. However, this nose cone certainly does not look like it belongs to a 757, although it is understandable that at the speeds this object was travelling (450-500 mph), there will be a certain amount of blurring.

It's a real shame that the only frame in video 1 that seems to show any of the aircraft has the aircraft hidden behind that yellow column, while the only frame in video 2 that seems to show any of the aircraft shows only a tiny bit of the nose. I realize that these are CCTV cameras whose framerate is not high, but while it's unfortunate that video 1 contains no useful information about the aircraft, the fact that video 2 has no useful info either can only be described as unfortunate squared. How unlucky can you get?

From the BBC article:

"Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77," president Tom Fitton said.

Exactly how is a blurry, indistinct shot of a nose cone that doesn't seem to belong to a 757 going to 'put to rest' the conspiracy theories? All this video can do is fan the flames.

This video was not released to attempt to put the conspiracy theories to rest...it was released for one purpose only...to forcefully remind the general public of 9/11. Bush' numbers at the polls are abyssmal, and beating his breast over 9/11 hs been proven to help them. After all, the link to the video on Fox News is titled 'Timely reminder of a clear and present danger'. Timely, indeed.

If the government was truly interested in ending the controversy, why not release the several other videos that were shot that day? Neil Cavuto of Fox News said that 'the other videos didn't pan out', but if that's the case, why does the government need to deny access to them at all? Why can't we see them? It's not like the don't exist.

Another quote from Fox News' Neil Cavuto:

"It is odd that this image hits our senses as the debate over our freedoms hits the headlines."

No, Neil, it's not 'odd' at all. It's what we've come to expect from a President who shamelessly uses the horror of 9/11 to further his own political ends.

Re:Well thats nice

[glesga_kiss]

They did release it immediately. The Moussaoui trial just ended. It's common that the government and companies do not discuss details relating to a trial while it's in progress.

I can bullshit on that excuse. The trial is the only reason that we know this video exists. Are you telling me that the best video surveilence that the USA's wartime command and control centre is two webcams on entry barriers? The hotel across the road has an "ideal" view of the site and it's video was confiscated and hidden away. People found out this new video existed due to its inclusion as "evidence" in a trial of someone who had very little to do with it.

This video had no bearing on the trial, and it has nothing to do with why it is released now. What exactly is in this video that would inflnce the trial? Bear in mind that it would be impossible to find a juror who hasn't seen the trade tower strikes. That's the normal rational for surpressing information during a trial, as it's not fair on the defendant. They cannot get a fair trail with a jury that has pre-determined thoughts and beliefs about the incident. Getting a fair trial over 9/11 is utterly impossible.

For it to be a real conspiracy

[mark_jabroni]

The US would have had to implement it, and it would have had to remain secret for a decent amount of time.

Since it wasn't, it's just a hypothetical.

Re:For it to be a real conspiracy

[Chris Burke]

Neither of the things I meantioned were hypothetical in the least. Are you talking about the Contra's selling drugs in the U.S.? That happened. The archive has documents showing that the government was aware of Contra-run planes flying into the country -- California specifically -- loaded with drugs, and leaving full of weapons they purchased with the proceeds from the drugs. The government knew and approved, it being a perfect way to get around the fact that directly funding the Contras was at that point illegal.

As far as secrecy, I'm not sure what that has to do with things being hypothetical vs. real. It is true that there was a news report that made the same allegations that are now known to be true, but it wasn't until many years later that an FOIA request gave us the documents in the archive and proved that they were in fact true. Yet there are still people who don't believe it happened. So not that bad a job of keeping it secret, if you ask me.

Re: George Bush is NOT an extra-terrestrial

[feed_those_kitties]

Extra-terrestrials are intelligent.

Re:Well thats nice

[955301]

I'm not sure I have a solid answer for that, other than the administrations concienciousness of media and propoganda. They probably didn't want the images used to recruit additional attackers. Besides, it's a pretty healthy bloody nose for the US government - squelching it and any outcropping issues is natural for an institution so bent on saving face.

Re:Well thats nice

[955301]

Why would you point your survelliance cameras at your building? I'd imagine any camera has a specific target and purpose - monitor a hallway, show a view of people arriving at an entrance (like this one), etc. There are tens of cameras outside the Pentagon - there are only a few actually pointed at it. That's because, except for this particular day and the followon construction, the building doesn't do much to warrant monitoring.

NO, and knock this garbage off please

[GuloGulo2]

"I saw one of the opening acts of our descent into a police state, right there."

No, what you actually saw were scared people who overreacted in response to a severe shock. Keep in mind those soldiers ar eyoung men, who just had their concept of American invulnerability destroyed.

You humans acting like humans.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[IAmTheDave]

why the hell is the parent marked as flamebait ? most of his facts are true, unlike the ones that the US government is telling you.

Because anyone who questions the government drafted version of the story is immediately branded as a "conspiracy theorist" which brings with it a very negative conotation of a complete whack-job.

Unfortunately, people in this country (and others) are sheep and are immediately willing to believe what they are told, despite hundreds of years of history of the US government covering things up (domestic spying in the 70s? empty Warren Commission reports on the JFK assassination?, confiscated video from the gas station, hotel, and other installation across the street from the pentagon?)

So yes, brand me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I found loose change to be eye opening. Please don't tell me that we couldn't scramble jets fast enough. We have planes that fly sorties across the world in one evening, but we can't scramble jets to intercept hijacked planes in the air for hours?

Stop blatantly accepting anything you hear. Listen to the true experts - the air-force pilots who say that the manuvers required to hit the pentagon were impossible, the firemen on the ground who have said time and again that the building was brought down by explosives. These are the boots on the ground with actual expertise, and you're believing Rumsfeld.

Sheep...

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

Your post is the one containing lies, deception, manipulation and general nonsense and unfounded claims, hkmwbz.

Let's go over them one at a time, shall we?

No steel/concrete skyscraper has ever had huge planes smash into them.

Ignoring for just a moment that that statement is patently untrue, the fact is that the WTC towers were specifically designed to be able to withstand a strike from an airliner. The airliner cited is a 707, the largest airliner of the day, and only slightly smaller than the 757s that did strike. At any rate, the towers did in fact weather the strike just fine, only swaying back and forth a few feet.

Straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

Wrong. The steel in question was rated ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F (1100C) for several hours. There is simply no way that a kerosene fire could raise the temperature of the steel that high. And yet, WTC1 collapsed in only 102 minutes, while WTC 2 collapsed in only 56 minutes.

No steel/concrete building has had the top part partly separated from the rest of the building, only to give in and fall down on the floors below.

Wrong again. During the Madrid skyscraper fire (which burned far hotter and far longer than the either WTC tower), the steel warped enough to send the top ten floors crashing down upon the rest of the structure. However, the building did not collapse, and even managed to continue supporting a massive construction crane on the roof.

Yes. It was severely damaged by falling debris from the other buildings.

Wrong a third time. Check this map to see the relative placement of the buildings. Building 7 was never hit with more than incidental debris, yet, it collapsed sudddenly and completely into its own footprint, precisely like the twin towers. Perhaps you're thinking of WTC 6, which stood right next to the north tower, and was severely damaged by falling debris (two gigantic holes punched down enitrely through the structure). Problem is...despite this horrrendous damage, WTC 6 continued to stand until it was demolished during the cleanup.

If you are implying that "explosions" == "bombs", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron. Many things can cause explosions.

I call bullshit. List your candidates.

If you think that "looks like" == "actually is", then you are, frankly, a fucking moron.

Perhaps you'd like to give your explanation of what the firefighters witnessed, then.

When a building collapses, there is lots of air which suddenly finds itself in a lot less space, so it finds its ways out, resulting in what people observed - puffs of smoke, or puffs of dust, debris, etc.

First of all, you're talking about a different point than the parent. Since both points are important, I'll address them both (yours first).

I assume you're referring to the jets of gas and dust that were observed appearing at regular locations down the side of the building during the collapse. Here's where your explanation falls flat:

1. If the jets were nothing more than escaping air, how is it that they were filled with dust and smoke, despite the inconvenient fact that there was no damage whatsoever on those lower floors? Where could that smoke and dust have come from?
2. How is it that the jets were so regular in appearance, some even visible from two sides of the tower simultaneously? If this was just pressurized gas finding a way out, as you assert, once it had blown one window, the pressure would decrease, pr

SO the fact

[mark_jabroni]

I love how he tells us that the CIA was engaged in a coverup and then expects us to believe everything that comes after that.

To sum up : since you aren't hearing what you want to hear, people must be lying, right?

It's a widely known fact

It's a widely held misconception. There's not a single shred of evidence that the US trained or paid OBL. Which is why your wikipedia article has to rely on The Guardian to get that 'fact'.

In reality, everybody who would have known about the relationship denies it, even the (now retired) CIA guys that worked in afghanistan at the time. They have confirmed that they didn't want to give money to OBL, and he wouldn't have taken it anyway.

Re:SO the fact

[Paladin144]

It's a widely held misconception. There's not a single shred of evidence that the US trained or paid OBL. Which is why your wikipedia article has to rely on The Guardian to get that 'fact'.

Do you have any links or facts to back that up? I provided links to prove my point. Your argument seems to consist soley of saying, "No. It doesn't. Nope." That's not very convincing.

By the way, you accused me of ignoring information, but you seem to be ignoring info because it comes from The Guardian. Pot and the kettle?

In reality, everybody who would have known about the relationship denies it, even the (now retired) CIA guys that worked in afghanistan at the time. They have confirmed that they didn't want to give money to OBL, and he wouldn't have taken it anyway.

So, the people who would have the most to lose if it was proven that they worked with OBL are denying that they did?! That's amazing! Who would've thought that those extremely-biased (you might even say "compromised" or "accused") people would deny involvement? Do you have any other revelations for me? [/sarcasm]

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

If you can't do the math, all you have is wild speculation.

Apparently, you didn't notice the link the parent provided. You'll find the math you're looking for there.

Re:Where's The Plane?

[corbettw]

You also always see:

Engine parts
Landing gear
Part of the wing

Just because you don't recognize it, doesn't mean those of us trained in photo analysis don't.

An excellent page debunking the conspiracy theorists: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_pentagon_7 57_plane_evidence.html

Re:Well thats nice

[955301]

it was just brushed under the carpet.

It's one of the big enchiladas in the Department of Defence infrastructure. Play devil's advocate for a second - would you release copious notes and information about the impact and how it damaged the building? The building being of course, one of your primary command and control facilities for the nation?

It's classified, and they do such things with a wide net. The fact is, the reconstruction of the aircraft was probably classified as well and those who worked on it were probably deputized/given clearances.

It was an attack on a military installation - of course you're not going to get the whole picture. Pearl Harbour would have been the same was except that it occurred outdoors.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

Look, the crap you are spewing out has been answered a million times. Repeating lies won't make them true. This is really a waste of time, except that you may convince some gullible idiot that you are telling the truth.

"the WTC towers were specifically designed to be able to withstand a strike from an airliner. The airliner cited is a 707, the largest airliner of the day, and only slightly smaller than the 757s that did strike."

As you point out, they were built to withstand smaller planes.

"At any rate, the towers did in fact weather the strike just fine, only swaying back and forth a few feet."

And then the top part fell down on the floors below because of the plane, and the building went to the ground.

"Wrong. The steel in question was rated ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F (1100C) for several hours."

Again, it doesn't have to melt. It weakens at significantly lower temperatures. Not only that, but it expands when heated, and contracts when cooled down again. If this is done wrong, the steel itself weakens. Again, ask a blacksmith how important it is to cool it down correctly.

"Wrong again. During the Madrid skyscraper fire (which burned far hotter and far longer than the either WTC tower), the steel warped enough to send the top ten floors crashing down upon the rest of the structure. However, the building did not collapse, and even managed to continue supporting a massive construction crane on the roof."

In your eagerness to spread misinformation, you forgot that I wrote: No steel/concrete building has had the top part partly separated from the rest of the building, only to give in and fall down on the floors below.

"Wrong a third time."

No, you are wrong. Read this post for images of the damaged WTC7. And eyewitness accounts.

"Check this map to see the relative placement of the buildings. Building 7 was never hit with more than incidental debris, yet, it collapsed sudddenly and completely into its own footprint, precisely like the twin towers."

No. You are wrong. RTFT.

"I call bullshit. List your candidates."

If you are seriously claiming that bombs are the only thing in the entire world which can cause explosions, then you need to go have your brain checked.

"Perhaps you'd like to give your explanation of what the firefighters witnessed, then."

I already explained it to you: "When a building collapses, there is lots of air which suddenly finds itself in a lot less space, so it finds its ways out, resulting in what people observed - puffs of smoke, or puffs of dust, debris, etc."

"If the jets were nothing more than escaping air, how is it that they were filled with dust and smoke, despite the inconvenient fact that there was no damage whatsoever on those lower floors? Where could that smoke and dust have come from?"

If you are seriously claiming that a crumbling building does not cause dust or debris, then you need to go have your brain checked.

"How is it that the jets were so regular in appearance, some even visible from two sides of the tower simultaneously?"

Because the air was escaping wherever it could, and the fall appeared to be at a constant speed.

"If this was just pressurized gas finding a way out, as you assert, once it had blown one window, the pressure would decrease, preventing the other windows from blowing out."

The pressure didn't decrease, because the space which was to contain the air continued to get smaller.

This is irrelevant

[RecycledElectrons]

This "release" is irrelevant. If you think that a plane hit the Pentagon, you'll believe it. If you don't think a plane hit the Pentagon, then you know they had plenty of time to fake a tape.

If they had released it quickly, I might have bothered to watch it.

Andy Out!

Re:This is irrelevant

[diablomonic]

and if you watch the video, youll wonder just exactly where that plane is? (I thought planes had wings, and a tail, and arent just small white tubes?)

Yes, please

[ColonelPanic]

> If I say "George Bush is an alien," should he undergo a medical examination specifically to prove that he is human...

Preferably at Abu Ghraib.

This is strange....

[sheepoo]

I ran and re-ran the video on the web site in the faint hope that I will see the plane hit the building. Since the video is of poor quality the only thing I could make out was something definitley hitting the building. HOWEVER, if it is a plane (which I believe it is) it sure looks like one which is running on the ground and not hitting from the air.
Anyone has any ideas about this?

Re:Fireball

[Fantastic Lad]

i dont know how conspiracy theorists explain the fireball and dead americans on that flight (what an insult to them and their families this shit is). That fireball was obviously from fuel. I dont think you can pack that much on a predator.

Are you a Troll trying to get people to explain things in public forum for the benefit of the readers, or are you just ignorant?

-FL

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

"No steel/concrete skyscraper has ever had huge planes smash into them."

First of all, WT7 DID NOT have a plane crash into it, and yet still fell (symetrically and into its own footprint), next:

the empire state building had a plane crash into it: At 9:49 a.m. on Saturday July 28, 1945, a B-25 Mitchell bomber accidentally crashed into the north side between the 79th and 80th floors, where the offices of the National Catholic Welfare Council were located. The fire was extinguished in 40 minutes. 14 people were killed in the accident[3].(wikipedia)

Regardless of this, the building was designed to withstand impacts by aircraft of this size, so it shouldn't (and indeed thats not the official explanation) have been the impact that caused the problem. if you think it was the fire, then compare this picture of the WTC fire towers where you can see a small area on one tower and a larger but still relatively small section on the other smoking (black indicating low oxygen therefore cooler fires) with a few visible flames, with this and thisimage of the windsor building in madrid, that was totally engulfed in flames from about halfway up the building to the top, and burned for 10 hours, yet didn't collapse, with only parts not including the inner support section collapsing after burning for hours, as you might expect. Note that the tower, while smaller, had a similar construction to the wtc, being a central support column and perimeter supports, and that the tower was "built using normal strength concrete and before modern fire proofing standards, without any sprinkler system. It was undergoing a complete refurbishment, including the installation of various active fire prevention and resistance measures, when the fire began at around 11pm on 14 February 2005." (see here and here for more pictures and (you may say biased) info and here for a case study of the construction and result of the huge fire. Many other buildings have burned for similar or longer, and not collapsed. If you still think it's reasonable to accept three world first events on the same day at face value, in your words "then you are, frankly, a fucking moron.""(in a less offensive way, if it was conspiracy theorists saying that al queda did it with planes, and the government saying that they demolished it to make room for new towers or something, then would you still think it was rediculous?)

also if you think it was "not an ordinary fire" and that the addition of the jet fuel caused the extra heat that differentiated them from every other fire in history, then, from the debunking 911 myths on popular mechanics:

"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 responsiblefor the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."

therefore apart from a hot start and some mild damage to the outer structure (which was not intended for holding up the bulk of the weight of the building but rather to resist torsional forces from wind etc, and therfore if that had failed would be much more likely to have caused an assymetrical toppling, rather than a symetrical fall), it was no different to any other fire in the history of steel/concrete buildings. So I ask again, why did three buildings fall on the same day from fire, and never before or since in history?

straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

"Peter Tully, presid

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[nickmalthus]

There were many reports of molten metal that smolder weeks after the attacked. Molten metal can be seen dripping from WTC 2 moments before the collapse so indeed molten metal existed. The question is what was it and how was it created. All scientific theories should be independently verifiable. Simply because the government asserts an explanation does not by virtue make it true. Certainly it would be much easier to confirm the governments account if they would release the blueprints of the WTC centers, allow access to the few WTC metal samples that were salvaged from ground zero, and share all of their scientific analysis with the public. Is this too much to ask from our government?

Re:And the Germans revealed Auschwitz plans?

[GuloGulo2]

"After Adolf Hitler firebombed the Reichstag"

No he didn't. Why do you people always resort to lying?

There is evidence he may have ordered it burned. That is not anywhere even remotely close to what you claimed, and you know it.

So why lie when you're easily disproven?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire

Stop lying.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[cayenne8]

"...most of his facts are true, unlike the ones that the US government is telling you..."

Well, I think that this listing of conspiracy points for 9/11 has one MAJOR flaw. For the Bush-ites and the Feds in general to pull this off, they'd have to be brilliant, well planned, and able to hold major secrets.

I think the conspiracy people are giving them WAY more credit for these traits than most people believe they actually have....

I don't think the feds have the ability to pull off the 9/11 attacks to cover up gold, and everything else the gp listed....they're not that talented.

:-)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

interesting side note article dug up while searching for an answer: dodgy transactions implying (but not proving) foreknowledge of 9/11

ok: Conspiracy theorist site telling that side of the story : up to 160 billion, 200 million recovered, other valuables possibly missing, trucks found loaded with gold, etc. Obviously not the best source, but you get the idea of the story. Now lets try to find the truth: from Wikipedia

"One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks. The 1993 bomb detonated close to the vault, but it withstood the explosion, as did the towers."

Ok one of the worlds largest, so it should be in the same league as fort knox, which according to wikipedia has 147 million ounces, at $700 an ounce, which is roughly 100 billion dollars. OK so 160 billion is not unbelievable, and any less than about 50 billion would imply it wasnt one of the biggest, so I estimate between 50 and 160 billion in gold. even going on the low side of 50 billion, we have over 49 billion dollars worth of gold missing from the WTC (not a bad take for a crime, works out to works out close to $20 million per person killed, not a bad days work for a hitman. Yes I realise how offensive that is, and apologise. I'm outraged by this crime and saddened and horrified at the poeple who where murdered that day, and am trying to make a point.) see here for interesting story of finding the truck with the gold in it

Re:Where's The Plane?

[GuloGulo2]

"Bits of fuselage were moved from storage inside the building to the lawn after the events described in 1) in order to coverup that a patriotic aiforce pilot shot down a civilian plane, under direct orders to do so, in order to prevent another sucessfull strike."

Just so I'm clear, you think the government, as a matter of routine, stores airplane bits and pieces, JUST IN CASE?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA. BWAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA.

That's just dumb.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[reaktor]

Wow, you have bought into all of the propaganda. Actually, NO tall steel skyscraper has ever fallen do to fire, or from a plane crashing into it. Check your facts, man. WTC 7 feel down to a neat little pile, around 5pm that day. If you look at images, WTC 7 is surrounded on all four sides by skyscapers. Falling debris somehow had to go around the other buildings, and made WTC 7 fall down into a neat little pile, leaving the other buildings untouched. Right.....

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

thats if they were in charge, and not just taking orders! (and anyway while I think they are all an evil lot, and wouldnt trust dubya with the keys to an outdoor shitter for fear he'd fall in while trying to pronounce the word "nukular", and remember who it was that fooled him twice, I think you have to be carefull when describing some of the other administration members as stupid. Greedy, selfish, short sighted (or just extra selfish, most likely the latter), elitist, evil, murderous, traiterous, scumsucking assholes they are, but stupid? well we're the ones that let them get away with murdering thousands of americans, and then thousands more afghani's and iraqi's for their own monetary and political benefits, I think that makes us (in general) the stupid ones (or just soft).

Here.

[Fantastic Lad]

Where was this alleged gas station? Give us an address, or a Google Maps link. I live in Alexandria about two miles from the Pentagon, and during 2001 I regularly commuted along Washington Blvd, right where the plane hit. I know of no gas station anywhere near nor along the flight path that would have shown anything.

Here's a picture of the gas station

And here's a story in National Geographic about the gas station and the owner and the Fed's actions on that day.

-FL

Re:Here.

[CptNerd]

From the NatGeo article, sounds like "they" got to the preacher and his wife, who claims she saw it and was trapped by debris. I wonder how many "planted commuters" were driving by that morning, and how many witnesses were "disappeared" with no one being the wiser or complaining. Gee, maybe the "passenger list" they released was actually the names of the commuters that witnessed the alien, I mean, missile attack!

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

On second thought, maybe I WOULD trust him with the keys to an outdoor shitter...... :) with a locking toilet seat.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

just realised you mentioned the price of gold back then was $275 per ounce. was it really that low? I guess thats what war does to gold price. either way whether its 10 billion or 1 trillion, its still a SHITELOAD more than was officially recovered (230 million).

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[cayenne8]

As I posted before...the main flaw I see in your arguments is...you give the Feds WAY too much credit for being smart enough, agile enough, and stealthy enough to pull all this off.

I just don't see a part of our government having what it would take to pull off such a massive undertaking, and be able to not only successively pull it off, but, keep the evidence of their involvement covered up.

Re:Nope.

[mpe]

For a large building to topple to one side like a tree would require tremendous torque.

All that is required with a tree is to weaken the structure in an asymetric way.

If you have (for example) a brick wall of 3 meters height, then it is possible for the wall to fall over because the mortar is strong enough to allow this action. But if you have a 15 meter tall brick wall, then when the wall collapses, the mortar will fail and the wall will break into pieces. So unless you give this wall a gentle but tremendous push, it will break and basically fall downwards. The same principles apply to steel construction (but on a larger scale).

The strange thing is that the top of WTC2 did initially start to topple to one side.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

see here, the FIRST LINK I FOUND ON SPEED OF A BULLET for godsake do some of your own research. Slowest speed mentioned is 180 m/s which is just unbder 400 miles an hour. The plane had just finished a powerdive and was doing over 500 miles an hour. QED. ( I didnt say fast rifle bullet, but tell me, would you rather a glancing blow from a fast rifle bullet, say 1500 mph, or a 10 tonne titanium/steel lump at 500 mph?)

Re:Grandparent is STILL moron.

[ClioCJS]

So you've changed your argument now, huh?

Gas at the pump.

[Fantastic Lad]

And where pray tell, is all this oil we are stealing? Is it helping us at the gas pump? No? Oh, thats also caused by those "oil men" being so greedy, eh?

When automotive gas goes up in price, it means somebody is making a lot of extra money. That's where the oil men get rich from a war which raises supply costs. How much does a barrel of oil cost today versus before the Iraq war?

In any case, it's far, far more complex than simple oil. If I were you, I'd put your emotions and biases on hold and do some solid reading. It's a scary truth, but if you're as brave as you seem to portray, it shouldn't be a problem for you.

-Fl

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

Look, the crap you are spewing out has been answered a million times.

Odd, then, that you failed to sufficiently answer them in your response. All we get from you is more distortions and evasions.

Repeating lies won't make them true.

Then why do you persist?

This is really a waste of time, except that you may convince some gullible idiot that you are telling the truth.

Exactly why I'm taking the time to debunk your nonsense now.

As you point out, they were built to withstand smaller planes.

The 707 and 757 are virtually identical in weight, and actually have the same fuselage diameter.
Meanwhile, the WTCs were overdesigned by 600%
Still want to argue that the 757 is sufficiently different from the 707 to invalidate my point?

And then the top part fell down on the floors below because of the plane, and the building went to the ground.

Setting aside for just a moment that you're presenting the conclusion of your argument as if it was a defense, if the collapse had occured as you suggest, then there would have been a necessary slowdown as the 'top part' impacted the rest of the building, overcame the resistance of the steel structure, and caused the collapse. Video evidence contradicts this, however, instead showing the towers collapsing at free-fall speeds. No stutters or pauses of any type, just a smooth acceleration all the way down.

Again, it doesn't have to melt. It weakens at significantly lower temperatures.

Again, the temperatures of the kerosene fires were far too low to cause the weakening you speak of. Again, the steel in question is ASTM E119 certified. Apparently, you didn't check the link I provided, in which Kevin R. Ryan,
Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories, South Bend, Indiana (A division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.), states:

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse". The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building's steel core to "soften and buckle"(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C". To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I?m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this st

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Sgt_Jake]

so... uh, the aliens did it? ppphhtt. Whenever the government can be involved, you must know that if something can be either a conspiracy or incompetence, incompetence is the correct answer. The current administration is barely capable of public speaking, there's no possible universe in which they could pull something like 9/11 off. I challenge you to cast doubt on that fact.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

thanks, some fairly unimportant details I have just trusted (unreliable) sources to have close to correct, in this case,for good reason: 3000, 2000 whatever its still a lot more then the 400-800 they averaged, and, at least in the pentagons case, after seeing the damage at the WTC, I dont think sonic boombs where not a priority concern. ON a VERY interesting related side note, here is an article showing a seismic signal of a sonic boom from a supersonic aircraft was detected near flight "93" (I think what we call flight 93 was possibly a replacement aircraft, but thats irrelevant, it was still heading towards washington) within striking distance, even though no jets were supposed to be in range! (this could be the jet that claimed to shoot down flight 93)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

in the immortal words that beavis might say, "you said boo(m)bs, hehe he he he". I even hit preview but missed it, oh well, sonic boobs, sounds like something from an anime film

Re:Nope.

[nickmalthus]

Instead of conjecturing on how WTC 7 was constructed and if the collapse observed is feasible lets petition the government to release the blueprints. With the blueprints the cause of the collapse could be more apparent if favor of or against the government's account.

This is what happened

[GuloGulo2]

http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/nov/17wtc.htm

Proceed to engage in nonsensical conspiratorial blather.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

ok can we stop arguing meaningless semantics and accept that 10 TONNES OF FRACKING STEEL AND TITANIUM WOULD PUT A FRICKIN BIG, OR AT LEAST VISIBLE, DENT IN VIRTUALLY ANY BUILDING, REGARDLESS OF STRENGTHENING RENOVATIONS UNDERWAY ok sorry for yelling, it's just that this seems to be what many of the people who don't believe me tend to do, they pick small parts of my possible explanations to pick on, without seeing the ginormous smoking craters in the official theory, and fail to realise that I'm working with only the data "they" were unable to suppress/coverup, and STILL the official theory is impossibly unlikely. (I would even go as far as saying it was ludicrous..... no PLAID!)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

insert "traveling at 500 miles per hour" between the words "titanium" and "would". damn it. (and by the way, please dont take offense, you seem like a cluey fellow (or gal) I'mjust a bit worked up thats all)

Re:(conspiracy nut)

[nickmalthus]

Certainly cell phones work in airplanes on the ground but do they work in airplanes at 10K + ft going over 300MPH lasting longer then thirteen minutes? 9/11 cell phone calls

All it took

[GuloGulo2]

Was this sentence

"Designed to take the impact of mulitple jets."

to realize what a nutjob you are.

Re:All it took

[TripMaster Monkey]

Just to clarify...the OP didn't pull that sentence out of thin air...

Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, spoke of the resilience of the towers in an interview recorded on January 25, 2001.

The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.

Re:This footage is worthless and very non-convinci

[Cyno]

Seems odd to me that we don't have full-frame-rate surveillance at the Pentagon. But I guess it must be cheaper. Why are they using color cameras, anyway? Wouldn't B&W be cheaper yet? What about USB? Hehe.

This government is funny.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

thats because it WASN'T the government per se, but people who happen to be in the government, or connected to it, and/or just very rich and powerful, working together to carry out what is obviously an illegal and despicable act of treason, for the purposes of carrying out their own agenda's. It's not like bush actually won an election or somnething, he just gets the evoting machines to vote for him; hey, they're legal citizens too (apparently). With puppets on both parties generally under the thumb (kerry and bush are both in the same semi-secret society: "skull and bones", and you wondered why kerry didnt fight for the election), and many powerful contacts throughout the political and business world (and I'm talking huge multinational defense contractors and oil companies), this sort of thing is quite possible.

You're also forgetting that the U.S. government had ALREADY planned to do similar sorts of things, including terroist attacks on U.s. soil and drone airplanes being blown up, back in JFK's time, (google: "operation northwood"), so they thought it was do-able then, and now the poeple involved in this REALLY run the media, so it makes it even easier. Plus many people who you might think would have to be in it where just following orders, being misled, confused by the millitary excercises on the day, or unable to do anything about it (google john o'neill for someone that knew things and tried to make people listen, see what happened to him. )

also I wonder, did you KNOW (not just read on a conspiracy website like you might about this)about the stealth bomber all those years ago when it was first made? What about pearl harbour? have you ever looked closely at what happened there? The fact that I could write all those points earlier proving (in my mind at least) that there was a conspiracy (not muslim) says that they did muck it up, the public is just too brainwashed for it to matter.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[cayenne8]

"I think you have to be carefull when describing some of the other administration members as stupid....let them get away with murdering thousands of americans, and then thousands more afghani's and iraqi's for their own monetary and political benefits..."

Ok...so who are these talented people in charge, and what is the evidence out there showing they directly benefitted in any substantial way from pulling off 9/11, and hanging the blame on the 19+ terrorists and OBL?

Do you have any links or direct evidence of these 'mysterious people in charge' orchestrating the world?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[supradave]

It's not like we wouldn't accept the 'official' version of the events of 9/11 if there weren't some fishy evidence. The new videos don't show anything that is conclusive. I don't see a 30 ft high fuselage, I see something a bit smaller. Yes, there is the perspective of the crappy security cameras, but there are other videos that haven't been released. If there's nothing to hide, then why not release those? Yes, the conspiracy theorist who isn't happy with the release of a video that was already released (only 10 feet back and doesn't give any different perspective).

I want to believe that people would come forth and admit something. But it's not impossible to have a small cadre of people that would be capable of doing what was done and keep it secret. My company keeps its source code secret.

Didn't I Already See This Video?

[h4ck7h3p14n37]

Maybe my memory's failing me, but I seem to recall having already seen this video; perhaps I just saw a few frames from the video?

Fact & Fallacy

[PowerMacDaddy]

But he is in it up to his neck for the same reason Cheney, Rice, and Rumsfeld are: he's an oil man. Nothing more and nothing less. Oil and oil shares are the only things he cares about and he's as happy as the rest of them to kill a few hundred or thousands (especially if they are foreigners) to get them.

Erm, you're guilty of logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad crumenam or "an appeal to wealth". Essentially it boils down to "so-and-so is rich, therefore my statement is correct." Your entire argument -- both points one and two -- are guilty of this.

Not to mention that your theory doesn't address the fact that we went after Afghanistan first, despite the fact that as time goes on, there are increasing amounts of evidence that Iraq was tied to 9/11 (if not also the original WTC bombing in 1993) and Saddam's intent made him next on the War on Terror hit list, and rightly so. Oh, and a reminder: Afghanistan has no oil reserves. If this economic foundation argument of yours is to hold any water, explain that to me, please.

Re:Fact & Fallacy

[nagora]

Erm, you're guilty of logical fallacy, namely argumentum ad crumenam or "an appeal to wealth".

No. I'm basing the assertion on the fact that oil is the best explanation for most of the actions of those people. Without the oil argument many of their actions, such as invading Iraq, make no sense. Rice having an oil tanker named after her and having worked with Dick Chaney as directors of Chevron oil (the only post our great defender of democracy was ever voted into), and the fact that Bush's wealth and his importance generally is based on the family's oil wealth are what we call "evidence" of the significance of oil in these people's motives. See, didn't even need some spurious links.

Afghanistan was invaded, rightly, because of the fact that the evil regime (it had been evil for years, of course, but it was only being evil to dirty rag-heads, so no one in the US cared) was protecting OBL. Unlike, say, Iraq who wanted him dead. It was a great bonus that invading Afghanistan allowed the construction of the major oil pipeline that is now the only asset in the country being given any real protection by the US/UK. But like I say, it was a bonus. Admittedly Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld had said it should be a major US objective to build that pipeline, but even so I don't think that was the only reason nor do I think that post-911 the US would not have invaded if the pipeline was not a goal.

As to the bullshit about Iraq and 911: dream on, sucker. There was no connection unless you count the fact that Saddam and OBL hated each other and had tried to overthrow/kill the other. Some Iraqis may have been involved in the outlying regions of 911 but it is a gross exageration to suggest that they were carrying out government policy.

If you understood anything about the relationship between the US-installed secular dictator Hussain and the religious-cult of Bin Laden, you would also understand that the two are and were totally incompatable.

TWW

Re:Fact & Fallacy

[PowerMacDaddy]

As for wealth.... you're oblivious to the fact that your argument does not and cannot support itself. Your argument goes something like: "Bush/Cheney/etc are doing all this to get rich." But they already are rich. "Well, they're doing this to get more rich." Why do they need to get more rich? They have plenty, and give bunches of it away to charity anyway. "Because they're greedy. And they want to help their buddies!" Aren't their buddies already rich, too? "But they want to get more rich!" and on and on and on.

Saddam was not a "US-installed secular dictator". If yo so much as watch the History channel you'd know that he was part of the Ba'ath party revolutionaries, and has spent his entire adult life involved in the violent seizing of power.

Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible." While not exactly the bestest of buddies, there was a common enemy: The Great Satan, a.k.a. the US of A. I could provide you with a laundry list of links confirming this fact so you could go educate yourself and not come across like a moron, but you'd just call them "spurious" and ignore them anyway. Geeze, you left-heads are all alike... even use the same words like "spurious" and refuse to admit that anything you say has any semblance of being incorrect. Arguing with one of you is like arguing with all of you.

You need to lay off the Michael Moore conspiracy theory kool-aid. It's rotting your brain. Go do some research for yourself as opposed to blindly eating whatever Fat Boy and his pals in the MSM are feeding you.

Re:Fact & Fallacy

[nagora]

Saddam was not a "US-installed secular dictator". If yo so much as watch the History channel you'd know that he was part of the Ba'ath party revolutionaries, and has spent his entire adult life involved in the violent seizing of power.

Which is why the CIA hired him to assassinate the previous leader of Iraq. He failed and had to hide in Egypt while someone else finished the job. Then he was installed.

This is not secret information and has been confirmed time and time again by the people involved.

Osama and Saddam did not hate each other, and they are far from "incompatible."

You know nothing. They tried to kill each other! Even Bush has admitted (three times that I've seen) there was no connection. What is your problem with that simple fact? Rumsfeld was much closer to Saddam than Bin Laden ever was or could be.

TWW

Re:Fact & Fallacy

[PowerMacDaddy]

Which is why the CIA hired him

They tried to kill each other!

While back in the 1950's the CIA supported the Ba'athists, it did not "hire" Saddam directly. He was part of the overthrow plot, yes, but he was not a hired hitman. Neither was he "installed". And there is plenty of evidence -- like Richard Clarke's "boogie to Baghdad" assessment -- that shows they were not enemies. The recently translated tapes & documents seized from Saddam's palaces add further proof. So watch the History channel. Read a book. Or read this or these or this. But whatever you do, get educated before spouting off nonsense like this again.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

You are making two daft assumptions:

1. that any private gold depositary is on anything like the scale of Fort Knox. This is neither physically nor commercially possible. $160bn is unbelievable. I would be surprised if there was as much as $1bn of gold there.

2. that the figures on an unsourced conspiracy theory site are correct.

You are also missing obvious questions: how long would it take to remove 10,000 tonnes of gold? How many trucks? You may want to check how long it took to stock the gold in Fort Knox, and how many railway cars were required.

Also, why would the owners of the gold not have complained at losing $160bn?

This is really dumb, even for a conspiracy theory.

Wait!!! You forgot...

[joedoc]

...the report that shows that John F Kennedy actually was shot by one guy in a building, not by a 3000-person conspiracy that included everyone from the CIA to the Chicago Cosa Nostra to the Cubans to a bunch of French guys who were mad about something to Jim Garrison's "cabal" in New Orleans.

It suddenly got quiet in here

[CranberryKing]

Okay. Now you have two links faster than I could produce. Nice job Fantastic Lad. The gas station was for DOD personnel only, so I guess CptNerd doesn't work for the DOD. Probably better since he procrastinates.. Here is the thing. Calling people 'Conspiracy Nuts', 'Morons', 'Idiots', 'Wackos', &c. doesn't contribute much do a serious discussion. Have you ever really considered that the claims may be true? How do you speak with such conviction? Have you done the research yourself? This is a serious issue. I take it seriously and I'm certainly not trying to be outragous. If you believed that 9/11 was set up from the inside, would you call yourself a conspiracy nut?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

Poppycock - it does neither of those things.

Thermal dynamics

[MythoBeast]

I'm giving up my opportunity to moderate in saying this, but I thought it was important.

The burning temperature of kerosine has little bearing on this. When kerosine burns, it gives off heat. As long as that heat is contained, the actual temperature will increase. What you really need to calculate is the maxiumum temperature of burned kerosine, which is the total energy given off divided among the atoms which were necessary to make the kerosine undergo the exothermic breakdown in the first place. As mentioned in a lower post, this IS enough to bring steel over anealing temperatures, which would be enough to cause the tower to collapse.

This is complicated, however, by many, many other factors. For instance, you can only burn as much kerosine as there is oxygen to interact with, and the heat has to be distributed not just between the kerosine and the oxygen, but also among the other 79% of the air. Further complicating matters, once things reaches a critical temperature, MANY things will burn. Offices are full of resin-soaked pressboard, for instance, and foam padding. As a kicker, even steel burns. Anyone who has seen a burned car or lit steel wool knows this. If the temperatures were high enough to cause the concrete to crack away from the support pillars, then the steel itself would have begun to oxidize, weakening the structure.

What this comes down to is that I am not the least bit surprised that the towers collapsed. I have nothing to say about WTC7 because, to my knowledge, it didn't collapse at all, but was damaged badly enough from falling depris that they had to demolish it later. No, it doesn't surprise me that it had to be taken down but WTC6 didn't. Disasters aren't the deterministic things that we expect them to be.

What DOES strike me as bizarre is that they collapsed straight down. Anyone who has stomped on a soda can can see the improbability of that. I've heard suggestions that the central core collapsed and the outer grid contained it, but the dynamics behind that should have thrown girders outward in all directions.

This is especially true of the second tower to be hit, where the airplane went through one corner instead of through the middle. If it collapsed from the heat, it should have collapsed on one corner, toppling the upper structure onto the nearby buildings. It, too, however, collapsed straight down.

Oh, a little bit on the actual subject of the article. I took a look at that video. The camera was taking one frame every half second. In the one frame immediately preceding the explosion, there is a white blotch that looks something like an airplane. A braindead monkey could have photoshopped that in, and it would take a braindead monkey to believe that it's evidence of anything. This explains the administration's position on the film.

I'm not saying that this supports the conspiracy theory idea. In fact, I'm saying rather authoritatively that it supports nothing whatsoever. I'm pretty much of the belief that it was released, not to convince anyone, but to remind people that maybe, just maybe, the terrorists are still more of a threat to our nation than those in power.

News coverage...

[NIN1385]

If it is just a conspiracy and not actual news then it's a good thing none of the major NEWS agencies ever covered anything about this until the government wanted to prove all the "crazy people" wrong.

\\Insert sarcastic remark after this line
Good thing we have proactive press in this country instead of reactive press.

Speaking as a blacksmith (you asked!)

[Medievalist]

"video/pictures of PEOPLE HANGING OUT OF THE GASH IN THE BUILDING where temperatures hot enough to melt steel are supposed to be present"

Straw man. The steel didn't melt. It was hot enough to significantly weaken it (ask a blacksmith), but not to melt it.

OK, speaking from my personal experience as an (amateur) blacksmith: your argument doesn't make any sense. The kind of steel you are talking about does not "weaken" from the kind of temperatures you are talking about in such a way that you'd get sudden shear and downward collapse. As heat is absorbed by the metal, it gets more plastic and begins to bend along the path of least resistance (in the case of a loaded vertical beam it'd bow in some direction, possibly inwards) and eventually it will bend, twist or shear to shed load. The load (even if it's only the weight of the beam itself) will almost certainly be pushed *away* from the beam when this happens, so "straight down" collapse is extremely unlikely, and should only occur if the diameter of the beam exceeds its height.

If you set a cinder block on a set of steel pins and heat all the pins perfectly evenly, long before you get to the point where they melt or shear the cinder block will hit the ground as the pins turn to sphagetti. The block may end up on its side, or several feet away from the original position, but it is incredibly unlikely that all forces would balance perfectly and it would collapse straight down (unlikely in the sense that it WON'T HAPPEN in the real world).

If you supply enough heat that steel can instantly combust, puddle, or shear, there is no way you can have humans anywhere in the vicinity. I suspect you are talking center-of-the-sun type heat to accomplish this in a real-world environment. Researching the firebombing of Dresden might be illuminating.

The rest of this is to show I have some clue of what I'm talking about (in regards to metal, not architecture or politics). I'm not cribbing wikipedia or ABANA, this is out of my head.

Different steels have different optimum working temperatures. Generally, though, you can determine the correct temperature for the operation you want to perform (drawing, punching, bending, welding, etc.) by color. Exotic steels that do not color normally are not used for skyscraper construction as far as I know (I am not an architect or structural engineer). Forges are dimly lit so that color is apparent.

At dull-red, pressure "packs" steel, making it harder. This effect is more pronounced the closer you get to the point where the hammer struck, so the effect can be similar to other types of surface hardening. At mid-to-high-orange you can bend, draw, upset, or otherwise shape the metal - it will be extremely plastic, which is not the same thing as being weak.

At high-yellow-to-white you can weld. You can cheat a little with fluxing; this will be required in most gas forges but not in a coking forge. The highest yellows are extremely close to melting temperature for practical purposes - if your fire is hot enough to achieve a welding heat in some reasonable time frame, it is able to increase the temperature of the work very rapidly and the metal will either burn or melt if you leave it in the fire just a minute too long.

Depending on the carbon content of the steel, and the oxygen available in the airflow over the metal surface (which is related to how you are supplying air to the fire - blower, bellows, sandia wizardry, whatever) at some point right around white the metal will burn (usually) or melt (rarely). If you are an expert who is using metal you are very familiar with (I am not an expert and I use found metal) you will know how white you can get - possibly cheating with a flux that prevents air reaching the metal - before burning begins.

We'll leave tempering, case hardening, and annealing for another day. Suffice it to say that I-beams are not tempered as far as I know, every one I ever worked with had a slightly work-hardened surface rind (probably from the manufacturing process) and a soft center.

Conspiracy Theories

[Thangodin]

Every aspect of every conspiracy theory about 9/11 has been systematically debunked somewhere or another. Since the WTC was structurally unique, comparisons to other buildings really don't have much bearing in the matter, and while they anticipated the impact of a 707, they did not take into account the combined effect of impact and a full load of fuel; all of this, of course, assumes that the designers were correct when saying that the building could withstand a 707. Timelines show that jets were scrambled in a timely manner when the situation was understood (within minutes of realizing the planes were hijacked and pinpointing their locations.) The dissenting expert opinions are not unusual in science; all scientific fields have their share of wing nuts, but these are fringe opinions usually based upon a single, simplistic, and inconclusive study. There were also people who speculated openly in the early days, and have since come to regret it. In the course of normal science these come out in the wash, but conspiracy theorists cherry pick these and run with them--in some cases, long after the original proponent has disowned and attempted to kill the theory attributed to him. There are pseudo-scientific theories that persist decades after they have been debunked.

The most frustrating thing about conspiracy theories is not the individual factoids that comprise them, but the profound ignorance of human nature, and the obessively magical thinking, that underlie them. As Ben Franklin said, three may keep a secret if two of them are dead. 9/11 conspiracy theories require thousands of conspirators--think of just what would be required to run drone planes into buildings, dispose of all the passengers, rig the buildings, fake everything so that the airlines wouldn't notice, and on, and on, and on. Even the mafia can't keep a secret when the boss tells one guy to whack another, and that's a conspiracy of two, protected by the Omerta!

Only a true fanatic can keep secrets like these, and then, only for a short time, provided he is kept relatively isolated. The Al Queda plan was remarkeably low tech with few moving parts and carried out by a small group of fanatics, most of whom did not arrive in America until a couple days beforehand. Even so, it almost got discovered beforehand. In the aftermath, there is almost no detail of how it was done that we don't know. Compare this with conspiracy theories, which remain isolated pinpoints of data organized by a unifying myth. The Al Queda plan left a big footprint. A government conspiracy would have left an even bigger one.

Conspiracy theories are the new secular religion, supported by the same cognitive errors which support religion, and serving the same purpose. To the conspiracy theorist, the dark cabals which run the world are both stupid and supernaturally brilliant, fools who are somehow capable of godlike prescience, omiscience, and control. The conspiracy theorist himself is a figure on the same mythical scale: he has pierced the veil of the illuminati, seen what few have seen--he is the great challenger to this omnipotent cabal. By following his warnings, we shall overcome the evil presence which has corrupted our world from within, and restore all to goodness and innocence. It's all good, because the solution is so simple.

You'll never convince him otherwise, because his entire conception of self is wound up in the idea that he is the rare visionary, the one who cannot be fooled. To admit that he is wrong would require him to admit that he is profoundly wrong, not just gulled, but gullible. This would be a fall of luciferian proportion, from grand visier to court fool. Conspiracy theorists tend to be marginal and disenfranchised. The fall from mythic heights to the harsh reality of their lives is very hard indeed.

The reality, of course, is that there may actually be no one in control, that both the leaders and the conspiracy theorists can't tell their assholes from a gopher hole, and that this has been the situation for nearly all of hum

Re:Conspiracy Theories

[amRadioHed]

Damn! Where are the hell are my mod points when I truly need them? That is one of the most insightful comments I've ever seen on /.

Re:Conspiracy Theories

[kupci]

Every aspect of every conspiracy theory about 9/11 has been systematically debunked somewhere or another.

Right, on Popular Mechanics, Snopes, 911Myths, and the very convincing 911 Commission Report which did not even bother to investigate the WTC 7 collapse. And actually Snopes debunks most of the "rumours" by referring to the Commission report. And 911 Myths states stuff like "Our take". Yeah, very convincing, some unregistered site in the U.K.

If you actually read the research, the proponents for the "offical" conspiracy theory really end up being pretty muddled and confusing - because they have been given the conclusion, so they must build their facts & evidence based on that. That's bad science, so naturally they have a hard time. Speaking of the highly respected journal Popular Mechanics, there is an well written paper by 911 Research which points out the flaws in the article.

Since the WTC was structurally unique, comparisons to other buildings really don't have much bearing in the matter,

and while they anticipated the impact of a 707, they did not take into account the combined effect of impact and a full load of fuel;

Yep, that's the number one argument - engineers just "forgot" about the fuel? That's an interesting view of the engineering profession.

all of this, of course, assumes that the designers were correct when saying that the building could withstand a 707.

Timelines show that jets were scrambled in a timely manner when the situation was understood (within minutes of realizing the planes were hijacked and pinpointing their locations.)

Well, their story keeps changing there also. Apparently, at one point, they had the jets scrambled *away*, 150 miles out into the Atlantic!

In hearings last Friday, Sen. Dayton (D-MN) raised an obvious point: if the timeline of air defense response as promoted in the Kean Commission's best-selling book is correct, then the timeline presented repeatedly by NORAD during the last two years was completely wrong. Yet now no one at NORAD is willing to comment on their own timeline!

When the official story of 9/11 can be changed repeatedly without anyone ever being held accountable, we have no right to ever again expect honest government. Please read the following story and do your part to support Sen. Dayton for highlighting the contradiction, and to encourage the media to follow up.

9/11 conspiracy theories require thousands of conspirators--think of just what would be required to run drone planes into buildings, dispose of all the passengers, rig the buildings, fake everything so that the airlines wouldn't notice, and on, and on, and on.

You need to think a little more. They don't require many conspirators, just a few at the top, the rest obediently falling orders. The best example is the officer who was reprimanded by Cheney when he asked him, as the plane was approaching the Pentagon, whether "the orders still stood". Cheney chewed him out something to the effect that had he heard otherwise.

Also, be careful not to confuse disinformation with information. Switching planes? Red herring, like the "Arab Pilot Learns to Fly" story.

You'll never convince him otherwise, because his entire conception of self is wound up in the idea that he is the rare visionary, the one who cannot be fooled. To admit that he is wrong would require him to admit that he is profoundly wrong, not just gulled, but gullible.

Yes, so I'll stop bothering reading this thread, those stubborn folk just won't change their minds with scientific proofs under their very noses!

"missle" not found on the link above

[pkbarbiedoll]

Fwiw, the word "missle" does not exist on the link quoted above.

Yeah it does...

[Colonel Angus]

You can find it in the 2nd paragraph of Rumsfeld's answer to the third question asked.

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.

Plausability

[Penguinoflight]

The weight of evidence lies on whoever has the least plausible claim. In this case it is the government. It doesn't really matter how the plane flew into the pentagon, or if it was a missle. The biggest problem with the official theory is that it's stupid. Two planes fly into new york, and the pentagon was not on alert? It's not like the united states has no enemies, and I'm sure the pentagon has enough weapons to destroy a 757.

Everyone underplays the pentagon because not many died, and the building wasn't completely destroyed. If the united states was a dart board, the pentagon would be a bulls-eye. Given the timeline, it is totally rediculous to suggest that a sucessful attack on the pentagon was not internal.

Re:Plausability

[Cyno]

Too many facts that don't add up..

Planes being diverted to Canada that day for Operation Northern Vigilance..

and Operation Vigilant Guardian training weeks before..

Only damage to the newly reinforced section of the Pentagon..

Pentagon has missile defense, that just happened to be switched off that day..

There's no way a 757 could have hit the Pentagon after the nation was alerted to an attack. No way, none. Not if we wanted to prevent it. I bet our defense systems would have shot it down automatically without any intervention required. We had to purposefully prevent these defenses from functioning..

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Guppy06]

"the empire state building had a plane crash into it:"

A smaller, slower plane, coming in for a landing (i. e. not laden with fuel, and not at full throttle).

"Regardless of this, the building was designed to withstand impacts by aircraft of this size, so it shouldn't (and indeed thats not the official explanation) have been the impact that caused the problem."

Impact in and of itself, perhaps. Impact aggrevated by heat is something else.

"(black indicating low oxygen therefore cooler fires)"

No, black indicates a lot of soot, as you'd expect to see from burning plastics (carpeting, office equipment, etc.). You're a Slashdotter, didn't you ever burn things as a kid?

"and burned for 10 hours, yet didn't collapse,"

Heat alone is one thing. Heat aggrevated by impact is something else.

"with only parts not including the inner support section collapsing after burning for hours, as you might expect. Note that the tower, while smaller, had a similar construction to the wtc, being a central support column and perimeter supports,"

Uh... no. The walls of the WTC were load-bearing members. Since you like referencing Wikipedia, here's this

instead of bracing the buildings corner-to-corner or using internal walls, the towers were essentially hollow steel tubes surrounding a strong central core. (...)This method of construction also meant that the twin towers had the world's highest load-bearing walls.

"therefore apart from a hot start and some mild damage to the outer structure (which was not intended for holding up the bulk of the weight of the building but rather to resist torsional forces from wind etc,"

Aside from debunking your "The walls didn't hold up weight" offering in my last paragraph, the planes still went through the buildings, as can be seen in the photos you yourself linked to.

""Bollyn also cites Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, MD, as having seen molten steel in the bottoms of elevator shafts "three, four, and five weeks" after the attack." ok this ones heresay, but still provides slightly more evidence."

As the quote says, weeks after the attack. The collapse of the buildings introduced a new element into the equation: pressure. That, along with a lack of convection cooling under thousands of tons of debris means it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time.

"even if there wasnt, you have failed to explain why heat expansion or partial loss of strength in the steel supports was enough to cause two world first collapses in minutes of each other,"

Um... because they were near-identical structures subjected to near-identical circumstances?

"flammable gas filled room with reasonable fuel air mix can cause large explosions (class A building, certainly shouldnt have been many unsafe sources of gas for explosions, unless safety regs werent being followed, but you never know), atomised flour or other combustable dust (not a flour silo---check, nope not that)."

How about "Pressure differential between flaming room and non-flaming room becoming violently equallized due to catastrophic failure of walls/fire doors/etc?" All "explosion" means is "Violent change in pressure" and need not involve something combusting in less than a second.

"(watch the video for puffs of debris explosively ejected long before the leading edge of the destructive zone reaches that level)"

Ah, you mean where the windows shattered because the walls around them were warping due to shifting weight in the building, forshadowing its eventual collapse?

"not many can cause the almost complete pulverization of between 200,000 and 500,000(hard to find accurate figure) tonnes of steel, concrete,"

Who said anything about "completely pulverize?" All you need

An argument against conspiracy

[dysonapr]

Nothing to do with basic honor or honesty. This administration has neither. Just that they'd be incapable of maintaining the cover-up. One of these loathsome & despicable creatures would be bound to leak/sell the story.

Re:An argument against conspiracy

[nickmalthus]

There are several obvious reasons not to leak/sell the story.

• Money. Everyone with direct knowledge of the attacks was probably paid handsomely
• Belief. If someone came out and admitted publicly they were involved in the attacks, who would believe them?
• Threat. Exposing a conspiracy that reached to the highest level of government would spell death or inprisonment for them or their family if the public didn't believe them or they were not fully protected

OR we could have done

[Marxist Hacker 42]

A retalitory strike against a family. We had several bin Ladens in this country on 9-11; the Bushes rounded them up and sent them home to Saudi Arabia. Wouldn't it have been much more interesting to cut off their heads on TV one at a time until Ossama himself surrendered?

Re:OR we could have done

[phiwum]

Yes, indeed. That would work. Just start killing innocent family members and the bin Laden would surrender and other Islamic terrorists would put down their arms. That's what would happen.

Not a newly justified hatred of the US. Not worldwide condemnation for an undeniable terrorist act. No sir, instead, the terrorists would see that they cannot win against the US and they would give up and we would live in peace and harmony with our Islamic brothers.

Another winning strategy! Congrats!

Re:OR we could have done

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Yes, indeed. That would work. Just start killing innocent family members and the bin Laden would surrender and other Islamic terrorists would put down their arms. That's what would happen.

That's what would happen in a semitic society where one's duty and honor is to family, religion, and state (in that order). Like I said, you apparently have no appreciation of the culture we're fighting (gee, kind of like our current President).

Not a newly justified hatred of the US.

We've got 100 years of raping the Holy Peninsula for oil- there's plenty of justification to hate us already.

Not worldwide condemnation for an undeniable terrorist act.

So what? What is the world going to do about it?

No sir, instead, the terrorists would see that they cannot win against the US and they would give up and we would live in peace and harmony with our Islamic brothers.

Unlike you, I know that there will never be peace and harmony with Islamics. Their theology prevents them from looking upon unbelievers as human, let alone brothers. This is a war of genocide- originally genocide between Islamic sects, but now it's spilled outside of their borders. The only choice is which sect commits the genocide, not whether the genocide will happen or not. It will.

You seem to be under the impression that Islamic law suffers and unbeliever to live.

Re:OR we could have done

[phiwum]

This is a war of genocide- originally genocide between Islamic sects, but now it's spilled outside of their borders. The only choice is which sect commits the genocide, not whether the genocide will happen or not. It will.

Golly. I don't see any reason to continue this discussion. I could end by calling you a few names, but you will remain confident in your vision and nothing would change.

Re:OR we could have done

[Marxist Hacker 42]

One word- Darfur. That's what happens to natives when Islam takes over- and while it would be fair to point out that something very similar happens to natives when Christianity takes over, let's face it, there are very few places left in this world that aren't Christian or Islamic or Jewish.

It's also a mistake to take genocide of this form personally- it's not about hate, it's abut a religious edict.

Mind if I jump in? Regarding WTC 7

[Maximilio]

The links in the post you directed me to show two pictures of only incidental damage to WTC 7, and an eyewitness account stating how they allowed the fires to burn because they were afraid of building collapse (not surprising, since they'd already witnessed their comrades die in the 'collapses' of WTC 1 & 2).

Nowhere in these links is any evidence to support your ridiculous claim of 'severe damage'....did you think I wouldn't check?

Um, well, I also looked in the links, and I actually read the interviews. Maybe you didn't. Here's a callout that may help you: From This link:

. . . [B]ut then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.

That's a hole 20 stories tall in your argument as well. I wonder what other minor, incidental damage there may be.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Stephen Samuel]

1. I've watched 911: Loose change. It's interesting, but needs to be taken with much salt.
2. I see no reason to believe that it wasn't muslim extremists that took over those planes.
3. If you remember the Oklahoma bombing, the FBI was definitively claiming within hours that it was not caused by arab terrorists. This implies that they already knew where the 'terrorists' were.
4. The "USA Patriot Act" was pre-written and ready to go when the planes hit -- not because someone in congress knew when this would happen, but because there's been a version of that act trying to get thru congress for years (every once in a while it would be allowed to die and be re-introduced under another name). When the planes hit, it was just renamed to something spectacular and punched the rest of the way through the house (this is why it was able to pass so fast).
5. The reason why the "Patriot Act" wasn't passed in response to the Oklahoma bombing was that the perpetrators were blonde-haired blue-eyed christian ex-USA-military. It would have been too obvious that it was meant to be used against average Americans.
6. Do you even remember tower 7? [.....]This building housed secret service, DOD, immigration, SEC, mayors emergency buker (not used on 9/11..why?)...
   Duh! -- for the same reason why division HQ isn't placed right at the front!!! (yes, it would make C&C faster, but only until the position got overrun)
   The collapse of the buildings did catch authorities by surprise, (mostly in terms of the speed of the colapse), but it's well known that these sorts of things occur during a disaster, and you don't want your C&C too close to ground zero.
7. "Mom? This is Mark Brigham.(when was the last time you heard anyone use theeir full name to talk to their mom??)
   When you're in the middle of an emergency (especially a possible combat-type situation), it's not entirely surprising that military training would kick in. -- not unlike the story of the guy who, after boot camp, stopped at the front door to his mom's house and knocked.
8. but for an example see Payne Stewart's plane, which was intercepter very quickly, despite "only" not responding to radar, without turning off transponders or altering course,
   2-21-02 Correction of 1-31-02: Payne Stewart's Lear Jet was actually intercepted by an F-16 1 hour and 14 minutes after the last known transmission.
9. The way that the World Trade towers collapsed was a function of their design -- Unlike most skyscrapers that are make like a human skeleton (with most of the weight being borne on a central core), the trade towers are built more like an insect (with most of the stress being borne by a rigid exoskeleton). this means that, in the case of a central collapse, the debries are going to tend to be held in by the rigid exoskeleton rather than being pushed off by the central load-bearing 'spike'.
   The trade towerers were the first skyscarapers to be built like this (and one of a very few).

In short: I agree that there was a consipiracy of sorts -- but not the kind that you're claiming.

Gotta go do something more useful... otherwise I could debunk a good bit more.

This might be related

[Cyno]

There's an interesting video that's reached number 1 on Google's Top 100 called Loose Change by Alex Jones.

It highlights all the oddities surrounding that day.

The truth will set you free.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Cyno]

Again, think of the quintissential truss structure: a house of cards.

That's funny. World's tallest structures, made out of cards.

Dude, we know you "buy" the official story. No need to repeat it. We've heard it all before.

Go smoke a bowl or something.

Re:The official story is not a conspiracy theory.

[NeutronCowboy]

The Bin Laden part was easy. My first thought when I heard about the WTC attack was "Wow, bin Laden actually succeeded this time." Why? Cuz that's what he had done, had said would do, and was crazy and fanatical enough to do.

You also conveniently failed to mention that the news reports about these hijackers being alive turned out to be reports about people with the same names being alive. Nice.

A little Conspiracy Theory in US all

[Jettra]

It is natural and healthy to question what we see. Listen to all the sides and make a decision based on all the evidence. I've seen some pretty radical videos on 9/11 theories and I must say for the most part they are a load of crap. However, there are some interesting facts in there that don't make it to mainstream media. I suggest you dig further before saying that there is nothing to the idea of at least some cover-up. For me, it is a question of motivation... profit seems to be a common motivator.

Now as far as a plane hitting the Pentagon... this is a non-issue. It is only presented by media to reduce your intention of actually listening to some of these cover-up theories. I'm not going to suggest what might or might not be something that needs to be investigated. I'll leave that up to you. But I will give you this little lesson in Propaganda 101:

1. The best way to discredit a statement of truth is to take that truth and attach it to something that is undeniably false. (ie: there are no cover ups in regard to 911, because to believe that, you also believe that a missle hit the pentagon... laughable)

2. The best way to present a lie as the truth is to take that lie and attach it to something undeniably true. (ie: Iraq has a bad human rights record, Iraq breaks some UN laws, Iraq has WMD, Iraq gets nuclear weapons material from Africa)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[CKW]

The airliner cited is a 707, the largest airliner of the day, and only slightly smaller than the 757s that did strike.

And the study was of the plane striking the building, it made absolutely ZERO study on the effects of the fuel load burning inside the building along with the building conttents, and it did not forsee the heat insulating coatings around the steel being ripped off by the impact.

Wrong. The steel in question was rated ASTM E119.

And if you google for the name of the idiot that wrote that e-mail, he was FIRED by UL for LYING about everything he said in the e-mail!!!

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Kevin-R-Ryan2 2nov04.htm

Note this choice quote - "UL vehemently denied last week that it ever certified the materials."

FROM THIS MOMENT ON you are not ever allowed to quote this stupid e-mail ever again. The guy was so incompetent that UL FIRED HIM outright. Do you hear me!! You're not ever allowed to quote this stupid fucking e-mail EVER AGAIN.

During the Madrid skyscraper fire

Yes, a DIFFERENT BUILDING with a different contruction and a different fire. That fire was a fire of the building's contents, not jet fuel. Nor was that building's steel members stripped of their heat resistent coatings by a jetliner impact. NOR where there a FULL 20 floors of building above the floors that were burning. NO SUPPRISE HERE.

yet, it collapsed sudddenly and completely into its own footprint,

AND WHY IS THIS SUPPRISING??? What in the world could possible make anything that big not fall down suddenly once it's failure starts? What in the world could possibly make anything that big fall down not in a largely down fashion?

List your candidates

Pools of fuel that have vaporized in an area not yet connected to the fire, that suddenly catch fire.

Aerosols of dust. (grain elevator explosions)

Air in sealed spaces being heated until the sealed spaces break open.

etc etc etc.

If the jets were nothing more than escaping air, how is it that they were filled with dust and smoke, despite the inconvenient fact that there was no damage whatsoever on those lower floors?

Take one upper floor of 10,000 tons of concrete, smack it down on the floor below it (FULL of furniture and crawl spaces and sheetrock, have you ever cut sheetrock? It's basically dust in solid form - and it's used to create all internal "rooms" in skyscrapers), and of course you're going to get a TON of dust.

And what the fuck are you doing talking about pyroclastic flows? Those are TOTALLY different things produced by erupting VOLCANOES - compared to a little bit of fucking dust from the WTC. Where the HELL do you get the idea that the air was turned into a pyroclastic mixture?

Your link to the idiot talking about "estimating energy required to form the dust clouds" is just COMPLETE bullshit!!! Dust doesn't need heat to spread. It's fucking dust. And if the entire building fell down, that means there's enough energy going around to raise an entire building as tall as it originally stood, more than enough needed to raise a little dust cloud.

either to expand the gases thermodynamically, or to vaporize moisture

NO GASSES NEEDED TO BE EXPANDED THERMODYNAMICALLY, it's a dry dust cloud. NO MOISTURE NEEDED TO BE VAPORIZED, dust clouds from falling concrete crushing sheetrock into dust clouds aren't made of water like cloud clouds up in the blue sky.

What kind of idiots look at the WTC dust clouds and start calculating how much heat it would take to vaporize water to form a cloud of the same size??? What kind of fucking morons are you guys!

I agree with everyone else, YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON.

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[Jettra]

Based on the photo provided by Fantastic Lad, the google map is: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=the+pentago n&ll=38.86932,-77.063569&spn=0.001017,0.002682&t=k &om=1

I do not verify/deny that this is a gas station. But it lines up well based on the roads, tunnels, light posts, pentagon angle and road signs.

It is kind of "funny" that the gas station attendent didn't get to see his own tapes.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Guppy06]

"That's funny. World's tallest structures, made out of cards."

It's essentially how it works. You don't just randomly throw I-beams in and hope it stands, you make sure that everything is in tension or compression with not a wit of shear.

No Erector sets when you were a kid?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Cyno]

Erector sets, sure, and Lincoln Logs, TinkerToys, K'NEX, but Construx were my favorite.

But don't let that stop you, continue explaining how its all possible. Please. With diagrams and physics... oh, I love physics. :)

Re:IT WAS A MISSLE!

[CptNerd]

It's possible, it's definitely off the main road, and likely on Federal land, given the exit directions.

And from the Geographic article, it sounds like the FBI got the tapes before the attendant thought to look at them, or possibly he didn't have access to the equipment. If you managed a gas station, you wouldn't want your employees to turn off cameras when "asked" to do so.

We'll have to wait and see if Judicial Watch is satisfied they got all the tapes they asked for, or if they'll ask for more.

I'm still holding onto the "757 hijacked by terrorists" theory, though, unpopular as it is.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[MegaZone]

Just to note, the external walls of the WTC were, in fact, load bearing. It was a revolutionary structure designed to maximize open space. Unlike most skyscrapers, which have curtain walls, the WTC's outer walls carried a significant portion of the buildings load. The floors were carried by beams that spanned the gap from the central column to the walls. As those beams were softened by the heat they pulled on the outer walls and the core.

The design of the building was DIRECTLY related to the collapse. One of the main reason the WTC collapsed while other buildings have not is the way the structure distributed load and how it reacted to this failure mode. The fire alone wouldn't have been enough to bring it down, most likely. And if the aircraft hadn't hit then the spray-on fire insulation wouldn't have been blown off the beams. And the sprinklers would've still worked. Etc. The combination of the fire AND the weakened structure is what did it.

Many of your arguments are bogus. These are not the only buildings to collapse into their own footprint. There was a shopping mall collapse a few years back in Taiwan, IIRC, a multi-story structure that suffered a progressive, pancake collapse exactly like the WTC. That was do to poor construction, and once the collapse started it went right into its own footprint. The two ends of the building were left standing.

There was the tragic Cold Storage Building fire in Worcester, MA a few years back that killed a number of firemen when the building collapsed on them. It was only a few stories tall, but it fell right into its own footprint due to the fire. Didn't even touch the buildings around it. (I live in Worcester.)

As the the B-25 hitting the Empire State Building. So what? Have you seen a B-25 in person? I have, I've been in one. How about a Boeing 767? You can't begin to compare the two. A B-25 is smaller than most commuter turboprops let along an intercontinental widebody airliner. The B-25 was also at the end of its flight and nearly out of fuel, the 767s were almost full. The B-25 had a Maximum Take-Off Weight of 41,800, the B767-200 has a MTOW of 395,000 - nearly ten times as high. And the 767 was much closer to its MTOW than the B-25, especially since a large part of the MTOW of the B-25 was devoted to bombs, which it wasn't carrying. On top of that the B767 travels a hell of a lot faster than the B-25 - vastly increasing the energy of the impact (mass times velocity).

You know a little while after 9/11 a kid flew a Cesna into a high rise in Florida in some bizarre suicide attempt. That building didn't fall either. That applies to the WTC almost as much as the B-25.

Of course, the other factor is the buildings structure. The Empire State Building was in the early school. Heavy steel framework with lots of crossmembers. Stone exterior. Massive, heavy, not much open space. Most of the impact energy was expended in simply penetrating the outer wall. And that outer wall was NOT the primary load bearing structure. On the WTC, as I said above, the outer wall was. It was a bit like a old balloon framed house - put a big enough hole in the outer wall and it will probably come down.

As for the seismic readings - that's been debunked repeatedly. Experts agree that the readings are NOT indicative of an explosion. They give distinct readings. And the energy needed to produce the readings would've required a very large explosion, which would've been impossible to hide. The collapse very easily explains the readings obtained. As for the 'ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE' explosions - bullshit. I don't agree at all. I just don't think that's what it sounds like. And, if it were, why are they not audible or visible on any of the footage shot right at the scene? There is a LOT of continuous footage leading up to the collapse, which you can sync exactly with the across-the-bay shot, and there are no explosions. Period.

Even if pockets of fire got hot enough to melt some steel, that doesn't mean the fires i

The Mystery of the Frictionless Collapse...

[kupci]

The hijackers didn't care about this, so they simply exceeded the intended limitations, producing turns and speeds not normally seen in aircraft of that size. Thus, the result looked "extraordinary," because it was not safe, and never seen before.

Like I said, some interesting flying for a bunch of beginner pilots, some who were so bad they failed their certification test (in order to rent a plane). Remember too the "story" is they trained at small schools on Cessna's and the like - not 757. There's a difference. Think of driving a MG vs. a Hummer. Just a bit of a stretch. And while you could "ease" the plane down, and I've not seen the flight path, but I'm guessing he didn't have alot of maneuvering room to "ease" down. From WTC7 Research:

The complexity and precision of the approach maneuver are nearly impossible to reconcile with the official account that the plane was piloted by Hani Hanjour, an incompetent pilot of even single-engine prop-planes.

And further as someone pointed out, he nocked over some light poles - but kept his course. The simple point is, that's some impressive flying skills, no question. It's pushing it to say a beginner could hit a tower, 100 stories up, but it's just not credible for a rookie to hit the Pentagon. One more interesting item. They happened to hit the one section of the Pentagon that had been reinforced.

The only force acting on the tower was gravity (OK, maybe a little bit of wind). Gravity pulling straight down on several hundred thousand tons of steel and concrete... where would you expect it to go, other than straight down?

Really now. Think this through a little more carefully. Then read some of the papers written about this. We expect a bldg to crumble in place under controlled demolition, that's the purpose. When a plane hits it, it explodes, and so the "story" goes, the fire weakens the building unevenly, you'd expect it too weaken and topple. [If this isn't the case, we'd be saving _alot_ of money in demolitions - just set a little fire at the top of the bldg and voila! Wouldn't that be nice.]

Also, you're completely omitting the floors underneath the floors supposedly falling down. That's called friction. These buildings collapsed in 8-15 seconds. That's the time it would take to drop a beam off the top of the building for it to hit the ground - but that's assuming there's nothing underneath to slow it down. How is that possible? One way is controlled demoliton.

asymetric collapse

[kupci]

You felt they should have tipped over?

No, actually I read this. I know, how unlike Slashdot. Read the sources. Facts. Basically, to believe the approved story of how the bldgs collapsed, you would need to disregard basic scientific principles. What the heck, I'll save you the trouble, see below. The key is "asymetry". To put it in a simpler terms, think of Jenga, as someone pointed out in another comment.

Building 7 was 5 times as tall as deep.

To bring this building down into its footprint required that all 58 perimeter columns and 25 core columns be destroyed simultaneously.

Any asymmetry in damage would cause asymmetric collapse: the building would topple.

No combination of rubble impact damage, fires, or fuel tank explosions could have destroyed all columns simultaneously, as required to cause a vertical collapse.

Only controlled demolitions have achieved vertical collapses of upright steel structures.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

WTC7 was severely damaged. Read this post.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

"Odd, then, that you failed to sufficiently answer them in your response."

I did not. You are simply ignoring facts that do not fit your fantasy world.

"Still want to argue that the 757 is sufficiently different from the 707 to invalidate my point?"

The 757 is a bigger plane, so yes, your point is invalid.

"if the collapse had occured as you suggest, then there would have been a necessary slowdown as the 'top part' impacted the rest of the building, overcame the resistance of the steel structure, and caused the collapse"

No there would not.

"Again, the temperatures of the kerosene fires were far too low to cause the weakening you speak of."

No they were not. The text you were quoting talked about "melting steel".

"Your attempt to obfuscate the issue by insisting upon an unreasonable amount of correlation between the WTC fire and similar fires in similar steel structures is amusing, but does not invalidate my point."

Yes it does, because I was specifically referring to the fact that a huge plane crashed into the building. It was not just a fire.

"The links in the post you directed me to show two pictures of only incidental damage to WTC 7"

Read it again.

"One more thing...you've still failed to explain the miraculous survival of WTC 6."

I don't have to. Your other "arguments" have been devastated, and it won't help that you try to derail the discussion like conspiracy nutters always do when confronted with facts that prove them wrong.

"What I did claim (and what you have yet to refute) is that the 'compressed air' could not have possibly have created a jet of smoke and debris several floors below the level of the actual collapse."

Sure it could.

"If the pressure had an outlet (blown window), it would have necessarily decreased, preventing it from building up again to the point at which it could break another window."

No it would not, because that outlet would be blocked by the top coming down, making it necessary to find other ways out. You really are delusional, aren't you? Let me try to explain it yet again: The top falls down, giving the air inside the remaining part of the building less space, which means that it has to find its way out. But as the top continues to fall, those ways out are blocked, and the air has to find new ways out.

"Hoffman also asserts that from his calculations the energy to pulverize the concrete is fully 20% more than the kinetic energy from the building collapse could hve provided."

Hoffman is irrelevant.

It is good to see that you gave up on the insane claim that "explosions" == "bombs", though.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

Ok its strange that you mention thermodynamics, and yet seem to believe that by insulating a mixture of hot and cooler sections of material underground, that parts of it can magically suck all the heat surrounding them in to become hotter than the original peak temperatures. Heat flows from hot to cold and in an isolated system will eventually equalise. not the other way round. Oh... thats right, it was the pressure which compressed the material to raise its temperature by hundreds of degrees. im sorry, WHA..? we are not talking about compressable gases getting squeezed to small percentages of their original size, we are talking about concrete and steel! Any temperature rise from pressure would be negligable(who cares about a few degrees, im talking many hundreds!).

with regards to the heat equation:Solutions of the heat equation are characterized by a gradual smoothing of the initial temperature distribution by the flow of heat from warmer to colder areas of an object.". thats wierd, no where does it mention areas exceeding the initial maximum temperatures, nor "it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time" (initially cooler sections can and will obviously be heated by nearby hotter sections, thus COOLING the hotter sections and lowering the maximum temperature in/raising the lowest temperature in, i.e, "gradually smoothing", the temperature distribution.

As to calculus, I completed 1st year uni calculus 1 and 2 while at high school as extra credit subjects at ballarat university, and got over 90%(and no I never declared myself alpha and omega of anything, just trying to point out im not a "fucking moron").

Enough personal attacks, how about dealing with the issue at hand? ah fuck it, I can see you're not going to change your mind, and while I can tell from your writing that you are not actually a "fucking moron", you have, unfortunately, yet to overcome your brainwashing/conditioning. Good luck with that. As I said before, a good start is to watch "911 loose change", but you have to do so with an open mind, or it may do you no good(and just because you find one or two minor mistakes in the movie, as did I, doesnt ruin it's message, you only need to do a bit of your own research to see that) (hey you know what, to hell with it, who am I to ruin your blessed ignorance. Nothing to see here, move along)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

1) There where multiple VERY large banks storing gold under wtc. If it wasnt one of the largest gold repositories in the world, THEN WHY SAY IT?? do you think banks are poor or something? multiple mutinational banks and organisations storing gold there ok. get the point? just in case, heres text from Wikipedia, which includes more data, from an older version of wiki (I wonder why someone took out this text?),

One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks. The 1993 bomb detonated close to the vault, but it withstood the explosion, as did the towers. One source estimates the 1993 value of the gold at one billion dollars, believed to be owned by Kuwaiti interests. That same source claims that when the World Trade Center was destroyed, the amount of gold "far exceed[ed] the 1993 levels." The gold was finally recovered in its entirety in late 2001."

now this is an unsubstantiated source but find me a better one and I'll reconsider the situation. Keep in mind that the amount recovered was 230 million, and that they found part of it sitting in a 10 wheel truck under the complex ready to be driven off. I'm sorry, if there wasnt a heist taking place, then WTF where they doing with the gold?

2) like I said, It matters not whether there was 1 Billion (the lowest figure I could find, from an article which itself says this was an old estimate and that there was significantly more gold than this there at the time of the attacks)or 160 Billion (since this is the conspiracy theorists estimate, I would call it an upper bound :) but as a rumour it also appears on the mainstream site I mention below ), It's STILL a frackload more than the 230mil recovered.

Like I said, for it to be considered "one of the largest gold repositories in the world" It should be in a similar ball park to any other large gold repositories I can find, eg, within 1 order of magnitude. I already mentioned fort knox, ok heres the federal reserve, in new york, interestingly only a few blocks from WTC (I dont think this is the one the conspiracy theorists are talking about, but I could be wrong): "The Federal Reserve Bank of New York maintains an underground vault in Manhattan. The largest gold repository in the world, larger even than Fort Knox, it is 80 feet (25 m) beneath the street and holds $90 billion worth of gold bullion (approx 5,000 tonnes at 2006 prices). The gold is owned by many foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations." ok so right there you have a similar collaboration of organizations storing gold. and since it has more than fort knox, I say again, if the WTC repository was one of the largest, IT SHOULD BE WITHIN ONE ORDER OF MAGNITUDE. so a lower bound of about 10 billion

OK next: figures on a conspiracy site: well your right, they should be taken with a grain of salt, but its not just one conspiracy site, its many conspiracy sites(not much better) plus Wikipedia (ok a bit better) plus the new york daily mentioned below, and find me a better source and I'll be glad. Also as I keep saying, It doesnt matter if it was 1 or 1000 billion, if it was much more than the 230 mil officially recovered then we have liftoff.

Next the moving thing, well, if it was planned in advance (as it must have been, even al queda is supposed to have planned in advance) then they had who knows how long to do it, it all depends on how many people they had in on it, and the influences they had eg: if it was a small conspiracy, then they had to do it good old fashioned heist style, perhaps between the time of the crashes and the time of the collapse, this gives maybe 1 hour, using many 10 wheeled trucks (we are assuming it was the same people running 9/11 so they where well organised at the very le

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

who are these people?

At a guess, bush family, c.rice, d rummsfeld, l.silverstein, d.cheney, mayor guilliani, high level managers in halliburton, GE, and people with decent pull with the media (eg people from General Electric that is a major defense contractor and also owns NBC!) also other members of PNAC (google it)(I think that PNAC is probably the mastermind, but thats just a semi-educated guess, no more)

How did they benefit?

well larry silverstein got 5 Billion in insurance(from a total investment of around 300 mil only weeks before the attack), making him one of the richest people in the world. He also got rid of buildings with massive asbestos related problems(up to 5% of the dust from the collapse was asbestos in some places), got the option to get out of his 99 year lease if he wanted to, and got the rights to rebuild on a famous landmark as he wishes (within reason)(also the cleanup was paid for by the federal gov : 12 billion: and he got special bonds at lower than market rates from the gov to finance the rebuild)

The bush administration got the patriot act, dept homeland defense, and permission to invade iraq (for oil/vendetta against hussein) and afghanistan (possibly to get more influence in this important area: eg to put an oil pipeline through). He also can pretty much do whatever the hell he wants (eg wiretapping civilians without a warrant, an illegal act)without getting in trouble (hes not in jail yet, is he.)

Most of those involved also have become extremely rich as defense/security contractors during the afghanistan/iraqi invasions (eg what percentage of the quarter TRILLION dollars used in the war on iraq went through defense contractors halliburton and GE?), and (for instance in the case of mayor guiliani) as security "experts"

they all got the "war" on terror, which is a MAJOR goal (for them, not us), and then we have the billions in gold under the WTC that went missing (you may or may not believe that as you will, see my other comment detailing the evidence/lack thereof related to the gold)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

you mean like the massive steel and concrete core of the WTC towers? WTF are you talkin bout?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[strikethree]

First: Nice rebuttal.

Second: I recall seeing a TV show (on Discovery Channel?) where it was all about imploding buildings in urban areas. One of the things that was said on this show was that all buildings made after 1970(? not sure on that date) are required to built with explosives to bring them down in a controlled manner. This law/regulation/whatever was made because many people had been hurt and/or killed while placing explosives in old abandoned buildings for controlled explosions.

I imagine that this information is probably considered in a whole new light now that 11 Sept has happened. Why advertise something that could bring so much damage for such little effort? I think this post is fairly safe since nobody reads or moderates comments this old.

strike

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[amwanted]

It takes a 'fucking moron' to believe the bullshit put out by the government. Anyone who believes WTC 7 collapsed virtually instantaneously from being hit by debris is truly a 'fucking moron'.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[strikethree]

"a multi-story structure that suffered a progressive, pancake collapse exactly like the WTC"

Did you watch it collapse? I watched both towers collapse live on TV and there was nothing pancake-like about it. All support for all levels of the building gave way at the exact same moment. The whole building came down in free fall.

I am not a conspiracy theorist; although I think there is a good reason for a government conspiracy concerning the WTC collapse mode (see my sibling post).

peace.

strike

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Guppy06]

"Ok its strange that you mention thermodynamics, and yet seem to believe that by insulating a mixture of hot and cooler sections of material underground, that parts of it can magically suck all the heat surrounding them in to become hotter than the original peak temperatures."

No, I'm saying that, once buried, there are fewer ways for the heat to escape as it would have done if the building were still standing. As mentioned in the numerous links you pointed to, fires were still burning, and being buried means there was no place else for the heat to go. It work like your typical underground oven, something humans have been using for millenia.

"thats wierd, no where does it mention areas exceeding the initial maximum temperatures, nor "it's easier to get hotter for longer periods of time" (initially cooler sections can and will obviously be heated by nearby hotter sections, thus COOLING the hotter sections and lowering the maximum temperature in/raising the lowest temperature in, i.e, "gradually smoothing", the temperature distribution."

But the entire structure will stay hotter longer than it would if it were exposed to convection or able to radiate heat away.

The way you're talking, the only way to have the steel molten weeks after the collapse is if the building was taken down by nuclear fission.

"As to calculus, I completed 1st year uni calculus 1 and 2 while at high school as extra credit subjects at ballarat university, and got over 90%(and no I never declared myself alpha and omega of anything, just trying to point out im not a "fucking moron")."

That's still less than half of what your typical undergraduate engineering degree requires, and that still doesn't have more than the most basic examination of mechanics. You make unfounded claims about the design of the buildings as well as what a "normal" structural failure looks like, having neither the data nor the experience to back up your claims. If anything, the way you point to your IQ, your unrelated degree, and your "DE for Dummies" coursework as foundation for your claims that run counter to people who do this for a living gives you several points on the Crackpot Index, if not making you a "fucking moron" outright.

"Enough personal attacks, how about dealing with the issue at hand?"

Pointing out your near-complete lack of credentials (or the way you believe they are credentials) isn't an ad hominem attack.

"you have, unfortunately, yet to overcome your brainwashing/conditioning."

You're the one who thinks the images Hollywood has given them of collapsing buildings is the way things are "supposed" to be, and yet I'm the brainwashed one?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

You forgot the raging fires in WTC7. But never mind, don't let me confuse you with facts that contradict your fantasies.

Carry on.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

The 757 is a bigger plane, so yes, your point is invalid.
Actually, I need to interject a correction here. I misspoke in my earlier responses...the airliners that struck the WTC towers were 767s (the aircraft that allegedly struck the Pentagon and the aircraft whose remains were found near Shanksville, PA were the 757s). That being said, let's do an in-depth comparison of the 707 and the 767:

• The maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 707-320B is 336,000 pounds, the maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 767-200ER is 395,000 pounds.
• The wingspan of a Boeing 707 is 146 feet, the wingspan of a Boeing 767 is 156 feet.
• The length of a Boeing 707 is 153 feet, the length of a Boeing 767 is 159 feet.
• The Boeing 707 could carry 23,000 gallons of fuel, the Boeing 767 could carry 23,980 gallons of fuel.
• The cruise speed of a Boeing 707 is 607 mph = 890 ft/s, the cruise speed of a Boeing 767 is 530 mph = 777 ft/s.

All in all, fairly similar. The 767 is slightly heavier, but the 707 is slightly faster.
Here's a calculation of the energy each aircraft would release if it struck an object at its cruising speed:

• Boeing 707:
• = 0.5 x 336,000 x (890)^2/32.174
• = 4.136 billion ft lbs force (5,607,720 Kilojoules).
• Boeing 767:
• = 0.5 x 395,000 x (777)^2/32.174
• = 3.706 billion ft lbs force (5,024,650 Kilojoules).

Now isn't that interesting??? Due to its faster cruising speed, the 707 actually hits harder on impact than the 767.
Of course, all this is merely hypothetical. Lets move this into the real world now, by plugging in the speeds of the actual 767s on inpact with the towers:

• AA Flight 11: 470 mph = 689 ft/s.
• = 0.5 x 395,000 x (689)^2/32.174
• = 2.914 billion ft lbs force (3,950,950 Kilojoules).
• UA Flight 175 was 590 mph = 865 ft/s.
• = 0.5 x 395,000 x (865)^2/32.174
• = 4.593 billion ft lbs force (6,227,270 Kilojoules).

Now let's see how those numbers stack up against the energy from the impact the towers were designed to take: the 707:

• Flight 11: 3,950,950 Kilojoules/5,607,720 Kilojoules = 70% of required energy.
• Flight 175: 6,227,270 Kilojoules/5,607,720 Kilojoules = 111% of required energy.

Now, as Flight 175 did in fact deliver energy 11% in excess of the reported design standard, one could conceivably make the argument that the South Tower was felled by the impact. There's just two problems:

• To reach this conclusion, one must ignore the inconvenient fact that the WTC towers were overdesigned by 600%,
  - and -
• There's the tiny problem that the North Tower didn't collapse when the jet impacted...it collapsed 56 minutes later.

As for the North Tower, Flight 11 only managed to deliver 70% of the required energy. Care to explain that?

No there would not.
Ignoring the laws of physics may serve you well in other arguments, but I'm just not going to let sloppy thinking like that slide. Provide grounds for your contention that debris can slam through a concrete and steel structure (incidentally, pulverizing said concrete to sub-100 micron particles) as fast as said debris fall through air, or admit it is groundless.

No they were not. The text you were quoting talked about "melting steel".
You couldn't be bothered to read the letter when I linked to it initially, and you couldn't be bothered to read the letter when I subsequently posted the relevant passage. No wonder you're so secure in your misconceptions.

Try to read it again:

Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

"I've watched 911: Loose change. It's interesting, but needs to be taken with much salt."

1.) good, we have a starting point (but even ignoring the commentary, the footage is convincing enough)

"I see no reason to believe that it wasn't muslim extremists that took over those planes."

2.) which muslim extremists, the original ones that later turned up alive, or the later ones they havent found alive yet? or the pilot who couldnt even land a cessna who managed to skim along the ground in a jumbo jet at 500 mph without touching the ground? Anyway, what you SHOULD be asking yourself is if you see any reason TO believe that muslim terrorist did it: ie innocent until proven guilty (or at least you have some proof eg, an autopsy report (nope they werent on the lists) a passenger manifest name (nope they werent on the planes officially),etc)

3.) have a look at footage of the oklahoma bombing on mainstream news from the time of the attacks(if you can. It is shown on one of the 911 consp. movies): multiple reports of second and third unexploded bombs inside the building by police and fbi. Now look at what the official (or at least mainstream) story is now: one truck bomb, no mention of other explosives. (eg wikipedia). notice anything wierd? (probably not, accepting one conspiracy theory is VERY hard, as I know from experience, but once you've accepted one, you look at things from (in my honest opinion) a more balanced perspective)

4.) yes. they have been trying for years, as I believe they were planning this for years, but not all (or indeed, probably not many) of those involved in pushing the patriot act were also involved in planning 911, they just happened to be pushing for the same thing (and indeed, a misguided but good person would see patriot act as a good thing, allowing the government to crack down on those nasty terrorists, whereas someone in on these plans, in or with friends in government, would also see them as a good thing, more power is always more useful to them)

5.) fair enough (at least you see the true purpose of it)

6.)ok, fair enough, if you evacuate after the attacks/collapse, and in fact I just read an interesting story relating to the tripod II FEMA wargame which was supposed to have started sept 10, but may have actually been scheduled sept 12, with the 10th being just a mistake by a tired firefighter (I'll have to look deeper). Anyway listen to this interesting tidbit:

In an ABC News interview, Giuliani states that he was told that "the World Trade Center was gonna' collapse" (shortly before the South Tower, the first of the unprecedented collapses, exploded).

guilliani: "I .. I went down to the scene and we set up a headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna' to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit, got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.

Giuliani's statement that he was warned raises questions for several reasons.

* No skyscraper in North America had ever collapsed for any reason.
* Later revisions notwithstanding, the collapse took almost everyone by surprise.
* Firefighters and emergency workers did not receive warnings.

Who warned Giuliani? When did they warn him? And how did they know that the South Tower was about to come down? why has no mainstream media reporter asked these questions?

7.) firstly, how do you know he's millitary? I cant find anything on that on his tribute website. secondly your right, people do wierd things under pressure, but you cant deny that the phone call is a bit wierd. It's not proof of anything. It's just more wierdness with no decent explanation. For example, who mumbled to him

Minor error correction:

[TripMaster Monkey]

From my previous post:
There's the tiny problem that the North Tower didn't collapse when the jet impacted...it collapsed 56 minutes later.

That should read South Tower.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

hehe your right, prolly shouldnt have bolded that whole sentence up, although perhaps the reason theres so many is that it makes sense?. also, I'm not saying the two towers didnt damage anynearby buildings (they were very tall buildings, I would be surprised if a job that good was even possible, even without having to hide that you were doing it. ) but just watch the WT7 collapse, and then tell me how such symmetry is possible from random damage.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

Red herrings,bogus arguments, etc. You are desperate. I'll just point out some of the flaws in your arguments, such as:

"There's the tiny problem that the North Tower didn't collapse when the jet impacted...it collapsed 56 minutes later."

That is not a problem at all, since no one claimed that it collapsed when the plane impacted. It collapsed when the top part of the building crashed down on the floors below, which then crashed down, and so on.

"WTC 6 sustained far more damage than WTC 7, and yet, it was WTC 7 that collapsed neatly into its own footprint."

Because of its construction, yes. Read the Popular Mechanics article.

"My assertion is that 'compressed air' could not have possibly have created a jet of smoke and debris several floors below the level of the actual collapse, where no damage or fires were present."

Yes it could.

"Your 'blocked outlet' argument doesn not address multiple windows breaking simultaneously, either on the same floor (as was observed), or on different floors."

Yes it does.

As for explosions only being caused by bombs, ever, that is of course an insane claim from an insane person. You need to get out more. Seriously.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

No, I'm saying that, once buried, there are fewer ways for the heat to escape as it would have done if the building were still standing. As mentioned in the numerous links you pointed to, fires were still burning, and being buried means there was no place else for the heat to go. It work like your typical underground oven, something humans have been using for millenia.

and these buried (and therefore oxygen starved and therefore cooler burning) fires melted the steel?

But the entire structure will stay hotter longer than it would if it were exposed to convection or able to radiate heat away. The way you're talking, the only way to have the steel molten weeks after the collapse is if the building was taken down by nuclear fission.

Hey, I could put words in your mouth as well (but wont).

1) molten steel seen before collapse (see earlier post of mine)
2) Large areas of molten steel found in cleanup
2) Heat flows from hot to cold, whether insulated (by rubble) or not. Insulation affects the time involved not the direction of the heat flow
4) lack of massive, forced, highly preheated air flow, through large underground fires, with sufficient fuel precludes the possibility of widespread large molten steel deposit formation after the collapse, as found in the cleanup

therefore the steel must have already been melted, as by large amounts of thermite or other unexplained extreme heat sources.

That's still less than half of what your typical undergraduate engineering degree requires, and that still doesn't have more than the most basic examination of mechanics. You make unfounded claims about the design of the buildings as well as what a "normal" structural failure looks like, having neither the data nor the experience to back up your claims. If anything, the way you point to your IQ, your unrelated degree, and your "DE for Dummies" coursework as foundation for your claims that run counter to people who do this for a living gives you several points on the Crackpot Index, if not making you a "fucking moron" outright.

I'm sorry if I offended you by defending myself from the personal attacks of someone who didnt want to deal with the issues at hand. Perhaps next time I will just lay down and take it in the ass, like your mum did last night (sorry but I do have a limit, if you refuse to refrain from personal attacks, why should I?). Perhaps, mr guppy sir, you'd like to explain how in your job as national structural engineering, metallurgical failure and general wisdom advisor, you have infinite knowledge on all relevant subjects and anyone who disagrees with you is automatically a moron? Pointing out your near-complete lack of credentials (or the way you believe they are credentials) isn't an ad hominem attack.

I'm sorry, I wasnt pointing out my credentials (something you have also failed to do, though you seem to think its so important), I was pointing out that I do, actually, have a decently functioning brain, and can, in fact, use my limited knowledge and pitiful scientific training to analyse a situation and come to a logical conclusion; something many call "common sense"; which is generally lacking in "fucking morons", yourself excluded of course. Also, just so you know, "ad hominem : A fallacy that attacks the person rather than dealing with the real issue in dispute"(google). Lucky that wasnt what you were doing, isnt it?

"You're the one who thinks the images Hollywood has given them of collapsing buildings is the way things are "supposed" to be, and yet I'm the brainwashed one?"

You're right. I did say that the collapses should have looked like the movies. Somewhere. Im sure I said it... didn't I? oh thats right, I was discussing the topic and thinking for myself, while you were making stuff up and putting words in my mouth. Again. Ah well, maybe I did say it and I've brainwashed myself so much I cant see it.

anyway, thats it, no more defenses of my arguments (although I might discuss with people willing to think) for a while, it's tiring me out. If all i've said has not yet convinced you, one more reply wont help.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

really? any links? that would exlain a lot (although it seems unlikely)

Re:The official story is not a conspiracy theory.

[thinsoldier]

Don't forget the so-called 'confession tape' where a man who really looks nothing like Bin-Laden, wearing jewelery that Binladen has never and never would wear 'confesses' to masterminding 9/11. video footage 'released' by Bin Laden is few a far between yet they 'found' this video taped confession out of the blue. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html then later, Osama actually states to reporters that he had nothing to do with it. He's still evil scum. But he's not 'as' guilty of 9/11 as the US gov would have it's sheep believe. And what the phuck is up with Sadam being captured and Iraq on the news EVERY hour of every day, meanwhile I havent heard squat about afganistan in months and nobody even mentions whether or not they're still trying to capture Osama, you know, the guy accused of destroying the towers. I know Sadam is a bad guy but what has he done to the US in the last 10 years that even comes close to 9/11. If I were president I'd close the borders, recall every american soldier and employee based in countries we're not on good terms with and then wait for the enemy to come to us. Half the terrorists only want the US off of their soil anyway. Once we leave they'll leave us alone. And dozens of countries will realize how dependant they were on US presence there and will beg and plead for their return and will do anything to make it happen, even finally providing useful info on terrorists in their country.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[strikethree]

really? any links? that would exlain a lot (although it seems unlikely)

Well, it was a TV show. I do not have any links... I wonder if Discovery Channel has a list of past TV shows. If so, just look for the one about Demolitions or Implosions or something. I am pretty sure it was on Discovery Channel.

But then, I remember reading Bin Laden saying to Clinton after Clinton sent missiles into his camps, "[PARAPHRASED] You have 5 million dollar cruise missiles but we can take your planes and use them as missiles." but of course, I can not find a link to that either. The above was read in a newspaper within a day or two of the missile attacks.

strike (just another disrespected citizen)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

your are wrong (if three word denials count as coherant arguments, as you seem to think, then you just lost)

Able Danger

[nickmalthus]

Interesting... able danger investigation able danger testimony

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

That is not a problem at all, since no one claimed that it collapsed when the plane impacted. It collapsed when the top part of the building crashed down on the floors below, which then crashed down, and so on.

The point that I was making was that if the building wasn't immediately destroyed by the impact of the airliner (which it wasn't), then you have to postulate an additional damage vector to explain the subsequent collapse. As I have shown, the fire is insufficient for this purpose.

No mention of the North Tower in your post...I guess you're still chewing on that one.

Because of its construction, yes. Read the Popular Mechanics article.

You mean this passage?

What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors, it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.

Since the theory of 'progressive collapse' has never before or since been observed outside of the events of 9/11, to attempt to dismiss the WTC 7 collapse by use of this dubious theory is putting the cart before the horse.

Yes it could.
Yes it does.

Apparently, we've exhausted your capacity for rational thought.

As for explosions only being caused by bombs, ever, that is of course an insane claim from an insane person. You need to get out more. Seriously.

Yup. We've definitely exhausted your capacity.

Your steadfast clinging to an 'official version of events' that is demonstrably false, as well as your utter refusal to acept even the most elementary of facts, leads me to one of two conclusions regarding your motives:

1. You're just a regular Joe, who waves the flag and believes that questioning our government is treasonous. You may mean well, but your unquestioning faith in our government is blinding you to the truth.
     - or -
   
2. You're a government shill, bought and paid for, who patrols message boards like this in pursuit of your astroturfing campaign to keep the majority of the populace believing the government's lies.
   

Frankly, I don't care which. If the former is true, perhaps I've planted enough doubt to make you start to think for yourself. If the latter, then I can rest assured that your poisonous lies don't deceive anyone else reading this thread.

Where is the video?

[d!rtyboy]

Is THIS the video they say is new? Because I've seen that one before a million times and I do not see any plane in that clip.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

him being fired proves neither that he was right or wrong.

If he was right about the company certifying the steel, it implies one of two things: a massive conspiracy OR (massive) failure to properly test the steel.

IF massive conspiracy, then why not a little bit more to get him fired and completely deny responsibility (the alternative would be trying to prove the U.S. government was lying about the cause of the failures, most likely in court, while defending themselves from criminal negligence charges). They would likely take the easy way out, fire him, shift the blame and deny responsibility, with the blessing and probably cash of the conspiriteurs.

If they actually failed to certify the steel they were supposed to, they would be guilty of negligence resulting in thousands of deaths so again, would try to deny it and fire him.

If he was wrong, about them certifying it, but right about his calculations of the impossibility of the official explanation, they would probably still fire him for going against the official theory while claiming to act as a company rep, and casting their company in a bad light.

If he was totally wrong, then they would fire him for any number of reasons, which shouldnt need pointing out.

So him being fired is irrelevant to the truth of his claims. the only thing that is relevant is whether the arguments in his letter are valid, and as far as I can tell, they are. plus certified or not, you would hope that the steel used would be close to passing that spec, if that was a common spec used at the time, and since most iron/steel has similar melting points/behaviour (I am not a blacksmith, buit see earlier blacksmiths comments for someone who is) it doesnt matter much anyway, his point still stands that the heat shouldnt have caused the collapse as hydrocarbon fires not forcefed (preheated?)air (or better yet oxygen) in ideal (no heat loss, stoichiometric oxygen/fuel mix) conditions dont get anywhere near hot enough to cause the melted steel visible before/after the collapse, nor to weaken the steel below it's 600% overengineered safety margin as claimed (especially the giant heatsink that the center column basically was) and especially not in an hour!.

On the topic of the ASTM E119 fire test for materials in the building, even the official report doesn't seem to deny that the materials were tested, just questions the usefulness of the test (see herepage 18, if you find a denial in this, let me know)

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

And the study was of the plane striking the building, it made absolutely ZERO study on the effects of the fuel load burning inside the building along with the building conttents, and it did not forsee the heat insulating coatings around the steel being ripped off by the impact.

So let me get this straight...the building was designed to take an airliner strike, but only if said airliner had dry tanks?
What you are saying makes no sense at all. The reason the fuel wasn't taken into account is because it is incapable of burning hot enough to weaken steel, insulated or not.

And if you google for the name of the idiot that wrote that e-mail, he was FIRED by UL for LYING about everything he said in the e-mail!!!

Umm, no. He was fired for speaking out against the 'official version of events'.

Note this choice quote - "UL vehemently denied last week that it ever certified the materials."

Note that this 'choice quote' is a bald-faced lie. UL's CEO, Loring Knoblauch, was quoted as saying that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC buildings, and that everyone involved should all be proud that the buildings had stood for so long under such intense conditions.

In 2003, in a written reply to a communication from Kevin Ryan expressing dismay over the UL's reputation, Knoblauch wrote:"We test to the code requirements, and the steel clearly met those requirements and exceeded them."

In a subsequent communication with Tom Chapin, the manager of UL's Fire Protection division., Chapin reminded Ryan that UL was the "leader in fire research testing". He then went on to say that although the UL does not certify structural steel per se, ther job is to: "produce a Fire Resistance Index with hourly ratings for beams, columns, floors, roofs, walls and partitions tested in accordance with ASTM Standard E119."...in short, to certify assemblies of which steel is a component.

FROM THIS MOMENT ON you are not ever allowed to quote this stupid e-mail ever again.

On the contrary, from this moment on, I'll quote Kevin Ryan more than ever. The UL's precipitous termination of his employement and subsequent lies do not invalidate Ryan's argument...they certify it.

The guy was so incompetent that UL FIRED HIM outright.

That is a lie. He wasn't fired for incompetence, he was fired for embarassing the company, by questioning the government's story. (Note: the UL currently enjoys tax-exempt status, courtesy of that same government.)

Yes, a DIFFERENT BUILDING with a different contruction and a different fire. That fire was a fire of the building's contents, not jet fuel.

Exactly. The Madrid fire burned far hotter and for far longer than the jet fuel splashed inside the WTC towers. In fact, from NIST's own fact sheet:

The jet fuel, which ignited the fires, was mostly consumed within the first few minutes after impact. The fires that burned for almost the entire time that the buildings remained standing were due mainly to burning building contents and, to a lesser extent, aircraft contents, not jet fuel.

Nor was that building's steel members stripped of their heat resistent coatings by a jetliner impact.

As shown before, the jet fuel was incapable of raising the temperature of the steel enough to weaken it, even uninsulated sections.

NOR where there a FULL 20 floors of building above the floors that were burning.

The Madrid skyscraper was not overdesigned to 600% of specifications (2000% for the core), and yet it still managed to support a massive construction crane perched on its roof.

Pools of fuel that have vaporized in an area not yet connected to the fire, that suddenly catch fire.
Aerosols of dust. (grain elevator explosions)
Air in sealed spaces being heated until the sealed spaces b

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

although perhaps the reason theres so many is that it makes sense?

The reason why there's so many of them is that people can sometimes hold strange beliefs and stubbornly hold onto them, even if they're smart and educated enough to know better. I'd venture that it's the same with the physics professor you quoted: he's so deeply convinced that "the government" was behind the attacks that he's willing to lie to himself in order to prove that he's right.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[amwanted]

Yeah...the raging fires that lasted all of 6 or 7 hours. I guess you haven't bothered to do a little research or you would have many instances of high-rise fires that burned for many more hours, yet never collapsed. It is really amazing to see the delusions those who can not even entertain the idea that their government is so rotten to the core that it would murder its own (and other countries as well) citizens in order to justify war. Especially when you consider your history..like the phony 'Gulf of Tonkln' resolution..or the phony blowing up of the battleshio Maine in Havana harbor...and ,many, mant more instances of lying. Your rotten scum-sucking country has been lying and murdering since day one...and you are obviously one of those that supports it, so FUCK YOU PIG!

Re:Well thats nice

[Nossie]

sorry /. was down for maintenance when It tried to post this earlier

All they would need to show is the security camera from the hotel roof and we'd be happy ? (for the most part) I agree here that it is a military installation... but we aren't asking for information related to what the pentagon is made of...

We aren't asking about what hit the pentagon to penetrate so many layers.... it was a 757 right? we all know what aircraft are made from? Or was it? That is the question here.... The administration is TELLING us the information... all we are looking for is a photo or footage that properly shows such proof... why cant they provide that? It wouldn't be showing anymore details than we already know

Loose Change 2nd edition:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-513758199 1288263801

watch it... is the pentagon.. the most important American military installation really that badly defended?

Then please make up your mind.
I don't know if you have already but I think you really should watch it ;) tell me what you think afterwards.

You should also look out the 3 part docu on 'The power of nightmares' to get background information on whom the Neo conservatives are, what they have done and what they plan to achieve (that they refer to in this film)

not essential but I thought TPON was an excellent docu also.

See the video for yourself

[nickmalthus]

Clear video evidence shows explosions in the WTC tower during the plane impact well away from the impact point and during the collapse well below the demolition wave falling at the speed of gravity. Also clear video evidence shows white smoke from the bottom of WTC 2 start to rise minutes before the collapse. These phenomena were not mentioned in any government sponsored report nor was any scientific explanation provided. If you or the government wishes to offer a plausible explanation for the observed phenomena feel free to send your factual criticisms to Dr. Jones and he will update his paper or dismiss his hypothesis. His paper is an open peer-reviewed scientific analysis which is a far cry from the secret NIST investigation process. Why doesn't the NIST release the thousands of photo graphs they have in their possession? Surely they would validate the governments account?

Re:See the video for yourself

[bj8rn]

Clear video evidence shows explosions in the WTC tower during the plane impact well away from the impact point and during the collapse well below the demolition wave falling at the speed of gravity. Also clear video evidence shows white smoke from the bottom of WTC 2 start to rise minutes before the collapse.

I watched the Loose Change video of the collapse which had all those puffs of smoke nicely highlighted, but these looked rather random (ie uncontrolled) to me and I cannot see how could they have caused the building to collapse. I find it more likely that you and all those other people are simply looking in the wrong place for the cause of the collapse. The two towers started to crumble pretty much where the planes hit, so they must have collapsed because of something that happened there. The official report tries to explain the collapse in the light of the known factors -- the buildings being hit, jet fuel burning etc. I'm not educated enough in these matters (I'm but a lowly Humanities student) to judge how plausible their explanation is. I can only point to a fundamental difference between the official explanation and the explosives theory: while the former tries to explain what happened by internal causes, the latter does this by way of external causes, or a Deus ex machina. But while it would be nice to have a Deus running things, as it'd make life a lot simpler for us lowly humans (I can imagine that a controlled explosion is a lot easier to explain and model than a building crumbling because of, say, a fire or an earthquake), there is no evidence of the existence of one. I'm yet to see anyone offering actual proof of use of explosives -- all they have to offer is witness statements vague enough to be interpreted as supporting the claim, puffs of smoke (or is it dust?), and a lot of fuzzy videos. All this could just as well be used to prove that it was in fact the hand of God that smashed the buildings. Which is just as well, as you cannot prove or disprove neither, not even for a million dollars.

Re:See the video for yourself

[nickmalthus]

You are perfectly correct, if those were indeed planted explosives they did not detonate as intended. Since they were only observed during the plane impact into WTC 2 and during the collapse a possible explanation was they were the cause by a volatile substance reacting to shockwaves in the building. Since I don't believe the hand of Allah protected the planes with stealth shields and dumbfounded NORAD, FEMA (on site the day before), and the CIA who all were running simulations of the terrorist attacks at the same time something must account for the explosions and white smoke. See Eyewitness 9/11 for more continuous video of the WTC collapses.

While with WTC 2 the collapse appeared to begin where the plane impacted see jones reason 9 with WTC 1 the collapse appeared to start at the top jones reason 6

Does the government's account of the 9/11 event fulfill the scientific method? How does it account for the observed phenomena witnessed in the videos? Does it eliminate plausible alternatives? Was government complicacy ever even investigated? As with any true scientific investigation it must focus on the facts. Since the 9/11 commission was formed over a year after the event due to pressure by the families and was originally to be headed by Henry Kissinger it would appear its purpose was more for political than scientific reasons.

As for the prize, who controls all the evidence? Why did they fiercly protect it? Five years after the event why won't they release all the photos,videos, and samples they have? Shouldn't we have a right to view the evidence for ourselves and make our own determination? Aren't we the people the in control of the government? Or, should we blindly trust the providential guidance of our government officials as the gospel truth to explain what occurred?

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

Alright, I just watched the video and what I can say is that 1) the building is quite clearly veering to the right, but 2) the video is a montage of two clips filmed at two different angles, creating an illlusion of it coming straight down. Of course this still gives no explanation as to why it collapsed but it's still an interesting fact.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

but I'm not willing to lie to myself (at least I hope I'm not, and I'm assuming you believe you're not either).

I looked at the loose change video after, previously investigating 9/11 for a while, and can see that many of the CONCLUSIONS that the director seems to be/are suggesting are far fatched or not supported by the evidence. What is interesting is the footage itself, and some of the many points he makes(or tries), unfortunately there are quite a few errors in it, as I've since discovered.

What I would like to see answered are the following questions:

1) why 3 unprecedented collapses on the same day (building collapses 1, 2 and 7)? release the blueprints so that scientific studies can be PUBLICLY done (not by a government commision chaired by the very people suspected of possible wrongdoing) to determine if it is even possible for those collapses to occur the way they did. I would like to see a finite element simulation of the buildings showing exactly what would be required for those collapses to occur the way they did (esp wt7), in the time they did, and with the amount of pulverisation that they endured

2)How did mayor guiliani get warned of the first collapse (see one of my other posts)? who warned him or is this story rubbish (It was HIS words that I am refering to)

3) why did silverstein say "pull it". I do not see how his words (and I refer to the entire comment in context not just these two words)could POSSIBLY mean pulling the firefighters out. It doesnt make any sense. neither the firefighters nor the firebrigade would be an "it" in this sentence, they would be a "them. "If he did "pull it", how did they have have time to wire the building to fall, it normally takes weeks of planning and setup.

4) am I just supposed to believe the ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE chain of fortuitis events and seemingly out of character behaviour/impossible luck (for the "terrorists" not us)letting this occur had NOTHING to do with people like Dick Cheney who are connected to these events all over the place: examples: (and yes, I'd like better sources on some of these, but most seem valid)
- terrorists get into country with wrongly filled out forms, shouldnt have been let in
- terrorists bahaved strangely for supposed muslim extremists: reports of partying at strip clubs etc
- 100% success rate in getting onto planes with knifes(boxcutters), even though some were so disorganised as to be LATE for the planes they were supposed to catch
- 100% (initial) success rate in capturing the cockpits, while taking over from millitary veteran pilots: not even any hijack warning codes put in
- just luck that guns were no longer allowed to be carried by the cabin crew for security, as of that year(who changed this rule and what was the justification?)
- just INCREDIBLE EXTRAORDINARY luck that multiple millitary exercises (traced back to dick cheney I believe) were running on that day, involving hijacked planes flying into buildings and other interesting coincidences, creating a situation where almost no one, in the faa or millitary, knew what the hell was going on until too late, and there were very few planes left that could do anything if they did know
- just incredibly lucky that the pilots who finally did get scrambled where not told of the entire situation (they werent told much at all it seems) and only flew at a small fraction of their maximum speeds, and also whoever was instructing them seemingly ignored the possiblility of these jets going after the pentagon plane - just incredible luck that the pentagon "didnt" fire their anti aircraft missiles(are these made up? someone tell me these are made up, otherwise why didnt they (supposedly) fire) or scramble nearby jets after knowing what was going on because of the tower strikes
- just insanely lucky that the hijacker pilots were skillful enough to pull of insanely difficult manouvres when some had trouble even landing a cessna (eg diving down and turning round at 500 mile an hour, to find him

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

I'm assuming you believe you're not either

Actually, I'm quite aware of the fact that I have held onto beliefs I knew were wrong in the past. Like "I can't do it". Or "I have not been trolled". And so on. In such cases, I never tell myself "I know it's a lie but you should still keep insisting on it". More likely, I do it because I (unconsciously) refuse to let go of my old beliefs and habits. I cannot believe what's happening, so I tell myself that it's not happening. La-la-la-la.

I guess it's the same with the people who keep on insisting that 9/11 was an "inside job". They woke up that day in a world that was a safe place and they went to sleep in one that wasn't. Their illusion of safety (for safety is always an illusion, albeit one that it's quite beneficient to maintain) had been shattered. Yet, they'd still keep on insisting that the illusion hadn't been one, that noone from the outside could possibly have hurt the most powerful country on Earth. So, to maintain the illusion, they create a myth of The Government arranging the attack or letting it to happen on purpose.

I understand that 9/11 was a significant event in American (and World) history. I also find that it's important to properly analyse the events leading to and taking place on and after that day. The official investigation, I think, hasn't attempted to do this, and this is a mistake. The conspiracy theorists haven't attempted to do this, either -- they isolate bits and pieces of the events from what happened before and after, and then try to reconstruct the events according to their own beliefs. There are, no doubt, many unanswered questions (there will always be unanswered questions); unfortunately, I don't think you're asking the right ones.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

Firstly, interesting viewpoint, I would say insightful, and yet, I dont agree with some of it

next, I actually was doubtful of 9/11 being anything but government bungling and muslim extremist attack, but the more I looked, the harder I found it was to believe that, and currently, I can see no way that it was anything LIKE the official explanation. It was very strange analysing my own reaction to the knowledge: even though, thinking about it logically I could see there was no way the official explanation was true, It took a long time to actually accept that this was really happening (and it still doesnt quite feel real, even though I'm sure it is). It's called denial, and I remember the feeling from when my grandpa died, even though I knew he was dead, I felt it wasnt real and he was still alive (we were close).

I'm not actually an american (aussie) although I see similarities in whats happening here, but (I think...) it's no-where near as bad here yet.

straight off the bat, I would say that you are right in that many conspiracy theorists are getting wrapped up in a few little details, and not seeing the big picture. I think this is one of the biggest problems I face in trying to convince people, and one of the biggest problems the "9/11 truth" movement faces: the conspiracy movement is made up of: intelligent people who see problems with the official theories and try to find answers, people who just want to believe in a conspiracy and believe whatever they read (and pass it on), people making money/fame/having fun/etc from it, either validly (by telling the truth) or invalidly (by embellishing,/making stories up), and also, IF there actually is a conspiracy, then there are people spreading disinformation and deliberately causing confusion, for easier deniability. For this reason, It's actually quite hard to determine fact from fiction (trust me, I've tried) for some of the wilder claims, but, no matter what, just going off information available from what should be reliable sources, there is just TOO much wrong for me to blindly accept the official conspiracy theory.

Look at it this way: there are people in the world who kill for money, so while immoral, it is in fact a possible human action. The more money involved, the more likely people are to kill for it (althogh this does not apply to everyone; im sure there are many people, myself included I hope, who cannot be bought for any price). It would also appear that you have accepted that some people are capable of killing hundreds or thousands of people to make a point/get revenge, and we know from history that many leaders have been willing to sacrifice people for the "greater good", and often just for personal reasons. So we have no reason to believe that people in this goevernment would not be capable of this, especially if they could somehow twist it to seem like killing for the greater good, in their own minds, and especially if there was a LARGE amount of money and power as motive.

So given all that, what we have is a situation where we have a crime commited, and two current suspects. unfortunately, one of those suspects is the one pointing the finger at the other suspect, and, if guilty, is also in the position to tamper with evidence, kill witnesses, and influence the media. So the solution seems to be to just step back and look for motive, means, opportunity, and evidence for the two suspects.

Some people believe that since extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, we should not even entertain the idea of a conspiracy unless presented with hard evidence. While I personally believe that this evidence is obvious to those looking, my main point would be, what about the extraordinary claims of the offical theory? Here are just a few of the extraordinary claims (in my opinion) that the offical theory makes that should require extraordinary evidence:

- that it is possible for (seemingly) well organised terrorists, many of whom were known to inteligence as such, to get into the country (with badly/incorrectly fi

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[BobTheLawyer]

Absolutely idiotic.

So you reckon 10,000 tonnes of gold could be moved in an hour, even though it took 200 railway cars to stock Fort Knox with a similar amount of gold. Hmmm.

And you think banks would keep a heist quiet in order to claim on insurance... do you have the slightest idea how insurance companies work? Do you think they hand over billions of dollars quietly behind closed doors? Any significant insurance claim involves dozens, or more likely hundreds, of insurance underwriters, and all will be required to disclose the claim to shareholders and regulators. Large insurance claims invariably end up in litigation that goes on for years. The idea there could be a multi-million (let alone multi-billion) insurance claim which nobody knows about is completely batty.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[bj8rn]

Here are just a few of the extraordinary claims (in my opinion) that the offical theory makes that should require extraordinary evidence

I think you overestimate the competence, skill and luck needed to carry out such operations. One of the lessons, I think, you could draw from this is that it doesn't actually take much to do something like this -- at least under the right conditions. You don't need to be stronger or smarter than your victim if you manage to catch him unaware. And this is the state people are normally in -- they go about minding their own business. They hardly expect being shot in the back or something -- unless you constantly remind them that "the enemy never sleeps" or something like that. Border guards are not normally in the habit of considering everyone a terrorist trying to sneak into the country. Airplane pilots, whether ex-military or not, are not usually waiting for someone to attack them with box-cutters: they have more important things to concentrate on, like flying the plane for instance. I don't think any pilot could do more than go "Wha?!?" if attacked from behind. And so on. In the long run, being paranoid will not do anyone any good.

Also, from what I've seen and read (on and off the Internet), it doesn't take that much skill to pilot an airplane. I find it plausible: it has to be easy; otherwise it'd be damn dangerous. Flying one into a building doesn't seem to have been a precision operation, either: in fact, at least two of them (the one that hit the Pentagon and one of those that hit the WTC) nearly missed their targets. The attackers weren't supermen. They didn't have to be supermen. They didn't have to have the backing of large military organisations. They didn't even have to be supersmart or super-lucky to have crawled through all the "holes" in the security. Why? Because the real world isn't a James Bond movie where a single chain of events leads to a single possible outcome. It's more like having margins inside which you can safely operate without things going horribly wrong. Generally, these margins seem to be quite wide: I mean, all people are incompetent fools, yet we're still alive. Conversely, all criminals are incompetent fools, yet there's still an awful lot of crimes committed. It's probably not too easy to commit a crime without finally getting caught, but walking away from the crime scene is hardly what the perpetrators of this act of terror had in mind. I don't know for sure (although it seems quite plausible to me that there was a causal link between these two events) if the WTC towers collapsed as a result of the planes crashing into them, but I do believe that something like this happening without the use of explosives and controlled explosions isn't as improbable as many people make it to be.

I could see there was no way the official explanation was true

I, too, would expect the US government agencies to lie about what happened on 9/11. But not because they were somehow involved in it but simply in an attempt to make them look better, to hide the fact that they, too, are only human and were (still are) just as incompetent as you could expect them to be. They get away with being incompetent because that's how society works.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Guppy06]

"therefore the steel must have already been melted, as by large amounts of thermite or other unexplained extreme heat sources."

How about you use your much-vaunted math skills and figure out, using your model, how hot the steel would have to be at the time of collapse to still be molten 7 days after the collapse. If you're going to make extraordinary claims, do the math and back up your assertions.

707 vs. 767

[kupci]

Wrong again, chickenhawk AC, that's another misconception. In fact, there's lot's of research. The planes are quite similar: 707 vs. 757

According to Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the World Trade Center's construction manager, 1 and 2 World Trade Center were designed to survive an impact and resulting fires from a collision by the largest commercial aircraft at the time, a Boeing 707-340. 1 Contrary to widely promoted misconceptions, the 767-200s used on 9-11 were only slightly larger than 707s.

How does it feel to make an idiotic observation with no basis in reality?

I don't know, good question for you though. You really are a little nuts. But I guess anyone who has to keep coming up with such inane, impossible "reasons" for believeing the story that was fed to them, must be.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

"The point that I was making was that if the building wasn't immediately destroyed by the impact of the airliner (which it wasn't), then you have to postulate an additional damage vector to explain the subsequent collapse."

And that is the fire, and the fact that you can weaken a structure without it giving in immediately.

"As I have shown, the fire is insufficient for this purpose."

No, you have not.

"No mention of the North Tower in your post...I guess you're still chewing on that one."

The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring. A desperate attempt by you to come up with something else when your "arguments" have been pulverized.

"Since the theory of 'progressive collapse' has never before or since been observed outside of the events of 9/11, to attempt to dismiss the WTC 7 collapse by use of this dubious theory is putting the cart before the horse."

You are wrong again. This exact situation has never happened before to a building exactly like this one.

"Your steadfast clinging to an 'official version of events' that is demonstrably false,"

Sorry to disappoint you, but it is your insane conspiracy theory which is demonstrably false.

"as well as your utter refusal to acept even the most elementary of facts"

You are a joke. Your "facts" are nothing but baseless claims. You are the one ignoring facts that contradict your insane theories.

Also, why are you assuming that I'm an American?

In any case, I doubt that anyone else is reading this, so I've done what I wanted to do: Make sure that gullible fools aren't sucked in by your lies.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[Stephen Samuel]

2) what? Your're shocked that some of these guys would have been using ID that they scammed off of someone else? ID theft is real, and it's happening. I'm not so shocked that these terrorists would have used it -- especially given that they'd be impersonating someone in another country.

3) When you've just had a massive explosion, people start to freak about anything that they see. Not completely shocked at the shifting stories.. People were just being cautious.

7) I'd actually be surprised if the firemen running through the building hadn't seen (and reported) signs that that structural failure was immanent in the last few minutes before the building collapsed.

8) 67 scrambles in 9 months that's just over 7 scrambles a month -- 2 a week over the entire united states and canada -- or to put it more boldly... Just barely 1 scramble per state/province in almost a year... That sounds like 'rare' to me. Botched intercepts? yeah... that's not a shock, given that there's been no REAL need for an intercept of a commercial airliner in a couple of decades.

later

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

No, you have not.

As I've told you before, your vapid gainsaying of my arguments is unacceptable as a debate tactic. Again, provide a rational rebuttal, or be honest enough to admit you are wrong.

The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.

This is perhaps the funniest/most pathetic thing I have ever read here on Slashdot. To claim that the collapse of one of the WTC towers is 'irrelevant' to the discussion of the events of 9/11 unbelievably idiotic, and graphically illustrates your inability to continue this debate.

This exact situation has never happened before to a building exactly like this one.

As I've told you before, the fact that this identical situation hadn't previously happened does not mean we cannot extrapolate meaningful conclusions from our knowledge of the structures involved and similar events that have happened. If you disagree with this, that means you cannot draw any conclusions about the events of 9/11, including the laughable "official version of events" you cling to with such desperation.

Sorry to disappoint you, but it is your insane conspiracy theory which is demonstrably false.

So go ahead and demonstrate. I've referenced a lot of information in this thread to show the fallaciousness of your "conspiracy theory" (after all, that's all the 'official version of events' really is...just a ridiculous conspiracy theory that fails to agree with even the most elementary of observed events). The least you could do is respond in kind, but, you don't have any facts, do you? That's why your primary debate tactic is gainsaying.

Your "facts" are nothing but baseless claims.

Fine. Refute them. Reference some facts of your own. Do something other than mindlessly yammer "yes it could" and "yes it does".

Also, why are you assuming that I'm an American?

Only an American could be this willfully ignorant.

In any case, I doubt that anyone else is reading this, so I've done what I wanted to do: Make sure that gullible fools aren't sucked in by your lies.

Yes, most probably stopped reading after this post, since it was then that it was apparent that this debate was over. Unfortunate, because then they missed your claim that "The north tower is irrelevant", and it is "nothing but a red herring", and so missed the chance to see the true depths of your hypocrisy and ignorance.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[diablomonic]

(very late reply but anyway)

this attitude that the government is bumbling fools (well some of them are) and therefore any conspiracy is impossible is VERY dangerous and very false. when I claim conspiracy, I'm not talking about dubya organsing a massive attack all by himself (in fact I would guess that for plausable deniability, he had no IDEA what the plans would actually entail, just that there would be some sort of attack, and he probably assumed it would be on the scale of the previous wtc bombing or perhaps the oklahoma bombing at the most). Try to follow my line of reasoning:

We KNOW that the CIA and government officials strongly believed that an attack on this scale could be carried out and kept secret, because they presented a similar plan to JFK back in the sixties (operation northwood), and have a long record of decieving the US populace on a large scale (try to find original news footage of the oklahoma bombing where EVERYONE reported secnd and third unexploded explosive devices found by the police/fbi, then look at the official story now: one truck bomb, or look up pearl harbour (hint it was no surprise attack)). you might argue that it would be harder to keep secret now with the net and "better" news coverage, but with 40 years of "conspiracy nutjob" and "questioning the government is unpatriotic" dirven into the publics mind, along with MUCH tighter media control (the entire mainstream media is now owned by a handfull of multi national companies, often huge millitary contractors (eg GE -NBC ) or relatives of people in the administration (such as bush's cousin at fox: the one who announced he'd won the election when he obviously hadn't, and won him the entire "election") it is actually a lot easier now(people, including me, have a very strong association in our heads between the word conspiracy and being crazy/or at best "interesting but probably not true" and feel that only "conspiracy nuts" would bother to look into it)

We know that even when large numbers of people question the truth of something, the mainstream media can and does ignore it (if they are told to) for example, 50% of new-yorkers believe that the government knew about 9/11 in advance and let it happen, yet there is no independant inquiry, no mainstream news DEMANDING another look at the issue etc (take a close, or even cursory, look at who was on the official "investigation" board, and look at their connections. Basically the suspects investigated themselves and declared themselves innocent (of everything it seems, even incompetence)). Many are too brainwashed to see it, and those that do, see how innefectual it was when others have come out and said anything, and how they were treated, lives ruined, fired etc (plus of course if they had any hard evidence of a conspiracy involving 3000 murders, whats one more?): look at the the guy from UL, he wrote a single letter which made a lot of sense, was fired (well he did act as if he was representing the companies views, but if he was under the impression his company HAD certified the steel, then he was really defending his company), he's been fired, picked on as a kook, and god knows what else. I doubt he'll be able to get a similar job for quite quite a while. Or look at john o'neil, the bin-laden expert who died as the head of wtc security, very conveniently, after being subject to a smear campaign for a year. Even the guy that "found" him was sus (ie if there was a conspiracy he was a likely insider)(have a google for him, and read this to start although its more related to bin laden than o'neil).

We also know that government agencies can keep secrets. how many people knew about stealth bombers before the official release. I dont mean thought maybe. oh sure the conspiracy sites talked about it, just like they talk about 9/11. and some people knew they existed, from reading about it, but mainstream news didnt talk about it as fact. You may have acce

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[hkmwbz]

You are a moron.

"To claim that the collapse of one of the WTC towers is 'irrelevant' to the discussion of the events of 9/11 unbelievably idiotic"

What is unbelievably idiotic is that you are ignoring the fact that I did comment on the north tower. At least try to pay attention, conspiracy nut:

"That is not a problem at all, since no one claimed that it collapsed when the plane impacted. It collapsed when the top part of the building crashed down on the floors below, which then crashed down, and so on."

"As I've told you before, the fact that this identical situation hadn't previously happened does not mean we cannot extrapolate meaningful conclusions from our knowledge of the structures involved and similar events that have happened."

You are trying to prove that "this couldn't happen" by pointing out that buildings didn't collapse under different circumstances. You are ignoring the fact that the top of the building crashed down on the floors below, as proven by the fact that you ignored my comment about the north tower.

"I've referenced a lot of information in this thread to show the fallaciousness of your "conspiracy theory""

No you have not. You have ignored facts and twisted other facts, and generally tried to manipulate the reader into thinking that you have a point when you don't. Instead of making a fool of yourself, go read the Wikipedia article on your conspiracy theories. They are all adequately explained.

Re:damn you, Scuttlemonkey!!!!

[TripMaster Monkey]

You are a moron.

It took you eight days to come up with that. How sad.

What is unbelievably idiotic is that you are ignoring the fact that I did comment on the north tower. At least try to pay attention, conspiracy nut:

I'm not ignoring the fact that you 'commented' at all. See here for my response (since you seem incapable of mastering the complex 'scroll up' maneuver). However, when I pointed out that the crash of Flight 11 on 9/11 only delivered 70% of the energy the tower was designed to withstand (see here for the math), and still collapsed into a tidy pile of rubble, your response was 'The north tower is irrelevant. It is nothing but a red herring.'. This statement is what is 'unbelieveably idiotic', and demonstrates your intellectual dishonesty far better than I ever could have.

You are ignoring the fact that the top of the building crashed down on the floors below, as proven by the fact that you ignored my comment about the north tower.

And you are ignoring the fact that you have not adequately explained why this collapse started.
Ignoring for just a moment that this 'progressive collapse theory' has three glaring problems:

• Such a collapse could not have progressed straight down. Any deviation from absolute center would have caused one side to collapse faster than the other, eventually shunting the debris off to one side.
• Such a collapse does not account for all the steel members being broken into sections roughly 30 feet in length (including the core).
• Such a collapse could not have occured at the acceleration observed (nearly the acceleration observed in a body falling freely through the air). The resistance of the floors would have slowed down the collapse, particularly in the initial moments, but such a slowdown was not observed. (Don't take my word for it, though...watch the video.)

...the fact remains that you have consistently failed to explain what precipitated the collapse. Certainly, it was not from the initial impact, since both towers stood long after the impact events. Certainly, it was not from the briefly burning jet fuel fires, or the more conventional office fires that followed, weakening ASTM E119 certified steel to the point of collapse, since this is impossible. Tell me, hkmwbz...what's left?

Ignoring the inconvenient problems of the 'progressive collapse' theory for just a moment, saying the collapse happened because the top floors fell down on the rest of the structure is akin to saying that a gun went off because the firing pin struck the shell. It's a frighteningly stupid argument, and I hope you'll have the courtesy of withdrawing it before it darkens this thread any further.

No you have not.

Now what have I told you about gainsaying, hkmwbz?

You have ignored facts and twisted other facts

OK, cite the facts you're accusing me of twisting and/or ignoring, and I'll be happy to address your accusations, despite the obvious fact that it's you that's done the lion's share of 'ignoring' with your childish gainsaying.

Instead of making a fool of yourself, go read the Wikipedia article on your conspiracy theories.

Wow....you never fail to amuse, do you, hkmwbz? First the North Tower is a 'red herring', and now I'm being directed to check my facts on Wikipedia. Perhaps if you followed your own advice, you would have seen that the neutrality of the Wikipedia article is currently in dispute.

They are all adequately explained.

Then it shouldn't be terribly difficult for you to use these 'explanations' to counter my arg