There ARE still a lot of questions, in spite of what deniers and kooks say

This is a very hot topic, and the precense of both extreme tinfoilhatters and the incompetence goons make serious discussion almost impossible. So lets all take a deep breath and consider the following points:

First of all, we have people who claim members of the government were directly involved in or responsible for the attacks. I get the feeling they are inspired by theologian David Ray Griffin turned physicist overnight to demonstrate his ignorance of newtonian physics. To sum up, these people belief one or more buildings weren't struck by planes but brought down by controlled demolition, according to whom you ask this include The Pentagon, WTC7, both towers, or every building. I don't want to get into that, since its obviously false, based on zero evidence, and faulty physics.

In the other camp, we have the pathological deniers. These folks have mental blocks that prevent them from accepting that there could be any possiblity of faul play on the part of government officials, regardless of the evidence. I don't blame them, any sane mind would recoil against the implications. But despite how much we might want to belief there was no faul play in order to sleep at night, we must keep an open mind and remain sceptical and consider all possiblities. Only through rigorous consideration of facts can we form a picture of what really happened.

Now lets aim at the people who aren't so far out as to belief Bush orchestrated 9/11,they can't be saved, but at the weary and suspicious but uncertain. They form a massive body of people who trumpet the Incompetence Theory. Usually they ascribe other little gaffes like the Iraq war to Incompetence as well, or the fact that virtually all voting irregularities in 2004 favoured Bush and that it was all just a freak coincidence or the statistically impossible discrepanciens between exit polls and vote counts to Incompetence on the part of Exit Pollsters.

In short, these people are in denial, unwilling to consider the obvious. But its time to wake up and connect the dots. At the end of the day, we know for certain Bush & Co LIED and MISLED us about Iraq, in fact, they CONSPIRED to commit a war of aggresion. We know also that some state officials in Ohio CONSPIRED to commit voter fraud. It does happen, and its time we start reopening the case of 9/11 and look at all the data very critically and carefully.

At the end of the day, there are still so many unanswered questions and glaring omissions that just scream for a renewed and compulsory investigation where no-one is let off the hook. To name just a few, well known:

• 
  Right after 9/11 happened the administration issues typical statements such as this one from Powell on 9/12. He commented: "In the first 24 hours of analysis, I have not seen any evidence that there was a specific signal that we missed. ... In this case, we did not have intelligence of anything of this scope or magnitude." or this one from Bush on 9/16 "Never (in) anybody’s thought processes ... about how to protect America did we ever think that the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious US targets ... never." FAA officals and other members of the administration echoed similar statements.
  
  This is in stark contrast with other data. The FBI knew millitant muslims were taking flying lessons in the US. In the 90's it was revealed that terrorists had plans to use planes as flying bombs. Regular hijackers are contend to blow up planes or let it fly somewhere by the pilot. They themselves don't need or take flying lessons. This is often overlooked by the MS, but I'm sure this was a very obvious clue to the FBI investigators.
  
  
• 
  In senate hearings early 2002, former CIA director Tennet declares that "we (the CIA) are proud of (our) record. ...(the 9/11 plot was) in the heads of three or four people and thus nearly impossible to prevent.".
  
  FBI director Mueller similarly said "There was nothing the agency could have done to anticipate and prevent the attacks."
  
  In light of the CIA's cooperation, under Tennet's leadership, to fabricate evidence for the Iraq war, how can in hindsight we take this statement at face value as being the truth? Certainly renewed and independent investigation up to the highest level of CIA involvement is warrented?
  
  Similarly, Mueller's statement is incompatible with his or senior FBI officials's actions. Before the actual attacks, it is alledged that FBI investigators were prohibited and hindered in investigations in militant muslims taking flying lessons in the US. After 9/11, several people have come forward to speak out against unexplainable FBI actions that stonewalled ongoing investigations.
  
  
• 
  Senior officals of the administration are on record lying about the preventability of 9/11. In fact, Bush stated on numerous occaisions that he had no warning of any kind something imminent was about to happen. It is streching the imagination to with regards to the August 6 Memo the President received 'Bin Laden determined to Strike US' and to go on to claim that no one could have envisioned terrorists would use airplanes as flying bombs while at the same time the FBI is investigating (or preventing such) suspicious individuals taking flying lessons, and further discover that instructors say they had no interest in becomming pilots but only controlling and navigating large commerical jets.
  
  This kind of persistant denial streches implausibility to outright deception.
  
  
• 
  But perhaps one of the single most startling events that casts a lurid shadow over the administration's shifting claims is the sheer body of warnings the US received by foreign intelligence agencies prior to 9/11. From the taliban to Egypt to Russia, all have given detailed and concrete warnings and data that indicated something big involving a dozen terrorists and airplanes to be used as flying bombs was about to happen.
  

It is not one single piece of evidence that tells us the story, rather, it is all little pieces combined, their common gestalt. And they all point to one inescapable conclusion: Administration and Intelligence officials had a large body of data all indicating something large was about to happen. They knew in the order of a dozen terrorists were planning to use airplanes to strike landmarks, they even had reasonable suspicious who some of the hijackers were and where they were.

And in spite of all this they did absolutely nothing. There are in fact serious indications to the opposite, especially within the VEEP office and within the CIA and FBI.

Was there a true conspiracy, of several officials planning to commit a criminal act, namely to willfuly allow madmen to strike the US so they can have their catalyst for their foreign policy plans, as is outlined in the PNAC statement? I don't know. There is only one way to find out, and that is broad scale independent investigation by outsiders.

There is simply too much going on, too many questions unanswered, and too mnay officials spewing demonstrably untruths. Its time to stop tripping into wild and and exotic theories and allegations, but to unite and demand independent fullscale investigations. Even if you buy the innocent incompetence card, the sheer body of incompetence is more than enough for impeachment.

I have said this several times in this forum:



To this paragragh



I would add:

The FBI had the names of the 19 hijackers within hours of the events. How was this possible?

I don't know if there is any way to force this administration to release information they have thus far refused to release because of "Security concerns", however. I am afraid that an independent investigation would be greatly handicapped at this point if it could not obtain all the info they would need to reach informed conclusions.

justified. AFAIK, everything Dr. Griffin said has been validated by
Dr. Jones.

BTW, welcome to DU! :hi:

Got some proof?

Dr. Jones's paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?"

Have you heard of it? http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

For example, he also propagates the story that 'diffuse jet fuels aren't enough to melt steel or aluminium'. But it doesn't need to! If you heat it several hunderd degrees centigrade it will already have lost a lot of its strength and supporting capacity.

He also makes a lot of assumptions and draws conclusions from incomplete data. He just tells us to compare controlled demo videos to the collapse of 9/11 buildings. Furthermore he points to some eyewitness accounts and some issues that aren't addresses in the official report.

Well there he got a point. Not only this, but there is still sooo much questions left about 9/11 we simply need a thorough, independent analysis. Frankly, I very much doubt it will find controlled demolition contributed to the downfall, but we'll wait and see. Only independent and massive investigation will find out.

Is it really wise to start a call for unity with abuse?

Why do you miss out that the NSA was listening to some of the hijackers' calls?
Link: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/003339.html

As to your first point: they are kooks in the literal sense of the word, they cook up (often grandiose) theories without any evidence at all, in fact often with evidence pointing the other way. These people are used as lightning rods to discredit the entire movement.

My point is that even the very basic facts that everyone agrees on, and the little we know, are more than enough to warrent further investigation, and that the administration has more to do with this than it lets on.

In particular, from the little we do know, we can reasonably infer that they are lying when they say they didn't see it comming or couldn't have prevented it. Perhaps they indeed couldn't, but regardless they didn't even try.

Another debunker in LIHOP clothing, complete with awful spelling.

Whatever happened to debunking911, anyway?

My take is that we really need another investigation. I have rarely heard this here, and, since we don't have enough evidence to effectively dispute the OCT, this may be the only way we can get the answers we so desperately need.

Maybe I am being too naive in the trust department here?

but let's be clear about what needs investigating. Anyone dismissing the demolitions with "I don't want to get into that, since its obviously false, based on zero evidence, and faulty physics" is carrying water for the administration.

The demolitions happened. They are high crimes and can be proven. The rest is political chicanery that can easily be swept under the carpet in a congressional hearing room, and already has been once.

Just my opinion of course! :)

In the spirit of my post, lets keep an open mind shall we? It is my opinion that the theory of controlled demolition just isn't supported by any evidence at all, not to mention extremely implausible to execute. But never mind my or your opinion, lets have an honest investigation and we'll see what the truth is.

is a complete investigation...including the evidence from the towers. And WTC7. And, those pesky put options that no one hears anything about anymore.

And, I think it needs to be non-partisan...totally.

is needed, or a grand jury called to consider evidence of specific crimes. Otherwise we'll get the same results as the last investigation, just like Warren Commission hearings were "reopened" a few years ago and surprise, reached the same conclusions.

Something along the lines of the Plame investigation?

I think there needs to be evidence of a specific crime, like the Plame outing, and right now I think the demolition evidence is the most solid, also the most serious.

about engineering or physics to know whether the evidence for demolition is solid or not, but, if it is solid, I would love to see an investigation based on this evidence.

Much of this info is slowly becoming more mainstream (for instance, the thread on C-Span having some of the truth movement experts on), and so, we may yet see a criminal investigation in the future.

more and more. I think the case for demolition is pretty airtight, but it's up to the lawyers to make it stick, and of course Congress, so I guess that means us. :)

If you really want to make a useful comment read my post again.

And that style over substance remark isn't making you look smart.

I've been waiting for the replacement.:eyes:

Kook - "a crazy or eccentric person", according to the concise Oxford dictionary.

Let's get this straight: you're saying that if a person believes the Twin Towers, 85% of whose structure remained after they were hit by planes, weren't destroyed by a 56/102-minute office fire, even though they were combustibles-lite, then he's a "kook"?

after the plane crashes. Over 90% remained intact on the crash floors. The columns held up the buildings.

That 85% figure is inaccurate and misleading. I can go over the calculations if you'd like.

have links? Also, not sure what your point is except to maybe cast some doubt on the Clinton administration?

Rice and Mueller are the specified targets of the list, and everyone in the bush admin who acted shocked that terrorists attacked the US with planes is included by proxy.
I also suppose that an unintended target are the CTers who can't believe that we were attacked by terrorists who hijacked airplanes even after the fact.

It's just that so many of the events happened under Clinton's watch -- my suspicion radar went off.

When the government provides proof that we were attacked by terrorists, then, I think it will be easy to believe that this did happen. I, for one, am waiting for that.

So many things happened under Clinton's watch?
Read those first 4 items again, and put into your own words what happened under Clinton's watch, as detailed in the list.

And, there were several more stories going back to 1994.

Does it make you feel good to try to make others look stupid?

but, I wasn't sure what you thought.

Those are your words, and you can't back them up.

Many have DATES from the Clinton years. This is ALL I meant. Stop trying to read more than what was intended. I don't need to back up anything simply because you say so.

Talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill. I acknowledged that I was in error to ask my original question. That should have been good enough. There WERE a number of events that occurred during the Clinton years, and, I wanted to know if you were highlighting them for some reason. You indicated you were not. So, that should have been the end of it.

If that's your cat in your avatar, I can understand his expression.

You always start these subthreads on little details.

Btw, I didn't start a subthread, I added substance to the OP. Your pal started the irrelevant subthread.

you guys all do that.

to your posts showed how much I truly care.

Since we're overgeneralizing again, may I?...
You guys have a hard time following trains of thought & logical arguments to their end without jumping the train when you don't like the way it's headed. You are too quick to take what should be a mature intellectual discussion and debase it into an attack on personalities. You accuse people here of being right-wingers or shills too much, and you don't even really believe it when you say it, it's just one of the first handfuls of sand you can find to throw.

I hope you can let this go.

It is well known some of this happened during clinton. But in all probability the real window for swift action lay in the period between march-september 2001. As I understand it, the details of where what and when were only finalised in the summer of 2001.

the punchline of the page I linked to is that condeleeza rice lied when she said nobody could have predicted the attacks.
I have serious problems with how the USA behaved in the mideast during the Clinton admin, but I think the bush admin is magnitudes more directly responsible for 9/11 than Clinton's.
That in mind, I think religious fundamentalism is the most responsible, that bush is a fundamentalist, and that I goddamn wish Clinton, Gore or Kerry were president today. Hell, compared to bush, I'd take Judge Judy in a blink.

Had this explanation been included in your original post, I think there could have been a valuable discussion as a result.

Really though, how could you misinterpret the following as an attack against Clinton that was lacking links to the sources?:

so, your question is not a fair one.

It is "too late" as far as I am concerned.

I am sure that many of us had no doubt that Rice and Bush lied about what they knew. It was nice to be validated, but, it's also nice to move on.

Moving on.

started by Clinton, I was just reading from Greg Palast. An "upper level agent" gave him some documents which detailed this. I think a lot of what may have happened during Clinton was a holdover from Bush Senior policies, although because of the Saudi's influence Clinton didn't come down hard enough either. Some believe there is a "rogue" element in intelligence (naval or CIA) that acts despite what the president wants, with 1 trillion dollars unaccounted for they could certainly afford it.

I meant that you take little points and run them into the ground in an attempt, I guess, to get "the last word". I never say people are right wing I say that they make the same arguments as right wing people, and that is the truth. Also I have read that there are people that are paid to disrupt forums and influence opinion. It makes no sense to me that a "real" DUer would spend that much time trying to defend BushCo & the corporations for which he stands, so I speculate on who might do it. I've also come across freeper sights online that brag about how they infiltrate DU and report on what they say/do. None of you post outside 911 so it is impossible to know your true intentions/opinions. An exception to this is Jazz who has begun to harass other people outside 911 demanding "proof" of what they're saying and it's obvious that she is here to create divisiveness.

RESPONSIBLE DUers have an obligation to make sure that everyone here knows that our government, like most other governments, frequently engage in conspiracies for a wide variety of purposes AND they employ professional disinformation agents, cheerleaders, shills, and Spin Doctors to prevent the truth about those conspiracies from coming out.

Is there some particular reason why you object to people learning the truth about not only the events of 9/11, but also how the government attempts to manage the Official version of what happened, and that they do so thru people that are no different than people that are commonly known as media whores?

post #5..."more things that need explaining" and then only a link. This was a provocative post because no indication is given as to why you think what you posted needed additional explanation.

Those who haven't seen it already, a lot of MS material can be found at

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/

There is a lot of material on that site directly from MSM sources.

http://www.terrorize.dk/911/wtc2dem3/911.wtc.2.demolition.east.5.enl.slow.2.wmv


then explain to me what you see here abesters.

George W. Bush "Mastermind of the Sept.11 2001 attacks" :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

anyway welcome to DU :hi: :hi:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

"First of all, we have people who claim members of the government were directly involved in or responsible for the attacks. I get the feeling they are inspired by theologian David Ray Griffin turned physicist overnight to demonstrate his ignorance of newtonian physics. To sum up, these people belief one or more buildings weren't struck by planes but brought down by controlled demolition, according to whom you ask this include The Pentagon, WTC7, both towers, or every building. I don't want to get into that, since its obviously false, based on zero evidence, and faulty physics. "


zero evidence? faulty physics? sorry, that's just not true. It's possible that the buildings came down some other way (other than explosives) but the evidence leans heavily toward explosive devices of some type. To completely discredit this hypothesis, is being bull-headed.

I'm not going into all the details here, but consider this. What exactly happens when a building is braught down by explosives? The supporting columns, usually in the basement, are being blown away and the building loses its support and comes down in 'free fall'.

These towers were of an unusual design, they only had center support columns instead of al trough the buildings. If they had the latter, it was unlikely they would have collapsed. But the central support beams had the disadvantage of being close together and in near elevator shafts. When the plane struck, it had such a high velocity that the beams at the point of impact were severely weakened. Add to that thausands of gallons of burning kerosene, degraded heat protection, and the already impactdamaged beams simply lost their stiffness to hold the upper parts of the building. They came down.

Now remember that for buildings to be high they need to weigh as little as possible, so typically only enough metal is used for it to hold the building in static equilibrium. If you have one or two floors crashing on the one below, they building will give way. Once you have several floors comming down, it doesn't really matter what is below that since its resistance is negliable compared to the momentum of the floors comming down, and the building collapses in free fall.

So you see, airplane + lots of fuel has ultimately exactly the same effect of bringing down a sky scraper as explosives do. Except, of course, you need only a few well placed kilograms of explosives to do it and not tons of metal and fuel as with an aircraft.

and the towers were built like steel shithouses.




Has you can see from the picture, the steel beams and columns used in the building were massive. The core made up about 1/2 of square footage on each floor. The steel used for the outer walls were attached with steel trusses. If the trusses failed, most of the core should have withstood their failure.

Look at the videos and pictures of the collapse. The building exploded from the inside of the core. In less then two minutes, each tower was turned into a pile of dust and rubble. Airplanes did not do this. Most of their fuel burnt off in the fireballs. The only thing that could do this to massive steel buildings are weapons inside the core and all the evidence points in that direction.

"they only had center support columns instead of al trough the buildings."
Not really, the gravity load was distributed equally between the core and the perimeter.

"But the central support beams had the disadvantage of being close together and in near elevator shafts."
Close together? The core was about 130 feet by 90 feet and the 47 core columns were more or less equally spaced within in. I don't really see how proximity to elevator shafts should weaken a core column. If anything, the lack of combustibles in an elevator shaft should afford an adjacent column a little protection.

"When the plane struck, it had such a high velocity that the beams at the point of impact were severely weakened."
Please quantify what amount of the building's load-bearing capacity you are claiming was removed by the initial impact.

"Add to that thausands of gallons of burning kerosene,"
The jet fuel burned up in 10 minutes, even NIST admits that.

"Now remember that for buildings to be high they need to weigh as little as possible, so typically only enough metal is used for it to hold the building in static equilibrium."
You're saying the building had a safety factor of about one. That's a pretty uncommon claim and you need to back it up with a link.

All I am saying is that what I have seen on that day, from later recaps, and from later analyses is that the collapse is consistent with what was seen, and that the hypothesis of demolition charges is completely unnecessary.

Why can't you imagine this train of events, damaged load-bearing columns, some bent and deformed or entirely gone, plus the added stress of prolonged fires that weaken steel's load carrying ability, brought down the building?

Humor me, follow this, and answer my question.

I can imagine that right after the impact of tons of aluminium and steel moving at hunders of MPH, the structural damage is severe. Its not like a garbage truck accidentally bumbing into a column in the basement. This is BIG. Lots of momentum and energy involved, and all of it in a concentrated section of the building. Some weight bearing columns are gone, others severly bent, and many deformed in some way. That is simply bound to happen if you have such a weight crashing into it with such a velocity.

So right after the impact there is severe structural damage on one side of the building, but it manages to hold the upper floors in place - barely. Meanwhile, the crushing weight above is causing more and more strain on the few columns that are still in place relatively undamaged that suddenly find themselves holding the bulk of the top floors, something they were not designed to do. The deformed bulkheads keep on deforming slowly under the pressure, but this increases rapidly as the fire causes them to lose their stiffness. Finally a critical moment comes, the force of gravity wins from the weakening normal force of the columns, the upper part falls one floor, which gives added weight and momentum, and we see an accelerating collapse.

Now my question is: how is this impossible? where is my fundamental flaw?

Again, I'm not saying I absolutely rule out controlled demolition, but I don't see why they are needed. Even if you do propose controlled demolition, you're going down a black hole. It clearly implies that government officials were actually in league with the hijackers, and in turn with Bin Laden.

I don't have high opinions of the people that run the show, but doing such a silly thing is SUICIDE. Someone would notice. Someone would speak. And they'd be out of power, and probably out of their lives as well. It just doesn't make any damned sense.

So I'll just tackle the last point now and the first point after the weekend - sorry.

"Even if you do propose controlled demolition, you're going down a black hole. It clearly implies that government officials were actually in league with the hijackers, and in turn with Bin Laden."

Many people assume it implies this. However, it does not. There are alternative explanations for explosive demolition, such as that Al Qaeda themselves planted the explosives, or that they were placed for much the same reason that sensitive installations are sometimes rigged for demolition - say an embassy in a hostile country or listening post in a friendly but unstable one. Even if explosive demolition were proved, this would not be conclusive proof 9/11 was a false flag operation. Personally, I go for explosive demolition, but no false flag operation - I really doubt they were "in league with the hijackers."

Basically, all your argument does is show that an unspecified plane might be able to destroy an unspecified building. You can't apply it to the WTC without going into the details and having a look at the numbers. You must admit that not every aircraft with every amount of fuel was sufficient to destroy the WTC and you need to give an indication of where the dividing line is.

For example this passage is too vague to be really meaningful:
"This is BIG. Lots of momentum and energy involved, and all of it in a concentrated section of the building. Some weight bearing columns are gone,"

You need to quantify the speed, the weight of the plane and the amount of damage it actually did - NIST's base case indicated that about 85% of the vertical load-bearing structure of each building was left after the initial impacts and this seems to be a reasonable figure to me.

"Some weight bearing columns are gone, others severly bent, and many deformed in some way... Meanwhile, the crushing weight above is causing more and more strain on the few columns that are still in place relatively undamaged."
About 35-45 of the 286 vertical load-bearing columns in each tower would have been destroyed by the impact. A couple more would certainly have been damaged. That leaves well over 200 undamaged columns in each tower, but you mistakenly characterise this as "a few".

meant, your penchant for diving into the deep dark end of irrelevant detail is shiny.