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9/11 After A Decade: Have We Learned Anything?

Paul Craig Roberts | 25.08.2011 09:05 | Terror War

In a few days it will be the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. How well has the US government’s official account of the event held up over the decade?


Not very well. The chairman, vice chairman, and senior legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books partially disassociating themselves from the commission’s report. They said that the Bush administration put obstacles in their path, that information was withheld from them, that President Bush agreed to testify only if he was chaperoned by Vice President Cheney and neither were put under oath, that Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the false testimony for investigation for obstruction of justice.

In their book, the chairman and vice chairman, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote that the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail.” Senior counsel John Farmer, Jr., wrote
that the US government made “a decision not to tell the truth about what happened,” and that the NORAD “tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public.” Kean said, “We to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth.”

Most of the questions from the 9/11 families were not answered. Important witnesses were not called. The commission only heard from those who supported the government’s account. The commission was a controlled political operation, not an investigation of events and evidence. Its membership consisted of former politicians. No knowledgeable experts were appointed to the commission.

One member of the 9/11 Commission, former Senator Max Cleland, responded to the constraints placed on the commission by the White House: “If this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised.” Cleland resigned rather than have his integrity compromised.

To be clear, neither Cleland nor members of the commission suggested that 9/11 was an inside job to advance a war agenda. Nevertheless, neither Congress nor the media wondered, at least not out loud, why President Bush was unwilling to appear before the commission under oath or without Cheney, why Pentagon and FAA officials lied to the commission or, if the officials did not lie, why the commission believed they lied, or why the White House resisted for so long any kind of commission being formed, even one under its control.

One would think that if a handful of Arabs managed to outwit not merely the CIA and FBI but all 16 US intelligence agencies, all intelligence agencies of our allies including Mossad, the National Security Council, the State Department, NORAD, airport security four times on one morning, air traffic control, etc., the President, Congress, and the media would be demanding to know how such an improbable event could occur. Instead, the White House put up a wall of resistance to finding out, and Congress and the media showed little interest.

During the decade that has passed, numerous 9/11 Truth organizations have formed.

There are Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Remember Building 7.org, and a New York group which includes 9/11 families. These groups call for a real investigation.

David Ray Griffen has written 10 carefully researched books documenting problems in the government’s account. Scientists have pointed out that the government has no explanation for the molten steel. NIST has been forced to admit that WTC 7 was in free fall for part of its descent, and a scientific team led by a professor of nano-chemistry at the University of Copenhagen has reported finding nano-thermite in the dust from the buildings.

Larry Silverstein, who had the lease on the World Trade Center buildings, said in a PBS broadcast that the decision was made “to pull” Building 7 late in the afternoon of 9/11. Chief fire marshals have said that no forensic investigation was made of the buildings’ destruction and that the absence of investigation was a violation of law.

Some efforts have been made to explain away some of the evidence that is contrary to the official account, but most of the contrary evidence is simply ignored. The fact remains that the skepticism of a large number of knowledgeable experts has had no effect on the government’s position other than a member of the Obama administration suggesting that the government infiltrate the 9/11 truth organizations in order to discredit them.

The practice has been to brand experts not convinced by the government’s case “conspiracy theorists.” But of course the government’s own theory is a conspiracy theory, an even less likely one once a person realizes its full implication of intelligence and operational failures. The implied failures are extraordinarily large; yet,
no one was ever held accountable.

Moreover, what do 1,500 architects and engineers have to gain from being ridiculed as conspiracy theorists? They certainly will never receive another government contract, and many surely lost business as a result of their “anti-American” stance. Their competitors must have made hay out of their “unpatriotic doubts.” Indeed, my reward for reporting on how matters stand a decade after the event will be mail telling me that as I hate America so much I should move to Cuba.

Scientists have even less incentive to express any doubts, which probably explains why there are not 1,500 Physicists for 9/11 Truth. Few physicists have careers independent of government grants or contracts. It was a high school physics teacher who forced NIST to abandon its account of Building 7’s demise. Physicist Stephen Jones, who first reported finding evidence of explosives, had his tenure bought out by BYU, which no doubt found itself under government pressure.

We can explain away contrary evidence as coincidences and mistakes and conclude that only the government got it all correct, the same government that got everything else wrong.

In fact, the government has not explained anything. The NIST report is merely a simulation of what might have caused the towers to fail if NIST’s assumptions programed into the computer model are correct. But NIST supplies no evidence that its assumptions are correct.

Building 7 was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, and many Americans are still unaware that three buildings came down on 9/11.

Let me be clear about my point. I am not saying that some black op group in the neoconservative Bush administration blew up the buildings in order to advance the neoconservative agenda of war in the Middle East. If there is evidence of a coverup, it could be the government covering up its incompetence and not its complicity in the event. Even if there were definite proof of government complicity, it is uncertain that Americans could accept it. Architects, engineers, and scientists live in a fact-based community, but for most people facts are no match for emotions.

My point is how uninquisitive the executive branch including the security agencies, Congress, the media, and much of the population are about the defining event of our time.

There is no doubt that 9/11 is the determinant event. It has led to a decade of ever expanding wars, to the shredding of the Constitution, and to a police state. On August 22 Justin Raimondo reported that he and his website, Antiwar.com, are being monitored by the FBI’s Electronic Communication Analysis Unit to determine if Antiwar.com is “a threat to National Security” working “on behalf of a foreign power.”

Francis A. Boyle, an internationally known professor and attorney of international law, has reported that when he refused a joint FBI-CIA request to violate the attorney/client privilege and become an informant on his Arab-American clients, he was placed on the US government’s terrorist watch list.

Boyle has been critical of the US government’s approach to the Muslim world, but Raimondo has never raised, nor permitted any contributor to raise, any suspicion about US government complicity in 9/11. Raimondo merely opposes war, and that is enough for the FBI to conclude that he needs watching as a possible threat to national security.

The US government’s account of 9/11 is the foundation of the open-ended wars that are exhausting America’s resources and destroying its reputation, and it is the foundation of the domestic police state that ultimately will shut down all opposition to the wars. Americans are bound to the story of the 9/11 Muslim terrorist attack, because it is what justifies the slaughter of civilian populations in several Muslim countries, and it justifies a domestic police state as the only means of securing safety from terrorists, who already have morphed into “domestic extremists” such as environmentalists, animal rights groups, and antiwar activists.

Today Americans are unsafe, not because of terrorists and domestic extremists, but because they have lost their civil liberties and have no protection from unaccountable government power. One would think that how this came about would be worthy of public debate and congressional hearings.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was appointed by President Reagan Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury and confirmed by the US Senate. He was Associate Editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, and he served on the personal staffs of Representative Jack Kemp and Senator Orrin Hatch. He was staff associate of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, staff associate of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, and Chief Economist, Republican Staff, House Budget Committee. He wrote the Kemp-Roth tax rate reduction bill, and was a leader in the supply-side revolution. He was professor of economics in six universities, and is the author of numerous books and scholarly contributions. He has testified before committees of Congress on 30 occasions.

Paul Craig Roberts
- Homepage: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28935.htm

Comments

Hide the following 33 comments

9/11 was NOT an inside job!

25.08.2011 10:03

This set of videos debunks all of the popular 9/11 conspiracy theories:  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=9%2F11+debunked&aq=f
Most of the 9/11 conspiracy theories have been throughly debunked for several years now. But many people keep insisting on carrying on with the inside job theory.

Realist


So let's assume it was NOT an inside job...

25.08.2011 11:20

Ok Realist, assuming all of the debunking videos are correct, this would have been a good pretext for invading Afghanistan (again, assuming that the mastermind was Osama bin Laden and briefly forgetting that several of the 19 hijackers have appeared alive since 9/11).
But what about Iraq?

JSTR
mail e-mail: jesterwatson@yahoo.co.uk


Iraq?

25.08.2011 11:27

"Ok Realist, assuming all of the debunking videos are correct, this would have been a good pretext for invading Afghanistan (again, assuming that the mastermind was Osama bin Laden and briefly forgetting that several of the 19 hijackers have appeared alive since 9/11).
But what about Iraq?"

I don't think Realist or anyone else has tried to claim that Iraq was linked to 9/11. It was invaded to overthrow Hussain's regime, which committed war crimes against its own people.

I know some of the left likes to ignore that fact. The post-invasion planning was terrible and caused many deaths but there were good reasons to invade.

Richard
mail e-mail: richard-brennan@hotmail.co.uk
- Homepage: http://brennybaby.blogpspot.com


What we learned

25.08.2011 14:00

We learned that a group of paranoid 'truthers' will concoct a bizarre and easily refuted conspiracy theory so full of holes that it looks like a lace doily, will ignore frequent and complete debunkings in order to cling to their cherished story, and that Indymedia's robotic anti-Americanism will cause them to promote such dribblings as if it were anything other than an embarrassingly transparent group delusion.

Trooferism -- the historical movement of fools.

lerner


Contentious narratives.

25.08.2011 14:13

A weighty argument in this article no doubt and many of the issues raised are so precise and to the point, they can hardly be undone or negated by the slight and clumsy arguments put forward as comments that follow. The article itself, and the comments which follow are, however, related.

Fundamentally, I think the situation is as follows.

The United States, ten years after the event, is still trying to come to terms with what has happened to it on September 11th 2001 in New York and other places. Far from having a coherent understanding of an event they have sunk trilions of dollars into dealing with in the form of economic investment and military deploymets around the world, it is still arguing the detail. This fact in and of itself indicates serious and persistent failings in all adopted policies that emanate from this event. The United States government is still unable to override the doubt and unsuredness of not only its own legislatures and its own people, but more seriously the people of America and far more seriously, public opinion around the world.

Fundamentally, public opinion remains unconvinced that given its previous conduct around the world, the United States government could not have had a hand in its own misfortune, in the pursuit of its strategic political and economic reach around the world. The worlds population instinctively understand that the US lives beyond its means and out of that, comes the structural underlinings of US material foreign policy. In the matter of 9/11 and the atrocity that that represents, it seems truly incredible that any US government might collude in the murder of over 3000 people on its own territory. Not only of its own citizens, but of a large number of foreign nationals.

But herein lies the fundamentals of the problem. In the pursuit of its external reach, the US government will adopt policy that achieves its tactical aims, relative to the strategic environment it finds itself in. So one can understand 9/11, only in the context of an analysis of the broader problems that the wider United States is facing. Within this, a great many material matters must be considered. Energy policy, economic policy, international policy, social, cultural and domestic political policy. Within this, further considerations must be made too. The role that formally sanctioned US institutions play in the execution of these policies. And within this, one must consider how these things come together in concert form, to materialise in the form of US policy as enacted on the domestic and international stage. Only by considering all these matters, can one come to understand the 9/11 event for what it is. An event of international significance, from which the United States government has fashioned its domestic and international outlook. The only question to ask here, is how contrived is this outlook and what limits does the US government have in place to abbreviate this contrived policy? In answer to that question, we need only consult public opinion around the world, which determines that the matter is indeed contrived, because the US government has a long history of contriving justifications for its various domestic and international policy 'outreach' programs. The length of that history, is indication that it is not limited.

If one is inclined to consider these things, in detail but also in terms of precedance, one comes to understand the fundamental's of how the US government is arranged. In reality, the US Government is a complex collection of tactically unrelated corporations and investitures operating together as a homogenous grouping of like-minded strategic economic interests. Upon deeper analysis, one is able to determine that the US government only barely exists, such is the scope and detail of its apparent arrangement. Structurally, the US Government is composed of privately held entities operating free of any major political ideology. Its entire make-up is composed of competing economic relative interests and within this 'relativism', there now appears to be no abbreviating political, social, or cultural factor that can be used to limit its behaviour. It is this political 'abstinence' that to a larger degree, explains the nature of the events that we are witnessing.

The population of the world has historical reason not to trust that which is identified as empire, and the United States currently fits the profile! This fact does not come from emnity or anti-americanism (although in some quarters is certainly does), it derives from history and the iron-like public memory.

In terms of this article, and the comments which follow, one can easily identify the 'detail' of the policy 'in-camera' so to speak.

To understand the character of this 'detail' I shall take leave to quote from the Chilam Balam, a text from the 15th Century penned as the work of a writer tremendously respected in his time for his ability to cleverly traverse the 'double-drama' that he and his people found themselves exposed to in the form of the collapse of the domestic order of the Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, prior to the arrival of the foreign Spanish religio-ethnic conquistador's. I choose this subject matter here to illustrate the point at Indymedia, the readers of which will understand the subject matter implicitly. If I were contributing to other flora elsewhere, my choice of text would undoubtedly be different (itself an indication of the geographic spread of this subject matter!). To read this text, one can understand that the mechanics of the current empire as oulined in this article, (and following comments), is a long vandalism from history the scope of which is as wide as it is long. It describes the descent of the Maya people by disease and conquest as the result of Spanish crown loyalists travelling into the new world in search of gold with which to seek patronage from the Spanish crown, itself in need of currency with which to fund its military reach in extension beyond its borders and into Europe. The text itself touches upon the proclivity to conspiracy between co-conspirators, the mechanics of the divisions used to pacify and oppress the Maya in order to remove their ability to defend themsleves, and the adjacent religious subversion used to destabilise the relationship between the Maya heads and their people. Within this text is the blueprint for the mecahnics of empire, the building of crime and violence as mechanism of division (and therefore dependency to suggested lore), the concept of service to prosecution authorities by the youth (indiscriminate policing growth of that suggested lore) and draining of the wealth of the working people by the conspirators in order to encourage the Maya, by deception, to fund their own downfall.


Extract from "THE BOOK OF CHILAM BALAM OF CHUMAYEL". BY RALPH L. ROYS
Washington D.C.; Carnegie Institution. 1933.

"Very many were the head-chiefs and many a conspiracy they made with one
another. But they are not made known in what is here; not so much will be
related. Still he who comes of our lineage will know it, one of us who are Maya men.
He will know how to explain these things when he reads what is here. When he sees it,
then he will explain the adjustment of the intricacy of the katun by our priest, Ah Kin
Xuluc; but Xuluc was not his name formerly. It was only because these priests of ours
were to come to an end when misery was introduced, when Christianity was introduced
by the real Christians. Then with the true God, the true Dios, came the beginning of our
misery. It was the beginning of tribute, the beginning of church dues, the beginning of
strife with purse-snatching, the beginning of strife with blow-guns, the beginning of
strife by trampling on people, the beginning of robbery with violence, the beginning of
forced debts, the beginning of debts enforced by false testimony, the beginning of
individual strife, a beginning of vexation, a beginning of robbery with violence. This
was the origin of service to the Spaniards and priests, of service to the local chiefs, of
service to the teachers, of service to the public prosecutors by the boys, the youths of the
town, while the poor people were harassed. These were the very poor people who did
not depart when oppression was put upon them. It was by Antichrist on earth, the
kinkajous of the towns, the foxes of the towns, the blood-sucking insects of the town,
those who drained the poverty of the working people. But it shall still come to pass that
tears shall come to the eyes of our Lord God. The justice of our Lord God shall descend
upon every part of the world, straight from God upon Ah Kantenal, Ix Pucyola, the
avaricious hagglers of the world."

Knot-Eyed Jaguar


We've learned that a lot of conspiracy theorists will believe complete bullshit

25.08.2011 15:44

What I've learned is that there are a lot of people out there obsessed by the idea that virtually everything is a conspiracy, no matter how torturous and ludicrous the logic.

anon


re: Iraq

25.08.2011 15:48

I don't think the US really gave a shit about Hussain's regime or his war crimes - what they were really concerned about was political control of oil-rich areas, considering so much of their economy is based around cheap oil. There are plenty of other "friendly" dictators they are fine with.

anon


here's what we learned

25.08.2011 16:54

-- that a whole nation sought ways to react to something utterly traumatic

-- some people tried to bargain with the unknowable by "doing something good", including an enormous rise in blood donations, so enormous that in the end most of it expired unused

-- some people responded with a free-form anxiety so thick that George W Bush was easily able to manipulate it into support for an entirely voluntary war in Iraq, a war that turned out to be disastrously inconclusive and disastrously expensive

-- some people chose Islamaphobia as their refuge, and still fight against the construction of an Islamic center near the WTC site out of sheer bigotry

-- and some people simply went straight into denial, choosing the thumb-sucking comfort of a goggle-eyed conspiracy theory that wouldn't fool a five-year-old, and which trails obviously lies nearly ten years old (no, dear, Larry S didn't say there had been a decision to "pull" WTC 7 down, he's clearly saying that the decision was made to "pull" the fire and rescue effort as the building was showing more signs of the weakening that eventually brought it down -- yet the troofers continue to lie about it to this very day).

Tie-Dyed Hag Wire


realism

25.08.2011 22:01

we do need to ensure we have secure supplies of oil for the future.
an ugly reality but there you go. What would you prefer - risk us running out due to a dictator not liking us?

anon


From the U.S,

26.08.2011 01:40

I am surprised to read the animosity of these comments.

I knew it was an inside job as I watched the TV - which we never turned on - except in emergencies.
It was so obvious and it is still so obvious.
The official US Govt. story is what sounds like a conspiracy.

I remember taking a flight from a small city in the Southwest to California two months before 911, on at a small airport, and security was so tight that they mad a passenger take off his belt, and other
people open their bag of food or snacks.

I don't want to argue details, but what I learned is this:
1) Americans are terrified to face the truth
2) Myths live for a long time
3) Despite all the public abuse, Americans still believe their vote counts
4) Telling your opinion, even in a calm and straight-forward way, will get you enemies
5) The government does not need to surveil us, now we are surveiling ourselves

What gives me hope are the activists who risk something everyday, even if it is writing a post like yours.


invisible me


evidentially my dear watson

26.08.2011 02:48

'I knew it was an inside job as I watched the TV - which we never turned on - except in emergencies.'

There is the troofer in a nutshell: immediately jumped to a conclusion without any kind of evidence, and spent the next decade attacking as naive anyone who didn't immediately jump to the same evidence-free conclusion. Evidence? Evidence is for fools! Go with your most dramatic and conspiratorial gut guess, it's never ever ever ever wrong!

wow wotta loon


Bloody hippies!

26.08.2011 13:40

"There is the troofer in a nutshell: immediately jumped to a conclusion without any kind of evidence, and spent the next decade attacking as naive anyone who didn't immediately jump to the same evidence-free conclusion. Evidence? Evidence is for fools! Go with your most dramatic and conspiratorial gut guess, it's never ever ever ever wrong!"

Yeah, I agree. Its clear that 9/11 was the evil moslems and America was completely innocent in it all. America is a great nation of freedom and civil rights and justice and respect for its citizens. We have been their allies for the longest time and that means we should never question them. The truthers are clearly deranged for questioning anything America does and they don't understand that when you have an ally, you must always do what they tell you to do. So if America says we should go to war that means we should go to war. It doesn't matter why, we shouldn't ask questions, we simply do as we are told. That's democracy.

Those building were attacked by evil moslems that follow the devil. They crashed those planes into those buildings and made them collapse. That sky-scraper no 7 just fell down like all sky-scrapers fall down when there's a fire in the broom cupboard. It doesn't matter that it fell down like a controlled explosion, thats just the way the moslems planned it. They knew that the troofers would be watching so the planned for it to fall like that deliberately so the troofers would be able to start going on about it all the time.

And aswell the pentagon was hit by a plane not a missile, the moslems knew that the cctv cameras were off so they made the plane look like it was a missile just before it hit so the troofers would be able to go on about that too.

And Obama Bin Laden is definately dead because President Osama says so.

PS, does anybody know how to drain a fueltank by the way, my car takes unleaded but Ive accidently filled it up with deisal!!!

Eddy David Lumbago.


coup de gracious

26.08.2011 14:21

"There is the troofer in a nutshell: immediately jumped to a conclusion without any kind of evidence, and spent the next decade attacking as naive anyone who didn't immediately jump to the same evidence-free conclusion. Evidence? Evidence is for fools! Go with your most dramatic and conspiratorial gut guess, it's never ever ever ever wrong!"

You left out sarcasm, like the genius in the post above this one. Still no evidence, still a bunch of empty handwaving conspiracy bullshit, still dumber than dumb, but now with added *Sarcasm* and that makes it all TRUE.

You'll never convince a troofer not to be a troofer, for the same reason you'll never convince a $cientologist not to be a $cientologist.

carractacus potts


Errm!

26.08.2011 15:25

"You left out sarcasm, like the genius in the post above this one. Still no evidence, still a bunch of empty handwaving conspiracy bullshit, still dumber than dumb, but now with added *Sarcasm* and that makes it all TRUE.

You'll never convince a troofer not to be a troofer, for the same reason you'll never convince a $cientologist not to be a $cientologist."

And by that argument, you will never change worldwide public opinion, the majority of which are not in agreement with the US government 'narrative'!

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_opinion_polls

Exactly what is your point?

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex.


ha!

26.08.2011 16:02

Ah, the famously flawed Zogby polls, whored out by the famously inaccurate Wikipedia. But for a troofer, that's the kind of thing that passes for evidence.

not fooled


Dum de dum.

26.08.2011 17:02

"Ah, the famously flawed Zogby polls, whored out by the famously inaccurate Wikipedia. But for a troofer, that's the kind of thing that passes for evidence."

Oh well, so much for the pursuit of evidence then!

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex


give it a try

26.08.2011 18:25

All right, let's try real evidence.

What did Larry Silverstein actually say about WTC 7? Give the full paragraph, not just the single word "pull" yanked from context.

alimentary my dear wheatbridge


Pull it all down.

26.08.2011 18:55

"What did Larry Silverstein actually say about WTC 7? Give the full paragraph, not just the single word "pull" yanked from context."

Here you go, have it in glorious video.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

And have this too, Just so you get an idea of just how tasteless and 'off-message' Mr Silverstein's ilk are.

 http://vigilantcitizen.com/sinistersites/top-5-worst-911-memorials/

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex


Yawn....

26.08.2011 19:48

Ten years on and the 'truthers' are still parroting the same old nonsense, with the same old reductionist claim that if you do not support their evidence free assertions you are somehow a supporter of the subsequent wars. I never supported either the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, but I still think that 9/11 was NOT an inside job. No room for me it seems in the dualistc truther weltanschauung. The truthers have nothing:

 http://forums.randi.org/local_links.php?catid=18

Kindly take your evidence free, poorly researched, claims over to the JREF forums if you think you have a case:

 http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64

...or perhaps spend some of that money the movement makes from selling DVDs to credulous idiots to actually bring a prosecution. If you think your evidence stacks up, instead of funding people like Richard Gage to swan around the globe with his laughable 'cardboard box' explanation of the collapse of the twin towers, why not present your evidence in a court of law, eh? Why are so many structural engineers around the globe, even in areas who hate the US, so reluctant to back your assertions?

And what exactly does a public opinion poll prove about the veracity of the claims made? I am sure many people beleive in Creationism...does not make it any less bollocks.

its utter shite mate... you are just embarrassing yourself.

Another skeptic


Dum de dum, again!

26.08.2011 21:53

"Ten years on and the 'truthers' are still parroting the same old nonsense, with the same old reductionist claim that if you do not support their evidence free assertions you are somehow a supporter of the subsequent wars. I never supported either the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq, but I still think that 9/11 was NOT an inside job. No room for me it seems in the dualistc truther weltanschauung. The truthers have nothing:"

I was in my car working on the day of 9/11 listening to the radio all day and I remember that late in the day, some local radio station said that there was another building that was badly damaged in New York and that local emergency service workers were going to have to demolish it. An hour later they reported that it had been demolished. Didn't think anything of it on the day, given what else had happened but years later when the whole WTC7 thing got going, I realised that WTC7 was the building that local newscaster was reporting on. For years I thought they had demolished another building on the day and that it just got lost as a story in amongst the drama.

Then I started seeing the whole WTC7 thing from anew. I never twigged at the time something was wrong. How the hell do you bring a building of that size down in just a few hours, without any equipment, using people who aren't trained and without any advance notice? It takes weeks of prepping to do that normally.

Then one day I had a look on the internet between jobs and had a good long look at this demolition and thought yeah, makes sense. Nothing wrong with that, until I started looking at not the 'troofers' or their dopplegangers the 'debunkers' but the official account from the US government enquiry.

They said it just collapsed because it was too damaged to stay standing. Lots of explanations about why it went down chief among them fire damage. But I've been to building fires. I know what a building looks like when its on fire. I've stood for hours with others watching the fire, the smoke, the debri, the sounds, smelling the smells. I've come home reaking of smoke (takes days for it to disappear from your clothing). And the problem is buildings do collapse from fire, they even topple over. But they don't suddenly drop to the floor like a stone. That never happens. Not from fire damage.

BUT, maybe the newscaster gone it wrong on the day. Maybe in the confusion everybody ends up being a moron. Maybe the conspiracy addicts just got carried away in the momentum of it all. Maybe that building just happens to be the first to do that. Maybe it was a one off, unlikely but proving that this sort of thing isn't impossible. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

And its those maybe's that add up to something that deserves a lot more attention than it has so far warranted. SO, an investigation should take place into why this building seems to have taken on a life of its own and behaved in a way that appears to be completely at odds with normal convention and its design. An investigation is warrented because when large structures that house lots of people do things that are not supposed to happen, then the public interest demands that this 'oddity' should be fully and competently investigated to get to the bottom of it all.

There has been an investigation, but that took place in a manner that reaked of stupidity at a time when an awful lot of people were exercising their own political agenda's. Not the best environment from which to start anything in which you demand long-lasting and competent answers.

So, The fact that none of these things have happened, combined with the outstanding safety threat that continues to exist in buildings of that type of design, in an environment which is neither safe, or conducive to proper investigation, leads me to suspect terminal wrong-doing...of the US government. And public opinion that you casually dismiss as unimportant and untrustworthy, will continue to stand head and shoulders above those who continue to stand in the way of proper investigation of what is clearly an ongoing threat to the public safety.

You know something, I never have been able to dig up a copy of that local radio broadcast. Have never been able to remember what station it was. So I guess this is the point where you fling yourself about in a fit of 'hand waiving', 'cognitive dissonance' stroppy accusations and triumphantly declare the lack of evidence proves that you were right all along and there's nothing to worry about. Lets all go home and back to sleep!

And so we are back to square one. Public opinion which continues to build to a deafening crescendo, without the evidence you claim is of such importance. I guess lots of other people have their own experiences and recollections that they can't match up with the suggested reality!

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex.


more empty truther assertions.

27.08.2011 00:27

"That never happens. Not from fire damage. "

You've seen every single building in the world ever destroyed by fire? That must have been very tiring. I'll bet it took almost your whole weekend, too.

You're aware, presumably, that the lower floors of the building were essentially a hollow shell built around an electrical distribution point?

sugar buzz


suspicions aren't facts

27.08.2011 00:29

'leads me to suspect terminal wrong-doing'

You poor dear thing, you.

the twain


Ahaa.

27.08.2011 01:46

"You're aware, presumably, that the lower floors of the building were essentially a hollow shell built around an electrical distribution point?"

And that spanned the entire length of the building did it? When that building dropped, from corner to corner it went down as one. If you can't see this, even with the evidence, then beleive me, there is nothing I can say to convince you otherwise. Nothing at all. Even if I were to stamp the truth on your forehead permanently in indelible ink, you would still wake every morning convinced it wasn't true. It really isn't a surprise, that public opinion is what it is given what passes for argument in the debunker movement.

"You poor dear thing, you."

Excellent. That's the ticket.

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex.


If i am clever at writing sarcastic comments then i must be right

27.08.2011 10:14


We don't need evidence - we know it was an inside job in the same way we know that Allah is the only God. Evidence is for doubters who fail to follow their heart.

anon


Dum de dum de dum de dum!

27.08.2011 13:06

"We don't need evidence - we know it was an inside job in the same way we know that Allah is the only God. Evidence is for doubters who fail to follow their heart."

Yes dear, thats nice!

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex


where are the sharp minds?

27.08.2011 21:34

The less you watch TV, the less you are inclined to believe it. Television is a very weak way to get
a solid view of what's happening in the world. If the America-lovers on this thread all watch TV, then you can see why they get so upset when someone challenges them.

No one touched the main points of invisible me's post: Americans are afraid of the truth, they believe
in myths, they get angry when someone else has a different opinion. Exactly what I'm seeing here.

Little boys, it's a lovely summer day. You'd do better to play outside than ruin what could be a mature
discussion.

juliana


could you repeat that

28.08.2011 02:25

Sorry, couldn't quite catch that over the overwhelming noise of your roaring condescension.

err?


beam me up, mote

28.08.2011 15:26

'No one touched the main points of invisible me's post: Americans are afraid of the truth, they believe in myths, they get angry when someone else has a different opinion. Exactly what I'm seeing here.'

Brush just a bit broad, innit? Last time I looked about, the UK had no great shortage of those afraid of the truth, believing myths, and getting angry when disagreed with. But there's a rather serious motes and beams issue going on here, isn't there.

fuller brush


you're right

29.08.2011 00:16

Does anybody get angrier when disagreed with than an Indymedia UK editor?

case in point


what a joke peolple are

29.08.2011 00:26

> Yes dear, thats nice!
> Jeremy Forsythe-Platex

> Little boys, it's a lovely summer day. You'd do better to play outside than ruin what could be a mature discussion.
juliana


lol! Is that the best you two have got!? You clearly don't have a let to stand on lol!
Checkmate, done and dusted. What a pair of losers. They always say losers stick together.
Pathetic. Like a pair of small children who need their bottoms rubbing by mummy.... need someone to tell them is special and different to everyone elses.

anon


and now, actual facts

30.08.2011 14:55

Here's the actual Larry Silverstein quote:

"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 then we watched the building collapse."

The "it" is the fire control in WTC 7; by this time everyone knew that NYFD had suffered huge losses, and Silverstein, having just been told that the fire in WTC 7 was edging out of control, is saying the firemen should get out, that they should pull the fire and rescue team. That ended up being the right move, given that the building collapsed later that afternoon. Instead of being killed like so many firefighters in the falls of WTC 1 and 2, they watched the building collapse from the *outside.*

It's very straightforward - unless you're someone like Jeremy Suspenders-Bra, in which case Silverstein means, "They told me the fire was edging out of control, and there was so much death and destruction that I told the Fire Department that they should demolish another building as part of the Very Very Secret White House Conspiracy. IRON CLAD PROOF! IT'S BRILLIANT! Yah, that's what my neighbor's dog said to me as I was watching WTC 7 fall. Well, actually, he said 'Goats and monkeys! Chaos reigns! Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion!' but I took that to mean '9/11 was in inside job. And so was the moon landing.'"

realitysville


!!!

30.08.2011 17:31

"It's very straightforward - unless you're someone like Jeremy Suspenders-Bra, in which case Silverstein means, "They told me the fire was edging out of control, and there was so much death and destruction that I told the Fire Department that they should demolish another building as part of the Very Very Secret White House Conspiracy. IRON CLAD PROOF! IT'S BRILLIANT! Yah, that's what my neighbor's dog said to me as I was watching WTC 7 fall. Well, actually, he said 'Goats and monkeys! Chaos reigns! Vengeance! Plague! Death! Confusion!' but I took that to mean '9/11 was in inside job. And so was the moon landing.'"

Its very straightforward if everybody agrees with you. But if everybody agreed with you, you would hardly be here...would you?

Jeremy Forsythe-Platex.


Have We Learned Anything?

30.08.2011 17:57

NO-ONE in Iraq knew anything about it -FACT
NO-ONE in Afganistan knew anything about it -FACT
NO-ONE in Saudi Arabia knew anything about it -FACT
NO-ONE in Iran knew anything about it -FACT
NO-ONE in Libya knew anything about it -FACT

"Media tart" Bin Laden was aided & protected by the ISI.
Who are THEY in league with?


RE:I don't think anyone has tried to claim that Iraq was linked to 9/11.
65% of American were lead to believe it! Down with fox news extreme bullshit!

R!