9-11 was an inside job

[MaineShark]

Why not read the governments OFFICIAL report entitled The Commisission Report?

'Cause I'm not inclined to care what government officials have to say...

Then ask yourself what was not addressed and then ask yourself why these very important aspects were not mentioned and/or avoided.

For the purposes erisian and I just mentioned: to foster conspiracy theories that discredit the conspiracy theorists and distract the public from the real causes by sending them off on wild goose chases after non-existent demolitions charges, rather than considering how simple it is for terrorists (government-sponsored or otherwise) to hijack planes and use them as weapons, all because the passengers have been forcibly disarmed.  Wouldn't want folks debating the merits of armed vs disarmed passengers, would we?  They might imagine that they could take responsibility for their own safety, if they thought about that...

Joe

[Insurgent]

Rather than getting side-tracked on these arguments, I would encourage interested parties to consider and argue against hard evidence presented in this book:

http://www.amazon.com/crossing-rubicon-decline-american-empire/dp/0865715408/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-1699780-7931955?ie=utf8&s=books&qid=1181355909&sr=8-1

This is a detective story that gets to the innermost core of the 9/11 attacks. It places 9/11 at the center of a desperate new America, created by specific, named individuals in preparation for Peak Oil: an economic crisis like nothing the world has ever seen. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon discovers and identifies the key suspects and persons of interest - finding some of them in the highest echelons of American government - by showing how they acted in concert to guarantee that the attacks occurred and produced the desired result.

Crossing the Rubicon is unique not only for its case-breaking examination of 9/11, but for the breadth and depth of its world picture-an interdisciplinary analysis of petroleum, geopolitics, narcotraffic, intelligence and militarism-without which 9/11 cannot be understood. The US manufacturing sector has been mostly replaced by speculation on financial data whose underlying economic reality is a dark secret. Hundreds of billions of dollars in laundered drug money flow through Wall Street each year from opium and coca fields maintained by CIA-sponsored warlords and US-backed covert paramilitary violence.

America's global dominance depends on a continually turning mill of guns, drugs, oil and money. Oil and natural gas-the fuels that make economic growth possible-are subsidized by American military force and foreign lending. In reality, 9/11 and the resulting "war on terror" are parts of a massive authoritarian response to an emerging economic crisis of unprecedented scale.

Peak Oil-the beginning of the end for our industrial civilization-is driving the elites of American power to implement unthinkably draconian measures of repression, warfare and population control. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which, together and alone, we are all now making our way.

"In this book the author makes several key points:

1. I name Vice President Richard Cheney as the prime suspect in the mass murders of 9/11 and will establish that, not only was he a planner in the attacks, but also that on the day of the attacks he was running a completely separate Command, Control and Communications system which was superceding any orders being issued by the FAA, the Pentagon, or the White House Situation Room;

2. I establish conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order, Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping NORAD drills -- some involving hijack simulations -- taking place on that day.

3. I demonstrate that the TRIPOD II exercise being set up on Sept. 10th in Manhattan was directly connected to Cheney's role in the above.

4. I also prove conclusively that a number of public officials, at the national and New York City levels, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, were aware that flight 175 was en route to lower Manhattan for 20 minutes and did nothing to order the evacuation of, or warn the occupants of the South Tower. One military officer was forced to leave his post in the middle of the attacks and place a private call to his brother - who worked at the WTC - warning him to get out. That was because no other part of the system was taking action.

5. I also show that the Israeli and British governments acted as partners with the highest levels of the American government to help in the preparation and, very possibly, the actual execution of the attacks."

"There is more reason to be afraid of not facing the evidence in this book than of facing what is in it."

"Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" written by Michael C Ruppert

More original articles and timelines at www.FromTheWilderness.com

[ThePug]

Comparing WTC 7 to the other buildings is a bit disingenuous- WTC 7 had 5x the weight on top of the damage.

As for why it fell so fast once the collapse started- that's how collapses work. The initial failing puts more load on the remaining supports, which are close to the breaking point already. They go, and put even more weight on the remaining supports, etc., etc., The whole process only takes a second or two. In fact, most modern buildings are specifically designed to collapse on their footprint if they collapse. That's what happened with the main towers.

Also, I'd like to point out that finding a flaw in the "official" explanation does not prove a conspiracy. There's a lot of false duality thinking going on here, either the government's explanation was 100% accurate in every last structural detail, or the whole thing was a conspiracy. That's not a rational thought process. The supposed conspiracies "exposed" by these supposed "flaws" are all so convoluted and illogical that even if the supposed flaw is correct, government incompetence is still a thousand times more likely an explanation than a conspiracy.

For example- why would they rig the buildings to explode and then fly planes into the buildings? Wouldn't it have been so much easier to just hit it with massive truck bombs? No need for complicated demolitions, no complicated plots to fake the deaths of four airplanes' loads of passengers. No need to "hide" the wreckage in Pennsylvania (which did nothing to further any supposed government conspiracy anyway). Also seems to me like the power-grabbers would be a lot happier to clamp down on the roads than the airports, which they already had de facto unlimited control over.

Pointing out flaws in the "official" explanation proves nothing more than, at most, what we already know- that the government is a bunch of incompetent boobs who shouldn't have been trusted to analyze the structural details of what happened to the World Trade Center.

[alohamonkey]

Comparing WTC 7 to the other buildings is a bit disingenuous- WTC 7 had 5x the weight on top of the damage.

As for why it fell so fast once the collapse started- that's how collapses work.

If you have proof and/or examples of other steel buildings that have collapsed in this manner due to fire damage, please provide.  I would love to see it and it would help settle this dispute. 

Also, I never said anything about 9/11 being a conspiracy orchestrated by the government.  All I know is that there are alot of unanswered questions and I would like to see a new, independent investigation.  Just this morning, NPR was interviewing a guy (I'm sorry but I forget his name, I'll try to find it) from the Congressional Oversight Committee. The Congressional Oversight Committee will be interviewing Michael Hayden (Director of the C.I.A.) today about the videotapes of interrogations at Guantanamo that the C.I.A. destroyed.  The individual that NPR was interviewing said that it is very difficult to oversee the intelligence agencies and referred to the 9/11 Commission that he participated in . . . he said they were stonewalled left and right from getting the information that they needed to in order to discern what occurred on 9/11.  In one instance, he said they were trying to subpoena a witness to testify before the 9/11 Commission but the FBI refused to serve the subpoena - they were stonewalled because the witness was in FBI custody.  They were the only ones who could serve the subpoena and they refused to.  I also saw this article yesterday:

http://www.depauw.edu/news/index.asp?id=20521

When you see individuals or groups acting cagey like this (especially in relation to something as tragic to our country as 9/11), it makes me want to find out what they are hiding.  I'm not naive enough to think that I will ever know all the answers but at least I can be more informed than the general populace.

In the meantime, I'm done with this argument.  It's too easy to get stuck arguing about the intricacies of trusses and beams and, unless I'm wrong, none of us are structural engineers that have built a steel building similar to WTC 7.  So, it comes down to which experts you want to believe.  I appreciate your points of views.  I think some of us will have to agree to disagree though.

[MaineShark]

In the meantime, I'm done with this argument.  It's too easy to get stuck arguing about the intricacies of trusses and beams and, unless I'm wrong, none of us are structural engineers that have built a steel building similar to WTC 7.  So, it comes down to which experts you want to believe.  I appreciate your points of views.  I think some of us will have to agree to disagree though.

There's nothing intricate about it.  Shear a bunch of support members, putting the others under more load, then heat them to soften teh steel, and the building collapses.  Pretty basic.

I haven't seen any experts claiming that anything was amiss with the collapses.  Lots of conspiracy loons, but no experts.

I mean, even if the building fell faster than it theoretically should, given its structure (not something I'm actually suggesting), wouldn't incompetent construction be a more reasonable explanation than a massive conspiracy to place demolitions charges?

If you insist on a conspiracy, wouldn't one to hijack planes and crash them be more reasonable than one involving many thousands of people?  Y'all can include Cheney or whomever else you like as the orchestrator, if that pleases you...

Joe

[jaqeboy]

WTC7 collapsed from the massive structural damage and subsequent fire that resulted from being practically directly underneath the collapse of two of the largest buildings in the world.

Building 7 was almost a block away from the twin towers. A dozen other buildings were either closer, or roughly as close, to the twin towers. They did not collapse.

It was aprox. 100 meters from the base of the nearest tower. As has been pointed out, the towers were aprox. 450 meters tall. The entire complex was built on a single basement.
...

WTC 7 was outside the "bathtub" (common basement), I believe, but I can check. I don't think it is relevant to the collapse mechanism, though.

[ThePug]

Comparing WTC 7 to the other buildings is a bit disingenuous- WTC 7 had 5x the weight on top of the damage.

As for why it fell so fast once the collapse started- that's how collapses work.

If you have proof and/or examples of other steel buildings that have collapsed in this manner due to fire damage, please provide.  I would love to see it and it would help settle this dispute. 

Show me an example of any other building of similar design (not just any ol' "steel building", that's a pretty wide category) that suffered a roughly equivalent amount of simultaneous structural and fire damage.

The fact is that the scenario was so unique that comparisons are of little value, and the lack of a valid comparison proves nothing.

Also, I never said anything about 9/11 being a conspiracy orchestrated by the government.

Fair enough. That's usually how the argument goes, though. "I found X,Y, and Z alleged flaws in the government's explanation, therefore the whole thing was a government conspiracy!"

When you see individuals or groups acting cagey like this (especially in relation to something as tragic to our country as 9/11), it makes me want to find out what they are hiding.

They're hiding the obvious- the details of their own failure, their own incompetence. Any organization that's as naturally secretive as the CIA and FBI is going to resist having a spotlight put on their internal operations, particularly if that spotlight focuses on the detail of their most massive failure in recent history, if not ever. I wouldn't be surprised to find if there were some other sleazy things (sleazy as in corruption, fraud, etc., not secretive conspiracies) that they were worried about having made public, too.

In other words, their reaction was perfectly predictable given what we already know about the nature of government bureaucracies, without the government being behind 9/11.

In the meantime, I'm done with this argument.  It's too easy to get stuck arguing about the intricacies of trusses and beams and, unless I'm wrong, none of us are structural engineers that have built a steel building similar to WTC 7.  So, it comes down to which experts you want to believe.  I appreciate your points of views.  I think some of us will have to agree to disagree though.

Sounds remarkably similar to the creationist apologists. They have plenty of "experts", too. Doesn't mean there's any serious contention on the subject amongst actual, non ideologically driven experts.

WTC 7 was outside the "bathtub" (common basement), I believe, but I can check. I don't think it is relevant to the collapse mechanism, though.

Ah, it's possible. But as far as I know you're right that it had little to do with the collapse. That had more to do with having several hundred thousand tons of burning skyscraper bits crashing into the broad side of the building.

[jaqeboy]

WTC7 collapsed from the massive structural damage and subsequent fire that resulted from being practically directly underneath the collapse of two of the largest buildings in the world.

Building 7 was almost a block away from the twin towers. A dozen other buildings were either closer, or roughly as close, to the twin towers. They did not collapse.

It was aprox. 100 meters from the base of the nearest tower. As has been pointed out, the towers were aprox. 450 meters tall. The entire complex was built on a single basement.
...

WTC 7 was outside the "bathtub" (common basement), I believe, but I can check. I don't think it is relevant to the collapse mechanism, though.

OK, verified. WTC7 was outside the bathtub, across Vesey Street. It was built later (1984) than the main part of the complex (first occupied: 1970-1972), which was over "the bathtub" common basement.

See this article with illustrations in The Bridge (p.11), by George J. Tamaro (the engineer who oversaw the construction of the bathtub), "World Trade Center Bathtub; From Genesis to Armageddon".

There is also an article in the same issue on p.5 by Leslie Robertson, the lead structural engineer on the towers in which he mentions some details about the considerations of aircraft collisions.

I've got to read all the articles in that issue - it's published by the NAE, National Academy of Engineers (I had never heard of them), a sister group to the National Academy of Sciences, both missioned to advise the U.S.

[jaqeboy]

Buildings 4, 5, and 6 were essentially crushed and buried by the towers collapsing. There wasn't much left to "fall".

WTC 5 and 6 suffered much more damage and had the Twin Towers collapse on top of them . . . but they didn't fall. 

WTC 5 did collapse from fire damage.

This doesn't seem to be verified by other sources. No one else claims this building "completely" (not your words, just implied) collapsed from fire damage - there were portions of the building that were found (by FEMA) to have had failure due to fire damage. The building had to be demolished later to bring it down.

Wikipedia article on the World Trade Center as a quick first read: "4 World Trade Center (4 WTC), 5 World Trade Center (5 WTC), and 6 World Trade Center (6 WTC) were damaged beyond repair and later demolished."

Wikipedia article on 5 World Trade Center:

Damage resulting from 2001 attack

Floors 4 through 9 suffered partial collapse and/or fire damage. Floors 1-3 were undamaged. Some of the collapse was due to impact from steel and debris from World Trade Center 1 (North Tower). Other collapsed sections were due to fire damage. Portions of internal collapse and burnout were found on upper floors, mainly floors 6-8. The exterior facade suffered severe fire damage. The upper floors (5-9) were on fire after the second tower collapse.

The last standing section of 5 WTC was removed by January 2002.

[edit] Structural analysis

The FEMA/ASCE Building Performance Study Team team found that some connections between the structural steel beams failed in the fire. This was most apparent in the collapse of World Trade Center Building 5, where the fireproofing did not protect the connections, causing the structure to fail.[1]

This IS where the controversy lies, however. The agencies and their findings ARE in question, and by architects and engineers, such as Richard Gage's group ae911truth.org, among many others - they are suspected by many of acting politically and being part of "creating the public myth", as Phillip Zelikow says is his job. Hence the need for independent researchers to get to the truth, such as guys like Richard Gage. And, btw, he is coming to Keene State College on Thursday, and no, I haven't read the whole FEMA report or the whole NIST report, but I believe Richard Gage has, since he mentions the specific flaws in each in his presentation. Well worth the trip over to Keene, or if you aren't local, you can find presentations that are scheduled at the ae911truth.org site.

Gage explains that partial damage (such as in WTC5) due to fire is consistent with the expected damage pattern from fires - asymmetrical damage and the fire zone travels as the fuel is consumed. Richard's presentation fills in a lot of information about comparative damage profiles, ie, the difference in damage and visual evidence that occurs in earthquakes, fires and controlled demolitions - it's a very compelling presentation.

[jaqeboy]

That had more to do with having several hundred thousand tons of burning skyscraper bits crashing into the broad side of the building.

Where did you come up with that figure of "several hundred thousand tons" of burning skyscraper crashing into WTC7? Every picture I have seen of it shows minimal damage (a few broken windows) to that side and no huge pile of debris in front of it.

Given that the owner of the building publicly stated the building was demolished, I think that is a much more plausible explanation.

I'm with loa on this one. I haven't yet seen clear evidence of this massive damage you claim occurred there, though mvpel claims to have clear pictures of it and I have heard there are pictures that show no evidence of it - haven't seen either of these, but would love to see either. The things we have all seen are the aerial shots from above after the collapse and the towers' debris fields seem to stop short of significant impact on WTC7. I'll dig up a couple of good ones for ya, but the straight-on clear shots of damage (or none) to the south face (Vesey Street) are not out there (please post them if I'm wrong).

NIST is supposed to have bought up every still and video shot they can find for their report, which is due to be published any day - hope to see them come up with something that clarifies things a bit.

I can't recommend highly enough that you go see Richard Gage, though - ask him pointed questions in person, hang out with him later and really dig deep into what he knows and why he concludes demo was the mode of collapse for WTC7 - he's accessible.

[jaqeboy]

Here's a link to a hi-res pic of the rubble pile taken from 3300 ft., but I don't think this is what we want because it was taken 12 days later and they appear to have cleared some rubble out of Vesey street already.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/wtc7pile3.html

I know the pic is out there taken probly on the 12th - I think the ones I'm thinking of are from NOAA.

[jaqeboy]

This is a link to an overall shot, again from NOAA, on 23 September, probably the same shot as the previous. I thought there were some good ones from the 12th, but I don't find them quickly:

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/gzaerial3.html

[alohamonkey]

Show me an example of any other building of similar design (not just any ol' "steel building", that's a pretty wide category) that suffered a roughly equivalent amount of simultaneous structural and fire damage.

The fact is that the scenario was so unique that comparisons are of little value, and the lack of a valid comparison proves nothing.

I've already shown you two buildings that suffered worse damage and didn't collapse - WTC 5 and WTC 6. 

How about this one?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=th2bnG_7UyY

Here's some additional footage showing the extent of the damage done to WTC 5:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qnGt7Bd5sNo

[KBCraig]

I've already shown you two buildings that suffered worse damage and didn't collapse - WTC 5 and WTC 6.

Neither of which was even vaguely similar to WTC 7, so your "example" is meaningless.

[alohamonkey]

I've already shown you two buildings that suffered worse damage and didn't collapse - WTC 5 and WTC 6.

Neither of which was even vaguely similar to WTC 7, so your "example" is meaningless.

meaning what?  they didn't have rubble from the twin towers fall on them?  they didn't catch on fire and burn all day on 9/11?

or . . . they don't fit into your idea of what happened so you just choose to ignore them?