911

[Michael Fisher]

Perhaps the ultimate test is "cui bono", Latin for "who benefits?"

I never believed in the "oil conspiracy" before, but here's one interesting fact: anyone who invested in oil in 2001, like many in the administration probably did, is now filthy stinckin' rich due to the energy prices skyrocketing to record levels after the war in Iraq.

[KBCraig]

36% of Americans now believe that the government is complicit in 9/11.  (50% also believe there were WMD's in Iraq, which shoots the truth-is-well-known theory in the foot).

I doubt that 50% of the American public can tell you the vice president's name, and getting 36% to name two or more cabinet members is highly unlikely.

So, when surveys report 36% believe the government is complicit, you can bet that they're not basing that on any study of the events, only their distrust of government. They believe the government is evil enough to have been complicit (so do I!). But they don't really have a basis for believing the government was involved.

Kevin

[tracysaboe]

I don't know what the government knew and when it knew it, but my dad's a pilot and I do know that planes flying outside their flight plans are scrambled by jet fighters from NORAD.  This did not happen on 9/11.  Reports of deviations from flight plans were not made in a timely manner to NORAD, NORAD dilly-dallied before dispatching, and when it did dispatch, its planes failed to intercept.  Massive government failure to do its constitutional duty -- and no one, but no one lost their job over it.

That's my main thing. Government didn't follow protocal at all.

On the other hand . . . . . What's new?
Conspiracy? or Incompetence? My guess is a little of both.
Tracy

[tracysaboe]

36% of Americans now believe that the government is complicit in 9/11.  (50% also believe there were WMD's in Iraq, which shoots the truth-is-well-known theory in the foot).

I doubt that 50% of the American public can tell you the vice president's name, and getting 36% to name two or more cabinet members is highly unlikely.

So, when surveys report 36% believe the government is complicit, you can bet that they're not basing that on any study of the events, only their distrust of government. They believe the government is evil enough to have been complicit (so do I!). But they don't really have a basis for believing the government was involved.

Kevin

70% or better still think Sudam had something to do with 9/11. Kevin's right. You can't dicsern truth from a pole.

Tracy

[lildog]

Ok, everyone is mixing up theories now?

Iraq, 9-11, WMDs etc All different.

My first comment is to ?just anonymous?, I don?t see a peaceful discussion as an argument.  As long as everyone keeps civil this can be an enjoyable conversation for both sides.  Two people who like each other very much can still disagree and sit down over a beer for a peaceful discussion.  Trust me, as a Yankee fan in Boston country I know this for fact.

Any rate, regarding 9-11, why don?t we start listing facts and see which facts we can all agree on? then if the facts leave a door open for conspiracy theories we can discuss that but it?s always best to agree on facts first.

36% of Americans now believe that the government is complicit in 9/11.  (50% also believe there were WMD's in Iraq, which shoots the truth-is-well-known theory in the foot).

It is incorrect statements such as the one here that usually transfer themselves into ?facts? used by conspiracy theorists.

Look at the data behind the 9-11 poll.  36% believe the country knew in advance that 9-11 was going to happen.  But that includes all of those who thing the government had all the facts but couldn?t connect the dots or may have known the major details such as airplanes would be used but didn?t know the when or how.  Under any rate, if you look close at the data only 8% actually believe the government was involved in 9-11.

As for WMDs in Iraq, we had a conversation about that on the Merrimack forum you may way to check out.

There was a left leaning posts who stated point blank that Iraq did not have WMDs period.  It was pointed out that they used them in the first gulf war.  He then changed his argument to say they didn?t have any after the first gulf war as they were all destroyed.  It was then pointed out that sarin gas was used in a shell in 2003, which injured a couple American soldiers.  Reply was, yes but that was left over from the first gulf war.  When questioned how could that be since he first argued they were all destroyed the left leaning poster could not reply.  When asked if Iraq had WMDs left over or otherwise the left leaning poster again could not reply.  The reason was YES Iraq had WMDs.  The argument is what quantities did they have and to what derogation level were the, not were they there or not because we know they were.

As for Iraq/ 911 links? Well a court of law, over seen by a Clinton appointed judge also confirmed that?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/05/08/uttm/main552868.shtml

?A federal judge Wednesday ordered Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and others to pay early $104 million to the families of two Sept. 11 victims, saying there is evidence ? though meager - that Iraq had a hand in the terrorist attacks.?

So shall we begin looking at the facts regarding 911?  Please by all means list them out and we can disconcert what is fact and what is fiction then look at what they point too as being plausible.

[felix.benner]

"Any rate, regarding 9-11, why don?t we start listing facts and see which facts we can all agree on? then if the facts leave a door open for conspiracy theories we can discuss that but it?s always best to agree on facts first."

That's the only way to go ... I start with:

1. There were no signs of a plane at the impact site of the pentagon nor were there signs on the lawn before the pentagon that a plane has approached nor were there eyewitnesses seeing a plane approaching the pentagon. Short: The plane hitting the pentagon has been reported to have started and then only the government knew somehow it hit the pentagon.

2. building 7 has been taken down without connection to the plane crashes.

3. The debris of the twin towers has been removed without thorough examination.

4. The terrorists have been reported to be lousy pilots.

5. There was this official military paper that talked about a "second Pearl Harbor".

[tracysaboe]

Read the FACTS in the PDF I posted.

Unfortunitly I can't copy and paist PDF files or I'd paist it here.

Tracy

[KBCraig]

1. There were no signs of a plane at the impact site of the pentagon nor were there signs on the lawn before the pentagon that a plane has approached nor were there eyewitnesses seeing a plane approaching the pentagon.

Well, yes... except for the photographic evidence of plane wreckage on the Pentagon law, and the testimony of eyewitnesses that they saw the plane hit.

2. building 7 has been taken down without connection to the plane crashes.

...other than a quarter of the front of the building being destroyed when the towers collapsed.

3. The debris of the twin towers has been removed without thorough examination.

How do you "thoroughly examine" millions of cubic yards of rubble and debris? The conveyor belts and sifter and hundreds of people combing through for human remains in a gross examination was difficult enough.

4. The terrorists have been reported to be lousy pilots.

...and? The hard part of flying is landing, something they weren't concerned with. Pointing a plane and firewalling the throttles just isn't that hard.

I accept that they were bad pilots: one of the planes almost missed the target tower, and was banking hard just to hit it. If it was truly an expert pilot, he did a good job of imitating a bad one. Skeptics also point to the radar track showing the convoluted path of Flight 77, and claim that only an expert pilot could fly so badly. But wait... that was a missile, wasn't it?

I don't like looking like an apologist for the government, because I'm not. The "official" version is undoubtedly full of BS. All the answers and identities came too quickly, too easily, for the government to have not at least known there was a plan for this attack.

At the same time, I'm just as skeptical of the skeptics, who seem all too eager to believe anything, no matter how implausible, so long as it accuses the government of planning and executing the whole thing.

Seek truth. Challenge data. Accept facts. Be suspicious of everyone with an agenda, whether the agenda is proving the Al Quaeda attack, or proving the government attack.

Kevin

[felix.benner]

Those are good points. I think I'll have to look into it some more.

[lildog]

KBCraig already made good points debunking the issues already brought up so I wont repeat what he already said but I'll add two things.

First off, ignoring the photo evidence of plane debris around the pentagan and the number of eye witnesses who said they saw a plane and the fact NO eye witnesses reported seeing anything other then a plane, what exactly do you think could have happened to fight 77.  This leads back to my earlier statement about all these people who would have had to be in on this to pull it off.  There are a number of family members who lost loved ones from that flight.  Are they making it all up or is there some explination for where that plane went?

Secondly

3. The debris of the twin towers has been removed without thorough examination.

How do you "thoroughly examine" millions of cubic yards of rubble and debris? The conveyor belts and sifter and hundreds of people combing through for human remains in a gross examination was difficult enough.

Anyone who would make that comment about the debris not being searched clearly never saw the debris in question.

I was in NY city days after 9-11.  We aren't talking about a truckload or two... or 20 or 30.  We are talking dump trucks going in, getting filled then leaving multiple times per day for weeks.  Dozens per day.  The man power needed just to clear out the site alone was staggering and took months to complete.  And as you already pointed out they did have people sifting through looking for remains.

To "thoroughly" search the rubble would take years.

The question I have about this is, why?  What should they have been looking for?

[Just Anonymous]

Here's a partial list of items:
http://forum.soulawakenings.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=f98e931ab02dae339eb1c3ed15cc1bd1&topic=4880.msg86211#msg86211
They are based on the videos that I mentioned.


Regarding the list already mentioned, and a number of others, I wonder about the Pentegon.  I haven't personally studies the Pentegon issues in very much detail; however, the little I have seen has not been very convincing.  I could conceavable argue one way or the other on some points; in other words, the points trying to be made were not as clear cut to me personally when it came to the Pentegon.  On the other hand, I have found the evidence relating to the 3 WTC towers to be very compelling and easy to recognize almost immediately upon looking at it.  I'm not sure if others here are are the same way or not.  It may be that some people find certain types of evidence more convincing than others.

For example, arguments that talk about how people acted weird or did incriminating things don't usually don't mean as much to me (but they might to a person with a criminal investigtion mindset).  On the other hand, information that says, hey look at this, the official story would violate such and such scientific law according to the following evidence, is more convincing for me.
In the 9/11 truth movement, I suspect different people consider different evidence to be more convincing than others.

BTW, what would you all think about focusing on 1 and only 1 issue and studying it?
How about a study on the Bin Laden Tapes, where the 911 confession tape appears to not be Bin Laden?  Of course this topic does not prove as much as something like the 3 WTC towers evidence.  However, it is one of the easier aspects for us amateurs to study.  Or perhaps, we could choose a more difficult subject that would prove more.
Possible topics:
WTC towers (multiple issues)
WTC 7 (multiple issues)
Pentagon (?)
NORAD
Bin Laden tapes
Drills
3D modelling of the planes

[Braddogg]

I stand with Maddox:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=911_morons

A mock conversation between two shady conspirators:

-"Sir, all of the targets have been hit, but there may be an unforseen problem."
-"Oh?"
-"What if some college kid analyzes old news footage, zooms up on grainy video stills, and uncovers our entire plot by reading old, unclassified press releases and posts a video on the Internet, complete with spooky/mysterious-sounding music?"
-"GOD HELP US."

For a more mature, point-by-point debunking, go here: http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html

When I first saw the Loose Change video, I was convinced.  I bought it hook, line, and sinker.  I wanted it to be true, I wanted the government to be evil and to be the cause of that attrocity.  But, the more I watched it and the more I thought about it, the more insane it seemed.  Then I found the Loose Change Guide, and became a convinced skeptic of "9/11 Truth."

There have been so many 9/11 Truth threads that that link may have been posted elsewhere; if so, my apologies.

[Just Anonymous]

When I first saw the Loose Change video, I was convinced.  I bought it hook, line, and sinker.  I wanted it to be true, I wanted the government to be evil and to be the cause of that attrocity.  But, the more I watched it and the more I thought about it, the more insane it seemed.  Then I found the Loose Change Guide, and became a convinced skeptic of "9/11 Truth."

There have been so many 9/11 Truth threads that that link may have been posted elsewhere; if so, my apologies.

I tried watching Loose Change at least twice (maybe 3 times), but never could stand watching it for long.  Even when clips from Loose Cange come up in other videos, I try to skip.  Mostly it's because of the music, but of the little I did see, I do see how the video tries to make a big deal out of stuff that mean absolutely nothing -- like stuff falling off the building; don't know what it's supposed to imply.  I am still looking through that link you gave.  So far, a very very large majority of the points brought up are issues that I never considered key to 9/11.
One thing I learned:

What the various explosions reported would have to do with CD, I don't know. When you demolish a building with explosives, you set the charges to go off in a precise order at demolition time, not in a random fashion for nearly an hour. Some CTists have suggested that bombs were placed at different locations within the building.

That was a good point they made.

The metal was never tested. It could very well have been aluminum, which melts at less than half the temperature of steel.

The metal has now been tested.  It is not melted aluminum; besides, the metal was below all 3 towers (even WTC7 not hit by a plane).  Also, the metal shows signs of thermate (used to cut steel).  I think it is the 4th video which deals with this.

[Just Anonymous]

Just some note.  I didn't bother to mark which were quotes and which weren't:
The molten steel in the basement was more than double that temperature. Speculation that it's steel. Who measured that it was double the temperature? No one.
Video 2 shows where one sample temperature measurement was obtained (from a satellite or flyover or aerial it looks like).



The Twin Towers came down in nearly freefall speed.
No, they didn't.
There are measurements of at least one of the 3 buildings showing that it did fall at near free fall speed.  This is from 911eyewitness video.  I agree that the loose change angle is not good (if that's a true representation of the loose change video).


Cut to very brief shot of WTC 7 collapsing., approx. 5:20 p.m. on 9/11. South side (left in video still), where most of the fire and structural damage is, gives first. You can see the walls cracking at the top left of the building. Conspiracy buffs hate to show the other side of the building which shows smoke billowing out of nearly every visible floor. There was an enormous amount of fire in that building. Here's a quote from  FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro, who was calling the shots on the scene (quote not in video):
"The biggest decision we had to make was to clear the area and create a collapse zone around the severely damaged [WTC 7] building. A number of fire officers and companies assessed the damage to the building. The appraisals indicated that the building's integrity was in serious doubt." [Fire Engineering, 10/2002]
Think there wasn't an inferno in WTC 7? Click here.

but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.

Nice video. Good info.  Some notes: I see no fires; the smoke is dark but not exactly black, which I'm told when it is black it means the fire is going out.  The damage info is also worth consideration.
Still, fires do not bring down modern high rise steel buildings, so the only option is damage.  If it was a combination of fire and damage, and the hole was only on one side, then that would imply falling to one side.  Anyways, would need further investigation into this matter.

You know, I am really beginning to see how bad Loose Change is.  It's almost like it's there to discredit a lot of hard work some other 9/11 people have done, but I doubt that's true.  The guy has probably been around in the 9/11 movement for a long time and tried his best to contribute and make a real difference.  Still, it confirms that Loose Change should not be recommended to people; in fact, people should probably avoid watching it.



referring to the squibbs
And what in the world would be the point of exploding a few random charges on random floors? That's not how demolitions are done.

very good point

Yes. I'm sure it did sound that way. Is there evidence of a bomb?
good points


Fire was contained by fire dept. and sprinklers from floor 30 and up. Bldg was not damaged prior to fire. Fire protection coating was not blown off. Contributor kookbreaker writes,
"The Philadelphia fire LC mentions was the Meridian Building. The firefighting efforts were abandoned after 11 hours because the fire department feared (ta-dah) pancake collapse! The building was effectively destroyed in any case. It had a large net over it and had to be reinforced before it could be brought down!"
And that's damage caused by fire alone. Suppose it had also been hit by a 767 fully-loaded with fuel and flying at top speed?


definitely gotta look into



Straw man. Who said the steel melted? This shows just how unqualified Ryan is. A structural engineer or fire safety engineer would know better. The official explanation is that the steel in the floor trusses expanded and twisted, overstressing the connections between the joists and the columns. By the way, steel is white at melting point Red-hot is actually fairly cool as steel goes. Note on the graphic below that steel at less than half its melting point is down to less than one-fourth its strength.

good one
definitely a key point worth investigating

[KBCraig]

For a more mature, point-by-point debunking, go here: http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html

I wish he'd done a better job of cutting out the sarcastic remarks. But other than that, he did a good job of analyzing Loose Change.

I hadn't seen this one before, so thanks for posting it.

Kevin