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Griffin Seals Case for 9/11 WTC Demolition, Calls on NY Times to End Coverup

Dr. Kevin Barrett, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA | 19.10.2005 18:00 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Repression

In two speeches to overflow crowds in New York last weekend, notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."

On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a presentation entitled “The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out.” Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of the towers and WTC 7.

Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemen’s tapes which were recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by victim’s families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.

Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns. The towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could drop at free-fall speed. The massive core columns--the most significant structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them quickly before a real investigation could transpire. There was a volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust. The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs" following the path of the explosives downward. These are all facts that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

It’s important to note that Dr. Griffin is one of many prominent intellectuals--including the likes of Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Peter Dale Scott, Richard Falk, Paul Craig Roberts, Morgan Reynolds and Peter Phillips--who have seen through the major discrepancies of the official explanation of 9/11 and have risen to challenge it. These brave individuals represent the tip of an ever-growing iceberg of discreet 9/11 skeptics. Indeed, 9/11 skepticism appears to be almost universal among intellectuals who have examined the evidence, since there has not yet been a single serious attempt to refute the case developed by Dr. Griffin and such like-minded thinkers as Nafeez Ahmed and Mike Ruppert. As for the general public, polls have shown that a strong majority of Canadians (63%, Toronto Star, May '04) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) agree that top US leaders conspired to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01.

How, then, can the mainstream US media continue to ignore the story of the century? Perhaps the best answer was given by Dr. Griffin himself in the conclusion of his talk, and is worth quoting at length:

"The evidence for this conclusion (that 9/11 was an inside job) has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream press, perhaps under the guise of obeying President Bush’s advice not to tolerate “outrageous conspiracy theories.” We have seen, however, that it is the Bush administration’s conspiracy theory that is the outrageous one, because it is violently contradicted by numerous facts, including some basic laws of physics.  

   " There is, of course, another reason why the mainstream press has not pointed out these contradictions. As a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times said:

“The number of contradictions in the official version of . . . 9/11 is so overwhelming that . . . it simply cannot be believed. Yet . . . the official version cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of ‘X-Files’ proportions and insidiousness.”
 
"The implications are indeed disturbing. Many people who know or at least suspect the truth about 9/11 probably believe that revealing it would be so disturbing to the American psyche, the American form of government, and global stability that it is better to pretend to believe the official version. I would suggest, however, that any merit this argument may have had earlier has been overcome by more recent events and realizations. Far more devastating to the American psyche, the American form of government, and the world as a whole will be the continued rule of those who brought us 9/11, because the values reflected in that horrendous event have been reflected in the Bush administration’s lies to justify the attack on Iraq, its disregard for environmental science and the Bill of Rights, its criminal negligence both before and after Katrina, and now its apparent plan not only to weaponize space but also to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike.

   " In light of this situation and the facts discussed in this lecture---as well as dozens of more problems in the official account of 9/11 discussed elsewhere---I call on the New York Times to take the lead in finally exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11. Taking the lead on such a story will, of course, involve enormous risks. But if there is any news organization with the power, the prestige, and the credibility to break this story, it is the Times. It performed yeoman service in getting the 9/11 oral histories released. But now the welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed. I am calling on the Times to rise to the occasion.

Dr. Griffin’s speech given at the University of Wisconsin earlier this year, entitled “9/11 and the American Empire,” was broadcast twice on C-SPAN. In late September Dr. Griffin was asked to give expert testimony at hearings sponsored by Cynthia McKinney and the Congressional Black Caucus investigating the 9/11 Commission Report. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Claremont College in California.

This weekend's events were sponsored by NY911truth.org, WBAI and the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth:  http://mujca.com.

Dr. Kevin Barrett, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
- e-mail: Kevin Barrett
- Homepage: http://mujca.com

Comments

Hide the following 52 comments

i want the truth

20.10.2005 03:17

Unacceptable! Not a coverup is slime! U.S. get out of Iraq immediately. We've seen this before, in 1983 in Kabul, when 12,065 imprisoned baby seals were engulfed by the Moral Majority? BusHitler lied about that too! (Or is that supposed to be a secret?) I've had all I can take! The Liar-in-Chief's War Against Prescription Drugs must end now. If you ask me, I am not one of Tucker Carlson's outpost of blood-stained choirboys. The truth is at prochoicevegansforthebillofrights.org. You just don't get it, do you! Big Tobacco can intimidate untold millions of intersexed homeopathic atheists in Louisiana, all in the name of "free enterprise"? Logically, that makes it okay, then! (For that matter, I am being sarcastic. It is not okay, well.) Certainly, William Rehnquist is nothing but a tool of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Last time I checked, Son of a Bush caused hurricane Katrina by outing the unhappy prisoners in Beirut.

AVM


Ahem

20.10.2005 10:08

I thought the IMC sys ops deleted this kind of 911 conspiracy guff as a matter of course.

I mean, I could go to town on the crap being peddled by the conspiracy buffs on how buildings stand up, causes of collapse, and so on. Ask akward questions about how they managed to fool the hundreds of thousands of structural engineers and architects in the world. But what's the point? It's just giving the loons the oxygen of publicity.

Hide it, now, please.

Architect


Oh, ah, oh dear

20.10.2005 10:22

Fortunately for us (but not, I think, them) they have made their PowerPoint slideshow available on the net:

 http://www.ny911truth.org/Simplifying_9-11_files/frame.htm

I've read it twice this morning. It seems to me to be long on sweeping assertions (themselves worked from a Cui Bono perspective) and short on persuasive evidence, but draw you won conclusions.

Boab


... too easy ...

20.10.2005 12:10

How 'real' buildings behave
How 'real' buildings behave

... "conspiracy guff" ...

... "crap" ...

... "the loons" ...

Is this what passes for empirical rebuttal in architectural circles nowadays?

... "Hide it, now, please" ...

A bit reactionary innit?

If it is that bad, perhaps it should be easy for you to rip it to shreds?

Oh yeah ... "But what's the point? It's just giving the loons the oxygen of publicity"

Convienient!

Here is the opinion of a structural engineer, offerd soon after the event:

 http://www.abqjournal.com/news/aqvan09-11-01.htm

Whoops! Oh dear that article seems to be lost forever!!!

Just as well it remains here then:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/retractions/romero.html

A good run down of the demolition argument:

 http://www.rense.com/general67/9118.htm

... w/ a shed load of links too!

A depressingly familar set of exchanges regarding possible explosives in the towers:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/retractions/romero.html

... "…it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus [in America] on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat."

What?

Anyway, here is some data for all you budding strucural engineers out there:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/WTC_apndxD.htm

Some real structural engineers air their concerns:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/groundzero/urge_inquiry.html

An annotated discussion about possible reasons for the unprecidented failure:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/sciam01/sci_am1.html

Some more scientists get confused when faced with unassailable evidence of seismic disturbances BEFORE the initiation of collapse:

 http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian/WTC/Seismic/WTC_LDEO_KIM.htm

...

Gee, this is easy ... but I think that should be enough evidence of scientific uncertainty over the issue!





jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


i'd quite like the truth too

20.10.2005 13:03

Having looked at the powerpoint myself, I agree that there is no argument whatsoever made, instead there are a lot of claims of evidence existing which would contradict the official explanation. There are also, as boab says, lots of insinuations made using Cui Bono, or asking who benefits? This is not a form of argument which can conclusively prove anything, as a counter-example shows:

I want firewood.
The wooden building next door to me is demolished.
I now have lots of firewood, therefore I demolished the building.
(and before the logically illiterate loons reply, yes I know I could have demolished the building, but this is not proved by this form of argument)

However, Cui Bono arguments can be used to support other arguments, as is the case in detective work, when trying to establish who had means, motive and opportunity. Even proving these three does not mean you have found the killer, but a piling up of circumstantial evidence helps to prove a case 'beyond reasonable doubt' in court.

Many of the isolated pieces of 'evidence' summed up in the power point are fact. Others, I haven't seen or heard proof of myself. If firefighters did report that bombs were going off in the buidings immediately prior to the collapse, I would like to hear that evidence.

It seems almost certain that the Bush administration were aware of specific threats to use hijacked planes as missiles, and chose to ignore them. Likewise the involvement of Bin Laden, hence the moves to deflect investigation of him and the evacuation of his family due to 'embarrassing' commercial links to the Bush family empire. Similarly the extraordinary failure of the air defences over 1.5 hrs would appear to give credence to claims of something more than incompetence.

So I would suggest that we have at least a fairly convincing case of 'guilt by omission', they didn't try to stop things. Perhaps they didn't know that the targets would be so well chosen or the attacks so effective. I would also support calling for a re-investigation that was thorough and had access to FBI, CIA etc files. More than that seems to me to be stretching the available facts 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

anarchoteapot


really?

20.10.2005 13:29

Jack,

Just had a look at your seismic link. I didn't notice anybody getting that confused. The mapped the responses of different nearby seismic stations and concluded that the tremors set off by the collapses travelled at between 1.5 and 2.5 km/s. Perhaps I missed any indication of shock horror it's a conspiracy in the calm, logical scientific language. Could you heklp to explain where there are discrepancies in the data?

Seriously, I would like to know, and I'm a sociologist, not a seismologist. Two of my mates have PhDs and teach vulcanology, so they should be able to help me with anything you post...

anarchoteapot


A response

20.10.2005 13:36

JacksLucid,

Trying to drag us into a 911 debate are you? This is a newswire site.

Fire is the cause of collapse is not seriously doubted in architectural and structural engineering circles. I am a registered and chartered architect. You are not. I work on tall buildings. You do not. I am familiar with the effects of fire on structures. You are not. The links you give are all of questionable quality. Do not waste my time.

Architect


...and...

20.10.2005 14:09

The article where 'structural engineers air their concerns' just reports engineers wanting more money to investigate why/how the towers collapsed. i.e. the original investigation was crap, evidence destryed by recycling etc, and they want to learn lessons to prevent such catastrophic collapses in future. not a whiff of 'bombs did it', not even a hint.

gee, this is easy...just check the 'evidence' offered.

anarchoteapot


911

20.10.2005 14:12

What makes me laugh the most is the premis. That the US government needed 911 to get public opinion onside for a war.

Either they are honestly unaware that every war Aerica has ever fought has required no such effort - they have all been massively popular and almost always remain so.

Or they know this and are ignoring it for the purpose of God knows what, probably selling a few more of the moronic conspiracy DVDs.

Well at least they cant ever be accused of being unpatriotic. Of course 911 must have been done by their own government. Who else has the power. Surely not A-rabs. It must have been intelligent whites that did it.

Laughable.

Memory-Hole-Catchers-Mitt


Actually... WTC7 *is* odd...

20.10.2005 15:45

OK, so I'm a sceptical architect, I still think that the failure of the floor / column joints, weakened by fire and blown off fire protection could explain the twin tower coming down -- basically a domino effect... though I was very taken aback at the time...

But, WTC7 was not hit by an aircraft, was not a slender or old building (it went up in the 80's) -- the collapse of this building *is* odd...

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTC_7



PS See  http://crank.net/ for some really bonkers stuff...

Chris


... ok ...

20.10.2005 17:01

... I will take a little time to consider the requests made, questions asked and accusations leveled ...

This also is an interesting thread in which a lively debate is [possibly] getting somewhere:

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/10/325872.html

... the more the merrier ...

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


Reasonable doubt

20.10.2005 19:18

I don't have a conspiracy theory to peddle or any alternative explanation to offer about the events of 9/11. The simple fact of the matter is that I do not know who organised it or why.

I'm also not prone to "cui bono" speculation and have written extensively on the trouble you can get into once you start going down that path.

But I'm not in any way satisfied that the official explanation for the things we observed on 9/11 is credible. It is, of course, possible. But I don't think it's likely. I don't believe that every aspect of the official story is necessarily untrue, but nor do I believe that every aspect of it is true.

There are many elements to the events that are suspicious but two stand out for me:

1. Air defences.

It's a matter of record that the notification of air defences was massively delayed and did not go according to protocol. I have seen nothing to suggest that the US military (which I assume is well-resourced, well-trained and highly motivated) used their best efforts to handle a crisis situation. I refuse to speculate on why this may be so. But I remain to be convinced - beyond reasonable doubt, not beyond all doubt - that they tried their hardest.

2. Collapse of the WTC buildings.

The protestations of "Architect" are a retelling of the offical story that add nothing. I don't doubt his credentials, nor that the effects observed could have been caused by the damage those buildings ostensibly suffered.

But the collapses of the WTC buildings were, as far as I know, unprecedented. It's not a case of "fire could cause structural steel to collapse" - I accept that. What I don't accept is that the fires observed would cause the entire structure of three separate buildings to fail simultaneously in exactly the same way. "Architect" will know that such buildings are designed to withstand fire. I'm not saying that they could never collapse under any circumstances. Simply that the fire damage, particularly in WTC7, doesn't appear consistent with the _kind_ of failure those buildings suffered.

Collapsing a building neatly into its own footprint is a difficult task for a skilled demolition team. To ask people to accept that that is the normal effect of fire, even a severe fire, is stretching the truth somewhat. And WTC7 didn't even have severe fires.

"Architect" is also wrong that the official story is near-universally accepted by professionals in related fields. I know plenty of them and I don't know a single one that accepts the story without question. Most are highly skeptical. These aren't conspiracy theorists or people with a political axe to grind. They're just intelligent people with related experience and common sense that know when a story doesn't add up.

I welcome references from "Architect" or others to data on similar buildings that have collapsed in similar ways due to similar fires.

It may well be that the 19 supposed terrorists really were trying to achieve what we saw and had no knowledge of any inside help, whether passive or active. All I can say is that they seem to have been _inexplicably_ lucky beyond their wildest dreams.

There is plenty of reasonable doubt about the official version of events and not all the doubters are loons.

Zorro


no severe fires?

20.10.2005 20:36

how about a few hundred tonnes of aviation fuel?

sceptic


Baaaaa....

21.10.2005 11:20

One snag, old boy. You don't have to melt the steel. Heat it, and it softens and becomes weaker. One of the fallacies of the 911 conspiracy theories is to say the fire wasn't hot enough to melt steel, and therefore the buildings couldn't have collapsed due to the fire. Melting the steel isn't necessary: heat it up sufficiently - far below its melting point - and it loses strength. Collapse of stout party - or of skyscrapers.

sceptic


Not only by also

21.10.2005 12:37

Another problem is the amount of explosive required to bring down even a normal (say) Glasgow tower block - something I've seen. Its all over the damned place. I'm intrigued as to how the supposed government spooks planted all the damned stuff without anyone noticing!

Of course we're wasting our time. The conspiracists will never sway from their quasi-religious fervour...

Paranoid Pete


Even melting?

21.10.2005 12:45

WTC7 was a 47-story building that collapsed into a rubble pile two storeys high, within its own footprint. Essentially, it was a vertical collapse.

It was supported by over 60 structural columns.

Assuming that fire was responsible for weakening the columns, the fires would have to be severe and evenly distributed throughout the building. They were neither.

They would also have to simulatenously weaken the top two storeys of the building to the point of failure, momentarily later cause the same thing to happen two storeys below, and so on down to the ground within the space of less than ten seconds.

Think of a telescope collapsing into itself. That's effectively what happened. WTC1 and WTC2 were similar in that respect.

A fire that caused structural damage would weaken a specific point first, and the building would topple from that point to the side where the damage was critical.

There are no recorded cases in the history of high-rise buildings where the damage suffered by the WTC buildings was caused by fire, either before or since.

You might want to ask yourself why something that looks like a controlled demolition and can effectively only be caused by a controlled demolition is attributed to a cause (fire damage) that has entirely different effects. Both may destroy a building, but in very different ways.

I offer no explanation of who demolished those buildings or why. Simply an observation that is consistent with all experience and science that they were intentionally demolished.

Zorro


Rapidly becoming a conspircy debate

21.10.2005 13:55

I was going to address the points made by Zorro blow by blow, wittily (there's a first for everything) point out the many flaws in his argument, and put the matter to sleep. But there's two problems with this.

Firstly, you can't put these damned conspiracisits down. No matter how much I can show about the effects of a fairly uniform fire caused by the explosive dispersal of aviation fuel across a clear floorplate, about the weakening effects of fire on steel, about progressive load-induced failure ("pancaking"), it'll not convince them. It's a waste of time, and space.

Secondly, Indymedia is not a conspiracy website. For that go to Rense, or WhatReallyHappened, or 911myths, or any of the other sites. This is not the time, or place. This is a newswire site, and its recent domination by those with a conspiracist agenda is of great regret. The sooner it is stopped, the better.

Architect


That's MR zomboid to you, boy

21.10.2005 17:10

Yes, whatever. Try reading this, you conspiracist twit:

 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

Alleged Zomboid


Sad

21.10.2005 18:55

The Popular Mechanics Propaganda piece was so thoroughly discredited by people writing in that the magazine was forced to scrub the responses to that article from its website.

Don't Let Them Limit The Debate


You pesky coincidentialists and your crazy theories!

21.10.2005 20:01

So, let us be clear:

No air response - coincidence due to error

Perfect flying from amatures - coincidence due to luck

Military intelligence nexus and $$$ exchange - coincidence due to cold war left overs

Still living hijackers - coincidence due to error

Passport surviving myth - coincidence due to over excited police/journo

Seismic signals - coincidence due to misunderstanding

Bombs in basement & towers - coincidence due to janitors injuries and firemans stress

Controlled demolition simulation - coincidence due to luck

Put options trading yeilding $$$millions/billions - coincidence due to luck

8 mile separation from tail to body of plane - coincidence due to weather

Billions in gold missing from WTC vaults - coincidence due to melting

Lax security by the israeli/bush brother airport security company - coincidence due to bad day at the office

Bizzare telecommunications scenarios - coincidence due to misunderstanding

Advance warnings to VIPS - coincidence due to luck

Pre-planned papers dealing with 'a new pearl harbour' - coincidence due to luck

Pre-planned patriot legislation - coincidence due to good planning

Pre-planned afghan invasion plan w/ unicol input - coincidence due to long term
strategic objective and commercial imperitives

No Bin Laden family questioning - coincidence due to closeness to bush family


On and on it goes.

You coincidentialist theorists are stretching it a bit aren't you.

The newswire is not the place for your crazy theories about benign governments and noble military goals. Why don't you stop spamming this place with your news at ten drivel & loony theories about bogey men from the east coming to get you?

cybervoices


Bait and switch

21.10.2005 22:05

Nice one, Architect. "I've got great answers to all your questions but I can't be bothered to post them."

You had a wonderful opportunity to answer some pertinent questions with rational explanations. Instead, you chose to spend your time posting an ad hominem attack on people on this thread that find the official story incredible, including me.

Well I'll speak for myself and repeat that I don't have a conspiracy theory. Just some questions that thus far don't have credible answers. I'll leave the speculation and finger pointing to others.

Architect, I genuinely look forward to your rational contribution to this debate, or shall I just take your last post as an implicit admission that you don't have anything worthwhile to add?

Zorro


HAHAHA - Hear those zomboids squeal

21.10.2005 22:57

A mind is healthy when it can perform symbolic acts within mental frameworks which are not immediately obvious. A mind is diseased when it no longer comprehends this kind of linkage and refuses to acknowledge any basis for such symbolic thinking. The twentieth century specialized in producing diseased minds of the type I refer to - minds which uniquely combine ignorance with arrogance. The twentyfirst century’s hard core hyper rationalist would deride a theory of correspondences and co-incidences in daily life and ritual as ‘primitive superstition’ or 'conspiracy crap'. However, the rationalist’s comment is not one upon symbolic thinking but upon himself, acting as a label to define him as one of the walking dead - A ZOMBOID.

Oh I do like to thump a zomboid, oh I do like to kick his ass.

Zomboids - doncha just love to smack 'em with a wet fish?

Joo-Boyz-Made-A-Killing


Oh Zorro, I love a good challange

22.10.2005 10:58

A challege, eh Zorro?

Oh where to start? Lets look at that old chestnut about steel not melting. Well, lets look at some building regulations.

The Scottish Regs, section D, are a bit detailed -  http://www.scotland.gov.uk/build_regs/sect-d.pdf - but you'll notice do flag up the need for fire protection in structural components and steelwork.

In England, Part B of the Regs flags up a similar position - its not available on-line free but Corus (who do know a thing about steel) have a useful and relatively non-technical summary at  http://www.corusconstruction.com/legacy/fire/images/fireres_section1.pdf . Some of you will note on page 5 the admission that most unportected steel sections only have fire integrity for about 15 minutes.

The Canadian Regs aren't available on-line free either, but their national buildings institute flags up across all their documents the risk posed by fire and the need for protection - see, by way of example,  http://irc.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/cbd/cbd071e.html .

The New Zealand and Australian steel codes, (SNZ, 1997 and SAA 1990) are very
similar to each other. The NZ regs section C4 requires....wait for it......structural protection of steel in fire ( http://www.building.govt.nz)

Now what is required to protect steel against even a domestic fire for, say, half an hour. British Gypsum give us a useful summary, but similar advice permeats construction advice around the globe: http://www.british-gypsum.bpb.co.uk/pdf/wb_bsc%20prin_07_05.pdf. Note the opening comments on page 14 and then the page after page of details necessary to provide fire protection at the end. You'll see BG also do seperate systems to encase and protect steel beams.

Further afield, a lot of bodies and firms focus on the fire performance of steel:

 http://www.shef.ac.uk/fire-research/steelinfire/previous_meetings.html
 http://www.corusconstruction.com/page_1416.htm
 http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/866/CIB_W14/workprog.htm (you'll like this one, engineers)

Then we have this helpful thesis by an engineer in NZ:

 http://www.civil.canterbury.ac.nz/fire/pdfreports/KLewis.pdf

Note in particular the strength/temperature/yield grading charts

On an academic front, the sadder amongst you will find this UK paper illuminating. Note that the example they use does not in fact collapse due to a normal - lets stress that - fire but does deform significantly. The summary does also flag up the need to consider the impact of fire after an explosion, I would suggest for fairly obvious reasons.

 http://www.umist.ac.uk/departments/civil/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/Others/default.htm

I can go on, but its getting too much like a day at the office.

One of the comments above suggested that there might be dissent from construction professions; well I read the ICE magazine, the RIBA and RIAI journals, Building Magazine, Building Design. There has been not one word of dissent to the accepted structural collapse theory in any of these over the last 4 years. Not one. No serious academic papers. Nothing.

I put it to you that the performance of steel in fire and need for protection to prevent catastrophic failure in fires is universally acknowledged. Any consipracy would involve not thousands, or tens of thousands, but hundreds of thousands of architects, engineers, surveyors, contractors, building control officers, and steel manufacturers the world over. It is not only incredible (in the dictionary sense) but wholly implausable.

Yet time and time again we see the same old conspiracy theories rehashed. The theorists cannot come up with cogent, meaningful responses. Its government stool pigeons. Its stiffled opposition. Its spooks on Indymedia. Its zomboids.

You challenged me to respond to the frankly ludicrous conspiracist claims. I can, and if needs be, will on the buildings-related issues because these are where I can speek with confidence. But if even the old "melting point of steel" rubbish takes this long to prove wrong, then how much time and space is it going to take? And is it really going to shut up the conspiracists and their religious fervour? Unfortunately not.

Architect


That is all very well

22.10.2005 12:33

However, seeing that some are trailing round their 'expertese' like a new frock, lets get deeper into the 'science bit':

Yes steel does begin to lose its strength at around the MAXIMUM temp of burning kerosene (ie uniform combustion in oxygen rich environments). Did the fires in WTC reach these temps? Were they experiencing 'good' conditions?

A good indication of this is the colour of the smoke; white/grey good rich mix; black poor starved mix.

After burning for around an hour, the fires in the buildings were either under control (according to the experienced firefighters communicating amoung themselves in the danger areas) or burning ineffieciently in a oxygen poor mix (evidenced by the dense black smoke produced and recorded for all to see).

Also, photographic evidence of survivors within the hit areas some minutes later show that no raging inferno was out of control. This is to be expected, given that the majority of the fuel load had been expended in the initial fireball, or thrown clear of the building following the impact.

Now, steel does begin to lose around 60% of its strength when heated to around half its MELTING point (1000 degrees). In order to heat steel this way, one must ensure the heat source is applied more or less uniformly to the steel, otherwise the heat is dissapaited throughout the structure - including any peices in direct contact. In other words, sufficient temps must be reached to ensure that not only the steel in immeadiate contact with the heat source, but also steel from the surrounding areas is heated to this critical temp.

Steel is a very good conductor of heat. The fireproof clading may have been in poor repair - but present in enough quantity to make at least some difference (ie increasing the necessary energy required).

All steel buildings are over engineered.

The WTC was no exeception. It was designed to withstand loading pressures of OVER 5 times the maxiumum theoretically possible - ie the steel would have to lose in excess of 80% of its loading strength - a lot more heat, a lot more kerosene - before experiencing structural failure.

A structural failure of massive proportions and, at the time, one not experienced EVER in a steel framed building.

Yet another coincidence eh!?!

70 feet below ground level, the massively over engineered concret shrouded steel columns WERE NOT exposed to the kerosene fire - and yet failed UNIFORMLY, allowing the building to fall at the rate of gravity onto its own footprint.

WOW, what another coincidence!?!

What kind of scenario can produce a steady heat source that is visable from space based observation for over 3 weeks and is hot enough to prevent demo crews from going near, MELT completely steel and other hardened metals? Because that is what he clean up crews reported.

What about the discrepencies in the schematics of the buildings? 'Official' reports omit sections of the blueprints and dissapear trusses and floor supports - things that are present and correct in publically accesable documents?

Another coincidence. Piling up aren't they?

WTC 7 is too obvious to be worth mentioning at the moment don't you think?

cybervoices


you think explosives can?

22.10.2005 13:28

"What kind of scenario can produce a steady heat source that is visable from space based observation for over 3 weeks and is hot enough to prevent demo crews from going near, MELT completely steel and other hardened metals? Because that is what he clean up crews reported. "

Oh, by the way - got a source for those allegations?

sceptic


Oh answer the dashed question!

22.10.2005 14:53

Cybervoices illustrates my last point perfectly. I love the pot shot at those of us qualified to talk about the effects of fire on buildings, but there you go.

Lets look at some of his assertions. A key one is that the fuel must have burned within a few minutes and that thereafter we had a low temperature smouldering fire, the temperatures of which would have been insufficient to cause catastrophic weakening of steel sections.

I'll use imperial measurements since Cyber seems to; apologies to all of us in Europe.

Investigations of fires in other buildings built with steel have shown that fires don't usually even melt aluminum components, which melt around 1,200°F. In fact, most fires don't get above 900°F to 1,100°F. There is clear evidence that the World Trade Center fire did melt some of the aluminum in the aircraft and hence it probably got to 1,300°F or 1,400°F. That IS enough to weaken steel significantly.

It would be impossible for all the fuel to burn within a few moments. Oxygen is required to burn fuel. If a liquid is vaporized—as it must be in order for the oxygen to mix with the fuel and for combustion to occur—the vapour occupies about 500 times the volume of the liquid. If the jet fuel was consumed mostly in the first few moments, three things must be present. Firstly, there would have been a fireball of fuel 500 times as large as the liquid fuel multiplied by 5 times as much air as the oxygen required (because air is only 20 percent oxygen) or a fireball 2,500 times the volume of the liquid fuel that was consumed. While there was a fireball, it was not anywhere near this large. Secondly, there would need to be a source of the heat of vapourisation to vapourise the fuel. This is what limits the rate of burning of most liquids, i.e., the heat necessary to vapourise the unburnt fuel. Thirdly, the heat generated by this rapid burning would have to go someplace.

If you go back to A level chemistry and calculate the amount of energy contained in 10,000 U.S. gallons of jet fuel, it is a tremendous amount. This relates again to the size of the fireball, which was much too small to represent 10,000 U.S. gallons of fuel. In fact, the initial fireball probably was not more than ten percent of the available fuel.

Plus, what caused all the black smoke for the next few hours if all the fuel was consumed in the first few moments? No, scientifically, there was a great excess of fuel, and it burned for some considerable time after impact.

So what we had was a large-scale, fairly uniformly spread fire (thanks to the nature of the impact and vapourisation characteristics) acting on lightly protected structural steelwork over a period of several hours. It then understandably failed.

Now, some professional and academic links which support this:

 http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/latest/wtc.php

 http://cee.mit.edu/index.pl?iid=3742&isa=Category

 http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

www.americanscientist.org/template/ AssetDetail/assetid/18719?&print=yes

 http://mceer.buffalo.edu/publications/wtc/02-SP02Screen.pdf

 http://www.tbp.org/pages/publications/BENTFeatures/WTCW02.pdf

Cyber, there are no crebile professional or academic engineers who have cast any public doubt on the reasons behind the collapse. None at all. The reason? Well clearly we're not all part of some worldwide conspiracy. I think we can conclude that it's because although there are some gaps, the official theory holds water.

The problem is that the conspiracists' facts just don't stand up to professional scrutiny. Like I said in my last post, I can go on like this all day on buildings-related issues. I could fill page after page. But the religious fervour of our conspiracist friends will never die.

Architect


Deleted Posts

22.10.2005 17:31

Hey, I posted a big response to Zorro's post, it appeared, and now its disappeared along with something srom Sceptic or Magoo or someone. What's happened?

Architect


Call that a rebuttal?

23.10.2005 09:57

Nemesis,

I have provided, above, two highly detailed explanations - from a qualified perspective - regarding the failure of steelwork under fire loadings. Each is backed up by professional and academic links (some 14 in total). The first post is particularly clear on the proof that fires (of whatever source) can and do lead to failure within steel framed structures.

You have failed to Substantitively answer any of the points in these posts. Instead, after a tired insult, you give two links.

The first of these,  http://www.septembereleventh.org, is a conspiracist site. The specific article you refer to purports to be a letter from the accreditation laboratory which tested the WTC components over 30 years ago. The author appears to state the laboratory's position, however there are a number of inconsistencies concerning (for example) the temperature of the fire and confusion between forging temperatures of steel as opposed to performance under structural loading.

Upon investigation, you will find that the author was sacked for the letter, and the company stated "Mr. Ryan wrote the letter without UL's knowledge or authorization. Mr. Ryan was neither qualified nor authorized to speak on UL's behalf regarding this issue" .

Whilst the letter appears in most of the conspiracist sites, it has not been given credence by academia, professional bodies, or the trade.

The second web site is similarly a conspiracist site. I'm just going to concentrate on the sections that discuss the effects of fire on the structure for now. It claims:

1. The lack of flames is an indication that the fires were small, and the dark smoke is an indication that the fires were suffocating," We can't check the link because its to a book on Amazon we'd have to buy. In fact, in stark contrast to the calculation in the previous post, there is no justification given for this statement. What happened to the jet fuel? What about flamable building components? Hell why don't all fires somether themselves?

2. The next link is to the 1975 fire, a straighforward office fire. It states that there was no structural damage, although the fires were intense. However it completely fails to address the fore protection provided by the in-situ spray applied asbestos system, or how this was likely to have been damaged in the original explosion. In fact, this is in the official findings which state that "had fireproofing not been dislodged by debris field temperature rise of structural components would likely have been insufficient to induce global collapse".

3. The fire in the south tower burnt for only 16 minutes. No back up is given for this claim. Hell, when my garage burnt down it was up in flames for over half an hour and it didn't have 10,000 US gallons of jet fuel hit it first! A typical house fire can burn for several hours, even once firefighting has swung into action. 16 minutes is an incredible claim - the article goes on to state that this was due to a lack of fuel, but as with item (1) above doesn't back it up.

This site is just not reliable; vague assertions are given the weight of fact, no meaningful evidence is provided, and at least half the links appear to be an attempt to get us to buy a book!

Nemesis' argument is no such thing; he fails to respond to the specific points I make or provide meaningful, reliable information to challenge them. Instead we see the same old 911truth conspiracist woolly thinking unable to withstand scrutiny.

Architect


Wasting your time

23.10.2005 10:50

Architect, 10 out of 10 for effort but Nemisis and friends prove your original point - nothing by way of cogent comment or hard facts will change their evangelical belief that the towers were brought down by Bush, aliens, or whatever.

I wonder which caused this one, since explosions and fires don't collapse buildings and pancake failures don't happen:

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/16/newsid_2514000/2514277.stm



Amused


HAHAHA - see the Zomboids fall like flies

23.10.2005 18:11

 http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=consp_911&Number=293771906&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21∂=

Architect is so full of shit, his badly designed out-house couldn't stand the strain. Pathetic zomboids.

Architect's collapsed shithouse


Architect (failed). CV: Collapsed shit-house

23.10.2005 18:34

Check out the membership of S.P.I.N.E. (The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven) :  http://physics911.net/spine.htm

I dare say the zomboids will call these academics and professionals: loons.

Robert Ballan
Norwood, NY, USA
MSc & JD: Clarkson College
Chemistry & Law

Walter Davis
Kent, OH, USA
PhD: U of Connecticut
Kinesiology

A. K. Dewdney
London, Canada
PhD: U of Waterloo
Mathematics

Derrick Grimmer
Ames, IA, USA
PhD: Washington University
Physics

Timothy P. Howell
Upsala, Sweden
PhD: U. of Edinburgh
Computer Science

Joseph M. Keith
Tustin, CA, USA
BSE: California State University at LA
Aerospace engineer

Peter J. Kirsch
Western Cape, South Africa
MD: University of Witwatersrand
Forensic pathology

Jerry Longspaugh
Fort Worth, TX, USA
MSc: Brooklyn Polytechnic
Aerospace engineer

Brad Mayeaux
Kenner, LA, USA
Electr. &Tech. Inst. of New Orleans
Cellphone engineer

George F. Nelson
Huntsville, AL, USA
US Air Force
Colonel (ret.)

Ralph W. Omholt
Kirkland, WA, USA
AAPP University of Alaska
Professional Airline Pilot

Morgan Reynolds
Arkansas, USA
PhD: U of Wisconsin
former Chief Economist,
United States Department of Labor

Helen Stace
Perth, Australia
PhD: U of Sydney
Biology

Bernard Windham
Tallahassee, FL, USA
MS Florida State
MS Louisiana State
Statistician

Gregory Zeigler
Santa Fe, NM, USA
PhD: U of California at Los Angeles
Military Intelligence

There are many more in Germany, Australia - all over the world. Thousands, in fact.

Zomboid-buster


S.P.I.N.E.

23.10.2005 21:04

ah, yes. dig a little deeper into their website and you'll also find they think that a nuclear weapon was used in the Bali bombing. Very likely. Reputable gentlemen indeed.

sceptic


This is getting better by the minute!

23.10.2005 23:17

Oh at least Zorro tried to present a reasonable argument. The two above seem incapable.

Right, here we go again:

In response to the original challenge, I set out the case that steel does indeed fail under normal fire conditions and provided accepted models accepted world-wide demonstrating the problem. I then provided further detailed comment, backed-up by links, setting out the burn-times and effects of the fire. Now neither of you have even attempted to answer or refute any of the specific points I've made. I think that speaks volumes.

Now lets look at the libertyforum link. This doesn't provide a meaningful response either. Instead its a rambling account of the possible effects of Thermite charges on steel structures. Questions like how could they plant thousands of charges and no-one notice are responded to with a - you'll love this - "You don't seem to realize just how stupid people are".

And then finally we get the "Scientific Panel Investigating 9-11". The people who think the Bali bombing was a nuclear device ( http://physics911.net/otherattacks.htm). Lets look at the list of "experts"; qualifications in chemistry, Kinesiology (that's drug free health care), maths, computing, mobile 'phone engineer, an economist, a biologist, a CAD developer, an author/activist, and an IT manager. I'm sorry, that's not a panel expert on structural engineering of tall structures or fire fighting.

So just to recap; you can't answer the points I've made, your links are poor, and your "expert panel" aren't qualified in the field.

Over to you. Time for more insults, perhaps?

Architect


Oi! Zomboid Masher!

24.10.2005 10:56

Zomboid Masher,

Are you going to actually respond in a technical, proper way to any of the points put to you or just keep giving links to conspiracy sites? Do you have any qualifications in building structures, fire engineering, or aviation crashes?

Most of all, CAN you actually provide any peer-reviews from structural engineers and other experts critical of the official 911 collapse findings or are you just going to keep referring us back to self-appointed panels like SPINE who are notable mainly for being qualified in such completely irrelevant fields as economics and biology?

Observer


THE ZOMBOID CONSPIRACY

24.10.2005 14:48

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell. Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.

These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand-down of the US Air Force, the insider trading on airline stocks - linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours, crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.

The huge difficulties with such a stupid story force them to .....

 http://www.serendipity.li/wot/holmgren01.htm


Whoops! This just in: Shit-house collapses. Many Zomboids dead - how can they tell?

Bye, Zomboids. May the walking-death be with you - always.


Guiness Book of Records

24.10.2005 19:14

For the greatest number of urban legends in one paragraph:
"These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand-down of the US Air Force, the insider trading on airline stocks - linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours, crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do."

sceptic


Zomboid Masher? I don't think so

25.10.2005 07:29

The collapse of the twin trade towers was far from straightforward. To understand the reasons behind the strutctural collapse we need to look at a broad basket of issues - how structural steel responds to fire, the impact of explosion of the fabric, fire engineering, and so on. These are necessarily complex matters. None of us would deny, I think, that it takes many years of study and hands-on experience before we could understand them with any degree of confidence.

This is where the conspiracists' case first falls. They apply not this expert knowledge, but what is - at best - an incomplete, layman's understanding and present it as incontrovertable proof. Statements suggesting that a fire started 10,000 gallons of fuels burnt itself out in 16 minutes without reaching a high temperature are unsubstantiated by meaningful argument. It is stated that steel is not susceptible to fire when this is clearly the case. And so on.

It is particularly telling, I think, that there are many academic and professional papers discussing how the combined impact of the the planes and the fires caused the collapse, but not a single peer-reviewed paper which seriously questions the thrust of the official findings.

Now you can believe that this is an uber conspiracy if you want, involving tens of thousands of engineers, architects, academics and contractors worldwide. But that would be wrong. And you can believe that all these qualified experts are zomboids, in comparison to a limited lay understanding. But in either case you have to be able to argue it effectively. Zomboid and his friends didn't prove up to the challenge.

Architect


What do you mean?

25.10.2005 10:14

Several people have attempted to answer various questions put by [you] on various issues - you call them 'conspiracists' - what do you mean?

Are we, as some have suggested, to call [you] 'coincidentalists'?

Do you subscribe to the view point that 911 was the result of al quida alone?

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


Reasoned debate

25.10.2005 11:29

as far as I can see, Architect has provided solid, reasoned responses to a number of 'issues' supposedly surrounding the 9/11 incident, whereas the likes of 'Zomboid' has merely responded with petulant name-calling when the credibility of his evidence has been questioned. He also seems to see no inherent contradiction in supposedly being 'progressive' while holding the staggeringly patronising and arrogant view that most ordinary people live in a permanent state of confusion and gullibility with respect to world events - a state which can only be transcended, it would appear, by a handful of ubermensch like himself!!!!

Passing through


Oh Jack....

25.10.2005 11:43

Jack,

I think you need to reread the posts.

I made clear that I was only going to talk about buildings issues because that it where I am qualified to speak.

First of all I responded, at great length, to the fanciful suggestion that structural steelwork is not susceptible to fire. The conspiracists then argued that the fire was of insufficient intensity to melt the steel. I then made the case that the fires in fact burned for some considerable time, and were indeed of a level to cause structural failure. In both cases I provided extensive professional, academic, and industry documents which backed these up.

I challenged the conpiracists to refute them, and in particular to provide any substantive debate on the issues from those of us who DO work on high buildings and fire engineering.

What did I receive? Well no point by point arguments for a starter. Instead, we got rehashed links to conspiracist web sites; one claimed that the 10,000 US gallons of fuel burnt itself out in 16 minutes (impossible). Another talked about a self appointed expert panel who turned out to be composed largely of biologists, activists, authors, and so on - no credible construction experts. They even claimed the Bali bomb was a nuke! They were long on conjecture and short on proper, academic analysis.

Finally, I made the point that the collapse involves complex structural and fire engineering issues which frankly you have to study at university level for years to understand. This is not an issue where lay knowledge is likely to cut the mustard. Yet that is what we see in the conspiracist sites.

Now I put it to you that I did answer the questions, but it was the conspiracists who failed. My point is this; many, if not all, of the conspiracists' theories do not stand up to professional analysis. When facts are put to them, they vanish more quickly than Scottish world cup hopes.

Architect


What do you mean? 2

25.10.2005 12:11

This is what I posted:

...

Several people have attempted to answer various questions put by [you] on various issues - you call them 'conspiracists' - what do you mean?

Are we, as some have suggested, to call [you] 'coincidentalists'?

Do you subscribe to the view point that 911 was the result of al quida alone?

... 3 questions to [you] from ME.

jackslucid
mail e-mail: jackslucid@hotmail.com


Jack, Jack, Jack

25.10.2005 13:16

Jack, you've still not addressed my points! Those propounding the government plot theory were unable to refute the points made in any meaningful way. Instead they resorted to second-hand 911 conspiracist sites and tired old insults. Are you in a position to respond for them?

And now, in the interest of fair play, to take your three questions:

1. Conspiracist. Mildly perjorative term to describe those of a worldview that see major historic events and trends as primarily the result of secret conspiracies, black operations, psy-ops, and so on - usually by government or other similar bodies. Not to be confised with conspiracy, a fairly straighfroward legal term describing any criminal act involving two or more people (and thus would also involve Al-Q)

2. Co-incidentalists. That's a made up term, I think, and certainly not in my old battered OED. I assume you're trying to suggest that we believe a lot of coincidences add up. But this overlooks how things actually work. Evidence is gathered and studied. Conclusions are drawn based on known facts. That's not "coinidentalism", that's proper analysis.

3. Al Q? No idea mate. The only counter accusations I have seen are based on iffy Qui/Cui Bono reasoning which wouldn't stand up outside the Junior Lit. What I set out to address was the accusation that the buildings didn't fall down because of the 'planes and ensuing fire, because structures and fire are my field.

Over to you.

Architect


Ask yourself: Who and what you can trust

30.10.2005 18:21

Something I find extremely strange is that when ever I post anything about WTC, regardless of how good my arguments are, much documentation I link to and so forth, someone keeps on posting argumentless, slandering comments with a link to:

 http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

As someone else pointed out, the actual people who work for Popular Mecanics themselves discredited that article to a degree where they found it best to censur their views. Now, you may want to verify this yourself by checking archive.org, but if you look there you will find that it many mirrors of that whole site, but that particular page is missing.

But a perhaps more important question than what the journalists in the magazine had to say about the article is: Who wrote it?

"With high federal offices being given to the wives, sons and daughters of senior members of the Bush administration, the Hearst Corporation executives that publish Popular Mechanics magazine probably didn't worry about the ethical considerations of hiring a cousin of Michael Chertoff, a former Assistant Attorney General and the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as senior researcher."  http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?1911S

I encurage you to read through that article and cross-check all facts against all other available sources.

And after doing so, take a look at WHO OWNS Popular Mechanics: Hearst Corporation.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearst_Corporation

And who are the Hearst Corporation, who seem to think that the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security is better suited to write an article than a journaist?

 http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/hearst.asp

And while you are visiting the CJR site, feel free to educate yourself on who the other 5 big media-corporations who dominate the US media market are and what they own.. It is important to know who in reality are the same sources and who are not when you are looking for different opinions.

Øyvind Sæther
mail e-mail: oyvinds@everdot.org
- Homepage: http://oyvinds.everdot.org/


Tosk

01.11.2005 13:55

Oiyvind,

If you were seriously ill, would you trust the advice of a surgeon or some bloke at the pub who watches Casualty on the TV? You'd go with the surgeon, because he's studied medicine for years and knows what he's talking about. It would be ludicrous to suggest that anyone could learn about medicine without such an education.

And yet what we see on 9/11 conspiracist sites are views informed by (at best) an incomplete understanding of the actual issues.

The "steel doesn't melt" argument is a classic example. The rather long winded posts I gave above set out, from a trained professional perspective, the flaws in this argument. I also pointed out that it is inconceivable that the official explanation, if as wrong as conspiracists suggest, could have slipped past the whole construction community without credible objection.

What we saw in response were attempts to move the argument on to other areas. Quoting the findings of an "expert panel" who proved to have no expertise in structural mechanics or fire engineering. Suggestions that there were no planes!

If you want to be serious, you're going to have to be able to argue on an informed footing and forget the woolly thinking and half-formed misconceptions so typical of the wilder fringe.

Architect


Wow. What a Bunch of retards

21.11.2005 00:00

You guys are incredible.

Why waste time refuting them? They're silly.

And the guy who keeps saying the word zomboid...you must be slightly retarded. Or 5. One of the two.

You guys suck


From the Air Force

13.12.2005 01:14

Thanks architect for the reality check, I too am one of those pesky professionals who would like to debunk this urban legend once and for all.

Here's a few facts about the "Air Force"

The USAF is forbidden under posse comitatus to get involved in domestic law enforcement, which prioor to 9/11 included hijacking (Air Piracy)

The Air National Guard is largely responsible for the air defense of this country, even so they are likewise constrained to provide only surveillance of various bad guys like narco trafficers and such and to assist "pilots in distress"

The nearest fighters that were sitting "strip alert" (IE sitting near an open runway, fully fueled and loaded with weapons, with an assigned pilot prepared to takeoff within five minutes) was at Otis Air National Guard Base in Mass. New York Air National Guard's Northeast Air Defense Sector, without any information from FAA scrambled these aircraft within moments after the second aircraft struck the WTC - the first unambiguous indication of a coordinated attack against New York City. How did they get this info? They saw it happen on CNN just like the rest of us. Later they scrabled aircraft from Langly Air Force Base Virginia to fly to Washington DC, but they arrived too late as the third aircraft struck the Pentagon. If you have any specific questions about air defenses prior to 9/11 I'll be happy to answer them

NORAD's finest


Internal columns

12.09.2006 23:04

The unique thing about the World Trade Center towers was that there were no internal support columns. The frame and supporting structure were the exterior of the building. In fact, this design is why the buildings collapsed the way that they did, and did little or no harm to the buildings nearby.
That said, however, the new owner of the buildings, who bought the properties for $3.2 billion, had it insured for $7 billion. It was he who told the people to "pull it" in reference to the third office building. To "pull it" is a demolitions for firing the charges to drop a building.

g sharpe
mail e-mail: hamguy@att.net


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