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Title: 9/11 and the Evidence
Source:
VDare
URL Source: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/070326_evidence.htm
Published: Mar 27, 2007
Author: Paul Craig Roberts
Post Date: 2007-03-27 12:26:54 by Peetie Wheatstraw
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Keywords: None
Views: 1964
Comments: 178
Professor David Ray Griffin is the nemesis of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. In his latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Griffin destroys the credibility of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Popular Mechanics reports, annihilates his critics, and proves himself to be a better scientist and engineer than the defenders of the official story. Griffin’s book is 385 pages divided into four chapters and containing 1,209 footnotes. Without question, the book is the most thorough presentation and examination of all known facts about the 9/11 attacks. Griffin is a person who is sensitive to evidence, logic, and scientific reasoning. There is no counterpart on the official side of the story who is as fully informed on all aspects of the attacks as Griffin. At the outset, Griffin points out that the reader’s choice is between two conspiracy theories: One is that Muslim fanatics, who were not qualified to fly airplanes, defeated the security apparatus of the US and succeeded in three out of four attacks using passenger jets as weapons. The other is that security failed across the board, not merely partially but totally, because of complicity of some part of the US government. Griffin points out that there has been no independent investigation of 9/11. What we have are a report by a political commission headed by Bush administration factotum Philip Zelikow, a NIST report produced by the Bush administration’s Department of Commerce, and a journalistic account produced by Popular Mechanics. Various scientists who work for the federal government or are dependent on government grants have issued speculative statements in behalf of the official conspiracy theory, but have not produced meaningful evidence in its behalf. The relevant skeptics of the official story are approximately 100 independent researchers consisting of experts and professors whose careers have required them to deal with evidence and its analysis. Their individual contributions to 9/11 analysis can be found online. Griffin has undertaken to absorb the arguments and evidence for the official account and the arguments and evidence against it. In his latest book, which has just been released, he presents the case for the official account and its evidential failure. Polls show that 36% of Americans do not believe the official story. Setting aside the 25% of the public that is so uninformed or uninvolved as to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack, leaves 39% of the public who believe the official story. However, this 39% is essentially relying on the mainstream media’s endorsement of the official story. Griffin believes, perhaps naively, that truth can prevail, and it is his commitment to truth that has motivated him to shoulder the enormous task. Everyone who believes in the integrity of the US government or the Bush administration will find Griffin’s book to be disturbing. Readers will have to confront such issues as why US authorities seized the forensic evidence resulting from the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, the attack on the Pentagon and the crashed airliner in Pennsylvania and prevented any forensic examination of any part of the 9/11 attacks. Despite widespread belief that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack, the evidence we have is a suspect video declared to be "bogus" by Bruce Lawrence, perhaps the leading American expert on bin Laden. The US government has never produced the promised report on bin Laden’s responsibility. When the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden on presentation of evidence, the US government had no evidence to deliver; thus the invasion of Afghanistan. The fragility of the NIST report is astonishing. The report succeeded because people accepted its assurances without examination. Griffin shows that the Popular Mechanics report consists of special pleading, circular reasoning, appeals to the authority of the NIST report, straw men, and internal contradictions in the report itself. There is not space in a review to present the evidence Griffin has mustered. A few highlights should suffice to alert readers to the possibility that the Bush administration has lied about more than Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The two WTC towers did not collapse. They blew up and disintegrated, as did WTC 7. There is an enormous energy deficit in every account that rules out the use of explosives. Gravitational energy is insufficient to explain the pulverization of the buildings and contents and the severing of the 47 massive center core steel columns in each of the towers into convenient lengths to be picked up and loaded onto trucks; much less can gravitational energy account for the pulverization of the top floors of the towers and ejection of steel beams hundreds of feet horizontally just prior to the disintegration of the floors below. Damage caused by airliners and short-lived limited fires cannot explain the disintegration of the buildings. The massive steel skeletons of the towers comprised a gigantic heat sink that wicked away whatever heat the limited fires produced. NIST’s final report stated that of the steel available to it for examination, "only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250 degrees Celsius" (482 degrees Fahrenheit). The self-cleaning ovens in our home kitchens reach temperatures higher than this, and the ovens do not melt or deform. Steel begins to melt at 1,500 degrees C or 2,800 degrees F. Temperatures of 250 degrees C would have no effect on the strength of steel. The explanation that the buildings collapsed because fire weakened the steel is speculative. Open air fires do not produce temperatures sufficient to deprive steel of its structural integrity. Steel framed buildings have burned 22 hours in raging infernos, and the steel skeletons remained standing. The WTC fires in the towers lasted about one hour and were limited to a few floors. Moreover, it is impossible for fire to account for the sudden, total and symmetrical disintegration of powerfully constructed buildings, much less at free fall speeds that are obtainable only with controlled demolition. Griffin provides quotes from firefighters, police, and tenants, who heard and experienced a series of explosions prior to the disintegration of the towers. Such witness testimony is generally ignored by defenders of the official conspiracy theory. Molten steel was found in underground levels of the WTC buildings weeks after the buildings’ destruction. As everyone agrees that the fires did not approach the melting point of steel, a possible explanation is high explosives used in demolitions that produce 5,000 degree temperatures. The possibility that explosives were used remains unexamined except by independent researchers. Contradictions in the official conspiracy theory leap off the pages and hit the reader in the face. For example, the evidence that Flight 77, a Boeing 757, crashed into the Pentagon is the government’s claim to have obtained from the wreckage enough bodies and body parts to match the DNA for each person on the passenger list and flight crew. Simultaneously, the absence of passenger luggage, fuselage, wing and tail sections--indeed the absence of a 100,000 pound airliner--is attributed to the vaporization of the airplane due to the high speed crash and intense fire. The incompatibility of vaporized metal but recovered flesh and blood stood unnoticed until Griffin pointed it out. Another striking inconsistency in the official conspiracy theory is the difference in the impact of airliners on the Pentagon and the WTC towers. In the case of the Pentagon, the emphasis is on why the airliner caused so little damage to the building. In the case of the WTC towers, the emphasis is why the airliners caused so much damage. Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that just prior to 9/11 Cathleen P. Black, who has family connections to the CIA and Pentagon and is president of Hearst Magazines, the owner of Popular Mechanics, fired the magazine’s editor-in-chief and several senior veteran staff members and installed James B. Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of Bush administration factotum Michael Chertoff. It was Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff who produced the Popular Mechanics report that Griffin has eviscerated. In his conclusion Griffin reminds us that the 9/11 attack has been used to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to plan an attack on Iran, to curtail constitutional protections and civil liberties in the US, to radically expand US military budgets and the power of the executive, and to enrich entrenched vested interests. Griffin is definitely correct about this regardless of whether a believable case can ever be made for the government’s version of the 9/11 conspiracy.
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#95. To: ..., ALL (#84)
Tell you what ... You look at this single photo, which 911research.wtc7.net says was taken "11 seconds into the collapse", and tell us why you think the WTC towers collapsed at free-fall velocity. Let's see how you do when it comes to brevity and clarity. ROTFLOL!
Again ... let me suggest that you focus on what you want to say before hitting the post button. Try reading your post and deleting off topic references. If it won't fit in the browser window, people are probably not going to read it.
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Why? It doesn't concern me. But you know that. The fact that you toss out this red herring tells me that I hit a nerve by commenting on your silly spam.
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Are you capable of anything beyond these silly personal attacks and your mornic rudeness?
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That's not a vile personal attack. It's an observation about an established FACT. It would be like you saying I'm an ex-pilot ... if you actually knew that to be the case. I am curious what I did to you in the past that's led to this verbal assault of yours on thread after thread. You obviously have no interest in actually debating the issues that are being raised. You just want to taunt me. Which leads one to wonder about your motivation. What did I do to you in some previous exchange to cause such impassioned dislike of me? We must have conversed. But I know I've never met a poster named ... prior to joining 4um. Thus, you must have had a different screen name when we had that prior exchange. Care to tell us what that was???
Don't waste your time on this POS. Yeah, Freak, you are a POS. You're a Ziojew, aren't you? Your arrogance is only matched by the worst of the lying Zios like William Kristol.
It is a very obvious personal attack and you know it. Your dishonst spinning after the fact doesn't mitigate it. You can't get away with that shit here.
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You are wondering why I point out what a dishonest idiot you are. That's just my job. That's all you need to know.
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Thank you for demonstrating the underlying nature of Freedom4um for anyone that might chance upon this site.
If you were not Jewish, you would have simply said "I'm not Jewish". At least that's the way it goes in my experience. Is that why you work so hard at getting the US involved in Middle East conflicts?
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You can still say "I'm not Jewish" and I will take you at your word.
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That was magnanimous of you, JT. I'm not able to do that. I'm hoping BeAChooser (what a lame ass name. Chooser of what?) gets the "Snowing" he deserves. Now that would be justice.
I feel no shame in expressing my absolute loathing and disdain for you, succubus.
http://www.amazon.com/Beggars-Choosers-Trilogy-known-Sleepless/dp/0812550102 And what are you nostalgic about?
But can you challenge ANYTHING I've posted about Griffin? Or the bogus assertion that the collapse of the towers was Free Fall? Hmmmmmmmmmm? And have we met before? There must be some reason you are so passionate in your hatred of me. But I don't recall any past contact with a poster named Nostalgia. So how about it? Did you post somewhere else under a different screename? Or is your hatred JUST irrational?
No, given that you are an asshole, the hatred seems perfectly rational to me.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
Don't answer a question with a question - asshole!
Well, BAC, you do realize that you're more than welcome to leave!
BAC - any numbers you quote come up as a freefall, asshole! What part of "freefall" don't you understand? Your PSYOPS diverging over to nit-noy details doesn't change a thing!
Or should I say EX-pilot? The fact that you can say this and get away with it, is a perfect example of Christine's belief in Freedom, despite the distasteful and disrespectful personal attacks you throw out. [Sorry bozo but once a pilot, always a pilot] I took you off bozo just long enough to tell you that you'll remain there forever, and that I believe you have nothing to offer this forum in the way of rational genuine argument. You are a complete fraud and total shill, as are RimJob and all of his ilk. 1. By the way, what is your screen name on FRaud? 2. Are you a Jew? 3. What exactly is it that you advocate we choose by implication of your screen name? "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these. No, most are afraid to say anything for fear of losing their jobs.
Bevity and clarity are important to good communication.
#96. To: BeAChooser (#94)
#97. To: BeAChooser (#95)
You look at this single photo, which http://911research.wtc7.net says was taken "11 seconds into the collapse",
#98. To: BeAChooser (#95)
#99. To: ..., ALL (#91)
Repeatedly tossing out very vile personal attacks against the members of this forum?
#100. To: BeAChooser, christine, SKYDRIFTER (#86)
#101. To: BeAChooser, Christine (#99)
That's not a vile personal attack. It's an observation about an established FACT. It would be like you saying I'm an ex-pilot ... if you actually knew that to be the case.
#102. To: BeAChooser (#99)
#103. To: Nostalgia, ALL (#100)
Don't waste your time on this POS. Yeah, Freak, you are a POS. You're a Ziojew, aren't you?
#104. To: BeAChooser (#103)
(Edited)
#105. To: BeAChooser (#103)
#106. To: Jethro Tull (#80)
Be careful BAC.
#107. To: BeAChooser (#103)
#108. To: Nostalgia, ALL (#106)
I'm hoping BeAChooser (what a lame ass name. Chooser of what?)
#109. To: Nostalgia, ALL (#107)
I feel no shame in expressing my absolute loathing and disdain for you, succubus.
#110. To: BeAChooser (#109)
Or is your hatred JUST irrational?
#111. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#79)
#112. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#99)
But I know I've never met a poster named ... prior to joining 4um.
#113. To: beachooser (#83)
#114. To: BeAChooser, skydrifter, jethro tull, all, critter, minerva (#90)
(Edited)
Now that's really funny coming from a pilot.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
- - IndieTX
#115. To: BeAChooser (#94)
Are all the structural engineers, demolition experts and macro-world physicists in the world?
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#116. To: BeAChooser (#109)
From the way you keep coming back to get slapped I am thinking you are really con op. Ponchy? Is that you?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#117. To: IndieTX, ALL (#114)
It was, when I was still a member of FR, the same as it is here. Is that relevant to the issue of whether Griffin is lying or not? Or to knowing whether the towers fell in 10 seconds or 15 seconds? Because unless it is, I see no reason to answer the question one way or the other. Well if you hadn't bozo'd yourself ... ROTFLOL!
1. By the way, what is your screen name on FRaud?
2. Are you a Jew?
3. What exactly is it that you advocate we choose by implication of your screen name?
#118. To: Critter, ALL (#115)
Most? ROTFLOL! NOT ONE of the above anywhere in the world is on record saying WTC1 or WTC 2 collapsed due to explosives ... or energy beams ... or anything other than fire and impact damage. NOT ONE. IN THE WORLD. And why would a foreign engineer or scientist be afraid of losing his job should he come forward? Has Bush THAT much power? And what makes American engineers and scientists such cowards (compared to you) when thousands of Americans have been obviously (sarcasm) murdered? Are you something special in the way of brave? Are you something special in the way of not caring about money? Are you something special when it comes to putting country, truth and justice ahead of livelihood? Why are American engineers and scientists (millions of them) such a sorry, evil lot ... compared to you?
"Are all the structural engineers, demolition experts and macro-world physicists in the world?"
No, most are afraid to say anything for fear of losing their jobs.
#119. To: BeAChooser (#117)
You think you're so clever with the changeabout of the words. You're not. How many have bozo'd you on this forum? How many had bozo'd you on LP? I'm betting the number is comparable.
Well if you hadn't bozo'd yourself ...
#120. To: BeAChooser (#118)
Are you something special in the way of brave? Are you something special in the way of not caring about money? Are you something special when it comes to putting country, truth and justice ahead of livelihood? Are you just an asshole who insults people for the fun of it?
And what makes American engineers and scientists such cowards (compared to you) when thousands of Americans have been obviously (sarcasm) murdered?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#121. To: BeAChooser (#117)
Is that relevant to the issue of whether Griffin is lying or not? That means "yes" in Hebrew.
2. Are you a Jew?
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#122. To: BeAChooser (#118)
To be honest, buckeroo was a better site kook than you are. At least he had a sense of humor.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
#123. To: BeAChooser (#118)
I'm not going to lose anything by speaking my mind about 9/11. Ask Bill O'Reilly what will happen to anyone who publicly aligns himself with the truth movement. He said Charlie Sheen would be finished if he narated the next Loose Change edition. Ask Profesor Jones what happens when you use your knowlege and education to debunk the official fairy tale. You end up unemployed. Ask Kevin Ryan what happens when you point out that NIST was misrepresenting the results of UL tests. You end up unemployed. By the way, most of the experts you speak of in some way shape or form earn their living off the government tit.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#124. To: Minerva, BeALoser, I mean BeAChooser (#120)
Yes he is, but he will lie about that too. hehehe Tis ok for him to insult me though. I insult him all day every day around here. I have no patience for his government propaganda any more.
Are you just an asshole
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#125. To: BeAChooser (#94)
Hey dipshit, you still haven't addressed the fact that I showed you a demolition expert that thinks building 7 was a controlled demo. You going to pretend that he doesn't exist now?
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#126. To: Nostalgia, ALL (#119)
Again, have we met before? There must be some reason you are so passionate in your hatred of me. I don't recall any past contact with a poster named Nostalgia. So how about it? Did you post at LP or FR under a different screenname?
How many had bozo'd you on LP?
#127. To: Minerva, critter, ALL (#120)
Now Minerva, I didn't insult critter. In fact, just the opposite. I noted that he must be much braver, much less driven by money, and put country, truth and justice much farther ahead of livelihood, than do the millions of evil, moronic, moneygrubbing American scientists and engineers who haven't said one word about explosives bringing down the WTC towers.
Are you just an asshole who insults people for the fun of it?
#128. To: BeAChooser, Nostalgia (#126)
Gathering intel for your handlers?
Did you post at LP or FR under a different screenname?
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#129. To: Minerva, ALL (#121)
It means I'm not going to answer a stupid question which has no relevance to the facts about Griffin and the collapse of the WTC towers. You go ahead and play your "I-hate-jew" card all you want, Minerva. It isn't going to change the facts one iota. Whether I'm jewish, christian, hindu, buddhist, agnostic or whatever ... the facts about Griffin and the collapse of the WTC towers are not going to change. Your charge is simply a red herring to avoid facing the truth.
2. Are you a Jew?
"Is that relevant to the issue of whether Griffin is lying or not?"
That means "yes" in Hebrew.
#130. To: BeAChooser (#129)
Didn't I warn you about ass cancer, heeb?
#131. To: Critter, ALL (#123)
Actually, Steven Jones had NO knowledge or education in structures, demolition, and hadn't done any macro-world physics for over 30 years. And for the record, he RESIGNED from BYU and specifically stated that he was NOT forced out. Kevin Ryan's letter was filled with disinformation about the NIST results and UL tests and the reason he ended up unemployed is that a water treatment expert shouldn't go making claims about subjects he knows nothing about ON UL STATIONARY. Then you are up the creek, since you use the things they design and make every single day. And again, you must be special to not be subject to the same influences. And there must be something about American macro-world physicists and structural engineers that makes them incapable of doing what so many other whistleblowers whose livelihood depends on the government have done countless times in the last few decades ... and with far less at stake.
Ask Profesor Jones what happens when you use your knowlege and education to debunk the official fairy tale. You end up unemployed.
Ask Kevin Ryan what happens when you point out that NIST was misrepresenting the results of UL tests. You end up unemployed.
By the way, most of the experts you speak of in some way shape or form earn their living off the government tit.
#132. To: Critter, ALL (#125)
Of course not. He exists. He said WTC7 was a controlled demolition ... based SOLELY on watching a few video clips that a conspiracist like you provided him ... without telling him the event took place on 9/11, that the building was on fire for many, many hours before it collapsed and that the building was leaning long before the collapse. Now are you going to pretend that his theory isn't that Silverstein decided AFTER the planes hit the towers to bring down WTC7 rather than have to repair it? Are you going to pretend that he didn't say WTC 1 and WTC 2 looked nothing like controlled demos? If you agree with him about WTC7, do you agree with him about the towers too? Hmmmmm, critter?
Hey dipshit, you still haven't addressed the fact that I showed you a demolition expert that thinks building 7 was a controlled demo. You going to pretend that he doesn't exist now?
#133. To: BeAChooser (#132)
If one building was a controlled demo, they all must have been demos.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#134. To: Critter, ALL (#133)
Yet your demolition expert said WTC1 and WTC2 were definitely NOT demos. So is he now a moron too, critter?
If one building was a controlled demo, they all must have been demos.
#135. To: BeAChooser (#134)
If one is, they all are. He may mean that that the towers weren't a "controlled" demolition in the classic sense. They weren't. They couldn't be without it looking way too obvious. But 7 was a classic controlled demo, and all I have to do to prove that the official fairy tale is a lie, is prove that one of them was controlled demo.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
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