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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: 1744
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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#39. To: BeAChooser (#35)
That is not the issue I raised with you on this thread. I asked if Goldi banned you for being a kook or an asshole. You indicated, in a very round about way, that she banned you for being both and kook AND an asshole. I didn't have much to say after that except that it seemed logical to me. You are the one trying to keep this going.
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Eoghan is right chooser. If you can't make your point if fifty words, you don't know what you are talking about. You should go out to your local Junior College and take a course in Composition and Communications. Be brief, be organized and be to the point.
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So is Ron Brown dead or alive, or does he go back and forth?
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yeah, i was JUST thinking the same thing. Why don't you limit chooser to a daily word count? You would actually be doing him a favor. It would force him to sift through his pages of garbage to pull out the single salient point ... if there was one. This would teach him to be both concise and precise in his arguments. Important abilities for any would be propagandist. It would also be a good thing for the rest of the forum. If chooser had no salient point to make, we would be spared his spam. On the rare occasions where he did have a point, people would actually read it as they would not be forced to wade through his normal reams of garbage.
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Actually chooser, the world has turned. No one gives a shit about your NewsMax headlines cica 1993. They are as irrelevant as Ron Brown or your WMD koOkery. These issues have long since been decided by the rational and effective politicos ... and you lost. And your ranting about it just highlights your kookery. What you should be doing is telling us about the kooky conspiracy that forces Monica Goodling to take the fifth. Or maybe spinning about what a strong and effective AG Gonzales is. Or take a clue from your hero Rush and tell us that today's Senate vote regarding the pull out provision in the supplemental was part of a Republican master scheme. There is lots of current stuff you could try to bullshit us about as your team circles the hole in the toilet and awaits the big slurp. Get with the program! You can still claim that 29% of the country still supports you. Make hay while the sun shines. You probably won't be able to claim the 29% after 2008.
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This was the reason I was banned at FR some time ago, because shortly after the war against Iraq got started I had the nerve to say that that our military would not be greeted warmly by the Iraqi people, that we would not win over their hearts and minds, that in fact they would resent it. The posters at FR thought that was a terrible thing to say, so JR booted me off for being a disruptor. I'm sure you were considered disruptive on LP in another way though.
That's probably because you have become an internet legend, you are famous! We are so lucky and honored to have you here!!
47 INTERCONECTED box colums, not unlike, but definitely much heavier than the interconnected but much smaller columns in the other picture, which they did show. Funny how everyone of the fairy tale believers forgets that the core was interconnected.
Now are you going to defend Griffin or not?
#40. To: BeAChooser, Eoghan (#11)
(Edited)
#41. To: BeAChooser (#36)
So you are admitting you haven't actually read the material I've posted on Ron Brown. Correct?
#42. To: christine (#17)
I think there should be a maximum # of times that someone can post the exact same copy/paste
#43. To: BeAChooser (#35)
But this thread is about Griffin and his statements concerning 9/11.
#44. To: BeAChooser, SKYDRIFTER, christine, Red Jones (#25)
She stated I was "disruptive" to the thread (and it's "important message").
#45. To: BeAChooser, ..., Red Jones (#26)
Since you seem to know so much about me ...
#46. To: BeAChooser (#18)
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#47. To: Diana (#45)
Yes, he is like caLOL, TLBSHOW or Fahey. A legend, but not exactly in the way he imagines.
That's probably because you have become an internet legend, you are famous!
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#48. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#19)
When did you get interested in the truth, BAC? You're a disinformationist, a deceiver; a LIAR! Eat shit & die, you sorry piece of shit! You going to try and censor the truth, christine?
#49. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#25)
Goldi was part of the 'team' that sent you over here to disrupt this forum. You're not fooling anyone important, BAC! Don't think you have any permanence here, BAC, we're just keeping an eye on you. I appreciate this forum's owners giving me the opportunity to join, despite our past differences. I sure this will be interesting.
#50. To: ..., ALL (#37)
So have you read the material I've posted about Ron Brown or not?
"So you are admitting you haven't actually read the material I've posted on Ron Brown. Correct?"
Are you trying to put words in my mouth?
#51. To: ..., christine, ALL (#39)
But it is the topic of this thread. And my raising those issues and christine's indication that she might censor my responses criticizing Griffin are what apparently drew you to this thread. So are you going to defend Griffin from what I said about him or not?
Now are you going to defend Griffin or not?
That is not the issue I raised with you on this thread.
#52. To: ..., ALL (#43)
Again you don't seem to know what this thread is about. Why is that?
But this thread is about Griffin and his statements concerning 9/11.
Actually chooser, the world has turned. No one gives a shit about your NewsMax headlines cica 1993.
#53. To: Diana, ALL (#44)
I'm curious Diana. Why do you think Goldi LIED about the content of my post? It clearly was not uncivil as she claimed (and then deleted). My message to her is the same as my message to you folks. You will not find the truth or a better world on a foundation of lies. That message goes out to the posters championing Griffin in this thread. He's a liar ... and you will not find the truth on a foundation of lies.
I'm sure you were considered disruptive on LP in another way though.
#54. To: Critter, ALL (#46)
Funny how you still don't get it. ROTFLOL!
47 INTERCONECTED box colums, not unlike, but definitely much heavier than the interconnected but much smaller columns in the other picture, which they did show.
#55. To: BeAChooser (#53)
you're the one whose belief system is based on a foundation of lies. that's what your beloved government does is LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE and you disgustingly lap it all up and puke it all over this forum. as i said before, the only reason you're here is that some posters enjoy engaging you. no one here, including your imaginary lurker fans, reads the spam you've been posting over and over and over. you're the only one who fails to see how many times your "truth" has been nullified.
You will not find the truth or a better world on a foundation of lies.
#56. To: BeAChooser (#53)
Because she's a double-knot secret hippie?
Why do you think Goldi LIED about the content of my post?
"People like truth, it gives us a fucking benchmark." - dakmar
#57. To: christine (#55)
Good smack down of our resident heeb, christine. I can't see what he wrote to elicit your slap, but I'm sure ROTFLOL! was part of it.
#58. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#53)
That message goes out to the posters championing Griffin in this thread. He's a liar ... and you will not find the truth on a foundation of lies. BAC, you're the resident LIAR, wherever you go. You're "clever" about it, but the LIAR, in any case. Your definition of "truth" is that which the Bush Cabal (read: "Israel") dictates to you. You're the human epitome of un-truth, lies and deceit! You were "banned" as an excuse to send you groveling over here - nothing more. Eat shit, and die; BAC! You will not find the truth or a better world on a foundation of lies.
#59. To: christine (#55)
Gosh chris ..don't attempt to steer him the right direction.. he puts his trust in the system .. the poor man will be in a fetal position for years if he'd take of the blinders.. but funny the system he so trusts is what Washington, Eisenhower warned against.. HEY and they were a part of the 'system' now werent they?
#60. To: christine, ALL (#55)
I haven't posted any lies to this forum. Not a one. You and everyone else here are welcome to try proving I have. So far, most 4umers simply run from my posts. Bozo themselves. And the rest ignore the content, just as you have done on this thread. And anyone who visits 4um and reads this or any other thread that I've participated in will see this clear as day. None of you seem able to cope with the notion that Griffin has LIED to you about the facts surrounding the collapse of the towers. Hence, your behavior here.
you're the one whose belief system is based on a foundation of lies. that's what your beloved government does is LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE and you disgustingly lap it all up and puke it all over this forum. as i said before, the only reason you're here is that some posters enjoy engaging you. no one here, including your imaginary lurker fans, reads the spam you've been posting over and over and over. you're the only one who fails to see how many times your "truth" has been nullified.
#61. To: christine, Jethro Tull, ALL (#57)
See what I mean, christine? Most of your flock want to remain clueless and think that's a badge of honor.
Jethro Tull - Good smack down of our resident heeb, christine. I can't see what he wrote to elicit your slap,
#62. To: christine, SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#58)
Or you have posters like SKYDRIFTER. Meanwhile, NONE of you have challenged the details of the post I made about Griffin. Interesting ...
SKYDRIFTER - Eat shit, and die; BAC!
#63. To: BeAChooser (#53)
It clearly was not uncivil as she claimed (and then deleted). That is a good question, maybe she got tired of you as she has gotten tired of others then booted them off. I agree it was not uncivil. You make people angry but you don't stoop to vulgarity and such, though you have the capability to incite others into using bad langauge at times.
Why do you think Goldi LIED about the content of my post?
#64. To: BeAChooser (#60)
Hahahaha...idiot! Care to put any more words into the mouths of others while you're at it?
None of you seem able to cope with the notion that Griffin has LIED to you about the facts surrounding the collapse of the towers. Hence, your behavior here.
"People like truth, it gives us a fucking benchmark." - dakmar
#65. To: BeAChooser (#54)
Don't get what? That they took the time to draw every single column and interconnecting beam in the one example and then said they wouldn't waste their time making "stick figures" showing all 47 core columns and interconnecting beams? Don't get what? That they are deliberately misleading the uninformed? Don't get what? That you're a shill?
Funny how you still don't get it.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#66. To: BeAChooser (#62)
I challenged the misleading images, now I will challenge another lie in your post. Go to the 9:45 mark of this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2179339594842383954&hl=en There's one expert who believes 7 was a controlled demolition.
It is such extreme nonsense that NOT ONE demolition expert in the world concurs with this assertion.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#67. To: Diana (#63)
I refuse to be accused of using *&^%%ing *^*%$ language about that *^%$$#%^*& *^%$ shill. ;)
....though you have the capability to incite others into using bad langauge at times.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace." -Thomas Paine
In a CorporoFascist capitalist society, there is no money in peace, freedom, or a healthy population, and therefore, no incentive to achieve these.
- - IndieTX
- - IndieTX
#68. To: IndieTX (#67)
I refuse to be accused of using *&^%%ing *^*%$ language about that *^%$$#%^*& *^%$ shill. ;) I do admire your restraint ;P
....though you have the capability to incite others into using bad langauge at times.
"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either — but right through the human heart." — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#69. To: Diana, ALL (#63)
If she was tired of me, all she had to do was ask me to leave. It was her forum and her right. But instead she lied to create an excuse. She will not build a forum where truth, right and justice will prevail on a foundation of lies. The same goes for Freedom4um. Freedom will not begin with a lie.
That is a good question, maybe she got tired of you as she has gotten tired of others then booted them off. I agree it was not uncivil.
#70. To: Critter, ALL (#65)
That one structure had columns throughout and the other did not? That the construction of the two was significantly different? They didn't mislead. I posted what they wrote right below that figure.
Don't get what?
That they are deliberately misleading the uninformed?
#71. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#62)
Or you have posters like SKYDRIFTER. Griffin has his facts together! Your ability to cut and paste bullshit articles doesn't alter that! A stopwatch says that three WTC buildings free-fell onto their own footprint; nothing alters that - as in "controlled demolition." Eat shit, and die; BAC!
#72. To: Critter, ALL (#66)
Except we were talking about the TOWERS in the discussion above. Not WTC7. That particular expert (Jowenko) is also on record saying that the TOWERS were NOT controlled demolitions. He just thought that WTC7 was, after being shown just the material that a conspiracist like you *chose* to show him. Initially, he didn't know it happened on 9/11, didn't know the the building was on fire, and didn't know that firemen had observed the building was leaning long before the collapse. We should also point out to our readers that his theory is that Silverstein decided on the spur of the moment to take WTC7 down AFTER the planes hit the towers rather than have to repair it. No government plot. And he estimated that it would take 30 to 50 people to do it in the time available. ANY evidence to suggest that 30 to 50 people arrived at the site to do this ... AFTER the impact of the planes and tower collapses? No?
It is such extreme nonsense that NOT ONE demolition expert in the world concurs with this assertion.
... snip ...
There's one expert who believes 7 was a controlled demolition.
#73. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#71)
The two towers did NOT freefall.
A stopwatch says that three WTC buildings free-fell
#74. To: beachooser, Christine, Brian S, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#73)
They sure as fuck did! A stopwatch says it all! What bullshit are you using, as being anything but a freefall? C'mon, asshole, let's hear it! The two towers did NOT freefall.
#75. To: SKYDRIFTER (#71)
http://911blimp.net/prf_FreeFallPhysics.shtml
"You can not save the Constitution by destroying it."
#76. To: BeAChooser (#72)
There you go lying again. You insisted that no one has tried to rebut your "debunking". Well I rebutted it and now you're lying again. From the book: Your "debunking": The book talks about 3 buildings, not two. Or do you magically forget about building 7 just like the government and the main stream media? It is convenient to forget the most damning of the three demolitions, isn't it?
Except we were talking about the TOWERS in the discussion above. Not WTC7.
Fourth, the collapses of these three buildings all manifested many standard features of the kind of controlled demolition known as “implosion,”
This is sheer nonsense. It is such extreme nonsense that NOT ONE demolition expert in the world concurs with this assertion.
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#77. To: BeAChooser (#73)
LIAR you really are evil.
The two towers did NOT freefall.
#78. To: BeAChooser (#70)
They did mislead. They acurately represented the other type of structure and inaccurately represented the towers, using the EXCUSE about not wanting to create a stick figure. Well they created one already, why would creating a stick figure for the towers be such a big deal? If they didn't want to create a stick figure, why did they draw all of the columns and interconnecting beams for the other type of structure? They are LIARS!!!
A new truth movement friendly digg type site: Zlonk it!
#79. To: SKYDRIFTER, ALL (#74)
And what do you claim the collapse times of WTC1 and WTC2 are?
The two towers did NOT freefall.
They sure as fuck did!
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