A Canadian Online Paper to Comment On!

Hey all, here's a chance to represent against some very lame deniers. Carol Brouillet and RT have already chimed in--won't you?

http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/09/cbcs-the-nation.html?ci...

They've called in the local Winston Smith (in charge of deleting history)askking him to start removing posts, so I will post what's there so far!

The Shotgun Blog
« Did Stephen Harper plagiarize former Australian PM John Howard? | Main | Political ad watch: New Liberal ad, more Harper = Bush association »

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
CBC's The National covers the candidates and 9/11 truthers
Liberal blogger Jason Cherniak found some videos of NDP leader Jack Layton getting chummy with 9/11 truthers, and claiming to be good friends with Barry Zwicker, leader of the Canadian 9/11 Truth movement. It made some big news.

On the heels of those "revelations," came news that Liberal candidate Lesley Hughes thought something fishy happened during 9/11. Lesley Hughes was pushed out by the Liberal Party for that reason.

The Liberals then went on to insist that NDP candidate Bev Collins also had some 9/11 Truth views.

And now the CBC's The National is covering the story. Here's video:

h/t Cherniak

Posted by P.M. Jaworski on September 30, 2008 in Canadian Politics | Permalink

TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/22305/34004433

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference CBC's The National covers the candidates and 9/11 truthers:

Comments
The whole thing is a moot point. We'll never get the actual truth and if we did, so what? Nothing will change based on this alone. Change will come when people begin to understand that our system threw us all overboard 30 or 40 years ago.

Posted by: JC | 30-Sep-08 2:33:35 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC:

Did the rape victim ask for it?

Posted by: set you free | 30-Sep-08 3:03:34 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You're being cryptic. What are you talking about?

Posted by: JC | 30-Sep-08 3:05:21 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hate that political correctness dictates these people should be dropped from running in politics.

Want to hold wacky views... go for it. Let the people decide if you can be an MP or not.

Dropping these people from circulation only furthers the bland PC emptiness we see from most poeple in politics.

Would I vote for Lesley Hughes? Not in a billion years. Jack Layton... well... maybe only in a million years.

Posted by: Q | 30-Sep-08 3:27:39 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If the CBC can't make the Truthers seem competent and plausible, nothing can.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 30-Sep-08 4:09:48 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC, we're still waiting for you to explain to us how the collapse of the towers violated the laws of physics, and how that observation was lost on so many respected scientific journals.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 30-Sep-08 5:33:06 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay let's try Popular Mechanics. They said that fires started by burning jet fuel caused by the deliberate crashing of jet airliners into the towers caused their structure to buckle and collapse. Since this was caught live on TV, it is rather hard to dispell. Now take your Holocaust denial someplace else.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 30-Sep-08 5:57:43 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Holocaust denial? You people are obtuse.

Posted by: Buchanan | 30-Sep-08 7:30:14 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC, we're still waiting for you to explain to us how the collapse of the towers violated the laws of physics, and how that observation was lost on so many respected scientific journals.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 30-Sep-08 5:33:06 PM

Do your own homework. I have better things to do.

Posted by: JC | 30-Sep-08 7:50:14 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I remember interviewing Bev Collins on my weekly radio show Questioning War- Organizing Resistance in August 2007. I believe she is a very intelligent, insightful person, so is Barrie Zwicker.

I organized the first marches demanding a Congressional Investigation of 9/11 in January 2002, and have witnessed the attempts to lie, destroy evidence, cover-up what happened, use the event to launch wars against the US Constitution, Afghanistan and Iraq.

I organized the San Francisco International Inquiry into 9/11, in March 2004, and helped with the Toronto Citizen's International Inquiry into 9/11, in May 2004. I also ran for Congress in 2006, and am currently a Green Party Candidate for Congress in California District 14.

I have also interviewed Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson who has publicly called for a real investigation, and I have spoken with former Minnesota governor, and author, Jesse Ventura, who is also calling for a real investigation. Karen plans on running for governor of Arizona in 2010, and Jesse for President in 2012.

For my televised candidate's statement in the upcoming election, I wrote:

The most outrageous conspiracy theory about 9/11 was the one used to sell the war in Iraq.

The Bush Administration’s corruption of science to pursue political goals violates the health and well-being of all and clouds our ability to make rational, wise decisions. The White House directed the EPA to falsely reassure people about the air and water quality at Ground Zero in the wake of 9/11. As a result, people are still dying from their exposure to the toxic dust.

Congress failed to investigate 9/11. The 9/11 Commission, overseen by the author of the pre-emptive war doctrine, used their report, with its omissions and distortions, based on unreliable tortured confessions, to justify the construction of Homeland Security, and to pave the path for future wars. Yet, Congress approved its flawed recommendations, to expand a police state that has been used to violently suppress and criminalize us.

Why were those most responsible for the failures of the military and the intelligence agencies on September 11th, rewarded with promotions and increased budgets?

The Project for a New American Century, called for the U.S. to extend its power, through a “Revolution in Military Affairs,” including the domination of space, cyberspace, military technologies, and information systems. Their “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” report says: “The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a New Pearl Harbor.”

Who had the ability to carry out 9-11, to destroy the evidence, to cover it up, and who benefited? Cheney and Rumsfeld had worked for twenty years on “Continuity of Government plans” which were partially implemented on the morning of 9/11. The emergency measures have been renewed annually by the President, although the details have been kept secret. We do know that within the Continuity of Government plans, Congress is viewed as an impediment that can be discarded in favor of unelected, unknown appointees.

Cheney and Bush must be asked to testify “What were the orders that they issued that morning?” and “Who was overseeing the multiple war exercises that were being conducted?”

In August, the government released a report on World Trade Center 7. Not hit by a plane, its rapid disintegration into a neat pile exhibited all the characteristics of a controlled demolition. Yet, the report claims this 47-story steel-framed high rise collapsed on 9/11 due to normal office fires--a first in history. It's farcical Bush science, denying reality. Treason is a crime which demands impeachment.

We need to impeach those who have committed the highest crimes against our country. We need to recognize that the “War on Terror” is the biggest fraud ever and is a “War of Terror” against all of us.- end of excerpt-

I do believe, when people become aware of the facts that have been suppressed by the mainstream media, common sense will prevail, and the idea that "9/11 was an inside job" will be recognized as common wisdom.

We still need an investigation. We still do not have all the details, nor all the evidence, but we do know with certainty that they have lied, destroyed evidence and participated in a cover-up and that is clearly a crime.

Carol Brouillet

Posted by: Carol Brouillet | 30-Sep-08 9:57:18 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David Irving and Ernst Zundel would be so proud of you! You're using Holocaust denial methods to prove the false. Haven't you got anything better to do?

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 30-Sep-08 10:02:09 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

70% of the families questions were ignored:

9/11 Family Steering Committee Review of the 9/11 Commission Report:
http://911truth.org/images/resources/Family%20Steering%20Cmte%20review%2...

Mainstream media and the government's own reports and statements prove the lie of the official conspiracy theory

Complete 9/11 Timeline
http://cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

Posted by: Erik Larson | 30-Sep-08 10:09:35 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What bothers me about Layton in all of this is his habit of being friends with everyone, until it is inconvenient and he feels he has to deny any knowledge.

It began when the Fathers 4 Justice guys camped out on his constituency office and unfurled a banner that read "No Dads Party." Questioned at the time, Layton denied knowing them or even knowing what they wanted. He was later contradicted by members of F4J, who said they had been sending him letters and trying to set up a meeting with him for months, and he kept putting them off.

Then Marc Emery announced that he had a deal with Layton to send over NDP supporters in exchange for making favourable noises about legalizing marijuana. Layton denied it; but video surfaced where he is being very chummy with Emery.

Now Layton denies being sympathetic toward or even knowing anything about the "truthers." But video has surfaced showing that he knows Barry Zwicker very well, for years, and saying he has studied some of the "truther" literature.

Layton has a credibility problem. He wants to be all things to all people (except CEOs), until the associations he forms might be viewed unfavourably at the "kitchen table."

Posted by: Grant Brown | 30-Sep-08 10:10:11 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Taliban Jack" might also be called "two pension Jack". He's built quite a portfolio off the political gravy train. It's the only "real" job he's ever had, and now his wife will be eligible for a big pension, if she's re-elected. If he pulls of the official oppostition gig, he'll have a pension income equal to some pretty big executive pay scales. All this for accomplishing very lttle of any value. I guess I should admire him, but it's asking too much, I'm afraid.

Posted by: dp | 30-Sep-08 10:32:16 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess I should admire him, but it's asking too much, I'm afraid.

Posted by: dp | 30-Sep-08 10:32:16 PM

Its an understandable conflict dp.
We admire someone for "making it". But then realize they made it by providing nothing of value. And yes, its too much to bear, admiring that.

Posted by: JC | 30-Sep-08 10:47:11 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC, you were the one who made the ridiculous claim in the first place - it isn't asking much for you to provide some evidence.

But here's the problem for people like JC - they fail to understand what "critical thinking" actually is - instead "question everything" is taken to the extreme; where reason, rationalism, and reality itself are being "questioned". It's sad, really.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 9:37:31 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone who actually wants to understand why the destruction of the WTC could not have resulted without the use of explosives can very easily go to the webiste of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth at ae911truth.net .

I will enumerate some of the problems with te official explanation here:

1) there is no official explanation beyond a computer-modelled hypthetical point of "collapse initiation" for the twin towers. the NIST created a simulation and assigned values arbitrarily to parameters like the number of core columns severed, then tweaked al the variables until the computer said the top would begin falling. they do not show how or why the tops would have proceeded to rip through the undamaged lower portion of the buildings at nearly the rate they would fall through empty space--why did the structures offer so little resistance? they also did not test for the presence of residue from explosives or incendiaries, and then incredibly states that they found no evidence of explosives having been used.

2. "debunkers" like to say that the steel didn't have to melt for the towers to collapse, but that is not the point at all. The point is that the steel DID melt. Molten iron or steel (made mostly from iron) can be seen pouring out of the south tower in videos shot before it collapsed, and firefighters described molten steel "flowing like lava" in the aftermath. Even FEMA's own report indicated that steel samples from WTC7 showed signs of ultra high temperatures unattainable in jet-fuel ignited office fires.

3. Over 100 first-responders with the police and fire department of New York gave oral and written testimony attesting to explosions going off all over the buildings. A group of employees of the WTC including one William Rodriguez who was honored as a rescue hero by the white house witnessed a huge explosion coming from a sub basement level. One of the employees, Felipe David, was severely burned by this explosion which occured seconds *before* the impact of the first plane that morning.

3. Abundant video evidence of the towers exists and shows conclusively that explosives were used. Flashes can be seen coming from inside the building, a huge explosion can be seen in one video coming from within the north tower as the south tower is being hit by a plane, the tops can be seen in videos *not* to be crushing the buildings beneath them but instead disintegrating in mid air with huge clouds of pulverized concrete floor sections and multi ton steel debris being thrown sideways, not downwards, in some cases lodging itself in buildings more than 400 feet away.

These are just some of the issues--be sure to check out the A&E website where over 475 architects and engineers have signed a petition for a new investigation into 9/11 that does not, as the sham that has passed for a 9/11 investigation thus far has, rule out arson and insurance fraud a priori.

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 11:58:19 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zebulon Pike, why do you keep bringing up the holocaust? What has it got to do with 9/11? if you keep it up you're going to make people think that they are somehow linked!

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 12:02:25 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC, you were the one who made the ridiculous claim in the first place - it isn't asking much for you to provide some evidence.
Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 9:37:31 AM

You're not actually suggesting that it was "me personally" who originally suggested that the towers were the result of a professional demolition are you?
For crying out loud....clear your decks, open up your mind and do your own research. Stop being so damned lazy. There is more information on the internet about this than you can read in a month.
Why is it my problem to educate "you"?

Posted by: JC | 1-Oct-08 12:21:59 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There ya go "Twoof"...read Truther's post just above.
I didn't even know about the architects and engineers sites.

Posted by: JC | 1-Oct-08 12:24:18 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No matter what your politics is, science is the same for all.

A lot of people have been awakened to the dishonesty in the US government's account of 9-11 by seeing videos of WTC building 7 collapse in under 10 seconds. Building 7 was the third tower that collapsed completely on 9-11 even though it was not hit by any aircraft. It took the US government up to August 2008 to formulate an explanation for what happened to the building and yet that explanation has been exposed as lame.

Believing the US government's version of 9-11 is as mistaken as believing their claim that Iraq possessed WMD.

A video analysis proving that the Government is lying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC44L0-2zL8

Critiques of the Govt's position on WTC 7 compiled here:
http://wtcdemolition.com/blog/node/1538

Use your head and you can only come to one conclusion, what happened on 9-11 is not what you are being told on CNN.

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 12:58:44 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First of all, not a single member of AE 9/11 Truth is a PhD in structural engineering. Yet, several structural engineering PhDs have studied the collapse. Furthermore, no AE911T member has had his theories submitted to peer review let alone published in a legitimate scientific journal. I cited several, including - but not limited - to these:

Bazant, Z.P., & Zhou, Y.
"Addendum to 'Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? - Simple Analysis" (pdf)
Journal of Engineering Mechanics v. 128, no. 3, (2002): 369-370.

What Did and Did not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York
Bazant, Le, Greening & Benson. Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE , Vol. 134 (2008)

Clifton, Charles G.
Elaboration on Aspects of the Postulated Collapse of the World Trade Centre Twin Towers
HERA: Innovation in Metals. 2001. 13 December 2001.

Corbett, G.P.
"Learning and Applying the Lessons of the WTC Disaster"
Fire Engineering v.155, no. 10, (2002.): 133-135.

"Dissecting the Collapses"
Civil Engineering ASCE v. 72, no. 5, (2002): 36-46.

Eagar, T.W., & Musso, C.
"Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation"
JOM v. 53, no. 12, (2001): 8-12.

A suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers. By: Quintiere, J.G.; di Marzo, M.; Becker, R.. Fire Safety Journal, Oct2002, Vol. 37 Issue 7, p707, 10p.

Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft into the World Trade Center. By: Karim, Mohammed R.; Fatt, Michelle S. Hoo. Journal of Engineering Mechanics, Oct2005, Vol. 131 Issue 10, p1066-1072.

Could the world trade center have been modified to prevent its collapse?; Newland, D. E.; Cebon, D. Journal of Engineering Mechanics; 2002 Vol. 128 Issue 7, p795-800, 6p.

In short, each floor offered very little resistance to what was landing on it.

Secondly, NIST's theory of collapse initiation involves the outer columns being pulled inward right before collapse - something explosives cannot account for. Moreover the collapse begins - in both towers - at precisely the point of impact.

Thirdly, you truthers clearly do not understand the difference between explosives and incindiaries. Which also speaks to the fact that you do not understand the different between melting and oxidation.

And yes, steel was tested. And yet again I point you to actual scientific research.
http://www.me.wpi.edu/MTE/Research/Publications/sisson.html
"...Professor Sisson determined that the steel was attacked by a liquid slag which contained iron, sulphur and oxygen.
However, rather than coming from thermite, the metallurgist Professor Sisson thinks the sulphur came from masses of gypsum wallboard that was pulverised and burnt in the fires. He says:
"I don't find it very mysterious at all, that if I have steel in this sort of a high temperature atmosphere that's rich in oxygen and sulphur this would be the kind of result I would expect.""

Furthermore, actual demolition experts were involved in the clean-up, like Brent Blanchard of Protec:

...we spoke directly with equipment operators and site foreman who personally extracted beams at debris from Ground Zero ... To a man, they do not recall encountering molten structural steel beams, nor do they recall seeing any evidence of pre-cutting or explosive severance of beams at any point during debris removal activities.

...Close examination of these events from every video and photographic angle available does not indicate failure originating from the lowest floors, rather clearly shows each building beginning to fail at precisely the point where the respective planes struck. That is, no floors above or below the impact points ever move until the structural elements within the impact zone begin to collapse (WTC 7 collapsed differently, which we will cover later).

Furthermore, there are no independent failures present while the structures are collapsing (we’re not talking dust plumes or debris, but actual structural failure). All lower floors remained completely intact until they were consumed by the collapse from above.

...Therefore, for explosives to be considered as a primary or supplemental catalyst, one would have to accept that either, a) dozens of charges were placed on those exact impact floors in advance and survived the violent initial explosions and 1100+ degree Fahrenheit fires, or b) while the fires were burning, charges were installed undetected throughout the impact floors and wired together, ostensibly by people hiding in the buildings with boxes of explosives. There is no third choice that could adequately explain explosives causing failure at the exact impact points.

Here's a question: how could melted beams be flowing out of the building before collapse? How much steel/iron would have melted for that to happen, and how would the building still be standing?

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 1:19:13 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9/11 Truth is equivalent to Holocaust denial. Both use the same methods - evasion, demanding excessive proof for some things and not others, etc - to attempt to disprove famous events. Both have failed miserably. The only difference is that Holocaust deniers go to jail while Truthers receive political party nominations in Canada.

Here are some numbers for you: 343 (number of FDNY who died trying to rescue people that day), 23 (NYPD), 37 (Port Authority PD), 2,973 (number of lives taken that day by terrorists). Crunch those all you like.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 1:20:38 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Twoof,

You cannot just explain away how building 7 collapses at free fall speed when it has all the structure supporting it for the past so many years. The explanation from NIST and the other apologists for the government do not correspond with simple Newtonian physics. All of those scientists you cited are discrediting themselves by suggesting collapse modes that do not conform to evidence that that too many people have seen already. Building 7 goes down too quickly and is in fact the only steel framed building in the world that has collapsed completely due to fire alone.

NIST commissioned a study that tried to look for other buildings that have collapsed due to fire and they have not found one with a steel frame that has collapsed with no substantial structure left standing except for WTC bldg 7.

http://www.haifire.com/presentations/Historical_Collapse_Survey.pdf

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 1:43:32 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jaundelacruz,

Tip? Don't get too involved with these guys. They are so indoctinated you would think they had a vested interest in the official story. They'll argue in defense of the government long after it stops making sense to do so. That is by some definitions what a "fanatic" does...
But to each his own. If that's what they want to believe, so be it.

Posted by: JC | 1-Oct-08 1:50:08 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC - indoctrinated? This from the person who makes a silly claim about the "laws of physics" yet has no idea who said it or why, and yet swallows it without question. The same JC who swallows without question the silly claims from some truther. JC you once again expose yourself as an inbecile.
Look up Dr. James Quintiere, Dr. Frank Greening, or Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl. All three are prominent and respected scientists, and all three are harshly critical of NIST (i.e. "the government"). Yet, at the same time, all three completely reject these ridiculous conspiracy theories. It's called critical thinking - you should look into it.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 1:54:35 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. de la Cruz, which part of the NIST report to you take issue with? What is your objection based on? Why should that column not have failed? What should have happened to the building once that column did collapse? Would it have collapsed? Collapsed differently? Not collapsed at all?

I mentioned Dr. Frank Greening - he has submitted a fairly harsh critique of the NIST WTC7 report - are you familiar with it? Are you familiar with the case he presents? Are you aware of his views on the "demolition" theories?

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 1:59:01 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks JC,

I just did not want anyone reading the comments to be misled by the lame reports coming from the government and it's hired "experts", and apologists who cite those reports without understanding their serious shortcomings.

It only takes highschool physics to show that fire alone could not have caused WTC building 7 to collapse. The simplest explanation is that it was downed by explosives and/or cutter charges placed on its columns prior to 9-11. The frightening implication of that deduction is that the US government was involved and is now covering this up.

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 2:13:01 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

JC - There are a lot of great people at this website trying to promote the cause of libertarianism. You are peddling this garbarge under the banner of libertarianism, which is the perfect way to ensure it remains relegated on the lunatic fringes.

So, juandelacruz, I'll ask again - Why should that column not have failed? What should have happened to the building once that column did collapse? Would it have collapsed? Collapsed differently? Not collapsed at all?

Where's your evidence of explosives? What about this study which tested steel from WTC7 - steel that appeared to have been melted?
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 2:19:47 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just because some reports contain inaccuracies does not mean that they're the product of a conspiracy. Get real, get a life.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 2:26:33 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To twoof,

The answers to your question are in my posts above. Dr. Greening is among the people who sent comments to the NIST. I agree with him that the NIST report on WTC 7 has serious errors. Below is his conclusion:

http://www.cool-places.0catch.com/911/GreeningCommentsNCSTAR1-9.pdf

"7.0 Conclusions
I believe there are many problems with the material presented in NIST’s Draft
Report on the collapse of WTC 7; most of these problems stem from the assumed
fuel loading on the fire-affected floors but I would add that NIST’s collapse
hypothesis is not physically achievable and not supported by observations of the
behavior of Building 7 during its collapse. In addition, NIST’s global collapse
time estimates appear to be in error by about 0.75 seconds which leads to a
substantial under-estimation of the acceleration of the collapsing building.
I therefore believe that the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
through its Draft Report, has fallen well short of substantiating its own collapse
initiation hypothesis but could, on the contrary, be said to have provided evidence
that a single column failure, brought on by thermal expansion of floor framing
beams and girders, did not precipitate a global collapse of WTC 7 - the reason
being that the NIST simulation predicts a slow collapse initiation which was not
observed. Therefore I believe that an alternative collapse initiation and
propagation hypothesis is called for - one that more accurately reflects the reality
of what happened to WTC 7 on September 11th 2001."

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 2:26:53 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You know, the tobacco companies are never short of scientists who say that smoking doesn't cause cancer, and polluters are really good at finding respected scientists who question global warming. This is called hiding behind credentials. Guess what? Plenty of people with credentials are also dishonest as hell. On the one hand you have a handful of people making different claims about how the towers collapsed--first they pancaked, then they didn't pancake, or the steel melted but then it didn't melt. Citing all the speculative papers you can find doesn't suddenly mean that any of them have adequately explained what happened.

On the other hand we have millions of citizens using common sense backed up by nearly 500 building professionals, numerous victims' families, bona fide rescue heroes, etc. asking the simple question: if all the evidence is consistent with explosives being used, and no other explanation is consistent with all of the evidence, then why do some people insist, in the absence of any testing having been done to ascertain this, that there were no explosives involved?

It really is weird how attached some people are to the utterly discredited official story that scapegoats arab muslims for something they didn't do--actually it isn't weird. First they blamed bin laden and the Taliban, now the FBI says it has no evidence linking bin Laden to 9/11. Then they blamed Saddam, who they also claimed had WMD. Now some people are going for the holy grail and trying to claim that IRAN had something to do with it. Notice a pattern? We certainly do.

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 2:29:31 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, no, you did not answer my questions, and I'll pose another:

Would you argue then that Dr. Greening must have failed high school physics? If you agree he is an authority on the matter, then surely his views on the demolition theory must be relevant, no?

He's also the co-author of this paper, perhaps you should read it:

What Did and Did not Cause Collapse of WTC Twin Towers in New York
Bazant, Le, Greening & Benson. Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE , Vol. 134 (2008)

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 2:30:44 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Real truther", you are citing NIST and FEMA's research, not the peer-reviewed research that appeared in legitimate scienfitic journals. What basis do you have for calling into question the integrity of all those involved in that reseach? None at all.

Furthermore, it's funny when truthers cite a claim of "hearing bangs" or "seeing flashes" - almost none of the people saying that actually believe explosives were used. They may say, "Oh we heard this big bang..." but when asked if they believe there were explosives, the answer is no.

This video contains several examples of actual demolitions - you tell me if any look or sound like the WTC towers:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2873871255585611926

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 2:36:49 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just because some reports contain inaccuracies does not mean that they're the product of a conspiracy. Get real, get a life."

A little "inaccuracy" in the reports on 9-11 is all that the US government and its co-conspirators need to explain away their very big crime. That is all it takes for the mass media to cite them repeatedly and brainwash the inattentive and the weak of mind from pursuing the truth. Once an expert has declared that so is so, it is easy for many to just file the case away as solved and best forgotten. This is how the criminals intend to get away.

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 2:38:41 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To those who keep repeating "where's your evidence huh?" Most of it can easily be found on ae911truth.net which is a site run by architects and engineers, not journalists, politicians, comedians, or sad and lonely men in their underwear. If you see any flaw in their analysis please point it out.

But to simplify things a bit let me answer some of the questions you had before. It is not necessary for explosives to have been wired together as in a commercial demolition. Since the intent was clearly to make it appear that the planes caused the collapses, the demolitions were started there. The explosives were probably in various sections of the core structures and detonated via radio detonators so no need for wires and no reason for the plane crashes to set them all off at once. The explosives were one part of the job. The other was the incendiary, most likely thermate, apparently painted onto the structure in a gel form. Thermate when ignited produces molten iron and temperatures in excess of 4000 degrees fahrenheit, and does so without being quite as obvious as actual explosives. So the structure was thinned with thermate and broken by correspondingly smaller amounts of explosives. All of this is corroborated by physical evidence as well as by eyewitnesses.

Finding the video of orange hot glowing molten metal coming out of the south tower isn't hard--if you care to look for it. It doesn't matter that some people claim they saw no molten steel--their not seeing it doesn't make it disappear. And don't say it's not molten iron or steel - it is, since it's the only metal that would be glowing orange while molten found in sufficient quantities in the twin towers.

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 2:45:06 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Many more where these came from...

"[T]here was just an explosion [in the south tower]. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions."--Firefighter Richard Banaciski

"I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?"
--Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory

"[I]t was [like a] professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'."
--Paramedic Daniel Rivera

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060118104223192

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 2:48:27 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am sure that the same 9/11 truthers would argue that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed yet neglect the fact that he shot a cop in the face with numerous witnesses. Would an innocent man shoot a cop in the face? I think not. We all watched the Towers fall and most of us have made reasonable conclusions. But just has many loonies thing the Kennedy assassination was an inside job, there are loonies who think 9/11 was an inside job. They just want to avoid the fact that there are people out there who want to end our society and that they aren't our own government.(with the exception of Obama of course)

Posted by: Ike | 1-Oct-08 2:50:26 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sorry Ike, but you're wrong about truthers. We agree on many things like the fact that the buildings were obviously brought down with explosives but we have widely varying views on who was likely to have been responsible for planning and execution of the crime. The cover-up has clearly involved many more people than the crime itself--I personally think Bush is guilty of the former but not the latter. Otherwise it is much more complicated than "the ay-rabs done it" or "the gummint done it". That will become clear soon enough, after people understand what did and did not happen we can move on to who did or did not contribute to making it happen. First things first though--the obvious.

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 2:57:59 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there were explosives planted, why has no one come forward to say so?

a) they are keeping quiet.
b) they died in the Towers
c) there are none BECAUSE terrorists in airplanes brought them down.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 3:22:08 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Truther" - you're proving my point. What's the rest of Mr. Gregory's quote:

"I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever."

In other words, he gives a quote that you guys distort, yet the very person who said it and witnessed it has a very different conclusion.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 3:37:21 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To clarify a point that I find particularly important and potentially very harmful- to whoever compares the Truth movement with Holocaust deniers--
Whether you believe Truth theories or not, the huge and extremely relevant difference between the two is that while Holocaust denial theories are extremely damaging to humanity, are horribly racist, and deny the legitimate suffering of a specific group of people, Truthers do none of those things-- they do not deny the deaths resulting from 9/11, nor do they target a specific group of people. In fact, their goal is to find the truth in the NAME of those people murdered, and all others who were hurt by this event. They are not against the victims, far from it. It is extremely misleading, and a low blow, cowardly argument to compare them to Holocaust deniers due to these important differences.

Posted by: searching | 1-Oct-08 3:56:28 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"In fact, their goal is to find the truth in the NAME of those people murdered, and all others who were hurt by this event."

If that's your goal, then you're doing an appallingly bad job. Your logic is non-existent. It seems as if you start with your political objectives and work backwards to "prove" them. Guess what: that's what Holocaust deniers do. Disgraceful. Disrespectful.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 4:03:20 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So then, "Twoof", a couple of questions for you:

1) What caused the high temperatures necessary to melt steel, surpassing those attainable by jet fuel under atmospheric conditions by at least ~500°C?

2) How did sulphur -- rather tightly chemically bonded in gypsum -- end up in slag that just so happened to occur every 3 stories, just at the welds of the core columns?

3) How come the tops of the towers "crushed" the structure underneath despite quite obviously being disintegrated before the collapse progressed?

4) In the same vein, how come there are no noticeable accumulations of mass within the footprints of the buildings -- where they would have had to remain in order to "crush" things underneath -- and instead, we could observe a pretty even distribution of debris within a large radius? Just take a look here: http://www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/

I'd be as surprised as I'd be happy if you could plausibly answer those 4 questions for me. If you can't, any further defense of the "official conspiracy theory" on your part would be nothing less than hypocrisy -- which, frankly, wouldn't surprise me.

Are you from JREF, by any chance?

Posted by: bruce1337 | 1-Oct-08 4:11:05 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't even attack your point about the similarity in methods. I don't feel educated enough to go there, I'll admit. I also want to point out that I personally do not identify myself as a Truther.

Even despite [debatably] misguided methodology, my point was about their intentions toward the human population, which are not to inflict harm, as opposed to being completely racist and horrible (as are holocaust deniers). You did not address that at all in your last post. It's a hugely important distinction.

Posted by: searching | 1-Oct-08 4:15:15 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since the attacks of 9/11/01, researchers (including scientists, engineers, and architects) have questioned the accuracy of the US government’s official account of the events of that day. (The official account is laid out in The 9/11 Commission Report, available in published book form or online at http://www.9-11commission.gov/.) One of the most prominent leaders in this investigation has been David Ray Griffin, who for over 30 years has been a prominent professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont School of Theology in California. Dr. Griffin’s books on 9/11 include “A New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11,” “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions,” “Debunking 9/11 Debunking,” and “9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press.” During the course of his research, Dr. Griffin has found overwhelming evidence for the idea that the official US government account of the events of 9/11 is wrong. The following arguments were largely taken from his books, but also from more recently published information, such as Laura Knight-Jadczk’s book, “9/11: The Ultimate Truth.”

1) Evidence of Foreknowledge

Just prior to 9/11, there was an unusually high level of stock activity related to short selling and put options, which are high-risk bets that a stock’s value will depreciate. During the same time period, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw suspicious trading on Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, two of the largest World Trade Center (WTC) tenants. Who were these investors and how did they know to make these particular investments?

Various warnings were issued. Some people (San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, some high level Pentagon officials, and Attorney General John Ashcroft) were warned not to fly on 9/11/01. NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani stated that he was warned (‘We set up headquarters at 75 Barclay Street . . ., and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse. And it did collapse . . .’). Odigo (a communications company) warned its employees working in the TWC complex not to go to work on 9/11/01. Suspicious insurance policies (‘terrorism rider’) were taken out on WTC complex by the WTC lease-holder, Larry Silverstein, who completed lease arrangements for the WTC complex on July 24, 2001. The US Government acknowledged forewarning of imminent attack, as evidenced by the official investigation, in which then National Security Advisor Condolezza Rice testified that the President received an August 7th memo titled “bin Laden Determined to Attack in the US.”

2) Military Training Games

The Bush administration claimed that 9/11 attacks could not have been anticipated, because they never thought it possible that airplanes would be used as weapons. However, in the years prior to 9/11, NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), a unit of the military responsible for air defense in the US and Canada, conducted drills of a scenario that involved hijackers crashing airplanes into specific targets—one of the targets was the World Trade Center—as well as multiple, simultaneous hijackings.

There are several other coincidences that occurred around the time of 9/11. Many fighter pilots were called away from the East Coast on 9/11 in order to participate in war games—three involving scenarios intercepting hijacked planes. Some of the war games included adding fake hijacked airplanes into the defense tracking system—right at the time when the actual hijackings took place on 9/11. NORAD states this as a reason for their delayed response in intercepting the actual hijacked planes—they could not tell the difference between the fake hijacked airplanes on the radar and the real hijacked planes. So the war games mirrored the attacks very well.

3) Aviation/Military Procedural Irregularities

On all flights, the transponders were reportedly shut off by the hijackers so that the planes’ whereabouts would be undetected. However, shutting off these devices only prevents civilian airports from locating a plane’s location, not the military. Furthermore, when a transponder is turned off, it automatically sends a signal to NORAD. It is then routine that, if contact with the airplane fails, military jets are set up to further assess the situation. This procedure had been successfully initiated 67 times in the year preceding 9/11. In all cases, it took no more than 15 minutes for a military jet to reach the planes in question. On 9/11, however, the time between when the hijacked planes’ transponders were turned off and the attacks occurred ranged from 40-90 minutes, clearly enough time for NORAD to respond and clearly a deviation from NORAD’s standing policy.

It was reported that NORAD sent out three F-16 jets when gaining word that Flight 77 was headed toward Washington. It is estimated that they could have reached Washington in about six minutes, well before Flight 77 could have arrived there. However, they were reportedly misdirected over the Atlantic Ocean, and did not reach Washington until 30 minutes later—too late to stop the crash. It is also worth mentioning that Andrews Air Force Base is just ten minutes from the Pentagon, and its fighters, if dispatched, could have within minutes easily intercepted any plane headed toward the Pentagon.

4) Phone Calls Made from the Planes

Several cell phone calls were reportedly made from the passengers on the hijacked planes to their loved ones (as evidenced by caller ID listing the caller’s cell phone number). However, it has been shown scientifically that it is very difficult to make cell phone calls above 8,000 feet when flying. All of the hijacked planes were well above this altitude when the phone calls took place. A spokesman of AT&T reported that if cell phone calls do get through at high altitudes, then they are not of very good quality, and tend to cut off frequently.

Some of the phone calls that were made from the planes were also highly suspect. One woman reports receiving a cell phone call from her son who was on one of the flights. Ironically, however, he stated his first and last name for her, stating “Hi Mom, this is Mark Bingham.” Why would anyone state their first and last name to their own mother?

Ted Olson, who was Solicitor General of the US on 9/11, reported that his wife, Barbara Olson, called him from Flight 77 (which reportedly hit the Pentagon). He claimed that Barbara reported that hijackers had herded all the passengers and pilots to the back of the plane. Without even examining the alleged content of Barbara’s call, Ted’s description of how she called him is riddled with contradictions. He first told CNN that Barbara had “called him twice on a cell phone.” Later, he switched his story and said that she had reached him by calling the Department of Justice collect. Therefore, she must have been using the “airplane phone,” he surmised, because “she somehow didn't have access to her credit cards.” However, this version of Olson's story, besides contradicting his first version, was even self-contradictory, because a credit card is needed to activate a passenger-seat phone. Later that same day, moreover, Olson told Larry King Live that the second call from his wife suddenly went dead because “the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don't work that well” After that return to his first version, he finally settled on the second version, saying that his wife had called collect and hence must have used “the phone in the passengers’ seats” because she did not have her purse. It appears that 757s did not even have seatback phones in 2001, so this last account is not credible. Finally, the BFI acknowledged in the Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20th hijacker) trial that not even one connected call was attributed to Barbara Olson, from either a cell phone or an onboard phone.

5) WTC North and South Tower Attacks

Thousands of engineers have expressed skepticism that the resulting collapse of the WTC towers was due to the impact and resulting fires caused by the plane crashes. The damage allegedly due to the planes hitting the Twin Towers does not match the final outcome—pulverized concrete, steel beams ejected 600 feet from the buildings, collapse at near-free-fall speed, molten steel in the basement for months, eyewitness identification of explosions prior to and after plane impact, seismic data consistent with explosive devices, and more.

In their 100-year history, no steel-framed skyscrapers has ever collapsed entirely due to fire damage, let alone collapsed perfectly into its own footprint at a speed equivalent to free gravitational fall (i.e., with no resistance operating on the building), except on 9/11/01, when three collapsed. WTC Buildings 1, 2, (each 1300+ feet tall, 110 stories) and 7 (570 feet tall, 47 stories). The data are instead consistent with the idea that these buildings were demolished by explosives.

Officially, it is reported that the WTC towers collapsed due to the “weakening” of the steel structures caused by the jet-fuel fires that occurred on several floors of the building. However, reports from the first investigations of the attacks state that the temperature from the fires probably did not exceed 500 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel melts at around 2750 degrees Fahrenheit. Jet fuel, which is essentially kerosene, burns at 1832 degrees Fahrenheit. Therefore, jet fuel cannot burn hot enough to come close to the temperature required to melt steel (otherwise, kerosene stoves could not be made of steel). Fire can melt steel but only under special conditions, such as in an iron forge, where oxygen is controlled and the heat source is much more intense. Indeed, most of the jet fuel appears to have burned within 10 minutes of the impact of the planes, as evidenced when the ball of fire turned into thick, black smoke indicative of a fuel-starved fire.

Other evidence that the fire was not that intense is that people were videotaped waving for help from the gash in the building created by the plane’s impact. A fire chief (Oreo Palmer) radioed down from the 78th floor of the South Tower, reporting just “two isolated pockets of fire . . . easily knocked down with two lines” (water hoses). The fires were not raging out of control, but were instead dying down.

Since only the upper floors were damaged due the attacks, the lower floors should have offered more than enough resistance to the collapsing upper floors. Certainly the building should not have collapsed in a symmetrical manner. However, the buildings collapsed in such a way that it appears that the steel supports at the base of the building may have been tampered with, as in a controlled demolition. Consistent with this idea, many eyewitnesses reported explosions occurring at the base of the buildings before they collapsed, suggesting that bombs may have been planted to aid in the collapse of the buildings. Also, molten metal was photographed dripping down the South Tower prior to its collapse. Molten metal was also found at the base of the towers for over three months afterwards. Photographic evidence of linear-shaped charges (which result in slant-cut steel support beams) are widely available and also serve as telling signs of controlled demolition.

These facts run counter to the official story and suggest instead that controlled demolition was used to destroy the buildings. Controlled demolition takes weeks or months of advance planning, so that the explosives are placed correctly to insure that the building implodes instead of falling on surrounding buildings. Some employees who managed to escape the towers recalled that the buildings were closed for maintenance in the weeks prior to 9/11. The weekend before 9/11, the buildings were “powered down” for a “cable upgrade.” Powering down the building also disables the security systems.

6) WTC Building 7

WTC Tower 7 also completely collapsed into its footprint in less than 10 seconds at 5:20pm EDT on 9/11. This building, also called the “Salomon Building,” had 47 stories and took up an entire block and, like the Twin Towers, was a concrete and-steel-framed skyscraper. Its rapid implosion into its own footprint had all the earmarks of controlled demolition. Also, like the Twin Towers, molten steel and partially evaporated steel beams were found in the debris of Building 7. Unlike the Twin Towers, Building 7 was not hit by a plane. Building 7 incurred minimal damage from the falling debris of the north and south WTC towers. Some suggested that Building 7’s collapse was likely due to two fires that were observed on the 8th floor. However, there was no evidence of how the fires started, or how they could have led to such a complete, symmetrical, and fast collapse. Other buildings located between the twin towers and Building 7 were hit by massive amounts of debris and burned for hours, yet did not collapse.

There is video footage of a CNN camera man, fireman and police man running away from Building 7, because, in their words, the building was about to “blow up.” A number of news organizations (BBC, CNN, AP wires, and some radio stations) reported the collapse of Building 7 about 20 minutes before it occurred. The BBC’s reporter, Jane Standley, was videoed standing in front of a live shot of Manhattan, with Building 7 in view, when she reported that it had already collapsed. Then it collapsed on live TV right behind her. Is it possible that all these news crews merely predicted the collapse and then reported it too early? Highly unlikely, as the collapse of a steel-framed building due to fire had never happened – except three times on 9/11/01.

A top Dutch demolition expert was showed video of Building 7’s collapse without telling him which building it was; he stated that this was definitely controlled demolition. WTC’s lease-holder, Larry Silverstein, said in a PBS documentary that he talked to fire chief on 9/11 and decided that, “maybe the smartest thing is to just pull it, and they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse.” “Pulling a building” is industry jargon for controlled demolition of a building. Silverstein collected nearly 5 billion in insurance on the WTC complex, because he had taken out unusual terrorism insurance riders on the buildings, which he had leased from the Port Authority just prior to 9/11/01. (The Port Authority was the sole owner/operator of the building for its entire 28-year lifespan until it was leased to Silverstein.) The Twin Towers had an asbestos problem, estimated to cost two hundred million dollars to fix; instead, that asbestos was spread all over New York on 9/11.

WTC 7 housed the U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, the Internal Revenue Service Regional Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Most of the records from the Enron accounting scandal, then in full investigatory swing, were destroyed when the building came down.

7) Flight 93

There are several eyewitness reports that military-like jets were seen flying over the spot where Flight 93 crashed, and that missiles were heard before the crash. One eyewitness stated that there were two distinct loud blasts before he saw Flight 93 start to come out of the air.

The debris from the downed Flight 93 was also not consistent with that of a plane crash. Debris was spread out over an eight-mile radius, with no large pieces still intact. There was also reportedly no smoke, fire, bodies, seats, or luggage found around the crash site. Furthermore, US Geological Survey aerial photos taken in 1994 reveal the same gash-like scar in the landscape that was supposedly due to the impact of Flight 93. The supposed “crash site” of Flight 93 looks instead like a bomb crater overlaid on top of the landscape scar. The black-box tapes released from the incident are missing three minutes of tape. The official crash time is 10:06, when the available seismic evidence fits with a crash (or blast) occurring at 10:03. Indeed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld described Flight 93 as having been “shot down over Pennsylvania.”

8) Pentagon

There is much evidence to suggest that what did hit the pentagon on the day of 9/11 was not a passenger airplane as government reports indicated. According to radar data, American Airlines (AA) flight 77 was flying at 400 mph at 9:35 a.m. and passed over the Pentagon at 7,000 feet. The plane then made a very difficult high-speed descending turn in a downward spiral, dropping 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes. This plane was supposedly piloted by terrorist Hani Hanjour; his flight instructors stated he was incompetent as a pilot of even a small, single-engine Cessna plane.

The physical evidence does not fit with the idea that a passenger flight hit the Pentagon. None of the eyewitnesses report “roaring” noises consistent with a passenger jet. There is no debris consistent with a large passenger jet. No large steel engines, no wings, no seats, no fuselage. No damage to the Pentagon lawn. Pictures of the Pentagon just after the impact show an entry hole much too small for a 757 to have created. Damage to the internal, concrete-reinforced rings of the Pentagon appears to have been made by some sort of missile. No black boxes recovered. And yet, all but one passenger on board Flight 77 was supposedly identified by fingerprints found at the crash site.

At least three videotapes of the crash were confiscated (Citgo gas station, the Sheraton Hotel, and the Virginia Department of Transportation) and the only video footage released (belatedly) by the government is a five-frame tape that clearly does not show a large commercial jet hitting the Pentagon. Why won’t the government release the footage showing just what hit the Pentagon?

Other suspicious aspects of the Pentagon strike: The section of the pentagon hit was recently renovated and was a highly reinforced concrete structure. Much greater damage and loss of life would have occurred had the supposedly talented and suicidal hijackers chosen to dive into the center of the Pentagon – a much easier task to accomplish.

9) Inadequate Administration Response on the Day of Events

According to the official account, President George Bush did not learn of the hijacking until after the first building was attacked. This despite the fact that officials at Logan Airport in Boston had first suspected a hijacking forty minutes earlier. Bush was supposedly told just prior to entering Booker Elementary School in Florida, where he had a scheduled photo opportunity reading with students. Bush’s reaction to news of the second attack, which occurred while he was at the school, was odd: He responded to the news of the plane hitting the second tower by doing nothing. Actually, he continued reading to the group of children for seven more minutes (and stayed at the school for a total of 20 minutes); this engagement had been publicly announced days in advance, thereby making the President (and Booker Elementary School) a sitting target. The Secret Service is trained to act quickly and decisively to protect the president — it is troubling why they let him remain in a public place when the country was under attack. His Secret Service finally did whisk him away to board Air Force One, where he flew to Air Force Bases in Louisiana and then Nebraska. He did not return to the White House until about 7pm that evening.

According to his testimony, Vice President Dick Cheney was in the Situation Room in the White House, at or shortly before, 10:00am. Yet Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta reported that he witnessed, at about 9:25am, Mr. Cheney talking with an intern. The intern had asked Cheney, “Do the orders still stand?” to which Cheney replied that they did. Other witnesses corroborated Cheney’s earlier arrival, likely by at least 9:15am. This means that Cheney was officially in charge at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, and did nothing to prevent the attacks. According to Mineta’s testimony, it appears to Cheney intentionally averted a shoot-down of whatever hit the Pentagon. (The Pentagon strike occurred at 9:38am.)

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon at the time of the attacks, but did not change his routine even after the second building was hit. After the Pentagon was hit, by his own testimony, Rumsfeld went down to the strike zone for at least 20 minutes. He was out of touch and unable to be contacted by NORAD by 9:44, and did not enter the National Military Command Center (NMCC), located inside the Pentagon, until 10:30am. (The NMCC had by then been holding a crisis meeting for forty minutes.) In contrast to Rumsfeld’s account, another witness, Richard Clarke, said he was involved in a video conference with Rumsfeld as early as 9:30am, which means that Rumsfeld would have known that both WTC towers had been hit, that the country was under attack, and that the situation was dire, which by his own account he did not come to realize until 10:39am.

10) Alleged Perpetrators

None of the alleged hijackers were good enough pilots to handle commercial aircraft, let alone fly them into specific targets the way the planes were flown. In fact, there is no good evidence for the existence of any hijackers on any of the four planes. None of the flight manifests list anyone with an Arabic name. The BBC reported six of the hijackers were still alive after 9/11.

As for bin Laden, he was a CIA-trained asset in the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s. Regarding 9/11, he never claimed responsibility for the attacks, as was alleged in the December, 2001 video tape “recovered” in Afghanistan by US forces. This tape shows a grainy shot of an Arabic-looking man who looks nothing like bin Laden – is overweight, is right-handed instead of left-handed, etc. Prior to the start of the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban said that they would turn over bin Laden to the US authorities if the US could provide any evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The US never did, and invaded anyway. Then Secretary of State Colin Powell promised to produce such proof but never did. To this day, the FBI, on their website, does not list Osama bin Laden as responsible for the attacks on 9/11. When contacted about this apparent anomaly, the FBI stated that “no hard evidence exists connecting bin Laden to the attacks of 9/11.” Perhaps that is why President Bush stated in 2002, “I am not that concerned about [bin Laden], and, a month later, General Richard Myers declared, “the goal has never been to get bin Laden.”

11) Inadequate Investigation

The investigation began with the crime-scene. Unfortunately, the crime scenes were destroyed (and thus evidence destroyed) which is a federal offense. Steel from the WTC complex was immediately carted off and recycled to other countries (India and China). Debris from ground zero, which included bone fragments and other human remains, was disposed of in landfills. Testimony from alleged terrorist accomplices was obtained through torture at the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was never released to the public. The President and Vice President were allowed to be questioned together, behind closed doors, and not under oath. Several members of the Commission resigned in protest because of how the investigation was handled.

The Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA) paid The American Society of Civil Engineers just $257,000 to investigate the collapse of the Twin Towers; their report, released in 2002, concluded that skyscrapers were not designed to withstand the impact of jet planes. In contrast, numerous engineers and architects have gone on record stating the opposite. Notably, one of the two main structural engineers of the WTC, Leslie Robertson, stated in the mid-eighties, that, whether bombed or hit by an airplane, there was “little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.” In 1993, John Skilling, head structural engineer for the WTC, was quoted as saying: “We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side. . . Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed. . . [but] The building structure would still be there.” When asked how he thought the building could be brought down, Skilling replied, “I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that he could do it.” In 2001, Leslie Robertson reiterated that “The twin towers were in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airplane.” He told a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, “I designed it for a 707 to smash into it.”

Although the FBI’s investigation began immediately, it ended after just one month. The 911 Commission did not begin its work until over a year after 9/11. Both facts are odd, considering that the 9/11 attacks were the biggest attacks on our country in history. Also, the amount of money allocated for the 9/11 Commission to investigate the attacks was only fifteen million dollars. (Compare this with the amount used to investigate President Clinton – forty-six million was spent all told in that investigation, according to CNN.) The 9/11 Commission Report ignored Building 7. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was charged with investigating why the three WTC buildings collapsed. NIST spent three years and twenty million dollars, and in 2005 issued a 10,000-page report that failed to fully explain the collapse of the Twin Towers, and explicitly postponed discussion of Building 7. (That report on Building 7 just released in August , 2008, states that fires produced the collapse of Building 7.) FEMA did investigate Building 7 but stated that its best hypothesis for the destruction of Building 7 — diesel fuel stored in the building caused fires that collapsed the building — has a “low probability” of being correct.

Posted by: Disinterested Party | 1-Oct-08 4:19:29 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If there were explosives planted, why has no one come forward to say so?

a) they are keeping quiet.
b) they died in the Towers
c) there are none BECAUSE terrorists in airplanes brought them down.
d) they are not keen to confess to a crime against humanity for which they may be sentenced to death by the authorities.
e) they are not keen to rat out numerous co-conspirators, let alone let the cat out of the bag in the first place for fear of violent reprisals.
f) they're just doing too well financially in the new security state to really think much about it.
g) there seems to be no good reason for doing so given that the few people who *are* demanding a new investigation are being ignored and derided as lunatics and racists.
h) some of the above

I'm gonna go with "h)" myself...

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 3:22:08 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Truther" - you're proving my point. What's the rest of Mr. Gregory's quote:

"I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever."

In other words, he gives a quote that you guys distort, yet the very person who said it and witnessed it has a very different conclusion.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 3:37:21 PM

I'd be curious to know if that actually follows the original quote from Gregory or if it was something he or someone else added afterwards. He could certainly have said it, and it would make sense for him to clarify that if he realized the implications of his original quote and either wanted to believe or wants others to believe that what he witnessed was not evidence of explosives. It is not easy to publicly question the established narrative of 9/11.

The question is has this narrative been *properly* established and we contend that it was not. Mr. Gregory for one may or may not be surprised to learn that there has been no official analysis of the WTC debris that would identify and evaluate evidence of explosives. We are literally told to believe that in the case of an earth-changing crime of the century this most obvious of FIRST STEPS of an investigation was NEVER taken. Some of us have a hard time believing that this was (and continues to be) an innocent oversight.

For whatever reason, many people do not want to deal with the consequences of having the "masses" know the truth. This has led to the present absurd situation where people are either oblivious or straining to conceal the fact that they know the official story to be bogus. Pretending to believe in implausible scenarios so as not to have to a) be accused of being a bad old "truther" b) accused of being a holocaust denier c) be mocked and ridiculed or d) rat out their friends or people they fear crossing.

For some reason, 9/11 truth never seems to go away, and people wonder why so eventually they check it out. Once those people look at the facts they simply become part of the majority demanding real justice and accountability.

Posted by: Kilgore Trout | 1-Oct-08 4:36:18 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the surest clues to bad scholarship is the term "definitive". No genuine scholar would imply that his/her work is above reproach. Indeed, they thrive on the debate which ensues. This is where the Truthers have been exposed.

For two good guides to debunking 9/11 denial:

http://www.loosechangeguide.com/LooseChangeGuide.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 4:40:12 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And not one of these "government agents", reared in a free and democratic country, develops a conscience? Come off it! Not even the Nazis could do that. Their black flag incident, the Gleiwitz incident, was exposed by a traitor. Moreover, many in the army tried to kill Hitler. It is hard to believe that any amount of money or power could prevent someone from not going to the media with what s/he knew. After all: truthers think they're selfless patriots. Why can't the same apply to others?

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 4:44:11 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Pike - You are either
a) woefully ignorant,
b) part of the coverup, or
c) some of each.

I vote "c."

E Vero

Posted by: E Vero | 1-Oct-08 4:44:29 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'll take that as confirmation that I'm right.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 4:50:25 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The most important thing is that one personally understand not just what one believes but why one believes it. Has it been proven to us? Or do we just assume that it must have at some point to someone because everyone (we know) believes the same thing? Faith based beliefs are not the sole property of religious folk - people who claim to be skeptical because they disbelieve in god are invariably guilty of the same faith-based beliefs, just not having to do with the existence of god. If we are to be truly moral we have the duty to try to the best of our abilities to discover the truth about things like 9/11, because the consequences of being wrong are immense. When people tell me not to look into something I know there must be something in it.

Posted by: Kilgore Trout | 1-Oct-08 4:54:19 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But you can't handle the truth!

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 4:56:16 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"not one of these "government agents","

what government agents? I never said they were government agents. for all I know Blackwater was hired and they outsourced it to the Burundi Secret Police. those who insist that "the US gummint did 9/11" may be well-meaning, but they have not proven their case. one does not have to have a theory as to who did it to know that an obvious lie has been told about what happened and who was responsible.

Posted by: Kilgore Trout | 1-Oct-08 5:01:34 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I can only handle the truth. I cannot abide lies. As Voltaire said "If you can make people believe absurdities you can make them commit atrocities". We have been committing atrocities in the middle east for far too long, all based on a malicious defamation. The only right thing is the complete and unvarnished truth. That I can handle.

Posted by: Kilgore Trout | 1-Oct-08 5:06:41 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"If there were explosives planted, why has no one come forward to say so?

a) they are keeping quiet.
b) they died in the Towers
c) there are none BECAUSE terrorists in airplanes brought them down."

Clearly you have problems with rational thought. You are posing a speculative question. No one can answer your question with out speculating. Duh? Well since you are proposing 3 suggestions for speculation let me provide a suggestion for speculation: d) They do not want to go down in history as the first of many murdering scoundrels to be hung for mass murder. How's that for speculation? Maybe we can waste a whole lot of time speculating back and forth? Or maybe, if you're an honest individual, you can take your questions and do some research on them using various sources. What say you?

Posted by: Whitey | 1-Oct-08 5:09:42 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Who by all intelligent accounts was one of the forced behind the 9/11 attacks? Who benefited? Our "friend and ally," of course.

Here are some hints:

* Who has been ethnically cleansing some of their own people for decades?

* Who continues to occupy, rob, humiliate and murder its neighbors?

* Who claims to be a Western-style democracy but is in reality an apartheid-loving ethnocracy?

* Who has ignored nearly 40 UN resolutions, flouts international law and is oblivious to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

* Who has been caught spying in the US, stealing state secrets, including nuclear technology?

* Who attacked the US in 1967 and tried to blame it on another country?

* Who, along with their US sympathizers, has majority control of the US media?

* Who, along with their US sympathizers, control the political and defense structures in the US (state dept, CIA, congress, president, judiciary)?

* Who has a policy of carrying out domestic and international assassinations in lieu of trials?

* Who are the real terrorists—killing civilians?

* Who use deceit and manipulation to extract funds from the US to the tune of billions per year?

* Who has anywhere from 200-400 nuclear weapons (but claims to be in peril from the nuclear ambitions of neighboring countries)?

Did you guess "the only democracy in the middle east?" You win.

EV

Posted by: E Vero | 1-Oct-08 5:09:49 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like I said: 9/11 "Truth" = Holocaust Denial. Deal with it.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 7:19:43 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

bruce1337, I'm not sure I accept the premises on which your questions are based - and also note the lack of accompanying evidence - but I'm happy to try and answer.

1) There's no evidence that any steel melted - so the point is moot. There is this to consider, however:

A) Steel can melt with the addition of sulfur at 1000C or less (You get slag).
http://www.me.wpi.edu/MTE/People/imsm.html

B) Smaller parts of the steel can melt at 1300C

http://www.atslab.com/fire/PDF/MeltedSteel.pdf

C) It’s easy to have the appearance of molten steel, when it’s really oxidized.

2) I'm not sure where your "every three stories" claim comes from,

As Dr. Greening notes:
In this report it is shown that sulfur, especially in its most common oxidized form, SO2, had many potential emission sources in the WTC prior to 9-11. These sources have been quantified and rated according to their potential to release SO2 under conditions prevailing in buildings 1, 2 & 7 during and after 9-11. It is concluded that sulfur emissions from the combustion of typical live load materials such as furniture, paper, plastics, textiles, etc, were relatively small compared to sulfur emissions from more unconventional sources, including those involving diesel fuel for emergency power generation in WTC 7 and CaSO4 in gypsum wallboard used in WTC 1 & 2. Sulfur emissions from thermite/thermate are shown to be quite small compared to these sources.

3) Also from Dr. Greening:

We now apply this simple model to the WTC collapse. We assume that both
WTC building collapses began with an upper block of n floors collapsing onto a series of lower floors as in the “domino effect”. We shall refer to this process as the first stage of collapse. For this stage, we have an initial mass nmf falling onto the
floor below and becoming mass (n+1)mf. This new, enlarged, block of floors descends with velocity v2= {n/(n+1)}v1 through a distance hf at which point it strikes the floor below and becomes mass (n+2)mf moving at velocity {n/(n+2)}v2, and so on. This implies a first stage collapse sequence for WTC 1: all floors from 110 to 96 (= 14 floors) collapse onto floor 95; all these floors collapse onto 94 .93 .92 and so on to 3.2 . 1; for WTC 2 all floors from 110 to 81 (= 29 floors) follow the same sequential process. At the end of each of these collapse events we envision a second stage of collapse involving the destruction of the upper block of the WTC buildings: for WTC 1 the 97th floor, plus all floors above, collapse onto the pile of rubble topped by floor 96; this is followed by floor 98 (plus all floors above) collapsing onto floor 97 and so on. The 2nd stage sequence for WTC 1 ends with floor 110 collapsing on to all lower floors. For WTC 2 the 2nd stage involves floor 82 collapsing onto floor 81, followed by 83, 84, etc, collapsing on to the pile of rubble until floor 110 collapses onto all lower floors.

and:

The total kinetic energy generated by the collapse of one WTC tower was about
1012 J. It was estimated in Section 4.2 that an average of about 109 J of energy was
expended in collapsing each WTC floor. Thus about 1011 J of energy was expended in collapsing all the floors in a WTC tower. This leaves about 9.0 . 1011 J of energy to crush the wallboard, insulation and concrete in each tower. We can therefore conservatively assume that at least 5 . 1011 J of kinetic energy was available to crush the WTC concrete.

And from Bazant, Le, Greening, and Benson:

The video record available for the first few seconds of collapse agrees with
the motion history calculated from the differential equation of progressive collapse but, despite uncertain values of some parameters, it totally out of range of the free fall hypothesis, on whichthese allegations rest. It is shown that the observed size range (0.01 mm—0.1 mm) of the dust particles of pulverized concrete is consistent with the theory of comminution caused by impact, and that less than 10% of the total gravitational energy, converted to kinetic energy, sufficed to produce this dust (whereas more than 150 tons of TNT per tower would have to be installed, into many small holes drilled into concrete, to produce the same pulverization). The air ejected from the building by gravitational collapse must have attained, near the ground, the speed of almost 500 mph (223 m/s) on the average, and fluctuations must have reached the speed of sound. This explains the loud booms and wide spreading of pulverized concrete and other fragments, and shows that the
lower margin of the dust cloud could not have coincided with the crushing front. The resisting upward forces due to pulverization and to ejection of air, dust and solid fragments, neglected in previous studies, are found to be indeed negligible during the first few seconds of collapse but not insignificant near the end of crush-down. The calculated crush-down duration is found to match a logical interpretation of seismic record, while the free fall duration grossly disagrees with this record.

and

The free fall curve ... showing the motion history of the tower top, corresponds to the free fall of the top part of tower, and the moment comparable to the end of crush-down is the intersection of this curve with the horizontal line corresponding to
the end of crush-down, at which the compacted layer of debris hits the foundation (i.e., the bottom of ‘bathtub’). Note that immediately after this moment, the compacted layer of rubble begins to spread to the sides because, at rest, the slope of the rubble mass cannot exceed the internal friction angle of the rubble

The onset of the strongest tremor, marked in the figure as instant c, may logically be interpreted as the instant at which the crush-down front (bottom of the layer of compacted debris) hits the foundation slab in the ‘bathtub’. Thus it ensues from the seismic records that the crush-down phase lasted 12.59 ± 0.50 s for the North Tower, and 10.09 ± 0.50 s for the South Tower. The fact that the structure in the ‘bathtub’ under the ground level was essentially destroyed and mostly compacted into rubble was documented during debris removal.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 7:23:07 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What a giant of load of handwaving. Come again -- only this time, don't paste irrelevant, outdated crap that doesn't even begin to answer my questions.

1) There is plenty of evidence that steel melted -- photographic, forensic and anecdotal. Also, "oxidized" (i.e. rusted) steel is well distinguishable from formerly molten steel found in chunks interspersed with concrete fragments...

2) Look: Gypsum is incorporated into buildings because it doesn't burn -- it is even more inert than the bit of grey matter in your skull, and that is certainly saying something. In other words: if exposed to fire, it remains CaSO4. So, let me ask again: Where did the sulfur found in the slag (and the dust) come from?

3) I asked how the tops could crush anything when it was obviously them that disintegrated first -- and you deliver a calculation that presumes essentially the opposite of what could clearly be observed? Ridiculous.

Hardly surprising that you wouldn't even try to tackle 4), then. Oh, and what about JREF?

Posted by: bruce1337 | 1-Oct-08 7:59:14 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How about sticking to simple facts that we simple folk can understand. Look no further than your local residential building codes. Steel support beams in single family dwellings have a lower fire rating than wooden or wood laminate beams. In the event your house catches fire, a steel beam will collapse faster than any traditional wooden beam.

The collapse of the buildings is partly the fault of the designer. He's on record as saying he just never foresaw the inconceivable chain of events that took place on 9/11.

The conspiracy nuts all seem to be feeding off a few so-called architects, who want to make some kind of mark in their failed lives. Every time they're interviewed, it's from some dingy little room that's probably in their mother's basement.

You truthers are basically destroying any chance you and your families had at being functioning members of society. You will be marginalized to the point of having to share the stage with sasquatch hunters and trekkies. If you quit now, and distance yourselves from this lunacy, you might actually find a place to finish out your existence in a normal fashion.

Posted by: dp | 1-Oct-08 7:59:47 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, you said you're one of the "simple folk". Tell you what: You stick to building codes (btw, source, please!), I'll stick to physics, and we'll leave the question which of both is more reliable to the interested reader.

Also, did you just say "steel support BEAMS in SINGLE FAMILY DWELLINGS"? BWAHAHAHAHA. Idiot.

Posted by: bruce1337 | 1-Oct-08 8:13:30 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes bruce, in Canada we build houses with functioning basements. The floors are supported in the center by a large beam that runs the full length of the house. Some years back, steel I-beams were introduced to create larger clear spans in the basement for rec rooms, etc. The main drawback is fire rating. In the event a fire breaks out in the basement, a steel beam will collapse and kill the residents sleeping above.

Now go away you insane bastard. You are the most despicable piece of garbage in society. You and your band of cultists could do the world a favour and leave this place to join your fellow travelers in the comet Hale-Bopp.

Posted by: dp | 1-Oct-08 8:26:01 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, what are the dimensions of those beams, and how do they compare to the 47 16" x 36" x 4" box _columns_ in the Twin Towers' cores?

And while you go figure that out, I'll happily remain in my "cult" of the sciences of nature. Have a nice day, you potty mouthed simple folk, you.

Posted by: bruce1337 | 1-Oct-08 8:44:19 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DP,

The NIST tried to look for steel framed buildings that have collapse due to fire. They could not find any that experienced a complete collapse in all of history. The only exception is for WTC7 NIST alleges collapsed due to fire alone.

Their own survey is available at the link below. Look at the table at the end of the report:

http://www.haifire.com/presentations/Historical_Collapse_Survey.pdf

Your reference to building codes for houses is not relevant because steel framed high rises are constructed to different standards. The proof is that not a single one of them, despite burning wildly for more than 24 hours in cases around the world has ever come down completely due to fire. Ever. Except for this one alleged case that sticks out like a giant sore thumb.

Posted by: juandelacruz | 1-Oct-08 8:44:46 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce, tell us more about the wonderful world of science.

"Gypsum does not have a true melting point, as it decomposes under heat before it can melt" With high heat, Gypsum decomposes and releases Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) gas, which is a weak oxidizer that can rapidly transfer both its sulfur and oxygen to the exposed iron surfaces in the piles. "Many metals, including zinc, aluminum, cesium, and iron, incandesce and/or ignite in unheated sulfur dioxide."
"In some cases, SO2 behaves as both a reducing and oxidizing agent (metals such as tin, iron and magnesium burn in SO2 to form mixed sulfides and oxides)."

And, yes, there's lots of smart people at JREF.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 8:52:03 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All you "truthers" are doing is arguing about the color of the deck chairs on the Titanic as the cause of its sinking. You haven't addressed a single big issue. What a waste.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 9:12:05 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's no point arguing with crazy people Zeb.

Posted by: dp | 1-Oct-08 9:23:41 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Say, Bruce, are you at JREF? Seems someone had a go there at making the "accumulation of mass" argument - didn't go so well... (Like I said, lots of smart people at JREF)

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=67920&page=2

For (Greening's) collapse model to be useful, it only requires some of the mass to accumulate. He assumes 100% accumulation as a simplifying assumption, but even with a lower, but non-zero accumulation, it can still be a valid model.

You need to remember that you are the only one who thinks 90%+ of the mass is ejected outside of the footprint. I'm not sure how much is accumulated over the footprint during the collapse, but I'm prtty sure it's more than that. If you want to refute his model, you need to show what percentage of ejection renders the collapse impossible, and then clearly show such an amount of ejection.

(...)

Also, your argument doesn't take into acount:

1. the basement levels of the towers, into which much of the rubble will have fallen

2. that the photograph you have used is from directly above, giving us no idea of how tall the pile of rubble is

3. it does, however, show that as the tower hit the ground it did, indeed, spread out beyond its own footprint.

(...)

This tread is one of the most hilarious ones I have read in a long time, just think of all that mass being funneled down on the core inside the building on top of the head truss, disappearing all at once.

(...)

So despite the fact the towers were 95 percent air, leaving only 5 stories of junk to spread over 19 acres and the tower being what? 2 acres.

Who else shares your ideas on this minority position?

Can you point to scientific papers that support your position?

Are there any experts that support your position?

Darn seems like you are mising the ability to see from photos that you are wrong.

Looks like the missing mass was right there in the street.

(...)

I'm so lost. I thought the CTers argued the towers fell inside their own foortprints because it is somehow reminiscent of a controlled demolition. Now Troofseeker451 says that the fact that they didn't proves a controlled demolition.

Posted by: no twoof for you | 1-Oct-08 9:24:08 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"There's no point arguing with crazy people"

The truest thing any of you JREF zombies has said so far. Just go on thinking you're smart, and once you're the only ones left to defend the indefensible, just don't lose faith in your remarkable powers of delusion. Adamantly defending the crimes of fascist mass murderers IS the cool thing to do, after all...

Posted by: bruce1337 | 2-Oct-08 2:47:16 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you talking about yourself?

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 7:18:51 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P
A
T
H
E
T
I
C

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 9:25:25 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The word "denier" should be avoided. "Denier" is what the defenders of the orthodoxy choose to call anyone who asks questions about the official version of history, but in truth nobody is denying that bad things happen in war. Nobody is denying that the Nazis had slave-labor camps (from which the Bush family made a tidy profit). Nobody is denying that a lot of people died in WW2.

But what is being questioned is whether there was a deliberate program of extermination aimed solely at the Jewish people, when the available evidence seems to indicate that people OTHER than Jews dies in those camps, and that the vast majority of those deaths were from typhus epidemics triggered when the allies bombed critical German health infrastructure toward the end of the wars.

We KNOW that many of the post-WW2 propaganda claims made about the camps were hoaxes. The lampshades supposedly made from human skin turned out to be ordinary goat leather. The bars of soap claimed to be made form the fat of prisoners actually contain very little fat at all, the DNA tests show that the frat in question came from pigs, not people. The mythical zapping machine that explained why there were not enough bodies to justify the claim of 6 million dead could not be built now, let alone in 1945. Ground penetrating radar proves there are no mass graves at Treblinka. The list goes on and on.

Now, because of Bush's lies about Saddam's 'nookular' bombs, we are a wiser nation that knows we are lied to by government to trick us into agreeing to government policy (such as the bailout). It is right and proper that we re-examine everything we have ever been taught to see if it too was a lie, and indeed
we have learned that the lies are legion, indeed a constant fact of life in the United States. Time makes ancient truth uncouth, and we have already come to accept that there was no Spanish mine that sank the USS Maine, just as there really were no torpedoes chasing USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin.

So, re-examination of history is legitimate. Yet in this one area of inquiry, tremendous legal force is used to prevent such questions. Why? I mean, if those who question the official story of WW2 are just crazy, let them speak and them prove them wrong. You don't see laws that jail people who claim Elvis is still alive. People who insist the Apollo Moon landings never happened are not arrested. People who claim to have seen Bigfoot do not have their houses firebombed. Only in this one area is the full weight of the legal system used to crush down any who dare question the orthodoxy. Not since the days of the witch burnings have we seen such legal pressure bright to coerce acceptance of dogma.

It is nothing so much as the actions of those who promote the orthodox view directed against those who ask questions that makes it obvious something is being concealed. They act like people with something to hide.

Posted by: Mike Rivero | 2-Oct-08 11:43:29 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Conspiracy theorists trick #1 = insist that their idea is the truth and the others are all lies. Real scholars criticize other works with kindness, not contempt. That's where deniers fail.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 11:46:45 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The best comparison that can be made between the holocaust and 9/11 is that both were real tragedies that were warped and embellished for political purposes to a point beyond which reason can tolerate. In the case of the holocaust many of the wilder claims about what the Germans did have already been dismissed by all mainstream historians as impossible. Eyewitnesses, for example, claimed all manner of atrocities that have been accepted to be false. This does not in any way diminish the real suffering of a great many Jewish people at the hands of the third reich. Establishing the truth about what did and did not happen, for example whether the Nazis really did make soap out of human beings (they did not,) does not diminish the historical narrative, it reinforces it by placing it on firm evidentiary grounds. What would we say to people who to this day claimed that the Nazis made soap out of Jews? We would say "please stop making ridiculous and patently false claims because it dishonors the true memory of the victims."

With 9/11, the embellishments were ready at the get go. Pictures of 19 men, some of whom FBI Director Mueller himself has admitted may have been victims of identity theft. Claims about what hit the Pentagon unsupported by any corroborating hard physical evidence. Absurd claims about the role of crashing planes in the demolition of three skyscrapers. Pretending that all of these claims are indeed proven facts is not only an insult to the victims that day, it is a foolhardy exercise in denial. Most people WANT to make sure that we know with absolute certainty what did and did not happen on that day. Insulting us does not change the facts, it is clearly the only way you have left to discourage people from taking what we say seriously.

Sure there are nutjobs out there--they exist on all sides of any debate. We are not nutjobs however. We do not, like "Ernie from Baltimore" who allegedly left a message that was posted on this website recently, believe that the planes that hit the towers were holograms. Virtually no one believes that and believe me that those people are actually held in lower esteem *within* the citizens' movement for 9/11 truth than out side of it. Why? Because they give people an excuse to say "look at those nutters--I'm not going to pay them any heed" or to take the insults and ad hominems in evidence on this thread as hilarious jabs at folks who deserve it.

Belittling people who are skeptical of the official 9/11 narative only demonstrates one's insecurity about that very narrative. As Gandhi said "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." We are winning, so ignore, laugh and fight us all you want. Those who have the facts on their side are not afraid of the approaching day of reckoning--in fact we look forward to it with gusto!

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:06:56 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13)
What nation was first to practice mass civilian bombing?
Britain -- on May 11, 1940.
Posted by: E Vero | 2-Oct-08 9:12:58 AM

As I have relatives that served in the RAF and don't like seeing their service blackened by scumbags like you I'll correct this one. Spending any more time on this would just give credence to assholes like you. The correct answer actually is Guernica which was carpet bombed by your Luftwaffe comrades in 1937. In the future please spare us the cut and paste jobs form Zundels website.

Posted by: The Stig | 2-Oct-08 12:06:58 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Pike,
I believe you are projecting: The only tool that you and your comrades ever use is ad hominem.

EV

Posted by: E Vero | 2-Oct-08 12:08:08 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Um, Mr. Stig, do you really think it matters who did it first? We are talking about terrorizing civilian populations who were not responsible for the actions of their leaders or militaries. To suggest that it's OK because "they did it first" is truly barbarous and is not something that anyone should be proud of. One reason that the official holocaust narrative came into being was the need to paint the Germans asinhumanly evil so that the war crimes of the Americans and British would seem tame by comparison. Like this one:

The Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between 13 February and 15 February 1945, 12 weeks before the surrender of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) of Nazi Germany, remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War. The raids saw 1,300 heavy bombers drop over 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids, destroying 13 square miles (34 km2) of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, and causing a firestorm that consumed the city centre.[2] Estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent publications place the figure between 24,000 and 40,000.[3]

This is not to excuse or justify or praise anything that the Nazis ever did. Their racist policies and ideology were as detestable then as apartheid was in South Africa and Zionism continues to be in Palestine. Mythologizing your enemies just serves to dehumanize them and that is wrong no matter WHO it is done against.

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:19:34 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hoax accounts of the holocaust are rife--why? Because no one wants to call a holocaust survivor a liar.

QUOTE:

Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel — who has written more than 40 books, including the seminal Holocaust memoir, “Night” — took a look at Defonsca’s story and wrote back that he found it “very moving.”

Leonard Zakim, who was then the executive director of the New England Anti-Defamation League, described “Misha” as “A scary ‘must read’ for anyone interested in the Holocaust. Humans acted ‘like animals’ and animals acted ‘humanely.’ Her story is heartwarming and bone-tingling, all the more so for being true.”

And the wolf experts, including Joni Soffron — who runs Wolf Hollow, a park on Route 133 in Ipswich that features a pack of wolves that visitors can watch safely from the sidelines of a big backyard pen — were also on board. Although documented accounts of wolves raising human children were extremely rare, Defonsca’s account was consistent with what the experts knew about wolf behavior.

But there were others who weren’t quite as enthusiastic. Yale Professor Deborah Dwok, an expert on children and the Holocaust, told Daniel the book was a fantasy filled with historical inaccuracies. Lawrence Langer, a history professor at Simmons College, also felt the book was contrived.

“She just happens to get into the Warsaw Ghetto right before it burns down, but she doesn’t have a tattoo. And she manages to escape over a wall. Why didn’t everybody escape over that wall? You can’t publish it as factual,” Langer told Daniel.

Now that the book has been exposed as a hoax, everyone seems to be asking why there wasn’t more fact checking. Why didn’t Daniel question Defonseca harder?

Daniel’s good friend Kathleen Valentine, a fellow writer from Gloucester, says you have to remember what it was like back in the ’90s when the book was being written.

“Jane was being told by all these local Jewish organizations that Misha was a hero,” says Valentine. “There were a couple of authorities who said they didn’t believe the story, but you had to weigh that in the balance with everyone who did.” And, as Valentine points out, you don’t question a Holocaust survivor.

http://www.dailynewstribune.com/arts/x1993295760

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:27:48 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can one of the moderators please delete some of these posts? It appears that some Holocaust deniers have posted here.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 2:34:26 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, Zebulon. Can you please point them out to me? I haven't been following this thread, and it seems monstrously enormous at this point. Just drop a comment with the date signature and name, and I'll get to it right away.

Thanks for the heads up.

And commenters: We don't stand for holocaust denial here. Take that kind of garbage elsewhere.

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 2:38:39 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

eek! thought crimes! so why allow--invite, even--discussion about 9/11? you believe what you want to believe about everything, regardless of facts or evidence, so why bother making any arguments? you're right about everything, just like creationists. now quick! clean up this thread before someone notices intelligent people came by to expose your quackery. :)

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:06:39 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find Holocaust denial intolerable, a real truther. I don't mind intelligent debate about subjects worth debating. But I don't tolerate that.

I tolerate 9/11 truthers, even if I think that the view is false and, frankly, ridiculous.

And please brush up on logic 101. It does not follow from the fact that I've made up my mind about the holocaust, that I've therefore made up my mind about anything and everything.

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:13:01 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BTW, please do keep on associating holocaust "denial" with 9/11 "denial". At least one of your friends on this thread seems to get it--the person who said that comparing the two was unfair, even though the person was not themselves a 9/11 skeptic. They understand that the more you link the two, the more likely that people who discover that the official story about 9/11 is false will assume that there is also something not quite right about the official holocaust narrative.

If you think that saddling 9/11 truth with the baggage of what you call holocaust denial is going to stop people from looking into 9/11 you are quite mistaken. What is instead happening is that people are discovering 9/11 on their own, from friends and family--in many more ways than you can possibly contain. When those people see the kneejerk reaction of you screaming "holocaust denial!" as soon as someone brings up 9/11, they are assuredly going to get the feeling that you "doth protest too much." You will therefore make them wonder if there *is* some connection between the two and having just realized they'd been duped about 9/11 they will not hesitate to find out more, the aspersions of a small minority notwithstanding.

But what are you going to do, I guess. The whole charade is crumbling around you. May I make a suggestion? Why not search your sould and think about the harm you are causing. If you do, and can live with yourself, then by all means do what you will!

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:22:03 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Jaworski, a refusal to have a civil discussion about any topic is a sign of an inability to handle challenges to one's orthodoxies. If you were confident in your faith in the establishment holocaust narrative you would seek to engage people in this discussion all the time. Posturing and feigning indignance is an appeal to emotion and not reason. And as I said, you are welcome to hold cherished beliefs that are wrong. But you cannot force anyone to believe them and making laws prohibiting people from challenging those beliefs in public only gives people more reason to be skeptical.

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:29:10 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. truther: No, it's not. A refusal to have a conversation about a topic is a refusal to have a conversation about that topic. I also don't tolerate musings about whether or not slavery should be instituted, or whether or not we ought to return to a eugenics program.

I did not "posture" and neither did I "feign indignance." I wasn't indignant. I merely said that I won't tolerate that discussion here. Go have it elsewhere, if you're keen on it. Just not here.

And when, oh when, did I suggest that I'm going to call the police? I didn't. You're on our property, a real truther. We get to set the terms of your entrance on our private property.

And please notice that we've consistently stood for freedom of speech & expression. We are opposed to the calling of cops on anyone who says anything short of a death threat or fraud or instigation to violence. No topic should be *legally* off the table.

I hope that clarifies things.

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:34:37 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also think that equating 9/11 truth with holocaust denial is unfair.

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:35:39 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHAT WE NOW KNOW ABOUT 9/11

A) INSIDE ‘SECURITY CONTROL POINT’ NUMBER ONE

World Trade Center Building Security:

The security company handling World Trade Center building security in 2001 was Kroll, Inc., owned by former head of AIG, 83 year-old Maurice “Hank” Greenberg. With regards to the 9/11 operation, it must always be kept in mind that whoever controls building security, also controls 24/7 access by “workmen” to the inner core and basements of a building.

BACKGROUND: It is public knowledge now that in the 1980s Maurice Greenberg was deeply involved in Chinese trade and employed Henry Kissinger as a representative. Through the China trade connections, Greenberg, naturally, worked with Shaul Eisenberg, head of the Mossad’s Asian sector. Eisenberg became Greenberg’s agent for selling the Chinese military sophisticated weapons and nuclear technologies. A young relative of this very same Shaul Eisenberg later shows up in this 9/11 story as the Chairman of the NY-NJ Port Authority, under whose authority the real estate deal with Silverstein Properties, Inc. was made for the privatization of the World Trade Center towers only a few months before “9/11.”

B) INSIDE ‘SECURITY CONTROL POINT’ NUMBER TWO

Airport and Airline Security:

We find in this story a company called ICTS International (International Consultants on Targeted Security), which just so happens to be owned by the late founder of the Israeli Secret Service, Isser Harel, and the still living Menachem Atzmon, currently infamous for his prominent connections to the Ehud Olmert corruption scandal now under scrutiny in Israel. About ICTS, we also find out that many of the security employees are “former” members of the various Israeli military, security, and intelligence sectors, such as the IDF, Shin Bet, or Mossad. This Israeli-owned company not only handled security for the London subway and bus system during the 7/7/05 attacks, but handled security on 9/11/01 for Boston’s Logan Airport and Newark International, as well as security for United and American Airlines at those airports.

To install a remote avionics control system on a commercial aircraft in order to technologically “hijack” it, one would naturally need inside airport and aircraft security access. And on 9/11, at the airports where the doomed “hijacked” airplanes took off from, under whose control do we find general airport security and security for United and American Airlines? If you guessed an Israeli owned security company, one now handling security for Los Angeles International, you would be correct.

C) OPERATIONS CONTROL POINT NUMBER ONE

Demolition Crews – Urban Moving Systems:

This company, operating in 2000-2001 in the New York metropolitan area, was discovered by the FBI to be a Mossad front “owned” by Dominic Suter, an Israeli who fled from New Jersey to Israel just after 9/11. This little moving company in 2001 also, for some reason, received a $500,000 U.S. federal assistance loan.

Posing as movers or workmen and driving large trucks (usually carrying weapons and/or explosives) is an old, much used Zionist underground cover method from the days of the British Mandate in Palestine. Dressing up “in sheikh uniforms,” say as Arab milk deliverymen bringing milk can bombs, or in stolen British officer’s uniforms and painting trucks to make them appear to be British military vehicles, were all tried and true methods of classical Zionist subterfuge in the 1930s and 1940s.
Urban Moving Systems had offices both in Manhattan and just across the river in Weehawken, New Jersey. The so-called “Dancing Israeli” video crew, who were found with video footage of the first plane hitting the North Tower on their video cameras, worked for Urban Moving Systems, but more importantly, according to FBI reports, many of this company’s employees also had previous connections to the Israeli military and intelligence services, some with “MILITARY DEMOLITIONS EXPERTISE AND EXPERIENCE.”

D) OPERATIONS CONTROL POINT NUMBER TWO

Independent Commercial/Military Aircraft Access:

Maurice Greenberg’s A.I.G. and Kroll, Inc. have access to a large and U.S. government-independent fleet of commercial and military aircraft.

E) OPERATIONS CONTROL POINT NUMBER THREE

Remote Avionics Control Technology Access:

In the year 2000, Rabbi Dov Zakheim put his signature to the PNAC document “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” which spoke of “a new Pearl Harbor” as the catalytic event to begin the fulfillment of all the Neocon dreams of world conquest. At this time, Zakheim was the CEO of a USG military contractor named System Planning Corporation of Arlington, VA. He is a senior member of the right-wing ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), and in 2001, was Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer for the U.S. Department of Defense. In Zakheim, not only do we see a Zionist connection to the U.S. military and the neocon Zionists associated with such groups as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) or Project for a New American Century (PNAC), but even more importantly, operations-wise, we must note his executive connections to a military contractor which just so happens to make a very sophisticated remote avionics control system called the Flight Termination System (FTS). With this little baby, one can arrest in mid-flight and then remotely control, from a single FTS Module, up to six different, large commercial or military aircraft, even helicopters, and either fly them manually, or put them on six different user-chosen, programmable flight paths.

F) OPERATIONS CONTROL POINT NUMBER FOUR
Guidance Systems Installed in the WTC:

American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to strike the twin towers on 9/11, hit the exact floors of the North Tower on which were located the central computer rooms belonging to the firm of Marsh & McLennan, whose CEO, just coincidentally, happened to be Jeffrey Greenberg, son of AIG-Kroll’s Maurice Greenberg. Another prominent Marsh & McLennan employee, who was seen on local NY television on the afternoon of 9/11, but failed in these on-air interviews to even mention that he worked in the north tower of the WTC, was L. Paul Bremer. Why this is important, is that if one were to fly a remotely controlled aircraft and wish it to hit a ‘tower at a distance’ without missing, one sure-fire method would be to install an electronic guidance device which would send out a homing signal from, say a computer room located in each tower, in the case of the WTC’s north tower, from the computer center belonging to the AIG-Kroll Inc., Greenberg-connected firm of Marsh & McLennan.

CONCLUSION

So now, to recap the recap: Through NY-NJ Port Authority Chairman Lewis Eisenberg (see above: the Shaul Eisenberg-Maurice Greenberg connections) we have American Zionist control over the dispensation of the WTC lease, who gets to purchase that lease and control the properties (Larry Silverstein and Frank Lowy), and what security company gets awarded the WTC security contract (Greenberg’s Kroll, Inc.). These four – Eisenberg, Silverstein, Lowy, and Greenberg are all buddies with global media king Rupert Murdoch and Israeli Likud party leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, et al.

Handling 9/11 airport and airline security, we find a subsidiary of Israeli-owned ICTS International. On the demolitions side of the equation, we have a Mossad-front “moving company” located in the New York metropolitan area with employees connected to Israeli military, security, and intelligence agencies, possessing demolitions experience. On the aircraft side of things, we find that Maurice Greenberg’s AIG and Kroll, Inc. also control their own fleet of large commercial and military aircraft which they lease out to various parties around the world. In 2001, we also find Rabbi Dov Zakheim nested in the Pentagon, apparently overseeing the massive transfer of DoD funds to some imperial Zionist slush fund, and at the same time, capable of providing Israeli operatives with access to technology able to arrest in mid-flight a properly outfitted aircraft, such as the remotely “hijacked” Egypt Air Flight 990 which crashed into the Atlantic on October 31, 1999. This remote-controlled “hijacking” of Egypt Air 990 in 1999, with many senior Egyptian military officers on board, could very well have been some sort of 9/11 practice run.

On the operational necessity of an avionic guidance system for targeting purposes, if one were to employ remotely controlled aircraft in this 9/11 operation (as opposed to using Mossadmed Atta and the Cessna Boyz), you would need a “friendly” company to install aircraft guidance systems in the twin towers, and in this case, AIG-Kroll-connected Marsh & McLennan, high in the North Tower, would be just such a company to ask, especially since its CEO is the son of the guy whose company is controlling building security for the World Trade Center.

In light of all this, you must ask yourself, with all these inside connections and hook-ups for cutting edge technology, could you have successfully pulled off 9/11 in this fashion and made it look just like how it looked? Under the cloak of confusion, if you staged it all within the operational context of multiple military operations going on at the same time all across the nation, and you were also able to pre-load custom software patches (cf. Israeli pointmen at PTech and Mitre Corp.) into the FAA and U.S. military computer systems to interrupt communications, 9/11 would be very doable. Also, with the phenomenon of what is known as “Media Silence,” along with treasonous complicity in the upper echelons, followed by either fear or ambition all the way down the media food-chain, the successful pulling off of an operation like 9/11, then afterwards, covering over the pale white boney hands of the Guilty would be completely within the realm of possibility.

You must ask yourself how the hell ace al-Quesadilla pilot Hani Hanjour, who supposedly flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon without leaving a scratch on the lawn at the point of entry, could possibly know that President Cheney had scheduled multiple war games exercises (Operation Vigilant Guardian, etc.) for the morning of September 11, 2001? How could “Arab terrorists” get into a building (WTC-7) which housed the CIA, Secret Service, SEC, Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management, etc. and wire it for controlled demolition? Two planes hitting two buildings, but three falling is not what happened on 9/11. The building owners who were friends and associates of the family who controlled WTC building security access allowed demolition crews, throughout the year 2001, to come in at all hours of the day or night and wire the buildings for the dramatic and staged terror event which would occur in New York City on September 11, 2001 – the false flag terror operation that would justify the launching of a global “War on Terror” in which American and British money and lives would be sacrificed in wars designed to eradicate the “enemies of Israel,” all carried out according to the plans in a document called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.”

Posted by: Lenny Schneider | 2-Oct-08 4:52:34 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A refusal to have a conversation about a topic is a refusal to have a conversation about that topic."

Who would have guessed? Tautologies won't refute a real truther's points, though! Besides, advocating morally indefensible actions (even though moral is of course subject to disagreement) like slavery or eugenics is not comparable to taking a closer look at history -- unless the quest for truth somehow qualifies as morally reprehensible, these days.

Then again, that is what it actually does -- a testament to how FUBAR the world has become.

Are you sure you have made up your mind, or was it possibly made up for you?

Posted by: bruce1337 | 2-Oct-08 5:12:22 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PS: "And please notice that we've consistently stood for freedom of speech & expression."..."We don't stand for holocaust denial here. Take that kind of garbage elsewhere."

Ah, the smell of hypocrisy in the morning...

PPS: Great post, Lenny.

Posted by: bruce1337 | 2-Oct-08 5:18:07 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bruce,

"Ah, the smell of hypocrisy in the morning..."

You're kind of an idiot, aren't you? Standing for freedom of expression means standing against government censorship. It means standing up for people being free to express their ideas, without government interference.

It doesn't mean we have to allow people like you to post whatever nonsense they wish on the Shotgun. The Shotgun is privately owned (you don't pay the bill for it, do you?) and that means the owners get to determine what can and can't be posted here.

Government censorship vs. private property owners getting to determine what is and isn't said on their property. It isn't so hard to understand. If you try a little harder, I'm sure you could understand it, too.

And if people want to deny the Holocaust, they can go to Stormfront.

Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2-Oct-08 6:13:20 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jaws: I've selected some for deletion. They include many of mine, as well as yours. A couple were particularly heinous.

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 30-Sep-08 10:02:09 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 1-Oct-08 12:02:25 PM

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 1:20:38 PM

Posted by: searching | 1-Oct-08 3:56:28 PM

Posted by: searching | 1-Oct-08 4:15:15 PM

Posted by: Kilgore Trout | 1-Oct-08 4:36:18 PM

Posted by: E Vero | 1-Oct-08 5:09:49 PM

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 1-Oct-08 7:19:43 PM

Posted by: Mike Rivero | 2-Oct-08 11:43:29 AM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:06:56 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:19:34 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 12:27:48 PM

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 2:34:26 PM

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 2:38:39 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:06:39 PM

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:13:01 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:22:03 PM

Posted by: a real truther | 2-Oct-08 4:29:10 PM

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:34:37 PM

Posted by: P.M. Jaworski | 2-Oct-08 4:35:39 PM

Posted by: Lenny Schneider | 2-Oct-08 4:52:34 PM

Posted by: bruce1337 | 2-Oct-08 5:12:22 PM

Posted by: bruce1337 | 2-Oct-08 5:18:07 PM

Posted by: Terrence Watson | 2-Oct-08 6:13:20 PM

Posted by: Zebulon Pike | 2-Oct-08 6:54:24 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No, Terry, you are the idiot. Standing for freedom of expression means standing against any censorship, not only governmental. As long as certain taboos are being enforced, by whatever authority, there obviously is no freedom of expression.

The Shotgun is, of course, free to censor all it wants -- but not to claim being champions of free speech at the same time.

Posted by: brucd1337 | 3-Oct-08 7:17:35 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So let's see... censorship is not censorship if it is not done by the government. Hmmm. No, I think it's still censorship, just done by private individuals. No one ever said you couldn't censor whatever you want from your website. However as Bruce1337 points out, you cannot then posture as champions of freedom of speech or expression. It would be one thing if a bunch of neo-Nazis showed up here to rant about the holocaust and spew racist venom. That is not what happened though. What happened is that the user Zebulon Pike turned a discussion about 9/11 into a chance to smear 9/11 skeptics as "no better than holocaust deniers" (to paraphrase.) That is not a provocation that honest skeptics of the established 9/11 narrative should tolerate or be silent about. When people are accused with a vague and undefined term such as "holocaust denial" it could well be assumed by others to mean that they either like the third reich (which no one here does) or that they deny that an unacceptable tragedy befell Europe's Jews during world war 2 (who suffered along with many other groups at the hands of the belligerents on all sides.) No one here is making that claim either.

In trying to discredit legitimate 9/11 skepticism though, some people rather irresponsibly start throwing around accusations that are offensive and unwarranted. The suggestion of course is that people who are not satisfied with the established narrative of 9/11 are trying to "rewrite" history. This much is true, to the extent that so much of the history of 9/11 has been revealed to be total bunkum. The implication of linking 9/11 skepticism to "holocaust denial" is even more insidious--it is intended to suggest that those who question 9/11 with an eye towards establishing the likelihood of the guilt of the alleged arab muslim perpetrators do so out of a desire to embolden and strengthen enemies of Israel.

Not only is this insinuation false and defamatory to skeptics of 9/11, but it is also harmful to Jews who are just as likely as anyone else to be able to see the official story of 9/11 for the fraud that it is. It harms them because they will naturally think twice before letting it be known that they, like "holocaust deniers", question 9/11. The result is that as more people realize that we've been lied to about 9/11, Jewish folk will be caught between their conscience and their society on the one hand and the psychological manipulation of the promoters of the official lies on the other. If indeed we end up in a situation where Jews find themselves disproportionally outside of the majority that understands the truth about 9/11, some people could display the ignorant reaction that "the Jews" must have been behind 9/11, when the truth is that criminals were behind 9/11, pure and simple, and they are likely to end up being all kinds of people.

I realize that this thread is probably doomed to be deleted but while it is up I would urge everyone to a) lighten up about *everything* b) don't use the holocaust as a shield against 9/11 skepticism and c) treat people who are skeptical of the established 9/11 narrative as you would like to be treated, assuming that they present their views in the same spirit.

Posted by: a real truther | 3-Oct-08 11:26:51 AM