The 9/11 Post 11807


Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular.

I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected. There are some strange and dangerous people in America, but not in sufficient concentration for this one. They couldn’t even keep Watergate quiet, and that was a small group. Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.

I asked a friend in the construction industry what it would take to demolish the twin towers. He replied nine months, 80 men, and 12 miles of cabling. The notion that a small team at night could plant sufficient explosives embedded at key points, is laughable.

The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.

I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt. I recall vividly that in London some years ago a tragedy occurred when a simple gas oven explosion brought down the whole side of a tower block.

The inquiry found that the building contractor had simply omitted the ties that bound the girders at the corners, all encased in concrete. If a gas oven had not blown up, nobody would have found out. Buildings I strongly suspect are very often not as strong as they are supposed to be, with contractors skimping on apparently redundant protection. The sort of sordid thing you might not want too deeply investigated in the event of a national tragedy.

Precisely what happened at the Pentagon I am less sure. There is not the conclusive film and photographic evidence that there is for New York. I am particularly puzzled by the much more skilled feat of flying that would be required to hit a building virtually at ground level, in an urban area, after a lamppost clipping route – very hard to see how a non-professional pilot did that. But I can think of a number of possible scenarios where the official explanation is not quite the whole truth on the Pentagon, but which do not necessitate a belief that the US government or Dick Cheney was behind the attack.

In my view the real scandal of 9/11 was that it was blowback – the product of a malignant terrorist agency whose origins lay in CIA funding and provision. Also blowback in a more general sense that it was spawned in the nasty theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia which is so close to the US and to the Bush dynasty in particular. As with almost all terrorist activity, I do not rule out any point on the whole spectrum of surveillance, penetration and agent provocateur activity by any number of possible actors.

But was 9/11 false flag and controlled demolition? No, I think not.

(Now I have given full opportunity to discuss 9/11 here, any further references on other threads will be instantly deleted).


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11,807 thoughts on “The 9/11 Post

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  • Hieroglyph

    So, it is with interest I note that Grenfell towers is still standing, a burnt out husk, but visible on the London skyline.

    Much of the 9-11 discussion seems to revolve around the seeming appearance of a demolition. Even those who don’t believe it’s a demolition admit, it does look like one. I accept appearances can be deceptive. However, in real time, we see a building in London, still standing, after being demolished by fire; standing almost symbolically, and I’m not prone to symbolism. Is this relevant to the discussion?

    The discussion about demolition gets to structural engineering, so complex I swear I saw an argument about Plank’s Constant! A little over my head. I’ve never followed the 9-11 stuff that much, on the grounds that the official explanation is quite evidently utter baloney, so in a way it doesn’t entirely matter whether it was a demolition, or Saudi-sponsored pilots. For the record, I think the deep state can plan such a crime. Some people argue that such things couldn’t be covered up, but I think this line of thinking is basically ridiculous – the spooks cover shit up, all the time, and probably much worse than 9-11. However, a controlled demolition I’ve always put down as ‘extremely unlikely’, to say the least. Should we now reconsider, in light of the recent tragedy?

    Naturally, 9-11 was a tremendous explosion, caused by 2 planes and a shit load of fuel. So perhaps this exceeded tolerance? One could argue these are different scenarios.

    • glenn_uk

      Hieroglyph: All interesting thoughts. There are a substantial number of steel-framed buildings which have survived major fires without spontaneously falling apart, in fact not a single case of fire and damage has caused the collapse of such a structure prior to 9/11. But the Twin Towers do have the distinction of having quite significant damage, besides the fire. Building 7 did not.

      All the same, I’ve evolved somewhat from accepting the narrative, to being pretty well convinced this was a demolition, to now being more agnostic about it.

      At the same time, we have to weigh in the utter implausibility of the Pentagon attack being as claimed. Not to mention the Pennsylvania crash being as the Official Story tells it.

      You might have to allow for the buildings collapsing unexpectedly, even if the events of that day were allowed to happen. Not everything might have gone entirely to plan. Either the terrorists did everything absolutely perfectly, or devious agents within our own government did everything perfectly – does that sound like a reasonable either/or to you? It certainly does not sounds like one to me.

      • Clark

        Susan Lindauer said there was a USAF fighter pilot imprisoned on the same airbase that she was, for shooting down the Pennsylvania aircraft.

    • Clark

      Grenfell Tower had a lot more concrete, which is more resilient to heat; see my comments following from the one linked below, and the link I included there:

      https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-112/#comment-688173

      The Twin Tower collapses certainly resembled vérinage demolition; indeed, the initiation process was rather similar:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwFHEoiUZ7o

      There’d be no point lacing the Twin Towers with explosives on every floor as certain “controlled demolition” theories require because they could collapse very quickly without such assistance, see here:

      https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-112/#comment-688360

    • Clark

      I think it’s true to say that the design of the Twin Towers was particularly vulnerable to the specific sort of damage they suffered, and the way they collapsed was consistent with both the design and the damage.

      The wide-span floors on lightweight steel trusses were vulnerable to chain-reaction collapse if enough material fell on the top of the stack, and that’s exactly what happened.

    • John Goss

      “So, it is with interest I note that Grenfell towers is still standing, a burnt out husk, but visible on the London skyline.”

      Very observant. This week a crane fell in Crewe sadly killing two people.

      http://www.euronews.com/2017/06/22/two-dead-after-crane-collapse-in-crewe

      Cranes have to be made of structural steel, or some material with similar properties and strengths, to lift weights even greater than their own. There are people on this thread who dishonestly direct you towards the fire resistance of concrete as opposed to steel. While it is true that concrete is more fire-resistant it is not as strong as steel or they would be building skyscrapers from reinforced concrete. It is a single fact that no steel-structured building has ever collapsed due to fire. Never. Never ever.

      I put a video link in this blog-piece which shows the demolition of a steel-framed building and if you stop the video at the end you can see what remains of the structure. It is like the collapsed crane. Welded and bolted structures do not vanish into thin air.

      https://johnplatinumgoss.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/structural-steel-and-911/

      This post is commandeered by one person. Any comment of mine which suggests a link between between Israel and 9/11 is deleted. You might be able to work something out from that.

      • Clark

        “It is a single fact that no steel-structured building has ever collapsed due to fire. Never. Never ever”

        FALSE

        John Goss, check your facts, and post the correction if you have a shred of honesty. I don’t see why I should repeatedly correct you.

        • John Goss

          I will respond to you on this occasion because you are probably going to mention Crystal Palace which was very badly designed and did not have any structure above it. It was also a bottom up blaze like Grenfell.

          • John Goss

            Also there was no structure below it and it burnt for a long time before collapsing many decades ago when structural steel buildings were, relatively speaking, in their infancy.

          • John Goss

            I do not want to engage you because you talk nonsense. You have no engineering background and prertend to have some scientific knowledge which the rest of us cannot take seriously. But with the same old garbage you spout on and on and on . . . You are so boring the meercats can’t take an interest. Leave me and my comments alone.

          • Clark

            There are various others, too.

            “Never. Never ever”

            If you want me to comment less, BE FACTUAL, because it’s TRUTH, Justice, Peace.

            “While it is true that concrete is more fire-resistant it is not as strong as steel or they would be building skyscrapers from reinforced concrete”

            One World Trade Center is the replacement for the Twin Towers, incorporating the design improvements recommended by NIST to prevent a similar catastrophe:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_world_trade_center#Safety_and_security

            Along with the protection provided by the reinforced concrete base, a number of other safety features were included in the building’s design, so that it would be prepared for a major accident or terrorist attack. Like 7 World Trade Center, the building has 3-foot (91 cm) thick reinforced concrete walls in all stairwells, elevator shafts, risers, and sprinkler systems. There are also extra-wide, pressurized stairwells, along with a dedicated set of stairwells exclusively for the use of firefighters, and biological and chemical filters throughout the ventilation system.[136][182] In comparison, the original Twin Towers used a purely steel central core to house utility functions, protected only by lightweight drywall panels

          • Clark

            Regarding steel structures that collapsed due to fire alone, it’s probably worth examining the Sight and Sound Theater in Pennsylvania and the McCormick Center in Chicago.

          • Nikko

            The difference between Crystal Palace and the WTC towers is telling

            The Towers did not just “collapse” but they destroyed themselves into small fragments by falling vertically down through the path of greatest resistance, which for 300m plus suffered no physical or heat damage

            By contrast, in Crystal Palace the failure of local support points lower down caused the upper structure to topple as a whole (see @ 1.50)

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtUYYRouLAk

          • Clark

            No, not “small fragments”. Many sections were enormous, as can be seen in the collapse videos.

            No, the path of greatest resistance would have been down through the core; the collapse did not proceed that way.

            The collapse proceeded through the path of second-lowest resistance, which was down through the concrete floor assemblies, leaving the perimeter and frame to fall shortly afterwards.

            The path of lowest resistance would have been down through the surrounding space, but this was unavailable, being on the opposite side of the second greatest resistance, the perimeter, which effectively acted as a cage for the internal collapse.

          • Clark

            Oops, I missed one of Nikko’s distortions: – “…which for 300m plus suffered no physical or heat damage”.

            Actually the whole of both Towers had been severely stressed by aircraft impacts. The buildings were out of true, causing some doors to jam in their frames. And a fireball from jet fuel had descended down lift shafts, blowing out at lower levels.

            If you need to repeatedly distort evidence to make a case, the case’s premise is probably wrong.

          • Nikko

            More waffle!

            No, not “small fragments”. Many sections were enormous, as can be seen in the collapse videos.

            Clark is no engineer so he cannot appreciate relative size. In the Crystal Palace video (@1.50), the structural failure was near the bottom and what collapsed above was some 80% or more of the mass the failed supports were carrying.
            In the Towers, the “enormous” chunks seen ejected laterally are an inconsequential fraction of the supporting mass below/

            No, the path of greatest resistance would have been down through the core; the collapse did not proceed that way.

            Did not proceed that way?? What, you mean that the top section flew away and 400m of the columns remained standing??

          • Nikko

            Actually the whole of both Towers had been severely stressed by aircraft impacts.

            More waffle! What does severely stressed mean in this situation and in every point in the structure?

          • Clark

            Nikko, I see you’re reduced to outright lying and playing the fool. I have described my proposed collapse scenario to you repeatedly, yet you insist upon misrepresenting it.

            Yet again, the initial collapse was within the perimeter, outside the core, down through the wide-span, mostly concrete floor assemblies. That left the perimeter laterally unsupported, and it peeled outward. Last to go was the core, presumably crushed near its base as the other debris settled.

            Very, very simple. Anyone with some mechanical nous could understand it, and do the verifying calculations on a postcard.

          • Nikko

            Very, very simple. Anyone with some mechanical nous could understand it, and do the verifying calculations on a postcard.

            Does that include you, Clark? If so, let us see the calculations!

          • Clark

            Sure. Various complications arise, which I shall denote with an asterisk and a numeral.

            Considering WTC1, let’s assume the top section that began to fall had a loaded mass, and therefore a weight, of about 20 times that of a floor assembly, and that a floor assembly could support a static load of about 11 times its own weight (John Goss’ figure).

            It is obvious that the topmost floor assembly of the standing section could not arrest the falling top section. It will therefore have been substantially broken up and/or decoupled from the lower section of the frame. (*1)

            We therefore consider the decrease of velocity of the top section due to conservation of momentum. Momentum has the formula m * v. Let m be the mass of each floor assembly. Therefore the mass of the falling section is about 20m. Let the velocity of the falling section be v. We’re discussing concrete, so it is reasonable to assume inelastic collision (*2). Let m(t) be the mass of falling material after collision, and its velocity be v(t).

            The general formula for an inelastic collision is

            m(1)*v(1) + m(2)*v(2) = m(f)*v(f)

            where (f) denotes “final”, and m(f) = m(1) + m(2). The initial velocity of the floor assembly on the lower section is zero 0, so substituting in our values we have:

            m*0 + 20m*v = 21m*v(t)

            m*0 is of course 0, so rearranging we have:

            v(t) = 20v/21 = ~95.2% of v.

            It is immediately obvious that this collision would slow the top section down by less than 5%. There are various complications that could be considered. Complication (*1) is that the lowest falling floor assembly also would likely be broken up and decoupled from the falling section of frame. However, this would result in an even smaller decrease in the velocity of the top section. The two combined broken floor assemblies would have a velocity of about v/2 from which they would accelerate under gravity. That material may or may not be caught up by the next higher falling floor assembly before encountering the next lower stationary floor assembly. In the end it isn’t really going to matter.

            Another complication is mechanical resistance, but before attempting to subtract velocity from the top section to account for that, we should see whether enough energy has already been liberated to overcome it by the kinetic energy inevitably lost in inelastic collisions. I believe we went through that calculation before, and came up with a figure equivalent to several kilos of TNT. We could go through more of that if you really insist, but you know; we’ve already seen the buildings collapse…

            OK, onto the next collision down. This time the falling mass is 21m (minus losses), so even less velocity will be lost than last time. And it gets less each time.

            Losing less and less than 5% velocity as each floor assembly is entrained, it’s pretty damn obvious that the collapse will accelerate at almost g.

            It is therefore also obvious that there would have been absolutely no point lacing each floor with multiple explosive charges, radio-receiver detonators, batteries to power them and a computer with a multi-channel high speed encrypting transmitter to control it all, to create the appearance of a progressive collapse that was bound to happen anyway. At that realisation I understood why Chomsky says what he does about presenting theories to the academic community and I stopped wasting my brain power on it.

            Thanks for working out a collapse time that takes account of “10% pulverisation”. As I suspected, it doesn’t slow the collapse much at all. Please post a table of collapse times for degrees of “pulverisation” between none and “10%”.

          • glenn_uk

            Pardon my butting in here, but I would appreciate a clarification on this…

            —start quote
            ….
            Let m be the mass of each floor assembly. Therefore the mass of the falling section is about 20m. Let the velocity of the falling section be v. We’re discussing concrete, so it is reasonable to assume inelastic collision (*2). Let m(t) be the mass of falling material after collision, and its velocity be v(t).

            The general formula for an inelastic collision is

            m(1)*v(1) + m(2)*v(2) = m(f)*v(f)

            where (f) denotes “final”, and m(f) = m(1) + m(2). The initial velocity of the floor assembly on the lower section is zero 0, so substituting in our values we have:

            m*0 + 20m*v = 21m*v(t)

            m*0 is of course 0, so rearranging we have:

            v(t) = 20v/21 = ~95.2% of v.

            —end quote

            This is fine, but we ought to consider a couple of things. You say, the static bearing capacity could be 11 times times its own weight. I’d suggest that it has to be considerably more than that, or it could never support the 20 floors above it that it held up perfectly well for many years.

            The weight that fell on it would not be the weight it originally bore, because much of it had been turned to fine powder, or ejected in some fashion, or fell straight to the ground as the top part of the tower twisted before collapsing outside the immediate perimeter of the building.

            But never mind all that. Your calculation that only maybe 5% of the velocity was lost assumes the floor in question was free-floating in air at the time – entirely unemcumbered by a support structure keeping it in place. The same holds true for each of the floors subsequently demolished – we’re supposed to believe they just sat there, floating in isolation – until the progression of the collapse reached it.

            I find that rather hard to accept.

          • Nikko

            Losing less and less than 5% velocity as each floor assembly is entrained, it’s pretty damn obvious that the collapse will accelerate at almost g.

            It is pretty damn obvious that in a collapse accelerating at almost g, most of the potential energy through position is converted to kinetic energy, leaving bugger all energy to destroy the supporting structure. So we are back to the question I asked you months ago – where did the energy to destroy the building come from?

          • Clark

            “11 times times its own weight. I’d suggest that it has to be considerably more than that, or it could never support the 20 floors above it that it held up perfectly well for many years.”

            The floor assemblies didn’t support the structure above. The vertical frame (core and perimeter) supported all the floor assemblies. All the standard floor assemblies were the same strength. There were also three “mechanical floors” for supporting lift winches and other such equipment, and they had stronger floor assemblies.

            This is why I don’t refer to “floors”, which can be confused with storeys ie. levels.

            “The weight that fell on it would not be the weight it originally bore, because much of it had been turned to fine powder, or ejected in some fashion…”

            Watch the collapse videos. The vast majority of the dust wells up from near ground level after the internal collapses have hit bottom. This is consistent with maximum crushing of concrete occurring as the great speed of the internal collapse was forced to a very sudden stop. There is dust released during the collapses, but it is very minor compared with those great clouds.

            “…or fell straight to the ground as the top part of the tower twisted before collapsing outside the immediate perimeter of the building”

            Again, this was relatively minor. In the less conservative case of WTC2, only about 30 storeys of 110 were above the impact zone, and the tipping only reached several degrees; the vast majority of the material began its fall from above the footprint of the building.

            ” Your calculation that only maybe 5% of the velocity was lost assumes the floor in question was free-floating in air at the time – entirely unemcumbered by a support structure keeping it in place”

            Not really. Inelastic collision always dissipates kinetic energy into deformation of the colliding objects. This can be calculated, and it is not trivial. If it is sufficient to substantially break the floor assemblies apart, further energy need not be sought.

            We can look for complications in both directions; ones that subtract from collapse energy, and ones that add to it. For instance, I was only adding m at each entrained floor assembly, but those floors were loaded. Do we know for certain that the buildings were not overloaded? We know there were UPS installations and escalators added to the buildings, and they didn’t anticipate a CRT monitor on every desk when the Twin Towers were designed. Plus there was the weight of a 767 in there, though that’s relatively minor.

          • Clark

            ” where did the energy to destroy the building come from”

            Nikko, we already calculated that. We calculated the gravitational potential energy of all the floor assemblies, and it came to the equivalent of, I can’t remember how many; many tonnes of TNT. Tonnes, not kilos! Can you be bothered to find the appropriate page?

            Obviously, most of that energy wasn’t available for destruction. We don’t have the overall collapse time to enable us to calculate how much was, but the TNT equivalent was so huge you’d only need a small fraction. We know that a fraction was available, because falling pieces of perimeter can be seen overtaking the internal collapse.

          • Clark

            “Obviously, most of that energy wasn’t available for destruction…”

            …but every bit that wasn’t, was available to crush concrete as the collapses hit bottom – hence the enormous clouds welling up immediately after the collapses.

            It’s all very consistent; Twin Tower demolition theory has to be bunk. And from a scientific perspective that’s great, because Twin Tower demolition theory is highly tenuous and highly demanding, and it’s always great to be able to dispense with theories like that.

          • Nikko

            Clark, you have calculated that at the first impact the velocity would be reduced by 5% and by less for subsequent impacts and concluded that “…the collapse will accelerate at almost g.”

            If that is the case than it makes little difference how big the initial gravitational potential energy was because, by the same token, “almost” all of it will be used up to create kinetic energy. You cannot have it both ways. The rest of what you wrote was pure waffle, pronouncing conclusions out of nothing or even out of contradictory statements. All you have proved is that physics is not your thing.

            You cannot ignore real-world effects. If gravity was the only source of energy, then it is necessary for you to demonstrate (through calculations and numbers):

            1) The effect on collapse velocities of loss of mass (pulverization) at each impact point
            2) The effect on collapse velocities due to resistance of materials (breaking the floors from their mountings, the tearing apart of the support structure, etc)
            3) Taking 1 and 2 into consideration, how much energy was surplus at each impact point
            4) How does the surplus energy compare to the energy needed to tear the supporting structures apart
            5) And that the collapse can be achieved within the observed time frame

            That you do not know the collapse time is a lame excuse. You can start by demonstrating that all the conditions for a gravity collapse are met, say within the first 3, 4 or whatever seconds when the collapse is visible.

            Words are not necessary. Only calcs and numbers.

          • Clark

            Nikko, I am not your puppet, and I understand perfectly well your aggressive tactics; if you can bully me into doing reams of calculations you can then pick holes in them, thereby setting the agenda thus projecting an appearance, to non-technical readers, of being the “winning” party. Matters of hard science are not settled this way, and it would be a huge improvement if political matters weren’t either.

            If you wish to continue a technical discussion, cooperate.

            Post your table of values for varying degrees of “pulverisation” and the corresponding collapse times.

            Specify what you actually mean by “pulverisation”, ie. what mathematical adjustment you applied to the calculations.

            Find and link to the potential energy that we already calculated and its conversion to TNT equivalent; why should I make all the effort while you merely throw spanners in the works? Just to help you “win”?

            Stop misrepresenting my position as a technique to strengthen merely the impression made by your arguments.

            To answer your deliberately misleading questions,

            1) is your responsibility, because you have made some calculations, but repeatedly and deliberately omit both to specify them, and to post all the varying collapse times. Stop attempting to manipulate your readers.

            2, 3 and 4) Stop misrepresenting my argument. Repeatedly, I have pointed out that inelastic collisions release energy of deformation which is destructive, yet you constantly ignore this energy. Repeatedly, you suggest that the energy to break up the perimeter structure has to be obtained from the internal collapses. It does not, and cannot.

            5) Explain the advantage to the vast conspiracy that you propose in undertaking massive risk of exposure merely to hasten the collapses by a few seconds.

            I am totally sick of your aggressive, bullying, insulting attitude. That, too, is transparently a technique. You hope to drive me away, leaving you, Goss and the other demolition enthusiasts free to promote lies and mislead the public.

          • Nikko

            Very, very simple. Anyone with some mechanical nous could understand it, and do the verifying calculations on a postcard

            Well, you did promise to do the verifying calculations. If you think that holding you to your own promise and also giving you helpful hints about what you need to do to prove your theory is aggression, then so be it. But rest assured that without meaningful calculations and numbers nobody is going to be convinced.

            NIST knew very well why they excluded the dynamics of the collapse from their analysis – it cannot be defended. Crooks they may be but they are not fools.

            You are not my puppet and neither am I yours. It is you who is proposing a theory and so the onus of proof is on you. Your demand that I search through previous pages to find the potential energy calculation is laughable because it is such an easy calculation that it should not take more than 30 seconds to do again. Do we take it you are not capable of calculating it?

            Besides, the total PE of the whole building is absolutely not relevant to what is happening at the collapsing front because the structure underneath is not moving and so its PE plays no part in the collapse and destruction. Did you not know that?

            Likewise, your demand that I post a table of the collapse times vs the degree of pulverisation. Again, it is a simple calculation so you should be able to do it yourself if you claim any competence in physics. How can you even consider presenting your theory when you are not in possession of this key data?

            Your comment that you find my suggestions on what needs to be done to prove your theory to be “deliberately misleading” is hypocritical in light of what you wrote recently
            Clark June 6, 2017 @13.12
            Present the proof you claim to have, or retract. That is how it is done in the scientific community. If you do neither, your claim to speak with scientific authority is fraudulent.

            Anyway, in what way misleading? Am I misleading you away from believing the fraudulent NIST report and from your dodgy, mixed up science?

            Repeatedly, I have pointed out that inelastic collisions release energy of deformation which is destructive, yet you constantly ignore this energy.

            This is a howler! In the physics I was taught, inelastic collisions absorb energy, but in your world little details like this do not seem to matter.

            Whether you are not able or do not want to do the calculations is moot, because if you did, the results would show that a gravity only collapse is not self-sustaining and runs out of energy quite soon. If you can’t do the maths you can see it very clearly in the video of practical experiments posted by John Goss.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJNzaMRsN00

          • Clark

            You are a liar, Nikko. I don’t wish to redo calculations I have done already, so cut out your accusations of incompetence. The total gravitational potential energy IS relevant because the entire structure fell; as I remember, it came to the equivalent of over 150 tonnes of TNT.

            YOU have already referred to kinetic energy lost in inelastic collisions as “energy of deformation”, and sufficient deformation of a concrete structure is obviously destruction. Your own calculations have already proven rapidity of collapse, even with the subtraction you applied, which remains arbitrary until you specify it.

            You appear to be competent, therefore your deception must be deliberate.

      • Clark

        “This post is commandeered by one person. Any comment of mine which suggests a link between between Israel and 9/11 is deleted. You might be able to work something out from that”

        Ha! I expect my reply will disappear along with yours, as the insinuation above is of course a classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theory!

        FOR the record, my position on Israel is similar to Craig’s. I condemn Israel’s expansionism, its aggressive foreign policy, its occupation of Palestine, and its brutal attacks upon Gaza, and I regard an inclusive, secular one-state solution as the only remaining possibility compatible with justice.

      • John Goss

        “It is a single fact that no steel-structured building has ever collapsed due to fire. Never. Never ever.”

        I should have said high-rise building or skyscraper which is what we are talking about with the twin towers.

        • Clark

          Yes, “high-rise” or “skyscraper” is what you should have said.

          But if it’s the Twin Towers we are talking about, why didn’t you mention the extensive DAMAGE?

          You always seem to ratchet everything in one direction. “Skyscrapers” you morph into “all steel buildings”, whereas “fire and extensive damage” you reduce to just “fire”. The lightweight construction you convert to supremely strong. It seems essentially dishonest, as if you’re trying to mislead.

  • John Goss

    Last night I had a few glasses of wine and made the mistake of engaging Clark. For this I apologise. It has led to more waffle clogging up the thread with his pet theories presented as fact. To give one example he talks about extensive damage to the twin towers which of course cannot be measured because, unlike Grenfell Tower, the twin towers no longer stand. Only if they were standing afterwards could proper forensics have been done on the cause. This does not stop Clark from waffling on and presenting the fiction of his mind as fact.

    For months he has been crossing his legs, holding his bladder full (of Greg Jenkins) I suspect, who also did not grasp that the billiard ball example was not Judy Wood’s theory about the actual event but her attempt to make what happened fit the almost freefall destruction of the twin towers. She was not trying to eliminate kinetic energy as Jenkins suggests but make the event fit the science, something Clark cannot grasp. Months ago I linked for a him a model that Jonathan H Cole built which proves the modelling of the collapse of the twin towers as it happened cannot be achieved. His responses are below my comment and show why you cannot engage Clark. He still comes back with the same old waffle and nonsense about ad hominem this ad hominem that.

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-110/#comment-669660

    If Clark could show me a model where replicas of the twin towers (or proximations) could fall in almost free time I should be happy to look at it and perhaps engage him again. Till then I cannot waste my time on his nonsense. N. B. This is not an ad hominem against Clark just against what he writes.

      • Nikko

        All good experiments. The pancaking experiment clearly shows that the forces on the outer structure are inwards and not outwards as was observed

        • John Goss

          They are good experiments Nikko because Jonathan Cole has done everything to try and prove the official version possible even going to the trouble of constructing floor supports out of paper and matchsticks. Yet NIST, Fema, AIA, Universities and other establishment organisations have done no such experiments. There is probably a very good reason for this. And I think you and I know what it is.

          • Clark

            So, with reference to this structure:

            http://www.killick1.plus.com/odds/glass-shelves.jpg

            are you telling me that if I took a mass of about twenty times the weight of a single shelf, and dropped it from a great enough height to break the the top shelf, it could not accelerate overall through the shelves beneath? What about if I increased the span of the shelves?

            If Cole wants to do good experiments, he needs to get his ratios about right. When his model reduces the distances between the “floors”, he inevitably also reduces the amount of energy and velocity that falling material accumulates between each floor. This is the scaling problem, and it is hard.

            The alternatives are (1) to build a full-scale replica of a few floors, and see if a falling mass about twenty times that of a single floor assembly accelerates through them or not, or (2) resort to computer simulation.

            But there is no point, until you explain to me how a floor assembly rated to take at most about eleven times its own weight could arrest falling material of about twenty times its own weight. If it can’t, accelerating collapse ensues, as Nikko has already calculated:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-112/#comment-688360

            Now, I say that THIS is why universities etc. have not performed Cole-like experiments; there is simply no point. But you claim that you and Nikko know of some secret reason that you are hinting at. Please plainly state that reason.

          • John Goss

            “There is probably a very good reason for this. And I think you and I know what it is.”

            It cannot be physically modeled. And that is why the twin towers and building 7 could not have collapsed the way they did without having been compromised lower down. Anybody who thinks they can physically model such a collapse has my blessing. I should love to see the experiment and wish whoever tries good luck and lots of time on their hands. I have repeatedly stated that according to the laws of physics, backed by experiment, this cannot happen. Prove me wrong!

          • Clark

            John Goss, you have not answered my question. Why, in your opinion, is the entire international physics and engineering community covering up demolition of the Twin Towers?

  • Clark

    And so here we see demonstrated the reason 9/11 activists are dismissed as “the 9/11 Lies movement”. These people will actually attempt to mislead newcomers about a hard science. They will cherry-pick, warp and misrepresent both evidence and testimony for their political objectives. Here is their legacy:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11_truth_movement

    Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement are conspiracy theorists who dispute the mainstream account of the September 11 attacks of 2001. The “truthers”, as they are, sometimes pejoratively, called, dispute the commonly accepted account that Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashed them into the Pentagon and New York’s Twin Towers, whereupon the crashes led to the collapse of the Twin Towers. Truthers primarily focus on missed information that isn’t explained in the official NIST theory, such as the collapse of World Trade Center 7. They suggest a cover-up and, at the least, complicity by insiders.

    – Many adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement allege that the buildings of the World Trade Center were destroyed by controlled demolition, a theory of major importance for the 9/11 Truth movement

    How on Earth is a Wikipedia editor such as myself supposed untangle the treasure from the turds you have contributed to that?

    Well done, demolition theorists, for giving the purveyors of ignorance so much ammunition to fire at us. Neocons, Israeli expansionists and apologists for torture are all delighted at the cover you provide for them.

  • John Goss

    Although not directly petinent to 9/11 this is really good for those wishing to understand how Newtonian physics is applied to the great blessing Scotland gave us. It could up your game if you can only come to understand the physics of the third law, which is all about mass, momentum, action and reaction. For some of course that is simply a mantra taught in secondary school, a formula to be reproduced in exams. For others . . . well see for yourself.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrJwCF6ws3E

      • Clark

        Stop insulting me. I understand Newton’s laws. I’ve never seen you apply them once, you’ve presented zero calculations or estimates, you’ve obviously never attempted to apply them to the collapses of the Twin Towers, and your endorsement of Wood’s BBE proves you don’t have a clue.

    • Nikko

      Had to watch the video as could not figure out what Newtonian physics is to whisky.

      • John Goss

        “Ha, ha.” was the comment but it seems to have retained my previous comment too. 🙂 Too much whisky? No. Just a drop of beer tonight.

      • John Goss

        Actually Nikko the video’s aim as I understand it is to try to lessen the reaction of the golf ball to the action of the swing so the ball flies further. You have objects of different masses: the clubhead, the clubshaft, and particularly the golfer who very often has so much mass it is not a pleasant sight, but this is what seems to work often. I partnered a very convivial man, Mark, a couple of weeks back. He could hit the ball forty, fifty, sixty yards further than me. I asked for the secret and he told me it was his body mass. I believe him. We won our match but it was more due to his talents than mine. I made a contribution but he was the mainstay.

        In the golf video the lesson gets more pertinent around the 19 minute mark. It is the very opposite of how the twin towers’ collapses should have behaved because the object is trying to take away any resistance from the golf ball to the clubhead, and to the body mass of the swinger (golfer), and to the momentum created by the swinger, in order to make the ball go further. His argument is that gravity is the key though I am sure momentum is just as important. Anyway there is one point on which nobody can disagree: however far you hit the ball it always comes to rest somewhere. Perhaps I should have been a teacher. 🙂

  • Clark

    FUCKING conspiracy theorists with your FUCKING DELUSIONS of moral and intellectual superiority over the of the ENTIRE FUCKING POPULATION, you are a FUCKING DISGRACE. You have made it FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE to cite the clearest example of Neocon collusion with religious extremism. Without your diligent efforts, the carnage in Libya and Syria might have been averted.

    YOU MAKE ME FUCKING SICK.

    • George

      I don’t follow your logic, Clark. In what way does the issue of 9/11 as false flag operation distract attention away from the “Neocon collusion with religious extremism”? I would have thought the “inside job” theory and the Neocon/Islam-extremist collusion would have gone hand in hand.

      • mog

        Clark claims that there is some dichotomy between the evidence based arguments around the buildings’ destruction and that concerning all the many other highly dubious aspects of 911 (the connections of Al Qaeda to US intelligence, the Saudi connections, the defence failures, the intelligence failures, the money trails, the cover ups of the commission, etc. etc. etc. ).
        The problem I have with Clark’s effort of several years’ standing, is that the most prominent and respected researchers in the field of 911 (Kevin Ryan, Griffin et al) all make arguments- and ask questions, about all these elements. Furthermore, there are several lines of inquiry that appear to link middle eastern regimes to the controlled demolition hypothesis.
        There is no dichotomy, except in Clark’s head. In considering the demolition evidence, there is no distraction from the reality that US elites are closely allied to the most extreme and dangerous fanatics in the middle east. If he had read Griffin and others he would know that. There is no logic in Clark, the logic is in the people who have actually done the research and published it.
        In this there are echoes of the the original post by Murray seven thousand comments back : that the question of 911 is best addressed by superficially considering whether building 7 was a controlled demolition. The reams of evidence about just about every other aspect of 911 can (in Murray’s opinion) be brushed away and the whole subject framed within a field where he has no expertise.
        This, to me, betrays his dishonesty on the subject.

        • Clark

          If you think Ryan and Griffin are the best researchers of 9/11, you must have been restricting yourself to Truther sites. Nothing like getting a balanced view, eh?

          Building 7’s collapse is unlikely to reveal much about the overall event because it happened about eight hours later.

          • mog

            It seems that it is you who only scan ‘Truther sites’.

            Try reading some books on the subject Clark. Griffin has done more than anyone to collect together all the evidential strands and present a consistent argument in a series of fully documented (and well reviewed/ endorsed) books.

            Ryan is a whistleblower who has written extensively about the NIST reports and also contributed with a book length consideration of individuals many of whom are connnected to the 911 events and KSA in multiple ways.

            No excuse for your false dichotomies that only support your ignorance of the subject.

          • Clark

            Mog, I’ve seen this pattern over and over again on this thread, and it is corrosive. You want to criticise me because I reject Twin Tower demolition theory. Meanwhile, we have no-planers, anti-vaxers, chemtrailers, anti-intellectualism etc. etc. etc. and never a word of criticism. Commenters can outright lie to support Twin Tower demolition, they can misrepresent the engineering community and promote fake physics, and you and your gang remain silent.

            And this is how it goes. Anyone who rejects Twin Tower demolition theory is constantly hounded by what amounts to an impromptu gang. And you lot use Twin Tower demolition theory as your litmus test of whether a commentator on the wider ‘net is worthy of consideration regarding 9/11, thereby rejecting, and frequently smearing, some of the best whistle-blowers and political commentators.

            But Twin Tower demolition theory is clearly false, so your gang’s deliberate corruption of the debating environment repels all sensible potential participants.

          • mog

            Clark,
            I have posted in the past (sorry no time to find and link just now) that there are many noteworthy contributors to the citizen’s investigation of 911 who do not want the demolition hypothesis emphasised (Jon Gold, Robbie Martin et al).

            I have no interest in arguing the demolition theory here. Whilst I am on the other side to you on that, I feel that it has been done to death on this thread.

            I object to you alleging that controlled demolition hypothesis advocates are saboteurs. As stated before, some of the best research (in all areas of 911 – anthrax attacks included) has been done by academics and professionals who support the demolition theory.

            I am not part of any gang, so stop accusing people and just accept that not everyone agrees with you.
            Focus on aspects where there is agreement ? Just an idea.

          • Clark

            Mog, I’m totally sick of the accusations and aggression against me. When I have complained, the level has reduced to insinuation, but it still goes on. For daring to do some calculations and point out fake physics, I have incurred continual insult from John Goss and Nikko, and sporadic jeering from various.

            My point is, NONE of you ever speak out against this. There’s only one thing you lot agree on, and that’s that anyone who argues against Twin Tower demolition theory must receive criticism from ALL of you, even if such criticism supposedly concerns other matters.

            If it has put me off, and forced Craig (whom you have accused of dishonesty) to restrict mention of 9/11 to this thread alone, I think it’s time to cotton on; the conspirology and fake physics are doing far more harm than good.

          • George

            “Building 7’s collapse is unlikely to reveal much about the overall event because it happened about eight hours later.”

            Is this supposed to mean that the collapse of Building 7 had nothing to do with the other events that day? In which case – if there had been no planes flying into the twin towers etc, then building 7 would have collapsed anyway?

          • Clark

            No, it means you can’t infer causality backwards through time. You can’t say, “a certain horse won, therefore someone must have hobbled all the other horses”.

            We do not know what happened to Building 7 between the morning and the time of its collapse. It is possible that an emergency, secret military demolition was ordered and carried out in that time. It is also possible that it simply had a critical vulnerability.

          • George

            “a critical vulnerability”

            I’ll say!

            “an emergency, secret military demolition”

            So are you saying there is something fishy going on here? I’m not quite sure where you’re coming from Clark. Do you agree that 9/11 was an “inside job”?

          • Clark

            George, “inside job” is a sort of catch-phrase. I suspect it means different things to different people. Having said that, the word “terrorists” is much the same; when Saudi-backed religious extremists made disruption in Benghazi which was useful to covert Neocon objectives, they “needed NATO protection”. When they went on to attack the US embassy and kill the US ambassador there, suddenly they were “terrorists”. When they attack in Syria, as is useful to covert Neocon objectives, they’re “rebels fighting a dictator”.

            The situation regarding 9/11 is similar. According to many US government employees, the alleged hijackers were assisted to enter the US by the CIA and the State Department, and protected from investigation by orders from a high levels of authority. The CIA knew of their presence and their motivations against the US, but deliberately withheld that information from the FBI.

            Regarding Building 7, yes; by far the easiest way to understand the collapse as observed is as deliberate demolition. However, this does NOT apply to the collapses of the Twin Towers, which failed in a manner very consistent with their design and the type of damage they suffered.

          • Clark

            My point about a possible critical vulnerability in Building 7 is that public observers can’t rule it out. Maybe NIST can either prove or disprove it, but they’re withholding some of their data. The physical evidence ie. the wreckage and the collapse site are both hopelessly corrupted. I find it very unlikely that a critical vulnerability can be conclusively disproved.

            Have a look at the construction diagrams and design history of Building 7; it was an absolute pig’s ear. Thrown up in a hurry, its core supported on truss-work straddling an electrical sub-station, built partly on much older foundations intended for a building of half the height and a fraction of the weight, beams and trusses running this way and that to fit the maximum area into the irregularly shaped footprint between existing streets; it was not an example of engineering elegance.

          • George

            From what you’re saying the entire matter of controlled demolition seems irrelevant. As far as I’m concerned the case of helping terrorists to achieve their aims i.e. deliberately allowing them to proceed is the same as doing it all yourself anyway.

            It has always seemed to me that the removal of the material after the collapse of the buildings creates a very convenient “black hole”. It means that you can now say whatever you want. Nothing can be proven. And all the arguments about the melting point of steel, the presumed speed of collapse etc. can be cheerfully permitted to carry on indefinitely.

          • Clark

            If Building 7 was deliberately brought down in a hurry it would be very interesting to know who decided it had to be kept secret and what reason they gave, because that more than anything has fuelled the interminable and highly disruptive Twin Tower demolition nonsense.

            I can see why WTC7 might have been brought down. The fire-fighters were furious about the losses of their comrades in the Twin Towers and the inadequate “Handy Talkie” radios, and they were proving difficult to keep out of the WTC7 safety exclusion zone, wanting to search there.

            ‘removal of the material after the collapse of the buildings creates a very convenient “black hole”’

            Agreed. Confessions extracted under torture has a similar effect; it permanently corrupts the evidence trail. Condoleezza Rice signed off on that:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/04/waterboarding_a/

          • Clark

            “…helping terrorists to achieve their aims i.e. deliberately allowing them to proceed is the same as doing it all yourself anyway”

            I expect that can’t be proved; maybe 9/11 was just a back-fire. Highly dubious Saudis were permitted to do whatever they liked in the US well before 9/11; they were exempted from much surveillance. The policy continues with Trump’s immigration rules and its two exceptions – Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the two countries of origin of the alleged 9/11 hijackers.

            And it’s similar to the “Covenant of Security” discovered by “Rachel North” after the London 7/7 bombings. Extremists were harboured in the UK under an agreement with the security services that they would only commit their atrocities overseas.

            “Our enemy’s enemy is our friend” is very dangerous nonsense.

          • George

            “If Building 7 was deliberately brought down in a hurry….”

            So are you saying that the WTC7 collapse WAS a controlled demolition?

          • Clark

            I’m saying “if”, ie. I don’t know. The physical dynamics are suggestive but not conclusive. Chandler measured 2.25 seconds of descent at around free-fall, but actually his raw data shows a brief period in excess of free-fall. That seems almost crazy, but it could happen if the core fell first and the horizontal structure pulled the visible exterior down faster than gravity alone. On the other hand, Chandler apparently also measured half a second of slow, uniform descent immediately before acceleration set in; that seems more indicative of buckling of columns consistent with progressive collapse.

            We have some strong suggestions of explosive sound immediately before collapse, but no conclusive audio on the videos. We have a lone witness who claims there was a countdown, but he seems rather hysterical. We have reports of creaking and groaning, and instrumentation that predicted collapse. We have Silverstein’s famous quote, but also a categorical denial from the fire chief that the conversation ever occurred.

            Whatever happened to Building 7 was decidedly odd, even spooky. Everything contradicts everything else, and the damn thing wasn’t even a target. If it’s dancing around in a pink suit with a rotating bow tie, maybe we shouldn’t pay it too much attention.

          • Clark

            Oh, and the read-out from that instrumentation is nowhere to be found, and the media universally ignored it except for the BBC who reported its collapse 23 minutes early. I can’t think of another example of so many contradictions concentrated in one place.

          • George

            “Whatever happened to Building 7 was decidedly odd, even spooky. Everything contradicts everything else, and the damn thing wasn’t even a target. If it’s dancing around in a pink suit with a rotating bow tie, maybe we shouldn’t pay it too much attention.”

            I can’t say I’m happy with that. It’s weird so … um … let’s just kid on it didn’t happen.

            If it’s not controlled demolition then I don’t know what it was. Indeed I fail to see how it could have been anything else.

          • Clark

            I’m not satisfied with it either, but with such muddled indications I can’t see a way forward.

            WTC7’s fall could have been progressive collapse, but it looks decidedly unlikely to me. Some sort of demolition seems more convincing, but only some of the appropriate indications were present. Most evidence has gone and certain data are restricted, so critical vulnerability can’t be ruled out.

            But what next if it is proven to be demolition? Can it be proven that an emergency military demolition wasn’t ordered immediately after WTC1 fell?

            If 9/11 were a jigsaw puzzle, this would be a piece from the sky which has to be left until more of picture was in place.

  • Paul Barbara

    9/11 PLANES HOAX: https://911planeshoax.com/

    A good site, with good pics of the ‘plane’ hitting one of the Towers.
    And although the perimeter box columns were made from 1/4″ steel, in fact the wings had to slice through 13 1/2″ of steel column.
    Consider that ‘…They have traditionally used 1/4 inch steel chest plates as impenetrable protection against rifle bullets in bullet proof vests. National Institute of Justice (NIJ) rated Level III body armor 1/4 (.25) inch steel plate protects against all handgun bullets, including .44 magnum rounds, and against rifle bullets 9.6g (148 gr) 7.62x51mm NATO M80 ball bullets at a velocity of 847 m/s ± 9.1 m/s (2780 ft/s ± 30 ft/s)…’
    Disappearing wings; self-healing walls, white smoke 1 minute after ‘collision’ (jet fuel burns with black smoke); wrong size engine ‘planted’; no ‘wake vortex’; empty holes with no aircraft debris visible;a ‘witness’ said a plane sliced through his office, and got stuck in in the wall 20′ from him. Yeh, tell it to the Marines!

    • Clark

      The steel versus aluminium argument is total bollocks. John Goss tried to illustrate it with tomatoes hitting a brick wall. Tomatoes are mostly water, so that’s like saying a tsunami can’t damage a brick wall.

      Read the testimonies. Plenty of people saw the aircraft, plenty more heard them, and dozens caught the second one on videos and photographs. And something knocked huge, inward holes and started huge fires. The passengers and crew were killed; people lost friends and family. Show some fucking respect.

      I’m utterly sick of the bollocks and lies. You need to do a better job than the media, not one a hundred times worse. People get pissed off with being taken for idiots.

  • Maxter

    The Sunday Pos today page 35, details FBU members last year demanding of their executive, suspension of “Stay Put” policy regarding high rise building fires.
    They used the NIST collapse of WTC7 conclusion that fire can bring down fire protected buildings as a valid argument. This was ignored by the FBU hierarchy. In my opinion, It would appear that this lack of action has had recent devastating results.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘They Were ‘Grilled Alive’: US Government Exposed Running Nazi-Like Torture Program in Yemen’:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/they-were-grilled-alive-us-government-exp osed-running-nazi-like-torture-program-in-yemen/5596019

    ‘An unprecedented report from the corporate press claims U.S. forces have participated in extreme torture and abuse of detainees accused of affiliation with Al Qaeda in Yemen — including “the ‘grill,’ in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire,” the Associated Press finds.

    A network of secretive prisons in southern Yemen provide the backdrop for the alleged barbaric acts allegedly carried out by forces from the U.S. and United Arab Emirates — many of those detention facilities remain hidden in plain sight.

    That some of the covert prisons sit inside military bases might not be much of a shock, but others are located in ports, an airport, private villas, and even a nightclub — and all, according to the AP, remain untouchable by the embattled Yemeni government.

    Whistleblower Edward Snowden weighed in on the new revelations, tweeting,……..’

    Par for the course for the ‘Great Satan’ and it’s cronies.

    • Hieroglyph

      Alex Jones isn’t popular around here. But he argues that there are actual Satanists at high levels of Government. Sex parties, blood rituals, actual human sacrifices (and abusing children of course), the whole works. Honestly, I can begin to believe him. The US is truly screwed up. I mean seriously, Yemen? Nobody cares about Yemen, even the locals. Bizarre.

      • George

        You may be right but I think it’s best to concentrate on the all too obvious crimes i.e. the political/warmongering/media-manipulation/economic terrorism stuff. The moment you start to talk about blood sacrifices and satanic rituals you start to get into the realm of tabloid sensationalism. I have read David Icke out of curiosity and he piles on theory after theory of the most bizarre variety that the issue of truth doesn’t even seem to matter. The natural reaction is for the mind to become numb out of sensory overload.

        (And just to anticipate the glee with which some will seize on the mention of Icke in relation to 9/11 theories, I think that what Icke and others like him do is to take ideas that may be true and discredit them through linking up with stuff about UFOs, reptiles from other dimensions etc.)

        • Paul Barbara

          @ George June 28, 2017 at 08:33
          ‘…(And just to anticipate the glee with which some will seize on the mention of Icke in relation to 9/11 theories, I think that what Icke and others like him do is to take ideas that may be true and discredit them through linking up with stuff about UFOs, reptiles from other dimensions etc.)…’
          Pretty good description of Icke, I think. I’m sure he knows the ‘shape-shifting lizards’ business is bs, but I won’t detail why at present. Also, he has remarkably easy access to the States, and fills Wembley Stadium with his ‘Presentations’.
          And so far as I am aware, he doesn’t have ‘accidents’ or ‘contract’ life-threatening diseases!

          • George

            There has been criticism of Icke’s much vaunted claim that he knew about (and also publicly accused) Jimmy Savile all along. Here is an interesting article:

            http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/2015/06/01/the-savile-affair-did-david-icke-really-blow-the-whistle-on-jimmy-savile/

            An extract:

            “….there is no evidence to support the claims of Icke and others that he had publicly named Savile as a paedophile “since the 1990s”. In fact, if you look through the full catalogue of David Icke’s conspiracy books from The Robots Rebellion (1994), through The Biggest Secret (1998) when he first began to expose the elite paedophilia networks, up to the last title published before Savile’s death on 29 October 2011, Human Race Get Off Your Knees (2010), you will not find a single word about Jimmy Savile. Nor will you find any mention in Remember Who You Are (2012) published after Savile had died on 29 October 2011.

            This is a notable omission given who Icke does accuse of being a paedophile in his numerous other books. In The Biggest Secret, for example, Icke exposes in writing the alleged paedophilia, necrophilia and child-sacrificing activities of former UK Prime Minister Ted Heath (p.300), former US President George Bush Senior (pp.330, 339, 347), former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (p.331), Lord McAlpine (p.300), Bill Clinton (p.331), Dick Cheney (p.330), and a number of middling American personalities such as Boxcar Willie (p.335), Kris Kristofferson (p.336), and even some ventriloquist called Alex Houston (p.335).

            But not the presenter of Jim’ll Fix It.”

          • Clark

            George, good luck!

            Paul Barbara – “I’m sure he [Icke]knows the ‘shape-shifting lizards’ business is bs, but I won’t detail why at present”

            Er, because there’s zero evidence for any ‘shape-shifting lizards’? Because he made it up himself, perhaps?

            “I think that what Icke and others like him do is to take ideas that may be true and discredit them through linking up with stuff about UFOs, reptiles from other dimensions etc”

            That’s exactly the effect that Twin Tower demolition theory has on the entire field of 9/11, except it draws a larger and more disruptive following because it isn’t supernatural. It seems superficially reasonable, but its only real backing is two pieces of physics, Wood’s being blatantly fake, and Chandler misinterpreting his own work.

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Hieroglyph June 28, 2017 at 07:18
        Yes, Alex Jones seems to have left the ‘straight and narrow’. He used to put out a lot of good stuff, and he got through to a lot of Rednecks who wouldn’t have touched 9/11 with a barge pole, but now, though he still puts out some good stuff, a lot is anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic and pro-Israel.
        But he is right on the Satanists. Read Cathy O’Brien’s ‘Access Denied – For Reasons of National Security’; read ‘The Franklin Cover-Up’ by John DeCamp; read ‘Why Johnny Can’t Come Home’ by Noreen Gosch.
        Here are videos of all three of the above authors:
        “Conspiracy of Silence” with extras, including John DeCamp interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x-IZS8uKYo
        ‘Cathy O’Brien: Ex-Illuminati Mind Control Victim’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvEBmEo4IA0
        ‘Noreen Gosch on Her Son’s Kidnapping — Why Johnny Can’t Come Home’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XJCJkH8H2g

        It’s VERY heaviweight stuff, but I think it will convince you that our ‘Leaders’ are literally Satanic, and that ‘Pizzagate’ is not fake news.

        In case you are still in doubt:
        ‘General Albert Pike, Grand Commander, sovereign pontiff of universal freemasonry, giving instructions to the 23 supreme councils of the world.

        “That which we must say to the crowd is, we worship a god, but it is the god one adores without superstition. To you sovereign grand inspector general, we say this and you may repeat it to the brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees – the Masonic religion should be by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the luciferian doctrine.
        If lucifer were not god, would Adonay (the God of the Christians) whose deeds prove cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and His priests, calumniate Him?
        Yes, lucifer is god, and unfortunately Adonay is also God, for the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two gods. darkness being necessary for light to serve as its foil, as the pedestal is necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive.
        Thus, the doctrine of Satanism is heresy, and the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in lucifer, the equal of Adonay, but lucifer, god of light and god of good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the god of darkness and evil”
        https://www.christian-restoration.com/fmasonry/lucquotes.htm

        I have read it in Pike’s book ‘Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry’, so it is not a made-up quote.

    • John Goss

      All this torture was made possible by 9/11 which gave grounds for US-led invasions. Wherever there is conflict there is torture. One side loses a family member or friend and when some poor person thought to be an enemy is caught he or she is tortured, or raped, or both with the supposed aim of finding the perpetrator. The person caught probably does not have the answer. But war is sick, and warriors are mind-warped by what they have seen. Guantanamo is an outstanding example of this failure.

      Reprieve has done wonderful work in exposing the torture in Guantanamo and representing the detainees. On top of that here is Andy Worthington, probably the most persistent journalist attempting to get this monstrosity closed.

      http://www.closeguantanamo.org/Articles/257-In-Ongoing-Court-Case-The-Spotlight-Is-On-James-Mitchell-and-Bruce-Jessen-Architects-of-the-CIAs-Brutal-and-Pointless-Post-9-11-Torture-Program

  • mog

    Tom Secker has been producing an excellent series of podcasts : An Alternative History of Al Qaeda.
    His latest episode is a classic example of how in-depth research into the key characters in the 911 plot- and AQ terror in general (such as Ali Mohamed), show how complex is the relationship between the CIA and salafist extremists.

    Why haven’t writers like Murrray commented on this aspect of 911? It is all documented history and not open to the interpretation of competing technical experts.

    Secker’s work on this history is the best I have come accross. An education, really :

    http://www.spyculture.com/clandestime-114-alternative-history-al-qaeda-ali-mohamed/

      • mog

        Why misrepresent the article John?
        It was not just ‘his wife’ who thought Ali an agent, it was his commander in the special forces, and the CIA liason between that outfit and central intelligence. I think anyone honestly studying his life story would come to the same conclusion.
        911 hijackers aside, Ali is credited with training with training a whole generation of terrorists involved in attacks throughout the world over decades. He wrote the frickin’ manual !
        Is this not significant and educational? Yes, of course it is.
        Well done Tom.

        • John Goss

          “It was not just ‘his wife’ who thought Ali an agent, it was his commander in the special forces, and the CIA liason between that outfit and central intelligence.”

          Mog, I wasn’t misrepresenting the article, I was expressing my opinion. First of all I never believe, or necessarily disbelieve, anything the spooks say. None of us knows what their agenda is today, or tomorrow, or what it was yesterday. I’d believe his wife before them. But she would not know.

          As you say yourself: “His latest episode is a classic example of how in-depth research into the key characters in the 911 plot- and AQ terror in general (such as Ali Mohamed), show how complex is the relationship between the CIA and salafist extremists.”

          I got the impression he was a fantacist from all the alleged involvement in so much terrorist training activity. Very James Bond-like in being everywhere where there is danger. Or as the adverts say: “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

          There are other reasons like a wife testifying publicly, a spook-handler going public, or even Ali having a wife who was not an agent, or even a real spook telling his wife seems odd. Something about the article did not make sense.

          Of course I could be wrong. It was just the impression I got.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Hunger Across Africa’: https://projects.voanews.com/africa-drought/
    ‘Explainer: The World’s Largest Crisis In 70 Years’:
    ‘Across a vast swath of Africa, millions face starvation. Drought, conflict and disease have led to the continent’s worst humanitarian crisis in decades.
    In South Sudan, 1.6 million people have fled to nearby countries to escape war and find food. In Somalia, thousands of families have moved from their villages to camps for the displaced. In Nigeria, 450,000 children face acute malnutrition after years of attacks by the terror group Boko Haram. Here, VOA provides ongoing coverage of the disaster, its causes and the humanitarian response….’

    So, one might say, ‘Acts of God’; there have always been famines in Africa., even under the Pharoahs.
    True enough, but now Satanically-led ‘Man’ plays God, with millions deliberately slaughtered in wars, weaponised cancer and pandemics (limited at present, but they will come), poisoning the genetic pool of crops and animals through genetic engineering, pollution etc.
    But now the PTB have other weapons at their disposal – weather warfare and deliberately set off earthquakes, through chemtrails and HAARP.

    Here is a verbatim quote (except a couple of **) from Cathy O’Brien’s book ‘Access Denied’:
    ‘Darpa’s artificial intelligence was reliant on secrecy, and a terrifying cover for reality was chosen to divert people from the simple truth. Since people perceive aliens as being physical like them,it was decided that the technological reality could be disguised according to preconceptions. Through generations of genetic encoding dating back to the beginning of man, serpents incite an innate autogenic response system in humans to ‘freeze’ in terror. George Bush was excited at the prospects of diverting people from truth by fear through perpetuating lizard-like serpent alien misconceptions. ”People fear what they don’t know anyway. By compounding that fear with autogenic fear response, they won’t want to look into Pandora’s box.”

    Through deliberate generation of fear; suppression of facts under the 1947 National Security Act; Bush’s stint as CIA| director during Ford’s Administration; the Warren Commission’s whitewash of the Kennedy Assassination; secrecy artificially ensured by mind control particularly concerning DARPA, HAARP, Roswell, Montauk, etc; and with people’s fluidity of conscious thought rapidly diminishing; the secret government embraced the proverbial ‘absolute power that corrupts absolutely.’

    According to New World Order plans being discussed at the Grove, plans for reducing the earth’s population was a high priority. Mass genocide of so-called ”undesirables” through the proliferation of AIDS was high on Bush’s agenda. ”We’ll annihilate the ni**ers at their source, beginning in South and East Africa and Haiti.” Having heard Bush say those words is by far one of the most torturous things I ever endured. Equally as torturous to my being were the discussions on genetic engineering, human cloning, and depletion of earth’s natural resources for profit. Cheney remarked that no one would be able to think to stop technology’s plan. ”I’ll destroy the planet first,” Bush had vowed.’

    (Copied verbatim, page 168 ‘Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security’ by Cathy O’Brien with Mark Phillips. A footnote also points to Chapter 23, ‘Whirled Vision’, of ‘Trance Formation of America’ by same authors.)

    The Luciferians want Africa’s resources, but not it’s people. Famines, Wars and deliberately created Pandemics – get the link?

    • John Goss

      The only theory not investigated by the experts is a controlled demolition using explosives. That should tell you something.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVpUjFj8miA

      On such an important issue it surprises me why some highly-intelligent and high-profiled people, like Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange and Craig Murray are not concerned that overwhelming evidence shows that the three buildings which fell on 9/11 could not have fallen due to fires caused by planes (the official explanation). More disturbing is that nobody can create a physical model which falls into itself through the path of most resistance.

      Admittedly Chomsky, Assange, Murray et al may not have engineering backgrounds. Nevertheless there are many engineers, architects, pilots, demolition experts, scholars and other experts who question the official version, including nearly 3,000 architects and engineers for 9/11 truth. These are in the ascendency.

      “Any group I can think of – even Blackwater – would contain operatives with scruples about blowing up New York. They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.They may be sadly ready to kill people in poor countries, but Americans en masse? Somebody would say it wasn’t a good idea.”

      It is beginning to look like those in the know were not prepared to say it was a bad idea. Perhaps they would not want to end up like Seth Rich. The US government deep state and UK complicity via the BBC and other organs of mass indoctrination should not be allowed to get away with their lies. Sixteen year is too long to have to listen to this garbage.

      • Clark

        Another theory not investigated by the experts is genetically engineered steel-munching termites. That should tell you something.

        The Twin Towers didn’t fall “through the path of most resistance”. Stop deceiving people, because deceiving people is evil.

    • Clark

      There are two routes to giving an accurate impression of the relevance of Cole’s experiments. The first is easier.

      Take Cole’s models and scale them up so that the inter-floor gaps match those of the Twin Towers. How thick do the floor pieces become? Are their spans comparable?

      Or, take the Twin Towers and scale them down to the dimensions of Cole’s experiments. How thin do the floor pieces work out? But having done this, you also need to imagine the models in a much stronger gravitational field.

      If you don’t understand why, you don’t understand the physics of the scaling problem.

    • Paul Barbara

      @ John Goss June 29, 2017 at 19:50
      Good video. Here’s an article from A&E re ‘Debunkers’:
      ‘AE911Truth — Architects & Engineers Investigating the destruction of all three World Trade Center skyscrapers on September 11’:
      http://www.ae911truth.org/news/380-news-media-events-professional-skeptic-ditches-science-when-it-comes-to-9-11.html

      Don’t take debunkers’ bait – they can never accept they are barking up a gum tree, and spin round and round like an automatic scatter-gun spewing out nonsense instead of bullets.

      • Hieroglyph

        I hugely distrust ‘debunkers’ in general. Esp. Snopes. I’ve read one or two Snopes debunks, and left with the distinct impression they hadn’t actually proved their case in the slightest – but had muddied the waters enough to confuse the weak-minded. Job done.

        I dunno. On expert on demolition could talk to me and persuade me of their case. And then the next day, another one could come along, and persuade me of the opposite. I think this is mainly due to my lack of expertise, but also perhaps my lack of a scientific mindset. The scientific mindset, dare I say it, demands accuracy, evidence, and comes to conclusions, after serious and rigorous logical thinking. This is a great thing, but may, on occasion, lead to a certain intellectual stubbornness? I salute our high IQ science bods, and indeed envy their skills, but nobody is perfect.

        Off topic, I’ve noted a certain cult-like air when people discuss vaccinations, and fluoride. People get genuinely furious when such things are even raised for discussion. I don’t see any reason for anger, personally. It’s good that people are involved, and asking questions, even if their understanding of the science may be lacking. Surely a scientist – of all people – should welcome curiosity?

        Plz note, not a criticism of Clarke, who seems a good egg. Just a general thought for today.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Hieroglyph June 30, 2017 at 06:42
          ‘…I dunno. On expert on demolition could talk to me and persuade me of their case. And then the next day, another one could come along, and persuade me of the opposite….’
          Good point. But take for instance A&E for 9/11 Truth ( http://www.ae911truth.org/about.html ).
          Their numbers keep increasing, and they attend every Architects and Engineers conference where they set up a stand, hand out leaflets, booklets and DVD’s, and speak on the subject. The number at present is 2,883.
          Debunkers will say that is only a fraction of the total A&E in the States, but that is not the point. The fact they haven’t signed up is not necessarily because they disagree, but with many they don’t want to jeapordise their careers and government-related future contracts.
          There is not a counter-site, like ‘A&E who agree with the government narrative on the WTC destruction’.
          If there where, then they would have to publicly debate with A&E 9/11 Truth, which the government-sponsored A&E’s will not do. So if they won’t, who will? Basically they are frit.
          Would John Gross, lead engineer for NIST, discuss the issue with A&E for 9/11 Truth, including why he lied about molten metal?
          And why do so many other professional groups not believe the government ‘Conspiracy Theory’?
          ‘Pilots for 9/11 Truth’: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/index.html
          ‘Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials Question the 9/11 Commission Report’:
          http://patriotsquestion911.com/ And that website doesn’t seem to have been updated for years, so expect a lot more since, if A&E are anything to go by.

  • Clark

    Fucking sickening, but I’m the only one prepared to speak out. Most of you make me ashamed to be human.

  • Paul Barbara

    @ John Goss June 30, 2017 at 08:55
    No point in hammering away at an obvious conclusion; it’s the same as the USS Liberty, a joint exercise. When Jimmy Carter (wrongly thought of as a peacemaker, though he was admittedly better than most before or after him) stopped arms sales to Guatemala due to absolutely horrendous atrocities committed by their US-backed Junta, guess who stepped in, not only supplying arms, but building a machine-gun factory in the country? Don’t bother answering that, we know the answer. Also, Carter, for all his ‘peace-promoting’ PR, allowed the US to supply OV10 anti-guerrilla planes to the murderous Indonesian regime, to use in East Timor. And ‘you know who’ supplied them with American Sabre jets, then aged but still very effective against a guerrilla force.
    I’ll check your links out later, they sound interesting.

  • Paul Barbara

    @ John Goss June 30, 2017 at 08:55
    Don’t worry, JC can’t spell it either, it’s so far removed from his Weltenshaung. THAT is what really has the PTB worried – he’s incorruptible. A clean-living, straight-shooting ‘man of the people’. No ‘Pizzagate’ stuff on him!

  • Clark

    I’d like to remind commenters that I have posted many comments that are much more relevant to 9/11 than far more frequent comments from others, concerning “chemtrails”, weather modification, anti-vaccination, depopulation and other common “conspiracy theory” themes, plus of course the apparently obligatory monthly reminders of Israel’s false-flag attack upon the USS Liberty.

    Such comments of mine have concerned the 1945 Quincey agreement, Sibel Edmonds’ revelations, Susan Lindauer’s testimony, Richard Blee (who?), a pair of journalists who (attempted to) publish as SecrecyKills, senator Bob Graham, etc etc.

    Apparently, people on this thread don’t wish to discuss any of these subjects, preferring to complement one another on the various “conspiracy theories” they enjoy promoting. This looks very self indulgent to me.

    • John Goss

      As to “far more frequent comments” I just did a check over the last 10 pages (I might have made marginal errors because of the hypnotising nature of counting comments). But this is the breakdown of comments per page for four posters. If anyone would like to double-check I should appreciate it.

      Paul Barbara (43, 32, 28, 64, 58, 59, 25,13, 48, 45 = 415)
      John Goss (25, 50, 48, 0, 8, 30, 62, 45, 4, 25 = 297)
      Nikko (21, 61, 13, 0, 1, 0, 8, 23, 17, 18 = 162)
      Clark Killick (120, 146, 86, 81, 91, 93, 142, 142, 109, 122 = 1132)

      My guess is that the whole blog is clogged up with Clark’s comments, which in the opinion of more than one person generally belong in the waffle house. It drives people away. For heaven’s sake stop encouraging this dogma!

      • Clark

        I specifically wrote about subjects. I present diverse subjects related to 9/11. I post a lot of comments to refute the undiluted crap certain idiots insist on flooding the field with.

        Maybe you simply have nothing to say. Banging on about “controlled demolition” and buried nukes, and supporting Wood’s perversion of physics has even less relevance to real events than the Godzilla movies, because they are at least allegorical.

      • Clark

        See? You’re just part of the gang, John. That’s all it is, like little boys making alliances and playing let’s pretend. Do you really think that vaccines are totally ineffective and part of a grand plot to kill off four fifths of humanity? Do you really think that the white trails behind aircraft are a collaboration between all the worlds’ governments to make each other’s weapons more effective? Of course you don’t, but you hold your tongue because that’s your side of the bargain.

        The unwritten rules are that no conspiracy theorist shall ever criticise another conspiracy theorist’s assertions, no matter how nonsensical, but all conspiracy theorists shall conspire to criticise anyone who raises logical objections or points out inconvenient facts. These rules ensure the proliferation of unlimited quantities of utter bullshit.

        Bullshit, Justice, Peace? Yeah, right! “Hey, there are nearly three thousand deaths here; let’s kick them around and have some fun!”

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Clark July 1, 2017 at 19:27
          ‘…Do you really think that vaccines are totally ineffective and part of a grand plot to kill off four fifths of humanity? Do you really think that the white trails behind aircraft are a collaboration between all the worlds’ governments to make each other’s weapons more effective?…’
          I certainly do, though it is more than four fifths, and vaccines are just a part of it. As for chemtrails, yes, I absolutely believe it, and would stake my life on it (maybe I have, already).
          ‘…The unwritten rules are that no conspiracy theorist shall ever criticise another conspiracy theorist’s assertions, no matter how nonsensical, but all conspiracy theorists shall conspire to criticise anyone who raises logical objections or points out inconvenient facts. These rules ensure the proliferation of unlimited quantities of utter bullshit….’
          Are you having a ‘funny half hour’? You think all ‘conspiracy theorists’ agree, and are not tearing at each others throats (courtesy of the PTB ‘Dirty Tricks Brigade’?
          Have a word with Alice, she’ll set you straight. Or carry on with the Queen of Hearts.
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cF9j815xrI

          Three thousand deaths???? What about the millions who have died on the back of the 9/11 False Flag? Oh, sorry, they obviously don’t count in your opinion.

          • Clark

            “What about the millions who have died on the back of the 9/11 False Flag? Oh, sorry, they obviously don’t count in your opinion.”

            That is a filthy smear upon my character and I ask that you retract it. I was referring to the conspiracy theorists such as yourself, who do not make up false stories about the deaths in the Middle East, but DO make up and aggressively propagate all sorts of false stories about the people killed on 9/11.

          • Clark

            Vaccines have saved millions of lives. Recently, certain vaccines and other drugs have been over-promoted, which is typical of what corporate systems do and why we need governments to regulate them. Your stupid conspiracy theories would rid humanity of governments leaving us all at the mercy of despots and corporations.

            Your incredible ignorance of vaccination driven by your egotistical sense of superiority puts lives at risk, especially children’s lives. You should be ashamed of that.

        • Ronald McDonald

          Clark: in none of your comments is there anything, anything at all, that is both (1) sane and (2) supports any of the media’s 9/11 propaganda stories. You only have a few insults and weak assertions.

          • Clark

            Eh? Abstracting your second point for clarity:

            “Clark: in none of your comments is there […] anything at all, that […] supports any of the media’s 9/11 propaganda stories”

            Have you occidentally written the opposite of what you meant, or are you just clowning for the (human) meat industry?

      • John Spencer-Davis

        Clark is responding to criticisms of his positions made by at least three people, and in his turn criticising the positions of three truthers. Therefore, it is not surprising that he is posting more comments than each of those three people individually. J

        • John Goss

          It is true that more people now are leaning towards the viewpoint that the official story of 9/11 is a lie. Clark is not responding to me because I try not to engage him. However those who have engaged him in the past, including myself, have been treated as idiots by Clark, who postulates a position in opposition to reality and as soon as he is shown that what he believes in with the fervour of a religious fundamentalist is wrong, he still maintains it is not, as outlined in my first comment on this page. This has been going on for years.

          Join the discussion by all means but take a look at some of Clark’s rude, profane and illogical comments over page after page of this thread. Some of these I cannot make sense of at all. But I suspect he is lonely and this is his obsession.

          • Clark

            John, I have REPEATEDLY asked you to engage with me over the physics of collapse of the Twin Towers, and about Judy Wood’s very odd “physics”. For my trouble, you have REPEATEDLY avoided the issues and accused me of ignorance of Newton’s laws of motion, Yet again, you have accused me of “postulat[ing] a position in opposition to reality”, which is tantamount to calling me an idiot. You’re just getting back what you dish out, except that I am more fair and honest about it.

            It is Wood’s “physics” which bears no resemblance to Newton’s laws, as anyone competent in physics to O-Level standard can see. Furthermore, her description of the collapses bears little resemblance to the events as captured on video. It therefore makes no difference that her BBE is “hypothetical”, since it couldn’t have happened anyway.

          • Clark

            “It is true that more people now are leaning towards the viewpoint that the official story of 9/11 is a lie”

            Oh FFS! No one who’s looked at the matter believes the official account. Even the people who wrote it, the 9/11 Commission themselves, said that they were “set up to fail”, that evidence was withheld, that testimony changed, and some resigned in protest!

            But the root of your misunderstanding is in your phrase a lie”; ie. in the singular. No. It is a mixture of many truthful elements interspersed with many misrepresentations, distortions and fabrications, and with many omissions.

            You seem to think that you can know the truth by promoting random contradictions to elements of “the official story”. Well, by that “logic”, “the official story” doesn’t propose steel-munching termites, therefore steel-munching termites MUST be the truth!

            Yet you accuse ME of illogic!

          • Clark

            Yes, the conspiracy theorists can all criticise the one objector, and then claim that the objector is commenting too much!

            Give a dog a bad name and then hang him for it. Like witch-trials and authoritarian purges. Human nature is a very dark thing; who needs Satanists when you’ve got Truthers?

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Clark July 1, 2017 at 14:47
      ‘…I’d like to remind commenters that I have posted many comments that are much more relevant to 9/11 than far more frequent comments from others, concerning “chemtrails”, weather modification, anti-vaccination, depopulation and other common “conspiracy theory” themes, plus of course the apparently obligatory monthly reminders of Israel’s false-flag attack upon the USS Liberty…’
      Are you really unaware of Craig’s opening sentence to this thread:
      ‘Having complained of people posting off topic, it seems a reasonable solution to give an opportunity for people to discuss the topics I am banning from other threads – of which 9/11 seems the most popular….’

      One doesn’t need to have illusions of scientific knowledge, to understand that statement.

      ‘…plus of course the apparently obligatory monthly reminders of Israel’s false-flag attack upon the USS Liberty….’
      Well, of course, you did not respond when I asked for your evidence that I was ‘always’ (or similar) bringing up the USS Liberty.
      So, just for the record, would you be so kind as to give us your interpretation of what occurred in 1967 regarding the murderous, ‘War Crime’ attack on the Liberty?
      And is it not appropriate, in the 50th Anniversary year of that dastardly, treacherous attack, to bring it up?

      ‘I’d like to remind commenters that I have posted many comments….’
      Yes, some of us have noticed, already….

      • Clark

        As best I remember, Israel attacked the USS Liberty hoping to kill all hands, leaving no one to report that the attack wasn’t in fact from Egypt, presumably in the hope of provoking the US to attack Egypt. The US then covered this up for some years, for reasons I do not know.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Clark July 2, 2017 at 02:54
          The attack was more complex than that – LBJ had arranged for Israel to attack the Liberty, sink it and leave no survivors; they were then going to nuke Egypt – in fact nuke-carrying aircraft were on the way from the 6th Fleet and a base in North Africa to nuke Egypt, and were recalled 3 minutes from their targets. They were recalled because the Liberty did not sink, and got an SOS out to various places. It is obvious that the 6th Fleet and the base commander in North Africa would not have launched planes to nuke Egypt without specific instructions from LBJ. High government and military officers, including McNamara, were in on the plot.Here is part of an email I sent out after I gave a brief talk about the Liberty at a meeting:
          ‘…I only skimmed some controversial points yesterday; I forgot that on the 5th June, when the Liberty was half way between Rota in Spain and the Sinai coast, the Six-Day War began. Israel said Egypt started it, but eventually admitted that Israel had started it (pretty obvious really, as all Egypt’s planes would hardly have been parked up on the airfields as an enticing Turkey shoot if they had started the war).
          Anyway, the Liberty radioed the Sixth Fleet requesting a destroyer escort. They didn’t get a reply till the following day, when the request was denied (an escort would have upset LBJ’s and Israel’s dastardly plan to sink the Liberty).
          Also while the Liberty was under attack, Israeli planes chased an American surveillance plane, which only managed to avoid being shot down by
          diving to gain speed, and also to increase the fuel consumption of the Israeli planes, which had to turn back or they would have run out of fuel.
          Needless to say, that was also hushed up.

          The very interesting quote I gave was by Ephraim ‘Eppie’ Evron, a good friend of LBJ (he sometimes stayed at LBJ’s ranch), who attended a meeting held in the US of all parties who had interests in the Six-Day War, to analyse and ‘try to avoid it happening again’.
          Richard B. Parker organised it, and wrote a book of the proceedings (I first read the qoute in ‘Operation Cyanide’, but later read Parker’s book as well). Here’s the quote again:
          ‘…..I, Lyndon Johnson, have to get congressional approval if I want to act as President of the United States. Otherwise I’m just a six-foot-four Texan friend of Israel.

          But you and I, the two most powerful people in Washington, are going to get the Congress to pass another Tonkin resolution’.
          Why would Evron (the deputy Ambassador to the US at the time, and almost certainly the Mossad head of station) say this? He is the only source. I suspect it was a shot across the bows of anyone even thinking of acceding to the survivors and relatives of victims of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty for a proper Congressional inquiry – in effect saying we’ve got the dope, if Israel gets blamed for a deliberate attack, we have evidence showing LBJ’s complicity. I cannot think of any other reason he would repeat what LBJ said (according to Evron). And clearly it couldn’t only be LBJ’s complicity – it would have required top Military chiefs, intelligence agencies and others to be in the loop.

          And remember, LBJ is the President who gave the world the ‘Gulf of Tonkin LIE’, causing a massive ramping up of the Vietnam war JFK had sworn to end if re-elected (which he would have been, had he not been assassinated).’

          Here is a very good video (1 hour). Peter Hounam, who was the head reporter for the Sunday Times (he exposed the Mordechai Vanunu story about Israel’s nukes) was commissioned to make the documentary; he traveled widely in the US, Israel, Russia and Europe, finding and interviewing important witnesses to who had an interest in the Liberty attack, including radio operators who had monitored radio communications between the Israeli aircraft and their base.
          “USS Liberty: Dead In The Water” (BBC Documentary 2002):
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOH1XMAwZA
          Peter Hounam later wrote the much more detailed book, ‘Operation Cyanide’, which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the Liberty attack.

          • Clark

            I’ve read your comment and it seems generally self-consistent. Forgive me if I don’t accept it all outright – some of the other views you hold are decidedly extreme, a few of which I’ve already disproved to my own satisfaction.

            I have an immediate objection, which is that Israel would oppose large-scale nuking of Egypt due to its proximity and the effects of fall-out. Maybe tactical nukes in southern Egypt, but not H-bombing around Cairo.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Clark July 2, 2017 at 14:53
            I don’t believe Israel did want a nuke attack, but it was worth going along with the plan, because Israel gained Jerusalem and vast tracts of Palestine, for their ‘Greater Israel’ plans; and the US would have got rid of a pro-Soviet government in Egypt. They were willing to risk nuclear war with Russia, and indeed B52’s were on intense readiness, with engines ticking over since between an hour and three hours before the attack; they were then stood down shortly after the plan had been scuppered due to the ship getting an SOS out, and Israel’s ‘apology’.
            Watch the video, and you will probably be interested enough to read the book.

          • Clark

            “I don’t believe Israel did want a nuke attack…”

            That makes more sense, though I doubt the US would have wanted to contaminate the Suez Canal region either.

            This second scenario is more than an Israeli false-flag. It’s the US piggy-backing on an Israeli false-flag to further Cold War objectives. It looks looks escalation of opportunism upon opportunism, which is one of my speculative options for 9/11.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Clark July 2, 2017 at 16:24

            You seem to not taken Evron’s realease of LBJ’s talk to Evron.

            ‘The very interesting quote I gave was by Ephraim ‘Eppie’ Evron, a good friend of LBJ (he sometimes stayed at LBJ’s ranch), who attended a meeting held in the US of all parties who had interests in the Six-Day War, to analyse and ‘try to avoid it happening again’.
            Richard B. Parker organised it, and wrote a book of the proceedings (I first read the quote in ‘Operation Cyanide’, but later read Parker’s book as well). Here’s the quote again:
            ‘…..I, Lyndon Johnson, have to get congressional approval if I want to act as President of the United States. Otherwise I’m just a six-foot-four Texan friend of Israel.

            But you and I, the two most powerful people in Washington, are going to get the Congress to pass another Tonkin resolution’.
            Why would Evron (the deputy Ambassador to the US at the time, and almost certainly the Mossad head of station) say this? He is the only source. I suspect it was a shot across the bows of anyone even thinking of acceding to the survivors and relatives of victims of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty for a proper Congressional inquiry – in effect saying we’ve got the dope, if Israel gets blamed for a deliberate attack, we have evidence showing LBJ’s complicity. I cannot think of any other reason he would repeat what LBJ said (according to Evron). And clearly it couldn’t only be LBJ’s complicity – it would have required top Military chiefs, intelligence agencies and others to be in the loop.

            And remember, LBJ is the President who gave the world the ‘Gulf of Tonkin LIE’, causing a massive ramping up of the Vietnam war JFK had sworn to end if re-elected (which he would have been, had he not been assassinated).’

            So, no ‘piggybacking’;The whole evil plan was conceived by LBJ (perhaps at the suggestion of an ‘adviser’.
            And remember the B52’s were ticking over before the attack, and stood down shortly after.
            If you watch the very good documentary video ‘Dead in the Water’ I believe you will be convinced.

  • George

    Sorry about this but I came late to this thread. I just read this bit of Craig’s initial entry:

    “As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.”

    That’s a new one on me. “Kinetic energy”? Sounds as if we’re almost on the level of bad psychic vibes causing the collapse. Or something.

    • Clark

      Craig was apparently making the point that the collapses of the Twin Towers had immense destructive power. He also correctly pointed out that building construction may well be substandard, making the buildings much weaker than the designs would imply.

      Both of those points contradict NIST’s report on Building 7, but I doubt you’ll give Craig credit for opposing “the official story”.

      • Clark

        George, I apologise. My parting quip to you in my above comment was uncalled for. I’m sorry. I tend to get over-defensive on this thread.

  • John Goss

    Craig had a “private speculation” that WT7 may have been poorly-constructed, with bolts left out and the rest. There is no evidence of that. Absolutely none. It went down in almost freefall against the paths of greatest resistance.

    Lucky Larry “pull it” Silverstein had planned to have a new building on the site of WT7 before it had been demolished in 2000. But of course, there are those who prefer myth and speculation to truth.

    http://www.mintpressnews.com/911-larry-silverstein-designed-new-wtc-7-one-year-attacks/214821/

    Craig may still have that private speculation. That we do not know because he never comments on 9/11 and it is banned from other threads. So it is left to Clark, who has shown himself to be way out of his depth in physics and engineering nous to carry this torch.

    • Clark

      John Goss, CUT the fucking ad-hominem and ENGAGE with me about the physics.

      You have stated your support for Wood’s BBE, which BLATANTLY CONTRADICTS Newton’s laws. Until you stop running away from this, you have NO CREDIBILITY in impugning my competence.

        • Clark

          I have repeatedly demonstrated my understanding. Now stop running away and start demonstrating that you can engage in discussions about physics.

        • John Goss

          Also it is a blind alley. There are several areas where I question Judy Wood’s hypotheses about 9/11 but her physics, unlike yours, is sound. But anyway it is academic. Judy Wood was just demonstrating why mathematically the twin towers could not have fallen as they did.

          Jonathan H. Cole went further and showed by experiment why the twin towers could not have fallen as they did. He states that scaling does not change anything. But you still come back with the same mantras even when you are shown to be wrong. Until you get a grip on engineering it is not possible to engage you. Sorry.

          More important than wasting time of a whiteboard with questionable physics you would be better engaged in building a model whereby the tower falls into itself without being compromised below. I am sick of having to show why you are wrong without you ever acknowledging it.

          “If it disagrees with experiment it’s wrong.”

          The scientific method is:

          Ask a question

          Do background research

          Construct a hypothesis

          Test your hypothesis through experiment

          Analyse your data and draw a conclusion

          Post your results. Was your hypothesis correct?

          It is not the other way around, that is, the hypothesis is considered correct even if the experiment fails. No I am finished with you and your doughnut science. Until you can model the collapse as the twin towers came down, or get somebody else to do it for you, without weakening the structure below it cannot happen. Get on with it. Then I will engage you.

          • Clark

            “Jonathan H. Cole […] states that scaling does not change anything”

            This reveals ignorance of physics and is contradicted by common experience, but the maths is more complex so let’s start with this instead:

            “Judy Wood’s […] physics, unlike yours, is sound”

            The formulae she quotes in the appendix are correct, but her BBE CONTRADICTS them. Discuss this. Put up or SHUT UP.

          • Clark

            “Jonathan H. Cole […] states that scaling does not change anything”

            I have thought of a very simple refutation to this. If it were true, there would be no limit to the height of buildings. Instead of costly launch vehicles to reach Earth orbit, a “space elevator” could be constructed simply by scaling up existing building designs.

            We all know that ants can carry many times their own body-weight, and that falling over for a toddler is less serious than for an adult.

          • John Goss

            “– “Jonathan H. Cole […] states that scaling does not change anything”

            I have thought of a very simple refutation to this. If it were true, there would be no limit to the height of buildings. Instead of costly launch vehicles to reach Earth orbit, a “space elevator” could be constructed simply by scaling up existing building designs.”

            Thanks for the laugh. 🙂 🙂 😀 😀 Guffaw!

            Your “very simple refutation” would be much more costly than anything ever tried up to yet. Working roughly on the size of the twin towers 415 metres high and 63 metres square with the exosphere say 500 kilometres away the base would be some 208 kilometres square. Specialist machinery would have to be built including special cranes to sit on the inner core in order to raise metal assemblies of incredible weight and density.

            You really do not think things through, Clark.

          • Clark

            Look it up, “engineer”. It can’t be built with current materials. Certain carbon isomers may be good enough, but it is way beyond what can be done with steel.

            You may guffaw, but you have merely avoided the issue. The Twin Towers were built in the 1960s, so where are the multi-kilometre buildings that half a decade of progress could have brought us? The answer is in the scaling problem, acknowledged by all competent engineers, but provoking merely a guffaw from you.

            Now what about Wood’s BBE? No, you’ll stick to your hit-and-run style.

          • John Goss

            “You may guffaw, but you have merely avoided the issue.” I addressed the issue of scaling up to reach orbital space. You then realised it could not be built.

            It is you who does not address the issues. Again. Bearing in mind that Judy Wood’s Billiard Ball Theory is hypothetical let’s ignore it and get down to basics.

            “If it disagrees with experiment it’s wrong.”

            The scientific method is:

            Ask a question

            Do background research

            Construct a hypothesis

            Test your hypothesis through experiment

            Analyse your data and draw a conclusion

            Post your results. Was your hypothesis correct?

            It is not the other way around, that is, the hypothesis is considered correct even if the experiment fails. Until you can model the collapse as the twin towers came down without weakening the structure below, or get somebody else to do it for you, there is nothing to discuss. Jonathan H Cole has come the nearest I have seen. But “If it disagrees with experiment it’s wrong.” Get on with it. Then I will engage you.

          • Clark

            Wood’s BBE is fantasy, not hypothesis, because it contradicts the momentum formulae that she herself quotes. You now say to ignore it, but will you dismiss it as non-physics, as is your responsibility as an engineer?

            Cole’s experiments prove nothing due to the scaling problem. You can address this by scaling up Cole’s constructions until the floor interval matches that of the Twin Towers, and posting the dimensions you obtain. If you’re competent, I shouldn’t have to tell you that.

          • Clark

            “You can address this by scaling up Cole’s constructions until the floor interval matches that of the Twin Towers, and posting the dimensions you obtain”

            Thinking about it, that’s false; I was wrong. Larger things are proportionally weaker, so a scaling up Cole’s constructions would make them more vulnerable to collapse.

            However, posting the scaled-up dimensions would still be an interesting exercise, as is scaling-down all dimensions of the Twin Towers; the floor assemblies end up one millimetre thick, and the open bar joist floor trusses like cobweb.

          • Clark

            OK, a couple of examples of scaling problems.

            Consider a mug of coffee and a swimming pool, both at temperature of say 50 centigrade in a 20 centigrade environment. Half an hour later, the coffee is almost down to 20 centigrade but the swimming pool is still to hot to bathe in. Why?

            Consider their relative sizes, say 100:1. Their heat capacity is proportional to their volume, which varies with the cube of their linear size, but heat is lost through their surface area, which varies with just the square of their linear size. The swimming pool has a much higher ration of volume to surface area, and therefore cools more slowly.

            OK, we wish to test the pressure on a skin diver’s eardrums at the bottom of a swimming pool, so we make a tenth-scale model and put the model diver at the bottom of the model pool – FAIL. The model eardrums have a hundredth of the surface area, but pressure still increases with depth only as it did, ending up a tenth of what the real pressure would be.

            Do you yet admit the falsity of Cole’s claim that “scaling does not change anything”?

          • Clark

            …the force on the model eardrums is only one thousandth the force on the real eardrums…

            John, this could go on until one of us dies. It’s nothing to do with physics or engineering. It’s about your inability to admit error. You’ll just keep slogging on, jeering that I don’t understand Newton’s laws, digging your hole deeper and deeper with anyone who can do a bit of physics, all because you don’t know how to get into reverse gear.

            You know that A&E9/11 disown Wood butt you could disprove BBE for yourself; its contradiction of Newton is utterly blatant. All that’s lacking is the will; you don’t want to. You know the Twin Towers weren’t brought down from below because you’ve seen the core remnants.

            I’m not an enemy, John; I don’t support “the official story” and I’m not a fool. I’m just someone who can think for himself.

          • Nikko

            “ ….. I’m not a fool. I’m just someone who can think for himself.”

            Sorry Clark, but you are not demonstrating that here. Inventing nonexistent faults in other peoples’ work is not thinking but waffling and when it comes to your own theory, you are no Galileo. After many hundreds if not thousands of posts all you managed to do was to calculate the potential energy of the towers and pronounce it sufficient for self-destruction. You have completely failed to provide any meaningful supporting evidence for this assertion.

            “OK, we wish to test the pressure on a skin diver’s eardrums at the bottom of a swimming pool, so we make a tenth-scale model and put the model diver at the bottom of the model pool – FAIL. The model eardrums have a hundredth of the surface area, but pressure still increases with depth only as it did, ending up a tenth of what the real pressure would be

            Perfect example of your waffling. All we can conclude from the above is that you do not know the difference between pressure and force and that you have not got a clue what you are talking about.

          • Clark

            Are you lying again, or just wrong this time?

            Pressure is force per unit area, so force is proportional to area. Area, and therefore force, decrease with the square of the scale; 1/10 squared is 1/100. But pressure in a liquid is proportional to depth, and the scale depth is a tenth of the real depth, so that’s another division by 10, giving 1/1000 of the force.

            “nonexistent faults in other peoples’ work…”

            Ah, lying, since you have already grudgingly admitted that Wood’s description of the collisions was “not very realistic”:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-111/#comment-679629

            …that Newton’s laws predict behaviour different to Wood’s BBE:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-111/#comment-680430

            …and gone on to perform a roughly correct calculation giving a collapse time less than a quarter of Wood’s BBE:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-112/#comment-688360

            Shame on you, attempting to manipulate Mr Goss this way. And yes, I think that energy equivalent to well over 150 tonnes of TNT is plenty. Don’t you?

          • Nikko

            Your revised explanation of the pressure force relationship is now correct but are you saying that scaled down testing is not useful and meaningful. If so that would be news, particularly for those in the marine, aeronautics and other fields who have been using scaled down models for decades to validate their calculations or designs. It would not be the first time that Clark knows something not known to lesser mortals.

            As for Wood, we have been through that already. Her argument is of a hypothetical case of a gravity led collapse with 100% pulverization to show that it could not have happened. Her hypothesis is as realistic as your assertion that a gravity only collapse happened.
            I took the case of 10% pulverization and calculated a collapse time of at least 21 seconds, in the ideal and completely unreal situation of the building materials exhibiting zero resistance to destruction. This proves that gravity was not the only force in play. Why are you twisting my argument?

            You say that YOU THINK that PE of 150 tonnes of TNT equivalent is plenty to collapse the building. That is a wishful position. You do not know and you cannot prove it because you have not done any calculations. If you did you would find that the collapse runs out of energy after a few impacts.

          • Clark

            “Your revised explanation of the pressure force relationship is now correct”

            I haven’t revised it, merely restated it.

            “are you saying that scaled down testing is not useful and meaningful”

            No, but allowance has to be made for scaling. You could find information on how that is done if you bother to look, but if you remain true to form you won’t bother, because you wish to falsely bolster belief in Cole’s assertions.

            – “[Wood’s] argument is of a hypothetical case of a gravity led collapse with 100% pulverization to show that it could not have happened”

            Bollocks. Anyone can make up anything by not adhering to physics, and then claim it couldn’t have happened. AS you very well know. BBE tells us nothing, because it is fantasy not physics.

            “I took the case of 10% pulverization and calculated a collapse time of at least 21 seconds, in the ideal and completely unreal situation of the building materials exhibiting zero resistance to destruction”

            False. Your calculation was based on inelastic collisions, which liberate kinetic energy into deformation ie. destruction of the colliding materials. And you had no justification for assuming “10% pulverisation”, AND you refuse to post the results of varying degrees of pulverisation. And it is obvious that you continue to conceal those figures because they are an embarrassment to your dishonest campaign to convince less technical readers of the necessity of demolition.

            “…the collapse runs out of energy after a few impacts”

            False. That was your old spreadsheet model using a twentieth of the falling mass, before I pointed out the necessary corrections.

          • Clark

            Nikko, the truth of 9/11 is more important than you and me and our personal feelings. Let the physics speak for itself.

          • Clark

            So did we say a floor assembly was 1250 tonne? And we say the top section of WTC1 was twenty times that, so that’s 20*1250*1000 = 25,000,000 kilo. Chandler said it fell at 0.64 of g, so by the time it had fallen one storey, say 3.7 metre, the energy that had gone into destruction was

            (1 – 0.64)*9.8 * 25*10^6 * 3.7 = ~ 326 million joule

            Equivalent to about 78 kilo of TNT. I think that’s like about 325 sticks of dynamite from the first one-storey drop. Do you agree those figures?

            I think it was a little less acceleration at first, which would yield a little more energy of destruction.

          • Nikko

            Don’t you have confidence in your numbers? So far so good. So what happens next?

          • Clark

            No, I want to know if YOU accept those calculations and figures, because if you don’t say so now I expect you’ll wait until we’re on a new page of comments and then again claim that there’s hardly any energy, like you did this time.

            For WTC1, in the first one storey drop, gravity put as much energy as over three hundred sticks of dynamite into the destruction zone; do you agree?

          • Nikko

            I said so far so good; what more do you need.

            Thus far, you have calculated the difference in KE of the mass of 20 floors after falling 3.7m at 64% of g compared to falling at g. What happens next?

          • Clark

            Well we know that over the first three seconds or so the roof-line continued to accelerate downward at about the same rate, so in the destruction zone energy was causing destruction at about the same rate as would 325 sticks of dynamite per storey drop.

            Of course the dynamics become more complex as entropy increases. The top section is probably “eroding” at its lower extent. Successive floor assemblies within the “stump” are certainly being broken and/or decoupled faster and faster. The mass of decoupled or broken (and therefore falling) material between the two sections is certainly increasing. That material is gaining energy from gravity, but at first may also have been pushed downwards from above by the remainder of the top section.

            People were dying; I hope their deaths were swift.

          • Nikko

            Clark, you are waffling again. You have not got a clue how to model the collapse and you cannot prove your theory.

            If you did model it you would find that after a few impacts the collapse runs out of energy. Either you are ignorant of physics or you are a fraud. Which is it?

          • Clark

            Sorry?What’s different after the first one storey drop? Where are you now claiming that energy goes? It didn’t stop your model collapsing in 21 seconds, even with your mystery “10% pulverisation” energy drain.

            You say I waffle. I say you just lie.

          • John Goss

            Nikko never gave a collapse time of 21 seconds. What was said was:

            “Her hypothesis is as realistic as your assertion that a gravity only collapse happened.
            I took the case of 10% pulverization and calculated a collapse time of at least 21 seconds, in the ideal and completely unreal situation of the building materials exhibiting zero resistance to destruction. This proves that gravity was not the only force in play. Why are you twisting my argument?”

            It is all hypothesis. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. Only Jonathan H. Cole has gone about trying to demonstrate through experiment why no maths can determine why the twin towers apparently defied the laws of physics. Because it cannot happen except in a vulnerable mind. “If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.”

            That statement is the key to everything. It is why engineers can see what did, could or would happen in a set situation. We are practical people and it is a good job we are there. Otherwise it would be left to the Heath Robinsons and their garage physics.

            Metal structures do not simply collapse and flimsy though they may sometimes look they can support an awful lot more weight than their own weight. Whatever model you devise theoretically, whether it is based on real science or not, you cannot get away from the fact that if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. How many times their own weight do you think these simple metallic structures can support?

            http://cdnll.discountramps.com/images/xl/sports_car_ramps__5.jpg

          • Clark

            John Goss’s latest ad-hominems:

            “Because it cannot happen except in a vulnerable mind… Otherwise it would be left to the Heath Robinsons and their garage physics”

            Where are your scaling corrections for Cole’s experiments? Where are your scaled down dimensions for the Twin Towers, and/or your scaled up dimensions for Cole’s models? Stop insulting me and do physics with me, if you can.

          • Nikko

            Sorry?What’s different after the first one storey drop? Where are you now claiming that energy goes? It didn’t stop your model collapsing in 21 seconds, even with your mystery “10% pulverisation” energy drain.
            You say I waffle. I say you just lie.

            What’s different after the first one storey drop? Must say I am a bit surprised that you do not know as it is your theory you are trying to model.

            Well, if you do not know I will tell you – the falling mass of 20 floors will impact floor no. 90 below and the whole dynamics of the collapse will change.

            Care to model that or are you going to continue to waffle and accuse others of lying?

          • Clark

            “…and the whole dynamics of the collapse will change”.

            Oh really, honest Nikko?

            Well, you’ve done various spreadsheet models, so go ahead and post the figures that show this radical change in terms of the collapse velocity, acceleration, etc.

          • Nikko

            Clark, you started modelling the collapse according to your theory. I can’t really help you with this as I did traditional O’level physics and not pseudo-science waffle bullshit that you are so good at.

            If you do not accept that a collision with a floor below changes the dynamics of the collapse and you are not able to provide the proof yourself, then you need to ask somebody else for help. Sorry.

          • Clark

            Temper, temper, Nikko. Relaxation and meditation can help with the anxiety of cognitive dissonance.

            “Clark, you started modelling the collapse according to your theory…”

            Oh really, honest one? Where did I do that?

    • Clark

      “Craig had a “private speculation” that WT7 may have been poorly-constructed, with bolts left out and the rest. There is no evidence of that. Absolutely none”

      Actually, there is copious circumstantial evidence, but the possible sources of direct evidence are closed to the public – the building wreckage, and the data withheld by NIST.

      The scandalous corruption in the New York construction industry is widespread common knowledge. Millions of hits on this search:

      https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=corruption+new+york+construction

      To make their computer simulation of the collapse of WTC7 anything like its actual collapse, NIST removed just the sort of components John Goss mentions. As a subordinate of the US Department of Commerce, and hobbled by commercial non-disclosure agreements, that may have been the clearest message NIST could send about this matter.

    • Clark

      John Goss, having now read the article you linked to at mintpressnews, I really must object. Based upon a single word which seen in context was probably just a mistake in a live talk of over an hour, the article launches into a tirade of hatred and unsupported allegation against Larry Silverstein.

      Suspicion is one thing, but outright hatred and condemnation without evidence seems indicative of bigotry. You should have been more careful since the article cites its origin as VeteransToday, which is notorious for Holocaust denial.

  • Clark

    oilempire.us seems to have disappeared from the Internet.

    oilempire.us is one of the oldest sites to address the issues of 9/11, and offered very logical and open-minded insight. I had been linking to it rather a lot in recent weeks, so I am rather alarmed at its sudden demise. Thankfully, it is still archived on the Wayback Machine.

    Anyone attempting to follow my earlier links about NYFD fire chiefs’ testimony of the weakness of the Twin Towers can still find the article here instead:

    WTC’s faulty design – an overlooked real scandal:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20070129065430/http://www.oilempire.us/wtc-design.html

    • George

      Back in the early days just after 9/11 I used to surf a lot of the “9/11 Truth” sites and I soon came to the conclusion that oilempire was one of the phoney ones. The tell-tale sign was the shameful attempt to link certain justifiable queries – in this case scepticism over the notion that a plane hit the pentagon – with “Holocaust Denial”. There is even an article on oilempire with the title: “No Planes and No Gas Chambers”. Even if we extend the “no plane” claim into the silly realm of “no planes in New York”, this would hardly equate to Holocaust Denial. But the moment any site starts to rely on these desperate propagandist manoeuvres, you know there’s no point in wasting any more time on it.

        • George

          On this page

          https://web.archive.org/web/20070208055655/http://www.oilempire.us:80/hoaxes.html

          I read:

          “…. there are a few voices claiming to support “truth” who promote Holocaust Denial and the “no plane” campaign. The distortion, lies and omissions of Holocaust Denial promoters is psychologically similar to the misinformation techniques used to promote the no plane hoaxes.”

          In saying that the distortion, lies and omissions of Holocaust Denial promoters is psychologically similar to the misinformation techniques of the no plane hoaxes the writer is giving the impression that Holocaust denial itself is psychologically similar to the rejection of the idea or even the doubt that a plane hit the Pentagon.

          Also note the blasé assumption that any doubt that a plane hit the pentagon has to be automatically subsumed under “the no plane hoaxes”.

          • Clark

            oilempire.us had already analysed the distortions, lies and omissions behind the “no-planes” assertions. They are pointing out parallels and actual links with Holocaust deniers, not promoting impressions.

            I am getting the impression that you are a committed Twin Tower demolition theorist, because this is how it always goes. Twin Tower demolition theorists protect no-planers because their theories are equally devoid of evidence. And the no-planers defend the chemtrailers, and the chemtrailers defend the anti-vaxers, and ultimately all logical inquiry must be abandoned – “nothing is true, everything is permitted”; ironically the motto of an Illuminati group from Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s novels.

          • John Goss

            I’ve had a comment awaiting moderation since 08:33 this morning. It contains reference to Israel and how it manipulates public opinion.

          • George

            OK – I’ll say what I think. The collapses in New York were controlled demolitions because I don’t know what else they could be. There were definitely planes in New York but the claims concerning the other planes are, to say the least, dodgy. I have seen no evidence that a plane hit the Pentagon, nor have I seen evidence that Flight 93 crashed. The Pentagon “yes there really was a plane” statement seems to me to be so unlikely that there has always been a massive propaganda drive – even (especially?) within the 9/11 skeptic community (I prefer this expression to “9/11 Truth”) – to discredit the “no plane at the Pentagon” theory. And that is where you get all those truly ludicrous attempts to smear any undesirable line of enquiry with the preposterous knee-jerk “Holocaust Denial” scream. I think of it as mnemonic propaganda i.e. of the most primary coloured cartoon kind. What is the public perception of the ultimate evil? The Nazis and the Holocaust. Well – there you are. If you want to discredit something just link it with anti-Semitism.

          • Clark

            Thanks for speaking directly; it’s refreshing.

            I really don’t know why so many people are convinced that the Twin Towers’ collapses were demolitions; their manner of collapse seems entirely consistent with their design and the type of damage inflicted, so I tend to attribute that belief to alt-propaganda and the sort of “enforcement” I’ve encountered so may times on this thread.

            I’m rather concerned that you can’t see the underlying but real anti-Semitism in a lot of so-called Truther material, though on the other hand I used not to recognise it myself. Linking to it or repeating it doesn’t necessarily indicate anti-Semitism, but people should be more discerning.

          • George

            I have no doubt that there are plenty of anti-Semitic websites running “the govt did it” threads. But I suspect that this is part of public perception management. It’s the old “discredit by association” procedure – similar to what I said earlier about David Icke. And I think the same remarks apply i.e. that many of the people running these sites are genuine in the sense of NOT being moles or intelligence assets. But the fact that it is so helpful to be able to tar 9/11 skepticism with anti-Semitic allegations indicates to me that there may well be a bit of manipulation going on.

          • Clark

            George, it all becomes a lot clearer when you realise that Twin Tower demolition theory is false, a red herring. Skyscraper structural engineer Charlie Thornton – the Twin Towers were cheap shit:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2jAgp1slFM

            Many sites that you though you had to distrust become valuable sources of information, and a picture starts to emerge – the torture programme was to extract false confessions against every Muslim organisation under the Sun:

            https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/-sp-guantanamo-diary-false-confession-slahi

            …to muddy the waters and bury the specific religious extremism from Saudi Arabia that the US had been using against Russia since the 1945 Quincy Agreement:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Quincy_(CA-71)#The_Quincy_Agreement

            “Roosevelt and Saud concluded a secret agreement in which the U.S. would provide Saudi Arabia military security – military assistance, training and a military base at Dhahran in Saudi Arabia – in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil”

            “Military training”:

            http://www.newsweek.com/alleged-hijackers-may-have-trained-us-bases-152495

            The hijackers had free run in the US because the CIA granted it to them:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Springmann
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6w1YaZdf8

            Cheney had appropriated the reins of command a few months earlier, but at the critical moment Cheney and Rumsfeld both abdicated command, as if they had no interest in stopping the attacks – search the following for “eberhart” :

            https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20061129185617/www.newstatesman.com/200411150006

          • Clark

            You’re welcome to debate with me, John. I think the article you linked to at Mintpressnews was almost completely devoid of evidence, and essentially a hate-piece against Larry Silverstein. I know of no evidence whatsoever to indicate that Silverstein murdered the occupants of the Twin Towers, but if you know of some I will of course consider it.

          • Clark

            That’s a binary argument, John; “if you don’t think this then you must think its opposite”. I have stated my position. I have seen no evidence that Silverstein murdered or conspired to murder the occupants of the Twin Towers.

            But I’ll point out a contradiction in your own arguments. Silverstein had WTC7 built. You call Silverstein “Mafia”, yet you play down all possibility of corruption leading to poor construction.

          • John Goss

            More comments removed. One of mine that gave a list of 100 professors who questioned the official versionof which 36 were emeritus or emerita and a comment by Paul in response to my asking where was the list of professors who supported the official version.

            He thought they were on the gravy train.

          • John Goss

            As to Silverstein and Lowy you will not find anything in official outlets suggesting they may be responsible. But that is understandable when any link posted on here which questions their credibility is removed.

          • Clark

            John Goss, what evidence did your link present against Larry Silverstein? And what accusation did it base on that evidence? Would you say that the evidence justified the accusation?

            I followed your link. It was essentially a hate-piece against Larry Silverstein.

  • Clark

    Canspeccy, I saw your comment on the front thread. Or are you under a different name on this thread? Fool. It’s unlikely to stay there long, and no one can reply to it without risking deletion:

    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/07/stink-without-secret/comment-page-1/#comment-690451

    “Binney’s claim with reference to Russian hacking is what WTC7’s 2.4 seconds of free-fall is to 9/11, the only fact one needs to disperse the fog of lies. It is a fact well worth restating and widely propagating”

    2.25 seconds actually, and Chandler’s raw data indicated that it exceeded free-fall (yes, I know; we try not to mention that bit). Of course, someone should try to replicate the measurement; personally, I can’t be bothered.

    But what exactly do you think this strange and tiny snippet actually proves?

    • Paul Barbara

      @ Clark July 3, 2017 at 21:09
      You seem to have missed this, as it is a bit ‘way-back’, so here is is again:

      Paul Barbara
      July 3, 2017 at 22:08
      @ Clark July 2, 2017 at 16:24

      You seem to not have taken Evron’s release of LBJ’s talk to Evron into consideration..

      ‘The very interesting quote I gave was by Ephraim ‘Eppie’ Evron, a good friend of LBJ (he sometimes stayed at LBJ’s ranch), who attended a meeting held in the US of all parties who had interests in the Six-Day War, to analyse and ‘try to avoid it happening again’.
      Richard B. Parker organised it, and wrote a book of the proceedings (I first read the quote in ‘Operation Cyanide’, but later read Parker’s book as well). Here’s the quote again:
      ‘…..I, Lyndon Johnson, have to get congressional approval if I want to act as President of the United States. Otherwise I’m just a six-foot-four Texan friend of Israel.

      But you and I, the two most powerful people in Washington, are going to get the Congress to pass another Tonkin resolution’.
      Why would Evron (the deputy Ambassador to the US at the time, and almost certainly the Mossad head of station) say this? He is the only source. I suspect it was a shot across the bows of anyone even thinking of acceding to the survivors and relatives of victims of the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty for a proper Congressional inquiry – in effect saying we’ve got the dope, if Israel gets blamed for a deliberate attack, we have evidence showing LBJ’s complicity. I cannot think of any other reason he would repeat what LBJ said (according to Evron). And clearly it couldn’t only be LBJ’s complicity – it would have required top Military chiefs, intelligence agencies and others to be in the loop.

      And remember, LBJ is the President who gave the world the ‘Gulf of Tonkin LIE’, causing a massive ramping up of the Vietnam war JFK had sworn to end if re-elected (which he would have been, had he not been assassinated).’

      So, no ‘piggybacking’;The whole evil plan was conceived by LBJ (perhaps at the suggestion of an ‘adviser’.
      And remember the B52’s were ticking over before the attack, and stood down shortly after.
      If you watch the very good documentary video ‘Dead in the Water’ I believe you will be convinced.

          • Clark

            Thanks Paul; that link works. Excellent report from Member of the Danish Parliament Zenia Stampe.

            The US has immense influence upon Israel through its vast supply of Military Aid and its disproportionate power within the United Nations. That influence could be used to restrain Israeli expansionism and ethnic cleansing but is mostly used to support them. Trump is even worse in this respect than previous administrations.

            The reasons for this US support are complex and interlocking, involving convergence of Neocon objectives against Russia with Neozionist objectives of expansionism using balkanisation and destabilisation to weaken surrounding states. The corporate media help confuse electorates and promotes their ignorance.

            The corporate media is at long last losing credibility, but the competition for liquid hydrocarbon fuel will continue until sufficient infrastructure is built to synthesize it from renewable sources cheaply enough to compete with fossil fuel reserves.

            Us on this thread are part of the new media; it is up to us to raise our credibility to help undermine the corporate media dominance. This is why I bang on with my rather unpopular arguments. This is why I insist upon logic, verifiable facts and proper physics.

            Truth, Justice, Peace.

      • Clark

        Paul, I had read the earlier copy. I don’t really have much to say about it. I’ll presumably get around to watching the documentary at some point.

        I do have a general outlook upon reality which is that essentially everything is more complex than it looks at first sight. People tend to present various “clinchers”; selected facts that supposedly imply some inevitable conclusion. My own outlook is that what is known is always tiny in proportion to what is unknown, and although investigation usually yields some specific answers, it always raises a far greater number of further questions. Rather obviously, a universe that didn’t would be too boring to be worth living in.

        Consequently, I could spend the rest of my life studying the USS Liberty incident and still have only partial understanding of it, and the same is true for countless other events. But history is being made right now, and there is a moral imperative to influence its development. What is the specific significance of the USS Liberty incident to ongoing developments (non-rhetorical question)?

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Clark July 4, 2017 at 13:35
          ‘… What is the specific significance of the USS Liberty incident to ongoing developments (non-rhetorical question)?’
          The significance is huge: if Americans (and others) knew what really happened that day, with LBJ and Israel colluding to sink the Liberty, leave no survivors (they even machine-gunned the life rafts, a war crime in itself) and was going to nuke Egypt as a retaliation, then NO WAY would the people allow the government to send millions of dollars and massive amounts of state-of-the-art arms to Israel.
          People of the world would get their government to stop vetoeing Security Council resolutions, and force the Israeli government to return to the 1967 pre-war boundaries.
          And people would understand that ‘False Flags’ are not just ‘Conspiray Theories’ and demand proper reinvestigations of things like 9/11 and 7/7.
          It would be world-changing – imagine a peaceful, just situation in Israel/Palestine.

          • Clark

            I think it will take much more than raising awareness of the attack on the USS Liberty to bring about peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. It would help, but there are so many sustaining factors, most of them related to the Superpowers’ competition for access to liquid fuel deposits.

            On the 1967 borders issue, I’m with Craig – a single secular state is now the most achievable solution, and the forced movement of populations based on ethnicity or religion just shifts further conflict to the future, like a bad debt.

          • John Goss

            “On the 1967 borders issue, I’m with Craig – a single secular state is now the most achievable solution . . .”

            Clark has never ever disagreed with Craig on a single subject.

        • John Goss

          “Er, I disagree with Craig about Building 7”

          In what way? You don’t believe the structure was weak? In answer to George you wrote:

          “Craig was apparently making the point that the collapses of the Twin Towers had immense destructive power. He also correctly pointed out that building construction may well be substandard, making the buildings much weaker than the designs would imply.

          Both of those points contradict NIST’s report on Building 7, but I doubt you’ll give Craig credit for opposing “the official story”.

          Now we only know what Craig has written. We don’t know if he has modified his views. But this is what he wrote on this blogpost which in the above comment you seem to agree with.

          “The forces of the aircraft impacts must have been amazingly high. I have no difficulty imagining they would bring down the building. As for WTC 7, again the kinetic energy of the collapse of the twin towers must be immense.

          I admit to a private speculation about WTC7. Unfortunately in construction it is extremely common for contractors not to fix or install properly all the expensive girders, ties and rebar that are supposed to be enclosed in the concrete. Supervising contractors and municipal inspectors can be corrupt.”

          • Clark

            I disagree in that I think that a military demolition team may have been ordered on the morning of 9/11 to bring down Building 7 covertly.

            I have disagreed with Craig on other matters, too. In fact it’s a matter of personal sadness to that he seems to have stopped returning my calls, and I suspect he’s avoiding hearing some criticisms I have.

            But Craig is one of the cleverest people I have ever met. When I have disagreed with his position, several times he has been proven right, so I take his position very seriously.

            Have you noticed that you’re increasingly invoking conspiracy to explain almost everything, including deletion of your own comments?

    • John Goss

      It is my firm belief that the mods on this thread are dedicated and not Craig’s regular mods for the rest of the blog, which is why any debate which suggests Israeli involvement in 9/11 is removed or stamped upon by former mod, Clark. You see as I write the response of Clark to the comment by Canspeccy is still there on the main thread. It could of course go after this comment. Clark was was so sure it would be removed almost two days ago.

      • Clark

        I can’t remove any comments because I have no longer have access to the moderation / admin interface. I quit in anger due to disagreements with other moderators. I deleted one moderator’s account with my admin privileges, and then scrambled my own log-in credentials by changing them to random values that I kept no record of.

        Canspeccy’s comment certainly should be removed because it breaks the commenting rules.

  • Clark

    Well. I’ve just found a remarkably weird and unbelievable report. Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, published April 22, 2010 on the Fox Murdoch propaganda outlet, no less…

    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/22/jeffrey-scott-shapiro-jesse-venture-book-lies-truthers-ground-zero-sept-shame.html

    – Although I arrived at Ground Zero shortly after the Twin Towers fell, I was in the danger zone created by Building 7 from the moment it collapsed in the afternoon, an event that is one of the key cornerstones of the 9/11 conspiracy theory.

    – Governor Ventura and many 9/11 “Truthers” allege that government explosives caused the afternoon collapse of Building 7. This is false. I know this because I remember watching all 47 stories of Building 7 suddenly and silently crumble before my eyes.

    Shortly before the building collapsed, several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein, the property developer of One World Financial Center was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building – since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall.

    – A controlled demolition would have minimized the damage caused by the building’s imminent collapse and potentially save lives. Many law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other journalists were aware of this possible option. There was no secret. There was no conspiracy.

    – While I was talking with a fellow reporter and several NYPD officers, Building 7 suddenly collapsed, and before it hit the ground, not a single sound emanated from the tower area. There were no explosives; I would have heard them. In fact, I remember that in those few seconds, as the building sank to the ground that I was stunned by how quiet it was.

    • Clark

      Notes: Shapiro was near WTC7 but says it fell silently? I don’t believe it; a building doesn’t fall silently even without explosives. We have video evidence of a reporter and interviewee standing blocks away who seem to have heard the onset of collapse.

      The remark “there was no secret” that a controlled demolition was an option is consistent with that fire-fighter who was interviewed on the evening of 9/11 (Truther sites often cut his final remark about WTC7 coming down on its own).

      I find it very unlikely that any civilian demolition company would undertake to rig demolitions in a burning building. But a military team might…

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Clark July 4, 2017 at 15:18
        Like you, I have no doubt that he is lying.

        • Clark

          I don’t assume he lied, but it’s a strong possibility, but we don’t know exactly where he was or how much background noise he had to contend with. It is also possible that he was trying to drop a hint: “I remember that in those few seconds, as the building sank to the ground that I was stunned by how quiet it was”, as if over-stressing the point.

          • Clark

            He wouldn’t have been “stunned by how quiet it was” if he were deaf. I think he’s hinting. Does the US have an equivalent of the UK D Notice media suppression law?

    • Paul Barbara

      @ John Goss July 5, 2017 at 10:39
      I’d already signed it. One point for Clark – he has talked before about the ‘bowing-out’ of the exterior structure. But note where it and when it occurs -right after molten steel pours out of the side of the building, at the location of the bulge and collapse onset!
      Anybody for nanothermate?

      • Clark

        No, inward, and progressively increasing bowing was observed, photographed and measured on multiple faces of both of the Twin Towers, the rate of bowing increasing until onset of collapse.

        Why do you assume that the molten material was steel? There is documentary evidence of a battery room in that part of the building, so it was probably molten lead.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Clark July 5, 2017 at 11:54
          Inward, outward, it makes no difference, though it probably does both; point is, it occurs just on the floor where all the molten steel (consensus among Truthers) pours out. HARDLY a coincidence. Why should it have been so hot just there? And not just in one part of the floor, because otherwise the building would have tipped over that way; it was obviously all around the exterior and interior beams.

          • Clark

            “consensus among Truthers”

            And that’s exactly the problem. Evidence-free consensus enforced by people like yourself and the gangs you form yourselves into, cherry-picking, distorting or just plain inventing “evidence” and promoting fake physics.

            I repeat, there was lots of bowing, both towers, and not just right there. Bowing started before the molten flow. And if that isn’t the molten lead, where did it go?

          • Clark

            “Why should it have been so hot just there?”

            There are heat images of the Towers during the fires. Go and look them up and see if it was really hotter right there than anywhere else. If there were really packages of thermite, those should show up as well.

            (Of course the flow itself will show as hotter; it was bringing molten material out from the hotter interior).

          • Paul Barbara

            @ Clark July 5, 2017 at 14:19

            The thing about heat images is they show the heat at a certain time; do they continually update? No, I don’t think so.
            So If nanothermate were suddenly detonated, unless the chart was recording at that precise time, they would not show the area as supremely hot.
            I’ll repeat: remarkable coincidence that the ‘bowing’ occurs right on the floor pouring out molten iron (or that’s the way it appears to me).

          • Clark

            I don’t know how many heat images there are. I’ve seen a few on a page but I didn’t look closely or check if they had the time on them.

            For the sake of argument, even if there was thermite for collapse initiation, the collapse progressed as expected under gravity. So there is still no proof of pre-placed charges, and no case at all for charges on every floor. The much smaller quantity required to initiate collapse could be delivered, set and ignited after impact by an individual or a team.

            That corner had the most bowing, so presumably it was the lowest point as the top section gradually tilted. So not such a coincidence that any molten material would run out just there.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Clark
          Actually, I’m wrong. The collapse and bowing (simultaneous) began the floor above, which makes sense, as the nanothermate would have been placed below the floor level of the floor they wanted to initiate the collapse with.
          The proximity is too much of a coincidence:
          https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Molten+steel+pouring+out+of+the+WTC&tbm=isch&imgil=UO65wZQAAj1-EM%253A%253BBlD8bC0uyXYfZM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.youtube.com%25252Fwatch%25253Fv%2525253DOmuzyWC60eE&source=iu&pf=m&fir=UO65wZQAAj1-EM%253A%252CBlD8bC0uyXYfZM%252C_&usg=__s7wwBKxGktEGN__ytNwjFMj3Wko%3D&biw=1600&bih=770&ved=0ahUKEwiBmOWGp_PUAhVsKsAKHRwoB-wQyjcITg&ei=gnddWYHPN-zUgAac0JzgDg#imgrc=NvmHIrpxR29NxM:

  • Paul Barbara

    @ John Goss July 5, 2017 at 13:40
    On the gravy train, and they are happy that way!

  • Paul Barbara

    @ John Goss July 5, 2017 at 13:40
    Things are getting interesting!
    ‘Exciting news to Signers of the Lawyers’ Committee’s petition on 9/11!’:
    https://www.change.org/p/attorney-general-of-the-u-s-support-legal-action-on-9-11-at-last/u/20733706?j=97308&sfmc_sub=209248634&l=32_HTML&u=19332771&mid=7259882&jb=2&utm_medium=email&utm_source=97308&utm_campaign=petition_update&sfmc_tk=lVU7f9IURsSUbAp4rtCyeVPn%2fIiGngivwR0ubxCTiUkexD35XUVt2HmRiWf7Qmrw

    ‘The Lawyers Committee for 9-11 Inquiry, a start-up 501 ( c ) (3) public interest law firm, announced today that Attorney Mick Harrison, of Bloomington, IN, has agreed to accept a full-time position as its Executive Director, effective July 1, 2017.

    The hiring of Mr. Harrison was made possible by a generous donor.

    Jane Clark, Esq., of Grand Prairie, Texas, Chair of the Committee, announcing the signing of a contract with Mr. Harrison, said, “We are fortunate to have an attorney of Mick Harrison’s experience, skills, and dedication to lead us in what may be the legal battle of the century.”

    Ed Asner, star of the famous television series “Lou Grant” and a recent addition to the Lawyers Committee Board, commented, “This development is a milestone in America’s struggle to demand the full story about the event upon which the uncontrollable, unquestioned War on Terror, the Surveillance State, and America’s costly military involvement in the Middle East is based.”……………’

    Now is a dangerous time, with the Neocons lies ready to collapse upon them; they are very likely to attack Syria over an arranged ‘False Flag’ attack, and all the mealy mouthed infiltrated Stop the War have to say is ‘…Trump’s claim that he knows of a proposed chemical weapons attack to be carried out by the Assad government, and that he will use military action to prevent this, should also worry everyone who wants peace in the Middle East. We do not know what evidence he has, and it is clear that at least some US military sources are sceptical of his claims….’ http://www.stopwar.org.uk/index.php/news-comment/2631-stwc-statement-on-trump-s-threats-towards-syria-27-06-17 But at least they are joining a march this Saturday, although they’re link doesn’t work and I can’t find any other info on the net as to where and what time it’s on.
    THIS IS SCANDALOUS! StW ‘….doesn’t know what evidence Trump has….’ – are they stupid? Trump obviously has as much intelligence that Assad is preparing a chemical attack on the head-choppers than Bush & Bliar had of WMD in Iraq, or than Obomba had that Qaddafi was going to massacre his own people (he was going to put down a US-planned and assisted armed insurrection). or than Bush had the a guy on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan with his laptop planned 9/11, or than LBJ had that the North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, or than LBJ had that Egypt had attacked the USS Liberty.
    Logic tells you even if he had them (which he doesn’t), Assad would not be so foolish as to use them, and of course he has no reason to – the murderous scumbag head choppers are being cleaned out, DESPITE continued ‘Coalition’ assistance.

    • Clark

      Oh dear. This, from the original petition:

      “The Justice in Focus panels provided convincing evidence to challenge the official version that planes alone, without pre-placed explosives, destroyed World Trade Center Towers 1, 2, and 7”

      If they make legal challenge on this basis, they are assured a humiliating defeat. All those vitally important challenges against illegal war, tied to the lame duck of Twin Tower demolition theory.

        • Clark

          The smaller top section, that of WTC1, probably weighted about twenty-five thousand tonnes. The floor assemblies could each support, at maximum, less than fourteen thousand tonnes. If the top ever started falling, the floor assemblies stood no chance of stopping it. Therefore, no “pre-placed explosives” were needed for collapse.

          The lawyers have fallen for fallacious arguments from A&E9/11. This is the problem. If you don’t start with truth, you can’t get to justice and peace.

    • Clark

      Paul, “…murderous scumbag head choppers”;

      I think you should apply more compassion. The “religious” extremists are indoctrinated and brutalised. Nearly all are men younger than 30, from repressive environments that suppress emotional development and freedom of thought, preventing them from attaining maturity. From the very start, in their tens of thousands, they have been raised and used, and in the end usually betrayed, slaughtered like farm animals:

      “The Al Saud — in this 20th century renaissance — were led by the laconic and politically astute Abd-al Aziz, who, on uniting the fractious Bedouin tribes, launched the Saudi “Ikhwan” in the spirit of Abd-al Wahhab’s and Ibn Saud’s earlier fighting proselytisers.

      – The Ikhwan was a reincarnation of the early, fierce, semi-independent vanguard movement of committed armed Wahhabist “moralists” who almost had succeeded in seizing Arabia by the early 1800s. In the same manner as earlier, the Ikhwan again succeeded in capturing Mecca, Medina and Jeddah between 1914 and 1926. Abd-al Aziz, however, began to feel his wider interests to be threatened by the revolutionary “Jacobinism” exhibited by the Ikhwan. The Ikhwan revolted — leading to a civil war that lasted until the 1930s, when the King had them put down: he machine-gunned them“.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alastair-crooke/isis-wahhabism-saudi-arabia_b_5717157.html

    • Clark

      It’s Anon1’s absence that’s the most relief. The main problem with Habbabkuk was all the crappy replies he provoked. He was quite useful in a way; he kept pitching the corporate media sound-bites, giving the more perceptive commenters a chance to demolish them.

  • KingofWelshNoir

    WT7 for me goes right to the heart of what the whole 9/11 Truth debate is about.

    We have a 47 storey building that collapsed into its own footprint at freefall speed and displayed numerous characteristics of a controlled demolition.

    We have CNN footage showing firemen and cops moving people back from the building saying the building is ‘about to blow up’
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU_43SwWD9A

    Tell people this took place on any other day of the year and ask them what it depicts and they’ll say without hesitation it is what it says on the tin: the building was blown up.

    Tell them it was 9/11 and some – the so-called conspiracy theorists – will believe the evidence of their senses and disbelieve the government. And others will indulge in all sorts of linguistic gymnastics to explain away what they know they are seeing but can’t accept.

    To understand what is really going on here, I believe, you have to consider the phrase conspiracy theory. The police investigate conspiracies every day, but they are not called conspiracy theorists because the conspiracies they investigate generally involve blue collar crime, the poor robbing the rich. This is the natural order of things and most people find cops arresting poor crooks and imprisoning them a reassuring act that bolsters the established order.

    By contrast, the phrase conspiracy theory is only applied to suspicions of elite malfeasance – governments, big corporations, the rich and powerful. And the notion that the government – who act as symbolic parents to us all – might be criminals contradicts everything we have been taught since the cradle, it is taboo. And even though we have no end of evidence showing that governments indeed are and have always been full of crooks, many people find the cognitive dissonance of accepting this just too painful. So they deny it and use phrases like ‘conspiracy theory’ as a way of explaining away this painful information.

    • Clark

      Does that explain why various commenters on this thread are trying everything they can to make me deny physics which I can do for myself? I’m almost literally expected to deny that 2+2=4. In defending Newton’s laws, I’m accused of contradicting them. And that’s just one example of dozens. There must be more to this than the black-and-white picture you seem to be suggesting.

      • KingofWelshNoir

        Clark

        It is precisely because people can argue endlessly about this – as evidenced by this thread – that I look for examples that can be reduced to this simple ‘black white’ scenario. Just for my own personal satisfaction.

        The CCN footage of WT7 is one example in my view.
        Another is the Shanksvill crash site, just a hole in the ground with no wreckage, but which the US government informs me is a crash site.
        Or perhaps the strongest of all, the passport of Satam Al-Suqami. According to the 9/11 Commission it was found in the vicinity of the WTC before the Towers collapsed. We are told Satam Al-Suqami was on board AA Flight number 11. So we are asked to believe his passport fell out of the plane before it hit the Tower.

        It is the government who are asking you to believe 2 +2 = 5.

        • Clark

          No, KoWN, both or multiple “sides” are asking me to believe the unbelievable, and both or multiple “sides” are prepared to condemn me for my independence of mind. Including you; you’re dismissing me as one of the sheeple, incapable of criticising government.

          • Clark

            Please don’t play “whataboutery” on me; I’ve had that up to my ears. Passports and possibly faked crash sites have no bearing upon Chandler’s “Downward Acceleration” or Wood’s BBE. If you WANT to play the black-of-white game, I suppose you’ll be insisting we all accept chemtrails and become anti-vaxers next.

        • Clark

          The reason people can argue endlessly is the “Truthers’ and Sheeple’s Pacts” etc. which ignore all standards of logic and evidence. You, KoWN, are currently colluding with the Truthers’ Pact.

          This problem needs to be thoroughly addressed before any progress an be made. In the way, all the “sides” are effectively colluding in avoiding progress.

      • John Goss

        “I’m almost literally expected to deny that 2+2=4.” No you are not. Not only have you had Newton’s Third Law explained to you ad nauseum you have seen it demonstrated physically by Jonathan H. Cole. You just do not want to let go of your understanding that a number of floors will keep travelling downwards in almost freefall with no resistance from below. That cannot happen. It cannot happen according to Newton. It cannot happen when demonstrated by Jonathan H. Cole physically (in which case you can see the arrest). It has never happened before or since to a structural steel skyscraper. It cannot happen. You need to drill it into your head to replace the nonsense that is in there. It cannot happen.

        For the last time I will try with you. Forget about the floors, forget about the outer steel structure and just picture the structural steel core, you know on which the cranes were seated to raise all the other material. Ask yourself can that have fallen into itself?

        • Clark

          ‘I’m almost literally expected to deny that 2+2=4.” No you are not’

          YOU advance Wood’s BBE. You need to inspect it more closely. It contradicts Newton’s laws, and contradicts the video demonstration of a vehicle collision that you posted yourself. Applied to those vehicles, Wood’s BBE says that one would turn to dust and the other would continue on undamaged with no change in velocity as if there had been no collision.

          I’m perfectly well aware that in the collapses of the Twin Towers the falling material experienced a reaction force from the remaining structure below; that is WHY the collapses progressed at less than free-fall. The question is, how much less is reasonable? ie, does the collapse accelerate or decelerate?

          As soon as my calculations showed that the collapses would accelerate (and pretty smartly at that) I lost interest, because the argument that every storey had been rigged with explosives was obviously moot.

          Since then Nikko has applied the momentum formulae derived from Newton’s laws and calculated a collapse time of just 21 seconds, even with some arbitrary braking effect Nikko calls “10% pulverisation” but for some reason that we can probably guess prefers to keep secret.

          • Nikko

            Clark, you are kidding yourself if you think that you calculated that the collapse would accelerate! All you did a few posts above was to calculate the situation after a fall of the first 3.7m, then reverted to your usual waffling because you either can’t do the maths or else you know that the calcs would show that a gravity collapse soon runs out of energy.

            There is nothing secret about the “10% pulverisation” I have applied. It simply reflects the loss of mass that was observed due to pulverisation. You yourself have stated that the towers were full of plaster board and it makes bugger all difference to the dynamics of the collapse whether the dust was from concrete or plasterboard. Yes the 10% figure is arbitrary and is my estimate. You objected to Wood taking 100% so I took 10%. You are welcome to do the calcs with whatever you feel appropriate but there is no getting away from the fact that sooner or later a gravity led collapse runs out of energy. That is why verinage demolitions are only done on relatively short buildings.

          • John Goss

            “YOU advance Wood’s BBE. You need to inspect it more closely. It contradicts Newton’s laws, and contradicts the video demonstration of a vehicle collision that you posted yourself. Applied to those vehicles, Wood’s BBE says that one would turn to dust and the other would continue on undamaged with no change in velocity as if there had been no collision.”

            You cannot see that four different scenarios were modelled in her postulations. None of them were her physics. The physics were Newton’s. They were speculations on how the ‘observed’ collapse from her point of view might have behaved. I am not convinced about the pulverisation which would not and does not happen as I see it. I think the clouds observed were pyroclastic. She does not. Nevertheless, as I have tried to explain, as Nikko has tried to explain, her models are hypothesis as to what would have happened under certain circumstances according to Newton, that is, one floor falling on the next, ten floors falling on the next ten floors. But the equal and opposite action and reaction has to take place wherever the one object falls upon, or crashes into another.

            Thus you cannot argue against the hypotheses (which are not hers) as being her opinion as to what happened.

            I waste so much time on this and it seems to be all you want to do. As I said before you need to write to her. She is a qualified engineer. She knows Newton. She might be able to explain what you do not understand which most other people do understand.

            Again I have freely given you my time to try and explain what you cannot grasp.

          • Clark

            John – “None of them were [Wood’s] physics. The physics were Newton’s”

            No. In Wood’s BBE, when two floor slabs collide, one turns to dust and the other remains stationary. That’s not Newton; even Nikko admits that! Equal and opposite reaction means the two slabs will be affected much the same, like the two cars that collide. I’ve no idea what Wood is up to but she contradicts Newton; I know which of them I’m going to believe and it isn’t Wood.

            I see that Nikko has at long last specified the mystery “10% pulverisation” – Nikko means that 10% of the mass was ejected out as the collapse proceeded. But the 10% figure is Nikko’s arbitrary choice and in all probability is far too high.

            Nikko should post a table of how collapse time varies versus degrees of ejection from zero upwards, but refuses to do so. The fast collapse times for low mass ejection are an embarrassment to Nikko’s false claim that a “gravity led collapse runs out of energy”; even with 10% mass ejection Nikko calculated that the collapse completes in 21 seconds.

        • Clark

          As for the core structures, which were seen to fall last, yes; if over a hundred thousand tonnes of concrete was dropped haphazardly from a great height around their bases, I have little doubt that the bases of the cores would be crushed inwards, undercutting the rest and causing it to fall almost vertically before it could tip very much.

          • John Goss

            Well that is absolute tosh and you must know it Clark. You’re not stupid. Where is it all falling into? The bedrock?

          • Clark

            The core structure was, of course, mostly empty space, the actual columns, diagonals and beams taking only a small proportion of the overall core volume. But that’s obvious, or were the elevators and people on the stairways moving through solid steel by some sort of Star Trek technology?

          • John Goss

            “The core structure was, of course, mostly empty space, the actual columns, diagonals and beams taking only a small proportion of the overall core volume.”

            I won’t show you the construction photographs again because they show, and you know, just how solid the inner core was. If you take the floors out and the sides out you have the lift section of Blackpool Tower, or the Eiffel Tower, give or take. Such structures do not collapse into themselves.

          • Nikko

            The core structure was, of course, mostly empty space, the actual columns, diagonals and beams taking only a small proportion of the overall core volume. But that’s obvious, or were the elevators and people on the stairways moving through solid steel by some sort of Star Trek technology?

            Clark’s waffle at his waffliest. Wtf does it mean?

          • Clark

            Do the fucking maths.

            John, you do it; you never do any. Nikko does some and can actually make it representative with a few hints, but then just lies about it.

            God I hate liars.

          • John Goss

            “God I hate liars.”

            You have accused many of us who do not see the Killikian exposition of Physics as being liars, myself included.I do not call you a liar. I don’t think you are. I think you are wrong most of the time on collapses at the WTC. But I make allowances.We are all human. However it is not nice calling someone a liar.

          • Nikko

            “Do the fucking maths”

            Is that a reminder to yourself?

            I have done the maths and offered to compare numbers with your calcs but you never go beyond the first 3.7 meters. I wonder why? My only motive is to get the physics straight.

          • Clark

            John, Nikko lies. You malign my ability, but you’re basically just wrong, misled because you apparently can’t do physics. But Nikko can, and has performed the collapse calculations yielding a 21 second collapse time or faster, but simply lies about them and denigrates me in order to deceive other readers, including yourself.

          • John Goss

            “Do the fucking maths.

            John, you do it; you never do any.”

            When I was doing maths we used an aid called “Logarithms and other tables”. Today calculators have all those functions built in. Every time you have been presented with maths you run away. You do not understand the papers presenting the maths and ignore them, also accusing others of not understanding. Two close family members are maths teachers. Someone else quite close to me has recently taken a First masters in Engineering. Do you think I need to do any maths?

            You should consult more Clark. Being ensconced in splendid isolation is not good for you or any of us.

          • Clark

            John, Nikko re-did Wood’s BBE calculation, but in accordance with conservation of momentum without Wood’s distortion. Nikko slowed the collapse by including “10% pulverisation”, but won’t post how this term was calculated, and won’t post the figures for varying degrees of it – less is faster – withholding the model, rather like NIST.

            I held back from doing the calculations because I knew that Nikko would just claim my work to be rubbish, but Nikko did it in a fit of pique and is now revealed as a liar.

            John, all the information you need is on or linked from this page of comments. I’m a clever bloke; I can tell your physics is rusty. But if you look through the progression of the argument you can see what I’m saying is true.

            Building 7’s collapse is suspicious; the Twin Towers’ is not. Danny Jowenko was right. And I have a lot of respect for Professor Hulsey; he is going to work that simulation until he can tell us exactly which columns had to go for WTC7 to fall like it did.

          • Clark

            John, yes, I used log tables, too. But I did my O Levels with a slide rule because it was quicker. Same principle – the slides are marked logarithmically.

            My maths teacher used to say that a calculator was the fastest way of making mistakes, but that was before we all had computers to automate the process!

          • Clark

            Update and correction – I’d missed some incoming comments when I posted my 00:19 above, and now see that Nikko had already specified the meaning of “10% pulverisation”:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-113/#comment-690873

            It isn’t a calculation of energy required for pulverisation. It is simply ejection of mass from the collapse. Nikko should still post a table of various collapse times against different degrees of mass ejection.

          • Nikko

            I held back from doing the calculations because I knew that Nikko would just claim my work to be rubbish, but Nikko did it in a fit of pique and is now revealed as a liar.

            Have you run out of arguments that you constantly need to accuse people of lying?

            Believe me, I have better things to do than describe in detail all the steps of the calculation. Anyway, I did give you all the assumptions for you to do your own calculations and check my numbers. That is how these things work in the scientific community.

            The fact that you held back from doing calculations because you were afraid I’d rubbish them tells us all we need to know about the solidness of your “theory”.

          • Clark

            Nikko, I’m so glad you calculated a 21 second collapse time because now you’re up a gum tree. You can’t just go “Clark waffle Clark waffle he knows nothing about physics” because you presented the damn figures yourself, it’s on the blog and I can link to it whenever I like. Ha!

            Our argument never really was about physics. It was about you attempting propaganda. But the truth will out, as they say.

            All those bombs just to make it fall five seconds faster? Yeah, right. Ha!

          • Nikko

            ”Our argument never really was about physics. It was about you attempting propaganda. But the truth will out, as they say.”

            Speak for yourself Clark – I am telling you I am only interested in the physics.

            I do go “Clark waffle” every time you run away from the physics which is often. Your post above is a prime example of your waffle as you say that you are glad that I calculated 21 s collapse time but don’t say why or anything else meaningful.

            You objected to Wood’s “unrealistic” hypothesis of 100% pulverization so I took 10%. The result shows that even in the completely unreal case of the building materials exhibiting zero resistance, the collapse would take at least 21 seconds. So that is the limiting time. It is the fastest the towers can collapse with gravity only (and assuming zero resistance).

            But we know that in reality the towers collapsed faster than this (you say in 16 seconds) so does this not tell us that gravity was not the only force?

            ”All those bombs just to make it fall five seconds faster? Yeah, right”

            Glad we agree that gravity had to have some help. Whether bombs or something else is moot.

          • Clark

            Here are Nikko’s latest lies;

            ‘You objected to Wood’s “unrealistic” hypothesis of 100% pulverization so I took 10%’

            Nikko eventually called Wood’s totally asymmetric collision description “not very realistic” after weeks of my pointing out that it contradicted Newton. Nikko’s reluctance to admit Wood’s apparent fabrication is telling.

            “The result shows that even in the completely unreal case of the building materials exhibiting zero resistance, the collapse would take at least 21 seconds. So that is the limiting time. It is the fastest the towers can collapse with gravity only (and assuming zero resistance)”

            A conflation of lies within lies. Nikko yet again omits energy of deformation inherent in conservation of momentum in inelastic collisions (so who is “running away from the physics”?). This energy inevitably turns to overcoming the building materials’ resistance. Then – “So that is the limiting time”, this time omitting Nikko’s own subtraction of energy from the arbitrary “10% pulverisation” adjustment. Nikko refuses to post the limiting case, which again is telling.

            Nikko keeps discarding energy from gravity, and then telling us that gravity doesn’t supply enough energy. Don’t be fooled.

          • Nikko

            Clark, there is no physics in what you have posted above, just waffle. So yes, you are a coward because you are running away from REAL physics and hiding behind waffle and now you do not even have the guts or manners to address me directly.

            I am not going to waste any more time on your obsession with Wood’s hypothetical example. If you think that bringing her up at every turn somehow advances your cause just confirms how empty your ideas are.

            You say that I have yet again omitted energy of deformation in conservation of momentum in inelastic collisions. Omitted from what? I calculated the time for the top 20 floors to descend to the ground when colliding with the floors below in the completely idealised case that the floors below and the supporting structure offer no resistance. I have also assumed 10% pulverisation at each impact as pulverisation can be clearly seen in all videos. I have used Newton’s laws and equations of motions. The time I calculated for such a collapse is at least 21 seconds. So what am I withholding? You have everything you need to do your own calculations to check my numbers.

            You go on to say that “This energy (of deformation) inevitably turns to overcoming the building materials’ resistance”.

            What resistance? Do not forget that in my hypothetical example the building offers no resistance so the force of gravity is not counteracted but applied in full (9.81 m/s2). And still the building will take at least 21 seconds to collapse, which is 5 seconds longer than the real buildings did.

            May be gravity was much stronger than normal? Is that how you explain it?

            Nikko keeps discarding energy from gravity, and then telling us that gravity doesn’t supply enough energy. Don’t be fooled.

            No he does not. Nikko does not have supernatural powers. Gravity is a force and energy is ability to do work. Impossible to subtract energy from something that does not and cannot have it.

    • Clark

      KoWN:

      “Tell them it was 9/11 and some – the so-called conspiracy theorists – will believe the evidence of their senses and disbelieve the government”

      This establishes the essential division of people into the sheeple and goatle upon which your argument is based. Sheeple are child-like, trusting of government as surrogate parent, and blinded by congnitive dissonance. Goatle ie. conspiracy theorists are the enlightened. This division is the over-simplification at the root of the problems that follow.

      “It is the government who are asking you to believe 2 +2 = 5.”

      This is your message to me personally, and your signal to other Truthers, that you are one of the enlightened Truthers, and thus capable of seeing that I am in the inferior, sheeple category.

      “To understand what is really going on here, I believe, you have to consider the phrase conspiracy theory”

      …and, I would add, the term “conspiracy theorist”. Both are terms that have problems similar to those of “hacker” and “anti-Semitic”.

      “the phrase conspiracy theory is only applied to suspicions of elite malfeasance”

      …but the term “conspiracy theorist” is applied in a spectrum of ways, ranging from defenders of governments etc. using it to smear embarrassing commentators, to common parlance to describe people who construct fantastical, er, conspiracy theories. See? I’m stumped, because that really is the best term for such theories, because they frequently invoke actions by their purported conspiracy to bolster the theory itself, like John Goss’s recent theory of special moderators policing this thread just to censor his comments.

      So where do we go from here?

        • John Goss

          Yes, he was a good man, Brian Haw. I think he came from Redditch where I used to work but I never met him as far as I can recall. Today Chilcot came close to criticising Tony Blair on the BBC. He measured his words very carefully instead of calling Blair the war-criminal he is hinted at it.

          Sadly all these wars in the ME could have been avoided if 9/11 had been investigated thoroughly when this attack by the US on its own people took place. But that was not going to happen. When we are all long gone this most diabolical of false-flag events will be part of the shameful history of the USA, like the shameful history of Nazi Germany. But I suspect there is something even more diabolical to come first for the planet.

          • Clark

            “Sadly all these wars in the ME could have been avoided if 9/11 had been investigated thoroughly”

            Not really. We protested in our millions against the attack on Iraq. No one believed that Saddam Hussein was working with al Qaeda; they were well known to be bitter enemies.

            The sad and mundane fact is that over the course of decades, the electorates of the US and the UK lost democratic control over our governments through widespread apathy and ignorance, and we are yet to win it back.

            It’s wishful thinking that one critical event could have changed it all. It’s the long hard slog that makes the difference. It’s bothering to learn, and then daring to tell people who would rather not hear, regardless that it makes us less popular.

            It’s about making personal effort and sacrifice, not some magic jewel of secret knowledge.

          • Paul Barbara

            @ John Goss July 6, 2017 at 22:51
            ‘…When we are all long gone this most diabolical of false-flag events will be part of the shameful history of the USA, like the shameful history of Nazi Germany. But I suspect there is something even more diabolical to come first for the planet.’
            So do I!

          • glenn_uk

            Indeed, John. I did actually meet him and interviewed him for a (now defunct) publication in the US back in the day. Still got a good recording and pictures.

            One thing that particularly impressed me was his ability to speak to ordinary people, and his very sincere commitment to peace. A small group of yoofs showed up on their bikes towards the (rather rapidly forced) end of my interview, wanting to cause trouble. They had no idea who Brian was, and offered to knock me out, which didn’t sit well with me – I’m not much of a diplomat upon being interrupted in such a way while conducting an interview like this.

            Brian quickly calmed things down, absolutely insisting that nobody was going to get hurt around his patch. He then set about telling these lads what his protest was all about, and they really _listened_.

            At the end of it, the fellow who had threatened me apologised – I quickly accepted and offered apologies in return.

            It was a remarkable turnaround. Not only did Brian Haw disarm a possibly violent confrontation, but he awakened his surprise audience to what was being done in their name, and they were listening.

            *

            Despite the fact that he probably saw literally millions of people, he remembered our previous conversations on subsequent meet-ups – we picked up almost where we left off. I think he had a screw or two shaken loose by the obscenities we have perpetrated abroad. But maybe there’s something wrong with _us_, if we’re OK despite it.

          • George

            Thanks for bringing Brian Haw to my attention. I was looking over his web site and I notice that he wasn’t taken in by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed. It’s always a giveaway when someone who is a supposedly dissident figure is so fêted by the establishment. At the Huffington Post I read of Ahmed:

            “As a regular media commentator he has appeared on BBC Newsnight, BBC News 24, BBC World Today, BBC World News, BBC Radio Five Live, BBC Asian Network, Channel 4, Sky News, C-SPAN Book TV, CNN, FOX News, Bloomberg, PBS Foreign Exchange, Al-Jazeera English, RT America, France 24, US National Public Radio, among others.

            Nafeez has advised the British Foreign Office, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, UK Defence Academy, Metropolitan Police Service, Home Office Channel Project, UK Parliamentary Select Committee for Communities on Prevent, and many others. In 2005, he testified in US Congress on Western security policy toward al-Qaeda. He has contributed to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.”

            Brian also noted how Ahmed was “Westminster’s pre-eminent doom merchant with his ‘clash of the civilizations’ garbage”. Ahmed has published a book called “A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It ” Who would think that the world could be saved by the average bourgeois consumer?

          • Clark

            Nafeez Ahmed strikes me as pretty good. He was sacked from his Guardian environmental column for pointing out that Israel wants the $4 billion of gas off the Gaza coast; this article:

            Israel’s defence minister has confirmed that military plans to ‘uproot Hamas’ are about dominating Gaza’s gas reserves

            https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jul/09/israel-war-gaza-palestine-natural-gas-energy-crisis

            He has repeatedly pointed out US/UK collusion with “Islamic” extremists to further geopolitical objectives.

            George, you began by asking me ‘In what way does the issue of 9/11 as false flag operation distract attention away from the “Neocon collusion with religious extremism”’:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-113/#comment-689139

            …yet here you are apparently trashing Nafeez Ahmed for actually getting the collusion issue published in the corporate media. Please specify your objection more clearly, and link to Brian Haw’s criticism of Nafeez Ahmed.

          • George

            Clark,
            I have only recently looked at Brian’s website and there are a number of references to Ahmed. I do not know the full circumstances of the events that Mr Haw referred to but here, for example, is a link:

            http://www.brianhaw.tv/index.php/index/3774-brexit-how-we-beat-the-british-queen-phil-the-greek-s-land-grab-bagged-a-high-court-order-against-mi6-in-april-2008-lawsuit-against-mi5-in-2011-10-03-2016

            An extract:

            “Obviously if Ahmed, Newnham, Moore & Puckett were really 9/11 and 7/7 Truth ‘activists’ etc which is what they originally dishonestly portrayed they were in 2007, while doing the whole ‘lawful rebellion’ legal woo, they would have wanted the 7/7 Gold Commander on trial before a High Court jury over his unlawful arrest of me, on May 23rd 2006, but they didn’t want that at all.”

            I made my own comments since I have been confused by Ahmed’s basic attitude in that he has done all this apparently in-depth research and yet seems to consistently draw back from any suggestion of “conspiracy”. On his own blog at

            http://www.nafeezahmed.com/2015/08/911-conspiracy-theory-and-bullshit.html

            He says:

            “My position on 9/11 is pretty simple: I don’t indulge in theory. I detest speculation. I particularly hate the very phrase “inside job,” which is a meaningless bullshit euphemism for “I don’t actually have cast iron proof of specifically who perpetrated this operation, or how it occurred, but IT WAS THE GOVERNMENT”: a vague, amorphous cop-out typical of the conspiracy industry in general. “

            There are so many questions to be raised by this. “I don’t indulge in theory” is clearly a piece of the utmost hypocrisy since theory is impossible to avoid. Again the demonization of the word “conspiracy” – this time by expanding it to “the conspiracy industry” (a conspiracy about conspiracies, no less!) Also note the vehement tone, the invective – and, dare I say, the unwitting and revealing shadow projection of “vague, amorphous cop-out”.

            But later on we get this:

            “I also have a message for incompetence theorists: the general capacity of the state to indulge in bureaucratic stupidity doesn’t provide a catch-all super-theory to vindicate your blind faith in the eternal innocence of government. Yes, you do actually need to ask specific questions about specific things to find out why governments do what they do… and guess what! Peeps in power DO CONSPIRE!! [SHOCK!!! HORROR!!! DISBELIEF!!!]”

            Well exactly. “Peeps in power DO CONSPIRE!!” So there is such a thing as a valid conspiracy theory. Glad we got that straight. But then why the constant mocking of conspiracy theories?

            And on top of all this there are the aforementioned connections between Ahmed and the establishment. At Mr Haw’s link above, there is this comment:

            “Indeed Ahmed openly admits he whores himself around for the likes of Kissinger, Albright and Murdoch’s Atlantic Council.”

            Phrased belligerently but nevertheless a good point.

          • Clark

            George, the article on brianhaw.tv which you’ve linked to was published in 2016. Brian died in 2011.

            I know that article by Nafeez Ahmed; I’ve linked to it from this thread more than once. He’s obviously as pissed of with conspiracy theorists as I am. That article explains why; he’s suffered the same sort of abuse as I receive on this thread. As he wrote; “what happened to ‘innocent til proven guilty’? […] If you’re going to point out the holes, gaps and anomalies in what the government says – and rightly so – have the balls to admit the holes in your own claims”

          • Clark

            Nafeez Ahmed suffers the same fate as I do, and for the same reasons. Insisting upon logic and facts, he’s perpetually shot at by both sides.

          • George

            OK Clark – then please tell me what you think is going on here. I have said that my view is that 9/11 and indeed the entire “war on terror” is a fraud manufactured to achieve geopolitical and domestic aims. Now if what I say is true then obviously this scam is something that must be staged managed – not only in reference to these convenient terrorist attacks themselves but also in terms of media reaction. As usual with the Western system – it is not at all necessary to keep everything covered up but to ensure that what cannot fail to “get out” should only be released in the most manageable way i.e. by packaging as “crazy conspiracy nonsense”. And the fact that the word “conspiracy” itself has been carefully nurtured to provide a knee-jerk negative reaction helps here.

            Now – considering the boldness of the 9/11 manoeuvre, the media stage management is essential. And when one of the original sceptics of the official account self-describes as having “advised the British Foreign Office, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the UK Defence Academy, the Metropolitan Police Service on delivery of the Home Office’s Channel Project, and the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into UK counter-terrorism strategy” etc. then I feel a certain cognitive dissonance. I’m not claiming that Ahmed is necessarily a “mole” but the fact that he has had this favourable reception in these quarters clearly indicates that he cannot be that much of a threat to them.

            Now if you feel that my approach is too crude or whatever then please let me know. And give me some indication of your own idea about what this is all about.

          • George

            Ahmed’s “Cutting Edge” blog has some posts about Brian Haw but they do not seem antagonistic posts. You can read them here:

            http://www.nafeezahmed.com/search?q=%22brian+haw%22

            On the other hand the apparent dispute over “an edited video” is something I can’t find much info on. See here:
            http://www.brianhaw.tv/index.php/index/3774-brexit-how-we-beat-the-british-queen-phil-the-greek-s-land-grab-bagged-a-high-court-order-against-mi6-in-april-2008-lawsuit-against-mi5-in-2011-10-03-2016)
            at “NAFEEZ AHMED PUBLISHES AN EDITED VIDEO SHOWING A FALSE ACCOUNT OF MY UNLAWFUL ARREST ON MAY 25TH 2010”.

            And since this entry goes on to include a reference to June 21st 2014 i.e. three years after Brian Haw died, then the whole matter becomes rather fishy. So – who is now writing this blog? The blog itself is garishly presented in various large fonts and gives the impression of being a work of sniping hyperbole.

          • Clark

            In a phrase, convergence of interests.

            “I have said that my view is that 9/11 and indeed the entire “war on terror” is a fraud manufactured to achieve geopolitical and domestic aims. Now if what I say is true then obviously this scam is something that must be staged managed – not only in reference to these convenient terrorist attacks themselves but also in terms of media reaction”

            I’d certainly describe 9/11 as “manufactured”, but certainly not as a “fraud”. It wasn’t manufactured by the US government. There really are “Islamic” extremists who’d be only too eager to participate in things like 9/11.

            What was in it for the Bush administration to prevent it? Basically nothing; quite the opposite. So how much effort and vigilance do you think they’d put in that direction?

            The vast majority of the corporate media outlets are pro-war. Apart from anything else, their viewing figures double in times of war, doubling the value of their advertising revenue. War gives them powerful material to broadcast. So what was in it for the corporate media outlets to thoroughly expose government complacency and possible complicity in 9/11? Wouldn’t they rather get on with broadcasting all those juicy war stories? Why piss off the politicians who give them important-looking interviews with lovely emotive sound-bites like “the War on Terror”?

            Note I wrote “outlets”. Some individual journalists have done very good work of exposure, but the outlets give them little prominence. And there are less and less outlets for journalists to find employment with:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_consolidation

            So, “managed”, but not “stage managed” which implies central coordination. Simple convergence of interests covers most of it. Throw in a few (hundred) place-men with connections to the covert agencies, a few “quiet words in ears” (tongue up the arse) making specific journalists and editors feel important by telling them that they can contribute to “national security” by glossing over this or that…

            Regarding governments: Governments are very large organisations, and most people working in them are just glad of a secure, well-paid and prestigious career, and getting on with their jobs. It’s typically the Administrations that are under pressure from vested interests to do this or that, and they have vested interests of their own. There are hawks and doves in the departments, but they’re in balance and directed by policy. It’s nearly always the Administration who decide they’re going to war.

            When some atrocity kicks off, all that lower machinery of government kicks into action. Constituents and some representatives call for inquiries and the Administration tries to resist it. Parts of the media search out experts and advisers. Academia puts forward senior scholars who published warnings but got no coverage. And the pro-war majority of the corporate media try to trash those experts’ reports and reputations.

            Assuming you’re in the UK, we get a jaundiced view of government. The UK is a very pro-war country, allied to the US and close to other belligerents such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. “Strong government” (ie. the Administration whipping an outright majority of MPs) so beloved of the pro-war press gets its way far too often, but that doesn’t mean everyone in government and the Civil Service is in on it and rotten to the core. Robin Cook, Michael Meacher, Jeremy Corbyn, people like Craig and Iain Orr; just a few names that immediately come to mind. Such people have or had considerable power and influence, thank God, though there are not enough of them.

            Nafeez seems pretty good to me and I’m glad he was called to the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Inquiry. I should think that some of the decent minority within government got him there. Note that both investigations were forced through from below despite great opposition from the respective Administrations. When the guilty are powerful they have great power to suppress, but that power is not absolute.

          • Clark

            George, we know what Nafeez Ahmed was saying at the time of the 9/11 Commission, because KingofWelshNoir quoted it here:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/?replytocom=690938#respond

            …basically, he said the Bush Administration certainly let it happen, deliberately looks more likely than accidentally (though how could anyone prove that?), that they certainly had motives to do so, and had prepared for a military response before the 9/11 attacks – utterly damning, in other words.

            We know from your quotes that some of Nafeez Ahmed’s material has appeared on multiple mainstream corporate media outlets; you listed a whole bunch of them.

            So why aren’t Nafeez Ahmed’s conclusions common knowledge? Answer – selection and prominence as decided by the pro-war media.

            Recommended –

            http://www.medialens.org/
            https://consortiumnews.com/

          • George

            Clark,

            I am afraid we must agree to disagree. I find many of your comments naïve. For one thing I do not believe for a second that there is any external organisation that could have took the lead in 9/11. I don’t believe there is any organisation out there that works independently from the US and could have caused 9/11.

            Furthermore – this “let it happen” approach would involve way too many possible slip ups that would have interfered with the effect that the government intended. Many of the peculiarities of 9/11 may well have come from unforeseen happenings e.g. delayed flights. That alone would have caused too much worry.

            “…what was in it for the corporate media outlets to thoroughly expose government complacency and possible complicity in 9/11?”

            Seriously? You honestly think that any of the designated mainstream outlets would get anywhere close to exposing 9/11? You assume that this corporate media are free to follow “market incentives”. There is no way that anyone working in the “responsible” press would have a chance with this exposure line. It would never have occurred to them. Privately they might have their suspicions but they know very well their limits and also what is expected of them.

            “Some individual journalists have done very good work of exposure, but the outlets give them little prominence.”

            Of course. You can say what you want as long as you are relegated to the “nutty fringe”.

            Much of what you say after this seems quite accurate to me but doesn’t contradict what I’ve been saying. e.g.:

            “So, “managed”, but not “stage managed” which implies central coordination. Simple convergence of interests covers most of it. Throw in a few (hundred) place-men with connections to the covert agencies, a few “quiet words in ears” (tongue up the arse) making specific journalists and editors feel important by telling them that they can contribute to “national security” by glossing over this or that…”

            I completely disagree with the first part. 9/11 was a vast operation. Whether you like the word “stage” or not, it required a LOT of management.

            I am sure that not “everyone in government and the Civil Service is in on it and rotten to the core”. In fact very few will know of what is going on. But those who are in an oppositional position are permitted to be there to give a sense of “balance”. Ultimately they will not have any effect on the underlying levers.

            As for Nafeez, I would like to give him the benefit of the doubt. In any case, and bearing in mind the old dodge of “contaminating” good information by mixing it in with deliberately goofy stuff, it pays to look at everything.

          • Clark

            George, there’s a contradiction inherent in your above comment:

            “this “let it happen” approach would involve way too many possible slip ups that would have interfered with the effect that the government intended”

            versus:

            “I am sure that not “everyone in government and the Civil Service is in on it and rotten to the core”. In fact very few will know of what is going on”

            So was it the government, or a conspiracy within government? You need to ask yourself what you mean by “government”; refer here:

            https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-113/#comment-691000

            There are contradictions with reality, too:

            “There is no way that anyone working in the “responsible” press would have a chance with this exposure line”

            I can’t think of a corporate media editorial that has come out with a decent appraisal of the evidence of the US government’s responsibility. But there must be thousands of articles in the corporate media that expose significant elements of it. I link to them extensively.

            “You assume that this corporate media are free to follow “market incentives””

            I believe that the media are powers in their own right, and often exert massive power over governments by influencing electorates and performing sting operations against individuals within governments. They do not all pursue the same agenda, either. There are pro-EU and anti-EU papers, for instance. Or consider the UK MPs expenses “scandal”. That broke in the Telegraph, owned by the Barclay Brothers who are financiers. It was mostly publicly available information. So how come that was published just after the UK government had committed a trillion pounds to bailing out the banks? Would a paper owned by financiers rather the electorate’s attention was directed towards the government giving a trillion to finance, or a few measly millions to themselves? Public anger was directed and channelled by the media.
            – – – – –

            I’m sorry to have to say it, but you’re thinking like those Nafeez Ahmed calls conspiracy theorists. Compare your comment with this definition:

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

            According to the political scientist Michael Barkun, conspiracy theories rely on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected.

            Compare your remark: “I find many of your comments naïve” with Barkum’s more detailed description: “For conspiracy theorists, the masses are a brainwashed herd, while the conspiracy theorists in the know can congratulate themselves on penetrating the plotters’ deceptions.”

            I strongly suspect that the matter causing you to think this way is Twin Tower demolition theory. It really does seem to be the “Mother of all Conspiracy Theories”. If Nafeez Ahmed can write and publish something like his article Tony Blair’s Islamist obsession is a smokescreen to defend ‘blood for oil’ in mainstream media like the Guardian, yet you still suspect the government of controlling everything including possibly Nafeez Ahmed, it might be time to review some of the conclusions you’ve based that on.

            https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/apr/24/tony-blair-islamism-smokescreen-blood-oil-empire

          • George

            Clark,

            When I said “everyone in government and the Civil Service is in on it and rotten to the core” I was quoting you.

            I would say that I am referring to what has been called “the deep state” (sometimes “the security state”). Very few will know all the details. For example I doubt very much if George W Bush knew much until he was told – and then only what he needed to know in order to do his part.

            “I can’t think of a corporate media editorial that has come out with a decent appraisal of the evidence of the US government’s responsibility.”

            Well precisely.

            “But there must be thousands of articles in the corporate media that expose significant elements of it. I link to them extensively.”

            I’m sure there are all sorts of revelations here and there and everywhere. But I really don’t think that any of the actual culprits (whoever they are) care much about a bit here and a bit there. Michael Parenti once wrote an article called “Setting the Mood” and his basic point was that a few oddities here and there and some outright contradictions don’t make much difference. As long as the basic narrative as played out over the mainstream press remains consistent then there’s no worry for the perpetrators. (I’ve sometimes even thought that almost everybody may not believe what they are told but everybody believes that most others believe it.)

            “I believe that the media are powers in their own right, and often exert massive power over governments ….”

            I doubt it. The media are constrained by their sponsors who they have to keep on the right side of otherwise they lose their funding. There may be some (permitted) disagreements on some issues. But 9/11 is huge. There’s no way that any central mainstream publication is seriously going to come out and say it was the actual product of some faction within the government. It is possible that the “let it happen” aspect might be an option – within a limited field. I have already said that, morally speaking, there is no difference between, on the one hand, knowing that something will happen and letting it happen, and, on the other, making it all happen. But there can be a curious logic here that goes, “Look – we could have stopped this but we didn’t to let you know what we’re up against.” And that will go down well with some – within a limited field.

            I have a deep suspicion of the term “conspiracy theory”. This has been used as a “swear term”. But this type of theory should be viewed the same as any other theory i.e. it may be true or false or somewhere in between. Instead all “conspiracy theory” is denounced in advance as “crazy talk”. Even then the term is used selectively i.e. to refer to anything done by “our side”. It is certainly interesting to see this part of that Wikipedia entry:

            “The widespread belief in conspiracy theories has become a topic of interest for sociologists, psychologists, and experts in folklore since at least the 1960s, when a number of conspiracy theories arose regarding the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.”

            This assassination certainly would seem to mark the beginning of the demonization of “conspiracy theory”.

            As for psychological explanations – you could easily reverse them. If “conspiracy theorists” are attracted to these theories because they provide comfort – so do “incompetence theories”.

            Of course I am aware of “grand conspiracy theory” of the type pedalled by Icke. This is the theory that all human history has been manipulated by vast non-human forces. But I have already said that this is precisely the kind of thing used to discredit plausible conspiracy theory. In this light may I add that I don’t “suspect the government of controlling everything”. Indeed – as I have said, it is not “the government” I am talking about but a small group therein. And they don’t HAVE to control everything. I don’t believe they control Ahmed for a start. But he himself has noted the knee-jerk reaction to the term “conspiracy theory”

          • Clark

            George, your model of society seems monolithic to me. You seem to be describing some cabal of unknown members who have almost complete control over everything. But whoever was involved, 9/11 was, primarily, a publicity stunt. Its apparent objective was to influence public opinion. There would be no need for such an action if some small group had such comprehensive and complete control as you seem to be suggesting.

            ““I believe that the media are powers in their own right, and often exert massive power over governments ….”

            – I doubt it. The media are constrained by their sponsors who they have to keep on the right side of otherwise they lose their funding”

            You seem to be saying that all major media organisations and all government are centrally controlled by a single power. Again, monolithic.

            “…morally speaking, there is no difference between, on the one hand, knowing that something will happen and letting it happen, and, on the other, making it all happen”

            But those are not the only possibilities. There is also not caring what might happen, starvation of resources to those tasked with foreseeing dangers – and worse, even courting attack while relishing the chance to strike back; “let’em! See what we’ll do”! No need for advance knowledge. “Ships? I see no ships”! With such a grey area running from outright perpetration, through plausibly deniable permission and expectant recklessness to simple negligence, it can be very difficult to make shit stick. That’s why crimes such as criminal negligence have to be defined, as a fall-back catch-all. A whole bunch of top US officials should have been charged with criminal negligence, at least.
            – – – – –

            ‘If “conspiracy theorists” are attracted to these theories because they provide comfort – so do “incompetence theories”.’

            Oh I wholeheartedly agree! Lazy thinking is endemic to the human condition. People most often believe what they want to believe.

            Through attempting to engage in logical argument on this thread I have become fully convinced that there really is a “conspiracy theorists’ mindset” and that its roots are psychological. However, I think it is just one expression of something much larger. You may have noticed that employees of organisations are remarkably keen to find ways of invalidating any complaint you may present. This, despite the fact that they must have encountered similar frustrations when complaining to organisations other than their employer. Or, try refuting any kind of religious belief; the excuses and self-justifications flow like a river. People from any given group come to each other’s aid, backing up each other’s distortions and excuses, or changing the subject or trying to shift responsibility back onto the challenger, just like the demolition theorists on this thread do to me.

  • Paul Barbara

    ‘Jeremy Corbyn has prepared the electoral map to finish off the Tories’:
    http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/06/jeremy-corbyn-has-prepared-electoral-map-finish-tories

    ‘..here has been an elephantine shift in British politics. Few saw it coming (though some of us did) but there is no doubt that it has happened. Rising like lions from slumber, the British people have endorsed Jeremy Corbyn’s political revolution and have upset the pundits, the establishment media and the British elite.

    Against all odds the Labour Party has answered the questioning of its relevance. We have defied the odds without cosying up to Rupert Murdoch and without trying to outstrip the Tories on immigration. We have won seats we have not held for decades without pitting generation against one another and without dividing communities up. This is the new politics…..’

  • Paul Barbara

    What do you all think of this? There are some things I disagree with, such as the No.21 bus was not to block traffic, it was obvious where all the people had gone (they’d been marched off with their hands on their heads, or been kept away) and the Morningstar’ has nothing to do with the newspaper ‘Morning Star’), and it’s not all that surprising those 4 newspeople were there as their News organisations all had offices in the Shard), but there’s a lot that can’t be explained away: ‘London Bridge Borough Market’:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNuUSbln-N0&t=336s

  • KingofWelshNoir

    Really sad to read that blog post by Nafeez Ahmed, it is shrill, hysterical, sneering, at times contradictory and incoherent. Moreover, it sneers at people for holding precisely the same views that he himself once held and advanced in his masterly, exhaustively sourced and footnoted, scholarly tome on the 9/11 attacks, published in 2002, called The War on Freedom.

    This is an extract from his own executive summary to that work. What on earth happened to him?

    …Extensive evidence on record indicates that the Bush administration intended to invade Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban regime quite independently of the events of 11th September. The war on Afghanistan was thus not a response to 11th September. …

    …Against this backdrop, there is considerable evidence that, from 1995 to 2001, the American intelligence community was in receipt of multiple credible warnings of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil orchestrated by Osama bin Laden. Contrary to the official line of the Bush administration, this information, which was taken seriously by the U.S. intelligence community, specified the hijacking of civilian airplanes to be flown into key U.S. buildings in Washington, DC and New York City, including the World Trade Centre. The nature of these urgent warnings converged in a manner specifying that the attacks would occur between early and mid-September, while other credible information pinpointed 11th September as a likely watch date. Yet despite this extensive forewarning of the attacks, the Bush administration failed to act.

    The failure to act was even more apparent on 11th September itself. There are clear rules established by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense for responding to emergency situations, including hijacking. Yet, although four planes were almost simultaneously hijacked on 11th September, the U.S. Air Force systematically failed to respond in accordance with these rules, which are normally adhered to with routine, since they constitute Standard Operating Procedures (SOP). Subsequently, various official government accounts and statements have been issued attempting to deflect public attention from, thus denying the reality of, the collapse of SOP on 11th September.

    In this context, the systematic violation of Standard Operating Procedures by the U.S. Air Force is an event that appears to have occurred with the complicity of key government and military officials in the Bush administration. This notion is supported by evidence that both President George W. Bush Jr. and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard B. Myers displayed utter indifference to notification they received of the

    The ominous implications of these facts are exacerbated in light of various revelations about the long-standing financial, diplomatic, military and intelligence ties between the members of the Bush administration and figures linked to Osama bin Laden–not to mention Osama himself. Reports indicate that until just after 11th September, the Bush family had close financial ties to the bin Laden family, and both were set to reap substantial profits from the war on Afghanistan through their mutual involvement in the U.S. defence industry. This has been accompanied by credible reports that Osama bin Laden has not broken away from his family and maintains ties with them. Further reports show that the Bush administration has systematically blocked attempts to apprehend Osama bin Laden, along with intelligence investigations of the terrorist connections of the bin Laden family and Saudi royals implicated in supporting Osama.

    A particularly damning example is the U.S. response to revelations first in India, and then in Pakistan, that the then Director-General of Pakistani military intelligence, Mahmoud Ahmad, had funneled $100,000 to the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, shortly before 11t h September. The Bush administration, on confirming this fact through the FBI, blocked any further inquiry into the role of Pakistani military intelligence in supporting Al-Qaeda by requesting that Ahmad, from behind-the-scenes, quietly pursue early retirement as a purported consequence of routine re-shuffling.

    In the aftermath of 11th September, the Bush administration embarked on a devastating bombing campaign in Afghanistan, killing up to 5,000 Afghan civilians—almost double the number of civilians killed in the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. This massive bombardment of the country resulted in the destruction of the Taliban regime, making way for the installation of a new, interim government.

    The new regime effectively constituted a return to the pre-Taliban era, when Northern Alliance factions ruled most of Afghanistan, brutalising and repressing the civilian population in the same manner as the Taliban. Now, however, Northern Alliance warlords have been bound by U.S.-UN brokered agreements designed to ensure the minimisation of civil war breaking out
    18 The War on Freedom

    between rival warlords, the idea being to create the regional stability essential to lending an appropriate degree of security for proposed pipelines to Caspian oil and gas. The rights and wishes of the Afghan people, meanwhile, have been ignored.
    Subsequently, on the pretext of entering into a new “war on terror,” the Bush administration successfully secured unlimited war powers, free from Congressional accountability. This has established an open-ended militarisation of foreign policy in which any country can be targeted at will on the pretext of harbouring terrorists.

    In the U.S., this has been accompanied by unprecedented curbs on civil liberties and basic human rights, the crushing of domestic dissent, and the criminalisation of legitimate protest. Many authoritative commentators have described these domestic measures as moves toward the establishment of an American police state….

    Prior to 11th September, all of this was inconceivable. The tragic catastrophe of 11th September, which was apparently permitted to occur by the Bush administration—and further effectively pushed forward by the administration through its ongoing support of key allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who support bin Laden and Al-Qaeda—allowed the U.S. to expand, consolidate and empower its hegemony, both at home and abroad, to an unprecedented level…

      • KingofWelshNoir

        In his book The War on Freedom Nafeez presents a detailed and meticulously footnoted case that the US administration planned the invasion of Afghanistan well in advance of 9/11 as part of various geostrategic designs. Further he adds that the US administration had numerous credible detailed warnings about the attacks and that in view of the inexplicable failure to intercept the hijacked airplanes and the total failure to follow standard operating procedures on the day he concludes the failure was done by design rather than accident. He is saying, put colloquially, the government let it happen. Most reasonable folk would call that an inside job hypothesis, one that accuses the government of being complicit, and moreover if the phrase means anything at all it would be described as a conspiracy theory.

        In his blog article – seemingly having forgotten his 2002 book – he spends a lot of time disparaging conspiracy theorists, the phrase inside job, and those who automatically claim the ‘government did it’. It’s not just the substance I object to, but the sneering tone aimed at people who espouse the very opinions he outlined in his book.

        This is one paragraph among many:

        Indeed, my message to conspiracy theorists is simple: what happened to ‘innocent til proven guilty’? Why is every tiny snippet of evidence identifying a govt role in something dastardly automatic super-proof of full-on govt control or everything? Why is the govt always guilty? Do you really even believe that mantra, ‘innocent til proven guilty’, or does it only apply to suspected extremists and terrorists?

        I’ve never called him a tosser.

        • Clark

          OK, thanks for the explanation. I forget the insult used against Nafeez; I thought it was from you but I’m not going to search previous pages to check. I’m sorry if I got that wrong.

          I think you should remember that words are just descriptions and the map is not the territory. Specifically, I think you need to contemplate the meanings of “government” and “conspiracy theorist”.

          What does it mean to say that the US government ‘did’ or ‘permitted’ 9/11? Was 9/11 a US government policy? Were any government committees set up to decided upon courses of action to enable the outcome? Was it ever voted upon? If we could have frozen all activity of the US government at, say, midday on 9/11 and thrown it all open, would we find any files, records or minutes coordinating actions towards the immediately preceding events? Personally, I suspect not.

          Is it possible that one or more individuals, some of which may have been members of the US government, withheld or blocked certain information such that 9/11 was permitted to occur, as a private arrangement not revealed to the machinery of government? Personally, I would say that is very likely.

          From Nafeez Ahmed’s article:
          “I also have a message for incompetence theorists: the general capacity of the state to indulge in bureaucratic stupidity doesn’t provide a catch-all super-theory to vindicate your blind faith in the eternal innocence of government. Yes, you do actually need to ask specific questions about specific things to find out why governments do what they do… and guess what! Peeps in power DO CONSPIRE!!”

          So Nafeez Ahmed is prepared to consider the theory that there was a conspiracy. Does that make Nafeez Ahmed a conspiracy theorist?

          Nafeez Ahmed: “A few times, for instance, people have linked to this piece to claim that I’m a conspiracy theorist. They are especially shocked by the mere mention of anomalies in the collapses of the World Trade Center. Worse, what those people ignore is that my work is not, and never has been, about conspiracy theories – as readers of this blog, my reporting, my columns, and my books know.”

          Nafeez Ahmed seems pretty critical of conspiracy theories. Can it possibly be that “conspiracy theory” and “a theory that involves conspiracy” are two different things?

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory

          A conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy without warrant, generally one involving an illegal or harmful act carried out by government or other powerful actors. Conspiracy theories often produce hypotheses that contradict the prevailing understanding of history or simple facts. The term is a derogatory one.

          – Another common feature is that conspiracy theories evolve to incorporate whatever evidence exists against them, so that they become, as Barkun writes, a closed system that is unfalsifiable, and therefore “a matter of faith rather than proof”

          Do you not recognise Twin Tower demolition theory here? Apparently, the entire world-wide community of physicists, engineers and informed laymen such as myself are overlooking what commenters on this thread assure me is a physical impossibility, a gross violation of Newton’s laws, physics they had been taught by the age of fourteen and on which their entire adult career is based. Hundreds of millions; not just in the US but worldwide, including countries attacked by the US. Not just people on US government contracts but students, the retired, hobbyists and people in other fields who still remember their school physics. Apparently, I am to believe that the conspiracy behind 9/11 is so powerful that it can coerce, hoodwink or mesmerise this entire group, including myself.

          People who make insistences like that seem to be who Nafeez Ahmed is complaining about; “conspiracy theorists” as used in common parlance.

          Deficiencies in language are not Nafeez Ahmed’s fault, nor mine. However, they are his problem, and mine. I have asked for suggestions for a better term, but none of the conspiracy theorists on this thread are prepared to suggest any suitable label for this apparently rather unsophisticated mode of thought. They refuse to acknowledge its existence; they seem to be in a state of denial. They like to complain that the term has been weaponised, which it frequently is, but they do so as a defence of their conspiracy theories and to avoid having to improve their own thinking.

          KingofWelshNoir, I’m sorry to say it but you tended toward this fault when you wrote:

          “Tell them it was 9/11 and some – the so-called conspiracy theorists – will believe the evidence of their senses and disbelieve the government. And others will indulge in all sorts of linguistic gymnastics to explain away what they know they are seeing but can’t accept”

          https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-113/#comment-690754

          In this statement you divided all observers of 9/11 into just two categories. Those two categories exist, but the majority of observers don’t fall into either. And you used “conspiracy theorists” purely in its weapoised sense, thus contributing to its power as a weapon by denying the actual aberrant mode of thought that enables it to be weaponised at all.

          You work with language; please help me out here.

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