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).
“Unless you’re prepared to be open-minded about what you’ve apparently already decided”
Goodness me Clark.
This is almost as big an assumption as assuming the video broadcast from 911 is real.
Are you back to bad cop now?
Clark: “I don’t think I write like a politician at all”
Clark :”Without truth, we are lost. This is one reason I’m so motivated to keep things as factual as possible, and insist upon the highest standards of evidence and reasoning.”
You sound like a government minister during a cover-up I mean investigation.
First of all, a bit about televisions and TV transmission formats.
I used to repair TV and video cassette recorders, and I had a friend who worked for the BBC as a broadcast technician, so I have some technical expertise to back what follows.
When colour television was introduced, its format had to be such that it would also display properly on monochrome sets. Consequently, the colour picture was transmitted as two components, luminance (brightness) and chrominance (the colour information). Monochrome sets reconstructed their picture from the luminance signal only, whereas colour sets also used the chrominance signal.
Some way of encoding these various components onto a single carrier wave had to be found. Britain, France and the USA all chose different methods. Britain developed PAL which stands for Phase Alternated Lines. The US developed the NTSC system which they named after the official body that developed it, the National Television System Committee. France developed SECAM which stands for Séquentiel Couleur Avec Mémoire.
One problem was that variations in reception conditions tended to change the relative strength of the luminance signal versus the chrominance signal, leading to the colours being either too weak (pale) or too strong (lurid). The British solution to this was to reverse the phase of the chrominance signal on the interlaced lines of the picture, such that when poor reception occurred, all the odd-numbered lines would come out pale while all the even-numbered lines would come out lurid. From a normal viewing distance human eyes would average the chrominance, causing the distortion of colour to cancel itself out. PAL was much better that NTSC in this respect, though NTSC came first so the British had the chance to learn from America’s mistake. TV boffins made up witty nicknames for the systems based on these characteristics; my friend at the BBC told me them and I laughed so much that I never forgot:
PAL – Pale And Lurid
NTSC – Never Twice the Same Colour
SECAM – System Exactly Contrary to the American Method.
“Never Twice the Same Colour” – there’s your answer to the first two “anomalies” highlighted by the makers of “Synched Out”. US analogue TV was inherently susceptible to distortion of colours. US TV quality was notably poor; it had less lines (lower definition) than the other systems; PAL camcorders were using an inherently better format.
”Without truth, we are lost. This is one reason I’m so motivated to keep things as factual as possible, and insist upon the highest standards of evidence and reasoning.”
I could actually hear Cameron saying this, whilst wiping his bloodied hands under the podium.
Assumption: ” PAL camcorders were using an inherently better format.”
You’re assuming I had a PAL camcorder.
I’m going to have to start making a list of these assumptions.
Exexpat; 10:40 pm:
Yes, of course government ministers try to sound objective during cover-ups. I really do try to be objective. I’m sorry that the two seem similar. What am I supposed to do about it? They have script-writers and go to coaching sessions to mislead as convincingly as possible.
Regarding the wrongly alleged fakery of coverage of the Paris supermarket siege, all the evidence is in that thread, or linked from it.
I spent over an hour preparing that comment, searching for the correct pieces on the thread. The least you could do is look through it to test my honesty. Or are you too lazy?
Exexpat; 10:48 pm:
Exexpat, did you make “Synched Out”?
So the biggest TV companies in the US (probably the Planet) had shitty cameras?
So shitty that due to the NTSC system they were lower quality than poor northern bloke’s camcorder from 1996?
Come on Clark, you’re really reaching.
They had the the best broadcast cameras in the world and the picture looks like shit.
Seriously? 🙂
Exexpat, 10:26 pm. Regarding the Armageddon comparison. Each picture has a note about the format it was captured from. Both notes are incomplete. Now you claim to have done information forensics, so I’m going to give you a chance to demonstrate your knowledge to other readers before I reveal why they are incomplete. OK?
Exexpat, NO. The US had the WORLD’s most INFERIOR analogue TV broadcast FORMAT. That is a matter of historical record. And STOP misrepresenting my argument; that’s called “straw man”.
Clark,
“Regarding the wrongly alleged fakery of coverage of the Paris supermarket siege, all the evidence is in that thread, or linked from it.
I spent over an hour preparing that comment, searching for the correct pieces on the thread. The least you could do is look through it to test my honesty. Or are you too lazy?”
Goodness me (#3 I think tonight!
You’ve only just posted a rather huge set of links. Its this hurry thing again. I did quickly state that I haven’t looked at the paris supermarket op.
I can see you have done a lot of work and will read through and validate it when I get chance. Why the lazy dig? is it a lazy ad hom? 😉
Exexpat. Sorry I got cross.
Look, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. It doesn’t matter how good the cameras were, the quality could never be higher than the format permitted. Agreed, Mr Forensics?
OK let me ask you a question Clark?
Would you expect a US camcorder from say 2003 to be better quality than 2001 broadcast camera?
Exexpat, if you hadn’t reviewed the evidence my Paris siege comment was based upon, it was unfair of you to dismiss my comment.
Exexpat, 11:11 pm; straw man. A camcorder signal hasn’t been transmitted over the airwaves. It will not suffer from the colour distortion inherent in transmission and reception via NTSC. Nothing to do with the cameras.
“Agreed, Mr Forensics?
Clark, can we agree you lighten up a bit?
I 100% agree with what you just said “The matters we discuss on this forum are highly emotive already, without adding to the problem.”
Clark
31 Jan, 2016 – 11:15 pm
Exexpat, 11:11 pm; straw man. A camcorder signal hasn’t been transmitted over the airwaves. It will not suffer from the colour distortion inherent in transmission and reception via NTSC. Nothing to do with the cameras.
**********************************************
OK I should’ve specified that both videos are broadcast on the (NTSC) TV. Are we on the same page now?
NO, YOU FUCKING LIGHTEN UP YOU CUNT. YOU JUST LIKENED ME TO THE KILLER CAMERON “WITH BLOOD ON HIS HANDS”.
FUCKING HYPOCRITE. ONE LAW FOR YOU, ANOTHER FOR ME.
What? Now you’ve moved the goal-posts. You were saying that a BROADCAST couldn’t be lower quality than a CAMCORDER. Camcorders don’t go over the airwaves. Now you’re saying you’re comparing TWO TRANSMISSIONS.
Honesty?
Fuck this, I’m getting some tea.
Exexpat, are you or your palls going to update “Synched Out” to remove the suggestion that there’s anything suspicious about colour distortion when transmissions via the NTSC (Never Twice the Same Colour) system has been employed?
Exexpat, I get angry, but I am forgiving. Show me that you can admit error and my respect for you will increase; at present, it’s pretty damn low.
Thousands of people were murdered on 9/11, and millions in the Middle East have been murdered since riding on the excuse it provided. You dishonour all those people when you don’t bother to check facts. And that aircraft tail stuck on a building is in the poorest possible taste, EVEN if you are right (which I VERY much doubt), because the vast majority of people believe that the 9/11 attacks did kill thousands.
Clark,
Sorry.
Cameron comment was wrong – I didn’t mean that you were him at all.
“and millions in the Middle East have been murdered since riding on the excuse it provided. You dishonour all those people when you don’t bother to check facts. ”
Now that I find offensive.
Of course I fucking detest these psychopaths wars and the millions and millions people killed in the ME and this is why it’s important to expose these liars for exactly what they are and how they are doing it.
I also think if 9/11 didn’t happen at all (maybe if the feed broke) then they almost certainly would have constructed another op to catalyse (PNAC) their genocide.
Clark, I feel you got a good heart, it might surprise you but I do too.
I got a really early start tomorrow. Goodnight.
PS “because the vast majority of people believe that the 9/11 attacks did kill thousands”
Citation? Last I heard it was at least about a third US citizens that don’t believe the official story and more outside the US (hope for us yet!)
This mornings going to be a killer…
Exexpat, thanks. And yes, I do think you’ve a good heart; I think it’s your thinking that lacks rigour, not that your motivation is bad.
Yes, a large minority of the US population don’t accept their government’s account of 9/11. Grief, why should they? the government didn’t even want an investigation at all. Under pressure they started one, but it’s leaders resigned saying they were “set up to fail”. Then, under the replacement Commission, the President and the Vice President refused to testify either on record or under oath! That a cover-up occurred really couldn’t be clearer.
But at a guess (I don’t know of any surveys), most of the dissenters do believe that thousands were killed that day, and most (probably a smaller proportion, but still a majority) believe that passenger aircraft were crashed with passengers on board.
I think you probably agree. I think you know that the theory you’re proposing is one of the least accepted.
Correction:
Sorry; they refused to appear separately. They appeared before the commission together and went on record, but in secret – no public or reporters present. And they refused to go under oath.
Me, 12:24 pm; sorry, the following was unclear:
What I meant was I think you probably agree that of the US Americans who reject the official story, the great majority of them nonetheless do believe that planes were deliberately crashed and thousands killed on 9/11.
…so many could be offended by the aircraft tail on the house that you linked to a picture of.
Evening Clark
Was just texting with an old colleague who was working in Chicago on the big day. He has two boys. One of which is interested in History.
Got me thinking…Imagine all the kids in all the history lessons across the world being taught the official account.
Terrifying. The continued and sustained persecution of Muslims and ultimately The falsification of history.
This is Mind War.
Exexpat, it isn’t so much what is taught as what is not taught.
In “The West”, propaganda is usually done by omission rather than direct fabrication. In the USSR there were only two newspapers, one’s name translated to “The Truth” and was a tabloid-type rag full of meaningless tittle-tattle. The other’s name translated to “The News”; it covered serious subjects but often included outright fabrication. But people got wise to the propaganda and so a joke was coined; “we have two newspapers, but The Truth contains no news, and The News contains no truth”.
In “The West”, the corporate media system is wise enough to maintain its credibility by avoiding outright falsification, except in cases of extreme necessity.
I believe that hijackers really did fly passenger aircraft into buildings. So-called “Islamic” terrorism undoubtedly exists. But what the corporate media nearly always leave out is what type of “Muslims” commit these acts, and which power structure projects the ideology they’ve been indoctrinated with.
It is Saudi Arabia that projects its extreme Wahabbist form of Islam across the world. The corrupted form of Islam called Wahbbism is exploited by the Saudi royal family to perpetuate their power. That’s the same Saudi royal family that control the Saudi oil to which the US, with its vast military forces, is thoroughly addicted.
You will find much about this convoluted history in Adam Curtis’ film Bitter Lake.