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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  • Clark

    Mog, I’m sorry I got annoyed yesterday. There are many contributory factors to this. As someone who comments under a verifiable real identity, I’m fed up with dealing with anonymous Internet entities; after all, “mog” could be a sock for any one of many handles I’ve tried to honestly communicate with here, or even someone I’ve met in person. I was feeling very ill; I’m a little better at present. But most specific to your comment that annoyed me, I don’t like being ignored and then as a consequence misrepresented (assuming it wasn’t a deliberate ploy to push some government, corporation or country’s agenda) because it’s disrespectful and doesn’t treat me as your equal.

    I’ll fill in some detail for you. When I first encountered claims of the impossibility of the collapses based on physics, I took them very seriously. I basically accepted them, because I find classical physics pretty simple and it didn’t occur to me that anyone would publish erroneous claims – it seemed such a foolish thing to do, since physics is pretty rigorous. So I started parroting the arguments such as “no steel framed building ever having collapsed” etc. etc.

    Then Angrysoba brought TomK to this thread and, in his patronising, sporadic and infuriating manner, he started posting actual physical arguments. His politics seemed pretty much the opposite of my own, but as he said and as I agree, science and rationality are science and rationality; you don’t get Right-wing and Left-wing versions of physical constants, and the rightness or wrongness of any given physical argument is independent of your political opinions.

    He destroyed many of the controlled demolition hypotheses; simply wiped the floor with them using simple physical arguments; arguments I could verify for myself. He got something wrong that was within one of my own fields of technical experience (sound engineering); I pointed this out and he lost his temper with me. But so what? All it proved was that he was human and fallible like myself.

    TomK had empowered me. He had cut through the myriad rhetorical arguments that plague discussion of the collapses of the WTC buildings, diminishing and neutralising the fog of emotionality that had come to obscure then from my rationality. So I discarded the matter of “which side” any particular argument strengthened, took some deep breaths, and started watching the collapse videos over and over again, this time asking myself simple questions about the physical processes recorded.

    I saw no flashes – apart from the ejected gouts of flame from the burning floors as the top sections began to fall, as would be expected. I saw nothing much ejected above the horizontal – an acquaintance drew my attention to one object that changed direction in mid-air, but it was the only such instance. I heard no sequenced explosions – except on one video, contradicted by many others – and that proved that at least some 9/11 Truthers were prepared to be 9/11 Liars, 9/11 Fraudsters – all for a good cause, I’m sure…

    With my suspicion now raised I saw more and more misrepresentation that I’d apparently been turning a blind eye to, presumably unconsciously, to reinforce the position I’d held. I started to learn something about MYSELF, that I wasn’t above mangling the evidence. My scepticism, including scepticism of my own thinking, started to develop and grow.

    I started to notice that the problem of misrepresentation was ubiquitous. I noticed selective quotations, more and more of them. Ridicule attempting to discredit inconvenient but valid arguments. Selective editing of videos, both of physical evidence and of interviews etc. Emotive arguments, superficially convincing but with minimal physical validity and/or relevance.

    More recently I’ve become more aware of the groupthink, and the aggressive, manipulative techniques used to maintain conformity. The “no-planer” Exexpat started playing to the gallery, insinuating to other readers that I was using techniques including “forum sliding” to maintain the 9/11 cover-up. Think what you like, but I know I’m not deliberately pushing disinformation. I tried to be reasonable with Exexpat but to no avail. I eventually lost my temper and called him some nasty names. At this he backed down, but to my amazement Node leaped in said I owed Exexpat an apology. Apparently, it’s OK for Exexpat to accuse me of being accessory to mass murder, but I’m bang out of order unless I take it lying down. Glenn leaped in, listing half a dozen anomalies relating to airport security, the behaviour of NORAD etc., as if these matters had any bearing on building collapses and ridiculing me as though my mind was unreasonably closed.

    And so I learned the unwritten rule of the 9/11 “Truth” movement (it has little to do with truth) – anyone may advance any whacky theory takes their fancy; whatever, it doesn’t matter what – the aircraft were CGI graphics or projected holograms, no one was killed in the Towers, random people have been assassinated to silence them, all the videos on YouTube are fake, explosions anywhere at any time are evidence of controlled demolition, the Towers were brought down by nuclear bombs or energy weapons in orbit, aircraft normally bounce off buildings – anything so long as it contradicts the “official story”, but no one can subject any of them to critical scrutiny or They Will Be Drummed Out Of The Brownies. That’s essentially no different from football hooliganism and far-Right mob behaviour, where everyone has to agree that the Other, the Designated Enemy are Utter Scum and everyone in Our Gang is Right No Matter What – just like “My Country Right or Wrong”.

    So sometimes I get very down, seeing no future, convinced that human nature damns us all to war, persecution, the collapse of society and near-term extinction; that our propensity to prejudice and groupthink will obscure the physical crises that our species is rapidly bringing upon itself.

    I hope that puts my exasperation in context.

  • Clark

    lysias, where do you think Bush fitted into all this? His reputation for stupidity is legendary, so I assume he was basically used. Not that he’d necessarily object to the plan or whatever, but he just doesn’t seem reliable enough to be an “insider” – he’d leak too easily.

  • glenn_uk

    Clark: I appreciate you might feel exasperated, all of us do to varying extents, at different times to different degrees. Nevertheless, I’m not sure you’re being entirely fair in your synopsis of this entire subject on 10/7/16.

    You appear to characterise 9/11 sceptics as credulous fools, who buy into any argument – or indeed all of them – despite their manifest contradictions. Very much like a religious delusion, in other words – anyone, of any “faith” whatsoever – is guilty of exactly the sort of thinking you decry. Let’s dismiss about 80% of the population, then, from even having anything worth considering for a moment.

    *

    TomK was a complete arse. His primary method of argument was proof by authority – even though he was exceedingly coy about what authority that might happen to be, exactly.

    His next step, when he finally figured out how to use a message board, and work out who he was replying to (instead of just insulting them), was to provide simplistic physics experiments in order to prove how stupid everyone was.

    It just didn’t wash. He made a fool of himself.

    You – yourself – pointed out to him how he’d done his argument a fair bit of harm, if you recall. Those were pretty much your exact words.

    *

    Clark, I don’t believe that holograms were employed, and you were there when I dismissed such claims on this thread. You paint with a rather broad brush, if you don’t mind my saying so.

    What I don’t have time to do, is publish a paper proving my point – and nothing less would apparently do, and it had better be produced double-quick in order to satisfy you. Too much of an ordeal, and I’ve got plenty of other stuff going on. We all have.

    Does the Official Story of the JFK assassination satisfy you? Why not? Let’s drill into that part you think isn’t true. Or else admit it – you’re a fraud. You’ve got nothing – accept it, you’re a bit delusional, and probably not very honest.

    If you don’t like that sort of conversation, perhaps you’ll understand why I didn’t like it either – from you.

    *
    I didn’t jump to any conclusion about “9/11”, but became gradually aware that the Official Story simply didn’t hold. So something else happened, what was it, and why?

    I’m sorry you raised my name just before a bunch of stuff you’d concluded, relating to delusions and lies, “whacky theories” and so on, when you know full well that I’ve vociferously argued against these exact same things. Why do you want to link me with positions you surely know I do not support?

    *
    Bit of a disappointing one this, Clark. Hope we can clear things up in due course.

    • Clark

      First I should clarify that I find the “mainstream position(s)” just as bad – simplistic groupthink anchored on rhetoric or soundbites. It’s the near total lack of critical thinking that gets me down; if the “mainstream” positions withstood critical thought obviously I’d be feeling less isolated. So the “accept pre-rigged demolition or you must believe the official narrative” meme I find particularly depressing. In the mainstream, they don’t even realise that the official story is based largely upon confessions forced under waterboarding and other torture.

      Glenn, that’s how you drew my criticism, with this comment here:

      http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-84/#comment-580594

      See how you depict it as unreasonable to not suspect pre-rigged explosives, because of a load of unrelated things that add not a jot to the explosives theory? You could invent any fictitious event and insist that it must have happened, and no one can say otherwise because the authorities were denying everything that day.

      Nothing else depended upon pre-rigged explosives, did it? Not like the passenger flights. If they hadn’t been diverted then the major events couldn’t have occurred without some kind of fake to replace them. Whereas, even if the Towers had stood it would have still been full-on atrocity, and there’s no later part of the attack, or the responses, that couldn’t have occurred had the Towers not collapsed. There’s no part of the plot, if plot there be, that requires the collapses of the Towers. It seems to me that the question of the Towers’ collapses is logically separate from the earlier events. So to entertain any suspicion, surely we require either evidence for explosive destruction, or evidence against natural collapse.

      But in any case, aren’t pre-rigged explosives a considerably higher score than the “double-six” of the two nearly identical Towers, damaged in very similar ways, each collapsing in a similar manner? Even the major difference is consistent with the natural collapse hypothesis, in that the Tower with the greater weight above the damaged zone stood for the less time after impact.

      See, the problem is always Building 7. The human mind can’t help wondering “where does Building 7 fit into all this?”. Its collapse looks so much like a controlled demolition, its collapse was reported twenty minutes early, Silverstein said he ordered “pull it” and it literally looked like it was pulled core-first into its own basement. It really couldn’t be spookier, and yet with supreme irony, Building 7 is in a very specific sense absolutely a non-issue. It wasn’t iconic, it wasn’t a target, its collapse killed no one and it outlasted its uncontrolled fire specification by over three hours, I think. Like an insanely talented court jester’s terrifying act which seen in hindsight actually threatened no one, and even almost cleaned up after itself.

      Of course, Building 7 raises suspicions that the Towers were rigged with explosives. But logically, the collapse of Building 7 has no bearing upon the earlier collapses of the Twin Towers, does it? That Building 7 suffered whatever strange fate it did, makes absolutely no difference to whether the Towers would fail at the damage zones or not. Indeed, Building 7 fell considerably later than the Twin Towers – how would our impressions regarding the Towers be altered if Building 7 hadn’t done what it did? I must say it’s one of the finest conundrums ever!

      Glenn, have you considered the collapse scenario for the Twin Towers that I’ve been describing? Have you tried running it through in your mind? I’ll repeat it again or clarify if necessary, but I would like to discuss it. I’ve been watching collapse videos again, and more and more I keep thinking that those towers were unsafe, cascade failures waiting to happen. We’ve heard that their destruction was rather convenient to the elite, that they were a disposal liability because of asbestos, but maybe that wasn’t their only problem.

    • Clark

      Glenn, I don’t expect you to publish a physics or mechanical engineering paper – of course not. However, I do expect you to link to any that you believe to be credible.

      TomK acted the ass (I’ll use the US colloquialism) but so what? TomK’s personality makes no difference to the physical dynamics of the collapses (as he himself correctly pointed out). TomK pointed out a number of other principles that are vital to any physical analysis. “Spherical cow”, or oversimplification (eg, Chandler’s paper I linked to recently). “Lose the geometry, lose the building”. Very fast transfer of load from failing components to adjacent components. A visible surface can outpace g if acted upon by structure behind.

      I haven’t even come to agree with TomK since his visit. He had no criticism of the Towers nor the investigation into their collapses, whereas I suspect that the design was vulnerable, that the construction possibly didn’t meet the design specification, and that the investigations concealed this.

      Many proponents of pre-rigged explosives have quoted essentially empty “physics rhetoric” at me. TomK is the ONLY commenter to have presented actual physical arguments, and even occasionally put some numbers to them. He came alone into a hostile comments section and presented his arguments. For that he deserves respect, despite his sometimes condescending manner which, given people’s irrational attachment to and often aggressive defence of demolition theories, I think is understandable.

  • Clark

    Glenn, oh fuck. The corners, where all the “explosive ejections” are seen. It’s fucking obvious. The squares of floor making up the corners were only supported by actual load-bearing uprights on two sides and the opposing corner. I know I’m abstracting but it’s an obvious weakness, isn’t it? Why didn’t I see it before?

    • Clark

      I mean that at the corners the floor was only supported along the two sides that meet at the outer corner of the perimeter wall. The opposing corner reached the corner of the core.

      The other mid-sections of floor were supported between two parallel supports; the core on the inside and the perimeter wall on the outside.

      The longest floor spans occurred between the corners of the core and the corresponding corners of the perimeter wall. I suppose this distance would have been about the square root of two times the distance between the parallel supports in the mid sections, or do it better with the actual dimensions and Pythagoras. But those lightweight floors were about 40% more vulnerable there, yes?

      • glenn_uk

        The external vertical bars were more decorative than for support function, as I recall. Otherwise, why would they have been put on after the rest of the structure was complete? It would be a precarious job indeed to construct such a mighty building where you put the major supports on last!

        Please don’t expect me to give 24×7 attention to this thread, though. I have extremely limited time, no offence meant whatsoever.

      • Clark

        If there was something decorative, no matter; the vertical support for all the floors came from the core and the perimeter – “a tube within a tube”, in plan or cross-section a smaller rectangle within a larger rectangle. Looking straight down on the structure, the floors span across between inner and outer, but they’re only actually supported at those rectangles.

  • Clark

    We have a bias of thought; when we walk around on a floor that feels solid, it seems like the ground, solid matter beneath all the way down. It’s funny to think of being suspended nearly half a kilometre up, and that six inches beneath your feet is empty air…

  • Clark

    Mog, I’ve spent ages looking for proper physical arguments on demolition theory sites. If you link me something specific that you think makes sense I’ll critique it as best I can. But I’ve really never found anything that was valid concerning the Twin Towers. The period of free-fall of Building 7 is valid (though not fully conclusive) evidence for demolition, but for the Towers, well either could have burnt out without its top section starting to fall, but given that they did fall the videos seem consistent with the way I’d expect such structures to collapse under gravity.

    I’d be far more interested to read more about another point you raised:

    “It is worth noting that the scientific community as a whole is going through something of a crisis at the moment due to the unearthing of prevalent fraud perpetrated for career advancement”

    • charles drake

      the arts projects the b thing and gelatine not to mention arts groups mentioned in the fox post 911 news reports 4 reports by
      carl cameron are of great interest.

    • Clark

      I already checked Gelatin and The B Thing. A few German art students were given some space to use in one of the Twin Towers. They made mazes out of cardboard boxes and drew doodles of the building. The climax of their project was that they removed one window (contrary to regulations) and extended a platform they’d made, less than one metre wide, took turns to sit outside and then retracted it after about 45 minutes. Idiot conspiracy theorists have asserted that they were actually rigging explosives, but the students’ “balcony” wasn’t even on a face that suffered damage, and nothing similar happened in the other of the Twin Towers.

      But one good thing came of looking into it. One of the students described how dismal the interior of the Tower was – just an utterly boring office-block. We tend to think of the Twin Towers as somehow timeless, like a monument or historic building. But they were just the cheapest way of stacking as much office floor space as possible in one of the highest rent areas in the world; a purely commercial venture. We shouldn’t be at all surprised that they were flimsy and fell down suddenly.

    • Clark

      Charles drake, the reports by Carl Cameron; I’m assuming they’re the ones concerning about fifty young Israelis posing as students, arrested and deported with no explanation after 9/11. So far as I know, there is no link with Gelitin / The B Thing, who are German, and really were art students. Well, a member of Gelitin had the name “Urban”, and a company “Urban Moving Systems” proved to be a Mossad front, but you know, I’ve got the same name as Superman but only because my mum liked Gone with the Wind.

      Yes, Israel clearly had foreknowledge of 9/11, and were one of several countries that submitted warnings to the US, which were ignored.

  • fwl

    Clarke, have you read the partially redacted 28 pages. What a day to be released. Cover story is that there is no smoking gun. I’ve not read them and so only going by what us reported but for a Saudi Ambassador to the US to have funded some of the hijackers is surely some sort of smoke signal.

    • Clark

      Well I’m only on page 3, I haven’t even got to the redacted pages yet, but I see that the recommendations call for greater integration between the various intelligence agencies, and a new post, the Director of National Intelligence DNI to oversee all other intelligence departments. The CIA is specifically mentioned twice, sort of “even the CIA and its Director must be made subservient to this”:

      Your action to ensure full cooperation of the entire Intelligence Community (including, of course, the CIA) and the Department of Homeland Security will be fundamental to this vital reform

      That’s a pretty strong hint that the CIA hadn’t cooperated towards national security, which is consistent with Springman’s complaints and various others’. The misuse of classification of information to serve departmental self-interest is highlighted as a problem. More resources are requested for various traditional forms of counter-terrorism, and notably NOTHING recommending mass surveillance of the general population; indeed, quite the opposite, it stresses the need for:

      … a new domestic intelligence service […] in the United States, recognising the need to enhance national security while fully protecting civil liberties

      Lysais, have any changes been made to rein in the CIA? Has the post and department of the DNI been created and given control over the CIA? It looks to me as if the Bush administration did the opposite of this report, and Obama’s has done nothing to correct that.

      I think the CIA harboured a conflict of interests, never addressed probably due to internal compartmentalisation ie. “need to know”. The CIA is routinely used to project neocon objectives overseas, by cooperation with violent Islamic groups. This is incompatible with domestic security, as was (is?) the Brittish spooks’ “Covenant of Security”, whereby violent Islamists were given refuge in Britain so long as they only performed their atrocities abroad (ie. promoting “national interests”), leading to the 7/7 London bombings (ie. breaching domestic security).

      Please note that I’m only considering legitimate and semi-legitimate governmental objectives above. I of course consider that there could have been secret groups with agents within government – infiltrators, traitors, whatever – who saw both 9/11 and 7/7 as being in their interests and exploited the situation above to enable the attacks. Such people may have been public employees, or close to or part of the Bush and Blair inner circles. But I think that neither 9/11 nor 7/7 were parts of official US or UK government policy, overt or covert.

    • mog

      Not just ‘an ambassador to the US’ but a man deeply entwined in the Saudi intelligence world (whose agencies were said to have been following the 911 plot ‘precisely’, and are known to be connected to the alleged hijackers in multiple ways); a man who was considered ‘family’ by the then president and a previous president; a man who had unusually close and private ties with the then head of the CIA George Tenet; a man who employed then head of the FBI (Louis Freeh) as a private attorney after he left office…and so on…

      https://digwithin.net/2015/09/27/saudi-ties/

  • Clark

    Saudi Arabia has a “split personality”. It has two dynastic power structures intertwined; a political one and a religious one:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia#Al_ash-Sheikh_and_role_of_the_ulema

    The ulema have historically been led by the Al ash-Sheikh, the country’s leading religious family. The Al ash-Sheikh are the descendants of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the 18th century founder of the Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam which is today dominant in Saudi Arabia. The family is second in prestige only to the Al Saud (the royal family) with whom they formed a “mutual support pact” and power-sharing arrangement nearly 300 years ago. The pact, which persists to this day, is based on the Al Saud maintaining the Al ash-Sheikh’s authority in religious matters and upholding and propagating Wahhabi doctrine. In return, the Al ash-Sheikh support the Al Saud’s political authority thereby using its religious-moral authority to legitimize the royal family’s rule. Although the Al ash-Sheikh’s domination of the ulema has diminished in recent decades, they still hold the most important religious posts and are closely linked to the Al Saud by a high degree of intermarriage.

    Saudi Arabia doesn’t really have “policy” in the sense that a government does; just decisions made by members of the two most powerful families, and yes, some of those would have supported 9/11.

    At some 25 billion dollars per year the country’s military spending is about the fourth largest in the world and it’s the second largest importer of arms, accounting for around 40% of UK arms sales, other major suppliers being the US and France (note this neocon axis). It’s currently trying to overthrow the government of Syria, as well as waging war against Yemen.

    You have to question the sanity of being allied to something like Saudi Arabia, let alone arming it so comprehensively.

    This is another reason I get so fed up with the conspiracy theorists. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Israel had a hand in facilitating 9/11, working with power factions within Saudi Arabia. There is certainly such a cooperation to defeat the Syrian government. Yet for pointing this out the conspiracy theorists will accuse me of “demonising Muslims, just like the Official Story”. Why sanitise the head-chopping, hand-chopping Saudi-Wahhibist pact? It’s Wahhabism that perverts Islam into terrorism, spreading its murderous creed across the world funded by petro-dollars with the intention of projecting the power of two FAMILIES, and those families’ names are Al Saud and Al ash-Sheikh.

  • Paul Barbara

    I don’t know if there are any serving or ex Firemen, Police or Military reading this thread, but if so, this video was made for you:
    ‘Incontrovertible – New 9/11 Documentary by Tony Rooke’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5UyynjxAyw
    I know Tony, and also Matt Campbell, who appears in the video and who lost a brother in the North Tower collapse.
    And in similar vein to 9/11 being a ‘False Flag’ to enable massive attacks, occupations and slaughter, control of important oilfields and strategic territory, massive increase and control of the opium production in Afghanistan, oil and gas pipelines and of course a ‘War on Terror, which was just a catch-phrase for a massive ‘War Of Terror’ and ‘legitimizing’ preemptive strikes, torture and worldwide assassinations of ‘suspects’ along with ‘collateral damage, come the ‘hoaxes’, like Sandy Hook, and perhaps Nice:
    ‘NOT A DROP OF BLOOD ON WHITE MURDER TRUCK!’: http://tomatobubble.com/nice_france_terror_hoax.html
    Rather odd, wot?

    • Clark

      Paul Barbara, thanks for the excellent link above:

      Nobody can say the major press was not exposed to this information[. T]his extremely credible eyewitness has been stonewalled by the government and major media for a long time, even as they reported the lax security conditions that allowed those men now associated with the 9/11 attacks to enter the U.S.
      .
      15 of the 19 did not qualify for a visa, yet they were granted one anyway. 10 of the individuals entered through the very agency Mr. Springmann once headed and then spent so much energy trying to expose.
      .
      Springmann went public (after internal efforts failed) to expose the State Dept/CIA conduiting terrorists into the USA.

      Neocon penetration of the State Department again – thanks to Ba’al earlier, too.

      This is why I regard it as confusing to call the 9/11 attacks “false flag”. The flag pinned to it by the US is “al Qaeda” ie. Wahhabist-motivated extremists. Well such a flag does seem to be involved but with, at least, extensive support from US neocons within the CIA and the State Department. Again and again, forces under al-Qaeda-type flags have been used to project US neocon objectives – yet the mainstream never raise this well documented matter in connection with 9/11.

      “Plausible deniability” (a favourite of the CIA) seems more appropriate than “false flag”.

      • Paul Barbara

        If you just watch ‘ZERO An Investigation Into 9/11’ (FULL documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XRMrMdn0NQ
        it blows the whole ‘suicide highjackers’ narrative apart. All of the ‘dodgy passports’ and money sent on the orders head of Pakistans ISI are all ‘red herrings’. 9/11 was a ‘False Flag’ ‘Inside Job’, period. It is so bloody obvious.
        NIST found no evidence of explosives at the WTC. When asked if they had looked for it (which is mandatory in such a scenario, as is maintaining the crime scene) they said ‘No’. The alleged ‘pilot’ of the plane that ‘allegedly’ hit the Pentagon, in a virtually impossible manouvre even for the most experienced pilots of Boeings, had been judged incompetent to fly a Cessna.
        Everything screams out ‘False Flag’. The huge airline and other ‘Put’ options laid just before 9/11, and US decision not to follow them up….

      • lysias

        I have read Springmann’s book, Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World: An Insider’s View. It is indeed a shocking book.

  • Clark

    Does anyone feel up to editing Wikipedia? Springmann has a page but it’s short of references and makes no mention of 9/11:

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

    I’m not sure if Salem news (Paul Barbara’s link) qualifies as a “reliable source” on Wikipedia, but other sources linked from Paul Barbara’s link certainly do, and his presentation to the US National Press Club is quotable. Eventually, credible and relevant info on the following pages should be returned to the mainstream articles, but a solid case is needed before drawing attention:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theories
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_9/11_Commission

    If Springmann’s page isn’t augmented some neocon sympathiser might put it forward for “speedy deletion” for “lack of notability”. And if you edit, observe the Wikipedia rules; observe a neutral tone – just deadpan facts backed from mainstream sources – don’t give the opposition any excuses to delete your additions.

  • lysias

    I have been skeptical of the “The Saudis did it” explanation from the start. I have long felt that, if the Saudis were involved, they were doing it at the behest of people inside the U.S. government. I see Paul Craig Roberts shares my doubts. Is the Saudi 9/11 Story Part Of The Deception?:

    James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence for three decades, long ago explained to me that intelligence services create stories inside stories, each with its carefully constructed trail of evidence, in order to create false trails as diversions. Such painstaking work can serve a variety of purposes. It can be used to embarrass or discredit an innocent person or organization that has an unhelpful position on an important issue and is in the way of an agenda. It can be used as a red herring to draw attention away from a failing explanation of an event by producing an alternative false explanation. I forget what Angleton called them, but the strategy is to have within a false story other stories that are there but withheld because of “national security” or “politically sensitive issues” or some such. Then if the official story gets into trouble, the backup story can be released in order to deflect attention into a new false story or to support the original story. Angleton said that intelligence services protect their necessary misdeeds by burying the misdeed in competing explanations.

    Watching the expert craftsmanship of the “Saudis did 9/11” story, I have been wondering if the Saudi story is what Angleton described as a story within a story.

    The official 9/11 story has taken too many hits to remain standing. The collapse of Building 7, which, if memory serves, was not mentioned at all in the 9/11 Commission Report, has been proven to have been a controlled demolition. Building 7 collapsed at free fall acceleration, which can only be achieved with controlled demolition.

    Interesting that Roberts knew Angleton, who died in 1987. Roberts, who was a leading congressional staffer in the late 1970’s, then an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, then the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in 1981-2, then back to journalism at the Wall Street Journal, had plenty of occasion to converse with Angleton, who hung out at the Army-Navy Club in D.C. after he left the CIA in 1975.

    This whole business of stories within stories can explain a lot about all sorts of other matters besides 9/11.

      • lysias

        CIA describes it as “limited hangout”. Nixon’s folks modified that to “modified limited hangout”.

        • Paul Barbara

          I’d call it ‘Red Herrings’, to lead people up the garden path, baying at the moon, barking up a gum tree.
          But to learn the real depravity of the CIA, watch: ‘Cathy O’Brien – CIA MK Ultra Mind Control Victim’:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5DGVTLsvvU , and if you can read her book ‘Access Denied: For Reasons of National Security’.

  • Paul Barbara

    For all those who screech ‘Conspiracy Theory’ at anybody who questions official ‘narratives’ on terror events etc., here is some info to take to heart: ‘“Conspiracy Theory”: Foundations of a Weaponized Term’:
    Subtle and Deceptive Tactics to Discredit Truth in Media and Research:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/conspiracy-theory-foundations-of-a-weaponized-term/5319708

    I suggest folks respond to the prffered arguments or evidence, rather than just dismissing the argument with the knee-jerk expression: ‘Conspiracy Theory’!

    • Clark

      I’m aware that the term “conspiracy theorist” has been exploited. It would be harder to exploit if everyone would be more rigorous with evidence. “Conspiracy theorists” is as good a term as any; appropriate, in fact. The mind-set exists, and whatever term is used as a label for it, it will be adopted and exploited.

      Attributes:

      1) Assumption of a preferred conclusion.
      2) Crowbarring any available event (accidental death or death through illness being favourites) into being “evidence” of that preconceived conclusion.
      3) Using anything hidden or secret as such “evidence”, eg. using the actual evidence of a cover-up by NIST as evidence of pre-rigged explosives, dismissing other possibilities.
      4) Making public implications (ie. smears) of anyone questioning such dubious evidence that they’re “working for the conspiracy) – (Paul, you haven’t been doing this one, to your credit).
      5) Siding with other conspiracy theorists against those sceptical of the assumed conclusion despite their positions being logically incompatible with one’s own. (Paul, again, not you, particularly.)

      The problem with all of the above is that they narrow the field of acceptable enquiry. Let’s imagine that NIST are covering up weaknesses in the Twin Towers. That’s a crime that potentially endangers literally millions of people and it should be exposed. But if anyone who investigates in that direction gets accused of “supporting the official story” or “propagating a limited hangout”, it closes down legitimate debate.

      Another serious consequence is that it makes more advantageous to seed deliberately misleading theories. For instance, let’s again say that the Towers collapsed through structural deficiency. The prevalence of the “conspiracy theorist’s mindset” makes it more worthwhile for secret public relations operatives working for construction companies or construction inspectorates to seed stories of explosive demolition, knowing that such stories will spread like wildfire, thus providing cover for corrupt construction operatives, and discrediting those investigating theories involving poor construction by associating them with “conspiracy theorists”.
      _ _ _ _ _

      Having said all that, I firmly believe that the exaggerated suspicion that results in “conspiracy theorising” is actually caused by institutional secrecy and the distortions in the mass media. It’s an inevitable reaction some people will have to being kept in the dark – just like, as kids, we imagined monsters in the dark. But there’s precious little we can do about the source of the problem. All we can do is control our reactions to it, and only accept positive evidence, ie. “over two seconds of free-fall (something we know, ie. positive) indicates that Building 7 may have been demolished”, as opposed to negative evidence, such as “NIST are obviously covering something up (we don’t know what, ie. negative), so it must be controlled demolition”.

      • Paul Barbara

        1) Assumption of a preferred conclusion.
        I didn’t question the ‘Official Conspiracy Theory’ till 2004, when my attention was drawn to problems with that ‘narrative’.
        2) Crowbarring any available event (accidental death or death through illness being favourites) into being “evidence” of that preconceived conclusion.
        If deaths occur which are very convenient for the authorities, though not evidence, they can certainly be suspect.
        3) Using anything hidden or secret as such “evidence”, eg. using the actual evidence of a cover-up by NIST as evidence of pre-rigged explosives, dismissing other possibilities.
        The evidence for controlled demolition is unreacted thermitic material and tiny spherules of iron in the tested dust, and the over one hundred reports from First Responders of multiple explosions.
        4) Making public implications (ie. smears) of anyone questioning such dubious evidence that they’re “working for the conspiracy) – (Paul, you haven’t been doing this one, to your credit).
        There is a good case for referring to some people as ‘Gatekeepers’ if they ignore obvious anomalies in the ‘Official Narrative’.
        5) Siding with other conspiracy theorists against those sceptical of the assumed conclusion despite their positions being logically incompatible with one’s own. (Paul, again, not you, particularly.)
        It is perfectly proper to ally oneself with others who have many similar theories or beliefs, but who have some divergences.

        As an example of (2) above, take a case you are probably unaware of:
        ‘Joan Rivers Murdered For Exposing Michelle Obama As Tranny!! 2014’:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv5Xwa44u8A

        ‘Joan Rivers Dead Two Months After Calling Obama Gay, Michelle a Tranny’:
        http://www.infowars.com/joan-rivers-dead-two-months-after-calling-obam a-gay-michelle-a-tranny/

        ‘Joan Rivers’ Daughter Sues Medical Clinic Over Comedian’s Death’:
        http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/joan-rivers-daughter-sues-medical- clinic-over-comedians-death-20150127

        There is no doubt in my mind that Joan Rivers was murdered for exposing ‘Michelle’ Obama, but I accept it theoretically could be a ‘coincidence’. I know all too well that the US is run by criminals that would make Al Capone look mild in comparison.

        • lysias

          I remember believing the official account of 9/11 (to the extent even of thinking Iraq’s involvement in the anthrax attacks justified the attack on Iraq) until my reading at some point in 2003 of Andreas von Bülow’s Die CIA und der 11. September. Internationaler Terror und die Rolle der Geheimdienste [The CIA and 9/11: International Terrorism and the Role of the Intelligence Agencies] shook my confidence in that official account greatly, particularly because of Bülow’s previous career as a political official at the highest levels in defense and intelligence. At the same time, it was becoming apparent that there were no WMDs — and no anthrax — in Iraq. So I started reading David Ray Griffin’s books, and that was the end of any belief I might still have had in the official account.

    • Clark

      Paul,

      1) – It doesn’t matter when the assumption was made, it’s still an assumption, and untested.

      2) – The deaths you refer to were “very convenient for the authorities” only if your assumption is correct – you’re basing your suspicion on your conclusion, which is arse-about-face and conspiracy theory-type thinking. And if you agree that these aren’t evidence, you shouldn’t be presenting them as such because they might bias others – or do you want to bias others? Maybe you think it’s good to “make others question the official story”, but two wrongs don’t make a right; there’s nothing noble in this, just as it’s wrong for police to “fit someone up” for a crime. It’s truth that matters. Truth has to be homed in upon, and fixing a direction to argue in (or against) disrupts that. Finding the truth involves eliminating falsity. Trying to bolster something which might be false is unhelpful.

      3b) – The reports of explosions by first responders (and by members of the public) were dotted about throughout the day, whereas in a controlled demolition, all the explosives are detonated after the first ones which initiate collapse, and before the structure has completely fallen. Specifically, for the top-down collapses of the Twin Towers to have been caused deliberately by explosives, sequenced explosions would have had to be synchronised with the collapse front and I see no evidence of that. It’s absolutely nothing like a load of randomly timed explosions before the collapses began, so you shouldn’t conflate the two, and you certainly shouldn’t try to sway others with deliberate ambiguity.

      3a) – “unreacted thermitic material and tiny spherules of iron” – I didn’t mention this because my comment was about the existence of a “conspiracy theory mindset”, whereas such residues could serve as valid corroborative evidence. This comment is about misuse of non-evidence.

      4) No, there’s never a good reason to call a personal commenter a “gatekeeper”, though there may be a case for labelling prominent journalists as such.

      Think about it. The authorities and mass media present a particular general impression of events. It becomes part of culture; drama makes allusions to it and even questionable jokes are coined about it. Large numbers of people come to accept it and they confirm each other’s impressions. Let’s say one of these people, Sid Straight, were to enter our argument. Sid argues against controlled demolition. Sid had no idea that USAF routinely intercepted off-course aircraft, and when it’s mentioned he takes “intercept” to mean “shoot down”. Sid comments that no-plane and energy weapon theories seem quite daft. Then Kenny Konspiracist leaps in an calls Sid a “gatekeeper” or the like…

      …Now Sid knows very well that he isn’t some agent of a conspiracy. Isn’t Sid likely to think that Kenny is a “paranoid conspiracy theorist”? And you know what? He’d be absolutely right, wouldn’t he? Kenny was excessively suspicious, ie. paranoid, and accused Sid of being part of the conspiracy, so Kenny was being a paranoid conspiracy theorist, and he proved it to Sid.

      …Now imagine that other readers with ideas formed from the mainstream follow the exchange described above; what are they likely to think when Sid gets accused by Kenny? Can they imagine being in Sid’s position? Have accusations of “gatekeeping” helped or hindered?

      5) – “It is perfectly proper to ally oneself with others who have many similar theories or beliefs, but who have some divergences” – Yeah, like a load of conflicting religionists ganging up to attack evolution, science in general or women’s access to abortion. Also, who gets to decide which elements of the “official story” can be included in this reckoning? Because many of elements of the “official story” are similar to lots of elements from Truther stories, too.

      Regarding the Obamas, you’re saying that they’d have someone killed, but they don’t get videos taken off YouTube? You can’t even keep Unlawful Killing up on YouTube. And anyway, what you need to present evidence for is blackmail. It doesn’t matter if the Obamas are cleverly disguised giant nematode worms unless they’re under duress for it. You have to judge the President by his actions and integrity in office, not his sexuality. His record in office is dreadful, so why get everyone thinking about cocks and cunts? That’s what the fucking tabloids do! The tabloids use sex quite deliberately because they know it’s a very powerful distraction and disrupts logical thought. I hope that’s not your objective, too.
      _ _ _ _ _ _ _

      Paul, look, your comment basically states that you really don’t care about how you argue a case. You’re saying that you’re a conspiracy theorist and proud of it. So either you undertake to change your ways, or I’ll take to ignoring everything you post (except to occasionally take the piss) because life is too short to investigate every crackpot theory that the human species churns out. You know, the whole of 9/11 could have been done by the Flying Spaghetti Monster with his Noodly Appendage; no one can disprove it, and it doesn’t support the “official story”…

      Last chance. Read this again carefully, start making sense or I’ll ignore you henceforth.

      • Paul Barbara

        ‘Last chance. Read this again carefully, start making sense or I’ll ignore you henceforth’ –

        Suits me!

  • mog

    ‘Conspiracy theories should be neither believed nor investigated – that is the conventional wisdom. I argue that it is sometimes permissible both to investigate and to believe. Hence this is a dispute in the ethics of belief. I defend epistemic ‘oughts’ that apply in the first instance to belief-forming strategies that are partly under our control. I argue that the policy of systematically doubting or disbelieving conspiracy theories would be both a political disaster and the epistemic equivalent of self-mutilation, since it leads to the conclusion that history is bunk and the nightly news unbelievable. In fact (of course) the policy is not employed systematically but is only wheeled on to do down theories that the speaker happens to dislike. I develop a deductive argument from hard-to-deny premises that if you are not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ in my anodyne sense of the word then you are an ‘idiot’ in the Greek sense of the word, that is, someone so politically purblind as to have no opinions about either history or public affairs. The conventional wisdom can only be saved (if at all) if ‘conspiracy theory’ is given a slanted definition. I discuss some slanted definitions apparently presupposed by proponents of the conventional wisdom (including, amongst others, Tony Blair) and conclude that even with these definitions the conventional wisdom comes out as deeply unwise. I finish up with a little harmless fun at the expense of David Aaronvitch whose abilities as a rhetorician and a popular historian are not perhaps matched by a corresponding capacity for logical thought. ‘

    -abstract to a paper by philosopher Charles Pigden :
    http://philpapers.org/rec/PIGCTA-2

    ‘The term ‘conspiracy theory’ is invoked whenever someone ascribes conscious intent to people with power’

    -paraphrased from a video clip of Michael Parenti in this segment about the use and misuse of the term:

    https://vimeo.com/67967592

    At some point in the process of directing investigations -be they scientific or criminal investigations, the researcher HAS to make an assumption; they have to formulate through THINKING a pattern out of the evidence that is before them. The veracity of the resulting theory is based upon the degree of rigour with which that theory is tested. Also, whether it out-competes other theories in accounting for the totality of evidence.
    Almost all the testimonies I have read from 911 researchers state that they initially ASSUMED that the official narrative was correct in essence or in its totality, and that their encounter with evidence not addressed by that narrative led them to test the official story : to research intensively.
    The overriding message of the ‘911 Truth Movement’ has been that there needs to be a new independent and transparent inquiry, not that they have some handle on the truth of the matter. To pretend otherwise is just repeating a gross misrepresentation that has been made for over 12 years.

    • mog

      A case in point that is relevant today:

      ‘…a textbook PR spin pattern seen time and time again, what might be called the Snowden Cycle: X is a flaky conspiracy theory → X is revealed to be true → X is totally obvious and not newsworthy.’

      http://fair.org/home/with-dnc-leaks-former-conspiracy-theory-is-now-true-and-no-big-deal/

      Bandar was accused by ‘conspiracy theorists’ as being both at or close to the centre of the Washington elites’ world, and financially connected to the alleged hijackers. This is now substantiated by the papers released in Trump’s big news day, and…..

    • Clark

      Fair enough, but none of that has any bearing on my five points to Paul, which are about (1) making stuff out of nothing (eg. “Building 7 looks like it was demolished, therefore Jennings was murdered to silence him, therefore Building 7 must have been demolished…”) and (2) accusing anyone sceptical of such non-theory of being part of the conspiracy – it’s this second one particularly that turns it into conspiracy-theorising in the derogatory sense of the term.

      Like I said, I know that the term is exploited, but there is also a mind-set that deserves to be pointed out and thereby aids that exploitation.

      • mog

        There are examples of people who ‘make stuff out of nothing’, I agree. I just do not think that this is the exclusive or predominant domain of 911 skeptics. The key narrative of the 911 commission report is built upon the torture testimony (tapes of which were ‘lost’) of people who have never been charged with a crime – even today. Abu Zabaydah’s confessions must be now regarded in the light of the fact that the US authorities no longer claim that he had any connection to Al Qaeda. There is an equally prevalent case that there is a ‘state of mind’ of people who defend the official narrative through suggesting unfounded and ‘baroque’ theories to try and account for the anomalies. This is where we should start.
        My view is that all your five points can be equally levelled at the official version and its defenders, (the ‘official conspiracy theory’), so they are not much use in determining the veracity of one theory or another. The only way I know of determining such is to evaluate ALL the relevant evidence, cross check and cast an opinion on which theory fits best. I think that Griffin, K Ryan, MacQueen, Hopsicker, Jones, Harrit, The 911 Timeline, the linked 911 consensus panel et al; all these I think help toward this process. However, it is common tactic to focus on the speculative fringe theories and theorists whilst ignoring the work of honest and credible researchers. This is psuedoskepticism.

        • mog

          As concluded in the Metanoia Films clip linked above, there is no easy solution to this problem.
          The only comprehensive book length response to the work of Griffin et al that I am familiar with, is titled, ‘Debunking 9/11 Myths’. It is a deeply flawed book that confirms my point that the type of thinking that you outline is evident on both sides of the dispute, Griffin’s response is worth a read in this regard.
          I think that it is noteworthy that the Popular Mechanics book is endorsed by John McCain, the presidential hopeful who himself promoted an entirely falacious conspiracy theory as a political move to try and gain power. (Also mentioned in the clip above).

          • Clark

            Yes I agree that there is something much like “conspiracy theorising” on the “official story” side as well. I advance my five points as a way of judging commentators, and a way for commentators to judge their own approach to evidence, rather than a way of judging the validity of one “side” or another. ALL such self-referential arguments and paranoid criticisms are a damn nuisance.

  • Clark

    A question for pre-rigged demolition theorists. And I’m not “just asking questions”; the answer to this could matter, though I suppose the demolition theorists will all ignore it…

    If all three buildings were pre-rigged with demolition charges, why was Building 7 demolished about seven hours after the Twin Towers? If “they” wanted to pass off demolitions as building collapses, wouldn’t the best time to bring Building 7 down have been just as WTC 1 was hitting the ground?

    • Bobm

      “”If “they” wanted to pass off demolitions as building collapses, wouldn’t the best time to bring Building 7 down have been just as WTC 1 was hitting the ground?””

      No: as Bldg 7 wasn’t hit by a plane there had to be another “source”..the fire caused by collateral damage from the twin towers.

      The improbability..impossibility of this explanation underpins the work of these people:
      http://www.ae911truth.org/

      • Clark

        Yes I suppose waiting for fire to do its work could be a plausible reason.

        Do check the structure of Building 7 though. It wasn’t your normal skyscraper at all. Bit of a bodge job in a number of respects.

        • Clark

          Bobm, actually there’s a problem with this, as in “who was it intended to fool?”

          The moment that the nearest Tower hit the ground would have seemed most right to non-technical observers. Waiting seven hours for fire to weaken the building would only be necessary if the deception was designed to fool professional investigators such as NIST. But all the comments I’ve seen from pre-rigged explosives theorists say that NIST was part of the conspiracy anyway.

    • mog

      I do not know. On the face of it it would have seemed the time I agree.
      It could have been an error of execution (as suggested by Harrit).
      It could have been a move of psychological warfare – i.e. they HAVE passed off all three collapses as fire induced, and to contest that is still to be regarded as an outsider, not to be taken seriously. This could be an assertion of power through insisting that even scientific authorities accept the ‘absurd’ (my definition).
      It could involve other reasons that would only become apparent if/ when the whole thing were thoroughly investigated.
      It seems clear that someone in the know was confident that the building was coming down and roughly when, and that efforts were made to cover it up- or at least divert atttention away from it.

      • lysias

        How does BBC’s mistaken reporting that WTC7 had already fallen a half an hour before it fell fit into the timing?

      • Clark

        Mog: – “they HAVE passed off all three collapses as fire induced”

        Not quite. Fire and damage. But this is far more convincing for the Twin Towers, because lots of fire and damage was concentrated in the aircraft impact zones, and this is exactly where each building initially failed.

        Mog: – “It could have been a move of psychological warfare” – or perception management…

        Lysias: – “How does BBC’s mistaken reporting […] fit into the timing?”

        Yes and Larry Silverstein’s very odd “pull it” remark; why on Earth would he say something like that? Would I be paranoid to suspect that someone may have been drawing attention to Building 7, both after and before its collapse?

        • Clark

          Even TomK said that NIST had great difficulty coming up with an explanation for Building 7’s behaviour. I think he said it “surprised everyone”. It’s certainly the one that most puzzles me.

          • Clark

            Here’s the comment of TomK’s that I referred to:

            http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-61/#comment-276533

            – “Once WTC2 collapsed, I then expected that WTC1 would collapse also.
            – And I was not at all surprised when WTC7 collapsed.
            – The comment about WTC1 showed my experience. The comment about
            – WTC7 showed my ignorance, because it ultimately surprised everyone”

            And in a later comment:

            “WTC7 surprised everyone. Because everyone expected that the collapse
            – was due to the physical damage from WTC1 falling on it.
            – That was not the cause.
            – People also expected that the oil stored in the diesel tanks contributed to the fires.
            – They did not. Virtually all the oil was accounted for & removed during the clean up.
            – WTC7 surprised everyone to such a degree that they had to set the analysis aside.
            – Because it became clear that their original theories just did not hold up to scrutiny.
            – But the failure mode was NOT obvious. And ultimately they found a serious
            – design flaw in the building.

            Glenn, you really should go back and look at TomK’s comments again; the ones about mechanics, not the more general ones. Specifically, his replies to me seem the most informative.

        • Clark

          Does anyone know where to find records of when and where mains electricity failed on 9/11?

          Paul, can you remember what Jennings said about electrical power while he was in Building 7?

        • Clark

          Looking for TomK’s “Building 7 surprised everyone” comment, I found the following one, which I find pretty convincing in terms of mechanics. Note, however, the “IMO, a real weak point” remark – so even TomK acknowledged that Building 7 had a particular weakness. TomK’s ability in mechanics far surpasses my own, but my “intuition in mechanics”mostly agrees:

          https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post/comment-page-62/#comment-276570

          On the other hand, weak points can be exploited.

          • fwl

            Who is the black man, who Barry Jennings introduced in that initial interview and what did that mean when he said that at the time BJ and Hesse were on the 8th floor the back side had been blown away?

            When dud the others, who were previously on the 21st floor leave and have they given statements?

  • Maxter

    Molten steel and underground inferno type temperatures plus multiple explosions are sadly just not enough evidence for some people!

  • Chris Jones

    Clark,whomever you are, the court of public opinion has already been passed on this, you or no one else have been able to disprove the reality of the crime that happened – you and others like you are the worst conspiracy theorist/anti truthers out there, sadly.

    Let’s therefore stay with logic. As mentioned, I’ve not seen any valid evidence as to why 9/11 wasn’t an inside job. I would have to again therefore conclude that the overwhelming evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that 9/11 was indeed an inside job or was done with the complicit knowledge of the relevant authorities. This is by now the mainstream public opinion – the people who try to sell the ‘it wasn’t an inside job’ have ironically become the nutty conspiracy theorists whilst the conspiracy realists (as in it is/was obviously a conspiracy against the people and nation of the USA) have become the people that most people now generally believe.

    We now need experts on common law to step up and form Grand Juries in order to start prosecuting the people who were part of and/or complicit in this crime

    • Kempe

      ” you or no one else have been able to disprove the reality of the crime that happened ”

      Ahh you see, you cannot disprove it so therefore it must be true!

      Here comes that teapot on another orbit…

      • Node

        Kempe

        Do you accept the official explanation for why NORAD didn’t intercept any of the 4 airplanes?

      • Uzmark

        I think Chris Jones should have put it the other way around: the obvious explanation is that it was an inside job and it is up to people who disagree to prove it was actually a beardy guy in a cave

    • Clark

      Chris Jones, I can’t disprove that 9/11 wasn’t an inside job, and you can’t disprove it wasn’t the Flying Spaghetti monster.

      So how do we tell which is true?

    • Clark

      Uzmark, August 1 10:49; very sensible comment.

      Chris Jones, I’ve made clear what I think, right here on this thread, for YEARS. I think that 9/11 bears all the hallmarks of neoconservative involvement. That’s a lot more specific than vague waffling about an “inside job”. But I do not think the Twin Towers were pre-rigged with demolition charges, because I see no evidence for that.

      What’s your problem? You seem to think that the crime was the destruction of buildings, but in fact it was mass murder. And you think I’m in on it do you? So if I know that I’m not, what do you think I think of you? Idiotic and libellous, maybe?

      Node, similar goes for you. What the fuck is the point of chasing the unidentifiable commenter called Kempe? Taking out your frustration on a target that happens to be visible? Theories need to be tested and it would make far more sense to make use of Kempe’s scepticism for that purpose.

      We don’t know what happened to NORAD because the evidence was destroyed. We do know that the proprietary software used by government agencies is full of back doors.

      • Chris Jones

        Clark, I don’t know why your resorting to name calling and silly ad hominem. As mentioned in my previous list of points which summarise why this was a criminal offence and mass murder, the overwhelming evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that 9/11 was indeed an inside job or was done with the complicit knowledge of the relevant authorities. This includes the point that it was likely the latest high energy/nuclear weapons that were used and that the explosive trail is largely a red herring. Evidence that proves a crime beyong a reasonable doubt is how such cases work in the USA of course, and it is therefore up to anyone who disgarees to disprove that original finding. This is how the 9/11 attacks have to be looked at now because it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that this was a crime done ‘from within’ (add whatever description you prefer)

        You call it as bearing all the hallmarks of neoconservative involvement – great…Inside job/ neoconservative involvement – let’s not let silly semantics get in the way. Even if you disagree with any particular detail of how it was done, let’s not let that stop us looking at the bigger picture of who was involved and how they can be put to justice. Because that now is the most important thing. Argument on the ins and out of how you believe it was done shouldn’t take away from people agreeing on the bigger picture and how justice can be sought for the victims and for the crime.

        I’m sure the wikipedia page is very interesting but the whole ‘cosmic teapot’ thing is a bit studenty smug. It doesn’t win you any arguments to call people you disagree with names. And it does you no benefit to be so churlish and rather prickly. I don’t think such passive aggressiveness by a moderator does the site any favours. Especially as we both essentially seem to agree yet you choose to polarise me in your own mind and assume and presume that I have beliefs that you have no idea I have or not. Please don’t become a lawyer anytime soon! This discussion needs to be evidence based, don’t let your emotions and pressumptions get in the way. The world hasn’t time for this Clark! Things are getting serious and we need unity against all bad folk, period.

        We both agree that this was done by criminals within the American/western system and their affiliates rather than who we were told were responsible. So lets be positive and go after the bad guys instead of nit picking and polarising

  • Clark

    Ah, Node. Do you still think I should apologise for being rude when I was accused of being accessory to mass murder?

    What’s Kempe supposed to have done wrong? He’s quite right to cite Russell’s Cosmic Teapot. Chris Jones can’t disprove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn’t do 9/11, therefore it’s as valid as Jones’ argument. There’s a teapot out there, a teapot, I tell you!

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

    C’mon, Node. We’re having to put up with Jim on the front thread, and he’s doing exactly the same thing as Chris Jones did above.

    Chris Jones, I envy your blissful omniscience and all the support you get from the fearless truth-tellers who bolster your reality-defining ego. You’re an empire now. You make your own reality. My name is Clark Killick and you’ll find my name in the Chelmsford telephone book and electoral register. I am not a Freemason, but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

    • Node

      Since you ask …. as I remember it, and I ain’t going back to wade through it again …. I think ex ex pat initially made some comment to the effect that you were ‘working for the other side’ but you had a go at him and he apologised and said he believed your heart was in the right place. He then made a visible and prolonged effort to have a real dialogue with you, answering your questions and trying to get you to answer his.

      At first it went well, there was a friendly tone, even a bit of banter. Then you started getting a bit prickly with him, as you are inclined to do with everybody who disagrees with you which is why I refuse to argue with you. He ignored a few barbs from you and persisted in trying to keep the dialogue on track. Then, I don’t remember the exact sequence, whether you started it and Glenn_uk joined in, or possibly the other way round, but the pair of you launched into a sarcastic double act about nut-job hologram-spotters with tin foil knobs on, specifically aimed at ex pat. Even if there’d been justification for characterising him like that, which I don’t believe there was, it would have been a rude and cruel way to treat somebody who was trying to be friendly to you.

      So yes, I still think you owe ex ex pat an apology …. since you ask.

      • Clark

        Node, your recollection is at fault. Exexpat got upset when I found advertising for independent bands on the septemberclues.info site that he gets his “media fakery not aircraft” theories from. I note that you never argued against any of that nonsense, nor John Goss’s holograms stuff, distortion of a court case regarding the BBC license fee (which your target Kempe corrected), nor direct lies from John about his own comments! Oh no, that’s all sacred, but Kempe became fair game when he pointed out an obvious logical fallacy from Chris Jones…

        What happened was that I watched some of the bands advertised on septemberclues.info and found them to be very cynical, provocative punk rock. Nothing wrong with that in fact I like that sort of music, but it led me to speculate that Simonshack, who’s behind the septemberclues site, didn’t really give a damn about truth, and was too intelligent to believe the bullshit his site promotes. I posted comments about this and Exexpat got upset.

        Then Tony_Opmoc (I think) posted about 9/11 on the front thread, and Exexpat responded with this:

        “Brilliant Tony.

        There is definite evidence of enforcement of this “reality” in this thread. Even my comment has been deleted on the main thread.

        In fact if you present video evidence to the contrary that clearly demonstrates employed media fakery you will be tag-team trolled, smeared, bullied, abused, ridiculed etc. Funny how quick to defend the official account they are too. Sometimes within minutes.

        So there we are; I was again being accused, by a bigot, of working to cover up mass murder. You, Node, have posted no criticism of holograms, no-plane theories, misrepresentation of court judgements, bigotry etc., but you can be bothered to have a go after Kempe, apparently in retaliation for him pointing out a classic logical absurdity. Therefore, you’re currently consistent with my description of paranoid 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

        C’mon, Node! You’re intelligent and you value facts. You can do better than this.

        • Node

          You asked, I answered. That’s it.
          For the rest, you do it your way and PLEASE stop telling me I should do it your way too.

          • Clark

            Huh. So you can tell me to apologise to an anti-Semite who says that no one died at 9/11 but calls me a conspirator, but I’m to leave you to hound someone who points out a logical fallacy. Yes I can see that’s entirely unbiased. Sorry, sorry; I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.

  • Clark

    Look, a few eccentrics have claimed that without explosives, the building collapses violate classical mechanics. They’re just WRONG, but it’s become a sort of religion with heresy punishable by being labelled a conspirator.

    Huge multinational companies and regulatory bodies told us that nuclear reactors could never blow up and melt down. There were a hell of a lot more physicists and engineers among them than there are saying that the three WTC buildings couldn’t have collapsed. Should we believe them? Hint: Chernobyl, Fukushima.

    A load of people seem to be wilfully neglecting Murphy’s law.

    • mog

      ‘They’re just WRONG’ .

      That reads like a religious statement to me.

      I don’t think you are a conspirator, and to keep saying that is a straw man argument. I just think that you are more interested in crapflooding this thread in the hope that you will be seen as ‘right’, rather than any genuine attempt at uncovering the truth.

      If you had posted a response to the arguments of Chandler, Jones and others, or a link to an article or book written by credible and qualified people who have responded, then I would take you seriously. You haven’t.
      If you had responded to the arguments by various other academics which I and others have linked to over the weeks (911consensus panel, 911 in academia.com, Toronto Report), then I would believe that you are an open minded and thoughtful inquirer, but you haven’t. Instead you spew out rather supercilious and occasionally pugnacious rants and label thousands of engineers, architects, academics and professionals from a dozen relevant fields as ‘a few eccentrics’. Why should anyone take what you say seriously?

      There are grounds for criticism for any theory; there must be, but other than the repeated speculations of anonymous comment threads and silly books by Aaronovich and Popular Mechanics, WHERE IS THAT CRITICISM?

      • Clark

        I have criticised Chandler’s stuff myself. I have considered the structure and dynamics of the collapses of the Twin Towers. It is a broad-brush sort of consideration, but a considerably finer brush than Chandler uses. Chandler treats each collapse as “two blocks” and considers acceleration. It’s TOO CRUDE. He’s “proved” that NOTHING can accelerate down through a structure that previously supported it. Gage just misrepresents. YOU misrepresented my description of the collapse dynamics in order to ridicule it – you were playing to the gallery.

        I have considered the scale model presented weeks back, and pointed out that no compensation was made for our inability to vary the gravitational constant to match the rest of the scaling.

        Look, if you can’t do the mechanics your only other option is to go with the majority. I have enough mechanics to make some inroads. Years ago, my starting point was tentative acceptance of Gage, Jones, and Chandler’s etc. theories, but they don’t hold up. Chandler has done some good measurement. Ironically his findings have helped to convince me that Building 7’s collapse also didn’t involve explosives (I haven’t commented about that so far). I’ve looked at the collapse dynamics honestly, concluded that the buildings could collapse and done my best to explain my thinking here. I’m open to questions. I’m independent and my job and livelihood are not under threat from this.

        Actually, you don’t need any familiarity with mechanics to assess Gage. He just lies. He keeps reverting to his claims that the Tower collapse fronts accelerated at g and that the buildings collapsed into their own footprints, both of which are observably false. He retracts when challenged but then says it again later.

        • Clark

          I have also invited others to participate in an exercise of scaling the Twin Towers down by 100 to 1, and considering their resilience in a gravitational field scaled up by 1 to 100 to compensate. No one took me up on this collaboration, so I abandoned the idea.

          Thanks for the “crapflooding” remark. Fuck you, too 🙂 I do actually attempt some physics, mechanics, scaling, consideration of the structures etc. It’s not my fault that you lot would rather insult me than engage.

      • Clark

        Mog, you wrote “That reads like a religious statement to me”.

        No, it’s the statement at the heart of scientific enquiry – the disproof of theory.

        You wrote “WHERE IS THAT CRITICISM?

        …and I answer, right here. I myself have criticised the theories you mention, right here on this thread, spread over pages and pages now. If I cite, for instance, Bazant and Zhou, you’ll just dismiss it again as “official disinfo”. So I did my own thinking, but that just gets me dismissed as “crapflooding”.

        • mog

          ‘And I answer, right here…’

          Oh thanks, I can rest assured that US foreign policy rests on the solid foundation of ‘”Clark’s” analysis.

          [Add hubris to the list.]

          • Clark

            OK, Bazant and Zhou then… Oh, and TomK (supercilious git though he is) who visited this thread. And a whole bunch of others, and over 90% of the physics and engineering professions, and all the Russian and Chinese engineers and physicists who could equally pull a false US story apart, and all the undergraduates and those doing PhDs who could become instantly famous by refuting Bazant and Zhou…

            I thought I’d criticised neocon foreign policy, but I must be wrong if you say so.

          • Clark

            “Don’t rely on official sources”

            “No, I examined it myself”

            “Hubris!”

            Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t. When are you going to realise that you’re just a conspiracy theorist? Your illogic is staring you in the face.

          • Clark

            Anyway, you missed my real point, which was about Murphy’s law. Academics who say something can break or go wrong are more likely to be right than those that say that failure is impossible.

  • Clark

    People get stuff wrong all the time; it’s no big deal. What’s remarkable is that a cumulative, systematic approach enables us to get so much right. Central to that approach is the right to question. So who supports the Catholic authorities’ treatment of Galileo? Because that’s what Truthers do when they try to silence or discredit anyone who questions any Truther’s pet nonsense.

    • Paul Barbara

      As an ex-Catholic, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s the persecutors of Galileo which you most resemble – accepting the ‘official narrative’ or ‘official conspiracy theory’ against masses of contrary evidence.
      And you can’t even plead ignorance! The evidence is there, but you dismiss it out of hand.

      Do you believe, or purport to believe, Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK?

      • Clark

        Paul, since when was it the official story to say that 9/11 looks most like other neocon covert operations?

        I thought that the official story blamed al Qaeda, and that the corporate propaganda pinned it on Osama bin Laden, who was not named in the official reports and was never charged in connection with 9/11.

        So please explain your accusation against me more clearly. Then you should tell me whodunit, and point out the evidence that proves it.

        • Clark

          I’ve never looked into the assassination of Kennedy. I’ve seen the “magic bullet” theory and found it nearly impossibly unlikely. I know that a later inquiry overturned some findings of the earlier one.

          But you see I’m not particularly interested in such stuff because much of the evidence has been hidden, making it impossible to come to detailed conclusions. On the other hand I am quite good at physics and mechanics and in those fields strong conclusions are possible, so I’m trying to do you all a favour here; the WTC buildings most likely collapsed due to damage and fire, which might help you by ruling out a load of false leads.

          • Clark

            Afterthought – note that it’s the “magic bullet” theory I find unconvincing – my interest in physical dynamics again, see?

          • Paul Barbara

            ‘..So please explain your accusation against me more clearly. Then you should tell me whodunit, and point out the evidence that proves it.’

            The ‘official narrative’, also known as the ‘official conspiracy theory’, is the one spread by the government and MSM. That seems fairly clear, so no clarification should be necessary, though as you see I’ve taken the trouble to repeat it. Also just as clear, is that Galileo was right, and was willing to demonstrate his ‘theory’, whereas the PTB at the time, Church and State, refused to assess the evidence, and instead forced him to retract; once again, the similarities should be obvious – the PTB forced their erroneous ‘narrative’ over Galileo’s truth.
            So, here, the government and MSM are the equivalent of the church, maintaining a BS story, and the Truthers (or a lot of them) are spreading what’s known of the truth, the equivalent of Galileo. So, you can’t see what I said in my post above is correct? You appeared to be equating Galileo withe the ‘official narrative’, instead of with the Truthers.
            As for ‘who dun it’, that isn’t for me to prove: all I do is blast massive holes in the ‘official narrative’ , and when I provide video, book links or documentary proofs, or at least much more likely truths than the ‘official narrative’, you generally refuse to watch or read them, having spent enough time looking at videos. But you can’t help spending a lot of time on here, reiterating your meager ‘quite good at physics and mechanics ‘ ‘credentials, against 2,500+ professional architects and engineers. I’m surprised you don’t get fed up chasing your tail, and repeating again and again about your ‘supposed’ physical and mechanical prowess vis-a-vis the Twin Towers and Bldg. 7.
            And if the ‘magic bullet’ is the only thing you have so far found unconvincing about the JFK assassination, fair enough. I’m not going to try to ‘educate’ you of the mass of other evidence and circumstantial evidence, which even Jack Ruby said shortly before he died of intentional injection of cancer cells by his notorious ‘doctor’ would be the end of Democracy in the USA, and would lead to a Fascist takeover. Like I said, I’m not wasting my time – if you’re interested in JFK, YOU do the research (I know you’ve said you’re not too interested in it).

          • Clark

            Paul Barbara, the US government reports and the stuff in the mass media are not the same, so you haven’t defined what you mean by the “official story”. For instance, you’d never guess from the more populist media that Osama bin Laden was never charged in connection with 9/11. Conversely, many of the anomalies cited by Truthers were gleaned from mainstream news outlets.

            I have watched hours and hours of videos, and written transcripts of parts. I have examined them carefully, with the same critical approach as I give so-called mainstream reports. I have watched them a damn sight more carefully than my critics on this thread – for instance, I noted that Jennings went over the same story twice, and his two versions contradict each other.

            No one has answered my very simple questions about collapse dynamics, for instance, how a floor that’s designed to hold four times its own weight is expected to withstand more than ten floors-worth of rubble impacting on it. You really don’t need much physics to answer that. I’ve addressed momentum arguments using the standard momentum equations available from any text book.

            Your criticisms of my arguments are false.

          • Clark

            Regarding the Jennings video. In his first, spontaneous account, at one point Jennings says something like “you look one way and the building was there, look the other and the building was gone“, but then when questioned later by the interviewer he said that both Towers were in the same state (standing or fallen I can’t remember. You check it for a change).

            I’m not criticising Jennings, incidentally. It must have been one of the most intense, overwhelming and traumatic days of his life, and I’m not the least surprised that his emotional and rational recollections differ; that’s common in traumatic circumstances. The point is that you can’t just pick the one that suits your theory; honesty demands that you acknowledge both versions, and work out what’s what by reference to other facts.

          • Clark

            And you too missed my point about Murphy’s law. Academics, engineers etc. who say that something can break are more likely to be right than those who claim that failure is impossible.

  • Dave

    The complicity at the top required for such an attack to happen and the influence to cover it up, at least officially, throughout the mainstream media, is evidence it was an inside job. To then say prove it, implies it hasn’t been proved already and confuses knowing what happened with getting confessions and convictions of those responsible, which is a bit difficult if those responsible at the top have the influence to stop an investigation into themselves. And so it will remain until there is a change at the top which could happen as the public revolt against the lies that have permeated governance.

    • Paul Barbara

      The following witness would, I’m sure, be willing to get up in any court, in Congress and the Senate, and give her testimony.
      The PTB incarcerated her, without trrial, for 5 years, and silenced her for 10 years, but now she can speak, and she shold be heard around the world.
      Susan Lindauer book: ‘Extreme Prejudice: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq ‘.
      The following is her testimony; the first half hour or so is dynamite; when she speaks of what she knows; but her theories for stuff she has no direct knowledge of I disagree with:
      CIA Asset Susan Lindauer Can Now Speak 10 years after 9-11:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGI4jfwOmOk

      • Paul Barbara

        Correction to my post, she was inarcerated for one year, then gagged for another nine years.

      • lysias

        That happened even though Lindauer was a member of the American political class: daughter of a Republican candidate for the governorship of Alaska, cousin of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and a former asset of the CIA.

  • Chris Jones

    Clark, I don’t know why your resorting to name calling and silly ad hominem. As mentioned in my previous list of points which summarise why this was a criminal offence and mass murder, the overwhelming evidence proves beyond all reasonable doubt that 9/11 was indeed an inside job or was done with the complicit knowledge of the relevant authorities. This includes the point that it was likely the latest high energy/nuclear weapons that were used and that the explosive trail is largely a red herring. Evidence that proves a crime beyong a reasonable doubt is how such cases work in the USA of course, and it is therefore up to anyone who disgarees to disprove that original finding. This is how the 9/11 attacks have to be looked at now because it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that this was a crime done ‘from within’ (add whatever description you prefer)

    You call it as bearing all the hallmarks of neoconservative involvement – great…Inside job/ neoconservative involvement – let’s not let silly semantics get in the way. Even if you disagree with any particular detail of how it was done, let’s not let that stop us looking at the bigger picture of who was involved and how they can be put to justice. Because that now is the most important thing. Argument on the ins and out of how you believe it was done shouldn’t take away from people agreeing on the bigger picture and how justice can be sought for the victims and for the crime.

    I’m sure the wikipedia page is very interesting but the whole ‘cosmic teapot’ thing is a bit studenty smug. It doesn’t win you any arguments to call people you disagree with names. And it does you no benefit to be so churlish and rather prickly. I don’t think such passive aggressiveness by a moderator does the site any favours. Especially as we both essentially seem to agree yet you choose to polarise me in your own mind and assume and presume that I have beliefs that you have no idea I have or not. Please don’t become a lawyer anytime soon! This discussion needs to be evidence based, don’t let your emotions and pressumptions get in the way. The world hasn’t time for this Clark! Things are getting serious and we need unity against all bad folk, period.

    We both agree that this was done by criminals within the American/western system and their affiliates rather than who we were told were responsible. So lets be positive and go after the bad guys instead of nit picking and polarising

    • Clark

      So, to summarise:

      The aircraft were video effects, all the public’s video recording devices were disabled by RFI, no one died, the WTC buildings were pre-rigged for demolition. (Exexpat)

      The aircraft were sci-fi holograms that can project into mid air and make holes in buildings. (John Goss)

      The aircraft were missiles. (can’t remember who)

      The buildings were pre-rigged for demolition (Node, Paul Barbara, Mog, Glenn, too many others to remember) by a German performance art group as proven by some numbers printed on cardboard boxes and one of them had the same name as a removal company. (can’t remember who)

      The buildings were nuked or hit by energy weapons. (Chris Jones)

      BUT. All of the above (except for Glenn) have no criticism of each other’s theories which differ only in “details” (?!) and most agree that the legitimate targets, for being gatekeepers, are Clark and Kempe, along with hundreds of thousands in the science and engineering professions and academia, and the Russian and Chinese governments and all their secret services, purely because they think that damaged, flaming buildings CAN fall down, right? And nearly all the above are concerned with BUILDINGS rather than PEOPLE.

      And you reckon Truthers are going to be taken seriously enough to get a new investigation? Yeah, right!

        • Chris Jones

          Of course, that’s a possibility we’d have to consider as well-after all the globalists have long ago dismissed any notion of nation states, countries or borders

          • Clark

            Chris, I myself would like to see a world without borders, where all of us humans could travel, live and work wherever we like. We’ve a way to go yet; it will require global equality, with all the nation states to subject to an expanded international law.

            One macroscopic reason for suspecting that 9/11 was a neocon plot is the wars it was used to promote – wars by one group of nation states against others less under their influence. Another is the laws 9/11 was used as an excuse to impose, the Patriot Act, obviously, and the new “anti-terrorism” laws imposed by the British nation state.

            It’s ironic that you look to global conspiracies like the Illuminati as the architects of 9/11. Actually, neoconservatism is a US/Western foreign policy to control territory in the Middle East, denying that territory to Russia, in competition for dwindling oil (and gas) reserves, as can be seen quite clearly from the following map; hydrocarbon deposits in the middle, US presence to the south, Russian presence to the north. Between them, those two great powers have the oil surrounded, and they fight over the countries for as much oil-bearing area as they can secure:

            http://www.killick1.plus.com/map.jpg

            There is a conspiracy of sorts of the elite. Their world is already without borders; the stinking rich can go anywhere, visas are no problem for them. To them it’s all a game, to some extent, with the lives of ordinary people as game-pieces, expendable. But the competition is real. The Russian elite wouldn’t have done 9/11 because it works to their disadvantage by encouraging the US population to vote for and not oppose US aggression. Rather, the Russian elite do their own false flag(ish) operations in Russia.

            I wrote “False flagish” because Al Qaeda isn’t really a flag. A proper false flag attack is when the government of one country arranges an attack such that it seems to be the work of another. 9/11 was more subtle than that. Al Qaeda under its multitudinous names, with its root in the religious side of the Saudi power structure, has been used as a covert Western proxy asset against Russian influence, over and over again for decades:

            https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bitter+lake

          • glenn_uk

            If you have no borders, you don’t have any countries either in any meaningful sense of the word.

            We’ve seen what homogenisation has done for the high street. One standard box-brand outlet after another. What we have at the moment is the worst of all worlds – free movements of goods and money, but not for people.

            All the same – you surely agree that the Cotswolds, for example, is a far more agreeable place to live than huge areas of impoverished China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and so on. Would it be perfectly OK for a couple of billion of the inhabitants of these places to relocate to the Cotswolds, as far as you are concerned? Since it’s presumably a human right, should we not facilitate their doing so, and of course treat them like any other established resident once they arrive?

      • Chris Jones

        Clark, you’re doing a disservice to this site by presuming what people say and think and by polarising this important subject matter. We both agree that this was done by criminals within the American/western ruling elite and their global affiliates rather than who we were told were responsible. So lets be positive and go after the bad guys. If you genuinely care about justice and morality, then I believe you and everyone else who cares should first look at points to agree on rather than endlessly looking for points to disagree with.

        If you genuinely care, then we can agree on the general principle and the evidence showing beyond all reasonable doubt that this was an inside job (insert whatever alternative term /description you prefer) that was carried out by highly skilled criminal operators using the best available technology (on which opinions can differ) and with the complicit assistance of most of the mainstream media and many false leaders in alternative media in selling the narrative/narratives.

        If you are unable to agree with this broad take then one would have to deduce that you’re desperate to flatter yourself by getting people to suspect that you’r an ingenious Machiavellian gatekeeper. Or that you simply get off on being the self flagellating martyr throwing pearls before swine and having to suffer for the truth in the face of persecution from cosmic teapots or whatever else you belive people with a different opinion to you are.

        • glenn_uk

          Chris: The worst thing anyone can do, if they want genuine debate, is pile on one poster and make them feel they’ve got their back against the wall. All they can do is defend, and lash out, when that happens.

          I don’t agree with a few points Clark is making in this thread, but I don’t have the time or energy to devote to it right now. I’m willing to argue the toss, but not get down on the mat to start wrestling – I hope you appreciate the analogy.

          However, I do urge you to take Clark at face value. He’s an incredible resource against which to check your assumptions, and is generously accommodating here.

          Please try to leave out the unkind suspicions, about being a gatekeeper (or a pretend/wannabe gatekeeper), and we’ll get the best from him. Let’s test our theories about the destruction of the Twin Towers, but at the same time, don’t feel obliged to advance a watertight theory yourself. It’s not invoking the logical fallacy of Argument from Incredulity, if the Official Story is the only game in town, and when a bullet-proof account (demanded from you) is being presented as the false choice of any possible alternative.

          • Chris Jones

            glenn_uk – See respones below etc. I don’t feel obliged to do anything and always recommend keeping an open and inquisitive mind. My main point here is that there is now overwhelming evidence beyond all reasonable doubt about this being an inside job so we therefore have to stop wasting time squabbling and agree on the bigger picture in order to put those responsible to justice. The moderator Clark’s often inability and unwillingness to find common ground on this particular subject matter and the resulting passive aggresiveness is not helpful whatever those reasons are. This is a justice matter now, not a personal point scoring excersise. Time is short etc etc

          • Clark

            Chris Jones, would you PLEASE stop calling me a moderator. I quit years ago because I couldn’t take the personal abuse from some commenters – I came under spam attack. If you’re trying to expose the personal identities of moderators then you’re no friend of this site.

          • Clark

            Jon, the other former moderator, also suffered much personal abuse. Not only did he quit, you may have noticed that he doesn’t even comment here any more.

      • Node

        I have never said what you said I said. This is the 4th time on this thread that you have misrepresented my opinions. Each of the other times I have corrected you, yet you have done it again. You want to provoke me into attacking you. I’m not going to.

        • Clark

          Node, sorry. No, I’m not trying to provoke. I probably just overgeneralised. Now that you remind me and I recollect specifically, you regard the period of free-fall of Building 7 as proof of demolition, and following from that, the demolition of Building 7 as grounds for suspicion of demolition of the Twin Towers. One of the most logical positions of anyone on this thread, as I’d expect from you.

          It does get a bit difficult to remember all the conflicting theories and who holds to which. And, frustratingly, they’re all about what happened rather than who was responsible. Demolition says little about who was responsible. No one has come up with any credible suspects, though a team would have been needed, at least for the Towers. Building 7 looks a lot easier because of its decidedly flaky design, but that also makes a fire-and-damage collapse more likely too.

          I suspect you have reasonable ability in physics, so I’ll run these by you:

          Using explosives to make the Towers collapse as recorded would be very difficult. Somehow, explosions to initiate collapse would have to be induced at the impact zones. Either multiple floors would have to be rigged or the aircraft targeted to the rigged floors. If the buildings were not capable of collapse as recorded (I think I’ve shown that they were) then sequenced explosions would have been necessary, but we don’t hear that on any of the videos.

          If the effect we saw couldn’t happen without assistance, the easiest way to make it happen would be to load the top floors with extra weight. This could be done by hiring office space and setting up regular mail orders for heavy things – much more discrete than a demolition team.

          Arguments about insufficient gravitational potential energy are a bit silly because the energy from a full demolition rig would be small compared with the gravitational potential energy of the buildings, which was equivalent to a small nuke. I’ve read this but not checked it (please explain to Mog that I’m actually capable of such a calculation), but then it isn’t really my job, is it? Those who favour demolition should to do it, surely?

          Finally, I read something the other day that shifted my balance of probabilities away from demolition for Building 7. Would you like me to tell you or shall I keep schtum? I still think the BBC and Silverstein’s announcements were dead weird – were either or both a mistake? Or something else?

    • Chris Jones

      I can agree with most of that Clark – did you perhaps assume that I’d somehow defend Neoconservatism!? Although I think a world without borders ‘where all of us humans could travel, live and work wherever we like’ is perhaps a nice idea but it is also the wet dream of neo liberalism and the globalist transnational corporations as they go round the world asset stripping countries whilst forcing workers wages down as low as possible. Such, (I’m presuming) well intentioned naivety would play beautifully in to their hands.

      I’d say that it’s also naive to believe that the very real plan for global hegemony is confined to the US/Western powers – a great deal of it is but not all. There are elements cooperating across continents and transnationally as mentioned above – these are the supranational corporations, NGO’s and elements within governments globally who have a vested interest in gaining order out of chaos in cahoots with others of similar standing across the world . Yes, to them the world is already borderless and a grand chess board. And there is still competition amongst thieves of course. Remember it was the same international bankers and their subsidiaries who funded both the Russian revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union (and China’s Mao) as well as the USA and a great deal of the west’s rise – a paradigm of controlling both sides that can be repeated unless countries refuse to take part-hopefully something that will happen increasingly but is not without it’s own problems.

      Lets get back to 9/11.I’d like to invite you to agree on the general principle and evidence showing beyond all reasonable doubt that this was an inside job (insert whatever alternative term /description you prefer) that was carried out by highly skilled criminal operators using the best available technology (on which opinions can differ) and with the complicit assistance of most of the mainstream media and many false leaders in alternative media in selling the narrative/narratives. Wouldn’t that be a good place to start from?

      • Clark

        No, I didn’t think you’d defend neoconservatism. I’ve really only got crotchety because I felt ganged up on by people who’s only real agreement seems to be that me and Kempe are fair game. Hey, we aren’t the enemy! Kempe’s not so bad, you know (see link); he just doesn’t say some of the things people want him to:

        http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/07/killings-tony-blair/comment-page-6/#comment-616923

        Technology – well I don’t think it took much to bring down the three buildings; the Towers were incredibly tall for their construction era, over-ambitious I’d say (typically corporate) and their strength was nothing like it was cracked up to be by Gage etc. No need for nukes at all. Building 7 was an outright bodge – look it up, you’ll be horrified.

        A load of US authorities’ computers ran Microsoft, who at the time provided the least secure operating systems available (God help us, the UK Trident programme runs, and I’m not joking, Windows for Submarines, a derivative of Windows 2000). The Evil Empire’s technology really isn’t as good as they make out. Remember when the Iranians landed that US drone? At the same time, the drone control computers in the US (Windows again) were infected with keylogging malware. They kept removing it but it repeatedly reinstalled itself across their network. The Iranians said that they spoofed local GPS signals thus tricking the drone into its pre-programmed landing sequence, but I often wonder if that was just a cover, and in fact Russian hackers got into the US computers across the ‘net and landed the drone by remote control. I doubt that either side would tell us if that was the case.

        But think of the implications for 9/11. All those NORAD, CIA, FBI and State Department computers. Can we say it was an “inside job”? I don’t know; all sorts of mischief could have been going on, coppers running around following false, injected orders, inquiries interfered with; all sorts. We know there seemed to be foreknowledge in the financial sector, but multiple countries also seemed to have foreknowledge. Yes, I’d be very surprised if no insiders were involved, but I don’t think the whole of the CIA were in on it, and FEMA and NIST not at all, though they helped to cover stuff up afterwards.

        But what with the planes, possible bombs, the suspicious vans, the “dancing Israelis” and arts students, the Saudis infiltrated through the Jeddah embassy, the pilot training at US airfields, the halted investigations, the war games, the warnings from multiple countries, the financial foreknowledge, the schoolkid, etc etc etc it looks like half the world and his dog had a hand in 9/11. The phrases that spring to my mind are “open season” and “crowd sourced”.

        • Chris Jones

          Good, then we can broadly agree that this was an inside job and you can help establish common ground and get the perpetrators to justice rather than squabbling endlessly about about squibs and thermite and leading the argument down numerous never ending paths

      • Clark

        Some observations:

        The Administration said “because they hate our freedoms”, but no aircraft hit the Statue of Liberty.

        People consider numerical symbolism, but the targets hit were a trade centre, and the headquarters of the military. I can think of lots of groups who’d like to send those entities a violent message.

        One aircraft crashed(?) in a field, and the White House was not hit. Just a coincidence, I’m sure…

    • Chris Jones

      I can agree with most of your post further up at 19.47 Clark – did you perhaps assume that I’d somehow defend Neoconservatism!? Although I think a world without borders ‘where all of us humans could travel, live and work wherever we like’ is perhaps a nice idea but it is also the wet dream of neo liberalism and the globalist transnational corporations as they go round the world asset stripping countries whilst forcing workers wages down as low as possible. Such, (I’m presuming) well intentioned naivety would play beautifully in to their hands.

      I’d say that it’s also naive to believe that the very real plan for global hegemony is confined to the US/Western powers – a great deal of it is but not all. There are elements cooperating across continents and transnationally as mentioned above – these are the supranational corporations, NGO’s and elements within governments globally who have a vested interest in gaining order out of chaos in cahoots with others of similar standing across the world . Yes, to them the world is already borderless and a grand chess board. And there is still competition amongst thieves of course. Remember it was the same international bankers and their subsidiaries who funded both the Russian revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union (and China’s Mao) as well as the USA and a great deal of the west’s rise – a paradigm of controlling both sides that can be repeated unless countries refuse to take part-hopefully something that will happen increasingly but is not without it’s own problems.

      Lets get back to 9/11.I’d like to invite you to agree on the general principle and evidence showing beyond all reasonable doubt that this was an inside job (insert whatever alternative term /description you prefer) that was carried out by highly skilled criminal operators using the best available technology (on which opinions can differ) and with the complicit assistance of most of the mainstream media and many false leaders in alternative media in selling the narrative/narratives. Wouldn’t that be a good place to start from?

  • Paul Barbara

    Pity ‘Clark’ hasn’t anything WHATSOEVER to say about Susan Lindauer’s testimony – ah, maybe the cat got ‘his’ typing finger?
    !A luta continua!, as they say in Portugal…

    • Clark

      Ah! Thanks for reminding me, I was waiting ’till after midnight because downloading is cheaper for me then. I’ve wondered about her for years; reliable sources have been scant because she’s been gagged, so it’ll be good to hear what she has to say for herself.

      • Clark

        And don’t take the piss, mate, just because I know that buildings might collapse. What do you want me to do? Photocopy part of the electoral register? Hopefully I’ll be at Doune the Rabbit Hole. I’m about the least secretive person you’re likely to meet. Come and watch me do some electronics – I really do do physics based stuff. There are loads of commenters at this site who’ve met me. I make a point of meeting up with folks on protests. You can see me at the Corbyn rally on RT’s video. I’ll do a screen-shot tomorrow. Bed time now.

        • Paul Barbara

          I await you’re verdict on Susan Lindauer with bated breath.
          I’m still a bit puzzled by your certainties; now, on top of knowing better than 2,500+ Architects and Engineers, you also claim to know something none of the firefighters knew – not one of them expected the Twin Towers to collapse.
          Mind you, there was a ‘mysterious guy’ in a baseball cap, who knew as soon as the collapse occurred just exactly what happened, and oddly enough he was interviewed by the MSM.
          I’m really disappointed he hasn’t surfaced since – one would think he would be quite famous, explaining just how he just happened to be ‘on site’, and soooo knowledgeable about the cause of the collapses.
          .

          • Clark

            Well don’t hold your breath. I’ve downloaded some videos including that one, and I’ll get round to watching it in due course, God willing. But no hurry; you’ve had fifteen years to learn some physics. I learned the physics I needed for this by the time I was fifteen, m1v1=m2v2, and f=ma aren’t that hard, you know. I’ll watch the video in due course, but I have therapy today, thank God, to help me cope with all the stubborn, selfish and manipulative people I constantly have to deal with (that’s all of us by the way; it’s just human nature), and I want to see my new Muslim friend, who’s going mad for the same reasons I am, but he’s too young to have worked out what’s wrong yet.

          • Clark

            I chose physics because I happen to find it easy. It’s the greatest short-cut in the universe. Instead of pages and pages of translated words to remember and several ways to conjugate verbs, with multiple exceptions; instead of huge lists of figures about population, water availability and types of agriculture; instead of books worth of who did what to whom, when and why; instead of tables of hundreds of symbols, valencies, enthalpies of formation, boiling and melting points – for a physics exam I needed to memorise just a few formulae that fitted on less than two sides of A4, and those I could rearrange into everything I needed with a few simple rules.

            Physics was easy whereas maths was too ethereal, but I appreciated its beauty and – you may find this strange – its divinity. I could prove it, but why?

            e to the power of (i times pi) plus one equals zero

            e^(i.pi)+1=0

            LOOK at that! Why should it be? The two most fundamental transcendental constant rations, one the foundation of growth and the other defining the circle, and the three starting points; zero (the cypher), one (unity), and the fundamental imaginary integer that no one guessed the existence of for centuries but was forced upon us by consistency. And all the fundamental relationships – equality, addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. There’s all of maths right there, and the foundation of all harmonic motion; why should it be? It’s simply amazing.

          • Ba'al Zevul

            Often wondered about that. Maybe it’s because e^(i.pi)+1 should be the formal definition of zero. Or that there are two frames of reference which can only be reconciled by this convention…rather like e and m in e-mc^2?

            I love physics, but the maths involved doesn’t have to be abstruse to defeat me.

          • Ba'al Zevul

            Often wondered about that. Maybe it’s because e^(i.pi)+1 should be the formal definition of zero. Or that there are two frames of reference which can only be reconciled by this convention…rather like e and m in e=mc^2?

            I love physics, but the maths involved doesn’t have to be abstruse to defeat me.

          • Clark

            Amazing, too, that the wave function propagates in the complex domain, consisting of ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ parts. By the Copenhagen interpretation, conscious observation, or if you like realisation, precipitates of the collapse of those possibilities into exclusively real outcomes.

            Yet the terms ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’ were chosen centuries before quantum physics was found to require them. Can we really be sure that the universe isn’t some kind of moral theatre? Zen and the Art…, nothing comes to be unless it has arisen in the Dreamtime…

          • Clark

            Thanks for the appreciation Ba’al, but c’mon! Neither zero nor one require formal definition – we just know what they are, like Persig’s ‘Quality’ or ‘Best’. They’re our starting points, the simplest possible concepts, and as such can’t be defined in terms of anything, everything else being more complex by definition. Definitions can be derived from them, not vice versa.

          • Clark

            Yeah you can do it with sines and cosines instead, but Feynman had it right, as so much else:

            ‘Euler’s formula is ubiquitous in mathematics, physics, and engineering. The physicist Richard Feynman called the equation “our jewel” and “the most remarkable formula in mathematics.”

            What’s that constant that emerged from the chaos maths? That’s transcendental, too, isn’t it? Four point something… I reckon that’s going to fit in somewhere.

          • Clark

            z becomes z^2+c is pretty amazing, too (which is what my Gravatar is about). And these things seem to have some sort of existence independent of any physical reality. So there’s something beyond or greater than physical reality.

            Am I the only atheist who tries to remember to pray?

          • Clark

            I’d best shut up or the demolition theorists are going to get even more pissed off. I’m meant to bleat “Gage is right, Gage is right” or else I must be a sheeple who hates Muslims. And I shouldn’t display this sort of humour.

            Q – “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?”

            A – “ONE! And it’s NOT funny!!!”

          • Ba'al Zevul

            My second option was better. Two frames of reference got me to Euler. Just as well, really. If there wasn’t a relationship between the exponential function and the circle we might as well all give up and go home…2+2i could equal pi… Yes have been fascinated by both Pirsig, real Zen* and Mandelbrot in my time. I forget how you do it – I had a QL running this back in the day – but there’s a way of looking at Julia sets which gives you a variable number -it depends on the coordinates on the M-set – of spiral ‘galaxies’ in various perspective views, adding a point on one of them at each iteration. Some persist for effectively ever, others spiral irregularly for a bit and then the next point is off the scree, and it all stops.

            * you ‘know’ what zero is? Take that as a koan.

        • Clark

          Mandelbrot is easiest; it’s a stability diagram. z and c are both complex. c is the point on the complex plain you’re going to test for stability. Set z to zero and iterate:

          z becomes z^2+c

          If z shrinks towards c or gets into a repetitive cycle that returns to c (or in practice, exceeds some arbitrary number of iterations), colour the point c black. If z takes off towards infinite magnitude give c a colour, the less iterations for z to exceed some limit the brighter the colour.

          Repeat, scanning through values of c for each pixel until you’ve plotted your whole map.

          I first did this on an Acorn Electron, 2 megahertz with, er, 32kbyte of RAM, written in BBC BASIC with the program stored on audio cassette. My first plot of the overall cardioid was left overnight; I think it took just over twelve hours. I set a more accurate one going using integer maths and no iteration limit; it had plotted less than half the cardioid five days later when I reeded the mains socket. The whole plot from which my Gravatar was taken I wrote in M$ BASIC on something like a 486 DX or a Pentium 75MHz.

          • Ba'al Zevul

            Yes, Clark, I know. As far as I remember it’s about 24 lines of BASIC. Ran a lot faster on an Atari with a little bit of 68000 m/c though. Been there, etc.

  • Node

    Let’s take the official narrative at face value, then imagine seeing the attack through Bin Laden’s eyes. We’ll start at the beginning.

    Bin Laden decides to stage a spectacular terrorist event in the USA, has a think about it, then calls for his trusted lieutenant : “Omar, I have had a brainwave, we will train volunteers to fly hijacked planes into buildings. Go and research this plan.”

    Six months later Omar reports back. “We can’t do it, Boss. It takes years to learn to fly a commercial airliner.”

    “Hmmm … right, get them basic training in a Cesna and Allah we’ll hope for the best”

    “But Boss, at the airport they have body searches and metal detectors, we couldn’t smuggle a weapon bigger than a razor blade on board.”

    “Then we’ll arm our men with boxcutters and with a bit of luck they’ll subdue 100s people with them and take control of the planes.”

    “But Boss, their air marshals are highly trained and armed with guns.”

    “Then fingers crossed, all the air marshals will be on other planes.”

    “OK, Osama, but then what. If we deviate from the agreed flight path, within minutes they will scramble the air force to intercept us. Their airspace protection system is the best in the world. It has never failed.

    “Don’t be so negative, Omar, maybe that day there will be … er, I don’t know …. er, an defence drill or something that will confuse them. Knock on wood”.

    “Well, OK boss, if you say so, but what about the targets you have chosen? The twin towers were built to withstand the impact of the biggest airliners hitting them, and the pentagon is the best defended building in the world. Considering the years of planning and organising we will have to do to attempt this, couldn’t we at least choose realistic targets?”

    “No my mind is made up. The Twin Towers and the Pentagon it is. I care nothing for their plane-proof construction methods and their advanced air defences. I’m feeling lucky.”

    “Osama, your plan is absolute shite, you are crazy in the coconut, I resign.”

    • Clark

      Yes, let’s think of it from bin Laden’s point of view. I don’t know much about his life, so I’ll have to speculate. I speculate that he grew up in Saudi Arabia.

      From his earliest memories, he remembers the Mosque. Maybe he has memories of a public beheading when he was, say, four. He remembers people he was told were bad who only had one hand because the other had been severed by the authorities. The grown-ups explained how the hospital stopped the blood by sewing up the flesh afterwards. He remembers the frightened looks of people in the streets, watching for the religious men in case they were doing something bad. Maybe he was taken to a public flogging and saw the red stripes, or maybe a stoning to death of a woman called an adulterer or a man called a sorcerer.

      What other formative memories may he have had?

        • Node

          Thanks Maxter.

          Just making a point that is often overlooked. What realistic expectation could Bin Laden have had of achieving success? None! We are asked to believe that this brilliant terrorist mastermind spent years planning, organising, and financing a scheme which no sane person could expect to work.

          • Clark

            Of myself and Node, which treated Osama bin Laden with greater respect?

            OK, Node was actually piss-taking the mainstream narrative, and he merely used Osama bin Laden as a vehicle for that. Nevertheless…

            And yes I do believe that Osama bin Laden and his associates should be accorded respect. The US assassination in Pakistan (whoever they killed) appalled me. Jingoistic hate-propaganda for Obama’s re-election campaign. Disgusting to gun down an old man in a house.

  • Uzmark

    I would agree with Chris Jones that common ground should be highlighted – basically that it was an “inside job” however you wish to phrase it, designed as a means to an end by the neocons and their allies.
    For ordinary people looking at the subject for the first time, some of the posts here (eg Clarke Aug 3rd 17.29) would confuse them into thinking there was utter confusion with the “truther” type people and look the other way for a few more years.
    Whilst there is value in analysing the exact details of how it was done it is already old history, and it is surely more important to accept what happened and with this knowledge have a better idea of what else happened before and since, and what could happen in the future?

  • Clark

    Out of sight, out of mind.

    None of you want to think about Saudi Arabia. None.

    None of our easy lives are remotely possible without liquid fuel.

    • Clark

      You hate me because I shatter your illusion. Your illusion that this can ALL be laid to the responsibility of the US.

      Well that’s just the other side of the propagandist coin, that it can ALL be laid at the door of “terrorists”.

      EVERYONE needs to take their own responsibility. How easy is your life? Do you flick the switch and get light? Do you turn the key or give the bus driver a coin and get transported? Do you have to grow or hunt your food? Do you turn the tap and get water? Do you have to dig a hole so your faeces don’t make your children die?

      NONE of that can happen without the black sludge that burns. Where is it from and what human suffering is ignored to take possession of it?

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