The US, its Conspiracy, its Failures. and its LIES!

[DwntwnGeo]

I didn't build the building, nor am I an Architech, I am only an Engineer. I read an University Lecture after the event explaining how it could and in my opinion did happen. The buildings were consturcted (if I remember right) with all the support being around the exterior of the building rather than in the Center core where elevators are in most buildings. The colapse happened because of the weight of the upper floors. All that is required is enough heats to weaken the exterior structural support of one floor enounght that the remaining floors above would collapse on the floor below. Is a building from the 70s, built to hold that kind of pressure and impact? Think of a ten story building dropping 10 feet on the floor below, you expect that floor to hold? Also whip out your Math, Science and Physics books out and do some calcualations on the heat that can be producted by thousands of gallons of high octane jet fuel in a confined area. There is science to support that they fell this way. If you feel that it is a extremist group of Goverment employees starting a private internal war, then it is your American right to think that way.

I do know the basic structural capabilities of a building, and these were state of the art. There was no way in hell that jet fuel weakened the structure enough to cause a complete collapse, I would doubt it would weaken it enough to cause a collapse of even the floors above the impact. And the explanation of the WTC 7 collapse doesn't even deserve serious consideration. YOu can speculate all you want as to who or what caused this carefully controlled implosion, but I can virtually gauruntee it was not simply a collapse. I put nothing past this government, they are sick and had and have way to much to gain not only from 9/11, but from the wars in Iraq and afghanistan also. Also, if Bin Laden and Alqueda were responsible, they would certainly not deny their involvment, they would brag endlessly.

[hood]

According to everything I've seen, the "unusual" aspect about the structure of WTC is that the exterior AND the core acted as the entire support structure, with no support in between besides trusses for the floor. There were no columns in the middle of the floors, but the core did support the building. I also seen in a Discovery channel documentary, that they had a hard time recreating the weakening of the steel that would have been neccessary to bring the building down. Also, as the video linked to in the origional post pointed out, an engineeer at the Underwriters Laboritories said the the steel used in the building was designed to maintain it's structural integrity at temperatures above 2000 degrees for at least several hours. The jet fuel burns at a max 1500 degrees in the open atmosphere, the inside of the building with an intense fire would have likely caused a lack of oxygen to sustain a high-temp fire (think maybe 1000 degrees F) and steel melts at around 2750 degrees F and the towers collapsed in less than an hour, seems suspicious.

Oh, and if it's math you like here is some: The Jet Fuel: How did it heat the WTC they estimate that the jet fuel if perfectly combusted would have been able to only heat one floor of the WTC 495 degrees F.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

http://www.911myths.com/index.html is one of the better sites I have seen in debunking the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Most of the debunkings make more sense to me than the conspiracy theories.

The Federal government should sue for libel.

[DwntwnGeo]

Thanks for the sites Hood, I will have to take a look at them sometime.

[GRCentro]

For the large part, "Loose Change" lacks any substantive evidence and relies instead on incomplete cheap shots and incontextual one-liners.

If 9/11 were a grand, internally-organized scheme, as "Loose Change" suggests, it would have had to include literally thousands of people: the federal government and its many agencies and employees, the military, the NYC government and its many employees, the WTC owners, the WTC tenants, the airlines and their employees, and the many firefighters, police officers, rescue workers, clean up crews, scientists, architects and engineers who dealt with the aftermath. Right.

It's also worth noting that "Loose Change" conveniently does not mention the multiple audio and video tapes, the most recent of which was released May 23, 2006, in which bin Laden and al-Zawahiri admit their involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Perhaps most insensitive is the suggestion that the phone calls to family members from passengers in the hijacked airplanes were artificially fabricated using voice imitation software!

I'm not sure whether I should laugh at this conspiracy crap or feel offended by it. What an insult to the intelligence of the American public and the thousands of terrorist victims.

[hood]

Perhaps most insensitive is the suggestion that the phone calls to family members from passengers in the hijacked airplanes were artificially fabricated using voice imitation software!

I think their main arguement is that cellphones rarely work in an aircraft at 35,000 feet, let alone over rural Pennsylvania. Supposedly it's been tested that cell phones work .06% of the time at 35,000 feet from inside a plane.

[PghUSA]

Agreed with contesting the Bush is worst theory, if the Democrats could put forth a viable candidate 2004 would have been a watershed for the party. If Bush is so corrupt and incompetent then defeating him in '04 shouldn't have been a challenge.

On another point, step away for a moment from the 911 conspiracy theories. If you look at the majority of conflicts in the world today it involves miltant muslims threating to put some country or group "into the ocean" from Israel to Somalia to Darfur to Indonesia to Iran to now trying to behead the prime minister of Canada, they raped and pillaged a train in France on New Years, and are threating to bring back middle aged style laws in Denmark and other parts of Europe. This is not every muslim but it is the segment that the west is currently defending itself from. The militants are committed to destroying almost everything we hold dear. Bush is not FDR or even Reagan in my mind but the the choice every peace loving person must make (a decision that Howard, Blair and others have made) is wether we stand by as the world is swept by radical extremists bent on terror. And I don't buy the argument that we started this and they are reacting to our terror. Anyone who wants to chop of the head of the Canadian PM because he is against Osama, any group that is committing genocide in Darfur, killed thousands in East Timor etc. etc. etc. are not lodging a protest against the horrors of a war that ousted a brutal dictator, they are sick in the mind. The shame is that the majority of muslims are peace loving and great humantiarians, why let the extremists rule?

I appeal to the peace lovers of the world, this stuff has to stop. If the U.S. is the one initiating all this, then what kind of world would it be the day Iraq is the most peaceful nation on earth? My wish would be for the peace lovers of that region and in the muslim world to assume power and stop the violence there.

[MR-2]

I'm not sure whether I should laugh at this conspiracy crap or feel offended by it. What an insult to the intelligence of the American public and the thousands of terrorist victims.

Technically, that Al Queda was responsible for 9/11 is also a conspiracy theory. It involves work on the part of thousands of people to send infiltrators and assemble lives for them, and possibly keep them dormant for decades.

I'm just being a devil's advocate though. I find it most likely that things happened close to how we've been told they happen.

[GRDadof3]

I think their main arguement is that cellphones rarely work in an aircraft at 35,000 feet, let alone over rural Pennsylvania. Supposedly it's been tested that cell phones work .06% of the time at 35,000 feet from inside a plane.

Even though they crashed in rural Pennsylvania does not mean they CALLED from rural Pennsylvania. Planes can cover a lot ground quickly. They may have been over Virginia or Philadelphia when they called. Do you have a link for that .06% test? I've used a cell phone in a plane before.

You're right GRCentro, with that many people involved, I can't believe no one has cracked yet. Maybe we need to start interrogating firefighters and police officers who responded and find out who was involved.

This thread sure is fun.

I would have liked to have been in that "pitch meeting".

"OK, here's the plan. We're going to fabricate a terrorist cell out of Afghanistan. This "terrorist cell", called Al Queda (Hezbollah was taken) is going to hijack four jet planes and crash them into buildings. We're targetting the Pentagon, the WTC, and maybe the White House (which of course Mr. President you won't be at). But the buildings won't collapse right away, so the Lowozo Brothers demolition team are going to be working for the next 6 months wiring the WTC with explosives. Of course, no one will notice these workers or the C-10 explosives. They will also be wiring the Pentagon, but just one small section. I mean, my office is in there and I kinda like it."

"Then, on Sept. 11th (or maybe the 10th, we haven't nailed that down yet), we fly the planes into the buildings, pull the trigger on the explosives, and boom. Down come the WTC towers. Of couse, Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Patacki, we'll make you guys into local heroes. Mr. head of the NYPD and NYFD, you guys will be stationed at points 1A and 2F. We'll let you guys evacuate between when the planes hit and when we pull the detonators, so don't worry (wink wink). We may lose a couple thousand people, but we're going to at least evacuate all the Jewish people.

One of the planes won't make it to the White House, but Mr. Paramount Pictures, that's where you come in to make the feature movie about the valiant Americans.

If all goes as planned, all of our combined shares of Halliburton Stock should do VERY WELL gentleman. Mooooooohahhahahahah!!! B

Any questions? Yes Mr. Libeskind, you will get to design the new replacement for the WTC. We never liked those buildings anyway".

"Yes, the hijackers are going to use box-cutters. That should be OK, won't it Mr. FAA?"

You guys are right that you shouldn't buy anything hook, line and sinker.

[civitas]

This thread sure is fun.

Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman in "Wag the Dog" was fun. This thread is sad.

What do you propose to do once you force the truth out of Washington regarding this cover-up? Will recalling the troops, opening up the borders and stopping the wiretaps really make you sleep better at night?

[Nice post Grdadof3 - that was fun]

[torgo]

This conspiracy theory stuff is insane. If 9/11 was perpetrated by the government, hundreds of people would have been involved. Would that many people really be able to keep THAT a secret? Most of the big scandals only involved a few people, and even they couldn't keep quiet. Yes, its very odd that the buildings fell a certain way and parts of the pentagon didn't have people in them and so on, but there's no way the federal government did that on purpose. Even if they wanted to do that for all the reasons dicussed, its pretty much impossible.

Its the same thing with wiretaps and email intercepts. No one is reading my emails or listening to my phone calls. You know why? Because the federal government doesn't give a crap what I am saying to people unless I call suspected terrorists. People seem to think that every phone call is being listened to, and its simply not the case. If it were, every able-bodied adult in the Country would be on the NSA payroll.

And love him or hate him, no one can criticize Bush for wiretaps and invasive intelligence gathering. You think he's the only President to authorize such activities without a warrant? Pull-eez.

[runawayjim]

popular mechanics actually wrote a really good article debunking the conspiracy theories.

i may not like bush or our current government, but i don't believe any of these conspiracy theories. there are more holes in them than in the official story. it is up to them to prove that this was a conspiracy, not up to the officials to prove that it happened as they said. there are plenty of eye witnesses who will tell you that they saw a plane fly into the pentagon (not a missile like the conspiracy theorists like to believe). there are plenty of engineers who will tell you that the WTC collapsed because of the fires.

one thing i did read about the WTC is that it wasn't completely state of the art. the floors were actually made quite cheaply out of corrugated steel and not strongly attached to the supports, which is why they easily fell in on themselves when the supports expanded from the heat of the fire.

[damus]

It was all a vast left wing conspiracy to rid the world of Barbara Olsen...

ehhhh maybe that's not appropriate, but neither is accusing the government of 2,000 murders without evidence...

[damus]

one thing i did read about the WTC is that it wasn't completely state of the art. the floors were actually made quite cheaply out of corrugated steel and not strongly attached to the supports, which is why they easily fell in on themselves when the supports expanded from the heat of the fire.

I read that it was state of the art, but that that was its problem. It was fully supported by the exterior wall which gave the WTC more floorspace and floorspace without support beams all over the place. It was designed to withstand an impact from a jet, but it was a smaller jet (707 maybe? I'm not sure) and not going full speed with maximum fuel. The building was severely compromised by the loss of much of its load bearing walls.

[monsoon]

I don't think 9-11 was a conspiracy. But I do think it happened because Bush and his cronies were too focused on getting rid of Saddam to pay attention to the warning signs about Al Queda. It's a big shame as a lot of people died unnecessairly. And this did give Bush the free pass he needed to attack Iraq, which turned out to be harmless.

And where are we 5 years later? Al-Queda is still in business, the world's largest military is unable to track down Bin Laden or any of the leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan that made 9/11 possible in the first place, and Iraq has dissolved into a chaotic mess where more people are dying everyday under Bush's control than they ever did under Saddam's control.

It's a damn shame we have an Administration that appears so clueless when it comes to foreign policy.

[torgo]

I don't think 9-11 was a conspiracy. But I do think it happened because Bush and his cronies were too focused on getting rid of Saddam to pay attention to the warning signs about Al Queda. It's a big shame as a lot of people died unnecessairly. And this did give Bush the free pass he needed to attack Iraq, which turned out to be harmless.

And where are we 5 years later? Al-Queda is still in business, the world's largest military is unable to track down Bin Laden or any of the leaders of the Taliban in Afghanistan that made 9/11 possible in the first place, and Iraq has dissolved into a chaotic mess where more people are dying everyday under Bush's control than they ever did under Saddam's control.

It's a damn shame we have an Administration that appears so clueless when it comes to foreign policy.

Its not fair to say people in Iraq are dying under Bush's control. Terrorists are killing innocent people, Bush is not. I would venture to say that many wars claimed more lives than were being taken beforehand, that does not mean they were not neccesary or that our intentions were not noble.

I think that Bush probably didn't take the threats seriously enough. But to be fair, neither did Bill Clinton (Toricelli, anyone?). I think 9/11 was the result of too much ho-humming by too many US Govt officials, and too many intelligence officials didn't want to or were not allowed to share their information. I think that Bush also has to fight this war with one hand tied behind his back, too. We could have taken control of Iraq and stabilized it by carpet bombing the whole dang place right at the outset, but that was pretty much impossible given the fact that he wanted to set up a stabile democratic government that was friendly to the USA. Plus, he would have been destroyed by the US and European media.

[damus]

The thing about this war that I hate is that it is a war and our troops are not allowed to fight as such. The enemy does not follow international law, and neither should we considering they don't. It puts us at a disadvantage from the onset. Didn't we take away peoples' freedoms in post-Nazi Germany for a few years during "de-Nazification"? We seriously need to put that country on lock down for a little...

[runawayjim]

The thing about this war that I hate is that it is a war and our troops are not allowed to fight as such. The enemy does not follow international law, and neither should we considering they don't. It puts us at a disadvantage from the onset. Didn't we take away peoples' freedoms in post-Nazi Germany for a few years during "de-Nazification"? We seriously need to put that country on lock down for a little...

or we should get out of there because we're not going to win and we're never going to see a completely stable iraqi democracy. we never should have gone there to begin with.

but yes, we are at a disadvantage because we are organized. the enemy is not. funny how that works... that's part of how we won the revolutionary war. british troops lined up to fire at us, but we hid behind trees and rocks and walls and knocked them out.

[damus]

or we should get out of there because we're not going to win and we're never going to see a completely stable iraqi democracy.

The same was said about Germany and Japan. Japan had been under empirical rule for how long?

[dimebag1980]

I don't think 9-11 was a conspiracy. But I do think it happened because Bush and his cronies were too focused on getting rid of Saddam to pay attention to the warning signs about Al Queda.

That's funny. Okay metro, I'll humor you here. Tell me... how then would you explain the '93 bombing, which happened while Clinton was President?

It's also pretty interesting that, while Bill Clinton had you liberals hypnotized by his Rudolph-esque nose and intern-charming skills, Al Qaeda had all that time to plan - completely undetected - during his administration, leading up to 9-11-01. But somehow it's Bush's fault. That lie doesn't add up.

[monsoon]

Its not fair to say people in Iraq are dying under Bush's control. Terrorists are killing innocent people, Bush is not. I would venture to say that many wars claimed more lives than were being taken beforehand, that does not mean they were not neccesary or that our intentions were not noble.

It's completely fair to charge Bush with this. When you conquer a country you are then responsible for maintaining security of the inhabitants that are now under your control. The reason so many people are dying in Iraq is because Bush, Rhumsfield, Cheney and others assumed this was going to be like Japan or West Germany and people would be thowing flowers on the Americans for saving them. They ignored every bit of advice to the contrary including advice from Gulf War I, General Schwarzkopf who said that even a 500,000 troops would not be enough to contain the place. He said that if they had toppled Iraq in the first Gulf War, America would be like a dinosaur stuck in a tarpit and we would still be there. Seems that he was correct. All they had to do was to open a book on Vietnam, ahh but wait, they all managed to skip having to do duty in that war.

You can label the people terrorists, but this was not going on when before we showed up. More intune people realize this is a civil war amongst various factions and the labeling of this as terrorism is just a detraction from the fact its an impossible situation to fix.

The Bush Administration's policy reflects a naive approach to foreign policy and a complete lack understanding of ethnic tensions that exist in Iraq. I believe they used the word "cakewalk" to describe the containment of post war Iraq.

[damus]

There are people who are happy that we are there. A lot of those people's opinions have soured due to our handling. Germany was a big hotbed of terrorism after WW2, but we had better policies to thwart that back then. Today, the troops' hands are tied.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

There are people who are happy that we are there. A lot of those people's opinions have soured due to our handling. Germany was a big hotbed of terrorism after WW2, but we had better policies to thwart that back then. Today, the troops' hands are tied.

Indeed. The soldiers now have to fight two wars - the war on the ground and the war of international opinion.

[damus]

That's funny. Okay metro, I'll humor you here. Tell me... how then would you explain the '93 bombing, which happened while Clinton was President?

It's also pretty interesting that, while Bill Clinton had you liberals hypnotized by his Rudolph-esque nose and intern-charming skills, Al Qaeda had all that time to plan - completely undetected - during his administration, leading up to 9-11-01. But somehow it's Bush's fault. That lie doesn't add up.

Don't forget all the other disasters that happened back then... the embassy bombings, the cole bombing. There was Janet Reno's brutal crusade against gun rights, which led to the reaction by militant extremist Timothy McVeigh. I'm not saying Bush would've done any better, but Clinton had the opportunity to take out bin Laden when he was President. I guess he was either too busy with an intern or had to wait for his pollsters to get back with what the American public wanted him to do...

We have followed the most scandal filled presidency to one with not as many scandals, but two of the biggest disasters in US history. One of which was handled pitifully on the local, state, and federal levels. The other of which was dealt with in historically great fashion at all levels.

[GRDadof3]

Even Reagan was strongly hated when he was in office, but his legacy now seems to be (for most people) his standing up to the Soviet Union, and many attribute his policies to their eventual collapse. His tax cuts, whether you think they caused a huge deficit or not, were pretty much absorbed back into the economy 10 years later.

Bush is the same way. His second term is a disaster, but his legacy will be how he handled the aftermath of 9-11. Most people will not remember how he treated gay marriage or any other similar policy. Does anyone remember Jimmy Carter's stance on gay marriage? Or George Bush Sr's stance on affirmative action? Or Clinton's stance on anything?

But I will say that a Consitutional Amendment banning gay marriage is downright stupid, and pretty mean-spirited if you ask me. We need MORE people happily married and committed to each other in this country, not fewer people. Oops, wrong thread.