Posted on 02/01/2006 8:42:15 PM PST by Anthem
I was 8 years old when President John Kennedy was shot to death in Dallas in 1963. If grace favors me, I'll be 62 when documents related to the assassination are released to the public, and 84 when the Warren Commission's investigative files into the tragedy are finally opened.
That's a long time to wait for a chance to evaluate the purported truth.
It's a blot on the presumed sophistication of the people of the United States that any aspect of an event so dramatic and shocking should be kept from us. Perhaps it's true, to abuse the line from A Few Good Men yet again, that we can't handle the truth. But there cannot be genuine resolution as long as such critical information remains concealed.
Transformed by 9/11
Since Kennedy's assassination, Americans have lurched between demanding to know and plugging their ears: The Pentagon Papers, My Lai, the King assassination, Watergate, Iran-contra, the savings-and-loan debacle, Monicagate. Lately, however, it would seem the public's verdict is in: Don't tell us. Keep us in the dark. We don't want to know.
This is the worst possible time for probe-ophobia to grip us. Our nation was irretrievably transformed by 9/11 -- and yet there remain troubling questions about what really happened before, during and after that day. Rather than demanding a full and fearless vetting to hone in on the truth and silence the conjecture about 9/11, many Americans remain unwilling to peer into the microscope.
An online cottage industry of theorists, theory debunkers and debunker debunkers has flourished since 9/11. Sometimes the flimsy theories are easy to spot -- come on, if the four passenger jets didn't crash where it appears they did, where did they go? More often, though, the cases aren't so obvious.
A group of experts and academicians 'devoted to applying the principles of scientific reasoning to the available evidence, `letting the chips fall where they may,' '' last week accused the government of covering up evidence that the three destroyed New York City buildings were brought down that day by controlled demolition rather than structural failure. The group, called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, has a website, www.st911.org.
Unanswered questions
The reflexive first reaction is incredulity -- how, one asks, could anyone even contemplate, never mind actually do such a barbaric thing? But before you shut your mind, check the resumés -- these aren't Generation X geeks subsisting on potato chips and PlayStation. Then look at the case they present.
''I am a professional philosopher who has spent 35 years teaching logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning,'' group co-founder and University of Minnesota professor James H. Fetzer told me. ``When I come to 9/11, it's not hard for me to determine what is going on. This is a scientific question. And it is so elementary that I don't think you can find a single physicist who could disagree with the idea that this was a controlled demolition.''
The group asks, for example,
• How did a fire fed by jet fuel, which at most burns at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit, cause the collapse of the Twin Towers, built of steel that melts at 2,800 degrees? (Most experts agree that the impact of airliners, made mostly of lightweight aluminum, should not have been enough alone to cause structural failure.) How could a single planeload of burning jet fuel -- most of which flared off in the initial fireball -- cause the South World Trade Center tower to collapse in just 56 minutes?
• Why did building WTC-7 fall, though no aircraft struck it? Fire alone had never before caused a steel skyscraper to collapse.
• Why did all three buildings collapse largely into their own footprints -- in the style of a controlled demolition?
• Why did no U.S. military jet intercept the wayward aircraft?
• Why has there been no investigation of BBC reports that five of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were alive and accounted for after the event?
Our current probe-ophobia is due in part to the political landscape: When one party holds all the cards, any call to investigate an alleged abuse of power or cover-up -- no matter how valid -- will look like a partisan vendetta. Those in power never want to investigate themselves.
Maybe that's politics; he who holds the hammer drives the nails. But the outrage of 9/11 transcends party affiliation.
We need all the outstanding questions answered -- wherever the chips may fall.
Sorry, there is no evidence of any wires or bombs. zippo.
That's not the way it works.
First, let's see this guy's evidence.
I mean reeealllly! Sheesh!
I think I'm starting to see dead people...lol.
I just finished watching the National Geographic program about 9/11 and it is made clear what happened and who did it. The forces behind it worked to bring it about for almost ten years. They were centered in Pakistan and led by Osama Bin Laden. They are still drawing the Haters of the earth and, with the assistance of the Domestic Enemies of the US continue to fan the flames of hatred against the US.
It is a war which may last decades being the final stage of the 1400 year old attack on the West from Islam. Michael MOOer crap is only going to strenghten that attack.
These questions are not that profound.
Where's the footage? If this report is so easily debunked, let's see the evidence.It's in a bottle on Funk and Wagnall's porch not to be opened 'til high noon mid-year in the year 3030 ...
Seriously, you have NEVER read any of the peer-reviewed reports and analysis by REAL structural engineers have you?
It was on the news every single day and night for four or five months.
Oh PLEASE!
ROTFLMAO! Haven't seen that one for years!
ah haha.. I forgot all about the twenty. People were running around folding their twenties and showing them to each other with knowing looks of grand conspiracies. Just what the conspiracy was they couldn't really say.
Oh and best of all -- JFK was Bill Clinton's greatest inspiration.
No surprise the lying, socialist, pot-smoking, womanizing, gay-loving freaks.
Just ask yourself how would a hundred story building fall but straight down. All the weight is above a very small area. You think something is going to shove it to one side?
Only under ideal conditions. Jet fuel is kerosene. Inside a jet engine designed to turbo compress the fuel and adding the right about of air, it burns that hot. Uncompressed and out in the open air it does not. Moreover, after the initial flame ball with burned up within minutes, the evidence that the fire was burning much cooler due to air starvation is presented by Jones. Further, there are eyewitnesses who report that the fires had died down.
Read the report.
Angular momentum isn't enough to make a building that size fall sideways. In order for a building to collapse any way but on itself, there must be sufficient lateral force to move the building's center of gravity far enough horizontally that it is outside the "footprint" of the building. I can't think of anything other than perhaps a 1,200-foot tidal wave that would be capable of exerting that kind of force on a structure that weighs about 500,000 tons.
Oh, well, it gets our juices running!
I don't know about the 20 dollar bill, what's that?
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