Posted on 06/05/2005 6:22:17 PM PDT by demlosers
Noted French left-wing activist Thierry Meyssan's 9/11 conspiracy book, L'Effroyable Imposture, became a best-seller in 2002.
But I never imagined such an "appalling deception" would ever find a voice in America. At a recent public lecture I was buttonholed by a Michael Moorewannabe filmmaker who breathlessly explained that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Central Intelligence Agency as part of their plan for global domination and a New World Order. That goal was to be financed by G.O.D. (Gold, Oil, Drugs) and launched by a Pearl Harborlike attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, thereby providing the justification for war.
The evidence was there in the details, he explained, handing me a faux dollar bill (with "9-11" replacing the "1," a picture of Bush supplanting that of Washington) chockablock with Web sites.
In fact, if you type "World Trade Center" and "conspiracy" into Google, you'll get more than 250,000 hits. From these sites, you will discover that some people think the Pentagon was hit by a missile; that U.S. Air Force jets were ordered to "stand down" and not intercept Flights 11 and 175, the ones that struck the twin towers; that the towers themselves were razed by demolition explosives timed to go off soon after the impact of the planes; that a mysterious white jet shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania; and that New York Jews were ordered to stay home that day (Zionists and other pro-Israeli factions, of course, were involved). Books also abound, including Inside Job, by Jim Marrs; The New Pearl Harbor, by David Ray Griffin; and 9/11: The Great Illusion, by George Humphrey. The single best debunking of this conspiratorial codswallop is in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, which provides an exhaustive point-by-point analysis of the most prevalent claims.
The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as creationism, Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics). All the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry.
No melted steel, no collapsed towers.
For example, according to www.911research.wtc7.net, steel melts at a temperature of 2,777 degrees Fahrenheit, but jet fuel burns at only 1,517 degrees F. No melted steel, no collapsed towers. "The planes did not bring those towers down; bombs did," says www.abovetopsecret.com. Wrong.
In an article in the Journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society and in subsequent interviews, Thomas Eagar, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explains why: steel loses 50 percent of its strength at 1,200 degrees F; 90,000 liters of jet fuel ignited other combustible materials such as rugs, curtains, furniture and paper, which continued burning after the jet fuel was exhausted, raising temperatures above 1,400 degrees F and spreading the inferno throughout each building. Temperature differentials of hundreds of degrees across single steel horizontal trusses caused them to sag--straining and then breaking the angle clips that held the beams to the vertical columns. Once one truss failed, others followed. When one floor collapsed onto the next floor below, that floor subsequently gave way, creating a pancaking effect that triggered each 500,000-ton structure to crumble. Conspiricists argue that the buildings should have fallen over on their sides, but with 95 percent of each building consisting of air, they could only have collapsed straight down.
All the 9/11 conspiracy claims are this easily refuted. On the Pentagon "missile strike," for example, I queried the would-be filmmaker about what happened to Flight 77, which disappeared at the same time. "The plane was destroyed, and the passengers were murdered by Bush operatives," he solemnly revealed. "Do you mean to tell me that not one of the thousands of conspirators needed to pull all this off," I retorted, "is a whistle-blower who would go on TV or write a tell-all book?"
My rejoinder was met with the same grim response I get from UFOlogists when I ask them for concrete evidence: Men in Black silence witnesses, and dead men tell no tales.
And where are the wings?......And where are the engines?.....And where are the 5300 gallons of jet a fuel?...........And why is it that a 757 was 45 minutes out of it flight path and the military did not act?
Remember Payne Stewart?......His private jet was 12 minutes out of its flight path and the military had 2 jets flying right next to it until it hit ground."
Who says the plane was two feet above ground when it crossed the highway? It's much more likely that the plane was descending the entire time into impact, which is why it didn't significantly damage the lawn in front of the Pentagon.
The wings and engines were sheared off, smashed into small pieces, and then burned by the tremendous high-energy collision with the much heavier Pentagon building. The jet fuel went into the building and seriously burned a number of people inside the Pentagon.
You present no evidence that military jets were not trailing Flight 77 into Washington. I'll bet there were military jets trailing Flight 77 all the way into the capitol, but they did not have orders to shoot it down. That is a good question as to why they didn't have orders to shoot down Flight 77. Most likely there was just a somewhat slow decision process and in all the confusion the decision had not been made yet by Bush & Cheney. According to Cheney, the military did have orders to shoot down Flight 93 if it had continued into Washington after Flight 77. Be careful not to assume facts that are not in evidence, which is a mistake that so many conspiracy theorists make repeatedly.
Just for the record, however, I think TWA 800 was shot down by a missile as hundreds of witnesses have testified. I think that attack was covered up by the disastrous, lying, cheating Clinton Administration to take a possible campaign issue away from Bob Dole in 1996. To the Clintons, everything is about politics and power.
Great evidence in post 176.
Unfortunely, he will not pay any atttention to facts. He has joined the nut cases with these ridiculous theories of his.
Radioactive, we're still waiting!
I notice Radioactive has not responded to this post. If he did I am sure he would call all those witnesses liars just as he did me when I said I had a friend at the Pentagon who saw it hit.
OMG, they got to you too!
Compares with having a battle of wits with an unarmed person.....
(or a pi$$ing duel with a skunk....)
Just curious... when you say that "no wings were found at the pentagon" do you mean that someone has definitively stated that no wings were found at the pentagon, or just that you haven't seen picture of them?
9-11 and Aliens- Moving pics http://www.gallerize.com/039%209-11%20AND%20THE%20ALIEN%20QUESTION.htm
There are nine+ pages; I hope that is the entire article.
I love conspiracy theories for their entertainment value. Some are just to wacky to bother with. I just got attacked by a chupacabra.
I would be kinda of disappointed if you proved him wrong. If enough people believed that a plane didn't crash into the Pentagon then Mythbusters would have to do a show on it. It would be interesting to see how Adam and Jamie would do it.
I've seen all the same things, Swordmaker.
Thank you for posting it.
The perpetuation of myths count on a level of ignorance not possible to maintain with the internet and blogs, unless you confine yourself to DU-type echo chambers. Where there is debate there is knowledge.
Believe it or not at your own risk, but if you don't, keep it to yourself, less people believe you for a fool....
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) research supports the theory that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. Physical damage to the south face of WTC 7 consisted of about a third of the face, to the center and to the bottom, -approximately 10 floors,- or about 25% of the depth of the building was scooped out. NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, suggesting the fall of WTC 7 is an example of "progressive collapse", a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or "kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disapeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.
Doesn't sound as good as "It's all Bush's fault", does it....
Suprised there was a hole at all, the plane is made of mostly aluminum, which isn't that tough.
There should have been much more damage on the highway just 300 yards away...there should have been windows in the pentagon destroyed at least 80 feet on each side of the fuselage.....look at the photos........look at them damn it........
The wings sheared off on impact of the fusalage of the airplane with the building, which is several feet ahead of the wings. The wings were then dragged thru the hole in the wall of the building with the plane. By the way, numb-nuts, the windows of the Pentagon are blast proof, they did what they were designed to do.
This "government" you refer to is an overzealous attorney general in Florida...
The first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon says: "It was ABSOLUTELY a plane and I'll tell you why. I saw the marks of the plane on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box." The man's name is Allyn E. Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, of Washington, DC, He further quotes: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts..."
530 is cruising speed, more than likely he was doing closer to the stall speed, around 160-180...and where do you get this 2 feet stuff?
Yes who was directed by the federals to persue Limbaugh using the Patriot act.
Been watching this thread since last night. Excellent job Swordmaker!
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