First of all, let us get one big point out of the way. The United States government is more than capable of planning the death of their own citizens. Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii that started the United States' involvement in World War II, has large amounts of evidence towards the idea that FDR knew of a impending attack and allowed it to happen. One being that he moved the aircraft carriers out of Pearl Harbor just before the attack, but no other boats. Hell of a coincidence that he moved the key to victory in the Pacific just in time to save our tactical advantage.
Secondly, any stance against the Government's version of events is NOT anti-American or insulting. We are searching for the truth of what happened on those days, no matter if we're searching in vain or not. We don't accept the government's story, so we search and we sift for clues. That's not being anti-American, that's being diligent and holding our government accountable for what they tell us.
And, thirdly, I would ask that anyone countering my argument would quote the paragraphs as a whole, or at least halve them up. This is going to be a long post, and I don't feel like going through a counter-post that targets each of my individual sentences. Take the information a paragraph or half-paragraph or source at a time, if you will.
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Let us take a look at one major point of contention, the WTC collapse. The official story is that passenger jets crashed in to the WTC buildings 1, 2, and 7. The jets were taken over by Al Qaeda militants, and the passengers were helpless to stop the planes flying head long into the buildings. The crashes caused holes in the buildings and fires to rage, negating the structural integrity of the steel-framed buildings.
That sounds logical. However, let us take a look at a report published in 1967, known as the
Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson White Paper. It states:
The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707-DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.
Source: Scholars for 9/11 Truth and 9/11 Research.com
The Boeing 707s of the 1960s were only slightly smaller than the Boeing 767s used against the Towers.
Also, further testimony from a structural engineer for the WTC buildings, made in an interview in 1993. The name's John Skilling.
John Skilling's 1993 interview said:
Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed, ... The building structure would still be there.
Here, in a more up-to-date testimony, the Head Structural Engineer for the World Trade Center, a job that would most certainly require him to know that building inside and out, states that plane impacts shouldn't bring the Towers down. This is solid, considering the Towers are fucking skyscrapers. You would think they would be built up more to have at least a better chance of withstanding a jetliner impact. And, according to multiple engineers, it was.
I have one more interview the On-Site Construction Manager of the World Trade Center, Frank Demartini:
Frank Demartini said:
The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.
Source: 9/11 Research.com
Are we really going to say that 2 engineers that made the World Trade Center's structure their life and a paper that has been claimed as the "most complete and detailed [report] of any building structure" were wrong?
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One major component of the 9/11 Government theory of events is that the fires could have eaten away at the steel frame of the building, causing the collapse. How could this have happened? Would the fires have gotten hot enough?
According to first hand testimony of firefighters who radioed down after reaching the 78th sky floor lobby (ABOVE the point of impact):
Speaking between Firefighters said:
An audiotape of firefighter communications revealed that firefighters had reached the 78th floor sky lobby of the South Tower and were enacting a plan to evacuate people and put out the "two pockets of fire" they found, just before the Tower was destroyed.
If the fires were intense enough to melt or severely weaken the steel frames, how could the firefighters have not only made it to the sky lobby, but proceed to only report "two pockets of fire?" You would think it more intense, no?
Or, how about some first hand accounts from civilians?
Evacuees said:
At least 18 survivors evacuated from above the crash zone of the South Tower through a stairwell that passed through the crash zone, and many more would have were it not for confusion in the evacuation process. None of the survivors reported great heat around the crash zone
If there was a massive, steel-frame melting fire, how could the survivors have walked right by the impact zone in the stairwell and not report intense heat?
Now, let us assume that the jetliners were full of fuel and the conditions were perfect for the fire to reach it's optimum heat. Could it have melted or otherwise hindered the steel-frame of the buildings?
According to FEMA, no:
In the mid-1990s British Steel and the Building Research Establishment performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings. These experiments were conducted in a simulated, eight-story building. Secondary steel beams were not protected. Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 800-900° C (1,500-1,700° F) in three of the tests (well above the traditionally assumed critical temperature of 600° C (1,100° F), no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments).
The test showed no such event in which the beams heated and broke, being reduced to piles of rubble. This, despite the fact that steel loses 90 percent of its strength when heated above 800 degrees Celsius?
Three facts, really:
* High-rise buildings are over-engineered to have strength many times greater than would needed to survive the most extreme conditions anticipated. It may take well over a ten-fold reduction in strength to cause a structural failure.
* If a steel structure does experience a collapse due to extreme temperatures, the collapse tends to remain localized to the area that experienced the high temperatures.
* The kind of low-carbon steel used in buildings and automobiles bends rather than shatters. If part of a structure is compromised by extreme temperatures, it may bend in that region, conceivably causing a large part of the structure to sag or even topple. However, there is no example of a steel structure crumbling into many pieces because of any combination of structural damage and heating, outside of the alleged cases of the Twin Towers and Building 7.
I'm an engineer, and I understand what it means to "over-engineer" a project. You not only meet the goals outlined by the problem, but you far exceed them. Bridges and buildings are regularly over-engineered, specifically because of the fact that such structures hold the lives of humans in their hands. If they fail, the loss of life can be astounding.
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So. What could have collapsed the towers? Explosions, perchance?
..Not likely. Many theories about demolition have been put forward, but
Scholars for 9/11 Truth said:
Theories that the Twin Towers were destroyed by controlled demoltion have been addressed by NIST and by Brent Blanchard who writes for ImplosionWorld.com. Both of the following critiques use the argument that because the destruction of the Twin Towers proceeded from top to bottom, they could not have been controlled demolitions.
What is my explanation of the collapse? There have been whisperings of renovations going on days for the attacks, during which time explosives could have been set in the main column support for the buildings. Blow the main support, you blow the building. I have no real support for this stance though, so do with it what you will.
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Now, let us not forget the attack on the Pentagon. The official record claims a jetliner crashed into the Pentagon's west-wall. Killing 125 people in addition to those aboard the plane. Does this record match the evidence?
This is where things get mucky. The eye-witness reports claim such:
about 89--The amount of eye witnesses I gathered who stated they saw an object crash into the Pentagon. The vast majority of the still available ones.
at least 45--The amount of eye witnesses who reported seeing a plane and described it with words like: 'airliner', 'big', 'silver', 'roaring', etc.
at least 23--The amount of eye witnesses who specifically said they saw an American Airlines jet. In all cases a large jet.
at least 22--The amount of witnesses who reported the noise of the plane was very loud to deafening.
at least 17--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw a plane running down light poles when crossing the highways.
at least 12--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw and heard the plane increase its throttle at the last seconds.
at least 11--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw a C-130H flying 30 seconds behind a jetliner.
at least 5--The amount of eye witnesses who specifically stated they saw the plane had its gear up.
at least 2--The amount of eye witnesses who stated that they saw a small corporate jet, without doing any creative interpretating [sic] of the witness accounts.
at least 0--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw a missile. What the person thought he heard isn't relevant!
at least 0--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw a military jet fighter at the time of the crash.
at least 0--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw a Global Hawk at the time of the crash.
at least 3--The amount of witnesses who reported the sound of the plane was quite noiseless. (One of them acknowledged it was the shock)
at least 1--The amount of eye witnesses who stated they saw the plane had it's gear down. (Indirect, said a wheel hit a pole)
at least 25--The amount of witnesses who have said something that might point to the use of explosives or incendiaries. (White flash, powerful blast waves which blew people through the air, molten glass, burning aluminium, [sic] spreading debris over hundreds of yards back to where the plane came from, including 2 engines, the missing plane itself, etc.)
When you look at these testimonies, the thought that a jetliner crashed into the Pentagon is pretty legit. There are accusations of witness tampering or intimidation, but that's sheer conjecture. I'm basing this post off of the facts. Of which these witness accounts point to a jetliner impacting the Pentagon.
However, one glaring hole for me is the impact zone in the Pentagon. That hole seems off, and too narrow for a 767 jetliner. How to explain that, I dunno. I'm no structural engineer, and I won't look into that at this very moment. Xfear, if you want to tackle that go right on ahead.
If you claim all these people wrong or mistaken, you can interject a painted drone for the jetliner. That would more easily reconcile the impact hole with the object that did the impacting.
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On to section number 3 (?) of these hella post. The hijacking of Flight 93. Before the plane could be crashed into the White House, a struggle in the cockpit apparently crashed the plane into some fields in Shanksville, PA. However, evidence may indicate otherwise.
For the first part, the 9/11 Commission changed the time of the crash by 3 minutes. While 3 minutes may not seem like a lot, if the favorite theory of the plane being shot down is to considered, 3 minutes is all the time in the world.
According to the Commission:
United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03:11, ... The 10:03:11 impact time is supported by previous National Transportation Safety Board analysis and by evidence from the Commission staff's analysis of radar, the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmissions.
However, seismologists in the area, using their seismographs and what not, have concluded differently:
Although, seismic signals across the network are not as strong and clear as the WTC case (see Kim et al., 2001), three component records at station SSPA (Δ = 107.6 km) shown in Figure 6 are quite clear. The three-component records at SSPA are dominated by strong Lg arrivals, whereas the Pg waves are difficult to discern and have amplitudes comparable to the noise level. This is typical for seismic waves generated by airplane impacts and crashes. The seismic signals marked as Sg in Figure 5 propagated from the Shanksville crash site to the stations with approximately 3.5 km/s. Hence, we infer that the Flight 93 crashed around 14:06:05±5 (UTC) (10:06:05 EDT). The uncertainty is only due to seismic velocity at the uppermost crust near the surface in which the Lg waves propagated.
So, basically, using fancy seismographs the scientists can pinpoint the crash to within 5 seconds. Why didn't the 9/11 Commission have this in their report?
Here are other reports indicating the crash took place at 10:06 a.m., 3 minutes after the official report:
Forty-five seconds after telling Fritz to evacuate the Johnstown tower, Cleveland Air Traffic Control phoned again. "They said to disregard. The aircraft had turned to the south and they lost radar contact with him." It was 10:06 a.m.
The Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday it turned over to the FBI a radar record of United Airlines Flight 93's route. The data traced the Boeing 757-200 from its takeoff from Newark, N.J., to its violent end at 10:06 a.m., just outside Shanksville, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
What is surprising is this: Go to Shanksville and the surrounding farm fields where people actually saw or heard the jetliner go down at roughly 10:06 that morning and there are a number of people -- including witnesses -- who also think that Flight 93 was shot down, or at least aren't ruling it out.
The 9/11 Commission seems to be alone in their stance that the jetliner went down at 10:03 a.m.
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If the 9/11 Commission purposefully moved the time of crash, what were they hiding? Well...one major theory is the "Flight 93 got shot down theory."
Local officials stated that crash debris was spread over a wide area. According to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette, state police Major Lyle Szupinka "confirmed that debris from the plane had turned up in relatively far-flung sites, including the residential area of Indian Lake." 1 The residential areas of Indian Lake range from three to six miles from the crash site. As noted on the pages describing Flight 93 and its crash site, there were a number of debris fields. Small debris descended over Indian Lake and New Baltimore, about three and eight miles from the primary crash site, and an engine core was separated from the main impact crater by about 2000 feet.
According to local police, debris was flung for as far away as 3 to 6 miles. How is this to happen if the plane merely crashed into the ground? Some other trauma must have occurred to the plane while in air to cause such a catastrophe.
Several eye-witness accounts claim the following:
* A white jet in pursuit of the jetliner
* Peculiar engine sounds before the crash
* Sounds of explosions before the plane fell from the sky
* Appearances that the plane suddenly began to drop vertically
So. Was Flight 93 shot down? I don't know, but there are numerous pieces of evidence to suggest that the plane didn't just crash into the ground. People don't just see a jet in pursuit of a jetliner, explosions going off when the problem was supposed to be nothing more than the passengers taking back the plane from the hijackers, or a plane dropping vertically from the sky if it's crashing into the ground due to a panicked hijacker's piloting of the plane down..into the ground.
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And, finally, I leave you with the military response to the events in question.
It is standard operating procedure (SOP) to scramble jet fighters whenever a jetliner goes off course or radio contact with it is lost. Between September 2000 and June 2001, interceptors were scrambled 67 times. In the year 2000 jets were scrambled 129 times.
There are several elements involved in domestic air defense. The air traffic control system continuously monitors air traffic and notifies NORAD of any deviations of any aircraft from their flight-paths or loss of radio contact. NORAD monitors air and space traffic continuously and is prepared to react immediately to threats and emergencies. It has the authority to order units from the Air National Guard, the Air Force, or other armed services to scramble fighters in pursuit of jetliners in trouble.
According to this source, fighters are regularly scrambled to go after jetliners that go off course or lose radio contact. It occurred 67 times between September 2000 and June 2001, no less. Then why were there no such orders given this fateful day?
If we are to believe General Myers, no fighters were scrambled until after the Pentagon was attacked.
In his confirmation hearing two days after the attack, General Myers, acting head of the Joint Cheifs of Staff on the day of the attack, said he thought that no interceptors were scrambled until after the Pentagon was attacked.
That is Version 1. Version 2?
NORAD released a press release on September 18, 2001 claiming that jets were scrambled 6 minutes after notification of AA Flight 11 was in trouble, and the very minute that the AA Flight 77 was reported as missing.
Source: Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Military Response
This source seems a little troubling, given two facts. Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, hit its target at 9:37am EDT. Flight 11 was crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 local time. Why is a scramble order being given for Flight 11, when it has already hit the tower? Why is the scramble order given for Flight 77 before it has hit the Pentagon...when General Myers said the order wasn't given until after the Pentagon was hit?
And, now, for the 9/11 Commission's record of the times. According to the Commission, fighters were scrambled at the times NORAD reported. Except in this report, the Commission makes use of the term "Phantom Flight 11." This is meant to communicate that the fighters weren't scrambled for Flight 77, but rather in a search for Flight 11, which was erroneously thought to have went past New York, towards Washington.
Source: Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Military Response
So. Was General Myers right? How about NORAD and the 9/11 Commission? We have two conflicting scrambling times, and a report that seeks to correct NORAD on why they sent fighters out. At any rate, why weren't fighters sent out to stop the jetliners?
..Cheney. That bastard. One eye-witness testimony claims:
MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane [was] coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And --
That's right. Cheney issued a stand down order. What the hell is the vice president doing issuing orders to keep interceptors grounded?
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There are more elements to this conspiracy, of which I am not getting into. The main point of this post stands as such. There was sooo many loopholes in this official story, so many eye-witnessed testimonies that differ from the story, so much scientific evidence that differs from the official story...How could it be correct? How could the government's theory be correct when so much flies in it's face?
None of this is to say the government was responsible. Maybe Bush and Cheney were just caught in an incredibly detailed plot that they couldn't wiggle out of in time. Or maybe it was only Cheney and his old cronies in the CIA. Or maybe it was really was a group of Muslim extremists that crashed planes into buildings. However, I can't bring myself to believe that Muslim extremists pulled this off. If they did, it illustrates the largest group blunder in military procedures in the history of domestic security in the United States.
And I'm completely playing the Conspiracy side, even if I don't agree with it.
