9/11, Loose Change

[Azarkon]

I think you guys are missing the forest for the trees. If it were a matter of the Bush administration orchestrating the entire attack, there would be a tremendous amount of people involved who would have to be silenced. However, if it were a simple matter of the Bush administration facilitating the attack knowing that it's coming, very few people would need to be silenced.

 

The entire attack could've been facilitated by a few top officials of the government plus a small cadre of military personnel.

 

I do not believe that Bush hired Osama to blow up the buildings. I do think that Al Qaeda is behind the attack and would've done it regardless. I don't think that it requires a leap of faith to realize that such an attack could serve both sides' interests. People say that the simplest explanation is often the correct one. I tend to agree, except the simplest explanation here, taking into account evidences from both sides, is for there to have been a mutually beneficial relationship. Otherwise you would have to disregard every single piece of evidence pointing to a possible conspiracy - and that's impossible, because frankly put, there's far more than the WTC argument.

 

What is unsettling about that video is not its physics arguments about whether the WTC collapsed on its own or through implanted bombs, but by the references to various attempts by the government to silence key witnesses, to prevent official personell from flying, from redirecting fighter jets during the day, and for remaining secretive regarding actual video-tapped evidence. There's a separate explanation for each one of these issues, but are you willing to trust that everything was a coincidence? If so, then you're making as big of a leap of faith as any conspiracy theorist.

 

It's doubtful that an otusider like the one who made Loose Change could've gotten all the facts right. However, after viewing the video I doubt I can say, with good judgment, that he's got nothing right. The truth may not be as sinister as he believes, but given the major beneficiaries of the events following 9/11 and given how convenient the attack was for the Bush administration, it's also not likely to be as simple as the other side wants you to think.

Edited July 2, 2006 by Azarkon

[alanschu]

People say that the simplest explanation is often the correct one. I tend to agree, except the simplest explanation here, taking into account evidences from both sides, is for there to have been a mutually beneficial relationship. Otherwise you would have to disregard every single piece of evidence pointing to a possible conspiracy - and that's impossible, because frankly put, there's far more than the WTC argument.

 

If you start analyzing the conspiracy info, you aren't taking the simplest explanation anymore.

[Azarkon]

Why? Because simplicity is equivalent to ignorance? Taking into account every single fact before you come up with a "simple" explanation is not called complicating the issue. It's called being responsible.

 

In other words, the statement that the simplest explanation is often the right one presumes that you've got all the evidence. Otherwise, you're just being ignorant.

Edited July 2, 2006 by Azarkon

[alanschu]

So you're saying that the simplest explanation isn't that Al-Quaeda just decided to crash a plane into the side, but that the US government was involved in some way?

 

Certainly seems much more simple.

[Azarkon]

Depends on the evidence. Since I don't have all the evidence and the government appears to be hiding some of the evidence, I do think that it's possible that the simplest explanation is a degree of government involvement, yes.

[Colrom]

There are interesting claims in the Loose Change case.

 

Never-the-less, I believe there was an actual foreign terrorist attack on the WTC.

 

I suppose it might have been preventable but allowed to go forward.

 

Perhaps it was leveraged by a misinformation campaign after the fact.

 

On the other hand, the Anthrax attack seems like a Psych Op.

[trulez]

... temperature would have reached to the melting point of steel?

 

Strawman argument. No one said anything about melting steel. The steel just needs to be weaken to lose support, which is exactly what happened with the jet fuel, carbon-based material, and plenty of oxygen. You're overestimating the strength of steel here.

Yet there is evidence of molten steel on the very website you provided as a "debunk" source.

 

http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/wtc-southtower.jpg

 

But that still doesn't explain why the 80 or so untouched/unharmed floors below suddenly couldn't hold the weight or the point load of the 30 floors above when they came crashing down

 

You make it sound like 80 floors act as one, which doesn't work that way. There when thousands and thousands of pounds and loads of kinetic energy going downards. It's gravity doing it's work. Unfortunately, it killed 3000 people as well.

As seen in the 9/11 videos the central core gave up first and the antenna on the top of the building starts falling before the outer walls. This is contradicting your claim of an collapse that the outer steel columns gave away due to the heat.

 

That fact is also confirmed by the FEMA:

"Review of videotape recordings of the collapse taken from various angles indicates that the transmission tower on top of the structure began to move downward and laterally slightly before movement was evident at the exterior wall. This suggests that collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building. (FEMA, 2002, chapter 2)"

 

And I'm wondering what is up with building seven.

 

The building had their own generator and gas canisters, and they started a fire in the building. Eventually the entire building was engulfed in flames and the bottom parts of the buildings fell off due to the WTC debris. The firefighters knew it was going to collapse and wouldn't risk fighting it. That's why when it collapsed, there was no casualities.

 

It isn't that hard when you do a bit of research. Also, it did NOT fall on it's own footprint (not a single WTC building exists today) and it leaned slightly to the south. WTC7 was recently rebuilt.

Could you give a link to any official government report where this is said?

 

Finally, for the gentlemen that linked to Steven E. Jones work on "how the buildings fell down" and supporting the theory of thermite, you might want to check his background.

 

One, he wasn't even peer reviewed by Structual Engineers and his own university denies him ( http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/jones.htm )

 

Two, he wrote some whacked out papers before, including that Jesus walked on Ancient America ( http://www.physics.byu.edu/faculty/jones/r...d%20figures.htm )

 

That's enough for me.

Of course it is, I mean, you wouldn't expect the 911 conspiracy theorist debunkers to post their credentials too, right?

 

Quoted from the 911 conspiracy theory debunking site:

"Q: Why do you hide your identity?

A: It should be none of anyone's business who I am. If I'm right, the evidence will back me up. If I'm wrong the evidence will expose it the same as if you knew who I was."

 

Like it should be none of anyones business if they have any credentials to backup their claims.

 

That's enough for me.

[Moose]

2 videos:

 

Proof that plane hitting the pentagon could have fully disintegrated and vanished:

Clicky 1

 

Example of the sort of explosion that would have been contained in a finite space during the WTC attack:

[MarkyX]

Quoted from the 911 conspiracy theory debunking site:

"Q: Why do you hide your identity?

A: It should be none of anyone's business who I am. If I'm right, the evidence will back me up. If I'm wrong the evidence will expose it the same as if you knew who I was."

 

I'm not surprised. I've been threatened a few times already and even have people on Skype stalking me (making numerous accounts to try and 'talk to me').

 

Could you give a link to any official government report where this is said?

 

http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixl.pdf

 

They mention housing fuel systems. I'm going to assume they use their own canisters and generators ..a bunker isn't a bunker without one.

 

Yet there is evidence of molten steel on the very website you provided as a "debunk" source.

 

How do you know that is steel? Steel isn't the only metal used in the WTC.

 

As seen in the 9/11 videos the central core gave up first and the antenna on the top of the building starts falling before the outer walls. This is contradicting your claim of an collapse that the outer steel columns gave away due to the heat.

 

When did I mention anything about the outer walls causing the collapse? I know the support is in the core. It's just people assume that the entire buidling acts at one entity, when it doesn't.

[Ellester]

This has got to be the 10th conspiracy theory thread on 9/11 since the Obsidian forum opened. From what I

[J.E. Sawyer]

The people who made this video rely very heavily on people not stopping to read the additional text provided with their three-second screen splashes and fun facts.

 

E.g.: "Bomb sniffing dogs are pulled from the World Trade Center and security guards end two weeks of 12-hour shifts."

 

Additional text of note on screen for two seconds:

 

The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted...

 

"Today was the first day there was not the extra security." [guard] Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that."

 

Security guard Hermina Jones said officials had recently taken steps to secure the towers against aerial attacks by installing bulletproof windows and fireproof doors in the 22nd-floor computer command center.

 

It's potentially problematic to consider that the security leaving had been additional security added in response to previous threats. It sounds much more conspiratorial if the standing security force was reduced, which is what many probably infer from the narrator's quote. It's also bizarre that the 22nd floor had additional security added to protect the computer command center. If this were an "inside job", it would be moronic to ensure the safety of a communications center that could potentially send out messages such as, "Hey, bombs were rigged to go off in here." or to record footage of incriminating evidence.

 

Then there's the conspicuous absence of the date at which the extra security was pulled. The narrator doesn't mention the timeframe, but the guard in the article says that only a single day had passed. That leaves exactly one day for a crack team of demolitions ninjas to rig the entire building.

 

Of course, the most telling indicator of massive B.S. piling up is the narrator's almost continual use of the passive voice for every conspiratorial action mentioned. Forces "were pulled". Put options "were placed". Who did this? You get dinged for this sort of irresponsible junk on freshman papers, even in our crummy American colleges.

 

The Chicago-Tribune article quoted for almost every single one of the put option figures can be found here.

Please note the headline -- which isn't visible in the video -- "Terrorist trade probe widens". The article is about how security regulators are investigating the possibility that the terrorist groups who engineered the attacks were the ones who did the options trading to profit from their own actions.

 

The narrator doesn't assign agency to these events and excludes any contextual information that might lead you away from the conspiratorial conclusion he wants you to reach. He presents fun facts in a way that leads your mind down a logical path. But it's selective and often very misleading.

 

Hey, if anyone wants to swallow everything this dude throws out without following up in his sources, you can believe whatever you want to believe. But this is what I believe: there is no way that the administration that engineered and ran our war in Iraq to date possesses one-tenth the coordination and competence required to pull off the amazing conspiratorial feats suggested in this documentary.

 

Our government's IRS and Department of Education apparently can't figure out between both of them what my address is -- and they did this?! COME. ON.

[Cantousent]

Say anything you want about our education system in general, but our universities are not crummy. If nothing else, having many of the best and brightest from around the world attend our universities helps mitigate the effect that mentally deficient Americans like me have on the system as a whole.

[Walsingham]

I never thought I'd say this , but... J.E. Sawyer FTW!