Our response to the 9/11 attack should have bee just such a punitive raid.  We could have gone in there (with our own troops) shot up as many al-Qaeda’s and any Taliban supporters that we could get our hands on, then declared victory and gone home.  The whole incident would be years behind us now.

If the Soviets couldn’t win with 500,000 troops, how are we going to win with our pittanc?

Thousands of Mexicans cross the US border illegaly every day.  Even school aged kids are able to get guns in this country and shoot up their schools.  If there really was an organization that wanted to terrorize this country they’d have no problem doing it.  Imagine terrorists going into 5 shopping malls around the country and shooting everyone in sight.  It would probably sow panic and wreck the economy and it takes nothing more then getting a couple terrorists into this country and enough money to buy handguns. 

This doesn’t happen becasue there’s nobody out there to get us.  There’s no shortage of people willing to die to expel their occupiers in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan but nobody who’ll do it in the US or Europe.  They simply want us out of their countries. 

9/11 was a freak event.  Are there even 19 other Muslims in the world out of a billion who would do the same thing?  If only the FBI had got these guys or they chickened out at the last minute the average American wouldn’t know who Osama Bin Laden is and the Taliban’s treatment of women would be nothing more then a pet cause for college radicals. 

As 9/11 fades from memory I assume we’ll eventually get bored and pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan.  We’ll stop arguing over whose got big enough balls to nuke Iran and we’ll get back to spending all our time talking about what we did in the 90s, racial conflict.

I Have to say, this is by far your best piece of work, that I have seen here.

Thanks for comments.  I had a very incomplete version up earlier; hopefully, this clears up any gaps.

A basic assumption of this piece is that the events of 911 originated in Afghanistan. If the author bothered to do the tiniest amount of research into 911 (for example, by reading one of Griffin’s books, or wondering how skyscrapers could fall neatly in a concentric pattern at nearly free-fall rate and be pulverised to dust, or how there could be a complete stand-down of the world’s most sophisticated air defence system), he might discover that 911 was a false-flag operation, that many of his views are erroneous, and that his sermonising on this matter betrays a fundamental misconception of the true nature of the American elites.

Please remove the tin-foil hat and resume taking your meds.

Ian, reading scrawled nonsense on the walls of coffee house latrines does not qualify as “research.”

...no idea where this post is leading…

If the definition of victory in Iraq or Afghanistan implies creating a liberal democracy that is both allied with us in the War on Terror and friendly with Israel, then both wars will be never ending. I think someone needs to articulate a very specific definition of “winning,”—one that can be measured objectively—and then we can have a debate about 1) is it feasible and 2) is it worth it? So far all the pronouncements about “winning,” have been entirely rhetorical.

Afghanistan is still viewed differently from Iraq because most Americans regard it as a just war—in their eyes Afghanistan literally attacked on 9/11 so we are justified in retuning the favor. There is no need to trump “democracy,” or “liberation,” because the war already has a justification.

Things are not so simple with Iraq. With Iraq the casus belli is rather less clear, so the Administration feels it’s necessary to provide a justification. That is why we hear much more about “building a democracy in Iraq,” or liberating the people. However, this talk is just putting “perfume on the pig,” so to speak. We have no intention of really trying to transform Iraq into a democracy, and then grant it sovereignty. Our purpose in Iraq is to militarily dominate the region because of 1)Israel and 2) energy. However we can not bluntly state our reason for the war, so the Administration uses propaganda to make it smell better i.e. putting “democratic” perfume on their imperial pig.

No one can be so brutally honest with the American people because it would imply that our government is fundamentally corrupt, untrustworthy, and evil.

Thanks for your intelligent responses nbf and Christopher Roach. 911 is truly an issue that separates those capable of critical thought.

Those of you with blind faith in what the American authorities tell you might be interested to know that even the CIA’s framing of Libya for the Lockerbie bombing has now fallen apart (Palestinians are currently being blamed, but it will be interesting to see whether there was perhaps another hand behind them):
//news.scotsman.com/scotland/Truth-revealed-on-Lockerbie-bomb.4139925.jp

Ian, this discussion is for those of us concerned with fighting Islamic terrorism, which finds important support in Afghanistan, a country which the vast majority of us believe is the location in which the 9/11 attackers received training and support.  I do not want a side debate about whether it was a “false flag” operation or the product of some conspiracy of Mossad, Mr. Rogers, and the Care Bears to distract us. 

There are many good articles and debates on that subject elsewhere, most of which reveal the various logical fallacies of people with your position.  So I would ask you not to raise those points again, as my article above is a contribution to sub-debate about grand strategy among people that accept the premise that Afghanistan at least contains some significant number of al Qaeda terrorists and sympathizers who consider the United States an enemy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishrat_Husain

http://www.ishrathusain.com/

Ishrat Husain was central banker of Pakistan on 9/11/2001.  He wrote a book saying that Pakistan had 38 billion USD debt on 9/11 and that its interest was greater than gross exports.  Pakistan was under sanctions on 9/11 because of its nuclear test in 1998.  He said its position was unsustainable.

Without 9/11 and the dropping of sanctions and new loans it would have gone bankrupt and had to give up its entire nuclear program to get financing.

In 2001, Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan won finance minister of the year award for post 9/11 refinancing.  He later became Prime Minister while still finance minister.  Before these jobs he worked at Citigroup.

If after 9/11 we had left sanctions on Pakistan and stopped all immigration we would be further ahead today.

@Ian,

There are a lot of inconsistencies in the 9/11 reports.  I have heard that the official report has not been agreed on by all those who investigated it.  I am convinced that the buildings actually would have collapsed the way they did.  It is simple physics.  Since the initial impact of the planes did not knock them over the only place for all that weight to go is straight down, the way gravity pulls.  That being said, there is strong evidence that certain people knew about the attack in advance.  I know for a fact that my friend’s father was told by his employer not to fly on that day.  We knew that something was being planned but I still find it extraordinary that at least some people had knowledge of some kind of air related disaster occurring on a specific date.

Christopher

It really is time that you educated yourself a little bit on the events of 911. Let me respond to some of the nonsense in your last post:

“this discussion is for those of us concerned with fighting Islamic terrorism”
If the USA is continually tricked into fighting new and unjust wars for other parties, then it will destroy itself and much of the world. Much “Islamic terrorism” is merely a response to the unjust policies pursued by the USA over many decades. In fact, the USA and its partner Israel are the major problem as regards world terrorism.

“… which finds important support in Afghanistan, a country which the vast majority of us believe is the location in which the 9/11 attackers received training and support”.
In fact, many of the 911 attackers are known to have been trained in US military facilities (search internet for wanttoknow.info/010915newsweek)
and the finance to support the 911 attackers came from the Pakistani ISI (search Wikipedia for the article on Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh)
an organisation known to work closely with the CIA.
In fact, even your opinion on what Americans believe about 911 is wrong. Zogby polls have consistently shown that around 50% of Americans are suspicious of the official story and believe that a new investigation should be held.
(search Wikipedia for its article on 9/11 opinion polls)

“There are many good articles and debates on that subject elsewhere, most of which reveal the various logical fallacies of people with your position.”
Name me one “good” article or logical fallacy. All the hit pieces that appeared in the likes of Scientific American and Popular Mechanics have been thoroughly discredited.

“above is a contribution to sub-debate about grand strategy among people that accept the premise that Afghanistan at least contains some significant number of al Qaeda terrorists and sympathizers who consider the United States an enemy.”
Debate based on false assumptions is worse than pointless.

Please consider approaching the issue of 911 with an open mind and don’t come the bully boy approach with me.

I’m familiar with the arguments.  The “debunking” is not credible; the sources are shaky, and the rules of evidence are employed (a) extremely credulously to facts that support the inside job thesis and (b) hyper-skeptically to all evidence to the contrary.  I particularly find the idea that the buildings did not collapse from the jet planes and the associated fires and weakening of the structural steel laughable, with “professors of philosophy and religion” like Griffin quoting various crackpots rather than real structural engineers to support their claims.

Let’s consider the elephant in the room:  why could the government that invovled thousands of individuals and dozens of agencies on a 9/11 conspiracy not plant a few WMDs in Iraq, since that too would have furthered Bush and the neoconservatives’ plans.  It’s true, many mistakes were made before 9/11, but I find the idea it was an operation of some faction within the U.S. government laughable.  It doesn’t pass the straight face test, and the evidence in support is shoddy. 

The biggest problem with most conspiracy thinking is that no evidence can convince them otherwise.  The conclusion is pre-ordained. Indeed, what do we make of Osama himself cheering on the attacks and the various “brothers” by name?  Oh, just a minor factual problem, I’m sure.

To M. Nucci

“I am convinced that the buildings actually would have collapsed the way they did.  It is simple physics.  Since the initial impact of the planes did not knock them over the only place for all that weight to go is straight down, the way gravity pulls.”
Unfortunately, your understanding of physics is erroneous. There are various aspects that indicate that the WTC buildings were brought down by controlled demolition. Perhaps the biggest giveaway is that of the three buildings that collapsed, one of them (WTC7) was not hit by a plane and suffered only minor structural and fire damage. You can find videos on the internet of the collapse of WTC7 and you will see that its collapse was exactly like that of a controlled demolition. I don’t have time to go into everything but consider the following:
1. Never before nor since have steel-framed buildings collapsed completely because of fire. There have been various other examples of high rise buildings that have suffered much larger fires than occurred on 911 and yet their steel frame remained intact. Kerosene fires don’t get hot enough to melt or seriously weaken steel, if they did, gas barbeques would be impractical.
2. The buildings didn’t just collapse, they were pulverised. That is, much of the concrete was converted to very fine dust and steel beams were cut into sections. This requires an enormous amount of energy, quite unattainable from a mere collapse.
3. Firemen reported molten metal in the base of the towers for weeks after the collapses. Satellite imagery confirmed that the rubble pile had very hot regions. Molten metal is consistent with the use of explosives but not with a collapse.
4. The building collapses were total, concentric, and occurred at near free fall rate. That is, a section of the upper part of one of the towers was timed as reaching the ground only a little slower than if it had dropped through air. This implies that all resistance (ie the rest of the building below the upper section) had been effectively removed over a very short interval. If the buildings had collpased, upper sections would have encountered considerable resistance on their way to the ground. If the buildings had collapsed because of the impact of the planes, the collapses would have been asymmetric and would have only involved a section of the buildings (ie they would not have been essentially instantaneous total collapses).

If you really want to get a grasp on what happened on 911 and why so many people know that the government story is pure lies, I would strongly urge you to purchase one of David Ray Griffin’s books or have a read of this web site (be cautious there is a lot of disinformation (presumably government sponsored) about 911 on the internet)
http://911research.wtc7.net/

@Christopher Roach,

I am also surprised that the government didn’t just plant the WMDs but then I have come to the conclusion that they are so corrupt that they don’t even try to cover their tracks and simply shifted the discussion to spreading democracy as the main impetus for the war.  The fact that they did this completely after the fact shows just how corrupt, brazen, and condescending they really are.  Their attitude is ‘we’ll tell you what we like and you’ll like it’

To Christopher

“like Griffin quoting various crackpots rather than real structural engineers to support their claims.”
I can’t vouch for everyone that Griffin quotes, but there is a multitude of architects and structural engineers who have questioned the official accounts of the building collapses (see here http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html)

“Let’s consider the elephant in the room:  why could the government that invovled thousands of individuals and dozens of agencies on a 9/11 conspiracy”
This is an old criticism that has been thoroughly debunked. People knowledgable in such matters have estimated that as few as 20 people may have been fully briefed on what was going to unfold on 911. Remember that the military, CIA etc operate on a needs-to-know basis.

“not plant a few WMDs in Iraq, since that too would have furthered Bush and the neoconservatives’ plans.”
Irrelevancy. Neither I nor you understand how these people think.

“It’s true, many mistakes were made before 9/11, but I find the idea it was an operation of some faction within the U.S. government laughable.”
Laugh away. Perhaps while you are laughing you might give thought to other actual and proposed US government deceptions such as Operation Northwood and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Given the way that the neocons lied America into the Iraq War, would you put 911 past them? Remember also that there is evidence to suggest that the US government may have out-sourced much of 911 to Mossad.

“It doesn’t pass the straight face test, and the evidence in support is shoddy.”
There is certainly much that we don’t know about 911, but that is largely because the American government has either withheld or destroyed critical evidence. Rather suspicious don’t you think? 

“The biggest problem with most conspiracy thinking is that no evidence can convince them otherwise.  The conclusion is pre-ordained.”
Please, these are childish games trying to turn conspiracy into a dirty word. As evidenced in our law courts, conspiracies go on all the time. You show me convincing evidence that 911 was not an inside job and I will certainly admit that I was wrong. I judge issues on the evidence, and the evidence here is overwhelming that the official conspiracy theory is a pack of lies.

“Indeed, what do we make of Osama himself cheering on the attacks and the various “brothers” by name?  Oh, just a minor factual problem, I’m sure.”
Not true. Immediately after 911, Osama released a statement saying that he regretted the killing of innocents, that his people were not involved in 911, and that America should look internally to find the culprits. The subsequent tape from Kandahar showing Osama celebrating the 911 attacks was exposed as a forgery.

The collapse of the twin towers is consistant with the the theories put forward by the authorities. I am an old contractor who has done a lot of demolition. To implode buildings of that size would take weeks of preparations and complicated engineering studies. The steel does not have to melt to weaken and collapse. Surprisingly low heat will do it. The reason steel in buildings is covered with insulation or concrete is to protect the steel from heat in the case of fire. Unprotected steel is very mallable in a fire. McCormick Place in Chicago, for example collapsed after a rather small fire exposed the unprotected steel joists to heat. Asbestos is a better insulator than fiberglass, but best is concrete by far. The world trade center had asbestos on the lower floors but fiberglass on the higher floors. This was because of the concerns about health problems from asbestos exposure. The theory is the planes knocked off the fibreglass and exposed the steel to heat. Many vertical supports were also knocked out by the planes which weakened the buildings, as well. That all said, I still too wonder about the collapse of WTC7.

Regarding the physics of the collapses, here’s what bothers me:

1. Why hasn’t a competent research group performed a rigorous and physics-based computer simulation to try and retrodict and model the collapses of WTC 1, 2 and 7?
2. Why hasn’t a competent research group built scale models of all three buildings with the goal of trying to experimentally reproduce all three collapses?

Each of above experiments, at least in principle, could be used to quickly and decisively refute most of the popular, alternative conspiracy theories.

The total absence of these experiments is all the more infuriating given that the towers were designed and engineered to survive 707 impacts and given that building 7 suffered a total collapse, despite suffering only relatively minor and localized fire and impact damage.  One would think that the engineering community and government regulators would be in a state of near total panic given the totally unprecedented and unpredicted events of that day, with the resulting deluge of peer-reviewed papers, government hearings and new building regulations continuing down to the present day.  How are we to explain this truly puzzling lack of interest in what was arguably the greatest engineering failure in history?

I was opposed to the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan from the get go. To my, admittedly very limited knowledge of their history, no country has ever successfully invaded and occupied Afghanistan.

I think we have already lost the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Empires of Great Britain and the Soviet Union both preceded us in their failures.

There were other ways to handle the response to 911. Sir Michael Howard tells us how…

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/11/01/19888.html

Excellent post and a contribution to the ongoing debate on “nation Building” (which W and Condi blasted in 2000). But it’s important to note when critics who attack Bush and Company for not finishing the job is Afghanistan, I think that many of them are referring to the failure to capture Osama and all the Al Quada gang and the Taliban leaders and instead deploying the troups to Iraq.

A persuasive post.  Most of my countrymen (Canadians) are fed up at the fact that our troops are taking the heaviest casualties against the Taliban while our alleged NATO allies in Europe engage the jihadists hardly at all.  Afghanistan is barely a state, and is more a collection of tribal lords with ties to the drug cartel.  Perhaps “narcostate” is more appropriate.  It is not worth fighting for this.

To Original Jack

“The collapse of the twin towers is consistant with the the theories put forward by the authorities.”
Which theory? The official theory has undergone various changes each of which has been exposed as inadequate.

“I am an old contractor who has done a lot of demolition. To implode buildings of that size would take weeks of preparations and complicated engineering studies.”
True. But if you have virtually unlimited resources what is the issue?

“The steel does not have to melt to weaken and collapse. Surprisingly low heat will do it.”
Please, I am not an idiot. Internal combustion engines and barbeques would be impractical if what you say was true.

“The reason steel in buildings is covered with insulation or concrete is to protect the steel from heat in the case of fire. Unprotected steel is very mallable in a fire.”
You fail to appreciate various aspects of the situation. For example, steel is very conductive to heat and there was a vast amount of steel in those towers (ie big heat sink). NIST’s studies indicated that the beams in the towers were only exposed to relatively low temperatures, far below temperatures that would produce significant weakening. In addition, the buildings were massively over-engineered and, if you bother to look at the plans, one of the first things you would note is the size and number of the core columns.

“McCormick Place in Chicago, for example collapsed after a rather small fire exposed the unprotected steel joists to heat.”
McCormick Place is an old chestnut that neocon apologists for the official story like to trot out. Go to this website if you want to understand why it is a ludicrous comparison with WTC towers (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/180806hitpiece.htm)

“The theory is the planes knocked off the fibreglass and exposed the steel to heat.”
That theory was long ago discredited. Insufficient energy from the plane impacts to remove a significant amount of insulation.

“Many vertical supports were also knocked out by the planes which weakened the buildings, as well.”
The buildings stood for roughly an hour after the impacts. If removal of supports was a significant factor then due to the nature of the impacts, asymmetrical collapses would have been expected. But, this was not the case.

Could anyone please explain why the centgov and its myrmidons always destroy crime scenes, such as Ruby Ridge, Waco, OKC, WTC before proper forensic analysis can be performed?  The State cannot be trying to spare the tender minds of the masses, since DC and the MSM are always using the imagery of the crimes to push the gov’s agendas.

With all due respect. Ian I had three excellent structural engineers working for me. One of them detected flaws in a design that would have caused a building to collapse and would have possibly killed hundreds of people. I saw a show on the twin towers collapse. It showed alot of good forencic structural engineering explanations and I as a pro bought it. There are many structural collapses all over the world every year. There is a whole magazine called “Engineering News Record” full of them. The studies by many fine forencic engineers have agreed with the pancaking theory. Some fairy tales from the internet don’t hold up very well. Columns were knocked out and heat works for me and I know something about it. The whole basic origial design was never meant for this kind of stress. It just was not calculated for such an horrific event.

TOJ, what does your experience and recently acquired knowledge(your latest post) say about the collapse of WTC7?

WTC7 is not clear in my mind. It happened hours after the towers collapsed and had no direct hit by a plane. Yet if it was imploded, it would have taken a demolition team days to set it up, in a high security building. It absolutly makes no sense. I would have to do a lot more reseach to have an opinion. Frankly I don’t care to waste my time on it.

The physics of what happened to WTC 1, 2 and 7 need not be and should not be a matter of qualitative speculation and arguments from authority.  The knowledge, resources and tools exist that would allow researchers to show, with quantitative rigor and precision, what should have happened to each building on that fateful day All that’s lacking is the will to do the necessary experiments and computational work and, it goes without saying, a proper investigation into the events of 9-11 would have included such experiments. 

That such experiments still haven’t been performed - especially given that WTC 1 and 2 were designed to survive 707 impacts and WTC 7 wasn’t hit by a plan – is mind boggling.  For Pete’s sake, large numbers of the American people think the government was somehow involved in the events of 9-11.  You’d think the government would want to clear a few things up once and for all - for example that all three buildings collapsed due impact damage, fire and gravity.  Once again: why haven’t government researchers performed (and published) the experiments/simulations that could settle this once and for all?

Frank! The design was never ment for this kind of stress. An old fashioned design like the Empire State buiding, maybe could have held out longer, or even survived. We don’t design buildings to survive direct hits from large airplanes loaded with kerosene. Modern buiding design aims for lighter construction with more open space. The WTC towers had open floors with the columns on the outside of the buildings and around the elevator shafts. By the way I know the retired head engineer at the world trade center. He retired a couple of years before the collapse. I spent a day bullshitting with him in about 2000. He was there when the original attack came in 1993. I haven’t seen him since. I wonder what his opinion is, or if he is still alive.

Wow, I can’t believe my last post was blocked.  I was trying to respond to TOJ and inform readers that, in fact, the towers were designed to withstand 707 impacts.  In my two previous posts, I’d been nothing but polite and, I’d like to think, quite rational.  I guess you guys don’t want a PhD physicist raising important and unanswered questions.  Attempting to start a discussion by begging the question (we’ll just assume everything happened the way the Bush administration said it did) can only lead to error, in this case, grave error.

TOJ, thank you for your measured response to this troubling issue.  It is refreshing to have someone admit that hse doesn’t know when he doesn’t know.  To Ian and Joseph, keep up the good fight.  Given the lives lost and property destroyed since 9/11, we need more than the US centgov whitewash we have been handed by our ‘masters’.  Note theat even the Beltway bandit stacked 9/11 Commission complained of stonewalling, evasion, lying, and other obstructions from this Administration.

Original Jack

“WTC7 is not clear in my mind. It happened hours after the towers collapsed and had no direct hit by a plane. Yet if it was imploded, it would have taken a demolition team days to set it up, in a high security building. It absolutly makes no sense. I would have to do a lot more reseach to have an opinion. Frankly I don’t care to waste my time on it.”
If you bothered to do a little research then it might start to make sense to you. Let me give you a few little hints:
WTC was controlled by prominent Zionists who stood to make a lot of money out of the towers’ destruction. Indeed, destroying the towers “solved” a little problem they had with asbestos (now of course hundreds/thousands of New Yorkers are going to die from mesothelioma). “Fortuitously”, these Zionists had changed their insurance policies (to their considerable benefit) shortly before 911. The firm that ran security at WTC was Bush family connected. It is reported that bomb-sniffing dogs were withdrawn from the WTC a few weeks before 911, and that there were total power shutdowns (ie no security cameras etc) in WTC1/2 on several weekends prior to 911. WTC7 contained Giuliani’s emergency response centre (many have suggested that this may have been a hub for organising the events of 911), as well as FBI and CIA offices that reportedly contained incriminating evidence on scandals (eg Enron) involving high-ranking politicians. WTC7 may have been the intended target for the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Jack, why waste other’s time with your foolish misinformation if you don’t even care to fully inform yourself?

“The design was never ment for this kind of stress. An old fashioned design like the Empire State buiding, maybe could have held out longer, or even survived. We don’t design buildings to survive direct hits from large airplanes loaded with kerosene. Modern buiding design aims for lighter construction with more open space.”
Jack the above is more of your misinformation. If you bothered to check the blueprints of WTC1/2 or even looked at old photos of the towers while they were being constructed (these are all available on the internet), you would see how immensely strong their cores were. As noted by Joseph, the towers were very definitely designed to withstand the impact of an aeroplane.

Joseph

Thanks for your support. I find that my posts often get blocked if they contain internet site links. It seems you sometimes need to play around with their format and then they are accepted no troubles.

Ian with all due respect, you show your ignorace. When columns are knocked out, as many were in this case, the other columns must take up the the stress. This combined with the heat and tremendous fires easily explains to me how the steel buckled and the pancake effect took over. The building collapsed as the center could no longer hold the top. The top floors with their huge weight fell and the lower structure was never designed for such a catastophe.An older building such as the Empire state building could withstand a much smaller plane crash because the steel was encased in concrete and there was a lot of masonry plaster consruction. This retards fire much longer and better than modern steel construction and flimsy fibreglass insulation. Engineering is all about getting the safest building at the lowest cost. Modern steel buildings go up fast but drywall and steel studs with modern insulation give much less fire protection than the older masonry based buildings. Modern concrete structures are much safer for fires but can’t go economicaly to these heights. They are also much slower to construct and as you know time is money.

Ian I know who got all the insurance money but really I can’t endorse such a wacky theory. Now if a small atomic weapon went off somewhere, I could easily assume some rogue Mossad unit was responsible, especially now to rally for the attack on Iran.

Jack
It’s actually you who continues shows his ignorance. Even NIST have long ago abandoned the pancake theory as being inconsistent with the facts. Remember, the buildings came down at near free fall rate, whereas pancaking would take much longer (ie the load above has to collapse the floor below). In addition, pancaking is inconsistent with visual observations and with the known load bearing abilities of the building.

There were not “tremendous” fires in the buidlings. Have a look at the archival videos- the fires were very sooty (ie low temperature) and had significantly abated when the demolitions occurred. This is confirmed by NIST measurements which indicated that the steel they examined had been only exposed to relatively low temperatures.

The knocking out of a few columns by the planes is irrelevant to the collapses because it was the central core of the building that was doing most of the weight bearing. It would help if you actually mastered a few of the basics relevant to this story.

Ian no no no! the pictures I have seen of the compressed lower floors are very consistant with pancaking. Look the rules of this site forbid hobby horses, I have made my case. I think the forencic engingeers are right and I have 40 years doing hundreds of complicated engineering projects. Believe me there many engineering mistakes on projects, failures happen all the time. I myself have caught plenty of them. I have worked with engineers, architects, and construction claims lawyers. Believe me none of this surprises me. This my last post on this subject. Take my views and wipe your ass with them, for all I care.

What a pointless distraction. It’s noteworthy that so few on the Left give a hoot how to win in Afghanistan; they’re too busy engaging in mental masturbation about an imaginary cause of the 9/11 attacks. Occam’s Razor anyone?

Ian, I presume you’re not a structural engineer. Is that correct?  That means you’re repeating a leftist Professor of Religion’s repetitions of some other outlier source’s account of what happened, rather than a consensus view.  This is not a sensible method for a non-expert.

I also think it’s funny that obvious things are never accounted for.  Like, why use planes at all, when the whole thing could have been blamed on some bomber in the basement, as in ‘93?  In other words, you have this overdetermined event--the building collapse--that can just as easily be explained by either the planes or this imaginary cause proposed by the Truthers. The main event provides no evidence in support of your wild theory.  It’s frankly completely ridiculous. (And it’s telling folks that deny the moon landings figure prominently among the Truthers, along with other crackpots and pseudoexperts.)

There are certain factual positions which are more than just debatable positions; they show a lack of judgment and a moral obtuseness.  Holocaust denial is one.  9/11 conspiracy mongering is another.

You are a troubled man Christopher, you are unable to debate an issue on its merits- I shot down every one of your arguments and you couldn’t respond with one blow against me- so you resort to throwing mud in every direction (ad hominems, guilt by association, childish smears of imagining the world is neatly divisible into left and right etc). Open your mind and judge issues on the evidence, not according to what is socially acceptable or some preconceived notions.

Unless you are a structural engineer, you are not qualified to make the arguments you are making.  It would be like me saying, on my own authority, steel melts at this temperature, the kinetic energy of the planes was 10,000 Joules, more than enough to get the job done, etc.  Leftist philosophy professors do not lend any more credibility to your position.

Your sources suck.  Your logic sucks.  Your facts are demonstrably false, and people with no ideological axes to grind--such as the engineers and scientists at Scientific American and Popular Mechanics--have already reinforced the very logical case that I happen to believe in.  I am mocking you, because you, and people like you, are not worth debating.

Many good points:

“So, while many on the left have criticized Iraq in clear and powerful terms, none of the major Democratic candidates seriously proposes a defensive strategy that would offend liberalism, such as restricting immigration from the Middle East or expelling disloyal Muslims. “

and

“they (leftists) see our peaceful destruction through demographic trends, international pressure, mass immigration, and redistributing our resources in the name of “global justice” as welcome measures. For example, Barack Obama sponsored a Global Poverty bill that would have sent upwards of $845 billions of U.S. dollars overseas.  “

These are key points which we need to recognize.  However, both McCain and Obama support this.

“This lack of identification with an American community with a distinct interest among the world’s peoples is why normal patriotic feelings remain difficult for the left”

But the Republicans only see this as a way to manipulate elections, not to actually follow patriotic policies.  Reagan, Bush Sr, Bush Jr., and McCain were or are for legal immigration above 25,000 per year and amnesties.

Both parties are fractured and contain large swaths of ideological forces that are unpatriotic.  Most of our politics is a debate of left-liberals and right-liberals, but the basic premises of liberalism--individualism, rationalism, denial of community, commitment to procedure--are shared by both.  This is why I criticize the neoconservatives’ bellicose universalism above too.

I am a structural engineer.  Most of my experience has been in steel design of industrial structures (admittedly not the same as high rises).

I’ve seen and studied examples of accidental collapses/failures.

The WTC tower failures most definitely do NOT seem, to me, to have resulted from the eccentric impact damage of the planes.

They have every appearance of having resulted from controlled demolitions. 

And then, of course, there’s building 7.
Anyway, the bigger issue in my mind is the simple and honest appreciation of the term “terrorist”.

Armchair generals and brandy sipping elitists with tongues like serpents can always find a weasel way to ignore the obvious and call the other guy the “terrorist” when it seems to me that it is US (ie. western powers) who are inducing the most “terror” - by far.

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, in response to the american demands to hand over Bin Laden, didn’t the Taleban ask for the evidence that the americans had against him?  To which the american response was - BOMBS AWAY!

Wouldn’t Cuba, by the same standard, be justified in bombing america for their -the United States- having long given refuge to “terrorists”?

oh, i see i may also be mocked as you may doubt the veracity of my claim to be a structural engineer.

So be it.

(please forgive me if someone has already covered this, i haven’t read ALL the above comments yet)

Mr. Nucci said .....

“I am convinced that the buildings actually would have collapsed the way they did.  It is simple physics.  Since the initial impact of the planes did not knock them over the only place for all that weight to go is straight down, the way gravity pulls.”

Try knocking one leg out from a table and see if it falls straight down!

This is a huge simplification, i know, but illustrative none the less.

Dear Patrick you maybe a structural enginer but you give no evidence to dispute the many studies on the collapse.

Jack,

you’re right, i don’t.

Are you implying that of the many studies done of the collapse of the WTC towers, all of them supported the government’s / 911 commissions’ scenario?

I could point out that power and influence can easily buy the requisite opinions - see the “war on terror” for example.

Patrick, you may be an engineer.  But real engineers don’t make arguments from authority.  That’s why non-engineers sound particularly stupid to appeal to such methods in this matter. It’s little better to do so when you have an obvious axe to grind, i.e., your paranoia about “power and influence.”

Real engineers have a scientific method.  Your table example is illustrative, but wouldn’t we expect, not knowing more, for the buildings to completely collapse instantly upon impact under that way of thinking.

Christopher,

i AM an engineer and my specialization was structural when i graduated from university with a lowly bachelors degree in 1987.
That you may not believe me is the issue. 

I understand that you have no way of knowing whether i’m an engineer or a garbageman but, still, i don’t like to be called a liar.  If you can think of some way that i might satisfy your doubt, i will try to do so.

No sir, knocking one leg out from under a common four legged table would NOT necessarily lead to immediate collapse. 

What this simple example DOES illustrate is that the failure mode would be toward/about the point of weakness in the system.
ie. it would be eccentric not symmetric.

Christopher,

please accord me the same respect and courtesy i do you and refrain from being abusive, lest i “click” your post!

I refer to your attempts to belittle me and cast apersions by referring to my supposed obvious “paranoia”.

respectfully,
pat

Mr. Roach. There are many sites where one can debate the “merits” of arguments appearing on Prison Planet. (Maybe there are even sites which claim Gregorian Chant was originally composed for accordions).

In nay event, if you respond to the Prison Planet Posse here you will only encourage them.

Please either delete their posts or ignore them and, starved for attention, which is the rhetorical oxygen they need to live, they will collapse (sideways; to the extreme right or left, but never straight down)and we can ignore them and concentrate on your excellent observations.

I’ve crossed swords with you before, i think.

On the other hand, i think it would be closer to the point to say that you’ve tried to refute my points by doing the written equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and yelling “I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.

Prison planet, eh?  Next you’ll liken me to David Irving?

Christopher

You are right, I am not a structural engineer. However, I have a science background and have done university physics. Fact is you don’t need to be a structural engineer to understand that things don’t tally with the official explanation of 911. All you need is some basic scientific knowledge and an open mind.

As I have already evidenced, many notable structural engineers have come out and publicly stated their suspicions regarding the official explanation. It is true that some prominent structural engineers support and indeed were responsible for official explanations of the WTC collapses (eg the official panel that investigated the collapses). However, these people have invariably been high-placed corporate or academic engineers whose companies rely on government contracts or whose university departments survive on government grants. For them to come out and express suspicion regarding the government-endorsed fairy tale would be suicidal for their careers and for their companies. Engineers can be bought like any other group.

Demands for expertise cut two ways. Hopefully, readers of this web site will not in future have to endure your pontifications on subjects that you obviously know little about.

Mr. Roach,

I have no idea what happened on 911 and neither do you and that’s not our fault because there hasn’t been a serious and honest investigation into the events of that day.  In what follows, I’m simply going to state a few reasons as to why I think a real investigation is needed.

I have BS and MS in mechanical / biomedical engineering and a PhD in biophysics.  I have read all of the technical scientific literature on the subject of the WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapses.  I have also made some calculations of my own regarding the work required to collapse WTC 1 (structure below the impact zone) and the energy available to “drive” the collapse (from the structure above the impact zone).  Suffice it to say, my calculations (and the calculations of many others) suggest an energy gap – there simply wasn’t enough energy in the top floors (above the impact zone) to totally destroy the remaining structure.  The conservative columnist and former Reagan administration official (and trained engineer) Paul Craig Roberts has reached a similar conclusion and has written on the subject. 

On a related note, several physicists, engineers and mathematicians have addressed, with mathematical rigor, the WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapse times, reaching similar conclusions.  Finally, a group of engineers and physicists have managed to get hold of material from the towers and have performed numerous and sophisticated physical and chemical analyses on them and have reached troubling conclusions.  Many of these calculations and experiments have been published in the (peer reviewed and freely accessible) Journal of 911 Studies.  More recently, several scientists have managed to get their critical 911 work published in a mainstream and peer reviewed civil engineering journal.

Unfortunately (and as I’ve stated previously) to the best of my knowledge no one has performed the kind of experiments that could clear this matter up once-and-for all and this is what’s driving me nuts.  My calculations and the calculations of others suggest a problem; so we need competent (and well-funded) research groups to clear this matter up by performing and publishing, with complete transparency, the kinds of experiments I suggested above.  That the government and mainstream engineering community haven’t done this, when so much is at stake, is indefensible and fuel for all kinds of crazy conspiracy theorizing.  Indeed, this past weekend at a BBQ I had to suffer some fool speculating about alien involvement in the attacks (I kept my mouth shut)!

What happened on 911 was arguably the greatest crime and engineering disaster in history.  The American people were owed a full, impartial, well-funded and rigorous investigation into the events of that day.  Instead, within a couple of days we got a final story that hasn’t changed in 7 years, two pre-planned wars and the passage of pre-planned and dangerous legislation – a highly suspicious development.  And please don’t confuse the so-called 911 commission with a real investigation.

Governments and politicians lie.  Indeed, the Bush administration is known to have lied and manipulated us into the Iraq war, resulting in the deaths of over 4,000 Americans and God only knows how many Iraqis (incidentally, I will not debate the Bush administration lies/propaganda/misinformation regarding Iraq, as I consider it established beyond a reasonable doubt).  With the recent revelations about operation Northwood’s and the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the history of the last few years, and the legitimate scientific questions raised about 911, I think it’s time for a real investigation.  What do we have to fear from the truth?  Alas, 7 years after the fact I fear it’s too late to figure out exactly what happened on that fateful day.

An excellent post Joseph.

Further to your comments on the 911 commission. It is important to note that Bush was extremely reluctant to empanel the commission of inquiry and when he was finally forced to do so gave it pitiful funding, stacked it with bought political figures (even so, one of them resigned in protest at how ineffectual the commission was), and made sure that the arch-neocon Zelikow ran the show. Furthermore, both Bush and Cheney refused to give evidence under oath and insisted that they be interviewed together (presumably to avoid embarassing contradictions like Iran-Contra). Who could argue that these villains didn’t have plenty to hide as regards 911?

Although I believe 9/11 “Truthers are sincere, which is more likely, some are paid by Saudi Arabia or that they are right? 

Islam measures its very calendar from its attack on the rest.  Has the entire Muslim war on the world been staged?

Old Atlantic

I regret to say that I am not in the pay of Saudi Arabia (or anyone else).

There is a commonly posed question in criminal investigations: Who benefits? The Muslim world has certainly not benefited from 911. There are ongoing and evolving catastrophes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and (to a lesser extent) Pakistan, and there is the credible prospect of catastrophe enveloping Iran in the near future. All these catastrophes can be linked to, and in the eyes of the neocons and Bush administration are justified by, the events of 911.

Let’s for simplification overlook the calculations that have suggested that the odds of the 911 attacks succeeding as they did, without inside assistance, were greater than a million to one. Even assuming complete certainty that the attacks would be successful, can you believe that any Muslim organisation would be so naive as to think that full-frontal, Hollywood-style attacks on landmark buildings in the most powerful and militarily aggressive country on earth would not meet with a devastating response?

WHO BENEFITS??? (the answer is not difficult)

mcbrown,

I usually benefit from your posts but that last one was a useless distraction.  Ian is trying to provide facts and logical analysis and that’s all you can come up with?  Would you agree that we, the people of the United States, were owed a full and honest investigation into the events of 911 and that we never got it?  Instead, within a couple of days we got a simple morality play that hasn’t been updated in 7 years, lies, wars, torture, exploding deficits, and attacks on our liberties.  Incidentally, much of this was pre-planned and all of it was enabled by 911.  By your comments, you seem to find it a prior impossible for the US government (or elements within the US government) to launch a false flag operation.  Care to share the argument with us?  My own belief: we must follow the evidence wherever it leads.  Funny, too, how the FBI says there isn’t enough hard evidence to implicate Bin Laden in the 911 attacks,

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm

Remember that guy, the guy who supposedly pulled off 911 by himself, the guy the US government has all but forgotten about?