9/11 and conspiracy theories

[Beto]

Alrighty then... as I suggested in another thread, this one will be just to chat about 9/11 and other conspiracy theories. With so many websites solely devoted to them, I don't think addressing the issue here is "dangerous" to anyone.

So, to get things started I'll mention the "peculiarities" I find in the 9/11 event that I don't feel are sufficiently addressed by the government. I'm particularly interested in some incontrovertible images and sounds, since anything else implies trusting the mainstream media and the accused party.

First off, about the WTC 7. The NIST recently released a report blaming the fires for the collapse of the building. I'm no engineer so I can't really judge. Though looking at how the building falls it seems like a bunch of bs to me. More relevant is Silverstein's statement. During an interview, Silverstein claimed to have decided, in conjunction with the Fire Commander to "pull" the building. Now, it's often claimed he meant pull the firefighters out, but his exact phrase was "pull it". The transcript goes like:

"I said 'you know we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse."



People say it comes down to what we want to hear. For the life of me, and despite definitely not wanting to hear what I do, I can't see how this could relate to pull people out. Also relevant was the fact that no firefighters were in the building at this time. They were outside walking away from the building, fact caught on amateur video:

"It's blowin' boy." ... "Keep your eye on that building, it'll be coming down soon." ... "The building is about to blow up, move it back." ... "Here we are walking back. There's a building, about to blow up..."



"Blow up"? It's hard to believe the firefighters were expecting a steel framed building to collapse because of internal fires, when later it's considered a "freak accident", and totally unexpected.

OK, that's enough about WTC 7. Now something about Flight 93.



Leaving aside the "feel" of the clip, and whether or not the "scar" was there before 9/11, this is NOT a plane crash site. Scattered debris here and there don't make a plane crash site. The bulk of the fuselage should be right there, where nothing can be seen. Show me another crash site even remotely similar to that one.

That's enough for now, I guess.

[Beto]

Sorry for the long post, but "what a crock" just didn't seem adequate.

It's alright, I didn't read it. I don't think it's "worth the effort". Anyway, I doubt your input has anything new to what is now a relatively long thread.

[cnorman18]

Sorry for the long post, but "what a crock" just didn't seem adequate.

It's alright, I didn't read it. I don't think it's "worth the effort". Anyway, I doubt your input has anything new to what is now a relatively long thread.

Point taken; I'll read it. I didn't think my points required a review of the arguments thus far, and I still don't; but I'll read it. If I I change my mind after I read the thread, I'll post again.

Don't hold your breath. I've been reading and participating in threads like this one on half a dozen forums since 9/11 happened, and the answers to the objections I have raised here are invariably classically Christian in nature: "It's a mystery; we can't understand everything. There are things in the world that can't be totally proven; it's the mysteries that we don't understand that show this to be true..." and so on, and so on.

I don't have to touch, feel and taste bullsh*t to know what it is if I can smell it at thirty feet. The title of this thread is all I needed to know to post what I did. Whether or not you feel capable of addressing that post is another matter.

[Beto]

Point taken; I'll read it. I didn't think my points required a review of the arguments thus far, and I still don't; but I'll read it. If I I change my mind after I read the thread, I'll post again.

If your attitude will be one of sarcasm and mocking, I would ask you to just ignore the thread. If you can't discuss this seriously, I can't answer seriously, and our exchanges will go downhill. We've had our differences, but I've come to respect you as a debater and do not wish to engage in uncivil discussion.

The title of this thread is all I needed to know to post what I did. Whether or not you feel capable of addressing that post is another matter.

I would love to try, if I thought you were interested in my opinions in this matter. Your post did not indicate this.

[Beto]

Another thing about the C-ring "exit" hole. We should establish what the official position is. Some people have claimed the hole was made by rescuers. I could buy that. However, the Secretary of Defense, the building construction manager, a Pentagon spokesperson, and the official reports all point the nose of the aircraft as responsible for the hole. That settles that.

Mr. RUMSFELD: Yeah. And then came in about—between about the first and second floor over here. And it went in through three rings. I’m told the nose is—is still in there, very close to the inner courtyard, about one ring away.

It seems odd to me that a rotor is all that's recognizable of a 3 ton RB211, but the fuselage managed to punch through all that.

EDIT: Of course, there's also the matter of the pillars in the way.

[C-Nub]

CNorman-

I'm pretty happy to let these two go back and forth on it, and think both are doing a pretty good job with their side of the argument.

But I'm a Canadian, I don't have a hatred of George W. Bush, I think the American people got pretty much exactly what they were asking for / deserved there. (Sorry to those of you that bothers)

I am also reluctant (read: I refuse) to blame the event on anyone based on the fact that my observations of the events in question, as well as my exposure to the evidence from them, matches very little of the 'official' account of what happened.

I don't think it was Bush or any other officials in the government. I don't think, either, that it wasn't them. I think it's pointless trying to ascribe blame when we aren't quite sure what happened.


Here's a few of the things that really bother me about the event;

The rate at which the buildings fell is completely out-of line with the supposed pancake collapse that is supposed to have occurred. The amount of energy necessary to completely collapse the support structure of any given level of the world trade center is reasonably enormous. A progressive collapse like the ones witnessed in both towers could not have happened in the 10 (more or less) seconds each building took to come down. The math of it, the necessary transfers of energy, not to mention the incredibly unlikely stability of the collapse (very little tilt to the debris as it came down) simply don't make sense of the building was brought from the top down. Not only would it have started falling sideways as the levels collapsing failed to do so uniformly (there's no reason to think they would) but it would have slowed down noticeably with each story, and it didn't.

I'm also very bothered by the Pentagon, and the fact that footage of the crash exists that the powers-that-be simply refuse to release. I cannot fathom any kind of logic behind that other than a desire to hide something. The reports from the ground of what happened there vary wildly, with many people describing events, be they sites, smells, sounds or even colors more consistent with a missile strike than with an airplane crash.



I am not an expert, nor am I an angry, disenfranchised citizen of the United States. I do not particularly care, no offense to those more directly affected, that the United States was attacked by anyone. People are killed the world over by military action and terrorist attack, and you're just as much 'some other country' to me as Iran, Jordon, Georgia or Iraq. The only thing that does interest me about this is the fact that I don't feel satisfied by the answers provided. Because it was on American soil, I have access to a lot more information regarding this attack than I would had it occurred overseas or somewhere a little less cell-phone-camera-ey.

I could well be wrong, I am not a physics major or an engineer. I am, however, someone interested in both physics and engineering, and what little I know on both subjects conflicts very harshly with what your government would have me believe happened.

There's also the fact that like 18 of the supposed hijackers have since turned up alive and decidedly not terrorist.

[cnorman18]

Point taken; I'll read it. I didn't think my points required a review of the arguments thus far, and I still don't; but I'll read it. If I I change my mind after I read the thread, I'll post again.

If your attitude will be one of sarcasm and mocking, I would ask you to just ignore the thread. If you can't discuss this seriously, I can't answer seriously, and our exchanges will go downhill. We've had our differences, but I've come to respect you as a debater and do not wish to engage in uncivil discussion.

The title of this thread is all I needed to know to post what I did. Whether or not you feel capable of addressing that post is another matter.

I would love to try, if I thought you were interested in my opinions in this matter. Your post did not indicate this.

Fair enough, and I apologize for my tone. Just as atheists plead exhaustion and stupid-argument fatigue when dealing with fundamentalists, though, I can say the same about this.

Quibbles over details of the collapses and oddities of the aftermath are one thing, but until someone can explain to me what the fricken POINT of all this mumbo-jumbo could possibly have been, given that we did, beyond any doubt, see two jets deliberately crash into the WTC - and even more importantly, how ANY conspiracy this horrible and this huge could have been pulled off by ANYBODY, least of all the Bush bunch - well, it's easier for me to take son-of-God Jesus rising from the grave seriously than that. And I've never seen anybody, ever, get off the details and address those center-stage questions without "I dunno" somewhere in the mix. I've never even seen anybody offer a credible speculation. And I'm sick to death of nobody mentioning those elephants in the living room.

Why? and How? are pretty basic. I don't give a rat's butt about fall rates and missing wreckage till somebody takes a run at those.

[Beto]

Just as atheists plead exhaustion and stupid-argument fatigue when dealing with fundamentalists, though, I can say the same about this.

I try to present decent arguments, free of logical fallacies and fundamentalism. I don't presume to always succeed.

Quibbles over details of the collapses and oddities of the aftermath are one thing, but until someone can explain to me what the fricken POINT of all this mumbo-jumbo could possibly have been, given that we did, beyond any doubt, see two jets deliberately crash into the WTC - and even more importantly, how ANY conspiracy this horrible and this huge could have been pulled off by ANYBODY, least of all the Bush bunch - well, it's easier for me to take son-of-God Jesus rising from the grave seriously than that.

By "point" do you mean a motive? Off the top of my head, those 3.3 trillion dollars admittedly missing from the Pentagon budget, just before 9/11, are pretty compelling motivation. Unless you know something I don't, this remains the biggest embezzlement in history. 9/11 was an adequate distraction with Silverstein making a few billion dollars from his end. Coupled with offshore "conquests" made possible by the alleged worldwide threat of terrorism, I think there's more than enough reason to demand satisfactory evidence to all, like clear footage of the Pentagon event, be disclosed. As for "pulling it off", I don't think they did. I think they did a piss-poor job that was expected to be sufficient, and was.

And I'm sick to death of nobody mentioning those elephants in the living room.

No elephants in this thread.

I don't give a rat's butt about fall rates and missing wreckage till somebody takes a run at those.

Those points relate to "how", but we can address "why" more thoroughly if you wish.

EDIT: With the Patriot Act having 9/11 as an excuse, the American people should be dead serious about the possibility.

[cnorman18]

Just as atheists plead exhaustion and stupid-argument fatigue when dealing with fundamentalists, though, I can say the same about this.

I try to present decent arguments, free of logical fallacies and fundamentalism. I don't presume to always succeed.

Quibbles over details of the collapses and oddities of the aftermath are one thing, but until someone can explain to me what the fricken POINT of all this mumbo-jumbo could possibly have been, given that we did, beyond any doubt, see two jets deliberately crash into the WTC - and even more importantly, how ANY conspiracy this horrible and this huge could have been pulled off by ANYBODY, least of all the Bush bunch - well, it's easier for me to take son-of-God Jesus rising from the grave seriously than that.

By "point" do you mean a motive? Off the top of my head, those 3.3 trillion dollars admittedly missing from the Pentagon budget, just before 9/11, are pretty compelling motivation. Unless you know something I don't, this remains the biggest embezzlement in history. 9/11 was an adequate distraction with Silverstein making a few billion dollars from his end. Coupled with offshore "conquests" made possible by the alleged worldwide threat of terrorism, I think there's more than enough reason to demand satisfactory evidence to all, like clear footage of the Pentagon event, be disclosed. As for "pulling it off", I don't think they did. I think they did a piss-poor job that was expected to be sufficient, and was.

And I'm sick to death of nobody mentioning those elephants in the living room.

No elephants in this thread.

I don't give a rat's butt about fall rates and missing wreckage till somebody takes a run at those.

Those points relate to "how", but we can address "why" more thoroughly if you wish.

EDIT: With the Patriot Act having 9/11 as an excuse, the American people should be dead serious about the possibility.

You are not hearing me.

None of that explains the "why," that is, why two jumbo jets hitting the WTC was not a sufficient distraction for any purpose imaginable; and neither does it explain the "how" in the sense of (1) how hundreds (at minimum) of Americans could have been convinced to participate in an incredibly vicious act of mass murder, and (2) why not a single one of them has ever come forward and talked.

There are other problems as well. If the motivations for this supposed crime included justifying a war in Iraq, shouldn't it have occurred to someone that the fake hijackers ought to have been, hmmm, oh, I don't know, maybe Iraqis instead of Saudis?

How can a conspiracy be at once this incompetent (in the sense that there are this many illogicalities and wasted, senseless complications - what happened to Flight 93 if it didn't hit the Pentagon?) and this successful (in the sense that not one of the hundreds of supposed participants ever talked and no definitive proof has ever been found that cannot be otherwise explained)?

Atheists tell me that they will believe in the God hypothesis when they are shown clear, definitive, and unequivocal proof of God's existence, and I have said that that is a reasonable point of view.

I say exactly the same thing about this bizarre conspiracy - and proof of this should be a hell of a lot easier to find. In the seven years since the event, I have seen none. I shall therefore remain an unbeliever, and regard those who do believe as irrational, gullible fanatics and fantasists who remain unable to prove the truth of their beliefs.

The shoe, in other words, is on the other foot. Remarkable, isn't it? .

[Furrowed Brow]

Looking at the engine construction, I think it's reasonable to expect the central "spine", if you will, to cut through the facade like butter, seeing as the body of the aircraft allegedly managed to penetrate completely, and we can hardly compare the fuselage to the engines. No, if we're assuming the nose of the aircraft was able to punch through, I would expect the engines to remain virtually intact.

Like butter? Sometimes metaphorical language is useful to make a point. sometimes not so.

Just to get some perspective. Here are some links to pics of car wrecks. These crashes happened at lower speeds, and lower masses then would a 757 hitting the Pentagon. Any explosion would also have carried far less energy, and they would not have been reduced volume explosions.

Ouch!
Ouch!
Ouch!
Ouch!

“I would expect things to look different� is not an argument that bears any weight. I expect things to look like they do. Either stance is meaningless. However it would not be meaningless to say that given the energy involved in the impact, the massive deceleration, the mass of a 757, and a reduced volume explosion I would expect to the debris of a 757, including engines, to be in a worse state than the cars involved in those crashes. And that is about as much that can be reasonably said.

Yeah, assuming it was flying as low as alleged.

All I can do Beto and continue to try to show you is that all the evidence is consistent with a 757. Really that is all I need to do to show how leaky the conspiracy theory really is. If you want to be a believer that is up to you, but hopefully by the time we are done you’ll stop citing the various pictures and pieces of video as evidence for a conspiracy.

Honestly? I thought this was footage from the Sheraton.

I have to admit I spent a couple of hours going over that footage playing it over and over gain until I spotted what was going on. It was then I did some googling and found the Doubletree is the wrong side of the Pentagon, which confirmed what it had taken me hours to work out from the video.

I think this should just goes to show how much misinformation and misdirection is going into the conspiracy story. Why are they doing this? And why are you buying these lies in preference to government lies? Do you not think their behavior is any less suspicious or less incompetent than the US government? It is also a sign of just how weak the conspiracy theory is, when the evidence is not how it is being presented, and someone dubs some eerie music over the footage. This feels more like people out there willfully creating the conspiracy.

Interesting these pieces of evidence that don't show the attack, hey?

And exactly how does this lend any substance to the theory a 757 did not hit the pentagon? Again, I think you really need to look at the cards you are holding. Fine have you’re suspicions, but the evidence shows what its shows, and nothing else.

"Disintegration" is a common description, isn't it?

“Disintegration� is an accurate word. Better than “mushed�

Aluminum does not burn Link. This piece was evidently thrown clear in the explosion so did not hang around along enough to collect any soot from the fire, or was planted there to look like it was thrown clear. Either way it looks like it was thrown clear.

Okay quick summary. The size and of hole in the Pentagon and consequent damage, all available video footage, engine debris, debris in general, white walls, unbroken windows, unburnt aluminum shrapnel, provide no evidence against a 757. To be clear, pictures not meeting your expectations bear no weight as evidence because of the disconnect. Just as it bears no weight if I were to say the pics meet my expectations. I’m really hoping that you are now able to see that not only are the items on this list this not just weak evidence of a conspiracy it is not evidence for anything of the sort. It either shows a plane did hit the Pentagon, or the evidence is plane neutral. And neutral evidence is neutral, and not evidence for a conspiracy. If you disagree with this summary then we’ll just have to go back and beat these points out again.

[Furrowed Brow]

There are a few pillars in the way between the "entry" and the "exit".

If there was a missile or another plane they too would have to negotiate those pillars to punch an exit hole. So the hole goes both ways. If there was explosives then why would they the conspirators place them to blow a hole in the back wall?
Here’s a link to a pic. The pillars between entry and exit marked as yellow on the analysis you linked are load bearing pillars and show damage, but not damage to their load bearing function. Take a look at that pic. That back wall is about two bricks thick and not reinforced. The pillars are going to be stronger than that wall. So plane parts bounces off pillars marked yellow and crash through back wall. The impact required to knock a hole in that wall relatively speaking not so great as the energy needs to crash a pillar; and by the time plane stuff is reaching the c-ring most of it is pretty much flying mash anyway. The pillars deflecting the mash, but the wall being a flat obstruction can’t do that so it takes the full force of what energy is left in the plane mash that gets that far. The mash will then be carrying enough energy to either break through the wall, or just bounce off, but obviously it had enough energy to go through.

This seems like a perfectly reasonable explanation, and just as good if not better than any alternative explanation that tries to factor in a missile, another kind of plane, or planted explosives.