Yeah, yeah, I’m a few days late on this one. Sue me.
I’m making this post because I grow tired of seeing both sides of this debate spewing vitriol at each other and proclaiming with absolute confidence: “I’m 100% correct and anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot!”
It's time to open up a great big can of worms...
This may seem stupid, but we should begin by getting something very basic out of the way:
What is a Conspiracy?
con·spir·a·cy
- a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful."a conspiracy to destroy the
- the action of plotting or conspiring.
It doesn't matter which party was responsible for the events on 9/11. It was a conspiracy. A group of people conspired to murder thousands of civilians. Whether it was Al Qaeda, the U.S. Government, The New World Order or alien lizard people; it was a conspiracy.
Any attempt to explain the events of that day without total and complete knowledge is a conspiracy theory. So we're all conspiracy theorists, okay? Let's move on.
Casting Doubt on Common Conspiracy Theories
I’m not going to pretend to be an expert. I’m no scientist, I’m not an architect, and I wasn’t there. But my own research tells me that there’s a lot of reason to doubt some of the popular theories. I’ll mostly be focusing on the claim that 9/11 was a controlled demolition.
No, the towers did not collapse at freefall speed. They fell at almost half the rate of a freefall. This factoid may not convince anyone that there was no foul play, but if you want to make a case, don’t rely on bad arguments that are so easy to disprove.
Stop saying that “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.” Everybody knows that. No one is claiming that jet fuel melted any steel beams. All it takes to cause significant damage and even collapse is a loss of structural integrity. Sure, steel will only melt at 2750°F, but it will bend and buckle and far lower temperatures. Steel loses about 50% of its strength at 1100°F. Jet fuel burns at temperatures between 800°F and 1500°F.
To dispel another argument; explosions of dust coming out of the building as it collapsed is not proof that the building was lined with explosives. Such explosions would occur as the collapsing floors pancaked on top of each other, shooting out air and debris.
“What about Building 7?” you ask, “Ah ha! Checkmate!”
Again, I’m no expert. But here’s a quote from people who might know a bit more than you and me. You can take or leave this analysis, I don’t care. I’m not trying to convert anyone to a certain way of thinking, I’m just saying things aren’t so clear cut, and people aren’t “stupid sheeple” for believing one story over another.
Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA's preliminary report, which said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom—approximately 10 stories—about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.
NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST's analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of "progressive collapse," a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or "kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.
According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."
Source: Popular Mechanics
The truth is I have a lot of trouble believing that the government would be competent enough to pull of a demolition conspiracy of this magnitude, let alone keep it a secret for 15+ years.
I see so many conspiracy theorists touting shaky interpretations of photos and videos as hard evidence and building entire narratives around them. Conjecture based on no evidence (or a layman’s bad understanding of photographs and videos) is not more valuable or more likely to be true than even the difficult-to-trust state sources.
Don’t fight fishy evidence with fishy evidence.
Did the Government Have Foreknowledge?
I don’t believe that there was a controlled demolition. But that doesn’t mean I discount all possibility of a conspiracy within the government.
President George W. Bush said, “Nobody in our government at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envisage flying air planes into buildings.” And he wasn’t alone in making this claim. Both an Air Force general, FBI director Robert Mueller, and National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice claimed that they could never have predicted an attack where the perpetrators used airplanes as missiles.
These statements are demonstrably false.
I’m not going to list all of the warning signs that the government had. A simple Google search or a peak at this Wikipedia page will give you everything you need to know. I will tell you that through the 90s there was more than one plot by individuals or “terrorist groups” to use airplanes to attack U.S. targets. On top of this, NORAD had run a war game scenario in which a hijacked commercial airliner crashed into The Pentagon.
…My ass they never considered the possibility.
The U.S. Government also received many warnings specifically about the 9/11 attack in the months preceding it from foreign intelligence agencies. The attack should not have been a surprise.
This raises the question: why would all of these top government officials universally make the claim that they had no warning when it’s clear that the CIA and FBI had plenty of information that said otherwise? I’ll leave you to ponder that question for yourself.
I have my suspicions but I won’t make absolute claims about things that I don’t really know.
Not only is there some shady evidence of government foreknowledge, but there was an unusually high number of shares in airlines and insurance companies traded just before the attack. Oh, but don’t worry, a U.S. Government official said that there was no malfeasance. Everything is perfectly normal and above-board here, thank you very much.
You can make of this evidence whatever you will.
What Do We Know?
Despite the claims of the rare conspiracy theorist, it is almost universally agreed upon that 4 airplanes crashed on September 11th: two into the Twin Towers, one into The Pentagon and another into an empty field.
The government (and possibly other wealthy elites) had at least some foreknowledge of the attack. Whether or not their foreknowledge was specific enough to warrant action is a matter for debate.
The U.S. (and other governments) have proven that it is not beyond their moral threshold or capabilities to target their own citizens to achieve political gain. See Operation Northwoods.
This is what we know.
So can we stop calling each other "shills", "sheeple", "idiots" and "morons"? Not one of us knows to any degree of certainty what exactly happened and who is responsible.
I'm sure there is someone out there who can debunk everything I wrote, and I'm sure there's someone else who can debunk the debunker.
Let's be polite and try to find the truth without forcing each other into opposing camps and firing shots.
We don't have to be enemies.
We all want truth.
~Seth
P.S. I'd like to thank my wife for giving me a couple days off from writing and then totally kicking ass with her blog entries!
Image Sources:
"Let's be polite and try to find the truth without forcing each other into opposing camps and firing shots. We don't have to be enemies. We all want truth."
I'd say the stakes are much higher than your post seems to indicate. And it is patently absurd to say that "We all want the truth" when it is beyond any possible credulity to assume that the perpetrators "want the truth". There presumably have been, and will continue to be, enormous extraordinarily well funded efforts to promote obfuscation.
All you have to do is look at world trade center 7 collapse, first reinforced steel and concrete skyscraper to fall straight down symmetrically into its own footprint due to fire in human history. Then take a look at newton's three laws of motion, realize an external force must have acted upon it to bring 100,000's tons of reinforced steel and concrete straight down symmetrically into its own footprint through the path of greatest resistance, and then use critical thinking capabilities to see that either the NIST(National Institute of Standards and Technology) report was a lie or Newton's three laws of motion need to be redefined.
I can't really put it more clearly than you did. Steem beam can't fall onto themselves. Steem beam would also be the portion of the 3 WTC to necessitate the most heat to lose their resistance and at the speed they felt onto themselves, it would have mean almost instantaneous liquefaction.
I'm cutting corners here but hopefully this can help people reading this to look into the subject.
I thought it was obvious that by "we" I meant us little people. Not the perpetrators. Thanks for your comment since it gave me a chance to clarify something that I didn't realize was unclear.
I also love you comment @onceuponatime.
@sethlinson I was wondering how many hours have you investigate what has happened on 911? I've investigate for more than hundreds of hours maybe in the thousands. If you are willing to read or watch a couple of lectures you might realize there is a lot of proofs the 3 WTC were controlled demolition.
If someone is telling me I don't believe the towers were controlled demolition and have only read 1-2 hours on the subject than I don't consider this belief to we worth as much as someone who read many hundreds of hours. Also you are saying you don't believe, now a whole lot of people say they know those towers were controlled demolition. These are engineers and scientists of all sorts with very high credential and by respect to their intelligence we should hear them and investigate what they are saying and why. It would also make sense to prove them wrong if they are. It's not just some event with no consequences.
Let me know if you're interested in investigating this event by respect to the families and brilliant scientists and everyone really not just the ones saying there are proofs of controlled demolition.
These are good documentaries and lectures about the event. I'm still learning after reading for hundreds of hours so nobody shoud think they will become an expert after a couple of hours.
THE ANATOMY OF A GREAT DECEPTION - How 9-11 Woke Me Up - David Hooper Film
9-11 debunking NIST A New Standard for Deception - Kevin Ryan (Lecture)
These are 2 very different type of video. If you watch any f them let us know how you feel about them.
I haven't devoted my life to this investigation or anything like that. Like I said, I'm no expert. I haven't done nearly as much research as you. I'll try to watch those videos you recommended.
I love your genuineness. That's the feeling I got from your article and comment. Sorry if I might have come up a bit authoritarian.
The first documentary is a easier watch then the second one. Also both authors made their documentary/lecture available for free on Youtube.
The second one, the lecture goes into more depth about the demolition. The lecture is a scientist. I don't remember is specialization.
I feel like everyone should at least watch the first documentary. A lot of the families of the victims are behind 2-3 documentaries exposing the facts proving the towers were control demolition.
This is a bare minimum we can do for those family members who have gone to every hearing about 911 yet feel like their questions we're answered or are out rightly saying we've been lied to about what brought down the towers.
how do they compare in thoroughness and quality to 'Loose Change 9/11 an American Coup' ?
Personally I find the "jet fuel can't melt steel" argument to be the weakest and least relevant yet it seems to be touted as the poster child of 911 conspiracy theory.
LooseChange is not in my top 15 best documentaries about 911. There is at the very least 20 hours of video documentary I'd recommend before watching Loosechange.
In fact Loosechange isn't even in my list of top documentaries which is more than 50 hours of video on 911. I've seen many more.
Thanks for the inquiry. I'm really glad to see your comment.
I'll most probably provide my full list at some point.
Part of any well funded obfuscation is to hire "little people" to spread red herrings and/or more nefarious lies. I have seen estimates that one "agent" can control 100 sock puppet accounts arguing with each other and spreading FUD on investigative sites. I think that that is credible.
This is probably true. But my main point in making that statement was that we all would do well to be a little bit more gentle. Speak the truth in love. If the truth is this important, everyone should realize that they won't gain any new followers by insulting them.
It's a tough call. Do we chance people causeing further harm to themselves and others through their somnambulance? or do we risk enmity by attempting to violently shake them awake?
@onceuponatime
I'll grant you that sometimes the truth needs a firm hand. Maybe even a forceful hand. But I don't think the mudslinging I see in many of these "debates" has much to do with people trying to wake others up. I only see people trying to assert their dominance by insulting their opponent.
You'll probably disagree with me on this point: but I don't think 9/11 truth is the most important battle to be had. It doesn't make too much of a difference to me whether it was the fault of this government, that secret elite group, those people, or that faction. Whether or not they're responsible for 9/11, they're all evil.
I think a more important battle than deciding which evil group did what is helping to see that all governments and authorities are inherently immoral. All they do is murder and steal and convince people that they are necessary so that they can murder and steal more. They constantly amass more and more power for themselves.
But understand, I'm not trying to criticize anyone who fights what I see as smaller battles. These smaller battles can be very influential in leading people to bigger truths. This is just one battle that I'm not going to be fighting... but I am interested in learning.
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/01/18/24-hard-facts-about-911-that-cannot-be-debunked/
The correct phrase is, "This raises the question". Sorry to be pedantic.
Upvoted your article. Being open-minded within reason is the correct balance. There are a few too many that lean too far in one direction or the other. Not everything is a nefarious illuminati scheme, nor is everything on the up and up.
This is a very good point to be made. Just because someone has a different perspective on how they see world events doesn't necessarily make them stupid. What is problematic is when they can't alter their thinking when the evidence is very strong against their strongly held belief.
Everyone is stupid in some way or another, just consider and admit to this obvious point and you'll be well on your way to the "truth". ;)
Repeat after me:
9/11 may or may not be an inside job!
Thanks for the comment and the grammar correction. I'll go make a quick edit now ;)
This is a good post, Seth. It illustrates how someone can approach a topic with some opinion and a degree of neutrality. It's also a very emotional topic, so not particularly surprising that you're getting a lot of reaction. You're responding well. :)
Here's one that really bugs me about the situation, besides the other things mentioned already. Building 7 is still standing here as the reporter states that it's already fallen. This went to court in the UK and was considered to be a proven conspiracy involving the BBC. Interesting...
Here's an article on the court case (http://www.globalresearch.ca/bbc-foreknowledge-of-911-collapse-of-wtc-building-seven-british-man-won-law-suit-against-bbc-for-911-cover-up/5438161)
I had seen that video; it definitely raises some questions. But I didn't know anything about the court case. Thanks for sharing!
As a 9/11 responder who was there I must say this is an exceptional piece of work you posted for us to think about. While I do not believe the official story, I am not convinced it was an inside job. Clearly the Bush administration made the decision to lie to the American people. John Farmer(?), legal counsel with the 9/11 Commission wrote a book about it. Sorry, it has been a few years since I've thought about the conspiracy side of things. So I'm a bit rusty. Heh. Anyway, good job! Have a great day.
About building 7. Let us think logically, one column gave way and the whole building collapsed like in the link? Not a partial collapse, the facade? not a collapse starting at the column area and gradually collapsing the entire structure? The whole building comes down in it's foot print at the same time? I don't live in USA I don't care, but this is not the cause of the collapse, it is impossible. PS: no building is designed to collapse if one element fails, I am amazed how many people don't have basic common sense, You don't need an expert to understand that one column in the corner can't produce this kind of collapse.
So true, even the owner said to PULL IT!
A progressive collapse is impossible for structural steel skyscrapers if you make the assumption of Newton's Three laws of Motion, which I think are still true, unlike the NIST report.
A conspiracy theory is always a great way to show off among your entourage. The conspiracy theory you deploy depends on your affiliation (race, religion, country, class, etc.). there is a desperate and childish aim at standing out among the crowd.
The phrase "jet fuel can't melt steel beams" refers to the fact that molten steel was present in the ruble when the building collapsed. as you can see in the link min 2:38
which is impossible for kerosine to even burn at those temps. something else had to be used to melt steel. not jet fuel. The whole mess was a lot of first in history. there were plenty of buildings that have caught fire and burned for hours and hours. you can google that. though these buildings burned for a short period of time and collapsed. I call BS. also build 7 also 6 destroyed. once again BS . So many firsts, all on the same day. It really disturbs me how people can buy into the so called offical story the NIST, lol. So many people died and still are.
Yes, the official story is BS, I don't know what happened but these buildings didn't collapse in the expected manner. If physics applies in this case the collapse of the towers would be at most half, as the top part crushed the bottom stories disintegrating in the process and probably falling on the corner that was weakened by the plane. Leaving a half tower with eccentric damage.
How do you explain building 6?, It was gutted out , as if someone scooped the insides out. Google that one!
That's something I don't know much about. Like I said in the article, I'm no expert and I'm not here to convert anyone. I really didn't come here for a debate. I've just grown tired of the mudslinging from both sides and want everyone to come together and admit, "hey, we actually don't know everything!"
Well, you started a post, sounds like you are opening this up for discussion. you should go check out a website called Deep inside The Rabbit Hole. such a good site with eye opening information. the best way to learn about something is to do a lot of research. There is so many mysteries to that day. So many things that dont make sense. Please go check this site out, and see for yourself. I agree, I don't like all the name calling, shill tossing and other things. We have been lied to. And this has got to stop! http://deepinsidetherabbithole.com/
Thanks, I'm always interested in learning more.
Conspiracy or not people has lost their lives. Other ones lost someone in a blast , those who survived are damaged and so on.
they are still losing their lives today. I know people who came down with respitory issues from working in the aftermath.
Ry Dawson & James Corbett do some great work on this subject:
Of course it was. How else would have gone to war with these countries to take over oil production after they tried getting out from under our thumb?