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Debunking [Propaganda] Mechanics 03/2005
by Jimmy Walter
While Popular Mechanics makes some
valid points about the wilder conspiracy
theorists, it avoids the meaty issues
altogether. The fact that it found no
valid claims out of all of the evidence
is itself evidence of slanted journalism,
a.k.a., propaganda. Remember that the
Bush Administration has been paying
off journalists to support its positions.
From its start, the Winston Smiths of
[Propaganda] Mechanics use innuendo
and straw men to set the tone for its
sweeping conclusions and exaggerations:
"Healthy skepticism, it seems,
has curdled [what does bacteria culture
have to do with psychology?] into paranoia
["More than 3000 books" , many by scholars like David Ray Griffin
constitute widespread intelligent alarm
that the facts do not fit the propaganda]
Wild conspiracy tales [19 screw-ups
that flunked out of flight school flew
60 ton, 129 foot wide, 45 foot tall
airliners in high speed, at a lower
altitude, precision turns to hit the
only section of the Pentagon that was
empty and the nation's capital in coordinated
attacks right under the noses of the
entire US Military when they had been
looking for them for over an hour is
certainly a wild conspiracy tale if
I ever heard one.] are peddled daily
on the Internet, talk radio and in other
media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out
of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts
have inspired a slew of elaborate theories:"
A real scientific study would first
set out the facts and let the reader
decide first. They quote Thierry Meyssan, "The Pentagon was struck by a
missile" which he retracted when
the Pentagon released 5 frames from
a security camera of the impact. If
blurry photos are the source of the
problem, they fail to mention that the
Pentagon will not release any of the
other footage or non-blurry images from
the thousands of cameras in and around
the Pentagon and end this "blurry" controversy.
Moreover, these allegations of "Blurry
photos, quotes taken out of context
and sketchy eyewitness accounts "have
nothing to do with the claims about:
"the World Trade Center was razed
by demolition-style bombs". In
this case the photos are quite clear.
The only valid point out of the three
is made by only a few 9/11 theorists
that: "Flight 93 was shot down
by a mysterious white jet."
They then to claim to know that there
are sinister people among the 9/11 theorists: "Others are the byproducts of
cynical imaginations that aim to inject
suspicion and animosity into public
debate. Only by confronting such poisonous
claims ….."
They claim that "In the end,
we were able to debunk each of these
assertions with hard evidence."
Yet they then provide no evidence at
all on the plane and passengers issue,
just innuendo: "The widely accepted
account that hijackers commandeered
and crashed the four 9/11 planes is
supported by reams of evidence [an outright
lie], from cockpit recordings [They
fail to mention that the cockpit recorders
were never "found" even
though in every other crash they have
been found and the recordings have not
been released] to forensics [they claim
the metal parts "vaporized"
yet they found body parts and unharmed
books where there was supposedly a raging
fire and melted metal] to the fact that
crews and passengers never returned
home." Here they fail to mention
that there were no
Arabs on flight 77, that cell
phone calls cannot be made over
8,000 feet and 249 miles per hour (USAToday),
and the alleged "computer error" that caused all
four planes to be only 25% to 50% loaded when all other transcontinental flights
that day were 70 to 100 percent loaded.
They also fail to mention that the passengers
were mostly military, military contractors,
and government officials – a perfect
cast for an updated Operation
Northwoods (actual documents).--
(Joint
Chiefs Planned to Terrorize US by killing
US Civilians (Overview))
As far as "widely accepted"
and "a healthy dose of common
sense" goes, remember that The
United States is 49th in the world in
literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12,
2004), 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical
literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004), 20% of
Americans think the sun orbits the earth,
and 17% believe the earth revolves around
the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7,
2005). Regardless, they use emotional
words without facts at all; not scientific
analysis.
Their emotional attack continues: "Nonetheless,
conspiracy theorists seize on a handful
of "facts" to argue a very
different scenario: [Propaganda Mechanics
choose only a handful of the most outlandish
theorists and ignored most of the facts]
The jets that struck New York and Washington,
D.C., weren't commercial planes, they
say, but something else, perhaps refueling
tankers or guided missiles [No one has
claimed that a guided missile hit the
WTC!]. And the lack of military intervention?
Theorists claim it proves the U.S. government
instigated the assault or allowed it
to occur in order to advance oil interests
or a war agenda." - Here again
they dismiss with no evidence or logic
this obvious motive and stated agenda
item of the Project for a New American
Century, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz,
Pearle, etc. to use a "New Pearl
Harbor" to provoke militarism and
conquest!
The Pods
The pod is a non-issue in my opinion.
I will even let them have the issue
and allow that there was no pod. So
what? The rest of the evidence stands
individually. However, Propaganda Mechanics
true colors are seen in that they omit
the "flash" which is a prominent
part of both websites that promote the
pod. The flash occurs as each plane
hits a tower. It is in the same place,
the lower right front of the cockpit,
not the nose! It is seen from many angles
so it cannot be a reflection. It is
not the closest point so it cannot be
a spark. In my opinion, it has to have
been caused by a weapon of some sort
since no guidance system is that good.
The difference between what shadows
may portray and seeing an unexplained
"flash" of light from many
angles on both planes is the difference
between night and day. This had to be
a high tech weapon. If any part of the
attack was not by 19 hijackers armed
only with box cutters, the Bush's whole
theory falls apart. The fact that [Propaganda]
Mechanics did not attack the "Flash'
shows they did not want people to know
about it! It blows a hole in their whole
cover story of being "journalists" at all.
No Stand-Down Order
It sure looked like a stand down order,
but again they use old theories that
have been modified as the government
released more facts. In fact it is now
known that three war games were being
played that day, all directed by Dick
Cheney. They bring in this straw man
of the "stand down" order
instead of questioning about the war
games and why [Kindasleezy] Rice lied
about the military not anticipating
hijackings when they were in fact practicing
for them that very day.
Then their "facts" are
wrong or misleading again:
"FACT: … Boston Center,
one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA) regional ATC facilities, called
NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector
(NEADS) three times: at 8:37 am EST
to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked;"
The planes would have been scrambled
at 8:37 and still been in the air for
the other hijackings. They then tell
us that if we were attacked and they
got by the ADIZ that the US military
would not be able find them without
calling the FAA for help…. Within
minutes of that first call from Boston
Center, NEADS scrambled two F-15s from
Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass.,
and three F-16s from Langley Air National
Guard Base in Hampton, Va. None of the
fighters got anywhere near the pirated
planes." Why not? They were already
in the air. They had plenty of time.
They don’t even discuss this.
That is a very poor defense system and
should have prompted a reprimand at
least. Moreover, the FAA destroyed the
ATC tapes! Why? Cover-up!
"When the hijackers turned off
the planes' transponders, which broadcast
identifying signals, ATC had to search
4500 identical radar blips [Outright
lie. Each blip has the transponder code
next to it on the screen. Those without
a blip would stand out. Furthermore,
flights had been delayed on the ground
by the time the plane hit the pentagon
so there were not 4500 blips at all;
certainly not on the screens looking
for the allegedly hijacked aircraft]
crisscrossing some of the country's
busiest air corridors [which is why
they have so many controllers watching.
There was one specific controller who
was watching that plane. After the hijack,
the plane would have been closely monitored
and surrounding traffic cleared out].
And NORAD's sophisticated radar It ringed
the continent, looking outward for threats,
not inward. [so why are not heads rolling
and companies being sued? We paid billions
and billions for this system which the
military bragged about up until then]
"It was like a doughnut,"
Martin says. "There was no coverage
in the middle." [So what would
they do in a war? Call ATC and have
them direct our fighters inside the
US? Preposterous!] Pre-9/11, flights
originating in the States were not seen
as threats and NORAD wasn't prepared
to track them. [The Military had studies
on hijackings, best selling books had
written about domestic flights being
used this way, there was a FOX TV movie
about it. Again a reprimand was in order
at least!]
Flight 175's Windows
Again they attack a non-issue on the
windows. Whether the plane had windows
or not does not prove or disprove it
was the original plane. Anyone planning
this elaborate scheme would surely not
use planes without windows.
Intercepts Not Routine
Here again, they do not cite the actual
rules and regulations, but limit themselves
to hearsay. The rules and regulations
call for interception within the US.
Moreover, they ignore the AP report
that planes were intercepted 67 times
in the previous year. They try to confuse
the issue with the term ADIZ, which
has no application here since everyone
knew the nation was under attack for
over an hour!
FACT: In the decade before 9/11, NORAD
intercepted only one civilian plane
over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's
Lear jet, in October 1999. With passengers
and crew unconscious from cabin decompression,
the plane lost radio contact but remained
in transponder contact until it crashed.
Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and
22 minutes to reach the stricken jet
[in the middle of no where, not the
nation’s capital which was on
full alert]. Rules in effect back then,
and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight
on intercepts [so here they admit they
had intercepts and they had rules about
them. I know from living in Florida
that jets were scrambled and broke the
sound barrier going after suspected
drug smugglers]. Prior to 9/11, all
other NORAD interceptions were limited
to offshore Air Defense Identification
Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there
was no domestic ADIZ," FAA spokesman
Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11,
NORAD and the FAA increased cooperation,
setting up hotlines between ATC's and
NORAD command centers [another lie – the records show that ATC had no trouble
reaching NORAD], according to officials
from both agencies. NORAD has also increased
its fighter coverage and has installed
radar to monitor airspace over the continent.
[An increase is coverage today is not
proof that they did not have enough
coverage then or that the could not
have intercepted].
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
The collapse of both World Trade Center
towers--and the smaller WTC 7 a few
hours later--initially surprised even
some experts. But subsequent studies
have shown that the WTC's structural
integrity was destroyed by intense fire
[There is not a single engineering study
with a full math analysis proving their
wild claims. Both FEMA and NIST have
stated that most of the fuel was consumed
by the initial fireball leaving only
the contents were mostly fireproofed
due to code] as well as the severe damage
inflicted by the planes." [Another
lie. The structural engineers have said
it was not the impact that caused the
collapse. The fire engineers say it
was not the fire].
Widespread Damage
CLAIM: The impact and ensuing fires
disrupted elevator service in both buildings
[since the fire control system closed
the emergency doors preventing the chimney
effect and inferno they claim was there.
They also ignore the fact that there
were people standing in the holes where
the supposed infernos were seen. How
did they get through this raging inferno?].
Plus, the lobbies of both buildings
were visibly damaged before the towers
collapsed. [So why were just the lobby
windows and not the windows on the other
floors? Another absurdity. The pressure
would have been greatest at the floors
nearest the impact, not in the lobby.
The lobbies were 90 floors away.]
FACT: Following up on a May 2002 preliminary
report by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), a major study will be
released in spring 2005 by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST), a branch of the U.S. Department
of Commerce. NIST shared its initial
findings with PM and made its lead researcher
available to our team of reporters [yet
they provide no evidence at all here].
The NIST investigation revealed that
plane debris sliced through the utility
shafts at the North Tower's core, creating
a conduit for burning jet fuel--and
fiery destruction throughout the building. "It's very hard to document where
the fuel went," [not so. We are
quite able to calculate the fuel consumed
in the fire ball, which was 65% to 80%
of the fuel. Furthermore, the remaining
contents were mostly steel, concrete,
fireproofed carpet and fabrics, and
some paper] says Forman Williams, a
NIST adviser and a combustion expert,
"but if it's atomized and combustible
and gets to an ignition source, it'll
go off." [Duh! The jet fuel did
this in the initial fireball! There
was no mechanism to atomize the office
contents. If the contents were, then,
like the jet fuel, it would have burnt
in a few seconds, not an hour. Here
they are twisting Williams words to
make it sound feasible - the very thing
of which they accuse us. Who is the
"cynical imaginations that aim
to inject suspicion and animosity into
public debate [with] ...poisonous claims
…..?" Propaganda Mechanics!]
Burning fuel traveling down the elevator
shafts would have disrupted the elevator
systems and caused extensive damage
to the lobbies. NIST heard first-person
testimony that "some elevators
slammed right down"[now their eyewitnesses
are reliable but ours are not?] to the
ground floor. "The doors cracked
open on the lobby floor and flames came
out and people died [an outright lie!
The film from the Naudet brothers clearly
show this is a lie! There is no fire
damage to the lobby at all. Go rent
it! Watch our
video]," says James Quintiere,
an engineering professor at the University
of Maryland and a NIST adviser. A similar
observation was made in the French documentary
"9/11," by Jules and Gedeon
Naudet. As Jules Naudet entered the
North Tower lobby, minutes after the
first aircraft struck, he saw victims
on fire, a scene he found too horrific
to film. [He did film his initial entrance
to the WTC. The elevator doors are intact.
There is no fire damage. There are no
victims to be seen anywhere.]
"Melted" Steel
CLAIM: "We have been lied to,"
announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net.
"The first lie was that the load
of fuel from the aircraft was the cause
of structural failure. No kerosene fire
can burn hot enough to melt steel."
The posting is entitled "Proof
Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC."
FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to
1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel
(2750°F). However, experts agree
that for the towers to collapse, their
steel frames didn't need to melt, they
just had to lose some of their structural
strength--and that required exposure
to much less heat. [If the steel gave
way, then there was not enough resistance
to crush the concrete] "I have
never seen melted steel in a building
fire," says retired New York deputy
fire Chief Vincent Dunn, author of The
Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide
To Fireground Safety. [Here again they
try to mislead us. Clean up workers
have reported that melted steel was
found in the basements of all three
buildings! As they admit, this requires
temperatures far in excess of that possible
with jet fuel and office contents fires.
So the fact that melted steel was found
in the basements proves explosives were
used]"But I've seen a lot of twisted,
warped, bent and sagging steel. What
happens is that the steel tries to expand
at both ends, but when it can no longer
expand, it sags and the surrounding
concrete cracks." [But does not
get pulverized or sliced into neat 20
foot sections. The steel frame buildings
at Hiroshima were still standing after
an atomic bomb. Cardington
fire tests proved that steel building
survived temperatures in excess of that
possible with jet or diesel fuel.]
"Steel loses about 50 percent
of its strength at 1100°F,"
[which could not have been reached since
the smoke was black. The hotter temperatures
like 1100°F require clean burning
flames - no smoke at all. These fires
were oxygen starved. Again they twist
words] notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri
of the American Institute of Steel Construction.
"And at 1800° it is probably
at less than 10 percent." [Again,
this temperature could not reached since
the smoke was black] NIST also believes
that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing
insulation was likely knocked off the
steel beams that were in the path of
the crashing jets, leaving the metal
more vulnerable to the heat. [Vulnerable
yes, but steel conducts heat fairly
well. It would have conducted away great
quantities of the heat since these were
not blow torches but spread out throughout
the floors and, according to them, the
elevator shafts. The fires did not last
long enough to heat the entire metal
mass of the buildings or just the cores
to any of these temperatures. Do the
math!]
But jet fuel wasn't the only thing
burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor
of engineering at the University of
California, San Diego, and one of seven
structural engineers and fire experts
that PM consulted. He says that while
the jet fuel was the catalyst for the
WTC fires, the resulting inferno was
intensified by the combustible material
inside the buildings, including rugs
[fireproofed and very little total mass
to burn on the floors in questions],
curtains [there were no curtains in
the vast majority of offices], furniture
[was mostly steel and fireproofed plastic]
and paper. NIST reports that pockets
of fire hit 1832°F [Another lie.
First, no one was there with a thermometers!
They are guessing unless they have actual
math calculations. Moreover, It is not
possible to reach 1832°F under these
oxygen starved conditions with any of
the materials they mention].
"The jet fuel was the ignition
source," Williams tells PM. "It
burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the
towers] were still standing in 10 minutes.
It was the rest of the stuff burning
afterward that was responsible for the
heat transfer that eventually brought
them down.[There are clear pictures
of a woman and man standing the hole
where the airliners hit – proof
there was no raging fire. The first
building fell after only 56 minutes!!!
Not long enough for this fireproofed-by-code
fuel to heat up much steel!]"
Puffs Of Dust
CLAIM: As each tower collapsed, clearly
visible puffs of dust and debris were
ejected from the sides of the buildings.
An advertisement in The New York Times
for the book Painful Questions: An Analysis
Of The September 11th Attack made this
claim: "The concrete clouds shooting
out of the buildings are not possible
from a mere collapse. They do occur
from explosions." Numerous conspiracy
theorists cite Van Romero, an explosives
expert and vice president of the New
Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology,
who was quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque
Journal as saying "there were some
explosive devices inside the buildings
that caused the towers to collapse."
The article continues, "Romero
said the collapse of the structures
resembled those of controlled implosions
used to demolish old structures."
FACT: Once each tower began to collapse,
the weight of all the floors above the
collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing
force on the highest intact floor [Another
lie. The top of one of the towers fell
over, not down. No pulverizing force!
While
there may have been enough force to
pulverize the concrete, real engineers
have shown that the rapidly moving cloud
can only be explained by
14 tons of explosives. Where
are their calculations? Furthermore,
they claim the steel was weakened. If
so, it would not have provided enough
resistance for the falling weight above
to pulverize the concrete instantly].
Unable to absorb the massive energy,
that floor would fail, transmitting
the forces to the floor below, allowing
the collapse to progress downward through
the building in a chain reaction. [Another
lie. Chain reaction perhaps. But the
buildings fell at the speed of gravity – that only happens when air is
the only resistance. There should have
been a slowing down by each floor hit]
Engineers call the process "pancaking,"
[their diagrams deliberately leave out
the 47 steel, massive core columns that
would have stopped it from "pancaking" straight down] and it does not require
an explosion to begin [that is his guess
since it has never happened before -
anywhere - or since], according to David
Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs
Associates and a member of the American
Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team
that worked on the FEMA report.
Like all office buildings, the WTC
towers contained a huge volume of air.
As they pancaked, all that air--along
with the concrete and other debris pulverized
by the force of the collapse--was ejected
with enormous energy [The air is above
the concrete floor. It would have been
ejected first. There was nothing to
carry the concrete dust out for the
first collapsed floor yet the clouds
clearly come out from this floor. Again
the concrete could not be pulverized
unless the floors held]. "When
you have a significant portion of a
floor collapsing, it's going to shoot
air and concrete dust out the window
[not before the concrete is pulverized],"
NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder
tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create
the impression of a controlled demolition,
Sunder adds, "but it is the floor
pancaking that leads to that perception." [No tests have been done. No math has
been given. Is he a mystic oracle to
be followed blindly? Our $100,000 challenge
will be ready soon. He should start
preparing his entry. We actually already
have one entrant who has at least provided
all the math. We are checking it out
and will report on it soon, but on first
read it seems he has not answered some
of these questions. Moreover, no one
has explained the steel members being
blown up and out 300 feet from the building
(see the video on our home page). They
should have been crushed, not catapulted
up and out like rockets with smoke trails
following. Remember they are claiming
the steel was softened by heat and the
air blew out the dust. Air does not
propel steel.]
Demolition expert Romero regrets that
his comments to the Albuquerque Journal
became fodder for conspiracy theorists. "I was misquoted in saying that
I thought it was explosives that brought
down the building," he tells PM.
"I only said that that's what it
looked like. [It looks like a duck.
It walks like a duck. It squawks like
a duck. Who got to this guy? He cannot
quibble like this on such an issue]"
Seismic Spikes
A non-pertinent issue in light of all
the other "concrete" evidence
such as videos and photos.
WTC 7 Collapse
CLAIM: Seven hours after the two towers
fell, the 47-story WTC 7 collapsed.
According to 911review.org: "The
video clearly shows that it was not
a collapse subsequent to a fire, but
rather a controlled demolition: amongst
the Internet investigators, the jury
is in on this one."
FACT: 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," [off center so
the building should have fallen over,
not straight down] 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.
[Not true according to the photos]" NIST also discovered previously undocumented
damage to WTC 7's upper stories and
its southwest corner. [What evidence?
Show us this evidence, Senator McCarthy!
How could they discover previously undocumented
damage? Where is their documentation?]
NIST investigators believe [This is
not religion. Where are the calculations?]
a combination of intense fire and severe
structural damage contributed to the
collapse, though assigning the exact
proportion requires more research [Into
what? This is engineering, not research].
But NIST's analysis suggests the fall
of WTC 7 was an example of "progressive
collapse," [please show us another
one that has occurred that this is an
example of, anywhere, anytime.] 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 [just like every other
controlled demolition of which we do
have videos]. The entire building fell
in on itself, with the slumping east
side of the structure pulling down the
west side in a diagonal collapse. [It
was not a diagonal collapse. It was
straight down. Only possible if all
the center columns were taken out, not
just one side]. Watch it yourself. Watch
Eric Hufschmid's "Painful Deceptions" video and compare.]
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 [weight, not square footage,
is what counts] 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 [not would. What
are the probabilities?] cause a vertical
progression of collapse so that the
entire section comes down." [but
not the whole building uniformly. And
how was that column taken out? The damage
was done to the upper parts. There are
no fires on the bottom floor at all!]
There are two other possible contributing
factors still under investigation: First,
trusses on the fifth and seventh floors
were designed to transfer loads from
one set of columns to another. With
[outside] columns on the south face
apparently damaged, high stresses would
likely have been communicated to columns
on the building's other faces, thereby
exceeding their load-bearing capacities.
[Again, no proof, just assertions that
do not explain how they all failed at
one time. Show us the calculations!]
Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for
up to 7 hours. "There was no firefighting
in WTC 7," Sunder says. Investigators
believe [And yew shall be saved. Where
is the math?] the fire was fed by tanks
of diesel fuel that many tenants used
to run emergency generators. Most tanks
throughout the building were fairly
small, but a generator on the fifth
floor was connected to a large tank
in the basement via a pressurized line.
Says Sunder: "Our current working
hypothesis is that this pressurized
line was supplying fuel [to the fire]
for a long period of time. [7 hours
is not long. The
Meridian Plaza burned for 19 hours,
fiercely, and never collapsed. The Madrid
building burned for 24 and never collapsed.]"
WTC 7 might have withstood the physical
damage it received, or the fire that
burned for hours, but those combined
factors--along with the building's unusual
construction--were enough to set off
the chain-reaction collapse. [Where
are the hard facts and the math? The
Building had been reinforced due to
being Giuliani’s Emergency Command
Center. It was built to resist far more.]
THE PENTAGON
At 9:37 am on 9/11, 51 minutes after
the first plane hit the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon was similarly attacked.
Though dozens of witnesses saw a Boeing
757 hit the building, conspiracy advocates
insist there is evidence that a missile
or a different type of plane smashed
into the
Pentagon. Big Plane, Small Holes
CLAIM: Two holes were visible in the
Pentagon immediately after the attack:
a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building's
exterior wall [Outright Fraud! The photos
plainly show a hole much smaller - perhaps
20 feet], and a 16-ft.-wide hole in
Ring C, the Pentagon's middle ring.
Conspiracy theorists claim both holes
are far too small to have been made
by a Boeing 757. "How does a plane
125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into
a hole which is only 16 ft. across?"
asks reopen911.org, a Web site "dedicated
to discovering the bottom line truth
to what really occurred on September
11, 2001."
The truth is of even less importance
to French author Thierry Meyssan, [Now
they just outright lie – Meyssan
withdrew his truck bomb and missile
theories after the Pentagon was forced
to release the photos. It seems "the
truth is even less important to" [Propaganda] Mechanics!]
FACT: When American Airlines Flight
77 hit the Pentagon's exterior wall,
Ring E, it created a hole approximately
75 ft. wide [Any examination of the
pictures show this is an outright lie],
according to the ASCE Pentagon Building
Performance Report [One government agency
after another lies so we are supposed
to think they are all telling the truth?].
The exterior facade collapsed about
20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based
its measurements of the original hole
on the number of first-floor support
columns that were destroyed or damaged
[Look
at the pictures!]. Computer simulations
confirmed the findings [Animations,
not simulations – a simulation
requires a complicated mathematical
analysis – all they produced were
cartoons to support their wild claims
that a flight school flunk out flew
an 60 ton, 129 foot wide, 45 foot tall
airlines in high speed, lower than possible
altitude (ground effect prevents a plane
from flying lower than its wingspan
at high speed) to hit the only empty
section of the Pentagon].
Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 757's
124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A crashing
jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline
of itself into a reinforced concrete
building, says ASCE team member Mete
Sozen, a professor of structural engineering
at Purdue University. In this case,
one wing hit the ground [ An outright
lie since the photos plainly show that
there is no damage to the ground in
front of the Pentagon] ; the other was
sheared off by the force of the impact
with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns,
explains Sozen, who specializes in the
behavior of concrete buildings. What
was left of the plane [two 10,000 pound
engines with the strongest parts of
the plane, the engine mounts and wing
spars] flowed into the structure in
a state closer to a liquid than a solid
mass [Yet the human body parts remained
intact?]. "If you expected the
entire wing to cut into the building,"
Sozen tells PM, "it didn't happen." [It did at the WTC! Through Steel! The
wings would have not been slowed down
by the building at the same time the
nose was. Therefore, they would have
continued forward, not backwards. Again
they neglect the 5 ton engines and mounts,
the heaviest, densest parts of the plane
on the strongest members of the plane.
They did not liquefy or fold up and
go into a hole 10 feet away from where
they hit!]
The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft.
wide--not 16 ft. ASCE concludes it was
made by the jet's landing gear, not
by the fuselage. [The landing gear is
heavy, but when in the raised position
(follow
link to see down and how it folds up)
it is very horizontal, not round! In
fact, it does not come down from the
belly of the plane at all; most of it
is in the wings! [Propaganda] Mechanics
are not even good frauds! It would have
made a wide but short hole. And if the
landing gear did that, what happened
to the holes that should have been made
by the engines which are heavier and
denser and made of metal that survives
high stress and temperature? Fraud after
fraud!]
Intact Windows
CLAIM: Many Pentagon windows remained
in one piece--even those just above
the point of impact [the plane was 40
feet tall. That is 4 stories tall. Just
the cabin is two stories tall since
the luggage, part of the landing gear
and other equipment is below the main
cabin. They are claiming that the second
story of the Pentagon is above the point
of impact. Absurd!] from the Boeing
757 passenger plane. Pentagonstrike.co.uk,
an online animation widely circulated
in the United States and Europe, claims
that photographs showing "intact
windows" directly above the crash
site prove "a missile" or
"a craft much smaller than a 757" struck the Pentagon.
FACT: Some [Most of them if you actually
inspect the photos] windows near the
impact area did indeed survive the crash.
But that's what the windows were supposed
to do--they're blast-resistant [not
impact resistance. The wings were at
least 12 feet above the ground since
there is plainly no crater and there
is intact equipment and wire spools
in front].
"A blast-resistant window must
be designed to resist a force significantly
higher than a hurricane [5 tones traveling
at 400 mph is 1000’s of times
stronger than wind at 200 mph] that's
hitting instantaneously," says
Ken Hays, executive vice president of
Masonry Arts, the Bessemer, Ala., company
that designed, manufactured and installed
the Pentagon windows. Some were knocked
out of the walls by the crash and the
outer ring's later collapse. "They
were not designed to receive wracking
seismic force," Hays notes. "They
were designed to take in inward pressure
from a blast event [not a direct hit],
which apparently they did: the blinds
were still stacked neatly behind the
window glass."
Flight 77 Debris
CLAIM: Conspiracy theorists insist
there was no plane wreckage [Lie. All
analysts have admitted there was plane
wreckage – just not from a 757]
at the Pentagon. "In reality, a
Boeing 757 was never found [this is
true]," claims pentagonstrike.co.uk,
which asks the question, "What
hit the Pentagon on 9/11?"
FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer
was the first structural engineer to
arrive at the Pentagon after the crash
and helped coordinate the emergency
response. "It was absolutely a
plane, and I'll tell you why,"
says Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural
Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. "I
saw the marks of the plane wing on the
face of the building.[Show us in the
pictures. The previous expert said,
""If you expected the entire
wing to cut into the building, Sozen
tells PM, "it didn't happen."
It
is not in the pictures.] I picked
up parts of the plane with the airline
markings [show them to us!] on them.
I held in my hand the tail section of
the plane [the tail section was at least
20 feet tall – he could have held
it in his hand], and I found the black
box."[finding something that could
have been planted on the plane that
actually did hit. Where are the transcripts
and recordings from these boxes? Why
has it not been released?] Kilsheimer's
eyewitness account is backed up by photos
of plane wreckage inside and outside
the building [of course there is plane
wreckage - but the parts are too small
to be from a 757!]. Kilsheimer adds:
"I held parts of uniforms from
crew members in my hands, including
body parts, Okay?" [So how did
the metal parts all vaporize when he
found body parts and clothing? If there
was a raging fire at the WTC that destroyed
got so hot as to weaken steel, why not
here? How would the body parts have
survived such a raging fire? Nothing
in their story fits together!]
The rest is just more straw men, non-issues
that hardly anyone supports.
The White Jet
Roving Engine
Indian Lake
F-16 Pilot
The bottom line: This was neither an
exhaustive or scientific study; just
propaganda for the Bush administration.
But this lie is worse than all others.
Here a major magazine's editors are
guilty of fraud! They clearly trying
to hoodwink the public. This is not
just some PR campaign to increase circulation.
This is treason! This shows how tightly
the media is controlled by forces trying
to destroy democracy in this country!
Jimmy Walter
Debunking
The Debunkers
By Joel Skousen
Cite source as World Affairs Brief
http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
2-14-5
In every major conspiracy to cover
up government criminal activity, agents
of change or naïve "experts" have been hired by the establishment
media to debunk conspiracy theories
and facts. Walter Cronkite was trotted
out of retirement to host a PBS documentary
debunking the conspiracy facts surrounding
the assassination of JFK (which was
hardly convincing). In like manner,
other programs have been produced at
great expense to discredit the charges
of government cover-ups in the Vince
Foster and Ron Brown murders, the downing
of TWA 800 by a missile, and the OKC
bombing of the Murrah building.
The professional debunkers use four
primary tactics to accomplish their
propaganda feats:
1) They refuse to mention, much less
attempt to disprove, the most irrefutable
and damaging evidence.
2) They take great delight in debunking
only those conspiracy theories that
are the weakest or that are planted
by other government sympathizers to
help discredit the more credible conspiracy
facts. This is what is referred to as
a "straw man" argument, where
a weak or false argument is set up so
that it can easily be knocked down.
3) They only select "experts" who agree with the official conclusion.
4) They snicker at or mock anyone who
believes that government engages in
criminal behavior or covers up crimes
in collusion with judges, investigators,
prosecutors, media heads, and hand-picked
commissions. Worse, they label dissenters
as unpatriotic or mentally imbalanced.
So it is with the latest government
attempt to debunk the evidence of government
collusion in the 9/11 attacks. For over
a decade now, the PTB have used an odd
vehicle to do their debunking on a variety
of issues-Popular Mechanics Magazine
(a Hearst publication). I suppose they
are targeting the back-yard mechanic
and auto-enthusiast crowd, who are often
prone to accepting conspiracy facts
and theories.
In the March 2005 issue, PM magazine
singled out 16 issues or claims of the
9/11 skeptics that point to government
collusion and systematically attempted
to debunk each one. Of the 16, most
missed the mark and almost half were
straw men arguments-either ridiculous
arguments that few conspiracists believed
or restatements of the arguments that
were highly distorted so as to make
them look weaker than they really were.
PM took a lot of pot shots at conspiracy
buffs, saying that those "who peddle
fantasies that this country encouraged,
permitted or actually carried out the
attacks are libeling the truth - and
disgracing the memories of the thousands
who died that day."
That would be true only if there was
no basis in fact for these controversies.
I am one of those who claim there are
factual arguments pointing to conspiracy,
and that truth is not served by taking
cheap shots at those who see gaping
flaws in the government story-especially
when you don't address the really tough
questions in your rebuttal. Here is
a quick run down of the claims (some
lumped together) and why PM's debunking
was superficial and distorted:
1) The bulging projection (pod) visible
on the bottom of Flight 175 as it struck
the south tower
If the bulge is real, critics claim
it means the aircraft was modified for
the attack, which could not have been
done by hijackers. PM says the anomaly
was simply the bulging faring under
each wing root which hides the landing
gear. This is a possibility since the
bulge viewed on all pictures of Flight
175 is in the same location as the landing
gear faring. However, the bulge is significantly
bigger than the actual faring, and casts
a shadow on the bottom of the aircraft.
The real landing gear faring is flush
with the bottom of the plane and could
not cast a shadow on that area.
Besides, I talked to Boeing about the
bulge and a woman spokesperson admitted
that Boeing had studied the bulge and
concluded, "It wasn't modified
by Boeing." She didn't deny the
bulge wasn't there, nor did she try
to persuade me it was the landing gear
faring. However, I don't have an answer
for what the purpose of the modification
might have been.
Later PM turns a related claim by a
witness (that there were no windows
on this aircraft) into a major issue
to debunked. This was a straw man issue
that was easily debunked with a photo
of the plane's debris, with windows.
This was never a credible issue with
most conspiracy theorists.
2) The "stand down" order
to stop intervention against the hijackers
PM cites the existence of a few scrambled
jets as proof there was no "stand
down" order given. This is a straw
argument because key facts are omitted.
There is other evidence to show that
these fighters were called out purposely
from bases too distant to make the intercepts-and
never engaged afterburners for extra
speed, indicating no sincere attempt
to intercept. I received an email from
one of the tower operators at McGuire
AFB telling me he had received a call
from the base commander ordering him
to shut down military flight oops and
not let fighter-interceptors take off.
This was before the general shut down
of the air traffic system by the FAA.
This indicates that aircraft closer
to the hijacked planes were told to
stand down.
There are two witnesses (a general
and a Congressman) who said VP Dick
Cheney was operating under stand-down
orders, except as pertaining to Flight
93 in Pennsylvania. PM tried to make
the case that NORAD had never vigorously
followed standing orders to intercept
hijacked aircraft, and that their high
definition radars were all pointed outside
the US boundaries (like a doughnut).
Neither is true. There were dozens of
intercepts in the two years prior to
9/11 (PM said there was only one) and
NORAD has complete radar coverage within
the US.
PM also presented disinformation when
it claimed that if an airliner turns
off its transponder, the controller
can no longer distinguish the aircraft
from thousand of other smaller blips
on his screen. Not so. First, there
aren't thousands of unlabeled blips
on the screen in any given sector, and
second, the actual radar return is still
on the screen at the same approximate
position of the transponder data symbol,
making it easier to acquire.
PM neglected to mention the more powerful
evidences of cover-up and collusion
here, including the FAA's destruction
of the tape recording of air traffic
controllers' description of the events,
the FAA refusing to turn over tape recordings
of the ATC controllers talking to the
pilots when the hijackings were declared,
and the discrepancies between the claims
of when the FAA supposedly notified
NORAD.
3) Explosives brought down the twin
towers (puff of dust, etc.)
This is only a partial straw man argument.
There is significant evidence that the
aircraft impacts did not cause the collapse,
but PM only discussed the fire and explosive
claims that were easily explained away.
An early claim making the rounds was
that the towers couldn't have collapsed
since fuel doesn't burn hot enough to
melt steel. PM correctly pointed out,
as I have also in my briefs, that steel
trusses supporting the floor system
only need be heated to the point of
sagging-not melting-in order to give
way.
Early conspiracists claimed that the
puffs of smoke coming out of the windows
as each floor pancaked down on another
were evidence of demolition charges.
Once again, PM correctly pointed out
that the crushing of sheet rock interiors
can cause this. I was never convinced
of controlled demolition myself, since
it would have required months of prep
work inside the building, unbeknownst
to all the tenants.
But conspicuously absent from the PM
arguments was the blockbuster evidence
that the 42 main pillars in the central
core of the building had been taken
down by a combination of explosives
and thermite charges-which can melt
steel like butter. The head of the company
removing the debris from the WTC said
in an interview that there were large
pools of hot molten steel in the lowest
basement where the main support pillars
had stood. No expert has claimed that
either fuel or burning debris falling
into an oxygen starved basement would
have been capable of creating the huge
quantity of concentrated heat needed
to melt 42 huge pillars with two-foot-thick
steel walls. Numerous witnesses and
fire fighters heard large explosions
in the lower section of the building
just prior to the collapse. One video
shot of the south WTC (whose central
core was not even damaged by Flight
175) gives clear evidence of the central
core being collapsed prior to the general
collapse: the center mounted TV towers
started descending downward well prior
to the outer section of the building.
PM was silent on these major anomalies,
and so was the 9/11 Commission, which
indicates they were avoiding the tough
issues.
PM did attempt some sleight of hand,
with some remarks by a paid "expert"
trying to explain away the symmetrical
and absolutely vertical collapse of
WTC building #7 that was only slightly
damaged on one side. A video of the
collapse does show the telltale signs
of explosive demolition on each floor-which
would have been impossible if the building
was heeling over toward the damaged
side.
4) The Pentagon crash
PM discussed the common arguments against
the official version: the penetration
hole was too small; there was not enough
debris outside; windows close to the
impact were still intact. The window
argument was a straw man with an easy
explanation-they were reinforced security
glass. The issues of the penetration
hole and the lack of large pieces of
debris simply do not jive with the official
story, but they are explainable if you
include the parking lot video evidence
that shows a huge white explosion at
impact. This cannot happen with an aircraft
laden only with fuel. It can only happen
in the presence of high explosives.
Some witnesses saw a smaller aircraft,
others saw the Boeing. One or two saw
and heard a missile launch. Could all
three have been present? I think so.
There are credible witnesses who saw
many small pieces of aluminum scattered
about, plus a few larger pieces. If
the larger Boeing was blasted apart
at impact with high explosives it would
explain the shower of aluminum shards
that littered the road. The Pentagon
parking lot video tape (which strangely
fails to show a large Boeing aircraft)
does show a huge white explosion-the
unique sign of high explosives. An aircraft
laden only with fuel gives off the red
and black signature only-nothing white
or bright. If the Boeing was laced with
explosives, it would also explain why
the wings didn't totally penetrate the
structure. I have checked the photographs
of major engine and landing gear pieces
among the wreckage and they do match
the Boeing aircraft, so I do think a
Boeing hit the Pentagon. But I am not
buying PM's statement (given without
any evidence or photos) that a landing
gear was responsible for the 12-foot
round hole that penetrated three rings
of the Pentagon. The landing gear is
a long, gangly affair, and it didn't
even make it through the first ring,
according to photos I have seen. Only
a missile could have penetrated that
far. Was a missile on the smaller jet
seen by witnesses used to prep the hardened
Pentagon façade?
PM's glib explanations did not do justice
to the multiple possibilities.
Besides, if the government version is
true, why is the FBI refusing to turn
over the two video surveillance tapes
(one from a gas station and one from
a
hotel) that would show what really happened?
5) Flight 93 was shot down by an F-16
PM discussed all the key issues: a
small white private jet that was shadowing
the flight; engine parts apart from
the main wreckage; debris two miles
away in Indian Lake; and the purported
identity of the F-16 pilot. But in each
case, it falsified the evidence by quoting
erroneous, distorted or planted theories
by government experts.
For example, while it finally acknowledged
the presence of a white unmarked jet,
it claimed it was a private jet flying
at 30,000 feet, asked to descend from
high altitude and check out the crash.
This was impossible as witnesses saw
the plane before the crash. PM even
claimed to have talked to the company
(which conveniently didn't want to be
named) that owned the jet. But this
is at variance with prior admission
by a leasing company that said the jet
was theirs and was leased to the government
(the CIA often uses white unmarked jets).
This story by PM was a total fabrication.
I have listened to the private transcripts
of the radio talk between Cleveland
Center and all the other airliners controlled
by ATC in that sector (including Flight
93). Even the
9/11 commission refused to address this
private tape, which was recorded by
one private jet that was in the area,
and is still available on the internet.
Nowhere in that transcript is any private
aircraft asked by Cleveland Center to
follow or descend with Flight 93. In
fact, the one airliner that was closest
to Flight 93 was asked by Cleveland
Center to verify visually the condition
of Flight 93 after the Center and all
other aircraft on that frequency heard
the pilot of the aircraft announce that "there was a bomb on board." The aircraft acknowledged seeing Flight
93 in the distance and then suddenly
announced that he observed an explosion.
This was while Flight 93 was at altitude,
confirming reports from ATC controllers
who had vectored an F-16 to Flight 93,
and witnesses who saw the shoot down
from the ground.
It also explains why one of the engines
was found miles away. PM tried to divert
its readers from the issue by telling
about another part of the engine found
about 300 meters from the crash site-which
is explainable, if you don't address
the issue of the other engine. Many
witnesses saw streams of papers, luggage
and even body parts falling some distance
from the crash site. PM blamed this
on an updraft-but luggage and body parts
don't blow two miles away in a gentle
breeze.
Lastly, the issue on the identity of
the pilot of the F-16 (a Major Rick
Gibney) is problematic. The source is
a retired Colonel Donn de Grand-Pre,
who makes many claims about hobnobbing
with big wigs in Washington that I find
uncredible and suspicious. He claims
he was at an awards ceremony in North
Dakota when Major Rick Gibney was supposedly
awarded a medal for shooting down Flight
93. I always found this a little fantastic.
Why would the government give out a
public award for something they were
trying to keep secret? The government
still doesn't admit to shooting down
Flight 93, let alone disclose who did
it. Of course, if they did allow a private
awards ceremony, it would explain why
they would have Major Rick Gibney deny
it. While PM's debunking of the Major
Rick Gibney story may be true (they
claim he was using his F-16 to pick
up a big-wig in Montana), their explanation
was also a bit
fantastic: people have to be trained
in ejection seat procedures prior to
flying in a high performance jet.
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