As esteemed colleague Welsh stated, we must overcome the inhibition to talk openly about conspiracies. That the United States is now engaged in a conspiracy to control the world's oil in relation to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela comes as no surprise. Read John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman (2004) or Robert Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map (2004) for modern extensions of the predominant attitudes of the recent past elaborated by Peter Dale Scott in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK (1993). But not all conspiracies are global in character and many are more limited in scope, such as the effort to keep an Italian journalist from returning to Italy from her captivity in Iraq, which seems to have been deliberately contrived to contain information about war crimes committed by American forces in Falluja.
If anyone doubts the ubiquitous presence of conspiracies, let them take a look at any newspaper of substance and evaluate the stories that are reported there. For example, I once went through a single issue of The New York Times (18 March 2005), which I then chose as suitable for a case study. Multiple conspiracies are addressed throughout, including the WorldCom scandal, atrocities in Iraq and in Afghanistan (involving the murder of at least twenty-six inmates), the assassination of Refik Hariri in Lebanon, the use of counterfeit news by our own government, an SEC suit against Qwest for fraud, and the 125 bank accounts of Augusto Pinochet, on and on.
Efforts to promote the view that "conspiracy theories" must never be taken seriously continue unabated. A semi recent example of my acquaintance appears in the December 2004 issue of Scientific American Mind (December 2004), its "premiere issue". This issue features an article, "Secret Powers Everywhere", whose author is identified as Thomas Gruter of the University of Munster in Germany. A google search suggests a faculty member by this name studies prosopagnosia (face blindness), which appears far removed from the subject of this essay. Its theme is that, while "most individuals who revel in tales of conspiracies are sane", they "border on delusion". This is a very unscientific article for a publication that, like its sibling, Scientific American, focuses on science. It just goes to show that we’re all subjected to an ongoing propagandistic assault upon rationality.
Although it ought to go without saying, no "conspiracy theory" should be accepted or rejected without research. Each case of a possible conspiracy has to be evaluated independently based on the principles of logic and the available relevant evidence. Conspiracies flourish and time is fleeting. We lack the resources to confront them all. But we need the intelligence and the courage to promote truth in matters of the highest importance to our country and to the world at large. We must do whatever we can to uncover and publish the truth and to expose the techniques so skillfully deployed to defeat us. History cannot be understood—even remotely!—without grasping the prevalence of conspiracies. And American history is no exception.
So yes Sir Solo, you haven’t failed to grasp what this thread is about, after all. But it is my foremost intention to lead this discussion on scientifically plausible grounds only, and as you know conclusions in science are always tentative and fallible, which means the discovery of new evidence or new alternatives may require reconsideration of the inferential situation. The suggestion could be made, for example, that the South Tower fell first because it was hit on a lower floor and to one side of the building, where the lack of symmetry caused it to fall. But that ignores the load-redistribution capabilities built into the towers, which would have precluded that outcome. The claim has also been advanced that the steel only had to weaken, not melt. But the heat generated by the fuel fires never reached temperatures that would weaken the steel and, if it had, the buildings would have sagged asymmetrically, not completely collapsed all at once, as in fact was the case. The buildings both fell abruptly, completely, and symmetrically into their own footprints, which is explicable on the controlled demolition hypothesis but not on the official account.
All of this raises the question: Who had the power to make these things happen and to cover it up? Once the evidence has been sorted out and appropriately appraised, the answer should no longer be very difficult to find. Like the assassination of JFK, the events of 9/11 required involvement at the highest levels of the American government. This conclusion, moreover, receives confirmation from the conduct of our highest elected officials, who took extraordinary steps to prevent any formal investigation of 9/11 and, when it was forced upon them by tremendous political pressure, especially from the survivors of victims of these crimes, they did whatever they could to subvert them. There are good reasons for viewing The 9/11 Commission Report (2004) as the historical successor to and functional equivalent of The Warren Report (1964).
I therefore believe that those of us who care about the truth and the restoration of responsible government in the United States have an obligation to make use of every possible media venue from talk radio and the internet to newspapers and television whenever possible. The American people can act wisely only when they know the truth. So, while the truth is said to "make us free", the truth only matters when the American people are able to discover what is true. Obstacles here that are posed by the government-dominated mass media, including the use of stooge "reporters" and of prepackaged "news releases", only make matters that much more difficult. As John Dean asks in Worse than Watergate (2004), If there has ever been an administration more prone to deceiving the American people in our history, which one could it be?
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Here’s a bit more for you to ponder upon: namely the nature of WTC 7 building collapse and the Pentagon attack. The two links I’ve given portray in detail what has occurred and in a systematic and well researched manner point out numerous flaws and contradictions in the official reports of FEMA and ASCE.
Why the collapse of WTC 7 is not explained to this day
The reason why so many people find it hard to accept that a Boeing 757 smashed into the Pentagon
Just take a look at the official report on the collapse of WTC 7:
1. Power to the Twin Towers was wired from the substation in WTC 7 through two separate systems. The first provided power throughout each building; the second provided power only to the emergency systems. In the event of fire, power would only be provided to the emergency systems. This was to prevent arcing electric lines igniting new fires and to reduce the risk of firefighters being electrocuted. There were also six 1,200 kW emergency power generators located in the sixth basement (B-6) level of the towers, which provided a backup power supply. These also had normal and emergency subsystems.
2. Previous to the collapse of the South Tower, the power to the towers was switched to the emergency subsystem to provide power for communications equipment, elevators, emergency lighting in corridors and stairwells, and fire pumps and safety for firefighters. At this time power was still provided by the WTC 7 substation.
3. Con Ed reported that "the feeders supplying power to WTC 7 were de-energized at 9:59 a.m.". This was due to the South Tower collapse which occurred at the same time.
4. Unfortunately, even though the main power system for the towers was switched off and WTC 7 had been evacuated, a design flaw allowed generators (designed to supply backup power for the WTC complex) to start up and resume an unnecessary and unwanted power supply.
5. Unfortunately, debris from the collapse of the north tower (the closest tower) fell across the building known as World Trade Center Six, and then across Vesey Street, and then impacted WTC 7 which is (at closest) 355 feet away from the north tower.
6. Unfortunately, some of this debris penetrated the outer wall of WTC 7, smashed half way through the building, demolishing a concrete masonry wall (in the north half of the building) and then breached a fuel oil pipe that ran across the building just to the north of the masonry wall.
7. Unfortunately, though most of the falling debris was cold, it manages to start numerous fires in WTC 7.
8. Unfortunately, even with the outbreak of numerous fires in the building, no decision was made to turn off the generators now supplying electricity to WTC 7. Fortunately, for the firefighters, someone did make the decision not to fight and contain the fires while they were still small, but to wait until the fires were large and out of control. Otherwise, many firefighters may have been electrocuted while fighting the fires.
9. Unfortunately, the safety mechanism that should have shut down the fuel oil pumps (which were powered by electricity) upon the breaching of the fuel line, failed to work and fuel oil (diesel) was pumped from the Salomon Smith Barney tanks on the ground floor onto the 5th floor where it ignited. The pumps eventually emptied the tanks, pumping some 12,000 gallons in all.
10. Unfortunately, the sprinkler system of WTC 7 malfunctioned and did not extinguish the fires.
11. Unfortunately, the burning diesel heated trusses one and two to the point that they lost their structural integrity.
12. Unfortunately, this then (somehow) caused the whole building to collapse, even though before September 11, no steel framed skyscraper had ever collapsed due to fire.
All of this is addressed with detail in the link I've provided for you.
And then you have the Pentagon, one of the best-protected public buildings in the USA, equipped with its own battery of surface-to-air missiles and the airspace above it is the subject of a permanent overfly ban in respect of commercial aircraft. Its security personnel are trained and equipped to respond swiftly to attempted acts of aggression, including attacks by aircraft. Indeed the Pentagon was particularly aware of the dangers posed by an attack of this kind; only a few years earlier a disgruntled citizen ruffled a few feathers by flying his light plane into a Pentagon wall, an incident that led to a thorough review of the building's emergency procedures. On September 11 however, not a single anti-aircraft missile was fired in the Pentagon's defence. So was the attack so sudden and unexpected that Pentagon staff simply didn't have enough time to take necessary action? Well no. Let's look at that timeline.
American Airlines Flight 77, the plane we have been led to believe hit the Pentagon (though the recent findings of Gerard Holmgren suggest it may never have left the ground), supposedly departed from Washington's Dulles airport at 8.20 am. With the exception of a yet to be explained looped deviation at around 8.46, it flew normally towards its intended destination of Los Angeles until around 9.00 when it did a 180° turn near the Ohio state border and began heading back towards Washington. A minute or two later its transponder signal ceased. At around 9.05 West Virginia flight control noticed an eastbound plane entering its radar space with no radio contact and no transponder identification. By now of course two apparently hijacked planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. This third plane had changed course and switched off its transponder just like the first two. And it was heading straight for Washington, the US capital and home of the White House and the President! Over twenty minutes later therefore three fighter jets were scrambled to investigate the mystery plane. Unfortunately they were scrambled from Langley AFB in Virginia rather than the nearby Andrews AFB in Washington so were still over a hundred miles short of their target when 'Flight 77' eventually hit the Pentagon.
It's pretty unbelievable stuff but your disbelief has to be suspended for a while longer yet. Having made its way back to Washington unchallenged for over half an hour, the plane was picked up by Washington ATC for the first time at 9.33. By this time it was flying well in excess of 400 mph and on a trajectory that put it directly on course for the White House. Before getting there however the plane suddenly executed a left-hand descending turn, turning almost a complete circle and dropping 7000 ft in two and a half minutes. This complex manoeuvre levelled out perfectly in line for a direct hit on the Pentagon and it flew the last few hundred yards just a few feet above the ground, clipping trees and lamp poles before ploughing into the Pentagon at an estimated speed of 480 mph.
The official commentary on what happened at the Pentagon does not encourage us to ponder why fanatical terrorists would allow Flight 77 to fly for forty minutes or so away from their target before getting round to taking control of the plane, nor how they were then able to fly the plane over two hundred miles, at a time of such high alert, without being intercepted. It offers little by way of coherent explanation as to why, when a response was finally authorized, F-16s were scrambled from an airbase 130 miles away when fighters were ready and waiting at a base less than ten miles from the capital, nor why not a single missile was fired in the Pentagon's defence. There is a deafening silence as to how the plane was able to achieve its final dazzling manoeuvre, even though that high-speed descending turn was well beyond the capabilities of both its alleged pilot (who could scarcely control a Cessna) and indeed of a commercial Boeing 757. Yet this mixture of B-movie hokum and blundering incompetence that would make the Keystone Cops blush is still accepted by many as a sober and accurate exposition of events at the Pentagon. To my mind however one of the most telling indications that the attack on the Pentagon was a carefully contrived internal military operation is that it happened at all.
It is not really surprising that events at the Pentagon have generated considerably more debate and analysis than all the other incidents on September 11 put together. It is also the case however that, easy as it is to point out the gaping holes and inconsistencies in the official account of what happened, arriving at a satisfactory alternative hypothesis — one that takes into account and explains all the known facts of the case — has proved a particularly elusive task. Over four years since the debate and analysis began there are few issues on which the sceptics have achieved anything approaching a consensus. Thus I encourage that you read up on both the ASCE's official account and the link I've provided you before starting to make any conclusions of your own. Though, upon having read those materials you will have hopefully realized how difficult indeed it is to make any definite statement on what had actually occured that day.
The reason for this is straightforward enough. It's because the sum total of genuine hard evidence in the public domain is rather small, much smaller than is the case for the attacks on the Twin Towers. There is considerably less evidence than one might reasonably expect of an incident that occurred in broad daylight in the centre of the capital of the USA. In particular there is no photographic or video record of the plane itself or of its impact with the Pentagon. The true character of these crucial details remains a matter of speculation. Although the Pentagon attack was witnessed by hundreds of people — from their cars, from the sidewalks, from the windows of surrounding office blocks and apartment buildings — it seems none of them pointed a camera at the incident in the moments leading up to impact. There were no documentary crews in the area fortuitously to catch the event on tape and nor was the world's media in attendance. Images and footage of both the plane and the impact do however exist. As befits a building as well protected as the Pentagon it is monitored by a large number of security cameras, several of which undoubtedly captured both plane and impact. Curiously, with the exception only of five rather dubious and inconclusive CCTV frames, none of this footage has been released into the public domain.
