Shek

Pragnosis,

9/11 was a pan-Islamist plot carried out by Al Qaeda and his minions. Have you read his fatwa declaring war on the US? Seen the tapes of his boasting about the attacks? If you have some conspiracy theories about 9/11, then I'll just refer to the threads on the board already.

Cheers,

Shek

__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

gunnut

And they are completely wrong.

I don't doubt Moore has done his research. Whether he presented what he found is another matter.

No one agrees with you because you are wrong.

The people in this forum are well informed and well versed in their respective fields.

Shek is an army major who teaches at West Point. The amount of knowledge he possesses is more than what you can imagine.

Regarding China, Astralis is a political scientists (I think) who has extensive knowledge in the area. He has worked in China and Taiwan. He knows the culture. He is Chinese. I would think he knows more about China than you do.

OoE is a Colonel in the Canadian Army who has stared down the Warsaw Pact during the height of the Cold War and then served with UN peacekeeping force all over the world. He knows a thing or two about how the world works.

I'm just a guy who reads the internet a lot. I learn new things from these people everyday. I have been proven wrong everyday. None of us like to be proven wrong, but as human as we are, we invariably get things wrong sometimes.

I know this is tough for you because your preconceived notion of the world is being assaulted by a lot of facts and research you didn't know about or chose to ignore. But sometimes you just have to face the fact that you are wrong.


By the way, I'm not a die hard republican. I'm registered as a democrat, am a traditionalist, a conservative, not religious (so forget about calling me a right wing christian fundamentalist), and libertarian in most thinking.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

gunnut

Very simple explanations for all of them.

Those jets that hit WTC took off from east coast airports bound for the west coast. That means they were full of jet fuel. Try igniting massive quantity of jet fuel in an enclosed space. It gets quite hot. The steel columns holding up WTC doesn't need to melt. They only need to get hot enough to lose structural integrity for the builiding to collapse. Remember, those were free standing steel beams. They were load bearing columns holding up a few thousand tons of structure on top of them.

Freeze a bar of butter. Stand on top of it. Then raise the temperature of the room. It doesn't have to be very hot, just enough to soften the butter will do. I can guarantee you the stick of butter will lose structural integrity. However it will retain its shape much longer if it bears no load on top of it.

We were afraid that Saddam hands off some nice smallpox (or some other nice chemicals) to some terrorist group who intend to do us harm. We didn't know whether Saddam had anything or not. We thought he did. He did use it on the Kurds. He acted as if he still had. Remember? Certain sites forbidden from the inspectors? What does he have in there? We didn't know. The inspectors didn't know. No one outside did. So we invaded to make sure he didn't have anything.

Here's a better question. If Bush's government can plant demolition charges in the WTC without anyone knowing or blowing the whistle, and then fly 2 remote controlled planes into them, without anyone knowing or blowing the whistle, don't you think he could have easily planted some WMD in Iraq for the world to find? US military practically own the important sites and installations in Iraq. It would be relatively easy to plant WMD in a military controlled area in Iraq than to plant explosives in WTC.

You said it yourself, he's a conspiracy theorist. Those are interesting to read, entertaining at the movies, but just too impossible to pull off in the real world. Someone would have blown the whistle or leaked something.

US government is corrupt, but not in the grand scale of world domination-new world order kind of corrupt. It's definitely out for its own interest, that part no one denies. All governments are out for their own interest.

He could be a con man. He could be insane. Or he maybe a very astute capitalist cashing in on a niche market.

Julie

Well, yall made me happy....I was reaching for the padlock when all of you came to your reasonable senses. I despise locking threads because it is such a waste of good convo. *pats on the back to each of you*....please continue.

Confed999

Bunch of terrorists hijacked planes and crashed 'em into buildings. The demolitions crews were never spotted by anyone, and they would have been working on it for days drilling holes and setting charges, so the chances of that are slim to none.

WMD was the last reason given to the UN. The humanitarian reasoning, breaches in the Cease-Fire, as well as the attacks made against US and UK forces enforcing the no-fly zones were covered, as well as other causes, over the decade preceding the UN debates that actually made the news. Oh, the reason didn't change either, regime change in Iraq had been US policy since 1998 with the passing of the Iraqi Liberation Act.

Flat out, I need proof. Most of these guys (Moore especially, heck F9/11 was debunked by a 13 y/o girl) spend a lot of time cherry picking data, and many even create their own, to "prove" their points. Don't believe anything fully until you have done your best to prove it yourself. And here is the big clencher as to why I do not believe most of these people: the conspiracys they suggest would be huge. Covering hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and every single one of them would have to keep quiet and nobody could ever release evidence. A group of 10 a-holes couldn't even put dog collars on prisoners without getting caught, what are the odds the slip shod government could do it when they can't even keep secret projects secret? I'd say you could win the lottery 3 times in a row and still not beat those odds...

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

gunnut

See, we're reasonable when we want to be.

zraver

1- A-The force of the impact stripped away the 70's era fire retardents and sheilding. B- ther eis always wind at that hieght creating a furnace effect C- Each floor weighs 3000 tons D- Steel lose sits streangth at around 1100 degrees E- if you watch the footag ethe center of each building gives way ahea dof the curtain wall (exterior). Together these add up to a catasphrophiuc failure. There is no honest simulation in the world that has those buildings staying up a slong as they. Those two ladies fought death it self to let people get out of them and they are a tribute to American engineering.

2- A-There are still some 1000 tons of declared chemical weapons by Iraq that has nver been found. B- The Aimes strain of anthrax use din the anthraxy attakc salso happens to be the same strain sold to Iraq C- Saddam engage din willful violations of the cease fir ein other areas. D- Saddam himself wanted the world to beleive he had WMD beucase it kept him in power E- Saddam's refusal to let his brain trust testify F- reports from defecotrs and Iraqi opposistion groups

All in all it is easy to see why the majority of the major intel services thought he still maintained a WMD program (US,UK, Israel, Aus and others)

3- is not even worth discussing. The US has thwarted british efforts in a number areas at a number of times. The two most fampous examples being cash and carry prior to lendlease which bankrupted Britian and doomed its colonial empire, and the US sacking British, French, and Israeli plans to take the Suez from Nasser. Chruchhill some it up best (paraphrasing) "No matter what else stay on the side of the Americans"

Pragnosis

Confed999,

I am questioning myself as to whether I actually 'want' a conspiracy to be present, just because it might be exciting. It's pretty hard to stop believing something that you have blindly believed for the past six months, I may have watched too many videos and articles regarding conspiracy theories with regards to 9/11 and Iraq.

I do however oppose your argument about the reason a conspiracy cannot be true. When you talk about people keeping quiet, do you think it might be possible that if a conspiracy is taking place, the government would be able to supress the information by controlling the media? Because ultimately, corporate media is what controls the perceptions of the mass population with regards to political affairs. If the government pays the media stations a huge sum of money to keep quiet, then surely they would do it. Or maybe pay the individuals huge sums of money to keep quiet. But then again, maybe this is a far fetched view.

I'd like to ask your opinion. Somebody asked a question on BBC Question Time a few weeks ago. A chap in the audience actually asked the members of the panel "Why did the US/British government put Sadam into power in the first place?", and the the camera quickly moved away and went on to the next question. I thought this was rather strange, like the BBC was hiding something, or maybe the accusation was too ridiculous to answer. I haven't actually researched this. Is this claim well founded?

Pragnosis

All conspiracy theories aside, according to George Galloway and documentaries that I've seen, the muslims in the middle east cannot find it within themselves to believe that the US / UK are concerned about the welfare of the Iraqi people, that they are only interested in their own National Security.

Is it fair to say that the US / UK are in it for their own interests (for future security and economics, trade etc) rather than being too worried about the people of Iraq? Or do you think the US / UK governments do care about the welfare of the people in Iraq? Or both?

Mr Galloway is completely convinced that the US / UK couldn't care less about the muslim population.

Shek

Pragnosis,
I will address a few of your questions:

1. Democracy and Iraq. This was a stated goal, although it wasn't done very forcefully. I think this was for two reasons - the short-term threat was the unaccounted for WMD, and I think we wanted some wiggle room to potentially install Chalabi as the head of some interim government. However, it is clear that democracy was on the mind of the administration and not some goal made up to distract the news on the WMD front. Here are some excerpts from a speech in Feb 2003 by President Bush (emphasis mine):

The roadmap to peace, with democracy for a Palestinian state was initially proposed by President Bush in June 2002:

Hopefully, this gives you a flavor of the "democratic peace" strategy that the Bush Administration has embraced. It obviously hasn't borne much fruit to date, but it's ideological basis is clear, I believe.

2. The collapse of WTC 1 and WTC 2.

Here's the National Institute of Standards and Technology introduction report on their three year investigation into why the WTC towers collapsed.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1CollapseofTowers.pdf

Go to pages 39 and 40, which provides the pertinent information from the Executive Summary. Bottomline, it was a structural failure due to the weakening of the steel trusses that carried the floor loads, shifting those loads to the point where the structure couldn't handle the load. The primary culprit for the weaking of the steel trusses was the dislodging of the fireproofing material from the trusses, which then exposed them to the heat of the fire from the burning jet fuel. It also states that it could find no evidence to support alternative hypotheses such as a controlled demolition.

I'm sure that you'll find the information that you need to satisfy your questions about why the controlled demolition theory doesn't fly. If it's not in the report linked above, here's the page that lists all the subreports:

http://wtc.nist.gov/reports_october05.htm

Shek

Pragnosis,

Both. Governments exist to look out for the self-interests of their people (although there certainly are governments who are more concerned for their own welfare rather than their people's welfare).

That being said, the people executing this mission in Iraq isn't just some faceless bureaucrat, but a human being in uniform, who has a conscious and while ready to kill bad guys, likes to be liked, just like most everyone on this planet. This doesn't mean that mistakes are made or that tragedies happen where non-combatants are accidentally killed, but it also means that except for few exceptions, these soldiers aren't looking to end the lives of those who aren't involved in the hostilities. Heck, if the killing stopped, that means that they would no longer have to be deployed and be away from their family.

Take a look at this blog, if you've got the time:

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/

Here are the actual dispatches written by the author.

http://michaelyon-online.com/wp/category/dispatches/

Here's a particularly moving dispatch. I think you'd find yourself hard pressed to think that other human beings, whether in uniform or not, would react any differently.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/little-girl.htm

Pragnosis

Shek,

Many thanks for the information. It is very informative and helpful in my quest to find the truth. It's a shame that I didn't read the 'official' version of events first. Now my perception of events is totally confused. I really don't know what to believe anymore. It would've been so much easier to believe the official story.

In my mind, I still wonder why 7-WTC collapsed although there wasn't any impact by an aircraft. Assuming that the conspiracy theories are totally false, all three buildings must have been extremely poor in terms of structural quality. I watched a documentary and showed other buildings across the globe that had experienced far worse attacks of fire and they didn't even come close to collapsing. The architects and construction workers of the WTC need shooting.

Once again, thanks for the information and links.

Trooth

See my post about George Galloway. He is so concerned about other people he spent 3 weeks on TV, amongst which he got to pretend to be a cat, whilst his constituents went without representation in parliament. As far as i am aware cats are not allowed to vote by SMS or otherwise.

What a lot of people forget about Manhatten is that the buildings have to come down at some point and therefore for quite some time they have been constructed so as to fall within themselves. Nothing sinister just an acknowledgment that at some point buildings get demolished. This does mean that should the building fail, for whatever reason,the idea is it will fall within its footprint.

But, i'll give you this, i personally want to find out more about WTC 7

__________________
The world as it should be at surrealscoop.blogspot.com

Shek

Pragnosis,
WTC 1 and WTC 2 were designed to withstand the impact of a plane that was half the size of those that ended up impacting into the building. However, you are only as strong as the weakest link, and the steel trusses were that weakest link. It's been several years since I read some of the initial theories on what caused the structural failure, and even then the steel trusses were the chief suspect. I believe that there was an alternative solution to the fireproofing that probably would have withstood the forces of the planes' impact, but that it was much more expensive. Instead, some spray on type, which was the industry standard (so it wasn't a cost cutting measure, just not an area where they went the extra mile for an unknown threat - having fuel laden jumbo jets crash into the building as a weapon) was used.

I don't have any answers to WTC 7, but I'm sure that the report addresses it since they were looking at the site.

Shek

Here's a presentation on WTC 7. However, don't ask me to explain the slides, as it's a bunch of structural engineering way beyond my competence.

http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/WTC%20Part%...se%20Final.pdf

More info here as well: