Dept. of Labor Economist: 9/11 an "Inside Job"?

Matt Welch | June 14, 2005

Look who isn't buying the government's explanation for the World Trade Center collapse:

Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

Whole Washington Times item here; link via Sploid.

Comments

|6.14.05 @ 12:22PM|#

Unbelievable. Apprently science doesn't sway some people. It has to be a Conspiracy.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 12:23PM|#

His hat is made out of more than tinfoil...

|6.14.05 @ 12:23PM|#

There was a dude on a thread a few days ago saying the same thing.

That would be a hard thing to pull off though. Covering it would be hard too, but pulling it off would be really really hard. You would have to have been in on Bin Laden's plans, or Bin Laden would have to have been an agent, and his dudes willing accomplices. You would have to have a group of people that you could trust with the dirtiest of secrets ever to place the explosives.

There is an old mob saying; "three people can keep a secret....when two of them are dead".

That is a tough conspiracy to hold together.

Phil|6.14.05 @ 12:27PM|#

Let's see . . . the opinion of scores of professional engineers, architects, and trained investigators, or a labor economist . . . who to believe in a situation involving buildings being knocked over? It's so complicated! Can't the Moonie Times just decide for me?

Shannon Love|6.14.05 @ 12:28PM|#

Boy, the Aggies are going to have a hard time living this one down.

I am impressed, however, that economist these days can also serve as structural engineers.

|6.14.05 @ 12:29PM|#

I first heard this particular conspiracy theory a couple years back, and while I don't believe it the videos my tinfoil friend sent me (which mostly focused on the Pentagon, with some WTC flavoring) DID seem to raise some odd questions. Of course, I know next to nothing about engineering.

|6.14.05 @ 12:38PM|#

People who were working at the towers long before 9/11 have testified that they witnessed crews of men working for months in the buildings . . . .refusing employees access to specific areas all the while refusing to identify themselves when asked to do so.

Those same areas were also designated by experts in demolition as the exact areas where it would be necessary to plant and wire explosives to bring the buildings down.

Connecting the dots isn't just for kids.

|6.14.05 @ 12:40PM|#

For those interested, the entire article was on LRC a few days ago. Here's the URL:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds12.html

|6.14.05 @ 12:47PM|#

Wow, spritey, do you have any links for that?

I know people who worked at the twin towers (some who made it and some who didn't) and I never heard that story before.

MP|6.14.05 @ 12:49PM|#

Hot damn...this one is rich. OK, Mr. Smartypants Reynolds, why the heck did they bother flying two planes into the buildings if they were just going to blow them up anyhow? Was blowing them up some sort of backup plan? Looks like the Texas sun has fried your brain, Mr. Smartypants Reynolds.

|6.14.05 @ 12:50PM|#

Spritley-
The thing is, I have no problem whatsoever believing that our government (not just this administration, tho' they'd be more likely) would stage an attack and kill citizens in order to have an excuse to invade various countries and clamp down on civil liberties. My probelm with this conspiracy is that the details seem too unbelievable. It's one thing to believe Muslim terrorists would kill themselves for the chance to stick it to America or get to paradise, but to kill themselves to help an American conspiracy? And as for the theory that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane. . .well, the videos I've seen looked compelling (Google "pentalawn" for a Cliff's notes version), but that doesn't answer the obvious question of what the hell happened to the plane?

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 12:50PM|#

Those same areas were also designated by experts in demolition as the exact areas where it would be necessary to plant and wire explosives to bring the buildings down.

You believe that the gubament shot a missle at the Pentagon, rather than a plane hitting it, don't you?

Phil|6.14.05 @ 12:55PM|#

See, where these conspiracy freaks really get into trouble is when they get into implying that there were no planes really involved at all. (It is well-known that the hole in the west wing of the Pentagon, less than 18-foot diameter, was too small to accommodate a Boeing 757, but the North Tower�s hole wasn�t big enough for a Boeing 767 either, the alleged widebody airliner used on AA Flight 11 (officially tail number N334AA, FAA-listed as "destroyed") . . . Adding to the suspicious nature of the small aperture in WTC 1 is that some vertical gaps in the columns on the left side of the northeast hole were so short, probably less than three feet (p. 105) high (p. 27). Not much of a jumbo jet could pass through such an opening, especially since a fuel-laden plane would not minimize its frontal area. . . . The hole in the North Tower also is suspicious because it did not even have a continuous opening at the perimeter, but instead contained substantial WTC material (p. 27) just left of center (pp. 62, 105). This material appears integral to that area, so it did not move much, suggesting minimal displacement and no clean penetration by a jumbo jet. . . .
Adding to the problems of the official theory is the fact that photos of the North Tower hole show no evidence of a plane either. There is no recognizable wreckage or plane parts at the immediate crash site. While the issue probably takes us too far afield, the landing wheel assembly that allegedly flew out of the North Tower and was found several streets away could easily have been planted by FEMA or other government agents. I�ve never seen any objective analysis of this wheel assembly though it would be welcome. In fact, the government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day. )

OK, smart guys, you've got four planes' worth of dead people to explain. Where are they? Where's Barbara Olsen? Steve Push was one of my co-worker's business prospects, and he met with him frequently. Where's his wife? Where's Todd Beamer?

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 1:00PM|#

*SIGH*

And as for the theory that the Pentagon was hit by a missile, not a plane. . .well, the videos I've seen looked compelling (Google "pentalawn" for a Cliff's notes version), but that doesn't answer the obvious question of what the hell happened to the plane?



http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm

|6.14.05 @ 1:00PM|#

MP nails it. Occam's Razor takes down this theory quite easily: if it were true, then why bother with the whole hijacking thing? Just blow up the buildings and blame terrorists.

(I think it also applies to most JFK assassination theories, too. If there was a huge conspiracy in the government, including covering up/faking the autopsy, then why not just have an insider slip something into his coffee one morning and claim he died of a heart attack? What's the point of the added risk and difficulty of recruiting gunmen to do it in public?)

And then there's the little detail of all the video footage of the towers going down: they clearly collapsed first at the floors where the planes hit.

|6.14.05 @ 1:00PM|#

3 things come to mind:

1) There are far too many variables involoved with a huge, fuel-filled plane and zero vision on the inside for these conspiracy theorists to truly be as half-way confident as they sound.

2) Bush was likely going to go after Saddam before 9/11.

3) Spritey, that is weaker than the Michael Jackson case.

|6.14.05 @ 1:01PM|#

Phil,

Where are they?

maybe they were "disapeared" as "enemy combatants". The US government has been seizing people with no judicial process the past 4 years. These people can not contact anyone, no one knows where they are.

|6.14.05 @ 1:01PM|#

Well, I saw the second plane hit from my office window, so I can guarantee that at least one plane flew into a tower.

And from the Department of Hearsay, a friend of mine in the AF swears that the PA plane was shot down, which only makes sense.

|6.14.05 @ 1:01PM|#

No need to sigh, Tom--I've already said that I don't believe it AND that my lack of engineering knowledge is a large factor. Chill.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 1:04PM|#

No need to sigh, Tom--I've already said that I don't believe it AND that my lack of engineering knowledge is a large factor. Chill.

No offense meant towards you, 8675309. I'm just sick of hearing about this stuff.

There were so many eyewitnesses to all of these events and the conspiracy whackjobs have to ignore all of them, PLUS science to make an argument. And there are many gullible people out there in cyberspace that read shit like this as take it as fact.

|6.14.05 @ 1:04PM|#

but that doesn't answer the obvious question of what the hell happened to the plane?

Where was David Copperfield at the time?

Phil|6.14.05 @ 1:05PM|#

Where are they?

maybe they were "disapeared" as "enemy combatants".

Right. The Bush Administration seized its own Solicitor General's wife -- one of the most visible administration mouthpieces on TV -- and threw her in Gitmo. And landed four planes somewhere, unseen by human eyes, and took all the rest of them too.

Can I get a non-crazy answer, please?

|6.14.05 @ 1:09PM|#

Tom-
True, but the point I was trying to make is that for people who weren't eyewitnesses to the attack and don't have any engineering knowledge, the flashpoint videos and other stuff out there on the Web certainly look compelling.

There's also the fact that, to paraphrase Voltaire, "If 9-11 hadn't happened, the government would have had to invent it;" considering all the bullshit policies which have been pushed through using 9-11 as an excuse, I sometimes think that if Bush had the chance to go back in time and stop the attacks he wouldn't, because they've just been too politically useful to him. No 9-11-no Patriot Act. No invasion of Iraq (which he'd been wanting to do since he got elected). No 'enemy combatants' and ability to lock up American citizens without charges or trial. So I can see why some people beyond the usual round of conspiracy nuts believe this stuff.

|6.14.05 @ 1:13PM|#

In regards to the lewrockwell article:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/fema.htm

This snopes article refutes the claim that FEMA was in Manhattan on 9/10.

My wife's cousin's husband Oreo Palmer made it up to the 78th floor in Building 2 before the collapse (ran up the stairs. He was a marathon runner and an Iron man racer and a really great guy who gone way before his time) and was in radio contact with the brass while he and another guy (Bucca?) started to put out the fires. His transmissions indicated there was a fire in the building.

I personally know two people who say they saw the jets fly into the buildings that morning.

I personally saw the collapse of Tower 2 and had to walk home 14 miles.

If there was a conspiracy then I hope whoever set it up is hung from a tall tree after being tarred and feathered. I must admit I've wondered myself about how neatly this attack fit into the PNAC document (is that actually real?) but I truly do not believe that there were only bombs, there were definitely jets.

|6.14.05 @ 1:16PM|#

"Just blow up the buildings and blame terrorists."

better yet, blow up the planes on the tarmac.

far more cost effective.

as much as i peripherally enjoy the david icke/alex jones continuum, i do have to wonder if they're in on the joke or serious.

|6.14.05 @ 1:23PM|#

You can't keep a conspiracy that big.

I think that one of the reasons that this conspiracy pops up is that we want to think that our government is so strong and able, that foreigners can't come in and upset our security. That we know what is dangerous out there and what isn't, and we don't want to accept new dangers easily.

There is the desire to think that our government is powerfull and able and is watching and in charge.

The same with the Kennedy assasination.

If you want to see a cover up, read up on the USS liberty. That was one ship in the middle of the sea, and the government was unable to keep that on the downlow. The only help they got was that people don't care.

Strech,
I heard the same thing. That is one guy that had to shoot the plane down, (plus the guy that gave him the order, and those above him) and he is not keeping his mouth shut.

|6.14.05 @ 1:23PM|#

There is an old mob saying; "three people can keep a secret....when two of them are dead".

Damn! What does it say about NINETEEN people? Even if you accept the official story hook line and sinker, you have to accept a conspiracy by at least the 19 hijackers, and probably Moussaoui, and anybody else the govt said helped them out. Whoa dude! Like, put your tin foil hat away and stuff!

So disclaim all the tinfoil hats you want. You have to believe in SOME kind of "crazy conspiracy", unless you believe Sept 11 was the work of 19 "lone nuts" with no knowledge of one another, who spontaneously decided to hijack four planes all at the same time.

That is a tough conspiracy to hold together.

A couple giant piles of rubble says it ain't as hard as you think. SOMEBODY brought those buildings down; looks like at least 19 people involved. Their success directly refutes the pollyannish "you can't have more than 2 people in a conspiracy" meme.

|6.14.05 @ 1:24PM|#

This topic bears a faint resemblance to that of conspiracists who claim Roosevelt knew beforehand about the impending Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but allowed it to proceed in order to finally give him an excuse to declare war on the Axis powers.

As with this, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the Kennedy assassination, and September 11, there are many theories with a kernels of truth hidden here and there. The trouble is that people believe what they want to believe and disregard the rest.

|6.14.05 @ 1:27PM|#

I guess he never saw (or doesn't believe) these articles from a few months ago: Popular Mechanics: Editor's Notes: The 9/11 Lies Are Out There and Popular Mechanics: Debunking the 9/11 Myths - March 2005 Cover Story.

I wonder why people, not just this economist, would find it necessary to bring these points up. Does it give them some sense of control in a world that they otherwise have no sense of control? Does it help them to believe they have "inside information" and are part of a privileged class? I just don't get it.

|6.14.05 @ 1:30PM|#

Rockwell and these other conspiracy theorists and "true believers" make me sick. Play politics all you want fellas, but at the point at which you disregard the people who actually died that day, I say enough.

How short a memory this country has.

|6.14.05 @ 1:31PM|#

"...but I truly do not believe that there were only bombs, there were definitely jets."

I agree.

I just remembered reading that article the other day and thinking about how some stuff just didn't seem to add up in the official story. But I'm no expert, and neither are most people commenting on one side or the other. That said, a conspiracy wouldn't surprise me all that much.

|6.14.05 @ 1:31PM|#

Also, if you have explosives and wiring in a place where there is going to be fires, that is kind of complicated. I haven't worked with all kinds of explosives, but all the explosives that I have worked with either burn quickly when they get really hot, or they blow up. If you let the explosives blow up in reaction to a blaze, you are not going to have them go off in the appropriate sequence.

I dont' know, it is just way complicated when as mentioned earlier there is a simpler way to do it.

|6.14.05 @ 1:33PM|#

I suppose every administration has its version of Ramsey Clarke.

|6.14.05 @ 1:38PM|#

I'll take the bow (more likely tomatoes) for bringing this up the other day on another thread after it was posted on LRC. Like I said then, it brought back to the surface a discussion I had with LSS engineers immediately after the attacks (they were interested to find out the mechanics, because if it were that easy to demolish LSS in place that fast, a lot of re-working of demolition theory had to be done). So it got me a little excited when the dots connected a little.

But then I came back to earth and realized that while blowing stuff up is the only thing government is good at, the conspiracy side of this would be impossible even for this secrecy obsessed administration. So, no, I don't at this time buy the story about explosives etc. But there are some questions about the situation which are unanswered, and as long as they are, I'm going to admit that, while highly improbable, the scenario isn't impossible.

And BTW, I don't know about "thousands of engineers, scientists, etc." - very few people outside the government team were given access to the evidence. So I've only seen 1 team of engineers and scientists come to the publicly accepted conclusion. I'm still a little bit iffy on the conclusion ... well because it is the product of only a government study (see above for why I wouldn't trust a government run study).

|6.14.05 @ 1:42PM|#

"Damn! What does it say about NINETEEN people? "

It is one thing to plan something and carry it out and surprise a lot of people. It is another thing entirely to pull off a big job and keep a secret as to who pulled it off and how. To have people who are alive keep from running their mouths after the fact.

|6.14.05 @ 1:44PM|#

To me, the question isn't how it happened. The question is, what did the Clinton and Bush administrations know about the plot, when did they know it, and did they try to do anything to stop it?

|6.14.05 @ 1:44PM|#

And from the Department of Hearsay, a friend of mine in the AF swears that the PA plane was shot down, which only makes sense.

No it doesn't. An airplane that is shot down would leave a trail of debris for miles. Wreckage would be shed first from the massive damage caused by the missile strike, but then as the airplane starts to tumble out of control it would likely continue to break up from aerodynamic loads. The result of all this would have been pieces of 757 spread across the Pennsylvania countryside instead of, as actually happened, all the wreckage being confined to a very small area.

|6.14.05 @ 1:51PM|#

Wonder how many consipracy's these people believe at the same time?

Do 9/11 tin-foil hatters also believe that landing on the moon was faked? What's the overlap in demographics?

My brother...a lawyer!...is on the moon conspiracy team. *sigh*

Vache Folle|6.14.05 @ 1:52PM|#

Hurray for the conspiracy theorists, say I! I want to see everything questioned. Those of you who are too quick to put tin foil hats on others seem a little too suspiciously willing to support the official version.

|6.14.05 @ 1:52PM|#

There doesn't have to have been bombs for there to be a conspiracy. It could've happened just like the government says, and STILL have been a conspiracy. Obviously, it was a conspiracy for the hijackers, THEY kept a secret just fine up until 9/11.
The conspiracy couldn't have been as blatant as these people are saying, but it IS possible that our government was involved, even to the highest levels.
We need to realize that yes, our leaders WOULD murder people to get their own way, it is extremely naive of us not to assume so.
So while these people are exactly logical, reasonable, or educated enough to decipher what happened that day, we need to encourage questioning of what the party line is saying on the subject.
Its a very American thing to do.

|6.14.05 @ 1:55PM|#

I think the psychology is that people would rather believe that a Big Evil takes a Big Cause. I.E., a US President being assasinated would take the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, the KGB, the elders of Zion, and, um, the Chippewa.

Therefore, to get two Great Big Buildings down, it would take the entire US Government, plus the aforementioned. And, um, the, uh, Navajo. Yeah. Languages without verb tenses are necessary. Somehow.

Plus there's the Galileo Effect, of being the One Who Is Right And Flouts Authority. Of course, if they really believed it, they'd keep their traps shut the way I did about 3 Mile Is~~~~~NO CARRIER~~~~~

|6.14.05 @ 1:55PM|#

What I find difficult about this conspiracy theory is the claim that no airplanes were involved. The Newyorkers who saw the "event" very clearly saw a plane hit each tower. We all saw that on the TV. This is rather hard to explain away.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 1:57PM|#

Brian,
How do you know the wreckage was confined to a small area? Did somebody tell you that?

|6.14.05 @ 1:58PM|#

Brian Courts-
I know it can sometimes be hard to detect when in written form, but I believe Stretch was being sarcastic. (Right Stretch?)

|6.14.05 @ 2:03PM|#

David,

Well, the pictures, the eye-witness accounts, no farmers coming forward to show off pieces of airplane in their field, etc. If you want to discredit this, fine, show me some evidence. Did they get to all the Pennsylvania farmers with wreckage in their fields and hush them up too? Are they in Gitmo? Hey, I'm all for questioning the official story of anything, and I'm the last person to trust the government on anything, but you have to have some reasonable evidence and not just throw out baseless claims.

|6.14.05 @ 2:05PM|#

Daniel,

I'm not so sure, but if so, then I apologize to stretch for thinking otherwise. It is hard to tell.

|6.14.05 @ 2:09PM|#

The reason I could see a need for both demolishing the WTCs and crashing into them is demolishing them alone wouldn't point to dead people like Atta and the other accomplices, whereas crashing into the WTC on suicide missions directly implicates people on the plane.

I'm not a conspiracist by any stretch but always have a healthy skepticism for the claimed truth of events.

|6.14.05 @ 2:10PM|#

"To me, the question isn't how it happened. The question is, what did the Clinton and Bush administrations know about the plot, when did they know it, and did they try to do anything to stop it?"

I still think that for the presidents to know of the event to take place, planned by foreigners, there would still be too many Americans knowing about it to keep it secret.

Chris|6.14.05 @ 2:10PM|#

If the US gub'mint staged the WTC attacks itself, why did it blame OBL instead of Saddam? Why not stage the 9/11 evidence to blame Saddam? GWB wanted Saddam and (as shown) is now trying very hard to find OBL.

|6.14.05 @ 2:11PM|#

The Jesuits did it.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 2:15PM|#

Brian,
I don't know if the PA plane was shot down. I think there is only a 33.3333% chance that that is really what happened.
As far as the collection of wreckage, I think it is conceivable that the government folks with the yellow tape got to all pieces of the wreckage before the farmers. I also think it is conceivable that the farmers were told to be discreet and that the farmers complied with such a request.
I certainly haven't met or heard about any farmer coming forward and saying, "gee, I was right near the crash, but no government agents visited my land or me."

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 2:18PM|#

More to Brian:
not sure what your reference to pictures of teh PA plane means. If you mean that there was too much fuselage in the proximity of the crash site, my response is that it would depend on the manner in which the plane was shot down.

|6.14.05 @ 2:19PM|#

I don't suppose this Reynolds guy is a Moonie, is he?

|6.14.05 @ 2:21PM|#

"The reason I could see a need for both demolishing the WTCs and crashing into them is demolishing them alone wouldn't point to dead people like Atta and the other accomplices, whereas crashing into the WTC on suicide missions directly implicates people on the plane."

Bombs would be sufficient. Or have you forgotten the attempted truck bombing of the WTC?

|6.14.05 @ 2:24PM|#

Vache Folle:

Why does your brother not believe in the moon landing?

If he gives you some bogus reason, point him here

|6.14.05 @ 2:25PM|#

Jon, you're missing the point. It is not the sufficiency with which the towers could be brought down, that is beyond question -- it's the ability to implicate individuals in that act.

|6.14.05 @ 2:28PM|#

No it doesn't. An airplane that is shot down would leave a trail of debris for miles. Wreckage would be shed first from the massive damage caused by the missile strike, but then as the airplane starts to tumble out of control it would likely continue to break up from aerodynamic loads. The result of all this would have been pieces of 757 spread across the Pennsylvania countryside instead of, as actually happened, all the wreckage being confined to a very small area.

Brian, Brian, Brian. The F-16 pilot shot the guy flying the 757 in the head with his 9mm pistol.

|6.14.05 @ 2:30PM|#

Jon - In other words, both demolition and hijacking would need to be done. The problem with demolition alone is it doesn't directly implicate individuals, while the problem with hijacking alone is assuming the planes alone could not bring down the towers, demolition would be needed to do so.

On the flip side, this is the only lead I think the conspiracists have at this point. Everything else is very weak.

|6.14.05 @ 2:31PM|#

"Jon, you're missing the point. It is not the sufficiency with which the towers could be brought down, that is beyond question -- it's the ability to implicate individuals in that act."

No, you're missing the point. The first WTC bombing was prosecuted. The implication of individuals did not require the deaths of the perpetrators, let alone planeloads of innocents.

It just required a VIN number and a rental truck agency's records. Those shouldn't be too hard for the government to fake.

|6.14.05 @ 2:31PM|#

David,

Have you ever seen a plane shot down? I have. I saw a QF-4 Phantom hit with an ATM-7P Sparrow missile. (The T in the designation means that the missile was a test missile that carried a telemetry package for downloading guidance information during the test flight instead of a warhead. Other than this difference, the missile was identical to a regular AIM-7P Sparrow missile; e.g. same rocket, same guidance system, etc.) The test missle hit the target drone dead on and the fireball and debris pattern were huge. I was prepared for it and it still took me by surprise. If an airliner was shot down by a live missile with a warhead, the damage would be even greater and the debris pattern would probably cover scores, if not hundreds, of square miles. There is absolutely no evidence that this occurred with the PA crash.

|6.14.05 @ 2:32PM|#

"Brian, Brian, Brian. The F-16 pilot shot the guy flying the 757 in the head with his 9mm pistol."

No, Jesus held the debris together until impact, so that his messenger on Earth, George W. Bush, would not be inconvenienced.

|6.14.05 @ 2:32PM|#

Do 9/11 tin-foil hatters also believe that landing on the moon was faked? What's the overlap in demographics?

Seems quite a few Europeans belief both.

|6.14.05 @ 2:33PM|#

Many of the 911 conspiracy theories are pretty dubious, and fall apart under the principles of Occams's razor. One thing still remains unaswered:

How the hell did WTC7 collapse. OK, the WTC 1 and 2 had jet fuel fires intitating an internal collapse. Fair enough.

WTC 7 was another steel frame building. No jets hit it. No raging fires burned for hours. At worst, it was near the debris of the WTC collapses, but that would not take the entire building down in one fell swoop.

Seeing WTC 7 collapse on 9/11 - for no good reason - in what looked exactly like a controlled demoliton has always made me keep an open mind towards the kook theories on the topic.

gaius marius|6.14.05 @ 2:33PM|#

you know, we see the currency this tripe holds in the popular mind -- but then insist that the market, made up entirely of these identical people, is rational. lol...

anyway, what the conspiracy buffs should remember is that events can be spun into what the conspirators desire. there's no need to plot; take advantage of what happens.

the reichstag fire -- did the nazis really set it? no one knows and it doesn't matter. the important part is that the event became the pretense for manifesting nazi ideology and ending the weimar republic with the enabling act. the event was totally secondary -- a building burned down. happens all the time. spinning that into a paranoid delusion of fear and chaos had nothing to do with the event, but was all-important.

pompey's pirates -- did they really threaten to destroy the roman republic. it doesn't matter. interests in rome ensured that it resulted in pompey being given the legal authority to put a massive army in the field indefinitely without territorial restriction.

similarly with 9/11 -- did the government destroy the buildings? i deeply doubt it. but the event is completely secondary -- really is an afterthought now. the reaction to it is where the political con job came in; it became pretense to rewrite and reinterpret entire sections of the law and ages of precedent in policy in favor of an authoritarian universal state.

|6.14.05 @ 2:35PM|#

You're assuming the gov't is the only other culprit.

|6.14.05 @ 2:37PM|#

I sometimes think that if Bush had the chance to go back in time and stop the attacks he wouldn't, because they've just been too politically useful to him. No 9-11-no Patriot Act. No invasion of Iraq (which he'd been wanting to do since he got elected). No 'enemy combatants' and ability to lock up American citizens without charges or trial.

Prior to 9/11, the Bush administration was moving in a very different direction, with little apparent interest in forign policy and more interest in opening up Alaska for oil drilling, removing crappy Clinton EOs (like the drinking water/arsnic regulations), tax cuts, and talk of SS reform. Either the Bush admin was making a very clever ploy to fool everyone, or else they just wern't interested in the things you think they were. And only one of those answers makes sense.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 2:38PM|#

Mac Daddy Hoon,
If a missile did bring down the other plane, it would have had to have been a different type of missile than the one you observed. If the US indeed has less obtrusive missiles, designed for this type of intrigue, then I will guarantee you two things: you would have no way of knowing about them and neither would I.

|6.14.05 @ 2:39PM|#

"Either the Bush admin was making a very clever ploy to fool everyone, or else they just wern't interested in the things you think they were."

Well, we know he had a "come to Jesus" moment at one point in his life.

Maybe 9/11 was his "come to Stalin" moment.

Phil|6.14.05 @ 2:42PM|#

Those of you who are too quick to put tin foil hats on others seem a little too suspiciously willing to support the official version.

Given that I am personally acquainted with more than a dozen people who sat at their desks in Crystal City or Arlington and watched an airplane hit the Pentagon -- including a former co-worker who was in her car on 395 right next to the damned impact site -- it does not require me to take a great leap of imagination.

|6.14.05 @ 2:46PM|#

David, it's not a matter of being a "different kind of missile".

If the missile were very delicate in effect, it wouldn't bring down the plane. It might knock out an engine, but planes are built to run on one engine. It might knock a hole in the fuselage, but planes can land in that state. So, basically, a missile such as you posit would at most cause a controlled crash landing, where the pilots would be slowing down. There'd be no reason for it to hit as fast as it did.

The high-speed impact that occurred suggests a controlled flight into the ground, not an attempted landing, nor a disintegration.

|6.14.05 @ 2:49PM|#

You're assuming the gov't is the only other culprit.

Right! It's the Joos! THE JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS!!!!!!

|6.14.05 @ 2:50PM|#

I'm Jewish. Lol but that's funny norton.

|6.14.05 @ 2:52PM|#

The question you have to ask yourself is why would Morgan Reynolds make such an accusation? He was a Bush appointee in the first adminstration. He works at an institution that generally is conservative and supports the policies of President Bush. We must conclude, he is either off his rocker or he appears to know something more than what the public knows. It will be very telling how he is received by the Media. Will they label him a whistleblower or a nut. Look for the official media to discredit him and adhere to the "Official Explanation." They always do. There is no such thing as a conspiracy according to the Media. Yet Lincoln was assassinated by a conspiracy. Kennedy was likely assasinated by a conspiracy. Watergate was a conspiracy, etc. Yet conspiracies are always discredited by the media. What is the harm in re-examining the evidence of the destruction of the WTC by experts who are not employed by the U.S. Government or the City and State of New York?

R C Dean|6.14.05 @ 2:53PM|#

David W. is a great example of a tinfoil-hatter. Every refutation just serves as the seed of more support for his conspiracy. Now we are talking about super-secret missiles that can somehow inflict fatal damage on a plane without causing any debris to fall off.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 2:53PM|#

Jon H,
I don't think it is an impossible technology challenge to make a missile that brings down the plane without making a huge mess. The possibility that occurred to one of the above posters is that the missile could focus on damaging the cockpit. People who know more about jumbo jets than you or I do would probably have even better ideas.
If a missile were designed to bring down a hi-jacked jumbo jet, minimizing damage would be a natural concern, even if no coverups were planned at the time this hypothetical missile would have been designed and produced.

|6.14.05 @ 2:54PM|#

Welllll...

I know missiles are in vogue right now, but what if a fighter used a quick burst with his guns to knock out the engines? I've got to believe that would be like shooting fish in a barrel (easily for a trained pilot, I mean), and the plane would stay mostly in one piece, wouldn't it?

Actually, it seems to me that the loss of even one engine would probably be fatal if an unskilled pilot was at the controls of the airliner.

|6.14.05 @ 2:56PM|#

Gotta say the thing I'm most surprised about is that this news article was posted on the Reason site.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 2:56PM|#

Correction for RCD:
I said that I think there is a 33% chance that the plane was shot down. So, I am one third tinfoil hatter and two thirds normal person. I don't buy into any of that no planes stuff. Also, LIHOP seems possible (1/3 tfh) but not proven (2/3 normal person).

|6.14.05 @ 2:57PM|#

" The possibility that occurred to one of the above posters is that the missile could focus on damaging the cockpit. "

It'd probably be like that golfer's plane, and it would just fly at the right altitude until it ran out of fuel. That's not what happened.

|6.14.05 @ 2:59PM|#

Seeing WTC 7 collapse on 9/11 - for no good reason - in what looked exactly like a controlled demoliton has always made me keep an open mind towards the kook theories on the topic.

Why would the .gov bother blowing up WTC 7? I understand the motive for 1 & 2, but why do more? Specially w/o adding to the casualty roll?

WTC 7 caught fire, and contained a considerable quantity of diesel fuel. As far as falling within its footprint, it is my understanding that large structures tend to fall in that manner.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:00PM|#

Jon H,
Why do you think that you have to blow up an entire plane to take out its electricity or auto pilot?

|6.14.05 @ 3:01PM|#

"I know missiles are in vogue right now, but what if a fighter used a quick burst with his guns to knock out the engines? "

A "quick burst of his guns" would actually require two, and each burst would probably spray the wings or fuselage with some hits also, depending on the angle of attack.

It would have taken time for the plane to crash afterwards, and it would have been kinda obvious to the passengers, who would have been able to report it via their cellphones.

Which didn't happen.

The only way the passengers would have been unable to report being shot down would be if the plane disintegrated immediately. Which didn't happen.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:01PM|#

Anyway, I still find it suspicious that the tapes of communications with the plane haven't been made public and that they gave the victim's families such a hard time about hearing the tapes.

|6.14.05 @ 3:02PM|#

I will make no further comments off topic, but David, get a grip. Exactly what kind of missile could defy physics and make a shoot-down look like a crash? Never mind the physical impossibility of such a missile, how many airliners do you think the government shoots down so that such a weapon is needed?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:03PM|#

Neutron bomb.

|6.14.05 @ 3:04PM|#

"Why do you think that you have to blow up an entire plane to take out its electricity or auto pilot?"

If the missile does too much damage, the plane would probably tumble and disintegrate. If it only kills the crew, then it'll take a while to crash. Or the autopilot might still be on.

In any case, the passengers did not report a grenade-like blast in the cockpit, did they?

|6.14.05 @ 3:05PM|#

"Neutron bomb."

Or maybe it was an attack by the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

|6.14.05 @ 3:06PM|#

Those pesky Orbital Mind Control Lasers again!!!

|6.14.05 @ 3:06PM|#

"No it doesn't. An airplane that is shot down would leave a trail of debris for miles. Wreckage would be shed first from the massive damage caused by the missile strike, but then as the airplane starts to tumble out of control it would likely continue to break up from aerodynamic loads. The result of all this would have been pieces of 757 spread across the Pennsylvania countryside instead of, as actually happened, all the wreckage being confined to a very small area."

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I meant it makes sense that the gov't would shoot down the plane over the PA countryside rather than let it hit the White House or some other important/populated area. I didn't mean that it makes sense from the wreckage debris, of which I have no knowledge.

|6.14.05 @ 3:07PM|#

Anyone here have any expertise in accident reconstruction or demolition?

If you do, SPEAK LOUDLY SO THAT THE ASSHAT TINFOILS CAN HEAR YOU. For Fuck's Sake people, Morgan Reynolds is an ECONOMIST. If he has any background in ENGINEERING, then I might consider him a quack rather than a jackass unless other ENGINEERS agreed with him after analyzing the buildings' blueprints, materials, soil samples, and explosives.

But then I am a bit of a jackass myself and enjoy wholeheartedly listening to crazy fiction. Of course, it livens my day to know that P.T. Barnum was not just talking about people alive during the 1800's when he observed that the public liked to be "humbugged."

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:09PM|#

In any case, the passengers did not report a grenade-like blast in the cockpit, did they?
Understand that the victim's families are under government instructions as to what they may and may not reveal to the public. This victim's families themselves have said that there are limits on what they are allowed to disclose to the public.

|6.14.05 @ 3:10PM|#

but what if a fighter used a quick burst with his guns to knock out the engines?

The vulcan cannon is 20 mm and fires 100 rounds a second. Even one hit would result in engine parts all over the place . . .

As far as missles, they tend to be heat seaking, radar guided, or wire guided. They also contain quite a bit of force: planes can be difficult to shoot down. If you "tailer" a missle to minimize their effect, you also increase the risk of not taking the aircraft down when you hit it.

In any case, it is well known that our military was willing to take out civilian airlines that day. Unarmed F-16s were prepared to ram hijacked planes. So why hide it if one was shot down?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:10PM|#

Now neutron bombs are a paranoid fantasy. Gosh, I didn't know.

|6.14.05 @ 3:11PM|#

"Understand that the victim's families are under government instructions as to what they may and may not reveal to the public. This victim's families themselves have said that there are limits on what they are allowed to disclose to the public."

I see. So what you're saying is that the plane was destroyed by The Hulk?

|6.14.05 @ 3:11PM|#

You can't keep a conspiracy that big..... (elipses mine)


...unless you're part of a secret brotherhood or other such secret society.

|6.14.05 @ 3:11PM|#

Wow, I am so out of the loop. This is the first I've heard of this conspiracy theory. Let me tell you, I am one cynical individual. But even I would not believe GW would have/could have either masterminded this--hell, I don't even think the Cheney/Rumsfeld team is THAT evil. And I cannot believe for a moment that even they would allow that to happen to thousands of Americans just to support a mideast war.

Wow. I feel really mentally healthy.

|6.14.05 @ 3:12PM|#

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. I meant it makes sense that the gov't would shoot down the plane over the PA countryside rather than let it hit the White House or some other important/populated area.

Something they in fact admitted they were willing to do. See my previous post . . .

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:15PM|#

Don,
If the plane was shot down, and I am not saying it definitely was, the reason for the coverup is thae same as the reason that the President was allowed to keep reading My Pet Goat as the towers fell. Simple bad judgement by people who should know better.

|6.14.05 @ 3:15PM|#

Now neutron bombs are a paranoid fantasy. Gosh, I didn't know.

Neutron bombs also produce a large explosion, but they are designed to maximize radiation and have a relatively small explosion compared to conventional nuclear weapons.

It is a myth that neutron bombs kill people while leaving everything intact.

|6.14.05 @ 3:16PM|#

free form,

Maybe the war in the Middle East was not the only motive. It's easy to be cynical when you assume things about people's motives.

|6.14.05 @ 3:17PM|#

Actually, I think the pres reading My Pet Goat showed calm and composure. Perhaps he should have ran out yelling for his old F-102 to be pulled out of mothballs so he, too, could shoot at airliners.

R C Dean|6.14.05 @ 3:18PM|#

Wow. I feel really mentally healthy.

I often have that feeling after catching up on a Reason comments thread. Oddly, though, I feel kind of . . . dirty, at the same time.

The fact that we have a former DOL economist spouting this stuff makes you feel real good about what's going on in the DOL, though, doesn't it?

|6.14.05 @ 3:19PM|#

OK, just to raise the conspiracy stakes a notch. Why is this article in the Mooney Times? Aren't they loyal lapdogs of the administration? Maybe they're changing the story on purpose. The American public seems to be losing faith in our war in Iraq, and we still don't have Bin Laden. Maybe the Administration has decided that Muslim Fundamentalists are just a pain in the ass and that we need new enemies to fight. We'll probably be hearing soon that Hilary Clinton, Paul Krugman and a liberal/gay cabal actually blew up the WTC. That story will allow Bush to start arresting his real enemies and let the Saudis and Iraqis get back to pumping oil.

|6.14.05 @ 3:20PM|#

Hi,

Maybe I'm lost = I was looking for a magazine called "REASON"? .... anyone know where it went? I seem to remember it being around here somewhere...

For god's sake. What does it take for people to swallow the fact that the reason most conspiracies dont work is because the majority of people are just as dumb and selfish as you are?

I would have thought Reason readers the least likely people to waste their time on wank-offs like this.

I think the trade center was probably destroyed by a conspiracy of danish architects, frankly.

JG

p.s. FWIW, I saw the first plane hit. I wasnt looking when the second one came in. Maybe that was when they snookered me.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:20PM|#

Correction to Don:
the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently.

|6.14.05 @ 3:23PM|#

Yeah, there's that thing about the entire nation watching the second plane hit. Is CNN in on the conspiracy?

|6.14.05 @ 3:23PM|#

The fact that we have a former DOL economist spouting this stuff makes you feel real good about what's going on in the DOL, though, doesn't it?

Understatement of the year.

|6.14.05 @ 3:26PM|#

Is this the Republican Ramsey Clark?

|6.14.05 @ 3:26PM|#

Maybe the AF hit the plane with a Nude Bomb, and the pilots were too busy chasing the nekkid stewardesses to pay attention and the plane crashed.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 3:27PM|#

WTC 7 was another steel frame building. No jets hit it. No raging fires burned for hours. At worst, it was near the debris of the WTC collapses, but that would not take the entire building down in one fell swoop.





http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=5&c=y

|6.14.05 @ 3:28PM|#

Understand that the victim's families are under government instructions as to what they may and may not reveal to the public. This victim's families themselves have said that there are limits on what they are allowed to disclose to the public.

Correction to Don:
the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently.

Roflmao, as they say... this has now gone from absurd to surreal. But it is entertaining!

|6.14.05 @ 3:29PM|#

I like how GWB is evil enough to perpetrate the WTC disaster, but he won't plant WMD's in Iraq to save his ass.

John M. Joy|6.14.05 @ 3:32PM|#

To those who suggest that a fuel fire couldn't possibly buckle structural steel beams, I offer this.

(Huh. Two posts here today, and both reference Bridgeport. Odd.)

JMJ

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:32PM|#

Saying that the military has mind-blowing weapons that are secret doesn't seem like tin foil hat territory to me. Just because the US no longer publixcizes its new technologies doesn't mean that they stopped coming up with crazy new stuff. Now that doesn't neccessarily mean that they shot the plane down. Still, I don't get these references to Nude Bomb and Evil Mutants. While the secret technology is sure to be mind blowing, I don't think the government would pursue anything as fanciful as the Nude Bomb and genetically engineered soldiers also seems like kind of a remote possibility. However, the goal of making a bomb that disables stuff without destrying it seems like a natural objective for the secret designers who make the secret designs.

|6.14.05 @ 3:38PM|#

Just because the story doens't necessarily fit the evidence in everyone's eyes, that doesn't mean anyone who questions the evidence is assuming this is GWB's doing.

I think it's a mistake to reflexively dismiss ANY criticism of the official story out of fear that it will make GWB look bad. Most people i know are perfectly capable of questioning evidence without making assumptions about who that evidence indicates.

Rally, there's no reason to think that for example, if it turns out more people were involved, that they had anything to do with GWB. Could be another foreign govt, could be another terrorist group for all anyone knows.

Why fear a further investigation that could lead to the unearthing of what could be other foreign terrorists operating in our country?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:41PM|#

If they were from Israel or Saudi Arabia or another friendly government then an investigation would be bad because these nations are true friends to the US and it would be a shame to compromise any of these relationships with some kind of truth-finding mission.

|6.14.05 @ 3:42PM|#

Hurray for the conspiracy theorists, say I! I want to see everything questioned. Those of you who are too quick to put tin foil hats on others seem a little too suspiciously willing to support the official version.

That's because I'm in on it. ;)

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 3:45PM|#

the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently.

So now you have a neutron bomb that only the US government knows about on an air-to-air missle with cockpit-seeking technology, rather than heat seeking technology that just randomly happened to be strapped to the wing of one of the 12 attack fighters at ready on that day?

|6.14.05 @ 3:46PM|#

This site explains how Flight 93 was shot down but still is in basically one piece:

Deployable High Power Microwave (HPM) Weapons

http://members.fortunecity.com/seismicevent/

Too bad this stuff isn't real!!!

|6.14.05 @ 3:46PM|#

Reynolds clearly is out of the loop. Any good tinfoiler knows that the au courant conspiracy theory is that Oklahoma City was a CIA/Mossad/Clinton/Bush warm-up for 9/11, and Reynolds doesn't mention it.

|6.14.05 @ 3:47PM|#

Independant worm,

In case you were reffering to my comment, I submit that it was a response to this: posted above,

"The thing is, I have no problem whatsoever believing that our government (not just this administration, tho' they'd be more likely) would stage an attack and kill citizens in order to have an excuse to invade various countries and clamp down on civil liberties."


I'm not sure that my comment constitutes "not wanting Bush to look bad" or "fear of an investigation" or whatever else your imagination tells you.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 3:47PM|#

I think it's a mistake to reflexively dismiss ANY criticism of the official story out of fear that it will make GWB look bad. Most people i know are perfectly capable of questioning evidence without making assumptions about who that evidence indicates.

Except that visiting the conspiracy websites shows that 99.9999% of them blame/accuse Bush or the Bush administration.

|6.14.05 @ 3:49PM|#

Brian Courts:

No it doesn't. An airplane that is shot down would leave a trail of debris for miles.

But that is exactly what happened, according to this CNN article:

Meanwhile, investigators say they've found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:53PM|#

Clarification:
I said there was only a 33% chance that the plane was shot down at all. Of this 33%, 1% is allocated to the neutron bomb, 1% is allocated to some kind of ramming and 31% is allocated to some type of secret military technology.

Side note to Don: if secret military technology were involved, this would be some reason to cover up the shoot down. I mean the government may not want its enemies to know what it has, and moreover, the (hypothetical) idea that the military planned in advance to shoot down jumbo jets, to the point of developing dedicated weapons, would not have sat well with the government's assertion that it did not plan for 9/11 type events.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:54PM|#

correction: should read: "some type of secret military technology that we are too uncreative to imagine."

John M. Joy|6.14.05 @ 3:55PM|#

For those who may be interested, I've posted some more photos of the I-95 bridge fire in Bridgeport (third post of the day, third Park City reference) here.

Photos are courtesy a good friend, who works as a civil with a local construction company.

JMJ

|6.14.05 @ 3:56PM|#

If they were from Israel...

I guess norton was right - it was the Joos!

So David, what's the next conspiracy theory that you are going to suggest has a 33% chance of being right - that thousands of jewish people who worked in the WTC didn't show up for work on 9/11?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:57PM|#

No, Brian. I think it was your mom, dude.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 3:59PM|#

and besides, I have already tried to be clear that my tinfoil hatting is limited to Flt 93, not the towers.

|6.14.05 @ 4:03PM|#

Well, you have to admit that it's pretty good tinfoiling when you say 1% chance of magical neutron bombs that don't work like actual neutron bombs and 32% unknown magical technology.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 4:07PM|#

But that is exactly what happened, according to this CNN article:



http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=8&c=y

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:07PM|#

Why is this board so hostile to the idea that the military has weapons we don't know about?

the neutron bomb you are discussing was on the cover of Time Magazine in something like 1977. that is what you are all discussing with such confidence. It is 2005 now. I think the military must have invented something that makes time stand still in y'alls brains -- or maybe you are just waiting for Time Magazine to do an update before you will acknowledge the concept that military technology does not stand still.

|6.14.05 @ 4:08PM|#

Look, there are neutron bombs we know about
The known neutron knowns.
Then there are the neutron bombs we know we don't know about
The known neutron unknowns.

Then there are the non-neutron bombs we know we don't know about.

We refer to those as the known non-neutron unknowns.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|6.14.05 @ 4:09PM|#

Well, you have to admit that it's pretty good tinfoiling when you say 1% chance of magical neutron bombs that don't work like actual neutron bombs and 32% unknown magical technology.

This is a reference to the cockpit-seeking guidance system?

|6.14.05 @ 4:10PM|#

David: If they were from Israel...
and,
and besides, I have already tried to be clear that my tinfoil hatting is limited to Flt 93, not the towers.

So if your tinfoil hatting is limited to the issue of the flight 93 crash, what could your reference to Israel possibly have meant? Did they shoot it down? Sure looks like you're tinfoil hatting about a bit more than flight 93.

|6.14.05 @ 4:13PM|#

This is a reference to the cockpit-seeking guidance system?

No, with regards to his remark:

I said there was only a 33% chance that the plane was shot down at all. Of this 33%, 1% is allocated to the neutron bomb, 1% is allocated to some kind of ramming and 31% is allocated to some type of secret military technology.

|6.14.05 @ 4:15PM|#

Those of you who are too quick to put tin foil hats on others seem a little too suspiciously willing to support the official version.

Because that's what the Bush administration secretly pays us to do!

Stop rocking the boat, you guys! I gotta make the rent.

|6.14.05 @ 4:16PM|#

a:But [a trail of debris] is exactly what happened, according to this CNN article

A little context to make that statement less misleading would be nice. Here is what the article says about the debris:

"Investigators later said the debris was all very light material, such as paper and thin nylon the wind would easily blow."

|6.14.05 @ 4:19PM|#

Why is this board so hostile to the idea that the military has weapons we don't know about?

I'm not hostile to the idea. However, you're demanding that everyone else argue a negative - that we must demonstrate that the US military doesn't have some unknown superweapon that can replicate perfectly explicable circumstances in order to argue that the most likely situation, by far, is the one actually supported by the evidence.

That's classic conspiratorial logic.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:22PM|#

I can see where you got confused by that reference. Let me break it down for you, real simple:

1. I don't think Israel took down the towers or even helped.

2. Still, an investigation into foreign involvement of the towers collapse could lead to unpleasant revelations that the Israeli government would not want us to dwell on.

3. Therefore, the Israeli government would be expected to oppose an investigation (as would Saudi Arabia and any other nation that would be investigated -- somehow my reference to Saudi Arabia got lost in your ellipsis).

4. Jumping to this thread, a poster said that the US would have no reason to fear an investigation.

5. i then pointed out that the US would have a reason to fear an investigation because it could upset the apple cart with one or more of our allies.

6. I don't consider this to be a conspiracy theory. I don't consider this to be an assertion that the Israeli government brought down the towers. To repeat, I don't think that.

7. As far as practical evidence that these investigations sometimes uncover unpleasant things that we should not talk about, I would point to the example of the redacted pages from that report in 2003. I think the theory there was that those pages referred to activities of the saudi Arabia government. However, that doesn't mean that the Saudi Arabian government brought down the towers. It just means that the investigation uncovered things that this friend of the US did not want disclosed. In other words, this kind of thing happens.

8. Finally: It's "Jewish people," not "Joos." Also, the Israeli government is not the Jewish people. The Jewish people are united by a common religion and live all over the world. The Israeli government is the governing body that rules Israel according to a theocratic democracy. Different things.

Britton|6.14.05 @ 4:23PM|#

I was trying to read Reason.com, but it looks like somehow I ended up at Indymedia.

Say, how 'bout those chem-trails?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:23PM|#

No Eric. I am trying to get the board to acknowledge uncertainty. Drawing any firm conclusions, one way or the other, is exactly what I am trying to avoid due to our imperfect information.

keith|6.14.05 @ 4:29PM|#

At this point in my life, I find it best to believe every single theory I hear, even the conflicting ones. It makes the world much more interesting than, "US government caught with pants down; buildings collapse because of fire and structural damage caused by thing thousands of people saw happen." Both of which are true, as is the assertion that neither of those things are true.

Need I quote Principa Discordia at this point?

|6.14.05 @ 4:31PM|#

It could have been aliens, David. Acknowledge that uncertainty.

Or acknowledge that the world being imperfect and humans being less than omniscent, rational people operate based on the actual evidence they have. If you have credible evidence that the government downed flight 93 and covered it up, go for it. Otherwise, you're pulling neutron bombs out of your ass and demanding we respect the stink.

|6.14.05 @ 4:31PM|#

Nice one, joe. Way to pick your spot. ;-)

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:31PM|#

qualification: should read: "drawing any firm conclusions regarding the fate of Flt 93"

|6.14.05 @ 4:31PM|#

I'm reminded of an old joke:

80% of the American public believes President Kennedy was assassinated as the result of a conspiracy.

The other 20% of us know he was, because we were involved in it.

|6.14.05 @ 4:32PM|#

Damnit, joe, that "known nuetron unknowns" post made me laugh out loud at my desk.

But when will thoreau weigh in and tell us what part Dihydrogen Monoxide played in the attacks? I've heard there were significant quantities of DHMO on all of the planes ... but none of it was recovered at the crash sites!

|6.14.05 @ 4:35PM|#

Finally: It's "Jewish people," not "Joos."

Thanks David for the cultural lesson. I would try to explain that "Joos" reference but something tells me it isn't worth the effort if you really thought I needed to be told that.

But the fact is, if you are going to suggest that one reason for a cover-up might be to avoid an investigation leading to an ally, and you specifically name Israel as a potential culprit, you are treading on dangerous ground. That isn't all that far from the disgusting claim by some Islamo-facists that Jewish people (which I did say in my post, which should have been a clue about the "Joos" thing) were tipped off by the Israeli government. It's probably not a good idea to stray too close to garbage like that in trying to make another point, since that atrocious theory is still circulating in some circles.

|6.14.05 @ 4:35PM|#

I think there are plenty of new military technologies. However, most of the R&D in the last 20 years seems to fund projects like making guns which can bend to shoot around corners while the soldier looks at a tv screen and hooking troops up to some kind of computer network while on a battlefield. I�ve seen and read about a lot of non-lethal devices, such as beanbag guns, guns which shoot out a gooey sticky mass, and even some kind of sonic vweapon the Israelis have recently used which makes people throw up (http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/news/ci_2796665).

Even armed forces do not have infinite budgets, so planners put their money where they think it�ll be needed in the future. I don�t think anyone in the US saw the need for large scale radiation devices like neutron bombs with the START talks and then the collapse of the soviet union.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:36PM|#

Eric,
Not all uncertainties are created equal. I implicitly acknowledge this important point when I limit my tin foil hatting to Flt 93. Why would I think there is a coverup of Flt 93 and not the others. Because a military shootdown of Flt 93 is simply way more plausible than blowing up the towers. People argue the implausibility by saying that the US military couldn't possibly have developed a weapon consistent with the crash. That is absurd. I believe the military has secret weapons (as do you). I don't believe that aliens did it (again, I am sure you agree). I can't understand your apparent certainty about what happened to Flt 93.

|6.14.05 @ 4:43PM|#

I said there was only a 33% chance that the plane was shot down at all. Of this 33%, 1% is allocated to the neutron bomb, 1% is allocated to some kind of ramming and 31% is allocated to some type of secret military technology.

I think it's pretty clear that David is doing a really great job trolling this forum.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:43PM|#

No Brian. I did not name Israel because I am an Islamo-facist or Nazi. Rather, I mentioned Israel because of: (1) uss liberty; (2) pollard case; and (3) the reputation of Israel for having a highly pro-active intelligence department.

Also: understand that the stuff I am saying Israel might not want disclosed could be fairly innocuous stuff. Maybe they got word of the plot, but didn't put enough credibility in it to pass to the US. That would be understandable, even for a crack outfit like Israeli intelligence. There are lots of red herrings out there, I am sure. Still, you could see that Israel might not want a report on this, even if they acted reasonably based on what was known at the time. Ditto Saudi Arabia or any other nation.

|6.14.05 @ 4:45PM|#

"hell, I don't even think the Cheney/Rumsfeld team is THAT evil."

my problem with all of this is that i don't believe they're THAT competent.

|6.14.05 @ 4:46PM|#

No Brian. I did not name Israel because I am an Islamo-facist or Nazi.

I never said nor implied that you were.

|6.14.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Correction to Don:
the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently.

One thing I know about neutron bombs is that the radiation will cause alloys to become radioactive. Consequently, most of the material in the plane would have been radioactive after recieving intense neutron and gamma ray radiation.

Unless, of course, the DoD has developed neutron bombs who's neutrons operate using laws of physics of which I'm unaware, or perhaps they substatuted the plane's aluminum parts with some modern polymer that behaves in a very different manner (perhaps the polymer was developed in a secret lab in the aftermath of the Roswell UFO crash).

|6.14.05 @ 4:50PM|#

Because a military shootdown of Flt 93 is simply way more plausible than blowing up the towers.

It's also more plausible than aliens shooting it down, but that doesn't make it very plausible or remotely as plausible as other explanations.

People argue the implausibility by saying that the US military couldn't possibly have developed a weapon consistent with the crash.

No, they argue that no known weapon was consistent with the crash, while on the other hand, the accepted explanation is. There's nothing absurd about that - it's the plain truth.

In response, you suggest...unknown weapons with unknown capabilities. Well, unknown weapons with unknown capabilities could have taken down the WTC, for that matter. This isn't an argument, it's hand-waving.

|6.14.05 @ 4:53PM|#

The pilot episode of the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen featured an attack on the WTC, perpetrated by a small faction within the govt which was concerned about defense cuts. The planners understood that there were many terrorist groups around the world that would rush to take responsibility for it, "and begging to be smart-bombed", in the words of one of the characters.

A passenger plane was rigged with a computer which allowed a remote user to fly it from the ground once the autopilot was engaged. It aired on Fox in March of 2001.

http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/lonegunmen.html

|6.14.05 @ 4:53PM|#

David, your comprehensive moonbattiness is charming and actually a lot of fun to read. Your faith in the government to "control" what people think and say, and who they talk to, and to get to them in time, and to keep it AAALLLLLL a big secret, is touching. This doesn't jibe very well with the libertarian notion of incompetent government, but whatever. It's still fun, right?

This is the same government that leaks like a sieve to the press, on background (anonymously), every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year, for decades if not centuries, uninterrupted. You know the "curveball" information - that showed the entire US government case against Iraq was manufactured by a discredited alcoholic nicknamed Curveball by the CIA?

Leak.

You know the super-secret editing jobs an oil company lobbyist pulled on dozens of EPA reports (to cite only the most recent example)? Do you know how it is you know about that information, which was embarassing to the Bush admin and hugely damaging to oil interests?

Leak.

Pick up any national newspaper at random. Open to any page at random. Close your eyes and poke at the paper with your index finger. Now, open your eyes. I bet you a jumbo roll of Reynolds aluminum foil that you'll be pointing at an article based on a government leaks.

Every day on the news, there's a new story from a battlefield colonel or general who contradicts the administration's line that we have sufficient manpower over there. Every single day. These don't even qualify as leaks - these are people who publicly refuse to toe the line. Why can't the government control them on the single biggest issue facing it?

It is always a waste of time arguing with moonbats and foil hatters. But you really have to possess a total ignorance of how the media works to believe in any massive government conspiracies. There have been so many hugely harmful leaks to the press in the UK and the US regarding the Iraq war that I can't believe you really believe the nonsense you're spewing. If the government can't keep its own senior administration officials in line, it goddamn well can't keep Pennsylvania farmers in line. Grow up. You're choosing to believe garbage. You're choosing to fill your head with garbage. My only question is: Why?

You seem to be one of those people who believe that clean government can only occur if the "right" people get into office. But government honesty (or dishonesty) is not a function of the goodness of those in office. It is a function of institutions like the press. It is a function of the inevitable bureaucratic infighting and turf wars, which is one of the big reasons officials are constantly ratting each other out to the press. There are no mechanisms in place that would allow government "agents" to "order" farmers to keep quiet about plane wreckage, or to prevent leaks to the press. The evidence is overwhelming. You are simply choosing to ignore it. That's pathetic.

Oh, and yes. I am a government agent paid to keep you quiet. So watch your step, sparky, or I'm comin' to git ya!!!

PS: I planted bugs in your bedroom ceiling.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:53PM|#

The neutron bombs you are talking about are from the old Time Magazine article. The newer version was developed in secret and operate on a somewhat different principle. Do I know this for a fact? No. Do you know this as a lie? Also no.

You or I simply can't know about secret military technology. The military takes extensive precautions to prevent this from happening.

|6.14.05 @ 4:58PM|#

Side note to Don: if secret military technology were involved, this would be some reason to cover up the shoot down. I mean the government may not want its enemies to know what it has, and moreover, the (hypothetical) idea that the military planned in advance to shoot down jumbo jets, to the point of developing dedicated weapons, would not have sat well with the government's assertion that it did not plan for 9/11 type events.

David, the military had unarmed F-16s ready to ram civilian airliners. They didn't have conventional weapons on hand, let alone Skunk Works stuff. Maybe when the terrorists attack Las Vegas, the .gov can field test their super secret stuff.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 4:59PM|#

Don:
How do you know Flt 93 wasn't rammed?

|6.14.05 @ 5:01PM|#

Exhibit the 2nd:

Still, I don't get these references to Nude Bomb and Evil Mutants. While the secret technology is sure to be mind blowing, I don't think the government would pursue anything as fanciful as the Nude Bomb and genetically engineered soldiers also seems like kind of a remote possibility. However, the goal of making a bomb that disables stuff without destrying it seems like a natural objective for the secret designers who make the secret designs.

Fellow reasonoids, he's a troll.

|6.14.05 @ 5:02PM|#

The neutron bombs you are talking about are from the old Time Magazine article. The newer version was developed in secret and operate on a somewhat different principle. Do I know this for a fact? No.

Correct. You don't know if a newer version was ever commissioned or made. You don't have any evidence to support the idea that a mysterious type of neutron bomb was invented that caused no EMP effects or other evidence.

This is because you pulled it out of your ass.

Nobody can argue with the contents of your ass.

|6.14.05 @ 5:04PM|#

Fellow reasonoids, he's a troll.

Well, he could be a sincere tinfoil-type. Sometimes it's hard or impossible to tell. Either way, at least he was entertaining. :)

|6.14.05 @ 5:05PM|#

crimethink wrote:

The pilot episode of the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen featured an attack on the WTC, perpetrated by a small faction within the govt which was concerned about defense cuts.

So you're saying that Chris Carter is involved now? I KNEW it!!

I hadn't heard about this. Pretty interesting, and IMO probably explains where the bizarre "remote controlled airliners" theory came from.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:05PM|#

Revised probabilities:
67%: the official version of Flt 93
1% neutron bomb
1% ramming
10% secret, FAA mandated device on aircraft allowing authorities to bring it down by remote
control
21% other secret technology we are too uncreative to imagine

|6.14.05 @ 5:06PM|#

David, The Evil Atheist Conspiracy will find you and kill you for getting too close to the truth.

Do I know that is a fact? No. Do you know it is a lie? Also no.

|6.14.05 @ 5:09PM|#

Well, he could be a sincere tinfoil-type. Sometimes it's hard or impossible to tell. Either way, at least he was entertaining. :)

Agreed. :)

The "secret designers who make the secret designs" comment nearly made me spray coffee all over my workstation.

|6.14.05 @ 5:12PM|#

10% secret, FAA mandated device on aircraft allowing authorities to bring it down by remote control

That must be like the nuke power plant remote controls that we saw on 24 this last season.

|6.14.05 @ 5:12PM|#

Woycechowsky's Bomb: If we have a closed box that contains a neutron bomb and a wad of tinfoil, there is an equal probability that it both contains and does not contain unknown upgrades based on some sort of metaphysics which can precisely simulate a plane crash in the unlikely event that the government would need to shoot down a plane over western PA and not talk about it.

|6.14.05 @ 5:13PM|#

That's a great line.

I want a t-shirt that says "We are the secret designers who make the secret designs."

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:15PM|#

I only think secret designs are made in nations, like the US, that spend billions on secretive military research. If they don't have anything secret we are getting a lousy ROI and should demand or money back.

|6.14.05 @ 5:16PM|#

I'm pretty sure the engineers, when designing the World Trade Center, considered not only the impact of an airplane crash, but the intensity of the fire such an impact would cause. Has the content of aviation fuel changed in the last thirty to forty years? Does asking this question make me a conspiracy nut?

Blaming George Bush and our government may be nutty, but having doubts about the WTC collapse is not.

|6.14.05 @ 5:18PM|#

I swear, I've been giggling my ass off reading this stuff all day.

David: "Argumentum ad ignorantiam" was never more clearly demonstrated. This thread should be archived for students of rhetoric.

There was an awesome thread on some 'progressive' site a while back about how Bush caused the Tsunami with a underwater microwave pulsing bomb thingy. (forget 'why?') But this was funnier because no one there really knew how to take the piss out of the tin-hats.

I think perhaps there's an impulse to dwell on the unknowable by people who are generally too easily undone by the known.

JG

|6.14.05 @ 5:18PM|#

I'm pretty sure the WTC engineers were from the same fallible species the engineers who built the Tacoma Narrows bridge came from - capable of building sturdy structures that failed under unusual or unforeseen conditions.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:19PM|#

There are plenty of good reasons to want to bring down a hijacked plane. It would also be understandable that the US government, the aircraft manufacturers and the tourist industry would not want to publicize this technology too much. The idea is that widespread knowledge of such technology (if it exists) make people unreasonably afraid of flying.

M|6.14.05 @ 5:19PM|#

Brian, what dangerous ground? I mean, seriously, why is it "dangerous"? All the conspiracy theores so far have been batty, but mention Israel or jews and it's not only batty but dangerous as well?

Gimmee a break.

I won't defend David, but I will defend his right to bash Jews. Or even, you know, say obvious things about the Israeli govt's occasional lack of candor and/or integrity.

Also, I don't think he's a troll...I really think he's trying.

But would somebody please mention Occam's razor again? I think he missed that part.

|6.14.05 @ 5:20PM|#

This is how it went down: The military has a secret missile that when fired splits apart into four jumbo jets ...

|6.14.05 @ 5:20PM|#

"My only question is: Why?"

well...sometimes shit don't add up. everyone here has at least some of that taste in their mouth - the bitter, battery-acid backwash - every time they watch some fuckhead in a suit stand before an american flag and spout non-sequitors.

at least in my experience with a certain circle of friends...i think some of it is a need to place an understanding on the mechanics of the world - i.e. someone somewhere is in control. some of it is a very late interest in politics (mid 20s and onward) which missed out on some of the more obvious lessons of power.

some of it is cynicism, and some of it is a desire to place themselves above others - "we may be all fucked, everything's fucked, but at least we're not deluded like they are."

plus it gives a convenient excuse regarding why they don't get involved on a more physical level - volunteerism, helping the needy, political drives, local politics, etc - because it's all fucked a priori.

and some of it is a lack of any viable third choices regarding politics.

i will give my crew credit (outside of being wonderful people whom i happen to disagree with on 70% of our political discourses) for being the only people in new york city who didn't tell me the war was my fault for not voting or give me some sort of "oh, so you're one of those aids-laden baby rapers, eh?" look.

i mean, it was some sort of david icke influenced nazi illuminati thing, but still.

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:21PM|#

Occam' razor: see my 67% probability category above. There's that missing razor. Anyway, Occam's razor is a prudential rule. It is not a substitute for logic.

M|6.14.05 @ 5:24PM|#

Yeah, what's the copyright involved here? Can Reason print thong panties that say "the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently. - David Woycechowsky (Hit and Run, June 14 2005)".

I'd probably buy it.

|6.14.05 @ 5:25PM|#

David,

How do you come up with these percentages? Is it a complicated equation?

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:26PM|#

Well, I am an intellectual property attorney, so you can be sure I won't sue for infringement. I get enough of that at the office (its not always a slow day like today).

|6.14.05 @ 5:28PM|#

re: "Revised probabilities" -

really thats awesome. I forgive you of 22.5% of the nasty things I had thought about you. Im glad the neutron bomb still is holding on to that 1%. Hang in there bomby! You can do it!

Question for the wiser than I:

What do "trolls" get out of ritual abuse? Is it the same reason some people get turned on by being pissed on? I really dont get it. They giggle over stringing people along?

I once signed up to ChristianExodus.com for 6 months and posed as a born-again computer programmer, but that was for an article i was doing... not for shits and giggles. I cant seem to put myself in the mind of the "Reason Troll".

JG

David Woycechowsky|6.14.05 @ 5:28PM|#

The percentages are exemplary, not precise. I just find it easier to really communicate how divided my mind is on this when I use numbers. I think if I didn't use numbers, then even more people would accuse me of saying that it went down this specific way or that specific way. It also gives a clearer idea of how I view the relative plausibility of various possibilities, even if things aren't quite as precise as I am making out.

|6.14.05 @ 5:32PM|#

Eric the .5b,

If you were a secret designer, you probably wouldn't wear a t-shirt saying so. And no doubt the real secret designers, who make the secret designs, know how to take care of imposters!

|6.14.05 @ 5:32PM|#

GILMORE - it's a mystery to me. Ask Joe.

|6.14.05 @ 5:33PM|#

If you were a secret designer, you probably wouldn't wear a t-shirt saying so. And no doubt the real secret designers, who make the secret designs, know how to take care of imposters!

But it would look cool. It has that "We are the music makers, We are the dreamers of dreams" vibe mixed with a conspiratorial/technothriller angle.

|6.14.05 @ 5:34PM|#

What do "trolls" get out of ritual abuse?

I don't think they're really being abused. I would assume they just think it's funny to get people all riled up about stuff. Really, it's almost an artform. Kind of a form of parody.

|6.14.05 @ 5:34PM|#

"It would also be understandable that the US government, the aircraft manufacturers and the tourist industry would not want to publicize this technology too much. The idea is that widespread knowledge of such technology (if it exists) make people unreasonably afraid of flying."

Then why use super-secret fanta-tech at all? Guns would work just fine and, as mentioned, there were some good reasons to shoot it down.

And if you think that the US gov't can handle publicly shooting down a passenger jet, then you haven't been paying attention the last four years.

The bottom line is there's no reason for a cover-up here. None. So whether they exist or not is irrelevant...no magic fairy bombs were used.

|6.14.05 @ 5:35PM|#

(And, well, I'm a technogeek.)

|6.14.05 @ 5:36PM|#

Brian, what dangerous ground? I mean, seriously, why is it "dangerous"? All the conspiracy theores so far have been batty, but mention Israel or jews and it's not only batty but dangerous as well?

I explained that already - because speculating about the Israeli government's involvement is, after all, not that far removed from that disgusting "theory" that Jewish people were tipped off by the Israeli government. Most people would not want to be associated with such tripe. That is all I meant by dangerous; people might read it the wrong way. If one seriously thinks that is what happened though, I would say they are more than batty but racist as well. However, let me make it clear that I do not think that is what he was saying, nor do I think he is racist. But it is dangerous to get close to an obviously racist theory without some very good evidence to back you up.

|6.14.05 @ 5:36PM|#

"I am an intellectual property attorney"

Is there a shorthand expression for 'nearly urinated myself, overwhelmed by irony'?

JG

|6.14.05 @ 5:42PM|#

NUMOBI

|6.14.05 @ 5:48PM|#

passingthru at June 14, 2005 05:16 PM

The designers of the WTC designed for a collission with the jet airliner of the day, viz. a Boeing 707. Furthermore it was assumed that said jet would be lost in the fog on a landing approach or some similar set of conditions. Such a plane would be travelling at a relatively low speed and be carrying a relatively low fuel load. The precursor for this was the actual collision of a USAAF bomber with the Empire State Building in the late '40s.

They did not design for bigger planes with practically full fuel tanks and flown deliberately at near maximum speed into the towers, because no such planes existed yet and the notion that anyone would deliberately fly into a tobuilding had not occured to them.

Furthermore the calculations were purely speculative. They had no real data on plane/building collisions to go on.

|6.14.05 @ 5:48PM|#

All praise, he's found the awful truth

NUMOBI

He's found the Reason blog...

|6.14.05 @ 5:49PM|#

A few observations:

-It's amazing that Reason can somehow attract so much poor thinking;

-Driving an airliner into a building (WTC, Pentagon) at 500 miles an hour tends to, er, compress stuff in a way none of us will likely ever even remotely comprehend. Crash your car at 20mph sometime. You won't believe the mechanical shock;

-Broken airplanes don't necessarily disintegrate into vast clouds of raining parts. The jet that came apart due to fuel tank fire some years ago heading to Europe simply broke in half. The nose fell off and the rest of the plane flew on for a short time.

-Farmers don't come in enormous herds and don't tend to congregate in fields all day long. If I were one in PA on that day, I do believe the place I'd think about staying away from was the scene of an airliner crash fierce enough to blow a single hole in the ground. No survivors and lots of federal heat, that's what I'd be thinking.

|6.14.05 @ 5:51PM|#

'I want a t-shirt that says "We are the secret designers who make the secret designs."'

And then on the back, the word "Shh!"

|6.14.05 @ 6:19PM|#

-It's amazing that Reason can somehow attract so much poor thinking;

Broken airplanes don't necessarily disintegrate into vast clouds of raining parts. The jet that came apart due to fuel tank fire some years ago heading to Europe simply broke in half. The nose fell off and the rest of the plane flew on for a short time.

6 Gun, I'm not even exactly sure what you are trying to say, but thanks for pointing out the case of flight TWA 800. It is a great example to support my point about the type of debris field you would expect from an in-flight break up caused by either a fuel tank explosion or a missile (at the risk of baiting the TWA-800 conspiracy theorists!).

From the NTSB report: "Pieces of the wreckage were distributed along a northeasterly path about 4 miles long by 3 1/2 miles wide..." (Emphasis mine). There was a huge debris field from this wreck so I don't know why you would point to it as an example of anything but supporting my argument above, which said nothing about "vast clouds of raining parts" by the way. But thanks for the help anyway.

Farmers don't come in enormous herds and don't tend to congregate in fields all day long.

Um... okay. That's relevant to this how?

Poor thinking indeed!

|6.14.05 @ 6:24PM|#

Where's the parade of posters telling me that Chris Carter's idea about the military having the capability of bringing down planes by remote control is impossible, anti-razor, tfh and all that other good stuff?

I mean, I made this secret design probability 10X as great as my neutron bomb theory. Therefore, it is 10X as important to destroy this possibility.

|6.14.05 @ 6:24PM|#

This is how it went down: The military has a secret missile that when fired splits apart into four jumbo jets ...

lmfao

|6.14.05 @ 6:24PM|#

There was an awesome thread on some 'progressive' site a while back about how Bush caused the Tsunami with a underwater microwave pulsing bomb thingy. (forget 'why?')

No doubt so he could put indecivness on display.

There are plenty of good reasons to want to bring down a hijacked plane. It would also be understandable that the US government, the aircraft manufacturers and the tourist industry would not want to publicize this technology too much. The idea is that widespread knowledge of such technology (if it exists) make people unreasonably afraid of flying.

That's why the good 'ol AIM-9 Sidewinder has been hidden from public view all these years. Can't let the sheeple know that their airliners can be taken out . . .

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/aim-9.htm

Can Reason print thong panties that say "the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently. - David Woycechowsky (Hit and Run, June 14 2005)".

If they do, I think Jennifer should model them . . .

|6.14.05 @ 6:31PM|#

If my name would fit, those would be some mighty big panties.

Sam Grove|6.14.05 @ 6:36PM|#

yaaaaahh!

Government administrations need do no more than they did.
Constant provocations combined with a disfunctional intelligence apparatus was sufficient to bring about an attack.
Yes, the PNAC stuff exists.
Google it for Christ's sake. or http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

OBL knew what the U.S. reaction would be, given who was in the White House.

Historians now generally agree that FDR knew of the impending attack on PH. He apparently went to great lengths to provoke that attack.

|6.14.05 @ 6:37PM|#

Where's the parade of posters telling me that Chris Carter's idea about the military having the capability of bringing down planes by remote control is impossible . . .

Well, you could put a bomb on a plane that would denonate if it received a specific code. Now, would you want every plane to self distruct based upon the same code? Or would you want a specific code for each plane--implying that you would have to identify the plane and determine the correct code prior to bringing it down? What about the risks if terrorists get the code? Or if the code was "hit upon" by accident? Why not just rely upon the good 'ol AIM-9 instead? The AIM-9 is lower risk (IMO), lower cost (IMO), and definitly much more versatile (works on all planes, even enemy warplanes).

And, the the .gov was so prepared, why didn't they use it against the planes of 9/11? And why bother sending in unarmed F-16s?

|6.14.05 @ 6:42PM|#

If my name would fit, those would be some mighty big panties.

Your name will be in very small print.

|6.14.05 @ 6:44PM|#

tell you what: print the phrase on the panties in regular-sized font, and I'll wear them.

|6.14.05 @ 6:44PM|#

Or they could make a piece of remote-control-activated software to electronically adjust the flaps to the "horrible crash" position and then turn off the plane.

Those secret designers can be clever lil bastards sometimes.

|6.14.05 @ 6:44PM|#

The AIM-9 is lower risk (IMO), lower cost (IMO), and definitly much more versatile (works on all planes, even enemy warplanes).

It's a truly compatible, multi-platform solution.

|6.14.05 @ 6:45PM|#

All your airliners are belong to us.

|6.14.05 @ 6:55PM|#

Or they could make a piece of remote-control-activated software to electronically adjust the flaps to the "horrible crash" position and then turn off the plane.

That would work on all fly-by-wire designs, but each design would require special software, which would have to be revised and tested, etc. Truely an expensive solution . . .

Back in WW2, the British RAF was provided the idea of shooting German bombers with glow in the dark paint so that they would show up at night. RAF response was that shrapnel worked fine . . .

And the Germans had a sound cannon defending some bridge, but it wasn't particularly effective . . .

KISS is a worthwhile principle, IMHO . . .

|6.14.05 @ 7:02PM|#

Here come the tin!: Even if they didn't have Chris Carter software thingee on 9/11, do you really believe they don't have it now?

|6.14.05 @ 7:26PM|#

I would suspect that they now have jet fighters armed and ready to go at all times.

|6.14.05 @ 7:32PM|#

Redundancy.

|6.14.05 @ 7:33PM|#

This just in.

Secret documents prove Menelaus secretly had Helen kidnapped in order to justify the war to seize Troy's economic resources.

Darius proved to be victim of Greek disinformation plan; Themistocles caught on papyrus. "We plan to lure the Persians to Attica to save the expense of a campaign in Anatolia."

In newly discovered scrolls - a Sciponic plan to force Carthage into a Second Punic War. "We'll dress up the Lusitanians like Numidians and have them sack Saguntum!"

This is fun. One could also come up with "conspiracies gone slightly wrong".

Secret Belgian plans to destroy the Hohenzollern dynasty dicovered in Ghent. "Plan Willi" called for luring the German Army to Flanders and destroying it by the end of 1914. Albert I declared, "I want to punish Wilhelm II for calling our neutrality "a scrap of paper". We'll make that Prussian cripple pay dearly!"

|6.14.05 @ 7:39PM|#

If my name would fit, those would be some mighty big panties.

Well, appropriately enough, it would be on the ass.

But I keed, I keed! It's a great name . . .


. . . for me to poop on!

|6.14.05 @ 8:01PM|#

From the NTSB report [on TWA 800]: "Pieces of the wreckage were distributed along a northeasterly path about 4 miles long by 3 1/2 miles wide..." (Emphasis mine). There was a huge debris field from this wreck so I don't know why you would point to it as an example of anything but supporting my argument above, which said nothing about "vast clouds of raining parts" by the way. But thanks for the help anyway.

You'r right, you don't know. Did you bother to check the relative altitudes of the two planes at the point of destruction?

800 came apart at high departing altitude; perhaps 15,000 or 20,000ft or more. As the result of a catostrophic explosion, it broke only in half at that height. Simple triangulation tells us that the pieces would naturally diverge widely.

According to reports, flight 93 augered in upside down at zero altitude. It was intact when it hit, presumably at speed. I understand that an engine was found some distance from the scene, but if reports are correct, which is one of the points debated here, then there's nothing to suggest that the single point impact crater conflicts official reports.

Do I have this right?

And why did I mention TWA 800? As with 93, to point out the tremendous integrity of modern airliners. I've seen wing tips displaced some 12 feet on commercial airliners; I merely question the notion that planes are airborne tinder and matchsticks.

Um... okay. [Farmers are ]relevant to this how?

Tinfoilers claim that spooks were crawling the PA fields that day, obviously in anticipation of 93 coming down. Tinfoilers also seem to think that scores of farmers were too, but were shoed away by the government.

|6.14.05 @ 8:08PM|#

David:

I notice in your percentages you don't have a single thing about shooting it down with a regular ol' non-secret missile.

Why bring it down with a stooper-secret weapon when you could just blow it up the old fashioned way, like Mom used to make?

Furthermore, if the government can do this, why can't they at least plant some decent evidence about WMDs to justify this whole Iraq thing?

As to why people object to your secret plots and not others, well, yours tend to violate the laws of physics as much as saying "Jesus favors the Bush administration and personally intervened to make it look like it did on 9/11". The problem is, you seem to lack enough science knowledge to realize that's how silly the argument about secret missiles and unknown neutron bomb unknowns is.

You can't prove any more that Jesus didn't intervene in Flt 98 any more than I can prove that the government does not have a super-secret missile that seeks cockpits (presumably guided by gaydar).

Also realize that not buying into your pet theory does not mean we think that everything is known about 9/11. It's just that there might be plausible alternative explanations, but none of your alternatives are plausible.

|6.14.05 @ 8:19PM|#

Sandy:

1. what about the remote control software? Is that "silly" too?

2. As far as my pet theory goes, try checking my 67% probability category (under either the original or revised breakdown). You will find my pet theory there lying next to my razor.

|6.14.05 @ 8:21PM|#

David:
I'm pretty sure the engineers, when designing the World Trade Center, considered not only the impact of an airplane crash, but the intensity of the fire such an impact would cause. Has the content of aviation fuel changed in the last thirty to forty years? Does asking this question make me a conspiracy nut?

Blaming George Bush and our government may be nutty, but having doubts about the WTC collapse is not.

Aircraft impact wasn't a major design consideration for buildings prior to 9/11. I am recalling from memory here, but I think that Leslie Robertson did do some analysis due to a plane impact when designing the WTC. However, the plane used in the impact model was the 737, (the largest passenger plane at the time) which is much smaller than the 767s which struck the towers. Fuel load was not considered. The most probable scenario that the engineers considered was a plane lost in the fog, low on fuel, like the B-25 that struck the Empire State Building.

Further, a plane could certainly cause fatal damage to a tall building. (I assume this is what you're coyly hinting at by "doubts about the WTC collapse") The weight of a steel-frame building is carried by compression in the columns that span between floors. A steel column--a structural member carrying compressive force--can fail in one of two basic ways (I'm simplifying this a whole lot): yielding, a plateau where the steel will deflect without carrying any additional load, or buckling, which is a state of unstable equilibrium where a tiny lateral perturbation will produce arbitrarily large lateral deflections.

A full treatment of buckling without using differential calculus, diagrams, and bending theory is difficult, but you can demonstrate it to yourself. Get a cheap yardstick (good ones take too much force to buckle) and place one end on the floor, holding it vertically. Push straight down on the other end with your open hand. After you've placed a certain amount of force on the yardstick, it will "bow out" to the side. This is buckling. The load (force from your hand) at which the yardstick buckled would be considered the buckling load, the capacity of that yardstick for structural purposes. The yardstick, or any column, may be able to "load up" some more after buckling, but the additional load is generally small compared to the buckling load, and will appear only with large vertical deflections. If you continue to push down on the yardstick, it will eventually break (rupture)

A perfectly straight slender column--here, slender means a column of sufficent cross sectional area to avoid yielding--of constant cross section loaded through the gravity axis (the line extending through the centroids of the column cross-sections) with ends free to rotate but not translate (Think of your yardstick--unless you've got it on a very slippery floor, friction will keep it in place at the bottom, but the end is still free to turn. Same thing on the end with your hand) will buckle at the critical load:
Pcr=(PI^2*E*A)/(L/r)^2
where:
PI=pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter
E=Young's modulus, also called the modulus of elasticity, a measure of how stiff the material is (I'll explain this one in more detail)
A=Cross-sectional area of the column
L=length of the column
r=radius of gyration--a property of the cross section, the 2nd moment of area divided by the cross sectional area. For a circular column, r is the square of the radius divided by 4.

This equation was published in 1757 by Leonhard Euler, and is sometimes referred to as the "Euler buckling load"

Let's look at the implications of this equation:
The critical load is proportional to Young's modulus, which can be approximated in layman's terms as the tensile load in pounds on a 1 in^2 cross-section steel bar that will double the length of that bar. For structural steel at room temperature that load is 29 million pounds. (Of course, the bar will rupture long before reaching that load. The actual quantity is a slope on a graph of stress vs. strain, which I won't define here.) Young's modulus decreases with temperature; I couldn't find a reference for structural steel in the library in the time I was willing to spend looking, but alloy steel intended for high temperature loses about one third of its stiffness at about 1000 deg F. Assuming that this holds true for structural steel (an assumption that's iffy--it's almost certainly lower) a column would lose about a third of its strength at 1000 deg F.

The critical load is inversely proportional to the square of the length of the column. The length of the column here is the length between brace points, which in the WTC would be between floors, since the trusses in the floor system braced the columns against buckling. The trusses were very light, and connected by a single steel pin to the columns. It's almost certain that a number of these failed under the conditions that would prevail in the fire following a plane impact. What this means is that if a floor truss failed, the columns it braces would lose 75% of their strength. (Losing the brace doubles the length of the column, and the inverse of 2 squared is 1/4).

Now, the assumptions made in this equation do not prevail in the real world. For a column tested in the lab with ends free to rotate, the Euler equation overestimates the strength. (The column isn't perfectly straight, isn't loaded perfectly through the center, and there are residual stresses from the rolling and cooling process present). For a column with ends not free to rotate, the strength can be greater, depending on how much rotational freedom is available. Practical design uses a quantity called the effective length, which is the real length between brace points multiplied by a constant. For perfect restraint at the ends, the constant is 0.5. However, removing a center brace point with both ends restrained will still halve the buckling load. (I'm eliding over how this works, because it would require a full explanation of end restraint conditions). Also note that this doesn't really apply to columns that aren't fairly long and thin--residual stresses have a big effect for stocky columns, reducing their strength considerably. Of course, if the column is stocky enough, the material just fails in yielding.

Now, what does this mean in the context of the WTC? When the planes struck (and if you don't think that planes hit the buildings, well, I can't reason you out of territory you didn't reason yourself into) they knocked out a considerable number of columns. Rule No. 1 of Structural Engineering: Forces must balance. Since the weight of the building didn't decrease, and may have increased with the weight of the plane, the columns that were left must have picked up the load previously carried by the destroyed columns. But it wouldn't be distributed equally to all the columns; the ones closer to the impact site would have picked up more load. As the fires burned, they reduced both Young's modulus and caused floors to fail, which decreased the strength of the remaining columns. Eventually, you had a situation where one column failed, dumped its load onto the next column over, which then failed, and dumped the load from itself and the first column onto the next one, etc. You can see this in the video of the collapse where the columns seem to "unzip" from the edge of the crash site. This is called progressive failure. (Incidentally, a similar progressive failure occurred at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. The explosion only knocked out a few columns, but the load those carried were transferred to others that couldn't take it, and the chain continued until they lost a good portion of the building). Once all of the columns failed, there was nothing holding up the top part of the building, which fell onto the lower floors. Since the columns there couldn't handle that kind of load, they failed too, and this process continued down the building.

The upshot of all this is that it's certainly possible, and very probable, that the planes resulted in the destruction of the buildings. No need to posit something bizzare like explosives on the columns to explain the destruction of the WTC.

Why does it look like a controlled collapse? Because a controlled collapse works the same damn way, except that they use explosives to weaken/cut the columns instead of using a plane impact and fire.

|6.14.05 @ 8:28PM|#

passingthrough,
A bunch of MIT Materials Science profs looked at the temperatures that the jet fuel burns at and figured that the composites necessary to prevent this type of collapse would make all buildings prohibitively expensive.

|6.14.05 @ 8:30PM|#

A mistake in my previous comment...the design plane for the WTC was the 707, not the 737 (thanks Issac Bertram)

|6.14.05 @ 8:37PM|#

I also apologize to David, since I was responding to passingthru's 5:16PM comment

|6.14.05 @ 8:37PM|#

...alloy steel intended for high temperature loses about one third of its stiffness at about 1000 deg F. Assuming that this holds true for structural steel (an assumption that's iffy--it's almost certainly lower) a column would lose about a third of its strength at 1000 deg F.

FWIW, temps in burning skyscrapers -- unaided by tons of ignited kerosene -- have been recorded at 1500 degrees.

|6.14.05 @ 8:49PM|#

FWIW, temps in burning skyscrapers -- unaided by tons of ignited kerosene -- have been recorded at 1500 degrees.

Yeah, it's just that I couldn't find a figure that went out that far, and extrapolation would've been incredibly intellectually dishonest. Though it probably drops off considerably at higher temperatures, so extrapolating would probably vastly overestimate the strength.

|6.14.05 @ 9:20PM|#

As cited before. Here's the case that Reynolds makes.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds12.html

I haven't yet given it a close reading but my first take on this one is to be dubious. But I'm not dubious of political conspiracies in general. I think we need to engage in conspiracy analysis to understand political power. We need to ask the question; who benefits? I like Rothbard's extension of common sense volitional analysis from smaller political situations like the collusion of labor and management to enact tariffs, to larger things like entry into war, the creation of the Fed. etc.

When we debase conspiracy analysis, we're throwing out an invaluable tool for understanding real politic. Political power is often transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. Often, conspiracy theorizing is the only way to apprehend political reality.

|6.14.05 @ 10:00PM|#

I think a more plausible 9/11 conspiracy concerns the involvement of the Israeli government. There is a copious amount of evidence from diverse sources that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks:

"Next Door to Mohammed Atta"
Israeli agents were living in Florida and tailing the future death pilots ? until their cover was blown."

by Oliver Schr?ie Zeit

http://iraq-info.1accesshost.com/schrom.html

"Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth
Americans Probing Reports of Israeli Espionage"

By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.03.15/news2.html

Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack
"Odigo says workers were warned of attack"

Haaretz

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77744&contrassID=/has%5C

Many more stories at; http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

Justin Raimondo marshals the evidence of prior knowledge of the Israeli government in his columns:

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php
(There is also a collection of other sources at this link)

And puts it all together in his book:

Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595296823/reasonmagazineA/

|6.14.05 @ 10:01PM|#

Yeah, it's just that I couldn't find a figure that went out that far, and extrapolation would've been incredibly intellectually dishonest. Though it probably drops off considerably at higher temperatures, so extrapolating would probably vastly overestimate the strength.

Also FWIW, I'm far more mechanically minded than the average person, but have no related degree. When 9/11 happened, I kept thinking how surprising it was that these two buildings came down like they did "just" from the two plane impacts. Once I thought about the energy released in each explosion, the only thing that made sense was how long they stood. The pancaking theory combined with your insights all adds up now.

Also purely subjectively, if I had to guess -- pursuant your hunch -- I'd guess that steel went up the failure curve as a function of temperature more exponentially than it did linearly...

|6.14.05 @ 10:04PM|#

Oops, where did this come from: "the only thing that made sense was how long they stood."

Meant to say, the only thing that didn't make sense was that they stood as long as they did.

Can't see to type with all this tin foil...

|6.14.05 @ 10:33PM|#

I notice in your percentages you don't have a single thing about shooting it down with a regular ol' non-secret missile. Why bring it down with a stooper-secret weapon when you could just blow it up the old fashioned way, like Mom used to make?

Missiles, ramming jets, and bombs would all leave evidence and/or enlarge the conspiracy, making it less likely to keep it secret. The hypothetical conspirators would want a believable, cut-and-dry explanation to be able to plausibly cover the evidence, meaning they'd want to leave as little evidence as possible.

Seriously, what evidence do we have that aQ was behind 9/11? Osama apparently took responsibility months later, but he had little to lose at that point by doing so. Of course, there's no evidence to back up any of the conspiracy theories floating around, but Occam hardly favors the official 19-man conspiracy theory with no evidence.

|6.14.05 @ 10:38PM|#

And as I've posted before, the FBI dragged its feet for months in releasing details about Flight 93's black box, claiming that divulging the information would jeopardize a prosecutorial investigation, presumably that of one of the dead terrorists.

http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011104blackbox1104p2.asp

|6.14.05 @ 10:42PM|#

6Gun writes: "Broken airplanes don't necessarily disintegrate into vast clouds of raining parts. The jet that came apart due to fuel tank fire some years ago heading to Europe simply broke in half. The nose fell off and the rest of the plane flew on for a short time."

The thing is, planes are really big, and carry lots of loose items. A plane can break into a few really big pieces, and STILL scatter a large amount of material.

Consider the plane that blew up over Lockerbie.

|6.14.05 @ 10:47PM|#

Funny that there haven't been any sitings of "Evil Bert" at the WTC site.

|6.14.05 @ 10:49PM|#

The connection of the Israeli government to 9/11 is something that begs to be looked into when you combine the massive amount of evidence for Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11 with the fact that many of the lies that came out of the Pentagon's OSP justifying the Iraq war were produced by neocons including Doug Feith...

(whose office is at the center of the current Israeli government/AIPAC spy scandal) scandal:http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6068

..who had earlier written reports for the Israeli government advocating the removal of Saddam
as a first step in a process to make the Mideast more friendly to the Israeli state. Note that Wolfowitz was one of the authors, with a number of neocon biggies, of A Clean Break a 1996 policy advisory written for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The advisory advocated the elimination of Saddam Hussein as a primary goal. Baghdad was depicted as the lynch pin in the undermining of both Iran and Syria for the good of the Israeli State. After A Clean Break the neocons start a campaign to put forth those goals laid for the Israeli government as something America must do in its own interest. Fabrication and exaggeration of Saddam's WMD capacity are part of this campaign.

"Only ground forces can remove Saddam and his regime from power and open the way for a new post-Saddam Iraq . . ." PNAC founder Kristol wrote in a 1997 report. Kristol's Weekly Standard magazine is owned by News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox News

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/011604Leopold/011604leopold.html

One of PNAC's first goals when it was founded in 1997 was to urge Congress and the Clinton administration to support regime change in Iraq. This was before Rumsfeld was approached by the group.

The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) sent this letter to President Clinton in January of 1998:

http://themoderntribune.com/letter_to_clinton_1998_war_on_iraq_project_new_american_century.htm

It's signed by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, William Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Elliott Abrams and others. The letter argues for aggression against Iraq. They lobbied both Clinton and Gingrich to remove former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power using military force and indict him as a "war criminal."

Unsatisfied with Clinton's response, Wolfowitz, Kristol and others from the Project for the New American Century wrote another letter on May 29, 1998, to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott:

"U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power..."

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/022003Leopold/022003leopold.html

|6.14.05 @ 10:52PM|#

It appears I may have been wrong.

http://www.bertisevil.tv/img/bert911.jpg

|6.14.05 @ 10:57PM|#

Neutron bombs also produce a large explosion, but they are designed to maximize radiation and have a relatively small explosion compared to conventional nuclear weapons.

Pushing even more tin department: what about an airplane that could emit whatever it is that a neutron bomb emits, in the form of a ray or wave instead of a bomb? That would eliminate the large explosion. As far as the radioactivity -- has anybody measured the radioactivity of the pit? Link?

|6.14.05 @ 11:12PM|#

Rick Barton: Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack
"Odigo says workers were warned of attack"

That rumor was started a long time ago by fundamentalist Islamic wackos and spread quickly among racist radical Muslims with their indoctrinated hatred of Jews. If that's the kind of company you want to keep Rick, by all means, suit yourself. But spewing crap like that pretty much demonstrates that the rest of your litany is just propagandistic bunk. We really don't need that kind of bullshit and stupidity spread on sites like Reason. The sick irony that such a heinous crime can be carried out by those with an avowed hatred of Israel (and Jews, don't kid yourself), yet manage to get it blamed by some twisted minds on the Jews, would have made Hitler proud. Actually you'd think the fact that militant Islamo-facists claimed credit for it, rather than blame it on the Jews would not only point out their depravity but render the explanation trivially obvious. Let's see, they tried to blow it up before, they've attacked our embassies, they've bombed the USS Cole, they admitted they orchestrated the whole fucking thing and are proud of it! And when it happened they were dancing in the streets celebrating... but no, it's gotta be the Joos! Just sick.

|6.14.05 @ 11:20PM|#

I just love these theories; I just wish someone could find a way to blame the French - that would be priceless.

|6.14.05 @ 11:24PM|#

Rick -

You've been slinging your crypto-racist BS in here for years. I only check into H&R a couple times a month (max), and I swear if every time I pop in I don't read 5 posts from you about supposed malfeasances committed by Israelis or Jews in general.

On a side note, I think the Somalis had the right idea all along. Create an anarchist state and no skyscrapers can get built (not to mention outhouses). Ergo, no jetliners smashing into skyscrapers.

|6.14.05 @ 11:30PM|#

Brian,

The story of Israeli WTC Employees Warned of the 9/11 attack...

"Odigo says workers were warned of attack"

...was not a rumor, but a news story that was verified and made public first by the Israeli paper, Haaretz:

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=77744&contrassID=/has%5C

|6.14.05 @ 11:38PM|#

Slippery Pete,

I have never written about malfeasances committed by "Jews in general" and never would. The concept is racist. But I think you know that. You've made your stupid accusations of racism before, only to be humiliated.

|6.14.05 @ 11:50PM|#

"On a side note, I think the Somalis had the right idea all along. Create an anarchist state and no skyscrapers can get built..."

Yeah....I mean, God knows they were being built left and right when they had a central government.


Also, I've read H&R for years now and I don't remember Rick ever once saying that "the Jews" collectively committed anything. Feel free to check in zero times a month from now on.

|6.15.05 @ 12:04AM|#

Joel Prusi:

The detailed explanation is great, but I know nothing about physics. What you say certainly makes sense, and because it makes sense, many of us won't do any further research. Furthermore, who would want to do more research if it meant ridicule? Just look at the majority of these posts!

You can't simply base the collapse solely on the realities of chemistry and physics. Human behavior and criminality have played a bigger part. What if, for example, building inspectors were "paid" to overlook building-code violations? The first time the WTC got hit, people couldn't get out of the stairwells because the doors were locked! Are we not permitted to ask these questions because science has already provided the answer?

What really irritates me about Morgan Reynolds is that he, like so many others, is blaming our government. There are no conspiracies. That would imply some level of leadership in the world.

|6.15.05 @ 1:10AM|#

Whether Rick would blame it on Jews in general or not, and whether or not he is a racist, the fact is he is helping to spread racist propaganda conspiracy theories that have their roots in anti-Semitic ideology. The 9/11 crap is just the latest flavor. The list of publications that helped start and keep this nonsense circulating reads like a who's who of racist, white supremacist groups. American Free Press, Free American, Aryan Eagle, The Truth at Last, David Irving's Action Report, The David Duke Report... the list goes on and on. Add to this stellar cast the Islamo-fascist fundamentalists who spread these stories with a considerable degree of success through the Arab media, and this is a rather unsavory group to be carrying water for, wittingly or unwittingly, as it were. With such a concerted effort, and the left's malignant dislike of Israel, it is no surprise then that some of this trash occasionally winds up, either misleadingly, or downright erroneously, in a mainstream publication. But make no mistake, at its core, this propaganda is both fueled by, and a manifestation of, the same kind of bigotry that to this day keeps preposterous rubbish like blood libel stories alive. And while I admit that there is a distinction to be made between Israel and the Jews in general, when one touts that to defend spreading the word of those who most certainly do not make such nice distinctions then I think we are right to at least wonder if such an appeal is just a flimsy cover for something else. But, no, in the end, I think there is a more likely explanation for this conspiracy mongering: One need not be a racist at all, but simply a dupe.

|6.15.05 @ 1:15AM|#

I think Rick Barton had a hand in 9/11. Why is he so interested in weird conspiracy theories? Plausibility is clearly not Rick's long suit, but maybe that's just a ruse to throw us off. The theories he's interested in would have to involve hundreds, may thousands, of people. What if it's just him? Maybe he's shilling for a wider conspiracy. Kcir Notrab. That's his name spelled backwards. Check the Hebrew numerical equivalents (consonants only), and I think you'll see what I mean. Don't rule out a Masonic connection. If we're ever going to get to the bottom of this, we must leave no stone unturned.I'm going to re-read Nesta Webster for clues. She was on to the whole conspiracy thing. Her last name starts with the first letters of Rick Barton's first name! That can't be a coincidence. More later.

|6.15.05 @ 1:24AM|#

Sorry, that should be Nesta Webster's last name ends with the first letter of Rick's first name. Man, it's just such mistakes that make investigations go wrong. Sorry again.

|6.15.05 @ 1:36AM|#

Brian,

The sources documenting Israeli government prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks are diverse:

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

Also, you first came on saying that the story that I cited of the Israeli WTC employees who were warned of the 9/11 attack was just a malicious rumor, but I demonstrated that it was a news story that was verified and made public first by the Israeli paper, Haaretz. Instead of your pathetic and groundless whining, you should be issuing an apology. As to "dupe", you seem to be a dupe of Israeli government propaganda. As to "conspiracy mongering", please see my comment at 09:20 PM.

|6.15.05 @ 1:38AM|#

David Woycechowsky,
Pushing even more tin department: what about an airplane that could emit whatever it is that a neutron bomb emits, in the form of a ray or wave instead of a bomb? That would eliminate the large explosion. As far as the radioactivity -- has anybody measured the radioactivity of the pit? Link?

A neutron bomb is a nuclear weapon that's been optimized to emit a lot more neutron radiation than a "normal" nuclear weapon, and to have a smaller blast effect (overpressure, shockwave, etc.)

Since the guy who saw the plane go over his house on Sept. 11 wasn't puking up blood or having his hair fall out in huge clumps while being interviewed, I think we can safely say that the U.S. government did not, in fact, detonate a nuclear weapon over western Pennsylvania.

passingthru:
The detailed explanation is great, but I know nothing about physics. What you say certainly makes sense, and because it makes sense, many of us won't do any further research. Furthermore, who would want to do more research if it meant ridicule? Just look at the majority of these posts!

You can't simply base the collapse solely on the realities of chemistry and physics. Human behavior and criminality have played a bigger part. What if, for example, building inspectors were "paid" to overlook building-code violations? The first time the WTC got hit, people couldn't get out of the stairwells because the doors were locked! Are we not permitted to ask these questions because science has already provided the answer?...

I'm honestly not sure what you're saying here. Human behavior and criminality played a larger part than engineering, in the sense that 9/11 was a criminal act by humans behaving. What I'm saying is that the hijacked planes are more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the WTC. I wrote it in response to what I perceived as a claim that there must be something else that really caused the buildings to come down, because the planes just could not have really done that. If I mistook your meaning, then I apologize. But your speculation about building code violations, etc., would make it more likely that the planes would have been able to do it on their own, since the Towers would have presumably been weaker. But I don't think it's likely that code violations would have been widespread enough to really change anything one way or the other.

I got to reading through the comments and actually forgot what the post was about while writing my comment. Anyway, he claim by Mr. Reynolds in the post that started the whole thing is that the WTC was destroyed by a "controlled demolition." The kindest thing that could be said about this is that it's wildly implausible. What I'd say about it is that it's bullshit on stilts.

There's no way to hide the demolition charges, unless nobody had access to the entire floor that was supposedly "bombed" The charges would need to be wired together, so the entire floor would be a cat's cradle.

Furthermore, the buildings clearly begin to fail at the level of the impact. I'd have to dig out Dr. Corley's FEMA report to pin down the exact floors, since the impact site was spread over about 4 of them. There is no way that you'd be able to guarantee where the plane would hit so you could place the charges ahead of time. I don't know, is Mr. Reynolds claiming that government agents used their bizzare mind powers to teleport the bombs into position after the attacks started?

|6.15.05 @ 1:46AM|#

I think Rick Barton is on to something. Forget China, those clever Israelis are going to take over the world. And they're so blatant about it. I mean, they even report stuff about their own involvement in 9/11 in Haaretz! So they must want it out there. That's maybe where Rick comes in. Nobody's paying attention, so the Israelis hired Rick to help. Rick's a bloody Israeli agent! So he wasn't working alone! Ha!

|6.15.05 @ 1:53AM|#

Alan,

Shhh!

|6.15.05 @ 2:01AM|#

Don't worry, Rick. You never make enough sense for anybody to blow your cover. Your secret is safe under a thick blanket of convoluted thought.

Le'hitraot, eh?

|6.15.05 @ 2:06AM|#

Alan,

Fussy tonight, aren't you?

|6.15.05 @ 2:09AM|#

I'm not going to read any of this.

|6.15.05 @ 2:11AM|#

Rick,

Fussy? Not at all. Stupidity amuses me.

|6.15.05 @ 2:17AM|#

Alan,

Like I said, Fussy. But if you really want to debate, You'll have to address the content instead making insults.

|6.15.05 @ 2:26AM|#

Douglas-

It's great entertainment. You can actually hear what the voices in these guys' heads are actually saying to them.

the regulator|6.15.05 @ 2:34AM|#

'I want a t-shirt that says "We are the secret designers who make the secret designs."'

And then on the back, the word "Shh!"

It has been done. Note the secret designer on the back is the regulator in his youth.

|6.15.05 @ 2:39AM|#

Rick,

Only very stupid people or antisemites or both could seriously entertain the notion that Israel was involved in 9/11. I don't debate with stupid people or antisemites, so I'm afraid insults are all I have to offer. We can always debate nutrion or something.

|6.15.05 @ 2:46AM|#

Rick,

I meant nutrition. What do you think of vitamin supplements? Or is that off topic?

|6.15.05 @ 2:59AM|#

Rick Barton,
I hate to continuously bring up the 'can't keep a secret' angel but there is no way you can tell 1900 or whatever people to stay home from work and not have them talk about it. There is no way, even if they are all patriotic Israelis working there to ensure that none of them has grown fond of the US and would be disgusted that everybody else wasn't warned to stay clear of the building.

I haven't read the article that you mention, so maybe there is mitigating circumstances.

If you are going to go the way of the Israeli conspiracy theory, I would go and say that the easily demonstrably false story of having 1900 guys told to stay home was planted, along with some other false conspiracy theories with different levels of difficulty disproving. That way when the real conspiracy is unveiled, it just falls into that category in most people's minds.

If my internet wasn't so slow, I was going to be the one accusing Rick of being a MOSSAD agent, and have some related joke associated. But that one has already been done (badly).

|6.15.05 @ 3:03AM|#

Fuck over 260 comments on this thread!

Also my joke about Rick wasn't going to be a mindless insult.

|6.15.05 @ 3:12AM|#

Um, no Rick, the story you cite says no such thing so I'm afraid it is you who should be issuing me an apology for lying your ass off spreading this malicious propaganda. The employees who were "warned" were not WTC employees. They were two Israeli employees of a New York based company working in Israel thousands of miles from the WTC. They were not connected to the WTC whatsoever, the "warning" did not mention the WTC, and the "warning" was simply a mysterious instant message. Of course being thousands of miles away they were never in any danger to be "warned" of in the first place.

And you have the nerve to call my post pathetic and groundless? Heh. At least I'm not making shit up!

I may have to seriously reconsider my "dupe" assessment of you. There is something deeply sinister about implying, no, make that outright stating (the bald faced lie), that Israeli people were warned to save their lives while other less worthy people were ruthlessly sacrificed for some political end. To misrepresent that story to make it look like it supports such a slanderous claim is simply despicable.

|6.15.05 @ 3:12AM|#

Kwais,

What kind of insult was it going to be?

|6.15.05 @ 3:16AM|#

Oh and just to make it clear what I'm referring to...

Rick Barton: Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack

Rick Barton: Also, you first came on saying that the story that I cited of the Israeli WTC employees who were warned of the 9/11 attack was just a malicious rumor, but I demonstrated that it was a news story that was verified... Instead of your pathetic and groundless whining, you should be issuing an apology.


I just can't get over that "groundless" part - oh the unintenional irony!

|6.15.05 @ 3:16AM|#

On the plane being shot down;

The theory that I heard that had made sense until I read this thread and thought about it was as follows;

The AF was indeed prepared to shootdown a civilian plane on 9/11. And that they did, and were prepared to admit to it. Except that the rest of the nation knew that at the point that the plane went down the passengers and terrorists were involved in a battle. (God bless those passengers). Those people were thus rightly heroes, they were civilians standing up to terrorists. And the government didn't want the tarnish the small victory. It is a better story that the they went down and brought the terrorists down and in effect became martyrs. The government kept the shooting down of the plane as a secret because without the AF involvement the story is better.

And they asked the loved ones who had talked to the people on the plane to keep it a secret. And out of patriotism they probably would... for a while.

The holes in that story are:
a) The plane wreckage doesn't fit.
b) I don't see every family member of the people on the plane keeping the secret for this long, maybe a year or two tops.

So the AF dude who spread the word is probably just a guy doing some form of wishfull thinking. Maybe one of the guys flying around in F16s that day. He has to believe that one of his buddies saved the day in some small fashion. All the millions of dollars in the plane, in the AWACS, in his training, and it was all useless, the only ones that made a difference were unarmed civilians.

I guess in my mind that makes it wrong that they have metal detectors in airports.

|6.15.05 @ 3:23AM|#

"Also my joke about Rick wasn't going to be a mindless insult."
"What kind of insult was it going to be?"

It was going to be mindless, it was not going to be an insult.

|6.15.05 @ 7:29AM|#

That's why the good 'ol AIM-9 Sidewinder has been hidden from public view all these years. Can't let the sheeple know that their airliners can be taken out . . .

Sure, and if you take the dynamite (or other explosive agent) out of the Sidewinder, you can use it to shoot a jumbo jet down in such a way that the sheepish people are fooled into thinking there was a tragic crash involving some passenger-heroes. Did *this* happen. Probably not. 4%

|6.15.05 @ 7:50AM|#

And they asked the loved ones who had talked to the people on the plane to keep it a secret. And out of patriotism they probably would... for a while.

I was thinking about this aspect last night. What if they turned off the plane by remote control? Would the cell phone talkers know this as it was happening? I'd think not. They would think that one of the undertrained pilots hit the wrong button.

Would the people listening to cockpit tapes know this? Again, no. First, the cockpit tape might be shut off by remote along with the rest of the plane. Even if the tape kept rolling all that would be heard is "we are myseriously losing control of this aircraft? why is this happening?"

What about the farmers on the ground? All they see is the plane dropping out of the sky, engines aflame. They don't know who turned those flaps to "minimize ground damage" position.

Maybe none of the civilians are keeping a secret here.

Remote control turnoff theory -- still strong at 10%.

|6.15.05 @ 8:13AM|#

Why would you need to crash the plane if the passengers had beat the terrorists?

How would they not beat them if the plane were not to crash?

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 8:54AM|#

Has it been established that the passengers beat the terrorists on Flt 93?

As I recall the coverage, the last thing we the public know is that a counterattack was being planned by the passengers.

Maybe the terrorists stayed in control of the airplane.

Maybe the passengers got control, but Mr. Cheney threatened if they made it past Shanksville with their poor piloting skills. He has a history of going to great lengths to avoid combat after all.

Maybe the passengers took the plane when it was too late to call off the remote control turn off or dynamiteless missile. I have no idea what the protocol is for these kinds of take-out-the-jet communications, but maybe it is a protocol that wastes some precious minutes somehow. From, my reading of the 9-11 commission report, it does sound like minutes were wasted along other emergency response communication paths.

I tell ya tho, I's be less suspicious if they had just released the entire tape for blogosphere dissection.

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 9:17AM|#

And for all of you who are so convinced by the apparent lack of a long debris field -- here's an article for your consideration:

http://www.jamesoberg.com/101993realstorykal.html

Short quote:

The [Boeing 747] airliner�s two recorders continued to function for another minute after the [missile] attack. Toward the end, they grew increasingly noisy as air buffeting mounted. Finally they stopped, simultaneously, while the aircraft was still high in the air. Presumably the aft bulkhead on which they were mounted collapsed from earlier structural damage. The CVR contains taped advisories to the passengers to fasten their seat belts and put on oxygen masks. The pilot called out to Tokyo that he was experiencing a rapid decompression and was descending to ten thousand feet, where the air would be thick enough to breathe. . . .The plane continued to descend under control, but it was doomed. All four engines were still running, but critical control surfaces and lines had been damaged. . . . Japanese fishermen observed the passage of the airliner, its lights out and aviation gas spraying wildly, until it smashed into the sea and exploded. The main wreckage was concentrated in international waters 17 nautical miles north of Moneron Island, at 46d 33� 32� N, 141d 19� 41� E, at a depth of about 200 meters.

|6.15.05 @ 9:19AM|#

Brian,

Either you are incapable of reading the Odigo story that I linked to or you're lying. I think it's the latter.

Alan,

The point I made is that the overwhelming evidence that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of 9/11 begs for further investigation.

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 9:21AM|#

and Kwai:

you will notice the thing the KAL007 pilot was not reported as saying is: "hey, I just got shot by a missile." Maybe he didn't know. Maybe he was preoccupied.

|6.15.05 @ 9:59AM|#

hey rick, has anyone ever suggested a mechanism by which all those jewish employees would have been warned to stay home? or why jews still died that day?

Phil|6.15.05 @ 10:07AM|#

Here's the Haaretz article to which Rick Barton linked, in its entirety. I urge everyone to decide how well this maps to "Jews were told to stay away from WTC on 9/11/01."

Odigo says workers were warned of attack

By Yuval Dror

Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.

Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI.

"I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don't know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don't know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made," said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.

As an instant messaging service, Odigo users are not limited to sending messages only to people on their "buddy" list, as is the case with ICQ, the other well-known Israeli instant messaging application.

Odigo usually zealously protects the privacy of its registered users, said Macover, but in this case the company took the initiative to provide the law enforcement services with the originating Internet Presence address of the message, so the FBI could track down the Internet Service Provider, and the actual sender of the original message.

I think Brian Courts's summary of the article is substantially correct.

Phil|6.15.05 @ 10:16AM|#

To be more specific about why I think Brian's summary is correct, the article states that Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya. It goes on to say that after two -- two, for dog's sake!!!! -- workers received an IM saying the attacks were going to happen, those two informed the company's management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services. OK, everyone here raise your hand if you think that this means the two men who received the IMs were in New York City. Now raise your hand if you think it means these two men were in Israel.

I'm pretty sure the management would not have contacted Israeli security if they were sitting in NYC. Therefore, Rick Barton is a liar.

|6.15.05 @ 10:27AM|#

Please understand that Dr. Reynolds does NOT have an office on campus, despite what the article claims. His only tie to Texas A&M is the title of professor emeritus.

Here is the response Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates issued June 14:

"The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."

|6.15.05 @ 10:30AM|#

Phil,

I never said "Jews were told to stay away from WTC on 9/11/01."

I linked to the story, which clearly shows a genesis that has nothing to do with "rumor" as Brian Courts suggested.

dhex,

Again, I never said "All those Jewish employees were warned to stay home?" I don't think that there is any evidence of that happening.

|6.15.05 @ 10:32AM|#

Wow, that article is wierd. It doesn't say where the two workers are, if they are in Israel or if they are in NY. Or maybe it does and I don't see it.

It is still strange though. I am guessing that the FBI got ahold of the sender. Maybe it was a prank call, and the sender was shitting his pants when the attack really happened.

The facts don't seem to match any kind of Israeli conspiracy.

|6.15.05 @ 10:35AM|#

Rick you are either a lying asshole or you need to work on your reading comprehension. Guess which one my money is on.

Rick Barton: Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack

I want you to cite me one sentence that says they were "WTC employees" or even in the vicinity (or even in the fucking county!). You obviously can't read and didn't bother to even check out the story because it fits your warped world view. Or worse, perhaps you "read" the story that way because you wanted to believe they would save their own while sacrificing everyone else. The fact is they were not WTC employees, they were nowhere near the WTC.

Pathetic.

|6.15.05 @ 10:38AM|#

This whole thread is very amusing and I for one want to thank David for most of it. I believe he's just screwing with everyone, but some of the responses are funny enough it doesn't really matter.

That was until other allegations were made that were far more serious.

The point I made is that the overwhelming evidence that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of 9/11 begs for further investigation.

No, it doesn't. Simply because some people have floated an idiotic premise doesn't mean investigation is needed. If Jayson Blair wrote a story about Cheney having planned the entire thing doesn't mean one would investigate.

When someone comes to you with a theory, it's perfectly acceptable practice to ask yourself what the likelyhood of the event is, and if low enough, simply dismiss it and move on (of course getting into this habit may blind you to possibilities). Staying on every single theory presented from every single source would lead one quickly to insanity. Not to mention chasing every theory would be so inefficient as to never accomplish anything. Ever hear of 80/20?

Anyway, as others have mentioned, the theory that Jews had been forewarned doesn't pass any logic test, the number one being the thousands of people (probably tens of thousands when considering family members with knowledge as well) are still keeping it all secret, and the logistics of getting a hold of all of them would be nearly impossible. How exactly did they decide who all the Jews were that worked in the Towers? Is there also a magic phone book kept by Israel that only has Jews in it?

Given the unlikelyhood of the event you describe, and your insistance that more investigation is needed anyway, you are having an emotional response and not one of logic. I'm not sure I'd term it racism, but it's certainly not bourne out by anything rational.

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 10:40AM|#

No, but the facts would match a situation where Israeli intelligence heard some specific rumors, but had some internal disagreement over whether the rumors were really worth pursuing or passing along.

This isn't anything sinister. I mean we had low level intelligence workers here in the the US suggesting investigation of flight schools and stuff. Sometimes it is hard to tell what stuff means and you can't follow every rumor that a pro-active intelligence agency picks up.

It is pretty easy to imagine a lower level Israeli intelligence employee thinking, "I know this rumor is unsubstantiated, especially on this tight timeframe, but I think I will IM my sister just to be on the safe side with my own family."

|6.15.05 @ 10:44AM|#

Is this going to be the first thread to pass 300 posts?

|6.15.05 @ 10:58AM|#

Oh, those crazy Jews. Is there anything they CAN'T do? Control the media, control the world's money supply, control the US government. . .not bad considering what a tiny percentage of humanity they are, huh?

I read a column some time ago; I don't recall who wrote it or where it was but it had what I found to be a plausible explanation for the birth of the "Jews were in on it" conspiracy.

The attacks were Tuesday, September 11. The following Tuesday, September 18, was some Jewish religious holiday--Yom Kippur, I think. So the columnist's theory was, maybe the attack was SUPPOSED to be on 9-18; that way, many Jews would have stayed home to observe their holiday, and then Muslim conspiracy theorists could point to the high rate of Jewish absenteeism as "proof" that they had something to do with it. But then, when Moussaoui was arrested (I know I spelled the name wrong but I don't feel like looking it up), the plotters decided they'd better move up their plans before the whole plot was uncovered. Since they had learned the details of the airport routine for Tuesday, they had their attacks on a Tuesday, just one week earlier than planned.

So Jewish WTC people didn't stay home in any greater rates than they ordinarily would have, yet the plotter's mouthpieces still spouted the same "Look how many of 'em stayed home!" lines that they would have used had the attack happened on Yom Kippur.

M|6.15.05 @ 11:02AM|#

the fact is he is helping to spread racist propaganda conspiracy theories that have their roots in anti-Semitic ideology

Please, let's not call anti-Bush theories moonbatty but anti-Israeli ones "anti-semitic ideology".

Anti-semitic remarks are annoying, but so are warnings not to discuss Israel. For crying out loud...

Yes, there would be something sinister about Israelis being warned of an attack and not warning authorities, which is quite the point. But if you look at how Israel reacted after the attacks - "now you know how we feel", "we're in this together", "we need each other", etc., it's not difficult to imagine a motive. Some Palestinians were dancing in the streets...some Israelis were quite satisfied and smug. I remember being angry at both of them in the days following the attacks.

I can't imagine Israel would "let" the attack happen, but there's enough here not to call this anti-semitic ideology.

Israel isn't exactly our best friend. No need to protect them.

Seriously, people are pushing the "don't talk like that about Israel" line waaaaayyyyy too far. It's a knee-jerk thing for some reason. Stop saying grave things like it's dangerous ground...what's dangerous about it?

It's all free speech, isn't it?

And if Israel wants to defend its reputation as a friendly nation deserving our sympathy, it can stop, you know, spying and stuff.

David: the employees who received the warnings didn't know the senders.

Rick: the recipients were in Israel and the attack was unspecified.

But back to the original story...who the hell did Bush's screening of job applicants in his first term? You'd think this kind of nuttiness would be easy to detect. Or maybe 9/11 threw this guy off his rocker....

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 11:06AM|#

Ok, how about, "Gee, I am an intelligence agent and could get in trouble if I IM my sister directly. I know. I will have a person make the IM who is difficult to trace. Heck, to be on the safe side, I won't ever even let my sister know who sourced that mystery IM."

I see this as a very understandable and possible chain of events that is not sinister in any way, even though people might jump to that conclusion if this turned out to be what really happened.

drf|6.15.05 @ 11:08AM|#

Hi Jennifer.

welcome back.

let's get back to the most disturbing part of this story, and leave Rick out of it - being critical of the Israeli government has nothing to do with being a racist hatemongerer ("mongo like candy") or an anti-Semite. and take it easy on calling him a liar. the "liars" in this game are those who claim that 9/11=iraq or that there WERE indeed WMDs found and that, now, after the fact, the justifications given ante-bellum were sufficient.

(ducking. awaiting the "that was before planes started crashing into sky scrapers" or "is that a chance you're willing to take" from the "carried by six crowd")

the disturbing stuff is at the bottom of this post.

Is it plausible that the greatest intelligence service in the world, the Mossad, had some inkling? why not. sure. would they warn the us? maybe. maybe not. what would be their best position? who knows. is the war in iraq to Israel's (direct) benefit more than the US's interest? i think so.

are there connections? i have no idea. is there a conspiracy? got me. Is it possible that one of our closest ally's interests aren't our best intersts? you bet. is it relevant here? still drawing a blank.

but!!!!!

WHAT THE HELL IS AN ECONOMIST DOING WITH DEMOLITIONS WORK??? just because he knows what "autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity" is and can use the Slutsky equation and Roy's identity, he is doing the classica economist blunder:

"assume expertise"


cheerio.
drf

M|6.15.05 @ 11:13AM|#

I will have a person make the IM who is difficult to trace

Yes, it's understandable...but why would it be important enough to IM your sister who is in Israel of an attack on the WTC?

Those messages are weird, to be sure. But David, you can come up w/ all kinds of what-ifs, all kinds of scenarious relying plausibly on unplausible technology, and it's nice to stretch your mind, but sometimes the truth actually makes more sense.

Sounds like you're trying to be skeptical, but you're gonna lose your mind if you keep stetching it so far. You're about to give yourself away as a satirist...

|6.15.05 @ 11:13AM|#

Phil and Brian Courts-you guys are wrong and Rick Barton is right. I lived in NYC on 9/11 and I remember that story. Odigo was located in the WTC but not the towers. The story was all over the local news there. It was probably on national news too.

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 11:23AM|#

M:

Why my possible explanation of the IM warning story far-fetched?

An Israeli agent intercepts a coded message that says: "The twins must feel our Islamic frustration on the 11th of Septemeber."

The guy's boss says, "Let me think about that one for awhile. No sense in tipping our intelligence activities over such an ambiguous statement. However, keep your ears open for any additional info that might bolster your theory, young buck."

Now, put yourself in young buck's shoes. You can understand where your boss is coming from. Still, your sister works in the towers and will probably be there all day on September 11. What do you do?

drf|6.15.05 @ 11:25AM|#

"You can understand where your boss is coming from. Still, your sister works in the towers and will probably be there all day on September 11. What do you do?"

you shoot the hostage in the leg, rendering him immobile. the kidnapper has no recourse but to let the hostage go.

oh wait. wrong movie...

grin.

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 11:26AM|#

when I say "difficult to trace" I don't mean some technology issue.

Rather, I mean that you have a friend, who is difficult to link back to you, send the message for you. This "anonymous IM" approach would be especially effective if the recipient knows that her bro works in intelligence and has access to info.

M|6.15.05 @ 11:33AM|#

David, your sister works in Israel.

R C Dean|6.15.05 @ 11:33AM|#

I lived in NYC on 9/11 and I remember that story.

That doesn't make the story true, only widely repeated.

drf|6.15.05 @ 11:37AM|#

"That doesn't make the story true, only widely repeated."

sadly, RC, that statement can be used to describe volumes since that awful day...

|6.15.05 @ 11:54AM|#

SixSigma,

I said:

"The point I made is that the overwhelming evidence that the Israeli government had prior knowledge of 9/11 begs for further investigation."

And you said:

No, it doesn't. Simply because some people have floated an idiotic premise

Now, you read the body of evidence from these diverse sources and see if it can be fairly characterized as an "idiotic premise":

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 12:21PM|#

No, my sister works at Odigo NYC in the hypo. I was hoping that Odigo Israel would close the tower offices for the day. Sending a message directly to my sister would have been seen as a dead giveaway.

Or maybe I did send an anonymous message to my sister, but she didn't understand, so I am going over her head. Or maybe I thought the person I was sending the IM to was in NYC, but I was mistaken.

there are plenty of possibilities here that both: (1) accept that there was a suspicious, prescient IM; but (2) do not involve more than a couple of people; and (3) also do not involve any evil on the part of any Israeli people.

|6.15.05 @ 12:22PM|#

M,
where does it say that the employees were working in Israel? I am getting that it was an Isreali company, Odigo, but that the people were in WTC not the towers but another building.

David's hypothesis, or some variation thereof seems reasonable to me. Specially as now it seems it is only about two people being warned, and then going to the police about it.

|6.15.05 @ 12:34PM|#

http://karws.gso.uri.edu/JFK/Conspiracy_theory/Intro_to_CT.html

What conspiracy theories offer their practitioners

Very briefly stated, conspiracy theories offer their practitioners at least these several advantages:

1.The safety of knowing that your idea can never be disproven. How can anyone prove that "the hidden hand" didn't do such-and-such? When you appeal to unknowable forces, you're safe.

2.A neat, tidy explanation. You can impute any powers you want to "the hidden hand," and no one can prove that you're wrong. You can tailor the conspiracy any way you have to in order to fit your evidence. The bigger and more complex the conspiracy is, the more important it must be.

3.The simple way out. Life's numerous complexities, which even distinguished scholars may never totally plumb, can be brushed aside when returning to a simpler age where "they" can be the cause.

4.The easy way out. Appealing to conspiracy saves you having to struggle with the difficulties, contradictions, and uncertainties of real evidence.

5.The security of knowing that you will never have to fix the situation. You can't contend with any forces you can't get to, right?

What generates conspiracy theories?
Here there are a great variety of answers.

1.Political disaffectation and cultural suspicion�Daniel Pipes, Conspiracy: How the paranoid style flourishes and where it comes from.

2.Popular political interpretation: thrills for a bored subculture (reinterpretation of accepted history, deep cynicism abut contemporary politics, longing for a utopian future)�Mark Fenster, Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and power in American culture.

3.Fear and hatred of allegedly powerful groups--George Johnson, Architects of Fear: Conspiracy theories and paranoia in American politics.

4.A deep-seated need for order�Mary Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium.

5.Reaction to the intense fear that we are being controlled by powerful external forces�Timothy Melley, Empire of Conspiracy: The culture of paranoia in postwar America.

I would add scientific illiteracy and maybe the literacy of the half-educated.

|6.15.05 @ 12:35PM|#

I read a number of articles on 9/12 or 9/13 that seem to have disappeared from the sites I read them, for example on about a kid in a Brooklyn public school who told his teacher a week before that the towers would be destroyed.

It was weird times that week, and all sorts of rumours were presented as facts.

|6.15.05 @ 12:36PM|#

300 -- Woohoo!

|6.15.05 @ 12:39PM|#

Alan,

Please see my post at 09:20 PM

David Woycechowsky|6.15.05 @ 12:41PM|#

What generates conspiracy theories?
Here there are a great variety of answers.

I have a number 6 to add

6. When the government has an audio tape of a mysterious plane crash, but (with some minor and closely negotiated exceptions) they won't let anybody hear it, even years after the fact.

|6.15.05 @ 12:50PM|#

Phil and Brian Courts-you guys are wrong and Rick Barton is right. I lived in NYC on 9/11 and I remember that story. Odigo was located in the WTC but not the towers. The story was all over the local news there. It was probably on national news too.

Paul,no you are wrong. It is an undeniable objective fact that the two employees who received these "warning" were in Isreal. The company is NY based, but they were not in NY. I can cite you references if you wish.

|6.15.05 @ 12:59PM|#

This board is now at 299 posts. Anyone know what the Hit & Run record is?

|6.15.05 @ 1:06PM|#

And to all those who keep saying let's not conflate criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, I heartily agree. That is not what I was doing.

What Rick did was to advance the theory that Israelis were warned to get out of the WTC to save their lives. This theory has no evidence except from clearly anti-Semitic sources. See my post above for the kind of rags pushing this bullshit. When someone like Rick twists a story of two people in Israel getting a mysterious IM about an "attack" that says nothing about the target to his ends of furthering this despicable "theory" then like I said he's either racist or a dupe for the racists. That does not mean anyone who criticizes the Israeli government is an anti-Semite at all!

But it is one thing to criticize the Israeli government, quite another to write blatantly misleading lines such as Rick's "Israeli WTC Employees Warned of Attack" when you damn well who has been pushing those "theories" from the start, and you damn well ought to know that your story says no such thing. So when someone blatantly lies about the evidence and content of the story to support such a theory you have to ask yourself why the pathological need to believe that story, which if true would be one of the most sinister things I can imagine.

And M, specifically to you, I would submit that the theory of Israeli WTC employees being warned to get out is most certainly driven by anti-Semitism. Once more, just read the list of people and publications making such claims. To believe otherwise is just deceiving yourself. Also, stop with the free-speech bit, of course no one is denying he has a right to say whatever the hell he wants, even when it's a blatant lie.

|6.15.05 @ 1:12PM|#

Rick:

You read through it all and summarize it for us. But what can we do? Should we arm ourselves? But the enemy is very clever. Maybe THEY own the gun stores and will sell us defective guns. Dare we buy bagels? Kosher dills? You can't rule out poison. Oh, God, it's so terrifying.

|6.15.05 @ 1:13PM|#

linguist:

This is the longest I've ever seen. Crazy thread.

|6.15.05 @ 1:14PM|#

There will never be any satisfactory resolution of this issue for those who see conspiracies everywhere. In fact, the article that entire thread is based upon is a conspiracy to throw people off the track of what really happened! I would say what that is, but I'm not allowed; and, besides, no one would believe me since I could be just another red herring. However, something could always be out there in code. Remember, the conspiracies you don't know about are very different from the ones you think you know about face forward march of the wooden soldiers of fortune cookie monster's ball four horsemen of the apocalypse now is the winter of our discontent.

"the neutron boms you know about operate in the manner that you say. the neutron bombs you don't know about may operate very differently."

|6.15.05 @ 1:22PM|#

Brian Courts,

You're missing the whole import of the story. (Probably on purpose) Even if the Odigo employees were in Israel and received the warning for the benefit of Odigo employees at the WTC, what's the difference?

Also, it's not at all clear to me that the Odigo employees who received the warning were in Israel, so please provide your references if they actually exist. But again, that particular doesn't effect the import of the story.

M|6.15.05 @ 1:26PM|#

kwais, Washington Post, "Instant Messages To Israel Warned Of WTC Attack", 28 September 2001.

Not sure this makes the notion that they were in Israel an "undeniable objective fact" or not, but it certainly changes the nature of the story. Conspirationally enough, this article is posted all over the place except in any real news archives.

Brian, you called Rick Barton a liar. He just got the location of the msg recipients wrong. Different thing.

You also wrote That rumor was started a long time ago by fundamentalist Islamic wackos and spread quickly among racist radical Muslims with their indoctrinated hatred of Jews.

Everyone knows about Arab paranoia. But this is precious...the rumor was started by fundamentalist Islamic wackos...who worked for Haaretz and the Washington Post?!? (Those guys are good...makes hijacking four planes look easy....)

|6.15.05 @ 1:28PM|#

OR = lucky #7

- Because the world is full of desperate, pathetic, lonely, intellectually deformed nincompoops who can only manage to attract attention by adhering to positions that the general public revile against.

I think the campaign for the neutron bomb theory is slowly gaining traction though! Keep it up. I'm going back to bed.

JG

|6.15.05 @ 1:32PM|#

Alan:

Dare we buy bagels? Kosher dills? You can't rule out poison. Oh, God, it's so terrifying.

That racist BS has zero to do with what I've written about on this thread, or ever. When you conflate the machinations of the Israeli government with Jews in general, you play into both the hands of racists and government power.

M|6.15.05 @ 1:38PM|#

Brian, I'm just not fond of the tactic of shutting people up by calling them anti-semites or warning them not to broach a certain topic b/c it's dangerous ground.

Yes, Rick shares a view w/ lots of unsavory characters who stereotype like crazy and say really mean things. But I, too, share lots of views w/ lots of unsavory characters that I don't associate w/. I'm sure you do, too. It's unfair to force such an association on Rick.

You may well be right about him, but I haven't seen it in this particular forum.

I'll stop posting b/f this turns ugly. Fun discussion, though. Thanks, David!

|6.15.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Rick Barton,
I read some of the Anti war you showed.

1 It seems like the Israeli spies that were shadowing the terrorists warned the FBI and CIA, about there presense in our country, and our intelligence agencies ignored them, or were too incompetent to do anything about it (probably the latter).

2 Why are the DEA invistigating Israeli spies? Were they bored of persecuting doctors? (see earlier thread.

|6.15.05 @ 1:47PM|#

Brian, you called Rick Barton a liar. He just got the location of the msg recipients wrong. Different thing.

M, that is bullshit and you ought to know it. The location is EVERYTHING. If they were in the building about to get blown up that implies something very different. There is NO evidence that any Israelis in the WTC were warned ahead of time unless you read those rags. He just got the location wrong! Please.

Don't you see how that little detail totally changes the whole thing? If they're in Israel, hell Israel is attacked all the time by terrorists - it could easily have been coincidence. Also, when you say "Israeli WTC employees warned" it clearly implies validity to that pernicious, and yes racist, theory that thousands of Israeli's were spared while thousands of American's were slaughtered. That is no small detail! Geez.

|6.15.05 @ 1:48PM|#

Rick:

There is much reason to criticize Israel, but putting forth lunatic conspiracy theories that attribute to Israel far more power than it could possibly have does, I'm afraid, smack of some very old anti-semitic canards. Why not concentrate on space aliens? No one will accuse you of racism then.

|6.15.05 @ 1:48PM|#

M:

You may well be right about him, but I haven't seen it in this particular forum.

M, Thank you, and let me assure you that I despise all racism and that I have argued with anti-Jewish racists on this blog. All libertarians should despise racism. As Ayn Rand observed, it is the most primitive form of collectivism.

|6.15.05 @ 1:53PM|#

Brian,

Again...

You're missing the whole import of the story. (Probably on purpose) Even if the Odigo employees were in Israel and received the warning for the benefit of Odigo employees at the WTC, what's the difference?

Now where are those references that you said you had?

|6.15.05 @ 1:53PM|#

I think the campaign for the neutron bomb theory is slowly gaining traction though!

Wrong. Here are the more recent developments. Today I realized that I could only think of one occasion in my lifetime where a commercial jetliner was downed by a missile. KAL007.

So, I researched the KAL007 to see if it left a big debris field, or rather whether this crash was consistent with less scattered debris.

I had no idea what I would find.

What I found is that KAL007 did not come apart in the air, but rather hit the water in substantially one piece.

So all that discussion yesterday about "how can a missile be consistent with the Shanksville wreckage?" becomes, "gee, I guess the Shanksville wreckage is perfectly consistent with a missile after all."

Certainly reduces the need to rely on neutron bombs, or that fantastical Chris Carter software they use now to drop planes the second they get hi-jacked.

Now what is wrong with the missile theory?

|6.15.05 @ 1:59PM|#

It is indeed a "crazy" thread, matt.

Rick, please stop posting links to antiwar.com if you want to persuade people. I stopped reading them long ago.

|6.15.05 @ 2:00PM|#

Rick:

Check this out:

http://members.tripod.com/~lyne4lyne/

Don't Be Deceived by the Propaganda Surrounding

"UFOs"

Flying Saucers are MAN-MADE Electrical Machines!
"Space Aliens" are Pentagon-Created Delusions

|6.15.05 @ 2:01PM|#

Oh, and if you don't believe it is not debatable where they were try

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/o/odigo.htm

Relevant passage:

The Truth:
This is a report that was published on September 27 in Newsbytes by Brian McWilliams. It said that two Odigo employees in Israel received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade center two hours before the attacks took place.

A September 28 article from IDG News Service, however, says the message was a non-specific threat that did not mention the World Trade Center. Alex Diamendis of Odigo said it was the timing of the message that made it unusual.


Or from Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes (apparently the guy who broke the story) there is this:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/11/WTC_OdigoWarning2.html

Relevant passage:

The Odigo workers, based in the company's research and development and international sales office in Israel, were signed on to the same Odigo messaging server used by worldwide users of the company's free, Odigo-branded messaging software, Diamandis said today.
Diamandis today in a telephone interview also said the warning message did not identify the World Trade Center as the attack target.

Emphasis mine.

This point is clearly not in debate. Check with the company if you want.

|6.15.05 @ 2:01PM|#

Rick:

Check this out:

http://members.tripod.com/~lyne4lyne/

Don't Be Deceived by the Propaganda Surrounding

"UFOs"

Flying Saucers are MAN-MADE Electrical Machines!
"Space Aliens" are Pentagon-Created Delusions

|6.15.05 @ 2:04PM|#

Alan,

I've pointed out to Rick Barton many times that his conspiracy-mongering regarding Isreal draws on every anti-Semitic trope in history. I used to think he was just ignorant, but now I think he's aware of that, and doesn't care.

|6.15.05 @ 2:06PM|#

325!

...That's gotta be a record!

|6.15.05 @ 2:09PM|#

Let's see, Israel, a Jewish state supported, although not unconditionally, by most Jews, is so powerful and evil that it managed to have a hand in the 9/11 attack on the U.S. by Islamic extremists who hate Israel. Hmmm, nothing racist there. Jews are just like that, I guess.

|6.15.05 @ 2:10PM|#

David,
You still have people in the plane in phone contact with their loved ones, who would report the shooting.

|6.15.05 @ 2:11PM|#

Alan,

When you combine the massive amount of evidence for Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11 (but not evidence that the Israeli government was behind 9/11, because there isn't any at this point) with the fact that many of the lies that came out of the Pentagon's OSP justifying the Iraq war were produced by those who had earlier written reports for the Israeli government advocating the removal of Saddam, saying that further investigation is warranted is not "putting forth lunatic conspiracy theories"!

|6.15.05 @ 2:12PM|#

Rick Barton: Even if the Odigo employees were in Israel

Look at the backpedal now! You write an inflammatory line like "Israeli WTC employees warned" which I rightly call a rumor and bunk. You then insult me and ask for an apology of all things! You know what kind of rumors were going around and what that sounds like and what images it is going to evoke and who is responsible for spreading such crap... oh AND it's just plain false! And now that it turns out I was right that there is no evidence WTC employees were warned- you try to pull crap like "well even if... blah blah blah" Come on Rick, aren't you above pulling the old "fake but accurate" BS?

|6.15.05 @ 2:13PM|#

Linguist already asked, and I have in another thread;

Anyone know what the record is for posts on a thread?

Isn't it weird that this one might be it?

The highest I have seen was one on the death penalty.

|6.15.05 @ 2:15PM|#

KAL007's pilot didn't report his missile. I thougt I pointed that out for you above.

Why do you think the people with cell phones knew that there was a missile as opposed to damage from erratic flight?

Furthermore, maybe some people on cell forms thought there was a missile strike, but they weren't sure. there is no reason to believe that all of the cell pphone people went public with all the information they have. Especially, with gov't agents, talking to them, letting them know that we really don't want to start a panic and besides, "your husband was paniky and only thought he saw a missile."

I mean, it is not like there are tons of cel phone people. Just because we know what Bettery Ong said, doesn't mean that we know what the other 2 or 3 cel phone really said.

|6.15.05 @ 2:21PM|#

Steve,

Even if conspiracy theories concerning the Israeli government gives comfort to racists, it doesn't mean that the Israeli government, like other governments, doesn't engage in conspiracies. Please see my post at 9:20 pm.

|6.15.05 @ 2:24PM|#

now I got a pop music earworm:

"What really went on there? We only have this excerpt . . ."