Sunday, January 29, 2006

Friendly Fascism The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Gross

Friendly Fascism The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Gross: "Friendly Fascism
The New Face of Power in America
by Bertram Gross
South End Press, 1980, paper


'As long as an economic system provides an acceptable degree of security, growing material wealth and opportunity for further increase for the next generation, the average American does not ask who is running things or what goals are being pursued.'
Daniel R. Fusfeld"

No title



Originally uploaded by burnblue.
Goleta Beach, CA. Those lights are from a pier extending into the water.

News Hounds: Don't 'Honey' me, Buster

News Hounds: Don't 'Honey' me, Buster

Remaking USAID for a Permanent War on Terror? - by Bill Berkowitz

Remaking USAID for a Permanent War on Terror? - by Bill Berkowitz

aangirfan: How our brain distorts and deceives

aangirfan: How our brain distorts and deceives: "It seems to know more than we know, and shields us from all kinds of troubling but true information.

�Your brain is vainglorious. It deludes you. It is pig-headed, she writes."

News Hounds: The Mindless Dweebs on FOX & Friends Make Fun of the Georgetown Protesters

News Hounds: The Mindless Dweebs on FOX & Friends Make Fun of the Georgetown Protesters

Seeing Fakes, Angry Traders Confront EBay - New York Times

Seeing Fakes, Angry Traders Confront EBay - New York Times

If you read nothing else, check out this report from the American Prospect that demolishes the theory that the Abramoff scandal is bi-parisan

Hullabaloo

Holocaust Now: Marvel at the power of language

Holocaust Now: Marvel at the power of language

An off-duty cop is shot.

NYT Coverage

"... Every ambiguity is shaded in the shooter's favor... indeed, three whole pages are spent relating information that would otherwise only fill two paragraphs...."

Did Nan Talese Lie To Oprah? - What did James Frey's publisher know and when did she know it? By Timothy�Noah

Did Nan Talese Lie To Oprah? - What did James Frey's publisher know and when did she know it? By Timothy�Noah

Exclusive: Direct Talks�U.S. Officials and Iraqi Insurgents - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

Exclusive: Direct Talks�U.S. Officials and Iraqi Insurgents - Newsweek Periscope - MSNBC.com

US pharmacists sue Walgreen over contraceptives

US pharmacists sue Walgreen over contraceptives

Spies, Lies and Wiretaps - New York Times

Spies, Lies and Wiretaps - New York Times

January 29, 2006
Editorial
Spies, Lies and Wiretaps
A bit over a week ago, President Bush and his men promised to provide the legal, constitutional and moral justifications for the sort of warrantless spying on Americans that has been illegal for nearly 30 years. Instead, we got the familiar mix of political spin, clumsy historical misinformation, contemptuous dismissals of civil liberties concerns, cynical attempts to paint dissents as anti-American and pro-terrorist, and a couple of big, dangerous lies.

The first was that the domestic spying program is carefully aimed only at people who are actively working with Al Qaeda, when actually it has violated the rights of countless innocent Americans. And the second was that the Bush team could have prevented the 9/11 attacks if only they had thought of eavesdropping without a warrant.



Sept. 11 could have been prevented. This is breathtakingly cynical. The nation's guardians did not miss the 9/11 plot because it takes a few hours to get a warrant to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail messages. They missed the plot because they were not looking. The same officials who now say 9/11 could have been prevented said at the time that no one could possibly have foreseen the attacks. We keep hoping that Mr. Bush will finally lay down the bloody banner of 9/11, but Karl Rove, who emerged from hiding recently to talk about domestic spying, made it clear that will not happen — because the White House thinks it can make Democrats look as though they do not want to defend America. "President Bush believes if Al Qaeda is calling somebody in America, it is in our national security interest to know who they're calling and why," he told Republican officials. "Some important Democrats clearly disagree."

Mr. Rove knows perfectly well that no Democrat has ever said any such thing — and that nothing prevented American intelligence from listening to a call from Al Qaeda to the United States, or a call from the United States to Al Qaeda, before Sept. 11, 2001, or since. The 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act simply required the government to obey the Constitution in doing so. And FISA was amended after 9/11 to make the job much easier.

Only bad guys are spied on. Bush officials have said the surveillance is tightly focused only on contacts between people in this country and Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed it saved thousands of lives by preventing attacks. But reporting in this paper has shown that the National Security Agency swept up vast quantities of e-mail messages and telephone calls and used computer searches to generate thousands of leads. F.B.I. officials said virtually all of these led to dead ends or to innocent Americans. The biggest fish the administration has claimed so far has been a crackpot who wanted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch — a case that F.B.I. officials said was not connected to the spying operation anyway.

The spying is legal. The secret program violates the law as currently written. It's that simple. In fact, FISA was enacted in 1978 to avoid just this sort of abuse. It said that the government could not spy on Americans by reading their mail (or now their e-mail) or listening to their telephone conversations without obtaining a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The court has approved tens of thousands of warrants over the years and rejected a handful.

As amended after 9/11, the law says the government needs probable cause, the constitutional gold standard, to believe the subject of the surveillance works for a foreign power or a terrorist group, or is a lone-wolf terrorist. The attorney general can authorize electronic snooping on his own for 72 hours and seek a warrant later. But that was not good enough for Mr. Bush, who lowered the standard for spying on Americans from "probable cause" to "reasonable belief" and then cast aside the bedrock democratic principle of judicial review.

Just trust us. Mr. Bush made himself the judge of the proper balance between national security and Americans' rights, between the law and presidential power. He wants Americans to accept, on faith, that he is doing it right. But even if the United States had a government based on the good character of elected officials rather than law, Mr. Bush would not have earned that kind of trust. The domestic spying program is part of a well-established pattern: when Mr. Bush doesn't like the rules, he just changes them, as he has done for the detention and treatment of prisoners and has threatened to do in other areas, like the confirmation of his judicial nominees. He has consistently shown a lack of regard for privacy, civil liberties and judicial due process in claiming his sweeping powers. The founders of our country created the system of checks and balances to avert just this sort of imperial arrogance.

The rules needed to be changed. In 2002, a Republican senator — Mike DeWine of Ohio — introduced a bill that would have done just that, by lowering the standard for issuing a warrant from probable cause to "reasonable suspicion" for a "non-United States person." But the Justice Department opposed it, saying the change raised "both significant legal and practical issues" and may have been unconstitutional. Now, the president and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are telling Americans that reasonable suspicion is a perfectly fine standard for spying on Americans as well as non-Americans — and they are the sole judges of what is reasonable.

So why oppose the DeWine bill? Perhaps because Mr. Bush had already secretly lowered the standard of proof — and dispensed with judges and warrants — for Americans and non-Americans alike, and did not want anyone to know.

War changes everything. Mr. Bush says Congress gave him the authority to do anything he wanted when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan. There is simply nothing in the record to support this ridiculous argument.

The administration also says that the vote was the start of a war against terrorism and that the spying operation is what Mr. Cheney calls a "wartime measure." That just doesn't hold up. The Constitution does suggest expanded presidential powers in a time of war. But the men who wrote it had in mind wars with a beginning and an end. The war Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney keep trying to sell to Americans goes on forever and excuses everything.

Other presidents did it. Mr. Gonzales, who had the incredible bad taste to begin his defense of the spying operation by talking of those who plunged to their deaths from the flaming twin towers, claimed historic precedent for a president to authorize warrantless surveillance. He mentioned George Washington, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. These precedents have no bearing on the current situation, and Mr. Gonzales's timeline conveniently ended with F.D.R., rather than including Richard Nixon, whose surveillance of antiwar groups and other political opponents inspired FISA in the first place. Like Mr. Nixon, Mr. Bush is waging an unpopular war, and his administration has abused its powers against antiwar groups and even those that are just anti-Republican.



The Senate Judiciary Committee is about to start hearings on the domestic spying. Congress has failed, tragically, on several occasions in the last five years to rein in Mr. Bush and restore the checks and balances that are the genius of American constitutional democracy. It is critical that it not betray the public once again on this score.

Pakistan rebuffs report delay let bin Laden get away - Yahoo! News

Pakistan rebuffs report delay let bin Laden get away - Yahoo! News

Independent Online Edition > Crime

Independent Online Edition > Crime

"Police 'faked Tube death log'"

The Busheviks Once Again Skirt the Law; Dem's Must Demand an Independent Counsel in BribeGate

The Ostroy Report

Joe's Dartblog: Hillary Clinton Supports Filibuster

Joe's Dartblog: Hillary Clinton Supports Filibuster

Blogger Thoughts: Joe may be right in many ways.

Osama�s Back

Osama�s Back

Blogger Thoughts: Free Market News clueless again....

Culture of Life News II: MSNBC Issues Boilerplate Lies About Space Shuttle Disaster

Culture of Life News II: MSNBC Issues Boilerplate Lies About Space Shuttle Disaster

Culture of Life Media News: US Military Has Plans For Eliminating All Communications

Culture of Life Media News: US Military Has Plans For Eliminating All Communications

BlondeSense: just a suggestion

BlondeSense: just a suggestion

Ann Coulter suggested at one of her performances in Little Rock that, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media." I have a suggestion, too. Since it is a violation of federal law to threaten the life of a judge, people who share my concern that Coulter is unfit to be an attorney should contact the New York State Bar Association and inquire if Ms. Coulter should be sanctioned or reprimanded for her "joke."

Post in Yahoo 911 Discussion Group

Date: 01/28/06 17:57:54
To: 911InsideJobbers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [911InsideJobbers] The most unpopular message in the world.

Hufschmid is just displaying the familiar frustration of activists
suffering from the delusion that "if onlythe people would do
something" things would be different...... I say delusion
intentionally, because IMHO, they are indifferent to what the people
say, do or believe, to the point they're flaunting their power in the
people's face. To keep beating ourselves over the head looking for
the perfect words to stir men's minds, criticism and frustration like
Eric's is futile. The problem is not us, or anything we did or didn't
do.

They're got all three branches of government, or will have once they
get the Supreme Court, the checks and balances are gone. That's all
there is, is three branches and I'm not seeing any daylight.

They have pretty much got the law on their side now, it's just a
matter of strutting their stuff of a totalitarian dictatorship--like
U.S. and foreign troops driving down Main St. and the banks being
closed for a "Bank Holiday" to bring it to light that "this isn't
Kansas, anymore, Toto."

Look. They had 10-20 years to set this all up, to scheme and plot,
and look for possible errors--to position key people in seats of
power--to create linkages of IOU's of power and oppty's for
blackmail--a whole system of leverage, plus the entire Treasury of the
most powerful nation of the world to make it all happen. They
accumulated the perfect bunch of thugs for Congressmen for puppets for
pay-offs. Where as we have had at most 4 years, using only our wits,
with no billions, no media, no powerful people in high places, no
bak-sheesh.

The people have no leverage that I can think of. We have been
deserted by our military who swore to protect us, deserted by our
media, who is one of the guilty parties, and we have nothing left of
the laws that protected us.

Let's face it--we had a successful coup d' etat, and no matter how we
complained they just kept on.

I think we need a new way of thinking. Instead of insisting on
rights that no longer exist, we need to be looking for what they
overlooked, vulnerabilities, using their weaknesses against them, and
look for opportunities--opportunities to hit them in the wallet, for
openers.

But I am more than willing to be shown wrong.



----- Original Message -----
To: <911InsideJobbers@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2006 2:51 PM
Subject: [911InsideJobbers] Re: HUFSCHMID - "Its been proven already"


> What we do on these message groups really doesn't matter much to the
> Sept criminals. What matters is how can we communicate to the
> brainwashed American public out there, and exactly what do we need
> to tell them.
>
>
> I think that telling them that the towers were blown up with people
> inside is impt cause it conveys a savage betrayal that when
> understood will get people piping mad and ready to do something
> about it, maybe something intime to stop WWIII. The research that
> continues on these message groups (pods vs. bluescreen fakeries vs.
> real planes) is good, but let's not get that confused with what the
> people in the street need to hear in order for them to give a damn
> for a change.
>
> I think that is why Hufschmid is mad. When credible high profile
> people like Stephen Jones and Morgan Reynolds are talking openly
> about controlled demolition, the people who beat them up for not
> talking about these other things (which may be true) really become
> suspect. Think about it this way. If we could nail them on
> controlled demolition, there would be a whole lot of people willing
> to listen to something like blue screen theory. IOW, it would be a
> much easier case to make after the criminals are forced to account
> for controlled demolition. I think the demolition should be the
> focus, because it is the real betrayal/crime.
>
>
> --- In 911InsideJobbers@yahoogroups.com, _________
> <_______> wrote:
>>
>> We've been pointing at Ghouliani since day one.
>> That's naming names.
>> Stating the obvious like it's his very own revelation is par for
> the course.
>>
>>
_____ wrote:
>> > I feel the same way Hufschmid does on 1 particular thing.
>> >
>> > Listen to partII at approx 25min & approx 27min.
>> >
>> > "in the meantime think of what has happened since 2001, bombings
> in
>> > subways, the Katrina levy's break wars still going on in
> Afghanistan
>> > and Iraq............ Officially we should tell people it's been
> proven
>> > lets move on to who's doing it lets start identifying the
> names.
>> > We're all going to die soon"
>> >
>> > This is the best 9/11 Truth advice in a long time.

BBC NEWS | Americas | US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

BBC NEWS | Americas | US plans to 'fight the net' revealed

BELLACIAO - TRAILER CASH: US paying $3,300/month to lease trailers for Katrina victims - James Varney - Collective Bellaciao

BELLACIAO - TRAILER CASH: US paying $3,300/month to lease trailers for Katrina victims - James Varney - Collective Bellaciao

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him - New York Times

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him - New York Times

mparent7777: U.S. Says Abramoff Tipped Tyco to GSA Move

mparent7777: U.S. Says Abramoff Tipped Tyco to GSA Move

9-11 the Fairy Tale From Hell

9-11 the Fairy Tale From Hell



Once upon a time there were 19 Magical Jihadists from a faraway land.
They used itsy-bitsy box cutters to terrify 8 professional airline pilots. These pilots were
so terrified of getting a nasty boo-boo they actually let the Magical Jihadists fly 4
commercial aircraft loaded with innocent passengers. Then the Magical Jihadists
chanted a secret verse from their Koran making the planes disappear from all Air Traffic
Control monitors. Now they could fly them all around the mighty USA air defense
system, completely unbothered, for almost 2 hours. Even the mighty Harry Potter on a
magic carpet couldn’t find them!
Pretty cool, huh? You can read the rest of our government’s fantastic modern-day Fairy
Tale, (which surpasses Alice In Wonderland for sheer nonsense), by downloading
a copy of the 9-11 Commission’s Official Report. http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/.
But if you no longer believe in childish Fairy Tales and prefer the facts, then read this
booklet detailing the grotesque truth about what really happened on 9-11. This
information has been collected by thousands of regular people, not “Liberals”, not
“Bush Haters”, but ordinary patriotic people with nothing to gain, and everything to lose.
CHAPTER ONE: Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the
government’s flimsy lies about the murderous attacks on 9-11, and by so doing; they
put their careers, their lives, and their families at grave risk. These are brave actions
selflessly taken by truly courageous patriots.
CHAPTER TWO: Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
that have never been correctly reported, or just completely ignored by the mainstream
media. Some items are outtakes of unguarded and unscripted live interviews and
videos occurring immediately after the “attacks”, which were broadcast only once,
never to be rebroadcast or discussed again.
CHAPTER THREE: What all this means to you and your children’s future.
CHAPTER FOUR: Video Clips http://tyrannyalert.com/video.htm
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Morgan Reynolds, Former chief economist for the Department of Labor, former
director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in
Dallas, currently professor emeritus at Texas A&M University.
WHERE: United Press International (UPI), June 14, 2005
and the Washington Times.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050613-102755-6408r.htm
WHAT: 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. “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.” “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”
WHO: Paul Craig Roberts is the John M. Olin fellow at the Institute for Political
Economy, research fellow at the Independent Institute and senior research fellow at
the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A former editor and columnist for The
Wall Street Journal, he writes a political commentary column for Creators Syndicate.
He served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy under
President Reagan, and was credited with a major role in the Economic Recovery
Tax Act of 1981. He was awarded the Treasury Department's Meritorious Service
Award for "his outstanding contributions to the formulation of United States
economic policy.
WHAT: "I guess the real story about 9/11 is about what the people are actually saying. I’ve gotten
hundreds of emails in response to my columns and many of them talk about not getting the truth from the
government or the media about what really happened at the World Trade Center. I know many qualified
engineers and scientists have said the WTC collapsed from explosives. In fact, if you look at the manner
in which it fell, you have to give their conclusions credibility."
" The reasons they (the American people) were given by their president, vice president, secretary of
defense, national security adviser, secretary of state, and the sycophantic media were nothing but a pack
of lies."
Although professing to know "a little about engineering" from his undergraduate days at Georgia Tech,
Roberts deferred formulating any serious conclusions about the fall of the WTC, but expressed doubt as
to the credibility of the entire official version based on past government lies uncovered at Waco, Ruby
Ridge and the threat of WMD in Iraq.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Steven E. Jones, Professor of research in fusion and solar energy at
Brigham Young University.
WHERE: BYU website: http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html
and Utah Deseret Morning News, both in print format and on the web at:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html
BREAKING UPDATE: BYU has officially rebuked Professor Jones for this
research, apparently reacting to pressure from one or more of their financial grant
sources (it’s always about the money, isn’t it?). Professor Jones has stated that,
regretfully, he can no longer publicly comment about his research regarding 9-11.
We believe the website containing his views and research paper to be in imminent
jeopardy of deletion because it is hosted on a BYU server. In anticipation of this
possibility, we have mirrored his paper at: www.tyrannyalert.com/sej.pdf
WHAT: “In writing this paper, I call for a serious investigation of the hypothesis that WTC 7 and the Twin
Towers were brought down, not just by damage and fires, but through the use of pre-positioned
explosives. I consider the official FEMA, NIST, and 9-11 Commission reports that fires plus damage
alone caused complete collapses of all three buildings. And I present evidence for the explosivedemolition
hypothesis, which is suggested by the available data, testable and falsifiable, and yet has not
been analyzed, in any of the reports funded by the US government.
The three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling down into their footprints, a
phenomenon associated with "controlled demolition" — and even then it's very difficult, he says.
"Why would terrorists undertake straight-down collapses of WTC-7 and the Towers when
'toppling over' falls would require much less work and would do much more damage in
downtown Manhattan?" Jones asks. "And where would they obtain the necessary skills and
access to the buildings for a symmetrical implosion anyway? The 'symmetry data' emphasized
here, along with other data, provide strong evidence for an 'inside' job."
Horizontal puffs of smoke, known as squibs, were observed proceeding up the side the building,
a phenomenon common when pre-positioned explosives are used to demolish buildings, he
says.
Steel supports were "partly evaporated," but it would require temperatures near 5,000 degrees
Fahrenheit to evaporate steel — and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate
temperatures that hot. Fires caused by jet fuel from the hijacked planes lasted at most a few
minutes, and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in any given location,
he says.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: David Shayler, Former British Secret Service agent (MI5 officer). He joined
MI5 in Oct/1991 and worked there for five years. He started at F Branch (countersubversion)
in Jan/1992, and worked in T Branch (Irish terrorism) from August
1992 until October 1994.
WHERE: Shayler appeared on The Alex Jones Show to kick off what will be a
wider public campaign to educate the public on 9/11 issues and government
corruption.
WHAT: Shayler said that his suspicions were first aroused about 9/11 when the usual route of crime
scene investigation was impeded when the debris was immediately seized and shipped off to China. "It is
in fact a criminal offence to interfere with a crime scene and yet in the case of 9/11 all the metal from the
buildings is shipped out to China.”
"The more I look at it, you realize that it's not incompetence. There were FBI officers all over the country."
"There are so many questions that need to be answered, protocols being overridden within national
defense, people actively being stopped from carrying out investigations. This wasn't an accident, they
were aware there was intelligence indicating those kind of attacks, there were FBI intercepts saying it in
the days before the attacks. When you look at it all, that is a big, big intelligence picture and yet these
people were crucially stopped from doing their jobs, stopped from trying to protect the American people."
WHO: David Ray Griffin, professor of philosophy of religion at Claremont School
of Theology and Claremont Graduate University and one of the co-directors of the
Center for Process Studies.
WHERE: Dr. Griffin made a rare public appearance at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, April 18th.2005 at 7:30 p.m. in 272 Bascom Hall.
And on the web: http://911review.com/articles/griffin/nyc1.html
WHAT: Professor Griffin takes a critical look at the official 9/11 Commission Report. Griffin argues that
"omissions and distortions" in the report amount to a cover-up by government officials and says that the
available evidence suggests that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Professor
Griffin covers topics he says have been inadequately answered by the commission. These include
questions surrounding the attack on the Pentagon, the way in which the World Trade Center towers
collapsed, and the behavior of President Bush and his Secret Service detail following notification that a
second plane hit the WTC.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Michael Meacher, MP Member of Parliament, Studied at New College,
Oxford and London School of Economics. Before entering Parliament was a
lecturer. MP for Oldham West (now Oldham West & Royton) since 1970. Privy
Counsellor and Minister for the Environment 1997-2003. Member of the Shadow
Cabinet (1983 - 1997). Member of UNISON, the Fabian Society, SERA and the
Child Poverty Action Group.
WHERE: Guardian Unlimited, British Web Newspaper,
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,,1036687,00.html
Article title: This war on terrorism is bogus
WHAT: “Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just
10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not?”
”There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September
2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft
(AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its
flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate. Was this inaction simply the result of key people
disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been
deliberately stood down on September 11?”
”…it is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an
invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in
advance. There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal that President
Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance
warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet. The ensuing
national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war. Similarly the PNAC
blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into "tomorrow's dominant
force" is likely to be a long one in the absence of "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new
Pearl Harbor". The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the "go" button for a strategy in accordance with
the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.”
”The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the "global war on terrorism" has the hallmarks of
a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world
hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole
project.”
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Catherine Austin Fitts has been a Wall Street executive, a government
official, and President of her own investment bank. She is currently the director of
Solari. Fitts served as Managing Director and Member of the Board of Directors of
the Wall Street investment bank, Dillon, Read & Co., Inc. and also as Assistant
Secretary of Housing/Federal Housing Commissioner at HUD in the first Bush
Administration.
WHERE: Article jointly written by Catherine Austin Fitts and Congresswoman
McKinney on excellent 9/11 website
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041101130426916
WHAT: “From the first, the Bush Administration resisted investigation and disclosure. Families of
September 11 victims were forced to lobby the administration and Congress for a full and independent
inquiry. They fought for 14 months, blocked every step of the way by the White House. The families
demanded a full investigation, posing nearly 400 questions to the Kean Commission. The commissioners
said they welcomed these queries. But their final report ignored most of the unanswered questions. Still
posted on the website of the September 11 Family Steering Committee, these questions are a stark
reminder of the Kean Commission's failures. Until the unanswered questions about 9/11 are laid to rest,
by a truly independent investigation that does not declare legitimate avenues of inquiry off-limits, they will
continue to haunt our country.”
WHO: Robert M. Bowman PhD., Lt. Col., USAF (Ret.) head of advanced space
programs for the Department of Defense [DOD], Combat Veteran, Rocket
Scientist, Businessman, College Professor, Fighter Pilot, Executive in both
government and industry, family man (seven children, twenty-one grandchildren),
B ishop, and Peace Activist
WHERE: Posted on his personal Website:
http://www.rmbowman.com/ssn/Secrecy.htm
WHAT: “Many people are convinced that George W. Bush knew what was going to happen and
purposely allowed it to happen so he and his neo-conservative buddies could have the “new Pearl
Harbor” they needed to justify their wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Others go further. They are
absolutely sure Cheney and company actually planned and carried out the attack. What is so disturbing
is that their arguments are quite convincing. If an enormous cloud of suspicion is not to be permanently
over the head of our government, the Bush Administration must “come clean,” releasing information thus
far withheld from the American people. Why did John Ashcroft and top Pentagon officials cancel plans to
fly commercial airlines the morning of 9/11? If they knew what was about to happen, why wasn’t it
stopped? Who made all the millions of dollars selling short United and American Airlines [stock] just
before 9/11? Why weren’t the hijacked airliners intercepted by jet fighters and shot down before they
could fly into the WTC and Pentagon? What did the air traffic controllers say, and to whom? Why did the
FBI impound the tapes of those conversations? Why has the public never been told what was on them?
Why weren’t the congressional investigators told? If it was just a matter of incompetence or somebody
not doing their job, why hasn’t anyone been fired or reprimanded?”
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Nila Sagedevan, Commercial pilot and aeronautical engineer.
WHERE: Greg Szymanski's radio show, The Investigative Journal, on the Republic
Broadcast Network
WHAT: "The government wants us to believe that a person who couldn't even solo a small Cessna took over the
controls of a Boeing 757 jetliner and performed complicated maneuvers even myself or other experienced pilots
could have never performed.” "It's just not going to happen and, from my point of view, is impossible. If this was
fabricated by the government so was the rest of the 9/11 story."
"You mean to tell me, the supposed inexperienced 5'8" Arab terrorist overpowered the pilot, who weighed more
than 185 lbs and trained in the military. And then after that overpowered the co-pilot in the same manner, a person
who also weighed upwards of 185 lbs," "I am not sure if anyone has been in the cockpit of one of one of these big
jets, but I will tell you there isn't much space. How in the world would one man pull out two big pilots in cramped
quarters while, at the same time, maintaining control of the airline? Again, it's just not going to happen.”
"In the beginning right after 9/11, like most people, I believed most of what I heard about 9/11, not really giving
much thought to a government conspiracy. However, about a year ago when I began gathering information related
to my expertise as an aeronautical engineer and pilot, I began to see clearly how the government story regarding
the four flights, their paths and their pilots didn't make sense.”
"Now I am firmly convinced after looking at an enormous amount of evidence, as well as using well-establishing
aviation principles, that something else crashed into the Pentagon since it couldn't have been a commercial
jetliner."
"First of all, the supposed pilot would have been overwhelmed just looking at the complexity of the cockpit controls,
he would have had no idea what to do, but we are led to believe that he was able to turn the jet around, head back
to Washington D.C. and then bank at high speeds and at a low altitude, hitting a target which would have looked as
small as thimble from the air. Again, it's impossible and you don't really need an expert to make this final
determination."
"The evidence indicates that the airplane was flying low before it reached the Pentagon lawn since several light
poles were sheared off several hundred yards away form the building. With that in mind, the plane was traveling at
about 400 knots at about 20 feet off the ground for a long distance prior to hitting the Pentagon. “
"This in itself is an impossibility since the airplane would have been kept from hitting the ground by a cushion of
air termed 'ground effect.' No pilot in the world would have been able to control the plane while maintained that air
speed at 20 feet off the ground for that long a distance. Again, it's just impossible but here I will admit that an expert
is needed in order to explain the standards of lift and drag associated with flying a large airliner. “
"I really don't understand how anyone could give the government's story any credibility after seeing the original
pictures taken of the small hole left in the Pentagon wall by whatever flew into it. I am not totally sure what the
military used but one thing for sure, it wasn't a 757 jetliner."
"I think if someone just looks at the hole left and then looks at the size of 757, experts aren't needed to determine it
was an impossibility that a big jet hit the Pentagon wall, especially when there was very little wreckage visible after
the crash."
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER ONE
Credible individuals that have come forward to expose the government’s flimsy lies
WHO: Respected Leaders and Families 9/11 Truth Statement An alliance
o f 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11
WHERE: Posted on a dedicated website
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
WHAT: An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 announced the
release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government
o fficials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur.
The Statement's list of signatories includes notables spanning the political spectrum, from Presidential candidates
Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush
administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA
analyst Ray McGovern. Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink co-founder Jodie Evans and
Global Exchange's Kevin Danaher to former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, Edward L. Peck; from
environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl
Schwarz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned investigative
reporter Kelly Patricia O'Meara.
The Statement also includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller John Gray, as well as 18
eminent professors, historians, and theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
We want truthful answers to questions such as:
• Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
• Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not
activated during the attack?
• Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned
about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
• Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed
that day?
• Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading
that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of
dollars of traceable gains?
• Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been
publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bushappointed
judge?
• How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40
minutes without being detected by the FAA's radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US
military?
• How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as
well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
• What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence
agencies or heads of state?
• Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in
Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the
ringleader of the hijackers?
• Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in
addition to almost all of the questions posed here? Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive
Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with
Condoleezza Rice?
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
1. NO SCRAMBLED MILITARY JET INTERCEPTORS:
From the first official notification of a hijacking until the last
hijacked plane crashed, one hour and forty-six minutes elapsed.
During that time no serious attempts to scramble fighters to
intercept the known four hijacked airliners were made.
Prior to 9-11-2001, it was standard operating procedure to
scramble or redirect already airborne military fighters to assist air
traffic control when an aircraft, even small civilian aircraft, is off
it’s flight plan, and non-responsive radio contact. At that time, the
average number of military sorties scrambled to intercept various
airplanes reported to be off course was between 90 and 100
annually, yet on September 11th, four hijacked passenger
airliners were flying in the most restricted and protected airspace
in the world, and there were NO INTERCEPTIONS.
2. NO STEEL BUILDINGS HAVE EVER COLLAPSED FROM FIRE:
In the over one hundred year history of steel high-rises and skyscrapers there has never been a single
one, which has collapsed due to fire. On September 11, 2001 there were three such structures, which
fell, World Trade Center Buildings Numbers One, Two and Seven. Since that time, there have been no
others.
EXAMPLES OF OTHER STEEL HIGH-RISE BUILDING FIRES:
1988
The First Interstate
Bank Building fire in
Los Angeles, which
burned out of control
for 3 1/2 hours and
gutted 4 floors of the
64 floor tower
(it did not collapse)
1991
The One Meridian
Plaza fire in
Philadelphia, which
burned out of control
for 18 hours and
gutted 8 floors of the
38 floor building;
(it did not collapse)
2004
The Caracas fire, which
burned out of control for
17 hours in Venezuela’s
highest skyscraper, by
which time all floors from
the 34th to the top had
been burned.
(it did not collapse)
2005
The Madrid, 32-story
Windsor Tower fire,
which burned out of
control for over 10
hours, and was not
extinguished for over
24 hours.
(it did not collapse)
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
3. FIRES WERE ALMOST SELF-EXTINGUISHED:
The smoke billowing from the towers deteriorated into a slow thick black pall, indicating an oxygenstarved
fire. Smoke of this color and consistency is a product of a fire that is being deprived of an
essential component, and consequently must be a relatively “cool” fire.
4. NO EVIDENCE OF HIGH TEMPERATURE STEEL-MELTING INFERNO:
People, soon to be victims of the collapse, were seen standing at the jagged holes in the towers,
waving for help. How could they stand there if an inferno capable of melting steel was raging behind
them?
Woman standing in entry hole Man standing next to entry hole
5. ALL FOUR AIRLINERS CARRIED MUCH LESS JET FUEL THAN REPORTED:
All reports stated the hijacked airliners as starting out with a full load of fuel (23,980 US Gallons max
capacity, max range 6,600 nautical miles). The reality is they carried only enough fuel to reach their
scheduled destination, with an additional nominal amount for safety. Fuel is extremely heavy, and
needless added weight results in added expense. Airliners are never “over-fueled” beyond the trip
requirements. This fact further compromises the “steel melting inferno” theory of the collapses.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
6. TOWER COLLAPSE SPEED DEFIED THE LAWS OF PHYSICS:
The towers, as they collapsed, actually fell at the
speed of an object falling with zero resistance, as if
in complete free-fall. It is physically impossible for
any structure falling down upon itself to achieve this
tremendous rate of fall.
Even if the tower fell at two floors per second, an
incredibly fast rate, it would have taken over 50
seconds to complete the fall.
WTC Tower One actually completed its collapse in
10 seconds, with WTC Tower Two in just 9.5
seconds.
7. UNEXPLAINED COLLAPSE OF BUILDING SEVEN:
Building Seven (WTC7) collapsed in exactly the same
“controlled demolition” style as the 2 main Towers, although an
airliner did not strike it. Official reports determined that fire
caused the collapse, as in WTC1 and WTC2. The construction
design of WTC7 was completely different from WTC1 and 2,
and did not rely on trusses from a central core, but was a more
standard construction steel frame covered with brick.
WTC 7 was actually designed and built far stronger than a
typical building of its size because it straddled a pre-existing
electric plant. Yet WTC7 fell in the exact “controlled demolition”
type collapse as WTC1 and WTC2. The 9-11 Commission’s
Report did not even mention Building Seven at all, and when a
representative of the commission was directly asked why WTC7
was omitted from the massive report, he replied that they did not
think it was significant enough be to included
The photo of Building Seven at the left is the largest visible fire
at any point before the collapse. Does this look like a steelmelting
towering inferno?
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
8. WTC OWNER ADMITS TO CONTROLLED DEMOLITION OF BUILDING SEVEN:
There is an incredibly self-incriminating video interview with Larry Silverstein wherein he stated that he
decided Building Seven would have to be “pulled” to prevent any further loss of life, and so they “pulled
it”. Pulling a structure is common industry terminology for a controlled demolition. A copy of this
interview video available on request. This “pulled” 47-story building then collapsed exactly as WTC1
and WTC2 had. Mr. Silverstein has since refused to comment on this issue.
TRANSCRIPT:
“I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander,
telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain
the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the
smartest thing to do is pull it." And they made that decision to pull
and we watched the building collapse.”
Video Clip: www.infowars.com/Video/911/wtc7_pbs.WMV
- Larry Silverstein
- CEO Silverstein Properties, Inc.
The lease of WTC1 and WTC2 was purchased by Larry Silverstein, an extremely savvy NYC real
estate mogul, three months before the attack for a cost of 3.2 billion to be paid to the NYC Port
Authority over 99 years. Silverstein was the original owner of WTC7, and is the current owner of the
soon to be completed Building 7. http://www.silversteinproperties.com/management.htm)
9. LEASING THE WTC COMPLEX SHOULD HAVE BEEN A FINANCIAL DISASTER:
Larry Silverstein leased this property even though it was well known within the industry that the WTC1
and WTC2 had been constructed with asbestos fire retardant coating on the internal steel structure.
Asbestos coated all columns up to the 64th floors, only switching to a less effective and non-toxic
product in 1971 when New York City banned the use of asbestos as a building material. Asbestos is
now known to be an extremely toxic carcinogen, and would eventually have to have been remediated at
a cost that would surely have exceeded the buildings resale value.
10. HOWEVER, LEASING THE WTC COMPLEX BECAME A FINANCIAL WINDFALL:
After signing the lease, Larry Silverstein promptly increased the insurance on these buildings to $7.2
billion; double their purchase price prior to the attack. After their destruction, the potential white
elephant complex became an instant double-your-money windfall to the tune of a 3.5 billion in pure
profit to Silverstein. A wise sage once said, always follow the money trail.
11. CONTROLLED DEMOLITION PREPARATION PROCESS:
Preparing a structure like the 47 story WTC7 building for controlled demolition requires specially trained
demolition experts, complete building blueprints, specialized explosive charges, remote control
detonators, and many weeks to plan and actually install the explosives and wire them. This is no spur
of the moment project that can just be thrown together in a few hours - and a few hours was all that
expired from the initial attack to the demolition of WTC7. There is no doubt WTC7 was destroyed by a
controlled demolition, so the question that remains glaringly unanswered is, when was this building
wired for destruction, by whom, and for what purpose. Video Clips:
Real time video of WTC collapse: www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/WTC7_Collapse.wmv
With Dan Rather’s comments: www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/911.wtc.7.knocked.down.wmv
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
12. EVIDENCE OF FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE COLLAPSE:
During an interview on 9/11 with Rudy Giuliani, he claims that he was advised by an authority to exit
the lobby of one of the towers because the tower was about to collapse. How could ANYONE have
known the towers were going to collapse? Absolutely no steel structures had ever collapsed before.
“I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which
was right there with the police commissioner, the fire commissioner, the head of
emergency management, and we were operating out of there when we were told
that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we
could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15
minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of
people with us.” -- Rudy Giuliani
13. NYC FIREFIGHTERS RADIO COMMENTS FROM WITHIN THE TOWERS:
There are radio recordings of NYC Firefighters that had reached the 78th floor of the South Tower, in
different stairwells. An excerpt of these recordings is as follows:
Ladder 15: “What stair are you in Orio?”
Ladder 15: “ Chief, What stair you in?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “South stairway Adam,
South Tower.”
Ladder 15: “Floor 78?”
Battalion Seven Chief: “Ten-four, numerous
civilians, we gonna need two engines up here.”
Ladder 15:“Alright ten-four, we’re on our way.”
Battalion Seven Chief: “I’m gonna need two of
your firefighters Adam, stairway to knock down
two fires. We have house line stretched. We could
use some water on it, knock it down,kay?”
Sadly, this was just eleven minutes before they were killed in the demolition. Their conversation
indicates they believed they could knock down the fire with standard equipment, contradicting the
“raging steel-melting inferno” theory. A copy of these radio communications available upon request
14. EXPERT WITNESSES SAW AND HEARD MULTIPLE EXPLOSIONS:
NYC Firefighters, trained and experienced in critical observations during cataclysmic events report
hearing multiple massive explosions, going off in a sequence that they actually attribute to what a
controlled demolition sounds like. Since that time, all Firefighters and Police actually witnessing these
events have been slapped with a government-mandated gag order.
--- What did we do? We made it outside.
--- We made it at least two blocks and we started running.
--- Floor by floor it started popping out...
--- It was as if they had detonated - as if they were planning
to take down a building, boom boom boom boom boom...
--- ...all the way down. I was watching it and running.
VideoClip:www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/discussi
on_in_firehouse.wmv
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
HERO ON DUTY HEARD EXPLOSIONS IN THE NORTH TOWER BASEMENT.
William Rodriguez, declared a hero for saving numerous lives at Ground Zero, was the janitor on duty the
morning of 9/11 who heard and felt explosions rock the basement sub-levels of the north tower just seconds
before the jetliner struck the top floors.
"When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet
vibrated, the walls started cracking and it everything started shaking," said
Rodriguez, who was huddled together with at least 14 others.
"Seconds after the first massive explosion below in the basement still
rattled the floor, I hear another explosion from way above," said
Rodriguez. "Although I was unaware at the time, this was the airplane
hitting the tower, it occurred moments after the first explosion."
Rodriguez was checking into work in an office on sub-level 1 when the north tower was hit, seemingly out
of harms way. However, the sound and concussion of a massive explosion in the sub-levels right below his
feet changed that.
"When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet vibrated, the walls started cracking and
it everything started shaking," said Rodriguez, who was huddled together with at least 14 others.
Rodriguez said Anthony Saltamachia, supervisor for the American Maintenance Co., was one of the people in
the room who stands ready to verify his story.
"Seconds after the first massive explosion below in the basement still rattled the floor, I hear another
explosion from way above," said Rodriguez. "Although I was unaware at the time, this was the airplane hitting
the tower, it occurred moments after the first explosion."
But before Rodriguez had time to think, co-worker Felipe David stormed into the basement office with
severe burns on his face and arms, screaming for help and yelling "explosion! explosion! explosion!"
David had been in front of a nearby freight elevator on sub-level 1 about 400 feet from the office when fire
burst out of the elevator shaft, causing his injuries.
"He was burned terribly," said Rodriguez. "The skin was hanging off his hands and arms. His injuries
couldn’t have come from the airplane above, but only from a massive explosion below. I don’t care what the
government says, what scientists say. I saw a man burned terribly from a fire that was caused from an
explosion below.
"I know there were explosives placed below the trade center. I helped a man to safety who is living proof,
living proof the government story is a lie and a cover-up.”
"I have tried to tell my story to everybody, but nobody wants to listen. It is very strange what is going on here in
supposedly the most democratic country in the world. In my home country of Puerto Rico and all the other
Latin American countries, I have been allowed to tell my story uncensored. But here, I can’t even say a word."
After Rodriguez escorted David to safety outside the WTC, he returned to lead the others in the basement
to safety as well. While there, he also helped two other men trapped and drowning in the basement elevator
shaft, another result he says of the explosives placed below the tower.
In fact, after leading these men to safety, he even made another trip back into the north tower, against
police orders, in order to rescue people from the top floors.
"I never could make it to the top, but I got up to the 33rd floor after getting some of my equipment and a face
mask out of the janitor’s closet," said Rodriguez, adding he heard a series of small explosions going off
between the 20th and 30th floors, unrelated to the airplane strike, while making his way through the stairwell to
the top floors.
Rodriguez said he finally reached the 39th floor before being turned back by fire fighters and then,
reluctantly, started his descent back down and his own flight to safety while, at the same time, hearing
explosions coming from the South Tower.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
15. ALL CONCRETE IN THE TOWERS WAS PULVERIZED TO POWDER
The steel-reinforced concrete was actually reduced to a talcum powder-like residue. Huge piles of
nothing but dust from what was a massively strong 110-story structure. There simply is no way that this
concrete falling from a height of110 stories could cause such destruction to such highly reinforced
material. Additionally, all of the contents of the offices were also reduced to dust and fractional pieces
of themselves. Joe Casaliggi of Engine 7 describes with obvious puzzlement his experience in several
days of rescue efforts helping dig through the wreckage of the towers, only to discover that the contents
including office furniture, computers and telephone equipment had been almost completely reduced to
dust.
TRANSCRIPT: "You have two 110-story office buildings: you
don't find a chair, you don't find a telephone, a computer... the
biggest piece of a telephone I found was half a keypad, and it
was this big (holds up thumb and forefinger). The buildings
collapsed to dust." - Joe Casaliggi of Engine 7
16. CRIMINAL DESTRUCTION AND DISPOSAL OF ALL PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
The Science Committee of the House of Representatives reported that the WTC investigation was
hampered by the destruction of crucial evidence. The committee report of March 6, 2002 says, “some
of the critical pieces of steel were gone before the first [investigator] ever reached the site.”
Although the terror attacks of September 11
were clearly criminal acts of mass murder, no
effort was made to preserve the integrity of the
crime scenes and the essential evidence was
disposed of like garbage.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
oversaw what many experts consider to be
massive criminal destruction of evidence.
The pattern of destruction of physical evidence is nowhere more apparent than in the rapid removal
and recycling of the steel from Ground Zero. The structural steel was the most important evidence
regarding the mass murder of September 11th. No amount of indulgence of forelorn hopes of finding
survivors in the rubble, nor urgency of uncovering human remains for speedy identification, can justify
the destruction of the evidence.
The remains of the Twin Towers should have been afforded at least the same level of respect as the
artifacts in an archeological dig, or remnants of an aviation disaster. Instead they were treated as
garbage to be disposed of as quickly as possible.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
17. FIREFIGHTERS TRADE MAGAZINE CONDEMNS 9-11 EVIDENCE DESTRUCTION
Fair Lawn, NJ, January 4, 2002-Bill Manning, Fire Engineering's
editor in chief, summoned members of the fire service to "A Call to
Action." In his January 2002 Editor's Opinion, "$elling Out the
Investigation" he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation
by an independent panel established solely for that purpose,
By Bill Manning
Editor, Fire Engineering Magazine
”Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? Did they throw away the gas can
used at the Happyland Social Club Fire? Did they cast aside the pressure-regulating valves at the Meridian
Plaza Fire? Of course not. But essentially, that's what they're doing at the World Trade Center. “
”For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up
and sold for scrap. Crucial evidence that could answer many questions about high-rise building design
practices and performance under fire conditions is on the slow boat to China, perhaps never to be seen again in
America until you buy your next car.”
”Such destruction of evidence shows the astounding ignorance of government officials to the value of a
thorough, scientific investigation of the largest fire-induced collapse in world history. I have combed through
our national standard for fire investigation, NFPA 921, but nowhere in it does one find an exemption allowing
the destruction of evidence for buildings over 10 stories tall.”
Prof. Glenn Corbett of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City wrote in the January
2002 issue of Fire Engineering; “The World Trade Center disaster demands the most comprehensive
detailed investigation possible. No event in our entire fire service history has ever come close to the
magnitude of this incident. You would think we would have the largest fire investigation in world
history. You would be wrong,” he wrote, “We are literally treating the steel removed from the site
like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence.”
18. CRITICAL AIRPORT VIDEOS WITHHELD WITH NO REASON GIVEN:
There are multiple cameras recording every inch of all airports, yet there is no released video of the
actual passengers on the way to boarding these fateful flights. All video from all airport cameras were
immediately confiscated and have never been made available. Only one short segment of Mohammed
Atta simply walking in an airport in Maine has ever been released. Videos of this nature would clearly
show whether or not the accused hijackers actually boarded the airliners, so the question of the day is;
why are they being withheld?
19. “HIJACKERS” BLATANT OUT-OF-CHARACTER BEHAVIOR:
Witnesses report some of the supposed hijackers spending the night before the attack in a strip club,
drinking and loudly carrying on, actually calling attention to themselves. Afterward there were copies of
the Koran and other obvious personal identification conveniently left behind. This behavior is
completely out of character for devoutly religious Muslims who planned to commit suicide the next day
in the name of Allah, but a hallmark of a time-honored tactic called a false flag operation.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
20. DICK CHENEY TRACKED FLIGHT 77’s FLIGHT PATH UNTIL IT CRASHED:
The government has consistently stated that it did not know where the aircraft were before they struck,
however the Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta testified before the 9/11 Commission that
VP Dick Cheney, from the Presidential Emergency Operating Center, actually monitored flight 77 on
the final approach to it’s crash into the Pentagon. How could one of the most heavily defended
buildings in the world have been successfully attacked, when the Vice President of the United States, in
charge of counter-terrorism on 9/11, methodically watched it approach from many miles away?
TRANSCRIPT:
Norman Mineta: “During the time that the airplane coming in to
the Pentagon, uh, there was a young man who would come in and
say to the Vice President, the plane is fifty miles out, the plane is
thirty miles out, and when it got down to the plane is ten miles out,
uh, the young man also said to the Vice President, ‘do the orders still
stand?’ and, uh, the Vice President turned and whipped his neck
around and said ‘of course the orders still stand, have you heard
anything to the contrary?’, while at the time I didn’t know what that
all meant, and uh…”
Lee Hamilton: “The flight you’re referring to is the one..”
Norman Mineta: “The flight that came into the Pentagon”
Lee Hamilton: ”The Pentagon, yeah..”
Norman Mineta: “…and then later I heard of the fact that the
airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but
those planes were still about ten minutes away….”
Langley Air Force Base is located in Hampton Virginia. Langley is the home of The Air Combat
Command (ACC), the major command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force whose mission is
to provide air combat forces (mostly aircraft), to other commands, including both commands within
the Air Force as well as the unified commands that include elements from different branches of the
armed forces.
Norman Mineta testified, “airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but
those planes were still about ten minutes away”. Langley is located less than 150 miles by direct
line of flight from Washington, DC. The scrambled combat-ready F-16 fighters would arrive no later
that fifteen minutes flying at subsonic speed, and could have actually arrived in less than seven
minutes if they were allowed to fly at maximum airspeed.
Shortly after the first signs of trouble of Flight 77, clearly by at least 8:50, the military knows that this
airliner has been hijacked. The Pentagon is struck around 9:38, which means that all official parties
involved knew Flight 77 was hijacked for forty-eight minutes, and yet they supposedly waited until
Flight 77 was on a ten-mile approach from the Pentagon to order a scramble from Langley.
CSPAN testimony Video Clip: http://www.911truthmovement.org/video/hamilton_win.wmv
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
21. PRESIDENT BUSH WAS KNOWINGLY VULNERABLE THROUGHOUT 9-11 ATTACK:
On the morning of September 11, 2001, President
Bush attended a scheduled, publicized visit to
Booker Elementary School in Florida. Prior to
meeting with the students, he and the Secret Service
viewed the aftermath of the airliner crash into WTC
Tower 1 on the school’s television.
Disregarding this horrible incident, he proceeded to the
classroom to engage in the scheduled book reading
photo-op with the students. He was in the classroom for
over 15 minutes, during which time Tower 2 was attacked.
Incredibly, he simply continued reading with the children
Even after being informed of the second attack by
Andrew Card, his Chief of Staff, President Bush foolishly
continued reading in the classroom for an additional
nine minutes. The second crash made it plain to all that
a coordinated terrorist attack was in progress. Finally
he stood up, put his book down, and asked to be
excused from the classroom.
However, instead of sensibly being whisked to safety, he
lingered to deliver a speech to the teachers, reporters and
students. Absolutely no attempt was made by the Secret
Service to remove the President from this vulnerable
location, even though two airliners had completed their
murderous attacks, and at least two more hijacked airliners
were aloft, missing from all radar, their whereabouts
unknown
There’s no doubt the President of the United States would be a terrorist’s primary target. The Booker
School schedule was known far enough in advance to have this school included in the terrorist’s attack
plan. The potential for this disastrous scenario would be instantly obvious to the elite, highly trained
professionals charged with protecting the President; however, they calmly stayed in the bull’s-eye, leaving
the President vulnerable, and endangering the chain of command for the defense of the United States.
The only logical answer for this bizarre behavior is; they had advance knowledge he wouldn’t be a target.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
CONCLUSIONS
If you have taken the time and effort to read this report, it should be very clear that our government, at
some of the highest levels, was directly involved with the crime of September 11th, 2001. In fact, this crime
could never have been committed without them.
The question you are probably asking yourself is: WHY? – Why would our own elected officials, who seem
so benevolent, want to destroy a national landmark and murder 3,000 innocent people? The answer to this
question can be summed up in one word; POWER
This insane greed and insatiable lust for power is nearly impossible to understand or relate to by people
like you and me – but we must force ourselves to comprehend its existence. Historically, we know of these
types of purely evil people in every nation that ever existed; yet we are guilty of foolishly doubting that
conscience-less maniacs such as these could ever rise to power in our wonderful country. They rely on
this kind of naivety to get away with their grabs for even more power, but they could not survive if we
collectively became aware of their true nature. They can never be satisfied, no matter how much power
they have, they need more power, no matter how much wealth they have, they need more wealth. And the
torture and murder of innocents along the way is simply gravy.
Immediately after the attacks, the Patriot Act was introduced by the administration, and hurriedly passed by
the congress (after a nice dose of Anthrax was delivered to them, by the “terrorists”, remember?). Then
came the Patriot Act 2. These acts are nothing more than a suspension of liberties, a steady consolidation
of power, and an elimination of unwelcome dissent. George Bush is fond of telling us his simplistic reason
for the attacks as being “the terrorists hate our freedoms”, but the only attack on our freedoms has been
the steady elimination of them by the heavy-handed twin Patriot Acts. And you can count on the fact that
they have much more planned for us in the near future, and if it takes another 9-11 type event to properly
convince us, that will not be a problem for them.
They want us to believe that we have a shadowy new enemy that must be rooted out all over the world. All
our national treasure, our military personnel, and our God given freedoms are the asking price for
protection from these horrible, brilliant, dedicated, fanatical terrorists. And by their own admission, this is a
“war” that will never be won, so welcome to their New World Order; Your Papers, Please!
The attacks on Afghanistan, and then Iraq, are direct outgrowths of this power-grab, and to date over 2,000
of our military have been killed, thousands horribly mutilated, and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis,
men women, children have been slaughtered. Like it or not, you and I helped finance this.
George Bush’s initial reason for this war was WMD’s – weapons of mass destruction. Remember Condi
Rice’s “the smoking gun might be a mushroom cloud” threat? After two years NO WMD’s have been
found, not even ONE.
Then Bush shifted the reason for this war to the need to remove the horrible bloody tyrant, Saddam
Hussain. Now Saddam’s in custody, and still the war rages.
Then he restated his reason for the war as bringing democracy to the people of Iraq, but obviously the
majority of the Iraqi citizens don’t want our democracy, or us either. Can you blame them?
Now Bush’s latest reason for this war has morphed into a supposed connection to Iraq for the attack of 9-
11. But we’re no longer fooled by any of their lies, because we know who was responsible, and it damn
well wasn’t Iraq.
911 - THE FAIRY TALE FROM HELL – CHAPTER TWO
Twenty-one amazing and shocking facts about the attacks on 9-11
The war drums have begun sounding for Iran and Syria, (and they can’t even subdue Iraq). Senator
Durbin’s carefully crafted remarks against our military begin the process of promoting a wild-eyed
unthinking jingoistic patriotism. Time to buckle your seatbelt for another “9-11” type event intended to
further whip the country into a such a patriotic fervor that the reinstatement of the draft will seem an
acceptable price to pay to retaliate against those Iranian terrorists that “hate our freedoms.”
The media’s response to the facts presented here are simply ad hominem personal attacks and
disparaging name-calling, names such as WING NUT, MOON BAT, CONSPIRACY THEORIST, TINFOIL
HAT CROWD, etc. Don’t YOU be afraid to join the ranks of those who have realized that the government’s
fantastic explanations are the real “conspiracy theory”.
A Patriot Must Be Ready
To Defend His Country
Against His Government
This document has been compiled from research performed over the last three
years. Absolutely every effort has been made to insure the accuracy of the content
of this document. There were many other incriminating facts that were omitted due
to our inability to corroborate the information to our satisfaction. We feel that every
bit of evidence must stand on it’s own, as we understand that if a reader is able to
factually disprove any item, then they will have a tendency to simply discredit the
balance, and we want to avoid this at all costs.
Who We Are
We are a diverse group of patriotic Americans with the singular common goal of returning
the United States back to the people, as the Constitution mandates.
If you would like more information or additional copies of this expose,
Please contact us at:
webmaster@TyrannyAlert.com

mparent7777: Catastrophe Looms

mparent7777: Catastrophe Looms

Catastrophe Looms


by Paul Craig Roberts

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring, processing and understanding information.

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox "News" and right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is affected to some degree.

Despite the media’s failure, about half the population has managed to discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that the Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties is not a necessary component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism."

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant? The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying, requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant.

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting false and misleading choices before the people?

The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking anomalies. Only 43 percent said they approved of Bush’s performance as president. But a majority believe Bush’s policies have made the US more secure.

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US. Prior to Bush’s invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi government.

We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan. In the recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half of the government. In Iraq, Bush’s invasion has replaced secular Sunnis with Islamist Shia allied with Iran.

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see the total failure of Bush’s Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!

What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?

Americans share this disability with the Bush administration. According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration astonished?

The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead, purposes of the US government.

Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty-year war that will bankrupt the United States.

The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.

January 28, 2006

Dr. Roberts [send him mail] is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

mparent7777: Sheehan to Feinstein: Filibuster Alito, Or I'll Run Against You

mparent7777: Sheehan to Feinstein: Filibuster Alito, Or I'll Run Against You

(CNSNews.com) - Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan has threatened to run for Sen. Dianne Feinstein's (D-Calif.) seat unless Feinstein filibusters Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Sheehan, who was in Caracas, Venezuela Friday attending the World Social Forum, heard that several Democrats planned to filibuster Alito but that Feinstein, who is up for re-election in November, announced that she will vote against Alito but would not filibuster the nomination.

"I'm appalled that Diane Feinstein wouldn't recognize how dangerous Alito's nomination is to upholding the values of our constitution and restricting the usurpation of presidential powers, for which I've already paid the ultimate price," Sheehan said in a statement.

Sheehan became a national figure representing the anti-war movement after her son Casey was killed in Iraq and she stood vigil outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas ranch last summer demanding to speak face-to-face with Bush about her son's death.

Sheehan claimed Alito has "an extensive paper trail documenting the right-wing political agenda that he has actively advanced, not only as a high-ranking official in the Reagan Administration, but also as a judge."

She accused Alito of trying to restrict Congress' power and supporting "efforts to curtail privacy rights, including not only privacy from government surveillance and arbitrary arrest, but also other constitutional rights based on privacy, such as reproductive liberty for women."

Sheehan is scheduled to return from Venezuela on Monday and will travel to the nation's capital to take part in an alternative State of the Union event.

portland imc - 2005.10.04 - New 9/11 stuff & Advance Knowledge of 3 Bldg. Collapses

portland imc - 2005.10.04 - New 9/11 stuff & Advance Knowledge of 3 Bldg. Collapses

Pakistan 'delay let bin Laden escape US raid'

Pakistan 'delay let bin Laden escape US raid'

Blogger Thoughts: Yep, Those darn Pakistanis caused us to lose him.

BELLACIAO - Bush picks Abramoff prosecutor for federal judgeship, removed from case - Philip Shenon & Elisabeth Bumiller - Collective Bellaciao

BELLACIAO - Bush picks Abramoff prosecutor for federal judgeship, removed from case - Philip Shenon & Elisabeth Bumiller - Collective Bellaciao

BELLACIAO - 9/10/01 : ON THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION - Son of A Bush - Collective Bellaciao

BELLACIAO - 9/10/01 : ON THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION - Son of A Bush - Collective Bellaciao

911Truth.org ::::: The 9/11 Truth Movement

911Truth.org ::::: The 9/11 Truth Movement



Explosive Testimony: Revelations about the Twin Towers in the 9/11 Oral Histories

Explosive Testimony:Revelations about the Twin Towers in the 9/11 Oral Histories David Ray Griffin
“[T]here was just an explosion [in the south tower]. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.”--Firefighter Richard Banaciski
“I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?”--Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory
“[I]t was [like a] professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'."--Paramedic Daniel Rivera
____________________________________________________________________
The above quotations come from a collection of 9/11 oral histories that, although recorded by the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) at the end of 2001, were publicly released only on August 12, 2005. Prior to that date, very few Americans knew the content of these accounts or even the fact that they existed.
Why have we not known about them until recently? Part of the answer is that the city of New York would not release them until it was forced to do so. Early in 2002, the New York Times requested copies under the freedom of information act, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration refused. So the Times, joined by several families of 9/11 victims, filed suit. After a long process, the city was finally ordered by the New York Court of Appeals to release the records (with some exceptions and redactions allowed). Included were oral histories, in interview form, provided by 503 firefighters and medical workers.1 (Emergency Medical Services had become a division within the Fire Department.2) The Times then made these oral histories publicly available.3
Once the content of these testimonies is examined, it is easy to see why persons concerned to protect the official story about 9/11 would try to keep them hidden. By suggesting that explosions were occurring in the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, they pose a challenge to the official account of 9/11, according to which the towers were caused to collapse solely by the impact of the airplanes and the resulting fires.
In any case, now that the oral histories have finally been released, it is time for Americans and the world in general to see what these brave men and women reported about that fateful day. If this information forces a reevaluation of the official story about 9/11, better now than later.
That said, it must be added that although these oral histories are of great significance, they do not contain the first reports of explosions in the Twin Towers. Such reports---from firefighters, reporters, and people who had worked in the towers---started becoming available right after 9/11.
These reports, however, were not widely publicized by the mainstream press and, as a result, have for the most part been known only within the “9/11 truth movement,” which has focused on evidence that seems inconsistent with the official story.
I will begin by summarizing some of those previously available reports. Readers will then be able to see that although in some respects the newly released oral histories simply add reinforcement, they also are revelatory documents: Some of the testimonies are quite stunning, even to people familiar with the earlier reports; and there are now so many testimonies that even the most skeptical reader is likely to find the cumulative effect impressive.
Previously Available Testimony Suggestive of Explosions in the Twin Towers
The day after 9/11, a story in the Los Angeles Times, referring to the south tower, said: “There were reports of an explosion right before the tower fell, then a strange sucking sound, and finally the sound of floors collapsing."4
A story in the Guardian said that “police and fire officials were carrying out the first wave of evacuations when the first of the World Trade Centre towers collapsed. Some eyewitnesses reported hearing another explosion just before the structure crumbled. Police said that it looked almost like a ‘planned implosion.’"5
“Planned implosion” is another term for controlled demolition, in which explosives are placed at crucial places throughout a building so that, when set off in the proper order, they will cause the building to come down in the desired way. When it is close to other buildings, the desired way will be straight down into, or at least close to, the building’s footprint, so that it does not damage the surrounding buildings. This type of controlled demolition is called an “implosion.” To induce an implosion in steel-frame buildings, the explosives must be set so as to break the steel columns. Each of the Twin Towers had 47 massive steel columns in its core and 236 steel columns around the periphery.
To return now to testimonies about explosions: There were many reports about an explosion in the basement of the north tower. For example, janitor William Rodriguez reported that he and others felt an explosion below the first sub-level office at 9 AM, after which co-worker Felipe David, who had been in front of a nearby freight elevator, came into the office with severe burns on his face and arms yelling "explosion! explosion! explosion!"6
Rodriguez’s account has been corroborated by José Sanchez, who was in the workshop on the fourth sub-level. Sanchez said that he and a co-worker heard a big blast that “sounded like a bomb,” after which “a huge ball of fire went through the freight elevator.”7
Engineer Mike Pecoraro, who was working in the sixth sub-basement of the north tower, said that after an explosion he and a co-worker went up to the C level, where there was a small machine shop. “There was nothing there but rubble,” said Pecoraro. “We're talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press--gone!” They then went to the parking garage, but found that it was also gone. Then on the B level, they found that a steel-and-concrete fire door, which weighed about 300 pounds, was wrinkled up "like a piece of aluminum foil." Having seen similar things after the terrorist attack in 1993, Pecoraro was convinced that a bomb had gone off.8
Given these testimonies to explosions in the basement levels of the towers, it is interesting that Mark Loizeaux, head of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has been quoted as saying: “If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure.”9
Multiple Explosions
Some of the testimonies suggested that more than one explosion occurred in one tower or the other. FDNY Captain Dennis Tardio, speaking of the south tower, said: "I hear an explosion and I look up. It is as if the building is being imploded, from the top floor down, one after another, boom, boom, boom."10
In June of 2002, NBC television played segments from tapes recorded on 9/11. One segment contained the following exchange, which involved firefighters in the south tower:
Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've just had another explosion. Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've had additional explosion. Dispatcher: Received battalion command. Additional explosion.11
Firefighter Louie Cacchioli, after entering the north tower lobby and seeing elevator doors completely blown out and people being hit with debris, asked himself, “how could this be happening so quickly if a plane hit way above?” After he reached the 24th floor, he and another fireman “heard this huge explosion that sounded like a bomb [and] knocked off the lights and stalled the elevator.” After they pried themselves out of the elevator, “another huge explosion like the first one hits. This one hits about two minutes later . . . [and] I’m thinking, ‘Oh. My God, these bastards put bombs in here like they did in 1993!’”12
Multiple explosions were also reported by Teresa Veliz, who worked for a software development company in the north tower. She was on the 47th floor, she reported, when suddenly “the whole building shook. . . . [Shortly thereafter] the building shook again, this time even more violently." Then, while Veliz was making her way downstairs and outside: “There were explosions going off everywhere. I was convinced that there were bombs planted all over the place and someone was sitting at a control panel pushing detonator buttons. . . . There was another explosion. And another. I didn't know where to run."13
Steve Evans, a New York-based correspondent for the BBC, said: “I was at the base of the second tower . . . that was hit. . . . There was an explosion. . . . The base of the building shook. . . . [T]hen there was a series of explosions.”14
Sue Keane, an officer in the New Jersey Fire Police Department who was previously a sergeant in the U.S. Army, said in her account of the onset of the collapse of the south tower: “[I]t sounded like bombs going off. That's when the explosions happened. . . . I knew something was going to happen. . . . It started to get dark, then all of a sudden there was this massive explosion.” Then, discussing her experiences during the collapse of the north tower, she said: “[There was] another explosion. That sent me and the two firefighters down the stairs. . . . I can't tell you how many times I got banged around. Each one of those explosions picked me up and threw me. . . . There was another explosion, and I got thrown with two firefighters out onto the street.”15
Wall Street Journal reporter John Bussey, describing his observation of the collapse of the south tower from the ninth floor of the WSJ office building, said: “I . . . looked up out of the office window to see what seemed like perfectly synchronized explosions coming from each floor. . . . One after the other, from top to bottom, with a fraction of a second between, the floors blew to pieces.”16
Another Wall Street Journal reporter said that after seeing what appeared to be “individual floors, one after the other exploding outward,” he thought: “‘My God, they’re going to bring the building down.’ And they, whoever they are, HAD SET CHARGES. . . . I saw the explosions.”17
A similar perception was reported by Beth Fertig of WNYC Radio, who said: “It just descended like a timed explosion—like when they are deliberately bringing a building down. . . . It was coming down so perfectly that in one part of my brain I was thinking, 'They got everyone out, and they're bringing the building down because they have to.'”18
A more graphic testimony to this perception was provided on the film made by the Naudet brothers. In a clip from that film, one can watch two firemen describing their experiences to other firemen.
Fireman 1: “We made it outside, we made it about a block . . . .”
Fireman 2: “We made it at least two blocks and we started running.” He makes explosive sounds and then uses a chopping hand motion to emphasize his next point: “Floor by floor it started popping out . . . .”
Fireman 1: “It was as if they had detonated--as if they were planning to take down a building, boom boom boom boom boom . . . .”
Fireman 2: “All the way down. I was watching it and running. And then you just saw this cloud of shit chasing you down.”19
As these illustrations show, quite impressive testimony to the occurrence of explosions in the Twin Towers existed even prior to the release of the oral histories. As we will see, however, these oral histories have made the testimony much more impressive, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. The cumulative testimony now points even more clearly than before not simply to explosions but to controlled demolition.
Testimonies in the Oral Histories Suggestive of Controlled Demolition
Several FDNY members reported that they heard an explosion just before the south tower collapsed. For example, Battalion Chief John Sudnik said that while he and others were working at the command post, “we heard a loud explosion or what sounded like a loud explosion and looked up and I saw tower two start coming down.”20
Firefighter Timothy Julian said: “First I thought it was an explosion. I thought maybe there was a bomb on the plane, but delayed type of thing, you know secondary device. . . . I just heard like an explosion and then a cracking type of noise, and then it sounded like a freight train, rumbling and picking up speed, and I remember I looked up, and I saw it coming down.”21
Emergency medical technician Michael Ober said: “[W]e heard a rumble, some twisting metal, we looked up in the air, and . . . it looked to me just like an explosion. It didn’t look like the building was coming down, it looked like just one floor had blown completely outside of it. . . . I didn’t think they were coming down. I just froze and stood there looking at it.”22 Ober’s testimony suggests that he heard and saw the explosion before he saw any sign that the building was coming down.
This point is made even more clearly by Chief Frank Cruthers, who said: “There was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse."23
These statements by Ober and Cruthers, indicating that there was a delay between the explosion and the beginning of the collapse, suggest that the sounds and the horizontal ejection of materials could not be attributed simply to the onset of the collapse.
Shaking Ground before the Collapse
As we saw earlier, some people in the towers reported that there were powerful explosions in the basements. Such explosions would likely have caused the ground to shake. Such shaking was reported by medical technician Lonnie Penn, who said that just before the collapse of the south tower: “I felt the ground shake, I turned around and ran for my life. I made it as far as the Financial Center when the collapse happened.”24
According to the official account, the vibrations that people felt were produced by material from the collapsing towers hitting the ground. Penn’s account, however, indicates that the shaking must have occurred several seconds before the collapse.
Shaking prior to the collapse of the north tower was described by fire patrolman Paul Curran. He was standing near it, he said, when “all of a sudden the ground just started shaking. It felt like a train was running under my feet. . . . The next thing we know, we look up and the tower is collapsing.”25
Lieutenant Bradley Mann of the fire department, one of the people to witness both collapses, described shaking prior to each of them. "Shortly before the first tower came down,” he said, “I remember feeling the ground shaking. I heard a terrible noise, and then debris just started flying everywhere. People started running." Then, after they had returned to the area, he said, “we basically had the same thing: The ground shook again, and we heard another terrible noise and the next thing we knew the second tower was coming down."26 Multiple Explosions
The oral histories contain numerous testimonies with reports of more than one explosion. Paramedic Kevin Darnowski, for example, said: "I started walking back up towards Vesey Street. I heard three explosions, and then we heard like groaning and grinding, and tower two started to come down.”27
Gregg Brady, an emergency medical technician, reported the same thing about the north tower, saying: “I heard 3 loud explosions. I look up and the north tower is coming down now."28
Somewhat more explosions were reported by firefighter Thomas Turilli, who said, referring to the south tower, that “it almost sounded like bombs going off, like boom, boom, boom, like seven or eight."29
Even more explosions were reported by Craig Carlsen, who said that while he and other firefighters were looking up at the towers, they “heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. . . . We then realized the building started to come down.”30
“Pops”
As before, “pops” were reported by some witnesses. “As we are looking up at the [south tower],” said firefighter Joseph Meola, “it looked like the building was blowing out on all four sides. We actually heard the pops. Didn't realize it was the falling--you know, you heard the pops of the building. You thought it was just blowing out.”31
“Pops” were also reported by paramedic Daniel Rivera in the following exchange:
Q. How did you know that it [the south tower] was coming down? A. That noise. It was noise.Q. What did you hear? What did you see?A. It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was---do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'? That's exactly what--because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down.32
Collapse Beginning below the Strike Zone and Fire
According to the official account, the “pancaking” of the floors began when the floors above the strike zone, where the supports were weakened by the impact of the airplanes and the resulting fires, fell on the floors below. Some witnesses reported, however, that the collapse of the south tower began lower than the floors that were struck by the airliner and hence lower than the fires.
Timothy Burke reported that while he was watching flames coming out of the south tower, “the building popped, lower than the fire.” He later heard a rumor that “the aviation fuel fell into the pit, and whatever floor it fell on heated up really bad, and that's why it popped at that floor.” At the time, however, he said, “I was going oh, my god, there is a secondary device because the way the building popped. I thought it was an explosion.”33
This same twofold observation was made by firefighter Edward Cachia, who said: “As my officer and I were looking at the south tower, it just gave. It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit. . . . [W]e originally had thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down.”34
Other Indications of Controlled Demolition
Some witnesses reported other phenomena, beyond explosions, suggestive of controlled demolition.
The Appearance of Implosion: When a building close to other buildings is brought down by controlled demolition, as mentioned earlier, it typically implodes and hence comes straight down into, or at least close to, its own footprint, so that it does not fall over on surrounding structures.
As we saw above in the accounts that were previously available, both police and fire officials were quoted as saying that the towers seemed to implode. This perception was also stated in the oral history of Lieutenant James Walsh, who said: "The [north tower] didn't fall the way you would think tall buildings would fall. Pretty much it looked like it imploded on itself."35
Flashes: Another common feature of controlled demolitions is that people who are properly situated may see flashes when the explosives go off. Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory said: “I thought . . . before . . . No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. . . . Lieutenant Evangelista . . . asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I . . . saw a flash flash flash . . . [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw.”36
Flashes were reported in the north tower by Captain Karin Deshore, who said: “Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash.”37
Demolition Rings: At this point, Deshore’s account moved to another standard phenomenon seen by those who watch controlled demolitions: explosion rings, in which a series of explosions runs rapidly around a building. Deshore’s next words were: “Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building."38
An explosion ring (or belt) was also described by firefighter Richard Banaciski. Speaking of the south tower, he said: “[T]here was just an explosion. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.”39
A description of what appeared to be a ring of explosions was also given by Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick, who said: "We looked up at the [south tower] . . . . All we saw was a puff of smoke coming from about 2 thirds of the way up . . . . It looked like sparkling around one specific layer of the building. . . . My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV."40
Horizontal Ejections: Another feature of controlled demolition, at least when quite powerful explosives are used, is that things are ejected horizontally from the floors on which the explosions occur. Such ejections were mentioned in the testimony of Chief Frank Cruthers above. Similarly, Captain Jay Swithers said: “I took a quick glance at the building and while I didn't see it falling, I saw a large section of it blasting out, which led me to believe it was just an explosion.”41
Firefighter James Curran said: “When I got underneath the north bridge I looked back and . . . I heard like every floor went chu-chu-chu. Looked back and from the pressure everything was getting blown out of the floors before it actually collapsed."42
Battalion Chief Brian Dixon said: “I was . . . hearing a noise and looking up. . . . [T]he lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because . . . everything blew out on the one floor. I thought, geez, this looks like an explosion up there, it blew out."43
These reports by Curran and Dixon conform to what can be seen by looking at photographs and videos of the collapses, which show that various materials, including sections of steel and aluminum, were blown out hundreds of feet.44 Such powerful ejections of materials are exactly what would be expected from explosions powerful enough to cause such huge buildings to collapse.
Dust Clouds: The most visible material ejected horizontally from buildings during controlled demolition, especially buildings with lots of concrete, is dust, which forms more or less expansive dust clouds. Some of the testimonies about the collapse of the south tower mention that it produced an enormous amount of dust, which formed clouds so big and thick that they blocked out all light.
Firefighter Stephen Viola said: “You heard like loud booms . . . and then we got covered with rubble and dust, and I thought we'd actually fallen through the floor . . . because it was so dark you couldn't see anything."45
Firefighter Angel Rivera said: “That's when hell came down. It was like a huge, enormous explosion. . . . The wind rushed. . . , all the dust. . . and everything went dark."46
Lieutenant William Wall said: “[W]e heard an explosion. We looked up and the building was coming down right on top of us. . . . We ran a little bit and then we were overtaken by the cloud."47
Paramedic Louis Cook said that after the debris started falling, “everything went black” and “you couldn't breathe because [of] all the dust. There was just an incredible amount of dust and smoke.” He then found that there was, “without exaggerating, a foot and a half of dust on [his] car.”48
The kind of dust clouds typically produced during a controlled demolition can be seen on videos of the demolition of Seattle’s Kingdome and the Reading Grain Facility.49 If these videos are then compared with photos and videos of the collapses of the Twin Towers,50 it can be seen that the dust clouds in the latter are even bigger.51
Timed or Synchronized Explosions: Some people said that the collapses had the appearance of timed, synchronized demolitions. Battalion Chief Dominick DeRubbio, speaking of the collapse of the south tower, said: “It was weird how it started to come down. It looked like it was a timed explosion."52
Firefighter Kenneth Rogers said: "[T]here was an explosion in the south tower. . . . I kept watching. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another and when it hit about the fifth floor, I figured it was a bomb, because it looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing. I was there in '93."53
Debates about Controlled Demolition
Given so many signs that the buildings had been brought down by controlled demolition, we might expect that debates about this issue would have taken place. And they did.
Firefighter Christopher Fenyo, after describing events that occurred after the first collapse, said: “At that point, a debate began to rage because. . . many people had felt that possibly explosives had taken out 2 World Trade, and officers were gathering companies together and the officers were debating whether or not to go immediately back in or to see what was going to happen with 1 World Trade at that point. The debate ended pretty quickly because 1 World Trade came down."54
Firefighter William Reynolds reported on a conversation he had with a battalion chief: “I said, ‘Chief, they're evacuating the other building; right?’ He said, ‘No.’ . . . I said, ‘Why not? They blew up the other one.’ I thought they blew it up with a bomb. I said, ‘If they blew up the one, you know they're gonna blow up the other one.’ He said, ‘No, they're not.’ I said, ‘Well, you gotta tell them to evacuate it, because it's gonna fall down and you gotta get the guys out.’ . . . He said, ‘I'm just the Battalion Chief. I can't order that.’ . . . I said, ‘You got a fucking radio and you got a fucking mouth. Use the fucking things. Empty this fucking building.’ Again he said, ‘I'm just a Battalion Chief. I can't do that.’ . . . Eventually this other chief came back and said, ‘They are evacuating this tower.’ . . . And sometime after that . . . I watched the north tower fall."55
As both accounts suggest, the perception that the south tower had been brought down by explosives may have resulted in fewer lives being lost in the north tower collapse than would otherwise have been the case.
Why Testimony about Explosions Has Not Become Public Knowledge
If so many witnesses reported effects that seemed to be produced by explosives, with some of them explicitly saying that the collapses appeared to be cases of controlled demolition, why is this testimony not public knowledge? Part of the answer, as I mentioned at the outset, is that the city of New York refused to release it until forced to do so by the highest court of the state of New York
But why did we have to wait for this court-ordered release to learn about these testimonies? Should not they have been discussed in The 9/11 Commission Report, which was issued over a year earlier? This Report, we are told in the preface, sought “to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11.” Why does it not include any of the testimony in the 9/11 oral histories suggestive of controlled demolition?
The answer cannot be that the Commission did not know about these oral histories. Although “[t]he city also initially refused access to the records to investigators from . . . the 9/11 Commission,” Jim Dwyer of the New York Times tells us, it “relented when legal action was threatened.”56 So the Commission could have discussed the testimonies about explosions in the oral histories. It also, in order to help educate the public, could have called some of the firefighters and medical workers to repeat their testimony during one of the Commission’s public hearings. But it did not.
Why, we may wonder, have the firefighters and medical workers not been speaking out? At least part of the reason may be suggested by a statement made by Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman Paul Isaac. Having said that “there were definitely bombs in those buildings,” Isaac added that “many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.”57
Would we not expect, however, that a few courageous members of the fire department would have contacted the 9/11 Commission to tell their story? Indeed. But telling their story to the Commission was no guarantee that it would find its way into the final report---as indicated by the account of one fireman who made the effort.
Firefighter Louie Cacchioli, who was quoted earlier, testified in 2004 to members of the Commission’s staff. But, he reported, they were so unreceptive that he ended up walking out in anger. “I felt like I was being put on trial in a court room,” said Cacchioli. “They were trying to twist my words and make the story fit only what they wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was tell the truth and when they wouldn’t let me do that, I walked out.”58
That Cacchioli’s experience was not atypical is suggested by janitor William Rodriguez, whose testimony was also quoted earlier. Although Rodriguez was invited to the White House as a National Hero for his rescue efforts on 9/11, he was, he said, treated quite differently by the Commission: "I met with the 9/11 Commission behind closed doors and they essentially discounted everything I said regarding the use of explosives to bring down the north tower.”59
When reading The 9/11 Commission Report, one will not find the name of Cacchioli, or Rodriguez, or anyone else reporting explosions in the towers. It would appear that the Commission deliberately withheld this information, as it apparently did with regard to Able Danger60 and many other things that should have been included in “the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11.”61
The definitive report about the collapse of the towers was to have been provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). According to Rodriguez, however, this investigative body was equally uninterested in his testimony: “I contacted NIST . . . four times without a response. Finally, [at a public hearing] I asked them before they came up with their conclusion . . . if they ever considered my statements or the statements of any of the other survivors who heard the explosions. They just stared at me with blank faces.”62
In light of this report of NIST’s response, it is not surprising to find that its final report, which in the course of supporting the official story about the collapses ignores many vital issues,63 makes no mention of reports of explosions and other phenomena suggestive of controlled demolition.
Conclusion
It is sometimes said that the mandate of an official commission is, by definition, to support the official story. Insofar as that is true, it is not surprising that neither NIST nor the 9/11 Commission saw fit to discuss testimony suggestive of explosions in the Twin Towers, since this testimony is in strong tension with the official story.
At least most of those who offered this testimony did not, to be sure, mean to challenge the most important element in the official story about 9/11, which is that the attacks were entirely the work of foreign terrorists. For example, firefighter Timothy Julian, after saying that he “thought it was an explosion,” added: “I thought maybe there was a bomb on the plane, but delayed type of thing, you know secondary device.”64 Assistant Commissioner James Drury said: “I thought the terrorists planted explosives somewhere in the building.”65
The problem, however, is that a bomb delivered by a plane, or even a few explosives planted “somewhere in the building,” would not explain the many phenomena suggestive of controlled demolition, such as explosion rings and other features indicating that the explosions were “synchronized” and otherwise “timed.” As Mark Loizeaux, the head of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained, “to bring [a building] down as we want, so no one or no other structure is harmed,” the demolition must be “completely planned.” One needs “the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges.”66
The 9/11 oral histories, therefore, create a difficult question for those who defend the official story: How could al-Qaeda terrorists have gotten access to the Twin Towers for all the hours required to place all the explosives needed to bring down buildings of that size? It is primarily because they force this question that the testimony about explosions in the towers is itself explosive.
Notes
Jim Dwyer, "City to Release Thousands of Oral Histories of 9/11 Today," New York Times, August 12, 2005. As Dwyer explained, the oral histories "were originally gathered on the order of Thomas Von Essen, the city fire commissioner on Sept. 11, who said he wanted to preserve those accounts before they became reshaped by a collective memory."
Jim Dwyer, "Vast Archive Yields New View of 9/11," New York Times, August 13, 2005.
These oral histories are available at a NYT website (http://graphics8.nytimes.com
/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html).
Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2001.
"Special Report: Terrorism in the US," Guardian, Sept. 12, 2001.
Greg Szymanski, "WTC Basement Blast and Injured Burn Victim Blows 'Official 9/11 Story' Sky High," Arctic Beacon.com, June 24, 2005.
Greg Szymanski, "Second WTC Janitor Comes Forward With Eye-Witness Testimony Of 'Bomb-Like' Explosion in North Tower Basement," Arctic Beacon.com, July 12, 2005.
"We Will Not Forget: A Day of Terror," The Chief Engineer, July, 2002.
Christopher Bollyn, "New Seismic Data Refutes Official Explanation," American Free Press, Updated April 12, 2004 (http://www.americanfreepress.net
/09_03_02/NEW_SEISMIC_/new_seismic_.html).
Quoted in Dennis Smith, Report from Ground Zero: The Story of the Rescue Efforts at the World Trade Center (New York: Penguin, 2002), 18.
"911 Tapes Tell Horror Of 9/11," Part 2, "Tapes Released For First Time," NBC TV, June 17, 2002 (http://www.911truth.org/www.wnbc.com/news/1315651/detail.html).
Greg Szymanski, "NY Fireman Lou Cacchioli Upset that 9/11 Commission 'Tried to Twist My Words,’" Arctic Beacon.com, July 19, 2005. Although the oral histories that were released on August 12 did not include one from Cacchioli, the fact that he was on duty is confirmed in the oral history of Thomas Turilli, page 4.
Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 9-15.
BBC, Sept. 11, 2001.
Quoted in Susan Hagen and Mary Carouba, Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion (Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002), 65-66, 68.
John Bussey, "Eye of the Storm: One Journey Through Desperation and Chaos," Wall Street Journal, September 12, 2001 (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/040802pulitzer5.htm).
Alicia Shepard, Cathy Trost, and Newseum, Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11, Foreword by Tom Brokaw (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 87.
Quoted in Judith Sylvester and Suzanne Huffman, Women Journalists at Ground Zero (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 19.
For the video of this conversation, see “Evidence of Demolition Charges in WTC 2,” What Really Happened (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc2_cutter.html).
Oral History of John Sudnik, 4 (for where to find the 9/11 oral histories of the FDNY, see note 3, above).
Oral History of Timothy Julian, 10.
Oral History of Michael Ober, 4.
Oral History of Frank Cruthers, 4.
Oral History of Lonnie Penn, 5.
Oral History of Paul Curran, 11.
Oral History of Bradley Mann, 5-7.
Oral History of Kevin Darnowski, 8.
Oral History of Gregg Brady, 7.
Oral History of Thomas Turilli, 4.
Oral History of Craig Carlsen, 5-6.
Oral History of Joseph Meola, 5.
Oral History of Daniel Rivera, 9.
Oral History of Timothy Burke, 8-9.
Oral History of Edward Cachia, 5.
Oral History of James Walsh, 15.
Oral History of Stephen Gregory, 14-16.
Oral History of Karin Deshore, 15.
Ibid.
Oral History of Richard Banaciski, 3-4.
Oral History of Thomas Fitzpatrick, 13-14.
Oral history of Jay Swithers, 5.
Oral History of James Curran, 10-11.
Oral History of Brian Dixon, 15. Like many others, Dixon indicated that he later came to accept the official interpretation, adding: "Then I guess in some sense of time we looked at it and realized, no, actually it just collapsed. That's what blew out the windows, not that there was an explosion there but that windows blew out."
See, for example, Eric Hufschmid’s Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack (Goleta, Calif.: Endpoint Software, 2002); Jim Hoffman’s website (http://911research.wtc7.net/index.html); and Jeff King’s website (http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.king2/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html), especially "The World Trade Center Collapse: How Strong is the Evidence for a Controlled Demolition?"
Oral History of Stephen Viola, 3.
Oral History of Angel Rivera, 7.
Oral History of William Wall, 9.
Oral History of Louis Cook, 8, 35.
The demolition of the Kingdome can be viewed at the website of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (http://www.controlled-demolition.com/default.asp?reqLocId=7&reqItemId=20030317140323), that of the Reading Grain Facility at ImplosionWorld.com (http://implosionworld.com/reading.html). I am indebted to Jim Hoffman for help on this and several other issues.
See the writings of Hufschmid, Hoffman, and King mentioned in note 44.
For a calculation of the energy required simply for the expansion of one of the resulting dust clouds, see Jim Hoffman, "The North Tower's Dust Cloud" (http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dustvolume/volume.html). Hoffman concludes that gravitational energy would have been far from sufficient.
Oral History of Dominick DeRubbio, 5. DeRubbio, at least professing to accept the official interpretation, added, "but I guess it was just the floors starting to pancake one on top of the other."
Oral History of Kenneth Rogers, 3-4.
Oral History of Christopher Fenyo, 6-7.
Oral History of William Reynolds, 8.
Dwyer, "City to Release Thousands of Oral Histories of 9/11 Today."
Randy Lavello, "Bombs in the Building"; Prison Planet.com (http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_lavello_050503_bombs.html).
Greg Szymanski, "NY Fireman Lou Cacchioli Upset that 9/11 Commission 'Tried to Twist My Words'" Arctic Beacon.com, July 19, 2005.
Greg Szymanski, "WTC Basement Blast and Injured Burn Victim Blows 'Official 9/11 Story' Sky High," Arctic Beacon.com, June 24, 2005.
See MSNBC, "Officer: 9/11 Panel Didn't Pursue Atta Claim" August 17, 2005 (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8985244&&CM=EmailThis&CE=1), and Philip Shenon, "Navy Officer Affirms Assertions about Pre-9/11 Data on Atta," New York Times, August 22, 2005.
For other items, see David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton: Interlink, 2005).
Greg Szymanski, "WTC Basement Blast and Injured Burn Victim Blows 'Official 9/11 Story' Sky High," Arctic Beacon.com, June 24, 2005.
See Kevin Ryan, "Propping Up the War on Terror: Lies about the WTC by NIST and Underwriters Laboratories," in David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, eds., 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (Northampton, Mass.: Interlink Books, Fall 2006), and Jim Hoffman, "Building a Better Mirage: NIST's 3-Year $20,000,000 Cover-Up of the Crime of the Century" (http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/nist/index.html).
Oral History of Timothy Julian, 10.
Oral History of James Drury, 12.
Liz Else, "Baltimore Blasters," New Scientist 183/2457 (July 24, 2004), 48 (http://archive.newscientist.com
/secure/article/article.jsp?rp=1&id=mg18324575.700). Surprisingly, after explaining how precisely explosives must be set to ensure that a building comes straight down, Loizeaux said that upon seeing the fires in the Twin Towers, he knew that they were "going to pancake down, almost vertically. It was the only way they could fail. It was inevitable." Given the fact that fire had never before caused tall steel-frame buildings to collapse, let alone in a way that perfectly mimicked controlled demolition, Loizeaux's statement was doubly puzzling. His company, incidentally, was hired to do the clean-up of the WTC site after 9/11.
I could not have written this essay without the amazingly generous help of Matthew Everett, who located and passed on to me most of the statements in the 9/11 oral histories quoted herein.
______________________________
David Ray Griffin is professor emeritus of philosophy of religion and theology at the Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught 31 years. He has published some 30 books, including The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (Interlink Books, 2004) and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Interlink Books, 2005).
© David Ray Griffin.
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