There are reports of unusual building maintenance patterns, and I don't know how much thermate would be necessary, but in any demolition, strategic charge placement can obviate the need for 'tons and tons.'

Typically, yes. Always, no:

Get prepared to get lots of bad reputation points and be called a conspiracy nut.

First let me express my emotional thoughts about 9/11--not the aftermath and subsequent years, the actual event itself. I remember hearing on the radio about the attacks on my way to getting coffee before teaching at my high school. I remember watching the events unfold (on TV) in the morning with my high school students, and processing these events with them through the late morning and afternoon. I will always remember so many things about that day. But, what I remember most is watching the towers actually fall--it was just incomprehensible that these buildings, which I had been to many times were gone forever.

Xapadoo, to be fair, first I'll tell you what I think happened on and after 9/11. I think Al Qaeda launched a horrific but obviously well planned attack upon the U.S. and it succeeded. The hijackers have all been identified and we know where they came from and where they were trained in most cases. The U.S. did not allow this attack to happen, it happened because the U.S. failed on all sorts of levels of security in preventing such an attack.

After the attack, I believe the U.S. government made all sorts of mistakes that I strongly disagree with...the Patriot Act, the War in Iraq, how they have fought the War in Afghanistan, how they have conducted international affairs for the last 8 years. But, this does not for a minute change my opinion of what the original event was--a successful premeditated, horrific attack by an experienced terrorist organization. There was no conspiracy. A conspiracy of this magnitude is in my opinion impossible to carry out without knowledge leaking out, people leaking information, and a host of other information that would have come out in the last 7 years.

I really need to know where you are coming from Xapadoo...what exactly do you think happened on 9/11? Do you think that hijackers didn't hijack planes and fly into the buildings? Do you think that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda weren't responsible? Do you think it was a ploy by the U.S. govt. to kill people from close to 80 different countries so that they could use it to spread freedom and democracy through wars? Do you think that the planes hit the buildings, but that the buildings were actually destroyed by an intentional demolition? Or do you just not trust the official story? I'm not sure at what exactly you are getting at with your 9/11 and Osama related posts. To me it seems that you want to connect what you view as current failures of U.S./western policy with the events of 9/11 itself. To me they are seperate issues. The U.S. has failed in several areas since, but the events of 9/11 are still just as deplorable, just as horrible, and the same thing still happened--Al Qaeda attacked the U.S.

You made a comment about fifty percent of New Yorkers having doubts about the official events (I paraphrase here). Did you know that in some opinion surveys that have been taken, up to 80% of Americans believe in a JFK conspiracy of some sort. That does not mean that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't the sole assassin of JFK, just in my opinion that 80% of Americans weren't willing to accept that one bizarre, disturbed, strange man could take down an icon like Kennedy. To use another example, just because well over 50% of Americans say they don't buy the theory of evolution doesn't mean that there is now a doubt about the theory of evolution from the scientific community. In the same light, it is natural that as more and more people come at this story (9/11) from different angles, doubts will be put into many people's minds about what exactly happened--and I think this will continue as time goes by. I really think there is a common physchological tendency to want to believe in conspiracies. They are so exciting, so much more exciting than what is usually the truth.

The tallest building ever taken down in a controlled demolition was about 1/3 the height of the WTC towers, and used around 3000 pounds (= about 1.5 tons) of explosives to do it.

It took something like 3-4 weeks to wire everything up (obviously, with no need for secrecy).


With that in mind, consider the quantity of explosives likely necessary to bring down the WTC towers, and how long it would take to lay them without anyone noticing (assuming that is even possible). Consider also that the expertise necessary to complete that sort of task isn't exactly widespread.

Thanks for the warning!

First of all, thank you for your reasonable reply.

I have read / watched myself into the issue for many hours. I watched documentaries from the so called "conspiracy nuts" and documentaries arguing for the "official story" as well.

So I can give you a few hints were to start digging if you want.

I do think the events following 9/11, which some see as a "Trigger" to get the support to what came after the attacks are very dangerous indeed and may (if not stopped) may lead into wars that affect European security.

But let's leave that away for a moment.

Having watched nearly all 9/11 videos on youtube and google video during my vacation, both from the pro "official story" and the anti "official story" I concluded that there were at least half a dozen "facts" of the official story that were simply not possible (Like the plane that crashed in Pensylvania and left just a small hole, with no debree or any plane parts around it whatsoever). Now, if the official 9/11 report is wrong on one point, it is likely that others don't match up either.

Like for example this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm
(The terrorists identified in the 9/11 report actually still alive and well)

Also, the main investigator of Osama Bin Laden at the FBI was shortly before the attacks fired. He got a new job as security chief at the world trade center 1 day before the attacks. He was never seen again and is presumed to be a victim of the attacks.

I could name you many more other "facts" that don't match up.

I'd recommend you to watch this video:


Watch the whole video, no matter if you think it's lies. Afterwards we can discuss what might be wrong in that video.

Fact is, there always have been conspiracies in the history of man (Just look at the Roman Emperor Nero or that insane guy in Germany).

Please do. Tell us about these "facts" that "don't match the laws of physics" (as your post said, originally, before you edited it).

This is a pretty fascinating thread, only read the first three pages, it makes me miss Mark, even though I didn't know him, I would have loved to discuss this with him. His thourougness(sp?) and rational approach to the topic is amazing.

... if the video is still there by the time you want to discuss it...

Who knows what we'd think if it was our family member (or countrymen) who was killed in such a spectacular and monumental way as 911?

I'm not entirely sure if the majority of US families would have said, "Not In Our Name" at the time.

I'm not sure how NION started, if it was famous people or vicitms' familes but it's convenient to say they (or Bush) should have thought this way seven years on, but the momentum of the US public opinion would surely still have a good deal of rage even six months after 911. (How a nation deals with outrage is debatable).

Hindsight is not always twenty twenty.
I'm not trying to be argumentative but I can understand the US zeitgeist may not have been conciliatory.

About the only plausible thing about these theories is that that plane may well have been shot down, what a horrible decision that would have been to make. Even if it was shot down, how do you think the best way to deal with that would be? Does it prove that anyone else was involved? Or that the best was made of a terrible situation? Or are you going to tell us that actually, no one died, that it was all made up, the grieving families are an elaborate hoax.

The more you actually think about the human elements supposedly involved in these conspiracies, the more ridiculous they become, as thousands of people are involved in a cover up.

You cite previous conspiracies as if they are the same as today. Fascism is a frightening example of what people can do in groups, but I don't think it was ever a conspiracy as you seem to imply is happening today, a secret shadowy movement, hiding their tracks, never boasting or leaking. In fact, the Nazi party promoted a Jewish conspiracy to instill fear and doubt into their fellow countrymen, have you ever thought that you might be being manipulated by the fringe? I mean, it seems to me that a lot of these conspiracies seem to come from right wing sources.

I said before that I don't believe in these massive conspiracies because I have faith in humanity, but I think maybe that's wrong, maybe I have no faith in humanity, we're just too vain and fallible to pull these things off, or too noble to let them happen.

At least David Icke had the right idea, he said aliens were behind it all, that's slightly more believable to me.

I think 'explosives' versus thermate/thermite is an apples/oranges comparison, since thermate/thermite is an incendiary substance, not an explosive. There may or may not even be a 'tallest building ever taken down in a controlled demolition' precedent using thermate/thermite if explosives are cheaper and easier to use.

So the primary evidence for a controlled demolition is what it looked like, but it was supposedly done with a chemical compound that acts in a fundamentally different manner to the explosives used in controlled demolitions ?

Yes, exactly. Controlled demolitions have a distinct appearance. By 'controlled' is meant orderly, sequenced execution of the dismantling mechanisms, not necessarily what type of mechanism is used. Even a controlled demolition accomplished with explosives is not necessarily distinguished by an abundance of visible explosions, as the dismantling mechanisms are executed inside the structure.

I think it also bears pointing out that the alleged use of thermate/thermite doesn't preclude the use of explosives as well. The two chief reasons I am aware of that both incendiary methods and controlled demolition have been alleged at all are: 1) the presence of much molten steel in the collapsed structure, and 2) the lack of another plausible explanation for the complete collapse of the steel structures, since other available fuels are said not to have been capable of generating adequate heat to bring about that result.

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"Live every day as if it were going to be your last; for one day you're sure to be right." — Harry Morant

9/11
i remember.....that's all. xoxo

Commonly forgotten is the other "September 11" event that led to the deaths of thousands.

On 11 September 1973, the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown in a coup that led to the establishment of Pinochet's military dictatorship that stayed in power for 17 years, during which thousands of people died or disappeared. The effects of this still have not completely gone away and probably never will. Just because the whole thing didn't happen live on TV doesn't make it any less significant or deplorable.

Not only one bad thing happened today. Don't forget that.

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I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!

Amen to that.

Maybe we, too, should follow the presidential candidates' lead and refrain from campaigning today?

The reports don't mention thermate (it's thermite by the way) but rather thermite-like traces, i.e. evidence of aluminium-based reactions.

Which you'd sort of expect when you pulverise (as opposed to melting a slab in a pan like the kind professor did) a quantity of aluminium (say, like, an airplane) and combine it with fire.

But that's just me.

Have just spent some time reading the whole thread, i had not come across it before. Agree with dakmans sentiments completely.

Previously I would have been in the camp saying "what the hell happened at the pentagon" but due to the links referenced earlier by Mark it changed my opinion somewhat.

Hence the flaw in our (US / British) political systems. We vote for representatives to do the job for us. They do whatever they like in the meatime between elections and we sit around and vote them all back in again next time around.

You, dear reader, do know the name of your political representative, don't you?