Media Watch is, as the name suggests, a media watchdog program on our Australia wide public (non commercial) television broadcaster. I received a reply within moments. Automated response of course. Hopefully that is not the only response. Hopefully my essay will help other readers who might still have difficulties believing that 911 is not satisfactorily or even competently explained by the officially sanctioned reports to find out for themselves.

Dear Media Watch,

If part of the purpose of your program is to criticise and bring to the viewer's attention serious shortcomings in media behaviour, then I believe it is imperative you mention, though I believe it deserves a whole program or more, the almost complete lack of coverage of what may prove to be the most crucial issues in modern political history.

I am deeply concerned by what appears to be deliberate censorship of what may prove to be the most critical news out of the United States of America ever. There are growing, in numbers and in sophistication, individuals and groups around the world, but importantly in the US, who are extremely critical of the officially sanctioned reports, and who are putting forward alternative theories to the official reports for several of the events of September 11, 2001, and for events leading up to that day, and since.

I refer, of course to the massive fraud currently being perpetrated upon the peoples of the world by the real power behind the current US administration. I admit I have no idea where that true power lies. Where the buck actually stops I dare not guess.

If in fact it transpires that the current state of international affairs has been orchestrated, or even if it is the result of a botched orchestration, to bring about a set of circumstances whereby plans made by persons, or groups unknown, to use the agenda of the PNAC for their own purposes; to bring about geopolitical change to increase US hegemony in selected resource rich and strategically important regions, to increase the size of the military and the amount of defence and security spending, and to create a situation in which the country is put on a permanent war footing, whereby the president, as a “war president” can claim special privilege to put in place draconian laws diluting civil protections, and use a kowtowing Congress and a compliant Press to avoid all scrutiny, then it will go down in history that we were served exceedingly poorly by our “foot soldiers for truth; our media.

There is even some discussion, not verified so far as I know, that says if the attacks had actually gone exactly to plan, the White House and Capitol Hill would also have been attacked, and George Bush would have been assassinated with the shooting down of Airforce One. There would then have been an immediate declaration of martial law. It is still not impossible that there is a “Plan B” in place to achieve this aim, should the situation become “too hot” for the perps.

That alternative hypotheses are ignored or discarded on the basis of their being lumped into the much maligned "conspiracy theory" category is unconscionable. Especially since many of the authors of these hypotheses speak with well respected voices.

After all, is not the official version itself, on the face of it, a theory of a conspiracy perpetrated by fanatical Islamic extremists, who defeated the might of the US Armed Forces and Intelligence Services, armed only with box-cutters?

In the case of the building collapses at the World Trade Center, that any reasonably well educated person, not to mention experts, professionals and academics in relevant fields, could prefer the deeply flawed and highly implausible "excuses" presented in the official reports, to the reasoned, peer-reviewed and most importantly, feasible and testable explanations presented by Gordon Ross, Steven Jones, Frank Legge, Jim Hoffman and others, astounds me.

One spokesman for the NIST investigators, Dr Thomas Eager, has made some outrageous claims, including that people should not be surprised that the buildings were so utterly destroyed because they were in fact comprised of 95% air!

Dr Eager’s expertise is in metallurgy, and his opinion of, and any valid arguments he might have against Professor Steven Jones’ hypotheses that there is irrefutable evidence that a thermite or thermate type substance was used in “cutter” charges to disassociate major structural elements before and during all three of the building collapses that occurred, would be of far more value than his obviously misguided opinions to do with the structural integrity of, and structural engineering principles which might apply to, the collapse of two 110 storey steel framed buildings, and another 47 storey building all on the same day. It should be noted that this has never happened, before or since.

It goes on. There is a mine of information. There is what was a trickle, but is becoming a deluge, of witness accounts, scientific, political and legal investigations, reports of physical evidence, and learned discussion and debate amongst well respected experts in their fields, from which any producer or enterprising journalist could craft any number of high rating in-depth investigative exposes.

Again in the case of the building collapses, what are needed are mainstream documentaries looking into the actual collapses for which there is irrefutable evidence for the use of pre-planted explosives in all three towers that collapsed that day.

As an experiment to test my theory that the mainstream media has been negligent or complicit in supporting a falsehood, ask your friends how many buildings collapsed on 911. Most of those who have not noticed the growing references to the subject on the internet, will not know about Building Seven, which was not hit by a plane, and which suffered only relatively minor fires and completely collapsed to rubble, into it's own footprint, at about 5.30pm that day.

There is still no official explanation for the collapse of Building Seven. The 911 Commission report does not even mention it, except vaguely in an appendix, and the FEMA investigators admit they are unable to determine the cause of that collapse.

Despite seeing fit to use images of the twin towers' destruction to garner terrified support for illegal wars, images of Building Seven collapsing have been more or less invisible. It is my belief that this is due to the fact that these video images show emphatically that Building Seven was in fact brought down by controlled demolition

I claim no expertise in any relevant field, and especially as a writer, but in my first essay since I left school more than thirty years ago, I have attempted to detail how and why I became convinced that there is reason for concern, and a serious need for the widespread dissemination of ALL the relevant facts.

It was not my intention to have anybody read my essay at this stage, but rather than try to explain why I am convinced a second time I have appended it here. I am hopeful that somebody there will take the time to read it, and perhaps be inspired to look further into the issues I discuss, and visit some of the sites for and against to see whether there is in fact a case to be made for questioning whether unprecedented ignorance or complicity is reflected in the mainstream media’s coverage of what are possibly the most important issues of our time.

I believe a documentary detailing the machinations of the Project for a New American Century, the members of PNAC who now hold extremely powerful positions in the current US administration, and the similarity between some of the outrageous aims of this organisation, as detailed in its own documentation, and recent events and political changes throughout the world, would likely rate very highly.

A work investigating the way our own politicians, on both sides of the political divide, have jumped upon the bandwagon and as blatantly as the Bush administration, used the fear engendered by so-called terrorist attacks around the world, and “legitimised” by the 911 attacks, to pass draconian “security” laws, to water down civil rights, and approve obscene increases in “defence” spending, amongst other serious issues like our standing as a nation in the world today. All despite the fact that, as David Marr put it in an Insight program on SBS TV, “without terrorists so much as setting off a fire-cracker” in Australia. A piece on how Australian’s are viewed around the world, but especially in our own neighbourhood might be quite revealing also.

There is plenty of footage available as evidenced by the number of movies, video clips, podcasts and the like available on the internet, and on DVD. There are also hundreds of web sites and a growing library of books.

I hope that the secret powers-that-be who seem to have great control over the output of mainstream media in the US and here in Australia have not been able to extend their “gag order” to your program, and that you will demonstrate your usual fearlessness in bringing the media to task, and informing the viewing public about the shortcomings of those charged with ensuring that all members of our democracy have access to all and any news, without fear or favour.

Glenn Treloar.

My Essay Follows:

Wrestling with 9/11
by Glenn Treloar, an earthman.

A study of a personal journey of discovery leading to a conviction that there is a serious and urgent need for new investigations into the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and to the downing of American Airlines Flight 93. That there is also a serious and urgent need for an investigation into the words and actions of several members of the current US administration and the military, as well as members of intelligence services of several countries and the USA, and several corporations and media organisations.

There have been moments when I have seriously doubted my own powers of deduction in the past few months, and I have wondered out loud whether I might be suffering some sort of mental disorder. Perhaps I am. Let the reader decide. Is my reasoning flawed or are we really witnessing the most audacious and chilling crime ever perpetrated against the people of not only the US, but of the entire world?

I have not included photographs, videos or diagrams, or links to specific items of interest in this essay. I have, however, at the end of the essay, listed some of the sites I visited and where I found interesting or compelling articles, papers, and photographs, as well as alleged video and audio evidence. I have also listed several movies and books on the subject.

The government of the USA, or elements within the current administration, were responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, and for the shooting down of American Airlines Flight 93, in order to garner support at home and abroad for the ensuing illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The official 9/11 Commission Report, the Federal Emergency Management Authority Building Performance Study report, and The National Institute of Standards and Technology WTC report all contain serious lies, distortions and omissions in support of an immense cover-up, also seemingly aided and abetted by the corporate controlled mainstream media.

How do I know these things are true? I don’t. I must rely only on my own judgement of the veracity of the information available to me via the mainstream media and via the internet. This is essentially what each of us must do. I do however have serious doubts as to how much help the mainstream media can be, given it has yet to deal with even the fact that there are thousands, and possibly already millions of people now asking some of these questions. What a scoop! Where are the paparazzi now?

If, after all, 9/11 actually was a false-flag operation, it will be to their eternal shame, that the mainstream media has failed spectacularly to record and report fearlessly probably the most serious crime ever perpetrated.

But, whilst I do not actually know the truth, I am very certain, given that there appear to be serious problems with the official accounts, and given the independent scientific analyses and witness reports becoming available, that there is a very real and urgent need for new and demonstrably independent investigations. There are many others who believe so too.

There are growing criticisms of the findings of the official reports, the structure, membership and scope of the commissions, the evidence available to investigators, the restrictions placed on investigators’ access to Ground Zero and other crash sites, the commission’s refusal to make public much evidence, as well as the confiscation, withholding and destruction of evidence. The use of gag orders is also noted.

The complete disregard shown by the Bush administration for well established protocols for the management and handling of crime scenes and air crash investigations comes in for particular criticism. It is even claimed that the administration’s actions in clearing the crime scenes and “crash sites” before any forensic examination could be carried out were in fact illegal.

That it took more than a year for the Bush administration to reluctantly set up, at the insistence of relatives of victims, the so-called 911 Commission, with markedly meagre funding, also comes in for widespread criticism.

There is also much criticism of the refusal by any members of these investigating bodies to debate their findings in public, and of the apparent ongoing reluctance by the administration to make evidence available.

This groundswell of concern is gaining momentum amongst the citizens of the world, and more importantly the citizens of the USA, who, in ever increasing numbers, are calling for a new investigation into the events leading up to, on, and since the eleventh of September, 2001.

Some commentators are seriously concerned that if the attacks in fact were part of a US managed false-flag operation, used to gain public support for the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, along with frightening political changes within the USA, and to a slightly lesser extent in Britain, Australia and other western democracies, then it is possible, maybe even highly probable, that a similar outrageous “terrorist” attack in the US or Europe might be planned.

These commentators believe that the administration’s current rhetoric to do with Iran is not dissimilar to the rhetoric they were spraying about the place regarding Afghanistan, the Taliban, Iraq and Saddam Hussein before the 9/11 attacks. They argue that this means the need for new, fully independent investigations is extremely urgent. Watch out for an “Iranian sponsored nuclear incident” some time before the Iranian/Venezuelan bourse scraps the US dollar for the euro.

In my own reading of the information to this point, there is no way that anyone applying even the most basic commonsense reasoning to the actions of these groups and individuals as reported could believe anything other than that there is in fact a very real need for great concern. Of equal concern to me is the veracity or lack thereof, of the reports commissioned by the US government, supposedly to truthfully explain to the American people what happened on that dark day.

Basically the official reports would have us believe that the twin towers were brought down by a gravity driven collapse sequence, initiated by the impact of a large commercial aircraft into one wall, taking out several core as well as outer wall support columns, and the resulting fires fuelled by jet fuel (kerosene) and building contents heating the remaining structural steel components to the point where they were so weakened they gave way, leading to the global collapse and destruction of the entire structure. The 911 Commission Report does not even mention the collapse of Building Seven later in the day, and the FEMA report states that the only scenario they considered for the collapse of that building did not have much likelihood of occurrence. Huh? As well, we should remember no plane hit Building Seven.

The reports claim the “collapse initiation sequence” they describe somehow accounts for the almost free-fall speed of the resulting collapses, as well as for the complete pulverisation to powder of well over 100,000 tonnes of concrete floors, plus interior walls, doors, windows, and office furniture, as well as for breaking up steel sections into manageable lengths for removal, and the creation of vast pyroclastic clouds of dust and debris which even flowed out over the Hudson River.

Every day there are more people who come to the conclusion that the findings of these official documents are entirely unsatisfactory, and do not truthfully explain what happened on September 11, 2001.

The many groups and individuals joining the chorus to demand new investigations into all aspects of the attacks are beginning to be seen as a movement. As yet a disparate and disorganised movement often referred to as the 911 Truth Movement, but a movement nonetheless.

My introduction to this ongoing search for believable explanations was with my, by chance, catching a documentary called “911 In Plane Site” late one evening on SBS television some months ago. It has been replayed again recently, and the lack of a reported response to it again must mean I am the only person who was watching on both occasions, or people just do not see the danger now facing the world.

I came away from that viewing convinced that there really is serious reason for concern, and also convinced that it was not American Airlines Boeing 757-200 Flight 77 being piloted by an Arab terrorist that smashed into the western wall of the Pentagon. However, I was not convinced that there was anything too suspicious about the official version of the destruction of the WTC, and I was still incredulous of the allegation that insiders were actually involved.

At the time I did not have an internet connection, and apart from an occasional rant I would inflict upon disbelieving and incredulous family and friends and the occasional stranger, I did not really think all that much about it. I had not at that point even surmised that if it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon then it was possible and even likely that at least some of the other allegations alluded to in the documentary might also be worth investigating. At that point I think I was still of the opinion that there were some discrepancies in the official stories being released, but I supposed that was maybe to be expected under the circumstances of what I still basically believed was actually an attack carried out by Arab terrorists, and that Osama Bin Laden was most likely the mastermind.

I admit I was already suspicious of the Bush administration due to my belief that there are serious issues still to be played out regarding what might to all intents and purposes be described as a coup rather than an election when they first seized power. I am still amazed that the American people allowed that “election” result to stand, and that there has to this day still not been any noticeable attempt to have that result over-turned. I am assuming that is mostly to do with my ignorance of the political process in the US. I hope so.

I still did not, however, really believe that elements within the Bush administration were involved not only with allowing the attacks to take place, but were involved in the planning and execution of the attacks, and were now actively involved in a very determined, and thus far successful, avoidance of free and fair discussion, in aid of a massive cover-up.

That began to change as I read more and more of the written information appearing on the internet, and as I viewed more of the video evidence, and listened to more audio evidence from that day and days leading up to it. I downloaded and watched and listened to seminars, interviews, and news updates, and I continued to search online for any verification I could find for any of the information I found compelling.

Sadly there was none of this information being disseminated by the mainstream media, and it concerns me that there still is very little of this easily accessed and in many cases easily verifiable information getting to the masses. This is a serious indictment of the existing media organisations, and especially of arguments for any changes to media rules in Australia, which will further centralise ownership. Especially since such centralisation invariably works in favour of groups close to the media owners. Somebody should investigate and write an article about how the 911 issue actually proves that a corporative and highly centralised media does not work in the best interests of society. It merely becomes a tool for marketers and propagandists.

The first article I read on the internet and the evidence it presented and linked to, actually lead me to question the “In Plane Site” video, and whether I was right to believe it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, because there was a probability that the “no plane theory” was, and is, a straw man being used by the administration to create doubt in the community, and to add to the lack of credibility attributed to much maligned “conspiracy theories”

The author asserted that rather than waste time trying to decipher the perhaps questionable evidence for the “no plane theory” it would be better spent looking at issues for which the amount of empirical evidence was growing and which was less contentious.

Further reading of the information on that first site whet my appetite to learn more, mainly because I had not really thought about the actual collapses of the buildings, or the fact that the ENTIRE World Trade Centre site had been destroyed. Even one 47 storey building that was part of the complex, and was owned by the same people who had only recently taken over the rest of the WTC, but which was physically on another block about 100 metres from the twin towers, mysteriously collapsed at almost free-fall speed, and almost completely within it’s own footprint, several hours after the towers collapsed, in a way reminiscent to many witnesses, and as seen on existing video footage, of controlled demolitions.

In hindsight, my missing the point about the evidence of demolition might be an example of the straw man at work. Because I was concentrating on things that concerned the actual impacts, rather than on the actual destruction of the buildings, I had not seen that there is glaringly obvious evidence for the possibility that at the very least, one controlled demolition of a steel framed high rise building had occurred that day.

Jim Hoffman, the author of the above mentioned article, suggested that there was far more reliable evidence for the hypothesis that the twin towers and building seven at the WTC were brought down by a controlled demolition process than by the very unlikely process described in the official reports. Other compelling information on this site included Hoffmann’s calculation of the energy required to form the vast pyroclastic clouds seen billowing over and covering much of Lower Manhattan that day.

My searches for more evidence for the “controlled demolition theory” lead me to a number of sites. The most convincing for me was the site for The Journal of 9/11 Studies, which presents several very interesting and compelling peer-reviewed papers by respected scientists and engineers. Reading all of the papers on that site convinced me that if the evidence cited is real, and the mathematics can be corroborated, then the official reports are severely flawed and that all three of the buildings that collapsed that day were brought down by controlled demolition.

Other articles discussed the highly unusual, near free-fall speed of all three building collapses, their close resemblance to observed controlled demolitions of other buildings, as well as other serious anomalies contained in the official reports. Also discussed are energy audits considering the physical laws of conservation of momentum and conservation of energy, which I found very compelling in their descriptions of and proofs for the energy required to achieve the several components of the collapse of all three of the buildings which did collapse.

My understanding of the physics involved is limited, but I believe good enough to see that the energy required to achieve all of the components of the collapses that were witnessed that day is far greater than would be available in a gravity driven collapse, initiated by the impact and resultant fire caused by the aircraft crashing into the buildings. Building Seven is a special case as it was not hit by a plane.

It was at this site I had my introduction to the work of Steven Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University in Utah who claims there is unmistakeable evidence for the use of high temperature “cutter” charges in the collapse of all three of the WTC high-rises. This implicitly shows that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition, not by the impact of a large air-craft and relatively low temperature and short-lived fires and gravity as stated in the official report.

Professor Jones’ paper points to what could very well be irrefutable evidence of the use of a particular class of explosive commonly used in controlled demolition. And by the military. There is also a great deal of video, photographic and anecdotal evidence showing that there were several indicators present, on the day and in the weeks after, of the use of this type of demolition.

In his peer reviewed (three times) paper Professor Jones points to flows of molten metal seen, photographed and filmed pouring from the buildings. He also cites irrefutable evidence of hot spots under the pile of rubble left after the collapse of all three buildings, imaged by NASA satellites, and large pools of molten metal under the rubble, witnessed by clean-up crews for weeks after 911. Video footage of flows of molten metal flowing from windows just before the collapses compares remarkably with video footage of a thermite reaction. This does not rule out the use of more modern types of chemicals with similar properties, as used in advanced military weapons. The professor and some of his students carried out several experiments based on metallurgical principles and using well established colour indications to determine the temperature of the metal and the most likely major component of the molten metal.

It is far more likely that the molten metal seen flowing from the buildings and the molten mass at the base of all three buildings is the molten iron produced in thermite or thermate type reactions, than molten aluminium as asserted by the official reports.

In what I feel are very disturbing circumstances, the day after I read his paper, Professor Jones was stood down from his position at BYU pending a further review of his work on this issue. More will come of this I am certain.

Other papers available on the site include equally compelling discussions of the physics of the observed collapses, including a discussion of the observed evidence for the controlled demolition of all three WTC buildings which collapsed and of the implication of complicity of elements within the US administration and others, by Frank Legge, an engineer from Perth in Western Australia.

There is also mathematical analyses of the momentum transfer in a gravity driven collapse by Gordon Ross, who holds degrees in mechanical and manufacturing engineering, which shows that the energy created by a large section of the building above the crash site falling onto the lower section of the building after the instantaneous removal of a single floor dividing them, would not be enough to cause the lower section to globally collapse. In a second paper, replying to criticism of his original work, Mr Ross easily dispenses with what appears to even a laymen like myself to be an inept attempt by a physical chemist from Canada, Mr Frank R. Greening, to explain away evidence rather than explain it.

In my layman’s view, the initial impact of the aircraft and the jet fuel and office contents may have added to very slight weaknesses in the building’s structural elements, but nowhere near enough to cause the large number of the 47 massive core support columns and the roughly 75% of perimeter columns intact after the impact, all fire rated steel components, across an entire floor, to suddenly collapse. Even if that completely implausible collapse were to occur, there is no way for it to account for the complete destruction of a 110 storey steel-framed building, twice, and other phenomena seen that day.

Gordon Ross again, in two excellent articles on another site, presents a well researched and completely feasible step by step hypothesis of how the observed collapses might technically have been achieved, and he also shows that the total amount of gravitational energy available when the potential energy contained in the upper section of the building is converted to the kinetic energy of the fall and impact with the lower section, is not nearly enough to achieve the observed destruction. There is no way for it to account for the energy needed to break up the main support structures, core and perimeter, into relatively short lengths, and pulverise the concrete floors and building contents and windows to dust, and to create the explosive ejections seen throughout the collapses, and then still provide the heat required to form the vast pyroclastic clouds of dust and minute debris which had a distinct resemblance to the pyroclastic flows often accompanying volcanic eruptions, and often associated with explosive/implosive demolitions of buildings.

To learn also that in the history of steel framed high rise buildings throughout the world until and since September 11th, 2001 there has never been a complete, global collapse of a steel framed building due to anything other than controlled demolition was a revelation. It is also a fact that there has never been a global collapse which displayed all the characteristics of a controlled demolition that was not a controlled demolition. On that one day in September not one, but three, steel framed buildings controlled by the same owner/lessee completely collapsed mostly into their own footprint, in what to me by this time, appeared to have all the hallmarks of a controlled demolition as described and as shown in various videos.

Some articles discussed the implausibility of the findings presented in the official reports by the 9/11 Commission, FEMA and NIST. All had apparently produced reports with the semblance of political investigations wherein supposed facts are selected to support a pre-conceived conclusion, as opposed to scientific investigations where a conclusion is drawn after a study of the facts. On reading some of the excerpts from the reports discussed by the authors of these articles I am amazed that anyone, especially engineers and scientists, actually believed the findings presented in the official reports, so obviously flawed from a scientific point of view.

Learning that the 9/11 commission was composed of people with dubious connections under the circumstances, and of all the restrictions placed on investigators, plus the hasty and closely controlled removal of crucial items of evidence, added to my understanding of why the report was held in such contempt by a growing number of people concerned about these issues. It certainly added to the doubt I had that a commission composed of and chaired by people with either very close ties to the Bush administration and/or obvious conflicts of interest could or would present findings not consistent with the official narrative.

By this time I was almost convinced that all the real evidence showed that there were real anomalies with the officially accepted theory that the buildings collapsed due to gravitational forces acting upon a structure severely weakened by intense fires fuelled by jet fuel and the contents of offices. Later amended to include aluminium from the fuselage and frame of the impacting plane, when it was shown that fires fuelled by jet fuel and office contents would not reach the temperatures required to weaken the 47 massive fire rated steel columns in the core as well as the estimated 75 per cent of the more than 200 perimeter columns which were not damaged in the impact.

The way in which the commission especially has not answered critics directly, but addresses any embarrassing queries by posing its own carefully worded, but nonetheless obviously self serving questions, is another example of how many supporters of the official narrative seem unable to just come out and discuss or debate the issues in full view of the public, to be reported in the mainstream media.

I also watched video of the collapses again and again, and the evidence for explosive demolition is in my view almost overwhelming. Added to the scientific studies of the physics involved, the evidence for the use of thermites or thermates, and the oral histories of rescue workers and others, I was now convinced that the three buildings that collapsed at the WTC were in fact brought down by controlled demolition. And if thousands of laymen like me can come reasonably to these conclusions, using little more than common-sense, this surely is argument enough for another in depth and far reaching investigation.

It should at the very least have a few so-called investigative journalists working for the mainstream media asking questions and demanding the publication of more work critical of the official line. I cannot believe that all journalists have sold out to the extent that the current coverage seems to indicate.

So, after weeks of trolling for information on the internet, and viewing, reading and listening to criticism of and support for the three US government authorised reports, weighing the mountain of observational, empirical and circumstantial evidence for believing that WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7 were all destroyed by controlled demolition, and the lack of same, plus the obvious reluctance of the administration for proper investigations, and the obvious use of gag orders, misinformation and ad hominem attacks on people with dissenting views, I feel certain that internationally convened panels of experts in the relevant fields, reviewing all the available evidence would find that the WTC was deliberately destroyed using controlled demolition techniques disguised by the deliberate crashing of aircraft into the twin towers.

In conclusion, I will state that I have no faith whatsoever that the three officially authorised investigations into 911 are genuine attempts to discover and explain the truth about what happened leading up to, on, and since September 11, 2001.

I find that the explanations provided by these reports for the collapse of three steel framed buildings on that one day are completely implausible, and not based on good scientific research or engineering principles. I also find that there are good arguments and good evidence for the contention that processes other than those mentioned by the official reports were far more likely to have caused the ultimate destruction of the entire WTC site. And I believe that until there is a full and open enquiry, political decisions being made throughout the world, and not just in the US, are open to the charge that they are based on a lie, and therefore are not valid.

This conclusion inevitably raises the questions of why such an attack was staged, who had the wherewithal and the capacity to pull off such an outrageous attack, and most important, who benefited when the smoke cleared.

It also raises the possibility that other contentious issues for which the official reports have highly suspect explanations, and which are also being disputed by a growing number and cross-section of concerned citizens world-wide are worthy of further investigation, discussion and debate.

In this essay, I have concentrated on my current understanding of only the building collapses at the World Trade Center, but there are a number of other very serious issues that need to be looked at more closely by more scientists, engineers, political scientists, police and other scholars.

In my next essay I intend to detail my own attempts to arrive at a satisfactory explanation for what happened at the Pentagon. In other essays, I will look at the actual hijackings and hijackers, “war game drills” carried out that day, suspected pre-positioning of crucial personnel, changes to standing orders, evidence of complicity, and reported links between al Quaeda, ISI, Mossad, MI5, MI6, NSA, CIA, FBI and other intelligence services, the supposed hijackers, government departments and conspicuous individuals.

The similarities between a plan laid out in the defining document of an extreme right wing think tank called the Project for a New American Century and recent events is also worth an essay, if not a full-blown investigative piece by a respected member of the mainstream media. In fact, the implication of complicity inherent in the mainstream media’s adherence to the official line and ignorance of alternative views is difficult to ignore, and is worthy of a book, let alone an essay.

Hopefully somebody will soon also look into our own government’s jumping onto the US bandwagon, taking political advantage, passing draconian “security” laws, making obscene increases in “defence” spending, and attacking civil liberties. Such a task is yet beyond my abilities as a researcher and writer.

I could go on. But I’m tired. Just go and have a look for yourself. If this essay has been of any help in your own search for the truth, have a read of my next essay, “What Actually Happened at the Pentagon?” which will be posted on this site soon.

Postscript: Since completing this essay I came across an interesting essay on another blog by 911oz, which put forward good arguments, with which I agree, for not pushing too hard for immediate investigations, but rather to keep on gathering evidence and witness testimony, and on swelling the numbers of ordinary citizens, academics, scientists, engineers, and politicians calling for more immediate solutions like grand juries for impeachment, and possibly even for criminal prosecution on charges including treason and mass murder.