9/11 and the Evidence

http://vdare.com/roberts/070326_evidence.htm

March 26, 2007

9/11 and the Evidence

By Paul Craig Roberts

Professor David Ray Griffin is the nemesis of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory. In his latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Griffin destroys the credibility of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Popular Mechanics reports, annihilates his critics, and proves himself to be a better scientist and engineer than the defenders of the official story.

Griffin’s book is 385 pages divided into four chapters and containing 1,209 footnotes. Without question, the book is the most thorough presentation and examination of all known facts about the 9/11 attacks. Griffin is a person who is sensitive to evidence, logic, and scientific reasoning. There is no counterpart on the official side of the story who is as fully informed on all aspects of the attacks as Griffin.

At the outset, Griffin points out that the reader’s choice is between two conspiracy theories: One is that Muslim fanatics, who were not qualified to fly airplanes, defeated the security apparatus of the US and succeeded in three out of four attacks using passenger jets as weapons. The other is that security failed across the board, not merely partially but totally, because of complicity of some part of the US government.

Griffin points out that there has been no independent investigation of 9/11. What we have are a report by a political commission headed by Bush administration factotum Philip Zelikow, a NIST report produced by the Bush administration’s Department of Commerce, and a journalistic account produced by Popular Mechanics. Various scientists who work for the federal government or are dependent on government grants have issued speculative statements in behalf of the official conspiracy theory, but have not produced meaningful evidence in its behalf.

The relevant skeptics of the official story are approximately 100 independent researchers consisting of experts and professors whose careers have required them to deal with evidence and its analysis. Their individual contributions to 9/11 analysis can be found online.

Griffin has undertaken to absorb the arguments and evidence for the official account and the arguments and evidence against it. In his latest book, which has just been released, he presents the case for the official account and its evidential failure.

Polls show that 36% of Americans do not believe the official story. Setting aside the 25% of the public that is so uninformed or uninvolved as to believe that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attack, leaves 39% of the public who believe the official story. However, this 39% is essentially relying on the mainstream media’s endorsement of the official story. Griffin believes, perhaps naively, that truth can prevail, and it is his commitment to truth that has motivated him to shoulder the enormous task.

Everyone who believes in the integrity of the US government or the Bush administration will find Griffin’s book to be disturbing. Readers will have to confront such issues as why US authorities seized the forensic evidence resulting from the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, the attack on the Pentagon and the crashed airliner in Pennsylvania and prevented any forensic examination of any part of the 9/11 attacks.

Despite widespread belief that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the attack, the evidence we have is a suspect video declared to be "bogus" by Bruce Lawrence, perhaps the leading American expert on bin Laden. The US government has never produced the promised report on bin Laden’s responsibility. When the Taliban offered to hand over bin Laden on presentation of evidence, the US government had no evidence to deliver; thus the invasion of Afghanistan.

The fragility of the NIST report is astonishing. The report succeeded because people accepted its assurances without examination.

Griffin shows that the Popular Mechanics report consists of special pleading, circular reasoning, appeals to the authority of the NIST report, straw men, and internal contradictions in the report itself.

There is not space in a review to present the evidence Griffin has mustered. A few highlights should suffice to alert readers to the possibility that the Bush administration has lied about more than Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

The two WTC towers did not collapse. They blew up and disintegrated, as did WTC 7. There is an enormous energy deficit in every account that rules out the use of explosives. Gravitational energy is insufficient to explain the pulverization of the buildings and contents and the severing of the 47 massive center core steel columns in each of the towers into convenient lengths to be picked up and loaded onto trucks; much less can gravitational energy account for the pulverization of the top floors of the towers and ejection of steel beams hundreds of feet horizontally just prior to the disintegration of the floors below.

Damage caused by airliners and short-lived limited fires cannot explain the disintegration of the buildings. The massive steel skeletons of the towers comprised a gigantic heat sink that wicked away whatever heat the limited fires produced.

NIST’s final report stated that of the steel available to it for examination, "only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250 degrees Celsius" (482 degrees Fahrenheit). The self-cleaning ovens in our home kitchens reach temperatures higher than this, and the ovens do not melt or deform.

Steel begins to melt at 1,500 degrees C or 2,800 degrees F. Temperatures of 250 degrees C would have no effect on the strength of steel. The explanation that the buildings collapsed because fire weakened the steel is speculative. Open air fires do not produce temperatures sufficient to deprive steel of its structural integrity. Steel framed buildings have burned 22 hours in raging infernos, and the steel skeletons remained standing. The WTC fires in the towers lasted about one hour and were limited to a few floors. Moreover, it is impossible for fire to account for the sudden, total and symmetrical disintegration of powerfully constructed buildings, much less at free fall speeds that are obtainable only with controlled demolition.

Griffin provides quotes from firefighters, police, and tenants, who heard and experienced a series of explosions prior to the disintegration of the towers. Such witness testimony is generally ignored by defenders of the official conspiracy theory.

Molten steel was found in underground levels of the WTC buildings weeks after the buildings’ destruction. As everyone agrees that the fires did not approach the melting point of steel, a possible explanation is high explosives used in demolitions that produce 5,000 degree temperatures. The possibility that explosives were used remains unexamined except by independent researchers.

Contradictions in the official conspiracy theory leap off the pages and hit the reader in the face. For example, the evidence that Flight 77, a Boeing 757, crashed into the Pentagon is the government’s claim to have obtained from the wreckage enough bodies and body parts to match the DNA for each person on the passenger list and flight crew. Simultaneously, the absence of passenger luggage, fuselage, wing and tail sections--indeed the absence of a 100,000 pound airliner--is attributed to the vaporization of the airplane due to the high speed crash and intense fire. The incompatibility of vaporized metal but recovered flesh and blood stood unnoticed until Griffin pointed it out.

Another striking inconsistency in the official conspiracy theory is the difference in the impact of airliners on the Pentagon and the WTC towers. In the case of the Pentagon, the emphasis is on why the airliner caused so little damage to the building. In the case of the WTC towers, the emphasis is why the airliners caused so much damage.

Perhaps it is merely a coincidence that just prior to 9/11 Cathleen P. Black, who has family connections to the CIA and Pentagon and is president of Hearst Magazines, the owner of Popular Mechanics, fired the magazine’s editor-in-chief and several senior veteran staff members and installed James B. Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of Bush administration factotum Michael Chertoff. It was Meigs and Benjamin Chertoff who produced the Popular Mechanics report that Griffin has eviscerated.

In his conclusion Griffin reminds us that the 9/11 attack has been used to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to plan an attack on Iran, to curtail constitutional protections and civil liberties in the US, to radically expand US military budgets and the power of the executive, and to enrich entrenched vested interests. Griffin is definitely correct about this regardless of whether a believable case can ever be made for the government’s version of the 9/11 conspiracy.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

I hope...

This statement, "Without question, the book is the most thorough presentation and examination of all known facts about the 9/11 attacks" is accurate. I hope it isn't just a book about CD and the Pentagon.


"So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Richard Cheney - Chief Executive Of Halliburton

probably not

shouldn't the title already answer that for you? It's about what has been attempted to be debunked by backers of the official theory.

The evidence you are referring to hasn't really even been attempted to be debunked.

I thought that's what the

I thought that's what the 9/11 Commission Report was for....

/////////////////////
911dvds@gmail.com - $1 DVDs shipped - email for info

Jon, I don't know about you, but everything that Griffin has

done so far regarding 9/11 has been fantastic to me!

Why...

Do you think I think otherwise? Incidentally, voice morphing wasn't so fantastic. I have the utmost respect for DRG, and he knows that. I have repeatedly said that when all is said and done, in the years to come, DRG will be mentioned in the same breath as Ghandi, MLK, and others. All I did was voice my concern based on PCR's write up, yet now, people are assuming that I'm against the great DRG.

Not everything is so freaking black and white people.


"So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Richard Cheney - Chief Executive Of Halliburton

David Ray Griffin books,

David Ray Griffin books, especially a New Pearl Harbor and Omissions and Distortions are important books, however his work is not perfect. On more than one occassion I've seen him slip, heard him support positions that were too speculative. His take on the tape recordings from the flights, for instance, was not cautious enough. And there was an article recently criticizing his essay Tikkun, and I thought it raised valid points.

That doesn't mean I don't like David Ray Griffin, but rather that I don't think he's infallible.

No one is...

I make mistakes all of the time. It's part of being a human being. However, my intentions, just like DRG's, are as noble as could be.


"So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

Richard Cheney - Chief Executive Of Halliburton

Wet blanket

Depressing to read that.

Are the 911-truthers able to stop a new War ?

"In his conclusion Griffin reminds us that the 9/11 attack has been used to start wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, to plan an attack on Iran,..."

NEWS:
"WASHINGTON DC, -- The long awaited US military attack on Iran is now on track for the first week of April, specifically for 4 am on April 6, the Good Friday opening of Easter weekend, writes the well-known Russian journalist Andrei Uglanov in the Moscow weekly “Argumenty Nedeli.” Uglanov cites Russian military experts close to the Russian General Staff for his account.
........
The story is the top item on numerous Italian and German blogs, but so far appears to have been ignored by US websites."

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1888.shtml

"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The U.S. Navy on Tuesday began its largest demonstration of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by a pair of aircraft carriers and backed by warplanes flying simulated attack maneuvers off the coast of Iran."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/27/AR200703...


"... a somewhat unfamiliar conception for the average mind." (mp3)
Albert Einstein

oh God

and today's lead story on MSNBC is about the USA's show of force conducting war maneuvers off the Iranian coast.

The situation is so volatile and dangerous. i do not even want to think about what will happen in a war with Iran.

911 Truth is reaching critical mass. it really truly is. and it could be that the rude awakening that 911 Truth could bring to the public could be the FINAL last straw that literally overturns this political paradigm. people are so fed up and angry that a real 911 breakthrough could ignite a political firestorm that could literally affect the outcome of world events.

Imagine that.

would that were true, but check this out

Perhaps this is a limitation of partisan politics--it cannot handle issues that transcend politics.  There is no question in anyone's mind I would think, that what happened on 9/11 was a crime no matter who did it.  Or that it is of the utmost importance to be absolutely certain of who did it.  That is the only question that concerns me at the moment because frankly that is the key to stopping the worst excesses of this criminal administration.  In order to have vigorous and contentious debates with those who believe gay people are degenerates or taxes should be eliminated, we need to know that our country and form of government are safe and based on sound information.

You are entitled to justify however you wish your reluctance to address the only question I'm posing, which is what actually happened on 9/11 and who was responsible.  You can say it is because what I am saying is absurd on its face, or because you think it hurts Democrats.  But in the end this amounts to avoidance of the question.  That's perfectly OK if you're right and I'm wrong, but if that's the case, why do you dodge it?

Posted on Mon, 03/26/2007 - 3:04pm by Markus Kolic

Thanks in turn for your reply.

It becomes clear that we're talking past each other as soon as you mention "issues that transcend politics." I do not believe there is such as a thing as "issues that transcend politics." Everything is political. Reality is political (and at the moment, highly contested).

Hence it's only natural that, though I agree with you on many of the problems of the day -- the military-industrial complex, elite control of access to power, mass disillusionment, the dictatorship of no alternatives, etc. -- I think the only feasible solution to these problems lies within partisan politics. More specifically, the solution to these problems lies in a grassroots movement to take popular control of the machinery of power; and the most sensible path there is through the Democratic Party, which is rusty and creaky but which can be a real voice for the people with a few years/decades of work. This is what Kos and Armstrong call "crashing the gate," and it's already starting.

So naturally, I'm not addressing your question about 9/11. I can't. I have only a vague understanding of your argument, and I have not critically looked into either your or the establishment's contentions. This is because, put as bluntly as possible, I don't care. I don't care in the same way that I don't care who shot Kennedy, what's the secret ingredient in Coca-Cola, or why they cancelled Arrested Development; it's just not relevant.

I think that's the basic, intractable difference between us; we have different concepts of what is and is not relevant to change. Thankfully the area where we step on each others' toes is fairly small, so we can each go about our political business independently. Maybe your approach will have more impact on the public, I can't be sure. If you manage to stop the war and fix the government, then bravo, I'll have to rethink some of my philosophy. But meanwhile, our attempts to convert each other are just futile, and we're both wasting intellectual energy that would be better spent in pursuit of our respective causes.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

Who?

RT, who are you quoting here?

I think it is a representative viewpoint that we somehow must address. Although the person says we will never succeed in softening the stance.

Who wrote this to you?

______________________________________
"Evil can only exist as long as we support it."
M.K. Gandhi

So shall we BOYCOTT THE MSM?

Markus Kolic of the Harvard Dems

______________

interns < internets

that's right

thanks Bruce. their blog is at www.demapples.com

he's a good guy (much more open to this than any other "student opinion maker" I've encountered, but you can see how difficult he finds the whole thing, to tie himself up in such illogical knots. it should be noted in any case that I've had a few conversations with students who AREN'T pretending to any kind of leadership and they are down with the truth, but other than word of mouth and maybe some posting of links to loose change on student BBSs I'm not sure what they might be thinking in terms of action.

it's a lot like gardening--seed the area and try to provide constant nurturing of the environment to see what grows...

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

good...but naive

he's parroting the Chomster here: "I don't care who did 9/11 and it doesn't matter."

Maybe it really doesn't matter for Mr. Kolic who pulls the strings of the administration and the MSM, and maybe he will even get somewhere without ever acknowledging reality, but chances for that are as slim as a controlled demolition occurring spontaneously.

I think he's mentally incapable of "going there", as to why I can only speculate. Might be everything from lack of imagination to fear of exposing himself as merely a useful idiot in the stageplay called partisan politics. I tend to believe the latter...

PS: I now hear "Doctor Greenthumb" in my head
______________

interns < internets

Volatile

It's only volatile from the US's point of view.
Iran wouldn't be so stupid as to attack any of our ships (from the point of view of an oil supplier, that is).
If any attacks occur, you can bet it'll be a self-inflicted wound.

I realize we don't directly purchase oil from Iran, but they sell it to a major chunk of the rest of the world. I often say that it would be like Walmart floor managers shooting customers as they come through the door. Iran is in a far better position to sell oil than wage war. The recent snatching of Brits in their waters benefitted their oil sales and ours. Win/win.

I would hate to be a sailor off their shore at the mercy of some false flag attack.

our color coded False Flag Alert System

is blinking red

US still owns interest

in Irans oil fields. Last time I heard.

Wondering if Ahmadinijad is the new Saddam. He seems to be doing everything just short of shooting at us.

This seems like provocation..... everything this guy does and the way the MSM spins it just seems suspicious.

I'm aware that the world is a theater. Is Iran getting thrown under the bus for globalist interests?

This issue just seems a means to divide the people and cause a revolt here in the US. They are trying very hard to break the camels back. One way or another.

I have to look at the big picture here. Go to the end game and work backwards. I really think that they are prepared to go to the bunkers and let this whole thing implode. Letting us tear each other appart.... while they watch.
___________________
Together in Truth!

i sometimes think

that the whole world is in on this campaign to destroy or at least seriously weaken America. Heck, may not even be such a bad idea in principle, until you think about it. The idea it seems is to so weaken and divide the American populace that we are unable to effectively control the massive arsenal at our disposal.

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

Show "The destruction of the US _is_ the agenda of the Jesuits" by Brend

Huh?

If you want to see who's busy destroying America, just take a look at the current misleadership, who seek not so much to weaken and divide us as to terrorize and bankrupt us, the better to effectively institute a dictatorship. The problem that I see with the U.S. populace isn't that it's being weakened and divided, but rather that too many still buy into government and media propaganda without question. The rest of the world, meanwhile, has its plate full trying to position itself in response to the neocon quest for 'full spectrum dominance'.

maybe not the whole world but,

a powerful elite few who are hellbent on doing whatever it takes to effectively weaken us so that we cannot resist the final death blow to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, nor the foreign and domestic troops that will be swarming amongst us eating out our substance and dragging us into the North American Union.

--
The true threat to liberty comes not from terrorists but from our political leaders whose natural inclination is to seize upon any excuse to diminish them.
~~ Walter Williams, Nightly Business Report, September 2001

John, you're into circumstantial evidence, why don't you do an

anthrax documentary on how our Gov't dropped that investigation like a hot potato once it was revealed to be a special U.S. military strain of the bacteria?

I for one would like to know who mailed deadly anthrax to Daschle, Leahy, and other enemies of the Bush regime!!!

Thanks

yes - i am planning to.

i am completing EGLS 2 that will premier during the Tribeca Film Festival again in Robert DeNiro's screening room. Hopefully this time it will get more attention.

The film delves extensively into the anthrax story. i have always felt this was one the biggest smoking guns of 9/11.

1 - The anthrax is a known US bioweapon strain.
2 - Marion Bowman of the FBI ordered the strain be destroyed after the attacks commenced. (this is the destruction of evidence by the FBI)
3 - Marion Bowman is the same FBI agent who obstructed the search warrant to search Zacharias Mousaoui's laptop.
4 - Dick Cheney's staff was ordered to go on Cipro in the weeks leading up to the attacks.
5 - The first person to die of anthrax was the Florida photo-editor for American Media, known for publishing the infamous 'humping drunk Bush twins' photos during the 2000 election.
6 - The targets of the anthrax attacks were liberal democrats in congress who opposed the Patriot act.
7 - no one has ever been held accountable despite the extremely limited number of places this anthrax could have come from. the anthrax itself could only have been handled by professionals, utilizing full bio-hazard moon suits.
8 - Despite the fact that the United States Congress was attacked with biological weapons - the FBI has treated this crime like a very low-profile low-priority crime.
9 - Congress has publicly accused the FBI of a cover-up.
10 - Americans continue to watch football and eat fried dough covered in cheese and grease, lamenting the recent elimination rounds on American Idol, while the anthrax attacks are completely forgotten and America prepares to launch a nuclear attack against Iran.

my film might be a little late in reporting #10

Anthrax

That's a very imressive list, John! I can't wait to see you

present that.

Did they expect us all to forget about those extremely suspicious anthrax attacks & just move on or something? No way!

I'm missing some things here

namely:

The Camel Club
Barbara Rosenberg
Philip Zack
Marian Rippy

In short: the Israel connection...

I hope you're not trying to be as "extensive" as the 9/11 Commission was.
______________

interns < internets

thanks Bruce--on the ball as usual!

I can't imagine an Anthrax Attack exposé that failed to mention those four. Well I can, but it would probably be like a 9/11 exposé that didn't mention building 7--you'd be like "uhhhhh, ok..."

____

Real Truther a.k.a. Verdadero Verdadero

WTCdemolition.com - Harvard Task Force

 

Jerome Hauer?

--
The true threat to liberty comes not from terrorists but from our political leaders whose natural inclination is to seize upon any excuse to diminish them.
~~ Walter Williams, Nightly Business Report, September 2001

iran

im no expert, but i think whoever orchestrated or was involved in 9/11 on 'our side' is clever enough to take care of any threat from a '9/11 truth movement'.

arturo -

Please explain what you mean.

What was it about 9/11 that made you question the government myth?

I hope that you and yours are well.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

the current '9/11 truth

the current '9/11 truth movement' as we know it, would be more than well-accounted for in the future plans of anyone who would orchestrate these attacks.

if the truth is finally outed about the 'government myth', it could be exactly the kind of catalyst for the next severe restriction of freedom.

it could result in complete societal collapse.

ie: if you can pull this off, you're probably someone who REALLY plans ahead.

"he who seeks to be honest amongst bad men procures his own destruction."

"the truth setting us free" and "love being the only way forward" kinda sounds like stumbling blindly off a cliff right now.
But thanks for the well-wishes : )

If his past books are any indication...

no.

He usually provides a very broad analysis, including quite a bit if US history.

Detailed Analysis of NORAD standdown...

I hope it isn't just a book about CD and the Pentagon. -Jon Gold

Jon, I believe the book's first chapter will be a detailed analysis of the nation's air defense system to the hijackings and the evidence of a NORAD stand down. For this analysis, DRG relies on the expert consultation of former Boston Center controller Robin Hordon.

Although

...I have'nt had a chance to read it....I would bet any amount that DRG did his homework.
This is one they will run like hell from talking about.....Plug this book Hannity!!!!

RE: new News articles about the US preparing to attack Iran

This is only a gut reaction of mine...but the fact that Gonzales is being allowed to hold off on his testimony until April 17th...does this raise concerns with anyone else??? It seems a strategic move that is bigger than Gonzales...or his partisan firing of attorneys.

Especially, in light of these new international postings / warnings about the US attacking Iran on the 6th of April? And the Brits being on the edge of attacking Iran, over their boys being held captive (which could be reason enough for the US to join in on the "fun"). ..It seems that Gonzales might be trying to hold the limelight off himself until after that timeframe because if/when we do attack Iran, nobody will have the time, let alone continue to care about his "criminal" behavior... he will be "saved by the bomb" so to speak. Meanwhile, he will continue to do GW & Cheney's bidding (whatever that might entail).

Because the White House has been caught off guard (with this attorney firing situation) and Gonzales still has a lot of loose ends to tie up before he is ousted, they need to buy him time. This is why I have concern. This guy needs to be removed now, before he has a chance to "legally" clean up their mess.

Monica Goodling, taking the 5th...same thing...buying time.

We must stay focused on our own goal of educating the public by breaking through the bounds of the MSM and garner attention. We must continue to demand that our representatives hold a "real" and "impartial" investigation into the events surrounding 9-11. The people are starting to wake up. A war in Iran will make them ever more alert to the fact that this battle we are waging in the mid-East has been a deliberate plan from the start.

One's "gut reaction" is a good indicator of forecasting the weather. Time to either batten down the hatches and wait out the storm or get out there and continue demanding accountability of the officials running our government.

Maybe Gonzales testimony delayed because...

Taxpayers Have Until April 17 to File and Pay

Wouldn't want to disrupt the flow now, would they?

--
The true threat to liberty comes not from terrorists but from our political leaders whose natural inclination is to seize upon any excuse to diminish them.
~~ Walter Williams, Nightly Business Report, September 2001

David Ray Griffin

It must be embarrassing. When I think of all the articles that have been written. All the news shows been taped. All the pundits willing to pretend they don’t know better. It must be embarrassing that it can all so easily be shown to be a lie in a few paragraphs by a former Deputy Treasury Secretary writing about the recent book by the great David Ray Griffin.

The great Paul Craig Roberts....

...just makes it look easy.....

:)

he brings it every time.....

Read

I have already read, ‘The New Pearl Harbor’ and ‘Omissions and Distortions.’
I cannot wait for the new book.