A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.Do I share this view? By no means!
Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7.
If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."
Then why discuss the matter here? Because Moon apparently wants us to believe in this "controlled demolition" nonsense. The question is: Why?
Although I've long felt that many aspects of the 9/11 disaster remain mysterious, my concerns revolve around such issues the movements, associations and funding of the terrorists. Allegations of a controlled demolition always struck me as absurd. How could so many explosive charges be smuggled into buildings teeming with workers? (Bringing down a skyscraper is no covert op!)
What would have been the point of a controlled demolition? The image of jets slamming into the twin towers provided all the necessary cause for war; the presumed master planners of this conspiracy had no need to reduce the buildings to rubble.
Daniel Hopsicker has argued that the 9/11 "truth movement" is a misnomer. This growing movement -- which, in his view, resembles a UFO cult -- focuses on the more outlandish claims while ignoring the subtler, and more provable, irregularities in the official story. In Hopsicker's view, we should concentrate on such matters as Mohammed Atta's links to a "flight school" with clear CIA associations.
Hopsicker has made some charges that I consider overblown; for example, he has issued dark insinuations -- unjustified insinuations, in my view -- about Fred Burks, with whom I've had some cordial correspondence. But Hopsicker is surely on firmer ground when he casts a wary eye toward the notorious Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, who (Hopsicker claims) has helped to fund this "truth movement."
And now Moon has gotten into the act.
Even in the realm of samizdat, we have to choose wisely: There's the real samizdat, and then there's the "approved" samizdat.
17 comments:
I agree, it is puzzling to try to understand what the Moonies might be up to in publicizing this take on the fall of the towers.
However, that does not mean that the argument is not valid, which see.
If it is true, as this apparently highly credentialed former Bush administration official alleges, if not in the UPI story, but in the Lew Rockwell site piece, that some of the few surface beam members allowed examination showed they were blasted OUTWARDS from the building, that brings stark focus on the fact that in a vast crime scene, the evidence was promptly destroyed, at the behest of or cooperation with others by Giuliani, a former US Attorney who surely knows the law about crime scene preservation.
The excuse of attempting to find survivors didn't apply at all to WTC 7, which had been evacuated, but its steel was handled in the same scofflaw fashion.
And the fact remains that these crime scenes were not examined by either the National Traffic Safety Board, which investigates all airline crashes, nor by the FBI, which was prohibited from that role.
Some kind of alleged maintenance task shut down power to the towers for a considerable period in the week prior to the event, and that would have let those alleged technicians free rein without the security cameras recording their activities. Nor were security cameras present in the elevator shafts/service core areas, even before the power shutdown.
There are any other number of puzzling to suspicious to inculpatory facts concerning the towers destruction, including the myriad eyewitness reports of multiple explosions in the towers, the discovery that an approximately 20 ton printing press in the basement had been shattered (by a fuel explosion some 70 stories above it???), and a heavy steel door of many hundreds of pounds ripped off and crumpled like a piece of paper in the basement. Consider the finding of molten metal puddles more than a week after the event at ground level or below, and attempt to explain how a fuel fire or its aftermath could provide that kind of level of heat.
If you read David Ray Griffith's 'THE NEW PEARL HARBOR' you will see this exact supposition presented with documentatiun from demolition experts and others.
Next, perhaps, the Times will reflect as well on the long-held conspiracy theory that a missile not a jumbo jet actually hit the Pentagon.
I frankly don't understand this sudden revelation in the Moon press as he is a close friend of the Bush family and it can only redound on them.
Hmm. I disagree with your implication that the Moonies are spreading disinfo with this article. They may well have decided to defend their old influences in old-style Washington politics agains the internal putsch by the DoD-Neocon cabal.
Key is here I think, the total disconnect between the policies of Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger. I have never seen Bush the Elder approve of the Younger's war plans, or the Younger say anything good about the policies of the Elder. Moon is connected to the Elder, an IIRC the WashTimes
has become more openly critical of the Younger's policies lately.
Touching 9/11 is at the moment still a dangerous thing, for all parties involved. As you say, there are currently two ways to go about it: one is the 'scientific/mechanical approach', studying the collapse of alle buildings and vetting all witnessed actions on that day (the focus of the Reynolds article), and the other way is looking at the actions of certain key people before and afterwards (the Hopsicker approach).
I think both are equally valid.
As far as the mechanical aspects: I myself am educated as a civil engineer (not my profession anymore), so I know that there are very standard design rules to account for behaviour of steel in fire. Steel is very predictable. For me, I am convinced that the collapse of the two towers is not explained by fire: i miss the sagging, buckling 'start' of the collapse. In such a case it does not really matter if the building has 10 or 100 or 1000 floors. You can design for this, and to my information the WTC towers had been hugely 'overdesigned'. I find that part (next to WTC7) far more compelling that the question if a 767 or a 737 flew in the south tower.
OTOH: Hopsicker's book raises a lot of questions around the behaviour of Atta in Florida. The value of this book is in the display of clear contradictions with the official descriptions. The suspect dealings around Huffman Aviation, the Magic Dutch Boys, the Germans. The cover-up actions of the FBI. It all adds to the cocktail.
Both avenues of investigation have at the moment their brick wall: the 'mechanical approach' lacks clear evidence (because everything had quickly been mopped up), the Hopsicker approach stops at the point where no more willing witnesses can be found (or the investigator is 'stopped').
In both avenues I have read things I find less credulous, but to me that smelled more of faulty conclusions than of disinfo.
The first hype around (the Pentagon angle of) 9/11 was Thierry Meyssan's book 'L'Effroyable Imposture', published in France in 2002. While there are some comments to make about the research in this book, I cannot believe that this guy is a disinfo agent.
So there we are. Even I suffer from a lack of information. Everyone researching does.
The only thing that will get the 9/11 saga to a satifactory conclusion, is when the Washington pressure cooker explodes in a big way. At the moment I see some fermentation build up inside the Beltway, but I can't predict what the future holds.
Great comments!
I have lately sensed that the powers-that-be are ready to jettison their poor little stooge Georgie. So maybe Moon (like Murdoch and his London Times DSM articles) is tossing a lit match into the underbrush. Methinks W. is going down.
Second, I've heard skeptics say that a conspiracy about 9/11 (or the hacked-election-vote-totals, for that matter) couldn't be kept under wraps, because too many people would be involved, and somebody would talk, and I always wonder the same thing: what about the JFK assassination?
Second, I've heard skeptics say that a conspiracy about 9/11 (or the hacked-election-vote-totals, for that matter) couldn't be kept under wraps, because too many people would be involved, and somebody would talk, and I always wonder the same thing: what about the JFK assassination?
Interesting question. Let me try to formulate an answer:
Most of the people in the CIAFBIDoD are very accustomed to keeping things secret. It's part of their job, it's part of their job 'ethics'. Nobobdy wants to be a whistleblower: you lose the respect of your colleagues, your job, etcetera. The second ring: People in the FAA, NY Fire department/NYPD can also be threatened with job loss. Career loss.
The third ring: Hopsicker shows very clearly how neighbours of Atta, and other third party witnesses were systematically reminded by the FBI to keep their mouths shut (weekly 'reminder visits').
And finally: everyone who knows too much is acutely aware of the fate of other key figures: the sudden car accidents, the suicides, etcetera. Well, then the choice is easy.
The JFK assasination was a less threatening idea. One dead president, which was truly a shock, but that's what you have vice presidents for. The general public accepted it, until it became too late, too irrelevant.
9/11 as an event is still looming over, well, over about everything. Still. An that is also where the internet comes into play: I myself am posting this from the Netherlands and I am Dutch. Such an exchange of ideas was not possible in the 60ties.
The only thing I am sure of is that the collapse of building 7 happened in one flat -- clearly controlled -- drop. It frightened me terribly because it was obvious early on that we were being fed many, many lies. If anyone still
laughs about "conspiracy theories"
and hasn't seen the video, go here:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc7.html
Judy Down Maine
such great comments! and i'm glad joe posted this piece despite his skepticism. and thanks to those who have raised such good points to perhaps address that a bit.
i do agree that there are so many questions to be raised about the whole 9/11 event that perhaps this one is not the one to focus on. yet, it still raises such basic suspicions. there was just not enough fire throughout those buildings the simply crumble the way they did. and crumble they did, straight down, which just defies every law of physics except of course the infamous pancake theory (now there's a tin foil hat notion for ya!). and NOTHING explains bldg 7. Etc, etc, ad infinitum.
so, joe wonders what was the point of demolishing the buildings when the planes being flown into them would accomplish 'the point,' which we assume was to create the terrorist fear factor within american boundaries. well, for one thing, who says there has to be only one, singular 'point'? remember, we are dealing with not a bunch of ideologues (though clearly some of these creeps are), but a bund of self-serving megalomaniacs. everyone of those involved was in it for themselves, so there are just about that many 'points' for what happened as there are players.
that being said, don't i recall hearing in the weeks after the event that the owner of the WTC was suing for insurance coverage, but there was some dispute or such over the fact that the property was about to be turned over to the port authority? or something like that? i apologize for not looking into this more closely before posting to make it viable, but this was not something i found online, but heard on a tv news channel. then, like many stories swarming around then, it just vanished. if true, it has particular implications for that guy's 'point', and draws bldg 7 into stark relief. i mean, if the guy was going to sacrifice his property to this little drama, one would assume he'd want compensation. and such timing, before he loses the property altogether.
snd here's another angle: if the owner was due to lose control of the WTC, then what more spectacular and dramatic way to create terror than to bring down the two largest buildings in the city, the symbols of american commercial power. bin laden (supposedly) stressed this symbolic value himself. and it just would not have played as powerfully had two little planes (don't they look tiny up against those structures?) just slid into a few floors.
never forget; these folks are getting increasingly adept at utilizing psych impact in their plotting.
whatever. again, if this property/insurance story is true, then there are reasons to explore the details about the building and its demolition. to claim a party had something to gain you have to prove the real cause, like arson.
I'm inclined not to buy the "controlled demolition" stuff either. But, OTOH, it's hard to imagine how this could be an attempt to spread disinformation...unless Moon has decided that Bush and the neocons have simply fucked everything up beyond repair and that it's time to get rid of them.
They undoubtedly have no problem with this sort of speculation as long as it's coming from marginalized conspiracy theorists like Jeff "Black Helicopters" Rense, but think about it -- how could the Bush administration possibly benefit from having one of their own former team members embrace such a theory?
I can understand why you have avoided the
9/11 issue, Joseph--it is full of disinformation nonsense like pods under the aircraft and giant holograms, and the infighting between various personalities makes researching it confusing and sometimes unpleasant.
Your avoidance of it suggests to me that
your leaping to the conclusion that the
WTC was NOT brought down my explosives is
premature. Some have suggested that a
"toxic tenant" could have planted explosives. Some people operated businesses in the towers that involved much use of the freight elevators. What would have been the purpose of bringing the buildings down? The psychological effect. It makes a better movie. "Titanic" needs to sink or it's not "Titanic". Towers burned and uninhabitable would stand as a monument to Bush's negligence before 9/11; towers burned and repairable would weaken the conviction that a few poorly armed extremists can and will annihilate us.
That being said, though the demolition issue is interesting to engineers, to those with a personal connection to the towers, and those who wish for proof of an inside job, it's not the real issue. As Dr. David Ray Griffin points out in "The New Pearl Harbor," the argument for Bush complicity in 9/11 is a cumulative one, not a deductive chain of propositions. I resent Daniel Hopsicker's dismissal of Dr.
Griffin simply because he is a theologian--as such Dr. Griffin has decades of experience as an epistemologist, and brings his expertise brilliantly to bear in his books.
Joseph, I wish you would write abut the the work of Daniel Hopsicker. His writings about the owner of the Florida airfield and about the voting machines are interesting, but because Hopsicker presents information unique to his writing, its credibility is difficult to evaluate and his somewhat rambling style resembles that of Wayne Madsen. I'd never taken the reports of the Arkansas drug smuggling under Clinton seriously; Hopsicker's suggestion that it was a CIA operation would do a lot to explain why Clinton is so cozy with the Bushes today.
As to the Washington Times, perhaps they present Morgan Reynold's charges in the same spirit that they presented the story of the White House child-prositute sex scandal under Bush I. (1) Your own article of February 26 "More on the Moon Connection" (2) suggests that Moon ran that piece as blackmail.
The allegations of the demolition of the WTC or a missile at the Pentagon or the shooting down of flight 93 are beside the point. The real issue is the Bushites' need to drum up public for the geopolitical ambitions of the PNAC cabal and an expensive space weapons program.
Read Dr. Griffin's books, read the Paul Thompson "Terror Timeline." The 911truth website does a good job of splitting off all the "pod theory". The 911 Truth Statement has been signed by Ralph Nader, Green presidential candidate David Cobb, and Libertarian presidential candidate Michael Badnarik.
You can read "the New Pearl Harbor" online
here:
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/
06/141355.php
Dr. Griffin recently gave a 90-minute speech in Madison WI that was aired on CSPAN. You can watch the video here:
http://www.911busters.com/911_new_video_
productions/
1. http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_
sex_coverup/franklin.htm
2. http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2005/02/
more-on-moon-connection-gannon-and.html
In addition to the famed put options bought on American and United Airlines, there were a large number of other companies similarly sold short that were devastated by the WTC collapses, and one trade by itself $5 billion long the 5 year or 10 year US Treasury bond.
Which is to say, the 'millions of dollars' made from the airline puts is but the tip of the iceburg, and international experts have put the world-wide 'take' from insiders' betting on foreknowledge amounting to a thousand times the amounts discussed, as in billions of dollars.
A simple collision of the planes into the WTC, leaving the buildings standing and most of the companies there intact would not have created this incredibly lucrative scenario.
WTC computer systems processed an unusual volume of credit card transactions on 9/11, perhaps as much as $100 million worth. The
computers were then destroyed in the
collapse.
Here's a (copy of a) Reuters article that
interviews the experts attempting to recover data from the hard disks.
ht
tp://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/reuters121901.html
Why? Seems obvious to me: Straw Man.
You've seen it before, you'll see it again (increasingly - after all, it usually works).
This story is planted. It intentionally contraverts common sense. Its purpose is to get wider exposure than the REAL investigations and questions, then be dismissed as a nutty conspiracy theory, and guilt by association will diminish the ongoing REAL inquiries.
If not for Building 7, the various ingenious
theories (zipper, pancake) would be easier
to accept. Most of the fuel was consumed ib the fireballs outside the buildings. Photos show no sign of a blazing inferno. Firemen climbed to the 78th floor of WTC 2 and calmly went about their business.
Explain building 7, which included among
its tenants the SEC, the IRS, the FBI, and
the CIA--as well as Mayor Giulinani's
disaster bunker. Why wasn't its collapse
investigated? The 9/11 Commission doesn't
find it worthy of comment.
Wasn't brother Neil an officer of the security firm for the WTC and wasn't the WTC under terror alerts that required frequent inspecation in the days prior to 9/11. I think this is from the "New Perl Harbor" David Griffith book.
Wasn't brother Neil an officer of the security firm for the WTC and wasn't the WTC under terror alerts that required frequent inspecation in the days prior to 9/11. I think this is from the "New Perl Harbor" David Griffith book.
I find it difficult to believe that anyone who approaches the issue of the collapse of WTC1, 2 & 7 with an open mind can reach any conclusion other than that they were controlled demolitions.
Quite possibly the best site to examine the evidence (as opposed to the speculation)is www.911research.wtc7.net. the applicaiton of the principles of logic, mathematics and physics lead to one compelling inference: controlled demoliiton.
That fact alone is sufficient to destroy the official government theory, ironically itself a conspiracy theory although the Bush apologists prefer to reserve that term for those they disagree with. Theree is also compelling evidence as to how the demolitions were carried out in the aforementioned site. None of this was explored in the official 9/11 Commission report (shades of the Warren Commission). See: David Griffin's other book "The 9/11Commission: Ommissions and Distortions" for a brilliant dissection of what they avoided discussing and the inferences to be drawn from that.
The three books by Nafeez Ahmed on 9/11 and Webster Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror are invaluable sources for understanding the wider geo-political ramiofications of 9/11.
Although I also have problems with Daniel Hoopsicker's style, it is obvious from his research that
(a) "Atta" was not what the official theory claims; (b) there are undoubted drug links to 9/11 as Peter Dale Scott has written about; and (c) the FBI is busily trying to forestall information from coming to public notice (as they have done thoughout this saga).
As for the financial beneficiaries of 9/11, they are multi-faceted, from Silverstein's sweet insurance scam through the various weapons manufacturers who benefit from the seemingly endless 'war on terror' to the people behind the international drug trade. Start with Don Paul and Jim Hoffman's boklet 'Waking up to our Nightmare' and go from there.
When you realize the huge stakes at issue it is not too difficult to see why the cabal that planned and executed 9/11 would see the murder of 3000 New Yorkers as a small price indeed.
Joseph: I'd have to say that the Washington Times is SO well known as a purveyor of administration disinformation that the only such purpose this article could fulfill would be conveying the notion to the politically savvy that controlled demolition WASN'T the cause of those collapses. ("It must be bunkum, because the Moon Rag endorses it.") But there's a LOT of good documentation around to strongly suggest that nothing *but* controlled demolition could have caused those collapses. (And the opportunity to plant explosives did occur! Moreover, Marvin Bush was previously the head of the security company for the WTC.) Read David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor" (best in conjunction with Nafeez Ahmed's "The War on Freedom" and Paul Thompson's timeline, at cooperativeresearch.org, for source references) for the lowdown.
There was also a very fishy reversal early on by one engineer who *insisted* that deliberate demolition must have been the cause, then abruptly changed his mind about a week later for no apparent reason. Whatever else, the *truly* incredible claim is that THREE steel frame skyscrapers -- which had NEVER before (or since?) collapsed as a result of fires, regardless of intensity -- ALL did so on 9/11. And WTC7 had only minor fires, and was not hit!
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