Saturday, 10 August 2013
James Rocket
Conspiracy theory FAQ, part 1
When confronted with hard evidence showing government complicity into
the september 11th attacks, debunkers and other such apologists will
forward a great variety of a-priori arguments that release them from the
need to confront this wide ranging body of proof (which would result in
uncomfortable cognitive dissonance). The vast majority of these
statements generally turn out to have little merit, showing themselves
as nothing more than a petty cop-out for a moral coward. Some of the
more atypical claims will be featured in this post, and discussed at
length to judge their value. Any postings following this one will deal
with the remaining pseudo-skeptic arguments, which have more or less
been resolved years ago by other members of the truth movement.
The purpose of this series is simply to provide the truth seeker with
ready-made ammunition which he can use to fend off the lame a-priori
dismissals, and force the opposition to actually look at the evidence
that has been amassed. This includes the multiple warning of an
impending terrorist attack (which were ignored by bush), the war games
and live hijacking drill that obstructed the air defense, and the
financial arrangement that took advantage of the chaos, especially the
black eagle trust. Anyone who looks at the events of 911 with a half
open mind will see that there are terrible flaws with the official
story, and a huge number of anomalys that hint not of some garden
variety terrorist plot, but a state crime against democracy. First up
are two denials that are frequently bandied about on wikipedia.
Surprising or apparently important claims not covered by multiple mainstream sources.
Just because someone says a claim is extraordinary does not make it so.
People often label any theories that are contrary to the governments
version of events as 'extraordinary', thus implying that the government
and its associated media have a monopoly on what is considered
reasonable. But claims can only be considered extraordinary if they have
no historical precedent. Therefore, all that is needed to show that a
theory can be confirmed (with ordinary scientific processes) is to point
out a similar case that has happened before. For this, a simple look at
the geopolitical affairs of the 1930s will suffice. In a period of
just 8 years, the world saw 4 separate false flag attacks (!) used by
authoritarian regimes to push their agendas: This includes the
manchurian incident, the clash of wal wal, operation gleiwitz, and the
shelling of mainila. These incidents are not at all disputed by
historians (at least, not by historians who live outside of
the implicated nations, where the temptation to white wash history is
present): No one has difficulty believing that such crimes could be
perpetrated by a mere historical artifact, which they have no
personal connection to. The same is not true when ones own nation has
been accused of authoring a terrorist attack in the present!
Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the
relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream
assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and
biographies of living people. This is especially true when proponents
say there is a conspiracy to silence them.
This opinion piece feeds into the larger mind set that establishment
types have, with their belief that history is something which cannot be
shaped by conscious intent, via the persistent influence of the fog of
war or other such mystical phenomenon. They have a characteristic
ambivalence towards the notion that much of modern history has been the
result of elaborate policys put into place by powerful oligarchs,
something which would upset their fragile egos (and the illusions they
have about democracy). These academics condemn all such theorys and
hypothesis' with the pejorative label of conspiracism. Bruce
cumings elaborates on this belief system: "But if conspiracies exist,
they rarely move history; they make a difference at the margins from
time to time, but with the unforeseen consequences of a logic outside
the control of their authors: and this is what is wrong with 'conspiracy
theory.' History is moved by the broad forces and large structures of
human collectivities."
But power corrupts, and all power corrupts absolutely. The two go
inextricably hand in hand, and we may ask these men what barriers can
stop a dominant entity from utilising secrecy to implement its
policys: Answering this question without contradicting historical
records would be quite a feat. That is because any country which becomes
a superpower in its specific ficton will eventually wind up playing
host to a cast of authoritarian misfits, who use their influence and
wealth take control of the national agenda. Humans are social creatures,
and the desire to conform to the default viewpoint is a built in
feature. When information is distributed to a population in a top down
fashion, this makes the entire nation vulnerable to being misled by its
leadership caste (whose interests are divorced from those of the common
people). Coming out in detraction of the reigning cultures golden cow,
therefore, is a difficult and unrewarding task, one which got only more
complicated with the advent of nationalism during the industrial era.
Countless times have we seen men oppose various ideologies and
religions, only to be greeted with viscous persecution by the
establishment, whose tenets were later overturned and falsified decades
or centurys after the fact.
Supposing that we even have
Those who claim the WTCs were destroyed via a thermite
demolition have ignored the fact that this substance can't inflict real
damage to structural members.
Assertions like these seek to raise doubt about the validity of a
collapse initiated by thermitic materials (which work much more silently
than explosives) by claiming their ability to degrade steel is very
limited. The fact that this notion is false in its entirety didn't seem
to stop the 911 debunkers, who seized upon it with a vigour that is
rarely seen outside of a funny farm. But explosive experts have known
for decades that the thermite reaction IS capable of melting
through steel members, especially when its spray of molten iron is
harnessed via a directed funnel. The world was reintroduced to this
reality in late 2010, when jonathan cole (a graduate from the university
of connecticut) released a video documenting his experiments with
thermite.
Cole, with a background in civil engineering, had confirmed the nature
of the work being carried out at the combustion institute since the
1960s. By using something he called 'a thermitic box cutter', cole was
able to slice through a steel I-beam with only 2 lbs of thermite. The
beam in question appeared to be a W 6 x 16, with a known weight of 16
pounds per linear foot. His results are consistent with the estimates
made by NIST, who asserted that 'approximately 0.13 lb of thermite would
be needed to heat and melt each pound of steel.' So with a large box
column weighing approximately 1500 pounds per linear foot, the amount of
thermite required to make the cut may be around 187 lbs. Note, this is
surprisingly close to the 153 lbs of tamped TNT needed to sever a large
box column.
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g
Why would they use thermite which cuts steel without announcing it, then switch to explosives? To tip people off?
Because the WTCs were going to demolished in front of a live television
audience (which entailed huge risks for the perpetrators), their
collapse would need to be brought about in a highly unconventional
manner, so as to perpetuate the notion that impact + fires were
responsible. This entailed removing most of the typical giveaways to a
controlled demolition, such as the obvious, sequential explosions,
collapse initiated from the bottom, a small rubble footprint, etc. This
arrangement would have also had to proceed in total secrecy, with the
explosive and pyrotechnic devices installed in a manner that
would protect them from aircraft debris and fires (no small feat even
for members of the military industrial complex!). Given these
requirements, the best way to destroy the twin towers was to use a two
stage demolition process.
The first stage would involve silently cutting all (or nearly all) of
the 16 large and 31 small core columns on the floors impacted by the
planes. This is a task to which thermitic box cutters are well suited
towards. Arranged in banks of perhaps 10-12 per corner (and 47 per
floor) of the building, they could be set off in a precision sequence
via radio repeaters safely installed into reinforced crevices. And
though thermite burns with a ferocious intensity that is capable of
melting any thickness of steel, the noise they emit is
entirely insignificant, at least compared to the 18.5 lbs of RDX -part
of a 53 lbs shaped charge- that would be needed to sever a large core
column. Ignited more than 900 feet above street level, there would have
been little sign of the box cutters deadly presence, aside from the pool
of molten steel flowing away from WTC 2 before its collapse (which may
have been the result of a premature ignition from a thermite bank). With
the core columns cut on multiple levels, the impact floors were
suddenly robbed of their structural integrity, and would effectively
cave in on themselves, setting the upper section of the towers into
motion against everything beneath it.
Imagine a dump truck colliding with a sand
berm at 100 kmh, multiplied by 5 orders
of magnitude, and you will begin to have an
idea of how incredibly violent this event was.
The second stage would ensue shortly after the first, taking advantage
of a collapse that converted a tremendous amount of gravitational energy
into kinetic energy, resulting in an extremely destructive
interaction that pulverised concrete and crumpled steel members. Left to
its own devices, however, this piledriver effect would (probably) not
be able to produce a global collapse: Everything above the 92nd floor of
WTC 1 -and the 77th floor of WTC 2- would cease to exist, and many,
many floors beneath them would be gutted by falling debris. But the
lower foundations would remain fully intact, as would the core and
perimeter columns all the way up to the impact site. The buildings would
be preserved by immense networks of interconnected steel beams and
columns. Thus, in order to guarantee a total collapse, these resistance
points needed to be broken with explosive charges. Under the cover
provided by the noise and dust of the gravity collapse, the second stage
of demolition could proceed unnoticed to anyone more than a block away
from the site. With just a handful of explosive charges placed on all
the floors beneath the impact site (probably hidden inside elevator
shafts), the twin towers last structural redoubts would be methodically
smashed from the top down.
How would they be able to plant enough thermite to perfectly raze these three mammoth buildings, without anyone taking notice beforehand?
The best way to proceed with such an operation is to conceal all
suspicious equipment inside ordinary tool boxes, and to only bring them
out when working in confined spaces (or in areas that have been closed
off by security, to enable the crew to work in privacy). A single
explosive charge should be attached to each column juncture, then
covered beneath a solid protective casing. Assuming that this mount
could be emplaced with just 2 man hours of labour, then rigging the four
column junctures that typically reside on each floor would take a
minimum of 8 man hours. If this was done all the way from the impact
floors to street level, then that amounts to 368 charges for WTC 1 and
308 charges for WTC 2 (and 1352 man hours to install them in both
towers). Therefore, even with a quadrupling of the required man
hours -which is reasonable, given that most of a demolition crews time
is spent with the actual wiring- this suggests that only 5400 man hours
total are required to prepare the twin towers for destruction!
Theoretically, eight individuals working 40 hour weeks could have the
job completed in just over four months.
One of the web joists (not quite
the same as a column juncture)
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3EQV223Y-M
If the WTCs really were destroyed by a controlled demolition,
most of the worlds architects and engineers would have come forward and
raised hell with the authoritys!
This is obviously not the case. An in-depth examination of
the scientific literature regarding the twin towers collapses reveals
that virtually none of them are based on a close observation of the
visual archives. They are abstract mathematical models which use random
assumptions to come to conclusions about factor x or y. Such
insular processes are effectively divorced from reality, and tell a
truth seeker very little about what happened to these 110 story
structures: Someone who does not understand the unique features of this
collapse (or posses an affinity for regression analysis) will have NO
ABILITY to determine whether or not CD played a role. Academic
institutes of all shapes and sizes, ranging from NIST to AE911Truth,
have been guilty of a systemic failure to observe the actual behaviour
of the twin towers (and building 7) prior to and during their collapse.
They perpetuate a false dichotomy of progressive collapse vs controlled
demolition, failing to come to terms with the peripheral issues that
could falsify their case.
They proceed with an obvious confirmation bias in mind, neglecting to
consider that the truth may lie somewhere in between
their pre-determined conclusions. AE911Truth is responsible for
disseminating the false notion that steel framed buildings cannot
experience a global collapse without the aid of explosives. NIST is
responsible for grossly distorting the mechanical forces acting on the
WTCs, and for failing to document the material flow that defined each
destruction event. The basic standards of the scientific method have
been discarded in favour of abstract models and poor observations, which
in turn were regurgitated to the public in the form of sound bytes via
the mass media. If there was ever a time when the 'experts' should have
stepped in to straighten things out, this was it. Sadly, that is not
what actually happened. On both sides, negligence fed by false
confidence has snowballed into something that is now labelled as
'professional dialogue regarding the WTCs collapse', which has now been
framed into an issue concerning only whether explosives were present or
not!
If the attacks truly were orchestrated by the
government, someone would have talked! Even if all of the conspirators
had kept silent, there must have been dozens of people on the sidelines
who knew, and they couldn't ALL have been assassinated!
That is correct. If anything, there may have been well in excess of a
hundred people who knew sensitive details about the September
11th attacks, weeks or months before they actually took place. At a
lower level, such as the feds 2000-2001 monitoring of terrorist
activity, some CIA and FBI agents actually did catch wind of the plot,
and tried to warn their superiors. The story of susan lindauer is one
example among many. Debunkers may argue that this is only a niche
example which doesn't invalidate their wider point. Again, they are
correct. The evidence pointing towards MIHOP is generally more
circumstantial than that which exists for LIHOP. No one has come
forward to release information that directly expresses truly
incriminating activitys in the months proceeding the 911 attacks (I.E,
no rigging of the WTCs with bombs, no modifications of jumbo jets for
remote control, etc). That is not entirely surprising. New
counter-intelligence techniques devised in the 1960s have given the CIA
and other agencys a strong ability to suppress whistle blowers,
via trauma based operant conditioning. As soon as a potential leaker is
identified, they will be subjected to extensive background checks, and
placed under very intrusive surveillance in order to gain personal
information from them. Many technologys are available to spying agencys
nowadays, including laser microphones, phone tapping, computer
bugging, etc.
All sources of communication are surveyed constantly by the highest
technology available and a great deal of the results are recorded,
auto-transcribed and processed by computer to show statistical
associations (some of which goes to a live ear if close spying is
underway). Once enough information has been assembled to create a
'criminal profile', the director in charge will make a decision as to
the best approach needed to gain the whistle blowers compliance.
This sometimes involves black-mail and bribery. More often, however, a
campaign of terror is waged against the individual, where they are
subjected to constant and unrelenting harassment, raising their stress
level to an intolerable level that not only destroys their sense of
security, but interferes with normal sleep and work related activities.
Through weeks of gang stalking, the whistle blowers daily routine will
be irreparably damaged, and their sanity will be stretched to the
breaking point. Sometimes, the aim of this harassment campaign is to get
the individual to release their information in a partial or disorderly
manner, where it can be picked apart and discredited by cointelpro
assets. Mostly, however, they are given a chance to end the torment by
accepting a list of conditions which they must abide by, on the threat
of instantaneous retaliation (in proportion to the severity of their
infraction) if they do not.
How is it that a government which couldn't even plant WMDs in
iraq could stage something as massively complex as a false flag attack
on the WTCs and pentagon?
Determining the 'competence' of an organisation is easy. Simply look at
the deeds the US has carried out in the last decade. Notice the
difference between what they say, and what they actually do. When an
institute persists in taking a course of action which does not fulfil
its ostensible goals, we might reasonably posit that they show signs of
incompetence, and an inability to self evaluate. However, when they do
not stop pursuing that agenda even at massive losses to themselves, the
question of incompetence is brushed aside by concerns about their state
of mind. One possible answer is raised by albert einstein: "Insanity is
doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different
results." The other answer, however, is more sinister. As said by stefan
molyneux: "If an organization seems to be continually failing to
achieve its stated mission – but refuses to alter its actions – then
clearly it is simply achieving another, unstated mission." With this one
single insight, all of the odditys associated with the global war on
terror (as well as the war on drugs, poverty, etc) can be reconciled.
For every official proclamation a government agency may make regarding
some ambitious new campaign, there will almost invariably be an
unofficial motive that is not being disclosed to the public.
When taking into account all of its secret sponsors and policy
decisions, the bush administration is seen for what it really is: A
neoconservative platform that was successfully able to institute most of
the goals outlined in the project for a new american century. Even
so, the tendency to use mission statements to conceal more
unwholesome goals is widely known among the worlds top intellectuals.
With that being the case, you have to ask what benefit the bush
administration would have gained from staging a false discovery of WMDs
in iraqi territory? Few people with an IQ above 100 would take this
development in stride. Indeed, some would see this news as a
shocking confirmation of americas (long suspected) corruptness. So,
would easing the consciences of the dumbed-down public alleviate the
consequences of alienating the politically awake? Unlikely. And again,
the purpose of the false WMD scare was not to provide an overriding
justification for an intervention into iraq, or any other country (thats
what they had 911 for): The point was only to get the neocons foot in
the door. Afterwards, a continual presence in iraqs vast oil fields
could be maintained through mission creep, and vigorous stigmatisation
of those officials who wanted to 'cut and run.'
Even the president himself was not above participating in this
transparent agenda, using his rank to pressure dissenters into
submission. In summary, the key to explaining the iraq episode is the
fact that people are much more willing to believe in an incompetent
government, rather than one which is deliberately malevolent. But once
you accept the premise that the bush administration is a highly
effective, morally corrupt association, and that their actual goals in
any endeavour are never what they publicly claim, it becomes clear that
'incompetence' is nothing more than a comforting charade which is used
to cloak evil policys in. The men in office are able to get a surprising
amount of mileage out of this little trick, since american citizens
have a very high tolerance for political failure, although not
with silly hot topic issues pertaining to sexual orientation, gender,
religion, or race. Incompetence also lends itself to perpetuating the
left-right slave paradigm, particularly when opposition partys gain
browny points by pointing out the obvious, and saying how much better
things would be if the current president was kicked out of office (to be
swiftly replaced by their own candidate, of course...).
http://www.ae911truth.org/
AE911Truth
founder and international speaker Richard Gage, AIA, was the first
signer of the AE911 Truth petition to Congress, which now has the
signatures of over 2,000 architects and engineers and 17,000 othersTrade Center attacks on 9/11.
Daniel Barnum, FAIA, explains why he challenges the official story of 9/11 in the film 9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Outthousands
of architects and engineers boasting solid credentials, years of
experience, and degrees from first-rate institutions. As well, the
broader public pays closer attention when our compelling claims come
from such acknowledged experts in their fields.”
Architect Jody Gibbs, speaking here in 9/11: Explosive Evidence—Experts Speak Out, is a graduate of both Harvard and Yale, and was on the faculty of MIT.Architect Jody Gibbs, for example, is a graduate of both Harvard and Yale.
He has commented on the six-ton structural steel section from World
Trade Center 1 that somehow was thrown into the American Express
building like a dart – indicating the use of explosives. “Gravity works
vertically, not laterally,” he said succinctly but with the kind of
appeal to basic physics that tends to demolish the official 9/11 story.
9/11 researcher and AE911 Truth petition signer Dr. David Griscom is a graduate of both Carnegie Mellon and Brown UniversitiesIn
addition to the Ivy Leagues, many other academic institutions with
excellent reputations are represented among the signers of our petition,
including Carnegie Mellon University, which specializes in engineering
and is consistently ranked highly in engineering disciplines. One of the 15 signers with a degree from Carnegie Mellon
is David Griscom, a physicist who received his B.S. from Carnegie
Mellon and his Ph.D. from Brown University. Dr. Griscom worked at the
Naval Research Laboratory, and was chosen by NASA from among hundreds of
scientists as a team leader in analyzing the moon rocks from the Apollo
missions. He has published 193 studies in peer-reviewed scientific journals and was a reviewer of the study on thermitic material found in the dust of the World Trade Center.
I hope you can offer some EVIDENCE to support this STRAWMAN claim!"
Click the link to the words political pressure, that's the evidence. But Millette didn't get any kind of peer-review or publish in a journal, so why are we talking about this? As blog contributor Scootle Royale noted in his article, "Two criticisms of the Harrit et al paper that are no longer valid," "Their 'Peer-review!' and 'Chain of custody!' mantras function as sort-of quasi-ad-hominems. Debunkers are more interested in discrediting the research than they are in having a genuine scientific discussion about it."
"What part of NO ALUMINUM = FAKE THERMITE don't you understand?"
And yet still it is apparent ctcole77 has not read my article on this subject.
Harrit et al. agree that their chips contain aluminum and silicon together in the same space, but how do they determine whether or not the two chemicals are separate or chemically bound together as kaolin? As we note in Part II, when you compare the signals for Al/Si before and after ignition, you see that the peaks no longer have the same ratio after ignition and that the aluminum is relatively depleted, which is not consistent with a compound. And the team discovered that MEK paint-solvent induces swelling in their chips that segregates the silicon from the aluminum, which proves that they are not chemically bound together, so the plates in their chips are not kaolin. This is confirmed with chemical analysis and clear visual representations, but the "debunkers" ignore this important result. They claim that the main chips studied (chips "a to d" depicted in fig.7) are LaClede primer-paint that contains kaolin, and that the MEK chip is another type of paint (Tnemec) that does not have kaolin. Adam Taylor notes in his March 2011 article that the source for this MEK hand-wave is Sunstealer´s March 2011 post where he announces that the XEDS spectrum for the MEK chip (fig.14) looks very similar to the spectrum for Tnemec primer-paint. But as Taylor explains, the XEDS spectrum for the MEK chip represents the unwashed and contaminated surface, while the spectra for the other chips represent clean surfaces. The contaminants happen to make the unwashed MEK chip look like Tnemec, but Sunstealer´s rationale is essentially pretending that there is no contamination. ScootleRoyale´s excellent March 2012 article also demolishes Sunstealer´s premise for this theory, because the unwashed surface of all the studied chips had a spectrum similar to the unwashed MEK chip according to one of the authors of the study, including the chips featured in the paper (in figure 7). ScootleRoyale also demonstrates to Oystein how untenable the MEK hand-wave is by noting the fact that the MEK solvent does not dissolve or soften the chip, unlike confirmed Tnemec chips: "The reason Harrit et al. soaked a chip in MEK was to compare the result to Tnemec primer!"
Talboo and Weathers also demonstrate in their May 2011 article that Sunstealer´s MEK Hand-wave is an obvious failure because there is no elemental aluminum in Tnemec, only aluminum bound to calcium. Tnemec also contains zinc, but the MEK chip only has Zn and Ca as surface contaminants which disappear after the wash in the MEK. Talboo and Weathers respond to Oystein´s objections to Taylor´s article, including his claim that Harrit et al. simply could not register Zn and Ca with their equipment settings for the recorded spectra after the MEK soak. Unfortunately for Oystein, his fellow JREF´er has debunked his claim and confirmed that Harrit´s equipment would have registered the Zn and the Ca. Talboo and Weathers also note that Dr. Farrer debunks Oystein´s claim that they mislabeled Zn as sodium(Na). According to Farrer, the sodium "peak that is found in fig 18 was confirmed by the absence of the Zn k-alpha peak at 8.637keV (and yes, the same exact spot was analyzed at a beam energy of 20kV and the Zn k-alpha peak is still not present)." Farrer goes on to say that "while it is true that the Na k-alpha peak (1.04keV) overlaps the Zn L-alpha (1.012keV), it is pretty simple to confirm which element is present."
After soaking the MEK chip, Harrit et al. focus on an area with a lot of aluminum to figure out if there is elemental aluminum present. They confirm the presence of elemental aluminum with the XEDS spectrum in figure 17, stating that "a conventional quantification routine" demonstrates "that the aluminum significantly exceeded the oxygen present (approximately a 3:1 ratio)." Figure 17 also demonstrates that the post-soaking MEK chip has a very strong aluminum signal without any Ca or Si present for bonding, so the MEK chip cannot be Tnemec or LaClede, and the conclusion of elemental aluminum is inescapable. See the articles Listening to Debunker Arguments is Like Watching Paint Dry..., Listening to Debunker Arguments is Like Watching Two Coats of Paint Dry..., Millette Versus Harrit et al: The MEK Test, and Oystein's Contamination Denial for more information, and keep in mind Dr. Jones´s message to Sunstealer et al.:
Basile plans to introduce one new test method (ESCA small spot technique with argon ion sputter) to directly establish the presence of unbound aluminum. Basile also plans to confirm aluminum by having an independent laboratory repeat the ignition tests, in air and inert atmosphere. He notes in a December 2012 interview (at 37m.55s.) that the chips will most likely also ignite in an inert atmosphere, and that even if they do not, that this test will still reveal any elemental aluminum since it will melt and leave a signature endothermic peak at a certain temperature. ScootleRoyale notes in his March 2012 article that that two of Harrit´s air-ignited samples have an endothermic peak around the 660 degree(C) melting point of aluminum, which is another strong indication of elemental aluminum: