Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[Ron Ecker]

Bill,

One often sees the term "stand down" in 9/11 conspiracy literature with respect to the failure to intercept the hijacked planes. With all due respect, I think the term is misleading, and its use thus provides ammunition to those who attack 9/11 CTs. I say it's misleading because there was no stand down, as jet fighters did take off from Langley and Otis. The problem was the delay in getting the fighters in the air, followed in one instance by the fighters being ordered in the wrong direction (toward Europe), and once headed in the right direction, flying at far less than max speed, and another instance of the fighters being sent not toward NYC or DC but to try to find and intercept a non-existent plane (Flight 11, which had already crashed).

IOW, there was not a 9/11 stand down, there was 9/11 run around.

Ron

[Jack White]

Bill,

One often sees the term "stand down" in 9/11 conspiracy literature with respect to the failure to intercept the hijacked planes. With all due respect, I think the term is misleading, and its use thus provides ammunition to those who attack 9/11 CTs. I say it's misleading because there was no stand down, as jet fighters did take off from Langley and Otis. The problem was the delay in getting the fighters in the air, followed in one instance by the fighters being ordered in the wrong direction (toward Europe), and once headed in the right direction, flying at far less than max speed, and another instance of the fighters being sent not toward NYC or DC but to try to find and intercept a non-existent plane (Flight 11, which had already crashed).

IOW, there was not a 9/11 stand down, there was 9/11 run around.

Ron

Excellent comment, Ron.

Jack

[William Kelly]

Hi Ron and Jack,

Many thanks for responding to my article, still a work in progress, which was posted on Christmas Eve last, with no response until now.

I spent two years following the 9/11 Commission, attending all open public hearings in DC and concentrating on two items - the air defense response, or lack of it, and John O'Neill, the former FBI counter-terror agent who was killed at the WTC.

The reason I focused on those two items is because of the local angle I had, the 177th from the Atlantic City airport, and my friendship and association with some of the pilots, and John O'Neill, being an Atlantic City native, who I never met, but share a dozen mutual friends.

I've yet to publish or post my report on O'Neill, but after publishing part of this story in the local newspaper, where the 177th is located, I wanted to get a broader feedback on what I've learned so far, and posted that here thinking it would provoke a response.

I hear you Ron, and agree that rather than a Stand Down, it was more of a Runaround ( A good song by a Jersey Band Blues Traveler - An Alice in Wonderland Odyssey), yet I find it hard to believe it was just a plane (pun intended, Duke) neglegance than deliberate, planned, ordered, directed and maintained Stand-Down.

From what I've seen and heard I believe the 9/11 Conspiracy went beyond contrived explosions and missles in the Pentagon, but directly to the accountability of those who knew of, expectd and anticipated, planned for and yet failed to respond to such an attack, both at the street level, where John O'Nell operated and the General Staff level that ordered the 177th and Andrews off alert.

Who are those guys?

I started out with two questions - why were no hi-jacked planes intercepted, and did John O'Neill have to die?

And I've yet to learn the answers.

And Ron and Jack,

Thanks for reading and responding to my stuff, ad

Many thanks for being my friend over the years,

and a Merry Christmas to you too,

BK

Edited February 18, 2006 by William Kelly

[Len Colby]

Ron did you ever consider the possibility that they didn't know that that part of the Pentagon was being renovated? They didn't exactly have security clearance and I doubt that information was available to the general public.

What difference does that make? I'm talking about the "coincidence" that they just happened to hit that least vulnerable spot of the building, whether they knew what they were hitting or not. That's according to the official CT, of course. I think whoever was behind it knew exactly what they were doing, hitting that spot for an obvious reason: the military doing the least damage possible to its own (and making sure Rummy and the big brass were nowhere near the point of impact).

It makes a difference because YOU had just argued that terrorists would have chosen to attack a different part of the Pentagon. I imagine the only intelligence they had was where the Pentagon was. Striking at the center as you suggested wouldn't have made any sense, it's an open field. It is far more than a coincidence that they struck the west side of the Pentagon since that was the direction they were flying from. Not having any reason to do so the pilot didn't circle around to hit the building from another side

I have question for you, how did the planes end up hitting the Pentagon and the Twin Towers, remote control?

I don't know but it's likely, as the technology was available. Why wouldn't they use it? In fact, as I've posted elsewhere, the Chief Financial Officer of the Pentagon at the time was Dov Zakheim, whose job before then was in the remote controlled aircraft business. Another coincidence!!

Only a coincidence is the remote control scenario made any sense. Such technology does exist but AFAIK it is only used on specially designed drones (and expensive toys) adapting that technology to retrofit it to huge passenger jets would not be so easy. Also when would such retrofitting of the planes have been done? It's not like some "black opps" guys could have slipped into the hangars and quickly plugged in some "black boxes" that would have taken control of the plane away from the pilots. Such retrofitting could only have been done with cooperation of the maintenance people in four different hangars and management from two different companies. It is hard to believe this could have been done without drawing the suspicion of people not involved esp. after the fact.

The problem with the "inside job" theory is that too many people would have to be involved for it to be plausible.

why attack the Pentagon at all? The attacks on the Towers would have been enough for the 'Illuminati's' casus belli.

The conspirators didn't think the towers were enough. But after hitting the Pentagon, apparently they did call off the last plane (shooting it down over PA).

But I'm not here to discuss all this. Your derisive reference to the Illuminati is a perfect example of why not. It's a complete and total waste of time. I just wanted to put my two cents worth in about the demolition question. I think the long-suppressed NYC oral histories are important in that regard, which is why the NYC politicians tried their damndest to keep the histories suppressed.

My reference to the Illuminati was meant to be humorous not derisive, sort of like your Florshiem shoe analysis. Ron you didn't address the question. Knocking down the Towers obviously would have been enough. The icing on the cake attacks (the Pentagon and Capitol or White House) better fits the terrorist attack scenario.

There is nothing conspiratorial about NYC trying to suppress the oral histories. Why would they have commissioned them in the first place if they wanted to cover up what happened? Do you think the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations as well as the upper management of NYFD and NYPD were all in on it? Again you are involving too many people for the story to be believable. A conspiracy that dozens or hundreds of people are "in on" won't remain secret very long.

There were 2 reasons not to release them 1) There release was blocked due to an order from a federal court in Virginia, 2) the privacy rights of the emergency personnel who were told their interviews were not going to be released. There is precedence for this ATC and CVR transcripts and tapes from plane crashes normally are not released to the public.

[Len Colby]

How do we know they weren't hearing something that just sounded like an explosion?

Because we have to consider what they heard (and saw) in conjunction with all the other evidence for government complicity in 9/11. And for the conspirators and their agenda, hitting those towers with planes wasn't enough. Those towers had to come down, spectacularly. (It's called "shock and awe.") And the people who put together such a well-planned military/intelligence operation were not going to leave catastrophic collapse of the towers to (very slim if non-existent) chance.

Very little if any of the "evidence for government complicity in 9/11" is at all convincing. I don't hear any NYC first responders saying they believe it was contolled demo. Of the thousands of people who were in the towers that morning only 3 have come forward. They were maintainence workers who said they heard "bombs in the basement". The more likely explaination is that something else exploded. Bombs exploding in the basement long before the towers collapsed from the top down doesn't fit a CD senario very well.

[Len Colby]

Hi Ron and Jack,

Many thanks for responding to my article, still a work in progress, which was posted on Christmas Eve last, with no response until now.

I spent two years following the 9/11 Commission, attending all open public hearings in DC and concentrating on two items - the air defense response, or lack of it, and John O'Neill, the former FBI counter-terror agent who was killed at the WTC.

The reason I focused on those two items is because of the local angle I had, the 177th from the Atlantic City airport, and my friendship and association with some of the pilots, and John O'Neill, being an Atlantic City native, who I never met, but share a dozen mutual friends.

I've yet to publish or post my report on O'Neill, but after publishing part of this story in the local newspaper, where the 177th is located, I wanted to get a broader feedback on what I've learned so far, and posted that here thinking it would provoke a response.

I hear you Ron, and agree that rather than a Stand Down, it was more of a Runaround ( A good song by a Jersey Band Blues Traveler - An Alice in Wonderland Odyssey), yet I find it hard to believe it was just a plane (pun intended, Duke) neglegance than deliberate, planned, ordered, directed and maintained Stand-Down.

From what I've seen and heard I believe the 9/11 Conspiracy went beyond contrived explosions and missles in the Pentagon, but directly to the accountability of those who knew of, expectd and anticipated, planned for and yet failed to respond to such an attack, both at the street level, where John O'Nell operated and the General Staff level that ordered the 177th and Andrews off alert.

Who are those guys?

I started out with two questions - why were no hi-jacked planes intercepted, and did John O'Neill have to die?

And I've yet to learn the answers.

And Ron and Jack,

Thanks for reading and responding to my stuff, ad

Many thanks for being my friend over the years,

and a Merry Christmas to you too,

BK

Bill I agree with you that the "stand down" or "run around" was far more likely to have been due to bumbling than something more sinester.

I said this on another thread:

As for the supposed incompetence much of that has been exaggerated by "CTists" and is based on hindsight. The US military is basically set up for protecting the US from external rather than internal threats, it is virtually prohibited from acting on US soil, and all the flights were all domestic of course. Part of the problem was 'interagency' communication. It took a while for the FAA to inform NORAD and then a while for NORAD to inform the relevant air force bases. Let's not forget the last time a plane had been commandeered in the US was in the 80's (IIRC) and that the elapsed time between the attacks was only 51 minutes.

.Other than shoot the planes down there is little fighter jets could have done. The first attack obviously could not have been prevented because a shootdown can only be authorized by the President. There wasn't really enough time (18 minutes) to stop the second plane. The failure to stop the third plane was a mixture of being taken by surprise, inadequate procedures and probably some incompetence. A bigger question is, if it was all a sham - why attack the Pentagon at all? The attacks on the Towers would have been enough for the 'Illuminati's' casus belli.

(Ron as I explained on the other thread the Illuminati reference was a joke)

Len

[William Kelly]

LEN,

You got me backwards, I said, "....I find it hard to believe it was just plain neglegance than deliberate, planned, ordered and maintained Stand Down."

If it was neglegance, who screwed up?

BK

[David Heagney]

I wouldn't call it "negligence", so much unpreparedness, but I don't suppose it helped NORAD that the FAA was giving them incorrect information.

[Scott Deitche]

A question that none of the 'controlled demolition' belivers ever address is how and when. How were the charges placed and when were they placed. How come no one saw them?

A reason for the collapse that I think has more relevance is the mob. The mob controlled ALL construction trade unions and jobsites in NYC during the years the Towers were built. The mob often substituted shoddier material in projects, taking the better stuff and selling it again for a profit. The very real possibility exists that the interior structure wasn't made with the best material and would not have stood up to the conditions as well as what was supposed to be there.

Well it's as good a theory as controlled demolition.

[Len Colby]

A question that none of the 'controlled demolition' belivers ever address is how and when. How were the charges placed and when were they placed. How come no one saw them?

A reason for the collapse that I think has more relevance is the mob. The mob controlled ALL construction trade unions and jobsites in NYC during the years the Towers were built. The mob often substituted shoddier material in projects, taking the better stuff and selling it again for a profit. The very real possibility exists that the interior structure wasn't made with the best material and would not have stood up to the conditions as well as what was supposed to be there.

Well it's as good a theory as controlled demolition.

Actually the CD (controlled demo) crowd has begun addressing this, talking about 'increased' maintenance activities before 9-11. They think the Con Ed and cable guys and some construction workers really were there to plant the explosives. Do you think Con Edison, Manhattan Cable, the Mob (who IIRC still run NYC construction) and the Port Authority (who authorized the work) were in on it?

Another problem with their theory is that in CD explosives aren't just placed anywhere. The are placed in very specific locations, normally in holes cut into thick steel beams. Cutting these holes makes tremendous amounts of noise which would not have gone unnoticed. Smaller beams are cut and many bolts are unbolted prior to demolition. This of course leaves the buildings unstable and this too would have been noticed.

Another question is how would the charges have been detonated? The traditional method would have been to run wires from the detonator(s) to the explosives. This of course would have been impossible in the WTC. Some have suggested that radio detonators were used, but since lower Manhattan is sea of radio traffic and most of the cities most powerful radio/TV antennas were on the roof of one of the towers, the buildings must have been pretty well shielded.

I also wonder how explosives could have taken out the perimeter columns. Any cutting of them to place explosives inside or explosives planted outside would have been noticed. Also no one had access to them the windows were sealed. The windows were washed with small machines.

The more I look at the CD story the less sense it makes

[Len Colby]

I found this on another forum. It shows that the whole controlled demo theory is ridiqulous. Interestingly enough even though the forum was dominated by CD proponents no one made a substative reply except to suggest the explosives were triggered wirelessly

here are some ACTUAL controlled demolitions and some videos of them.

Guess what, they look nothing like WTC's failure.

Please note the HUGE number of explosives it takes to bring down a building a FRACTION of the size of one of the WTC towers.

Please note the LONG time it takes for a crew of experienced people to set the charges.

Please note the LONG time it takes for preparation of the structure FOR demolition, PRIOR to actually placing the charges.

NO ONE has provided any explanation of how this INCREDIBLE amount of work could have gone on in both towers without someone knowing about it.

The largest structure to be demolished this way, at 439 feet was less then 1/2 as tall as one WTC tower and it took 12 people 24 days to place the charges IN AN ABANDONED BUILDING. They used 5 miles of cable to do so, over 4,000 charges in over 1,000 locations.

Read about them below, links to the demolition videos including the Hudson.

CDI detonated 232.5 lb. of explosives in 863 different locations, in four (4) levels of the 21-level Aladdin Hotel Tower. The initiation and implosion sequence detonated over a 17 second period, with structural motion starting at the southwest corner of the structure, approximately 9.5 seconds into the program

Utilizing approximately 350 kg of high velocity explosives, in 880 locations, CDI felled the structure at exactly 10AM before thousands of spectators

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/defau...=20030324142951

The 11-story, 900 room Hacienda Hotel ….CDI's experience in and the application of its' knowledge of progressive collapse patterns in dozens of other types of construction paid off on the Hacienda project. It took 1,125 lb. of explosives and 30,600-ft of detonating cord initiating charges in 4,128 different locations to bring the three towers down

Hudson's was the tallest department store in the country and was second in square footage only to Macy's anchor Store in New York. It dominated the retail market in the city through the 1970's before closing its doors in 1983.

The complex had two retail basements and 23 above grade retail floors, including mezzanines. Two additional basements and six upper stories in a tower, provided storage and mechanical support for the 2.2 million square foot building. In all there were 33 levels in the structure.

CDI's 12 person loading crew took twenty four days to place 4,118 separate charges in 1,100 locations on columns on nine levels of the complex. Over 36,000 ft of detonating cord and 4,512 non-electric delay elements were installed in CDI's implosion initiation system, some to create the 36 primary implosion sequence and another 216 micro-delays to keep down the detonation overpressure from the 2,728 lb of explosives which would be detonated during the demolition.

CDI's implosion of Hudson's set three new records:

At 439 ft. tall Hudson's is the tallest building ever imploded, eclipsing the record held by CDI since 1975 with the felling of the 361 ft. tall Mendez Caldiera Building in Sao Palo, Brazil.

At 439 ft. tall Hudson's is the tallest structural steel building ever imploded, eclipsing the record CDI set in 1997 with the felling 344 sq. ft. tall #500 Wood Street Building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

At 2.2 Million square feet, Hudson's is the largest single building ever imploded.

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/defau...=20030225133807

#500 Wood Street Building ... CDI's implosion of the 344.5 foot tall office building eclipses the world record for the explosives demolition of urban steel buildings which CDI has held since October 1977 for its' demolition of the 28-story, 245-foot tall Biltmore Hotel in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After two (2) months of preparation, CDI's 13 person crew needed seven (7) days to place 1,590 linear shaped charges totaling 595 lb. of explosives on steel columns on 11 levels of the 27-story structure

Seconds after the final warning signal blared Sunday afternoon at a downtown redevelopment site in Oklahoma City, precisely placed explosive charges dropped a 28-story building almost in its tracks. When it fell, the 245-ft-high structure became the tallest steel-frame building to be demolished with explosives.

Built in 1932 of heavy beams and beefed-up steel columns, the Biltmore Hotel stood in the way of a $39-million urban renewal plan to construct a cultural and recreational complex. Some structures on the site have been removed while others await demolition.

But none presented the problems that the Biltmore did. "It' s the heaviest steel we've ever worked on," says Mark Loizeaux, of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI), Towson, Md., which dropped the brick-clad structure for contractor Wells Excavating Co., Inc., Oklahoma City.

"Because of the thickness of the steel, a single charge wouldn't penetrate completely through," he says. "We had to attack a single 3-in.-thick stem plate from both sides." Each 16-in. steel column with built-up flanges totals 2.5 to 3 tons per floor.

To blast in this fashion, says Loizeaux, it is imperative that the charges on opposing sides go off simultaneously. If one goes off too soon, it will dislodge the other before it can cut through the steel.

CDI placed 991 separate charges, about 800 lbs. of explosives in all, on seven floors from the basement to the 14th floor and detonated them over a five-second interval

Based on this evidence it is totally implausible that the WTC was imploded.

[Ron Ecker]

Bill,

You seem to suggest that John O'Neill was complicit in 9/11. Do you think that his differences with the FBI were a cover story for him to leave the FBI and handle WTC "security" in preparation for the attacks? Do you think he was murdered, made to look like one more victim of the attacks?

I've always thought it was quite a coincidence (oh no, not another one of those!) that O'Neill, in conflict with the FBI over terrorism, happened to take the WTC security job, winding up dead as a result. If he was part of an inside job, why would he be so careless as to get himself killed?

I have the book about him (The Man Who Warned America), but have not had time to read much of it.

Ron

[Ron Ecker]

Len,

Why do you waste your time like this when you have no idea what explosives were used, or how, when, or by whom they were set, in the WTC?

It's easy to say it would be impossible based on known controlled demolitions, when you don't consider the fact that the 9/11 conspirators had as much as 1 trillion dollars to play around with (the amount of money the Pentagon "can't account for"), enough to buy anyone or anything, and the latest explosive devices that the public or CD industry may not even know about.

I'm not so far gone mentally yet that I can't trust my own eyes. I've watched WTC7 implode on video, I've heard the leaseholder Silverstein say it was pulled, and I watched two sister Silverstein buildings, the twin towers, fall in the same suspicious symmetrical fashion.

Call me nuts, but I call reality like I see it.

Ron

[Matthew Lewis]

Silverstein may have said it was pulled or he may have been talking about something else entirely. It is interesting to note that when a demolitionist implodes a building it is known as a "shoot" not a "pull".

Note the red lined box in the lower left corner here

http://www.thestateonline.com/news/pdfs/im...20building'

"Pull" is used if they bring something down mechanically such as with a wrecking ball or pulling a chimney or tower over onto its side. Even then most companies speak of it as a "felling".

Check this demo companies list of projects. Do you see a pull anywhere? What about a felling or a shoot?

http://www.dykon-blasting.com/History/DemoJobList.htm

Even this kids DVD review mentions that buildings are "shot".

http://www.digitallyobsessed.com/showreview.php3?ID=395

"they set a new world record for most buildings "shot" (industry term for bringing down a building or structure with explosives) at one time."

[Ron Ecker]

Go to the “A-Z of Engineering” website, and you will see that “Demolition means to pull down, or to destroy or break something.” Go to the First Family of Demolition site (about the Loizeaux family), and see where Stacey L talks about what has to be done to a structure “in order to properly pull it down.” Go to Pacificblasting.com and read how “The weight of the structure will begin to pull the building down in a controlled direction.” Go to the NIH Record website and read about some buildings that seemed to resist demolition: “Those are pretty tough old structures. It took over a week to pull those down.” Visit the British site This Is Bradford and see where the company Controlled Demolition was going to “pull down parts of Cheapside and Broadway.”

Which brings us to Larry Silverstein. He said of WTC7 that a decision was made to “pull it.” And sure enough the building came down in what looks like a perfectly symmetrical collapse. But if Silverstein meant “something else entirely,” as you suggest, why did he wait three years, while his “pull it” statement festered, before offering an explanation? And why such a lame explanation, when he had three years to think about it? On 9/9/05, Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, said that when Silverstein said “pull it,” by “it” he meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building.

Now if that’s what he meant, don’t you think he would have expressed it like a normal English-speaking person and say a decision was made to “pull everyone out of the building” or “pull the firefighters out,” or anything except “pull it,” without even saying what “it” referred to if not the building under discussion?

Do you buy McQuillan’s explanation? I sure don’t, for two reasons. One is the fact that it’s semantic nonsense as just noted. The second is that on the same TV program in which Silverstein referred to pulling WTC7, an audio is played of a WTC demo crew member saying on a radio, “Hello? Oh, we’re getting ready to pull building six.” And then Luis Mendes of the NYC Dept of Design and Construction says, “We had to be very careful how we demolished building six . . . we wanted that particular building to fall within a certain area.” So clearly the reference to being “ready to pull building six” refers to its demolition as described by Mendes.

Is it logical that Silverstein on the same program would say “pull it” about building seven, and not be referring to the same thing, demolition, that is used in reference to building six? I don’t think so. In my opinion, if anyone thinks Silverstein meant “something else entirely,” it’s because he or she wants to believe it and for no other reason that can be logically argued.

Edited February 28, 2006 by Ron Ecker