Ron Ecker Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 I'm no engineer, but this one states what I and others have argued intuitively about how the towers would fall from damage and fire. http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar.../1022/OPINION02 This is in response to Mr. Paquette's letter of Sept. 27. Having worked as a civil engineer on structural steel buildings, I would like to relate the following: On or about Sept. 11, 2001, CBS and NBC newscasters remarked how the three WTC Buildings collapsed like controlled-demolition. NYC firemen witnessed multiple explosions. Gov. Pataki described the smoldering fires below the rubble and how "the concrete was just pulverized into dust 2 or 3 inches thick from river to river." Only explosives could have pulverized the building's concrete floors and other building materials. Despite the above, our government did not order an analysis of the steel for evidence of explosives at the crime scene. In fact, investigators were denied access to study the site as the salvaged steel was quickly being removed from the country. Perhaps Controlled Demolition Inc.'s employees who removed the steel from Ground Zero could yet be subpoenaed and asked under oath and polygraph if the salvaged steel members showed evidence of explosives and if they found melted steel at the base of the elevator shafts. This would provide further evidence of pre-placed explosives. What Mr. Paquette's Popular Mechanics article failed to mention was that the 47-story WTC Building 7 collapsed at nearly freefall speed onto its own footprint (See www.WTC7.net). If the fires (and any scoop!?) had truly caused the collapse, the results would have been a slower, contorted, more dangerous collapse as the fire-heated steel members gradually relinquished their substantial reserve strength. Jet-fuel/kerosene and building fires cannot provide enough heat to collapse the frame of an engineered structural-steel building and never have. The Popular Mechanics article omits and distorts many facts about 9/11. Incidentally, the "senior researcher" for that Popular Mechanics article was Benjamin Chertoff, cousin of the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, an office created by the president as a result of 9/11. William Rice, P.E. Randolph Center Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evan Burton Posted October 12, 2006 Share Posted October 12, 2006 Incidentally, the "senior researcher" for that Popular Mechanics article was Benjamin Chertoff, cousin of the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, an office created by the president as a result of 9/11. Just another one of those strange coincidences..... It might be if it were true - another one of those niggling little facts the CT'ists fear. Here's the story, as best as I know: I'm not related to Michael Chertoff, at least in any way I can figure out. We might be distant relatives, 15 times removed, but then again, so might you and I. Bottom line is I've never met him, never communicated with him, and nobody I know in my family has ever met or communicated with him. http://www.911myths.com/html/benjamin_chertoff.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ecker Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 FWIW Christopher Bollyn, who reported that Benjamin Chertoff's mom had said "of course" he was related to Michael, has been fired by American Free Press, for allegedly writing false stories. http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum...ames;read=94104 I wasn't aware till I read the linked article that the AFP is "formerly the Spotlight." I assume that's the same Spotlight that E. Howard Hunt unsuccessfully sued for libel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ecker Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 But to repeat the engineer's words: If plane damage and fire had caused the collapse, "the results would have been a slower, contorted, more dangerous collapse as the fire-heated steel members gradually relinquished their substantial reserve strength." That is what has made (common) sense from the very beginning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John J. McCarthy Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 Excerpt: "No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now." - Michael Ledeen Dear All, Michael Ledeen has been described as Karl Rove's Karl Rove. He combines imperial militarism, fascism and Machiavellian politics to produce a philosophy of chaos, death and destruction. He would have been elevated to a high position in Hitler's Third Reich and presently is held in great esteem by many in G.W. Bush's Fourth. In a world bristling with nuclear fission and fusion weapons, he and his goal of "creative destruction" truly deserves the adjective "insane." He is a truly notable crackpot in a federal government full of crackpots. Best regards, Bob ================ http://www.amconmag.com/06_30_03/feature.html June 30, 2003 issue Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative Flirting with Fascism Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right. By John Laughland On the antiwar Right, it has been customary to attack the warmongering neoconservative clique for its Trotskyite origins. Certainly, the founding father of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote in 1983 that he was "proud" to have been a member of the Fourth International in 1940. Other future leading lights of the neocon movement were also initially Trotskyites, like James Burnham and Max Kampelman-the latter a conscientious objector during the war against Hitler, a status that Evron Kirkpatrick, husband of Jeane, used his influence to obtain for him. But there is at least one neoconservative commentator whose personal political odyssey began with a fascination not with Trotskyism, but instead with another famous political movement that grew up in the early decades of the 20th century: fascism. I refer to Michael Ledeen, leading neocon theoretician, expert on Machiavelli, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, regular columnist for National Review-and the principal cheerleader today for an extension of the war on terror to include regime change in Iran. Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote, Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence-our existence, not our politics-threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission. This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for "the democratic revolution" and "creative destruction." In 1996, he gave an extended account of his theory of revolution in his book, Freedom Betrayed - the title, one assumes, is a deliberate reference to Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed. Ledeen explains that "America is a revolutionary force" because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, "[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up. . We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. . We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues." Denouncing Bill Clinton as a "counter-revolutionary" (!), Ledeen is especially eager to make one point: "Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition." Ledeen's conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because "De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement." What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans "solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists." "It seems more plausible," Ledeen argued, "to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people." For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was "the Revolution of the 20th century." Ledeen supports de Felice's distinction between "fascism-movement" and "fascism-regime." Mussolini's regime, he says, was "authoritarian and reactionary"; by contrast, within "fascism-movement," there were many who were animated by "a desire to renew." These people wanted "something more revolutionary: the old ruling class had to be swept away so that newer, more dynamic elements-capable of effecting fundamental changes-could come to power." Like his claim that the common ground between Nazism and Italian fascism was "exceedingly minimal"-Ledeen writes, "The fact of the Axis Pact should not be permitted to become the overriding consideration in this analysis"-Ledeen's careful distinction between fascist "regime" and "movement" makes him a clear apologist for the latter. "While 'fascism-movement' was overcome and eventually suppressed by 'fascism-regime,'" he explains, "fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country." Indeed, Ledeen criticizes Mussolini precisely for not being revolutionary enough. "He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism." Ledeen therefore concurs with the fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizi, who argues-in a book Ledeen calls "a moving and fundamental work"-that Mussolini's was "a failed revolution." Pellizzi had hoped that "the new era was to be the era of youthful genius and creativity": for him, Ledeen says, the fascist state was "a generator of energy and creativity." The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a "worldwide mass movement" enabling the peoples of the world, "liberated" by American militarism, to participate in the "greatest experiment in human freedom." Ledeen wrote in 1996, "The people yearn for the real thing-revolution." Ledeen was especially interested in the role played by youth in Italian fascism. It was here that he detected the movement's most exciting revolutionary potential. The young Ledeen wrote that those who exalted the position of youth in the fascist revolution-like those who argued in favor of his beloved "universal fascism"-were committed to exporting Italian fascism to the whole world, an idea in which Mussolini was initially uninterested. When he was later converted to it, Mussolini said that fascism drew on the universalist heritage of Rome, both ancient and Catholic. No doubt Ledeen thinks that the new Rome in Washington has the same universalist mission. He writes that people around Berto Ricci-the editor of the fascist newspaper L'Universale, and a man he calls "brilliant" and "an example of enthusiasm and independence"- "called for the formation of a new empire, an empire based not on military conquest but rather on Italy's unique genius for civilization. . They intended to develop the traditions of their country and their civilization in such a manner as to make them the basic tenets of a new world order." Ledeen adds, in a passage that anticipates his later love of creative destruction, "Clearly the act of destruction which would produce the flowering of the new fascist hegemony would sweep away the present generation of Italians, along with the rest." And Giuseppe Bottai, to whom Ledeen attributes "considerable energy and autonomy," was notable for his belief that "the infusion of the creative energies of a new generation was essential" for the fascist revolution. Bottai "implored the young . to found a new order arising from the spontaneous activity of their creation." One of the greatest exponents of such youthful vitalism was the high priest of fascism, the poet and adventurer Gabriele D'Annunzio, to whom Ledeen devoted an enthusiastic biography in 1977. Years ago, I visited D'Annunzio's house on the shores of Lake Garda: there is a battleship in the garden and a Brenn gun in the sitting room. D'Annunzio was an eccentric and militaristic Italian Nietzschean who "eulogized rape and acts of savagery" committed by the people he called his spiritual ancestors. The poet was also an early prophet of military intervention and regime change: he invaded the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka) in 1919 and held the city for a year, during which he put into practice his theories of "New Order." In 1918, moreover, D'Annunzio had dropped propaganda leaflets over Vienna promising to liberate the Austrians from their own government, something Ledeen hails as "a glorious gesture." D'Annunzio's watchword was "the liberation of human personality." "His heroism during the war made it possible," Ledeen writes, "to bridge the chasm between intellectuals and the masses. . The revolt D'Annunzio led was directed against the old order of Western Europe, and was carried out in the name of youthful creativity and virility." As Ledeen shows, the Italian fascists expressed their desire "to tear down the old order" (his words from 2002) in terms that are curiously anticipatory of a famous statement in 2003 by the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. In 1932, Asvero Gravelli also divided Europe into "old" and "new" when he wrote, in Towards the Fascist International, "Either old Europe or young Europe. Fascism is the gravedigger of old Europe. Now the forces of the Fascist International are rising." It all sounds rather prophetic http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity....=michael_ledeen Profile: Michael Ledeen Positions that Michael Ledeen has held: a.. Research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute Quotes 2000 "[T]he defense of the country is one of those extreme situation in which a leader is justified in committing evil." [Ledeen, 2000] Associated Events a.. The use of Islamist militants by American and Israeli militarists -- The war in Afghanistan to September 11 and beyond - January 1999 - General Agim Ceku (see September 4, 2001 "Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize." [Wall Street Journal, 9/4/2002] Associated Events a.. Events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - September 4, 2002 - Neoconservative Michael Le ... October 29, 2001 "No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now." [American Enterprise Institute, 10/29/2001] Associated Events a.. Complete 911 Timeline - October 29, 2001 - Michael Ledeen, speaking at ... August 6, 2002 "Scowcroft has managed to get one thing half right, even though he misdescribes it. He fears that if we attack Iraq 'I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror.' One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists. That's our mission in the war against terror." [National Review, 8/6/2002] Associated Events a.. Events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - August 4, 2002 - Appearing on CBS's R ... March 25, 2003 "I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. ... What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue." [American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/2003] Associated Events a.. Events leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq - March 25, 2003 - During a conference held at t ... Related Entities: Michael Ledeen actively participated in the following events: February 19, 1998 The Committee for Peace and Security publishes an open letter to President Bill Clinton outlining a 9-point "comprehensive political and military strategy for bringing down Saddam and his regime." The letter is signed by a litany of former US government officials known for their neoconservative viewpoints. Several of the signatories are also involved with the Project for the New American Century and had endorsed a similar letter published by that organization the previous month. [CNN, 2/20/1998; Abrams et al., 2/19/1998] Entity Tags: Leon Wienseltier, Max Singer, Helmut Sonnenfeldt, Caspar Weinberger, John R. Bolton, Peter Rosenblatt, Jeffrey Gedmin, Frank Gaffney, Frank Carlucci, Paula J. Dobriansky, William B. Clark, Richard Armitage, Dov S. Zakheim, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard V. Allen, Jeffrey T. Bergner, David Wurmser, Gary Schmitt, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Stephen Bryen, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Michael Ledeen, Richard Burt, Douglas Feith, Jarvis Lynch, Robert C. McFarlane, Frederick L. Lewis, Sven F. Kraemer, Bernard Lewis, Peter Rodman, Roger Robinson, Martin Peretz, Robert A. Pastor, Joshua Muravchik, Fred C. Ikle, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, Stephen Solarz 1999: US NGO Formed to Promote Peace in Chechnya The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is founded by Freedom House. Its mission is to promote a "peaceful resolution of the Russo-Chechen war." Board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Steven J. Solarz, and Max Kampelman. ACPC's regular members include Richard Perle; Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Bruce Jackson, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, among others. The APC is closely tied to the American Enterprise Institute and the Jamestown Foundation and National Endowment for Democracy and other US democratization initiatives. [Guardian, 9/8/2004; American Committee for Peace in Chechnya, 11/15/2005] Entity Tags: National Endowment for Democracy, American Enterprise Institute, Jamestown Foundation, Norman Podhoretz, Robert Kagan, James Woolsey, William Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Bruce Jackson, Frank Gaffney, Midge Decter, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC), Kenneth Adelman, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Max Kampelman, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Zbigniew Brzezinski, Stephen Solarz 2000 In his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, neoconservative Michael Ledeen measures modern leaders against Machiavelli's rules for leadership and concludes that "[e]ven after a half a millennium, Machiavelli's advice to leaders is as contemporary as tomorrow." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 185] He laments that contemporary Western leaders, "like their counterparts in the rest of the world, have fallen short of Machiavelli's standards." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 187] According to Ledeen, "f new and more virtuous leaders do not emerge, it is only a matter of time before we are either dominated by our enemies or sink into a more profound crisis." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 187] Such a situation, he explains, would put the US in the "same desperate crisis that drove Machiavelli to call for a new dictator to set things aright." He adds, "In either case, we need Machiavellian wisdom and leadership." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 188] Throughout the book Ledeen highlights certain qualities that he believes make strong leaders. A leader "must be prepared to fight at all times," he writes, and must be of "manly vigor." Women, he says, are rarely strong leaders because women generally cannot achieve virtue for they lack the "physical wherewithal and the passionate desire to achieve" military glory. To Ledeen, the ends may justify the means. In some situations, "n order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.'" [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 90] According to Ledeen, the Christian god sanctions this view. Machiavelli, he notes approvingly, wrote: "I believe that the greatest good that one can do, and the most gratifying to God is that which one does for one's country." Ledeen thus adds: "Since it is the highest good, the defense of the country is one of those extreme situation in which a leader is justified in committing evil." [Ledeen, 2000, pp. 117] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen After November 2000 After the 2000 Presidential Election, Bush's White House political adviser, Karl Rove, tells neoconservative Michael Ledeen "Anytime you have a good idea, tell me." From that point on, according to Ledeen, every month or six weeks, Ledeen offers Rove "something you should be thinking about." On more than one occasion, ideas faxed to Rove by Ledeen, "become official policy or rhetoric," the Post reports. [Washington Post, 3/10/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Karl Rove October 29, 2001: Necon Scholar: 'This Is Total War' Michael Ledeen, speaking at an event sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, states: "No stages. This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq ... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now." [American Enterprise Institute, 10/29/2001] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen December 7, 2001 Michael Ledeen, an avid admirer of Machiavelli, argues in a piece published by National Review Online that the US must be "imperious, ruthless, and relentless" against the Muslim world until there has been "total surrender." Any attempt on the part of the US to be "reasonable" or "evenhanded" will only empower Islamic militants, he asserts. He writes: "We will not be sated until we have had the blood of every miserable little tyrant in the Middle East, until every leader of every cell of the terror network is dead or locked securely away, and every last drooling anti-Semitic and anti-American mullah, imam, sheikh, and ayatollah is either singing the praises of the United States of America, or pumping gasoline, for a dime a gallon, on an American military base near the Arctic Circle." [National Review, 12/7/2001] The piece is republished in the Jewish World Review four days later. [Jewish World Review, 12/11/2001] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen December 9, 2001 The Bush administration sends two defense officials, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin, to meet with Iranians in Rome in response to an Iranian government offer to provide information relevant to the war on terrorism. The offer had been backchanneled by the Iranians to the White House through Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader and a central person in the Iran-Contra affair, who contacted another Iran-Contra figure, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute. Ledeen passed the information on to his friends in the Defense Department who then relayed the offer to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Hadley, who expressed no reservations about the proposed meeting, informed George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. According to officials interviewed by the New York Times, the United States Embassy in Rome was not notified of the planned meeting as required by standard interagency procedures. Neither the US embassy nor CIA station chief in Rome learns of the three-day meeting until after it happens (see December 12, 2001). When they do catch wind of the meeting, they notify CIA and State Department headquarters in Washington which complain to the administration about how the meetings were arranged. [Newsday, 8/9/2003; Washington Post, 8/9/2003; New York Times, 12/7/2003] In addition to Ghorbanifar, Ledeen, Franklin, and Rhode, the meeting is attended by Nicolo Pollari, head of SISMI, and Antonio Martino, Italy's minister of defense. [Washington Monthly, 9/2004] According to the Boston Globe, either at this meeting, a similar one in June (see June 2002), or both, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar discuss ways to destabilize the Iranian government, possibly using the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, a US-designated terrorist group, as a US proxy. [boston Globe, 8/31/2004] Additionally, according to an unnamed SISMI source, Pollari speaks with Ledeen about intelligence his agency has collected (see October 15, 2001) suggesting that Iraq made a deal with Niger to purchase several tons of uranium. SISMI already sent a report to Washington on the matter in mid-October (see October 15, 2001). Reportedly, Pollari has also approached CIA Station Chief Jeff Castelli about the report, but Castelli has since indicated he is not interested in the information. [La Repubblica (Rome), 10/25/2005] Entity Tags: Antonio Martino, Nicolo Pollari, George J. Tenet, Stephen J. Hadley, Harold Rhode, Larry Franklin, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode December 12, 2001 The newly-installed US ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler, learns during the course of a private dinner with Iran-Contra figure Michael Ledeen and Italian defense minister Antonio Martino about the secret backchannel meeting they attended three days before (see December 9, 2001) with US defense officials, former Iran-Contra figures, and Iranian government officials. After the dinner, Sembler immediately contacts the CIA station chief in Rome to find out if he knows about the meeting. But the station chief says he was also unaware of the meeting. "Soon both Sembler and the Rome station chief were sending anxious queries back to the State Department and CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., respectively, raising alarms on both sides of the Potomac" since all US government contact with foreign government intelligence agencies is supposed to be overseen by the CIA. [Washington Monthly, 9/2004 Sources: Unnamed US Government sources] Entity Tags: Antonio Martino, Michael Ledeen, Mel Sembler January 30, 2002 Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice's chief deputy on the National Security Council, instructs former Iran-Contra figure Michael Ledeen and officials in Douglas Feith's office to cease their dealings (see December 9, 2001) with Manucher Ghorbanifar. [Washington Monthly, 9/2004] Entity Tags: Stephen J. Hadley, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Manucher Ghorbanifar June 2002 In Paris, Defense Department officials (including either Harold Rhode or Larry Franklin) meet with Iranian officials and Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms trader who had been a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair. The meeting reportedly resulted from "an unplanned, unscheduled encounter," that took place without White House approval. An earlier meeting involving several of the same figures had taken place seven months earlier (See December 9, 2001). [Washington Post, 8/9/2003; New York Times, 12/7/2003] When Secretary of State Colin Powell learns of the meeting, he complains directly to Condoleezza Rice and the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. [Newsday, 8/9/2003; Washington Post, 8/9/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode, Colin Powell, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Larry Franklin July 2002 Michael Ledeen contacts Mel Sembler, the US ambassador to Italy, and informs him that he will be traveling to Rome again (see December 9, 2001) to continue "his work" with the Iranians. Sembler passes this on to Washington, and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley sends word to Ledeen reminding him that he is not to deal with the Iranians. [Washington Monthly, 9/2004] Entity Tags: Mel Sembler, Michael Ledeen, Stephen J. Hadley September 4, 2002 Neoconservative Michael Ledeen argues in a piece published by the Wall Street Journal that the US must not limit the next military strike to Iraq alone. Rather, according to Ledeen, the US "should instead be talking about using all our political, moral, and military genius to support a vast democratic revolution to liberate all the peoples of the Middle East from tyranny." In addition to Iraq, he says, the governments of Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia must also be overthrown. "Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize." [Wall Street Journal, 9/4/2002] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen Late 2002 Michael Ledeen joins with Morris Amitay, vice-president of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; ex-CIA head James Woolsey; former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney; former senator Paul Simon; and oil consultant Rob Sobhani to set up a group called the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI). [sunday Herald (Glasgow), 6/1/2003] CDI says it "fully agrees with President Bush's inclusion of Iran in the 'axis of evil' and supports congressional initiatives to bring about needed change in Iran." [Coalition for Democracy, 1/16/2004] The group has strong ties to Reza Pahlavi, the son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the US-backed leader of Iran who was removed from power by the 1979 Iranian Revolution. [international Herald Tribune, 6/6/2003] Entity Tags: James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Michael Ledeen March 25, 2003 During a conference held at the American Enterprise Institute, an audience member asks the panel of guests-made up of James Woolsey, Richard Perle, and Michael Ledeen-where they see "the level of acceptance of US society in terms of casualties, not only on the US side, but as well on the Iraqi side, and in terms of duration of the operation?" Ledeen responds: "I think the level of casualties is secondary. I mean, it may sound like an odd thing to say, but all the great scholars who have studied American character have come to the conclusion that we are a warlike people and that we love war. ... What we hate is not casualties but losing. And if the war goes well and if the American public has the conviction that we're being well-led and that our people are fighting well and that we're winning, I don't think casualties are going to be the issue." [American Enterprise Institute, 3/25/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle, James Woolsey May 6, 2003 The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) hosts "The Future of Iran Mullahcracy, Democracy, and the War on Terror" at Washington DC's Wohlstetter Conference Center. The forum, cosponsored by Hudson Institute and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, includes a discussion on "What lies ahead for Iran?" and "What steps can the United States take to promote democratization and regime change in Iran?" Noted moderators and panelists include: Meyrav Wurmser, The Hudson Institute; Uri Lubrani, Israeli Defense Ministry; US Senator Sam Brownback; Michael A. Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht, both of the AEI; Bernard Lewis, Princeton University; and Morris Amitay of The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. [American Enterprise Institute, 5/6/2003] Entity Tags: American Enterprise Institute, Meyrav Wurmser, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Michael Ledeen May 29, 2003 CNN reports that despite US government prohibitions (see March 15, 1995 and May 6, 1995) banning US citizens and business from doing business with Iran, dozens of US companies are actively conducting business there, including Halliburton, ConocoPhillips and General Electric. The companies are using a complicated array of corporate loop-holes and off-shore accounts to maneuver around US laws. Michael Ledeen, interviewed by CNN, says these companies are aiding terrorism. "The oil companies are a wholly owned subsidiary of the government...the government is the primary sponsor of terrorism," he says, additionally claiming that "they have separate organizations that are used to funnel oil profits and other profits into the terror network." [CNN, 2/10/2003; CNN, 5/29/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Halliburton, Inc. September 26, 2003 American Enterprise Institute hosts Hossein Khomeini, grandson of the Ayatollah Rohallah Khomeini. Khomeini leads a discussion or Iran's future at the Wohlstetter Conference Center in Washington D.C. He is introduced by Michael Ledeen. [American Enterprise Institute, 9/26/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen December 19, 2003 Michael Ledeen, in an op-ed piece published by the Wall Street Journal, makes numerous charges against the Iranian government saying it supports terrorism and is on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. He asserts that the Bush administration must therefore act soon against Iran. He says Iran is the "ultimate litmus test of the seriousness of the Bush administration" and that the "...[administration's] ability to conduct an effective campaign against the mullahs in Tehran will determine the outcome of the war against the terror masters." Ledeen asserts that the US does not need to invade Iran to "liberate it," rather it only needs to support the "enthusiastically pro-American" people, as the US did the "Serbs against Slobodan Milosovic, the Filipinos against the Marcoses, the Poles against Soviet Communism." [Wall Street Journal, 12/19/2003] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen January 6, 2004 Hossein Khomeini, grandson of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returns to Iran on January 6, 2004. During 2003, he spent several months in Iraq and visited the US, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) (see September 26, 2003). Khomeini's return to Iran is a surprise to Michael Ledeen and the AEI. According to Ledeen, sources close to the Khomeini family suggest that he was lured back with a combination of threats and promises. Ledeen says that Khomeini's wife was recently visited by Iranian security agents who told her, "If your children suddenly die in the streets, you must know that it was not our doing." [New York Sun, 1/26/2004] Entity Tags: Michael Ledeen, Hossein Khomeini April 3, 2005 Journalist and radio host Ian Masters asks former CIA operative Vincent Cannistraro during an interview, in reference to the question of who forged the Niger documents (see March 2000), "If I were to say the name Michael Ledeen to you, what would you say?" Cannistraro replies, "You're very close." After the radio show, Ledeen denies in a statement that he has any connection to the documents. [ian Master's Background Briefing, 4/3/2005] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John J. McCarthy Posted October 13, 2006 Share Posted October 13, 2006 THE TIME TO ASSERT CHECKS AND BALANCES IS NOW Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D. October 11, 2006 NewsWithViews.com go here to read http://www.newswithviews.com/Vieira/edwin48.htm or read pasted below THE TIME TO ASSERT CHECKS AND BALANCES IS NOW Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr., Ph.D., J.D. October 11, 2006 NewsWithViews.com From every sector of America's political spectrum that contains people still capable of thinking rationally arise denunciations of the recently enacted Military Commissions Act. Beyond any doubt, major portions of that statute are blatantly unconstitutional. Beyond any doubt, through those portions of the statute the individuals now controlling Congress and the Executive Branch have in effect declared war on constitutional government in this country. But the question remains: NOW WHAT?! Exactly what are the American people going to do--what can they do-- to reverse this latest outrage? America's federal system is a government of checks and balances. If Congress and the Executive Branch are temporarily in the clutches of the Forces of Darkness, there remain the Supreme Court, the States, We the People as the Electorate, and We the People as "the Militia of the several States". We the People cannot turn to "the Militia of the several States", because the Militia remain unorganized. My first book-length treatment of that problem is now close to publication. But, even if it were already in general circulation--and received with more than the yawns of disinterest that follow most calls for fundamental reform in this country--a long time would pass before its recommendations could be put into practice through statutes enacted in enough of the States. We the People as the Electorate could (and should) remove from Congress every Representative and Senator, running in this November's elections, who voted for the Military Commissions Act--and then hope that the reconstructed Congress would immediately repeal that offensive legislation, and override the President's veto of the repeal. This strategy depends for its success, however, on two contingencies: (i) that the candidates challenging the incumbents will follow that course of action if elected, rather than proving to be nothing more than a new set of Pinocchios for the Forces of Darkness; and (ii) that the elections themselves will be honest. If, as many Americans fear, elections are routinely rigged throughout this country, relying on them to change the substance of Congress, rather than just the faces of the marionettes composing it, is useless. That leaves the States and the Supreme Court. Linkage of the two is not accidental, but compelled by the terms of the Military Commissions Act. Congress and the Executive Branch have attempted to preclude the Judiciary from reviewing the statute, by denying the federal courts jurisdiction over the subject matter--that is, stripping them of the authority to hear cases or controversies challenging the (il)legality of the statute. Arguably, Congress does have the power, in general, to control the jurisdiction of what the Constitution calls the "inferior Courts [which] the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish" (Article III, Section 1). Whether these "inferior Courts", and the Supreme Court in its turn, will agree that Congress has the power to excise from the "federal question" jurisdiction that now exists a special class of cases and controversies, for the sole purpose of preventing the courts from declaring the Military Commissions Act unconstitutional--that is, for the sole purpose of preventing violations of the Constitution from being set aside--remains to be seen. Moreover, although the Constitution allows Congress to control the jurisdiction of the "inferior Courts" that it "ordain and establish [es]", that power does not extend to State courts, which the States, not Congress, create. And State courts certainly enjoy sufficient jurisdiction to investigate the unconstitutionality of actions taken under color of the Military Commissions Act within the boundaries of their own States. Cases and controversies working their tortuous ways from the bottom up, trial by trial and appeal by appeal, through the "inferior [federal] Courts" or the State courts will take years to complete, however. During which time, serious--perhaps fatal--harm will be done to this country. America needs immediate action. And the Constitution offers the means. The Constitution provides that "[t]he judicial Power [of the United States] shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, [and] the Laws of the United States", and "to Controversies * * * between a State and Citizens of another State" (Article III, Section 2, Clause 1). It also provides that " n all Cases * * * in which a State shall be a Party, the Supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction" (Article III, Section 2, Clause 2). So, if a State were to sue those officials of the General Government (civil and military) who administer the Military Commissions Act, and are not citizens of that State, the case would have to be heard by the Supreme Court itself in its "original Jurisdiction"--that is, the jurisdiction the Constitution confers directly, and therefore which no statute of Congress can withhold or remove. Indeed, if several States each filed separate suits against officials who were not their citizens, and all of these suits were consolidated (if only for reason of the Court's convenience), the unconstitutionality of essentially the whole of the Military Commissions Act in its every application could be heard at one sitting. The States certainly have "standing" to bring such suits. The Constitution removes certain powers from the States and transfers them to the General Government, on the understanding that those powers will be exercised strictly according to the delegations and limitations the Constitution sets. Senators, Representatives, and other officials of the General Government "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution" (Article VI, Clause 3). And the President takes the more extensive "Oath or Affirmation * * * to the best of my Ability, [to] preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" (Article II, Section 1, Clause 7). If officials of the General Government violate the Constitution-- thereby forswearing their "Oath or Affirmation" of office--the States suffer injury, by having more power taken from them in fact than the Constitution allows in law. Indeed, unless the "Oath or Affirmation" that the Constitution requires are just meaningless hot air, there must exist a judicial means for their enforcement. And inasmuch as the States are the primary beneficiaries of those "Oath or Affirmation" when they are honored, and the primary victims when they are dishonored, the States must have access to that judicial means. So now it is time to fish or cut bait. One State legislature needs to pass, and one State governor needs to sign, a statute appointing a special attorney general to prosecute such a suit. Tomorrow, if not sooner. I should suggest that this special attorney general really be a SPECIAL attorney general, with no ties whatsoever to the political and legal Establishment; that he be invested with plenary power to litigate the case as he alone determines proper; and that he be supplied with sufficient funds to assemble a "dream team" of constitutional scholars and litigators, and necessary para-legal personnel, for that purpose. The future of America as a free and independent nation being at stake, no effort or expenditure can be too great. Some people will complain that this proposal is naïve, because the State governments are no less corrupt than the General Government. If that were true across the country, then all hope for We the People's self-government would be gone. And one must never lose hope. DVM SPIRO SPERO. With fifty different State governments, the claim that not a single one of them can be put to a constitutional purpose, in the hour of this country's greatest need, must be rejected as the counsel of defeatism and despair, the spawn of agents provocateurs, not the sense of American patriots. Other people will argue that the Supreme Court cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Perhaps that is true. But, then again, perhaps not. No one can know, until the effort is made. Even a broken clock is right twice a day--and America's time may just be at hand. In any event, America has next to no choice. And a case brought by even one State in the Court's original jurisdiction, whatever its eventual outcome, will immediately seize the whole country's attention--separate the sheep from the goats--and galvanize patriotic Americans into taking other actions as well, particularly if the Court refuses to do its duty. As Churchill said, if it is not the beginning of the end, it will be the end of the beginning. But if this proposal--or something equally daring--is not put into practice, the end of America will soon be upon us all. Take your choice. © 2006 Edwin Vieira, Jr. - All Rights Reserved Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack White Posted October 14, 2006 Author Share Posted October 14, 2006 Click on: http://www.911closeup.com/nico/911chron_timeline_nico.html Jack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Hill Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 As far as the notion of "nuts" is concerned . . . This is the guy who took my picture at Ground Zero on September 11, 2006, because I was wearing an "Investigate 9/11" T-shirt. By the way, who new that while Ground Zero continues to be a dormant construction site, World Trade Center 7 has been quietly rebuilt? Any boot on the ground can tell you . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted October 14, 2006 Share Posted October 14, 2006 I note that no one has be able to point out anything wrong with Cockburn's essay othet than they didn't like it. Peter - What exactly do the facts that you had your picture taken by a cop and that 7 WTC was rebuilt prove? Len Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John J. McCarthy Posted October 15, 2006 Share Posted October 15, 2006 I am absolutely waiting for the day one and all of the naysayers, COCKburn included, are ever arrested for a felony crime where the only thing going for the prosecutor is circumstantial evidence. That's right, boyz, circumstantial evidence is good enough for the Feds to convict your sorry asses for any crime up to and including murder, mass murder and war crimes. All of the points that the naysayers are demanding "PROOF" of are inconsequential! How do you think the FBI gets so many gold stars for convictions?? Get used to it. Look at the books, naysayers and read 'em and weep. Your day is coming! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted October 15, 2006 Share Posted October 15, 2006 Great punishment for thought crimes!! It's never going to happen but people like John or Fetzer getting any power is even more distrubing than Bush and his ilk staying in power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted October 15, 2006 Share Posted October 15, 2006 I'm no engineer, but this one states what I and others have argued intuitively about how the towers would fall from damage and fire.http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ar.../1022/OPINION02 This is in response to Mr. Paquette's letter of Sept. 27. Having worked as a civil engineer on structural steel buildings, I would like to relate the following: I checked Mr. Rice's credentials and he is indeed a duly licensed civil engineer in the state of Vermont. So he is now one of only three who publicly support the CD theory. I wonder if he was ever the structural engineer of record or ever worked on a high rise. (Question for Steve Ulman can a civil engineer "work …on structural steel buildings in any capacity other than a structural engineer?) "On or about Sept. 11, 2001, CBS and NBC newscasters remarked how the three WTC Buildings collapsed like controlled-demolition." No one disputes that the collapses looked superficially like CD the opinions of journalists with no expertise in the area is not especially compelling. As already pointed out the collapsed didn't resemble CD in 2 important aspects: 1) the buildings collapsed from the top down, unlike any CD ever recorded. Under standard CD supports in the lower level are blown out and gravity does the rest to a structure that has previously been weakened. 2) A large portion of the building was ejected far from its footprint. [1][1] "NYC firemen witnessed multiple explosions…" Many of these explosions were heard long before the collapses which does not fit the CD theory and according to the "official story" there were several explosions in the towers caused by jet fuel flowing down elevator shafts being ignited [2][2]. It is also more than probable that transformers [3][3] and stocks of cleaning/photocopying supplies exploded. Other events like debris and elevators dropping to the bottoms of their shafts could have created explosion like noises. As documented elsewhere in this forum people even war veterans describe loud noises as explosions [4][4]. Some of the reports of explosions from the North Tower is seems were from when the South Tower was hit then collapsed [5]. Many of the quotes were taken out of context the speaker was saying the noise sounded like an explosion not that he (or she) thought it was an explosion [6]. Not a single fireman or any other witness in the WTC except for William Rodriguez and 2 – 3 of his co-workers said after 9-11-01 that they thought explosives were used in the towers. It should not be forgotten that Rodriguez gave a different account on the day of the attacks [7] and his later version is contradicted by others such as Mike Pecoraro who were in the basement and said nothing about hearing of feeling an explosion [8]. "Gov. Pataki described the smoldering fires below the rubble and how "the concrete was just pulverized into dust 2 or 3 inches thick from river to river." Only explosives could have pulverized the building's concrete floors and other building materials."500,000 ton 1364-8 foot tall buildings collapsing release a tremendous amount of kinetic energy. Until we see Mr. Rice's calculations showing that there was not enough energy his opinion is nothing more than his opinion. Dr. Frank Greening a physical chemist who was a member of SPINE (a group that backed the "inside job" theory) and still thinks the Bush administration might have been involved calculated that there was more than enough energy to pulverize the concrete [9]. "Despite the above, our government did not order an analysis of the steel for evidence of explosives at the crime scene." "The above" doesn't really constitute evidence that explosives were used. Explosives leave tell tale signs several experts who were at Ground Zero or saw the steel elsewhere have said they saw no signs explosives were used [10]. "In fact, investigators were denied access to study the site as the salvaged steel was quickly being removed from the country." Another myth. Mr. Rice's research it seems is limited to "inside job" sites. As already noted the whole notion that the steel was recycled to quickly and that investigators were not allowed access to the site is more myth and red herring that reality. Numerous experts had access to the steel and said they saw no signs that explosives were used[11]. "Perhaps Controlled Demolition Inc.'s employees who removed the steel from Ground Zero could yet be subpoenaed and asked under oath and polygraph if the salvaged steel members showed evidence of explosives" Actually most of the workers weren't from CDI who were the primary contractors. Those workers have stated they saw no such signs of explosives.[12] "…and if they found melted steel at the base of the elevator shafts. This would provide further evidence of pre-placed explosives." There is no forensic evidence of and few if any credible reports of molten steel. Most reports are of molten metal or are 2nd (or 3rd) hand [13]. Molten metal proves little because there are several metals such as aluminum, lead (computer monitors, electrical solder [14] etc) Babbitt Metal (elevator components [15]) which would have been present in abundant quantities which had meting points below those probably reached in the debris pile files [16]. The few 1st hand reports of molten steel are suspect because the witness wasn't in a position to differential molten steel from other molten metals or didn't seem to be talking about molten as in being in a liquid state, there are for example reports of "molten beams" which is an oxymoron [17]. "What Mr. Paquette's Popular Mechanics article failed to mention was that the 47-story WTC Building 7 collapsed at nearly freefall speed onto its own footprint (See www.WTC7.net)." 7 didn't collapse "at nearly freefall speed" but rather as can be seen in video clips in about 13 seconds or more. Reports that it took 6.6 seconds to collapse (about 10% longer than free fall time) fail to take into account the collapse of the mechanical penthouse which would seem to indicate that much of the buildings steel frame collapsed before the facade[18]. "If the fires (and any scoop!?) had truly caused the collapse, the results would have been a slower, contorted, more dangerous collapse as the fire-heated steel members gradually relinquished their substantial reserve strength." He is entitled to his opinion but he is contradicted by numerous experts with proven expertise [19], and our own Josiah "Tink" Thompson (author of 6 Seconds in Dallas) who lead an extensive investigation of the collapse [20] He also ignores or seems ignorant of the fact that numerous NYFD fire fighters and commanders and other emergency personnel said that the building was extensively damaged and looked posed for collapse and that the commander in charge ordered all his men away from the building in order to establish a "collapse zone" [21]. "Jet-fuel/kerosene and building fires cannot provide enough heat to collapse the frame of an engineered structural-steel building and never have." Odd then that construction codes worldwide have required that iron/steel frames have required fireproofing for a about a century [22]. Odder still that the inventor of the fire proofing used on the lower but not the upper floors of the towers said with uncanny prescience, "If a fire breaks out above the 64th floor, that building will fall down," [23] and Leslie Robertson the structural engineer of the towers said he "didn't know whether they would fall or not fall" due to the fires [24] Robertson has said repeatedly that he believes the fires in the Twin Towers is what caused them to collapse. He is once again misinformed as there are several precedents of "engineered structural-steel building(s)" collapsing due to fire [25]. He also seems unaware that in addition to the hundreds experts who worked of the American Society of Civil Engineers/Structural Engineers Association of NY/FEMA report (as volunteers) and the more conclusive NIST report (the majority of who were NOT government employees[26]) numerous independent experts including fire engineers, professors from America's top engineering schools (MIT, Berkley, Northwestern etc.) as well as engineers from other countries have reach similar conclusions [27]. By contrast the people with even remotely applicable credentials are few and far between they have:A handful of particle physicists including Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Derrick Grimmer, Dr. Judy Wood a mechanical engineer whose area of specialty is dental fillings [28] who called Dr. Jones, the most out spoken and well know of the physicists, a fraud and a xxxx [29], Joseph M. Phelps who is 82 or 83 got a civil engineering degree in the 40's started an engineering firm in the 50's but apparently has spent the last few decades running a 9 hole golf course [30]. He has not AFAIK made any public statements regarding 9/11 but joined Scholars for 9/11 Truth and is listed as a Structural Dynamicist [31] which seems to be a type of mechanical engineer normally employed in the aerospace industry and Charles Pegelow a structural engineer whose area of specialty is oil rigs and only worked buildings in his first job out of college in 1972 before he got his engineer's license [32] and now Mr. Rice I plan on finishing the footnotes some time this week 1] See - http://www.jod911.com/WTC%20COLLAPSE%20STUDY%20BBlanchard%208-8-06.pdf pgs. 3 - 5 2] http://www.faqs.org/docs/911/911Report-302.html , 3] http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm 4] http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=6626&view=findpost&p=77033 , see also http://911myths.com/html/accounts_of_explosions.html 5] http://www.911myths.com/html/quote_abuse.html, http://www.webscope.com/~larrygc/gra/wtc/sep11wtcdisaster.htm 6] http://www.debunking911.com/quotes.htm , http://www.debunking911.com/explosions.htm , and 911myths link from 4] 7] http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/new.york.terror/ 8] http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029 9] http://911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf , http://911myths.com/Energy_Transfer_Addendum.pdf 10] http://www.wconline.com/CDA/Archive/24ae78779d768010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____ (FREE registration required) http://www.jod911.com/WTC%20COLLAPSE%20STUDY%20BBlanchard%208-8-06.pdf pg. 7 http://www.angelfire.com/ult/znewz1/wtc.html - see comments of John Young. 11] http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=7984&view=findpost&p=76209 http://911myths.com/html/bpat_access.html http://www.jod911.com/WTC%20COLLAPSE%20STUDY%20BBlanchard%208-8-06.pdf pgs 7,8 & 10 12] http://www.jod911.com/WTC%20COLLAPSE%20STUDY%20BBlanchard%208-8-06.pdf pg. 7 [13][14][15][16][17] [18] As can be seen in the CBS video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3410644586838318138& the penthouse starts falling after 6 seconds the building itself after 13 the building can been seen collapsing till 19 seconds when the view is obscured by other buildings and dust. This copy of the same clip http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3132857754400064872& is better quality but cuts off mid collapse the penthouse starts collapsing after 1 second the roofline after 8. "Inside jobbers" normally show this clip shot from street level which cuts just as the roofline starts to collapse and in which the end of the collapse is obscured by the buildings in front. 19] http://www.wconline.com/CDA/Archive/24ae78779d768010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____ (FREE registration required), http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixl.pdf, http://www.jod911.com/WTC%20COLLAPSE%20STUDY%20BBlanchard%208-8-06.pdf pgs 7 - 10, 20] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FETZERclaimsDEBUNK/message/2457 (Membership required) 21] http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm , http://sclass.chronicmunchies.com/stuff/Roberts_WTC7_Lies.pdf (3.8 MB) pgs 37 - 51 [22] [23] http://www.npri.org/issues/issues01/i_b0121101.htm [24] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2907_wtc.html [25] http://www.debunking911.com/firsttime.htm Incidentally, the "senior researcher" for that Popular Mechanics article was Benjamin Chertoff, cousin of the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, an office created by the president as a result of 9/11. Just another one of those strange coincidences.....we are not supposed to notice or assign any import to. Was Sherlock Holmes real and alive he would not be siding with the Len's nor Bendan's nor Craig's of the world....but would long ago have drawn a conclusion of foul play afoot. Not only does 9/11 parallel 11/22 but the coverups are starting to smell similar...som mocratic neototalitarian leaders on their Reign of Terror and ething on the soul of 'shoes' of the whole nation. Not only will we not step in it again..we are calling our unelected and anti-de Ommissions of Error. If true this entirely irrelevant but it is not entirely clear that it is as Evan already pointed out. Throwing in Brendan is entirely a straw man and playing to the audience. As far as I know he has never commented on this part of the forum and I unlike him I am not an LN. Holmes unlike the 9/11 stuck to the relevant facts and avoided idle speculation and irrelevant nonsense. [1] [2] [3] [4] But to repeat the engineer's words: If plane damage and fire had caused the collapse, "the results would have been a slower, contorted, more dangerous collapse as the fire-heated steel members gradually relinquished their substantial reserve strength."That is what has made (common) sense from the very beginning. Part of the reason it did not happen that way is the load redistribution of the towers. The load from asymmetrically damaged areas was transferred to other trusses and columns which then had to bear a greater deal of the load and were more prone to fail until collapse ensued. Hot even Pegelow disputes that once collapse ensued the rest of the buildings would fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron Ecker Posted October 16, 2006 Share Posted October 16, 2006 Great piece of "fiction" by novelist Douglas Herman. Confessions Of A 911 Hitman How & Why I Helped Blow Up The World Trade Center By Douglas Herman Exclusive to Rense.com 10-13-6 I'm retired now. But five years ago I helped blow up the WTC complex. I was paid a half million dollars, tax free, for my time and trouble. I don't know what the rest of my crew was paid--maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Not that I care much. In operations like this one, where dozens and dozens of top technicians operated like a team, nobody knew the entire operation or who was who, or what everybody got paid---the big picture, as people call it. Better that way. Better that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Living on the beach here in Cartagena, Columbia I've had lots of time to reflect. Lots more time to wonder. What surprises me most, however, is how very few intelligent people in America question the obvious signature of the crime, even after five years. How did we do it and why did we do it? The absolute audacity and cleverness still surprises me. The planners knew that success was the only option and so they spent years, not months, designing the perfect plan. What you call murder, I call the perfect crime. What you call an act of terror, I call the perfect diversion. The intelligent people who run your country know that America depends on a continuous supply of oil. They also know that Americans use far more oil than they can produce here in America. They also know that if anyone in the Middle East were allowed to sell oil for euros--which Iraq attempted to do and Iran is threatening to do---and thus break the monopoly of US petrodollars, America might just go down the tubes. At least that is how it was explained to me, one of the reasons we were doing what we were doing, in the weeks and months during our furious preparations. But if the US was attacked by terrorists, however, by rogue clients of ME states, then America could retaliate, occupy their countries, insert puppet leaders like the Shah of Iran, and continue siphoning oil forever. And hundreds of people would make billions, while thousands of multinational companies--not just Halliburton--would profit immensely. And so America needed to be attacked. But the attack needed to be spectacular. And the targets needed to be high image targets that represented America but was really stuff that could be rebuilt. Rebuilt at a profit. And so you saw the Pentagon targeted rather than the Congress building. Because Congress still needed someplace to meet and declare war against those nations that attacked America. MY job was to wire explosives inside the various WTC buildings. We wired buildings 1, 2, 6, and 7. We hardwired some areas and attached explosives and electronic detonators to many other key structural joints. We did this weeks in advance. WTC-7 fell in a classic controlled demolition (See example) but the Twin Towers required a lot more ingenuity. The fellow who planned the actual sequence of detonations is a genius. He was rumored to have been paid seven or eight figures and is a xxxxing master. Almost like a composer of a symphony orchestra but better. Much better. Entry into even the most secure areas of the WTC complex was easy. The badges and identifications were specially made. We had a guy at the top, an insider, who supplied the entry passes. We were the invisible people, those people who you see everyday but don't see. We were the janitors and maintenance men you take for granted but who have far more access in your own building than you'll ever have. Like I said, this whole operation was designed years in advance and took months to assemble the teams of top specialists. Then we worked weeks together to attack each key area of the plan. Like a builder using a blueprint. Those people who say it couldn't be done, or only hijackers in airplanes could do it, really piss me off. Because we did it. For example, instead of building the Hoover Dam we took it down, piece by piece in a couple hours, and made each step look believable. Made it look like the dam just burst naturally. The majority of ignorant people say, "fires brought the buildings down." We just smile and say, yes they did. Most people don't know that steel doesn't melt from fuel fires but melted steel was found weeks later in the substructure of the WTC. Nobody seems to want to know how that happened to perfectly good steel. Most people don't know thermite was used in World War II or that explosives and detonaters can be attached and then remotely detonated from blocks away in whatever sequence you choose. That was why when you watched the middle part of the towers explode--pancake down as the experts claimed---the upper parts of the twin towers were being simultaneously detonated as the lower parts were crumbling. If we hadn't done that you would have seen 30 to 40 story segment sitting on the rubble pile. Like I said it was a work of genius. Am I sorry that almost 3,000 people got killed? Sure. Are you sorry that you, personally, use so much foreign oil? And are you sorry that all these faked resource wars have to be concocted so that you can get that oil and live comfortably? Didn't think so. Investigators on those TV crime shows, the CSI people, always try to understand who benefits by the bloody crime. If you understand that many people benefitted by 9-11, by the WTC destruction, then you are more than halfway to solving the crime. Not just who dunnit, but how dunnit and why dunnit. The benefits of the plan were manifold. Everyone involved profited. The political zealots at the Pentagon got there holy war, or wars, that would benefit Israel while weakening the entire ME. The corporate--connected people got billions in new contracts. The military people got new toys. Meanwhile the more pragmatic planners assembled a team to start removing gold and silver from below building 4 as soon as the remote-controlled planes struck the towers. We had teams taking bullion from the vaults immediately before and after the towers fell. Miles of tunnels connected the complex. Teams had seven hours to remove as much bullion as they could. The falling towers, the smoke, the fires, the sirens, that was all a grand diversion going on in the streets above. Like I said the plan was designed to appear to be an Islamic terrorist attack yet functioned perfectly as an enormous, gigantic bank robbery. The biggest heist in history. Was I underpaid? Probably. But I was just one cog in this smooth functioning yet risky machine. Some internet blogger speculated that only 50-51 men could pull off this perfect crime, but I think it had to be several hundred experts involved. Who were we? Americans, Israelis, South Africans, Brits, Irish. All top specialists. The best of the best. Like that popular TV show, the Mission Impossible force, that was us. Quite a few former special forces, several top intelligence men, financial wizards, some foreign mercenaries, Israeli demo specialists, electronic specialists, security specialists. You name it. How to keep everyone quiet, you ask? You heard the old saying, two can keep a secret if one of them is dead? Well a thousand can keep a secret if everyone is happy and everyone is very well paid. You also heard that old saying, honor among thieves? Well why would anyone want to rat on someone else? And even if one person got xxxxfaced drunk and bragged about bringing down the trade towers, who would believe him. After all, we all saw the hijacked jets crashed into the Trade Towers, right? And then we all saw that fuel fires weakened the steel and brought down those same towers, right? No one will ever catch us. Who would investigate? Hugo Chavez? We commited the perfect crime and got away with it. But like I said at the beginning, the crime was obviously a crime to anyone who even glanced at the pictures on the TV. It was so xxxxing obvious it still makes me laugh. What happened was a classic diversion. The towers fell; two or three ME countries were blamed. A suitable villain was fingered. But you have hundreds of millions in stolen gold--did Osama steal it? You have those jackpot insurance claims on a pair of architecturel white elephants, leased only months before (giving us enough time to wire them). You have fake pilots that couldn't fly, doing maneuvers in Boeing jumbo jets that were electronically programmed not to allow pilots to fly that way. You have FBI and CIA head honchos looking the other way. I could go on and on. But isn't that what your real CSI people should be doing--but aren't? Isn't that what your real detectives should be doing--but aren't? If a farmer finds his henhouse raided by a fox, he tracks the fox through the snow and discovers the burrow and sees the feathers and the blood. Well, you've seen the feathers and the blood all over the people who planned 9-11 but still you can't seem to put the pieces of this great crime together. Why is that? Longtime Rense writer, Douglas Herman wrote the suspense novel, The Guns of Dallas, that features a confessed hitman revealing the perfect scenario for the murder of JFK. The above scenario is fiction but probably far closer to the truth than anything yet offered in the so-called fact based media. http://rense.com/general73/confess.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Simkin Posted October 16, 2006 Share Posted October 16, 2006 How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the HookThe 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Weekend Edition Counterpunch September 9/10 , 2006 http://www.counterpunch.org/ Anyone who ever looked at the JFK assassination will know that there are endless anomalies and loose ends. Eyewitness testimony – as so often – is conflicting, forensic evidence possibly misconstrued, mishandled or just missing. But in my view, the Warren Commission, as confirmed in almost all essentials by the House Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s, had it right and Oswald fired the fatal shots from the Schoolbook Depository. The evidentiary chain for his guilt is persuasive, and the cumulative scenarios of the conspiracy nuts entirely unconvincing. But of course – as the years roll by, and even though no death bed confession has ever buttressed those vast, CIA-related scenarios -- the nuts keep on toiling away, their obsessions as unflagging as ever. He clearly has not read the House Committee on Assassinations Report as it makes clear that there was more than one gunman. Nor does he seem to know about the "confessions" of Davis Sanchez Morales, John Martino, Tony Cuesta, Carl E. Jenkins and Chi Chi Quintero. http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09092006.html I see that Counterpunch does not have the facility for readers to question the content of articles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Colby Posted October 16, 2006 Share Posted October 16, 2006 The great thing about fiction is that the author if he or she chooses not to be is not constrained by reality. How exactly the plumbers and janitors etc cut through the aluminum cladding of the perimeter columns and the drywall fire protection encasing the core columns or the ceiling concealing the trusses without being noticed is never explained. This would have been the least of their problems. There would not have been enough space between the cladding/drywall and the columns to plant anything so the would have had to cut holes in the columns themselves to plant the charges inside. The columns were made from extra high strength steel with wall thicknesses from the impact zones down of 1 – 4 inches, kind of hard to cut without attracting attention. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now