Mythbusters: 9/11 Conspiracies
This one’s going to take a while. I never actually thought I would write on the subject because I didn’t want to dignify it. I didn’t even want to give it the credence of “being discussed” or “debated.” But I do believe the time has come, and I’m going to dive into what I will submit to you shouldn’t be the controversial issue that it is.
Over next several thousand words, I will be trying to separate logic from illogic, proof from fallacy, and truth from lies concerning the mostly ignored, but nevertheless abundant, conspiracy theories out there germane to the events of September 11th, 2001.
Before we dive into the substance, however, we need to do what any respectable, intellectual discussion requires: define the terms and establish the parameters. This is especially crucial in a conversation with any of the “9/11 Truthers” who believe anyone or anything—from the Illuminati to Israel—is responsible for the events on 9/11 except 19 radical Muslims. So let me begin by creating the logical framework wherein we can have meaningful discourse. Conspirators listen up; you might learn something.
BURDEN OF PROOF AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
You guys are making the outlandish claim. You are making what we call in criminal law the charge or indictment and in debate what we call the construction. The burden of proof falls squarely on your shoulders. If you don’t understand the reasoning on that, let me give you an illustration to help.
Cory: “Hey 9/11 Truthee conspiracy theorist, you’re a child molesting feces eater.”
Conspiracy Theorist: “No, I’m not.”
Cory: “Oh really? Prove it!”
You get it? I would be required there to provide some evidence of your crimes and poor culinary habits. You can ignore me; I don’t have the right to an answer. I am required to give you the proof.
Therefore, when you guys ask seemingly trivial questions, and we can’t give you a definitive answer, it doesn’t mean that the Masons flew remote controlled planes into the Twin Towers. It means only that we need to do some research. Your question being unanswered isn’t empirical data; it’s, well, it’s just an unanswered question.
When you use the unanswered question strategy, it is as if instead of building a bridge between A and B, you just dove for it. In the clearest of terms, just because all the windows in the Pentagon didn’t blow out doesn’t mean Dick Cheney and Halliburton orchestrated the attacks because they wanted to spy on your Internet access.
Okay. I think we covered that well enough. Bottom line: your unanswered questions do not meet the burden of proof that rests on you.
WHAT YOU NEED TO PROVE
What the Truthees are averring is a crime. Some of them accuse Halliburton, some Bush, some the Masons, some the Illuminati, and some Israel. Whatever culprit you chose, you must establish those facets required of a regular criminal prosecutor when he prosecutes a murderer.
You need to demonstrate at the least that whoever it is you’re accusing had 1) opportunity to commit the crime, 2) motive to commit the crime, and 3) a method whereby the crime could be perpetrated. It would also be helpful in this case—mass murder—that you include the weapon.
I guess all of the accused had opportunity, at least in theory, to carry out an attack. Albeit, I’ve heard motives theorized as ranging from stripping civil liberties and manufacturing war against Muslims to very simply an incredible scheme to steal billions of dollars in gold.
Whatever your theory on motive is, you’re going to need to establish it with tangible or intellectually unassailable evidence.
WHAT I DON’T NEED TO PROVE
This hearkens back to the first point. Believe me: I know that you Truthees have something like 500 individual problems with something you’ve seen or heard about 9/11. Heck, you scream about unanswered question constantly.
What you need to understand, though, is that I don’t have to make you understand the true meaning of “pull it”. The fact that World Trade Center 7 owner Larry Silverstein said the words “pull it” doesn’t result in your theory that a missile (who only God knows fired) hit the Pentagon is true. I hope you get that point. The fact that I don’t address all of the items you don’t get doesn’t mean you’re right. It means that I have other things to do, and that I’m going to focus on the major themes.
Many Truthees assume that if they can’t get a suitable answer for ALL of their problems, that their whole theory is immediately proved true. If that is your mindset, shed it now; it doesn’t belong in intellectual discourse.
Okay. I think that accomplished a lot. The rules of logical, even legal, debate are set in place. Now, here’s my plan. In what follows, I will include an in-depth study of why the World Trade Center Towers fell. Of course, this discussion also includes World Trade Center Building 7, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. To provide you with evidence on all of them would require a book (Popular Mechanics published one titled Debunking 9/11 Myths, and I encourage to read it). So, I’m going to discuss only the towers in this post. I may come back to the other issues, especially if I get a response to this one. With the remainder of the post, I will expound upon my objections to the assertions of the 9/11 conspiracy theories and their lack of documentary evidence and rules of logic.
SIDE THOUGHT: Now that I think about it, I also believe in a conspiracy about 9/11. I believe that 19 radical Muslims executed a meticulously and ruthlessly planned attack on American soil. Of course, though, amongst other evidence, I have video of the 19 Muslims getting on planes, video of planes flying in to the World Trade Center, debris from a plane that hit the Pentagon, and debris from a plane in a field in Pennsylvania. Then again, I’m biased: I tend to be partial to empirical evidence.
Let me start now by addressing the point the 9/11 Truthees present that most people find the most compelling.
MELTED STEEL
Conspiracy theorist Rosie O’Donnell may have been most instrumental in inserting the, “the fire wasn’t hot enough to melt steel,” riposte into the body politic. Conspiracy theory websites and “documentaries” have also stressed the importance that jet fuel cannot burn at temperatures required to liquefy steel. Indeed, this point has become the Holy Grail of 9/11 conspiracies. Let me tell you how it’s riddled with holes of ignorance, misunderstanding, and fantasy.
I hope that at the end of this section we can all say this together as a class: “THE STEEL DIDN’T HAVE TO MELT!” The conspirators say that the fires weren’t hot enough to melt steel and that therefore—obviously—someone had to have planted explosives and demolished the building (That is the obvious conclusion from the fires not being hot enough isn’t it?). Truthees also love citing their token, qualified intellectual Brigham Young physicist Steven Jones, who made this point ad nauseum in a paper.
First, consider the agreed upon facts. Jet fuel typically burns at no higher a temperature than 1,200 degrees Celsius. Steel melts at 1,510 degrees Celsius. Therefore, we can all agree that the fires caused by the jet fuel in the planes that hit the Towers did not unilaterally cause the buildings to fall. This fact, however, does not immediately lead to the conclusion that some nefarious secret group planted explosives in the building. All that this establishes is that the jet fuel-caused fires were not enough.
All right, then what did bring down the towers? Now this gets way more difficult to keep up with then the, “someone detonated bombs,” theory, but stay with me. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the buildings’ coming down was the sum of several factors.
The first factor was that planes hit the buildings. The immediate result of that was a large section of the “exterior load bearing columns as well as some crucial core columns were severed” (Dunbar 38). These support systems being dissolved redistributed the natural weight of the building to other support structures—part of the natural redundancy in modern architecture.
Second, the NIST concluded that the fireproofing insulation on the core columns would have easily been knocked off by the impact of the planes. According to Popular Mechanics, this spray-on fireproofing substance is fluffy, light weight, and falls off with a stiff slap from a human hand. Therefore, the planes likely did the trick.
Thus, we now have steel carrying more weight than it was designed to and exposed to fires around and over 1,000 degrees Celsius. With that established, mull over the following facts provided by the independent American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
Steel begins to weaken at temperatures as low as 400 degrees Celsius. According to AISI senior engineer of construction codes and standards, Farid Alfawakhiri, at 600 degrees Celsius, steel loses about 50% of its capacity to hold weight. At 980 degrees Celsius, around where the World Trade Center fires burned, steel retains less than 10% of its original strength. I believe you can see where this is going.
We have steel support-columns holding more than they are supposed to, but are, at the same time, being catastrophically weakened by the heat. I don’t think it too much of a stretch to see that the sum of these parts is a building about to fall.
But wait! There’s more. The NIST also reports that the heat from the fires caused the floors on each level to sag. They have conclusive, architectural evidence of that structural damage. Thus, along with weakened steel carrying a heavier load than intended, the steel columns still standing were being pulled inward by the floors sagging.
Result: Buildings go kaput.
Maybe we’re getting toward saying together now: “THE STEEL DIDN’T HAVE TO MELT!”
Now there is potentially more to discuss on this topic. I encourage you post your objections and other theories here. I will do my best to respond promptly. But as for the simple facts of the barebones basics of the “melted steel” fallacy concocted by the conspiracy theorists, I think I provided ample evidence that suggests the buildings could have come down by the means the mainstream Americans were told: planes hit the buildings, causing a domino effect that eventually concluded in the buildings imploding.
Next, I would quickly like to address some issues I see with the general, philosophical framework of the Truthees on this topic.
I’m confused by your accusations. If the Illuminati/New World Order/Masons/Haliburton/ Bush/Cheney/Zionists/Israelis blew the buildings up, why did they send in the planes? Why didn’t they just blow the buildings up and still blame it on radical Muslims. Heck, if your “they”—whoever your “they” is—can manufacture and manipulate the airport cameras and airplane black boxes to support their version of reality, surely they could have made the simple demolition look like terrorism. So, I still have to wonder: why the planes?
I’m going to move on from the debunking portion for now and move toward the gaping logical holes that permeate conspiracies about 9/11.
WHAT THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS NEED TO EXPLAIN
Breadth of the Conspiracy
For the conspirators’ theories to be true, the list of people that must be involved is beyond long. To believe what the conspirators do about all segments of their conjectures they must believe that for the first time in history, over a thousand people carried out a perfect plan and no one has said a word to anyone.
Here’s just a preliminary list of the folks out there who would have had to have an integral part in the conspiracy and is still keeping it quiet:
1. Bush, Cheney, and Rumfeld if not Rice and the entire cabinet
2. The over 1,000 journalists who covered the attacks, subsequent investigations, and the 9/11 Commission
3. At least the top brass in the New York City Fire and Police Departments
4. Every single investigator, engineer, and scientist who studied the attacks and disagree with the conspirators
5. The editors and staff of Popular Mechanics
6. The New York Port Authority top officials
7. Hundreds of Pentagon employees
8. Top officials at the FBI and CIA
9. The leadership and staff of the National Institute of Standards and Technology
10. Random family members that received calls from their loved ones on airplanes
11. The people or actors—whoever they are—that placed and faked or recorded those phone calls to the random family members of passengers
12. The massive crew and masterminds who somehow found a way to wire two skyscrapers with explosives without ever being seen or caught
13. The technicians that remote controlled those planes into those buildings
14. Or if you believe that a plane didn’t hit the Pentagon or the field in Pennsylvania, then the heartless mobsters that either murdered the men, women, and children on the plane or put them in concentration camps that may or may not exist
15. The people who launched the missile that hit the Pentagon if you don’t believe it was a plane
16. The volunteer workers at Ground Zero
ALL of these folks have to be involved in most of the conspiracy theories for them to prove true. Just mull that over. Now, I don’t think that’s a rational position, much less a case presented beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, let me get specific on where the conspiracies fall apart.
Passenger Planes Didn’t Hit the Pentagon or in Pennsylvania
We’ve all heard the conspiracies that a missile hit the Pentagon and that United Flight 93 didn’t crash in Pennsylvania, but rather landed in Cleveland, Ohio. But you may not have heard, that some folks even believe the planes that hit the Towers weren’t the passenger planes the government and media say they were. According to some Truthees, they were remote controlled cargo planes. Whatever the theory, the theorists have some explaining to do.
We have the names of every single person on those four planes that terrible day. If any of them didn’t crash and fly into the building we think it did, where are those people? Obviously, none of them are speaking up, saying, “Uh… Guys… I’m right here. I didn’t die in a terrorist attack.”
I have received no satisfactory answer from any conspiracy theorist on this conundrum. Following is a compilation of the answers I HAVE gotten to the question, “Hey man! We’re talking about the federal government here (or the Illuminati, Haliburton, or Israel—depending on your particular favorite conspiracy)! They could have taken them anywhere. They could have killed them, or they could be hiding them in camps.”
To which I reply, “And do you have ANY evidence of this WHATSOEVER? This, “They—whoever ‘they’ is—killed them all theory”, do you have any empirical proof to suggest your theory has ANY credence AT ALL? Because what you just did is what the Darwinists did with “punctuated equilibrium”. The evidence wasn’t bolstering the already established conclusion, so instead of adjusting for said evidence, THEY CHANGED THE THEORY TO KEEP THEIR BELOVED CONCLUSION! You’re doing the same thing. You’ve already reached the conclusion in your mind: some nefarious group—anyone but radical Muslims—perpetrated the events of 9/11. And you IGNORE the evidence contrary to your desired supposition.
“I can call your “they killed them” theory a lot of things, and none are positive. It’s intellectually bankrupt and logically irresponsible. In legal circles, we would surely object to it as PURE SPECULATION. You have no proof, only IF scenarios. So let me suggest this: follow the evidence where it leads. If it doesn’t go where you want, GET OVER IT! Speculation is inadmissible in logical debate; therefore, your use of it disqualifies you from respect. Period.”
What about the phone calls?
I have often challenged 9/11 Truthees about the phone calls that passengers on the doomed planes made to loved ones. We have the audio. Most of the country has heard many of those touching and powerful calls. Some of the calls don’t even terminate until the point of impact. These phone calls establish people on planes and men high-jacking those planes. What do you do with that, Truthee?
Again, all I’ve gotten is speculation. MAYBE “they”—whoever they is—used voice morphing technology to fake the calls. Sure, and maybe you’re that child molesting feces eater we spoke of earlier. “Maybe” doesn’t cut it, friend. Evidence, logic, they get the job done.
By the way, this “voice morphing technology theory” just continues to add people to this conspiracy. You’re going to need the techo-wizards who recorded the calls and the actors to record them. They would also NECESSARILY have to be aware of what they were doing. So who are these treacherous thugs that help comprise the ominous “they”. Why haven’t ANY of their consciences compelled them to come forward? Heck, with the pool of conspirators wide at it is, I would expect somebody to get drunk and start mouthing off about it in a bar.
Explosives in the Buildings
I have several issues here with the conspiracy theorists’ allegations on this topic. Chief among them is that wiring up a building as large as the World Trade Center with enough explosives to bring it down is no small task. Once again, this crew, however large, continues to enlarge the conspiracy. All the guys that wired up the building knew what they were doing. None of them have come forward?
Even further, when did these explosives happen to be installed? Was it some sort of Mission Impossible type of scenario with thermite or C4? No one ever noticed the bomb team entering or leaving the building? The logistics and timing of this operation challenge rationality.
Another issue is that none of the organizations—government or independent—claimed to find any evidence of explosives at Ground Zero. Are they ALL in on the conspiracy? There’s not a single rank-and-file researcher who isn’t a Mason or under the thumb of Israeli or Dick Cheney? Really? Is that at all plausible to you? Shouldn’t at least ONE of these guys have said, “Uh… guys… I think I found something that looks like explosives went off in this building.”
Finally on this topic, I need to address an incomprehensibly irresponsible “research” tactic the 9/11 truthees use—particularly relevant to this part of the discussion. The 9/11 conspiracy theorists magnify as their singular best evidence of bombs in the buildings to be the on-camera testimony of terrified people who just fled for their lives from the building. Local and national media cameras were outside the buildings talking to anyone who would react. It just so happens, some of the folks scrambling out of the buildings said they heard explosions.
To the conspiracy theorist, this is iron clad proof that his “they” lined the buildings with explosives and brought them down. Apparently, it doesn’t occur to the Truthees that these explosions could have been just about anything considering about 10,000 gallons of jet fuel had been splashed throughout the building and was now being consumed by fire. Those explosions could have been anything from propane tanks used to power generators to a copier. Hello?! A PLANE JUST HIT THE BUILDING CAUSING AN INFERNO. Things explode!
The fact that people heard explosions doesn’t denote a vast conspiracy involving controlled demolition. It portends only that something somewhere sounded like an explosion.
I would also like to mention that this type of testimony is almost always either inadmissible or maligned in courts of law. Let me give you an illustration as to why.
If I’m a defending counsel, and a witness just said on the stand they saw my client kill a person in a night club, I would try to establish duress. I would investigate if the witness was bribed, threatened, or in any way coerced into giving this testimony. If he wasn’t, I would seriously bring into question his clarity on the night. For example, you had hundreds of people around you; it was dark; strobe lights flashed; the music was so loud as not to allow normal conversation. Are you SURE you saw and heard what you think you saw and heard?
The same concept applies here. These “witnesses” to some unidentified sound WERE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES after experiencing something none of us had ever seen: planes hitting skyscrapers. Nevertheless, 9/11 Truthees CONSTANTLY use the IMMEDIATE reactions of folks—a time when everyone is disoriented, stressed, and confused.
My sources, like Popular Mechanics, talk to people after allowing them time to process the experience and flesh it out in their heads.
I think just those contentions will keep the conspiracy theorists busy now. If you believe that “9/11 was an inside job”, I’d like to hear your answers to these questions.
This is already, by far, my longest post since the inception of this website. I’m going to leave it here for now, but I may come back to it later. Post any questions or thoughts you may have.
To conclude, I will say merely that the case for the mainstream account of what happened on 9/11 is almost unassailable. And remember, just because we do have some questions that are unanswered doesn’t immediately result in a conspiracy. Moreover, the claims and theories of the conspirators are replete with logical fallacies, inadmissible evidence, speculation, and other holes of all sorts.
Please Share This Story!Cory Truax @ August 1, 2008
Hello Mr. Truax,
Just a question…who is in control of this world system? Satan. He has his “henchmen” at work for him to get the “physical” things accomplished, correct? Whichever human “puppets” of Satan were used to destroy these people in the towers and finish a war in which our president’s father did not complete, doesn’t matter.
It would be nice to share a little about the occult practices of our leaders and more than that a little about the people above them…The Bilderberg Group. Let’s talk a little about both sides here especially when the “evidence” that is given comes from “the other side”. If there was evidence of the “conspiracies” that had leaked out, the elitists’ plans would be done in for. If you were this powerful, you would NOT make a mistake in carrying out your objectives. When you control the World’s money, you have all of the resources and intimidation that you would ever need. What has to happen here is that people are going to have to research this thing OBJECTIVELY! The Bilderberg Group is a REAL group of about 150 Elitists who are controlling the world’s banking systems. (Let’s remember that “the LOVE of money is the root of all evil”) If your readers will research them a little they will find this stuff out as well. Another thing, the Rothchild family which in history has always funded both sides of every war. The Rothchilds and the Bilderberg Group use what is called “false flag” attacks in which wars are provoked for the sake of money. (once again let’s remember; “the love of money is the root of all evil”) Now you can argue this thing all day with the “proof” that Satan can put in front of your face with the world system he has set in place or you can look to the Bible and find that all of the time kings and rulers are coming together to fight against God’s people. Bottom line…Satan is behind this for the purpose of bringing to power his “throne” by weakening ALL nations into one “chicken coop” so he can wipe them out all at once and come to power! Prophecy. Remember? He is moving torwards a One World Order or “New World Order” in which now all of our outspoken leaders are pushing for. This involves Government, Economy, and now being pushed, Religion. (Check out Rick Warren and Tony Blair) How much common sense does it take to see Satan’s plan? It takes “discernment”, not worldly knowledge! Those of you that may be reading this may think that this is a liberal point of view about gov’t but, the thing is…both sides are involved! (Republicans AND Democrats.) There is none righteous…(Romans 3:10-18) Now the Elitists are recruiting the “christian leaders”. Rick Warren is a professed member of the CFR (the American branch of the Bilderberg Group) and is working towards the pluralistic forming of religions. Nonetheless, the enemy is NOT the “truthees” versus the “defenders of modern unconstitutional gov’t” (which is flipped from what the founding fathers put in place! PEOPLE, state, then federal. Now it is FEDERAL, STATE, and then, the people.) but this is NOT the REAL battle, the VERY REAL battle is with the common enemy of mankind…SATAN, lucifer, that old serpent. He will rule the World System for a time. THAT is prophecy. We need to keep our eyes open.
Cory you know my heart,
Matt
^^ What in the world??
Greetings Mr. Johnson,
I’ve decided to write another post on this topic—focusing on WTC7. In that interest, I decided finally to get around to replying to your post here.
My first contention is that you seem to imply that 9/11 was used a pretext to “finish a war” Bush sr. started. This is misunderstood rendering of history. Bush Sr.’s Gulf War was fought in Kuwait against Iraq. The attacks of 9/11 directly led to war with AFGHANISTAN. The war in Iraq did commence until March of 2003. Furthermore, the reasons established for invading Iraq NEVER included 9/11. You can find more on WHY we went into Iraq on this website from my earlier posts. But we should be careful not to confuse the facts: 9/11 and Iraq are NOT connected, and no one in the Bush administration ever claimed that to be so.
As for the rest of your post, I will address it mostly in broad terms.
What I presented here was documented facts from two reputable sources on architecture, demolition, and other fields germane to this study. I also include a critique of SPECIFIC flawed reasoning from conspiracy theorists. These are PRAGMATIC, practical issues, not philosophical ones.
Therefore, with all due respect, the preeminence of Satan and the existence of the Bilderbergs are irrelevant. Those are PHILOSOPHICAL questions. Whether or not Satan and others want a one world government are extraneous and immaterial to whether or not the story from the conspiracy theorists withstands honest, OBJECTIVE (as you said) analysis. I agree with most of your philosophical points, but I fail to see what they have to do with addressing the gaping holes in logic the 9/11 conspiracy theorists have.
Another issue I had with your riposte was when you said: “If you were this powerful, you would NOT make a mistake.” This teeters on the precipice of falling into logical fallacy. By saying this, the implication is that I must prove that one of these conspiracies ISN’T true. A rule of logic: you can’t prove a negative. Reconsider my illustration of calling someone a child molesting feces eater. They can’t prove they’re not… AND THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO—because proving a negative is impossible.
Thus, that puts me in a difficult spot. I can present all of the empirical data I can find while the actual practical logistics don’t work out, but my case won’t be accepted because I couldn’t prove some group, somewhere, somehow DIDN’T do something. The goal post you have established in your mind, therefore, is unattainable.
Once again, the rest of what you posted, I have few issues with. We agree there is a natural progression to one-worldism and that this globalism is essential to eschatology. But all of that being true doesn’t result in “9/11 being an inside job.”
To conclude, I think we should just stay on topic. The topic is whether or not my version of what happened passes muster, and whether the conspiracists’ theories can rectify their massive holes and leaps. Unfortunately, completing that task has little to nothing germane to Satan, the Bilderbergs, or the Rothchilds.
Thanks for reading, I look forward to continuing the discourse.
Forget what Cory and Matt said, the matter was settled with Mr. AndrewLewis’ “What in the World?”!
good debate guys… of course, the issue will be solved if Matt is assassinated or if Cory is proved to be on the Halliburton payroll by Alex Jones. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see?
I respect your ideas,and while you are clearly intelligent, you are mistaken on the ‘burden of truth’. The truthers remain all over the spectrum, from claiming foreknowlege to claiming government involvement, to TV fakery which is clearly absurd. They are disproving a the official government line - which is the positive. The positive is that 19 young men with box cutters slammed three planes into three buildings - they have the burden of proof to prove that.
When defending a client, a lawyer can pose multiple alternate scenarios to the given crime - and it is not his responsibility to prosecute someone else, not his burden of proof, but the prosecutors.
Admittedly, if one is claiming that the NWO exists and perpetrated these attacks, then the burden is on them to prove that. However many truthers simply claim that the official government line is at leas in part untrue. They can then work on disproving the government line without having to work on these answers you ask, like: ‘what happened to the bodies?’ Truthers can pose oulandish ideas like that they’re living in camps without any proof of that - because they are simply posing ‘perhaps’ situations.
I think the burden of proof rests heaviest on the debunkers like yourself, like when asked: What happened to WTC 7? You barely mention the issue and it really is the biggest one - far more compelling than phone calls. Your line, the official line, is that it collapsed due to fire, the burden is on you to prove that.
In presenting my case, I can point out that it is the third ever steel-framed building to collapse due to fire, the first two being the twin towers. Who knows if jet fuel can melt steel, and we won’t until we next see a plane slam into a building, but WTC 7 had no jet fuel and fell at very impressive speed straight ‘into it’s own footprint’ in a manner that looks much like a controlled demolition. Now note here: I DON’T HAVE TO PROVE IT WAS A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION. I just said it looked a lot like a controlled demolition. It’s your job to prove how fire of that intensity can bring a builing down in that fashion.
I can bring in any of the hundreds of structural engineers as expert witnesses who can describe the likelihood of a building falling straight down at free-fall speeds due to fire. Those experts have been asked, and called to the stand for both the prosecution and the defence, in fact many were for the government, part of the commission, and have since become truthers.
Now when you consider expert witnesses, or eye-witnesses, you consider various things, as you mention: How likely is it that this person knows? In other words: Do they have the vantage to give an informed opinion? Then we must question motive: Does this person stand anything to gain from stating this point? For example: Is he the writer of a conservative website? As you say, is he under duress? Next, and far more compelling: Does this person stand anything to LOSE for offering testimony? Then a lawyer will decide how compelling this witness will be, if he’s good enough to convince a jury - sit him in the stand. Unfortunately, on the weight of that alone these theories are gathering speed.
Unfortunately, the witnesses called to the stand for your side, the debunkers are either uninformed, or have a vested interest in following the government line (a quick google search often exposes their witnesses as architects of only government buildings). Being paid for testimony, as Pop Mechs were, also taints reliability.
On the truthers side are many people from the 911 commission, they are people who are fully armed with the facts, they are in now professionally disgraced - and will never be able to be called as an expert witness in any other case (something that I happen to know is a very lucrative business). These people also believe that the government conspired to kill its own citizens, so they should rightly be in fear, too.
When it comes to eye-witnesses immediate reactions, you really must ask a psychologist if you’re going to talk about reliability of testimony. It is actually found that eye-witnesses are likely to distort events afterwards, particularly from listening to other testimony.
If we’re going to run this like a court case, and talk about reasonable doubt, you can’t have that reasonable doubt be that there are lots and lots of people who must be involved in an ongoing coverup. That is incredibly compelling, but competely insubstantial to a court of law, it would be struck out as inadmissable. It does however cause me to question - and on the strength of that alone I retain doubts.
Similarly, phone calls are struck out, because whether phone calls were or were not made, whether they were the real people or not is irrelevant because proving one way or the other doesn’t have any bearing on the proof that it was a government conspiracy. Say the calls are proven real, we will simply say: ‘So the government COULD HAVE got real-looking terroristy agents, actually hijacked the planes, flew low and slow while people made the calls, then flew up high, cut off the oxygen and suffocated them all at altitude.’ Bam. Say the phone calls are found the be fake, and that still doesn’t prove our case, either. Dismissed.
So with that out, we also have to strike out your conjecture and speculation - that’s saved the the closing argument, and must be limited to facts accepted into evidence. Saying that men planting explosives in the buildings ‘challenges rationality’ is an unqualified statement. Whose rationality? Why?
The truthers claim that the weekend earlier the buildings were cleared our and ‘work’ was done, many eye-witnesses claiming to have seen lots of debris, dust and dry-wall that lead them to think someone had been digging around. OBJECTION! Conjecture, the witness has been called to offer their observations on what happened, they are not invited to offer their opinion on what might have caused the dry-wall-like dusty debris.
Cory, your columns are full of distortion and misinformation. You are missing hundreds of pieces of evidence. You haven’t done your research. The official account is impossible. Don’t be naive.
It’s all here: http://www.carolina911truth.org/evidence.php#list
Don’t be naive Cory, you haven’t done your research. You are missing hundreds of pieces of information. It’s all here: http://www.carolina911truth.org/evidence.php#list
I like how your “preliminary list of the folks out there who would have had to have an integral part in the conspiracy” includes pretty much anyone related to the event in any capacity what-so-ever. Do you really find it so inconceivable that most journalists weren’t in the loop? Popular Mechanics can not just be wrong? The military excels at running projects with thousands of people that are secret; need to know. They aren’t allowed to ask questions or report to the news. And many of the people you listed also think it was an inside job. Suppose it really had happened… what percentage of people would believe it then?