The official conspiracy theory of 9/11

[mrswdk]

Mrs,

Because when Mao kills millions it's intentional, but when the US causes harm it's just a bunch of good guys who don't have the answers.

Of course. Communists are evil. I heard in China you are not even allowed to say the word 'freedom'. My grandfather died on the beaches of Normandy to preserve freedom. God bless America.

[_sabotage_]

http://benthamopen.com/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.pdf

Peer review mostly happens in academia. Most of the offices were private companies, they don't have the resources to publish.

One of the authors of the report was placed on administrative leave and then retirement. But let me beat you to it.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

In April 2009, Jones, along with Niels H. Harrit and 7 other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, titled, 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe'.[49] The editor of the journal, Professor Marie-Paule Pileni, an expert in explosives and nano-technology,[50][51] resigned. She received an e-mail from the Danish science journal Videnskab asking for her professional assessment of the article's content.[52][53] According to Pileni, the article was published without her authorization. Subsequently, numerous concerns arose regarding the reliability of the publisher, Bentham Science Publishing. This included the publishing an allegedly peer reviewed article composed of nonsense,[54] the resignation of multiple people at the administrative level,[55][56] and soliciting article submissions from researchers in unrelated fields through spam.[57] With regard to the peer review process of the research conducted by Jones in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Dr. David Griscom identified himself as one of the reviewers,[58] which Jones claims was "anonymous" in nature and welcomed Dr. Griscom to the "9/11 truth-seeking community".[59] However, the paper which Jones co-authored referenced Dr. Griscom, and multiple 9/11 conspiracy theorists, in the acknowledgements for "elucidating discussions and encouragements".[21] Also, almost four years prior to identifying himself as a reviewer and the welcome he received from Jones, Griscom published a letter in defense of 9/11 conspiracies in the Journal of 9/11 Studies;[60] of which Jones was the editor.[61]

You are going to say it isn't peer reviewed, but look how many resignations it caused.

That's a peer review in itself. See it's not going to be me who ends up contradicting himself when we're done. Just after asking me why there are no peer reviews? Because not only will the editor be required to quit, but the publisher will roll some heads to. If you can't get published, you can't be peer reviewed. On the other hand, NIST can't be peer reviewed at all. Their model can, but if the data for it is classified, it can't be replicated.

While I know you are going to have a field day with trying to explain why you aren't contradicting yourself when you point out it's not peer review because they were forced to resign. I know you will say the publisher at large taints the whole barrel, etc and so forth.

But while your busy with that, let's look at the pictures of what they found.



This little concoction ignites at 430 C and cuts through steel. The samples were taken 4 separate location by separate people soon after the collapse.

[Vinyl-Taliban]

Don't know why I bother but:

Full and complete chain of custody for that evidence please.

Else it's just a pwetty pwicture.

[_sabotage_]

I'm not asking NIST to try to prove this paper negative, I'm asking NIST to do their job.

NIST reported there was no evidence of explosives and choose not to follow federal guidelines saying they should check. They spent quite a bit of effort ensuring no bombs was the clear conclusion, but they didn't even check for residue from explosions.

That in itself is fraud. If you were paying to have NIST spend seven years to arrive at a conclusion, wouldn't you want some of that time spent on examining the actual physical evidence rather than just tweaking a model?

Since we spent $2 trillion on this can't we afford the standard test for exactly such situations?

Did you check if the brake lines were cut? Nope, that would have taken two seconds, instead we spent 7 years on another theory that was wholly impractical because fire had never, not once, anywhere, at any time collapsed a steel building. So these geniuses after ignoring the federal guidelines, because obviously it didn't look like a controlled demolition which has explosives (Except to Dan Rather just after it happened and other reporters who were describing it), they had to ignore more than a hundred witnesses, ignore the video evidence recorded a massive explosion, with the firefighters immediately saying 7's exploding.

Well those would all be good reasons not to check for explosions if and only if you were told that due to national security reasons that building came down by fire.

How could they possibly know that terrorist hadn't snuck a bomb in to help a column off its footing? How can the possible stand there with a straight face and convince others there weren't? NIST should do the report for their own integrity.

There's still plenty of good dust taken at different periods of the collapse. NIST can't hide forever.

[_sabotage_]

NIST can be sure to have good and complete chains of custody for their samples which they should have checked, go ask them to check for explosives and then for their chain of custody. They were the ones we paid and trusted to check.

In the linked study, the samples were said to have come directly from named individuals who collected it very shortly after it became available from different locations. Perhaps NIST should just buy the study and include it alongside their pretty model.

[Vinyl-Taliban]

I look forward to more enlightened commentary along the following lines:

1. Why All Explosive Sounds Can Only Be Created by Explosives

2. Ninja Invisibility Suits: Friend of Demo Crews

3. Aeronautical 3-Card Monty: How Flights 77 and 93 Vanished Into Thin Air

4. The FDNY’s Secret: Why “They Made That Decision” To Pull WTC 7

5. Because I Say So: The Art of Claiming There’s Evidence Without Presenting Any

6. The Zen of Footprints: How Buildings Can Fall Within Their Footprints While Simultaneously Damaging Buildings Outside Their Footprints

7. First Time In History: Why Nothing Can Happen If It’s Never Happened Before

8. Why Asbestos Insulation That Was Never Installed In WTC 2 or 7 Was Nevertheless A Reason To Destroy Them

9. What the Hell is the Definition of A Pyroclastic Cloud and How the Hell Can They Be Created By Explosives and Thermite?

10. The Value of Forgetting: How To Erase Richard Gage’s Box Experiment From Everyone’s Memory


Ad nauseum

[Metsfanmax]

sabotage, you're barking up the wrong tree. This isn't something like, Israel killed some Palestinians and the US mainstream media failed to report on it. This is a massively complex problem that those of us who are not structural engineers are not qualified to understand or comment on. The best we can do in this circumstance is to abide by the opinion of the consensus of experts, if it exists, unless we have a very strong reason to believe otherwise. Yes, it's a shame that we're not all infinitely smart and knowledgeable so that we can pick apart the claims of experts and determine when we're being mislead. It is that fact that allows those with evil intents to deceive us. But it is simply a fact of human nature. It does absolutely no good to try and convince random people on an internet forum that the consensus position is incorrect when it comes to technical issues that most of us just don't have the background to properly understand. If you truly believe it, then you should publish a report on it and distribute it to the people who need the information to make the appropriate decisions.

I look forward to more enlightened commentary along the following lines:

1. Why All Explosive Sounds Can Only Be Created by Explosives

2. Ninja Invisibility Suits: Friend of Demo Crews

3. Aeronautical 3-Card Monty: How Flights 77 and 93 Vanished Into Thin Air

4. The FDNY’s Secret: Why “They Made That Decision” To Pull WTC 7

5. Because I Say So: The Art of Claiming There’s Evidence Without Presenting Any

6. The Zen of Footprints: How Buildings Can Fall Within Their Footprints While Simultaneously Damaging Buildings Outside Their Footprints

7. First Time In History: Why Nothing Can Happen If It’s Never Happened Before

8. Why Asbestos Insulation That Was Never Installed In WTC 2 or 7 Was Nevertheless A Reason To Destroy Them

9. What the Hell is the Definition of A Pyroclastic Cloud and How the Hell Can They Be Created By Explosives and Thermite?

10. The Value of Forgetting: How To Erase Richard Gage’s Box Experiment From Everyone’s Memory


Ad nauseum

This was good.

[_sabotage_]

I don't see what is so hard to understand. WTC 7 has all the signs of a controlled demolition. Guidelines say they should have checked for explosives residue. They claim there was no sign of explosives. They didn't check.

NIST has extensive research on nano thermite. They are equipped to check. They have physical evidence to check. They claimed they can rule out explosives without checking.

You can go to your favorite debunking site and get a list of whatever you want. Doesn't mean shit. This is fraud.

There are numerous accounts of firefighters warning that WTC 7 was going to "blow" long before it didn't according to NIST blow. There is video evidence of it blowing, again from firefighters. The first reaction by the press was, this looks like a controlled demolition. The first reaction of demotion experts, this was a controlled demolition.

The evidence of others including government agencies was that the evidence showed the signs of explosives.

Not checking for explosives in such circumstances is beyond reasonable. Claiming that there were none in such circumstances without checking is beyond reasonable.

If this was a cancer study for tobacco and we are told that tobacco doesn't cause cancer and it was found that they didn't actually check for cancer, it would be dismissed. This isn't complicated. It doesn't involve questioning the authority of those pointing it out. It can't be legitimized by people saying it's ok that the didn't check and their conclusion is valid.

It's criminal. It isn't a technical issue that most of us don't understand. It's a forensics issue that there are specific guidelines for.

Secure all available evidence. Test enough of the available evidence to reach definite conclusions about what kinds of forces acted on it, piece together the evidence as best as you can. Now start to create theories and check if they match the evidence you have obtained.

This is how it is done, was done and will always be done.

Straying from this and then still attempting to claim that the conclusions that can only be reached by following this process are reached without following it, and there is no good reason not to follow it, is outside the realm of reasonable doubt.

[Vinyl-Taliban]

You are expecting NIST to prove a negative, which is a fallacy. There is no scientific justification for testing a theory which has no evidence. "WTC 7 has all the signs of a controlled demolition". Mmm, k.

Even if I allow you to drop the standard of proof to that of journalism - who, how, when, where, why and what - no "truther" can construct a valid hypothesis - for anything really, but I'll allow it to be limited to controlled demo - that covers these questions.

Further, "truthers" can't even define what they mean by explosives - Dr (of theology) Griffin:

"I am using the term “explosives” very broadly to refer not only to explosives in the technical
sense, such as RDX, but also to incendiary mixtures, such as thermite and thermate, and any other
substances or devices that can be used to produce explosions."

Further Jones says he considers incendries that don't produce explosions, and therefore to get a working hypothesis out of this mess, the term "explosives" has to be newly defined! Now would be a good time for you to do so.

So you want NIST to check for every possible combination of items that could possibly go bang. Or not go bang but burn.

Flour dust has the potential to be explosive. I demand you test for tatsy pastries in the rubble. Haven't you heard of the CIA Black Bakery, where they make delicious croissants laced with mind-controlling drugs? While you're at it, let's test whether it was Mrs Peacock, with the Death Ray, on the orbitting Mother Ship, whilst producing fake Hawaii birth certificates.

Last, and most importantly, NIST was tasked to answer specific questions about building performance not to address any alternate theory, and certainly not to address an entire universe of
incomplete speculations.

tl;dr


NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting controlled demo. In phrasing your question reactively, you are declining to outline the case for your own, positive claim, or even to define the claim itself with clarity. Instead you are satisfied to simply cast doubt upon the NIST Report, while never accepting your own burden of proof.

This too is a logical fallacy.

[AndyDufresne]

This is fraud.

--Andy

[DaGip]

This is fraud.

--Andy

[_sabotage_]

From NIST

16. For its study of WTC 7, why didn’t NIST follow the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) guidelines for conducting a fire investigation?

From NFPA 921

“Unusual residues might remain from the initial fuel. Those residues could arise from
thermite, magnesium, or other pyrotechnic materials.”

NIST was asked:

“Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) 'slices through steel like a hot knife through butter.'”

Reply: “NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.”

The guidelines specifically state that they should have tested. NIST's explanation for not following the guidelines:

NIST states:

According to calculations by the investigation team, the smallest blast capable of failing the building's critical column would have resulted in a sound level of 130 decibels (dB) to 140 dB at a distance of at least half a mile, if unobstructed by surrounding buildings.

They don't state what these calculations are based on. What they are based on is RDX, not thermite as explained in the guidelines. NIST has done extensive research on thermite and nano thermite. Why would they base their calculations which they used to conclude no tests were necessary to check for thermite, according to the national guidelines based not on the calculations for thermite or nano thermite, but on RDX?

Their logic, RDX would have created a blast of 130-140 decibels. No blast of 130-140 decibels was heard and therefore we don't need to check for nano thermite.

This is like saying JFK was not shot because a .22 fired from a derringer at 5 feet creates a wound not witnessed in JFK's body. Therefore, all signs of him being shot need not be considered.

By this criteria, if a blast was heard at 129 decibels, it would not meet their criteria and they wouldn't to check for explosives.

This is just insane. They could go through the effort of checking how many decibels would be heard if thermite was used, check the evidence to see if it supports such a level, but it would be simpler just to check for thermite.

This is not proving a negative. It's not saying they need to worry about the concerns of every tinfoil hat wearing whack job wasting research time and money to satisfy unreasonable requests, it is following the national guidelines and using the actual physical evidence to determine if their hypothesis that no explosives were used is valid.

If NIST was tasked to answer specific questions and following the national guidelines was outside their purview, then they wasted time coming up with the 130-140 decibel benchmark. They wasted time coming to the unverifiable conclusion that no explosives were used, they wasted much more time than they would have if they just followed the guidelines.

I don't want them to test for thermite, the national guidelines want them to. They don't want them to test for every possible thing that can go boom, they want them to specifically test for:

Thermite, magnesium and other pyrotechnical materials.

Just like checking the brake line on a car that has an accident with no indication of braking can save countless time in such an investigation, checking for these materials can do the same. They can invalidate the simplest possible conclusion in the fastest possible way.

You are not operating from either a logical or accepted position. You are like a guy who cut your wife's brake lines for an insurance settlement and your only defense is: the police shouldn't have checked the brake line and therefore since they did it shows bias.

There is zero excuse. The signature of thermite was seen by FEMA, by the EPA, and by independent research.

You have a building that could reasonably be assumed to have been brought down by thermite, evidence of its presence, guidelines which say to check for it, and then you spend much more effort than is needed to check for it developing an invalid excuse to not check for it. But still try to sell the conclusion that no explosives were used based on not checking for them.

[_sabotage_]

Here is a video of thermite welding steel together:



Note several things:

First, the guy is not wearing ear protection. 130-140 decibels is painful to the human ear.
Second, unless the sound was altered, the voices at the end indicate that the thermite reaction produced a level of sound near to that of a slightly loud human voice.

NIST has a hypothesis. It was their task to come up with one. They were paid to do so.

Their method of discounting thermite was invalid. Their determination that there was none was based on an invalid criteria.

Should they be required to prove a negative? According to national guidelines, for thermite, yes. Did they prove it? No.

Was there sufficient justification not to prove it? No.

You can try to invalidate other people's hypotheses. But they weren't paid by the US government to follow the US guidelines to find the reason for the collapse, NIST was. NIST hasn't done it, and yet claims they have. This is fraud.

[GabonX]

Hey Sabotage, have you looked into if there's any reasons one might find thermite mixtures in a building that doesn't involve conspiracy?

[_sabotage_]

I would like to believe there are, Gabon.

I think the easiest reason to believe is:

The building housed a lot of sensitive data. CIA, Guiliani's emergency bunker, SEC, Secret Service. In case of an assault of sorts on it, it was pre-rigged, or a plan was in place for emergency rigging. The most sensible would be pre-rigged and remotely triggered (how could you be sure to have the chance for a emergency rigging? But if they had such a plan or had a way of quickly rigging it, such as nano thermite or it's near cousin the details of which are classified, but one use is to bring down bridges quickly, it might be possible to have rigged it quickly).

It was cordoned off, if the sprinklers were truly not working, hundreds of firefighters were already dead from WTCs 1 and 2 and we just wanted to end the bleeding of the day (similar to Silvertein's quote), the decision to pull it would have been a tough, but understandable call.

The government might want to keep it secret to protect classified material, or because of how it may look. If it was nano thermite, and NIST is covering this up for legitimate national security reasons, it can only have come from the USG.

This in itself doesn't show overall complicity in the events. But it raises the scrutiny of other aspects, and the failure to deliver the "White Paper" proving Al Qaeda's involvement becomes more suspect.

I think we should have punished those in charge. NORAD utterly failed and it's hard to explain why. I would like to see some heads roll even if it wasn't complicit, there was still gross negligence.

I would want it proved that the Pentagon was hit by a plane. I would like more conclusive evidence on how flight 93 was brought down.

I'm not completely nuts. I'm in favor of the NSA,in general, as long as they restrict themselves to pursuing serious flags, and the FBI isn't making those flags go from orange to red through shady activity. To me it's like having a house alarm, a good deterrent and way to catch bad guys.

I'm not in favor of the way we have pursued the war on terror, regardless. I'm not in favor of deciding what democracy is through arbitrary measures and enforcing it on others. I still wouldn't believe we killed Bin Laden as we said. I think he was dead long before, but Obama wanted to score some points (Bush certainly got enough out of it to make this reasonable).

I still believe that we took advantage of the resources that Afghan produces, as we did with the French connection and Columbia, et al.

I would still believe the neocons are no better than the worst examples of any dictator alive today and capable of planning 9/11, but I would no longer believe they did. It would certainly bring some closure for lots of people. 70% of the victims family's questions were never answered. I think we spent like $600,000 on the 9/11 commission as compared to like $50m on Monica Lewinskys dress.

So there is definitely a potential for a benign reason for the presence of thermite.

[GabonX]

I was thinking more simply about it. Thermite is basically 2 parts iron oxide (rust) and 1 part aluminum powder. Iron oxide and aluminum powder are both commonly used as paint thickeners. Finding traces of thermite doesn't strike me as particularly unusual considering how commonly it's parts are used.

It's not really considered a fire hazard because it's flash point is so far above the temperature that a normal fire burns at... Food for thought.

[_sabotage_]

Nano thermite is created at the molecular level. You literally build it molecule by molecule. Suggesting that it came about do to pressure and mixing is like saying a tree feel over, burst into a million pieces and assembled itself as it was falling into a perfectly scaled, watertight, stable version of the Taj Mahal, minarets, pool and all.

[Metsfanmax]

The truth, sabotage, is that if NIST tested for nanothermites in the WTC 7 debris and found none, you would either say they were lying about the test results, or that all it proves is that some other material was used to demolish the building. So what's the point?

[_sabotage_]

The truth is they should have tested anyways.

They should have measured some of the steel and showed thermal expansion based on physical evidence. They should have showed actual girders with no shear studs, the should have examined actual stiffeners, and they should have used the measured inputs in the model. But they didn't test any actual physical evidence quite contrary to forensic investigation standards for a crime scene and tweaked the inputs willy-nilly.

This is not special demands from a person who is biased, these are standard forensic procedures. This is standard modeling.

You wouldn't expect a forensics team investigating a potential murder to not go to the crime scene and not examine the body in reaching their conclusion. It's no different for a building.

[Vinyl-Taliban]

You don't deal with any of the many fallacies and contradictions you present!

Here's a good one:

You state that something can't happen if it hasn't happened before (steel building falling because of fire). Now ignore the fallacy and the factual innacuracy for now and assume this is a legal arguement.

You then go on to state that thermite and/or derivatives were used to control demo the building, despite there being no example of thermite and/or derivatives ever being used in the history of controlled demo of a building. You pass this off as a legal arguement despite the above.

You need to sort out the mess you make for yourself.

And again, the biggest fallacy of all:

In phrasing your question reactively, you are declining to outline the case for your own, positive claim, or even to define the claim itself with clarity. Instead you are satisfied to simply cast doubt upon the NIST Report, while never accepting your own burden of proof.

This is why discussing anything with a conspiracy nutter is pointless, if not somewhat entertaining - you don't play by the rules of reason and logic.

[_sabotage_]

I'm not stating that because something has never happened before, it's impossible. I'm stating prove it.

Here's a good one: Why do the national guidelines require a test for thermite? They don't require a test for fairy dust.

I don't need to provide a position to state NIST didn't not check for explosives and therefore cannot say none were used. If the USG pays me for seven years, gives me full access to the evidence, the equipment and scientists at NIST's disposal, then I need a position. And if I came to that position by not checking the physical evidence, I wouldn't expect people to agree.

I don't think you get how a hypothesis works. If someone says: ice is denser than water, I can just point out that ice floats on water. I'm not required to spend 15 years doing tests to prove water's density at the whole spectrum of temperatures. It doesn't require I get a scientific consensus. All it requires is that what I observe is true and that truth makes the hypothesis invalid.

If a guy has a bullet in his head, and the coroner calls it a heart attack without mentioning the bullet, I'm not required to state who shot him with what and why, I'm just required to point out the bullet hole was ignored in making their hypothesis which can't be made when ignoring a bullet hole.

I love it how I'm the nutter. I don't follow rules and logic. Check for explosives according to national guidelines! Crazy! Test the physical evidence! insane! Use actual parameters in the model! This is Sparta!

[Vinyl-Taliban]

There's as much evidence to support a controlled demo theory as there is that I farted particularly violently that day and I'm responsible. Both hypotheses can be safely and legally rejected without further investigation.

Whether there is a requirement to check or not is a red herring - there was no corrobatory evidence to justify either hypothesis above.

This is enough to legally reject, whether you like it or not.

You've already fixed your conclusion - it was an inside job done with explosives or thermite. Now you are trying to get the data to fit your conclusion. Bad science.

Or in other words, it's not valid to just pluck hypotheses out of thin air - there must be a basis for them.

[_sabotage_]

Exactly, thank you. NIST hypothesis of no explosives was plucked out of thin air with no evidence. Therefore they can't legitimately make such a hypothesis.

Btw, what do you do vinyl?

[Vinyl-Taliban]

Exactly, thank you. NIST hypothesis of no explosives was plucked out of thin air with no evidence. Therefore they can't legitimately make such a hypothesis.

It certainly was not; the inverse is true: there is no evidence to support controlled demo, therefore the hypothesis can be safely rejected.

[_sabotage_]

And how do we determine there is no evidence for a controlled demolition? Isn't that usually done by checking the evidence? The evidence was not checked. The hypothesis cannot be made.