David Ray Griffin, pillar of the 9/11 Truth Movement

Yes sir, I think I would like to read some civil replies to my points. I am open-minded, as we all should in our skepticism.
As long as each reply does not point to a web link to libraries of dreadfully boring 9/11 debunking sites.
thanks

Check this out.

reply to post by superleadoverdrive

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OK, here goes:




That is, unfortunately, taken right from certain "Truther" mantras, and is a fallacious argument. It is irrelevant, because it happened.

But, now the details:



A favorite canard of the TM. Firstly, it was eight pilots. Secondly, what is "small stature" to you? Do you think there aren't men under six feet tall that can be trained for close-quarter hand-to-hand? Against an unsuspecting victim, who has their back to the assailants? AND is sitting down, with a seatbelt on his lap, while the attackers come from behind??

And, have you ever seen a "box-cutter"? You know, the type of utility knife similar to one marketed by the "Stanley" company? Check Home Depot, or you other local DIY store (or just look online). They are heavy-duty razor blades, and very sharp. The jugular vein or carotid artery when sliced open at the neck will bleed out very quickly...




This one comes from people who know nothing about airplanes.

There is no 'hijack' button to 'press'...the transponder can be dialed to a specific four-digit code, but that was designed as a covert way to notify ATC, IF the pilots could not speak in the clear. During one of the cockpit assaults the ATC tapes did record sounds, from at least one pilot on one airplane, saying things like "get out of here!"...

When you are startled, and being attacked from behind, the last thing you're going to do is tell someone on the ground (what can (s)he do to help??) or fumble with the transponder to dial in four separate numbers...




Again, this notion is put out by the TM websites, and such, and they have no comprehension at all of what is entailed in an intercept.

Once the bad guys had control, what makes you think they will comply with an intercept? There is NO WAY to get them to comply. In aviation, IF you are intercepted by what look like military airplanes, you comply, or risk being shot at. Period.

Of course, the other part of this is the "quickly intercepted" idea...don't happen that way, does it? Not internally, in domestic airspace. With only primary targets to search for....




But, they did.

Actually, again not understanding how to fly leads to these misconceptions.
The airplanes lined up with their targets, at fairly normal speed...THEN dove down to increase beyond normal, to the maximum they could, using gravity to assist. Think about the Kamikazi pilots of WWII. THEY were able to hit their targets at high speeds, too.




Fire AND structural damage inflicted by the nearly 300,000 pounds of airplane and fuel.

And, when something falls in Earth's gravity, what else other than free-fall speed would you expect?

However, If there was anything else in the Towers, that is best not debated here, as I focus on the aviation aspects from experience.




That's another red herring from the TM.

The Washington National Airport is less than two miles away, airplanes fly past the Pentagon every day...

And, see response to number 3 above.




There have been similar crash scenes before...but every crash is different, different speeds, conditions and circumstances.

We saw something unique on 9/11
_______________________________________________________
I went hunting for pictures of the transponder, my usual place to look is airliners.net, but they didn't have good shots, since the XPDR is mounted on the center pedestal, along with many of the other avionics control panels.

Found this bloke's site...I think it's both for real pilots as refresher, and maybe also for some of those home-based flight simulator programs.

www.meriweather.com...

When you go to the page, click on "Pedestal". It will open, showing a typical configuration. (Actually, they will vary by company-airline-depending on what brand avionics they buy).

You can mouse over the picture, and locate the XPDR. It is located just below the green ACARS screen. On the American and United airplanes, the units looked a little different. Two sets of concentric knobs, each concnetric knob would change one number in the dislplay. The one shown is slightly "newer" in design. Although I haven't used that particular style, it seems clumsy to me, compared to what I'm used to.





[edit on 29 October 2009 by weedwhacker]

The fact that the second tower hit was hit more obliquely, further away from the core and burned for a shorter length of time and fell down first tells me that there is no causal relationship between the combination of plane impacts and fire and the actual building collapses.

The explosive charges, attested to by numerous witnesses, including firemen, journalists, and ordinary people who survived the attack brought the buildings down.

Your other assertions have been dealt with over and over in numerous threads and are not worth going into. People can use the search function to find thorough discussions of the issues you raise.


[edit on 29-10-2009 by ipsedixit]

Unless you have two buildings exactly the same, hit exactly in the same spot by an exact payload, of course you are going to get a differences.

Explosions are not only normal they are expected. Generators, fuel storages, trapped air, etc - always cause explosions in large building fires. These particular ones contained hundreds of offices and had services comparable to a small town. Check with anyone familiar with fire control.

Many independent structural engineers, demolition experts, fire prevention authorities, worldwide - have written or commented on the WTC collapses.

No one has ever found any tangible forensic evidence of explosives used. Steven Jones's claim, published in a vanity press publication masquerading as a peer review journal, did crude tests on paint chips claiming they were thermite. Thoroughly dismissed by chemists and other scientists the analysis is not only critically flawed, and thermite is ineffective as an explosive, particularly in millimeter thin layers that would do little more than warm up steel. Even Jones now admits this.

I recommend this site and it's links as a useful antidote to many of the outright false claims made about 9/11.




M

My point is that if George Bush for example were to believe that planes and fire knocked down the WTC towers, then a firmer application of planes and a more prolonged application of fire should bring a tower down sooner than a less severe impact by a plane and a shorter application of fire, yet the reverse is what happened. There is no causal relationship whatsoever between the plane impacts plus the fires and the collapses of the towers. These events are unrelated.

Many people are stupid enough to believe that if something happens after something else, then the first event must be the cause of the second. The perpetrators of the 9/11 event counted on this.

The damage to the buildings caused by the planes did nothing to bring the buildings down. Even one of the fire chiefs involved in analysing the collapses, said that , but for the fires, the buildings would have stood.

He did not realize that the fires themselves were not severe enough or hot enough to come close to weakening the steel. (This has been discussed ad nauseum, in detail, in numerous ATS threads. I must be dealing with a new generation of debunkers.)



Research the witness testimonials involving explosions. The fire and police personnel involved know all about what to expect in fire situations. Many of them suspected that bombs had been planted in the building.



This could be related to the fact that a thorough investigation of the site was not conducted and actually, what was the scene of a crime was tampered with and effectively cleaned up before it could undergo a forensic examination.



You are showing your true colors here. Calling that publisher a vanity press outfit is snobby, establishmentarian nonsense. Incidentally, peer review, like tenure at universities is a vastly overrated institution.



Weren't they talking about thermate? What you say in the above paragraph sounds a little distant from the actual discussion on these points. People who demolish buildings put thermite into so-called "shaped charges" to cut the beams of buildings. I'm just a layperson but I gather that the thermite is mixed with some kind of explosive. Thermate is a military grade of thermite which burns even hotter.



Thanks for the recommendation. I recommend you look into a website called Above Top Secret, because you don't seem to be familiar with the depth of discussion of this topic. In the 9/11 Conspiracies forum virtually every possible aspect of the 9/11 event has been discussed and argued over in detail, by a large number of people, some with expert qualifications in their fields.

The advantage of this site is that no-one gets to present their views unchallenged. Tools like lies, propaganda, bad logic, poor research, righteous indignation, appeals to patriotism, and other falsehoods and rhetorical tricks are routinely exposed for what they are.

You might want to take a break from drinking Truther Kool-Aid and read what experts on things like demolition, structural engineering, building fires, have said about the WTC collapses. Uncontrolled fires did heat enough steel beams to the point where they were no longer capable of maintaining their loads. The level at which steel loses 50% of it’s strength is actually quite low. And this phenomenon is neither unknown or unusual in steel structures.



This is yet another distortion. Covered extensively elsewhere. Some people said the explosions sounded like bombs. Few have experience in the middle of massive fires of this scale. But there were none of the signature events of planned explosives which are absolutely impossible to miss. There were no forensic artifacts like wiring and blasting caps, or unexploded residue found. Nothing indicates controlled demolition beyond wishful thinking.



Sure, thousands of professionals, firemen, ordinary citizens helping with the clean-up and sifting through transported debris were in on the conspiracy. There was an obvious rush to clean up the debris. A subway system was blocked, toxic dangerous waste was on the site, the busiest location in the Western world. The steel and other remains, always claimed to have been whisked away, sat in yards for months open to inspection.



Not all peer reviewed articles turn out to be solid. But at least there is an attempt to wees out pure BS. Thousands of scientific papers are published every year in English language peer review journals. Jones published his paper in a Bentham publication. The company is based in the United Arab Emirates. They charge $700 per publication. As a test, two college students produced a computer random generated piece with numbers and gobbledygook data and submitted it to Bentham. It was accepted – on the condition they pay the fee.

Jones’s paper would have been a real coup for any publication given it’s controversial subject matter.. Even though hundreds of conspiracy books and articles come out every year, The publishing world declined on Jones’s paper.

There is nothing about Steven Jones on this page, unless it is somewhere in the Italian language links on the page.

I'm trying to take you seriously as being more than a shill. Do you think you could give me a link to Manieri's criticisms of Jones' work?

Can't fool you. I'm a paid disinformation agent for the NWO.

Check this page and other links on the site - they're all in English somewhere. Interesting update, the editor of the journal carrying Jones's paper quit in protest. It was put in despite her objections. Some people do have ethics.



A long thread on ATS recently "Yup, it's thermite." Worth a look through. Jones claims torn to shreds by a couple knowledgeable chemists members .

I respect the fact that you are open to learning new things.


M



[edit on 29-10-2009 by mmiichael]

"Box cutter" is generic name given by new media to what are commonly called utility knives. Another similar class are called "tactical knives" - again short bladed.

FBI recovered parts of 14 knives from crash scene of Flight 93

Here is record of what was recovered and list of known knife purchases
by hijackers prior to 9/11

www.google.com...://docs.google.com/gview%3Fa%3Dv%26q%3Dcache:Sxzn8y7NaHAJ:www.911myths.com/images/a/a1/Team7_Box18_Hijack erKnifePurchases.pdf%2Bunited%2B93%2Bknives%2Bfbi%26hl%3Den%26sig%3DAFQjCNHLGYDf8FRo1epd3jaT5LPvc6pAJg&ei=23XqSpjYJ5XhlAen8MT_BA&sa=X&oi=gview&resnum= 5&ct=other&ved=0CBYQxQEwBA&usg=AFQjCNEXKr0WtSKaEcbWxgMvOqnODGoa9Q

Better link to knives recovered

www.911myths.com...

I suppose, but on the other hand, it's likewise true that there cannot be any relationship between the order that each building was struck and what order they should have fallen, given that the towers were struck at different angles and at different locations, necessarily causing different patterns of damage. One assault victim wouldn't necessarily die before another assault victim solely becuase he had been shot first.



Not true. There are no eyewitness accounts testifying there were explosive charges. These are all accounts of eyewitnesses hearing *explosions*. You are falsely inferring...or I should say, those conspiracy web sites you're getting all your information from are falsely inferring...these were actually explosive charges, rather than the myriad flammable objects in the towers- electrical transformers, fire extinguishers, etc- exploding as the fires reached them in turn.

The problem for you is, I can definitely prove there were electrical transformers and fire extinguishers physically in the towers, while you have no proof whatsoever there were explosive charges physically in the towers other than, "witnesses heard explosions" inference.



This is not a rebuttal. It's just another way of saying, "someone else told you I'm wrong, so that's good enough for you". I don't have to tell you this is not the proper predigree of someone who's honestly looking for the truth behind the events of 9/11, do I?

One should keep in mind the destruction of the WTC and the Pentagon attacks are the most real time recorded and examined events in history. Thousands of ordinary people were there as witnesses, many with cameras, and provide accounts later.

Arguments for explosive bringing down the WTC buildings, rarely address why anyone would take huge risks of being caught, just to cause the collapses of already destroyed buildings.

The sub-industry catering to those truly wanting to believe the US government, CIA, Israel, were involved in the planning and execution of these terrible attacks, in 8 years has failed to produce a coherent scenario of participants, tangible evidence, documentation, testimony.

Complaints are lodged against what's called the "Official Story." When and if there is an "Unofficial Story" presented that approaches the comprehensiveness of the one in place, it will be of great interest. So far nothing.

Thousands of writers, journalists, independent investigators, have looked at the evidence, made their own inquiries. The hope is always to find something hidden and revealing. But nothing credible has emerged.

From the millions of academics and experts in the fields of structural engineering, demolition, fire control, there have been many published articles and a general consensus on what happened and why.

A tiny handful of dissenting professional comprising less than 1% of the members in their fields have found problems with the findings. This is to be expected, considering the evidence is forensic in nature and irreproducible.

Unfortunately a very small number of opportunistic professionals have found it to their advantage to feed the doubts of so many with unsubstantiated theories of government perpetrated controlled demolitions, missile attacks, preplanned mass murders. Some prominent names in this clique are: Griffin, Jones, Gage, Fetzer, Balsamo.

And unfortunately the world is full of gullible people who will buy into any story that fits their social and political viewpoints.

Maybe an investigation of the methods and motives of these people is due.


M

That's a good idea. It should be an open inquiry with a lot of coverage in the press. These people should be brought forward before the nation as a whole to explain their absurd theories and to have them soundly refuted, chapter and verse by reputable experts.

That way we can finally be done with 9/11 and embark on a new corporatist path that will usher in a united society that will last for a thousand years.

Noam Chomsky, probably America's harshest critic (he's called the US a terrorist state) is unsympathetic to the Truther movement. He points out that any large scale scientific and historical investigation comes with a sub-set of arguable anomalies. More importantly the longstanding American tradition of seeking justice through organized protest and advocacy of rights is being subverted into a dead end inquiry of buildings being demolished and questioned flight paths rather than pursuit of the perpetrators of crimes. Implicitly, the Truth movement may be a successful distraction from the more significant political issues revolving around 9/11.

And that's what I see.


M

I think it's already known why these mind numbingly absurd claims of controlled demolitions, lasers from outer space, hologram planes, etc etc etc are floating around- they're being started by these damned fool conspiracy web sites pushing out utter rubbish in order to stir up paranoia over shadows so that they can sell their trinkets, while the anti-establishment alternatives who have an inner need to believe the gov't is constantly plotting to murder us all go to these web sites and swallow every word. I know this is the case becuase I haven't seen a single 9/11 conspiracy web site that wasn't a shopping mall of books, DVD's baseball caps, T-Shirts,etc, while 98% of the truthers I've talked to believe in a whole bookshelf of *other* conspiracies (I.E. JFK assassinated by the CIA, the moon landing being faked, flight 800 being shot down by the navy, etc), so they'd naturally be drawn to these 9/11 conspiracy web sites like a moth to a flame to begin with.

The problem isn't identifying why these stupid conspiracy stories are floating around. The problem is getting these conspiracy theorists' heads out of the clouds and have them take a closer look at what these conspiracy stories are saying. If they would only hold their own conspiracies up to the same exacting stringent level of critical analysis that the do the 9/11 commission report, they wouldn't be conspiracy theorists for very long.

Geez, not even Rolling Stone magazine takes these conspiracies seriously, and they hate *everything* the gov't does.

Good point. Rolling Stone exposed 9/11 "Truthers" three years ago when Matt Taibbi raked "Truthers" over the coals.

Fascinating! It sounds like Taibbi got a taste of truther zealotry as well. It seems to me that these truthers identify with these 9/11 conspiracies with such intense intimacy, they cannot separate themselves from their message, thus, they perceive anyone attacking these 9/11 conspiracy stories as a personal attack upon themselves, and they respond in kind. Most people would simply mutter, "what a buffoon" and get on with their lives, but THESE people become motivated enough to write to him and accuse him of being some gov't shill.

There is no flipping way that a simple honest desire to learn the truth behind the 9/11 attack can inspire such an zealous emotional response.

Please prove this.

I would have thought that media events such as the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, Superbowl, etc would have been far more thoroughly covered and analysed.

The Pentagon attack has no known footage, so how can it compare to the cameras present at any weekend football game?

I think you'll find that you are mistaken with your claim, mmiichael. Please try and prove this claim, without using twitter and blog sources.

99.99% of all recorded historical events do not have video footage. There are other means to determine what happened. In the case the Pentagon attack there were witnesses at all stages from the minute the plane took off till it crashed at the Pentagon. Thousands were involved in the cleanup afterwards. Parts of the plane and DNA evidence of passengers was analyed.

I have provided links to sources with names of organizations.

In the last two days you have posted innumerable messages repeatedly saying I failed to prove my statements about validation of the plane attack though I have pointed to where the evidence is readily available.

I am calling you a troll, and the worst I've ever encountered, repeatedly haranguing rather than dealing with topics under discussion. This behaviour has been seen on other threads.

Just stop.


M


[edit on 2-11-2009 by mmiichael]