STOPPRESS: THEATRE PRODUCTION RE, CONGO Date: Saturday, August 14, 2010Time:
2 PM Cost: Patrons 25 and under, $11.00. Friends of Congo attendees will receive 15% discount off the full adult ticket price, which is $69.00 per seat. With the 15% off discount, each adult seat is $56.25. Click here to complete form for discount price. Must RSVP by Thursday August 12th. In a small town in the war-torn
Democratic Republic of Congo, Mama Nadi both protects and
profits from the young women who seek refuge in her rain
forest bar and brothel. Guided by music and the rhythm of
life in the Congo, Ruined is a powerful portrayal of the
triumph of the human spirit. As the war outside rages,
soldiers trade their guns for cold beer, a game of pool
and pretty women – until the revolution arrives at
Mama’s doorstep. Rich with humor, hope and humanity,
Ruined is the most acclaimed play of 2009, winner of
major theatre awards including the Pulitzer Prize for
Drama. The first play in Intiman’s five-year
International Cycle, it comes to Seattle with the leading
original cast members and the design team from director
Kate Whoriskey’s acclaimed world-premiere production.
Ruined will be co-produced with the Geffen Playhouse in
Los Angeles, where it will run after the Seattle
production. Later this season, Intiman will bring the
play to South Africa’s Market Theatre, where the
story will be shared with Congolese refugees in
Johannesburg.Remember to
join people throughout the globe and participate
in Congo Week, October 17 - 23, 2010.
Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has presented
evidence proving that Israel masterminded the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri. ****** PALESTINIAN JAILS The Russian reporter Nadia Kevorkova had sent out this report about Palestinians in Israeli jails. While we hear daily about Gilad Shalit, the names of Palestinian prisoners are rarely mentioned if at all. http://rt.com/About_Us/Blogs/extra-ordinary-lives.html The 20th Century chronographer Alexander Solzhenitsyn made a paradoxical remark in his book “The Gulag Archipelago”: “Be blessed, prison! You’ve made a man of me!” It’s hard to understand this saying if you live in a safe world. It’s easier to understand it in Russia and, strange as it is, in Palestine. The majority of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are political. They say that two out of three Palestinians have been to Israeli prisons. No other nation knows such statistics. Ashraf Hussein is 40. He has spent nine of those years in prison. He was arrested when 16 in Gaza for throwing stones during the first intifada. He was tortured, they hung him up by his legs, beat him. He became delirious. He spent two years in solitary confinement. He knows the names of his torturers: “The prison’s governor was Fares Fares; the second one was Mr. Beni – that’s what he called himself. I am sure that’s his real name. I filed a suit against them in Negev in 1991. I then was imprisoned there. Fares brought 20 soldiers into court and they witnessed that I had wanted to kill him. That’s how I was moved to criminals and drug dealers.” Ashraf Hussein tells his story without hurry and in great detail. I had heard such a measured narration only from Russian political prisoners. In prison he met Abd al-Aziz Rantissi – one of the later murdered Hamas leaders. But he followed another movement – the Popular Front of George Habash. He smiles: “I was a communist. And I keep being one. Communists do not change colours.” “In prison I learnt Hebrew – I know it better than many Jews. I had enough time, unlike new immigrants,” says Ashraf Hussein. “I learnt English, read Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky, Lenin, and Marx. You [Russians] made a mistake – it was too early to put Lenin and Marx on the shelf. They will come in handy in the future.” He is currently working at the Ministry for Prisoner Affairs: “7,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israel’s prisons, including 39 women and 340 children. Over 1,600 of the prisoners are ill. They are not being given any medicine. Many of the prisoners spend years without any medicine except for headache pills. This even applies to those who have cancer. People are placed in solitary confinement where they go mad. One of the female prisoners had given birth to a baby and the guards threw the baby on the floor as she was watching. People can be sentenced to seven or ten lifetime terms. 406 people have died while being tortured in a prison. Old men die in prison without being allowed to see their family for the last time. It is virtually impossible for prisoners to see their parents or children – most Palestinians can’t get to Israel from their home cities – this applies not only to Gaza but also to the West Bank, which, Israel claims, is not blockaded. There is not blockade, true, only about 500 police checkpoints that Palestinians can’t get through even if they are trying to go to a village that’s next to their own.” Jail and art Joseph Bahader is a painter. The main theme of his
paintings is the jail. Bahader also makes small models of
Israeli jailhouses.They are all the same - he tells me
– barracks with numbers drawn on the ground in the
middle of the yard. Every prisoner is issued a personal
number as well. At roll calls, every prisoner has to
stand on the corresponding number otherwise he or she
will be punished. What’s the link between our son and Shalit? Nazir Bedahui is 62. Israeli police arrested his 22-year old son Musa in 2001. Musa was shot in his legs during arrest and sentenced to 25 years in jail. He has so far served 9. His family has not been allowed a single rendezvous with Musa. Parcels and letters are banned.“His mother has only caught one glimpse of him over these nine years, as he was being put into the prison van after his trial. We can’t come to see him and we can’t even pass him a parcel of medicine. I’ve never studied law but I now know the Geneva Convention by heart. International law recognizes my right to rebel against occupation.”Nazir Bedahui is proud of the fact his son was part of the resistance. “They call our sons terrorists, but who is the real terrorist here? The state that violates our rights, the state that has killed one of my sons, leaving his three children without a father? The state that arrested my other son? They are demanding freedom for Gilad Shalit, who was a serviceman in the army. They want us to start demanding freedom for Shalit. They steal children from our homes. A woman who lived next to us died without having seen her own son. What’s the link between our son and Shalit? Can I be responsible for Shalit? I don’t even know where he is. Palestinian prisoners’ families have written a public letter expressing solidarity with Shalit’s parents. We think he should be freed. But where is the Jewish parents’ solidarity with us? I have written four letters to Israel, asking them to exchange Shalit for our sons. No reply. They call me a terrorist but what have I ever done to them? Nothing. I just sit here as their bombs fall next to me and I feel proud that my son was part of the resistance. Is that the reason I can’t even send him his own clothes?” A lot of people – mostly women and children from Gaza – have shown me their mobile phones with myriad short messages and incoming calls from Israel. They call asking about Shalit. “The phone rings every day. It’s a mechanical voice and it keeps asking me the same thing – where is Shalit? It promises a reward for any information we might have. Now how would I know where he is? Why don’t they ask themselves where our sons and father are?” Umm Mouhammad, a teacher at a school for orphans tells me. Several men from her family have been put in jail. They all got huge sentences for throwing rocks at soldiers. “On one side we have stone-throwing kids who get ten years of imprisonment each. On the other side are tanks and military jets. The whole world is worried about Shalit. Maybe it’s time they concern themselves over the fates of imprisoned Palestinians?”Nazir Bedahui runs into the next room to hide his tears from me. Some time later he emerges, carrying a pair of boots. “Look, I can’t even pass these to my son. They are scared of everything, even a pair of old man’s boots!”The Bedahuis’ modest abode is decorated with dozens of their children’s pictures. Their dream now is to live to see Musa set free. Musa’s dream will now be to survive until the end of his 25-year imprisonment term. He will be 47 when he gets out.Nazir Bedahui is leading me to a woman, who will never see her son again. “What else do they want from me?” Umm Fares Barud, 84. Her son, Fares, was arrested in Gaza in 1992 and sentenced to life imprisonment. He is 45 now. For ten years they have refused her a rendezvous. Anyway, she won’t be able to see her son, as she’s gone blind over these years. Her son is allowed to give her a call once every six months. They can talk for only ten seconds, and then they are disconnected.“One of the officers told me that I was from HAMAS and that is why they would refuse me a rendezvous. I was a common well-to-do woman, and they made me one of HAMAS. They detained him in Tul Karem at the West Bank, when we were walking together along the street. They destroyed my house and took my land away. Shalit has everything, while our sons have nothing, and they do not allow us to hand anything over to them. Shalit was taken away from a tank, while our children are being taken away from their homes. Fares was accused of making bombs, but he had not done anything. He was my younger son. They pretend that they don’t understand what a younger son means for his mother. His father died when he was two, I brought him up all by myself, and he could be taking care of me. They took away everything I had – my son, my land, my house and my eyes. What else do they want from me? Do they want me to tie myself up with explosives?” Umm Fares Barud asks.Twelve years ago Umm Fares Barud came up to her house near Ashkelon. She had been kicked out of there by soldiers when she was 22. A Jewish woman from Iraq was living there. She refused to give her water and did not let her in. “What have I done to Israel? I live alone, my son is in jail, my neighbors give me food via a window in a fence,” the elderly blind woman laments.Before giving her consent to have her picture taken, she fixed her snow-white scarf and asked Nazir Bedahui to give her son’s portrait to her, along with a symbolically-stitched key from her parents’ home. “They took away everything from me, but they won’t be able to take away these things,” Umm Fares says. ***************************** Ace Hoffman : Hiroshima Day Dear Readers, 65 years ago, on August 6th, 1945, a B-29 airplane called the Enola Gay dropped a nuclear bomb called "Little Boy" over a mostly-civilian city called Hiroshima. "Little Boy" was a uranium-based nuclear weapon whose design was so simple (rumored to be like a donut on a stick) that it was untested prior to use. Nuclear warfare had begun. In an instant, hundreds of thousands of people were doomed to suffer and die if they weren't "lucky" enough to be killed immediately by the blast pressure, flying debris, or the gamma-ray radiation burst. Most were not so lucky. 65 years later, they are still dying at accelerated rates compared to "normal" populations. That type of nuclear warfare ended (for the present time) three days later, when Nagasaki was bombed with "Fat Man," a different design, similar to the test explosion, called Trinity, which occurred secretly in the New Mexico desert a few weeks earlier. Little Boy used enriched uranium -- enriched in U-235 by utilizing its tiny difference in mass from U-238. The U-235 was separated from the U-238 via gaseous diffusion, through a series of hundreds and hundreds of huge centrifuges with millions of tiny holes in each one. Fat Man used plutonium-239, which could be isolated somewhat more easily from the "spent fuel" of a nuclear reactor. The Pu-239 was separated from other elements by chemical means. There wasn't much of either isotope, and it would have been months before another atomic bomb was ready for deployment. That was the biggest secret of all, and fooled the Japanese into surrendering six days after Nagasaki. Both "bomb-grade" isotopes (Pu-239 and U-235) are now plentiful around the world. Used nuclear reactor fuel rods ("spent fuel") have gone missing many times over the years. Now both types of bombs can, theoretically, be built by terrorists, rogue governments, or others. This August 6th (2010) the U.S. Ambassador to Japan is scheduled to attend the annual Hiroshima commemoration ceremony. Ambassador John V. Roos's presence will mark the first time since World War II that a U.S. envoy has visited Hiroshima on August 6th. "FINALLY!" we might be tempted to say. But what will the American Ambassador's presence at the ceremony REALLY signify? Apparently, it will signify that America wants to take a business-as-usual attitude towards radiation deaths. They're just more deaths, as far as American foreign policy is concerned: Tragic, but, unavoidable, like all civilian, collateral and "friendly-fire" deaths in a war. The cost of doing business, if your business is war. Roos was described in the papers at the time of his appointment in 2009 as one of Obama's "best fundraisers" during the presidential campaign. (This was considered meager credentials in Japan.) But he WAS the CEO of an international technology law firm! His vision as Ambassador has been to promote joint business cooperation (often to the financial benefit of nuclear corporations in Japan, which own well-known "American" nuclear firms such as Westinghouse). His tenure as Ambassador flies in the face of the Japanese people's growing awareness of the environmental threats from industry -- especially the nuclear industry. Nuclear power and nuclear weapons are linked in many ways. One is a target for the other. one produces the other. Both produce the same poisons, just on vastly different time scales. The fear of a nuclear meltdown caused by an earthquake is so prevalent in Japan that they have a special phrase for it: Genpatsu-Shinsai. The Japanese have come close to Genpatsu-Shinsai more than once. So have we. If ever there was something that is "just a matter of time," Genpatsu-Shinsai is it. From bad welds they didn't know existed to worker mistakes that caused criticality events and deaths, to unknown fault lines discovered under operating reactors, Japan has seen all the warnings. And ignored them. So have we. And then there's the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. What are Ambassador Roos's qualifications for dealing with THAT? Most Japanese people (or at least their editorial writers) seem to feel it's not enough. Will his attendance at the Hiroshima ceremony change that? According to a State Department spokesperson, Roos will be at the Hiroshima ceremony to "express respect for all of the victims of World War II." Thus, he will drown the radiation victims in a sea of victims of other atrocities that occurred during World War II. The spokesperson also said simply: "At this particular point, we thought it was the right thing to do." What "point" is that? The point of the Obama Administration trying to ram billions of dollars in taxpayer funding for new nukes down our throats, with large portions of the plants made in Japan? Was it The Pentagon Papers II? What's the point? Roos's presence for the Hiroshima Day commemoration this coming Friday means that the U.S. Government needs you to just look away and say, "Oh, it's good that we finally did something to acknowledge those poor souls who died in a flash." But don't look any deeper. Roos's attendance will perpetrate myths and hide truths. It will perpetrate the myth that civilian deaths during war are inevitable. It will hide the truth that most deaths from Hiroshima did not occur immediately, but later, from the radiation. These deaths would never have occurred with "conventional" weapons. These deaths are war crimes. Ambassador Roos could release a statement saying that the use of radioactive weapons WAS a mistake, and they will never be used by the United States again. Of course he won't, but he could announce the reduction of the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal by 99.9%. He won't do that either, but even with such a "drastic" reduction, the U.S. would STILL have more than a dozen nuclear bombs at its disposal. How many do we need? He could state that radiological warfare of any sort is equal to, or worse than, chemical warfare or biological warfare, and is, and always will be, illegal. That's only stating the obvious to MOST people, but SOME people, usually called "Generals," think nuclear weapons are okay, while acknowledging that chemical and biological weapons are not. Meanwhile, the horror of the aftermath of uranium weapons used in Fallujah and other places throughout the Middle East still falls on deaf ears. Infant deaths, as well as horrific malformations, cancers, and scores of other health effects, have all increased in frequency -- sometimes by more than an order of magnitude. We are approaching the sixth year since depleted uranium (as well as chemical weapons such as white phosphorus) were used in Fallujah. It's the 11th year since depleted uranium was used in Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro. Before that, Bosnia, and before that, Kuwait... (and in 1985, the Israelis are believed to be the first to have used an unknown amount of depleted uranium, at sea). Depleted uranium is depleted of U-235, but every atom that remains is still radioactive. A milligram of DU, for example, emits about a million decays (alpha particles) per day. The total amount of DU shrapnel fragments embedded in a veteran or civilian victim is often much greater than one milligram. DU is also dangerous, perhaps more so, as a heavy metal. DU dust is easily inhaled, where it can lodge in the lung or be absorbed into the body, and may or may not be excreted, secreted, or exhaled. "Flaming Pee" is a symptom of DU poisoning. And flaming ejaculate, too. By now, America has used many millions of pounds of radiological weapons. There is an entire gun, the AN/GAU-8a 30mm Gatling Gun -- as big as a car -- which was designed and built specifically to fire depleted uranium penetrator shells as big as your forearm and 1.7 times as dense as lead. And there is an airplane built just to hold that gun, a single-seat twin-engine jet called the A-10 Warthog, built so tough it has THREE of every control system and can fly home on either turbine engine. The Warthog normally goes out with about 1,000 rounds of depleted uranium projectiles, and can empty the entire ammo belt in under 20 seconds. Is the use of millions of pounds of "depleted" uranium on an ongoing basis worse than the creation of a few tens of pounds of fission products in the summer of 1945? The normal radioactive decay sequence of uranium is nearly all heavy metals, and ends in stable isotopes of lead -- after releasing more than a dozen alpha and beta particles. But most radioactive fission products have much shorter half-lives and are biologically indistinguishable from stable isotopes of useful elements. Do you prefer a hanging or a shooting? After the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the hot, spherical cloud had shot up into the chilly upper atmosphere at a mile a minute, leaving a mushroom-stem-shaped opaque trail of dust and a mushroom cap-shaped top cloud, a choking black radioactive rain began to fall on the stricken cities and nearby areas, covering everything and everyone underneath in radioactive soot. For those who had survived the blast effects and immediate radiation, the misery had just begun... Vast numbers of Hiroshima deaths which occurred after the war were ignored by the official statistical "bean counters." The United States felt it had a strong interest in minimizing the apparent dangers from nuclear weapons -- and all the data collectors were employed by, and in the service of, the United States Government. Records were improperly maintained, kept secret, and then destroyed. For years, young children who died were simply not counted. Women were afraid to become pregnant for fear of having a deformed child.... Just like in Fallujah TODAY. And TODAY, the U. S. military is doing everything it can to avoid any scientific studies of the increases in cancer, leukemia, birth defects, etc. in Fallujah. History repeats itself. This August 6th, will Ambassador Roos denounce the horror of testing nuclear weapons, which has left thousands of square miles of wastelands: In Nevada, Mississippi, Colorado, numerous Pacific "paradise" islands, Siberia, Pakistan, India, Australia, North Korea, and dozens of other places? Will he promise justice for the "Hibakusha" (the Japanese term for the surviving victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki)? Will he compare nuclear weapons to nuclear power plants, and find BOTH equally horrific? Just ask the victims of Chernobyl about what a nuclear power plant can do -- but not the hundreds of thousands who have already perished (latest estimates, published by the New York Academy of Sciences, but denied by the nuclear industry). Will Ambassador Roos lament in silence, or say a few platitudes, and then get on with business? We'll see. Ace Hoffman Carlsbad, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------ >[A] recent article published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health ISSN 1660-4601, at www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph, entitled, "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009" seems to fit into what Mr. Hoffman is saying in this email. ------------------------------------------------------------------ The author, 53, an independent
researcher, cancer survivor, and educational computer
software designer, has studied nuclear power and nuclear
weapons issues for more than three decades. His
educational graphic book on the subject, THE CODE KILLERS,
is available for free download from his personal web site:
www.acehoffman.org
. Various educational animations about nuclear
power are also available at his web site.
Lebanon invaded 3rd August ? Israel-Lebanon border clash kills five Tue, 03 Aug 2010 At
least three Lebanese soldiers and one senior Israeli army
officer have been killed after the two sides exchanged
fire along their border. Several other Lebanese and
Israeli soldiers were also injured in the fighting on
Tuesday, according to Lebanese media. MARWAN BARGHOUTI: Talks with Israel harm Palestinians' Thu, 05 Aug 2010
Dear Sirs, I would like to submit the following objection to An Bord Pléanala concerning the proposed new railway Metro North connecting St. Stephen's Green with Dublin Airport and Swords, Co. Dublin. Economic Climate for project: The cost of bailing out the banks has had a severe effect on the Irish economy. The Guardian Newspaper reported the following on July 19th: “The cost of bailing out Anglo Irish Bank last year gave Ireland a budget deficit of 14% of GDP, the highest in Europe, which could rise to 20% this year.” This would seriously damage Ireland’s credit rating making it even more expensive for the government to borrow. So even if there is a relatively good growth scenario, the Irish economy could have a budget deficit more than several percentage points higher than normal and above the EU currency system norms. Due to this, we are facing into a period in which the government plans to make 4 billion euro cuts to public expenditures, social welfare and public services. Therefore, in this current climate, it does not make sense to invest nearly 7.5 billion Euros on Dublin’s public transport infrastructure, and at the same time make cuts across the board in public services and semi-state agencies. Logic should suggest that Ireland should first get the economy in shape, before proceeding with expensive projects. The argument is that the Metro North and Dart projects will create jobs in the construction sector, but how many jobs will be lost in the public service and other sectors that rely on public funding. Traditionally, infrastructural improvements come on the back of an economic bubble, and not after the bubble when investment capital is very scarce. Cost: The projected cost of Metro North will be in the region of 5bn Euros, or about 277.7 million Euros per km. In Düsseldorf in Germany, A recent underground development has begun and is 3.4 km, with a total projected cost of 650 million Euros, around 191.3 million euro per km. This means that the costs in Ireland are much higher than continental Europe. This raises some serious questions if the entire project is cost effective. What about cheaper options, which would serve a greater number of passengers? Inconvenience to the Public: The Dublin Chamber of Commerce has warned that the construction of Metro North (18 km) will cause widespread inconvenience, which may even last as long as eight years, unless the LUAS extension linking up the Green and Red lines in Dublin city centre is constructed at the same time. Even if this LUAS construction does take place, the project will certainly take a period of at least seven years plus. For example, the construction of the Wehrhahn-Linie in Dusseldorf (only 3,4 km) will take 7 years (2007 – 2014). It will not be possible to construct 18 km of underground in Dublin in a time less than this! For purposes of comparison, I am going to discuss some of the details of the German, underground project in Düsseldorf in order to highlight what level of public inconvenience we should expect if the project gets the green light from An Bord Pléanala. The Düsseldorf Wehrhahn-Linie:
The most inconvenience to the public and physical alteration to the city is at one end of the tunnel where the huge drilling device is assembled. In Düsseldorf Bilk this is taking place, where an enormous hole in the ground has been dug at the beginning of the 3.4 km stretch. Here a crane lowers the concrete elements for the lining of the tunnel into the ground. The giant drilling device started its slow journey under the city center and slowly proceeds in the direction of Am Wehrhahn. The system is designed to carry the normal trams that run on the street using the same gauge track.
The early work will involve creating a stable sectional cover (Teildeckel) and protection walls, first on one side of the street, with traffic restricted to one side only, and then later to the other side (see diagram below from Düsselorf). This preparation work is extensive, and must be completed before the tunnel can be drilled. The streets in Düsseldorf are relatively wide in comparison to the narrow streets in Dublin, so I can imagine a situation where streets in Dublin might have to be completely blocked for these works to proceed.
This work involves work on diverting utilities, piping away ground water. In Düsseldorf, it is causing great inconvenience to business in the area, as customers can only enter using ramps, and pedestrians have to walk around long detours around the building site. It means that you avoid these places and local businesses suffer.
This is the same street from two different perspectives. Traffic can only move on the right side of the road, which has already been prepared with the concrete section cover. They are currently working on the left side to finish the cover before the drilling proceeds under here later this year.
Preparation involved diverting water through huge sections of pipe set into the ground.
In addition, some buildings may have to be demolished for the construction of stations, as in this building in Düsseldorf (see below). Stations require a lot more space, so the destruction to the local infrastructure is much greater. This would certainly be the case with the Metro North in St. Stephen’s Green where it would intersect with the LUAS system. This is a major worry in Dublin which has already suffered from reckless building developments.
A considerable amount of construction is expected in Düsseldorf at the other end of the Wehrhahn-Linie at Am Wehrhahn, where the underground will intersect with the suburban railway system. The building work at this location has not begun, but most of the offices there have been empty for the last two years, so the location has already been effected long ago and is entirely dead to any commerce.
Large areas of the city will be inconvenienced, especially where the underground work intersects with road tunnels, rivers, or other infrastructure. In Düsseldorf, the underground work is being combined with the construction of a road tunnel at Jan Wellem Platz, which has encroached on a local park and a large traffic / tram intersection and is severely restricted at the moment.
Risks: The main worry is that construction work will badly affect the character of Dublin city. Dublin streets are narrow and might have to be totally blocked.
The use of green park area for construction in St. Stephen’s Green is certainly going to change the unique Georgian cityscape, making many areas become a building site for a whole decade, and facilitating a creeping modernisation of a historic city center. A recent letter in the Irish Times suggested the initial entrance to this underground system should be at Trinity College Green, for commerce and shopping purposes citizens and tourists would then use Grafton Street and environs to the South of the station – Whereas to the South of Stephens Green itself there is only the National Concert Hall and all that area is well supplied with Luas and buses for any Civil Servants working in Government buildings etc etc. If an entry were supplied at Trinity College Green instead, the introduction to the North side under the Liffey, would then make more commercial sense as well, the exploration of the City centre intact. Of course during the oncoming years emphasis on the tourist will be essential; but tourists will be bereft of the City Centre for several years if this expensive Underground line is allowed. In addition to the inconvenience, there are also risks attached to building an underground, as was recently seen in the city of Cologne where a church subsided and had to be supported. In addition, the famous city archive collapsed into the ground, killing people in neighboring houses and resulting in the loss of many valuable historic documents. Can Ireland complete such a long section of underground without a similar tragedy happening?
Does Ireland really need an underground system anyway? The success of the LUAS system is surely an indication that investment should be used to create a good over-ground network of trams that would serve a large number of people, rather than benefiting the people of swords and a few tourists. I think that An Bord Pléanala should reject this proposal.
******************************** July 2010 Dear Sir/Madam, I believe you should extend the Protest time limit against the introduction of an Underground Train beneath Dublin. There are too many new complexities opening onto this subject. The fact that only the day before yesterday it was announced that School and Health projects would be abandoned, but this Underground project maintained, is one.... Are we losing it entirely with the present Fianna Fail Government determined to add to the folio of their so called “Achievements” during their present tenure of office? Noel Dempsey has presided over the Transport Ministry to the utter destruction of Archaeological principles in this extraordinary corner of ancient Europe. For the present we now have to encounter the possible destruction of one of the most treasured parks of Central Dublin – Stephens Green. This for an Underground System that will have to face incredible problems of passage beneath again, the most treasured Centre of Dublin where indeed now-a-days a large number of foreign merchants own or lease property, introducing a stay of profitable trading for at least five years. If German architects can miscalculate to the extent that they lose by error a huge modern Museum into such Underground engineering projects, a Museum that contained to their loss the incalculable value of their most ancient historic documents, what can we expect here? It is known well that Georgian Dublin was a home ground to jerry-building, that houses lean on one another etc etc. Also when we use the evidence of this crazy “fashion”, as that is all one can call it, for introducing Underground trains into small cities the dimension of Dublin in Europe, we have to ask ourselves what motivation could make such a crazy demand on our country already under extreme Financial stress ? We are certainly DEPENDENT on a
rapid restructure or even resurrection of our
Tourist Trade which was compounded by the mistake of
rising high prices in every activity of Hospitality (Hotels,
Restaurants etc) and Transport, (Flights, Trains,
Taxi Fares etc.) and now when we have the lure of the
amazing creativity and excellence of our small Fashion
and Craft workers all over the country developed during
the last fifteen years, and famous merchants also
entering the country and leasing prominent positions in
our main shopping streets in the Centre of Dublin,
disaster is advancing, accelerating, and will devastate
our special interest for foreign tourists, because of
this threat to their immediate livelihood. I sincerely hope that the “numbers game” is not the heart of this project of protest for you. It is the exceptional engineering prospects and the destruction of magnificent trees in Stephens Green which will never be replaced for over one hundred years, if indeed then due to the extra terrestrial threats of global warming that have now been occurring with irrational or improbable weather conditions everywhere, that is of huge concern in discussions I have heard. Also I see from the plan that yet a third transport gauge is to be used for this project, which means in event of an emergency, a train or alternatively the Luas transport could NOT enter the tunnel to help out transporting wounded, injured or material aid. I sincerely hope that you do not grant planning permission to the Government or the corporate building trade for this Underground System and that you hedge your refusal in such a way that no appeal can possibly make any headway against it. I am taking the usual precaution of sending a Registered copy of this letter to you. Yours sincerely, Jocelyn Braddell, Re. METRO North Tunnel and the reason that as none are living in these half-built or unbuilt areas thus DO NOT BUILD Metro North: excerpt
from http://www.irisheconomy.ie/index.php/2010/07/29/nirsa-report-on-irish-property-market-planning/#comment-62561
1.
In his report Casey said the major issue was that just
25 individuals or companies controlled more than half of
the housing development land in the Fingal area. That
includes Balbriggan, Lusk, Donabate and other well- known
areas targeted for development on Dublin’s expanding
north side. FRANK
McDONALD, Environment Editor Wed,
Aug 04, 2010 ST
STEPHEN’S Green will be the principal casualty of
the Government’s plans to go ahead with Metro North
and Dart Underground, it is now clear from the
environmental impact statement (EIS) on each of these
costly projects. The
current construction cost estimate for Dart Underground,
which is planned as the central spine of Dublin’s
commuter rail services, is €2.5 billion. No figures
are officially available for Metro North, but in 2005 it
was estimated to cost €4.58 billion. The
Dart Underground EIS says construction of a shared
station below ground at St Stephen’s Green as well
as ventilation/intervention structures “will
introduce major changes to the landscape and visual
character and setting of the park”. Describing
these as the “most significant townscape and visual
impacts” of the two projects, it says changes would
include the temporary removal of some sections of
boundary railings and park features as well as the
felling of dozens of mature trees. “The
construction phase will result in significant impact on
the landscape and visual amenity of the park,
particularly from within the park, where the existing
sense of ‘escape from the city’ will be
lost” – at least until new semi-mature trees re-establish
it. The
“ventilation/intervention” structure, to be
built immediately behind the railings on the north side
of the green, would be up to 4.2m high and 23.7m long; it
would be impossible to provide screening for this
building. As
the EIS on Metro North makes clear, most of the
northwestern quadrant of St Stephen’s Green would be
directly affected by the excavations for the two linked
underground stations – including the lake populated
by ducks, swans and waterhens. It
is understood that an earlier proposal by the Railway
Procurement Agency to remove the Fusiliers’ Arch,
facing the top of Grafton Street, has been reconsidered;
instead, it would be retained in situ while the area
around it is excavated to a considerable depth. Hundreds
of trucks would be needed to remove the spoil from the
excavations for underground stations at St Stephen’s
Green as well as O’Connell Bridge, Parnell Square
East, the Mater hospital and other locations along the
route of Metro North. In
the case of Dart Underground, the existing open-air
amphitheatre at the Civic Offices on Wood Quay would be
replaced by a “new urban civic space” that
would include the entrance to an underground station
north of Christ Church Cathedral. This
“will change the visual character and function of
the space”, as the EIS says. “Nearby, a new
ventilation structure will be introduced to the south
side of the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Cook
Street” – commonly known as Merchant’s
Quay Church. During
excavation works for each underground station, spoil
would be removed by a fleet of trucks; in the case of St
Stephen’s Green, there would be 198 truck movements
per day in each direction – and this traffic would
continue for 20 months. It
is also clear from the EIS that passengers seeking to
connect with the existing Dart line at Pearse Station,
Westland Row, would face a long walk as the new
underground station is proposed to be built at the
junction of Boyne Street and Sandwith Street. The
twin tunnels for Dart Underground, from Inchicore to
Docklands, would be be excavated by a tunnel boring
machine similar to that used in excavating the Dublin
Port Tunnel. Additional excavation work would be required
for the five underground stations. “Significant
works” are proposed within the historic Inchicore
railway yards, “with the demolition of many existing
buildings and the provision of a new station facility
that will open up the site to greater public access”.
This is being opposed by a local group. August
18th is the deadline for making submissions to An Bord
Pleanála on CIÉ’s application for a Railway Order.
The four-volume EIS is available for public inspection at
An Bord Pleanála, 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1; Civic
Offices, Wood Quay, Dublin 8; Heuston Station; Pearse
Station; and Inchicore Works, Dublin 8. It may also be
viewed on dart undergroundrailwayorder.ie ©
2010 The Irish Times
UPDATE:THIS ACT BELOW IS HARDLY COMMENTED ON AND SURELY IT HAS BEEN MADE TO ENABLE NAMA HOLD ON TO ITS PROPERTY PORTFOLIO FOR AS LONG AS IT LIKES(JOS)!!!!!!!!! The rules for extending the
life of a planning permission have been relaxed under the
Planning and Development (Amend) Act, 2010. A permission
can be extended, without any works having been carried
out, if there are commercial, technical or economic
reasons for not having implemented the permission within
five years. July 31, 2010 The Political Spinning of the WikiLeaks Release: Since the release of classified US military papers by WikiLeaks, the material has been aggressively spun by various political factions. Meanwhile, virtually no attention has been devoted to investigating the source of this “leak”, or questioning the agenda behind it. According to AP, a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the US government is not certain who “leaked” the 91,000 documents to the online whistle blowing web site. Unlike a previous WikiLeak exposing the murder of Iraqi civilians in a US airstrike, nobody has been apprehended, arrested or pressured by the Pentagon, the CIA or any US agency. The White House has expressed no intense concern. It did not block the release or deny the material. Government officials, led by Obama, have almost casually dismissed the expose as nothing new. The major mainstream newspapers that had full early access to the material, the NYT, Der Spiegel and the Guardian, also had ample time to frame and steer the discourse surrounding it, and particularly in the case of the White House-friendly NYT, conduct damage control. The new material obviously adds to what is already known for years: US forces are mired in a dirty and horrific war, and committing atrocities and war crimes. Corruption is rampant, allies are despicable and untrustworthy, and there appears no end in sight. For critics of US policy, the expose reinforces their tired call for the war to end. However, the value of these particular papers in terms of turning public opinion against the war is questionable. This is not a potent high-level Pentagon Papers-type leak, and today’s society is a far cry from the 1970s. Today’s acquiescent, ignorant and grossly manipulated mass populace, one that fully embraces and supports the manufactured “war on terrorism,” wholeheartedly supports any and all means to “prevent another 9/11.” A decade of Bush-Cheney criminality and mass murder failed to trigger any interest from a general US population that has been shocked into servitude, and further brain-addled by ubiquitous corporate right-wing media. Another day, another massacre. Where the WikiLeaks papers gain significance is in the detail revealed about the operations of Pakistan’s ISI and, more specifically, the manner in which leading government figures and the media have interpreted these items. The ISI is being accused of “undercutting” US operations, “conspiring with’ and aiding the “powerfully resurgent” Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, aiding the killing of US forces, and organizing “networks of militants” across the region. An all-out propaganda attack against Pakistan led by the White House is underway. Essentially, Pakistan is being branded as a terrorist state and a worthy target of military attack, along with Iran, which is also fingered by the WikiLeak for backing Taliban militants within Afghanistan. Hamid Gul, former ISI chief and major regional player, accuses the US of orchestrating the expose to shift attention away from the US government’s “own failings”, in order to “force Pakistan’s hand on policy in Afghanistan,” According to Gul:
The Obama administration, eager for a pretext to escalate the Central Asia/Middle East resource war into Pakistan and Iran, has certainly found ammunition with the WikiLeak expose. Perhaps not coincidentally, the “leak” occurred just prior to a new $33b 30,000-troop surge for Afghanistan was signed in the US Congress, and ahead of a possible military attack on Iran, which former CIA Director Michael Hayden says is “inexorable.” As accusations and attacks on Pakistan and its “terrorist ISI” rise in intensity, not one mainstream media report mentions the fact that the ISI is a virtual branch of the CIA, and one that operates on behalf of UK/US policy. It is fact that the ISI, with full UK/US direction, has long been a driving force behind “Islamic militants” and “terrorists” throughout the world, including “Al-Qaeda”. The CIA and ISI have cooperatively fomented instability and tension throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, playing all sides for geostrategic gain. This “strategy of tension” is one of the hallmarks of the “war on terrorism”. The ISI was also directly involved with the false flag operation of 9/11. According to Michel Chossudovsky:
If the ISI is responsible for terrorism, the funding and aiding of “Islamic militants”, and the killing of US forces, logic dictates that its big brethren, the CIA and officials in Washington, are also guilty and involved. The manner in which the ISI is under fire while omitting any mention of the ISI’s guiding superiors in Washington speaks to a deliberate anti-Pakistan/pro-US bias. Whose political weapon? Until the source of this WikiLeak is revealed, along with the motive for the “leak”, all that remains is a political Rohrschach Test, open to interpretation. The ultimate beneficiary is whatever faction controls the interpretation. In the end, only Pakistan and Iran have been politically damaged, while the Obama administration has a new pretext to escalate and intensify its continuing resource war. Afghanistan’s Taliban rebels have congratulated the Netherlands on the withdrawal of its forces from the country. All Dutch troops are due to withdraw from the Afghan province of Uruzgan by the end of year. The Taliban’s spokesman for southern and western Afghanistan, Yusuf Ahmadii, has been interviewed by the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant. He told the paper that the rebels wanted to “offer the people and government of the Netherlands heartfelt congratulations on their courage in making this independent decision”. He hopes other countries will follow suit. He went on to voice hopes that the Labour Party (PvdA) will be included in the next Dutch government. “The PvdA has made one of the most important decisions for the Dutch government and citizens,” he argued. It was cabinet disunity over the mission in Afghanistan that precipitated the fall of the Dutch government in February. About 2,000 Dutch servicemen and women were deployed in Uruzgan province. The PvdA was against a further extension of the military mission, while the other coalition members, the Christian Democrats and the Christian Union, were in favour. © Radio Netherlands Worldwide
In Case
You Missed It By John Pilger The hysteria over the release of the so-called Lockerbie bomber reveals much about the political and media class on both sides of the Atlantic, especially Britain. From Gordon Brown's "repulsion" to Barack Obama's "outrage," the theater of lies and hypocrisy is dutifully attended by those who call themselves journalists. "But
what if Megrahi lives longer than three months?"
whined a BBC reporter to the Scottish First Minister,
Alex Salmond. "What will you say to your
constituents, then?" www.johnpilger.com
GORDON DUFF: AMERICA’S
TARNISHED MILITARY PARTNERSHIP WITH ISRAEL
July 19, 2010 By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor 9/11 was like Pearl Harbor to America, uniting many,
awakening bitter skepticism in a few. Where Pearl
Harbor began America’s official role in crushing the
Fascist juggernaut that threatened to dominate the world,
9/11 had quite the opposite effect. America’s
response to 9/11 was oppression at home and a tirade of
frenzied phobic reactions around the world. No
American institution suffered more than the military.
The team of Cheney and Rumsfeld, together since the
disastrous Nixon years, began a process of purging
America’s military of talent and leadership, instead
building a force to serve a sinister agenda of religious
heresy and extremist politics. Nearly a decade later, it isn’t the economic
collapse or the discredited military adventures that have
now embittered a military leadership infrastructure that
now sees itself as duped, dishonored and discarded.
A number of factors can be attributed, the proverbial
“straw that broke the camel’s back” as it
were but it is 9/11 where things begin to fall apart.
The cover story, a group of Muslims with box cutters and
a few remarkably unproductive hours of pilot training,
simply hasn’t held up. America has had many
airline hijackings, starting with the 1960s and was under
strict terror alert on 9/11, despite the obfuscations of
Donald Rumsfeld. Top military pilots, among
themselves and their fellow officers, voiced doubts about
the “twin towers” scenario, doubts that began
reaching a quiet crescendo pointing to 9/11 as an
“inside job.” With the dozens of conspiracy theories and a weak and
implausible cover story, one the 9/11 Commission itself
eventually rejected, only one plausible answer was left,
an answer very much “not for public consumption.”
Few Americans know that a team of Israeli intelligence
agents were arrested on 9/11 after being observed using
“video” equipment to record the planes crashing
into the towers. After the disaster, the Mossad
agents, soon to be arrested and released by the FBI,
began celebrating as though they had completed a
successful operation. This enraged New Yorkers who
mistook them for terrorists. In fact, New Yorkers
weren’t wrong. Only top members of America’s military knew the
truth, the “dancing Israelis” had remotely
guided the two planes into the World Trade Center, not
simply videoing, itself proof of guilt. Military
pilots, in particular, knew the planes were nearly
impossible to maneuver at those speeds without Israeli
designed auto-pilot systems, not unlike those used on
Tomahawk/Cruise missiles. Behind a flurry of
“conspiracy theories,” many totally implausible,
some obvious to military leaders as part of an elaborate
deception plan requiring widespread control of media
assets, more subtext came to light. Though warned of “career suicide” for
speaking up, members of the military and, in particular,
the intelligence community began putting the pieces
together. 9/11 was an intelligence operation
involving the United States, Great Britain, Israel and
Saudi Arabia. Everything was there, finance,
private “black ops” contractors, but mostly, a
pre-staged media frenzy on the front end, counterfeit
intelligence on Iraq in the middle and a rigged
investigation, the “9/11 Commission coverup” on
the backside. It didn’t take FBI and
intelligence agency officials long to track 9/11
planning back to 1999, not in Afghanistan but much closer
to home. Not a word of this would ever hit the press and any
“conspiracy” group that got close to the truth
would be shut down or infiltrated quickly. By 2007,
undeniable and overwhelming evidence of 9/11 wrongdoing,
massive corruption in every aspect of defense and
security and the attrition of America’s readiness
response capabilities began turning the tide. What
had been only “grumbling” about incompetence,
political interference with the military and
Washington’s “blind eye” to Israeli abuses
became a quiet revolt. The “Minot-Barksdale” nuclear weapon
incident that year, one forgotten, unexplained but one
haunting us still may tell us how close we came.
Nuclear weapons were loaded onto a B-52 at Minot AFB,
loaded illegally, bypassing layer after layer of security
and control with dozens of military personnel involved in
one of the most serious criminal conspiracies in our
history. When the plane was recalled and returned
to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, carrying at least six
nuclear weapons, possibly as many as twelve,
America’s nuclear arsenal had been proven to have
fallen into the hands of extremist elements. 70 of those involved, Air Force personnel with the
highest security clearances in the country, the most
heavily screen group in America’s entire military,
were discharged for wrongdoing. Since that time,
seven more of those involved have died in accidents or by
“suicide” including one 4 star general. A
cult within the American military, Christian Zionists,
had hijacked a plane load of nuclear weapons and were
heading to the Middle East on a “mission from G-d.”
Was Israel directly involved and, if so, what were the
targets? The military and intelligence community had, for some
time, stopped looking on Israel as an asset or even a
benign liability. As early as the 1950s, Israel had
organized terror campaigns against Americans in Egypt in
order to establish the myth of a worldwide anti-American
Islamic terrorist movement. The “Lavon
Affair” is suppressed in America’s news, torn
out of the history books as is the attack on the USS
Liberty in 1967. Israeli warplanes, initially
disguised to appear as Egyptian, tried to sink an
American warship in the Eastern Mediterranean in an
attempt to force the United States to invade Syria and
Egypt. When the ship failed to sink, all hands
aboard, as planned, more planes, these with Israeli
markings, were called in followed by torpedo boats.
After hours of attack, with 201 of 296 crew members dead
or wounded, the ship was still afloat, tattered American
flag flying proud. Except for the actions of
President Johnson and Admiral Sidney McCain, America
might well have gone to war against Israel in 1967. In 2008, President Bush signed the Naval Vessel
Transfer Act, insuring that Israel have a more advanced
navy than any country in the region, guaranteed by US law.
Israel has only had two naval engagements in its history,
one against an American ship and the other against the
unarmed Mavi Marmara. Both attacks, causing the
deaths of American citizens, were performed using
American weapons. In 1987, Israeli spy, Jonathan Pollard was sentenced
to life in prison for the single most devastating assault
on America’s security in her history. 110 CIA
agents behind the Iron Curtain were captured, tortured
and executed, destroying America’s intelligence
network at the height of the Cold War. Military
experts from the former Soviet Union claim that
information they received from Israel, information stolen
by Pollard, nearly pushed Russia to starting a nuclear
war against the United States, a war Russia knew they
could easily win using information supplied by Israel. Despite the fact that Israel has made Pollard’s
birthday a national holiday, history books in the United
States still claim Pollard was working for South Africa
and Pakistan. Did the undercurrent of suspicion and
hatred of Israel by the military and intelligence
services because of Pollard create the need to stage 9/11? In 1991, three nuclear weapons, nearly
identical in size to the Hiroshima bomb, “went
missing” in the Middle East. These
weapons had been built, between 1975 and 1988, by Armscor
, a South African/Israeli company, part of ten that were
to make up the nuclear portion of apartheid
South Africa’s illegal inventory of weapons of mass
destruction. South Africa and Israel,
aided by the Soviets, built, not only these nuclear
weapons but an extensive array of biological and chemical
weapons as well, some of which were used in Africa by the
South African military. Israel and South Africa
tested one of these nukes on September 22, 1979.
The VELA satellite system detected the blast, confirmed
by acoustic sensors, and established a detailed analysis
of the materials and design. These missing nukes were hijacked while being shipped
to British forces in Oman, part of a convoluted deal
arranged by Margaret Thatcher and involving current Prime
Minister David Cameron, then 28, and Dr. David Kelly,
British weapons scientist now believed murdered after
threatening to go public about these missing weapons.
These three missing nuclear weapons, now believed to have
been stolen by Israel, were the secret rationale for the
invasion of Iraq in 2003. When they weren’t
located, Israel claimed they had been shipped via
ambulance to, first Syria and then Lebanon to be hidden
in an X-ray facility to avoid detection. America
wasn’t fooled by these ploys and those privy to the
“lost nukes,” those at the highest levels, had
caught Israel again. Then, in 2009, something utterly unforgivable happened.
On May 25, 2009, North Korea tested its first successful
nuclear weapon. It was confirmed to be one of the
three missing nukes believed held by Israel, built in
South Africa. Did Israel, third largest arms
exporter in the world, sell a nuclear weapon to North
Korea? Israel, known for peddling military
technology to rogue nations, technology begged, borrowed
or stolen from the United States, had crossed a line. The military had long been resentful of Israel’s
habit of selling off munitions the United States ”stored”
in Israel for “safe keeping.” Several
billion dollars worth of munitions stores had been
shipped to Israel under a loose agreement allowing
Israel to replenish her stocks from US supplies.
This “off the books” military aid to Israel, was
supposed to make Israel more secure. In fact,
however, Israel has been selling these
American owned munitions around the world, some to America’s
potential adversaries including Venezuela. Military contracts themselves have been a bone of
contention. With US unemployment levels at
their highest since the Great Depression, billions
in defense and ”Homeland Security”
contracts are going to Israel, a country importing
labor from Africa and Asia to keep its arms
factories manned. American companies that complain
about being “run over” by Israeli lobbyists are
quickly silenced. Not only is the American economy being
negatively impacted but America’s defense industries
as well. American companies, some involved in our
most secret projects, are being forced by the Israeli
lobby in Congress to take on partners in Israel,
sharing technologies that soon end up in China, Singapore
or India. Currently, Israel has received a $1.8 billion
stockpile of munitions for a war on Iran they will never
fight or, perhaps a new assault on Gaza, weapons from the
depleted stockpiles of the American military. Even
more American munitions have been offloaded in Georgia
and, perhaps shipped to forward bases in Azerbaijan to
support an Israeli sneak attack on Iran. At risk,
of course, are American troops in Iraq and American ships
in the Persian Gulf. There are no Israeli forces
within striking distance of Iran. Our military is more than aware of this fact. Today the Washington Post reported the following: * Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931
private companies work on programs related to
counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in
about 10,000 locations across the United States.* An
estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people
as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security
clearances. * In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building
complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under
construction or have been built since September 2001.
Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three
Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17
million square feet of space. * Many security and intelligence agencies do the same
work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51
federal organizations and military commands, operating in
15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from
terrorist networks. * Analysts who make sense of documents and
conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying
share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence
reports each year – a volume so large that many are
routinely ignored. What isn’t being mentioned is the fact that
hundreds of the government organizations are run by dual
citizens, Americans holding Israeli passports or that a
significant number of the private companies are Israeli
owned or managed by individuals with strong ties to
Israel, ties that, if examined, would represent a clear
conflict of interest and security threat. If
America was allowed to openly acknowledge the areas of
adversariality with Israel that have long existed, a
significant number of the 854,000 people holding top-secret
security clearances would immediately be deemed a risk. Thus, terrorist plots that show the obvious signature
of the Mossad, such as the Christmas 2009 ”crotch
bomber” in Detroit, can never be properly
investigated. Hundreds of billions of dollars have
been spent with one purpose, support Israel’s
political and economic aims even if it endangers the
security of the United States. Israeli involvement in weapons deals, Venezuela, North
Korea, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and
dozens of other nations, creating a complex web of
conflicting alliances makes the run up to World War
I child’s play in comparison. With allegations
of Israel managing, not only the money laundering but
transshipment of $65 billion in heroin from Afghanistan
into Russia and the west, the penetration of
Americas intelligence and defense infrastructure has
become obvious, particularly to the military, long
resentful and suspicious of the CIA-Mossad alliance. With years of dominance of both Defense and Homeland
Security by Israeli-Americans and, not only the top
levels of the Pentagon staffed by Christian Zionists but
service academy admissions stacked from the rolls of this
same extremist minority, abuses were meant to continue
for years unchallenged. This, however, has not been
the case. Continual rumblings, always quickly
denied, flow out of the Pentagon, challenging our
perception of Israel as an ally or strategic partner.
In fact, numerous reports citing Israel as a threat have
been quashed. With two missing nuclear weapons in play and heavy
handed interference in Washington politics and the
American media, the current push for war with Iran has
many military leaders increasingly watchful of staged
incidents. With no serious intelligence backing
Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the recent
revelations from a kidnapped Iranian student purported to
be one of their leading nuclear scientists, the scenario
intended to duplicate the US invasion of Iraq is not
progressing well. Evidence of the Saudi-Israeli
connection, made public by this incident, has been
suppressed in the media but is carefully noted by
military intelligence analysts. A “timely” attack on the US, by necessity
devastating in nature and tied to Iran, perhaps using more
kidnapped Iranian citizens, is expected. With
congress and the press in lockstep with Israel, will the
military be enough to stand up for American security and
independence? Israel 'using PKK to silence Turkey' Sat, 17 Jul 2010 Israel fosters destabilizing acts of terror against
Turkey as a means of silencing Ankara's opposition to
policies adopted by Tel Aviv, a political analyst says.
Speaking to Press TV from Istanbul on Saturday, political
analyst Yavuz Selim Kurt described Israel as a supporter
of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is
responsible for hundreds of deaths in its quest for the
establishment of an independent Kurdish state in
southeastern Turkey. "Israel is trying to
destabilize Turkey and (is) backing this terrorist
organization… Everywhere, they are supporting this
terrorist organization in order to destabilize the
country and to force them not to attack Israel's policies,"
Kurt said. 5-year-old
witnesses father's arrest for legally irrigating his
vineyaRDS
Disturbing footage has emerged showing a 5-year-old
Palestinian boy witnessing Israeli soldiers dragging his
father away. Open Letter of Appeal to the Jewish people Dear Friends, I write to ask for your help in gaining the freedom of a good man, a man of peace, and a man of conscience. In the Jewish scriptures there is great emphasis on justice and freedom and it is for such, for one man, that I write to seek your help. He will not be aware that I am writing this Appeal, but I do so in the hope that, with your help, it will produce his freedom, and not (and this I must risk) cause yet more punishment and cruelty to be inflicted upon him. However, I feel when I tell you the story, it will touch your hearts and there will be those amongst you who will be able to help him gain his freedom. In May,2010, this man was returned to prison to serve three months for allegedly breaking his prison release restrictions and speaking to Foreign Media. On Sunday llth July,2010, he had his first visit in seven weeks. His brother, Meir, was granted a 30 minute visit. There was a glass window between them and they spoke via the phone. He wore a prison uniform. He is held in the hardest prison section there is in the prison. It has the most notorious criminals in the country, well known hard murder cases. All about a dozen are in severe isolation conditions. He is in a cell by himself for 24 hours a day, no window but a small wire covered crack at the top part of one wall. He has about an hour’s walk a day in a very tiny yard. He was simply thrown in a cell by the security agents, the door locked, and left to suffer there all alone. He has not spoken to anyone in all the seven weeks and this visit was (apart from a short visit of his lawyer 6 weeks ago) the first conversation he had in seven weeks. His food is limited in quality and quantity, and his reading material two books he has with him. Of course his spirits are down as a result of being put in such harsh, inhuman and cruel conditions. His name is Mordechai Vanunu, and he is in an Israeli prison cell. Mordechai is no stranger to prison. In l986
Mordechai Vanunu told the world that Israel had a Nuclear
Weapons Programme and he was given 18 years imprisonment
for doing so. He is the Israeli Nuclear whistle
blower and 24 years later continues to be punished for
trying to warn the Israelis and protect both The Shabak continues to tell the Israeli Government he is a security risk and must not be released and the Israeli Judiciary and Government obey them and keep him imprisoned. Vanunu is no risk to Israeli National Security. He has no nuclear Secrets. I have asked some
Israelis why they think It seems, if this is so, that the
strategy is working. To date only a few courageous
Jewish people have raised their voices against such
cruelty and injustice perpetrated upon Mordecai, and
called for him to be allowed to leave However, it is with the deepest
sadness that I acknowledge that in spite of world
campaigns by many, including Amnesty International (and
personal letters from myself to President Obama,
President Shimon Peres,) Mordechai Vanunu continues 24
years later to be most cruelly imprisoned and punished by
However, I have hope that he will be free and I place my hope in those Jewish people who read this story and are moved to right a wrong continuing to be done to Mordechai Vanunu, and they will demand that their Government give him his freedom, and allow him to leave Israel. Shalom, Mairead Maguire Nobel Peace Laureate 14.7.2010 The Academic history of words and meaning among philosophers was always a much sought after challenge to the excitement of thought among students until Michel Foucault began writing about the institutional mind sets of real problems. Thereafter pupils of various philosophical projects fell into schemes of thought that could easily be described as insane to ordinary life - because analysis and condemnation of the shocking facts of political reality was beyond their own personal courage. The use of words that leads all humans to try and regulate individual satisfaction became a frightening programme, not alone political but a form of terror control, and is now so well established as corporate measures and financial riddles that philosophy, with its true chance to create a real community of scholars and youth, generation after generation, who must preside over and activate all forms of criticism and diverse analysis, gives rise it now appears to the following risible escalation of academic in-fighting below. We may now try to see through this veil of printed words perhaps?; attend to details and return to the unique disposition we each have to understand the world or worlds we live in.....................??JB editor 'The Most Dangerous Philosopher in the West'By Philipp Oehmke Reiner Riedler PHOTOS It is five a.m. on a Friday morning, and Slavoj Zizek is on his way to the Idea of Communism Conference, traveling from Ljubljana to Berlin via Zurich. He finds it irritating that Alain Badiou, the French Maoist, will be making the introductory remarks. And is it true, he wonders, that Toni -- Antonio Negri, a former sympathizer with the Red Brigades terrorist group -- is also coming, even though he is always at odds with Alain? When would Negri speak, what might he talk about and -- above all -- why has he, Slavoj Zizek, not been kept in the loop? But Zizek doesn't have time to waste pondering these minor irritations. He's brought a few stacks of notes, which he must now use to write a one-and-a-half hour presentation during his two short flights. A bit about Marx, a lot about Hegel, something about Badiou's "communist hypothesis" (which, he reasons, he could criticize a little) and something about Negri's concept of the "multitude" (which he could even criticize sharply). He can't find his notes. But it doesn't
matter, because he is so full of thoughts that are just
waiting to bubble out of him. He's packed an extra T-shirt
for tomorrow or the next day. It's hot in Ljubljana, even
at this early hour. Zizek is already sweating. The
conference on communism begins in a few hours. The Big Three The Big Three, the great thinkers of the new left, will be speaking at the event, held at Berlin's Volksbühne Theater on a weekend in late June: Antonio Negri, an Italian in his late 70s, is a former political prisoner and the author of "Empire," the best known neo-Marxist bestseller of the last 10 years; Alain Badiou, a philosophy professor in Paris, is in his early 70s, very abstract, a Maoist and a universalist, and is searching for a new "communist hypothesis"; and Zizek, a Slovenian psychoanalyst in his early 60s who teaches philosophy in Ljubljana and is a visiting professor in London and Saas Fe, Switzerland, the "Elvis of Cultural Theory" (as he is referred to in a film). One of his bitterest opponents once called Zizek "the most dangerous philosopher in the West." It wasn't meant as a compliment, which is precisely why Zizek likes the nickname so much. The three men are intellectuals, but they are also stars, like the existentialists Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and, more recently, the post-structuralists Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida. But ever since the height of the post-structuralists' popularity, almost 20 years ago now, this position has remained unoccupied, with the possible exception of Bernard Henri-Levy, whom Zizek despises mainly because of his tendency to show too much chest hair. It was Negri who revived radical leftist theory 10 years ago. The socialism of the Eastern Bloc had failed, and American political scientist Francis Fukuyama had proclaimed the eternal victory of capitalism and, with it, "the end of history." Then came Negri. He was steeped in theory, but he was also a credible class warrior. He'd been in prison because the authorities believed he was the brain behind the Red Brigades. Michael Hardt, an American literature professor, helped him summarize his thoughts in three books. They became global bestsellers, the most successful of which was the first one, "Empire," a sort of new Mao bible for a young, hip, anti-G8 left. Zizek, Badiou and Negri have known each other for years. Sometimes they work together, but each of them is more apt to take note of what the others are doing, what they are saying or what they are writing about, even if they have more than likely not read the others' books. Negri is not aloof enough and too much of a class warrior for Zizek and Badiou. Badiou is too rarefied for Negri, and Zizek publishes so many books that even he probably doesn't have time to read them all. The New 'Communist Hypothesis' It is early in the afternoon, and Zizek is sitting in the first row in the large hall of the Volksbühne, forced to remain silent for an hour. He has many talents, but keeping still is not one of them. Next to his chair is a plastic shopping bag that contains everything he needs during the three days of the conference. The room is full, and some of the roughly 1,000 members of the audience are sitting on the steps. They are young people, most of them under 30, a panopticon of leftist subcultures. Some are dressed like Brecht, others like Sartre, and many of them look as if they were backpacking through Southeast Asia and were about to start juggling with flaming sticks. All wear headphones, so they can listen to simultaneous translations of Badiou's presentation in French, Negri's in Italian and Zizek's and the other speakers' in strongly accented English. Zizek, who is fluent in six languages, including German, is the only one not wearing headphones. Most of the presentations are difficult enough to understand in their original languages. Translated, they become virtually unintelligible. But the point is not to provide easy or concrete answers, which are readily available from the Left Party or the unions. The conference is also not about looking back into history, back into the gloomy 20th century, with the catastrophes that occurred in the name of communism and the more than 30 million people who were murdered under Stalin and Pol Pot; the labor camps, the police states. This conference is about theory. It's about a new "communist hypothesis," as Badiou calls it, about universalism, the subject in history, events of truth, Hegel and psychoanalysis after Jacques Lacan. The word "communism" is printed in large letters on the roof of the theater on Rosa Luxemburg Square. But what are all these people doing here? Outside, in the streets of Berlin, summer has finally arrived. The attendees could just as well be drinking beer and watching one of the World Cup matches being broadcast on large screens. Pop-Star Philosophers Some 20 years after the tentative end of the communist experiment, and exactly 21 months after the near-collapse of the capitalist status quo, there is apparently a new yearning -- not for leftist policy, but for leftist theory. As practical problems become more pressing, our democracy becomes weary, the euro seems headed for failure, Germany's coalition government becomes less and less effective, and the banks more and more unmanageable, the more abstract does the search for truth and the practice of philosophy become. Philosophy no longer moves society the way it did until the end of the 1960s, writes Karl Heinz Bohrer in the current issue of the magazine Merkur. But thinking has changed in the last few decades. Philosophy has become cultural criticism, more essayistic, more volatile, more anecdotal and more literary -- in the vein of the French philosophers Deleuze, Foucault and Roland Barthes, and of people like Peter Sloterdijk. This brand of theory also has to be consistently sexy. It has to entertain, provoke and be easily quotable in the form of sound bites and physically palpable like rock music. Zizek delivers all of the above. One could say that he's reinvented the profession. Some would say he's defiled the profession. Badiou gives the introduction, and Zizek, sitting in the first row, can hardly remain in his seat. He moves his lips as if he were giving the talk himself. Badiou is an affable, well-dressed elderly gentleman. He doesn't look like an enemy of the state, but more like an easy-going East German pensioner. Negri, who is also sitting on the stage, looks like Badiou's polar opposite. He seems emaciated, as if he had just been released from prison, and not nine years ago. Badiou quotes Mao in his introduction: "Be resolute, fear no sacrifice and surmount every difficulty to win victory." And just as the audience looks ready to cringe, Zizek interrupts Badiou to quote Samuel Beckett instead: "Try again. Fail again. Fail better." He laughs and looks around to see if anyone is laughing with him. He can speak more quickly than he can think. He's like a jackhammer. He has published more than 50 books, which have been translated into more than 20 languages. His most recent book, "Living in the End Times," is a 400-page treatise on the demise of the liberal democracy. He gives more than 200 lectures a year and has held visiting professorships at elite American universities. He recently spoke to an audience of 2,000 people in Buenos Aires. He is the subject of two documentary films, and in another film he interprets movies from a psychoanalytical point of view as he speeds across the ocean in a motorboat. There are Zizek T-shirts and Zizek records, and there is a Zizek club and an international Zizek journal. His repertoire is a mix of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegel's idealist philosophy -- of film analysis, criticism of democracy, capitalism and ideology, and an occasionally authoritarian Marxism paired with everyday observations. He explains the ontological essence of the Germans, French and Americans on the basis of their toilet habits and the resulting relationship with their fecal matter, and he initially reacts to criticism with a cheerful "Fuck you!" -- pronounced in hard Slavic consonants. He tells colleagues he values but who advocate theories contrary to his own that they should prepare to enter the gulag when he, Zizek, comes into power. He relishes the shudder that the word gulag elicits. "Take my friend Peter, for example, fucking Sloterdijk. I like him a lot, but he'll obviously have to be sent to the gulag. He'll be in a slightly better position there. Perhaps he could work as a cook." One could say it's funny, especially the way Zizek delivers it, in his exaggerated and emphatic way. But one could also think of the more than 30 million people who fell victim to Soviet terror. Those who find Zizek's remarks amusing could just as easily be telling jokes about concentration camps. "But you know?" Zizek says in response to such criticism. "The best, most impressive films about the Holocaust are comedies." Two Posters of Stalin Zizek loves to correct viewpoints when precisely the opposite is considered correct. He calls this counterintuitive observation. His favorite thought form is the paradox. Using his psychoanalytical skills, he attempts to demonstrate how liberal democracy manipulates people. One of his famous everyday observations on this subject relates to the buttons used to close the door in elevators. He has discovered that they are placebos. The doors don't close a second faster when one presses the button, but they don't have to. It's sufficient that the person pressing the button has the illusion that he is able to influence something. The political illusion machine that calls itself Western democracy functions in exactly the same way, says Zizek. His detractors accuse him of fighting liberal democracy and of wanting to replace it with authoritarian Marxism, even Stalinism. They say he is particularly dangerous because he cloaks his totalitarianism in pop culture. The jacket of his book "In Defense of Lost Causes" depicts a guillotine, the symbol of leftist terror decreed from above -- "good terror," as Zizek has been known to say. The Suhrkamp publishing house removed passages from the German edition of the book which reportedly toyed with totalitarianism. There are two posters of Josef Stalin on the wall in Zizek's apartment in a new building in downtown Ljubljana. "It doesn't mean anything! It's just a joke," Zizek is quick to point out. He says that he'll be happy to remove the posters of Stalin from the wall if they offend his visitors. And he says that he is tired of being characterized as a Stalinist. He has been sharply criticized in recent weeks in publications like the liberal, left-leaning US magazine The New Republic, Germany's Merkur and the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit. His critics write that Zizek's thoughts on communism ignore history and are insufficiently serious, and that his theory of revolution is downright fascist. And now he has even been accused, once again, of anti-Semitism. Even Suhrkamp decided not to publish some of his writings, arguing that they could -- maliciously -- be interpreted as anti-Semitic. These accusations are opprobrious, but Zizek knows he isn't entirely innocent. His constant drilling, poking and questioning is truly subversive, but sometimes it makes him extremely vulnerable. He says that those who attack him in this way have rarely comprehended his thoughts. For Zizek, philosophy means thinking out of bounds -- far removed from practical execution, as opposed to reality-based political science, which must have its limits. When American leftist liberals accuse him of making a case for a new leftist dictatorship, Zizek points out that it was he, not they, who lived under (former Yugoslav dictator Josip) Tito and, as a young professor, was barred from teaching. The Itinerant Intellectual Zizek's roughly 600-square-foot apartment looks as though Tito were still in power. It consists of three rooms and is carelessly furnished. A poster from a Mark Rothko exhibition hangs on the wall above the sofa in Soviet-era colors; otherwise, the furnishings consist of a rack of DVDs, bookshelves, mountains of "Star Wars" Legos and his laundry, which he keeps in his kitchen cabinets. He serves iced tea in Disney cups. He lives alone in the apartment, except when his son from his second marriage stays with him. He also has a son from his first marriage. His last wife was an Argentine lingerie model, 30 years his junior, the daughter of a student of Lacan who, ironically enough, is named Analia. Zizek wears jeans and a T-shirt, blue sandals from the Adlon Hotel in Berlin and socks from Lufthansa's Business Class. "I haven't bought any socks in years," he says. He stays in the best hotels, and he has just returned from a trip to China and Los Angeles. He spoke about Mao in China and Richard Wagner in Los Angeles. The Chinese had invited him because of his status as a communist thought leader, but he doesn't believe that they understand his theories. "They translated 10 of my books, the idiots," says Zizek. The Chinese translated the books as poetry and not as philosophical and political works. The translators had supposedly never heard of Hegel and had no idea what they were actually translating. To make up for these deficiencies, they tried to make his words sound appealing. The experience of meeting Zizek is initially fascinating for everyone (for the first hour), then frustrating (it's impossible to get a word in edgewise) and, finally, cathartic (the conversation does, eventually, come to an end). Zizek begins to talk within the first few seconds, and in his case talking means screaming, gesticulating, spitting and sweating. He has a speech defect known as sigmatism, and when he pronounces the letter "s" it sounds like a bicycle pump. He usually begins his discourse with the words "Did you know…," and then he jumps from topic to topic, like a thinking machine that's been stuffed with coins and from then on doesn't stop spitting out words. Empty Battery Zizek has created an artificial character. His appearances are performances, something between art and comedy. He says that he wants to get away from these standup comedy appearances, and that he wants to give a serious lecture in Berlin, mostly about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the subject of his new book. He says that he has already written 700 pages. It would take a normal person 10 years to write 700 pages about the man who may have been the most difficult thinker in the history of philosophy. Zizek wrote his 700 pages on airplanes in the last few months. A comforting thing happens after exactly three hours in Zizek time. Suddenly his battery seems to have run empty, and the machine stops. Zizek has diabetes. His blood sugar is much too high, he says, or maybe it's much too low. The symptoms seem to be particularly severe at the moment. But Slavoj Zizek would not be Slavoj Zizek if he were to describe such a thing in such banal terms. Instead, he says: "You know, my diabetes has now become a self-perpetuating system, completely independent of external influences! It does what it pleases. And now I have to go to sleep." On the way to Berlin, Zizek has not managed to put together his talk on the plane, as he had expected. While the speaker preceding him at the Volksbühne, a short man from Turkey with long hair and a long beard, is still speaking, Zizek is shifting papers from one stack to the next, searching, writing things down and furiously reading his notes. Strands of hair are pasted to his forehead. Zizek doesn't just sweat while speaking, but also while thinking. It is now the second day of the conference, and so far Zizek has had to content himself by merely asking the speakers questions. Now, he immediately attacks Negri who, on the previous day, had accused him and Badiou of neglecting the class struggle. Negri's theory of the "multitude," that is, his concept of a revolutionary subject that sees commonality in the differences among individuals, assumes that late capitalism eliminated itself, and that this alone is the source of a revolutionary situation. This is far too concrete and pragmatic for Zizek and Badiou. Zizek arms himself with Hegel's concept of totality, with Plato's concept of truth and Heidegger's concept of the event. He argues that to one has to be outside the state to abolish it, but that Negri remains within the system, which is why his "multitude" can never start a revolution. 'Think I'm an Idiot' Negri, furrowing his leathery brow, reacts testily. Zizek, he says, has lost the revolutionary subject, but without a revolutionary subject there can be no resistance. Badiou observes the argument with the face of an old turtle, as if he were wondering which of the two he would like to send to a labor camp first. The moderator asks Badiou whether he would like to comment. Badiou waves aside the question, flashes a wolfish grin, and says that he intends to comment on Negri, and perhaps on Zizek, as well, the next day. It sounds like a threat. At the end of Zizek's lecture, an audience member asks a complicated and unintelligible question. "You made a good point," says Zizek, and continues to talk about Hegel. His response has nothing to do with the question, which in turn has nothing to do with the lecture. The game could continue endlessly in the same vein. Suddenly Zizek pushes aside the cardboard screen and interrupts his Hegel lecture. "Okay! It doesn't matter. As I said already, you made quite a good point. And the truth is that I have no response. In fact, my long-winded talk was also just an attempt to cover up that fact!" The audience seems grateful, now that Zizek has said that it's okay to say that you don't understand something and don't have a clue as to what something is talking about. Even Zizek does it. "I know that people often think I'm an idiot," he says that evening, "that nostalgic Leninist. But I'm not crazy. I'm much more modest and much more pessimistic." Why pessimistic? In fact, it isn't absurd at all to assume that capitalism and democracy have reached a dead end. "That's true," says Zizek, "but I believe that the left is, tragically, bereft of any vision to be taken seriously. We all wish for a real, authentic revolution! But it has to take place far away, preferably in Cuba, Vietnam, China or Nicaragua. The advantage of that is that it allows us to continue with our careers here." He ends the conversation by saying that it's time for him to return to his hotel -- you know, the diabetes, he says. 'See You Tomorrow!' Late Saturday evening, just as the US and Ghana World Cup match is in overtime, Zizek calls again. He sounds excited. "Did you watch my clash with Negri today? Unbelievable! What is he talking about! That late capitalism is doing away with itself?" Zizek says that the revolution can never function without an authority, without control, and that this was already the case during the French Revolution and with the Jacobins. He pauses. Zizek rarely pauses when he speaks, because it makes him feel self-conscious for an instant. Finally he says: The thing about the state and revolution reminds him of women. "It's impossible to live with them, but even more impossible without them." He seems about to talk himself into a rage again, but just as the machine is revving up he suddenly interrupts himself. "Oh, let's forget about it. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend!" Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
UK admits using DU ammunition in Iraq Fri, 23 Jul 2010 UK defense secretary says American and British forces
used depleted uranium (DU) ammunition during the US-led
invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The US isn't withdrawing from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next month as "stability operations".But as Major General Stephen Lanza, the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out "counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers pretty well everything they might want to do. Granted, 50,000 is a major reduction on the numbers in Iraq a year ago. But what Obama once called "the dumb war" goes remorselessly on. In fact, violence has been increasing as the Iraqi political factions remain deadlocked for the fifth month in a row in the Green Zone. More civilians are being killed in Iraq than Afghanistan: 535 last month alone, according to the Iraqi government – the worst figure for two years.And even though US troops are rarely seen on the streets, they are still dying at a rate of six a month, their bases regularly shelled by resistance groups, while Iraqi troops and US-backed militias are being killed in far greater numbers and al-Qaida – Bush's gift to Iraq – is back in business across swaths of the country. Although hardly noticed in Britain, there are still 150 British troops in Iraq supporting US forces. Meanwhile, the US government is privatising it. There are around 100,000 private contractors working for the occupying forces, of whom more than 11,000 are armed mercenaries, mostly "third country nationals", typically from the developing world. One Peruvian and two Ugandan security contractors were killed in a rocket attack on the Green Zone only a fortnight ago. The US now wants to expand their numbers sharply in what Jeremy Scahill, who helped expose the role of the notorious US security firm Blackwater, calls the "coming surge" of contractors in Iraq. Hillary Clinton wants to increase the number of military contractors working for the state department alone from 2,700 to 7,000, to be based in five "enduring presence posts" across Iraq. Tony Blair
Must Be Prosecuted president obama
now speaking the language of the tyrant In
his latest statements, President Obama has expressively
warned Iran against an imminent nuclear strike. The
surprising remarks by the politician who snatched the
Nobel Peace Prize for his conciliatory stance in
recent years, violated the UN Charter and astounded public
opinion.
Robert Parry, an award-winning American investigative journalist austerely answers the questions we have in mind. In an April 2 article in Consortium News, he notes: "if two countries with powerful nuclear arsenals were openly musing about attacking a third country over mere suspicions that it might want to join the nuclear club, we'd tend to sympathize with the non-nuclear underdog as the victim of bullying and possible aggression. As Robert Parry notes, the "bomb bomb Iran Parlor Game" has much to do with the regular psychological operations the U.S. government ruthlessly directs against its victims and it has been seen several times during the post-World War II era that the U.S. government has resorted to the most brutal methods of black propaganda to demonize and demoralize its opponents. In order to thwart Iran's efforts to achieve the zeniths of high technology and prevent the country from becoming an influential player in the Persian Gulf region and beyond, Washington has mobilized a large number of conservative think-tanks and pundits to direct psychological warfare against Iran multilaterally. Although the New York Times by itself suffices to wage a spotless and perfect psy-op by running misleading and untruthful articles which get circulated, syndicated and believed globally, numerous websites, blogs and community portals have also been activated to function as the podium of White House so as to disseminate illusive and deceptive stories regularly and misrepresent what's happening in Iran. Over the past three decades and especially following the eruption of nuclear dispute with Iran, U.S. has been carrying out media operations to incite anti-Iranian sentiments vigorously. Some recent efforts include the establishment of websites such as "United Against Nuclear Iran" and the production of Hollywood-sponsored movies "300" and "The Wrestler". The American psychological warfare, however, is not limited to mainstream media outlets, NY Times and Fox News-like stuff, campaign websites and TV shows. A number of bloggers also have been mobilized to take part in the cyber maneuver against Iran. It means that the wave of American psychological operation against Iran has become so extensive and far-reaching that even involves bloggers and independent commentators who run e-zines and online publications. Above all, carrying out psychological operations is one of the most sensitive and delicate responsibilities of the U.S. Army, CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD) and National Clandestine Service (NCS). SAD is in charge of providing the U.S. President with "special" options where diplomacy and military action is likely to fail. U.S. President has the authority to order the commencement of a new clandestine operation whenever necessary. Covert and intangible intervention in foreign elections is one of the main tasks of SAD. It also carries out missions to undermine or even overthrow a regime which does not comply with the interests of the U.S. administration. SAD has a long history of carrying out inconceivable and paralyzing missions of psychological propaganda against different countries including Bolivia, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran. In Iran, where people still remember the bitter memory of U.S.-backed coup d'etat of 1953 which brought down the democratic government of Dr. Mosaddeq and inaugurated the tyranny of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, SAD has accomplished numerous operations, several of which have been revealed by the investigative journalists. In July 2008, for example, the renowned American journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in the New Yorker and revealed that the Bush administration had taken practical steps, including the authorization of a Presidential Finding to legitimize the illegal entry of paramilitary troops into Iran, through the borders of Iraq, so as to help overthrow the government of Iran. Based on the documents he had obtained, Hersh wrote: "Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran. [...] These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership." Hersh cited the federal law of America which brands a Presidential Finding as highly classified and only available to the Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees. This greatly highlighted the significance of his discovery of the documents. "The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change, working with opposition groups and passing money” Hersh quoted an informed, anonymous source as saying. SAD has also carried out globally significant actions such as preventing the Italian Communist Party (PCI) from winning the parliamentary elections in 1948 and 1960s, overthrowing the government of Guatemala in 1954 and staging the 1957 coup d'etat of Indonesia which removed from power the popular, democratically-elected President Ahmad Sukarno and led to a terrible massacre in which almost 1 million people lost their life. Anyway,
history seems to be repeated once again. White House and
its numerous teams, departments, groups, unions and
forces of psychological operations, under the decree of
someone who right after winning a Nobel Prize of "Peace"
began to drum for a war of bloodshed in the Middle East,
are gathering together to launch a new scenario of war
games and violence; however, they've simply forgotten an
undeniable reality: Iran is a different country;
different from all of the countries throughout the world. The scheduled start of drilling this month by China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) in Iran's South Pars gas field could be both a harbinger and explanation of much wider geopolitical developments. First of all, the $5 billion project - signed last year after years of foot dragging by western energy giants Total and Shell under the shadow of US-led sanctions - reveals the main arterial system for future world energy supply and demand. Critics have long suspected that the real reason for US and other western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is to control the Central Asian energy corridor. So far, the focus seems to be mainly on oil. For example, there have been claims that a planned oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea via Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea is the main prize behind the US's seemingly futile military campaign in those countries. But what the CNPC-Iranian partnership shows is that natural gas is the bigger prize that will be pivotal to the world economy, and specifically the dual flow of this fuel westwards and eastwards from Central Asia to Europe and China. Michael Economides, editor of the Houston-based Energy Tribune, is one of a growing number of industry observers who is convinced that natural gas will supplant oil as the primary energy source, not only in the coming decades but over the next several centuries.He points to the recent forecast by the International Energy Agency (IEA), based in Paris, which has dramatically revised its estimates of recoverable global natural gas reserves by 100 per cent. Economides ascribes this huge upgrade to rapid technological improvements in tapping hitherto inaccessible gas fields. He says that the IEA estimates of natural gas amount to 300 years of supply at current world demand. "If one only just fantasises any future contributions from the orders-of-magnitude larger resource in the form of natural gas hydrates, it is easy to see how natural gas is almost certainly to evolve into the premier fuel of the world economy," he adds. The rising importance of natural gas as an energy source has been steady and inexorable over many years. Between 1973 and 2007, oil's contribution to world energy supply dropped from 46.1 per cent to 34.0 per cent, with the increasing use of natural gas accounting for that decline, according to the IEA. Other sources, such as the US-based Energy Information Administration (EIA), predict that global natural gas consumption will treble between 1980 and 2030, by which date it will mostly likely become the primary energy source of choice for industrial and public needs. There are sound scientific reasons why natural gas (methane) is becoming the kingpin of fossil fuels. Firstly, it has a much greater calorific value than either oil or coal. That is, more heat is produced per unit of fuel. Secondly, it is a cleaner fuel, emitting 30 per cent less carbon dioxide when burned compared with oil and 45 per cent less compared with coal. Thirdly, gas is more efficient for transport, both as a raw material in compressed form along land-based pipelines, and as a fuel to drive transport. All energy industry agencies recognize that far and above the premier sources of future natural gas are the Middle East and Eurasia, including Russia. The US-based EIA puts the natural gas reserves in these regions as nine and seven times those of North America's total - the latter itself being one of the world's top sources for that fuel. Within the Middle East, Iran is the undisputed top holder of gas reserves. Its South Pars gas field is the world’s largest. If converted to barrel-of-oil equivalents, Iran’s South Pars would dwarf the reserves of Saudi Arabia's giant Ghawar oilfield. The latter is the world's largest oilfield and since it came into operation in 1948, Ghawar has effectively been the world's beating heart for raw energy supply. In the soon-to-come era of natural gas dominance over oil, Iran will oust Saudi Arabia as the world's beating heart for energy. Both Europe and China stand to be arterial routes for Iranian and Central Asian gas generally. Already, the infrastructure is shaping up to reflect this. The Nabucco pipeline is planned to supply gas from Iran (and Azerbaijan) via Turkey and Bulgaria all the way to Western Europe (signaling an end to Russian dominance). Iran also exports gas via pipelines separately to Turkey and Armenia and it is also following up export deals with other Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Another major arterial route is the so-called peace pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and on to India, through which Iran will export this fuel to two of the region's most populous countries. But perhaps the most tantalizing prospect for Iran is the 1,865-kilometre pipeline that supplies natural gas from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into China and is due to operate at full capacity in 2012. Turkmenistan shares a 300-kilometre border with Iran to its south and already has a gas export deal with Tehran. If the Iranian-Chinese South Pars gas field development can be incorporated into the above transnational pipelines that would confirm Iran as the beating heart of a world economy in which gas is the primary energy source. This is amplified further by rapidly growing demand for gas by China which the EIA predicts could be dependent on imports for over a third of its natural gas consumption by 2030. In this context of a major realignment in the world’s energy economy - one where there will be a continuing diminished role for the US - Washington's blustering rhetoric about democracy and peace and war on terror or alleged Iranian nuclear weapons can be seen as a desperate attempt to conceal its fear that it stands to be a big loser. Encircling Iran with wars and threatening gas supplies to possibly the world's top future gas customer - China - is the real deal. US actions are more accurately seen as putting a knife to the energy arteries of a world economy that it will no longer be able to dominate.A further twist in this tale is the position of Russia. With its own vast reserves of natural gas, it can be seen as a competitor to Iran. Arguably less well positioned than Iran to supply both Europe and China, Russia is nevertheless a major player and has been assiduously courting China with an export deal since 2006. However, as Economides observes, "negotiations between the two countries have been on and off and, especially, the pipeline construction has been painfully slow". But Russia's ambitions to expand its natural gas exports may explain why it has shown itself to be such a mercurial ally to Iran. Moscow’s ambivalent position towards US-led sanctions against Iran, suggests that Russia has its own agenda for hampering the Islamic republic as a regional energy rival. Finian.cunningham@gmail.com
Finian Cunningham is a frequent contributor to Global
Research.
FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah,
this is really—it’s really outrageous. And on a
certain level, this reform bill is really a sham, because
it does not cover, in any way, shape or form, what
Goldman Sachs—and really, let’s be honest here,
it wasn’t just Goldman; it was Goldman, and it was
Bear, and it was AIG, and it was Lehman, it was Deutsche,
it was all across the board, JPMorgan Chase—what
these banks were able to do in commodity markets, really
which reached its peak from 2005 to 2008, in what is now
known as the food bubble. And as Juan points out, this is
unconscionable what happened, in the sense that their
speculation and their restructuring of these commodity
markets pushed 250 million new people into food
insecurity and starving, and brought the world total up
to over a billion people. This is the most abysmal total
in the history of the world. JUAN GONZALEZ: Now,
what were these commodities markets like before the Wall
Street firms got involved? And you have a haunting
picture, especially of the Minneapolis Exchange, what it
was before, what it was like. Could you talk about how
things operated and then what Goldman Sachs did precisely?
FREDERICK KAUFMAN: The
wheat markets, in particular, in this country are the
outcome of a process of development of over 150 years.
And that is why, from about 1903 to 2003, the real price
of wheat in this country has gone down. And this was one
of the great reasons for America’s great twentieth
century, the fact that we had cheap food, we had cheap
bread. And Goldman, in 1991, came up with a new idea and
a new product, which, as I said before, completely
restructured this market and completely threw it out of
whack. But before we go there,
we just have to maybe review for a second a little bit
about how these markets worked and what kept that wheat
price stabilized. And Juan, you mentioned the Minneapolis
Grain Exchange, this kind of obscure syndicate in the
Midwest, which is where the price of this particular kind
of wheat, hard red spring wheat, which is the most widely
traded wheat in the world, and it’s the most widely
exported wheat from the American continent—we kind
of set the world price on this wheat. This is where it
happens. What’s the history of that price being
stabilized is you have, traditionally, in the wheat
futures market, two kinds of players: one of the farmers
and the millers and the warehousemen—right? And this,
of course, includes players like Domino’s Pizza and
Sara Lee and General Mills, very large business,
capitalist stakes are in this wheat market, right? And
they are called bona fide hedgers, because
they’re actually buying and selling real wheat. As
the price fluctuates in the futures markets, you also
traditionally have speculators in this market, people who
don’t want wheat, who wouldn’t have any place
to put it if they bought it, but they’re making
money off buy orders and sell orders, as the price
fluctuates each day, and hopefully they’re bringing
in some money for themselves every day. That’s the
idea. Now, the key here is that
both the bona fide hedgers and the speculators,
every time they buy, they’re also selling, and every
time they sell, they eventually buy. So their positions
are cleared off at the end of the day, OK? Goldman, we
have to understand, and a lot of these banks, are not
interested in the particular structure of any of these
markets. I think it’s a lot of mistake people make
when they think about how these bankers are working. We
think that they’re actually interested in the
markets. We think that they’re—no. What
they’re after are very large pools of cash for
themselves. They’re after accumulating huge pools of
money that they can do with whatever they like on a day-to-day
basis. Right? And so, Goldman, in 1991, came up with this
idea of the commodity index fund, which really was a way
for them to accumulate huge piles of cash for themselves.
It wasn’t really about the markets, anyway. The
market was just an excuse. And so, the fact that they
threw these wheat markets out of whack didn’t really
matter to them. How did this work?
Instead of a buy-and-sell order, like everybody does in
these markets, they just started buying. It’s called
"going long." They started going long on wheat
futures. OK? And every time one of these contracts came
due, they would do something called "rolling it over"
into the next contract. So they would take all those buy
promises they had made and say, "OK, we
still—we’re just going to—we’ll buy
more later. And plus we’re going to buy more now."
And they kept on buying and buying and buying and buying
and accumulating this unprecedented, this historically
unprecedented pile of long-only wheat futures. And this
accumulation created a very odd phenomenon in the market.
It’s called a "demand shock." Usually
prices go up because supply is low, right? That’s
the idea. There’s not a lot of supply, so the price
goes up. In this case, Goldman and the other banks had
introduced this completely unnatural and artificial
demand to buy wheat, and that then set the price up. Now,
a lot of people are saying, "Oh, it was biofuel
production. It was drought in Australia. It was floods in
Kazakhstan." Let me tell you, hard red wheat
generally trades between $3 and $6 per sixty-pound bushel.
It went up to $12, then $15, then $18. Then it broke $20.
And on February 25th, 2008, hard red spring futures
settled at $25 per bushel. This is completely beyond the
pale, particularly at a— JUAN GONZALEZ: Almost
ten times its historic price. FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah.
It was just completely out of control. And, of course,
the irony here is that in 2008, it was the greatest wheat-producing
year in world history. The world produced more wheat in
2008 than ever before. And here’s the other
outrage of it, which is that at the time that Goldman and
these other banks are completely messing up the structure
of this market, they’ve protected themselves outside
the market, through this really almost diabolical idea
called "replication," which is what I
discovered when I was looking into how they had
structured this. What they do—let’s say, Juan,
you want me to invest for you in the wheat market. You
give me a hundred bucks, OK? Well, what I should be doing
is putting a hundred bucks in the wheat markets. But I
don’t have to do that. All I have to do is put $5 in.
Good-faith promise. And with that $5, I can hold your
hundred-dollar position. Well, now I got ninety-five of
your dollars. What am I going to do with them? Well, what
Goldman did with hundreds of billions of dollars, and
what all these banks did with hundreds of billions of
dollars, is they put them in the most
conservative—no fools, they—they put them in
the most conservative investments conceivable. They put
it in T-bills. And then what did they do? Well, now that
you have hundreds of billions of dollars in T-bills, you
can leverage that into trillions of dollars. This is what
I’m talking about, large pools of cash for
themselves. And then they take that trillion dollars,
they give it to their day traders, and they say, "Go
at it, guys. Do whatever is most lucrative today."
And so, as billions of people starve, they use that money
to make billions of dollars for themselves. JUAN GONZALEZ: And
the result was, as the price went up, that there were
food riots around the world. FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And
what about the human dislocation that occurred? FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah,
in 2008, there were food riots in more than thirty
countries. The global price of food rose over 80 percent.
This had an effect not only on wheat, but on corn, on soy,
on cooking oil, on rice. You know, people talk about
globalization. "We don’t need to set prices or
have tariffs, because we’re globalized. You know,
people can buy their wheat, anyway." Well, gee,
guess what happened. When the price of wheat started to
go through the roof, something new, which was something
old, came up, called "nationalism," and people
said, "OK, sorry, we’re closing our wheat, and
we’re setting up tariffs." And you had—you
had riots. You had hunger. You had a disaster. You had a
global disaster, because, remember, in America, we’re
spending maybe 15 percent of our weekly paycheck on food,
right? I mean, maybe you remember, a couple years ago,
why was that dozen eggs so expensive? Why was that milk
so expensive? Why was that meat so expensive? That’s
15 percent. For most people on the earth, they’re
spending more than 50 percent of their daily income on
their daily bread. And when their daily bread moves up 80
percent, they’ve just moved right into the ranks of
the food insecure. And it was not only in Burkina Faso.
This was in America. You had 49 million hungry families
in America. You had one out of five children in America
at soup kitchens. You had a million hungry people in Los
Angeles. So, I mean, it is
unconscionable that Wall Street has completely lost touch
with the reality. They’ve forgotten that there is
their mathematical formula, there’s virtuality, on
the one hand—"Gee, I can make a lot of money by
making a formula"—and on the other hand,
there’s reality. There are real things that they are
affecting, and they’ve completely forgotten about it,
to devastating effect. AMY GOODMAN: What
do you think needs to be done? FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Well,
the solution is interesting, and it certainly is not
going to be solved by the financial reform bill
we’ve just seen, because, of course, the people I
talk to at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange and all over,
they’re already prepared for every single trade
being exchange-traded. The people at the Minneapolis
Grain Exchange have already prepared 50,000 exchange-traded
slots for anything that people want to trade. Now, when I
was talking to the hedge fund guys and the traders and
all my contacts on this, and I said, you know, "What
if Wall Street—I’m sorry, what if the federal
government regulates you?" they just laugh. They
literally laugh. They scoff at federal regulators,
because they’re like, "By the time they get
around, they figure out what we’re doing, we’re
so far beyond it." And in fact, the commodity index
funds, the long-only commodity index funds that I looked
at now, they’re already dinosaurs. They’re onto
second-, third- and fourth-generation reiterations of
this. There’s no way the federal government is going
to be on top of them, because they’re so far ahead. So, what’s the other
possibility? The other possibility is simply outlaw it,
say, if you’re a bank, you’re not allowed a
stake, you’re not allowed a stake in actual
commodity markets. And I said to these guys, you know,
"What if they just outlaw you?" And once again,
rather unsurprisingly, their reaction is outright
laughter, because it takes them about ten seconds to get
over that problem. Either they make a phone call to
London and do all their trading out of the London
Exchange, or they do an over-the-counter swap with a
Cargill or a Nestlé or a bona fide hedger, and
it’s taken care of. So what’s the
solution? I think the best solution that’s been
floated around in Washington in the groups I’ve been
close to is an actual international or national grain
reserve. I mean, we actually in this country, before this
kind of mania of deregulation, had a farmer-owned grain
reserve under the Clinton administration, real grain held
back, so that in times of a bubble like this, regulators
can say, "Look, you know, we have plenty of real
wheat. Here’s a hundred million bushels of wheat. We
can bring it to the market. We can bring that price back
into a stable band." And this is, I think, in some
ways, the best solution: real wheat to counter virtual
madness. JUAN GONZALEZ: Well,
yet, as you were saying, that the Wall Street firms are
always able to devise new ways to get around regulation.
I was reading in today’s paper on the new bill, the
financial regulation bill, that the banks have already
devised new methods. For instance, that they are no
longer able to charge such exorbitant interest rates on
credit cards, so now they’re going to begin imposing
fees on checking accounts. And they just come up with an
immediate new solution to keep making huge amounts of
money and getting around the regulators. So, even with
this reserve situation that you raise about creating
grain reserve, are there potentials for the Wall Street
firms to figure out a new way to continue to control and
make money off the food supply? FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Well,
I think the theory behind what you’re saying, Juan,
is called "market capture," in the sense that
whenever you have a group of people, be they in the auto
business or in the healthcare business, whenever they
fear regulation from the government, this group is, of
course, the most at-risk group. They are the ones who put
more of their resources into understanding this
regulation than anybody else, more of their lobbyists,
more of their money into understanding what’s going
on, and therefore, they’re the ones who
ultimately—the people whose interest it touches most
intrinsically are the ones who then capture that reform,
market capture. So what I like about the grain reserve is
that it’s actually outside of the purview, outside
of the financial purview. As I said before, it’s no
longer in the realm of the virtual; it’s no longer
in the realm of the numbers. It’s actual real wheat,
and you can actually bring it to bear. You can bring it
to markets. There was a complete madness for hard red
spring wheat in 2008, when you had international orders
coming in from Nigeria, from all over the world, and
there literally was the perception that there was no
wheat out there. And so this thing, as you say, goes up
and up and up and up and up. If there is actually
somebody who can say, who can bring real wheat and calm
these markets, you’re going to save lives. It’s
not just that you’re going to save mortgages or that
you’re going to save, you know, finances; it is that,
literally, you no longer have those outrageous numbers of
starving people on earth, most of them women and children.
WHY Facts Are Ignored - a Result of our Education? Researchers
discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains
Nuclear power is the solution.........? Except for the accidents, not just meltdowns but spent fuel fires, transportation accidents, terrorism threats... And except for the daily deadly releases, the eternal waste storage problem, proliferation issues, costs, lengthy construction time, a history of lying and cover-ups (look at the (reluctantly admitted) tritium leaks at about 30% of our reactors), foreign-made parts (look at the capacitor problems the have plagued the computer industry, and realize how many of our nukes are running on shoddy parts), over-complexity (look at the oscillating power-runaway issues identified by outside experts but ignored by industry "experts"), plus it's not distributed small-scale power, so when a nuke goes down, hundreds of thousands of people lose power... plus grid-power backup issues (the big Northeast blackout of 2003 was largely due to all the nukes having to shut down when they lost offsite power), the water-use issues (billions of gallons a day are polluted by each nuke, millions of gallons are churned to steam each day; France had to shut down a swarm of nukes due to lack of water a few summers ago). They aren't very efficient even under the best of circumstances, requiring thousands of workers where wind turbines can run virtually autonomously, as can hydro, solar, etc... Also, all our current nukes are old and decrepit, embrittled and rusted, and the plans don't match the reactors anymore, they've been modified so many times and the original designers are long-gone. Fission products kill. See my book, which can be downloaded free from my web site: www.acehoffman.org The above
statement was originally left at http://www.markfiore.com/political-cartoons/watch-bp-oil-spill-gulf-environment-animated-video-mark SBS Radio NewsIraqi city has higher cancer rates than Hiroshima22 July 2010 | 02:08:23 PM | Source: SBS Staff/ BBC
A report has been published indicating cancers and
other diseases in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are
significantly higher than those of the survivors of the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs of 1945.
According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles. After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities. I The Charge that 9/11 Truth Theories Rest on Unscientific, Even Magical, Beliefs Several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, besides showing contempt for its members, charge them with relying on claims that are contradicted by good science and, in some cases, reflect a belief in magic. By “magic,” they mean miracles, understood as violations of basic principles of the physical sciences. For example, Alexander Cockburn, who has referred to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “9/11 conspiracy nuts,”3 quoted with approval a philosopher who, speaking of “the 9-11 conspiracy cult,” said that its “main engine . . . is . . . the death of any conception of evidence,” resulting in “the ascendancy of magic over common sense, let alone reason.”4 Also, Cockburn assured his readers: “The conspiracy theory that the World Trade Centre towers were demolished by explosive charges previously placed within them is probably impossible.”5 With regard to Building 7 of the World Trade Center, Cockburn claimed (in 2006) that the (2002) report by FEMA was “more than adequate.”6 Likewise, George Monbiot, referring to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “fantasists,” “conspiracy idiots,” and “morons,” charged that they “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.”7 Matt Taibbi, saying that the “9/11 conspiracy theory is so shamefully stupid” and referring to its members as “idiots,” wrote with contempt about the “alleged scientific impossibilities” in the official account of 9/11; about the claim that “the towers couldn't have fallen the way they did [without the aid of explosives]”; of the view (held by “9/11 Truthers”) that “it isn't the plane crashes that topple the buildings, but bombs planted in the Towers that do the trick”; and of “the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.” He had been assured by “scientist friends,” he added, that “[a]ll of the 9/11 science claims” are “rank steaming bullshit.”8 Chris Hayes, writing in The Nation in 2006, did not stoop to the kind of name-calling employed by Cockburn, Monbiot, and Taibbi. Also, he knew, he admitted, of “eyewitness accounts of [people] who heard explosions in the World Trade Center.” And he was aware that “jet fuel burns at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit [whereas] steel melts at 2,500.” He asserted, nevertheless, that “the evidence shows [a 9/11 conspiracy] to be virtually impossible,” so that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is “wrongheaded and a terrible waste of time.”9 Noam Chomsky has also declared that the available facts, when approached scientifically, refute the 9/11 Truth Movement. Speaking of evidence provided by this movement to show that 9/11 “was planned by the Bush Administration,” Chomsky declared: “If you look at the evidence, anybody who knows anything about the sciences would instantly discount that evidence.”10 In spite of his dismissive attitude, however, Chomsky in 2006 gave some helpful advice to people who believe they have physical evidence refuting the official account: “There are ways to assess that: submit it to specialists . . . who have the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, building construction, etc., for review and analysis. . . . Or, . . . submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication. To my knowledge, there isn't a single submission.”11 In These Times writer Terry Allen, in a 2006 essay entitled “The 9/11 Faith Movement,” assured her readers that “the facts [do not] support the conspiracists’ key charge that World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by pre-positioned explosives.”12 In an essay posted at AlterNet a few months after 9/11, David Corn used a purely a priori argument to demonstrate – at least to his own satisfaction – that 9/11 could not have been an inside job: “U.S. officials would [not have been] . . . good [capable] enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough.”13 In 2009, after having been silent about 9/11 for the intervening years, he addressed the issue again. Referring to “9/11 conspiracy silliness,” “9/11 conspiracy poison,” and “9/11 fabulists,” Corn declared: “The 9/11 conspiracy . . . was always a load of bunk. You don't have to be an expert on skyscraper engineering . . . to know that [this theory] make[s] no sense.”14 Corn thereby implied that, whereas anyone can know that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is false, those people who are “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering” would have even more certain knowledge of this fact. As to how people (such as himself) who are not experts on such matters could know this movement’s conspiracy theory to be “a load of bunk,” Corn again employed his three-point a priori argument, as re-worded in a later essay, according to which the Bush administration was “not that evil,” “not that ballsy,” and “not that competent.”15 Corn even referred to his three-point argument as “a tutorial that should persuade anyone that the 9/11 theory makes no sense.” Although this “tutorial” does not, of course, convince members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Corn explained this fact by saying: “I have learned from experience that people who believe this stuff are not open to persuasion.”16 In any case, although his argument against the inside-job theory was almost entirely a priori, he did make the above-mentioned suggestion that one’s a priori certitude would be reinforced by people, such as “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering,” who have relevant types of expertise to evaluate the empirical evidence. A fuller statement of the general claim made by these authors - that the 9/11 Truth Movement is based on unscientific claims – was formulated by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive. In an essay entitled “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Already,” Rothschild wrote: “Here’s what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. . . . [T]he Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because [of] explosives. Building 7, another high-rise at the World Trade Center that fell on 9/11, also came down by planted explosives. . . . I'm amazed at how many people give credence to these theories. . . . [S]ome of the best engineers in the country have studied these questions and come up with perfectly logical, scientific explanations for what happened. . . . At bottom, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are profoundly irrational and unscientific. It is more than passing strange that progressives, who so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming, are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”17 However, in spite of the confidence with which these critics have made their charges, the truth is the complete opposite: It is the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, which has been endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), that is profoundly unscientific (partly because it ignores a massive amount of evidence pointing to use of explosives18), and it is precisely for this reason that the 9/11 Truth Movement has come up with an alternative explanation – namely, that the WTC buildings were brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.” II Miracles Implied by NIST’s Explanation of the WTC’s Destruction The main reason why NIST’s theory of the destruction of the World Trade Center is profoundly unscientific is that it cannot be accepted without endorsing miracles, in the sense of violations of fundamental principles of physics and chemistry. I will demonstrate this point in terms of nine miracles implied by NIST’s accounts of the destruction of Building 7 of the World Trade Center (WTC 7) and the Twin Towers (WTC 1 and 2). 1. The Fire-Induced Collapse of WTC 7: An Apparent Miracle WTC 7 was a 47-story building that, although it was not hit by a plane, came down at 5:21 PM that day. Unlike the collapse of the Twin Towers, the collapse of this building was not publicized. The 9/11 Commission Report, for example, did not even mention it.19 Many people have, accordingly, never heard of this building’s collapse. A Zogby poll in 2006, for example, found that 43 percent of the American people were still unaware that a third WTC building had collapsed, and even though NIST’s report on its collapse appeared in 2008, many people today still do not know that this building also came down.20 For the purposes of the present essay, in any case, the main point is that, insofar as people profess belief in the official account of this building’s collapse as articulated by NIST, they imply an acceptance of several miracles. I begin with a fact about WTC 7’s collapse that at least appears to entail a miracle: that it was (according to the official account) the first steel-frame high-rise building in the known universe to be brought down solely by fire. The Twin Towers were hit by airliners, so the official account could attribute their collapses to the airplane impacts as well as to the ensuing fires. But WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, so its collapse apparently had to be attributed to fire alone. The unprecedented nature of a fire-induced collapse of a steel-frame high-rise building was expressed a couple of months after 9/11 by New York Times reporter James Glanz. Calling the collapse of WTC 7 “a mystery,” Glanz reported that “experts said no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire.” Glanz also quoted a structural engineer as saying: “[W]ithin the structural engineering community, [WTC 7] is considered to be much more important to understand [than the Twin Towers],” because engineers had no answer to the question, “why did 7 come down?”21 The mystery was not lessened in 2002 when FEMA issued the first official report on this building’s collapse. Saying that its “best hypothesis” was that flaming debris from the collapse of the North Tower had ignited diesel fuel stored in the building, resulting in large, steel-weakening fires that made the building collapse, FEMA admitted that this hypothesis had “only a low probability of occurrence”22 (although Alexander Cockburn years later, as we saw above, would declare this report to be “more than adequate”). This cautionary statement by FEMA did not, however, prevent defenders of the official account from claiming that WTC 7’s collapse was not really very mysterious after all. In a 2006 book, Popular Mechanics told its readers what they could probably expect to find in the report on this building to be put out by NIST – which had taken over from FEMA the responsibility for issuing the official reports on the Twin Towers and WTC 7. Citing NIST’s “current working hypothesis,” Popular Mechanics said that WTC 7’s diesel fuel had probably fed the fires “for up to seven hours.”23 Also, using NIST’s then-current thinking in order to claim that “WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated,” Popular Mechanics argued that critics could not reject the official account on the grounds that it would make WTC 7 the first steel-frame high-rise to have failed “because of fire alone,” because, Popular Mechanics claimed, the causes of WTC 7’s collapse were analogous to the causes of the collapses of WTC 1 and WTC 2: “A combination of physical damage from falling debris [analogous to the damage caused in the Twin Towers by the airplane impacts] and prolonged exposure to the resulting [diesel-fuel-fed] fires [analogous to the jet-fuel-fed fires in the Twin Towers].”24 Popular Mechanics called this twofold explanation a “conclusion” that had been reached by “hundreds of experts from academia and private industry, as well as the government.” This claim evidently impressed many people, including Chris Hayes and Matthew Rothschild, both of whom said that Popular Mechanics had disproved the claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Rothschild, repeating Popular Mechanics’ twofold explanation, wrote: “Building 7 . . . is a favorite of the conspiracy theorists, since the planes did not strike this structure. But the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers. ‘On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom - approximately ten stories – about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out,’ Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told Popular Mechanics. What's more, the fire in the building lasted for about eight hours, in part because there were fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.”25 Hayes, saying that “Popular Mechanics assembled a team of engineers, physicists, flight experts and the like to critically examine some of the Truth Movement's most common claims,” reported that these experts “found them almost entirely without merit.” This counter-claim by Popular Mechanics evidently settled the matter for Hayes.26 Also, although Terry Allen did not mention Popular Mechanics, her article was apparently dependent on it. Assuring her readers that she had found it “relatively easy” to undermine the “facts” employed by the 9/11 Truth Movement, she wrote: “Many conspiracists offer the collapse of WTC Building 7 as the strongest evidence for the kind of controlled demolition that would prove a plot. Although not hit by planes, it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”27 Like Rothschild, therefore, she gave the same twofold explanation for WTC 7’s collapse that had been provided by Popular Mechanics.28 However, when NIST finally issued its WTC 7 report in 2008, it did not affirm either element in the twofold explanation that had been proffered by Popular Mechanics. With regard to the first element, NIST said: “[F]uel oil fires did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7.”29 With regard to the second element, NIST said: “Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7, the damage from the debris from WTC 1 [the North Tower] had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.”30 This second point means that, contrary to what Popular Mechanics had claimed it would say, NIST actually asserted that WTC 7 was brought down by fire, at least primarily. In NIST’s words, the collapse of WTC 7 was “the first known instance of the total collapse of a [steel-frame] tall building primarily due to fires.”31 One ambiguity needs clearing up: Although in these just-quoted statements, NIST seemed to indicate that the debris damage had a “little effect” on initiating the collapse, so that this collapse was only primarily (rather than entirely) due to fire, NIST generally treated fire as the sole cause: Besides repeatedly speaking of a “fire-induced” collapse,32 Also, in a press release announcing its Draft for Public Comment in August 2008, NIST called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building.” This press release, moreover, quoted lead investigator Shyam Sunder as saying: “Our study found that the fires in WTC 7 . . . caused an extraordinary event.”33 The brief version of NIST’s final report said: “Even without the structural damage, WTC 7 would have collapsed from fires having the same characteristics as those experienced on September 11, 2001.”34 The long version said: “WTC 7 sustained damage to its exterior as a result of falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1, but this damage was found to have no effect on the collapse initiating event.”35 It is not wrong, therefore, to say that NIST portrayed WTC 7 as the first (and thus far only) steel-frame high-rise building to have come down because of fire alone. NIST said, in other words, precisely what Popular Mechanics, knowing that claims about unprecedented physical events are deeply suspect, had assured people it would not say. In doing so, moreover, NIST contradicted both parts of Popular Mechanics’ explanation for WTC 7’s collapse, which, according to Rothschild and Allen, had provided the basis for discounting the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about this collapse. To review: Rothschild said that the official account was credible, contrary to the Truth Movement’s claims, because “the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers” and the “fire in the building lasted for about eight hours,” due to the “fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.” Allen likewise said the official account was believable because, although WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, “it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”36 But then, when NIST later denied that either the debris-damage or the diesel fuel played a role in the collapse of WTC 7, Rothschild and Allen did not retract their prior assurances. It seems that they, in effect, simply said – like Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s – “Never mind.” Their attitude seemed to be, in other words, that whatever the government says, that is what they will believe. Whatever kind of journalism this is, it is certainly not truth-seeking journalism. In any case, NIST’s claim that WTC 7 suffered an unprecedented, fire-induced collapse is made even more problematic by the fact that the fires in this building were relatively unimpressive, compared with fires in some other steel-frame high-rises. In 1991, a huge fire in Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza lasted for 18 hours and gutted eight of the building’s 38 floors. In Caracas in 2004, a fire in a 50-story building raged for 17 hours, completely gutting the building’s top 20 floors. In neither case, however, did the building, or even a single floor, collapse.37 In WTC 7, by contrast, there were long-lasting fires on only six of the building’s 47 floors, according to NIST, and by “long-lasting,” NIST meant only that they lasted up to seven hours.38 It would be exceedingly strange, therefore, if fire had produced a total collapse of this building. The claim becomes even stranger when one discovers that NIST had no evidence that the fires on any of the floors lasted for much over three hours.39 Accordingly, besides undermining the confident explanations of WTC 7’s collapse offered by Popular Mechanics, NIST’s conclusion about this building - that it was the first steel-frame high-rise building ever to be brought down by fire – appears to constitute a rather remarkable miracle-claim. 2. WTC 7’s Collapse: A Perfect Imitation of an Implosion More clearly miraculous, given the official account, was the precise way in which WTC 7 collapsed: symmetrically (straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline), into its own footprint. In order for this symmetrical collapse to occur, all the (vertical) steel columns supporting the building had to fail simultaneously. There were 82 of these columns, so the fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse entails that the fires in this building caused all 82 of these columns to fail at the same instant. Even if otherwise possible, such a symmetrical failure would have been essentially impossible even if the building had been entirely engulfed by fire, so that all the floors would have been evenly covered with fire. As it was, however, there were fires on only a few floors, and these fires never covered an entire floor at the same time. The official account implies, therefore, that a very asymmetrical pattern of fires produced an entirely symmetrical collapse. If that is not a genuine miracle, it will do until one comes along. Another problem is the fact that, even if a symmetrical, total collapse could be caused by an asymmetrical pattern of fires, a fire theory could not explain the sudden onset of WTC 7’s collapse. Popular Mechanics, which is unreliable on every aspect of 9/11 (as I showed in my 2007 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking40), apparently misled Chris Hayes on this point by suggesting otherwise. Attempting to illustrate his claim that Popular Mechanics had shown the core ideas of the 9/11 Truth Movement to be “almost entirely without merit,” Hayes wrote: “To pick just one example, steel might not melt at 1,500 degrees [Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”41 However, even if the fire could have heated the steel up to this temperature in the time available (which would have been impossible42), the fire would have weakened the steel gradually, causing it to start sagging. Videos would, therefore, show deformations in the building before it came down. But they do not. One moment the building was perfectly immobile, and the next moment, as videos show,43 it was accelerating downward in free fall (the significance of free fall will be discussed below). As Australian chemist Frank Legge has observed: “There is no sign of the slow start that would be expected if collapse was caused by the gradual softening of the steel.”44 Because of these two features of the collapse, anyone knowing anything about such things can tell, simply by seeing a video of WTC 7’s collapse, that it was brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.” For example, Daniel Hofnung, an engineer in Paris, has written: “In the years after [the] 9/11 events, I thought that all I read in professional reviews and French newspapers was true. The first time I understood that it was impossible was when I saw a film about the collapse of WTC 7.”45 Kansas City civil engineer Chester Gearhart wrote: “I have watched the construction of many large buildings and also have personally witnessed 5 controlled demolitions in Kansas City. When I saw the towers fall on 9/11, I knew something was wrong and my first instinct was that it was impossible. When I saw building 7 fall, I knew it was a controlled demolition.”46 Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University (who had been named by Scientific American as one of the world’s leaders in using science and technology to benefit society), wrote simply of WTC 7’s collapse: “Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition.”47 In revealing the collapse of WTC 7 to be an example of controlled demolition, moreover, the videos show it to be the type of controlled demolition known as “implosion,” in which explosives and/or incendiaries are used to slice the building’s steel support columns so as to cause the building to collapse into its own footprint. In 2006, for example, a Dutch filmmaker asked Danny Jowenko, the owner of a controlled demolition company in the Netherlands, to comment on a video of the collapse of WTC 7, without telling him what it was. (Jowenko had been unaware that a third building had collapsed in New York on 9/11.) After viewing the video, Jowenko said: “They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . This is controlled demolition.” When asked if he was certain, he replied: “Absolutely, it’s been imploded. This was a hired job. A team of experts did this.”48 Moreover, the reason to implode a building, rather than simply causing it to fall over sideways, is to avoid damaging nearby buildings, and engineering an implosion is no mean feat. An implosion, in the words of a controlled demolition website, is “by far the trickiest type of explosive project,” which “only a handful of blasting companies in the world . . . possess enough experience . . . to perform.”49 Mark Loizeaux, the president of the afore-mentioned demolition firm, Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained why: “[T]o bring [a building] down . . . so . . . no other structure is harmed,” the demolition must be “completely planned,” using “the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges.”50 Would it not be a miracle if a fire-induced collapse, based on scattered fires on a few of WTC 7’s floors, had produced a collapse that perfectly imitated the kind of planned, controlled demolition that can be carried out by only a few companies in the world? Chris Hayes suggested that the 9/11 Truth Movement, by doubting the government’s account of 9/11, exemplifies a resurgence of the “paranoid style” in American politics. But in accepting the government’s account, as defended by the pseudo-scientific Popular Mechanics, he illustrated the other target of his article, the “credulous style,” which, he pointed out, is generally exemplified by the American media.51 Surely, however, his credulity does not extend to the acceptance of miracles. 3. WTC 7’s Descent in Absolute Free Fall Even if some readers question whether the two previously discussed features of the collapse of WTC 7, when understood within the framework of NIST’s fire theory, imply miracles, there can be no doubt about a third feature: the now-accepted (albeit generally unpublicized) fact that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds. Although members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had long been pointing out that this building descended at the same rate as a free-falling object, or at least virtually so, NIST had long denied this. As late as August 2008, when NIST issued its report on WTC 7 in the form of a Draft for Public Comment, it claimed that the time it took for the upper floors – the only floors that are visible on the videos - to come down “was approximately 40 percent longer than the computed free fall time and was consistent with physical principles.”52 As this statement implied, any assertion that the building did come down in free fall, assuming a non-engineered collapse, would not be consistent with physical principles – meaning basic laws of Newtonian physics. Explaining why not during a “WTC 7 Technical Briefing” on August 26, 2008, NIST’s Shyam Sunder said: “[A] free fall time would be [the fall time of] an object that has no structural components below it. . . . [T]he . . . time that it took . . . for those 17 floors to disappear [was roughly 40 percent longer than free fall]. And that is not at all unusual, because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place. Everything was not instantaneous.”53 In saying this, Sunder was presupposing NIST’s theory that the building was brought down by fire, which, if it could have produced a collapse of any type, could have produced only a progressive collapse. In response, high-school physics teacher David Chandler, who was allowed to submit a question at this briefing, challenged Sunder’s denial of free fall, stating that Sunder’s “40 percent longer” claim contradicted “a publicly visible, easily measurable quantity.”54 Chandler then placed a video on the Internet showing that, by measuring this publicly visible quantity, anyone understanding elementary physics could see that “for about two and a half seconds. . . , the acceleration of the building is indistinguishable from freefall.”55 (This is, of course, free fall through the air, not through a vacuum.) In its final report on WTC 7, which came out in November 2008, NIST – rather amazingly - admitted free fall. Dividing the building’s descent into three stages, NIST described the second phase as “a freefall descent over approximately eight stories at gravitational acceleration for approximately 2.25 s[econds].”56 NIST thereby accepted Chandler’s case – except for maintaining that the building was in absolute free fall for only 2.25, not 2.5, seconds (a trivial difference). NIST thereby affirmed a miracle, meaning a violation of one or more laws of physics. Why this would be a miracle was explained by Chandler, who said: “Free fall can only be achieved if there is zero resistance to the motion.”57 In other words, the upper portion of Building 7 could have come down in free fall only if something had suddenly removed all the steel and concrete in the lower part of the building, which would have otherwise provided resistance (to make a considerable understatement). If everything had not been removed and the upper floors had come down in free fall anyway, even if for only a fraction of a second, this would have been a miracle – meaning a violation of physical principles. Explaining one of the physical principles involved, Chandler said: “Anything at an elevated height has gravitational potential energy. If it falls, and none of the energy is used for other things along the way, all of that energy is converted into kinetic energy – the energy of motion, and we call it ‘free fall.’ If any of the energy is used for other purposes, there will be less kinetic energy, so the fall will be slower. In the case of a falling building, the only way it can go into free fall is if an external force removes the supporting structure. None of the gravitational potential energy of the building is available for this purpose, or it would slow the fall of the building.”58 That was what Sunder himself had explained, on NIST’s behalf, the previous August, saying that a free-falling object would be one “that has no structural components below it” to offer resistance. But NIST then in November, while still under Sunder’s leadership and still defending its fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse, agreed that, as an empirical fact, free fall happened. For a period of 2.25 seconds, NIST admitted, the descent of WTC 7 was characterized by “gravitational acceleration (free fall).”59 Besides pointing out that the free fall descent of WTC 7 implied that the building had been professionally demolished, Chandler observed that this conclusion is reinforced by two features of the collapse mentioned above: “[P]articularly striking is the suddenness of onset of free fall. Acceleration doesn’t build up gradually. . . . The building went from full support to zero support, instantly. . . . One moment, the building is holding; the next moment it lets go and is in complete free fall. . . . The onset of free fall was not only sudden; it extended across the whole width of the building. . . . The fact that the roof stayed level shows the building was in free fall across the entire width. The collapse we see cannot be due to a column failure, or a few column failures, or a sequence of column failures. All 24 interior columns and 58 perimeter columns had to have been removed . . . simultaneously, within a small fraction of a second.”60 For its part, NIST, knowing that it had affirmed a miracle by agreeing that WTC 7 had entered into free fall, no longer claimed that its analysis was consistent with the laws of physics. Back in its August draft, in which it was still claiming that the collapse occurred 40 percent slower than free fall, NIST had said – in a claim made three times – that its analysis was “consistent with physical principles.”61 In the final report, however, every instance of this phrase was removed. NIST thereby almost explicitly admitted that its report on WTC 7, by affirming absolute free fall while continuing to deny that either incendiaries or explosives had been employed, is not consistent with basic principles of physics. Accordingly, now that it is established that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds, one cannot accept the official theory, according to which this building was not professionally demolished, without implying that at least one miracle happened on 9/11. George Monbiot, as we saw, described members of this movement as “morons” who “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.” Unless Monbiot, upon becoming aware of NIST’s admission of free fall, changes his stance, he will imply that al-Qaeda is capable of magic. Matthew Rothschild said he was “amazed” at how many people hold the “profoundly irrational and unscientific” belief that “Building 7 . . . came down by planted explosives.” Given the fact that progressive members of the 9/11 Truth Movement “so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming,” Rothschild continued, it is “more than passing strange that [they] are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.” NIST’s report on WTC 7, however, provided the final proof that the 9/11 Truth Movement had been right all along – that those progressives who credulously accept the Bush-Cheney administration’s explanation for WTC 7’s collapse are the ones who “abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.” 4. The Twin Towers: Descending in Virtual Free Fall Miracles are implied not only by the official account of WTC 7’s collapse but also by the official account of the destruction of the Twin Towers. According to this account, the North Tower (WTC 1) and the South Tower (WTC 2) came down because of three and only three causes: (i) the airplane impacts, which caused structural damage; (ii) the ensuing fires, which were initially fed and spread by jet fuel from the planes; and (iii) gravity. NIST’s negative claim here is that neither explosives nor incendiaries helped bring the buildings down. One of the miracles implicit in this account is that, although each building had 287 steel support columns - 240 perimeter columns and 47 massive core columns – and although neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to destroy these columns, each building came down, as NIST itself put it, “essentially in free fall.”62 How would that have been possible? According to NIST, each airliner took out several perimeter and core columns at its area of impact and also created huge fires, which began weakening the steel. After a period of time (56 minutes for the South Tower, 102 minutes for the North Tower), “the massive top section of [each] building at and above the fire and impact floors” fell down on the lower section, which “could not resist the tremendous energy released by [the top section’s] downward movement.”63 Accordingly, NIST’s report said: “Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos.”64 Trying to describe more fully its theory of how this happened, NIST wrote: “The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation. . . . As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass. In other words, the momentum [of the top stories] falling on the supporting structure below . . . so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that [the latter] was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass.”65 Even before we think about any specific law of physics violated by this account (assuming that no explosives or incendiaries were used to remove the steel columns), we can see intuitively that this explanation implies a miracle: As NIST critic Jim Hoffman has pointed out, it “requires us to believe that the massive steel frames of the [lower structure of the] towers provided no more resistance to falling rubble than [would] air.”66 As to why physics rules out NIST’s account, William Rice, who has both practiced and taught structural engineering, pointed out that NIST’s account “violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum,” which requires that, “as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit,” the speed of descent must decrease.67 A paper by physicists and engineers published in an engineering journal agreed, stating: “NIST evidently neglects a fundamental law of physics in glibly treating the remarkable ‘free fall’ collapse of each Tower, namely, the Law of Conservation of Momentum. This law of physics means that the hundreds of thousands of tons of material in the way must slow the upper part of the building because of its mass.”68 A letter to NIST signed by physicist Steven Jones, chemist Kevin Ryan, and architect Richard Gage, among others, made a similar point, saying: “Basic principles of engineering (for example, the conservation of momentum principle) would dictate that the undamaged steel structure below the collapse initiation zone would, at the very least, resist and slow the downward movement of the stories above. There is, indeed, a good chance that the structural strength of the steelwork below would arrest the downward movement of the stories above.”69 NIST, as we saw above, claimed that the lower portion would not retard – let alone arrest - the downward movement of the upper part, because the “tremendous energy” of the upper part’s downward momentum would be irresistible. Let us examine this claim with regard to the North Tower. It was struck at the 95th floor, so the upper portion consisted of only 16 floors. Also, the structure at this height had relatively little weight to bear, compared with the structure lower down, so the steel columns in the upper part, above the area of impact, were much thinner than those in the lower part. This means that the upper 16 floors probably constituted less than 15 percent of the building’s total weight. Also, the top portion would have fallen only a story or two before hitting the lower portion, so it would not have acquired much velocity before striking the lower portion. For these reasons, the top portion would have not had much momentum, so its energy would not have been so “tremendous,” it would seem, as to be irresistible by the lower part, with its millions of pounds of interconnected steel. This conclusion, based on a purely commonsense analysis, was confirmed by a technical analysis of the North Tower collapse by mechanical engineer Gordon Ross. Far from failing to retard the downward movement of the building’s upper portion, his analysis showed, the lower portion would have quickly and completely stopped the top portion’s descent. Having made the necessary calculations (which NIST failed to do), Ross concluded that the “vertical movement of the falling section would [have been] arrested . . . within 0.02 seconds after impact. A collapse driven only by gravity would not continue to progress beyond that point.”70 If Ross’s calculations are even close to accurate, then NIST’s account – according to which the Twin Towers came down “essentially in free fall,” even though they were not professionally demolished - implied two enormous miracles (one for each building). Another element in NIST’s account, to be sure, is the claim that the fires in the buildings weakened the steel, so that it provided less resistance than normal. “[W]hen bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius,” NIST wrote, “it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value.”71 NIST thereby, without actually saying it, implied that the steel columns had been heated up to the point where they lost 90 percent of their strength. NIST was in this way able to mislead some nonscientific journalists into thinking that fire could have caused the Twin Towers to collapse. Alexander Cockburn, stating that the collapses did not require preplaced explosives, said: “High grade steel can bend disastrously under extreme heat.”72 Chris Hayes, stating that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about the Twin Towers are without merit, wrote (in a passage quoted earlier): “[S]teel might not melt at 1,500 degrees (Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”73 However, the idea that steel heated up by fire could account for the collapses of the Twin Towers is wrong for at least two reasons. In the first place, even if the steel had indeed lost 90 percent of its strength, it would still have offered some resistance, because the law of conservation of momentum would not have taken a holiday. So a collapse “essentially in free fall” would have been impossible. In the second place, there is no empirical basis for claiming that either tower’s steel had lost any strength, let alone 90 percent of it. On the one hand, as MIT engineering professor Thomas Eagar has pointed out, structural steel only “begins to soften around 425°C [797°F].”74 On the other hand, scientific studies on 16 perimeter columns carried out by NIST scientists found that “only three [of these perimeter] columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250°C [482°F].” These NIST scientists also found no evidence that even this temperature (250°C [482°F]) had been reached by any of the core columns.75 Accordingly, far from having evidence that any of the steel in the columns reached the temperature (1,000°C [1,832°F]) at which it would have lost 90 percent of its strength, NIST had no evidence that any of the columns would have lost even one percent of their strength. If neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to remove the 287 steel support columns, therefore, the top portion of the building came down through the lower portion as if it were not there, even though the steel in that portion was at full strength. In claiming, therefore, that both of the Twin Towers came down essentially in free fall without the aid of either incendiaries or explosives, NIST implied enormous violations of the physical principle known as the conservation of momentum. Although Rothschild accused the 9/11 Truth Movement of being “irrational and unscientific,” this characterization applies instead to NIST’s report on the Twin Towers and anyone who accepts it. 5. The South Tower’s Mid-Air Miracles Having illustrated the previous miracle primarily in terms of the North Tower, I turn now to a miracle unique to the South Tower. It was struck at the 80th floor, so that its upper portion consisted of a 30-floor block. As videos of the beginning of this building’s collapse show, this block began tipping toward the corner that had been most damaged by the airplane’s impact. According to the law of the conservation of angular momentum, this section should have fallen to the ground far outside the building’s footprint. “However,” Jim Hoffman and fellow 9/11 researcher Don Hoffman have observed, “as the top then began to fall, the rotation decelerated. Then it reversed direction [even though the] law of conservation of angular momentum states that a solid object in rotation will continue to rotate at the same speed unless acted on by a torque.”76 And then, as if this were not miraculous enough: “We observe [wrote physicist Steven Jones] that approximately 30 upper floors begin to rotate as a block, to the south and east. They begin to topple over, not fall straight down. The torque due to gravity on this block is enormous, as is its angular momentum. But then – and this I’m still puzzling over – this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air! How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives?”77 If someone were to ask how even explosives could explain this behavior, we could turn to a statement by Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. In response to an interviewer’s question as to how he made “doomed structures dance or walk,” Loizeaux said: “[B]y differentially controlling the velocity of failure in different parts of the structure, you can make it walk, you can make it spin, you can make it dance. We've taken it and moved it, then dropped it or moved it, twisted it and moved it down further - and then stopped it and moved it again. We've dropped structures 15 storeys, stopped them and then laid them sideways. We'll have structures start facing north and end up going to the north-west.”78 If we suppose that explosives were used, therefore, we can understand the mid-air dance performed by the upper portion of the South Tower. If we refuse to posit explosives, however, we are stuck with a major miracle: Although the upper block was rotating and tipping in such a way that its angular momentum should have caused it to fall down to the side, it somehow righted itself by disintegrating. This disintegration, incidentally, further undermines the official theory, according to which the “tremendous energy” of this block’s downward momentum caused the lower part of the South Tower to collapse. This theory requires that the upper part smashed down, as a solid block, on the lower part. Videos show, however, that it did not. As Gage, Jones, Ryan, and other colleagues pointed out to NIST: “[T]he upper portion of WTC 2 did not fall as a block upon the lower undamaged portion, but instead disintegrated as it fell. Thus, there would be no single large impact from a falling block . . . [but only] a series of small impacts as the fragments of the disintegrating upper portion arrived.”79 6. Horizontal Ejections from the Twin Towers Dwain Deets, former director of the research engineering division at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, has written that the “massive structural members being hurled horizontally” from the Twin Towers “leave no doubt” in his mind that “explosives were involved.”80 Deets was referring to the fact that the collapse of each of the Twin Towers began with a massive explosion near the top, during which huge sections of perimeter columns were ejected out horizontally so powerfully that some of them traveled 500 to 600 feet. Although this feature of the collapses was not mentioned in NIST’s (2005) report on the Twin Towers, there could be no doubt about it, because some of these sections of steel implanted themselves in neighboring buildings, as can be seen in videos and photographs.81 These ejections are now, in any case, part of the official account, because NIST, apparently finding them necessary to explain how fires got started in WTC 7, mentioned them in its report on this building. In Shyam Sunder’s opening statement at the August 2008 press briefing to announce the release of NIST’s final report on WTC 7, he said: “The debris from Tower 1 . . . started fires on at least 10 floors of the building.”82 NIST’s WTC 7 report said: “The fires in WTC 7 were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1, which was approximately 110 m[eters] (350 ft) to the south.”83 NIST thereby admitted that debris had been thrown out horizontally from the North Tower at least 350 feet.84 NIST’s report also stated: “When WTC 1 collapsed at 10:28:22 AM, . . . some fragments [of debris] were forcibly ejected and traveled distances up to hundreds of meters. Pieces of WTC 1 hit WTC 7, severing six columns on Floors 7 through 17 on the south face and one column on the west face near the southwest corner. The debris also caused structural damage between Floor 44 and the roof.”85 Debris that caused such extensive damage, including the severing of seven steel columns, had to be quite heavy. NIST seemed to be granting, therefore, that sections of steel columns had been hurled at least 650 feet (because “hundreds of meters” would mean at least 200 meters, which would be about 650 feet). Enormous force would be needed to eject large sections of steel that far out. What could have produced this force? According to NIST, as we saw earlier, there were only three causal factors in the collapse of the Twin Towers: the airplane impacts, the fires, and gravitational attraction. The airplane impacts had occurred 56 minutes (South Tower) and 102 minutes (North Tower) earlier, and gravitational attraction pulls things straight downward. Fire could, to be sure, produce horizontal ejections by causing jet fuel to explode, but the jet fuel had, NIST pointed out, burned up within “a few minutes.”86 Therefore, although NIST admitted that these horizontal ejections occurred, it suggested no energy source to explain them. High explosives, such as RDX or nanothermite, could explain these horizontal ejections. According to NIST, however, explosives did not contribute to the destruction of the Twin Towers. Those who accept NIST’s account must, therefore, regard these horizontal ejections as constituting yet another miracle. 7. Metal-Melting Fires In light of the above-discussed unprecedented effects produced by the fires in the WTC buildings (according to the official account), it would seem that these fires must have had miraculous powers. This conclusion is reinforced by an examination of still more extraordinary effects. Swiss-Cheese Steel: Within a few months of 9/11, three professors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) had issued a brief report about a piece of steel recovered from the WTC 7 debris, stating that it had undergone “microstructural changes,” including “intergranular melting.”87 A greatly expanded version of this report, which contained a description of a similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, was included as an appendix to the first official report on the destruction of the World Trade Center, which was issued by FEMA in 2002.88 A New York Times story, noting that parts of these pieces of steel had “melted away,” even though “no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to melt steel outright,” said that these discoveries constituted “[p]erhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.”89 Describing these mysterious pieces of steel more fully, an article in WPI’s magazine, entitled “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” said: “[S]teel – which has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit – may weaken and bend, but does not melt during an ordinary office fire. Yet . . . [a] one-inch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges – which are curled like a paper scroll – have been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes – some larger than a silver dollar – let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion and bending – but not holes.”90 One of the three WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, was quoted by the Times as saying that the steel “appear[ed] to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.”91 That the steel had actually evaporated – not merely melted – was also reported in another New York Times story. Professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl of the University of California at Berkeley, speaking of a horizontal I-beam from WTC 7, reportedly said: “Parts of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.”92 Why do these phenomena involve miracles? Because the fires could not possibly, even under the most ideal conditions (which did not obtain), have been hotter than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (the maximum possible temperature for hydrocarbon-based building fires, which these fires were said to be), whereas the melting and boiling points of steel are only slightly lower than those of iron, which are 2,800°F and 5,182°F, respectively.93 So if one accepts the official account, according to which all the heat was produced by the building fires, then one must believe that these fires had miraculous powers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which took over from FEMA the task of writing the official reports on the WTC, avoided this issue by simply not mentioning any of these pieces of steel, even though two of them had been discussed in a FEMA report appendix. NIST even claimed that no recovered steel from WTC 7 could be identified, because the steel used in this building, unlike that used in the Twin Towers, “did not contain . . . identifying characteristics.”94 In making this claim, however, NIST was clearly not being truthful. For one thing, it had previously published a document in which it had referred to steel recovered from WTC 7 – including the piece discussed by the WPI professors.95 Also, NIST’s claim about not identifying any WTC 7 steel was made in August 2008, shortly after the airing in July 2008 of a BBC program on WTC 7, in which one of those WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, had discussed an “eroded and deformed” piece of steel from WTC 7, which he and his colleagues had studied in 2001. These professors knew “its pedigree,” Barnett explained, because “this particular kind of steel” had been used only in WTC 7, not in the Twin Towers.96 So, although it called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building,”97 NIST had demonstrated its awareness of a recovered piece of steel from this building that only a very miraculous fire could have produced. NIST was surely also aware of the similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, which had likewise been reported by the WPI professors in their paper included as an appendix to the 2002 FEMA report. If the fires in WTC 7 and the Twin Towers had miraculous powers, we would expect still more miraculous effects to have been discovered, and this was indeed the case. Melted Iron: The RJ Lee Group, a scientific research organization, was hired by Deutsche Bank, which had a building close to the World Trade Center, to prove that the dust contaminating its building after 9/11 was not ordinary building dust, as its insurance company claimed, but had resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center. The RJ Lee Group’s reports showed that the dust in the bank’s building shared the unique chemical signature of the WTC dust, part of which was “[s]pherical iron . . . particles.”98 There were, moreover, an enormous number of these particles: Whereas iron particles constitute only 0.04 percent of normal building dust, they constituted (a whopping) 5.87 percent of the WTC dust.99 The existence of these particles, the RJ Lee Group said, proved that iron had “melted during the WTC Event.”100 The scientists conducting the EPA’s WTC dust signature study, incidentally, had at one time considered including “iron spheres” among the components to be mentioned; it would be interesting to learn why this idea was dropped.101 In any case, the identification of iron spheres by both the EPA and the RJ Lee Group was another miraculous discovery, for the reason given above: The melting point of iron is 2,800°F, whereas the WTC fires could not possibly have gotten above 1,800°F.102 Melted Molybdenum: Scientists at the US Geological Survey, in a study intended to aid the “identification of WTC dust components,” discovered an even more miraculous effect of the fires. Besides finding the spherical iron-rich particles, these scientists found that molybdenum, the melting point of which is 4,753°F (2,623°C), had also melted. Although these USGS scientists failed to mention this discovery in their published report,103 another group of scientists, having obtained the USGS team’s data through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, reported evidence showing that the USGS scientists had devoted serious study to “a molybdenum-rich spherule.”103 8. Inextinguishable Fires Besides having the power to produce the miraculous effects already reported, the World Trade Center fires were also miraculously inextinguishable. The fact that fires continued burning in the Ground Zero rubble for many months, in spite of every attempt to put them out, was widely reported. The title of a New York Times story in the middle of November, two months after the attacks, referred to the “Most Stubborn Fire.” A New Scientist article in December was entitled “Ground Zero’s Fires Still Burning.” Very hot fires continued to burn in the Ground Zero debris piles, these stories reported, even though heavy rains came down, millions of additional gallons of water were sprayed onto the piles, and a chemical suppressant was pumped into them.105 According to Greg Fuchek, vice president of a company that supplied computer equipment to identify human remains at the site, the working conditions at Ground Zero remained "hellish" for six months, because the ground temperature ranged from 600 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.106 These inextinguishable fires were a mystery. Assuming the truth of the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, there would have been nothing in the debris pile other than ordinary building materials, and these can burn only in the presence of oxygen. There would have been little oxygen available in the densely packed debris piles, and wherever it was available, the fires should have been easily suppressed by the enormous amounts of water and chemical suppressants pumped into the piles. The fires’ seemingly miraculous power to keep burning could not be explained by the airplanes’ jet fuel (which some people seem to think of as having miraculous powers, even though it is essentially kerosene), because it would have all burned out, as mentioned above, within a few minutes. A non-miraculous explanation is suggested by the discovery of a large amount of nanothermite residue in the WTC dust, which was reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2009.107 Being both an incendiary and a high explosive, nanothermite is one among several types of “energetic nanocomposites” – described by an article in The Environmentalist as “chemical energetic materials, which provide their own fuel and oxidant and are not deterred by water, dust or chemical suppressants.”108 The discovery of nanothermite residue in the dust provided, therefore, an empirical basis for a non-miraculous explanation of the long-lasting fires at Ground Zero. According to the official account, however, the buildings were all brought down without the aid of any incendiaries or explosives. WTC 7 was said by NIST, as we saw above, to have been brought down by fire alone, and this fire, NIST added, was “an ordinary building contents fire.”109 As for the Twin Towers, they were brought down through the combined effects of the airplane impacts and the ensuing fires: NIST explicitly rejected “alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives.”110 For anyone who accepts the official account, therefore, the inextinguishable underground fires at Ground Zero provide still another demonstration of miraculous powers that must have been possessed by the World Trade Center fires. 9. Supernatural Sulfur In the seventh section, I discussed the two Swiss-cheese-appearing pieces of steel that had been recovered from the World Trade Center rubble – one from WTC 7, the other from one of the Twin Towers. In that discussion, however, I ignored one of the central features of these pieces of steel, which was central to the reason they were said by the New York Times to constitute “the deepest mystery.” This was the fact that the thinning of the steel had resulted, according to the three WPI professors’ report, from sulfidation, but there was no explanation for the source of the sulfur or the mechanism through which it entered into the steel. According to a preliminary analysis reported by the professors, said the NYT article, “sulfur released during the fires – no one knows from where – may have combined with atoms in the steel to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures.”111 This phenomenon was discussed more fully in the article, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” in WPI’s magazine, which attributed the holes and the thinning to “a eutectic reaction” that “occurred at the surface, causing intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.”112 In summarizing their findings in the paper included in the FEMA report, the three professors wrote: “1. The thinning of the steel occurred by a high-temperature corrosion due to a combination of oxidation and sulfidation. “2. Heating of the steel into a hot corrosive environment approaching 1,000°C (1,832°F) results in the formation of a eutectic mixture of iron, oxygen, and sulfur that liquefied the steel. “3. The sulfidation attack of steel grain boundaries accelerated the corrosion and erosion of the steel.”113 Then, having mentioned sulfidation in each of these three points, the professors added: “The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. . . . A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon is needed.”114 However, although Arden Bement, who was the director of NIST when it took over the WTC project from FEMA, said that NIST’s report would address “all major recommendations contained in the [FEMA] report,”115 NIST ignored this recommendation. Indeed, as we saw earlier, it did not even mention these Swiss-cheese pieces of steel. Also, when NIST was later asked about the sulfidation, it tried to maintain that the source of the sulfur was not actually a mystery, saying that “sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.”116 But there are three problems with this explanation. First, gypsum is calcium sulfate, so if all the sulfur discovered had been from gypsum wallboard, it would have been matched by about the same percentage of calcium. That, however, was not the case.117 Second, the WPI professors reported not merely that there was sulfur in the debris, but that the steel had been sulfidized. This means that sulfur had entered into the intergranular structure of the steel (which the New York Times article had indicated by saying that sulfur had “combined with atoms in the steel”). As chemist Kevin Ryan has said, the question NIST would need to answer is: “[H]ow did sulfates, from wallboard, tunnel into the intergranular microstructure of the steel and then form sulfides within?”118 Physicist Steven Jones added: “[I]f NIST claims that sulfur is present in the steel from gypsum, they should do an (easy) experiment to heat steel to about 1000°C in the presence of gypsum and then test whether sulfur has entered the steel. . . . [T]hey will find that sulfur does not enter steel under such circumstances.”119 Chemistry professor Niels Harrit has explained why it would not: Although gypsum contains sulfur, this is not elemental sulfur, which can react with iron, but sulfur in the form of calcium sulfate, which cannot.120 The official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, therefore, implies that the sulfidized steel had been produced by a twofold miracle: Besides the fact that the fires, as we saw earlier, could have melted steel only if they had possessed miraculous powers, the sulfur in the wallboard could have entered into this melted steel only by virtue of supernatural powers. Once again, a non-miraculous explanation is available: We need only suppose that thermate, a well-known incendiary, had been employed. As Steven Jones has written: “The thermate reaction proceeds rapidly and is in general faster than basic thermite in cutting through steel due to the presence of sulfur. (Elemental sulfur forms a low-melting-temperature eutectic with iron.)”121 Besides providing an explanation for the eutectic reaction, thermate could also, Jones pointed out, explain the melting, oxidation, and sulfidation of the steel: “When you put sulfur into thermite it makes the steel melt at a much lower temperature, so instead of melting at about 1,538°C [2,800°F] it melts at approximately 988°C [1,820°F], and you get sulfidation and oxidation in the attacked steel.”122 NIST, however, insists that no incendiaries were employed: WTC 7 was brought down by fire alone; the Twin Towers by the fires combined with damage from the airplane impacts. Those who endorse the official account, therefore, are stuck with yet another miracle. III Which 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Is Truly Discrediting and Distracting? In light of the above facts, I ask Terry Allen, David Corn, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi: Are you still comfortable with endorsing the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center? A symposium on “State Crimes Against Democracy” in one of our major social science journals, American Behavioral Scientist,123 has recently addressed this issue. Likening Orwell’s “secret doctrine” that 2 + 2 = 4, which intellectuals must safeguard in dark times, to unquestioned laws of physics, one of the symposium’s authors criticized “the awesome intellectual silence making permissible the blithe dismissal of more than one law of thermodynamics in the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”124 Part of this silence has involved the failure of the academy to protest when “Professor Steven Jones found himself forced out of [a] tenured position for merely reminding the world that physical laws, about which there is no dissent whatsoever, contradict the official theory of the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”125 I wonder if you are still comfortable with giving your own consent to NIST’s “blithe dismissal” of otherwise unquestioned physical principles – as did Cockburn, when he ridiculed the 9/11 Truth Movement for its “delirious litanies about . . . the collapse of the WTC buildings,” and Taibbi, when he wrote contemptuously of people who have tried to educate him “on the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.”126 I would think that, if there are good reasons to suspect that these physical principles have been dismissed in the interests of covering up a major state crime against democracy, you would be especially uncomfortable with giving your consent to it. Some of you have expressed fear, to be sure, that the left will be discredited insofar as it is seen as endorsing a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Having asked in 2007, “Why do I bother with these morons?” George Monbiot replied: “Because they are destroying the movements some of us have spent a long time trying to build.”127 In 2009, David Corn wrote: “[W]hen the 9/11 conspiracy theories were first emerging on the left, I wrote several pieces decrying them [for] fear . . . that this unsound idea would infect the left and other quarters – discrediting anyone who got close to it.”128 Some of you, moreover, have objected to the 9/11 Truth Movement on the grounds that it has served as a distraction from truly important issues. The 9/11 conspiracy theories, Corn wrote in 2002, serve to “distract people from the real wrongdoing.”129 Cockburn, writing in 2006, agreed, saying: “The Conspiracy Nuts have combined to produce a huge distraction.”130 That same year, Chomsky said: “One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state.”131 And Monbiot, naming in 2007 some truly important issues from which, in his view, the 9/11 conspiracy theory has distracted us, mentioned “climate change, the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation, inequality, . . . [the fact] that corporate power stands too heavily on democracy, [and] that war criminals, cheats and liars are not being held to account.”132 I will address these two fears – of being discredited and of being distracted – in order. 1. The Fear of Being Discredited You are certainly right to fear that the left would be discredited by being aligned with a conspiracy theory that is scientifically unsupportable and even absurd. It is hard to imagine, however, what could discredit the left more than having many of its recognized leaders endorsing the Bush-Cheney administration’s 9/11 conspiracy theory, especially at a time when more and more scientists and people in relevant professions are pointing out its absurdities. Conspiracy Theories and the Official Account of 9/11: I realize, of course, that most of you do not like to acknowledge that the official account of 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory, given the one-sided, propagandistic meaning with which this term is now commonly employed. As New Zealand philosopher Charles Pigden has pointed out in a superb essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom”: “[T]o call someone ‘a conspiracy theorist’ is to suggest that he is irrational, paranoid or perverse. Often the suggestion seems to be that conspiracy theories are not just suspect, but utterly unbelievable, too silly to deserve the effort of a serious refutation.”133 However, Pigden continues, using the term in this way is intellectually dishonest, because “a conspiracy theory is simply a theory that posits a conspiracy - a secret plan on the part of some group to influence events by partly secret means.”134 And, given this neutral, dictionary meaning of the term: “[E]very politically and historically literate person is a big-time conspiracy theorist, since every such person subscribes to a vast range of conspiracy theories. . . . [T]here are many facts that admit of no non-conspiratorial explanation and many conspiracy theories that are sufficiently well-established to qualify as knowledge. It is difficult . . . to mount a coup [or an assassination] without conspiring. . . . Thus anyone who knows anything about the Ides of March or the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand or the Tsar Alexander II is bound to subscribe to a conspiracy theory, and hence to be a conspiracy theorist.”135 In light of the neutral meaning of
the term provided by Pigden, everyone is a conspiracy
theorist about 9/11, not only people who believe that the
US government was complicit. According to the
government’s theory, the 9/11 attacks resulted from
a conspiracy between Osama bin Laden, other al-Qaeda
leaders (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), and 19 young
members of al-Qaeda who agreed to hijack airliners.136 In any case, once it is acknowledged that both of the major theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories, the 9/11 Truth’s Movement’s theory cannot rationally be rejected on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory. Making a rational judgment requires comparing the two conspiracy theories to see which one is more plausible. And when the issue is posed in this way, the official theory does not fare well, whether viewed from a scientific or a merely prima facie perspective. The Prima Facie Absurdity of the Official Conspiracy Theory: Even when viewed only superficially (prima facie), the central elements in the official story, if evaluated in abstraction from the fact that it is the official story, is certainly implausible – it probably would have been even too implausible to pass muster as the plot for a bad Hollywood movie. Matt Taibbi has made such a statement about the story implicit in the various claims made by the 9/11 Truth Movement, saying that if you combine those claims into a coherent script, “you get the dumbest story since Roman Polanski's Pirates.”139 However, aside from the fact that Taibbi failed to support this claim, he simply ignored the absurdity of the official story, which, boiled down to a one-sentence summary, says: Inexperienced Muslim hijackers, armed only with knives and box-cutters, took control of four airliners, then outfoxed the world’s most sophisticated air defense system, then used two of these airliners to bring three skyscrapers down (indeed, straight down, in virtual free fall),140 and then, almost an hour later - when the US air defense system would have been on highest alert - flew a third one, undetected, from the mid-west back to Washington DC, where – thanks to heroic piloting by a man who had never before flown an airliner and who was, according to the New York Times, known as a “terrible pilot,” incapable of safely flying even a tiny plane – this third airliner went through an extremely difficult trajectory (even too difficult for them, said some experienced airline pilots) in order to strike the first floor of the Pentagon – surely the most well-protected building on the planet – without scraping the Pentagon lawn. What could discredit “the left” more than the fact that you, some of its leading spokespersons, have endorsed such nonsense? The Scientific Status of the Two Conspiracy Theories. Actually, there is one thing that would be even more discrediting: If, after having it pointed out to you that at least nine miracles are implied by this story, you fail to renounce your former acceptance of it. Also, it is not only the miracles implicit in the official account that undermine your apparent assumption that good science supports the official account rather than that of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Although that assumption was less obviously unreasonable a few years ago, at least by people who either could not or would not look at the evidence for themselves, that assumption is now completely and obviously unreasonable, due to developments that have occurred in the past few years. In 2006, as we saw above, Chomsky suggested that there would be two decisive tests for the physical evidence touted by the 9/11 Truth Movement: (i) “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” (ii) “submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication.” To begin with the second test: A few months before December 2006, when Chomsky made this suggestion, physicist Steven Jones, at that time a professor at Brigham Young University, and some other scientists started a new online outlet, the Journal of 9/11 Studies. By now, it has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, five of which were cited earlier: “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” (by Jones himself); “9/11: Acceleration Study Proves Explosive Demolition” (by Frank Legge); “Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method” (by Jones); “Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1” (by Gordon Ross); and "Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction" (by Jones and seven other scientists). Of course, people who are skeptical of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims may assume – albeit wrongly, from what I have learned - that this journal, being favorable to such claims, may have a less than rigorous peer-review process. And what Chomsky had suggested, in any case, was that 9/11 Truth Movement scientists should submit articles to mainstream science journals, to see if they could pass their peer-review processes. Jones and other scientists, deciding to take up Chomsky’s challenge, started working on papers to submit, and since 2008, at least six papers disputing the official account of the WTC have been published in mainstream journals: · “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” by Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, published in 2008 in the Open Civil Engineering Journal.141 · “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” by Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, published in 2009 in The Environmentalist.142 · “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” by University of Copenhagen chemistry professor Niels Harrit and eight colleagues (including Jones, Ryan, Legge, and Gourley), published in 2009 in The Open Chemical Physics Journal.143 · “Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” by physicist Crockett Grabbe, published in 2010 in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, which is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).144 · “Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” by chemical engineer James R. Gourley, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.145 ·
"Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause
Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York?’
by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and
David B. Benson," by Anders Björkman, published in
2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.146
Given the time it takes to write scientific papers and get them through the peer-review process, combined with the relatively small number of scientists writing about these issues, this is an impressive achievement. It would seem that this part of Chomsky’s test has been met. These publications demonstrate, moreover, that many of the same scientists who had been publishing in the Journal of 9/11 Studies have now written papers that have gotten through the peer-review process of mainstream science journals. There is no empirical basis, accordingly, for the assumption that the Journal of 9/11 Studies’ peer-review process is any less critical. We can, therefore, add the 25 scientific papers about the WTC collapses in the Journal of 9/11 Studies to the six recent papers in mainstream journals, giving us a total of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles challenging the official theory about the destruction of the WTC that have appeared since 2006. I turn now to Chomsky’s other suggested way for members of the Truth Movement to test physical evidence that they see as disproving the official story: “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” This has now been done and, as a result, the movement has large and continually growing numbers of physical scientists, engineers, and architects. The physical scientists (beyond those already mentioned) include: · Dr. A. K. Dewdney, professor emeritus of mathematics and physics, University of Western Ontario. · Dr. Timothy E. Eastman, Consultant, Plasmas International, Silver Spring, Maryland. · Dr. Mark F. Fitzsimmons, senior lecturer in organic chemistry, University of Plymouth. · Dr. David L. Griscom, former research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory; principal author of 100 papers in scientific journals; fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. · Dr. Jan Kjellman, research scientist in nuclear physics and nanotechnology, École Polytechnique Federale, Lausanne. · Dr. Herbert G. Lebherz, professor emeritus, Department of Chemistry, San Diego State University. · Dr. Eric Leichtnam, professor of mathematics and physics, University of Paris. · Dr. Terry Morrone, professor emeritus, Department of Physics, Adelphi University. · Dr. John D. Wyndham, former research fellow, California Institute of Technology.147 With regard to architects and engineers: In December 2006, when Chomsky issued his suggestion, there were few if any architects and engineers who had publicly questioned the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center. But in January, 2007, architect Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), began Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and by now its membership includes over 1,200 professional architects and engineers. Here are a few of the architects: · Daniel B. Barnum, AIA fellow; founder of the Houston AIA Residential Architecture Committee. · Bertie McKinney Bonner, M. Arch; AIA member; licensed architect in Pennsylvania. · David Paul Helpern, AIA fellow; founder of Helpern Architects. · Cynthia Howard, M. Arch; licensed architect in Maine and Massachusetts; past president, AIA’s New England Chapter. · David A. Johnson, PhD, internationally known architect and city planner; chaired the planning departments at Syracuse and Ball State universities; former president of the Fulbright Association of the United States. · Kevin A. Kelly, AIA fellow; author of Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, which has become a standard textbook. · Anne Lee, M. Arch, AIA member; licensed architect in Massachusetts. · Dr. David Leifer, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Facilities Management, University of Sydney; former professor at Mackintosh School of Architecture. · Paul Stevenson Oles, fellow of the AIA, which in 1989 called him “the dean of architectural illustrators in America”; co-founder of the American Society of Architectural Perspectivists. · David A. Techau, B. Arch., MS; AIA member; licensed architect in Hawaii.148 Here are a few of the engineers: · John Edward Anderson, PhD; professor emeritus, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota; licensed Professional Engineer (PE). · Robert Bowman, PhD; former head, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, US Air Force Institute of Technology; director of Advanced Space Programs Development (“Star Wars”) under Presidents Ford and Carter. · Ronald H. Brookman, MS Eng; licensed Professional Civil and Structural Engineer in California · Dwain Deets, former Director for Research Engineering and Aerospace Projects, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, which awarded him the NASA Exceptional Service Award. · Joel Hirschhorn, PhD; former professor, Metallurgical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison; former staff member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. · Richard F. Humenn, licensed PE (retired); senior Project Design Engineer, World Trade Center electrical systems. · Fadhil Al-Kazily, PhD; licensed Professional Civil Engineer. · Jack Keller, PhD; professor emeritus, Civil Engineering, Utah State University; member, National Academy of Engineering; named one of the world’s 50 leading contributors to science and technology benefiting society by Scientific American. · Heikki Kurttila, PhD; Safety Engineer and Accident Analyst for Finland’s National Safety Technology Authority. · Ali Mojahid, PhD, Civil and Architectural Engineering; licensed PE. · Edward Munyak, Mechanical and Fire Protection Engineer; former Fire Protection Engineer for California and the US Departments of Energy and Defense. · Kamal S. Obeid, MS, licensed Professional Structural and Civil Engineer.149 In addition to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, many other 9/11 organizations of professionals with relevant types of expertise have been formed, including Firefighters for 9/11 Truth,150 Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth,151 Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth,152 Pilots for 9/11 Truth,153 S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven,154 and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.155 Less obviously relevant, but surely not entirely irrelevant, are some other professional organizations, including Journalists and Other Media Professionals for 9/11 Truth,156 Lawyers for 9/11 Truth,157 Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth,158 Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth,159 and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.160 If we combine the membership of these organizations with those in the previous paragraph, we can see that several thousand professional people have publicly announced their alignment with the 9/11 Truth Movement. In light of the above-mentioned developments, could any fair-minded person deny that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s evidence has passed Chomsky’s twofold test with flying colors? Given the make-up of the 9/11 Truth Movement, could any such person agree with the claims about this movement quoted in Part I of this essay, according to which its members are “conspiracy nuts,” “idiots,” and “morons,” who, being devoid of “any conception of evidence,” are “willing to abandon science” in favor of “magic”? In one of his 2009 essays, David Corn expressed concern about “9/11 conspiracy silliness.”161 But it is hard to imagine anything sillier, and hence more self-discrediting, than making such claims about the scientists, architects, engineers, intelligence officers, lawyers, medical professionals, political leaders, and other professionals who have publicly aligned themselves with the 9/11 Truth Movement.
As I stated on a lecture tour in early 2009: “Among scientists and professionals in the relevant fields who have studied the evidence, the weight of scientific and professional opinion is now overwhelmingly on the side of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Whereas well over 1,000 such people have publicly supported the stance of this movement, there are virtually no scientists or professionals in the relevant fields who have gone on record in defense of the official story---except for people whose livelihood would be threatened if they refused to support it. This caveat is important, because, as Upton Sinclair famously observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”162 Except for such people, virtually everyone who has expertise in a relevant field, and who has seriously studied the evidence, rejects the official conspiracy theory. It is time, therefore, for journalists and everyone else to take a second look.”163 A More General Problem with the Official Conspiracy Theory: In addition the twofold fact that the official conspiracy theory’s account of the WTC destruction implies miracles and has been increasingly rejected by informed and independent people in relevant professions, this theory is rendered unworthy of belief by a more general problem: when its various details are subjected to critical scrutiny, the entire story falls apart – as I showed in my 2008 book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited164 (which, incidentally, was a Publishers Weekly “Pick of the Week” in November 2008,165 an honor not normally bestowed on books written by morons and idiots). One of the things that falls apart is the idea that there were al-Qaeda hijackers on the airliners. Having in my book examined the various types of evidence for this idea, I will here focus on the type of evidence usually considered the strongest: the alleged phone calls from the planes, during which the presence of hijackers was reported. All of you have evidently accepted these calls as genuine. For example, Matthew Rothschild, defending the government’s account of what happened on United Flight 93, wrote: “we know from cell phone conversations that passengers on board that plane planned on confronting the hijackers.”166 However, about ten of the reported calls from this flight were said to have been made on cell phones, most of them when the plane was at 35,000 feet or higher, and the technology at that time did not allow cell phone calls to be made from airliners at such altitudes, as pointed out by members of the 9/11 Truth Movement – most definitively by A. K. Dewdney and Michel Chossudovsky in 2003 and 2004.167 Chris Hayes faulted the Truth Movement for focusing on what he called “physical minutiae,” such as “the altitude in Pennsylvania at which cellphones on Flight 93 should have stopped working.”168 It would appear, however, that the FBI took such “minutiae” seriously: When it issued a report in 2006 on the (alleged) phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI designated only two of them as having been made on cell phones, and both of those, the FBI said, had been made from Flight 93 when it, about to crash, was at a low altitude. All the other reported calls from this flight (as well as all the reported calls from the other flights) were said to have been made from onboard phones, including three to five calls that Deena Burnett reported having received from her husband, Tom Burnett.169 This change of story got rid of the problem of technologically impossible (miraculous) phone calls, but it created another problem: How to explain the reports of approximately ten calls from this flight that, according to the recipients, had been made on cell phones? In some cases, we might assume, the recipients had misunderstood, or misremembered, what they had been told. But Deena Burnett said – and she reported this to the FBI on 9/11 itself – that she knew her husband had used his cell phone, because she recognized his cell phone number on her own phone’s Caller ID. If Tom Burnett had really called his wife using an onboard phone, as the FBI now claims, the fact that his cell phone number repeatedly showed up on her Caller ID would have to count as a miracle. I would think people generally skeptical of the claims made by the government, especially claims from which the military-industrial complex is benefiting, would consider this problem – which is documented at length in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited170 - worthy of investigation. I have also raised questions about the alleged phone calls from CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, which had been reported that day by her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. She had phoned him twice, he claimed, from American Flight 77 (which allegedly crashed into the Pentagon shortly thereafter). In a list of my views treated derisively by Rothschild, he said: “Griffin casts doubt on whether the phone calls actually happened.”171 Perhaps Rothschild will be more impressed by the fact that, in its 2006 report on phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI did not support the claim that the calls from Barbara Olson “actually happened.” Although Ted Olson said he had received two calls from his wife, with the first call lasting “about one (1) minute”172 and the second one lasting “two or three or four minutes,”173 the FBI report on calls from American Flight 77 says that Barbara Olson attempted one call, which was “unconnected,” so that it (of course) lasted “0 seconds.”174 The reported calls from Barbara Olson were very important: They provided the first evidence given to the public that the planes had been hijacked; they were instrumental in getting the American public ready to strike back at Muslims in a “war on terror”; and they were also the only source for a piece of information that everyone “knows” – that the hijackers had box-cutters. One would think, therefore, that it would be of more than passing interest to people concerned about the direction of US foreign policy since 9/11 that an FBI report in 2006 indicates that these calls never happened. This is the same FBI that – in spite of Rothschild’s confident claim that there is no doubt of Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the attacks, because he (allegedly) claimed responsibility for them in a video (allegedly) found in Afghanistan by the US military – does not list him as wanted for 9/11. Why? Because, an FBI spokesman explained, “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”175 The FBI must be less certain than Rothschild about the evidentiary value of that so-called confessional video – and for good reason, as I have shown elsewhere.176 Accordingly, insofar as you left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement have been concerned not to discredit yourselves by endorsing an unsupported, implausible, irrational, and even scientifically impossible conspiracy theory, that is precisely what you are doing so long as you stand by your endorsements of the Bush administration’s – and now the Obama administration’s – 9/11 conspiracy theory. 2. The Fear of Being Distracted The second fear – that the focus on a false conspiracy theory has been distracting many people from more important matters – is equally valid. But this fear has been directed toward the wrong conspiracy theory. Nothing has distracted the United States and its allies from issues such as global apartheid, the ecological crisis, nuclear proliferation, and corporate power more than the “war on terror” - with its huge operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, its incessant terror alerts and stories of attacks prevented, and its depletion of our national treasuries. Lying at the root of this so-called war on terror, both historically and as present justification, is the official account of 9/11. So it is, as I wrote in response to Cockburn in Le Monde Diplomatique three years go, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.”177 Had the falsity of this account been exposed within weeks – as it certainly could and should have been – the war in Afghanistan, which has now been using up our time, talent, and treasury for almost a decade, could have been avoided altogether. If the falsity of the Bush-Cheney 9/11 conspiracy theory had at least been exposed within a year, the fiasco in Iraq could have been avoided. If the truth had been exposed within three years, those wars could have been closed down long ago and the Bush-Cheney administration dismissed before it had a second term. If so, the next administration, not distracted by two major wars and exaggerated fears about terrorist attacks on the “homeland,” might have focused on the fact that many environmental regulations needed to be tightened up. One consequence might have been that the Gulf oil blowout (not “spill”), which could turn out to be extremely destructive to our planet’s ecosystem, might never have occurred. The fact that the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 has distracted the United States and its allies from the ecological crisis is, therefore, no trivial matter – and this is merely one of many illustrations that could be given. That the 9/11 Truth Movement, by contrast, cannot be rationally considered a distraction from more important matters was persuasively expressed in August 2006 by former CIA official Bill Christison, who by the end of his 28-year career had risen to the position of Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis (and who, sadly, died while this essay was being written178). In an article entitled “Stop Belittling the Theories About September 11,” Christison wrote: “After spending the better part of the last five years treating these theories with utmost skepticism, I have devoted serious time to actually studying them [and] have come to believe that significant parts of the 9/11 theories are true, and that therefore significant parts of the ‘official story’ put out by the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are false.”179 Then, after listing nine judgments that had led him to this conclusion – one of which was that the “North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them” - he added: “If [these] judgments . . . are correct, they . . . strongly suggest that some unnamed persons or groups either inside or with ties to the government were actively creating a ‘Pearl Harbor’ event, most likely to gain public support for the aggressive foreign policies that followed – policies that would, first, ‘transform’ the entire Middle East, and second, expand U.S. global domination.” Then, explaining why the evidence for this conclusion cannot reasonably be dismissed as a distraction from more important matters, he wrote: “A manageable volume of carefully collected and analyzed evidence is already at hand . . . that elements within the Bush administration, as well as possibly other groups foreign or domestic, were involved in a massive fraud against the American people, a fraud that has led to many thousands of deaths. This charge of fraud, if proven, involves a much greater crime against the American people and people of the world than any other charges of fraud connected to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is a charge that we should not sweep under the rug because what is happening in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, and Iran seems more pressing and overwhelming. It is a charge that is more important because it is related to all of the areas just mentioned – after all, the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11. It is a charge that is more important also because it affects the very core of our entire political system. If proven, it is a conspiracy, so far successful, not only against the people of the United States, but against the entire world.” In this passage, Christison expressed this charge of fraud conditionally, saying “if proven.” He later made clear, however, that he had personally found the evidence convincing, referring to the 9/11 attacks as “an inside job.”180 In any case, besides saying that 9/11 is more important than America’s crimes in the Middle East because “the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11,” he also, in saying that the 9/11 fraud “affects the very core of our entire political system,” anticipated the above-cited symposium in the American Behavioral Scientist, which treated 9/11 as a probable instance of its topic: State Crimes against Democracy. Christison’s implicit message to Chomsky, therefore, was: Given your concern with “real and ongoing crimes of state,” I would respectfully suggest that you do what I finally did: Actually examine the evidence that 9/11 was one of these crimes. As for the concern to prosecute war criminals, what bigger war criminals could there be than people within our own government who engineered these attacks, then used them as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have killed millions?181 As for the hope of stopping these horribly deadly and terribly expensive wars, what better means could be had than proof – which scientists, architects, engineers, firefighters, and pilots in the 9/11 Truth Movement have provided – that the official account of 9/11 is a lie and that the attacks had to be, at least in part, an inside job? Concluding Statement I recently completed a 15-city tour, presenting a lecture entitled “Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11?” My hope was that, by providing clear evidence that it is not – because the official account of 9/11 is false from beginning to end – “the 9/11 Truth Movement and more traditional Peace and Anti-War groups [would] be able to combine forces to oppose this illegal and immoral war.”182 I have written the present essay with the same hope. But if this hope is to be fulfilled, erstwhile left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement will need to prove that Cockburn’s charge about this movement’s members – “They’re immune to any reality check” – and Corn’s charge – they “are not open to persuasion”183 – are not instead true of themselves. David Ray Griffin
is the author of 36 books dealing with various subjects:
philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy
of science, and 9/11 and US imperialism. In September
2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among “The 50
People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is
The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the
Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and
False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive
Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine
the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to
thank four scientists – Jim Hoffman, Frank Legge,
Kevin Ryan, and John Wyndham – and three other
superb critics - Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, and
Elizabeth Woodworth – for help with this essay. 1 As those who know the history of modern theology are aware, one of its seminal writings was Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Religion to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). These “cultured despisers” of religion were people whom Schleiermacher admired and with whom he agreed on most issues. He believed, however, that they had a blind spot with regard to religion, mainly because they did not understand its true nature and the experience on which it is based. I address those I call “left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement” in the same spirit. 2 David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books dealing with various subjects: philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and 9/11 and US imperialism. In September 2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among “The 50 People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to thank four scientists – Jim Hoffman, Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, and John Wyndham – and three other superb critics - Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, and Elizabeth Woodworth – for help with this essay. 3 Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts,” ZNet, September 20, 2006 (http://www.zcommunications.org/the-9-11-conspiracy-nuts-by-alexander-cockburn-1). A shorter version appeared in the September 24, 2010, issue of The Nation. 4 Alexander Cockburn, “The Conspiracists, Continued – Are They Getting Crazier?” The Free Press, September 16, 2006 (http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2006/1433). 5 Alexander Cockburn, “Conspiracy Disproved: Distractions from Awful Reality,” Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2006 (http://mondediplo.com/2006/12/02dconspiracy). 6 Ibid. 7 George Monbiot, “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns,” The Guardian, February 20, 2007 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/20/comment.september11). 8 Matt Taibbi, “The Idiocy Behind the '9/11 Truth' Movement,” AlterNet, September 26, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/42181). This date, incidentally, refers to the original posting of the article at Rollingstone.com. It was not posted on AlterNet until May 7, 2008. In another article, posted on Rollingstone.com a couple of weeks earlier (September 14, 2006), Taibbi had offered a different diagnosis, saying that people who thought that the towers had been wired with explosives were “clinically insane” (Matt Taibbi, “Americans in Denial about 9/11,” AlterNet June 6, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/41635). 9 Christopher Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia,” The Nation, December 8, 2006 (http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/911-roots-paranoia). 10 “Chomsky: 9/11 Truth Movement Pushes Non-Scientific Evidence,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBg3aFZVATk). 11 “Chomsky Dismisses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories As 'Dubious'” Rense.com, December 13, 2006 (http://rense.com/general74/dismiss.htm). 12 Terry Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement,” In These Times, July 11, 2006 (http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2702). 13 David Corn, “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad,” AlterNet, March 1, 2002 (http://www.alternet.org/story/12536). 14 David Corn, “How 9/11 Conspiracy Poison Did in Van Jones,” Politics Daily, September 7, 2009 (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/07/how-9-11-conspiracy-poison-did-in-van-jones). 15 Ibid. 16 David Corn, “Van Jones and the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Poison,” Mother Jones, September 7, 2009 (http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/van-jones-and-911-conspiracy-theory-poison). 17 Matthew Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already,” The Progressive, September 18, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/41601/). 18 David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009), Chs. 4 and 5. 19 See David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press [Interlink Books], 2005), 29. 20 See David Ray Griffin, “Building What? How SCADs Can Be Hidden in Plain Sight,” 911Truth.org, May 27, 2010 (http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20100527162010811). 21 James Glanz, “Engineers
Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,”
New York Times, November 29, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/nation-challenged-site-engineers-have-culprit 22 See FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, ed. Therese McAllister, ed. (Washington D.C., and New York: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002), Chapter 5, by Ramon Gilsanz, Edward M. Depaola, Christopher Marrion, and Harold “Bud” Nelson (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf), 31. As the title of Glanz’s article in the previous note indicates, he had already suggested that the diesel fuel might provide an explanation. 23 Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 53, 56. 24 Ibid., 53-54, 29. 25 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.” 26 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.” 27 Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.” 28 As this example shows, Allen’s rejection of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s empirical claims seems to be based entirely on her taking on faith the claims of the Bush-Cheney administration as mediated through Popular Mechanics. It is quite ironic, therefore, that she caricatures the 9/11 Truth Movement as the “9/11 Faith Movement.” But she seems to have a special knack for getting things backwards: With regard to an In These Times editor’s question about me, “What could have transformed this sober, reflective scholar into a conspiracy theorist?” (which was his way of asking why I had rejected the government’s conspiracy theory in favor an alternative conspiracy theory), she replied: “I think part of it is that he's a theologian who operates on faith” (quoted in Salim Muwakkil, “What’s the 411 on 9/11?” In These Times, December 21, 2005 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2444). Given the fact that the primary issue at hand was my belief “that the towers were toppled by a controlled demolition,” for which there is (as we have seen) an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence, it is especially strange that she would say that the reason I believe this must be that I am “a theologian who operates on faith.” Besides the fact that she was obviously the one who was operating on faith with regard to 9/11, she was also assuming that, because I am “a theologian,” I must operate in the way she assumes all theologians operate. Since the 18th-century Enlightenment, however, there has been a great methodological divide within theology. Many theologians still do operate on the traditional basis, in which questions of truth are settled by appeals to authority, the pronouncements of which are taken on faith. But I have always practiced the Enlightenment-based type of theology, which, as I explained in a book subtitled A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith, rejects the “method of authority” in favor of the method of “settling questions of truth and falsity on the basis of common experience and reason – that is, by reasoning on the basis of experience that is at least potentially common to all people” (David Ray Griffin, Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004], 62). Also central to this type of theology is the rejection of “miracles,” in the sense of “supernatural interruptions of the world’s most fundamental causal processes” (ibid., 98). The centrality of this element in my theology is illustrated by the titles of two of my other books, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), and Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001). My explicit rejection of miraculous interruptions of the world’s normal causal processes may make me more sensitive to this issue than are some left-wing critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who to me seem puzzlingly unconcerned about the official account’s cavalier violations of principles that have long been considered inviolable laws of nature. 29 NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (brief version), National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, xxxvi (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf). This document is henceforth cited simply as NIST NCSTAR 1A, which will always refer to the final (November 2008) version (as distinct from the Draft for Public Comment, which was issued in August 2008). 30 Ibid., xxxvii. 31 Ibid., xxxv. 32 See, for example, Shyam Sunder, “Opening Statement,” NIST Press Briefing, August 21, 2008 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/opening_remarks_082108.html); NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, November 2008, Volume 2: 493, 617, 618 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%202.pdf). 33 “NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse,” NIST, August 21, 2008 (http://www.physorg.com/news138546437.html). 34 NIST NCSTAR 1A, xxxvii. 35 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, November 2008, Vol. 1 (wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%201.pdf): 341. 36 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already”; Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.” 37 J. Gordon Routley, Charles Jennings, and Mark Chubb, “High-Rise Office Building Fire, One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 1991 (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/pdf/Tr-049.pdf); Robin Nieto, “Fire Practically Destroys Venezuela’s Tallest Building,” Venezuela News, Views, and Analysis, October 18, 2004 (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/741). 38 Sunder, “Opening Statement.” 39 Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: 170-77. 40 David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2007), Chap. 4. 41 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.” 42 Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, 152-63. 43 See “WTC7 Demolition on 9/11 – Video Compilation,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTBMcxx-78). For video and analysis, see “WTC7: This Is an Orange,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv7BImVvEyk&feature=related), and David Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3mudruFzNw) , at 2:25-4:00. 44 See Frank Legge, “9/11: Acceleration Study Proves Explosive Demolition,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 5, November 2006 45 Daniel Hofnung, Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Dhofnung). 46 Chester W. Gearhart, Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Gearhart). 47 Jack Keller, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php?g=ENG#998929). 48 See “Danny Jowenko on WTC 7 Controlled Demolition,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=877gr6xtQIc). For more of the interview, “Jowenko WTC 7 Demolition Interviews,” in three parts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I&feature=related). 49 “The Myth of Implosion” (http://www.implosionworld.com/dyk2.html). 50 Liz Else, “Baltimore Blasters,” New Scientist 183/2457 (July 24, 2004), 48 (http://www.911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/new_scientist/BaltimoreBlast_Loizeaux.html). 51 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.” 52 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1-9_vol2_for_public_comment.pdf), 596. 53
“WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” NIST, August 26,
2008. Although NIST originally had a video and a
transcript of this briefing at its Internet website, it
recently removed both of them. However, Nate Flach has
made the video available at Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/11941571), and the transcript, under the
title “NIST Technical Briefing on Its Final Draft
Report on WTC 7 for Public Comment,” is available at
David Chandler’s website (http://911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefing_Transcript.pdf). 55
David Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall - No Longer
Controversial,” September 4, 2008 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCDpL4Ax7I , at 2:45. 57 Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall – No Longer Controversial,” at 3:27. 58 Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III),” January 2, 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3mudruFzNw) , at 1:19. 59 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” NIST, August 21, 2008, updated April 21, 2009. Whereas the original version of this document denied free fall, the updated version affirms it. Although both versions have been removed from NIST’s website, Jim Hoffman’s website has both the 2008 version (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html ) and the 2009 version (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html). 60 Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III),” at 2:20, 3:15. 61 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2: 595-96, 596, 610. 62 NIST, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, September 2005 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201.pdf) , 146. 63 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” August 30, 2006 (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm), Question 2. 64 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, 146. 65 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 6. In the italicized portion of this statement, NIST was quoting NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Section 6.14.4 (page 146). 66 Jim Hoffman, “A Reply to the National Institute for Standards and Technology's Answers to Frequently Asked Questions” (http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html). 67 William Rice’s statement is quoted at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Rice). 68 Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” Open Civil Engineering Journal, 2/1 (2008): 35-40 (http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM). 69 “Request for Correction Submitted to NIST,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 12: June 2007 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/RFCtoNISTbyMcIlvaineDoyleJonesRyanGageSTJ.pdf). This letter, dated April 12, 2007, was also signed by Bob McIlvaine, Bill Doyle, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. 70 Gordon Ross, “Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 1: June 2006 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf) : 32-39, at 37. 71 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 7. 72 Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook,” Counterpunch, September 9/10, 2006 (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09092006.html). 73 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.” 74
Thomas W. Eagar and Christopher Musso, “Why Did the
World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and
Speculation,” JOM, 53 (12), 2001 (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html). 76 Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, Waking Up from Our Nightmare: The 9/11/01 Crimes in New York City (San Francisco: Irresistible/Revolutionary, 2004), 34. 77
Steven Jones, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings
Completely Collapse?” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol.
3 (September 2006), 1-47, at 28 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/Why_Indeed_Did_the_WTC_Buildings 78 Quoted in Liz Else, “Baltimore Blasters” (see note 50, above). 79 “Request for Correction Submitted to NIST.” 80 The statement by Deets is at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=998819). 81 See “911 Eyewitness: Huge Steel Sections Ejected More than 600 Feet” (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1807467434260776490), or “9/11 Mysteries: Demolition” (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1337231563159418946#). 82 Sunder, “Opening Statement.” 83 NIST NCSTAR 1A: xxxvi. 84 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1: 125. 85 NIST NCSTAR 1A: 16. 86 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Twin Towers, 183, 184. 87 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7,” JOM 53/12 (2001), 18 (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Biederman/Biederman-0112.html). 88 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and R. D. Sisson, Jr., “Limited Metallurgical Examination,” Appendix C of World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA, 2002 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf). 89 James Glanz and Eric Lipton, “A Search for Clues in Towers’ Collapse,” New York Times, February 2, 2002 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0DE153DF931A35751C0A9649C8B63). 90 Joan Killough-Miller, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” WPI Transformations, Spring 2002 (http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2002Spring/steel.html). 91 James Glanz, “Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,” New York Times, November 29, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/29TOWE.html). I have here quoted Glanz’s paraphrase of Barnett’s statement. 92 See Kenneth Change, “Scarred Steel Holds Clues, And Remedies,” New York Times, October 2, 2001 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6DC123DF931A35753C1A9679C8B63). 93 WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web: Iron (http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html). 94 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” August 21, 2008 (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html). This statement was repeated in a version of this document that was updated April 21, 2009 (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html). Thanks to Jim Hoffman for preserving these documents at his website, after NIST had removed them from its own website. 95 See NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, Damage and Failure Modes of Structural Steel Components, September 2005 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-3C%20Damage%20and%20Failure%20Modes.pdf), in which the authors, Stephen W. Banovic and Timothy Foecke, referred to “the analysis of the steel from WTC 7 (Sample #1 from Appendix C, BPAT/FEMA study) where corrosion phases and morphologies were able to determine a possible temperature region” (233). 96 The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – The Third Tower, BBC, July 6, 2008 (available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250# and http://www.911blogger.com/node/16541); the statement by Barnett is at 48:00. I am indebted to Chris Sarns for this discovery as well as the one in the previous note. Barnett during this interview, incidentally, speculated that the steel had “cooked” in the underground fire. This explanation was, however, deceptive at best, for three reasons: First, the effects being discussed by Barnett could have been caused only by something producing much higher temperatures than ordinary hydrocarbon fires could have produced – fires fueled, for example, by nanothermite or some other energetic nanocomposites, as explained below in Section 8. The second and third reasons also involve facts discussed in that section: Ordinary hydrocarbon fires would not have been able to keep burning underground without oxygen; and they would, in any case, have been extinguished by the water and chemical suppressant that were pumped into the rubble. 97 “NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse.” 98
RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature,” Expert
Report, May 2004 (http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMD 99
RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature Study: Composition
and Morphology,” December 2003 (http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMD 100 Ibid., 17. 101 See “Comments on WTC Signature Study and Peer Review from Greg Meeker, Paul Lioy and Mort Lippmann, November 3, 2005” (http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/pdfs/SubGroupComments_110305.pdf). I am indebted to Kevin Ryan for this information. 102 WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web: Iron (http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html). 103 Heather A. Lowers and Gregory P. Meeker, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust,” 2005 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/508OF05-1165.html). 104 Steven E. Jones et al., "Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction," Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008 (http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf): 4. 105 Eric Lipton and Andrew C. Revkin, “The Firefighters: With Water and Sweat, Fighting the Most Stubborn Fire,” New York Times, November 19, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/19/nyregion/19FIRE.html); Jonathan Beard, “Ground Zero's Fires Still Burning,” New Scientist, December 3, 2001 (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634). 106 Trudy Walsh, “Handheld APP Eased Recovery Tasks,” Government Computer News, 21/27a: September 11, 2002 ( |
A senior Palestinian
leader in Israeli detention says negotiations with Israel
have reached a gridlock and that further talks will harm
Palestinian national interests. "I hereby say
clearly that neither direct nor indirect negotiations are
feasible because there is no partner on the Israeli side,"
Marwan Barghouti stated on Wednesday, Ma'an news agency
reported. "Israel has no leaders like Charles de
Gaulle or Frederik de Klerk, but instead there are
extremist leaders who are adherent to a mentality of
occupation, settlements, and racism,” he told his
lawyer Elias Sabbagh at the Hadarim detention center. The
prominent Fatah leader called on rival Palestinian
factions to reach a unity deal and reactivate the popular
resistance movement in cooperation with international
solidarity movements as a viable alternative to "fruitless
negotiations." 
.
