OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Is 9/11 Research "Anti-Semitic"?

Mathematics and Truth

Because Michael insisted that he would not countenance studies he personally could not understand, I responded by offering a translation of Boldwynn’s argument in ordinary language that he might be better positioned to appreciate its significance. Here is the content of the post which I advanced, which I subsequently submitted to Bodlwynn for confirmation. I asked him if I had understood him properly, to which he replied, “yes your synthesis of my thesis is correct and very [well] put and clearly [expressed]”, in the vernacular of Skype “chats”. Here is what I wrote translating the argument for Michael’s benefit:

About Boldwynn's paper, his thesis is very clear: that it would have taken the equivalent of 48,000 tons of explosives to equal the kinetic energy (energy of motion) that the top 16 floors of the North Tower (taking the plane to have hit at the 94 floor and subtracting 94 from 110 = 16) would have had to exert upon the bottom 94 floors for their "collapse" to have initiated the collapse of those 94 floors. John Skilling, one of the senior engineers of the firm that built the towers, had observed that they could carry 20 times the expected "live load" (that is, physical steel and concrete structure plus office furniture and human beings) that they would ever be expected to carry.

Charles believes it was actually much greater than that, but even using Skilling's more conservative figures, he has calculated that the force required to collapse the lower 94 floors (using vector addition and subtraction of forces) which would have required the combined weight of some 588 16-floor equivalents (taking into account that those uppermost 16 floors were not as heavy as lower 16 floor units because the steel was not as thick) before collapse would ensue; or, using the thought of those 16 floors falling through space downward onto the lower 94, that that 16-floor unit would have to be elevated to a height of 120 miles above the remaining 94 for it to possess enough energy of motion to collapse the remaining 94; or, alternatively, that the energy required would be equivalent to that of 2.4 (Hiroshima sized) atomic bombs, which clearly was not available from the miniscule potential energy that was allegedly released by the fires weakening the steel and causing the top 16 floors to collapse on the bottom 94.

This is an impressive argument, which completely vitiates any claim to scientific significance of the claim that the Twin Towers “collapsed”. I also told Michael that I had featured Charles on my radio show on 10 June 2009, which should be posted at radiofetzer.blogspot.com in the next few days. I expressed regret that we are parting ways over this and (what I take to be) his excess of zeal as an anti-anti-Semite, because it functions as basis for excluding arguments from posting and discussion simply on the ground that they are “associated” with “anti-Semitism”, in the case of Boldwynn’s summary, or anti-Zionism, in the case of my “9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda” in its illustrated version by virtue of being posted on americafirstbooks.com. His unwavering attitudes have led me to create an alternative form at 911scholars.ning.com, where I have posted them and additional studies by Elias Davidsson, David Ray Griffin, and others serious students of 9/11.

The Search for Truth

Michael has expressed disappointment with me because, during a much earlier exchange on the forum for Scholars for 9/11 Truth, I had sided with him in objecting to discussions of Holocaust denial on that site. I was not thereby opposing research on Holocaust, however, but excluding it because it has nothing to do with 9/11 research. The possibility of Israeli complicity in the events of 9/11, however, is within the scope of 9/11 research, and yet Michael wants to exclude it, too. That's just a bit much. We have seen that “anti-Semitism” has been used as a club to thwart and discredit 9/11 research by many, but we have a moral and intellectual obligation to pursue it, nevertheless. If Israel was involved in 9/11, the American people are entitled to know.

I suggested that David Ray Griffin might be an appropriate arbiter of our differences. By sheerest coincidence, he called me a few days ago in relation to his appearance on my program. When I raised the question of whether anti-Zionism was equivalent to anti-Semitism, he told me that, before he became involved in 9/11 research, he had begun drafting an article on the nature of Zionism, where he said he had distinguished between some five different senses, ranging from a generalized desire for a Jewish homeland to the strongest and more commonly used sense of an amalgam of belief in Jewish superiority with an entitlement to the lands of Palestine. He indicated to me that Zionism has a political dimension that makes it distinct from Judaism and that "anti-Zionism" in that sense is distinct from and not a form of anti-Semitism. I dearly hope that he will complete the article that he had only begun.

No one should be afraid of research, even research on complex and controversial subjects, whether it is JFK, 9/11 or the Holocaust. I, like Michael, believe in the historical reality of the Holocaust. Neither he, nor I, nor anyone else, for that matter, should worry about someone wanting to do work in that domain because, if their research is sound they will inevitably be led to conclude that it was real! None of us, for example, would worry about someone doing research on whether or not the Earth is flat. Holocaust deniers are in a similar plight: if they do their homework properly—and, of course, if we are right in our belief in its reality—then they should arrive at the conclusion that it was real. And if we are wrong, we need to know that, too. Either way, there is no moral or intellectual warrant for censoring inquiry.

Research, even on complex and controversial subjects, should be open and unfettered, regardless. There is certainly no good reason to fear research on subjects like these, especially by resorting to the use of elementary fallacies—such as the ad hominem, the genetic fallacy, and guilt by association—that I spent 35-years teaching freshmen to avoid. I believe that every thoughtful person, especially professional scholars, will side with me about these things. Indeed, it would like to think that every American would recognize that politics should not be put ahead of the search for truth. We have seen too much of that from the last administration, which has been doing everything it can to place obstacles in the search for truth about 9/11, especially. It is the highest form of respect for those who died that day to know how and why they died, which, alas, we have certainly not yet been told by our own government.

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