There is special import in the fact of free-fall collapse (item one in the list immediately above), if only because everyone agrees that the towers fell at free-fall speed. This makes pancake collapse with one floor progressively falling onto the floor below an unattractive explanation. Progressive pancaking cannot happen at free-fall speed ("g" or 9.8 m/s2). Free-fall would require "pulling" or removing obstacles below before they could impede (slow) the acceleration of falling objects from above. Sequenced explosions, on the other hand, explain why the lower floors did not interfere with the progress of the falling objects above. The pancake theory fails this test.
If we put the murder of 2,749 innocent victims momentarily aside, the only unusual technical feature of the collapses of the twin towers was that the explosions began at the top, immediately followed by explosions from below. WTC-7, by contrast, was entirely conventional, imploding from bottom up.
It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely prove to be sound. Revised engineering and construction practices, for example, based on the belief that the twin towers collapsed through airplane damage and subsequent fires is premature, to say the least.
More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an "inside job" and a government attack on America would be compelling. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right, "though heaven should fall." Unfortunately, getting it right in today’s "security state" demands daring because explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.
June 9, 2005
Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX. He served as chief economist for the US Department of Labor during 2001–2, George W. Bush's first term.
Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com Legal definitions relevant to the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 (Black's Law Dictionary):
Accessory Before the Fact:
An accessory before the fact is someone who contributes to or aids in the commission of a crime before it occurs and is not present at the commission of the offense. Other terms that are frequently used to describe an accessory before the fact are abettor, someone who aids or abets in the commission of a crime before the fact, and an accomplice. An accessory before the fact can also be one who orders, counsels, encourages, or otherwise aids another to commit a felony. This definition can be found in the Model Penal Code, Subsection 2.06.
Almost every one of the 50 states of the United States makes no distinction between an accessory before the fact and in principal in the commission of a crime. The standard precedent is Com v. Leach, (455 Pa. 488, 317 A2d 293, 294).
An accessory during the fact is someone who stands by without interfering or giving such help as may be in his power to prevent the commission of the offense.
Accessory After the Fact:
A person who, knowing a felony to have been committed by another, receives, relieves, comforts, or assists the felon in order to enable him to escape from punishment, or the like. (Robinson v. State, 5 Md. App. 723, 249 A. 2d 504, 507, 18 USCA Section 3) See also harbor, obstructing justice. With few exceptions in this democracy, we are all accessories after the fact.
The guilty child always knows when he deserves to be punished, for he has been in contempt of the proscribed rules of conduct.
Accessory to the Fact: ("Accessory")
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