Smedley Butler didn't like for the Marine Corps to be abused, and neither do I. Indeed, I can't think of a more serious issue than whether or not Uncle Sam is taking advantage of us to benefit the profit margins of American corporations, the very charge alleged in his book, War is a Racket. Today those corporations even include Halliburton, whose former CEO is well-positioned to benefit it from the inside as Vice President of the United States. Is there any reason to think that history is repeating itself and the Corps is being abused once again?
The fuse that ignited the conflagrations in Iraq and in Afghanistan was 9/11, which, according to the official account presented in The 9/11 Commission Report, was carried out by 19 Islamic fundamentalists, who hijacked four commercial airliners and outfoxed the most sophisticated air defense system in the world in order to commit these atrocities under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. If you don't want to believe in a conspiracy theory, you had better reject the official account, because it only takes two persons acting in concert to commit an illegal act to qualify as a “conspiracy”. This is one.
After resigning my commission as Captain, USMC, in 1966, I earned a Ph.D. in the history and the philosophy of science. I would spend 35 years teaching courses in logic critical thinking, and scientific reasoning. Along the way, I would become deeply involved in research on the assassination of JFK and publish three collections of studies by experts on that case. Then, in 2005, I would found a non-partisan society of students, experts, and scholars devoted to exposing falsehoods and revealing truths about 9/11, which is known as Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Our membership includes aeronautical engineers, structural engineers, mechanical engineers, pilots, physicists, and even some philosophers and theologians committed to the truth.
Anyone who doubts the breadth and depth of interest in 9/11 from many professionals should visit http://patriotsquestion911.com, where you can find bio sketches and statements from 110+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials, 200+ Engineers and Architects, 50+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals, 150+ Professors, 180+ Survivors and Family Members, and 90+ Entertainment and Media Professionals. Anyone who tells you that the 9/11 truth movement is a “lunatic fringe” does not know what they are talking about. Check it out for yourself!
If the official account of the events of 9/11 were true, of course, then it should be very difficult or even impossible to disprove it. That would require using biased or manufactured evidence, for example, to create a false impression. It would be very odd if much or most of what we have been told about 9/11 were false. It may come as some surprise, therefore, to learn that members of Scholars, building upon prior research by earlier students of 9/11, have established more than a dozen disproofs of the official government account, the truth of any one of which is enough to show that the government's account -- in one or another of its multiple guises -- cannot possibly be correct. Consider the following points:
o The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, has observed), the planes that hit were very similar to those they were designed to withstand, and they continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects.
o The melting point of steel at 2,800F is about 1,000F higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800F under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down.
o Underwriters Laboratory certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000F for three or four hours before it would even significantly weaken, where these fires burned too low and too briefly at an average temperature of less than 500F -- about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North -- to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt.
o If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition that was observed.
o William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the subbasements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a 50-ton hydraulic press and ripping the skin off a fellow worker, a report corroborated by the testimony of more than two dozen other custodians.
o Willie reported that the explosion occurred prior to the airplane's impact, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross in their "Seismic Proof: 9/11 was an Inside Job", which demonstrates that these explosions actually took place as much as 14 and 17 seconds prior to the airplanes impacts.
o Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of "pancake collapse", which normally only occurs with concrete structures of "lift slab" construction and could not occur in "redundant" welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as Charles Pegelow, a structural engineer, has pointed out to me.
o The destruction of the Twin Towers in approximately 10 seconds apiece is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds, which, as Judy Wood, a former professor of mechanical engineering, has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.
o The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.
o WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 PM/ET after owner Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to "pull it", displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions, including a complete, abrupt, and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the government it is not even mentioned in The 9/11 Commission Report.
o The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!
for your continued defense of our country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Your research into 9/11 and the way you are able to present the facts made it so I woke up to the truth, and I'm sure you have done it for thousands, if not millions of others.
I wonder if the Marines you write to (serving now) have the freedom to access this website. I hope so. As you well know, supporting our troops is a lot more than putting a yellow magnet on your car, waving a flag and singing the star spangled banner really pretty.
Thank you for your continued service to our republic.
by
sherry clark (29 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 72 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 11:02:23 AM
You gotta pay us or "something bad" might happen... nudge, nudge.
It has been a favorite shakedown method of thugs and tough guys and even schoolyard bullies since ancient times. Now it has become the preferred corporate strategy for shaking down the US taxpayer. They are using it to LOOT the US Treasury.
Corporations get lucrative NO-BID contracts with cost overrun guarantees. There is a revolving door policy beteween the Pentagon and the "defense" industries. The CIA connections to Wall Street!? Bechtel (for example) has been known as "the CIA's engineering firm" since at least the 1970s (when I worked in engineering).
When people criticize Bush for not ending the war or even listening to reason and facts... they are overlooking the legion of pro-war corporate CEOs standing behind Bush propping him up & shouting in his ears. And when Bush talks about protecting "our way of life" - he's talking about corporate a CEO's way of life... i.e. Profits from war, weapons and unending conflict. Blood money. Blood money. Blood money.
In addition to Marines needing to understand the subtrefuge, we need to find a way to educate the police of America that they are some of the nation's most oppressed and abused citizens: brainwashed, kept in the dark, used and disrespected.
*By-the-way, Mr Fetzer. THAT is a really well-constructed and soundly argued piece of writing! I plan to share the url with my whole email list.
Thank you for your excellent work!
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 296 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 12:04:36 PM
Great article, and I fully agree. Many things don't add up, and the first clue was on Sept 11th when the Media claimed they knew who did it before the buildings even collapsed. I strongly believe that Israel was behind it, using it to bring us into a terrorists campaign with the intention of the War in Iraq. I also believe that Bush and the CIA are operatives working for Israel.
Do you Remember THIS???? ? Thought you might be interested in this forgotten bit of information........
It was 1987! At a lecture the other day they were playing an old news video of Lt. Col. Oliver North testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings during the Reagan Administration.
There was Ollie in front of God and country getting the third degree, but what he said was stunning!
He was being drilled by a senator; "Did you not recently spend close to $60,000 for a home security system?"
Ollie replied, "Yes, I did, Sir."
The senator continued, trying to get a laugh out of the audience, "Isn't that just a little excessive?"
"No, sir," continued Ollie.
"No? And why not?" the senator asked.
"Because the lives of my family and I were threatened, sir."
"Threatened? By whom?" the senator questioned.
"By a terrorist, sir" Ollie answered.
"Terrorist? What terrorist could possibly scare you that much?"
"His name is Osama bin Laden, sir" Ollie replied.
At this point the senator tried to repeat the name, but couldn't pronounce it, which most people back then probably couldn't. A couple of people laughed at the attempt. Then the senator continued. Why are you so afraid of this man?" the senator asked
"Because, sir, he is the most evil person alive that I know of", Ollie answered.
"And what do you recommend we do about him?" asked the senator.
"Well, sir, if it was up to me, I would recommend that an assassin team be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."
The senator disagreed with this, and that was all that was shown of the clip.
By the way, that senator was Al Gore!
Also:
Terrorist pilot Mohammad Atta blew up a bus in Israel in 1986. The Israelis captured, tried and imprisoned him. As part of the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians in 1993, Israel had to agree to release so-called "political prisoners."
However, the Israelis would not release any with blood on their hands, The American President at the time, Bill Clinton, and his Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, "insisted" that all prisoners be released.
Thus Mohammad Atta was freed and eventually thanked the US by flying an airplane into Tower One of the World Trade Center . This was reported by many of the American TV networks at the time that the terrorists were first identified. It was censored in the US from all later reports.
I think the American public should be made aware of these facts . .
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 6:48:15 PM
FROM THE DESK OF LTCOL OLIVER L. NORTH (USMC) RET.
NOVEMBER 28, 2001
OVER THE COURSE OF THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS, I HAVE RECEIVED SEVERAL THOUSAND E-MAILS FROM EVERY STATE IN THE U.S. AND 13 FOREIGN COUNTRIES IN WHICH THE ORIGINATOR PURPORTS TO HAVE RECENTLY VIEWED A VIDEOTAPE OF MY SWORN TESTIMONY BEFORE A CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE IN 1987.
A COPY OF ONE OF THOSE E-MAILS IS ATTACHED BELOW. AS YOU WILL NOTE, THE ORIGINATOR ATTRIBUTES TO ME CERTAIN STATEMENTS REGARDING USAMA BIN LADEN AND OTHER MATTERS THAT ARE SIMPLY INACCURATE. THOUGH I WOULD LIKE TO CLAIM THE GIFT OF PROPHESY, I DON'T HAVE IT.
I DON'T KNOW WHO SAW WHAT VIDEO "AT UNC." (OR ANYWHERE ELSE) BUT, FOR THE RECORD, HERE'S WHAT I DO KNOW:
1. IT WAS THE COMMITTEE COUNSEL, JOHN NIELDS, NOT A SENATOR WHO WAS DOING THE QUESTIONING.
2. THE SECURITY SYSTEM, INSTALLED AT MY HOME, JUST BEFORE I MADE A VERY SECRET TRIP TO TEHRAN, COST, ACCORDING TO THE COMMITTEE, $16K, NOT $60K.
3. THE TERRORIST WHO THREATENED TO KILL ME IN 1986, JUST BEFORE THAT SECRET TRIP TO TEHRAN, WAS NOT USAMA BIN LADEN, IT WAS ABU NIDAL (WHO WORKS FOR THE LIBYANS -- NOT THE TALIBAN AND NOT IN AFGHANISTAN).
4. I NEVER SAID I WAS AFRAID OF ANYBODY. I DID SAY THAT I WOULD BE GLAD TO MEET ABU NIDAL ON EQUAL TERMS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD BUT THAT I WAS UNWILLING TO HAVE HIM OR HIS OPERATIVES MEET MY WIFE AND CHILDREN ON HIS TERMS.
5. I DID SAY THAT THE TERRORISTS INTERCEPTED BY THE FBI ON THE WAY TO MY HOUSE IN FEB. 87 TO KILL MY WIFE, CHILDREN AND ME WERE LIBYANS, DISPATCHED FROM THE PEOPLE'S COMMITTEE FOR LIBYAN STUDENTS IN MCLEAN, VIRGINIA.
6. AND I DID SAY THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAD MOVED MY FAMILY OUT OF OUR HOME TO A MILITARY BASE (CAMP LEJEUNE, NC) UNTIL THEY COULD DISPATCH MORE THAN 30 AGENTS TO PROTECT MY FAMILY FROM THOSE TERRORISTS (BECAUSE A LIBERAL FEDERAL JUDGE HAD ALLOWED THE LYBIAN ASSASSINS TO POST BOND AND THEY FLED).
7. AND, FYI: THOSE FEDERAL AGENTS REMAINED AT OUR HOME UNTIL I RETIRED FROM THE MARINES AND WAS NO LONGER A "GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL." BY THEN, THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT HAD SPENT MORE THAN $2M PROTECTING THE NORTH FAMILY. THE TERRORISTS SENT TO KILL US WERE NEVER RE-APPREHENDED.
SEMPER FIDELIS, OLIVER L. NORTH
by
Dom Jermano (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 40 diaries, 934 comments)
on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 7:37:44 PM
Jim Fetzer says some things that are true. His overall conclusion about an "inside job" is true enough. What he uses to prove it often tends to be bogus, weak and unsupported "facts" however.
His continual promotion of "Dr." Judy Wood as a serious source reveals his erroneous logic. Wood is now famous for promoting the "space beams" theory that some unknown, unseen, unbelievable platform "in outer space" shot a massive beam at the World Trade Center buildings and cut them into pieces from above.
Anyone repeating these "theories" discredits him/herself, and thus keeps the media from taking the "truth movement" seriously. That is hard core disinformation, false propaganda.
Next, his near hysterical ranting about no 757 hitting the Pentagon is revealing. This is one incident eyewitnessed by over 100 people. There may have been some technical issues with the security videocameras using too slow of a frame rate to catch the impact, but the fact that a large airplane hit the building is undeniable. Perhaps it wasn't "Flight 77", or perhaps it was. The "evidence" Fetzer continues to promote, however, is flat wrong.
See Jim Hoffman's page on the "small hole" theory:
" no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757!"
An aluminum airplane colliding with a "hardened" stationary concrete building would disintegrate on impact. The wreckage, seen in numerous photos, does include airplane debris. As for "bodies" there is an autopsy report released, where the interesting anomaly ISN'T "no bodies" but that the alleged hijackers don't appear on the list.
As for the tail section, the still photos from the Pentagon security cam show the tail section flying up and over the top of the Pentagon once the fuel in the midsection/wings exploded. Is that a manufactured image? I don't know. But, it does account for the "44 foot" tail section if true.
As for the alleged flight recorder data, that's a data file that the government held onto for 5 years. Data is easily manipulated. For what ends? I don't know, but the flight data does not seem to match the eyewitness statements (where they all agree the plane hit the Pentagon, and no one saw a plane fly over it).
In summation, the Pentagon claims are weak, easily challenged, and not proveable.
These are detailed, involved arguments that take a lot of research to properly understand. Fetzer seems to understand them, but to not present them honestly.
The Larry Silverstein "pull it" quote is another example of a weak unsupportable and OUT OF CONTEXT claim, that those with a limited knowledge of 9/11 like to parrot endlessly. "Pull it" is 'pull the firefighting operation,' and not "pull the building." Someone involved in "pulling the building" wouldn't come right out and blurt it on national tv. Think, people.
Focusing on Silverstein's alleged order to NYFD to demolish the building (which NYFD doesn't do!) distracts from Silverstein's role as the person in control of the complex, and the ultimate head of security as strange developments unfolded, and multibillion dollar insurance policies were enacted, giving Silverstein the right to rebuild.
Fetzer's approach is to misguide skeptics, get them talking about the wrong anomalies, things that just appear wrong, rather than what actually IS wrong. It's a very subtle, very persistent, and complex form of disinformation.
That this post from John Doreami cannot with stand critical strutiny would be apparent to those familiar with the Pentagon. The evidence there includes:
(1) The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: there were no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, and they are practically indestructible.
(2) Of an estimate 84 videotapes of the crash, the three that have been released by the Pentagon do not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when one was shown on "The Factor". At 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been visible. There are indications of a much smaller plane, but not a Boeing 757.
(3) Indeed, the aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory--flying more than 500 mph barely above ground level--physically impossible, because of the accumulation of a massive pocket of compressed gas (air) beneath the fuselage; and if it had come it at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the official trajectory is impossible.
(4) Flying low enough to impact with the ground floor would have meant that the enormous engines were plowing the ground and creating massive furrows; but there are no massive furrows. The smooth, unblemished surface of the Pentagon lawn thus stands as a "smoking gun" proving the official trajectory cannot be sustained.
As if that were not enough, Pilots for 9/11Truth have obtained data from the black box the government alleges was found at the site and discovered that the approach, altitude, and rate of descent of the trajectory described thereby cananot be reconciled with the official account. The plane would have been 300 feet above the lampposts, for example, and 100 feet higher than the Pentagon. It would have flown over it, not impacted with it,which provides a basis for reconciling "eyewitness reports" with the physical evidence, as I explained in a press release from Scholars, "New study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon", archved at 911scholars.org.
Indeed, events that are physically impossible cannot have occurred, no matter how many might attest to those happenings. Since flying 500 mph just feet off the ground is aerodynamically impossible, it did not happen. Doreami appears to be oblivious to the importance of logic and evidence in evaluating 9/11 and, in my opinion, has an agenda other than truth.
Members of Scholars have contributed to a new book that analyses the government's official account, according to which 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four commercial airliners, outfoxed the most sophisticated air-defense system in the world, and committed these atrocities under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. Entitled, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), it includes photographs of the hit point before and after the upper floors collapsed, the crucial frame from the released videos, and views of the clear, smooth, and unblemished lawn.
As for Jim Hoffman, in spite of early research that made important contributions to understanding 9/11, including the destruction of the Twin Towers, he has since shown himself to be highly selective in by abusing logic and evidence in attacking Scholars and me personally. I have responded to these attacks in a pair of studies, "The Company You are Keeping: Comments on Hoffman and Green", and "What's the matter with Jim Hoffman? Abusing logic and language to attack Scholars for 9/11 Truth", which are also archived at 911scholars.org. I only wish that everyone involved in 9/11 research were dedicated to the truth, but these examples vividly illustrate that that, alas, is not the case.
by
Jim Fetzer (20 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 25 comments)
on Sunday, September 16, 2007 at 3:30:28 PM
My two replies to ikster have been disappeared. How very unamerican. Just because i explained how al queada and OBL are creations of the CIA and the whole "war on terror" is a complete fabrication??
Or was it calling jarhead north out for his crimes? I suspect the later because the creating of a crack epidemic is ongoing and still destroying lives and communities every day.
You guys are spineless pussies.
by
CamusRebel (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments)
on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 9:25:49 AM
My two replies to ikster have been disappeared. How very unamerican. Just because i explained how al queada and OBL are creations of the CIA and the whole "war on terror" is a complete fabrication??
Or was it calling jarhead north out for his crimes? I suspect the later because the creating of a crack epidemic is ongoing and still destroying lives and communities every day.
You guys are spineless pussies.
by
CamusRebel (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments)
on Saturday, September 15, 2007 at 9:26:10 AM
