IDF
04-08-2006, 05:37
I'm absolutely sick of the dumb 9-11 conspiracy theories out there. I heard that a recent poll showed that nearly 1/3 of Americans believed that the US government was behind 9-11. I see this as a poll showing 1 out 3 Americans is so blinded by hate of the President that they jump to irrational conclusions. It's really sad.
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Now let's break this down. I've seen "Loose Change." I of course thought it was crap, but decided to see it anyways just to see what people were talking about. The film is of course riddled with flaws. I intend to of course debunk many of the claims made about a "huge neo-con conspiracy."
Before we examine the facts in the case, let me point out something. If there was a conspiracy, don't you think John Kerry and the Democrats would be running wild with the accusations? After all, there was a neo-con conspiracy as some nutjobs claim, then it would be perfectly legitamite for the Dems to run with that issue.
Now let's look at the facts. One of the most idiotic claims is that controlled demolitions brought down the twin towers. Before we look at the case of 9-11, it should be noted that controlled demolitions take months to set up. When one is being set up, there are miles of wire strewn throughout the building. There is no way that they could secretly place the charges and lay the wire without thousands of people who work at or visit the building noticing what is going on.
Now let's look at why the towers fell. It is true that the buildings were built to withstand a 707 impact. "Loose Change" claism that a B-52 struck the Empire State Building. That is utter BS and shows how little the kid who made the movie knows. Now, during WWII, a B-25 Mitchell struck the building. B-25s were tiny though. After all, they are the only bombers to ever be small enough to take off of a carrier. They also were prop driven and slow so that incident didn't cause too much damage to the structure.
The 767 ERs that struck the WTC had a more combustable fuel in them. They were much larger than a 707. SOme say the planes that struck the towers were military jets. If that was the case, what happened to the 2 767s and their passengers? You can't just hide 2 large wide bodied aircraft and all aboard them. I also should point out that before they announced what type of planes hit the towers, it was obvious that they were either 767 or 777s based on the video shots of them.
Now, the towers could survive an impact, but fires weren't considered in the equation when the designers claimed they could survive an impact. The steel at the WTC was coated in a spray on fire-proof coating. The problem was that the combined force of a 767 going 400 kts and an explosion of jet fuel was enough to blow the coating off of the steel exposing it to heat and fire. Now, the fires weren't strong enough melt steel, but it got the steel to temperatures where it loses half of it's strength and sags.
Now, had any other structure been hit in this way, it would've had a better chance of surviving the fire and impact. The WTC had a unique design. Now, the best analogy for WTC's support system would be to compare it to an exo-skeleton. The main load bearing supports were on the outside walls of the building (that is why the supports were so thick and the windows in the building were thin vs other skyscrapers.) The purpose of this design was to prevent beams in the middle of the floorspace. The designers wanted the floors to be open uninterupted office space (minus the elevator banks in the middle.) Now, there were some supports near the elevator banks too, but these were the only internal vertical support beams. Most other skyscrapers have what would be more like a skeleton, an internal support system holds up the building.
When the planes hit the WTC, they destroyed many of the external load bearing columns. THey also got to the internal ones near the elevators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Edna_Cintron_standing_in_WTC1.jpg
This picture shows you that the beams have been severed, the load is no longer equally distributed. The surviving beams now bear a much heavier load than they normally would have to. THis wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that these beams not only had a heavier load, but were at 50% of normal strength. It was the combination of these conditions that led to the collapse of the WTC.
Most structural engineers have confirmed this is what happened. I was in engineering during my Freshman year at Purdue. We did a case study on this and came to this conclusion. Of course Loose Change ignores all of these facts and cites one prof from Brigham Young. I add that the profs screaming conspiracy are in the minority. The vast majority of structural engineers have reached the above conclusion based on the facts.
Some people yell about what happened to WTC7. This can also be explained. ONce again, it couldn't be controlled demolitions for the reasons cited above, it couldn't be hidden in any way.
Popular MEchanics did a good job on this one. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=5&c=y
I also might want to add that there was thousands of gallons of diesel fuel in the building used for generators. The flaming debris that struck WTC7 likely ignited this fuel. THat would lead to a fire hot enough to eventually cause for the collapse of the building.
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The Pentagon seems to be a large source of contraversy. The current conspiracy claim is that it was a missile that struck the building. If this is the case, then what happened to the 757 that was Flight 77? What happened to its passengers. The claim they landed in Cleveland is idiotic, if that were the case, Barbara Olson and the rest of the passengers would still be alive.
People claim that the reason the plane isn't seen on the video is that it was a supersonic missile. The US lacks supersonic cruise missiles. The TLAMs we have fly at about the same speed as a commercial airliner so speed isn't the reason. The video they had was a frame every second IIRC (maybe half second, I forgot that detail). The lawn portion is about 50 feet wide. An aircraft at 400 kts travels at 586.66 feet per second. THat means the odds of the camera catching the plane were less than 50%. Had it taken picures 4 times a second of the timing had been a fraction of a second different, the plane likely would've been seen.
There are also numerous witnesses who saw the plane and the fact it clipped lightposts.
Conspiracy theorists say a plane should've done more damage. The fact is that the plane struck a renovated part of the building that had been heavily reinforced to protect from bombs and other threats. THis included kevlar in the walls and reinforcing the limestone walls. The plane only puched a 75 foot hole in the wall as the wings were sheared off as a result of impacting with such a hard surface. Remember, aircraft are made out of aluminum. The are actually quite fragile. As the saying goes, "In the ongoing battle between aluminum traveling at 400 knots and the ground traveling at 0, the ground is undefeated."
The fuselage did most of the puncture damage to the Pentagon. It didn't go alll the way through because of the building's design. It went out of the E ring's wall, through a courtyard to puncture D ring and then travel through, exit, enter C ring. Think about how much energy is lost going through that much hard material. THe C ring hole wasn't even caused by the fuselage. The fuelage is light aluminum. It was caused by the nose gears, one of the only pieces that is made of a much stronger material that could continue to travel through the walls.
Some people claim conspiracy based on the little amounts of debris. This can be explained easily. For one thing, the planes momentum would lead to most of the debris being in the Petagon. As for the wings, they would virtually disappear in the explosion that would result. Remember, little evidence of planes was found at the WTC site and we all know that 2 planes struck those buildings.
This type of scenario was written 7 years before 9-11 in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor. The only difference was that it was the Capital Building that was struck. Clancy of course used some experts to predict what would happen to the plane. They correctly predicted a plane would be completely destroyed by the impact leaving little traces that a plane was there.
--------------------
Now let's break this down. I've seen "Loose Change." I of course thought it was crap, but decided to see it anyways just to see what people were talking about. The film is of course riddled with flaws. I intend to of course debunk many of the claims made about a "huge neo-con conspiracy."
Before we examine the facts in the case, let me point out something. If there was a conspiracy, don't you think John Kerry and the Democrats would be running wild with the accusations? After all, there was a neo-con conspiracy as some nutjobs claim, then it would be perfectly legitamite for the Dems to run with that issue.
Now let's look at the facts. One of the most idiotic claims is that controlled demolitions brought down the twin towers. Before we look at the case of 9-11, it should be noted that controlled demolitions take months to set up. When one is being set up, there are miles of wire strewn throughout the building. There is no way that they could secretly place the charges and lay the wire without thousands of people who work at or visit the building noticing what is going on.
Now let's look at why the towers fell. It is true that the buildings were built to withstand a 707 impact. "Loose Change" claism that a B-52 struck the Empire State Building. That is utter BS and shows how little the kid who made the movie knows. Now, during WWII, a B-25 Mitchell struck the building. B-25s were tiny though. After all, they are the only bombers to ever be small enough to take off of a carrier. They also were prop driven and slow so that incident didn't cause too much damage to the structure.
The 767 ERs that struck the WTC had a more combustable fuel in them. They were much larger than a 707. SOme say the planes that struck the towers were military jets. If that was the case, what happened to the 2 767s and their passengers? You can't just hide 2 large wide bodied aircraft and all aboard them. I also should point out that before they announced what type of planes hit the towers, it was obvious that they were either 767 or 777s based on the video shots of them.
Now, the towers could survive an impact, but fires weren't considered in the equation when the designers claimed they could survive an impact. The steel at the WTC was coated in a spray on fire-proof coating. The problem was that the combined force of a 767 going 400 kts and an explosion of jet fuel was enough to blow the coating off of the steel exposing it to heat and fire. Now, the fires weren't strong enough melt steel, but it got the steel to temperatures where it loses half of it's strength and sags.
Now, had any other structure been hit in this way, it would've had a better chance of surviving the fire and impact. The WTC had a unique design. Now, the best analogy for WTC's support system would be to compare it to an exo-skeleton. The main load bearing supports were on the outside walls of the building (that is why the supports were so thick and the windows in the building were thin vs other skyscrapers.) The purpose of this design was to prevent beams in the middle of the floorspace. The designers wanted the floors to be open uninterupted office space (minus the elevator banks in the middle.) Now, there were some supports near the elevator banks too, but these were the only internal vertical support beams. Most other skyscrapers have what would be more like a skeleton, an internal support system holds up the building.
When the planes hit the WTC, they destroyed many of the external load bearing columns. THey also got to the internal ones near the elevators.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Edna_Cintron_standing_in_WTC1.jpg
This picture shows you that the beams have been severed, the load is no longer equally distributed. The surviving beams now bear a much heavier load than they normally would have to. THis wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that these beams not only had a heavier load, but were at 50% of normal strength. It was the combination of these conditions that led to the collapse of the WTC.
Most structural engineers have confirmed this is what happened. I was in engineering during my Freshman year at Purdue. We did a case study on this and came to this conclusion. Of course Loose Change ignores all of these facts and cites one prof from Brigham Young. I add that the profs screaming conspiracy are in the minority. The vast majority of structural engineers have reached the above conclusion based on the facts.
Some people yell about what happened to WTC7. This can also be explained. ONce again, it couldn't be controlled demolitions for the reasons cited above, it couldn't be hidden in any way.
Popular MEchanics did a good job on this one. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=5&c=y
I also might want to add that there was thousands of gallons of diesel fuel in the building used for generators. The flaming debris that struck WTC7 likely ignited this fuel. THat would lead to a fire hot enough to eventually cause for the collapse of the building.
----------------------------
The Pentagon seems to be a large source of contraversy. The current conspiracy claim is that it was a missile that struck the building. If this is the case, then what happened to the 757 that was Flight 77? What happened to its passengers. The claim they landed in Cleveland is idiotic, if that were the case, Barbara Olson and the rest of the passengers would still be alive.
People claim that the reason the plane isn't seen on the video is that it was a supersonic missile. The US lacks supersonic cruise missiles. The TLAMs we have fly at about the same speed as a commercial airliner so speed isn't the reason. The video they had was a frame every second IIRC (maybe half second, I forgot that detail). The lawn portion is about 50 feet wide. An aircraft at 400 kts travels at 586.66 feet per second. THat means the odds of the camera catching the plane were less than 50%. Had it taken picures 4 times a second of the timing had been a fraction of a second different, the plane likely would've been seen.
There are also numerous witnesses who saw the plane and the fact it clipped lightposts.
Conspiracy theorists say a plane should've done more damage. The fact is that the plane struck a renovated part of the building that had been heavily reinforced to protect from bombs and other threats. THis included kevlar in the walls and reinforcing the limestone walls. The plane only puched a 75 foot hole in the wall as the wings were sheared off as a result of impacting with such a hard surface. Remember, aircraft are made out of aluminum. The are actually quite fragile. As the saying goes, "In the ongoing battle between aluminum traveling at 400 knots and the ground traveling at 0, the ground is undefeated."
The fuselage did most of the puncture damage to the Pentagon. It didn't go alll the way through because of the building's design. It went out of the E ring's wall, through a courtyard to puncture D ring and then travel through, exit, enter C ring. Think about how much energy is lost going through that much hard material. THe C ring hole wasn't even caused by the fuselage. The fuelage is light aluminum. It was caused by the nose gears, one of the only pieces that is made of a much stronger material that could continue to travel through the walls.
Some people claim conspiracy based on the little amounts of debris. This can be explained easily. For one thing, the planes momentum would lead to most of the debris being in the Petagon. As for the wings, they would virtually disappear in the explosion that would result. Remember, little evidence of planes was found at the WTC site and we all know that 2 planes struck those buildings.
This type of scenario was written 7 years before 9-11 in Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor. The only difference was that it was the Capital Building that was struck. Clancy of course used some experts to predict what would happen to the plane. They correctly predicted a plane would be completely destroyed by the impact leaving little traces that a plane was there.