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August 28th, 2007 by Cliff Lyon Cliff LyonCliff Lyon

Private - To My Friend Rich Warnick

Spare Me The ‘Ravers’, But Even I Question The ‘Truth’ About 9/11
Published on Saturday, August 25, 2007 by The Independent/UK

by Robert Fisk

Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience - just one - whom I call the “raver”.

Soooo?

His - or her - question goes like this. Why, if you believe you’re a free journalist, don’t you report what you really know about 9/11?

Not my job.

Usually, I have tried to tell the “truth”; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument - a clincher, in my view - is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything - militarily, politically diplomatically - it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?

Because…

But - here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It’s not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93’s debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I’m not talking about the crazed “research” of David Icke’s Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster - which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

Still with me Rich?

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers - whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C - would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower - the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) - which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering - very definitely not in the “raver” bracket - are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be “fraudulent or deceptive”.

Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard “explosions” in the towers - which could well have been the beams cracking - are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let’s claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA’s list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were - and still are - very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.

But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose “Islamic” advice to his gruesome comrades - released by the CIA - mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family - which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder - let alone expect the text of the “Fajr” prayer to be included in Atta’s letter.

Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious “war on terror” which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush’s happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that “we’re an empire now - we create our own reality”. True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.

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This entry was posted Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 7:50 am and is filed under 9/11. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

14 Responses to “Private - To My Friend Rich Warnick”

  1. Richard Warnick Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    Robert Fisk ought to check his information, it’s all been debunked already. Fisk should know better than to speculate about a US government conspiracy, he’s interviewed Osama bin Laden and in 2001 definitely concluded that the 9/11 attacks were planned by Al Qaeda. And he hasn’t really changed his mind, either, if you put back in what Cliff took out (here in bold):

    My final argument - a clincher, in my view - is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything - militarily, politically diplomatically - it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?

    Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim - as the Americans did two days ago - that al-Qa’ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11.

  2. Ryan Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 10:52 am

    Where’s the debunking information. Can you give me sources? I’m still sitting on the fence on this issue.

  3. Richard Warnick Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 11:24 am

    One of the quickest, easiest, most objective sources for 9/11 conspiracy theory debunking is the Popular Mechanics site. It’s not comprehensive (there are many, many theories generated by the conspiracy buffs) but it will get you started. You can also take a look at Debunk 9/11 Myths. There is an excellent set of articles in Wikipedia.

  4. Frank Staheli Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    What about the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City? Some say that was an inside job.

  5. Larry Bergan Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    Richard:

    How do people as stupid as these carry off things as big as 911? They pay people lots and lots of money to do it for them and if the media wasn’t getting lots and lots of that money, they would have reported on these demolitions instead of ignoring them or leaving it to Popular Mechanics. Popular Mechanics left out a plethora of information in a 2 hour special you touted last week. They don’t want to be shut down any more then Newsweek or any of the other lying media in this former republic.

    Try to imagine Bush giving a speech written by his dominant lower brain. It just doesn’t happen. It’s all about the money. Shame on smart people for taking that money to do those dirty deeds. At least they didn’t have to do them “dirt cheap.”

  6. Larry Bergan Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

    Wouldn’t it be Lee Hamiltion’s job to read all the well researched data he could find when trying to uncover the worst crime ever committed on American soil.

  7. Larry Bergan Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Frank:

    There is some new, disturbing information that Murrah was an inside job, but if you’re trying to blame Clinton, just remember that Democrats, even when they’re the president don’t get much access to the war mongers plans. Just ask Jack Kennedy and Jimmy Carter who’s authority was constantly usurped by the military industrial complex.

  8. Richard Warnick Says:
    August 28th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

    You know, if you study history you will find very, very few examples of the rich and powerful upsetting the status quo. It happens, but more revolutions are started from below than from above.

  9. Cliff Lyon Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 7:10 am

    Rich,

    You know, if you really, really study history, you will find many well-supported thesis’s in direct conflict of one another about how any number of influences have upset the “status quo” all shaped by the perspective of the historian. Thats why history is not a science.

    That you would conclude “And he hasn’t really changed his mind, either” requires ignoring the rest of the article.

    I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers - whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C - would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower - the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) - which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering - very definitely not in the “raver” bracket - are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be “fraudulent or deceptive”.

    Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard “explosions” in the towers - which could well have been the beams cracking - are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let’s claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA’s list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were - and still are - very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.

    Richard, you betray any semblance of objectivity when you take a position, and then try to defend it.

    All we are saying is that there are many unanswered questions that taken together suggest the administration’s story is less tenable than the false flag one.

    I think Ryan has called you to task, as other have of you so many times, when he says, “Where’s the debunking information. Can you give me sources? I’m still sitting on the fence on this issue.”

    Are you suggesting the melting point of steel changed for the few seconds it took for the beams to split in an unprecedented and coordinated fashion?

    Richard, if you must continue to deny the science, then you should be man enough to simply say; “while I am not a scientist, I am smarter than the ones who question NIST.”

  10. Richard Warnick Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    Cliff, what is the “administration’s story” of 9/11? Other than Condi Rice’s transparently false testimony that “no one could have imagined” that Al Qaeda would use hijacked planes as weapons. As you know, Rice was the only representative of the Bush administration to formally testify about 9/11 in public. I think it is a mistake to regard the 9/11 commission’s report as an official story.

    Are you suggesting the melting point of steel changed for the few seconds it took for the beams to split in an unprecedented and coordinated fashion?

    To save you the trouble of following the link, I’m pasting in the whole debunk for you, from Popular Mechanics:

    “Melted” Steel

    Claim: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. “The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”

    FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks.”

    “Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. “And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

    But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

    “The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down.”

    As I have previously pointed out on One Utah, an Oakland, California overpass collapsed last April due to steel beams weakened by a gasoline tanker fire.

  11. Ryan Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am

    Cliff, I’m patient to get my answers. Afterall, its been almost 6 years. This is the current generation’s JFK assassination. If I get anything resembling the truth before I die, I’ll be surprised.

    Thanks for the information Richard. I’ll probably always be on the fence in regards to this issue as the administration has obviously tried to cover up important facts. Why, I don’t know. That mystery is enough to place their credibility in the shitter, separate from all the other aspects of this administration that would do so.

    However, through peer-reviewed scientific study and open discourse with the currently known facts, I believe we can eliminate some of the more obvious crazy talk about what really happened. Get an idea of the scope of the possible.

  12. Richard Warnick Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 10:49 am

    Ryan, I think it’s logical to suppose that the Bush administration wants to cover up their own incompetence in not defending the USA from the worst terrorist attack in history. I don’t find that mysterious at all. These attempts at secrecy seem to have encouraged conspiracy theories to propagate. The conspiracy theories in turn tend to thwart serious discussion of the events of 9/11, and Bush is probably happy about that.

  13. Cliff Lyon Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm

    Sorry Rich, Sorry you bothered. The PM stuff is all pretty unscientific crap according the scientists at scholars.

    When WE did the work, we looked at the PM stuff (its pretty much the only thing out there) WANTING for it to be solid, as you do. But according to scientists, it is not.

    So rather than walk you through why not, I will repeat. DO THE WORK.

  14. fayrouz Says:
    November 17th, 2007 at 2:48 am

    fayrouz…

    Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts !…

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