http://www.newsweek.com/saudi-arabia-911-cia-34469...
FBI Agent: The CIA Could Have Stopped 9/11 June 19, 2015
good article, although it suggests incompetence instead of intention worth reading anyway, it's got some important dots to connect for those more interested in Alec Station than the thermite hoax
Interesting article. Most of the story of Rossini and Miller had already been put out in Bamford's PBS special "The Spy Factory", but the confirmations are interesting.
Am I right to suspect that Rossini's and Clarke's theory that the Almihdhar-CIA connection was a recruitment effort was an attempt to explain away the fact of the connection, an explanation that has little evidence to support it? Almihdhar, you might recall, was an al Qaeda operative who spent a year living in a Sanaa (Yemen) al Qaeda communications hub that was monitored separately by the CIA and the NSA, and had audio bugs installed as well. And then he was allowed into the USA. Was Almihdhar perhaps a CIA asset before he went to Sanaa? That would thicken the plot.
Unfortunately Newsweek's credibility is somewhat suspect. They published some good journalism in the past--in particular an article called "The Shot Heard Round the World" which reported on suspicions that Cheney had ordered flight 93 shot down. http://www.newsweek.com/shot-heard-round-world-113...
In 2010 Sidney Harman acquired Newsweek for $1. He was the husband of Congresswoman Jane Harman, wh had introduced the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. In hearings on this bill, the Wiesenthal Center was permitted to testify with a powerpoint in which www.AE911truth.org was lumped together with jihadist websites as internet promotion of terrorism. (This very obvious provocation raises reasonable suspicions that it was designed to incite AE911truth.org to declare war on the Wiesenthal Center and Larry Silverstein. The very intelligent Jeremy Rothe-Kushel went to negotiate with the Wiesenthal Center and the danger was averted.)
I saw Newsweek regularly under the Harman reign, and it got really weird. It was still printed on glossy paper, but it looked more like a Jehovah's Witnesses pamphlet than a news magazine. There were a lot of strange articles.
For almost 2 years, Newsweek has been owned by an outfit called IBT Media. I know nothing about them.
As to the "thermite hoax" I would suggest that you distinguish between thermite and nanothermite. Even if it were proven that the advocates of nanothermite were totally confirmation-biased (and I've never stuck my personal neck out for the nanothermite case) the putative defeat of the current nanothermite case would not defeat the thermite case.
As to the "thermite hoax" I would suggest that you distinguish between thermite and nanothermite. Even if it were proven that the advocates of nanothermite were totally confirmation-biased (and I've never stuck my personal neck out for the nanothermite case) the putative defeat of the current nanothermite case would not defeat the thermite case.
reply: no, there's no need to make such distinctions.
The firefighters watched the towers buckle before they collapsed, which is not controlled demolition.
The thermite claim was just like "no plane hit Pentagon." Time to move on.
118 first responders reported sounds and flashes of light consistent with explosions.
FDNY Chief Albert Turi opined that there were secondary devices in the towers. Chief Ray Downey, one of the foremost collapse experts in the USA, opined that there must have been bombs in the upper part of the WTC2 because the collapse was "too even".
Brian,
I've never found claims of explosions and flashes to have been honestly considered by CD advocates. The first time I saw that video with firemen talking about the explosions I rolled my eyes and turned it off. There are many electrical and hydraulic features of large building that could explode. Also, trapped fires can cause explosions. Demolition squibs fire in sequence and the explosions heard weren't coordinated but happening at random intervals. In fact, it seem pretty clear that the explosions heard were not related in any way to CD. I consider this flagrant misinformation that has been spread by people too credulous and overflowing with confirmation bias.
I've heard short circuits of seven thousand volts, which are quite loud and can be heard some distance away.
An acre sized floor falling onto another floor would also sound like an explosion.
One demolition site (actual demolition company, not armchair theorists) pointed out a long time ago the controlled demolition claim would have required the initiation to have happened at the exact locations of the plane impacts, which in turn would have required the electronics and detonators to have survived the impacts and infernos. To say that is not believable is an understatement.
I wasn't surprised that virtually the entire American Institute of Architects rejected the appeal from AE9/11 "truth." Reassuring, actually.
The only controlled demolition was of the 9/11 half truth movement.
Professor Steven Jones of Brigham Young University said he found thermite traces. Therefore CD is proven forever.
How much fucking time, energy, and brainpower have many well-meaning people wasted trying to comprehend a lecture about physics and structural engineering, like that was going to somehow finally clinch the deal. What you have is mass psychosis and many people floating in the limbo of unsureness who really, really want to believe that they know for sure.
Looking at the Zapruder film recently, I had to acknowledge that his head does seem to go forward for a split second first, that the lone-nutters will always have arguments like the "spontaneous muscular spasm," and that people who want to believe that a few seconds of 18 fps 8mm film proves conspiracy are lazy and irresponsible. Yes, it does look to me like he was shot from the front, and I have a rudimentary understanding of the physics and ballistics, but that just doesn't cut it.
So count me out of the next 5 hour Richard Gage lecture.
And why do so many threads seem to devolve into this debate. If I wasn't somewhat familiar with all the people posting here, I might suggest we had trolls trying to waste our time.
With all due respect, Brian is totally committed to CD and hasn't responded in any way at all to any of my arguments and Mark is completely easy to troll and doesn't do much discussion but prefers to lecture from his codex. There's little if any actual conversation happening here on the topic of CD. It's tiresome and leads nowhere.
tmov, I'm not committed to CD. I regard it as an hypothesis that deserves investigation, that has evidence to support it, and that has not been countered in any substantive way but only by refusal to address the points.
My own interest in the subject comes from youthful studies in architecture, experience in construction, experience working in tall office buildings in general and one of the tallest in the world in particular, and exposure to the laws of thermodynamics in my college studies of chemistry.
I fully admit that the CD hypothesis may be all wet--that just as speculations about the Pentagon have been fueled by the government's refusal to release the videos, the CD hypothesis may have been deliberately facilitated by the promulgation of government reports that are demonstrably incomplete, unscientific, dishonest, and unbelievable.
I still maintain that the quest for complete and honest investigations of Ground Zero is an honorable enterprise, and that even if the CD hypothesists are ultimately proven wrong, the demand for a true and open investigation was appropriate.
I am not committed to CD. I am committed to truth and to rationality. I endorse Albert Ellis's claim that human unhappiness is caused by irrational ideas.
Job One is to inform the people that only 27 of the 9/11 widows' 300 questions got actual answers. (Another 73 got responses that were not answers.)
tmov, I have not responded to your points because I am reluctant to engage in a debate that tmod regards as time-wasting and trolling. My advocacy of rationality in forums discussing CIT, Barrett, and Rodriguez has gotten me banned many times. I don't want to get banned here because you guys seem to be some of the brightest 9/11 activists around, I hate to see you indulge in cynicism and defeatism, and I'd like to do what I can to encourage you to resume your efforts.
Cool. Good post. Sorry if I'm cynical. You and Mark keep getting into it and it reminded me of the bad old days on 911Blogger. I don't think there's any likelihood that we are going to block you, specifically as you are one of the only 4 regular posters. I know you have your head screwed on straight. But it would good to see that you are hip to the extent to which CD has been used to undermine this movement.
Yes, I'd like to point out that I really appreciate mark and BrianG being part of our tiny forum here. Let's not forget that we have a lot in common and we all seem to have a persistent need to share our thoughts. It's good to know that someone is listening.
I have heard a lot of people trying to convince their friends of an inside job by regurgitating some factoid they learned from a CD lecture or video: the melting point of steel, thermite, etc. I have no doubt that Brian's points are more informed and discerning than that, but I just think that CD is not the path to any sort of truth or justice. Maybe it's useful sometimes in inspiring interest and shock, but only if that leads to broader understanding and true critical thinking.
As seasoned activists I don't think it's a productive thing to be arguing those technical details here.
Brian, thanks for your encouragement. I agree that it's shame how cynical we have become about the movement. I also think it's a rational attitude to arrive at. Currently, I am a lot more interested in the JFK case than 9/11. The JFK movement has a much lower percentage of disinformation agents, there are respectable organizations involved, and it's such old news that most angry young men don't want to be involved in it.
I'm not sure that the JFK research community has a lower percentage of disinfo agents. Maybe. It's hard to measure.
I've been to Dallas for the anniversary twice, the second time was for the 50th. There were excellent people there but it was also a ten ring circus, too. I'm glad that John Judge had his biggest conference ever (I attended).
Perhaps the most important parallel between JFK and 9/11 is the perpetrators would not have dared if they didn't know they'd probably get away with it.
The discrediting disinfo re: JFK took some time to get underway. It was a newer concept plus the internet did not yet exist.
My favorite effort to sift through the good evidence and discard the junk re: JFK is Jim DiEugenio's site at www.ctka.net There is a lot of microanalysis there but also first rate examination of the Big Picture.
www.JFKMOON.org Kennedy's 1963 plan to convert the Moon race to global cooperation
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