Peak Oil and 911

bigjim · Post by **bigjim** » 22 Feb 2006, 00:19

I'm getting a little worried now about all this conspiracy nonsense. The official line on 9/11 is that it was al-Qaeda behind it. There's lots of conspiracy theorists who will tell you otherwise. But I don't know who to believe they're all just words printed on a piece of paper to me.

It's the same with everything- yes, EVERYTHING- else. Unless you witnessed an event first hand you're at the mercy of someone else writing it down. You have no reason to believe it but you do anyway.

It's the same with PO- I have no reason to believe Colin Campbell, M King Hubbert or even, say, Tess or MacG with what they're writing. But I lap it up anyway.

Am I right to be concerned about all this? Am I just babbling?

dr_doom · Post by **dr_doom** » 22 Feb 2006, 00:39

bigjim wrote:I'm getting a little worried now about all this conspiracy nonsense. The official line on 9/11 is that it was al-Qaeda behind it. There's lots of conspiracy theorists who will tell you otherwise. But I don't know who to believe they're all just words printed on a piece of paper to me.

It's the same with everything- yes, EVERYTHING- else. Unless you witnessed an event first hand you're at the mercy of someone else writing it down. You have no reason to believe it but you do anyway.

It's the same with PO- I have no reason to believe Colin Campbell, M King Hubbert or even, say, Tess or MacG with what they're writing. But I lap it up anyway.

Am I right to be concerned about all this? Am I just babbling?

Yes you are right to be concerned.

We are at a watershed moment in history.

The United States is on the brink of economic collapse and currency devaluation.

End of suburbia which is readily promoted on this forum as truth was originallly intended to be an expose of 9 11 conspiracy theories.
It was only when the producers realised that 9 11 was a symptom of a larger issue that they decided to change the subject
(listen to the directors' commentaries).

9 11 was an inside job! History *has* repeated itself.
Exactly the same as when Hitler burned his own
Reichstag Building and blamed the Jews.

Personally I'm quite concerned about what might happen in the next 12 months.

bigjim · Post by **bigjim** » 22 Feb 2006, 17:37

I did enjoy that 911 conspiracy video on Google videos. I'm afraid I'm now a 911 conspiracy theorist

grinu · Post by **grinu** » 22 Feb 2006, 18:31

I am very definitely sceptical of the official story. I need to do a bit more digging before I commit myself to an opinion on it though.

fishertrop · Post by **fishertrop** » 26 Feb 2006, 00:04

An Inside Job
Electric Politics
February 25, 2006

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast ... e_job.html

I must admit it's difficult for me, as a former bureaucrat, to imagine that people within the US government could pull off a successful conspiracy. On the other hand I cannot believe, much as I might like to, the standard account of 9/11. Perhaps the largest part of the problem in arguing for a conspiracy theory is that it takes a theory to beat a theory: here, a holistic account?who really did it? why did they do it? what's happened to all the inconvenient details, such as passengers who had to be gotten rid of?, etc.?it's insufficient to offer merely a set of observations that, due to well-understood scientific principles, the standard story cannot possibly be true.

caspian · Post by **caspian** » 26 Feb 2006, 11:50

lukasz wrote:2. Slightly simpler one. Why is there no a single whistle blower.

For me, this is the biggest obstacle to accepting most consipracy theories, because it assumes that there's a large number of people in on the conspiracy, none of whom will ever breathe a word of what they know. It's just too incredible to believe that a cabal of people in Government could pull off such a stunt without something leaking out that implicates them. Look at Watergate - and that was a fairly trivial conspiracy by comparison with 9/11.

I'm not saying that the US Govt wouldn't have done it if they thought they could get away with it. George W Bush and his acolytes seem to lack any kind of real morality, and they certainly had much to gain from a major terrorist atrocity at that time.

As for the physical evidence, it seems rather weak. I watched the beginning of that Google Video posted here earlier, but I couldn't see anything that screamed "controlled demolition". The collapse of the towers issue was dealt with quite convincingly by Horizon in 2002.

dr_doom · Post by **dr_doom** » 26 Feb 2006, 12:40

caspian wrote:
lukasz wrote:2. Slightly simpler one. Why is there no a single whistle blower.
For me, this is the biggest obstacle to accepting most consipracy theories, because it assumes that there's a large number of people in on the conspiracy, none of whom will ever breathe a word of what they know. It's just too incredible to believe that a cabal of people in Government could pull off such a stunt without something leaking out that implicates them. Look at Watergate - and that was a fairly trivial conspiracy by comparison with 9/11.

I'm not saying that the US Govt wouldn't have done it if they thought they could get away with it. George W Bush and his acolytes seem to lack any kind of real morality, and they certainly had much to gain from a major terrorist atrocity at that time.

As for the physical evidence, it seems rather weak. I watched the beginning of that Google Video posted here earlier, but I couldn't see anything that screamed "controlled demolition". The collapse of the towers issue was dealt with quite convincingly by Horizon in 2002.

My response to the assertion that there isn't a single whistleblower is this consolidated list which i've lifted off another forum.

Bush I official Morgan Reynolds has talked
Bob Doles former campaign manager has talked
David Schippers (lead Prosecutor of Clinton for Lewinskygate has talked)
and Here are a few others who know:

Former 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland
-Head of Star Wars Defense Program under Carter Ford and Regan Col Dr. Robert Bowman
-Bob Doles campaign manager
-Bush 43 Official Morgan Reynolds
-National Defense Minister of Germany Andreas Von Buelow
-Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmunds
-Former CIA anaylist (Top PDB briefing officer to President Regan) Ray McGovern
-Author Gore Vidal
-Bush 41 Assistant Secretary of Federal Housing Catherine Austin Fitts
-Former National Defense Minister of Canada Paul Hellyer
-Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania Philip Berg
-Former U.K. Environmental Minister & current MP Michael Meacher
-European Parliamentarian Dr. Paul Lannoyer
-Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg
-Professor Peter Dale Scott
-Historian Howard Zinn
-Dr. John Gray
-Global exchange Co Founder Dr. Kevin Danaher
-Ed Asner
-Jim Hightower
-Air America Radio Host Mike Malloy
-Former NYPD Detective Frank Serpico
-The gagged FDNY and NYPD officers who heard the bombs going off in the towers (why have they been gagged anyway?)
-The ton of military intelligence officials and journalists in the know that are too cowardly to bite the hand that feeds them.

But have the papers you spend you spend money on daily made any of this known to us? So why don't we all stop spending money with people who lie to us, and waiting for them to validate truth?

Pretty good reasons why perhaps there aren't more high-ranking whistleblowers.

1.Compartmentalization (Not many officials know before hand)
2.CYA (The blame for what they did will fall on my head.)
3.High Ranking Moles don't get to be high ranking Moles unless we have some serious dirt on you (Assist the coverup so that gay orgy tape doesn't wind up in the public domain)
4.Bought Off with Victims Survivors Fund (2.1 Million to shut your mouth (gag) and you can't sue)
5.Scared (We won't do anything but there are people out there who might not be too happy......................and we're not sure how we are going to protect your wife and kids)
6.Patriot Act (Long Imprisonment For Federal whistleblowers)
7.Profit (Helping the coverup has its perks)

The only thing missing from the scene on 9/11 that would make it scream "controlled demolition" was a man with a hardhat and a detonation plunger shouting "timber!".

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 26 Feb 2006, 13:42

I agree with Caspian's viewpoint, but am intereted in what you say Dr Doom.

Can you lead me to what the people on the consolidated list have actually said? That would be the clincher would it not?

Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 26 Feb 2006, 14:26

caspian wrote:As for the physical evidence, it seems rather weak. I watched the beginning of that Google Video posted here earlier, but I couldn't see anything that screamed "controlled demolition". The collapse of the towers issue was dealt with quite convincingly by Horizon in 2002.

No building prior to or since 9/11 has ever collapsed in its entirety. There have been partial collapses, maybe a few floors, sometimes the whole building has keeled right over onto its side, but none where the building has fallen staright into its own footprint and effectively turned into a heap on the ground. Absolutely none. Never.

Unless of course you take into account buildings which have been professionally demolished.

Demolition is the art of bringing down a building safely, completely and quickly. Such action will reduce a building to rubble in seconds and that is what is seen at the WTC on 9/11, not once, not twice but three times if you know that the same thing happened to building 7 of the WTC as well. Building 7 was two blocks away and was not hit by the planes or the twin towers as they collapsed.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidenc ... index.html (see building 7 section)

If you look at the Windsor Tower fire in Madrid last year, a skyscraper that burned for 24 hours and and only partially collapsed you will see how buildings normally behave when affected by fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Tower

Even Aaron Swirski, one of the architects of the WTC was surprised by how the twin towers collapsed since the towers were designed to act like pipes - make a hole in a pipe and its structural ability remains intact. Chilling interview here.

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/ar ... read=11333

The fact is that the twin towers and building 7 collapsed straight down, into their own footprint, at great speed, Only controlled demolition will cause a building to display such behaviour. Nothing else can do that. If you watch the google vid you will see for yourself the number of reports of explosions going off in the building for the entire time each tower is standing.

The problem with the Horizon programme is that it fails to take into account the speed at which the buildings collapsed or even the sight of the demolition squibs that can be clearly seen appearing below the line of the collapse wave. Demolition squib is the name applied to the explosion required to weaken the structure elements of a building.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidenc ... index.html ( see Distant view of North Tower collapse showing squibs)

I'm sorry to sound pompous but I used to be an architect and have some knowledge of how buildings work.

As for the issue of whistle blowers, I think dr_doom's list is pretty good evidence. In the case of the explosions in the twin towers, as fischertrop and others have pointed out and if you care to look at the interview that was posted some time ago, building such as the twin towers will probably have had explsoives already planted in them for insurance reasons in case of an extreme situation where one of the towers need s to be brought down controllably due to earthquake or major accident. In such a case, there will be no whistleblowers since no one knows that they are directly involved. Besides, if I was party to the cover up, I wouldn't want to be a whistleblower with the likes of Bush controlling the FBI and CIA and Guantanamo Bay. I'm not sure my family would be safe in such a situation.

marknorthfield · Post by **marknorthfield** » 26 Feb 2006, 14:29

Slightly late in on this one, but I've read the thread with interest as it was a sudden awareness of the 9/11 anomalies less than a year ago (despite a healthy interest in current affairs) that led me to Peak Oil in the first place.

In trying to discuss any contentious issue, I find it nearly always boils down to credibility as much as evidence. Without someone of sufficient academic/scientific/political/military credibility to present an idea, it is very hard indeed for it to be accorded any respect, and even then it tends to be a numbers game: the argument with the most 'respected' advocates wins. This is how the world works. Questions of funding and other potential behind the scenes arm-twisting rarely get discussed (it is presumed that proper scientific investigation is mostly immune to such things) never mind otherwise intellectually rigorous people not wanting to abandon their cultural paradigm. The concept of Peak Oil, despite having worthy advocates, has clearly taken a long time to be discussed in mainstream media, and even now it is regarded as merely an unsubstantiated theory by a great many people. I have at least two dear friends who take The Economist line on 'running into oil' as the whole truth and nothing but. (We agree to disagree, unsurprisingly!)

It is significantly interesting therefore that more than four years after the event - and a number of somewhat contradictory investigations later - someone of Steven Jones' standing should nonetheless come forward:

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

I have to say that I find his analysis somewhat more convincing (and he is only asking for proper independent scrutiny of the evidence after all) than the transcript of the Horizon programme which, by comparison, is a little vague on specifics. It should be added that David Ray Griffin's writings on this and other aspects of the attacks are also very well thought through and presented, but being merely a theologian he will never be accorded the same kudos. Well, not in this country...

It's nonsensical to suggest that if one cannot come up with a completely watertight and all-encompassing alternative version of events then one should not bother trying; that's simply not the way intellectual inquiry is conducted. I also consider it premature to consider 9/11 to be yesterday's news and not worth banging on about when it is so regularly invoked by politicians to justify their actions (Tony Blair was at it again only last week trying to walk the tightrope on Guantanamo). It is the defining political event of this decade, at the very least, and we are still very much in its stranglehold.

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 26 Feb 2006, 14:49

Bozzio, what's the conspiracists' reason for building 7 being 'demolished' ?

Is the fact that the radio tower on the north WTC tower starts coming down first seen as evidence of something?

If there are explosives in the building 'for insurance purposes', could they be triggered accidentally? Wouldn't such a thing be something of a fire risk? Surely that Madrid building wouldn't have been left standing as a gutted wreck if there had been explosives in the infrastructure?

It's hard to believe in a conspiracy because on the one hand we're asked to believe in a really really competent government agency that could set up something this complex, and then simultaneously believe in incompetence in other areas, such as bringing down a building that wasn't hit by a plane and this mysterious pentagon thing where a massive plane is supposed to fly into the building yet leaving no trace of the plane and only moderate damage to the building. Suddenly, incredibly well-prepared conspirators have turned into a bunch of bozos.

Given the alleged goals of the conspirators, there have to be easier ways to achieve their ends. It's not like international or national support actually turned out to be necessary in the end.

marknorthfield · Post by **marknorthfield** » 26 Feb 2006, 15:20

With respect Tess (and apologies for butting in on a question addressed to someone else) surely the physics must come first? The who and the why are secondary, vitally important though they are. (And thus not wishing to get too drawn into your line of questioning for that very reason, I'll not go into all the New Pearl Harbour/PNAC theorising...)

I certainly approach the idea of explosives being set into a building for risk-limitation purposes with some bafflement; I've yet to read of any convincing argument for this. What did you make of the Steven Jones paper - presuming you've looked at it?

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 26 Feb 2006, 15:46

I think all the arguments come together. Everything is connected. I don't agree with a 'first' and 'last'. But then I'm an intuitive thinker. Details people probably need everything in the[ir] right order.

Bozzio · Post by **Bozzio** » 26 Feb 2006, 16:33

Hi Tess,

Tess wrote:Bozzio, what's the conspiracists' reason for building 7 being 'demolished' ?

The reasoning is that the owner of the WTC had just signed a new deal in July 2001 worth $3.2 billion and that by destoying the whole complex it would ensure a full payout on the insurance.

http://www.emporis.com/en/bu/sk/wt/cp/if/si/

The fact that building 7 does collapse straight down, from the bottom up, is pretty conclusive in my opinion that it is a controlled demolition. I agree with Mark here that one has to answer that fact alone since we will never be in full receipt of all other factors.

Have you watched the video? How can you explain it?

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidenc ... index.html (see building 7 section)

Tess wrote:Is the fact that the radio tower on the north WTC tower starts coming down first seen as evidence of something?

I cannot say but again, one cannot deny the existene of the reports of multiple explosions within the towers during the 50 minutes or so after they were hit or the clear signs of squibs blowing out from the walls. These are on film. I would ask whether you think such evidence is insignificant?

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidenc ... index.html ( see Distant view of North Tower collapse showing squibs)

Tess wrote:If there are explosives in the building 'for insurance purposes', could they be triggered accidentally? Wouldn't such a thing be something of a fire risk? Surely that Madrid building wouldn't have been left standing as a gutted wreck if there had been explosives in the infrastructure

If there were explosives embedded within the structure then I imagine it could be a risk. This theory is only one of many and I hold no opinion on it other than to say that it exists. As for the Windsor Tower, it burnt fiercely for 24 hours and yet remained standing as a gutted wreck as you state. The twin towers smouldered for 50 minutes and yet were destroyed completely. Am I missing something here?

In case you are unaware, the Empire State Building was hit by a plane in 1945 which took out a whole floor and sent a fireball down through the building. It's still standing as far as I know.

http://history1900s.about.com/library/m ... ecrash.htm

Tess wrote:It's hard to believe in a conspiracy because on the one hand we're asked to believe in a really really competent government agency that could set up something this complex, and then simultaneously believe in incompetence in other areas, such as bringing down a building that wasn't hit by a plane and this mysterious pentagon thing where a massive plane is supposed to fly into the building yet leaving no trace of the plane and only moderate damage to the building. Suddenly, incredibly well-prepared conspirators have turned into a bunch of bozos.

Not sure what your trying to say here. The WTC was hit by two planes wasn't it? The Pentagon however shows no sign of a plane. Maybe this news story might help.

http://webfairy.org/pentagon/index.html

Can I also remind you that if you support the official story then you are a conspirator, one who believes in the story that Osma Bin Laden and his band of merry men conspired to attack America on home soil. Why are people like Steve Jones and David Ray Griffin bozzo's just for asking that the evidence be reviewed properly? What makes you the expert and these guys not?

Tess wrote:Given the alleged goals of the conspirators, there have to be easier ways to achieve their ends. It's not like international or national support actually turned out to be necessary in the end.

What are you talking about!? Bush has been pushing the 9/11, terrorism, Osama Bin Laden issue non-stop since that day. Why? Surely it is to maintain the momentum for national and international support which would otherwise be lacking. Why can I see that and you fail to do so?

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 26 Feb 2006, 18:14

Bozzio,

I actually do buy the demolition arguments. I'm not sure where that takes the discussion though. Would a corporation kill 3000 people for insurance money? Not a doubt in my mind, especially if it's as easy as remotely detonating explosives.

Why did building 7 go down? It does look like a demolition on the video, unless somehow the foundations all disappeared all at once. Was there an official explanation for that?

I guess you're a bit touchy about the whole conspiracist thing. I've heard the argument about "you're a conspiracist too!" before. Eh, well, it's not about being a conspiracist or not, it's about whether you think the conspiracy was performed by the US government (or parts thereof) or not. That's the part I remain unconvinced about, hence my questions about what purpose such a conspiracy could have.

I notice this is where you get most antagonistic in your response, presumably because this is where the evidence is weak and your faith is strong.

Surely it is to maintain the momentum for national and international support which would otherwise be lacking. Why can I see that and you fail to do so?

Because for that part of the story, I don't see the need for such an atrocity to justify the wars that followed. Why frame bin Laden and a bunch of Saudis when they could have framed Saddam? Hell, they didn't even conveniently find WMDs in Iraq when they went searching and no one could gainsay them. Do you really need to kill 3000 of your own citizens just to get an oil pipeline through afghanistan?

Now, a corporation bringing down the towers for insurance purposes... who could ever question that explanation?