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ORIGINAL: USMC10yrs

Add me to that list, too. Thanks for the information. You put together another solid and analytical review of FACTS.

Some people in this forum are known for chiming in on uncomfortable topics and bringing up other arguements while never DIRECTLY addressing what you wrote. My hope and prayer is that most people don't fall for this imbecilic debate technique.

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Major General Stubblebine is another leading figure in government, a bona fide expert on national security issues…who finds the government’s official 9/11 conspiracy theory to be unbelievable.

"One of my experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army’s Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. I measured pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs.

I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, ‘The plane does not fit in that hole’. So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What's going on?"

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Also Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatowski PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Also served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency.

She was actually at the Pentagon the day of the attack. She has made the following comments:

"It is as a scientist that I have the most trouble with the official government conspiracy theory, mainly because it does not satisfy the rules of probability or physics. The collapses of the World Trade Center buildings clearly violate the laws of probability and physics."

"There was a dearth of visible debris on the relatively unmarked [Pentagon] lawn, where I stood only minutes after the impact. Beyond this strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner."

"The scene, in short, was not what I would have expected from a strike by a large jetliner. It was, however, exactly what one would expect if a missile had struck the Pentagon."

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And finally (for now anyway) we have Col. George Nelson, MBA, U.S. Air Force – This man was the former U.S. Air Force aircraft accident investigator and airplane parts authority.

His view-- "In all my years of direct and indirect participation, I never witnessed nor even heard of an aircraft loss, where the wreckage was accessible, that prevented investigators from finding enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft -- and in most cases the precise cause of the accident...."

"The government alleges that four wide-body airliners crashed on the morning of September 11 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 human beings, yet not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft. On the contrary, it seems only that all potential evidence was deliberately kept hidden from public view..."

"With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged. Similarly, with all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not the Boeing 757 as alleged."

"As painful and heartbreaking as was the loss of innocent lives and the lingering health problems of thousands more, a most troublesome and nightmarish probability remains that so many Americans appear to be involved in the most heinous conspiracy in our country's history."

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The thread that started this whole thing went something like this:

CT (conspiracy theorist): 9/11 was done by the US government.
Us: Where is your proof and evidence?
CT: The buildings simply could not have fallen the way they did except by explosives.
Us: Yes, they could have. Here are the structural engineering reports that show why and how.
CT: Watch this you-tube video and you'll see.
Us: No, why don't you address what is wrong with the science behind the structural collapse.
CT: You guys are just ignoring the facts
Us: Huh?

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ORIGINAL: stamper_ben

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The thread that started this whole thing went something like this:

CT (conspiracy theorist): 9/11 was done by the US government.
Us: Where is your proof and evidence?
CT: The buildings simply could not have fallen the way they did except by explosives.
Us: Yes, they could have. Here are the structural engineering reports that show why and how.
CT: Watch this you-tube video and you'll see.
Us: No, why don't you address what is wrong with the science behind the structural collapse.
CT: You guys are just ignoring the facts
Us: Huh?

Pretty much sums it up...

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Hey guys. A few days back I made a post about how the US Air Force stood down for two hours while the attacks were progressing and did not intercept the 911 planes. Except for Brooklyn Blessed none of the usual debunkers have come near this particular subject.

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ORIGINAL: Backpacker


Hey guys. A few days back I made a post about how the US Air Force stood down for two hours while the attacks were progressing and did not intercept the 911 planes. Except for Brooklyn Blessed none of the usual debunkers have come near this particular subject.

Why not read my initial post in the thread, examine the evidence and see if you can explain why the USAF stood down.

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On 9/11 there were only 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous 48 states. No computer network or alarm automatically alerted the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of missing planes. "They [civilian Air Traffic Control, or ATC] had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Boston Center, one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regional ATC facilities, called NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) three times: at 8:37 am EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked; at 9:21 am to inform the agency, mistakenly, that Flight 11 was headed for Washington (the plane had hit the North Tower 35 minutes earlier); and at 9:41 am to (erroneously) identify Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 from Boston as a possible hijacking. The New York ATC called NEADS at 9:03 am to report that United Flight 175 had been hijacked--the same time the plane slammed into the South Tower. Within minutes of that first call from Boston Center, NEADS scrambled two F-15s from Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and three F-16s from Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. None of the fighters got anywhere near the pirated planes.
Why couldn't ATC find the hijacked flights? When the hijackers turned off the planes' transponders, which broadcast identifying signals, ATC had to search 4500 identical radar blips crisscrossing some of the country's busiest air corridors. And NORAD's sophisticated radar? It ringed the continent, looking outward for threats, not inward. "It was like a doughnut," Martin says. "There was no coverage in the middle." Pre-9/11, flights originating in the States were not seen as threats and NORAD wasn't prepared to track them.

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In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts

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ORIGINAL: RedStone

PS: You say you have a "list" of aviation disasters "where the wreckage was accessible" in which the investigators were not able to find "...enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft ...". Really? A literal "list" ?

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ORIGINAL: RedStone

phosadaud--

Maybe you could link me to some places on this board where there was serious conversation going on regarding 9/11. I browsed around a little bit before I started posting and all I could find was snickering and ridiculing kind of stuff...but maybe I overlooked some good conversations.

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Another problem here is that you essentially say that only the 'true' experts are qualified to weigh in on these topics. But if that is true...what are you and I doing having this conversation?

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Karen Kwiatkowski has scientific credentials stacked to the ceiling. What would your minimum qualification standards be for her being allowed to have a word or two of comment on 9/11? And do you happen to meet those qualifications yourself? See my point here?

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As to these US government web pages you link to-- Both pages are a government review of "9/11 Revealed". They (and you?) are gunning for the wrong target. This book was immediately dismissed by an array of top 9/11 "Truthers" (the ones I have found to be respectable and reliable) as a slick disinformation prank. "9/11 Revealed" stinks to the high heavens. And the fact that government agents zero in on this goofy thing instead of the substantial arguments that are out there...should be viewed as an alarming indication.

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PS: You say you have a "list" of aviation disasters "where the wreckage was accessible" in which the investigators were not able to find "...enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft ...". Really? A literal "list" ?

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ORIGINAL: stamper_ben

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Hey guys. A few days back I made a post about how the US Air Force stood down for two hours while the attacks were progressing and did not intercept the 911 planes. Except for Brooklyn Blessed none of the usual debunkers have come near this particular subject.

Is it in this thread or another one? I didn't see it in here so if it is somewhere else in this hodgepodge of conspiracy threads please provide a link to the original post you refer to.

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ORIGINAL: RedStone

phosadaud--

And another thing-- Almost the sole purpose of this particular thread is to address an avalanche of (ungracious?) ridicule about how only a few "looney wackos" have rejected the government's official conspiracy theory.
No sooner do I put up this thread about VIPs and dignitaries who reject the "Bin Laden" yarn (folks who can make significant claims to "national security expertise")...then you are claiming we're trying to avoid discussions and hide behind Ph.D. "credentials" and "military medals". Oy vey. You're completely missing the main purpose of this particular thread.

As the stated "sole purpose" of this thread was to address ridicule, it seems only fair that the accused ridiculers would have the chance to respond.

Another problem here is that you essentially say that only the 'true' experts are qualified to weigh in on these topics. But if that is true...what are you and I doing having this conversation?

Major General Stubblebine is another leading figure in government, a bona fide expert on national security issues
This is the posters statement, apparently to show the reader that the Major General is qualified to give his opinion as fact on this subject.
1 He doesn't have experience with jetliners crashing into buildings so he is stepping beyond his knowledge base
this is a rebuttal of that stament.

Karen Kwiatkowski has scientific credentials stacked to the ceiling. What would your minimum qualification standards be for her being allowed to have a word or two of comment on 9/11? And do you happen to meet those qualifications yourself? See my point here?

He did not say she could not give an opinion, anyone can have an opinion. The way I read this is her opinion ways in no more, and no less, than anyone else with an opinion. Her credentials are to her credit, but they don't have a bearing on this discussion at all, since none of those credentials are in Structural Engineering, etc.
And the part about an airliner not having flown into the Pentagon, all I have to say is "HUH??". Too much evidence that says, quite plainly, that there was an airliner, and that it did fly into the Pentagon, for me to give any credence to the theory that there was not.

As to these US government web pages you link to-- Both pages are a government review of "9/11 Revealed". They (and you?) are gunning for the wrong target. This book was immediately dismissed by an array of top 9/11 "Truthers" (the ones I have found to be respectable and reliable) as a slick disinformation prank. "9/11 Revealed" stinks to the high heavens. And the fact that government agents zero in on this goofy thing instead of the substantial arguments that are out there...should be viewed as an alarming indication.

My question though, having not read 9/11 Revealed, therefore not having much of an idea what theories are relevant only to them, and not the Truther's as a whole, I have to wonder if the websites that Photo offered here and here should really be pooh-pooh'd so quickly. Don't these websites also address specific concerns of the "Truthers"?
Everlearning offers A good source...


PS: You say you have a "list" of aviation disasters "where the wreckage was accessible" in which the investigators were not able to find "...enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model, and specific registration number of the aircraft ...". Really? A literal "list" ?

Photo also answered this question with his #16 post:
But a few aircrashes where the planes were completely destroyed:
Air New Zealand DC-10 crash into Mount Erebus in Antarctica
Military C-135A crash outside Irvine, CA 6/25/65
Boeing 737 crash in Nigeria 10/05

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ORIGINAL: RedStone

I don't know, phosadaud-- I guess I have to respectfully 'beg to differ'. You definitely were trying to dismiss these people's comments based on your requirement that they be literal experts in all of the fields they might be touching on in the discussion.

Stubblebine referred to his expertise..then you stepped in and implied he would really need to be an 'expert' in about five or six other categories in order to make valid comment.

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As to the almost universal dismissal of "9/11 Revealed" by all of the top "Truthers"...all I can say is-- go pick out some of the arguments forwarded by that book, and we can look at them one at a time (time permitting). The book had all kinds of fumbled arguments and debunked arguments.

So again, this book is very anomalous...and the government's very careful 'cherry-picking' of "opposition arguments" is equally anomalous (to me).

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I certainly allow for some variance between various "Truthers". For example, I have no big stake in whether there was or wasn't a plane at the Pentagon. Although...when I've looked at photos of the facade at the Pentagon before it collapsed a short while later...it's a head-scratcher.

It raises the question-- How did an entire airliner fit through a doorway? If you look at this photo, it even appears there is an intact wall or doorpost. Nevertheless, I don't care much either way on this point. I was convinced long before any discussion about planes and missiles at the Pentagon.

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The 9/11 Commission Report perpetrates a great big fat lie in claiming the black boxes were never found, when in fact NYC firefighters have flatly contradicted this. That is a VERY sinister anomaly, in my book.