Loose Change - Part IV

[CptColumbo]

I spoke too soon about not hearing from Korey Rowe. I did get an email from him. All he said about the debate is that it would take some doing to set up. I replied with some suggestions about how this can be done on the quick and cheap. Anyway, he didn't say no!

I found out why he called me names in his blog post. He's angry that I called Nancy Jo Sales, the author of the Vanity Fair piece, and told her that he had exaggerated his military record. She wound up grilling him over that.

Problem is, I've never contacted Sales in any way, and I don't know of anyone who has. She probably learned about the alleged exaggeration the same way I did: through Screw Loose Change. Won't it be nice when the Oneonta fact-checkers union strike is over?

Rowe says in his blog post that the recut version of LC is up on Google. It isn't. It hasn't been released yet.

I'll keep you updated on any developments.

I e-mailed her as well as James, and talked to Ben Chertoff about it (he may have talked to her about the errors regarding him).

 

[JamesB]

The Air Defense systems at the Pentagon might well be classified, should there be active Stinger or other assets in the hands of security there. This could become one of those "very difficult to discuss due to no official disclosures" issues.

An old Secret Service agent (since retired) neighbor of mine, would not answer my questions about Stingers at Camp David or the White House at a bar b cue one fine afternoon, chiding me with my own understanding of "need to know" from my military frame of reference. I accepted his rebuke.

I figured that after the light civil aircraft crashd near the White House in Clinton's time, there would be Stingers there 24/7.

Never got confirmation, so I could only guess.

DR

A Stinger is a MANPAD, theoretically there could be one stationed at my house (it is in the back bedroom in the closet). The mere speculation of something does not in anyway constitute proof.

Besides, the scholars are claiming it is an anti-aircraft gun. Some have even claimed it is an underground missile battery.

 

[Hellbound]

The Air Defense systems at the Pentagon might well be classified, should there be active Stinger or other assets in the hands of security there. This could become one of those "very difficult to discuss due to no official disclosures" issues.

An old Secret Service agent (since retired) neighbor of mine, would not answer my questions about Stingers at Camp David or the White House at a bar b cue one fine afternoon, chiding me with my own understanding of "need to know" from my military frame of reference. I accepted his rebuke.

I figured that after the light civil aircraft crashd near the White House in Clinton's time, there would be Stingers there 24/7.

Never got confirmation, so I could only guess.

DR

I have no special knowledge or expertise on these areas specifically, but judging from what I've seen at other areas...

I'd suspect that nay AA capability they had would tend towards light, hand-held systems (Stingers, for example), and these would also be kept locked up in an arms room, released only when needed. It would take time to get them out, and I suspect even then they'd only be brought to ready if a suspected air attack was coming in (a fair certainty of coming in) and even then only with an appropriate order.

Just my guess, though, so means nothing except another option to play with

 

[Darth Rotor]

Except that right after 9/11, missiles were deployed at the Pentagon, and it was public knowledge. I don't see how you could have missile crews around the Pentagon without it being plainly visible to everyone. It's not as if the Pentagon is tucked away at some remote location.

Thanks Curt, my memory did not hold that tidbit.

A two man stinger team on the roof of the Pentagon would not be particularly visible to much of anyone.

Depends on if you are deploying Stingers for PR value, to show "we are protecting" (typical political use of image to ensure the illusion of security)

or

if you are putting a few Teams on the roof, from where you get a better point defense coverage and a neglible visual signature for much of anyone on the ground.

DR

 

[Hishighness]

My personal view on 9/11 is what the government says, but I can also believe that Dubya knew and didn't stop it, but I haven't seen any proof of that. That's just taking Dubya's character (or lack thereof) in to account.

 

[CurtC]

A two man stinger team on the roof of the Pentagon would not be particularly visible to much of anyone.

Maybe someone familiar with military technology can answer this question for me. If there were a Stinger crew on the roof of the Pentagon on 9/11, and they knew that flight 77 was coming in, could a Stinger have hit the plane?

I thought Stingers were heat-seeking and would have a hard time with a target approaching directly at you at high speed.

 

[kookbreaker]

All of this "missile defense for the Pentagon" stuff misses much of the problems with protecting a hard target at the expense of the surrounding soft targets.

Most, if not all, fixed anti-air missile systems are designed to take out airborne targets before they can fire themselves. They really aren't designed to disintigrate their target, merely destroy its ability to fly.

Trouble is, this OK in a battlefield, perfect over the empty Oceans, but is a nightmare over soft targets like a modern US city. Two examples of this come to mind:

The Patriot Missile system deployed in Isreal during Desert Storm: This made lots of shots, looked good for the networks, but actually increased casualties as a bunch of Scud & Patriot Chunks landing on houses did a lot more damage than an individual SCUD hitting its target. Imagine chunks of plane & missile landing all over Washington DC and Virginia suburbs.

Pearl Harbor: The major cause of civilian casualties during the Pearl Harbor attack was (tah-dah!) falling spent bullets used in air defense.

If there are any defenses for the Pentagon, it is likely as Huntsman puts it: Stingers in a closet, probably just in case someone hijacks a helicopter and starts firing at the Building or something. Not for prevention of Kamakazi attacks. The idea of an automatic missile system, near so many soft targets and so close to the airport, is just plain laughable.

 

[60hzxtl]

Good points Kookbreaker - what goes up must come down.

Further, it is not like the ONLY thing in the sky was Flt 93, Flt 77, etc - Speaking of kooks - look at the nutcase that sees a 3rd plane at WTC, discussed at Journal of Debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Point is there were other planes in the sky - that had not as yet landed on the forced shut down. Want to take a chance that you just took out the FEDEX plane, or the Shuttle?

Ooops doesn't work.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Maybe someone familiar with military technology can answer this question for me. If there were a Stinger crew on the roof of the Pentagon on 9/11, and they knew that flight 77 was coming in, could a Stinger have hit the plane?

I thought Stingers were heat-seeking and would have a hard time with a target approaching directly at you at high speed.

Thanks to superb engineering, current generation IR missiles have a "forward quarter engagement capability." <== That means that the heat signature of the intake of the engines is enough heat to lock onto. Is it as sweet of a shot as right up the rear end? No, but in the absense of countermeasures, it is good enough to engage and hit.

Now, would a Stinger into the intake of one engine of a 757 a few miles away be enough to knock it out of the sky? Probably, however, given that the explosion might cause enough structural damage to take the wing off, all bets are now off. On the other hand, if it just blew the engine off, and the (now damaged) wing stayed on (of course, it is now on fire and one engine's thrust just went away, and some of the flight control surfaces are damaged, and some of the flight control rigging has been damaged . . .) an experienced pilot might be able to cut fuel, deploy the fire bottle, and get the aircraft on the ground: that is what professionals train for. Tough, but as long as he has lift, the pilot might keep it flying.

A novice like Honjour? He'd be hard pressed not to hit the ground before he hit his target, since he just went into asymmetrical thrust, has a significant yaw rate problem, no copilot to rely on, and he's bleeding airspeed while he works to restore control of the aircraft.

Edit: I note Kookbreakers comments, and concur with his assessment.

DR

 

[Hishighness]

There were reports of a 3rd plane bringing down the South Tower on September 11th. But obviously they were refuted later. Part of the "fog of war" as it were.

 

[JamesB]

Maybe someone familiar with military technology can answer this question for me. If there were a Stinger crew on the roof of the Pentagon on 9/11, and they knew that flight 77 was coming in, could a Stinger have hit the plane?

I thought Stingers were heat-seeking and would have a hard time with a target approaching directly at you at high speed.

I am not an ADA expert, but it is my understanding that the Stinger can engage from all directions. The older systems such as the Redeye or the Soviet SA-7 were limited in that you had to have a lock on the engines from behind.

Now whether it would actually be able to successfully engage and destroy a fast approaching suicidal jetliner is another question. The Avenger, which actually was deployed after 9/11 would have a better chance, with better communication and control capabilities, and the ability to fire up to 8 missiles.

 

[60hzxtl]

Fysics is Phfun

The high priest of the cult is loosing it -

http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=10556

Or another thought - its toooooo quiet over at the forums, and we need to gin up some more boogie men!


Now, don't tell Dylan that the higher the altitude, the colder the air, so all planes in the sky are not created equally. Oh wait, he doesn't read!

Pssst Dylan! They are after you! You could hide under the bed, but Korey says its a FUTON!

reference? - http://loosechange911.blogspot.com/

 

[Regnad Kcin]

The high priest of the cult is loosing it -

http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=10556

...i hate to come off like a nutcase.

Too late.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

So what? The differences are small, and they all start at the same place.

A "structural engineer" is related to a"Mechanical Engineer" and a "civil engineer." When I was finishing my degree, I was told by a prof that a civil engineer, like an aerospace engineer, was a special case of "Mechanical Engineer." Structures likewise. Of course, it's been thirty years, and everyone wants to make differences without distinction, but in defense of the distinction, the world of building things has only gotten more complicated, so people tend to specialize and stovepipe even more than formerly.

If such is the case then it should be easy for the truthers to find a structural engineer to back up thier claims. Five years later, however, we're all still waiting.

There isn't a huge amount of difference between transplant surgeons and neurosurgeons either. No sane hospital director will allow a guy who swaps livers near a patients head with a bonesaw and that is when one life is at stake.

Here we have thousands of lives hanging in the balance. Someday, another hi-rise tower will catch fire. It's inevitable. It might not happen from terrorism, it could just be a knocked over paint thinner can that catches fire. No false flags, no religious fascists, no agenda of any kind. Just a straight up run-of-the-mill, could-happen-anywhere-to-anyone accident.

I'm sure that if Steven Jones and Judy "Scholars for Tooth" Wood are on the scene that they'll tell the fire chief "I hate George Bush, therefore the building is safe to send firefighters into."

I don't go to gynecologists to get my eyes checked. I wouldn't go to a proctologist to have my extra uvula removed. For my money, when I suspect that a building may collapse, I wanna hear it from a STRUCTURAL engineer.

 

[T.A.M.]

I noticed a funny thing. Lately, I have had a few "Truthers" tell me that "heresay" (which is what they call eyewitness testimony) is not good evidence. Now while I agree that in a case where one side says this happened, and another side says it didn't, neither testimony carries much weight, multiple eyewitness testimony to a common event, in my opnion, carries weight. that said, if the LC "Truthers" want to say that eye witness testimony is little in terms of evidence that is fine...but then...

Then I go to the front page of the LC main site...and what does their quote next to the burning WTC rubble say...

"Evidence is derived from news footage, scientific fact, and most important, Americans who suffered through that tragic day."

Now it seems to me, the makers of LC are are saying that of their evidence, the most important, is that provided by those who suffered through that tragic day...ie eyewitness testimony.

CT = Contradiction Theorist

 

[defaultdotxbe]

I noticed a funny thing. Lately, I have had a few "Truthers" tell me that "heresay" (which is what they call eyewitness testimony) is not good evidence. Now while I agree that in a case where one side says this happened, and another side says it didn't, neither testimony carries much weight, multiple eyewitness testimony to a common event, in my opnion, carries weight. that said, if the LC "Truthers" want to say that eye witness testimony is little in terms of evidence that is fine...but then...

Then I go to the front page of the LC main site...and what does their quote next to the burning WTC rubble say...

"Evidence is derived from news footage, scientific fact, and most important, Americans who suffered through that tragic day."

Now it seems to me, the makers of LC are are saying that of their evidence, the most important, is that provided by those who suffered through that tragic day...ie eyewitness testimony.

CT = Contradiction Theorist

what they mean to say is eyewitnesses who agree with them are good sources, but those who disagree are not


for example: the dozens or hundreds of people who say a 757 hit the pentagon are unreliable, but the one guy who say a small commuter plane, he knows what happened



it annoys me, they demand we explain why one guy saw a small plane, yet they offer no explanation as to why dozens saw a large one

 

[rwguinn]

If such is the case then it should be easy for the truthers to find a structural engineer to back up thier claims. Five years later, however, we're all still waiting.

There isn't a huge amount of difference between transplant surgeons and neurosurgeons either. No sane hospital director will allow a guy who swaps livers near a patients head with a bonesaw and that is when one life is at stake.

Here we have thousands of lives hanging in the balance. Someday, another hi-rise tower will catch fire. It's inevitable. It might not happen from terrorism, it could just be a knocked over paint thinner can that catches fire. No false flags, no religious fascists, no agenda of any kind. Just a straight up run-of-the-mill, could-happen-anywhere-to-anyone accident.

I'm sure that if Steven Jones and Judy "Scholars for Tooth" Wood are on the scene that they'll tell the fire chief "I hate George Bush, therefore the building is safe to send firefighters into."

I don't go to gynecologists to get my eyes checked. I wouldn't go to a proctologist to have my extra uvula removed. For my money, when I suspect that a building may collapse, I wanna hear it from a STRUCTURAL engineer.

There are Civil Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, Chemical Engineers, and Electrical/Electronic Engineers.
Mechanical engineers are civil engineers who refuse to believe that forces always sum to zero.
A Structural Engineer is a Civil or mechanical engineer who has additional study in building codes. When he is designing and analyzing, he is a mechanical/civil engineer. He then takes the results of that and proceeds to make sure it meets minimum code standards.
In a lot of ways, stuctural engineers are "cookbook" guys--the codes won't let them be anything else.
ETA-and by the way, the codes are written by mechanical, civil, chemical, and electrical engineers...

 

[CurtC]

The high priest of the cult is loosing it -

http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/index.php?showtopic=10556

I was gonna say that maybe we should pop in over there and egg on this kind of lunacy, but I see the forum regulars are already doing just that.

 

[60hzxtl]

I was gonna say that maybe we should pop in over there and egg on this kind of lunacy, but I see the forum regulars are already doing just that.

Oh, go on, tell them the worst chemtrails are the ones you can't see. . .

 

[Gravy]

Another Dylan highlight.

(Chris Sarns @ Aug 13 2006, 08:25 AM)
Can you possibly believe that the PENTAGON was DEFENCELESS on 911, that there was NO on site radar or anti aircraft ability? At very least they would have stinger missels and certianly a lot more very sophisticated stuff.

no, i can't believe it. but mark roberts does. he states it like it's fact. just like he states factually that there were no wargames on the morning of 9-11...

the smartest tour guide in the world.

The Oneonta FCU Local is still on strike (Fact-Checkers' Union).

Below are two instances where I apparently state "factually that there were no wargames on the morning of 9/11" The first is from page 15 of my "Loose Change Viewer Guide." It's also the third item in the index on page 2: "Air Defenses / Norad Exercises on 9/11."

[Avery] The first, "Vigilant Guardian", is described as
"An exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide".

The 9/11 Commission report described it as an exercise "which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union". (Chapter 1, note 116) Contrary to conspiracy theorist claims that air defenses had “stood down” on 9/11, they were unusually “geared up.” Because of the semiannual exercises that had been going on for several days, NORAD radar stations and battle rooms were fully staffed, with top commanders there to make decisions.

[Avery] The second, "Northern Vigilance", moved fighter jets to Canada and Alaska to fight off an imaginary Russian fleet.

Most people don’t know that NORAD is a joint U.S./Canadian organization. The normal force of fighters on alert to protect the country remained in place: 14 at 7 air bases.

From Loose Change Creators Speak, page 69.

Caller (reading question): NORAD averaged 2 or 3 war exercises a year in the decade prior to 9/11. Do you believe that, contrary to official reports, prior knowledge of top officials had anything to do with the 15 war exercises being practiced by NORAD on the single day of 9/11?

Bermas: Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's too much of a coincidence that supposedly 19 guys with box cutters were able to piggyback onto war games that were almost the same exact thing.

15 war games? NORAD was running three long-scheduled exercises: Northern Guardian, Vigilant Guardian, and Northern Vigilance. Neither affected the readiness of the normal alert fighter bases. On 9/11, 14 fighters were on alert status as usual.

And need I remind Avery that on September 11, 2002, portable missile batteries were temporarily placed near the Pentagonin case of an "anniversary attack." I guess all the regular missile batteries were down for maintenance.

Thanks to MikeW for this post.
Richard Clarke:

The Secret Service and Customs had teamed up in Atlanta to provide some rudimentary air defense against an aircraft flying into the Olympic Stadium. They did so again during the subsequent National Security Special Events and they agreed to create a permanent air defense unit to protect Washington. Unfortunately, those two federal law enforcement agencies were housed in the Treasury Department and its leadership did not want to pay for such a mission or run the liability risks of shooting down the wrong aircraft. Treasury nixed the air defense unit, and my attempts within the White House to overfule them came to naught. The idea of aircraft attacking in Washington seemed remote to many people and the risks of shooting down aircraft in a city were thought to be far too high. Moreover, the opponents of our plan argued, the Air Force could always scramble fighter aircraft to protect Washington if there were a problem. On occasions when aircraft were hijacked (and in one case when we erroneously believed a Northwest flight had been seized), the Air Force did intercept the airliners with fighter jets. We succeeded only in getting Secret Service the permission to continue to examine air defense options, including the possibility of placing missile units near the White House. Most people who heard about our efforts to create some air defense system in case terrorists tried to fly aircraft into the Capitol, the White House, or the Pentagon simply thought we were nuts.

ETA: Anyone care to post a link to this over there?