Many of the initial questions the family members had were around, why no NORAD response to the hijackings? As is amply documented the story changed from NORAD and FAA at least three times. Completely from the standpoint of someone who lost a daughter, son, husband or wife, the question was a legitimate one, and one that to this day has not been answered. It is still a legitimate one, given many of the documented facts that are in the public record and without dispute. In the end, this question has been punted on by the government. Maybe to cover for gross or criminal incompetence, but if so, one might think someone would have been prosecuted or held accountable. Family members and several well placed people, including some members of the 9/11 Commission, believe the true story is being covered up. The context of this question is nothing out of the ordinary. It is legitimate.
What is illegitimate is the refusal to portray what truly happened that day, and that failure is not the fault of the poor victims' families who are already overburdened with the aftermath of the tragedy. That blame falls on the conspiracy peddlers who do not accurately present the 9/11 events.
You want to invoke the NORAD response. Then you need to read the information here:
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/norad,faa,ntsb,aircraftcapabilities,pilo
Specifically, since you demonstrate that you do not understand the response, you need to start by understanding the timeline:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1845150&postcount=1
... and then move on to the details of NORAD's response:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70300
... You also need to gain a basic understanding of the confusion that day, confusion stemming from difficulties getting a handle on what exactly was happening, and therefore affecting who was told what in timeframes necessary for action to be made:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608
You ask why there's "no NORAD response" to the hijackings? Consider this: They had 9 minutes of warning for Flight 11. They had 2 minutes of warning for Flight 77. They were told about Flight 175 as it hit Two World Trade, and did not find out about Flight 93 until 4 minutes after it crashed. It takes me longer to get a pizza delivered, yet the military was supposed to discover, locate, fly out, and then "respond", either by shooting down or somehow nullify the situation in that timeframe? May I ask how they were supposed to do that in the time they had?
You wonder why they only had 9 minutes, 2 minutes, zero minutes, and negative 4 minutes to react? Go back to the links above and review the timeline. If you don't understand why they had only single digit minutes in the best case to respond, then you don't understand the events on that day, and you definitely are not capable of explaining to the victims' families what truly happened.
Also, you want to discuss the "amply documented changes"? Haven't you ever wondered who or what discovered the changing story on the part of the military to begin with? The 9/11 Commision. This
was investgated. It was
their work that uncovered the inconsistencies, and forced the military to acknowledge the correct timeline. So I'm at a loss as to why you present the changing stories issue as a problem to be investigated when in fact it is a clear sign that honest investigation did already occur to reveal that specific problem to begin with.
The fire chiefs sent their men and women into the towers based on their expertise in assessing risk. The completely unexpected disintergration of the towers took them by surprise, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of those men and women.
More misunderstanding on your part. You need to read the testimony of the first responders and some of the people they rescued to truly understand what the FDNY thought the stabilty of the building was. They in fact had many indications that the buildings were unstable and in danger of falling. Some examples:
Firefighter Mike Cancel, Ladder 10:We could feel the building starting to twist above us. I called Ladder 10 three times, Ladder 10 roof to Ladder 10. There was no answer. I said we have to evacuate, the building's coming down. Again, there was no response.
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/cancel.html
PAPD Sergeant David Lim: On the way down, we were losing our lights & could feel the bldg falling apart. ...You could feel the building starting to collapse internally.
http://brainmind.com/AmericaAttacked2.html
FDNY Chief Joseph Dunne: Another ten or 15 minutes or so later, one of my guys said to me, "listen, the north tower is making noise, we're not safe here, that building is going to come down too.”
Dennis Smith. Report From Ground Zero. New York: Viking Penguin, 2002
The collapse was not "unexpected". If you recall, the difficulties in radio communications were what prevented timely relaying of the information to the firefighters who ultimately became trapped and died in the towers. I realize that this point does not speak to any conspiracy, but I highlight it because it demonstrates your lack of knowledge of the events that day.
The NIST investigation narrowly focussed on the effects of damage and fire, looking for a plausible explanation to the disintergration of the buildings. They provide much good data, but the conclusions they have drawn do not fit with the data they refused to even look at. In the end, this investigation did not explain the disintergration. They have stated, " we cannot explain the total collapse..." and indeed, they can't. They have let the other "experts" surmise what caused that, remained silent and left the gaping holes in our understanding wide open. They gave a non-answer as an answer, sequestered the data, documentation, and parameters they used to arrive at their non-answer, forbid their scientists from engaging in any public discussion. Any questions, such as those that prompted Quinteire, an advocate of a more open forum, to announce the data should be independently evaluated, are shortcircuited and though legitimate not addressed. The context of these questions is perfectly legitimate.
All incorrect. For starters, the data does indeed fit the conclusions. If you have any examples out of the reports, then post them. If you want to invoke Quintiere, then understand what his argument truly is. He takes issue with some of their assumptions regarding the basic data of the fireproofing being lost and the fire durations. When you change that, you do indeed reach a different conclusion, but the point is twofold:
- Quintiere is indeed challenging some of the basic "data", specifically the assumptions noted above.
- The raw data itself, outside of Quintiere's challenge, does indeed fit the conclusion. It demonstrates that when the impacts stripped the fireproofing, the steel became vulnerable to the thermal effects from the fire, compromised the integrity of the structure, and led to runaway collapse.
There is nothing about NIST's data that contradicts their conclusion.
Next: Of course they're not modeling the complete collapse, and indeed they cannot. They investigated to the point where the building became unstable and runaway collapse was avoidable. That's exactly what they should have investigated. No reasonable critic of the report - neither Quintiere in his critique of the fireproofing and fire loads, nor Astaneh-Asl in his critique of the sufficiency of the fire codes - has ever taken issue with them not investigating beyond the point of global instability. The reason no reasonable researcher does so is because there is no new knowledge to be gained from such study. The building was already at the "tipping" point of collapse; anything beyond that is simply a study of what debris impacted where.
The only "researchers" who even attempt to question this have an agenda of proving that the government took steps to ensure the collapse, and are trying to disguise their agenda in a seemingly reasonable cloak of scientific inquiry. In truth, they want to lodge the impression in people's minds that there's something to be discovered in the post initiation data, something that indicates the collapses would have been halted if external influences like explosives or incendiaries had not been used. But they don't make the case that the collapse would have halted. The few attempts out there to do so rigorously - I'm only personally aware of Gordon Ross's, having read that one, but I've heard of others being invoked - have fatal flaws, which have been documented in this very forum; look up previous threads for examples of this. My point is ultimately this: People need to demonstrate why there is fault in not investigating beyond collapse initiation. All reasons proffered so far have been insufficient. Investigating beyond collapse initiation makes as much sense as investigating a tree falling beyond the point it starts to tip, or a balloon bursting beyond "burst initiation". All you need to know is explained by the work of the lumberjack or the act of the needle bursting the balloon. Similarly, all you need to understand why the towers fell is why the steel failed, and
that is explained by the fires and impact damage. Both Quintiere and Astaneh-Asl agree with this, as evidenced by the fact that their own arguments contradicting NIST depend on this to be true.
The black boxes from both Shanksville and the Pentagon are lacking in their identifying serial numbers in the official record of the NTSB. The FBI has admitted that they did not positively ID the planes through matching the black box serial numbers with the manufacturer's records of other component serial numbers.
Yes, because positive identification had already occurred with the ATC radar and FDR evidence.
This is revealed in a FOIA request, and the correspondence associated with that request. A judge has told the FBI provide the documentation ID'ing the planes, or provide a reason why they can't. You can track all of the court documents regarding this legitimate controversy over the plane ID's, starting here, and working back through the history:
http://www.911blogger.com/node/16762
The NTSB states in response to one request:
"This letter responds to your FOIA request, dated July 11, 2008, which you requested copies of records revealing the process by which wreckage recovered from the aircraft used during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was positively identified as belonging to; American Airlines flight 11 (N334AA), United Airlines flight 175 (N612UA), American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA), and United Airlines flight 93 (N591UA). Unfortunately, the NTSB doesn't have any records regarding the above requested information."
In another response from the FBI:
"Since being served with the Summons and Amended Complaint, Federal Defendant, with assistance of its attorneys, has analyzed Plaintiff’s request and conducted a searched for responsive records. Federal Defendant has determined that there are no responsive records. The identities of the airplanes hijacked in the September 11 attacks was never in question, and, therefore, there were no records generated “revealing the process by which wreckage recovered by defendant, from aircraft used during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was positively identified by defendant . . . as belonging to said aircraft . . .” (Amend Compl. Inj. Relief #15 at 1.)
It is all in this record. There are very large, legitimate questions surrounding the identities of the planes alledged to have been used. None of this is out of context. Claiming folks like me are out of context with our questions, is nothing more than your opinion, which given the evidence that legitimate questions exist and have been unanswered, it is your opinion that is out of context. You are blowing in a foul wind, relying on the official story to answer everything for you....
First of all, there are zero legitimate questions surrounding the identities of the planes used in 9/11. As mentioned earlier, there is ATC radar data as well as FDR data in the cases where the FDR was recovered in a usable state. Furthermore, there is DNA evidence that identifies passengers and flight manifests that ties them to corresponding flights. Furthermore, there are the cell and airphone calls. The flights have been definitively identified, and no amount of handwaving about FOIA requests changes that.
Second: There is a segment in the book "
Firefight" where rescue workers discuss evidence gathering and tracking serialized components of the aircraft (someone else can quote the relevant passage; I already returned the book to the library). The conclusion was that it was unnecessary to do so because such work is done in order to prove that the aircraft being investigated was indeed the one in question, and that in the case of Flight 77, there was already a plethora of evidence, from the data on the FDR itself to the air traffic control radar data, to a number of other elements that rendered the need to so tightly document the crash unnecessary. So when someone brings up what is usual practice for jetliner crash investigations, they need to remember that investigations differ, and in the case of the 9/11 flights, the identities of the jets were already known.
Third: What context is missing? Yes, I know you claim that none is. I need proof of that. I noticed that the exact FOIA requests were missing from the posts you link. Sorry to say this, but after experience studying truther evidence and the rampant separation of fact from context, I want to see the original requests before I conclude that the FBI did indeed not find any documentation whatsoever. Saying there are no responsive records can be interpreted to mean that there was nothing that satisfied a particular request, not that there were no records on the jet investigations whatsoever. I'll leave the legal commenter LashL to respond on that verbiage, but my point is that I'd like to see the original FOIA before accepting the claims at the link.
Last: Yes, you are indeed separating context from fact. Continuously. Again, your misapprehensions regarding NORAD alone are proof of that. You do not understand the events of that day, yet you pose questions as if there's still hidden information regarding the response. Which begs the question of how Vanity Fair was able to write
their article on the NORAD response that day, but again, I've yet to see any conspiracy believer who's actually read and comprehended the information they provide. My juxtaposition of your misapprehensions demonstrate that you're separating context from fact, and are indeed ignoring the very answers to your questions. All the points you have raised have been answered, time and time again, and yet you ask them as if the information has been suppressed. If it has, how did people like us posters here get a hold of it? Because the information is truly out there; you simply are relying on the wrong sources to digest it for you.
As far as "relying on the official story": Guess what? I haven't read the entire 911 Commision Report yet. I've only looked up individual points as discussion in this form required. Regarding issues such as the ones you've brought up here, I don't know what the "official story" is. I only know what has been pieced together from sources like the
NORAD tapes and other
original sources. Unlike you, who seems to be running the standard truther playbook. If you want to understand how NORAD responded, listen to the tapes. They're freely available; after all, a common publication like Vanity Fair got a hold of them. You want to understand the proof behind the jets and bodies on the jets? Look up the various original sources, such as the Moussaoui trial evidence. You want to understand the towers collapses, read the NIST report, or if you're suspicious of the "Official Story", read the Purdue simulation, the various articles in all the engineering publications cited
here, at the bottom of that page, or the Arup and Edinburgh findings which also have the distinction of
criticizing the NIST findings. They contradict NIST, yet they demonstrate clearly that the paradigm of fires plus impact are responsible for the towers collapse. But whatever you do, don't blindly trust the truther sites that you've been quoting. Those sites have demonstrated distortions and misrepresentations time and time again. You will not gain full understanding by relying on
those.
Now, are you ready to dispose of your own "foul wind"? Because you've amply demonstrated your own distortions and misapprehensions in the very first paragraph of your response, nevermind the rest of your post. Are you going to truly look at the information? Or are you going to continue presenting long debunked conspiratorial talking points over and over again, like every other peddler who's come into this forum?
