Consensus 9/11: The truth movement ignores their best shot

[pgimeno]

In a recent thread, forum member tanabear claimed that "[t]he official account is verifiably false on almost every single level", without realizing how far from the truth that claim is. I won't discuss the overwhelming amount of evidence that supports the well-established facts about the 19 terrorists that flew the planes against the buildings, though. I want to focus on what the truth movement considers evidence.

There are many different 9/11 conspiracy theories. Some say there were no planes on 9/11, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were military ones, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes launched missiles, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were actually remote controlled, and there's a lot of evidence for that. Some say the WTC planes were real, but AA77 was not the plane that flew into the Pentagon. And some say all the planes were real, but still that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were demolished. And that there is, of course, a lot of evidence for that.

That's just one example. Each of these groups believes that the evidence for their belief is incontrovertible, without realizing that, being mutually exclusive with the other options, their evidence must not be so clear as they think it is. A frequent conflicting hypothesis resolution technique is to claim that the other groups are made of disinformation agents working for the government.

This, of course, makes the 9/11 crowd look like a bunch of kooks living in a fantasy world. It's hard for anyone rational to be aware of these many conflicting claims and take any of them seriously. Personally I don't think any of the ones has any merit, but let's imagine for a moment that there's one that is correct. People would be dismissing it just because it would look just like any other of the mutually contradictory theories. Yet every group thinks theirs is the only true one.

Enter the Consensus 9/11 Panel. It seems to be constituted by a group of people who believe that the government intentionally intervened in 9/11, but they have realized the dangers of this schism, and focus their efforts in reaching a consensus on certain points that (they think) constitute evidence. Even if I don't agree with most points, and I think other points they reached consensus on are moot, I also commend them for identifying the basic problem and trying to seek a solution.

Unfortunately, the fact that they're basically not going anywhere and receive little attention from the truth movement, the big majority of which is being just charmed by the sweet words of a professional salesman, tells a lot about (1) how wrong tanabear's claim was, and (2) how hard the truth movement seeks to run away from the truth.

 

[Horatius]

There's an XKCD for that.

How do you reach a "consensus" with people that you believe are "in on it"? Even trying to reach such a consensus would likely look like a conspiracy to a lot of them, because they believe that almost every other truther group out there are disinfo shills. It's like the old joke about two wolves and a sheep voting about what to have for dinner. They'd expect all the shills to work together to vote against a consensus on "their best evidence" as part of the plan to suppress Teh* Twoof.




*And in a twist of fate, I almost misspelled that as "The". Goddamn it, fingers!

 

[pgimeno]

Yes, I had that exact cartoon in mind when I wondered how can MIHOP proponents reconcile the overwhelming evidence demonstrating the presence of 19 terrorists in the planes, with the intentional demolition of WTC7.

Let's take for example the passenger manifests of the flights. Were these fabricated by the government? Well, if that were the case, it would need to have been a covert operation that would have been easy to uncover after the fact, because the manifests were provided by private companies, not by the government. If the person responsible for providing the manifest to the FBI was, say, substituted that day by a covert government agent, it would have raised quite some alarms after all things that happened that day.

To my knowledge, the manifests have not been seriously challenged by any conspiracy theorist. There was a myth a long time ago that the terrorists were not in the lists, but that claim was proven in error and put to rest. Also, if the lists that were made public were different from the lists that the companies provided, I'm sure they would have spoken out.

Yeah, I know that most truthers claim that several of the terrorists were found to be alive after the fact. But since they haven't established that the people alive are the real terrorists instead of people with the same names, which is a very reasonable explanation for that, that claim doesn't constitute any proof.

Those manifests prove that 19 terrorists were on board of the four planes that day. There are many more pieces of evidence pointing to that, therefore this remains an indisputable fact.

With that established, if the collapse of WTC7 was intentional, as truthers insist, what other possibility is there other than a situation similar to what that XKCD strip proposes?

Unfortunately for them, they show no actual evidence whatsoever that points to an intentional collapse.

 

[Venom]

There's an XKCD for that.


[qimg]https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/semicontrolled_demolition.png[/qimg]


How do you reach a "consensus" with people that you believe are "in on it"? Even trying to reach such a consensus would likely look like a conspiracy to a lot of them, because they believe that almost every other truther group out there are disinfo shills. It's like the old joke about two wolves and a sheep voting about what to have for dinner. They'd expect all the shills to work together to vote against a consensus on "their best evidence" as part of the plan to suppress Teh* Twoof.


*And in a twist of fate, I almost misspelled that as "The". Goddamn it, fingers!

 

[Sherman Bay]

There are many different 9/11 conspiracy theories. Some say there were no planes on 9/11, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were military ones, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes launched missiles, and there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were actually remote controlled, and there's a lot of evidence for that. Some say the WTC planes were real, but AA77 was not the plane that flew into the Pentagon. And some say all the planes were real, but still that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were demolished. And that there is, of course, a lot of evidence for that...

(all bolding mine) There's a lot of evidence for Santa Claus' North Pole Toy Shop and fairies in the garden, too. But it's not good evidence.

Give us your best evidence for each of these assertions. The very best, and just one for each. Otherwise, we are on a Mobius Horse in an endless Gish Gallop.

 

[pgimeno]

(all bolding mine) There's a lot of evidence for Santa Claus' North Pole Toy Shop and fairies in the garden, too. But it's not good evidence.

Give us your best evidence for each of these assertions. The very best, and just one for each. Otherwise, we are on a Mobius Horse in an endless Gish Gallop.

Sorry, I think that wasn't very well worded. I mean their believers claim there's a lot of evidence. Anyway, in case you haven't misunderstood me and you're still questioning my claim that they believe to have evidence, let me offer what I base those on.

No planes: see September Clues; it presents a lot small apparent anomalies that many people take as actual evidence.

Military planes, I think it was mostly in the form of witness testimonies, that they take as gospel. I recall having seen testimonies of witnesses at the WTC who believed they saw a small plane that could have been a military plane, but most of it happened in the Pentagon, where the same happened (see Pentagon Strike for an example that has convinced many), conflated with the presence of the C-130 seen by several witnesses.

For the missile launch to the WTC towers, see yankee351's threads, claiming that the cuts of the wings are proof of missiles. For the Pentagon, see CIT and their followers.

For the remote control, I think I exaggerated. They don't believe to have actual evidence, it's mostly speculation. Yet, since some don't believe the actual airliners hit, they think that by elimination, the planes that were flown into the buildings must have been remotely controlled.

I can show you many more people who question AA77 based on things like "the entry hole was too small", "there was no plane debris", etc. than people who claim the WTC planes were not real. This, to me, indicates that they believe the videos were real and take them as evidence, yet for the Pentagon case they don't believe that the two frames of the security cameras where the plane is shown, really show a plane.

Finally, there are people who don't question the videos, but they believe that the evidence of controlled demolition presented by truthers is obvious.

I hope I made it clear enough.

 

[Sherman Bay]

pgimeno, do you think any of these claims are good evidence? If so, which one(s) and why?

 

[Horatius]

pgimeno, do you think any of these claims are good evidence? If so, which one(s) and why?

Geeze, listen to him will you? No, he doesn't think it's good evidence. He's having a meta-discussion about what the truthers believe. And what they believe is that all their evidence is rock-solid, even if it contradicts all the other truthers rock-solid evidence.

That's the whole point of the discussion.

 

[pgimeno]

Thanks, Horatius. That, and I commend the Consensus 9/11 panel because unlike Gage et al, they at least try to do it right even if they don't go anywhere, yet it's AE911Truth's siren chants that most truthers buy into.

 

[JSanderO]

Thanks, Horatius. That, and I commend the Consensus 9/11 panel because unlike Gage et al, they at least try to do it right even if they don't go anywhere, yet it's AE911Truth's siren chants that most truthers buy into.

Consensus panel is a joke... all of the people who are in the project are truthers!

 

[pgimeno]

Consensus panel is a joke... all of the people who are in the project are truthers!

Of course! But my point is that they are truthers that try to make things right. They are truthers that have realized that their hypotheses can't be taken seriously when there are so many contradictions, and they try to reach a consensus in order to offer a base that can be relied on and agreed by everyone, so they can be taken seriously.

They don't go anywhere because that route is a dead end, but when I compare their effort to most other truthers, I see that they take more action than merely trying to convince more and more people. They do something. They try to offer evidence. They seek to offer a case, even if they are very far from that.

By contrast, AE911Truth has no case: their claims of fire not explaining the collapse are bogus, and the evidence for explosives, in the form of explosive remains in the debris, explosively cut columns, and booms during the collapse, is completely missing, and they're somehow happy with completely ignoring that.

I guess they fantasize with being able to show thermite/thermate cuts some day. We're still waiting.

 

[Horatius]

They don't go anywhere because that route is a dead end, but when I compare their effort to most other truthers, I see that they take more action than merely trying to convince more and more people. They do something. They try to offer evidence. They seek to offer a case, even if they are very far from that.

Did you ever watch the TV show "The Americans"? There's one quite appropriate quote in that show, "Even when it comes to matters of national security, they can't help being Americans". You can't really escape your fundamental nature, particularly when you're (wilfully?) blind to that nature. Even when trying to cooperate, truthers will still always be suspicious of everyone they meet, even if it's the suspicion alone that destroys their chances of successful cooperation.

 

[Fonebone]

[snipped]
By contrast, AE911Truth has no case: their claims of fire not explaining the collapse are bogus, and the evidence for explosives, in the form of explosive remains in the debris, explosively cut columns, and booms during the collapse, is completely missing, and they're somehow happy with completely ignoring that.

I guess they fantasize with being able to show thermite/thermate cuts some day. We're still waiting.

Flapdoodle !
Bogus ?
"evidence for explosives", in the form of "explosive remains in the debris"
NIST - (NO) NIST did not test for explosive residues......

"explosively cut columns"
Hanger 19 was filled with evidence of "explosively cut columns"
Watch this video in order to correctly identify explosively cut columns...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgSYtUyKf0U


stop the video at timestamp

3:20 column torch cuts with cutter charge holes
3:39 cutters charges placed without pre-cuts
5:28 mark angled cutting charges both sides of column.make note of the angled severs on the hanger 19 warehouse of "saved" columns.

BTW - OZ swears every steel member displaying evidence of explosive angle cuts
and other physical evidence of explosives or incendiaries were ALL tested.
ALL ZERO of THEM.

"Booms" ?
Firemen speak of explosives
http://911proof.com/11.html

"I guess they fantasize with being able to show thermite/thermate cuts some day. We're still waiting."


Fonebone<

Wait no longer !

This is how explosive columns are set up for cutting

 

[smartcooky]

pgimeno, do you think any of these claims are good evidence? If so, which one(s) and why?

(all bolding mine) There's a lot of evidence for Santa Claus' North Pole Toy Shop and fairies in the garden, too. But it's not good evidence.

Give us your best evidence for each of these assertions. The very best, and just one for each. Otherwise, we are on a Mobius Horse in an endless Gish Gallop.

I think you are misunderstanding what he is saying. He's not claiming there is a lot of evidence for these things, he's saying the believers are claiming there is a lot of evidence for their beliefs

I have to say I found his wording confusing to begin with, but I was able to parse it once I read on.


ETA: If pgmeno doesn't mind, perhaps I could rephrase what he said to make it how I understood it.

Some say there were no planes on 9/11, and they believe there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were military ones, and they believe there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes launched missiles, and they believe there's a lot of evidence for that; some say the planes were actually remote controlled, and they believe there's a lot of evidence for that. Some say the WTC planes were real, but AA77 was not the plane that flew into the Pentagon. And some say all the planes were real, but still that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were demolished. And they believe that there is, of course, a lot of evidence for that.​

 

[pgimeno]

Did you ever watch the TV show "The Americans"? There's one quite appropriate quote in that show, "Even when it comes to matters of national security, they can't help being Americans". You can't really escape your fundamental nature, particularly when you're (wilfully?) blind to that nature. Even when trying to cooperate, truthers will still always be suspicious of everyone they meet, even if it's the suspicion alone that destroys their chances of successful cooperation.

You can feel the struggle.

http://www.consensus911.org/press-release-addressing-controversy-within-the-911-truth-community/

 

[Elagabalus]

Flapdoodle !
Bogus ?
"evidence for explosives", in the form of "explosive remains in the debris"
NIST - (NO) NIST did not test for explosive residues......

"explosively cut columns"
Hanger 19 was filled with evidence of "explosively cut columns" ...

Uhhh, perhaps they had to cut some of the columns out of the wreckage?

 

[Venom]

A consensus of truther panelist believe 9/11 was an inside job!

 

[pgimeno]

See, Fonebone, that's your "evidence". Many truthers will agree with some of your points, and disagree on others.

Flapdoodle !
Bogus ?
"evidence for explosives", in the form of "explosive remains in the debris"
NIST - (NO) NIST did not test for explosive residues......

Right. And no first responder found any devices characteristic of demolitions either. The National Institute for Standards and Technology was interested in whether there was a need to change a standard, based on the collapse. Had the FBI suspected about the possibility that explosives were used, or had the first responders told NIST, in their interviews, that they saw suspicious materials that could indicate the use of explosives, I'm sure they would have asked NIST to test for that. No such thing happened.

"explosively cut columns"
Hanger 19 was filled with evidence of "explosively cut columns"
Watch this video in order to correctly identify explosively cut columns...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgSYtUyKf0U

Think a bit, please. You're saying that the angle cuts are a proof of the use of explosives. That does not make sense. Angle cuts were used by cleanup workers to facilitate the toppling of the column in a desired direction. They do these kinds of cuts with torches.

Explosives can't possibly leave such clean cuts.

BTW - OZ swears every steel member displaying evidence of explosive angle cuts
and other physical evidence of explosives or incendiaries were ALL tested.
ALL ZERO of THEM.

I agree with him on that.

"Booms" ?
Firemen speak of explosives
http://911proof.com/11.html

No. I mean booms immediately preceding the collapse. Have you ever paid attention to when the building falls in demolitions? It actually begins to fall right after the explosives cut the columns, as a direct effect of that.

Let's take Hulsey's case of all core and perimeter columns of WTC7 being removed at the same time for 8 floors. Let's imagine for a moment that that was done with explosives (he doesn't really explain how it was done, for good reasons).

NIST studied the amount of explosives necessary to blow column 79, and the noise they would produce. IIRC it was 130 dB at half a mile.

Now multiply that by 24, for all core columns. Let's say the perimeter columns take half that much explosive. There are 57 perimeter columns. That amounts to a bit over 50 times the explosives necessary to blow column 79. Note that the perimeter columns would be much harder to muffle, even if that was possible.

But Hulsey says they are removed for 8 stories. That means that the columns need to be cut at two points: one at the top of the 8 stories and another at the bottom. That's double the explosives, i.e. more than 100 times the single explosion postulated by NIST.

And that's not the end of it. The columns are still attached to the floors, therefore the connections to the floors need also to be blown for the columns to become separated; otherwise these connections would still hold the columns in place and there would be no free falling. The explosives required for blowing the connections are probably less than for blowing the columns, let's say they are 10%. But the core columns are braced from several sides, so there are several connections for each of them. I'll ignore the added difficulty due to the trusses used in the outer tube, because I haven't looked into that yet.

I count 96 explosives for the core at 4 per column, and 171 for the perimeter at 3 per column. I haven't really looked at the plans to see how off that estimation is. Let's say I'm off by 20%. That's 213 additional explosives, each with 10% of the power of the explosives necessary for column 79 according to NIST. Therefore, around 20 times the power necessary to blow column 79.

Per storey.

This means that for all 8 stories, you need 160 times the explosives, in order to remove the connections. Plus the 100 times calculated before to blow the top and the bottom, that's 260 times the explosives necessary to blow column 79. At least a lot of them would be simultaneous, or in a very short period.

That's not counting the advance blowing of the east mechanical penthouse columns.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that these explosions would be completely unheard just prior to the collapse?

ETA: One would also think that the adjacent buildings should also appear to be "somewhat" affected by these nearby explosions.

 

[smartcooky]

See, Fonebone, that's your "evidence". Many truthers will agree with some of your points, and disagree on others.


Right. And no first responder found any devices characteristic of demolitions either. The National Institute for Standards and Technology was interested in whether there was a need to change a standard, based on the collapse. Had the FBI suspected about the possibility that explosives were used, or had the first responders told NIST, in their interviews, that they saw suspicious materials that could indicate the use of explosives, I'm sure they would have asked NIST to test for that. No such thing happened.



Think a bit, please. You're saying that the angle cuts are a proof of the use of explosives. That does not make sense. Angle cuts were used by cleanup workers to facilitate the toppling of the column in a desired direction. They do these kinds of cuts with torches.

[qimg]http://www.formauri.es/personal/pgimeno/xfiles/cache/cut2.jpg[/qimg]

Explosives can't possibly leave such clean cuts.


I agree with him on that.



No. I mean booms immediately preceding the collapse. Have you ever paid attention to when the building falls in demolitions? It actually begins to fall right after the explosives cut the columns, as a direct effect of that.

Let's take Hulsey's case of all core and perimeter columns of WTC7 being removed at the same time for 8 floors. Let's imagine for a moment that that was done with explosives (he doesn't really explain how it was done, for good reasons).

NIST studied the amount of explosives necessary to blow column 79, and the noise they would produce.

Now multiply that by 24, for all core columns. Let's say the perimeter columns take half that much explosive. There are 57 perimeter columns. That amounts to a bit over 50 times the explosives necessary to blow column 79. The perimeter columns would be much harder to muffle, even if that was possible.

But Hulsey says they are removed for 8 stories. That means that the columns need to be cut at two points, one at the top of the 8 stories and another at the bottom. That's double the explosives, i.e. more than 100 times the single explosion postulated by NIST.

And that's not the end of it. The columns are still attached to the floors, therefore the connections to the floors need also to be blown for the columns to become separated; otherwise these connections would still hold the columns in place and there would be no free falling. The explosives required for blowing the connections are probably less than for blowing the columns, let's say they are 10%. But the core columns are braced from several sides, so there are several connections for each of them. I'll ignore the added difficulty due to the trusses used in the outer tube, because I haven't looked into that yet.

I count 96 explosives for the core at 4 per column, and 171 for the perimeter at 3 per column. I haven't really looked at the plans to see how off that estimation is. Let's say I'm off by 20%. That's 213 additional explosives, each with 10% of the power of the explosives necessary for column 79 according to NIST. Therefore, around 20 times the power necessary to blow column 79.

Per storey.

This means that for all 8 stories, you need 160 times the explosives necessary to blow column 79, in order to remove the connections. Plus the 100 times calculated before to blow the top and the bottom, that's 260 times the explosives.

That's not counting the advance blowing of the east mechanical penthouse columns.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that these explosions would be completely unheard just prior to the collapse?

And quite aside from all that stuff, anyone who has ever personally witnessed (and I mean actually at the event, not on TV or Youtube) the CD of a high rise building will see that it is exactly NOTHING like the way any of the WTC collapses happened. The explosives are detonated in a very obvious sequence so that the building collapses down on itself. I have stood half a mile from a building that was brought down with CD... the sequence of explosions was very obvious and the noise of those explosions was very loud.

 

[pgimeno]

And that's not the end of it. The columns are still attached to the floors, therefore the connections to the floors need also to be blown for the columns to become separated; otherwise these connections would still hold the columns in place and there would be no free falling.

I forgot a detail. Even assuming you manage to separate the columns from their original position, at least the core's removed column sections are still vertical and trapped in the holes of the floors, unable to rotate to a horizontal position. They would impact the upper and lower floors, producing jolts. The only solution I can think for that is to open holes in the floors with more explosives, all for the sake of producing free fall.

Can you please explain to me why was so important for the perps to induce free fall, when it's so hard to achieve by removing columns?

Alternatively, can you explain how 8 stories worth of column can suddenly disappear?