Theologian Says Controlled Demolition is Now a Fact, Not a Theory

[Seeker_Of_Sins]

Case For WTC Tower Demolition Sealed By Griffin
By: Kevin Barrett on: 22.10.2005 [16:32 ] (324 reads)
Theologian Says Controlled Demolition is Now a Fact, Not a Theory

Coordinator MUJCA-NET
Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance For 911
10-21-5


In two speeches to overflow crowds in New York last weekend, notable theologian David Ray Griffin argued that recently revealed evidence seals the case that the Twin Towers and WTC-7 were destroyed by controlled demolition with explosives. Despite the many enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Griffin concluded, "It is already possible to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, one very important thing: the destruction of the World Trade Center was an inside job, orchestrated by terrorists within our own government."

On Oct. 15th and 16th, New Yorkers filled two venues to hear the prominent theologian and author of two books on 9/11 give a presentation entitled "The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out." Dr. Griffin has continued to blaze a trail of courage, leading where most media and elected officials have feared to tread. His presentation went straight to the core of one of the most powerful indictments of the official story, the collapse of the towers and WTC 7.

Dr. Griffin included excerpts from the firemenís tapes which were recently released as a result of a prolonged court battle led by victimís families represented by attorney Norman Siegel and reported in the NY Times. He also included statements by many witnesses. These sources gave ample testimony giving evidence of explosions going off in the buildings. A 12 minute film was shown for the audiences, who saw for themselves the undeniable evidence for controlled demolition.

Dr. Griffin listed ten characteristics of the collapses which all indicate that the buildings did not fall due to being struck by planes or the ensuing fires. He explained the buildings fell suddenly without any indication of collapse. They fell straight into their own footprint at free-fall speed, meeting virtually no resistance as they fell--a physical impossibility unless all vertical support was being progressively removed by explosives severing the core columns.

The towers were built to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 and 160 mile per hour winds, and nothing about the plane crashes or ensuing fires gave any indication of causing the kind of damage that would be necessary to trigger even a partial or progressive collapse, much less the shredding of the buildings into dust and fragments that could drop at free-fall speed.

The massive core columns--the most significant structural feature of the buildings, whose very existence is denied in the official 9/11 Commission Report--were severed into uniform 30 foot sections, just right for the 30-foot trucks used to remove them quickly before a real investigation could transpire.

There was a volcanic-like dust cloud from the concrete being pulverized, and no physical mechanism other than explosives can begin to explain how so much of the buildings' concrete was rendered into extremely fine dust. The debris was ejected horizontally several hundred feet in huge fan shaped plumes stretching in all directions, with telltale "squibs" following the path of the explosives downward.

These are all facts that have been avoided by mainstream and even most of the alternative media. Again, these are characteristics of the kind of controlled demolitions that news people and firefighters were describing on the morning of 9/11. Those multiple first-person descriptions of controlled demolition were hidden away for almost four years by the City of New York until a lawsuit finally forced the city to release them. Dr. Griffin's study of these accounts has led him beyond his earlier questioning of the official story of the collapses, to his above-quoted conclusion: The destruction of the three WTC buildings with explosives by US government terrorists is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact that has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

Itís important to note that Dr. Griffin is one of many prominent intellectuals--including the likes of Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Peter Dale Scott, Richard Falk, Paul Craig Roberts, Morgan Reynolds and Peter Phillips--who have seen through the major discrepancies of the official explanation of 9/11 and have risen to challenge it. These brave individuals represent the tip of an ever-growing iceberg of discreet 9/11 skeptics. Indeed, 9/11 skepticism appears to be almost universal among intellectuals who have examined the evidence, since there has not yet been a single serious attempt to refute the case developed by Dr. Griffin and such like-minded thinkers as Nafeez Ahmed and Mike Ruppert. As for the general public, polls have shown that a strong majority of Canadians (63%, Toronto Star, May '04) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) agree that top US leaders conspired to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11/01.

How, then, can the mainstream US media continue to ignore the story of the century? Perhaps the best answer was given by Dr. Griffin himself in the conclusion of his talk, and is worth quoting at length:

"The evidence for this conclusion (that 9/11 was an inside job) has thus far been largely ignored by the mainstream press, perhaps under the guise of obeying President Bushís advice not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories." We have seen, however, that it is the Bush administrationís conspiracy theory that is the outrageous one, because it is violently contradicted by numerous facts, including some basic laws of physics.

"There is, of course, another reason why the mainstream press has not pointed out these contradictions. As a recent letter to the Los Angeles Times said:

"'The number of contradictions in the official version of . . . 9/11 is so overwhelming that . . . it simply cannot be believed. Yet . . . the official version cannot be abandoned because the implication of rejecting it is far too disturbing: that we are subject to a government conspiracy of "X-Files" proportions and insidiousness.'

"The implications are indeed disturbing. Many people who know or at least suspect the truth about 9/11 probably believe that revealing it would be so disturbing to the American psyche, the American form of government, and global stability that it is better to pretend to believe the official version. I would suggest, however, that any merit this argument may have had earlier has been overcome by more recent events and realizations. Far more devastating to the American psyche, the American form of government, and the world as a whole will be the continued rule of those who brought us 9/11, because the values reflected in that horrendous event have been reflected in the Bush administrationís lies to justify the attack on Iraq, its disregard for environmental science and the Bill of Rights, its criminal negligence both before and after Katrina, and now its apparent plan not only to weaponize space but also to authorize the use of nuclear weapons in a preemptive strike.

"In light of this situation and the facts discussed in this lecture---as well as dozens of more problems in the official account of 9/11 discussed elsewhere---I call on the New York Times to take the lead in finally exposing to the American people and the world the truth about 9/11. Taking the lead on such a story will, of course, involve enormous risks. But if there is any news organization with the power, the prestige, and the credibility to break this story, it is the Times. It performed yeoman service in getting the 9/11 oral histories released. But now the welfare of our republic and perhaps even the survival of our civilization depend on getting the truth about 9/11 exposed. I am calling on the Times to rise to the occasion.

Dr. Griffinís speech given at the University of Wisconsin earlier this year, entitled "9/11 and the American Empire," was broadcast twice on C-SPAN. In late September Dr. Griffin was asked to give expert testimony at hearings sponsored by Cynthia McKinney and the Congressional Black Caucus investigating the 9/11 Commission Report. He is currently Professor Emeritus at Claremont College in California.

This weekend's events were sponsored by NY911truth.org, WBAI and the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance for 9/11 Truth: http://mujca.com.

Kevin Barrett
Coordinator, MUJCA-NET
http://mujca.com

[Seeker_Of_Sins]

Characteristics of the Twin Tower Collapses and What They Show

The destructions of the two towers were almost identical. The most apparent difference is that the top of the South Tower tipped for a few seconds before falling, whereas the top of the North Tower telescoped straight down from the start. Here are some of the principal characteristics of the destructions, based on study of the surviving evidence.

The cores were obliterated. There is no gravity collapse scenario that can account for the complete leveling of the massive columns of the towers' cores.

The perimeter walls were shredded. No gravity collapse scenario can account for the ripping apart of the three-column by three-floor prefabricated column and spandrel plate units along their welds.

Nearly all the concrete was pulverized in the air, so finely that it blanketed parts of Lower Manhattan with inches of dust. In a gravity collapse, there would not have been enough energy to pulverize the concrete until it hit the ground, if then.
The towers exploded into immense clouds of dust, which were several times the original volumes of the buildings by the time their disintegration reached the ground.

Parts of the towers were thrown 500 feet laterally. The downward forces of a gravity collapse cannot account for the energetic lateral ejection of pieces.

Explosive events were visible before many floors had collapsed. Since overpressures are the only possible explanations for the explosive dust plumes emerging from the buildings, the top would have to be falling to produce them in a gravity collapse. But in the South Tower collapse, energetic dust ejections are first seen while the top is only slightly tipping, not falling.

The towers' tops mushroomed into thick dust clouds much larger than the original volumes of the buildings. Without the addition of large sources of pressure beyond the collapse itself, the falling building and its debris should have occupied about the same volume as the intact building.

Explosive ejections of dust, known as squibs, occurred well below the mushrooming region in both of the tower collapses. A gravitational collapse explanation would account for these as dust from floors pancaking well down into the tower's intact region. But if the floors -- the only major non-steel building component -- were falling well below the mushrooming cloud above, what was the source of the dense powder in the cloud?
The halting of rotation of the South Tower's top as it began its fall can only be explained by its breakup.

The curves of the perimeter wall edges of the South Tower about 2 seconds into its "collapse" show that many stories above the crash zone have been shattered.

The tops fell at near the rate of free fall. The rates of fall indicate that nearly all resistance to the downward acceleration of the tops had been eliminated ahead of them. The forms of resistance, had the collapses been gravity-driven, would include: the destruction of the structural integrity of each story; the pulverization of the concrete in the floor slabs of each story, and other non-metallic objects; and the acceleration of the remains of each story encountered either outward or downward.

There would have to be enough energy to overcome all of these forms of resistance and do it rapidly enough to keep up with the near free-fall acceleration of the top.

[Seeker_Of_Sins]

Gravity-Collapse Explanations
Defenders of the gravity collapse theory consistently invoke the explanation that the ejections of dust are caused by pancaking floors squeezing out air and dust. The Popular Mechanics article attacking 9/11 Truth contains the following passage.

Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air--along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse--was ejected with enormous energy. "When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it's going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window," NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM.

Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, "but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception."

There are several problems with this explanation, which we designate the piston theory.

The squibs contain thick dust of a light color, apparently from crushed concrete and gypsum. But these materials would not have been crushed until the pancaking floors above impacted the floor emitting the squib. Thus the dust would not be produced until the air was already squeezed out, so there was no source of the dust for the squib.

The squibs emerge from the facade 10 to 20 floors below the exploding rubble cloud inside of which the tower is disintegrating. The thick clouds appear to contain the pulverized concerete of the floor slabs, which was the only concrete component of the tower. But the piston theory requires that the floors have already pancaked down to the level of the squib, making them unavailable for the production of the concrete dust more than 10 floors above.

The piston theory requires a rather orderly pancaking of the floor diaphragms within the intact sleeve of the perimeter wall. Such a process should have left a stack of floor diaphragms at the tower's base at the end of the collapse. But there was no such stack. In fact, it is difficult to find recognizable pieces of floor slabs of any size in Ground Zero photographs.

The North Tower exhibits three distinct sets of squibs at different elevations of the building. Each set is visible as two distinct squibs on the same floor, one emerging from about the horizontal center of each of the tower's two visible faces. This pattern is is far too focused and symmetric to be explained by the piston theory, which would similar pressures across each floor and to successive floors.

The pancaking of floors within the perimeter wall would have created underpressures in the region above the top pancaking floor. But we seen no evidnece of dust being sucked back into the tower.

[RickSp]

Oh good, now we have a theologian revealing the exalted truth about structural design and engineering. I wonder how many structural engineers lecture on theology. Then again the creationists want to teach religion in science class, so I suppose lots of the nonsense is going on around us. I suppose we should just all sing a chorus or two of "May Mohr's Circle Be Unbroken."

[PatrickHenry]

Rick, Rick... so cynical of the citizens, so trusting of the government...

Seeker, are you just now considering the alternative explanations? May I extend an invitation to the 9/11 Skeptics group?

[Son of Belial]

May I extend an invitation to www.prisonplanet.com?

[Milton Bradley]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Rick, Rick... so cynical of the citizens, so trusting of the government...

You know, its funny, Rick has a lot of common ground with us conspiratorial folks on many other issues, but he juust doesn't seem willing to believe that people within our government would do us physical harm. (As if disenfranchisment wasn't actual physical harm)


I have to wonder just how much evidence some people will need to see before they start to question some of this blatent misinformation coming out of Washington. Particularly since Bush has been at the helm.

[Jack]

So save me from having to read so much of this; am I to understand that the government (or whoever) planted these bombs (or whatever) and then just waited for the day when two airliners crashed into the buildings (because we all knew that would happen one day) to act as a cover for the detonation?

[Nono]

No, I think the deal is that they moved in the day before and planted them then, with due intimidation of anyone nosey enough to ask what they were about.

Once again, the failure of media and legislators in the US to show any curiosity about what led up to 911 and actually happened on that day allows every manner of conspiracy theory to thrive.

That failure alone is suspicious in my books. There are some excellent questions out there still unanswered, at least as far as I can see. You have to wonder why -- if there were nothing to hide -- every attempt wasn't made to throw light on the matter instead of refusing to allow a commission of inquiry, then backing down and trying to make Henry Kissinger its chairman, then refusing to give evidence, then accepting to do so but no notes please, etc. etc. etc. Something is fishy, but we'll doubtless never know since they've been allowed to cover their tracks.

[Son of Belial]

Of course, in the early 90s they were caught planting bombs at the WTC, and this is was in newspapers and things too, but people conveniently forget things like that. They tried, they got caught, they waited 10 years and tried again.

[RickSp]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Rick, Rick... so cynical of the citizens, so trusting of the government... Seeker, are you just now considering the alternative explanations? May I extend an invitation to the 9/11 Skeptics group?

Pat, if you think I am trusting of the government you are either more gullible or foolish than I thought you were. Oh wait, you believe all that conspiracy stuff. Nevermind.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: RickSp Pat, if you think I am trusting of the government you are either more gullible or foolish than I thought you were. Oh wait, you believe all that conspiracy stuff. Nevermind.

Backhand noted, heh. But if you find the government so untrustworthy why do you give them the bye when so much of their standard story is obvious BS? Just because you saw the towers fall?

BTW do you know any New Yorkers who don't buy the official account?

[RickSp]

Quote by: Milton Bradley You know, its funny, Rick has a lot of common ground with us conspiratorial folks on many other issues, but he juust doesn't seem willing to believe that people within our government would do us physical harm. (As if disenfranchisment wasn't actual physical harm) I have to wonder just how much evidence some people will need to see before they start to question some of this blatent misinformation coming out of Washington. Particularly since Bush has been at the helm.

MB, you want to believe all the crap that comes walking down the street, be my guest. I know full well that our govenment is willing to do us harm. Which is not to say that I happen to buy every bit of nonsense pedelled by lunatics, whether they are telling me about Saddam's WMD or what "really happened on 9/11".

[RickSp]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Backhand noted, heh. But if you find the government so untrustworthy why do you give them the bye when so much of their standard story is obvious BS? Just because you saw the towers fall? BTW do you know any New Yorkers who don't buy the official account?

Gee I thought the obvious BS was mostly on the conspiracy websites. Silly me. And where in hell did you get the idea that I find the government trustworthy? Just because I don't buy into your fantasies?

I can not think of any friends of mine who have bought into any of the various conspiracy fantasies. Then again, I haven't taken a survey. I have no doubt that that there are many in the area who believe in conspiracy theories. The great thing about living in a metropolis of some 20 million people. You can be a one in a million nut case and there will be twenty more just like you.

[Lilith]

Ah, the tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to decieve.

Eerie stuff. HBO did a recap thing about 911 a few months ago, eerie to watch those people waving white flags out of the upper windows after the planes hit, trying to get help, seeing those people jump out of those windows and then they showed an actual pic of one the bodies after it had hit the pavement..not good. I got chills all over. Horrible.

[PatrickHenry]

Labeling multitudes of your fellow citizens "nut cases" doesn't create authenticity for the official story, Rick. http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855

This is a serious debate. If you just want to sling stones at people you need to leave this thread alone. Ad hominems (even if directed towards groups of miliions) don't get us anywhere. Your distaste for conspiracy doesn't mean that the official tyrants of the US and their lackeys weren't conspirators.

[Son of Belial]

Quote by: PatrickHenry BTW do you know any New Yorkers who don't buy the official account?

Yup. Many were picketing in the area saying it was a setup. In fact, some people who worked at the WTC said openly that there were explosions from the basement when the buildings fell, and that they know it was a demolition.

[RickSp]

The attacks of 9/11 were probably known in advance by some other than AlQaeda, including the Mossad. I find it mind boggling that the relatively simple and obvious bits related to flying planes into buildings is where folks seem to get so obsessed.

Given all the lies and deceptions propagated by the Bush administration and the very real conspiracies to attack the US it seems needless to bother with the more absurdist conspiracy nonsense about why the buildings fell or what left the hole in the Pentagon. Not only is it needless but detracts from your credibility in everything else. But that is your problem, not mine.

Let's see - the last time this thread arose it was a "noted economist" talking about structural design and now it is a "noted theologian". I probably shouldn't have responded at all but I did want to make a really bad engineering pun, which I'm sure no one caught. Just as well.

[Sonart]

Quote by: Patrick Henry Rick, Rick... so cynical of the citizens, so trusting of the government...

Patrick, Patrick... there's conspiracies, and then there's utter fairy tales that even you shouldn't be buying. This isn't about conspiracies, it's about simple logic and common sense.

First off it beggers belief to imagine that, what?... the CIA?... would bring down the Twin Towers in the first place. Certainly there are less valuable targets that would be sufficient to incite Americans, if that's what you think this is about. In fact almost any form of terrorist attack would do. And then, to suggest they did it by planting ahead of time, undetected in two crowded public buildings, enough explosives to bring down two of the strongest buildings in the national inventory, and to plant those explosives at exactly the floors - in buildings in which the floors are non-descript from any distance - in which two fuel laden jetliners would later hurtle themselves. This is not simply improbable, it's downright impossible. How does a CIA that you'd call incompetent in one breath capable of such an unbelievable operation in the next???

Patrick, it's reasonable to distrust the government. It's completely unreasonable to distrust it to the extent that you're willing to believe even the most incredible, impossible fantasies for no other reason than the government says they're not true. Are you seriously saying that you'll believe ANYTHING simply because the government says it's not true????

.

[Son of Belial]

Quote by: Sonart First off it beggers belief to imagine that, what?... the CIA?... would bring down the Twin Towers in the first place. Certainly there are less valuable targets that would be sufficient to incite Americans, if that's what you think this is about. In fact almost any form of terrorist attack would do.

They've already tried doing it before. Again, it was in the newspapers, back in the early 90s.

And then, to suggest they did it by planting ahead of time, undetected in two crowded public buildings, enough explosives to bring down two of the strongest buildings in the national inventory, and to plant those explosives at exactly the floors - in buildings in which the floors are non-descript from any distance - in which two fuel laden jetliners would later hurtle themselves.

Why? No steel building in history has ever been brought down by fire before. Two airplanes would not be enough to cause the entire building to collapse. Not to mention the nearby building which the government "pulled" because of fire damage. To pull the building, it takes days or weeks ahead of time to plant the explosives, yet they had it pulled within hours.

Not to mention, as already stated, that people working there HEARD the explosions in the basement and were pulling burn victims from down there, when there wasn't any fire at that level... supposedly.

And remember when the government said they had no film footage of the Pentagon being attacked? Then people started saying it was a truck bomb. So suddenly the government admits it has this grainy footage that they LIED and said they did not possess. They release it and, damndest thing, there isn't even a plane anywhere in the footage, nor is there room for a plane in that shot. We see dark smoke, which a 757 does NOT give off... no contrail at that altitude on a 757... and what's more, it happens to hit a part of the Pentagon that is the most difficult to access spot and would take a master pilot to hit. Why not just hit it in the easiest to hit spot, or aim at the center? Funny, the most difficult spot that they hit also happened to be the one spot in the Pentagon where nobody was because it was being reconstructed to give it a greater structural strength... but this is all one big coincidence spouted by silly conspiracy theorists... heh...

This is not simply improbable, it's downright impossible.

How?

How does a CIA that you'd call incompetent in one breath capable of such an unbelievable operation in the next???

Well, I don't call them incompetant. Sometimes an appearance of incompetance, however, allows them to let disasters happen that could have been averted... but they had no wish to avert them.

Patrick, it's reasonable to distrust the government. It's completely unreasonable to distrust it to the extent that you're willing to believe even the most incredible, impossible fantasies for no other reason than the government says they're not true. Are you seriously saying that you'll believe ANYTHING simply because the government says it's not true????

I know you're talking to Patrick here, but personally, no. However, I think the evidence speaks for itself, and people are too scared to be called "conspiracy theorists" so they dismiss it all. There's bullshit on either side, from the side that says the US Government is your best friend and would never hurt you, and the side that says the US Government is working with aliens who have taken the form of the Bush family to harvest mankind for food. Both extremes are ridiculous.