I try not to believe in conspiracy theories but this one seems quite intriguing - perhaps the bbc were just being stupid and referring to the wrong tower, or was there a delay on the feed, or were they lying about it being live.

As someone who follows the 9/11 Truth Movement I have to let it be known that they got pretty riled up over this documentary. And if this is what it is, it should have been out years before hand yet only surfaces now? All the videos on YouTube are pretty recent. There is no proof that Google is pulling them, if such this video should die soon.

"Although there is no clock or time stamp on the footage, the source claims the report was given at 4:57pm EST, 23 minutes before Building 7 collapsed at 5:20pm. While the exact time of the report cannot be confirmed at present, it is clear from the footage that the reporter is describing the collapse of WTC 7 while it clearly remains standing behind her in the live shot."
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/260207building7.htm

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/

Personally. I don't know.

here is richard porter's official response. he is the editor for Head of News, BBC World. there are 200+ responses thus far from not so happy brits.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html

the reason no one has heard about this before now, farhad .... is because it was discovered on a BBC archive page ...

Seems obvious that she's live and they accidentally put out of date footage on the greenscreen behind her.

It wasn't as if the collapse of WTC 7 was a huge surprise. We had been told that the building was burning and in danger of collapse for some time that day. After WTC 1 and 2 had collapsed -- an event that had previously seemed impossible to most people -- the media were very primed to be the first to report on the seemingly inevitable collapse of WTC 7. Yeah, the reporter looked pretty ridiculous standing in front of a building that had not collapsed, while reporting its collapse, but if this was some sort of a conspiracy, how is that mistake any evidence at all?

1) Option 1: The Beeb was part of the conspiracy and the reporter jumped in with her bit way too early. Uh, right. Even many of the conspiracy theorists on that BBC thread think that the BBC was most likely fed false info from some nefarious someones somewhere, rather than being part of the Cabal.

2) Option 2: The BBC, poor dupes, were fed the prescient info too early AND the reporter didn't look behind and see the intact building before reporting on its demise. This requires TWO mistakes, not just one.

3) Option 3: On a horrible, confused, overwhelming day, the reporter screwed up. No conspiracy required.

Some days, I think the 9/11 conspiracy theorists should join forces with the underpants gnomes:

1) Odd bit of data
2) ???
3) CONSPIRACY!!

Upvote for the primary material and the discussion, not for the conspiracy theories.

Or what gorillaman said. Was the reporter actually in NY? If not, and the footage has no timestamp, then that's an even simpler explanation of how she could have screwed up.

can't zoom in like that on a green (or blue) screen, gorillaman! she says: 'as you can see BEHIND me' ... not to mention that you can see the smoke from the collapsed towers rising around wtc7 ...

This still doesn't make sense.

Why would the original co-conspirators need to feed their news of the collapse to the BBC at all? Apart from the risk of releasing it early, why tell the Beeb instead of just letting the reporters report on the results of their machinations? Did they think that the world's media would somehow not notice WTC 7 collapsing unless they were spoon-fed the info?

I don't know.

Maybe the situation was allowed to go into play but the factors set around to point toward one factuality and one outcome that we find ourselves years later. However wide scale media control was not exercised as stated by conspiracy theorists, and this was a miss. Since as they claim this came from archives and was just recently noticed?

I wouldn't say it was a evil cabal planning these events, but there is clear indication of criminal negligence on the behalf of the CIA and the FBI not to pursue the operatives of Al Qeada once they were in the United States, given the previous attacks on the WTC and in Africa such a stance just seems illogical.

"CIA operatives reportedly monitored the movements of these two known militants when they visited the U.S. but did not notify the FBI or gain an inkling of what the hijackers were planning. However, during a 2006 Moussaoui trial cross-examination, FBI agents stated that the bureau was aware, years before the attacks in 2001, that al-Qaeda planned to use planes to destroy important buildings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks.

the 1,000+ comments over at digg.com also make for a very interesting read!

I'm on board with the negligence hypothesis. I just don't see how this bit of film could be any evidence of conspiracy. How is option 2 (BBC was duped, reporter didn't notice that the building was still there) a more coherent hypothesis than option 3 (reporter waiting for the now-expected collapse misunderstood a communication and didn't look behind her)?

We're talking three mistakes (conspirators released news early, other BBC staff on location didn't notice the error, and the reporter didn't notice the error) versus one mistake (scared/eager reporter screwed up).

I don't see how releasing the news to the Beeb -- instead of letting the Beeb report -- makes any sense at all.

This was a day where the media were reporting car bombs in front of the State Department (didn't happen). This is a particularly embarrassing mistake because unlike some anchorman grabbing all the reports he could get, some of which turned out to be wrong, this reporter could have double checked her story by just turning around before talking to the camera.

Because there is a wall of invulnerability reached when discussing the failure of the intelligence community to pursue the operatives of Al Qaeda. Instantly personal feelings are raised and you become unpatriotic and against the war. That was in 2002. Now each mention is another conspiracy theory, sure Alex Jones and the PrisonPlanet folks are, I don't buy their angle on events.

But it is troubling that the only reason for intelligence failure that can be given is simply "they fucked up because it was Bush". That's just retarded and a low assessment of the abilities of the intelligence agencies and the people who work there. These are the same people who fought the Cold war against something called the KGB. It just doesn't seem to compute to me.

Farhad, I've talked to you about 9/11 conspiracies a number of times now, and I still have no idea what you're alleging - if you're alleging anything at all.

Perhaps the biggest conspiracy of all is assigning some kind of Jack Bauer-esque super-competence on government agencies, who clearly fuck up and do stupid things just as often (and probably more often) as any other group of people.

None of the intelligence agencies were talking to each other at the time, and the biggest bunch of morons to ever occupy the White House and a Congressional majority were in power. Chalking 9/11 up to apathy and incompetence is THE most obvious (and the correct) answer.

I have nothing to allege than to merely state the obvious: The psychological impact created by the events of 9/11 was used by the administration to push through conflicts of conquest using cherry picked intelligence. Somehow post 9/11, given the so called massive intelligence failure we were coaxed into a war based on reports of WMDs. You keep telling me that it's Bush this and Bush that, but thats you're only arguement and contribution to this issue.

At the end of the day the general public was fooled, we went to war with little to no international backing.

If that isn't enough to warrant a serious reassessment of the events that lead us there, then I don't know what is. Am sick and tired of this Utopian idea that this kinda of thing will suddenly never happen again, if Obama or Clinton or whichever political wank will take over.

If the entire US defense system built up during the cold war era fails in this one instance against terrorism under criminal negligence what happens tomorrow when another one occurs? And another person in power finds themselves in a perfect position to argue for a proxy war.

I don't disagree with any of your assertions, but I don't think an investigation into the intelligence will end up with anything prosecutable.

I mean, look at the Libby case - there are breaches of ethics all over the place, but that isn't against the law, unfortunately.

In the end, the White House duped the Democrats in Congress, the media, and the American public as a whole, so the blame lies partly with their/our inaction and inability to call them out on their bullshit.

And as has been pointed out many times, an impeachment of Bush or Cheney still leaves you with one or the other. There's simply no getting rid of them until 2008, when I pray to God the public holds the Republicans responsible.

Then we are in agreement.

Alright, I'm not one on stupid conspiracy.

But the speculation is started by the US crusade against the middle east benefiting haliburton.

Follow my logic here:

1) Terrorist Attack - world trade centers blow!
2) Smoking gun tape arises.
3) tali ban accused, harboring terrorists.
4) Attack Afghanistan. (Coalition Troops are still there)
5) Win! Now we attack Iraq in the ongoing war on Terror.
6) No WMDs - Habeas Corpus Destroyed.
7) Troops keep dying in the middle of a civil war.
Spending more money, and loosing controll.
9) Sending more Troops over to "help", (more like putting gas on a fire)
10) Mission Accompolished? Missions accompolished means major troop movement in a place are over, and they can begin to come home!

Last but not Least: All these bullshit excuses. I think that this situation is FUBAR, and SNAFU. It is all a complete Lie! Conspiracy or not, it smells pretty fishy to me.

Colin Powell Resigns, after lying to the UN about false Intelligence, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says that WMDs are North South East, and west of Tikrit. HOLY crap he just said the cardinal directions. Forgive me but any one who doesn't believe that there is something else going on here is completely hypnotized by prime time television.

My feeling is: There house of cards is built on a foundation of lies, and its about to start raining fiery truth. The lies cannot last another term.

I'm a "conspiracy" nutter in this regard, and unashamedly so. I pride myself on being able to recognise ulterior motives in the people around me and I don't see any difference in this situation. Infact from just about a week after it happened I began scouring the internet for information that appeared untainted, and trying to make my own conclusions from the "coincidences" and "mistakes".

Three key points come to mind.
1) Dick Cheney has almost attained comic book level of evilness in my books, clearly has no regard for human life, is running the show in every way conceivable and is the tool of big business. For mind he is the mastermind of the 9/11 saga, and I begrudgingly applaud him for his ability to David Copperfield this incident so well.

2)America needed to be scared of something again to keep the funding in military circles, it's long been suggested in movie scripts and books that reducing military funding is just not an option, there is simply too much vested interest in business and politics to have the US retreat to a more peaceful configuration. They need enemies now, and lots of them, to keep the right wing in power and the best buddies of the White House richer than sin.

3)People for the most part don't want to know the truth when it is this ugly, you see it in the eyes of the victims when it is suggested to them it was an inside job there is a clear mental barrier that first shocks them, then makes them angry at the mere suggestion it wasn't some towel head nut job responsible.

Frankly, as Michael Ruppert has said before, there is a small but distinct timeframe in which a conspiracy is threatened by the truth, and we are long past that point. Only some 20 years from now will information become declassified that sheds some light on the course of events, and it's sad that the "American Psyche" is more concerned about CSI Miami than it is about being the champions of freedom and truth that it so prides itself upon.

Negligence? sure, nice convenient answer, fire a few low level employees and keep the real criminals pulling the strings.

So the conspiracy thought process here is that WTC7 was imploded, and prior to this happening someone who was on the inside and was under the impression that all the buildings had been taken out successfully was telling people that WTC7 had collapsed?

... versus the reporter was given incorrect info and didn't bother to turn around, or didn't know which building was WTC7 behind her...

yeah, this is a pretty silly piece of 'evidence'. sorry to anyone who wants to believe!

I don't think it's anything like what you have suggested bamdrew, just another in a long line of WTF moments surrounding this event. WTC7 is a favourite target for tinfoil bandits like myself because the building clearly sustained minimal damage and was subject to a controlled demolition. Clearly the agenda was to bring that building down.. I don't know why, there are alot of theories about what was contained in that building, namely important documents.

Moreover, in this vid, they clearly name the building by its full name, so a simple typo error from WTC1 to WTC7 wouldn't be the case here, it's simple the media was being fed information from the government and authorities the whole time (remember how it only took 10 minutes to blame Osama), and we all know how often governments make mistakes.

Interesting to read the opinions of people here. I must say that it is so awfully frustrating to be marginalized.

I was reading about the tragedy of a nightclub fire. They say the patrons stared at the flames and said "cool." They were totally unaware that the flames were about to spread in a deadly manner.

Pot makes you paranoid, marinara.

cmon theo, don't hold back, share some of your reasoning instead of offhanded insults

There is someting so dsturbing about the WTC7 collapse. If 9/11 was planned, why, would they make it so blatantly obvious that WTC7 was a contolled demolition. Nothing collapses like it did by itself, its just seems ridiculosly obvious that it was imploded. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPDNPJAr_Ao
Did they just think nobody was going to film it? Or if they did, What the hell? I know it's terrible to think that a goverment would do/allow this to happen to its own people. For gods sake, the building didnt even crumble, it just fell like every single screw was removed for the bottom up. Every single video/article rebutting the 9/11 conspiracy theories dosen't explain this very plausibly at all. there is just as ren said, so much WTF? stuff going on with the whole situation. I'll admit, it seems incredibly unlikley that a conspiracy of this scale could be pulled off with out anything comming to light or anybody involved speaking out or information leaking. the whole JFK thing (which i'm not very familiar with) is an example where a handfull of people could organize and execute, but this seems way to elaborate, far too many people would need to be involved. Yet, something still seems so uncanny about the explanation for the events that took place and the relative lack of investigation into them. I don't know what the hell is going on.

As per illegals, they should be given an IQ test, if they fall below 100 then they should be sterilized and sent back.
This accomplishes two thing:
1. An incentive for the dumb ones not to enter the country
2. Once the pan-american union is established inferior genome cleansing will have already gotten a head start in el mexico.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Hold on to your gnads lobododo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9b4D-aO3zY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprisonplanet%2Ecom%2Farticles%2Ffebruary2007%2F260207building7%2Ehtm


Very interesting.

What people are missing is that the US is akin to 1933 Germany. All the actions of Executive Branch are pretty closely paralleled to rise of Nazi Germany. (except instead of Ovens and Concentration Camps, we have Gitmo and AbuGhraib)

Good, now that no one is still reading.. Seriously, no steel framed WTC7 would ever fall from facia damage. Heck even if there was massive fires burning inside it would have fallen sideways or center outwards, not completely controlled demolition.

Even official sources / Pop. Mechanics / etc. can't explain in any logical, scientific, or engineering way how WTC7 happened.

My take on this video footage, is that BBC had a favorite anchor, and they wanted to seem cool and on the scene, but green screened it from a warm fuzzy studio, and got the live feed wrong. Green Screen is simpler explanation than "leaked early broadcast to BBC of impending demolition"... Come on people.

I'm all for conspiracy theories, but I can think of several more-plausible explanations here that don't involve conspiracy.

Once again, I'd like to compare conspiracy nuts to religious fundamentalists; just because science does not have all the facts and is forced to theorize doesn't give those who skip theory altogether and go straight to preconceived conclusion more credence. Sorry.

There is no way that can be a green screen, you can see clearly there is no distortion around her hair that partially obscures the background... the lighting angles, the zoom in and out, the whole scene looks authentic.

I'm sorry theo, but you just compared me to a religious fundamentalist, when i'm trying to use science to explain a pancake collapse(physics) of a building due to miniscule fire damage (when the sprinklers should have work). We have the facts in this instance, we have video footage, try and use science to explain to me another possibility. The ONLY thing that makes sense from the evidence we have is that all of the WTC buildings had controlled demolition explosives placed before the plane collision. That could have happened when they were built, as i have heard about with the towers to prevent debris spillage, and that is which i do not know.

Sorry doesn't cut it mate, you just possibly used the most offensive insult to me, especially when i value science above all else.

I love how the sift never sleeps.

OK, taking leave of my senses and assuming for a moment that the 9/11 conspiracy is truth, why do you need to implode WTC7 on BBC TV to further your aims of cashing in your stock options in the military-industrial complex and occupying Iraq?

What are the testable hypotheses behind 9/11 Truth?

1) The "terrorists" were actually US government agents working for Dick Cheney
2) The FBI was complicit
3) The CIA was complicit
4) The structural damage did not cause the collapse of the towers; the planes were merely the magician's flash to cover the controlled explosives
5) The invasion of Afghanistan was motivated by controlling the oil pipeline and the attacks gave us the political leverage
6) The invasion of Iraq was solely motivated by controlling oil and providing single-source defense contracting to Bechtel and Halliburton and the attacks gave us the political leverage
7) A state of fearfulness secures a permanent Republican majority

pt. 2


Some of the above may be stronger hypotheses than others. What I don't see in much of this thread is anyone testing their pet theories.

I don't believe that the BBC WTC7 is strong evidence of the conspiracy for the reasons cited by maudlin and bamdrew. If you are the shadowy Cheneyites, why involve the Beeb (an organization that has been a consistently negative source of press for the shadowy Cheneyites)?

A side note: I was in downtown DC during the attacks on the Pentagon and remember a lot of the coverage. It was a very confusing time. There were reports from all sources of car bombs, on rifle attacks at the Capital, of other buildings being bombed . . . all untrue . . .but all on NPR and all the local channels. Even though they could have sent a camera crew to the State Dept. and witnessed no car bombs, et al.

Like the immigration debate, you can bring so many factors into the 9/11 Truth issue that it verges on jabberwocky after awhile.

I want to take up farhad's criminal negligence point. I disagree with it, but it is such a fascinating and still unsettled intra-governmental debate.

Do we want a government where the Intelligence and Criminal Enforcement agencies are freely sharing information? If you take it too far, you have the Stasi or any other 20th Century communist police state apparatus you can name.

There is no question that DOJ, FBI, and the CIA are unprepared to deal with the Arab world. I have so many funny (sad) stories about efforts to "thwart" terrorist money laundering alone. There is also no question that the US Government undervalued or failed to assess properly this threat. I don't know that it is negligence, though; it is more a refusal to adapt to realities of positioning in the post-Cold War period.

I disagree. I think it's inexcusable to simply state this was a intelligence failure due to failure to react to world post-cold war. Simply due to the following factual information:

The Cold war was built on the shoulders of relationship with Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
They got miffed due to US military presence and the House of Saud.
The American Embassy in Africa bombings.
The 1994 WTC attack.
The CIA and FBI knew of their presence in the country.
Constant threats by Al Qaeda.
Intelligence failure post 9/11 with regards to Iraq.

Honestly all this back and forth about this tape is enough for me.

All I ask is that you don't consider the day, but what that day meant, and where that day has lead us.

The police state you mention we should avoid? We're already there... from Gitmo, arrest without trail, NSA phone taps, heabus corpus, NSA echelon program and so on and so on.

Do you know what the Terrorists want? No, the whitehouse tells us they hate the Western way of life. Or what is it? Islamofacists. No mention of their demands to end to house of Saud, Palestine and so on, i.e. specific grievances but no it degrades at this level to some clash of cultures and religions. Because the Decider has decided that for you.

Does it make logical plausible sense? No, if the intent of Al Qeada was to destroy the western way of life in American the attack would have been on nuclear power stations (check your maps its all there, its not state secrets or anything) around the East coast causing an event the size of Chernobyl. They knew that such an attack would lead to possible usage of nuclear arms against them, they don't seek a war of mutual annihilation, they are at issue with the foreign policy actions of the USA. So did not pursue that action.

In our world of fear due to terrorism, a massive securities and weapons supply chain is developing, the American goverment is spending nigh on billions on futuristic weapon systems that don't coincide with the needs of the US Army currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. The same money that could have been used to rebuild New Orleans which more then a year later is still there in tatters.

Are we safer today then we were before 9/11? No. It's worse. But you know, I guess no one read 1984 and am just paranoid.

New Orleans?!? Twas brillig . . .

Shame on you, budding economist. You should know that the emergency appropriations stream is hydra-headed and subject only to political whim. Money flowing to Iraq does not dry up money going to New Orleans.

But I am more in agreement with you than you might believe, particularly on analyzing where the day has led us.

On the security issue, though, you seem to take powerful issue with a perceived negligent lack of communications between the FBI and CIA. At the same time, you decry the natural by-product of increased communications between intelligence and law enforcement -- police state, secret trials, bye bye habeas, wiretapping, tapping bank accounts.

You can't have it both ways.

WTF RickE? You don't get it. There didn't need to be more intel sharing.. They already knew. Heck they provided the 1993 WTC bombers with the explosives (and a map where to place, oops they didn't follow directions).

The spying on citizens, habeas, etc. has nothing to do with intel sharing between police and federal spooks. It has to do with 9/11 as an excuse to implement total ChoicePoint (tm) analysis to citizens. Fully database every aspect of your life, your spending, money, phone calls, emails, etc. Everything. It has nothing to do with GWOT.

Look, check this out. ChoicePoint was given exclusive rights to overseas communication in exchange for sharing intel with FBI/CIA when? The US military has been studing Total Urban Theatre Command and Control since when? There is hardly a new technology they are developing that works in a desert or thrid world where humans are the only thing worth targeting, cause the rest is rubble, sand, and worthless. Collateral Damage is meaningless.

Ask yourself this. If they willingly, and knowingly allowed the 1993 WTC attack to take place.. THEN?
The conspiracy theory is that they were involved with and passed information and explosives to Pakistanis in 1993, but in 2001... all the sudden had NO IDEA..
("Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast", New York Times, p. Section A, Page 1, Column 4.)

So, starting from that foundation, you have a few questions. Silverstein exclusive contract to own the WTC complex. His insurance policy. Bush brother running security at WTC complex. Bush's brother contract ends on guess when. O'Neil assigned to security in WTC on guess when. WTC7 falls completely on it's foot print. Heck towers 1 & 2 fall almost in their own foot print. All the convient "drills" on 9/11 the FEMA pre-set up bunker. No one goes to the emergency command bunker set up in WTC7.

How do you ignore all the stock shenanigans. Have they been investigated? Clearly from the Puts people KNEW ahead of time. Why not investigate who they were. (ex-CIA directors?)

The conspiracy is that people can ignore all the details of the story for the simple Nazi-Germany concept of when you lie to the mass, lie big.

So the conspiracy spans across the GHWB administration as well as the Clinton administration and over to the NeoCon bastards of the GWB Administration. . .a veil of secrecy that spans numerous Agency directors, their staffs, several Cabinet members, and a few Presidents. What are the sources for this theory?

The NYT article that you cite to was later corrected:

"Correction: October 29, 1993, Friday

An article yesterday about accounts of a plot to build a bomb that was eventually exploded at the World Trade Center referred imprecisely in some copies to what Federal officials knew about the plan before the blast. Transcripts of tapes made secretly by an informant, Emad A. Salem, quote him as saying he warned the Government that a bomb was being built. But the transcripts do not make clear the extent to which the Federal authorities knew that the target was the World Trade Center."



Did the conspiracy bomb Oklahoma City as well as a test? Was Columbine a part of it? Who bombed the levees in New Orleans? All questions in search of a unitary answer.

I agree fully that there should be continued investigation beyond the kid-tested, mother-approved 9/11 Commission Report, but when you raise the spectre of BushNazis, you introduce a historical comparison that verges on the absurd.

Is the Iraq invasion absurd? What about a US Nuclear attack on Iran? Would you agree a nuclear attack on Iran would but this regime in the Nazi 1933 category?

WHAT WILL IT TAKE?

I never mentioned anyone was required for WTC "conspiracy" other than Bush family and a really rich Silverstein. And the FBI/spooks who knowingly gave plans and explosives to Pakistanis in 1992/1993. Go look it up.

Forget Nazi 1933. A nuclear attack on Iran would put the current regime in the Nazi 1944 category.

Unless there is stronger evidence, though, the current state of affairs is that GWB had about as much to do with bombing the Towers as Saddam Hussein.

Even though I disagreed with it in 2002, 2003, and now, I don't know that the Iraq invasion is absurd. I can still see good, non-absurd "humanitarian hawk" reasons for sending ground troops into nations like Iraq, Sudan, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Unfortunately, this empty Admin. based their invasion on those reasons only to cover their ass once the fearmongering and foolish, foolish preemptive war doctrine failed to work.

I just love the lack of accountability the war on terror creates. The perfect perpetual enemy for the dissolution of personal freedoms. Corporate media providing you with 'Fair and Balanced News'. President's relying on dubious information to push forward conflicts. I mean Quds Force?

Welcome to 1984.

With you, farhad.

The 'brilliant' innovation of the "war on terror" is that it can never end. With the Cold War, the natural end was the collapse of Communist nation-states. Thus, to the Lockheeds of the world, the war on terror is so much better than the Cold War because it is a renewable boom market.

With a stateless threat, there is no clear way to measure when "the war" is over so you can present political, economic, or military justifications on just about any grounds you want based only on an abstract cloud of fear.

If our own government was responsible for the deaths of a hundred thousand people... would you really want to know? ~Finch from V~

*bows to joe* BRAVO!!

it would have been funny if it collapsed during the footage, haha

You can never send ground troops to another country under the flag of one nation and not make it look like an invasion. I think making comparisons to the Nazi regime is an insult to Hitler, atleast Hitler had the balls to just hang his crazy ideas out there, instead of this misdirection and manipulation of the international community.

Bush hasn't taken Poland yet.(or has he?)

And it seems like members of the international community (save for Bush's BFF in Australia and Poland) were always onto the the shell game that preciptitated the invasion of Iraq.

And who really cares if an invasion looks like an invasion? I am sure the Tutsis would have wanted something that looked a little more like an invasion in the early 1990s.

Invading Iraq to prevent the massacre of the Kurds would have been a great idea. Invading Iraq to prevent the use of biological and chemical weapons on the populations of Iran, Israel, and Palestine would have been a great idea. Invading Iraq to satisfy some neoconservative fantasy of an ill-defined and endless "war on terror" based only on manufactured intelligence of nuclear weapons has proven to be a very, very bad idea.

Rickegee, I would want to agree with you on the point that invading Iraq has certain humanitarian issues that are favorable. And in someways thats the way I resigned it once the war began and I witnessed it in Kuwait.

But realistically if the freedom and democracy in Iraq really was an agenda for the American or Western governments it would have been done in 1991. When there was populist support for the removal of Saddam Hussein, a rebellion in the south and north of the country post the 100 days. However coalition forces let Saddam use attack helicopters to crush these domestic movements for democracy.

So what happened is the international community just forgot about Iraq, US forces occasionally bombed them, the UN sanctions did alot of damage to the civilians, back room dealing allowed the regime to survive. Saddam Hussein became more entrenched in his position because he was the sole provider of anything under sanctions and no fly zones. The civilian population saw the chance of liberation stop and pull back.

History is not the actions of men in power, but what that power means to the little people who have none, to the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the soldiers who enlist because they have little choice and come from far flung places like Little Rock and Colorado Springs and a million other places we never really hear of.

I hope for one thing that History gives this time it's full needed coverage for it is something I never want to see happen ever again. What I hate most is how cynical I have become about the human race given all this, because quite frankly it shows how far reaching certain people's ability is to fool the most powerful nation in the world into basically falling on it's own sword.

Exactly right.

The moment for humanitarian intervention in Iraq was in 1991. Although the Bush Administration pretends that humanitarian intervention is the goal now, the war plan by Cheney/Rumsfeld and the actions/inactions of the CPA under Garner and Bremer give the lie to that one.

My concern is that Iraq War 2003 will erroneously support the conclusions of the military "realists" of 1990-1995 and stand for the proposition of isolationism first. The Coalition force betrayed that region in 1991 through the doctrine of military realism. It had the troop strength to prevent a massacre and it did nothing.

Did ren just try to refute me by saying that sprinkler systems can put out jet fuel fires and that explosives were built into the towers?

How could anyone type that with a straight face?

Sorry maybe i wasn't specific enough. WTC7 did not have jet fuel fires, it had fires on 2 floors that were probably cause by debris and fueled by burning office equipment. Easily something the automated sprinkler system could have handled.

Please Mr Science, explain to me how a building as over engineered as the WTC7 building just collapses spontaneously at terminal velocity without controlled demolition explosives. As a fundamentalist religious type i need smrt people to explain things to me. And please dont tell me the fires reached a gas tank below the building because that doesn't scientifically explain the pancake collapse into its own footprint

I'm not responding to these comments; I just wanted to represent the non-wack-jobs of videosift. Seems like the only people posting are the conspiracy theorists arguing over the details of how we're all idiots to believe 9/11.

ehh this thread is going to get buried shortly and noone will post in it for weeks, i think its interesting to note that science doesn't seem to support the official story and i'm made to look like a "wack-job" for questioning it.

the "non-wack-jobs" just sit there quietly and keep getting spoon fed bullshit, you wont see me apologising for defending my opinion any time soon, because atleast i have one.

ren, I'm 100% certain that you and all of the rest of the conspiracy nuts on the intertron are NOT experts on building demolition, physics, etc. etc.

Like I said before, you might as well be telling me that Jesus Himself pulled the buildings down by His mighty hand; your preconceived notions of conspiracy is a belief stronger than any facts I could give you -- just like a fundamentalist.

It's pretty much a fact of life by now that when traumatic things happen to us as a society, there is a certain segment of the population that will turn it into a conspiracy, usually for no better reason than to try to make the shock, the horror, the confusion into pieces that fit - into a story palatable enough to agree with their tastes.

Sometimes a well-orchestrated terrorist attack on an unsuspecting citizenry is just a well-orchestrated terrorist attack on an unsuspecting citizenry...y'know?

i understand your points, and don't doubt there is a certain attraction to believing the opposite to what you have been told by government, but in this instance, the official story is clearly bullshit.

And i note that you have avoided offering me a possible explanation for the total collapse of WTC7

Yeah, ren - that's because the experts themselves are having a hard time agreeing on how WTC7 went down - but I'm thinking being right next to two of the tallest buildings in the world as they came down in a pile of rubble might have something to do with it. See, that's how science really works - attempting to theorize what happened using the available facts, as opposed to christening yourself an expert on everything from construction to physics after watching a couple of Flash movies on the internets.

I'll take theories based on real knowledge of those subjects instead of baseless accusations out of a bad literary thriller. The towers were constructed with explosives in them? The fire was minor? Demonstrably false, and I don't know what about the last 7 years makes you think the Bush administration is competent enough to tie its own shoes, much less pull off the greatest conspiracy to ever happen, ever, ever.

Again, I can argue this from now until the end of time, but you and your brethren have the certainty of religious fervor, and there's nothing obvious or factual I can say that could shake your faith.

religion has nothing to do with this issue ...


i have still yet to read any plausible explanation for the reason that 3 steel skyscrapers fell at almost terminal velocity and disintegrated into rubble in their own footprint when fires have never caused a steel-framed building to totally collapse, before or after September 11th, 2001.

In February 2005 the 32-story Windsor Building in Madrid, Spain, caught fire and burned for two days. The building was completely engulfed in flames at one point. Several top floors collapsed onto lower ones, yet the building remained standing.

In October 2004 in Caracas, Venezuela, a fire in a 56-story office tower burned for more 17 hours and spread over 26 floors. Two floors collapsed, but the underlying floors did not, and the building remained standing.

In February 1991 a fire gutted eight floors of the 38-story One Meridian Plaza building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The fire burned for 18 hours. The building did not collapse.

In May 1988 a fire at the Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles destroyed four floors and damaged a fifth floor of the modern 62-story building. The fire burned for four hours. The building did not collapse.

i'm sure most will want to use the 'jet fuel' as the culprit for bringing down WTC1 & WTC2 (even though said jet fuel would have burned up within 20min) ... unfortunately, you can't use that incendiary for WTC7 as it was not hit by a plane.

how do account for the fact that Rudy Giuliani told ABC News and Peter Jennings; "We were operating out of there (his OEM bunker) when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse, and it did collapse before we could get out of the building." !?!?!? how did he know when the firefighters rescuing people in WTC1 & WTC2 didn't even know!?!

would anyone like to take a stab at the 4 gov't offices that we located in WTC7?!? i'll help:
U.S. Secret Service
C.I.A.
Securities & Exchange Commission
IRS Regional Council

at first glance it is easy to see why there have been little to no investigations on all the lovely 'put option' on the market before 9/11 ... hmmmmmm, all the details of such transactions have been destroyed ... bummer!

anyway ... i know it's extremely hard to wrap your head around the fact that our gov't would do something like this ... but they have in the past, did so on 9/11 and will do so again in the future ... period.

I don't understand why everyone thinks it has to be a large scale conspiracy to pull this off. All it would take to happen, is for a few people up high, to willingly let it happen.

Cars are designed to "crumple" in a certain manner when involved in a crash. Why shouldn't skyscrapers (especially ones in densely populated areas) be designed to collapse in a "controlled" fashion, even when the collapse is due to a fire rather than a planned demolition?

Because crumbling points in cars is used to dissipate inertia and stop the car moving, instead of letting the force carry through the passengers.

Buildings on the other hand are meant to be standing, designing a building to fall is a serious civil engineering error.

Not designing a building to fall, but rather ensuring that in case a building does fall, it does so in a (hopefully) controlled way. I think most architects of skyscrapers would take this factor into consideration. Cars are certainly not designed _to_ crash, but the crumple points are a safety feature in case a crash does happen.

The building we are talking about is not a skyscraper, falls in free fall in a few seconds with the clear failure of the main central support column. Buildings are simply not built in the manner you are suggesting, if they had been there would be large ramifications towards attitude effects on upper floors, lose of structural integrity against strong winds and earth quakes.

This is all before stating that WTC7 was built as a NYC hub for emergency situations and as such was reinforced exactly for the kinds of stresses the collapse of the two towers created.

WTC7 was not built AS a NYC hub for emergency, farhad ...

WTC7 was completed in 1985 ... it wasn't until 1998 when Giuliani ordered the construction of a $15 million emergency command center. and then it was only the 23^rd floor that was reinforced with:
* Bullet- and bomb-resistant windows
* An independent, secure air and water supply
* The ability to withstand winds of 200 mph

i would still like to hear an explanation from anyone explaining how ALL support structures for three steel skyscrapers gave way at exactly the same time, fell at pretty much terminal velocity and disintegrated into a pile of rubble when this hadn't happened since nor has happened again.

With all due respect, you people are fucking nuts.

now that's not very respectful, theo and it certainly isn't an explanation for me either!

Can we switch gears for a minute? Remember, the moon landing was also fake, a conspiracy! The government LIED to us about it. You know what else? So was the holocaust! It was a lie, too! Plus Pearl Harbor, FDR planned that one! I think the civil war was a conspiracy to drive up cotton prices too, I'm looking into it.

Why don't you people remember that husbands, wives, sons, daughters, friends and some of my colleagues were killed in this disaster? Stop dishonoring their memories by turning their deaths into your own little 'whodunit' game.

I think Wingoguy pretty much summed it up for me, LadyBug.

'science' has been invoked one too many times sans evidence... since the clever Sift community loves its science and logic, I felt I should note something quickly;

- Before any scientist worth his salt can render an opinion, said scientist must seek out all available data on the subject, then begin formulating answerable questions that will lead to a better understanding (and more evidence gathering, unfortunately).

...that said, here is a start; pictures of WTC7, snagged in a 2min google search, showing significant structural damage and the entire backside (facing the towers) engulfed in smoke, rising from many floors.

http://www.kolumbus.fi/av.caesar/wtc/wtc7_2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/WTC7.jpg/300px-WTC7.jpg
http://www.debunking911.com/World_trade_ct._22.jpg (at top left)
http://www.loosechangeguide.com/images/image025.jpg
http://newtonnjd.net/extra/Other/wtc7smoke/09.jpg
http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/images/wtc7/gallery/wtc7-smoke.jpg
http://media.popularmechanics.com/images/0305911-wtc7-lg.jpg (bonus picture of 2nd tower collapse aftermath)

My hope is that further explanations here will account for this evidence.

Watch Larry Silversteen ADMIT the "Pulled" ( a demolition term for controlled demolition) the WTC 7 building. Watch this -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9b4D-aO3zY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eprisonplanet%2Ecom%2Farticles%2Ffebruary2007%2F260207building7%2Ehtm

These 9/11 conspiracy theorists are idiots. This particular BBC report was probably going on tips from one person who got confused by the smoke. The idea that anyone smart enough to pull off 9/11 would be stupid enough to write their own press releases and send them out too early is ludicrous.

No matter even if Giuliani and pals outright told us that they played a part in it, the refuters of 9/11 conspiracy theorists would still refute the evidence. In their defense tho, for the longest time I felt the same way they do.

I refused to acknowledge the possibility of deceit from our government... I thought it inconceivable and eagerly awaited the evidence to be explained in the commission report. I was severely disappointed with the commission report and found it to be biased and was an attempt to reinforce the "official" story. I then picked up a copy of the 9/11 commission report - Ommissions and distortions. I was extremely impressed with the unbiased analytical analysis. This prompted me to dig deeper, to find as much evidence or conjecture regarding the tragic events of that day. I think the most incriminating evidence is the molten pools of steel at the base of the collapse and the steel pillar that was left standing that was obviously cut with thermate.

I was appalled that Henry Kissinger was assigned to spearhead the commission report. Talk about letting the fox guard the henhouse!!!

Conspiracies have occurred for centuries. What makes you think that America is invulnerable to such a thing? Due to the factual evidence that a New World Order is the agenda of a cabal, which is attended to by members of the Bilderberg convention (media not allowed), and the Project for a New American Century clearly supports this NWO. Conspiracy is staring at you in the face yet you renounce it and call anyone that does believe it crazy. Either you support the new "agenda" or you are too stupid to research the information.

As a sidenote: I am a pilot and engineer. In my Instrument rating class, the chief pilot had the class examine the plane "attack" on the pentagon. We concluded that a 767 most definitely did NOT crash into the pentagon and the evidence clearly indicates that a cruise missle most likely did the damage.