9/11 and Skeptic Magazine’s ‘Science’ of Controlled Demolitions

October 14, 2011 by

The debate of March 6, 2011, at the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado, between Richard Gage, AIA, and Chris Mohr, Denver investigative journalist, continues with this excellent rebuttal by Jeremy Hammond to Chris Mohr’s claims.  A dialog between Mr. Hammond and Mr. Mohr is also posted at the end of this article.  Here is the audio of that debate hosted by Colorado 9/11 Visibility and co-sponsored by Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, and We Are Change Colorado.

 

Foreign Policy Journal 9/11 and Skeptic Magazine’s ‘Science’ of Controlled Demolitions

by Jeremy R. Hammond

September 16, 2011  Chris Mohr at Skeptic magazine writes that “conspiracists are working hard to publicize their claims of scientific validity to the conjecture that the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed through controlled demolition.” He mentions a debate he had with Richard Gage, the founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, where more than 1,500 professional architects and engineers who question the official explanation for the collapse of the three World Trade Center buildings have signed a petition calling for a new—that is to say a real—investigation. “I thought initially that Gage might be on to something,” Mohr writes, “until I examined his science carefully” and debated him. In his article, he lists his responses to the controlled-demolition hypothesis. Sticking to the question of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), let’s examine Mohr’s arguments against the science behind the controlled-demolition hypothesis and in favor of the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. If you’re unfamiliar with WTC 7, you can watch it collapsing on 9/11 in the video below. Mohr begins his case with the argument that “You cannot secretly prepare a controlled demolition of the two World Trade Center buildings … without anyone noticing anything unusual.” He does not mention it, but we may presume he thinks it would be just as impossible in the case of WTC 7, the third WTC building to collapse completely on 9/11. The main point to be made about this assertion is that it is not a scientific argument, but speculation. It for starters assumes that nobody noticed anything unusual in the days, weeks, and months before 9/11. But is that true? Since this possibility was never actually investigated, and thus building workers were never interviewed and asked whether they noticed any suspicious activity going on, we don’t really know. Also, while it may seem unlikely that this could be done, if the actual scientific evidence disproves the fire-induced collapse hypothesis and proves the alternative, then one has a priori knowledge that however unlikely, this must have occurred. So we must turn to the science, which Mohr does get to, eventually, as we shall see.

Mohr writes, “Though it is true that no tall steel frame buildings ever collapsed due to fire alone prior to 9/11, since then, other tall steel framed buildings have.” He is referring, of course, to WTC 7, which wasn’t hit by a plane. It did suffer significant debris impact damage from the collapse of the North Tower, but the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the government agency responsible for the investigation into the building’s collapse, acknowledged that the damage was neither an initiating nor determinative factor in the collapse. As the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) noted in its initial report, “Prior to September 11, 2001, there was little, if any, record of fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings.” Following up on FEMA’s preliminary investigation, NIST noted in its final report that the collapse of WTC 7 “was the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires.” Richard Gage has observed that in every instance where a tall building (that is, a steel-framed skyscraper) has collapsed with characteristics like those of WTC 7, it was a known controlled demolition.

But Mohr says that it has since occurred that “other tall steel framed buildings have” “collapsed due to fire alone”. His example? “On May 13, 2008, a large part of the tall concrete-reinforced steel architecture tower at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands caught fire and thereafter had a very fast, nearly straight-down collapse mostly into its own footprint.” The first problem with Mohr’s [Read more…]

Filed Under: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Boulder, Building 7, Chris Mohr, Foreign Policy Journal, Jeremy R. Hammond, NIST, Richard Gage AIA, Rocky Mt. Peace and Justice Center, Steven Jones, Uncategorized, We Are Change Colorado, World Trade Center Destruction, WTC7

Tenth Anniversary Message From Interlink Publisher: September 2011

September 11, 2011 by

September 11, 2001 is a date forever etched in our collective memory. No one can forget what happened on that fateful day: the horrific attacks, the innocent people who died when the towers collapsed; the bravery and heroic sacrifices of rescue workers and service men and women; and, not in the least, the death, destruction, and consequences of the morally and legally unjustified wars that ensued.

But as we remember, it is our responsibility as citizens to question our government and demand answers that would explain what really happened as well as how 9/11 was used to take us to war. Are you able to say that the official story gives you an objective understanding of what happened that day? Are you satisfied with the 9/11 Commission Report that left out any reference to the collapse of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane and fell systematically at freefall speed? And what about those glaring contradictions and inconsistencies in the government’s story and the blind endorsement of the official explanation by the mainstream media?

I, like many Americans, am a skeptic—not a lunatic, a nutcase, or a conspiracy theorist. And I am thankful to David Ray Griffin whose extraordinarily well-reasoned and meticulously  researched books continue to demolish the official account and demand a thorough, independent investigation. His just released book 9/11 Ten Years Later is a must-read, albeit a painfully disturbing one, for anyone in support of a full, rigorous inquiry, without which many questions shall remain unanswerable.

Michel Moushabeck
Publisher

Filed Under: 10th Anniversary, 9-11 Prior Knowledge, Building 7, David Ray Griffin, Michel Moushabeck, Press Coverage, World Trade Center Destruction, WTC7

Remember Building 7 Campaign

September 4, 2011 by

The Remember Building 7 Campaign will reach 12 million people in major US cities with TV and print ads–IF we all do our part!  Click on the link at the end of this letter to watch the TV ad.  Then watch the excellent 15-minute video from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth narrated by actor Ed Asner.

When the viewers of the ads go to Remember Building 7, it is these amazing videos that they will also see.

This is a most effective campaign–a good investment toward truth, transparency, and democracy!

See what YOU think!

 

Dear Fellow Activists,

The Remember Building 7 campaign, led by NYC CAN, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and supported by several other groups, is attempting to raise $1 million between September 1 and September 11, the 10th Anniversary, to reach 10 million New Yorkers and 2 million people in other cities across the US with TV and poster ads that will educate viewers about Building 7.

It is critical that we all support this campaign because if we succeed in raising $1 million we are sure to generate the overnight surge in awareness and media frenzy that will put Building 7 front and center in the public eye and open the floodgates to questioning the entire official story of 9/11.  Short of a high-level whistleblower or some other major piece of evidence emerging, a sudden stimulus like a large-scale advertising campaign is the kind of shock that is needed to create public outcry for a new investigation, just as the release of the Zapruder film did in 1975.  That outcry eventually led to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which was a cover up.  However, we have reason to be optimistic that a new 9/11 investigation would have to be genuine given the amount of evidence that has already been documented, and the level of public outrage that would be needed to bring about the investigation in the first place would preclude the possibility of a cover up unfolding.

The campaign needs 20,000 people to step forward and make a donation.  We only have the numbers if you take that step forward and give what you can.  With a generous donation of $50, you can pay for 5,000 impressions – that means, for 500 people to see the ads an average of 10 times each.  If you have money to give, there really isn’t a more effective to way use it.

Please watch the TV ad and make your 10th Anniversary donation at http://RememberBuilding7.org/10

Thank you,

Ted Walter

Filed Under: Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Building 7, NYCCAN, Ted Walter, WTC7
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