Folks, I really apologize for the length of this.
In its 12/25 issue The Nation ran an article by Christopher Hayes that dismissed 9/11 conspiracy claims -- accurately in my view -- as paranoid fantasy. In the current issue they devote their letters page to a collection of negative responses to this commendably reasonable article. Fair enough, although the headline "9/11: The Jury’s Still Out” tilts in an unfortunate direction.
The arguments in the letters are very familiar to participants in this forum. But it pains me to think that many other readers will see them without ever being exposed to the skeptical responses, and that the “Truth Movement” will use them as recruiting tools on the left. (Full disclosure: I consider the Bush administration one of the greatest calamities ever to befall our nation. There are lots of reality-based reasons to despise it. There is no need to make stuff up.)
The letter that lathers me up the most is a comprehensive litany of nonsense by James Fetzer of Scholars For 9/11 Truth. Trouble is, to the average reader, it all sounds rather “disturbing” and may well give rise to the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” fallacy.
I know sincere, well-meaning people who are not dumb or crazy but may be tempted to buy this stuff. I’d like to have a toolkit to fortify their sales resistance. I know this is well-plowed ground, but I am not personally in command of all the appropriate rebuttals, so I ask: Is anyone willing to go through Fetzer’s letter and supply paragraph-by-paragraph responses? The letter does have the virtue of collecting most of the b.s. in one place, although disappointingly there's nothing about holograms or death rays.
I’ve thrown in a few responses of my own [in square brackets and red]; I’m hoping others will fill in the blanks -- and also correct me where I'm wrong -- preferably in very brief form and in as dispassionate language as you can muster. I know that last part is hard, believe me.
Thanks very much in advance for any help. Here’s Fetzer’s letter.
Oregon, Wisc.
As the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, I read "9/11: The Roots of Paranoia" with great interest. Its author cites a few of the questions that have troubled students of 9/11, but neglects most of the answers that we have established based upon objective, scientific investigation. [Very dubious claim.] In the name of fair play, here is a summary of our findings, substantiation for which may be found at our website, [can't post URL's yet].
One preliminary point. If belief in conspiracies is enough to qualify one as "paranoid," then our highest government officials should be escorted to homes for the mentally bewildered, since they had been propounding a conspiracy theory even prior to investigation. Consider:
The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, observed), the planes that hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand, and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects. [Straw man. Who claims the impacts brought them down? But isn’t “negligible” an odd choice of words?]
The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down. [Straw man. Who claims the steel melted?]
UL certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees F for three or four hours before it would significantly weaken, whereas these fires burned too low and too briefly at an average temperature of around 500 degrees--about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North--to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt. [I ’m pretty sure this is just a lie, but I’m willing to be corrected. Can someone confirm?]
If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed. [Does any structural engineer agree with this contention? And “abrupt” is another odd choice of words.]
William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the sub-basements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a fifty-ton hydraulic press and the ripping of the skin off a fellow worker, a report corroborated by the testimony of many other custodians. [I know lots of people heard loud noises that SOUNDED like explosions. There are reasonable non-CT explanations. Can someone respond to the other claims in this graf?]
Rodriguez has reported that the explosion occurred prior to the airplane's impact, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross, "Seismic Proof: 9/11 Was an Inside Job," which demonstrates that these explosions actually took place as much as fourteen and seventeen seconds prior to the airplanes' impacts. [Eyewitness reports in chaotic, terrifying situations are usually confused and contradictory; nothing surprising about one person misremembering the time sequence. Any response to the seismic claims?]
Heavy-steel-construction buildings like the Twin Towers are not generally capable of "pancake collapse," which normally occurs only with concrete structures of "lift slab" construction and could not occur in redundant welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as Charles Pegelow has pointed out to me. [Responses?]
The destruction of the South Tower in about ten seconds and of the North Tower in nine is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least twelve seconds, which, as Judy Wood has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives. [False premise: the time duration stated is inaccurate, right? Other fictions and fallacies in this graf?]
The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where their floors do not move, a phenomenon that Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain. [Apart from the fact that “top-down” would seem to contradict their own claim of controlled demolition, what else is false in this graf?]
Pools of molten metal were found at the subbasement levels three, four and five weeks later, an effect that could not have been produced by the plane-impact/jet-fuel-fire/pancake collapse scenario, which, of course, implies that it was not produced by such a cause. [Molten metal does not equal molten steel. Other comments?]
WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 pm after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to "pull it," displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions: a complete, abrupt and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the official account that it is not even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report. [Can’t believe they’re still peddling this when everything in this graf has been so thoroughly debunked. The “pull it” quote, at this late date? Suggestive of self-delusion and/or dishonesty, some would say, but not me because I’d never stoop to an ad hominem argument.]
The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands forty-four feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [False premises lead to false conclusions. Any comments on that litany of “no’s”?]
The Pentagon's own videotape does not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when it was shown on The O'Reilly Factor; at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the seventy-one-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and visible; it was not, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [Even well-known stickler for truth Bill O’Reilly admits it! Admittedly, the videotape is not enlightening, but the conclusions amount to an argument from ignorance. Also, I can’t figure out what the ratio of the plane’s length to the building’s height has to do with anything. Anyone know what he’s trying to say here?]
The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory--flying at high speed barely above ground level--physically impossible; and if it had come in at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the government has no way out, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [My impression is the “aerodynamics” argument is simply wrong; correct me if I’m mistaken. No crater because the plane flew into the building, not the ground.]
If Flight 93 had come down as advertised, there should have been a debris field about the size of a city block, but the debris is distributed over an area of about eight square miles, which would be explainable if the plane had been shot down in the air but not if it had crashed, as required by the government's official scenario. [Is there any truth to his premises?]
There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly the planes [total falsehood] and their names were not on any passenger manifest. [Comments?] Several have turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East. [Other people with the same names, for chrissakes!] The government has not even produced their tickets as evidence that they actually could have boarded the aircraft they are alleged to have hijacked. Did Osama call from a cave in Afghanistan and charge them to his MasterCard? [Yes, I guess that is the only possible explanation consistent with the official story. Losing track of how many times my intelligence has been insulted here.]
President Bush recently acknowledged that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. [Fetzer finally says something true; sadly it has no relevance to the subject at hand.] The Senate Intelligence Committee has reported that Saddam was not in cahoots with Al Qaeda. [See previous brackets.] And the FBI has acknowledged that it has "no hard evidence" to tie Osama to 9/11. [Something tells me he’s taking this out of context. He wouldn’t do that, would he?] If Saddam did not do it [true premise] and Osama did not do it [false premise], then who is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans that day? We believe the nation is entitled to the truth. [I believe it too.]
JAMES H. FETZER
In its 12/25 issue The Nation ran an article by Christopher Hayes that dismissed 9/11 conspiracy claims -- accurately in my view -- as paranoid fantasy. In the current issue they devote their letters page to a collection of negative responses to this commendably reasonable article. Fair enough, although the headline "9/11: The Jury’s Still Out” tilts in an unfortunate direction.
The arguments in the letters are very familiar to participants in this forum. But it pains me to think that many other readers will see them without ever being exposed to the skeptical responses, and that the “Truth Movement” will use them as recruiting tools on the left. (Full disclosure: I consider the Bush administration one of the greatest calamities ever to befall our nation. There are lots of reality-based reasons to despise it. There is no need to make stuff up.)
The letter that lathers me up the most is a comprehensive litany of nonsense by James Fetzer of Scholars For 9/11 Truth. Trouble is, to the average reader, it all sounds rather “disturbing” and may well give rise to the “where there’s smoke there’s fire” fallacy.
I know sincere, well-meaning people who are not dumb or crazy but may be tempted to buy this stuff. I’d like to have a toolkit to fortify their sales resistance. I know this is well-plowed ground, but I am not personally in command of all the appropriate rebuttals, so I ask: Is anyone willing to go through Fetzer’s letter and supply paragraph-by-paragraph responses? The letter does have the virtue of collecting most of the b.s. in one place, although disappointingly there's nothing about holograms or death rays.
I’ve thrown in a few responses of my own [in square brackets and red]; I’m hoping others will fill in the blanks -- and also correct me where I'm wrong -- preferably in very brief form and in as dispassionate language as you can muster. I know that last part is hard, believe me.
Thanks very much in advance for any help. Here’s Fetzer’s letter.
Oregon, Wisc.
As the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, I read "9/11: The Roots of Paranoia" with great interest. Its author cites a few of the questions that have troubled students of 9/11, but neglects most of the answers that we have established based upon objective, scientific investigation. [Very dubious claim.] In the name of fair play, here is a summary of our findings, substantiation for which may be found at our website, [can't post URL's yet].
One preliminary point. If belief in conspiracies is enough to qualify one as "paranoid," then our highest government officials should be escorted to homes for the mentally bewildered, since they had been propounding a conspiracy theory even prior to investigation. Consider:
The impact of the planes cannot have caused enough damage to bring the buildings down, since the buildings were designed to withstand them (as Frank DeMartini, the project manager, observed), the planes that hit were similar to those they were designed to withstand, and the buildings continued to stand after those impacts with negligible effects. [Straw man. Who claims the impacts brought them down? But isn’t “negligible” an odd choice of words?]
The melting point of steel at 2,800 degrees F is about 1,000 degrees higher than the maximum burning temperature of jet-fuel-based fires, which do not exceed 1,800 degrees under optimal conditions, so the fires cannot have caused the steel to melt, which means that melting steel did not bring the buildings down. [Straw man. Who claims the steel melted?]
UL certified the steel in the buildings up to 2,000 degrees F for three or four hours before it would significantly weaken, whereas these fires burned too low and too briefly at an average temperature of around 500 degrees--about one hour in the South Tower and one and a half in the North--to have even caused the steel to weaken, much less melt. [I ’m pretty sure this is just a lie, but I’m willing to be corrected. Can someone confirm?]
If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt and total demolition that was observed. [Does any structural engineer agree with this contention? And “abrupt” is another odd choice of words.]
William Rodriguez, the senior custodian in the North Tower and the last man to leave the building, has reported massive explosions in the sub-basements that effected extensive destruction, including the demolition of a fifty-ton hydraulic press and the ripping of the skin off a fellow worker, a report corroborated by the testimony of many other custodians. [I know lots of people heard loud noises that SOUNDED like explosions. There are reasonable non-CT explanations. Can someone respond to the other claims in this graf?]
Rodriguez has reported that the explosion occurred prior to the airplane's impact, a claim that has now been substantiated in a new study by Craig Furlong and Gordon Ross, "Seismic Proof: 9/11 Was an Inside Job," which demonstrates that these explosions actually took place as much as fourteen and seventeen seconds prior to the airplanes' impacts. [Eyewitness reports in chaotic, terrifying situations are usually confused and contradictory; nothing surprising about one person misremembering the time sequence. Any response to the seismic claims?]
Heavy-steel-construction buildings like the Twin Towers are not generally capable of "pancake collapse," which normally occurs only with concrete structures of "lift slab" construction and could not occur in redundant welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as Charles Pegelow has pointed out to me. [Responses?]
The destruction of the South Tower in about ten seconds and of the North Tower in nine is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least twelve seconds, which, as Judy Wood has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives. [False premise: the time duration stated is inaccurate, right? Other fictions and fallacies in this graf?]
The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where their floors do not move, a phenomenon that Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain. [Apart from the fact that “top-down” would seem to contradict their own claim of controlled demolition, what else is false in this graf?]
Pools of molten metal were found at the subbasement levels three, four and five weeks later, an effect that could not have been produced by the plane-impact/jet-fuel-fire/pancake collapse scenario, which, of course, implies that it was not produced by such a cause. [Molten metal does not equal molten steel. Other comments?]
WTC-7 came down in a classic controlled demolition at 5:20 pm after Larry Silverstein suggested the best thing to do might be to "pull it," displaying all the characteristics of classic controlled demolitions: a complete, abrupt and total collapse into its own footprint, where the floors are all falling at the same time, and so forth, an event so embarrassing to the official account that it is not even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report. [Can’t believe they’re still peddling this when everything in this graf has been so thoroughly debunked. The “pull it” quote, at this late date? Suggestive of self-delusion and/or dishonesty, some would say, but not me because I’d never stoop to an ad hominem argument.]
The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands forty-four feet above the ground; the debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Which means the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [False premises lead to false conclusions. Any comments on that litany of “no’s”?]
The Pentagon's own videotape does not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when it was shown on The O'Reilly Factor; at 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the seventy-one-foot Pentagon is high and should have been present and visible; it was not, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [Even well-known stickler for truth Bill O’Reilly admits it! Admittedly, the videotape is not enlightening, but the conclusions amount to an argument from ignorance. Also, I can’t figure out what the ratio of the plane’s length to the building’s height has to do with anything. Anyone know what he’s trying to say here?]
The aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory--flying at high speed barely above ground level--physically impossible; and if it had come in at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the government has no way out, which means that the building was not hit by a Boeing 757. [My impression is the “aerodynamics” argument is simply wrong; correct me if I’m mistaken. No crater because the plane flew into the building, not the ground.]
If Flight 93 had come down as advertised, there should have been a debris field about the size of a city block, but the debris is distributed over an area of about eight square miles, which would be explainable if the plane had been shot down in the air but not if it had crashed, as required by the government's official scenario. [Is there any truth to his premises?]
There is more, especially about the alleged hijackers, including that they were not competent to fly the planes [total falsehood] and their names were not on any passenger manifest. [Comments?] Several have turned up alive and well and living in the Middle East. [Other people with the same names, for chrissakes!] The government has not even produced their tickets as evidence that they actually could have boarded the aircraft they are alleged to have hijacked. Did Osama call from a cave in Afghanistan and charge them to his MasterCard? [Yes, I guess that is the only possible explanation consistent with the official story. Losing track of how many times my intelligence has been insulted here.]
President Bush recently acknowledged that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. [Fetzer finally says something true; sadly it has no relevance to the subject at hand.] The Senate Intelligence Committee has reported that Saddam was not in cahoots with Al Qaeda. [See previous brackets.] And the FBI has acknowledged that it has "no hard evidence" to tie Osama to 9/11. [Something tells me he’s taking this out of context. He wouldn’t do that, would he?] If Saddam did not do it [true premise] and Osama did not do it [false premise], then who is responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans that day? We believe the nation is entitled to the truth. [I believe it too.]
JAMES H. FETZER
