[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zooropa

Larry Silverstein, the building's owner is on video stating the WTC 7 was "pulled." Pulled meaning the building was brought down deliberately with explosives. It takes at least a couple of weeks to prepare a building of that size for a demolition. They could not have made a decision like that on the spur of the moment. The explosives had to have been planted in advance. Which means the event was planned.

Andy, this is one of the oldest dead arguments there is. You're assuming that when he said they "made the decision to pull," he was talking about demolishing the building. This is a hefty assumption to make. First, here's the full quote:

I remember getting a call from the fire department commander telling me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire. I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is, is pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse.

1. Since when does a firefighting squad double as a demolition team?

2. Do you really think that Silverstein was dumb enough to admit on a pre-recorded PBS documentary (not even a live broadcast!) that he intentionally demolished a building which supposedly collapsed due to fire and structural damage? Even if he had slipped up and said the wrong thing, don't you think he would have asked for a second take? Even if he hadn't, don't you think the U.S. government, in all their power, could have hindered PBS from airing a documentary which contained a blatant confession that one of the World Trade Center buildings was intentionally demolished?

3. A simple, plain reading of the quote without presuming that a conspiracy was involved simply suggests that the fire chief was making the decision to pull his men away from the building. They're not sure if they're going to be able to contain the fires, and there's been such terrible loss of life already, so maybe the smartest thing to do is to get the firefighters out of there.

4. The same people who make a big to-do about the "pull" quote claim that WTC7 housed a command bunker from which the big conspirators ran the whole 9/11 operation. Even disregarding this, it's a matter of public record that the IRS, Secret Service, DOD and CIA held leases on small portions of the building. So here's a thought...why the hell would they want to intentionally demolish their own secret command center?

5. If you look at all the other evidence surrounding this situation instead of isolating this one quote (really, this one word), the explanation I described is the only one that makes sense. Deputy Chief Peter Hayden said this about the state of building 7 in an interview with Firehouse Magazine:

By now, this is going on into the afternoon, and we were concerned about additional collapse, not only of the Marriott, because there was a good portion of the Marriott still standing, but also we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o'clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse. [source]

This is how Captain Chris Boyle described his own experience with building 7, also from a Firehouse Magazine interview:

So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn't look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.

But they had a hoseline operating. Like I said, it was hitting the sidewalk across the street, but eventually they pulled back too. Then we received an order from Fellini, we're going to make a move on 7. That was the first time really my stomach tightened up because the building didn't look good. I was figuring probably the standpipe systems were shot. There was no hydrant pressure. I wasn't really keen on the idea. Then this other officer I'm standing next to said, that building doesn't look straight. So I'm standing there. I'm looking at the building. It didn't look right, but, well, we'll go in, we'll see.

So we gathered up rollups and most of us had masks at that time. We headed toward 7. And just around we were about a hundred yards away and Butch Brandies came running up. He said forget it, nobody's going into 7, there's creaking, there are noises coming out of there, so we just stopped. And probably about 10 minutes after that, Visconti, he was on West Street, and I guess he had another report of further damage either in some basements and things like that, so Visconti said nobody goes into 7, so that was the final thing and that was abandoned. [source]

Finally, here is a quote from FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro's interview with the New York Times in which he describes his decision to evacuate the area surrounding building 7 because of concerns that it was going to collapse:

The most important operational decision to be made that afternoon was the collapse had damaged 7 World Trade Center, which is about a 50 story building, at Vesey between West Broadway and Washington Street. It had very heavy fire on many floors and I ordered the evacuation of an area sufficient around to protect our members, so we had to give up some rescue operations that were going on at the time and back the people away far enough so that if 7 World Trade did collapse, we wouldn't lose any more people. We continued to operate on what we could from that distance and approximately an hour and a half after that order was [given], at 5:30 in the afternoon, [7] World Trade Center collapsed completely. [source]

In this context, Silverstein's quote makes perfect sense, and it has nothing to do with intentionally demolishing the building.

[Zooropa]

Originally Posted by Danny

I was thinking about this later on last night, and a thought occurred to me: 1. When did the media start reporting/talking about the theory that the buildings collapsed due to the fires and structural damage? 2. When did that interview take place? The video claims that that was the first time the idea was suggested, but there's really no evidence offered in defense of this, just the clip. It's possible that the guy could have been listening to the radio or watching the news prior to the interview and was simply repeating what he'd been hearing. He still seems unnaturally calm and uses big words, but hey, some people are and some people do.

It may sound like I'm trying to explain away the evidence here, but really I'm just trying to exhaust all options. Remember Occam's Razor, and note that both of those explanations are a lot simpler than "He's a government plant." And then there's the fact that the actual physical and video evidence does corroborate the explanation he described, but we can get into that later.

Just by the way the sunlight looks in the video, it appears to be around 11 AM. That's just an estimation, though. I doubt he had been watching TV or listening to radio. If you had been on the streets and witnessed the twin towers collapse before your eyes, would you then go inside, watch TV, and then return back to the streets to give an interview to Fox News? No, that's not natural behavior. Hell, even government officials and TV newsmen were beside themselves that morning. And this guy was calmer than those professionals? It doesn't add up.

[Insane Drummer]

When a building falls down, my money is usually on structural failure...

It is like saying, someone drowned because they couldn't breathe.

[Zooropa]

Originally Posted by Danny

Andy, this is one of the oldest dead arguments there is. You're assuming that when he said they "made the decision to pull," he was talking about demolishing the building. This is a hefty assumption to make. First, here's the full quote:

No, "pull it" is a common term used to describe a demolition. In the same PBS documentary explosives experts are seen demolishing the remnants of other buildings in the ground zero area and repeatedly use the industry term "pull" to describe a controlled demolition.

1. Since when does a firefighting squad double as a demolition team?

They don't. I'm not sure why you're asking that. Dr. Shyam Sunder, of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), which investigated the collapse of WTC 7, is quoted as saying: "There was no firefighting in WTC 7." The FEMA report on the collapses, from May, 2002, also says about the WTC 7 collapse: "no manual firefighting operations were taken by FDNY."

source

2. Do you really think that Silverstein was dumb enough to admit on a pre-recorded PBS documentary (not even a live broadcast!) that he intentionally demolished a building which supposedly collapsed due to fire and structural damage? Even if he had slipped up and said the wrong thing, don't you think he would have asked for a second take? Even if he hadn't, don't you think the U.S. government, in all their power, could have hindered PBS from airing a documentary which contained a blatant confession that one of the World Trade Center buildings was intentionally demolished?

There's a perfectly good reason for why the criminals in this event acted so sloppily, but I'll be laughed right out of the thread if I suggest it. No one here would believe it. If you want to spend another hour watching a documentary, I can point you to the answer. I'll tell you ahead of time that 9/11 research is a time consuming pain in the ass. Only get into if you're serious about putting time into it.

You watched Google Spider Goats, right? Even the Order of Death yes-man John Kerry is on record as saying that he understood WTC 7 was brought down in a controlled fashion. There's just too many coincidences that would have to line up perfectly for the official story to be true. Silverstein took out a record insurance on that building shortly before the attacks and made Billions off its demise. Coincidence?

source on Silverstein

3. A simple, plain reading of the quote without presuming that a conspiracy was involved simply suggests that the fire chief was making the decision to pull his men away from the building. They're not sure if they're going to be able to contain the fires, and there's been such terrible loss of life already, so maybe the smartest thing to do is to get the firefighters out of there.

Pull "it"? That's an odd choice of words to use to describe pulling a team of firefighters from a building. Assuming that my sources are wrong and there was FDNY in the building and you can show me documentation that "pull it" is common term used by firefighters, I'll come around about that.

4. The same people who make a big to-do about the "pull" quote claim that WTC7 housed a command bunker from which the big conspirators ran the whole 9/11 operation. Even disregarding this, it's a matter of public record that the IRS, Secret Service, DOD and CIA held leases on small portions of the building. So here's a thought...why the hell would they want to intentionally demolish their own secret command center?

I suppose to cover their tracks and destroy all evidence of their crimes. Seems like the easiest way to make everything disappear to me.

5. If you look at all the other evidence surrounding this situation instead of isolating this one quote (really, this one word), the explanation I described is the only one that makes sense. Deputy Chief Peter Hayden said this about the state of building 7 in an interview with Firehouse Magazine:


This is how Captain Chris Boyle described his own experience with building 7, also from a Firehouse Magazine interview:


Finally, here is a quote from FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro's interview with the New York Times in which he describes his decision to evacuate the area surrounding building 7 because of concerns that it was going to collapse:


In this context, Silverstein's quote makes perfect sense, and it has nothing to do with intentionally demolishing the building.

Consider this conflicting testimony from Indira Singh, a volunteer civilian Emergency Medical Technician who worked at the WTC on September 11

SINGH: "After midday on 9/11 we had to evacuate that because they told us Building 7 was coming down. If you had been there, not being able to see very much just flames everywhere and smoke - it is entirely possible - I do believe that they brought Building 7 down because I heard that they were going to bring it down because it was unstable because of the collateral damage. That I don't know I can't attest to the validity of that all I can attest to is that by noon or one o'clock they told us we need to move from that triage site up to Pace University a little further away because Building 7 was going to come down or be brought down."

HOST: "Did they actually use the word "brought down" and who was it that was telling you this?"

SINGH: "The fire department. And they did use the words 'we're gonna have to bring it down' and for us there observing the nature of the devastation it made total sense to us that this was indeed a possibility, given the subsequent controversy over it I don't know."

source

[Danny]

1. I actually haven't watched Google Spider Goats yet, but I will before we start our RPD.
2. I think I'm actually going to save my rebuttal to this for that time. If I get sidetracked seriously researching this issue right now I'm never going to be through with the Alex Jones video. I'm certain this will definitely come up and be discussed at great length, though.

[Ridley's Own]

Originally Posted by Zooropa

Not to get off topic, but I'm curious. So you stand with Ron Paul on his foreign policy stance?

I'm an expat living in the UK. I haven't thought about US presidential politics in eons. And I think I'm better for it.

It wasn't?

Battle of Antietam, 1862. 3,654 American deaths in less than 12 hours.

I'm sorry, but I cannot buy into that. I cannot believe that some random bozo who just watched the towers fall in person would be so emotionless.

Why? Based on what evidence do we conjecture that he was a plant? Otherwise, you're A). asking a question that isn't relevant or has a better explanation and B). speculating without any sort of evidence to back it up.

We have to ask: 1) Why was this man chosen out of all the witnesses to be on TV?

Because he was there; because he was photogenic; because he's the only one who agreed to talk on camera; because he was composed enough to conduct the interview. If you're going to accuse him of being a plant, you'll want to eliminate (again, through evidence and not speculation) all the other possibilities.

2) How could he just state so matter of factly how he knew the towers came down? He didn't state this as a maybe or a theory. His tone indicates stating it as fact.

Well, again, he saw the same thing I did on the television. A plane strikes a building. Fire breaks out. Building collapses. He didn't give 'a theory;' it was obvious that the structure failed.

There is no hard evidence or hard proof. But one can take a look at all of the clues and come to an educated conclusion based on that.

Except that isn't the case here. You're taking random bits of nothingness and forming them into complex, speculative theories that indict not just the President and cabinent-level officials, but hundreds, possibly thousands of people in federal, state and local government and media. That's gone beyond 'educated conclusion.' That's creation ex nihilo.

Think about it this way: the Watergate conspiracy, which involved, at most, maybe 10 people in the intimate circle of the Nixon White House, broke because a single man (John Dean) spoke out. What you're asserting here is that thousands of people were involved, including finding something to do with the Flight 93 passengers that have since disapperated, and yet, not a single soul, not a one, has come forward. And I'm not talking about people claiming to be involved and have documentary evidence to support the claims. I'm talking people who simply assert they were involved.

-Operation Northwoods

What about it? 40 years ago, the CIA (which did a lot of creepy things 40 years ago) thought it would be neatto fake terrorist bombings to justify an invasion. Fine, but what evidence do you have to link 9/11 to Op. Northwoods?

-President Bush saying twice on separate occasions that he saw the first plane hit the tower on tv (which no one did) before going into the school classroom

This indicates only one of two things: 1)> President Bush is incompetent to say what he saw, but is not evil. In which case he's incompetent to orchestrate what you say he's orchestrated, or 2). President Bush is evil, but not stupid. Which seems to defy basic observation.

-Project For A New American Century

What about it? You're going to need to show a link between the two, not just assert that triangle A looks a lot like triangle B, so they must be the same. Similarity =/= congruence.

-the overwhelming evasion from government officials to questions about the validity of the 9/11 Commission's official report

Cite this please, and explain its relevance. This only exacerbates the 'Leaky Grand Conspiracy' problem I outlined earlier.

-scripting within the media that day

Cite.

-drills being conducted that same day at the exact same time at the exact same place (as a cover)

Cite.

-bizarre behavior of Bush and Secret Service on 9/11

Like what?

-put options on airline stocks days before 9/11

So? Again, similarity =/= congruence. We've also just expanded the conspiracy to include American airline officials, so we're probably in the 10s of thousands worth of conspirators at this point.

Larry Silverstein, the building's owner is on video stating the WTC 7 was "pulled." Pulled meaning the building was brought down deliberately with explosives. It takes at least a couple of weeks to prepare a building of that size for a demolition. They could not have made a decision like that on the spur of the moment. The explosives had to have been planted in advance. Which means the event was planned.

This was already asked and answered by Danny sufficiently, so I won't belabour the point.

[LadyCroft]

Originally Posted by Art

Loose Change is crap.

I agree 110%. And the tone of voice the narrator uses annoys me to no end. He sounds like a frat boy who is convinced that he's pegged the US Gov't.


Utter garbage.


-

[Wesley7777]

Its hard to piece this together with not real hard proof or real sources that you can trust. Most of the stories just have to big of gaps to actually assume what is being said by these sites.

[+SEAL+]

There's a difference between things fitting together and between things happening a certain way. Just because something would make sense one way doesn't mean that it has to be that way. Conspiracy theorists should read up on Occham's Razor.

[Ax]

One big flag i see when these videos talk about how heat couldn't cause the building to collapse like that...
First, flammable material: Walls, Paper, Doors, Desks, other furniture.
Second possible "explosions" in the towers after the planes hit: industrial cleaning chemicals, ever heard of them? And what's more is a lot of crashing sounds are mistook for explosions.
Third, the explosion sound before the building collapsed: the sounds is coming from a crash, the idea that the sight comes before the sound is based of the premise that everything happened at once, which it did not. The steel core buckled, that is the first noise, THEN the floors began to fall, it's very simple.
Fourth, misconception that design is flawless. See New Orleans Levies.

There are just so many inconsistencies with these theories I wonder why I even bother trying to debunk them when all you will do is ignore logic and reason and only see what your mind wants to see.