9/11 Attacks: Avoiding the Hard Questions by Robert Steinback - Miami Herald

[Guest guest]

" Magginkat " <magginkat

Sat, 4 Feb 2006 13:34:34 -0600

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] 9/11 Attacks: Avoiding the Hard

Questions by Robert Steinback - Miami Herald

 

 

 

 

How about this? Someone at the Miami Herald is calling for an

investigation into 9-11 ? Is the world coming to an end! Now this

is really the time to " BRING IT ON " !!

 

Maggie

 

Toll Free to Congress -888-355-3588, 888-818-6641 or 800-426-8073

 

 

9/11 ATTACKS http://tinyurl.com/db4hq

Avoiding the hard questions

 

ROBERT STEINBACK

 

I was 8 years old when President John Kennedy was shot to death in

Dallas in 1963. If grace favors me, I'll be 62 when documents related

to the assassination are released to the public, and 84 when the

Warren Commission's investigative files into the tragedy are finally

opened.

 

That's a long time to wait for a chance to evaluate the purported truth.

 

It's a blot on the presumed sophistication of the people of the United

States that any aspect of an event so dramatic and shocking should be

kept from us. Perhaps it's true, to abuse the line from A Few Good Men

yet again, that we can't handle the truth. But there cannot be genuine

resolution as long as such critical information remains concealed.

 

Transformed by 9/11

 

Since Kennedy's assassination, Americans have lurched between

demanding to know and plugging their ears: The Pentagon Papers, My

Lai, the King assassination, Watergate, Iran-contra, the

savings-and-loan debacle, Monicagate. Lately, however, it would seem

the public's verdict is in: Don't tell us. Keep us in the dark. We

don't want to know.

 

This is the worst possible time for probe-ophobia to grip us. Our

nation was irretrievably transformed by 9/11 -- and yet there remain

troubling questions about what really happened before, during and

after that day. Rather than demanding a full and fearless vetting to

hone in on the truth and silence the conjecture about 9/11, many

Americans remain unwilling to peer into the microscope.

 

An online cottage industry of theorists, theory debunkers and debunker

debunkers has flourished since 9/11. Sometimes the flimsy theories are

easy to spot -- come on, if the four passenger jets didn't crash where

it appears they did, where did they go? More often, though, the cases

aren't so obvious.

 

A group of experts and academicians 'devoted to applying the

principles of scientific reasoning to the available evidence, `letting

the chips fall where they may,' '' last week accused the government of

covering up evidence that the three destroyed New York City buildings

were brought down that day by controlled demolition rather than

structural failure. The group, called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, has a

website, www.st911.org.

 

Unanswered questions

 

The reflexive first reaction is incredulity -- how, one asks, could

anyone even contemplate, never mind actually do such a barbaric thing?

But before you shut your mind, check the resumés -- these aren't

Generation X geeks subsisting on potato chips and PlayStation. Then

look at the case they present.

 

''I am a professional philosopher who has spent 35 years teaching

logic, critical thinking and scientific reasoning,'' group co-founder

and University of Minnesota professor James H. Fetzer told me. ``When

I come to 9/11, it's not hard for me to determine what is going on.

This is a scientific question. And it is so elementary that I don't

think you can find a single physicist who could disagree with the idea

that this was a controlled demolition.''

 

The group asks, for example,

 

• How did a fire fed by jet fuel, which at most burns at 1,700 degrees

Fahrenheit, cause the collapse of the Twin Towers, built of steel that

melts at 2,800 degrees? (Most experts agree that the impact of

airliners, made mostly of lightweight aluminum, should not have been

enough alone to cause structural failure.) How could a single

planeload of burning jet fuel -- most of which flared off in the

initial fireball -- cause the South World Trade Center tower to

collapse in just 56 minutes?

 

• Why did building WTC-7 fall, though no aircraft struck it? Fire

alone had never before caused a steel skyscraper to collapse.

 

• Why did all three buildings collapse largely into their own

footprints -- in the style of a controlled demolition?

 

• Why did no U.S. military jet intercept the wayward aircraft?

 

• Why has there been no investigation of BBC reports that five of the

alleged 9/11 hijackers were alive and accounted for after the event?

 

Our current probe-ophobia is due in part to the political landscape:

When one party holds all the cards, any call to investigate an alleged

abuse of power or cover-up -- no matter how valid -- will look like a

partisan vendetta. Those in power never want to investigate themselves.

 

Maybe that's politics; he who holds the hammer drives the nails. But

the outrage of 9/11 transcends party affiliation.

 

We need all the outstanding questions answered -- wherever the chips

may fall.

 

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/13760721.htm?template=conte\

ntModules/printstory.jsp

 

 

 

http://BuzzardsRoost.aimoo.com

http://www.GranniesAgainstGeorge.us