Washington Times Covers 9/11 Controversy
A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center. "In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry. "The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials," Mr. Gage adds. ~ Washington Times Dominant Social Theme: Something we, the mainstream media, need to mention at least in passing ... Free-Market Analysis: We have no idea what happened on 9/11. But since 9/11 Commission members have reportedly disavowed the full government's story – and one has written a book claiming the commission was serially lied to by the Bush administration, the FBI, CIA, etc. – we have to conclude that there are elements of the official story that are not entirely accurate. We would think that the US government would want to get to the bottom of such a serious matter, in some way or other. Now the Washington Times, a mainstream, beltway newspaper, is seemingly opening up the issue again. There was no need to cover yet another "trufers" story and yet the Times has done so – to the astonishment of the alternative blogosphere. We think, not to make a pun, that this is in fact a sign of the times. The pressure to understand what really happened on 9/11 simply won't go away. It is all over the 'Net and is in fact gaining momentum in our opinion.
After the Kennedy assassination there were many questions – and one grainy "Zapruder" film played over and over for decades. But the Warren Commission never disavowed its conclusion, that Kennedy was killed by a lone gunman and a bullet that travelled in all directions at once. The 9/11 Commission (some of its members anyway) has. Because of the Internet, there are literally millions of pictures and comments about the tragic attack. This is a matter of degrees, to be sure, but degrees matter. The impact of so much commentary – and conflicting information – seen by so many, gradually builds up. It becomes a force that cannot be traduced. The circumstances surrounding 9/11 are then qualitatively different than those around Kennedy's death. We have, for instance, thought long and hard why law professor and Rutger's Dean John Farmer would want to come out with a book that basically accused the entire Washington establishment of lying about 9/11. It only occurred to us lately that Dean Farmer was WORRIED. The 9/11 Commission's conclusions are flawed. Farmer, perhaps sanguine at one point about his role, realized one day that he was right in the middle of what would appear to be a cover-up. So he set out to rectify his situation. Now he cannot be accused. He points his seasoned finger elsewhere. There is a rude term that describes what Farmer has done. The point is, when your top people begin pointing fingers, the cover-up, whatever it is, is unraveling. Again, we don't know what people in Washington were – or are – up to. Farmer seems to think it was incompetence of a sort, and subsequent denial. But perhaps it goes deeper than that. February 27, 2010 Copyright © 2010 Daily Bell
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