I’ve seen some reasonable attempts at debunking work is some places, eg. here

http://www.911myths.com/html/freefall.html

but not enough to put the issue to bed IMHO. And given that the high speed of collapse is so central to many 9/11 conspiracy theories it bothers me that the BBC show and other mainstream debunking efforts ignore or fluff the issue

Yup, I appreciate that you can achieve higher temperatures in a controlled environment but the pictures of the WTC buildings I have seen from that day don’t seem to support that idea. Admittedly, they don’t conclusively disprove it either. What I see are relatively limited fires, on the exteriors anyway, giving off lots of sooty smoke. That’s not consistent with an efficient fire drawing in shed loads of oxygen IMHO

And yup the steel would have been weakened before actually melting but my understanding (from a short time spent in the HSE) is that skyscrapers are built 2-3x stronger than needs be - which gets back to Wolfie’s point about the buildings maybe not having been put together that well. I’m open to that idea as, even though I have plenty of other issues about 9/11, the thought that those buildings could have been secretly wired up for demolition does push the possibility envelope somewhat

Tend to agree on the TATP, it is the lack of an enquiry because Blair will not face the truth about the contributing causes that has fuelled the conpiracy theories.

I suppose I asked for that - one cheap shot does deserve another. But cooling system or not, diesel burns at something like 700-900C. Steel will start to melt at something like 1400C. Sure, as Wolfie suggests, there might have been something seriously wrong with the construction of the WTC buildings but, in the absence of any investigation, that’s as speculative as suggesting the building might have been taken down deliberately. Now, if any of the investigations into 9/11 had suggested the possibility of negligent construction and an investigation had been initiated that would be a completely different story…

Re. TATP

The Official Narrative into 7/7 is coy when it comes to identifying the explosives used on the day. Why? The media has been primed by unnamed sources and has run with the DIY TATP story and most people will think that’s the end of it but why the reluctance to officially acknowledge what materials were used?

Again, there’s no direct evidence that there’s anything untoward in the official account but there’s no evidence that it’s straight up either.

Erm… How about the engine’s cooling system?

But the conspiracy theorists are not always daft. Remember that “conspiracy nutter” about the tube bombings on CUK? He said that Acetone peroxide said to have been used did not burn but people were badly burned. Problem is, he was right. I have not yet seen any adequate explanation. Check the facts on TATP and news on the bombings for yourself.

- Ego.

Come to think of it, even the BBC documentary admitted that there is some degree of official cover up

OK a cover up of incompetence rather than deliberate malice but still a cover-up nevertheless (aka a conspiracy)

Of course, many of the conspiracies could be killed stone dead if independent investigators were given access to hard physical evidence
- debris from the towers, the wreckage of the aircraft - but as I’m sure you know, the WTC rubble was shipped off to Asia PDQ and as for the
aircraft debris well… who knows where that is.

Would I claim that they are no strong counters to many 9/11 CT claims? Absolutely not. And I want to hear and see more

Do I think the BBC did anything to add to that body of counter argument? Nope

Instead, the producers pulled all sorts of sneaky little tricks and told outright lies.

Some people have already started documenting those tricks and lies…

eg. http://debunking-bbc.blogspot.com/

If the producers dealt a straight hand, regardless of whether I personally agreed with their conclusions or not, I would have no complaints.

As it is, I’m left feeling pretty sure that the producers set out to make a calculated hit piece, by fair means or foul, and I’m left wondering why

I’ve just shown the Mrs the latest cut of Loose Change. She’s very much non aligned on these matters. After seeing LC and the BBC show last night
she said to me something like ‘That BBC show didn’t even start to answer the big questions in that video’…

Let’s see how the Beeb deals with the Kelly case. My money’s on the BBC playing exactly the same kind of stunt, using very similar techniques

Short trades : Not covered by the program as meaningful analysis would be pretty dull and over the head of most viewers I suspect. I was personally part of a team selected to investigate this claim at the Investment Bank which I worked at : We found no suspicious trading of any consequence.

The collapse of the Towers : I was very suspicious (and surprised) myself on the day and have investigated the subject myself. I am a physics graduate and my Father was a [structural] Engineer (running his own business). I agree many of the explanations given have been misleading/incorrect. It is my conclusion that the primary cause of the failure of the structures was the high kinetic energy of the fuel which was forced through the structure at speed where it immediately ignited as it dispersed, somewhat similarly to the way that the fuel is combusted in the chamber of a jet engine itself. This weakened the structure sufficiently at one point for one floor to collapse on the preceding, the ensuing pressure wave and vast kinetic energy simply pulverised the structure below.

Now here is where I’ll say I suspect “a conspiracy”. The building was not built quite to spec. My Father worked after his retirement as an expert witness on cases involving building failures, in almost all cases the Engineer or Architect was sued however every case was found (without exception) to be the fault of the contractor who had used substandard materials in order to cut costs.

America of the 1970s was a famous for its corrupt building industry, we now think of China as the source of most “cheap crap” well in those days it was America; just maybe so were the Twin Towers?

Your other points I would prefer to discuss through a private channel.

I’m all for people investigating themselves and I’m not dismissing all conspiracy theories but I’m saddened when they cling-on to theories which did not stand up or when its was quite clearly an innocent reporting error because it helps governments discredit ALL enquiry.

Now David Kelly… that’s another story.

I thought the documentary was pretty awful and could (but won’t) write a small thesis on the tricks and deceits it employed. The quality of most of the arguments and reasoning used was, um, poor

And why play little tricks and deceits if the case for the official story is so strong?

A couple of small and not necessarily the most significant examples

- no mention of the short trades

- no mention of the near free fall speed of the collapse of the towers

- the claim that diesel fires contributed to the structural collapse of WTC7 - which kind of begs the question what stops diesel engines melting

- how it is a 757 impact can hit and destroy the structural core of two of the largest buildings in the world but evaporate on hitting the Pentagon

- the corruption of the ‘no Israelis died in the Twin towers’ to ‘no Jews died in the twin towers’. The show mention the estimated number of Jews who died but forget to quite a figure for Israelis - and the number is?

and so on and so on. You really could go on all day

OTOH The documentary did a stand up job of cherry picking a couple of really stupid 9/11 CTs and defaming people who have doubts as being racist fantasists who show no respect for the dead or their relatives. It even managed to work in the implication that they are recycling Hezbollah propaganda.

It’s David Kelly’s turn week. I can’t wait