The Truthers are back.
With the release of Charlie Sheen's request for "20 Minutes With The President", those who disbelieve the 'official story' of 9/11 have come out in full-force. At one time, fully 42% of Democrats said they believed our government had something to do with 9/11; more than the amount of Republicans who believe President Obama wasn't born in this country.
Well both these fringes of society are idiots.
I'm sorry. I don't like to resort to this. I've debated socialists, communists, anarchists...and I've never felt the need to disparage them by questioning their intellect. But Truthers? Come on already.
Disagree? Then let's discuss some of his arguments.
Sheen has been an adamant 9/11 Truther for years. He argues that “the official 9/11 story is a fraud” and claims the attacks served as “the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
Hello Charlie...the Constitution and Bill of Rights (redundant?) have been dismantled for a long time! It doesn't take 9/11 to do that.
Moreover, he charges that the Bush/Cheney “regime” was behind the attacks as a prelude to justify an invasion of Iraq. The war which nearly every Democrat (and all of the major figures) voted for?
Sheen also insinuates that Usama bin Laden is working for the U.S. government.
To his credit, Barack Obama has refused Sheen's invitation. He, and nearly every elected Democrat, have distanced themselves from this movement. For that, I thank them.
Here are a few of the main Truther arguments ("myths"):
Myth No. 1: "Four novice pilots with no experience could never have successfully guided those planes into three out of four targets."
Fact: Four of the hijackers were trained to fly—one for each flight. Three of the four had trained and earned private pilot’s licenses. The fourth, Hani Hanjour (American Airlines Flight 77) had both a private and commercial license, and experience with small commercial aircraft. All were trained in auto-pilot and other navigational system. The day was clear, the route was straight and easy. They easily could do this.
Myth No. 2: "No large, steel-frame, fire-protected building had ever collapsed before due solely to fire.” This means it had to be a controlled demolition.
Fact: Because the planes hit the buildings at 750 feet per second, they caused significant damage. The angle they took caused them to hit several floors on impacts, stripping the fireproofing from the core structures on the floors and traveled the path of least resistance: Down the elevator shafts. Steel weakens at as low as 400 degrees; the jet fuel ignited at 2,190 degrees Fahrenheit. Industry experts say that at 980 degrees, steel is at only 10 percent strength. The plane hit, fires burned, floors weakened, sagged, and eventually pulled the outside structure causing a collapse.
Myth No. 3: "World Trade Center 7 could not possibly have collapsed due only to collateral damage sustained from the Towers’ collapse. That was controlled demolition, too."
Fact: Truthers latched onto this theory because an early FEMA report puzzled over the collapse of WTC 7 because it appeared to have sustained little structural damage and been brought down by fire alone. (One wonders: Why would the government issue that report if they were involved? It's an even greater conspiracy than we thought!). However, we later found out that the building had damage to 10 lower stories. That damage was obscured by smoke in most photographic evidence.
Also, the building was built over a power substation, which means it have relatively few columns on the lower floors which were designed to carry extremely large loads. Taking out just one would have caused serious problems. WTC 7 was designed to stay operational during power outages, so several fuel tanks for generators inside the building are thought to have supplied the fires with fuel for up to seven hours.
Myth No. 4: "Flight 93 was shot down. The relatively little wreckage at the scene, large pieces of wreckage miles away from the crash site, and evidence of a mysterious white jet in the vicinity all confirm that the government disposed of Flight 93 with extreme prejudice."
Fact: I'm not even going to go through the scientific reasons why this is false. If you believe that dozens of people, none who have connections to each other, got together to pull this off...you're an idiot. Read Let's Roll by Lisa Beamer, husband of Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer. Those I suppose this widow (who was 4 months pregnant at the time) is in on it too.
Myth No. 5: "The Pentagon was hit with a cruise missile. The hole left in the side of the building was nowhere near big enough to have been caused by an airliner."
Fact: This stems from the idea that the hole in the side of the Pentagon was approximately 90 feet wide, according to The Pentagon Building Performance Report, but it was not the exact width of the 124-foot plane. However, both wings were damaged on impact when the plane entered the building. According to eyewitness reports, the right wing hit a large generator and the plane clipped three light posts on its low descent. We have video of this. The Pentagon is built of dense reinforced concrete columns. When the plane hit it at 530 mph, it disintegrated. As one witness said, it seemed to "melt into the building." Truthers say this was made by a missile; this is debunked by the video and the fact that heavy landing gear and the flight data recorder was found 300 feet inside the building.
I have two friends whose fathers were in that building; I assure you it was a plane.
In the end, Popular Mechanics does the best job debunking 9/11 Truthers. I know they've done the best job because the theories about what happened change so often and so much after their book came out. The writers of the report are self-proclaimed Democrats and liberals who have interviewed the top people in the field. The report is free online, just check it out.
Oh, and for a more comical approach (and if you're too lazy to read PM) on why conspiracy theorists are foolish, check out the episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit! about Conspiracy Theories. It tackles JFK, the Moon Landing, and 9/11.
Let the hate begin.
No comments:
Post a Comment