9/11: CNN Spells It Out

You Tube
Wednesday June 20, 2007

Tyranny and the Military Commissions Act

Jacob G. Hornberger
Lew Rockwell.com
Wednesday June 20, 2007

In Star Wars, Episode 3, in response to the Senate’s grant of sweeping powers to Chancellor Palpatine, Padme declares, “So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.”

The same may be said about the Military Commissions Act (MCA) that was recently enacted by Congress – that this is how freedom ends, with or without the applause.

Despite the fact that the MCA has received just a modicum of publicity from the mainstream press, it is undoubtedly the most ominous and dangerous piece of legislation in our lifetime. By suspending habeas corpus for foreigners, by adopting the executive branch’s “enemy combatant” designation for both Americans and foreigners, and by establishing military tribunals for foreigners, the law not only entails a fundamental reordering of our criminal justice system but also effectively places the U.S. military in control of the American people.

Habeas corpus

Of all the rights and freedoms mentioned and enumerated in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the writ of habeas corpus is arguably the most important safeguard of individual freedom. Without the “Great Writ,” none of the other rights and liberties has much value.

To illustrate why this is so, let us assume that we live in a society in which everyone has the right of freedom of speech, including the right to criticize government programs. One day, someone criticizes some government policy. That day, a federal SWAT team conducts a no-knock raid and arrests the critic. The next day, several people protest the arrest, arguing that the prisoner has the right to criticize the government under principles of free speech. That afternoon, federal agents arrest and incarcerate some of the critics.

What could be done to get the prisoners released from incarceration? The answer is: Nothing, unless the society recognizes the writ of habeas corpus.

With habeas corpus, the prisoner files a petition with the judicial branch of government, asking a judge to order his custodian to appear before the judge to justify his incarceration of the prisoner. If the custodian refuses to comply, the judge issues an arrest warrant for him, which is enforced at the federal level by deputy marshals. Or let’s assume that the custodian shows up and says, “Your honor, the reason we’re holding him in custody is that he criticized the government.” In that case, the judge can order his immediate release, holding that criticizing the government is not a crime. Or if the judge incorrectly upholds the detention, the prisoner can file an immediate appeal to the appellate courts, which ordinarily give priority to habeas corpus proceedings.

Without habeas corpus, there is no way for a person who is being wrongfully detained to challenge his detention, even if the detention has gone on for years. In the absence of habeas corpus, he must continue to languish in prison until the authorities, out of the kindness of their hearts, decide to release him. That’s in fact the way things work in communist China and communist Cuba, where everyone is guaranteed freedom of speech but has no way to secure his release from prison after exercising it.

Habeas corpus, a judicial remedy that stretches back centuries into English jurisprudence, is the linchpin of a free society. Emphasizing its importance, the Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang put it like this: “Personally, I think that one writ of habeas corpus is worth more than all the Confucian philosophy ever written.” That’s why the Framers expressly included the protection of habeas corpus in the Constitution.

The Military Commissions Act cancels habeas corpus for foreigners accused of terrorism. In one fell swoop, the Congress, at the behest of President Bush, nullified centuries of habeas corpus protection.

It might be tempting for some Americans to say, “No big deal, because foreigners don’t count.” But that is a grave error because history has shown that when citizens permit their government to deprive one class of people of critically important rights, it’s only a matter of time before the government will do the same to other groups.

Ever since the inception of our nation, Americans have been able justly to take pride in the fact that their rules of criminal justice applied to everyone equally, across the board. Rich or poor, powerful or weak, everyone who was detained by the federal government on criminal charges has been entitled to the Great Writ, along with such important procedural rights as due process of law, right to counsel, trial by jury, and the right to cross-examine adverse witnesses.

Will the federal courts overturn the MCA’s cancellation of habeas corpus for foreigners, given that under the Constitution Congress can suspend the writ only in times of invasion or rebellion? Ordinarily, the answer would be yes, because under our system of government neither the Congress nor the president has the authority to amend the Constitution by enacting a law that nullifies its provisions.

With the MCA, however, the Congress and the president pulled a neat little constitutional trick. The Constitution permits the Congress to determine what cases the federal courts will have jurisdiction to hear, and Congress used the MCA law to deprive the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus cases brought by foreigners.

Time will tell whether the courts uphold such obvious trickery. But if they do, Americans may well rue the day because if the feds can cancel habeas corpus for foreigners and deprive the courts of the power to do anything about it, they will be able to do the same thing to Americans, not only with respect to habeas corpus but also with respect to other rights and guarantees in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Enemy combatants

Does the fact that habeas corpus was canceled only for foreigners mean that Americans are immunized from the arbitrary arrests, torture, and indefinite detentions to which foreigners will be subjected under the MCA? No, because slipped into the law was the president’s and the Pentagon’s post–9/11 concept of “enemy combatants” in the war on terrorism. That concept applies not only to foreigners but also to Americans.

What does it mean to be designated an “enemy combatant” in the war on terrorism? Just ask Jose Padilla, an American citizen who was designated an enemy combatant. The Pentagon took Padilla into custody some three years ago and for two years held him incommunicado in a navy dungeon. Even worse, the Pentagon employed the psychological techniques of torture against him that the North Korean communists had employed against American GIs during the Korean War. Padilla was locked up in solitary confinement and denied any contact with the outside world, with the apparent aim of driving him out of his mind as a result of what psychiatrists call “sensory deprivation.” According to Padilla’s lawyers and psychiatrist, the mental torture has been successful, leaving Padilla with a disturbed state of mind that prevents him from assisting with his own defense.

The Pentagon takes the position that ever since 9/11, the U.S. military has wielded the power to treat any American just as it has treated Jose Padilla.

Padilla, through his lawyer, filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, challenging his detention by the military. When the case was about to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, the government switched gears and announced suddenly that they were indicting him for the criminal offense of terrorism and transferring him to federal court jurisdiction.

The clever legal move deprived the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear Padilla’s case (because the issue of military detention had become moot) but, equally important, it left intact the federal court of appeals decision upholding the government’s “enemy combatant” concept.

Why is that important? For the simple reason that it has given the U.S. military omnipotent control over the American citizenry. With the president’s use of the “enemy combatant” designation, which has now been formally enacted into law by the MCA, the U.S. military now wields the power to send troops across America and take Americans into custody and punish them through torture and deny them due process of law, trial by jury, and other procedural rights whose roots stretch back centuries in American and British law.

Don’t Americans accused of terrorism, though, still have the right of habeas corpus? Yes, but all that habeas corpus does is require the government to show that it is justified in holding the prisoner. If there is no legal justification – such as holding someone because he criticized the government – the judge will order his release. But if the Supreme Court upholds the “enemy combatant” concept, as the federal court of appeals did, then all that the government has to do at the habeas corpus hearing is show some evidence that the accused had indeed been designated an “enemy combatant” in the war on terrorism. Once the government does that, the judge will dismiss the petition for habeas corpus relief and leave the prisoner at the indefinite mercy of his custodians.

What about the validity of the “enemy combatant” concept? It is political and legal chicanery that effectively gives the U.S. military standby control over the American people. All that the military has to do is fill out a form with a person’s name on it – or with lots of people’s names on it – and have the commander in chief (whether Bush, Hillary Clinton, or anyone else who happens to be president) sign it. At that point, military units can sweep into neighborhoods and effect the arrests and incarcerations of American citizens.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, that’s not what America is supposed to be all about. That’s what the Soviet Union was, and China, North Korea, and Cuba are all about. Terrorism is a crime, not an act of war. That’s why it’s defined as a crime in the federal statute books. That’s why it’s prosecuted as a crime, both here and in Europe. That’s in fact why federal prosecutors have prosecuted such terrorists as Zacarias Moussaoui (one of the 9/11 terrorists), Ramzi Yousef (one of the 1993 WTC terrorists), Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City terrorist), and many others accused of terrorism. After all, let’s not forget that Jose Padilla himself is now being prosecuted for terrorism in federal district court rather than being held as an “enemy combatant.”

Targeting the unpopular

The beauty is how U.S. officials have accomplished this standby hijacking of America’s criminal justice system. They have targeted foreigners or unsavory Americans such as Padilla to get their doctrines established, knowing that most Americans would never come to their defense and knowing that most Americans would never suspect that a government victory in those cases might well end up applying to ordinary Americans as well.

So, under the current state of the law, thanks to Congress, the president, and the MCA, Americans can be incarcerated and tortured by the military for the rest of their lives. No due process and no jury trials. In fact, arguably foreigners accused of terrorism have it “better” under the MCA because they do get a trial – trial by military tribunal – while American “enemy combatants” get no trial at all. The reason I put the word “better” in quotation marks is that military tribunals, unlike jury trials in federal court, will be nothing but kangaroo proceedings where the outcome (guilt and death) will not be in doubt and where the proceeding is actually just a show trial for the benefit of the American people.

There are, of course, those who say, “We don’t need to be concerned. Our government officials love us and will employ these powers only against foreigners.” The big problem with that way of thinking is that once the roundups begin amidst a big crisis environment, where everyone is stricken with fear, it will be too late to complain. Just ask German Jews or, for that matter, Americans of Japanese descent.

The time to protest is now. The time to fight for the Constitution and Bill of Rights is now. The time to restore habeas corpus is now. The time to repeal the MCA is now. The time to rein in the federal government is now.

Britain to maintain presence in Afghanistan for 'three decades'

UK Daily Mail
Wednesday June 20, 2007

The UK could have presence in Afghanistan for the next thirty years according to the new British ambassador.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who will head the embassy in Kabul, said that the effort to stabilise and rebuild the war-torn country was a "marathon rather than a sprint".

He also accepted that Britain should have stepped up its diplomatic and development commitment in Afghanistan earlier.

"The task of standing up a government of Afghanistan that is sustainable is going to take a very long time," Sir Sherard told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It's a marathon rather than a sprint. We should be thinking in terms of decades."

He insisted: "We're not (talking) about a long-term military presence but we're serious about a long-term development presence, because this country does matter to us and to the region in so many ways."

The British embassy in Kabul has been expanded significantly over recent months, including the appointment of Sir Sherard - seen as a high-flier at the Foreign Office.

There is speculation that it could become even bigger than the diplomatic outpost Washington.

"Maybe we should have raised our game earlier, but now we have," Sir Sherard said.

He insisted that although the Nato forces had been responsible for some civilian casualties, most Afghans "want us here".

"Their worry is not about us staying. It's about us going," he added. "The great thing about the Taliban is that they haven't been reading their Chairman Mao. They don't have popular support."

Chickenhawk Sean Hannity Lusts For War Against Iran (But Don’t Ask Him To Fight)

NewsHounds

Wednesday June 20, 2007

Once again chickenhawk Sean Hannity used the Palestinian unrest as an excuse to foment animosity against Iran. From the safety of the Hannity & Colmes studio, the non-serving Hannity fixed the facts around his cause as he did his best to talk other people into starting a war. Last night (6/19/07), he hit the neocon jackpot as both guests not only demonized Iran but threw in a couple of jabs at the Democrats for having compromised our national security for not being bellicose enough. With video.

Just one night earlier, Hannity & Colmes had hosted two reasonable guests who, to Hannity’s obvious disappointment, offered ways they thought war could be avoided. One even talked about the opportunity facing this country right now to resolve at least some of the Middle East tensions. You can watch a video of that discussion on the Hannity & Colmes website. It's called On the Brink?

White House Report Lauds Immigrants’ Positive Effects

ROBERT PEAR
NY Times
Wednesday June 20, 2007

Hoping to influence Congressional debate, the White House issued a report on Tuesday saying, “Immigration has a positive effect on the American economy as a whole and on the income of native-born American workers.”

But it acknowledged that some research had found “small negative effects” on the wages of the least-skilled American workers.

The report, prepared by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, says immigrants enhance the productivity of native-born workers and increase their earnings a significant amount, estimated at $37 billion a year.

In an interview, Edward P. Lazear, a labor economist who is the council chairman, gave the example of a construction site with many immigrants working as roofers.

“They might drive down slightly the wages of roofers in the United States,” Mr. Lazear said. “But as a result of having this valuable supply of labor from abroad, other people on the construction project like carpenters and electricians are more productive. They have better people to work with, more people to work with. The cost of doing the job is lower, and some of that is passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices.”

The study reinforces President Bush’s campaign for a comprehensive immigration bill that calls for more border security, a guest worker program and a “merit-based system” of selecting immigrants that emphasizes education and job skills. The bill, pending in the Senate, would also offer legal status and work permits to most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Many Democrats say the bill could depress the wages of American workers. Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said the guest worker program would “put downward pressure” on the wages in construction, manufacturing and other industries.

The White House is entering a debate that has been raging for years.

In one study, George J. Borjas, a professor of economics at Harvard, found that “by increasing the supply of labor between 1980 and 2000 immigration reduced the average annual earnings of native-born men by an estimated $1,700, or about 4 percent.”

“Among natives without a high school education, who roughly correspond to the poorest tenth of the work force,” Professor Borjas said, “the estimated impact was even larger, reducing their wages by 7.4 percent.”

“Over time,” Professor Borjas said in an interview, “the economy adjusts to the presence of immigrants. But in the long run, after all the adjustments, the wages of low-skill workers still go down by 4 percent or 5 percent.”

The White House report is more consistent with the findings of David Card, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, who said in an interview, “The overall effect of immigration on the average wages of natives is slightly positive.”

In their report, the White House economists said, “The difficulties faced by high school dropouts are a serious policy concern.”

But the economists added, “Immigration is not a central cause of those difficulties, nor is reducing immigration a well-targeted way to help these low-wage natives.”

On another volatile question, the White House said immigrants and their children tended to have “a slightly positive fiscal impact” because, in the long run, they pay more in taxes than they consume in benefits.

The White House study acknowledged that “the positive fiscal impact tends to accrue at the federal level, while net costs tend to be concentrated at the state and local level,” where education and health care are provided.

Immigrants sometimes compete with native-born workers. But the White House said, “Immigrants tend to complement — not substitute for — natives” in the workplace.

Over all, foreign-born workers make up 15.3 percent of the civilian labor force and account for half the growth in the labor force in the last 10 years. They differ in significant ways from native-born workers.

“In contrast to their 15 percent share in the total labor force,” Mr. Lazear said, “foreign-born workers accounted for much higher proportions of workers without high school degrees and of those with Ph.D. degrees, especially for those working in scientific occupations.”

Cameras May Watch You Take Tests Online

AP
Wednesday June 20, 2007

New technology will place cameras inside students' homes to ensure that those taking exams online don't cheat.
This fall, Troy University in Alabama will begin rolling out the cameras for many of its approximately 11,000 online students, about a third of whom are at U.S. military installations around the world.

The device, made by Cambridge, Mass.-based Software Secure, is similar in many respects to other test-taking software. It locks down a computer while the test is being taken, preventing students from searching files or the Internet. The latest version also includes fingerprint authentication, to help ensure the person taking the test isn't a ringer.

But the new development is a small Web cam and microphone that is set up where a student takes the exam. The camera points into a reflective ball, which allows it to capture a full 360-degree image. (The first prototype was made with a Christmas ornament.)

When the exam begins, the device records audio and video. Software detects significant noises and motions and flags them in the recording. An instructor can go back and watch only the portions flagged by the software to see if anything untoward is going on—a student making a phone call, leaving the room—and if there is a sudden surge in performance afterward.

The inventors admit it's far from a perfect defense against a determined cheater. But a human test proctor isn't necessarily better. And the camera at least "ensures that those people that are taking classes at a distance are on a level playing field," said Douglas Winneg, Software Secure's president and CEO.

Troy graduate students will start using the device starting this fall, and undergraduates a year later. Software Secure says it has talked to other distance learning providers, too. A potential future market is the standardized testing industry, which has struggled to find enough secure testing sites to accommodate growing worldwide demand for tests like the SAT college entrance exam and the GMAT for graduate school.

An estimated 3.2 million students were taking online classes in the fall of 2005, according to the most recent figures from the Sloan Consortium, a group of online learning providers that studies trends in the field, and that figure is almost certainly substantially higher today.

But many distance learning providers do very little testing, including some of the largest, for-profit ones such as the University of Phoenix, Capella University and Walden University. Officials at all three schools said they rely mostly on student writing assignments. They say that's the best method to assess their students, most of whom are working adults.

Still, they need to be thinking about assessment. The military, whose tuition assistance programs are a huge source of revenue for online universities, is asking questions about testing to make sure students are earning credible degrees, Winneg said. Distance learning programs also need to keep their accreditation agencies happy, as well as Congress, so that the programs can continue to receive federal financial aid dollars.

At Troy, like at many distance learning programs, past testing options have been less than ideal. One was to line up a proctor from a list of acceptable exam monitors such as clergy or commanding officers.

"We just assumed and hoped the proctor would follow the instructions," said David White, direct of the Southeast region for Troy. "In some cases they did, and probably in some cases they didn't."

The other was to arrange proctoring with a testing company and travel to one of their centers. But that was inconvenient for many students—and, of course, impossible for soldiers in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The device will cost Troy students $125, White said.

Richard Garrett, a senior research analyst at Eduventures who closely follows online learning, said he finds the technology promising, particularly for large companies trying to streamline a now-messy part of their operation.

"The great unknown is, 'Will it be seen as too invasive?'" he said.

Clearly, it won't be a good idea for everyone. Stephen Slavin, dean of corporate and professional education at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, said his institution is always looking at new technologies, but recording students by camera "would be probably pushing the boundary of our comfort level."

White predicts some students will find it odd and even threatening, and may decide to drop out. "I think there will be some people who won't take any more courses with us because they feel like during the test they're being watched," he said.

But he insists that's OK because it will improve the credibility of a Troy degree.

For Sandra Kinney, a state employee from Stockbridge, Ga., pursuing a master's in public administration and one of the students on Troy's trial run, having a camera in her home was no big deal. It was worth it not to have to drive to an exam center.

"For me in Atlanta, it outweighs sitting in two or three hours of traffic," she said.

Once, that traffic made her an hour late to an exam.

"At that point I was like, there's got to be a better way.'"

New Study Props Up Official 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

Does not refute a single issue the 9/11 truth movement has raised.

Steve Watson Prison Planet Wednesday, June 20, 2007

A new study into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers has been released that correlates with the findings of the 2005 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report and supports the theory that intense fires weakened the structure and initiated "global collapse". Much like the NIST report however, it is fatally flawed.

The AP reports:

A computer simulation of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks supports a federal agency's findings that the initial impact from the hijacked airplanes stripped away crucial fireproofing material and that the weakened towers collapsed under their own weight.

In reality the new study by structural engineers at Purdue University does not provide any scientific evidence to explain the collapses, it merely confirms the NIST fireproofing claim in its animation and then jumps to the same conclusions as NIST, conclusions that fly in the face of the laws of physics.

watch the animation

"The aircraft moved through the building as if it were a hot and fast lava flow," Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering and a lead investigator says. "Consequently, much of the fireproofing insulation was ripped off the structure. Even if all of the columns and girders had survived the impact - an unlikely event - the structure would fail as the result of a buckling of the columns. The heat from an ordinary office fire would suffice to soften and weaken the unprotected steel. Evaluation of the effects of the fire on the core column structure, with the insulation removed by the impact, showed that collapse would follow whatever the number of columns cut at the time of the impact."

There are a number of problems with these claims. Lets take them one by one:

1. Even if the fireproofing had been removed the idea that a regular office fire could weaken steel and cause buckling requires a leap of faith to say the least.

Statements made by Kevin Ryan of Underwriters Laboratories, the company that certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers confirm that the claim is ridiculous. In a 2004 letter to NIST Ryan wrote:

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F.

Now I'm no physicist but given that Jet fuel doesn't even burn to those temperatures (No fuel, not even jet fuel, which is really just refined kerosene, will burn hotter than 1500 degrees Fahrenheit) the idea that "ordinary office fires" would is patently farcical.

2. Intense fires lasted only minutes

The NIST report states that: “The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in a given location." (NIST, 2005; p. 179.)

This is further corroborated by the fact that intense dark choking smoke was being emitted from the towers before they collapsed indicating the fires were oxygen starved and burning at low temperatures.

In addition NIST stated that of the more than 170 areas examined on 16 perimeter column panels, only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250ºC… Only two core column specimens had sufficient paint remaining to make such an analysis, and their temperatures did not reach 250 ºC. … Using metallographic analysis, NIST determined that there was no evidence that any of the samples had reached temperatures above 600 ºC. (NIST, 2005, pp. 176-177)

At any given location, the duration of [air, not steel] temperatures near 1,000oC was about 15 min to 20 min. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were near 500oC or below.” (NIST, 2005, p. 127, emphasis added.)

In addition the firefighter tapes released to the New York Times clearly indicate that right before the towers collapsed the fires were minimal and under control.

So even if you believe unprotected steel can be melted by office material fires, the official NIST report states those fires would not last more than 20 minutes and also states that beams recovered show that they were not exposed to high enough temperatures to be significantly weakened.

3. The study contradicts multiple statements made by the structural engineers who designed the buildings:

Ayhan Irfanoglu, a Purdue professor of civil engineering, said half of the building's weight-bearing columns were concentrated at the cores of the towers.

"When that part is wiped out, the structure comes down," Irfanoglu said. "We design structures with some extra capacity to cover some uncertainties, but we never anticipate such heavy demand coming from an aircraft impact. If the columns were distributed, maybe, the fire could not take them out so easily."

This is directly contradicted by the following statements from the designers of the buildings:

“A previous analysis [by WTC building designers], carried out early in 1964, calculated that the towers would handle the impact of a 707 traveling at 600 mph without collapsing”[2]

(Between Early 1984 and October 1985):

“However, O’Sullivan consults ‘one of the trade center’s original structural engineers, Les Robertson, on whether the towers would collapse because of a bomb or a collision with a slow-moving airplane.’ He is told there is ‘little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.’”[3]

1993

“[Building designer] John Skilling recounts his people having carried out an analysis which found the twin towers could withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed.” But, he says, “The building structure would still be there.”[4]

“The analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964, described its findings: “The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.” However, besides this paper, no documents are known detailing how this analysis was made.”[5]

2001

“Leslie Robertson, one of the two original structural engineers for the World Trade Center, is asked at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany what he had done to protect the twin towers from terrorist attacks. He replies, ‘I designed it for a 707 to smash into it,’ though does not elaborate further.”[6]

[Leslie Robertson:] “The twin towers were in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airplane.”[7]

[Frank A. Demartini:] “The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.” Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, spoke of the resilience of the towers in an interview recorded on January 25, 2001.[8]

Sept 3-7, 2001—just before 9/11

“The Boeing 707 was the largest in use when the towers were designed. [Leslie] Robertson conducted a study in late 1964, to calculate the effect of a 707 weighing 263,000 pounds and traveling at 180 mph crashing into one of the towers. [Robertson] concluded that the tower would remain standing. However, no official report of his study has ever surfaced publicly.”[9]

4. The study, like NIST's, only focuses on a portion of the building:

"To estimate the serious damage to the World Trade Center core columns, we assembled a detailed numerical model of the impacting aircraft as well as a detailed numerical model of the top 20 stories of the building," Sozen says. "We then used weeks of supercomputer time over a number of years to simulate the event in many credible angles of impact of the aircraft."

So they only focused on 20 stories of the building.

In a similar fashion NIST admitted that it didn't even attempt to model the undamaged portions of the buildings and only modeled a portion of each tower in any detail -- its "global floor model" which consisted of "several stories below the impact area to the top of the structure." Thus the structurally intact floors 1-91 of WTC 1 and floors 1-77 of WTC 2 were excluded from the so called "global" models of the towers. NIST provides no evidence that its model even predicted "collapse initiation".

Neither the NIST report nor the new Purdue report nor any other report has ever explained how all of the critical columns can suffer buckling at the same time to precipitate the complete and nearly symmetrical collapse observed.

Physics Professor Steven Jones points out that the total annihilation of the building, core columns and all, defies the laws of physics unless it was artificially exploded:

"Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum – one of the foundational Laws of Physics? That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors – and intact steel support columns – the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass. If the central support columns remained standing, then the effective resistive mass would be less, but this is not the case – somehow the enormous support columns failed/disintegrated along with the falling floor pans."

More unexplainable mysteries:

The study does not explain how the concrete in the buildings was completely pulverized.

The study does not explain the presence of molten metal at the base of the buildings after their collapse, which was confirmed by multiple sources as well as eyewitnesses.

The study does not even take into account building 7 which was not hit by a plane and collapsed in 6.5 seconds into its own footprint at 5.30pm. The fireproofing in that building was certainly not dislodged yet all its core columns collapsed at exactly the same time despite fire (caused by falling debris from the towers) being restricted to just a few floors.

In addition there are literally hundreds of eyewitnesses, including reporters, firefighters and rescue workers, who stated that they heard explosions prior to the collapses. There were so many that CNN's news feed even displayed the words "Third Explosion collapses World Trade Center" and the FBI announced that they believed secondary devices were involved.

Yesterday we revealed details of another high level official who is on record stating that he witnessed explosions in building 7 before either tower collapsed.

In conclusion the new study, like NIST's before it, is yet another case of a body attempting to prove a pre-determined hypothesis. It does not discount any of the points we have continually raised and does not make the case for an independent investigation any less imperative.

[1] http://www.911blogger.com/blog/877

[2] Paul Thompson’s Complete 9/11 Timeline: (see February 27, 1993)

[3] http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=leslie_robertson

See here: [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 227; New York County Supreme Court, 1/20/2004]

[4] [Seattle Times, 2/27/1993]

[5] [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 131-132; Lew, Bukowski, and Carino, 10/2005, pp. 70-71]

[6] [Chicago Tribune, 9/12/2001; Knight Ridder, 9/12/2001]

[7] [Robertson, 3/2002; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 1-17]

[8] http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/
141104designedtotake.htm

[9] [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 138-139, 366]

Geronimo's great-grandson wants bones returned

AP
Wednesday June 20, 2007

SANTA FE, N.M. --Legend has it that Yale University's ultrasecret Skull and Bones society swiped the remains of American Indian leader Geronimo nearly a century ago from an Army outpost in Oklahoma.

Now, Geronimo's great-grandson wants the remains returned.

Harlyn Geronimo, 59, of Mescalero, N.M., wants to prove the skull and bones purportedly taken from a burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., are indeed those of his great-grandfather. They're now said to be in a stone tomb that serves as the club's headquarters.

If they are proven to be those of Geronimo, his great-grandson wants them buried near the Indian leader's birthplace in southern New Mexico's Gila Wilderness.

"He died as a prisoner of war, and he is still a prisoner of war because his remains were not returned to his homeland," Harlyn Geronimo said. "Presently, we are looking for a proper consecrated burial."

Harlyn Geronimo grew up hearing stories about his great-grandfather and other Apache warriors who fought the Mexican and U.S. armies.

After their families were captured and sent to Florida, Geronimo and 35 warriors surrendered to Gen. Nelson A. Miles near the Arizona-New Mexico border in 1886. Geronimo was eventually sent to Fort Sill, where he died of pneumonia in 1909.

If the bones at Yale aren't those of Geronimo, Harlyn Geronimo believes they belonged to one of the Apache prisoners who died at Fort Sill. He said they should still be returned.

Harlyn Geronimo wrote last year to President Bush, seeking his help in recovering the bones. He thought that since the president's grandfather, Prescott Bush, was allegedly one of those who helped steal the bones in 1918, the president would want to help return them.

But, Harlyn Geronimo said, "I haven't heard a word."

The White House did not respond to messages seeking comment.

President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, both attended Yale and joined the elite club. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, is also a Bonesman, as are many other men in powerful government and industry positions.

Members are sworn to secrecy -- and that's one reason they won't say whether the club has Geronimo's bones.

"The reason there's all these conspiracy theories around Skull and Bones is because their loyalty to one another goes beyond their public differences," said historian and former Yale Alumni Magazine editor Marc Wortman.

Skull and Bones is one of a dozen secret Yale societies, according to Yale spokeswoman Gila Reinstein.

"If it's true about the bones, that's disrespectful and disturbing," she said.

John Fryar, a retired Bureau of Indian Affairs special agent in antiquities recovery and a member of Acoma Pueblo, said if the secret society does have remains, they should be returned to Fort Sill.

"To ignore a request like this for the return of human remains is totally uncalled for. Look at our guys going to Vietnam to recover remains. It's the same thing," he said.