In the aftermath of 9/11 signs soon started appearing, first sporadically and later in a more concerted fashion, that all was not what it seemed, and not even what the official commission of inquiry into the circumstances and ‘causes’ of the event said in its report was able to put an end to the questions piling up in light of new evidence.

The official version goes something like this: two passenger jet aircraft, hijacked by terrorists, were flown into the World Trade Centre (WTC) twin towers, and the heat generated by the burning jet fuel caused the central steel spine or core(s) of the two buildings to melt, with the result that they collapsed in on themselves, because the floors were attached to the central core and therefore went down as it melted.

Not long after this devastating event, questions and doubts were raised. For one, a New York architect that I spoke to assured me that it was simply ‘impossible’ for a jet aircraft to have brought down the towers in what appeared to be virtually free-fall, because, he pointed out, they had been designed to withstand such impact.

And besides, he added, jet fuel burns at a lower temperature than the melting point of the steel used in the World Trade Centre buildings.

Moreover, perhaps the most puzzling part of the whole affair was the fact that WTC Building number 7 imploded as well, minus the impact of a jet aircraft. Oh, sure, there was a fire in the building, but nothing that could cause a controlled demolition-style implosion, which seems to be what happened there — and not only in the case of Building 7, but of the twin towers as well, if all the evidence is added up.

Several films have been made on 9/11, and a whole movement has developed, driven by scientists, architects and engineers, gathering evidence and disseminating it among (mainly) Americans and Canadians, to the effect that the event bears the hallmarks of a controlled demolition.

What does this ‘evidence’ amount to? A reliable source has sent me plenty of relevant information in this regard, including the following:

Among leading scientists a professor of chemistry from the University of Copenhagen and a professor of physics from Brigham Young University have found what is known as carbon nano-tubes in the forensically-examined rubble of the three WTC steel skyscrapers that imploded in 2001.

In addition, “doctors and researchers (from Mount Sinai Hospital, New York) have found carbon nano-tubes in the lungs of firemen and rescue staff who worked in the Manhattan rubble in 2001 — many of them now suffering cancer and other illnesses”, apart from those who have already died.

What does this imply? As my source pointed out, “If a criminal starts a fire in a house using a very sophisticated incendiary material that leaves a particular forensic fingerprint — and then the victims’ and rescuers’ lungs are seen to be imbedded with residue of this same material — you have in essence confirmation of proof that the product was used.”

“The significance of carbon nano-tubes”, he continued, “is that they constitute evidence of military-grade material used in the rapid take-down of steel structure through the path of greatest resistance, in defiance of Newton’s Laws of Conservation of Momentum.”

To sum up: “The science is clear, the political ramifications are, of course, inconvenient”. And, as may be expected, to date all this evidence has simply been ignored by ‘the authorities’, and mainstream media have been complicit with such indifference in so far as they have even, on occasion, dubbed bona fide researchers, who have drawn attention to the discrepancies surrounding 9/11, ‘conspiracy nuts’.

But there is more. Recently Dr Cate Jenkins, a chemist at the Environmental Protection Agency, was reinstated in her job by order of a federal court in the US.

She had been fired earlier because of her persistent claims that the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was covering up the health danger that fire fighters and rescue workers had been exposed to in the aftermath of the WTC-buildings collapse.

The source of the danger was extremely corrosive dust that was rising from what was left of the World Trade Centre.

The caustic dust was corrosive to the degree that it caused chemical burns in the lungs of the rescue workers who inhaled it, and medical doctors have since pointed out that much of the health-damage caused by this could have been prevented if workers had been issued with appropriate protective gear. More than two-thirds of these people suffered permanent lung damage.

At the time, the head of the EPA Christine Whitman claimed that there was no indication that a health hazard existed.

More recently, she has said that the Bush administration did not want to cause panic at the time of the attacks. What seems decidedly suspicious is the fact that, what Dr Jenkins had drawn attention to, was that the dust at the scene of the building-implosions was sufficiently finely pulverised to identify it as dust from a demolition site where explosives had been used, instead of the kind of dust consistent with a “natural, gravity-led collapse”.

To confirm Dr Jenkins’s suspicions, at what is known as the Toronto Hearings — which took place at Ryerson University, Toronto, in Canada between 8 and 11 September 2011, and comprises one of the most thorough investigations into the circumstances and likely causes of the WTC towers’ collapse — presented the evidence collected in the course of 10-years, and demonstrated persuasively that the official account of 9/11 is incorrect and misleading.

Among other things the evidence has brought to light that the implosions displayed the characteristics typical of demolition by explosives.

For instance, it occurred through the “path of greatest resistance” and, astonishingly, “at nearly free-fall acceleration-rate”; the debris was distributed in an improbably symmetrical fashion; more than a hundred of those who responded first to the event reported flashes and explosions and — perhaps most improbable of all, had the aircraft-collisions caused the collapse — multi-ton sections of steel were ejected laterally. Add to this the following: 90 000 tons of “concrete and metal decking” were pulverized in mid-air; no “pancaked” floors were found — only a 1200-foot-diameter field of rubble; there were “isolated explosive ejections” 20-40 storeys below the area of destruction; the building was completely destroyed, and even the steel frame was “dismembered”; evidence of explosives was discovered in dust samples; evidence of thermite (a potent incendiary) was found in samples of steel; and there were several tons of molten metal under all three the destroyed buildings. In the case of WTC Building no. 7 (47 storeys high), these characteristics were exhibited despite the fact that it had not even been hit by an aircraft.

At the same time, the collapse of these three massive buildings showed none of the characteristics usually encountered in destruction by fire, such as a “slow onset with large visible deformations”; an “asymmetrical collapse following the path of least resistance” (implying that the building would have fallen, in an intact state, from the point of aircraft-impact in the direction of the greatest fire-damage); and evidence of fire-temperatures high enough to soften and melt steel.

In fact, tall buildings where much more encompassing and longer-lasting fires have occurred, have never collapsed in this way.

The event of 9/11 and its aftermath — the unlikely explanation offered by the official investigation, as well as the relative lack of sustained and penetrating subsequent investigations — are eerily reminiscent of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, which is shrouded in mystery to this day, with the secret records relating to it destined to be released to the public in 2029.

New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison had the courage to open an independent investigation into the assassination in 1966, after finding that the Warren Commission’s report contained numerous inaccuracies, but failed to convict the New Orleans businessman whom he claimed had been involved in a CIA plot to kill the President.

The question is who was most likely to benefit from Kennedy’s death.

Similarly, with 9/11 there are many unanswered questions that point to the possibility that it was a premeditated, thoroughly planned and prepared-for attack (or demolition) that went way beyond an Al-Qaeda plot.

Here, too, the question, who stood to benefit most from its execution, and in what terms, forms the basis, I personally believe, of the direction in which one should look for answers in the face of the compelling evidence referred to here.

Author

  • As an undergraduate student, Bert Olivier discovered Philosophy more or less by accident, but has never regretted it. Because Bert knew very little, Philosophy turned out to be right up his alley, as it were, because of Socrates's teaching, that the only thing we know with certainty, is how little we know. Armed with this 'docta ignorantia', Bert set out to teach students the value of questioning, and even found out that one could write cogently about it, which he did during the 1980s and '90s on a variety of subjects, including an opposition to apartheid. In addition to Philosophy, he has been teaching and writing on his other great loves, namely, nature, culture, the arts, architecture and literature. In the face of the many irrational actions on the part of people, and wanting to understand these, later on he branched out into Psychoanalysis and Social Theory as well, and because Philosophy cultivates in one a strong sense of justice, he has more recently been harnessing what little knowledge he has in intellectual opposition to the injustices brought about by the dominant economic system today, to wit, neoliberal capitalism. His motto is taken from Immanuel Kant's work: 'Sapere aude!' ('Dare to think for yourself!') In 2012 Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University conferred a Distinguished Professorship on him. Bert is attached to the University of the Free State as Honorary Professor of Philosophy.

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Bert Olivier

As an undergraduate student, Bert Olivier discovered Philosophy more or less by accident, but has never regretted it. Because Bert knew very little, Philosophy turned out to be right up his alley, as it...

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