2007-01-13 - 1:50 p.m.

Dear Pappazon,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I know this is the type of issue where it is hard to convince one side or the other, like a believer and a nonbeliever arguing about the existence of God. I enjoy the back and forth, though I tend to be stubborn. The temptation is to look for evidence to support one's own view and contradict the other's. I try not to do that but I fall into that trap.

Anyway, to respond to a few of your points. You disagreed with my assertion it would be only marginally different psychologically if the planes hit the buildings without causing them to collapse. I say it certainly would have been considered sufficient for an invasion if the buildings had not collapsed. Sure, most people have forgotten about the Cory Lidle crash that you mentioned (though not me), but it was big news for a few days even though it only killed I believe 3 or 4 people. Any single commercial plane crash has dominated the news for many days, and four coordinated crashes, particularly into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, would still be considered an unprecedented attack worthy of going to war over. People still talk about Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which took place in 1988.

You say that only one engineer has gone on record to support the government story, who is not on the government payroll. Perhaps that leaves a lot of ambiguity as to what it means to "support the government story" (do they have to agree with every word?) or what it means to not be "on the government payroll" (does that eliminate anyone in a university that gets government grants?) Because it's not hard to find a number of independent studies that support the idea that the buildings could have collapsed due to the plane crashes and nothing more. See: here and here, although perhaps the latter is on the Government payroll, which means...that he is in on the conspiracy too? Along with the many other engineers who agree with him?

As for Thomas Eager, I've read his report here and cannot find a contradiction. He does give a very logical explanation to why the towers fell, which, if you believe him, answer some of your questions. For example: the jet fuel could not melt steel in itself, but could weaken them sufficiently, when combined with the uneven stresses caused by the fire, to precipitate a collapse. And the collapse would indeed look like a "free fall" because each floor is itself unable to withstand even a fraction of the weight of the floors falling on them.

It also, incidentally, notes that skyscrapers are generally designed to withstand 3 hours of fire, so it should not be surprising that both these buildings and WTC 7 eventually collapsed.

And even though the center of the building is not hollow, but has the 47 beams you mention, it is from the outer perimeter that the strength comes from. The core is already bearing most of the weight load, while the perimeter beams are providing the "redundancy" necessary to withstand a direct hit.

Anyway, I looked up David Ray Griffins, read some interviews with him, and don't find him persuasive, but the logic problem of why the government would come up with this elaborate scheme on top of an existing and sufficient conspiracy, probably makes it impossible for me to be convinced.

I should also say, finally, that it's much easier to ask questions, using primarily the Internet, than it is to answer them. It's not hard to find contradictions amidst a million pieces of information, particularly when so many people are looking for them.

And, are you really agnostic on the 911 Truth Commission? Is all this really an argument that the 911 Commission didn't do a thorough enough job? It seems that to spend so much time looking for reasons that the the towers could not have collapsed on its own, requires one to believe that they did not collapse on their own and are the result of an inside job.

But that's enough for today. More later, perhaps.

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