M E T R O S I L I C O N VA L L E Y SEPTEMBER 9-15, 2009 COVER STORY
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Patriotic Duty San Jose architect Thomas Lyman Chamberlain, another member of AE911 Truth, calls the official account of the 9/11 events “a fraud.� “In light of the human life and liberties being taken based on that fraud,� Lyman wrote on the AE911.org site, building industry professionals “have a patriotic duty to invoke their credentials on behalf of the victims and the integrity of our nation.� Chemical engineer T. Mark Hightower of San Jose, a member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, agrees. “It is clear that the
The steel doesn’t get to the temperature that would cause it to weaken, no steelframed high rise has ever collapsed due to ďŹ re and we have over 100 examples. No force can crush that kind of a structure at near freefall speed. It’s ludicrous. —RICHARD GAGE
buildings had help to bring them down,â€? he says. AE911 Truth has grown rapidly, igniting a struggling grassroots movement of hundreds of other “9/11 Truthâ€? organizations, and spearheading a growing assault on the official story. In recent years, other single-profession 9/11 Truth groups have launched or gained momentum, including those comprised of airline pilots, ďŹ reďŹ ghters, veterans, medical professionals, scholars, lawyers, religious leaders and former government employees. Also individually calling for a new inquiry are two dozen retired U.S. military brass and eight former U.S. State Department officials, along with a number of Republicans who have served in high
federal positions since President Reagan, including former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts and former Reagan administration Assistant Defense Secretary (and retired Marine Corps colonel) Ronald D. Ray. Activists around the country attribute AE911’s professional credibility and its unwavering focus on the WTC as the fuel that has galvanized the movement. David Ray Griffin, the retired Santa Barbara philosophy professor and theologian who is perhaps the leading intellectual force within the Truth groups—with seven 9/11 books to his credit, including The New Pearl Harbor— notes that it “is possible many of these organizations wouldn’t even have formed without AE911 ďŹ rst being there.â€? “AE911 represents the biggest boost yet to the credibility of the 9/11 truth movement,â€? Griffin says. “It is clear there are far more architects and engineers who have spoken out against the official story than have publicly supported it.â€?
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Building a Case
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The local members of AE911 Truth and their allies elsewhere make these arguments:
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• Crucial elements of the key government study on the step-by-step events that occurred in the collapse of the WTC buildings don’t stand up to analytical scrutiny. The study was undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Commerce Department agency responsible for building and other safety codes and standards.
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• An airplane crash and subsequent ďŹ re aren’t sufficient cause to bring down the towers, not even when combined with the presumed dislodging of ďŹ reprooďŹ ng that protected the core steel beams in the areas in which the two planes struck. (This dislodging, NIST asserts, made the steel vulnerable to softening by ďŹ re and brought on the collapse—the ďŹ rst ever of a steel-framed building hit by ďŹ re.) • NIST never tested for explosive residues despite evidence, including many eyewitness accounts from ďŹ rst responders and people who escaped the buildings, that explosives and incendiaries were present. • The collapse of the three buildings resembles two different types of controlled demolitions, and not the bending or toppling of a heated building section that might result from a ďŹ re. Following the collapses, NIST assembled a panel of more than 300 staff and external experts and spent three years and $20 million on what it claims is the 18
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