9-11

[JoeMercer'sWay]

What American governments did in the past has little relevance to 9/11, they're very seperate issues.

Focusing solely on American government actions is not justifiable as it implies it is an exclusive issue, in acts of war countless nations have all committed terrible crimes or used horrible tactics, whether the Americans have or were involved or not is irrelevan.t

And again, none of this has anything to do with 9/11, I think a peacetime act of aggression and mass murder on your own people is something that a lot of people would struggle to comprehend and elevate the level of severity of a lot more compared to a wartime act of aggression on another country's people. What those two different situations require are completely different from each other on a whole range of levels, which is why bombing Dresden or whatever else you want to use to say how "bad the Americans have been so this is why we should suspect them of this as well" really has no relevance whatsoever, sticking to your WTC7 questions and wish for proper evidence, investigation and the truth has a lot more credence, at least in my own opinion.

As many things have taught us, today with Hillsborough included, is that evidence must always come first, judgments later.

Yeah, the Bush government really turned out to be a shining beacon of high morality didn't it...

It wasn't a game of one-upmanship. Whether the American government is the most evil was not the point. At no juncture did I make the argument only an American government would be capable of this. Other governments would be too, the Americans just have form for it.

I'm not even making the argument that they did do it so why you're talking about evidence is peculiar to say the least. I don't need evidence for a theory I am not advocating. I'm stating that claiming an American government isn't capable of such a bloody atrocity is a piss-poor argument against 9/11 conspiracy theories. Clearly it has been and continues to be. It proved it before 9/11 and it proved it afterwards.

On that point I agree, you raise doubts over WTC7 which are fair enough, but when some people turn it into accusations of blowing the building up to flatten it it becomes a whole different ball game.

I don't defend the Bush government in any way(never have done) but I will still defend my point that I believe for many people that their government in peacetime committing an atrocity on their own people would be very hard to comprehend and be judged as more severe than an attack on people in a country that you are at war with.

You did not make the argument that only the American government was capable of such things, but by ignoring what other countries have done I felt the context was lost because comparing wartime actions to peace time actions is just not really the best way of putting that point across. Many countries have committed war time atrocities, fewer have peacetimem, and the context is completely different.

What the Americans are capable of and what they have done are seperate things, but I believe any nation is "capable" of doing that towards its own people so in that respect I agree that you can't say they aren't capable of it, of course they are, but there's a very big difference between that and them doing it and we should remember that.

 

[Unknown_Genius]

Don't believe everthing you see on youtube
http://www.911myths.com/index.php/Dancing_Israelis

That doesn't really debunk anything. Its just how someone interpreted the video. Its a personal opinion and point of view.

It shows they were wrongly held, never charged, blew nothing up and tried to sue. Hardly the stuff of Mossad agents. And the debunker is not interpretting the video but listing every news piece about the Israelis.

Ah, ok. I was looking for stuff on there concerning the video in question, and didn't see that they tried to sue right at the bottom. It doesn't mention the mural on the van though, so whether that cop saw what he really saw, I don't know.

 

[Skashion]

An already defeated Japan? Come off it, Skash!

Take it up with Eisenhower, not me.

I had been conscious of depression and so I voiced to (Sec. Of War Stimson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.'

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of 'face'. It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower, Iranian coup d'etat excepted, was a fine man and a good President. I wish the United States was so lucky as to have another principled and firm man at the head of the nation since. It's been steadily downhill on average since then.

 

[TheMightyQuinn]

Go Skashion, go.

 

[BulgarianPride]

As a physicist I'm going to attempt to be diplomatic on this one.

There is a certain 'lack of clarity', shall we say, with the information presented (or lack thereof) by NIST. The fact they have not released their figures is very much against what an independent and scientific investigation should be about.

The theories pertaining to the collapse of the main towers, to me, are very much feasible given the lack of precedent. Essentially since we have never seen any such event on this scale before it becomes difficult to model what is happening and reproduce verifiable results. The theories in place are very much the best explanation that we have.

The 'lack of clarity' comes with WTC7, and from a scientific point of view I would want a more thorough and satisfying investigation into how exactly the tower fell. This time with figures released for the perusal of the wider community.

Am I saying there is a conspiracy afoot? That it was an inside job? Absolutely not, because if there is one thing that lacks clarity more than the official story it's the quite frankly desperate straw clutching of some of the conspiracy theorists. Science doesn't work via substitution such as "Oh well it's not that, it must be [enter conspiracy here]". That's called putting 2+2 together and getting 136. We must rule out the most likely causes before we reach the inane, and we're a long way from doing that.

I'm simply saying that the explanation given up to now for the collapse of WTC7 is in need of more careful investigation.

However it happened, it is a great tragedy, and I would hate for it to happen again. That's why we need to learn as much as possible about the causes.

That is not exactly true. If A was not the cause of the collapse then it must be B, where B can be a lot of factors. If we've proven A is not the cause we must determine B. With B unknown it could be anything. The job as scientists and engineers is to reduce the possibilities of B and find the underlying factor.

In this case factor A is unsatisfactory to many engineers and scientist, so why have so many assumed we've found the answer?

It is very important to understand how a steel building can naturally collapse due to fire. If fire was the cause how are we ensuring future fires don't bring down other buildings?

( For those incapable of keeping up with a discussing, i am talking about WTC7 )

 

[sweynforkbeard]

An already defeated Japan? Come off it, Skash!

Take it up with Eisenhower, not me.

I had been conscious of depression and so I voiced to (Sec. Of War Stimson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.'

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of 'face'. It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower, Iranian coup d'etat excepted, was a fine man and a good President. I wish the United States was so lucky as to have another principled and firm man at the head of the nation since. It's been steadily downhill on average since then.

Thanks, Skash, that's new to me and very interesting. However, I would say that these are the views of one man who admits to being depressed. Perhaps the unrelenting horrors of the Pacific theatre had taken its toll. Certainly these views were overidden by the vast majority of Allied military planners. It is undeniable that during the invasions of Saipan, Okinawa etc Japanese civilians commited suicide en masse due to Japanese military terror propaganda - the Americans would eat their children alive in front of them etc. The death toll amongst both civilian and military personnel from any attempted invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been appalling - sadly the fatalities caused by the two nuclear bombs would likely have been a drop in the ocean.

 

[SWP's back]

It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

[/quote]
It was for the Russian's benefit.

 

[Skashion]

Thanks, Skash, that's new to me and very interesting. However, I would say that these are the views of one man who admits to being depressed. Perhaps the unrelenting horrors of the Pacific theatre had taken its toll. Certainly these views were overidden by the vast majority of Allied military planners. It is undeniable that during the invasions of Saipan, Okinawa etc Japanese civilians commited suicide en masse due to Japanese military terror propaganda - the Americans would eat their children alive in front of them etc. The death toll amongst both civilian and military personnel from any attempted invasion of the Japanese mainland would have been appalling - sadly the fatalities caused by the two nuclear bombs would likely have been a drop in the ocean.

Far from the only one:

It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was taught not to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying woman and children.

Admiral William D. Leahy
Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

I am absolutely convinced that had we said they could keep the emperor, together with the threat of an atomic bomb, they would have accepted, and we would never have had to drop the bomb.

John McCloy
Assistant Secretary of War

P.M. [Churchill} & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace.

President Harry S. Truman
Diary Entry, July 18, 1945

Certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey's 1946 Study

Careful scholarly treatment of the records and manuscripts opened over the past few years has greatly enhanced our understanding of why Truman administration used atomic weapons against Japan. Experts continue to disagree on some issues, but critical questions have been answered. The consensus among scholars is the that the bomb was not needed to avoid an invasion of Japan. It is clear that alternatives to the bomb existed and that Truman and his advisers knew it.

J. Samuel Walker
Chief Historian, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

 

[BlueBilly]

An already defeated Japan? Come off it, Skash!

Take it up with Eisenhower, not me.

I had been conscious of depression and so I voiced to (Sec. Of War Stimson) my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at this very moment, seeking a way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face.'

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Japan was at the moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of 'face'. It wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Eisenhower, Iranian coup d'etat excepted, was a fine man and a good President. I wish the United States was so lucky as to have another principled and firm man at the head of the nation since. It's been steadily downhill on average since then.

Eisenhower was a fine man? Yeah, for a racist.

Possibly the most stupid thing you've posted on this thread and that really is saying something.

 

[SWP's back]

Difficult to judge people as being racists with a modern perspective on what happened 80 years ago.