But What Kind Of Truth Is It?

I'll be talking on ABC radio at 1.30pm (Sydney time) about popularity of 9/11 conspiracies and the American 9/11 Truther movement, which the American mainstream media is currently pumping as a potentially violent extremist group.

This sudden fresh interest by the US media in the 9/11 Truther movement, claimed by the Washington Post in a lead editorial to be "lunatic", follows the branding of the Pentagon shooter as a "Truther", and the announcement by Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth, in press conferences around the world, that they had now gathered the signatures of more than 1000 architects, scientists, engineers, pilots, firefighters for a push for a criminal investigation into the 9/11 attacks, and their aftermath.

This short piece in the Washington Times, the only mainstream American media to mention the February 19 press conferences, lays out their key questions and claims.

A common theme raised in online discussions about this apparently more serious group of 9/11 Truthers is : The Bush administration lied about Iraq being responsible for the 9/11 attacks, they lied about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction, they lied about torture, so why should the Bush administration official version of the 9/11 attacks not be at least questioned, if not re-investigated?

You can listen in at ABC Online Radio here.

UPDATE : For those who were listening to ABC Newcastle a few minutes ago, here's the links to the key sources I referenced and discussed during the interview :

Washington Post Labels Japanese Politician Part Of "Lunatic Fringe" For Questioning Bush Administration Official Story Of 9/11

The Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth

Washington Times Says 9/11 Truth Push For Criminal Investigation Has "Political Implications" For Congress

American Current Affairs Show Disappointed Not To Find Ranting Violent Wackos At 9/11 Truthers Convention

Will Architect Jan Utzon Be Hounded Into Silence For Questioning The Collapse Of World Trade Centre 7 On 9/11?

By Darryl Mason

Sydney Opera House architect Jan Utzon expresses a healthy professional curiosity, and asks reasonable questions, about the collapse of World Trade Centre 7 in New York City on September 11, 2001 :



Utzon, like hundreds of other architects, engineers, scientists, former military officers and intelligence officials from around the world, stated simply and truthfully that the 'official story' of 9/11 doesn't always make sense, and that three steel framed skyscrapers collapsing from fire damage is an event that has never happened before. He concludes that new investigations are warranted.

The Sydney Morning Herald decides to do some gate-keeping and claims Utzon has "signed up for September 11 conspiracy theories", comparing respected architects who have questions about how three skyscrapers can collapse from fire damage to those who believe The Moon landings were faked.

Herald journalist Sean Nichols tries to dob Utzon in to his employer :

An Opera House spokeswoman said Mr Utzon was ''entitled to his personal views outside of his professional work as architectural adviser to Sydney Opera House''.

The Herald's Rick Feneley uses a report by the US National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST) in an attempt to dismiss all of Utzon's questions about the rapid, total collapse of World Trade Centre 7 :

The National Institute of Standards and Technology spent three years investigating Building 7. It names fire as the culprit. Fire - fuelled by office furnishings, aided and abetted by the thermal expansion of structural elements.

"Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down," said the lead investigator, Shyam Sunder.

Explosives? The institute concludes that the smallest blast capable of crippling the third tower's critical column would have produced a "sound level of 130 to 140 decibels at a distance of half a mile''. No witness reported it.

TV news reports from 9/11 of explosions coming from the vicinity of World Trade Centre 7 before it collapsed. "Keep your eye on that building, it's coming down", "the whole thing's about to blow up" :



Here's a video of an investigator from the National Institute of Science & Technology claiming there was no evidence of molten steel in the ruins of the World Trade Centre buildings. His claim is utterly contradicted by firemen and rescue workers who spent months digging through the wreckage :



The NIST used computer modelling for its theory explaining the collapse of World Trade Centre 7, as all material evidence was removed from the site before the NIST investigations began.


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Just Another Journalist Who Wants 9/11 Victims' Families To Shut Up

By Darryl Mason

President George W. Bush, November 10, 2001 :

“Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11.”

Daily Telegraph associate editor, Tim Blair, marked the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Washington DC and New York City with this remarkably weak and predictably puerile smearing of those who hold doubts about the official Bush White House 9/11 conspiracy theory :

When someone starts in on that stuff, it's time to leave the room. "Truthers", as they are known, hold two mutually-exclusive beliefs: That the Bush administration was run by morons and that it pulled off the greatest conspiracy of all time. Truthers are spectacular idiots.

Here are some of the people utterly incurious journalists like Tim Blair think are "spectacular idiots" for demanding a new investigation into the events of September 11, 2001, and for those in the Bush administration who failed to protect Americans that day to be held to account :



Ten Australians died in the 9/11 attacks. Some of those victims' friends and relatives have their doubts about the Bush White House official version of events. Considering the abuse dished out by journalists like Tim Blair towards other 9/11 victims' family members, you can understand their reluctance in going public with their doubts.


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