Zerb does it again

Not long after I started up this blog, I came across an Antonia Zerbisias column which approvingly cited the ne plus ultra of conspirozoid websites, whatreallyhappened.com. I e-mailed Zerb to point out that WRH was a blatantly anti-semitic hate site, and to her credit she owned up to the mistake in her next column. It must be embarassing for a "media critic" to miss something like that, so I figured she wouldn't make the same mistake again.

Needless to say, she made the same mistake again. On her Toronto Star-hosted weblog, Zerb links to an article by former Bush Administration official Morgan Reynolds, who's evidently a structural engineer on the side. Reynolds now believes the World Trade Center towers were likely destroyed by "controlled demolitions", and one of his sources - also linked by Zerb - is this article, from a website called "americanfreepress.net".

"American Free Press", it turns out, is the successor to the infamous Spotlight, a hatemongering tabloid run by venerable neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. A quick perusal of the site shows that it hasn't changed much.

I don't believe Zerb is at all anti-semitic, and I'm sure she linked to "American Free Press" without realizing its real agenda. But when you really, really want to believe Dubya n' the neocons carried out the 9/11 attacks, it tends to get in the way of your critical judgment.

Zerb concludes that poor Mr. Reynolds is going to have his career savaged and destroyed by the right-wing media machine, especially the omnipotent Fox News Channel. Personally, I think Morgan Reynolds is doing a pretty good job of destroying his own credibility, considering he doesn't believe any planes actually hit the World Trade Center:

About a dozen of the fragmented ends of exterior columns in the North Tower hole were bent but the bends faced the "wrong way" because they pointed toward the outside of the Tower. This fact is troublesome for the official theory that a plane crash created the hole and subsequent explosion between floors 94 and 98. The laws of physics imply that a high-speed airplane with fuel-filled wings breaking through thin perimeter columns would deflect the shattered ends of the columns inward, if deflected in any direction, certainly not bend them outward toward the exterior.
[...]
The small size of the holes in both towers casts doubt on the airliner-impact hypothesis and favors professional demolition again. There were no reports of plane parts, especially wings, shorn off in the collision and bounced to the ground on the northeast side of the tower, to my knowledge, though FEMA reported a few small pieces to the south at Church street (pp. 68–9) and atop WTC-5 to the east of WTC-1.

Adding to the suspicious nature of the small aperture in WTC 1 is that some vertical gaps in the columns on the left side of the northeast hole were so short, probably less than three feet (p. 105) high (p. 27). Not much of a jumbo jet could pass through such an opening, especially since a fuel-laden plane would not minimize its frontal area. The engines are a special problem because each engine is enormous and dense, consisting mainly of tempered steel and weighing 24 to 28.5 tons, depending upon model. No engine was recovered in the rubble yet no hydrocarbon fire could possibly vaporize it.

The hole in the North Tower also is suspicious because it did not even have a continuous opening at the perimeter, but instead contained substantial WTC material (p. 27) just left of center (pp. 62, 105). This material appears integral to that area, so it did not move much, suggesting minimal displacement and no clean penetration by a jumbo jet. These huge airliners weigh 82 tons empty and have a maximum takeoff weight of up to 193 tons.

In the case of the South Tower, an engine from UAL Flight 175 (tail number N612UA and FAA-registered as still valid!) has not been recovered despite the fact that the flight trajectory of the video plane implied that the right engine would miss the South Tower. Photos showing minor engine parts on the ground are unconvincing, to put it mildly. Perhaps independent jet engine experts (retired?) can testify to the contrary. Further contradicting the official account, the beveled edge of the southeast side of the south tower was completely intact upon initial impact. The government never produced a jet engine yet claimed it recovered the passport of alleged hijacker Satam al Suqami unharmed by a fiery crash and catastrophic collapse of the North Tower. The government has not produced voice (CVR) or flight data recorders (FDR) in the New York attack either, so-called black boxes, a fact unprecedented in the aviation history of major domestic crashes.

Adding to the problems of the official theory is the fact that photos of the North Tower hole show no evidence of a plane either. There is no recognizable wreckage or plane parts at the immediate crash site. While the issue probably takes us too far afield, the landing wheel assembly that allegedly flew out of the North Tower and was found several streets away could easily have been planted by FEMA or other government agents. I’ve never seen any objective analysis of this wheel assembly though it would be welcome. In fact, the government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day. [emphasis added]

9/11 conspirozoids have a lot in common with Holocaust deniers - but as far as I know, even the Holocaust deniers don't claim the Nazis never existed.

Posted by damian at June 14, 2005 07:07 PM | TrackBack