Evidence continues
to mount that the official narrative itself is the irrational narrative of
September 11, and it becomes ever more clear that the media remains committed
to preventing legitimate questions about that day from receiving the scrutiny
they deserve
Today
the event that defined the United States’ foreign policy in the 21st century,
and heralded the destruction of whole countries, turns 18. The events of
September 11, 2001 remains etched into the memories of Americans and many
others, as a collective tragedy that brought Americans together and brought as
well a general resolve among them that those responsible be brought to
justice.
While
the events of that day did unite Americans in these ways for a time, the
different trajectories of the official relative to the independent
investigations into the September 11 attacks have often led to division in the
years since 2001, with vicious attacks or outright dismissal being levied
against the latter.
Yet,
with 18 years having come and gone — and with the tireless efforts from
victims’ families, first responders, scientists and engineers — the tide
appears to be turning, as new evidence continues to emerge and calls for new
investigations are made. However, American corporate media has remained largely
silent, preferring to ignore new developments that could derail the “official
story” of one of the most iconic and devastating attacks to ever occur on
American soil.
For instance, in late July, commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which responded to the attacks and lost one of their own that day, called for a new investigation into the events of September 11. On July 24, the board of commissioners for the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which serves a population of around 30,000 near Queens, voted unanimously in their call for a new investigation into the attacks.
While
the call for a new investigation from a NY Fire Department involved in the
rescue effort would normally seem newsworthy to the media outlets who often
rally Americans to “never forget,” the commissioners’ call for a new
investigation was met with total silence from the mainstream media. The likely
reason for the dearth of coverage on an otherwise newsworthy vote was likely
due to the fact that the resolution that called for the new investigation
contained the following clause:
Whereas, the overwhelming evidence
presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted
explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires —
caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the
vast majority of the victims who perished that day;”
In the
post-9/11 world, those who have made such claims, no matter how well-grounded
their claims may be, have often been derided and attacked as “conspiracy
theorists” for questioning the official claims that the three World Trade
Center buildings that collapsed on September 11 did so for any reason other
than being struck by planes and from the resulting fires. Yet, it is much more
difficult to launch these same attacks against members of a fire department
that lost a fireman on September 11 and many of whose members were involved
with the rescue efforts of that day, some of whom still suffer from chronic
illnesses as a result.
Another
likely reason that the media monolithically avoided coverage of the vote was
out of concern that it would lead more fire departments to pass similar
resolutions, which would make it more difficult for such news to avoid gaining
national coverage. Yet, Commissioner Christopher Gioia, who drafted and
introduced the resolution, told those present at the meeting’s conclusion that
getting all of the New York fire districts onboard was their plan anyway.
“We’re
a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You
better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board,
we will be an unstoppable force,” Gioia said. “We were the first fire district
to pass this resolution. We won’t be the last,” he added.
While
questioning the official conclusions of the first federal investigation into
9/11 has been treated as taboo in the American media landscape for years, it is
worth noting that even those who led the commission have said that the
investigation was “set up to fail” from the start and that they were repeatedly
misled and lied to by federal officials in relation to the events of that day.
For
instance, the chair and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee
Hamilton, wrote in their book Without Precedent that
not only was the commission starved of funds and its powers of investigation
oddly limited, but that they were obstructed and outright lied to by top
Pentagon officials and officials with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA).
They and other commissioners have outright said that
the “official” report on the attacks is incomplete, flawed and unable to answer
key questions about the terror attacks.
Despite
the failure of American corporate media to report these facts, local
legislative bodies in New York, beginning with the fire districts that lost
loved ones and friends that day, are leading the way in the search for real
answers that even those that wrote the “official story” say were deliberately
kept from them.
Persuasive
scientific evidence continues to roll in
Not
long after the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District called for a new 9/11
investigation, a groundbreaking university study added even more weight to the
commissioners’ call for a new look at the evidence regarding the collapse of
three buildings at the World Trade Center complex. While most Americans know
full well that the twin towers collapsed on September 11, fewer are aware that
a third building — World Trade Center Building 7 — also collapsed. That
collapse occurred seven hours after the twin towers came down, even though WTC
7, or “Building 7,” was never struck by a plane.
It was
not until nearly two months after its collapse that reports revealed that
the CIA had a “secret office” in WTC 7 and that, after the building’s
destruction, “a special CIA team scoured the rubble in search of secret
documents and intelligence reports stored in the station, either on paper or in
computers.” WTC 7 also housed offices for the Department of Defense, the Secret
Service, the New York Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and the bank
Salomon Brothers.
Though
the official story regarding the collapse of WTC 7 cites “uncontrolled building
fires” as leading to the building’s destruction, a majority of Americans who
have seen the footage of the 47-story tower come down from four
different angles overwhelmingly reject the official story, based on a new poll conducted
by YouGov on behalf of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and released
on Monday.
That
poll found that 52 percent of those who saw the footage were either sure or
suspected that the building’s fall was due to explosives and was a controlled
demolition, with 27 percent saying they didn’t know what to make of the
footage. Only 21 percent of those polled agreed with the official story that
the building collapsed due to fires alone. Prior to seeing the footage, 36
percent of respondents said that they were unaware that a third building
collapsed on September 11 and more than 67 percent were unable to name the building
that had collapsed.
Ted
Walter, Director of Strategy and Development for Architects and Engineers for
9/11 Truth, told MintPress that the lack of awareness about
WTC 7 among the general public “goes to show that the mainstream media has
completely failed to inform the American people about even the most basic facts
related to 9/11. On any other day in history, if a 47-story skyscraper fell
into its footprint due to ‘office fires,’ everyone in the country would have
heard about it.”
The
fact that the media chose not to cover this, Walter asserted, shows that “the
mainstream media and the political establishment live in an alternative
universe and the rest of the American public is living in a different universe
and responding to what they see in front of them,” as reflected by the results
of the recent YouGov poll.
Another
significant finding of the YouGov poll was that 48 percent of respondents
supported, while only 15 percent opposed, a new investigation into the
events of September 11. This shows that not only was the Franklin Square Fire
District’s recent call for a new investigation in line with American public
opinion, but that viewing the footage of WTC 7’s collapse raises more questions
than answers for many Americans, questions that were not adequately addressed
by the official investigation of the 9/11 Commission.
The
Americans who felt that the video footage of WTC 7’s collapse did not fit with
the official narrative and appeared to show a controlled demolition now have
more scientific evidence to fall back on after the release of a new university
study found that the building came down not due to fire but from “the
near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.” The extensive
four-year study was conducted by the Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering at the University of Alaska and used complex computer models to
determine if the building really was the first steel-framed high-rise ever to
have collapsed solely due to office fires.
The
study, currently available as a draft, concluded that
“uncontrolled building fires” did not lead the building to fall into its
footprint — tumbling more than 100 feet at the rate of gravity free-fall for
2.5 seconds of its seven-second collapse — as has officially been claimed.
Instead, the study — authored by Dr. J. Leroy Hulsey, Dr. Feng Xiao and Dr.
Zhili Quan — found that “fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11,
contrary to the conclusions of NIST [National Institute of Standards and
Technology] and private engineering firms that studied the collapse,” while
also concluding “that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global [i.e., comprehensive]
failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the
building.”
This
“near-simultaneous failure of every column” in WTC 7 strongly suggests that
explosives were involved in its collapse, which is further supported by the statements made
by Barry Jennings, the then-Deputy Director of Emergency Services Department
for the New York City Housing Authority. Jennings told a reporter the
day of the attack that he and Michael Hess, then-Corporation Counsel for New
York City, had heard and seen explosions in WTC 7 several hours prior to its
collapse and later repeated those claims to filmmaker Dylan Avery. The first
responders who helped rescue Jennings and Hess also claimed to have heard
explosions in WTC 7. Jennings died in 2008, two days prior the release of the
official NIST report blaming WTC 7’s collapse on fires. To date, no official
cause of death for Jennings has been given.
Still
“crazy” after all these years?
Eighteen
years after the September 11 attacks, questioning the official government
narrative of the events of those days still remains taboo for many, as merely
asking questions or calling for a new investigation into one of the most
important events in recent American history frequently results in derision and
dismissal.
Yet,
this 9/11 anniversary — with a new study demolishing the official narrative on
WTC 7, with a new poll showing that more than half of Americans doubt the
government narrative on WTC 7, and with firefighters who responded to 9/11
calling for a new investigation — is it still “crazy” to be skeptical of the
official story?
Even in
years past, when asking difficult questions about September 11 was even more
“off limits,” it was often first responders, survivors and victims’ families
who had asked the most questions about what had really transpired that day and
who have led the search for truth for nearly two decades — not wild-eyed
“conspiracy theorists,” as many have claimed.
The
only reason it remains taboo to ask questions about the official narrative,
whose own authors admit that it is both flawed and incomplete, is that the
dominant forces in the American media and the U.S. government have successfully
convinced many Americans that doing so is not only dangerous but irrational and
un-American.
However,
as evidence continues to mount that the official narrative itself is the
irrational narrative, it becomes ever more clear that the reason for this media
campaign is to prevent legitimate questions about that day from receiving the
scrutiny they deserve, even smearing victims’ families and ailing first
responders to do so. For too long, “Never Forget” has been nearly synonymous
with “Never Question.”
Yet,
failing to ask those questions — even when more Americans than ever now favor a
new investigation and discount the official explanation for WTC 7’s collapse —
is the ultimate injustice, not only to those who died in New York City on
September 11, but those who have been killed in their names in the years that
have followed.
Feature
photo | Workers use cutting torches as they clear the site of the Sept. 11
attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, Jan. 23, 2002. Richard Drew | AP
Whitney
Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has
contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research,
EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has
made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the
Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/americans-questioning-official-september-11-new-wtc-7-evidence/261744/
