Deep Blade Journal

“9/11 Truth Movement” is mostly a sham; excellent antidote at Counterpunch

A sad event featuring 9/11 conspiracy theory sponsored by kpfa and broadcast by C-SPAN 2 over Thanksgiving weekend–and I normally admire both Pacifica and Ray McGovern; David Ray Griffin should be ashamed of his misuse of evidence.

I spend a good bit of time each week teaching introductory physics. Every semester–in the impulse and momentum chapter–I pay special attention to dynamic forces generated by impacts of moving bodies. These are the forces that break things when they fall, contrasted with static conditions where the same objects happily remain intact under the reletively mellow forces due to their own weights. The example I always bring up is how the collapse of the WTC twin towers in New York on 9/11/2001 happened because of the enormous dynamic forces generated once the upper sections began to fall.

Partly I bring up the WTC collapse to counter a load of nonsense on this topic that lives mainly on the Internet, and sometimes on C-SPAN. On many facets of 9/11, a conspiracy industry has emerged to promulgate alternative explanations, calling itself by the misnomer “9/11 Truth Movement”. It is led by a strange cast of characters also known by the misnomer “Scholars for 9/11 truth”.

Of the voluminous silliness promulgated by these people, perhaps their lowest appeal to ignorance is their notion that the airplane impacts and subsequent structural weakening did not initiate collapse and bring down the towers. Rather, explosives planted in a government conspiracy did it.

The evidence? None really. There exists no document, no whistle-blower, no witness who has come forward from a diabolical conspiracy that must have involved hundreds of workers to pull off. Oh yes, they have a physicist from BYU, Steve Jones, who has made some unconvincing claims about chemicals that were in the wreckage that suggest explosives were used. But they really go astray when they claim that it is impossible that the towers fell without the help of explosives. Why? Because they fell at “close to the free-fall time in a vacuum”. Without explosives “undamaged floors below the impact zone would have offered resistance that is thousands of times greater than air.” That’s the “proof” offered.

Now the article at that last link (supplied by Scholars for 9/11 Truth) totally misstates the physics involved in the collapse. Air resistance produces a continuous upward force upon a falling object that increases with velocity until it balances the gravitational force. This is not analogous to what happened during the collapse of the twin towers.

A Tuesday article in Counterpunch by physicist Manuel Garcia supplies the facts to counter this asinine rubbish in a slightly technical but totally coherent explanation of the fall times of the towers. It includes discussion of the disastrous effect of dynamic loading on the structures resulting from rapid momentum changes and stress waves–essential discussion completely left out of ignorant conspiracy literature.

Certainly there are mysteries about 9/11. The relationship of US intelligence and the shadowy networks that are referred to as “al-Qā`ida” deserve much more investigation. I would like to be able to appreciate the writing of some of the “9/11 Scholars” on these issues. But their embrace of asinine silliness and misuse of physics really taints their work.

I support Alexander Cockburn, Matt Taibbi, Noam Chomsky, and Matt Rothschild in their efforts to expose the intellectual bankruptcy of the “9/11 Truth Movement”. This bankruptcy is no more well illustrated than in the rabid accusations flung by conspiracy adherents when faced with skepticism about their wild, unsupportable claims. They scream incoherently about “left gatekeepers” surpressing their version of the truth.

Like Chomsky has written, “One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state, and their institutional background, crimes that are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be.” It’s time to focus our attention away from conspiracy mongering and towards building a movement to stop the continuing crimes of state that are costing the lives of tens of thousands of people every week.

Confirmed by the Marine Corps itself

As if the stuff in that last post wasn’t enough, there is a follow-up story in the Washington Post today on the US military situation in Iraq’s al-Anbar province:

The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq or counter al-Qaeda’s rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report that set off debate in recent months about the military’s mission in Anbar province.

The Marines recently filed an updated version of that assessment that stood by its conclusions and stated that, as of mid-November, the problems in troubled Anbar province have not improved, a senior U.S. intelligence official said yesterday. “The fundamental questions of lack of control, growth of the insurgency and criminality” remain the same, the official said.

The Marines’ August memo, a copy of which was shared with The Washington Post, is far bleaker than some officials suggested when they described it in late summer. The report describes Iraq’s Sunni minority as “embroiled in a daily fight for survival,” fearful of “pogroms” by the Shiite majority and increasingly dependent on al-Qaeda in Iraq as its only hope against growing Iranian dominance across the capital.

Christ almighty, “pogroms”!!

“U.S. forces no longer have the option ‘for a decapitating strike that would cripple the organization,’ the report says.”

All the death and destruction the US has visited on that region over the last three years is a total, colossal failure even on its own merits. See this post for a flavor of how the US has brutalized this area over the years.

Rosen and Packer–there is nothing that America can do about this anymore

Nir Rosen and George Packer are writers who recently have cast extremely pessimistic assessments on the prospects for Iraq.

Nir Rosen appeared on Monday’s edition of Democracy Now!. He rattled off a very disturbing list of talking points concerning what “Americans need to know” about Iraq and the Middle East region:

This is a bleak assessment. It’s an education for me. I’ve been arguing with people that the way to make the situation for Iraq better would be too remove American troops as quickly as possible and that as soon as they began to filter out while America took its foot off of Iraq’s neck, the situation would calm. I argued this sort of thing in comments just a few posts back: “As soon as the Americans start to filter out of Iraq, my guess is the whole thing begins to calm down.” I guess that proposition would be very difficult to support.

In the November 27 issue of the New Yorker, George Packer comments about potential negative consequences of proposals by Congressional Democrats on troop withdrawal. Packer scolds people like me, who have thought a rapid withdrawal of American troops could help Iraq:

PACKER: The argument that Iraq would be better off on its own is a self-serving illusion that seems to offer Americans a win-win solution to a lose-lose problem. Like so much about this war, it has more to do with politics here than reality there. Such wishful thinking (reminiscent of the sweets-and-flowers variety that preceded the war) would have pernicious consequences, as the United States fails to anticipate one disaster after another in the wake of its departure: ethnic cleansing on a large scale, refugees pouring across Iraq’Â’s borders, incursions by neighboring armies, and the slaughter of Iraqis who had joined the American project.

I suppose what Packer is saying is not too different from what Nir Rosen is saying. Packer concludes, “We may have to accept that the disintegration of Iraq is irreversible and America’s last remaining interest will be to leave. If so, we shouldn’Â’t deepen the insult by pretending that we’Â’re doing the Iraqis a favor. Even realism has an obligation to be realistic.”

But Packer leaves out any discussion of the notion that America has caused this disaster in Iraq. Rosen paints a fuller picture of what the American attack and occupation has done to Iraqis and is clearer about the desirability of withdrawal of American troops, even while he too recognizes it as desirable mainly in terms of the interest of the Americans who are ordered to sacrifice for the project.

ROSEN: Troop withdrawal, if I was an American, then I would want troop withdrawal, because why are Americans dying in Iraq? Every single American who dies in Iraq, who is injured in Iraq, dies for nothing. He didn’Â’t die for freedom, he didn’t die to defend his country, he died to occupy Iraq. And if withdrawal the troops you’Â’ll have less Americans killing Iraqis. Everyday the Americans are there they kill innocent Iraqis, they torture innocent Iraqis, and the occupy Iraqis and terrorize Iraqis. They should leave today.

Despite digesting these extremely pessimistic assessments, I still concur with those who favor rapid withdrawal. We must accept the consequences. These consequences lie squarely on the heads of those like George Packer, a liberal hawk who like so many others, thought a just course of action for America to take was to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein, and that this decision properly could be made in Washington rather than in Iraq.

I enjoy nothing about being right–about seeing years ago, long before the war, that war could not impose a just resolution after years of American support for the despicable Hussein regime followed by more years of devastating sanctions mainly harming the Iraqi people. The war foreseeably has lead to nothing but a bleak quagmire, a shattered Iraqi society, and the possibility of wider conflict.

Was Nelson Mandela prophetic in this January 2003 comment?

What I am condemning is that one power, with a President who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust. I am happy that the people of the world — especially those of the United States of America — are standing up and opposing their own President.

That holocaust is knocking at the door. America with it’s unthinking president has caused this through its criminal actions. I am torn up inside that we were unable to stop it in 2003, when it really mattered.

Not just for Iran and Syria to do

Beard (Wolf Blitzer) says “some are suggesting” the US “take out… in other words kill” Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr; mild-mannered senators unfazed by the suggestion

In the wake of the recent slaying of Christian politician Pierre Gemayel in Lebanon, US officials are up in arms over supposed involvement by Syria and Iran in this and other crimes. In the larger picture including Iraq, President Bush has blamed Iran for its “efforts to destabilize the Middle East.” Mr. Bush has reminded Iran about “the Iraqi position about their interference inside their country.”

And now, desperate “fresh ideas” are swirling around some diplomatic efforts, including a trip by Vice President Cheney to Saudi Arabia in order to get the Kingdom’s help in “calming the situation in Iraq” and to plead with them to “ use their influence with Sunni insurgents in Iraq to halt attacks on the country’s Shia majority.”

So in light of all this noble effort by US peacemakers, how would this diplomatic move, about which CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer quizzed Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and John Cornyn (R-TX), go over in the region?

BLITZER: Do you think — I want to take a break, Senator Cornyn, but do you think it’s enough for the U.S. or the Iraqi government to arrest Muqtada al-Sadr, this young Shiite cleric, or is it time to take him out as some are suggesting? In other words, kill him.

CORNYN: Well, I would say arrest him, and if he’s unable to go peacefully, obviously I think he’s a danger to the Iraqis and the Iraqi future in the entire Middle East. We need to disarm him and his militias. Arrest them.

Take them out of action whatever way we need to, and to provide basic security to allow the political process that Jack Reed and others have talked about to go forward. It’s not going to do that in a period of such chaos and violence as we’re seeing right now.

BLITZER: Senator Reed, kill him if necessary?

REED: I think what you — that’s a decision I think that the Iraqi government would make. But I think if he’s — an arrest warrant is authorized and they go after him, he resists, he becomes a combatant. I would hope we could get him off the scene without making him a martyr.

BLITZER: All right. Gentlemen…

In other words, give al-Sadr the Uday-Qusay-Zarqawi treatment and raise cheers in the quarters of domestic jingoism. But that accomplishes nothing good in Iraq, where al-Sadr has a hell of a lot more followers than does George W. Bush.

Think what you will of al-Sadr. I certainly would not want his militias running my neighborhood. But don’t these guys see that assassination for US benefit is going to demonstrate yet again that it is a savage, criminal state that has occupied and continues to interfere in Iraq’s business for its own purposes?

Mellow Thanksgiving

Note the long shadows and still-green grass

Ground is not frozen yet; last scarlet nantes carrots–very tasty

What a difference a week makes. Thanksgiving was dry, with a warming trend on the way.

Brilliance from Conan O’Brien

This was from the Monday Nov. 20 show. I especially liked the “search” for comedy in the sketch.

Soggy

Daily drenchings since Sunday have kept the sump running hard

One to two inches of rain has fallen several times since last Saturday leaving everything saturated.

FLOOD ADVISORY
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE CARIBOU, ME
214 PM EST FRI NOV 17 2006…THE FLOOD ADVISORY CONTINUES FOR THE PENOBSCOT RIVER…MATTAWAMKEAG RIVER…PISCATAQUIS RIVER…

.HEAVY RAINFALL TODAY WILL CAUSE CONTINUED RAPID RISES ON RIVERS ACROSS CENTRAL AND DOWNEAST MAINE. THE PISCATAQUIS…MATTAWAMKEAG AND LOWER PENOBSCOT RIVERS ARE EXPECTED TO RISE NEAR BANKFULL.

THE FLOOD ADVISORY CONTINUES FOR THE MATTAWAMKEAG RIVER AT MATTAWAMKEAG
* FROM MSG UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
* UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
* AT 01PM FRIDAY THE STAGE WAS 12.7 FEET
* FLOOD STAGE IS 13.0 FEET
* FORECAST…THE RIVER WILL RISE TO NEAR 12.7 FEET TOMORROW MORNING

On Thursday when I crossed the Stillwater River in Orono, I noted that the water was lapping up quite high on the banks. It’s probably way up after today’s wind-driven rainstorm.

The storm came in at about 5am this morning, waking me up with lots of odd pounding on the house and an eerie, lonely howl. It was carrying the spirits of those it took when it spawned tornadoes in North Carolina a couple of days ago.

But remarkably, despite over 32 mm of rain today (1 1/4 in.), the basement offices of Deep Blade Journal did not get wet, as they did during the 45 mm rain on Tuesday.

Not

Not, according to Dennis Kucinich anyway. Via A Tiny Revolution, here is a post-election interview with Rep. Kucinich. In comments about the falsehoods leading to the Iraq war, Dennis says clearly what I have felt for a long time, “…we cannot heal America if we continue with policies that are based on lies.”

Dennis calls for what would be a Truth Commission: “We need to have hearings on Iraq again. We need to go over again why we went there…. We’Â’ll never be able to bring closure to this Iraq matter unless we tell the truth about what happened.”

It is impossible to have a meaningful discourse on Iraq if nobody wants to look back on how we got there. Without a basis in truth, we’re forced into accepting Bush’s outrageous conception of a noble project that is making us safer and leading to “freedom” for the Iraqis.

No help in this direction will come from the Democrats, not without a lot of public pressure anyway. Impeachment is “off the table” according to Nancy Pelosi. Other top Democrats, like Harry Reid, Dick Durbin and Chuck Shumer, are getting well-practiced saying things like we need to be “moving forward on an agenda, finding things that we can agree on to start off on the right foot”, and, “The only way to move forward is with bipartisanship and openness, and to get some results….and that’s what we’re going to do”, and, “If we are seen as just blocking the president, it will not serve us well in 2008.”

Fine, if all we expect is business as usual with a slight adjustment in who is holding the gavel. But business as usual is not enough any more. What has happened in Iraq is a really, really big transgression, of global-historical scale, committed by corrupt and morally bankrupt American leaders guilty of the supreme crime–a Crime Against Peace. This enterprise will bankrupt all of our souls if we let the Democrats keep the door open for the president’s agenda without examining this hard truth.

Depends on what is is

Via Harry Shearer’s Le Show for November 12, I’m alerted to comments by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, included in this November 11 story, “Pentagon to Reevaluate Strategy and Goals in Iraq” in the Washington Post:

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, initiated the review this fall after starkly deteriorating security in Baghdad led commanders there to rule out any significant cut this year in the level of U.S. troops in Iraq — now at about 145,000 — according to senior defense officials and sources.

Still, sources said that Pace’s review marks a more fundamental and open-ended look for possible solutions in Iraq than the military has undertaken to date, growing out of a realization that Iraq could descend into chaos and that the current strategy is inadequate.

“The collapse of the strategy in Baghdad . . . caused a very deep introspection by the military,” said a source connected to the Pentagon, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

Asked by one interviewer whether the United States is winning the war in Iraq, Pace replied: “You have to define ‘winning.’ I don’t mean to be glib about that.

“Winning, to me, is simply having each of the nations that we’re trying to help have a secure environment inside of which their government and people can function,” he said, in remarks that seemed to depart from the administration’s more ambitious stated goal of building a democracy in Iraq.

“You are not going to do away with terrorism,” Pace continued. “But you can provide governments in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere with enough security capacity to keep the acts below a level at which their governments can function,” he said.

Pace’s comments also could foreshadow a reassertion of influence by senior officers in the wake of this week’s resignation by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, according to military officers and analysts. Moreover, some military officers have voiced concern in recent days that if they do not assert a greater role in formulating a future course in Iraq, that course will be defined for them by the resurgence of congressional Democrats, many of whom favor a withdrawal of U.S. troops.

Yet another example of officials, both civilian and military, preparing for diminished notions of “democracy” in the definition of “victory” in Iraq. Pace also clearly undermines any argument for US troops to stay in Iraq in order to limit “chaos”. With or without a specific timetable for withdrawal, opponents of the US in Iraq evidently are willing to wait and grind down the US military no matter how long it takes. Chaos is already there. Pace tells us that even if the US somehow decides it “won”, the Iraqis will face a future of extreme violence for the foreseeable future.

What we all want

Spurred by a clear message from voters, key Democrats are indeed using their new-found power to push an agenda of troop withdrawal from Iraq. It’s a tough sell to the pigheads in the White House, of course. And there is absolutely no admission from anyone of what the war really is–a neocolonial project. But I do see a ray of hope.

Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the presumptive incoming Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee gave the Sunday bobblehead audience the meatiest quotes, as reported along with follow-up comments in the New York Times:

“We need to begin a phased redeployment of forces from Iraq in four to six months,” Mr. Levin said in an appearance on the ABC News program “This Week.” In a telephone interview later, Mr. Levin added, “The point of this is to signal to the Iraqis that the open-ended commitment is over and that they are going to have to solve their own problems…. “The people have spoken in a very, very strong way that they don’Â’t buy the administration policy.”

Josh Bolton from the White House seemed slightly less dismissive than you might expect, now siganling a willingness to accept “fresh ideas”. They’re still allergic to a timetable. But the James Baker Iraq Study Group and other recently-empowered old guard realist adults from the Daddy Bush years, including creepy Pentagon designate Robert Gates, are expected to come up with a way to turn the war we started over to the Iraqis.

A theme is emerging from the Democrats, Republicans, and corporate media commentators in their talk of “commitment” being thrust upon the Iraqis. Here’s another example from the CNN This Week at War show today:

JOHN ROBERTS: And Barbara Starr, without a firm commitment from the Iraqi government to move forward in a unified way, can the U.S. military hope to prevail here?

STARR: Oh, absolutely not, John, because right now given the election results, it’s all about bringing the troops home. That is, you know, before the election it was Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. Now it’s bring the troops home. That’s what the Democrats want. And the way to make that happen is to get the Iraqi government to sign up to cracking down on the militias, turning over the provinces where there isn’t so much violence to Iraqi controlled under some sort of deadline process. And really, as they say, holding their feet to the fire. That’s the way to reduce the need for more U.S. troops many commanders believe and that’s the option that they want to pursue.

This is code for realization of the fact that the US has gotten its butt kicked in Iraq, and now that the Democrats have won something, the Administration is going to figure out a way to pin the loss on them.