The Freedom Tower

A blog called R7 takes exception:

“The U.S. with astonishing hubris continues to operate in Asia under the assumption that they, ‘the lone super power on planet Earth’, own the rights to invade any sovereign nation as they deem fit. Further, they have some enemy, real or imagine, that they call terrorist…which in turn gives them license to terrorize peoples and countries any where and at any time. These nations are, of course, third world countries. The bullies in Washington daren’t throw their’ lard around in say, China or Russia…no it’s countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, while salivating…fangs bared…for other weak countries like Syria and Pakistan.

“The Washington gangstas together with their’ partners in crime, NATO, demand of these occupied or occupiable lands to cooperate with their’ criminal terrorization of the civilian citizenry.

“Saudi Arabian malcontents took two planes, we are told, and flew them into the World Trade Center Towers in NYC…so the geniuses on Capitol Hill and in the Emperor’s Mansion (the infamous White House) decided to invade any country they saw fit…except, Saudi Arabia…seriously, I kid you not. Now the U.S. global overlords threaten third world nations as a matter of course…Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, the elected officials of the Palestinian people (Hamas), Syria, and, of course, Cuba which has always been in it’s crosshairs.

“They are infamous for threatening to use nuclear weapons to bring these third worlders into obeisance to their’ global overlordship. “All options are on the table.” meaning, we will nuke you off the face of the planet if you don’t submit to our’ will. The threat is non-partisan…Condelleza, Biden, Cheney, Obama, etc. The threat is not en empty one…Nagasaki and Hiroshima can attest to that.

Now the bullies are telling Pakistan that they will launch attacks into Pakistan whenever they feel like it. The world is their’ oyster and the United Nations proves again it’s worthlessness and emasculation. The vultures fly rampant over Asia and Africa in search of victims to devour.

Saturday 21st July, 2007

Authorities are planning to hold the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in a small park near the footprint of the Twin Towers, not at Ground zero as in past years.
This decision has upset relatives. They say they want the ceremony held at the site of the fallen World Trade Center twin towers where their loved ones were killed.
“For us, and many Americans around the nation, the World Trade Center site is sacred ground,” nine Sept. 11 family group leaders wrote in a letter this week. They also questioned how thousands of mourners would be able to fit into Zuccotti Park, southeast of ground zero. The park covers about three-quarters of an acre.

Thousands have gathered for past anniversary ceremonies on the western edge of the trade center site, in front of the World Financial Center, the Associated Press reported.  Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg told victims’ family members in a letter this week that the commemoration must be moved this year because of the expanding rebuilding work at the trade center site.

Construction on tunnels leading from a proposed transit hub has begun in the area where past ceremonies have been held.

This might all seem just a little too familiar.
There is an explosion. People panic and the government rushes in to tell the poor, frightened folks they’ll pay for any soiled clothing and lost of property. That, folks is the beginning of a lawsuit.

It happened again yesterday in midtown Manhattan: This time, the response was just a little different.
“Carlos Garcia, an engineer wearing a breathing mask, said he volunteered during the clean-up of the World Trade Center site and would not take any risks now,” according to Reuters Canada.
“I’m worried about the air … I survived once so I want to survive the second time,” he said. “They lie and they want to cover themselves. They have been lying all along since the World Trade Center.”
Residents and workers at Ground Zero were reassured by the Environmental Protection Agency in the days after the September 11 attacks that the air was safe, but dust samples taken at the time found dangerous levels of asbestos.
“If police are here wearing these masks there must be an issue (with the air),” said Marvin Factor, 60, a banker who could reach his office. “We deserve to know.”
New York City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) said that of eight air samples taken from near Wednesday’s steam pipe blast, none had tested positive for asbestos, a once-popular fire retardant and known carcinogen.

Do yourself a favor. Read Maureen Dowd’s column in the Times today. It injects much needed clarity about the war and those bunglers who started it.
There has been much ballyhooing today in the so-called news from the Pentagon about new planes costing $110 million each, bigger, better and personnel carriers. The networks once again can’t tell the difference between a press release and the public’s right to know. We know better than the news editors who have no sense of story, never mind news sense. They get played everytime into running nonsense like those pieces about how much hareware the Pentagon is going to throw at the war — again. Its called spin folks and it came pouring out like lava today. It was the bungler’s way of trying to counter the sad facts about terrorism released yesterday that tell us just how far we’ve gone — backwards in our so called war on terror.
One of the battle wagons that is particularly good spin material in situations come from stories like this one that was reported months ago but has made its way to the top of search engines again today:
USS New York

It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.” “It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”

The ship’s motto? “Never Forget”

We won’t forget because our enemies are still coming after us and no amount of spin is going to stop them.

This is a twisted turn of events.
The Washington Post reports that World Trade Center rescue workers have filed an unusual lawsuit. It charges that a $1 billion insurance fund set up after Sept. 11, 2001 violated a congressional mandate.
The Congress ordered the fund to pay injury claims. Instead, the lawsuit claims, the fund spent millions of dollars fighting the claims of rescue workers wo are now ailing.
The newspaper says “The suit alleges that WTC Captive Insurance Co., which is controlled by New York City, has drained the money available for workers, who say that their exposure to toxic dust caused serious illnesses. “Not a single rescue worker who became sick has seen a penny of this money,” said David E. Worby, the lawyer who filed the suit in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan. “It’s torturing our people who are sick and dying every day.”
But while plaintiffs’ lawyers and lawmakers say the fund is designed to pay claims, city officials argue that its purpose is to defend New York against them. “The insurance company can only pay out monies if somebody sues us in court and wins a judgment against us,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.
The company has spent almost $74 million on overhead and legal bills, according to the suit, and has paid out $45,000, to a worker who fell off a ladder.
Lawyers in this suit are already suing the city on behalf of about 10,000 sick first responders.”
Well, this is a fine mess that could have been avoided.

The deadline for World Trade Center Responders and Volunteers to Register for Workers’ Compensation Benefits has been extended.
This news comes from New York State Workers’ Compensation Board.
Workers’ Compensation Board Chair Donna Ferrara applauded the New York State Legislature and Governor Eliot Spitzer for giving World Trade Center responders until August 2008 to file the paperwork needed to claim workers’ compensation benefits if they become ill in the future.

“Those who responded to the 9/11 disaster as workers or volunteers have another year to let us know they were on site,” Ferrara said. “We want to make sure they preserve their eligibility should they become ill in the future. I congratulate the Legislature and Governor Spitzer for their swift action in passing and signing into law this very important legislation.”

The law went into effect July 3, 2007. It allows people who worked or volunteered at the World Trade Center to register with the Workers’ Compensation Board and reserve the right to claim benefits if they become ill at a later date. It amends workers’ compensation law §162 by giving those who participated in the rescue, recovery and clean-up until Aug. 14, 2008, to file a WTC-12 form.

While it is unclear how many people participated in the rescue, recovery and clean-up of the World Trade Center, more than 19,000 people have filed a WTC-12 form, registering as responders and volunteers.

For more information, or to download a copy of the form, visit www.wcb.state.ny.us.

The Workers’ Compensation Board equitably and fairly administers the provisions of the New York State Workers’ Compensation Law on behalf of New York’s injured workers and their employers. To report workers’ compensation fraud, call 888-363-6001.

A series of historic 9/11 lawsuits are finally going to trial next fall.
Lawsuits filed by families of Sept. 11 victims who opted to go to trial rather than take a compensation deal from a federal fund are set to start in September.
The lawsuits are slated to start just days before the sixth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks.
The trials have already set precedents. Federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein will take the unusual step of hearing the damages portion of the cases right away. Generally, damages aren’t considered until the guilt or innocents of defendants is determined. Trials to consider damages in six cases are scheduled to begin on Sept. 4, according to the Associated Press.
“In all, 41 cases are still pending that were brought by families who didn’t take compensation money,” the AP said.

“The liability phase will be decided by a single jury later. Defendants will include airlines, airline manufacturers such as Boeing and agencies like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, that were responsible for security at airports or the World Trade Center.”

There are organizations that would like to rebuild the World Trade Center Twin Towers. One group is called Team Twin Towers and they advocate “that the Twin Towers be rebuilt as two 110-story (or greater) buildings, offset from each other; built at a minimum of 1362 and 1368 feet tall respectively with a TV antenna placed on Tower One. We advocate that they feature the following safety enhancements and modifications:

ï Fireproof ceramic polymer coatings applied to all columns and members that will not be removed easily;
ï Sprinkler systems using foam.
ï I-beams or cast reinforced concrete instead of trusses for floor support;
ï Stairwell walls made out of concrete, reinforced with rebar, rather than drywall;
ï Compliance exceeding City of New York fire and building codes;
ï Bio-terrorism sensors in the HVAC system;
ï More environmentally friendly construction.

The Essence of September 11, a book by Dr. Bill Whitehouse, offers some random things to think about concerning 9/11:

World Trade Center Towers and Building 7

- Did you know that prior to, and following, the September 11, 2001 destruction of the north and south towers of the World Trade Center (along with the 47-storey Building 7 — some 350 feet away) there has not been one high-rise, steel-framed building anywhere in the world which collapsed due to burning?

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Did you know that according to the “official, government” account of the events of September 11, 2001 all three of the foregoing steel-framed buildings had metal pilings which were weakened due to extreme heat, and these weakened pilings led to the eventual ‘pancake’ collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings?

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Did you know that both the north and south towers of the World Trade Center were constructed using a set of 47 massive steel columns running around the inner core of these buildings and, in addition, there were 236 steel columns running along the perimeter of each of these buildings [240 perimeter columns if one counts the four corner columns which were actually just inside the buildings exterior]?

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- Did you know that Building 7, a 47 storey-building and part of the World Trade Center complex, was constructed with 24 massive steel columns running around the core of the building, together with 57 perimeter steel columns?

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Did you know that Building 7, which was some 350 feet from the twin towers, was not struck by an airplane, but it collapsed?

- Did you know that in the report prepared by FEMA concerning, among other things, the collapse of Building 7, very little credibility was given to the idea that the diesel fuel being stored in Building 7 caught fire and caused the building to collapse, and part of the reason for the low credibility of that hypothesis is no one has advanced a plausible explanation about how the diesel fuel stored in the building caught fire?

- Did you know that very few of the perimeter steel columns of either of the twin tower buildings were lost due to the impact of the planes and that the buildings were specifically designed to retain their structural integrity by means of the remaining, intact perimeter and core columns in the event of damage due to commercial airline crashes, hurricanes, and other calamities?

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- Did you know that steel starts to melt around 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, but hydrocarbon fires arising from, say, burning jet fuel would not reach more than 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit … or 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit less than what would have been necessary to melt any one section of the 47/24 core columns of the three respective buildings, or the 236/57 perimeter columns of the three buildings, let alone all 47/24 of the core columns or all 236/57 of the perimeter columns of the three World Trade Center buildings?

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- Did you know that in order for steel to melt, the steel would have to be exposed to a sustained source of, at least, 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit … brief or very limited exposure to such high temperatures is not enough?

- Did you know that the north tower collapsed 1 hour and 42 minutes after being struck ?

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- Did you know that tests were carried out in Great Britain during the 1990s in order to investigate the extent of damage which might occur if steel beam structures were enveloped in high-intensity heat (1500 - 1700 degrees Fahrenheit) for many hours (4), and no collapse of the steel beams was observed in any of these experiments?

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- Did you know that video and photographic evidence indicates that when the south tower started to collapse, the collapse began at a point much lower than the point where the airplane struck the building and much lower than where fires were burning?

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- Did you know that the same high explosives which are used to slice up the core and peripheral steel columns of a skyscraper are powerful enough to reduce all non-metallic components of the building (such as poured concrete) into powder?

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- Did you know that on the weekend of September 8th and 9th prior to September 11, 2001, there was a power down in the south tower of the WTC so that there was no power from floor 50 to the top of the building (over half of the tower) which means that this portion of the building was entirely without surveillance cameras or other forms of electronic security, and for about 35-36 hours there were many ‘engineers’ and ‘technicians’ who were going in and out of the building for some sort of ‘upgrading’ of the tower?

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- Did you know that Philip Zelikow was appointed as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission — a position which was authorized to direct the research of 75 Commission staff members and, as such, was responsible for determining what issues would, and would not, be pursued by that staff — or how rigorously — and what ‘facts’ and witnesses would, and would not, be examined by the commissioners who conducted public hearings?

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- Did you know that prior to his position as executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow had a number of conversations with Richard Clarke, the former National Security Counter-terrorism director in 2000 and 2001, about al-Qaeda and Usama bin Laden, but Philip Zelikow was never called as a witness by the 9/11 Commission concerning the nature of those discussions?

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- Did you know that at least half of the ten commissioners, both Democrats and Republicans who conducted the televised public inquiries, had the sort of associations, ties, histories, and conflicts of interest (either with oil companies, Saudi Arabia, George Tenet, the intelligence community, the Iran-Contra cover-up scandal, the Bush administration, or who were active proponents for attacking Iraq long before 2003) which should have precluded them from serving as members of such an inquiry … especially, if one wanted to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and, thereby, eliminate the possibility of questions being raised in relation to the integrity of the conclusions and findings of such a commission?

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- Did you know that on many occasions, official commissions are often not meant to arrive at the truth but are, instead, a political tool used to give the impression of seriousness without much underlying substance?

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Did you know that such commissions are often exercises in misdirection away from root problems and causes so that vested interests will remain protected despite an illusory veneer of critical investigation and thoroughness?

Yes, we’ve heard this before but the question is why? A well researched book with solid sources on that question is sorely needed in this area.

This just in from Fair and Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR:

“NY Times Parrots Giuliani’s 9/11 Defense
Firefighters’ criticism deemed “factually questionable”

7/13/07

When the International Association of Fire Fighters, the nation’s largest firefighters union, released a video on July 12 challenging the portrayal of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as a hero of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, New York Times reporter Marc Santora rushed to put out the anti-Giuliani fire. His July 12 story’s lead cast doubt on the accuracy of the group’s claims, calling the video “at times factually questionable.”

But besides quoting Giuliani partisans–who predictably differed with the firefighters–Santora offered little evidence that the video was “factually questionable”; in fact, that phrase could more plausibly be applied to Santora’s story. For example, the reporter challenged the video’s claim that the Giuliani administration’s failure to provide proper radios led to firefighters’ deaths on September 11, when they couldn’t hear orders to evacuate the towers. (The city had been trying to replace the radios since their poor performance during the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, just before Giuliani first took office– see Extra!, 5-6/07 .)

In an attempt to shoot down this charge, Santora wrote that “there is no dispute…that there were communications failures on September 11. But the video highlights the hand-held radios, whereas the central problem, most experts agree, was the failure of a device meant to boost the signal so that it could reach the high floors of the towers.”

This is a puzzling claim, since the New York Police Department did, in fact, have radios that were able to function in the towers. As FDNY safety chief Alexander Santora said in the video, “Not a single cop was lost in that building. Why was that? Because they had gotten the word to get out. Our radios weren’t working.”

And the 9/11 Commission report determined that the signal boosters had actually worked on that day. As Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins wrote in their landmark book, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11:

In the months immediately after 9/11, [Giuliani fire chief Thomas] Von Essen and other fire department officials began blaming the communications breakdown on malfunctioning repeaters or amplifiers that the Port Authority installed after the ‘93 bombing. When the [9/11] commission determined that the repeaters in each tower were functional that day, Giuliani tried another version of the same argument, contending that chiefs in the lobby “decided” the repeater “wasn’t operable” and “they couldn’t use it.” Both positions appeared to be attempts to divert attention from the radios. But every investigation that’s examined the 9/11 failings—including the [9/11] Commission, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and McKinsey—refused to take the bait.

In fact, the New York Times has previously reported that the National Institute of Standards and Technology investigation found that the boosters were not the problem, writing (4/4/05) that the NIST “report also found that the World Trade Center’s high rise communication repeater was working properly, a finding that contradicts claims by some rescue workers.”

So who are the “most experts” who dispute the conclusions of the three leading investigations into 9/11? Times readers don’t know because Santora didn’t tell them. When FAIR asked Wayne Barrett about Santora’s claim about the repeaters, he said the New York Times reporter was “simply adopting an old Giuliani line.”