IHOP? No, stupid – LIHOP. Or was it MIHOP?

(Let It Happen on Purpose versus Made It Happen on Purpose)

From the Dossier of an Ex-Patriot.

You’d think that with its tendency to stumble into situations without forethought the Bush administration would accidentally blunder into a bill or initiative beneficial to humanity now and then. But no.

On second thought, it has - the administration has made it safe for conspiracy theories to come in from out of the cold. Cabal upon cabal of corruption and intrigue has encouraged the public to let its imagination take flight.

This was borne out in August 2004, when Jimmy Walters, who financed commercials and newspaper ads sowing skepticism about the official explanation of 9/11 during the election, commissioned a Zogby poll. Much publicized, it showed 49 percent of New York City residents believed that national leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned . . . and that they consciously [Editor’s italics] failed to act.”

Imagine a poll after Pearl Harbor yielding those results. Oh, wait – they would have been correct. If only because of the dryness of its documentation, the astonishing Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett convinces. Nevertheless, at the time, such suspicions were the farthest thing from the public’s mind.

Returning to 9/11: On April 5 of this year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its "NIST Response to the World Trade Center Disaster.” Two-hundred thirty-six researchers, led by Dr. S. Shyam Sunder, concluded the fires were “initiated by the aircraft’s jet fuel but were fed. . . by the building contents and the air supply resulting from breached walls and fire-induced window breakage.”

However, the report states that “temperature rise. . . would likely have been insufficient to induce global collapse.” In fact, “the probable collapse sequence for the WTC towers are [sic] based on. . . extensive damage to fireproofing [knocked loose] by aircraft impact.”

Then on June 9, a story was abstracted on mainstream outlet UPI Hears..., but failed to enjoy widespread distribution. In “Why Did the World Trade Centers Collapse?” on LewRockwell.com, one Morgan Reynolds called the official WTC story “bogus” and aligned himself with the controlled demolition faction.

Standard Internet fare, some would say. Besides, the story was on a libertarian Website and who’s more confused than a libertarian? Lew Rockwell himself opposed the Afghanistan War, but, on the other hand, believes unemployment benefits subsidize unemployment.

Not so fast. For starters Morgan Reynolds is a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and a former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Nice little career, some might think, but what’s to keep an academic from contracting grassy knoll on the brain? Dozens have jumped on the LIHOP/MIHOP bandwagon.

But wait. Morgan Reynolds was chief economist for the US Department of Labor during the first two years of Bush’s first term. Despite Mike Ruppert’s contention in Crossing the Rubicon that Richard Clarke encoded it in Against All Enemies, Reynolds is the first official to speak out about LIHOP/MIHOP.

The demolition theory, a staple of WTC research since 9/11, originated with the likes of firefighter Louie Cacchioli, who spoke to People magazine the day after. “I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor. . . On the last trip up a bomb went off.” At that time, the assumption of course was that the terrorists had heaped deviancy upon deviousness.

We haven’t heard any more such talk from firefighters since a gag order was imposed on them by senior FDNY officials in response to the Rodriguez versus Bush brief filed by lawyer Phil Berg. William Rodriguez, arguably 9/11’s greatest hero, was the North Tower maintenance worker whose actions saved hundreds of lives. Thought to be the last to exit the building alive, he claims to have heard explosions.

Speaking of explosions, each point of Reynolds piece, the most cogent and comprehensive on the subject yet, ignites a detonation in your mind like the charges going off up and down the towers. Among them:

Since there was no direct evidence of “severe” structural weakening from the impacts, even those who support the official account like MIT’s Thomas Eagar usually argue that the collapse was due to heat from the fires.

However, no steel-framed skyscraper, even engulfed in flames hour after hour, ever collapsed before. Suddenly three buildings, one of which wasn’t even struck by an aircraft, collapse in the same complex on the same day. What are the odds that these showcase towers were built to bare bones specifications?

You may counter that, if advancing a conspiracy theory, why not one that holds building materials were skimped on? Whether it was trying to hide evidence of cut-rate construction or of explosions, FEMA, of course, carted away the wreckage post haste.

Meanwhile the South Tower’s impact opening, lower - where the core columns were thicker - than in the North Tower, meant higher temperatures were required to soften the columns. Yet despite smaller, shorter fires, the South Tower collapsed after burning only 56 minutes. Most suspicious, however, was Building Seven which, suffering only minor fires, collapsed in less than 10 seconds.

Perhaps because of how unlikely it is for fires caused by jet fuel (mostly kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting, fire chiefs present expected none of the towers to collapse.

However, Reynolds maintains, professional, sequenced demolition can explain why: 1. Each WTC building collapsed into its own footprint in ten seconds or less. 2. Almost all the concrete was pulverized into a fine dust, which requires much more energy than the force of gravity. 3. At the beginning of each tower’s collapse, that same dust, along with debris, exploded horizontally for a couple hundred feet. 4. “Demolition waves” (blast sequences) were visible in photos and video. 5. Seismic vibrations were detected, as occurred, for example, during the demolition of the Seattle Kingdome. 5. The collapses produced molten steel like that generated by explosives, leaving behind lingering “hot spots.”

In an understatement, Reynolds says: “Revised engineering and construction practices. . . based on the belief that the twin towers collapsed through airplane damage and subsequent fires is premature, to say the least.” He concedes further study may be fruitless because explosives and structural experts may have been intimidated.

However, soaring light years beyond whistleblowers like Richard Clarke, Reynolds has no qualms about concluding that, “Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.”

Where does that leave those who refuse to believe authorities could hatch a scheme more common to an evil genius in a superhero cartoon? Maybe it’s time we tried to rekindle our national capacity for common sense and intuition, both of which have atrophied since the voting public, traumatized by the sixties, elected Richard Nixon, a character that reeked of dark motives and shady tactics.

If you’ve never it seen it before, take a look at the photo on page 62 of the “NIST Response” .pdf. On the ripped-open 94th floor of the North Tower, a woman peers over the edge pondering her mortality. Does this look like the site of a fire fueled by 10,000 gallons of jet fuel? And, if your first impression when you saw the towers collapse on TV was, “Wow, just like that nightly news clip of Veterans Stadium being blow up,” you may be closer to the truth than you think.

PREVIOUS | INDEX | NEXT