{"id":80025,"date":"2016-09-26T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=80025"},"modified":"2016-09-21T13:47:10","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T12:47:10","slug":"why-and-how-i-talk-about-911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/09\/why-and-how-i-talk-about-911\/","title":{"rendered":"Why and How I Talk about 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>20 Sep 2016 &#8211; <\/em>In my darker moments I sometimes wonder what\u2019s worse: our age of an endless \u2018war on terror\u2019 ushered in by the events of September 11, 2001, or the fact that for the rest of my life I will be subjected to yearly anniversary commemorations of those events, replete with jingoistic absurdities.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s impossible to converse at any gathering of people anywhere about politics and the new world order without mentioning 9\/11: sooner or later, someone, somebody, whoever, wherever, will bring it up, and sooner or later I will decide whether to bite my tongue or to attempt to present my views, which are at variance with the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.9-11commission.gov\/report\/\" >9\/11 Commission Report<\/a>. So the question arises: how can I best discuss this heinous catastrophe without being written off as a \u2018conspiracy theorist\u2019 or \u2018madman\u2019?<\/p>\n<p>At this stage of my life I am long past the desire to change or even advise people\u2014even when my advice appears to be sought. But I am still not yet beyond the belief that truth may have its day, if not now, then at some point in the future, so I generally choose to describe why the official story should be questioned and how such questioning will naturally lead to a more realistic assessment of the powers of the State.<\/p>\n<p>I describe how I had first learned of the plane crashes on the day, from a patient who asked to cut short our meeting. Hitherto, I had been working in my office in Philadelphia, oblivious to the news. I rushed out and headed for the local Starbucks, where I thought to engage with my fellow citizens and figure out what was going on. No such luck. Center City Philadelphia was a ghost town: nothing was open, everyone had left work early, and as I myself walked home I merely wondered \u201cWhere was the Air Force, where was our air defence?\u201d Perhaps one hijacked plane might have sneaked through its net, but four?<\/p>\n<p>Safely ensconced at home I then watched the many replays of the jets crashing into WTC 1 and 2, registering horror and disbelief, but it was only a year or two later that I pondered the destruction of WTC 7, which was NOT hit by a jet. And here is where I am usually met with a quizzical look, because very many people to this day have no knowledge about WTC 7.<\/p>\n<p>So I have \u2018honed\u2019 my discussion to several talking points, as indicated below, following what we call in medicine the principle of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Occam%27s_razor\" >Occam\u2019s razor<\/a>, that is, limiting myself to some very basic and relatively incontrovertible details, and creating a simple narrative based upon them.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Why and how could the United States Air Defence system have disappeared so thoroughly?<\/li>\n<li>How could WTC 7, which was not hit by a jet, have collapsed onto its own footprint as only buildings in controlled demolitions are capable of?<\/li>\n<li>If you suspect that WTC 7 was destroyed by controlled demolition, then look at the collapses of the Twin Towers: why didn\u2019t they sway or topple? How could such massive structures have come down in freefall, nearly as quickly as an unhindered bowling ball might drop?<\/li>\n<li>How could passenger jets have been flown with such pinpoint accuracy into the Towers and particularly into the Pentagon, which required a manoeuvre that would have been the envy of the greatest flight pilot at the helm of a fighter jet?<\/li>\n<li>Why did the president and vice president of the United States insist upon <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/04\/28\/us\/bush-cheney-9-11-interview-won-t-be-formally-recorded.html\" >no recording or formal transcription<\/a> of their testimony before the 911 Commission, and why did they place such strict limits on their testimony, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/02\/26\/us\/bush-to-limit-testimony-before-9-11-panel.html\" >agreeing to meet only with the panel\u2019s top two officials, with Mr. Bush testifying for only an hour<\/a>?<\/li>\n<li>And by the way, what does one think of the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2002\/mar\/19\/september11.iraq\" >coincidental discovery of an alleged hijacker\u2019s passport less than a week later, two blocks from the towers<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>It is generally at this point that I stop. Tempted as I may be to speak about thermite and molten metal and the melting point of steel, I believe that these are better left for real experts to discuss, so I refer my acquaintances to the books of David Ray Griffin and the website of <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ae911truth.org\/\" >Architects and Engineers for 9\/11 Truth<\/a>. As someone with a scanty knowledge of physics, I can understand that others would glaze over at the mention of the structural properties of high-rise buildings.<\/p>\n<p>And in response to the inevitable question, why would a government do such a thing? I would ask them to consider who has benefited from the resultant diminution of citizen rights at home and the expansion of endless war abroad, and to read a little about the history of empires. Athens, Rome, Persia, the Ottomans, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the United States: to vary a phrase of Tolstoy\u2019s, they are all alike. They are all capable of the most heinous of deeds grown from the richly terrible soil of Power.<\/p>\n<p>_____________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born poet, novelist and physician who now resides in New Zealand. He may be contacted at <\/em><a href=\"mailto:emanuelegarcia@gmail.com\"><em>emanuelegarcia@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><em>. He likes to describe himself as a coincidence rather than conspiracy theorist.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.intrepidreport.com\/archives\/19175\" >Go to Original \u2013 intrepidreport.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>20 Sep 2016 &#8211; In my darker moments I sometimes wonder what\u2019s worse: our age of an endless \u2018war on terror\u2019 ushered in by the events of September 11, 2001, or the fact that for the rest of my life I will be subjected to yearly anniversary commemorations of those events, replete with jingoistic absurdities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}