Ahmad Shah Massoud (extremist Islamic regime)
Yeepiiiii@nospamplanet24.dabsol.co.uk ŚŚŚŠ 2002 Yeepiiiii ŹŹŚŚŚ
have been killed or seriously wounded yesterday in a grave setback to hopes
of toppling the extremist Islamic Taliban regime.
A US official said "we believe he's dead" but refused to give any further
details.
Judged a brilliant guerrilla commander by his former Russian foes, Gen
Massoud had long carried the West's hopes in Afghanistan.
Opposition officials insisted that he was only slightly injured during the
attack on Sunday, but his brother said the explosion set off by a suicide
bomber disguised as a television journalist caused serious injury.
Ahmad Wali Massoud, the Afghan opposition's ambassador to Britain, said
yesterday: "His condition is stabilising, but he is still unconscious, the
doctor says it will be 10-12 hours before we know."
Gen Massoud was giving an interview at his base in the Panjshir Valley to
two Arabs posing as journalists when a bomb went off.
The explosives were believed to have been hidden in a video camera the men
were using or was strapped around the body of one of them.
Sources in central Asia said the assassins began their journey from Kabul
and crossed Taliban lines to enter territory of Gen Massoud's United Front
opposition, interviewing several of its commanders before they reached his
base.
Front commanders and Western diplomats in central Asia said Gen Massoud was
treated for serious head injuries by Russian army surgeons in Tajikistan,
where he was flown after the blast.
Front spokesmen denied that he had died and accused the Taliban, the wanted
Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden and Pakistan of planning the assassination
attempt.
The blast killed an aide, Azim Suhail, seriously wounded Massoud Khalili,
the front's ambassador to India, and killed one of the bombers. Gen
Massoud's guards shot dead the other bomber.
Aides said Gen Massoud talked to his commanders before the operation, giving
them instructions and handing military command to his deputy, Gen Fakhim.
The Taliban chief spokesman, Abdul Hai Mutmaen, said the movement was not
behind the incident, although it would be the biggest beneficiary of his
death.
If Gen Massoud is dead or incapacitated for some time, the factional United
Front, composed of minority ethnic groups opposed to the Taliban, could
collapse, giving the militants complete control of Afghanistan.
The front controls only 10 per cent of the country, but in recent months Gen
Massoud has succeeded in setting up new bases in western and northern
Afghanistan while maintaining control of a small pocket of territory north
of Kabul.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 Arabs under the command of Osama bin Laden fight for
the Taliban, as does the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and thousands of
Pakistani Islamic militants.
Arab militants under bin Laden have been held responsible for some of the
worst recent massacres in the civil war, killing hundreds of civilians in
areas controlled by the United Front.
Last week the Taliban launched a major offensive against the front outside
Kabul and in Takhar province in the north-east.
An estimated 25,000 Taliban troops, including some 10,000 Arab, Pakistani
and Central Asian Islamic militants are now likely to step up their
offensive, in the hope that the attack will cause a collapse of morale among
Gen Massoud's troops.
His forces have been bolstered recently by greater military support from
Iran, Russia and India and Tajikistan has given him a military base to
supply his troops in Afghanistan.
Gen Massoud was one of the first to begin resistance against the Communists
who seized power in Kabul in 1978 and then a year later fought Soviet troops
who invaded Afghanistan and occupied the country for nearly a decade.
Russian generals said he was the best Afghan Mujahideen commander they faced
during the war. His forces seized Kabul in 1992, after the Soviet withdrawal
and the collapse of the Communist regime.
He was defence minister under his ally President Burhanuddin Rabbani until
they were pushed out of Kabul by the Taliban in 1996.
By Ahmed Rashid in Lahore
Yeepiiiii@nospamplanet24.dabsol.co.uk ŚŚŚŠ 2002 Yeepiiiii ŹŹŚŚŚ
relatives in America: 020 7008 0000
IT BEGAN much like any sunny September morning in America. Office workers in
New York and Washington clutching bagels and cups of coffee were streaming
out of subway and metro stations. Others were already at their desks
American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 81 passengers, nine flight attendants
and two pilots, had taken off from Boston's Logan Airport bound for Los
Angeles, at 8.02am. It would never get there.
Instead, at 8.45am the Boeing 767 crashed into the 1,368-ft tall North Tower
of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan. It will never be known exactly what
happened on board but terrorists had apparently hijacked the flight and
diverted it to New York.
Some 11 minutes later, at 8.56 am, another Boeing 767, United Airlines
Flight 175, flew straight into the World Trade Centre's North Tower as
millions of Americans watched the scene live on television. It had also been
scheduled to fly from Boston to New York and had 65 people on board.
Within two hours, the United States, the world's only superpower, a nation
of 280 million people providing the engine of the global economy and a
quarter of its goods and services was reeling from a co-ordinated series of
deadly attacks.
The Manhattan skyline was enveloped in a cloud of debris. Sirens wailed
across New York and people cowered behind parked cars. Behind the White
House, a smoke billowed from the Pentagon building on the other side of the
Potomac.
Certainly hundreds, probably thousands, had been killed and the rest of the
population was left trying to grapple with the magnitude of what had
happened - and was still happening - in their midst.
One Department of Justice official in Washington who had remained at his
desk despite being ordered out of his building looked up and just shook his
head. There was nothing that could be said.
Normally loquacious network reporters were lost for words, their voices
quavering as they described people leaping off the World Trade Centre to
their deaths as their building collapsed above them.
Sighs and long silences punctuated news broadcasts as reports of planes
being hijacked and crashing into buildings came thick and fast. The Oklahoma
bombing, in which 168 people were killed, was already paling into
insignificance in comparison.
The blows were aimed at the hearts of America's financial and political
capitals - New York and Washington DC - and soon the country was effectively
being shut down.
Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska described the attacks as "the second Pearl
Harbour" and no one accused him of exaggeration. Senator John McCain said
they were "obviously an act of war and one that requires a national
response".
Pearl Harbour, Oklahoma, the fall of Saigon, the assassination of John F
Kennedy. But almost no historical comparison seemed to capture the enormity
of the unfolding events.
Parts of the National Guard reserve was mobilised, the US-Mexican border was
shut and security tightened at Canadian crossing points. All federal
buildings were evacuated and the highest state of military alert ordered.
The United States had been sealed off.
Up to 50,000 people worked in the World Trade Centre, a complex of seven
buildings, and tens of thousands more were in the vicinity. At that stage,
terrorism was only one of the possible reasons for the crash.
The enormity of what was taking place had begun to dawn on the country when
the second attack came. At first, the television footage seemed to show a
secondary explosion within the World Trade Centre.
It was only when the tape was slowed down that viewers could see the
silhouette of a passenger plane eerily sliding towards the second tower.
By the time President Bush addressed the country from a school in Florida at
9.30am, a third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was heading towards the
Pentagon, the centre of US military operations, where 24,000 people were at
work.
The Boeing 757, carrying 64 people, had taken off from Dulles airport,
Virginia, just outside Washington, a few minutes earlier. One portion of the
huge five-sided building collapsed shortly after impact at 9.38am.
It was immediately announced the White House was being evacuated after
security officials announced that a "credible" warning of a terrorist attack
on the building had been received.
At first the evacuation was orderly, although presidential advisers and
other staff, who had been gathered around their television sets watching
what had happened to the World Trade Centre, were subdued and saying very
little.
Before they were all out of their offices, however, Secret Service agents
were shouting at them to run. Police cars zoomed past the Old Executive
Office Building and for a moment it was as if an air raid was taking place.
Suddenly, even plane in the air was a potential threat and every building
potentially a glass and concrete coffin. People began to panic. There was a
report of a bomb at the State Department in Foggy Bottom.
On Capitol Hill, hundreds of workers thought they had heard an explosion
nearby. As the streets of Washington became jammed with people and cars, the
television networks flashed up news of a fire on the Mall.
At the Pentagon, several dozen people were being taken to hospital as radio
stations in New York were broadcasting appeals for blood donors. Military
officials said there was a chance the Pentagon would come under attack
again.
An F-16 fighter circled over the building prepared to shoot down any
aeroplane that had diverted from its flight path.
At around 10.20 am, a fourth aircraft crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
This time, it appeared an attack on Washington or perhaps Camp David, the
presidential retreat in Maryland, had been averted, either by the US Air
Force or because of a struggle on board.
The United Airlines Boeing 757 - Flight 93 - had been en route from Newark,
just outside New York, to San Francisco. Some 38 passengers, two pilots and
five flight attendants had been on board.
Ground staff had been warned of the impending disaster by a passenger who
had barricaded himself in a toilet on board and screamed down a cellphone
that a hijacking was taking place. He was still talking when the plane
exploded into the ground.
By this time, the Federal Aviation Authority had already ordered all flights
in the United States to be postponed until at least 5pm. International
flights were being diverted to Canada.
In New York, by far the worst-hit location, the terrible carnage was
continuing. At 9.50am, just over an hour after the first crash, there was a
sucking sound and a surge of air as the floors within North Tower of the
World Trade Centre collapsed.
The building was reduced to a pile of rubble, killing most of those inside
as well as rescue workers desperately trying to save them. Lunchboxes and
ties lay on the streets and thousands of pieces of paper fluttered in the
sky.
Every symbol of modern America seemed to be affected. Disneyland in Orlando,
Florida closed down. So did the Space Needle in Seattle and San Francisco's
Golden Gate Bridge. Casinos in Las Vegas announced heightened security.
Baseball's Major League cancelled all 15 of Tuesday's scheduled games and
the Walt Disney Company temporarily shut all its US parks.
In New York, the opening of the United Nations General Assembly was
postponed and the primary elections for mayor put off. The airports, tunnels
and bridges were closed.
Three of the four hijacked planes had been bound before they had been turned
into suicide bombs. But the main airport there was being evacuated even as
frantic relatives arrived to find out what might have happened to their
loved ones.
All along the east coast, telephone systems shut down because of the volume
of calls and mobile networks were jammed. CNN began to broadcast details of
where National Guard members should report.
It was not until 1pm, when it appeared the attacks had ceased, that some
sense of calm began to return. Sorrow was expressed but great anger too as
politicians and commentators across the political spectrum demanded swift
and decisive retribution.
"This is total war. I think this is a wake-up call for America. This is a
war, a real war," said Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.
Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State and an informal Bush
adviser, spoke darkly of "an integrated attack that must be dealt with in an
integrated way". Not only the perpetrators must be held responsible, he
said, but also those states that had made the assault possible.
By 2.15am every one of more than 4,000 domestic American planes were on the
ground in an unprecedented move by the FAA.
The FBI was already assembling a team of several hundred agents to
investigate the four attacks while the National Transportation Safety Board
was seeking to recover the black boxes from the four aircraft.
Some of the terrorists would have died in the planes they hijacked but such
a complex and sophisticated operation would have required perhaps dozens
more on the ground.
Investigators were also focussing on warning signs beforehand as some FBI
agents conceded that the day compared with Pearl Harbour in terms of the
failure of American intelligence as well as the ferocity of the surprise
attack.
It was almost unthinkable that hijackers could have successfully boarded
four planes at three different airports at the same time.
Speaking from Louisiana just after 1pm, Mr Bush ordered the nation's armed
services to "high-alert status"' and vowed to "hunt down and punish those
responsible".
His comments were muted, almost flat, as if he, like many Americans, had
been left dumfounded by the catastrophes and uncertain about what to do
next.
Back in New York and Washington, thousands of workers shuffled back towards
their homes in near silence. It had been just a few hours since they had
travelled to work alongside those who had been killed on injured.
But more than simply the extent of the carnage seemed to affect them. The
biggest shock was that this could happen in comfortable, secure America.
Their country and their lives could surely never be the same again.
Yeepiiiii@nospamplanet24.dabsol.co.uk ŚŚŚŠ 2002 Yeepiiiii ŹŹŚŚŚ
landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
The twin towers of the World Trade Centre have gazed out over Manhattan,
head and shoulders above most other New York Buildings, for three decades.
The revolutionary structures, each 110 storeys high, were built to withstand
tremendous pressures and had already survived a 1993 terrorist bombing.
But the immense steel columns in the core - and around the perimeter
supporting the enormous buildings - were not enough to prevent them slipping
down into a rising fog of dust and debris which engulfed the streets around
the city's financial district.
Plans for a world trade facility had been under consideration for many
years, but momentum gathered in the late 50s with a site being finally fixed
in 1962. The ground-breaking ceremony began four years later and the first
tenants moved into one of the towers by the end of 1970, although the
building had not been completed. They were declared officially open on April
4 1973.
British consulting engineer Professor Alastair Soane said today: "They were
extremely robust buildings and built to withstand a tremendous amount.
"But this was of course a completely abnormal situation and one which would
not have been envisaged by the people who built it. The strength of the
towers was enormous but they would not have been designed for aircraft
strikes.
"There are buildings which are designed to withstand plane impacts but these
are mainly for very sensitive buildings. The main impact on a building would
be from the engines because they hold the mass of the plane, but there is
also the fuel which would ignite.
"Because the structure is steel and concrete, the main fire load is in the
furniture and the carpets.The towers were designed to be so tall to maximise
the available space in the plaza below. They were initially expected to be
just 80-90 floors high but the extra height was incorporated to make them
the world's tallest buildings - a distinction they held until just 1974.
They were built with steel columns with floor trusses extending out from the
central core to the perimeter and were the first buildings of such size
created without masonry.
Professor Soane, an acquaintance of engineer Leslie Robertson who
constructed the towers, said: "These were very advanced designs for their
time. There was a very large amount of space between the central core and
the outer perimeter of the buildings which allowed a lot of office space."
Around 50,000 people worked in the towers - the tallest of which was
1,368ft, the other 6ft shorter. The bomb strike on one of the towers in 1993
left six people dead and more than 1,000 were injured. The explosion tore
through the basement and knocked out the electrical and ventilation systems.
Plane crashes into skyscrapers have not always led to their destruction. In
1945 a B-52 bomber slammed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building
in New York leading to the deaths of 14 people.
But despite the strike, the building remained more or less intact with the
bulk of the wreckage remaining lodged in the side of the Empire State.
Gordon Masterton, who chairs the Institution of Civil Engineers' structural
and building board, said such buildings are designed for "events which are
reasonably predictable".
He said: "Tall buildings are built to withstand extremely high winds and
earthquakes and just sustain localised damage without catastrophic collapse.
But clearly the limit of what was reasonably foreseeable has been exceeded
by a huge magnitude.
"The twin towers didn't collapse immediately, but the structural strength
was affected by the subsequent explosion and the progressive effects of the
fire seem to have triggered the final collapse. Of course it is up to
investigators to identify the exact cause of the collapse but it seems to
have been a combination of catastrophic events beyond any reasonable
expectations."
Sightseers at the towers over the past few years would have seen a
reassuring information panel at the top floor visitors' centre, explaining
how they should not worry about plane crashes as the building was made to
withstand them.
Yeepiiiii@nospamplanet24.dabsol.co.uk ŚŚŚŠ 2002 Yeepiiiii ŹŹŚŚŚ
Second World War, as scenes not witnessed by Americans since Pearl Harbour
were watched live by millions around the globe.
The United States has come under sustained attack for the first time in its
history from an enemy who is not a nation, but an unpredictable and unseen
terrorist organisation rooted in the complex hatreds of the middle east.
The President has no choice but to strike back - but the key questions are
how, and at whom.
The USA has prided itself in the past on robust responses to terrorist
assaults on its nationals. But now there is no obvious target for
retribution.
A White House Situation Room will have accompanied Mr Bush to Sarasota, on
Florida's Gulf coast, as a matter of course, aboard his jet Air Force One
taking him, as he thought, to a routine engagement.
Now it will be pressed into action for real as he consults allies -
principally Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon - before deciding how America's massive lethal force will be used.
His options are simple, once he identifies his foe, and have been
demonstrated in responses to attacks on American targets in the past. Any
sponsoring state can expect its capital to be bombed.
American planes used English airfields on their way to bomb Colonel
Gadaffi's Tripoli headquarters in 1986 after terrorists acting under his
protection bombed a disco in Berlin packed with off-duty US personnel.
Margaret Thatcher gave the go-ahead for British involvement at the request
of President Reagan.
President Clinton also ordered strikes against Iraq in 1993 for an alleged
plot to assassinate the first President Bush - with cruise missiles hitting
Baghdad. Again, the UK approved the American strike back.
Then in 1998 Tony Blair endorsed Mr Clinton's strikes against Afghanistan
and the Sudan in retaliation for bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar
es Salaam.
George W Bush is sure to follow that pattern. No group can ever be allowed
to create such terror across "the greatest country on Earth".
But the President first has to discover who and where his targets are from
an intelligence service that failed to predict the carnage inflicted today.
bevnsag
"0§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí" wrote:
>
> "|||© 2002 Yeepiiiii ¬¬|||" <2002
> Yeep...@NOSPAMplanet24.dabsol.co.uk> said:
>
> >A COMBINATION of catastrophic events caused the downfall of the towering
> >landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
>
> Just like the Titanic was unsinkable, the Maginot Line was
> impregnable, the NMD works, and the Death Star couldn't be destroyed
> by a stupid hick in a junk fighter.
>
> Yeah, they always say "it's impossible!"
> Right before they get a good dose of reality.
Nope. The towers withstood the impact of the planes rather well. It was
the fires afterwards that weakened the structure and caused the
collapse. And there was never any claim that the towers were somehow
indestructible, only that they could withstand the impact of something
the size of a 707. The 757 and 767 were larger still yet the structures
didn't go.
Nom De Plume
Towers DID NOT survive the impact of
an airplane. Good Bye. It was doomed
from the gitgo.
"bevnsag" <bev...@home.com> wrote in message
news:3B9F08B0...@home.com...
kb5...@home.com
Nom De Plume wrote:
>
> You ARE the Weakest Link. The WTC
> Towers DID NOT survive the impact of
> an airplane. Good Bye. It was doomed
> from the gitgo.
Actually, from what I saw, the towers took the impact quite fine. Sure the
was damage, but that actual impact in and of iself was survived. It was
specificlly the ensuing jet fuel fire that weakened the supports enough to
get the upper floors in motion (in both cases), and once *that* happened, the
towers were lost. Had the fire been somehow contained and controlled (and I
make no claim to knowing how to acomplish that) the outcome would have been
different.
-----------------------------
kb5szw...there is no spoon...
Tempest
kb5...@home.com wrote:
>
> Nom De Plume wrote:
> >
> > You ARE the Weakest Link. The WTC
> > Towers DID NOT survive the impact of
> > an airplane. Good Bye. It was doomed
> > from the gitgo.
>
> Actually, from what I saw, the towers took the impact quite fine. Sure the
> was damage, but that actual impact in and of iself was survived.
Technically Nom is correct. It was the damage from the crashes that
caused the building to weaken and collapse.
> It was
> specificlly the ensuing jet fuel fire that weakened the supports enough to
> get the upper floors in motion (in both cases), and once *that* happened, the
> towers were lost.
What do you base this on?
> Had the fire been somehow contained and controlled (and I
> make no claim to knowing how to acomplish that) the outcome would have been
> different.
Supposition.
Andy Dingley
>>A COMBINATION of catastrophic events caused the downfall of the towering
>>landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
Good link on WTC structure and its failure:
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm
My first reaction to the collapse was disbelief. Surely skyscrapers
are designed to survive fire ? (AFAIK they generally are)
The problem here seems to have been that the strength of the WTC was
not in the normal place, either a central core or distributed pillars
across the floor. Instead the pillars of the outer skin took a major
part of the load. The plane destroyed many of these in the impact,
and that made the building unable to resist a fire that was otherwise
within their survival limits.
Of course, once one floor collapses, there's a domino effect. We've
known this since Ronan Point.
(I'm not a civil engineer)
HeyZeus
Yeah, now that it's quite obvious what will ultimately happen
in such an event! It's apparent the police and fire fighters were
unaware anyone but the Loizeaux family (CDI) would be able
to carry off such a demolition, and then only for the awe and
amusement of the TV audience. The terrorists probably never
knew this! Instead a hundred or more than need be perished;
perhaps out of bravery, I'll give them that.. They won't even
go into a building they know is going to collapse. Sadly, they
seemed to have screwed up on the first tower. Shows what
poor planning and preparation they did with the millions
given them for anti-terrorism research.
I doubt they even knew they could bring a building down
this way but they do now! The WTC from what I hear was
well built too by most standards so large buildings may now
be an even more attractive target. We need to stop believing
what government sells us and start thinking as a people.
They aren't going to be able to solve this problem nor be
around to prevent disaster no matter how responsible they
feel they are, every time. The least they can do is let us know
the truth: what gripes terrorists like SOB Laden, etc! I don't
believe they are doing this just for fun. Their beliefs have it
they'll become martyrs, I don't believe for one second this
is the cause tho. We need to wake up as a nation. Before
GW and the rest of the boys make bigger fools of us. Now
maybe I can get some sleep. My deepest sympathies to those
affected. G-night.
kb5...@home.com
Tempest wrote:
>
> kb5...@home.com wrote:
> >
> > Nom De Plume wrote:
> > >
> > > You ARE the Weakest Link. The WTC
> > > Towers DID NOT survive the impact of
> > > an airplane. Good Bye. It was doomed
> > > from the gitgo.
> >
> > Actually, from what I saw, the towers took the impact quite fine. Sure the
> > was damage, but that actual impact in and of iself was survived.
>
> Technically Nom is correct. It was the damage from the crashes that
> caused the building to weaken and collapse.
If you want to get into causality, sure. They would still be standing had
the planes not hit. From the engineering standpoint it is more apparent
to me that the fire precipitated the collapse more than the impact since
both towers appeared to aborb and distribure the impact energy without
significant failure, and that it was those regions above the fire that
entered motion first (i.e. falling down on what was beneath it and there
by brining the rest of it down).
> > It was
> > specificlly the ensuing jet fuel fire that weakened the supports enough to
> > get the upper floors in motion (in both cases), and once *that* happened, the
> > towers were lost.
>
> What do you base this on?
The video, mostly. The upper floors had a significant list (ten of fifteen
degrees) before the lower (undamaged) structure began to fail. Those upper
floors getting into mostion and forcing the building to try and be dynamiclly
stable seems to be the critical event.
>
> Supposition.
>
And I claimed to no different. Hence prefacing all of my former post with
"From what I saw." No different from your supposition that I am incorrect
in my analysis.
I suspect that in the long run they're going to discover that it was a
combination of a lot of factors that caused the failure. That both the impact
and the fire agravated different failure modes to different
degrees.
Paul Chapin
> > specificlly the ensuing jet fuel fire that weakened the supports enough
to
> > get the upper floors in motion (in both cases), and once *that*
happened, the
> > towers were lost.
>
> What do you base this on?
Actually one of the networks interviewed the supervising engineer when the
building went up. With a normal fire, the steel columns were designed to
last one to two hours before melting. They didn't last that long, but the
calculation wasn't based on the idea of an enormous amount of jet fuel being
added to the fire.
LIE DETECTOR™
<ISDn7.564$tp1....@news1.wwck1.ri.home.com>:
Osama??? what you up to baby?
--
"We cannot be victims of Milosevic’s propaganda" said Dusan Mihajlovic,
adding that "anyone who claimed that war crime allegations were anti-Serb
propaganda were either foolish, wicked or burying their head in the sand"
Dusan Mihajlovic 1 July 2001
Serbian Minister of Police
Steven D. Litvintchouk
"0§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí" wrote:
>
> "¦¦¦© 2002 Yeepiiiii ¬¬¦¦¦" <2002
> Yeep...@NOSPAMplanet24.dabsol.co.uk> said:
>
> >A COMBINATION of catastrophic events caused the downfall of the towering
> >landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
>
> Just like the Titanic was unsinkable, the Maginot Line was
> impregnable, the NMD works, and the Death Star couldn't be destroyed
> by a stupid hick in a junk fighter.
>
> Yeah, they always say "it's impossible!"
> Right before they get a good dose of reality.
I agree.
You also forgot: "The Space Shuttle is safe enough even for a teacher
to ride in it."
--
Steven D. Litvintchouk
Email: s...@mitre.org
Disclaimer: As far as I am aware, the opinions expressed
herein
are not those of my employer.
prism
<PhilDC...@netscape.net> wrote:
>I doubt they even knew they could bring a building down
>this way but they do now!
My bet is they did know or had a very good idea.
I heard a story on the tv where when Yusef was being flown past the
WTC on the way to jail one of the FBI agents pointed and said, "look
it's still standing." and Yusef replied, "It wouldn't be if I'd had
more money."
Well Bin Laden has had 8 years and several million in funding to fix
that 'problem'. That'll get an engineering student or two to answer
the question, "What would bring it down?" Notice they didn't use a
707...
H. McDaniel
I doubt the towers would've been standing for long even without the fires. Bad
weather or a couple of hours and they probably would've toppled anyhow. The
strength of the sturctures was in the outer curtain of support beams and in the
places where the planes struck... multiple stories of those supports were gone.
One strong gust of wind and *poof*. And it would've taken a couple of hours to
get everybody out given the likelyhood of the stariways near the impacts being
destroyed. IMO of course.
-McDaniel
kb5...@home.com
"H. McDaniel" wrote:
>
> I doubt the towers would've been standing for long even without the fires. Bad
> weather or a couple of hours and they probably would've toppled anyhow. The
> strength of the sturctures was in the outer curtain of support beams and in the
> places where the planes struck... multiple stories of those supports were gone.
Are you sure that the WTC was built like that? I know a lot of sky scrapers are,
but I seem to recall after the basement bombing reading that the WTC was built
off a centralized collumn with spanning/hanging girders--ike the space needle
with a bunch of tooth picks sticking out of it and the floors laid on top of
them--hence the whole basement attack on the central collumn.
H. McDaniel
Maybe this is true near the basment, but not in the rest of the building. See:
See: http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm
H. McDaniel
20,000 casualties at WTC and has already requested 6,000 body bags.
-McDaniel
H. McDaniel
> Somber news. Heard a report that NYC Port Authority believes there may be
> 20,000 casualties at WTC and has already requested 6,000 body bags.
Just heard an update. Make that 30,000+. 20,000 in the WTC towers, 10,000 in
the mall below.
-McDaniel
HeyZeus
"prism" <looking@the_dark.com> wrote in message
news:salvptomnn0tt83ct...@4ax.com...
Yep, 707 may have not contained as much fuel but that doesn't prove
anything.
There's so much we don't know and think we do. As for Yusef, he couldn't
afford a pilots liscense or the ticket? I don't see it would take
millions of dollars
nor years to accomplish such a feat.
HeyZeus
"Andy Dingley" <din...@codesmiths.com> wrote in message
news:72kuptoqmq4ald0sq...@4ax.com...
Me either, but it seems the temperature of the jet fuel is far beyond the
limits
of the steel used. I heard 800 degrees F is the melting point of the steel
used.
I know it must be much higher than that because lead melts near this
point.
(But that's FOX news - perhaps they meant softens and bends). They went
on to say the fuel burned as high as 2000F (yesterday it was 1200F). What
ever, it seems if the terrorists had prior knowledge they may have hit at
this
particular altitude to enable just enough weight above the affected area
and
to cause the first level to collapse and there for begin the domino
effect, albeit
vertical not horizontal. Easy to see perhaps once you have seen it!
If fox news was right. (800 degrees is easily obtained by many fires) this
is all that's needed to bring down many buildings! I don't think this is
the
case tho. At least this was never illustrated in the movie 'Towering
Inferno'.
Perhaps a natural gas leak in the basement or at street level, as a
result
of an earth quake; once ignited, could cause the structural steel to fail
with worse effects. Like the building toppling tree style into other
buildings rather then remaining self contained.
It's a shame the city workers were clueless of the impending disaster
resulting from the first jet crash and fire. They should have known
better but I can respect that they tried their best. I wonder if earth
quake planning is as poorly thought out. Seems people may have
up till now been kept in ignorance, banking on the fact this will
never happen.
LIE DETECTOR™
<3bc58c36...@news.escape.com>:
>lie_de...@my-deja.com (LIE DETECTOR™) said:
>
>>"Nom De Plume" <cogn...@nomdeplume.com> wrote in
>><ISDn7.564$tp1....@news1.wwck1.ri.home.com>:
>>
>>Osama??? what you up to baby?
>
>Eh?
Confused?
Osmo Ronkanen
<din...@codesmiths.com wrote:
>ab...@anarchy.gov (0§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí) a écrit :
>
>>>A COMBINATION of catastrophic events caused the downfall of the towering
>>>landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
>
>Good link on WTC structure and its failure:
>http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm
>
>
>My first reaction to the collapse was disbelief. Surely skyscrapers
>are designed to survive fire ? (AFAIK they generally are)
This was no ordinary fire, There were tons of jet fuel burning.
Nothing could survive it indefinitely. It would be like cutting
the structure with a blow torch, being fire resistant is
irrelevant.
Osmo
Paul Chapin
"H. McDaniel" <unli...@unlisted.unlisted> wrote in message
news:3BA00DCF...@unlisted.unlisted...
> Somber news. Heard a report that NYC Port Authority believes there may be
> 20,000 casualties at WTC and has already requested 6,000 body bags.
Guiliani pointed out that they need a separate body bag for every body part.
There's a lot of parts. Currently they have 11,000 bags available. You
can't make any conclusion on casualties from the number of body bags.
Interim Books
>Are you sure that the WTC was built like that? I know a lot of sky scrapers are,
>but I seem to recall after the basement bombing reading that the WTC was built
>off a centralized collumn with spanning/hanging girders--ike the space needle
>with a bunch of tooth picks sticking out of it and the floors laid on top of
>them--hence the whole basement attack on the central collumn.
No, there is an outer tube with multiple, redundant, columns, and an
inner tube. This is why it is believed it would stand even in the
face of an aircraft strike, it was very difficult to significantly
reduce the strength of the outer skin, and even when the outer skin
was compromised, the inner core would help in carrying the loads. The
girders supporting the floors added stiffness, but not strength.
-------
Visit our search engine! http://www.interimbooks.com/pagescout/
-------
Interim Books | 322 Pacific Ave | Bremerton, WA | 98337
fair...@hurricane.net | (360) 377-4343 | http://www.interimbooks.com/
Sue D. Nym
> "0§вmв Янс Kлс0Ян" wrote:
Osama Bin Kenobi? Use the Farsi, Luke.
A ton 'o' links about why the walls came tumbling down:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/WTCCollapse
Incl. this from the LA Times:
"It was very well thought out," said Hank Koffman,
who directs the construction engineering department
at USC. "These guys were evil geniuses."
They must have been, seeing as they could fly jets
too after watching an instructional video back at
the hotel and then doing a refresher with the manual
in the airport parking lot. Just like Lee Harvey
Oswald could fire a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle better
than anyone else on the planet. Tell me another one.
Infinite Jest
0§âmâ ßíñ Këñ0ßí <ab...@anarchy.gov> wrote in message
news:3bb6030b...@news.escape.com...
> >landmark that was built to withstand plane crashes.
>
> impregnable, the NMD works, and the Death Star couldn't be destroyed
> by a stupid hick in a junk fighter.
>
> Yeah, they always say "it's impossible!"
> Right before they get a good dose of reality.
Yes, surely the building should have been designed so that 757s would bounce
harmlessly into the Hudson.
vj...@biostrategist.com
The beams melted. The fuel went right down the elevator shaft like it was a
flame thrower.
- = -
Vasos-Peter John Panagiotopoulos II, Columbia'81+, Bio$trategist
BachMozart ReaganQuayle EvrytanoKastorian
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/vjp2/vasos.htm
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---
Greylock
collapse.
The original design called for the insulation of the beams with asbestos,
the design was changed to remove the asbestos.
The replacement was not as tested through many, many years as asbestos
(which likely would have protected the steel beams for up to 4 hours).
Ill advised environmentalism kills.
<vj...@biostrategist.com> wrote in message
news:9oqe9c$4h0$1...@news.panix.com...
kirill
>
> Beams did not melt. They were made hot enough to be weakened to the point of
> collapse.
>
> The original design called for the insulation of the beams with asbestos,
> the design was changed to remove the asbestos.
> The replacement was not as tested through many, many years as asbestos
> (which likely would have protected the steel beams for up to 4 hours).
>
> Ill advised environmentalism kills.
The asbestos hysteria is about cancer and not the enivronment.
Maybe next time instead of using 4.8 million pound concrete slabs for
floors they should use some light, porous and fire-proof material
with properties similar to wood.
Conan
>
[...]
>
> Ill advised environmentalism kills.
>
Silly statement, you shrink your audience with such generalizations.
Conan
Greylock
If you truly think all of the bullshit that has been foisted on the American
public in the name of environmentalism is well researched and founded in
fact, you need to get out more.
"Conan" <the.ba...@the.edge.of.the.world> wrote in message
news:3BB3C56B...@the.edge.of.the.world...
0§4Mâ ßiÑ KëÑ0ßí
overcome Israel's nuclear capability, a report says.
The report, presented by a prominent Egyptian strategist, said Arab
and Iranian missiles have reduced the likelihood that Israel will
launch a nuclear first strike. The strategist termed Israel the sixth
largest nuclear power in the world, with a plutonium arsenal far
larger than that of India.
Zakaria Hussein, former director of Egypt's Higher Nasser Academy,
presented the report during a two-day seminar on weapons of mass
destruction. The seminar, which ended on Wednesday, was held at the
Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow-Up in Abu Dhabi, the capital
of the United Arab Emirates.
"It is imperative for Arab states to have a deterrent power to face
the existing gap in the military balance with Israel," the report
said. "Arab states possess a sufficient missile power, both
conventional and unconventional, which constitute a confirmed
deterrent that will force Israel not to carry out what it wants."
Hussein said Arab deterrence is based in its missile arsenals and
large geographical area. He said Arab states have the potential to
destroy Israel even after a nuclear strike by the Jewish state.
"The size of the Arab destructive power needed to deter Israel should
be enough to cripple Israel's depth and inflict as much losses as
possible," the report said. "This does not need a nuclear capability
but coordination among Arab nations and the joint will to use their
available conventional and unconventional power."
The report said Israel possesses between 500 and 800 kilograms of
plutonium. This figure, the report said, far exceeds India's plutonium
stock, estimated at 150 kilograms.
"But it seems that Israel's nuclear policy has four proportions, the
first of which is that it will use the atomic bomb as a deterrent
weapon rather than a means to launch a first strike," the report said.
"Israel could use those weapons as a desperate retaliation at a later
stage and will continue to work forcefully to prevent Arab states from
acquiring nuclear bombs even if it has to launch an attack as it did
in 1981, when it destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor."
Israel has refused to confirm or deny a nuclear weapons capability.
Israeli leaders have pledged not to be the first to use nuclear
weapons in the Middle East.
0§4Mâ ßiÑ KëÑ0ßí
By Daniel Mitchell
Hold on to your wallet. The United Nations is gearing up for a ritzy
get-together at a Mexican resort to discuss ways to pick your pocket.
Specifically, the U.N.'s upcoming "Financing for Development"
conference is meant to boost foreign aid spending. To finance their
scheme, the bureaucrats want to create a World Tax Organization with
the power to impose global taxes.
U.N. bureaucrats still believe big government is a magic elixir,
whatever the ill. They're peddling the same snake oil to the Third
World, but their prescription — more government handouts — is a recipe
for failure. And they want the United States to pick up most of the
tab.
Consider the recommendations of a panel the U.N.
secretary-general appointed to develop proposals for the Mexico
conference. The panel, which included former U.S. Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin, called for:
• An International Tax Organization. If you think our tax code is
a mess — and it is — wait until the same international bureaucrats who
rail against "harmful competition" from low-tax nations get their
hands on it. Many of these people make the Internal Revenue Service
seem like the taxpayer's best friend.
• Global taxes. The United Nations wants the power to levy
worldwide taxes, and the panel identifies currency taxes and energy
taxes as the most likely targets. Such taxes are designed to do one
thing: Redistribute income from developed nations to the Third World.
Not surprisingly, they would hit U.S. taxpayers the hardest.
• Tax harmonization. The United Nations wants "information
exchange," a form of tax harmonization that would let high-tax nations
impose their tax laws on income earned in America. This scheme is
supported by an unholy alliance of European welfare states and corrupt
Third World regimes.
• Emigrant taxes. Last, but not least, the U.N. panel argues that
people should be tax slaves to their country of birth. For example, if
a computer programmer from the Third World comes to Silicon Valley,
the Third World country, rather than America, would have the primary
right to tax his income.
These proposals may sound too ridiculous to be true, but the
evidence can be found on the U.N. Web site (links to its report can be
found at www.freedomandprosperity.org).
To make matters worse, it appears the United Nations is moving to
adopt these radical recommendations. U.N. officials recently released
preliminary language they hope will be in the final report. They
promised to "give careful consideration to the results of the study
requested by the secretary-general on possible innovative sources of
multilateral finance."
Translation: Let's hit up Uncle Sam.
The draft language endorses "international tax cooperation to
enhance the scope of national fiscal efforts," which means the United
Nations wants to create a tax cartel. This OPEC-for-politicians might
be good news for noncompetitive socialist governments such as France,
but it would undermine America's competitive advantage in the global
economy.
The report also calls for a huge boost in foreign aid, up to "the
annual equivalent of 0.7 percent of industrialized countries' gross
national product." That may not sound like much, but it would cause
America's foreign aid spending to skyrocket, from $12 billion a year
to more than $70 billion.
And this doesn't even include spending for "global public goods,"
which U.N. bureaucrats say will require "additional funding." They
apparently have a limitless appetite when America is footing the bill.
The U.N. report is also noteworthy for what isn't included. The
purpose is to boost economic growth in the Third World, but there
isn't a single mention of the benefits of tax cuts and lower tax
rates, both of which spur economic development. It also fails to
discuss the need for governments to control wasteful spending.
The report does briefly highlight the need for free trade. It
even makes a veiled endorsement of personal retirement accounts. But
these concessions to free-market economics are rare exceptions.
And they can't make up for the real problem, which is that U.N.
bureaucrats are ideologically wedded to a big-government view of the
world. They want more taxes and more spending, even though these
policies make it harder for nations to prosper.
President Bush should tell the U.S. delegates to the Mexico
conference to refuse to sign off on this scheme. If other nations want
to tax themselves into oblivion, that's their business. But leave us
out.