Ten Years After 9/11: An Interview with `Journal of 9/11 Studies' Co-Editor Kevin Ryan and `To Prevent the Next "9/11"' Author Don Paul

(In the following email interview, Kevin Ryan and Don Paul recently responded to a few of the assertions made in an Aug. 29, 2011 article that was posted on the BBC News site)

How would you respond to BBC News' claim that the National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST]'s official story of why the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11/01 is accurate?

Kevin Ryan [KR]: In general, the NIST WTC reports are false because NIST did not explain why and how the buildings collapsed--as was its charter--and the investigations were deceptive and unscientific. For example, NIST reported findings that were in direct contradiction to the physical testing performed and omitted or distorted many important facts. And since NIST cannot share its results with the public, its results cannot be independently verified as required in science. NIST’s explanations have also not been taken seriously by the building construction community.

I cover the exact sequence of the NIST report for the towers in a short video [at the following link:]
http://digwithin.net/2011/08/16/why-the-nist-report-on-the-wtc-towers-is-false/



In its Aug. 29, 2011 article, BBC News asserted that since the Twin Towers collapse started at the top, it could not have resulted from “controlled demolition,” because "controlled demolition is nearly always carried out from the bottom floors up," according to BBC News. What's your response to these assertions by BBC News?

KR: Nothing falls through the path of most resistance, and certainly not the human mind.

The phrase "controlled demolition" is inappropriate for the towers for two reasons. First, it was "semi-controlled" at best, and the destruction was meant to harm occupants and bystanders. Many were killed within. And some, fleeing, were killed by the falling debris—including the daughter of my friend Donna Marsh O’Connor. Secondly, the phrase misleads people into thinking it was in most respects similar to other demolitions.

But, in fact, it was meant to be a "deceptive demolition" whereby an audience was deceived into thinking that the destruction was caused by the planes and the resulting fires. To do so required creating fires that would not have otherwise existed--for example those on the south wall of WTC1--and timing the explosions to present the idea that in each case the top section--which turned to dust as it fell--crushed the many stories of cold steel structure below.

Don Paul [DP]: I think “unprecedented demolitions” is a fitting term for what happened to the Twin Towers on 9/11/01. That they were demolitions is indubitable. That nothing much like their explosiveness and destructive potency had ever been done to buildings before in history is also indubitable. So “unprecedented demolitions” seems fitting.

Nanothermitics’ multiplying potency is one explanation for the explosiveness. Steven Jones’ 2006 paper--“Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Collapse?”--quotes an article by John Gartner in Technology Review of January, 2005. The article is titled “Military Reloads with Nanotech” [and] Gartner writes: “Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminium with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the Explosives and Technology group at Los Alamos.”

Thus, the finding and analysis of nanothermitic residue in chips from the Twins Towers is of leading importance in tracing the How and the Who of the Twin Towers’ and Building 7’s destruction—molten metal lasted for many weeks in the footprint of WTC 7, too.

Nine researchers’ papers from April 2009, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from World Trade Center Catastrophe” is a landmark. And two articles by Kevin from 2008 point to persons and entities that deserve further investigation: “The Top 10 Connections between NIST and Nanothermites” and “Another Amazing Coincidence Related to the WTC.”

[See www.bethamscience.com http://911review.com/articles/ryan/nist_thermite_connection.html http://911blogger.com/node/13272]

KR: Eyewitnesses have also said that there were basement level explosions. And the BBC premise is faulty as well.

[See following links:
http://911blogger.com/news/2009-12-12/911-eyewitnesses-describe-wtc-basement-explosions
http://911blogger.com/node/20985]

BBC News also asserted that "no evidence has ever been found of explosive charges" or any pre-cutting of columns or walls at the Twin Towers that would indicate a demolition. How would you respond to this BBC News assertion?

KR: Evidence of extreme temperatures has been found. The environmental evidence suggests thermitic materials. Nanothermite has been found. Eyewitness testimony is evidence. And photographic evidence has "been found."

[As described in following links: http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf ;
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/ ;
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.htm?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM;
http://911review.com/coverup/oralhistories.html;
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-04-27/911-explosive-eyewitness-testimony;
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/collapses.html]

BBC News also asserted that on United Airlines Flight 93 there was "a passenger revolt" and "the military never gave orders to the air force to shoot the commercial airlines down." What's your response to yet another example of BBC News' unquestioned support for the official story?

KR: With flight 93, as with everything else, we must start with the evidence. Since no one supposed to be on the plane survived its crash, we must consider the questions of standard operating procedure—e.g. why was the hijack code not squawked?--and whatever the government gives us--for example, the transcript of the cockpit recorder.

The debris pattern is important, in that it was spread over a radius of several miles. The lack of wreckage in the alleged impact area is important.

And the finding of the alleged hijacker pilot's passport and bandana at the surface, while the remainder of said pilot was buried in the cockpit 150 feet below, is "evidence" of a different sort.

Overall, the evidence suggests that the airliner was shot down.

[See following links:
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/flight93cvr.html ).
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/attack/flight93site.html
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/analysis/flight93/index.html ]

BBC News also claimed that the only reason Building 7 collapsed without being hit by any planes was because of "uncontrolled fire, started by the collapse of the nearby North Tower, and which burned for 7 hours" and that no "evidence of thermite or explosives" were found there. How would you respond to this BBC News claim?

KR: I walk people through the NIST report for WTC 7 in a short video.

[at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArnYryJqCwU]



The WTC 7 report is false for the following reasons: No physical tests were done to confirm the NIST explanation and the fire hypothesis is contradicted by the known fire resistance plan. The fires in WTC 7 lasted only 20 minutes in each area while the steel components were rated for hours of fire resistance.

NIST’s final theory was based entirely on computer simulations that are not based on evidence and NIST’s fire modeling contradicts the photographic evidence. The fires in the critical areas--NE corner of floor 12--were out long before collapse. NIST did not heat the floor slabs in its model of differential thermal expansion. NIST ignored known facts about shear studs on the critical girder, [since] the maximum thermal expansion possible could not have caused the girder to “walk-off” its seat. [So] the NIST computer result does not accurately model the collapse

Why do you think BBC News, other mainstream media news organizations and nearly all the alternative media outlets and gatekeepers still are unwilling to encourage much questioning of the official U.S. government story of what happened ten years ago on 9/11? And how would you compare the global mass media commemoration and revisiting of the 9/11/01 events ten years after 9/11 with the way the global mass media generally commemorated and revisited the 11/22/63 events ten years after JFK was eliminated in Dallas?

KR: For several reasons. First, it is difficult to accept the truth that we do not know the truth. Secondly, they would be admitting that they have been grossly negligent in their jobs for many years. And lastly, if they do encourage it, they will lose their funding or their jobs.

I'm not really in a position to compare the two because I was only 10 years old in 1973 and have not studied the JFK history enough to know.

DP: BBC News and other mega-media and the mega-rich Foundations that fund much of the so-called alternative media all are materially dependent upon maintaining the credibility of the pretext for the “War on Terror.” The whole complex of them, making up key parts of a supranational Corporate Government across the Western world, needed a casus belli for the Anglo-American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. And for the repression of insurgent citizens’ movements that were growing—like the anti-World Trade Organization [WTO] protest movement—in 1999 to 2001.

They need now, of course, to keep up full-scale denial and disinformation against proofs and movements that completely undermine their spectacular pretext, “9/11,” for the “War on Terror.”

The problem for them now is that their pretext, their casus belli, has become year-by-year more incredible and indefensible. Polls—some of which I cite in “The 10th Anniversary Is A Time To Declare That Truth Is Winning” article on the www.puppetgov.com site—show that the public in the United States and other Western nations don’t believe the Corporate Government’s Official Story for 9/11/01 and want to know what really happened.

We who have seen the evidence for the day’s crimes and doubt explanations such as NIST’s are now a growing majority. We’re part of a growing majority of the public in the Western world who no longer believe our Governments and their echo-chamber of talking heads. The supranational Corporate Government is rightly recognized as the real source of crimes that are taking away our homes, our freedoms, and our livelihoods—if not our very lives. Who owns BBC News? Whom and what does BBC News serve? Who owns NBC, ABC, Time-Warner, et cetera? Who owns General Electric? Who and what owns General Dynamics, Exxon Mobil and Lockheed Martin? Who and what own the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the Bank of Japan, and the Bank of International Settlements?

The difference I see between the Corporate Government and its mega-media’s coverage of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the 10th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is that the former was an exaggerated spectacle, a fanfare of theatrics fanned by increasing desperation to cover up truth. While the latter, earlier anniversary, 10 years after JFK was shot—and five years after Jim Garrison’s prosecutions forced broad attention back on that murder—was as minimal as it could credibly be, as I recall.

November 22, 1973 came as pressure mounted on the Nixon White House and the public of the U.S. and elsewhere in the Western World suffered gas-shortages and sudden economic hard-times due to the supposed “Oil Crisis.” Then, I think, many fewer of the public had the knowledge for suspicions as to what and who were really behind mega-media’s News and the sources for their personal losses and suffering.

The crimes of 9/11/01 were a far more desperate and brazen attack on the public of the Western World than the obvious, bankers-orchestrated, CIA killing of JFK—and that plot’s even more transparent murder of the unexpectedly surviving “patsy” Oswald. The same failing systems bet on the crimes of 9/11 as played and profited from the killing of JFK. But because their 21st-century/9/11 crimes are so much more spectacular and heinous—thousands dead in Lower Manhattan due to Towers that exploded into bits of dust—they are correspondingly more vulnerable.

Exposure of the true crimes of 9/11 goes forward. Bringing to light the full truth of those crimes is our best way to honor the dead of that day and the millions more dead in wars for Banks’ debts. The full truth is also our best way out of the “War on Terror”—as those who “Occupy Wall Street” join those millions of citizens who have protested in the past year. And thousands more plan to occupy Washington, D.C. this year. [see www.occupywallst.org and www.october2011.org]

NYC Cops Attack Occupy Wall Street Demonstrators

Let Him Live In Georgia In September 2011!

Remembering Carl Oglesby

Alan Lomax Folk Music Documentary From 1947

U.S. Workers Demand Affordable Housing

`Let Me Tell You About 9-11'

"More Civilians Died"

They sent their planes to bomb Tokyo
Civilians they defined as their foe
German cities they bombed long ago
The civilian body count, it did grow

For her work on a plane, a small paycheck
For feeding passengers, an early death

An A-Bomb they did drop on Hiroshima
And thousands more civilians were slaughtered
And Nagasaki too, three days later
Became a new graveyard for more civilians

A student so young, sitting on a plane
The Twin Towers appear, the passengers all scream

They sent their jets to bomb Korea
Civilians down below were massacred
Then 8 years they did bomb Vietnam
And millions who were killed: civilians

He worked as a waiter on the top floor
His pay it was so low, but he died in the fire

They sent their jets to bomb Lebanon
And more civilians died on the ground
Refugee camps attacked, filled with Palestinians
More civilians killed for political reasons

She went to work each day in a skyscraper
And died by a computer on the 97th floor

And Baghdad and Belgrade, they did bomb
And more civilians died, while many sobbed
And now they're in a war for Unocal
To build a new pipeline is their goal

To rescue civilians, the firemen ran inside
The tower then collapsed, and they also died

How many more civilians will now be killed
By the ones who rely on terror to rule the world?
It looks like we're all doomed pretty soon
Unless civilians rise up to change the world

The World Trade Center destroyed and thousands died
Victims of conspiracies of the presidents who hide

The rulers of this land rely on fear
But fire can't be fought with more fire
So Civilians let's unite, before it's too late
And build a new world that's free of their hate.

The "More Civilians Died" public domain protest folk song was written in late 2001--before many more questions about the U.S. government and Big Media's official version of what actually happened on 9/11/01 in Downtown Manhattan began to be raised by an increasing number of anti-war 9/11 truth activists during the following 10 years.

Poet Don Paul's `9/11 Is A Big Lie' lyrics

(chorus)
9/11 is a Big Lie (Nine----Eee-lev-on…)
9/11 is a Big Lie
9/11 is Big Lie
And we’re gonna shout-shout-shout it
Loud and high
And we’re gonna shout-shout-shout it
To the skies

(verses)
Airliners off-course across hours of sky
34 minutes between two planes’ hits
Towers exploding into bits
Hundreds thousands tons of concrete
Blown to dust
And tens thousands tons of steel
Brought straight down (chorus)

Oh, they fell so fast, fell straight down
Fell through beams and columns as much as four feet thick
Fell through their cores of steel as fast as dust
Fell with oceans’ roars and volcanoes’ rush
Fell like elevators erupting to the ground
As their victims screamed and we hugged ourselves

Oh what’a—what’a—what’a are we to make of this
Blows that stuck-struck-struck us like a fist
Blows whose shock hid their source
Blows that hammered past our eyes
Blows meant to inflame and galvanize
Blows meant to numb and paralyze
Blows meant to send us into the “Endless War”
That is a Ruling Few’s “New World Order” (chorus)

Giuliani knew South Tower would “collapse”
He fled his post as firefighters died
Jerry Hauer told Dan Rather on CBS
The planes did it under bin Laden’s hands
Cherkasky and Bremer chimed right in,
Sitting on evidence that would indict them,
While Larry and Pete, GMAC and GE,
Raked in profits from insurance plans,
From weapons, oils, and Afghan opium
Like Maurice Greenberg and his sons
They all got richer, oh yes indeed
Like Rockefeller and Rothschilds over hundred years,
They all got richer amid our tears
Like so many killers over hundreds years
They all got richer amid our tears
From blasted Buildings, molten earth,
Victims’ screams and broken dreams
They all got richer amid our tears.

Oh what’a—what’a—what’a are we to make of this
Blows that struck us—struck us-struck us like a fist
Blows whose shock hid their source
Blows that hammered past our eyes
Meant to make us fear, obey, and stand in lines
Under Universal Debt in One Big Bank,
Meant to send us into the “Endless War”
That is a Ruling Few’s “New World Order” (chorus)

Six years now the Official Story has spun
Like the sun around Earth, not the reverse
A Dark Age indeed, one of Kings and serfs
And trusty hacks that are sure to hide the facts—
On FEMA, on NIST, on Times and on Post!—
In the mighty Wurlitzer universe,
Pods and flashes highlit to matter more
Than mass murder from skyscrapers
Brought straight down—
Than Endless War bound to concrete
Blown to dust—
Than a past and future Terror
None can trust

And yet—yet—yet we people of the round,
Truths are there for us to take up
Truths simple but supple like a circle’s hands
Truths that can span all seas and lands

(final chorus)
9/11 is a Big Lie (Nine----Eee-lev-on…)
9/11 is a Big Lie
9/1 is Big Lie
And we’re gonna shout-shout-shout out
What we see!
And we’re gonna shout-shout-shout
The truth free!

(final verse)
We’ll throw back the Cards dealt to us
We’ll refuse to die under torn-out skies
We’ll fight-fight-fight with our tools
We’re gonna fight-fight-fight for this century
Now we have the tools for all to be free
Now we have the tools for all to be free
We’re gonna fight—fight-fight-fight for this century
Now we have the tools for all to be free.

Black Male Worker Jobless Rate Jumps To 18 Percent Under Obama & GOP House of Representatives

Between July and August 2011, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States jumped from 17 to 18 percent under the Democratic Obama Administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives; while the unemployment rate for all Black workers jumped from 15.9 to 16.7 percent during the same period, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also jumped from 39.2 to 46.5 percent between July and August 2011; while the unemployment rate for Black women over 20 years-of-age was still 13.4 percent in August 2011.

The number of officially unemployed Black workers increased by 193,000 (from 2,796,000 to 2,989,000) between July and August 2011, according to the “seasonally adjusted” data; while the number of officially unemployed Black male workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States increased by 105,000 (from 1,364,000 to 1,469,000) during the same period. The number of jobless Black women workers over 20 years-of-age also increased by 30,000 (from 1,200,000 to 1,230,000) between July and August 2011; and the number of unemployed Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of age increased by 58,000 (from 233,000 to 291,000) during the same period.

In August 2011, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino or Hispanic workers in the United States was still 11.3 percent; while the number of unemployed Latino or Hispanic workers increased by 15,000 (from 2,570,000 to 2,585,000) between July and August 2011. The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latina or Hispanic female workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 11.3 to 11.4 percent between July and August 2011; while the number of unemployed Latina or Hispanic female workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 28,000 (from 987,000 to 1,015,000) during the same period. The official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino or Hispanic male workers in the United States was also still 8.9 percent in August 2011. And according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, the official unemployment rate for Latino or Hispanic youth between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 36.2 to 37.4 percent between July and August 2011; while the number of Latino or Hispanic youths who had jobs dropped by 77,000 (from 708,000 to 631,000) during this same period, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age was still 23 percent in August 2011; while the number of unemployed white youths increased by 23,000 (from 1,083,000 to 1,106,000) between July and August 2011. The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age was still 8 percent in August 2011; while the official “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Asian-American workers was still 7.1 percent during the same month, although the number of Asian-American workers who had jobs dropped by 50,000 (from 6,838,000 to 6,788,000) between July and August 2011. In addition, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for white female workers was still 7 percent in August 2011, although the number of white female workers over 20 years-of-age with jobs dropped by 40,000 (from 50,866,000 to 50,826,000) between July and August 2011.

For all U.S. workers (male and female) over 16 years-of-age, the official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate was still 9.1 percent in August 2011; while the jobless rate for all U.S. male workers over 16 years-of-age was still 9.6 percent in August 2011. And between July and August 2011, the official total number of unemployed U.S. workers over 16 years-of-age increased by 36,000 (from 13,931,000 to 13,967,000), according to the “seasonally adjusted” data.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Sept. 2, 2011 press release:

“…Government employment continued to trend down…The number of unemployed persons, at 14.0 million, was essentially unchanged in August, and the unemployment rate held at 9.1 percent…The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was about unchanged at 6.0 million in August and accounted for 42.9 percent of the unemployed…The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose from 8.4 million to 8.8 million in August. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“About 2.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in August, up from 2.4 million a year earlier…These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…Among the marginally attached, there were 977,000 discouraged workers in August…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Total nonfarm payroll employment, at 131.1 million, was unchanged in August…Employment changed little in most major private-sector industries…Employment in the information industry declined by 48,000 in August. About 45,000 workers in the telecommunications industry were on strike and thus off company payrolls during the survey reference period…Manufacturing employment was essentially unchanged in August (-3,000)…

“Government employment continued to trend down over the month (-17,000)…Employment in local government continued to decline…In August, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls decreased…The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from +46,000 to +20,000, and the change for July was revised from +117,000 to +85,000…”