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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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So specifically about 9/11:

  • The US had a bunch of wargames planned that day. Including NORAD simulated hijackings. They weren't a secret and Saudi fighter pilots are trained at US airbases. So it's likely that the hijackers knew about the wargames and scheduled to take advantage of them.

  • There were 19 hijackers and 4 planes involved. They recovered 4 passports and 1 blackbox. The blackbox and two of the passports were from United-93. The other two were from the pentagon crash. My takeaway is that the United-93 crash wasn't as bad and the pentagon had a good fire suppression system that saved two of the passports.

  • The twin towers were especially vulnerable to fire. They were pure steel towers (no concrete) designed to use asbestos for fire protection. Asbestos was banned right after construction started. To complete the project the builders got a special fire retardant insulation approved for use in it's construction. It was never used elsewhere and it didn't work.

  • WTC 7 wasn't just on fire. Huge chunks of steel from the twin tower collapse did massive damage to the building and shattered the diesel tanks WTC 7 used for its back up generator. The damage occurred on the side facing the towers, so it isn't obvious on the recordings which were taken away from the site with a zoom lens.

designed to use asbestos for fire protection. Asbestos was banned right after construction started

Asbestos was used! Near 2000, they were supposed to start removing it. Some of the conspiracy theories focus on the owner destroying it for insurance money to avoid paying for the modifications, with the port authority buying it and paying or... Something. I don't remember. But removing asbestos plays a roll!

The Saudi connection is another issue - there was talk about a rather concerning 'dry run' for 9/11 where hijackers tried to force their way into the cockpit, funded by the Saudi embassy: https://www.oregonlive.com/today/2017/09/saudi_government_may_have_fund.html

Anyway, this is the sort of specific discussion there should be about conspiracy theories.