Why the WTC tower collapse theories are wrong...

I have read one too many web pages now on why the WTC collapses HAD to be done using controlled demolition charges. Here is as good of an explanation as you are going to find, as to why the jetliners and the fire caused the collapses.

This post was triggered because of this comment at Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Center

Jon P of IL, USA writes: Brandon Christensen made a post citing the logistical enormity of rigging a Detroit building for demolition, as evidence to refute the strong case for demolition at the WTC. Not content with Mr Heller proving scientifically that this was a demolition, Brandon Christensen wants us to use conjecture to explain how it was all set up! Mr Christensen: Mr Heller has put forward a sound theory based on hard evidence. Instead of ignoring that theory, why don't you directly address it? Explain to us all, for example, how 110 floors 'pancaking' into each other, offer such insignificant resistance as compared to freefall in air.
Posted Jul 31, 2006

This Jon P. was not the only commenter on this subject of pancaking. After reading about it for the fourth time, I thought I might inform some of the readers of that web page of the other side of the story, from someone who has actually had some experience in such matters as structural design and the effect of high temperatures on the strength of steel.

One has to understand first and foremost that almost all of us hated word problems in math class, and that vast majority of us who did hate them forgot how to do them as soon as we could get away with it. So, most of us live in a world where we can't put these things together very well, and we thus can fall for some argument that SOUNDS logical and informed and puts the pieces together in a wonderful gestalt, when it may not be after all. Some of us, however, kept running into word problems and eventually became good enough at them to become designers and engineers - because that field is the place where word problems are solved, for real...

Here is the comment I tried to post and am still not sure if it "took":

.. Where to start...

I will get to "pancaking", but I have to give you a lot of background first. Please bear with me...

WTC1 and WTC2 were unique buildings, in all the world. I have heard that WTC7 had the same structural design, but I can't swear to that. I will not go into the WTC7 collapse, as I have not put any thought into it. My apologies.

To begin:

WTC1 and WTC2 were not built like we are used to seeing steel buildings built. The cross members were not steel "wide flange" beams (WF beams), often referred to as "I-beams" (which are something not often used in buildings at all!). Normal skyscrapers are designed with WF beams as vertical columns and WF beams also used as main horizontal cross beams and for most secondary horizontal cross beams.
The WTC buildings were not designed that normal way. Their outer SKIN (believe it or not!) was the main component of their load bearing structure. Vertical members, whether WF beams or the outer skin, must be braced every so many feet in order to not be flimsy. They can only be used in their full strength design capacity if they are braced properly and frequently enough.

The outer skin of the WTC buildings WAS braced at proper intervals, but the braces were only what are known as steel joists, which are spidery webs made up of much weaker elements, usually just angle iron and round bars, welded together. Joists are almost always designed to hold up only flooring and the "live load" that a given floor supports, such as filing cabinets, desks and people. This live load is usually only 200 pounds per square foot as a maximum. In normal steel structure design, that figure would have been given a multiplier "safety factor" of about 3. I assume that the WTC architects used a similar safety factor in their non-standard structural design.

The two ends of a joist are usually just plates - laid horizontally - with a few bolt holes to keep the joist from slipping.

In the WTC buildings, the joists were serving the double functions of holding up the live loads PLUS being the bracing for the outer skin. This was never done anywhere else that I have been able to determine so far. The only thing bracing the outer skin, in order to keep it from getting too flimsy were those bolted connections and the horizontal strength of the joists. BUT: joists are normally not designed for horizontal forces - only for vertical forces.

In the area of the jetliner impact, the joists were damaged to some unknown degree, with some of them certainly rendered completely useless. The outer skin in this area would have had its flimsiness factor (called the "radius of gyration") affected negatively, making parts of the outer skin in that area weaker than they were designed to be.

A short slender support can withstand a certain amount of weight (load). But if the height of the slender support is doubled (from 10 feet to 20 feet, for example), the amount of load it can support is reduced by about 4 times, more or less. The slender support begins to buckle under the same load, simply by making it taller. When one of the joists bracing the outer skin was "taken out", the outer skin's load bearing capacity in that area (if considered just by itself) therefore was reduced by about 75%. If only one joist was damaged, the skin could withstand that loss of bracing, because the adjacent, properly braced, outer skin members would take up some of the load.

In the impact and fire in the WTC towers, three factors combined with the weird structural design to cause the upper structure to fall. One factor was this loss of bracing. One was the fact that some of the outer skin was also removed, making the other outer skin panels have to take up the load. Those panels did manage to support the upper floors quite well - not counting the third factor. The third factor was the fire and the effect it had on the steel.

Contrary to what some people on the web are touting, steel does not have to melt in order to fail. As the steel temperature increases above 900 degrees Fahrenheit, the steel starts to fairly rapidly lose its strength. If memory serves, at about 1500 F, the strength has dropped to about 40% of its room temperature strength.

How hot did the steel get? Tests done on airliner structures, in fires from jet fuel, showed the temperatures getting to about 1500 F (again, if my memory is accurate). I looked this up a couple of years ago, and could find the link if asked.

The "yield" strength of A-36 structural steel beams used in standard designs is 66,000 psi. A little bit above that stress level, the steel will actually start to fail at room temperature. Yet, in most states the engineers and architects pretend the steel is much weaker, giving an effective safety factor. The level that is used is 18,000 psi. So, steel that is actually 66,000 psi strength is used as if it is only 18,000 psi. The resultant safety factor is 66,000 divided by 18,000, or 3.67. That is at room temperature.

Factor in the 60% reduction in steel strength at 1500 degrees, and the safety factor becomes 40% of that 3.67, which amounts to 1.46. This is still strong enough to hold up the total design load.

But, when you also factor in that some of the structure was damaged, that 1.46 gets to be VERY precarious. It may AVERAGE 1.46 where the structure is still intact and fully braced. But in the damaged areas, the story was different. While the steel managed to hold up the upper floors for a while - while it was still fairly cool - it was only a matter of time before the steel was thoroughly heated.

Now, a standard design is what I thought the WTC towers WERE on that morning. But even then, with the amount of flames I saw, combined with the structural damage from the impact, I was pretty certain that the upper floors would collapse down into the damaged area. I envisioned those upper structures possibly then leaning over and falling off. That was even with standard design parameters. When I later on heard of the design, I could easily see why the total collapses happened.

Now, on to the "pancaking":

To understand this, you have to get out of your head your conception of steel buildings that you have had your whole life. Those standard "steel skeleton" structures are not what we are talking about here, as I have mentioned. The statements here and elsewhere on the web are correct: No tall steel buildings have ever collapsed due to fire. That is a fact of history. If any HAD collapsed, design standards would have been made more stringent.

The WF beams used as cross-beams would have prevented the WTC buildings from collapsing - BECAUSE the pancaking could not have occurred.

But since the WTC buildings had only the steel joists - which were doubling as bracing AND as load-bearing members for people and desks - in place of WF beams, there was not enough integrity to resist the pancaking from getting started. WF beams design would have had MUCH stronger connections between the horizontal members and the vertical members (in this case, the outer skin panels). The mass of and the strength of the WF beams in the area just below the impact would have been able to withstand the collapse of the upper floors. That is IMHO. The integrity would have been so much greater than the few bolts tying the outer skin to the joists.

Consider how hard you would impact if you fell 10 or 20 feet - the distance that first fall was for the upper floors. A 10- or 20-foot fall can kill a human. The G-forces due to the accumulated speed build-up are pretty high - which is why we don't jump down from second-story windows.

Now, take the mass of 15 or 30 some-odd stories and drop that down about 10 or 20 feet. And do that onto thin outer skin panels and spidery steel joists. The first level of steel joists doesn't stand much chance; the mass just blows through them like a hot knife through butter.

And the outer skin, besides being too weak to resist the impact of the falling mass, also loses its bracing connections and becomes even weaker.

Those bolts on those connections are still ASTM A-490 high-strength bolts, so they don't break easily. But they do. And as they break, they make a HELL of a noise. Trust me on that one; I have heard breaking bolts before, and it sounds like gunshots.

Those first joists slow the falling mass a bit, but not enough. When the mass hits the NEXT level of joists, there is even MORE impact. It has, after all, just fallen another 10 feet, after having a running start. At about the second level the die is cast and the pancaking commences.

The outer skin panels act like the walls of a duct, funneling most of the debris straight down, which is also what gravity is trying to do. After all, the center of the Earth's mass IS straight down. So, these two factors try to keep all the mass right down the middle as it all falls.

But only so much structure and debris can fit inside the duct walls (the outer skin panels). Pretty quickly, it all starts exerting some sizable outward pressure on the skin panels. This not only adds stress on the bolted joist connections, causing them to break even more readily, but it also pushes the panels outward, allowing the debris to start cascading in a fountain-looking pattern.

But it all also exerts pressure INWARD, against the central core. In short order the increasing force - as more mass tries to cram into a fixed duct space - crushes the core inward. As you watch in a video the collapse of the towers, note that there is a central "cloud pillar" that remains "standing" as the outer portions proceed downward. The core was a bit behind the outer portions in collapsing, as I view it happening. I attribute this to the need for greater force to collapse the core inward, as opposed to the force needed to "pop" the outer skin from its bracing connections.

Both the outer skin and the core formed the walls of the "chute" or "duct" down which the debris fell. The core simply resisted longer - but a few stories further down, the force was even too much for the core. It wasn't designed to withstand crushing pressure from the outside of it; it was only designed to withstand vertical forces and stresses arising from the wind on the outer skin.

That is about it.

I am a very, very skeptical person about our government's administration, no matter if it is a Republican or a Democrat in office. Both have perpetrated some heinous things upon the world. And they may have been in some way responsible for 9/11.

But they did not do a controlled demolition of the two main WTC towers. It is all explainable by the unique design of the buildings and the confluence of factors that came together on that morning. As much as I want to blame Bush, Cheney and the neocons, I can't. Every element of their collapse makes sense, without resorting to this particular conspiracy allegation.

. . . .

On superiority, reasonableness and incompetence

I received an email today, not unlike many we all are getting. It was from a former co-worker, who happens to be Jewish and who is distressed about events you-know-where.

He said,

There is never justification for any crime no matter the reason. Insanity prevails in this world and this sad incident is but one result of the hate we have for each other for perceived reasons. Muslims hate other Muslims, Muslims hate Israelis, Muslims hate Jews, Muslims and Kurds have no use for the other, Muslims and Christians are opposed, Sunnis and Shiites, and on and on. Whites and blacks...... Insanity brought on by differences and devoid of tolerance and understanding. The world and the U.S.............. GOPers and Dems, Christian right and left.

This got my mind going, and out came the following reply:

Re the first part of this, I have often wondered how the world - the buildup, the attitudes, the leaving behind of rational thought - came to such intensity in the 1930s as to turn into WWII. Of course, it also happened before WWI as well, but I know much less about that period, so I have no opinion on that. But the little I know of the 1930s is that Hitler encouraged the German people to believe that they were special, and then he fed that and fed that.

I read a great history of the 20th century that talked at length about how the Germans had no intention at all of fighting the English and French, whom they considered fellow civilized Europeans. However, they did NOT think that of the Slavs and other Eastern Europeans. These Hitler saw (and he either talked the German Volk into it or they already believed it and he simply fed it) as literally subhuman. As Jewish, you can identify with that attitude of his, I imagine. Along the way, they came up with the idea of "Lebensraum", or "living space"; the Germans needed Lebensraum, to spread out their Aryan bloodlines. The whole point here is that this was a group that saw itself as better, superior, to others.

Germany was being starved for room to grow (or at least they thought so), and all those open plains to the east - Poland, Belarus and especially the Ukraine - beckoned to them mightily. The whole purpose of invading Poland was to get to the Ukraine. Hitler's plan was to seize the lands to the east and exterminate the people who lived there, leaving it available for the German Volk to live in and to feed their nation. This was in the 1930s. They had already, at that time, come up with a plan to exterminate people they saw themselves as superior to.

The fact that all that ended up with World War II ties into what the current antagonisms may lead to.

Aside: It didn't go the way Hitler figured it would: He completely thought that he would have to fight the Soviet Russians, and pretty damned soon, as soon as he crossed over Poland. But when the English and French declared war on Germany - catching him completely by surprise. He had thought they were too big of wimps. He also didn't think that they would put themselves on the line for those inferior Slavs. Hitler adjusted to the declarations of war by the Brits and French by agreeing to a Non-Aggression Pact, so that he wouldn't have to fight a 2-front war. But after France was taken in about a month, and the collapse of the Brits that ended in the evacuation at Dunkirk, Hitler thought the western front was at least neutralized, so in the summer of 1941, he returned to the east and invaded Russia. Had it not been for the weather, he might have won that war, too.

All - ALL - of the hatreds that you talk of are connectable to one thing: A group who thinks of itself as special. The Muslims with their, "Their is no God but Allah, and his one prophet was Mohammad" are one. The Jewish people, with their belief in themselves as "The Chosen People". Sunnis with their belief that Mohammad's leadership passed to his next in line. The Shiites, with their belief that Mohammad's leadership passed to his son. (I might have those reversed.) The Americans, with their continuing belief in a Manifest Destiny, the later version of which includes the hegemony of the world. The Christians, with their beliefs that Jesus was the one and only son of God, and that his followers are special and on the brink of ascending to Heaven to be at the right hand of God in the Rapture, and that the simple existence of Israel as a nation is proof that this time period is the time for that ascending. GOoPers, with their resurrection (actually it never died in the first place) of the idea of the divine right of kings, wrapped in the disguise of "free markets", which is their mechanism for the economically powerful to devour those who are not (the followers get their thrills in this vicariously, as do fans of sports teams). The Liberals, with their belief that their logic is the only valid logic extant, and which they belabor ad infinitum, thinking that any sane person could not possibly think different (if you don't think so, tell one that global warming or ozone depletion are not actually proven science). Historical Americans, with their belief that the indigenous Americans were inferior savages, easily believed that it was their right to steal 3,000,000 square miles of real estate, and used their military to affect that thievery and their legislature to bless it as just.

Aside: Hitler (or tried, anyway) did nothing the Americans themselves didn't do a century before. Before WWII was over, Hitler's forces killed at least 8,000,000 soldiers in the East and 7,000,000 civilians, so he did manage to go a long way toward his goal. (By comparison, the U.S. total dead in the war - including the Pacific - was only 295,000.)

What do these groups all have in common? Each one sees itself and its fellow followers, as superior. That entitles them to something, they believe. For some, it is the extermination of those who don't agree with them. Thus, you get jihads, crusades, Karl Roves, Richard Nixons, Hitlers, "Trails of Tears", Manifest Destinies, pogroms, slavery, and military conflicts. It is no accident of history that in nearly all of the U.S. wars in the 20th century, and up to now, one strategy of our government was to demonize the opponent: The Kaiser, Hitler, Hirohito, Mussolini, Stalin, Khruschev, Vietnamese "gooks", Mao, David Ortega, Muammar Qadafi, Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Slobodan Milosevic, Muslims in general, Kim Jong-Il . . . Were/are ALL these people or peoples actually as evil as our government has declared them to be? To my mind, it is far more likely that we have propaganda at work.

Belief in the superiority of one's viewpoint and entitlement is - IMHO - the root of all these conflicts and increasingly belligerent positions. In every one of these antagonisms, at least one side thinks it is entitled to something. I actually think it is both in all of them but I could be mistaken. America thinks it is entitled to run the world. It is convinced that it is the savior of the world. What a load of crap! The Jewish people took the land that they claim is theirs, but which had been in the possession of what we call the Palestinians since the Romans tossed the Jews out in 73 AD (the ones they didn't exterminate on the spot). Had the Jews of the time been patient, and waited for the Roman Empire to fall, they - like the rest of the Mediterranean and Europe - would have simply inherited the land. When they decided to revolt, the Romans kicked their butts. (I remember an account that when the Romans came into a district during the Jewish Wars, they killed every man, woman, child, dog, cat, donkey and cow they laid eyes on.)

Having two people claim the same land as their own is ALWAYS going to produce conflict. (And yet, I believe it can be settled!) Obviously, both of these groups thinks it is entitled to that land. So, it will go - in any given period - to the one with the biggest dick (back in 73 AD, the Romans; at present the Israelis; in the future, who knows?). But that means the other side will have an axe to grind.

Just 6 years ago, many of these antagonisms were in a calm period. All of these were being managed somewhat capably, and had been for at least a decade - some of the antagonisms for two or three decades or more.

Differences do NOT have to end in antagonisms. Reasonable and competent people can manage differences among themselves. However, in order to do so, they have to be in position to affect events. If the positions from which to affect events are denied them or are placed in the hands of unreasonable people (Hitler and Cheney come to mind) or incompetent people (Bush comes to mind), then I believe that chaos will begin to take hold and will grow as long as the situation holds that way.

Incompetence stands alone, but unreasonableness is a quality that is tied to belief systems. Those who consider themselves superior can (and IMO do) believe that they don't need to be reasonable to those they consider their inferiors. In this is what I above called the root of all these antagonisms. One is reasonable only with others one acknowledges to have more or less equal standing; inferiors are treated differently, with disdain. Look through the list of antagonists you mention, and all of them have one or both parties disdaining the opponents. Until that disdain is eliminated, no reasonableness can ensue.

In today's world, the one position that is most able to affect events, is the Presidency of the US. It could be argued that what has changed in the meantime is that the most powerful position in the world has been inhabited by an incompetent. I suggest that the following formulas are prevailing:

Political unreasonableness = political chaos
Political incompetency = political chaos
Political disdain = political chaos

I think there is no doubt that if the US Presidency was held by a reasonable and/or competent person, all if the chaos will subside, possibly even some of them will disappear. If competency came to the fore, where it could affect events, a whole panoply of possibilities becomes available; until that time, no progress can be made. If reasonableness was allowed a foothold in any of these antagonisms, the effect would be seen as miraculous. Where the world stresses reasonableness, conflict disappears. It is not a miracle; it is people respecting each other.

No reasonableness is possible as long as incompetency holds the floor. Incompetency does not have the capacity to affect events, except incoherently, and incoherence equals chaos.

We have chaos now, and we will continue to have chaos until competency steps to then fore. (That, IMO, was what Kerry's candidacy offered, but we will now never know for sure. Kerry was a very reasonable man, but his lack of courage blew his chances to bring competency and reasonableness to the world stage.)

. . . . TD

The Absolute Worst Argument for Staying the Course

Is "staying the course" even close to sanity? . . .

From the Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman and Anushka Asthana, on July 20th, there is this article:

GOP Lawmakers Edge Away From Optimism on Iraq

Faced with almost daily reports of sectarian carnage in Iraq, congressional Republicans are shifting their message on the war from speaking optimistically of progress to acknowledging the difficulty of the mission and pointing up mistakes in planning and execution.

Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.) is using his House Government Reform subcommittee on national security to vent criticism of the White House's war strategy and new estimates of the monetary cost of the war. Rep. Gil Gutknecht (Minn.), once a strong supporter of the war, returned from Iraq this week declaring that conditions in Baghdad were far worse "than we'd been led to believe" and urging that troop withdrawals begin immediately.

And freshman Sen. John Thune (S.D.) told reporters at the National Press Club that if he were running for reelection this year, "you obviously don't embrace the president and his agenda."

"The first thing I'd do is acknowledge that there have been mistakes made," Thune said.

Rank-and file Republicans who once adamantly backed the administration on the war are moving to a two-stage new message, according to some lawmakers. First, Republicans are making it clear to constituents they do not agree with every decision the president has made on Iraq. Then they boil the argument down to two choices: staying and fighting or conceding defeat to a vicious enemy.

The shift is subtle, but Republican lawmakers acknowledge that it is no longer tenable to say the news media are ignoring the good news in Iraq and painting an unfair picture of the war. In the first half of this year, 4,338 Iraqi civilians died violent deaths, according to a new report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq. Last month alone, 3,149 civilians were killed -- an average of more than 100 a day.

I honestly can't remember or find the blog (probably on Dailykos or Rawstory or HuffingtonPost), who took those figures and ratioed them up to what the percentages would be in the U.S., then reflected on what would be the reaction in the U.S. if that were the case.

Check out this math: The U.S. has 300 million people, Iraq 25 million (a ratio of 12 to 1), so the numbers here would be over 1,200 a DAY in the U.S. - over 438,000 over the same period. What in the world would we do with numbers like that??!! How crazy would people be about numbers like that? Well, that is what we have brought upon Iraq.

If we had all known before taking out Saddam that it would turn into this, how many people would have supported it? How many Congressmen would have voted for this? And if they wouldn't have voted for it, why do they continue to drag their feet about getting our boys the hell out of there?

If we had an occupier being the cause of the deaths of that percentage of our people, what would we call the occupier? Stalin? Hitler? Genghis Khan? Pol Pot? Vlad the Impaler? Genocidal maniacs?

The Nazis rained terror on Europe from at least 1939 to 1945 - some would put the beginning in 1937. Using the more conservative value - 6 years - that 438,000 in Iraq would be 2,628,000 dead in 6 years, if it was the U.S. and Hitler was running things here. So, the next time you hear someone go ballistic about comparisons of the Bush regime to Hitler, there isn't much difference at all.

While the U.S. is not doing most of that killing, much of it is certainly being done because the U.S. is there. And every day we stay there, something between 25 and 100 Iraqis die. And the numbers are getting worse.

Is the occupier responsible for what goes on under their watch? If we had 400,000 deaths in a year in the U.S., or 2.6 million over 6 years, would we, the people of the U.S., assign any responsibility to our occupiers for those kinds of numbers?

Well, just think about it. Had the collaborating French government had numbers similar to those in WWII, would the Nazis have been held to a large part responsible for it?

It is not unserious speculation that we would have had Nuremburg-like courts in France, had that been the case.

...A good portion of the article goes on to discuss the merits of staying and the merits of pulling out. At least some sanity has been creeping into the thinking of some on the right, although certainly none of the sanity has as of yet resulted in any actual Congressional action (and won't for a long time to come):

The evolving Republican message on the war contrasts with the strong rhetoric used by House and Senate Republicans recently in opposing a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. During a debate last month, Gutknecht intoned, "Members, now is not the time to go wobbly." This week, he conceded "I guess I didn't understand the situation," saying that a partial troop withdrawal now would "send a clear message to the Iraqis that the next step is up to you."

He came to that conclusion after only ONE month? Well, those quotes above might allow for him to have actually thinking himself about going "wobbly".

"If we don't take the training wheels off, we will be in the same place in six months that we're in today," he said.

Republicans and some conservative Democrats who have backed the president's call to stay the course are finding it increasingly difficult to square their generally optimistic rhetoric with the grim situation on the ground in Baghdad and other cities.

"This escalating trend . . . represents the greatest danger to Iraq as it threatens to erode the government's authority," Ashraf Qazi, the U.N. envoy to Baghdad, said in a statement. "The emerging phenomenon of Iraqis killing Iraqis on a daily basis is nothing less than a catastrophe."

But it is the nature of the violence that may be forcing Republicans and some Democrats to temper their public assertions about the war -- even as they insist that the administration cannot pull out without precipitating an even worse situation. Masked attackers wielding heavy machine guns have killed Shiite mothers and children in a market and hauled Sunnis off buses to be slaughtered in broad daylight. A suicide car bomber killed 53 Tuesday in Baghdad after he beckoned a crowd of day laborers to his explosives-laden minivan.

The same was exactly true in Viet Nam in the early 1970s, that "if we pull out, there will be chaos and mass killings." Well, there are two responses to that POV:

1. Could it get much worse than it already is?
2. If we stay, this goes on and on and on.

That last one is - to me - the bottom line: As long as we stay, it will go on and on and on.

Ergo, does anything but leaving Iraq make any sense?

YES, there will be chaos for a while. There is chaos NOW. In Viet Nam, the chaos went on for a relatively brief period, as the Communists took control rather quickly. Collaborators were identified, rounded up, and many of them were killed, while many were sent to re-education centers.

It is my humble opinion that the Iraqi collaborators with the U.S., like their brothers in arms 30 years ago, will lose to the "enemy". Many will be shot. Many will be re-educated, in one form or another. Many will leave before being caught.

But the carnage will begin to end.

"Staying the course" by the U.S. will accomplish nothing - except to get many tens of thousands more Iraqis killed than if we leave.

It reminds one of the saying, "Better off dead than Red".

Oh? Is it really?

If 400,000 Americans were being killed per year under an occupier, I wonder how many Americans would agree with an occupier whose pundits wrote, back in their home country, "Better off dead than under a democracy"?

I cannot think that there is even one piece of historical fact that staying under the current circumstances would DIMINISH the number of dead.

Staying the course is only a way of TRYING to save face.

The only question right now is this:

How long do we follow such logic before we realize it does NOT save face?

Those in the Congress who talk such talk (I won't call it blather, though I was tempted) can be forgiven their innocence.

In the Bush regime, however, they mouth that blather, not because they believe it, but because they still believe that the U.S. oil companies can control Iraqi oil. So, their agenda drives their bleatings. They cannot face up to the fact that it is a lost cause. Only time and reality can ever wake them up to that. And each day goes by is another 10,000 votes against the GOP in 2006 and 2008. So, the clock is ticking on their hopes of salvaging something from Iraq.

And in the meantime, 100 Iraqis a day DIE. And there is no indication that it will change for the better in the future. As Gutknecht said, "If we don't take the training wheels off, we will be in the same place in six months that we're in today."

And six months after that. . . . and six months after that. . . .

Appeasement - When and how does the world stand up to the U.S.?

Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.


In his latest article in the New Yorker, Last Stand - the military's problem with the President's Iran policy, Sy Hersch writes:

"Rumsfeld and Cheney are the pushers on this - they don’t want to repeat the mistake of doing too little," the government consultant with ties to Pentagon civilians told me. "The lesson they took from Iraq is that there should have been more troops on the ground" - an impossibility in Iran, because of the overextension of American forces in Iraq - "so the air war in Iran will be one of overwhelming force."

Now, how much force is "overwhelming force"?

When does "overwhelming" become genocide?

When does another invasion of aggression become more than the world can stand for?

In the late 1930s, Hitler absorbed - at the point of a gun - Austria, in the Anschluss, which was a declaration that the Germans and the Austrians were "one people", but to the world outside Berlin it was a gobbling up of one country by another in building an empire. The world was not happy, but it tucked its tail between its legs and went whimpering home. Hitler's generals and advisors almost all thought that the British and French would step in and punish Germany. Hitler was proven right, as the "Allies" sat on their hands.

After World War I's devastation, the War to End All Wars begat a peace movement the likes of which the world had never seen. Disarmament was all the rage. The western powers mistakenly believed that they had all the military that could cause any harm, and that if they melted down all their weapons the world would never see war again - at least on a large scale. Germany at the end of The War had been proscribed from raising more than a token army, so Germany was a non-entity in their thinking. Germany, to them, had no army; it had already been disarmed at the end of 1918.

Then on October, 1938, Herr Hitler reached out and touched another neighbor as he sent troops and tanks to swallow the Sudetenland whole. (It just may have mattered that the Sudetenland was the location of very sizable deposits of uranium, by the way...) What was the world's reaction that time? Appeasement. Neville Chamberlain is still seen as a coward of Biblical proportions for not standing up to Der Führer. Chamberlain had no choice, though, as the armies of the west were hollow shells (and not the artillery kind). There really was nothing they could do about it. Hitler once again trumped the west and his advisors, as he correctly surmised that the pared-down armies did not have the manpower, arsenal or will to put their foot down and make him back off. Hitler was not bluffing, but the west was. He called their bluff and they had no cards to play; therefore Chamberlain folded.

How did Hitler have the cards while they didn't? Well, he had pulled an end run on them and had raised an army in secret, training them in the recently "acquired" lands to the east, where the western powers were little capable of keeping an eye on him. Just as Prohibition drove alcohol underground and drug laws drive drug production underground, the building of the German military was done underground.

Had they called him on either maneuver, Hitler might well have backed down, but we will never know. If Hitler had never been right about the spines of the west, his followers and the world would not have been taken for the worst ride of the 20th century.

Fast forward to September 1, 1939, on the German-Polish frontier - only 11 months later. Hitler once again sees neghboring territiry that he wants for "die Volk" and in which to spread the German "Kultur". He had decided that they needed "Lebensraum" (living space), and the fertile plains of Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine beckoned. All he had to do was invade, then get rid of the less than Arian Slavs, and all would be well with the world. By this time, Hitler had determined that he had the most potent (literally and figuratively) army (and certainly air force) in the eowlrd and that no one - as it stood at that time - could hope to stop him from doing as he bloody well pleased.

Adolf had figured that west would not intervene; they had no interest in what happened in the east. Or would they?

...

As Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney and their neo-Nazi/neocon advisors stand poised to invade Iran, the sane world may have to soon make a decision, to intervene. They, also, hope to spread their culture - democracy, they claim, but in reality oligarchy and Fascism - to the far corners of the world (at least those corners whose oil they want to not lose control of). They (our sons and daughters, actually) will go in (as this article has shown they plan to do) with all their guns a-blazing, with their latterday version of the Blitzkrieg, known as 'shock and awe', to overwhelm the natives (who they will immediately label "insurgents" and "terrorists"). They are convinced that they (we) have the most powerful military in history (even as we sit bogged down in Iraq, a country of 1/3 the area and populace and 1/10th the military capacity after 12 years of UN sanctions), and that no country can withstand our carpet bombing or our high-tech guided weapons. What a horrible, horrible disaster they are bringing upon the world. And they have no idea that they - like Michael Douglas' character in the movie "Falling Down" - that they are the bad guys.

Like Hitler, Bormann, Goering, Heydrich and the lot, they are convinced that they have found the coolest toy set on the planet since walking into the WHite House that day in January, 2001, and have been enamored of it ever since. With that toy set, and its million non-toy soldiers, they are sure no one in the world will say, "This far and no more." It freed their latent bully tendencies to run rampant over the world and sanity. If I had to label them, I would call them a pack of sociopaths, with the closest group in history to them would be none other than Adolf, Goering, Dr. Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and Heydrich. While most of us would be offended by such comparisons, something tells me they would revel in them.

...

If not when we invade Iraq, if not when we invade Iran, then when will anyone stand up to the criminals who claim to be our representatives before the world? We can yell and scream (and get our names on no-fly lists and in FBI folders), and they don't have to listen to us one whit.

A bully only knows the messages sent by knuckles smashing them in the eye socket or in their dental work. The rest of the world, combined, has the wherewithal to stop the U.S. The cost may be greater than the 50+ million ded of World War II. Europe, in particular knows how heavy a cost that is, and they are unwilling to step into that hell hole again. In the 1930s, no one in the west was willing to repeat WWI, and look at where that got them: their non-hard-headed reasonling only created a worse situation.

The question for now must be: Will they recognize the need early enough this time to stave off an even worse holocaust?

We know that they are almost to a man (sans Tony Blair) against the Bush doctrine of "Walk stupidly and carry a big Dick on your right hand". But will they ever have the will to put their collective foot down? It is doubtful. Leaders who have lived a lifetime without need of war/no war decisions are going to dodge those decision for as long as they possibly can. Ask Chamberlain about that. . .

If they do not, then the world may have many more dead than even WWII.

Let us hope not. Let us hope that someone, some military 'deciders' around the world can find a way to head the Bushies off at the pass. Ironically, it may fall to the Russians to man the majority of the army that saves us from an American President.

From the bulk of this Hersch article, it is clear that the U.S. military is trying to revolt (on OUR behalf, may I add) and trying to talk the Village Idiot and his evil twin out of becoming the first Adolf of the 21st century.

One of the unnamed four-star generals said to Hersch,

"The system is starting to sense the end of the road, and they don't want to be condemned by history. They want to be able to say, 'We stood up.' "

That general has my support, for what it is worth. . . God bless them if they can, indeed, stand up.

. . . . TD

Staying the Course, Rising Up, and Exiting

Writing for the Toledo Blade, Marilou Johanek, had this to say today in her article Bush's Way Out Is Staying the Bloody Course:

The President let it slip toward the end of his recent news conference. The moment was a stunning throwback to Vietnam. It happened when the commander in chief was blissfully deferring to everyone from Army generals to Iraqi parliamentarians about what would or could happen in Iraq and when.

A reporter asked the tap-dancing Texan if, without tying himself to a specific deadline, he could at least assure Americans that all U.S. troops will eventually be withdrawn from Iraq. He couldn't. The man who mired his nation in a war of his own choosing more than three years ago allowed that while bringing home all the "kids" he's put in harm's way is "an objective," he'd leave it to "future presidents and future governments of Iraq" to figure out how to do it...

A commenter at smirkingchimp.com, formen, responded to Ms Johanek, saying

""Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, and to institute new government.""
- The Declaration of Independence.
America is stuck with this Dominionist lackey until the people find the will to react!

My response to formen is to not forget the kicker in that paragraph in The Declaration of Independence:

"...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

I have always loved the "it is their duty" line, which took me aback when I first realized what it was saying. I heard it 40 years ago as a call to alertness and preparedness for action. As does formen, I believe Americans are on the verge of reacting in ways more than with their keyboards. But I wouldn't yet start to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

Alas, we are just a little bit too soft, too lamb-like, too unlikely to take to the streets in a general strike or its like. We haven't had it hard enough; we all think it will just go away on its own, or some activist types will do it for us . . . hahahahaha, revolution by stand-ins. . . .

It is not enough that this is our third George; the men in Philadelphia, of course, had their own mad George III. It is not enough that our mad king's "long line of abuses and usurpations" is as long as was that delusional fool on the throne in London do long ago. It is not enough that our bold experiment in democracy is going up in flames while the Neos fiddle. It is not enough that we have become nearly an entire nation of taxation without representation (how many people are actually aligned with anything that their "representatives" in Congress do or say "on their behalf"?). It is not enough that the vote of people has been replaced by the vote of the ka-ching! It is not enough that our King George's March Madness of three years ago continues into its fourth March to kill our sons and daughters for an undefined cause, for people who don't want them there, and which benefits no one in the world except defense contractors and the oilogarchs. It is not enough that this successor to a man impeached (but not convicted) for lying has been himself caught in hundreds of specific lying moments to Congress and fraud against the Congress and the United Nations Security Council. But for his enablers on both sides of the aisle, the man would have long since had his mug shot taken.

No matter what happens to an addictive formality, he cannot continue doing it unless he has enablers who repeatedly lie to themselves that confronting him with his problem would cause him even more problems, so they avoid it. Enablers are avoiders. Enablers are cowards.

Those who say it is the American people who are to blame that we are again looking for the light at the end of the tunnel are only a little bit right. We citizens have been lulled into thinking that because we voted (regardless of outcome), that there is someone who will champion our causes in the halls of importance; that it is too much too expect of us wee ones to fight our own fights.

But we are not the ones enabling the immature one, the addictive one, the string man.

Our champions are doing that, and they are doing it well: he has been fully enabled.

Mark my word.

But, like weak parents, it is not enough to enable him.

It will only be enough when we disable him.

The time is fast approaching when we will have to apply some tough love to the Resident-in-Chief of the United States.

* * * * * * * *

Bush's "way out" is to "go toward the light", the "light at the end of the tunnel" . . . another hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

It would be funny if our weapons of mass destruction (our military) weren't destroying so many humans, including many of our own.

Military action is terrorism. Any who don't believe that should go to Iraq and ask the people there if they do or don't feel terrorized by our soldiers and their weapons. Three years of it.

It has been true throughout history of all people occupied by a foreign army, and it is true today: There are three types of dealing with occupation: fight it, submit meekly, or collaborate. 95% of the people submit, because they are terrorized. 5% collaborate, often to their own eventual demise. And 5% fight it. The fighters are usually labeled "terrorists". Even Hitler called the French Resistance fighters "terrorists". Bush and Cheney are in good company there.

It is not even certain that they are aware that what they started is a war of occupation. It is certainly not a term they would use in public, is it? But what do you call it when you start a war without an exit strategy? Not exiting an invaded country is, by any definition I know, an occupation.

And what IS the exit strategy for an occupation?

Ms Johanek says,

What is most disturbing are the regular upticks in American casualties as Iraq continues to convulse into a full- blown civil war.

Iraq was in a state of civil war the moment we disbanded their military. The "insurgents" have been battling U.S. forces since then. "But," you say, "fighting the U.S. forces doesn't constitute a civil war!" When we broke their military, when we deposed their government, when we decided that we were running things there, we the U.S. became the governors of Iraq. "When you break it, you own, it, you fix it". The pretend government in Baghdad is only a puppet regime in place because the U.S. is propping it up.

We stay there (as we thought in Viet Nam) for one reason and one reason only: We are certain that when we leave, all hell is going to break loose. We stay there "to keep a bloodbath from happening". Well, that is the ONE Viet Nam era redux that has not yet hit the main stream media. In Viet Nam we said the same thing, and it turned out to be true. Will it happen in Iraq, too? Of course it will.

As in Viet Nam, our choice is only to extend the time period (of war) before the bloodbath begins. Had we left Viet Nam 5 years earlier, many fewer lives would have been lost - and the bloodbath would have happened then, rather than when it did. Had we stayed another 5 years, the bloodbath would have happened 5 years later, with even MORE needless casualties.

It is our choice how many will die before the bloodbath.

It is the Iraqis' choice how many will die IN the bloodbath.

Postponement is cowardice and irrational - but it (the postponement) will happen, anyway.

Let us be completely clear:

The hand wringing is not about exiting. The hand wringing is about the bloodbath to come. And no one wants that on their heads. LBJ didn't want it, and Nixon didn't want it. Gerry Ford (Les King) didn't have a real say in the matter, but then, he exited Viet Nam before anyone could accuse him of owning it. So he didn't have to pretend he needed to fix it.

And that was the best thing he could have done for the Vietnamese people.

They still had their bloodbath. And their purges. And their re-education programs. All in the direction of that evil way of life, Communism. That was our reason for being there.

And now? Viet Nam has one of the most thriving economies on the planet.

Iraq does not stand a chance until we leave and give them a chance to purge and let blood and re-educate themselves in whatever direction they select (even if it is Communism!). They will go through hell, but it will be their hell.

Right now, they are stuck in our hell. And so are we.

. . . . TD

The Left is Bush's Greatest Enabler

This is currently up at Smirkingchimp.com:

Bill Gallagher: 'Bush's house of cards collapsing'

Every point he makes is correct.

For every point, it is conceivable that in normal times the President or his VP or a member of his staff would be strung up by the testicles or ovaries.

Why is that not happening?

There is so much happening - as Gallagher points out for this week especially - that no one who wants to "get to the bottom of it" or who wants to make Bush or his people answer for their screws-ups and illegalities (crimes to you and me) can get a purchase on it for long enough.

From 9/11 on, Bush has been responsible for the deaths of thousands Americans, through and including Iraq and Katrina. Yet, he skates on every issue.

Is it because he has spin doctors who massage the press and our perceptions? Partly.

The litany of screw ups us so egregious and populated with things that would have hamstrung Bill Clinton or Nixon or ANYBODY.

Does he get away with it because his daddy was Bush 41? Only partly.

The real reason IMHO is that the left/Democrats/Progressives are so enamoured of hearing their own selves screech.

I AM ONE OF THEM MYSELF.

Through the rage of another of us, I recently really, really, really realized that all this yammer is STUPID. It DOES NOTHING - except make us feel superior. Well, whoop-de-freaking-doo...

BushCo is getting away with murder (and torture and incompetents and criminal behavior) because we are continually losing focus.

When the Downing Street Memo came out, everyone was all over it - until Cindy Sheehan did her thing.

When Katrina hit, we were all over it - until Judy Miller got her out of jail free card from Patrick Fitzgerald.

When we were all over Scooter Libby (wishing it was Karl Rove), we got distracted again.

We were all over Bush about the NSA eavesdropping until Dick Cheney shot a 78-year-old Republican lawyer, which in most times would maybe be not so bad - but here we go again. Everyone has lost focus on the NSA case.

In 5 or 10 days, when another FUBAR comes along, we will lose our focus - again - and forget about the previous prosecutable criminalities of these gangsters.

When put all together - as if they ever WILL BE - BushCo members should be in jail for the next several generations.

But will that ever happen?

Gawd, is that debatable. But if we don't sledgehammer them in the next several months, our window of opportunity will be lost.

When the elections come in November, and the Diebolds and ES&Ses of the world steal our votes by turning them into GOP votes electronically, our world AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT will be gone. If we don't have a 25% lead in the polls when they steal the election, they will claim that the pollsters were simply leaning too far toward the Democratic candidates. We need THAT BIG of a polling lead to convince everyone that we have been "Ukrainized" if we lose again. IMHO, there is no polling lead too big to prevent them from TRYING to steal the election for the 4th time since 2000. They HAVE to do it again - because once they have lost and no longer can control the counting of the votes, their jig is up, and heads will roll - and they will do everything in their power to prevent that. THEY HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE NOW.

Our only hope - now and for long into the future - is in the courts. How successfully BushCo has seeded their kind in the courts is yet to be seen. The Abramoff, NSA and Plame cases are our only hope, but only if the prosecutors, judges and juries believe their patriotic duty to uphold the Constitution is greater than their allegiance to BushCo. Only if they can be put in the slammer and totally disgraced can their ways be discredited enough for most of us to wake up and get the hell out of this long national nightmare.

The Dems and Progressives (especially the bloggers), whether they know it or not - are part of the problem. "WHAT?!!!???" you may ask.

The blogs are so giddy EVERY TIME another BushCo screw up comes along. But by encouraging people to vent their spleens anwe very few days in cyberspace, the venting dissipates into useless drivel, and everyone goes unpunished. People sitting at their PCs in their dens or libraries or basements have little to no power to effect change at all.

And when they jump from one issue to another - without resolving the previous ones - they give BushCo a pass.

They (we) have all given the Village Idiot Naked Emperor scores of passes.

I say without any hesitation at this point in the game:

The left is possibly a bigger enabler for Bush than even the Red Staters.

How do we change from enablers to jailers?

We simply must have SOME people stay focused on each of the past issues, even while new ones show up.

The old saying goes, "When everybody is responsible for something, nobody is". In the same vein, when we ALL feel we have to jump on the newest FUBAR, no one is responsible for making BushCo accountable for past OR present issues.

There are plenty enough of us to parcel each one to, say, 30 bloggers to obliterate Bush on ONE issue, and 30 on each of the other issues.

Somehow we have to delegate to those groups of 30 (or whatever) their "assignments", or ask for volunteers. And they need the support of the rest of the Progressive people, who need to visit their blogs (and point them in fruitful directions, possibly) without distracting each group from its single issue.

By having everyone hammering their little tiny bit about every little or large FUBAR or criminality, we accomplish nothing. Yes, we have a right to get upset, but we also have to wake up the the reality, which is that we are completely ineffective.
Oh, Kos and Atrios and Adrianna will argue that point, but WHAT HAS BEEN DONE? BUSH IS STILL THERE. OUR RIGHTS ARE STILL BEING DEPLETED. OUR COUTRY IS STILL BEING HIJACKED.

Mountains may be moved by the thimbleful, but when there is a fleet of dump trucks on the far side of the mountainside building it up even more, our thimbles are fighting a losing cause. We need to focus and organize and put great amounts of pressure, FOCUSED PRESSURE, not the wisps we are currently doing.

The right has their think tanks, and that is the source of their ability to apply high pressure at a moment's notice.

We on the left have NOTHING comparable.

Our frittering ways have to end - or we are ended.

Our frittering ways have enabled the Right and their Bert and Ernie Muppet Emperor for too long. And we are just spinning our wheels and letting America blow away before our very eyes.

. . . . TD

So Stupid It Shows

Again, Not Too Bright
The Bush team should have know Hamas would win -
Now it should quit the name-calling
by Eric Margolis
Toronto Sun
Feb 5, 2006

After Hamas' stunning victory last week in Palestinian elections, a flustered U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, tried to explain the Bush administration's latest Mideast fiasco.

"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," she offered plaintively.

Dear Miss Condi, many of us saw Hamas' victory coming. You didn't because you failed to face facts.

Your boss, George W. Bush, made similar lame excuses trying to explain his embarrassing failure to find WMD in Iraq by claiming all western intelligence services believed Iraq had them -- which was untrue.

For a nation that spends $40 billion annually on intelligence to be so wrong about so much is utterly inexcusable. Condi, go stand in the corner with Colin Powell.

Hamas won because of Washington's total failure to push Israel into any meaningful concessions under its dead-ended "Road Map to Peace," fatally undermining Bush's favourite, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party.

Palestinians were fed up with corrupt Fatah leadership which appeared too cozy with the U.S. and Israel. The more Washington bribed or arm-twisted Fatah leaders to comply with its wishes, the more Palestinians backed hardline Hamas. The feuding ninnies and crooks running Fatah stood in sharp contrast to Hamas' disciplined, efficient, uncorrupt cadres.

When it became clear Israel's leadership would continue PM Ariel Sharon's plans to colonize the West Bank and confine Arabs in three isolated tribal reservations, Palestinians voted for Hamas.

Why didn't Rice see this obvious fact? Because, like the rest of the administration and U.S. media, her view of the Mideast is warped by ignorance, inexperience, and intense pressure from neoconservatives and religious groups pressing for a crusade against the Muslim world.

Misinformed

America's shocked reaction to Hamas' win shows how misinformed and misled it is about the Mideast....

See the link for the full article.

This was so incredibly obvious and sane, I had to write a response - hoping also that I could effectively point out to the Canadians that we USians are not all "fuddled".

I would actually be VERY interested to hear Mr. Margolis' take on 9/11 itself, after reading his take on the Palestinians and the Israelis, and how the US fits into that equation.


My letter to the Editor re Margolis' article :

Thank you, Mr. Margolis, for a sane perspective on the Hamas election victory in Palestine. I first would wish you to know that millions of us south of the US-Canadian border are not "fuddled", though I do not say that with rancor. Though seemingly without power after our neocon coup, we are regrouping and have some real, solid hopes for our future. It is an uphill fight, but then so was the effort of the late 18th century, when we were attempting to free ourselves from the other King George III.

Just as the Palestinians are attempting to throw off the oppression of Israel, who (despite their massive arms advantage over the Palestinians) could not exist without their sugar daddy across the ocean, we are attempting to throw off our one-party domination. Some day - maybe in my lifetime - the U.S. will stop assisting in the murders of Palestinian civilians, and then the Israelis will have to learn to get along with their Muslim and Arab neighbors.

It will not happen with the kinds of governmments and strategies we have had here since before I was born in 1949. Only realization of the kinds of things that you point out in your article can ever, ever bring peace to the Middle East. Please keep on being rational and sane. We millions down here will attempt to build from this end. Perhaps in time there will actually be a sane and peaceful world. Peace is not possible without sanity, I don't think. That is the reason the U.S. has been at war almost my whole life. Be glad you do not live in such a place, and do send positive thoughts our way.

Living in "God's gift to the world" carries a heavy burden; the current manifestation of it is the defective in our White House at the moment. We ask the world's forgiveness for putting it through this. We have been getting a real feeling for what it was like living with Hitler in 19030s Germany: The insane rantings of a depraved leader are both frightening and embarrassing. It would be nice to live in just a regular country for a while.

. . . . TD