BBC Conspiracy Files: 9/11 and Princess Diana
by Steve Wallis
9 July 2008 (with slight edits on 24 July to video links and correcting a mistake made by the BBC of describing Barry Jennings as a reporter)
I completed writing and started distributing the following message on the internet on the Wednesday after the programme. The issue of whether there was (and still is) a conspiracy about 9/11 is particularly important, because 9/11 is used as a justification for the war on terror, and the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I had already taken up the issue with my "9/11 Inside Job" song (downloadable from the Red Day website).
Sunday's BBC TV programme, in the "Conspiracy Files" series, about the third tower in New York that collapsed on 9/11, several hours after the other two towers, can be viewed at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4576154575407650292. Some short trailers/excerpts are available at YouTube (search for "Conspiracy Files" or go to http://youtube.com/watch?v=BP_GyIV76-Q).
The programme provided a lot of strong evidence for a conspiracy:
The third tower collapsed without a plane hitting it, supposedly due to fire. On no other occasion in history has a building with steel support collapsed due to fire (unless you count the twin towers that collapsed earlier that day with the planes hitting them starting fires before they collapsed).
The tower collapsed virtually at freefall speed, like the other two towers, in seconds, like a controlled demolition.
The collapse was so symmetrical that the steel supports on different sides of the building had to give way at precisely the same time. It was very similar but much more symmetrical than examples of controlled demolition shown in the programme, indicating that something more advanced than conventional explosives was used.
It appears that the steel melted to cause the collapse (red hot metal was spotted in the wreckage hours after the collapse), and it was suggested that an advanced explosive material called "thermite" (or "nanothermite") was used. A thermite explosion was demonstrated in a lab.
The building contained offices for the CIA and other secret services and government departments, and was probably where the conspiracy was hatched so the collapse was to destroy evidence.
A fire alarm test was taking place all day (incredible in any building let alone one with such important offices in it).
Barry Jennings, who worked in the third tower, ignored the fire alarm and investigated the tower after it had been evacuated. He said he went into an emergency response centre that was empty but had still hot coffee, heard explosions within the building and stepped over bodies (despite the official story that there was no loss of life in that building).
It was reported on TV news programmes (including the BBC by Jane Standley, a journalist in New York) that the tower had collapsed or was collapsing, before it actually did so. Some people have criticised Jane for being part of the conspiracy but it seems that she was just fed that not yet up-to-date information.
The live satellite link from the BBC in the UK to Jane Standley broke down with the picture becoming pixilated (like with digital TV when there is a bad signal) during the interview. The official explanation was that a satellite subscription had expired and an automatic timer kicked in - but I've never heard of that happening on any other occasion and for it to happen then hardly seems to be a coincidence!
BBC tapes of news on 9/11 were lost, and eventually found on the 2002 shelf (rather than 2001). The programme said this showed it was "a cock-up rather than a conspiracy", but it certainly could be part of a massive conspiracy!
If you take one particular item from the above list, it may be possible to concoct a fairly plausible story, and the programme did give some official (but not particularly plausible) explanations, but them all happening on the same day: a coincidence? Hardly!
The previous programme in the series about 9/11 (aired on February 2007, which is viewable at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=6680224505086911340) was heavily criticised for being biased against the conspiracy theorists. However, there was some very convincing evidence of a conspiracy towards the start of that programme, with the second half concentrating on views of the establishment (which viewers tended to forget due to receiving a lot of complex information and a limited amount of short term memory). I think the first fifteen minutes included the following:
There were a few separate and clearly viewable explosions in (at least) one of the twin towers below the point at which it was collapsing. This certainly confirms the controlled demolition theory.
The US secret services had been planning for the possibility of a plane being hijacked and flown into a tower before 9/11 (which establishment figures including George W Bush lied about).
Interceptor planes, that could have shot the hijacked aircraft down, were (deliberately in my opinion) sent the wrong way.
Somebody on my "assassination-of-princess-diana" discussion group (at Yahoo!) asked where I got my information on 9/11 from. I initially got evidence from links provided by Mark Rabinowitz's website
http://www.oilempire.us. I then got information from the first BBC documentary, after which I wrote my "9/11 Inside Job" song. I have also got information from "Loose Change" videos at YouTube, last Friday's BBC ten o'clock news and of course the second BBC documentary.When I checked Rabinowitz's website more recently I noticed that it tended to promote some of the less convincing conspiracy ideas, and I have just checked it again which appears to confirm my suspicion that Rabinowitz is an agent of the establishment. He rubbishes "Loose Change", saying that it contains a lot of false conspiracy theories (which any film made by a group of people is bound to do so), suggesting that the CIA were responsible for those videos. Whereas CIA/FBI involvement in some of the conspiracy ideas would be expected, to try to discredit the whole project, writer/director Dylan Avery came across in the BBC programmes as extremely genuine.
If you search for "Loose Change" at YouTube, with quotes around it to ensure consecutive words, you get an estimate of 2500 videos! Some are obviously better than others; I was disappointed with a video of the first part when I watched it in the spring of 2007, but the second part seemed to contain evidence of the explosions (judging by the commentary but I was doing other things on the computer at the time so I couldn't be certain). I therefore checked out part 2 of the "Final Cut" before sending my message on Sunday urging people to watch the BBC programme that evening. The evidence of explosions towards the start of that video wasn't as convincing as the BBC coverage (but there was smoke coming from the bottom of the tower and several eye-witnesses said they heard the sound of explosions/bombs.
There is censorship at YouTube. Somebody once pointed out that searches fail to find videos on some occasions than they find at others. Also, the video listed first when you now search for "Loose Change" (with over 1.4 million views) stopped both times I tried to play it on my laptop a small amount in and caused the Internet Explorer window on a computer in an internet cafe on which I played it to close prematurely (at about or exactly the same point). It therefore makes sense for those "Loose Change" video-makers who have predominantly good intentions to help produce some less convincing videos as well as the better ones, in order to ensure that the truth gets out to a wide audience.
Rabinowitz fails to actually say what conspiracy theories he actually agrees with, apart from giving an unremarkable connection to oil (and "peak oil" in particular which he appears to have an obsession with). He has a page on videos, but plugs ones you need to buy rather than watch on the internet for free. Personally, I trust "Loose Change" and the BBC far more than Rabinowitz.
I am also inclined to distrust Rabinowitz because he reported me to my email provider (Yahoo!) after I sent him the lyrics of my "9/11 Inside Job" song (after recording it as a musical poem and much more recently recorded with my band Red Day) thanking him for his help in inspiring me to write it! He had previously threatened to report me for sending him "spam", and a CAPTCHA appeared when I next logged in to my email account to check that I am not a computer program.
Rabinowitz did usefully point me towards a report in 2000 by the Project for a New American Century (which includes vice-president Dick Cheney among its members and then defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was a founder member) saying that "some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor" would be needed as a pretext for their plans for "United States global hegemony".
Rabinowitz's website also informed me about the Skull and Bones Society (sometimes known as the Order of the Skull and Bones) - a very secretive organisation based at Yale University including George W Bush (and two past presidents including Bush's father) and John Kerry as members! The society's Wikipedia page confirms that information. Rabinowitz argued that the 2004 presidential election was between two different wings of the Skull and Bones Society and therefore it didn't matter who won. I emailed him arguing that this shows that that conspiratorial organisation was in fact infiltrated by left-wing conspirators and that Kerry was actually playing a good role. Kerry pledged in a live TV debate with Bush to tax the rich (reversing 85 or 90 billion dollars of tax cuts Bush had granted to people earning over $200,000 a year) and close all tax loopholes. Bush fraudulently won that election, as pointed out on my "us-electoral-fraud" group (at Yahoo!).
The trick of putting establishment propaganda towards the end of the programme was also used in the episode in the "Conspiracy Files" series on the death of Princess Diana, which I still believe was an assassination despite the result of the inquest. The inquest was highly flawed in only allowing conspiracy theories of Mohammed al-Fayed (obviously because his son Dodi died in Paris) to be presented, and much more convincing theories by investigators like David Cohen (author of the brilliant book "Diana: Death of a Goddess") were not heard. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/assassination-of-princess-diana/message/67 to read my views on Diana's assassination.
There are some factors common to 9/11 and Diana conspiracies in there being a large number of people involved and a lot of complex planning by conspiratorial organisations, which I believe is partly done in people's minds and partly by computer programs. In any political organisation (conspiratorial or open), members decide (democratically or otherwise) on particular aims, and strategies and tactics in order to try to achieve those aims. Members of the organisation tend to be loyal to it and back up other members whether they have genuine or ulterior motives, because to do otherwise would lead them to be ostracised. Those who are tempted to leave such an organisation to become a whistle-blower may be threatened (as Barry Jennings was despite not being a conspirator) and indeed (with so much at stake) bumped off.
I have actually implemented (and was the main designer of) an artificial intelligence/simulation language called SDML (standing for Strictly Declarative Modelling Language) on which complex modelling of the world, analysing past events, predicting the future and deciding what to do to achieve your desired outcomes, is possible. I am currently working on improvements to it to speed up database accessing, and will put a new version of it (as open source Smalltalk code) soon at http://www.sdml.org.uk. Such software could be used for very bad purposes if used by certain organisations so I'll be careful about publicising it - I've deliberately mentioned it at the end of this very political message in order to reach the more socialist and libertarian-inclined people who are likely to read it.