September 11 seven years later and what we said at the time

Comment

Comment by Kaisa Aglen on September 10, 2008 at 5:12pm

You are right, we should address the policies in the wake of 9/11. And reading some of the articles you posted links to, for instance the " Constructive thoughts .." articles reminds me of your topic for the previous blog post: So much peace knowledge, so little implementation.
But i also want to question one of your questions:
What if 9/11 was a fabrication, you ask. If it turns out that you have good reasons for asking this, it is worth trying to answer. I made a quick check-up on your resources and ended up leaving your question. Griffin seems to be an important part of your argumentation, so I started there. One of Griffins strong claims is that the cell phone calls made by passengers on the involved planes were not possible. The argumentation is not very precise, but it is supported by a scientist, A.K. Dewdney. Dewdney turns out to by not an expert on cell phones, but a professor of computer science. His argumentation, though, is not from research, and is not related to his scientific expertise in any way. It is relying on statements from AT&T spokesperson Alexa Graf, an unnamed colleague of Dewdney and an airline pilot. In other words it could have just as wall been written by a journalist. So I found a page where this was the case, and it turned out that Dwedney had quoted Graf imprecisely, and that Dwedney's version of Graf's statement was contradicted by another just as reliable source as Graf. At this point I decided to leave your question.

I have copied bits of my little "Internet-trip" if you want to follow it:

1: Jan Oberg quoting Griffin
"What if 9/11 was a fabrication?

Read this carefully by one who has written 7 books about 9/11:

"All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated. If that is determined indeed to be the case, the implications would be enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks would obviously be important. The most immediate consequence, however, should be to reverse those attitudes and policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11."

- Emeritus professor David Ray Griffin
Griffin has published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008).

The quotation is from a long analysis by Griffin in which he raises 16 essential questions about 9/11 2001:

How many questions, how much debunking, does it take to make the official 9/11 story come tumbling down like the World Trade Towers? - one must ask. "

2: David Griffin with reference to Dewdney
http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Was-America-Attacked-by-Mu-by-David-Ray-Griffin-080909-536.html:
"Given the technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few seconds, were not possible, and yet these calls, some of which reportedly lasted a minute or more, reportedly occurred when the planes were above 30,000 or even 40,000 feet. This problem was explained by some credible people, including scientist A.K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a column for Scientific American.33 "

3: Alexander Keewatin Dewdney (mis)quoting Alexa Graf
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/akd/akd.html
Alexander Keewatin (A.K.) Dewdney, a professor of computer science at the University of Western Ontario, a mathematician, environmental scientist .

4: http://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93

The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93
A. K. Dewdney

"Any analysis of the cellphone and “airfone” calls from Flight 93 must begin with some basic, high-altitude cellphone facts. According to AT&T spokesperson Alexa Graf, cellphones are not designed for calls from the high altitudes at which most airliners normally operate. It was, in her opinion, a “fluke” that so many calls reached their destinations. In the opinion of a colleague of mine who has worked in the cellphone industry, it was a “miracle” that any of the calls got through from altitude. (See the recent proposal to install equipment to make cellphone calls possible from aircraft.) An aircraft, having a metal skin and fuselage, acts like a Faraday cage, tending to block or attenuate electromagnetic radiation. One can make a cellphone call from inside an aircraft while on the ground because the weakened signal is still close enough to the nearest cellsite (relay tower) to get picked up. Once above 10,000 feet, however, calls rarely get through, if ever.
Here is the statement of an experienced airline pilot: “The idea of being able to use a cellphone while flying is completely impractical. Once through about 10,000 feet, the thing is useless, since you are too high and moving too fast (and thus changing cells too rapidly) for the phone to provide a signal.” (AVWeb, 1999)"



5. Alexa Graf and Brenda Raney
http://telephonyonline.com/wireless/mag/wireless_final_contact/:

"Alexa Graf, AT&T spokesperson, said systems are not designed for calls from high altitudes, suggesting it was almost a fluke that the calls reached their destinations.
“On land, we have antenna sectors that point in three directions — say north, southwest, and southeast,” she explained. “Those signals are radiating across the land, and those signals do go up, too, due to leakage.”
From high altitudes, the call quality is not very good, and most callers will experience drops. Although calls are not reliable, callers can pick up and hold calls for a little while below a certain altitude, she added.
Brenda Raney, Verizon Wireless spokesperson, said that RF signals actually can broadcast fairly high. On Sept. 11, the planes were flying low when people started using their phones. And, each call lasted 60 seconds or less.
“They also were digital phones, and there's a little bit more leeway on those digital phones, so it worked,” she said.
It helped that the planes were flying in areas with plenty of cell sites, too. Even United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania, was supported by several nearby cell sites, Raney added."

Comment by Francis Acquah Junior on September 10, 2008 at 1:37pm

Hi Jan. These are wonderful and instructive pieces.
Thank you for sharing this with us.

Francis