What the Haiti quake, Gulf oil spill and 9-11 have in common: Pt1

This blog is divided into three parts, this one being part one.  Please note some information may be outdated in some parts as this blog was originally published in August 2010.

Whenever I come across reports of disasters on T.V, I can reassure myself that I will eventually see how it will relate to a completely different one. This is done by observing how these disasters happen and how it is handled. There are three such disasters I wish to make a case study of and that is the earthquake in Haiti, the oil spill in the Gulf and 9-11.

THE DELAYS IN THE RESPONSE

The Oil Spill:

The delays in the response to the Gulf Spill are extremely obvious. It is clear that the lack of transparency was deliberate and so was stalling speedy actions to address the crisis.

President Barrack Obama has come under immense fire for his rather unimpressive and weak approach to this disaster. This disaster was dubbed Obama’s “Katrina” because of the parallels in the belated response to both the oil spill and Hurricane Katrina. One of the gripes the public have with Obama is the fact that he was not tough enough with the oil company, BP (British Petroleum) that is responsible for the oil disaster. The many delays that BP caused could have been prevented if Obama had showed leadership and put more apt companies and individuals to take the lead in addressing the disaster.

So BP was allowed to run the show and employ their delay tactics unchallenged. Fortunately, there are some individuals in power, like Rep. Edward J Markey, who stood up to BP and demanded that a live feed of the BP oil spill be made publicly available on the Internet. Fortunately, BP was forced to comply. Withholding the feed had many motives, one being to avoid revealing the true extent of the spill to thus avoid the appropriate liability. Hiding the spill would also allow them to deal with the spill in the manner they chose and at their own pace because nobody could have any information to challenge them on it.

Previously, independent scientists only saw the oil spill along with the rest of the public through these lives feeds. If the flow rate could probably be determined, then the appropriate action could be taken. This is why BP blocked independent scientists from seeing the spill for themselves. Now that scientists have seen it they rightly deduced that the 5000 barrels a day claim was pure bogus. We now know it was 60 000 barrels a day until recently. BP says finding out the flow rate was irrelevant. Due to this inaccurate information, it can be determined that the “top hat” procedure was a complete waste of time and the pressure of the oil reserves was beyond the threshold for “top kill”. How could relief wells have been built in the meantime without the appropriate information? You don’t send a rocket into space with inaccurate information. Not only was the “top kill” doomed to failure from the start, but BP infuriated local officials and observers when they didn’t inform the public of the 16 hour break in the top kill operation. Obama didn’t seem to be aware of it nor Admiral Thad Allen, leader of the government’s response to the oil. It’s the same silly excuse that BP gives to explain away these delays: “Oh, we have to be careful. Better to be safe than sorry!” A white house official said Obama wasn’t going to micromanage every decision BP made. Isn’t because BP wasn’t watched like a hawk that the oil spill took place? Wasn’t it because the Obama Administration hadn’t monitored the MMS? Maybe it’s because they are all in it together!!

Only deepwater oil skimmer boats were being used and no provision was made for boats that can be used in shallower waters. There are many boats that could have been used for this purpose that were just tied up at port not being considered by BP. There were fishermen, too, who had experience in rescuing sea turtles enmeshed in fishing nets and were not called upon for help in the turtle rescue operations. They would love to have helped because they are now unemployed, but they faced arrest should they even touch one. Those who had been told they would be called when needed by BP were later told they would most likely not be.

Then, of course, there was the complete farce of the supposed workers who had come to clean the beaches, only to appear when Obama was around. When real work was done, they would work twenty minutes then rest forty. The excuse was that the sun was too hot. If one employed more workers, the shorter the amount of time an individual would spend in the sun. The County Commissioner, Sara Comander said there were trained members of the public ready to go to the beach within an hour or two but they had just not been called. Only BP workers could clean up.

The most critical areas that needed addressing were the marshes, yet those remained untouched. It seemed so obvious but BP would do anything to delay progress in addressing this disaster.

The Haiti earthquake:

Belated responses to this disaster were really obvious, too, although logistics was blamed in this case. However, if one examined the facts properly, logistics didn’t seem to be enough of an excuse for the lack of response in aid. It just seemed downright deliberate. In face, six months later, the same problems existing straight after the quake are still around now. It has to be noted that some schools are running and diseases have been stemmed, but the rubble remains mostly untouched. To me this is most astounding because it is not too hard to employ rubble-removing companies to remove the rubble. A World Cup is not too hard to organise but removing the rubble is super duper hard.

In fact, there is a man called Randy Perkins who owns a company called, “The Haiti Recovery Group” that is part of AshBritt, one of the largest disaster recovery contractors in America. He has his equipment, amounting to $25 million, all ready to remove the rubble but grass is growing beneath it because no one wants to award him a contract. He could provide many jobs for the desperate unemployed Haitians which would be good to kick-start the economy again. So what is the problem? There is no master plan for debris removal although the Haiti government says they are working on one. Hundreds and millions have been spent by foreign governments, the United Nations and Non Government Organizations. I believe it is deliberately ignored and if that rubble is not removed, substantial change cannot be made.

There is still aid sitting in warehouses delivered to Haiti a couple of months ago. Starvation is a problem and the aid is just sitting idle in the warehouses. Can this just be a case of logistics? It is amazing how smoothly things go when the powerful want it to go smoothly and when they don’t, aid remains idle in warehouses. The sickening thing is that there are orphanages low on food supplies just minutes away from the aid. In fact, when the aid arrived at the airports soon after the quake, starving people were just two minutes away and did not see that aid.

The Governor of Pennsylvania flew into Haiti on his private jet to pick up a couple of orphans to take back to the United States so they could be adopted. This is all very well but doctors and supplies were not granted permission to land as there was no space at the airport.

One of the most shocking delays is the non payment of money pledged by various countries around the world. Only three countries so far have actually pledged money, including Australia which has paid the full amount pledged, $8.64 million. Clinton is the head of the relief efforts yet how much has America paid of the $1.15 billion pledged? Nothing. The excuse? Slow pace of congress. Everything is just sooooo slow in this world, except when it comes to going to war in the Middle East or something.

The World Bank is the depository of the $5.3 billion, which is the total amount pledged from the various countries. It has pledged $266 million but has not paid a cent. Is this right? What is the hold up? The answer will be made clear further down in the blog.

9-11:

The delay in response to this catastrophe had severe implications because of the lives lost. It is standard procedure that NORAD scramble jets when radio contact gets lost or an airplane goes off course. In fact, around the World Trade Centre, there is a no fly zone whereby a plane will get shot down if warnings to stay clear are not heeded. Not only did one jet manage avoid NORAD’s interception, but another one also. In fact, it was only one and a half hour later that the air defence system reacted at all. The FAA response time for reporting any deviating aircraft was grossly delayed.

They say a disaster is a chain and just one link missing may avert the disaster entirely or partially. It is definite that at least one of the planes going into the twin towers would have been averted if NORAD had done its job like it always did. The reason why these delays happened is because there was a practice drill on what NORAD would do if planes had attempted to crash into the twin towers, the Pentagon and the White House on the very same day as the real attacks. Therefore, the operators were very confused and didn’t know what the drill was and what was real. It didn’t help that Donald Rumsfeld refused to give permission for the jets to scramble in a timely manner. Only one and a half hour later which is like closing the stable doors after the horse has bolted.

What are the chances of a simulated attack practice drill happening on the same day as the real thing?

COVER UPS:

Oil spill:

One can write a tome on the amount of cover ups of these disasters. I’ll start off with the dispersants that BP has been dumping into the Gulf. BP had used the chemical dispersant, Corexit, which has been labelled as highly toxic. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had told BP to stop using the dispersants, or at least cut down on it, which BP ignored. There are far safer dispersants available. Only weeks into the disaster, the EPA decided to disclose the ingredients of this dispersants to the public because of the outcries of the public. Why had the EPA kept quiet on BP’s use of these dispersants for so long? Why would they protect BP? Why do they pretend to chastise BP while protecting them? Is the Obama Administration, the MMS, the EPA and BP all in on some conspiracy?

The ingredients include detergent chemical found in laxatives. If this ingredient affected the workers cleaning up the oil spill caused by the Exxon Valdez, then what is it busy doing to the wildlife? Who knows what is doing the more damage: the oil or the dispersants?

Congressman Markey cited from documents received from BP, proving that they knew within a week of the explosion, the spill was much greater than just 1000 barrels a day, but for a while, they stuck with that figure. Obviously, they had to agree it was much higher in time because the release of the live feed of the spill proved they were wrong. That is obviously why they didn’t want to release a live feed. We have a lot to thank Congressman Markey for. It is obviously the financial implications that motivated BP to just outright lie about the flow rate. The fine for spills is $1000 per barrel. Imagine what the fine will finally accumulate to considering it was exactly about 60 000 barrels per day spilt.

Nothing screams guilt more than the fact that BP haf barred the media any access to clean up sites on shore and off shore. Wildlife couldn’t be filmed either. In fact, there are claims that BP has been responsible for hiding dead animals. The US coast guard and BP repeatedly say there are no media restrictions, but BP had hired security to kick out journalists to close to the scene.

On the 30th of June, Admiral Thad Allen, the Coast Guard, designated a 65 foot perimeter around booming operations and said anyone caught within that “safety zone”, would be subjected to a fine of up to $48 000 or jail time. The reason? For the public’s safety, of course. BP cares, you know. However, this decision was rescinded because of more public outcries with the result of Thad Allen backtracking: “the press are (sic) to have clear, unfettered access to this event.” Safety suddenly isn’t an issue anymore. Those were mere words because the media was still blocked after that.

On May 26th, the officials with the Coast Guard Research and Development Centre in New London, Connecticut, decided an accurate assessment of the flow rate because BP’s estimations were not corroborating those in the scientific community.

The Coast Guard Centre awarded a sole-source contract worth $191,100 to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which would have used advanced sonar systems to measure the flow rate.

However, on the 19th of May, Lamar McKay, president of BP America, told the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that the leak was not measurable through any technology they knew about. Is that not laughable?

On that same day that Lamar McKay testified this, Richard Camilli, associate scientist for applied ocean physics and engineering at Woods Hole, told the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, that an imaging multi-beam sonar to map the seabed to monitor the flow rate could be employed. He also reported that he e-mailed BP officials on May 4th, proposing this technology as well as an acoustic Doppler current profiler to produce maps of particles like oil that may be suspended in water. BP tentatively accepted that the next day then rejected it the day after that. The excuse was that they had already developed an undersea containment structure ahead of schedule. Despite the fact that failed, BP clearly was obfuscating because Camilli was referring to equipment that could measure the flow rate, not any plans to stop the leak itself.

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It had been reported that BP was lying again. The oil head was still leaking since it was sealed off on July 15th, it’s just did not leak from the same place it used to. The camera didn't show the parts where it leaked for there is not just one leak, but many and just putting one cap on does nothing but give the impression it has been stopped.

9-11

There are no many cover ups regarding 9-11, that it is hard to know where to start. The government wants the public to buy the claim that the towers collapsed due to the intense heat despite the fact that no building prior to 9-11 ever collapsed due to heat stress. One way to determine if the integrity of the structures were compromised to the extent that it could collapse, the blueprints of the Twin Towers and Building 7 could have been consulted. However, the blueprints of these publics were not made public until five years after the fact. There is no reason for this as the blueprints are supposed to be public domain. Not even the engineers that conducted the only investigation into the collapses before the clean up efforts of Ground Zero saw them until they signed waiver forms that they would not use the information in a lawsuit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It sounds very similar to BP asking scientists employed by them to sign a contract which states any information they find will not be allowed to be released to the public until three year’s time.

It is only thanks to a whistleblower that the blueprints were ever released. The drawings included the dimensions, including those of the core columns.

This is what the official reports were trying to hide: they fact that the towers had massive core columns which insinuate that the towers could not possibly have collapsed due to fire.

The 9/11 Commission Report even denied the existence of these cores.

So if fire did not cause the collapse of the towers, then what did? There have been many eyewitness reports of bombs being detonated. One has clearly been detonated in this video excerpt:

 

It is a scientific fact that thermite is what melted the steel hence the theory that thermite bombs were used. This is the only thing that could have brought down the towers and not fire.

Take this into consideration:

Steel melts at 2750F. Uncontrolled fire with red flames is at 1200F. When thermite is ignited, extreme heat reaction causes molten iron. It can reach 4500 F. That can melt steel. Another product of a thermite reaction is Aluminum Oxide, visible as white smoke. White smoke was seen at the base of the towers.

Therefore, thermite bombs were placed in the towers prior to 9-11 and this has been ignored by the government.

OMISSIONS:

Here is a list of some serious omissions and distortions of the 9/11 Commission Report. The only steel-framed buildings to have ever collapsed due to fire in history happened all on the same day and those were the north tower, south tower and World Trade Center 7. Not even the collapse of World Trade Center 7 at 17:20 pm, which was a 47 story steel-framed skyscraper, was mentioned. No reference is made to the interview in which Larry Silverstein, owner of WTC 7, and the fire department admitted to making the decision to “pull” the building down. “Pulling” means demolishing a building. Nor was there any reference to the many reports of eyewitnesses of hearing explosions before the south tower collapsed.

Coincidentally, Marvin Bush, George W’s brother, and cousin Wirt Walker III were heads of the company that provided the security for the World Trade Center and the mega coincidence of the World Trade Center complex receiving a new lessor, Larry Silverstein, just six weeks prior to the attacks, the buildings being insured for terrorist attacks. It has not been explained why six of the 19 suspected hijackers are still alive today or why there were no Arab names on any of the passenger lists of the doomed planes.

There are serious omissions in the report regarding the Pentagon as well. Anti-aircraft missiles batteries ring the Pentagon yet none were present on 9-11. The FBI also confiscated surveillance footage from nearby businesses of the attack on the Pentagon. In fact, no mention is made why there is no surveillance footage available at all from anywhere.

There were many important people who received warnings of the attacks. Attorney General JohnAshcroft was warned by the FBI to avoid flying on commercial airlines as well as San Francisco Mayor, WillieBrown. Several Pentagon officials abruptly cancelled travel plans the evening prior to the attacks. Even Ariel Sharon cancelled an event he was to attend in New York on September 11^th.

Apart from the admissions, there were blatant lies. The SouthTower was reported to have collapsed in 10 seconds when it was actually 15 seconds. If the towers had collapsed due to a compromised structure, there would have been resistance at every floor, slowing down the fall of the structures. So it hardly was in their favour to say it fell faster than it really did.

 

Contradiction

The explanation given by the report on why the hijackers decided not to target a nuclear power plant was because they felt it was too heavily guarded increasing the risk of the planes being shot down. However, the Pentagon is one of the most guarded buildings in the United States

OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE:

The chairs of the 9-11 Commission and the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees report that government “minders” obstructed the investigation by intimidating witnesses. It was deduced that the officials from the Pentagon lied to the Commission with the result that the Commission recommended them to be criminally charged. Recorded interviews on tape with traffic controllers working on 9-11 were destroyed by cutting the tape into pieces and tossing it into the trash cans around the building.

It was discovered by the investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry that an FBI informant had rented a room for two hijackers back in 2000 and when the Inquiry wanted to question him, the FBI refused and put him into hiding. AN fbi official said the interview was blocked by the White House.

THE DEBRIS FROM THE TOWERS

Structural engineers have pointed out the serious “mistake” of the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that once held up the towers. Without this, some of the most direct evidence to how the towers collapsed was thus destroyed. I don’t know how anyone could see it prudent to destroy evidence in a criminal investigation, because that is what it is, unless they had something to hide.

Matthew G. Monahan, spokesman for the city’s Department of Design and Construction, which was in charge of the debris removal at Ground Zero said, “The city considered it reasonable to have recovered structural steel recycled. Hindsight is always 20-20, but this was a calamity like no other. And I’m not trying to backpedal.”

Okay, if a car is the scene of a crime and has blood in it, I suppose there wouldn’t be anyone harm in me taking it to the scrap heap? Is this how evidence is treated?

However, Monahan pointed out that the members of the investigation team were allowed to visit the scrap-yards and inspect the steel eventually.

A team, which included some of the nation’s most respected engineers, said that there had been complaints of bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and having access to recordings of distress calls made to the police and fire department. Does this not sound familiar to how BP treated the public? BP didn’t allow its workers to be interviewed, bared media access, initially deprived scientists of vital information and initially refused to show a live feed of the oil spill.

The investigation was organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers financed and administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). However, senior engineers had complained that FEMA was being a hindrance to them. In fact, members of the investigation team had been threatened with dismissal if they spoke to the pressed. Many of those who were employed by BP were scared of dismissal if they spoke to the press.