Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Throws Down the Gauntlet

If you don't read the newspaper, you're un-informed. If you do read the newspaper, you're mis-informed. – Mark Twain
On the morning of February 19, 2010, in a press conference in the city of San Francisco, Richard Gage, AIA, gave the mainstream American media an opportunity to prove Mark Twain wrong. Standing with him in thirty-eight cities around the world, members and supporters of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, held concurrent press conferences and offered the same opportunity to the mainstream media everywhere. Their message: Over 1,000 architectural and engineering professionals agree that the official government reports on the three worst structural failures in American history are scientifically inadequate, and that a real, independent investigation of these failures is now of paramount importance to the nation and to the world.
In a truly free and open society, that message would spread like wildfire. Yet more than eight years after the event, and nearly four years since Mr. Gage founded his professional organization and began calling for an independent investigation, questioning 9/11 is still treated as taboo. Any deviation from the government's official conspiracy theory, no matter how scientifically sound and thoroughly researched, is, for the most part, derided or ignored in the mainstream press — in the United States. Outside the country, however, the situation has begun to change dramatically over the last year, as described in Elizabeth Woodworth's excellent survey The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Recent examples include fair and balanced coverage of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth in Canada's Financial Post, Germany's Focus Money, New Zealand's "Close Up," and Japan's Asahi Shimbun Magazine – all major national titles.
The AE911Truth press conference of February 19 gave US mainstream media a chance to join this growing global trend. Invitations to attend the event, and the press release itself, were sent to virtually every news outlet in the US. Early indications were good – by February 18, KCBS, KGO, and Clear Channel, for example, had confirmed that they would cover the event, and KTVU said they would bring a crew. Reuters also was expressing "great interest." Why didn't they show?
The press release offered media outlets like these several highly-explosive angles to the story (in addition to the obvious bombshell that over 1,000 architects and engineers are now demanding a new investigation of 9/11). These were:
1) That on February 19, in conjunction with the press conference, the AE911Truth petition would be delivered to every single congressional representative. As part of this, government officials would be notified that "Misprision of Treason," US Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense which requires those with evidence of treason to act.
2) That at the press conference, AE911Truth would call for a grand jury investigation of two NIST officials, Shyam Sunder and John Gross, due to the demonstrably "insufficient, contradictory, and fraudulent" nature of the 9/11 reports they oversaw.
3) The fact that AE911Truth's findings "may have a profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial" – a recent and ongoing controversial topic in the mainstream press.
Any one of those announcements should be a journalist's golden ticket to the front page. AE911Truth's compilation and dissemination of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt of explosive controlled demolition," as Mr. Gage announced during the press conference, and our 1,000+ petitioners, are arguably the most important news item of the day – because the implications are so enormous and so profound.
Yet the US media response to the press conference has, so far, been strikingly quiet. Quiet, but not completely silent. The Washington Times ran a surprisingly fair and candid story with this outstanding hook: "How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds?" Also, the Defense Daily Network, Yahoo!, Forbes, and many other websites picked up the press release. KPFA 94.1 FM (Berkeley) broadcasted a nearly four minute piece on the event the following Sunday evening, which included a clip of Dr. Steven Jones discussion at the press conference of the scientific paper he co-authored, which describes the discovery of advanced nano-thermitic composite materials in the World Trade Center dust. And A-Channel News (Victoria, BC) covered fairly AE911Truth's big announcement, airing an excellent interview with a local engineer and AE911Truth petitioner, Werner Simbeck.
But this, of course, is not yet enough. We can only hope in good faith that the gathering momentum of the foreign media's openness toward the scientific evidence of 9/11 will also be experienced by the US media soon, and that the press conference will prove to be the turning point in public perception.
Whether this press conference turns out to be the decisive event for a shift in the mainstream American media's handling of 9/11 Truth, or whether future AE911Truth actions will accomplish this goal, we can say with confidence that the event was a great success. Over 500 people registered to watch the different live webinars of the conference (hopefully many of them journalists who will be publishing their reactions soon!) Approximately 150 people packed the room in which the press conference was held. Tickets for the luncheon afterwards were completely sold out. Attendees of both the conference and the luncheon were treated with clear, pointed, and inspiring talks by Dr. David Ray Griffin, Dr. Steven Jones, and Erik Lawyer, founder of Firefighters for 9/11 Truth. The AE911Truth strategy mini-conference after the luncheon was also packed out. This was a time for fellow AE911Truth petitioners to meet one another and brainstorm a future vision for the organization, as well as encourage one another to keep up the effort for the truth about 9/11. Many of the petitioners spoke to the group and gave their own professional perspectives on why a new investigation of 9/11 is needed. During the session, Anders Björkman, who had flown from France to attend the press conference, presented a "poignant and humorous" summary of his paper, Debunking the Conspiracy Theories of Prof. Bazant and NIST - Why WTC 1 Could Not Be One-Way Crushed Down by its Upper Part. An encouraging letter from structural engineer Ron Brookman (an AE911Truth petition signatory) to the attendees was also read aloud. Mr. Brookman closes his letter in this way:
A representative of NIST Media Relations has said that NIST stands by its reports. The obvious question is: does anyone else stand behind the NIST reports? … We know there are thousands of well-informed citizens worldwide including architects, engineers, and scientists of every discipline that do not accept the NIST conclusions regarding the likely cause of collapse of WTC 7, and they do so with excellent reasons. So far there are few who will endorse the NIST reports other than those who created them. Many questions remain, but one that puzzles me the most is: why are so many thoughtful people with technical training reluctant to reveal their opinion if there is nothing to hide from the public? As you have demonstrated in the last two years, a high percentage of alert and open-minded individuals who spend time studying the facts agree. Shocking? Yes, but there is nothing radical or extreme about the truth.
Yes, and eventually, we hope, the truth about 9/11 will become mainstream, and we'll look back on this time, when it was taboo to question the official story of 9/11, as a strange time. The AE911Truth press conference of February 19 has sent a clear signal that the tide is turning.
"How could this not be known for so long?" a member of the Japanese press asked Mr. Gage after the conference. "In fact, most architects and engineers know nothing about the third worst structural failure in modern history," responded Mr. Gage. "It's a matter of media control. In this country, five corporations own 90% of the media and that is a significant problem for the truth."
Will those five corporations let legitimate questions about 9/11 breathe in an atmosphere of openness and freedom? Will they disprove the dictum of Mark Twain?