911 inside job

IntroductionMy opponent started the debate and has the burden of proof, but I will start by addressing some common truther claims, and see where it goes from there. There are many aspects to the 911 conspiracy, which would take a long time to discuss, but it seems as if my opponent wants to focus on the towers, and whether or not explosives or something like thermite needed to be used to take them down. Hopefully, just so we can get down to detail, my opponent agrees to just focus on this issue for ease. People Heard Explosions Many people will claim that because there was explosions heard and seen coming from inside the Towers, that this supports the hypothesis that the WTC's were taken down in controlled demolition. The problem with this claim, is that when buildings undergo massive fires of that nature then explosions are going to be a given, especially considering the contents of the WTC. Explosions as Firefighters Tackle Fire at Falmouth Docks: "Then there was some massive, massive explosions and we saw a big raging fire on top of these canisters," he told the BBC [1] Winter Haven Fire Claims 3 Homes: "We ran out of water, we waited for more water. Then started attacking the explosions... We have multiple explosions..." [2] Firefighters Battle Three-Alarm Fire Involving Explosions: "As more firefighters responded to the fire, more callers reported hearing explosions" The above examples are meant to demonstrate how common it is to hear explosions during building fires. Thousands of hi-voltage transformers probably went off like grenades in the Towers, and there was explosive material throughout the buildings -- propane & LPG tanks for restaurants & snack bars; O2 & NO3 tanks in medical/dental offices, oxyacetylene tanks in the maint. shops, and tens of thousands of gallons of diesel in generators. If there weren't explosions heard that day, that would be weird. The fact that there were, in no way shape or form leads credence to the idea that a controlled demolition took place on the towers that day. Explosions heard during large fires are the norm.Did Larry Silverstein Admit To "Pulling" One Of The Buildings?Larry Siverstein once said "pull it" and conspiracy theorists thought he meant a building to be demolished. First of all, when a being is being "pulled", that usually means with cables; not explosives. Secondly, when he said "pull it", he meant the contingent of firefighters left in the building. Basically, he wanted to pull the people out of there to prevent loss of life, as he event says. Conspiracy Theorists took him out of context.WTC7 Wasn't Hit By A Plane, Why Did It Collapse? The impact from the debris caused a preliminary collapse which cleared out everything between two of WTC 7's exterior columns. Here is a picture of the south/east part of the building damaged as well: "You could see that part of the building (7) was damaged, heavily. There was a big hole in the building, on the whole corner of the side of the building on the south side, and you can see that part of the building was bowed out a little bit, to me that's major structural damage" - Stev Spak (Photographer, and was Honorary Deputy Chief in the FDNY) "I never heard any charges, I never heard any sequence of timed explosions, and I never head anyone talk about that until a long time later." - Lieutenant Frank Papalia (FDNY, 1998 - 2006) The impact from the debris was like a knife to the gut of the structure while the all the fires produced afterwards were just the nail in the coffin as far as the building's collapse goes (the raged for over 7 hours, way past their fireproofing limit). However conspiracy theorists are convinced in their head that there was something "odd" pertaining to how WTC 7 came down, even though, pretty much all witnesses/reporters/police/firefighters that day assumed that collapse inevitable just by looking at the fire's damage.What Do Explosive Experts Think?ImplosionWorld.Com came out with a paper (with explosive experts from all over), and they conclude that there is no way the collapse of the buildings could have been a controlled demolition[3].Explosive expert Ron Craig had this to say about thermite, and how it wouldn't be useful in a demolition like this: "It's (Thermate) like using a lawn mower engine instead of a souped up go kart engine if I want to drive something at a high speed" - Ron Craig (International Society of Explosives Engineers) "Thermate is a guess and a roll of the dice and who knows how it's going to work, so anybody that would calculate that into their plans I think would be really foolish" - Ron Craig (International Society of Explosives Engineers. What About The Thermate/Thermite Supposedly Found? In deed, the presence of iron, sulfur, aluminum, potassium, manganese,fluorine, and titanium in the WTC dust are all supported by USGS dust samples, and most are ingredients of thermate. However the first thing any reasonable scientist would investigate is whether or not there are any natural (non-thermate related) sources for these chemicals. Although Steven Jones claims that he's found "uncommon chemical elements in abundance" nothing could be further from the truth. The third most common ingredient in the World Trade Center construction was gypsum-based drywall, which is 18.62 sulfur. Iron is used in paint and electronic devices. Potassium is used in concrete. Manganese was used for structural steel, paint, batteries, and ceramics. Flourine is used in Freon. 200,000 pounds of Freon cooled the WTC complex. This was the largest air-conditioning system in the country. Titanium is used in paper and paint (both common at the WTC) and made up 2% of each of the 767's. WTC7 was also clad in polished steel and titanium. To claim that these were uncommon at the WTC, and that the only explanation for their presence is though the use of thermate, is an unbelievable joke. Could the Twin Towers Have Collapsed The Way They Did?Of course. The kinetic energy of the plane slamming into the buildings at 500mph with massive amounts of jet fuel was more than enough to knock the fire proofing off the building. The weight from the top section would cause a progressive collapse all the way down [4].There doesn't seem to be any good evidence at all that the towers were brought down by a demolition. The ball is now in my opponent's court. Sources[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk...[2] http://www.kyma.com...[3] http://www.implosionworld.com...[4] http://en.wikipedia.org...