February 10, 2009 Demolition 911 A guest who called in to a talk show said he was an engineer. In his opinion the twin towers that fell on September 11, 2001 could not have fallen so neatly by chance. I had long dismissed the conspiracy theories that this incongruity inspired as mere bunk. He had a point though. I myself watched many educational shows on Discovery or similar channels depicting the demolition of tall buildings. Specialized companies used considerable engineering skill to bring down buildings neatly and none of them were as tall as the ones we were expected to believe fell neatly by chance. I have heard no one mention the obvious deduction: that such disasters have been anticipated and that some or many skyscrapers are already rigged for neat demolition in case of emergency. In the case of the twin towers, that a previous bombing attempt had been thwarted would provoke a measure of this kind. When the planes hit each building, the natural expectation is that the entry side would have been weakened the most; one would expect the building to topple in that direction. As such, a deliberate demolition at the last possible moment would have saved many lives. That only 3,000 or so lives were lost rather than original predicted 20,000 may infer an initial expectation by the media that the buildings would fall over. If this deduction is true, that this measure was done secretly unnecessarily cost the lives of many firefighters who could have been pulled back before the demolition. At first thought, the avoidance of legal and political complications might be at play. However, another motive is possible. That terrorists might hire themselves into a position to demolish a building themselves. Our current culture of pluralism would prevent keeping such people at bay. It is a cold calculation at any rate and one I would not want anyone making on my behalf. The conspiracy theory, on the other hand, is just more unfounded liberal Bush bashing in my eyes!