Championship Debate: 44soulslayer vs Maxmars: "WTC 7 Was Brought Down By Controlled Demolition"

The topic for this debate is: "World Trade Center 7 Was Brought Down By Controlled Demolition"

44soulslayer will be arguing the pro position and will open the debate.
Maxmars will argue the con position.

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This is the Championship Debate....



[edit on 6/20/2009 by semperfortis]

World Trade Center 7.

Thank you everyone for being so patient. I will open this debate, although the original plan was for the con argument to follow the pro, I am hoping this does not pose a disappointment to those of you who expected our esteemed and most noteworthy 44soulslayer to have the initiative. Unfortunately, things don’t always go as planned, so the first volley is mine.

Our topic: "World Trade Center 7 Was Brought Down By Controlled Demolition"

It seems a contentious and troubling statement, to say the very least. The assertion must be understood for what it really means. It is a criminal accusation. Logically, controlled demolition requires a party or parties to be on the ‘controlling’ end. Those controlling such a demolition would have to be considered and tried as ‘terrorists.’

Dispensing with the mundane:

The original 7 World Trade Center was 47 stories tall, clad in red exterior masonry, and occupied a trapezoidal footprint. An elevated walkway connected the building to the World Trade Center plaza. The building was situated above a Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) power substation, which imposed unique structural design constraints. When the building opened in 1987, Silverstein had difficulties attracting tenants. In 1988, Salomon Brothers signed a long-term lease, and became the main tenants of the building. On September 11, 2001, 7 WTC was damaged by debris when the nearby North Tower of the WTC collapsed. The debris also ignited fires, which continued to burn throughout the afternoon on lower floors of the building, with a lack of water to fight the fires. The building collapsed completely at 5:20 p.m., when a critical column on the 13th floor buckled and triggered structural failure throughout.

The above excerpt, shamelessly yanked from Wikipedia, is what we can consider the generally ‘commonly held’ and ‘officially acceptable’ account of the fate of World Trade Center 7.

I would be remiss if I didn’t note that the accuracy of the entry is now, and perhaps will long remain, contested by a vocal minority. Unfortunately for those who suspect foul-play, conclusive evidence that refutes the catastrophic collapse theory is lacking in weight; regardless of the consist declaration that the matter wants for closure.

The topic assertion is unreasonable because there is no one who fits all the necessary elements of guilt for such a terrorist act. The wide variety of scenarios; some outrageous, some more feasible, still lack a clear-cut perpetrator.

Let’s apply a modicum of rudimentary logic to this ‘would-be’ crime. By this I mean thinking in terms of ‘means,’ ‘motive,’ and ‘opportunity.’

Means
Any demolition, even the ‘covert’ ‘expert’ kind, requires knowledge of the building or structure to be demolished. It is conceivable that those terrorists planning the destruction of WTC7 could have managed access to the structural and engineering parameters of the building.

The original 7 World Trade Center was a 47-story building, designed by Emery Roth & Sons, … The building was 610 feet (186 m) tall, with a trapezoidal footprint that was 330 ft (101 m) long and 140 ft (43 m) wide. Tishman Realty & Construction managed construction of the building, which began in 1983.

Presumably the above-mentioned businesses kept records of the job. Whoever needed the details necessary to ‘drop’ a 47-story building into its own trapezoidal footprint must have accessed that information. They must have the access to the building and the materials necessary to do so. Coordinating the concealment of the preparations and the movement of personnel and explosives must have been difficult, especially considering the security level one associates with the tenants of the building:

Salomon Smith Barney, ITT Hartford Insurance Group, American Express Bank International, Standard Chartered Bank , the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Internal Revenue Service Regional Council, the United States Secret Service, the New York City Office of Emergency Management, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Federal Home Loan Bank, First State Management Group Inc., Provident Financial Management, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The tenant list reads as a veritable “who’s who” of high-level financial and regulatory or governmental tenants; some of whom surely knew that this building was the intended brainstem of New York City during any catastrophic emergency. Would those in the know allow security to be lax enough to allow the terrorists to carry this out under their noses? Not just one organization but all of them would have had to turn a blind eye to what was about to occur. The organization primarily responsible for physical security would under such circumstances, have been the subject of an investigation regarding charges of criminal negligence.

Motive

Let’s get it out of the way, would we concur that it was as simple as money and power? We’ve heard everything from blood sacrifice, to ideological statements, to “jealousy or hatred, of our freedom” ( ), all of which have been cited as sufficient motive for a base and wanton act, which appeared as much a pillage as it was a burn. Some may suggest it is possible that one was, amorally speaking, a target of opportunity, and unrelated to the other; but such reasoning links conspiracies to conspiracies and becomes a Gordian-knot of logic that defies reason.

Opportunity

We have fewer choices here. Presumably the postulated terrorists were not precognitive, and couldn’t simply have guessed when to place demolition charges, let alone where to get them. Nor could they have simply ‘slipped’ them into place. Who knew that the towers were to be struck, and when? Until such time as it becomes a proven fact, that there was a party “who knew beforehand” in this equation – there can be no substantive claim that it was purposeful. We need a perpetrator for that.

I will save the expansion upon these elements for later.

I am hoping that there is a lot of room for debate in this opening .

Perhaps my esteemed opponent may dance around some highly technical aspects of the event; some which a particularly damning for the ‘opportunist’ aspect of it. But again, the weakness lies in the connecting the remaining elements of the case.

But let me not give him any ideas..., 44soulslayer is not a debater with whom to trifle.

Once again, thank you everyone for your patience while I presented this morsel to fuel the debate. Good luck to you 44, I eagerly await your response.

Be well.

MM

"We have a winner"

Sadly it is by default, but make no mistake about it, Maxmars has constantly displayed the attitude and attributes one expects from a Champion and is well deserving of the title.

Also I would like to take a moment and tell you all that the Debate Forum is coming back and coming back strong. There is going to be new formats and a more serious approach to debating the alternative topics we all love so much here at ATS.

The Debate Forum is going to once again become the main area for the best and brightest on ATS to show their skills, intellect and knowledge.

So stay tuned for upcoming announcements and events. This is something you are not going to want to miss.

Semper

Thank you to everyone for sticking with it, and seeing the tournament through to the end.

Here's to the future, may it bring us all a bit less grief and more joy!

Also, thank you Semperfortis for your kind words.

Be well everyone, and a special salute to 44soulslayer, who's sterling input is missed.