Bombs in the Building: World Trade Center 'Conspiracy Theory' is a Conspiracy Fact

Originally posted by Lumos

cms.firehouse.com: "Investigators discovered that while the jet fuel and the plane's contents burned up in a matter of minutes, the contents of the buildings, including the many office cubicles on the upper floors, continued burning until the structures collapsed."

So we're back to the "office fire causes complete structural collapse" theory? And that coming from NIST? Poor guys, I wouldn't wanna be in their shoes.

What is your problem with that? Be specific, please.

Originally posted by Lumos
How can pancaking, which calls for uniform instant collapse of one floor,

No it doesn’t.

Originally posted by Lumos
How can pancaking, which calls for uniform instant collapse of one floor, occur when the floors themselves would have given in to the fires earlier and almost certainly non-uniformly?

The answer is simple. The collapse was a case of a buckling failure. Furthermore, it wasn’t just a single column that buckled, but a whole wall.

from the link aboveA structure may fail to support its load when a connection snaps, or it bends until it is useless, or a member in tension either pulls apart or a crack forms that divides it, or a member in compression crushes and crumbles, or, finally, if a member in compression buckles, that is, moves laterally and shortens under a load it can no longer support. Of all of these modes of failure, buckling is probably the most common and most catastrophic.

Originally posted by Lumos
How can the explosive nature of the collapse, visible right from the very beginning, be explained by forces of gravity?

The buildings were 95 % air. Where was that air supposed to go when the building collapsed?

HowardRoarkWhat is your problem with that? Be specific, please.

My problem with that, obviously, are the many examples of steelframe buildings who stood through much vaster office fires. I have trouble believing this wasn't crystal clear. If you want to further (intentionally?) sidetrack this discussion by posing irrelevant question after irrelevant question, do not count me in.

No, it doesn't

Ok then, if "it doesn't", shed some insight on the process you envision in which only parts of the floor, not it's entire mass at once, tumble, resulting in the collapse of the subsequent floor(s). Furthermore, explain how the explosive features clearly visible for all the world to see, right at the initiation of the collapse when there was very little momentum, could've been caused by the compression of air within one story by one floor acted upon only by the forces of gravity. In case you succeed (...), put your theory in perspective regarding the buildup of air pressure from a floor not instantly, uniformly failing, completely negating the "syringe" analogy.

Best of luck.

[edit on 22-12-2005 by Lumos]

[edit on 22-12-2005 by Lumos]

Luminos, you seem to have some hostility issues.

Originally posted by Lumos
My problem with that, obviously, are the many examples of steelframe buildings who stood through much vaster office fires. I have trouble believing this wasn't crystal clear. If you want to further (intentionally?) sidetrack this discussion by posing irrelevant question after irrelevant question, do not count me in.

Really. How many other steel framed buildings which used no masonry in the structural frame, and were protected by sprayed on fireproofing were also hit by airplanes?

There is simply NO basis for comparison between the WTC towers and other buildings. However, if you think that you have a valid comparison, then please bring it up, so that we can evaluate it.

Lets be clear on exactly who said what in the next exchange.

Originally posted by Lumos
How can pancaking, which calls for uniform instant collapse of one floor,

Originally posted by HowardRoark
No it doesn’t.

Originally posted by Lumos

Ok then, if "it doesn't", shed some insight on the process you envision in which only parts of the floor, not it's entire mass at once, tumble, resulting in the collapse of the subsequent floor(s).

The term “pancaking” only refers to the impact of the falling mass causing the subsequent collapse of the lower portions of the building. Whether or not it was a global collapse or a local collapse is irrelevant.

Originally posted by Lumos
Furthermore, explain how the explosive features clearly visible for all the world to see, right at the initiation of the collapse when there was very little momentum, could've been caused by the compression of air within one story by one floor acted upon only by the forces of gravity. In case you succeed (...), put your theory in perspective regarding the buildup of air pressure from a floor not instantly, uniformly failing, completely negating the "syringe" analogy.

Perhaps this quote from one of the survivors who was INSIDE WTC 1 when it collapsed, can help you.

A Port Authority captain yelled at Lim to get moving, but he said, “You go ahead,” and he, too, put an arm around Harris, helping to carry her to the fourth floor.
That was when the wind started, even before the noise. “No one realizes about the wind,” says Komorowski.
The building was pancaking down from the top and, in the process, blasting air down the stairwell. The wind lifted Komorowski off his feet. “I was taking a staircase at a time,” he says, “It was a combination of me running and getting blown down.” Lim says Komorowski flew over him. Eight seconds later—that’s how long it took the building to come down—Komorowski landed three floors lower, in standing position, buried to his knees in pulverized Sheetrock and cement.
Lim landed near Harris. “If Josephine doesn’t slow me down, I’m dead,” he’d later say. “I figured this out.” That captain who’d urged Lim to go ahead didn’t make it. “Josephine Harris saved my life,” he says definitively. Harris landed on her side, clinging to the boot of Billy Butler.

www.newyorkmetro.com...

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by Lumos
How can pancaking, which calls for uniform instant collapse of one floor,

No it doesn’t.

Well that's exactly how it happened, Howard. Each floor was blown out, one by one, within a very small time frame and evenly all the way across, before the next floor fell. Why do you think the towers fell symmetrically?

How many other steel framed buildings which used no masonry in the structural frame, and were protected by sprayed on fireproofing were also hit by airplanes?

There is simply NO basis for comparison between the WTC towers and other buildings. However, if you think that you have a valid comparison, then please bring it up, so that we can evaluate it.

Don't forget the color, Howard. The WTC Towers were a different color than other buildings, too.

Seriously, those differences are all minor. The most major differences were the plane impacts. And guess what? They only knocked out some 15% of the perimeter columns and no more core colums proportionately. You complete ignore that the reason steel skyscrapers never fall from fire is not because of fireproofing, or lack of minor column severing - but because steel skyscrapers are immensely strong. The WTC were immensely redundant. According to NIST, an average of some 75% of the columns on any given floor would have to fail before a single floor's failure. I seriously doubt 75% column failure on any given floor at any time before those charges were loosed.

And what exactly makes the WTC so different in construction that when they collapse downwards, the mass that is supposedly driving the collapse can be utterly destroyed and yet the collapse will keep trucking right along at the same speed, regardless of loss of momentum, into even thicker and heavier floors? I'd really like to know what allowed that.

And what exactly makes the WTC so different in construction that when they collapse downwards, the mass that is supposedly driving the collapse can be utterly destroyed and yet the collapse will keep trucking right along at the same speed, regardless of loss of momentum, into even thicker and heavier floors? I'd really like to know what allowed that.

WHat are you talking about? The top floors dissapear into a mass of smoke and dust it's impossible to say thattheyt breaks up before they hit the ground.

So wheres the cap there? Is the whole thing hiding under that smoke there? But wait, those big chunks falling off the side... hmmm....

HR
Luminos, you seem to have some hostility issues.

You seem to have issues with staying on point.

HR
How many other steel framed buildings which used no masonry in the structural frame, and were protected by sprayed on fireproofing were also hit by airplanes?

There is simply NO basis for comparison between the WTC towers and other buildings. However, if you think that you have a valid comparison, then please bring it up, so that we can evaluate it.

Alright, the basis for the comparison is simply that all buildings, no matter what their exact specs may be, have to qualify for certain structural standards of excessive stability. No one within their right minds would build a structure that comes even remotely close to collapse within default parameters.

HR

The term “pancaking” only refers to the impact of the falling mass causing the subsequent collapse of the lower portions of the building. Whether or not it was a global collapse or a local collapse is irrelevant.

Wow, statements like these do tempt me to ignore you in the future. Not because of "hostility issues", but because of sensible time management. If global or local would make no difference, you would be able to cut out a small piece of one floor which would then penetrate all floors below. If you indeed fail to see the absurdity of this claim, we're done. Would the building also collapse if the Big Pun would jump on top of it?

HR
Perhaps this quote from one of the survivors who was INSIDE WTC 1 when it collapsed, can help you.

A Port Authority captain yelled at Lim to get moving, but he said, “You go ahead,” and he, too, put an arm around Harris, helping to carry her to the fourth floor.
That was when the wind started, even before the noise. “No one realizes about the wind,” says Komorowski.

Yada Yada Yada. Now either the pressure builds up enough to give some firefighters on the ground a free ride or it's being expended by blowing stuff upwards outward. Both phenomena to the extents described and witnessed are even more improbable when the explosive features of the collapsing area alone could not have been fueled by pressure from the supposed pancaking. Moreso, it can't even be explained consistently with the pancaking syringe theory, as the perimeter must've had to remain intact to maintain any pressure buildups while the "piston" was falling downwards through the unsevered "tunnel". In that case the piston would have also prevented any dust from the inside from escaping, along with the rest of the air inside. Furthermore, if the pressure would have been strong enough to create the observed explosive phenomena, it would have equalized on the way of least resistance: the windows.

In effect, what we would have seen would've been an intact perimeter wall with its windows bursting.

And to get to the cake, I honestly believe you're not intent on denying ignorance, but supporting the official theory at all costs. I mean it's not exactly well obscured, I registered yesterday, did some (quite extensive) reading here and believe it's evident already. While you might attribute that to a tendency to jump to conclusions and might inferringly claim I did the same regarding 9/11, I can attest it's not true. You're far too quick to sidetrack any form of meaningful discussion and far too stubborn to ever accept or even consider anything deviating from that farce of an official explanation that I think it's a waste of time arguing with you. You have made up your mind.

In fact I think this whole site consumes a lot of energy of good upright people who came to the same conclusions as I did, it's time to energetically spread the word outside of the internet conspiracy webforum niche out into the open, as far as possible. The evidence is overwhelming - unless one refuses to think it through openly.

Oh, by the way HR, NISTs own report incorporating ULs findings directly contradicts your position. Might wanna tell your homies to look it through...

Originally posted by Lumos

Alright, the basis for the comparison is simply that all buildings, no matter what their exact specs may be, have to qualify for certain structural standards of excessive stability. No one within their right minds would build a structure that comes even remotely close to collapse within default parameters.

Getting hit by an airplane is within the “default parameters”

And no, before you make the false claim: There were no design criteria for the buildings to withstand the impact of an airliner. No building has ever been built with that as a specific design criteria.



scott-juris.blogspot.com...

Still, he recalls that he addressed the question of an airplane collision,
if only to satisfy his engineer's curiosity. For whatever reason,
Robertson took the time to calculate how well his towers would handle the
impact from a Boeing 707, the largest jetliner in service at the time. He
says that his calculations assumed a plane lost in a fog while searching
for an airport at relatively low speed, like the B-25 bomber. He concluded
that the towers would remain standing despite the force of the impact and
the hole it would punch out. The new technologies he had installed after
the motion experiments and wind-tunnel work had created a structure more
than strong enough to withstand such a blow.
Exactly how Robertson performed these calculations is apparently lost --
he says he cannot find a copy of the report. Several engineers who worked
with him at the time, including the director of his computer department,
say they have no recollection of ever seeing the study. But the Port
Authority, eager to mount a counterattack against Wien, seized on the
results -- and may in fact have exaggerated them. One architect working
for the Port Authority issued a statement to the press, covered in a
prominent article in The Times, explaining that Robertson's study proved
that the towers could withstand the impact of a jetliner moving at 600
miles an hour. That was perhaps three times the speed that Robertson had
considered. If Robertson saw the article in the paper, he never spoke up
about the discrepancy. No one else issued a correction, and the question
was answered in many people's minds: the towers were as safe as could be
expected, even in the most cataclysmic of circumstances.
There were only two problems. The first, of course, was that no study of
the impact of a 600-mile-an-hour plane ever existed. ''That's got nothing
to do with the reality of what we did,'' Robertson snapped when shown the
Port Authority architect's statement more than three decades later.
The second problem was that no one thought to take into account
the fires that would inevitably break out when the jetliner's fuel exploded, exactly
as the B-25's had. And if Wien was the trade center's Cassandra, fire
protection would become its Achilles' heel.

Post design calculations are a far different cry from a specific design criteria that the building has to meet.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
And no, before you make the false claim: There were no design criteria for the buildings to withstand the impact of an airliner. No building has ever been built with that as a specific design criteria.

Disagreeing with the on-site construction manager of the WTC Towers now, eh? Based on something published on a blog? But either way, the towers still stood easily.

Less than 15% of the perimeter columns severed in either building. Likely a similar, if not lower percentage for the core columns.

According to NIST you have to have a 75% column failure before a single floor can fail. Chalking all that up to the fires, eh?

HowardR

There were no design criteria for the buildings to withstand the impact of an airliner. No building has ever been built with that as a specific design criteria.

You are just trying to create disinformation.
Its well known that WTC towers were built to stand an impact of a 707.

On July 28, 1945 a B52 crashed into Empire State building.
On May 20, 1946, another military airplane hit the 58th floor of a building on Wall Street.
None of them collapsed.

You are simply lost, you can no longer stand the amount of facts and proof ppl show you...you have no longer the condition to keep the debate and your disinfo tactics no longer work.
Sir, you are a joke.


PS.
btw, the 911 Loose Change 2nd edition is simply outstanding.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Disagreeing with the on-site construction manager of the WTC Towers now, eh? Based on something published on a blog? But either way, the towers still stood easily.

Uh, no. I am merely pointing out what the Structural engineer who designed the building said, not the construction manager. Leslie Robinson was the one who actually designed the structure of the building and knows what criteria he used to design it.

I think that what Robinson himself states is a lot more credible than someone else, who claims to know what Robinson was thinking, says about the design of the building.

And FWIW, since you really didn’t bother to look at the source of that passage, the copy of the article is only being hosted on the blog page. The original can be found in the New York Times Magazine archives where it was originally published. The article was part of a six part series written by James Glanz and Eric Lipton. Glanz is the Times science writer who is not known for being a Bush supporter.

Originally posted by bsbray11
According to NIST you have to have a 75% column failure before a single floor can fail.

Can you give a specific reference to where that statement is made?

Originally posted by Krpano
HowardR
You are just trying to create disinformation.
Its well known that WTC towers were built to stand an impact of a 707.

No. It is a widely believed, misrepresentation of reality that the buildings were designed to withstand the impact of a 707. Such an impact was never a design criteria for the buildings.

That is to say, the structural engineers never sat down one day and said, “you know what, guys? We need to make sure this building can withstand the impact of a 707.” That never happened. Such an impact was never the basis for a single design decision related to the towers. Other things were. Questions such as “Can the building withstand a 150 mph wind?” or “how much can we allow the building to sway in the wind,” were researched and were factors in the building design.

As it is clearly pointed out in Glanz’s article and by Robinson, himself, the analysis to determine it the building would be able to withstand the impact of a 707 was conducted after the design was completed. Some of you might not appreciate the distinction between these two situations, but it is vital. There is a vast difference between a specific design criteria and an incidental benefit of the design.

Thus the statement like “Its well known that WTC towers were built to stand an impact of a 707.” is simply not true. There were NO specific design criteria for the building to be able to withstand the impact of 707.

The buildings probably would have been able to withstand the impact of a 30 foot tsunami wave, but was that a consideration in the design?

I doubt it.

Originally posted by Krpano
On July 28, 1945 a B52 crashed into Empire State building.
On May 20, 1946, another military airplane hit the 58th floor of a building on Wall Street.
None of them collapsed.

So what? Different aircraft, different buildings. Apples and oranges.

Originally posted by Krpano
Sir, you are a joke.

And you, sir, are an idiot.







[edit on 29-12-2005 by HowardRoark]

Howard,

I am a Structural Engineer .. and a global collapse scenario is impossible. Even if the the 'steel had melted' as the government and NIST contends the below impact structure would have resisted collapse and reduced the rate of fall or at the very least deflected the momentum of mass.

The 'smoke clouds' seen rising at the tower's base before they collpased was most likely from explosives in the sub ground level demolishing the core super structure. This in turn would cause vertical fall of the core while other thermite charges were detonated at 30 floor intervals cauing a uniform an explosive global collapse.

Any truthful structural engineer will deduce the same conclusion just the same as any demolition expert would also(and did).

WTC 7 is the dead giveaway for demolition and nobody has yet to explain WTC 7 other than Silverstein, who explained that it was pulled(demolished). And trust me it wouldn't have take more than a day or two set the charges using military grade explosives and materials such as thermite.

I'm not entirely convinced Dubya was a part of the plot to demolish the WTC's .... my educated guess would be the Mossad.

The 'smoke clouds' seen rising at the tower's base before they collpased was most likely from explosives in the sub ground level demolishing the core super structure. This in turn would cause vertical fall of the core while other thermite charges were detonated at 30 floor intervals cauing a uniform an explosive global collapse.

Hmmm...

So if they blew out the bottom first, wouldn't the building collapse start in the basement first instead of at the top down?

The question of why WTC 1 and 2 fell is debatable, and likely will be debated from now on unless some other evidence shows up. The video and photo evidence is inconclusive either way. Plenty of engineers with letters after their names back up both sides of the demolition/nondemolition argument. However, there are two undeniable facts that beg more explanation and more investigation:

1. WTC 7 was demolished. It didn't collapse because of fire.

Larry Silverstien says he gave the go ahead for WTC 7 demolition.

Why was it pulled? Why were we lied to? How was it prepared for demolition so quickly?

2. The suspicious trading of United Airlines and American Airlines stocks. Here's a quote from the 9/11 Commision itself, not a 9/11 conspiracy website:

the volume of put options — instruments that pay off only when a stock drops in price — surged in the parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10 — highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10.

These findings are only innocuous if you assume Al Qaeda is the sole perpetrator in the crime. How in depth is an investigation if the suspicious traders are ruled out as suspects because they have no apparent connection to the accused parties? That's backwards. Additionally, the fact it was a "single US based institutional investor" isn't evidence of anything other than 1 guy was investing for a group of others. It doesn't mean that 1 guy was the only one involved, and the fact that his "trading strategy" included buying American on September 10 proves nothing either. After all, trading strategy is just that, a strategy and can be built around whatever knowledge one might have, like the knowledge of an impending terrorist attack.

I want to know who was behind these stock trades, who made the most money off of them, and an explanation of why they were strategic trades at those times. That's exactly what Martha Stewart was asked to provide, so it's not unprecendented or unacheivable information.


In conclusion, I don't need an investigation to cover the vast conspiracy that is 9/11 lore. All I need are those two facts cleared up. Both have been vaguely explained by the government... 1) WTC 7 fell because of fire. 2) The unusual trading of key stocks prior to 9/11 is coincidence... Neither of those explanations work. Without more adequate explanations that prove otherwise, I remain convinced that a certain number of people had prior knowledge of the attacks.

Originally posted by HowardRoark

Originally posted by bsbray11
According to NIST you have to have a 75% column failure before a single floor can fail.

Can you give a specific reference to where that statement is made?

Ah! The beauty of mathematics. That figure of 75% is based on figures released by NIST, and thus is supported by NIST. It was brought to my attention in a paper on the collapse of WTC1 by a Mr. Wayne Trumpman.

Trumpman states that NIST presented in 2004 that the core columns had a safety factor rating of approximately 2.25. About 5.0 for the perimeter columns. Whereas the core held about 60% of the load, and the perimeter columns 40%, he did the following calculations:

CALCULATION:
200000 / 110 = 1818 tons = 1818000 kg
CALCULATION:
200 * 200 = 40000
40000 * 82 = 3280000 lbs = 1487783 kg = 1488 tons
CALCULATION:
1818 + 1488 = 3306 tons
CALCULATION:
60 * 2.25 = 135
40 * 5 = 200
135 + 200 = 335
335 / 100 = 3.35

Note that that calculation in bold (emphasis added) gets a weighted average between the two safety ratings. Also note, Howard, that if you assert that the perimeter columns held more than 40% of the load (I've seen you claim it was 50% ), the numbers would be even higher. The calculations above that one are arbitrary in this matter, we can address those again later if you want, or you can simply go to the Jones thread at ATSNN. So there's that.

Trumpman then explains further:

The perimeter columns essentially had enough reserve capacity to carry 200% of the WTC 1 design load [According to the safety ratings NIST released]. The core columns could carry 135% [According to the same safety ratings]. For floor 97 to collapse, the equivalent of 55% of the core columns and 80% of the perimeter columns would have to fail. That means on average 26 core columns and 189 perimeter columns would have to fail. 75% of the total columns would have to fail.

The whole article can be found here if you want further info:
911research.wtc7.net...

Originally posted by Jedi_Master
So if they blew out the bottom first, wouldn't the building collapse start in the basement first instead of at the top down?

What? The perimeter columns fail from thermite to the core?

No. That wouldn't have happened.

Keep in mind that Trumpman also says this.

911research.wtc7.net...

Keep in mind that this is a DRAFT version of a paper. A rigorous peer review is necessary before anyone firmly accepts this paper's findings. A careful frame-by-frame analysis of videos, a more detailed modeling of the fire, collapse, and clouds, should be done to confirm measurements and observations.

I've recently discovered and viewed a variety of movies and clips suggesting that the WTC buildings were brought down by explosives rather than airplanes. So far the precision with which the buildings fell is incredible evidence alone.

So far, I'm buying this and so are some of the people I work with. I have a couple of questions that may have been answered already in this myriad of posts on the subject, but until I can manage to find them, maybe someone can direct me and make my search a little quicker. So the questions are this...

WHY? Assuming that the buildings were brought down in a controlled demolition, why was it important to totally demolish all 3 buildings? Why not just one?

This was obviously done much the same way as a magician. We were directed to look in certain directions while something is going on somewhere else. What exactly is that something else that is going on. If this is all true, then there is still some deep deception going on somewhere.

Is the deception so that the international banking buildings and institutions can be rebuilt by uh...them? Is the deception caused for the purpose of invading Iraq? Is it all about oil or is there something more important than the oil and letting Americans think it's about the oil is a good cover. What in Iraq/Iran could be more important than the oil?

For me, the question does not seem to be explosives or not explosives, but rather, why? What is really going on that we are not seeing?

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Keep in mind that Trumpman also says this.

Yeah, but that goes back to NIST, because he's going off of NIST figures here. So basically what your post amounts to is "Keep in mind NIST may be lying." And even though NIST has made similar disclaimers, they're the only ones giving out information anymore, because they're the only ones with the blueprints.

Originally posted by davenman
WHY? Assuming that the buildings were brought down in a controlled demolition, why was it important to totally demolish all 3 buildings? Why not just one?

Both were hit with planes, and both would likely have to be deconstructed because repairing them without it might've been dangerous. Deconstruction costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time, and yet has nowhere near the same psychological effect as the buildings blowing up and doing a lot of damage and killing a lot of people. It also solved the deconstruction problem with the WTC owner, who may have had to consider deconstruction even without the 9/11 attacks, as there is testimony that the towers were slowly sinking into the ground and would eventually be unsafe. The owner, Silverstein, instead just made a lot of cash from insurance.

I can't say much for Building 7 except that it was used by the CIA, SS, and IRS, among others, and had a big, padded bunker for Giuliani right there at the towers, from which actions could be overseen. With its destruction, crucial evidence for some legal cases were destroyed along with the other federal documents, and evidence pointing to government involved on 9/11 could've been easily destroyed as well. Crucial papers for at least one case involving CitiBank, if I'm not mistaken, were destroyed, but that seems to be an added bonus rather than anything critical. If you look up "Project Hammer" you can come across a lot of information relevant to CitiBank and our nation's banking in general, and where our money comes from and how it works. There's some major conspiracy going on there.

Obviously it's rather hard to say why everything happened the way it did. Or at least it is for me. The easiest things for me to point out are like the neatness of the collapses, as you mentioned, or the oddities of the different types of momentum. Others here have suggested looking at 9/11 by "following the money," but that angle seems just as complicated, if not moreso, than the route of collapse physics. It's probably more revealing of motives though. There's a book called Crossing the Rubicon that deals with 9/11 from that angle.

davenman,

there are a multitude of motives that one can think of, some off the top of my head are:

-imperialist schemes: incredible as it may seem in retrospective, PNAC's strategy paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" not only outlined a plan for global domination by obtaining control over the caspian basin/central asia, a region of geopolitical importance due to its oil reserves, by military means, which would require astronomical military spending, but also bluntly stated: "The process of transformation is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor". The paper was published in September 2000, PNAC's members include Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rove, Perle, Jeb Bush, among others.

I think it's widely accepted that oil is not only a finite, but also a crucial resource. Estimates about its time of exhausture vary, but we all know that economically emerging countries like China or India, which might one day surpass the US, depend on oil as much as the western world, and their demand is growing quite rapidly. Controlling the oil means effectively controlling those rivals.

-Petrodollars/world reserve currency : A mechanism not widely known which is somewhat related to the above point is that oil is mostly traded in dollars since 1973, which lead to subtle, extremely interesting phenomena. All industrialized countries need oil, therefore they require dollars to buy them off OPEC - with dollars in everyone's pocket, the world trade is conducted primarily in dollars, about 2/3 of it nowadays. The demand for oil is steadily growing as is the volume of global transactions and in result the demand for dollars. A lot of dollars never hit the domestic market, they leave the US in exchange for goods and proceed to circulate through the world market, which essentially allows the US to simply print dollars for goods to the extent of growing global demand. Now that sounds almost too good to be true, but here's the catch: Those "global" dollars, even though they might circulate outside the US for now, don't vanish. If, for some reason, a lot of people decided to plunge their dollar reserves back into the US in exchange for goods, inflation would skyrocket like in 1920s Germany, possibly leading to an economic catastrophe of unseen extent. After the introduction of the Euro and its establishment as a relatively stable currency, several oil exporting countries considered switching to "Petroeuros", Saddam Hussein being the first to dare a leap. After initial widespread skepticism, this move seemed to pay off handsomely, others willing to follow suit, such as Iran. Well, whaddayaknow, after the glorious liberation of Iraq, they're back to dollars, and I'm willing to bet Iran's Euro adventures will not survive 2006.

I think you see where this is going. I'm sure there's much more info on this to be found in the "Peak Oil" part of ATS.

-there's more, for example Larry Silverstein (wtc complex owner) selling his soul for 1.2 billion $, but they're much smaller fragments to the puzzle in my opinion.