"Chris Bollyn Attacks Popular Mechanics 9-11 March Issue"




chris is my favorite white investigative journalist. - 3X


POPULAR MECHANICS AND ITS 9/11 COVER-UP DEBACLE
By Christopher Bollyn

Exclusive to American Free Press

Has the U.S. government taken over Popular Mechanics magazine in order to have a mouthpiece to promote the official version of 9/11?

Popular Mechanics (PM) magazine has thrown down the gauntlet and challenged honest scientists and researchers with its recent article "Debunking 9/11 Lies." The article's support of the official version of events and the author's undisclosed connection with the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raise serious concerns about the government's misuse of the media to disseminate propaganda.

The March issue of PM, with its cover story "Debunking 9/11 Lies" is a rather clumsy attempt to discredit the large and growing body of credible evidence that the official version of 9/11 is a hoax.

The fact, revealed by American Free Press, that Benjamin Chertoff, the senior researcher for PM and its article about 9/11 is a "cousin" of the new head of DHS, Michael Chertoff, raises a host of questions about government control of the "free press" for propaganda purposes.

PM chose not disclose the pertinent fact that the "senior researcher" of its "debunking" article of "9/11 myths" is related to Michael Chertoff, the new secretary of DHS. However, because 9/11 was the event that brought about the creation of the massive security department, this relationship should have been brought to the reader's attention.

Because AFP exposed the relationship, when PM's 25-year-old senior researcher Benjamin Chertoff was interviewed by Art Bell on Clear Channel's Coast to Coast AM radio network on March 5, the subject could not be avoided.

"As research editor for Popular Mechanics," Bell's website wrote., "Benjamin Chertoff is responsible for upholding journalistic standards for the magazine, as well as ensuring all the stories in Popular Mechanics are reported completely and accurately."

Bell and Chertoff, however, tried to minimize the significance of the Chertoff connection. Chertoff continued to deny the relationship, saying he still does not how he is related to Michael Chertoff, although his mother, the former Judith Chertoff, told AFP, without hesitation, that he is "a cousin."

Chertoff said that because of the AFP discovery, he had contacted his father, Larry Chertoff, to discuss his relationship to Michael Chertoff. He told Bell, however, and his listening audience, that he still didn't know how he is related to Secretary Chertoff and suggested that the relationship is that of a "distant cousin" and goes back to family ties from Byelorussia.

Bell added that the relationship might be something like a "14 millionth cousin."

Bell's employer, Clear Channel Communications, the parent company of the Coast to Coast AM radio network, is based in San Antonio, Texas, and is headed by L. Lowry Mays and his sons, generous supporters of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

The day before Bell interviewed Chertoff, AFP sent an open letter asking if Chertoff's relationship with the secretary of DHS, and other key questions pertaining to 9/11, would be discussed on the program. Bell read portions of the open letter on the air but failed to ask Chertoff the key questions during the 4-hour interview. Nor did Bell mention American Free Press by name.

Because the PM article supports the FEMA-sponsored engineering study that secondary fires ignited by burning jet fuel caused the collapse of the twin towers, AFP asked how fires judged by fire-fighters to be manageable could have caused the complete collapse of the towers and the 47-story WTC 7?

How could these fires have caused the complete collapse of the thick steel box-columns that supported the gravity load of the twin towers?

AFP also asked if Chertoff could explain why the high-rise Windsor Building in Madrid, Spain, survived a 24-hour inferno with extreme temperatures, without collapsing on Februry 12-13?

Bell did not raise any of these questions and repeatedly referred to 9/11 researchers as "wingnuts."

The first caller asked if Chertoff would explain the AFP discovery of pools of "molten steel" found in the 7th basement level of the twin towers and at the base of WTC 7 – weeks after the collapse. Bell promised to raise this question when Chertoff came on the air, but did not.

Regarding the unexplained collapse of Larry Silverstein's WTC 7, Chertoff's article presents as "fact" a "working hypothesis" put forward by Shyam Sunder, the Indian-raised acting deputy director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Information from the yet unpublished NIST study of 9/11 was provided to PM for the article.

"With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated," Chertoff wrote.

"The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," Sunder told PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom – approximately 10 stories – about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out."

AFP asked Dr. Gene Corley, executive director of the FEMA-sponsored engineering study of the WTC done after the collapse if there was any evidence that 25 percent of the south face of WTC 7 was "scooped out."

"No," Corley said. There are "no photographs or engineering evidence" to confirm Sunder's claim about extensive damage to WTC 7, Corley said. Although a fire fighter had reported some damage to the south face, it was "not reliable information" for the engineering study, Corley said, "So we did not use it."

"NIST's analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of 'progressive collapse,' a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down," PM wrote. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or 'kinks,' in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other."

Independent 9/11 researchers like Eric Hufschmid and Phil Jayhan, have pointed out to AFP that PM is ignoring the fact that these "kinks" appeared several seconds into the collapse of WTC 7.

The PM article contains a number of intentional distortions, which seem designed to discredit independent 9/11 research as a whole. For example, when it discusses the NORAD interceptors that failed to intercept the errant aircraft of 9/11, PM wrote: "In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America."

PM's source, NORAD spokesman Maj. Douglas Martin, however, told the Associated Press in August 2002 that NORAD had "67 scrambles" from September 2000 to June 2001.

Chertoff's distortion continues when he wrote about a NORAD interception of the golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet in 1999. "Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet," Chertoff wrote, implying that the interceptors were unable to reach Stewart's jet – or the 9/11 planes – because of speed restrictions.

The NTSB report on the Stewart plane incident, however, reveals that interceptors from three different bases quickly caught up with the Learjet minutes after being ordered to do so. The unanswered questions about why NORAD fighters failed to intercept the 9/11 planes remain unanswered in the PM piece.

The PM article suggests that credible 9/11 researchers say, "Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet." None of the researchers say this. The question is who was flying the white jet seen by several eyewitnesses – before and after – an explosion was heard in a reclaimed mine near Shanksville, Pennsylania? The crater that resulted is said to have been caused by the crash of Flight 93, however no parts of an airplane were seen in or around the crater.

Intentional distortions such as these occur throughout the PM article and present a challenge to honest scientists and 9/11 researchers. In several cases research done by this writer was cited without credit to the author or American Free Press.

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END NOTE: Christopher Bollyn will host a public discussion of "Painful Questions" by Eric Hufschmid and present newly discovered evidence of the events of 9/11 – and the cover-up – in the Rasmussen Room of Schaumburg Township District Library, near Chicago, Illinois, on March 26, 2005 from 2 to 5 p.m. Independent researcher Phil Jayhan and Dr. Gene Corley, leader of the FEMA WTC report, have been invited to participate.





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