A DVD by Massimo Mazzucco

Review of the Film by Simon Day and Commentary on the Italian Premiere by AE911Truth Staff

The DVD reviewed here is quite important for the 9/11 Truth movement generally. However, it ventures far outside the scope of AE911Truth’s mission and area of expertise. While we review, and wholeheartedly embrace, the excellent segments of the DVD that cover the World Trade Center evidence, we specifically do not endorse, or even discuss, the other three hours of material on the DVD.

Award-winning director Massimo Mazzucco commands the debate with the “debunkers” in this powerful new documentary about the 9/11 Truth Movement’s challenge to the official conspiracy theories of 9/11.In September 1997, “The Project for the New American Century,” a Washington, DC-based US think tank, was founded with the purpose of promoting US global leadership. In September 2000, they published a report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century.” In this document, we find the following statement: “[T]he process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Wind the clock on another year to the devastating events of September 11th, 2001, and we have a plausible candidate for this New Pearl Harbor. This is the case made by Massimo Mazzucco in his superb new DVD, September 11 – The New Pearl Harbor. This epic production stands head and shoulders above most of the other offerings that try to span the spectrum of the events on 9/11. So what makes this one so special? For me, there are three key points to be highlighted.

The first is the quality of the presentation. Many documentaries address this complex subject, but fail to achieve a level of professionalism. In contrast, Mazzucco’s production has the sort of quality that one might see on television or in the mainstream media.

The second is the enormous depth and quality of the research that has gone into the production. Mazzucco has let out all the stops, has explored most of the angles, and provides a wealth of information. A lot of the information in the film was obtained through the efforts of various researchers in the 9/11 Truth Movement via Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Key facets of the controversial issues surrounding 9/11 are presented meticulously and fairly.

The third is Mazzucco’s adherence to the principles of logic and science.

But let’s get back to the central point of Mazzucco’s work – the similarity between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor (PH). He kicks off the DVD by describing 12 points of similarity.

First, we are told that the claimed goal of the government in each case differed substantially from the actual goal. In the case of PH, the actual goal was war with Hitler, whereas the stated goal was war with Japan. Similarly, in the case of 9/11, the larger goal was war with Iraq, whereas the country first attacked by the US after 9/11 was Afghanistan.

Subsequently, in both cases, a powerful propaganda machine was cranked up to establish the necessary connections in the public mind. A huge number of Americans ended up believing that Hitler was responsible for PH and that Saddam Hussein was the mastermind behind 9/11.

Foreknowledge was another key area of similarity. In both cases, it was well known in Washington, DC, that attacks were expected well before they actually occurred. Even the exact dates of the attacks were known weeks in advance. The foreknowledge of the attacks enjoyed by one group in the government was withheld from other groups that might have been able to avert them. In both cases, the government was accused of having this foreknowledge, but these claims were, unsurprisingly, denounced. At the same time, when honest officials who wanted to avert the attacks tried to report it to their superiors, their calls fell on deaf ears.

Moving on to the military response to the attacks (or lack of it), we see yet more similarities. In both cases, at the exact time of the attacks, key members of the military made themselves unavailable. Donald Rumsfeld, it is reported, vanished without trace for 30 minutes. Prior to this, in both cases, the available military force in the area had been deliberately reduced. On 9/11 there were only four available jet fighters to defend the whole of the Eastern seaboard of the country. On top of this, in both cases, we have stand-down orders that were issued (apparently from VP Dick Cheney on 9/11), further crippling the country’s defenses in its hour of need.

Needless to say, in both cases, the indignation of the public following the attacks was used to justify entry into wars that had been planned long before. The aftermath of each attack saw the formation of commissions whose stated purpose it was to investigate the government’s failure to thwart the attacks. The Roberts Commission (in the case of PH) and the 9/11 Commission were both “investigations” into conspiracies that might have been led (astray) by the conspirators themselves. Neither investigation acknowledged any involvement by insiders.

The myths of 9/11 crumble under Mazzucco’s fierce and unrelenting scrutiny as he takes apart Popular Mechanics piece by piece.Moving on again, we are told of the various citizens groups speaking out about the events of 9/11 and the state of the ongoing debate between them. First we have those in the 9/11 Truth Movement, sometimes called “Truthers,” who question the official narrative of events. Then we have the “debunkers,” who have attempted to disprove the evidence offered by the Truthers. Mazzucco devotes much of his attention to disproving such attempts by the debunkers, resulting in a comprehensive, highly coherent rebuttal of the debunkers’ case.

In Mazzucco’s sights are Italy’s top debunker Paulo Attivissimo and his French counterpart Jerome Quirant. Both these men have been active in their home countries on the lecture circuit presenting their “facts” about 9/11. At the top of Attivissimo’s list is Popular Mechanics magazine, which produced the book Debunking 9/11 Myths. Although this book has been thoroughly debunked by AE911Truth, it is still regarded by some as the best attempt yet by debunkers to challenge the 9/11 Truth Movement. In more than four dozen separate examples, Mazzucco effectively demonstrates that a lot of the debunkers’ “evidence” is either entirely untrue or is based on misconceptions and erroneous inferences.

Mazzucco, on the other side of the debate table, recognizes the outstanding efforts by the professionals at AE911Truth to refute the building collapse reports produced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The core structure of the Twin Towers was far from a being “hollow steel shaft” as it was described in The 9/11 Commission Report. The 47 massive steel box columns in the core were 52 in. x 22 in. at the base and almost solid steel. Yet debunkers try all manner of (often dishonest) justifications to explain away how these columns suddenly, all at once, gave up about 90% of their strengthLet’s have a look at some of the debunkers’ arguments in a little more detail. (Many of these points are also provided in the detailed documentary 9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out by the 2,100-strong Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which is used throughout this important 2-hour section of Mazzucco’s 5-hour DVD.)

One constant theme is that the three WTC towers were allegedly built using light construction that rendered them fragile and weak. This is based around the fact that the towers’ interior columns were located in the core of the buildings, with an open area between that core and the perimeter that was spanned by floor-framing members.

Some debunkers say that it’s the location of the uprights that made the Towers weak. Others, including the 9/11 Commission, maintain that it was the location of the uprights in the core that made it weak – calling it a “hollow steel shaft.” Attivissimo, for example, makes this claim in one of his lectures and goes on to say that “as far as I know, only the [Willis (formerly)] Sears Tower is of the same type, and nobody uses [this method of construction] anymore.” The facts, of course, as pointed out by AE911Truth petition signers David Chandler and Anthony Szamboti, disagree with this assertion. The core, far from being a hollow shaft, was in fact a solid array of very substantial columns that were more like a separate skyscraper within a skyscraper. The outer shell, joined to the central core via a hat truss at the top of the building, resulted in a structure of immense strength that was capable of supporting three to five times the actual weight of the building. This design model is so strong that it is still used in new buildings today.

The AE911Truth experts who testify in Mazzucco’s powerful documentary note that there would be equal and opposite destructive forces acting on the top section of the building as it crushed the lower section. In fact, according to Newton’s Third Law, it would be destroyed in the first four seconds of this conflict – as video clips show that it wasIn fact, a similar design was used by Larry Silverstein’s architects to construct the new building that stands on the site of the originally destroyed third tower – WTC7. Also, the structural engineers who designed the Twin Towers noted that one of the design criteria was that that it should be able to withstand an airliner hitting it at 600 mph. They said, “[T]he problem would be that the fuel would dump into the building [causing fires] – but the building would still be there.”

Mazzucco emphasizes a solid tenet of the Truthers’ argument, which is that the free-fall collapse of the three towers is impossible without additional energy being supplied to the system during collapse. The idea here is a simple one. As the section of the building that was falling (the upper block of floors in the case of WTC1 and WTC2) fell onto the section that was, at that point in time, stationary (the intact lower floors), energy would have been absorbed by the stationary section in two ways.

First would be the energy needed to shatter the lower section and move the columns – allowing the falling section to accelerate downward at nearly the rate of free-fall. Since, in the government’s narrative, the only source of energy was the kinetic energy of the falling upper section, we should, therefore, observe substantially less than a free-fall downward acceleration. However, for a large part of the duration of the collapse, the event proceeded at near free-fall acceleration: exactly the opposite of what would be predicted both by physics and common sense.

One would expect NIST to have some kind of explanation of this in its report. However, shockingly, there is no such explanation. NIST was careful to point out that its investigation only covered what happened up to the “initiation of collapse,” and omits any discussion of what happened after collapse initiation – insisting that it was unnecessary because, as John Gross, Co-Project Leader of the NIST report, states rather flippantly, “After all, the building collapsed and we all saw it.” Perhaps the reason for this is that to have done so would have necessitated an explanation of why the laws of physics did not hold true on 9/11, even though they have proved unvarying on every other day throughout time.

Mazzucco makes all this clear by showing an excerpt of a presentation by Richard Gage, AIA, founder of AE911Truth. Gage explains that is not too difficult to calculate the structural resistance of the lower floors to the collapse from the weight above – and the decelerating effect this would have. When this is taken into consideration, he demonstrates that it is not even possible that the whole building would collapse at all, let alone at the near free-fall acceleration that was documented by researchers (and that is even admitted by official reports).

Mazzucco employs dozens of examples such as the above that refute the position of each debunker exhaustively. The DVD is not only an effective source of information for anyone already well versed in the events and debate of 9/11, but also an excellent starting place for anyone new to the many fascinating technical issues involved. Their disturbing implications are also well covered in the film.

David Ray Griffin, 9/11 researcher and author of 10 books on the subject, notes, “There have been several good films and videos about 9/11. But this new film by award-winning film-maker Massimo Mazzucco is in a class by itself. For those of us who have been working on 9/11 for a long time, this is the film we have been waiting for.”

Learn more at the Director’s website. Get the DVD now from AE911Truth.

Commentary on the Italian Premiere

The New Pearl HarborI had the distinct honor of attending the November 10 premiere of the new Italian 9/11 film, entitled in English September 11: The New Pearl Harbor, at the Teatro Palladium in central Rome. The award-winning documentary filmmaker is Massimo Mazzucco.

An enthusiastic crowd of 200 people filled the main seating area of the theater. After the epic-length film concluded, a lively question-and-answer session ensued, where it quickly became apparent that most attendees were, in fact, already familiar with the basic evidence, yet inspired by the new research and presentation.  The discussion quickly centered around how to move forward on educating the public and getting a real investigation.

I spoke for a few minutes, in my broken Italian, letting others know more about the landmark AE911Truth documentary “9/11: Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out,” which is featured in the World Trade Center section of Mazzucco’s film. I also encouraged the audience, architects, engineers, and others alike, to sign our AE911Truth petition, which has been signed by more than 2,100 A/Es who are demanding a new investigation into the catastrophic destruction of all three WTC skyscrapers.

The audience at Rome’s Teatro Palladium takes in the relentless mass of evidence at the November 11 premiereThe film is long – taking up five hours and three DVDs – but it provides a unique visual compendium of 9/11 information, presenting the views of both the defenders of the official conspiracy theory and the supporters of the 9/11 Truth Movement. It covers key events of 9/11: the stand-down of air defense, the hijackers, the airplanes, the Pentagon, Flight 93, the Twin Towers, and Building 7.

There is far too much information to summarize here in this report, but I will highlight the film’s methodology and show the high points that relate to AE911Truth readers.

Popular Mechanics editor Jim Meigs has accused 9/11 activist/researchers of lying and disgracing the memories of 9/11 victimsThe film starts by showing the parallels between the events of Pearl Harbor and of 9/11, then presents many of the main issues of the 9/11 Truth debate. It goes on to introduce the 9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 truth debunkers Paolo Attivissimo of Italy; Jerome Quirant of France; Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic magazine, and (more importantly) Jim Meigs and associates from Popular Mechanics magazine.

Mazzucco employs an intriguing approach. As the film progresses, the debunkers are allowed to make their points, attempting to discredit the “conspiracy theories.” Then Mazzucco systematically uses video of highly credible experts, and clips and audio of actual air-traffic control and air-defense dialogue. He follows up the evidence for each point with concise and pointed questions, a total of 50 in all, challenging the viewer directly to explain facts that contradict the debunkers’ points that he has assembled. The approach is very effective in demonstrating the debunkers’ lack of credibility.

Google Street View captures the irony of NIST’s lack of scientific opennessThe part most relevant to our mission at AE911Truth - the exposure of the evidence for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and World Trade Center 7 - begins halfway through DVD #2 with a series of video clips showing the airplane impacts into the Twin Towers from many angles. The videos show people standing in the gaping holes of the buildings that are about to collapse – along with the emotionally compelling recording of a cell phone call from a desperate woman saying “I’m going to die,” then a roar, as the entire building is destroyed from top to bottom, then silence. Mazzucco identifies two organizations as playing central – though competing – roles in the investigation. The first is NIST - the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency of the US Department of Commerce. The second is Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. He then gives an extensive and thorough explanation of our work, highlighting our successes – for example in getting NIST to change the WTC 7 report to admit the free-fall of Building 7.

Richard Gage, AIA, narrates “9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out” with locations shots around Ground ZeroMazzucco goes on to build a convincing case for controlled demolition by using the testimony of many experts, including structural engineer Leslie Robertson, who was intimately involved in the design of the Twin Towers, several clips of AE911Truth founder Richard Gage, AIA, and many clips of the experts from “9/11 Explosive Evidence: Experts Speak Out.” Mazzucco makes effective use of the scientific forensic evidence and eyewitness testimony that AE911Truth has so carefully assembled in its film.

It was truly satisfying to see AE911Truth’s expertise and evidence be used in increasingly more successful films, like this one, from being made all around the world.