Le Pêntágon blogmonde

They've just released the official Department of Defense hardbound book of history: "Pentagon 9-11," and it is the talk of the Pêntágon blogmonde. Someone (riv?) scanned in the 30-or-so new images and illustrations, and put them up at http://911files.info/77/pentagon_911_book/ where they are not without interest. You can purchase the book at the gov'ment bookstore, for about a dollar an illustration, and expect to wait several weeks for delivery. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite pictorial representations.

On Edit: This tidbit is too delicious to wait for dessert, Defense Historians Doc... Defense Historians Document 9/11 Pentagon Attack
Randy Papadopoulos, a Naval historian, Nancy K. Berlage, an editor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Historical Office, and Diane T. Putney, a historian with the same office, spoke with reporters about the release of "Pentagon 9/11" on Sept. 7, 2007.

"The team of authors learned about more than the individual experiences as they conducted their researched, however. For instance the effects of recently completed renovations to one wedge of the Pentagon that was hit were mixed, said Diane Putne, a historian in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Historical Office.

"Renovations brought features that were really a two-edged sword," she said.

The blast-proof windows didn't explode into deadly shards, and ballistic cloth in the walls did its job protecting employees from brick fragments. But all the force that was being absorbed by these reinforcements had to go somewhere, and it did, blowing a hole in a wall of one of the building's interior alleys.

But, as the oral accounts revealed, the sprinkler systems did their jobs and created welcomed relief from smoke and helped suppress the fires in certain areas of the building."

I think the sprinklers suppressed fires on certain people even. And that hole wasn't a "mixed-edge sword" by any means--it was the point of egress for Kevin Schaeffer to live, and it's how David Tarantino and Dave Thomas heroically rescued Jerry Henson. But my God, they're really grasping at science straws now aren't they? I haven't got the book yet but I'm already anticipating its whole tone of apologetics. Dig yourselves in deeper I say.

We see our first scenes of mortuary science. This is all well and good, given the only two proofs a 757 impacted the Pentagon on 9-11-01 are the purported eyewitnesses and the supposed bodies. Still unresolved though are the complaints of the Virginia Medical Examiner who was ready, able and willing to take on her lawfully mandated job, yet was shunted aside by the new work rules making the FBI capo a capo. It would have helped had Dover not been such a completely closed-casket closed shop.


Working against this practical gain is this mysterious refrigerated-truck image, with its OBA/FBI, Saranwrap, Aerobed, empty-bodybag meme. Since the one true mar on the newspaper of record's earliest coverage, in its first article before 5pm that Tuesday, was a paragraph planted by the Pentagon saying they'd put out a call for a refrigerated truck from a local supermarket to handle the expected load. Like their casualty count inflated from 100 to 800, the prospect of a Winn Dixie hauling our hero's remains away, especially when they badly need to clean the filter on the air conditioner, is, well, tacky and not antiseptic.

Oh goody, goody, goody! A new clock for my clock blog!

Well, on second thought--how boring. What, did they buy a gross of those brown plastic battery-operated affairs at Target. And ho-hum, the point again?. Look how they put it: "The 9-11 Commission determined the plane hit the building at 9:37am," like, we don't have a say, let's blame them, they haven't any credibility left anyway. Who cares if people remember explosions and crashes running from 9:20am clear through to 9:45am. Those were tires exploding and oxygen bottles going off and sonic bombs, I mean booms.

The seismic laboratories got clear readings from the strikes and the falls of both towers in New York City, but they could find nothing recordable from Arlington, although one might think a 757 hitting the base of a solid masonry building would shake the ground more than a 767 hitting high up on what is, essentially, an elastic tuning fork. But what's this? The observatories were charged with only looking for activity within a three-minute window surrounding the 9-11 Commission established strike time? Oh. I see.

Vertical-Component Seismic Records Covering Time Window of Plane Impact
at Pentagon on September 11, 2001, 09:36:30 to 09:39:30 (EDT), 0.6-5 Hz

Here's a nice photograph of a flight-data recorder resting comfortably on some concrete. Dig the caption: "Flight data recorder found in the building near the hole in the inner C Ring wall leading to A-E Drive." Does this mean they've given up ascribing some legitimacy to that hole, by speaking of it only in generic terms? "The hole that does not speak its name," works.



But look. Finally! After all this time, of taking, and distributing, maybe a hundred different images of that V hole, they find the first, original, shot, still smoking, the one before the FBI man took away the jet-liner's wheel for safe-keeping! Yes!. But what's that damn bridge doing there? That wasn't there before was it? Quick, better call Metcalf.



Here are three illustrations, that keep getting better. It's the first we've seen of the second floor. Where Maude was DOA, and Birdwell, His "well done, my good and faithful servant," just kept getting...more, w e l l d o n e! Har, har, har!





A new kind of interior shot, coolly labeled, Below: An inside view.
Unfortunately, a little too close to, Below, An inside job.


Here's a favorite: the Tyvek-robed Old Guard on a diligent evidence hunt. Of course--that's the way to organize--do it in a big circle, and some of you get in there on top and muck around in it. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. And the sidebar recycling operation is a nice touch! But doesn't the record tell us they did this work under a tent in the North parking lot? I'll have to track down the reference.


On edit: Found the tent reference:
Old Guard Honors Battlefield Tradition by Linda D. Kozaryn writing in a DefenseLink news article on Feb,. 5, 2002

"Gen. John Keane, Army vice chief of staff, was in his office at the Pentagon that day. In mid-January, he talked of the day's terror and courage to a group of reserve officers here.
The soldiers helped sort through the rubble so FBI agents could locate evidence and local search and rescue workers could locate remains. Once found, the Old Guard soldiers carried out body bags containing the remains.
Military mortuary affairs personnel stood by to receive the remains. The Army's 54th Quartermaster Company (Mortuary Affairs), Fort Lee, Va., were first on the scene, followed by the Army Reserve 311th Quartermaster Company (Mortuary Affairs) from Puerto Rico.
"We intended to remove (all the remains) using United States Army soldiers to do it," Keane said. "That's our tradition. That's our custom. So we asked the fire and rescue people to call us when they located (remains) and told them that we would assist them."
The Old Guard's young soldiers, he said, most in their early 20s, some still teen-agers, wore protective garments, respirators, rubber boots and gloves when they went in to recover remains.
All work on the site stopped while they performed the grim mission. Nothing would move except the soldiers, Keane said. They carried the remains to a tent, where there was a short ceremony with the American flag and a chaplain said a prayer.
"We did that outside the view of any camera or reporter," he noted. "We did that because that's who we are and what we stand for. Those are our values.'"

Now, I know just how the revisionist historians in the PsyOps rewrite office will spin this: that these young soldiers wearing white protective-wear gear after labor day were not sifting for human remains, they were looking for paper driver's licenses that belonged to Arab hijackers--which they found. Then tell me, what honorable values are found in the following:

Slow, Grim Work at the Pentagon, by Steve Twomey and David Cho, writing in the Washington Post on September 13, 2001

As the remains began to emerge with regularity in the hour before nightfall, the workers who had used heavy construction equipment to strip away the rubble paused to watch. "I don't think anything can prepare you to see that," said Gerald Ours, a supervisor with Facchina Construction.

His colleague Mike Crotty described encountering the body of a woman inside an office that had felt the plane's impact. "She was in her chair, leaning back," he said. "It didn't look like she knew what hit her . . . and her face was as if she was shocked."

The value I read into that is the high status placed on workers from "Facchina Construction," who seem to have had the run of the place. What I'd like to know is, what was the concrete subcontractor for the future rebuilding contract doing on-site on Wednesday, September 12? Polishing the terrazzo?
____________________________________________________________________________


Oh my goodness. Is that Van A. Harp? What the hell happened? Is he Dorian Gray in need of a re-stretching? I guess that stuff catches up with you eventually--Ruby Ridge, Trafficant, those Daschel spores--whatever they're called. You know, it's not my place to judge, but I'm also not going to roll over and hand madmen the KY. I think we should all keep our own sides of the street clean. But I really hope all of you Holy Cross and Fordham and Notre Dame FBI jocks check your moral compasses. There's nothing worse than being misguided.



I don't know what to say after looking at this one. I just keep thinking of how immoral and unjust our wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan are. How do we put things right?

Here's a goody! Amended After-Action Reports for dinner! Yum yum!

Don't try and reconcile this with "Responding in the Pentagon."


Now, finally, proof positive. A debris shot with logo and cereal number, sitting up high on the grass--what kind of grass is that? Is it Easter basket grass?

Oy vay, I wish I were blond.