In the Atlantic article Benjamin and Simon found that the new evidence demonstrated that the view of 9/11 as the attack of a single cell of men led by Bin Laden was “wrong.” However, they then made a large effort to both demonstrate that Saudis were involved in the attack and also absolve them with a they-have-changed excuse.
What they didn’t do is take the opportunity to examine what else might be “wrong” with the story to date. There was not a single word about the possibility that the event was the ultimate in “inside jobs”. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence (i.e. seemingly impossible universal failure of American defenses, insider trading on the stock market anticipating the attacks traced to Americans, FEMA’s setting up a headquarters in NY City blocks from the WTC on Sept 10th, instantaneous recycling of the steel from the World Trade Center (WTC) before it could be investigated, and potential discovery of the explosive nano-thermite in the dust of the buildings) that 9/11 was done by Americans to Americans. In fact, there’s a great deal more circumstantial evidence pointing to an inside job than by comparison makes up the case laid out in the article against the Saudis. But, circumstantial is still just circumstantial.
However, the characteristics of the three very visible complete collapses of steel-superstructure high-rise WTC buildings (the first three such collapses in nearly 100 years of building skyscrapers) are direct evidence of controlled demolition. With proof of controlled demolition the leap to “inside job”…isn’t a leap at all. The most obvious visible demolition evidence is the three symmetrical collapses of asymmetrically-damaged buildings. That is a statistical impossibility without carefully-planted explosives. Further, all three of the buildings came down at (or–in the case of the Twin Towers–very close to) free fall acceleration through thousands of tons of undamaged steel and concrete. Not possible in the natural physical world, but absolutely normal for controlled demolitions. And, we’re told in the official pronouncements of what caused the collapses of the Twin Towers that the smaller/weaker/damaged upper portions of the towers somehow crushed the larger/stronger/undamaged portions of the buildings below the plane crash sites to the ground. That would be a clear violation of Newton’s third law of motion (“every action has an equal and opposite reaction…”). For the official story to be true, somehow the top 15% of the North Tower crushed the 85% of the tower below the crash site without being crushed itself until it reached the ground. It can’t happen. And then there is the also asymmetrically-damaged (but not struck by a plane) building Seven that came down at absolute free fall symmetrically. It just can’t happen without explosives.
There is something “wrong” at the heart of the official story of 9/11 and no matter what conscious, or unconscious, part the Saudis played, the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center puts the administration of George W. Bush at the heart of it.