I'm Guessing that nobody here gives a shit about this - -

[Michael Tee]

<<Try starting with a less prejudiced mind set and begin again here, "There is nothing special about your take on torture, Snowblower, except that you play at being some sort of avenger.">>

"Play at being some sort of avenger" is BSB-speak for "is aghast at the lack of prosecution for an offence which the U.S.A. is bound by treaty to prosecute."

[Michael Tee]

<<As far as UNCAT you are wrong, UNCAT prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.>>

Maybe you better read UNCAT again.  UNCAT prohibits torture (Article 2) and obliges the USA (as a signing party) to make torture a criminal offence in its domestic law (Article 4,) to arrest any offender (Article 6) and to prosecute him in criminal court (Article 7.)

UNCAT defines torture in Article 1:  any act by which severe pain or suffering , whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining . . . information . . . "

"Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" are NOT part of the definition of torture; they are referred to in Article 16, which deals, not with torture, but with other acts that "do not amount to torture as defined in Article 1."


<<However, there is an important qualification. In consenting to both treaties, the US Senate
added a caveat: CID was to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.>>

The Senate did make a reservation with regard to torture, and that reservation was:

<< . . . that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from: (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.>>

I think when the Senate reservation is factored in, my best case is that waterboarding was severe physical suffering caused by cutting off the guy's air supply, so that the requirement for prolonged mental harm is applicable only to cases of "mental pain or suffering" and so is not applicable to a case of waterboarding, and your best case is that the suffering of waterboarding victims is mental and not physical and thus there is no torture unless there is also prolonged mental harm (which the government claims has not been established.)  My alternative best case is (3) "threat of imminent death" which I think is the idea that the torturers are trying to create in the first place with the waterboarding.

The legal argument isn't important.  It doesn't matter if the U.S. Senate found a weasel formula that lets it waterboard its victims and avoid falling under the treaty's definition of torture.  That would just be slick lawyering.  The act itself is repulsive.  This is why the videos of it were all destroyed.  This is why 90% of the photos and videos of the abuses of Abu Ghraib are being withheld even now by the Pentagon.  It's a sickening violation of human rights and human dignity that makes me sick to my stomach. 

I get your point that it doesn't make YOU sick to your stomach.  That's fine and thanks for explaining it to me.  I am just convinced as I said before that only one thing is illustrated here:  the gap between those who give a shit about their fellow man and his suffering and those who don't.  The phony crap excuses that it happens in every prison (which is total crap) and that nobody is perfect (just what Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer could have said!) are lame and pathetic.  That Castro does bad things too - - one, he probably doesn't, and two, even if he does, that's HIS problem, and Cuba's; you as Americans can't excuse your own abysmal human rights record on the grounds that somebody else is worse.  Even a child, if properly raised, would know better.

The argument that this is done to American soldiers is bullshit.  The soldier knows going into it that he won't be harmed and that it's just for training purposes.  The captured Afghan has no such assurance and struggles against drowning fully convinced that he could die in the process.

[Christians4LessGvt]

"Maybe you better read UNCAT again"

Maybe you should read again....that the US Senate added a caveat: CID was
to be understood in the U.S. as the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment
prohibited under the aforementioned Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
That is, CID would be controlled by governing American constitutional law
not what activist NGOs, international law professors, and foreign regimes
decided terms like "degrading treatment" might mean. So what is torture?
It really doesn't matter what Michael Tee or I think it may mean in the abstract.
We are governed by law, and torture has a statutory definition. Section 2340
of the federal criminal code defines it as a government act "specifically intended
to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering".
(an exception is made for the execution of capital sentences).

The law did not explain what "severe" means. Because of 2002 OLC guidance
(known infamously as the "torture memo"), much attention has been given to this question.
The memo certainly defined the term too narrowly, suggesting that severe meant
"equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ
 failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." Nevertheless, even in conceding
that this definition was too demanding when it withdrew the OLC memo in 2004, the
Justice Department reaffirmed that the designation torture is reserved for practices
causing "intense, lasting and heinous agony" (quoting a 2002 D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case)
which are so abominable that they stand apart from other condemnable forms of cruel, inhuman
and degrading treatment. With respect to mental pain or suffering, Section 2340 does tell us
that severe "means prolonged mental harm".....

"The legal argument isn't important"

Not for those that lose legal arguments!

"It doesn't matter if the U.S. Senate found a weasel formula that lets it
waterboard its victims and avoid falling under the treaty's definition of torture"

Yeah sure Michael Tee....reality doesn't matter.

"That would just be slick lawyering"

No it would be reality.

"The act itself is repulsive"

War is repulsive and enemies should know that there will be sick,
cruel punishment for those that mess with the United States.

"This is why the videos of it were all destroyed"

No it's not....it was probably destroyed because they knew the anti-American
enemy supporters on the Left would use their garbage friends in the media
to help the enemy with videos. The war is not only with the enemy, there is
also a war with the "5th Column" of the Left.



It's a sickening violation of human rights and human dignity that makes me sick to my stomach.  

Yeah you & the 5th Column's fraud outrage is pretty funny too...outrage at Israel while
you sit sipping coffee on stoeln land in Canada & fraud outrage at the US while your heroes
killed hundreds of millions "for the revolution".





"I get your point that it doesn't make YOU sick to your stomach"

It makes me very proud....I wish we would do it more.
I want to inflict much pain & suffering on enemy combatants
trying to destroy the United States.

"I am just convinced as I said before that only one thing is illustrated here:  
the gap between those who give a shit about their fellow man and his suffering
and those who don't"

Actions speak louder than words...we see whose in Haiti and everywhere else
there is a natural disaster. But if the US dominates the aid relief in the world
but waterboards 3 terrorists flying airplanes into buildings...well golly geee
"the US must not give a shit about his fellow man".  

"The argument that this is done to American soldiers is bullshit.  
The soldier knows going into it that he won't be harmed and that it's just
for training purposes"  

Yeah sure...come over this weekend and we can try it on you to see how pleasant it is!

"The captured Afghan has no such assurance and struggles against drowning fully
convinced that he could die in the process"

Good...I want to put the fear of God in them....fear...where they literally shit in their pants.

[Michael Tee]

<<Maybe you should read again....that the US Senate added a caveat: CID was
to be understood in the U.S. as . . . >>

This is the second time you've missed the point.  I will try once more to explain this for you.  There are TWO issues dealt with in UNCAT.  One is torture.  The other is:  cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment that fails to meet UNCAT'S definition of torture.  (The Article numbers of the Convention I gave in a preceding post.)

The issue I am dealing with is torture.  So it does not matter how the U.S. Senate qualified or defined CID (cruel, inhuman or degrading) by caveat or otherwise, since I am not concerned here with "CID," but only with torture.

Torture is defined quite clearly in UNCAT.  The U.S. Senate actually DID qualify its ratification of UNCAT's definition of torture (as well as CID, which you referred to above) by reservation that "torture" would mean deliberate infliction of "severe mental or physical pain or suffering" and went further to define "mental pain or suffering," which IMHO is irrelevant to this discussion since I think it's pretty obvious that waterboarding is a physical practice which denies the physical body an essential physical element (oxygen) and produces the physical symptoms of oxygen deprivation which are detectable by purely physical instruments measuring purely physical phenomena such as the concentration of oxygen and other blood gases in the blood, in the brain, in the muscles, etc.

So even with the Senate reservations about the definition of torture, waterboarding would qualify as the deliberate infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.  It's silly and laughable to argue that the physical pain or suffering of waterboarding is not "severe" - - since it's designed to force supposedly hardened "terrorists" to betray their comrades in arms when all other persuasive techniques have failed, the argument really is saying that these men, ready and determined to sacrifice their own lives in the cause, many of them having spent years in armed combat and gladly suffered grievous wounds for it, will betray it all just to avoid some physical pain and pressure that is only mild or moderate.  That is ABSURD.

In any event, I want to avoid these silly legalistic arguments based on nothing more than academic hair-splitting.  I wrote initially of moral revulsion and disgust.  That reaction was not evoked by the success or failure of an act or series of actions to meet the verbal criteria laid down in a legal definition laid down in an international treaty and modified by weaselly Senate "reservations" - - the disgust and revulsion were a primary reaction to the actions of the U.S. military themselves, the way they can treat other human beings, the depths to which they are prepared to descend in the way they treat other men and women.  This is not a judgment on the helpless victims themselves, it is a judgment on the scum-of-the-earth U.S. military, their enablers and protectors in Congress, the media and the judiciary.

Something in the U.S. is really wrong, really sick, and really deserving of appropriate chastisement from whatever source is capable of administering it.  This is not to say that other nations are perfect, not to approve every atrocity committed by every other nation and particularly by the enemies of America, as  CU4 seems to think it is, but a condemnation of the only nation on earth in which we as citizens (and I include Canada as well, for our armed forces also torture and get away with it) can actually play a role, however small, in abolishing the practice and punishing the practitioners appropriately.

I realize the problem, that plenty of Americans just don't feel the same way about these atrocities and I thank CU4 for sharing his opinions openly and honestly about it.  There isn't any way to bridge this gap.  Some of us are appalled by this flagrant denial of the humanity of others and will do whatever we can do to stop it, however insignificant our best efforts may be; others just don't give a shit and will gleefully promote this kind of unrestrained savagery and sadism as long as they feel it suits their nation's interests.  There's a dark side (CU4) and there's a light side (ME!) and so far the good guys have been losing every battle we've taken on.  But the good guys will go on fighting.  That's what life is, a contest between the light and the dark sides of the human soul.

BTW, with regard to your three photos, CU4, "NOT ATROCITY," "NOT ATROCITY" and "ATROCITY," the mercenaries DID have it coming to them in spades, the victims of the WTC may not have personally had it coming to them for anything they themselves did, but they can thank the U.S. government and its policies directly or indirectly for the catastrophe that took their lives, with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice, and the Abu Ghraib photo was in fact an atrocity, just far from the worst ones being committed at Abu Ghraib at the time.

[Amianthus]

with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice,

You probably should explain that statement.

[Michael Tee]

<<You probably should explain that statement [with a nod of appreciation to the builders for their successful evasion of all meaningful building codes in accordance with the finest principles of capitalist practice.]

The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat.  Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns.  Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel.  The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete.  The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated. 

There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem.  The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space.   Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris.  All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.

[Amianthus]

The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat.  Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns.  Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel.  The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete.  The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated. 

They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.

But isn't steel protected against the heat of fire? Building codes require that a layer of noncombustible material insulate the steel from the fire's heat for a given period, preserving its structural integrity long enough so that the building can be evacuated. That is why fire protection is rated in hours: two hours, three hours, and so on. Until the 1960s, structural steel was encased in poured concrete or brick, whose heavy mass absorbed the heat and dissipated it through dehydration. Because the weight of such fire protection added significantly to the cost of tall buildings, lightweight substitutes were developed, most commonly spray-on coatings of mineral fibers. The structural steel of the World Trade Center towers was originally fire-protected with sprayed-on asbestos, later abated and replaced by a 3/4-inch coating of inorganic fibers. This coating was in the process of being thickened to 11/2 inches (not all the floors in the south tower impact zone had this augmented fire protection).
At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. By then, all underground infrastructure in the area had been destroyed, and there was no water for fire fighting, so the blaze, fed by diesel fuel from generators in an electrical substation, raged out of control. Nevertheless, it was seven hours before the building collapsed, and no lives were lost. On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.

http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings

There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem.  The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space.   Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris.  All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.

The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.

Each tower had three sets of fire stairs (two 44 inches wide and one 56 inches wide), all clustered together in the service core at the center of the building, which also contained elevators, air-handling shafts, and bathrooms. High-rise buildings have always been designed with centrally located cores, which provide a convenient place for structural support and bracing. The design hides mechanical functions in the least desirable part of the building and leaves the perimeter next to the windows free for human use. The vertical shafts?stairs, ducts, and elevators?tend to act as chimneys during a fire and have to be specially protected. Although the cores of the World Trade Center towers were built of closely spaced, massive steel columns and beams, the fire stairs themselves were encased only by gypsum wallboard attached to metal studs: two 5/8-inch-thick layers of wallboard on the exterior and one on the interior. Such an assembly can withstand fire for two hours, but it offers little resistance to even a hammer blow, never mind the avalanche of debris that assaulted it on September 11. The failure of the fire stairs was almost total. All three sets of stairs in the north tower, and two of three in the south tower, were completely destroyed. Only 18 people in the south tower managed to escape from the floors above the crash zone (tragically, some people used the surviving stairs to climb up, believing that safety lay in the upper floors, away from the fire). It's impossible to know the extent of the destruction on the impacted floors of the towers following the crash, but it's easy to conclude that more robust emergency stairs, of reinforced concrete, spaced far apart rather than clustered together, would have been more effective. It's likely that new codes for the design of fire stairs in tall buildings will result from this experience.

http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings

[Christians4LessGvt]

"This is the second time you've missed the point.

No I understand the point...you just do not like or accept my answer,
you even stated something like "well if they can weasel out with some
legal definition".

Torture is defined quite clearly in UNCAT.  
 
No it is not.

UNCAT defined torture as involving the "intentional infliction" of "severe pain or suffering"
to interrogate, punish, or intimidate a person.

If you call that "quite clearly"....you are insane!

Michael seriously that defintion is a mile wide.

So even with the Senate reservations about the definition of torture,
waterboarding would qualify as the deliberate infliction of severe physical pain or suffering.

No it would not.

It's silly and laughable to argue that the physical pain or suffering of waterboarding is not "severe"

It is totally laughable to pretend waterbaording is "severe" ...."severe" is an entirely different level.
Severe is driving nails under someone's fingernails....severe is cutting off someone's toes, fingers, nose, ears.
Severe is popping someone's shoulder out, severe is sustained electric currents to their balls, severe is cigarette
burns to the eye-ball.

"That is ABSURD"

No it's not....it's tough...it is not severe and it is not torture.

In any event, I want to avoid these silly legalistic arguments based
on nothing more than academic hair-splitting.

Sure you do....the Left always wants to avoid hair-splitting
unless they can win the case....obviously your entire case
about this is total bullshit because if it were in fact true
charges would have been brought, filed, and won against
President Bush....leftist would have loved to have helped
the enemy and bring charges and convict President Bush
did not happen....talk is cheap!

it is a judgment on the scum-of-the-earth U.S. military

I wish it would get a lot nastier against your side.
And I mean a lot nastier.
I'm glad the US military pisses you off
I hope the US Military pisses off all it's enemies.
That means it is doing it's job.
The US Marines don't seek or want Bin Laden's or your approval.

The truth is all this boils down to is your opposition to our use of military force,
particularly in Iraq/Afghanistan. It's not like anything we do or any concession
we make is ever going to win you over. You are going to call us international
law criminals anyway and "look the other way" and excuse everyone else
so thats why we (the americans you describe as not caring) don't give a shit what you think.

There's a dark side (CU4) and there's a light side (ME!)

Yeah your side has produced so much for mankind....
Look at all the wonderful standards of living Communism has produced.
Look at all the masss immigration to Commi countries.
Pol Pot, Mao, and Stalin were such beacons of light.

[sirs]

The collapse of the buildings were due to the girders' exposure to heat.  Instead of being encased in concrete of specified dimensions as per the NYC building code in force when the project went up, the builders took advantage of the fact that the site was owned by the NY Port Authority, a joint bi-state (NY, NJ) board not subject to the laws of either state, and used a spray-on insulation on the beams and columns.  Due to the building's motion, the spray-on had been cracking off, and in some cases actually exposing the steel.  The owners had planned to re-do the columns one floor at a time, which would have required decades to complete.  The jet-fuel fires weakened the steel to the point of collapsing long before the people above the crash-site floors could have been safely evacuated. 

They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.

But isn't steel protected against the heat of fire? Building codes require that a layer of noncombustible material insulate the steel from the fire's heat for a given period, preserving its structural integrity long enough so that the building can be evacuated. That is why fire protection is rated in hours: two hours, three hours, and so on. Until the 1960s, structural steel was encased in poured concrete or brick, whose heavy mass absorbed the heat and dissipated it through dehydration. Because the weight of such fire protection added significantly to the cost of tall buildings, lightweight substitutes were developed, most commonly spray-on coatings of mineral fibers. The structural steel of the World Trade Center towers was originally fire-protected with sprayed-on asbestos, later abated and replaced by a 3/4-inch coating of inorganic fibers. This coating was in the process of being thickened to 11/2 inches (not all the floors in the south tower impact zone had this augmented fire protection).
At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. By then, all underground infrastructure in the area had been destroyed, and there was no water for fire fighting, so the blaze, fed by diesel fuel from generators in an electrical substation, raged out of control. Nevertheless, it was seven hours before the building collapsed, and no lives were lost. On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.

http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings

There was also an elevator/stairwell cluster problem.  The standard building practice of the day called for dispersed elevator shafts, closer to the four corners of the building, but all the elevators were closer to the center so that the owners could add more rentable floor space.   Had the shaft clusters and stairwells been dispersed more widely, some could have maintained access to the lower floors even as others were blocked by debris.  All stairwell descents from the upper floors were blocked by debris because they were too close together.

The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.

Each tower had three sets of fire stairs (two 44 inches wide and one 56 inches wide), all clustered together in the service core at the center of the building, which also contained elevators, air-handling shafts, and bathrooms. High-rise buildings have always been designed with centrally located cores, which provide a convenient place for structural support and bracing. The design hides mechanical functions in the least desirable part of the building and leaves the perimeter next to the windows free for human use. The vertical shafts?stairs, ducts, and elevators?tend to act as chimneys during a fire and have to be specially protected. Although the cores of the World Trade Center towers were built of closely spaced, massive steel columns and beams, the fire stairs themselves were encased only by gypsum wallboard attached to metal studs: two 5/8-inch-thick layers of wallboard on the exterior and one on the interior. Such an assembly can withstand fire for two hours, but it offers little resistance to even a hammer blow, never mind the avalanche of debris that assaulted it on September 11. The failure of the fire stairs was almost total. All three sets of stairs in the north tower, and two of three in the south tower, were completely destroyed. Only 18 people in the south tower managed to escape from the floors above the crash zone (tragically, some people used the surviving stairs to climb up, believing that safety lay in the upper floors, away from the fire). It's impossible to know the extent of the destruction on the impacted floors of the towers following the crash, but it's easy to conclude that more robust emergency stairs, of reinforced concrete, spaced far apart rather than clustered together, would have been more effective. It's likely that new codes for the design of fire stairs in tall buildings will result from this experience.

http://m.discovermagazine.com/2002/oct/featbuildings

D'OH

[Christians4LessGvt]

Michael Tee do you condemn the Russian President who today called for a
"brutal" response to the IslamoNazis in Russia. "We've twisted off
the heads of the most odious thugs, but clearly that's not enough" Medvedev said.

Should countries fight brutality with brutal responses?

IMO...any other way is a losing proposition.

What do you think Michael?

[Michael Tee]

<<They did not ignore the laws, the laws had been changed.>>

This is a he-says, she-says kind of argument.  The book I read (by two NYT reporters) claimed that they avoided then-current NY and NJ building laws because they were on land owned by or within the jurisdiction of neither state.  Your source says the laws had been changed, which would be irrelevant if the project were subject to none of the laws.  What was worse than the evasion of stringent building standards was the KNOWLEDGE the owners had before the attacks that the spray-on insulation was flaking off due to the motion of the buildings, and the lackadaisical approach they took to rectify the problem, a slow, one-floor-at-a-time repair that would have taken, IIRC, over 30 years to bring the building up to standard insulation of the steel frame.


<<At the World Trade Center, sprayed-on fire protection was effective in some buildings. A fire was started in 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high-rise, by debris and heat from the collapsing towers. >>

This is pure bullshit.  The taller buildings and particularly the two towers, where the bulk of the casualties occurred, were the ones that swayed the most in the wind and the ones where the spray-on insulation showed (to the owners' knowledge) the most deterioration.

<<On the other hand, the Federal Emergency Management Agency concluded that much of the spray-on fire protection in the twin towers was probably dislodged by the jarring impact of the planes and by flying debris, leaving the steel exposed and vulnerable. >>

More was knocked off in the impact, of course, but that doesn't lessen the owners' culpability for failing to deal with the already sub-standard protection offered by the flaking off of the insulation coating that had already occurred before the attacks.

<<There is no doubt that it's time to take a long, hard look at the actual performance of spray-on fire protection. If more effective coatings cannot be developed, perhaps we should return to heavier methods of building.>>

Ahh, finally:  the bottom line.

<<The standard building practice of the day included a central core column - dispersed shafts are now becoming widespread.>>

more he-said, she-said, my-source, your-source.  With the additional element of "standard of the day" versus "best available at the time."

[Michael Tee]

<<Michael Tee do you condemn the Russian President who today called for a
"brutal" response to the IslamoNazis in Russia. "We've twisted off
the heads of the most odious thugs, but clearly that's not enough" Medvedev said.>>

God-damn right I condemn him.  Russia had brutally repressed the Chechen people and the Chechens are fully entitled to get payback any time they can, any way they can.  Look up the Novye Aldi massacre for one of the more recent massacres, but these atrocities have been going on since the early 1990s.  Look up Anna Politovskaya, a Russian journalist murdered for exposing Russian atrocities in Chechnya.  Here's a site that detailed the atrocities, but all the videos and photos have been deleted from it, hmmm, wonder if Putin had anything to do with the deletions?  http://russian-genocide-over-chechen-people.blogspot.com/

How dare those Russian bastards talk about reprisals?  They INVITE reprisals on their own people by the atrocities they have committed in Chechnya.  The chickens are coming home to roost.  But instead of acknowledging what they have done to bring these disasters down on their own heads, the bastards will talk about twisting off heads.  Good luck widdat, Ivan.  Looks like the Chechens are doing some twisting of their own but not enough to teach you anything yet.

<<Should countries fight brutality with brutal responses?>>

I think the aggressor nations (Russia, the USA) should look at their own conduct very carefully and see where and how they have done serious irreparable harm to others.  I think those officials responsible for the aggression and repression should be removed from office and punished severely (up to and including capital punishment for those most egregiously responsible) and the appropriate apologies and reparations made to the victims or their survivors.  Otherwise to "punish" a brutal but well-deserved act of vengeance from those against whom you have originally offended will do nothing but contribute to an endless loop of pointless violence and destruction which nobody can really win since neither side will be able to totally vanquish the other.

<<IMO...any other way is a losing proposition.>>

I would agree with that if you were fighting someone whose sole motivation is unjustified hatred and pure evil, such as, for example, the Axis Powers of WWII.  However, when the fight is between a victimizer and its victims, the only "losing proposition" that I can see is for the victimizer to ignore (or worse yet, to misrepresent) the motivation of the victims and the contribution of its own policies to the reason why the victims fight, and to continue to pose as an aggrieved and innocent victim of pure evil, rather than first mending one's own ways.  THAT is a losing proposition because the fight will go on forever, costing huge expenditures that will ultimately lead to ruin, while commercial competitors unburdened by such needless and pointless obligations proceed to overtake you in every field of competitition.

[Christians4LessGvt]

God-damn right I condemn him.  Russia had brutally repressed the Chechen people
and the Chechens are fully entitled to get payback any time they can, any way they can. 
Look up the Novye Aldi massacre for one of the more recent massacres, but these atrocities
have been going on since the early 1990s.

Wow....who woulda thought? Since pretty much all you condemn is the US.
The Russians are slaughtering innocents, but outrage is only reserved for the US.
Like I said earlier....it's obvious what motivates you.
But thats ok....because I dont give a damn what America Haters think as far as affecting our policy.

"I would agree with that if you were fighting someone whose sole motivation is
unjustified hatred and pure evil, such as, for example, the Axis Powers of WWII"   

And IslamoNazis that hate because someone refuses Islam are not unjustified haters?
IslamoNazis that blow up girls schools because they want women to remain 2nd class are not haters?
Michael they are the same as the racists that blew up Black schools/churches in the United States.

[Amianthus]

This is a he-says, she-says kind of argument.  The book I read (by two NYT reporters) claimed that they avoided then-current NY and NJ building laws because they were on land owned by or within the jurisdiction of neither state.

It's not "he-says, she-says". Your source, which still has not been revealed, are directly contradicted by records revealed by the NIST investigation.

Fire protection of exposed structural steel members in the WTC towers was provided by applied fire
resistive materials. They were either sprayed fire-resistive materials (SFRMs), gypsum wallboards, or a
combination of the two, depending upon the type of structural members, to meet the requirements of
Construction Classification of 1B of the 1968 New York City (NYC) Building Code. All floor trusses
and beams were protected with SFRM. The columns inside the core were either covered with gypsum
wall board or a combination of gypsum wall board and SFRM. For the exterior columns, vermiculite
plaster was applied to the side of the column facing the interior of the building, whereas SFRM was
applied to other three faces.

...

Fabrication and inspection requirements were contained in the contracts for the floor trusses, box core
columns and built-up beams, members of the exterior wall, and rolled columns and beams. In general, the
inspection requirements from the specifications for the various contracts were at a minimum equivalent to
those in the 1968 NYC Building Code. The Code contains provisions that govern the fabrication and
inspection of materials used in buildings. However, in a number of cases, the contract requirements were
more comprehensive and stringent than the corresponding provisions in the Code.

...

The primary egress system for the office spaces was the three stairways located in the building core.
These included two 44 in. (designated A and C) and one 56 in. wide (designated B) stairs which provided
exactly the code required capacity for an occupant load of 390 per floor (39,000 ft2 net at 100 ft2 per
person). The layout within the building core was consistent with the Building Code requirements for
maximum travel distance (200 ft unsprinklered, 300 ft sprinklered) and, while the separation was
consistent with New York City requirements (15 ft and later 30 ft), it was short of the more common
requirements found in all current building codes (one-half the diagonal of the space served if
unsprinklered, or one-third the diagonal if sprinklered) on some of the floors where the transfer corridors
brought the stair access closer together.

http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-1.pdf

I think these bolded sections from the executive summary document what I've said - the Port Authority followed then-current NYC Building Code in building the towers, and some changes were later made to the code as a consequence of 9/11. Supporting documents are in the PDF.

[Amianthus]

This is pure bullshit.  The taller buildings and particularly the two towers, where the bulk of the casualties occurred, were the ones that swayed the most in the wind and the ones where the spray-on insulation showed (to the owners' knowledge) the most deterioration.

The PDF in my previous post also has a section that documents the fact that the Port Authority maintained and updated the insulation as building codes changed - which is actually more than required (normally buildings are only required to be maintained to the code at the time they were built, not to meet later, improved code changes). I'll leave it to you to find that, I'm tired.