I enjoy Justin Raimondo’s contributions to Chronicles (and Antiwar.com), and I concur with his characterization of Alex Jones (“My Conversation With Alex Jones,” Between the Lines, November), especially the astute observation that Jones seems the perfect tool to discredit those who question conventional wisdom.  Imagine my surprise, therefore, at Mr. Raimondo’s illogical ridiculing of those who question the official reports regarding September 11, 2001, by stating that Jones is “the veritable pope of the ‘Truthers’” because Jones claims that controlled demolitions were involved in the collapse of the buildings.

If there is a pope behind such doctrine, it is not Alex Jones but Richard Gage, a member in good standing of the American Institute of Architects.  He and 2,000 other professional architects and engineers (including renowned controlled-demolition experts) signed a petition, adding their verifiable credentials in business and academia, that questions the official account of causes and effects of the three towers’ collapses.  Mr. Gage, the antithesis of Alex Jones, also produced a documentary filled with instructive analyses based on established laws of physics and norms of high-rise engineering.  Mr. Gage and his colleagues do not claim to know who knew what and when, but they do convincingly support the hypothesis that at least one, and possibly all, of the three buildings did not collapse because of airplane collisions or fires associated with airplane crashes and jet fuel, but rather from controlled demolition.

Whether Alex Jones agrees or disagrees is irrelevant to Mr. Gage’s fascinating analyses, yet Jones’s support may serve (through the associative power of kookery) to dissuade many intelligent men such as Justin Raimondo from ever looking into the Gage documentary.

        —Thomas J. Wiswell
Jacksonville, FL

Mr. Raimondo Replies:

I have no idea why the idea of “controlled demolition” has taken root in the nether regions of Kooklandia, and I am not in the least bit interested in finding out.  Two airliners flying into a building would surely not leave the structure intact.  And what would be the point of adding a “controlled demolition” narrative into this mix?  I don’t think it takes an architect to discover the truth about this but, rather, a psychologist.