9/11 Rhetorical Analysis

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On a clear summer day, on September 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists aboard three hijacked passenger planes carried out coordinated suicide attacks against the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing everyone on board the planes and nearly 3,000 people on the ground. A fourth plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field, killing all on board, after passengers and crew attempted to gain back control from the hijackers. The collapse of both World Trade Center towers and the smaller WTC 7, a few hours later, initially surprised even some experts, has swayed conspiracy theorists, who contend that all three buildings were wired with explosives in advance and detonated in a series of controlled demolitions. The theory …show more content…
Some people say that before the towers collapsed, you could see puffs of dust and debris fly out the side of the building. The article, the Albuquerque Journal, quoted Van Romero , an explosives expert and vice president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, as saying "there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse." and continues to say, "there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse." The rhetorical device used here is logos. Logos appeals to the logic and reason. Is not possible for dust to shoot out the side of the building from a meer collapse. There had to be some kind of explosive that send the debris …show more content…
Many people say that there had to be a different cause for the collapse of the tower. A theory that came out was that there was some sort of chemical on the metal frame of the towers that could melt steel. The rhetorical device used here is logos. Although no evidence was ever really provided, this seems to be a logical theory seeing as the fire alone could not have melted the steel frame of the tower causing it it fall. However, a rebuttal is proposed by, retired New York deputy fire chief, Vincent Dunn when he says, "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire, but I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks." Experts say that the steel frame of the structure did not have to be melted in order for the towers to collapse, they only needed to lose some structural strength. Once again, the rhetorical device used here is ethos. The credibility of Vincent Dunn and other experts makes their statements more compelling to people as opposed to a theory which lacks basic evidence to support its argument. The claim made by theorists that a