OffGuardian’s 9/11 Articles: A Reader’s Point of View
by Mog
I started reading OffGuardian shortly after it set up, following a link from the Medialens forum discussion board. As someone who has both sought out non-mainstream sources of news, and followed the 911 debate closely for about ten years, I was both surprised and fascinated that the OffG editors decided to mark the 15 year anniversary by taking on this controversy. I think it is indisputable that there is a definitely identifiable taboo that surrounds any critical approach to examining the events of 911, and in light of the general silence amongst most alt media commentators, my first thoughts were that OffG have been admirably brave to break that ‘spiral of silence’.
It is interesting to read how this recent anniversary has been marked. The mass media has been relatively quiet about it, and so have many dissenting voices online. It is as if the elephant in the room has reproduced into a small herd over the past decade and a half.
The position that is defined by unreserved acceptance of the official version of 911- that laid out in the 911 Commission Report, the NIST reports and the FBI Amerithrax report, is rigid and brittle. We know that the Commission Report was compromised to the point of making it a glaring cover up, we know that it was essentially a creation of a fanatical Neoconservative, and we know that Neocons ‘have form’ i.e. that they lied us into terrible wars. We know that the Amerithrax case is shattered, that its fundamental premise is disputed by the highest scientific authority in the US, and we know that the FBI is rivened with disputes about the case against Ivins. We now know that the NIST reports omitted vital details, and classified others, and were closed to any meaningful review process, thus rendering them outside the category of ‘scientific’.
So the only legitimate position is to at least accept that the truth about 911 has not come out; to acknowledge that the usual adversarial processes and institutions that vet what we call ‘true’, have completely broken down in the case of 911. There has undeniably been a cover up – for whatever reason that may be, so the moral obligation must be to demand a reversal in that cover up. The comments read here this past week, that, point blank, refuse to see ‘911 Truth’ as a call for truth, but insist instead that it is a claim on ‘truth’, (i.e. a predetermined conclusion -the essence of which these pseudosceptics dispute) hold a very fragile opinion, one that crumbles to nothing at the first touch of genuine critical thought. If those who have been engaged or supportive of 911 research are ‘Truthers’ then their opponents are surely ‘Bunkers’- steadfast in their almost religious insistence on the veracity of official statements made by known liars.
The fact that the vast majority of dissenting writers in the West are unable to make statements that go at least as far as pointing out the failure of the official accounts is troubling. The most interesting discussion for me in OffG was that about Chomsky’s pronouncements that are emblematic of this inability to merely point out that (in line with standard form) the government lied about 911. In this, again, OffGuardian must be congratulated for not shying away from controversy.
It is as if the pricking of that bubble, the touching of a façade, would open a discussion that would, in its conclusion, bring the whole fictive locomotive to a screaming halt. Chomsky, Cockburn, Monbiot are ‘gatekeepers’. Whether we understand that term functionally in the sense that they are unwittingly blinded by their unconscious preconceptions about deep events, or whether we think that there is some more Machiavellian interference in their strange break from reasoned arguments, the effect is ultimately the same: many critical thinkers have been put off looking into 911 by the a priori position of high profile public intellectuals. This position says that 911 research is all distracting nonsense, period. Personally it took me a very long time to close the rift that was opened up when I started to question ‘the rational boundaries’ of questioning itself – as policed by public thinkers whom I had long admired and trusted.
If we do start to question the 911 story in earnest, we end up with a small encyclopaedia of facts that should be of interest to any who might have the power to investigate further; the articles that have appeared in OffGuardian have barely scratched the surface. For the obvious reason that most of the fatalities occurred due to the WTC building collapses/ demolitions, there has been an understandable focus on this element. However, just about every single aspect of the crime is, on closer inspection, problematic. If we question:
- The origins of the organisation alleged to be responsible, Al Qaeda, and its subsequent history since the events of 911,
- The source of the expertise in training AQ operatives,
- The accounts of how the alleged terrorists got access to USA,
- The tracking and surveillance by intelligence agencies,
- Where and with whom these alleged terrorists lived,
- Who funded their stay, their travel, their training,
- Who ran the flight schools where they were supposedly trained,
- How equipped they were to carry out what was attributed to them,
- What were their real motivations,
- The evidence that they actually boarded and hijacked those planes,
- The companies and individuals who were responsible for stopping terrorists getting on those planes at those airports,
- The responses of the US command structure in face of the attacks,
- The details of the flight paths, altitudes and speeds of those planes,
- The phonecalls that allegedly originated from those planes,
- The details of the crashes themselves and the procedures for evaluating them afterwards,
- The occupants in the buildings, the crash zones of the buildings, the owners of the buildings…the fate of the buildings,
- The people who destroyed evidence and thereby covered up the crime of 911,
- The money trails
…and on, we find many threads leading back to state intelligence actors and agencies (US, Saudi, Israeli, Pakistani). Pseudosceptics allege here a ‘cherry picking of evidence’ in the support of an absurd hypothesis. I think it is more like pointing out an orchard of cherry trees along with the US Government sign that boldly reads, ‘This Is A Hill Of Beans’. The sheer weight of evidence cannot reasonably be written off as co-incidences and cock-ups, and I would assert that only a tiny minority of those who thoroughly wade into the deep waters of 911 research emerge the other side not at least suspecting US insider involvement.
What have we learned from any of this? What use is it? If not mere distraction, then what? For me it points to a fundamental shortcoming in most that I read in politically dissenting journalism. In light of the deep political analysis of such things as 911, we can conclude that the greatest problem with our society is uncontained, unaccountable, secretive power; power that acts to promote agendas that serve elite interests at the expense of humanity at large.
This needs to be repeatedly acknowledged front and centre of any critical writing on politics, economics and geopolitical conflicts . If one accepts that the US Gov/ Neocon version of 911 is not complete, or if one goes so far as to accept the prima facie case against US insiders, then it must, obviously, colour all analysis that follows. This by and large has not happened, and so we have tens of thousands of articles critical of the way the world situation has developed in the aftermath of 911, that almost all unquestioningly accept the official story as true and complete. If we hold any hope or desire for a more peaceful and just planet then the essentially criminal aspects of the ‘overworld’ of state and private intelligence needs to be brought under public control.
The extent of their lies must at least be acknowledged. I am heartened to read that reputable online media like OffGuardian are trying to open this debate in parts of the internet that have for too long disregarded it out of hand.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
And speaking of 9/11, and related bad things, and hopefully some good things… check this out! http://theconspiracyblog.com/conspiracies/current-politics/hillary-clinton/1148-video-of-hillary-clinton-stumbling-while-ill-really-shows-her-being-arrested
Networks of promotion/control slide imperceptibly into networks of
surveillance/disinformation. Formerly one only conspired against an
established order. Today, conspiring in its favor is a new and flourishing
profession. Under spectacular domination, people conspire to maintain it,
and to guarantee what it alone would call its well-being. This conspiracy is a
part of its very functioning. Provisions for a kind of preventive civil war are
already being made, adapted to variously calculated future projections’
Guy Debord – comments on the society of the Spectacle
THere is an implicit assumption in this article that ‘high profile’ ‘public intellectuals’ are capable of being gatekeepers on an event as complex to carry out forensic analysis on 911 is extremely naive. None of these people have the scientific or engineering firepower to remotely interrogate technical analysis. They are professional writers/philosophers, not scientists.
There are, after all, various experiences you have to go through to be capable and confident in challenging the most powerful people on earth:
1): You have to have experienced betrayal by those you had a right to trust. THat makes you question everything.
2): You have to have pursued something to a world-leading level, whatever that is. You see the world holistically if you reach that level…
3): You must put truth before narrow ambition, since you will be blacklisted by those your investigations threaten. That implies you must be financially secure or backed by financially independent players.
You don’t usually find that trio of attributes in hierarchies. Fitting in, loyalty etc are paramount there.
I don’t think that anyone would argue with Mog that suspecting the US gov of knowing more about 9/11 than it’s letting on is reasonable. I think Mog makes many good points. And I am no more against continuing to look into it than I am against continuing to look into the death of JFK, another big society-shaking event. But we can disappear into these black holes. I’m not saying we are, but… It’s a little like knowing whether George W is a Freemason or Skull & Bones (I forget which it is, but many of the presidents were Freemasons). Do we need to know, specifically, that GW is a Freemason to know what to make of him? Do we need to know specifically whether GW is a Freemason in order to draw a conclusion about whether he represents something that we can get behind? Can we indict him if we are uncertain, or entirely ignorant of, his Masonic membership? I am not uninterested. It’s interesting. But balance is important. Know, not in order to know, but in order to know what to think. Knowing what to think means more than knowing details. It means possessing enough info to allow you to follow or oppose. I have no problem with those who strive to become experts. That’s great, especially if it’s in the service of something greater than oneself. And I used to think that I’m not a perfectionist because imperfect humans, which is all of us, can’t be perfectionists. And yet, In areas that I focus on out of interest and concern, I ‘do’ constantly try to make improvements. Sometimes I’m quite frustrated when I bump up against the reality that we don’t always possess the control over our own lives that would allow us to pursue this or… Read more »
Why the down vote?
No idea why you received a down vote. I think you make an excellent and nuanced point.
Thanks Loop. This is why I would never use a ‘like’ feature were I to host a discussion forum. I use them as a participant because, at the same time, they are there and you want to support what you want to support, sometimes urgently. But I do think that they are open to abuse. Someone disagreeing or agreeing with you can say why, in my opinion. Or at least, in ‘person’ say that he (or…) agrees or disagrees. Just goes to show, Imperfect humans can’t create perfect systems.
Hey Norman, I’m with you!
So what is this bona fide case/ official narrative that the debunkers are defending? Based on a violated crime scene – disappeared primary evidence; an underfunded (and unwanted) cOmmission (‘set up to fail’); ignoring testimony of first responders (who reported explosions, molten steel etc); based on third party accounts of ‘evidence’ acquired by torture; ‘translated’ (in part) by a translator that spoke Turkish – but not English (see Sibel Edmonds); written into an outline provided by a regime insider whose role is Public Myth Making; which proceeded from its foregone conclusion (al Quaeda did it); didn’t look into conspiracy; did’nt follow the money; limited metalurgic analysis performed by Fema that found a beam that had previously had been molten but was not followed up by NIST; NIST? toilet paper; show trial 1 (Moussaoui – not a nice man – deserves life in prison – but accessory to the crime?); rather than accept his guilty plea they (FBI) instead admit Olson lies (no boxcutters, no hijacking – a very big part of the narrative dies); show trial 2 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (et al) – self confessed architect of 9/11 (after 130 waterboardings I would admit to being the architect!); a mistrial waiting to happen after Judge forced to admit Obama regime destroyed evidence…
I’ve left out more than I put in – you can see where I am going – is there any real credible evidence left to support the official narrative? And its ‘Truthers’ that get accused of building a case not supported by fact? Seems to me its the government lies that are falling faster than WTC7 in freefall.
There is an answer from one of the members of the ISL forums here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=11497701#post11497701
“Mog” seems to be setting up a Gish Gallop, here. None of his points bear fruit in terms of discrediting or even challenging the consensus understanding of events.
It is weird how ‘truthers’ and other cranks are happy to believe that a government can create a massive conspiracy theory involving a lot of completely unecessary complications, when they can’t even manage to — for example — create some fake evidence for WMDs in Iraq.
Everyone, do take cover! Here comes Jerome, again, intrepidly piloting his B-17 Flying Fortress, busy as can be in the midst of all its antiquated controls, with another load of rebuking well researched responses with which to carpet bomb the comments of anyone doubting that some among 19 Arabs from the Middle East, after easily defeating NORAD while flying multi-ton airliners for the first time in their lives with passports safely tucked into their back pockets, took down the Twin Towers and WTC7 with only two planes, office fires and nothing but gravity, thereby proving the impossible but truly miraculous, that asymmetric chaotic damage to steel framed buildings can indeed cause them to collapse in perfect symmetry, all the while pulverizing concrete well in excess of the available gravitational potential energy of the first two buildings to collapse and managing, yet, to heave enough debris across impossible distances at a building only to set it ablaze and also and in turn and in the end to cause it to implode just as symmetrically, only this time right into it’s own footprint in a condition of ‘free fall’ that lasted no less than 2.5 seconds or over the equivalent height of an astounding 8 stories.
Jerome’s story will sound incredible, do be warned. . . because, of course, it is . . .
Yes, because tons of magic explosives (1), having been carefully installed into three of the WTC buildings (but only three, for an unexplained reason — ran out of money to buy more explosives?) by a team of ninjas (2) over the course of weeks to months, using a detonation method that left no trace (let alone the explosives themselves) — and all to ensure…
Well, what is the reasoning? Unless the towers were completely collapsed, the conspirators would be unable to convince the public to start a ‘War on Terror”? No support to attack a country not at all connected with the attacks? Why was the “WMD” fantasy required, then?
On the one hand: governmental incompetence and an unprecedented event (one that building designers hadn’t really considered).
On the other hand: a mega-conspiracy with a huge number of potential points of failure and chance for exposing, using non-existent materials and technology, to ensure an outcome that would not have been significantly different from lunatics ramming aircraft (full of people) into towers (full of more people).
Is there some kind of ‘murder count’ that has to be reached before the public can be convinced that something should be done? “Oh, well, Al Queda did murder eight hundred people; but really I think we should ignore them unless they can murder at least a couple of thousand people in one terrorist attack.”
(1) Explosives capable of hurling enormous sections of debris outside of the ‘symetrical’ footprint that ‘truthers’ are so infatuated with, but are also incredibly quiet and produce no flash of light.
(2) Ninjas able to remove wall cladding, emplace explosives, then put up new cladding, all without detection.
Seems credible. To a ‘truther’.
You surpass your usual level of illogic this evening, Jerome. You should take a nap and come back when you feel more alert and have another go. (If I may make a suggestion: you should exclude this particular come-back from your list of comments to include in your upcoming anthology.)
Let me try to help you formulate the point that I think you are trying to make:
“The sequences of events, as they actually happened, are so complex and improbable, that there is no way that the world’s most logistically and technologically advanced nation on the planet could have made them happen although, it’s true, 19 Arabs with box cutters did make them happen.”
The foregoing is a “reduction” of:
“. . . a mega-conspiracy with a huge number of potential points of failure and chance for exposing, using non-existent materials and technology, to ensure an outcome that would not have been significantly different from lunatics ramming aircraft (full of people) into towers (full of more people).”
Gees, that kind of reads a lot like what I wrote in the original comment to which you responded.
Seems like a lot of repetition and redundancy, to me. What about your, Jerome?
Full access to structural core columns by way of elevator shafts, combined with scheduled elevator upgrades, unusual powerdowns and removal of “bomb-sniffing” dogs prior to 9/11, suspicious entities in charge of security, and a whole host of other well-documented facts I won’t get into here, provide fertile grounds for a real investigation of real people with real names and addresses. All three towers exhibited complete loss of core column integrity , and it’s no secret that wireless near-silent thermite cutters could certainly do this damage, to facilitate the buildings falling fast into their own footprints. The many witnessed sounds of explosions going off just add to the timeline mystery. Obviously the WTC7 collapse was nearly miraculous in it’s symmetry, and was most successful at limiting damage to neighbouring buildings. It was also the first pile of crime scene to be “cleaned up” inspite of no potential survival of occupants since it had been fully evacuated by 3pm. The twin towers, being over twice as high, jettisoned a lot of perimeter strutcure as the cores collapsed, but then nobody in the world really had much experience with CD on this size of building before. One possibility is that the buildings were wired for CD as a legitimate public safety measure, since everyone and their dog knew that these buildings were iconic targets, and the chance of a collapse proceeding like a tree cut down had to be reduced or eliminated. This scenario provides for CD technicians doing the work for a positive reason, and secrecy about it is also in the public’s interest since the same “fallback” probably exists now in many other skyscrapers. Keeping secrets is hardly an issue when things like a Manhattan Project “to save the world from fascism and communism” could be accomplished without any public knowledge.… Read more »
What’s incredible is after 15 years you can’t accept the basic tenants of the Truther movement have no basis in fact. Every major talking point of Trutherism was invented by someone in the alt right, then repackaged for mainstream, or at least alternative left, consumption.
Thermite? Invented by Steven Jones, fraudlent archaeologist and pseudo science free energy woo-miester.
Space beams and other wacked out theories? Christopher Bollyn anti semite/holocaust denier “journalist”
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2002/risking-their-freedom
AE911truth? A fraud run by one guy that funds at least one 911 truther website, while said website claims to get no funding.
Scholars for 9/11 Truth? Founded by patriot/antisemite loons working with other loons spreading the delusion ” elements of the U.S. government, not Osama bin Laden, masterminded the deadly attacks that killed almost 3,000 Americans.”
http://www.lowellsun.com/front/ci_4173789
Its been 15 years. No one is in the streets anyone. There’s a reason why. Trutherism is a fraud and it’s dead. Good riddance. Now get on with your life.
You’re rebutting the people, not the argument.
The “argument” being asserted is that the people behind the ‘truther’ movement are credible, and that there is significant support.
The numbers claimed by AE911T, even if completely accurate, are a very small fraction of those engaged in those areas of occupation. Then there is the questionable behaviour of some of the main drivers of ‘trutherism’. While charlatans could be promoting something with validity, it is less likely to be the case than if they were not so inclined.
Scientific claims stand or fall on the science. They do not stand or fall on the numbers of people who agree or disagree. Nor do they stand or fall in the basis of ad hom attacks.
If you believe AE9/11Truth or any of its members or any other scientists who have produced key evidence have engaged in fraud or deception then you need to provide evidence for this.
Please provide the data if you have it, or in all conscience withdraw the claim.
Not to mention the Gov funded ‘cyber defence’; astroturfing and disseminating of disinfo that dilutes, obfuscates diverts and divides the Enemy. All clever stuff. Discernment is essential. Discernment is the recognition of where something is coming from – not in terms of an address – but in terms of purpose. Of course if I am coming from a dis-integrity I will not ‘see’ anything but only scan for threat and for ammunition to counter it. In my being, truth is a matter of discernment – but in mind framing, truth is determined by appeals to external authority to support it – or indeed to external invalidity to undermine a rival so as to appear stronger in one’s case. But the fact is that truth is alive and beliefs are self defining identity from which we act until we change our mind. I can tune into a signal amidst noise – but where there is only noise there is only a noise in the form of a signal. I call it noise because it is an intent to block, filter or distort the communication – and to subvert and corrupt and reframe it to operate in support of a blocking agenda. Noise doesn’t have to be ‘paid’ to serve such agenda – it can get off on fantasy associations that gratify an otherwise lack of feeling with a sense of power that loves to hate. A factual or true account of what happened on 9/11 must currently include that such an account was not given or allowed to be given by official channels. Narrative control is dictatorship regardless it demonizes or sets up hateful ‘others’ to justify its grip on power. Who is able to dictate to the Media – has significant infiltration and agency within US and international institutions and… Read more »
I’m beginning to hear you, binra. At first, your voice was a bit foreign and strange to me, but now I’m growing accustomed to your style and well, wow, man, there is indeed depth of insight to what you write. Keep it coming.
Thanks for the ‘touch’ Norman, and for willingness to keep a part of your mind open amidst the initially strange and foreign. I feel that is a key to growing perspective – abiding through the perhaps temptations or reaction to judge against with a little willingness that finds its timing in some unexpected moment that has an entirely different quality than being coerced, tricked, persuaded or enticed or played for agreement, validation or attention. And of course our own thinking can operate like that whenever we limit identify to struggle within it’s framing rather than relax that to come back into alignment with a core honesty of being. There’s a tone or quality of presence to integrity that is within or through the form yet not defined by it – yet the form embodies it without hype or spin of personal assertions or personal neediness as a witness and perhaps like a tuning fork by which to shift vibration from a habitual default mentality to an appreciation. I don’t say this to suggest what I write should or need be relevant to anyone else – for it may not be or only a part might be. One has to feel within as to what resonates with and is relevant to who we currently feel and know ourself to be, and the themes we are exploring as our life. Without this inner responsibility power is given away to others or institutions or ideologies or parental upbringing and etc. Systems set up for safety and protection, themselves become captured or subverted – and operate an excellent cover beneath which to operate malign intent in broad daylight – unseen.
Only in tinfoil cuckoo land does anyone suggest the public is obligated to engaged facts with obviously unqualified people. In the real world, first on establishes credentials and a body of work before one’s so called evidence is given a hearing.
This is why the US patent office has an automatic moratorium on perpetual motion devices. Most submitters are conman, some are self deluded, but none of them get to waste anyone’s time anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#Patents
And neither should the conmen who invent “Truther” theories. If there was anything to Trutherism, it would have been mainstream news years ago. The only people pushing at-right, anti-semites conspiracy woo now are the fringe alt-right.
And you’re badly mangling the logical fallacy critique, which only applies to people debating each other, not entire groups or political interests. If the only interests pushing a theory are fringe right racists, you don’t need a logical fallacy check list to conclude the ideas come from and were possible invented by, fringe right racists.
Eh? Do you think you could please explain that again, but calmly and carefully this time, in simple English? And preferably without all the ad hom – all it does is expose your obviously irrational bias.
A premise for elitism: the public are unqualified and their communications are invalid. Technocracy will tell them what to think. But mostly, they will be relieved of the capacity to think. An elitist cartel-protecting ‘educational’ process will confer credentials of official sanction via corrupted institutions. Invalidation of other human beings is used to justify denying them a voice or indeed their humanity in a call to join in hate – which is first to shout blame at everything it embodies… in the ‘other’. But where there is no willingness for humanity – for an outcome arising from communication and relationship – there is no conversation to be had. Jesus called it the lie and the father of the lie – for it is a self-replicating negative loop. A sort of perpetual war machine. “Just don’t go there!” Not that it is truly forbidden or it COULD not be chosen, but if you partake of that apple you forfeit sight and feeling of your core sanity and will experience and believe you are denied and rejected and model yourself on denial and rejection as if it protects you from loss of self and power – as if it IS self and power – when of course it feeds upon your true power in support of its addictive evaporation. But you wont see it until you forsake addictive power to partake of the tree of life – which also is not forbidden – though false mind frames it so and attacks or ridicules and excludes those who move away from the dark in willingness for light of a true reconciliation – because hate exchanges ‘Everything’ for pain and loss in grievance – that it thinks to ‘outsource’, so as to justify its illusion of power in self-specialness and vengeance. Joy is never… Read more »
@Questions: “Trutherism is a fraud and it’s dead.”
It seems that all people like ‘Questions’ can do is make constant pejorative references to ‘Truthers’ and ‘frauds’ – whilst blithely ignoring the sound scientific research and evidence which indicates very strongly that the official story has no reasoned foundation which fits the evidence.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth ( http://www.ae911truth.org/ ) has well over 2,600 qualified, highly experienced and professional architects, engineers and scientists who really do know what they are talking about, and who are calling for a new independent investigation into the events of 9/11. Anyone interested in the science of the destruction of the WTC buildings can download and read a free copy of their booklet “BEYOND MISINFORMATION : What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7” from this link:
http://cafr1.com/Beyond-Misinformation-2015.pdf
“AE911truth? A fraud run by one guy that funds at least one 911 truther website, while said website claims to get no funding.”
Perhaps you’d like to ask for more information on this subject? You can start with Richard Gage’s tax returns, and an interesting notation that strongly implies his organization funds the conspiracy website 911blogger.com, which claims to get no funding.
You seem to think you know how to fact check, so I’ll let you try first. Later, if you’ve had no luck, I can direct you to the information. Or someone else might.
Gage is a conman. Keep your money in your pocket.
From the “facts” of 9/11 to Richard Gage’s tax returns. Do you not see the relevance? Another absolutely crucial detail that we “truthers” have been leaving out of account. Thank you, Mr. Questions, for helping me focus on the essential issues of the matter at hand.
Smear? Gage could have made a LOT more money just maintaining a lowly architectural biz in SF these days. But some people act on their conscience even if it costs them a lot.
“Every major talking point of Trutherism was invented by someone in the alt right, then repackaged for mainstream, or at least alternative left, consumption.”
This just in: a guy from the alt right who goes by the name of Antoine Lavoisier claims that careful observation and experiment proves that matter is neither created nor destroyed, that is, that energy in any isolated system of interactions remains constant. He then went to mumble something beneath his breath about his “truther” and loyal sidekick, Sir Isaac Newton, claiming that he long ago proved that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. He then blurted out that he simply could not comprehend how, taking these two empirically well grounded assumptions as fundamental premises, everything that is claimed to have happened on 9/11 could have happened.
He was then pilloried by one Jerome Fryer, a Mr. Questions, and a Joe Asskicker, (the latter of whose online behavior falls quite a ways short of what his online moniker would at first blush suggest in terms of his debating skills, and would be more aptly named ‘Joe Asslicker’), who together accused him of being a scientific fraud because of his obvious “truthism.”
Antoine would gladly have engaged his tempestuous and vitriolic interlocutors in rational debate, and indeed did try, but the trio were so incensed by the thought that anyone could not “feel as deeply” as themselves the incontrovertible and virtually divine truth professed by the church of NIST that an exchange of information and ideas was simply impossible. Antoine quietly retired from scene without the loons even noticing his departure.
There’s a possibility the loons are being paid to remain.
Jerome, can you provide us with some strong evidence as to how the AlQaeda jihadists secretly and successfully carried out this massive, complicated conspiracy on foreign soil: how did they successfully conspire to simultaneously hijack four planes and skilfully fly them into iconic targets?
How did they know that no jets would scramble (as they always very effectively did) to ruin their precision plans?
How did Al Qaeda know about the 90 minute stand-down of US air force that very morning – the exact window of opportunity they required?
There is plenty of material that goes into all of that.
For example, the FBI already knew that some of the group were planning on aircraft hijack, for example, but they did not know anything about the scope of what was being planned. The CIA may have, but failed to pass this information on to the FBI (and vice versa). So was that more likely to be 1) the usual beureucratic screw-up and turf-protecting behaviour, or 2) part of an enormous conspiracy.
It simply doesn’t make sense to dismiss a simple explanation that does, if you bother to look into it (instead of allowing yourself to be bamboozled by woo), make perfect sense. Why assume a hugely complex conspiracy with extraordinary elements?
‘Truthers’ will accept that a massive conspiracy with high complexity (and no obvious benefits to the conspirators) is feasible, but then turn around and claim that buildings collapsing due to fire isn’t. If you require a precedent for the building collapses prior to 9/11 then these can be found in many partial collapses (arrested by fire fighting) — what is the precedent for the mega-conspiracy? And allegedly carried out by an administration so on-the-ball that they didn’t bother to even consider how Iraq could be governed post-invasion.
It seems, Jerome, that you cannot resist repeatedly using ad hom references to ‘Truthers’ (a known pejorative) and how they try to ‘bamboozle people by woo’ into some false and fantastic view of the world. And all because you refuse to accept the sound and reasoned objections some people have made to the ‘official conspiracy theory’ about 9/11. Your intention is clearly to try to paint people who attempt to work out what actually must have happened, as individuals who are somehow mentally deficient or deranged in some way, in the hope that this will persuade others not to take what they say seriously. That clearly seems to be your personal agenda here. But, 9/11 is a very serious issue which has not been properly examined or investigated because the US government prevented such taking place. The two co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton,said that the government ensured that the commission was “set up to fail”. It therefore falls to us, citizens of the world, to try to make sense of what happened by reasoned argument and deduction based on known and observed facts. Numerous scientists and engineers have used reasoned deduction and scientific knowledge to conclude that the WTC building MUST have been destroyed by controlled demolition, and that this method of collapsing a building is the only hypothesis which accounts for ALL the known and observed facts, features and characteristics of the collapses. They also conclude that the fire-induced collapse hypothesis accounts for NONE of the observed collapse features and characteristics. I note that you seem to have a particular problem accepting the idea that building 7 was brought down by controlled demolition, and you continue to believe that fire damage was enough to cause it to suddenly collapse completely, at free-fall, vertically and… Read more »
The ‘Gish Gallop’ doesn’t work well with me. I have limited time, so if you don’t get to the point I assume that you’re editorialising and just read the first and last paragraphs, and scan the rest.
Some ‘truthers’ embrace that term, some don’t. Everyone knows what it refers to.
…
Your thirty seconds of several edited snippets omits the east penthouse collapse in every single example. Here’s a full shot:
https://youtu.be/3PC3HWdUPHU
Note that the east penthouse falls in (7:20) a full seven seconds before the outer perimeter starts to collapse (7:27).
What do you think was going on during that seven seconds? Notice the daylight visible through the top Windows on the left, after that huge engineering section goes for a trip somewhere lower down in the building. Did you ever see that noted in your ‘truther’ sources?
That’s an interesting debating technique Jerome; you are one of the people spending a lot of time on these threads, but when someone takes the trouble to refute some of the points you make you quickly pull out a new label (Gish Gallop) to conveniently avoid the argument, and say you don’t have the time to read what has been said. That’s really quite lazy, as well as being deceptive and disingenuous.
With reference to your posted video:
The east penthouse falls first, true. It is soon followed by other structures visible on the roof, before the whole perimeter structure goes into a free-fall collapse. This is typical of a well known controlled demolition technique called ‘implosion’, whereby some of the core/inner columns in a building are cut first (the ones under the east penthouse, for instance) in order to first weaken the overall structure and to place the outer, perimeter parts of the building’s structural framework (to which the inner collapsed sections are still attached) under inward acting tension. This ensures that the outer parts of the building will tend to fall inwards (not outwards) during the subsequent collapse when the remaining perimeter structural columns are simultaneously cut. Hence, the building falls neatly ‘into its own footprint’ with minimum damage to other nearby buildings.
There is a very interesting explanation of why NIST’s fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis is bunkum here:
http://www.ae911truth.org/news/215-news-media-events-5-of-6-nist-fraud-5.html
And another article on how buildings are actually imploded by controlled demolition here:
http://www.ae911truth.org/news/217-news-media-events-6-of-6-nist-fraud-6.html
Perhaps you can take the time to read them.
“The east penthouse falls first, true.”
Yet this is always omitted from ‘truther’ edits.
“This is typical of a well known controlled demolition technique called ‘implosion’”
If this supports the ‘truther’ controlled demolition assertion, why is it edited out?
Iraq’s post-war (sic) situation can be plausibly denied as a failure of post war vision – and it can be seen as executed by design. Destructive agenda has no intention of fulfilling any of its war-justifying calls for freedom and democracy and no more than a few token exceptions of any care for the people involved. Love dies, hate laughs. Deceit pervades like a fungus below the ground and 9/11 is like a toadstool to spore another phase of the takeover from within… our own minds. Deceit is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But why should “mega-conspiracy” not operate through the cover of “usual bureaucratic screw-up”. No one but the fewest need actually be in the ‘1%’ insider circle. Everyone else is manipulated through the usual means and knows only what they are allowed or deceived into believing. Why? Because they CAN – and declare it in the act. The pervasive parroting assertion of an “official” narrative and its primary derivatives – makes any deviation or difference stand out as dissonant – (THAT is its purpose). And the dissonant are then to be associated with and helped to be associated with woo – or any other derisory invalidation that serves the same purpose. Disinfo agents are trained and paid to engage in fruitless futile fuzzying of communications contra to or marked as threat to official narrative control. This is just like an autoimmune disease where the mechanisms of protection turn upon one’s own natural function destructively. 9/11 is one strand in a globally destructive agenda. How to seem powerful? Set everyone else into self-destructive and other-destructive conflicts from which weakness and dependency seek to hide their shame – and then allow them to be led like captive cattle. Deceit feeds like a parasite on a willingness to be deceived. The… Read more »
Seems that communications in the standard military chain of command are only as strong as their weakest link. This is why we have the old wartime yarn that “Send reinforcements, we’re going to advance” can easily turn into “Send three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance”.
Nearly everyone in the FAA and the Air Force exhibited a profound pandemic of confusion that day, a confusion that is so easily engineered and then covered up, with false blips on radar screens, war games that “went live”, and key people in command that went AWOL but still got a promotion later.
Pilots for 9/11 Truth have amassed a lot of data worth examining.
Wow, the massive complicated conspiracy on foreign soil… What? Gee whiz, they bought tickets to fly. And then they did the most complicated plot ever… it has many steps… 1. Take planes. 2. Crash planes. Imagine the massive training, learning to cut throats. What a skill set. Imagine the massive funding, 5 dollar knives. Wow. Imagine that most America kids off the street with no training can fly a 767/757 better than the four failed idiot terrorist pilots. 9/11 truth claims are based on the overwhelming ignorance of the believers. Sums up the movement based on lies, failed opinions, zero science, and a lot of BS. The plot, too complicated for… How did they secretly buy airline tickets to fly that day? Paid cash. They did not tell the crew or the airline they were going to stab crew members, kill pilots, and take planes. Keeping it a secret by not talking. They picked flights that took off at the same time, you ask simple question. There were no great flying skills, crashing a plane is the easiest maneuver because it can be done at any speed, landing is an exact target speed, crashing at any attitude, even upside down, landing has to be a set attitude; thus you see crashing and flying big jets, it is much easier to hit a 900 foot wide target in a very stable 757, vs a single engine prop on a 40 foot runway, where Hani flew for practice once, and he could care less if he could land properly, he was planning on crashing. There were no skillful flying on 9/11, you are fooled by bogus opinions. Playing the old NORAD card. The airspace over our cities was not patrolled by NORAD, NORAD patrols the coast in the ADIZ (look it up).… Read more »
Wow! Now I think I know what Jerome means by a ‘Gish Gallop’.
Yup, that certainly is a lot of galloping bullshit . . .
We really should brace ourselves. I fear an avalanche may be in the offing.
Everyone, do have your Japanese nose pinchers at the ready!
You are going to need them . . .
No, but Norman gives an example below.
. . . with the exception that my Gish is all referenced to source, eh, Jerome.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop
“Although it takes a trivial amount of effort on the galloper’s part to make each individual point before skipping on to the next (particularly if they cite from a pre-concocted list of gallop arguments), a refutation of the same gallop may likely take much longer and require significantly more effort (per the basic principle that it’s always easier to make a mess than to clean it back up again).”
An example would be copy-pasting from your personal website, or other store of pre-fabricated woo.
@ john miller the pilot, “Imagine that most America kids off the street with no training can fly a 767/757 better than the four failed idiot terrorist pilots.” Ah, yes, idiots pilots and our exceptional American kids. And you are a pilot, no less . . . Yes, well, here’s what other pilots have said about being able to pilot the jets in question: “Unlike a small private plane where pilots generally fly visually, a commercial plane like those hijacked [on September 11] requires a vast command of navigation techniques as well as in-depth knowledge of their myriad systems, from hydraulics to the autopilot.” [7] Michael Barr, the director of aviation safety programs at the University of Southern California, and several commercial airline pilots told the Boston Globe that “they assumed that the terrorists were skilled pilots who had to have received some training in flying transport jets, particularly the Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft.” [8] Notes for the foregoing: [7] Jon Hilkevitch, “Hijackers Flew Skillfully to Targets, Experts Say.” Chicago Tribune, September 13, 2001. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-09-13/news/0109130331_1_plane-american-airlines-flight-world-trade-center [8] Matthew Brelis, “Pilots Say Crews Likely Overpowered, Slain.” Boston Globe, September 12, 2001. http://www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack/globe_stories/0912/Pilots_say_crews_likely_overpowered_slainP.shtml And then this: Kieran Daly, the editor of the Internet publication Air Transport Intelligence, said, “Flying an aircraft into a building is not as simple as it appears.” He said the hijackers “would have needed some experience to have been able to steer the planes into the World Trade Centre.” [10] Robin Lloyd compared the targets of the WTC towers to “narrow runways tipped vertically.” From “switching off the autopilot,” the hijackers “would have to know how to control the aircraft and be able to find the target,” he said. Lloyd said that “rag-trousered terrorists with no flying experience could not have hit” the Twin Towers. [11] Michael Barr… Read more »
The cool part, you can’t show any skilled flying on 9/11, you got hearsay. I am an engineer too. I have an ATP, and a masters in Engineering. You got cherry-picked BS, and quote mining down to an art. You have no clue what skilled flying would be. Take the time to get the FDR, you can see the smooth control by the pilots before they were killed, and then the erratic not skilled flying of murderers… Hani’s bank angle control was erratic, not skilled. His airspeed control sucked. But you failed to take the time to be skeptical of news sources and BS experts to get the data. It is easy to crash, and I have flown with kids who flew better without training than the terrorists. I have all the Radar data, and the FDR for 77 and 93, I studied the data, and found no skilled flying on 9/11. The irony as you write so well, you have no clue there was no skill involved, you can’t take the time to do more than repeat failed claims, and failed to do your own work. You can’t find more than a fringe few pilots, less than a fraction of a percent to agree with your BS you googled; did you study the FDR? Radar? No, you googled lies, false claims and BS. The flying sucked and I have put people in the seat of a heavy jet with no training, and they flew as good as the terrorists, and skipped the training. did you fail to stay in your lane the first time your drove a car, rode a bike? Pilot since 1973, flew my first jet in the 300,000 pound class in 1976, and the first time in a large jet with less total time than the… Read more »
You are but an anonymous voice on the internet, Mr. john miller the engineer-cum-pilot, who on the basis of a vaunted engineering and piloting expertise wants us to take his word for everything he comes here to gratuitously asserts. How do we verify your assertions? Other “confirmed” pilots have made and are making assertions that flatly contradict your assertions, and they are more than a handful and aren’t hiding behind the anonymity of a persona that can pretend to be anything he wants to pretend he is. It’s more than mere hearsay if many people with a relevant and publicly verifiable expertise to an issue corroborate one another in their assertions. That’s how knowledge of the world actually works, Mr. john miller the engineer-cum-pilot. If you push the issue far enough, anything can be said to be worthless hearsay. But as it happens, some people are actually reliable as witnesses and researchers, and that becomes evident in the manner they relate information, in their accuracy and honesty, and collectively they end up producing a body of work that finds its testimony in real world outcomes. So far, in the several instances in which you have pretended to relate to this forum substantive rebuttals, you have failed to substantiate each and every thing you have said. Already your credibility is rather thin. Spouting off on the basis of a “claimed” but “unsubstantiated” expertise is less proof than even mere hearsay from laymen. Most pilots probably do not have an opinion on 9/11 because they, like most everyone, have either not had the time to investigate the details of what happened or couldn’t be bothered. Many have, however, and among those that have, the consensus is far removed from the tenor of the opinions you express. You bring no reasoned argumentation to… Read more »
“But as it happens, some people are actually reliable as witnesses and researchers, and that becomes evident in the manner they relate information, in their accuracy and honesty, and collectively they end up producing a body of work that finds its testimony in real world outcomes.”
It also helps if they work under an accreditation regime. If they’re extremely competent they may even manage to get a job in a national standards lab.
Or work at a university?
Universities don’t work under accreditation regimes. You are confusing commercial and academic practices.
National labs have multiple roles, inclusive of helping manage the technical aspects of the commercial labs.
The technical experts that assess our competence are drawn from our national lab. (Although they don’t have to be.)
Where do you think the “science” that underpins the “expertise,” and on which that “expertise” elaborates, of any lab worthy of the name originates, Jerome? Are you really as insipid as your remark would suggest?
Norman, why can’t you explain what was so skillful about crashing on 9/11. Do you have the FDR for 93 and 77, the data? I do, and it shows a lack of skill, but good enough to crash into some of the largest buildings on earth. You quote mine and cherry pick pilot statements who failed to study the FDR, and failed to point out what was skillful, what was so hard to do. The flying on 9/11 was rookie class. Flight 77 showed up in DC too high, he had to do a circle decent to get down, he failed to skillful enough to figure out his decent to get down, so he did a turn and it was not even standard rate. As you attack me, you fail to make point past the fact you provided evidence you are gullible, and are not skeptical of BS you googled. You write well, but have no clue why the BS you posts is BS. Go ahead, show one super flight thing the terrorists did on 9/11. You can’t do more than BS and ignore evidence. Did you fail to keep the car in the lane when you first drove a car? The terrorists had more flight time than I did my first time in a four engine Boeing jet, and I landed exactly on center-line, on speed, the first time; which according to your vast study of BS, is impossible for me to go from small planes to big planes. I found a four engine Boeing to be easier than flying a one engine Cessna. I am a pilot, and your pilot experience is hearsay, quote-mined BS, and worse, opinion. Got some facts? No. It was a perfect day for flying, the terrorists only had to fly, they did not… Read more »
More vacuous and unsubstantiated hot air, Mr. john miller engineer-cum-pilot, that is to say, for someone with a “masters in Engineering” you are not particularly conscientious about providing citations, eh. You mention “data” that “proves” the hijackers were flakes but could nevertheless achieve their objectives. Where is this blessed “data”. Where did you get your little diagram? Where does it originate from? And this is priceless, eh: “This is a sample of the airline pilots turn, and the terrorists turn, Bank angle control does not exist for the terrorists, they meander around the sky, This is not skill, it is failed humans out to murder, they showed no skill at flying, they only had motivation to kill. ” And motivation is all you need to hit two buildings in New York after flaying hundreds of miles and then the Pentagon, also. A 100% kill rate from a bunch of duffers. You imply it, not me. But do permit me to help you, Mr. john miller engineer-cum-pilot with a “masters degree:” would this be an example of the documented flakiness of the hijackers: Quote begins: A particularly high level of skill would have been needed to fly an aircraft into the west wall of the Pentagon. CBS News reported: “Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes. … [T]he complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed.” [16] A “top aviation source” called the maneuver “a nice, coordinated turn,” which, according to one law enforcement official, was the work of “a great talent … virtually a textbook turn and landing.” [17] Other “aviation sources” told the Washington Post that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon “was flown with… Read more »
Hopefully someone from your forum link will present a cogent counter-arguement here. As the eds say it would be a welcome addition to debates.
As for the the forum comments themselves, most of them seem to be written by you, and the others are a mish mash of childish insults and largely content-free assumptions. That said I was interested to see the passenger manifest links.
“As for the the forum comments themselves, most of them seem to be written by you”
If you mean the ISL forums, then I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. I only registered on there a couple of days ago, and have written thirteen posts so far, mostly explaining (or excusing) this website.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=311955
I mean specifically the thread you link to, where you ask the ISL community to contribute here because you say you’re “not qualified to make a strong case for the no-conspiracy / physics is adequate argument”.
Despite not being qualified, as you note, it’s strange that you make such a rigidly dogmatic case for your chosen conspiracy theory.
Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.
I appreciate the manner and the content of this posting. I see a reflection of our world being co-opted or subverted by secretive unaccountable cartels of power establishment in the structure of our human consciousness – being run by conditioned subconscious habits and unconscious and even pre rational conditioning. But that this is being exposed or less able to disguise itself. This is not easy to link to political events because the framing of our thought is that our personal consciousness is weak or imaginary and of little if any consequence in a world of powers seen as beyond our control – who effectively own or have undue influence in the arena of such control and therefore manage consensus perceptions. But regardless, I see the a situation similar to a bot net of hacked computers being used without their (owners) knowledge – in secret – as part of an orchestrated attack on the integrity of communication for a criminal agenda or a government agenda via criminal means. The nature of 9/11 is riddled with deceits and I believe it was a show of power to deceive and manipulate as it was at other levels a coup d’etat by deceit by which to manipulate outcomes – such as the “War on Terror” used to restrict the rights and voices of citizens at home and instigate numerous geopolitical conflicts abroad. For there is another perspective that is not met – and that is that we were completely deceived and confused and set off in ways that are more likely to be serving the deceit agenda than our own – even in the glimpses we have as to what did or likely occur – considering the official story does not hold true. The confusion is linked with an aversion or unwillingness to look… Read more »
Muslin terrorists hijacked planes and flew 2 of them into the twin towers. These are the facts. Everything else is a convoluted attempt to try to deal with the cognitive dissonance engendered by the assault upon so many people’s world view. The ongoing obsrssion with trying to find evidence that the CIA or shadowy US Government entities were somehow behind the attacks or at least complicit in them reminds me of the equally fervent attempts by some to find a “cover up” behind UFOs and the supposed Roswell crash for example. Why can’t people just accept that the terrorists were behind it and that America despite its great military and political might is not all-powerful. That is the truth.
You are clearly a smart person, Brian, may I respectfully advise you to have a read of the doubter’s arguments – see Architects and Engineers For 9/11 Truth et al – as they really aren’t as far-fetched as you think. Given the range of very intelligent people nowadays doing nothing more than calling for a reinvestigation into the many holes left in the official accounts/reports, it could be argued that to steadfastly defend the official story is far more deluded, far-fetched and fanciful and anything else! All the best to you, though. T
Cognitive Dissonance and Conscious Choice: An interesting typo there Brian. Is the muslin being pulled over your mind. If you confined yourself to investigating only these muslins – you would discover a false narrative presentation – and would have to consider why – for what purpose and for whose agenda? Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9-11 Cover-Up in Florida by Daniel Hopsicker. But I suspect you wont – perhaps because you want to put it behind you and get on with a less troubled life. No blame – but if it is an active agenda then it is not and wont be ‘behind you’ but simply out of your mind – and thus more freely operating without your awareness or consent – excepting your conditioned response to look away in the convenience of an official narrative you accepted true. If you don’t understand that loveless and indeed hateful agenda operates in secret – then you do not recognize the human conditioning around the issue of power. Cognitive dissonance or deep disturbance is freely available via any of the possible accounting for what happened, who did it and why. The question is are you willing to own it and feel it so as to use the energy of such dissonant feeling and thought towards a conscious sanity of purpose – rather than be used by it AND project your un-owned stuff onto others who may or may also be run by their reactions – or may be consciously integrating within an integrity of being instead of being terrorized into a sacrifice of integrity for a conformity of thought. When judging others – are we not really justifying a self in which a significant element is kept secret? Covered over by an assertive narrative seeking validation or reinforcement? Regardless of… Read more »
This site has a very accurate and insightful view on the 9/11 attacks. One web site has a summary and has published several books on 9/11 which discuss these exact subjects in particular the subject: “The tracking and surveillance by intelligence agencies,” The first book is called “Prior Knowledge of 9/11”. These books are based on the following sources: Aggregating the DOJ IG report, combined with the Joint Inquiry Report and the 9/11 Commission report, along with the book, “State of Denial” by Bob Woodward, and the “Account of FBI Agent Ali Soufan”, lead FBI investigator on the Cole bombing, by Lawrence Wright, Ken Silverstein’s article on January 2007, “Meet the new CIA Station Chief Richard Blee”, along with the Moussaoui Defense Exhibits. and the document “CIA requests changes to Staff (9/11 Commission) Statement # 10”. Richard Blee, had been head of the CIA bin Laden unit and the CIA Rendition unit at the time the 9/11 attacks took place. I also personally interviewed directly or via phone or email the following people: Joint Inquiry Investigator Michael Jacobson Joint Inquiry Deputy Chief Rick Cinquegrana Joint Inquiry Chief Elinor Hill 9/11 Commissioners Tim Roemer*, Bob Kerrey*, Richard bin-Vinesta* 9/11 Commission Joint Chief Governor Kean* FBI Agent Steve Bongardt Ali Soufan’s assistant in New York City, over why his investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi was inexplicably shut down FBI Agents and supervisors Harry Samit, Collen Rowley*, and Joseph Rivers* in Minneapolis, over why their investigation of Moussaoui was shut down. Lawrence Wright, “The Agent who could have stopped 9/11, Ali Soufan”. Bob Woodard*, author of the book, “State of Denial” Richard Clarke*, White House Terrorism Czar *Direct one on one interviews The bottom line is that from this material it is impossible to conclude anything other than the CIA using agents and… Read more »
I looked for a link – can you provide one. I’m sure I can goggle it down but a link would be for everyone’s convenience.
Thankyou
Yes, the site is http://www.eventson911.com. On this site are many government documents that actually prove that the CIA using FBI HQ’s agents and managers that they had corrupted, shut down the FBI criminal investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi. FBI IOS Agent Dina Corsi, under supervision of CIA officer Tom Wilshire, shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt’s criminal investigation of these two al Qaeda terrorists, even though both agencies knew a huge al Qaeda terrorist attack was just about to take place inside of the US, knew that al Qaeda terrorists Mihdhar and Hazmi were in in the US in order to take part in this attack and even knew shutting down Bongardt’s criminal investigation would allow this attack to take place killing thousands of Americans. Tom Wilshire was the CIA officer who had been moved over to the FBI ITOS unit in mid-May as a CIA spy to find out if the FBI Cole bombing investigators had uncovered the CIA secret information that Mihdhar and Hazmi had taken part in the planning of the Cole bombing. When Wilshire had second thoughts about continuing to keeping this information secret from these investigators, and sent two requests to his CIA managers, Blee, Black, and Tenet in July 2001, he was effectively ordered to never give this information to the FBI Cole bombing investigators, sabotaging any future investigation they may have wanted for Mihdhar and Hazmi. At this time the CIA knew that a huge al Qaeda attack was just about to take place inside of the US, knew Hazmi was already inside of the US and that Mihdhar had a multi-entry visa for the US, allowing him to join Hazmi in any future terrorist attack. (See DE 939) On August 28, 2001 Corsi told Bongardt that he had to shut down his… Read more »
Fantastic piece Mog – refreshing to read something laid out in a tone that has been somewhat lacking in parts of the comments threads over the OffG 9/11 series.
The reporting of 911 by OffG and its contributors has kind of changed my mind on 911. It is not that I believed the official 911 story before OffG started this series, and now I am happily cleansed from the brainwash and know better. I also did not change my mind as to whether this trying to expose 911 for what it is will lead to the answer of what really happened at 911 (we will never find out is still my impression). But what has changed my mind, is my initial thought that people who distrust the official 911 story and try to expose reality, are performing a job that is a waste of time and energy. This is not true, since 911 truthers behave like a movement. Therefore, I have changed my mind. I am sure that many here are familiar with the book a people’s history of the United States by Howard Zinn. When I read this book, I was amazed how often Zinn had to mention events that were never solved, but still produced war and misery to the people of the US, and elsewhere. I remember the sinking of the USS Maine, which led to the US war with Spain and the Haymarket affair that is now remembered by May day, two events of which we ‘know’ who organised and orchestrated them, yet we cannot ‘know’ as ultimate evidence is lacking. There are much more of these ‘false flag’/perfect storm events in Zinn’s book, which are all similar paradoxes as 911 is (we know but we do not know). I understood from the article that the author is a medialens visitor, so I am quite sure that the author read this quote from Chomsky (who talked about Medialens) ‘[I] Am really impressed with what you… Read more »
The Chomsky citation seems unlikely.
https://www.rt.com/usa/noam-chomsky-911-truthers-342/
Thank you Mog for this excellent piece on Off-Guardian’s attempts to open up the important debate about the truth and lies of 9/11. An open and honest debate about this seminal criminal event of the 21st century is very long overdue. 9/11 has given birth to the most appalling horrors of war, the death, maiming and displacement of millions of innocent people, the erosion of human and civil rights, mass surveillance, and an endless stream of other negative effects.
If we do not attempt to examine this crime properly, irrespective of who the guilty actors may be, then we become collectively complicit in it. And those individuals and agencies who try, by whatever means and for whatever reasons, to deliberately suppress such attempts to expose and examine the truth are especially complicit.
Seconded.
The study of Power in society, has for a long time, modern time that is, gone out of fashion almost everywhere. For a long time, decades, the concept almost vanished from public discourse. Power seemed somhow rather ‘old fashioned’ in the bright and gilded sixties and afterwards. Power in a democratic society appeared almost not to really exist or have relevance because we all had it, power was shared and evenly distributed among people, in a democracy. At least that was the theory. So let’s study something else, like gender politics and identity politics instead. There was money there and fame. Who was this guy Machiavelli, anyway? We didn’t have Princes anymore did we, so why bother with him? But, as the political consensus around the ‘middle’ began to crumble as the economy changed and wealth was redistributed upwards, Power, once neglected, began to slowly re-emerge from the shadows and history, simply because, like wealth, the distribution of power was massively unequal. The State too began to turn into something that even looked strong and powerful. First overseas, through our new-found love for old-fashioned imperialism, designed to gain economic and military advantage; then the State began to throw its weight around at home too. A State that was becoming harsher and more willing to use force and threats against the opposition. Power is fundametally about how society distributes wealth, much of the rest is… ‘detail.’ There are many ways to do this, distribute wealth and resources. For our purposes, in an advanced society, the role of education and the media is vital for legitimising the increasingly polarised distribution of wealth and the increasingly ‘strong’ role of the State, summed up in the move from the classic social democratic/liberal Welfare State towards the older Warfare State model. Without a very uneven… Read more »
In modern society, power is grounded in organizations, and these units of integrated and coordinated activities require resources in materials and intellectual wherewithal.
Since we live in a money economy where everything and everyone is a commodity, allegiance and materials can be purchased and go to the highest bidders, to serve their both their personal and public whims.
It follows that the people with the most money to throw around have the most power since they can command the most material and best talent up for either formal or informal (secretive) sale. Any organisation that is highly developed and sophisticated in its operations is therefore beholden to big money. Their cannot be criminal organizations that do not serve the upper tiers of wealth. Anything that happens on the scale of 9/11 cannot happen without material and logistical talent, and that material and talent can only be “bought.”
Power, in other words, is in our social context concentrated wealth. Make that concentration impossible, and you automatically reduce the scale of power any organization can acquire and deploy.
‘Wealth’ in capitalist society hinges upon the institution of private property. Take away the title to vast and unaccountable fortunes and already you limit the scope and the scale of the crimes that powerful (wealthy) psychopaths can commit. And that would only be the beginning of what needs to happen going forward . . . An economy premised upon the ‘commodification’ of everyone and everything cannot possibly result in anything other than what we already have.
Wow, mog is just another braindead conspiracy moron. Maximum Cringe. And they told me all lunatics are locked away.
“And they told me all lunatics are locked away.”
Who told you? Your asylum keepers or your jailers?
“mog is just another braindead conspiracy moron”
I’m sorry, but the idea is to try to have an intelligent debate here.
If your particular game is calling people names instead of engaging in reasoned arguments, then you should go and do it elsewhere.
“intelligent debate”
LOL, well to do this someone would have to delete this trainwreck of an article full of arrogant twoofer woo.
Then, you worthless, braindead twoofers would have to realize that 9/11 is not a matter of debate like in your gender free vegan hipster group 🙂
If someone has proof for conspiracies on 9/11, compile the evidence and go to the FBI. Anything else is just attention whoring from a drug addicted nobody.
So,mog, instead of “just asking questions” (JAQing off) answer the questions yourself and bring the evil wrongdoers to justice. But hurry, you’re 15 years late already ^^
Mr Asskicker – we don’t allow content-free ad hom or trolling here, but since you’re new we’ll let this one pass.
I’m going to take a punt and guess you have come here from the “International Skeptic” forum where Jerome Fryer has been posting asking – quite reasonably – for people to come here and help him rebut the articles we have posted by scientists critical of NIST.
We are really keen to get cogent opposing views, so if you can do such a rebuttal we’ll be happy to host it. But be warned, you will need sourced facts and some grasp of science. Saying “ha-ha you suck” will not have the impact here it generally seems to have amongst your friends on the ISF.
And please note that any further content-free ad hom will likely be deleted.
“we don’t allow content-free ad hom or trolling here”
You still haven’t answered my question about why “Pentagon shill” was ad-hominem, while “Hasbara terrorist” isn’t. Do you believe that the second assertion was correct?
What is the editorial view on anti-Semitism? Are you more afraid of the dark arts of the Pentagon (beware their extraordinary powers of losing track of vast sums of money; marvel at their incapability to successfully argue for what the US military needs vs. what political donor corporations want the taxpayer to buy) than shadowy Mossad agents?
You seem a weird lot.
We delete or edit extremes of anti-semitism on a daily basis. We remove content-free ad hom from both sides of the 9/11 debate. Of course you think we are biased against you. We’ve had identical complaints from the “other side.”
Do not try to turn this into a longer conversation.
edit: if you have a complaint about content-free ad hom that has slipped through email us at [email protected] with a link to the offending remark.
Again the framing of a personal sense of coming into a group of ‘truthers’ who are sported with or baited, but never treated as equals worthy of engaging in communication – while using whatever is said to them… only as mask or ammunition to remain in a superior presumption of judgement over. Jerome may not be an expression of artificial Intelligence – but he is running to a mechanical or fixed script.
Question: Where are the sourced facts in mogs article?
Off Guardian is discrediting the Left and giving undeserved credibility to the real Guardian by pursuing this 9/11 conspiracy nonsense. What’s particularly laughable is that the site complains about the Guardian moderating comments but won’t accept mine.
Epic fail dude.
In what way discrediting the left?
Whether or not the twin towers was a genuine terrorist attack or some kind of inside job, the very fact that the US government obstructed and obscured any full and comprehensive and objective inquiry and wilfully destroyed evidence, from CCTV footage in Washington to shipping off scrap from the towers asap, where Bush and Cheney were interviewed together not under oath, numerous Saudi citizens were able to leave US asap and all sorts of other potential ‘irregularities’ were never pursued, surely allows scope for scepticism as to underlying truths, especially as it ultimately unleashed a never ending ‘war on terror’ by the US and its vassals that have killed, maimed or displaced millions since 2001.
I don’t want to be part of any ‘Left’ that stops asking questions and exerting pressure over the myriad lies told to us about 9/11.
Have they been nuking your comments?
No, but we will be nuking yours. Well, nuking would be overkill, especially when all that is really needed is a peashooter, eh.
Reblogged this on Taking Sides.
Indeed! I’m sure Mog would agree that the blame lies not just with the originators of the lies – primarily the US government – but with all those in media and politics and academia and elsewhere who have failed to expose them (the originators and the lies). It has been the craven repetition and even robust defence of the lies – especially by the BBC in the UK – that has allowed them to take on the appearance of truth. Why otherwise more than adequately informed people such as Chomsky, Pilger and Monbiot have resolutely supported the debunkers and have joined the ranks of the “gatekeepers” as Mog writes, seems to me to be explicable only in terms of their allegiance to an evidentially flawed “Leftist” position that desperately wants 9/11 to be an instance of “blowback” – the supposed “little people” hitting back at the Great Satan; or to an urge to protect Israel/Mossad against the clear evidence of their complicity. A third reason is imaginable: simply to protect their careers and their reputations. Hardly an admirable justification. We might also reasonably blame a gullible, dumbed-down general public that swallowed the CIA-invented “conspiracy theorist” meme – to its own misfortune in the rash of ‘Gladio-style’ false flags that have become a routine feature of the contemporary landscape, with the New York “pipe bombs” most likely featuring as the latest manifestation. In general one would have to say that many of the ills of society, especially the ability of a tiny group (a self-imagined ‘elite’) to have gained such power over life and death, are due to the ordinary citizen having fallen for the lure of “mere baubles” and having taken his/her eye off the ‘ball’ of democracy. An astute French journalist, Francis Delaisi, exposed the lie of ‘democracy’ as… Read more »
The plans of which go back further.
http://www.schauungen.de/Sonstiges/TheKaisersDream/KaisersDreamgro%DF.jpg
I like that on the map Russia is a “Desert,” just as North America was complete and utter “wilderness.” Oh, sure, perhaps inhabited by 50 or score more millions of people, but savages, eh. So “desert” or “wilderness” is an apt descriptor.
Have a read of this Norman:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodss26.htm
Had a read. It’s a different worldview from my own. I tend to come at things from a Marxist perspective, but not that I discount the ‘fact’ that there are secretive coteries of rich bastards amusing themselves at playing a game of “I”m the ruler of the entire world.” As for the revolution in Russia and its connection to Wall Street, that should not really be surprising to anyone who both follows current affairs and reads a bit of history. Tsarist Russia was a regime in the way of Western bourgeois capital and it was only natural that that capital would try to instigate a revolution for which there actually were objective grounds for revolution, that is to say, the fact that Russians really were grotesquely put upon by Tsarism and becoming increasing restive, indeed, just as we see today in the Middle East, where Western interests co-opt popular uprisings — as in Egypt and more recently in Syria — both to use it to topple the ruling networks of elites and to narrowly circumscribe or limit the gains of the revolt in favor of the popular masses of Russia. To prove that Wall Street provided material support to the Bolshevik revolution does not prove that the participants in the revolution were not pursuing their own interests, that is to say, seizing upon and exploiting to their own ends the handouts from from one band of criminals intent upon the destruction of another. Things are never simple and one dimensional. Reality at all levels is complicated. And that’s what I like about Marx: he provides us with a reduction of social and political reality that is akin to Newtonian mechanics. He elucidates in broad outlines the pragmatically important elements of our reality, providing us with categories (eg. capitalist class vs.… Read more »
Correction to what I just wrote:
Not: ” . . . just as we see today in the Middle East, where Western interests co-opt popular uprisings — as in Egypt and more recently in Syria — both to use it to topple the ruling networks of elites and to narrowly circumscribe or limit the gains of the revolt in favor of the popular masses of Russia.”
But: “… just as we see today in the Middle East, where Western interests co-opt popular uprisings — as in Egypt and more recently in Syria — both to use it to topple the ruling networks of elites and to narrowly circumscribe or limit the gains of the revolt so as not to overly favor of the entitlements of the popular masses.”
“But the flip-side of the conspiracy coin is the proliferation of fanciful and fantastic theories that now crisscross the globe in seconds with the help of electronic media. ” (From the text linked) Another flop side is that astroturfing generates many such sites as a means of diluting and discrediting. I believe the ‘inner’ aspect to ‘outer’ experience is key – for without the key, the struggle to manipulate outcomes deals only with effects or symptoms – never seeking or addressing cause. There are many perspectives that do not usually find any consideration in political discourse. Esoteric means hidden, from what I might call surface consciousness – which is similar to the matrix idea of a masking presentation. The sense of being denied whole truth also needs to own the desire to be protected from truth when its exposure is believed too terrifying or mind-breaking. This is not usually a rational urge so much as a preverbal strategy of evasion and denial operating automatically as a result of unconscious imprinting. Humanity is not yet – at least in ‘developed’ societies adept at embracing and integrating the Feeling dimension of being – and the isolation/alienation of communication breakdown into mind disconnect’ of a false and feeling denying rationalism, results in dense but highly charged unconscious but active forces of denied feelings of rage, terror, powerlessness, heartbreak, as well as of denied joy, and the subtler qualities of consciousness that are often forced down such as intuition, psychic sensitivity, or spiritual discernment. Perhaps various kinds of insanity and breakdown of consciousness and cognitive function lead us to have to address this – but the urge to put a heavy and often pharmaceutical lid on it is the official narrative. Reality is never spread out as a static and flat timeline of actions… Read more »
Hello to the person whom’s chosen name is binra. I have read the comment thread on this article and your arc of knowledge is truly projectional and demonstrates what an ‘open mind’ can accomplish. Your words are chosen far better than I can currently place with your points on Elitism, destructive agenda, and the inner group are all true and there is an agent of that agenda posting on here.
Throughout our time on this planet we see the use of fear and control to stop an awakening of collective conscience. The parts of the jigsaw puzzle are scattered to be found – but most go from the crisis of being born to the fear of time to die without even collecting one part of the puzzle stuck in the fuzziness of the mind helped by these agents,
You state that you are not concerned as to whether or when we wake up, but I enquire gently if you actually are? Most comments here are of the “it’s true”, “it isn’t true”; your comments are providing a reason for the feelings/motivation, but your arc is of an appeal to “Break the Spell”. I ask as I sense you are grounded enough to ponder on this. Or “‘Why are you here, what is motivating you to provide your knowledge here and now?”
My last question could also be asked of Jeremy, to gain a greater understanding of his true intent/motivation/behaviour.
I feel willingness to witness into a public attention in that which I feel a resonance and movement to engage with or comment into. And an unwillingness to closet or withhold that which I grow in, by sharing it… The ‘spell’ is ingeniously defended against waking – for that was its original purpose of employment. Part of the defence is the … Motivation is simple – we move toward fulfilment (as we each define it) and we move away from pain of loss (as we each define it. Whereas a living cell will do the same in attraction to nutrient and repulsion from toxin – we have the ‘mind’ of self definition that generates…. So why would I not be ‘here’? and what more motivation do I need than to share in a fulfilment that is not ‘waiting’ for results – but living who I am – as I enjoy being – and addressing the ‘evils of the day thereof’ as they rise to awareness – to be seen for what they are or are NOT… Whether any of that answers anything you asked about? I am not an organisation or a representative of any but willingness for the embrace of Life on Earth – and I don’t limit what that embrace expands to become…. If Humanity has ‘painted itself into a corner’ as is my sense of these times. Then the options are insanity, degradation and death … OR a shift of perspective – which in a sense is an evolutionary leap. For it is not a gradual refinement of what USED to work…. I cannot make any one else’s choices – nor in sanity would I want to. But that doesn’t mean I am not involved, caring and compassionate to the issues being experienced in which of course… Read more »