Yes.

Bin Laden seems to think that it was Muslims (or is he part of the conspiracy too?). So do most Muslims for that matter. Are the rantings of a widely discredtited american really news?

It seems that you have you set out your stall, shame that you have nothing to place on it!

The employment of a debating fall stop in your title is boring, derivitive and meaningless (not to say an attempt to distract the dear reader from further anaylsis).

Please indicate any event in the war on terra that has not involved some form or type of conspiracy (remember, the word has a meaning independent and previous to yours).

Please indicate the parameters of insanity you evoke in calling to task those who do not share your belief in the transparancy of the government line.

If you can not be bothered to do more than crayon in some tedious back of the class heckle to persaude us of your 'beliefs', then should we be bothered to flesh out the missing data, analysis and projections and take on board your opinions?

And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?

Reality check ... you need one!

I don't know, but I watched this film last year and it did make me think. It's two hours long and in three parts. Bear with it for the first hour as it should all make sense eventually. Also, I don't think there's any talking for the first ten minutes.


www.zeitgeistmovie.com

The lack of evidence used to mean that you are innocent until proven guilty. However, the Bin Ladens and the Bush clan are one of the same and this is the nature of what is often termed as the new world order, ignore idiot reality check and the other stuff as it is designed to make you think the truth cannot be found as only the authorities and the reality check plant have the answers.

It is a really good question, it would be great if we could look at all the info to find out who was responsible?

Small Gecko seems to having a hissy fit. Could that be something to do with the total implosion of the 9/11 truth movement recently? That even 'We Are Change' (aka We Are Very Middleclass And A Bit Sad) can't even get 10 people to their 'historic' demo outside the US Embassy? All that talk about t what a growing and unstoppable force 9/11 truth was. And now its gone out of fashion with all those dissillusioned anti war activists. What a pity.

Not so much a hissy fit, more a poisonous micturation ...

... fact is, you are tedious, prejudiced and without a clue.

But of course, you have all the answers, and by coincidence, they involve sitting on yer jacksy doing bugger all and pontificating piously.

"t is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam. . . ."

Good to see that it's still impossible to beat 911 bores for weak reasoning and logic fail.

The 9/11 conspiracy is obviously deepening, as scientists are using their new world order understanding of the WTC collapse and the properties of steel to build fusion reactors.

Silly billies, don't they know it was thermite and/or aliens and/or the mind control powers of the shape shifting lizard-jews that caused the towers to fall?

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7607473.stm

I am not 'Big Lizard', but I do have an answer for 'small gecko', who asked:

"And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?"

How about his willingness to appear on a white supremacist radio station?

Check the guestlist - amusingly enough due to how the alphabet works he's listed just under BNP leader Nick Griffin.
 http://www.thepoliticalcesspool.org/guestlist.php

Any doubts as to the political leanings of the station? Here are some extracts from their statement of principles:


# America would not be as prosperous, ruggedly individualistic, and a land of opportunity if the founding stock were not Europeans.
# Since family is the foundation of any strong society, we are against feminism, abortion, and primitivism.
# Private property rights are inviolable. They come from our God-given right to life.
# We wish to revive the White birthrate above replacement level fertility and beyond to grow the percentage of Whites in the world relative to other races.
# We are cultural conservatives because we have certain morals to which we adhere. We are against homosexuality, vulgarity, loveless sex, and masochism.

In the main with conspiracy theorists I follow the line Dawkins has on debate with Creationists - it's pointless as by definition they are not interested in facts, and to even talk to them legitimises their position.

However I thought it was worth bringing up this David Ray Griffin issue to demonstrate that there is nothing inherently left wing about conspiracy theories, or indeed progressive in any way. They should not be on Indymedia. This is not censorship, unless you feel that Indymedia not allowing fascist or pro-corporate or hierarchical views (or football results or any other irrelevant information) is censorship.

Where do they get off? I mean anyone who looks at the complete and total collapse of WTC7 can see that it was due to random office fires. It's obvious that normal office fires that would burn out in any particular area in 20-30 minutes would have burnt at a sufficient temperature to 'thermally expand' the fire-proofed hardened steel enough to initiate a 'progressive collapse' (not quite sure how they are defining progressive but none the less, they're the experts).

Just because it looked like a controlled demolition doesn't mean it was one, I suppose these 'conspiracy theorists' assume that every cow in every field is indeed a cow, I mean we all know there's a possibility it's a couple of wayward pantomime actors or a horse in a disguise.

Some people are asking why NIST are insisting on using computer simulations rather than real world experiments. These conspiraloons say that it is because they can't get metal to behave the way they said it did in the WTC buildings in real world experiments. This is the information age, why would anyone need to do an experiment in the real world when they can simulate it in a computer program. I mean come on, how are we going to get a real world experiment in to a Powerpoint presentation? Think people, think!

NIST are soon to issue a warning that any particularly hot day may initiate building collapses due to thermal expansion. When they have finished responding to these idiots who say it couldn't have happened the way they say, they are planning on trying to see if they can ‘tickle’ a building in to collapse with a large feather and a couple of crude jokes.

In the meantime be careful using things like ovens, barbecues, hot water taps (if made of steel), gas fires, hobs and central heating boilers. I would hate to hear of one of your houses coming down around your ears because you are relying on these metal objects behaving as they normally used to.

Ashley, don't bother, You're arguing with people who do not follow rationality. You're arguing with the sort of people who defend an associate of racist scum.

You're arguing the sort of people who say this without a hint of irony:

"And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?

Reality check ... you need one!"

Where is our size challenged gecko friend?

Hi everyone,
Why is it that noone will ever append their name to their screeds. You attack David Ray Griffin, a real scholar who is not afraid to attach his own name to his published works. Prof Griffin has once more shown us the problems with the official conspicay theory, which even the officials are slowly coming to disown.

'What about the 9/11 Commission? I mentioned earlier that it gave the impression of having had solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission's co-chairs, undermined this impression in their follow-up book subtitled "the inside story of the 9/11 Commission."20

Whenever the Commission had cited evidence for bin Ladin's responsibility, the note in the back of the book always referred to CIA-provided information that had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), described as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:

Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta---whom Bin Ladin chose to lead the group---met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.21

The note for each of these statements says "interrogation of KSM."22

Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed."23 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, they were not permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or even to talk to the interrogators.24 Therefore, they complained: "We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?"25

An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," this NBC report pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being "-tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect."26

Accordingly, neither the White House, the British government, the FBI, nor the 9/11 Commission has provided solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind 9/11. '
 http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Was-America-Attacked-by-Mu-by-David-Ray-Griffin-080909-536.html

Meanwhile, many people regard David Ray Griffin as the Deadn of 9-11 Studies: here are the comments on the orighinal Oped news article:

eg:
A True Patriot of the Highest Calibre

Comment from Ratings: David Ray Griffin voluntarily took on the most important issue of our times and applied his unshakeable integrity and considerable research skills to the task. His dissection of the 9/11 Myth is critical knowledge for every American, and, possibly, for the survival of humanity. Read it, share it, and prepare for the Revolution to overthrow this criminal atrocity masquerading as benign leaders before they destroy all our lives and livelihoods as well as our planet.

by Gary Via (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 10:29:28 AM
 http://www.opednews.com/articles/2/Was-America-Attacked-by-Mu-by-David-Ray-Griffin-080909-536.html
AMEN

9/11 conspiracism is dragging activists away from the real issues

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 6th February 2007

There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the United States, the strain reached these shores a few months ago. In the past fortnight it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips flecked with foam, trying to infect me. The disease is called Loose Change. It is a film made by three young men which airs most of the standard conspiracy theories about the attacks of September 11 2001. Unlike the other 9/11 conspiracy films, Loose Change is sharp and swift, with a thumping soundtrack, slick graphics and a calm and authoritative voiceover. Its makers claim that it has now been watched by 100 million people.The Pentagon, the film maintains, was not hit by a commercial airliner. There was “no discernable trace” of a plane found in the wreckage, and the entrance and exit holes in the building were far too small. It was hit by a Cruise missile. The twin towers were brought down by means of “a carefully planned controlled demolition”. You can see the small puffs of smoke caused by explosives just below the cascading sections. All other hypotheses are implausible: the fire was not hot enough to melt steel and the towers fell too quickly. Building 7 was destroyed by the same means a few hours later.

Flight 93 did not crash, but was redirected to Cleveland Airport, where the passengers were taken into a NASA building and never seen again. Their voices had been cloned by the Los Alamos laboratories and used to make fake calls to their relatives. The footage of Osama Bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the attacks, was faked. The US government carried out this great crime for four reasons: to help Larry Silverstein, who leased the towers, to collect his insurance money; to assist insider traders betting on falling airline stocks; to steal the gold in the basement; and to grant George Bush new executive powers, so that he could carry out his plans for world domination.

Even if you have seen or read no other accounts of 9/11, and your brain has not yet been liquidised, a few problems must occur to you. The first is the complete absence of scientific advice. At one point the presenter asks “So what brought down the Twin Towers? Let’s ask the experts.” But they don’t ask the experts. The film makers take some old quotes, edit them to remove any contradictions, then denounce all subsequent retractions as further evidence of conspiracy.

The only people they interview are a janitor, a group of firemen and a flight instructor. They let the janitor speak at length, but cut the firemen off in mid-sentence. The flight instructor speaks in short clips, which give the impression that his pupil, the hijacker Hani Hanjour, was incapable of hitting the Pentagon. Elsewhere he has said the opposite: he had “no doubt” that Hanjour could have done it(1).

Where are the structural engineers, the materials scientists, the specialists in ballistics, explosives or fire? The film makers now say that the third edition of the film will be fact-checked by an expert, but he turns out to be “a theology professor”(2). They don’t name him, but I would bet that it’s David Ray Griffin, who also happens to be the high priest of the 9/11 conspiracists.

The next evident flaw is that the plot they propose must have involved tens of thousands of people. It could not have been executed without the help of demolition experts, the security firms guarding the World Trade Centre, Mayor Giuliani (who hastily disposed of the remains), much of the US Air Force, the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the relatives of the people “killed” in the plane crashes, the rest of the Pentagon’s staff, the Los Alamos laboratories, the FBI, the CIA and the investigators who picked through the rubble.

If there is one universal American characteristic it is a confessional culture which permits no one with a good story to keep his mouth shut. People appear on the Jerry Springer Show to admit to carnal relations with their tractors. Yet none of the participants in this monumental crime has sought to blow the whistle - before, during or after the attacks. No one has volunteered to tell the greatest story ever told.

Read some conflicting accounts, and Loose Change’s case crumbles faster than the Twin Towers. Hundreds of people saw a plane hit the Pentagon. Because it collided with one of the world’s best- defended buildings at full speed, the plane was pulverised: even so, both plane parts and body parts were in fact recovered. The wings and tail disintegrated when they hit the wall, which is why the holes weren’t bigger(3).

The failure of the Twin Towers has been exhaustively documented by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Far from being impossible, the collapse turns out to have been inevitable. The planes cut some of the support columns and ignited fires sufficient to weaken (but not melt) the remaining steel structures. As the perimeter columns buckled, the weight of the collapsing top stories generated a momentum the rest of the building could not arrest. Puffs of smoke were blown out of the structure by compression as the building fell(4).

Counterpunch, the radical leftwing magazine, commissioned its own expert - an aerospace and mechanical engineer - to test the official findings(5). He shows that the institute must have been right. He also demonstrates how Building 7 collapsed. Burning debris falling from the twin towers ruptured the oil pipes feeding its emergency generators. The reduction in pressure triggered the automatic pumping system, which poured thousands of gallons of diesel onto the fire. The support trusses weakened and buckled and the building imploded(6). Popular Mechanics magazine polled 300 experts and came to the same conclusions(7).

So the critics - even Counterpunch - are labelled co-conspirators, and the plot expands until it comes to involve a substantial part of the world’s population. There is no reasoning with this madness.

People believe Loose Change because it proposes a closed world: comprehensible, controllable, small. Despite the great evil which runs it, it is more companionable than the chaos which really governs our lives, a world without destination or purpose. This neat story draws campaigners away from real issues - global warming, the Iraq war, nuclear weapons, privatisation, inequality - while permanently wrecking their credibility. Bush did capitalise on the attacks, and he did follow a pre-existing agenda, spelt out, as Loose Change says, by the Project for a New American Century. But by drowning this truth in an ocean of nonsense, the conspiracists ensure that it can never again be taken seriously.

The film’s greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are still alive. If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago? There is only one possible explanation. They are in fact agents of the Bush regime, employed to distract people from its real abuses of power. This, if you are inclined to believe such stories, is surely a more plausible theory than the one proposed in Loose Change.


Bayoneting a Scarecrow
Posted February 20, 2007

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a coward’s cult.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 20th February 2007

“You did this hit piece because your corporate masters instructed you to. You are a controlled asset of the New World Order … bought and paid for.”(1) “Everyone has some skeleton in the cupboard. How else would MI5 and the Special Branch recruit agents?”(2) “Shill, traitor, sleeper”, “leftwing gatekeeper”, “accessory after the fact”, “political whore of the biggest conspiracy of them all.”

These are a few of the measured responses to my article, a fortnight ago, about the film Loose Change, which maintains that the US government destroyed the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Having spent years building up my left-wing credibility on behalf of my paymasters in MI5, I’ve blown it. I overplayed my hand, and have been exposed, like Bush and Cheney, by a bunch of kids with laptops. My handlers are furious.

I believe that George Bush is surrounded by some of the most scheming, devious, ruthless men to have found their way into government since the days of the Borgias. I believe that they were criminally negligent in failing to respond to intelligence about a potential attack by Al Qaeda, and that they have sought to disguise their incompetence by classifying crucial documents. I believe, too, that the Bush government seized the opportunity provided by the attacks to pursue a long-standing plan to invade Iraq and reshape the Middle East, knowing full well that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Bush deliberately misled the American people about the links between 9/11 and Iraq and about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. He is responsible for the murder of many tens of thousands of Iraqis.

But none of this is sufficient. To qualify as a true opponent of the Bush regime, you must also now believe that it is capable of magic. It could blast the Pentagon with a cruise missile, while persuading hundreds of onlookers that they saw a plane. It could wire every floor of the Twin Towers with explosives without attracting attention, and prime the charges (though planes had ploughed through the middle of the sequence) to drop each tower in a perfectly-timed collapse. It could make Flight 93 disappear into thin air, and somehow ensure that the relatives of the passengers collaborated with the deception. It could recruit tens of thousands of conspirators to participate in these great crimes, and induce them all to kept their mouths shut, for ever.

In other words, you must believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their pals are all-knowing, all-seeing and all-powerful, despite the fact that they were incapable of faking either weapons of mass destruction or any evidence at Ground Zero that Saddam Hussein was responsible. You must believe that the impression of cackhandedness and incompetence they have managed to project since taking office is a front. Otherwise you are a traitor and a spy.

Why do I bother with these morons? Because they are destroying the movements which some of us have spent a long time trying to build. Those of us who believe that the crucial global issues - climate change, the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation, inequality - are insufficiently debated in parliament or congress; that corporate power stands too heavily on democracy; that war criminals, cheats and liars are not being held to account, have invested our efforts in movements outside the mainstream political process. These, we are now discovering, are peculiarly susceptible to this epidemic of gibberish.

The obvious corollorary to the belief that the Bush administration is all-powerful is that the rest of us are completely powerless. In fact it seems to me that the purpose of the “9/11 truth movement” is to be powerless. The omnipotence of the Bush regime is the coward’s fantasy, an excuse for inaction used by those who don’t have the stomach to engage in real political fights.

Let me give you an example. The column I wrote about Loose Change two weeks ago The column I wrote about Loose Change two weeks ago generated 777 posts on Comment is Free, which is almost a record. Most of them were furious.. The response from a producer of the film, published last week, attracted 467(2). On the same day I published an article about a genuine, demonstrable conspiracy: a spy network feeding confidential information from an arms control campaign to Britain’s biggest weapons manufacturer, BAE. It drew 60 responses(3). The members of the 9/11 cult weren’t interested. If they were, they might have had to do something. The great virtue of a fake conspiracy is that it calls on you to do nothing.

The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a displacement activity. A displacement activity is something you do because you feel incapable of doing what you ought to do. A squirrel sees a larger squirrel stealing its hoard of nuts. Instead of attacking its rival, it sinks its teeth into a tree and starts ripping it to pieces. Faced with the mountainous challenge of the real issues we must confront, the chickens in the “truth” movement focus instead on a fairytale, knowing that nothing they do or say will count, knowing that because the perpetrators don’t exist, they can’t fight back. They demonstrate their courage by repeatedly bayoneting a scarecrow.

Many of those who posted responses on Comment is Free contend that Loose Change (which was neatly demolished in the BBC’s film The Conspiracy Files on Sunday night) is a poor representation of the conspiracists’ case. They urge us instead to visit websites like 911truth.org, physics911.net and 911scholars.org, and to read articles by the theology professor David Ray Griffin and the physicist Steven E. Jones. Concerned that I might have missed something, I have now done all those things, and have come across exactly the same concatenation of ill-attested nonsense as I saw in Loose Change. In all these cases you will find wild supposition raised to the status of incontrovertible fact; rumour and confusion transformed into evidence; selective editing; the citation of fake experts; the dismissal of real ones. Doubtless I will now be told that these are not the true believers: I will need to dive into another vat of tripe to get to the heart of the conspiracy.

The 9/11 truthers remind me of nothing so much as the climate-change deniers, cherry-picking their evidence, seizing any excuse for ignoring the arguments of their opponents. Witness the respondents to my Loose Change column who maintain that the magazine Popular Mechanics, which has ripped the demolition theories apart, is a government front. They know this because one of its editors, Benjamin Chertoff, is the brother/nephew/first cousin of the US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. (They are, as far as Benjamin can discover, unrelated, but what does he know?(4)).

Like the millenarian fantasies which helped to destroy the Levellers as a political force in the mid-17th century, this crazy distraction presents a mortal danger to popular oppositional movements. If I were Bush or Blair, nothing would please me more than to see my opponents making idiots of themselves, while devoting their lives to chasing a phantom. But as a controlled asset of the New World Order, I would say that, wouldn’t I? It’s all part of the plot.

We may never know what really happened but surely people shouldn't be instantly derided for asking questions? The WT7 crap seems to be bogus but I find it quite hard to believe that this event which has given the green light to so much oppression, erosion of freedoms, civil liberties and state sanctioned terror. This event that happened at a time of corporate scandals and political turmoil for certain individuals, the event that the Neo Cons had been waiting for almost like a dream come true was just a stroke of luck for them.

There is a mire of bullshit and disinformation but I believe that somewhere buried in there, there is at least a hint of complicity. There are just too many coincedences that have arisen after scrutiny. What about the anomylous share trading that happened leading up to the event, has this ever been properly scrutinised? Why were the military so conspicious by their absense on training drills? Why were so many FEMA and emergency personnel in the area at the time?

I apologise if all of the above have been quite thoroughly debunked but I don't pay much attention to the plethora of 9/11 rubbish that is banded about and am most certainly not a conspiraloon. Questions always have to asked as we tumble slowly step by step, further and further towards police states with further erosions of human rights, arrests without cause or charge, increased data collection, racism, xenophobia all in the name of this quite ridiculous and unwinnable war on terror that is doing nothing but increase the number of potential future terrorists. Just like the Cold war the state now has another excuse to force on the population, carte blanche to arrest and detain without charge, to be complicit in the highly criminal rendition of 'suspects' to countries such as Egypt to be tortured, a world where politicians can falsify and produce evidence to further their agendas to organisations that are supposed to protect us like the U.N with complete impunity.

You accuse people of spreading facist propaganda don't forget who the facists are and what we are trying to fight against. I rarely post on here it just seems like a bunch of quasi intellectuals chatting shit before going home for a lovely spread with a choice of prawn or salmon starters, having a a quick Pimms and Lemonade before checking the returns on their various investment funds. It's no wonder the left is so ineffectual when it seems people get far greater pleasure and feeling of self worth by deriding their contempories with witty one liners whenever anyone tries to do something positive.

All people ever seem to do is criticise so please can you bypass the usual negative debate and intellect competition and tell a confused and quite dissollusioned former activist what the hell he should be doing to save our society??????????????????????????????????

P.S I apologise for going off topic.

"It's no wonder the left is so ineffectual when it seems people get far greater pleasure and feeling of self worth by deriding their contempories with witty one liners whenever anyone tries to do something positive."

But herein lies the problem - the conspiracy theorists are not leftists. Their analysis is based on the idea of secret cliques running the world, not on any analysis of class or other social relations. By associating themselves with over accomodating radical groups or institutions they are tainting us as conspiracy theorists by default. Left wing thought is based on systemic analysis of society. Capitalism is not a conspiracy!

Are you really saying we shouldn't condemn someone for associating with the far right? Honestly? I honestly don't think what I'm doing here is deriding a contemporary who is trying to do something positive. In some senses I do want to just write 'FUCK OFF' in big letters, as I find it appalling that people who claim to be contemporaries (by posting on this website) can support this kind of thing. However I've tried to put forward what I feel is relevant background information and a reasoned argument.

It's interesting to see that conspiracy theorists don't seem to have a problem with one of their own appearing on - and thereby endorsing - a white supremacist radio station if Brian is anything to go by.

"You attack David Ray Griffin, a real scholar who is not afraid to attach his own name to his published works. Prof Griffin..."

Yes, I attacked David Ray Griffin. If you think it's acceptable to dally with white supremacists then what the hell are you doing on this website? As to him being 'a real scholar', and a professor - yes, he is - OF THEOLOGY/PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. Appeals to authority are a shoddy rhetorical device at the best of times (technically they're a 'logical fallacy'), but they're even worse when the basis of the authority is totally irrelevant.

"Meanwhile, many people regard David Ray Griffin as the Deadn of 9-11 Studies"

So? What you're saying is that people who agree with him like him. Interesting that '9-11 studies' enthusiasts are happy for their 'dean' to consort with the far right. This places the quoted comment in an interesting light:

"A True Patriot of the Highest Calibre"

The white nationalists he engaged with regard themselves as true patriots too.

"David Ray Griffin voluntarily took on the most important issue of our times and applied his unshakeable integrity and considerable research skills to the task.."

Unshakeable integrity? Considerable research skills?

If he has unshakeable integrity, he must be completely at ease with the politics of his white supremacist bedfellows. His considerable research skills mean that he is happy with the fact that as well as the radio appearance he is happy to cite holocaust deniers to back up his theories.

In an article for a Jewish magazine of all places, his references included the following:

"[24] A photograph taken by Terry Schmidt can be seen on page 63 of Eric Hufschmid’s..."

Eric Hufschmid is an anti-semitic holocaust denier. Here is his website (following convention about linking to far right sites I'm breaking the link, just close the gap in it to see the link -
 http://www.eric hufschmid.net/index.html

Just on his home page he is promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as truth, and using the fucking obscene phrase 'holohoax'

"[25] Quoted in Christopher Bollyn, “New Seismic Data Refutes Official Explanation,” American Free Press,"

Even 'truthers' have pointed out that Bollyn is from the far right ( http://www.911review.com/denial/holocaust.html#davidduke ) - the afp is part of a group that publishes 'the barnes review', a hitler loving journal. The AFP's founder also founded the main holocaust denial journal. Bollyn has appeared on David Duke's radio show (former KKK grand wizard and all round racist arsehole).

For understandable reasons the magazine appears to have removed the article now, but the search function shows it has been there -  http://www.tikkun.org/search?SearchableText=david+ray+griffin

Brian, you declared 'amen' to the quote about "unshakeable integrity and considerable research skills". Still holding to that when your 'formidable scholar' not only chills with the white supremacists, he lacks the 'considerable research skills' to realise he's quoting holocaust deniers?

And hey, Gecko, do my posts answer your "And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?" question to your satisfaction?

"And hey, Gecko, do my posts answer your "And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?" question to your satisfaction?"

Probably not. The 9/11 truth geeks have proved over and over again that they are incapable of thinking outside of their own self important little bubble. That would involve taking some responsibility for the world around them and maybe doing something about. Instead they hide in the idea that they can change the most evil processes on our planet by chatting to each other on the internet. Really, really sad.

'Probably not. The 9/11 truth geeks have proved over and over again that they are incapable of thinking outside of their own self important little bubble

You seem stuck in the bubble of the official conspiracy theory endorsed by the Bush maladministration. The very idea that anyone would dare entertain a different view upsets your little lizard mind.

George Monbiot on 9/11: A Reply
by Peter Meyer


There are some political commentators who have for years been widely respected by those who think of themselves as "on the left" (a term which is not useful due to its vagueness and ambiguity). Recently some of these writers have come out with denunciations of those seeking to discover what really happened on September 11th, 2001. These commentators apparently exhibit a curious kind of mental blindness. If we are not to attribute their comments to some weird kind of stupidity, then what can be said of them but that they have revealed that, far from opposing the military/financial/capitalist ruling class which seeks to impose slavery upon the majority of mankind, they are really supporters of this class (because they are supported by it?), whatever they may have written before.

This is a reply to one of those commentators, specifically to an article by George Monbiot which appeared on the UK Guardian's website on February 6, 2007, entitled "A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world, but it has no basis in fact", an article which attempts to debunk the evidence, presented in the video Loose Change, that 9/11 was an inside job.

George Monbiot is a respected writer whose previous work has exposed the lies and deceptions of those waging the fraudulent "War on Terror" as a cover for their attempted economic imperialism and control of the planet. So it is very surprising to find that, with this article, he has jeopardised his reputation as an intelligent observer of contemporary geopolitical events. One has to wonder if he was persuaded to write this piece by others, and whether their motivation was in fact to discredit his earlier work.

One should distinguish two aspects of Monbiot's article: Firstly the denunciation of Loose Change, which Monbiot describes as "a sharp, slick film with an authoritative voiceover, but it drowns the truth in an ocean of nonsense". Secondly the attempt to deny any credibility to anyone presenting evidence contradicting the official story of 9/11.

This reply is not a defence of Loose Change, which, indeed, may have flaws. This reply is a refutation of George Monbiot's attempt to characterize all who disbelieve the U.S. Government's 9/11 story as "gibbering idiots". Accordingly I ignore Monbiot's comments on Loose Change as such, and I address only his criticism of the evidence presented in the video. The relevant parts of his article worth replying to are reproduced below (in the boxes) with my replies following.


There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them into gibbering idiots. ... The disease is called Loose Change. It is a film made by three young men that airs most of the standard conspiracy theories about the attacks of September 11 2001. ...

It is really tiresome to hear the term "conspiracy theories" trotted out again, as if the cry of "conspiracy theory!" were itself sufficient to excuse anyone from further consideration of what is being suggested. This may have worked at one time, but intelligent people now perceive that anyone accusing others of being "conspiracy theorists" is trying to hide something. As Gore Vidal remarked (already in 2002), " 'conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth."

Anyone who uses the term "conspiracy theories" or "conspiracy theorists" in an attempt to suppress examination of whether the official story of 9/11 stands up to criticism in the light of the evidence reveals themselves as merely a shill for the official story, and in so doing they are actually complicit in the cover-up of the greatest crime of this century (so far). U.S. military aggression since 2001 (mainly in the war crime of the invasion of Iraq), and the trampling of civil rights, has been sold to the U.S. public mainly on the basis of the official story of 9/11 (which no intelligent person who has seriously studied the evidence can accept) and anyone who seeks to deflect attention away from the many glaring holes in the official story is providing aid and support to those whose policies and actions have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Pejorative use of the terms "conspiracy theories" and "conspiracy theorists" to suppress examination of whether the official story is true is itself a shameful act, and those doing this deserve nothing but contempt.


The Pentagon, the film maintains, was not hit by a commercial airliner. There was "no discernible trace" of a plane found in the wreckage, and the entrance and exit holes in the building were far too small. It was hit by a cruise missile.

Indeed, the Pentagon was not hit by a commercial airliner. This is one of the smoking guns of 9/11, and is seldom mentioned by those who post comments online, since the trolls prefer to draw attention away from this and toward the destruction of the Twin Towers, where endless debate can be waged about how exactly it occurred.

Some kind of plane may have hit the Pentagon, but if so it was not a Boeing 757, as the official story claims. (The official story is that American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757, took off from Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. at about 8:10 a.m. and, after flying around off course for over an hour without being intercepted by any USAF jet, flew back to Washington and hit the Pentagon at about 9:35 a.m.) The Pentagon may or may not have been hit by a cruise missile, but there is no need to prove that it was. In order to show that the official story is fiction it is sufficient to show that whatever caused the damaged to the Pentagon was not a Boeing 757.

When TWA Flight 800 was shot down (probably accidentally) by a U.S. Navy missile in 1996 the debris was recovered from the ocean floor and almost the entire airplane was reconstructed by the National Transportation Safety Board. But not one piece of debris from the Pentagon has been proven to have come from a Boeing 757, and in particular, not from any Boeing 757 (if one existed) which took off from Dulles Airport on the morning of 9/11.

The evidence provided by the damage to the Pentagon and the debris has been considered by Leonard Spencer in the Damage and Debris section of his article The Attack on the Pentagon. Spencer concludes that the evidence is not consistent with the claim that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon.

This photograph of the hole caused by the entry of whatever it was that hit the Pentagon is obviously too small for any commercial airliner, though it may well have been made by a cruise missile.


Hundreds of people saw a plane hit the Pentagon. Because it collided with one of the world's best-defended buildings at full speed, the plane was pulverised — even so, plane parts and body parts were in fact recovered. The wings and tail disintegrated when they hit the wall, which is why the holes weren't bigger.

The Pentagon is, presumably, "one of the world's best-defended buildings", so why wasn't the attacking object shot down before it reached its target?

As regards the claim that "Hundreds of people saw a plane hit the Pentagon", eye-witness testimony is notoriously unreliable, and is of little value in comparison with physical evidence. James Fetzner, founder and chairman of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, has written:


I can't imagine how anyone can possibly take it [the so-called eye-witness testimony] at face value. The plane could only have been making its final closure on the building for a few seconds, at most; it had to have been a surprising psychological phenomenon; most of these witnesses were not experts at aircraft identification. How many of us under those circumstances, I wonder, could discriminate between, say, a Boeing 767, a Boeing 757, or a Boeing 737, much less a cruise missile or an A-3 Sky Warrior that was made up to look like an American Airlines aircraft? Moreover, I suspect that a lot of the eyewitness evidence was manufactured. I can assure you that, as a former Marine Corps officer, any DI I supervised could have produced recruits by the gross who would have sworn on their mother's grave that they personally saw Bruce Wayne drive the Batmobile into the side of the building that morning!
If the plane was pulverized, why wasn't the damage to the Pentagon itself far more extensive? Here's a picture of the Pentagon before the outer wall collapsed (which occurred about half-an-hour after the attack):
etc
 http://www.serendipity.li/wot/reply-to-monbiot.htm

This is getting hilarious. Brian ignored the links between his "formidable scholar" (the one with "unshakeable integrity and considerable research skills") and the far right. Then he continues to use material with dodgy associations by citing Serendipity.li

Serendipity.li are happy to host material such as this -  http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bush_betrays_america.htm

Please excuse the long quote from the article - I felt it important to show how racist it was -

" I learn from the Lucid Cafe website that:

"Powell is also chairman of America's Promise, an organization that challenges Americans to scale up their investment in youth, and committed to making America's [negro] youth a national priority. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Howard University [(Negro) Leadership for America and the Global Community], and of the Board of Directors of the United Negro College Fund [A (negro) mind is a terrible thing to waste]. He serves on the Board of Governors of The Boys & Girls Clubs of America [Check the pictures: "A Positive place for (negro) kids"] and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Children's Health Fund." [Again, check the picture: "A doctor for every (negro) child"].

Suddenly, it all becomes clear. Colin Powell is not an American. That is to say, he is not loyal to _our_ America. He is an African-American. There is a difference. Can you imagine the public response if George W. Bush had appointed David Duke to be Secretary of State? Don't laugh. I would rather David Duke as Secretary of State any day, because I know that he would never betray our country like Colin Powell will.

But of course, you can't see that (yet). The media will never air anything bad about Colin Powell. That same media will never air anything good about David Duke. Until you can appreciate the significance of those statements, you will never have a clue as to what this is all about. "

--------

Vile isn't it? But it gets worse! Originally, wherever the article mentioned someone Jewish, it included little yellow stars with the word 'jude' (german for jewish) within it. These have now been removed, but the racism remains - see original here -  http://911review.com/serendipity/bush_betrays_america.htm

The article Brian quotes on Mobiot is by Peter Meyer, who runs the serendipity website. He is obviously happy to publish the above, not to mention various other objectionable articles or links.

Another article on the site states:

"But just because I revile Hitler doesn't mean I believe the fictions the Jewish dominated media have spun about the Holocaust. I have been driven irrevocably into the category of Holocaust denier (a 1947 AP story said 875,000 Jews were killed in Germany during WW II) simply because of the way the Jewish community has trumpeted its martyrdom for financial gain, how the Jewish community has destroyed freedom of speech in a dozen European countries by making it a crime to talk about the events that led up to World War II.

I mean, if what the Jews were saying were actually true, they wouldn't need to pass laws to prevent their opponents from talking about it. They'd simply defeat them in an empirical argument, or in a court of law.

But to pass laws about talking about the events of World War II ... I mean, that's almost as bad as George W. Bush preventing a thorough investigation into the events of 9/11/2001. It's a certain admission of guilt, an undeniable indication of a falsehood being perpetrated.

I submit the degree to which a reader of this may be horrified by this pronouncement is exactly the degree to which this same reader has been indoctrinated by media myths that severely alter the truth. "

 http://www.serendipity.li/zionism/jk_on_joos.htm

An example of the dodgy links - there are several to Edgar J Steele's website. There is a link straight to an article where Steele proclaims himself a holocaust denier. Steele also includes for example his talk to a neo-nazi gathering - "Following is the full text of my address to the Aryanfest '05 confab sponsored by Volksfront and Blood and Honour, held in Portland, Oregon, August 20, 2005.

Again, I've broken the link to this openly racist website -  http://www.conspiracy penpal.com

Meyer clearly knows about Steele's white supremacism - apart from the numerous links to Steele's site and specifically (proudly) anti-semitic articles, a Steele article on Serendipity itself states: "Edgar J. Steele, noted civil-rights attorney, is the author of Defensive Racism - An Unapologetic Examination of Racial Differences."

Brian, why did you ignore my points about the white supremacist links that your 'formidable scholar' has? Why did you come back on someone else's post with an article from Serendipity? If you have used that website the dodgy associations it has are fairly obvious.

Still waiting for a response from Gecko - "And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?".

Someone who goes by the label: 'conspiracy theorists are not just idiots, they're dangerous idiots'

keeps in libelling Prof David Ray Griffin as a right wing nut. Since the coward and useful idiot refuses to identify himself, while attacking a formidable scholar, i will take it he is a right wing nut.

He is unable to address Prof Griffins arguments and evidence that he presents, instead he takes the easy way. He attacks the mans character, while hiding safely behind the skirts of a nom-de-plume.

Newsflash, fella, conspiracies do happen. Bush and Cheney must thank there lucky stars that people like you are so common.

Oh Brian, I am enjoying your contributions. I was waiting for you to use 'useful idiot' as a insult.

"Someone who goes by the label: 'conspiracy theorists are not just idiots, they're dangerous idiots'
keeps in libelling Prof David Ray Griffin as a right wing nut. Since the coward and useful idiot refuses to identify himself, while attacking a formidable scholar, i will take it he is a right wing nut."

Libel? In UK law, libel is "any published statements which are alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual or individuals in a manner which causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of him, her or them."

Yes, what I've posted will I hope cause a reasonable person to think worse of Griffin and other people in his immediate milieu. However, one defence for libel is justification for the statements. If they are true, there is no libel. All my sources were posted in good faith, and as far as I know they are all correct.

Where was I wrong?

Also, as far as I remember I have not described Griffin as a right wing nut - what I have done is point out that he has associated with right wing nuts. Actually I haven't used the term 'right wing nuts' at all - that phrase in some way excuses them, as if they're just a bit crazy but harmless. They're actually vile scum.

As to being a right wing nut myself. Well, I agree that attacking someone's links to the far right does not prove I am not right wing myself - many people on the right would be appalled by white supremacists. However I did state this earlier:

"But herein lies the problem - the conspiracy theorists are not leftists. Their analysis is based on the idea of secret cliques running the world, not on any analysis of class or other social relations. By associating themselves with over accomodating radical groups or institutions they are tainting us as conspiracy theorists by default. Left wing thought is based on systemic analysis of society. Capitalism is not a conspiracy!"

So I would think that's reasonable evidence of where my politics might stand.

Anyway, surely by your interesting logic, aren't you a right wing nut for accusing me of being a right wing nut? I wasn't aware that that was how it works, but you seem to be quite secure in your reasoning.

"He is unable to address Prof Griffins arguments and evidence that he presents, instead he takes the easy way. He attacks the mans character, while hiding safely behind the skirts of a nom-de-plume."

The reasons I do not publish my name on a left leaning website is fairly common I think, for example, like many people I do not want current or future employers to hold my views against me. Further to this, I don't want conspiracy theorists hassling me offline.

You haven't given us your full name Brian, so you too have been hiding behind a skirt of anonymity. In any case, does the fact that you don't know my name invalidate the fact that Griffin was on a white supremacist radio station, and that you linked to a website that is at the very least accomodating of racism?

On not addressing Griffins arguments - I'd stated I wasn't interested in them and why:

"In the main with conspiracy theorists I follow the line Dawkins has on debate with Creationists - it's pointless as by definition they are not interested in facts, and to even talk to them legitimises their position."

Other people out there do engage on 9/11, holocaust denial, etc, all power to them. You'll note that I chose to enter this discussion after another poster (also hiding behind the skirts of a nom de plume, not that I care) stated: "And, just who is claiming that the above author is 'discredited' and on what grounds?"

I wasn't even attempting to discredit the griffin article (note the question was about the author being discredited, not the article), what I have been trying to point out is that people are posting material from a person associated with the far right on what is meant to be a left wing website, that he is discredited as being part of the left. If Nick Griffin makes a statement on global warming, would we post it here without comment? If such a post appeared, it would be reasonable for me to point out who Nick Griffin was surely?

"Newsflash, fella, conspiracies do happen. Bush and Cheney must thank there lucky stars that people like you are so common."

Equally I could again point out that capitalism and other forms of hierarchy do happen too, and by not engaging with the reality of power and social relations you are diverting attention from the true crimes within society - so perhaps it's you who are the useful idiot?

It seems we are at an impasse. I refuse to engage with Griffin's article (having made it clear that I was not interested in that from the start). You refuse to engage with the far right links both Griffin and now you have been shown to have (through your use of the Serendipity site and refusal to acknowledge what you have done - I could have accepted it was an honest mistake if you'd put youir hands up and offered an apology for doing so).

The thing is though, you chose to debate me (having seen me set out my stall on what I was discussing), not the other way round, and you haven't addressed any of my points, and only unwittingly compounded the white supremacist associations.