A 9/11 mystery: why a minority of truthers want to claim that this is the scene of plane crash.
‘Propaganda team’ uses deceptive spin and private pressure to attack evidence that no 757 hit the Pentagon
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. Give the world the best you have and you’ll be kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway. – Selected lines from Anyway by Kent M. Keith
February 13, 2019
By Craig McKee
Usually the discussion is about how 9/11 was done. Or why it was done. Or who did it.
But we in the 9/11 Truth Movement don’t talk as much about why we choose to fight for truth in the way we do. Which elements do we focus on? Which do we stay away from? Do we take a dry academic approach or that of a passionate activist or journalist? Do we advocate for theories that we can’t prove or do we focus on proving the official story false? And how far do we dare go in condemning actions by “respectable” researchers who we think are undermining what we’re trying to accomplish?
The answers to these questions depend on who we are, what we have learned, and how open we are to seeing through subtle and not-so-subtle attempts to deceive us. This is why I am writing this article – to offer some insight into the reasons for the choices I have made – and the ones I continue to make.
The central focus of this blog since it was launched in 2010 has been on exposing the lies behind 9/11 (as well as analyzing other false flags, the war on terror, the deep state, etc.). At the beginning, I assumed that this is what all of us in the Truth Movement were trying to do. Now, I realize it’s not nearly that simple.
While I understand that not every point in the official story of 9/11 is false, I choose to focus on the ones that are – because it is only by doing this that we can even have a chance of bringing down the whole house of cards. Oddly, some in the movement think we should spend more of our time talking about what they think is true in the narrative, particularly where the Pentagon event is concerned. And what they think is true is an impact of a Boeing 757 with the building. The more vocal of these people, who I’ll identify below, keep pushing this government crash myth year after year as if winning the movement over on this one point will lead to some kind of successful resolution of 9/11. In reality, it can only achieve the opposite.
The movement will never be won over since the vast majority of truthers know that there was no plane crash. The most that these impact advocates can hope to achieve is to keep us fighting over the subject forever. I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t the idea. I also can’t help but think that the government must want to thank them for their help in muddying the waters and diverting the attention of truthers from essential evidence that proves the official story false.
Building 7 was the thing that initially woke me up to the 9/11 lie, but the Pentagon was one of the things that sealed the deal. And that process started when I came across a video called National Security Alert by Citizen Investigation Team. I was blown away by CIT’s game-changing interviews with witnesses who reported that the plane that approached the Pentagon flew north of the Citgo gas station, which is irreconcilable with the “fallen” light poles and the damage to the building. This means that the damage had to have been staged. Also revealing is that they virtually all had the plane banking to the right, the opposite of what the official story claims.
I was also excited to see that CIT’s findings that a 757 did not crash were corroborated by David Ray Griffin in his examination of the Pentagon event, particularly in his book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited. But excitement turned to puzzlement when I started reading some of the attacks against CIT on social media and on websites like 9/11 Blogger. It became clear to me that there was something very wrong within the Pentagon debate. Certain people who were respected in the movement seemed to lose all rationality and fairness when it came to the subject. The extreme hostility they expressed towards CIT seemed so over the top that it didn’t feel genuine.
These people seemed to be reading from a script as they launched deceptive and unfair attacks. They moaned about CIT being so “mean” to an elderly cab driver (Lloyde England) when all that CIT founders Aldo Marquis and Craig Ranke did was ask England direct questions and point out when his answers contradicted his past statements or other evidence. The impossibility of the England story was obvious to me right away. In fact, it’s a huge smoking gun (I plan to address England in an article very soon). I couldn’t figure out how other truthers could hear about it and get angry not at the story itself but at the suggestion that it isn’t entirely true.
What I have seen in the eight years since I became involved only further convinces me that the 9/11 Truth Movement has been the target of a persistent and single-minded disinformation campaign that has been going on for more than a dozen years – perhaps closer to 15. I don’t say everyone involved in pushing a 757 impact is a government agent or even a non-paid infiltrator; some may simply have been duped into supporting this campaign. Maybe a lot have. Others may simply be thinly disguised official story supporters and therefore not truthers at all.
But this is not a genuine effort at its core: it’s a manipulative pressure campaign that is geared towards derailing our truth seeking efforts. That I still have to write about this after so many years means they have at least partly succeeded. And this could not have happened without the unwitting co-operation of genuine truthers.
So, to bring this article back to its central theme, I made a choice to stand against this most suspicious and co-ordinated campaign. Early on this was an easy choice given that I was one among many voices. But over the years, some have moved on. CIT has not been publicly active for about five years, although the unfair attacks on them continue. Many of CIT’s most vocal proponents maintain their support, but some of the most knowledgeable of these are not as active on forums as before. So to some extent there has been a vacuum, which has been filled by the group I’m about to introduce you to:
Chandler as ‘front man’
Chandler: has brought criticism on himself.
The most visible member of the effort to prop up the government’s claim of a 757 crash at the Pentagon is David Chandler, who most truthers credit for his work on the World Trade Center destruction. While Chandler will point to people like me as unfairly tarnishing his reputation, it is he who has done this by incessantly pushing this impossible impact scenario since at least 2011. He howls in protest whenever he is linked to the official story because he says he doesn’t think Hani Hanjour flew the plane, but the fact remains that he devotes almost all his Pentagon efforts to telling us what he thinks is correct in the Pentagon official story and almost none to telling us what he thinks is incorrect.
Other members of this group, which I have dubbed the “propaganda team,” include Jonathan Cole, Frank Legge (now deceased), Ken Jenkins, John Wyndham, Jim Hoffman, Victoria Ashley, Warren Stutt, Chris Sarns, Wayne Coste, and, since his complete about-face in 2013, Dwain Deets. Also squarely in the Chandler camp is Colorado truther Fran Shure. This is a shame because I think Shure is a wonderful activist and a good person, but she has badly miscalculated here.
Kevin Ryan has not authored any of the group’s “research” papers, but he has provided counsel (in particularly he is credited with offering guidance on the 2016 paper criticizing the Pentagon position of Barbara Honegger). Ryan did suggest that the CIT duo could be agents in a 2010 article titled, “A dozen questions about Flight 77 and the Pentagon that might lead to justice, and one that won’t.” Below the list of questions, Ryan writes:
“Why are these questions NOT being pursued by independent investigators? That’s because the attention of many potential investigators has been hijacked by the much less useful question of “What hit the Pentagon.” This is certainly the favorite subject of intentional disruptors and official story supporters.”
As Ryan knows, Marquis and Ranke don’t address this less useful question because they don’t believe anything hit the Pentagon. Interestingly, Ryan’s criticism could now apply to Chandler and company. How’s that for irony?
In the piece, Ryan includes a link to a moronic “parody” video that mocks a speaking tour CIT did in Europe in 2010. With a soundtrack of I Get Around by the Beach Boys, this video ridicules the group’s efforts along with anybody who has supported them – including showing Barrie Zwicker, the author of Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11, with the mock group name “Senile Sellouts for 9/11 Truth” on the screen and Dwain Deets (who had endorsed CIT at the time) with “Aging Gov’t Employees for 9/11 Truth.” Such high-quality comedy! If someone ever writes an article called “A dozen parody videos that might lead to justice and one that won’t,” I know where this one will land.
It became obvious to me that the members of this group were actually working together, although they did not admit this. They recommended each other’s work as if they just happened to agree with it. Their research papers would have a list of links at the bottom directing readers to more of the same by other group members. It wasn’t until seven from this clique co-authored the Honegger paper that they admitted they were, in fact, a group. I had been telling people this for years.
They have produced paper after paper, presentation after presentation, all pushing “evidence” that lines up nicely with the official story. (As I said, I know they don’t think al-Qaeda flew the plane.) The group’s “party line” and their list of repeating talking points are virtually indistinguishable from the ones favored by “debunkers,” including those from Popular Mechanics.
If Chandler and the others are receiving harsh criticism it is because of their own actions. They are not the victims they portray themselves to be. If he wanted to help the Truth Movement, Chandler would say, “Well, we disagree about an impact but here are some other areas where we can show the official story is false.” But when it comes to the Pentagon, he doesn’t. He just keeps pushing an impact as if this point is an end in itself instead of a means to an end.
Relentless pressure
In order to explain why I approach 9/11 and the Pentagon the way I do, I have to make it clear what in the behavior of this group I am reacting to. The group has applied pressure in situations where they think they can convince prominent truthers to abandon their positions that no large plane impact occurred. We know Griffin has been pressured. So has Zwicker. So has Peter Dale Scott. So has Massimo Mazzucco. So has Richard Gage. So have numerous others. Anyone who this group thinks might be successfully pressured is pressured.
From the beginning, every journalistic instinct I had was screaming at me that this whole Pentagon impact lobby was not what it claimed to be. If you point to evidence that a 757 didn’t crash (which sinks the official story) they will attack you and your evidence. And they will claim they are just doing this to keep the movement from looking stupid and crazy.
My eyes were really opened when I read the 2011 “Joint Statement on the Pentagon: David Chandler and Jonathan Cole” in which the authors urge truthers to abandon Pentagon research because the government “holds all the cards.” (CIT destroys the paper in this extremely detailed response.) But that was deceptive because Chandler and Cole had no intention of abandoning the Pentagon. In fact, they did just the opposite. In reality, most truthers are not divided on this point; most know a 757 didn’t crash at the Pentagon. They might disagree about what exactly did happen, but they largely agree on that point.
(*An informal poll posted on Facebook at the end of January by Shanksville researcher Domenick DiMaggio received 189 replies with 90% of those saying “No” to the question: “Do you think an airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11/2001?” One could imagine that the percentage saying “No” might have been even higher if the question had been about a 757 instead of any airplane. The poll is not scientific, but it is consistent with what we’ve seen with other informal polls for years.)
In their paper, Chandler and Cole hint that CIT might be agents (a recurring theme…) who have planted a “foolish” theory in the movement to discredit us (saying that the plane approached on a north path and did not hit the light poles or the building). Seemingly, it is politically correct to call CIT all kinds of nasty names. Chandler calls them “scum” and their research “fraudulent” while Coste says he used to support CIT until he woke up and became “livid at their obvious deceit and treachery.” But anyone who criticizes Chandler and company will be accused of dividing the movement. The hypocrisy in this is glaring.
Coste: questions whether Griffin is a “real researcher.”
While most of the group tries to stick to a pseudo scholarly approach, Coste can’t resist the temptation to be smug, condescending, and insulting even to researchers like David Ray Griffin. Coste has questioned whether Griffin is a “real researcher.” He says Honegger has “absolutely horrible research skills…” and researcher A.K. Dewdney (who did an experiment that showed that the alleged cell phone calls from the 9/11 flights were virtually impossible) has “no integrity.” Coste has called Massimo Mazzucco “sloppy” and an “incompetent analyst” and his September 11: The New Pearl Harbor “a terrible and incomplete review of the evidence.”
In 2013, Chandler, Legge, and Wyndham wrote to Mazzucco in an effort to get him to change the Pentagon section of his film. In the letter, they compare the “No Boeing 757 at the Pentagon” position to “no planes” at the World Trade Center. They also come to the defense of Popular Mechanics’ James Meigs when he said in the film: “Hundreds of people saw an American Airlines jet fly into that building.” But the worst is yet to come. Near the end of the letter, they write:
“The film’s biased treatment of the two witness groups is a clear example of scientific distortion, in the same manner as NIST’s refusal to acknowledge the existence of witnesses to explosions and molten steel at the WTC. The net result is that the film’s Pentagon segment becomes tainted like the NIST reports. In conclusion, rather than point out here the many other problems with the film’s Pentagon segment, we offer to work with you to bring the Pentagon segment into a state where it can receive the respect of other scientists.”
The audacity of comparing Mazzucco’s excellent discrediting of the official story to NIST’s blatantly dishonest contribution to the 9/11 cover-up is staggering. The offer of “help” from Chandler and company was ignored, and thank goodness for that. Later, group member Ken Jenkins got permission to show it at the 9/11 Film Festival in Oakland. California. After getting permission from Mazzucco to trim about 30 minutes from the film, Jenkins simply cut the entire Pentagon section out without telling Mazzucco he would do this. Then he sold edited copies labeled as the “science safe” version. Mazzucco, understandably, was furious.
Campaign to get me ‘fired’
After watching Chandler defend most of the Pentagon official story year after year, I decided that something had to be done to help the quiet majority to be heard and to find common ground. I had watched too many people quibble over whether it was a cruise missile or a Global Hawk or a commuter plane that caused the destruction at the Pentagon. Everyone was defending their own turf without enough concern for the big picture. While Chandler and company were marching in lock step, as if following a script, the rest of us were having a grand old time discussing the mystery of 9/11 as if it were our favorite hobby.
So I created the “No 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11” list. I had a feeling it would reveal a lot, and I was right. It has changed the dynamics of the discussion. It has brought people together in opposition to the official story, while showing there is much more unity in the movement about the lack of a plane impact than the Chandler group would ever admit. But it has also exposed serious cracks in the movement that were there all along.
The creation of the list made the Chandler camp none too happy. They had been content to push all their “respectable research” while the rest of us were firing off in all directions. But once there was a danger that their opponents might actually unite, they seemed to feel the need to accelerate their efforts. And they surely have.
Where I was once ignored by Chandler, I now seem to be his main preoccupation. Over the past few months, he has spearheaded a campaign to get me “fired” from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 truth where I have volunteered as a writer for the last five years. AE911Truth has rejected Chandler’s intervention and maintained its integrity and its focus on the essential work it is doing. Despite this, I can almost guarantee that with the publication of this article Chandler will fire off yet another “outraged” letter demanding again that I be fired. Chandler and some of his cohorts have suggested to AE that I and two prominent staffers may be agents. He even accused them on Facebook of choosing not to remove these agents.
In another example of the group’s accelerated efforts, Chandler and Coste are busy hawking a massive PowerPoint presentation all over Facebook narrated by Chandler and based on Coste’s “research.”
It would be such a positive move if we in the Truth Movement were to stop treating 9/11 as a hobby, although it is a fascinating puzzle to sort out. But sorting it out is a means to an end. It’s time we stop putting our focus on guessing what happened and instead stick to the approach that has made Griffin’s books so valuable. He has gone through each element of the official story and then shown, using the evidence, why that element – and therefore the whole story – cannot be true.
Unfortunately, people like Chandler have undone some of what Griffin accomplished by turning our focus away from the complete dismantling of the official story. And Griffin, both in private and through his 9/11 Consensus Panel, has played a role in enabling this by defending Chandler even though he doesn’t agree with him about a Pentagon impact. Interestingly, Chandler doesn’t rush to the defense of Griffin or Mazzucco when either is attacked by Coste.
Incidentally, four members of this Pentagon group are also members of the 9/11 Consensus Panel: Chandler, Cole, Deets, and Shure. Given that any consensus point can be defeated by just four negative votes, this means there is no way for any point ever to be adopted that challenges the official claims of what caused the damage to the Pentagon. With the current membership, that’s a guaranteed veto, although that veto has never had to be used. According to co-founder Elizabeth Woodworth, she and Griffin have never even asked the panel to consider the question of what damaged the Pentagon.
Chandler’s low blow
In December 2017, just a few days after the No 757 list was published on Truth and Shadows, Chandler posted a stunningly dishonest hatchet job on CIT in which he falsely accused co-founder Ranke of badgering and manipulating witness Albert Hemphill. But it was actually Chandler’s man, anti-truthing troll Jeff Hill, whose interviews with Hemphill were text book cases of how to create the result you want using dishonest and manipulative means.
While I have never taught high school, as Chandler has, I have done thousands of interviews as a journalist. I know how to do them effectively and honestly. Ranke is not a professional interviewer, but he did a good job talking to Hemphill. He did lay out the CIT findings for him but only after having asked all the pertinent questions. Hill, on the other hand, conducted two of the worst “interviews” I have ever heard in more than 30 years of journalism. (Hill is the guy who made a drunken call to berate a WTC survivor at 1 a.m.)
In addition to calling Hemphill just an hour after Ranke did (how’s that for suspicious) Hill explained to Hemphill that his statement to Ranke about the flight path couldn’t match with the plane hitting the building. He worked hard to imply that Hemphill had been tricked into describing this path. Naturally, the more Hill pushed Hemphill to be angry with Ranke, the more Hemphill moved the flight path to the south. But he never changed his contention that it was over the gas station, which is well north of the official path and irreconcilable with the damage.
In a comment below his statement with Cole, Chandler on 9/11 Blogger, wrote this: “… I also ran across the telephone interviews of witnesses conducted by Jeff Hill, for the first time. (I have links at the bottom of the essay.) These interviews are amazing! Just listen to them!!!”
The only thing that is amazing is that any rational person could see these interviews as anything other than incoherent, manipulative, and dishonest. That Chandler would praise Hill is dumbfounding. An interesting note: since the Chandler paper and my rebuttal, Hill’s website seems to have disappeared along with the recordings of his two Hemphill interviews. Fortunately, we still have transcripts. I hope we can find these recordings again (I see many of his interviews can still be found on YouTube, but not the Hemphill ones from what I can see.)
I implore the readers of this article to go through my comprehensive dissection of Chandler’s hit piece, which can be found here. I know it’s not a short article (neither is this one), but it really reveals the dishonesty of Chandler’s approach. And Hill’s.
The timing of Chandler’s hit piece was intriguing: just one week after the list was published. He then prodded me to respond. I debated at the time whether I would be playing into his hands by doing this. But I felt I had to do it anyway. I could not let this horrible attack go unanswered.
Sometimes the pro-impact attacks are delivered by the primary members of this group, but often the real dirty work is done by a small battalion of followers and trolls who simply parrot back most of the government’s own claims regarding the Pentagon while they equate those who do not believe a 757 impact occurred to lunatic conspiracy nuts. They mock the idea that witnesses might lie or that evidence might be planted. And the real giveaway is when they call anyone who doesn’t think a 757 hit the Pentagon a “no-planer” (or a “conspiratard” or “Pentard”). This is an obvious attempt to link “no impact” at the Pentagon with “no planes” in New York City.
I have always made it clear that some kind of plane (or planes if you include the C-130 that arrived shortly after the main explosion) was involved in some way in the Pentagon deception. It is obvious to me and others that some of these followers, at least, are agents and/or intentional disruptors. Some may simply be obnoxious jerks. Some may be both.
Coste expelled for lying
Wayne Coste is the latest off the bench for the propaganda team. He was once fired from the board of directors of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Recently, he was expelled from the 9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference for lying about me when he claimed I had “frequently apologized on the teleconference for having no evidence to support my Pentagon position.”
He offered to point to the recorded calls where I could be heard apologizing, but when I urged him to do just this, he could not. He then claimed to have apologized for the false claim but the link he offered to his “apology” went to a new website he created to mock me (Dump the Shadows!). He even chose a URL that mirrored mine (truthandshadows.net instead of truthandshadows.com), which was reminiscent of when he created a new site for the group 9/11 Truth Outreach – while he was still working for AE911Truth – using a similar design and color scheme as the AE911Truth site.
The Coste PowerPoint started as a single five-hour-and-40-minute presentation done in response to the “Consensus Panel Challenge.” Problem is there never was a Consensus Panel Challenge, simply a statement on the benefits of relying on evidence. He later turned this unwatchable video with its more than 900 slides into 17 bite-sized “chapters” narrated by Chandler. (I will be responding to this series on this blog at a time of my own choosing and won’t be reacting to Coste’s incessant taunts on Facebook to respond immediately.)
These comments were consecutive and represent two of the four times he shared the same chapter on the same post.
Breaking his presentation up has given Coste the opportunity to spam 17 times more links all over Facebook, a clever marketing move (you may never again see me use “Coste” and “clever” in the same sentence). I’ve seen individual posts that feature 15 or more of Coste’s links to the same presentation.
Oh, did you mention the letter A? Well, here’s my chapter where I discuss the wAll. (insert link)
Coste’s efforts to twist the truth are extreme, so much so that I can’t dismiss them as being accidental. I also can’t list them all here without making this article a great deal longer than it already is. (I will address them all soon enough, and by that time there are bound to be more.) But here is a teaser from Facebook on Jan. 27: A person named Stuart Crosbie commented that there was “plenty” of wreckage inside the Pentagon, and I replied: “Stuart, there was not plenty of wreckage. We’re talking about a 100-ton airliner.” Here’s what Coste did with that: “Craig: Good, you are acknowledging steel/titanium parts of the plane inside the Pentagon. That is a good start… Good to see that you actually have some functioning cognizant abilities.”
And so were these, which go to the fake “Truth and Shadows” site. By the way, I did not say “Who need evidence!”
Did I say there were “steel/titanium parts of the plane inside the Pentagon”? No, but that doesn’t bother Coste since truth is not his main concern. (Note that by saying “of the plane” he is trying to make it seem like I have acknowledged that any pieces found inside the building came from the same plane he says crashed.)
Those of us who agree no 757 hit the Pentagon are often accused of constantly bringing the subject up. But what people may not realize is that things were pretty quiet on the Pentagon front a few years back. It was still being discussed, but it was more in the background as compared to today. That changed at the 9/11 Film Festival in Oakland, California in September 2015 when Ken Jenkins introduced his unfinished film The Pentagon Plane Puzzle (in which he “honors” witnesses who claim to have seen a plane hit the Pentagon) and David Chandler, who was making his own presentation.
After the film festival, I faced another decision about whether to ignore what I saw or respond and risk more exposure for them. Would I be taking a risk that truthers would not fully realize what was wrong in these presentations if I said nothing? I chose to respond, first to Jenkins’s six slippery minutes of spin (which you can read my analysis of here) and then Chandler’s presentation (which I pull apart here). All but one minute of the latter was devoted to making arguments that fit nicely into the Pentagon official story – the exception was his suggestion that the plane might have been remote-controlled. The presentation was ironically titled, “Going Beyond Speculation…” despite the fact that it was filled with speculation about a 757 engine trimming leaves off a tree, wings turning to “confetti,” and much more.
The debates
But the group wasn’t finished raising the Pentagon’s profile. Tim Michel, who works with Truth Action Project (he was formerly with AE911Truth) and who is a supporter of the pro-impact group, suggested that the 9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference hold debates about the Pentagon a month or so after my articles on Jenkins and Chandler came out. This was the cue for Coste to jump into the Pentagon deep end and to drag all of us in with him.
We decided to hold three debates: the first had Coste debating Barbara Honegger (those listening voted 20-3 that Honegger had made the more convincing case); the second had me and Adam Ruff splitting duties against Coste (we won that vote 17-1); and the third was me against Honegger (I won that 10-2).
If you thought this would settle things for a while you’d be wrong. Coste began making a series of about a dozen PowerPoint presentations on the teleconference over the next couple of years. If he hadn’t told one lie too many in that group, he’d still be pumping them out there.
Throughout my time in the Truth Movement I have had to make choices: what to address, what to set aside, who to praise, and who to criticize. Every choice, including the choice to do nothing, is fraught with potentially negative consequences. There are so many out there who think that simply saying something unflattering about another truther is “divisive.” Those people would have us watch Chandler and Coste pushing major elements of the official story for years and not raise red flags. I can’t do that.
The first person ever to question the official account of 9/11 could have been accused of being “divisive” for saying that the narrative isn’t true. Those who fought to prevent the Iraq War were accused of that and worse as the U.S. rushed to another imperialist conquest. But being accused of dividing when you are standing up to things that are wrong does not make it wrong to do so. In fact, it is the courageous thing to do. The easy thing is to stay silent.
If they simply focused on opposing the official story of what happened at the Pentagon – as CIT, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, David Ray Griffin, and many others have – we could all come together behind that banner. But they won’t. They appear determined to keep pushing a major element of the government narrative forever under the guise of seeking “truth” and protecting our “credibility.”
If the group I am talking about is not opposed, they will continue working to erode support for the massively important Pentagon evidence. And, yes, this evidence is crucial because a faked plane crash at the Pentagon could only have been pulled off by one entity, the U.S. government (and its accomplices). And this event allowed the U.S. to claim 9/11 was an act of war because the military itself was, supposedly, a prime target. This is why I have chosen to take the stand that I have. Believe it or not, I really would rather not be talking about the Pentagon year after year.
In the meantime, what’s next for the propaganda team? A book? A feature film? A “conference”? An endorsement from George Clooney?
Like the bad robot from Terminator 2 (the one that tries to kill Arnold who is now a good robot), they never stop. No matter what you do to their arguments they just keep reforming, over and over, as the group relentlessly tries to shift the burden of proof from the government to the Truth Movement.
For all the reasons I’ve listed – and more to come – I will not stop opposing them. Or exposing them.
Nice work. Very thorough, and scientific (!)
Craig you echo so much of what I think about the fake pentagon “controversy” in this article I feel like I could have written it myself, if only I was as good a writer as you, which I am obviously not.
I would like to add a comment though about the persistence of this cabal of disinformers. The fact that they are so very persistent and prolific is in itself evidence that they may actually be paid by someone to produce the disinformation they do. Let me explain why I think that.
First I will tell everyone that I have put a lot of effort into the 9/11 truth movement over the years. I have written a few in depth articles and written endlessly on blogs and social media. I have made a number of video presentations and of course spent thousands of hours reading and watching everything I could find about 9/11. I have debated 9/11 extensively and forgotten more about 9/11 than most people will ever know about it. The reason I bring this up is not to blow my own horn but to explain how difficult and enormously time consuming 9/11 research really is. Just to make one of my videos (Big media and the lies they tell) involved almost 150 hours of video production, new research, travel, and extensive amounts of writing and graphics work, not to mention all the monetary expenses involved. In one video I made I drove myself and 3 others from Los Angeles to San Francisco to interview Richard Gage all at my own expense to make another enormously time consuming video on Richards behalf. So the point I am making here is that most people do not produce much 9/11 truth content for this very reason, it is hard and incredibly time consuming. In my case I have never made a dime from my work.
So how is it that people like Wayne Coste and David Chandler can produce so much content that requires so much time and effort over such a long period of time? The slide show alone that Coste has made must have taken a thousand hours or more to prepare. So where does he get all this free time to work on this massive project? Doesn’t he have bills to pay? I know for sure his project has not led to any windfall of profits from the truth movement. So why the amazing level of commitment and persistence for no pay and virtually no thanks? Why is it he keeps coming back over and over again with so much push back and so little benefit? I for one have not released any videos in a long time mainly because it is a thankless job and I have too many daily concerns, such as paying my rent, to devote so much time and effort into something very few people appreciate and no one is willing to pay for.
So my question again is how can Coste and Chandler keep pumping out so much material that is so time consuming and difficult, yes disinformation is still time consuming and difficult to produce, for little to no recognition and no pay? It makes me wonder if they are each independently wealthy and so obsessive about their work that they can ignore mountains of valid criticisms of it and keep on going as though they were being paid and actually respected for it.
I know my work has been almost entirely thankless and I know their work has met with fierce opposition, because I am one of the many that oppose it. So with essentially no one praising their work, no one paying them, and many rightly attacking their work as disinformation, how is it they can keep going year after year, article after article, video after video, slide show after slide show, and never seem to take a break or get discouraged?
I think there is an answer to that question and I think it is plain as day.
This article talks about the traits of a disinformationist and I think it applies in spades to this group described in Craig’s article. https://breakinchainz.net/eight-traits-of-the-disinformationistalist/ I think one of these traits applies verbatim to Wayne Coste.
“6) Artificial Emotions
An odd kind of ‘artificial’ emotionalism and an unusually thick skin — an ability to persevere and persist even in the face of overwhelming criticism and nonacceptance. This likely stems from intelligence community training that, no matter how condemning the evidence, deny everything, and never become emotionally involved or reactive. The net result for a Disinformation artist is that emotions can seem artificial. Most people, if responding in anger, for instance, will express their animosity throughout their rebuttal.
But Disinformation types usually have trouble maintaining the ‘image’ and are hot and cold with respect to pretended emotions and their usually more calm or unemotional communications style. It’s just a job, and they often seem unable to ‘act their role in character’ as well in a communications medium as they might be able in a real face-to-face conversation/confrontation.
You might have outright rage and indignation one moment, ho-hum the next, and more anger later — an emotional yo-yo. With respect to being thick-skinned, no amount of criticism will deter them from doing their job, and they will generally continue their old Disinformation patterns without any adjustments to criticisms of how obvious it is that they play that game — where a more rational individual who truly cares what others think might seek to improve their communications style, substance, and so forth, or simply give up.”
From the beginning of my interactions with Coste on the 9/11 and Other Deep State Crimes Teleconference, I have noted that he never seems to get angry. You could be quite terse with him but he always came back by thanking you for the point. Very phony. Now, since I have been so vocal against him, he has become like a taunting 10-year-old. Just as phony.
I can’t say what his motives are, but I can say he does not behave in an authentic way. It’s funny how no one would care how he was treated if he were an out-and-out debunker, shilling for the official story. But because he is a “truther” I am supposed to be civil to him? He says he doesn’t believe the official story and he is certainly on board with controlled demolition, but he spends what seems like thousands of hours concocting presentations to push one aspect of the official story after another. He is even touting the ASCE’s Pentagon Building Performance Report for having made a prima facie case for a large plane impact. This means he thinks we should consider the report correct until it is proven false. He puts the burden of proof on us, not on the government.
I don’t know if Coste is an agent or not, but for me, he is at least in the “might as well be” category.
I find it hilarious how Coste and Chandler based their hollow “defense” of Lloyde England largely on Coste’s mis-identification of a length of electrical cable from inside of Pole # 1, as the “upper and lower arms of the lamp” fixture of that pole.
Are both of them really so blind?
Yes, apparently!
I did not know that Coste was once fired from the board of directors of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
I think this increases the likelihood that Richard Gage would take a look at the 41-44 NOC witnesses list – if someone would prepare it.
Thanks, Adam.
Coste seems like he never gets even slightly discouraged. He puts across the impression that he’s having a great time taunting anyone who doesn’t buy his crap. He thinks the burden of proof should be on the Truth Movement to prove how the damage was done to the Pentagon rather than placing that burden on the government to prove an impact.
I lean toward your adversaries as you know, but I am more concerned with civil dialog than I am with coming to any solid position. I’m such a terrible researcher that I may never come to a solid position.
Allow me to praise your restated commitment of critiquing the various chapters. There is nothing wrong with you taking your time, either.
There are links to other detailed critiques in this piece. Good.
I lament that the normal custom of debate has always been “framing” the position of the adversary, long before George Lakoff developed that term. I also lament that so many truthers seem to hold they have
extrasensory perception because they can tell that someone is putting out disinformation rather than misinformation.
Of recent my primary commentary on 9/11 is that we don’t deserve to live in freedom because it is so rare to encounter a civil discussion about the central political event of our time, 9/11. That way I cover the refusal of left gatekeepers and mainstream ideologues to even duscuss evidence of a 9/11 false flag AS WELL AS the ridiculous culture of the 9/11 truth movement.
The top priority of most truthers is to get people to hate the people they hate, which covers you, your allies and adversaries. Claudio Marty and IATFOT largely advocate affection for other truthers, which is better.
What is MUCH more important than the approaches of you, Chandler, or Claudio is BUILDING A MOVEMENT LARGE ENOUGH THAT THE POLS HAVE TO TAKE NOTICE! That requires simple outreach to nonchoir. I understand you define your efforts as standing up for the truth. I think a better approach to truth is SPREADING IT! If we didn’t think we had to master so many details, we might convince enough other citizens that we use state power to get to the bottom of so many questions.
I just found out that the cost of a booth at the National Science Teachers Association National Conference is NOT exhorbitant. I’m UPSET because I won’t be able to convince David Chandler to go and talk about NY and the WTC, partly because we haven’t spoken in years, and partly because this debate has overwhelmed the whole movement and almost no one cares about simple outreach to nonchoir.
The truth movement is even more ridiculous because almost no one cares about even discussing organizational issues. We deserve to be derided by serious scholars NOT because of our research, but because there are hundreds of thousands to millions of truthers who have not the slightest interest in discussing organizational challenges.
Could it be that almost all truthers are misanthropes?
David, I will give you a thoughtful reply after I’ve had a night’s sleep. Thanks for your comment.
David,
I disagree that large numbers, or the big tent theory, is what we want. I don’t want that. I don’t want my information about 9/11 to be popular with everyone. When you water down your approach to gain a larger audience the key truth’s get lost in the translation. By their very nature 9/11 truths are uncomfortable to say the least. Most people will avoid discomfort if they can and therefore those people will always avoid the real implications of the 9/11 evidence. So you may be able to achieve a “big tent” full of people but those people will not be willing or able to take the fight to its conclusion because it is uncomfortable. Those people will not be real truthers. So the big tent concept is actually a way of destroying the real truth movement rather than enhancing it. The real truth movement is very small in my opinion and it is composed only of the bravest few people who have come to understand the implications of the evidence and are willing to fight a dangerous battle to the bitter end to achieve justice and massive world altering change as a result of victory knowing the whole time that death is the result of failure. So in my view their are not enough real truthers out there to fill a big tent or even a large sack in the first place.
Another huge factor which makes me shun the big tent is the fact that bad guys will get in and sew seeds of discord no matter what because that is their job. It is naive to the extreme to believe there are NOT a very large number of professional disinformationists operating within the so called truth movement. I think the cabal discussed in Craig’s article are among those operatives whose job it is to destroy the truth movement and disappear our evidence or at least muddy it up as much as possible. To even suggest there are no such operatives is itself a form of “misinformation” at the very least.
Civil dialogue is certainly preferable to acrimony, but it also requires two sides that are discussing in good faith and that have a willingness to listen. For example, I no longer have any interest in dialogue with debunkers and shills for the official story. Life is too short. I would rather focus on sincere people who are willing to consider what truthers have to say.
I don’t accuse any individual of spreading disinformation, but I am convinced, as I wrote in the article, that this campaign is not genuine. No psychic powers needed. Wayne Coste has repeatedly lied about my position, my past statements, and more, so I do not hesitate to say that because I can back it up.
I wonder, Dave, if you have expressed to Coste and Chandler any reservations about their approach. I’ve heard from some truthers who think their behavior is immaculate and they blame me for not being “civil” to them. Have you read Coste on Facebook? The endless taunts that I must immediately account for the Pentagon damage or I will be tossed into “the garbage bin of history”? I appreciate that you say I should not be rushed into a response. I have asked Wayne to have the decency to allow me to respond but he will not. I don’t recall hearing a single criticism of any of this group from anyone on their side of the debate. I even see Chandler and Jenkins giving pats on the back to people like Colin Doran, who is a complete official story supporter.
You talk about the ridiculous culture of the 9/11 Truth Movement – have you considered that this culture is being made much worse by the presence of agents? And can you not see how the effort to push a large plane crash at the Pentagon is poisoning 9/11 truth efforts?
I think we should be reaching out to non-choir also. I would prefer to be doing that rather than arguing about the Pentagon. But I am concerned that if someone doesn’t stand up to the efforts to nullify the Pentagon evidence that it will be abandoned by the movement to keep “civil dialogue.”
Don’t you think they’ve made their point? I do, but I also know they will never stop. I wonder why. If I publish a response to Coste then he will come back with another mountain of slides that will all prop up aspects of the official story. It will never end. I suggest, if you want to help the movement, that you call on them to stop.
Waving to you David,
I’m still waiting …
… still waiting for a response from you on staged death and injury. So you couldn’t come up with a 10-point Occam’s Razor exercise favouring real death and injury. How has that affected your perspective?
Do you not see from both a logical and evidentiary perspective that death and injury were staged? I honestly don’t get it. It’s so obvious … at least it’s so obvious now. What makes you doubt it?
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
I met Coste at the AIA 2015 Atlanta convention, talked by phone, written, I’ve no doubt whatever of his integrity. His recent work was valuable research for me.
Chandler and I have talked often, when I 1st began in 2011, he’s been on my deck for dinner in Salem, OR and I’ve not a doubt of his integrity, he helped vet some of my stuff in 4 political campaigns for the US House.
I’ve read much of what McKee has written, I’ve no doubt of his integrity.
I’ve read everything Ryan’s written, all of Griffin’s books, all of Fetzer’s books, reviewed all of the Pentagon witnesses, who they were, and what they were doing there.
Read Thompson, 911 Comm. Report, NIST, POP. MECH., Ruppert, Tarpley, Johnson, Seagraves, Bollyn’s 3 books and his entire site, Prouty, Quigley, McQueen, Foxx, Cimino, RR’s 4 artful mixing of fact and fiction, Judy Wood, Barrett, Zelikow, O’Keefe, Toronto Report, “The Little Drummer Girl” – LeCarre and dozens more.
I met Jenkins and Gage in PDX in 2011 and Gage has been to our town 3 times for presentations, I’ve spent hours in car rides with him, phoned, letters, – no question of his integrity.
I know many of these people because: 1) I am very active, “WTC7 Awareness Day at Oregon Capitol Bldg’. – 5th yr.and the Republican Convention 6th yrs, Sat. Farmers’ Market begins in two weeks and we’re there every week with a WTC7 Display as the 501(c)3 Ed. Org. for AE. and I’m active with the Lawyers effort in NY. My effort it to make awareness of WTC7 to Oretgon shakers and makers in my town and state government. 2) this movement ain’t that big. So, I’ll make 3 points:
1st, we are people who are not afraid to question convention, it’s why we are here, a little more independent in our thinking, some think more than others, some think less than others, have less information but project what they have more strongly – this ain’t evil – this is personality.
2nd Coste identifies with engineering – it’s an ego thing, he’s proud, retired, dedicated to 9/11 investigation and obviously enjoys it – but his 1st allegiance is to his identity – his craft – engineering.
Chandler’s identity is his craft of physics, astronomy, scientific method, teaching, he’s also confident and when challenged he’s like a bear and will tend to attack rather than run. Good.
McKee’s identity is journalism and whatever ethic he brings to that craft has been challenged and away he goes.
My background is Soc. Sci. and my interest and craft: Who are these people, what do they do, why do they do the things they do?
I have very little interest in the magic trick performed in VA. But, I do assume the trick very similar to the trick they did in NY. We know exactly what done, who did it, and how they did it. I think is a good suppositions the same equipment, personnel, manner of equipment was also used in VA.
TREAT EVERYONE WITH TRUST.
Marvin how do you treat people you know for a fact are lying? How do you treat people who are trying their very best to bury the most damning evidence of an inside job there is? That is what Coste and Chandler are doing you know. They are attempting to bury the evidence that puts the noose around the necks of the perpetrators. How do you respond to that? Is that OK with you? What if I was putting massive effort into proving the towers all came down due to fire and damage instead of controlled demolitions all while claiming to be a real truther? Is that OK with you? When do you call out disinformation for what it is?
All the study and research and effort you describe above is great and I am glad you did it, I have done the same or more over the years. I too have met and talked at length with many of the “leaders” you mentioned. I even went way above and beyond the call of duty on behalf of Richard Gage and made a video for him at my expense. I like Richard and I think he is genuinely trying to expose the truth about 9/11. I agree 100% with his controlled demolition conclusion. Richard did however turn his back on other truthers (CIT) and threw them under the bus due to peer pressure. Despite the fact that Richard had initially fully endorsed CIT’s work and considered it to be very strong evidence he retracted his support later and smeared them in his letter of retraction, which I am fairly sure he did not even write himself. Richards actions cause an unknown number of “truthers” to avoid CIT’s evidence which has done a huge disservice to the truth movement. Many prominent truthers wrote and signed a letter to Richard asking him to make the situation right and he failed completely to respond or correct anything. So while I like Richard and agree with his evidence I strongly disagree with what he did to CIT because of peer pressure.
Your point here seems to be just to ignore that kind of behavior so long as the attacks are directed at CIT but I suspect it would be a very different story if someone were attacking CD evidence.
You say you have no doubt about Chandlers integrity and no doubt about Costes integrity. I therefore conclude that you are not familiar with the massive and damning evidence collected by CIT, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and many of us independent researchers related to the Pentagon. If you knew that evidence thoroughly you would be forced to doubt the integrity of Chandler and Coste and a number of others. You simply have not thoroughly examined the evidence that no plane struck the pentagon or considered the implications of that fact. If you did you would know, deep down in your soul, the awful truth that Chandler and Coste and their cohorts are NOT real truthers but rather are disinformationists.
I am suggesting that your education about 9/11 is incomplete and you are missing one of the most important parts of the puzzle. Watch National Security Alert and Lloyd England and his Taxi Cab by CIT. Read Craig’s article above and actually follow the links to the other parts of this case. Read Chandler’s paper and CIT’s response to it which smashes it to smithereens decisively and exposes it utterly as disinformation. Until you really know the evidence related to the Pentagon you are completely lost in the woods here.
Chandler and Coste are disinformationists, many of the “leaders” of the so called truth movement are not really leaders at all, and many many people who call themselves truthers are actually working for the other side. That is the unvarnished truth and if you are really a truther yourself and you study this in depth you will come to realize the same thing.
I get it that doing all of this research is time consuming and difficult. I get it that it is much easier to just assume that “leaders” have done the work and are trustworthy exemplars of trutherism. That is not the reality though unfortunately. To really KNOW what is true and who is honest and who isn’t you have to do the work yourself. You have to dig out the truth for yourself and NOT trust that “leaders” are beyond reproach. Follow the links in Craig’s article, do the work, then tell me what you think about their integrity.
If I listed the 50 or 60 books lying around here, listed McKee readings, the witnesses I’ve gone thru, the efforts within my community, something would be found lacking, some element that I missed that would turn the tide. McKee doesn’t know, you don’t, Coste, Chandler, Ryan, DeHaven-Smith, McQueen, Griffin, Bollyn, Cimino, or Marvin. We all come to an understanding that allows us to move on to action of some kind. I do not wish to mistrust good people. And I’m quite comfortable with the bench marks I use for good people. I’m pretty good at it – 74 yrs. and surrounded by very very many good people in my community. I’m also a voracious and critical reader for 65 yrs. and can easily identify a false writer, a propagandist, or an honest research – check the references. I choose to trust some based on presentation – those CIT witnesses I trust – RR I don’t trust but she raises excellent questions I follow. RR is a myth maker – artful mixing of fact a fiction. I know as much about 9/11 as anyone could know from Salem, OR. I know what happened, I know who, I know how, I know why. I don’t need to fill in any blanks or develop my motivation further. But, I can tell you from personal experience who has integrity and who does not have integrity. Ask their job, read them critically and see what excites them, ask their religion, know a few of their people. I know what happened in VA on 9/11: I’m certain the same magicians did the same performance in VA that they did in NY. Used the same principles and practices to hide the performance and transfer it to myth, using the same tactics today. The two sites: NY and VA and very similar.
Well once you know everything there is nothing left to learn.
“no answers, only better questions”. The question of the deception of 9/11 investigation is over, we know what happened! Many of us have moved on to better questions, i.e. why is this still an argument for McKee, Chandler, Coste, et al? There are very similar deceptions like 9/11 happening today, why is it that this “truth community” is stuck in this tribal squabble of “community’ instead of the much broader question of ‘truth’? I think it’s a more basic question.
Today, I’ll be at our US Reps. Town Hall with the “3rd Tower” lawn sign and a hand full of brochures, I’ll get 3 or 4 more who begin to question that event. Argument or Action – I can tell you: Action FEELS better.
The Truth Movement has become its own cottage industry over the years. Griffin is to be applauded, as is Bollyn, for in depth research and fantastic insights; and there are many others. The lawyers work in NYC is great and that’s the type of thing that might just force government directed inquiry leading to irrefutable conclusions. The conspiracy is simply so vast and controlled that debate is insufficient to result in anything but additional debate. I agree with the approach you laud, the Griffin approach, which is to dismantle the official fairy tale piece by piece rather than tilt at windmills against issues being spun by disinfo agents. For my part, I grew tired of swimming upstream years ago. The truth that the buildings were demolished is so abjectly apparent that I simply have no time for the masses who’s disinterest or cognitive dissonance compels them to nod along with our fearless leaders. So I watch these battles from the background, periodically, and nod along. If the Truth Movement is ever successful, whatever that means, what will be the outcome? Civil war? What is the goal here? I think the best we can hope for is that those who managed to pull this off will be more wary next time, knowing that they are being watched more closely than ever. Because there is no way that people like Dick Cheney will be strung up in the public square like he should. It just ain’t happening.
I agree with most of what you say however I will add a caveat to what you said about Cheney never being hung in the town square. I agree it will not happen UNTIL the perps have used every means at their disposal, dirty, violent, or otherwise, to stop the truth movement and fail to stop us. Then and only then could it happen AFTER the government as we know it now has been completely dismantled and replaced. Then the evil Darth Cheney might be strung up in the town square. Right now we are only facing disinformation artists and smear campaigns but violence is next. Most so called truthers will run for the hills when the violence starts. Only a few will remain and of course the truth will remain.
Craig,
Great article.
re: your statement: “For all the reasons I’ve listed – and more to come – I will not stop opposing them. Or exposing them.” [Italics not duplicated.]
On balance, I think it’s positive that you keep opposing these pro-gov’t guys who are prominent in some quarters among 9/11 Truthers. However, they have already exposed themselves. So, should you continue to expose them? Yeah, I think so. Gotta get the attention of those not yet in tune to the importance of 9/11 Truth.
Dennis, I am concerned that if I don’t expose them that they will continue to chip away at our evidence. It doesn’t seem to me that a lot of truthers are really paying close enough attention to this, so they can be fooled by claims of “authority” because of the “credentials” of the Chandler group.
One of the big indicators that the 757 impact is false is that all video footage (except the parking lot camera) was confiscated and never shown. Have Chandler, Coste, etc. ever addressed this?
Coste and Chandler have not to my knowledge addressed the seized videos issue in any substantial way. If it conflicts with the official story they seem to want to ignore it or suppress it.
I too wonder what the result will be if/when the general public wakes up. Will there be anarchy, civil war? When the perpetrators face justice I can just see them using fear of civil unrest as their justification for covering up the truth.
Very salient point peter. I am sure they will use every tactic there is to avoid prosecution for the 9/11 mass murder including more murder. When the public finally grows a pair and does something about 9/11 everything will change. The government as we know it today will be swept away along with many other gigantic institutions such as the so called justice system, the media, some of the banks, a country (Israel) or two (?). All will be gone along with a lot of guilty individuals. The world will be totally changed, I hope for the better. It is because the consequences of getting caught are so dire that these institutions are fighting so hard to stop the truth from being accepted by the masses. They are doomed to fail though because the truth is not something that can be stopped. It can only be suppressed for a while and only for those who intentionally avoid it. The writing is already on the wall and it can’t be erased now.
Darth Cheney and the Zionist scum who did 9/11 the people are coming for you filth and you are all going to swing from tree branches.
Bravo for this message. I totally agree. There are more of us good guys than the evil doers. United We Stand has never meant so much. We need to unite for truth and support the Lawyers’ Committee for 9/11 Inquiry, we must beat our own system with it, that 9/11 Grand Jury is vital now and everyone please get behind it by letting America know of it. Thank you
Due to Israeli involvement, I wonder if we would see another Kristelnacht in the United States?
9/11 WAS your “Kristelnacht”
There’s been very many (faked) follow-up nachtzen 😉
In no particular order: Aurora, Boston Bomber, London Tube, Shady Hoax, Parkland, Las Vegas, ……
I may have missed a few dozen….
My own study of 9/11 has led me to the conclusion that there were no plane crashes anywhere, including in Manhattan. At least, not big Boeing passenger jets.
Why is there such an insistence on separating out the Pentagon issue? Doesn’t common sense say that if the planners believed they could simply claim that a plane hit the Pentagon and get away with it, that they would use the same approach in Manhattan?
Jon, I think there is considerable evidence that the airliners that are claimed to have crashed (Boeing 757s and 767s) did not. But I do think the towers, Pentagon, and Shanksville should each be evaluated on their own merits. I do not agree that common sense says they would approach all three sites the same way. This requires us to get into the minds of the perpetrators, and I think it is dangerous to think we can do that. Also, and perhaps more importantly, lumping all the sites together means that the weakest argument can sink the other two. I understand that some will disagree about which is the weakest, but if we put all three in one basket, then the official story supporters will simply argue against the idea that planes didn’t hit the towers. But by taking each case on its own merits, they have to argue against each of them. It just takes one major lie in the official story to begin things unraveling.
Well, what evidence exists that any Boeing passenger jets crashed anywhere on that day?
But regardless, consider the Moon landings. There were six Apollo missions, right? Is anybody claiming that three of them were hoaxes and the other three they actually went to the moon?
Surely, everybody says that all six Apollo missions were hoaxes or they went to the moon all six times.
So is it not very strange to be claiming that on 9/11, two of the plane crashes were hoaxes but the other two were real?
I honestly just can’t get my head around this.
Your Apollo analogies are not valid. It is obvious that if they could go to the Moon they would not hoax some missions. All of 9/11 was a hoax regardless of how each element was fabricated. Even if real planes hit the towers, it is still a hoax because those planes did not bring the buildings down. Again, you are making an assumption that they would use the same MO at all three sites, and there is no reason to assume this. Why would you not simply want to address the evidence in each case and draw conclusions from that?
Craig, any analogy is imperfect, but I think the Apollo analogy is still useful. You accept immediately that, if they could go to the moon, they would not mount a hoax. Thus, all the Apollo missions would be for real. And, thus, if one is a hoax, they all are.
Yet, somehow, the logic does not apply to 9/11. If they could really get away with just telling us that a plane hit a building, why would they ever make a plane hit a building for real?
Even if the analogy is somehow incorrect, it is useful to try to drill down and figure out what is incorrect about it.
But, no, I actually would maintain that the Apollo missions analogy is useful. I mean, one way of looking at it is simply in terms of burden of proof. If you established that Apollo 11 was a hoax, that does not ABSOLUTELY prove that the subsequent missions were, I suppose. (Though, obviously, common sense would say that they were also hoaxes.)
So, we could say that if Apollo 11 was a hoax, then the burden of proof would be on anybody claiming that any of the other five missions were for real, right?
So, by the same token, surely, once you’ve established that one of the four alleged Boeing crashes is a hoax, then, at the very least, the burden of proof lies on anybody trying to tell you that ANY of the other ones were real.
That just seems like common sense. It is similarly common sense to say that if you can establish that Building 7 was a controlled demolition, then it is a cinch bet that the other two towers were also controlled demolitions. It just stands to reason…
But the other problem with all this is that we stand here, 17 years after the event, and you’re essentially saying that we have not been able to establish the factual truth regarding perhaps the most basic question there is: were there any real plane crashes?
You talk about reaching people “outside the choir” or whatever, but how are run-of-the-mill people supposed to react if they ask you whether there were any plane crashes and you refuse to give a straight answer?
Now, it’s true that we don’t have to claim to know everything about what happened that day, but to be here 17 years after and not be able to establish whether there were any plane crashes or not. It’s hard to see how anybody outside the “choir” would take you seriously, quite frankly.
Don’t you see that there is a problem here?
The analogy would work in this event: if we were saying that the WTC event was a staged deception and a false flag then it would be reasonable to conclude that the Pentagon and Shanksville were also staged deceptions and false flags. But this is not the same as saying that if no crashes happened at two sites then none happened at the third. There is simply no benefit in making that assumption. It’s about evidence in each case.
Hi Craig, I thought, from the Pilot’s for 911 Truth presentation, that it was a physical (as in physics) impossibility for a 757 or 767 to hit any of the three buildings at the speeds given us by the government. Is this relevant to your last response?
Yes, I think it is. I think it’s fine to argue based on evidence that the flights could not achieve those speeds near ground level because that is a scientific question. It doesn’t require us to get into the heads of the perpetrators to determine why they did things the way they did.
Another very good article. I admire your dedication, long may it continue.
Thanks, Dave. Still plugging along.
For me the most surprising thing is that Mr. Chandler accepts as a real the doctored image of the “AA-77” on the video frames of the surveillence cameras. But in reality isn’t that image OBVIOUSLY doctored: too small, transparant and too coinsiding with the details of the landscape?!
I agree with Craig, but I object to two comments above referring to “Israeli involvement” and “Zionist scum who did 9/11.” If you want to discuss “foreknowledge” or even “involvement” of non-US states, this does not belong here, and good luck with trying to show that the US govt is controlled by somebody other than the US govt. The “Zionists did it” meme is an express ticket to oblivion, and with good reason.
Well Christopher Bollyn’s research is decisive and it proves Zionist involvement in 9/11 at many levels of the operation itself and the cover-up afterward. You do not have a leg to stand on Michael, the Zionists were in on it up to their eyeballs. Just because you don’t know the evidence or are in denial of it doesn’t make the evidence disappear.
Prior to the far-reaching power of the internet the word ‘Zionist’ was rarely used. When it was used it was largely by anti-Semites attempting to deny the Holocaust. It was code for a convenient way not to use the words Jew or Jewish. Unfortunately, and while the word is still rarely used in larger society, it is increasingly used in the Truth movement. I fear where that may lead and I offer Adam’s reference to ‘Zionist scum’ as a case in point.
Neil, I think it is valid to criticize Zionism, which is a political ideology. There are Jews who are not Zionists and there are non-Jews who are. Just because some people may use the term to express anti-Semitic ideas does not mean we must avoid it. We have to evaluate each comment on its merits. While bigotry is wrong, we must always be free to criticize decisions by any country or government or political group that cause real harm to real people.
Good points Craig. Those who claim that anti Zionism equals anti-Semitism are going down a dangerous path because at some point being labelled anti-Semitic for criticizing Israel will be seen as a badge of honour i.e. someone who dares speak out against injustice. In the event of an anti-Israel backlash, those who currently fail to make the distinction should not be surprised if only Jews (including non-Zionist ones) are targeted.
I want to thank Craig McKee and Adam Ruff for their thorough, competent exposure of the disinformationists and likely agents. When I first read on line about their claiming a 757 hit the Pentagon, I thought about counter-arguing. Then I decided not to bother, as I had become disillusioned with my local 9/11 group—as well as when I taught a 9/11 course at a local university— and suspected it of having agents and disinformationists. They ARE everywhere and infiltrate EVERYTHING. Their MO is to create these false debates, distractions, name-calling, etc. to weaken the Truth movement.
Thank you for your hard work, your perseverance, your integrity.
Thanks, Greg. Which local group were you a part of? If you don’t mind me asking.
I think we can do a lot to take back control of the discussion if we spot some of these false debates. If we focus on the lies and impossibilities in the official story then we can have a degree of unity and effectiveness. If we allow ourselves to get sucked into disinformation that pushes us to accept major parts of the official story, then we’re doomed.
I wish I could take your 9/11 course.
Craig asks: “In the meantime, what’s next for the propaganda team? A book? A feature film? A “conference”? An endorsement from George Clooney?”
The answer is: A conference! On May 04, in Denver, CO. See announcement at http://911blogger.com/news/2019-02-25/announcing-conference-911-pentagon-evidence
Craig,
I was part of the Boston 9/11 Truth group, headed by Chris Gruener. And I think he organizes the Boston TAP group now also, and I still get their notices. I taught the 9/11 course at UMass/Boston three times in a program mostly for seniors. There were infiltrators and disruptors, e.g., when I showed a Christopher Bollyn video, about half the class walked out! But those there to learn were very appreciative. Don’t know whether I will try to do it again.
I just skimmed your article, Craig, as I’m simply not all that interested in 9/11 truth internal politics, especially no doubt because I live in Australia and my involvement is pretty peripheral. Sounds horrendous. What I imagine is that there are a number of disinfo agents fomenting disharmony and proliferating theories to keep things confused and to generate hostility between people thereby undermining the movement.
What I like to apply is logic and keep things as simple as possible. Why on earth would they use any real planes? That would make zero sense and there simply isn’t any convincing evidence of real planes. It’s utterly ludicrous.
The most important 9/11 facts are:
* Controlled demolition
* Four faked plane crashes
* Death and injury were staged
The next most important fact is that the perps have implemented a propaganda campaign aimed only at the truthers they anticipated would emerge. In fact, it seems they encouraged truthers to emerge with the collapse of WTC-7 offered to us on a platter. They started the campaign before 9/11 with the release of the PNAC and the Northwoods documents. Their propaganda campaign worked on the basis of “sacrificing” the truth of controlled demolition to hide the lie of staged death and injury. They knew that CD would be too obvious but they knew they could stagnate the truth by ensuring that truthers only have part of the 9/11 puzzle correct – the CD and, less often, the faked plane crashes. However, without the truth of staged death and injury the truthers can’t get anywhere because it’s too taboo that the US administration would have killed those people in the buildings and people simply will not accept it … and the fact is, they didn’t kill them! That would NEVER be their modus operandi. They pride themselves on their psyops. It was a psyop, right? If they killed people then it’s not a psyop any more and when they do a psyop they do it according to the rules. They had no motive to kill the people and the loved ones of real dead people would be a complete nightmare – if death and injury had been real there’d be far more people creating a fuss than Bob McIlvaine, the Jersey Widows, April Gallop and a few others. Far, far more. They know how to propagandise us into believing anything and they take so much pride in their ability to do that … even seemingly undermining their efforts by giving the game away with popped-up terrorists, etc.
I have produced 10-point Occam’s Razor exercises on the three elements above (for CD it is just on WTC-7) and have issued a $5,000 challenge for people to produce the equivalent exercise with favouring of hypotheses reversed. If you believe that death and injury were real on 9/11 I invite you to respond to my challenge. You can choose your own judge in the profession of Emergency Response Coordination or whichever profession you deem appropriate. If you cannot produce an equivalent exercise what does that tell you? To my knowledge no one has been able to produce even a single point so far.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
No evidence of real planes? Last time I checked there were over 20 videos from various angles that captured the second tower strike as it happened. Also literally tens of thousands of people all around the area saw the second plane hit and many saw the first plane hit as well. The “no plane” or “hologram plane” arguments are complete bunk. Also all of the CIT witnesses described the plane they saw approaching the pentagon. Real planes slammed into the towers and real planes were seen at the pentagon and Shanksville. I am highly suspicious of people who still try to push the no plane and hologram plane BS.
Please forgive my ignorance, Adam, but I am not up to date on “no planes” theory and debunking of same. I am still among those who cannot see a plane melting into a building as realistic, and I think there is another one with the “nose cone” emerging from the opposite side, which doesn’t seem realistic either given the fragile nature of the nose cone. Nor did I know that “thousands” of people saw the second plane hit. I wish someone would make a list of all the videos and the arguments for and against fakery, so that I can get up to date.
The planes did NOT “melt” into the buildings they smashed through the outer wall because of their tremendous kinetic energy resulting from their massive weight and high speed. I really can’t believe people are still trying to pass off this faked plane crap as legitimate. Look on youtube for pumpkin shot through a car and stop already with this garbage that it was magic somehow that the planes smashed through the outer wall. A water balloon that weighed that much going that speed would have smashed through the wall as well. Quite easily in fact. No plane theories are disinformation, period.
“No evidence of real planes? Last time I checked there were over 20 videos from various angles that captured the second tower strike as it happened.”
To be honest, for me, reading something like the above is excruciating. I mean, the debate surely centers around whether what the videos portray is physically impossible. If it isn’t, then it didn’t happen. It simply doesn’t matter how many videos there are.
If there are twenty videos of Richard Gage walking on water, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if there are 200 such videos! Can’t you see that?
“Also literally tens of thousands of people all around the area saw the second plane hit and many saw the first plane hit as well.”
This is an extremely dubious claim. A couple of different New Yorkers commented to me that it’s easy to find somebody who knows somebody who saw a plane hit a building. But it is impossible to find anybody who actually saw it themselves. This is typical of how urban legends work. Frankly, I think that anybody you find who says they saw it in real time with their own two eyes, under a serious cross-examination, would end up admitting that, actually, they saw it on the TeeVeee like the rest of us. Or that it wasn’t them that saw it, it was a friend…
I think it’s easy to create false memes and the people behind this would master that quite well.
No plane arguments are garbage based on magical thinking. There is nothing impossible about what we see on the videos of the second strike. Nothing!
That reminds me: what happened to the footage shot by the dancing Israelis? By their own admission, they were there to document the event.
This is mentioned in the lawsuit against the FBI by AE911Truth and the Lawyer’s Committee. Apparently, the FBI claims to have destroyed the photos.
Thanks for the info, I did not know that. Did the FBI give an explanation as to why they destroyed the photos?
I’m not sure. I don’t think so.
I had no idea all this was going on. I kind of fade in and out of the 9/11 Truth movement during the year trying to focus on one project a year to spread the word. But I did have a recent exchange with Coste regarding his theory that a B757 hit the Pentagon. I had done a 45 minute video covering my model of the Pentagon and showing why I did not believe evidence we have supports the government story. I think folks get so involved in this because they aren’t very great in anything else. So they want to discover something and be at the forefront of something important. To be honest I have not discovered a single thing about 9/11. Everything I know about it I learned from some other researcher. But at least I know what a piece of evidence supports and what it does not support. There is simply not enough evidence to support the assertion that a B757 hit the Pentagon. It is up to the government to prove their own theory, not me. They have not done so and will not do so. I don’t know what happened at the Pentagon but until I see convincing evidence I will remain firm that no B757 hit the Pentagon.
Well, the position of people like Chandler and Coste on the Pentagon is just mind-boggling. They are trying to tell us that they remote control flew a plane into the building but did not ever show any visuals of it.
WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU EVER FLY A PLANE INTO A BUILDING FOR REAL EXCEPT TO GET THE EVENT ON CAMERA????
The whole thing is such an obvious non-starter.
I was interested in this dialogue until Adam Ruff came up with the “Zionists did it” stuff and on top of that referring to the questions about video fakery in the NY hits as “garbage.”
I stopped trying to follow the details of the 9/11 “debate” after reading most of Griffin. I still have seen no significant criticism of anything he has written, and I do not consider insults by Wayne Coste as significant.
Like many (most?) others I do not have the motivation to devote my life to debates that go nowhere. That eliminates every debate I have come across on the internet. What is needed is organization and focus. Instead we have interminable packages of arguments on one side or the other citing hundreds of other arguments and details, always referring us to other sources) followed (if at all — not at all in Griffin’s case) by similar packages from the other side. As long as the suffering reader is required to ingest these torrents of “information,” no dialogue is possible. It would be a great deal of work just to organize such a debate by breaking down every single point of contention, so that each and every detail, one by one, could then be focussed on and discussed EXHAUSTIVELY, and frankly I don’t think it will be done. I have not seen any attempt to do this in ANY field, but that is what is needed. Now that we have the technology for this, for the first time in history, not only are we not doing it but seem to be going in the opposite direction. Insults and one-liners and links are still the coin of the realm.
If anyone reading this can point me to a model of what I am suggesting in ANY field, I would be grateful.
For example, I tried this a few months ago, using the chapters of Griffin’s 9/11 Unmasked as a – preliminary – outline, hoping that others would help break down each chapter into further subheads. Craig and I are the only members so far! I don’t know if Google Groups would show the kind of detailed hierarchical organization into subgroups that I have in mind, but it is free and there are no space restrictions. There may well be other formats that would be easier to organize this way. As I said above, organization is crucial if we want people to take part. One should be able to navigate quickly and easily to exactly one precise point. I thought that beginning with Unmasked consensus points would be the best point of departure. I would be happy to share “moderation” with anyone else who is interested — the purpose of which would be to keep the contributions “on point.” I know this will not catch on because I have never succeed in “collaborative” efforts like this, despite various attempts. However, no one can say I haven’t tried!
Whoops, forgot the link: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/911-unmasked
Here is another — and I think better — example of what I mean in a Google Doc folder:https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q6mprn8M8j8q-cryQ1Av6YMol_cb_N6j
Google Docs seems easier to organize, and keep organized, than Groups. The idea would be to create further subheads in addition to the consensus points, e.g. about debris, eyewitnesses, phone calls, etc. The more specific the subheads, the better (for focus), and the numerical hierarchy (easier for Google to handle than a proliferation of actual subfolders) would allow for indefinite expansion. Griffin/Woodward is just a point of departure, which is why I name the top folder “Notes on…”
I do hope this catches someone’s interest. There is plenty of work to share.