David Ray Griffin doesn’t support the idea that a 757 hit the Pentagon.
By Craig McKee
There are not two people who I respect more in the 9/11 Truth movement than David Ray Griffin and Barrie Zwicker.
Griffin has done the most thorough analysis of anyone in the movement of all the evidence from that terrible day. Without his work, and his unimpeachable reputation, it’s hard to imagine the movement would be as far ahead as it is. He has written numerous books about 9/11 examining things like the failures of the 9/11 Commission Report, the flimsy case made by “debunkers” like Popular Mechanics, and the many holes in the official government account of what happened.
Zwicker, a Canadian media analyst, peace activist, and 9/11 truther, has looked at the event from a different angle. His fascinating book Tower of Deception: The Media Cover-up of 9/11 (an absolute must for anyone in the Truth movement) looks at 9/11 as mass deception and hypnosis. And, as the title suggests, it analyzes how the mainstream media has been utterly complicit in the deception.
One of the many things that Griffin and Zwicker agree on is that the official story of what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11 doesn’t hold up. They both cast serious doubt on the assertion that Flight 77, or any other commercial airliner, hit the Pentagon on 9/11.
In the past few weeks I have taken issue with those who mercilessly attack the work of the Citizen Investigation Team duo of Craig Ranke and Aldo Marquis. These two contend that the flight path of the airliner that approached the Pentagon was incompatible with the physical evidence used to support the official story. They contend that the plane flew to the north of the Citgo gas station making it impossible for it to have clipped the five light poles that were allegedly knocked over by the plane.
A group of supposed truthers has done everything possible to discredit CIT, defending the official story to a bizarre degree. They mock and ridicule anyone who doesn’t agree with them, calling them “liars” and “no-planer idiots” and then they claim that it is CIT’s investigative methods that are the problem.
I have questioned the motives of some of these “researchers.” They claim they want to cut CIT out of the movement because their claim that a 757 did not hit the Pentagon will bring ridicule to the cause and undermine its chances of success. So they fuel internal dissension that will do exactly what they claim to be afraid of.
In his book Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Griffin questions the eyewitness account of Don Mason, who claims to have seen the light poles hit (p. 264).
“This claim, that the plane en route to the Pentagon hit five light poles at the Washington Boulevard overpass – three with one wing, two with the other – has been an important part of the evidence that a Boeing 757, or in any case an airplane with a wingspan of at least 100 feet (the distance between the light poles on the two sides of the road), really did strike the Pentagon. PM’s [Popular Mechanics] support of this claim includes photographs of the five poles, which were knocked down.
“Serious questions about the credibility of this claim have long been raised. But videotaped testimony has recently been presented that, if reliable, would make the claim even more dubious than it was before.”
Griffin refers to interviews in the CIT film The PentaCon that show that the flight path was to the north of the gas station, making it impossible for the plane to have hit the poles.
But here’s the key passage (p. 265):
“This testimony, besides throwing into doubt the testimony of Don Mason and the other people who claimed to have seen the light poles clipped, suggests something even more important: that the five light poles were staged to provide evidence for the official story. If so, then we must suspect that other evidence for the official story was also planted. If any of the evidence is demonstrably planted, in fact, we must doubt the truth of the entire story.”
So, unlike the CIT haters, Griffin is willing to consider that witnesses were mistaken or untruthful. And he correctly states that if any of the evidence is fake (I think immediately of the pole that Lloyde England claims he pulled out of the windshield of his cab), then it is all called into doubt.
CIT’s opponents claim that it’s wrong to express doubt about any eyewitness testimony without absolute proof that they are lying – an impossible standard.
Zwicker has written an endorsement of CIT that states:
“It’s no exaggeration to state that the findings of the Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) concerning what really happened at the Pentagon on 9/11 are reliable, undeniable, conclusive, and of immense historic significance.
“The evidence now shows, well past reasonable doubt, what happened. It was detonation of explosives within the building, timed to coincide with a flyover by a large jet plane, thus producing the clever illusion that flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, heart of the official 9/11 Pentagon lie.
He adds: “To me, two most important questions now, almost nine years after the events, urgently call out for investigation. First, who are those behind the vicious attempts to discredit the work of the Citizen Investigation Team? Second, what are the motives of the would-be discreditors and those behind them? I say “attempts” because careful examination of the arguments of CIT’s tormentors show them to be tricky and unreliable – as flimsy as the official story they try to defend.”
Exactly.
For the full endorsement by Zwicker: http://www.citizeninvestigationteam.com/news/2010_07_23_zwicker.html
Unfortunately, two prominent 9/11 scholars, Richard Gage and Peter Dale Scott, have rescinded their support of CIT in the past few weeks. I’ve dealt with the Gage statement (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/richard-gage-joins-perplexing-gang-up-on-citizen-investigation-team/), which apparently prompted the one by Peter Dale Scott. Mr. Dale Scott cites “CIT’s methods” although he isn’t specific about what he doesn’t like about them. This move is odd given a statement Dale Scott made last year in which he criticized the CIT critics who were badgering him to rescind his support then. In 2009, he wrote:
“This is a form letter in response to the flood of letters that has been showered on me by those who do not like CIT.
I have not endorsed the flyover theory for Flight 77, and I do not personally believe it. All I endorsed was their assemblage of witnesses who said that Flight 77 approached the Pentagon on the north side of the Pike. I do not draw the conclusions from their testimony that CIT does. But I believe that the testimony needs to be seriously considered by those trying to find out what actually happened.
I must say that I am disappointed by number of ad hominem attacks I have received. I do not believe one incoming letter so far has dealt with the substance of what the Turnpike witnesses claimed and I endorsed.
In his famous American University speech of June 1963, John F. Kennedy famously said, “And we are all mortal.” I would add, “And we are all fallible.” For this reason I would ask everyone in the 9/11 truth movement to focus their energies on the substance of what happened on 9/11, and not discredit the truth movement by wanton attacks on each other.
Sincerely, Peter Dale Scott
Very well put, Mr. Dale Scott. You seemed to be very clear in your opposition to the harassment you received by CIT’s relentless critics. While you may not have supported CIT’s “flyover” thesis, you correctly put the focus on the evidence.
So what the hell happened? Your new statement (http://911truthnews.com/peter-dale-scott-withdraws-endorsement-of-cit/) is insufficient to explain this about-face. What has changed?
One telling point is that the statement was released by Frank Legge at Dale Scott’s request. Legge is one of the most vocal CIT attackers and a proponent of the official story at the Pentagon. He posts at the 911Blogger web site, which has banned numerous people who are sympathetic to CIT, including Ranke and Marquis themselves.
This brings me back to Barrie Zwicker’s question about who is really behind the attacks on CIT and why. And why did Gage, David Chandler, and Jonathan Cole denounce CIT all around the same time? The reasons they’ve given have been vague and unpersuasive.
Peter Dale Scott’s statement only muddies the waters further.
The movement in general overwhelmingly already accepts the notion that no plane hit the Pentagon and did so long before CIT showed up and confirmed it via the eyewitnesses.
I think the “controversy” surrounding CIT is completely manufactured and it seems as though this has unfortunately influenced some like Gage and Scott.
Great article.
I agree totally that it is manufactured, and I agree that Gage and Scott have been pressured. It’s too bad. Thanks for the comment.
You have a March 14 comment from me that’s still awaiting moderation, Craig, and a March 15 comment from FalseFlagBurner that has already appeared (with your thanks).
Once again, here’s an example of that “most thorough analysis” from the man with the “unimpeachable reputation” who has so much of your respect, Craig:
http://www.jod911.com/There_Are_No_Missile_Defenses_at_the_Pentagon.pdf
I respect authors who research their claims before publishing them, as Jim Bennett did before releasing that paper on Griffin’s Pentagon antiaircraft missile defense yarn.
I did not publish your comments because I was tired of being led in circles in an argument I had come to see as pointless. I respect opinions that differ from mine, and I have not banned anyone, yet. But with you I’m very close.
Your suggestion that I just ignore the 9/11 Commission Report (as I suggested you just ignore CIT if you think their views are of no value) led me to think you were being intentionally mischievous. At best it’s a pointless comment.
We batted back and forth the question of the bent steel girders at the WTC and I repeatedly challenged you to back up your claim that girders of that type can be bent in half with no cracks or breaks, simply with pressure. You kept turning this back on me as if it was me who had to explain they couldn’t. As Mr. El Once has said on several occasions, I do not do homework assignments given to me by people who comment.
As to Mr. Griffin: you find fault because you feel he hasn’t backed up his suggestion that there are anti-aircraft missiles at the Pentagon. This is one point among many thousands he has made in his books that is being criticized in the link you provided. Even if Griffin is wrong on this, the fact remains that his work is the most thorough and thoughtful of any that has been done. It is easy to read all his books and to focus on one point; it is much harder to do the enormous amount of research that he has done for his many books. If you would focus on debating points instead of attacking characters I’d be more open to listening.
Also, about your question about whether the NIST people are wrong or liars: obviously I think they are wrong. Beyond that, I’m not getting sucked into name-calling, and I don’t read minds.
Keep in mind that I do have the last word on who is published on this site. I am very open to differing views, however. But if I feel you are leading me down the garden path on purpose, I’ll end the discussion. You are always free to write your own blog supporting all aspects of the Official Government Conspiracy Theory.
I have encountered Albury Smith on several blogs on 9/11.
It is his single issue. I am convinced he is a Sunstein plant.
His object is to sow cognitive dissonance, and he does it by the book.
As they say in Intel…”all the hallmarks”, meaning it is a known MO.
He will go on for page after page with such flatulence as would choke a rhinoceros.
ww
Mr. Albury,
I will now stop threatening to ban you and just do it. You’re latest (sorry to my other readers for the mysteriousness of this) is just as insulting and repetitive as all the others. I’m sorry you feel your intelligence was insulted, but it takes two to tango, doesn’t it? Your continued character attacks on Mr. Griffin are unwarranted and no longer welcome.
Now how will you EVER clean up ALL THAT ‘gravy’ from the floors in here, Mr. McKee? 😉
Lets watch “Pentacon”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_SgxURgJJQ
I think that what has happend with both Gage and Scott, is they have fallen for the information that Legge and Stutt put forward in their new {somewhat new} paper on the Flight Data Recorder, that is alledged to come from the Pentagon.
This is a shame in my view.
Why is NTSB considered as a viable organization?
Like NIST, like the 9/11 Commission, they are an arm of the government. Who can verify that the flight data isn’t totally bogus, and completely manufactured?
Have we been given any evidence to verify a chain of possession? No, merely the assertions of a government agency.
To my mind this makes the FDR a moot point.
The physical and photographic evidence of the crash site is best evidence, as it cannot be determined that the FDR is not a plant of bogus information in any reliable sense.
ww
I completely agree. Mr. Gage seems to have succumbed to pressure from the opponents of Citizen Investigation Team.
It is an interesting psychological experiment in my opinion – all the facts of the witness evidence and Pentagon damage point towards no large plane having crashed there yet the sheer brazenness of the plot is almost too much to comprehend. Surely you can’t fly a plane over a building and then convince everyone that the plane crashed into the building? And I think this is the reason why so many people support CIT’s work but don’t buy into the plane flying over, even though a flyover is the only logical conclusion.
I have a theory of some boffins sitting somewhere in the desert doing studies on how successful the 9/11 con has been – so far I would say very successful, considering how utterly ludicrous the story is. A big thumbs up for the mainstream media, it couldn’t have been done without you.
You would be better to investigate the people who died inside Pentagon that day and what they were working on.
I think it all needs to be investigated. You’re right that the area of the Pentagon that was destroyed was where the missing $2.3 trillion in government funds (announced the day before by Donald Rumsfeld) was being looked into. This has come up a number of times in comments on this blog and will certainly be the subject of a future post.
The information about the $2.3 trillion dollars was in the public domain long before 911. It was brought up after a DoD audit, was discussed in the media, was brought up in the Senate hearings to approve his appointment as Secretary of State for Defense and was spoken about by Donald Rumsfeld on a number of occasions.
9/11: Enhanced and Stabilised WTC1 Video (BBC World News)
Explosions clearly visible :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxGJHTlpOc8
Albury Smith sat on the uncensored.co.nz website every day last
year for about eight months until I blocked him.
The following quote sums up his behavior there pretty well:
‘A paid back-room mole to infiltrate every possible 9/11 chat room, message board, and forum to create as much din, disruption, “noise,” and chaos as possible
which constantly litters and pollutes the soup;
effectively preventing most people from focusing on Israel’s central role in 9/11.
A seeming obsession with minutiae where researchers spend an inordinate amount of time endlessly fixating on the tiniest of details without stepping back and exposing the bigger picture and its subsequent ramifications.
Or else they’ll engage in rhetorical debates for debate’s sake; all of which is sterile, self-contained, and circular in nature.’
Just for the record, I did not rescind an endorsement of CIT. I never endorsed them. I find their interview methodology to be unscientific, manipulative, and misleading (http://911speakout.org/?page_id=219) and their attack on cab driver Lloyd England to be abusive and absolutely appalling. (His experience and testimony of nearly being killed by a light pole spearing his windshield conflicts with their theory, so they smear him as a conspirator.) Their theory of a NOC flight path is physically implausible (a conservative way to say essentially impossible–see the recent paper on this subject I co-authored with Frank Legge: http://stj911.org/legge/Legge_Chandler_NOC_Refutation.html) and their theory of a flyover is contradicted by their own witnesses, not to mention the hundreds who should have seen it but didn’t. Yes, I and others reasoned with Richard Gage to urge him to rescind his (misrepresented) endorsement of CIT, but I am in no position to “pressure” him other than through the legitimate power of persuasion and reasonable argument.
Mr. Chandler, I appreciate you making your views known here, and I appreciate the work you’ve done to further research into what happened at the World Trade Center. You’re right about not rescinding support; you and Mr. Cole denounced CIT, while Mr. Gage rescinded his previous position on CIT.
The other opinions you list are familiar ones. I have no problem with a rational, discussion about the persuasiveness of CIT’s eyewitness evidence. The fact that the people interviewed in National Security Alert believe the plane hit the building has to be considered with the possibility in mind that the event was designed to look that way. Some say they assumed it had hit, others were ducking and didn’t actually see impact. Others say they saw impact.
But if you’re going to put weight on their claim that they saw the plane hit, how can you ignore their very specific description of the flight path as being north of the Citgo gas station? I don’t see how the NOC path could be physically impossible, but I will go over your paper again and do my best to understand the case you are making.
As a journalist for more than two decades, I take issue with your claim that their “interview methodology” is unscientific. Most interviews by investigative reporters are unscientific, but that doesn’t mean they don’t reveal truth. I don’t believe you have to be a scientist to advance the cause of 9/11 Truth, although we definitely need scientists like yourself to examine the scientific evidence.
What you do need to be is fair. I challenge you to show any case where they manipulated the interview subject. Once you have provided me with the particular instance, I will go back and watch it again. Similarly, I challenge you to give me an example of where they are misleading. Same deal.
As for Mr. England… I find this contention among those of you who attack the idea that no plane hit the Pentagon to be totally unfounded as well as being disingenuous. The number of vicious personal attacks that you have endorsed (through your silence, if nothing else) on 911blogger and other forums dwarfs anything found in Craig Ranke’s handling of England.
Until you all start calling on your own people to be respectful, I can’t take your indignation re Mr. England seriously. If I’d been interviewing Mr. England, I might have been even tougher. I can promise you that any journalist worth his or her salt would look at the England portion of NSA and say something was extremely fishy about England’s claims. He says the plane hit while he was pulling the pole out of the windshield; you’re a scientist, do you believe that’s possible? Do you believe the claim that the pole was “laying on the hood” but didn’t cause so much as a scratch? Please.
On the subject of pressure: I would like a further explanation of your pressure campaign (I know you wouldn’t use those words) against Gage, Griffin, Zwicker and others. It’s time you were up front about this. If the truth is on your side, why do you have to do so much behind-the-scenes manoeuvring to get people to stop supporting CIT?
And how can you endorse anything Snowcrash says given the constant stream of vitriol that comes out of his mouth, or at least his keyboard? I would quote something he said on another forum about Barbara Honegger, but I wouldn’t give SC the satisfaction of spreading his filth.
Until you address some of these issues, you have no business pressuring anyone to believe anything.
Dear Mr. Chandler,
I studied the paper you co-authored with Frank Legge.
The core piece of information — the flight data recorder from the Pentagon plane — has authentication issues and chain-of-custody issues right and left. The kicker for me was the original FDR information was missing the final four seconds. Along comes a mysterious “John Farmer” who found a way to re-build/extract the flight path of those final four seconds. Lo and behold, the path went smoothly into the Pentagon, despite being in disagreement with the readings from other aircraft instruments that said the plane was never that low.
Why were those final four seconds missing from the FDR?
Why weren’t they originally decoded, because they represent the money-shot time period?
Seems to me if the FDR really did have such a smooth flight-path into the Pentagon, it would have been made public sooner.
Back to the disagreement of the final four seconds with the readings from other aircraft instruments that said the plane was never that low. Those readings are explained away in your paper as being in error, owing to the aircraft speed, without analysis of why they would be in error and the direction that error would take. In other words, does a pressure-based altimeter give off measurements that are higher or lower than actual altitude when speed is increased?
The pressure based altimeter at high speed and high altitude is known to introduce errors. My meager research on the subject does not show indications of errors at low altitude at high speed or how the error would be manifested.
Thus, Mr. Chandler, in case you didn’t recognize it, the above is a lynch-pin in your whole paper’s premise, and it is one that you haven’t proven.
As for the “NOC flight path being physically implausible”, this is only true if you are trying to get a NOC flight path to also swerve and account for light-pole damage and holes in the Pentagon. Separating the flight path from the inflicted damage, then a NOC flight path is not out of the question. Who ever or what ever piloted the downward spiral could also land whatever the aircraft really was on a supposedly too short Reagan Airport Runway. They also could have flown it to other destinations with hardly anyone paying a lot of attention, because planes taking off and landing are pretty normal for the Reagan airport.
None of the 9/11 planes each with hundreds of thousands of serial numbered parts that could uniquely identify the exact aircraft have had such evidence presented to the public. Thus, doubt persists. First responders at the Pentagon reported seeing bodies. The distinction, however, is rarely made: passenger in the aircraft or victim at work in the Pentagon? If there was no aircraft that hit the building but we were led to believe there was, then the merging of the victims from planes would merge with victims from the building.
The Pentagon is full of people who take orders and who essentially plan for war (or defense) as their livelihood. Orders not to talk about 9/11 have been given. (Even NY first responders were given such gag orders.) I suspect we’ll be able to find very little truth coming from the Pentagon, because doubt and confusion serves them better.
On another subject from the beginning of your paper, you write:
First of all, this comment was irrelevant to your paper. It has more the appearance of you and Mr. Legge setting up your own broad-brush straw man.
Secondly, “dustification” of the steel is a misrepresentation of Dr. Wood’s book. If you read it rather than skimmed it, you would know this. I am now in the camp of directed energy weapons, due to their ease in installation and targeting. They turned water molecules that were trapped within content into steam, whose expanding volumic pressure blew apart the content containers, leaving dust and steam. Pulverization of concrete and drywall is a massive energy sink. Where did the energy come from? This is a separate question from what caused the destruction. Could it have been “dircted free energy” from the weatherman-conspiracy to completely unreport Hurrican Erin that they’d been tracking and reporting all week, just not when it was close to NY on 9/11/2001? Or could it have been bad ass power distribution cables they ran down the elevator shafts and plugged into some nuclear or cold-fusion reactors? The latter at least would explain the anomalous radiation readings. Pack/paint the power generator and the separated DEW into their own “blanket” of super-duper nano-thermite, so that much of the mechanism remnants can be destroyed and obscured.
Third, Dr. Wood raises important questions about energy requirements. She compiles lots of evidence that most in the truth movement do not address, thereby making their theories the weaker ones. She questions some of the evidence that we were led to believe. Glowing does not always equate to hot.
An objective analysis of the evidence (and connections) in Dr. Wood’s textbook is required. Your hand-wavy dismissal doesn’t cut it. Make it your next peer-reviewed effort.
Dear Mr. Chandler,
Allow me to provide some perspective. About the time their first term was over, the Bush Administration had 47 major scandals that individually would have brought down any other administration. True to Karl Rove’s remarks to a reporter (paraphrased): “We are an empire now and create our own realities. While you are judiciously analyzing one, we will have created two or three other realities.” The Bush Administration kept piling it on. With the help of a complicit corporate media constantly framing President Bush as a war president and projecting American flags waving proudly behind the logos of the day — “America at War”, “The Global War on Terror”, “The War against Terror” –, with sound-bite reporting, and with the telly-viewing public’s short attention span, details on the scandal four or five scandals ago leaked at the right time overshadowed the scandal-of-the-day and kept dots from being connected.
9/11 was this “pile it on” modus operandus in miniture. One hijacked and crashed aircraft would have been analyzed to death like one space shuttle disaster. Four, however, pile it on and play against each other, whereby details from one get mixed in the others so that the public’s cognitive dissonance will happily avoid a headache and settle on theories advertized as Occam Razor, coincidentally the very conspiracy theories promoted by the corporate media and govt spokemen before the dust of the towers had even settled.
The fact is that each of the four need to be viewed separately where techniques for one (inserted faked radar blips) may or may not have been used for another (cruise missile). In the case of the destruction of the WTC complex, redundant and supplementary destructive mechanisms from one building do not have to equate to that of another.
I take issue with a small passage in the joint statement by David Chandler and Jonathan Cole
The demolition of the towers clearly had origins within them. Framing this “crazy” notion as space lasers is deceitful on two counts. One is that it attempts to take off of the table how lasers (or directed energy weapons) might have legitimately been used within the towers to achieve the pulverization on content. The other is that it attempts to take space lasers off the table where they might legitimately apply, like being responsible for the massive crater in WTC-6, the cylindrical bore-holes in WTC-5, and the leveling of WTC-4 main edifice at a neat line with its North Wing. What was the telly weatherman-conspiracy on the morning of 9/11? Before planes were hijacked, the conspiracy was not to report Hurricane Erin at it closest point to NYC although they’d been tracking and reporting it all week.
A second part of your strawman passage was: “Others claim no planes hit the Twin Towers at all: they were just holograms.” I am a no-planer of the “September Clues” school, such a duped useful idiot am I. However, I do not endorse holograms. In fact, those who promote holograms are usually not in the no-planer camp, such as yourself. They are detractors who try to mis-frame and ridicule the supportable theory of no-planes by adding elements as you have done with this attempt at an off-hand dismissal.
What is the A to Z extent of the proof that commercial planes hit the towers? Pixels on the telly. It is not a hangar of meticulously excavated airplane parts with serial numbers that matched the documented maintenance records of the commercial planes. We have seen pixels on the telly do remarkable things with regards to special effects over the years, but that doesn’t make it real.
In my travels around the 9/11 block being duped by one notion or another, evidence and convincing arguments are what got me to believe one thing and what can get me to believe another. All of the things you ridicule? Lasers — space-based or spire-based within the towers — and no-commercial-planes via telly pixels? These have not been debunked. Ridiculed? For sure. Definitively proven wrong with evidence, etc.? Nope.
In fact, as a physics teacher, Mr. Chandler, you owe it to yourself to explore “September Clues” in your next peer-reviewed effort after your peer-reviewed piece on Dr. Wood’s textbook, because the lack of crash physics at the towers is one of the glaring pieces of evidence that expose how we were manipulated with television.
Where was the deformation of the aluminum aircraft upon impact with the steel tower designed to withstand such force?
Measuring the speed of the plane’s tail, how could it enter the steel towers at the same speed it flew through thin air?
How come the wings didn’t sheer off in the sudden deceleration we expected but didn’t see?
The Pentagon plane supposed had its wings folded back upon impact with its face, which is (supposedly) why the hole there is smaller than a real plane. So why didn’t the wings on the 2nd WTC plane fold up where the steel tower walls were stronger than the Pentagon’s concrete walls?
Why did the wings out to their very tippy tips leave a Road-Runner outline on the face of the tower?
Aluminum wings slicing steel like butter?
Back to measuring the speed of the plane’s tail, how was this faster at sea level than the rated maximum of the aircraft at altitude?
Why do the various videos (44 of them, I believe) have discrepancies in flight path?
Regarding the miracle triple zoom shot from the helicopter to capture the final seconds of impact, why don’t we see the plane where its calculate speed says it should be when playing the footage backwards and look at the zoom out’s?
You think that exploring the totality of the evidence into the areas of advanced technology and computer generated imagery tars the movement. However, it is still open for debate what the absurdly false theories are. The fuel a media circus? Gee, the 9/11 Truth Movement has been trying to get that for a decade and would be a damn good thing, because such a media circus would have brought awareness to the public, something the govt and complicit corporate media actively suppressed.
Making the Movement look ridiculous? What does this is not taking the discussion where it needs to go. What better way to steer (and tar) the movement.
Mr. Chandler,
Thank you for at least having the courage to post your views on a forum where you opposition can respond to you (unlike your comfortable little 911blogger cocoon). I have a suspicion, however, that your post was a hit-and-run, and that you won’t be back.
I noticed that on your facebook profile, your religious views are “Love thy neighbor as thyself” and your political views are “Treat thy neighbor as thyself.” You might want to start taking your own advice, and any respect I had for you because of your excellent WTC work went out the window when I saw you using your clout to start telling the movement what to think re the Pentagon, and in particular your hateful unprovoked attack on two of the most hard working and original people in the movement, Craig and Aldo.
To take apart a few points of your post:
“their attack on cab driver Lloyd England to be abusive and absolutely appalling. (His experience and testimony of nearly being killed by a light pole spearing his windshield conflicts with their theory, so they smear him as a conspirator.)”
This is rubbish. Lloyde England discredits himself with both internal and external contradictions in his story. It is a no-brainer that there would indeed be some planted witnesses whose exclusive purpose is to support the official story. Lloyde said one thing when the camera was running and another when he thought it was off. He learned how the numerous NoC witnesses contradict his light pole story, so he tried to reconcile his story with those witnesses, saying the cab was further north than even the photos themselves show. However, he admitted when he thought he wasn’t being recorded that the cab was up on the bridge. He also “virtually” admitted to being a plant witnesses when he thought the camera was not on.
The fact that you seem to be less concerned about what really happened at the Pentagon and more concerned that Lloyde England’s feeeeeelings might be hurt (all together now: “Aaawwwwwww! That poor, precious old man!”) speaks volumes. What about Richard Gage playing the clip of the “Harley Guy” in Manhattan and clearly insinuating the man was a plant to sell the official collapse theory? Where’s your outrage here?
The fact that you use a false argument from emotion, to turn people away from actually looking at the contradictions riddled within an obviously false “witness,” Mr. Chandler, is EXACTLY what I would totally expect from Cointel. The fact that you gained the movement’s profound trust with your WTC work, and then expend that credibility capital by using extremely flimsy arguments to neutralize other truthers’ Pentagon investigation, is COMPLETELY consistent with what I’d expect from high level Cointel.
I don’t have an unlimited amount of time to take every single word of your post apart – and besides it’s already been done by Craig in his response to your hit piece – but I would like to most forcefully challenge you on this:
“Yes, I and others reasoned with Richard Gage to urge him to rescind his (misrepresented) endorsement of CIT, but I am in no position to “pressure” him other than through the legitimate power of persuasion and reasonable argument.”
First: I challenge you to show us ANY, and I mean ANY, example of where CIT “misrepresented” Richard’s endorsement of NSA. Richard’s words spoke for themselves and his blurb of praise stood on their Praise page like all the other blurbs of praise. In various forums and blogs, CIT did remind people that Richard Gage “supports our work” but they NEVER stated or implied that he specifically endorsed their flyover conclusion. As I said, Richard’s own words spoke for themselves, and all he basically did was thank CIT for assembling such a comprehensive body of first person interviews, and suggested that these interviews deserved serious attention and that people should check them out. This issue of “misrepresentation” was a non-issue created by your divisive “camp,” and yes, this is another kind of tactic I would expect from Cointel.
Finally, you say that CIT’s own witnesses destroy the flyover theory. Well then, by that logic, millions of people who saw the planes hit the buildings and then saw the buildings collapse, destroy Richard’s demolition theory. We could also say that ever A&E in the world who HASN’T signed Richard’s petition disagrees with Richard’s conclusion. 9/11 was meant to be a deception, and it’s not at all surprising that most if not all of the Pentagon witnesses believe the plane hit. You also don’t know that lots of people DIDN’T report a flyover, because the 911 emergency calls from the Pentagon event have not been released, unlike the WTC 911 calls. Also, not everyone has the courage of W Rodriguez or April Gallop. Some people who may have see the whole thing go down, and privately concluded that this was a sleight of hand on the part of Rumsfeld et al, would fear repercussions if they came forward. Do you really think that lots of witnesses would have come forward, and the media would have picked up on it? Do you really think that the following Sunday, on Meet the Press, Tim Russert would have grilled Rumsfeld about those flyover witnesses and asked the tough question: “Mr. Secretary, was this whole event staged?”
I have to conclude by echoing Adam Ruff’s sentiments: your arguments against CIT and in favor of a 757 crash are flimsy, hollow and they are every bit as bad as Popular Mechanics’ attempt to neutralize the movement as a whole.
(As I said, I look forward to your replying to my challenge of showing me an instance of where CIT misrepresented Richard. But as I said up top, I think your post was a hit-and-run and that you won’t be back.)
I totally agree with you, Adam. The Lloyde England thing is really stomach-turning from these people. And it’s the same lines we hear from all the Blogger crowd over and over. Poor Lloyde – and after he invited them in and everything!
David Chandler would like us all to believe that he and Jon Cole have “debunked” CIT in much the same way Popular Mechanics would like us all to believe they have “debunked” the truth movement as a whole. Yet Chandler’s material was itself quickly and decisively debunked by CIT in much the same way Popular Mechanics (PM) material was decisively debunked by David Ray Griffin.
Popular Mechanics and many other media presstitutes have been challenged to debate 9/11 issues with our experts and have steadfastly refused. Chandler and Cole were likewise challenged by CIT (the people they attacked unprovoked) to debate the pentagon issue yet just like PM and all the other presstitutes have refused to discuss the issue in the open.
I see no difference at all between PM and Chandler/Cole. Both teams launched baseless, sloppy, and unscientific attacks against the truth movement and then refused to back up their claims in a public debate. Refusing debate is not the action of a genuine truther it is the action of a “Troll” to hit and run.
There is no excuse whatsoever for the attack on CIT in the first place but after launching it Chandler and Cole should have at least had the courage to debate CIT in the open especially in light of CIT’s devastating response to their sloppy attack piece.
Sorry readers for getting heated here but I have no respect for a so called “truther” who attacks the work of other truthers and then is not man enough to face them in the open. Chandler, Cole, Hoffman, Ashley, Legge and all the other hit and run trolls that skulk around 911Blogger (where all opposition has been carefully silenced) are not truthers in my book.
Dear Mr. RuffAdam,
On this very blog and other places on the internet, I have challenged the position of some instrumental players in the 9/11 Truth Movement. Gee, I guess I even do that above with the esteemed Mr. Chandler.
Whereas I do want discussion or even debate in the open, my definition of in the open does not require a public debate in some auditorium with a listening audience. The logistics of that — travel, lodging, filling/paying-for the venue — makes me a poor candidate. And were we to limit that to a recorded Skype event, I also would shy away from it. I’m not a George Clooney sound or look-a-like, so the value-add of such a public debate for me is minimal.
I write well and can defend my words quite adequately in written form.
Defending my position with spoken words? In a public venue? With an audience? With a microphone?
This is a completely different skill set. Preparation is different. Time requirements and commitment are different. My skill set puts me at a disadvantage. And I’m not too proud to say that I require permission from my better half even if I’m sponsored or the debate made easy to attend.
In this manner, I gently refute the statements:
I alluded to permission from a better half. You challenge such “attackers” for “not [being] man enough to face [someone] in the open.” Let me tell you, if you were calling me out, the test of my manhood would have to be performed twice: once at the debate and once after the debate and my better half got hold of my privates. The results of each test will vary, I’m sad to say. And Oh, how I would miss them.
Perspective. There is still plenty of room for “open debate” on the internet, IMHO.
The Chandler/Legge paper was debunked over two years before it was ever published.
Read more here…
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=21569&view=findpost&p=10800866
Mr. Balsamo’s linked discussion goes further and eventually links to this other thread.
This is the starting point, whereby Gravity32 may be Mr. Legge himself. Page 4 or 5 get into the real meat. At any rate, here is a choice quotation that — surprised even me! — is in agreement with the unproven lynchpin of the Chandler/Legge paper that I pointed out.
A320Slave writes:
A little embarrassing, I’d say. Thus, if the pressure altimeter is still within its calibration envelope, it is not necessarily in error. Deviations between it and the FDR use of the radar altimeter come from where? From the found and decoded final 4 seconds from the untrustworthy FDR. A house of cards.
Senior El Once,
I suppose the most hilarious part of it all is that Legge and Chandler think that a radio altimeter can accurately and precisely measure distance when engaged in anything less than 330 fps vertical speed closure rate with the ground.
Clearly they both (Chandler, Legge… including Warren Stutt) assumed Radio Altimeter Tracking capability was in the vertical due to their already preconceived conclusions. Unfortunately for them, they aren’t familiar with basic trigonometry. Legge should have learned his lesson the first time when i had to correct his errors in basic trig in his first “paper” which underwent 8 revisions and needs more.
Dear Mr. Balsamo,
I am speculating here, but as a busy high school physics teacher, Mr. Chandler may have been duped by Mr. Legge into co-authoring. We don’t know what the share of each contribution was, what thoughts and assertions came more from one than the other.
I still have vast respect for Mr. Chandler’s high school physics videos on the towers destruction. Except he needs to address the energy questions better. Most of Mr. Legge’s work? Respect? Not so much.
I find two things hilarious. One is that a non-pilot (but not-science-challenged) dolt like me can quickly locate and pull the lynchpin on their argument regarding the pressure-based altimeter supposedly operating outside its range of calibration, thereby making its measurements supposedly in error and making the flight data recorder information with the radio-altimeter measurements (and a most untrustworthy chain of custody and analysis) more accurate. *BEEP* *BEEP* *FAIL*
The second is that Legge (with Chandler) published the unfounded conclusions, now fishes in a pilot’s forum for confirmation of the underlying altimeter assumptions, and is getting his hat handed to him, because that whole paper is now completely undermined due to this lynchpin error in those assumptions. Legge was duped by the faked FDR information and its dubious analysis, yet he doesn’t admit it. You point out that it might be on purpose, oh my.
I wonder how much “legge” Mr. Legge pulled to get Mr. Chandler on board. How embarrassing.
However, Mr. Chandler can man-up. He can offer an apology.
I’d like to see his objective analysis of both Dr. Wood’s textbook that he received and the lack of crash physics that “September Clues” points out in the WTC pixels of planes.