The 9/11 Forum

OneWhiteEye wrote:I can expound on that, just not right now.

No need, looks like SnowCrash covered it all above.

Heretic76 wrote:Oystein

The only "proof" that Suquami was onboard the aircraft the hit the tower is a government statement to that effect. You may recall that the first passenger manifests released did not contain his name.

Thus it appears that you rely upon updated/edited/falsified passenger manifests for your 'proof', and my standard of proof might be higher than yours.

Have you an opinion about how or why they could find identification papers and small parts of human bodies at WTC, but no Flight Data Recorder there?

I fully subscribe to SnowCrash's reply and have nothing to add.

OneWhiteEye wrote:And, folks, not only is this not JREF, Oystein isn't JREF either. It's hard not to be touchy when discussing this subject from opposing viewpoints, but let's do try to avoid tarring with the broad brush. Take each post and each point on its own, not in the context of some larger historical battle between 'us' and 'them'. Because, ultimately, there is no us and them, there is only each of us.

For most of you, I'm probably a lot closer to them than you! Or neither...

Thank you, OWE

manxman wrote:The OP will reply just as soon as you leave your jref attituude at the door, sander has been 10 times as polite as i would of been, so i diidnt infest the thread with it, you see thats how we roll here.

manxman, I believe you are more interested in the argument than the arguer. Did you find any fault with my arguments? Please fire away!

Snow

I admire your even-handed treatment of all theories advanced, both the official theory and others.

And it's quite likely I'm guilty of oversimplification here.

But I wonder if it is also a well known reasoning error to accept at face value the statements of a person or entity notorious for its mendacity?

We are not in a court of law here, we are in the court of public opinion, and dare I say that the public perception, and thus the public opinion, is constantly being manipulated by those who inform us?

When numerous members of the 911 Commission have commented in public about the huge shortcomings in the way the commission was run, and the untruthful statements of the DoD, might any conclusions be drawn?

And I'm quite sure that by the Rules of Logic, that if a thesis is advanced, and that thesis contains multiple parts making up the whole, if any one of those parts is proved invalid, the entire thesis fails.

Heretic76 wrote:And I'm quite sure that by the Rules of Logic, that if a thesis is advanced, and that thesis contains multiple parts making up the whole, if any one of those parts is proved invalid, the entire thesis fails.

Quoting from David Ray Griffin's "The New Pearl Harbor":

I should perhaps emphasize that it is not necessary for all of the evidence to stand up, given the nature of the argument. Some arguments are, as we say, "only as strong as the weakest link." These are deductive arguments, in which each step in the argument depends on the truth of the previous step. If a single premise is found to be false, the argument fails. However, the argument for official complicity in 9/11 is a cumulative argument. This kind of argument is a general argument consisting of several particular arguments that are independent from each other. As such, each particular argument provides support for all the others.

Rather than being like a chain, a cumulative argument is more like a cable composed of many strands. Each strand strengthens the cable. But if there are many strands, the cable can still hold a lot of weight even if some of them unravel. As the reader will see, there are many strands in the argument for official complicity in 9/11 summarized in this book. If the purported evidence on which some of these are based turns out to be unreliable, that would not necessarily undermine the overall argument. This cumulative argument would then simply be supported by fewer strands. And some of the strands are such that, if the evidence on which they are based is confirmed, the case could be supported by one or two of them. ^[43]

-- David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, Page xxiv

And, in footnote 43:

43

I emphasize this point because some polemicists, when confronted by a book whose
conclusion they do not like, seek to undermine this conclusion by focusing on the few
points that they believe can be most easily discredited. That tactic, assuming that good
evidence is really presented against those points, is valid with regard to a deductive
argument. In relation to a cumulative argument, however, it is tactic useful only to those
concerned with something other than truth.

David argues for a conspiracy here, but the same could be argued for non-conspiracy. The distinction between a cumulative and a deductive argument still holds. Which is why there are so many different interpretations of 9/11 even within the 9/11 Truth Movement, because some accept more strands from the government cable than they accept strands from David Ray Griffin, and vice versa.

Anyways, you wouldn't want to argue against David Ray Griffin, would you?

Good heavens no!!!

I can accept all that Snow. Now I would like to see how many strands of the Official Conspiracy Theory can hold weight.

Unless one argues that the events of the day were planned and executed by 1 individual, and I doubt anybody would take that position, then a conspiracy existed. The only serious question is just who the conspirators were?

How does the ordinary man reconcile the findings of the 911 Commission with the statements of several of its members? How many strands can we count?

Heretic76 wrote:Snow

I admire your even-handed treatment of all theories advanced, both the official theory and others.

And it's quite likely I'm guilty of oversimplification here.

But I wonder if it is also a well known reasoning error to accept at face value the statements of a person or entity notorious for its mendacity?

Are you recommending the reaoning method often called "Poisoning the Well" here? That we should discard evidence because you don't like its source?
Well, I am neutral towards that source. I am not believing everything official sources tell me uncritically, but I am also not automatically discarding everything uncritically what official sources tell me. If you want me to accept your argument that I should not use a police statement, as reportedf by several news outlets, as evidence, you need to explain that argument. Saying that somewhere some different officials where less than honest about something else doesn't quite make the cur for me. Can you understand that?

However, when I started posting in this thread, I tried to contribute to the question raised by the OP when I examined this official statement. Here's what I can do:
- Examine if there is independent evidence available that either contradicts or corroborates the statement. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any such independent evidence. If you have any, fire away, I am all ears!
- Examine if the claim is at all possible. I fouind it is possible for passports to escape plabe crashes.
- Examine if the statement is consistent with the framework og knowledge it has been presented in. I found that yes, the official statements about the passport are fully compatible with the overall strory that AQ terrorists piloted an airliner into the North Tower.


So this addressed the question raised by the OP, who opined that the report was incredible and finding the passport not to be believed. I think I showed that this incredulity is not supported by independent evidence, and that, to the contrary, the official statement appears to be squarely in the realm of the possible and believable.


Now, if you want to disagree, you need to do one of the following:
- Present evidence that shows that indeed the statement was faked.
- Present evidence that finding the passport was impossible
- Present evidence that the story is incompatible with the official story.

If you can't do any of this, you are still free to believe whatever you want about the passport story, but be advised that your believe is not supported by evidence.

Heretic76 wrote:...
How does the ordinary man reconcile the findings of the 911 Commission with the statements of several of its members? How many strands can we count?

Can you please name at least one member of the 911 Commission who has said anything that can be reasonably construed as him expressing doubts about any of the key findings, namely
- that four airliners were hijacked and piloted by terrorists on a suicide mission
- that their plane crashes caused all of the death and destruction at GZ, the Pentagon, and Shanksville
- that these terrorists were affiliated with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida network

Thanks.

Oystein wrote:

Heretic76 wrote:...
How does the ordinary man reconcile the findings of the 911 Commission with the statements of several of its members? How many strands can we count?

Can you please name at least one member of the 911 Commission who has said anything that can be reasonably construed as him expressing doubts about any of the key findings, namely
- that four airliners were hijacked and piloted by terrorists on a suicide mission
- that their plane crashes caused all of the death and destruction at GZ, the Pentagon, and Shanksville
- that these terrorists were affiliated with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida network

Thanks.

This a subtle reinforcement of a false dichotomy, namely, if terrorists hijacked the planes, planes crashed into buildings (or the ground), and the 9/11 hijackers existed and swore an oath to Osama Bin Laden (Not all terrorists committing attacks under the moniker Al Qaeda actually work for Al Qaeda or swear an oath to Bin Laden, they could be labeled as 'terrorist entrepreneurs looking for investment and training' instead), then the US government has been cleared of all involvement in 9/11.

The artificial constraints you've just established around the criticism you're willing to accept from the 9/11 Commissioners on their own work, preclude any of us citing their more general and less specific complaints and in some cases (Max Cleland) harsh denunciations of the entire commission.

When criticisms about the 9/11 Commission, the documents and sources it had access to, the (non-)cooperation from the White House, NORAD, the CIA, FAA or the Pentagon, are of the severity we've seen, we are more than entitled to question the validity of the 9/11 narrative.

However, the doubtful nature of the 9/11 Commission report does not constitute a blank check to reject the entire body of evidence for Al Qaeda's involvement or orchestration of 9/11, and further a baseless total MIHOP narrative instead.

I've written about this false dichotomy, but when I wrote it I was addressing a "truther" audience, not a "debunker" audience, but it applies to both.

http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-26/f ... ma-fallacy

I'm happy to have written it, because I've been able to cite it dozens of times since then. It's an extremely widespread, polarizing misconception about 9/11.

"Debunkers" tend to be willing and eager to expand culpability for 9/11 to Gulf States and Iran, but not to their own government. I'm sure you've heard about the latest kangaroo court farce "establishing" Iranian involvement in 9/11. I wonder why the judge wasn't so keen to dismiss the case with prejudice on the basis of its "frivolousness" as the other judge rightfully was when dealing with April Gallop's no plane theory.

Let's take a guess. Nationalist pride?

I don't have much faith in the court system. And even you Oystein (I'm not assuming you're American, I believe you're German?), must have noticed the extremely disturbing totalitarian slippery slope the United States has found itself on. We can, but don't even have to look at 9/11 to establish that, although there is a clear causal relationship.

I'll quote two important people involved in official 9/11 investigations, from another article I wrote, about Julian Assange's take on 9/11:

Bob Graham: "If by conspiracy you mean, more than one person involved, yes, there was more than one person and there was some ... collaboration of efforts among agencies and the administration to keep information out of the public's hands."

Bob Graham chaired the Joint Inquiry into 9/11, a precursor to the 9/11 Commission Report.

I find this severe enough by itself to merit a new investigation by an independent international body, with full access. Of course, that will never happen. For that, the top echelons of the US government and their sponsors are too criminal and corrupt. Not that they are incapable of ever doing any good, or that they will always lie, but the chance of a thorough, transparent and honest investigation which truly gets to the bottom of US government actions leading up to 9/11, on the day of 9/11 and after 9/11, in the current totalitarian climate is nil.

Former 9/11 Commission Bob Kerrey said, in a dialogue with Jemery Roth-Kushel:

Bob Kerrey: "It's a problem... it's a 30-year-old conspiracy"

Jeremy Rothe-Kushel: "No.. I'm talking about 9/11"

Bob Kerrey: "That's what I'm talking about"

I believe Bob Kerrey was referring to Operation Cyclone at the time.

Both individuals used the term "conspiracy" in a context distinct from the official narrative of a conspiracy hatched by Al Qaeda in the nineties, and expand it to include elements of the US government. Neither say the US government planned and executed 9/11, but that is not what I am saying either.

My article critiquing Julian Assange (without denouncing him, because I actually support him) has been read by at least 30,000 people in 130 countries on 911blogger alone. Sadly, what most people took away from it was that Wikileaks must be 'cointelpro'.

There is plenty of evidence supporting Al Qaeda planning, training for and subsequently executing the 9/11 attacks. With that, I am obviously distancing myself quite far from the 9/11 Truth Movement, much further than I used to be, because I hadn't studied the Al Qaeda side of the story very well.

What I am interested in knowing now, after all that I've learned, is what the US knew about the impending attacks and when, and with that a plausible explanation for their curious behavior leading up to, on and after 9/11.

In other words, I know the 9/11 Commission Report is a cover-up, but of what? "MIHOP", which is actually in-movement code for "no hijackers" and/or "no planes" and/or "no passengers"?

No, absolutely not.

Incompetence? What the CIA and the FBI did with Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi isn't incompetence.

The CIA intimidated Duffy & Nowosielski, because they uncovered the name of two previously anonymous CIA operatives, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky (Link to History Commons) and Michael Anne Casey (Link to History Commons)

Jon Gold knows Nowosielski, he helped fund "9/11 Press For Truth". I happen to talk to Jon Gold now and then. Jon has been spied on by the US Government along with Cindy Sheehan for his involvement with peace action. It stands to reason the CIA would spy on Duffy and Nowosielski too.

None of the issues brought to light by Kevin Fenton, Robert Schopmeyer, Duffy & Nowosielski and even former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke amount to "incompetence", and none of it involves clutching firmly to Northwoods-based explanations for 9/11, on the basis of incredulity of the finding of a hijacker passport.

I tried to alert the news staff of the website rawstory.com to the existence of this new research and the incendiary statements by Richard Clarke about Cofer Black, Richard Blee and George Tenet, who used to be Clarke's friend, and I personally witnessed Guardian journalist Megan Carpentier throw down the censorship gauntlet. Just Richard Clarke's opinion, she said. I was a volunteer for Rawstory. I stopped volunteering. A friend who runs the volunteer team was astonished by Megan's actions but ... what do you do?

In the mean time, Rawstory publishes one ridiculous tabloid story after another.

The media, including the alternative media, censors itself.

So what was it all about?



MIHOP? (no hijackers) .... No.
Incompetence? No.

Snow

Mine is not an argument in that I am not trying to persuade you or change you. Many of my statements here end with question marks, but not all of them.

Like every other poster, I'm putting out my opinion on any given subject.

And I know I am not alone on many of my opinions, as there are quite a few others who agree. Most don't like to talk about it, but they understand the cynical implications. Sometimes I can understand their wish not to talk about it, with those wicked implications.

I've heard that argument before, that Assange was working for somebody nefarius. Wikileaks & COINTELPRO. It's possible for sure, but I vote against it. They angered the govt, big time.

Still....one never knows, do one? :-0

I find it a bit funny, given a new Western culture in which we torture and murder people with the explicit go-ahead from the White House, to be worried about wicked implications.

Let's be real about it, sometimes people only wish to speak about implications when it involves the possible unmasking of a 'hidden truth', instead of something as plain as day, reported and confirmed widely, but equally morally repugnant. We don't even need 9/11 to establish the factuality of our nearly completed descent into a new form of pseudo-democracy. Tyranny, in various forms, is upon us now. Tyranny and authoritarianism aren't 'pending'. They are now.

So let's dispense with the fascination for conspiratorial mysticism alone and look at the cold hard facts. We've lost our democratic freedoms. We don't need "9/11 was an inside job" anymore to know this. I am still interested in 9/11 for many reasons. But I see a huge problem with selective interest in appalling government misconduct, based on a thriving, mostly internet-based conspiracy culture.

George didn't just admit he ordered human beings to be tortured, he actually bragged about it.

What more do you want? Do I think complicity in the murder of ~3000 American citizens is worse? Yes. But torture, murder, hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Middle East, war crimes and a broad campaign of domestic liberticide taken together are a worthy competitor in terms of relevance.

Let's not pussyfoot around the so-called 'implications' of inside job any longer. There are plenty of grave crimes happening out in the open, under our noses, too. We are all fucked bigtime, so what are we cultivating this turtle shell mentality for? Excitement?

I'm with you Dude, all the way.

For some people, especially those who prefer not to talk about it, the implications are wicked threatening their view of the world. People don't like to go crazy, so they just don't talk about it. Of course face to face with a person I have the added advantage of body language.