http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/more-absurd-arguments-on-the-pentagon-propaganda-team-sets-its-sights-on-griffin/
By: Craig McKee
Date: 2012-07-16
The co-ordinated group that wants the Pentagon out of the 9/11 truth discussion has won some key victories to be sure. But there’s one battle they haven’t won, and it really bugs them.
The group I described in my recent post, ‘Propaganda team’ uses contrived Pentagon fight to derail 9/11 Truth movement (Kevin Ryan, David Chandler, Frank Legge, Jonathan Cole, Jim Hoffman, John Bursill, and others) can’t stand the fact that David Ray Griffin continues to stand fast in his position that no 757 ever hit the Pentagon.
It seems to be their mission to convince all of us that we just don’t know what happened and we probably never will. They attempt to do this by talking incessantly about areas of evidence that they think we shouldn’t talk about so much.
With his “consensus approach” Griffin accommodated this small group by concluding that we all agree it is “relatively unimportant” whether a 757 hit the Pentagon but what can be agreed upon is that Flight 77 piloted by al-Qaeda did not. Griffin gave them six inches, now they want the whole foot.
Instead of doing what Griffin now advocates, which is seeking consensus within the Truth movement on where the official story can be shown to be wrong, this group pays lip service to wanting consensus at the same time they’re pretending to represent a significant and growing block in the 9/11 Truth movement in saying that a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. They don’t, it’s not, and it didn’t.
The most recent additions by the real “fringe” element of the movement to the discussion have come from Legge and Bursill (I erred in leaving him and John Wyndham off the team the first time). They have each contributed some deliciously absurd statements intended to attack the no-757-impact position.
But the position they’re trying to defend is so indefensible that it forces them to make statements that most people would be embarrassed to make. And they’re statements that neither Griffin nor any of the other reasonable people in the movement would ever find persuasive.
In Chapter 7 of his most recent book, 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed, Griffin makes a strong case for no plane impact and shows how weak the positions of Chandler, Legge, Cole, and Hoffmann really are. That was the good part. But he also gave way too much emphasis to their opinions by quoting them repeatedly. He bought into their con that they represent a significant part of the movement.
The other disturbing thing was that Griffin ignored CIT and Pilots for 9/11 Truth in his book, something that prompted outrage from former Consensus 9/11 Panel members Paul Zarembka, Barrie Zwicker, and Shelton Lankford. This, however, delighted Legge and the propaganda team.
Legge has latched onto to this omission in his most recent piece of “research.” In “The 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon: the Search for Consensus,” published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, Legge addresses Griffin’s Pentagon position and his omission of CIT:
“It is interesting that Griffin makes no mention of CIT in his latest book. One wonders whether consideration of this probability, and the relevant evidence, is leading him toward withdrawing his support for their no-plane-impact, flyover theory.”
You can wonder all you like, Frank, but it’s not going to happen. By the way, did you even read the chapter? Are you actually suggesting that it points to Griffin abandoning his no-757-impact position? In fact, it does just the opposite. Is this an oversight or a deliberate mischaracterization of Griffin’s position?
Bursill also dipped in the team’s current talking-points playbook in his recent appearance on The Kevin Barrett Show. He, like his pal Legge, predicted that Griffin was moving towards their position that a plane did hit.
“That’s why David Ray Griffin is winding back his position on the Pentagon,” Bursill said.
“In the last few years he’s been more and more careful about what did and did not happen on the Pentagon, and people are arguing in the scientific community that he should take a position that we don’t know what happened and there is evidence that a plane did hit there. And I believe this will end up being his position as time goes by and more and more people get involved in the argument on the Pentagon.”
Legge, Bursill and others in their group seem to think we have to start with absolute proof of what did happen before we begin to question the official version. There’s no requirement for the government to prove that a plane hit, for example.
Here’s how Legge explains it in his paper:
“As there is so much evidence for official misconduct, it is enticing to sift through the evidence in the hope of finding proof that the Pentagon attack was not as officially described. There is no doubt that there are suspicious features about the attack, such as the impact point being at the recently strengthened section of the Pentagon, still only sparsely occupied, and the failure to intercept the plane, but care is required to ensure that all claims are soundly based if credibility is not to be put at risk.”
I thought it was the government’s claims that we were examining and refuting. But it’s Legge, Bursill and their gang who are throwing credibility out the window. They want us to, “Look at the science!” but then they make statements like Bursill did about why the engines didn’t leave a discernible mark on the Pentagon wall:
“There was only enough place for the large, super-heavy parts to go through at the ground floor,” he said.
There was room for the super-heavy parts, but what about the regular heavy parts, and whatever is left after that? Where did they go? He is clearly stating that the hole is not big enough for the whole plane. And yet we were left with no major pieces of wreckage outside the building.
He explains the unbroken bullet-proof windows by saying that it’s reasonable to think a “sheet of aluminum” hitting the window would bounce off. This doesn’t quite jibe with his description of the incredible kinetic energy involved in this alleged crash that propelled the plane through the reinforced wall and into the building.
Please explain, John, how a piece of the aluminum plane can bounce off a window but not end up outside the building. Did you mean the familiar little piece with the red and blue American Airlines markings? I suppose you could make the case that this “bounced off.”
The thing that made listening to Bursill and his Pentagon views bearable was how Barrett stood up to him. My favourite part was when Barrett said Legge was full of hot air, prompting Bursill to react with alarm: “It’s not hot air, it’s science!” Priceless.
But Barrett was having none of it. He made his position clear:
“I have a very different opinion on that debate because Frank Legge’s work looks to me to be completely ludicrous in terms of his argument that a big plane could have hit on the official flight path; I mean it’s completely ridiculous.”
All the way through the show, when Bursill would hear even one word he didn’t like he’d jump in with no regard for the person he was interrupting. In terms of quantity, he was the clear winner. Many of his most ridiculous comments revolved around the idea that, “We just don’t have the data!” He seems to feel that when there’s any unresolved element at all, we should all default to the official story. That’s the one where Flight 77 hits the Pentagon, right?
Not to be outdone, Legge continues to try and convince members of the 9/11 Truth movement that he is a credible researcher on the subject of 9/11. Unfortunately, he keeps writing articles that prove otherwise.
In his new paper, he writes: “There are good reasons to believe the reported northerly path resulted from poor recollection of an unimportant detail which preceded a traumatic observation, as all these witnesses who were in a position to see the Pentagon reported that the plane hit the Pentagon, as have many other people (bold added).”
So, the witnesses had “poor recollection of an unimportant event.” Seriously? This is your explanation for Chadwick Brooks, William Lagasse, Ed Paik, Sean Boger, William Middleton Sr., Robert Turcios, Darius Prather, Darrell Stafford, George Aman, and Maria de la Cerda?
Legge will take as credible the accounts of those who claim to have seen the bodies of passengers inside the building, but he writes off as “poor recollections” the numerous witnesses who clearly establish that the approaching plane flew on a path north of the former Citgo gas station. This path, of course, is incompatible with the damage to light poles and the building.
Even more incredibly, Legge claims that anyone who believes the plane hit or that it was too low to miss is by default a South of Citgo witness because SoC is the official flight path. This is an incredible example of circular logic.
He puts the number of witnesses supporting impact at 93 (60 who believe the plane hit and 33 who believe it was flying too low to miss). He therefore states that it’s 93 for SoC and 13 for NoC (those interviewed by CIT). He doesn’t like the fact that Griffin found a number of these witnesses not to be credible.
First of all, the notion that anyone fooled by the Pentagon illusion is by default someone who thinks the plane flew to the south of the gas station is ludicrous. All of the NoC witnesses think the plane hit, too. Does that make them SoC witnesses?
Legge also ignores the many other witnesses who made statements consistent with the northern flight path. I refer you to an excellent compilation by Onesliceshort, a valued contributor to this blog, on the CIT forum.
In his conclusion, Legge makes a truly astonishing statement: “The great majority of the public believes that a plane hit the Pentagon, therefore if an activist tells people that there was no plane at the Pentagon, they will find the activist untrustworthy. How then can we expect them to pay attention to the far more important evidence that explosives were used at the World Trade Center, and falsely denied by NIST?”
Think about that for a minute. Take your time.
If we tell people that what they’ve been told isn’t true, they won’t think we’re trustworthy. But if we reinforce the false notion they’ve been fed by the government and the media, they’ll trust us. So why don’t we avoid telling people that explosives were used in the towers? We’re willing to risk being seen as untrustworthy to make that point.
Given the above quote, how can anyone find Legge trustworthy on anything?
This group has done everything in its power to marginalize evidence that the Pentagon was the scene of a faked plane crash. They worked on Richard Gage for a year and a half, finally convincing him to withdraw his stated support for the research of CIT. Gage released his withdrawal statement in February 2011, and he admits being “guided” by others in putting it together. Unfortunately, Legge is taken seriously by Gage who praised his “extensive” research in our interview in Montreal in April.
The propaganda team pressured others including Barrie Zwicker and Peter Dale Scott. Scott caved, Zwicker didn’t. The reversal of Gage and Scott gave team member Chris Sarns reason for optimism when he addressed Scott on 911blogger:
“I am now very confident that others will join you and Mr.Gage.”
But they didn’t.
Griffin compromised with his move to the “consensus approach” on the Pentagon, but at least he didn’t drop his support for the no-757-impact position. He has maintained this position throughout. And Griffin makes a very strong case in support of the no-impact position. But the team wants total capitulation. And they won’t stop pushing until they get what they want.
To all the members of this co-ordinated effort: he doesn’t agree with you. He’s not going to agree with you just because you push and push and push. Most of the Truth movement doesn’t agree with you. Your arguments for a 757 impact are ridiculous. There is a consensus in the movement – that you are wrong.
To conclude my remarks, I’ll take you to the beginning of Legge’s paper. He opens with this nugget of dishonesty.
“Strenuous efforts are being made to inform the public of this heinous crime but many activists are now concerned that this process is being hampered by ongoing dissension about what happened during the attack on the Pentagon.”
I’d rephrase it this way:
“Strenuous efforts to keep the evidence that a large plane did not hit the Pentagon from the public are being made by a small group of activists who are pretending that real dissension exists in the movement when it is they who are creating that dissension – deliberately.”
Okay, it might not flow as well, but at least it’s true.
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
By: Craig McKee
Date: 2012-07-16
The co-ordinated group that wants the Pentagon out of the 9/11 truth discussion has won some key victories to be sure. But there’s one battle they haven’t won, and it really bugs them.
The group I described in my recent post, ‘Propaganda team’ uses contrived Pentagon fight to derail 9/11 Truth movement (Kevin Ryan, David Chandler, Frank Legge, Jonathan Cole, Jim Hoffman, John Bursill, and others) can’t stand the fact that David Ray Griffin continues to stand fast in his position that no 757 ever hit the Pentagon.
It seems to be their mission to convince all of us that we just don’t know what happened and we probably never will. They attempt to do this by talking incessantly about areas of evidence that they think we shouldn’t talk about so much.
With his “consensus approach” Griffin accommodated this small group by concluding that we all agree it is “relatively unimportant” whether a 757 hit the Pentagon but what can be agreed upon is that Flight 77 piloted by al-Qaeda did not. Griffin gave them six inches, now they want the whole foot.
Instead of doing what Griffin now advocates, which is seeking consensus within the Truth movement on where the official story can be shown to be wrong, this group pays lip service to wanting consensus at the same time they’re pretending to represent a significant and growing block in the 9/11 Truth movement in saying that a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. They don’t, it’s not, and it didn’t.
The most recent additions by the real “fringe” element of the movement to the discussion have come from Legge and Bursill (I erred in leaving him and John Wyndham off the team the first time). They have each contributed some deliciously absurd statements intended to attack the no-757-impact position.
But the position they’re trying to defend is so indefensible that it forces them to make statements that most people would be embarrassed to make. And they’re statements that neither Griffin nor any of the other reasonable people in the movement would ever find persuasive.
In Chapter 7 of his most recent book, 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed, Griffin makes a strong case for no plane impact and shows how weak the positions of Chandler, Legge, Cole, and Hoffmann really are. That was the good part. But he also gave way too much emphasis to their opinions by quoting them repeatedly. He bought into their con that they represent a significant part of the movement.
The other disturbing thing was that Griffin ignored CIT and Pilots for 9/11 Truth in his book, something that prompted outrage from former Consensus 9/11 Panel members Paul Zarembka, Barrie Zwicker, and Shelton Lankford. This, however, delighted Legge and the propaganda team.
Legge has latched onto to this omission in his most recent piece of “research.” In “The 9/11 Attack on the Pentagon: the Search for Consensus,” published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, Legge addresses Griffin’s Pentagon position and his omission of CIT:
“It is interesting that Griffin makes no mention of CIT in his latest book. One wonders whether consideration of this probability, and the relevant evidence, is leading him toward withdrawing his support for their no-plane-impact, flyover theory.”
You can wonder all you like, Frank, but it’s not going to happen. By the way, did you even read the chapter? Are you actually suggesting that it points to Griffin abandoning his no-757-impact position? In fact, it does just the opposite. Is this an oversight or a deliberate mischaracterization of Griffin’s position?
Bursill also dipped in the team’s current talking-points playbook in his recent appearance on The Kevin Barrett Show. He, like his pal Legge, predicted that Griffin was moving towards their position that a plane did hit.
“That’s why David Ray Griffin is winding back his position on the Pentagon,” Bursill said.
“In the last few years he’s been more and more careful about what did and did not happen on the Pentagon, and people are arguing in the scientific community that he should take a position that we don’t know what happened and there is evidence that a plane did hit there. And I believe this will end up being his position as time goes by and more and more people get involved in the argument on the Pentagon.”
Legge, Bursill and others in their group seem to think we have to start with absolute proof of what did happen before we begin to question the official version. There’s no requirement for the government to prove that a plane hit, for example.
Here’s how Legge explains it in his paper:
“As there is so much evidence for official misconduct, it is enticing to sift through the evidence in the hope of finding proof that the Pentagon attack was not as officially described. There is no doubt that there are suspicious features about the attack, such as the impact point being at the recently strengthened section of the Pentagon, still only sparsely occupied, and the failure to intercept the plane, but care is required to ensure that all claims are soundly based if credibility is not to be put at risk.”
I thought it was the government’s claims that we were examining and refuting. But it’s Legge, Bursill and their gang who are throwing credibility out the window. They want us to, “Look at the science!” but then they make statements like Bursill did about why the engines didn’t leave a discernible mark on the Pentagon wall:
“There was only enough place for the large, super-heavy parts to go through at the ground floor,” he said.
There was room for the super-heavy parts, but what about the regular heavy parts, and whatever is left after that? Where did they go? He is clearly stating that the hole is not big enough for the whole plane. And yet we were left with no major pieces of wreckage outside the building.
He explains the unbroken bullet-proof windows by saying that it’s reasonable to think a “sheet of aluminum” hitting the window would bounce off. This doesn’t quite jibe with his description of the incredible kinetic energy involved in this alleged crash that propelled the plane through the reinforced wall and into the building.
Please explain, John, how a piece of the aluminum plane can bounce off a window but not end up outside the building. Did you mean the familiar little piece with the red and blue American Airlines markings? I suppose you could make the case that this “bounced off.”
The thing that made listening to Bursill and his Pentagon views bearable was how Barrett stood up to him. My favourite part was when Barrett said Legge was full of hot air, prompting Bursill to react with alarm: “It’s not hot air, it’s science!” Priceless.
But Barrett was having none of it. He made his position clear:
“I have a very different opinion on that debate because Frank Legge’s work looks to me to be completely ludicrous in terms of his argument that a big plane could have hit on the official flight path; I mean it’s completely ridiculous.”
All the way through the show, when Bursill would hear even one word he didn’t like he’d jump in with no regard for the person he was interrupting. In terms of quantity, he was the clear winner. Many of his most ridiculous comments revolved around the idea that, “We just don’t have the data!” He seems to feel that when there’s any unresolved element at all, we should all default to the official story. That’s the one where Flight 77 hits the Pentagon, right?
Not to be outdone, Legge continues to try and convince members of the 9/11 Truth movement that he is a credible researcher on the subject of 9/11. Unfortunately, he keeps writing articles that prove otherwise.
In his new paper, he writes: “There are good reasons to believe the reported northerly path resulted from poor recollection of an unimportant detail which preceded a traumatic observation, as all these witnesses who were in a position to see the Pentagon reported that the plane hit the Pentagon, as have many other people (bold added).”
So, the witnesses had “poor recollection of an unimportant event.” Seriously? This is your explanation for Chadwick Brooks, William Lagasse, Ed Paik, Sean Boger, William Middleton Sr., Robert Turcios, Darius Prather, Darrell Stafford, George Aman, and Maria de la Cerda?
Legge will take as credible the accounts of those who claim to have seen the bodies of passengers inside the building, but he writes off as “poor recollections” the numerous witnesses who clearly establish that the approaching plane flew on a path north of the former Citgo gas station. This path, of course, is incompatible with the damage to light poles and the building.
Even more incredibly, Legge claims that anyone who believes the plane hit or that it was too low to miss is by default a South of Citgo witness because SoC is the official flight path. This is an incredible example of circular logic.
He puts the number of witnesses supporting impact at 93 (60 who believe the plane hit and 33 who believe it was flying too low to miss). He therefore states that it’s 93 for SoC and 13 for NoC (those interviewed by CIT). He doesn’t like the fact that Griffin found a number of these witnesses not to be credible.
First of all, the notion that anyone fooled by the Pentagon illusion is by default someone who thinks the plane flew to the south of the gas station is ludicrous. All of the NoC witnesses think the plane hit, too. Does that make them SoC witnesses?
Legge also ignores the many other witnesses who made statements consistent with the northern flight path. I refer you to an excellent compilation by Onesliceshort, a valued contributor to this blog, on the CIT forum.
In his conclusion, Legge makes a truly astonishing statement: “The great majority of the public believes that a plane hit the Pentagon, therefore if an activist tells people that there was no plane at the Pentagon, they will find the activist untrustworthy. How then can we expect them to pay attention to the far more important evidence that explosives were used at the World Trade Center, and falsely denied by NIST?”
Think about that for a minute. Take your time.
If we tell people that what they’ve been told isn’t true, they won’t think we’re trustworthy. But if we reinforce the false notion they’ve been fed by the government and the media, they’ll trust us. So why don’t we avoid telling people that explosives were used in the towers? We’re willing to risk being seen as untrustworthy to make that point.
Given the above quote, how can anyone find Legge trustworthy on anything?
This group has done everything in its power to marginalize evidence that the Pentagon was the scene of a faked plane crash. They worked on Richard Gage for a year and a half, finally convincing him to withdraw his stated support for the research of CIT. Gage released his withdrawal statement in February 2011, and he admits being “guided” by others in putting it together. Unfortunately, Legge is taken seriously by Gage who praised his “extensive” research in our interview in Montreal in April.
The propaganda team pressured others including Barrie Zwicker and Peter Dale Scott. Scott caved, Zwicker didn’t. The reversal of Gage and Scott gave team member Chris Sarns reason for optimism when he addressed Scott on 911blogger:
“I am now very confident that others will join you and Mr.Gage.”
But they didn’t.
Griffin compromised with his move to the “consensus approach” on the Pentagon, but at least he didn’t drop his support for the no-757-impact position. He has maintained this position throughout. And Griffin makes a very strong case in support of the no-impact position. But the team wants total capitulation. And they won’t stop pushing until they get what they want.
To all the members of this co-ordinated effort: he doesn’t agree with you. He’s not going to agree with you just because you push and push and push. Most of the Truth movement doesn’t agree with you. Your arguments for a 757 impact are ridiculous. There is a consensus in the movement – that you are wrong.
To conclude my remarks, I’ll take you to the beginning of Legge’s paper. He opens with this nugget of dishonesty.
“Strenuous efforts are being made to inform the public of this heinous crime but many activists are now concerned that this process is being hampered by ongoing dissension about what happened during the attack on the Pentagon.”
I’d rephrase it this way:
“Strenuous efforts to keep the evidence that a large plane did not hit the Pentagon from the public are being made by a small group of activists who are pretending that real dissension exists in the movement when it is they who are creating that dissension – deliberately.”
Okay, it might not flow as well, but at least it’s true.
The article is reproduced in accordance with Section 107 of title 17 of the Copyright Law of the United States relating to fair-use and is for the purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
No comments:
Post a Comment