The 9-11 discourse has gotten rather interesting of late. The C-Span coverage, the NORAD tapes, the polls, and fairly recently a retired CIA guy signing on to the idea that 9-11 was an inside job. (As an aside, contrary to most here I suspect, I don't subscribe to the notion that because he's a retired a CIA guy he must automatically be peddling disinfo. While I think there is a group of active and retired intel folks pushing the 9-11 issue, I don't think it's to discredit the issue at all, but rather to advance it. I also tend to think the same of Griffin and Jones. That is, if they were persuaded to get involved in this stuff by an intel faction or a shadowy private group of some kind, it's likely to help advance 9-11 skepticism, not to discredit it. Admittedly, that doesn't say much of anything one way or another about whether they're right about what they argue.) <br><br>Somewhat predictably, we have in response a number of mainstream news articles purporting to tackle 9-11 conspiracies in a hostile way, yet almost all of them have been facile or otherwise completely missed the mark. Even really going after Loose Change 2 in detail, not too difficult a task, has as far as I'm aware escaped the reach of the mainstream articles. <br><br>Instead, the task of debunking govt based conspiracy theories and restoring confidence in the official one has fallen to primarily anonymous/quasi-anonymous non-entities, or other people nobody seems to really know anything about (a phenomenon we're very familiar with in traditional conspiracy website research). DU is an obvious example of much of this, but as far as overall websites go, 9-11 Myths now seems to be taking the lead in this regard, led by one "Mike Williams" of the UK. This site is now routinely cited in an almost talismanic sort of way in 9-11 conspiracy fights on the internet, especially regarding physical evidence aspects concerning 9-11. Of late, we've been treated to typewritten accounts by such experts on aviation as "apathoid@earthlink.net" and supposed former aviation luminaries from the Italian military. <br><br>Interestingly, Farhad Manjoo of Salon did a fairly recent piece trying to debunk 9-11 efforts and resorted to noted 9-11 conspiracy researcher Jim Hoffman (who believes 9-11 was an "inside job") to try and debunk Loose Change (he studiously ignored what Hoffman did believe). Little or no mention or analysis that I recall was made of 9-11 myths or Mark Roberts, despite the fact that it's virtually inconceivable that he was unfamiliar with these sites if he spent anytime at all researching 9-11. Given such obvious resources, I'm a little surprised we haven't seen them profiled more. <br><br>In any event, as a result, the details of the debate are forced to rage largely in the shadows on the internet amongst internet screen names, aliases, and people with no publicly demonstrated evidence of actual existence. (One major exception of course, is Dr. Frank Greening, a Canadian researcher, albeit outside of his field, who seems to have taken the lead in defending some variant of an official explanation for why the Twin Towers collapsed. He by the way, also appears to be the only representative of some version of the official story on the towers who will agree to debate any of his findings publicly -- Mike Williams and the NIST staff have previously refused such requests.) <br><br>This presents problems of course -- the same type that befalls conspiracy research generally. To this day, we still debate rather prosaic 'technical' issues such as which direction the shots came from in Dallas, something that would otherwise seem rather simple to demonstrate as a technical matter. The destruction of the WTC towers of course is an infinitely more complex technical topic, and not surprisingly, no agreement has been reached on its cause. <br><br>While reading through the latest offerings from 9-11 myths here, I was almost instantly reminded of the debate and discussion we had not too long ago regarding Derrin Brown and other magicians/mentalists and how they might have accomplished their tricks. Many of Brown's tricks almost compelled an explanation such as "it has to be this way or that way, otherwise, it's impossible." Prof. Pan correctly noted, of course, that no it doesn't. How did Brown get those people in the mall to raise their hand? How did he get that video game, and that kid in the pub to do that stuff? We may never know for sure. And that can be frustrating.<br><br>With that in mind, I think we need to be especially cognizant of 9-11 pieces (and this is true on all on sides of the 9-11 debate) that present options such as "it must have happened this way or that way, otherwise it's impossible." Mr.
Apathoid@earthlink.net, unfortunately illustrates the problem. Now I don't want to retype this whole thing from Pdf, so I'll just go with the opener on the planes. I think you'll see much of the same problem throughout the piece. <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Military tankers fitted as “drones” and disguised to look like AA and UA jets. The problem with this approach is the questions that remain unanswered. What happened to the 4 flights? The passengers and the crew? The airplanes themselves? Neither the people nor the airplanes were ever heard from again, that much we do know. A further look at this theory really makes it seem implausible especially since the airlines involved, United and American, would have to be involved in the murders of their employees and customers. <hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <br><br>I don't think it takes a magician to see multiple ways those questions could be quite easily answered consistent with the publicly available 9-11 information (which many people erroneously seem to believe is some sort of universe of undisputed facts about 9-11). The last sentence is especially troubling, since the airlines would quite obviously not at all have to be involved in the murder of anyone to carry out such a scenario. (I think the readers here can come up with at least several easy solutions to this purported problem. The words "classified" "military" "need to know" "bureaucracy" "drills" "war games" "terror exercises" etc. should all come to mind.) The other main problem is the "why not do it this way" objection. An interesting question perhaps, but not a terribly probative one, especially when multiple answers present themselves fairly quickly. <br><br>The CD analysis suffers much of the same problems, as does much of what appears on 9-11 myths, even in topics I'm generally sympathetic with (dig up my 9-11 myths 'pull it' post for an example). Conspiracy research sites have the same problem of course, although it does seems to be psychologically easier for some to recognize the problem there, but it ignore it elsewhere. The problem is dramatic when dealing with technical arguments, especially when the debate takes place amongst people who won't publicly present and debate their ideas in an open forum and subject themselves to peer review. Again, this is a problem on all sides, given the radioactive nature of the discussion. Many experts simply don't want to get involved in this stuff, even if they're thoroughly qualified to address such issues. <br><br>So for all of his faults, I think Ruppert was basically right when he talked about the danger of technical arguments. You will always find experts all of the over the place who will opine just about about anything for the right price. Involve national security, the political stability of the nation, the soundness of the financial markets, internecine political warfare, ulterior motives, or the desire for public attention, and you can get all sorts of people saying all sorts of strange things they may not believe, or may espouse but not really take the time to investigate. This is why you must have an open public debate of identifiable, recognized experts in the field who are under oath and subject to cross examination and peer review if you ever hope to get to the bottom of the technical arguments. Yes, implosions are sexy, the look like a smoking gun, and they appeal to some people, but the past has demonstrated that resolving this sort of stuff in conspiracy literature, Gerald Posner books, or the far corners of the internet will in the end lead nowhere. 9-11 in the end is not ever going to be criminal justice question or a litigation question -- there will likely be no trials for anyone in the govt or the private sector. You will never certifiably "prove" how the towers came down. Instead it, like all of 9-11, has become and will remain a political question. To that extent, belief and perception (or more specifically whether people act on that belief or perception) become reality, oftentimes to the dismay of serious researchers on all sides of the issue. <br><br>Now yes, of course, Jones should continue his work, as should Hoffman, the Scholars for Truth, Greening, NIST, and whoever else wants to jump in. And if you're looking to debate the ins and outs of remote control technology or CD until you're blue in the face with screennames and email addresses, I'm sure DU and the physics forums won't let you down. <br><br>Just be wary. Any student of JFK knows who crazy this stuff can get. In the end, it's going to be the politics, and not technical arguments on the internet, that will take us back and to the left. <br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=newkid@rigorousintuition>NewKid</A> at: 8/20/06 8:26 pm<br></i>
by FourthBase » Sun Aug 20, 2006 5:03 pm 
