Anatomy of an MSM 9/11 Hit Piece

2006-10-10T16:08:00.000+13:00

Recently a number of mainstream media sources have run hit pieces on the 9/11 Truth movement. These generally make no attempt to address the real questions and concerns of 9/11 Truth advocates, simply dismissing them all as 'crazy' without really considering whether their questions are legitimate.

I want to say right now that I do not consider myself a 9/11 Truth advocate or a spokesman for that movement. I do have a number of concerns about the way the investigation was handled however, and I recently found myself embroiled in an e-mail debate with the author of one such piece, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine.

Hit pieces such as Matt's are the worst of the genre, because he is clearly a sincere, rational and courageous writer (anyone who recently spent weeks touring Iraq with the Marines certainly has physical courage). He is also, at least on this subject, irrational, belligerent and lacking in the moral or intellectual courage to face the difficult questions head on. In fact the debate he and I had via e-mail may inform us in a number of ways about the pathology of 9/11 denial, especially the anger and refusal to face unpleasant possibilities that Matt Taibbi exhibits in the following thread.

Round 1 - Matt Lashes Out

Matt's original 9/11 hit piece was published under the title “I, Left Gatekeeper, The Hopeless Stupidity of 9/11 Conspiracy “Theories”” on Rolling Stone’s website on 26 September 2006. If you want to see a classic example of a ‘hit piece’ this is worth reading.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11818067/the_low_post_the_hopeless_stupidity_of_911_conspiracies

A work colleague forwarded me a link to the article noting that he felt Matt’s last two paragraphs summed up the state of the 9/11 Truth argument better than anything else he’d read.

I responded to my colleague as follows, having a guess at Matt’s e-mail address and adding him to the CC field.

The writer's assertion that US culture has fragmented to the point that both the 9/11 Truth movement and the Government now live in totally separate - but equally fantastic realities is misguided.

Two separate realities have always existed with regard to US economic and foreign policy; the version that the US spins to its own people (and to a lesser degree to the rest of us) and the compartmentalized reality of what is actually done on the ground in other countries, vis a vis assassinations, coups, funding and arming of death squads, the overthrow of elected Governments etc. All of this is (eventually), well documented in the official record and largely quite uncontroversial.

As long as the truth only came out (i.e. was declassified) fifteen to twenty years after the fact, the two realities were able to run in parallel and then merge within the public consciousness decades later, with minimal friction or impact on the machinations of the powerful. For example, many Americans can simultaneously believe in a plot to assassinate John F. Kennedy by elements of their own Government, yet still be totally incredulous of the possibility that elements of their own Government might have been involved in 911 - Orwellian doublethink at its best.

The difference today, which the author incorrectly ascribes to a polarization of outlook into two or more equally fallacious and paranoid world views, is actually the result of something else entirely. The information revolution is now making it almost impossible for the power groups that drive US policy to maintain the Orwellian doublethink that is required to keep their population buying unquestioningly into their spun version of history.

Their proclamations look more and more unlikely to a population which now has access to uncontrolled information sources. This makes it ever harder for the populace to swallow the BS that they need to believe in in order to keep the wheels of the 'machine' spinning smoothly (oiled well, of course, with the blood of exploited and usually darker skinned peoples everywhere).

This process is accelerating as more and more of what the US Government / Media combine tells the people is demonstrated to be untrue (WMDs, Iraq-911 links etc.). The BS itself isn't new though. What the Government has told the people has always been untrue - but it just hasn't been so easy for individuals to get the truth out to others, or so hard for the powers that be to stamp it out or silence it. The best method remaining for information control is now obfuscation. This consists of the dissemination of quite ludicrous or unprovable theories that cloud the real and legitimate questions around events like 911 (and which give media wh0r3s like Matt something easy to mock).

It seems what Mr Taibbi really hankers for are the good old days when it was easier to just believe what you were told and keep your head in the sand. Too bad buddy, those days are gone and sooner or later the citizens of the US are going to have to face what a hideous monster their state has become.

I wont even comment on the first part of Matt's article as it would take too long to take it apart piece by piece. Suffice it to say - yet another pseudo-journalist has trashed the easy targets and completely failed to address the meaningful questions. He almost seems to get it when he implies that the 911 Truth movement almost seems like a counter-intelligence op, buts fails to connect the dots underlying that thought.

P.S. Matt, if you actually read this e-mail and got this far well done! I would be more than happy to put forward to you an affirmative theory of the crime - if you will take the time to read it and actually consider / discuss the assertions contained therein, rather than simply stooping to condescension and ridicule in place of actual thought. Have a nice day oh-my-mighty-intellectual superior ;-)

Tim

(apparently one of the hopelessly stupid)

I certainly never expected a reply. I was therefore amazed at how fast Matt responded. From his tone, I’d certainly stung him and there was no way he was going to back down.

Round 2 – Matt Unloads On Me

First of all, whoever you are, you misunderstand. When I compare your paranoia to the paranoia of the Bush administration, I'm talking specifically about Bush and his cronies and their restricted appetite for evidence of their own liking. To me the 9/11 movement has a lot more in common with the End Times movement and the Intelligent Design movement than anything else a bunch of half-bright paranoiacs who nominate their own PhDs, distrustful of the more reputable species.

Secondly, this paragraph of yours:

"Their proclamations look more and more unlikely to a population which
now has access to uncontrolled information sources. This makes it ever
harder for the populace to swallow the BS that they need to believe in
in order to keep the wheels of the 'machine' spinning smoothly (oiled
well, of course, with the blood of exploited and usually darker skinned
peoples everywhere)."

Give me a fucking break. For the 9/11 truth movement to drape itself in the language of Marxian revolution and the "exploited" ethnic masses -- nothing could be more preposterous. You're a bunch of well-fed white people with way too much spare time cooking up heroic fantasies on the internet, with yourselves in the starring roles. So give that a rest, out of common decency anyway. For you to compare yourselves to the ethnic poor who really have been exploited is disgusting. You have nothing in common with those people and believe me, they want nothing to do with you.

Moreover, the "uncontrolled information sources" you speak of are not the liberating difference here but the problem. The internet has I think done more good than harm in terms of empowering ordinary people, but it's also depressed journalistic standards to the point where anyone can accuse anyone of mass murder without any proof at all, and there is no differentiation between mere rumor and solid fact. The internet makes it possible for people to reality-shop -- EndTimers can get their news from their own sites, and 9/11 Truthers can get news from their sites. There's no common marketplace of mutually agreed-upon information anymore. What Noam Chomsky always said about the mass media was correct -- even though it is skewed, and full of lies and distortions, it still had to contain enough basic facts to allow the ruling elite to stay informed enough to keep things going. So even those who dissented could find that much truth in the mainstream media. Both 9/11 Truth and the religious right has decided to discard even that small slice of veracity in mainstream media and create their own realities -- the Truthers a news community that worships half-baked pseudo-scientific theories as "proof" of government involvement (which, as I point out, it is not), the religious wackos a news community that accepts as real science the "proof" that the human eye had to have been created by a designer.

And to say that I long for a time when people just stuck their heads in the sand and believed what the government told them -- have you ever read my work? I've spent my entire career questioning the government and the media. I took real risks to do so and many of my colleagues in Russia paid for their work with injuries and even their lives. Those Iraq-9/11 links and WMD claims that you lump in with 9/11 truth lies, I vehemently pushed those stories before the Iraq war. But this is different. For you to call me a patsy for the Powers That Be because I happen to see through this childish paranoid theory you people have all fallen for for some reason beyond my comprehension is unbelievably offensive. And for you to call me a "pseudo-journalist" is just plain laughable. I defy you to find me one real journalist who'll believe these cockamamie stories about remote-control jets and invisible demolition teams sneaking unnnoticed into the towers in the dead of night. You think Seymour Hersh is in on the plot? Greg Palast? Why is it that not one journalist of repute has touched this thing with a ten-foot pole? Even the most dedicated critics of American policy recognize this conspiracy theory for the idiotic dreck it is.

No one is saying there aren't still "questions" about what happened on 9/11. But no reasonable person can believe this was an inside job. There's no evidence for that, none. If you're so smart, name me one piece of evidence that would hold up in court linking the Bush administration to this crime. One. I dare you. And don't tell me some line about the temperature at which steel melts, or the size of the hole in the Pentagon, because that is not evidence.

You people are incredible. If you could only be made to understand what an outrageous waste of time all this bullshit is.

It seems to me that Matt is no “left gatekeeper”. If he were then why would he bother replying to me at all? Why would he be so offended? He clearly felt he completely understood me and where I was coming from but I was not so sure he did. Feeling that his effort to reply to me warranted a similar courtesy I informed him that I would respond in due course.

A couple of days later I sent him this detailed response to his challenges:

Good morning Matt,

As promised, below is my response to the questions you have asked.

It may surprise you but I tend to agree about the outrageous waste of time that most of this 9/11 speculation entails. Given this, I especially appreciate the time you took to reply to my e-mail. I also understand that you are deeply offended by me impugning your journalistic integrity. I hope that you will come to understand why some of your readers may have had good reason to feel just as aggrieved by your own words.

I will not, repeat NOT, seek to educate you on theories regarding the melting point of steel, or any of the other pointless lay-bys of 9/11 mythology, with which you are already so clearly disgusted. I will simply ask you to consider some facts upon which, I hope, we will easily be able to agree and then perhaps to reconsider some of your assumptions. I know the following is fairly long. I hope that you will persevere and read it anyway, as I seek to respond honestly to your challenges.

What Can We Agree On?

I hope that we can agree on the most of the following. It is not intended to be a linear timeline:

On 11 September 2001 someone manages to circumvent US air security and crash two aircraft into the world trade centre as part of a co-ordinated attack using multiple planes.

This constitutes serious failures of both US intelligence and military air defences.

Despite these failures to anticipate or prevent the attacks, the TV networks are still able to label Osama Bin Laden as responsible within a few hours.

The US soon launches military action against Afghanistan, eventually toppling the Taliban, enabling the construction of an important gas pipeline and quite incidentally reinvigorating the heroin trade.

The administration resists all efforts to establish a 9/11 Commission, unsuccessfully tries to appoint Henry Kissinger as its head and finally limits both its scope and funding.

The President and the Vice President refuse to testify before it under oath. The National Security Advisor testifies only after extended wrangling.

Those with key command responsibilities during the attacks are not fired. No-one is publicly held accountable for the operational failures on the day.

During all of this the US invades Iraq, citing fictional 9/11 links and shonky WMD intelligence that its leadership - and much of the world, know to be cooked.

Almost all 9/11 physical evidence, even that which could easily dispel many if not most of the conspiracy theories is withheld from public scrutiny and remains so to this day.

Those intelligence, law enforcement and military whistle blowers who do come forward with disturbing revelations are harassed and / or fired.

9/11 Commissioners themselves later state that they were not told the truth by key individuals within NORAD and the FAA and that they had difficulty obtaining co-operation and information from other officials.

No evidence against any party that would stand up in a court of law is ever presented to the American public or to the world. The FBI admits it has no hard evidence against Osama Bin Laden in relation to the crime.

Many Americans are left feeling that they have not been told the whole truth and wondering what really happened.

Lacking a rigorous public investigation by law enforcement or the media, or accountability by the Government and military, many turn inward or to the alternative media for answers. A proliferation of theories from vaguely plausible to just plain dumb occurs.

You yourself have described a basic ‘Reichstag theory’ as ‘logical so far’. I’ll take this as meaning that you concede that some or all of the individuals you named might conceivably have had a motive to allow the attacks to occur. If there were to be a proper criminal investigation of 9/11 then they would have had to be considered as potential suspects and a real investigator would next need to determine whether they also had the means to commit the crime.

You are clearly a smart guy. I’m therefore sure it is no news to you that intelligence agencies really do exist and that these organisations operate under and rely on principles such as compartmentalisation and obfuscation. I am not being paranoid. These are just plain facts.

I’ll go a little further and ask you to concede that certain intelligence agencies around the world have at times been involved in serious criminal activity, such as international drug trafficking, in order to fund secret and unregulated operations. Maybe you won’t want to concede that one but no matter. No reporter wanted to report on the many drug-trading references in Oliver North’s diary either, even at the height of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Lastly, if you’ve done research into the origins of terrorism, as your article ‘Why ask why?’ implies you may have, you’ll also know that the US has long worked with, funded and trained terrorists in various parts of the world. For example, it largely created the radical Islamic movement as a cold war weapon against the Soviet occupation of, ironically, Afghanistan.

Ok, so if you can accept some or most of the above, lets have a look at what you recently wrote about 9/11.

Your Stated Position

Apparently every third person in the United States thinks George Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Statistically you’d be about right. Internationally the numbers are probably somewhat higher.

I have two basic gripes with the 9/11 Truth movement. The first is that it gives supporters of Bush an excuse to dismiss critics of this administration. I have no doubt that every time one of those Loose Change dickwads opens his mouth, a Republican somewhere picks up five votes.

I didn’t realise the administration had that many supporters left. The previous statement about ‘every third person’ and this ‘five votes’ quip appear to be slightly contradictory but hey, what the hell, we get what you meant (‘Lets make fun of all these stupid people’).

In fact, if there were any conspiracy here, I'd be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation

You can be sure that if 9/11 was an ‘inside job’ and there weren’t any wacky conspiracy theories, then the perpetrators would be obliged to encourage some. That would just be standard operational procedure for plausible deniability. You damage by association the credibility of anyone who asks difficult questions. I believe this is about the closest you got in your article to saying something genuinely insightful.

I don't have the space here to address every single reason why 9/11 conspiracy theory is so shamefully stupid, so I'll have to be content with just one point: 9/11 Truth is the lowest form of conspiracy theory, because it doesn't offer an affirmative theory of the crime.

Whoa Matt. You seem to lump everyone asking any sort of questions about 9/11 into the ‘shamefully stupid’ category pretty casually. It’s a shame you didn’t have the space to address any of their less tabloid-friendly questions.

As for demanding that 9/11 Truth advocates furnish an affirmative theory of the crime, that is a little like the police refusing to investigate the burglary of your house until you can tell them who did it, how they got in and where they have stashed the loot. Developing an affirmative theory of the crime is what an investigation is for. The lack of a transparent and public accounting of what happened on 9/11 is the real source of the pathology we’re dealing with here. The 9/11 Truth movement might be symptomatic of the polarization of US society but, as I believe you’ll agree, it is not the cause. A growing and understandable erosion of trust in the Government and corporate media is a much more likely candidate.

Forget for a minute all those Internet tales about inexplicable skyscraper fires, strange holes in the ground at Shanksville and mysterious flight manifestoes. What is the theory of the crime, according to the 9/11 Truth movement?

You seem to want it both ways Matt. You criticize the conspiracy theorists for what you perceive as their irrational theorising in the absence of evidence or meaningful answers - but then you ask them to present you with not just a partial theory but an uber-scenario explaining everything. I have little interest in exploring all these theories either, because getting to the bottom of 9/11 ‘once and for all’ would be easy if the US government, media and the public all wanted to, as I will outline in a moment.

A group of power-hungry neocons, led by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Bush and others and organizationally represented by groups like the Project for the New American Century, seeks to bring about a "Pearl-Harbor-like event" that would accelerate a rightist revolution, laying the political foundation for invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Your basic Reichstag fire scenario, logical enough so far.

So why do you go on to insinuate that such a Reichstag scenario also requires that EVERY other 9/11 theory, from secret demolition teams to cruise missiles, from fake crash sites to all the other 9/11 paraphernalia must also be part of the plot? There is plenty of evidence of warnings received and ignored. Why weren’t these properly chased down and investigated? Ignoring warnings of an impending attack and allowing them to occur would still be a capital crime.

You get the idea. None of this stuff makes any sense at all.

Of course it doesn’t, not if you insist on viewing it as a single idea that is either all true, or all untrue. Are you saying that if you put together every single thing the Government has ever said about 9/11, the war on terror and Iraq, they would make any more sense?

If you just need an excuse to assume authoritarian powers, why fake a plane crash in Shanksville? What the hell does that accomplish?

If the entire government apparatus is in on the scam, then why bother going to all this murderous trouble at all -- only to go to war a year later with a country no one even bothered to falsely blame for the attacks?

Why are you asking us? We just want a serious investigation of the crime on the public record - and accountability for those who failed America - or even, just possibly, betrayed her. To say that no one even ‘bothered to falsely blame’ Iraq for the attacks is disingenuous. The job that was done of creating the perception in the minds of Americans that Iraq was somehow ‘behind’ 9/11 was a masterful piece of manipulation of public perception.

You won't see any of this explored in 9/11 Truth lore, because the "conspiracy" they're describing is impossible everywhere outside a Zucker brothers movie -- unbelievably stupid in its conception, pointlessly baroque and excessive in its particulars, but flawless in its execution, with no concrete evidence left behind and tens of thousands keeping their roles a secret forever.

You are either being disingenuous again or very naive. Your description of ‘tens of thousands’ of conspirators repeats the dishonest assumption that any form of complicity must encompass all the varied 9/11 theories, including the just plain silly ones. You should also be aware of the uses of compartmentalisation within espionage operations and also that whistle blowers, including FBI agents, have indeed come forward. Each revealed a small but significant part of the bigger picture. These were certainly worthy of more serious investigation than they received. Also, given the way these people have been treated, it is hardly surprising if others with stories to tell are reluctant to step forward.

I challenge a 9/11 Truth leader like Loose Change writer Dylan Avery to come up with a detailed, complete summary of the alleged plot -- not the bits and pieces, but the whole story, put together -- that would not make any fifth grader anywhere burst out in convulsive laughter.

Although I am not a 9/11 Truth leader, here goes the short version. The Clinton administration departs, leaving behind a basic plan for combating Al Qaeda. The incoming Neocon crew have other ideas. These ‘Risk Nerds’, to use your phrase, gleefully begin preparing for the New American Century. Several FBI agents report evidence of impending attacks to superiors. No action is taken. Several foreign Governments warn the US of impending attack by terrorists. No action is taken. The President is presented with a briefing paper advising that Bin Laden is determined and ready to attack within the US. The President says “Ok you’ve covered your ass now”. There is a final flurry of diplomatic communications from friendly governments advising of impending attacks. September 11 arrives. US air defences are conveniently conducting secret exercises in which ‘radar inserts’ are being used to represent hijacked planes. Real planes start hitting buildings. US military and air traffic controllers stand around in shock asking, “is this part of the exercise”?

Laughing yet? Maybe you are but if so I despair for you as much as you seem to for your fellow citizens. Is there any part of that account you feel completely confident disputing, let alone laughing off? Does it not raise enough questions to warrant real investigation? The truth is that I don’t know what happened on September 11 and neither do you. The difference is that I would like to.

What Needs to Happen

For the open wound that causes a third of Americans to believe in such a divergent reality (or worse) to be healed, there is going to need to be another, more rigorous investigation. Nothing expensive, a budget equal to about a month’s expenditure in Iraq would be many times larger than what is required.

An independent body needs to be established to investigate 9/11, similar to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. A modest budget and a two-year mandate should be enough for it to complete its work if properly empowered. I will call this entity the SETRC.

Firstly, this SETRC must provide absolute blanket immunity from prosecution and total protection against retaliation for any Government employee or individual below cabinet level who wishes to come forward and testify about events related to September 11. It should be made known from the beginning that purgery before the commission shall be treated as a capital crime, namely treason.

Secondly, the SETRC must be a public body, conducting public proceedings that are a matter of public record.

Thirdly, the SETRC must include, in addition to representatives of both political parties, representatives of law enforcement (federal and New York state), the judiciary, the media and the international community (perhaps a representative of the UN Security Council and another elected by the General Assembly).

The SETRC should have subpoena powers and should be able to compel testimony from any individual, under oath.

In addition to providing a safe platform for genuine whistle blowers and the means to investigate any claims that such individuals might make, the SETRC should seek answers to the following questions:

· There are too many questions around the collapse of building 7. The commission should seek testimony from the firefighters and emergency management officials who were evacuated from the building prior to its collapse and from engineers and other experts who could shed more light on why this building fell as it did. If the ‘freefall’ claims are untrue or irrelevant let this be confirmed by impartial experts, on the record. Let Mr Silverstein testify about his ‘pull it’ statement under oath and let the person whom he made that statement too be called to testify.

· There are persistent allegations about insider trading. These were investigated but the complete findings have not been released to my knowledge. The SETRC should seek testimony from experts and the original investigators to determine whether this trading really was just a statistical anomaly. If not, these trades should be traced wherever they lead, to whoever made them and those individuals should be called to testify.

· There are allegations of clear and specific prior warnings by the German and other governments. The commission should ask these Governments, on behalf the American people and the Congress, to officially confirm or deny these allegations. If confirmed, the commission should seek testimony from representatives of those governments and the officials who received these warnings from them.

· There have been numerous reports of hijacking exercises running simultaneously with the attacks and stand-down orders having been issued. Both the officers commanding any such exercises and their immediate subordinates should be called to testify. All records related to and operational details of these exercises should be closely examined.

· Significant quantities of physical evidence is in the possession of the Government. The SETRC should take custody of all physical evidence, scrutinise and document the details of all numbered aircraft parts recovered, the contents, scrambled or otherwise, of the black boxes, all video and audio tapes and recordings that were gathered or confiscated.

· Those law enforcement personal that conducted the original investigation (such as it might have been) should be called to testify and to account for the conduct of their investigation and for its findings.

Were the above to occur then the conspiracy theories would simply evaporate – or a small number might just be proven nearer the truth than the official story. Admittedly, even if they were all disproved other theories would spring up but most of the Americans currently giving these theories credence would no longer be listening. Your people don’t want to believe in this stuff - they just don’t have anything better to believe. Most of them want nothing more than to be able to revert to a less frightening reality than the one they currently find themselves contemplating.

Oh and yes, all this would involve some classified information becoming public. So what? What is more important, that the American people know the truth and can begin to heal the rift that increasingly divides your society, or the arguable loss of some slight advantage in a fight in which you already out-punch the opposition by several orders of magnitude?

To Summarise

Some of us believe that some government officials, undeniably dishonest, may have ignored warnings and allowed or even facilitated attacks on America in order to justify the seizure of key energy reserves within the middle-east. We know without recourse to any conspiracy theories that they ignored warnings, resisted investigation, blocked testimony, punished disclosure, manipulated intelligence and public opinion, avoided making anyone accountable, avoided taking any responsibility themselves and rewarded with promotion some of those who were either incompetent or complicit.

As such, we would like the possibility of their own complicity considered as part of a formal, rigorous investigation of the crime.

Others, such as yourself, feel that despite this well documented and suspicious behaviour and the fact that this administration does not appear to have been honest about anything - let alone 9/11, we should all just ignore the possibility of any form of complicity at all, ridicule those who ask any questions and return to the regular charade that is US politics.

How did Bill Hicks describe it?

“I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.”

“The puppet on the left is more to my liking.”

“Hey! There’s one guy holding up both puppets!”

“Shut Up! Go back to bed America, your government is in control.”

And you have the nerve to label us ‘Hopelessly’ and ‘Shamefully’ stupid? Wow.

Appendix – A Response to Your Comments to Myself

You assume that a) I am only interested in information that fits some pre-conceived conclusion and b) that by implication my viewpoint is based purely on the self-reinforcing ‘Chinese whispers’ of the more extreme alternative media. Neither assumption is correct.

Give me a fucking break. For the 9/11 truth movement to drape itself in the language of Marxian revolution and the "exploited" ethnic masses -- nothing could be more preposterous.

The Marxist rhetoric was used tongue-in-cheek. I am neither a Marxist nor a spokesman for the 9/11 Truth movement and was not even commenting on it when I made the statement to which you refer. I doubt that you would dispute that US economic and foreign policy has long involved the active imposition of conditions favourable to US interests? When those policies have involved brutal oppression, as they sometimes have, they have been able to continue only as long as the public remained largely unaware, or insulated from the negative consequences of those policies. My point, as I’m sure you are aware, is that the independent media has made it easier for people to discuss and disperse alternative viewpoints and harder for the public consciousness to be steered.

For you to compare yourselves to the ethnic poor who really have been exploited is disgusting. You have nothing in common with those people and believe me, they want nothing to do with you.

Come on Matt! I did not compare myself to the ethnic poor. I made the point that your country’s population only allows the active oppression of the ‘ethnic poor’ as long as they are relatively insulated from the oppression and the associated guilt. You clearly believe you know everything about me, but when the soldiers of my country recently deployed to a conflict zone, they really were greeted with smiles and flowers by the ‘ethnic poor’ as you label them (to us they’re just other people, our neighbours - and for your information they don’t seem to mind us at all). Perhaps you’re projecting your cultural neuroses onto me?

I concede that your point about reality shopping is a good one. The diversity of available sources and the widely variable quality of the information they contain gives us both the freedom to locate whatever alternative viewpoints we desire and the responsibility to be critical of what we read and to cast our information net widely. We should consider viewpoints from multiple sources before deciding for ourselves what we will believe. Anyone who places absolute blind trust in any single news source, whether it is The Economist, Fox News or Rense.com is equally naive.

What Noam Chomsky always said about the mass media was correct -- even though it is skewed, and full of lies and distortions, it still had to contain enough basic facts to allow the ruling elite to stay informed enough to keep things going. So even those who dissented could find that much truth in the mainstream media.

I seem to remember that he also emphasized the importance of exercising control of the public mind (seeing as you brought him up).

Both 9/11 Truth and the religious right has decided to discard even that small slice of veracity in mainstream media and create their own realities -- the Truthers a news community that worships half-baked pseudo-scientific theories as "proof" of government involvement (which, as I point out, it is not), the religious wackos a news community that accepts as real science the "proof" that the human eye had to have been created by a designer.

Both seem to be responses to unanswered questions and disquieting doubts. The religiously obsessed invent their own answers to unanswerable questions. Those 9/11 Truthers who annoy you so much invent possible answers to questions that are simply unanswered, not unanswerable.

I had not read your work before yesterday. Having spent a couple of hours reading some of it today I found myself appreciating what I read. That just makes your ability to miss the point on this issue all the more tragic, at least to me. Interesting isn’t it that you and I both had every reason to believe there were no WMD’s or Iraqi links to 9/11 a couple of years before the New York Times seemed to catch up with us? But that’s kind of my point I guess. The information was there for those of us who had bothered to look for it. Unfortunately that didn’t include most of the mass media.

But this is different. For you to call me a patsy for the Powers That Be because I happen to see through this childish paranoid theory you people have all fallen for for some reason beyond my comprehension is unbelievably offensive. And for you to call me a "pseudo-journalist" is just plain laughable.

To which childish paranoid theory do you refer? I don’t believe I had advanced any theory when you wrote this? I had simply objected to your interpretation of the polarization of US culture and shown my own disgust at your willingness to dismiss a wide group of people as clinically insane without consideration of the more reasonable of the questions some of them are asking. As for the pseudo journalist comment, I had understood that one of the principles of journalism was impartiality. Dismissing the views of 30-40% of your countrymen and perhaps 50% or more of the rest of the world by simply lumping them all together en-masse, on the basis of a few of the more easily mocked of the many 9/11 theories is hardly journalism. To claim it is so would devalue both your talent and your profession. What you wrote was most assuredly opinion rather than journalism.

I defy you to find me one real journalist who'll believe these cockamamie stories about remote-control jets and invisible demolition teams sneaking un-noticed into the towers in the dead of night. You think Seymour Hersh is in on the plot? Greg Palast? Why is it that not one journalist of repute has touched this thing with a ten-foot pole? Even the most dedicated critics of American policy recognize this conspiracy theory for the idiotic dreck it is.

No real journalist is going to go out on a limb without proof. And there is no proof - at least not enough and not yet, partly because there was no real criminal investigation. Real journalists also want to get paid. The 9/11 Truth movement has been so thoroughly tarred with the ‘conspiracy theorist’ brush that few journalists would be willing to touch it even if their editors would print such a story. That doesn’t make them right. Truth isn’t defined by what is reported, whether it is in China or in post-9/11 America. You yourself point out how much this administration has gotten away with. Is this indicative of a healthy and effective news media practicing rigorous journalism, or of the decline of the US media as a regulating influence on the Government’s excesses?

No one is saying there aren't still "questions" about what happened on 9/11. But no reasonable person can believe this was an inside job.

What do you consider an inside job? What do you consider reasonable? Was it an inside job if certain individuals within the Government had a good idea the attack was coming but just looked the other way? What is unreasonable about considering that a possibility? There are a thousand theories between the ‘let it happen’ doctrine and the more extreme ‘make it happen’ ideas that you have chosen associate us all with. Even the least of the ‘let it happen’ scenarios however, would constitute a capital crime and a betrayal of your nation by those involved.

There's no evidence for that, none. If you're so smart, name me one piece of evidence that would hold up in court linking the Bush administration to this crime. One. I dare you. And don't tell me some line about the temperature at which steel melts, or the size of the hole in the Pentagon, because that is not evidence.

Well there’s certainly no evidence lying around here, or sitting conveniently on the Internet for me to link to for you (neither, as noted above, is there any hard evidence against Bin Laden). That’s generally what a criminal investigation, or at least some good old-fashioned investigative journalism is for. Unfortunately no credible criminal investigation into 9/11 was seen to occur and, as you point out, no journalist will ask any of the important questions.

Certainly all the key physical evidence from 9/11 was whisked away, never to be seen again. You may ascribe such behaviour to petty ass-covering or reflexive secrecy but it seems to have at least three other possible purposes, namely to encourage a proliferation of misleading conspiracy theories that will cloud what really happened, or to hide certain key pieces of evidence, or a mixture of the two. Until we know what happened to all that evidence, where it is now and until it is publicly scrutinized, people will continue to speculate about what it might have revealed, no matter how much that annoys you Matt – or even me.

Original Footnotes :

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1984459.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2814861.stm

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/12/inside.buzz/index.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2521087.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_Steering_Committee

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,437267,00.html

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/30/rice.testimony/index.html

http://www.counterpunch.org/sacks06262004.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3916885.stm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3812351.stm

https://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/07/17/saddam.ritter.cnna/

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12202005.html

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=pubs-english&y=2006&m=August&x=20060828133846esnamfuaK0.2676355

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/929981172?ltl=1160333312

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH05Aa03.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00239.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI66CVs-zmE&eurl

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/05/terror/main1868087.shtml

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060629/OPINION02/606290310/1014

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/11/911.poll/index.html

http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2006/08/01/more-than-33-percent-of-americans-suspect-9-11-government-conspiracy/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scrippsnews.com%2F911poll&frame=true

Well I thought that voluminous effort might give him pause, or might at least extract some form of acknowledgement of the validity of one or two of my points but no, Matt’s state of blind denial was not to be shaken by mere logical analysis. He’s asked for a scenario and I’ve given him one, but now he doesn’t have time to continue the debate.

Round 3 – “Screw You Guys – I’m Goin’ Home”

Timothy,

Since I'm now going to be debating Dylan Avery, I don't really have time to respond to you at length. But I will say this. Your description of what you think happened -- Clinton leaves office, Bush gets warnings, Bush ignores warnings on purpose, 9/11 happens, and the Reichstag scenario unfolds -- is highly convenient because it's utterly impossible to refute, being, in essence, almost exactly what the official version says happened, the only difference being a matter of intent. Moreover, this directly contradicts most of 9/11 Truth theory, which almost universally holds that the Towers were bombed, and bombed by someone other than al-Qaeda, probably the U.S. Does this mean that you're willing to reject the bombing theory, the missile theory, etc?

Again, this is what drives me crazy about the movement. Left to their own devices, and the in company of each other, the Truthers think no theory is too crazy -- flight 93 never existed, it was a missile that hit the Pentagon, the Towers were bombed by Marvin Bush -- but pressed for facts, the theory suddenly becomes much smaller and more rational in scope. Or else suddenly there are no wild theories at all, just "questions" about how such a thing could have happened.

The reason most of us don't feel a massive investigation into 9/11 is necessary is because even a George Bush can't be expected to prevent most acts of terrorism. They are, by their nature, almost impossible to prevent consistently. So a massive fact-finding mission into his failure to prevent 9/11 is much less necessary than a conference discussing how to prevent such attacks in the future.

The only reason such a massive South Africa-style investigation would ever be necessary is if there was serious evidence that Bush actively committed or helped plan these crimes. But there is no such evidence. There is tremendous evidence of incompetence and a failure to act. But Bush has consistently failed to act in every governmental arena, not just with 9/11. He failed to act with Katrina, failed to plan the occupation of Iraq, failed to properly discipline his party for the Abramoff scandal. His failure to fire intelligence officials after 9/11 is exactly in character. For you to suggest that he "let" 9/11 happen on purpose... how can anyone prove that? How could you prove it wasn't Bush just doing what he always does -- failing to give a shit about anything?

Moreover, my asking for a theory is not like asking police to identify the burglar. It's like the police saying "We think the burglar entered through the front window, raided the bedroom first, took a glass of milk from the kitchen, left through the garage and fled on a bicycle." In such a case evidence speaks -- the front window ajar, the footprints leading up the stairs, the spilled milk on the floor, the milk droplets in the garage, the bicycle tracks in the woods.

How does the evidence speak in 9/11? It speaks of incompetence; it speaks of places flying into three buildings, and one crashing. But it certainly does not speak of Bush bombing the towers, or firing a missile into the Pentagon. The reason I chastise the movement for not having theories is because they do not follow the evidence. They make guesses without evidence. It's just not serious.

Come up with evidence for an overt act and I'll support your commission. But saying "we need a commission to come up with evidence justifying the commission" is nuts. A million crimes a year leak evidence -- but not this one? PLease.

Matt T

Well Ok, fair enough, he wanted to break off the debate with a few parting words. I just couldn’t let all that go completely unanswered though, so I sent him the following, final e-mail:

Thanks for your response Matt.

I understand that you wish to disengage from this dialog, so I will make this final e-mail brief.

Since I'm now going to be debating Dylan Avery, I don't really have time to
respond to you at length. But I will say this. Your description of what you
think happened -- Clinton leaves office, Bush gets warnings, Bush ignores
warnings on purpose, 9/11 happens, and the Reichstag scenario unfolds -- is
highly convenient because it's utterly impossible to refute, being, in
essence, almost exactly what the official version says happened, the only
difference being a matter of intent. Moreover, this directly contradicts most
of 9/11 Truth theory, which almost universally holds that the Towers were
bombed, and bombed by someone other than al-Qaeda, probably the U.S. Does this
mean that you're willing to reject the bombing theory, the missile theory,
etc?

You misunderstand, you asked for a scenario that wouldn't be laughed at by a child and I believe I presented you with one. It is not what I 'think happened'. As I said, I don't know what happened. Given that, I would not presume to either advocate the bombing or missile theories - or to discount them. If there is evidence to investigate I would investigate it. If that evidence was missing, or was excluded from previous investigations I would ask why, where it is now, who ordered its concealment and that it be made available for independent scrutiny now.

I also sought to make the point that there are an infinite number of possible theories filling the phase space between the scenario described above and the 'thousands of accomplices required' versions. If there were any conspiracy then it must occupy a position in that phase space. It is, as you rightly point out, a fairly pointless and unproductive exercise to speculate on what that position might be, rather than following the evidence fearlessly, thoroughly, relentlessly and publicly, to see where it leads.

I would add that you are incorrect in assuming that even the simplest of scenarios like the one above would leave no evidence indicating clear treason or be impossible to prove. Evidence would still exist which could be uncovered by a rigorous investigation such as I have outlined.

Again, this is what drives me crazy about the movement. Left to their own
devices, and the in company of each other, the Truthers think no theory is
too crazy -- flight 93 never existed, it was a missile that hit the Pentagon,
the Towers were bombed by Marvin Bush -- but pressed for facts, the theory
suddenly becomes much smaller and more rational in scope. Or else suddenly
there are no wild theories at all, just "questions" about how such a thing
could have happened.

Conversely what drives us crazy about you is that you feel an investigation which explicitly excluded trying to identify responsibility is in some way meaningful or credible (it is neither). And then you get annoyed if anyone tries to work out what happened for themselves?

The reason most of us don't feel a massive investigation into 9/11 is
necessary is because even a George Bush can't be expected to prevent most
acts of terrorism.

He seems far better at causing terrorism anyway. By the way, what is your source for the assertion that most Americans don't want 9/11 re-investigated?

So a massive fact-finding mission into his failure to prevent 9/11 is much less necessary than a conference discussing how to prevent such attacks in the future.

And what a talk-fest waste of time that would be. Lots of speeches but nothing would change.

Whereas a serious investigation with the goal of establishing accountability for the failure would restore public confidence, potentially expose any malfeasance that did occur and make damn sure that the people responsible for stopping these things were doing their jobs in the future. Sorry, clearly a bad idea....

So there was tremendous evidence of incompetence and a failure to act - but we shouldn't rigorously investigate that evidence to establish that there wasn't anything more behind it? Incompetence is the second to last refuge of a rogue, the last being patriotism. The rest of the world has a phrase we sometimes use when we encounter blinkered thinking such as you are putting forward Matt, 'Only in America....'.

But Bush has consistently failed to act in every governmental arena, not just with 9/11.
He failed to act with Katrina, failed to plan the occupation of Iraq, failed to properly
discipline his party for the Abramoff scandal. His failure to fire
intelligence officials after 9/11 is exactly in character. For you to suggest
that he "let" 9/11 happen on purpose... how can anyone prove that? How could
you prove it wasn't Bush just doing what he always does -- failing to give a
shit about anything?

So the more evidence you have pointing to either criminal corruption, or at best to massive incompetence, the LESS you should investigate. Ok I get it now.

Your ability to overlook the context in which these events occurred is also staggering. Down here we call the woods or forest 'the bush'. I think in your case a good description would be 'he can't see the Bush for the trees'.

Moreover, my asking for a theory is not like asking police to identify the
burglar. It's like the police saying "We think the burglar entered through
the front window, raided the bedroom first, took a glass of milk from the
kitchen, left through the garage and fled on a bicycle." In such a case
evidence speaks -- the front window ajar, the footprints leading up the stairs,
the spilled milk on the floor, the milk droplets in the garage, the bicycle
tracks in the woods.

Except in this case the police have cleaned up all the evidence, wont show you any of the crime scene photos and used their presence in your house to rifle through your personal possessions so that you have no idea what the burglar took and what the police may have confiscated themselves. Finally it turns out that the burglary suspect was an ex-cop who used to work for the guys investigating your case.

How does the evidence speak in 9/11? It speaks of incompetence; it speaks of
places flying into three buildings, and one crashing. But it certainly does
not speak of Bush bombing the towers, or firing a missile into the Pentagon.
The reason I chastise the movement for not having theories is because they do
not follow the evidence. They make guesses without evidence. It's just not
serious.

So you've been given access to the missing numbered plane parts and engine components!? To the black boxes, the video tapes and the written records of the Military exercise occurring on the day!? Wow Matt, I'll break the news to the 9/11 Truthers. Matt Taibbi has looked at the missing evidence and says its all ok. We can all relax now. Thanks.

Come up with evidence for an overt act and I'll support your commission. But
saying "we need a commission to come up with evidence justifying the
commission" is nuts. A million crimes a year leak evidence -- but not this one?

Kind of the point Matt. The work 'evidence' comes from the Latin evidentem meaning "perceptible, clear, obvious," or by another definition "that which is seen".

By your logic we should now define evidence as 'that which is locked away from public scrutiny and excluded from transparent investigation'.

I guess I can understand why you don't want to debate me on this. I'd rather take on a young guy with a bit less experience too if I were you (no offence intended Dylan) - and of course we both know that in a straight debate I'd kick your ass.

If you disagree, feel free to post this thread in its entirety and let your readers decide.

Not as brief as I intended, but notice that I actually answer any question Matt asks and respond to each of his key assertions? He on the other hand seems determined to never answer a straight question and seems to wilfully misunderstand everything I write. I could say I don’t know what happened on September 11 a thousand times and it seems like Matt might still accuse me of thinking I know all the answers. I can repeat over and over that I don’t have any evidence because it is all in the possession of the Government and has not been made available for public scrutiny. Matt will keep falling back on ‘you don’t have any evidence’ (and therefore you are wrong / stupid / clinically insane). He understands that my key argument revolves around the credibility, thoroughness and transparancy of the official investigation but he makes no attempt to defend it – he knows he can’t. So he just keeps attacking, ignoring the holes in his own position and refusing to consider any idea outside his comfort zone.

Lets get this straight. He could be right. The official story might be correct. We just don’t know in the absence of a criminal investigation that was credible and publicly transparent. Matt just doesn’t seem to want to hear that though. He’s in stage three denial of something else entirely. I’ve promised not to keep pestering him with these inconvenient questions though, so I have left the last word in our exchange to him. In parting, he writes:

Boil down your letter to its essentials and it's an admission that you don't have any evidence. We think Bush did it, you say. What's the evidence for that? Well, we don' t have it, because Bush hid it. Give me a break.

He thinks I said that “I think Bush did it”? Did he actually understand anything I’d written?

So for what its worth, if you’re going to take one of these people on and try and discuss 9/11 rationally with them, beware. Don’t expect to be treated politely. Don’t expect your legitimate questions or points to answered or acknowledged. Don’t even expect them to take in what you’re saying and not accuse you of a totally different position than the one you’ve repeatedly stated.

Kick ass Dylan.

The Unpleasant Possibilities

Anatomy of an MSM 9/11 Hit Piece

Appendix – A Response to Your Comments to Myself

Matt T