This book by David Ray Griffin is largely a compilation and restatement of materials from a variety of print and electronic sources, as the author points out in his Introduction and Acknowledgments. Griffin's book reflects a relentless disregard of substantial evidence from multiple sources that contradict the claims he is making. Griffin repeatedly uses fallacies of logic in his presentation rendering whole sections of the book refutable on this basis alone.
While Griffin repeatedly refers to the "claims" of "critics" of the "official" account of the events of 9-11-01, he is clearly endorsing these views. In a number of cases Griffin becomes an apologist for authors (such as Thierry Meyssan or Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel) whose work has been thoroughly demolished by an armada of writers across the political spectrum. Griffin accomplishes this by selectively highlighting certain aspects of their work while sidestepping their most lurid and outlandish assertions in which they claim the functioning of vast conspiracies on the flimsiest of evidence.
I am frankly puzzled and saddened that Richard Falk, Howard Zinn, and Rosemary Radford Reuther-persons for whom I have tremendous respect-have lent their names to this seriously flawed book.
Chip Berlet Senior Analyst Political Research Associates Webmaster http://www.publiceye.org
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Wanzala [mailto:jwanzala at hotmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2004 3:14 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: RE: [lbo-talk] Review of Griffin's 9-11 book
>
>
>
> http://www.interlinkbooks.com/New_Pearl_Harbor.html
>
> Griffin On structuralism vs. conspiracy theory:
>
> "To some extent, this fact reflects a matter of principle---a
> concern that
> devoting attention to possible conspiracies is diversionary.
> Some of the
> reasons for this wariness are valid. One concern is that a
> focus on exposing
> conspiratorial crimes of present office-holders may reflect the naive
> assumption that if only we can replace those individuals with
> better ones,
> things will be fine. Underlying that worry is the concern
> that a focus on
> conspirators can divert attention from the more important
> issue of the
> structural problems in the national and global order that need to be
> overcome. But although these dangers must be guarded against,
> we should also
> avoid a too strong dichtomy between structural and
> conspiratorial analysis.
<<SNIP>>