"Raising questions about the official 9-11 story is one thing, promulgating wild-eyed stories is another. "
Chuck, there are many aspects to the official 9-11 story, this is only one of them, in his book the New Pearl Harbor, Griffin reviews the work of those who have interrogated the official story (among whom those who doubt a plane hit the Pentagon are a minority) and his overall purpose is to present a *cumulative case* arguing that the official story simply does not hold up. He also looks at the conventional (even among 'conspiranoids') view that it was a plane that hit the Pentagon; he looks at the question of how/why the Pentagon's air defense system (missile batteries) failed to respond, wonders why the FBI seized all surveillance cameras from the immediate area and looks at the remarks made by air traffic controllers that they thought it was a military plane given the way it manouevered, and who also said that it had to have been flown by a highly trained fighter pilot - as opposed to a pair of neophyte pilots who by all accounts could hardly operate the flight simulators they were supposedly trained on. These accounts call into question the official story about who the hijackers were, etc. Even Micheal Moore, a favortie son of people around here, raises querstions about the governments story about where the pilots were trained.
Griffin is not propagating the view that a plane did not hit the Pentagon, he looks at the literature of reseachers who have questioned ALL aspects of the government story - and this is what some reseachers contend, he looks at several aspects of the events and actually does not draw any conclusions in his book, and Chip Berlet has noted with sadness that many reasonable people have found Griffin's work compelling.
What aspect(s) of the government story do *you* rasie questions about?
>From: Chuck0 <chuck at mutualaid.org>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Democracy Now 5/26
>Date: Thu, 27 May 2004 17:46:46 -0500
>
>Chip Berlet wrote:
>
>>When people claim to be progressive, and spread rumor and myth as fact,
>>then I argue that conspiracy theory is a knife in the back of
>>dialectical materialism.
>
>Chip, I finally watched yesterday's Democracy Now last night and I think
>that you were way to kind to this Grissom guy. Raising questions about the
>official 9-11 story is one thing, promulgating wild-eyed stories is
>another. I automatically dismiss anybody who doubts the fact that an
>airplane flew into the Pentagon. One person on this list had his house
>shaken by the plane flying low at a high rate of speed. There were hundreds
>of eyewitnesses. I myself got close to the Pentagon several hours after the
>crash and saw a gaping hole.
>
>I'm glad that Amy challenged the guy to cite his sources on explosives and
>crashes. This guy could have saved everybody some time if he had simply
>watched that Modern Marvels program on "Airplane Crashes" last night on
>cable. That program had plenty of footage showing how easy airplanes blow
>up when they crash or hit objects. When that plane hit the Pentagon at that
>rate of speed it vaporized the plane instantly, forcing most of the matter
>and energy into the Pentagon. And it hit the side of the Pentagon that had
>just be retrofitted to withstand explosives and bombs. I can even tell you
>the slogan that was on the sign of the contractor's trailer in the Pentagon
>parking lot:
>
>"On time, on budget, and built to last another 50 years."
>
>Chuck0
>
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