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A Critical Review of Morgan Reynolds' 'Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?'
Reynolds provides an excellent summary of evidence for the controlled demolition of the WTC skyscrapers. However, he also devotes about a third of his article to supporting the dubious idea that neither the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, nor the field in Shanksville, PA were the sites of the crashes of the jetliners commandeered on 9/11/01.
A Critical Review of Morgan Reynolds'
Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?
by Jim Hoffman
Version 1.1, June 26, 2005
6/26/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.0 of this essay
6/27/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.1 of this essay
The article 'Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?' published on the libertarian-oriented website LewRockwell.com, has garnered considerable attention. It makes the case for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 with much the same eloquence as David Ray Griffin, whom it cites. Its author, Morgan Reynolds, brings unprecedented credentials to the community of skeptics of the official story: He is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and former chief economist for the US Labor Department during 2001-2002.
Reynolds provides an excellent summary of evidence for the controlled demolition of the WTC skyscrapers. However, he also devotes about a third of his article to supporting the dubious idea that neither the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, nor the field in Shanksville, PA were the sites of the crashes of the jetliners commandeered on 9/11/01. His article thus weds the thesis of controlled demolition of the skyscrapers with the denial that Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93 crashed where reported. This is unfortunate because it functions to discredit the case for demolition by associating it with ideas that lack scientific merit, are easily debunked, and are inherently offensive to the victims of the attack -- especially the survivors of the passengers and crews of the crashed flights.
The role of disinformation in undermining the exposure of the facts of the 9/11 attack -- the subject of the information warfare section of 911Review.com -- is appreciated by few in the 911 Truth Movement itself. Indeed most sincere researchers of the attack have been fooled, at least temporarily, by some of the many hoaxes that have been promoted under the guise of truth exposure. Reynolds, a relative newcomer to the skepticism of the basic tenets of the official story, is likely no exception. I can imagine several reasons he might give the no-jetliners theories so much credence.
* The no-jetliners theories have been pervasive in every forum of the 9/11 investigations since 2002, when Thierry Meyssan popularized the no-Pentagon-plane theory. These theories have persuasive advocates and noisy promoters who drown out criticism.
* Several aspects of the jetliner crashes, such as the paucity of visible aircraft debris, are apt to arouse skeptics' suspicions because they run counter to conventional intuitions about crashes. Not being a physical scientist, Reynolds may lack the informed intuition and understanding of physics required to correctly interpret the evidence in these unusual crashes.
* Given the number of outrageous lies in the official story, the recognition of some of these lies inclines many skeptics to reject all its aspects. This tendency has been amplified by officials' suppression of evidence that could quickly put to rest speculation of the no-jetliners variety.
In the remainder of this essay, I separate Reynolds' case for the controlled demolition of the WTC skyscrapers from his case for the non-involvement of jetliners in the crashes, highlighting errors in both. Whereas Reynolds accurately articulates the evidence for controlled demolition, he makes a series of flawed arguments to support the no-jetliners theories.
CONTENTS
* Reynolds' Summary of Demolition Evidence
o Defects in the Official Account
o Professional Demolition
o Floor Trusses, FEMA, and Eagar
* Reynolds' Analysis of the Plane Crashes
o North Tower Hole Column Deflection
o Pentagon Hole Size
o North Tower Hole Size
o Flight 11 Crash Debris
o Flight 175 Crash Debris
o The Evidence Vacuum
o Flight 11 Crash Debris, Again
o Flight 93 Crash Debris
o South Tower Hole Size
* Conclusion
(Continued)
Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?
by Jim Hoffman
Version 1.1, June 26, 2005
6/26/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.0 of this essay
6/27/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.1 of this essay
The article 'Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse?' published on the libertarian-oriented website LewRockwell.com, has garnered considerable attention. It makes the case for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7 with much the same eloquence as David Ray Griffin, whom it cites. Its author, Morgan Reynolds, brings unprecedented credentials to the community of skeptics of the official story: He is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and former chief economist for the US Labor Department during 2001-2002.
Reynolds provides an excellent summary of evidence for the controlled demolition of the WTC skyscrapers. However, he also devotes about a third of his article to supporting the dubious idea that neither the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, nor the field in Shanksville, PA were the sites of the crashes of the jetliners commandeered on 9/11/01. His article thus weds the thesis of controlled demolition of the skyscrapers with the denial that Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93 crashed where reported. This is unfortunate because it functions to discredit the case for demolition by associating it with ideas that lack scientific merit, are easily debunked, and are inherently offensive to the victims of the attack -- especially the survivors of the passengers and crews of the crashed flights.
The role of disinformation in undermining the exposure of the facts of the 9/11 attack -- the subject of the information warfare section of 911Review.com -- is appreciated by few in the 911 Truth Movement itself. Indeed most sincere researchers of the attack have been fooled, at least temporarily, by some of the many hoaxes that have been promoted under the guise of truth exposure. Reynolds, a relative newcomer to the skepticism of the basic tenets of the official story, is likely no exception. I can imagine several reasons he might give the no-jetliners theories so much credence.
* The no-jetliners theories have been pervasive in every forum of the 9/11 investigations since 2002, when Thierry Meyssan popularized the no-Pentagon-plane theory. These theories have persuasive advocates and noisy promoters who drown out criticism.
* Several aspects of the jetliner crashes, such as the paucity of visible aircraft debris, are apt to arouse skeptics' suspicions because they run counter to conventional intuitions about crashes. Not being a physical scientist, Reynolds may lack the informed intuition and understanding of physics required to correctly interpret the evidence in these unusual crashes.
* Given the number of outrageous lies in the official story, the recognition of some of these lies inclines many skeptics to reject all its aspects. This tendency has been amplified by officials' suppression of evidence that could quickly put to rest speculation of the no-jetliners variety.
In the remainder of this essay, I separate Reynolds' case for the controlled demolition of the WTC skyscrapers from his case for the non-involvement of jetliners in the crashes, highlighting errors in both. Whereas Reynolds accurately articulates the evidence for controlled demolition, he makes a series of flawed arguments to support the no-jetliners theories.
CONTENTS
* Reynolds' Summary of Demolition Evidence
o Defects in the Official Account
o Professional Demolition
o Floor Trusses, FEMA, and Eagar
* Reynolds' Analysis of the Plane Crashes
o North Tower Hole Column Deflection
o Pentagon Hole Size
o North Tower Hole Size
o Flight 11 Crash Debris
o Flight 175 Crash Debris
o The Evidence Vacuum
o Flight 11 Crash Debris, Again
o Flight 93 Crash Debris
o South Tower Hole Size
* Conclusion
(Continued)
For more information:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/reynold...
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Instead he chose to turn it into a tirade in support of the official story.
Because we know that Hoffman is not a genuine critic.
In this post I will present the first part of the evidence that Hoffman is a Govt agent, who's mission is one of damage control for that part of the evidence which can't be put back into the bottle.
Even those who are not convinced of this will see that at the very best, Hoffman is a liar and plagiarist, running a duplicitous agenda which has nothing to do with truth, and merely seeks to cherry pick a few selected aspects of the truth about Sept 11 for some kind of personal gain, and doesn't care how much damage he does in order to achieve this goal.
The first issue to deal with is Hoffman's habit of plagiarizing research and then defaming the very people he's plagiarized it from.
If you go to Hoffman's site, you'll see that it's basically divided into two sections.
Some of it is dedicated to pretending to expose the official story. The rest of it is dedicated to attacking most of the S11 evidence and supporting the official story to which he claims to take exception.
As we'll see, the positive section has been built purely as a platform from which to piss on other research and researchers.
Let's first examine his supposed credentials as an S11 researcher. Hoffman's section on the WTC demolition is actually quite good. This is the platform which he needs in order to launch his attacks. The reason that it's a good treatment of the demolition issue is because Hoffman actually made only minor contributions to it. Most of it is plagiarized from earlier researchers such as J. McMichael and Jeff King (also known as "Plaguepuppy" ) who had the WTC demolition case proven well before anybody had heard of Hoffman. Hoffman has made some useful refinements of their arguments, but it's only icing on the cake of proof which was already in the public domain before Hoffman appeared.
In addition , Hoffman has the unpleasant habit of attacking as supposed Govt agents the very same people from whom he steals his work. Let me give you one stunning example of this.
Hoffman has been particularly vicious in his attacks on the Webfairy http://thewebfairy.com/911
He has ridiculed her skills as a video analyst in relation to the work she's done on the no WTC planes issue. What Hoffman doesn't tell you is that at the same time as delivering this constant barrage of ridicule, and of accusing her of being a spook, he's quietly stolen some of her work on the WTC 7 demolition and passed it off as his own.
WF made some close ups of demolition squibs, close ups of which Hoffman makes good use - without attribution - while at the same time, snarling to the world that WF is a spook who is laughably incompetent with video.
Hoffman has also accused me of being a spook because of my work on the no planes issue.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren~manufactured.html
What Hoffman doesn't tell you is that while he makes much of the smoking gun proof that the towers fell too quickly for a pancake collapse to be possible, that he learned of this aspect of the evidence from me, and used my original attempts to quantify the problem as the basis from which to develop his own work. He's refined it somewhat, which is what I wanted someone to do with it. However it's a bit rich to them attack the originator of this work as a spook, while also writing them out of the history of the development of the evidence.
For a newcomer to the evidence, a visit to Hoffman's site might give the impression that he played a major role in proving the WTC demolition. In fact he's done little more than tweak and refine the already existing work of the same people he's attacking. Because Jeff King, IMO the best demolition researcher, also supports the no planes evidence, Hoffman has written him out of the history, casting him by implication as a spook, and also incorporating King's work into his list of plagiarized achievements.
Hoffman's plagiarism is not limited to the demolition evidence. In order to maintain his cover it is necessary for Hoffman to pretend to have made a contribution in other areas.
Thus he supposedly exposes the Bin Laden confession video as a fake here.
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/deceptions/binladinvideo.html
This is completely plagiarized without attribution from this site which published it about 2 1/2 years before Hoffman.
http://www.arbeiterfotografie.com/bin-laden-vergleich.html
The top half is in German, but if you scroll down, there's also an English version.
Now we turn to Hoffman's plagiarism of the stand down evidence which was published by Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel on http://www.tenc.net
In some ways this evidence is now somewhat dated, because it shows evidence for a military stand down to allow the hijacked planes to reach their targets.
Since we now know that there weren't any hijacked planes, it's debatable that any such stand down would have needed. Nevertheless, at the time it was published, the Tenc research was courageous and groundbreaking work, and blew a huge hole in the official story, prompting others to dig deeper and bring the evidence to the stage its reached today.
It's also worth noting that Hoffman showed up only after most of the current evidence on S11 had already been assembled, and people had been loudly distributing it for about two years. Tenc's work was published very early, before there was any "911 turth movement", when the authors had no way of knowing how the Govt would react to such publications and so could well have been risking their lives.
The respect that Hoffman pays is by plagiarizing their work and then defaming them.
This article from TENC
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-2.htm
has been directly ripped off by Hoffman here
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/alibis/cheney.html
And he's only just warming up.
TENC original http://emperor.vwh.net/indict/urgent.htm
Hoffman rip off http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/analysis/norad/index.html
TENC original http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/faq.htm
Hoffman rip off http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/defense/index.html
TENC original http://emperor.vwh.net/indict/urgent.htm
Hoffman rip off http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/alibis/myers.html
And of course, for anyone who claims that there really were hijacked planes, then an allegation of a military stand down becomes a vital component to claiming to be a critic of the story. Thus the TENC evidence remains vital to the case as long as one believes in hijacked planes, and this is why Hoffman attempts to pass Tenc's work off as his own.
Not content with Plagiarizing them, Hoffman then defames them by misrepresenting them.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1720145.php
Here, Hoffman replies to a piece from Popular Mechanics which attacks S11 "conspiracy theories." If you read Hoffman's reply carefully, you'll see that he actually supports most of Popular Mechanics spin, but cleverly disguises this support as dissent. Hoffman's method is to complain that most of what PM attacks isn't really S11 evidence - that its just disinfo worthy of contemptuous dismissal, and thus he attacks them for alleging it to be serious S11 evidence. In other words, Hoffman actually spends most of the article agreeing with PM.
Apart from the demolition evidence, which as we have already seen is mostly plagiarism and refinement of already existing proofs on his part, his only point of disagreement with PM is that such evidence should even be considered worthy of attack.
However, in relation to the stand down evidence, Hoffman perpetrates a vicious defamation of the same the Tenc work which he plagiarizes.
One of the Govt's cover stories on the stand down issue is that they did scramble fighter jets which just didn't get there in time. In a brilliant piece of research (one of those later plagiarized by Hoffman) Tenc demonstrated that this is a lie and that nothing was scrambled until after the pentagon was hit. But in his reply to PM, Hoffman attributes to Tenc the exact opposite view. He accuses PM of misrepresenting Tenc in attributing to them the research that they actually did. He attributes to Tenc support for the official story. Having set up this straw man, Hoffman then attacks PM for its attack on Tenc. In other words, Hoffman implies that the official story is correct and also falsely attributes such a view to Tenc, leaving his only complaint about PM to be that they've attacked a claim which Tenc supposedly didn't make.
This is a very clever piece of lying. Hoffman has managed to support the official lies on the scramble story, while appearing to take issue with Govt supporters like PM, at the same time as defaming the people from which Hoffman plagiarized his "research". So when a newcomer to this evidence goes to the Hoffman's site to try to sort out the confusion, what they'll see is Hoffman busting open the Norad cover story, something which Tenc supposedly failed to do.
Tenc never directly entered the debate about the demolition of the WTC. However they did, very early on, dig up an important story about how a demolition expert, Prof van Romero was initially reported as calling a controlled demolition and then later retracted in mysterious circumstances.
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/albu.htm
Hoffman plagiarized it here.
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/retractions/romero.html
In following posts I will demonstrate
:Hoffman's likely connections with Govt agencies, in particular the NSA.
:Hoffman's fraudulent use of documentation to attribute to it the exact opposite of what it says
:Hoffman's habit of using such wildly contradictory arguments that one can only conclude that he is lying.
:Hoffman's tacit support for direct lies
:Hoffman's fear of subjecting his disinformation to the scrutiny of direct debate.
However, while instinct is sufficient to invoke a suspicion that one is dealing with a cointelpro agent, it is not sufficient for confirmation. It wasn't long before the evidence evolved beyond instinct.
Michael Elliot did some digging on Hoffman and discovered that he worked for an NGO with contracts to the NSA. He alerted the list to this. This of course is circumstantial by itself - we've all got a living to make and can't always choose our employers as carefully as we would like and can't necessarily be held responsible for some of their activities over which we might have no control. In this world it's "let he who is without sin... " in relation to employment - within reasonable limits, and reasonable benefit of the doubt.
However, it's different when someone lies about their employment. Because when Elliot dug this up, Hoffman immediately snapped back in an email "For your information, they fired me".
A little later, Elliot replied "He's lying. I just phoned his work and he's still there".
Hoffman never denied this. He snapped back at Elliot with a tirade of insults but never denied that he was still there and thus that he'd lied about being fired.
Why did he lie ? While one might be given the benefit of the doubt for having a job with an NGO which has contracts with the NSA, lying that one has been fired when one has not significantly tips the scales the other way.
This was more than a year ago. And it appears that he's still there. And the nasty connections are not limited to the NSA. Here are details of Hoffman's work as far as we've been able to ascertain.
This is extracted from an email from WF
[He is still at MSRI,
http://www.msri.org/people/staff/jim/ an NGO with contracts with the NSA.
In fact, based on a careful study of our website's logs, Jim Hoffman's real job was found to be as a [WWW]computer engineer http://www.msri.org/people/staff/jim/index.html for a "research institute" at one of the US Government's most important laboratories:
Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and his real email is mailto:jim@ msri.org The [WWW]Mathematical Sciences Research Institute http://www.msri.org/ has [WWW]amongst its sponsors
http://www.msri.org/governance/sponsors/govsponsors.html :
*
The National Security Agency
*
The Office of Naval Research, which acts as the research arm of
the Office of Naval Intelligence.
*
The Department of Energy, manager of the US nuclear laboratories such as Lawrence Berkeley and Livermore.
http://911review.org/911Review.Com.shtml
These nasty connections need to be seen in the context of some who
a)never voluntarily disclosed his work place
b) lied in claiming to have been fired after he was outed.
c) Was a Jimmy-come lately on the S11 scene, and has greatly exaggerated his contribution through an aggressive progam of plagiarizing almost everything which he doesn't choose to attack or ignore.
d) devotes an extraordinary amount of his website to attacking other researchers
But the plot thickens further in relation to Hoffman's probable intelligence connections
Hoffman gained his cred as an "activist" through his "Justice for Woody" activities.
http://www.justiceforwoody.org/
Although Hoffman is only one of the people mentioned as a friend of Woody's seeking justice , from the style of the website we can clearly see that the same person who does 911research, Hoffman's site, is responsible for the JFW site.
If you have a good look around the JFW site, you'll notice a very curious thing.
Basically it concerns the shooting murder of Hoffman's friend Woody by police who were so over the top in their actions that it sounds like they must have been cracked out of their heads.
Apparently, Woody had taken refuge in a church, with only a small knife and was threatening harm to no-one but himself, and the police came in and just blasted the hell out of him, and the murder has been protected by an official cover up and obstruction of any semblance of proper inquiry.
There are many tributes to Woody, about what a wonderful guy he was, there are descriptions of the community activities he was involved in, there is information on the efforts of friends and family to break through the official cover up. There's lots and lots of information about many different aspects of the Woody case.
But there is one glaring omission. I went all over the site, and am reasonably sure that I looked everywhere, and I could find not one word about the circumstances which led to Woody's murder.
Exactly why was Woody taking refuge in a church and threatening to harm himself ? Did he have a mental illness ? Was he on drugs ? Was he on the run from legal custody or from having allegedly committed an offence ? Had the police just randomly picked him out for harassment, because they wanted to shoot somebody ? Apparently Woody was a non violent community activist.
Well, sometimes the cops can get over the top, but they don't normally do this kind of thing even to rioting crowds bombarding them with rocks.
Clearly it was none of these things because otherwise the cops would not have been so over the top. Woody's fears were justified.
Exactly what had Woody done to piss them off so much ?
Not one word from JFW. Isn't that a bit strange? Woody's attempt to take refuge clearly indicates that he had some idea of what was intended for him. Why would the police just burst in and blast the hell out of him, obviously shooting to kill in a premeditated manner ?
As the JFW site itself says
http://www.justiceforwoody.org/story/shooting.html
[[Minutes earlier he had been begging the incredulous congregation to grant him the protection of political asylum, explaining that he was being pursued by government authorities, who sought to kill him to silence him. Although he threatened himself in a desperate bid to persuade witnesses to stay, the 18 witnesses maintained that he never threatened anyone else. Why, then, did the police shoot him, and why has the state gone to such extraordinary lengths to obscure what happened that day?]]
Good questions indeed, but what's even more curious is that the JFW site never gives even a hint of trying to explain this itself. Do they really know absolutely nothing ? Is it a total mystery ? And if so, why does the site lack any sense of bewilderment at the events ? There is no hint of "we just have no idea what this was about. "
"Silence him. " About what ? What did Woody know ? What connections enabled Woody to be in a position to know whatever it was that was so important ?
In what is otherwise a fairly detailed treatment of Woody's life and death and the subsequent cover up, in relation to exactly what led up to this , the JFW site is neither surprised in it's tone nor informative.
I'm guessing of course, but to me, only one explanation comes to mind which fits all of these anomalies.
Woody was in some way involved with intelligence agencies or other covert operations. Perhaps he was wanting out of whatever he was involved with, which can be a dangerous thing to try. Perhaps he had stumbled across something which he wasn't meant to know, and met the fate which usually befalls operatives who have become inconvenient. But in some way he had fallen foul of something very big, and JFW (Hoffman ) doesn't want to talk about what it was.
Well, I can't prove this, but to me it is the best explanation which fits all 4 anomalies - 1)Woody's desperate sense that something bad was going to happen to him 2)The obvious determination of the police to shoot to kill without hesitation 3) Officialdom closing ranks behind the police action 4) The total silence of the JFW site (Hoffman) about even the slightest hint of what led up to the situation, coupled with the absence of any surprise or bewilderment in its tone.
If so, it can be reasonably concluded that many of Woody's friends - in particular Hoffman, who obviously maintains the site- are also in some way connected with intelligence or other covert agencies.
And so Hoffman's work connections as exposed by WF in the above quoted mail are hardly surprising.
I recently invited Hoffman to defend himself in an email list debate against these charges. He declined. Why would he not defend himself if the accusations were baseless ?
The invitation to defend himself was in stark contrast to Hoffman's continual accusations of cointelpro against all and sundry made from behind the safety of his website, and then the consistent refusal to subject his allegations to dynamic debate, a matter which I'll detail further in a separate post.
I gave Hoffman every chance to debate this in a less public setting. He refused.
Lying betrays consciousness of guilt. Why did he say he had been fired ? Fear of debate betrays consciousness of guilt. Why did he refuse to debate these observations when they were raised ?
Does he think that he can make consistent, shrill allegations of cointelpro against all and sundry, refuse to debate them in a dynamic situation, and then expect to remain free of scrutiny himself, when he has such nasty skeletons in the cupboard ?
I concede that the evidence compiled here stops short of absolute proof that Hoffman is a cointelpro agent of some kind. But in my opinion the evidence is strong enough for reasonable confidence in this conclusion, and Hoffman only makes his case weaker by refusing the invitation to defend himself in a dynamic debate forum.
Even if his motivations are in fact less sinister thahn what the evidence points to, I will continue my deconstruction of Hoffman's of Hoffman's poisonous, treacherous, and destructive effect on the S11 research community, in further posts. His latest attack on Reynolds is only the same as what he's been dishing out for a long time to all refuse to bow before him.
I will now use Hoffman's treatment of the witness evidence in relation to the Pentagon incident to demonstrate that Hoffman is a deliberate disinformationist, consciously lying in order to give the impression that evidence says the opposite of what it really does.
For those not familiar with this issue, I suggest that you first read the article which I published in June 2002 in relation to the witness evidence.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/witness.html
This article thoroughly busted the myth that there were "hundreds of witnesses to a large jet hitting the Pentagon.
Since then Hoffman has been on a mission to revive this discredited notion, and lying is fine as far as Hoffman is concerned.
To expose the fundamental dishonesty with which Hoffman approaches this issue ,let's look at this statement.
http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/witnesses.html
[[Most no-757-crash literature ignores the body of eyewitness evidence indicating the presence of a twin-engine jetliner, and in many cases cherry-picks certain eyewitness accounts that seem to support the presence of a small plane. A common tactic is to present one part of Mike Walter's account:
I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon.
while leaving out the earlier part of his account:
I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.'
In the context of his full account, it is clear that Walter was using "cruise missile with wings" to describe the way the plane was being flown, not the kind of plane he saw. ]]
In a moment we'll see who's cherry picking ! Hoffman is actually correct in that Walter's reports have been misused by both sides of the debate, and his complaints about the emphasis on the "cruise missile" part by some 757 skeptics is valid. But this is the pot calling the kettle black. It's nothing compared to the gross distortion of the Walter reports by supporters of the official story like Hoffman. For a start, notice that Hoffman refers to "Walter's account" - singular, as if there were only one, and then refers to the " context of his full account " in presenting one of the quotes.
Hoffman is well aware that this is a lie, because he is well aware of the work that I did to track down Walter's full *accounts* - because there were several - and they were so wildly contradictory that it's impossible to make any sense out of them at all.
You can see a full deconstruction here.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/witness2.html
Below is a summary of what my research on Walter found, but I recommend reading the link above to get the full picture
Hoffman says "In the context of his full account..."
And exactly *which* full account would that be, Jim ?
Perhaps the one where he told Bryant Gumbel that he saw a full on impact,
""I was on an elevated area of Highway 27 and I had a very good view. I was stuck in traffic. We weren't moving and--and I could see over in the distance the American Airlines jet as it kind of banked around, pivoted and then took a steep dive right into the Pentagon."
and then when Gumbel responded with
GUMBEL: Did you see it hit the Pentagon? Was the plane coming in horizontally or did it, in fact, go on its wing as--as it impacted the building?
To which Walter responded with
Mr. WALTER: You know, the--the--the--there were trees there that kind of obstructed it, so I kind of--I saw it go in. I'm not sure if it turned at an angle. I've heard some people say that's what it did. All I know is it--it created a huge explosion and massive fireball and--and you knew instantaneously that--that everybody on that plane was dead. It was completely eviscerated. "
So Walter's claim to have seen the plane hit the building lasted all of 5 secs before he backed off the claim.
And just to make sure, later in the interview
GUMBEL: Tell me, if you could, about the manner in which the--the plane struck the building....
Mr. WALTER: Well, as I said, you know, there were trees obstructing my view, so I saw it as it went--and then the--then the trees, and then I saw the--the fireball and the smoke. Some people have said that the plane actually sent on its side and in that way. But I can't tell you, Bryant. I just know that what I saw was this massive fireball, a huge explosion and--and a--the thick column of smoke and then an absolute bedlam on those roads as people were trying to get away."
Now you see it (hit), now you don't.
Or did Jim mean the full account he gave in another interview, only 1 hour later, where he said
"It kind of disappeared over this embankment here for a moment and then a huge explosion, flames flying into the air, and--and just chaos on the road."
So he was in an elevated area with a very good view and saw a full on impact, which he actually didn't see at all because there were trees in the way, but in spite of his elevation and very good view it "disappeared" over an embankment - which is actually what he had been saying the day before anyway, before he changed his mind the next day in the Gumbel interview,and then immediately backed off, and 1 hour later went back to his story of the previous day, where he explicitly stated that he did not see it hit the building.
So who's Cherry picking ?
The only time during Walter's muddled and contradictory statements where he actually claims to have seen a plane hit a building - a claim which was immediately retracted - he says that it took a steep dive in to the building.
In spite of this, Hoffman is untroubled by also quoting from Bart's compilation, another "witness"
"The plane approached the Pentagon about six feet off the ground, clipping a light pole, a car antenna, a construction trailer and an emergency generator before slicing into the building, said Lee Evey,"
I see, it took a steep dive from 6 ft ? No more than one of these two reports can possibly be telling the truth (even ignoring the multiple internal contradictions in the Walter report). So which one is it, Jim ?
And does the second one say what kind of plane ? Big ? Small ? Jet ? Prop?
Civillian? Military ?
It doesn't matter to Jim. They're both being truthful and accurate. It took a steep dive *and* it approached from about 6 ft off the ground. And it doesn't matter that even a hint of the type of plane is unspecified.
It also escapes Hoffman's attention that the "witness" just happens to be
" the manager of the Pentagon's ongoing billion-dollar renovation."
and is reported as making this statement on Oct 6 2001,in relation to the rebuilding program, in a context such that it appears that Levy is not claiming to have seen this first hand is and is just summing up his belief about what happened.
http://www.detnews.com/2001/nation/0110/06/nation-312016.htm
So the "witness" isn't a witness at all, but a Pentagon spokesman spinning the official line.
This is what Hoffman calls "evidence".
And Hoffman has the nerve to call those who see through this charade "disinformationists".
This is why Hoffman refuses my repeated challenges to a direct debate, because he knows that his lies will be irrevocably exposed.
AMY GOODMAN: Chip Berlet, the charges that David Ray Griffin makes, the questions he says are not answered, the implications of what he is saying, for example, a missile hitting the Pentagon as opposed to the plane, and then what happened to the passengers on board that plane?
CHIP BERLET: Well, that's an example, and not to mention, there are a number of internet researchers have done internet searches and said they cannot find actually any witnesses who saw the plane hit the Pentagon, who weren't government employees. But if you go to searches on local newspapers for when people talked to their magazines, there were hundreds of witnesses who saw a jet commercial airliner hit the Pentagon. You cannot find them on the internet because they're not there. One of the people that Griffin relies on is this -- is a researcher named Holmgren, who goes into great lengths say that he can’t find this witness, Dave Winslow. He went on to say that Dave Winslow probably doesn't exist and if he does, he should come forward. Dave Winslow is an A.P. Radio reporter. If you pick up the "Washingtonian magazine" for September, 2002, there's a picture of Dave Winslow and an interview of what he saw. That's the substandard research being relied on here.
AMY GOODMAN: David ray griffin.
See my rebuttal to the above post, in a very similar argument at
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1720145.php
Where reader is caught out saying that it's OK to lie, as long as those lies support the official story.
He can't make the Democracy Now interview go away so he wants you to look at something else.
Hee hee ! What was the original subject of this IMC post ? An attack by Jim Hoffman on Morgan Reynolds.
Hoffman himself is too frightened to make a direct appearance on IMC because he knows that he'll have to debate directly if he does. So he posts his attack on Reynolds as an article and then gets his flunky Mark Rabinowitz (calling himself "Reader" ) to do the trolling.
Rabinowtiz's only "argument" is to whinge and whine that its not fair for those being attacked to defend themselves.
Rabinowitz has a website which is consists almost entirely of attacks on other people. Hoffman also has a website (911review.com) which is dedicated entirely to attacking the S11 movement.
Not content with this, they spam IMC with their endless attacks on S11 evidence and researchers, and then when crybaby Rabinowitz can't take the heat of the fire that he and Spook Hoffman decided to start , he moans about how bad it is to "attack people".
Well perhaps they should of thought of that before launching this attack on Reynolds.
Rabinowitz thinks that he and Hoffman are imune form scrutiny their for lying, plagiarism and distortion of evidence, as outlined above.
But here's the substance of what Rabinowtiz and Hoffman don't want you to know.
Official flight logs from the Bureau of transprtation say that there were no such flights as AA11 and 77 on Sept 11, 2001
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/1177.html
The database of the FAA aircraft registry says that the two planes which flew UA 175 and 93 that day (N612UA and N591UA) are still registered as valid.
Go to the FAA aircraft registry
http://162.58.35.241/acdatabase/acmain.htm
and do an "n number" search for N591UA ( UA 93 on Sept 11) and N612UA (UA 175 on Sept 11).
The passenger lists published by the media for the non existent AA 11, purporting to represent official flight manifests are fakes.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/fake.html
The object which attacked the Nth tower is not a plane.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~holmgren/planevideos.html
The apparent plane in the Sth tower video is a fake. It has been animated with flight simulator.
http://thewebfairy.com/911
http://911hoax.com
If Hoffman really believes that this is a laughable claim, why is he too frightened to directly debate me ? Everywhere that this subject goes on the web, you can find me challenging Hoffman to a debate and Hoffman running off as fast as his cointelpro powered legs will carry him, to hide behind his website where he can snipe in saftey.
The archived debate linked below will give you an idea of why Hoffman is so afraid to face me directly.
http://members.iinet.net/au~holmgren/salter.html
(Hoffman himself makes an appearance of page 8 and the results are amusing).
Neither will you find Rabinoreader willing to debate. His idea of "argument" is to write the words "fake planes" in capital letters, with lots of exclamation marks and question marks, and if he's a really eloquent mood, he might say "give me a break !!! " - Really deep argument !
In another IMC thread , Rabinoreader argued that it wasn't necessary to produce any documentation for the wild and reckless claim that there's hundreds of witnesses to large planes, because since we know that there are, it's crazy to ask for documentation.
Let me quote you this delicious piece of reasoning.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/02/1720145.php
The post "Holmgren more insanity"
(This time under the name of "repost")
[[ (Quoting me)>> You need to be careful about claiming witness reports unless you can actually produce documentation for them.
That's right everyone, if you didn't DOCUMENT it when all the people, reporters, journalists in helicopters and survivors themselves claimed that REAL PLANES were involved, well, you just can't be believed!!
Give me a break! What's with all this nonsense? I assume it's just to take up the time of people doing real research. I'd guess Holmgren is a right-winger from the nonstop slinging of nonsense.]]
Even funnier, here
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/05/1744806.php
The post ("So ridiculous")
you can find a post by "reader" complaining that I *don't* attack other people on my website. According to Rabinoreader, the definition of a scientifically credible website is one which lauches as many attacks as it can on others.
And no shortage of "scientific " material from Rabinoreader. I've compiled his list of targets here.
http://www.indybay.org/news/2005/05/1744806.php
(The post "The pot calling the kettle...")
After reading this list of Rabinoreader's targets , you'll see how truly hilarious it is for this lowbrow troll to whine about unethical it is to "attack people".
By people, he means Himself, Jim Hoffman and Mike Ruppert. Everyone else is fair game.
Hoffman wont even pretend to debate me. And the response from "reader" or "repost" or whatever other name Rabinowitz wants to hide behind this time, won't address any of the research issues, I've raised.
You won' find documentation or reasoning, just cheap sniping.
That there was a conspicuos absence of any such descriptions at the time of the event ?
And that they always show up with this anonymous claim, just when the rest of the planehugger argument is in real trouble ?
Isn't it funny how, on the morning that it happened, that nearly everyone who was interviewed said that they saw either a small plane or a missile or were looking right at the explosion and didn't see any plane and also reported sonic booms and power surges?
All of these people were lying on the morning ? Let me think now... ah yes ! Al Queda planted agents to say that they saw a small plane or missile, and by a miraculous stroke of good luck for the terrorists, the media just happened to interview almost exclusively AQ agents spinning this lie, never realizing that there thousands of people out there who actually saw a big plane. Yes, by an astonishing coincidence the real witnesses never got interviewed, and are thus left to show up anonymously on IMC debates, years later, at very convenient times for people like Rabinoreader, when he's got nowhere left to go in the debate - and he's obviously far too ethical to simply post in under another name himself, claiming to be a witness.
How fortunate for Rabinoreader, that a witness usually turns up at about this time in the debate !