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The Ryan paradox:challenge 9/11 official story by accepting much of it

by Adam Syed
A review of Kevin Ryan's new book Another Nineteen
By Adam Syed (Special to Truth and Shadows)

Kevin Ryan says the best way to challenge the official story of 9/11 is to “accept as much of the official account as possible.”

In his new book Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9/11 Suspects (the title alludes to the official nineteen alleged al Qaeda hijackers), Ryan says he favors this strategy for the sake of “simplicity” and to avoid “adding unnecessary complications.” The problem is that he often achieves just the opposite – adding complications and muddying the waters.

My first tinge of alarm came upon reading the book’s introduction: “For simplicity, this alternative conspiracy should accept as much of the official account as possible, including that the alleged hijackers were on the planes.” (p. 14)

This is not the book’s only such passage. On the first page of Chapter 10, which deals with the Pentagon portion of 9/11, he says: “Considering means, motive and opportunity might allow us to propose a possible insider conspiracy while maintaining much of the official account as well.” (p. 152)

Ryan acknowledges other peoples’ research in declaring that the official story’s falsity has already been exposed (and hence no need for such exposure here):

“This book does not cover the falsity of the official account of 9/11 in great detail. That work has been done and today the information is widely available. See the bibliography for resources in that regard.” (p. 13)

However, much of this research, to which Ryan alludes, has already demonstrated the implausibility of many aspects of 9/11 that Ryan believes we should accept.

Specifically, Ryan says we should accept the idea that “the alleged hijackers were on the planes.” Notice that he does not say “Middle Eastern-looking men;” – he refers to the “alleged hijackers” in particular. But there are MANY problems with the list of alleged hijackers.

To name just one example: several of these alleged hijackers turned up alive after 9/11, and the FBI never amended the published list of hijackers. Ryan himself briefly acknowledges the case of one such alleged hijacker: Waleed Al-Shehri. While discussing how Al-Shehri and another alleged hijacker, Saeed Alghamdi, were said to have attended flight school at Embry-Riddle University, Ryan states:

“Ten days after the attacks, Embry-Riddle was relieved by reports that Al-Shehri was alive. Unfortunately, the reports that some of the alleged hijackers had turned up alive were never investigated by the FBI or the 9/11 Commission.” (p. 207)

Indeed, how “unfortunate” that the government agencies in charge of the official whitewash didn’t investigate this topic of Waleed being alive. But since they didn’t, I suppose we should take Ryan’s advice and “accept” that Mr. Al-Shehri was really on the plane. (I’m still scratching my head trying to figure this one out.) Incidentally, those two sentences on page 207 are the only mention in the entire book of the reports of alive hijackers; one can confirm this from the index.

Some 9/11 researchers, particularly David Ray Griffin, have provided strong cumulative evidence that there were no hijackers on the alleged planes. One example that shows Griffin to be superior to Ryan as an analyst of evidence involves the issue of “hijack codes,” namely, the code that a pilot would “squawk” back to the FAA in the event of an actual hijacking.

In his New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Griffin addresses this issue. He quotes a passage from the 9/11 Commission Report that says: “FAA… assumed that the aircraft pilot would notify the controller via radio or by “squawking” a transponder code of “7500″ – the universal code for a hijack in progress.”

Griffin then goes on to explain how all four planes did not squawk the hijack code. He then alludes to a famous Sherlock Holmes mystery story, “Silver Blaze,” in which a famous racehorse disappeared the night before a big race. Holmes disputed a police investigator’s belief that an outside intruder had stolen the horse: the guard dog never barked during the night. Had an outside intruder stolen the horse, the dog would have barked.

Griffin then concludes: “Just as the intruder theory was disproved by the dog that didn’t bark, the hijacker theory is disproved by the pilots who didn’t squawk.” (NPHR, p. 178) (It is important to remember that while I am isolating this issue of the hijack codes, it is just one of many pieces of evidence presented in Griffin’s research which points to a “no hijacker” scenario.)

So how does Kevin Ryan address this same issue? Looking at the index of Another Nineteen, we find one mention of the hijack codes on page 125. On this page, the issue is mentioned in the context of a list of facts as to why NORAD commander Ralph Eberhart should be a prime suspect for 9/11 culpability:

8. For whatever reasons, Eberhart also gave false information about the NORAD response to others. General Richard Meyers, acting CJCS that morning, said that Eberhart told him there were “several hijack codes in the system.” Yet none of the four planes had squawked the hijack code on 9/11 and therefore it is not clear how such codes could have been in the system.

While Griffin’s analysis makes perfect logical sense (and in so doing, achieves the kind of “simplicity” that Ryan professes to desire), Ryan’s analysis muddies the waters and leaves the readers scratching their heads in confusion.

Ryan’s analysis seems to hinge on the idea that real hijackings were taking place, and that of course the hapless pilots would indeed have squawked the codes if only they were in the system.

While Ryan stated at the book’s outset that we should accept that “the alleged hijackers” were on the planes, passages like the above go further, and promote the idea that these Middle Eastern men were conducting a genuine terrorist hijacking. (Without stating it explicitly, Ryan’s analysis seems to insinuate that the hijack codes might have been disabled or removed from the four flights in question so that the hijackings could be successful; in other words, a “LIHOP” [let it happen on purpose] scenario, whereby US officials took steps to allow a terrorist hijacking to take place.)

Ryan’s scenario is quite confusing: exactly how much credit is he giving the alleged hijackers? So far, he’s indicated that they got onto the planes (despite lack of credible security video showing any of them boarding planes anywhere) and that they successfully hijacked them.

Ryan accepts the fact that the WTC buildings were brought down by explosive demolition, and hence, that the plane crashes and resulting fires/smoke served as cover for the demolitions. The next logical step is to realize that the planners would not take such a risk as to leave the control of the planes to human chance.

What if the suicide pilot had a change of heart, or what if he decided to suicide bomb the plane into another target, or what if he missed the Trade Tower and ended up crashing into another building/s or the Hudson? One obvious answer is: the demolitions wouldn’t be able to go forward, and the whole psy-op would be ruined.

Ryan seems to understand this, and as such he appears to be on the same page as many 9/11 truthers who believe that the planes were, in the greatest of likelihoods, flown by remote control, using an advanced GPS system, into their targets.

Citing Operation Northwoods, as well as the research of Aidan Monaghan, Ryan proposes this possibility. While he certainly deserves credit for sharing Monaghan’s information, his proposed scenario involving U.S. insiders as well as ”the alleged hijackers” only serves, unfortunately, to complicate and confuse: where does the actual hijacking cease and remote takeover begin? If the plan is to use remote control, why bother with a “hijacking” at all?

The Pentagon: the weakest point

Ryan’s chapter on the Pentagon is the weakest in the book, and it certainly does not serve “simplicity.” Ryan starts by acknowledging that the official account of what happened at the Pentagon “leaves many questions unanswered.” However, his next sentence is an outright falsehood:

“The work of independent investigators has also failed to address those questions.” (p. 152)

This statement sweeps under the carpet numerous researchers and their organizations, such as Pilots for 9/11 Truth (P4T) and Citizen Investigation Team (CIT), who have shed MUCH light on the issue of what really happened. Their work has been extensively covered at this blog, the P4T and CIT websites, and elsewhere. Not surprisingly, Ryan doesn’t provide an endnote reference to back his bold assertion that independent investigators have failed to shed light on what happened at the Pentagon.

In addition, Ryan goes on to state: “An alternative account would be more compelling than the official account if it explained more of the evidence without adding unnecessary complications. Considering means, motive and opportunity might allow us to propose a possible insider conspiracy while maintaining much of the official account as well.”

Unfortunately, maintaining the official account, in some instances, makes for a laughably absurd proposed scenario.

One of these “unanswered questions,” which he insists independent investigators have failed to answer, is: “What can explain the damage to the building and the aircraft debris or lack thereof?” In wording this question, Ryan seems to acknowledge that there is a “lack” of aircraft debris.

However, he repeatedly affirms his belief that a large 757-size aircraft DID hit the building, referring to “the moment of impact” all throughout the chapter. But in the world of actual simplicity, and not adding unnecessary complications, the most obvious answer would be: “The lack of aircraft debris is explained by the fact that there was no plane crash at the Pentagon.” Instead, Ryan proposes a scenario that is as outlandish as NIST’s scenario of Column 79 being responsible for the total ‘collapse’ of WTC7.

Regarding what happened at the moment the plane approached the Pentagon, here is what Ryan proposes, after citing testimony concerning the smell of cordite inside the building:

The use of well-timed explosives at the moment of aircraft impact could explain why so few parts of the aircraft were visible outside the building. Some eyewitnesses testified that the aircraft “seemed to simply melt into the building,” or that it “sort of disappeared.” One witness said that the plane went into the building like a “toy into a birthday cake,” and another said “it was in the air one moment and in the building the next.”

These witness accounts suggest that explosives were placed in the building in such a way that, when triggered, they created an opening to absorb and destroy the body of the aircraft. The renovation project would have been perfect cover for placing the explosives in such an exact configuration. Again, the three officially unrecognized and completely destroyed construction trailers, located immediately in front of the impact area, might have served a role in triggering the explosives upon impact. (pp. 171-2)

There are so many problems with this proposed scenario. Certainly, it does not jive with Ryan’s apparent call for simplicity. First, if the perpetrators were planning to actually crash a plane into the Pentagon, and since that scenario is the official one, why would they go out of their way to make it appear as though a plane hadn’t crashed there? Why the need to create an opening to “absorb and destroy” the aircraft?

Remember, Ryan advocates the idea that a real passenger plane with the alleged hijackers crashed into the building (on page 167, when citing Monaghan’s research on remote control, Ryan speaks of “how Flight 77 might have hit Wedge 1.”), so to my question, we can rule out the answer “To cover up the fact that it was an unmanned drone with no passengers.”

Another problem is that while explosives might pulverize a plane into many tiny pieces, rather than a few large ones, it still won’t make vanish the material of that plane; there should still be, whether outside the building, inside, or both, the wreckage of 80 tons of airplane.

Hundreds of witnesses saw multiple surface-to-air missiles shoot down TWA 800. However, that plane was able to be mostly reconstructed inside a hangar. Yet, Kevin Ryan’s brand of explosives simply make a plane disappear into virtually nothing.

Next, Ryan’s proposal doesn’t take into account the fact that if the fuselage impacted the building, the engines would have hit the ground; yet photos show no damage to the lawn. Finally, Ryan’s scenario (explosives creating an opening to absorb the body of the aircraft) doesn’t take into account the lack of wing marks on the building, nor the lack of two large holes where the engines would have penetrated. (I wonder if he supports Mike Walter’s contention that the wings “folded back.”)

Qui bono? Not Larry Silverstein, apparently.

The issues of hijackers and the Pentagon aren’t the book’s only problems.

A 9/11 truth activist at 911blogger, “Percosin Rat,” created the following graphic to simplify what Ryan proposes in his 318 pages of text. As valuable as this information is, does anyone notice any names missing?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_MwMY9m6KQdUmY1dEJkQjRNWWM/edit

WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein’s name is mentioned in passing on two consecutive pages in the book. But for whatever reason, he does not seem to make Ryan’s list of top suspects for 9/11.

The only context in which Silverstein is mentioned is regarding a planned meeting at WTC7 on the morning of 9/11. Ryan quotes a source that said, “[Silverstein] was reportedly planning to hold a meeting at 7 World Trade Center to discuss terrorism prevention efforts. The meeting, which was set for 8 a.m., was canceled when one of his executives could not make it, said one market player who has spoken with Silverstein.” (p. 232) This meeting was apparently going to be between Silverstein and the Demolition-Ordnance Disposal Team from the Army’s Fort Monmouth.

On the next page, Ryan writes: “It appears that the explosive disposal/terrorism meeting was not entirely a request of Larry Silverstein, but was organized by the U.S. Secret Service field office.” (p. 233)

That is the entire extent of mention of Larry Silverstein, in 318 pages of a book that purports to spotlight the guilty parties of 9/11.

No mention of Silverstein’s infamous “pull it” statement, where he let it slip on a televised documentary that he had given the go-ahead to demolish WTC7, and has subsequently told provable lies to cover this up.

No mention of how Silverstein would spend “every morning” at the Trade Center, beginning with breakfast at Windows on the World, and then spending several hours meeting with tenants, yet was absent on 9/11. His suspicious excuse for not showing up to work that morning was that he had a dermatologist appointment, and while he insisted he had a lot of work to do at the office, his wife laid down the law and insisted he see his doctor. However, Silverstein’s two children, Roger and Lisa, also worked at the WTC and ate at Windows every morning, and they too were “running late.” So all three Silversteins who worked at the WTC “got lucky.”

No mention of how Silverstein leased the property for $3.2 billion, had an insurance policy of $3.5 billion for terrorism, and attempted to claim $7 billion, claiming that each airplane strike constituted a separate terrorist attack. While the insurance companies did not take this view and challenged Silverstein in court, a settlement was reached whereby Silverstein was paid $4.577 billion. Incidentally, this insurance policy was for WTC 1, 2, 4, and 5. There was a separate insurance policy for WTC7, to the tune of $700 million, which he collected.

A recent article by Kevin Barrett sums up the Silverstein situation well:

*Lewis Eiseinberg, Chair of the New York Port Authority in 2001, engineered a sweetheart deal to give his fellow alleged mobster Larry Silverstein a 99-year lease on the Trade Center – the deal that was consummated just six weeks before 9/11. Eisenberg, Chair of the Republican Party National Finance Committee, was the top Republican money-man behind the stolen-presidential-election coup d’état of 2000, and Silverstein was a leading Republican money-man from New York.

*Silverstein immediately doubled the insurance on the World Trade Center and hard-balled his insurers into changing the policy to “cash payout.” Six weeks later, this would look…prescient.

*Silverstein and certain family members, who ate every morning at Windows to the World Restaurant at the top of the North Tower, suddenly remembered various improbable “appointments” on the morning of September 11th, and didn’t show up for breakfast. Everyone who did eat at Windows to the World that morning was pulverized in the demolition that turned the North Tower to sub-100-micron dust in ten seconds.

*Silverstein quickly collected the 4.5 billion dollar insurance payout on the buildings he had only “owned” for six weeks, then went back to court looking for another 13 billion dollars from other insurers. Larry’s personal investment in the World Trade Center was less than $20 million dollars, while his partners had thrown in just over $100 million…a tiny fraction of the cash payout bonanza reaped by the 9/11 demolitions.

*Bottom line: Silverstein – a radical Zionist and close friend of Benjamin “9/11 is very good” Netanyahu – bought a worthless, condemned property, doubled the insurance, conspired to blow up his own buildings six weeks later, and walked away with billions of dollars in cash, plus the valuable right to rebuild at the World Trade Center site.

And on top of that, the US declared eternal war on Israel’s enemies. Talk about win-win.

Unlike Barrett, Ryan seems to only focus on the potential assassin who pulled the trigger, and merely glosses over the person who ordered the trigger to be pulled. Ryan’s brief mention of Silverstein is in Chapter 13, whose title is “Barry McDaniel and Stratasec.” On page 228, Ryan states:

In his role as COO for Straesec, McDaniel had unparalleled access to the entire WTC complex. Because his company implemented the electronic security systems, McDaniel was in a position to grant the access needed to place the explosives.

And in the chapter’s summary/conclusion, Ryan says: “In summary, Stratesec and Barry McDaniel call out for investigation for the following reasons.” And the first bullet point to follow is: “Explosives were used to bring down the WTC.” (p. 238) However, for this same reason, Larry Silverstein does not get Ryan’s top billing as a suspect.

If a person brand new to 9/11 research were to start their journey down the rabbit hole by reading Ryan’s book, they would get the impression that Silverstein was an inconsequential figure who just happened to have the bad fortune of being WTC leaseholder when the ‘attacks’ occurred; nothing more. In fact, by the end of the book, she/he would likely not remember Silverstein’s name at all.

So regarding the demolition of the towers, who does Ryan speculate was responsible? This portion of his research can be found in a two-part essay here and here. Toward the beginning of part 1, he actually seems to imply that we should suspect Muslims [bolds are mine]:

Evidence suggests that the period of interest should include the years between the 1993 WTC bombing and September 11th, 2001. This evidence includes the warning from 1993 bombing conspirator Nidal Ayyad, who reportedly wrote – “next time it will be more precise.” Additionally, evidence of a multi-year plot included the detailed information that FBI informant and mafia kingpin Gregory Scarpa Jr. received while in jail, as early as 1996, from Al-Qaeda operative Ramzi Yousef, while imprisoned in the adjacent cell. Yousef described plans to “bring New York to its knees” by blowing up the World Trade Center with American-owned “flying massive bombs.”Scarpa Jr. provided this information to Assistant US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and FBI Counsel Valerie Caproni, who were apparently not interested. Another example is the recorded conversation between FBI informant Randy Glass and Pakistani ISI agent Raja Gulum Abbas, in which Abbas claimed “Those towers are coming down”, indicating that a plan was in progress as of July 1999.

And then in the conclusion for Part 2, he begins:

Several facts are clear from this review of the companies and people responsible for revamping the security systems for the WTC buildings, and securing New York City, on 9/11. One is that many of the people involved were deceptive and/or corrupt, and appeared to have benefited from the attacks. Another is that many of them were connected to each other and to the investigations into previous acts of terrorism and the terrorist financing bank BCCI. Yet another striking similarity among these organizations is that they all did major work for the Saudi Arabian government, or the royal family of Kuwait. Finally, the history of some of those involved, like Terry McAuliffe, shows a level of greed and corruption that overshadowed all preconceptions about US politics.

It seems that Ryan leans toward the idea that the Bushes and their corporate and government friends in the US, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were responsible for the towers’ destruction.

As for Ryan’s apparent shyness regarding the spotlighting of either Israeli or pro-Zionist forces being involved in 9/11, he says on page 14 (one paragraph below his declaration that we must accept as much of the official account as possible):

The official account claims that OBL, KSM, and the alleged hijackers went to great lengths to plan and implement the 9/11 operation for reasons of symbolism. This explanation does not make a great deal of sense considering that the Arab Muslim world has suffered enormously as a result of the attacks.” [So far, true.] “The only ones who have benefited in that region are the ruling royal families of countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait, who have long collaborated with the West… because it has temporarily protected them from regional threats like that posed by Saddam Hussein and from other challenges to their positions of power.

Are those really the “only” ones who have benefited, Kevin? Why no mention of what Benjamin Netanyahu said shortly after 9/11?

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events “swung American public opinion in our favor.”

Going back to Silverstein for a moment: while he’s American-born, he has close ties to the who’s-who of Israel.

“His friends in Israel were happy for him. Silverstein has ties of various kinds in Israel. He is a donor to Tel Aviv University and to the Tel Aviv development foundation. He held a few fundraising events at his home in New York for the foundation with the participation of the then-mayor of Tel Aviv, Roni Milo. [...] Silverstein is also a member of the joint American-Israeli commission for housing and community development, which was established by former president Bill Clinton. In the early 1990s, he was involved in projects to build housing for new immigrants. The Israeli political world got to know Silverstein when he tried to create a free-trade zone in the country. He became friendly with Yitzhak Rabin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon.”

Certain ventures of Silverstein’s, like his attempt to create a “free trade zone” in Negev, did not come to fruition. However, the plan was very strongly backed by Netanyahu. Of course, if he had succeeded, it would not have benefited ordinary Israelis, but would have benefited Lucky Larry, who would have been using the state of Israel for his own personal gain.

At any rate, it is quite remarkable that Ryan explores, for example, Richard Clarke’s deep connections to the United Arab Emirates, but not Silverstein’s to Israel.

Saudi Arabia mentioned on 20 pages, Israel, on 3

On the Israel question, Kevin Ryan saves one last whopper for his concluding chapter. On page 312, he says:

Israel has also been discussed in terms of the possibility that elements of its government were involved. Unfortunately, such claims are often made without supporting evidence and coherent reasoning. Although there is evidence that Israeli intelligence knew details about the attacks in advance – the story of the “Dancing Israelis” verified this foreknowledge – many governments had advanced knowledge of the attacks as indicated by the warnings issued.

As with his claim that independent investigators have failed to shed light onto the Pentagon, his claim that those who speak of Israeli involvement do so “without supporting evidence and coherent reasoning,” lacks either an explanation or an endnote reference. He also omits crucial facts in his attempt to minimize the importance of the Dancing Israelis story. First, there were no Pakistani, or Saudi, or Kuwaiti, or British, or any other nationality other than Israelis arrested and detained by the FBI for blatantly celebrating the ‘attacks.’ Next, from this 9/12/01 report:

About eight hours after terrorists struck Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers, police in Bergen County detained five men who they said were found carrying maps linking them to the blasts.

The five men, who were in a van stopped on Route 3 in East Rutherford around 4:30 p.m., were being questioned by police but had not been charged with any crime late Tuesday. The Bergen County Police bomb squad X-rayed packages found inside the van but did not find any explosives, authorities said.

However, sources close to the investigation said they found other evidence linking the men to the bombing plot.

“There are maps of the city in the car with certain places highlighted,” the source said. “It looked like they’re hooked in with this. It looked like they knew what was going to happen when they were at Liberty State Park.”

Sources also said that bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives, although officers were unable to find anything. The FBI seized the van for further testing, authorities said.

This circumstantial evidence is far stronger than a mere report that some official, thousands of miles away in a foreign country, received a note in their office that an attack on New York was impending.

As with the passing mention of Silverstein, so too does Ryan briefly gloss over a major player as far as companies with connections go: ICTS International. He mentions how “Huntleigh USA Corporation performed the screening of passengers related to Flight 175″ and then quickly mentions how “Huntleigh was bought out in 1999 by the Israeli company ICTS International.” (p. 235) This would, of course, mean that in 2001 the company was under Israeli influence. What Ryan does NOT mention, this from ICTS’ own website:

Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, ICTS International N.V. stepped up its activities in the development of advanced technological security systems for the homeland security market in general and the transportation industry in particular.

Surely, this Israeli corporation stood to gain from 9/11, as they acknowledge themselves.

More suspicious than mere financial profit, however, is that in addition to the 9/11 connection, this is the company responsible for the “failure” of security with regards to both Richard Reid, the 2001 “Shoe Bomber,” and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 2009 “Underwear Bomber,” allegedly boarding their respective planes. This company seems to “fail” on so many occasions where the official story is used to further curtail our basic dignity at airports.

Ryan fails to mention the information compiled and reported (Preview) in late 2001 by Carl Cameron on Fox News regarding Israeli spying and intelligence gathering in the US. This report includes information that the “art students” were actually infiltrating US agencies [2:10 on the video].

This report, but not Ryan, mentions Israeli phone records company AmDocs, and its connections to America’s NSA. Another company, Comverse Infosys, was an Israeli company that subcontracted the installation of the automatic tapping equipment built into America’s phone systems.

And then there was Odigo Messenger, the company purchased in 2002 by the aforementioned Comverse. Two of its employees received warnings about the ‘attacks’ two hours before they happened. This is significant in that it shows that not just government intelligence services, but also workers in private Israeli companies, were warned. It was never resolved who the original sender was. However, this information should have been included alongside all the other information Ryan included in linking possible involvement of other countries to the events of 9/11.

Certainly, Ryan’s words that talk of Israeli involvement is “without supporting evidence or coherent reasoning” surely does not sit well with me, in light of this news graphic, one of the extremely few times Fox News has done honest investigative reporting:

http://nspcanada.nfshost.com/graphics/CameronReport.jpg

This should all surely be included in Ryan’s call to investigate the suspicious.

Swipes at legitimate activists?

We have already seen Ryan insist that independent investigators have failed to shed light on the truth about the Pentagon. In fact, Ryan is at odds with the majority of truthers who don’t believe a 757 crashed into the Pentagon, based on photographs as well as witness testimony to the official flight path (required to knock over the five light poles).

He has referred to some individuals who focus on what really happened at the Pentagon (which he fallaciously frames as “what hit the pentagon”) as “intentional disruptors.” In 2010, he wrote an article accusing CIT of being “intentional disruptors.” What was CIT’s sin? They had simply sought statements of praise, i.e. “endorsements,” for their National Security Alert presentation.

“Finally, note that “endorsements” are a good way to pit people against each other, and that’s exactly what has been done. There has never been another issue in the truth movement that has required the pursuit of endorsements but, for some reason, this least important question about the Pentagon is promoted as an important issue requiring us to divide into camps. Divide and conquer is the strategy of the intentional disruptor.”

In light of Ryan’s current book, the hypocrisy is astounding. The back cover, as well as inside front two pages feature exactly this same kind of praise from two 9/11 family members as well as David Ray Griffin and others. Ryan clearly sees nothing wrong with seeking praise for his own work, but when others he disagrees with do the same thing, they are condemned as being “divisive,” and possibly guilty of “intentional disruption.”

Retired Vietnam veteran Lt. Colonel Shelton Lankford, a core member of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, agrees that (1) the plane flew over the Pentagon rather than into it and (2) that there has been a co-ordinated disinformation effort by some individuals within the movement to marginalize this evidence. Ryan is well aware that this is Lankford’s position.

In his Pentagon chapter, Ryan discusses the history of the Pentagon Renovation Project which started before 9/11. In this section, there is a paragraph that reads as follows:

At the time of the 9/11 attack, a dozen PNAC signatories worked in leadership positions at the Pentagon, including members of the Defense Policy Board like Fred Ikle and Richard Perle. It was known that Rumsfeld deferred to Perle on many issues in 2001, sometimes in an obsequious manner. Coincidentally, Shelton Lankford, a leading voice in the call for truth about the Pentagon attack, worked for Ikle and a “who’s who” of Perle associates at Telos Corporation from 1990 to 2002. (p. 158)

Why would Ryan feel the urge to mention this “coincidence?” Is this a subtle stab at Lankford? “He promotes the Pentagon flyover theory, and if that’s not dodgy enough, he worked for Ikle and Telos! Suspicious!!! Could he be an intentional disruptor???“ (Cue the Twilight Zone music.)

Conclusion

Ryan’s book, while it certainly draws enough connections to make any reasonable person raise an eyebrow, nonetheless contains numerous problems of omissions, contradictions, and speculation. I have highlighted a few of these in my review.

While it falls considerably short of a piece of truly superior research like David Ray Griffin’s Debunking 9/11 Debunking, Ryan’s book might serve to crack the door open for a complete neophyte to 9/11 research. For me, that door was cracked open in 2004 when I saw Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which, on a shallower level, goes into many of the same connections Ryan does: the Carlyle Group, the Saudi Royals, etc.

However, if the shortcomings of Another Nineteen are evident to long-time 9/11 truth activists like me, they should ultimately be of serious concern to all those who seek 9/11 truth.
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