Professor Griffin is a leading figure in the "9/11 truth movement." He wasn't always involved. He was asked if he would look into it and it took some time for him to be convinced that the official stories did not add up.
He also realized that those involved in the movement were not likely to be able to publish books and he knew how to get that done. He has used his skills in research and scholarship toward searching for the truth behind the events of September 11th, 2001.
His latest book is entitled: The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False.
This is from his introduction:
There are two main theories as to who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to the theory put forth by the Bush-Cheney administration (and it is merely a theory, because no proof has ever been provided), the attacks were planned and carried out solely by al-Qaeda terrorists under the authorization of Osama bin Laden. The alternative theory, espoused by members of what has come to be known as "the 9/11 truth movement," holds that the attacks were orchestrated by officials of the Bush-Cheney administration itself.On this website, davidraygriffin.org I discovered a speech he delivered in May of this year, Understanding Deep Politics Featuring David Ray Griffin. He speaks about WTC7.
According to members of the 9/11 truth movement, the attacks were a "false-flag" operation, in which evidence is planted to implicate the groups or countries the actual perpetrators wish to attack. In this particular case, the Bush-Cheney administration had already decided, months before 9/11, to attack Muslim countries in the Middle East, most immediately Afghanistan and Iraq. In planning out the 9/11 attacks, the perpetrators planted evidence to implicate Middle Eastern Muslims--evidence tht, when examined, can easily be seen to have been fabricated.
The 9/11 truth movement holds that, when the official account of the attacks is subjected to critical scrutiny, it can be shown to be false. Many members in the movement believe this falsity to be most obvious in relation to the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center, usually called "WTC7." This collapse, is accordingly, often referred to as the official account's "Achilles' heel" or "smoking gun." p. xi
I first heard of David Ray Griffin when I read his book Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11: A Call for Reflection and Action. This is the only book of his I have read, although now I have his latest and another, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover Up, and the Expose is on order.
Professor Griffin is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. Here are two websites not managed by him but dedicated to his books and videos.
A search for David Ray Griffin video will lead you to a number of presentations by Professor Griffin. Here is a presentation from 2005 at the University of Wisconsin called 911 and the American Empire. I think you will appreciate it.
I talked about the number of people involved in the conspiracy before. Seems to me that Griffin raises a point that can only be solved by science. Could the twin towers collapse with only an hit by a large jet and a lot of aviation fuel or not?
ReplyDeleteI understand this is a debate among physicists and engineers, most saying the planes would do it a few saying they wouldn't. And knowing next to nothing about physics and engineering (My experience is mainly Lincoln Logs and Legos) I have to let the experts speak their piece.
And let me toss this in here: anybody who condemns your concerns about peak oil hasn't taken into account that there is just so much oil, coal and other things that can be burned like them to produce energy. There is a lot more coal but it has its negatives: look at past pollution in Europe and American and present in China.
Whether you are right that the amount of oil pumped is at its peak now or later it will run out. I don't understand why people can't face that.
Reality is if we want to keep on living on earth we need to use different kinds of energy or have a whole lot less of us humans.
OK. I began to read Griffin's 9/11 and the American Empire: How Should Religious People Responds. And I got to the following section:
ReplyDelete"The Strike on the Pentagon: One of the debates about this attack is whether the Pentagon was hit by American Airlines Flight 77, as the official account says, or by a military aircraft. Either story, however, implies that the attack was, at least partly, an inside job.....(if it was Flight 77) the Pentagon is ringed by anti-missile batteries, which are programmed to destroy any aircraft entering the Pentagon’s airspace, except for any aircraft with a US military transponder.[33] If, by some fluke, Flight 77 had entered the Pentagon’s airspace, it could have escaped being shot down only if officials in the Pentagon had deactivated its anti-aircraft defenses."
You mean if a civilian plane ventures into Pentagon airspace in Washington DC, a computer makes the decision to shot it down? This took me back to an article which I read earlier today by alexander Cockburn in the January 1, 2010 issue of Counterpunch which I did not initially understand.
"In his little squib on 9/11 Paul Krassner writes , I once asked a true believer, “If the Pentagon was really hit by a missile and not a plane, then what happened to all the people who were on the plane that didn’t hit the Pentagon?”
I answered this many years ago. The people on that plane had been kidnapped at an earlier stage in the operation, and flown to an airbase in Louisiana – the very self-same airbase where George Bush briefly touched down in his erratic flight from Florida on 9/11/2001. George Bush then personally executed the captives.
Did I really believe this when I wrote it? No. It was a satirical sally. But I did receive serious letters from people troubled by the lack of detail.Where had he shot them? With what type of weapon? A summary burst from a machine gun, or a .22 bullet behind each ear?
For all too many on the left, the so-called 9/11 conspiracy has become the magic key. If it can be turned, then history at its present impasse will be unlocked and we can move on."
Whether you are right that the amount of oil pumped is at its peak now or later it will run out. I don't understand why people can't face that.
ReplyDeleteYes!
Let's say God gives us a break and says oil won't peak for another 30 years. What should we do?
Well...if it were peaking now, we should have thought about that 30 years ago to adjust.
Even if God were to give us a gift of increasing oil production for another 30 years, the urgency to make change is today.
For all too many on the left, the so-called 9/11 conspiracy has become the magic key. If it can be turned, then history at its present impasse will be unlocked and we can move on.
ReplyDeleteI suppose that could be true for so many on the left. Maybe it is true for me. I want to know the truth. I want justice to be served. I don't think there is any magic in it. It is a matter of will. The will of the public to demand its leaders be accountable and to demand our system of justice to be used.
If criminals can get away with the most heinous acts while the rest of us are so "ironic and post-modern" that we cannot even care to define the word truth and justice, then I think we have lost completely our humanity.
It could be that a truly independent court would find 19 hijackers guilty after a thorough investigation.
Or it could be that former leaders in our government would be found guilty under such an investigation.
We don't know.
There has been NO investigation (the 911 commission was a political cover up). When a crime has been committed and no justice is served, you get people filling in the blanks.
The easy answer to this is for Congress and/or the Media to fully investigate. Until that happens, people (scholars, historians, and kooks) will do it independently. The jury will be public opinion.
The events of 9/11 were treated as an act of war not a crime. A war against no enemy, except anyone on the planet who opposes us and our interests. In other words, "terrorists."
Because congress and the media failed to identify 9/11 for what it was (a crime), we will continue to suffer and cause great suffering.
I don't particularly like patriotic holidays. I can see Memorial Day. I like the Declaration of Independence and most of the Constitution but don't feel a real need to celebrate it every year, particularly with people who don't seem to know what they say. Although I would be willing to skip the BBQs, the parades and the fireworks and have public gatherings at which the Declaration and the Constitution were read every year.
ReplyDeleteI can understand the grief of the families whose loved one died on 9/11. But I think turning it into a national event is (boy is this going to get me in trouble!) making America into a victim so we can do what we want to others. I hate what is done sometimes to American Muslims. And we excuse it because some group of extremist Muslims flew jets into buildings? People who had nothing to do with the overwhelming majority of American Muslims? People who probably represent part of the reasons most Muslims moved to America?
Even if we accept the belief of most Americans about the events (and I do, failing sufficient other evidence) that is no reason to tell American Muslims that they aren't really Americans. Or attack Muslim countries for reasons that make no strategic sense and frankly are immoral.
Somebody said earlier that America should have just gone into Afghanistan, kicked the Taliban out of government for a sufficient period of time, find Osama bin Ladin and his cronies, take them and get out. I am pretty sure finding them would not have been that easy. Nevertheless security arrangements (aside from a lot of the Patriot Act) are sufficient to deal with almost all terrorist threats. Clearly they HAVE worked.
I don't do anything special on Dec. 7 and I don't plan to do anything special on Saturday.
Thanks for posting this John, and the Facebook link. God help us all if any of this is true. I honestly don't know what to believe. I certainly have a certain immediate scepticism toward most conspiracy theories, partly because I think the alleged conspiratores usually just aren't smart enough to pull off what they're accused of. I remember in college (late 70s) a host of speakers making the campus rounds with various such theories, feeding into the Watergate paranoia. I was mesmerized by them as a late-stage adolescent but later saw most of the conspiracy theories fall apart.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I don't dismiss such stories out-of-hand. In addition to being shocked myself by the towers' collapse, I remember listening within a day or two to engineers expressing surprise that the planes' collision could cause such a result. That and many other things don't add up, not the least of which is 9/11 becoming the pretext for invading Iraq.
So to those who say there is evidence to be examined, I say go for it. We survived Watergate but that's small potatoes compared to this. God only knows where it would lead.
So to those who say there is evidence to be examined, I say go for it. We survived Watergate but that's small potatoes compared to this. God only knows where it would lead.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, Doug. If it weren't for Woodward and Bernstein, we would have settled with the official report.
Thanks!
I know this is an "old and dying" thread but one last comment. I totally agree John: Woodward and Bernstein should have gotten medals for what they did, pictures on postage stamps, etc. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone in the MSM doing what they did today.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, however, the blogosphere is even more vibrant (tho not as well funded) than the MSM was back in the 70s. I think it may yet blow the lid on the chicanery leading to the 2008 financial collapse and bailouts. And if there is a story (as I am sure there is to some degree) about what happened on and leading up to 9/11, that is where "the truth will out."