Gold9472
06-23-2006, 08:57 AM
MUJCA Coordinator Responds to Chronicle of Higher Education Article on Chicago Conference
http://mujca.com/chronicle.htm
6/23/2006
To The Chronicle of Higher Education,
Given the pervasive media blackout, I appreciate John Gravois’s article on the recent 9/11 truth conference in Chicago, which I helped organize, almost as much as I appreciate the lunch Mr. Gravois bought me on the Chronicle’s dime. A couple of items, however, stuck in my craw.
The headline “Professors of Paranoia? Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories” and the article that followed reek of the kind of pejorative, loaded language that I have always taught Composition students to avoid at all costs. Consider the expressions “paranoia” and “conspiracy theory.” Some might indeed argue that it is “paranoid” to suggest that the so-called war on terror, like every other major foreign war America has fought since the Mexican war of 1847, was triggered by a manufactured incident. But others would argue that is far more paranoid to imagine that there are groups of “Arab Muslim fanatics” out there who are stupid enough to think that a 9/11 would help their cause, and insane and irreligious enough to commit suicide while slaughtering thousands of innocents in service to such stupidity, yet brilliant enough to defeat America’s vast array of defenses, including an air defense system that went missing in action for an hour and a half—a failure for which three incompatible and increasingly ludicrous official explanations have been offered, as David Griffin shows in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Personally, I find 9/11-triggered Islamophobia to be far beyond paranoid, while the common-sense hypothesis that this war, like all our wars, was set off by a fabricated war-trigger incident strikes me as sane, lucid, and in accord with Occam’s razor. Indeed, after studying the issue intensively for more than two years, I am tempted to say that those who accept the by now thoroughly-discredited official myth of 9/11 (as, I am ashamed to admit, I once did) are stupid, paranoid, and racist—the moral and intellectual equivalent of the “good Germans” who succumbed to Nazi mythology. But were I a journalist attempting to maintain fairness and balance in a CHE article, I would not let those feelings erupt into loaded language and name-calling the way Mr. Gravois did.
Gravois repeats insulting term “conspiracy theorist” six times in his article. Labeling people with an insulting term that they themselves strongly reject is problematic to say the least. Consider Gravois’s sentence:
“It was the most substantial gathering of the ‘9/11 truth movement,’ as the conspiracy theorists call themselves, to date.” I doubt the CHE would publish a reference to “African-Americans, as the niggers call themselves” or “Jews, as the kikes call themselves.” A responsible journalist would either refer to the group using its own term for itself, or attempt to find a neutral term, such as “9/11 revisionists.”
The slur “conspiracy theorist” is not just pejorative and inflammatory, it is inaccurate when applied to only one side in the 9/11 debate. Since no one person could have committed the crimes of 9/11, the term “conspiracy theorist” is as applicable to the ever-shrinking crowd that believes in a conspiracy of 19 young Arabs led by a former CIA asset on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan as to those who posit any other kind of conspiracy.
Along with the loaded language and obsessive name-calling, Gravois offers a number of statements that are inaccurate or misleading. Consider the following:
"Why did World Trade Center 7, a 47-story high-rise that was never hit by a plane, suddenly collapse in the same fashion — fast and straight down — on the evening of September 11?
"A rather hefty report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology explains how high-temperature fires started by jet fuel caused the buildings' outer columns to bow in, leading to the buildings' collapse."
This statement is a lie. The NIST report admits that it cannot explain the collapse of WTC-7—that “the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.” This statement is made possible by NIST’s a priori ruling out of what, in reality, is the best hypothesis—the controlled demolition to which over-insured six-week WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein inadvertently confesses on the PBS documentary America Rebuilds.
Along with the crucial lie about WTC-7, the biggest of the 9/11 smoking guns, Gravois offers a wildly misleading assessment of the contribution of David Ray Griffin:
So Mr. Griffin wrote his own book, trading on his authority as an academic. He called it The New Pearl Harbor. It was mostly just a synthesis of all the material he had read, tidied up by a philosopher's rhetorical skills.
Obviously The New Pearl Harbor is not “just a synthesis” of everything Griffin read on the issue, but a critical evaluation of the most important evidence offered by both defenders and detractors of the official “Osama and 19 young Arabs” conspiracy theory. While Griffin does indeed “tidy up” this evidence in the sense of clarifying its objective status, he does so using his formidable analytical skills and avoiding language that could be called “rhetorical” in the pejorative sense. Notably, The New Pearl Harbor does not draw any firm conclusions from the evidence it considers, other than the obvious one that a prima facie case for official complicity exists and a genuine investigation is urgently needed. Far more important than The New Pearl Harbor, however, is Griffin’s second book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. In that book, Griffin proves, beyond anyone’s conceivable reasonable doubt, that the official 9/11 Commission Report is a demonstrable tissue of lies, half-truths and distortions. It is inconceivable that any thoughtful person, after reading the official report followed by Griffin’s critique, could fail to admit that Griffin has effectively demolished The 9/11 Commission Report as a credible account of the events of 9/11.
While his portrayals of the WTC-7 issue and David Griffin’s contribution are inaccurate, Gravois’s evaluation of the 9/11 truth movement, or 9/11 revisionists’ movement if you will, as a “fringe crusade” is perhaps the most egregious of the many willful evasions of reality in his article. Polling data suggests that a strong majority of the world’s population—certainly the majority of those who have seriously considered the matter—does not accept the official account of 9/11. As an Arabist and Islamologist, I know very well that the October, 2003 al-Jazeera poll showing that 89% of respondents believe the US government perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11 is a fair reflection of opinion in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Other polls have shown that 63% of Canadians (Toronto Star, May 2004) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) believe top US officials committed high treason and conspiracy to mass murder on September 11th, 2001. A recent CNN on-line poll showed that more than 80% of respondents believed the official account of 9/11 is a cover-up, while an even more recent Zogby poll showed that over 40% of randomly-selected Americans agree. More than 80 million Americans agree with the two-thirds of New York residents who are calling for a new, independent investigation focusing on the possibility of official complicity.
I invite CHE readers to join the majority of the world’s population, an emerging majority of Americans, and a virtual unanimity of those who have seriously, thoughtfully, and fair-mindedly considered the matter, and join our “fringe crusade” for a genuine investigation of the crimes of September 11th, 2001.
Sincerely,
Kevin Barrett
(608) 333-2859
Kevin@mujca.com
Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lecturer, Edgewood College of Madison
Coordinator, Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth (http://mujca.com (http://mujca.com/))
Member, Scholars for 9/11 Truth (http://st911.org (http://st911.org/))
Member, Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11 (http://physics911.net (http://physics911.net/))
http://mujca.com/chronicle.htm
6/23/2006
To The Chronicle of Higher Education,
Given the pervasive media blackout, I appreciate John Gravois’s article on the recent 9/11 truth conference in Chicago, which I helped organize, almost as much as I appreciate the lunch Mr. Gravois bought me on the Chronicle’s dime. A couple of items, however, stuck in my craw.
The headline “Professors of Paranoia? Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories” and the article that followed reek of the kind of pejorative, loaded language that I have always taught Composition students to avoid at all costs. Consider the expressions “paranoia” and “conspiracy theory.” Some might indeed argue that it is “paranoid” to suggest that the so-called war on terror, like every other major foreign war America has fought since the Mexican war of 1847, was triggered by a manufactured incident. But others would argue that is far more paranoid to imagine that there are groups of “Arab Muslim fanatics” out there who are stupid enough to think that a 9/11 would help their cause, and insane and irreligious enough to commit suicide while slaughtering thousands of innocents in service to such stupidity, yet brilliant enough to defeat America’s vast array of defenses, including an air defense system that went missing in action for an hour and a half—a failure for which three incompatible and increasingly ludicrous official explanations have been offered, as David Griffin shows in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. Personally, I find 9/11-triggered Islamophobia to be far beyond paranoid, while the common-sense hypothesis that this war, like all our wars, was set off by a fabricated war-trigger incident strikes me as sane, lucid, and in accord with Occam’s razor. Indeed, after studying the issue intensively for more than two years, I am tempted to say that those who accept the by now thoroughly-discredited official myth of 9/11 (as, I am ashamed to admit, I once did) are stupid, paranoid, and racist—the moral and intellectual equivalent of the “good Germans” who succumbed to Nazi mythology. But were I a journalist attempting to maintain fairness and balance in a CHE article, I would not let those feelings erupt into loaded language and name-calling the way Mr. Gravois did.
Gravois repeats insulting term “conspiracy theorist” six times in his article. Labeling people with an insulting term that they themselves strongly reject is problematic to say the least. Consider Gravois’s sentence:
“It was the most substantial gathering of the ‘9/11 truth movement,’ as the conspiracy theorists call themselves, to date.” I doubt the CHE would publish a reference to “African-Americans, as the niggers call themselves” or “Jews, as the kikes call themselves.” A responsible journalist would either refer to the group using its own term for itself, or attempt to find a neutral term, such as “9/11 revisionists.”
The slur “conspiracy theorist” is not just pejorative and inflammatory, it is inaccurate when applied to only one side in the 9/11 debate. Since no one person could have committed the crimes of 9/11, the term “conspiracy theorist” is as applicable to the ever-shrinking crowd that believes in a conspiracy of 19 young Arabs led by a former CIA asset on dialysis in a cave in Afghanistan as to those who posit any other kind of conspiracy.
Along with the loaded language and obsessive name-calling, Gravois offers a number of statements that are inaccurate or misleading. Consider the following:
"Why did World Trade Center 7, a 47-story high-rise that was never hit by a plane, suddenly collapse in the same fashion — fast and straight down — on the evening of September 11?
"A rather hefty report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology explains how high-temperature fires started by jet fuel caused the buildings' outer columns to bow in, leading to the buildings' collapse."
This statement is a lie. The NIST report admits that it cannot explain the collapse of WTC-7—that “the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.” This statement is made possible by NIST’s a priori ruling out of what, in reality, is the best hypothesis—the controlled demolition to which over-insured six-week WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein inadvertently confesses on the PBS documentary America Rebuilds.
Along with the crucial lie about WTC-7, the biggest of the 9/11 smoking guns, Gravois offers a wildly misleading assessment of the contribution of David Ray Griffin:
So Mr. Griffin wrote his own book, trading on his authority as an academic. He called it The New Pearl Harbor. It was mostly just a synthesis of all the material he had read, tidied up by a philosopher's rhetorical skills.
Obviously The New Pearl Harbor is not “just a synthesis” of everything Griffin read on the issue, but a critical evaluation of the most important evidence offered by both defenders and detractors of the official “Osama and 19 young Arabs” conspiracy theory. While Griffin does indeed “tidy up” this evidence in the sense of clarifying its objective status, he does so using his formidable analytical skills and avoiding language that could be called “rhetorical” in the pejorative sense. Notably, The New Pearl Harbor does not draw any firm conclusions from the evidence it considers, other than the obvious one that a prima facie case for official complicity exists and a genuine investigation is urgently needed. Far more important than The New Pearl Harbor, however, is Griffin’s second book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. In that book, Griffin proves, beyond anyone’s conceivable reasonable doubt, that the official 9/11 Commission Report is a demonstrable tissue of lies, half-truths and distortions. It is inconceivable that any thoughtful person, after reading the official report followed by Griffin’s critique, could fail to admit that Griffin has effectively demolished The 9/11 Commission Report as a credible account of the events of 9/11.
While his portrayals of the WTC-7 issue and David Griffin’s contribution are inaccurate, Gravois’s evaluation of the 9/11 truth movement, or 9/11 revisionists’ movement if you will, as a “fringe crusade” is perhaps the most egregious of the many willful evasions of reality in his article. Polling data suggests that a strong majority of the world’s population—certainly the majority of those who have seriously considered the matter—does not accept the official account of 9/11. As an Arabist and Islamologist, I know very well that the October, 2003 al-Jazeera poll showing that 89% of respondents believe the US government perpetrated the atrocities of 9/11 is a fair reflection of opinion in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Other polls have shown that 63% of Canadians (Toronto Star, May 2004) and half of New Yorkers (Zogby, August 2004) believe top US officials committed high treason and conspiracy to mass murder on September 11th, 2001. A recent CNN on-line poll showed that more than 80% of respondents believed the official account of 9/11 is a cover-up, while an even more recent Zogby poll showed that over 40% of randomly-selected Americans agree. More than 80 million Americans agree with the two-thirds of New York residents who are calling for a new, independent investigation focusing on the possibility of official complicity.
I invite CHE readers to join the majority of the world’s population, an emerging majority of Americans, and a virtual unanimity of those who have seriously, thoughtfully, and fair-mindedly considered the matter, and join our “fringe crusade” for a genuine investigation of the crimes of September 11th, 2001.
Sincerely,
Kevin Barrett
(608) 333-2859
Kevin@mujca.com
Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Lecturer, Edgewood College of Madison
Coordinator, Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth (http://mujca.com (http://mujca.com/))
Member, Scholars for 9/11 Truth (http://st911.org (http://st911.org/))
Member, Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11 (http://physics911.net (http://physics911.net/))