More 9/11 "Truth" Movement Deceptions

A few days ago, I asked the conspiracy theorists here to provide an example, any example of how we, or our related sites and resources use lies, misrepresentation, logical fallacies, quote mining, or similar deceptions to make our argument. Thus far, I have received no response other than a disagreement as to whether the 9/11 commission did a good job or not. An arguable topic no doubt, but hardly a scathing indictment of the ethical standards of this blog.

Regarding those same tactics used by the 9/11 truth movement, I can find so many examples, that I have a hard time finding enough time in the day to document all of them. The current scandal of the day, appears to be testimony by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta before the 9/11 Commission, in which he supposedly testified that Dick Cheney had given an order for defenses to be stood down. This theory was most recently put forward by general conspiracy nutjob, and founder of the 9/11 "Scholars" Jim Fetzer, on the FoxNews program Hannity and Colmes:








Colmes: What evidence do you have that the government knew, that Cheney knew, that anyone in the chain of command knew ahead of time that this attack was going to happen on 9/11? Can you give us any piece of evidence that would substantiate that argument?

Fetzer: Absolutely, for example Norman Mineta testified to the 9/11 commission that he observed Dick Cheney in an underground bunker when a young aide came up to him and repeatedly told him, “Sir it’s 50 miles out, sir it’s 30 miles out, sir it’s 10 miles out. Does the order still stand?”

Cheney turned around, jumped on him, nearly bit off his head and said, “Of course the order still stands. Have you heard anything different?”

This is of course, an overdramatization, of what Mineta actually said, which was:

MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And --

Not content to merely overdramatize the event, Fetzer then adds his own ominous spin to the testimony:

The order had to be, to not shoot down the plane that was approaching the Pentagon. After all, the order should have been to shoot it down. Shooting it down would be the obvious thing to do, when you consider that you are going to lose the passengers on the plane if you shoot it down, but if you don’t you are going to lose the passengers of the plane, and also the personnel and property at the target.

But what, other than this fervent desire on the part of Fetzer that this be some type of evidence against Cheney, indicates that this order he is referring to is to "not" shoot down the plane?

Absolutely nothing. Once again, we are dealing with conspiracy theory logic, you start with the conclusion, and work backwards to interpret the evidence to fit it.

The obvious question, which has been raised by conspiracy theorists in the comments here, is then why didn't the 9/11 commission follow up on this "smoking gun"? Well, the answer to this is, THEY DID! If you continue into Mineta's testimony, just a few moments later, he continues (emphasis mine):

MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that that discussion had already taken place. But in listening to the conversation between the young man and the vice president, then at the time I didn't really recognize the significance of that.

And then later I heard of the fact that the airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but those planes were still about 10 minutes away. And so then, at the time we heard about the airplane that went into Pennsylvania, then I thought, "Oh, my God, did we shoot it down?" And then we had to, with the vice president, go through the Pentagon to check that out.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, but I do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or from Norfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the orders specifically other than listening to that other conversation.

MR. HAMILTON: But there very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down.

MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.

So once again, not only does the evidence not support the conspiracy theory, IT DIRECTLY CONTRADICTS IT! But through their habit of quote mining, they avoid coming to terms with this? Mineta, who was actually there at the time, thought that this referred to an order by Cheney to shoot a plane down, it was only the conspiracy theorists, in order to get the evidence to fit their conclusions, who subsequently reinterpreted it to mean the exact opposite.

I have asked this numerous times in the past, but I never get a response from the "truthers", if the truth is supposedly on your side, and we are nothing but a bunch of delusional "shills", why is it that you have to constantly lie, distort, and misrepresent evidence? While you can't come up with a single example of us doing that?

I honestly want to know.