9-11 Myth & Reality Analysis

A friend of mine who ran a video store once remarked that the only movies that people would watch more than once or twice were the X-rated films.

The paranoid also apparently like their pornography enough to watch it multiple times; about the only "events" the Arizona chapter of 9-11 Denial has are movie marathons. I'm sure they'll be showing 9-11 Myth & Reality.

This movie has nothing new; no claims of nuclear explosions in the basement or Star Wars weapons in the bathtub. Instead we get the usual "questions", delivered in a soporific manner. Griffin cites Hopsicker as proving that Mohammed Atta liked cocaine, alcohol, pork and lap dances, although of course Hopsicker's source for that, Amanda Keller, has come clean and admitted that she wasn't Atta's girlfriend.

The movie consists of two lectures Griffin gave this year. The first one covers nine supposed 9-11 Myths that he "debunks":

1. Our political and military leaders simply would not due such a thing. Griffin highlights the usual talking points on this: Gulf of Tonkin, Operation Northwoods, etc.

2. Our political and military leaders would have had no motive for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks. Again, no surprises here. Griffin claims that there is a common dream among neocons for a "Pax Americana". The PNAC comes in for their usual mention of desiring a "New Pearl Harbor".

3. Such a big operation, involving so many people, could not have been kept secret because someone involved in it would have talked by now. Griffin mentions some government operations that were kept secret, including the Manhattan Project and the War in Indonesia in 1957 which the American government supposedly started and kept secret until 1995.

4. The 9/11 Commission, which has endorsed the official account, was an independent, impartial commission and hence can be believed. Griffin claims there were "serious conflicts of interest for many of the members of the commission, and highlights Phillip Zelikow's supposed conflict since he was "essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney Administration".

5. The Bush Administration provided proof that the attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda terrorists under the direction of Osama bin Laden. Griffin notes that a bag checked through by Atta apparently did not make it on Flight 11 and contained much incriminating evidence including his will. Griffin asks why would Atta have brought along his will on the plane he planned to fly into the World Trade Center. This is a reasonable point. Not so reasonable is Griffin's use of Hopsicker's claims that Atta liked cocaine, alcohol, pork and lap dances. He claims that the Taliban offered to turn Osama over to us if we provided evidence that he was involved in the WTC; considering that they hadn't handed him over when we had proof that he was involved in the embassy bombings in Africa, this is a bit much. We get the usual nonsense about the hijackers not being on the flight manifests, and the claim that Osama was in an American hospital in Dubai.

6. The 9/11 attacks came as a surprise to the Bush Administration. Griffin quotes the FBI Director saying there was no evidence than anyone in the US other than the hijackers knew of the plot. Griffin brings up the put options. Yawn, how many times do these things have to be debunked? Griffin also brings up the nonsense about how Bush should have bolted from the classroom as soon as he heard about the second plane into the towers. I agree that he should not have remained there, but of course Griffin is trying to imply that Bush only stayed there because he "knew" it was safe.

(I'll try to finish up the "myths" in a later post.

Two minor points: Griffin does a poor job of making air quotes with his fingers every time he quotes somebody. This becomes unbelievably annoying after about the 50th time. And second, this crowd looks like it's got plenty of Geritol in the medicine chest:



For those of us accustomed to thinking of 9-11 Deniers as young louts in black tee shirts, this should be a wakeup call.