Just Enough Rope
Here's a BBC (Correction: it's Sky News) interview show featuring David Shayler, one of the better-known 9-11 Deniers in the UK. The show is ostensibly about the Litvinenko poisoning case, but pretty quickly Shayler hijacks the show into 9-11 Denial land.
Watching this, I was surprised at first that the host didn't get back to the topic at hand; for some reason he did not seem prepared for Shayler's nuttery. Or perhaps he was giving Shayler just enough rope to hang himself.
Shayler repeats the most ridiculous tripe: nine of the hijackers are alive, that the Pentagon had an automated anti-missile defense system. Indeed, by the third clip he's claiming that the planes "melted" into the buildings.
posted by Pat @ 11:00 AM
22 comments
22 Comments:
Shayler is a stupid f-ing moron. I don't agree the host let him run free but he was being polite and obviously didn't have a lot of knowledge of Denier claims in order to refute them.
Does anyone know how Shayler left MI5? One American alter-ego, supposed military officer Robert D. Steele appears to have left the U.S. military under less than sterling circumstances. If Shayler was caught fornicating with farm animals of something similar, it might explain why he became a conspiratoid.
These conspiradroids use the same, tired, debunked Loose Change talking points, and the Alex Jones automatic shotgun approach.
Shoot out a dozen baseless questions or claims that cannot be refuted quickly enough, hoping that the uninformed program viewers will drink the Koolaid and join their Denier cult.
"...consistent with the use of thermate, an explosive used in controlled demolitions". Hah! Some super spy this guy is. Daniel Craig plays the part much better.
He also lies about "Rebuilding America's Defenses". Did any of these people actually read it?
"The only way it could get through the Pentagon's automated anti-missiles system was if someone knew the code for friendly fire that day."
So every plane that flies into Reagan National Airport has to get a daily code from the military, lest it be shot down?
MI5 not M15 :)
The only question is...how the hell did he pass the psych tests to get accepted in the first place.
Although, I know a guy in military intelligence here who insists that flight 93 was shot down, so I guess you don't have to be 100% "there" to get through the screening.
Alex:
I was in Military Intelligence in the U.S. Army. One joke was "Military Intelligence...two words that don't go together". We didn't undergo psych tests, althought the CIA might do them.
If the imbecile you described works in intelligence in the U.S. military and he believes 9/11 was an "inside job", I'd report him to the local military authorities (the nearest National Guard or Reserve unit would suffice).
Before anyone flies off the handle about "censoreship". The clown can believe whatever he wants, but do you want Deniers handling sensitive classified info?
He might not get kicked out of the military but, if he was an active Denier, he might have his security clearance downgraded.
Naw, he's not a nut exactly, he's just convinced that the aircraft was shot down and the US gov lied to cover up that part of it. He doesn't dispute any of the other facts. Not openly anyway. And the guy's Canadian mil, like me. Our int guys actually do go through a bit of a psych screening, and all int positions require previous military service, so it tends to ensure that most of them are at least slightly competent :) Although US int was usualy more of an asset to us than our own.
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Naw, he's not a nut exactly, he's just convinced that the aircraft was shot down and the US gov lied to cover up that part of it.
I'm hard pressed to see the motivation in covering it up, since that would have been the logical course of action if it hadn't crashed.
However, you are right that this suspicion alone doesn't make one a nut, although once they wander down conspiracy lane, it is hard to predict where they end up...
And the guy's Canadian mil, like me.
Ok. Is Canada going to hang tough on Afghanistan? Harper seems committed but I could see the Liberals trying to make an opportunistic election issue out of it (even though they ordered the deployment initially).
Does anyone know how Shayler left MI5?
He quit because he felt they weren't acting in the interests of the British public. There was a big brouhaha soon after when he released classified documents to the press and made a number of claims of varying viability (some of which were confirmed, some of which remain a bit wacky). Became a bit of a douche, to borrow an Americanism.
As long as Harper's in charge, yeah, we'll stay the course. The military is definitely committed too, and that still counts for a little. The problem here is similar to the problem in the US - the news tends to mainly report deaths and problems, while ignoring all the positive achievements and even the overall trend. And since the Canadian contingent is currently in the worst part of Afghanistan, there's plenty of bad news to report. I'm not even sure if the people support our continued involvement any more; it's definitely tight, whatever the polls may be. I don't see us getting pulled for another 2 years or so, but after that all bets are off, especially if the US goes slinking out of Iraq with it's tail between it's legs, the way the ISG is suggesting. It'd set a bad precedent.
Thanks for the info.
I don't see us getting pulled for another 2 years or so, but after that all bets are off, especially if the US goes slinking out of Iraq with it's tail between it's legs, the way the ISG is suggesting. It'd set a bad precedent.
Well, I already know we disagree on this point, but I don't see how Iraq is winnable, so it becomes a question of how much more blood and treasure do you want to spill for a goal that appears to hold so little promise.
I don't like the precedent either, but whole invasion was dumb from the get-go. No WMD was found and Muslim Arabs would never welcome Americans as liberators. We are going to have to accept that rogue states may exist where the population is fundamentally hostile to the West and there may not be a military option. I don't think that describes Afghanistan, which is why I'm a bit more hopeful of the outcome there.
I think the main problem in Iraq is the support for the opposition being provided by Iran, Syria, et al. You're right, obviously we disagree on Iraq, and that's fine. You gotta ask yourself though, what will happen once there's no Americans to fight against in Iraq any more? Do you think all the foreign fighters, all the Muhajadeen, all the foreign influence...do you think they'll say "oh, ok, well, we got what we wanted, let's go focus on providing free health care now"? I dunno about you, but I get a nasty feeling they'll just switch venues, and start hitting us harder in Afghanistan.
You gotta ask yourself though, what will happen once there's no Americans to fight against in Iraq any more?....I get a nasty feeling they'll just switch venues, and start hitting us harder in Afghanistan.
I think much of the fight in both countries is being carried out by local nationalists, although I think Al Qaeda’s presence is already stronger in Afghanistan and while I have no illusions about Syria and Iran, they aren’t natural allies of Al Qaeda. Having said that, you obviously raise a real possibility. However, let’s face it, the brilliant American leadership picked the terms of battle that greatly favor the jihadists, they basically decided to get our asses kicked (in effect) with all their wishful thinking. It is a word to the wise, don’t go around looking to pick fights, you just might lose. We now may have to “pull back” to positions that are more defensible.
There is another possibility, that the Muslim Arabs mainly just want western militaries out of their AO. If you look at other precedents, the French in Algeria, Americans in Vietnam, the effect of the withdrawal didn’t spread beyond the border of the country in conflict.
I have no illusions about militant Islam but the best antidote may be let people live under it. Once it is seen as the primitive 7th century theocracy rather than some valiant force fighting against outside colonials, it may lose much of its allure.
Alex, debating you is much more sobering than debating the Deniers, who have no arguments that are credible. I’ll admit in this case, I don’t have a lot of appealing responses, other than the course we are on doesn’t seem viable.
I hear ya. I can't say that I have all the answers either. Nobody does. Realistically, what it comes down to a LOT of the time, both in politics and in warfare, is choosing the "least bad option".
You know, the Israel/Palestine conflict is in a way a very illustrative small-scale model of the conflict between the west and the Muslim world. On the one side you've got an advanced, liberal society, which is capable of decimating it's enemies in the blink of an eye, yet is unable to win a decisive victory because every time they attempt large scale military operations they end up portrayed as evil. On the OTHER side you have a backwards, oppressive, 7th century ideology, which is utterly incapable of inflicting any serious damage on it's opposition, yet constantly launches indiscriminate and mindless attacks, and generally gets rewarded for these actions. In the end, there's only a few possible ways it can play out:
1) The advanced society maintains it's vigilance, secures it's borders, and continues to fight small-scale skirmishes for the next 1000 years.
2) The advanced society withdraws from all further operations, giving it's adversary the opportunity to regroup, rearm, and, down the road, attack in force.
3) The advanced society pulls out all stops and utterly wipes out the opposing ideology.
There's really no alternatives. Israel has now been involved in conflict for more than 60 years, and there's no end in sight. We're facing pretty much the same scenario in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only difference is that we actually have international approval to be in Afghanistan....for now.
The big problem is that we don't have the determination for option 3. That's what we did in WW2 with the Nazis and the Shintoists, but we can't do it now because we're too damn divided on the issue. Along with that, option 2 ends in our destruction, or at the very least lots and lots of dead westerners, so it's not exactly something I'd like to try. So all we're left with is option 1. It's far from perfect....but it is the "least bad option".
The only good thing about it is that it gives us lots of time to come up with alternatives....
Hey, I remember you! You're that idiot from Heather Mathisons site. Well. Been a while. Are those dastardly Jews still hiding under your bed?
"...though I applaud the need to shout down those idiots, the way it's being done here is just as partisan and pointless) "
I am happy to debate anyone who gives me a credible argument. If you want to raise the minimum wage or blockade North Korea, we can way the pros and cons using mutually agreeable facts. We may interpret them differently but we can agree on facts.
With the Deniers, they reflexively dismiss facts and simply demand that people take their world for it because "they know". Sorry, I can't have a rational debate with someone who makes that kind of an argument. Plus, their accusations are not casual. I don't even like George W. Bush (to put it mildly) but if you are going to accuse him and other high government officials of perpetrating mass murder on their own people, you ought to have a strong case. The Denier clowns don't even come close, they merely repeat, "we know" then take words out of context, assert as fact things are conjecture at best, and invent evidence out of thin air. Their conviction is usually based on a story that is convenient to their world view, not based on solid evidence.
So, how does one respond rationally to that?
If you were genuinely interested in the truth, you would embrace all possibilities, no matter how unpalatable, and investigate them.
They have been investigated. At what point do the claims become frivolous at best and slanderous at worst. If someone repeated the same slanderous accusation about you over and over and offered up their ideologically convenient suppositions as “evidence”, who you continue to say “it should be investigated” ad infinitum?
There is ample evidence that Al Qaeda pulled off the attack, video, photos, recordings, eyewitness accounts, volumes of paperwork. What do the Deniers have? The most common is the assertion the “WTC was brought down by a controlled demolition”. Says who? I saw planes fly into the building, I’ve yet to see the video of the CIA/PNAC/Mossad/Neocon demolition team placing explosives. I’m not a structural engineer, but neither are the people making the claims, why should I suspend reality and take their word for it?
Do you honestly think the US government would release ALL available information on the leadup to this event - even if that information was quite harmless and showed no evidence of government complicity?
I can believe they might try to cover up their own incompetence. However, let’s make a distinction here. Covering up incompetence is a far cry from committing mass murder. The Deniers are alleging the latter, not the former.
What a load of horse shit that is. These people are willing to believe in events which violate the laws of physics, but you're telling me they're going to have their minds changed by putting Osama on trial? I see you haven't gotten any more intelligent since the last time we spoke.
CT's exist today because nobody has ever been tried (and thus the "official" story has never been tried) in a court of Law.
The actual sequence of events I believe has been entered as evidence in several trials. However, since most of the perpetrators are dead, very few can actually be tried for carrying out the attacks.
I'd like to see bin Laden dead and I doubt he would let himself get taken alive. However, his death or capture wouldn't phase the twoofers, IMO, because they consider him either nonexistant or Bush's ally (therefore his death would be "faked").
I think the conspiracy theory has gained some heft from greater loathing of Bush. People hate him so much, they are willing to believe any accusation, no matter how over the top. We witnessed a similar phenomenon with Clinton in the 1990s, remember the "murder videos" that were shopped around by some people close to Jerry Falwell? It is a lot easier to hurl slanderous accusations than deal with real issues.
just as respectful of different opinions as always.
Why should I be respectful of idiotic ideas? You may as well say Albert Einstein is disrespectful because he laughed at your "ether energy" theory.
I know I sleep safe at night knowing you're "defending freedom"
And I'm glad to know we make you nervous. It's god for morale. Thanks! I'll make sure to tell my boys all about you.
What I was saying is if there was justice applied in the right place BEFORE, the CT's would never have emerged.
Don't be stupid. There's people who believe the earth is flat, the Americans never landed on the moon, Pearl Harbour was allowed to happen, the holocaust never happened, and JFK was killed by the CIA. There's conspiracies for EVERY major event, regardless of how well documented it may be, or how solid the scientific consensus may be. 9/11 is no different. You're either being deliberately obtuse, or you're just plain stupid.
"every time they attempt large scale military operations they end up portrayed as evil"
really,. you don't say,. Why do you think that is? picture this; China decides to conduct 'large scale military operations' in ,. say Ohio! Would that perhaps seem evil to you? Large scale military operations portrayed as evil,. ? is their any other way? killing people is useless,. killing people you don't agree with is exactly counter productive,. wor making is plainly for the profit$ of a few,. and the 'livelyhoods' of some mislead individuals,. . killing for profit is WRONG!
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