Perfect Soldiers and Lazy Researchers

As I mentioned previously, I have been doing a lot of reading. I just finished Perfect Soldiers by LA Times reporter Terry McDermott. This book, famously, is where 911 Myths got the flight manifests for the hijacked flights.

It is pretty interesting reading, it primarily follows the Hamburg cell, which became the core of the group, including 3 of the 4 pilots. The fourth pilot, Hani Hanjour, although he was described as a marginal pilot, was actually the only one who was a qualified pilot before he joined the plot and joined relatively last minute. With the others the book describes how they lived abroad, became somewhat marginalized from society, attended fundamentalist mosques, became radicalized, went to Afghanistan for training, and eventually became involved in the plot which had been developing for years.

One of the more interesting aspects of this book is the shear amount of work that goes into researching this subject properly. While not a very large book, it is barely over 300 pages with appendices and footnotes, it took over 3 years to complete. Not only did the author work on it, but he credits no less than 5 others assisting him in carrying out original research in 20 different countries on 4 continents.

When one looks at the abundance of writings by 9/11 deniers (David Ray Griffin by himself has written or edited at least 5 different books on the subject) one finds the complete opposite. They have carried out little if any original research. Their writings are almost entirely based on repeating myths from conspiracy websites, excerpting news reports to fit their theory, or rumors (there are missiles at the Pentagon) which are based on absolutely no source at all. Heck, they claim that 7 of the hijackers are still alive, but over 5 years later, not one of the 9/11 denier "researchers" has even bothered to interview one of them. For what would probably be the biggest story of the century, you would think they would be making more of an effort.