David Ray Griffin--115 Things He Gets Wrong
Our buddy Gumboot from the JREF Forum has started to put together a formal debunking of David Ray Griffin's 115 Omissions and Distortions by the 9-11 Commission. These are rigorous, logical and incredibly well-written debunkings that he has kindly agreed to allow us to mirror over here. Here's his introduction:
DISTORTION OF FACT
A Comprehensive Analysis of The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie by Dr David Ray Griffin.
A Comprehensive Analysis of The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie by Dr David Ray Griffin.
Throughout this document the phrases “The 9/11 Commission Report” and “The Report” refer to the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (ISBN 0-393-32671-3). “The 9/11 Commission” and “The Commission” refers to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon The Unites States – the Government-appointed body which produced The Report.
INTRODUCTION
At this site, Dr David Ray Griffin – a retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology – summarises part of his book; The 9/11 Commission Report: Omission And Distortions – by listing 115 points of contention which he asserts are omission and distortions in the report, amounting to lies (herein “The Essay”).
The Essay begins:
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This analysis will attempt to determine the validity of Dr Griffin’s allegations by either affirming or rejecting each of his claims.
METHODOLOGY
The most common definition of “lie” is a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive. However for the benefit of this paper, rather than determine whether each lie alleged by Dr Griffin is indeed a lie (that is a deliberate effort to deceive on the part of the Commission) I will investigate the validity of the alternative claim raised by each of the allegations.
As example, the following statements:
1. The lie of distortion that the car belonged to my father.
2. The lie of omission that the car had six wheels.
From the perspective of determining whether each point is indeed a lie, it is essential to determine whether the Report was aware of the distortions or omission inherent in their claims, and to demonstrate that the Commission knowingly presented this false information (or failed to present this true information) with the intention of deceiving the reader.
Such a procedure is inherently difficult as I am not privy to the minds of the Commission members (as Dr Griffin, also, is not).
Instead, I intend to examine the alternative claim of fact which is inherent in each point of contention.
In example 1) above, “the lie of distortion that the car belonged to my father” contains the inherent claim of fact that the car did not belong to my father.
Likewise in example 2) “the lie of omission that the car had six wheels” contains the inherent claim of fact that the car did have six wheels.
To extend the metaphor, rather than determine whether the writer of the Report knew the inherent truths mentioned above, and intentionally deceived, I instead intend to consider the inherent claims themselves and determine their validity.
The methodology shall be displayed thus:
ALLEGATION OF FALSEHOOD (“THE ALLEGATION”)
The lie of distortion that the car belonged to my father.
CONFIRMATION OF THE CLAIM
On page 36 of the report it is claimed that the car belonged to my father.
OR ALTERNATIVELY
At no point in the report is it claimed that the car belonged to my father.
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IDENTIFICATION OF THE INHERENT CLAIM:
The inherent claim of this allegation is that the car did not belong to my father.
INVESTIGATION OF THE INHERENT CLAIM:
A detailed analysis of the inherent claim, determining as far as possible its validity. Sources for this section will be comprehensive. This section will constitute the major part of the work.
AFFIRMATION OR REJECTION OF THE INHERENT CLAIM:
The claim is correct; my father did not own the car – it was registered under my mother’s name.
OR ALTERNATIVELY
The claim is false; my father purchased the car on date X, registered it in his name, and renewed said registration in his name for a further 14 years to the present.
Although the 115 omissions and distortions listed by Dr Griffin in the essay are presented as distinct allegations, in fact some of them relate to the same claims. In these instances I have grouped the allegations together and responded to them collectively.
Numbers in parentheses at the end of each allegation refer to the pages of The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions in which the allegation is discussed.
Claim One
115 ALLEGATIONS OF OMISSION AND DISTORTION
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The Report claims that all of the nineteen alleged hijackers are dead, and died during the attacks. The first chapter of the Report We Have Some Planes (pg.1-46) identifies the hijackers and allocates them amongst the four hijacked flights as follows:
American Airlines Flight 11
Mohamed Atta
Abdul Aziz al Omari
Satam al Suqami
Wail al Shehri
Waleed al Shehri
United Airlines Flight 175
Marwan al Shehhi
Fayez Banihammad
Mohand al Shehri
Ahmed al Ghamdi
Hamza al Ghamdi
American Airlines Flight 77
Khalid al Mihdhar
Majed Moqed
Hani Hanjour
Nawaf al Hazmi
Salem al Hazmi
United Airlines Flight 93
Saeed al Ghamdi
Ahmed al Nami
Ahmad al Haznawi
Ziad Jarrah
The Report further claims:
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These claims originate in the days immediately after September 11, 2001 as the FBI began what would become the largest criminal investigation in the agency’s history.
On September 14th the FBI released a list with the names of nineteen middle-eastern men they believed were the hijackers.
Source:
The Telegraph
FBI Press Release
These were:
American Airlines Flight 11
Mohamed Atta
Abdulaziz Alomari
Waleed M Al Shehri
Satam Al Suqami
Wail Al Shehri
United Airlines Flight 175
Marwan Al Shehhi
Fayez Ahmed
Mohald Al Shehri
Hamza Alghamdi
Ahmed Al Ghamdi
American Airlines Flight 77
Khalid Al-Midhar
Majed Moqed
Nawaq Alhamzi
Salem Alhamzi
Hani Hanjour
United Airlines Flight 93
Ahmed Alhaznawi
Ahmed Alnami
Ziad Jarrahi
Saeed Alghamdi
Of the nineteen listed, five have slightly different names or spelling than those listed in the Report.
The first media reports of alleged hijackers being alive appeared on 23rd September.
The BBC reported:
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The BBC identifies the following:
Waleed Al Shehri – A pilot from Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz Al Omari – An engineer from Saudi Arabia
Abdulaziz Al Omari – A pilot from Saudi Arabia
Saeed Alghamdi – Interviewed by London-based Arabic newspaper
Khalid Al Midhar – May also be alive
On 27th October 2006 the BBC issued a statement in their Editors blog, stating that the initial allegations in their 2001 article were a result of mistaken identity.
A Telegraph article, also of 23rd September 2001, cites four individuals who claim the hijackers stole their identities.
This article cites the Saudi engineer from the BBC article; Abdulaziz Al-Omari. It also cites Saeed Al-Ghamdi and indicates he is also a pilot from Saudi Arabia. The article further cites two other hijackers; Salem Al-Hamzi (worker at Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia) and Ahmed Al-Nami (administrator for Saudi Arabian Airlines, Saudi Arabia).
Momentarily ignoring variations of spelling, this gives a total of seven individuals claiming identity as six of the alleged hijackers.
It is important to note that these articles were written based on a preliminary name-only list of hijackers. An official list of the hijackers – with photographs – was released on 27th September.
On the 6th of February 2002 Saudi Arabia officially acknowledged that 15 of the 19 hijackers were their citizens, as reported by USA Today:
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Eight of the nineteen hijackers have, at various times, been identified as being alive by the media. A detailed investigation of each individual claim follows.
Abdulaziz Al Omari
This allegation arose from the BBC articled quoted previously. In this article the Al Omari cited is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms. He claimed his passport was lost whilst studying in Denver, USA. A second man with the same name is cited in the same BBC article. He claimed to be a pilot with Saudi Arabian Airlines.
Obviously, if two individuals are claiming to be the same hijacker, there has been confusion. Either one, or both of them are in error.
Once photos were released of the hijackers it became obvious that Al Omari the engineer was an entirely different person to Al Omari the hijacker.
However that still left Al Omari the Saudi Airlines pilot. On 16th September 2001 CNN broadcast Al Omari the pilot’s photo, identifying him as the pilot of AA11. However, the FBI quickly determined that Mohamed Atta was the pilot of AA11, not Al Omari the hijacker.
The CNN have since apologised to Al Omari for this confusion, and conducted an interview with him. In the interview and from his September 16 photograph it is clear he is not the Al Omari presented in photographs issued by the FBI on 27th September.
So what about Al Omari the hijacker? According to Saudi Information Agency, Al Omari the hijacker was 23; much younger than either of the other Al Omaris. He studied religion at university, where he befriended a number of clerics. In December 2000 he left for Afghanistan where he trained in Kandahar and fought alongside the Taliban.
Ahmed Al-Nami
This allegation arose from the Telegraph article, and identifies a 33yr old administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
However the profile for Al-Nami the hijacker is very different. Like Al Omari, he was young and also trained at a religious university. According to his friends and family, in 1999 he started to become highly religious, so much so that his family feared he had bipolar disorder. In December 2000 he left on a trip to Mecca. His family never saw him again, although they received a phone call from him in June 2001. It is believed that we went to Afghanistan to train in Kandahar, just like Al Omari.
Khalid Al Mihdhar
This allegation arises in the BBC article, where it is speculated he “might be alive”.
A Saudi computer programmer called Khalid Al-Mihammadi claimed in September 2001 that the photo initially released by the FBI was him. However the article that released this information also revealed that the FBI initially released two alternative names - Khalid Al Mihdhar and Khalid Al-Mihammadi – with different photographs for each. Which means Al-Mihammadi the computer programmer is not Al Mihdhar the hijacker.
Indeed, Khalid Al Mihdhar the hijacker was an Al Qaeda veteran. In 1995 he travelled to Bosnia with fellow 9/11 Hijacker Nawaf al Hazmi to join the Bosnian Muslims in their war against the Bosnian Serbs. After this he travelled to Afghanistan where he joined Al Qaeda and fought against the Afghan Northern Alliance. According to his family, in 1998 he fought in Chechnya.
Mohammed Atta
The allegation that Atta is still alive originates from his father. His father’s story has changed dramatically over time, making his assertions unreliable. Here’s some highlights:
Mohamed al-Amir Atta first talked to the media in an interview for the New York Times on the 19th of September, 2001.
In this interview Atta Senior denies his son was involved in the attacks.
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Atta’s father also makes a number of other claims throughout the interview:
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Atta Senior next appears in a 24th September interview for Newsweek.
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The next interview would come from the Guardian on September 2nd 2002, reporting an interview with the German Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
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Two years later, in an Associated Press interview on the 3rd anniversary of the attacks, Atta Senior first blames Mossad for the attacks, and then God (as punishment for the USA’s evil). He proposes that a Palestinian who rams an aircraft into the White House killing President George Bush and his family will go to heaven.
Perhaps the article that is most damning of Atta Senior is an interview from October 2004 with the Egyptian Magazine “EgyptToday”.
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A final interview was conducted with a CNN producer in July, 2005.
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As we can see, Mohammed Atta’s father cannot be considered a reliable source. His story continuously changes, is self-contradicting, and he is clearly heavily biased in the subject matters at hand. He is also clearly poorly informed regarding 9/11 – every single one of the claims he makes in the EgyptToday interview is totally false.
Other records of Atta’s life paint a very different picture. His fellow students in Germany recall him abruptly changing after a long trip away (which video evidence indicates was a trip to Afghanistan). He came back very religious, political, and wearing a beard. As the leader of the 19 hijackers, Atta spent much longer in the USA than most of the conspirators, and records of his movements – including a traffic violation, financial transactions, and purchases with a credit card in his name, leave a very solid evidence trail that supports the official version of events.
Saeed al-Ghamdi
Again it is the BBC article of 23 September that identifies al-Ghamdi as alive. According to their report a London-based Arabic newspaper called Asharq Al Awsat interviewed him after the attacks. The Telegraph article of the same day expanded on this reference.
According to their story, as with Al Omari, al-Ghamdi was a Saudi pilot. As with Al Omari, his picture was broadcast on CNN to the world. Saeed claims he was in Tunis at the time with 20 other students learning to fly the Airbus A320.
Like Al Omari, al-Ghamdi had previously studied at the same Florida flight school that some of the hijackers used. A clear pattern arises. Just as with Al Omari, the photograph released by the FBI on 27th September was not al-Ghamdi the pilot.
The Germany newspaper Der Spiegel investigated some of the hijacker-alive claims, and interviewed Mohammed Samman – the reporter who talked to al-Ghamdi the Saudi pilot. Samman was happy to confirm that the al-Ghamdi in the FBI’s suspect photographs issued on 27 September was not the pilot he had talked to.
But what of al-Ghamdi the hijacker?
According to a Boston Globe article of March 2002, al-Ghamdi and three other 9/11 Hijackers from the same area of Saudi Arabia (Wael and Walid Alshehri and Ahmed Alnami) met at the Al Farouq training camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The same Al Qaeda camp where other 9/11 hijackers trained. In 2000 these four hijackers, including al-Ghamdi, dedicated themselves to Jihad in a Saudi mosque, according to local clerics and friends.
In March 2001 al-Ghamdi appeared in an Al Qaeda “farewell” video broadcast on Al Jazeera. In the video he is seen studying flight maps and training manuals, and declares the USA “the enemy”. He appears in the video with other 9/11 hijackers.
Salem Al-Hamzi
Al-Hamzi is one of two sets of brothers amongst the 9/11 Hijackers. The doubt over his identity arises from the Telegraph article, where it cites a petrochemical worker from the Yanbu Industrial City in Saudi Arabia. However Al-Hamzi the worker is a different age to Al-Hamzi the alleged hijacker, has never been to the USA (the FBI cited Al-Hamzi the hijacker’s residence as in New Jersey), and perhaps most odd of all, makes no mention of the accusations laid against his presumably also innocent brother Nawaf. Could it be this particular Al-Hamzi doesn’t have a brother called Nawaf, and is, indeed, an entirely different person?
The Saudi Information Agency seems to be talking about an entirely different Al-Hamzi. According to them, the two Al-Hamzi brothers were from Makkah, and left Saudi Arabia in March 2000 to train at the same Kandahar camp where the other alleged hijackers trained. Sound familiar?
Wail and Waleed Al-Shehri
There’s no less than three claims to the identity of the second pair of brothers to take part in the 9/11 hijacking. The first , Waleed Al-Shehri, appeared in the BBC article previously mentioned, and was a pilot in Casablanca. He denied having a brother called Wail, or knowing anyone in his family called Wail. His claim is that a friend saw his photo, however this story appeared before the FBI released the photographs. We can trace this photograph back to the same CNN news broadcast in which many other hijackers were displayed with photographs of entirely innocent men.
Al-Shehri the pilot also trained at the school in Florida where others such as Al-Omari trained. Further confirmation came from the investigation conducted by Der Spiegel. In their article they claim the pilot from Morocco was not called Waleed Al-Shehri at all, but Walid Al-Shri; the mistake appears to be a result of the transliteration of his Arabic name.
Another claim was that the two brothers were sons of a Saudi diplomat based in Bombay. The diplomat in question was identified as Ahmed Al-Shehri, and these claims arose in Saudi media shortly after the attacks.
The Boston Globe contacted Ahmed Al-Shehri on 15 September and asked him about the two brothers. His response was less than compelling.
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A day later, in a 16 September article, the Washington Post reports that Ahmed Al-Shehri denied the two alleged hijackers were his sons.
The FBI identified Waleed as Waleed M Al-Shehri, and this single often-excluded middle initial may hold the answer. In Saudi Arabian naming tradition, the last name refers to the tribal name, sometimes including hundreds of thousands of members, as demonstrated by Al-Shehri the diplomat. The middle name for men is usually taken from the father. In the case of Ahmen Al-Shehri, a son called Waleed would have the middle initial A – for Ahmed.
As it happened another man called Muhammad Ali Al-Shehri claimed to be the father of the two hijackers. He hadn’t seen his sons since December 2000.
In a further NBC interview a living brother of the hijackers – Saleh – stated that he felt his brothers were dead and had been brainwashed.
In a Telegraph article a cousin of the brothers claimed that after a trip to Medina in 1999 they changed, growing beards, becoming very religious, and shunning their former friends.
The Saudi Information Agency profile on the brothers indicates that they were religious, and left Saudi Arabia to train at Al Qaeda’s Kandahar camp in Afghanistan.
This certainly accounts for the claims from living people that they were the suspects named. However this doesn’t of course mean the hijackers are indeed dead.
In the wake of the attacks an extensive FBI investigation was conducted. Given the suicidal nature of the attacks, the hijackers were not especially concerned about hiding their tracks, and as such the investigation uncovered a substantial amount of evidence implicating the nineteen hijackers. The tickets for the flights were registered in their names, and video surveillance captured the hijackers of AA11, UA175, and AA77 as they passed through airport security. There was no video surveillance at the security gate for UA93.
Calls from passengers and crew on each of the four flights identified the hijackers as middle-eastern, and on some flights their seat numbers were identified. The nineteen hijackers are the only people on any of the four flights with Arabic names.
Some of this evidence was presented in the case of United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui at the United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia.
A further trail of evidence puts all of the 9/11 hijackers through Al Qaeda’s training camp in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as previously discussed.
Lastly, martyr videos for many of the hijackers exist which depict their targets behind them.
These have been assembled into a comprehensive series of videos which present compelling evidence that Al Qaeda and the nineteen hijackers did indeed carry out the attacks.
The series is titled “The Usual Suspects”
There is substantial evidence to support the contention that the nineteen named hijackers were indeed responsible for the 9/11 attacks, and died that day. The evidence supporting the contention that they are still alive is weak, and close investigation reveals that those who came forward as the hijackers were simple cases of mistaken identity.
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Incredible work by Gumboot--114 more to come!
Labels: 115 Omissions and Distortions, 9-11 Commission, David Ray Griffin
posted by Pat @ 6:48 AM
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