An Oldie But a Goodie

Earlier I once said that to my knowledge David Ray Griffin had never participated in a debate or an interview in which he was challenged. I am still not aware of any examples of the former, but I found an older example of the latter, in an interview with the CBC.

As expected, the guy is evasive as OJ Simpson under cross examination.

Solomon: I'm quoting Lee Hamilton, he says that 'the only thing I ask in the future is that the conspiracy theory people do not apply a double standard, that is to say, they want us to provide an airtight case for any assertion that we make, whereas when they make an assertion, they often do it on very flimsy evidence. And he says, his quote is, 'I ask them to show me any hard evidence.' If you could show him hard evidence, what would you show him?

Griffin: If Lee Hamilton would be willing to meet with me and discuss with me in a public forum, that would be wonderful, and I will show him all the evidence. But he will refuse this, as will all other members of the 9/11 Commission. They make these brave statements in front of the camera, but when you ask them 'let's enter into a debate about this', they always refuse, saying 'well, we don't want to lend the conspiracy theorists credibility.

Now, he used this term "conspiracy theorist" to apply to me and other members of the movement, but of course a conspiracy is simply when two or three people enter into an agreement in secret to do something illegal. The 9/11.. the official story about 9/11 is a gigantic conspiracy theory - that 19 Arab Muslims, under the guidance of Osama bin Laden, defeated the world's most sophisticated military defense system, and also in bringing down the World Trade Center, defeated many of the basic laws of physics. So that is the basic conspiracy theory, and what we in the movement are doing is challenging that conspiracy theory.

Uhh, you ever want to get around to answering his question?

Griffin later explains gravity:

Griffin: Sure, people grasp at straws, and it's not surprising that they would do this. But these squibs - in my book, I call them horizontal ejections, and they're really quite impressive, and to believe that the force of gravity, which is a vertical force, could have caused these is scientifically very dubious - particularly when you see that it is not only smoke that is ejected horizontally, but you have pieces of steel and aluminum that are thrown out horizontally, some of them even vertically, for part of the way, several hundred feet. There is no way that can be explained as the downward result of the compression.

Later he repeats the myth that 9/11 was not investigated.

Griffin: Let me add here, what we need is a genuine investigation. We have more of a criminal investigation if the local 7-11 is robbed - you actual put people under oath, you give them lie detector tests, you threaten them with prison if they lie under oath - none of that was done with 9/11, which was the biggest crime in American history, and it was not investigated as a crime. For example..

The FBI would disagree:

Our ensuing investigation of the attacks of 9/11/01—code-named “PENTTBOM”—was our largest investigation ever. At the peak of the case, more than half our agents worked to identify the hijackers and their sponsors and, with other agencies, to head off any possible future attacks. We followed more than half-a-million investigative leads, including several hundred thousand tips from the public. The attack and crash sites also represented the largest crime scenes in FBI history.