Dissembling Websites
We show that the September 11, 2001 attack
was a carefully engineered inside job similar to
previous attacks
such as the Oklahoma City bombing.
In the aftermath of this attack, as in previous cases,
a community of skeptics worked to expose the fraudulence of the official story.
However, by 2001, the World Wide Web had become established as one
of the principal modes of communication.
It immediately became the main arena
for the information wars surrounding the attack.
Given how much was invested in the success of the attack,
it is only reasonable to expect that elaborate deceptions
would be crafted to confuse and discredit the skeptics.
A raft of websites have popped up since the attack
promoting theories ranging from patently absurd to subtle hoaxes.
In some cases websites that had established reputations
before the attack were used to inject nonsense into
the discourse of 9/11 skeptics.
Here we review just three websites --
a list which just scratches the surface of the broad array
of websites that appear to be part of a campaign
to discredit the case for official complicity in the attack:
911Review.org
A case in point is 911review.org,
which was originally rolled out in late 2003, just as
911Research.wtc7.net
was coming into prominence.
Our analysis of that site finds that it has the effect
of discrediting skepticism of the official account of the attack,
whether by design or incompetence.
Another example was Physics911.net
(originally Physics911.org)
also rolled out in late 2003,
with the ostensible goal of providing a
Scientific Panel for the Investigation of Nine-Eleven (SPINE).
Both 911Review.org and Physics911.net
promoted hoaxes like the
Pod-Plane
and pushed implausible science fiction scenarios like
Operation Pearl.
Numerous other sites serving to discredit serious analysis of 9/11/01 lack
the sophistication of 911review.org and Physics911.net.
Some, such as letsroll911.org, are almost entirely devoted
to amplifying the idea, supported by no evidence,
that missiles were used in the attack on the Twin Towers.
OilEmpire.us was the first site to provide a complete rundown
on such sites in mid-2004 --
a time when several new such sites sprang up.
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[T]he 9/11 truth movement has been having long overdue successes
in shifting public consciousness
many more people now understand that 9/11 was not a surprise attack.
This is probably why bogus websites and fake films with easily disproved
material have been developed, which distract from the best evidence
of complicity.
These websites promote the idea that blurry photos with illogical
and supported claims should be the basis for 9/11 truth outreach efforts,
instead of the issues surrounding the failure of the Air Force
to intercept the hijacked planes[.]
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WING TV
Lip service to the core facts of the attack is sometimes used
in dissembling sites to establish bona fides within segments of
the 9/11 Truth Movement.
For example, Victor Thorn, on the WingTV website, writes in
"9-11 Bottom Line: Explosives in the WTC":
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As the 9-11 Truth Movement surges forward and attempts to determine who
the guilty parties actually are, we likewise need to step-back for a moment
and focus on what constitutes the crux of this matter. In other words,
we've been expending so much energy on peripheral issues that we're losing
sight of the most damning act of all the explosive demolition of the
World Trade Center towers and WTC7. Now this isn't saying that the war games,
our military stand-down, Flight 93, or the absence of a Boeing 757 at the
Pentagon are unimportant; but in the end, none of these areas of study hold
the potential to prove that our government was directly involved in the
planning, execution, and cover-up of 9-11 as does the deliberate destruction
of the twin towers. We shouldn't be mamby-pambying around any longer
with facilitation, negligence, or incompetence; we should be going straight
for the throat by proving that these provocateurs engaged in a planned mass
murder by placing bombs in these buildings!
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This position will sound reasonable to most people who accept that
the Twin Towers were destroyed through controlled demolition --
a position supported by evidence provided in
The World Trade Center Attack
section of this website.
However, the article provides no links or references to any other
work backing up the allegation of explosive demolition.
Elsewhere on the site, Victor Thorn attacks Jim Hoffman for his
essay
deconstructing the theory that no 757 hit the Pentagon.
Hoffman's
reply to Thorn's attack
provides the links to source articles that are conspicuously absent
from the attack piece.
Thorn's attack piece and site also fail to note that Hoffman has assembled
some of the most compelling evidence for the explosive demolition
of the Twin Towers, such as
slideshow talks
presented to numerous audiences.
Nor does the WingTV site have a single link to
wtc7.net or its subdomains,
for example.
This pattern of omission is a tool used by other dissemblers
to appear to support a position while actually undermining it.
ScholarsFor911Truth.org
The website
ScholarsFor911Truth.org
illustrates, perhaps better than any website,
how disinformation both exploits and neutralizes
some of the best work of 9/11 Truth researchers and activists.
The website presents several potent assets:
- The scholarly and meticulous work of
members Steven Jones and David Griffin.
- The impressive list of
Scholars For 9/11 Truth members,
including such distinguished contributors to the 9/11 Truth cause as
Kevin Ryan,
Don Paul,
Andreas Von Buelow,
Robert M. Bowman,
Kevin Barrett,
Ian Woods,
and
Victoria Ashley.
- The concept of a group of scholars bringing together
their expertise to challenge the government's account --
a first in the history of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
However, through the energetic spokespersonship of James Fetzer,
ScholarsFor911Truth.org
exploits these assets
to increase its profile and thereby promote the
Pentagon no-jetliner theory featured on its "Resources" page.
The association of the junk science typified by the
ScholarsFor911Truth.org's resources page
with the competent work of Jones and Griffin featured on the home page
functions both to advance the former,
and discredit the latter through association.
In an essay examining ScholarsFor911Truth.org,
Jim Hoffman concludes that the website may sabotage the work of
Steven Jones.
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...
Because of the importance of the flawed
ScholarsFor911Truth.org website,
that may happen despite the good intentions and excellent credentials
of many of the group's members.
In late-2005, people looking into Steven Jones' work would
be directed to his paper on the
Brigham Young University website.
Now, people are directed to ScholarsFor911Truth.org,
which mixes the scholarly work of Steven Jones and David Griffin with
unscientific, sensationalist, and even offensive material.
In the context of the flawed ScholarsFor911Truth.org website,
Jones' work will be much easier to dismiss as the product
of a group of "conspiracy theorists."
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The creator of Flight77.info offers the following
incisive critique of ScholarsFor911Truth.org on his blog
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i hate sort of beating-up on certain segments of the collective of people
who are skeptical about the official version of happened on 9/11...
but here i go again: scholars for 9/11 truth: another just provocative
web site. how can you tell? among other things, on their home page,
they promote the 9/11 music video called 'loose change' that offers up
every crack pot pod missile theory in the book.
'loose change' is out there
just to provoke people emotionally. its substance is in its appeal to teens
and twentysomethings. so why are the 'scholars for 9/11 truth' aligning
themselves with a tin hat munching 9/11 music video? why are the 'scholars
for 9/11 truth' also promoting the no 757 theory? answer: the web site is
just provocative. it's using the blanket (AKA
'big tent'; throwing enough
shit at the wall) approach to attract more people to the concept that 9/11
was an inside job. then by magic, one of these new people will uncover
the proof we need to hang the true conspirators.
what's wrong with this 'scholarly' approach? anyone? anyone ? bueler? bueler?
once bush & co reach the end of their reign - that's the finish line,
they win. once those powers-that-be are out of power, people lose interest.
we need to get 'em for 9//11 while they're in office if we're going to end
this endless war on terrorism.
so the problem with the scholars for 9/11 truth's throw-enough-shit-at-the-wall
approach is that they're spinning a new generation of 9/11 skeptics into 9/11
goofballs who are going to spend the next 2 1/2 years looking at the same old
pictures of the pentagon going, 'gee, that IS a small hole...' and who will
spend endless hours replaying the WTC video trying to see the missile pods.
what does it gain the 9/11 truth movement if everyone is a member - but we're
all full of shit reciting misinformation?
[EDITOR'S NOTE: hyperlinks added to excerpt by 911Review.com]
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Although the website
ScholarsFor911Truth.org
had the appearance of speaking for the members of
Scholars for 9/11 Truth,
numbering more than 200,
the site was actually controlled by James Fetzer.
By November of 2006 Fetzer was openly attacking Steven Jones
and heavily promoting ideas that
nuclear weapons
or space beams were used to destroy the Twin Towers.
In December of 2006 a majority of the membership of
voted to form a new group,
Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice,
with the website
STJ911.org.
Fetzer began to migrate to several other domains including
911Scholars.org.
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page last modified: 2007-07-03
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