Morons and Magic - Griffin replies to Monbiot

[xmasdale]

Morons and Magic: A Reply to George Monbiot
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17256.htm
David Ray Griffin
ICH
Thursday, March 8, 2007

In 'bayoneting a Scarecrow The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a coward¹s
cult.' (Guardian, February 20), George Monbiot accuses members of the 9/11 truth movement of being 'morons' and 'idiots' who believe in 'magic.'
Having in his previous attack---'A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world,' Guardian, February 6---called me this movement's 'high priest,' he now describes my 9/11 writing as a 'concatenation of ill-attested nonsense.'

03/07/07 "ICH " -- - If my books are moronic nonsense, then people who have endorsed them must be morons. Would Monbiot really wish to apply this label to Michel Chossudovsky, Richard Falk, Ray McGovern, Michael Meacher, John McMurtry, Marcus Raskin, Rosemary Ruether, Howard Zinn, and the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who, after a stint in the CIA, became one of America¹s leading civil rights, anti-war, and anti-nuclear activists?

If anyone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job is by definition an
idiot, then Moncbiot would have to sling that label at Colonel Robert
Bowman, former head of the U.S. ³Star Wars² program; Andreas von Bülow, former State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Defense; former CIA analysts Bill Christison and Robert David Steele; former Scientific American columnist A. K. Dewdney; General Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff of the Russian armed forces; Colonel Ronald D. Ray, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; all the members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, and Pilots for 9/11 Truth; and most of the individuals listed under ³Professors Question 9/11² on the ³Patriots Question 9/11² website.

One of the reasons these people reject the government¹s conspiracy theory is that, if they were to accept the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Centre, they would need to affirm magical beliefs. A few examples:

The Twin Towers came straight down, which means that each building¹s 287 steel columns all had to fail simultaneously; to believe this could happen
without explosives is to believe in magic.

At the onset of each tower¹s collapse, steel beams were ejected out as far
as 600 feet; to believe that these horizontal ejections could be explained
by gravitational energy, which is vertical, is to believe in magic.

Virtually all of the concrete in the towers was pulverized into extremely
fine dust particles; to believe that fire plus gravity could have done this
is to believe in magic.

WTC 7 and the towers came down at virtually free-fall speed, meaning that
the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, provided no resistance
to the upper floors; to believe this could happen without explosives is to
believe in magic.

Pools of molten metal were found under each building. Because steel does
not begin to melt until it reaches about 1,540°C and yet the fires could not
have gotten over 1000°C, to accept the fire theory is to believe in magic.

Monbiot, regarding the 9/11 truth movement¹s conspiracy theory as a
wrong-headed distraction, fails to see that the obviously false and truly
distracting conspiracy theory is the official 9/11 myth, which has been
used to justify imperial wars and increased militarism, thereby distracting
attention from global apartheid and the ecological crisis. We focus on the
9/11 myth because, until it is exposed, getting our governments to focus
wholeheartedly on the truly urgent issues of our time will be impossible.

David Ray Griffin has published over 30 books, including four about 9/11.
His next book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, will be out in April.



"A society whose citizens refuse to see and investigate the facts, who
refuse to believe that their government and their media will routinely lie
to them and fabricate a reality contrary to verifiable facts, is a society
that chooses and deserves the Police State Dictatorship it's going to get."
-- Ian Williams Goddard

[Mark Gobell]

To mitigate his impending pain, I'd advise Mr Monbiot to stuff a seriously thick book or two, down the back of his trousers before his debate with DRG.

Something like:

The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions

or

9/11 and American Empire, Volume 1: Intellectuals Speak Out: 1

or

New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11

or

Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory

[acrobat74]

[fish5133]

Dont waste such good books as those any where near Monbiots *rse Better go for just the hardback version of
the 911 Commission Report and Pop Mechanics Debunking 9/11 Myths. They will feel more at home there.

[xmasdale]

We now have two threads on this topic. Here's a link to the other one:

http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=99020#99020

[outsider]

[rodin]

Gatekeeping tribemember EOM