FACES OF DEATH: MOUSSAOUI EDITION

THE FLIGHT 77 PASSENGERS: WE SEE THE BODIES?

"Okay, well, then if it wasn't a plane that hit the Pentagon, then what happened to the plane and the people on it?" This is at root a good retort but also of course the most over-used and one I'm not going to bother with. In fact, it's beginning to seem that we have the answer anyway. There are many ways to disappear planes and passengers, but the simplest explanation for the missing status of Flight 77 and its passengers, that for which Occam’s razor would lobby, is that they were simply on board the plane when it crashed as reported, killing two birds with one stone as it were and keeping the evidence consistent. The WTC is one thing, but if no bodies turned up in the wreckage at the Pentagon’s relatively deserted Navy wing, that would look mighty suspicious. In fact, we’ve been told all the bodies were recovered and identified as Barb Olson, Captain Burlingame and the others, and Fintan Dunne's guess that this was their most convincing crime scene seems well-founded. But verification remains elusive, and the critics maintain since the bodies could not have been fit inside a cruise missile, the officials are lying.

At least this had been the situation until the Moussaoui case closed in May 2006. In an effort to clinch the death penalty, the government’s team had showed the jury new photos that seem to have answered the question Von Kleist couldn’t, a hint of the coming “bam!” The Washington Post reported on April 12 “just before the lunch break, they also showed the jury pictures of death - the scorched partial remains of Pentagon victims and a blackened body atop a blue body bag.” [1] A lunch spent unsettled and queasy from the viewing had to help the hungry jurors move closer to that guilty verdict over the afternoon as they listened to the cockpit voice recorder from Flight 93, another first, and the voices of other victims just before they too were burnt.

All this seems unrealted to Moussaoui's guilt and it seems the Moroccan's involvement was secondary, an opportunity to make an entirely different case to a much larger jury. Indeed, after the trial was finished with a guilty verdict on May 3 and Moussaoui’s sentencing to six life terms the following day, the government made an unusual move. All pieces of evidence admitted during the trial were released to the public, the US District Court, East Virginia District announced, “with the exception of seven that are classified or otherwise remain under seal.” Including both prosecution and defense exhibits, these 1,202 pieces were posted online on July 31. The court’s statement noted that “this is the first criminal case for which a federal court has provided access to all exhibits online,” or at least all but seven. [2]

Like the evidence itself, the full reasoning behind this unprecedented decision to release it to everyone remains unclear. The mass release included mug shots of terrorists both at large and in custody, copies of fax transmissions and photos of thick binders. There were new views of the devastation at the Pentagon – the entry hole, the “punch-out hole” on the A-E drive, interior shots, and a new shot of what appears to be the turbine from a jet engine.

To avoid a grisly and distasteful speactacle, here is a "chalk outline" I made of the most probable airline passenger from the government's photos

Most striking, of course, were the four grisly photographs showing charred human corpses, most in the seated position. Skeptics have wondered if the corpses were of workers from the Pentagon, but if I were an office worker hearing explosions, I’d stand instantly, alert to act as soon as I figured out what was happening where. I’d only die resigned and sitting if I was on a plane and already knew I was toast and had no choice. Therefore my guess is we have a few of our passengers from Flight 77 – one appears small enough in fact to be little Bernard Brown. Rest all their souls, and it seems near time to finally put to rest the no plane theory.

So far discussion on these new photos seems curiously muted inside the movement. Screw Loose Change posted the day after the release, August 1, regarding “the new evidence released from the Moussaoui trial.” Of the evidence Site admin James had seen, “one struck me the most, in a quite horrific way.” This was not one of the photos of bodies, but an animation “listing all the locations in the Pentagon that the bodies, or rather the body parts of all the victims were found. If you click on each marker on the map, it brings up the name and picture of the victim. I challenge any 9/11 denier to click through all these markers, and then get back to me on how all of this is fake.” [3]

Yet over at the 911 Blogger site, the endless elaborations on theories old and new was momentarily interrupted in early October by an uproar over indirect references to these photos, astutely caught and translated from the video of a Japanese 9/11 Truth conference. One poster fumed about a “right-wing” Japanese politician who showed up and countered the no plane theory by claiming he had “photos of bodies strapped into flight seats, and other bodies, at the pentagon!!” Three successive members commented:

“[A]s far as i know no such footage exists which means that he is lying out his ass!” … “First, those pics don't exist. Second, if they did exist, what business does he have with them in his computer? It's very fishy” … “What a MASSIVE lie! […] it is shocking that they would try to get away with something like this. this could be big to trace this guy down and find out where his orders to lie came from and for what reason.”

All these were posted on October 6, well over a month after the government released the photos for anyone to see. Prosecution Phase Two Exhibits P200042, P200045, P200047, P200048, not that there are many links from the “Truth” sites. Someone else at 911Blogger quickly posted several links to the photos, and soon they had confirmation – and the same photos – from the “Mr. Aoyama” in question. Some apologies for jumping the gun followed suit, then the subject shifted. [4] It was a telling episode, displaying a certain out-of-touchness indicative of a movement that’s beginning to realize it’s on crooked tracks but perhaps too late to avoid the crash.

Fintan Dunne noted on August 10 the Pentagon’s apparent victory in this set-up evidence war: “They got the lot. They got plane bits and they got all the bodies. They got photos. They got forensics. They have it sewn up. What? But weren't they all substitute planes, remotely controlled? Plane Bits! AND bodies! Yep. Just a regular plane crash. They flew the plane in by wire. It had passengers. It hit the Pentagon. It blew up.” [5]

Sources:
[1] Markon, Jerry and Timothy Dwyer. “Pentagon Attack Recalled at Trial: Moussaoui Prosecutors Shift to Spotlight Local Terror on 9/11.” Washington Post. April 12, 2006; Page A05
[2] United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia. “United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Criminal No. 01-455-A.” Trial Exhibits.
[3] James B. “The Pentagon Victims.” Screw Loose Change. Tuesday, August 01, 2006.
[4] “Video: Japanese 9/11 TV coverage.” 911Blogger.com. Presented by: Reprehensor. October 5 2006.
[5] Dunne, Fintan. Post subject: Pentagon Honey Trap. Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:25 pm. “The Next Level: The Intelligent Alternative. Pentagon – Overview.