THE FOIA WARS

FARRELL VS DOD VS BINGHAM VS DOJ
IN SEARCH OF THE HIDDEN VIDEOS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
December 17 2006

Enter Judicial Watch (JW), a conservative/libertarian grouping of lawyers who target government/judicial/legal corruption. They’ve been harsh on the Clintons and their various scandals, and were instrumental in House of Representatives impeachment efforts in the 1990s. But they have also proven willing to tackle the Bush administration to some extent – after all they’re supposed to be watchdogs. Representing FBI special agent Robert Wright, Judicial Watch charges pre 9/11 incompetence at the FBI’s counter-terrorism division (over both the Clinton and Bush years, from Freeh to Mueller). Most pointedly, they summed up that Wright “accuses the FBI of obstructing investigative efforts that might have prevented some of the September 11 attacks.” [1] Although it apparently wasn’t intended to such ends, the lawsuit has been used by many as evidence of a LIHOP theory of the attacks based in the dubious line that “softness” on “the Saudis” was to blame.

Now Judicial Watch is making moves towards pulling a leading leg from beneath the MIHOP no-plane-at-the-Pentagon crowd. In February 2006 they filed a lawsuit against Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department to release some video of the attack captured by Pentagon cameras. They have also announced plans to sue the FBI to release the 84 videos from surrounding cameras seized and kept under wraps. “Our experience has been that whenever the government takes extraordinary measures to keep the lid on documents,” their announcement of intent read, “it is worth investigating.” [2] JW clarified they were seeking video release “in part to help put to rest conspiracy theories that a government drone or missile hit the Pentagon,” clearly something the government should be eager to cooperate with. [3] Earlier JW suits to this end had been denied, with the government saying they needed to keep the tapes secret on account of the pending trial of Zaccarias Moussaoui.

Whatever logic there may have been in that refusal, it fell flat after the trial’s conclusion in early May 2006. On May 16, Judicial Watch posted the first two videos handed over to them by the Justice Department - one of them is simply the video from the Pentagon's security cameras from which the five stills were extracted in 2002, and the video is no better than the stills. The other was from a camera just a few inches away at the same checkpoint, and equally worthless as evidence for either side. These were not much, but were hoped to be the first in a series of releases. [4] This was big news on May 16; JW President Tom Fitton was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly in his “Impact Segment:” Fitton explained “we wanted to help put to rest conspiracy theories out there that were suggesting that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon, that the government murdered the passengers on Flight 77, and other outrageous stuff. Just having the videos released is one more leg of the conspiracy theory that has been knocked out. This also reminds Americans of the evil we are facing.” [5] Fox News in general also ran the story [6] along with several wire services. Fitton was quoted in a May 16 CNN story as saying “we fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11.” [7]

Despite the watchdog group’s public relations coup, there is in fact some contention over who is responsible for these releases. Scott Bingham, administrator of the site Flight77.info, claims it was he, not Judicial Watch, that “forced the release of the recent flight 77 video.” He pointed to his FOIA lawsuit, Scott Bingham vs. DoJ et al., with Bingham posting letters sent to the DoJ and responses sent to his attorney Scott Hode. The reason for the request was summed up by the department: “tired of what plaintiff’s complaint calls “outlandish conspiracy theories” about the crash […] plaintiff seeks to correct what he describes as a veritable culture of misinformation.” Their opinion, issued August 1 2005, was that “this information should not be released until the risk to the Moussaoui prosecution has passed. Defendant therefore seeks summary judgment in favor of its assertion of Exepmtion 7(A) and dismissal of plaintiff’s lawsuit with prejudice.” [8] Perhaps it’s no coincidence, but unlike JW, Bingham is a 9/11 Truther, just one fed up with the Fraudsters. He seems to believe neither Loose Change nor the government.

The judge agreed to the exemption and and blocked the release, but as the Moussaoui case was decided, on May 5, Judge Friedman set a deadline date of May 26th, giving the government three weeks to either let the videos go or “show cause” to hold them longer. Bingham explains it was this date, not JW’s actions, that got them released in May. [9] According to a timeline of all this litigation, Bingham was indeed well ahead of JW. (thanks to Jim Hoffman at 9-11 Research for compiling this). It was back on October 14, 2004 that Scott Hodes, on behalf of Bingham, sent a Freedom of Information Act request to David Hardy of the FBI for any videos “that may have captured the impact of Flight 77 into the Pentagon.” On November 3: The FBI replies that their search “revealed no record responsive to your FOIA request,” and on the 17th Hodes appealed, citing evidence that the videotapes indeed did exist. [10]

Finally on December 15 Judicial Watch’s Director of Investigations & Research Chris Farrrell first asks for the same videos. Farrell’s request bypassed the DoJ and instead was put on a fast track via the Defense Department, though the request covered files from the FBI and Homeland Security as well. Both Hodes and Farrell received early-2005 responses that the evidence needed to be kept secret to protect ongoing legal cases. On September 9, 2005, a FBI Counterterrorism special agent filed a declaration admitting to 85 videotapes in the FBI's possession that were “potentially responsive” to Hodes’ and Bingham’s request; the agent further declared that she watched 29 of them before she found one that actually showed the impact. On September 26, Hodes filed a request seeking all 85 videos. [11]

On February 22, 2006 Judicial Watch filed a further lawsuit against the DoD for its refusal to release the videos, and on May 16 they finally obtained them, although the actual handover was by the Justice Department. They immediately posted the clips on the Judicial Watch website. Hoffman noted “the site is down for about half of the day due to demand” for the brand new footage. The high-profile lawyers thus were able to break the story first despite entering the race late and thus eclipsed Bingham and his site which, unlike JW, seeks to prove a MIHOP scenario with remote controlled airliners. It seems possible Rumsfeld and his lawyers helped JW steal Bingham’s thunder by approving the video first to Farrell - indicating that their days of letting secrecy feed the wing nuts were perhaps nearing an end.

Disc sent by Hardy at FBI to Hodes and Bingham, 3/16/06

Yet back on March 16, exactly two months earlier, David M. Hardy, section Chief of Records/Information dissemination at the FBI sent Hodes a disc with the same two time lapse videos later received by JW, labeled with a fancy cursive font “Flight 77 CD-ROM”. Bingham seems not to have posted them at this time – or if he did it seemed to generate no buzz. The first news my internet searches are showing was on and after May 16. On the 17th, Alex Jones’ Infowars site did a piece on the videos that mentioned the Bingham case, but this seems to be the biggest story on Bingham’s pivotal role, which remains absent from the mainstream news.

sources:
[1] Klayman, Larry, Chairman, Judicial Watch Schippers, David, Counsel, Schippers and Bailey, Judicial Watch. Wright, Robert, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Judicial Watch News Conference: FBI Whistle-Blower.” May 30 2002. National Press Club, Washington, D.C. http://www.infowars.com/jw_transcript.htm
[2] Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit Against Defense Department for Withholding Video of 9/11 Attack on PentagonDOD has "no legal basis" to refuse release of videotapeMarch 1 2006http://www.judicialwatch.org/5724.shtml
[3] See [2].
[4] “First video of Pentagon 9/11 attack released: Watchdog group says video will end 'conspiracy theories.'” CNN. May 16, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html
[5] The O’Reilly Factor Flash. Tuesday, May 16 2006. http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=807
[6] "Pentagon releases video of plane Hitting Building on 9/11" Fox News. May 16 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195702,00.html (Conspiracy theorists may or may not be disappointed Tuesday when they see footage released from the Pentagon showing two angles of American Flight 77 hitting the western wall of the building on Sept. 11, 2001...)
[7] See [4].
[8] Case 1:05-cv-00475-PLF Document 13 page 5 of 23. Filed 08/01/05. Accessed November 8 2006 at: http://www.flight77.info/documents.htm
[9] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[10] Hoffman, Jim. “Pentagon Attack Footage: The Suppression of Video Footage of the Pentagon Attack.” http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/evidence/footage.html
[11] See [10].
[12] See [10].
[13] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[14] Watson, Steve. “FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11: Magically Only 1 shows impact so why not release the rest?” Infowars. May 17 2006. http://infowars.net/articles/may2006/170506Pentagon_videos.htm

PLANE PARTS part I

ENGINE PARTS – THE DRIVING ISSUE
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
Last Updated 5/26/07

In their effort to cast doubt on the official story of the Pentagon attack, Loose Change explained that a 757 is driven by “two Pratt and Whitney Engines made of steel and titanium alloy which are nine feet in diameter, twelve feet long, and weigh six tons each.” Considering government claims that the plane entirely disintegrated in the fire (an explanation I’m certain they’re exaggerating), “it is scientifically impossible that twelve tons of steel and titanium was vaporized by kerosene." We’ve seen no intact nine-foot engines, and they couldn't have burned away, so a logical conclusion would be they never existed. “The two engines should have been found relatively intact. Instead, there was a single turbojet engine approximately three feet in diameter found inside the building.” I’m not sure where they got this from, but the only source coming to mind (Desmoulins, whose evidence we'll see below, and his wasn't intact either). But one small engine would mean we’re looking at a missile, not a plane.

Jim Hoffman's 9-11 Review noted of the Loose Change take “perhaps ‘engines should have been found relatively intact’ if the Pentagon were made out of bamboo. Since when has an engine survived a 500-mph impact with a masonry building relatively intact?” [1] Indeed, the engines are not so solid as Dylan made them sound. First off, citing the engines as being nine feet across and solid titanium is deceptive – what we see that’s so big is the engine with its outer housing. The outer shell is strong enough to withstand winds but not concrete walls, against which it would be shredded. I’m not sure what they’re made of but I’m guessing well-formed composite plastic materials in multiple layers with reinforcing fibers and whatnot. They could also be metal, or some mix, but essentially it's just a sturdy aerodynamic shell. The hard titanium alloy stuff is inside the actual engine, which is six feet in diameter at its widest point – the front fan - and considerably narrower otherwise. The variously sized and carefully arranged internal parts – gears, center shaft, burners, housings - would mostly remain intact after the crash and fire, but not necessarily neatly assembled any more.


The engine above is a different model than what we’re looking for here, but the concept and proportions are about the same in all models. This is Turbofan engine, improving on the old turbojet design by adding the larger fan to move a large column on top of what it ignites. The basic idea is the fan pulls in air, passes much through the outer fan duct where it just moves through, while compressing the air in the middle into an inlet where it is passes through several compressor discs to futher pack it with oxygen before passing the fuel burners that ignite the air in the combustion housing. The explosive air is then directed back out the rear nozzle to drive the plane, passing on the way over curved slats on the edges of the turbine discs which in turn spin the shaft that drives the fan and feeds the cycle.

So the point is that even large engines have small parts, radial wheels of differing sizes set along a central shaft. If intact, an engine found would look a bit like the diagram above – if the parts were scattered with the force of penetration, then we should expect views like those below. No whole engines were seen, only parts that may be from an engine, so if there were engines there they broke up and scattered into the building.

The famous photo at left was taken by two days after the attack, showing a gear removed from building and snapped by FEMA photographer Jocelyn Augustino just north of the impact zone. Compared to the worker’s leg, it appears to be 24-32 inches in diameter. French researcher Jean-Pierre Desmoulins identified it as “a rotor (high pressure stage) coming from a jet engine” He also noted “on the top left of the image, what seems to be the housing of this engine,” an apparently tubular piece of debris (here outlined in red, along with a piece of what seems sheet metal that appears to have about the same curve. [1] The size looks reasonably close, but it almost seems the gear is in fact larger in diameter than its supposed housing. I don't know what the hell this thing is. It's round, which means likely from an engine.

Eric Hufschmid made the same call as Desmoulins in his video Painful Deceptions, seeing the rotor and its slightly-smaller casing as proof the "engine" here is too small for a 757 and more likely the single engine of a Global Hawk.

If the disc is from an engine it was from a big one. Some have speculated that it was a turbofan hub from a proper Rolls Royce RB 211 engine (the model AA uses for its 757s). The “cleats” on the edge would then be to hold the larger fan blades in place. Compared to the hub of a standard 757 engine in the graphic at right (it would be beneath the “hubcap” in the center) it indeed seems roughly the right size. Russell Pickering agreed it may be a fan hub from a 757, but also noted “that component is similar to many engine parts in many various engines.” [3] He doesn’t seem to know much more than me here. I’m not even sure the notches are cleats to hold fan blades, but could be for other turbine-related spinning activities deeper inside. The knowledgeable folks at Aerospaceweb were uncertain as well but guessed that it “looks like a rotary disk from the interior of the plane's engine.” [4] Jim Hoffman also called it a turbine rotor. [5]

Speculation arose early on that the part was from a 757 but not from its engine. As Loose Change explained “after this photo was published by American Free Press readers wrote in to suggest that the turbine was a piece from the auxiliary power unit (APU) mounted in the tail section of a 757." Others like Jon Carlson have dismissed this as speculation "dropped into the conversation as disinformation.” [6] Chertoff-busting Chris Bollyn implausibly claims he contacted people at Honeywell (makers of the APU), Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce, (makers of the engines used on 757s) and was able to get confirmation on all three fronts from someone employed there that the non-descript round part was definitely not from anything any of them built. [7]

Karl Schwarz was able to positively identify it as "a "turbojet" component from an US Air Force/Navy vintage type of jet engine technology that was used on just a limited number of fighters, bombers and reconnaissance planes." His prime culprit is pf course the JT8D, a tiny engine used in pairs on the tiny A3 Sky Warrior. It seems the A3 doesn't actually use JT8Ds after all, as explained in my "A3 Skywarrior Theory" post.

Another possible engine part was seen later, in the batch of evidence released by the government after the end of the Zaccarias Moussaoui trial in mid-2006. It’s of non-descript debris at the Pentagon, clearly pivotal in Moussaoui’s guilt. The scale here is less clear, but it looks like a rear turbine gear with its curved blades for allowing ignited air to pass, and the base of the contral shaft that drives the fans. Or it could be the other end, the fan hub seen from behind, the ridges would then be the fan-holding cleats.

The photo at right was posted in 2002 on Rense.com by Sarah Roberts, a Pentagon employee seeking to debunk no-planes theories. She says the photo was taken "in either D or C-ring" by rescue workers with Virginia Task Force 1 (VATF-1). "The large circular piece in the middle appears to be the diffusor section of the compressor, though this is not known for certain.” [8] Jerry Russel and Richard Stanley at 9-11 Strike, who lean towards no-plane theories, admit this and other parts match those from a 757’s engines but wondered “whether the parts were from a 757, or were they planted as fake evidence, perhaps having been from an earlier 757 crash?" [9]


Finally another VATF-1 photo. A round rim (bottom right): another engine part? Source: Sarah Roberts.

[1] ERROR: 'Engine Parts From the Pentagon Crash Don't Match a 757' http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/turbofans.html
[2] COMMENTS ON MYTHOLOGY BUBBLE PART 5. http://perso.orange.fr/jpdesm/pentagon/pages-en/wr-eng.html
[3] http://911review.org/Wiki/PentagonPlaneRotor.shtml
[4] http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0265.shtml
[5] See [1].
[6] Carlson, Jon. "Missing Pentagon Jet Engine Identified? - A 727 JT8D Rense.com. 3-2-2005. http://www.rense.com/general63/ident.htm
[7] See [6].
[8] Roberts, Sarah. “Photos Of Flt 77 Wreckage Inside The Pentagon” Exclusive Photos & Story Remse.com. 12-4-2002 http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm
[9] "The Five-Sided Fantasy Island: An analysis of the Pentagon crash on 9-11." version 2.0 (3/12/2004) Page 3 of 5. By Richard Stanley & Jerry Russell. 911 Strike. http://www.911-strike.com/engines.htm

DAVID LYNCH, LOOSE CHANGE, AND 9/11 QUESTIONS

TROUBLING QUESTIONS FROM A MAKER OF TROUBLING FILMS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
December 20 2006

I’m a long-time fan of legendary director of psychological cult thrillers David Lynch. I never have seen Blue Velvet all the way through, but loved what I saw, and have also appreciated his work on The Elephant Man, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, and his old TV show you may remember, Twin Peaks. Wild at Heart in underrated and over-hated, Dune wasn’t right on mark but not bad either, and I recently saw his surprisingly bizarre 1977 classic Eraserhead. I’ve always felt a vague connection with Lynch, who grew up at least partly here in Spokane, which may have helped him visualize the world of Twin Peaks and other ventures. Spokane is the hub of an area many here call the “Inland Empire” so you can understand my disappointment to learn that his latest film INLAND EMPIRE (his first all-digital film and set for release soon) is about LA, not Spokane.

David Lynch, troubled by the 9/11 disinfo witout even seeing it as disinfo

It’s not the only disappointment Lynch has handed me lately. He paused in his crusade for transcendental meditation recently to come out as a 9/11 skeptic, which many found instantly encouraging. In a December 3 interview he cited the documentary Loose Change as having loosed this change in his own mind. His Dutch interviewer, apparently at Lynch’s request, showed a several-minute clip – one of the better stretches - of the New York demolitions and the coverup of the flight data recorders, both more compelling cases than the average Loose Change tripe. She asked if he found their case convincing, and to his credit he seemed mildly skeptical: “Its not so much what they say, it's the things that make you look at what you thought you saw in a different light […] you don’t have to believe everything in the documentary to still have questions”

But he comfortably cited precisely their evidence with apparently no independent research. He cited the three collapses in New York as being rather suspicious, especially given Silverstein's "pull it" quote (supposedly de-bunked now). He also called on three bits of flawed evidence at the Pentagon:

“And Those things for me, that bother me, is the hole in the Pentagon being too small for a plane, the lawn isn't messed up, and the government's not showing the plane hitting when many cameras photographed it.”

I love Lynch’s works and he himself seems like a cool and smart guy, but he’s stepped on my turf here and I must put in my two bits. I’ve already explained why the video is totally wrong on the entry wound, and just posted on the unmarked "pentalawn" issue. As for the hidden video, that is worth attention, but should not be slapped down alongside those other two without first reading my post on the issue.

Some will praise Lynch’s bold move, others will wonder if the mental illness and confusion of his films has rubbed off on him and clouded his thinking with paranoia. I would say his paranoia is right on mark and of the "heightened state of awareness” variety so needed in our country. But something - perhaps a transcendent meditative stupor or perhaps celebrity isolation – keeps him from taking it all seriously enough to check his facts first. I like to think these are the reasons for his boosting Loose Change rather than a conscious collusion with the disinfo campaign.

THE BMDO WITNESSES

The Ballistic missile Defense Organization (BMDO) is an offshoot of the Reagan-era “Star Wars” program. In 2001, new Defense Secretary Donald "General Star Wars" Rumsfeld took the helm in the bunker, and with his new plans for a space-based missile defense shield and whatnot, things looked up for the BMDO. In mid-2001, they moved from their offices in Crystal City, just a few blocks south of the Pentagon, to new venue at Federal Office Building 2, aka the Navy Annex, about the same distance east-southeast of the military’s nerve center. The move was just finishing up in early September, with Ballistic Missile Defense Organization people settling in just in time for 9/11. That morning at 9:37 am, a ballistic missile called AA77 took their new building's line towards the Pentagon in its final seconds, after encountering no organized defense, and exploded into Rummy's bunker and helping unleash the power surge that would achieve his plans for a "new American Century." Just ironic?


At least two of the most astute eyewitness accounts of the attack come from BMDO people at their new HQ:

- Albert Hemphill
Creds: A Ballistic Missile Defense Organization staff member
Location: the new BMDO office at the Navy Annex, “with two nice windows and a great view of the monuments, the Capitol and the Pentagon.”
Account: Apparently seeing the new office for the first time, at 9:37 he “stood peering out of the window looking at the Pentagon" by chance, and "as I stood there, I instinctively ducked at the extremely loud roar and whine of a jet engine spooling up. Immediately, the large silver cylinder of an aircraft appeared in my window, coming over my right shoulder as I faced the Westside of the Pentagon directly towards the heliport. The aircraft [...] seemed to come directly over the annex, as if it had been following Columbia Pike […] All in all, I probably only had the aircraft in my field of view for approximately 3 seconds.[...] He was slightly left wing down as he appeared in my line of sight, as if he'd just "jinked" to avoid something. As he crossed [Route 27] he appeared to level his wings, making a slight right wing slow adjustment as he impacted low on the Westside of the building to the right of the helo tower and fire vehicle around corridor 5."
Notes: his account is a bit suspicious: He just happened to be looking that way at that moment and then saw the whole thing in incredible detail like fellow-BMDOer Morin did. His line "I could feel the concussion and felt the shockwave of the blast impact the window of the Annex, knocking me against the desk" is a little funny. That's a pretty amazing window. We'll take his story with a grain of salt...
(source: e-mail by Albert Hemphill, TML September 2001 archive, lists.travellerrpg.com, 9/12/01. Found via Penny Schoner)

- Terry Morin: The astute witness
Location: mid-south side of Navy Annex/Federal office Building 2. More precisely, "approximately 10 steps out from between Wings 4 and 5, I was making a gentle right turn towards the security check-in building just above Wing 4"
Account: "I started to hear an increasingly loud rumbling behind me and to my left. As I turned to my left, I immediately realized the noise was bouncing off the 4-story structure that was Wing 5. One to two seconds later the airliner came into my field of view. [...] The aircraft was essentially right over the top of me and the outer portion of the FOB (flight path parallel the outer edge of the FOB). [...] Within seconds the plane cleared the 8th Wing of BMDO and was heading directly towards the Pentagon. [...] As the aircraft approached the Pentagon, I saw a minor flash (later found out that the aircraft had sheared off a portion of a highway light pole down on Hwy 110). [...] I believe I saw the tail dip slightly to the right indicating a minor turn in that direction. The tail was barely visible when I saw the flash and subsequent fireball rise "
Notes: "As the aircraft flew ever lower I started to lose sight of the actual airframe as a row of trees to the Northeast of the FOB blocked my view." See map - treeline blocking his full view in his blue. A straight path along the south edge of the annex would require only the slightest turn, a tad to the left actually, to hit the building properly and clip all five poles, passing just south of the Citgo station on the way. The map shows the closest straight line to his account, and it's damn close. Even from a distance he sees the flash of a light pole popping; not an explicit up-close view, but this is what he felt made sense and he's probably right.
(source: Eric Bart.)

THE ENTRY WOUND

THE ENTRY WOUND: A 90-FOOT WIDE "SIXTEEN-FOOT HOLE"
Adam Larson / Caustic Logc
The Frustrating Fraud
Updated 8/30/07

Note: I first wrote this article nearly a year ago when I didn't knw as much and was on different tangents. I've updated it a few times and it's getting slapdash. I will de totally revising my ttext and graphics at some point in the near-future to make this a solid contribution rather than the mess it is.
(check also Jim Hoffman's page on common "errors" associated with the entry wound analysis.)

Perhaps the most prevalant mistake among myriad that has been repeated ad nauseam by no-plane researchers is focusing on the “small hole” in the breached outer ring. 911 In Plane Site host Dave Von Kleist reminded viewers of the dimensions of a Boeing 757 - 124 foot wingspan and 44-foot tailfin heighth - and then he explained two different versions of the hole in the Pentagon, neither of which would allow the alleged Flight 77 to pass. At one point he asked “how does a plane of those dimensions fit into a hole only 65 feet across?” and at another point “how does a 757 fit into a 16 foot hole and leave no damage, or wreckage on the outside of the pentagon?” In Loose Change, narrator Dylan Avery says “the only damage to the outer wall is a single hole no more than sixteen feet in diameter.” Others have it at 12 feet, or as low as five, and other cite a wider damage area but still deny passage to 124-foot-wide jetliner.

Both videos and may others cite the lack of holes for wings and tailfin, apparently taking their own charges of “stage-managed event” too literally, and looking for a cookie cutter punch-out of a cardboard prop shaped exactly like a plane’s profile. (note on the graphic: it was hitting not dead-on but at a 45 degree angle and so the hole would be slightly wider than the actual chassis, but no larger vertically.)

Indeed what should we expect? Well, I'm no structural engineer or other type of expert, but I have enough common sense to take my own crack at it. Let's start with the main chassis, as I did. When the nosecone hits at about 350 mph, like a bullet (or a missile!) it would easily pierced the outer wall, leaving a hole about 12-15 feet high and 16-18 feet wide.
In the shot at left, the second floor facade breaching is limited to a perhaps twelve foot wide set of windows and section of wall, presumably taken out by the base of the tailfin. But this allows us to clearly see a bright patch of fire just a few yards in on the second floor, which is intact at that point. So whatever pierced the outer wall was large enough to take out the wall and the edge of that floor and hurl burning material across it. but since the rest of the floor is intact, clearly the object was small enough that it was instantly diverted/mangled/compressed to fit entirely beneath the second floor slab. I've been unable to verify the exact clearance even from the ASCE report, but from photo analysis it seems to have about 13-15 feet available - roughly the size to allow a barreling 12-foot-high 757 body. Note also the recognizable line of orange jet fuel fire – from left to right it progresses from ground level to piles of burning debris on the second floor. This is consistent with the alleged baking angle of the plane with starboard wing tipped high and cutting across the second floor slab, left engine basically at ground level.

Having clearly accounted for the main chassis, the question of what happened to the massive engines, which occupy a space about 50 feet wide, at first stumped me. Dense, cylindrical, with a diameter of about nine feet, would probably obliterate the outer walls and enter the building intact, in fact advancing ahead of the rest of the plane. They were, after all, what was driving the whole thing, and after tearing loose from the exploding wings their own unhindered momentum and the last second or two of fuel burning would shoot them through like blocky missiles until lack of fuel and resistance forced them to stop, likely in various pieces. Radial parts that could well be from such engines were found inside the building. On the way in, they would knock out holes, I believe, like those shown below.


Top: Still from Purdue University simulation, yellow added. Below left: knocked-out section of the first floor to the left of main entry point with fires inside and out, likely entry point for left engine. Below, right: what I had previously taken as broken and oddly tilted support columns on the first floor just to the right of main impact, likely entry point for right engine.
---
(update): Many have taken these columns as signs the plane could not have entered - since they lie at the "shoulder" of the alleged plane's impact, between wing base and chassis, they could almost be right. Though it never seemed a big enough problem for me, it was troubling. It was also a bit sloppy to call these "support columns" when the three each look different and all columns on the left side were uniformly removed. Jim Hoffman has decided they are at least as likely parts of the second floor slab that broke after losing their supports and fell at this angle. I did a lengthy post on this. If these are indeed something else, then we are left with a roughly 80-100 foot-wide area in which all supports were obliterated - leaving plenty of room for the penetrating core of a 757 and explaining the collapse of everything above twenty minutes later.

Compare this to the size of the initial "hole" we see above, from a simplified computer graphic done up by the ASCE and fairly accurate. The limestone facade and essentially all outer columns are gone from an open span of it looks like nearly 100 feet of the ground floor, even with the three slants on the right that probably aren't columns. Again,plenty of room.

What I could see in this damage is a high 16 foot hole flanked by two 10-foot holes set lower amid a jumble of lesser damage. The possible engine holes seem to be about 70 feet apart, which is how far apart the engines would be if hitting at a 45 degree angle as alleged. The math is correct, and we have a roughly 100-foot damage area or “hole” with all columns removed. The plane fits – at least as far as width, but should it be able to fly or compress its entire 155-foot length inside and disappear? Well, that seems less likely, but perhaps depends on the nature of the “renovations” just completed there and on exactly how many feet of steel reinforced concrete stood in its way.

And as for the "no plane" evidence's recycling in Loose Change, they insist on their sixteen foot hole while the shot on screen has the spray from a fire hose completely covering both this hole and the 65-foot-plus damage area around it that even IPS showed. Then they highlight the plane's outline with the chassis hole entirely on the second floor! Despite their marvelling at the plane flying "inches" above the ground, they think it deviated upward in its final feet and hit the second floor, leaving the greater damage below unexplained. I feel sorry for these guys' girlfriends - their careful analysis of the Pentagon evidence gets it in the wrong hole. And we all know it's not good to get germs from the fallacy hole in the truth canal.

911 IN PLANE SITE - PARTIAL REVIEW

IN PLANE SIGHT OR JUST PLAIN SHITE?
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
December 13 2006


When Versailles, Missouri-based Dave Von Kleist saw the Meyssan-produced “Hunt the Boeing” website out of Paris, he decided it “drew some very serious questions as to what had really happened at the Pentagon.” Von Kleist aired his concerns via the Power Hour, his daily radio show with his wife Joyce Riley, and later wrote, produced, and hosted a documentary video clumsily titled 911 In Plane Site (911 IPS) – “The FIRST 911 Video to Present VIDEO EVIDENCE – Not Theories.” Directed by William Lewis of "Police State 21" and first released in mid-2004, IPS promised “September 11 changed the world. This video will change September 11.” Others agreed and promoted it; famous writer, comedian, and brilliant civil rights activist Dick Gregory plugged for it (“everyone in America should see this video”) and millionaire 9/11 truth financier Jimmy Walter funded its wide distribution and helped it get local showings and press write-ups nationwide; it proved remarkably successful and largely dominated the field - at first.

Lurid, cluttered, and unbalanced: who says you can't tell a DVD by its cover?

This video was not a wise investment for Walter’s stated cause of bringing the truth to the people, which is clear from the opening montage of 9/11 crash and collapse replays underpinned with über-serious synthesized orchestral music that drags on way too long. It hasn’t improved much before the several agonizing minutes spent examining the “attachment” beneath the windowless “military cargo plane” known as Flight 175, and of the odd-looking video of yellow flashes on the WTC’s façade before – not after but just before - the planes hit. Jeremy Baker at OilEmpire put my own thoughts well, doubting the planners would be so stupid “as to attach a large, highly visible incendiary device to the bottom of a plane that they knew would be showing its belly proudly on every TV set on the planet.”

Dave Von Kleist on the set of 911 IPS

I’m not scientist enough to totally dismiss Von Kleist’s allegations (traceable back to LetsRoll 911 at least) that the planes were firing yellow-flashing missiles from these pods, but the official explanation seems to make more sense: the pods were simply wing faring, an ordinary thing on these two aluminum planes (if distorted by glare high in the brilliant sky). The planes then gave off yellow flashes, as aluminum would do, upon impact, not before (it’s not as easy to precisely read shadows from half a mile away as he thinks). Yet at the video’s conclusion Von Kleist specifically cited his worst evidence – the pods and yellow flashes - as hard and final proof of the otherwise compelling case that “terrorists with box-cutters” were not to blame for this event. He ended by asking his viewers after seeing his great epic “where’s your line in the sand?”

While the video finds irrefutable proof of remote control airliners at the widely documented battle of the World Trade Center, when presented with a lack of evidence of the attack vehicle at the Pentagon, the video’s logic runs wild and latches onto Meyssan’s case, opening its exploration with what Von Kleist thinks is his strongest point, that the Pentagon was not hit with one of the windowless, pod-equipped, missile-firing military drones used in New York, but with a simple missile. All in all, the case is poorly made, focusing mostly on the hole in the outer wall, the plane’s alleged entry wound, giving two drastically different sizes for this hole, both of which he feels were too small to allow a 757 to pass.

One particularly embarrassing mistake in the video is Mike Walters’ partial quote describing Flight 77, “it was like a cruise missile with wings,” which was cited as evidence of a missile. But in the full interview he said clearly it was an American Airlines jet that was like a cruise missile, I guess in the sense that it was flying through the air and was being used as a weapon to pierce a bunker. Any idiot could verify this with a quick Google search, as I did, yet Von Kleist and his entourage were so proud of this evidence they sent everyone who bought IPS a free copy of CNN’s “America Remembers,” so we could see how that video also only played that part of the interview.

As with the attacks he claimed to be unmasking, I doubted so many mistakes could be made on sheer accident, and began to suspect intentional sabotage. Jeremy Baker at Oilempire, a 9/11 Truth site, agreed and wrote of widespread concern that “the producers of this film may be operatives attempting to sabotage and derail the 9/11 visibility movement from within.” Baker bemoaned the effect of this video, amplified by its wide viewing, on the larger movement:

“You don't often see so many glaring blunders in serious documentary film-making, and if you think our detractors won't hop on each and every one of them you‚re wrong. These screw-ups, like it or not, reflect on the entire community of 9/11 activists (especially the ones who so strongly support this video) and could go a long way to alienating the fence sitters we can and should be trying hard to woo.”

With nary a true claim in it, 911 In Plane Site was eventually too widely ridiculed to serve as the vehicle for “changing September 11;” I actually found Fintan Dunne’s dismissal of it as “the In Plane Shite movielet” to be mildly clever. Someof hismoreegregious 'mistakes"in the WTCanalysis arewell-covered in this anonymouly-produced video "Not In Plain Sight." Perhaps even worse, Von Kleist was too old, conservative,and Missourian to effectively reach the teeming masses of the young, urban, and gullible. Both of these problems would be addressed as the Frustrating Fraud and the other flawed seams wound their way into another video try at setting loose the change Von Kleist was unable to.

Sources:
> 911 In Plane Site, the Director’s Cut. 2006. Power Hour video. Directed by William Lewis. Writtem produced and hosted by Dave Von Kleist.
> Baker, Jeremy. “911 – In Plane Site: A Critical Review” Undated, copyright 2004. article copied from: www.oilempire.us/bogus.html#planesite http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/baker1.html

WE'VE LOST RUPPERT...

MIKE RUPPERT'S POORLY-AIMED PARTING SHOT

From Meyssan to 911 In Plane Site to Loose Change, and in myriad other forums on many levels, the no-plane-at-the-Pentagon theory had grown into a central plank of the 9/11 Truth Movement, its unquestioning acceptance appallingly wide. I was especially disappointed with former LAPD narc turned investigator of elite crime Mike Ruppert. Before and after 9/11 he has taken on multiple issues through his newsletter From the Wilderness, from government drug dealing to international banking scandals and the CIA-Wall Street connection. From the 9/11 attacks until at least 2003 he consistently tried to, as an Oil Empire timeline summed up, “warn the 9/11 Truth Movement not to over-invest its energies and its credibility in questions of physical evidence” since such lines of reasoning “invite sabotage by U.S. counterintelligence programs.” [1] In his video The Truth and Lies of 9/11 Ruppert pointed to the ineffectiveness of the Zapruder film in changing the public mind on the JFK assassination. I considered him the model of 9/11 research in my earlyinvestigative phase; like me he skirted the divisive issues like the Pentagon attack because of their relative un-provability.

By 2004 he was wrapping up his 9/11 arguments, dropping the issue as dead, "Rubicon" I guess being the obituary. He was moving on to a broader program to prepare the world for the post-Oil Peak crash. In his master 9/11 opus and parting shot Crossing the Rubicon, Ruppert took the isue head-on. He stated “I have never believed Flight 77 hit the Pentagon,” and further described the attack craft, much like IPS and Loose Change might, as:

“the miracle plane. The one that nobody actually saw hit the Pentagon; the one that left no recognizable debris matching an airliner; the one [Thierry Meyssan] did a pretty convincing job of proving never hit the Pentagon because the hole was way too small and the damage pattern […] was totally inconsistent with a mid-sized passenger jet like a 757; the one where the engines melted, disappeared or evaporated, or were transported into space by the Starship Enterprise and never found; the one that flew like a fighter plane or a cruise missile.” [2]

He showed a certain change of heart, describing the analysis of physical evidence like Meyssan’s as “a key forensic technique used by police officers.” Of course Meyssan was “crucified in the American press,” and it was this Frenchman flogging, not the fear of being wrong (as Meyssan seems to be), that gave Ruppert his lesson “about what happens in America when one tries to make a conspiracy case in the public arena, based solely on physical evidence.” [3]

So despite his earlier caution, even Ruppert isn’t really with me on this case. Even as he has tired of “what happens in America” and fled to Caracas and the protective embrace of Hugo Chavez, on his way out the door he let us know the frustrating fraud has its tentacles everywhere, even superceding his finely honed “cop instincts.” How did it get to this point, and where does it go next?

Sources:
[1] Robinowitz, Mark. The Complete "No Planes on 9/11" Timeline. Accessed October 20 2006 at: http://www.oilempire.us/no-plane-timeline.html
[2] Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon. 2004. page 351.
[3] See [2].

EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT: MICKEY BELL

Witness: Mickey Bell/Jack Singleton/singleton's Equipment
Last Updated 3/13/07
Creds: Bell was on-site foreman with Singleton Electric Co. Inc., the Wedge One electrical subcontractor. His memory of the attack was unclear when his boss, Jack Singleton, president of said co., explained the event from his own understanding.
Location: construction area, between trailer and building, perhaps fifty feet from impact.
Account (Singleton): "Where the plane came in was really at the construction entrance. The plane's left wing actually came in near the ground and the right wing was tilted up in the air. That right wing went directly over our trailer, so if that wing had not tilted up, it would have hit the trailer. My foreman, Mickey Bell, had just walked out of the trailer and was walking toward the construction entrance."
other reports: "The jet came in from the south and banked left as it entered the building, narrowly missing the Singleton Electric trailer and the on-site foreman, Mickey Bell."
"Bell, who had been less than 100 feet from the initial impact of the plane, was nearly struck by one of the plane´s wings as it sped by him. In shock, he got into his truck, which had been parked in the trailer compound, and sped away. […] The full impact of the closeness of the crash wasn´t realized until coworkers noticed damage to Bell´s work vehicle. He had plastic and rivets from an airplane imbedded in its sheet metal, but Bell had no idea what had happened."

Map 1: Bell's location and vantage point: Rather surpsrining in fact he was able to even breathe after this, let alone drive. This is perhaps due to the vortex effect, the plane's trajectory and cleared space inside drew in the worst of the fires, leaving the inside a burning hell, the outside relativelt calm.

Bell himself apparently remembers nothing, and so his account is, well, nonexistent. Instead what we have here is his boss putting it together in his stead. Singleton wasn't laboring to make a southern flight case, and so made no mention of the smashed generator that was not cleared as the trailer was, its destruction testifying to the right engine passing that way (orange in map above). The right-high banking seen in this impact and the subsequent clearing of the trailer is also consistent with physical damage to the building and with certain other accounts.

App. right engine path: Bell would've been back in there to the right a bit. Smashed generator at far right. Note also the torn fence. If this was faked, I'd love to an explanation of how.

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.

FDR 2: THE SPECIALIST'S STUDY

It was there, it was recovered and successfully transcribed, some had access to the data, and the altitude readings from it, at least, were published. But the initial report was not released in the August batch, even as its Flight 93 counterpart was trumpeted. There are no press releases or news accounts on this FDR study, as far as I’ve seen, but it is, after all, available. The NTSB report, like its Flight 93 counterpart, was titled “Specialists’ Factual Report of Investigation: Digital Flight Data Recorder,” and was completed on January 31 2002, shortly before that other report. Like 93’s “specialist study,’ it noted “an examination of the recovered data indicated that the recorder operated normally.”
[direct NTSB PDF download link]
Flight 77 FDR Research Thread I started @ Above Top Secret,: Great insights, explanations, and fumbling.

Two shots from the Specialist’s Study of the very FDR in its casing and in the lab.

The FDR recovered and received on the 14th was a Loral Fairchild model F2100. It used flash memory, could encode 256 12-bit words per second, and hold at least 25 hours of memory. The report broke down all parameters of the plane, every switch and setting each assigned a code. Recovered data was converted from binary form to engineering units via the NTSB’s Recovery Analysis and Presentation System. Of note is the fact that the report included “only validated parameters.” The others “either were not recorded properly or were not confirmed to have been recorded properly.” [p 2] I’m not sure what these parameters were and what effect it may have on the final readings…

Everything else, including speed, heading, and altitude were charted out on the final flight timeline over sixteen pages. Below is page 26.
right-click, new window, for full-screen, readable view.

Airspeed (near bottom, green) near the end was about 300 knots, or roughly 350 mph, but climbs sharply near the end, corresponding with witness accounts of the pilot “gunning it,” appearing to top out at over 550 mph as it slammed into the building. Altitude (near bottom, black): unlike the animation (which has serious alitude questions), it starts and ends evenly at about zero, showing no sudden changes. The red line that descends steadily is weight: one of the few things a plane does steadily is burn fuel...

Perhaps the most interesting is the magnetic Heading line (dark blue, near bottom). This seems to represent direction, though it’s hard to read for sure. It starts out steady west, then switches in the middle to eastbound, the turnaround after the takeover. At the end it goes haywire, apparently the big near-full circle loop – east-south-west-north-northeast, then impact. As for the flight path this represents, it corresponds with the pilots’ video fairly well, but it’s impossible for me to tell from this whether it was north or south of the Citgo.

The “new” flight path seems possible, but it was heading northeast from southwest by this, as the official story maintains, and so seems at least as likely that it came in on the official path and indeed clipped the light poles and caused the building damage. Call it a hunch, or a bias. If I get anything better than that, it’ll of course warrant an update.

THIERRY'S THEORY

Thierry Meyssan was president of the Paris-based Voltaire Network, a think tank “whose left-leaning research projects,” the Manchester Guardian reported, “have until now been considered models of reasonableness and objectivity.” [1] But after 9/11 he went off the deep end, and started publishing his controversial ideas about what happened on the internet just weeks after the attacks, and it was less than six months before the Pentagon attack formed the centerpiece of his early 2002 book 11 Septembre 2001: L’Effroyable Imposture (roughly “the Frightening Fraud” or “9/11: The Big Lie,” as it was later translated for the English edition). Meyssan’s basic point was well-summed up in an interview on France 2 television (“no plane crashed into the Pentagon […] I believe the government is lying”) [2] and at an April 2002 lecture (“if we only concentrate on the explosion of the Pentagon, we shall discover the ‘Big Lie’ that is the official story!”) [3]

For some reason this just never sounded right to me. I’ve never read his book, and hardly gave it a second thought until its ideas had spread so wide I felt I could ignore it no longer. Meyssan’s case, as mirrored by 911 IPS, Loose Change, et al, seems to have been the basic no-plane platform – the lawn is not scuffed up, there’s ‘no plane debris,’ only ‘one small hole’ in the Pentagon’s outer wall, the collapse of only the outer ring, etc. In the end analysis, the attack vehicle - if it existed - was too small to be an airliner. But as far as the NY attack, where everyone clearly saw both airliners, he seems to have argued that these were remote controlled drones. Again, no part besides scapegoat was afforded for any Arab terrorists, and any part of the official story that could realistically be denied was. Drones in NY, missile in VA.

Meyssan with his book, Paris, April 2002

The Frightening Fraud quickly became a bestseller in France, reportedly selling out its initial run of 20,000 copies within two hours of going on sale, and selling another 200,000 in the following weeks. [4] This evidenced a latent suspicions harbored in France, especially in its large Muslim community and the anti-Bush left, and many sales were to French-speakers overseas. The mainstream media and majority opinion there dismissed the book as stupid and full of flaws; indeed, looking closely at the way the attack looked to prove it was other than how it looked seems a troublesome approach. But it hit American news in February as a runaway French bestseller, evoking a curiously defensive backlash. In a muted precursor to the “Freedom Fries” episode, some Americans responded with disapproval and Francophobic boycotts.

Meyssan later expanded his thesis into a second book, “Pentagate,” but in the meantime, critical books and essays spawned by revulsion to his case were released, including The Big Liar: Some Facts about Thierry Meyssan, and The New Liars. Guillaume Dasquié swiped the very same name for The Big Lie: Theses and Nonsense about September 11. [5] A Pentagon spokesman, Glen Flood, described the book as “a slap in the face and real offence to the American people, particularly to the memory of victims of the attacks.” [6] As late as July 2005, Condi Rice’s State Department saw fit to publish on the Internet a lengthy rebuttal and refutation of the book, which continues to be fairly popular, if not in the U.S., than at least everywhere else. [7]

Early help came from Sheikh Zayed, President of the United Arab Emirates, through his “Zayed Center for Coordination and Follow Up.” In April 2002, the Center hosted a talk by Meyssan, and in July released an Arabic translation of his book. [8] This was reportedly handed out to some 5,000 leading Arab minds, and was boosted by the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council. Many saw this as a concerted attempt by Arab elites to deflect blame from Islamic terrorists and to the US government (probably with Zionist-Mossad assistance. [9] The Zayed center was shut down in 2003 after a campaign lead by the ADL, and the Sheikh died the following year.

Meyssan has left his print as well on the decreasingly subtle new Cold War with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, where state-run TV reportedly ran a series of shows explaining Meyssan’s theories to the public there. [10] General Leonid Ivashov, who had been chairman of Russia’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, felt free to speak his mind after retirement. In 2005 Ivashov spoke at the “Axis for Peace” conference in Brussels, chaired by Meyssan. Ivashov has since then argued that September 11 was an inside job engineered by the “Atlantists” (vaguely, the West); Western elites were “not satisfied with the rhythm of the globalization process or its direction,” so they turned to systematically using international terrorism as “an instrument, a means to install a unipolar world with a sole world headquarters, a pretext to erase national borders and to establish the rule of a new world elite. […] the organizers of [the 9/11] attacks were the political and business circles interested in destabilizing the [current] world order.” [11]

Thus the obvious primary drive behind the book’s spread could thus be seen as campaigns by various “anti-American” forces in France, Russia, the Arab world and beyond, using the book for their own nefarious ends. It could also be seen as a natural response to the questions and suspicions over 9/11, which was after all a questionable and suspicious event. It was partly both; the book was widely promoted and widely found by independent skeptics via the Internet. Meyssan’s use of the new medium included a visually based website run by Meyssan’s son called “Hunt the Boeing! And Test Your Perceptions!” The site offered further evidence, including extensive and highly curious photos of the crash site that most of the world had never before seen, with some interesting observations tainted with sloppy analysis and unwarranted leaps of logic.

Sources:
[1] Henely, Jon. “US invented air attack on Pentagon, claims French book.” The Guardian. Monday April 1, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,677112,00.html
[2], [4], [6] “French lap up Pentagon crash 'fraud'” BBC News. April 2 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1907955.stm
[3 ] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01603
[5], [8]. [9], [10] “9/11: The Big Lie.” Wikipedia. Last modified 10:12, 13 September 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11:_The_Big_Lie
[7], United States of America State Department. Identifying misinformation. Thierry Meyssan: French Conspiracy Theorist Claims No Plane Hit Pentagon.” Created: 28 Jun 2005 Updated: 28 Jun 2005 Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jun/28-581634.html
[11] Nimmo, Kurt. “Russian General: Nine Eleven a Globalist Inside Job.” Another Day in the Empire. Sunday January 22nd 2006, 6:28 pm http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=201