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.

LOOSE CHANGE vs. TIGHT CONTINUITY

THE CHANGE IS LOOSE AND SO IS THE BACKLASH (AND IT AIN'T PRETTY)
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 2007
updated, correction spurred by a reader, 2/12/07

After taking the underground by storm in 2005, Loose Change went mainstream in 2006, with widespread screenings, celebrity endorsemenrts, etc. By September, the Telegraph (India) reported “the runaway success of Loose Change has garnered the mainstream press’ attention and has begun to influence how the public perceives the entire 9/11 Truth Movement,” which seems to be taken by the author as a good thing for the "Truth" movement. [1] Over at least three evolving releases, the video went viral with free posting on the internet, and by the time of its second edition in 2006, it was a phenomenon. It was boosted by a more tolerant attitude in the media, no doubt partly due to receding memory of 9/11 itself. Notably, the August 2006 Vanity Fair ran an uncritical piece, whose writer Nancy Jo Sales summed up that “Loose Change has struck a nerve.” [2] Sales asked Director Dylan Avery what he thought was going to happen when this growing wave hit shore. He predicted a “second American revolution. […] There's going to be a lot of anger. […] When it becomes irrefutable public record that 9/11 was done by our government, the shit is gonna hit the fan.” [3] I have a hunch that mess will not occur in this country in any near future - after the initial long odds plus wave after wave of false promises like Loose Change leaving the movement drained, it will fall to another generation if to anyone to collectively reach and live the truth about that day.

But in the meantime, with its appeal to legitimate questions, its techno-savvy editing, and cartloads of crippling crap sneaking in behind good compelling evidence, it has risen to the top and dominated and skewed the entire field; Avery told the CBC by August its viewership was in the “millions, millions, is the best way to put it. I would even go so far as to say 100 million people have seen our film.” [4] The video remains in the top ranks of downloads, number one for a while, at Google’s new video page, and if he’s exaggerating, it isn’t by much. Reports of awkward, scripted-seeming lectures on controlled demolitions and obscure defense contractors have been sharply on the rise. Indeed, the "change" is loose.

So is the backlash, as seen in the Popular Mechanics 9/11 Myths book, and in recent 5th anniversary articles on 9/11 in Time, US News, etc. that treat the “conspiracy theories [that] won’t die” almost exclusively by examining Loose Change and its flaws, as if it were the truth movement. Their claims were lampooned prominently by South Park in October 2006.

A new internet force clearly inspired directly by the video and taking it as its window onto the movement is the Screw Loose Change weblog. The site’s “Chief,” James B., describes himself as “a combination software geek from Bellevue, part-time Chief Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard (thus the clever name), and current MBA student,” and interesting to me he’s also a “graduate in Russian and East European studies from the University of Washington.” His cohort on the site is more mysterious: Pat, like the SNL character, is just Pat. They delve well beyond Loose Change into the wider 9/11 Truth scene, who all in all give the site plenty of material to ridicule. The rich pickings, some clever words and decent work tackling them have earned them Michelle Malkin’s praise as “the single best clearinghouse on the 'net for fighting the tinfoil hat brigade.” The partisan slant is muted but evident, and clear enough from its enthusiastic support by a halfass be-bunking ‘blog called “The Truth About 9/11/01,” dedicated to the propositions that “over 90% of people don’t have common sense,” and “believing in any conspiracy theories about 9/11 is anti-american [sic].” [5]

A member of Screw Loose Change named Mark Iradian put together his own edit of Loose Change with “corrections” and commentary inserted, and released it under the title "Screw Loose Change," which like the original later spawning a revised version called the “Not Freakin’ Again Edition.” Iradian summed up his reason for the sarcastic video: “when you try to label the government for being a butcher and slaughtering 3000 of his own people, you better provide concrete evidence to back that up.” [6] Another cohort, Mark Roberts, put together a detailed critique of the video and later a list of telling interviews in which "Loose Change Creators Speak (and it ain't pretty)." The latter spawned another Iradian video of the same title comprised of audio interviews overlaid with contrasting text and images to make them look as heartless as possible in their casual mocking of the deadly attacks.

Even as disbelief of the official version surges to all-time highs on the back of Loose Change in the second half of 2006, others like James and Pat and Michelle and Mark and Mark are taking issue with their approach; Avery’s flippant attitude is one lightning rod for controversy, his laughing in phone interviews about the absurdity of hijackers taking over Flight 93 in particular with box cutters or even plastic knives. It sounded to Malkin like “a taste of how sick these people are and how much they enjoy mocking the suffering of 9/11 victims” [7] Listening to the interviews I do cringe at the lack of tact, but this of course could be blamed on Avery’s age – he’s barely out of High School remember. I also know from experience that one gets a bit desensitized when dealing with dark subjects day in and day out; the whole hallowed ground thing is hard to keep up, and gallows humor often simply happens. Ask any mortician or soldier.

Avery’s flippancy, as revealed especially in his treatment of the Bernard Browns seam, is a telling clue to the emerging script in which grave charges are laid out in a sloppy and immature way, ordinary folks see that Loose Change represents the “Truth” movement and it’s clearly wrong, and so in the long run there’s nothing to worry about. This paranoia is an adolescent phase, based on simple misunderstandings, deep anxiety and an irrational hatred of Bush, both of the latter fed by the extended Iraq War. PopMech, Screw Loose Change and the others have the misunderstandings largely under control, the Iraq war will be changing course shortly, and Bush has only two years left. And while the “Long War” rolls on into its planned decades, new battlefields are being laid out, and other elites and other catalyzing events wait in the wings, of course there are drugs to treat that anxiety and counseling to rescue minds lured by the "cynical imaginations" of "extremists here in the United States." [8]

Mary Katharine Ham’s analysis at Town hall.com is telling; after first dismissing them, she realized “I shouldn’t have moved on. I should have stopped and looked at the Truthers and listened to them a lot sooner.” She urged other to listen closer and understand – via the filter of Screw Loose Change and the PopMech book – to confront the “dangerous deniers we’re facing in our own country.” [9]

[1], [2] Ray, Turna. “11/9, a conspiracy?” September 3 2006.http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060903/asp/look/story_6682430.asp
[3] Sales, Nancy Jo. “Click Here for Conspiracy.” http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/060717roco02
[4] 9/11: TRUTH, LIES AND CONSPIRACY." Iinterview with Dylan Avery. Canadian Broadcasting Croporation. August 22, 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/911avery.html
[5] Screw Loose Change video website. http://www.lolloosechange.co.nr/
[6] Welcome to the Truth about 9/11/01. http://www.threegroup.net/personal/adam/Opening.html
[7] Malkin, Michelle. The 9/11 Tinfoil Hat Brigade.” September 10 2006. http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005885.htm
[8] "9/11 Debunking the Myths." Intro. the editors. Popular Mechanics. March 2005. page 71.
[9] Ham, Mary Katharine "Beware the Truthers. Don't Ignore Them." Townhall.com. Monday, September 11, 2006 http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=beware_the_truthers_dont_ignore_them&ns=MaryKatharineHam&dt=09/11/2006&page=1