Amusing 9/11 Denier wins coveted Kook & Loon Award

One of the more amusing members of the 9/11 Denial Movement is a chap living in Belgium named Muhammad Columbo. Mr. Columbo, a Muslim, has written a paper proposing a “scenario” of the four 9/11 flights which he claims were “remote controlled” to crash “sequentially” by none other than the U.S Government. According to this scenario, for instance, American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, Muhammad asserts, it “was crashed” into an uninhabited area in the West Virginia mountains where, he asserts, the government could assure no one would see or hear the crash.

Of course, Osama Bin Laden was completely unaware of any plans to attack the U.S. on Septemeber 11, 2001.

Despite efforts to reason with Muhammad Columbo and pleas for him to address his assumptions, he will have none of it, asserting that his scenario is the “one sole truth.” As with all deniers, whether 9/11 Deniers, or Holocuast Deniers, inconvenient facts are always ignored. For his efforts, Muhammad Columbo’s paper recently received Crank Dot Net’s award for the CRANKIEST irrational 9/11 conspiracy theory. CrankDotNet is a respected website that lists websites of “cranks, crackpots, kooks & loons on the net.”

Congratulations to Muhammad Columbo for a well-deserved award.

9/11 Deniers: Conspiracy Theorists Gone Nuts.

The ubiquity and power of the Internet has fueled one of the most pervasive of conspiracy theories since Holocaust denial, the matrix of 9/11 conspiracy theories, commonly known as the 9/11 Denial Movement. We’ll examine some of the “arguments” of conspiracy theorists for logical fallacies and note the common techniques they use to “question” the events of 9/11.

My effort here is to focus on the techniques of fallacious arguments without presuming that I am as well versed as others, or even always correct. This is directed to the critical thinking community with the goal of compiling the most effective exposure of the fallacies of the 9/11 Denial Movement as a collaborative effort, both in their argumentation and in their evidence and facts. Feel free to e-mail me with your constructive criticism to improve the document. Your name will be included as one of the authors unless you desire not to be included.

Our first effort focuses on an essay written by one of the early 9/11 deniers, Dick Eastman, entitled, ” 911 Pentagon Crash Evidence Proves False-Flag Frame-up.”

Dick Eastman asserts:

The false-opposition 911 investigation sites are now bigger and louder than the real ones — not created to get to the truth, but to manage people away from the most critical conclusions which existing evidence already establishes. However, in your case they have failed, because you have found this site.

Begin with the following quick overview of just two lines of conclusive evidence. Then follow the links for systematic presentations of all of the independent proofs.

Conclusive evidence? Let’s see.

Proof One:

In the photo below, you see that when you match the image size of the killer jet’s tail fin and that of the tail fin of a Boeing 757 and then overlay the Boeing so that tail fins are aligned you find, as Richard Stanley and Jerry Russell demonstrate below, that the overlaid image of the Boeing fuselage sticks out past the obstruction which completely conceals the image of the actual killer jet in the original picture. The killer jet, therefore, has to be shorter and differently proportioned than the Boeing 757. This alone tells us Flight 77 was not the killer jet.

Source: http://911-strike.com/pentagon.htm

Mr. Eastman failed to tell us that “Officials from the Pentagon said the photos were not released officially by the Department of Defense. A Pentagon spokeswoman could not verify that they came from surveillance cameras.”

Why is this important? For one, it says that the government did not make any claims about exactly what the photos showed. This salient fact is key: there is no government statement claiming that the photo shows a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon.

In fact, it is only conspiracy theorists like Dick Eastman who claim that sequence of photos is supposed to show a 757 hitting the Pentagon. Eastman et al want all that come visiting to believe the government is claiming a 757 is visible in the photos, then demonstrating that the “object” seen in  the photos could not be a 757, it was too small, and therefore must have been something else. Dick Eastman et al have created a classic straw man argument.

The 9/11 Denial Movement’s purpose in setting up this straw man argument is to lead readers to believe that the report in which these photos were contained, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Building Performance Report, was an effort to “prove” that a 757 hit the Pentagon, then ridicule the photos and thus the supposed ASCE claim, all of which leads to the conclusions of “cover-up” and “government complicity. But ASCE’s purpose was made quite clear in the beginning:

On the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of a terrorist action involving four hijacked aircraft, a commercial airliner was crashed into the Pentagon. That afternoon the American Society of Civil Engineers established a building performance study (BPS) team of volunteers to examine the structural performance of the building in this catastrophe. This study follows a similar examination of the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building, in Oklahoma City, and parallels a study of the September 11 World Trade Center terrorist attack.

The purpose of the study was to examine the performance of the structure in the crash and the subsequent fire for the benefit of the building professions and the public. This does not imply that buildings should be expected to survive such events. However, this examination of the Pentagon reveals some useful information about the ability of structures to survive extreme forces.

In fact, the Pentagon structure survived this extraordinary event better than would be expected. Observations comparing and contrasting the construction of the Pentagon to current standards are made where they are pertinent to the observed behavior. Recommendations are also made for studies that could lead to an increased understanding of such phenomena.

ASCE clearly was established to study the effects of the 757 crash; the proof that it was a 757 had long-since been established. Thus, Dick Eastman subtly snuck in his misrepresentation of ASCE’s purpose.

Has Dick Eastman presented “conclusive evidence?” It is difficult to discern conclusively what “object” is seen in the photos; is anyone willing to claim that they can clearly make out what they are looking at? If so, come forward, what is it? More importantly, does it matter that we can’t really discern and identify the object?

So, one asks, if the government claims the explosion is from a 757 hitting the Pentagon, isn’t Eastman right to think that a 757 should be visible? Let’s see.

But wait. We are not finished yet. We had no right to make the Boeing 757 tail fin the same size as the killer jet’s tail fin. A Boeing 757 is over twice as long (155 ft.) as the Pentagon is high (71 ft.)! But, as seen by direct inspection, the killer jet in the picture is not even as long as the height of the building, much less twice its height.

Hmmm. This assertion is deceptive. Considering the location and height of the camera, the angle at which the plane hit the Pentagon, the impact location, the distance from the camera, the low resolution, and the inability to conclusively identify an object, how is it that Eastman can conclusively make the necessary measurements to make his assertion? Is anyone willing to accept Eastman’s assertion without question? Does it matter? We’ll see.

Thus the matched-tail-size Boeing overlay shown above is scaled far too small for a real Boeing 757. An actual Boeing 757 in the same position as the killer jet in the picture would present a much bigger image. What Stanley and Russel have done is scale down a lion until its tail is the same size as a cat, resulting in a puss-sized lion. Thus even their overlay demonstrating that if the tail fin belonged to a Boeing 757 the plane’s fuselage would have had to stick from behind the obstruction, understates the case because the tail fin shown is too small for a Boeing 757 given its location with respect to the Pentagon.

As expected, Eastman is basing his “analysis” on this assumption: If it were a 757 then we should be able to see it. But does he provide any evidence that the photos are clear enough or provide sufficient resolution to actually discern anything? No, he doesn’t. Instead, he just attacks the straw man he has invented. Remember, only he is claiming that a 757 is “supposed” to be seen in the photos.

 

Eastman asks us “to decide.” I see absolutely no evidence of proof that something that was not a 757 hit the Pentagon from Eastman’s “Proof One.”   Neither do I see anything that I could conclusively say IS a 757 in the photos. Eastman has created a straw man argument to make us believe that the government claims the photos show the 757 hitting the Pentagon when the government made no such claim. All we can actually say from this sequence of photos is that we cannot tell what object hit the Pentagon. What evidence we do have is the explosion itself: the size, color, explosive response. From that aspect, the photos provide a means for those qualified to do so to glean what object might produce that explosion. But that is not our concern here.

Proof Two:

Civil engineers have plotted to scale a Boeing 757 and the wall and supporting pillars of the Pentagon. The pillars are labeled by number. All are agreed that the nose of the killer jet hit the Pentagon at pillar #14. But the question now becomes had the killer jet been a Boeing 757, as depicted in this diagram, at which location in terms of pillars would the starboard engine have hit the building?

Overlay of Boeing 757 on the American Society of Civil Engineers Diagram by Jean-Pierre Desmoulins

Clearly, the starboard engine would have hit on the first floor at pillar #16.

Clearly? Eastman’s statement is actually an assertion. There is contrary photographic and eyewitness evidence showing that the starboard wing hit the end of a heavy diesel generator and knocked it toward the Pentagon, leaving it at a 45 degree angle from its original position. There is eyewitness testimony stating that this happened as the starboard engine hit a concrete wall before actually hitting the building itself:

“The plane’s right wing went through a generator trailer “like butter,” Probst said. The starboard engine hit a low cement wall and blew apart.”

http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/fortress1.html. 

Dick Eastman does not bring this contrary evidence to our attention.

Except that it didn’t. Look below. Pillar #15 has been blasted near ground level (although if a Boeing had hit, the fuselage would have had to have entered at the level of the ceiling of the first floor to allow for the engines which hang lower than the fuselage, BUT WHAT ABOUT PILLARS 16 AND 17?

As the above picture and many other photos that were taken at this time show, pillar # 16 is still there, albeit blasted so that it inclines to the right; and pillar #17 is also present and accounted for. Moreover, we also see there is interior wall perpendicular to the fallen outer wall that is still standing inside the building exactly where a starboard engine, had the killer jet been a two-engine Boeing 757, would have had to have penetrated. Clearly there was no starboard engine. An explosion occurring to the left of pillar #15 caused damage to the pillars to the right of it and brought down some outer wall on the first floor wall, but a large turbofan engine of a Boeing 757 never penetrated here. Thus we know that the killer jet was a single-engine aircraft.

Starting with a questionable assumption of the starboard engine’s impact, Eastman’s previous contains more logical fallacies. Mr. Eastman has not bothered to consider alternative explanations – the fallacy of false alternatives – as explained above about the starboard engine. Then he commits the fallacy of fake precision by claiming he knows with precision what damage should have occurred but without referencing any scientific data to support his assertion. He sets the argument up to arrive at the conclusion he wants us all to believe: that a 757 could not have hit the Pentagon, therefore it must have been a smaller, single engine aircraft.

Should we accept Proof 2 as proof? I cannot accept such a shoddy presentation, devoid of actual evidence, full of logical fallacies and unsupported assumptions, without consideration of actual data or alternative explanations.

You have now seen enough to know that the “small-plane” evidence is deserving of careful examination. I believe we can overthrow the 9-11 conspiracy and bring peace and justice and better lives for all if we simply get these crucial findings to the public.

Now Mr. Eastman gets to his point, the conclusion he wants to fit “facts” to, that 9/11 is a government conspiracy. This has always been his central point.

What should we glean from the above? For one, many conspiracy theorists have seized on the Pentagon crash photo sequence as “proof” that a 757 did not crash into the Pentagon. All of them claim that the photos are supposed to be the government’s “evidence” that AA 77, a Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon. but, the government has never made that claim. So, what is to be gained for the conspiracy theorists?

Significantly, Dick Eastman’s so-called “proofs” above contribute nothing to the truth. He has not demonstrated that a 757 did not hit the Pentagon. Neither is it really possible to conclude that a 757 hit the Pentagon from this sequence of photos. The contribution of the photos to answering that question is exactly zero, nada, nothing.

But it is significant for conspiracy theorists like Dick Eastman for it adds to the “unanswered questions” that are the lifeblood (or house of cards) of conspiracy theories. Eastman et al want conspiracy skeptics to debunk their “evidence”; in this case the “evidence” consists of a straw man argument. They are desperate that others get into an argument with them so they can “prove” that a 757 could not and did not hit the Pentagon.

Cursory readings of all the 9/11 conspiracy sites reveals the overriding characteristic of “proving” that x could not happen, or, alternatively, that “questions raised” have not been answered, then insisting that any and all have to debunk these supposedly “valid” arguments or questions.

If we take Dick Eastman’s “proofs” as evidence, we see that he has completely ignored any and all conflicting evidence about the Pentagon crash. (Well, that is not completely true, since he has tried to debunk other conflicting evidence elsewhere, but, significantly, he has not brought it up here.) Does evidence exist in a vacuum, independent of, or at the exclusion of other evidence? To many conspiracy theorists, it does.

The questions 9/11 conspiracy theorists do not want to bring up are the consequences that flow from their conclusions. Some questions are, if AA Flight 77, a scheduled Boeing 757 flight did not hit the Pentagon, then:

• 1. What happened to it?
• 2. Where are the passengers who were known to be on the flight?
• 3. Whose remains did they recover from the Pentagon, the ones X that were identified as passengers from AA 77, and who were buried, and whose personal effects that survived were identified and returned to the next of kin?
• 4. What hit the Pentagon, where did it come from, why was it not reported missing?
• 5. Why was the damage outside of the Pentagon, the fallen light poles, the damaged and moved generator, only consistent with the hit by a large aircraft and not by a missile or fighter plane?
• 6. Why have conspiracy theorists never interviewed the police, fire, and rescue crews who responded to the Pentagon crash, and later to the official recovery teams, all told who numbered a couple hundred people? Does their testimony not matter?
• 7. How could a conspiracy by the government work when the participation of thousands would be required? Is anyone, government or not, so competent to be able to pull off such a complicated scenario?
• 8. If this was all a government conspiracy, why go to the bother of using a missile or fighter to hit the Pentagon when a 757 would do just fine, make a bigger bang, and there would be no need for a cover-up?

The questions that 9/11 conspiracy theorists never seem to be able to answer go on and on. Each of us can look at the data and come up with questions and known facts that are not consistent with the 9/11 conspiracy theorists’ conclusions. Try it yourselves. Here’s one example of how conspiracy theorists deal with inconvenient facts:

Gerard Holmgren, author of the “Physical and Mathematical analysis of Pentagon crash“, an early 9/11 conspiracy theorist claiming the 757 did not hit the Pentagon, dismissed a crucial unanswered question about what actually happened to AA flight 77 this way:

“So if it didn’t hit the Pentagon, what happened to AA 77 and the passengers? An important question, but it’s irrelevant to the argument of whether it hit he Pentagon.”

Read that sentence again if you don’t believe what you are reading with your own eyes. Do you see the absurdity of dismissing crucial evidence – AA 77, a Boeing 757 – as irrelevant in the investigation? This is the way conspiracy theorists avoid dealing with facts destructive to their “theories”: ignore and discount inconvenient facts.

In his effort to “prove” a 757 did not the Pentagon, Dick Eastman provided no proof whatsoever, but as we have seen, he did engage in logical fallacies, and a slew of unsupported assertions and assumptions. Would any rational person accept such a weak argument on its face? Well, yes, many otherwise rational people fall into that trap. Should we care? Yes, to the extent that we impart to our children and others a strong commitment to rational and critical thinking and devotion to truth.

Should we spend our time debating such conspiracy theorists as Dick Eastman and Gerard Holmgren? Some think we should just as I have done above. But I contend that it is really not worth the effort. I find it much easier to look at their analysis and conclusions then come up with the questions, implications, and conditions, i.e., “inconvenient facts”, necessary for those conclusions to be true. In the case of Dick Eastman’s “proof” above, we can dismiss the whole thing outright without arguing against him as I have done above. Why? Because there is so much other overwhelming evidence from hundreds of different people and disparate, unrelated sources, that conclusively show a 757 hit the Pentagon without ever having to see this sequence of photos.

Invariably, one can trip up conspiracy theorists rendering their “arguments” and conclusions worthless, though, of course, they will never admit it. Dick Eastman cleverly states at the opening above: “You Decide”; his article, however, clearly directs one to the conclusion he wants one to accept uncritically.

The nature of conspiracy theorists, as with Holocaust deniers, is to engage in endless debate and deny or ignore any inconvenient evidence. We know from the history and psychology of Holocaust deniers that it will never go away despite the overwhelming evidence that the Holocaust happened. Neither will 9/11 conspiracy theories go away. Perhaps, though, we can save a few and point them in the direction to think for themselves, think critically, and never give up their own minds to phony conspiracy theories.

Some excellent books on the subject are:

• “Why People Believe Weird Things”, by Michael Shermer, ISBN: 0-8050-7089-3
• “Denying The Holocaust”, by Deborah Lipstadt, ISBN: 0-452-27274-2
• “Denying History”, by Michael Shermer & Alex Grobman, ISBN: 0-520-23469-3
• “Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide”, by Tracy Bowell & Gary Kemp, ISBN: 0-415-24017-4
• “Attacking Faulty Reasoning”, by T. Edward Damer, ISBN: 0-534-55133-5