Worst 9/11 Book of All Time?

Recently I read, Planes without Passengers: the Faked Hijackings of 9/11 by Dean Hartwell. The only thing preventing me from declaring it to be the worst "book" ever about 9/11 is that since I haven't seen them all it's possible that there is a worse one I'm not aware of. I debated his essay length self-published "book" with him on the Education Forum. He gave the following "outline" of his "ideas":

What happened to each of the planes?

Flight 11 allegedly struck World Trade Center 1 (North Tower)
Flight 11 – There was no such flight
Flight 11 Decoy (“11D”) – Took off from Boston Logan airport and was identified as Flight 11
Where did 11D go? – It flew toward the World Trade Center and got within one-half mile of it
What happened to 11D? – It landed safely
What happened to WTC 1? – Another aircraft struck it

Flight 175 allegedly struck World Trade Center 2 (South Tower)
Flight 175 – It took off from Boston Logan Airport
Where did 175 go? - It flew west, switching its flight # to 89 and doing a hijacking simulation
What happened to 175? – It landed safely in Cleveland
Flight 175 Decoy (“175D”) – Took off from Boston Logan Airport and was identified as 175
Where did 175D go? – It flew toward the World Trade Center and got within one-half mile of it
What happened to 175D? – It stayed in the air (unidentified) and then served as a decoy for 93
What happened to WTC 2? - Another aircraft struck it.

Flight 77 allegedly struck the Pentagon
Flight 77 – There was no such flight
Flight 77 Decoy (“77D”) – It flew west and was identified as 77
What happened to 77D? – I don’t know; I speculate it flew over the Pentagon

Flight 93 allegedly crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Flight 93 – It took off from Newark Airport
Flight 93 Decoy (“93D”) – No
Where did 93 go? – It flew west
What happened to 93? It went toward Cleveland, then flew back to Pennsylvania and landed safely

In other words he is a particularly whacky brand of no planer. What follows is my Amazon review of the book:

---------------------------------------------

One thing that potential buyers should be aware of is that this not really a 144 page book because it is set in extra-large type. It is just over 15,000 words (i.e. a little more than 5x longer than this review), if normal size type had been used the “book” would be only ¼ - 1/3 as long. So for $10 plus shipping you’ll get a 40 or so page essay that the author had to self-publish, by contrast 350 – 700 page commercially published books by Griffin, Tarpley and Ruppert (which I think are crappy too) go for $12 - $18.

The author claimed “I use the large font so my wife can read it.” [1] I find that hard to believe because as noted above the use of jumbo size text increased the page count 3 - 4x and thus increased his publishing costs by a similar proportion [2]. Obviously he knows that he can easily change type size on the computer screen or print out a large type copy for his ‘significant other’. Presumably then the real reason was that he knew people would be unlikely to spend over $10 for a 30 – 40 page “book”.

But it’s like the Groucho Marx’s joke about one old lady complaining that a restaurant’s food is bad and her friend not only concurring but adding “and the portions are small too”. The book is a good example of why even within the “truth” movement ‘no planers’ are considered crackpots. ‘Debunkers’ repeatedly point out that ‘truthers’ rarely explain what exactly they think happened that day; Mr. Hartwell to his credit tries to do so but his account is marred by tortured logic and factual errors.

=== FLIGHTS 11 AND 77 AND THE BTS ===

One of his central theories is that Flights 11 and 77 never took off Logan and Dulles and were never even scheduled to fly because they did not show up on a Bureau of Transportation Statistics webpage [pg 11]. He further went on to speculate that they were replaced by decoy planes [pgs 12, 44, 57] which he believes took off from the same airports despite there being no sign of them in the same BTS database. He also chose to ignore that the theory spelled out above is patently absurd. As I pointed out to him on an Internet forum:

The amount of people who would have to be “in on it” or otherwise silenced is prohibitively large and would have included all the AA ticket agents at Logan and Dulles and the ones for feeder flights at other airports (and probably for the entire US since the systems are linked), dozens or more flight controllers, baggage and security crews at Logan and Dulles, the people claiming to be next of kin of those on the flights as well as personnel from the NYC Medical Examiner’s offices as well as any travel agents or users of sites like Orbitz who happened to look up flights from Logan or Dulles to LAX that morning etc etc. The idea that the PTB/CIA/ONI/PNAC/MIBH etc would put together this elaborate plot to murder thousands, involving hundreds of people etc, etc would be unwilling or able to fake a BTS list is mind boggling.[3]

=== PASSENGER AND CREW PARTICIPATION IN THE PLOT ===

Hartwell repeatedly demonstrated that he will rationalize away any compelling evidence which contradict his fantasies. He did so in a particularly repulsive manner regarding the calls from Flight 11:

There are two reported calls from Flight 11, from Betty Ong and Madeline Sweeney. Their calls are reported as starting at 8:19 A.M. and 8:25 A.M.

Regardless of what types of phones were used, Ong and Sweeney could have made or had their calls made from another location (perhaps the actual Flight 11 plane on the ground) and continued until word came that the South Tower had been struck at 8:46. [pg 86]

In other words they were 'in on it', they were perpetrators not victims. He didn't limit this offensive speculation to the heroic stewardesses, he declared that he concluded that the “passengers” (use of 'scare quotes' his) were part of the plot and left “their family and friends...[and] agree[d] to participate in [the] plot...[because they saw 9/11 as] an opportunity to change United States policies and fight what they perceive as a greater evil...Some passengers could have been blackmailed into participating” he admited that, “this conclusion comes not from eyewitness or other solid evidence, but rather logic.” [pgs 92 – 3] unfortunately all manners of lunatics think their beliefs are logical.

=== FLIGHT 1989 ===

Another of his theories is that two flights made emergency landings in Cleveland rather just Delta 1989 as per the official version. The basis for this are some discrepancies between media accounts regarding the landing time, number of passengers aboard and other details. Some said 10:10 and others 10:45, some said about 200 PAX other about 70. This ignores that it is common for mistakes to be made in breaking news accounts [e.g “Dewey Wins”, “Giffords Killed”].

- Landing Time:

He assumes that the ‘earlier’ flight was 1989 and dubbed the latter “an unidentified plane” and speculates that it was really United 175. However he neglected to inform his readers that the media accounts he cited referring to BOTH landing times described it as being a Delta flight or specifically Delta 1989. For example:

“Delta Flight 1989 made an emergency landing at Hopkins about 10:45 a.m”

“There also was uncertainty and fear for several hours at Hopkins while authorities searched a Delta airliner forced to land there for signs of terrorist sabotage…The scene inside the air traffic control tower yesterday morning at Hopkins was sober and calm as controllers brought down the Delta, a 767 from Boston, that was feared to have been sabotaged…The flight to Los Angeles landed at Hopkins at 10:45 a.m.”

He can not claim he was unaware of this because 1) I pointed it out to him on the aforementioned forum back in November [4]. 2) the 1st quote and the underlined portion of the 2nd appear on a webpage he cited [5]. Additionally the 9/11 Timeline, which he cited several times, said it landed at 10:18 but “other accounts will say it lands at between 10:33 a.m. and 10:45” and provided links to an FAA document (10:33) and two AP articles which reported that Delta “flight 1989” a 767 from Boston to LA “landed about 10:45 a.m.” [6]

- Number of Passengers:

Most accounts said there were “about 60 passengers” or 69 PAX and nine crew members but Hartwell pointed out that, “early press reports said a plane at the [Cleveland] airport had 200 passengers” [pg 61]. However he failed to inform his readers that with one exception the reports attribute or seem to attribute the number to “Cleveland Mayor Michael White” speaking at a press conference, [7] none of the accounts mentioned his location so it is doubtful he was at the airport. The exception was a reporter for a Cleveland radio station who said, “A few hours after Mayor White's first news conference, FBI Special Agent Mark Bullock confirmed that the Delta jet with 200 people aboard had landed safely and had not been in danger” [8] but the number seems not to have come from the FBI agent because:

1) A 11:37 AM 9/11 forum post (cited by Hartwell’s source) said “The mayor of Cleveland has announced that an airplane containing 200 passengers has been sequestered at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport” (i.e. the number was cited less than 90 minutes after the plane landed not hours after the mayor’s news conference) [9].

2) A 9/11 article from AP which cited Bullock reported “78 passengers aboard” [that was a minor error, there were 78 people {PAX and crew} on it] [10]

- 1989 or 175:

Hartwell thinks that the “2nd plane” was probably flight 175 because it, “had the capability and the opportunity to take Flight 11 passengers (to make 157) and its whereabouts were reasonably in question” [pg 17]. There are a few problems with this absurd theory.

1) There is absolutely no evidence passengers from another flight, let alone another airline, being transferred to 175. I have never heard of passengers from one airline being transferred to a competitor's flight except in the case of mechanical problems.

2) Flight 175 took off at 8:14 [11]and flight time from Logan to Cleveland is only about 68 minutes [12]. By 10:45, 2 ½ hours later if the plane had not been hijacked it would have been half way to LA [13] Probably over Iowa or Nebraska [14]

3) The flight's “whereabouts were NOT reasonably in question”, its transponder was only turned off for 30 seconds before being reset it was tracked from Boston to NYC air traffic controllers at NY Center and Newark Airport, the latter of whom also see it through their windows for its last few minutes [15].

4) It was also tracked by several workers at United's crisis center in Chicago. [16]

5) 27 of the passengers and crew had their remains identified (26 via DNA) by the NYC Medical Examiners Office [17]. Hartwell knows this but made contradictory claims about it in his “book” (more on this below).

- Flights 175 and 93 Wheels -off Times:

Because the FAA and NTSB said Flight 175 took off at 8:14 but the BTS said it did so at 8:23 Hartwell speculated that the first was “a decoy” and the second carried the passengers [pgs 54 -7] and due to a similar contradiction between the BTS and press accounts regarding the take off time for Flight 93 [pgs 58 – 60] he speculated there might have two of the latter as well. Hilariously he added “but I cannot prove it” as if he offered anything approaching evidence (let alone proof) there were two 175s. Nor does ever offer a coherent explanation as to why the conspirators would not only make the plot complex but leave traces in the official record.

=== IDENTIFICATION OF PASSENGER REMAINS ===

In his conclusion Hartwell wrote “I have offered evidence...that no independent expert has ever confirmed the identification of remains of any of the passengers at any of the sites. ” [pgs 117 – 8].

That is yet another example of the utter rubbish in this “book” because most passengers (and crew) from all four flights were IDed but Hartwell seemingly only defines people who do not work for any government agency as “independent”. This is ludicrous because the vast majority of forensic pathologists in the US are city, county, state or federal employees and private ones would only be called in if the next of kin hired them. So Hartwell set an impossibly high standard so as to rationalize his dismissal of evidence which refutes his lunatic theories.

He obviously dismisses out of hand the DNA identifications made by the Armed Forces Medical Examiner of most of the flight 93 (Shanksville) and all of the Flight 77 (Pentagon) victims any one working for the federal government, especially the military is assumed to be compromised. But many victims from Flights 93, 11 and 175 (WTC) were IDed by local coroners.

NYC Victims:

Earlier he rationalized his dismissal of the identification of the victims of Flights 11 and 175:

Dr. Robert Shaler, former director of the Forensic Biology Department at the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, wrote the book Who They Were: Inside the World Trade Center DNA Story: The Unprecedented Effort to Identify the Missing. He writes mostly of his staff’s efforts to identify those who had worked in the World Trade Center buildings.

He says that he met with families of passengers, although this was late in the investigation. And although he mentions a few matches made with passengers and shows a chart of the number of passenger matches, he does not specify anyone.

The information above gives sufficient basis in fact to reject the official story and start anew….[pg 30]

So he rejects the passenger and crew identifications made by Shaler and his 100 plus subordinates because he didn't mention any of their names? This is nonsenscial, if he was lying he could easily claim he had IDed people he had not. Hartwell failed to mention Shaler did not name any of the 265 Flight 587 victims by name and only two of the over 2600 tower occupants who died [18]. Despite Hartwell implying he only IDed“a few” of the people on the planes the DNA expert reported he identified 77 of the 147 passengers and crew aboard the flights [19]. Worse Hartwell's rationalization was based on a false premise. On page 310 of his book Shaler discussed identifying the remains of Flight 11 passenger Daniel Lewin [20]. But Shaler worked for the City of NY while Giuliani was mayor and thus presumably in Hartwell's mind is not “independent”.

- Shanksville Victims:

Not all of the victims of the Pennsylvania crash were identified by the DoD, “[Somerset County coroner Wallace E.] Miller and his team identified 16 of the 44 passengers and crew aboard Flight 93 through fingerprint and dental records.” [21] Hartwell didn't mention Miller, I doubt this was an oversight. Presumably it would be harder to dismiss the funeral homer owner who only made less than $36k a year for his part time work for rural Somerset County [22] as not being “independent”.

=== Flight 1989 “Transcript” ===

Towards the middle of his “book” the author cited and obscure source:

“In an article on the site “Bravehost,” a writer details transcripts purportedly from Flight 1989 and Flight 93 and notes the similarity in a message from “hijackers” on each plane about a bomb on board. The controllers contacted and received a response from the 1989 pilot, who agreed to land in Cleveland, but got no response from 93” [pgs. 64 – 5]
The source for the ‘transcript’ was a USAToday article which he previously cited as a source that pinpointed 10:10 as the landing time for the Delta flight. Certainly citing an article with named authors in a well known newspaper would have given his claim more credibility than an anonymously written article from an obscure website, why then did he use the latter rather than the former? It turns out that “Bravehost” misunderstood the article, there was only one message but the air traffic controllers thought mistakenly at first it came from 1989 (emphasis mine):

Now about 9:30 a.m., controllers hear words that seem to confirm their worst fears. They hear shouting as Flight 1989 approaches the Ohio border. Then they hear a voice: "Get out of there!" Then what sounds like a scuffle.

Minutes later, a new voice, this one with a heavy accent: "Ladies and gentlemen, here it's the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard."
No one who hears those words believes they are coming from Werner. Not with such a heavy accent. No way. Rather, the transmission seems to be from a hijacker who unwittingly spoke over the radio when he meant to address passengers.

Officials at Cleveland Center rush word to Washington: Hijackers have another flight.
At the Federal Aviation Administration's command center in Herndon, Va., Delta Flight 1989 joins a growing list of suspicious jets.

[…]

MISTAKE REALIZED

Silence.

Controllers at Cleveland Center can't raise United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying over Ohio.

Perhaps the strange radio transmissions — the reference to a bomb and the heavy accent of a "captain" — hadn't come from the Delta flight. Maybe Capt. Werner's Flight 1989 is fine after all.

At least, that's the way it seems to the controllers. The United flight had been just 25 miles ahead of the Delta flight when the radio transmissions came through — close enough to account for the confusion.

Then, at 9:35 a.m., the United jet had climbed unexpectedly and turned back, over Ohio, toward the Delta flight. Then ...

Silence. The United flight stopped talking.

It must be United that's hijacked.

When controllers ordered Werner to change course to avoid Flight 93, he had complied quickly. Yes, Delta Flight 1989 must be fine. [23]

Hartwell did not cite the original because it not fit with cockamamie theory i.e. he intentionally mislead his readers. I could go on and on but I have wasted enough time on this poorly researched, offensive garbage, take a look at the Index which only includes 10 items, this is indicative of the lack of Hartwell's care. The text is not even original being largely derivative of “Woody Box” who at least isn't trying to make a buck. One can read much of the book on Amazon Reader if after read this review, the available pages and Box's 'research' you still want to buy this crap you'll be proving the adage about fools and their money.


NOTES:

1] http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=17254&view=findpost&p=217992

2] See for example this page about page count affects publishing costs and buyer's perceptions of books http://money.howstuffworks.com/self-publishing4.htm CreateSpace uses multiples of 24 pages
3] http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16899&view=findpost&p=211015 post 12
4] http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16899&view=findpost&p=211551 post 39

5] http://911review.org/inn.globalfreepress/Cleveland_Airport_Mystery.html cited on page 62

6] http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a1018deltalands#a1018deltalands

7] http://911review.org/brad.com/Woodybox/JET-93_land-Ohio.html
8] http://www.wcpn.org/spotlight/news/2001/0912cleveland-reacts.html

9] http://911review.org/inn.globalfreepress/Cleveland_Airport_Mystery.html cited on page 62

10] http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/archives3/sep01/091101/brief16.html

11] http://www.ntsb.gov/info/Flight_%20Path%20_Study_UA175.pdf pg 1 , http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB196/doc07.pdf pg 4

12] http://www.travelmath.com/flight-time/from/BOS/to/CLE , http://www.airrouting.com/content/TimeDistanceForm.aspx

13] http://www.travelmath.com/flight-time/from/BOS/to/LAX , http://www.airrouting.com/content/TimeDistanceForm.aspx ,

14] http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map?airport1=bos&airport2=lnk&format=google&units=metric&convert_format=&gc_segments=&gc_altitude=&show_wpt=3&trk_colorize=track

15] http://www.ntsb.gov/info/Flight_%20Path%20_Study_UA175.pdf pg. 2 , http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=ua175 , http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9-11/air-traffic-controllers-recall-events.txt

16] http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm

17] http://books.google.com/books?id=eI1pVWM38wEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Who+They+Were:+Inside+the+World+Trade+Center+DNA+Story&hl=pt-br&ei=cJ87Td_oNMT48Aaaz9zMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=175&f=false pg 302

18] http://books.google.com/books?id=eI1pVWM38wEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false , the two victims he mentioned were James Marcel Cartier (IDed) and Rita Blau (not IDed) http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=198580

19] http://books.google.com/books?id=eI1pVWM38wEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Who+They+Were:+Inside+the+World+Trade+Center+DNA+Story&hl=pt-br&ei=cJ87Td_oNMT48Aaaz9zMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=175&f=false pg 302

20]http://books.google.com/books?id=eI1pVWM38wEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Who+They+Were:+Inside+the+World+Trade+Center+DNA+Story&hl=pt-br&ei=cJ87Td_oNMT48Aaaz9zMCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=lewin&f=false pg 10

21]http://www.newsweek.com/2009/01/02/remains-of-the-day.html

22] http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011015newsmaker1015p2.asp

23] http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-hijacker-daytwo_x.htm

My e-mail exchange with Duff

I sent Duff the link to the post above. The following e-mail exchange ensued. Other than correcting 1 typo and redacting our e-mail addresses I changed nothing. The times are my time, i.e. 1 hour ahead of EST and 3 hours behind GMT:

From: Gpduf@xxxxxx

Subject: Re: Gordon Duff another truther whack-a-loon and coward
To: lenxxxxxx
Date: Tuesday, November 2, 2010, 6:12 PM

Hey Len

We have 400,000 subscribers. THEY HATE YOU

Live with it or go back to...wherever it is that traitors live.

You make my day. Keep squirming

g

============================

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:01 PM

From: "len" xxxxxx

To:Gpduf@xxxxxx

You think, they hate me Duff? Most don't know who I am because you keep censoring my posts. What are you afraid of? Them finding out that you make stuff up? I do not believe you really have direct knowledge of Abdulmutallab dad's ties to the Mossad because if you did you would have said so rather than cite articles that didn't back your claims.

So I wonder if you lied about that what else have you lied about? As for your claim to have regularly appeared on TV what else is there besides being interviewed once by Russian TV and another time by a Pakistani station? How much of your claimed bio is true? I have a challenge for you spell out you bio in detail including the dates, ranks and units of your service and the dates, titles and locations of your post military career and provide some documentation.

Oh and I don't believe your claim to "have 400,000 subscribers" even at the height of the truther storm 9/11 Blogger only claimed to be "getting about 5,000 unique hits a day," and a newspaper selling that many print copies would be 12 in US circulation.

And why exactly am I a traitor? Is it just because I question your dubious claims?

==========

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:04 PM

From: "len " xxxxxxx

To:Gpduf@xxxxxx

Oh and one more thing I consider the content of our e-mails fodder for my blog, i.e. I might post all or part of their contents.

==========

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:10 PM

From: "Gpduf@xxxxxx"

To: lenxxxxxx

Please do

but first you should get an education

go to the yellow pages

look under schools

find one near your home

very near as you might become frightened or lost

contact them and see if you qualify to attend

have a nice day, i certainly will

g

==========

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:20 PM

From: "Gpduf@xxxxxx"

To: lenxxxxxx

Oh, you are that idiot.

You have had your 1 minute.

You are a time waster with bad manners. You simply don't matter. The world is full of people with problem like yours.

The rest of us don't have time for you.

g

==========

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 8:38 PM

From:"len"

To:Gpduf@xxxxxx

Actually I was polite till you started censoring me. You think I need to go back to school? You crack me up, you seem to have serious reading comprehension problems or did you post those links knowing they did not back your claims?

Gordon Duff another truther whack-a-loon and coward

Gordon Duff a truther blogger who thinks he is a journalist but makes little effort to hide his anti-Semitism claimed in a recent post on his site Veterans Today that Israel was behind the package bombs from Yemen . Typically he provided close to zero citations and when he did they didn't back his claims. Referring to the "crotch bomber" he wrote:

Worse still, the “terrorists” father, described by the press as a “Muslim banker” turned out to be a partner in an Israeli managed defense company and a close friend of the CIA

He provided no citations but did in an earlier post

We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel

According to the first embedded link

He started his working career in 1965 as a Management Accountant with Fuller Jenks Beecroft & Co in London.

He also served as Chief Accountant/Acting General Manager, Defence Industries Corporation in Kaduna. He was also the Financial Controller of the company.

He rose to become the General Manager, New Nigeria Development Company Limited (NNDC) from 1968 to 1975.

The article never said he "ran" the company or that it was "the national arms industry". According to this article it only produced ammunition at the time. Since he was only 25 - 28 I doubt he held such a powerful position.

Here is the 2nd linked article in its entirety:

Nigeria: Lawmakers Divided Over Mossad - FG Link

Tashikalmah Hallah and Francis Okeke 5 September 2008


Members of the National Assembly have expressed different opinions on the alleged invitation of Israeli intelligence agency to train the country's security operations under a secret security pact.

Former Chairman House of Representatives Committee on National Security and Intelligence, Rep Abdullahi Farouk (PDP, Kebbi State), said Nigeria does not need Mossad or any foreign intelligence organisation to train the country's security agents because Nigeria has the best security training institution in the country.

Note that:

· this was 40 years after Mutallab left DICON

· Neither he nor the company were mentioned

· The proposal was described as an "alleged invitation"

· It did not sound like it would be approved

· There was no mention of any actual collaboration between Nigeria and the Mossad.

I posted the above to Duff's website except I removed the parts about him being a loon, pseudo journalist and anti-Semite and changed it to 2nd person. I was very polite I even addressed him as "Mr. Duff". He replied

Academics use citations. Journalist use sources. If you have sources, tell me what year I began advising the government of Nigeria in areas of security? My experience with all you discuss is personal and first hand.

According to his bio on his site:

Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, defense technologies or acting as diplomatic officer of UN humanitarian groups. Gordon Duff's articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages. He is regularly on TV and radio, a popular and sometimes controversial guest.

So I replied:

Well if what you claim were true why didn’t you cite your “personal and first hand” knowledge of what you wrote about rather than articles that did NOT support you claims? Fill us in prey tell on your supposed experience “advising the government of Nigeria in areas of security”, when and for whom did you work? Did this experience give you direct knowledge of Mutallab running “the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad”? If he ran the company after 1968 why did the article indicate otherwise? On and now that we are on the subject of you bio, care to provide any specifics? Dates, locations, units and ranks for the USMC, companies/organizations, locations and dates for your post military career.

He then deleted my replies, so I posted them again, he then deleted my posts again and his responses to them but not before I got a screen print (see below). Funny how truthers who complain about being shut out by the "MSM" shut dissenting voices out of their blogs, forums and websites, but it seems what really bothered him was my questioning his claimed credentials. So I imagine that much of his bio is Walter Mitty, the part about him being “regularly on TV and radio” is a bit of an exaggeration unless you count internet radio and public access cable. I only found two TV appearances on Google Video one was on kook friendly Russia Today and the other was on a station in Pakistan and I didn’t find any radio interviews from broadcast radio.

How many errors can a “truther” squeeze into four sentences?

If you are Michael Ruppert the answer is 5 to 6. This is neither new nor directly related to 9/11 but I recently started looking into it and it relates to the credibility of a leading “truther”. The passage below comes from his book Crossing the Rubicon and previously appeared in a From the Wilderness articlehe co-authored entitled “A Career In Microbiology Can Be Harmful To Your Health, POST 9-11 DEATH TOLL MOUNTING AS CONNECTIONS TO DYNCORP, HADRON, PROMIS SOFTWARE AND DISEASE RESEARCH EMERGE”

In 1994, Jose Trias met with a friend in Houston, Texas and was planning to go public with his personal knowledge of HHMI [Howard Hughes Medical Institute] “front door” grants being diverted to “back door” black ops bioresearch. The next day, Trias and his wife were found dead in their Chevy Chase, Md. home. Chevy Chase is where HHMI is headquartered. Police described the killings as a Professional hit.

1) Trias and his wife were not scientists

The article was about the supposed rash of deaths of microbiologists thus one would presume Trias was one or at least a bioscientist / doctor, but he and his wife were both lawyers. Trias and his wife seem to be the only non-biologists amongst the “victims”. I doubt Ruppert simply forgot to tell his readers what Trias’ profession was.

2) “The next day, Trias and his wife were found dead”

Trias and Julie Gilbert, his wife, were found on Monday, May 16, 1994, they were last seen alive the afternoon of Saturday the 14th “Police estimate that they died between 9 p.m. May 14 and 9 a.m. Sunday”

3), 4)“…dead in their Chevy Chase, Md. home”

They lived in Bethesda but were found dead in their weekend home near Annapolis.

5) “Police described the killings as a Professional hit.”

This is the most significant error and the one most indicative of an attempt to mislead. The earliest newspaper articles and all subsequent ones indicated robbery was the suspected motive. Most also mentioned that one of the couples Acura Legends was missing. Police quickly identified and arrested the culprit, Scotland Eugene Williams, a cat burglar/petty thief who was photographed by security cameras using Gilbert’s bank card and in one driving her car, when he was arrested he had her watch and a two pairs of handcuffs in his possession. Despite the papers saying the Trias’ were not bound both were handcuffed. He admitted to having robbed them and forced them to give him the PIN numbers of the bank cards. He denied entering the house but was placed there by DNA and a shoe print. Additionally he had plead guilty to a previous break-in and was a suspect in various others but no cases of robbing people or stealing cars from public place were mentioned in media reports

The closest any newspapers came to saying the police thought it was “a Professional hit” were two articles which said the police considered the possibility but concluded the motive was burglary or thought the latter more likely. A May 18 article in The Capital, an Annapolis newspaper entitled “Mystery surrounds lawyers' murders” reported the following:

Although police still consider robbery the motive in the slayings of wealthy attorneys Jose Enrique Trias, 49, and Julie Noel Gilbert, 48, the circumstances of the crime raise many questions.

The killer or killers didn’t break into the home at 1624 Winchester Road, police said. Neither victim was bound, and there was no evidence of a sexual assault.

And unlike most burglaries or robberies, the house was not ransacked.

And detectives have been unable to determine what, if anything, is missing from the house near Winchester on the Severn, said Officer Randy Bell, a county police spokesman. As a result, police are wondering if Mr. Trias and Ms, Gilbert were victims of an execution-style killing.

“I’m sure that’s one of the many, many options that has run through (detectives’) heads,” Officer Bell said.

From THE YEAR IN CRIME; Few Big Cases End in Clean Getaways, a December 29 review of notable crimes in 1994 in the Washington Post:

A pair of influential Washington tax lawyers were found shot to death execution-style in May at their $725,000 weekend retreat in Anne Arundel County.

Although the slayings of Jose Trias, 49, and his wife, Julie Gilbert, 48, seemed like a professional hit, police said they were prompted by a simple burglary. When investigators released pictures of a man who used Trias's bank card at an automated teller machine, an Anne Arundel detective recognized him as Scotland E. Williams, 31, a suspect in a string of cat burglaries the previous fall.

So an honest accounting of what happened would have indicated that though the police said the murders bore traces of a professional hit they quickly concluded they were the result of a simple burglary and quickly identified arrested a suspect who is currently serving life with out parole for killing the couple.

6)? “In 1994, Jose Trias met with a friend in Houston, Texas …”

None of the news articles about the murder mention him having been to Houston or even having left town. It is unlikely he would have travelled during the work week if he did not want to attract attention at the HHMI. Since “neighbors said Mr. Trias arrived at the home about 3 p.m. May 14” he would hardly have been time for a trip on the Saturday. In theory he could have flown out on the Friday after work and returned the next day but that begs the question if he and his wife were killed to shut him up why didn’t they kill the friend in Houston as well? If the friend were killed why isn’t he (or she) cited?

Richard Gage’s structural engineers

I decided to look over the credentials and statements of the structural engineers (SEs), in AE911T. There are only 30, 19 in the US and 11 in Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Anders Björkman who used to claim to be an SE is now more accurately classified as a “Naval architect & Marine engineer”

Two to four seem to not really be SE’s. Charles Pegelow is no longer listed as a structural engineer and his now expired license was for civil engineering. Apparently Rich Reed recently earned his BS, is unlicensed and left his bio (and statement) blank. Albert Arey from Chicago is listed as being “Degreed and Licensed” and “Verified” but he is in the “Other Supporters and A&E Students” group, did not provide a license number and is NOT licensed in Illinois. He claims to have a degree from Ecole Centrale Lyon, which only gives degrees in general engineering, so he might be licensed in France. Other than his education his bio gave no indication what experience, if any, he has. The only work experience William H. Russell “Architect, Structural Engineer”, of Atlanta mentioned was as an architecture professor 1973 – 2006 but failed to disclose were he taught from 1979 onward. He claims to have earned his BA in architecture and MS in architectural engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana and to have been an “Asst Professor” there 1973 -77. He also claims to be the holder of RArch#3454(GA) and “S.Eng#4161(IL,inactive)” both issued in 1977 but a he did not turn up in the IL or GA engineers databases*, the latter of which lists inactive licensees and used 9-digit numbers and like most states neither IL nor GA issues licenses for specific types of engineers so there is no way he could have earned a “Structural Engineering Registration” in either state in 1977 or any other year. Also it is hard to believe one of the prestigious architecture programs in the US would hire an unlicensed architect as an assistant professor which is a tenure track position.

Despite truthers using the excuse that they sign up so few engineers because many are afraid of being ostracized, marginalized, fired or otherwise persecuted with the exception of a guy who moved from Belgrade to London in 1989 AE911T does not have any SEs from Moslem, Communist, formerly Communist or anti-US countries (unless you count France).

Only 14 of them claimed to have experience with buildings and only one, Steven Merritt, cited tall buildings. Paul A. Thomas claims to have designed “concrete & steel structures to 240 ft. height” but worked mostly for “Mining & Industrial clients”.

Surprisingly only 3 mentioned NIST but only one or two seem to have read the report. The aforementioned Mr. Arey from Chicago simply said “The collapse was too neat to be ascribed to the official story and what was described in NIST report. A new investigation is warranted”, so I doubt he actually read it. His inability to spell out from an engineering perspective why he thinks the towers were CDed is yet another reason to doubt he really is an SE.

Bill Boggia and Ronald H. Brookman critiqued the NIST report in ways that suggest they actually read it (or at least articles by truthers who had). Boggia’s experience however is with offshore platforms. Brookman claims to have “over 21 years experience in structural analysis, design, evaluation and rehabilitation of buildings in northern California” but makes no mention of what types of buildings. Other than forums and truther sites the only mention of an engineer named Ronald, Ronald H. or Ronald Herman Brookman was the California Board for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors.

However like the others neither Boggia nor Brookman not Merrit nor Thomas have written a technical critique of the NIST report including calculations showing (or attempting to show) that it was flawed let alone gotten anything published in an engineering journal

To save space in the chart below I edited down most of their bios and statements, substituted numbers with numerals and used the following abbreviations: ME mechanical Engineer, CE civil engineer, BSe Bachelor Sci. Eng. (general engineering or field not specified), CD controlled demolition, BLD building, FF free fall, FTP footprint. All mentions of the NIST report and experience with buildings were included.

Name	Loca tion	Deg ree	Lice nse	Experience	Statement
William H. Russell,	GA	MS AE	??	Architecture professor 1977 - 2006	“too much information missing and misinformation included”
Alfred Lee Lopez	MI	BS AE	yes	“48 years…all types of BLDs”	“I agree the fire did not cause the collapse of the 3 BLDs”
Antonio Arthay	FL	MS SE	SE BC	“15+ years of experience in BLD design”	“Fire and impact were insignificant in all 3 BLDs. Impossible for the three to collapse at free-fall speed.”
Charles N. Pegelow	CA	BS CE	CE exp	Offshore oil platforms	No AE911 statement previously critiqued the ASCE report but not NIST’s. Has gone on record saying he believes the towers well felled with “mini-nukes”
David Topete	CA	BS CE	CE SE	“residential, commercial and light manufacturing facilities”	“I am curious to … how [WTC7] collapsed, while no other adjacent structures suffered such fate.”
Dennis J. Kollar	MI	BS CE- SE	exp	“structural design of residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional structures”	“the most convincing aspect that the 911 collapse was a CD is the recorded explosions on the 9/11 Eyewitness DVD”
Edward E. Knesl	AZ	MS CE SE	CE SE	“35 years of experience domestic and overseas in commercial and transportation projects”	“Any tall structure failure mode would be a fall over to its side…We do not know the phenomenon of the high rise BLD to disintegrate internally faster than the FF of the debris coming down from the top”
John Charles Lewelling	TX CO	BS AE	CE SE	“35 years…hospital, office, retail, storage, industrial, airports(s)…public assembly,[schools]”	X
Kamal S. Obeid	CA	MS CE	CE SE	“Consulting structural engineer specializing in BLD and other structures design and retrofit.”	“Only recently have I begun to examine the structural collapse of the BLDs. Photos of the steel, evidence about how the BLDs collapsed,”
Lester Jay Germanio	TX	BS CE	SE	“5 years experience as bridge designer and self employed as design build contractor and SE for 20 years”	“I…have watched numerous video and films of the collapse since that time. It is and has been my opinion that the most probable cause of the WTC BLDs was CD.”
Marshall Casey Pfeiffer	CA	BS CE	CE SE	“SE in CA for 12 years designing Earthquake resistant BLDs.”	WTC BLD 1, 2, and 7 collapsed due to controlled demolitions, please investigate
Nathan S. Lomba	ID CA	BS CE	CE SE	“39 years…custom residential to heavy industrial structures …project for the USAF…Pulp Machine BLD…Natural-gas fired power plant”	How did the structures collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating causes were asymmetrical loading?
Paul A. Thomas	AZ	MS Arch SE	yes	“Designed concrete & steel structures to 240 ft. height ” “Mining & Industrial clients. Design concrete & steel structures, foundations”	The 2 towers, as they collapse, appear to be a CD event rather that a "pancake" type failure…molten steel found in the wreckage of the BLDs
Ronald H. Brookman	CA	BS MS	CE SE	“21 years experience in structural analysis, design, evaluation and rehabilitation of BLDs”	“NIST, FEMA and the 9/11 Com. have all fallen short of a detailed accounting of the catastrophic collapses”
Steven F. Dusterwald	NV	BS CE	yes	“Structural analysis and design…of BLDs and other structures”	“There was not enough energy delivered to the BLDs by the impacting aircraft to destroy all the structural materials.”
Steven Merritt	CA	MS SE	CE	“I have designed steel high rise BLDs for the past 8 years.”	“There seem to be a lot of unanswered ?s and it would serve the greater good to re-open the investigation.”
Albert Arey	IL	BSe	?	????	“The collapse was too neat to be ascribed to the official story and what was described in NIST report”
Peter I. Staker	AL	BS	No	“degree in SE…worked as an Engineer for 40 years”	X
Foreign SE’s in AE911T
Rich Reed	CA	BS	No	???	X
Bill Boggia	UK	BS ME	ME CE	offshore oil, gas, wind, wave and tidal energy projects.	“NIST structural simulations - are not…to final collapse and the failure mechanisms seem to have been manually adjusted…The pulling forces on the perimeter columns by the sagging floors were adjusted”
Bill Genitsaris	Aust.	BSe	yes	“structural engineer in the residential and commercial fields.” “demolition”	“If the pancake theory is correct, then as each floor truss disconnects from the columns…the columns should have remained in 1 complete length (ie over 100m long)”
Cyrille Houdebine	Frnce	MS	yes	“working as a SE in a subsidiary of the group SNC-Lavalin in Nice”	“The crash…caused the destruction of several columns …could have created a phenomenon of buckling in chain…it is impossible that this happen at the speed of a FF approximately”
Robert T. Mote	Can	PhD	yes	“Special interest in dynamic and explosion behaviour of structural elements and foundations”	“I could never understand the 'convenient' vertical collapse at the base due to an extreme event at height. I was most concerned by the 3rd tower collapse”
Erwin De Jong	Neth	MS	no	“offshore (steel structure) and aerospace engineering”	“it is not explainable that a steel structure sinks down into its own FTP with obviously no resistance"
Graham John Inman	UK	Yes	yes	“Member Institute of CEs Member Institute of SEs”	“WTC 7 BLD could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and external debris…the fire..was small & localized”
John Watt	UK	BS	yes	“steel framed, masonry and timber BLD designs”	“very serious ?s to be asked about how 3 robust steel framed BLDs collapsed into their own FTPs…WTC7 not struck by an aircraft…relatively minor fire”
Paul W. Mason	Aust	BSe	yes	“35 years experience designing, constructing and maintaining major structures for state government agency”	“It is simply not physically possible for a structure to collapse at near-FF speed and, at the same time, pulverize all of its concrete and steel into tiny fragments”
Jason Mewis	Can	BSe	yes	“President and Senior SE w/ Engcomp for the past 27 years” Mostly industrial	“the official story of how the WTC collapsed doesn't make any sense from an engineers perspective”
Miroslav Kurkic	UK	BS	yes	“Consulting Engineer working in the UK since 1989”	“Convinced that the BLDs are demolished in controlled manner. As a SE it is so obvious to me.”
Richard P. Hall	UK	BS	No	“25 years experience in construction and structural design"	“There is no doubt the 3 BLDs were taken down by CD. To believe otherwise is to be willfully ignorant of the overwhelming evidence”

* There’s a William J. Russell, also inactive in IL database residing in Murphysboro 4 hours from Urbana who like everyone else in it has a 9 digit number. There was no match for engineer’s license # 4161. There is a William H. Russell in GA engineer’s database but his license was issued in 1958, is # 4176 and shows an address in Mcdonough 40 miles from Atlanta the city listed in architect’s license.

Sources:

AE911Truth petition page

http://www2.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php

Engineer License Lookup

http://www.engineersguideusa.com/engineer_license_lookup.htm

Ecole Centrale Lyon engineering program English homepage

http://www.ec-lyon.fr/76957584/1/fiche___pagelibre/&RH=Programs