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Conspiraloons, Ravers and Peace Activists

Danny | 25.08.2007 13:35 | Analysis | Other Press | Terror War | Sheffield

With the possible exception of John Pilger, no world renowned journalist can take as much credit for consistently and credibly opposing US imperialist war-mongering as Robert Fisk. Today in the Independent he talks of his doubts about the official 911 story.

A standard argument used to silence 911 'conspiraloons' is that they are distracting from the peace movement. I take credit/blame for first using that argument here, but I'm afraid although I genuinely felt it at the time, it is a completely false argument. For a start, why mourn the loss of people you are prepared to smear 'conspiraloons' ? Surely if they are loons, any movement would be glad they were busy with their investigations ? It should be noted though that most of these smears come from people who contribute little of worth to the any movement yet self-promote as if they are hardcore activists. At best, there are as many loons on both sides of the argument. While it is shameful to censor, it is worse to censor others hypocritically.


The wikiscanner is a tool that identifies which organisations have been editing which wikipedia pages from their IP address. Of course the same organisations and employees who have been exposed propagandising could do so safetly anonymously or from home, but it is interesting what they have been caught lying about so far. When you identify propagandists you learn from what they propagandise about.

The sole exchange on IMUK so far is also intersting. Kurt Nimmo wrote about it in a blog reposted here prompting an interesting comment from 'citpecs'. [  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378712.html
]

Kurt Nimmo > It would appear Wikipedia ... is indeed an intelligence front, yet another puzzle piece of a sprawling, comprehensive, long-term, and quite effective propaganda effort.

citpecs > So are you saying the CIA or other similar organisations should be banned from Wikipedia? First Amendment, Kurt.

Nimmo is wrong to describe wikipedia as an intelligence front. The proof it isn't is that wikipedia has always published the IP's of contributors in the hope that somebody would one day expose the changes made by the CIA and other nefarious organisations and corporations.
Rather it is a battlefront in the war between information and disinformation.

More importantly though, Citpecs response is telling - who could possibly defend CIA propaganda as being enshrined under the First Ammendment ? Surely only someone from the CIA or a sister organisation. The First Ammendment is intended to protect US citizens free speech and free press from the goverment. The CIA lies on wikipedia are a direct state contravention of both free-speech and free-press. Citpecs posts here have to be viewed with the same suspicion as any other defender of the CIA propagandists even if he is just a deluded right-winger. And if he is a just a deluded right-winger, this is an odd website to post. A quick Scroogle shows what Citpecs posts about - generally defaming 911ers along with a smattering of other pro-establishment causes.

If I am right about Citpecs, then the fact the security services are trying to discredit 911ers is perhaps the best evidence that the 911ers are onto something - or else why discredit them ? I don't think the exposed wikipedia edits tell us much except security services disinfo campaigns simply because I credit them with more intelligence than to expose themselves too much. So the fact the "9/11 conspiracy theories" wikipedia page was deleted by someone from US Homeland Security perhaps indicates less about that agencies PR than about the sort of people it employees who are stupid enough to engage in vandalism from their Departments PC.  http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=prev&oldid=76993086

Perhaps - but would you give the same benefit of the doubt to the Turkish Treasury employee who deleted the article on the Armenian genocide ? Or the Diebold deletion of all criticism of Diebold ? Or the Exxon and the Union Carbide deletions of criticism of them ?

Certainly a CIA edit which claims that fewer people died in the US invasion of Panama cannot be explained as anything other than agency propaganda designed to violate the First Ammendment. And to invoke their right to do so under the First Ammendment is to imply states and corporations have equal rights to citizens. That such a scurrilous argument could be made on IM indicates the same organisations that propagandise on wikipedia also propagandise here.

So here is a crazy prediction for you. The same people who smear others as conspiraloons who distract from the peace movement are about to start smearing Robert Fisk simply for talking publicly about his doubts. In doing so they will be rubbishing one of the most credible and long standing anti-war journalistic bodies of work available to the peace movement. I still have no informed opinion about the truth of 911. I do know for a fact that the people who are about to smear Fisk will be proving themselves to be what they claim to condemn - a damaging distraction from the peace movement.

Danny
- Homepage: http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece

Additions

Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11

25.08.2007 22:13

I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".

Journalistically, there were many odd things about 9/11. Initial reports of reporters that they heard "explosions" in the towers – which could well have been the beams cracking – are easy to dismiss. Less so the report that the body of a female air crew member was found in a Manhattan street with her hands bound. OK, so let's claim that was just hearsay reporting at the time, just as the CIA's list of Arab suicide-hijackers, which included three men who were – and still are – very much alive and living in the Middle East, was an initial intelligence error.

But what about the weird letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker-murderer with the spooky face, whose "Islamic" advice to his gruesome comrades – released by the CIA – mystified every Muslim friend I know in the Middle East? Atta mentioned his family – which no Muslim, however ill-taught, would be likely to include in such a prayer. He reminds his comrades-in-murder to say the first Muslim prayer of the day and then goes on to quote from it. But no Muslim would need such a reminder – let alone expect the text of the "Fajr" prayer to be included in Atta's letter.

Let me repeat. I am not a conspiracy theorist. Spare me the ravers. Spare me the plots. But like everyone else, I would like to know the full story of 9/11, not least because it was the trigger for the whole lunatic, meretricious "war on terror" which has led us to disaster in Iraq and Afghanistan and in much of the Middle East. Bush's happily departed adviser Karl Rove once said that "we're an empire now – we create our own reality". True? At least tell us. It would stop people kicking over chairs.

Robert Fisk
- Homepage: http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece


Previous article on Fisk and 9/11

26.08.2007 21:53

Searcher
- Homepage: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/07/376994.html?c=on


Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

First amendment

25.08.2007 14:00

- does not say you have to tell the truth. Just allows free expression.

Actually, Miss Moneypenny usually types the disinfo for the British Secret Service.

citpecs


Well said Danny

25.08.2007 15:04

My only criticism is of Fisk’s claim; “that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East”.

I question this claim because he can only conclude that the Bush administration has screwed up everything if he genuinely believes they are trying to liberate the oppressed people of the Middle East (rather than them setting the scene for permanent war) - and I don’t think he actually believes that.

Reader


Chortle

25.08.2007 16:55

Having just read Fiske's last offeriing to the Indescribablyboring, the thing that struck me the most was that he was talking about the loonies of 9/11, and describing his own doubts - but that his research on the urban myths of 2001 was about three years out of date.

He offers up the time of collapse, to the nearest tenth of a second. Why??

He thinks you have to melt steel before a building collapses.

He is surprised that a skyscraper, next to the Twin Towers, bombarded with debris, collapses.

Even that gentleman who posts under the moniker of '9/11=Mossad/CIA' [what's his other anti-Semitic acronym?] realises that these arguments are lame ducks.

Now if this is the level of exxpertise offered by such a well renowned journalist, then I'm not surprised the word 'fisk' has become a verb. In a nutshell, the man is clueless, and his salary from the 'Independent' could well be classified by the Inland Revenue as 'unearned income'.

citpecs


Let's Roll !

25.08.2007 20:00

Seems Greg Palast is pretty clueless too :


Danny
- Homepage: http://www.gnn.tv/videos/62/UA_93_The_Road_to_Shanksville


A lame non-story

25.08.2007 20:01

The fact that CIA employees get caught altering stuff from their terminals proves nothing. A plausible explanation would be that a few people were likely acting on their own initiative rather than any institutional policy. If there was an institutional policy to attack the site or any other, they wouldn't be using ranges that backtrace to cia.gov or known relatives.

There are some downright bizarre things unearthed by Wikiscanner such as some BBC employee changing Dubya's middle name to "Wanker". Is that some sort of covert plot too? Did the Director General instruct someone to do it? Conspiracy theories depend on a narrow filtration of data to even appear to stand on their own two feet.

 http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/wikiwatch/

This article itself is an embodiment of the very problem of "conspiraloonery" itself. It takes a primary layer of "evidence" and declares a thesis with no attempt to test the hypothesis. No attempt has been made to shed anymore light on what Wikiscanner has unearthed. Instead that vital stage of investigation has been skipped in favour of wild inference. Example:

"Certainly a CIA edit which claims that fewer people died in the US invasion of Panama cannot be explained as anything other than agency propaganda designed to violate the First Ammendment."

In fact it could be explained by an infinite number of scenarios, the most plausible of which would be tested to even get close to making a bold statement.

"...the fact the security services are trying to discredit 911ers..."

For that to be a "fact" you have to do a lot better than jump on the conclusion that suits you.



If people look at the right-wing sites we see similar loony theories about the BBC being anti-American and anti-Semitic. Which would seem totally absurd to anyone here.

 http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

The very valid problem that many people have with 9/11 Truth is not the idea that the NeoCons could attack the US, but rather the lack of any real research behind the plethora "theories" and furthermore that some of the people that have become prominent in the movement have some rather right-wing agendas.


Here's a bit of help in being able to write a real piece of journalism:

WHO exactly were the people behind the IP addresses?
WHAT motivated them to do it?

Once you get the answer to those questions you may actually have something worth writing/reading. As it stands all we have here is an incoherent ad hominem rant with a selective choice of obtuse and ambiguous info as supposed substance.






A Toilet Darkly


Normal service has been resumed...for now

26.08.2007 00:00

I'd like to state for the record that I have no direct proof that any of the 911ers are correct in any supposition. I don't count myself as a 911er. I haven't had the time to read the supposed facts, and I probably won't for some time to come. My sole worry is that 911 speculation is hidden on a supposedly free site such as IM when the same supposition is permitted in mainstream media, albeit only when backed up by previously unimpeachable 'names' such as Fisk. Isn't IM all about releasing stories that don't make it into the mainstream ? Doesn't it make anyone suspicious that Fisks impressive body of work is discarded so recklessly by people who claim to be protecting the peace movement from malign influences simply for expressing doubts ?

I do think that is telling. I think it is brave of Fisk to even speculate. I think it shames IM that this article was hidden, even briefly, when even the Independent can publish it without further justification. Isn't this news ? Sure, nothing has changed except the fact that one of the worlds most substantive journalists has admitted doubts, while he still admitted smearing 911ers as 'ravers', but that fact is news in itself. For Fisk to change from smearing people as 'ravers' to 'ravers with some evidence' is newsworthy. It is already being commented on in the mainstream and blogged upon. So why hide it here ?

It is a long, boring and repetitive story but I do have some first hand evidence that undercover agents who operate on IM have been dissing 911ers here. I used to be part of that, unwittingly. Most people who do that are just like I was, dupes. In my defence though, when I smeared 911ers, it was at a time the 911 speculation overwhelmed every other issue and that simply isn't the case today. Back then, there were few credible anti-war witnesses who challenged the idea. And I (hope I) never used the term 'conspiraloon' although I hope the archive doesn't prove me a liar. But I saw the same tactics used against peace-protestors before the Afghan invasion.

I don't appeal to your opinion of my often dubious posts though, I just ask that you examine the way a guy like Fisk can be so easily trashed for stating the slightest doubts. So far nobody has tried to trash Palast in a similar fashion - yet.

There seems to be some sort of 'behind the scenes' bickering going on here. If the people who are hiding the 911ers stuff are genuine, I'd ask them to ask themselves three questions -

1) Are the 911ers dominating the newswire ?
2) How will you feel if you find out they were right after all ?
3) If I am right, and the security services have been propagandising against this here, in't that instructive in the slightest ?

Danny


The fake persuaders

26.08.2007 15:43

Danny is right to suggest indymedia will have fake persuaders posting dismissive comments to articles because it is a sad fact of life. It happens, and I see nothing wrong with saying so - especially when the detractors repeatedly accuse him of being mad.

George Monbiot once wrote an article on “Corporations are inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet” See:
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,715153,00.html

So what’s the chance corporation such as Halliburton, or their buddies, inventing people to rubbish their opponents on the internet?

Reader


A wascally wabbit

26.08.2007 22:46

Elmer Fudd


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