Original source URL: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17256.htm NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN Morons and Magic: A Reply to George Monbiot By David Ray Griffin 03/07/07 "ICH " -- - In ³Bayoneting a Scarecrow The 9/11 conspiracy theories are a coward¹s cult.² (Guardian, February 20: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17223.htm), George Monbiot accuses members of the 9/11 truth movement of being ³morons² and ³idiots² who believe in ³magic.² Having in his previous attack---³A 9/11 conspiracy virus is sweeping the world,² Guardian, February 6---called me this movement¹s ³high priest,² he now describes my 9/11 writing as a ³concatenation of ill-attested nonsense.² If my books are moronic nonsense, then people who have endorsed them must be morons. Would Monbiot really wish to apply this label to Michel Chossudovsky, Richard Falk, Ray McGovern, Michael Meacher, John McMurtry, Marcus Raskin, Rosemary Ruether, Howard Zinn, and the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who, after a stint in the CIA, became one of America¹s leading civil rights, anti-war, and anti-nuclear activists? If anyone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job is by definition an idiot, then Moncbiot would have to sling that label at Colonel Robert Bowman, former head of the U.S. ³Star Wars² program; Andreas von Bülow, former State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Defense; former CIA analysts Bill Christison and Robert David Steele; former Scientific American columnist A. K. Dewdney; General Leonid Ivashov, former chief of staff of the Russian armed forces; Colonel Ronald D. Ray, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense; all the members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, and Pilots for 9/11 Truth; and most of the individuals listed under ³Professors Question 9/11² on the ³Patriots Question 9/11² website. One of the reasons these people reject the government¹s conspiracy theory is that, if they were to accept the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Centre, they would need to affirm magical beliefs. A few examples: The Twin Towers came straight down, which means that each building¹s 287 steel columns all had to fail simultaneously; to believe this could happen without explosives is to believe in magic. At the onset of each tower¹s collapse, steel beams were ejected out as far as 600 feet; to believe that these horizontal ejections could be explained by gravitational energy, which is vertical, is to believe in magic. Virtually all of the concrete in the towers was pulverized into extremely fine dust particles; to believe that fire plus gravity could have done this is to believe in magic. WTC 7 and the towers came down at virtually free-fall speed, meaning that the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, provided no resistance to the upper floors; to believe this could happen without explosives is to believe in magic. Pools of molten metal were found under each building. Because steel does not begin to melt until it reaches about 1,540°C and yet the fires could not have gotten over 1000°C, to accept the fire theory is to believe in magic. Monbiot, regarding the 9/11 truth movement¹s conspiracy theory as a wrong-headed distraction, fails to see that the obviously false and truly distracting conspiracy theory is the official 9/11 myth, which has been used to justify imperial wars and increased militarism, thereby distracting attention from global apartheid and the ecological crisis. We focus on the 9/11 myth because, until it is exposed, getting our governments to focus wholeheartedly on the truly urgent issues of our time will be impossible. David Ray Griffin has published over 30 books, including four about 9/11. His next book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, will be out in April. Click here to comment on this and other articles In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.) -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org Community Democracy Framework: http://cyberjournal.org/DemocracyFramework.html subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/
