Please note: Mark Roberts is not affiliated with Polyhelix.org. I converted this from a PDF file, and am hosting it as a service to skeptics and the Internet community at large.
I wrote this paper in May, 2006, when I had only been aware of 9/11 conspiracy claims for a few weeks. Since then I have read all of the 9/11 Commission report, all of the 10,000-page NIST report, over 14,000 pages of first responder transcripts, hundreds of articles, several books, have been interviewed for radio, documentary film, and television, and have debated these issues on television.
In short, I have learned much since I wrote this paper. Each issue discussed here in brief could easily fill the chapter of a book. That said, my learning has greatly reinforced my belief that the information I've provided here is sound.
The links section at the end of this paper will steer you to numerous sources of detailed, accurate information about these topics.
On the other hand, the leaders (and much of the rank-and-file membership) of NY911truth do not seem to have learned anything since last May. In July I began spending my Saturday afternoons at Ground Zero, opposing their weekly gatherings, at which they hand out hundreds of the flyers that are critiqued here. The information in the flyers has hardly changed: all the same debunked claims are presented.
To get a good idea of the deliberate ignorance and hypocrisy these "truthers" display at Ground Zero, see my video "The Ground Zeros" here:
[link to follow: video is being uploaded to Google now]
–Mark Roberts, January, 2007
Reader, something to keep in mind throughout this document: Questions are not evidence.
Thus begins a long series of allegations and assumptions posing as facts that are stated as questions. This is a type of logical fallacy known as the "complex question." If the people in NY9/11truth.org have "truth" to communicate, they could simply make their claims and provide supporting evidence. Instead, they take this sly, roundabout approach, which enables them to avoid providing evidence that would help answer their own questions. I'll let you, reader, judge if this is an honest approach to take in a pamphlet that is distributed to the general public by a "Truth Movement."
The second sentence of the first paragraph in the pamphlet contains three logical fallacies. The first one is a doozy: that the 9/11 Commission must have covered up the cause of the terrorist attacks, because David Ray Griffin says there are problems with their report.
If this is the kind of logic that's going to be used in a search for "truth," I'm very worried. I highly recommend that the authors of the 911truth.org literature read up on the basics of logic and critical thinking. A good place to start is James Lett's concise "Field Guide to Critical Thinking" at http://www.csicop.org/si/9012/critical-thinking.html
The suggestion that the 9/11 Commission addressed none of the questions in this pamphlet is incorrect. Nor was it any commission's job to poll everyone on earth before proceeding with an investigation. 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick said that the Commission would use victims' families' questions as a "road map," not that every question would or could be addressed. It is good to provide evidence that important questions went unanswered by the 9/11 Commission. It is wrong to accuse the commissioners of malfeasance because you're unhappy that they didn't answer all of the questions in your head.
People who rely heavily on the ideas of David Ray Griffin in a search for truth about 9/11 are more than treading on thin ice: they have fallen right through. Griffin has made a second career of making wild conspiracy claims that ignore mountains of contradictory evidence. Many of Griffin's claims about 9/11 are refutable with only minutes of research. He is a very poor guide to the truth about 9/11.
I'd like to see the evidence that most people's reaction to 9/11 was entirely emotional. That certainly wasn't the case with me or with anyone I know. And while we "objectively examine the unreported facts," lets remember to do the same with all of the reported facts.
I don't find the questions shocking, and they haven't "revealed" anything. I rely on evidence for that. It is a fallacy to imply that because our government's leaders have lied about other things, their account of 9/11 is also a lie. We will see if any evidence is presented that the U.S. government has lied about the cause and perpetrators of 9/11.