Griffin’s embrace of CIT critics a setback for 9/11 Pentagon research

By Craig McKee (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)

Over the past several years, David Ray Griffin has set the highest standard for 9/11 research. He has looked at the entire official story, showing us how every aspect of it fails to stand up to scrutiny.

His approach has been just right, and 9/11 Truth would not have achieved a fraction of what it has without his efforts.

For the first time in those 10 years, however, there’s a “but.”

His presentation at the Toronto 9/11 hearings last week on “anomalies” of flights 77 and 93 introduced some troubling elements to his position that weren’t there before. And I fear the result won’t be the consensus building he favours.

In his talk (which echoes a chapter in his new book, 9/11 Ten Years After: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed), Griffin deferred to members of a small group that spends a disproportionate amount of its time attacking the Pentagon research of Citizen Investigation Team. CIT has presented evidence that backs up the position that no 757 hit the Pentagon.

In fact, Griffin is now citing three people whose expertise on the Pentagon is dubious at best. This isn’t good.

The three are 911Blogger fixtures Frank Legge, David Chandler, and Jonathan Cole. The latter two were prominent presenters at last week’s Toronto hearings. When it comes to WTC research, both Chandler and Cole enjoy excellent reputations. It’s when we turn to the Pentagon that problems arise.

Throughout his presentation in Toronto, Griffin cited a Chandler/Cole paper on the Pentagon from early 2011 as a reference – even when he could have been citing his own research, which is much more thorough and thoughtful. He continually makes points that start with “Legge agrees…” or “Chandler and Cole agree…”

We need Chandler and Cole to question why Norman Mineta’s testimony was left out of the 9/11 Commission Report? The whole thing is very strange. Here’s my criticism of the C/C paper from February.

I did a short interview with Griffin at the conclusion of the Toronto hearings, and I asked him about the shift in his position. He told me that he came to realize that the question of whether a 757 hit the building is secondary and that there’s enough evidence that the Pentagon event could not have been a case of al-Qaeda flying Flight 77 into the Pentagon..

“I should have seen it all along,” he said.

I referred to the intense pressure that persuaded Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth to withdraw his support of the CIT film National Security Alert, and asked him if he’d received pressure from others to take on this new position.

“I got some,” he said. “But no kind of pressure is going to make me change my mind.”

To be clear, Griffin says he still believes NO PLANE HIT THE PENTAGON. He has been consistent about that from the beginning. But he is concerned that the fighting within the movement about the Pentagon issue has hurt the cause. He’s absolutely right about that. But whose fault is that?

I think it’s primarily the fault of those who relentlessly and viciously attack CIT and mock their research. Incessant forum contributors like Snowcrash (Michiel de Boer), Chris Sarns, jmd3100, Victoria Ashley, Jim Hoffman, Jeff Hill and others

For the rest of this article, go to http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/griffin%E2%80%99s-embrace-of-anti-cit-researchers-a-setback-for-911-pentagon-research/