The False Dilemma Fallacy

A well known, and often committed, logical fallacy is the false dilemma.[1] When you consider two variables (US Government, Al Qaeda), you have the following, logically possible options:

  US Government Al Qaeda
Involvement in 9/11    
  x
x  
x x

That's four possibilities, not "either the US did it, or Al Qaeda did it". As you'll note, "neither" and "both" are also options.

What happens when we add Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan?

  US Government Al Qaeda Israel Saudi Arabia Pakistan
Involvement in 9/11          
        x
      x  
      x x
    x    
    x   x
    x x  
    x x x
  x      
  x     x
  x   x  
  x   x x
  x x    
  x x   x
  x x x  
  x x x x
x        
x       x
x     x  
x     x x
x   x    
x   x   x
x   x x  
x   x x x
x x      
x x     x
x x   x  
x x   x x
x x x    
x x x   x
x x x x  
x x x x x

Add additional entities as desired, the number of possibilities equals 2entities.That's 25 = 32 choices in the table above. Which one of those 32 options is valid, depends on thorough, credible research, such as the 9/11 commission report. —Just kidding— As you can see, the controversial, speculative and factually unsupported 'no hijacker' or 'hijackers alive' theories would cut this particular list of possibilities down to 16. In the case of the first table, this results in a false dilemma fallacy. Often it has been claimed that the finding of nanothermite[2] in WTC dust is mutually exclusive with the presence of hijackers. This claim has no factual or logical basis.

False dilemmas are common propaganda tools to force people to choose from two, equally undesirable alternatives. Example: "Are you a liberal or a conservative?" Do I have other options? Example: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."[3] Wrong. I am with neither, regardless of your definition of 'us' and 'terrorists'. A more sophisticated example: "Either you accept that the plane flew North of the Citgo gas station and the directional damage to the Pentagon was faked, and that therefore the plane flew over the Pentagon, or you accept that the directional damage is real, the plane flew South of the Citgo gas station into the Pentagon and the NoC witnesses are hallucinating." This, too, is logically false, and has been exposed as such by Chris Sarns.[4] If you claim physical evidence fakery at the Pentagon to be empirically probable, the plane could have blown up, the directional damage faked and the NoC witnesses could have been correct.

On the whole, I don't consider physical evidence fakery at the Pentagon probable, and my position on this matter is well known, but that doesn't mean Chris Sarns' hybrid Pentagon theory is logically impossible. Moreover, whoever considers CIT's flyover theory viable, then, by hard logic, must consider Chris Sarns' theory equally viable. More viable, in fact, because although both presuppose quixotic fabrication of physical damage, the flyover theory additionally requires a plane to have flown away from the Pentagon without a massive amount of witness testimony to confirm it. To address the alternative: although it is logically not impossible, the argument that the witnesses, stuck in traffic jams around the Pentagon would have been 'distracted' or that they would have been 'reluctant' to come forward is unadulterated sophistry. By the way, the witnesses were not either on the money or collectively 'hallucinating', but instead, they misjudged the location of a fast moving airplane in relation to the ground. Yes, even Chadwick Brooks, William Lagasse and Robert Turcios.

When a discussion is framed around two binary variables, (Al Qaeda, US Government), there are four possible outcomes. There exists too much credible evidence[5] confirming the existence of hijackers, making their involvement not only logically possible, but historiographically defensible. None of the hijackers' grieving family members have been reunited with them. The hijackers are dead, and they died on 9/11. In my opinion, the 9/11 Truth Movement shouldn't be cajoled into an either/or position. Think about it. Don't let anybody fallaciously limit your choices.


[1] Wikipedia — "False dilemma" — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5tm5MbWZU
See also: Morton's fork, Catch 22, Double Bind, Hobson's Choice (distinct from false dilemma), False Dichotomy, Left and Right Hegelianism, et cetera.
[2] AE911Truth — "9/11 Explosive Testimony Exclusive : Jeff_Farrer" — http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-21/physicist-jeff-farrer-one-scientists-who-found-thermite-world-trade-center-dust
AE911Truth — "9/11 Explosive Testimony Exclusive : Steven Jones" — http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-23/exclusive-interview-physicist-steven-jones-911-explosive-evidence-experts-speak-out
AE911Truth — "9/11 Explosive Testimony Exclusive : Mark Basile" — http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-26/911explosivetestimonyexclusivemark-basilechemical-engineer
Harrit, Farrer, Jones, Ryan, Legge, Farnsworth, Roberts, Gourley, Larsen — "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe" — http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/articles/V002/7TOCPJ.pdf
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5tmFOBanU
[3] George W. Bush — "Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People" — http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5tm5TjeOr
[4] Chris Sarns — Summary and Analysis of "National Security Alert" — http://911blogger.com/news/2010-01-06/summary-and-analysis-national-security-alert-chris-sarns
Cache: http://www.webcitation.org/5tm5Wr1Dp
[5] History Commons — http://www.historycommons.org/searchResults.jsp?project=911_project&searchtext=hijackers&events=on&entities=off&articles=o...

helpful table and perspective

As has been pointed out by a number of people, incl. Gage, it's not reasonable to assume that Al Qaeda, as it is purported to be by western govts (a network of Islamic radicals, w/ no connections to or infiltration/manipulation by intelligence/defense agencies), could have demoed WTC 1, 2 & 7.

However, as SnowCrash and other observers have pointed out, this does not preclude a role played by 'Al Qaeda', some of whom may have been genuine Islamic radicals who believed they were part of some plot. What plot they believed they were part of, is not clear. Some may have believed they were on a suicide mission and were simply patsies being used to create the Al Qaeda-9/11 legend. Others- including double agents posing as hijackers- may have been told it was a hijacking w/ another objective. Some of them may have believed they were flying the planes, which were actually remote-controlled. The numerous phone calls from the planes indicate there were people on board who looked like Islamic radicals, but the FBI has never released the boarding passes, just records purported to be flight manifests. So far, members of the public can't prove the named 19 were on board, or that they weren't.

But, evidence indicates these alleged hijackers left a paper trail all over the US, documenting their presence here, including taking flight lessons- this would be hard to fake, but a great aid in convincing loyal law enforcement there was a plot. Evidence indicates some of these people were aided in entering the US by the CIA, and some trained at US military bases. These alleged hijackers were being monitored by the NSA and CIA, crucial info was withheld from loyal FBI agents by the NSA and CIA, and certain principals in the FBI obstructed investigations that might have disrupted the plot.

Evidence indicates Alhmidhar and Alhazmi may have been working for the Saudi GID, or were being monitored by them- Saudi Arabia passed on info to the US about the operatives and the plot, even as certain elements in the GID and royal family were aiding the plot.

Evidence indicates Mossad was monitoring the alleged hijackers in the US- and info was passed on to the US by Israel on at least 3 occasions.

Evidence indicates principals connected to Pakistan's ISI, like Saeed Sheikh and Mahmoud [EDIT to correct spelling: Ahmad] also assisted with funds and logistics.

Some of these things are in official reports, like the FBI OIG reports, the Senate-House 9/11 JICI, and even buried in the end notes and between the lies of the 9/11 Commission. A great deal of info is redacted or withheld, and no one in the Establishment will deal with it. The MSM has never done a real investigation on these connections and cover ups- but they always claim that the claim that '77 didn't hit the Pentagon' is a major tenet of the 9/11 truth movement. The establishment doesn't want people to examine the alleged hijackers- that raises all kinds of questions about who these people really were, and why the plot wasn't disrupted when so much was known about these people and the plot.

What is clear is that what we've been told isn't the whole truth, that it's riddled with lies, that there's been a cover up, and that a full investigation is mandatory if the US is to be anything other than a sham republic.

Re: alive hijackers; most of these were cases of mistaken or stolen identity. There's some evidence Atta and others had doppelgangers.

All of this and a lot more have been documented at: http://www.historycommons.org/

With all things considered...........

..............we simply don't know.
All we can do is list the evidence that shows the implausibility of much of the official story, as well as the impossibility of much of the official story, and then decide we need a new investigation.
That is all we can do reasonably and objectively, without going into a lot of wild conjecture that, whenever proven wrong, just hurts our case more.

We need a trial type of investigation, with real punishments for perjury, and two opposing sides of attorneys, as in any criminal trial.
We've convicted 19 hijackers on little or no evidence that is solid enough. What reasonable society would do this?

So far, the only public figure that has the power to pull off a real investigation of all of this is Ahmadinejad. Gotta give him credit, but we need more.
We need this at the World Court, or something similar. I don't think it can happen in the US.

Nanothermite

For the record, obviously these chips were not manufactured by Al Qaeda.

in our hands

It is worth remembering that there are two sources of evidence that prove the official story false which are in public hands: the dust from the WTC and the videos. So much evidence has been destroyed or hidden but these two cannot - we have them.

The rate of fall is proof that explosives were used, even when less than free fall, as ably demonstrated by David Chandler.

So we have the evidence. What should we do to strengthen our case? Unfortunately there is not much dust. We should try to get more. Other people performing the analysis will help confirm and publicize the case. There must be a number of people we don't know about who have samples of dust. We should start a campaign to publicize the need and see if more can be found.

What else should we do? We would benefit from better unity. More witnesses to the impact of a large plane with the pentagon should be interviewed and their interviews recorded.

What about all those New Yorkers who signed the petition for NYC CAN? Is there an email list of these people? Could they be asked if the have dust or if they saw the impact?

Erik

Thanks for eloquently expounding the hijacker matter. I wish I could add something to that, but it's obvious that you and the others at History Commons have done so much to unearth all this data, there's nothing remotely as detailed and as comprehensive. It's the most valuable project out there, imho.

Yet, unfortunately we see the no hijacker theorists eclipsing all this effort at the moment. I don't see much pushback from the 9/11 Research Community when these coarse, credibility damaging memes proliferate. You and your associates at History Commons are now greatly outnumbered and overwhelmed by pseudohistorian bawlers, who often peddle one or more of the following canards:

  • The hijackers do not, and have never existed. They are mythological creations (Pure pathological denial)
  • The hijackers did not die on 9/11 and/or are alive in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. and they have denied involvement in 9/11 (Identify theft does not equal hijackers alive)
  • The hijackers were kamikaze Mossad agents (....)

I won't deny that each of these make me cringe.

Polls

@snowcrash, I would like to add the same false fallacies regarding polls "So who did it?"

As I stated before, the world opinion poll is flawed in this point, I had to choose every issue they presented, as there was no clear fraction alone acting.