David Ray Griffin responds to a hit piece.

Note: The following exchange occurred on a website called Common Ground-Common Sense. The first piece was posted at a forum by someone writing under the name “progressivephoenix.” David Ray Griffin was notified about it on May 9 (2007) by a man who, being himself registered at the CGCS website, reported that the author is a well-known “9/11 debunker” there. He said that if Griffin would write a response, he would post it, along with his own response. These responses were posted very late on May 10. On May 11, however, the two responses (as well as the piece by progressivephoenix) were removed, before many people had a chance to see them, without consultation with the man who posted them. Griffin’s response and the piece that provoked it are reposted here in order to give them more exposure. (The response by the other man, Mssr. Jouet at 911blogger, can be read following Griffin's response.)

Incontrovertible Proof that David Ray Griffin
is a Neocon

progressivephoenix

Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of several books that claim to debunk the official 911 theory, is in fact a charter member of the neocon movement. He is a member of the Disciples of Christ, a far right-wing christian group that focuses on unity among Christians and "restoration" of Christian dominion. The sect is associated with the Reverend Jim Jones, who massacred over 900 people in 1978. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciples_of_Christ He attended a little known school called The Claremont Colleges in Claremont, CA. The Claremont Colleges are is the current intellectual center of the neocon movement. Neocon mouthpiece, The Wall Street Journal called Claremont, "the intellectual capital of the western world." Dr. Harry Jaffa, professor emeritus at Claremont, is the world 's foremost interpertor of neocon founding father Leo Strauss, and a former student of Strauss. http://www.claremont.org/scholars/scholarID.3/scholar.asp http://www.claremont.org/publications/pubid.354/pub_detail.asp Strauss was the inventor of the concept of the "noble lie," a doctrine which gave cart blanche to neocons to lie whenever they please. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5010.htm Four students of Jaffa founded Claremont Institute, a nominally independent neocon think tank. Despite their pretense of academic independence, Claremont College and its shadowy satellite, Claremont Institute rely heavily on funding from both government and conservative sources. Much of this funding is to provide tuition to an elite group of handpicked students who will form the next generation of neocons. Prominent neocon alums of Claremont include Rumsfeld's Former Assistant Defense Secretary Steven J, Cambone;, Blake Gottesman, Personal Assistant to George W. Bush; Robert A. Day, scion of oil billionaire, William H. Keck; christian fundamentalist and skeptic, Michael Shermer; and David Dreier, US Congressman and former chair of the powerful House Rules Committee.

Claremont frequently invites neocon icons to speak, such as Antonin Scalia and Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Claremont holds annual invitation-only meetings for alumni, where conservative ideology is a prominent topic of discussion. David Ray Griffin is known to have attended several such meetings. Why would the neocons allow one of their own to spread the truth about their movement? Obviously, having a highly placed mole in the truth movement has many advantages. The use of agents provocateur is a time tested technique to control those who would challenge government power. As we know, the government uses the same techniques over and over again to control the masses. Often it's the same people doing the same thing repeatedly. First, it allows them to ascertain what the movement really knows and where that evidence is being kept. Should things get too hot, the evidence can be quickly located and destroyed, no matter who has it. Second, it permits them to spread disinformation through a trusted source. Griffin is widely respected by many who realize that the MSM can't be trusted. They have no such reservations about Griffin. For example, Griffin said that there no airfones on AA flight 77 in 2001. He later admitted that this was a complete fabrication, as there had been airfones on AA planes until 2002, when they were removed. Alert truthers detected the lie and confronted Griffin with the evidence, who was forced to recant. Third it sows dissention among the Truth movement. We need only look at the acriminous split caused by another neocon mole, Steven E. Jones to see the harm that can be done. Jones is a trusted servant of the neocons and an expert at misusing his own reearch. In the late 1980's, Under orders from the oil companies, he faked his own research into cold fusion by declaring successful experiments to be failures. Ostensibly a beleiver in cold fusion, if were not for his supposed inability to produce a viable cold fusion process, we would today have safe, limitless energy produced from ordinary water. The oil companies, fearing loss of profits, order Jones to kill cold fusion. Legitimate researchers like Judy Wood and James Fetzer, head of 911 Scholars for Truth, have proven that Jones' work is unscientific. It's now accident that Griffin now has a prominent place on Fetzer's website. Could Griffin have engineered the split between Fetzer and Jones? Fourth and perhaps most importantly, it provides operational cover for future actions. We can expect that prior to their next move, Griffin will be ordered to spread an unusually large amount of disinformation. This will distract the truth movement as they attempt to analyze the new revelations. This moment of distraction would be a prime time to fake a new terrorist attack or assassination and will hamper the peoples ability to gather accurate information, so once again we will be dependent on piecing together fragmentary and false information after the fact.

_______________________________________________

Response to “Incontrovertible Proof that David Ray Griffin is a Neocon.”

David Ray Griffin
May 10, 2007

This little hit piece by “progressivephoenix” (which I will abbreviate “PP”) is too ignorant and silly to deserve a reply. I have, however, been asked to respond, so here goes.

PP obviously has a far different standard for “incontrovertible proof” than I do. The remainder of my response will explain why.

First, the Disciples of Christ, the denomination to which I belong, is not a “far right-wing christian [sic] group.” It is a middle-of-the road denomination---one of the those that have been called “mainline” and now are sometimes called “old-line.” It was indeed originally a “restoration” movement, as PP says, but what it wanted to restore was not “Christian dominion” but (what it supposed to be) the polity of the church in New Testament times. My denomination is, to be sure, not proud of Jim Jones, but many denominations have people of whom they are not proud. United Methodists, for example, have George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Second, there is no “school called the Claremont Colleges.” (This is perhaps why PP calls it a “little known school”---it’s hard to get well known if you don’t exist.) The term “Claremont Colleges” refers to five undergraduate colleges in Claremont---some of which, such as Pomona College and Scripps College, are quite well known---and two graduate schools: Claremont Graduate University and Keck Graduate Institute. PP’s confusion as to whether “The Claremont Colleges” refers to a group of schools or only a single school is perhaps reflected in the sentence that begins, “The Claremont Colleges are is the . . . .”

Third, the Claremont Colleges neither is nor are the “current intellectual center of the neocon movement.” That description, insofar as it applies to anything in Claremont, applies to the Claremont Institute, which, as the Wikipedia article about it says, “has no affiliation with any of the Claremont colleges.” That statement, to be sure, refers to legal, institutional affiliation. There is a historical and personal affiliation in that Harry Jaffe, the Straussian founder of the Claremont Institute, is professor of government, emeritus (he’s almost 90 years old), at CMC (Claremont McKenna College, formerly called Claremont Men’s College) and Claremont Graduate University. CMC does indeed have a reputation for being politically conservative, but one would be laughed out of town for applying this label to the Claremont Colleges as such, given the existence of Pomona, Scripps, and Pitzer colleges. (The Keck Graduate Institute may be conservative; I know nothing about it.)

Fourth, the author really let his fantasy life run wild by saying that I am “known to have attended several [of the Claremont Institute’s] invitation-only meetings for alumni, where conservative ideology is a prominent topic of discussion.” Although I taught in Claremont for 31 years, I do not know where the Claremont Institute’s building is and would, in any case, have never been invited to any of its meetings. The school with which I was primarily affiliated was the Claremont School of Theology, a multi-denominational but primarily United Methodist seminary with a reputation for being both theologically and politically liberal. (It is not part of the Claremont Colleges.) I also taught for Claremont Graduate University’s School of Religion (formerly Department of Religion). It had, to my knowledge, no relations with what was then called the Government Department. I myself, in any case, never met Harry Jaffe. (It is not surprising that I did not encounter him on campus: I taught virtually all my classes on the School of Theology campus.) Indeed, until I looked Jaffe up on the Internet in preparing this response, I did not know what he looked like.

My only relation to Straussian ideology thus far is a paper I delivered last summer in Salzburg, at an international Whitehead conference. (The major intellectual influence on my life has been the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Indeed, I was also [and still am] affiliated with a third institution in Claremont, the Center for Process Studies, which promotes the study and application of Whiteheadian thought.) This paper, “Saving Civilization: Straussian and Whiteheadian Political Philosophy,” follows Shadia Drury’s interpretation of Strauss, which is diametrically opposed to Jaffe’s interpretation. The conviction behind that essay, I wrote, was that “unless Straussian political philosophy is replaced by Whiteheadian political philosophy, or something similar, there is little hope that civilization will long survive.” Although I have not yet done enough research on Strauss to be ready to publish this essay, anyone wishing to read it can obtain it from the Center for Process Studies.

PP says, fifth, that I, after having said (in my latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking) “that there no [sic] airfones on AA flight 77 in 2001,” I later “admitted that this was a complete fabrication.” No, I later said that this was an error. In my world, at least, a “fabrication” is a lie, an affirmation of a proposition that one consciously knows at the time to be false. As I explained, however, I had gotten this information from a book by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, two members of the 9/11 movement who have proven themselves generally to be good researchers. I, like they, perhaps mistakenly took the statement from the AA representative---that the Boeing 757s made for American Airlines do not have onboard phones---to mean that they had never had such phones, not merely that they don’t have them now. Given the number of errors in PP’s little piece, he will perhaps want to rethink his equation of errors with lies.

PP claims, sixth: “Alert truthers detected the lie and confronted Griffin with the evidence, who was forced to recant.” Actually, one fellow member of the movement, Elias Davidsson, an Icelander with whom I have been in friendly correspondence for some years, emailed me a news report stating that American had removed onboard phones in 2002. That statement does not specifically mention 757s, so it does not necessarily imply that they had onboard phones to remove. However, Davidsson also directed me to a photo apparently showing seat-back phones in an AA 757 in 1998. Seeing this evidence, I wrote my essay, “Barbara Olson’s Alleged Call from AA 77: A Correction About Onboard Phones,” the same day and had it posted the next.

However, it may turn out that I acted too quickly. I have recently seen a response that appears to be from a person in customer relations at American Airlines, in response to a letter asking if the claim that there were no seat-back phones on any of AA’s Boeing 757s on September 11, 2001, is correct. The response was: “That is correct. We do not have phones on our Boeing 757. The passengers on flight 77 used their own personal cellular phones to make out calls during the terrorist attack.” If this exchange turns out to be genuine---and that is still in doubt at this writing (May 10, 2007)---then we would have strong evidence (albeit not incontrovertible proof; this person in customer relations might have been mistaken) that Barbara Olson could not have made a call from an onboard phone.

In any case, PP then implies a seventh false claim. After describing the split between James Fetzer, “head of 9/11 Scholars for Truth” [sic], and physicist Steven Jones, he says: “It’s now [sic] accident that Griffin now has a prominent place on Fetzer’s website”—-as if I didn’t have a prominent place there long before the split, when Steven Jones was still the co-chair of the organization. PP then asks: “Could Griffin have engineered the split between Fetzer and Jones?” PP evidently failed to notice that I am also a member of Jones’ organization, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, and that I recently published an essay in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, which Jones co-edits.

I will close by pointing out that PP’s little smear attempt was not a complete failure. It did provide “incontrovertible proof” of something, even if not what PP intended.

_______________________________________________

Information War vs. Open Political Discourse

by Mssr. Jouet

Recently, allegations were made that Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of four books on 9/11, was a NeoCon bent on seeding the world of politics with disinformation about 9/11.

The basic allegations -- “Dr. David Ray Griffin, the author of several books that claim to debunk the official 911 theory, is in fact a charter member of the neocon movement.” -- were made at CommonGroundCommonSense ( http://commongroundcommonsense.org/ ), where I have been a member for three years, posting and blogging under the name Magmak1.

The allegations were made in the first post in a thread in the “Café” entitled Incontroveritble [sic] proof that David Ray Griffin is a neocon , and expanded upon in following posts.

That thread has now been deleted by the moderators/administrators at CommonGroundCommonSense, as was this response by me in my own blog there.

The allegations are interesting. One is tempted to see them as satire, though their author said emphatically in the thread, and in a private message to me, that they are not. (Even if it is a satire or a hoax, I don't find it funny. The 9/11 question is a serious one; the un-investigated or poorly-investigated murder of nearly 4,000 US citizens for any reason doesn't sit well with me, and there is no statute of limitations.) The author of the allegations, when challenged by the responses, stated in a new thread that it was a satire and then the thread disappeared. Interestingly, however, it was picked up and discussed at “Screw Loose Change” blogspot (http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/ ).

Is Griffin a NeoCon? Michael Powell of the Washington Post called him a liberal theologian.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003250424_911conspire09.html

Charles Colson, the born-again Watergate conspirator, calls Griffin a liberal, and a “false-flag theologian”. http://www.floridabaptistwitness.com/6500.article

Griffin himself said in response to an earlier similar allegation: “I am mystified by the view, which I read now and then, that I am a conservative or, as you put it, Evangelical Christian. I can only assume that this view is held only by people who have not read any of my books in philosophy of religion and theology.”

The wikipedia entry for Griffin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ray_Griffin ) notes the following:

"Griffin grew up in a small town in Oregon, where he was an active participant in his Disciples of Christ church. After deciding to become a minister, Griffin entered Northwest Christian College, but became disenchanted with the conservative-fundamentalist theology that was taught there. While getting his master’s degree in counseling from the University of Oregon, Griffin attended a lecture series delivered by Paul Tillich at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. At this time, Griffin made his decision to focus on philosophical theology. He eventually attended the Claremont Graduate University, where Griffin received his Ph.D. in 1970.

As a student in Claremont, Griffin was initially interested in Eastern religions, particularly Vedanta. However, he started to become a process theologian while attending John B. Cobb’s seminar on Whitehead’s philosophy.... In 1973, Griffin returned to Claremont to establish, with Cobb, the Center for Process Studies."

The wikipedia entry for Alfred North Whitehead ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead ) says:

"Whitehead's political views sometimes appear to be libertarianism without the label.... many Whitehead scholars read his work as providing a philosophical foundation for the social liberalism of the New Liberal movement that was prominent throughout Whitehead's adult life. Randall C. Morris claims that "...there is good reason for claiming that Whitehead shared the social and political ideals of the new liberals"[3]

From the Center for Process Studies ( http://www.ctr4process.org/ ):

"The Center for Process Studies is a research center of Claremont School of Theology, and affiliated with Claremont Graduate University. CPS seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought. Process thought is based on the work of philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, two contemporary examples of a longstanding philosophical tradition that emphasizes becoming and change over static being. Process thought helps to harmonize moral, aesthetic, and religious intuitions with scientific insights. It also grounds discussion between Eastern and Western religious and cultural traditions. Process thought offers an approach to the social, political, and economic order that brings issues of human justice together with a concern for ecology. Our wide range of interests includes multicultural, feminist, ecological, inter-religious, political, and economic concerns."

Does that sound Straussian? Are the NeoCons focused on multicultural, feminist, and ecological concerns? Do they incorporate the thinking and philosophy of Eastern religious and cultural traditions?

Does a book entitled Mind in Nature: Essays on the Interface of Science and Philosophy sound like a NeoCon treatise?

Here's a list of all of Griffin's books...: http://www.fetchbook.info/search_David_Ray_Griffin/searchBy_Author.html

Here are short bios for the Center's directors: http://www.ctr4process.org/about/CoDirectors/

If Dr. Griffin was a NeoCon in liberal clothing, do you think that Peter Dale Scott ( http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/ ) would co-edit a book with him?

Books by Peter Dale Scott:
http://www.fetchbook.info/search_Peter_Dale_Scott/searchBy_Author.html

Articles by Peter Dale Scott:
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q.html

Peter Dale Scott and Howard Zinn, both co-editors, reviewers or supporters of DRG's books, both academicians who know how to think and research, are very clearly liberal types. Would they knowingly associate themselves with someone who could so easily be "outed" as a NeoCon shill?

---------

Are these allegations merely a regurgitation of prior arguments?

See

http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=54707&sid=93dae235bdbb20a0293afea3abcf733f

See also http://mysite.verizon.net/vze25x9n/id24.html

See Dr. Griffin’s response to the second argument here:
http://summeroftruth.org/griffin.html

Dr. Griffin has also said “I conclude “Debunking 9/11 Debunking” by appealing to journalists finally to reveal the truth behind 9/11, so that we can overcome our single-minded preoccupation with “terrorism” in favor of focusing on the truly overwhelming threat of our age, which is the end of civilization itself. So do not let anyone tell you that the 9/11 truth movement is a distraction from the real crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration. (See my brief essay, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: A Reply to Alexander Cockburn,” 9/11 Truth Europe http://www.911truth.eu/index.php?id=0,8,0,0,1,0 ).”

If all of Dr. Griffin’s books and speeches disappeared, there are still many who question or argue the 9/11 matter. Indeed, much of the developmental research into 9/11 has been done by independent researchers, journalists and citizens. There are scores of organizations involved in the international 9/11 truth movement.

What of John McMurty?

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19290
Streaming Audio from "Guns and Butter" at KPFA

http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com/id390.html

Mark Gaffney? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17162.htm

Manuel Valenzuela?
http://valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com/2007/04/unearthing-awakening-has-arrived.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17629.htm

Says Griffin:

“Moreover, if my 9/11 books are nutty, as Cockburn suggests, then people who endorse them must also be nuts. The list of nuts would hence include economist Michel Chossudovsky, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, British Minister of Parliament Michael Meacher, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing Catherine Austin Fitts, journalists Wayne Madsen and Barrie Zwicker, Institute for Policy Studies co-founder Marcus Raskin, former diplomat Peter Dale Scott, international law professors Richard Falk Burns Weston, social philosopher John McMurtry, theologians John B. Cobb, Harvey Cox, Carter Heyward, Catherine Keller, and Rosemary Reuther, ethicists Joseph C. Hough and Douglas Sturm, writer A.L. Kennedy, media critic and professor of culture Mark Crispin Miller, attorney Garry Spence, historians Richard Horsley and Howard Zinn, and the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who, after a stint in the CIA, became one of the country's leading preachers and civil rights, anti-war, and anti-nuclear activists.

Futhermore, if anyone who believes the alternative conspiracy theory, rather than the official conspiracy theory, is by definition a nut, then Cockburn would have to sling that label at Philip J. Berg, former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania; Colonel Robert Bowman, who flew over 100 combat missions in Vietnam and earned a Ph.D. in aeronautics and nuclear engineering before becoming head of the "Star Wars" program during the Ford and Carter administrations; Andreas Von Bulow, formerly state secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Defense, minister of research and technology, and member of parliament, where he served on the intelligence committee; Lt. Col. Steve Butler, formerly vice chancellor for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California; Guiletto Chiesa, an Italian member of the European parliament; Bill Christison, formerly a national intelligence officer in the CIA and director of its Office of Strategic and Political Analysis; A.K. Dewdney, emeritus professor of mathematics and computer science and long-time columnist for Scientific American; General Leonid Ivashov, formerly chief of staff of the Russian armed forces; Captain Eric H. May, formerly an intelligence officer in the US Army; Colonel George Nelson, formerly an airplane accident investigation expert in the US Air Force; Colonel Ronald D. Ray, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran who became deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration; Morgan Reynolds, former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis and former chief economist at the Department of Labor; Robert David Steele, who had a 25-year career in intelligence, serving both as a CIA clandestine services case officer and as a US Marine Corps intelligence officer; Captain Russ Wittenberg, a former Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions, after which he was a commercial airlines pilot for 35 years; Captain Gregory M. Zeigler, former intelligence officer in the US Army; all member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and S.P.I.N.E.: the Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven; and most of the college and university professors listed under "Professors Question 9/11" on the Patriots Question 9/11 website.

Would Cockburn really want to suggest that these people are "nuts" with "no conception of evidence," no awareness of "military history," and no grasp of "common sense" and "the real world"? Cockburn's absurd charges are valuable, however, because they illustrate just how far the labeling of people as "conspiracy theorists" can lead otherwise sensible people away from the real world, in which many very intelligent and experienced people, who cannot by the wildest stretch be called "nuts," have concluded on the basis of evidence, that 9/11 was, at least in part, an inside job.” http://us-amnesia.blogspot.com/search/label/9%2F11

Are they all NeoCon shills? Are every one of these people and these organizations members of the Bush “Ministry of Truth”?

One example:

Robert David Steele Vivas (b. July 16, 1952 New York City) is a former Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years and was the second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992. Steele is a former clandestine services case officer Central Intelligence Agency.[1] He is the founder and CEO of OSS.Net, Inc. as well as the Golden Candle Society.[2] Steele also was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University in the mid-1990's.

From Strategic Strategy Research Military site:

ROBERT D. STEELE is a retired Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer. He is the founder and president of Open Source Solutions, Inc., and is an acknowledged expert on computer and information vulnerabilities. Mr. Steele holds graduate degrees in International Relations and Public Administration from Leigh University and the University of Oklahoma. He has also earned certificates in Intelligence Policy from Harvard University and in Defense Studies from the Naval War College.

In a review of one of Dr. Griffin’s books, Steele said: “I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war (see my review of Jim Bamford's "Pretext for War"), and I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others of a neo-conservative neo-Nazi coup d'etat and kick-off of the clash of civilizations…”

-----

Question: “Why is a theologian one of the primary speakers for this cause? Do you see any spiritual or religious implications for 9/11, and what are they?”

Answer by Dr. Griffin: “Why is a theologian speaking about this? I didn’t have anything else to do. What we theologians are supposed to be doing is to try to imagine and speak about the world from the Divine point of view and if the religions of the world are basically correct, the Divine is the Creator and lover of all peoples and all creatures and cares about the long-term good of the world and wouldn’t want people producing nuclear wars that would decimate all life on the plant, wouldn’t want the global warming to to continue 35 years after we’ve known about the ecological crisis…. I am convinced that this Administration is the most dangerous administration we have ever had for the future of this country and the future of the world… and if trying to save God’s planet isn’t a religious issue, I wouldn’t know what one was.”

Would a NeoCon call the Bush administration a threat to the world? If that is the voice of a NeoCon, maybe he can provide some coaching to Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen and their associates.

---

One point frequently made by Dr. Griffin is that the defenders of “the official story” can’t refute the arguments for an independent, thorough, legal and forensic investigation by simply pointing to one of the claims made by one of the theorists and saying “it’s not true”. They have to refute all of them. Conversely, those who demand further investigation need not provide a detailed theory or explanation for how the events transpired; they need merely show, as they have in many ways, that “the official story” cannot be true, and that its official or semi-official proclamations about 9/11 cannot stand up to scrutiny.

One of the frequent points made by David Ray Griffin (and others) is that the foes of 9/11 truth, the defenders of the official story, are afraid of open political discourse.

As Dr. Griffin says: “To be a credible, responsible defender of either the official or alternative theory about the WTC collapses, one need not have a degree in physics, engineering or any other technical field. What one needs is the ability to read with comprehension, to evaluate evidence, and to draw logical conclusions from that evidence. Our entire judicial system depends on the ability of laypeople - judges and jury members - to evaluate the testimony of competing experts.”

Another point that must be made, whatever one thinks of Dr. Griffin or others who have spoken to these issues, is that they are not hiding behind the veil of anonymity. They are out in the open, writing articles and books, out in public at speaking engagements, doing open Q&A sessions on the Internet, communicating with others, willing to answer e-mails from strangers, and otherwise putting their personal reputation, integrity and honor on the line.

In Dr. Griffin’s own words:

“I would simply say that my writings about 9/11 should be evaluated in terms of whether they successfully raise objections to the official theory. It is widely accepted that ad hominem arguments against authors are illegitimate, except where the evidence in question depends on the personal testimony of the author. When one is evaluating a theory argued on the basis of reason and evidence, one cannot legitimately refute this theory by making allegations about the author of that theory.”

Dr. Grififn’s own response, deleted at CGCS, is now available in toto here.