Webster Tarpley, the floor is yours

Infowars has posted some nutty stuff in its day, but few made me immediately laugh as quickly as a video they posted of Webster Tarpley. Tarpley is just one among many desperate screed-peddlers on the 9/11 denial carnival-of-the-damned lecture circuit, and watching him doing his insane lying thing to the tune of what sounds like beats copped from a 1960's sci-fi movie is just too much.

Notoriously trollable blogger Paul Joseph Watson sets the stage with the run-onniest sentence that ever ran on:

In a bombshell new video interview, historian and author Webster Tarpley exposes how White House science czar John P. Holdren, who infamously co-wrote a 1977 textbook in which he advocated the formation of a “planetary regime” that would use a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply, as well as mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children, is a Malthusian fanatic in the tradition of the arcane anti-human ideology that originated amongst British aristocracy in the 19th century.

And thus, the stage is set.



"Ultra-Hitlerian genocidalist:" Worst screen name ever. (Best?)

Tarpley is such a notorious fraud that even fellow deniers try to distance themselves from him, declaring him a "disinformation agent," a "plant" and, worst of all, "nothing like Ron Paul." What he's saying is purely false, of course - Holdren explicitly stated he doesn't endorse coercive population control measures and was doing what good scientists do, namely, proposing thought experiments without actually trying to advocate them, which he doesn't - but that much is obvious. The cult isn't about truth. It will be interesting to see if this level of stupidity finally gets Tarpley jettisoned from what remains of the denial community. I certainly doubt it, but if anyone in the cult has a remaining interest in legitimacy, ignoring its lunatic fringe (sic, in this case?) is its only hope.

Please, oh please...

Dear 9/11 deniers: Please, oh please, accuse the government of complicity in the recent Teabagger suicide martyrdom. First props goes out to Killtown, which provides trenchant insights such as, "people heard a loud noise," and "jee, I heard a sort of bomb-like boom when that plane hit!"

The quotes they pull include those from a dazed man in a CBS news story who initially said the plane impact "felt like a bomb went off;" FOX News' reporting that "several witnesses are reporting they first thought it was a bomb," and an Australian news organization owned by the notorious inside trader Conrad Black quoting a nearly-victim in saying that he also thought a bomb exploded.

Two points.

One, in the Muslim world, it is common knowledge that the American and Israeli governments are responsible for everything from 9/11 to the burned toast at breakfast. The Zionists are the reason someone can't get a job, why the price of gas is so high, why its so damn hot out. 9/11 deniers' ideological allies in violent Muslim organizations were evidently so shocked at the American response to 9/11 that many have actually begun promoting 9/11 as an inside job even as al Qaeda proudly claims responsibility for it. Though most Muslims believe violence in the name of Islam is justified, many appear so horrified at the logical conclusion of their beliefs that some Muslim leaders have decided it is easier to rewrite history than to face it.

9/11 deniers must remain allied with religious extremists on this point to whatever end. They are ideologically forced, as are the Muslim fascists who rule daily life with the whip and the sword in most of the Muslim world, to concoct excuses for every indication that something bad has happened for which the West is not responsible. This is why, in large part, both have lost so much credibility so quickly (yes, sorry to cite my own work...what can I say?). It is to their own downfall to be forced into such a position, and for that us skeptics are glad.

Second: Everywhere else, your sources of information are supposedly actively working against you to suppress "the truth, remember? You guys think the media is engaged in a "blackout," remember? The mainstream media is being unfairly mean to every public official who believes evidence rather than conspiracy theories, aren't they? These insane claims against everyday journalists are yours to begin with. They're just trying to silence Rosie!

No, you can't have it both ways. Either your habitual quote-mining of the Zionist Media for ways to support your farcical worldview is valid, or everything professional journalists say is a lie. Your ridiculous personal slanders against everyone who disagrees with you can go un-punished because unlike the religious nutjobs to whom you are ideologically wed you live in a country that values free speech, but they don't go unnoticed.

Either everyone working in a media organization is a fraud, or your worldview is a fraud. Either there is no such thing as organic opposition to the United States, or your worldview is a fraud. Take your pick. This is why I'm glad the conspiracy theories have begun to burble: it brings 9/11 deniers one step closer to having to sit and ask themselves, "do I really believe this nonsense?"

Other 9/11 deniers trying to jump in on flight 253 conspiracy theories

911blogger imported its post from dissidentvoice.org attempted to join the "GOV DID 253" bandwagon and, I have to say, it is quite a lark. They have absolutely nothing that wasn't reported in that "mainstream media" they love to hate... they just use it to come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as terrorism and Britain (or possibly America or Yemen) did the flight 253 hijacking.

Let’s take a look at those informational “snippets” and summarize what is quickly emerging as growing evidence of U.S. foreknowledge of an imminent attack on an American passenger plane:

* May: the British government withdrew its student visa for Abdulmutallab, a graduate of the prestigious University College London and placed him on a watchlist, barring his entry into the UK. MI5, and presumably their MI6 military intelligence colleagues in Yemen, compiled a dossier on the would-be bomber, citing his “political involvement” with “extremist networks” that have enjoyed on-again, off-again ties with NATO military intelligence organizations across the decades. This information, as Brown government spokesperson Simon Lewis, who let the cat out of the proverbial bag, was shared with their American counterparts.

* August: U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA and NSA, intercepted cell- and satellite phone traffic which revealed that a Yemeni affiliate of the Afghan-Arab database of disposable Western intelligence assets, also known as al-Qaeda, were finalizing preparations for an operation that would utilize a “Nigerian.”

* October: Newsweek revealed in their January 11 issue, that the dodgy cleric, the American-born Anwar al-Awlaki, who communicated extensively with the disturbed Ft. Hood shooter, Maj. Malik Nadal Hasan, posted “a provocative message on his English-language Web site: ‘COULD YEMEN BE THE NEXT SURPRISE OF THE SEASON?’” According to Newsweek, “Al-Awlaki seemed to hint at an upcoming attack that would make Yemen ‘the single most important front of jihad in the world’.” The Washington Post reported in 2008 that al-Awlaki had extensive contacts with 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, and Hani Hanjour and was suspected of having assisted the 9/11 plot. According to the Post, “three of the hijackers had spent time at his mosques in California and Falls Church.” Despite, or possibly because, of these dubious connections “he was allowed to leave the country in 2002.” According to the History Commons, it is only in 2008 that the U.S. government concludes that the shady imam “is linked to al-Qaeda attacks.” However, Al-Awlaki’s provenance as a new “terrorist mastermind” should be viewed with suspicion, given well-documented links known to have existed amongst the 9/11 hijackers and American, Saudi and Pakistani secret state agencies.

* October: the same month Al-Awlaki was hinting at a “surprise,” Newsweek revealed that John O. Brennan “received an alarming briefing at the White House from Muhammad bin Nayef, Brennan’s Saudi counterpart. Nayef had just survived an assassination attempt by a Qaeda operative using a novel method: the operative had flown in from the Saudi-Yemeni border region with a bomb hidden in his underwear. The Saudi was concerned because he ‘didn’t think [U.S. officials] were paying enough attention’ to the growing threat.” A familiar trope we’ve heard in the aftermath of other terrorist strikes.

* Early November: Newsweek published an exclusive report January 4, that two U.S. “intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security circulated a paper within the government last fall that examined in some detail the threats that bombs secreted in clothing–or inside someone’s body cavities–might pose to aviation security.” According to information leaked to the newsmagazine by anonymous “national-security officials,” the report “was prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center in conjunction with Homeland Security and the CIA,” and that “one principal point of discussion in the document was whether the detonation of a bomb hidden in clothing on an airliner would have a different explosive effect than the detonation of a bomb secreted in a body cavity under similar circumstances.” (emphasis added) This chilling report, prepared in the wake of intelligence information provided U.S. security agencies by Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism czar, should raise provocative questions. No other media outlet however, has followed the trail.

* November 19: Abdulmutallab’s father, a prominent Nigerian banker and former high state official, visits the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, telling State Department and CIA officials he believes his son is a threat. A cousin tells The New York Times that the father told U.S. officials, “Look at the texts he’s sending. He’s a security threat.” Although Embassy personnel promise “to look into it,” the cousin told the Times that “they didn’t take him seriously.”

* November 20: the CIA prepares and files a report on Abdulmutallab that is sent to agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia “but not disseminated to other intelligence agencies,” unnamed “officials” tell the Times. Embassy staff also wrote and sent a cable known as a “Visa Viper,” to the State Department and National Counterterrorism Center and a security file is opened on the suspect.

* December 9-24: Abdulmutallab travels to Ghana from Ethiopia and pays cash, $2,831 to be precise, for a ticket on a Northwest Airlines flight from Lagos through Amsterdam to Detroit, landing on Christmas Day. “It is now known” The Independent on Sunday reported January 10, “that the Ghanaian hotel he listed on his immigration form was not the one where he was actually staying.” According to IoS, although the FBI “has officers on the ground in Ghana and believe it is likely the terrorist may well have had his final al-Qa’ida briefing, and supplied with equipment and explosives, there,” no steps are taken to apprehend the suspect. “All this” IoS comments, “was more than a month after his father, a wealthy Nigerian banker, had met officials at the US embassy in Abuja to share concerns about his son.”

* December 22: during a White House Situation Room briefing Newsweek reports that “a document presented to the president titled ‘Key Homeland Threats’ did not mention Yemen, according to a senior administration official.”

* December 25: Abdulmutallab boards Flight 253 in Amsterdam with only a carry-on bag for his international flight; the would-be lap bomber holds a 2-year entry visa into the United States. As is standard procedure, the Department of Homeland Security is notified an hour prior to departure that he is a passenger on the plane.

* December 25: the Los Angeles Times disclosed January 7 that “U.S. border security officials learned of the alleged extremist links of the suspect in the Christmas Day jetliner bombing attempt as he was airborne from Amsterdam to Detroit and had decided to question him when he landed.” Homeland Security officials “declined to discuss what information reached the U.S. border officials in Amsterdam on Christmas Day.” Despite suspicions by Customs and Border Protection agents, who had accessed NCTC’s TIDE database, the flight crew is not notified of Abdulmutallab’s presence aboard the airliner and additional security precautions therefore, are not made.

Once you lop off the daffy leap of faith required to next assert that "therefore, Barack Obama wanted Flight 253 to be hijacked," nothing more elegantly makes my point that the United States has many enemies, tracking all of them is hard, coordination amongst interdepartmental and international intelligence agencies is hard too, and many but not all terrorist plots are foiled.

That's some fine work, boys. Even disregarding that almost their entire case is built on political hearsay, if you haven't drunken the Truther Kool-Aid you actually have quite elegant proof of the fact that the government did not hijack this flight right here.

Bomb in Pakistan kills 43

Rescue teams have established a death count of forty-three from a bomb that went off last night in Pakistan, according to a blog operating out of Pakistan.

Monday's bombing struck at the start of a procession of Shiites marking Ashoura, the most important day of a monthlong mourning period for the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. Minority Shiites have suffered frequent attacks by Sunni extremist groups who regard them as heretical.

"I fell down when the bomb went off with a big bang," said Naseem Raza, a 26-year-old who was marching in the procession. "I saw walls stained with blood and splashed with human flesh."

Not relevant to 9/11 denial, you say? Think again. One of the main points I try to push in every debate I have against a denier is that they are not actually fighting just against the laws of physics, a damning body of forensic evidence against the hijackers, and overwhelming evidence against the current leadership of Al Qaeda. They are literally pretending that decades of history never happened. In their world, Ronald Reagan built Osama bin Laden out of old T-1000 parts, he fought the Communists until we were done with him, and then he lay dormant in a warehouse in Area 51 until we needed him again. Their view is false.

They have to pretend that there are no deep ideological rifts in the Muslim world. They have to pretend that there is no cultural backdrop to the terrorism we see in the world today. Their worldview forces them to believe that there are not millions of people around the world, with their own livelihood, personal beliefs, plans and connections willing to do harm in the name of their faith. For them, Muslim cultural evolution literally must stop in the 1880s.

9/11 deniers are often accused of living in a fantasy land, a world of black and white where there is essentially one homogenous group of bad people (mostly composed of the kinds of people we were really, really annoyed by in high school, I think!) and everyone else - everyone else - is just a puppet.

A big part of why the denier movement has completely fallen apart is because they're forced to find a conspiracy theory in basically every violent action that happens in the world. Though there is a damning silence on their part over the obviously organic 12/25 incident aboard Flight 253, their attempts to conjure a fantasy world around every act of obvious terrorism, which their faith requires them to make, are probably a big part of the reason why none of them really appear to believe themselves anymore.