Noam Chomsky: 9-11: Institutional Analysis vs. Conspiracy Theory

[Jazzz]

As far as I can make out, Jazzz's argument goes something like this -

False flag ops have been thought about by the US government, therefore they will also have been carried out. However they would be very hard to find evidence for. Therefore 9/11 was a false flag op as there is no evidence for it being one.

No, that would be no argument whatsoever.

 

[Jazzz]

I get what you are on about Jazzz (I think). How would we detect a plot such as Northwoods? Well, if it wasn't actually carried out I reckon as you seem to think that it would be hard, and we'd have to wait for material to be declassified, as was the case for Northwoods.
However, consider if Northwoods had been carried out. It would have been a lot easier to detect, people would have actually been involved in doing it, equipment would have to be moved around, US personnel could have been spotted by the Cubans etc. There are lots of ways it could ahve been detected had it been carried out. It is difficult to get too specific though as it wasn't carried out

Thank you axon. It's nice to have a good discussion, and to try to entertain another's viewpoint, without necessarily having to agree with it. I also appreciated blagsta when he admitted that Operation Northwoods would have been 'difficult to detect'.

My opinion is that they would indeed have got away with it, and plainly they considered they would have, because it was ready to roll, signed by all Joint Chiefs of Staff - only Kennedy would have nothing to do with the dirty plan.

I don't think that too many people would have had to have known the details of the plot in order to produce it - however you would be able find things amiss with it. Considering the part that involved the switching of a passenger plane for drone aircraft, they would have been able to fake soft evidence, but not the hard. Say, the black boxes - they would have to be 'lost'. You would not be able to identify any of the wreckage of the flight as coming from the passenger plane which took off. You wouldn't be able to release the radar records.

There are some different circumstances between 40 years ago and now, but this is the worrying signature about 9/11 - we have soft evidence but there is crucial hard evidence missing. For instance, no piece of aircraft has been officially identified as coming from the flight it should have. Black boxes are officially missing (despite that never happening on a terrestrial crash before). No radar records have been released.

It's only by getting answers and demanding the hard evidence that one can ascertain what happened on 9/11.

 

[squeegee]

Some of the last posts from anyone other than jazzz have been truly ludicrous. Operation Northwoods proves intent.

Isn't that the reasoning that is being used to prosecute Dhiren Barot Man admits terror bomb plot namely that he showed intent to use a dirty bomb, even though he seems to have no connections to any terror organisation and seems to have had little or no chance of obtaining the radioactive material.

Operation Northwoods proves the intention, proves that Government officials seriously considered blowing up a passenger aircarft from their own country for a strategic military objective. But we'll get the same ludicrous explanations of how it was a paper plane

The backflips the anti-conspiraloon brigade are doing to show that this proves nothing is so childish as to be laughable.

And then there's the editor. When he gets a rational serious explanation of what I think about his involvement with multi-national corporations, he has not the integrity to say, fair enough you got me, after smugly daring me to show evidence, which I did. Then has the gall to say that because the football website paid him it meant he did not receive money from a multi-national corporation. Just what do you think sponsors do, Editor, eh? Who do you think pays the money to the company that pays you.

Asrael23 may have used foul language and prejudice, but then he is simply using "robust language" to coin your own excuse for doing the same. He is probably as tired of your evasiveness as you are of his conspiracy talk. So you're a hypocrite if you banned him for foul language when you use it yourself frequently, and allow those who agree with your line of reasoning to do the same. And that is a FACT so I have broken no rules here either.

But the FACT remains that, directly or indirectly you received money from a multi-national corporation. Now, are you gonna be man enough to accept that that is a FACT?

If you ban me, you prove my point that you cannot accept when you have been proved wrong. You challenged me to show proof and I got it from your own website.

I'm now even past getting mad at this. It's utterly laughable. Robust language is allowed you've said many times. I've let plenty of nasty, false and defamatory accusations go, but you pick on things and demand apologies or you'll ban me. That's the only way you can win, becazuse you sure as hell have no answer to my sound points. Then you ban me and you and your gimps all laugh at how easy it was and how somehow it makes you win an argument.

In three years of your insults, poor logic and failure in anyway to justify your assumptions that mine and others entirely plausible assumptions about USG involvement in 9/11 is somehow deranged and lacking logic, you have never shown an ounce of respect or decency or magnanimity to admit you are wrong.

So of course you have to ban me, even though I have broken no rules that are not routinely broken by you and those who see it the same way as you.

You can ban me, cos you have the dictatorial power of you hierarchy where you answer to no one but yourself. Some anarchist!

But I don't know how it must feel to never yourself have to apologise or back up your claims with anything approaching logic.

I don't know how you reconcile that with you "activist" routes. But I bet, in the words of Bill Hicks, that you sleep like a baby at night.

You received money from a corporate company. Now, that's a FACT. And if that's a fact, am I lying?

 

[Bob_the_lost]

2 for 2?

 

[editor]

And then there's the editor. When he gets a rational serious explanation of what I think about his involvement with multi-national corporations, he has not the integrity to say, fair enough you got me, after smugly daring me to show evidence, which I did. then has the gall to say that because the football website paid him it meant he did not recieve money from a multi-national corporation. Just what do you think sponsors do. Editor, eh? Whgo so you think pays the money to the company that pays you.

You lying, deceitful, deluded cunt.

You posted up a load of irrelevant, off topic personal bullshit claiming that I was banning people because of my supposed current employment with "multi national companies".

I don't work for "multi national companies" and even if I did it wouldn't stop me arguing with idiotic brainwashed cunts like you.

I'm not having a moron like you posting up defamatory up lies about me so you can fuck off.

Goodbye.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

2 for 2?

2 for 2.

 

[editor]

2 for 2.

What the fuck is it with these weirdos?

He claims that my current employment with "multi national companies" is influencing my moderating decisions, but when pushed can only come up with an indirect job I did for a design agency working for a confectionery company ten years ago!

Still, it's a good insight into just how unhinged these people are and how free and easy they are with posting up wild untruths.

 

[Jazzz]

New poll for NYT/CBS

"When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?"

Oct. 2006

Telling the truth - 16%
Hiding something - 53%
Mostly lying - 28%
Not sure - 3%

May 2002

Telling the truth - 21%
Hiding something - 65%
Mostly lying - 8%
Not sure - 6%

Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults, conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.

source

So, less accept it completely, and many more than before think it is complete twaddle

 

[pk]

Oh give it up you fucking joke, if anything those stats prove that less people are going for your bullshit.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

"When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?"

Oct. 2006

Telling the truth - 16%
Hiding something - 53%
Mostly lying - 28%
Not sure - 3%

May 2002

Telling the truth - 21%
Hiding something - 65%
Mostly lying - 8%
Not sure - 6%

Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults, conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.

source

So, less accept it completely, and many more than before think it is complete twaddle

But most of those people voted republican, so what do they know?

 

[reprehensor]

Chomsky is hamstrung by his own "institutional" bias. There are a couple of Canadians who have made some interesting observations on this willful blindness;

One is Professor David MacGregor;

Left resistance to alternative explanations of 9-11 reflects a general antipathy to conspiracy theory even though the official story itself relies on a very elaborate web of conspiracy, involving bin Laden and many others. This may explain why the editors of the respected left journal Monthly Review signaled soon after the tragedies in New York and Washington that independent investigation of the actual events was off-limits.

There is little we can say directly about the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, DC – except that these were acts of utter, inhuman violence, indefensible in every sense, taking a deep and lasting human toll.

The left favors structural explanations of political and social events, with capacious categories such as social class, globalization, international relations and so forth brought to bear on social phenomena, including terrorism. Oppositional theory (which takes dialectical approach to social relations emphasizes along with structural factors) elite agency: the actions of powerful leaders and organizations with more control over critical events that directly affect our own lives than many leftwing analysts are prepared to accept. Moreover, elites operate within a deep political structure (discussed below) that is an unacknowledged part of the network of political power analyzed by the left.

Commentators on the left, like pundits elsewhere on the political spectrum, are hesitant to go far astray of the limits on accepted discourse regarding controversial questions, especially, as in the case of 9-11, when corporate media and the state heavily police these boundaries. There is a left bias toward explanations of terror as the result of exploitation and revolt of the underprivileged. Finally, the left is averse to conspiracy theories spun by critics of the system, seeing such theories as antithetical to systematic analysis based on larger factors, like class struggle or globalization.

Leftist failure to consider official complicity in the events of September 11 may also arise from a common misapprehension of the historical roots of terror. Most commentators regardless of political stripe regard ‘‘terrorism as a non- or extra-state menace, rather than as state violence.’’ However, this perspective ignores ‘‘the possibility that the excessive violence of the state might itself, in certain instances, constitute a form of terrorist violence’’. – David MacGregor, The Hidden History of 9-11-2001

 

[nick1181]

What the fuck is it with these weirdos?

He claims that my current employment with "multi national companies" is influencing my moderating decisions, but when pushed can only come up with an indirect job I did for a design agency working for a confectionery company ten years ago!

Yea. I follow these threads with sporadic enthusiasm etc - and they are on the whole pretty circular - but I must say this new twist is fairly amusing.

It's completely off the straw-clutching radar. It's one of those arguments that has so many things wrong with it that it's hard to know where to start. It's nobody's fucking business for one thing.

The vast gulfs of guestwork/optimism etc involved to try to imagine what someone's relationship is with their clients is when all they know is that one of the client's was a confectionary company a decade a go is almost touching. It's also a microcosm for the whole... thing - which although described as a debate, doesn't really deserve the dignity of that word. What is is, is a kind of grass-roots campaign. As Blagsta said previously, it's an excercise in searching for evidence to back up a conclusion that's already been decided.

But working for corporations? Ha Ha. That's fucking excellent.

 

[detective-boy]

No-one has ventured an answer. If one can answer that, one can apply the same criterion for 9/11.

Probably because, unlike you, no-one is willing to provide categorical answers to hypothetical questions about things which didn't happen.

But here's some possibilities:

1. Plan A - Starting rumours - with the state of todays media, you'd probably get away with it
2. Plan B - Mock attacks, riots, etc. at Guantanamo Bay - with 24 hour news gathering, embedded reporters, etc. you'd either find suspicious footage of agitators, etc. coming out OR you'd have to have a suspicious absence of reporters available.
3. Plan C(1) - Bomb and sink and American ship and kill service personnel - with the military as likely to speak out about political incompetence putting their people's lives at risk as they are now, wouldn't some Admiral or other say "No" and go public?
4. Plan C(2) - Use unmanned drone and stage fake funerals - where would CNN find grieving widows for Day 1's coverage, followed by grieving ex-girlfriends / boyfriends for Day 2, grieving ex-lovers with tales of what a sex machine the deceased was for Day 3 and queue of people with a bit of gossip (they used to take drugs / like kinky sex / beat their dog ...) to sell to the Sunday tabloids? I'd give it about ten minutes before it started to fall apart.
5. Plan D - harassment of civil aircraft, etc. How long before the absence of fighters shoting down the harassers was noticed?
6. Plan E - Destroying drone alleged to be full of college students - See Plan C(2) x 100 ...

I'm bored now, but I'm sure you get the point. No-one's answering because it's so fucking stupid a question. We don't live in the world of 40 years ago when there was scope for keeping things happening in the public domain from public attention. With newsgathering as it now is that is simply not possible. Even without any nosy investigative reporter starting to dig around.

 

[detective-boy]

What the fuck is it with these weirdos?

He claims that my current employment with "multi national companies" is influencing my moderating decisions, but when pushed can only come up with an indirect job I did for a design agency working for a confectionery company ten years ago!

Yeah, but ... er ... the fact you didn't actually work for a multinational 10 years ago ... er ... but you might have done ... er ... except you didn't ... er ... is obviously proof that ... er ... you're doing it now because there's ... er ... no proof you are doing it now so that ... er ... proves you obviously are ... I think.

(Subs: Please check with Jazzz. I may have got this wrong ...)

 

[Jazzz]

1. Plan A - Starting rumours - with the state of todays media, you'd probably get away with it

Certainly.

2. Plan B - Mock attacks, riots, etc. at Guantanamo Bay - with 24 hour news gathering, embedded reporters, etc. you'd either find suspicious footage of agitators, etc. coming out OR you'd have to have a suspicious absence of reporters available.

A recent example of a USG rent-a-crowd would have to be the infamous Saddam Hussein statue toppling - a scripted media event from start to finish. The media lapped it up.

3. Plan C(1) - Bomb and sink and American ship and kill service personnel - with the military as likely to speak out about political incompetence putting their people's lives at risk as they are now, wouldn't some Admiral or other say "No" and go public?

I don't think so. Besides, the Admiral whose ship it was certainly wouldn't know about it.

4. Plan C(2) - Use unmanned drone and stage fake funerals - where would CNN find grieving widows for Day 1's coverage, followed by grieving ex-girlfriends / boyfriends for Day 2, grieving ex-lovers with tales of what a sex machine the deceased was for Day 3 and queue of people with a bit of gossip (they used to take drugs / like kinky sex / beat their dog ...) to sell to the Sunday tabloids? I'd give it about ten minutes before it started to fall apart.

You think the US military wouldn't be able to call on anyone to play the part of a grieving widow? Or a friend? How on earth would they do the mock funerals then? Easy. It's easy. What you would find though is that such people might be very reluctant to be interviewed on telly/radio... but what kind of madman is going to start doubting that such a person's story isn't true - that they don't simply want privacy due to their grief? That a funeral is fake? How offensive would that be? You could really nail the illusion by bumping off a couple of real people, who would really have real grieving widows/friends, and they get interviewed mistakenly thinking that their man died in the plane crash.

5. Plan D - harassment of civil aircraft, etc. How long before the absence of fighters shoting down the harassers was noticed?

That's an interesting point because on 9/11 there was also a complete absence of fighter interceptions!

6. Plan E - Destroying drone alleged to be full of college students - See Plan C(2) x 100 ...

I'm bored now, but I'm sure you get the point. No-one's answering because it's so fucking stupid a question. We don't live in the world of 40 years ago when there was scope for keeping things happening in the public domain from public attention. With newsgathering as it now is that is simply not possible. Even without any nosy investigative reporter starting to dig around.

If you think the question is 'stupid' that means you think you know more about false-flag operations than all the military top brass back then - forgive me if I think you are the one deluding himself.

Reporters were pretty much the same then as they are now, if anything, the media is now more tightly controlled, certainly it is with war reporting, and five companies owning virtually the entire media... maybe some might get wind of something fishy - but why wouldn't they be dismissed as cranks? I mean - fake widows? How crazy would that be?

 

[Jazzz]

Yeah, but ... er ... the fact you didn't actually work for a multinational 10 years ago ... er ... but you might have done ... er ... except you didn't ... er ... is obviously proof that ... er ... you're doing it now because there's ... er ... no proof you are doing it now so that ... er ... proves you obviously are ... I think.

(Subs: Please check with Jazzz. I may have got this wrong ...)

oh and don't try to drag me into some silly tiff over a bar of snickers.

 

[editor]

Reporters were pretty much the same then as they are now, if anything, the media is now more tightly controlled....

Errr, apart from the immense rise in blogging, citizen journalism, self-published sites, YouTube, MySpace, public access to zillions of websites etc etc, of course.

 

[editor]

oh and don't try to drag me into some silly tiff over a bar of snickers.

So do you think my moderating on urban75 is influenced by my work in any way?

Just to clear the matter up, like, because it's turning into quite a meme with some conspiraloons.

 

[reprehensor]

Another Canadian who has taken a long and serious look at Chomsky's lobotomized approach to 9/11 skepticism is media critic Barrie Zwicker.

In his recently published book, "Towers of Deception", (reviewed here.), Zwicker exposes Chomsky's hypocrisy when he uses the term "conspiracy theory" in regard to 9/11 skepticism;

(Chapter 5, p 179)

The Shame of Noam Chomsky and the Gatekeepers of the Left

“Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories ….”
-President George Bush, Nov. 10, 2001, to the United Nations General Assembly

“Look, this is just conspiracy theory.”
- Noam Chomsky to author in conversation, November 14th, 2002

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance – that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
- Herbert Spencer

Thanks for the identical advice, George Bush and Noam Chomsky. But no thanks.

There’s something very strange here. You’d expect George Bush, the most visible face of the American Empire, to employ the intellectually-bankrupt put-down phrase “conspiracy theory” as an element of his propagandistic rhetoric in defence of the of the official story of 9/11. On the other hand, about the last person you’d expect use the same phase the same way for the same purpose would be Noam Chomsky, known for his masterful deconstructions of propaganda.

You’d expect Noam Chomsky to be unmasking the nature of this phrase and the purpose of George Bush in using it. As we shall see, this phrase (and its friends “conspiracy nut,” “conspiracy whacko,” etc.) is far more than simply another misleading figure of speech. It’s a particularly effective tool for suppressing healthy skepticism about the contradictions and absurdities of 9/11 and further investigation into them.

Chomsky himself at one point issued a strong caution against the use of the term. He had just explained, at a public meeting, how mainstream meida stories are skewed to favour vested interests by means of reporters quoting establishment representatives at length while neglecting to quote critics of the establishment. “Would you characterize [your] media analysis as a “conspiracy theory” at all?” a woman asked Chomsky.

“It’s precisely the opposite of conspiracy theory, actually,” Chomsky said. “… institutional factors … set boundaries for reporting and interpretation in ideological institutions.” He continued: “Any economist knows this: It’s not a conspiracy theory to point [out] that … it’s just taken for granted as an institutional fact. If someone were to say ‘Oh no, that’s a conspiracy theory,’ people would laugh.” He concluded: “For people to call [Chomsky’s media analysis] ‘conspiracy theory’ is part of the effort to prevent an understanding of how the world works, in my view – ‘conspiracy theory’ has become the intellectual equivalent of a four-letter word: it’s something people say when they don’t want you to think about what’s really going on.”

So, when Noam Chomsky repeatedly uses the phrase “conspiracy theory” to describe questioning the official story of 9/11, he clearly knows its power and purpose of its use.

 

[detective-boy]

What you would find though is that such people might be very reluctant to be interviewed on telly/radio... but what kind of madman is going to start doubting that such a person's story isn't true - that they don't simply want privacy due to their grief?

Exactly. Relatives (or, to a greater extent, "friends") of those killed in these sorts of event queue up to have their five minutes of fame these days. If you don't get selected for BB27 then having been at school with someone who's brother's neighbour's babysitter died in some high-profile incident is the next best thing. And there is no way you could orchestrate it on a convincing scale without someone going bent on you.

 

[Jazzz]

So do you think my moderating on urban75 is influenced by my work in any way?

Just to clear the matter up, like, because it's turning into quite a meme with some conspiraloons.

You'll be delighted to hear that I consider your maniacal chip-on-the-shoulder Friday night let's look for some conspiradrunks punch-up policing style to be all your own and not influenced by snickers bars in the slightest, no.

 

[editor]

You'll be delighted to hear that I consider your maniacal chip-on-the-shoulder Friday night let's look for some conspiradrunks punch-up policing style to be all your own and not influenced by snickers bars in the slightest, no.

That's good to hear. I can't say I'm enjoying this latest trend of conspira-halfwits making wild claims about a supposed 'corporate' influence on my postings/moderation.

But who'd believe it, eh? Self-styled 'truthseekers' posting up wild claims based on no evidence, filling in the gaps with their own pre-determined, agenda-driven conclusions.

 

[Loki]

Welcome back Azrael23!

Yeah and er, bye again!

 

[Fruitloop]

Another Canadian who has taken a long and serious look at Chomsky's lobotomized approach to 9/11 skepticism is media critic Barrie Zwicker.

In his recently published book, "Towers of Deception", (reviewed here.), Zwicker exposes Chomscy's hypocrisy when he uses the term "conspiracy theory" in regard to 9/11 skepticism;

This 'evidence' is about as weak as a physio class for injured weaklings, to be honest.

 

[Blagsta]

No, that would be no argument whatsoever.

So what is your argument then?

 

[Blagsta]

Thank you axon. It's nice to have a good discussion, and to try to entertain another's viewpoint, without necessarily having to agree with it. I also appreciated blagsta when he admitted that Operation Northwoods would have been 'difficult to detect'.

My opinion is that they would indeed have got away with it, and plainly they considered they would have, because it was ready to roll, signed by all Joint Chiefs of Staff - only Kennedy would have nothing to do with the dirty plan.

I don't think that too many people would have had to have known the details of the plot in order to produce it - however you would be able find things amiss with it. Considering the part that involved the switching of a passenger plane for drone aircraft, they would have been able to fake soft evidence, but not the hard. Say, the black boxes - they would have to be 'lost'. You would not be able to identify any of the wreckage of the flight as coming from the passenger plane which took off. You wouldn't be able to release the radar records.

There are some different circumstances between 40 years ago and now, but this is the worrying signature about 9/11 - we have soft evidence but there is crucial hard evidence missing. For instance, no piece of aircraft has been officially identified as coming from the flight it should have. Black boxes are officially missing (despite that never happening on a terrestrial crash before). No radar records have been released.

It's only by getting answers and demanding the hard evidence that one can ascertain what happened on 9/11.

What is your argument?

 

[Blagsta]

Some of the last posts from anyone other than jazzz have been truly ludicrous. Operation Northwoods proves intent.

Sorry, what? How does a plan from 50 years ago prove intent that 9/11 was a false flag op? I must have missed something.

 

[Blagsta]

"When it comes to what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States, do you think members of the Bush Administration are telling the truth, are mostly telling the truth but hiding something, or are they mostly lying?"

Oct. 2006

Telling the truth - 16%
Hiding something - 53%
Mostly lying - 28%
Not sure - 3%

May 2002

Telling the truth - 21%
Hiding something - 65%
Mostly lying - 8%
Not sure - 6%

Source: The New York Times / CBS News
Methodology: Telephone interviews with 983 American adults, conducted from Oct. 5 to Oct. 8, 2006. Margin of error is 4 per cent.

source

So, less accept it completely, and many more than before think it is complete twaddle

How does that support your view that the US government carried it out?

 

[axon]

A recent example of a USG rent-a-crowd would have to be the infamous Saddam Hussein statue toppling - a scripted media event from start to finish. The media lapped it up.

A very good example of how difficult it is to stage things. You see we know that it was not a genuine event, because of the eye witnesses and the long range photos that showed the crowd to be pathetically small and surrounded by tanks. The US governemtn couldn't even stage this one small event without people finding out the truth, but they managed to stage 911? Reality check needed.

 

[Yossarian]

But in any case, the hypothetical question is still there - how would we have spotted Op. Northwoods? No-one has ventured to suggest any possible clue.

I think if it had happened, a jazz musician in England would have been ideally placed to spot some inconsistencies in the story and unveil the whole dastardly plot – only to find a public who just wouldn’t listen!