<![CDATA[Chomsky on 9/11 – Why is he lying?]]>Here is a recent email conversation I had with noted MIT professor and lingust Noam Chomsky. For a man as busy as himself he remains very accessible to the general public via email. All kudos aside, his intransigence on the events of 9/11 is still quite peculiar given the fact that he has criticized Israel most of his career. Linguistics is a science in itself so one would think a noted linguistics professor would take a longer look at the evidence before forming an opinion but not in this case.

 

I have lost much of my respect for Professor Chomsky. He has been writing the historical truth for decades and now, on the most important issue of our time, he scurries and hides like a mouse. He was actually becoming somewhat miffed near the end of our exchange. He even insulted me, saying that truthers like myself have too much free time on my hand, basically calling me a loser. I guess I’m just not as smart and prolific as the Great Chomsky but the truth doesn’t require me to be. Rote memorization of facts does not characterize intelligence. Obviously I’m much more intelligent on the events of 9/11 than Chomsky is, admits to be or probably ever will be. Perhaps Professor Chomsky doesn’t see the parallel here between denial of an obvious false flag attack and denial of the Holocaust.

 

I recommend starting from the end since emails are backwards that way.

 

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Below.  But I should say that I do not have the apparently limitless time of TMers.  Out of politeness, I respond to long letters from them, which arrive in a deluge.  But I have other priorities, like trying to confront ongoing crimes, and responding to maybe 100 letters a day, so I can’t carry out extensive correspondence.  A few comments below.—– Original Message —–

NC

From: <gthompson@carolina.rr.com>

To: <chomsky@mit.edu>

Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2008 3:46 PM

Subject: Re: Looking at the evidence

 

It’s not gossip sir. I heard you on tv say it was very unlikely that the
Bush administration, given their level of incompetence ever since, could
have pulled off 9/11. I don’t remember the event but you were on a stage
being interviewed by a younger gentleman. It was probably a few years but I
distinctly remember you saying those words or a very close approximation. I
don’t accuse the government of incompetence.

 

I obviously can’t comment on what you say you heard on TV, particularly since I am almost never on TV, and when I am it’s local channels or abroad.  I’m sorry that you don’t see that you are accusing the government incompetence, in fact, incredible incompetence: you argue that they carried out 9/11, and decided to implicate Saudis, thus undermining their alleged goal of preparing the ground for the invasion of Iraq (for that, they certainly would have implicated Iraqis), harming their relations with their most valued regional ally (Saudi Arabia), and severely embarrassing themselves by having to fly their Saudi friends out of the country in violation of their closure of airspace.  It’s hard to imagine more extreme incompetence.

 

I accuse them of malevolence.
The media propaganda after the attack was very effective due to the fragile
nature of the American people at that time. Almost no one was viewing the
situation objectively. American nativism kicked in and united us all
temporarily until the pieces of the story starting falling apart.

As I said before I think your dislike of conspiracy theorists has clouded
your judgment on this issue. Your use of the word gossip indicates that you
don’t think much of the truthers but many of them are respected scientists
and physicists.

 

It happens that a huge amount of gossip floods the TM internet system.  I receive plenty of it: charges based on pure gossip.  In this case, I have no idea what your source is, what was said, or what the context was.  Such sources are meaningless.  They are, however, circulated among TMers, a flood of them reaching me.  That’s entirely independent of whether there are serious scientists among them.

 

 

 Surely you are not disputing physical evidence like the
molten steel found beneath the towers when the fire never reached high
enough temperatures to melt steel. Thermite had to have been used and
military grade thermite at that. That is just one example but I’ve attached
a litany of question the government has not answered.

 

Unlike you, I lack the advanced knowledge of civil/mechanical engineering and the structure of the buildings to evaluate these claims, so I therefore treat them exactly as I (and other scientists do) when technical claims are made beyond the area of their special knowledge: wait until technical articles are submitted to professional journals, and specialists either accept them, or refute them, or ignore them.  I know of no cases — unlike, say, intelligent design, global warming skepticism, etc.  If you want an assessment of these claims, it’s pointless to send them to me.  You should be sending them to the Department of Civil Engineering at MIT and elsewhere.


You know full well Professor that suing Bush and Cheney would accomplish
nothing. They are above the law or else they would have already been
impeached, convicted and executed. In fact lawsuits have been brought
against them for this and other grievances but they are always summarily
dismissed because the system is rigged in their favor. Don’t pretend you
don’t know how their is a separate system of justice for those in power.
That is far beneath you sir to suggest the system works for me just as well
as it does for the president when many of the judges are his personal
friends.

 

I’ve repeatedly asked, and have not been advised of any law suits charging Bush-Cheney with high treason.  The usual excuse is that documents are refused on national security grounds, but that’s a transparent evasion: those who think that the evidence is compelling — or, to quote an earlier letter today from a well-known TM figure, so compelling that only someone who is “nutty” won’t be immediately be convinced by it — obviously don’t need internal documents to make their case.  The logic is transparent, and straightforward.

 

You’re entirely right that the system is biased in favor of the powerful, but that doesn’t prevent the Center for Constitutional Rights to sue Unocal for serious crimes, and to win.  To mention only one of many cases.  And it’s irrelevant anyway.  If a case were thrown out of court on spurious grounds, that would be a great victory for the TM.  Of course, it is possible to take the stand that it is impossible to do anything, so we’ll keep to writing to one another on the internet.  But I have no time for that.


I must also disagree that the truth movement is a diversion. The truth
movement is about getting to the truth so that impeachment can proceed with
evidence and not wild accusations.

 

You can’t possibly believe that the TM will lead to impeachment before November.  And that the TM has been holding off a serious call for impeachment for 6 years because it wants to introduce in the last few months, when it can’t possibly get anywhere.  In fact, it’s been a very significant diversion, diverting enormous amounts of time and energy away from confronting serious crimes.

 

 

 Saying the Bush blew up the towers is
quite different from saying the official story is physically and
scientifically impossible but the non-believers like yourself always
conflate the two. How do you explain that some polls show that almost 70%
of Americans believe the government knew that 9/11 was going to happen and
did nothing to stop it? Surely we are all not Pavlovian dogs and the
evidence is far more than circumstantial. You seem to want to make the
argument on political terms instead of scientific and I believe that is a
flawed premise. Of course they did not wish to anger the Saudis especially
when it was found out that many of the purported hijackers were of Saudi
origin but several of those hijackers are alive and well this very moment
living overseas. What say you to that sir? These are facts, not mere
speculation.

Afraid I don’t follow.  I thought the story is supposed to be that there weren’t any hijackers.  What are you proposing?  If you have evidence about the hijackers being alive and overseas, by all means publish it.  Many mainstream journals would be quite happy to publish your proof of that.  But there’s nothing for me to say to that, if true.  It’s your problem.  You say that the hijackers were found to be Saudis and they are now living overseas.  What do you have to say to that?

 
I also must depart from your assertion that the movement is treated with
kid gloves. This administration has spent a lot of time and money quelling
the movement within the mainstream media. It’s not that they are ignoring
it. It’s quite the opposite. They are trying to silence us because they are
terrified of the truth being exposed and it will ultimately be exposed just
like Pearl Harbor. This administration treats all protesters and dissidents
with varying degrees of scorn and apathy. The Bush cavalcade doesn’t even
allow Bush to view protesters during rallies as they circuitously avoid the
crowds.

I suspect that like many TMers, you don’t have a background in activist movements.  If you did, you’d see very clearly how the government and media are treating it with kid gloves.  That’s quite strikingly obvious in the case of the few people who really do have an activist background, like Richard Falk (an old friend, incidentally).  He’s now being bitterly attacked and slandered — because of things he has said about Israel-Palestine.  I’ve never come across any criticism, let alone condemnation, of his prominent TM role.  You’re right about the effort to marginalize dissent and protest, not just this but all administrations.  But serious activists do not get the kid gloves treatment of the TM.

 

The rest does not seem relevant to anything I’ve said or written, so I won’t comment.

 
I do accuse the Bush administration and neocons of criminal insanity. They
are a gang of megalomaniacs driven by lust for power and greed beyond
anything ever seen since Hitler. They do not worship any god. They worship
themselves which is why I find their ruse of religiosity even more
revolting than they themselves. There is no law that excuses this cabal of
its crimes once their term of office has expired. They can and will still
be held accountable for their part in the slaughter of over 3000 American
citizens, not to mention the thousands of US soldiers and hundreds of
thousands of innocent Iraqis.chomsky@MIT.EDU
Date: Sat, 10 May 2008 12:18:10 -0400
To: gthompson@carolina.rr.com
Subject: Re: Looking at the evidencechomsky@mit.edu
  Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2008 6:16 AM
  Subject: Looking at the evidence

The war on terror is a fraud. It is but an attempt to keep a sufficient
level of fear alive so that the military industrial complex can keep
expanding and extracting natural resources from foreign lands against the
will of those nations. Indeed we are the world’s  bully and, as such, I
believe that holding this administration accountable for its egregious
behavior sends a strong signal to subsequent administrations that it will
not be tolerated by the American people.

Yes, other movements are needed but the sheer level of audacity of 9/11
must not be forgiven and forgotten. What will the next president have the
gall to do if Bush and company are given a pass on false flag attacks like
this? Look at what they’ve done since: over 1000 breeches of the law,
including many in the Constitution itself. What can they not do? And what
will they do next? There is plenty of time left in this presidential term
to wreak havoc of untold scales. (ie invading Iran, a nuclear false flag
attack et al).

You’ve obviously made up your mind and it is not my intention to change it.
It is, however, my intention to understand your reasoning and I have failed
to do so once again.

Many warm regards,
George Thompson

Original Message:
—————–
From: Noam Chomsky

I agree that the argument is quite uncompelling, which is why I didn’t give
it.  Do you have a source (other than the gossip that circulates in the TM
movement)?  I do think it would have been pretty crazy for them to
implicate Saudis, thus undermining their goal of gaining support for the
invasion of Iraq, harming their relations with their most valued ally in
the region, and causing themselves huge embarrassment by having to fly out
their Saudi friends in violation of their strict airspace restrictions.
TMers seem to believe that they are so utterly incompetent that they would
do that.  I doubt it, frankly.  So the argument about incompetence cuts the
opposite way: it’s TMers, not me, who accuse them of incredible
incompetence, in fact near criminal insanity.

From what you write, I can only assume that you haven’t seen what I’ve said
about the matter (I don’t write about it).  If you have some criticism of
views I’ve expressed, I’ll be glad to hear them, and to hear the reasons.

If you’re convinced by the evidence that has been presented, then by all
means do something about it: for example, organize a lawsuit to try Bush
and Cheney for high treason, surely easy if the evidence is so compelling.
And you’d better hurry up, because soon they’ll be out of office and
sending them to death row will do nothing to change the “negative trend of
imperialism and destruction of the planet.” In my view, the TM is a
diversion from these ends, and it may well be for that reason that it is
treated with kid gloves by the establishment, in comparison to activist
movements and dissidence.

Noam Chomsky
  —– Original Message —–
  From: Nfamous
  To:

  With all due respect Mr. Chomsky, your explanation that the Bush
administration is too incompetent to have pulled off 9.11 makes no sense at
all. 9.11 itself was a huge failure in its execution until the media
manipulation began shortly thereafter. There are volumes of physical
evidence and witness testimony that completely contradict the official
story. It is literally undeniable, regardless of what actually happened,
that the official story is a lie. This is the single event of our time that
could reverse this negative trend of imperialism and destruction of the
planet and you have thus far refused to even take a look at it. I don’t
understand how a man of your intelligence can take this position on
something so important to the future of this country. If you love this
country then you will take a look. I understand that you are quite averse
to conspiracy theories but it is not a conspiracy theory when there is
sufficient physical evidence coupled with witness testimony, not to mention
testimony of government officials like Mineta. As much as I admire you, you
are wrong on this one sir.

  George Thompson
  Charlotte NC

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