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THE LIES OF JIM FETZER
FETZER TELLS THE SAME LIE AS CHENEY © Gerard Holmgren:May 4 2007.This article or any part of it may not be reproduced without express permission from the author in writing. This prohibition excludes quotation for reasonable reference purposes, providing that the article is linked to. INTRODUCTION Professor Jim Fetzer is the founder and chair of an organization named - rather inappropriately - "Scholars for 9/11 Truth". The name is inappropriate because their web site is littered with examples of factual error, poor standards of verification, plagiarism, conscious lying ,academic fraud, and internal contradictions worthy of the term "doublethink.". This is not to say that everything on the web site is untrue. Sometimes the scholars find it convenient to plagiarize high quality work or directly post high quality work by other authors and sometimes their agenda has a happy coincidental meeting with the truth. At the most basic level, the message of the scholar's web site - that the US Govt. was in some way complicit in the events events of Sept 11 2001 is correct. However the extraordinarily low standards of the scholars, in terms of reasoning, in terms of verification and in honesty and consistency would be unlikely to appeal to anyone other than those who have already formed such an opinion for themselves, and have little interest in the question other than chanting this basic conclusion. Fetzer has told more lies than I care to spend the time documenting. This article deconstructs just one of those lies. In terms of the raw information about which Fetzer is lying, it is one of the less important aspects of the specific evidence regarding Govt. orchestration of Sept 11, but the methodology involved is an enlightening case study into the way that Fetzer operates. It needs to be noted that some of the material here from the Scholars site which I attribute to Fetzer may not have actually been written by him, because some of the articles do not credit a specific author, but represent the scholars as a group. In this situation Fetzer as the owner of the site and the group is ultimately responsible for the content. BACKGROUND For the purposes of this article, lets put aside the mountains of evidence that Sept 11 involved faked plane crashes, deliberate demolition of buildings, fictitious flights, fictitious hijackers and fictitious passengers, and pretend that the events of the day unfolded basically as we were told. That 19 nasty Arabs hijacked four planes and crashed three of them into buildings and one into a field. Some of the first high quality research to emerge on Sept 11 was that by Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel which although accepting the basics of the official story, presented an overwhelming case that such events could not have occurred without the conscious help of the US govt. - in that the deliberate standing down of the air force on the day to allow the hijackers to succeed is the only plausible explanation for the time line of the events. This evidence is now somewhat outdated, because it has since become apparent that there weren't any hijacked planes and thus no need to order a military stand down. Nevertheless, it is very high quality research in so far as it goes, and for the purposes of this article - which hypothetically concedes the mythical hijackings and plane crashes - we will cast our minds back to Nov 2001, when most of the more advanced evidence of Govt. involvement was still yet to emerge and the analysis of Bykov and Israel was at the cutting edge of criticism of the official story. We will then l examine how -more than five years later - Fetzer, while still supporting the plane crash and even the hijacker myth, has lied in an attempt to undermine the stand down evidence, while spinning confusing rhetoric to make it look as if he's supporting it. Fetzer's first act in this process was, in late 2005 to plagiarize the four year old work of Bykov and Israel and claim it as original and new work on the part of the scholars. Having created this impression, Fetzer then resuscitated a lie told by Vice President Cheney on Sept 16 2001- one which Bykov and Israel had worked to unmask - and presented it in a different guise. Fetzer even plagiarized the lie. The first version of the lie examined in this article was invented by Jim Hoffman in March 2004. Fetzer (despite feigning a general disapproval of Hoffman ) had no problem with appropriating Hoffman's lie - which twisted the distorted remains of Bykov and Israel's research into a covert endorsement of Cheney's Sept 16 2001 cover story - and added a little embellishment of his own. I will go through this process in the following order. 1. Cheney's lie and Bykov and Israel's deconstruction of it. 2. Hoffman's revival of the Cheney lie 2 1/2 years later in a slightly different guise. 3. Fetzer's appropriation and embellishment of Hoffman's lie 4. Fetzer's response when called to account. Let's begin with number 1. BYKOV AND ISRAEL EXPOSE THE OFFICIAL STORY Using publicly available documentation from the the FAA, Bykov and Israel demonstrated that under standard operating procedures, jet fighters should have been already on their way to intercept wayward flights - those which allegedly struck WTC 1 and 2 and the Pentagon - before the second WTC strike even happened. If there was any conceivable excuse for not scrambling to intercept the first two planes, then there was certainly none for the third - that which allegedly struck the Pentagon. After the WTC had already been hit twice, this third plane - which was already off course before the second WTC strike - was allowed to continue to fly off course for another 42 minutes towards Washington DC, and supposedly hit the pentagon, even though Andrews Air Base -only 10 miles from the Pentagon - had at least two squadrons of fighter jets stationed there for the specific purpose of air defence around the DC area. And they would have been on high alert that day as the President was scheduled to fly into DC later that morning. They summarized their findings thus. [[Some of what happened on 9-11, such as planes flying into buildings, is unusual. But most of what happened, such as commercial jets flying off-course, transponder failures and possible hijackings, are everyday emergencies... ...U.S. air safety and air defense emergency systems are activated in response to problems every day. On 9-11 they failed despite, not because of, the extreme nature of the emergency. This could only happen if individuals in high positions worked in a coordinated way to make them fail. Such operatives would almost surely have failed if they tried to disrupt and abort routine protection systems without top-level support. The failure of the emergency systems would be noticed immediately. Moreover, given the catastrophic nature of the attacks, the highest military authorities would be alerted. Acting on their own, the operatives could expect that their orders would be countermanded and that they themselves would be arrested. The sabotage of routine protective systems, controlled by strict hierarchies, would never have been contemplated let alone attempted absent the involvement of the supreme US military command. This includes at least US President George Bush, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Richard B. Myers.]] The Govt. certainly had some explaining to do in relation to why the air force did not scramble a single jet fighter anywhere until after the Pentagon had been hit. In a "Meet the Press" interview on Sept 16 2001, Vice President Richard Cheney faced the problem of how to explain the events. Bykov and Israel analyzed this interview and showed that Cheney's method was to lie about the standard procedures for scrambling jet fighters. The reality is that it is a routine procedure requiring no input from the President or Defense Secretary. It is standard operating procedure handled in the field through the coordination of Air Traffic Control and the air force, according to clearly stated guidelines. Presidential or other high executive authority is required only should an interception situation develop to the point where it becomes necessary to issue an order to shoot a plane down. In his Sept 16 2001 interview, Cheney, exploiting the lack of knowledge of most ordinary people about such situations, deliberately confused the non violent procedure of scrambling and intercepting with the violent act of shooting a plane down. He created the false impression that they were inseparable from each other and therefore that scrambling jet fighters was an extreme and violent act, one which could only be authorized by the President, therefore presenting a horrific choice to the President about whether or not to shoot down a civilian airliner. Bykov and Israel, using documentation from official sources to demonstrate the routine nature of scrambling and interception as opposed to the rare and extreme situation of needing to shoot a plane down, deconstructed the deceptive language used by Cheney in his attempt to present interception and shooting down as inseparable They summarized their findings thus. [[On Sunday, September 16th, Vice-president Richard Cheney was interviewed on NBC TV's 'Meet the Press'. During that interview he created the impression that the military would have needed presidential authorization to scramble fighter jets to intercept American Airlines Flight 77 before it hit the Pentagon. Mr. Cheney did not present this lie in a straightforward manner. Instead he did two things. First, he avoided discussing the failure to intercept Flight 77. Instead he talked only about the choices Mr. Bush supposedly made after the Pentagon was hit. Second, he took it for granted that presidential approval was required to intercept a commercial jet, as if this were an accepted fact. Then based on this false foundation, he emitted a fog of emotional misinformation to confuse the millions of Americans who wanted to know: why didn't jet fighters scramble to intercept Flight 77 before it crashed into the Pentagon? ]] After quoting Cheney they observed [[Note that Mr. Cheney has performed a sleight of hand here. First he says, "the toughest decision was...whether we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft." Later he says, "The president made the decision... that if the plane would not divert as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out..." that is, "shoot it down." But "intercept": and "shoot it down" do not mean the same thing... ...Mr. Cheney deliberately confused these terms to stop people from asking: why weren't any of the hijacked planes intercepted? Since "stopping, deflecting, or interrupting the progress or intended course of" a hijacked airplane does not necessarily involve violence, there could be no moral obstacle to scrambling fighter jets to intercept Flight 77. Therefore Mr. Cheney shifted quickly to the morally charged question of whether to shoot down "an airplane full of American citizens". By creating this emotional link between interception (not necessarily violent) and shooting down a commercial jet (very violent), Cheney hoped to create sympathy for a President forced to make this "horrendous" choice: to intercept or not to intercept. Note that Cheney is speaking only of the period after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. By confusing the issues of "intercepting" vs. "shooting down" AFTER the Pentagon was hit, Cheney was trying to get his listeners to forget the real issue: that nothing had been done BEFORE the Pentagon was hit.]] As part of their documentation to expose Cheney's lie, Bykov and Israel produced the following. [[During a serious emergency, or if there is any possibility that a hijacking has occurred: "The
escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct
contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC)." A Defense Department manual makes the same point: "In
the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious
means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses,...forward
requests for DOD [Department of Defense] assistance to the Secretary
of Defense for approval." Now that you know the history of how this issue developed, you will be able to see how years later, first Jim Hoffman and then Jim Fetzer told the same lie as Cheney, disguised as new research promoting the idea of a stand down. Before beginning the next section, take a careful note of the last piece of documentation above - the June 1 2001 CJSI order- because as we progress, you will see that this is pivotal to the lies told by Hoffman and Fetzer in their support of Cheney's lie. Let's examine what this order states. It requires, with the exception of immediate responses, the NMCC to forward requests for military assistance to the Secretary of Defense. That's very clear. Situations requiring "immediate responses" do *not* require the involvement of the Defense Secretary. There is a small part of this regulation which Bykov and Israel omitted from their quote because it wasn't important to their deconstruction of Cheney's lie. But it is important to the deconstruction of the subsequent lies of Hoffman and Fetzer. The actual wording of the document- the bold font indicating that which was omitted by Bykov and Israel -is "with the exception of immediate responses as defined by reference D" If you then find reference D in the document, you will note that is is a regulation dated Feb 18 1997. DOD directive 3025.15 So the wording of this document is very clear. On June 1 2001 this CJCSI order re-validated a 1997 DOD directive which stated that in relation to hijackings, situations requiring DOD assistance for "immediate responses" were exempt from the requirement to be forwarded to the Secretary of Defense for personal approval. It demonstrates the basic point by Bykov and Israel in deconstructing Cheney's lie. Interception in the event of a suspected hijacking does not require Presidential or executive approval. HOFFMAN I have written an article specially dedicated to Hofman's campaign of disinformation against the work of Bykov and Israel. For this article I will summarize it, and you can read the article linked above if you want to go over the charges against Hoffman in more detail. If there is anything in this article regarding Hoffman's position which you think isn't fully verified here you'll find it in the above linked article. Rather than overtly attacking the work of Bykov and Israel, Hoffman created a clever disguise of appearing to support the same position. But once you see through the subterfuge, you realize that Hoffman is actually supporting the official story through a carefully constructed plan of creating confusion. Hoffman's first act was to plagiarize Bykov and Israel's work. He copied everything of substance on this issue from their site, using the documentation that they had unearthed, without crediting the original authors and researchers. His presentation of the evidence was poor compared to Bykov and Israel, but in essence it presented a similar picture. Having created the impression that it was own research, Hoffman then set about confusing the issue through contradictory claims. For example in one part of his site, he mimics Bykov and Israel's observation that the failure to scramble any fighters until after the Pentagon hit was indefensible, but in another part of his site he claims that fighters were scrambled prior to the Pentagon attack but didn't get there in time. He attacks the claim that nothing was scrambled as a "straw man" invented to discredit skeptics of the official story. Doublethink. To compound the confusion he falsely attributes the claim of scrambles prior to the Pentagon attack to Bykov and Israel (his only mention of them ),while failing to link to their article. In a second piece of doublethink, Hoffman in one part of his site plagiarizes in rather tepid form, Bykov and Israel's deconstruction of Cheney's lie, but in another part of his site, repeats Cheney's lie himself. But not in exactly the same form. Rather than asserting as Cheney did, that the sole authority to intercept a plane rests with the President, Hoffman claimed that the sole authority rests with the Secretary of Defense. In order to present this lie, Hoffman cited the CJCSI order discussed above and after claiming it to be new discovery by himself, attributed to it the opposite of what it says.With total disregard for what the document actually states, Hoffman described it thus. [[CJCSI 3610.01A, dated June 1, 2001, required that all requests for assistance in hijackings be approved by the Secretary of Defense. It had an exception for emergencies that would seem to give commanders in the field autonomy in ordering intercepts. However, that exception did not cover requests for "potentially lethal assistance", the kind required to respond to the attack.]] Hoffman provided nothing to support the last sentence. By the addition of the fabricated claim in his last sentence, Hoffman has used his plagiarism of Bykov and Israel's research in order to spin the exact opposite of what they actually discovered. Using this fabricated claim as his foundation, Hoffman seals his spin with this assertion. [[The June 1st order apparently gave Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld the legal authority (if not the de facto authority) to prevent intercepts of Flights 11, 175, and 77 by just doing nothing.]] Apart from being false, this is a third piece of doublethink. Remember that Hoffman claimed in another part of his site that fighters were scrambled before the Pentagon strike but just didn't get there in there time, and attacked claims to the contrary as a "straw man". So if Rumsfeld "did nothing" then how did the supposed scrambles happen, if Rumsfeld was the only person who could authorize them ? But then again, in yet another part of his site, Hoffman claimed that the early scrambles did not take place. Triplethink. And in yet another part of his site, Hoffman claimed that interception was a standard operating procedure that did not require executive authorization. Quadruplethink. How does someone who is new to this issue sort their way through such a fog of disinformation ? Bykov and Israel very competently plunged a dagger into the heart of Cheney's lie. Hoffman has not only drawn the dagger out to use against Bykov and Israel, but has slashed it wildly in all directions, cutting everything connected with the issue, through a combination of plagiarized truthful research, doublethink, false attribution, and outright lying. Thus he transforms Bykov and Israel's clearly documented and concisely argued evidence into a confused and self contradictory babble, the tone of which appears to allege Government criminality, but is unable to present any credible case. FETZER EMBELLISHES THE LIE It is perhaps a piece of ironic justice that Hoffman should find his clever lie plagiarized by someone who attacks him. Fetzer although claiming enmity with Hoffman, had no qualms about quietly appropriating Hoffman's "discovery"of the CJCSI order in question and presenting it as his own research. But Fetzer wasn't content with the hatchet job done by Hoffman. Hoffman's claim (ignoring the doublethink contradictions) suggests that while Rumsfeld might not have acted illegally in a technical sense, he was morally guilty through apparent involvement the sneaky trick of changing the regulations in June 2001 into a form where he didn't have to do anything illegal in order to effectively cripple the air force. But Fetzer is determined to get Rumsfeld off the hook entirely. It was a bungle of some sort by unnamed beauracrats who made it impossible for Rumsfeld to do his job. Here's how Fetzer plagiarizes Hoffman and then twists things a little further. First he repeats Hoffman's lie, but perhaps in an attempt to feign some kind of originality in the spin, quotes a different part of the document. [[We find that the procedure for scrambling military jets was significantly changed due to a military order issued June 1, 2001 – just three months and ten days before the hijackings on September 11, 2001. The order stated:
c. Military Escort Aircraft (1) When notified that military escort aircraft are needed in conjunction with an aircraft piracy (hijacking) emergency, the DDO, NMCC, will notify the appropriate unified command or USELEMNORAD to determine if suitable aircraft are available and forward the request to the Secretary of Defense for approval in accordance with DODD 3025.15 paragraph d D.7 (reference d). d. DOD directive 3025.15, 18 February 1997."Military assistance to civil authorities"]] Like Hoffman, Fetzer glosses over the fact that that this does not rescind the 1997 order but re-validates it.. The 2001 order states that escort aircraft procedures will be carried out in accordance with order 3025.15 which is dated February 18 1997. This order is referenced at the bottom of the document as reference d. Remember that in the section quoted by Hoffman, the June 2001 order drew attention to and reiterated the validity of the "exceptions for immediate responses, as defined by reference d "- that is, order 3025.15." The "summary of changes" in the document does not include any change to order 3025.15. So to summarize, Fetzer has pinched Hoffmans idea but chosen a different part of the document to use for the spin. But here's where he takes it a bit further. In an article from Desert Morning News about the scholars we find [[The group's charges include:...The procedure for issuing orders for scrambling was changed in June 2001, requiring that approval could only come from the Secretary of Defense, but Donald Rumsfeld was not alerted soon enough on 9/11, according to Scholars group.]] Not alerted soon enough. Let down by the bureaucracy . Perhaps the scholars were misquoted in the Desert Morning News article? No, because the scholars proudly linked to the article on their own web site as an example of their achievements in bringing "911 truth" into the media and never raised any objection that the article misrepresented them. (Look in the section titled "in the news".) So through the combined efforts of Hoffman and Fetzer, Cheney's Sept 16 2001 lie has been resuscitated and Rumsfeld is off the hook because he "wasn't alerted soon enough." Like Hoffman, the scholars also selectively plagiarize Bykov and Israel's work where convenient and fraudulently present it as their own research. Like Hoffman they present doublethink. In parts of their site they appear to make the general allegation that the air force was stood down while at the same time concocting a cover story that executive authority was required to scramble fighter jets and that the one man with the power to do so was not aware of the crisis until it was too late. FETZER LIES AGAIN TO TRY TO COVER UP HIS FIRST LIE On an email list on August 22 2006, I confronted Fetzer with this mangling of Bykov and Israel's work, noting that he had plagiarized Hoffman's lie which by that time I had already thoroughly deconstructed in my article Jim Hoffman trashes the Sept 11 Stand Down Evidence. In reply the following day, Fetzer completely ignored the issue that the CJCSI order stated the exact opposite of what he and Hoffman attributed to it, but did respond to my observations about the claim that "Rumsfeld was not alerted soon enough." Here is Fetzer's reply. [[Holmgren
is citing a REPORTER on her understanding of our position, not SCHOLARS,
which does not hold the position she attributes to us. This is a nice
example of the underhanded, sneaky and unscrupulous techniques of propaganda
and disinformation that typify this man! The procedure for issuing orders
was changed, as reported, but we Quite clearly this claim of false attribution by the press is a lie, because the scholars had proudly posted a link to the article and never complained that the article had misrepresented them. If a press report had misrepresented me as badly as Fetzer claimed that it misrepresented them, I wouldn't be posting a link to it as one of my achievements in the press,while not bothering to correct the false attribution. Fetzer's outburst above was the first time that any false attribution had been claimed - 7 months after the Desert News article appeared. The "false attribution" had been displayed on their web site by their own choice for all that time without any disclaimer. Fetzer's email continued with yet another lie. [[The policy apparently has now reverted to that before 9/11, which is all the more indication that it was revised for the event.]] Really ? There was a new CJCSI order after Sept 11 that changed things back again ? Funny how Fetzer can't or wont reference that order and never mentioned it before my challenge. He just made it up on the spot, to try get out of the difficulty that he had got himself into and to try to to distract from the central fact that the June 1 2001 order did not do what was attributed to it by Fetzer but in fact reasserted the validity of the exceptions for immediate responses contained in the 1997 order. Most likely Fetzer concocted this lie to try to counter this observation made in my article about Hoffman. [[Interception is such a routine procedure that it is inconceivable that the Secretary of Defense would have his permission sought every time a plane needed to be intercepted. It’s equivalent to suggesting that the police commissioner would be personally contacted for approval every time a police officer wanted to question a suspect Hoffman knows enough to be aware of this, as shown here from one of his articles playing the other side.
(MY ARTICLE QUOTING HOFFMAN) It is standard operating procedure (SOP) to scramble jet fighters whenever a jetliner goes off course or radio contact with it is lost. 1 Between September 2000 and June 2001, interceptors were scrambled 67 times.2 In the year 2000 jets were scrambled 129 times. (END HOFFMAN QUOTE )
And Rumsfeld has nothing better to do with his time than make himself constantly available to handle this volume of requests, which could occur at any time, most of which are in relation to trivial incidents ? Since when does the highest official in any bureaucracy be put in the position of having to personally approve every application of something which is “standard operating procedure”?
Remember that the regulatory change falsely claimed by Russell and Hoffman to make interception dependent on personal approval from Rumsfeld is still in place. This means that for the last 4 1/2 years Rumsfeld would have been flooded with these time wasting, trivial requests, turning himself into a pointless rubber stamping clerk for his field commanders. To further emphasize that point, let’s examine some extracts from the documentation linked by Hoffman in his above quote. From the link numbered 1 (MY ARTICLE QUOTING MATERIAL REFERENCED BY HOFFMAN)
"At a NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colo., a noncommissioned officer listens to conversations on the FAA network from all over the United States, said Maj. Douglas Martin, NORAD spokesman.
"If he hears anything that indicates difficulty in the skies, we begin the staff work to scramble," Martin said." (END REFERENCE QUOTE)
He doesn't say anything about needing to contact Rumsfeld. (MY ARTICLE QUOTING MATERIAL REFERENCED BY HOFFMAN)
"From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001, Martin said…" (END REFERENCE QUOTE)
And Rumsfeld had to make a personal decision on every one of them ? 46 times a month ? (MY ARTICLE QUOTING MATERIAL REFERENCED BY HOFFMAN)
"...No one has been shot out of the sky since Sept. 11, he said; for that, an order must come from President Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. " ]] So apart from demonstrating the absurdity of the idea of Rumsfeld having to make himself permanently available for this volume of requests, the press article supplied by Hoffman himself clearly states that interception is routine and that only shoot down orders require executive authority. And supposedly that situation had ended on June 1 2001. Yet more doublethink from Hoffman in using an article which specifically states the non executive nature of scrambling fighter jets while in another part of his site, claiming the opposite. Fetzer had no counter argument to my observation of what the June 2001 CJCSI order actually said as opposed to what he attributed to it. He tried to weasel out of the "Rumsfeld was not alerted soon enough comment" by lying that the Scholars had been misrepresented by the press article. He had no counter to my observations about the untenable situation that this alleged change to the scrambling situations would have caused for Rumsfeld in subsequent 4 1/2 years, and the fact that comments attributed to Martin specifically refute Fetzer's claims. So he made something up. He quite suddenly came up with the hitherto unheard of claim that the regulation had been changed back after Sept 11. Heprovided no documentation for this claim . He just made it up on the spot. He was consciously lying in order to try to cover his previous lies. On April 3 2007, I had the opportunity to confront Fetzer again on this subject. I invited him to present the case for his position. Here is the full exchange. HOLMGREN. [["Rumsfeld's personal authority was required to scramble fighter jets,Rumsfeld was not alerted soon enough, and the regulation was changed back after S11." Explain that to us, Jim ]] FETZER [[To say that I am finding this unrewarding is putting it mildly. I am glad to be having Rosalee as my guest next Tuesday and Wednesday, if she likes. Meanwhile, every exchange with Holmgren reminds me why he is so offensive.]] HOLMGREN [[Jim. You rest your case with this statement ? I can quote this as being your definitive argument for the above claims ? Or do you wish to put forward more evidence, or modify the argument in the above statement ?]] FETZER [[Is it
the case that you are a high-school graduate? that your intellectual
pretensions far outstrip your intellectual accomplishments? that you
take a perverse--even sadistic!--pleasure in attacking those whose intellectual
accomplishments vastly exceed your own? that your attacks on individuals
such as David Ray Griffin, Morgan Reynolds, and Jim Fetzer, all of whom
have real intellectual accomplishments, fits into a pattern of attempting
to compensate for a profound sense of intellectual inferiority? that
the benefits of attacking persons like these are to undermine the credibility
of HOLMGREN [[Jim. You rest your case with this statement ? I can quote this as being your definitive argument for the above claims ? Or do you wish to put forward more evidence, or modify the argument in the above statement ?]] No reply from Fetzer. Not very "scholarly" really...
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GERARD HOLMGREN'S SEPT 11 RESEARCH
AND WRITING
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