Left Gatekeeper Cracks; Buzzflash Editor Buys Shootdown of Flight 93

[Brainster]

Well, Buzzflash finally goes semi-Truther:

We're not passing judgment upon whether Flight 93 should have been shot down or not. That is, indeed, a very difficult decision. But BuzzFlash was watching contemporaneous reports come in at the time, and the first wire service stories strongly indicated that it had been shot down based on witnesses in the area and the details that they provided.

It was only later that a heroic narrative emerged that included a line that became part of the standard Bush "American Spirit" of battle theme: "Let's roll."

Mark Karlin, the editor and publisher of Buzzflash, one of the largest liberal sites on the Internet, goes on to estimate the probability of a shootdown at 8 in 10.

Hilariously, he gets attacked in the comments not for endorsing this nuttery, but for not being nutty enough:

I have read Buzzflash faithfully for at least two years and contributed on several occasions to your fundraising campaigns. Alas, your cavalier and wholesale dismissal (without even the slightest attempt to justify that dismissal)of the possibility that the government could be knowingly involved in the collapse of the World Trade Center--especially Building Seven--leads me to question your intellectual objectivity. As a consequence, Mark, the next time you beg your readership for funds to keep you going, I will have to pass, though I have contributed several times in the past.

And:

The litmus test I use in contributing to a website is its stand on 9/11. buzzflash has consistently refused to face the facts on 911. It is therefore, despite its progressive leanings, part of the problem. Mike Ruppert said it best. "Don't give money to people who lie to you". You want a contribution? Tell the truth about 911. At a minimum put the work of David Ray Griffin on the site and do reprints of Mike Ruppert (who was driven into hiding) and bring in discussion about false flag operations like Operation Gladio, Operation Northwoods, and articles like the former Italian Prime Minister who categorically state that 911 was and inside job.

Kudos to Boloboffin for representing the rationalist case over there. It's a shame to see the gate at a major site like Buzzflash starting to open a crack for the nutjobs Truthers.

 

[BenBurch]

I used to believe this... I don't any more, but you know Rumsfeld said it was on more than one occasion, so I can excuse somebody for thinking that it was.

 

[Clippy]

Perhaps this is a request for foundation funding.

 

[boloboffin]

I've emailed Karlin a quick essay I wrote last night -- Eight Reasons Why Karlin's "Flight 93 Shot Down" Scale Should Be A Zero. It's at my DU Journal, which you can see here. A quick excerpt:

“But on a scale of 1 to 10, BuzzFlash would put it at an 8 likelihood that Flight 93 was indeed downed by an American missile.”

Let me help you place that likelihood down to the 0 where it belongs.

1. United 93 crashed at 10:03 am. NEADS was not notified of United 93 until Cleveland Center did so at 10:07. Cleveland was unaware of the crash and gave NEADS the last known information about the plane. NEADS looked for 93, but could not find it since it had already crashed.

Only until they called Washington Center at 10:15 did NEADS learn that United 93 had crashed. This is verifiable by the released audio records of the day.

2. At 10:10, independent of this, NEADS told the Langley fighters over Washington that they did not have clearance to shoot down potential targets. Again, this is verifiable from the released tapes.

So at this point, no shootdown order had been received by the military from Bush, Cheney, or whoever.

3. The Secret Service was being told about United 93 from about 10:02. They were getting their information from the FAA. Because 77 had turned off its transponder and because erroneous information had led to a belief that 11 was still airborne (and yet could not be found since it had crashed), the FAA had begun tracking possible hijackings on a system that took the last known information and projected the future flight.

All information being fed to the Secret Service was coming from this projected flight, and not actual radar contact with 93.

I sent this to their "Mailbag", but maybe with the attention it's getting, they will give it a contributor's spot.

 

[gumboot]

I think the easiest way to bring the scale down from an 8 to a 0 is to point out that the Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder from UA93 are both entirely consistent with the official account of UA93 and entirely inconsistent with the aircraft being shot down.

 

[boloboffin]

That is my #5.

 

[T.A.M.]

Did he actually provide any "Evidence" of the shootdown, or is his 8 out of 10 purely based on early news wire reports? If that is the case, he should be sent back to journalism school (if he attended).

TAM

 

[boloboffin]

He wrote the editorial after reading a Chicago Tribune editorial which mentioned Cheney giving the shootdown order.

As far as CT theories go, this is more the nose hair of the camel in the tent than anything else, but even though it's small and hardly takes up any room, it reveals all the characteristics of woo when you examine it. A theory about something believed to be just outside any ability to falsify. Clear signs of not dealing with all available information. Palatable to the worldview of the believer (although you can hear the strain as Karlin attempts to sympathize with Cheney's decision). No sign of dealing with the true real-world implication of the belief.

There are much more wacky beliefs out there, and this has the benefit of almost actually happening. But it did not, and there's plenty of evidence that it did not, all well outside the ability to be controlled politically. I speak primarily of the FDR data and the NORAD tapes, both procured by the CTers.

 

[BenBurch]

No doubt they would have liked to look less totally incompetent by actually getting one of them shot down. Had it proceeded to DC, most likely such an attempt would have been made.

 

[boloboffin]

No doubt they would have liked to look less totally incompetent by actually getting one of them shot down. Had it proceeded to DC, most likely such an attempt would have been made.

Actually, no. At 10:10, NEADS told the freshly arrived Langley fighters that they had negative clearance to engage. The order to engage wasn't relayed until 10:45.

Now if United 93 had continued, it would probably arrived at Washington before 10:30 (going by the callout times). It's possible that a second unresponsive target entering D.C. airspace might have triggered people to seek up and down every channel of authority they had, possibly accelerating that order through the chain of command.

That's remote, however. By the time the order to engage would have gotten to the fighters, 93 would already be over urban landscapes. As gumboot has pointed out before, taking down a large aircraft like that isn't as easy as the movies would have us believe (one shot and it blows to smithereens). The time to have caught it was over Pennsylvania's rural territories. By the time people might have started greasing the skids for that order, the reason to shoot it down would have been moot.