I’ve been censored many times.  When I am completely honest with myself, however, I realize that some of those instances were not actually censorship but were forms of editorial discretion.   Other instances were simply attempts by propagandists to downplay the truth. 

Examples:

Editorial Discretion:  When CommonDreams.org failed to respond to my article from 2003, it was making a decision that what I had to say was, for them, more of a nightmare than a shared dream.  CommonDreams.org had published other articles that could be seen as related to 9/11 truth, but my approach was not to the editor’s liking.  In response, I did not begin a public campaign against them but instead found many other sites to publish my articles.

Censorship:  A leading alternative news site that regularly publishes 9/11 truth stories rejected one of my articles in late 2008, despite the fact that I had published there before.  The editor responded very emotionally to the article, and suggested that it “attacked solid progressives.”  The editor’s response was itself a great demonstration of what the article conveyed — that people have built-in mechanisms which keep them from seeing truth.  In any case, I did not start a public campaign against the site and would never have thought of wasting my time and energies doing so.  That’s because my goal is to reveal and communicate the truth.

Propaganda:  When, in 2007, Wikipedia promoted highly dubious sources like “Mark Roberts” in an attempt to smear me, yet on the exact same subjects openly ignored sources like The New York Times and Underwriters Laboratories, that was not censorship, it was propaganda.  But again, I did not start a campaign against Wikipedia nor did I try to strike back at the site despite the fact that it was intentionally working to defeat the truth.

I’ve found that, in nearly all cases, when faced with editorial discretion, censorship or propaganda, people will find other venues to share their information when they are not successful at one site.  Again, that is because they seek to reveal the truth, not simply to commandeer one particular venue.  Others, however, are curiously vindictive.

A vindictive campaign against 911blogger.com has been in play for a few years now.  For those of us who have worked for the truth for many years it is not difficult to see why, because this is the leading 911 truth news site.  And those who work to defeat the truth benefit from the destruction of the leading 9/11 truth sites.  Unfortunately, a number of well meaning people have also been drawn into this charade and have spent time and energy, that would otherwise have been devoted to revealing the truth, arguing about non-issues.

Some have claimed that 911blogger practices censorship.  The truth is that the moderators at the site decided long ago that certain users were overwhelming the site with divisive arguments not supported by evidence.  These users focused on certain issues that the moderators and other users did not find useful or convincing.  After tolerating and then warning the abusive users about such behavior, the moderators decided that the viability of the site required ongoing policy decisions to be made.  Although the moderators made those policy decisions known to all, certain users continued to be abusive and found themselves banned.  Now a new set of moderators runs the site, and have become the target of regular public attacks by people making claims of “censorship.”

Ridiculous, you say?  Of course it is. 

The only thing that would be worse would be for those vindictive troublemakers to begin making absurd accusations about why their abuse is not welcome at this one particular site.  Better yet, they could co-opt supposed “journalistic” sources to make totally unsupported claims like the following.

• “[It] is now 100% confirmed that 911blogger is an enemy of the truth movement as a whole and is engaged in an open campaign of attack on good truthers.”
• “Blogger has been infiltrated by agents working for the other side”

Amazingly enough, The Rock Creek Free Press (RCFP) published these absurd and unsubstantiated allegations in its most recent issue.  Yes, this is the same RCFP that was built on articles freely donated by people like myself, including this one, and this one, and this one.  It is also the same paper whose very existence owes a great deal to publicity freely given to them by 911blogger.  Maybe that’s what the editor of RCFP thinks “Free” means.  RCFP feels free to benefit, financially and otherwise, from the work of honest 9/11 truth investigators, and feels free to use the standing it achieved through that work as a vehicle to attack the very people who have kept them in business. 

That’s not just ridiculous, it’s despicable.

Most people can readily see that the success of the truth movement has nothing to do with a single website.  There are those, however, who would have us believe such nonsense as they attempt to shut down the pursuit of truth entirely.

For the well meaning but unsuspecting folks who have been caught up in this garbage, I hope that we can return to a place of civility on the non-issue of “what hit the Pentagon.”  To do so we must realize that freedom is really about making our own choices without being attacked, maliciously framed, and taken advantage of by ungrateful users.  This includes the obvious right of website administrators and moderators to choose what information and users are harmful to their site. 

There are many questions to be answered about the events at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.    Here are a dozen such questions that, if answered, might help to bring about justice.

1. Exactly how was Flight 77 hijacked, considering, among other things, that the alleged hijackers were said to be identified as security risks (possibly linked to al Qaeda) when they tried to board, and were not physically imposing (all 5 and a half feet tall or less, and slender in build)?[1]
2. How was the nation’s air defense system disabled on 9/11, and how could anything have hit the Pentagon approximately 80 minutes after the first plane was known to be hijacked?
3. Why was Dick Cheney tracking Flight 77?[2]
4. Why were explosive experts, who had a history of covering-up the OKC bombing and have since been accused of obstructing other investigations, hired to write the FEMA report? (Mete Sozen and Paul Mlakar).[3]^,[4]
5. Why did the roof of the Pentagon collapse 30 minutes after impact, giving additional evidence for the use of explosives?   Note:  The use of explosives at the Pentagon seems to be in agreement with the use of a large plane, which would have had little penetrating power.
6. Why was AMEC, the company that had just finished refurbishing Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, hired to lead the clean-up effort at Ground Zero?[5]
7. Why did the NTSB not make public reports on any of the planes as is the normal procedure?[6]
8. Why did none of the planes squawk the hijack code?
9. Why was the official explanation for alleged phone calls made by Flight 77 passenger Barbara Olsen changed several times, and ultimately how could Ted Olsen’s story make any sense?[7]
10. Why did high-ranking Pentagon officials cancel travel plans for the morning of September 11 “…apparently because of security concerns.”?[8]
11. How could Hani Hanjour still have successfully piloted Flight 77 given his poor qualifications?[9]
12. Why are those interested in The Pentagon not intently reviewing documents released by the FAA and 9/11 Commission that reveal startling questions about the aircraft and events of that day?[10]

Why are these questions NOT being pursued by independent investigators?  That’s because the attention of many potential investigators has been hijacked by the much less useful question of “What hit the Pentagon.”  This is certainly the favorite subject of intentional disruptors and official story supporters.

A great example was when 9/11 Commission staffer Miles Kara and I exchanged messages a few months ago.  He had written to my local group in an inquiry seeking support for his positions.  My response was apparently not to his liking, and he therefore sought something in my own work that could be criticized.  Despite the fact that the vast majority of my 9/11 work has centered on the World Trade Center, Army intelligence officer Kara searched through my articles and presentations over the last seven years and chose one minor statement I made about the Pentagon, in March 2006.  He then enlarged this into his own emotional statement, suggesting that those who question what hit the Pentagon do “a disservice to the men, women and children who died there that day.  Visit the Pentagon Memorial and sit on the bench of the youngest victim.“[11] Kara was most interested in discussing what hit the Pentagon only so that he could turn the issue into an emotional question about the victims.  That is usually the case with mainstream media hit pieces, and with intentional disruptors as well.

The question of what hit the Pentagon leads directly to the question of what happened to the passengers, as Miles Kara was trying to insinuate.  That fact was also emphasized by the leading promoter of the “fly-over” theory when he gave a presentation in Europe recently.  His presentation ended with the questions he really wanted us to think about.

“Demand answers to the question of what happened to the people on the plane.”

“How did they really die?”

“Where they killed them, how they killed them, I can’t know.”

“I can only know what the witnesses tell me.”[12]

Is this a good way to encourage people to question 9/11, and to bring justice?  Obviously not.

Finally, note that “endorsements” are a good way to pit people against each other, and that’s exactly what has been done.  There has never been another issue in the truth movement that has required the pursuit of endorsements but, for some reason, this least important question about the Pentagon is promoted as an important issue requiring us to divide into camps.  Divide and conquer is the strategy of the intentional disruptor.

In other words, what hit the Pentagon does not bring us closer to justice but actually brings us farther from that goal because it exacerbates the divisions within the truth movement while we waste time.  That’s probably why the intentional disruptors and government supporters always drive the conversations to that one question.

People who are serious about 9/11 truth and justice focus on the facts that help us come not only to truth, but to a useful truth.  We should make only minimal reference to any facts that do not help us achieve truth and justice.  Instead, we should make note that what hit the Pentagon, for example, is a minor and nearly useless issue that is used by intentional disruptors and official story promoters as they work to keep the truth from being exposed.

[2] Norman Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission makes clear that Dick Cheney was tracking Flight 77 while it was more than 50 miles away from Washington DC.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y

[3] Mete Sozen has since become a leading spokesman for the official story about the WTC as well.  For more about him, see my articles “Looking for Truth in Credentials: The Peculiar WTC ‘Experts’”, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=RYA20070313&articleId=5071 and “Finally, an apology from the National Geographic Channel”, http://911blogger.com/news/2009-08-22/finally-apology-national-geographic-channel

[4] Some very seriouis accusations have been made against Paul Mlakar by Prof. Raymond B. Seed of the University of California, Berkeley, Letter entitled Re: New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, And the Soul of the Profession, October 30, 2007, http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-15/pentagon-investigation-leader-paul-mlakar-obstructed-investigation-new-orleans-according-uc-berkeley-professor

[5] Kevin R. Ryan, Demolition Access to the WTC Towers: Part Four – Cleanup, 911Review.com, February 11, 2010,  http://911review.com/articles/ryan/demolition_access_p4.html

[6] 911Research.com, NTSB Reports: Long-Hidden NTSB Reports Contain Flight Data, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/ntsb.html

[7] David Ray Griffin, Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials, GlobalResearch.ca, April 1, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8514

[8] The Family Steering Committee for an Independent 9/11 Commission, http://www.911independentcommission.org/

[9] Complete 911 Timeline, Hani Hanjour, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=haniHanjour

[10] See the FOIA responses obtained by the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington,

http://www.911workinggroup.org/

Also see the documents released by the 911 Commission,

http://archives.gov/legislative/research/9-11/commission-memoranda.html

Here’s an example:

UAL and AAL employees:  Contradictions about transponders.  ACARS data missing.  UAL had radar continuity.

http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-01098.pdf

Many of the documents are just cover pages saying the information is still “Restricted”. These include interviews of the CIA agents, Prince Bandar, and the first responders.

[11] Miles Kara, Archive for the ‘Bloomington Group’ Category, 9/11 Revisited website, http://www.oredigger61.org/?cat=25

[12] Parody video of CIT tour and presentation in which, at 02:18, the speaker tells his French audience the reasons why CIT is working so hard.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0tFvlQ2F0&feature=player_embedded

Seven years ago, when I first realized that the events of September 11th were a planned pretext for the 9/11 Wars, I wrote a few articles and submitted them to “alternative media.”   Below is one of those articles, submitted to CommonDreams.org in 2003.  A few days after submitting this article I received written confirmation from Loring Knoblauch, CEO of Underwriters Laboratories, that UL had tested and certified the fire resistance of the steel components used to build the World Trade Center towers.

Having not received an answer from CommonDreams.org  since that time, I’ll have to assume that although we might have some common dreams, we do not share agreement on how to achieve those dreams.  The 9/11 Wars continue unabated to this day, and many people now understand that a primary reason for this is that alternative media sources have failed to communicate the falsity of the official conspiracy theory which drives those wars.  To be fair to CommonDreams, however, they did publish a few early articles related to 9/11 Truth, including this one by Margie Burns on Stratesec.  My recent article on Wirt Dexter Walker follows-up on the information given in Burn’s article.

In the last two years, Americans have grown so accustomed to being lied to that we have begun to need our lies. Many of us have given up news for tabloid propaganda, reality for reality TV, and reason for easy answers. In government, conservatives have veered so far from the truth on every single issue that even they must be wondering what the words Christian and leadership actually mean. And liberals can do nothing but shout “Iraq, Iraq, we were right about Iraq!” in self-righteous rage as their own freedoms and futures are quickly peeled away bill by bill.

In truth, we all know that we simply need to steal oil in order to maintain our standard of living. That’s really why none of us is brave enough to admit that the entire “war on terrorism” was built on ridiculous, absurd lies. We know that the perceived events of September 11th were not only improbable but entirely impossible. Yet we all accept the story of magic steel, melting with a fraction of the heat stress needed, hijackers who die to steal our freedoms only to mysteriously reappear, alive and well in their own countries,and national air defenses that simply stand by for hours as we are attacked. Although witnesses talk of bombs and foreign spies, we’re told this is not the story. Our otherwise clueless President knows the story, and he responds by taking vengeance on many poor peasants who just happen to live on oil-rich land, then working hard to conceal just exactly how clueless he was. And we’re OK with all of this, as long as we just “Remember 9/11″.

Do any of us really think that it will end there? Who are the real terrorists and what will they do next to maintain this cascade of diversionary terror? There is a forensic principle that says we must first look to whoever most benefits from the crime. That could make solving the puzzle quite easy. But few of us are really asking for answers anymore, because we need our fear and the lies that support it. By the time we care to ask again, we may all be carried away in another wave of collective unconscious upheaval, responding to yet a bigger disaster and to the shady figures who claim to be protecting us from such things. But we can’t think about that now. Our energies must be spent on protecting ourselves from dark-skinned demons, or better yet in supporting some new hero who will soon vanquish our enemies so that we may live happily ever after.

How did we get here, to this place of nonsensical tragedy, and would we correct our course if we could? Maybe we like lying to ourselves too much to live in the real world. If so, we are a bigger threat to our own security than any terrorist ever could be. You can forget your worries about safety if you intentionally perceive the opposite of everything you see and hear. If peace is war, and fighting terrorism means provoking terrorism, and fiscal conservatism means exploding national debt, then anything is possible but only for a short time.

If lying does matter to us, because we’d like to live longer and in a safer world, then we’d better start acting like it. We’d better find out when the lying started, and who is behind it. And if lying doesn’t matter then our safety doesn’t matter either, so we can stop spending billions of dollars (and thousands of lives) to protect ourselves from terrorism because when we’re terrorized we’ll just make up a big ridiculous story about it anyway. That way we can go on lashing out at ourselves and others, until we’re left with nothing but our own elaborate and fragile lies.

Kevin Ryan is not a writer, but a manager for Underwriters Laboratories