Robert Parry Decoupling From Reality

Julian says:

After watching the success of the Bush administration’s propaganda, some on the Left decided that their only hope was to give the neocons a taste of their own disinformation medicine.

This statement incorrectly implies that the 9/11 truth movement is primarily comprised of those with progressive views. In fact those participating vary widely in their political views. Many participating are no more pleased with Obama than Bush and believe that political partisanship should have nothing to do with a fair inquiry into the available facts.

Here Parry also offers a wild conspiracy theory of his own; that the 9/11 truth movement was started to create and push disinformation back at the neo-cons. That would be a totally inaccurate representation of the diversity of participants involved, many of whom are well educated and intelligent. It’s also just about as ridiculous as anything one might find in the murkiest swamps of this movement.

Though the 9/11 evidence pointed to Bush’s incompetence in ignoring warnings and failing to stop al-Qaeda’s terrorist operation, some American leftists felt that it wasn’t enough to convince the people that Bush was simply a bonehead. The feeling was that Bush had so bamboozled the people that they needed to be shocked out of their trances by something bigger.

It is certainly not a fact that Bush’s performance in office had anything to do with 9/11. And how would Bush “stop al-Qaeda’s terrorist operation” during his first seven months in office? The author is beginning his discussion of 9/11 truth by setting up his due level of skepticism, but doing it using wildly inaccurate statements.

Further, most people in the movement would not suggest George W. Bush was in any way personally responsible for the 9/11 attack. Taken a step further, many in the movement do not believe that we should be trying to specify who may be responsible until there is a fair investigation of what happened.

That last sentence is relatively unintelligible in its ambiguity.

So, this small group brushed aside the evidence-backed narrative of Bush’s incompetence and even a competing interpretation of that factual framework, claiming that Bush had “let 9/11 happen.” Instead, this group insisted that the only way to wake up America was to make a case that Bush “made it happen,” that he was behind the 9/11 attacks.

Parry again supports the Bush incompetence theory, demonstrating that he is out of touch with the current mainstream view on the issue. With the overall hostility of the article in mind, it’s relatively clear that Parry’s interest in convincing people of something is greater than his belief in what he is saying. He’s far too smart for all this.

The “competing interpretation” that Parry is referring to is what you would find being offered by those who make it a hobby to debunk the movement. Much of what they offer is valid. Not enough to make the 9/11 truth movement remotely irrelevant.

To accomplish this feat, these activists, who became known as “9/11 truthers,” threw out all the evidence of al-Qaeda’s involvement, from contemporaneous calls from hijack victims on the planes to confessions from al-Qaeda leaders both in and out of captivity that they indeed had done it. The “truthers” then cherry-picked a few supposed “anomalies” to build an “inside-job” story line.

Here’s where the story devolves quite a bit from the low standard it has already set. It’s not factual to state that the movement has thrown out any compelling evidence. It is not factual to state that most movement participants deny the participation of al-Qaeda.

And the last sentence is highly indicative of the lack of journalistic integrity of this article. He’s essentially telling you what to think. No references. No indication that he’s really examined the issue. The implication is that we are all hopeless nerds addicted to our confirmation bias. However, even a basic review of movement sources indicates that to be false.

The “truthers” even recycled many of the Right’s sophistry techniques, such as using long lists of supposed evidence to overcome the lack of any real evidence. These sleight-of-hand techniques obscured the glaring fact that not a single witness has emerged to describe the alleged “inside job,” either the supposed “controlled demolition” of the Twin Towers or the alleged “missile” attack on the Pentagon.

Here again, Parry is acting like he’s payed any attention at all to our “supposed evidence,” when there is no indication that might be true. The movement is most basically motivated to reconcile contradictory sets of official documents. The ‘missile attack’ is non-sense repeatedly used to smear the movement. And asking where the witnesses are is also a typical way to appeal to a basic sense of reason that holds up best when not exposed to a wide array of related facts. Many in the movement do not claim a smoking gun.

Some supporters of the “inside-job” theory may have simply been destabilized by all the years of right-wing disinformation. Reality and real evidence may have lost all currency, replaced by a deep and understandable distrust of the nation’s leaders and the news media.

Other “truthers” whom I’ve talked with view their anti-Bush propaganda campaign as a success because it injected some doubts among the American people about Bush. One told me that this was the only attack line against Bush that had gained any “traction.”

Here the author is suggesting that movement participants are crazy. And once again the author implies that the movement thinks Bush did 9/11 which is simply absurd.

Bottom line: Every paragraph is ripe with bias and fallacy. The end result reads very strongly as a blatant hit piece that undermines the author’s logical and journalistic credibility.

Victoria says:

>> I respected you up until this day.

Thanks Jon. Someone needed to say that to him. You wonder what’s going on when people like him write up these hit-pieces.

To some extent, I think as the pressure increases — the economy taking away support for grassroots efforts, nothing changing or getting worse even after Bush, the TeaParty rising in power — people start seeking a place to put blame and the MSM has set up the “Truthers” as a prime target. What else can best explain the failures of both the Left and the Right??? It’s amazing to see both sides trying to use the movement as a scapegoat for everything that’s wrong these days, and pathetic to think the MSM and Bush Admin created the strawman for them to hit and crafted their arguments completely, which they pick up to throw without so much as a glance at what’s in their hand.