Producer Struggles to Defend Flaws & Bias of BBC Hit Piece

The producer of the BBC Conspiracy Files documentary, a poorly researched and bias hit piece against the 9/11 truth movement, appeared on the Alex Jones Show yesterday and struggled to defend charges that the program was laden with glaring flaws and crass emotional manipulation throughout.

Smith began by claiming that he conducted the investigation in an "objective and balanced way" and yet there were as many as thirteen individuals representing the official story or a whitewash version of it versus just three individuals representing 9/11 skepticism. How can a more than four to one ratio be judged as balanced? In addition, the debunkers were allowed to talk at length while the skeptics were tightly edited and had extremely little on screen time.

Smith is completely dishonest in claiming the evidence alone led the nature of the documentary because the way in which it is filmed and edited clearly betrays an overwhelming bias and a zeal to discredit the skeptics by means of editorial deceit and cinematic manipulation of the audience.

Smith was forced to state "no I'm not denying that" when he was questioned on the imbalance of having four times the amount of debunkers compared to skeptics.

Dylan Avery's first question for Guy Smith was to ask, "How can I drop out of something I never attended." In the hit piece, the narrator calls Avery a "self-confessed dropout," a clear smear attempt to undermine his trustworthiness, when in reality Avery never even attended college.

Smith bizarrely tried to wriggle out of this basic factual error by claiming that in England the term "dropout" doesn't mean to drop out of college or University, but merely to go a different route. Being British, I immediately confirmed that dropout, in the overwhelming majority of its usage and certainly in this context, means to have attended University or school and dropped out. It means the same thing in England that it does in America and a simple search of the BBC News website shows that the term 'dropout' is almost always used in this context . In claiming otherwise, Smith is dishonestly trying to hide from the fact that the term was deliberately used to undermine and smear Avery in the documentary.

Trying to change the meaning of words in the context they are used is a crass attempt to deflect accusations of bias and Smith needs to take a long and serious look at himself in the mirror.

When asked about the deliberate implosion of the twin towers, Smith responded, "We looked into that and we came to the conclusion that the evidence just doesn't support the conspiracy theory."

Unfortunately for Mr. Smith, the evidence the BBC was using to illustrate its ridiculous "pancake theory" collapse scenario, which was so implausible that even official NIST investigators had to back away from it , was a graphic animation that shows just ten floors collapsing every six seconds, meaning the BBC is telling us that the twin towers took around 66 seconds to collapse when in reality they fell in just fourteen.


Above is an excellent debunking of this animation and below you can see how the BBC used it to support their flawed case.


When challenged on this flaw, all Mr. Smith could say was "it's not misleading," despite the fact that anyone with two brain cells to rub together can look at it and see that it is. Guy Smith will probably recoil in embarrassment at the You Tube explanation above when he realizes he has used a completely flawed animation as the central supporting evidence for his advocacy of the official conspiracy theory that two modern 110 story steel buildings were demolished into small pieces and dust in under sixteen seconds without the use of incendiary devices.

When challenged why Smith failed to include the words of just one of the dozens and dozens of first responders, police and firefighters who heard and saw explosions, and namely Craig Bartmer, the former NYPD official who heard bombs tear down Building 7 as he ran away from it, Smith at first claimed ignorance to who Bartmer was, even though he had met and interviewed him at Dylan Avery's home.

Smith says that he tried to "go back to primary sources, to eyewitnesses" when in reality the show gave 10 minutes to a Hollywood sci-fi producer of a show that went off the air five years ago, and there was no coverage whatsoever of the primary eyewitnesses who reported bombs and explosions, just one selective clip of a fireman talking about damage to Building 7's sprinkler system.

When challenged with why he didn't even mention firefighters who reported bombs, never mind use any of the literally dozens of video clips and audio segments from the official NYFD tapes, Smith had no answer and began talking about people who had complained that he gave too much air time to "conspiracy theorists," implying that a ratio of four to one in favor of the debunkers was not enough.

Smith began to sound like a broken record at this point, repeating the line 'we could debate this all day' and variations of it without ever actually being able to debate or defend the numerous flaws and bias throughout his hit piece.

The producer had the gall to claim he had looked at the evidence in an "objective and dispassionate " way when the documentary was laden from beginning to middle to end with emotional manipulation about how asking questions about 9/11 was insulting and hurtful to the victims, a ludicrous and cynical attempt to discredit the 9/11 truth movement. In reality, Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the attack, and represents the largest group of 9/11 victim's family members , says that over half of his members are asking the same questions, not to mention the Jersey Girls and numerous polls of New Yorkers that consistently show the majority believe there is a government cover-up surrounding 9/11.

When challenged on the notion that Smith had already come to a conclusion before filming for the show had even finished and therefore betraying an implicit bias, in addition to Alex Jones' claim that Smith laughed off 9/11 "conspiracy theories" in a restaurant meeting months before the show was aired, Smith stuttered before claiming he went into the project with an "open mind."

I would suggest Mr. Smith's blatant and offensive bias in producing this sham documentary comes as a result of his zeal to maintain his perch in the media establishment peanut gallery and on the BBC gravy train. Maybe it's Mr. Smith's fear that because of journalistic cowardice in tackling the weapons of mass destruction farce, he realizes his role in the media is under threat – because people don't trust the mainstream any more and are increasingly turning to the alternative press in search of truth.

The Conspiracy Files charade will ultimately only fan the flames of 9/11 truth even more, being that its flawed evidence, inherent bias and manipulative smear tactics will be obvious to those who still maintain the ability to think for themselves.

Potential WTC7 Manslaughter Charges?

Potential WTC7 Manslaughter Charges?

9/11 Blogger
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

I previously wrote about the apparent death of Craig Miller from the demolition of WTC 7. Because the link for the information no longer works, and so the info cannot be verified, I dug a little deeper to try to confirm or refute the story.

As reported by What Really Happened, a rescue worker said:

"...I'm on top of building 7 just pulling out rubbish. Pulled out a Port Authority cop at about 11 o'clock in the morning..."

Craig Miller was technically not a Port Authority police officer, but a Secret Service Officer. Therefore, either the rescue worker erroneously believed that Officer Miller was a Port Authority officer, or two people were killed by the demolition of WTC7.

Additionally, U.S. Congressman Otter believed that Officer Miller died when WTC7 collapsed:

"Building 7 of the World Trade Center housed a number of Federal Government offices, including the IRS, the EEOC, the Defense Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the New York field office of the United States Secret Service. The field office was destroyed on September 11 and, tragically, Master Special Officer Craig Miller lost his life when the building collapsed."

So several people -- an eyewitness rescue worker and a Congressman -- believed that someone died because of the demolition of WTC7 or rescue efforts in the debris. This, by itself, is not definitive proof.

This is a crucial issue because WTC7 was the most obvious demolition of all three of the buildings that were brought down on 9/11. If it can be confirmed that Officer Miller or a Port Authority officer died during the demolition of WTC7 or in subsequent rescue efforts in the rubble, then there might be a strong case of manslaughter against those who carried out the demolition.

Further research should be done on this issue to nail it down one way or the other.

Bob Bowman - discussing activism

Col. Bowman has sent out this message;

Dear friends in 9/11 Truth,

A word of caution. A few days ago here in Melbourne, FL, we had an event
for Amy Goodman with about a thousand people in attendance. During her
speech, a young man disrupted the proceedings, by trying to get Amy to say
9/11 was an inside job. He even used a bullhorn. Amy was cooperative,
and promised to answer his questions if he would sit down. Everyone
around him struggled with him, and he eventually left the hall. The
whole thing was counterproductive. It embarrassed those of us who are
demanding a new investigation, and it made all us 9/11 Truthers look like
the kooks we are accused of being. We don't change minds that
way. I am quietly trying to get folks like Amy to start demanding a new
independent investigation ... without prejudging the result. The same
for Dennis Kucinich. This guy is one of our best friends in Congress.
We don't need to embarrass him and ourselves. Indeed, ask our
questions, but in a respectful way. If we do it right, we can win Dennis
to our side. If we do it wrong, we will just alienate him, and the
audience as well.

Here's an example. The young man in Melbourne yelled at Amy,
"You know 9/11 was an inside job. Why won't you say it? Say
it now! '9/11 was an inside job!'" Then he just kept
yelling the same thing. This convinces no one of anything except that
we're a bunch of rude, obnoxious, nuts. Instead, he could have
waited for a Q&A and asked something like, "Kean and Hamilton say
they were lied to by NORAD about 9/11. The government's story
doesn't add up. Will you support a new, independent investigation
of 9/11 so the American people can learn the truth?" or
"There is a mountain of evidence that World Trade Center 7 was
'pulled' in a classic demolition, and it wasn't even hit by
an airplane. Will you support a new, independent investigation to find
out what really happened on 9/11?" Such questions get a bit of
evidence out there to people who may not have heard it, and they do it
without alienating anyone. Another approach is, "We don't know
the truth about how 9/11 happened, but we DO know that evidence was
confiscated and destroyed, investigators were lied to, and the 9/11 Report
doctored. If you don't want a new 9/11 investigation, will you at
least support an investigation of the cover-up?"

Nixon wasn't ousted because of the Watergate burglary, but because of
the cover-up. Martha Stewart didn't go to jail for insider trading,
but for lying about it. Clinton wasn't impeached for getting a blow
job, but for stretching the truth about it. Libby isn't on trial for
revealing Valerie Plame's identity, but for not telling the truth
about when he learned of it. The easiest path to impeachment may be to
attack the cover-up. We may not be able to prove whether the government
is covering up guilt or incompetence, but we can darn sure prove there HAS
been a cover-up. And I think people like Dennis Kucinich will support
us. And I'll bet that as we investigate the cover-up, we will find
out just what they were covering up, and the whole mess comes out in the
open.

Please, my friends, the purpose of our activities is to win hearts and
minds and actually prevail. It's not just to make us feel good.
If we want accountability, we must first gain credibility. Let's
conduct our actions with that in mind. And let's not alienate
potential allies. We need all we can get. Thanks!

Bob Bowman

Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Veterans for 9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 Truth,

President, "The Patriots"



I for one don't agree with Dr Bowman. Amy Goodman is as bought and paid for as Ralph Nader. If he wasn't yelling obscenities at her I don't see a problem with the person using his first amendment.Everyone knows she has dodged the issue while taking corporate money. For Dr bowman,who i respect to to have an event with amy goodman and be involved in the 9-11 truth movement and not expect someone to call her out is absurd. We need more folks calling out these left gatekeeping shills and I think dr bowman may have made an error in judgement mixing together his crouds of association.

Lets discuss it.

An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11

The official story of what happened on 9/11 never fails to shock. Four American airliners are hijacked by Osama Bin Laden's terrorists in an attack on the heart of the Western world on September 11, 2001.

Two are deliberately flown into New York's famous Twin Towers, which collapse. A third rams into the United States defence headquarters at the Pentagon, in Washington D.C.

The last goes down in rural Pennsylvania, 150 miles north of the capital, after a tussle between the hijackers and some of the passengers onboard, whose bravery was recently portrayed in a Hollywood film, United 93.

Nearly 3,000 ordinary, decent Americans die in the attacks, provoking the U.S. President George W. Bush to mount a global war on terror, which leads to the invasion of Iraq, with Britain in tow.

Or that's how the official story goes.

Yet today, more than five years on, this accepted version of what happened on 9/11 is being challenged by a 90-minute internet movie made for £1,500 on a cheap laptop by three young American men. The film is so popular that up to 100 million viewers have watched what is being dubbed the first internet blockbuster.

The movie was shown on television to 50 million people in 12 countries on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 last autumn. More than 100,000 DVDs have been sold and another 50,000 have been given away. In Britain, 491,000 people have clicked on to Google Video to watch it on their computers.

Called Loose Change, the film is a blitz of statistics, photographs pinched from the web, eyewitness accounts and expert testimony, all set to hip-hop music. And it is dramatically changing the way people think about 9/11.

A recent poll by the respected New York Times revealed that three out of four Americans now suspect the U.S. government of not telling the truth about 9/11. This proportion has shot up from a year ago, when half the population said they did not believe the official story of an Al Qaeda attack.

The video claims the Bush administration was, at the very least, criminally negligent in allowing the terrorist attacks to take place. It also makes the startling claim that the U.S. government might have been directly responsible for 9/11 and is now orchestrating a cover-up.

Unsurprisingly, the film's allegations have been denied, even roundly condemned, by White House sources and U.S. intelligence services.

Only this week, the letters page of the Guardian newspaper was full of discourse about Loose Change, which was made by a trio of twentysomethings, including a failed film school student and a disillusioned ex-soldier.

Indeed, the movie's assertions are being explored by a number of commentators in America and Britain - including the former Labour Cabinet Minister Michael Meacher - who are questioning the official account of 9/11.

Mr Meacher, who last year proposed holding a screening of Loose Change at the House of Commons (he later changed his mind), has said of 9/11: "Never in modern history has an event of such cataclysmic significance been shrouded in such mystery. Some of the key facts remain unexplained on any plausible basis."

These words were written in a foreword for Professor David Ray Griffin's bestselling book, The New Pearl Harbour (a pointed reference to the conspiracy theory that President Roosevelt allowed the Japanese to assault the U.S. fleet in 1941, in order to force America into World War II).

Griffin, now nearing retirement, is emeritus professor at the Claremont School of Theology in California and a respected philosopher. While Loose Change is capturing the interest of internet devotees, Professor Griffin's equally contentious theories are receiving standing ovations in book clubs across the U.S.

Together, the book and the movie have raised the question: could the attack be a carbon copy of Operation Northwoods, an aborted plan by President Kennedy to stage terror attacks in America and blame them on Communist Cuba as a pretext for a U.S. invasion to overthrow Fidel Castro?

In other words, on a fateful September morning in 2001, did America fabricate an outrage against civilians to fool the world and provide a pretext for war on Al Qaeda and Iraq?

This, and other deeply disturbing questions, are now being furiously debated on both sides of the Atlantic.

Why were no military aircraft scrambled in time to head off the attacks? Was the collapse of the Twin Towers caused by a careful use of explosives? How could a rookie pilot - as one of the terrorists was - fly a Boeing 757 aircraft so precisely into the Pentagon? And who made millions of dollars by accurately betting that shares in United and American Airlines, owners of the four doomed aircraft, were going to fall on 9/11 as they duly did?

An extremely high volume of bets on the price of shares dropping were placed on these two airline companies, and only these two. In the three days prior to the catastrophe, trade in their shares went up 1,200 per cent.

Initially, like most people in America, Professor Griffin dismissed claims the attacks could have been an inside job.

It was only a year later, when he was writing a special chapter on American imperialism and 9/11 for his latest academic tome, that the professor was sent a 'timeline' on the day's events based entirely on newspaper and television accounts. It was then that he changed his mind.

And one of the most puzzling anomalies that he studied was that none of the hijacked planes was intercepted by fighter jets, even though there was plenty of time to do so and it would have been standard emergency procedure in response to a suspected terrorist attack.

Indeed, it is mandatory procedure in the U.S. if there is any suspicion of an air hijack. In the nine months before 9/11, the procedure had been implemented 67 times in America.

Readers of The New Pearl Harbour and viewers of Loose Change are reminded that it was 7.59am when American Airlines Flight 11 left Boston. Fifteen minutes later, at 8.14am, radio contact between the pilot and air traffic control stopped suddenly, providing the first indication that the plane might have been hijacked.

Flight 11 should have been immediately intercepted by fighter pilots sent up from the nearby McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. They could have made the journey to the World Trade Centre in three minutes.

But, surprisingly, F-15 fighter jets were instead ordered out of an airbase 180 miles away at Cape Cod. They appear to have flown so slowly - at 700mph, instead of their top speed of 1,850mph - that they did not arrive in time to stop the second attack, on the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. They were 11 minutes too late.

And this is not the only worrying question. Incredibly, the attack on the Pentagon was not prevented either. The defence headquarters was hit by the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 at 9.38am. But fighter jets from Andrews Air Force Base, just ten miles from Washington, weren't scrambled to intercept it.

Instead, jets were ordered from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, 100 miles away. By the time they arrived, Flight 77 had already hit the Pentagon.

So what of the fall of the Twin Towers?

The official version is that the buildings collapsed because their steel columns were melted by the heat from the fuel fires of the two crashed planes.

It is a mantra that has been repeated in White House briefings, official inquiries into 9/11, leaks by the American intelligence services and almost every TV documentary on the attack in the U.S. and Britain.

But, according to the allegations of Loose Change (which are endorsed by Professor Griffin), the science does not stand up. Steel does not begin to melt until it reaches around 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, but open fires of jet fuel - such as those in the Twin Towers inferno - cannot rise above 1,700 degrees.

Professor Griffin and the makers of Loose Change are convinced the Twin Towers were deliberately blown up.

The film shows clip after clip of the towers coming down in one fell swoop to loud and distinct booms. Were they the sound of detonators being set off?

And the Pentagon attack? The hotly disputed theory of the film and Professor Griffin is that a passenger plane never hit the building at all.

The terrorist pilot, Hani Hanjour, was so slow to learn the fundamentals at flight school that his tutors reported him to the authorities for his incompetence five times.

How could he have guided the huge aircraft in such a complex manoeuvre into the building? And if he did, what happened to the aircraft?

The Loose Change narrator says: "The official explanation is that the intense heat from the jet fuel vapourised the entire plane. Indeed, from the pictures, it seems there was no discernible trace of a fully loaded Boeing 757 at the crash scene.

"But if the fire was hot enough to incinerate a jumbo jet, then how could investigators identify 184 out of 189 dead people found at the defence headquarters?"

Intriguingly, the narrator adds: "The only visible damage to the outer wall of the Pentagon is a single hole no more than 16ft in diameter. But a Boeing 757 is 155ft long, 44ft high, has a 124ft wingspan and weighs almost 100 tons.

"Are we supposed to believe that it disappeared into this hole without leaving any wreckage on the outside? Why is there no damage from the wings or the vertical stabiliser or the engines which would have slammed into the building?

"Remember how big the engines were," the film adds persuasively.

"If six tons of steel and titanium banged into the Pentagon at 530mph, they would bury themselves inside the building, leaving two very distinct imprints. And yet the only damage to the outer wall is this single hole."

And what of the Boeing's 40ft high tail? "Did it obligingly duck before entering the building?" asks Professor Griffin.

So if a commercial aircraft did not hit the building, what did? The wildest of all the theories in Professor Griffin's writings - echoed in Loose Change - is that the Pentagon was attacked by a military missile of some kind. Certainly, several onlookers quoted in the film claim that they saw a tiny aircraft piercing the defence HQ.

Another witness says it made a shrill noise, quite unlike a giant passenger plane.

So if it wasn't hijacked and flown by a terrorist into the Pentagon, what happened to Flight 77, last heard of on its way to Ohio?

No one knows. But one thing is sure, asserts Professor Griffin. Dick Cheney, the U.S. vice- President, and Condoleezza Rice, at the time President Bush's national security adviser, were in the White House bunker as the drama unfolded.

They, and their advisers, knew a hijacked aircraft was heading towards Washington. The obvious target was the White House, not the Pentagon. Yet Cheney and Rice were never evacuated from the White House. Did someone in high places already know that they were safe and that it was the Pentagon that was going to be the target?

Of course, no account of 9/11 by the conspiracy lobby is complete without a minute-by-minute observation of President Bush's behaviour.

He was hundreds of miles away in Florida, about to read a book to primary school children when the worst terrorist attack of the modern age happened.

The President reportedly showed little reaction when an aide told him that the first plane had crashed into the Twin Towers. Why not?

He, apparently, told the school's principal: "A commercial plane has hit the World Trade Centre, but we're going ahead with the reading thing anyway."

Then President Bush, who is also the commander-in-chief of the American military, settled down to recite My Pet Goat to a group of seven-year-olds.

He was interrupted a few minutes later by a whispered message in his ear from an aide that a second aircraft had hit the Twin Towers.

The President's face, captured by photographers at the school, remained completely passive. He showed no sign of emotion.

Now it must have been obvious a terrorist maelstrom was being unleashed on his country. But three days later, back in the American capital, he was a different man. By now he was certain that Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda henchmen were to blame.

Surrounded by the Christian evangelist preacher Billy Graham, a cardinal, a rabbi and an imam, the President delivered a sermon in America's national cathedral in Washington.

The words he uttered are recounted by both Professor Griffin and the makers of Loose Change.

President Bush announced: "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks waged against us by stealth, deceit and murder and rid the world of evil."

The scene had been swiftly set for the West's war on terror.