The art of disinformation.

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Steven, I agree with your conjecture that there are deliberate agents spreading false thoeries in order to prevent an concensus alternative theory from forming that has enough adherents to challenge the Governments theory in a pubic forum. Oh, then there is the problem of a public forum. There are none, anymore, unless you are the government or one of its press minions.

Of course this does not exclude the reality that there are also just a lot of free lance idiots!

In my opinion, one of the number one tasks of the agents was to get the 9/11 sceptics bogged down in arguments about the physical evidence. Why? This would require mediation by experts. The dimplomatic evidence was stronger, and didn't require the need of experts.

The agents have certainly succeeded on this front.

1) Do you have any evidence that any (let alone a significant number) of the people who disagree with your position are "deliberate agents"? Or is this merely a baseless presumption?

2) Actually truthers, including computer programmers, theologians, philosophy professors, librarians etc, of their own accord started pushing technical arguments talking of “energy deficits”, “pyroclastic flows”, “faster than free fall collapses”, “the path of least resistance”, “fire ratings”, “seismic evidence” etc etc. The problem no one qualified in the respective fields backs their conclusions. I guess the forces of darkness are able to control every qualified expert in the world but are somehow unable to do the same with others.

3) What did you mean by “dimplomatic evidence” (sic)? Even “diplomatic evidence” doesn’t make sense.

Len: thanks for the spell check; am (gradually) trying to become more carefull. As to the substance of your other remarks....ummmmmm once again you have put the sophist back in sophisticated.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

As to the physical evidence of 911, it appears to me that what the Government, and its various agencies claimed happened is exactly what happened. This of course does not preclude a guiding hand, other than OBL,or even a see no evil hear no evil speak no evil approach, this however has yet to be proven. if disinformationists exist(they do) their prime task is to lead researchers down rabbit holes, and secondly to tarnish said researchers reputation by mere association with some of the wilder claims made about events such as 911.

The agenda of tabloid journalism isn't to disinform, but to pacify, or on occasions enrage the General public. For hard disinformation within the media, we need to be looking much further up the food chain.

[Guest David Guyatt]

Steve Turner wrote:

Quote

As I indicated in my opening post, I have no idea if Government agencies are using such tactics on the internet, but given the historical examples I used its not much of a stretch to conclude that the likelyhood exists.

Unquote

Steve, the government certainly do so use the internet. There was a Pentagon study conducted early mid Ninties that looked into this. I do have that study but God knows where. I've peeked in a few dustry corners but can't locate it. It was published on the internet.

I believe good search terms for googling would be Infowar, I-war, C4I and Cyberwar. This Pentagon paper, so far as my memory can be relied upon (which ain't that much!) went into considerable detail about using cyberspace for "information warfare" -- which is newspeak for propaganda and disnformation, obviously.

David

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

As to the physical evidence of 911, it appears to me that what the Government, and its various agencies claimed happened is exactly what happened. This of course does not preclude a guiding hand, other than OBL,or even a see no evil hear no evil speak no evil approach, this however has yet to be proven. if disinformationists exist(they do) their prime task is to lead researchers down rabbit holes, and secondly to tarnish said researchers reputation by mere association with some of the wilder claims made about events such as 911.

The agenda of tabloid journalism isn't to disinform, but to pacify, or on occasions enrage the General public. For hard disinformation within the media, we need to be looking much further up the food chain.

-----------------------

Steve Im not sure I agree with you when you say the tabloids mission is not to misinform. Sure they do a lot of meaningless jello-news but there is a lot of disinformation also. For example Liz Smith the NY Post Gossip columnist, has been a leading pusher of anti-Kennedy unsubstantiated drivel, that smears the Kennedys in murder plots, not just sex-sleaze. For that matter, what about the tabloidish Walter Winchell? He was major McCarthyite, China-lobby red baiter that could smear millions into silence. The New York Post articles are full of disinformation.

I remember about three days before the Iraq invasion, there was a COMPLETELY UNSOURCED story on page 3 of the Post saying Scott Ritter was suspected of kiddie porn. Not a single source. Not a single follow up article. Just raw smeeering of a guy who was arguably the single most dangerous media talking head (until he was removed from TV in 2001) in the US.

Perhaps you have a different sense of the word disinformation? I agree that there are a lot of different types of disinformation, and they get more subtle as you move up the food chain, although in the case of NYT, not much more subtle these days.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

As to the physical evidence of 911, it appears to me that what the Government, and its various agencies claimed happened is exactly what happened. This of course does not preclude a guiding hand, other than OBL,or even a see no evil hear no evil speak no evil approach, this however has yet to be proven. if disinformationists exist(they do) their prime task is to lead researchers down rabbit holes, and secondly to tarnish said researchers reputation by mere association with some of the wilder claims made about events such as 911.

The agenda of tabloid journalism isn't to disinform, but to pacify, or on occasions enrage the General public. For hard disinformation within the media, we need to be looking much further up the food chain.

-----------------------

Steve Im not sure I agree with you when you say the tabloids mission is not to misinform. Sure they do a lot of meaningless jello-news but there is a lot of disinformation also. For example Liz Smith the NY Post Gossip columnist, has been a leading pusher of anti-Kennedy unsubstantiated drivel, that smears the Kennedys in murder plots, not just sex-sleaze. For that matter, what about the tabloidish Walter Winchell? He was major McCarthyite, China-lobby red baiter that could smear millions into silence. The New York Post articles are full of disinformation.

I remember about three days before the Iraq invasion, there was a COMPLETELY UNSOURCED story on page 3 of the Post saying Scott Ritter was suspected of kiddie porn. Not a single source. Not a single follow up article. Just raw smeeering of a guy who was arguably the single most dangerous media talking head (until he was removed from TV in 2001) in the US.

Perhaps you have a different sense of the word disinformation? I agree that there are a lot of different types of disinformation, and they get more subtle as you move up the food chain, although in the case of NYT, not much more subtle these days.

Hi Nat, yes, I didn't word that very well did I? The tabs in this Country(Britain) are a kind of hard news free zone, stuffed as they are with celebrity gossip, sport, Royal drama, soft porn (at the same time as railing against teenage sex) and adds for cell phones, cheap holidays and debt councilling. in this they act as more of a distracting agent than a disinformationist tool.

But you are right to point out that these particular dogs do have their day. the Sun "newspaper" was very influencial in helping Blair to sell that WMD lie to sections of the British public, and acted as Saber rattler in chief over the Falklands war.

My badly made point was that the subtler, "harder" more intellectual forms of disinformation lay in the upmarket hangouts. The BBC, and broadsheet journals come most readily to mind.

[Len Colby]

Steven, I agree with your conjecture that there are deliberate agents spreading false thoeries in order to prevent an concensus alternative theory from forming that has enough adherents to challenge the Governments theory in a pubic forum. Oh, then there is the problem of a public forum. There are none, anymore, unless you are the government or one of its press minions.

Of course this does not exclude the reality that there are also just a lot of free lance idiots!

In my opinion, one of the number one tasks of the agents was to get the 9/11 sceptics bogged down in arguments about the physical evidence. Why? This would require mediation by experts. The dimplomatic evidence was stronger, and didn't require the need of experts.

The agents have certainly succeeded on this front.

1) Do you have any evidence that any (let alone a significant number) of the people who disagree with your position are "deliberate agents"? Or is this merely a baseless presumption?

2) Actually truthers, including computer programmers, theologians, philosophy professors, librarians etc, of their own accord started pushing technical arguments talking of “energy deficits”, “pyroclastic flows”, “faster than free fall collapses”, “the path of least resistance”, “fire ratings”, “seismic evidence” etc etc. The problem no one qualified in the respective fields backs their conclusions. I guess the forces of darkness are able to control every qualified expert in the world but are somehow unable to do the same with others.

3) What did you mean by “dimplomatic evidence” (sic)? Even “diplomatic evidence” doesn’t make sense.

Len: thanks for the spell check; am (gradually) trying to become more carefull. As to the substance of your other remarks....ummmmmm once again you have put the sophist back in sophisticated.

I see when you don`t have good answer you resort to ad homs. So those who disagree with you are not only "deliberate agents" but are "sophists" as well?

Still don`t have the slightest idea what you meant by "diplomatic evidence"

[Nathaniel Heidenheimer]

Len --if Im Mr. Kettle your Mr. Pot. re: Ad Homs. Check my track record.

admittedly I used the words diplomatic evidence a bit broadly.

What I meant by that is

A) records of US contacts and communications with foreign intelligence agencies and diplomatic offices.

b History of previous warnings by US intelligence agencies and actions that corresponded to these warnings

C) records of communications between US intelligence agencies and branches of gov.

As you know there was a lot very disturbing and suggestive evidence presented in the mainstream US and foreign press concerning 9/11 from roughly the period 9/12/2001 until roughly November 2002. Then it was dropped down the memory hole, while americans were told to click on Popular Mechanics like a rat pushing for a food particle.

Among these facts this one stands out: of the 1,734 (please check me on that number, but Im almost postive this is correct) FISA requests made by the FBI between the last modification of the FISA process in late 1995 and 9-11-01, only 1 was turned down: the Minneapolis laptop. This combined with hundreds of other facts, presened in context with similar occurances over a broad range of time, seemed to me a far more convincing means of arguing the need for a real investigation, than debating about the melting points of various metals without a physicist beside you on the sidewalk.

It deserved an investigation and there never was one. Surely you don't call the Official 9-11 Conspiracy theory a true investigation!!!!!!!

If I seemed snide, I apologize, but it was only because I perceive so many of your comment to be snide. Imagine that.

Besides, I can't spell well enough to be snide.

By the way, I never credited you with being a deliberate agent.

[David G. Healy]

Len --if Im Mr. Kettle your Mr. Pot. re: Ad Homs. Check my track record.

admittedly I used the words diplomatic evidence a bit broadly.

What I meant by that is

A) records of US contacts and communications with foreign intelligence agencies and diplomatic offices.

b History of previous warnings by US intelligence agencies and actions that corresponded to these warnings

C) records of communications between US intelligence agencies and branches of gov.

As you know there was a lot very disturbing and suggestive evidence presented in the mainstream US and foreign press concerning 9/11 from roughly the period 9/12/2001 until roughly November 2002. Then it was dropped down the memory hole, while americans were told to click on Popular Mechanics like a rat pushing for a food particle.

Among these facts this one stands out: of the 1,734 (please check me on that number, but Im almost postive this is correct) FISA requests made by the FBI between the last modification of the FISA process in late 1995 and 9-11-01, only 1 was turned down: the Minneapolis laptop. This combined with hundreds of other facts, presened in context with similar occurances over a broad range of time, seemed to me a far more convincing means of arguing the need for a real investigation, than debating about the melting points of various metals without a physicist beside you on the sidewalk.

It deserved an investigation and there never was one. Surely you don't call the Official 9-11 Conspiracy theory a true investigation!!!!!!!

If I seemed snide, I apologize, but it was only because I perceive so many of your comment to be snide. Imagine that.

Besides, I can't spell well enough to be snide.

By the way, I never credited you with being a deliberate agent.

even Roland Zavada had to remind ole Len who was in-charge, he wasn't snide either (inside joke)....

[Len Colby]

Len --if Im Mr. Kettle your Mr. Pot. re: Ad Homs. Check my track record.

Except when referring to neo-Nazi/Holocaust denier types when I have I resorted to Ad Homs?

admittedly I used the words diplomatic evidence a bit broadly.

What I meant by that is

A) records of US contacts and communications with foreign intelligence agencies and diplomatic offices.

b History of previous warnings by US intelligence agencies and actions that corresponded to these warnings

C) records of communications between US intelligence agencies and branches of gov.

None of this substantiates your fantasies, Google “actionable intelligence”, also blunders happen. Just ask the French, in preparation for a probable future war with Germany they built the Maginot Line along their border with Germany. So Hitler went through the Low Countries just like the Germans did a few decades earlier in WWI. Or ask the Russians, Stalin ignored numerous warning signs that Hitler would invade in 1940 (even IIRC having people who told him this executed). Or ask the Germans Hitler was fooled by the Allies and refused to believe warnings they would invade Normandy. Or ask the Israelis who missed signs of impending attack in 1973

As you know there was a lot very disturbing and suggestive evidence presented in the mainstream US and foreign press concerning 9/11 from roughly the period 9/12/2001 until roughly November 2002. Then it was dropped down the memory hole, while americans were told to click on Popular Mechanics like a rat pushing for a food particle.

The news media is not the history media they reported on this when the news broke, I believe some of those stories are still online others were taken down because the sites they were on only keeps stuff online for a set amount of time. Doesn’t the fact that these stories were widely reported (as even you knowledge) contradict your contention the media is totally controlled?

Among these facts this one stands out: of the 1,734 (please check me on that number, but Im almost postive this is correct) FISA requests made by the FBI between the last modification of the FISA process in late 1995 and 9-11-01, only 1 was turned down: the Minneapolis laptop.

You’ve got your facts confused. No warrant was applied for regarding the laptop because they had insufficient evidence. If the FBI got warrants to search people’s computers with as little evidence as they had against Moussaoui at the time hopefully you’d complain the Forth Amendment was being ignored. If not then presumably you’d have no problems with the warrantless wiretaps. According to most accounts 4 or 5 requests were turned down out of over 18,000 http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/fisa/#rept and http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007280.php

This combined with hundreds of other facts, presened in context with similar occurances over a broad range of time, seemed to me a far more convincing means of arguing the need for a real investigation, than debating about the melting points of various metals without a physicist beside you on the sidewalk.

It deserved an investigation and there never was one. Surely you don't call the Official 9-11 Conspiracy theory a true investigation!!!!!!!

Although not perfect the 9-11 C and NIST did reasonably good jobs at discovering what happen and got exponentially closer to the truth than Fetzer, Jones, Jones, Griffin, Ruppert, Avery, Wood or any other “truther”

David:

even Roland Zavada had to remind ole Len who was in-charge, he wasn't snide either (inside joke)....

I didn't get it, but then I almost never understand what you're getting at when you try to be a smart @$$

[Jack White]

Steve, pursuant to the issue of potential agents of provocation in research forums, and to the potential mental health issues alluded to previously....

the thing I keep trying to deal with in various encounters is when I read something that seems odd or ridiculous to me, particularly coming from someone who garners respect, I only seem to be able to come to two conclusion: either they're just really, really stupid, or they're doing it on purpose

I have met around a dozen agents of provocation, and twice that many on the internet.

Many are not very brilliant, and most are just working for pocket change, I think.

Their greatest fault is underestimating the intelligence of their targets. Once one is

familiar with their modus operandi, they are so easy to spot...because they take me

for a dummy, and make clumsy mistakes. Most of them are not "first-teamers" but

either stringers or trainees. They assume I do not know what they are up to. They

are not agency employees necessarily, but perhaps local recruits.

One I knew well was a stat supplier (now deceased). It was an open secret that he

was an informant for the FBI. In fact he was so proud of it that he adopted the

nickname SPOOK. He was a known bookie/gambler and the local sheriff recruited

him to be an FBI informant. I think the pay was $200 a month to keep the bureau

informed on local gambling operations. In the sixties for a while he had a delivery

boy named Mike. Mike wanted to be an FBI agent, and Spook finally got him a

trainee job. A few months later Spook and Mike (agent trainee) came by the

office and wanted me to tell Mike all about my JFK research, which I did...knowing

that it was an assignment, and Mike surely wrote a report about it. It was so

obvious it was ludricrous...even though they tried to make it casual. Nothing

sinister, just obvious.

Jack

[Len Colby]

LOL The evidence that Jack and Peter have to substantiate their beliefs expressed above:

[Evan Burton]

Actually Peter, I was thinking along similar lines to Len (if I get his meaning); you have stated things quite correctly, except they apply to other than the people you had in mind - I think.

The problem is that on the internet the provacateur can create a lot of havoc in a short time. I'm sure we all have certain names in mind....They ask you to document it further...and then further. Then later, to document it all over again.

I wasn't really sure about this one, exactly what you meant. I had in mind the way some people raise a proposition, have it disproven, then wait for a while and then raise it again - ignoring the challenges that were given previously.

They naysay and cast doubt.

Correct. As soon as something happens, it is a CIA plot or a secret government experiment gone wrong or another example of.... something like that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

They made attacks on the person more often than the information.

This more than anything makes me think of one individual. They complain about ad homs whilst are dishing them out all the time - and rarely actually address the argument given to them.

They divert threads and which they choose is always of interest.

Unsure of meaning.

They try to tempt one to spend all of one's time convincing them [when they can't be convinced...they came with fixed ideology] so the thread doesn't progress and others of good will can't interact easily.

Yep, there is no changing of their opinion. My objective is to show a different opinion, provide alternative explanations, and to highlight where inaccuracies have occurred.

[Jack White]

When the shoe pinches, the feet being pinched come right out of their shoes...

so predictably...without being mentioned by anyone!

Haha!

Jack

[Duane Daman]

Actually Peter, I was thinking along similar lines to Len (if I get his meaning); you have stated things quite correctly, except they apply to other than the people you had in mind - I think.

The problem is that on the internet the provacateur can create a lot of havoc in a short time. I'm sure we all have certain names in mind....They ask you to document it further...and then further. Then later, to document it all over again.

I wasn't really sure about this one, exactly what you meant. I had in mind the way some people raise a proposition, have it disproven, then wait for a while and then raise it again - ignoring the challenges that were given previously.

They naysay and cast doubt.

Correct. As soon as something happens, it is a CIA plot or a secret government experiment gone wrong or another example of.... something like that. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

They made attacks on the person more often than the information.

This more than anything makes me think of one individual. They complain about ad homs whilst are dishing them out all the time - and rarely actually address the argument given to them.

They divert threads and which they choose is always of interest.

Unsure of meaning.

They try to tempt one to spend all of one's time convincing them [when they can't be convinced...they came with fixed ideology] so the thread doesn't progress and others of good will can't interact easily.

Yep, there is no changing of their opinion. My objective is to show a different opinion, provide alternative explanations, and to highlight where inaccuracies have occurred.

Speaking of the art of disinformation , the above quote would have to be a prime example of this ....There's nothing like twisting other people's words around to have the opposite meaning ... and in doing so , suit their own agenda ..... Correct me if I'm wrong Peter , but it appears that Evan missed your point entirely .

[Kevin M. West]

Steve, pursuant to the issue of potential agents of provocation in research forums, and to the potential mental health issues alluded to previously....

the thing I keep trying to deal with in various encounters is when I read something that seems odd or ridiculous to me, particularly coming from someone who garners respect, I only seem to be able to come to two conclusion: either they're just really, really stupid, or they're doing it on purpose

You're missing a third option, that you were wrong about it being odd or rediculous. And I don't mean it as an ad-hom or anything else, but if you honestly think the only 2 posibilities when you disagree with someone is that they are wrong or they are lying, you've must have godlike knowledge and infalibility.