David Ray Griffin: Reported Cell Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes

Reported Cell Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes
Further Reflections Evoked by a Critique

by Prof. David Ray Griffin - Global Research, September 7, 2008

Earlier this year, Andrew Kornkven posted a comment and a blog critical of my discussion, in Chapter 17 of my book 9/11 Contradictions, of reported cell phone calls from the 9/11 airliners. In this reply, I respond to both of these criticisms, referring to former as his "Comment," to the latter as his "Blog." (All quotations are from the Blog unless otherwise indicated.) Although Kornkven's criticisms are based on confusions and other errors, my response to them has led me to report some information about this issue that I had not previously published, although much of it is in my most recent book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited. This distinction means that, although many of my comments, especially in the first parts of this essay, consist of responses to confused criticisms (which the reader will probably want to move through quickly), this essay does, especially in its later parts, contain several points of great importance.

Kornkven begins his Comment by saying: "David Ray Griffin continues to put forth a misleading line of argument regarding the 'cell phone' calls." With the term "continues," he alludes to the fact that he had written an earlier critique, to which I wrote a reply. In that reply, I gave some reasons for being dubious of Kornkven's theory as to what really happened, which lies behind his criticism of my position. According to his theory, there really were hijackers on the planes, but they were not Arab Muslims, or even Muslims of any sort. He also holds that relatives of victims did not actually report receiving cell phones calls. Instead, this claim was invented by the corporate media to trick the foreseen 9/11 truth movement into denying that the calls occurred, because the calls had revealed real truths that the government did not want to be known.

Why, I wondered, if the hijackers were not really devout Muslims, expecting to receive a heavenly reward for their martyrdom, would they have volunteered to commit suicide simply to provide a pretext for a war against Muslims; Kornkven's only escape from this conclusion would seem to be to speculate, implausibly, that they bailed out of the planes at the last minute. I also wondered why, if the corporate media had falsely claimed that some of the families had reported receiving cell phone calls, the Internet carries no stories about complaints from these relatives published in local papers.

In the present essay, in any case, I do not argue against Kornkven's own thesis. I simply reply to his charge (in hisComment) that my discussion is "misleading" and to his charge (in his Blog) that it contains "serious logical errors."

Continued...

It is for this reason that Griffin and those that listen to him and repeat his idiocies are rightfully shunned by normal people.