DC 9/11 Conference

Statement by Craig Ranke & Citizen Investigation Team
July 31, 2013

As some of you may know, a 9/11 conference is planned for this September in Washington D.C. It's called, "9/11: Advancing The Truth." I first heard about this conference earlier this year from a contact in the local D.C. 9/11 truth group. He was immediately skeptical, and after hearing his explanation, so was I.

His group was approached by some people from out of town who said they wanted to stage a big "debate" about the Pentagon at the Sheraton hotel in Arlington. This on its face was suspect. It's 2013, not 2002 or even 2007. We already know what happened at the Pentagon. The evidence is conclusive. The cat's out of the bag. There is no genuine "controversy" in the "movement" about the fact that the plane did not hit or even the flyover; the supposed "controversy" was and is a contrived fraud created by a relatively small clique of liars intent on seeding doubt and disinformation in defense of the official impact narrative. In the past we've repeatedly invited our biggest attackers from this cabal to debate us on camera in a simple, open, no-frills, neutral setting, and they all refused (except one, who ended up having to concede virtually all of the major points and ultimate defeat). This isn't surprising because we've already exposed their bogus talking points and demonstrated that they are not honest people and don't have a leg to stand on. All of this has been well-established, so I think we're justified in our skepticism of anyone who still wants to proliferate the notion that the "movement" is truly that "divided" on this subject.

Another eyebrow-raising aspect was the fact that they wanted to have it at the Sheraton. That is expensive. Who would want to bankroll the thousands of dollars that would be needed to arrange such a thing, and why would such an expensive venue be needed for a niche event like this anyway?

Furthermore, even if there was a genuine "debate" to be had at this point, wouldn't its value depend heavily on who the participants were? If the goal was to somehow "settle" a supposed "debate" between (say) 757-impact theorists and the NOC/flyover evidence, would it suffice to have any old people show up and debate? If Joe Impact debated Joe Flyover and won or lost, what would that prove? And who would want to pay thousands of dollars to make that happen? Answers: nothing and no one.

In early April, I was contacted by Sheila Casey, another member of the local 9/11 truth group in the D.C. area who I know personally. She had been in touch with some of the organizers, and she wanted to see if we had any interest in attending an event like this and having a "debate." I told her why the entire premise of the event was ill-advised, but added: "If the event is going to happen regardless of your approval or disapproval CIT's official response is that we would be happy to CONSIDER participating if we are first provided with the basic pertinent details such as, who is hosting, who is funding, who is invited, who has confirmed, what is the full itinerary, agenda, premise, title, and goal."

She told me what she could at the time, but the plan was rough at that point, the details were tentative, they had only raised a few hundred dollars (out of what would eventually be thousands), and she wasn't sure where the rest would come from. Months went by after that and we never received any information, an invite, or even an informal communication from the actual organizers of this event, even as they laid their plans and invited many others, including multiple plane impact proponents.

Then, earlier this month (July), I finally got a call out of the blue from one of the organizers, Matt Sullivan, who said he wanted to invite me. He explained that the plan was now to have a THREE-WAY debate between myself, Barbara Honegger, and Dwain Deets, the latter of whom would argue that the plane hit the building. I asked him some questions, told him that I thought that'd be a pretty bad format for a subject like this, and that I had reservations about the conference in general, but that I would consider it and get back to him. It was the week of Independence Day and I had a lot going on.

After our conversation, Matt e-mailed me a written invitation as well.

Later that week, on Sunday evening, I visited the website for the conference, only to see my own name and picture listed as a "Featured Speaker" (cached copy here). I e-mailed Matt Sullivan the following day (July 8):
Matt,

I went on dc911conference.org last night and was very surprised and annoyed to see my name and a picture of me displayed rather prominently near the top of home page under "Featured Speakers" for Sunday. This was not on there last time I was on the site earlier this week, and it was added without my knowledge, consent, or any apparent honest reason. As you know I was just invited by you earlier this week and have NOT agreed to speak at the conference. When you called me I told you that I'd *consider* it and get back to you. I haven't even gotten a chance to fully review the invitation and information you sent me because I've been busy this week, partially due to the holiday. Please remove my name and picture from your site immediately.

I really have to ask: Who else's name and likeness are you using on your site as "Featured Speakers" for your event despite the fact that they are actually not confirmed at all. Which supposed "Featured Speakers" ARE actually confirmed? I'm talking about people who have actually said "yes, count me in, I will definitely be there" -- not people who you have simply invited, or who have said maybe or even probably. Can you give me a full list as of today, July 8th, 2013? Right now you have the following people's names and pictures prominently displayed on the home page of the site as "Featured Speakers": Richard Gage, Webster Tarpley, Peter Janney, Wayne Madsen, Mark Gaffney, Abby Martin, Barry Kissin, Dwain Deets, Craig Ranke (false), Kevin Barrett, Dick Gregory, Barbara Honegger.

Didn't you also have William Pepper's name and picture up there last week? Did he cancel, or was he never confirmed in the first place?

Do you not see a problem with doing this kind of thing? Especially since you are already selling tickets for $75-$125 right below our names and pictures?

Craig
Matt did not respond to this. I did get a short voicemail from his wife Elaine the following day; yet despite the timing she only said very generally that she wanted to talk to me about the conference without elaborating or even acknowledge my e-mail. I had a feeling they were trying to avoid giving me a written response, so I decided to wait for one. Given the circumstances and the fact that they were already misleading people about my status (and likely the status of others) on their website, I was no longer comfortable talking to them on the phone, which could later be more easily misrepresented by them.

Six more days went by, and that response never came. Meanwhile, they fraudulently left my name and picture on their page as a "Featured Speaker". Then, finally, on July 15, I got a voicemail from Matt asking for my "final answer" as to whether or not I would participate in the conference while still not answering any of my questions.

I wrote him another e-mail that evening telling him that I received his voicemail and repeating my demand that he remove my picture from his website. I went on to explained the basis of my unease and distrust for them at that point and my consequent discomfort with the idea of discussing this over the phone. I reiterated my request for a prompt, detailed, and honest response in writing to the fair questions I had put to him the previous week, as well as others that I now had after looking more closely into the timeline and circumstances related to this conference.

Among the new questions that I asked:
Why was I not invited or even spoken to about this event until early July, way after most if not all of the other proposed participants, such as Barbara Honegger, who was invited AND intimately involved in the planning and fundraising process since way back in May, if not earlier? This is especially problematic since Honegger has also said that "the whole original purpose" of having this conference in the first place was, according to you and George Ripley, to stage a debate about the Pentagon, and that you planned on having the "CIT position" represented since very early if not the very beginning. (I understand that you are now claiming to have recently scrapped the "debate" idea.)

Also:

When I asked you over the phone, you told me that Barbara Honegger was not on the organizing committee and downplayed any involvement by her in organizing this event at all. This flew in the face of what I had heard at the time, and as it turns out, Honegger has admitted that she has been a confirmed participant for over a month and a half, participated in the conference calls organizing this event with you, helped shape the list of invitees, helped choose the title and theme of the event, and was [personally] responsible for securing $2000 out of the first $3000 of funding. Is this not true? If so, why do you think she's lying about these things? If it is true, why did you not disclose this to me when I specifically asked you about her involvement?

And:

Honegger has said that Abby Martin's contract with Russia Today (RT) forbids her from speaking at this event. Is she wrong? Is Abby Martin confirmed for your conference and able to speak? If not, why is she listed as a "Featured Speaker" on your website?

And:

If you were me, would this all seem on the up and up to you? Would you not be asking these same kinds of questions right now?
That was July 16. When I checked the site the next day, I had quietly been removed as a "Featured Speaker". They later removed Abby Martin's name and picture from the "Featured Speakers" list as well. However, none of this was acknowledged publicly, or even to me privately. Another full week went by and I didn't hear one word from Matt or any other organizer. Still no answers to my questions, no explanations for any of this behavior, nothing.

Then, on July 23, I got an e-mail from Craig McKee. Matt Sullivan had contacted him earlier that day claiming that they had not heard back from me and asking if he (McKee) would be interested in presenting instead. McKee wanted to know if this was true before responding. I was in Hawaii for a wedding at the time, but when I got home on the evening of July 24, I shot him back a quick e-mail before bed to let him know that I had received his e-mail, that Matt was once again not being honest, and that I would provide him with more details ASAP once I got settled back in after my week-long trip.

Early the following morning (July 25), I suddenly got an e-mail from Matt.
Craig,
Sorry I did not see your e-mail.
All it would have taken was a phone call (or to reply to one of my many calls) to resolve this.
As it is, sorry you are miffed. We will find another speaker.
Matt

Nothing about this e-mail was honest, ingenuous, or believable.

1) As documented above, I sent not one but two e-mails, the first of which was sent 16 days earlier.

2) These e-mails were sent to the same e-mail address that he sent the invitation to me from, and in that very invitation he had instructed me to "reply directly" to him, which indicates that he was using it for official/important correspondences related to this conference, and which is what I did both times.

3) The timing of Elaine's voicemail to me and the removal of my (and Abby Martin's) picture from the site strongly suggested that my e-mails were both received.

4) Unless he called on an unknown number and didn't leave a voicemail, his reference to his supposed "many calls" to me seems to be a flat out lie. As explained above I had one and only one missed call from him after he originally called on July 1 to invite me. It was on July 15. He left a voicemail, and I promptly responded via e-mail.

5) He said that "all it would have taken" to "resolve this" was for me to have called him on the phone, yet I had already explained to him why I was not comfortable talking on the phone and wanted to communicate via e-mail. His statement also implied that if only we would have talked my many concerns would have been easily put to rest, yet he STILL made absolutely no effort to answer a single question or explain any of his behavior, instead simply offering "sorry you are miffed".

6) He said that they would "find another speaker" even though I knew that they had already invited Craig McKee after falsely telling him that they never heard back from me.

7) The timing strongly suggests that this was a hasty attempt by Sullivan to invent an excuse for falsely telling McKee that he had not heard from me.

At this point it's clear to me that this event is a "rigged," counter-productive set-up, and has been since the beginning. It was conceived as a "Pentagon Debate" based on (and perpetuating) the false premise that there is a real "controversy" in the "movement" over this issue. And, even if this wasn't already well-established as a fraudulent premise (it is), the value of such a "debate" to "settle" anything would still be contingent on our (CIT's) participation, yet instead of reaching out to us early on to get our input, gauge our interest, and explain/discuss why they thought it was worthwhile, the organizers worked behind the scenes for many weeks with one of our proposed debating opponents (Honegger) to fund and plan the entire thing and even contacted/invited numerous impact advocates before ever even saying one word to us.

Revealingly, we've also now learned that the plan as of the end of May was (and may still be) for some designated person -- most likely Matt Sullivan, according to Honegger -- to take "notes" during all of the Pentagon presentations and try to come up with a "consensus statement." We also now know that weeks before we were invited or even contacted about this event at all by the organizers, Honegger had already told several activists on a conference call: "Just so you know I'm going into that debate with a proposed way of solving the consensus problem across all three of the speakers. So I'm going to be doing my personal best to propose a consensus solution." (mp3)

This is all very much consistent with the RAND Corporation-inspired Delphi technique -- a known method of manipulating groups toward a "consensus" that is in actuality the organizers' predetermined conclusion, which is already being used against the "truth movement" by the so-called "Consensus Panel" -- and is further indicative of the duplicitous and "rigged" nature of this "conference." Please read the following articles for more information:
This is all further punctuated by the fact that none of this was disclosed to us before or when we were invited, even after I repeatedly questioned Matt Sullivan directly about Honegger's involvement; Not the "consensus" plan, not Honegger's critical fundraising and intimate involvement in the planning process -- none of it. Instead, he originally tried to deny and downplay her involvement, and then when I found evidence that this was not accurate, he simply refused to address it at all.

A month after Honegger's "consensus" admissions, George Ripley, one of the primary organizers of the "conference," admitted on a recorded conference call that they would indeed be writing a "conference statement," which he more specifically characterized as a "unity statement from the conference with regards to the demands that we want" from the government.

On the same conference call, he elaborated (emphasis added):
[Matt Sullivan] insists that, well, the starting point is that CIT has requested a public debate. And so, uh, that's the format that we have laid out thinking that of course that the outcome actually-- the outcome of this project has to be a consensus statement, uh, agreeing that we are not fighting amongst ourselves so much as we are DEMANDING that the FBI and the Pentagon release the relevant data to show us the truth." (mp3)
In the same vein, he also said:
I think that the Pentagon issue really boils down to the need to create a letter of agreement among all of the participants in the form of a demand to the FBI and the Pentagon to release the videos. That we don't have the information necessary to make an informed decision. And uh, [that] that's the real problem. (mp3)
This was late June, just days before Matt Sullivan called to invite me, yet, again, I was not told about this at all and did not find out about it until recently while reviewing archived recordings. The fact that BEFORE EVEN INVITING US the organizers of this event had already agreed what the "outcome" of the Pentagon "debate" "has to be" and had a hidden/obscure plan to issue a predetermined "consensus statement" on behalf of all participants, including us, is classic Dephi deception and further underscores the ulterior motives behind this controlled farce of a "conference."

Furthermore, the specific "consensus statement" that the organizers of this conference have discussed "Delphi-ing" onto the participants is completely illogical and the exact opposite of what CIT has not only preached since the beginning but repeatedly and decisively proven, which is that we CANNOT rely on  "evidence" that has been sequestered and controlled by the suspect, and that INDEPENDENT, VERIFIABLE evidence is the key to unlocking the truth about what actually happened at the Pentagon. The "gatecam" video released by the Pentagon is a proven fraud. The Citgo tapes were manipulated. The alleged "black box data" is a proven fraud. The 84 RADES data is a proven fraud. The light poles were staged. The whole thing is a deception. The independent evidence has established this. The notion that the suspect -- the people that Ripley and the other organizers presumably think were behind the 9/11 false flag mass-deception AND subsequent cover-up and sophisticated disinfo campaign -- will now release the "relevant data" that will "show us the truth" is outrageous, and the fact that they did not disclose the plan to get us to sign on to such a strategy is beyond suspect.

Even though the "three-way debate" format has supposedly now been changed to a "three equal-length presentations" format that they have dubbed "What happened? Three perspectives" (who knows what the format will actually be when people get there), this doesn't preclude the contrived "consensus" approach, and it still completely trivializes the evidence and gives the totally false impression that the "truth movement" actually doesn't know what happened at the Pentagon and merely has various "theories" or "perspectives." This type of approach wouldn't go over for a WTC "9/11 truth conference," particularly if it was planned and rolled out under similar circumstances, and it's no more credible or productive with the Pentagon.

Barbara Honegger has predictably already gone out of her way to misrepresent the details and paint me as evasive. On July 15th she wrote:
For the record, I accepted the originally proposed debate format for the Sunday Pentagon session and was actually looking forward to it, but was told that Craig Ranke/CIT wouldn't participate in a debate. It's ironic if he still hasn't accepted - assuming that's correct, as his photo is on the Conference website as a speaker - as the format was changed in response to his requests
Again: 1) I had not declined participation. 2) I was fraudulently added to the site by her fellow organizers as a "Featured Speaker," which undoubtedly helped draw attention to and hype the event (and possibly sell tickets) while conveniently making it easier to create the impression that I was somehow "backing out" if I ended up declining the invitation, exactly like Honegger tried to do here. 3) I did not "request" the new format. 4) I did express concerns about the three-way debate format, but so did she and Dwain Deets, as admitted by Matt Sullivan himself. Deets too has admitted that he had expressed concerns about such a format

It's pretty well known to people who have been paying attention that, after years of working tirelessly on this issue (the 9/11 Pentagon event), I have been taking some time this year to deal with other things in my personal life. This was never meant to be a permanent break, and I am hoping to be able to turn my attention back to 9/11 and CIT relatively soon. Honegger and I both live in California, so if she wants to debate me so bad we can do it later this year, preferably AFTER she finally releases her "book" that she has been promising and hyping for the past year or two and I have had a chance to carefully review it and familiarize myself with any new supposed "evidence" therein. The fact that she has failed to deliver on this much-talked-about book for all of this time and then before even releasing it worked behind the scenes to set up and fund an elaborate rigged conference attempting to draw me into a phony "debate" with a predetermined "outcome" and prepackaged "consensus" conclusion, and then tried to paint me as evasive for not (yet) accepting (or declining) the shady, belated invitation while I waited for important answers (that never came) from her fellow organizer, Matt, speaks volumes. If we do "debate" I feel the most honest and productive format would be to have it in a simple, neutral venue where we can have an open-ended, free-form conversation for the record -- the very thing I've always advocated, which our attackers have been conspicuously reticent to accept.

As I said earlier, despite the fact that Matt Sullivan knew I had not yet given him a response to his invitation and was waiting for answers to my (fair/important/reasonable) questions, he and his wife already went ahead and began contacting others in search of someone to serve as a representative of "the Citizens [sic] Investigation Team (CIT) position" while falsely telling them that he never heard back from me and/or that I outright declined. It seems the plan is to try to recruit someone who is seen as a supporter or ally of CIT so that they can be portrayed as a suitable stand-in and the plan can go forward.

As of today, July 31, 2013, I am -- for the first time, despite the false claims of The Sullivan and others -- officially and explicitly declining my invitation to the DC 9/11 Conference.

Furthermore, we are urging any "supporter" of CIT to do the same, and want to make it crystal clear that we do not in any way encourage or endorse their participation. If anyone does accept it will be against our wishes and they do not in any way speak for us.

As ever, the true campaign to expose the 9/11 false flag op is under attack from people claiming to be on our side yet are working to deceive genuine truth seekers, plant seeds of doubt, marginalize the best evidence, inject disinformation, create impotent limited-hangout talking points, and provide illogical dead-end courses of action. As we have shown for years, this goes way beyond any one conference. We would like to once again reiterate that independent, verifiable evidence is the key to the truth, and we already have enough to conclusively prove that the plane flew on the north side of the Citgo, could not have and did not hit the light poles or the building, and was seen flying away by multiple eyewitnesses such as Roosevelt Roberts Jr., proving that 9/11 was a full blown black-op run by criminal elements within the U.S. military-industrial complex. They have the means, motive, and opportunity to create and disseminate fraudulent evidence, and they have already done so repeatedly. Demanding more "evidence" from them will only yield more of the same, if anything at all. Evidence controlled and provided by the suspect cannot trump the independent, verifiable evidence that already exists in the public domain proving their guilt.

http://www.citizeninvestigationteam.com/