The Toronto Invitations

September 6, 2011

As we discuss in detail here, an event commonly referred to as The Toronto Hearings will be taking place at Ryerson University in Toronto from Thursday September 8th through Sunday, September 11th, which will bring together some of the biggest names in the "9/11 truth movement".

Although the website for The Toronto Hearings claims that "the best available evidence into the case, discovered in the ten years since the 9/11 events occurred" will be presented, Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) has not been invited, and the widely-supported, conclusive evidence proving a north side approach and flyover at the Pentagon will not be presented in any meaningful way, and may not even receive a cursory mention.  See "Has Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) Been Invited to the Toronto Hearings?" for more information.

On the evening of September 11, 2011 -- the tenth anniversary of 9/11 -- we will be presenting this evidence at The Royal cinema in Toronto, which is a quick and easy trip from Ryerson University.

This event is sponsored and hosted by Toronto-based author and TV producer Barrie Zwicker, who felt impelled to initiate it after he, also a member of the (window dressing) Advisory Committee to the Toronto Hearings, "realized there was no chance of CIT being invited to present its crucial 'weighty' evidence at the Hearings."

We are taking this opportunity to invite all organizers, participants, and attendees of the Toronto Hearings to our event.  Our event is scheduled to begin at 8pm that evening, after the Toronto Hearings have concluded, so there is no scheduling conflict.

Furthermore, as outlined below, a number of the organizers and participants of the Toronto Hearings have launched wanton attacks against Citizen Investigation Team.  Some of them have composed and/or promoted dishonest propaganda which attempts to defend the official impact narrative and discredit the evidence we present proving that the plane did not strike the Pentagon as reported, thereby establishing that 9/11 was a false flag operation involving high-level insider complicity.

Although we will have a substantial Q&A session after our presentation, it will not be a suitable setting for extensive, thorough debate.  We are, therefore, inviting any participant or organizer of the Toronto Hearings who has a problem with our "methods" and/or thinks they are able to refute the evidence we present to sit down with us for a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion while we are all in Toronto.

We will be arriving in the early evening on Thursday, September 8th, the first day of the Toronto Hearings.  We will not be departing until the early morning on Tuesday, September 13th.  There is no reason that the people who apparently have such strong concerns with our work and who have attempted to publicly paint us as dishonest shouldn't be able to set aside a couple hours to take us up on this offer, "expose" our supposed dishonesty, and refute the evidence we present proving the plane did not hit the light poles or Pentagon.  We will work with them to find a mutually convenient day and time.

Although this is not meant to be an all inclusive list, we would specifically like to issue the following invitations to the following people.

1) Kevin Ryan

We are inviting Kevin Ryan to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion with us in Toronto, for reasons including but not limited to the following.

1. He was intimately involved in the publication and dissemination of the paper "What Hit The Pentagon?" by his close associate Frank Legge in 2009.

Please go here to read all about this important episode.  Kevin Ryan is one of the two editors of The Journal of 9/11 Studies (JO911S). The other is Frank Legge. Until recently, there was a third co-editor: Steven Jones (he recently stepped down).  The three of them were responsible for publishing the various versions of this horrid disinfo piece, even after the many "errors" and omissions were pointed out to them.   In fact, it was Ryan himself who announced/promoted it on 911Blogger.com when it was first published.  This was the month after National Security Alert was released, and just days after Jim Hoffman and his wife Victoria Ashley released their dual hit pieces against us (see here and here), which the paper in turn referenced as proof that the "overfly theory has met substantial opposition".

2. In 2010 he became a blogger at Visibility911.com --  a website which is known for its aggressive, dishonest attempts to discredit CIT and the overwhelming evidence that the plane did not hit the Pentagon.

Ryan's fellow bloggers at the site include:

So these are some of the people whose names appear "in lights" at the top of the page on Visibility911 alongside Kevin Ryan.  As for Ryan himself...

3. He personally authored a defamatory public attack against us in October of 2010, which he published on Visibility911.

The article, which can be seen here, was reposted by another user on 911Blogger the same day. In it, Ryan attempts to fraudulently paint us as "intentional disruptors". He also grossly misrepresents an out of context quote from Craig in an attempt to discredit him/us.  He writes:

The question of what hit the Pentagon leads directly to the question of what happened to the passengers, as Miles Kara was trying to insinuate. That fact was also emphasized by the leading promoter of the "fly-over" theory when he gave a presentation in Europe recently. His presentation ended with the questions he really wanted us to think about.

"Demand answers to the question of what happened to the people on the plane."

"How did they really die?"

"Where they killed them, how they killed them, I can't know."

"I can only know what the witnesses tell me." [12]

Is this a good way to encourage people to question 9/11, and to bring justice? Obviously not.

If one scrolls down to the reference/source for the quote, they'll see that it reads:

[12] Parody video of CIT tour and presentation in which, at 02:18, the speaker tells his French audience the reasons why CIT is working so hard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0tFvlQ2F0&feature=player_embedded

So, as his source, Ryan directs the reader to an extremely juvenile, anonymously-created smear video, within which Barrie Zwicker is labeled a "Senile Sellout" for supporting our work.

The link that Ryan provides to this video is now dead.  This is convenient for Ryan, because if one actually watches his source video (another copy of which is currently still online here) they will see that there is no indication that the quotes he provides are how "[Craig's] presentation ended".  That is because the quotes were NOT from the conclusion of the presentation as Ryan claims, or ANY part of the presentation for that matter.

The quotes are taken from the *Q&A session* that came *after* the presentation.  Someone had specifically asked what happened to the passengers and the crew.  Craig correctly answered the question, explaining that this is not something that regular citizens have the resources to determine -- unlike the flight path of the plane, which has now been conclusively established via eyewitness testimony, proving that the plane could not have and did not hit the light poles or building, and thus that the passengers of Flight 77 did not die in a plane crash into the Pentagon.

Not only do the out of context clips in Ryan's source video begin after the question has been asked, but they only show a portion of Craig's response.  The anonymous video creator edited out the beginning, end, and a portion in the middle (notice the cut around 2:32) before adding his own inaccurate, childish, "parody" subtitles.

A formal response to this question has been published as the #1 Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) on our website CitizenInvestigationTeam.com since the site was launched in mid 2009: "If Flight 77 did not hit the building what happened to its passengers and crew?"

This is a natural question that arises in people's minds after viewing the evidence that we provide conclusively disproving the official impact narrative, and our answer is entirely reasonable.

Similarly, questions like "Who planted all of those demolition devices in the Twin Towers and Building 7?" naturally arise after seeing the evidence that they were brought down in a planned demolition.  Ryan can easily understand that neither the simple asking of that question -- nor his inability to conclusively answer it -- in any way refutes the evidence that the buildings were in fact demolished, nor are they grounds for anyone to stop talking about the evidence for demolition. So, it seems to us that he is putting forth a hypocritical non sequitur.

Furthermore, Ryan's assertion that demanding the answer to what really happened to the passengers and crew of Flight 77 is "obviously" not a good way to "bring justice" is based on the false premise that we have not disproven the official impact theory.  After all, if we have disproven it, then these people did not die in a plane crash into the Pentagon, in which case why would we not demand to know what happened to them?  How is doing so not in accordance with bringing them justice?

We ask Kevin Ryan to discuss these questions with us live on camera; to discuss his premise that Flight 77 might have (or even did) hit the Pentagon with us; and to refute our evidence to the contrary. 

4. He was intimately involved with the publication and dissemination of "Flight AA77 on 9/11: New FDR Analysis Supports the Official Flight Path Leading to Impact with the Pentagon."

This was yet another pro-impact article co-authored by Frank Legge and published in the Journal for 9/11 Studies by Legge, Kevin Ryan, and Steven Jones.  It came out just days after David Chandler and Jonathan Cole's attack article against us, and just days before Chandler went on the Visiblity911 podcast (hosted by with Ryan's fellow Visibility911 blogger John Bursill) to further bash us.

As we explained here:

Pilots for 9/11 Truth is an organization of aviation professionals and pilots from around the world who are committed to seeking the truth surrounding the events of the 11th of September 2001. See the names and credentials of their members here.  These pilots analyzed the data released by the NTSB, allegedly from the "black box" of Flight 77, and concluded that it does not support the government's story. [This] paper by Frank Legge is being touted as a "peer-reviewed" paper debunking the analysis and findings of these pilots.  [...]  Although this new paper concerns the NTSB-released alleged black box data, none of the authors have expertise in avionics at all. Credentialed people at Pilots for 9/11 Truth have already (just like last time) uncovered several errors and demonstrated why the conclusion is based on a faulty premise to begin with.  See here for a short explanation by FAA certified pilot Rob Balsamo of some of the errors he noticed right away, and see here for much more thorough analysis and commentary by an actual FDR expert and others.

The paper repeatedly cites Jim Hoffman, including, once again, his 2009 article, "Google Earth Exposes Pentagon Flyover Farce or Critiquing PentaCon (Smoking Crack Version)", which we address here.  It also references Chris Sarns and the anonymous "Arabesque".

They concluded:

It is clear that [the "FDR" file provided by the NTSB] supports the official account of the course of flight AA 77 and the consequent impact with the Pentagon. The file thus also supports the majority of eyewitness reports.

It was Ryan himself who disseminated and promoted this paper on 911Blogger upon publication. Furthermore, in the comments section he can be seen weighing in, saying to Jonathan Mark, for example:

...your "truth leaders conference" has spent a considerable amount of time dealing with, and thereby overstating the importance of, the flyover theory

And...

With this paper we hope to see progress on the many unanswered questions about the Pentagon but it is possible that all energies will continue to be consumed with the one (less important, imo) question of "what hit the Pentagon.

5. He and his co-editor Frank Legge were (and may still be) preparing to publish two new articles in the Journal of 9/11 Studies (JO911S) which purport to debunk our work. We have read a draft copy of one, and it is loaded with disinformation, which we can easily refute.  (Update: That paper has now already been published on the JO911S "sister site".)

The first paper is by John Wyndham.  On the "About Us" page for Scientists for 9/11 Truth, John Wyndham is listed as the groups "Coordinator". Only four other names appear on that page along with him, which are (who else but?) Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, Steven Jones, and Niels Harrit.  Ryan and Legge's JO911S is described as Scientists for 9/11 Truth's "associated website" which "contains the results of peer-reviewed research by our members and others".

Here is an "abstract" for Wyndham's paper posted by Frank Legge on 911Blogger.com (only to be removed a short while later -- screen shot here):

The widespread belief among those who question the official account of 9/11, that a large plane did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11, is unsupported by the evidence. The failure of the 9/11 truth movement to reach consensus on this issue after almost a decade is largely due to a failure to rigorously apply the scientific method to the evidence as a whole. This paper, by so applying the evidence to each proposed theory, shows that a large plane hitting the Pentagon is by far the most plausible theory.

The second paper is written by Legge himself, along with David Chandler.  The draft copy of this paper is entitled "The Pentagon Attack on 9/11: A Refutation of the North-of-Citgo Flight Path Hypothesis" (update: now changed to "The Pentagon Attack on 9/11: A Refutation of the Pentagon Flyover Hypothesis Based on Analysis of the Flight Path")As the title indicates, it purports to refute the north side flight path, and flyover.  On 911Blogger.com, Legge stated that the paper:

...provides evidence that the witnesses to the path of the plane approaching the Pentagon, who stated that it passed north of the Citgo service station, must have been mistaken. " The paper concludes that the only plausible description of the approach is that the plane did not deviate round the service station but flew virtually straight and hit the Pentagon, as described by the vast majority of eye witnesses.

Again, we read a draft copy of this paper, and it is loaded with disinformation, which we can easily refute.  In fact, we have already refuted much of it already.  A number of the claims made in the paper are simply reiterations of previous arguments by Chandler and Legge that we have already addressed at length and demonstrated to be false.

As previously mentioned, the post by Legge from which we are taking these quotes was removed from 911Blogger.com shortly after it was published.  This is probably (at least partially) because it made Legge, Chandler, Ryan, and the JO911S look foolish.  The context was that he was soliciting reviewers for the paper (and Wyndham's paper as well).  In the post, titled "It's time to bite the Pentagon bullet", Legge stated:

There are two papers in need of review for submission to the Journal of 9/11 Studies. [...] As this is a very touchy subject it has proved difficult to locate people who are willing to review these papers. These papers are based on straightforward logic and thus no aviation expertise is required. Aviation expertise would however be helpful in deflecting some types of arguments. This is a call for volunteers to review the papers. If anyone is interested a response would be greatly appreciated. You won't find the papers boring.

However, he wasn't just looking for any old reviewer.  He was really just looking for someone to rubber stamp the paper so that they can claim it is "peer reviewed" and thus credible, just like they did last time, and the time before that.  It's not surprising that they are having such a hard time finding someone to do this, since most people would not want to ruin their reputation by endorsing such obvious disinformation.

As a matter of fact, they already found one reviewer: Lt. Shelton Lankford.  Lankford is a retired Marine pilot who has flown 303 combat missions, and a core member of the research organization Pilots for 9/11 Truth.  At their request, Lankford provided a review of the paper to Ryan, Chandler, and Legge, concluding:

This review has, by necessity, only skimmed the surface of the flaws of the paper. To do a comprehensive deconstruction of this document would be akin to attempting a detailed description of the damage, and what would be required to fix, an automobile that had been through a salvage yard compacter.

There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure.

Not only does Legge and Chandler's paper claim to rebut the north side flight path, it also accuses us of "mislead[ing] the public in regard to the witness testimonies" and not presenting them "fairly".  We are offering Kevin Ryan, Legge's co-editor, a chance to confront us face to face, expose our supposed dishonesty, defend the thesis of this paper (and the Wyndham paper), and prove that the plane flew on the south side flight path and hit the building as the papers that has been considering publishing claim it did -- not the north side flight path, as reported by the eyewitnesses in the best locations to judge, making it physically impossible for it to have hit the light poles or building, proving that 9/11 was an inside job.

Update: Legge and Chandler's paper has now been published at the website of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (STJ911).  As you can read on the front page of that site -- right next to STJ911 co-founder Kevin Ryan's picture -- this is the "sister site" of the Journal of 9/11 Studies (see also here).  Whether or not Ryan and Legge will also still publish it in the JO911S as originally planned is unknown to us.  Regardless, our offer still stands.

2) David Chandler

We are (once again) inviting David Chandler to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion with us (in Toronto), in light of the following.

As explained in detail here: In January of 2011, David Chandler, together with Jonathan Cole, published a simplistic, horribly sloppy, and defamatory essay attacking us. Although we had never spoken to Chandler or Cole prior the publication of their attack piece, we had always considered them natural allies, had never badmouthed them nor had any inclination to do so, and had even praised their work. Shortly thereafter, Chandler went on the "Visibility 9-11" podcast, hosted by John Bursill, to bash us more.

On February 3, 2011, we published an extremely thorough rebuttal to Chandler and Cole's attacks. Please take the time to read it here.

In the conclusion, Craig said:

I will conclude by saying that I have seen examples of both David Chandler and Jonathan Cole's research into the destruction of the WTC and found it to be excellent, professional, and certainly "scientific". This is what makes it so surprising and disappointing that they would resort to such a sloppy, unprofessional, aggressive, and libelous approach regarding the Pentagon attack, and specifically the findings of CIT. It's particularly disappointing that they would resort to this without bothering to reach out to us even once for a dialogue, or spending much time at all studying our material (assuming that they actually believe the many fallacious things they wrote in this paper).

The content and simplistic nature of their essay leads me to believe that it was most likely written, above all, as a rather emotional and off-the-cuff reaction to false information about Citizen Investigation Team, our work, and the Pentagon attack in general that they have been fed by people like Jim Hoffman and his wife Victoria. I prefer to hold that opinion before writing them off as deliberately dishonest like their apparent mentors on this issue.

I would like to formally challenge both David Chandler and/or Jonathan Cole to debate the issue with me in person and on video. I will come to them on my own dime. I will assume for now that when presented with the information in full, and when all of their questions/concerns are directly addressed, that they will revise their opinions and realize that they have had a hasty a reaction and have severely misjudged the situation here.

If they refuse to debate the subject with me directly, yet also refuse to retract the many untrue and in some cases defamatory things they have said and insist on leaving this extremely inaccurate essay up, I think this will speak very negatively to their honesty, sincerity, honorability, and forthrightness on this issue, especially given their calls for "intellectual rigor" and internal self-"policing" of the movement. Here's hoping that such refusals do not take place. Given the quality and importance of their WTC work and its synergistic nature to the evidence we have uncovered during our Pentagon investigation, we have no desire for the adversarial relationship they have chosen to initiate to continue.

Chandler did not "retract the many untrue and in some cases defamatory" things he had said, and the extremely inaccurate essay that he co-authored remains up on his website and others to this day. Meanwhile, he never accepted this debate invitation, and he also specifically turned down a request by the Rock Creek Free Press to debate us in the pages of that publication.

In fact, in a podcast with Jeff Hill a month after we published our response and issued our invitation, he said this about debating us (mp3):

CHANDLER: I'm not gonna debate people who I feel are gonna be dishonest. Because, I mean-- the only-- I mean, that's just a total waste of time. I will sit down and have a conversation with somebody who's willing to have an open exchange of information, and where there's some sort of an, uh, attempt on all sides to arrive at the truth. So I don't mind having a conversation with people I disagree with. But the kind of strategies they've used, and the types of character assassination they've used.

JEFF: (laughs)

CHANDLER: And uh, I mean, these guys are a joke. So, NO I'm not going to perpetuate the discussion with them. I'm sure they will listen to this thing tonight and write me up and all the rest...

JEFF: (laughs)

CHANDLER: But, um, go for it guys. But uh, that's not-- anyway-.

Craig has written about this:

As far as [we] know that is the closest he has come to even publicly acknowledging the existence of our extremely thorough written rebuttal to his attacks against us and my debate challenge, all of which was published 3 1/2 [now almost 7] months ago and sent to him by numerous people, including us. He simply continues to repeat the same disinformation talking points against us that we already rebutted while adding new ones to his repertoire, all while ignoring an opportunity to expose us as the "scum" (his word) that we supposedly are.

His excuse for this is total non-sense, of course. First of all, If that is really his position, I guess he won't be debating NIST, given the opportunity. (Or does he think they are "willing to have an open exchange of information" and will "attempt... to arrive at the truth"?) Secondly, if anyone has engaged in "character assassination" it is him. If launching dishonest, unprovoked attacks in public forums where it is well known that the targets of the attack are forbidden from responding, and then continuing to repeat the same bogus attacks even after the target responds at length, all while steadfastly refusing requests for a debate isn't the M.O. of a character assassin I don't know what is.

We, on the other hand, "had never spoken to David Chandler or Jonathan Cole prior to the publication of their 'joint statement' on the Pentagon attack" and "we had always considered them natural allies, had never badmouthed them or had any inclination to do so, and had even praised their work", as explained in the introduction to our response to their attacks against us. We responded to their attacks in an honest, thorough, and forthright way while offering to debate them directly, and have even maintained that "we have no desire for the adversarial relationship they have chosen to initiate to continue." This is the opposite of the "strategies" of a character assassin.

As we have already explained in the "Kevin Ryan" section, David has now co-authored yet another article about us and our work, this time with Frank Legge, which they were (and possibly still are) planning to publish in the Journal for 9/11 Studies.  Not only does the draft copy of the paper (which we got ahold of) claim to refute the north side flight path and flyover, it also ironically accuses us of "mislead[ing] the public in regard to the witness testimonies" and not presenting them "fairly". (Update: They have now published it at STJ911, the "sister site" of Journal for 9/11 Studies.)

We are offering David Chandler a chance to discuss this with us face to face, expose our supposed dishonesty, defend the thesis and content of his paper, and prove that the plane flew on the south side flight path and hit the building as he claims -- not the north side flight path, as claimed by the eyewitnesses in the best locations to judge, making it physically impossible for it to have hit the light poles or building, thereby proving that 9/11 was an inside job.

If he sincerely feels that this paper is credible, factual, and adequately supports his thesis, he should jump at the opportunity.

3) Jonathan Cole

We are (for the second time) inviting Jonathan Cole to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion with us.

Cole was the co-signatory (and possibly co-author) of David Chandler's original article about the Pentagon and CIT -- the one we published a thorough response to. Again, we had never spoken to Cole, had always considered him a natural ally, had never badmouthed him nor had any inclination to do so, and had even praised his work regarding the WTC destruction.

As with Chandler, we (specifically Craig) offered to fly to Cole's hometown on our own dime to debate the issue publicly, and Cole never accepted, yet he also never retracted his bogus attack piece.

With that said, unlike Chandler -- who has continued to aggressively attempt to discredit us even after we rebutted him at length, all while refusing to debate us directly -- we are not aware of any other attacks by Cole outside of the "joint statement", so we are still holding out the possibility that he was not a primary author of the document and agreed to put his name to it without understanding how utterly shoddy, hypocritical, and dishonest it was.  However, even if this is the case (and it would clearly be a mistake to assume that it is), it is still not an excuse for him to leave the document online after we spent a tremendous amount of time explaining this.

If Jonathan Cole stands behind his and Chandler's attacks on Citizen Investigation Team he should present his concerns with us face to face, and we are inviting him to do so.  If he accepts, it will be him, not us, whose assertions will be shown to be false and whose position(s) will be shown to be indefensible.

4) Richard Gage

We are inviting Richard Gage to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion with us in Toronto about the 9/11 Pentagon event and our "investigative methods".  Go here to learn why.

5) Niels Harrit

We are inviting Dr. Niels Harrit to have a civil, on-camera debate/discussion with us in Toronto

Harrit recently sent out a rather bizarre e-mail out to a number of high-profile "9/11 Truth Movement" figures in which he aggressively attacks us. His view regarding our work and the evidence for a north side approach and flyover is quite puzzling.

On the one hand, he states that the government "failed" in its attempt to properly stage the scene to look like a real plane crash, and that, using Occam's razor and the scientific method, "there was no Boeing in the Pentagon. The best hypothesis is the truth of the day".   He also says, "any layman can see at a glance that the building could never have absorbed a Boeing 757. You don't need any qualifications to understand immediately, that the official explanation is wrong. But it has taken years of academic acrobatics and multilevel spin to prove that it is right."

On the other hand, he continues: "the CIT charade is irrelevant to the discussion of the Boeing in the Pentagon", and, in a separate private e-mail, called the flyover an "unproven hypothesis".

We are curious to learn what Dr. Harrit thinks happened to the plane if it didn't impact the building or fly over (or does he think there was no plane at all?)

He also heavily and falsely insinuates that we are some kind of government agents or provocateurs, making the bizarre, backwards claim that we "set people up" like David Chandler, even though it was Chandler who wantonly attacked (and continues to attack) us with spurious claims, while we merely responded to his aggression, explained that we did not wish to have an adversarial relationship to him, and offered to come to him on our own dime to debate the subject.

Like David Chandler and Jonathan Cole before him, Harrit did not have the courtesy or sense to get in touch with us to see if we had any responses to his apparent serious issues before attacking us. If he has spent any time even viewing the extensive catalogue of evidence we have published it does not show.  We do know that he was given a copy of our video National Security Alert a number of months back, which he subsequently claimed to have watched.

Harrit is on the four-person Organizing Committee of Scientists for 9/11 Truth alongside Kevin Ryan, Frank Legge, and Steven Jones.  The "Coordinator" is John Wyndham.  (See the Kevin Ryan section for more information about why this is relevant.)

6) James Gourley

As explained here: Gourley is perhaps the most powerful figure involved with the Toronto Hearings. Besides heading the International Center for 9/11 Studies (IC911S), the event's primary sponsor, he is also a member of the five person Steering Committee, and the editor of the final report. He has recently admitted that the Steering Committee decided from the outset that we would not be invited to make a presentation. This is especially significant considering that the Toronto Hearings' website claims that "the best available evidence into the case, discovered in the ten years since the 9/11 events occurred" will be presented over the course of the four day event.  Gourley is a close associate of Kevin Ryan, Frank Legge, and 911Blogger.com owner/moderator Justin Keogh. Again, see here for more info.

We invite James Gourley to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate/discussion with us about the 9/11 Pentagon event, and the strength and importance of the evidence against the official impact narrative, especially the evidence for a north side approach and flyover.

7) Jim Hoffman

Jim Hoffman is one of the most outspoken figures in the campaign against Citizen Investigation Team.  He has labeled us "hoax-promoting" since 2007, and shortly after our video National Security Alert came out in 2009, he and his wife Victoria Ashley launched a thoroughly, horribly dishonest and defamatory public assault against us and the evidence we present.  Meanwhile, he has had an open invitation to debate us since 2007, which he has steadfastly failed to accept.  Read much more about this history here.

Last week, on August 25, 2011, Kevin Ryan's close associate Frank Legge wrote on 9/11 Blogger that he felt it was necessary for the Toronto Hearings to "include a speaker who can present the case for impact," noting that "Jim Hoffman has volunteered to present the case for impact" at the Toronto Hearings.  Around the same time, an alteration was made to the schedule on the event's official website denoting that an "Unconfirmed witness" would be addressing "Pentagon evidence" on Day Two, which is Friday, September 9th.  (Previously the page said a video of April Gallop would be played.)

Time will tell if this will in fact be Jim Hoffman, but if so, we once again invite him to have a civil, thorough on-camera debate discussion with us in Toronto, in which he can attempt to "expose" our supposed  "hoax", prove that the flyover "theory" is "ludacris" and a "farce" (his words), and that the plane hit the Pentagon.

8) Dr. David Ray Griffin

David Ray Griffin is in a much different category than the other individuals we have mentioned here.  He has played an important role over the years in bringing evidence against the official impact narrative at the Pentagon to the masses (along with evidence against many other facets of the official story, of course).  He mentioned our work and the evidence for a north side approach and flyover in his book Debunking 9/11 Debunking, and gave a very positive review of our video National Security Alert when it was released in 2009, calling it an "important" film and recommending it "with enthusiasm".  (Read his full blurb here.)

Furthermore, Griffin himself has recently been assailed by members of the exact same relatively small yet very vocal group of individuals who purport to be part of the 9/11 truth movement, yet have spent years dishonestly attacking us and arguing in favor of the official impact story at the Pentagon.  (Griffin has long marshalled the evidence that the reported phone calls from the planes on 9/11 -- a key pillar of the official story supporting the "suicide hijackers" myth -- were not authentic, or may have even been, in some cases, non-existent.  These people claim that "there is no actual evidence the phone calls were faked, while there is a substantial body of evidence demonstrating the calls were not only possible, but did happen".)

After battling some very serious health problems last year, Griffin has written a new book entitled 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed, which is being published by Olive Branch Press this week.

The main reason we want to invite Dr. Griffin to have a public discussion with us is that, in a (rather short) synoposis posted to the website of the publisher, it is revealed that Griffin "argues that the intensely debated issue about the Pentagon - whether it was struck by a Boeing 757 - is quite unimportant".

We have of course not yet had an opportunity to read this book, which is due to be published in a matter of days, but needless to say, we strongly disagree with this position, and were very disappointed to learn that he would make such an argument.

Even though we apparently now hold drastically divergent opinions on the importance of the issue of whether or not the plane struck the Pentagon (and the relevant evidence), he seems to be in agreement with us that the question of "Is this issue important?" is, itself, quite important, considering that his treatment of the subject is listed as one of the main highlights of the book on the publishers website.

So, we are extending an invitation to Dr. Griffin to have a friendly (but serious) on camera debate/discussion with us about this critical issue -- is the evidence that the plane did not hit the Pentagon important?

Update: According to 911truth.org, copies of the book will apparently not be available until September 12th now.  In the meantime, they have published the book's Introduction.  Therein, Griffin writes:

The title of [Chapter 7] -- "A Consensus Approach to the Pentagon" -- alludes to the widespread sense, both in and outside the 9/11 Truth Community, that, whereas there is a lot of consensus within this community about the destruction of the World Trade Center, there is no such consensus about the attack on the Pentagon. In this chapter, I argue that, although there is indeed much disagreement on the issue that has received the most debate -- Was the Pentagon hit by a Boeing 757? -- this is a relatively trivial point in comparison with an issue about the Pentagon attack on which the 9/11 Truth Movement has reached consensus.

As we have meticulously documented for years, the supposed "controversy" ("disagreement") surrounding the evidence we have presented is artificially manufactured by a relatively small faction of dishonest people working in concert in defense of the official impact narrative.  This is why our detractors (many of whom are ironically now Griffin's detractors too, and are attempting to create a similar artificial "controversy" around some of his work) typically refuse direct debate with us.  The reality is that the idea that a/the large plane impact did not occur at the Pentagon is widely accepted to the point of being near a "consensus" outside of this faction.

In light of this newly-published quote from the introduction to his book, we invite Dr. Griffin to also discuss with us -- in addition to the aforementioned "importance" topic -- the (related) premise that there is actually legitimate disagreement going on, i.e. whether or not our supposed opposition presents legitimate counter-arguments and counter-evidence which cast significant doubt on the evidence we present.  We contend that this is a false premise.


Update/Epilogue: Prior to departing for Toronto, we sent personalized e-mails to each of the eight individuals named in this document to make sure they were aware of the invitation. None of them accepted.