Concerning Bill Moyers and 9/11

by Bill Willers

“Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance.”

-Albert Einstein

“In a postmodern world, truth is part of the privilege of power and to question received truth is to forego received power.”

-Sam Smith

Bill Moyers, a persuasive voice for the Johnson Administration’s Great Society, has for decades framed his commentary with soft-spoken eloquence. His career has spanned the administrations of nine presidents, and he has become a powerhouse in influencing public opinion in the United States.

In February, Moyers published an article containing the following paragraph:

“Disinformation is not unique to the right, of course. Like other journalists, I have been the object of malevolent assaults from the ‘9/11 truthers’ for not reporting their airtight case proving that the Bush administration conspired to bring about the attacks on the World Trade Center. How did they discover this conspiracy? As the independent journalist Robert Parry has written, ‘the truthers’ threw out all the evidence of al-Qaeda’s involvement, from contemporaneous calls from hijack victims on the planes to confessions from al-Qaeda leaders both in and out of captivity that they had indeed done it. Then, recycling some of the right’s sophistry techniques, such as using long lists of supposed evidence to overcome the lack of any real evidence, the ‘truthers’ cherry-picked a few supposed ‘anomalies’ to build an ‘inside-job’ story line. Fortunately, this Big Lie never took hold in the public mind. These truthers on the left, if that is where GPS can find them on the political map, are outgunned, outmatched and outshouted by the media apparatus on the right that pounds the public like drone missiles loaded with conspiracy theories and disinformation and accompanied by armadas of outright lies.”

• Bill Moyers Facts Still Matter

It is difficult to understand why someone so well informed would smear a movement as if unaware of the thousands of accomplished academics, engineers and governmental personnel filling its ranks, including theologian David Ray Griffin whose books on 9/11, models of faultless analysis, have won him worldwide acclaim. It is also irregular that Moyers, in labeling a global collective of respectable people with his “Big Lie” brush, leans heavily on the words of another person.

Moyers, like so many attempting to discredit the Truth Movement, charges that it seeks to prove “… that the Bush administration conspired to bring about the attacks on the World Trade Center”. Deliberate or not, this charge, seen often by supporters of the official 9/11 story, is misleading. The Bush Administration per se is not the central issue. What is sought, first and foremost, as the Movement’s label implies, is simply truth. The common denominator within the diverse, global Truth Movement (when you discount infiltrators intent on delegitimizing it with silly claims) is call for an honest, independent investigation. To date, there has not been one, as even members of the 9/11 Commission have admitted. One Commission member, Max Cleland, resigned in disgust over the “whitewash”.

Regarding allegations of governmental complicity that may exist within the Truth Movement, Moyers writes “Fortunately, this Big Lie never took hold in the public mind.” In truth, a sizable proportion of Americans and citizens all over the world do suspect some involvement in the attack by elements within the U.S. Government and possibly a foreign “ally” as well. This has been mainstream news for years, and there is even a Wikipedia page covering 9/11 opinion polls, so that one must conclude Moyers knew his statement was false.

• Third of Americans Suspect 9-11 Government Conspiracy
• September 11 Attacks Opinion Polls
• Moyers relies on a January article by Robert Parry as he besmirches “truthers”.

Parry’s derisive piece would have seemed uninformed half a decade ago. He refers readers to a discredited 2005 Popular Mechanics treatment and to an outdated (2006) Q&A website of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The piece is so bad that one might feel embarrassment for the author whose shingle reads “investigative journalist”.

While the left is where a GPS might find any given member of the Truth Movement on a political map, political orientation is not germane with this issue. In any case, because Moyers wields considerable influence in the U.S., he is as answerable for his statements as is any politician, and one should feel free to speculate regarding forces behind his positions. The concept of “left gatekeeper” describes ostensibly progressive reporters acting to keep specific issues away from public scrutiny. There is such a vast array of discussion on this subject available via search engine that examples should not be necessary here, but is it relevant that Moyers is often mentioned in this context.

In simple fact, the official story regarding 9/11 is replete with obvious falsehoods and physical impossibilities any one of which a “free press” should pursue, and what Peter Dale Scott terms the “Deep State” benefits from contemporary journalism’s calculated avoidance of the issue. At the same time, molding attitudes within the nation’s intelligentsia requires commentators from within its own cultured and cerebral domain, and Moyers fills that slot like no other.

There is a vast and growing global network of honorable and informed men and women intent on exposing the conspicuous fabrications associated with the 9/11 attack. Included are figures in academe, government, intelligence, the military and every profession you can think of. Bill Moyers has, in public forum, called them liars, and a number of them have published an open letter requesting an apology, said letter posted on a number of websites, including that of VT.

• 911 An Open Letter to Bill Moyers

Moyers has certainly seen it. Noting the titles of scientists and engineers of various categories (one representing 1,500 others), of theologians of distinction (liars?) and of journalists (one, like himself, a noted media critic), does he nevertheless consider an apology beneath him or a threat to a carefully maintained persona? Might he suspect an apology would irk the powers that enjoy the privilege of truth so as to jeopardize his own received power? Or would he rethink a position too quickly taken and see that an apology is due?

Ultimately, his response to the request, or his failure to acknowledge it altogether, would be a defining feature of the true core of the man, his prestige and silver-tongued oratory notwithstanding.