A Response to Misleading Claims About the CIT Flyover Debate

A Response to Misleading Claims About the CIT Flyover Debate

By Arabesque

It has come to my attention that several misleading arguments and claims have been made about my commentary on CIT. A witness at the Pentagon saw the light poles on the ground after the attack. Later in an interview, he gave the incorrect location of where they were placed. Completely ignoring this fact, it is alleged that:

“Arabesque deliberately omitted Lagasse’s explicit statement that he didn’t the see light poles hit.”

This statement is misleading as I have never claimed Lagasse saw the poles get hit. The relevant point that I made is the fact that he got the location of the poles on the ground wrong. Is this fact not relevant to CIT and their defenders? Apparently, it is not because they seem to completely ignore this while accusing "me" of being "deliberately" misleading. A simple question: If a witness gets the location of the light poles (and taxi cab) at the Pentagon wrong, is it relevant whether or not he saw the plane hit them to figure out the testimony he gave is factually wrong? Amazingly, for some people this is a really hard one to figure out.

On the truthaction forum, "Stefan" quotes CIT while making his point:

CIT: Did you see it hit any lightpoles?

Lagasse: Did not see them hit any light poles, but obviously when I got to the scene the lightpoles were down.

This most important piece of testimony Arabesque first omits, then denies, then accuses the people who refer to it of making misleading statements.. The implications of Lagasse's testimony is self-evident to anyone who has heard what he actually says in context, rather than just the cherry picked quotes Arabesque feeds his readers.

Stefan "cherrypicks" and distorts:

1. I did not quote Ranke's words "out of context". Ranke clearly states, "Why should he remember where the light poles were knocked down when he told us that he DID NOT SEE THE LIGHT POLES?" The word "where" denotes "location".
2. The question of whether or not Lagasse saw the "plane" hit the poles is completely irrelevant to the issue that he misplaced their location.
3. I never "claimed" that Lagasse saw the plane hit the light poles, and yet Stefan is accusing me of "omitting" this fact. How could I "omit" information when it is completely irrelevant to the claim I am making?

If you have followed CIT and their debating tactics on forums, this kind of absurdly infuriating straw-man argumentation is frequently what you encounter. CIT and many of their defenders have never clearly acknowledged that Lagasse's statement that he got the location of the light poles wrong affects the credibility of his testimony, preferring to distract with the irrelevant point that he never saw them get hit by the plane. Well that's "interesting" because I never said that he saw the plane hit the light poles. I said that he got their location on the ground wrong.

Let's examine the original quotation by Craig Ranke in its original context:

“Why should he remember where the light poles were knocked down when he told us that he DID NOT SEE THE LIGHT POLES? Of course he would believe that the light poles/physical damage that he DID NOT SEE (or read reports on after the fact) would line up with the flight path of the plane that he DID SEE! That only serves to prove how certain he is of where he saw the plane.”

Note that Ranke says, "remember where the light poles were knocked down... when he DID NOT SEE THE LIGHT POLES." As I explained above, "where" is a word used to describe "location". Lagasse did indeed remember "where" the light poles were knocked down, although Ranke claims above that he does not. For additional context, if you click the link on that quotation, you will see that Ranke was responding to a forum user who pointed out that Lagasse got the location of the poles wrong. Ranke's answer is clearly in response to this.

However, on the Truthaction forum, Stefan ridiculously attempts to claim that Ranke really meant, "see the 'plane hit' the light poles", but given the complete context of the full statement above (and the post that it was in response to), this would make Ranke's statement (i.e. "where the light poles were knocked down") completely nonsensical:

[Stefan claims Ranke meant:] "[Why would Lagasse] remember where the light poles were knocked down... when he DID NOT SEE [the plane hit the] LIGHT POLES."

Oddly enough, Stefan accuses "me" of taking words out of context, when in fact, this is exactly what he is doing. Again, "plane hit the poles" is completely unrelated to "where" they "were knocked down". Even if the meaning is changed to what Stefan claims Ranke meant, he still used the word "where" which is describing the location of the poles, and is completely unrelated to the issue of whether or not the plane hit them.

Clearly, Ranke's statement is deceptive as I have explained above. I am not claiming that Lagasse saw the light poles get hit by the plane. I am claiming that he placed them in the wrong location. In the diagram below, Lagasse got the location of the taxi cab and light poles wrong, placing them in the same location saying:

“there was a light pole here that was knocked down [pointing to an incorrect location]… none of these light poles over here were knocked down”

Not only did Lagasse get the light poles wrong, he was adamant that the light poles knocked down on 9/11 were not knocked down! He also misplaced the location of the Taxi cab which can be seen in the illustration above. This hasn't stopped CIT from repeating the claim that this witness is part of the "smoking gun" evidence that the plane flew North of the CITGO. CIT has refused to acknowledge in any clear way that Lagasse's testimony is not credible based on the mistaken testimony he has given.

It is important to note that CIT and Stefan do NOT acknowledge the fact that Lagasse's mistaken testimony affects the credibility of his flight path. In fact, CIT and Stefan bizarrely claim that the fact that Lagasse got the location of the poles wrong "only serves to prove how certain he is of where he saw the plane.” Stefan supports this absurd position, writing:

[Legasse] incorrectly states that the light poles were in the same place as where he knew the plane was. It’s just logical deduction and all it does is speak to Laggasse’s unshakable certainty that the plane flew where he said it did.

This is a ridiculous claim on so many levels that it barely needs explanation. When a witness gives mistaken testimony, it does not make their testimony "more" credible, it makes it less so. And yet, CIT and their supporters absurdly claim against all reason that in fact, the opposite is true. And this is where CIT and their supporters tip their hand and reveal that they are not interested in a rational discussion of the Pentagon witnesses. They are going to claim that if a witness is mistaken about important details, it only proves how certain the witness was of the flight path. This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order.

To the outside observer, it should rightfully seem bizarre that I would have to clarify these issues at all. That is, until you have observed a repeated pattern of deceptive argumentation from certain quarters of the 9/11 "truth" movement.