So, has Pericles had second thoughts about his views having "bugger-all relevance"?

I guess it is possible for some to claim that Cossiga's words had to have been sarcastic, but I am not convinced.

And, of course, Pericles never fails to attribute nefarious motives, or some other serious personal flaws to anyone who publicly challenges the official account of 9/11, however he has never seriously attempted to address any of our substantive points.

If Pericles is not willing to state whether or not he supports the invasion of Afghanistan, then I don't know how he expects to be treated seriously.

As I have made clear, when I truly believed that Islamist fanatics, based in Afghanistan, launched 9/11 and were bent on launching many more such attacks, I supported the invasion of Afghanistan as being the only possible way to rid the world of this threat.

However, starting from late 2007, when I began to realise that the evidence in support of the Bush administration's claims about 9/11 did not exist, I started to change my view.

The reason Pericles now refuses to state clearly whether he is for or against the invasion of Afghanistan is that he knows that the evidence supporting the US case for invasion does not exist and wants to avoid having to acknowledge that.

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david f, if you insist on calling Arjay and myself "credulous cranks and/or scum" could you at least acknowledge that we are "credulous cranks and/or scum" who, unlike you, are prepared to discuss the evidence?

Dear Daggett,

I am sure your conspiracy websites make a plausible case. However, one can lie and make a plausible case if one is a good liar. This string started off with the hateful stereotype of the all-powerful Jew. Should I take that stereotype seriously?

There is or was even a flat earth society. Should I examine their evidence?

We have knowledge of lot of things that go on in the world only by second hand. We make decisions based on plausibility. Of course it is possible that the mainstream media and the governments concerned are cooperating in a giant coverup.

However, it seems far more plausible than you are credulous cranks and/or scum.

I am not obligated to examine the evidence of a crank who carries a sign on a street corner announcing that the world is coming to an end next Thursday.

I put Arjay and you in the same category as that crank.

Your cut 'n' paste approach to life sometimes becomes immensely tedious, daggett.

>>So, has Pericles had second thoughts about his views having "bugger-all relevance"?<<

Let me repeat:

"My views on the invasion of Afghanistan have bugger-all relevance to the dismemberment of your ridiculous conspiracy inventions, which is why I haven't offered them."

A refresher on the English language, daggett. The meaning of a sentence is derived from its whole, not just a part.

If I were to state here that "They said on the news last night that daggett has the IQ of a paving stone", you would be unable to sue me for the libel "daggett has the IQ of a paving stone". I would not even need to claim truth as a defence, since the whole sentence makes it clear it was reported speech.

The relevance is to this discussion only, which, to remind you, is about your insistence on re-writing history as a Die Hard film-script.

Now, where were we.

>>I guess it is possible for some to claim that Cossiga's words had to have been sarcastic, but I am not convinced.<<

Well of course you're not. It's your job to be unconvinced when the person who made the statement in the first place says his words had been manipulated. It's what you do.

I prefer to believe Cossiga.

>>however he has never seriously attempted to address any of our substantive points.<<

As I have said on oh-so-many previous occasions daggett, the millisecond after you make your first substantive point, I'll set about addressing it.

If it actually makes sense, I'll even support it. Alas, that day seems as far away as ever.

>>If Pericles is not willing to state whether or not he supports the invasion of Afghanistan, then I don't know how he expects to be treated seriously<<

That, from someone who in the next sentence admits to having changed his mind on the topic, is classic.

"If daggett keeps changing his mind on whether or not he supports the invasion of Afghanistan, then I don't know how he expects to be treated seriously".

david f,

Nobody forced you, Pericles or anyone else to comment on the 9/11 controversy here or anywhere else.

The fact remains that you have expressed a view and you have cast judgement on those who have different views to yourself, but you have not been prepared to substantiate those views.

I personally don't mind that much if individual "cranks and/or scum" hold responsible Islamist extremists operating from sanctuaries within Afghanistan for the murder of almost 3,000 US residents on 11 September 2001.

But when Governments, principally the US Government, make that claim, without any evidence, and then use that claim as a pretext to launch ruinously costly wars against those they claim are giving sanctuary to those said extremists at the cost of well over a million lives, then it is the right and duty of every free-thinking citizen in any democracy to subject those claims to the closest possible scrutiny.

And that is what Arjay and I have tried to do.

All you have done, and Pericles even more so, is waste everyone's time by, amongst other things, attacking us personally and coming up with excuses not to examine the clear direct evidence such as that of the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center Building such as:

"WTC7 in Freefall" at http://911blogger.com/node/17685
"'WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall' ...The Movie" at http://911blogger.com/node/18771
"WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)" at http://911blogger.com/node/18951
"WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)" at http://911blogger.com/node/18969

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david f wrote, "This string started off with the hateful stereotype of the all-powerful Jew."

It did not.

Given the acknowledged influence of the Jewish lobby over US foreign policy and given way that the US has acted particularly favourably towards Israel and against Arab and Muslim nations, particularly since 2001, then I don't see why it is unreasonable to question the precise nature of the influence that that lobby has over the US.

As already I wrote, I think it unlikely the Israel and the Jewish lobby exercise decisive control over the decisions made by the US Government, but I am open to persuasion either way.

I note that Pericles has judged daggett for having CHANGED HIS MIND on the question of 9/11.

Well, he can hardly now expect daggett to pay any heed to his 'arguments' lest HE CHANGES HIS MIND again, can he?

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I also note the ever observant Pericles has also caught daggett out for having quoted a sentence of his out of context:

"The meaning of a sentence is derived from its whole, not just a part."

However, didn't daggett ask Pericles:

"But why only your views on the invasion of Afghanistan?"

?

One thing's for sure, you're forever entertaining, daggett.

I just had to look it up, and here's what I found.

The act of talking about yourself in the third person, is called illeism.

>>However, didn't daggett ask Pericles: "But why only your views on the invasion of Afghanistan?"<<

Illeism. Remember that word, it will come in handy one day.

Sesame Street's Elmo has the same habit. And Russell Crowe, too, if the stories that he shouts "Go, Russ, Go" at the moment of, um, ecstasy, are true.

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=6608

Incidentally, the strictly accurate answer to your question is yes, you did.

However, you failed to make clear:

Is the emphasis on "only"? "your"? "only your"? "views"? "invasion"? or "Afghanistan"?

Without knowing that, the question is utterly unanswerable.

But since you specialize in posing questions that make no useful contribution to the discussion, it is hardly surprising.

You also provide what I guess we need to call a semi-illeism. Or perhaps a demi-illeism.

>>I note that Pericles has judged daggett for having CHANGED HIS MIND on the question of 9/11.<<

Why does daggett.... er, sorry, why do you see this as a judgement? I didn't take as a judgment your observation on my unwillingness to give you my views on the invasion, after all. Seems just a tad paranoid.

>>Well, he can hardly now expect daggett to pay any heed to his 'arguments' lest HE CHANGES HIS MIND again, can he?<<

Now you see, daggett, right there, the very real dangers of illeism.

No-one can have the faintest clue to whom the various references to "he" in this sentence belong, can they?

And as for this little spray...

>>All you have done, and Pericles even more so, is waste everyone's time by, amongst other things, attacking us personally and coming up with excuses not to examine the clear direct evidence<<

You only think you are being attacked, daggett. It's just the self-delusion that you employ as a justification for getting all cross and bothered when people treat your theories with the profound contempt that they deserve.