NEW PEARL HARBOR: Introduction

Question 1

Except where otherwise noted, all information in this deck is from David Ray Griffin, 2004, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, Updated Edition, Northhampton MA: Olive Branch Press.

Answer 1

Except where otherwise noted, all information in this deck is from David Ray Griffin, 2004, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11, Updated Edition, Northhampton MA: Olive Branch Press.

Question 2

Why the reference to Pearl Harbor in Griffin’s title? What does he mean by entitling his book, “The New Pearl Harbor”?

Answer 2

Griffin writes: “The attacks of 9/11 have often been compared with the attacks on Pearl Harbor. […] This comparison has often been made for the sake of arguing that the American response to 9/11 should be similar to the American response to Pearl Harbor.”

Question 3

Who else has compared 9/11 to Pearl Harbor?

Answer 3

Many have done so.

For example, Rahul Mahajan “analyzes the themes of US imperialism since 9/11 in light of the document…Rebuilding America’s Defenses, which was prepared by the Project for the New American Century. […] Mahajan…notes that this document said that…transformation of the military would probably be politically impossible ‘absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event–like a new Pearl Harbor.’” (pp. xvi-xvii)

Question 4

What was Griffin’s purpose in writing The New Pearl Harbor?

Answer 4

The New Pearl Harbor examines a large number of “disturbing questions about the Bush administration and 9/11” (from the subtitle). It concludes by asking, “whether the best explanation of the evidence…is…official complicity in the attacks of 9/11.” (pp. xx-xxi)

Question 5

Griffin writes that, “The events of 9/11…were the most important events of recent times–both for America and the rest of the world.” (p. xi)

Why does he think this?

Answer 5

Griffin offers numerous reasons to think 9/11 important. He notes for example that, “The official account of 9/11 has been used as the justification for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq….. […] It has been used to justify the USA PATRIOT Act, through which the civil liberties of Americans have been curtailed. And it has been used to justify the indefinite incarceration of countless people in Guantanamo and elsewhere.” (p. xiv)

Question 6

What does Griffin mean by “official complicity’?

Answer 6

“There are at least eight possible views of what official complicity in the attacks of 9/11 might mean.” (p. xxi)

(Which if any of these is correct can only be determined by the cumulative weight of evidence, according to Griffin.)

Question 7

Why does Griffin think it necessary to distinguish eight possible levels of governmental complicity?

Answer 7

“One reason these distinctions are important is that they show that discussion of the idea of official complicity–whether such complicity is being charged or rejected–needs to be more nuanced than is often the case.” (p. xxii)

Question 8

What is the first level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness: the first is least serious; the eighth is most serious.) (p. xxi)

Answer 8

1. CONSTRUCTION OF A FALSE ACCOUNT

”..although US officials played no role in facilitating the attacks and did not even expect them, they constructed a false account of what really happened…”. (p. xxi)

Question 9

What is the second level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 9

2. SOMETHING EXPECTED BY INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

“…although they had no specific information about the attacks in advance, some US intelligence agencies…expected some sort of attacks to occur. […] [T]hey perhaps played a role in facilitating them in the sense of deliberately not taking steps to prevent them.” (p. xxi)

Question 10

What is the third level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 10

3. SPECIFIC EVENTS EXPECTED BY INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

“…intelligence agencies (but not the White House) had specific information about the timing and the targets of the attacks.” (p. xxi)

Question 11

What is the fourth level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 11

4. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES INVOLVED IN PLANNING

“…intelligence agencies (but not the White House) actively participated in planning the attacks.” (p. xxii)

Question 12

What is the fifth level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 12

5. PENTAGON INVOLVED IN PLANNING

“…the Pentagon (but not the White House) actively participated in planning the attacks.” (p. xxii)

Question 13

What is the sixth level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 13

6. SOMETHING EXPECTED BY WHITE HOUSE

“…although the White House had no specific knowledge of the attacks in advance, it expected some sort of attacks to occur and was a party to facilitating them, at least in the sense of not ordering that they be prevented.” (p. xxii)

Question 14

What is the seventh level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness.) (p. xxi)

Answer 14

7. SPECIFIC ADVANCE KNOWLEDGE BY WHITE HOUSE

“…the White House had specific foreknowledge of the targets and the timing of the attacks.” (p. xxii)

Question 15

What is the eighth level of official complicity Griffin considers?

(Griffin considers these levels in ascending order of seriousness: the first is least serious; the eighth is most serious.) (p. xxi)

Answer 15

8. WHITE HOUSE INVOLVED IN PLANNING

“…the White House was a party to planning the attacks.” (p. xxii)

Question 16

What is a deductive argument?

Answer 16

Griffin writes of deductive arguments as follows:

“Some arguments are, as we say, ‘only as strong as the weakest link.’ These are deductive arguments, in which each step in the argument depends on the truth of the previous step. If a single premise is found to be false, the argument fails.” (p. xxiv)

Question 17

What is a cumulative argument?

Answer 17

Griffin writes of cumulative arguments as follows:

“This kind of argument is a general argument consisting of several particular arguments that are independent from each other.” As such, each particular argument provides support for all the others. Rather than being like a chain, a cumulative argument is more like a cable composed of many strands. Each strand strengthens the cable. But if there are many strands, the cable can still hold a lot of weight even if some of them unravel.” (p. xxiv)

Question 18

Does Griffin offer a deductive or a cumulative argument in The New Pearl Harbor?

Answer 18

“…the argument for official complicity in 9/11 is a cumulative argument. […] [T]here are many strands in the argument for official complicity in 9/11 summarized in this book. If the purported evidence on which some of these are based turns out to be unreliable, that would not necessarily undermine the overall argument.” (p. xxiv)

Question 19

Who is David Ray Griffin?

Answer 19

Griffin is currently Co-Director at the Center for Process Studies, and Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, at the Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University (in southern CA). He is a highly regarded philosopher and theologian, having authored numerous books (twenty four as of May 2013, most published by SUNY Press) which interpret the Christian theological tradition and the modern sciences from the perspective provided by the American process-pragmatist tradition (parented by Alfred North Whitehead). He is an editor of the corrected edition of Whitehead’s Process and Reality (which is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophical texts of all time). Since 2003, he has focused almost exclusively on the official response to 9/11 and its consequences. He has published twelve books on 9/11, including The 9/11 Commission Report: Ommissions and Distortions (2004); Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (2007); and 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed (2011).

HONORS AND AWARDS: (1) Griffin is included in *The New Handbook of Christian Theologians *(1996). (2) He is a recipient of the Book Prize of the Scientific and Medical Network in 2000 for Religion and Scientific Naturalism (2000). (3) He won the Helios Foundation Award in 2006 for The New Pearl Harbor (2004) and The 9/11 Commission Report. (4) He received a Bronze Medal for Debunking 9/11 Debunking in the 2008 Independent Publisher Book Awards. (5) Griffin was honored by Publishers Weekly in November, 2008, by having The New Pearl Harbor Revisited (2008) named “Pick of the Week.” (6) Griffin was named one of, “The 50 People Who Matter Today” by The New Statesman, September 24, 2009.

The above information was taken 5/23/13 from Griffin’s curriculum vitae as it appeared online at http://www.anthonyflood.com/griffincv.htm.

Question 20

Is Griffin a “conspiracy theorist”?

Answer 20

Yes and No.

As Griffin says, “We all accept conspiracy theories…. We accept a conspiracy theory whenever we believe that two or more people have conspired in secret to achieve some goal, such as to rob a bank, defraud customers, or fix prices. […] [W]e accept all those conspiracy theories that we believe to be true, while we reject all those that we believe to be false. We cannot, therefore, divide people into those who accept conspiracy theories and those who reject them.” (p. xxiv)