[OESY]

Thank you for your response. I was hoping to provoke on this subject. Mission accomplished.

Let's let the reader decide who is rude, accusatory and fervently defending the official version.

I too am a pilot, but to escape your insults about laziness, I shall revisit the websites you linked.

Nevertheless, you have again avoided addressing the chief criticisms of NTSB report and elements of this news article: White House involvement, removal of whistleblower protections by executive order, spill patterns, double explosions, the widely discredited CIA graphic, missing evidence, Iranian claims as retribution, and other obvious flaws in the government's case.

Similarly, I have yet to understand your animosity toward Cashill, Sanders and Rivero. You attack them by innuendo rather than argument. More later.

Meanwhile, I am curious, do you have a comment about this link?:

TWA 800: The Disappearing ANTI-WhistleBlower Executive Order EO-13039

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[bmwcyle]

bttt

[Criminal Number 18F]

Thank you for your response. I was hoping to provoke on this subject. Mission accomplished.

Glad I could make you happy.

you have again avoided addressing the chief criticisms of NTSB report and elements of this news article:

Well, since it physically can't have been a bomb, and it physically can't have been a missile, playing whack-a-mole with the various permutations of conspiracy-think is somewhat pointless. It was a fuel-air explosion, which is also not an unknown event (as the FSF's list of 23 FAE-initiated hull losses indicates). But hey, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let's play... set up yer moles.

And I'll admit I didn't read all of Cashill's article.

I have yet to understand your animosity toward Cashill, Sanders and Rivero. You attack them by innuendo rather than argument.

I'll take them in reverse order.

Rivero: Let's dismiss him right off, because he's an anti-semite running a hate site who never met a conspiracy he didn't like. I'm not going to waste any time on him... period. I'll just point out that if conspiracies reached as far and were as malevolent as Rivero thinks, he'd be at the bottom of the sea somewhere and you'd never have heard of him. It's a free country. If you wanna believe in Scientology, Theosophy, trapanation or Michael Rivero it's all the same. Just don't expect to be taken seriously.

Cashill: my beef with Jack Cashill is, as I have stated, he's lying and profiting by it. For him TWA800 and the victim faqmilies are a bottomless ATM. He reminds me in that way of the POW-MIA scammers of the 80s -- some of them were well-meaning, and some of them were scamming suffering relatives. I do think he believes his own stuff, but that doesn't change the impact he has.

Sanders: My issue with Sanders is threefold: he tries to inflate his own expertise (how many people has he told he was an "aviation professional" without revealing where his only aviation experience, and his interest in the case comes from (his stint as TWA flight attendant and friend of some of the deceased cabin crew)? Two, who entitled him to violate procedures (and laws) to try to manipulate the investigation? The law is clear on who participates, on how, and on the purpose of these investigations. Sanders became a law unto himself... wrong. Three, his book contains many misstatements of fact. It is dishonest in detail as well as in conclusion. I named/linked one of those details in my previous post -- his misdescription of bottom sediment as "rocket fuel" -- but since that's his signature piece of "evidence," what else is there?

do you have a comment about this link

Ah, Ian Goddard. Or, as I think of him, "Goddard NOT the rocket scientist." The link says that the vast conspiracy disappeared EO-13039, but he sheepishly admits that it isn't disappeared at all right at the top. Give him credit for the admission. I will read the EO tonight and compare it to what he's saying about it... I assume that your interest is the EO itself, not the non-factual "fact" that it "was disappeared."

Let me address some specific claims you make. Now, you define "the chief criticisms of NTSB report and elements of this news article" as:

• White House involvement
  I think it would be amazing if the White House was not aware and briefed on such an accident, particularly one that initially appears to have been terrorism. Remember that terrorists attacked airplanes before (and since), and so terrorism certainly was the first answer on everybody's lips. Why wouldn't the White House be involved? President Bush was notified only minutes into the 9/11 events. Likewise, after AA587 crashed in NYC. The one was terrorism, the other not, but you'd expect the President -- any President, even Clinton -- to be aware and involved. You're suggesting there was improper involvement. How?

• removal of whistleblower protections by executive order
  I'll read this EO and see what it says. A quick scan of Goddard indicates it says something like, "think before you talk to the press." Heck, that's good advice. If James Sanders had not decided to do a parallel "investigation" and be a "hero," he'd still have a clean criminal record!

• spill patterns
  What do you mean?

• double explosions
  Again, I don't know what you mean here. Apparently these short terms mean something in conpirator land. They don't come up in the actual investigation.

• the widely discredited CIA graphic
  The only involvement of the CIA was in producing this CGI video, which propounded a theory to try to explain some of the radar data. This video was shown to the press and on TV, but it played no part in the actual investigation's conclusions. But the conspiracy guys keep beating this strawman over and over again. If you want to attack something, attack the structures or sequence group's reports... except, you can't.

• missing evidence
  There's nothing anyone can do about the absence of imaginary evidence. The only missing evidence I know of was the scrap of seat material that was stolen during the investigation. I suppose you could call the FBI's "302s" missing evidence, in that the FBI does not record witness interviews verbatim (they do this to allow them to spin the testimony if they need to, in criminal cases, and it's a shoddy and bad investigative practice). However, the FBI is committed to this practice. The other agencies involved do take verbatim witness statements. Witness evidence, however, is not especially reliable. Human memory has limits (look at the Libby trial circus).

• Iranian claims as retribution
  Numerous terror groups claim almost every attack (and air accident) as one of their great victories. It's propaganda. If they did it, how did they do it? Missile? But there's no hole! Bomb? But there's no HE signature! You are in the strange position of asserting that every level of the USG lies, but the mullahs are telling the truth. It would be theoretically possible -- if the physical evidence didn't contradict it. (Ask any police investigator about skells who confess to crimes they didn't do).

• and other obvious flaws in the government's case.

  Er... you are the guy propounding a conspiracy. The government case is made, game, set, match, by the positive proof that the breakup sequence began in the CWFT, and the complete lack of any evidence of high explosive or external penetration of the CWFT.

  Probably the hardest thing for people to believe is that a fuel tank with the right combination of temperature, pressure, and ignition source can just explode... but it has happened repeatedly. Look at the KC-135 mishaps and the measures the USAF subsequently took to prevent further ones (mostly, keeping fuel in that tank so that the ullage doesn't contain an inflammable fuel-air mixture. The same was ordered as an AD for the 74 right after TWA800 -- one of forty-odd ADs to come from this accident). "As that which is impossible is ruled out, that which remains, however improbable, is the truth, Watson."

  But if you see "other obvious flaws" that are greater than the flaw in the conspiracy case, namely, that the airplane was not brought down by anything but a bad combination of fuel, air and spark, please say what they are. They're not obvious to me, nor to the investigators, nor to the vast majority of people toiling in the vineyards of air safety.

Thanks for the opportunity to engage on the issue.

.d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[Criminal Number 18F]

OK, I should be working (I mentioned, I'm an engineer) but I went ahead and read the "missing" EO. It's here:

http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/displayEO.cfm?id=EO_13039_

(I just googled "EO-13039" it with "site:.gov" and this was the first government site of several that had it). And what it does is exclude DevGru from federal unionization rules. It has absolutely bupkus to do with TWA800.

DevGru's mission is classified. It is an element of the Joint Special Operations Command, and the DOD does not comment on such special operations elements. Here is a description of DevGru at a slightly anti-military site:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/navy/nswdg.htm

I cannot comment beyond that link, even to say whether the link is correct or not.

Goddard may not be a veteran, as he seems to misunderstand what DevGru is and what its assets are. He says they include these:

Navy assets and units that recovered the debris of TWA 800 included:

USS Grasp (ARS 51) USS Grapple (ARS 53) USS Trenton (LPD 14) USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit 1 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit 2 Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit 6 Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2

These assets and units are subsets of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. E.O. 13039 removed all personnel in this Group from whistle-blower protections for reasons of "national security."

Mr Goddard is incorrect in suggesting that these units belong to DevGru.

USNS Grasp retired from the Navy to continue its rescue and salvage work as a civilian ship last year. Prior to that, a little googling tells us, Grasp was a salvage ship, as is Grapple. USS Trenton has been decommissioned and sold. Oak Hill is still at Little Creek. None of these vessels belong to DevGru.

All the units Goddard lists are based at Little Creek, Virginia, I believe:

http://www.nablc.navy.mil/virtual_tour.htm

The reason I think that Goddard might not be a vet is that he refers to these elements as "subsets" of DevGru... I've never heard a soldier, sailor or Marine talk about "subsets." Have you?

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F