Can we please let the bogus "No Arabs on Flight 77" autopsy claim rest?

[JackRiddler]

This thread is partly in response to the renewed appearance of a thread claiming "No Arabs on Flight 77," based on a 2003 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filing by one Dr. Thomas Olmstead.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x91868

However, I believe the following rates its own thread, because I have done about 30 times more work on this than required to simply re-post a link to the Olmstead article with its fallacious conclusions. Also, every time this red herring gets discredited and drops off the board, it seems like someone else promptly re-posts it, so that we can go through the whole routine again. (It's almost as though someone wanted to provide our official "debunkers" with an easy strawman to beat.)

The Flight 77 Autopsy FOIA

Dr. Olmstead obtained from the government a list of persons "identified" as having been on Flight 77, based on autopsy results of human remains said to have been found at the Pentagon crash site. The list does not include the names of the five alleged Flight 77 hijackers.

The Olmstead article was first published in 2003, along with scans of his filing and the government's response, here:
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm (* See Note)

Dr. Olmstead's FOIA filing and the response from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) in Washington look genuine. However, in no way does the AFIP's response support Olmstead's conclusion that the government has admitted there were "no Arabs on Flight 77."

A military pathologist with AFIP provided Olmstead with a list of persons IDENTIFIED as having been among the dead of Flight 77 -- as it says in the AFIP's cover letter. And there is the key word: IDENTIFIED. Olmstead didn't ask whether there were any UNidentified remains, and the AFIP obliged him by not mentioning any.

The very same AFIP, if one would bother to do the research, also claims to be holding the remains of five "John Does" presumed to be the Flight 77 hijackers, and of four other "John Does" presumed to be the Flight 93 hijackers:
http://www.medienanalyse-international.de/faksimiles.html

As of Sept. 2002, no one had stepped forward to claim the "John Doe" remains. It's unclear what happened to these remains in the four years since, but the AFIP should have kept ample DNA samples from each of the nine unidentified men.

Now of course, you may wish to argue that AFIP is simply lying. Perhaps there are no John Doe remains being held at AFIP, and therefore no Arabs on Flight 77! If so, however, you cannot have it both ways, as Olmstead does, and falsely cite AFIP as the source of your own claim that there were no Arabs on Flight 77.

You may also wish to note that it's suspicious that the government has failed to identify its John Does -- although the same government claims that the identities of the five Flight 77 hijackers are known, and that the case of who did 9/11 is closed, and that the official verdict on 9/11 justifies all manner of wars and drastic policy shifts.

And you would be right about that. It is suspicious!

To me, it's no surprise that the AFIP did provide an answer to Olmstead's request, although AFIP is under the authority of the same Pentagon that is unwilling to comply with other, genuinely controversial requests (such as the release of 84 videos that may show parts of the attack on the Pentagon). Why not? Perhaps the AFIP people even took pleasure in toying with Olmstead's request, guessing that he might abuse the information they provided to come to the conclusion he already had in mind.

Finally, let us please dispense with the mythology that the government claims no airplane remains were found in the Pentagon. The government has always claimed that airplane parts were found in the Pentagon, and provided some pictures of what it says were such parts.

No official statement ever made the claim that all plane parts were vaporized, completely disintegrated, or anything of the sort, except for those who do a disservice to 9/11 skepticism with the following curious logic:

IF A.
I cannot see something
(in those pictures the government has chosen to release!),
THEN B.
It does not exist -
AND C.
I am furthermore allowed to attribute Claim B to the government itself
(although no official has ever made such a claim!)

QED, right?

---

NOTE
(* "Sierra Times" is a charming right-wing site. And I mean that: charming. Full of intelligent-seeming people who think SUVs and rifles will save them from the impending collapse of civilization.)

[dailykoff]

1. If you want to fill in the gaping holes in the official story

with "logic," go ahead. But I don't see how a word of it is physically possible.

[JackRiddler]

2. No.

I refuse to follow the illogic of someone else, simply because they are rejecting the official story.

But your point is?

[dailykoff]

3. I made my point.

But in case you missed it: every word of the official story is garbage. None of it is defensible and I don't know why you feel compelled to try.

[JackRiddler]

4. Which gets you where, exactly?

Okay, let's yell it from a blimp over a big stadium: Every word of the official story is garbage!

My, that was satisfying. We've got them on the run now.

Hey, I've got an even better idea. How about I take quotes out of context from various people (AFIP, coroners, the Mayor of Shanksville, etc.) and make it look like they're claiming things that they are not claiming, and which they would deny to have claimed if actually brought up in court, but which would nevertheless contradict the official story?

That'll show them!

Because you see, anything less than using faulty logic, false claims, fraudulent arguments and bogus evidence to disprove the official story is equivalent, as you say, to defending it.

[dailykoff]

5. The point is that it's phyically impossible.

Add to that the facts that the government witnesses aren't credible, the plane crashes weren't investigated in the normal ways, the evidence was confiscated and analyzed by oddball agencies reaching absurd conclusions, etc.

Better to start from the position that none of the official story is true and then try to figure out what actually happened if you're so inclined.

[medienanalyse]

7. Why not compare ?

Dear Jack,

I obtained that Olmstead / FOIA list AFTER I published my book. Public interest was low afterwards in real analysis. People preferrred to discuss pixels.

So I admit that I did not do what should have been done.

Take the official list of AA77 passengers and crew. Compare it with the names of the FOIA list, one by one.

In the end you will have a surplus of 5 names on the FOIA list. Right ?

Take these names and compare them with the official all in all list of 9/11 victims.
a) they are listed - so the probability is high that these five persons are
aa) those bodies on ice
ab) buried by their families, so handed out to them, which must be verified. Conclusion would be: the five iced ones are somebody else out of a day with about 3000 victims, about one third unidentified - so a huge amount of John Does to handle with.

or b) they are not listed, so a search nationwide and google ways may begin who these five names are.


In any case: the boring job to single out the five name surplus must be done. I had not so much specific fun to feel obliged to do that. You ?

[JackRiddler]

10. Okay, I just did that...

I remember doing this a long time ago, but did not keep notes, so now I did it again.

I compared the list from the Olmstead FOIA, as published at Sierra Times in 2003
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm

--with the list of the Flight 77 victims, as published in the Boston Globe in 2002 on the first anniversary of 9/11.
http://www.boston.com/news/packages/sept11/anniversary/victims/flight77.htm

The Olmstead list has 58 names. These correspond to 58 out of the 59 names that Boston Globe lists as "Confirmed Dead" (who are divided into crew and passengers) and "Reported Dead" (Steven Jacoby, for some reason).

One name on the Globe's list of victims list is not on the Olmstead list of people the AFIP claims to have identified in autopsy: Dana Falkenberg, who is listed on the BG list as a three-year-old girl.

Neither list includes the names of any of the alleged Flight 77 hijackers, though in neither case can that be taken as a denial (by either the government or the Boston Globe) that there were therefore no Flight 77 hijackers at all. (This is how Olmstead falsely interprets the information he received from AFIP, and that is what I am objecting to here, nothing more nor less.)

Of course, it's always technically possible everyone involved is lying! That's not my point, however. My point is that what Olmstead presents as a government admission that there were no Arabs on Flight 77 is actually nothing of the sort.

"Attached file contains the names of the 58 victims of AA Flight 77 that were identified here at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology."

Again, clearly: identified. Whereas the John Does are still listed as John Does. Also, "victims" - another out, since the AFIP might argue that the John Does (being the "hijackers" - although not identified, so how could they know?) are not "victims."

Clearly, there is something wrong when the government leaves the John Does as unidentified, but claims to have solved the crime.

But there is no reason to employ faulty reasoning - ever.

[medienanalyse]

19. Thank you for doing the boring job

I agree in all points.

And I am disappointed. At least I had hoped to get a hint concerning the possible odentities of the five iced bodies.

I suppose these five are physically existing. And my instinct tells me they do not look very nicely. When they are - see the small numvers of victims in the Pentagon- not missing Pentagon officers nor passengers nor some no-name gangsters shot in the streets of Washington suburbs they might be part of the WTC- amoubnt of unidentified bodies. It is pure speculation. What I am wondering about is that no family of the alleged hijackers claimed the body of their son to bury him. At least U d not know about that. And there are real families (Jarrah i.e. living in Bekaa, Lebanon), besides the faked Arab identities.

Daed ends in body bags.

[Tobias]

21. The DNA-samples (=supposed hijackers DNA) were offered to the Saudis, but

the Saudi embassy did not want them:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/17/attack/main519033.shtml

And I´m still waiting for the reason, why some think Atta arrived in Bosten not before the afternoon on Sept. 9th...

[petgoat]

6. Jack, what about the WingTV report about the Compensation

Fund claims and the Social Security Death Index? Has anybody confirmed that data
or debunked Victor Thorne's work on that?

[JackRiddler]

8. Well, what about it?

Tell us about it. We can only look at claims one at a time.

But first: Does it change anything about Olmstead's claim that the autopsy reports say no Arabs on Flight 77? I'd like to know first what you think about that.

[petgoat]

9. It's got nothing to do with Olmstead.

I've thought for a long time that Olmstead looked interesting but I
didn't have time to check it; now I'd regard it as less interesting
so I have even less time to check it.

The Victor Thorne claims about the Social Security Death Index and the
Victims Compensation Fund are that most of the alleged passengers of
the planes don't appear in the records.

"Of the passengers and crew of Flight 11, 77, 175 & 93, only 22%, 22%, 28%,
13% respectively are in the SSDI."

http://www.wingtv.net/thornarticles/911passengerlist.html

The article also claims that the 9-11 Victims Compensation Final Report says that
the families of the passenger victims had low rates of acceptance of the
funds:

"Out of a total of 92 people on Flight 11, only 65 accepted the 9-11 fund (71%)
Out of a total of 65 people on Flight 175, only 46 accepted the 9-11 fund (71%)
Out of a total of 64 people on Flight 77, only 33 accepted the 9-11 fund (52%)
Out of a total of 45 people on Flight 93, only 25 accepted the 9-11 fund (56%)"

I wondered if anybody had checked these assertions out. They would seem to be
significant if true.

[JackRiddler]

11. They might be significant, if true...

SSDI

The SSDI is not an exhaustive listing of all deaths of US citizens. (Plus, some on the flights might not have been citizens.)

As the article you cite (which is by-lined Vincent Sammartino) says,

"The Social Security Death Index (SSDI) (Social Security Death Index) is a privately-owned website that is not affiliated with Social Security. It boasts an accuracy rate of about 83% (e-mail them any questions you may have)."

As a privately-owned database, the SSDI has no obligation to provide a complete listing. It may have its own special reason to omit people from the database. If you don't contact them and ask them about why the data is missing, you haven't established anything yet (or done your basic journalistic due diligence). It's not enough for the author to say "e-mail them," he should be presenting the results of his own efforts to contact them.

The statistical anomaly of an unusually low proportion of flight victims being listed in the SSDI does not constitute proof of anything, and is a mere suspicion point until one follows up individually on each passenger missing from the SSDI. (Sorry! You're right, that would be a lot of work. So would pursuing the better question for anyone interested in this line of inquiry, which is: Were official death certificates issued for everyone claimed as a victim from the flights?)

As for Sammartino's claims regarding the Victims Compensation Fund, I see an immediate problem. The list of VCF claimants used by Sammartino (in PDF format), which is available at the link--
http://911digitalarchive.org/objects/3.pdf

--Is titled as follows:

September 11th Victim
Compensation Fund of 2001
List of Victim Representatives Making Claims
April 22, 2002

And is therefore useless, because victim representatives retained the opportunity to make claims until the deadline of December 22, 2003, 17 months after this list was published. (See http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/November/03_civ_648.htm).

As I remember, there was a rush of claimants just before the deadline.

I don't have time to check out Sammartino's other claims here, such as that the VCF has never published a complete list of claimants. Sammartino quotes them as giving the following proportions per flight of people making claims:

Out of a total of 92 people on Flight 11, only 65 accepted the 9-11 fund (71%)
Out of a total of 65 people on Flight 175, only 46 accepted the 9-11 fund (71%)
Out of a total of 64 people on Flight 77, only 33 accepted the 9-11 fund (52%)
Out of a total of 45 people on Flight 93, only 25 accepted the 9-11 fund (56%)

You might find these numbers suspicious compared to the supposed 98 percent rate of claims lodged overall, but again in itself this proves nothing. (I doubt the 98 percent number, by the way, since the number of actual dead in 9/11 has been undercounted with many of the homeless and undocumented workers at WTC simply ignored.)

First of all, if anyone is faking deaths in September 11th - which I do not consider implausible - wouldn't they want to make the VCF claim?!

Second, it's from people on the flights that you would expect the lowest rates of claims with the VCF, because the legal cases most likely to gain compensation independently of VCF are through suits against airlines (which VCF was specifically designed to avoid).

So I see nothing proven here.

[Ferry Fey]

12. Problems with that

Can we have a confirmation that Victor Thorne and Vincent Sammartino are the same people?

As far as I know, no-one has fact-checked that in the way that it needs to be fact-checked. I'd want to see at least 3 versions of the SSDI database utilized, with details about what ones were used and exactly what names and variations for each person documented. I'm really hardass about being meticulous about this sort of research.

Yes, it's horribly tedious bean-counting to fact-check this kind of work. But it hasn't been done to the satisfaction of of those of us who don't believe the official coincidence theory, let alone those on the fence or those who need a lot more convincing.

[JackRiddler]

14. ???

Who has claimed that Thorn and Sammartino are the same guy? I certainly haven't, and the thought had not occurred to me.

[Mnemosyne]

15. Weird possible tie-in?

"Were official death certificates issued for everyone claimed as a victim from the flights?"

I remember reading here at DU, iirc, about a piece of legislation to keep anyone from obtaining death/birth records for anyone other than immediate family. It was worded strangely. I can't seem to find a link on a search, but I clearly remember it.

[RedSock]

13. Thanks for this Jack

Though, of course, you know once *this* thread goes off Page 1, the "No Arabs" story will return!

[MervinFerd]

16. Don't think so. Makes -way- too much sense for these fellows.

[KJF]

17. I agree completely

The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory had a look at the unidentified persons' DNA at this is what they found:
http://www.cstl.nist.gov/div831/strbase/pub_pres/Edson2004.pdf
It's on pages 82-4.

Sample quote regarding the Pentagon:
"Nuclear DNA testing (along with dental records and fingerprints) of the remains from the victims aboard American Airline (AA) Flight 77 and within the Pentagon were useful for identifying 178 of 183 victims. Five missing individuals (four within the Pentagon and one aboard the airplane) could not be identified due to lack of biological material from the crash. Five remaining nuclear STR profiles were obtained from the crash site that did not match any references for the victims. These profiles were thought to represent the terrorists aboard the flight. ..."

It goes on two say that two of the American 77 hijackers may have been brothers.

Obviously, it would be much better to get DNA samples from the hijackers' families and identify them properly, although I don't know what the Saudi government would say about this.

[JackRiddler]

18. Now why would they do that?

Didn't you write on another thread recently that you doubted Hani Hanjour was really on that plane?

The official story has gone through, far as the US govt. is concerned. Why would they test DNA samples from the alleged perps, and risk that these don't match? (I would think if anything that the Saudi government might be willing to take the risk that they do match, since that's what most everyone assumes anyway.)

At any rate, thanks for the quote and the additional confirmation of what the US govt. is actually saying: that they located DNA from all Flight 77 passengers, except the little girl Dana Falkenberg, and that they used these remains to positively identify everyone who was supposedly on the plane, except for the five persons "thought to represent the terrorists aboard the flight" (meaning, the remains of the five "John Does" stored at AFIP).

So once again, this torpedoes the persistent mythology that officials ever claimed that no DNA was found at the Pentagon.

Doubters are free to argue why they think the government is lying anyway. But please, let us stop misrepresenting what the government (or anyone else) has actually claimed, as that serves no one.

[KJF]

22. I did

However, it now seems that (most of) the press may have misidentified Hani on the Dulles video and that somebody who looks reasonably like him is visible in (just) one of the video edits. So we'll have to see about this.
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5485376
Click on the video link

AFAIK the Penttbom investigation is still ongoing. The FBI certainly should test the samples, but whether they will or not...

[greyl]

20. 911myths.com deals with most of the hijacker issues.

There's more than one bullshit claim floating around, ya know.
http://www.911myths.com/html/hijackers.html

[quickesst]

23. Can I...

ask a simple question? Has it been proven without doubt that the alleged hijackers actually boarded the plane? Make that two questions. Has it been proven yet, that these five bodies are the remains of the alleged hijackers? Please, a simple yes or no will suffice. Thanks.
quickesst

[Jazz2006]

24. See posts above...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=91899&mesg_id=91993

and

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=91899&mesg_id=91999