Wresting and Wrangling

Review: Jack Monnett, Awakening to our Situation: Warnings from the Nephite Prophets (Nauvoo House Publishing, 2006).

To begin with, this is not a real review because to really do that I would have had to read this entire book, and I'm just not willing to waste that much of life. Two chapters was enough for me, and I am only devoting more of my time to write a review of this book as a public service, seeing as how almost all of the discussion on the Internet about this book is by fellow conspiracy theorists who are enthralled by this tripe.

Up front, I can also say that I am not really qualified to weigh in on the specifics of this book - modern American history is not my specialty. However, unlike the author of this book, my PhD is in historical research, and my profession involves teaching students how to conduct good research. From that perspective, I can tell you that if Dr. Monnett, PhD, submitted this book as work in one of my classes, he would be earning a D at best. He does practically everything I tell students NOT to do when doing research and writing it up. A few examples should suffice.

One of the last chapters of the book is about 9/11. After reminding us that "most ideas that challenge the status quo are not found in traditional radio and television news reports, newspapers, and news magazines", which must explain why he never really cites anything published by a reputable or academic publisher, he proceeds to explain what "really happened" on 9/11 through a series of questions and answers. I will quote a little:

What about the nineteen hijackers? Have they finally paid for their crimes?
We would have expected that the hijackers would have been quickly brought to justice and been sentenced. A year after the tragedy, Director of the FBI Robert Mueller told the nation that "We at this point definitely know the nineteen hijackers who were responsible" and implied that they would speedily be brought to justice.* Instead, today, we find them referred to in most writings as "alleged" hijackers because several have been found to be living (not burned up in plane crashes) and, of those interviewed, all have denied that they had anything to do with the hijackings and have shown plausible alibis. To date, even with various bits of circumstantial evidence found, no convictions have been made against any of them who are living.

But the planes were hijacked and flew into the World Trade Center, didn't they?
There are some inconsistencies in the reporting, but most researchers feel that the airplanes that hit the Twin Towers were the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175. One concern that has been raised is that hitting either tower with a difficult to maneuver plane such as a Boeing 767 would be particularly difficult for novice pilots. Another interesting aside is that each of the planes "had at least one passenger who was a senior official in Raytheon's division of Electronics Warfare" aboard which, for some, opens other possibilities.*

The chapter then continues on to question the reaction of the Air Force to the hijacking: it was too slow, and the reports afterward show some confusion and conflicting views. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is:

This all may sound quite confusing, but most researchers have come to the conclusion that any scrambling that may have been done by jet interceptors was not done with the intent of preventing the airliners from hitting their targets. Given the prescribed protocol and the nation's state of emergency, the only answer for the silent fighter jets appears to be willful complicity by those who were responsible for scrambling and intercepting the airplanes.

And now we have the crux of it all - a great big conspiracy to get us into war so that the secret combination trying to rule the world could make some more money.

Now, the two asterixes above are in place of the author's footnote markers. Notice the massive lack of documentation for anything that Monnett asserts. The first * is a citation for an article entitled "Playing the 9/11 Unity Card" which he says in his endnote was authored by the Associated Press on November 3, 2002. He follows this with a link to the nomoregames.net website, which turns out to be the creation of a fellow conspiracy theorist, who appears to be the actual author of the article. This guy, Morgan Reynolds, is another "PhD", this one in economics, who would thus appear to be unqualified to say anything definitive on the subject, particularly on the structural integrity of the twin towers, which is exactly what he does do in another article on his website. Whether he is qualified or not (I'm not saying you have to have a PhD in history to do good research, although one in engineering would be a useful accreditation for someone commenting on the structural integrity of the buildings), this is hardly the place to find your quote from the head of the FBI. There are more reliable sources for this kind of information, and as I teach my young research students, you want your evidence to be from as reliable a source as you can find.

Now we skip down through some pretty amazing, and undocumented, assertions until we finally come to his second source citation. This * refers us to David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. Olive Branch Press: Northampton, MA, 2004, p. 209. Now, I don't know anything about this book, but I can tell you a couple of things just from this citation information: The reference to the "new" Pearl Harbor must mean that he is another conspiracy theorist who belives that Pearl Harbor was all a conspiracy by FDR to get us into WWII (I have heard of this conspiracy theory before). I'll leave it to the WWII historians to debunk that myth (as I'm sure they already have). And what about this Olive Branch Press - I teach my budding researchers to look at the press to help determine the reliablity of a source. The best presses use a peer review process that ensures that other experts in the field agree that the work is based on sound research, even if they don't agree with its conclusions. The nice thing about the Internet is that you can usually learn something about these questionable presses right from their own websites, and sure enough, right on the front page of their website:

Our Mission

We endeavor to glorify and serve God, by educating, edifying and entertaining His people. We will do this by providing quality materials that help to develop a Biblical worldview. We desire to be used by God to draw non-believers into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and believers to a closer walk with Him.

Statement of Faith

We believe in one God, eternally manifested in three persons. We believe that the Bible alone is the standard for every area of life, and that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, is infallible, and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness. We believe that man is saved by grace alone, and that the atoning work of Jesus Christ, and His resurrection, allow us to enter into a personal relationship with God, the Creator.

I'm not quibbiling over their professions of faith. They have the right to assert whatever beliefs they want, and they have the right to publish whatever they want. My point is that this statement should hardly instill in us a sense of confidence in the impartiality of this particular work, the acceptance of its research standards by other researchers, or the reliablity of its conclusions, since clearly the point of any book from this publisher must be to convert people to their own "Biblical worldview". That's great for a Sunday School manual, but not if you want your research to be considered legitimate and reliable. This book by Griffin becomes Monnett's main source for his views of the 9/11 conspiracy (if all the ibid.'s at the end of the chapter are anything to go by).

The same could be said about Monnett's publisher, except that his publisher doesn't even have a website. We might well ask whether this book is being published out of some nut-job's basement - maybe even by Monnett himself. I note that you can't even buy it on Amazon, except through their used book sellers. On the author himself, I found this little blurb: "Jack D. Monnett holds degrees in education from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in the Historical Foundation of Education from the University of Utah." Whatever "Historical Foundation of Education" means, I'm guessing his PhD is from an Education department, not a history department. Hardly instills confidence in his ability to do historical research - again, not that he couldn't, just that all his credentials, which he flashes on the cover of his book, don't mean that he is qualified to do the research required for his book. Displaying one's credentials on the cover of a serious academic book is rarely reassuring, rather it suggests insecurity.

So much for Monnett's sources. I teach my research students that whenever you want to argue against some one, you need to present their side as fairly and completely as you can, so that you can say that you have accurately depicted their view and shown it to be lacking. Not only does Monnett fail to do this, but he doesn't even back up his own arguments with any hard evidence. This is D work at best.

Now let's look, just briefly, at his grammar. Hey, no one is perfect. (I'm sure I have a few booboos in this blog - but then I'm not asking a publisher to print this blog.). In my experience of grading papers, however, the ones with the most grammatical problems are usually the ones which demonstrate the shoddiest research as well. So, when Monnett writes, "But the planes were hijacked and flew into the World Trade Center, didn't they?", we must ask: Were the planes hijacked (presumably by the terrorists) or did they fly themselves (the planes 'were hijacked and flew' - subject of flew = planes, presumably by themselves since no other subject is offered)? He either needs to turn 'were hijacked' into an active verb with a clear subject who can both hijack and fly, or he can leave the passive voice, in which case he needs: the planes "were flown", again presumably by the hijackers. The 'they' at the end must refer to the planes, since no other subject was offered. By itself, this problem is minimal, but coupled with the lack of any hard evidence or reliable sources, it must force us to raise an eyebrow.

Now, on to my favorite aspect, which is the illogicality and hyperbole of conspiracy theorists. Follow along in the text with me. Now, I have not done much research into this 9/11 thing, but I did see it live on TV when it was happening (and note: it was the same on the every channel - that's one big media cabal!). So, my understanding was that the 19 hijackers were ON THE PLANES which crashed and burned. Thus, it comes as little surprise to me that these "alleged" (how about a source for that one, eh, Dr. Monnett?) hijackers that were interviewed had plausible alibis. The guys who did it killed thmselves in the act!! No wonder they're not getting the justice due to them - THEY'RE DEAD ALREADY! Now, I understand that Monnett is implying that they did not actually die in the crash - in fact it appears that he is suggesting that the planes did not actually crash into the WTC (one of the conspiracy theories from Steven Jones, see below, is that the towers collapsed from being blown up rather than crashed into). But didn't they convict the one guy who didn't get on the plane but was part of the conspiracy? And hey, let's be honest, this terrorist plot was clearly a conspiracy, and even a secret combination if you want. But he doesn't make that point, does he?

In the next paragraph, Monnett is almost willing to grant that AA Flt 11 was the one that crashed into the WTC. Um... there were only 4 hijacked planes that day, right? We ought to know their numbers... and we know what happened to all 4 - 2 crashed into the WTC, one crashed in PA, and one hit the Pentagon. Or am I misremembering? So "most researchers" (again, whoever they are - no citations) "feel" that this was the case. Good researchers don't "feel", they assert, argue, and provide some evidence. Even if it is hard to control a 767, these terrorists were at pilot training school, right? It might be tough, but how difficult is difficult? It would be nice to have a citation of a 767 pilot saying as much. Then I might accept it. Finally, there is a reference to "Raytheon's division of Electronics Warfare". I checked the index. This is apparently the only reference in the book - how about some explanation as to how this supports whatever contention he is alluding to (Monnett never comes right out and says what he wants to say or actually answers the question he poses). Raytheon is a defense contractor, so presumably they are part of Monnett's big secret combination out to rule the world (I feel like I'm watching Saturday morning cartoons here, sheesh).

Finally, Monnett's conclusions about the Air Force reaction to the 9/11 hijackings defy common sense. OK, the people involved were confused. No surprise there - this was a rather unprecedented attack on American soil. If people forgot to follow some of the regulations or weren't sure what to do, can we blame them? Likewise, we shouldn't be surprised if their after action reports display some confusion and inconsistencies either. No one knew what was going on. And the idea that jets needed to be scrambled to possibly shoot them down may be according to the book, but defies logic: yeah, they're going to shoot down 4 planes full of passengers to get these 19 terrorists - this is not how Americans operate. The biggest guffaw, though, is Monnett's assertion that "most researchers" don't think the jets that were scrambled were done to prevent the planes from hitting their targets. But, no one knew they were aiming at targets! The basic assumption with hijackers is that they want to make a political point, or something, and hold the passengers hostage until they get what they want. Again, these actions were unprecedented on American soil. No one was thinking,"We better keep these guys from hitting their targets." This is not grounds for discovering a conspiracy - this is normal human confusion at a bizarre situation. This all leads to my favorite line of all: "the only answer" is a conspiracy. The only answer?! I think I have already suggested a few other possible answers. I'm sure people who actually know something about all this could provide a few more. So, it is only "the only answer" in this conspiracy theorist's mind.

Now, I think that is enough on his research methods. Clearly the author has failed to grasp the basics of academic research, and so we must treat this book with the contempt we generally reserve for any amateur who thinks he is smarter than the professionals, simply because he wills it to be so, or has received special revelation that all the experts are not privy to. Again, I am not saying you have to be an expert or a PhD to do good research - but you do have to pay an initiation fee into the field by actually reading the primary sources and the best secondary sources (even if you are going to disgaree with them). Is that too much to ask, Dr. Monnett?

The book also includes a CD from the (in)famous Dr. Steven E. Jones. Jones is a Physicist, so maybe he is qualified to comment on the structural engineering of the buildings (actually, his specialty is nuclear fusion). I will simply refer you to the Internet at large if you want to learn more about this guy, but I will note that the Wikipedia (I know, not the greatest source, but I'm growing weary of talking about this book and writing this review) entry suggests that Jones has come in for the same kind of criticism that I am leveling at Dr. Monnett:

Jones' paper has been the center of controversy both for its content and its claims to scientific rigor.^[19] Jones' early critics included members of BYU's engineering faculty;^[20] shortly after he made his views public, the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the faculty of structural engineering issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Jones' work. They noted that Jones' "hypotheses and interpretations of evidence were being questioned by scholars and practitioners," and expressed doubts about whether they had been "submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review."^[21]

Now, let me just say before concluding that, yes, the Book of Mormon has much to teach us about the devastating effects of secret combinations. They are undoubtedly all around us in one form or another. But let me also just suggest that the probability of there being one great secret combination out to rule the world, and which has been steadily working towards this end for several generations, seems highly unlikely on the basis of the Book of Mormon evidence itself. Notice that once the Gadianton Robbers got into power, they started killing each other for that power. Yes, they want money; yes, they want power; but that applies to everyone in the group. And the idea that we don't know about this great conspiracy because it is, well, "a secret"? The Gadiantons and those in Jaredite times were unable to keep it a secret - evidenced by the fact that we can read about them in the book! Why assume that modern secret combinations are more adept at keeping the secret?

In conclusion, I warn everyone, and their neighbor, and their neighbor's dog, to steer clear of this kind of drivel masquerading as "academic research". Dr. Monnett, PhD, simply preys on his faithful but unwary readers by wresting the scriptures in service to his personal agenda, and wrangling the facts to fit his bizarre conspiracy theory. If you buy this nonsense, then I know a guy from Nigeria who wants to make you a very rich person - I'll hook you up for a 10% cut of the profits.