What Exactly is a "Truther?" Is Truth Bad Now?

[keith99]

Aren't four hijacked planes being crashed into three icons of world power terror enough?

More to the point if our Government was looking for an excuse why was the response so restrained? If they wanted war they could easily have beaten the war drums after this and had a WW II type response.

 

[RDKirk]

No, gravity does not neatly cut 3 ft. to 5 ft. wide steel beams into thousands of short pieces and hurl them laterally at 80MPH for hundreds of feet, what you are seeing here:

I've looked at a lot of aerial imagery of bombing aftermath--I did it from Vietnam through Iraq--and what I've seen is pretty consistent with what I see there. As far as "neatly cut"--I don't see "neatly cut." But I'd wonder about where the construction welds conform to the break lines.

You are right about explosive residue, but you have to test for them before you find them, and NIST never tested for them. However other people did test many dust samples and found evidence of thermite, You'll still find it today if you go to Fesh Kills landfill and scoop up the dirt.

9-11 Research: Thermite

Themite is not an explosive. It doesn't explode, it burns. Moreover, it burns quite precisely along the lines that it's laid and is self-limiting.

Serioiusly, though, why would government conspirators do anything more than exactly what happened? It would have been very simple for a very small group of men to do precisely what Al Qaeda did: Recruit some real terrorists under the guise of being Al Qaeda, give them the plan and the money for training, let them do it. It would not have taken the absolute destruction of the buildings to achieve the same political effect (not even Al Qaeda expected to totally destroy the buildings).

All this complexity of lacing a the buildings with explosives and such that insert all kinds of additional points of failure and possibilities of discovery is simply ludicrous.

 

[whatbogsends]

If 90% of conspiracy theories are false (and over half of them ridiculous), then I am correct 90% of the time if I assume all conspiracy theories are false until proven true.

A skeptic isn't someone who assumes they are being lied to by the authorities unless evidence is provided to show that they are not being lied to. A skeptic is someone who hears a ridiculous story about the faked moon landing and responds with the standard questions.

I said it was possible the moon landing was faked, though don't think it was, and you've latched onto this statement as some sort of "AHA! He IS a Conspiracy Theorist".

The moon landing, faked or not, isn't something i spent significant time researching. My contention was that it was possible that it was faked, not that it was faked.

Regarding administration statements about 9/11 and what they knew, it was obvious that they were lying about connections to Iraq and WMDs, which led me to scrutinize their statements regarding 9/11 more closely. The falseness of their statements is not in question, only motives or whether they made those statements knowingly false (as was apparent regarding the WMD assessment and claims that Saddam was providing material support to Al Qaeda) or whether they were just wholly incompetent. While i believe Bush was merely incompetent, i can't say the same for Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and Cheney.

Of course, it's always best to just assume you're going to be right 90% of the time, and dismiss evidence without looking at it in context. Much easier than trying to examine and digest the evidence and come to a reasoned conclusion. Of course, on topics such as 9/11, we don't have all of the information, but there are clear flaws in the narrative proposed, and relationships between the US government and Bin Laden which are not only discounted but entirely dismissed.

 

[whatbogsends]

Why fly multiple planes into multiple buildings when 1 plane would suffice for the purpose of inciting a war? Why spend the time and resources to rig other buildings for detonation? Here is the real 9/11 conspiracy - a group of middle-eastern terrorists conspired to fly planes into buildings, and they did it. The end.

No Jewish bankers, no illuminati, no templars, no bilderbergs, no CIA, no FEMA...just middle-eastern terrorists.

Well, Bin Laden had worked with the CIA in the 90s, the Bin Laden family had close ties with the Bushes, and we now (13 years after the fact) are finding out that there was an FBI agent that had infiltrated Al Qaeda and had direct contact with Bin Laden.

Did FBI Really Place a Mole In Contact With Osama bin Laden Years Before 9/11? - ABC News

FBI Never Revealed It Had Al Qaeda Mole Who Met Bin Laden - NBC News

FBI Hid Existence Of Mole Who Met With Bin Laden From Other Parts Of Government | FDL News Desk


Is this a smoking gun? Absolutely not. Does it further reinforce that we're not being told the entire truth? Absolutely.

It's not the least bit curious that the group of middle eastern terrorists was led by a former CIA asset whose family had ties to the US power structure? I know, i know, just a random coincidence with no meaning. Nothing to see here, move along.

 

[keith99]

Well, Bin Laden had worked with the CIA in the 90s, the Bin Laden family had close ties with the Bushes, and we now (13 years after the fact) are finding out that there was an FBI agent that had infiltrated Al Qaeda and had direct contact with Bin Laden.

Did FBI Really Place a Mole In Contact With Osama bin Laden Years Before 9/11? - ABC News

FBI Never Revealed It Had Al Qaeda Mole Who Met Bin Laden - NBC News

FBI Hid Existence Of Mole Who Met With Bin Laden From Other Parts Of Government | FDL News Desk


Is this a smoking gun? Absolutely not. Does it further reinforce that we're not being told the entire truth? Absolutely.

It's not the least bit curious that the group of middle eastern terrorists was led by a former CIA asset whose family had ties to the US power structure? I know, i know, just a random coincidence with no meaning. Nothing to see here, move along.

Yea U.S. intelligence should publically disclose just whose organizations we have infiltrated.

DOH!

 

[whatbogsends]

Yea U.S. intelligence should publically disclose just whose organizations we have infiltrated.

DOH!

Yea, US intelligence should co-operate with an investigation regarding an attack on US soil. DOH!

 

[RDKirk]

Yea, US intelligence should co-operate with an investigation regarding an attack on US soil. DOH!

To be honest, look again at the dates. This was activity that begain in the early 90s.

The Intelligence Community was woefully behind the power curve in terms of network interoperability in those days. Communication between agencies was basically telephone and paper in the early 90s. There was also that Intelligence Oversight Act "wall" that prevented domestic intelligence agencies like the FBI from having a free flow of information with foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA.

It wasn't impossible, but it required someone on one side of the wall to know exactly what information he was looking for, send a request up his chain of command with appropriate justifications and wait for someone in management to toss it over the wall...then wait for something to happen on the other side and a response eventually tossed back over the wall to him.

In 1993, I had just started working for Navy Captain (later Admiral) Lowell Jacoby, out in Pearl Harbor.

In 1993, Jacoby was spewing all this crazy talk: Rip out the copper and replace it with fiber (he kept sayiing "we're going to need the bandwidth," give all the intel analysts 21-inch monitors and a gig of personal disk space, create intelligence chat rooms and newsgroups so analysts across agencies could talk to each other without bureacuratic red tape, connect agency networks so agencies could window each other's databases, create collaborative multi-media living documents jointly between agencies...freaking crazy stuff like that.

Jacoby also had a floppy with a copy of a little application he'd personally brought from Champaign IL...a beta of something called Mosaic. He was excited about that and a brand-new for-nerds-only system called Intelink that Mosaic would run on.

Unfortunately, although he made me and most of the rest of us who worked for him true believers, most of the IC kind of rolled their eyes at him. How could all our empires be maintained if we broke down the walls?

But in 1993, he had us with our 21 inch screens and windows into DIA, CIA, and NSA cutting and pasting into our reports like bandits.

But we were the only people doing that. Everyone else was still operating in their own stovepipes right through the 90s. CIA even tried to keep us out of their system with the silly ploy of trying to copyright their classified analyses...someone had ot tell them that was illegal.

Jacoby himself became Director of DIA in 2000, and I expect he was still preaching his concept of open collaboration...and probably had to say "I told you so" after 9/11. EDIT: I just checked his Wikipedia article. He did have to say "I told you so" after 9/11.

My point is that the 1990s was still the dark ages as far as Intelligence Community interaction was concerned. I'm pretty sure the FBI was still on DOS and Novell until 9/11.

 

[Senator Cheese]

@RDKirk - your posts are very, very insightful and I always enjoy it when I see you posted something new. Seriously, you should go and make documentaries!

@whatbogsend: Yeah, I find it plausible and not improbable that the Bush family had some ties to the Bin Laden family (rich families do tend to communicate and do business with each other fairly often) and I also believe it was in Bush's interest to keep that under wraps after the attacks because it would have caused a media uproar and undermined his credibility. It'd be like finding out that a friend of yours was a drug dealer - it's just something you don't want people finding out.
I still don't think that they knew beforehand, simply because the political backlash could have been much different. Noone would have thought beforehand that Bush's support would climb exponentially after 9/11 - it could just as easily been his demise (as in, people pointing fingers and asking how the intelligence agencies could "screw things up" as much). It could have cost him the election.

 

[Rick Otto]

Any explosives expert can determine that explosives were or were not used. The government can only classify information the government creates.

No expert finds evidence he doesn't look for because it doesn't occur to him it could exist.
You are only told what about classification protocols , that your classification allows you to know, and you would only tell us whatever classification protocols that your classification would allow.
What you wear as your badge of credibility is also a red flag.

 

[RDKirk]

No expert finds evidence he doesn't look for because it doesn't occur to him it could exist.

There were no "truther" explosives experts?

You are only told what about classification protocols , that your classification allows you to know, and you would only tell us whatever classification protocols that your classification would allow.

So did the truther bomb experts who found the evidence get arrested and carted off to Guantanamo or Area 51 by Men in Black?

What you wear as your badge of credibility is also a red flag.

I don't know what that means. I suspect it's a "no true Scotsman" argument.

 

[whatbogsends]

I said it was possible the moon landing was faked, though don't think it was, and you've latched onto this statement as some sort of "AHA! He IS a Conspiracy Theorist".

The moon landing, faked or not, isn't something i spent significant time researching. My contention was that it was possible that it was faked, not that it was faked.

After doing some research, i'm in the camp of "the moon landing was highly unlikely (<1%) to have been faked". I was unaware of how extensive the footage from the Apollo 11 mission actually was. Faking a 5 minute video would have been significantly less involved than faking a 90 minute video.

So tell me, Morningstar, how does that jive with your absurd attempt to pigeonhole me? I thought us "conspiracy theorists" didn't accept additional evidence, and clung to their beliefs regardless of data presented?

I will reiterate, that i never was convinced they were faked, only that it was a possibility, that i hadn't researched it extensively, nor had i ever argued anywhere in support of the premise that it was a hoax. It was a subject that i had seen some claims about, and didn't think it merited enough importance to investigate, as the consequences of it being faked at this point don't amount to very much.

All this being said, it was obvious when the Bush administration talked about 9/11 as well as Iraq & WMDs that they were being dishonest. It was the chorus of questionable and outright false claims that had me examining 9/11 in the first place. Frankly, from 9/11/2001 through 2005 i spent much more time arguing against the administrations trumped up case for war than anything regarding 9/11.

To this day, the best apologists for the official story have done is say "coincidence" or "incompetence" to my arguments, and it's as clear as ever to me that there was a cover up regarding 9/11. Here's the thing - even if it was a cover up for incompetence, people should still be upset, as people lost their lives, and those whose incompetence has been covered up haven't had any price to pay (with the possible exception of it weighing on their conscience, although with the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld, i don't get the impression it weighs on their conscience at all).

 

[whatbogsends]

To be honest, look again at the dates. This was activity that begain in the early 90s.

The Intelligence Community was woefully behind the power curve in terms of network interoperability in those days. Communication between agencies was basically telephone and paper in the early 90s. There was also that Intelligence Oversight Act "wall" that prevented domestic intelligence agencies like the FBI from having a free flow of information with foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA.

It wasn't impossible, but it required someone on one side of the wall to know exactly what information he was looking for, send a request up his chain of command with appropriate justifications and wait for someone in management to toss it over the wall...then wait for something to happen on the other side and a response eventually tossed back over the wall to him.

In 1993, I had just started working for Navy Captain (later Admiral) Lowell Jacoby, out in Pearl Harbor.

In 1993, Jacoby was spewing all this crazy talk: Rip out the copper and replace it with fiber (he kept sayiing "we're going to need the bandwidth," give all the intel analysts 21-inch monitors and a gig of personal disk space, create intelligence chat rooms and newsgroups so analysts across agencies could talk to each other without bureacuratic red tape, connect agency networks so agencies could window each other's databases, create collaborative multi-media living documents jointly between agencies...freaking crazy stuff like that.

Jacoby also had a floppy with a copy of a little application he'd personally brought from Champaign IL...a beta of something called Mosaic. He was excited about that and a brand-new for-nerds-only system called Intelink that Mosaic would run on.

Unfortunately, although he made me and most of the rest of us who worked for him true believers, most of the IC kind of rolled their eyes at him. How could all our empires be maintained if we broke down the walls?

But in 1993, he had us with our 21 inch screens and windows into DIA, CIA, and NSA cutting and pasting into our reports like bandits.

But we were the only people doing that. Everyone else was still operating in their own stovepipes right through the 90s. CIA even tried to keep us out of their system with the silly ploy of trying to copyright their classified analyses...someone had ot tell them that was illegal.

Jacoby himself became Director of DIA in 2000, and I expect he was still preaching his concept of open collaboration...and probably had to say "I told you so" after 9/11. EDIT: I just checked his Wikipedia article. He did have to say "I told you so" after 9/11.

My point is that the 1990s was still the dark ages as far as Intelligence Community interaction was concerned. I'm pretty sure the FBI was still on DOS and Novell until 9/11.

Thanks for the information, RDKirk. I haven't been able to find any details of the level of involvement of the mole, nor what timeframe it extended to (only when it began). Like i said, i don't think it's a smoking gun, only further evidence that agencies withheld information from the 9/11 investigation.

 

[morningstar2651]

After doing some research, i'm in the camp of "the moon landing was highly unlikely (<1%) to have been faked". I was unaware of how extensive the footage from the Apollo 11 mission actually was. Faking a 5 minute video would have been significantly less involved than faking a 90 minute video.

So tell me, Morningstar, how does that jive with your absurd attempt to pigeonhole me? I thought us "conspiracy theorists" didn't accept additional evidence, and clung to their beliefs regardless of data presented?

I will reiterate, that i never was convinced they were faked, only that it was a possibility, that i hadn't researched it extensively, nor had i ever argued anywhere in support of the premise that it was a hoax. It was a subject that i had seen some claims about, and didn't think it merited enough importance to investigate, as the consequences of it being faked at this point don't amount to very much.

All this being said, it was obvious when the Bush administration talked about 9/11 as well as Iraq & WMDs that they were being dishonest. It was the chorus of questionable and outright false claims that had me examining 9/11 in the first place. Frankly, from 9/11/2001 through 2005 i spent much more time arguing against the administrations trumped up case for war than anything regarding 9/11.

To this day, the best apologists for the official story have done is say "coincidence" or "incompetence" to my arguments, and it's as clear as ever to me that there was a cover up regarding 9/11. Here's the thing - even if it was a cover up for incompetence, people should still be upset, as people lost their lives, and those whose incompetence has been covered up haven't had any price to pay (with the possible exception of it weighing on their conscience, although with the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld, i don't get the impression it weighs on their conscience at all).

Actually, that does jive with what I've been saying. Is a 99%> not enough confidence for you to say "The moon landing wasn't faked"? Do you really need to qualify the statement with "highly unlikely"?

Do you really want to hold on to that >1% chance that the government may be lying to us about it? Rather than looking at the evidence and saying "That wasn't faked", you've decided "It probably wasn't faked...but there is still a fraction of a percent chance that it could have been, so I won't reach a conclusion."

Who benefits from continuing to deceive the American public about a fake moon landing? Richard Nixon is dead, and no one in power has any reason to care about making sure everyone thinks we went to the Moon while he was president.

Why didn't Neil Armstrong expose the conspiracy before his death? Why didn't Michael Collins or Buzz Aldrin expose the conspiracy?

There is one simple answer to all these questions - there is no conspiracy.

Nvidia debunks moon landing conspiracies with new GTX 900-series 'Maxwell' GPUs | PCWorld

Mythbusters Moon Landing photo hoax 1 - YouTube

EDIT: And if you apply the same standards to 9/11, you go from "There might have been a cover up and it might have been an inside job" to "There was no cover up and it wasn't an inside job."

 

[whatbogsends]

Actually, that does jive with what I've been saying. Is a 99%> not enough confidence for you to say "The moon landing wasn't faked"? Do you really need to qualify the statement with "highly unlikely"?

Do you really want to hold on to that >1% chance that the government may be lying to us about it? Rather than looking at the evidence and saying "That wasn't faked", you've decided "It probably wasn't faked...but there is still a fraction of a percent chance that it could have been, so I won't reach a conclusion."

Who benefits from continuing to deceive the American public about a fake moon landing? Richard Nixon is dead, and no one in power has any reason to care about making sure everyone thinks we went to the Moon while he was president.

Why didn't Neil Armstrong expose the conspiracy before his death? Why didn't Michael Collins or Buzz Aldrin expose the conspiracy?

There is one simple answer to all these questions - there is no conspiracy.

Nvidia debunks moon landing conspiracies with new GTX 900-series 'Maxwell' GPUs | PCWorld

Mythbusters Moon Landing photo hoax 1 - YouTube

EDIT: And if you apply the same standards to 9/11, you go from "There might have been a cover up and it might have been an inside job" to "There was no cover up and it wasn't an inside job."

You're just flat out wrong. Understanding the limitations of your own knowledge is what leads one to make qualified statements such as "i think it's highly likely/unlikely" and leaves us with room for error in our assessments. You seem to have no qualms claiming absolute certainty in events in which you have second hand knowledge or, as in the case of 9/11 - extremely incomplete knowledge. We are actually in agreement over the moon landing other than your statement shows a self arrogance and mine understands our own limitations. Keep trying to make this about the moon landings rather than addressing anything i've said regarding 9/11.

 

[RDKirk]

You're just flat out wrong. Understanding the limitations of your own knowledge is what leads one to make qualified statements such as "i think it's highly likely/unlikely" and leaves us with room for error in our assessments. You seem to have no qualms claiming absolute certainty in events in which you have second hand knowledge or, as in the case of 9/11 - extremely incomplete knowledge. We are actually in agreement over the moon landing other than your statement shows a self arrogance and mine understands our own limitations. Keep trying to make this about the moon landings rather than addressing anything i've said regarding 9/11.

I think at least part of his point is that to the extent we can be confident of anything--including events we have personally eyewitnessed-- 99% confidence may as well be discussed as 100% confidence.

I can tell you this regarding stockpiles of WMD in Iraq: The Intelligence Community had nearly zero confidence that there were such stockpiles. You heard such phrases as "It's impossible to prove a negative, but we have no reliable evidence." CIA's infamous caveat was "...but the possibility of the converse cannot be discounted."

 

[Senator Cheese]

After doing some research, i'm in the camp of "the moon landing was highly unlikely (<1%) to have been faked". I was unaware of how extensive the footage from the Apollo 11 mission actually was. Faking a 5 minute video would have been significantly less involved than faking a 90 minute video.

Sorry to but in if it's off topic, but I've wondered about this a lot...
If I would have had doubts about the Apollo 11 mission, why not ask a local astronomist (or even a foreign one, if you don't trust the US) to zero in on the landing site and interpret the pictures?

I mean, I could think of very few places that are easier to look at than the moon.

To this day, the best apologists for the official story have done is say "coincidence" or "incompetence" to my arguments, and it's as clear as ever to me that there was a cover up regarding 9/11. Here's the thing - even if it was a cover up for incompetence, people should still be upset, as people lost their lives, and those whose incompetence has been covered up haven't had any price to pay (with the possible exception of it weighing on their conscience, although with the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld, i don't get the impression it weighs on their conscience at all).

I think it's hard for us to gauge the jobs of someone in the higher ups of a political administration. As I said previously, I doubt that the 9/11-warnings were the only warnings ever received - and as far as I know from some documentaries, security briefings are conducted weekly.
Furthermore, the question is what could have been done in order to prevent the attacks, even if there was foreknowledge.

I don't believe in holding grievances for honest mistakes. The consequences of mistakes grow proportionately with the burden of responsibility:

If someone in an advertising agency makes a mistake, then the consequence may be a spelling error or something.
If a doctor or soldier makes a mistake, then the consequence can be life or death.
If a bus driver makes a mistake, then the consequence can be life or death of many individuals.

Similar things go for people in power.
Especially the bus driver gets me thinking - how little respect they are shown because they don't have high salaries or a high education, combined with the fact that it's not always easy to operate such vehicles and the fact that they are responsible for the lives of everyone on board. :/

 

[keith99]

Sorry to but in if it's off topic, but I've wondered about this a lot...
If I would have had doubts about the Apollo 11 mission, why not ask a local astronomist (or even a foreign one, if you don't trust the US) to zero in on the landing site and interpret the pictures?
...

You're forgetting the Truther fallback number 1 for the moon landing was fake says we did put hardware there, but not people. That makes any test all but impossible.

 

[whatbogsends]

I think at least part of his point is that to the extent we can be confident of anything--including events we have personally eyewitnessed-- 99% confidence may as well be discussed as 100% confidence.

I can tell you this regarding stockpiles of WMD in Iraq: The Intelligence Community had nearly zero confidence that there were such stockpiles. You heard such phrases as "It's impossible to prove a negative, but we have no reliable evidence." CIA's infamous caveat was "...but the possibility of the converse cannot be discounted."

Regarding the entire WMD argument put forth by the administration, the administration routinely said "we know X" when the truth (and it was a known truth by any who had access to the intelligence which included administration officials) was "it's possible that X".

I disagree that 100% confidence and 99% confidence are interchangeable. Perhaps in casual conversation, but not in debate, nor when directly questioned.

 

[whatbogsends]

Sorry to but in if it's off topic, but I've wondered about this a lot...
If I would have had doubts about the Apollo 11 mission, why not ask a local astronomist (or even a foreign one, if you don't trust the US) to zero in on the landing site and interpret the pictures?

I mean, I could think of very few places that are easier to look at than the moon.

Maybe because it would be a waste of my time?

"One of the most common questions asked by the public when we&#8217;re looking at the moon through a telescope is why we can&#8217;t we see the American flags or any other sign of Apollo with the Hubble Space Telescope. It IS the most powerful telescope, right? Here&#8217;s the rub. The smallest possible thing Hubble can see on the moon is about 328 feet across or the length of a football field. While impressive feat of resolution, no Apollo spacecraft comes anywhere near that size. Every piece of man-made hardware is below the space telescope&#8217;s resolution limit. "

- See more at: Can you see the American flag on the moon? Yes! | Astro Bob

"If you explore the Apollo landing sites with a small telescope, you won&#8217;t be able to see any of the objects left behind by the astronauts, as they are all too small to be resolved by even the largest telescopes.

In fact, it's only in the last two years that we&#8217;ve been able to photograph the landing sites in detail from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter."

How to Spot Apollo Moon Landing Sites in Telescopes | Apollo Moon Missions | Moon Craters & Skywatching

It's not really something that is easily independently verifiable.

I think it's hard for us to gauge the jobs of someone in the higher ups of a political administration. As I said previously, I doubt that the 9/11-warnings were the only warnings ever received - and as far as I know from some documentaries, security briefings are conducted weekly.
Furthermore, the question is what could have been done in order to prevent the attacks, even if there was foreknowledge.

I don't believe in holding grievances for honest mistakes. The consequences of mistakes grow proportionately with the burden of responsibility:

If someone in an advertising agency makes a mistake, then the consequence may be a spelling error or something.
If a doctor or soldier makes a mistake, then the consequence can be life or death.
If a bus driver makes a mistake, then the consequence can be life or death of many individuals.

Similar things go for people in power.
Especially the bus driver gets me thinking - how little respect they are shown because they don't have high salaries or a high education, combined with the fact that it's not always easy to operate such vehicles and the fact that they are responsible for the lives of everyone on board. :/

If a person is shown to be incompetent in a position of power, especially if that incompetence cost lives of those they are supposed to be serving, they should be removed from office/stripped of power. That's not an over-reaction, it is the appropriate response.

 

[RDKirk]

Regarding the entire WMD argument put forth by the administration, the administration routinely said "we know X" when the truth (and it was a known truth by any who had access to the intelligence which included administration officials) was "it's possible that X".

I honestly believe that Bush himself only heard "We know X." But I know that Rumsfeld heard from DIA "we do not have any reliable evidence of X" because I personally know the man who briefed him. The external evidence of that is the fact that afterward Rumsfeld put together a selected team of outsiders to "find the evidence that the others have missed," as he said.

I'm pretty sure both Cheney and Powell also heard "we do not have any reliable evidence of X" from the CIA, but Cheney made multiple trips to Langley to beat them down and Powell chose to ignore his own State intelligence analysts.

I disagree that 100% confidence and 99% confidence are interchangeable. Perhaps in casual conversation, but not in debate, nor when directly questioned.

The first thing is that "confidence" is a matter of rational judgment, not actually fact.

But I do know that when providing an intelligence judgment to a military commander: If you're 99% confident of the information you're giving him so that he can commit soldiers to battle....don't waffle over that last 1%. Commit wholly, because the soldiers going into combat are committing wholly.