Watch this documentary. Jahar is innocent.

I enjoy investigating conspiracy theories from a skeptical point of view. I'm glad you have provided me this opportunity to investigate Jones' claims in greater detail. FORMATBefore making any arguments. I'd like to make an objection regarding the format of this debate. By submitting an argument in the format of a 72 minute video and then allowing only an 8,000 character response, Pro offers a unique kind of Proof by Argument fallacy. That is, Pro has designed the debate to make it impossible to respond to each argument in kind or in detail. I will do my best in Round 1 to describe some of the characteristics of "Marathon Day: Boston 15.4.13" and its director, but I will save a detailed argument regarding false flag accusations for Round 2. I hope that is to Pro's satisfaction. THESISEssentially, there are two debates here: "Jahar is innocent" and "The Boston Marathon Bombing was a false flag operation. " Their juxtaposition here suggests that two questions are interdependent, but clearly they are not. Even if a false flag op could be proved, that would not necessarily suggest Dzokhar's innocence. Even if Dzokhar's innocence could be established, that would not necessarily prove a false flag. I'll assume we are addressing both questions with an emphasis on debunking the false flag allegation. Although Dzokhar has pleaded not guilty to the Boston Marathon bombing, some of the April 19th crime spree was ear and eye witnessed and recorded by far too many individuals to support a full denial of guilt. Tsarnaev's scrawled confession on the inside of the boat in which he hid goes a long way towards undermining any claims to innocence. Whether or not you believe that Dzokhar was one of the Marathon bombers, there can be little doubt about his gunfight with police; the transportation and detonation of multiple explosive devices; the high speed crashing through police barricades after running over his brother; etc. I'll assume that Pro is not arguing that Dzokhar is innocent of every crime with which he has been charged, especially those very public and well documented events. JAHAR vs. DZOKHARWhile hardly comprehensive, my analysis of internet trends regarding Tsarnaev is that the "Jahar" spelling is generally employed those who believe Tsarnaev is innocent, Rolling Stone magazine, and teen aged girls. The "Dzokhar" spelling is generally employed by everyone else. I think this makes sense and to a significant degree demonstrate our biases: Jahar is softer in pronunciation, the spelling is Western, less foreign. Dzokhar is harder in pronunciation and more foreign in appearance (and evokes the word "joker," a name deeply entrenched in the American psyche since The Dark Knight, the Aurora massacre, etc. ). Because the closest thing to an impartial perspective on the web is Wikipedia and that site prefers Dzokhar, I will prefer that spelling as well. The VIDEOSince my opponent has forgotten to do so, I have added a link to the video in question. . http://www.youtube.com...http://youtu.be...I would like to draw the reader's attention to the word "contest" in the title. We will want to note that this video was created for the purpose of winning a contest sponsored by Alex Jones and infowars. com. The purpose of the video was to capture the $100,000 prize on offer. This may explain why the video is merely an echo chamber through which reverberates Alex Jones' statements regarding the Boston Marathon bombing. Viewers will note that the video contain no original research and no original footage. The video is best described as 1/3 news footage of events from April 15-20, 2013, 1/3 Alex Jones stringing together unsubstantiated allegations, and 1/3 clips from media in which followers of infowars parrot Alex Jones' talking points repeatedly. There is no reason to assume that the filmmaker even necessarily advocates for Alex Jones' theories. It seems perfectly plausible that Brave Archer Films may have created this video for an audience of one, Alex Jones, exclusively in the interest of prize money. Here is a link to the contest winners: . http://www.infowars.com...I say contest winners but we should note that Jones reports that there were more than 600 total submissions and this sight congratulates 680 runners-up, a transparently meaningless accolade which filmmaker Amel Tresjnic nevertheless boasts from his YouTube page. Although I expect Jones is pleased with the resulting 600+ videos disseminatng of all kinds of wild conspiracies (Ron Paul is a Mason, etc), any serious newsman ought to be disturbed. If Brian Williams put out a call for documentary submissions and exclusively received films is praise of Brian Williams would we not assume those films were flagrant flattery without regard for the truth? Why then should we view Jones differently when he proudly displays his wall of sycophancy? The FILMMAKERAlthough Pro and the movie present themselves as a "Brave Archer Films" production, we should note that Brave Archer Films is only Amel Tresjnic, a video-maker for hire in Melbourne Australia. Here's a link to his attractively designed website:. http://www.bravearcherfilms.com...Readers may wish to note that Tresjnic's other features include a film about Mayan Calendar eschatology titled, "2012 Crossing Over" and a video about transcendent realities called "Spiritual Awakenings: Rise of the Kundalini. " Nothing in Tresjnic's biography suggests that he's visited Boston or even the US. Nothing in Tresjnic's biography indicates any special expertise or insight regarding terrorists, bombmaking, securing public events, crime, the Boston Marathon, the City of Boston, disenfranchised teenagers, etc. Again, I'll leave specific refutation of claims for Round 2. If Pro wishes to refine her arguments to a single thesis or to define specific arguments supporting false flag allegations, I would be content to address those specific topics. If not, I'll identify the main arguments made in the video as I see them and address them point by point. I'll end this round with Michael Shermer's very helpful ten point "Conspiracy Theory Detector" as published in the December 2010 issue of Scientific American magazine: Proof of the conspiracy supposedly emerges from a pattern of “connecting the dots” between events that need not be causally connected. When no evidence supports these connections except the allegation of the conspiracy or when the evidence fits equally well to other causal connections — or to randomness — the conspiracy theory is likely to be false. The agents behind the pattern of the conspiracy would need nearly superhuman power to pull it off. People are usually not nearly so powerful as we think they are. The conspiracy is complex, and its successful completion demands a large number of elements. Similarly, the conspiracy involves large numbers of people who would all need to keep silent about their secrets. The more people involved, the less realistic it becomes. The conspiracy encompasses a grand ambition for control over a nation, economy or political system. If it suggests world domination, the theory is even less likely to be true. The conspiracy theory ratchets up from small events that might be true to much larger, much less probable events. The conspiracy theory assigns portentous, sinister meanings to what are most likely innocuous, insignificant events. The theory tends to commingle facts and speculations without distinguishing between the two and without assigning degrees of probability or of factuality. The theorist is indiscriminately suspicious of all government agencies or private groups, which suggests an inability to nuance differences between true and false conspiracies. The conspiracy theorist refuses to consider alternative explanations, rejecting all disconfirming evidence and blatantly seeking only confirmatory evidence to support what he or she has a priori determined to be the truth.