A 9/11 conspiracy virus no basis
There is a virus sweeping the world. It infects opponents of the Bush
government, sucks their brains out through their eyes and turns them
into gibbering idiots. First cultivated in a laboratory in the US, the
strain reached these shores a few months ago.
In the past fortnight, it has become an epidemic. Scarcely a day now
passes without someone possessed by this sickness, eyes rolling, lips
flecked with foam, trying to infect me.
The disease is called Loose Change. It is a film made by three young
men that airs most of the standard conspiracy theories about the attacks
of September 11 2001. Unlike the other 9/11 conspiracy films, Loose
Change is sharp and swift, with a thumping soundtrack, slick graphics
and a calm and authoritative voiceover. Its makers claim that it has now
been watched by 100 million people.
The Pentagon, the film maintains, was not hit by a commercial
airliner. There was "no discernible trace" of a plane found in the
wreckage, and the entrance and exit holes in the building were far too
small. It was hit by a cruise missile.
The twin towers were brought down by means of "a carefully planned
controlled demolition". You can see the small puffs of smoke caused by
explosives just below the cascading sections. All other hypotheses are
implausible: the fire was not hot enough to melt steel and the towers
fell too quickly. Building 7 was destroyed by the same means a few hours
later.
Flight 93 did not crash, but was redirected to Cleveland airport,
where the passengers were taken into a Nasa building and never seen
again. Their voices had been cloned by the Los Alamos laboratories and
used to make fake calls to their relatives.
On four reasons
The footage of Osama bin Laden, claiming responsibility for the
attacks, was faked.
The US government carried out this great crime for four reasons: to
help Larry Silverstein, who leased the towers, to collect his insurance
money; to assist insider traders betting on falling airline stocks; to
steal the gold in the basement; and to grant George Bush new executive
powers, so that he could carry out his plans for world domination.
Even if you have seen or read no other accounts of 9/11, and your
brain has not yet been liquidised, a few problems must occur to you.
The first is the complete absence of scientific advice. At one point,
the presenter asks: "So what brought down the twin towers? Let's ask the
experts." But they don't ask the experts. The film-makers take some old
quotes, edit them to remove any contradictions, then denounce all
subsequent retractions as further evidence of conspiracy.
The only people they interview are a janitor, a group of firemen, and
a flight instructor. They let the janitor speak at length, but cut the
firemen off in mid-sentence.
The flight instructor speaks in short clips, which give the
impression that his pupil, the hijacker Hani Hanjour, was incapable of
hitting the Pentagon. Elsewhere he has said the opposite: he had "no
doubt" that Hanjour could have done it.
Unnamed professor
Where are the structural engineers, the materials scientists, the
specialists in ballistics, explosives or fire? The film-makers now say
that the third edition of the film will be fact-checked by an expert,
but he turns out to be "a theology professor".
They don't name him, but I would bet that it's David Ray Griffin, who
also happens to be the high priest of the 9/11 conspiracists.
The next evident flaw is that the plot they propose must have
involved tens of thousands of people.
It could not have been executed without the help of demolition
experts, the security firms guarding the World Trade Centre, Mayor
Giuliani (who hastily disposed of the remains), much of the US air
force, the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American
Aerospace Defence Command, the relatives of the people "killed" in the
plane crashes, the rest of the Pentagon's staff, the Los Alamos
laboratories, the FBI, the CIA, and the investigators who picked through
the rubble.
If there is one universal American characteristic, it is a
confessional culture that permits no one with a good story to keep his
mouth shut.
People appear on the Jerry Springer Show to admit to carnal relations
with their tractors. Yet none of the participants in this monumental
crime has sought to blow the whistle - before, during or after the
attacks. No one has volunteered to tell the greatest story ever told.
The failure of the twin towers has been exhaustively documented by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Far from being
impossible, the collapse turns out to have been inevitable. The planes
cut some of the support columns and ignited fires sufficient to weaken
(but not melt) the remaining steel structures.
As the perimeter columns buckled, the weight of the collapsing top
stories generated a momentum the rest of the building could not arrest.
Puffs of smoke were blown out of the structure by compression as the
building fell.
Counterpunch, the radical leftwing magazine, commissioned its own
expert - an aerospace and mechanical engineer - to test the official
findings. He shows that the institute must have been right. He also
demonstrates how Building 7 collapsed.
Burning debris falling from the twin towers ruptured the oil pipes
feeding its emergency generators.
The reduction in pressure triggered the automatic pumping system,
which poured thousands of gallons of diesel on to the fire. The support
trusses weakened and buckled, and the building imploded.
Popular Mechanics magazine polled 300 experts and came to the same
conclusions. The film's greatest flaw is this: the men who made it are
still alive.
If the US government is running an all-knowing, all-encompassing
conspiracy, why did it not snuff them out long ago?
There is only one possible explanation. They are in fact agents of
the Bush regime, employed to distract people from its real abuses of
power. This, if you are inclined to believe such stories, is surely a
more plausible theory than the one proposed in Loose Change. -The
Guardian |