The only article of note dealing with 9/11 alternative theories around the third anniversary was, “When seeing is not believing”, a Monday September 6, 2004 Guardian article by TV critic Mark Lawson. It reviews “The 9/11 Conspiracies” a documentary screened on Channel 4 and “The Grid” a fictionalised futuristic account of Al-Qaeda screened on BBC2.
Lawson returns to familiar ground with his ridicule of 9/11 alternative theories by linking them with classics of the genre. He writes, “The allegation that the Apollo moonlandings were tricked up in an Arizona film studio irritates former astronauts and NASA officials but can be watched by most viewers with a smile. And the various theories that Princess Diana was murdered or is riding Shergar on a desert island as Elvis and Lord Lucan look on, though painful for her immediate family, are actually comforting for her fans who prefer them to the savage lottery of a car crash. The alternative hypotheses for September 11, however, have more in common with Holocaust denial: you gasp that people can be so dismissive of body-counts and substantial documentation.”
The article does, however, enunciate some of the key 9/11 alternative theories. “George W Bush and Dick Cheney stood down America's air defences in order to allow an attack which would green-light the neo-cons' plans to hit Iraq. It was not a hijacked plane which hit the Pentagon but an American missile intended to fake damage” before it attacks the Pentagon alternative theory at it’s Achilles heel: “the jet was flown to a secret location where pilots and passengers now live.”
The ridicule continues though, as Lawson writes, “The sister of the pilot of the Pentagon plane explains with commendable calmness that he really wasn't the kind of guy to disappear to fake his death to play volleyball on a secret Hawaiian island with Princess Diana” and, “At first, the documentary's response to these wacky narratives feels disproportionate: like Inspector Morse and Hercule Poirot reopening the Humpty Dumpty case.” Lawson’s commentary piece does acknowledge the veracity of some of the minor 9/11 alternative theories, noting that, “the documentary touches on genuine miscarriages of official history. One, though already well-covered in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, is the evacuation of prominent Saudis from the States in the days after the attacks; the other is the presence in Manhattan of a van-load of young Israelis who may have been agents.” (article / article)
Perhaps the most interesting point of Lawson’s analysis, however, is that, “Crucially, the spread of 9/11 conspiracy theories became an industry not after 9/11 but following the Iraq war” acknowledging the increased politicisation following the onset of the Iraq war which could account for 9/11 alternative theories. Before long though, Lawson reverts to ridiculing 9/11 alternative theories by setting them in an historical context. “In the same way, the internet fantasies about the moon landings are partly driven by the fact that Richard Nixon, the most divisive president until George W Bush, was in the White House at the time. And the belief that aliens landed at Roswell in New Mexico in 1946 - now an almost mainstream opinion in some parts of America - was oxygenated by the shock of Pearl Harbor and the invasion fears produced by the cold war.”
Despite his overwhelmingly negative tone, Lawson also breaks new ground by being one of the first to acknowledge the disputed lexicon surrounding alternative theories. Early on in his article, he writes, “Documentaries about conspiracy theories - or ‘counter-histories’, as some adherents prefer…” whilst towards the middle of the article he requests that we be, “fair to the counter-historians” and later he mentions “alternative histories.”
Alternative Theories in general
As was the pattern after the first and second anniversaries, articles mentioning 9/11 alternative theories continued to appear in the months following the third anniversary. Observer columnist David Aaronovitch, who a year earlier had ridiculed Michael Meacher’s outspoken stance, wrote an article titled, “Why I hate the madness of these conspiracy theories” on Sunday November 21, 2004. The article is an attack on alternative theories in general, and concentrates on the recently re-released conspiracy based film “The Manchurian Candidate.”
Acknowledging the level of 9/11 scepticism in Britain, Aaronovitch writes, “Today's Observer reveals that, in a nationwide ICM poll, most Britons agree that there is much or some truth in the claim that the Bush administration knew in advance about the 11 September plot, but decided to let it go ahead so as to provide a justification for invading Afghanistan and Iraq.” He then scathes John Pilger for comments he made about the lack of air defences on 9/11 published a few weeks earlier in a New Statesman article headlined, “Iraq: The Unthinkable Becomes Normal.”
Aaronovitch briefly quotes Pilger: “'Of course,' said Pilger, the failure to intercept and shoot down the aircraft 'could be due to the most extraordinary combination of coincidences. Or it could not.'” Aaronovitch then asks readers, “to contemplate what Pilger is asking people to believe - that the administration connived in the slaughter of its own citizens, including relatives of its own officials” before resorting to attacking Pilger’s sanity: “One demented swallow does not make a sweltering summer.”
Conspiracy Theory the Board Game
The generalised attack on alternative theories continued a few weeks later in the Telegraph, in an article headlined, “The beauty of Conspiracy Theory is that you can win only by losing rather badly”. Journalist Adam Nicolson details his idea for a new board game called, “Conspiracy Theory.”
The opening two paragraphs read: “I have long known, as you perhaps haven't, that Aids is in fact an experimental cancer cure, developed in the 1960s in Africa by a series of half-maverick, half-government-sponsored scientists, which went horribly wrong and took on a life of its own. The CIA is largely run by the Mafia, which explains why Berlusconi may yet get away with it. Sinatra had a homosexual affair with JFK, for which the whole Marilyn Monroe thing was just a smokescreen that still takes most people in. Roosevelt arranged for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor because it was the only way to get America into the Second World War. Churchill arranged with Hitler for Chamberlain to look ridiculous at Munich so that he, Churchill, could become Prime Minister and he, Hitler, could share world domination with the Churchill clique. George W Bush arranged 9/11 because his presidency was looking flaccid and he wanted a go at Iraq to show his dad what he could do; the only things that went wrong were that the airliner aimed at the Pentagon failed to get Rumsfeld, and no one in the Bush Administration managed to arrange for any of the people involved in the attack on any of the targets to have anything to do with Iraq. Apart from that, quite a success.”
Similar ridicule of 9/11 alternative theories continued into the spring of 2005, evidenced in a 1st April, 2005 comment piece in the Times in which columnist Mick Hume devotes a small section to 9/11.
He writes: “I AM NOT a big believer in conspiracy theories. I think that probably, on balance, the Jews did not stage 9/11, the Royal Family did not murder Diana, Princess of Wales, the Americans did not fake the Moon landings and Dirty Den did not assassinate JFK. However, I am starting to suspect that the Conservative Party front bench may be a secret conspiracy to re-elect Tony Blair.”
2005 - Paperclips, 7/7 & the FDNY Imam
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