The Unbelievers

The Swiss. The CIA. Israelis. Big Oil. The Antichrist, even. With Sept. 11, the politically paranoid hit the jackpot. But many of their conspiracy theories are chilling, even dangerous, and they're catching on fast

by Kelly Patterson
The Ottawa Citizen
September 01, 2002
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id={A610040F-6AB5-4C72-B283-0E4C1C2C2499}

The Swiss did it. Sure, it sounds far-fetched -- that's what they want you to believe. But as shocked investors dumped stocks for the more stable commodity of gold in the days after Sept. 11, who do you think was yodelling all the way to the bank?

At least that's one of the many conspiracy theories pinballing around on the Net these days.

On more than 30,000 sites, everyone from Ku Klux Klan fanatics to sober academics to the guy next door is flogging a version of what really happened on Sept. 11.

President George W. Bush did it. The Israelis did it. The CIA. Big Oil. The defence industry. The Antichrist. A secret Jewish cabal. And don't forget the Swiss.

For the average person, a taste of the conspiracy-theory frenzy that was touched off on Sept. 11 makes for good fun. "Hunt the Boeing!," a Web site devoted to showing, through photos, that the Pentagon was not really hit by a jetliner, but by a truck bomb or missile controlled from the ground by government agents, is delightfully absurd, with its "Where's Waldo" format ("Can you find debris of a Boeing 757-200 in this photograph?") and its "gotcha" attitude, all based on a highly selective array of photos and a smattering of out-of-context factoids.

As far back as the Salem witch trials, U.S. politics have been a gold mine for conspiracy theories, and with Sept. 11, political paranoids hit the jackpot.

Trouble is, it's not all fun and games. In fact, many of the conspiracy theories are chilling, even dangerous, and they're catching on fast.

An obvious example is the rumour that a Jewish cabal was behind the attacks, in order to draw the U.S. into a war against Israel's Arab enemies.

According to the U.S. Anti-Defamation League, the theory was spawned on Sept. 11 after the Israeli Embassy expressed concern about the safety of the 4,000 Israelis in New York City. Six days later, Lebanon's Al-Manar Television -- mandated to "stage an effective psychological warfare with the Zionist enemy" -- reported that 4,000 Jews working at the World Trade Center had not shown up for work on Sept. 11, citing an obscure Jordanian paper.

The piece was snapped up the next day by the Information Times, a shadowy U.S. Web site that, according to Slate magazine, gave a fake address and is not listed in the phone book.

The international repercussions of the Jewish-cabal theory, which has been reported as fact in media outlets from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan and even Moscow, are deeply disturbing. Not surprisingly, the theory has been wildly successful in countries hostile to Israel: A near-majority of the Arab world now believes Jews were warned away from the World Trade Center, according to the New Statesman.

Similarly, conspiracy theories fingering Mr. Bush or the CIA as the real terrorists have serious political implications in countries where distrust of the U.S. runs deep.

Why would anyone heed Mr. Bush's call for help in shutting down al-Qaeda if he himself were the real mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks?

The success of conspiracy theories in the Middle East should come as no surprise, according to Daniel Pipes, author of The Hidden Hand: Middle East Fears of Conspiracy. In his book, Mr. Pipes argues that in the Middle East, where authoritarian regimes have traditionally been rife with real plots and counter-plots, conspiracy theories are often accepted uncritically, and can even inform official policy.

More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that even the wildest conspiracy theories are beginning to enjoy an astonishing amount of success in the West, observers say. "We're not looking at a fringe, we're looking at a mainstream idea," says Bob Goldberg, a professor of history at the University of Utah and author of the 2001 book Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America.

Sure, you'll find the usual suspects feverishly churning out Sept. 11 conspiracy theories on the Web -- evangelical Christians arguing the attacks were the work of the Antichrist, or the U.S. militia movement, insisting the attacks were a government plot to suspend civil liberties and curtail gun ownership.

And those fringe groups are still the most disturbing of the conspiracy-theory crowd. The Jewish-cabal theory, for example, has revitalized anti-Semitic groups such as the National Alliance, sparking an urgent call to arms to white-power zealots across North America.

While the group has not directly accused Israel of plotting the attacks, it blames "organized Jewry" for turning the U.S. into a puppet for Israel, making Americans vulnerable to attack from Israel's enemies. On Aug. 24, about 500 "white racialists" held an anti-Israel march in Washington, the biggest such rally since the Second World War, according to organizers. And on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Alliance is planning to distribute flyers showing the burning Twin Towers, and proclaiming: "Let's Stop Being Human Shields for Israel."

But just as disturbing, observers say, is the way even the wildest conspiracy theories are coming in from the fringe to penetrate mainstream culture.

"Conspiracy theories are moving like viruses; they are infecting more and more people with the speed of a computer," as flashy Web sites lend credibility to even the wackiest arguments, and the Net guarantees conspiracy thinkers an instant international forum, says Mr. Goldberg.

A spectacular example is a bestseller called The Big Lie, in which the author promotes his ludicrous thesis that the Sept. 11 attacks were orchestrated by a shadowy military-industrial junta that steered the planes by remote control, perhaps guided by beacons secretly placed atop the World Trade Center. Their goal was to force an increase in military spending and to use a war against Afghanistan and Iraq to pursue oil interests in those regions, he claims.

As for the Pentagon, it was targeted because the plotters feared the new Office of Naval Intelligence there would be on to their scheme. The author also insists the Pentagon was not hit by a jetliner, but by a guided missile (presumably CNN commentator Barbara Olsen and the 63 other people aboard Flight 77 are still in orbit somewhere).

Yes, this is our Hunt-the-Boeing friend, Thierry Meyssan (his son runs the Web site). And here's the kicker: Mr. Meyssan is a French liberal, not a U.S.-hating Islamic militant. Nor is he the kind of wingnut from whom you'd expect such a delirious fantasy: The 44-year-old professional researcher has operated a respected political analysis company, the Voltaire Network, since 1994.

Furthermore, his book is wildly popular: Soon after its release in March, it softwared to the top of the bestseller list in France and stayed there for weeks. Foreign rights have been sold in 16 countries, and the English version, which has just recently been released, is also expected to make a splash.

Although his book has been universally ridiculed in media reviews, Mr. Meyssan now has an international cachet: This April, he was flown to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where he presented his theory in a speech under the auspices of the Arab League. He also told his audience of university students, diplomats and journalists the FBI "never undertook any investigation" before it announced a manhunt for the 19 hijackers, adding, the manhunt "reached such a pitch that people were incited to attack -- even kill -- Arabs, whom they naively considered collectively responsible for the attacks."

In North America, one of the biggest players on the conspiracy-theory stage is Michael Ruppert's "From the Wilderness" Web site. Mr. Ruppert, a former Los Angeles police officer, believes the U.S. either planned the attacks or let them happen in order to have an excuse to attack Afghanistan and install a U.S.-friendly government that would give the green light to a coveted oil pipeline to the Caspian Sea.

Although his exposé is full of suspect assumptions (George Bush Sr. had business dealings in Saudi Arabia, therefore he is in league with Osama bin Laden), it has been a huge hit on the Web, attracting more than 6,000 visitors a day, according to Mr. Ruppert. He commands a formidable following, despite his long history of publishing unlikely tales about CIA plots: In 1981 he told a Los Angeles paper his ex-girlfriend had been a CIA officer running a drugs-for-arms deal with Kurdish rebels in Iran, according to The Nation.

Nevertheless, Mr. Ruppert, like Mr. Meyssan, is now on the international speaker's circuit, including a tour through Canada, appearing in Toronto and at the G6B summit in Vancouver.

Similar conspiracy theories are beginning to break out of the Net and into more credible venues, such as television. This winter, Canadian media analyst Barry Zwicker appeared in a five-part series on Vision TV called The Great Deception. In it, he argued that "elements within the top U.S. military, intelligence and political leadership ... are complicit in what happened on Sept. 11." This political/military cabal needed a war on terrorism, he said, as a pretext "to justify a war on Afghanistan for a future oil pipeline, the grab for Middle East oil, big budget increases for the military and the general drive for global domination by the American Empire."

The "Bush knew" argument has become so pervasive that even experienced politicians have raised it. In January, Andreas von Buelow, a former cabinet minister in Germany, told a Berlin newspaper the attacks were a plot by the U.S. "military-industrial-academic complex" to "brainwash" Americans so they would back a war against Islamic targets.

And in April, U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney demanded an independent investigation, noting "persons close to this administration are poised to make huge profits off America's new war." Referring to the government's failure to act on warnings from the FBI and other agencies, she wondered, "What did this administration know and when did it know it ... What do they have to hide?"

While she later backed away from the implied accusation that Mr. Bush and his cronies in the oil industry let the tragedy happen, her outburst shows just how far Sept. 11 conspiracy thinking has crept into the public consciousness.

And as it does, the more political analysts such as Mr. Goldberg become deeply worried. Conspiracy thinking has been on the upswing ever since the 1960s, he says, as people become more and more suspicious of public institutions. He traces the trend back to the assassination of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, considered by 80 per cent of Americans to have been orchestrated in some kind of conspiracy. This was followed by a succession of scandals -- the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran-Contra affair, the televangelist exposés, former president Bill Clinton's financial and sexual liaisons and now the big-business debacles.

Such scandals have steadily undermined people's faith in public institutions, and set the stage for revolt by loners such as Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber, Mr. Goldberg says.

Sept. 11 has provided a spectacular flashpoint for such thinking, he says, predicting that "as economic problems fester, we're going to see an increase in the intensity of conspiracy theories" surrounding the terrorist strikes.

And these theories will pose "a major threat," not only to international peace, but to domestic security, he warns.

Conspiracy theories act as a "corrosive acid that has the potential to destroy" our society, he argues, because they radically polarize people into two camps -- traitors and loyalists. Dialogue becomes irrelevant: An Arab convinced the Jews staged the Sept. 11 catastrophe will not believe Israeli denials, no matter how much evidence they muster; a militiaman who is certain Mr. Bush planned the whole scheme in order to curtail civil liberties will simply scoff at anything the president says in his own defence.

In conspiracy theories, alleged plotters are cast as evil, and coincidences hold as much weight as real evidence: "Fellow journalists, the dots exist," Mr. Zwicker urged in his television address. "For goodness' sake, connect them while you can."

And it's true that some of the events surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks are hard to explain.

Why did Mr. Bush blithely go on with his public appearance after learning about the first attack? How could the U.S. defences around the Capitol and the Pentagon have failed so spectacularly? And it's downright eerie that the bin Laden family invested in the Carlyle Group, an equity firm with large defence industry holdings for which Mr. Bush Sr. is a senior adviser, and in which several other high-profile U.S. politicians have been involved.

It doesn't help that the White House has been reluctant to fling open the doors to the public, requesting that Congress limit its investigation into the attacks and appearing to stall on revealing who knew what and when. This "cult of secrecy" in the U.S. government has helped turn concerned citizens into conspiracy theorists, Mr. Goldberg says. And that is a deeply alarming trend, he says.

While it is healthy for people in a democracy to challenge authority, "with conspiracy thinking, we move beyond challenging, to doubt the loyalty of people," Mr. Goldberg explains.

"You start to demonize them ... you impute ... evil to those folks," he says. "You say to yourself, 'They seek to destroy our society, they seek to destroy our institutions, they seek to destroy me.' "

Taken to its logical conclusion, such thinking can be deadly: "Conspiracy theories lead you to say, 'These people can't be trusted; these people need to be destroyed.' "

Mr. Goldberg is not too worried that Sept. 11 conspiracy theories will lead to an organized attack on, say, big oil companies. But he does worry about loners with easy access to guns who decide "they've got to be Paul Revere, they've got to do something that will ignite the country."

Ironically, Mr. Bush's reaction to the attacks -- his appeal to U.S. patriotism and talk of "evil-doers" -- sets the stage for just such a reaction, Mr. Goldberg says. "If you have this sense of patriotism and you put in a brew of guns and ... a holy or righteous cause, then my sense is these people (will not be) easy to control."

While Sept. 11 doubters may not buy Mr. Bush's version of events, they are still likely to feed on his "extermination rhetoric," Mr. Goldberg fears.

That rhetoric could come back to haunt Mr. Bush, he warns, because, in the mind of many conspiracy theorists, "if you're fighting for survival against evil-doers, anything becomes permissible."

- - -

Do-It-Yourself Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy theories may differ wildly, but they all follow the same basic pattern. Just fill in the blanks:

The attacks of Sept. were not carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists, but by ______ (the CIA, the Antichrist, the Swiss, other), who are secretly in league with ______ (Big Oil, George W. Bush, Greenland, other). They plan to take over ______ (the U.S., the world, CNN, other) by using the "war against terrorism" to stifle dissent from _______ (the left, the right, Christians, non-Christians, other) and get control over vital resources in ______ (the Mideast, Afghanistan, Canada, other). They will use fear of future terrorism to consolidate power in a police state, and the only way to fight them is to ______ (expose the plot, start amassing arms, pray hard, other).

- - -

Who says what about Sept. 11:

The Right: The Sept. 11 attacks were orchestrated by President George W. Bush and/or right-wingers bent on curtailing civil liberties and installing a New World Order, controlled by an international élite.

'Remember, Hitler seized power by burning the Reichstag, and it's happening again!' (infowars.com)

The Left: Mr. Bush and his cronies in the military/industrial nexus either either knew about the plot or planned it in order to install a pro-western regime in Afghanistan.

The goal: To smooth the way for a pipeline through the country to oil reserves in the Caspian Sea, as well as to bolster military spending and stifle dissent. 'An oil coup has taken control in this country.' (copvcia.com).

Evangelicals: Some say 9/11 was a 'shot over the bow' from God to shock us out of sin: 'Bin-Laden is a Terrorist of the LORD ... Is He not now telling us to go forth from modern Babylon?'

Others say the Antichrist was behind the attacks, as the first step in establishing a New World Order government 'that will be viewed by many as the government of the anti-Christ.' (webpal.org)

Anti-Jewish groups: The attacks were carried out by Israeli secret agents, perhaps in league with American sympathizers, 'as a pretext to launch military campaigns against 'enemies of America' in the Middle East and in Asia.'

(antichristconspiracy.com) Some think 4,000 Jews were warned away from the World Trade Center the day of the attacks.

Another rumour has it that Mossad agents disguised as 'Israeli art students' were involved.

Way out there: Numerologists point out that 9/11 corresponds to the emergency code. Also, the sum of 9+1+1 is 11, and after Sept. 11, 111 days remain in the year.

Others initially predicted officials wouldn't release the jetliners' black boxes because the voices they record are those of aliens.

Barflies: Some say the U.S. Treasury Board knew of the plot years in advance. The proof?

If you fold a U.S. $20 bill in a certain way, you see the twin towers on fire.

© Copyright 2002

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