Some Look Back At 9/11 And See A U.S. Conspiracy

Some look back to 9/11 and see a U.S. conspiracy
In the five years since the attacks, theories of a U.S. government conspiracy took root and grew, particularly in the Upper Midwest.

http://www.startribune.com/462/story/657868.html

Bob Von Sternberg, Star Tribune
Last update: September 05, 2006 – 10:35 PM

As the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks looms, skepticism about the official version of the atrocities that day has gained traction in the minds of many Americans and among a small, but growing, number of academics.

It's following a well-trod path in American culture, in which belief in conspiracy theories grows as a traumatic event recedes into history -- think the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Adherents to the idea that the government orchestrated the attacks, or at least allowed them to happen, come from across the political spectrum. And the Upper Midwest has been an incubator of sorts for these notions.

An instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison kicked up a statewide political ruckus this summer that had several politicians calling for his head because of his views.

The UW instructor, self-described Arabist Kevin Barrett, said his antagonists, mostly Republican officeholders, "are a bunch of witch-hunting politicians who are obviously terrified that their hold on power will be utterly annihilated."

Retired University of Minnesota Duluth philosophy Prof. James Fetzer is founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. "What the government committed was shock and awe on American soil," he said. "And all of their explanations are phony, a fraud, a hoax, a myth."

Nuzi Haneef, a software engineer from Eagan, has organized the MN 9/11 Questions Meetup Group. It has attracted more than three dozen participants.

"The story about 9/11 that the government said is true is really not plausible," she said. "When you put it all together ... there's obviously been a coverup."

Peter Knight, senior lecturer in American studies at the University of Manchester and editor of the 2002 book "Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America," called the movement "a strange beast, an amalgam of elements. You've got the anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war crowd -- you know, if they lied about the war, maybe they lied about 9/11. Another part is people merely interested in the anomalies, with no preconceived political agenda.

"Then you have the more traditional right-wing conspiracy part of the continuum that believes a vast cabal has taken over the United States, the mega-conspiracy of the right's new world order. To them, all of these things are connected. Each group inserts 9/11 into its preexisting conspiracy model."

Often derided as fringe-dwellers, people pushing the 9/11 conspiracy turn out to have a lot of company.

A nationwide poll in July by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University found that 36 percent of respondents think the federal government either assisted in the attacks or allowed them to happen as a pretext to start a war in the Middle East.

The poll also found that 16 percent of respondents think the World Trade Center's twin towers were toppled by hidden explosives and 12 percent think the Pentagon was hit by a U.S. cruise missile.

(By comparison, the same poll found that 38 percent think the feds are withholding proof of the existence of intelligent life from other planets.)

"Americans are prone to conspiracy theories because there's a residual faith in individualism and individual's control over history and a residual faith in the openness and goodness of the political system," Knight said. "When you have the loss of trust in authority that's been going on for 40 years, all of that feeds conspiracy theories."

Federal officials, taken aback at the tenacity of the conspiracy theorists, published two reports last week that affirm the official version of the 9/11 attacks. But the doubters remain unconvinced.

Fetzer of UMD attributes the breadth of belief in a 9/11 conspiracy to recent media appearances by himself, Barrett and others in his scholars group, which has grown in a few months to about 300 members. "Being on C-SPAN, our conferences have had the effect of legitimizing our argument," he said.

Haneef said "any publicity is good publicity, even if it's negative, because it gets the word out of what we're trying to say. But the word 'conspiracy' has a stigma, so it paints you as a kind of abnormal person."

For his part, Barrett links the growth to the fact that "people aren't quite as stupid as the neoconservatives think they are. In a few years, it'll be at 100 percent; and by then, the perpetrators will be on trial for their 9/11 war crimes."

That, he acknowledged, is part of his public "harangues," which he said he keeps out of his classroom. After it was announced he would teach a class on Islam this fall, such public comments about 9/11 incited efforts to get him fired.

University of Wisconsin officials say they don't endorse the views of Barrett, an adjunct. But after investigating, they concluded he would handle the material responsibly in the classroom. That didn't mollify his critics.

"It's not a matter of unpopular ideas; it's a matter of quality education," said state Rep. Stephen Nass, a Republican from Whitewater, Wis., who led the push for Barrett's firing.

The Associated Press reported that Provost Patrick Farrell warned Barrett last month that he would reconsider Barrett's employment if he continued to identify himself with the university in his political messages.

"He asked me to stop seeking publicity, but I'm not -- publicity is seeking me," Barrett said.

Many of those who see a 9/11 conspiracy have traced them to earlier purported conspiracies.

"It's a repeat of the Kennedy assassination," Knight said. "At first, after the event, there's no possible doubt about what happened. Then within a few years, people start believing in a conspiracy."

And the 9/11 conspiracy is staying alive. Within hours of news last month that British police foiled a terror plot to blow up airliners, the Internet was full of assertions that it was a White House ploy to divert attention from Iraq and Lebanon.

Said Barrett: "Once again, they're telling us something with no convincing evidence to prove it."