Posted on 09/11/2006 7:10:10 AM PDT by aculeus
Edited on 09/12/2006 3:52:54 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
They believe there weren't any planes on 9/11, just missiles wrapped in holograms - and there weren't any London terrorists on 7/7 either. The new-wave conspiracy theorists aren't green-ink types: they're educated; they have secret service connections; they live in Highgate.
At first sight, David Shayler and Annie Machon's home in Highgate - the leafiest of London's leafy suburbs - looks like a picture of middle-class respectability. There are Japanese landscape paintings on the living-room walls. Shelves groan under the weight of hardback novels and books on politics. An Alsatian with a well-kept, glossy coat looks on curiously as Belinda McKenzie - the grandmotherly landlady of the house - serves tea in china cups with a plate of delicious shortbread biscuits. "Enjoy," she says in a soft, plummy English accent.
Then you notice the curiosities. On the table sits a document about the "controlled demolition" of the twin towers. The shelves hold books titled The 9/11 Commission Report: omissions and distortions and The New Pearl Harbor: disturbing questions about the Bush administration and 9/11. There's a stack of colourful leaflets advertising a club night called Truth 9/11, to take place in Brixton in a week's time, the "11" in "9/11" represented by two tall stereo speakers. DVDs litter a work desk. One is called 7/7: mind the gap. The cover of another, titled Loose Change, asks: "What if 9/11 were an inside job rather than the work of al-Qaeda...?"
This cluttered house in the heart of respectable, latte-drinking Highgate doubles as the hub of the British and Irish 9/11 Truth Campaign. It's a loose group, founded in January 2004, which suspects precisely that 9/11 was an "inside job", organised and executed by a "shadowy elite" made up of individuals from the FBI, the CIA, the arms industry and politics. Shayler and Machon - the boyfriend-and-girlfriend former spies who famously left MI5 in 1996 after becoming disgruntled - are its leading lights. They've gone from being the Posh and Becks of the whistle-blowing world to something very like the Richard and Judy of the 9/11 conspiracy-theory set.
Sitting on the comfy couch, their cups of tea in hand, they try to convince me that the 11 September 2001 attacks were executed by elements in the west who wanted to launch wars and "make billions upon trillions of dollars".
"We know for certain that the official story of 9/11 isn't true," says Shayler. "The twin towers did not collapse because of planes and fire; they were brought down in a controlled demolition. The Pentagon was most likely hit by an American missile, not an aeroplane." Machon nods. In black trousers and black top, this sophisticated blonde in her late thirties comes across more like a schoolmarm than a 9/11 anorak. "The Pentagon's anti-missile defence system would definitely have picked up and dealt with a commercial airliner. We can only assume that whatever hit the Pentagon was sending a friendly signal. A missile fired by a US military plane would have sent a friendly signal." She says this in a kind of Anna Ford-style newsreader's voice, as if she were speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. She takes another sip of tea.
Say the phrase "conspiracy theorist" (but don't say it to Shayler and Machon if you can help it, because they angrily deny being conspiracy theorists) and most people will think of those nutty militiamen in redneck areas of America who hate Big Government, or of taxi drivers with possibly anti-Semitic leanings in some hot, dusty backwater of the Middle East who revel in telling western clients in particular: "America and the Jew did 9/11." Yet, here in Highgate, I am talking to a man and woman who have worked in the British secret services and who, together with their landlady Belinda, a professional linguist, truly believe that American elements facilitated 9/11 in order to "justify their adventurism in oil-rich countries in the Middle East", in Shayler's words. Here we have a new kind of conspiracy theorist: the chattering conspiracist, respectable, well-read, articulate, but, I regret to report, no less cranky than those rednecks and misguided Kabul cabbies.
The 9/11 Truth Campaign tries to distance itself from the green-ink loons who have been spreading rumours about 9/11 ever since the first plane slammed into the World Trade Center. "In London we meet socially on the first Monday of every month, and for a discussion on the third Monday of every month," says the ever-chirpy Machon, as if describing a Women's Institute get-together to discuss knitting, rather than a meeting of individuals who think a dark cabal of nutters controls the world. Its activists - many of whom are fairly well-to-do, and who include lecturers, film-makers and other whistle-blowers - pore over footage and photos of the events of 9/11, furiously debate them online, and argue that, scientifically, the official version of events doesn't add up. For Belinda - who describes herself as the "tea-maker and dishwasher of the movement" and allows activists from outside London to stay at her home - this is about "getting to the historical truth of what happened".
Yet, for all their forensic pretensions, their views remain crankily conspiratorial and unfounded. Take the claim that a plane did not hit the Pentagon, which has been doing the rounds since the French journalist Thierry Meyssan published 9/11: the big lie in 2002. "Just look at the news footage," says Shayler. "You won't see any plane debris on the Pentagon lawn."
Truth-seekers on a mission
True, but there was plenty of plane debris inside the Pentagon, where Flight 77 entered and exploded. There are numerous photographs of the blackened belly of the Pentagon crash site, taken by officials of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other rescue workers, which clearly show airliner wheel hubs, landing gear, part of a nose cone and bits of fuselage in the smouldering rubble (I hate to have to do this, but if you don't believe me take a look here: [http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm]). What kind of warrior for historical truth doesn't pay attention to basic photographic evidence?
Or consider the claim that the twin towers were brought down in a controlled demolition (which would have involved sinister individuals planting tonnes of dynamite in the weeks prior to 9/11 without being spotted by any of the good citizens of New York). The US National Institute of Standards and Technology investigated the cause of the collapse - during which "some 200 technical experts reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs [and] analysed 236 pieces of steel" - and it found "no corroborating evidence" that the towers had been toppled by dynamite. There is a lot of scientific evidence there, yet it is ignored or discounted by the apparently scientifically minded truth-seekers of this campaign.
At times, the line between these middle-class campaigners' apparently "scientific investigations" and old-fashioned conspiracy-mongering seems uncomfortably thin. One of their leaflets has a web address for David Icke, the former sports presenter-turned-"Son of God" who thinks the world is run by a race of reptilian humanoids. Shayler says: "There is a Zionist conspiracy; that's a fact. And they were behind 9/11." Machon intervenes diplomatically: "Not everyone in the campaign shares that view."
Then things really go off the rails. I ask Shayler if it's true he has become a "no planer" - that is, someone who believes that no planes at all were involved in the 9/11 atrocity. Machon looks uncomfortable. "Oh, f*** it, I'm just going to say this," he tells her. "Yes, I believe no planes were involved in 9/11." But we all saw with our own eyes the two planes crash into the WTC. "The only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes," he says. "Watch the footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center." He must notice that my jaw has dropped. "I know it sounds weird, but this is what I believe."
The 7/7 photo "forgery"
What about 7/7? Some in the 9/11 Truth Campaign aren't "really into 7/7", in Belinda's words. But Shayler is. He recently finished making 7/7: mind the gap, a film in which he suggests that, given the late running of trains on that fateful day last year, the four bombers could not have blown themselves up in London at the times claimed. He also believes that the closed-circuit TV image of the four men entering Luton Station is a "Photoshop job - a forgery, and a bad one at that". He goes so far as to argue that those who forged the photo did it badly in order to send a signal to the rest of us. "This could be elements in the New World Order saying, 'Look, we're sick of lying. We've had enough.'"
So have I. The thought of behind-the-scenes suits being cajoled by their evil paymasters to create an image of four rucksack-wearing terrorists in order to cover up their own bombing of London is just too ludicrous. These 9/11 truth campaigners merely add a supposedly scientific gloss to already existing conspiracy theories, trying to make the ridiculous seem respectable. In the process, they actually do a disservice to "historical truth". History gets reduced to a mysterious force beyond our control, and politics - real politics - is imagined to be the preserve of unknown, faceless puppet-masters whom we can never hope to influence. And the rest of us are reduced to the status of helpless spectators, searching amid the rubble of 9/11 and the aftermath of 7/7 for signs of truth and meaning.
Read more of my articles for the New Statesman here.
Didn't you read the aritcle? That's a HOLOGRAM. I suppose its too late to search the Empire State building for the giant projector?
(My theory is that the ENTIRE thing was faked and the WTC is STILL there hidden from view by the Amazing Kreskin).
Eh? It still works for me. Maybe go to http://nomoregames.net and hit the Recent Articles button (the above was the "Plane Trick" article).
ok..but they were fake 767s not 737s :)
These people are nucking futjobs. Evens the loons think they are crazy.....Unreal.
Hmmmm. Never thought of that. You may be on to something. However I don't think that Kreskin has that in his bag of tricks, I think that is more in line with David Copperfield . Now we may have something. I saw him make an airplane disappear one time! And you know, I never have trusted him. He has a sinister look about him.
The no-planes-at-all subset of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists are by definition either mentally retarded or mentally ill. There are thousands of eye-witnesses (do you have any idea how many windows of occupied offices, schools, and apartments had a clear view of the upper floors of the WTC towers?), who include many anti-Bush, anti-America leftists, who'd eagerly spill the beans if they'd been looking at the towers and not seen a plane hit (by the time the 2nd plane hit, virtually everybody with a view was staring at the towers -- we're talking many, many thousands of people here). There's also the matter of the staffs of the airlines whose planes were involved -- the mechanics, flight crews, air traffic controllers, etc. -- who all saw these planes take off and never saw them land. And never saw these specific planes again. Controllers all over the country had their eyes on radar screens for several hours afterwards, as all non-military air traffic was grounded -- no reports of spottings of stray planes that subsequently disappeared. And all those oddly consistent reports of cell phone calls from passengers on the planes, to still-living relatives.
If there were no planes involved, this would have to be not only a conspiracy on a historic scale, but also an extraordinarily democratic one, with participants spanning the entireties of the political, economic, religious, racial, ethnic, and age spectra. What could the motivation be, that would convince this vast number of very diverse people, who could not have been individually selected in advance, to participate steadfastly in a years-long conspiracy/cover-up?
But these are the sort of considerations which only trouble the minds of people with normal mental capacity . . .
You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop:............. Yup! They are there!
I don't know what you're blabbing about but don't ping me with your nonsense.
I've seen the supposed proof of a controlled demolition...blasts eminating from the falling building below the debris line. The morons aren't bright enough to suppose that the inside of the building is falling faster than the outer shell.
Holograms are kinda flakey. A 757 can sorta look like a 737 and versa visa. You know. Lets not pick nits here. LOL.
I've read about as much as I could stand.
The man's stupid/crazy.
See how easily you were fooled. All those callers were part of the conspiracy to make you believe that there was a plane.
(Do I need a sarcasm tag?)
Scary to think that these imbeciles were once part of MI5. Time to call the whitecoats.
Perhaps the CIA implanted a chip in her brain 30 years ago as the planning for these events took place!
I'll take that as an "It wasn't me". Thanks for narrowing down the field.
Whacked out theories by right-wing nuts get laugh at by those on the right. Whack out theories by left-wing nuts get followers by those on the left.
Isn't that the truth. There was some insane article coming from one of those insane sites...claiming Barbara Olson was spotted in europe wearing a wig. Another one of their theories...that those planes were all crashed in the Atlantic killing all those folks. NUTS
There was no thread. What you saw was a hologram.
There are those who have finances that enable them to be 'carefree'.
But, while they do not 'starve' for food, they do 'starve' for attention. They will pick on on any controversial subject and hound it to death, all to keep themselves in the public eye, in the limelight, and to foster a gathering of 'followers'.
That is all these people are. Same with the 'college professors' here in the U.S. that make the same proclamations. They want to be known for something. They want followers. They will go to extreme lengths to ignore reality and claim the impossible is actually true.
The sad thing is that anyone listens to them.
:D
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