Posted on 09/19/2001 5:25:46 PM PDT by sickandtired
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2001 THE TIMES OF INDIA WORLD: AMERICAS POWERED BY INDIATIMES Indiatimes > The Times of India > World > Americas > Article After WTC, conspiracy theories abound CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK ASHINGTON: The Israelis did it. No, it was the CIA. It was a Hindu-Jewish plot to pit the United States against the Muslim world. It was a devious scheme hatched by the US government to strike against some enemy, ratchet up the defence spending, and appease the military-industrial complex.
As thousands of people who have lost their loved ones in the world's worst terrorist carnage painfully search for answers, conspiracy theorists, a flourishing tribe that comes to life after every major world event, are spinning their usual yarns. Rumour, innuendo, distortion, falsehood and fabrication are the usual grist for the conspiracy mill.
With the arrival of the Internet, the world-wide-web has displaced the tabloid as the biggest dispenser of conspiracy theories (CTs). No theory is too outlandish, no scheme too bizarre for the plot peddlers.
Topping the list of CTs in the current tragedy is the Israeli plot. The 'evidence' proffered is as follows: Only the Israelis have the skill, sophistication, money and tools to undertake such a mission. The Israelis benefit most from the episode because they can now blame the Islamic world "without any evidence" and fulfil their objectives in the Middle-East. The Israelis were involved in a previously unexplained attack on the American ship USS Liberty in 1967 that killed 34 American servicemen.
Typically, the Jewish plot theories are peddled by the Islamic lobby through mass e-mail dispensed by outlets like the Information Times, a web newspaper run by Pakistani-American journalist Syed Adeeb, a former reporter with the Frontier Post. Most recently, Information Times gave currency to a particularly brilliant piece of deduction by Beirut's Al-Manar television pointing to an Israeli plot.
According to Information Times/Al-Manar, the international and Israeli media initially "hurried to take advantage of the incident and started mourning 4,000 Israelis who work at the two towers." Then suddenly, no one ever mentioned anything about those Israelis "and later it became clear that they remarkably did not show up in their jobs" on the day the tragedy.
So deep-rooted is the conspiracy theory that IT/Al-Manar now passes the burden of evidence to "Arab diplomatic sources (who) revealed to the Jordanian al-Watan newspaper that those Israelis remained absent that day based on hints from the Israeli General Security Apparatus, the Shabak. This fact, according to IT or Al-Manar or Al-Watan (it is not clear which) "evoked unannounced suspicions on American officials who wanted to know how the Israeli government learned about the incident before it occurred, and the reasons why it refrained from informing the U.S. authorities of the information it had."
It's not over yet. According to the conspiracy theorists "suspicions had increased further after Israeli newspaper Yadiot Ahranot revealed that the Shabak prevented Israeli premier Ariel Sharon from traveling to New York and particularly to the city's eastern coast to participate in a festival organized by the Zionist organizations in support of the 'Israel'. Aharon Bernie, the commentator at the newspaper, brought up the issue and came up with a negative conclusion, saying 'no answer'. He then asked about the clue behind the Shabak's position in preventing Sharon's participation, and again without giving an answer."
Next in the CT sweepstakes is the Americans-did-it-themselves plot. The evidence? A recent story based on a new book on the top-secret US National Security Agency (NSA) by journalist James Bamford. In the book "A Body of Secrets" Bamford writes about a U.S. military leaders' proposal in 1962 to commit terrorist acts against Americans and blame Cuba to create a pretext for invasion and the ouster of Fidel Castro.
"We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," a document reportedly prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff is quoted as saying. "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," the document says. "Casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of indignation."
Another idea was to shoot down a CIA plane designed to replicate a passenger flight and announce that Cuban forces shot it down. A third plot, titled "The Northwoods Plan" proposed that if the 1962 launch of John Glenn into orbit were to fail, resulting in the astronaut's death, the U.S. government would publicise fabricated evidence that Cuba had used electronic interference to sabotage the flight.
For the conspiracy mindset, all this is sufficient evidence to point the finger of suspicion away from the widely-believed Islamic-fundamentalists-did it theory. This is further buttressed by selectively giving currency to any story that would seem to implicate others. For e.g. a story in the Israeli daily Haaretz that five Israelis working for a New Jersey moving company were arrested by the FBI for "puzzling behaviour." They were videotaping the disaster from atop their building and "shouting in what was interpreted as cries of joy and mockery."
ready aim shoot
be my guest
NeverGore
Makes about as much sense as an Israeli theory!
True we may seem to be swinging in the dark at this terrorist organization. True the Russians spent ten years fighting the Afghans and gave up. We do however know more than we are letting on. We will act. We have Air-Power!!
How about Serbia/Ygoslavia (Yugoslav Republic of Serbia? whatever...) If I were a Serb I would want some kind of vengence agains the US for all the bombings. The Serbs as the villin makes a great deal of sense in that they would not desire any credit. They would only want retribution.
The fact is that no one has claimed credit for this very skillful act of barbarism. I bet there are Serbs who could have passed for Arabs. Well maybe they would need a little hair dye but that's all. Three of the Saudi suspects have turned out to have been out of the US on 9-11.
So Serbs could have stolen the identity of some arabs and got on these planes. They hijack em. They demand that everybody get on the phone to their reletives and tell em about the AHY RABBS that are hijacking thier flights!
I still don't buy this pre-packaged villen bin Ladin. But maybe he's the one. He definetely should be taken out for his other terrorist acts.
But he say "I shot the Sherrif!! But I did not shoot no Deputy!" Or rather "I blew up the Cole! But I did not burn down the WTC."
Me neither. I mean, think about it: If he's got all this money, why is he living in Afghanistan? Okay, weak maybe, but there has to be tons of countries he can live in that are easier to operate in. There's only so much he can control from a mountain in Afghanistan.
More to the point, what about the oh-so-convenient trail left by the hijackers? I mean, if you know how to fly a jet, what do you need a training manual for? Not to mention these guys went out of their way to be conspicuous days beforehand. And charging the tickets besides? Pretty sloppy for so-called pros, methinks.
Somone could say that one company might employ 4,000 employees but the day of office workers sitting shoulder to shoulder are over.
Because they didn't know how to fly a jet. They knew how to crash a jet.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.