Why I Am Not A "Truther"

Three years ago I started to delve into the so-called "9-11 truth movement" and the subject of conspiracy theories in general on this blog. I never followed through, partly due to a lack of time, but also because I decided there was little to gain and much to lose by the attempt. Several recent developments have reopened the topic, however, and a series of discussions over the Memorial Day weekend convinced me, with some trepidation, to run the risk of putting a few more observations in writing. With trepidation, because I will almost certainly offend some who I respect by denying the credibility of claims they find convincing, and others by noticing claims they find utterly ridiculous.

In that earlier post, I noted that it often seems as though there are only two camps when it comes to political conspiracy theories. One chooses to accept the "official" government explanation in every instance; the other sees masterful deception, sinister motives, and almost divine omnipotence behind every news-worthy event. Considered calmly and in the light of history, both these extremes are nonsensical. Governments are made up of men; generally speaking, unscrupulous and dishonest men, but men none the less.

To consider the first: the idea that official pronouncements on any topic should carry much weight is silly on its face. The dishonesty of politicians and the incompetence of career bureaucrats are both matters of common knowledge. Particularly in regard to foreign policy, official statements are usually meaningless and frequently intended to deceive. Diplomacy has been defined, with good reason, as the art of lying for one's government. The entire history of international relations, from ancient Israel to the present, is a history of deception on a grand scale. In my view, far from lending extra weight to any version of events, the fact that a story is the official line goes in the scales against it.

The other extreme, however, is equally silly. It is beyond reason to assume that every major event is part of a vast human plan. Human plans don't generally work out as they are supposed to, and the bigger and more complex they are, the less likely they are to succeed. Moreover, there is a vast difference between recognizing dishonesty in the official story line and uncovering the real truth of the matter. Decades or even centuries later, with the benefit of hindsight, it often remains impossible to know with certainty the truth about many major events. I am continually frustrated when "truthers" present the most mind-boggling explanations for the events of 9-11, and when asked to state the evidence, immediately begin to cite problems or inconsistencies in the 9-11 Commission report, evidence of official cover-ups, or examples of how the powers that be have benefited from those events as "evidence" for their wild hypothesis. Often they seem sincerely unable to comprehend why such "evidence" does nothing to prove their own explanation.

The fact is that while there are many holes in the official account of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, most of the various alternatives floating around under the umbrella of the "truth movement" have no credible evidence at all to support them. They seem generally to be developed without any substantive investigation of the actual facts while suspiciously well adapted to make exciting documentary material. Most treat the airplanes as a distraction and claim that the twin towers were brought down by internally placed explosives. Some claim that no airliners were involved at all. Either way, these "alternatives" assume intricate conspiracies of incredible magnitude, requiring the knowledge and complicity of hundreds or thousands of eye-witnesses, emergency responders, construction workers, police and military personnel, airline employees, news media, demolition and recovery workers, stock brokers, high-ranking government officials, petty bureaucrats, and Islamic terrorist organizations. Such conspiracies are the stuff of science fiction, not reality.

I would venture the opinion that the real 9-11 conspiracy is much less exciting. I suspect that it involves an obscenely long wish list of expanded powers sitting in a file cabinet at the Justice Department, under the absurdly patronizing title of The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act. I suspect that it stayed in that file cabinet because, while both Republican and Democrat administrations would have dearly loved such an expansion of executive power, both also knew that, in ordinary times, bringing it forward would inspire jealousy in the evil hearts of opposition legislators. So there it languished, waiting for an appropriate time of crisis and the brief moment of bipartisanship that a good crisis always brings. As I noted in the earlier post, such a crisis was bound to occur sooner or later, given the volatile combination of military occupations, tyrannical regimes propped up with American foreign aid, and the constant, petty, manipulative meddling that former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer calls "imperial hubris" - again on the part of both Republican and Democrat administrations.

No doubt Sept. 11, 2001 will go down in history as a Reichstag moment, and rightly so. But to conclude from this that it must have been an "inside job" is unwarranted and unnecessary. The Thompson killings in 1846, the sinking of the Lusitania, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the Gulf of Tonkin incident were all similarly anticipated, provoked, and used to manipulate the American public into support for otherwise unpopular wars. The official story behind each of these events is full of holes. None of them, however, was an "inside job." In each case, the enemy was baited into an act of war that justified a military response, and the problems with the official account stems from the difficulty of leaving the bait out of the story.

(For those who take issue with the idea that the U.S. provoked the 9-11 attacks, I again quote the former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit, Michael Scheuer: "Bin Laden has been precise in telling Americans the reason he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy, but have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.")

While the standard template for discussing the 9-11 attacks (a benevolent and peaceful America blindsided by a "sucker punch ... from somewhere in the back") is somewhere between a bad joke and a pack of lies, there is overwhelming evidence available regarding the actual events themselves. Even the collapse of WTC 7 is easily explained without resorting to alternative theories, if one takes the time to examine the structural issues and the eyewitness testimony relating to it.

What bothers me about all of this is not that conspiracy theorists don't trust their government, but that they don't invest the time and effort to scrutinize each others' claims. Most conspiracy theories have a grain of truth somewhere, buried in mountains of conjecture and fiction. Rumors of secret experiments with cloud seeding and weather manipulation magically grow into fantastic stories of "chemtrails" and population reduction efforts. Radio telescopes and ionospheric research become mind-control projects that can also cause massive earthquakes. Secret and exclusive clubs where powerful elites and their mistresses drink, party and discuss how to dig deeper into our pockets morphe into pagan temples where birds, rodents and worse are sacrificed to Satan himself. These claims serve only one purpose: to discredit those who buy into them. Unfortunately, many conspiracy afficionados seem to think it is everyone else's responsibility to disprove their ideas, and are content to dismiss any skeptic with the question, "Have you researched it yourself?"

In the mean time, policies and actions that truly threaten everything we hold dear are pushed forward right under our noses. While President Obama's birthplace was the subject of useless but frantic scrutiny, litigation, and alternative media attention, his political and economic policies have done incalculable damage to our nation and our freedoms. Just as the 9-11 "truth" movement was unfairly but effectively used to discredit Ron Paul in 2008, so the "birther" issue has more recently been used to discredit Tea Party activists, even those who paid no attention to it. The 2012 election will be either a tremendous opportunity or another blow to individual liberty. We would all do well to select carefully the issues to which we will devote our time and efforts.

Liam Goligher Installation Service

I know this is a departure from the usual subject matter here, but this was such an incredible worship service I've got to share it. Tenth is our church, and a wonderful church it is. Dr. Liam Goligher was installed as the new senior minister last week, and this is the video stream of the service. The entire two hours are well worth watching.

Worship/Installation Service - 5/22/2011 Evening Service: "Why the City Needs the Gospel" from Tenth Presbyterian Church on Vimeo.

For those who share my own love for Scottish music, you must catch the postlude at the end. We were sitting in the balcony, and actually stood in the doorway of the choir loft while the band, orchestra, bagpipes and organ played "Highland Cathedral" in honor of Dr. Goligher's Glasgow roots.