Brouhaha over 9/11 Conspiracies

It’s amazing to see the rhetoric being thrown around in regards to the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Indymedia is full of posts basically calling anyone who doubts the theories a sell out, “weak leftist,” or worse.

Of course, this “debate” really heated up once the media started getting preoccupied with variations on the “what did Bush know?" question. Yet some commentators had already taken up the topic prior to the media's revelations. Most notably, David Corn has addressed the theories on at least two occasions. Others weighed in: Norman Solomon cautioned that “eagerness to believe is no substitute for willingness to think critically,” Salim Muwakkil of In These Times tried to sort fact from fiction, Matthew Rothschild wrote about the “Crude Politics of Scandal,” and Michael Albert and Steve Shalom went as far as to write a recent “instructional” on conspiracy theories for Znet.

Then comes this: Bev Conover, editor and publisher of the lefty-journalism site Online Journal, today denounces the “lily-livered leftists” and ridicules several of the names above for being “handmaiden[s] of the Republican Right”.

Yowzas. It seems like we have a rock solid case of internecine warfare going on now.

Much of the support for the conspiracy theories seems to come from Mike Ruppert. I don’t know what to make of him, and the fact that much of the material on his website is available only by paid subscription makes me skeptical. I can’t imagine someone interested in spreading the “truth” charging a price of admission…

I have read some of his material though, along with several other reports and analyses, and it does seem like there is credible evidence that something fishy was going on prior to 9/11. However, I don’t think the significance of this evidence is known yet; so pointing fingers and throwing around wild theories of complicity at high levels of finance and government seems premature and, yes, reckless, to my eyes.