Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Sept 11 conspiracy theories... any truth in them? | |
Posted by: | Malcolm Peltu | |
Date/Time: | 08/07/08 10:58:00 |
I found a review of the conspiracy programme by Thomas Sutcliffe in the Indie interesting (look at Arts & Entertainment on Monday's online edition). The opening of the review seems to get to the heart of the problems with such Conspiracy Theories (he later also points to the kinds of self contradictions mentioned by Fred in an earlier post): 'Imagine an infection that actually feeds on the only antibiotic available to counter it and you have some measure of the problem in dealing with conspiracy theories. When conspiracists encounter solid evidence against their favoured scenario, they have only two options available to them. They can compromise their religious belief in the narrative they've constructed, or they can simply enlarge it, extending the conspiracy so that, amoeba-like, it absorbs this irritating foreign body and digests it whole. Almost invariably, they choose the latter, and The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – the Third Tower, a film about the collapse of World Trade Centre Building 7, offered several choice examples of the process. What conspiracists believe about Building 7 is that it was deliberately destroyed, brought down by a pre-planned explosion so that the evidence proving government complicity in the events of 9/11 would be shredded. They base their conviction on footage of the collapse, in which it does indeed look as if the building has been brought down by controlled demolition. They then shore up this ill-informed impression with oddities picked from the rubble of that day – passing remarks, inaccuracies in the news coverage, fragments of debris – all of them carefully sifted and separated from their context so that their larger meaning is obscured. And woe betide you if you suggest that the resulting collage is implausible in any way. Mark Loizeaux did, a demolitions expert who pointed out that preparing a large skyscraper for demolition takes months of work and requires a cat's cradle of wiring all over the building. Not only that, but the amount of explosive required to bring down Building 7 would have shattered windows for hundreds of yards around, whereas the only windows broken in nearby buildings were those directly exposed to falling debris from the Twin Towers. A large chunk of grit for any amoeba to swallow, you would have thought, but rippling weirdly around the edges, that's just what happened. Richard Gage, founder of the ironically titled Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, speculated that either specially concealed charges had been laid when offices were remodelled or that they had actually been incorporated into the building when it was first built in the 1980s, the government showing an impressive grasp of forward planning in the field of nefarious skulduggery. Other conspiracists took a simpler route: if Loizeaux was undermining their theory, then he must be part of the conspiracy, too.' |