Photographs by Alyson Aliano (James Meigs) and Lori Grinker/Contact Press Images (flag raising)
Published in the March 2005 issue.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion," the great Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York was fond of saying. "He is not entitled to his own facts."
It has been 3-1/2 years since the September 11 attacks. In that time, the American people have questioned why we were caught off guard and have demanded to know the whole story behind the events of that terrible day. But as a society we accept the basic premise that a group of Islamist terrorists hijacked four airplanes and turned them into weapons against us.
Sadly, the noble search for truth is now being hijacked by a growing army of conspiracy theorists. A few of these skeptics make a responsible effort to sift through the mountain of information, but most ignore all but a few stray details they think support their theories. In fact, many conspiracy advocates demonstrate a maddening double standard. They distrust every bit of the mainstream account of 9/11, yet happily embrace the flimsiest evidence to promote their wildest notions: that Osama bin Laden attacked the United States with help from the CIA; that the hijacked planes weren't commercial jets, but military aircraft, cruise missiles or remote-control drones; that the World Trade Center buildings were professionally demolished.
These 9/11 conspiracy theories, long popular abroad, are gradually — though more quietly — seeping into mainstream America. Allegations of U.S. complicity in the attacks have become standard fare on talk radio and among activists on both the extreme left and the extreme right of the political spectrum.
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ASSAULT ON THE TRUTH: Three and a half years after 9/11, conspiracy theorists are trying to rewrite history.
Don't get me wrong: Healthy skepticism is a good thing. Nobody should take everything they hear — from the government, the media or anybody else — at face value. But in a culture shaped by Oliver Stone movies and "X-Files" episodes, it is apparently getting harder for simple, hard facts to hold their own against elaborate, shadowy theorizing.
Fortunately, facts can be checked. For our
special report, PM compiled a list of the 16 most common claims made by conspiracy theorists, assertions that are at the root of virtually every 9/11 alternative scenario. These claims all involve fields that are part of PM's core expertise — structural engineering, aviation, military technology and science.
We assembled a team of reporters and researchers, including professional fact checkers and the editors of PM, and methodically analyzed all 16 conspiracy claims. We interviewed scores of engineers, aviation experts, military officials, eyewitnesses and members of the investigative teams who have held the wreckage of the attacks in their own hands. We pored over photography, maps, blueprints, aviation logs and transcripts. In every single instance, we found that the facts used by conspiracy theorists to support their fantasies were mistaken, misunderstood or deliberately falsified.
Reasonable people are entitled to wish that our government had been better prepared and more alert. But those who peddle fantasies that this country encouraged, permitted or actually carried out the attacks are libeling the truth — and disgracing the memories of the thousands who died that day.
;)
