WAS SEPTEMBER 11 A GREAT CONSPIRACY?

Internet film presumes the US government as wirepuller of the attacks – Scholars support the thesis

By Matthias B. Krause, New York

[This article published in: Der Tagesspiegel online, 8/12/2006 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.telepolis.de/r4/artikel/23/23322/1.html.]

Hunter S. Thompson serves as their chief witness. He was the inventor of “Gonzo journalism,” an art form that entangles reality and fiction, subjective perspective and facts. Asked by Australian radio whether he really thought the Bush administration profits through the attacks on September 11, 2001, Thompson said with deep conviction “absolutely.”

Thompson’s statement opens up the 80-minute film supported with pictures of the burning Twin Towers and interwoven with statements of witnesses contradicting one another. The work of two young persons from New York State is titled “Loose Change.” The film is a colorful potpourri of conspiracy theories that for years have grown around the events of September 11.

If the film weren’t so successful, “Loose Change” could easily be dismissed as an interesting work of eccentric outsiders. More than ten million persons have watched the video on the Internet since April. The website www.loosechange911.com gets 20,000 hits daily.

Everything began with a book idea. Avery who never attended college and was turned down twice by the film academy wanted to write a thriller – with himself and his friends as heroes who uncovered a great conspiracy of the US government behind the attacks. The longer he researched, the more gaps opened in the official version in his opinion. On his laptop, he began to put together a work out of photos that resembles a filtrate of circulating conspiracy theories. With fast cuts and dramatic commentary, the points are treated on the moving screen.

Can it really be a coincidence that the air defense held an exercise that day on the east coast of the US? Obviously not. Why does the damage caused by the attack on the Pentagon look more like a rocket-intrusion than a hole torn by a passenger aircraft? Because it was a rocket. Why did the towers of the World Trade Center in New York collapse even though the fire allegedly was not hot enough to melt the steal girders? Why did so many witnesses report of further explosions after the airplanes crashed in the skyscrapers? Because they were brought down by bombs in the cellar. Why were so few parts of the wreckage found at the scene of the crash? Because the plane in reality landed in Cleveland. Who was behind all this? The neo-conservatives in Washington because they needed a justification to begin their do-gooder campaign against Saddam Hussein.

That is only the short version. What sounds so abstruse can be very convincing with a skillful composition even if viewers have no detailed knowledge about the events. With its conspiracy theories, “Loose Change” falls on fertile ground. According to a survey of the respected Zogby International opinion research institute in May 2006, 42 percent of Americans believe that the US government and the 9/11 commission concealed things in connection with the attacks. A poll of Ohio University a month later found that 36 percent of the US population thinks government officials helped the terrorists or did nothing to stop them. Two years ago nearly 50 percent of New Yorkers had the same suspicion.

Even among scholars, conspiracy theories in connection with September 11 are booming. Steven Jones, father of the thesis that the fire kindled by the airplanes was not hot enough to melt the steel girders of the World Trade Center is a physics professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Kevin Barrett, professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison teaches his students that the US government was probably behind the attacks, not Al-Qaida terrorists. He is part of the recently founded organization “Scholars for 9/11 Truth” uniting 75 academics, some from acclaimed universities like Princeton and Stanford. Barrett’s colleague and “scholars 9/11 activist James Fetzer, retired philosophy professor is convinced that the suicide pilots are still alive. “Cosmic things happened,” he says. “Our challenge is to uncover what really happened on September 11, 2001.”

“LOOSE CHANGE”: AN INTERNET FILM ABOUT 9/11 BREAKS ALL RECORDS

by Karin Kails

[This article published in: Frankfurter Allgemeine FAZ.NET, July 29, 2006 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, www.faz,net.]

It was an impressive picture: the hole in the façade of the Pentagon after the attack of September 11, 2001. The symbol of American strength was perforated and shattered; the headquarters of American power was attacked. However the hole in the Internet documentary “Loose Change” was even more impressive. The documentary explains very plausibly that an aircraft could not have left behind that hole.

Did the government lie? Was the hole the result of a shot with a rocket? Inconceivable. Many untenable conspiracy theories and many unanswered questions circulated about the involvement of the Bush administration in September 11. Very few were presented as impressively as in “Loose Change.”

“MORE THAN A FICTIONAL STORY”

The video appears at a time when Americans have a growing need for further clarification of the events of September 11. Ten million people have seen the video on Google alone. Every day the site www.loosechange911.com is clicked 20,000 times. Even “Vanity Fair” has ennobled the homemade video with a lengthy article.

Three years ago the director, 22-year old Dylan Avery from Oneonta, New York, researched for a fictional story about September 11. The plot should be very simple. He and his courageous friends discovered the government arranged that 8/11. The research developed into more than a fictional story. In the course of two years with more and more information, a documentary came out of the fictional film, Avery writes on his homepage. Avery invested $2000 in a computer and a software program. He and his 22-year old producer Korey Rowe are now negotiating with large film studios on a revised version of “Loose Change” on the fifth anniversary of September 11.

WHO PROFITED FROM SEPTEMBER 11?

The video documentary has no mystery. The film is a compilation of publically accessible documents, cuts from television reports and interviews, government quotations and eyewitness interviews. All this is packaged in an MTV-style with many screens, fast shots and a musical background composed by Avery’s friends.

With this colorful mixture, the film poses many questions. What caused the explosions heard by eyewitnesses right after the airplanes struck? Why was Ground Zero not blocked off to search for evidence like every other scene of a crime? Who profited from September 11?

“THIS IS THE KENNEDY MURDER OF OUR GENERATION”

The way these questions are raised recalls Michael Moore’s educational missions. However visitors to the Internet site are urged not to accept anything unexamined. Everyone should do research. Some viewers criticize Avery for pure conspiracy theorizing while hardcore conspiracy theoreticians accuse him of being part of a CIA campaign. Avery’s information mission seeks to arouse skepticism toward statements of the government and the media. In the Internet community, he has become a representative of a whole generation for whom September 11 was the most far-reaching experience of their life.

“This is the Kennedy murder of our generation,” producer Rowe says. The video documentarists even predict the case of 9/11 could trigger a “second American revolution” from below. Even if one doesn’t go that far, the more “Loose Change” spreads over the range of the Internet, the louder become the never-answered questions to the American government.