Conspiracy Files: 9-11

Unfortunately, last night's The Conspiracy Files was complusive viewing for socialists. I say unfortunately because too many comrades have become seduced by conspiracy theorising around the events of September 11th. Of late some comrades (who will remain nameless to spare their blushes) have endorsed the conspiratorial point of view on the UKLN, claiming the biggest conspiracy leading us to believe they were the actions of a rag tag group of terrorists controlled by a guy hiding in a hole somewhere in Afghanistan. I know one comrade who's convinced the World Trade Centre buildings were demolished through controlled explosions, and I remember debating with a particularly obnoxious character (again on the UKLN) mere days after the event. He was already claiming the attacks were an inside job.

The BBC2 documentary was useful because it tackled the "inconsistencies" flagged by the consipracy theorists head on. It explains why air defence failed to intercept the jets on their fateful journey, rubbished claims that Jewish workers stayed away from the Twin Towers that morning, explained how the towers were able to collapse without the buildings' steel supports melting, and much else besides.

The three I want to focus on are the crash into the Pentagon, the collapse of WTC Building Seven, and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon has attracted much attention as photographs of the hole in the building's exterior wall appears to be large enough just for the fuselage, but not the wings, engines or tail finns. This has lead those of a conspiratorial bent to speculate it was caused by a cruise missile or possibly a remote controlled drone aircraft. The evidence presented by the documentary proves these claims are unfounded. A simulation by a team of structural engineers at Purdue University shows how a commercial airliner can disintegrate when hitting a building composed of steel reinforced concrete pillars, like the Pentagon. There was also the small matter of the site being littered with aircraft debris, the numerous eye witnesses, and the fact that no conspiracy theorist has come up with the location of Flight 77 and its passengers if it was indeed a missile attack.

The collapse of WTC Building Seven is also a favourite among conspiracy theorists. According to The Conspiracy Files it was purposely demolished because the attack on the Twin Towers was coordinated from one of its government offices - the Office for Emergency Management, the CIA, or the Secret Service. The purpose was simply to cover up evidence for the conspiracy. Once again the claims do not stand up. During the attack the building was hit in several places by flaming wreckage that, in turn started a blaze on the 5th and 7th floors of the tower. These in turn were fuelled by the building's diesel tanks. Taken in conjunction with the debris damage the two account for the collapse. There was no controlled demolition.

Finally the crash of Flight 93 was due to it being shot down by the US airforce rather than an outcome of the struggle for control of the craft, or so argue the conspiracy lobby. Here they claim the pattern of debris is scattered over an area more consistent with a missile strike than a plane crash. Unfortunately for them, as the programme illustrated our conspiracy friends inputted the position of the main crater and a nearby debris field into an internet mapping engine and came up with the distance between the two points by road. These seven or eight miles are in fact just a mile as the crow flies. Ooops!

The Conspiracy Files confronted Dylan Thomas, director of the Loose Change "documentary" and one of the main movers behind the 9/11 internet conspiranoia. Faced with detailed rebuttals on building demolition by Popular Mechanics all he could muster in response was that the journal was not noted for its expert knowledge in structural engineering. This is quite ironic considering the howling errors pointed out by critics of his work.

I do not possess expert knowledge on the issues that exercise the conspiracy theorists, but then their explanations seem so wide of the mark. The narrative of four hijacked jets piloted by Islamic fundamentalists is the one that fits the established facts most clearly.

The final points made by the show were very useful. It highlights the real September 11th conspiracy - that the FBI and CIA claimed to know nothing when in fact they were aware something was in the offing. Another (not mentioned in the documentary) concerned the inept attempts to cover up deleterious health impacts on rescue and other workers in the vicinity so the district could be re-opened for business. You've got to ask yourself if government agencies couldn't cover up comparatively minor matters, how could they be expected to plan something as audacious as the September 11th attacks and make sure all evidence of their actions were efficiently suppressed?

Conspiracy theorising does have its uses - it probes official accounts and deeply scrutinises the words and actions of our masters. Sadly this comes hand in hand with a huge pile of stuff and nonsense. Significance is read into the slightest of discrepencies, and fantastical theories spun from the most meagre groundings in fact. More dangerously conspiracy theorising cuts against the materialist interpretation of history. It suggests a few powerful individuals are capable of determining the social course, that the profoundly alienating structures of contemporary human societies are plotted behind the scenes by big business, the illuminati, transdimensional lizards or little grey aliens. If only it were that simple. The truth of capitalist anarchy is no one is in control. Humanity is in thrall to the alien power of capital that stands above and beyond the command of any individual, group, multinational and government, despite being the result of the activity of our species. That we are on a rollercoaster without any brakes is a truth more terrifying than any shadow government.