September
11, 2001: What is the truth of that terrible day?
La Depeche, France
What Can We Do
About 9/11 Conspiracies?
'Nothing or Little'
"That is the great power of
rumor
It obeys a formidable mechanism. Like a hurricane in America, it
destroys everything on its path: scientific findings, testimony and
confessions. The burden of proof is reversed. Those who have provided the proof
are condemned for taking a malevolent role in the plot."
By Jean-Christophe Giesbert
Translated By Nicolas Dagher
September 10, 2008
France
- La Depeche - Original Article (French)
Hitler still lives, Sheila is
a man and concentration camps are an invention of the Jewish lobby. The attacks
of September 11 are a manipulation by the Bush team. The rumors just go and go!
The swell and propagate at the speed of light following one simple rule: The
bigger it is the more people believe it. Seven years after the tragedy in New
York, that which created a frenzy on the Net, today
has millions of followers around the world who assure us - with
"supporting evidence" - that the destruction of the Twin Towers
cannot be attributed to al-Qaeda. Please don't laugh.
If you believe the conspiracy
people - they call themselves Truthers - it
was the White House who allegedly ordered the destruction of the World Trade
Center with explosives to incriminate the Islamists and justify the invasion of
Iraq. For some, the Boeings on which several hundred passengers were killed
were actually military aircraft or remotely piloted drones; for others, the
explosion of the Towers was a video trick. It's so sad one could cry.
Actress
Marion Cotillard; comics Jean-Marie
Bigard and Dieudonne:
French celebrities who
have openly questioned the official accounts
of 9/11 - and then some
Are those who spread these
rumors lunatics? Far from it! In the United States, several writers subscribe
to the theory. In France, actress Marion Cotillard 
who played Edith Piaf in La Mome openly expressed her doubts. Comedian Jean-Marie Bigard , who we have
seen in funnier moments, apologized for having defended this imbecilic thesis. Dieudonne , known for his
full-throated provocations, is widely emulated in show biz. We stand mute in
the face of this display, which could well be called human waste. As far as
this libel is concerned, it appears to be a despairingly inexhaustible
resource.
How it is that enlightened
paranoiacs and those obsessed with virtual celebrity have created such a
planetary echo, in spite of all the evidence about the causes of September 11?
That is the great power of rumor, the oldest media in the world, as
Jean-Francois Revel said. It obeys a formidable mechanism. Like a
hurricane in America, it destroys everything on its path: scientific findings,
testimony and confessions. The burden of proof is reversed. Those who have
provided the proof are condemned for taking a malevolent role in the plot.
What can be done to silence
the rumor? Nothing or very little. Despite the anger
inspired by the denial of memory for the 3181 victims of the attacks, there's
no way out except to invite people to put their rationality to the test by
comparing the insanity of the conspiracy theorists to the objective
investigations of credible journalists, historians and experts.
Let's confront this bad luck
with an open heart: Rumor is the price we pay for the free flow of information
and where the Internet constitutes a global accelerator that is as fantastic as
it is dangerous. Let them therefore have their own way, pending the arrival of
the up and comers. In brief, those who believe: Barack Obama is an Islamist, PPDA
[Patrick Poivre D' Arvor, a
former French news anchor ] will return
to JT TF1, and the invaders are among us.
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