We Remember 9/11 – and the Conspiracy Theories

On the eve of the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, my colleague Petr Schnur published an article in which he alludes to, or straightforwardly espouses, what are, in my view, “conspiracy theories.” He portrays the U.S. and NATO as wanting to rule the world at almost any price.

While I respect my colleague’s breadth of knowledge, now and then his articles sadden me. I’m afraid that those who accept these theories would have no problem believing that the twin towers in New York were blown up by the Americans themselves, or that a plane didn’t crash into the Pentagon. They will believe anything.

Here are the three theories which Schnur’s article contains:

1) “The West” shot down the Malaysian airliner

It was in response to this that the separatists went on the offensive. Schnur writes: “And so it is hard to get rid of the impression that the case of MH17 was first and foremost about causing a shock — entirely understandable from the point of view of a human tragedy — and a subsequent atmosphere of uncertainty and moral panic. This meant that the rebels ‘set the pace’ and at the same time created a psychological-political space for the ensuing brutal counteroffensive that Kiev led by any means, including ballistic missiles.” And so he logically concludes that the West “evidently have no interest” in investigating this tragedy.

What evidence is there for this? What facts? The Americans have produced no evidence and the Russians have produced satellite images. And we believe them.

2) The West wants Donbass to win

According to Schnur, the separation of Donbass from Ukraine would be the ideal pretext for NATO to deploy its weapons on the Russian borders, and eventually to approach China. At first glance this is slightly inconsistent with point 1, as it is unclear why the West wanted to halt the separatists and shoot down a plane. But perhaps it doesn’t matter.

3) The U.S./West created the Islamic State themselves

“The Islamic State, like al-Qaida before it, fulfills a dual role as ‘rebels’ and ‘terrorists,’ which first of all sets it as ‘the enemies,’ so as to subsequently serve as a pretext for military intervention, when other pretexts have failed, for example ‘the deployment of chemical weapons by the regime,’” writes Schnur.

In other words: We don’t believe anything that the U.S./West says. Their solitary aim is to rule the world, or, if you’d prefer, to maintain their hegemony over the world, to accomplish which their “strategists,” soldiers and politicians will stop at nothing. They pay no mind to the thousands and hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties, including those who have nothing to do with the conflicts, nor perhaps even to their own people.

My colleague Schnur works from existing documents about American foreign policy: He has undoubtedly read widely and thought carefully about the subject, and knows substantially more details than I do. Nonetheless, I cannot shake the feeling that he is working from false assumptions.

He assumes that these military strategies can be forced through the West’s political structures without problems and without any changes. That in the West and the U.S. there doesn’t exist anything like politics, anything at all like democracy, let alone civil society. There exists no one and nothing that could stand in opposition. All are manipulated, controlled by the most powerful; in such a situation, there is in fact no reason to believe that Osama sent a plane into the twin towers. Or, on the contrary, not to believe that “they” pour assorted chemical crap onto us from the sky ….

I think that this way of thinking falls into irreconcilable contradictions. In spite of the frequent references to “the facts,” it cannot be claimed that this is a credible analysis, because it remains an impossibility that “they” were so careless as to let some sociologist or political scientist to penetrate into their plans and intentions. They are able to manipulate everything and only Petr Schnur has escaped them?

And yet, if by accident this information had really been left unguarded, would nobody else know? Not in the U.S. or elsewhere in Europe? And would nobody have done anything? No investigations, lawsuits or protests? Everything has been manipulated? But why would you bother with such a world? Nothing that you read or hear is credible. It is a pure dystopia. Why write about it, why engage with it in any way? And why believe those Russian satellite images?

Regarding the Islamic State, there then arises the question of whether Obama should bomb them at all, since that is also wrong. Everything he does is wrong. And it sometimes seems as if it would be better for the Islamic State to be allowed to grow, so that it devours the source of all evil — America.

There is no point in denying the fact that the U.S. and the West have made many mistakes, and even committed crimes, in the distant and not-so-distant past. Nevertheless, I still fail to see that the machinery of power has gone completely out of control, or rather that it is controlled by a powerful elite. The political scientist Jurij Barančík employs the term “people who decide” to describe them — those who, for example, devised and implemented the financial crisis.

Or 9/11 ….