Two years after 9/11, anti-Semitic theories are still going strong

[Gimel]

WASHINGTON - Next week will see the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, which also spawned a whole new branch in international anti-Semitism.

A survey published this week by the Anti-Defamation League finds that "hateful conspiracy theories" - claiming that Jews and Israel were behind the attacks in which 3,000 people were killed - are still being disseminated. In fact, these theories are gaining strength
rather than dying out.

<snip>
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=336521&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

__________________
While I have witnessed the use of the anti-semitic claim to produce sympathy or for very dubious comments of a more political nature, the rise of anti-semitic theories shows that it is a real problem.

[Fight_n_back]

1. By now most people accept

what most people on DU knew long ago. The nation behind 9/11 was Saudi Arabia. Not the government itself...just the people who work for the government.

[Jim Sagle]

2. I'm afraid our own government was involved as well.

[Fight_n_back]

3. Thats a tough one to sell

since there is little evidence or motive.

There is significant eveidence of saudi involvement.

[Toby109]

6. Really? Who gained the most from 9/11?

Bush-in the polls; the military with huge, new contracts; oil companies with a new pipeline in Afghanistan, etc. And that's just 2001-2002. 9/11 helped grease the skids for the Iraq Occupation in a quest for even more oil and military expense and, as a nice bonus, some residual work for Halliburton and Bechtel.

Let's see what al-Queda gained. First of all, they had to expect a strong reaction from the U.S. No U.S. President would EVER be allowed to accept a direct assault on this country without some retribution. He'd be run out of town on a rail. That's why Bush's behavior post-9/11 was not particularly significant. People wanted, HAD, to believe that we had a strong Commander-in-Chief at that time and so we made him one. So Osama, having had dealings with Americans with a similar world-view and probably not a total idiot, would know what to expect.

I don't know, 9/11 has always seemed like a fairly hollow victory for Osama. Sure recruitment probably shot up but with the troops killed during the Afghan War, does this really come out to a net gain for them?

[mmm]

9. Israel had the most to gain; same as the invasion of Iraq

[cantwealljustgetalong]

12. you know who really had the most to gain?...

mmm...

[Jim Sagle]

13. You lie.

[leftofthedial]

26. In fairness to mmm

the current right wing regime in Israel DID gain from 9-11 in terms of a large and active US military role in the ME.

If there had been no 9-11, there would have been no execution of the PNAC agenda (invasion of Iraq), and the Wolfowitz/PNAC agenda is largely driven by their sympathy with right-wing Israeli political interests.

It is hard to imagine the Israelis and the Saudis as bedfellows in this conspiracy though. And Israel certainly did not have the MOST to gain.


edit: can't frigging type

[NickDanger]

29. You are correct

Both were boons to Israel. And the neocons who motivated the invasion of Iraq have strong connections to Israel. Some call that dual loyalty--I call it treason.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Gaining the most doesn't equal being involved in the attacks...

I'm still wondering what the hell a Sept 11 conspiracy-theory thread that doesn't even mention the I/P conflict is doing in I/P in the first place....

Sure, the Bush administration benefitted from Sept 11, but suggestions I've seen that this makes them responsible for being involved in the attacks is conspiracy-theory stuff. The same for any suggestions that Israel was involved. And I think it's a huge mistake to try to assign rationality to decisions made by bin Laden. That's like trying to do the same thing about Hamas when it comes to suicide-bombings. What do they expect to get out of what they do? What they get is retaliation and lots of media attention, which is basically what I expect both them and bin Laden want to achieve. People killed in the wash-up from what any of them do wouldn't make them lose a moment's sleep or play a part in their decisions to carry out attacks...

Violet...

[Gimel]

16. Benefits

Because someone benefited from an event doesn't prove that he or she was instrumental in causing it, or even assisting it in any way. It takes more evidence than benefit. Someone who dies of a heart attack may leave a fortune in insurance money, but that isn't proof that the beneficiary casued the heart attack.

[leftofthedial]

28. correct. classically it requires motive, opportunity

and evidence.

It's the hard evidence that is lacking.

[Jim Sagle]

7. On the contrary, ALL the evidence point to MIHOP.

There is NO evidence to support the ludicrous coincidence theory.

[Fight_n_back]

8. If there is so much evidence

then list some...some REAK evidence not articles about remote control planes.

This stuff makes real conspiracy theories look bad.
occams razor says Al Queda did with Saudi funding.Bush was going to attack Afghanistan and Iraq anyway. Attacking Iraq was in the Republican platform. Bush told Europe he was going into Afghanistan.

The purposeful US actions to spark war have been small in scope (USS MAine, Gulf of Tonkin).

The risk of getting caught far aoutweighs the reward and the reward wasw in the works anyway.

The reason they are covering up investigations of 9/11 is threefold:
1) there WAS intel that they ignored
2) the Saudis are implicated
3) the little one peed himself when the country needed a leader

[Toby109]

10. So what you're saying is that

the Bush administration basically declared war on a sovereign nation and they pre-emptively attacked us? So why not take advantage of the situation? Threaten someone with destruction then express shock when they act? No way. First was the plan then the threat then the hope they retaliate. That's LIHOP any way you look at it. Or even worse, LIHOP and never considered the aftermath except how it effected them. Sound familiar?

As far as the risks involved history has shown that powerful people get away with shit all the time as long as they are portrayed as being in the right. To the victor belongs the spoils and the history. Even Tonkin was never really investigated until near the end of the war. By that time Johnson was dead.

I guess the best you could possibly say is that we got played on the largest scale. But I don't believe that. And fuck Occam and his razor.

P.S. Americans want cheap gasoline. Pass it on.

[TeeYiYi]

21. Here YANG. Start with this . . .

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

TYY

[leftofthedial]

27. au contraire--there is motive aplenty

what is missing is evidence of complicity

[newyorican]

4. You're right...

Except I think the Saudis organized the funding in an overall fashion. The Pakistani intel service with leftover foreign fighters in Afghanistan carried it out.

I also share the feeling that 9-11 was a "black-op" in some way.

[Fight_n_back]

5. If it were planned by Bush or the CIA

it would have failed...

Would the rest of the world sit back and let a man they despise get away with something like 9/11?

Please, there is ACTUAL EVIDENCE that Suadi princes funded 9/11 speciafically and not just in general.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rini]

15. How very very sad and ludicrous

that these slurs are still being bandied about. Once again, to address the various drool theories, Zionist were not responsible for the Holocaust, Israel did not bomb the twin towers or the Pentagon, and Dubbya, much as I dispise his policies, was no more resposible for 9/11 than the equally bogus theory of FDR being responsible for Pearl Harbor.

Finally, be oh so grateful you live in a country where trash not only can be spoken and written, but is protected. Just as is my right to refute you.

[StandWatie]

17. like it's absolutely unthinkable

I believe bin Ladin did it, I don't even blame Bush that much (though I am still waiting to hear the admin's answer on why there were no fighters escorting those planes, a deviation from standard protocol) but Israel has set up "terrorist" attacks on US targets before in an effort to try and undermine US/Arab relationships.

[rini]

22. on the fighter planes

you are correct, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon should have been shot down. I asked someone who is in the know and was told it was only the White House that was protected. Still, someone messed up.

[gandalf]

31. Sorry, that is very incoherent

"I asked someone who is in the know and was told it was only the White House that was protected" Huh??? In the know? It doubt it. What did you ask precisely?

As soon as a plane clearly deviates from its prescribed course, does not hit a navigational fix, does not respond to the Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) etc, ATC becomes nervous. There are standard FAA rules for these cases, because with much air traffic it is dangerous if a plane deviates from its course. Fighter interception is a normal procedure, according to FAA, and has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with White House.
If ATC are uncertain if there is an emergency, they should act as if it were an emergency. Fighter planes will be scrambled quickly in such cases, e.g. when the plane of golfer Payne Stewart crashed.
Shooting down could be a last step, but fighter interception IS NECESSARY and NORMAL, no consent from the President is necessary.

[The Magistrate]

18. What A Useful Honey-Trap, Ma'am, Thank You

"Let ten thousand flowers bloom! Let one hundred schools of thought contend!"

[StandWatie]

19. it's sort of what I thought

I bridle at the notion though that thinking Israel may have been behind the attacks on the WTC automatically makes you an anti-semite rather than an Oliver Stone wannabe who can't take an obvious answer and always goes looking for "who had the most to gain".

[The Magistrate]

20. In My View, Sir

The leap to a conclusion "Mossad did it" is certainly indicative such tendencies may be present, and at the very least, close watch is on order. If combined with comments to the effect Mossad controls Hamas, AIPAC controls U.S. politics, Jews introduced violence to the Near East, Zionists were leading collaborators with Hitler, Israel equals the Reich, etc., it is fairly clear what sort of thing is being displayed. In the West, Anti-Semitism is far older and more deeply ingrained a bigotry than contempt for Blacks or Native Americans: the idea all evil in the world owes its origins to Jewish machination is central to that idea structure. People should not be deceived as to the depth of its presence in our culture simply because its expression grew muted with embarrassment after the Hitlerite excesses.

[Robb]

23. "Hitlerite excesses"

Boy, haven't heard that phrase in quite some time....

Dates you (and me, I suppose).

I'm happy to report that of the hundreds of conspiracist's emails I've received, only one ever fleshed out any Jewish connection ideas -- and that was the same one, I should add, that brought up the giant space lasers fired from special orbital helecopters. :eyes:

However, as I can attest, any 9/11 "conspiracy theory" can be intepreted as fundamentally anti-government; this tends to attract a fair number of shady characters and organizations. I can't even bear to tell you who tried to get me to speak at one of his "conferences".... Eek!

[rini]

24. Hitlerite excesses

What exactly do you mean by that? 5, 999,999 people murdererd would not be excessive? Please explain.

[leftofthedial]

25. if a reasonable case could be made for Mossad involvement

why would that be anti-Semitic?

Granted, many of the wild tales were clearly anti-Semitic and similar to tales through history blaming Jews for everything from the Black Plague to the Great Depression.

But not every statement that claims Israel did something wrong, even if it is a theory later disproven, is anti-Semitic.

[rini]

30. proof

not scandal mongering PROOF?

[NecessaryOnslaught]

32. Proof

How about the 60 page DEA report with details of the largest spy ring ever uncovered in this nation? Have you seen the report? Reports of israeli art students monitoring air force bases and numerous government buildings.
http://www.atlanta.creativeloafing.com/2002-03-20/fishwrapper.html

[rini]

33. that was funny

go to DEA and show me how they bombed twin towers?

[NecessaryOnslaught]

34. More articles

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/forget.html

Criticizing a soverign nation does not constitute the racism that "anti-semetisism" implies.