Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Outrageous Conspiracy
to 9/11
Popular and Official Responses
in Germany
States
Peter Knight
believe
Iwould
Croft, Richard Jackson, Inderjeet Parmar, and Brian Ward for their useful suggestions.
1.For details on the polls see "Panoply of the Absurd," Der Spiegel, September
8, 2003, online
See also "9/11 Conspir
edition, www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,265160,00.html.
Frankfurt Book Fair," October
10, 2003, www.dw-world.de/dw/article/
acy Theories Dominate
0?993523,00.html.
2. Zogby International,
Impending
9-11 Attacks
ReadNews.dbm?ID=855;
spiracy," Scripps-Howard,
"Half of New
Yorkers
Believe
U.S.
Had Foreknowledge
of
30, 2004, www.zogby.com/news/
Con
Suspect 9/11 Government
Leaders
1, 2006, www.scrippsnews.com/911poll.
Opinion
polls
recording
165
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166
Outrageous
Theories
Conspiracy
between
cial discursive
construction
of 9/11? What
beliefs? What
versions
is the relationship
of events and the offi
and differences
and German
between American
et's
traditional
make
in an increasingly posthumanist
age: namely, nothing happens by accident,
as
is
it
seems,
nothing
everything is connected.4 In short, they end up creating
of
interconnected
but also decentered and deterritorialized
portraits
highly
interests that are not necessarily
the product of individual
or collective intentionality, producing in effect a picture of what might para
the
doxically be termed "conspiracy without conspiring." Before considering
networks of vested
significance of the imagination of conspiracy in both the official and the unof
ficial accounts, I briefly sketch out the emergence of 9/11 conspiracy theories
and describe their main features.
in conspiracy
theories are particularly
because they often function as a way for
unreliable,
suspicion rather than a hard-core belief. In the case of the Scripps
people to express a generalized
Howard poll, a figure that more accurately represents the full-blown
scale of 9/11 conspiracy belief
is the 16 percent who suspected that itwas "very likely" or "somewhat
likely" that the twin towers
belief
were
.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-l.html.
4. This trinity of conspiracy
beliefs
(Berkeley: University
of California
Press,
is discussed
inMichael
October
11,2001, www.whitehouse
Barkun,
A Culture
of Conspiracy
2003).
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Peter Knight
167
From
Diana, conspiracy theories about 9/11 emerged quite slowly. Indeed, most pro
so ready to inter
fessional conspiracy theorists in the United States?normally
as
as the rest
to
events
be
the
lens
shocked
of
pret
conspiracy?seemed
through
of the public, with one Web
it is a sad day
world
trade
that
a conspiracy
minds
there
aren't
and no double
I ask you
amount
that
all
to mask
any
scheming
crossing.
Only
to give a moment
of respect
we
can give
of what
the horror
goons,
government
the cold
of
hearted
silence
we've
seen,
there
killing
to those who
of
but
aren't
innocent
died.
I'm afraid
any
plots,
people.
It is the least
them.5
a few conspiracy-oriented
theories did emerge in late 2001 and early
2002, most of them focused primarily on anomalies in the official account and
speed of
publicly available evidence (such as the supposedly gravity-defying
When
the towers' collapse or the lack of the hijackers' names on the passenger mani
fests), with researchers only later tending to develop more full-blown theories
about the ultimate source of an alleged plot.6 Amid all the other passionate
debate about the meaning of the attacks in themonths following September 11,
attracted little support at first,
2001, these conspiracy-minded
speculations
partly because
of the overwhelming
rallying
around
theories from the religious Right in the United States; most other contemporary
conspiracy
events are instantly interpreted through the lens of a conspiracy-infused
form of numerology and end
and the New World Order are the buzzwords.
times prophecy, in which the Illuminati, the Antichrist,
and Mar
of such theories about 9/11 see Barkun, Culture of Conspiracy;
On the (slow) development
"The American Right and the Framing of 9/11," Political Quarterly 75 (2004): 17-25.
6. Probably the first researchers to push the idea that 9/11 was an "inside job" were Jared Israel
at challenging main
and Illarion Bykov on the "Emperor's New Clothes" Web site (aimed mainly
tin Durham,
Michel Chossudovsky
and the Serbs), www.tenc.net.
(aCanadian
reports on Yugoslavia
runs the Center for Research on Globalization)
likewise published influential early articles alleg
than they claimed. See www.global
ing that the U.S. intelligence agencies had far more forewarning
some of his work has also been published
in book form as America's
"War on Terror
research.ca;
stream media
who
ism": In the Wake of 9/11, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Hushion House, 2005). Some in the 9/11 Truth Movement
the historical development of 9/11 conspiracy theories, voicing sus
in documenting
are plagiarizing
see, e.g., members.iinet.net.au/
early researchers;
picions that later popularizers
are now interested
%7Eholmgren/history.html.
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168
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
States) and the strong expressions of solidarity (from elsewhere) in the initial
aftermath, but also because some with a penchant for conspiracy theory were
keeping their powder dry until the publication of the findings of an official
inquiry into 9/11.
One conspiracy
its anti-Semitic
the rumor was
although
because
it was
shown
This conspiracy-minded
urban
overtones
Lebanon), it soon became widely accepted as fact in the Arab world. In addi
tion to the "four thousand Jews" rumor, the first wave of book-length conspir
acy speculations
emerged in France and Germany.7 These included Brock
et's blog; the "Hunt the Boeing" Web site and subsequent book by the French
author Thierry Meyssan, director of a left-leaning think tank; a book by Andreas
von Biilow, former German state minister of the late 1970s; and a television
and subsequent
book by Gerhard Wisnewski.8
documentary
Although
immensely
conspiracy
amusement
dismissed
by the U.S.
government
as the product
of
7. The "four thousand Jews" account was echoed by some other rumors that had an anti-Semitic
bent, such as the story that five Israeli art students had been arrested in New York for filming the
events while
the owner of the World Trade Center
laughing and the theory that Larry Silverstein,
with a conspicuously
Jewish name, must have collaborated
in a plot to bring the towers down
because he stood to profit from the insurance claim. For a detailed account of these theories and
see Anti-Defamation
their dissemination
9/11 Conspiracy
League, "Unraveling Anti-Semitic
and the follow-up
ories," www.adl.org/anti_semitism/9-llconspiracytheories.pdf,
report,
Anti-Semitic
Still Abound," www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_Domestic/
Theories
Conspiracy
The
"9/11
Press, 2003).
(Durham, NC: Duke University
8. Thierry Meyssan,
The Big Lie: The Pentagon Plane Crash That Never Happened
(London:
von Biilow, Die CIA und der 11. September:
Internationaler
Terror und
Carnot, 2002); Andreas
die Rolle der Geheimdienste
9/11: Angriff
(Munich: Piper, 2003); Gerhard Wisnewski,
Operation
9/11 (Munich: Knaur, 2004). See also
(Munich: Knaur, 2003); Wisnewski,
auf den Globus
Mythos
Mathias Br?ckers, Verschw?rungen,
und die Geheimnisse
des 11.9 (Ber
Verschw?rungstheorien
lin: Zweitausendeins,
in English as Conspiracies,
2002), published
Secrets of 9/11 (Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive,
2006).
Conspiracy
Theories,
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and the
Peter Knight
169
For example,
in response to Meyssan's
book, the FBI
in April 2002 declaring that "to even suggest that AA77
11 is the ultimate insult"; in
did not crash into the Pentagon on September
anti-Americanism.9
issued a statement
example, is that the official version of 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory, very
in which all blame is cast
much in the American
tradition of scapegoating,
a demonized
onto
enemy.10
to a specific
location or ideological
about Sept.
11Get Hearing
position
inGermany,"
Wall
online.wsj.com/article/0?SB106479068042179
400,00.html.
10. Since Richard
in Postwar America,
ed. Peter Knight
(New York: New York University
of Paranoia
Press, 2002), 1-17. For strong arguments for an underlying connection between American
ideology
and conspiracy
The Culture of Paranoia
theory see, e.g., Timothy Melley, Empire of Conspiracy:
in Postwar America
Press, 2000); and Jeffrey Pasley, "Conspiracy
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
The Politics
Theory
and American
Exceptionalism
.com/CT_and_American_Exceptionalism_web_version.htm.
11. See, e.g., Lev Grossman,
"Why the 9/11 Conspiracy
to Roswell,"
Theories Won't
tember
3, 2006, www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1531304,00.html;
9/11 from a Grassy Knoll," U.S. News and World Report,
"Viewing
.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060903/llconspiracy.htm;
Style: How Conspiracy Theories Become News," New
conspiracy.pasleybrothers
Go Away," Time, Sep
Will
Sullivan,
3, 2006, www
September
and Nicholas
Yorker, October
"Paranoid
Lemann,
96-106.
16, 2006,
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770
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
of anti-Americanism
in the United
popular
inside job" has been promoted via books, magazine articles, blogs, Web sites,
films such as Michael Moore's Fahrenheit
9/11 (2004), and?
mainstream
homemade vid
probably the most influential in terms of reach?sophisticated
eos that can usually be downloaded
for free. The latter include Painful Ques
tions, In Plane Sight, Press for Truth, and, above all, Loose Change, a video
on a laptop by two young men from a small town in upstate New York.
At one point in 2006 Loose Change was the most popular item on Google
times to date, bringing
Video; it has been downloaded more than ten million
9/11 conspiracy theories to theMTV generation.12 With the loss of support for
as the Iraq war began to falter, the 9/11 conspiracy
the Bush administration
theorists began to organize themselves into a loose coalition of pressure groups
made
at Ground Zero
staged demonstrations
States and Europe they have organized public meetings,
lectures, lobbying
the
and
media
from
of the
appearances
major spokespeople
campaigns,
as
Alex
Michael
and
Jim
such
Marrs
movement,
Jones,
(all longtime
Ruppert,
such as David Ray Griffin,
theorists), and academics
prominent conspiracy
Steven Jones, and James Fetzer, the latter two professors leading the "Scholars
for 9/11 Truth" group.
The conspiracy
theories have begun to sediment into two broad cate
gories: "Letting ItHappen on Purpose" (LIHOP, as the acronym used by the
Truth Movement
has it), the view that the Bush administration
let it happen
despite warnings; and "Making It Happen on Purpose" (MIHOP), the more
controversial claim that elements of the U.S. government and its intelligence
agencies actively conspired to make the events happen.13 The basic assump
is usually that the Bush administration
and oil corpora
to gain from the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan
and
even
to
looking for?perhaps
willing
engineer?a modern-day
forewarnings
that there
administration
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Peter Knight
171
were
with
inmany respects
theories merely extend a preexisting
culture,
conspiracy
in epistemological
structure, political outlook, and social
organization.14 Indeed, it is fair to suggest that the 9/11 attacks have rapidly
become the Kennedy assassination of the twenty-first century. Like the devel
9/11 conspiracy
broadly familiar
opment of Kennedy
research on dis
each case the final report only spurred further conspiracy
soon
became
the
whose
official
in
version,
regarded as
inadequacy
crepancies
of pre-9/11 conspiracy
14. For overviews
thinking see Mark Fenster, Conspiracy
of Minnesota
Press,
University
Secrecy and Power in American Culture (Minneapolis:
to "The X-Files"
Peter Knight, Conspiracy
Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination
Routledge,
Theories:
1999); and
(London:
2000).
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772
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
in itself of a far-reaching
that could orchestrate
such
conspiracy
a high-level
on
Out
of
the
varied
research
cover-up.15
puzzling aspects and
a rough consensus began to emerge in each case, with increas
inconsistencies
evidence
ing agreement that in some shape or other the event was an "inside job," with
the intelligence agencies coming under the closest scrutiny (fingers have also
pointed to oil barons in both cases).16 Intriguingly, in both the Kennedy assas
sination and 9/11 the first full-length book studies emerged from France and
in the United States in each case to dismiss
Germany, causing commentators
the idea of conspiracy
thinking about events as suspiciously
an
of
enemy disinformation
possibly part
campaign.17 Apart
un-American,
from President
initial angry dismissal, the U.S. government was at first slow to refute
9/11 conspiracy theories (in comparison,
theWarren Commission
report spe
rumors
an
tackled
in
cifically
conspiracy
appendix). But the State Department
Bush's
Web
that disputes
explained: "When we wrote the report, we were also careful not to answer all the
It's like playing Whack-A-Mole.
You're never going to whack them all" (Carol Morello,
to a Distrustful
Public," Washington
"Edgy Online Sites Feed Conspiracy Theories
Post, October 9,
chairmen Thomas M. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton,
2004). See also the memoir
by commission
theories.
Without
Precedent:
Inside
his readers
that "conspiratorial
have a far wider currency
assassination
interpretations of Kennedy's
than they do in the United States," with the suggestion
that only a handful of unhinged
and un-American
writers would promote such a preposterous
theory (Paranoid Style, 7). On the
that some of the early Kennedy
assassination
studies were the work of Soviet disinfor
possibility
mation see Max Holland,
"How Moscow Undermined
theWarren Commission,"
Post,
Washington
November
22, 2003.
in Europe
18. usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=pubs-english&y=2006&m=August&x=2006082
and wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm.
8133846esnamfuaK0.2676355,
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Peter Knight
173
disinformation
in part by a self-righteous
happen to good people."20
The 9/11 Truth Movement
vated
inability
to understand
members
Lee Harvey Oswald, for example, the former has experts in forensic metal
lurgy or the standard operating procedures for air defense. In each case, those
involved in the research are motivated
partly by a self-professed
patriotic
desire to find out what really happened but also partly by the satisfactions to
be gained from becoming a self-taught expert challenging
the establishment.
The two conspiracy communities
also make persistent use of the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain otherwise
inaccessible government
documents.
Each has its "smoking gun" documents. Kennedy
assassination
research
ers have latched onto NSAM 263, the document that supposedly reveals that
JFK was going to withdraw from Vietnam, which is therefore taken as evi
dence
In the
this possibility.
19.usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jul/27-595713.html.
20. There is even the suggestion
in a recently declassified
policy document
setting strategies for
theories themselves
lead to terrorism: "The terrorism we con
fighting terrorism that conspiracy
front today springs from: . . . Subcultures
of conspiracy
and misinformation.
recruit
Terrorists
more effectively
from populations
whose
information
about the world is contaminated
by false
and corrupted by conspiracy
theories. The distortions
and filter out
keep alive grievances
... In
facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving
propaganda.
place of a culture
of conspiracy
and misinformation,
offers freedom of speech, independent media,
and
democracy
the marketplace
of ideas, which can expose and discredit
and dishonest
falsehoods,
prejudices,
On the inner structural psychol
(www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nsct/2006/sectionV.html).
propaganda"
hoods
or, Why
Do
ed. Carl F.
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174
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
The
prominent
share patterns
of activist
findings
also be explained
termed professional
with
organization,
and popularizations
between
a mixture
of
of the major
can
lished two books on 9/11, while Fetzer has shifted his attention from a sup
of the Kennedy case to orchestrating Schol
posedly scientific reexamination
ars for 9/11 Truth.22 As with the Kennedy assassinologists,
there are already
with accusations of infiltrators spread
signs of rifts in the Truth Movement,
theories about the event as part of a covert gov
ing deliberately preposterous
ernment disinformation
campaign; there is also now a backlash from skep
tics who are scientists keen to point out the mistakes
in the 9/11 conspiracy
21. For the conspiracy
Disturbing
The New
Ray Griffin,
9/11, 2nd ed. (Adlestrop:
("Further, the
passage
to be a long one, absent
that the Bush
admission
out a dramatic
Hoax:
Deceit
and Deception
in the Death of JFK (Chicago: Catfeet, 2003); his 9/11 work is avail
at 911scholars.org
(in late 2006 the Scholars for 9/11 Truth split into two factions, with
Jones establishing
his own group).
able online
Steven
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Peter Knight
175
The Unofficial
Version
Itmight seem at first that the 9/11 Truth Movement
a deeply conventional
view of American
history that has much in common
with the official version of events they reject. The underlying
ideological
of much 9/11 conspiracy
assumption
theory is that things would be fine if
the intelligence
only a cabal of ruthless plotters deep within the government,
agencies, the military, and the oil corporations had not engineered events for
their own gain.24 For all their embittered skepticism about the cynical cor
theories (more so the Ameri
leaders, 9/11 conspiracy
ruptness of American
can ones than their European counterparts) often maintain an abiding faith
in American
soundness of the system of
innocence and the fundamental
eagerness to present 9/11 con
government. Given the Bush administration's
as
Truth
members have been
theorists
the
Movement's
un-American,
spiracy
keen to portray themselves as the only real patriots remaining, calling up ideas
as a properly American
tradition. On an online discussion board
the
the
of
following
publication
Scripps-Howard
poll, for example, one poster
summed up the view that the American
institutions were still fundamentally
of dissent
of disinformation
see, e.g., www.oilempire
campaigns within the movement
and angieon911.com.
The most prominent
skeptic work is David Dunbar and Brad
9/11 Myths: An In-Depth Investigation
eds., Debunking
(New York:
by uPopular Mechanics"
.us/bogus.html;
Regan,
Hearst, 2006).
case?at
24. The equivalent
in the Kennedy
the heart of Oliver Stone's JFK, for
assumption
are
that the tragedies of American
history since 1963, such as Vietnam and Watergate,
example?is
see Knight, Kennedy
all a result of a coup d'?tat that deviated
the course of manifest
destiny;
Assassination.
25. In a similar vein, a relatively new Web
site called Patriots Question
9/11 (www.patriots
a roll call of respectable military
seeks to publicize
and political
leaders who
question911.com)
have made comments
that (in the eyes of the Web site) voice doubts about aspects of the official
version. In my experience of attending a 9/11 Truth Movement
in the United King
public meeting
there were understandably
few appeals to American
student
values; instead, themainly
of ecological
and antiglobalization
age crowd was made up in roughly equal measure
protesters
(many citing the "Peak Oil" argument), antiwar activists, and the merely curious.
dom in 2005,
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176
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
tend to be critical of the war on terror in general and the Iraq war in particular,
it is not because they regard the whole adventure of neoliberal imperialism as
the provocation for the war is in their view shrouded in
It is therefore fitting that the Truthers are keen to draw attention
skullduggery.
to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as a false-flag conspiracy that parallels
Pearl Harbor, because it leads implicitly to the same conclusion: even if the
initial provocation for the war was unjust (in the conspiracy version of Pearl
Harbor), the overall thrust of the war on terror is justified. The Bush adminis
tration has likewise been only too keen to compare 9/11 with Pearl Harbor
(albeit with a very different reading of that event) in an attempt to evoke com
parisons with a war still widely perceived as just.26
there are signs that some of the newer representational strate
Although
of
9/11
gies
conspiracy theories are straining to the limits the conventional logic
of conspiracy thinking, for the main part the 9/11 conspiracy theories also rely
on a traditional model of highly efficient individual intentional action, in addi
tion to their abiding faith inAmerican
develops a full-blown MIHOP
ment
cabal within
example, lead to the conclusion that the plotters bypassed security and tens of
thousands of workers in the towers to plant explosives while ensuring that the
procedures were stood down and that the planes crashed at
the
precisely
right time and location (which often then leads to the speculation
that they must have been remote-controlled).
The plan was perfect, the argu
ment goes, except for telltale details that the conspirators and the 9/11 Com
air-traffic-control
overlooked
see Richard
II in the official
Language,
discourse
Politics,
and Counter-terrorism
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Peter Knight
177
before
away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty."27 For all Bush's
insistence on the fundamental difference between the official interpretation of
events
and
rumors,
conspiracy
there
are
strong
rhetorical
and
structural
paral
in Bush's
on December
East, it seems that the main focus of his ire was any suggestion that the
in particular might have been to blame for the attacks,
and his administration
or
either through misguided
signs. In effect, he
foreign policy
through the failure to heed warning
that ended discussion.
was dismissing
any critical view as a conspiracy
theory, a rhetorical maneuver
a hidden, conspiratorial
reason behind Bush's vehemence?suggests
(In contrast, Br?ckers?finding
ethnic
tolerance
United
States
in theMiddle
in general
Atta had
an anxious, guilty reaction to a report in the Times of India that Mohammed
one hundred thousand dollars shortly before the attacks from General Mahmoud Ahmed of
the LSI, the Pakistani secret services [Conspiracies,
115].)
28. The Bush administration's
angry rejection of anything other than total innocence was also
that it was
received
in the
to articles
in the London Review of Books
shared, for example, by Americans
responding
that the reason for the attacks was not purely an effect of the
immediate
aftermath that suggested
of freedom but was partly a result of its foreign
United States' supposed identity as the embodiment
a
a
of
how
detailed
actions.
For
analysis
complete and bipartisan rejection of blame for 9/11
policy
vital to the construction
to "national unity") was from the very beginning
(to create a commitment
of a consensus on the war on terror see Stuart Croft, Culture, Crisis, and America's War on Terror
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press,
2006),
chap. 2.
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178
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
case, America is seen as an innocent victim of a catastrophic event that came out
of the blue and that can be explained only by the existence of an all-powerful
conspiracy motivated
by pure evil or lust for power, whether orchestrated
the only
assassination,
by bin Laden or by Bush.29 Just as with the Kennedy
choices are a lone-gunman theory or a conspiracy theory, both of which rely
on a fantasy of highly efficient agency, so with 9/11 it seems at times that one
is forced
to believe
that itwas
that makes
Post, August
Pentagon," Washington
2006/08/01/AR2006080101300.html.
2, 2006, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
commentators
31. Unlike
the traditional statutes of criminal conspiracy
that require evidence that the accused
had actively conspired with the perpetrator of a crime, RICO makes
it sufficient to prove merely that
a suspect belongs to an organization
that displays a pattern of coordinated,
illegal activity. Since its
initial application
to the Mafia, RICO has been used in civil suits against anti-abortion
terrorist
groups
and even
Conspiracy
2003],
Theories
619-20).
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Peter Knight
179
President
Bush
new idea but a reworking of a theory developed during the Reagan administra
tion about the Soviets as puppet masters behind seemingly unrelated and local
terror net
it turned out that this idea of a conspiratorial
terrorism. However,
work was
work of an enemy that personifies evil is not common sense but a construc
tion that arises out of and gels with a well-established
ideological outlook. In
on
9/11 to promote the
effect, the Bush administration
quickly capitalized
idea of a "decisive
32. President
Bush,
intervention"
address
as the appropriate
response
September
to the attacks.34
.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html.
33. The original book that propounded
and America's
meshed
that only
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180
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
The mainstream
discourse
on terror ismarked
evil.
If the argument
is correct
discourse
in common
Hofstadter's
features
ideological
of conspiracy
is
for the emergence
thinking and demonology
explanation
less useful. Hofstadter argues that American politics has been beset by waves
of paranoid fear, but these delusions have usually been confined to those far
from the center of power who are merely creating a symbolic expression of
their powerlessness.
This is obviously not the case with 9/11 and the war on
terror, because political and media elites (echoed by influential voices in
film, television, and other pop cultural forms) have led the way in construct
version of 9/11 that partakes of the paranoid style. As crit
ing a mainstream
demon
have pointed out, the discourse of countersubversive
is instead often promoted to serve the all-too-real vested interests of
ics of Hofstadter
ology
those in positions of power, rather than merely project their innate fears.36
to this counterargument,
According
popular fears about terrorism have their
not
in
the
delusional
and
of the
origin
idiosyncratic
paranoid psychology
masses, as Hofstadter argues, but in the elite's deliberate rhetorical construc
tions that serve their vested political
and economic
interests. Although
it is all
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Peter Knight
181
choices
should we make
of government
involvement
ics can provide a powerful
discourse, we also need to consider the political and
through mainstream
the
alternative discourse of 9/11 conspiracy
social functions that
serves, as
well as the satisfactions
it affords its believers. To begin with, it is important
to recognize that 9/11 conspiracy theories gained significant popular support
in the United States only in 2004, whereas
to
the conspiratorial
challenge
was
in
then.
It
the official American
version
widespread
Europe well before
to
is therefore arguable that the real engine driving the 9/11 Truth Movement
new
or
more
the
not
the
in
United
has
been
States
of
popularity
discovery
in videos
evidence, or even its more user-friendly
compelling
presentation
as
in
Loose
Bush
and
such
2004
the slowly dis
Change, but the reelection of
in Iraq, which has prompted many Americans
integrating American mission
to rethink the official version of the road from 9/11 to war
as with
sentiment
has contributed
to the
rapid growth of the 9/11 Truth Movement, we also need to recognize 9/11 con
spiracy theories as an almost inevitable counterreaction?however
misguided?
not only against the distorted official version, which sought to directly con
nect al-Qaeda and the "axis of evil," but also against the lack of transparency
and honesty many detect in the official 9/11 Commission
investigation. Sub
sequent revelations of spin doctoring and outright lying by federal officials
have fueled the conspiracy theories. The obvious examples include the claim
in Iraq; the too easy
of weapons
of mass destruction
of
documents
acceptance
apparently forged
purporting to show that Saddam
had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium ore from Niger; the belated
about
the existence
release
in 2004
of the Presiden
(under pressure from the 9/11 Commission)
which
included
the
section
"Bin Laden
of
Briefing
August 6, 2001,
recent
to
in
and
that
Determined
Strike
NORAD
lied to the
US";
reports
tial Daily
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182
Outrageous
9/11 Commission.37
theories,
which
questions,
initial opposition
as
New Models
various
convincing
Although
common
Whatever
it is worth
Kissinger
Theories
Conspiracy
to a full investigation
unanswered
to rethink its
of Henry
chairperson.38
of Conspiratorial
the official version
structurally
conspiracy discourse
and complicity?almost
Connectedness
causation,
begins to develop models of connectedness,
in spite of itself?that
represent significant depar
tures from traditional forms of conspiracy
thinking. The representational
in effect challenge
strategies used in some of the 9/11 conspiracy discourse
the common assumption
that conspiracy theories produce a comforting and
current affairs. Fueled by a desire to find the hid
of
simplified interpretation
den connections
sentation
and other
and Fall
of Truth from
inmore
9/11
detail
to Katrina
foreign policy
that
The Greatest
Story Ever
Penguin, 2006); and Michael
of the War in Iraq (New York:
in Frank Rich,
(London:
Crown, 2006).
time line on one group of 9/11 widows
38. The story of the influence of Paul Thompson's
for a full inquiry is told in the documentary
(known as the "Jersey Girls") and their campaigning
film 9/11: Press for Truth (dir. Ray Nowosielski
and John Duffy; 2006).
that 9/11 is better explained by a complicity
Griffin concludes
39. Ultimately,
theory than by
or coincidence.
either incompetence
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Peter Knight
machinery
183
gle mastermind.
Br?ckers
Movement,
now common
lated into German Everything Is under Control, the veteran American novelist
guru Robert Anton Wilson's
compendium of conspiracy
ran
from September 13, 2001, toMarch 22, 2002,
theories. The blog, which
and was later published in book form, recorded Br?ckers's growing skepticism
and countercultural
about the official version of 9/11, mixed with discussion of puzzling aspects of
the event, links to potentially significant media reports detailing an alternative
backstory, and more general speculation on the nature of conspiracy thinking.
Although Br?ckers has now become amajor voice of the 9/11 conspiracy
theory camp, he insists that "my aim was not to father yet another conspiracy
theory that is blaring on all
theory, but to reveal the 'bin Laden/al-Qaeda'
media channels for what it is?a conspiracy theory."40 He admits that at the
his questioning of the official version was motivated not by a certain
scenario but by a suspicion that
of an alternative, conspiratorial
knowledge
a
not
add
with
did
up (coupled
prescient sense that the road from
quite
things
even
to
if his initial hunch that Pales
the invasion of Iraq,
9/11 might well lead
beginning
official
Conspiracies,
183. Subsequent
references
are given
in parentheses
in the text.
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184
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
some American
attacks happened. Whereas
9/11 Truth Movement
research
ers began with the implicitly racist assumption that nineteen Arabs could not
have conducted such a sophisticated
operation on their own from a cave in
because of his research for his work in progress Br?ckers was
Afghanistan,
to interpret the unfolding events of September
11, 2001, as the latest
a
in
of
and
episode
long history
lying, paranoid suspicion,
knee-jerk conspiracy
on the part of the U.S. establishment. His dismissal of the official
mongering
version as an unsubstantiated
theory about an al-Qaeda conspiracy is prompted
primed
his metacritical
discussion of the logic of conspiracy, Br?ckers
aware that the suggestive
links amassed in his blog to demonstrate
that the official version ismerely a cooked-up conspiracy theory might them
selves form the building blocks of an alternative "inside job" conspiracy
theory that is nothing more than a mirror image of the official conspiracy
theory. He warns against replacing one scapegoating conspiracy theory with
is well
another, arguing that it is "hardly possible to trace complex events like the
9/11 attack and its consequences
back to one cause or the mastermind?
unless it's simply for the sake of countering
the official conspiracy
theory
"
'bin Laden' with an unofficial one called 'Bush' (202). Yet for all his ironic
commentary on the dangers of conspiracy theory, Br?ckers displays a resid
ual attraction to it as a valid mode of countercultural perception that can get
at what
molecules
with
"conspiring"
the further offbeat
41. On
Right-Wing
theory as scapegoating
Too Close for Comfort
to combine
is the missing
into DNA
chains,
link in evolution
N. Lyons,
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Peter Knight
185
in the information
of the conspiratorial
evoked by the RICO
Conspiracy
Culture,
chap. 6.
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186
Outrageous
Conspiracy
(29), especially
economic
Theories
(15). Conspirology,
profound
simple
counterculture
hero
Tim
of all accepted
questioning
explanations
the
Following
conspiracy-in-the-open.
but
to entertain
numerous
alternative
scenarios
simultane
to embrace chaos-theory-inspired
fuzziness
ously. In calling for a willingness
rather than clarity, Br?ckers admits that the aim of his blog is not to develop a
clear picture of what really happened on September 11, 2001, but to challenge
the very idea of enlightenment
rationality by encouraging amode of "general
to 9/11 conspiracy
hostile
theories in general and
(14). (Those
uncertainty"
Br?ckers's blog in particular might see this as merely an excuse to give up on
as virtually
the painstaking work of investigative journalism.) Conspirology
the inverse of normal conspiracy thinking becomes for Br?ckers, in effect, an
anticonspiracy conspiracy, a paradoxical form of inoculation against the fear
terror or the
induced by elite-inspired moral panics against undifferentiated
overly hasty blame of scapegoated enemies.
the dangers
of traditional
Having warned
against
as
such
the Protocols
complexity-reducing
conspiracy theory
scapegoating,
of the Elders of
Zion, Br?ckers has to admit that there have recently been many cases of true
such as the Italian Masonic
secret society P2. He is also highly
conspiracies,
to conspiracy theories about the links among the Skull and Bones
secret society, the Bush family, and the Nazis, and he takes for granted the idea
that the Kennedy assassination was the result of a conspiracy
linked to the
attracted
other political murders of the 1960s. In making a case for rehabilitating con
in the
spiracy theory as an indispensable mode of countercultural knowledge
on
a
Ameri
of
Br?ckers
draws
strand
of
age
self-consciously
postmodernity,
can cultural politics typified by the works of Thomas Pynchon, William
Bur
all of whom had championed in the 1960s and 1970s the
roughs, andWilson,
as a necessary defense against the
idea of a mystical
form of conspiracism
paranoia of the Cold War national security state and as a route toward a new
In effect, Br?ckers ends up in the
mode of transcendental enlightenment.44
44. It comes as little surprise that, in addition to translating Wilson's
Is under Con
Everything
trol, Br?ckers had previously published a work arguing for the positive value of the cannabis plant
and the legalization of hemp, whose prohibition has been a favored conspiracy
theory of the counter
culture. There is thus a schizophrenic
of Br?ckers's
quality to the anti-Americanism
generation,
simultaneously
and convinced
drawn
government
counterculture
has been
as a model
of freedom
from tradition
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Peter Knight
contradictory
position?common
187
tomany
acy theory?of
regarding conspiracy
Our countercultural
theories
conspiracy
theories are bad. Br?ckers's
conspiracy
This basic
manifests
itself in Br?ckers's
9/11 blog as a
a
more
to
between
desire
reflect
permanent struggle
abstractly on the larger
cognitive structures of conspiracy thinking and an attraction to the specific,
researchers
potentially
explosive details that he and other 9/11 conspiracy
have unearthed in their Googling
the
that
bin Laden
newspaper report
(e.g.,
contradiction
was visited by a CIA agent while in the hospital in Dubai just before the Sep
tember 11 attacks). There is a constant flip-flop between viewing from a skepti
cal distance the possibility of a vast, military-industrial-intelligence
complex
conspiracy theory and being sucked in by the intriguing details that emerge:
in effect, producing theory about conspiracy and producing conspir
acy theory. In tone, the blog is half ironic and half serious, particularly at the
outset, when Br?ckers ismerely puzzled rather than angered by what he sees as
between,
theory" version.
numerology,
suggesting that the events
of the Illuminati," based on the rather
the numerology
and Illuminati/
played in supporting bin Laden. Although
Bush interpretations are meant half in jest, they serve two
Rockefeller/Prescott
functions. They ironically point up the equally arbitrary and
contradictory
absurd nature (in Br?ckers's
eyes) of the official conspiracy-minded
expla
that uncanny, symbolic
nation, but they also express the sincere conviction
coincidences defying rational explanation cluster around important historical
moments. As the novelist Don DeLillo puts it in his account of the Kennedy
assassination, "Powerful events breed their network of inconsistencies."45
The blog proceeds by documenting Br?ckers's reactions to, on the one
hand, the continuing lack of evidence for the official version and, on the other,
the emerging inconsistencies
and suggestive details that gesture toward an
45. Don DeLillo,
Libra
1988), 15.
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188
Outrageous
alternative
between
Conspiracy
Theories
warns
that although investigators might uncover the smaller cogs in the machinery
and dia
of interlocking vested interests that spread out both synchronically
never
some
will
the
almost
discover
structure,
certainly
larger
chronically, they
is secret and some of which constitutes an "open" conspiracy. To
avoid the "causality trap" (118) of attributing all events to the work of small
clusters of intentional agents in a tightly linked chain of cause and effect,
of which
Br?ckers
suggests
cause-and-effect
chains"
intersecting, overlapping,
that might never be consciously
articulated in the language of intentionality.
cue
from chaos theory (and echoing familiar analyses of the attrac
Taking his
tion of conspiracy theory as an all-too-human desire to attribute big events to
correspondingly big causes rather than to randomness or incompetence), Br?ck
ers argues that in both the natural world and the undercover world "things
are not so linear, but much more chaotic and fuzzy than criminalistic
logic
would like" (115). Although he is amazed at the extent of the "gigantic, oil-fed
network" (157), with its links back to the taboo subject of "direct
and indirect financing of U.S. foreign policy via the illegal drug trade" (163),
not to mention
the complicated
he discerns among the Bush
connections
the
the
the
and
Skull
ISI, and the bin Laden family,
Bones,
Nazis,
CIA,
family,
financial
Br?ckers
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theory
Peter Knight
189
the model
Br?ckers
what
Afghanistan?are
effect for which
we jumping to conclusions
there is no hard evidence?"
many
statistical
and decentralized
to map
contributes
relations.
naive
to a debate
Fredric
about conspiracy
theory as an attempt
dismisses
theories as
conspiracy
age," a "degraded figure of the total logic
Jameson
failure
ismarked by its
and the Interpretation
Macmillan,
1988], 356). In con
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190
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
the CIA
(and the intelligence failures of 9/11 revealed just how decentralized
had become), Br?ckers's blog format is arguably the most interesting thing
about his speculations on the events of September
11, 2001. More than the
fact that the online "Conspiracy Diary" allows him to create an alterna
take on events that is outside the control of amedia conglom
tive, homegrown
erate (a right he shares with conspiracy theorists of all stripes), the blog enables
mere
The blog format also allows us to see how an alternative position such
as the 9/11 Truth Movement
emerged slowly and fitfully out of piecemeal
research. The blog proceeds by accumulation,
and repetition
amplification,
or an outright
rather than by a strict assertion of a specific counterposition
scenarios.
(This, critics would
rejection of previous alternative conspiracy
in that few speculations are ever discarded, with
argue, is also its weakness,
the result that all manner of incommensurable
scenarios are entertained at
the same time, with little regard for internal contradiction.
lack of resolution are also the hallmark of the conspiracy
and
Disagreement
theories surround
ing the Kennedy assassination, but in Br?ckers's case contradiction and pro
liferation of theories are contained in a single work, not a whole subculture.)
Like other early 9/11 conspiracy theories, Br?ckers's blog rushes in with all
manner of rumors to fill up the unconscionably
long gap before Bush reluc
of inquiry. With
the potential to link to the
tantly agreed to a commission
"evidence" that has been poached not from secret sources but from publicly
available media
extend so far: "It was neither desired nor planned that this com
extend to a practically never-ending story" (159). In short, the
should
mentary
is
in
blog
danger of turning 9/11 conspiracy theory into a process, not a prod
a
uct, project that leads to an infinite regress of suspicion, creating a perpetu
that itwould
ally deferred revelation that seems to undermine its overt promise of uncover
ingWhat Is Really Going On.
Another interesting example of the representation of interconnectedness
that hovers somewhere among coincidence,
and conspiracy
is
complicity,
researched
Thompson's "Complete 9/11 Timeline," aWeb-based
collaboratively
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Peter Knight
191
database
of entries
summaries
2007, there were 3,699 entries. The 9/11 time line is joined on the Coopera
tive Research Web site by other time lines on similarly controversial
topics,
record. While
such as Hurricane Katrina and President Bush's environmental
that "9/11 and terrorism generally are flashpoints for what peo
recognizing
insists that "this 9/11 investigative
ple call 'conspiracy theory,'" Thompson
no
The entries are indeed neutral in
theories."49
contains
project
conspiracy
tone, but this has not prevented the time line from becoming a central resource
the individual entries are compara
theorists. Although
for 9/11 conspiracy
tively free of bias, the time line offers the building blocks for a conspiracy
minded
interpretation that focuses in particular on the issues of forewarning
and the complicity of U.S.
mined by 9/11 conspiracy
document
wound
48. There
Minute
byMinute:
by Day,
2004).
49. www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project.
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792
Outrageous
Conspiracy
Theories
with new entries continually adding richer detail to existing themes, bring
the
ing the time line up to date, and pushing the starting point for mapping
road to 9/11 even farther back in time. Even if some of its entries are suspect,
the time line functions as a strong corrective
to the rhetorical construction
of 9/11 and the war on terror in official and popular discourse as a bolt from
the blue
of mega-conspiracy
theory haunting
Conclusion
As Richard
constructed
discourse
and
account.
Indeed,
it is arguable
50. Gerhard
that the
Change
(Minneapolis:
University
of Minnesota
Press,
1994),
191-216.
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Peter Knight
193
mainstream
Itwas no accident
Web-based
that undermine
lessly deferred. In other words, what these conspiracy accounts of 9/11 pro
is a portrait of power as decentered and
duce, almost in spite of themselves,
a
vast
of
into
network
dispersed
interlocking vested interests within the wider
a picture that cannot easily be pinned down to an
process of globalization,
even
evil cabal,
if at the surface level it is presented in those traditional terms.
In some 9/11 conspiracy
theory accounts of the complicated
relationships
the
CIA, and oil corporations,
among al-Qaeda,
loyalty to a group or a com
pany or a nation or a political stance is only ever temporary, and intentions are
always ambiguous. We
theory here.
of conspiracy
con
52. In Culture, Crisis, and America's War on Terror, Croft concludes
that the mainstream
to it from antiwar and
of the war on terror has held remarkably firm, despite challenges
other protesters.
In particular, Croft points out that many key points of the discourse were shared
and Democrats,
with the argument revolving around tactics, not fundamental
by Republicans
pol
struction
icy differences.
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