Vdare and PC Roberts, perfect together?

In defiance of decency and common-sense, and in disregard of the well-being of the immigration restrictionist movement, Peter Brimelow of Vdare continues to publish the insane 9/11 conspiracy theories of Paul Craig Roberts, who, by the way, is not even an immigration restrictionist. Roberts’s July 18 column argues that the World Trade Center buildings could not have fallen from the impact of the planes and the resulting fires, but were caused by bombs planted in the buildings, i.e, planted by BushCheneyRoveIsraelNeoconsJews .

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Tim W. writes:

Roberts asserts that two flimsy aluminum planes (!) couldn’t possibly cause two massive skyscrapers to collapse. He describes the raging fires that followed the crashes as minor conflagrations that burned only a short time, apparently unaware that rescue operations were hampered for days after the tragedy because the fires continued to burn long after the buildings came down. He then claims that large numbers of people reported hearing explosions in the lower floors of the buildings.

In other words, the planes didn’t bring the Twin Towers down. They were brought down by explosives.

Now, we know that Muslim terrorists tried to bring down the towers a few years earlier with explosives and failed, which is why they turned to the more complicated method of crashing planes into the buildings. Granted, more powerful explosives might have been able to do the job, which presumably is what Roberts believes occurred. Only in this case, Roberts is implying that the more powerful explosives were planted by our own government.

His argument is stupid, of course. But the thing is, it doesn’t even make sense if assumed to be true. If powerful explosives were successfully and secretly planted in the basements of the towers, why bother crashing planes into them at all? That would be a stupid and pointless risk to take if enough explosives to bring down the towers were already in place. Besides, according to Roberts, flimsy planes can’t bring tall buildings down, so what was the point?

If enough bombs were planted in the towers to bring them down, then all the terrorists (apparently our government, according to these conspiracy nuts) needed to do was trigger them, watch the towers come down, and then blame the innocent Muslims. If they were able to get some Muslims to crash planes into the towers, they surely could’ve gotten them to conveniently be standing around when the bombs went off, and thus they would have their “scapegoats”. They could have even been gunned down by the FBI to keep them from talking.

Apparently it’s never occurred to Roberts that many more people could have been killed by bringing down the towers simultaneously with explosives planted in the basements. If the conspirators had planted such explosives, why didn’t they do it that way? The death toll would have been much, much higher and the demand by the public for retaliation against Muslims all the greater. Instead, according to Roberts, planes were pointlessly crashed into the towers, and the towers were then brought down later by bombs, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Has Roberts not seen the footage of the towers collapsing, where each building began its fall right at the strike point of the planes? Do any of the hundreds of videos of this tragedy show massive explosions going off at the base of the towers prior to collapse? No, they all show the collapses starting at the strike points and “pancaking” their way down to the ground. As for the people who claimed to hear explosions in the basement, they were likely the noises made by falling debris. In any event, how could someone in the towers still be alive if the explosions that brought the buildings down were below them?

Why V-DARE publishes such nonsense is beyond me.

LA replies:

Excellent points by Tim W.

Another point which has never occurred to the theorists: how did BushCheneyRoveIsraelNeoconsJews get Al Qaeda to launch the airplane attack on the towers just at the right moment? Are the theorists saying that BushCheneyRoveIsraelNeoconsJews are operating in close coordination with al Qaeda?

However, I think it’s time to stop saying that it’s “beyond us” why Vdare publishes this and just say that it’s wrong. At a certain point, motives don’t matter, and actions do.

Gintas writes:

People like Roberts who really believe this stuff have a need to believe that our government was behind it all. It couldn’t possibly have happened because of a combination of government bungling, determined insider attackers, and luck. Everything will be interpreted in the context of deliberate US Government action.

I’m not sure I can plumb the psychological depths of this need, but it is deranged.

The real puzzle: if our government really did this, why don’t these guys either abandon the country or openly call for the overthrow of such a government?

LA replies:

It’s the same question I once asked of Patrick Buchanan. He repeatedly charged President Bush with the greatest act of treason in American history: namely that Bush spent a year lying America into a war that Bush said was about defending America from Iraq but that was really about defending Israel from Iraq; the constant subtext of which was that Bush was tricking Christian boys to die for the sake of the Jews. Buchanan even made these charges in a cover article, “Whose War?”, published in the magazine he then edited laughingly known as The American Conservative at the very moment the U.S. was launching the invasion of Iraq. That was in March 2003. Then in 2004, the same Patrick Buchanan endorsed the same worst-traitor-in-American-history George W. Bush for re-election as president.

It’s one thing to incite insane suspicions and hatred against people if you really believe what you’re saying and are serious about it. But to incite insane suspicions and hatred against people and not even be serious about what you’re saying, that shows some higher level of sickness.

Bruce B. writes:

Jim Kalb had a piece on 9/11 conspiracy theories with the following (great) comment by a writebacker:

“So the government is evil enough and powerful enough to pull off a massive conspiracy destroying two world renowned buildings and killing 3000 people on live TV. And yet this same government is too incompent or ethical to plant WMD’s in Iraq?”

Also (contrary to what one of your commenters said) Chronicles still publishes PCR. I don’t understand. It’s like they just don’t care.

LA replies

I made that painfully obvious point over and over in 2003, starting as soon as the WMDs did not turn up and the conspiracy theories began. Many others have made it too. The conspiracy theories are so flagrantly absurd that they only survive in an environment in which there is literally no rational thought. This is not funny. A country in which large numbers of otherwise intelligent people believe in insane things is in trouble.

At least (as I think I’ve mentioned), NewsMax seems to have stopped carrying Roberts since December 2006.

Alan Roebuck writes:

I don’t remember from whom I first heard the following (maybe it was Dennis Prager), but I find it quite plausible:

Absurd conspiracy theories are appealing to those who don’t want to acknowledge that we can be vulnerable to attacks coming from lone kooks and fringe groups. They prefer a more manageable solution to the problem. Think of it: if 9/11/ were really caused by rogue elements within our own government, then we could make ourselves safer simply by doing a better job of policing our own people. But if 9/11 was really the work of malevolent foreigners, then protecting ourselves will be much more difficult.

Similar comments apply to the paleocon view of the war on terror: “If only we could get rid of those (expletive deleted) neocons, then there would be no threat from Iran, Syria, al Qaida, etc.” “Getting rid of neocons” would of course be much easier than actually dealing effectively with the worldwide Jihad.

LA replies:

Yes, but of course the paleocons have no actual intent or plan to “get rid of the neocons.” It is purely an emotional outburst or fantasy directed against those they hate. But the rest of Mr. Roebuck’s idea is correct: the paleocons prefer this satisfying emotional outburst or fantasy to the job of actually thinking about the threat that faces us and what we need to do about it.

This captures what I have been saying since at least 9/11: that the paleocons have become useless—or, rather, worse than useless.

(There are exceptions of course such as Serge Trifkovic.)

A reader writes:

Roberts is also a contributor to CounterPunch, a far left website run by the loathsome Alexander Cockburn. The Palecons often align with the radical left on a number of issues, including the Iraq War, Israel, the neocons, and globalization.

LA writes:

Also, Roberts’s article saying that Bush and Cheney are planning a terrorist strike against America has been posted at the libertarian website Atlas Shrugs, though from that site’s somewhat confusing format it’s hard to tell whether it was posted by the site’s host or by Roberts himself as a commenter or by some other commenter.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 20, 2007 10:52 AM | Send