UK newspaper: "9/11 Ten Years on dispelled ten years of fantasy"
With the advent of the internet conspiracy theories surrounding the 9/11 attacks have reached a larger audience than perhaps any other event and have raged on for nearly ten years.
The Conspiracy Files: Ten Years On aimed to put an end to this, detailing each preposterous theory and then shooting it down with fairly incontrovertible proof.
The error however was in entertaining the theories at all and the documentary lingered on each hypothesis for a little too long for no reason other than sheer sensationalism, adding legitimacy to a largely YouTube-based debate - an arena in which streams of Justin Bieber songs altered to sound as though they were performed by chipmunks can garner 47 million views.
All the classics were here; the exploding column supports on lower Twin Tower floors, the small hole made in the Pentagon wall, the debris found miles from the United 93 crash site.
Sherlock Holmes said that when you’ve eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’ one conspiracy theorist informed us.
Well, Willy Wonka said: ‘Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple’ but you don’t see Apple bringing out a Snozzberry iPad, so perhaps we shouldn’t base our judgements on those of fictional characters.
While some of the technical incongruences surrounding the four aeroplane crashes were vaguely worth of attention, the overarching idea that the US government was behind the attacks was surely, whatever your political persuasion, preposterous.
Do people really believe that there was a 'rogue' group of megalomaniac government officials who watched the orchestrated destruction of 3000 lives and rubbed their hands with glee because in the long term the US would reap some lucrative oil contracts from it? Come on.
There is such guilt in the US about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that many almost want to believe that the invasions formed part of an elaborate government cover-up, as if it distances them and makes them feel less complicit in America's dealings in the Middle East.
American foreign policy has certainly proved worthy of debate in recent years, but these fantastical theories serve only to distract from them, along with the serious issue of whether corners are being cut when it comes to the building of high-rise skyscrapers.
These blockbuster notions of government inside jobs are ultimately disrespectful to the dead and I’d like to be able to say that The Conspiracy Files: Ten Years On will put an end to them, but more than likely it will just drive more viewers to grainy YouTube clips of false evidence.
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2 + 2=5
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How many?
Do you see 4 or 5 fingers Winston?