Official English translation below, this has not been published in the French main paper, Le Monde Diplomatique;

The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

[12.03.07] Alexander Cockburn’s “US: The Conspiracy That Wasn’t,” which is an attack on the 9/11 truth movement, is faulty in virtually every respect. He calls me one of the movement’s “high priests,” as if it were a religious movement, rather than a fact-based movement that involves scientists, engineers, pilots, war veterans, politicians, philosophers, former air traffic controllers, former defense ministers, and former CIA analysts.

Dr. David Ray Griffin

He calls us “conspiracists,” ignoring the fact that in defending the government’s account, he is defending the original 9/11 conspiracy theory. In claiming that the Bush administration and the military are too incompetent to have organized the 9/11 attacks, he gives an argument that could equally well be used to prove that they could not have organized the military assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq. In claiming that bin Laden took credit for the attacks, Cockburn appears not to be aware that in the video on which this claim is primarily based, the man playing Osama bin Laden is heavier and darker than the bin Laden of all undoubtedly authentic videos, or that the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” page on bin Laden does not mention 9/11---because, an FBI spokesman explained, “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.” Although Cockburn says that members of our movement are “immune to reality check,” he endorses the official theory of the collapses of the Twin Towers, which can be held only by ignoring an enormous number of facts. He says the towers were poorly built, whereas in reality they were built to withstand virtually any eventuality, including being hit by large airliners. He says the towers collapsed because of being struck by planes loaded with jet fuel, but WTC 7, which was not struck by a plane, also collapsed. In rejecting the claim that explosives had been planted, Cockburn ignores the fact that 118 members of the Fire Department gave testimony indicating that explosives had gone off. (I quoted 31 of these, along with journalists and WTC employees, in an essay entitled “Explosive Testimony.) The official theory about these buildings, which Cockburn defends, is contradicted by all prior history, in which total collapses of steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been caused by externally caused damage plus fire, even when the fires were much bigger and lasted much longer.