(Reposted from http://fehodeode.blogspot.com/2007/11/chief-editor-time-to-think-conspiracy.html)

The article was printed in four Norwegian conservative regional newspapers on November 24th, 2007, reaching about 1 million readers. The newspapers are: Fædrelandsvennen (South), Stavanger Aftenblad (South-West), Bergens Tidende (West) and Adresseavisen (Central Norway).

Chief Editor: Time to think conspiracy?

What if it wasn’t Osama bin Laden, but George W. Bush who was responsible for the attacks on World Trade Center on 11 September 2001? Is the question so appaling that we’re not even allowed to pose it?

Early in their careers, journalists often develop a profound sceptical view of letters that they receive that have been sent in copy to the Prime Minister, Foreign Secretary and all the MPs in the country, including the King himself. Grumblers always have access to a copying machine.

But despite this, this week I have spent a few hours on such a letter, signed by two civil engineers. They attempt to make the media and the Norwegian government discuss and look more closely into the 9/11 conspiracy theories, and also the origins of the so-called War on Terror.

Two DVDs also followed the letters, with two of the many films that have been produced to pull the rug out under the feet of what is known as the OCT – the official conspiracy theory. The latter is the American government's version of what happened on that bloody September Tuesday six years ago.

Close by the famous school book depository in Dallas where Lee Harvey Oswald aimed his rifle against the back head of President John F. Kennedy, you could find as recent as last year The Conspiracy Museum, dedicated to one of the many alternative theories about who really killed the the President. The official and unoffical version right next to each other. Last Thursday it was 44 years since the assassination, and it is not the official version that has best withstood the test of time. Nobody really knows for sure who killed Kennedy, but the report from the Warren-commission has lost most of its credibility. Seven out of ten Americans believe that a major conspiracy was behind the assassination. In an opinion poll conducted by the TV network ABC, 68 per cent of respondents answered that the American government is hiding the truth.

A similar trend is appearing in relation to 9/11. In a national opinion poll conducted by Scripps Howard/Ohio University, a third of the Americans asked believe that the American government was involved in or avoided to prevent the attacks on WTC and Pentagon. This third doesn’t need a physical museum to strengthen their sceptical outlook. The internet is overflowing with videos, articles, debate forums and books that present and discuss other explantions for the tragedy, other than that a bearded man in the Afghan mountains struck at the heart of the Rome of our time. Wikipedia offers a list of the different theories that is just as long as a small book.

The listing also shows that there are many schools of sceptics. The least extreme of these accepts that Mohammed Atta and his men were behind the attacks, but also claims that the American government willfully let them carry it through to create an excuse to implement a war that was well planned and decided far in advance. This is supposed to have happened in the same way that Franklin D. Rossvelt did nothing to prevent the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor because he needed an excuse to lead the US into the WW2.

The most radical school claims that no planes hit the Twin Towers, and that the many images of the planes were video manipulated. The Twin Towers were blown up and the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile, and that is why there are no images of the Boeing-airplane on its way towards the building, this group claims.

The two Norwegian civil engineers, Jan and Ove Hundseid, try to make the Norwegian media engage in what is about to become a powerful and alternative discussion about one of the most important issues of our time. So far the established media and the TV-channels have only spread the government version of the events, even though their own reporting on 9/11 and in the time after, has fostered many of the questions that are not yet answered. Why did the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld talk about "the plane we shot down" when the official version says that no shots were fired against the hijacked aircraft? Why did the 47-story WTC 7 collapse after the Twin Towers, despite the fact that it received minimal damage compared to the other buildings that remained standing. And how could the BBC report that WTC 7 had collapsed 26 minutes before the building actually fell down?

There are perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands of such questions that create different degrees of doubt about what the government has told about 9/11. When every third citizen believes that the government is lying or hiding the truth about events that have driven the country into two endless wars, that have led to clear constraints on civil rights and a considerably worsened relationship between the US and the rest of the world, it is striking that the major media outlets, who are supposed to be the watchdogs of society, still regard the 9/11 sceptics as a curious marginal phenomenon.

In Norway, there has only been feeble attempts at covering the increasing opposition against the portrayal of 9/11 made by the Bush-administration. Since our soldiers are dying in the war that was a first response to the attacks, and our ports are to be enclosed by fences, and we are to be stripped even more naked every time we board an airplane as a conseqence of the offical version, it might be a good idea to have a closer look at the letter I received from the two civil engineers. Even if there were many names on the copy list.

Sven Egil Omdal,
Chief Editor and CEO of Stavanger Aftenblad
sven.egil.omdal@aftenbladet.no