(Dr. Koechler's website.)

In addition to the skepticism recently voiced in New Zealand by Dr. Koechler, he has updated an essay originally presented at the Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang back in December, 2007. The essay will be published in Studies in International Relations, Vol. XXX, later this year.

The essay is called, "The “Global War on Terror” and its Implications for Muslim-Western Relations". Here are some excerpts;

At the beginning of the 21st century, a comprehensive analysis of the notion and practice of the so-called “global war on terror” and the role that has been “assigned” to Islam in this antagonistic, almost hypocritically Manichaean, post-September 11 scenario has remained a desideratum – in spite of all the proclamations to the contrary. My preliminary philosophical reflections focus on the aspect of the “metaphysical enemy” in the context of the actual discourse on terrorism and the global order...

In the framework of international power politics in which the term is used today, “terrorism” has become a reified concept that signifies an enemy for whose actions no motivation other than “doing evil” is being admitted. Thus, the term has become a kind of value label employed in a specific context of (often undeclared) political interests, with the purpose of de-humanizing the adversary and, thus, gaining the moral high ground in confrontations that are often driven by economic interests, not by a commitment to moral or legal principles. Accordingly, the construct of a “global war on terror” attributes to “terrorism” a kind of mythical dimension, personalizing something which is a method of violence or tactic – as distinct from the acting subject against whom alone a war can be fought. Thus, the collective effort described as “war” in this sense implies a rather strange reification of actual conflict situations the causes of which those who claim to act in self-defense refuse to analyze.

9/11 may have been an insiders’ job – Dr. Hans Koechler

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0802/S00229.htm

“I am not a boy-I am 59. There are many inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the official version of events. Those who could not handle a Cessna pulled off 9/11,” he said.

But he was quick to note that the official version has to be challenged. Quoting David Ray Griffin he said these events, in terms of destruction caused, these incidents cannot have been exclusively organized by a shadowy network of Mujahedeen from the remote places of the globe.