There is an element of the German left that is so infected with hatred towards America that it promotes the craziest conspiracy "theories". Today we commemorate the events of September 11, 2009 eight years on and Jochen Hoff proudly tells the world on his blog that what happened in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania of that day was the result of a plot by the CIA and President George W. Bush (HT Politblogger):
Deutschland stammen, ist gut möglich. Hier kann die CIA tun und lassen,
was sie will. Deutschland ist ein besetztes Land, in dem die Regierung
immer noch den USA gehorchen muss. Hier Leute anzuwerben ist ohne
Gefahr. Auch bei den Sauerlandattentätern hat der CIA im Hintergrund
die Finger im Spiel. (The fact that the perpetrators could be quickly identified and came out of Germany is completely understandable. The CIA can do anything it wants here. Germany is an occupied country, where the government has to obey the US. Recruiting people to the cause here is without any risk. The CIA was also involved with the terrorists in the Sauerland. )
So the German government – just puppets of the CIA – were also in on the conspiracy. Among Hoff's more absurd charges is that the CIA somehow was able to operate the 757s by reomote control. HIs proof? The US military operates drones in Afghanistan. Also, the CIA picked a time for the attacks on the World Trade Center when there were very few workers in the towers, and hit the Pentagon in the section that was partly vacant.
I live just a few miles from where Mohammed Atta started his mission that morning, at the airport in Portland, Maine. I know people who encountered him the evening before and on the morning of September 11. For years I worked across the street from the World Trade Center and I know people who were in the towers that morning but were lucky enought to escape. Their testimony about what they experienced that day refute all of Hoff's fantasies.
I despised George W. Bush, and worked hard to try and remove him from office in 2004. But I get angry when I hear the totally irrational "theories" of the Truthers. President Obama was correct when he made this comment at the Strasbourg town hall meeting last April: "But in Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that can be casual but
can also be insidious." The German Truthers represent the extremist manifestation of this phenomenon.
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The scary thing is: This seems to spread. Friday I taught a group of 8th graders, some of whom demanded to talk about 9/11. And they were convinced that it was all an inside job by the USA to wage war on Iraq.