It's tempting to write a full-blown critique of conspiracism, which reduces the sloppy process of ruling class power over state and society to the machinations of shadowy potentates, who all agree with each other and exercise perfect control. The impulse demeans the capacities of the 9/11 hijackers, by implying that only white people could pull it off. (George Galloway is very incisive on this point,
What "capacities of the hijackers"? The Cheney-Rove group have been portraying the hijackers as some kind of evil geniuses. In reality these guys seem to be mediocre, undisciplined and easily manipulated. Hitting the strip clubs the day before the big job? Keeping your team members in the dark and then conducting the briefings in the airport lobby? And then of course there is the Mossaoui guy who is said to have told his flight instructor he was only interested in learning to steer planes, no take-offs or landings. The only way they pulled off those attacks was because of the surprise factor and because what they did was so outrageous and unthinkable. --raghu.
