Here's my thoughts on the matter, I don't believe the US government did blow up the towers. If they were willing to kill thousands of innocent people in the world trade centre, why would they even hesitate to kill prominent members of the 9/11 truth movement? What was the point of the US government blowing up the towers when all they had to do was wait for one of the many citizens of the world their foreign policy has enraged to do it for them? Why is it that the 'experts' who the truth movement cites always turn out to have little or no expertise on the subject of how the buildings fell?
There are many conspiracy theories out there, for example, the idea that the moon landing was a hoax, various theories on Area 51, ideas about who assasinated JFK, etc. But I think these ideas are reletively harmless and I'm not too concerned about whether they continue to exist or not. However I think the 9/11 Truth movement, regardless of whether its members have good intentions or not, is doing a lot of damage for the following reasons.
The usual line of the 9/11 Truth Movement seems to go something like this, 'The US government wanted to blow up the twin towers as an excuse to introduce the patriot act, and to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.' And this is where I see a problem. If you go up to someone who's undecided about whether or not they support the Iraq war, and tell them about how there was no WMD found, or perhaps you could speak about how convienient it is that America invaded Iraq but is quite happy to do buisiness with other countries that have horrible human rights abuses, ie. China, they might well begin to see your point. However, if you go up to them with the same statement with the addition of an implausible story that the US government blew up the World Trade Centre, they might well reject everything you have to say. By the time you have said, 'Bush knocked down the towers', they will already have switched off, and are unlikely to listen to other things you have to say no matter how true they are.
And it gets worse. People may not listen to opponents of the Iraq war who don't support the 9/11 truth movement, because previous encounters with 9/11 truthers means they will think that bringing the troops out of Iraq and believing the bush administration blew up the towers go hand in hand.
And it gets worse again. Many (I'm not saying it's all of them, but a very significant ammount) of 9/11 truthers are now trying to get people to shun those who basically have an excellent critisism of American domestic and foreign policy, simply because they don't believe in the 9/11 conspiracy. I now hear the likes of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn being referred to as, 'gatekeepers'. If the 9/11 truthers had a problem with everything Chomsky and Zinn had to say, this would be a different matter, but to shun them just because they disagree on the matter of 9/11 seems very counter-productive.
So to summarise, I think 9/11 truth is tarnishing movements for social justice and that's why I hope to see an end to it. If anyone in the 9/11 truth movement is reading this, I encourage you to look again at the facts of the 9/11 attacks, and to consider also the negative effects your movement is having on attempts to change the world for the better. If you don't agree with the 9/11 truth movement, tell as many people as you can why, and hopefully you will change some minds.
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