TV Jury Finds Osama Bin Laden "Not Guilty" of 9/11

Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet at 2:15 AM on April 10, 2009.

Hmmmm... I wonder how I could stir some shit up in the comments on this fine Friday? Let's see... what's in the news reader?  Oh, sweet!

A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.

[...]

The show features star defense attorney Gerard Spong standing up for some of the world's worst criminals.

In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western propaganda." The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has misused Islam."

I'm glad someone finally settled that last bit.

Frankly, I doubt they'd be able to convict Bin Laden in a real-world court either -- "beyond a easonable doubt" is a high standard. But the question I'd pose to those who think it was an inside job is this (and I know not all "Truthers" do): is there any evidence that connects the sinister cabal which you think really did it to the dastardly crimes?

Most of the time I've gotten into these debates, my interlocutors tended to follow David Ray Griffin's line of argumentation, and focus on problems -- real or perceived -- with what Griffin refers to as the "official conspiracy theory." The implication, at least, is that any issue one finds in the 9/11 Commission Report is evidence in and of itself of dastardly intrigue on the part of Bush and his neocon brethren, the Israelis, the Illuminatti or whatever.

This is a sweet offensive play because no official investigation of a government's own disastrous failures is ever going to be complete and forthcoming. So basically it's an attempt to force an opponent to defend a report rather than focus on the supposed "evidence" of official complicity. And it's not limited to just the 9/11 Commission Report; problems with the "official story" also include all of the things one hears about buildings falling at "free-fall speed," the melting temperature of steel, and questions like whether the military could have really reacted so incompetently that day (and etc.).

So back to the question to my Truther friends about what evidence ties whomever they think really did it to the crime.* Even if it were something other than the planes that brought those buildings down**, how do we know Osama bin Laden (or CIA asset Tim Osmon, if you prefer) didn't arrange to have the thermite charges planted himself?

We're supposed to simply "connect the dots." Larry Silverstein cashed in a gazillion-dollar insurance policy or George W. got his war on in Iraq and the outcome itself is proof of complicity. But Islamic fundamentalist nutcases have gained as much from the War on Terror" as their crazy counterparts in the West. And, as Noam Chomsky said, authoritarian governments around the world also profited from 9/11.

And as far as evidence goes, you've got to do a lot better than conflicting accounts of exactly what time it was that Dick Cheney got to the command bunker.

* I know, I know -- I'm supposed to use my awesome investigative powers and limitless resources to uncover what really happened myself. My bad.

** About a year ago, a commenter insisted that only the worst kind of idiot could fail to see that the buildings had in fact been brought down by Chinese space-lasers.

Tagged as: bin laden

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.