http://www.ctka.net/2010/voodoo.html
An Incurious Man: David Aaronovitch's Voodoo Histories
By Joseph E. Green
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Aaronovitch's take on 9/11 is somewhat depressing. It is depressing because I am in the unfortunate position of having to agree with much of it. This is less a triumph on the author's part and more a reflection on how disastrous the various truth movements have become. As a result of the large-scale illiteracy infecting those who would question the events of 9/11, many ridiculous notions have become commonplace memes. Aaronovitch goes right for them.
He describes a conversation with the alleged MI5 whistleblower David Shayler, who has been promoted by Alex Jones and Webster Tarpley, among others, in which he makes the absurd statement that a "cigar-shaped missile" struck the World Trade Center. [12] He invokes Dylan Avery's popular film Loose Change, itself an easy target because of numerous factual errors and its endorsement of the no-plane-hit-the-Pentagon theory. This leads naturally into the work of Thierry Meyssan, who invented the no-plane theory, and then Aaronovitch uses this same theory to undermine David Ray Griffin, who gave and continues to give credence to it. Meyssan, of course, has been linked to Michael Collins Piper, and to the right-wing American Free Press and Christopher Bollyn. [13] The anti-Jewish nature of AFP is apparent to anyone familiar with the publication, which is also a trait of Eric Hufschmid, who produced one of the first films about 9/11 called Painful Questions. There are a couple of pages dedicated to Tarpley, who although he has reportedly left the LaRouchies behind, continues to believe in a worldview indistinguishable from LaRouche, with a powerful and controlling central government producing Star Wars defense systems and nuclear plants.
Now Aaronovitch doesn't do a particularly good job of attacking these people – it is, for the most part, guilt-by-association – but in fact there is little I can say in their defense. I have dealt with a couple of these folks personally, and from my reading of the situation they arguably have done more damage than help in the 9/11 investigation. However, this could not have happened without the hordes of eager followers who read too little and watch too much. Aaronovitch doesn't even exploit what may be the most incredible person to emerge from all this – Ace Baker – whose theory includes holographic planes at the Pentagon and WTC. As Horatio once said to Hamlet, "T'would be to consider too curiously to consider so." And people continue to eat it up, not recognizing the contradiction in uniting behind a charismatic leader to oppose fascism.
The author does not deal with Peter Dale Scott's The Road to 9/11 nor with the more credible sections of Mike Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon because in doing so he would come up against the real questions of 9/11: the lack of military response, Norman Mineta's testimony about Dick Cheney and the Pentagon plane, the fact that the Patriot Act was written prior to 9/11, the various business interests that gained from the attacks much the way Bell Helicopter profited from Vietnam. He doesn't deal with these issues and he doesn't have to, because the 9/11 movement has given him holograms and holes to fight instead.
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If the author had truly been serious about writing an overview of conspiracies, he might have left behind the large package of straw men gathered in this book. He might have instead chosen from any number of real historical events, such as the 1846 invasion of Mexico led by Zachary Taylor, the 1898 bombing of the Maine leading to the Spanish-American War, Operation Paperclip, Operation Gladio, the Manhattan Project, the coup of Salvador Allende, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Iran Contra ... there are endless examples, of which these are but a few. In doing so, he might have been to construct a model of how such things are done and thus produced some valuable work.
It's obvious why he doesn't go into these other cases. For example, he doesn't say anything about the RFK case in his book, because if you simply list the agreed-upon facts in order, any idiot can see that Sirhan didn't kill RFK. It's physically impossible. Aaronovitch has produced a book that resembles talk radio, in that it speaks in a mocking tone designed to appeal to an audience confident in their conclusions and unacquainted with evidence. In so doing he produces another in a long assembly line of tomes purporting to enlighten but instead steeped in a smear campaign.