I feel that the extreme version of the 9/11 conspiracy, complete with demolition and Pentagon missile, gives a bad name to conspiracy theory in general.
Even in the case of 9/11, there is what I would call a "soft" version of the conspiracy theory that deserves investigation, and that is the possible role of secret agents who may have infiltrated the al Qaeda plot enough to know what was afoot, but let it happen. Such an hypothesis involves only a few passive "conspirators", who, especially if they were from Israeli Mossad, would have had a patriotic motive: to bring the United States fully to the side of Israel in the "war against terror". But this is only a hypothesis. Of course, if the attacks were not really perpetrated by Arab student pilots, then the Mossad agents reportedly spying on them in Florida could not have known anything.
Against dualistic simplicity.
The most profound motive for criticizing the 9/11 conspiracy theory is that it partakes of the very sort of moral dualism advocated by the Bushites and neo-cons, but just turns it around. Instead of evil Arabs gratuitously attacking innocent Americans, all evil acts are committed by the villains in Washington. The Arabs are innocent of everything. However, I believe it is more intelligent, and more realistic, to acknowledge that Arabs in general are, on the one hand, innocent victims of U.S. and Israeli aggression, and, on the other hand, that some of them (for that very reason) want to strike back at the United States by any means possible. Israelis abuse Palestinians with a clear conscience because they have convinced themselves that all Jews are under perpetual threat of a new Holocaust. This chronic fear leads them to commit crimes. We are nearing a state of war of all against all, in which it is absolutely necessary for the sake of survival to keep a cool head and try to understand why people do the terrible things they do, in order to find solutions. The interaction of causal factors is complex, and often may not easily be "comprehended by the general public". But the proper task of honest journalists is to try to guide the public through those complexities.
She also makes some other interesting points, like:
Political attractiveness of the conspiracy theory.
It seems to me, on balance, that the evidence is so weak for this particular conspiracy theory that its popularity calls for a psychological explanation. After attacking those whom he calls "coincidence nuts" (who reject the conspiracy hypothesis) for "moral cowardice", Andreas Kargar makes an interesting comment: "But aside from that moral cowardice, the traditional left has always preferred to deal in the abstract generalities of historical processes and concepts, rather than in tangible specifics like hard evidence that can be comprehended by the general public. Perhaps those are the two reasons for the state of disarray in which they find themselves today."
Now, this is interesting because in this particular case, there is no "hard evidence", but there is a simple story line that "can be comprehended by the general public". The left that deals in "abstract generalities of historical processes and concepts" has indeed lost the attention of the general public (if they ever had it, which is most doubtful). But what are the preferences of that "general public"? Polls indicate that a quite considerable proportion of the American public believe in visits to earth by extraterrestrials. The acceptability of a narrative to the general public should not be a criterion of belief by people who are serious, honest and morally courageous.
Read the whole piece here.
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