06/28/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-09973

THE HORRIFYING LIE

The September 11^th attacks on the United States were conceived and carried out by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, al-Qaida. In videotapes broadcast by the Arab satellite television station Al-Jazeera, bin Laden clearly confirms his responsibility for the attacks. Yet, in France, where support for the war on terrorism has been consistently strong, a book is perpetrating monstrous lies about that day.

The book is entitled "The Horrifying Fraud." The author, Thierry Meyssan, claims that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were a conspiracy organized by unnamed officials in the U.S. government who wanted to go to war against Afghanistan and Iraq. Victoria Clarke, the spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Defense, termed this claim "much worse than insulting." This book is much worse than insulting to the nearly three-thousand people from more than eighty nations who died that day.

"The Horrifying Fraud" has been universally ridiculed by the French media. Edwy Plenel, editor of the daily newspaper Le Monde, wrote, "It is very grave to encourage the idea that something which is real is in fact fictional." The book’s false claims have been dismantled one by one in a new book written by two French journalists. In their book, called "The Horrifying Lie," the journalists point out that the author of "The Horrifying Fraud" did not even travel to the U.S. to interview any witnesses. The two journalists, however, did visit the U.S., where they spoke with witnesses to the tragedy. "The Horrifying Lie" demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that Thierry Meyssan's theories are fraudulent.

Conspiracy theorists often believe the unbelievable. But for anyone interested in the truth, the guilt of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida was established beyond doubt by bin Laden's video tapes. In one tape, bin Laden gloated over the deaths of nearly three thousand in the World Trade Center. "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed, based on the position of the tower," said bin Laden. "[The result] is all that we had hoped for." One tape includes threats against the U.S. by Ahmed Ibrahim Alhaznawi (al-has-NOW-ee), one of the four hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania when passengers rushed the terrorists.

Those who seek the truth about September 11^th need go no further than Osama bin Laden himself. Bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorists are guilty of appalling cruelty and mass murder.