Word: meyssan
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Move over, Fox Mulder. Here comes Thierry Meyssan. Like the unrelenting FBI hero of the popular X-Files TV series, Meyssan is a player in the conspiracy business. But in contrast to the fictional Mulder's quest for the truth about extraterrestrials, Meyssan's campaign has attracted audiences with a singularly despicable suggestion: that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 were carried out by U.S. government officials as part of a murderous economic and military plot...
...support his theory, Meyssan plays up factual oddities or gray areas surrounding the attacks - a skeptical focus facilitated by secrecy rules imposed in the ongoing investigations. He notes that no film footage of the Pentagon explosion exists and regards eyewitness testimony of the crash as suspicious, contradictory or flatly incredible. He similarly argues that the photos offer no evidence of the debris typical of an airplane crash (discounting expert explanations that the extreme violence of the impact and heat of the explosion caused virtual atomization of the jet), and says the area of destruction to the Pentagon is impossibly small...
...Meyssan's theories on the New York City attacks are even more counterintuitive. He cites unnamed "professional pilots" who claim the World Trade Center strikes could not have been carried out by neophyte fliers. Meyssan then recounts testimony from similarly unidentified New York amateur radio operators, who say they picked up the signals of navigational beacons within the towers guiding the planes to their targets. Using tones of stony authority fused with acidic mockery, Meyssan casts the events of Sept. 11 and those that followed as the work of a virtual shadow junta within the U.S. government that has masterfully...
...terminally serious Meyssan, 44, launched the book on one of France's flashiest, trashiest talk shows, and he followed up with a string of controversy-churning TV appearances that further piqued public curiosity. The print press denounced the volume in turn - Libération retitled it The Horrible Swindle - but that too helped fuel purchases. The book now has the distinction of breaking the French publishing record for first-month sales previously held by Madonna...
Given the dogged manner in which his quirky association Réseau Voltaire defends free thought and speech from a host of nefarious threats, Meyssan's unconventional speculation on 9/11 isn't entirely novel. More surprising was the rush of French readers, who had so earnestly commiserated with a wounded America, to get a copy of the tract. French observers say the book's fascination has more to do with the sheer entertainment value of spooky, over-the-top conspiracy scenarios than it does with any blossoming of anti-American paranoia in France. The publisher, Carnot, plans to release...