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Fidel, You Got the Wrong Conspiracy

beat the devil

By Alexander Cockburn

This article appeared in the October 8, 2007 edition of The Nation.

September 20, 2007

I never thought there'd come a time when, even for a moment, I'd trust Fidel Castro less than a chairman of the Federal Reserve. But it's happened. Fidel turns out to be a 9/11 conspiracist, while former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan says the US attack on Iraq was "largely about oil." Win a few, lose a few.

These days, instead of charging around Cuba, Fidel is resting up and writing columns or, given his style, dictating them. On the anniversary of 9/11 he served up a 4,256-worder. Maximum leaders scoff at the editor's blue pencil. The whole slab of drivel was read out by a Cuban television presenter.

It turns out Castro's joined at the hip with David Ray Griffin. Castro says the Pentagon was hit by a rocket, not a plane, because no traces were found of its passengers. "Only a projectile could have created the geometrically round orifice created by the alleged airplane," according to Fidel. "We were deceived as well as the rest of the planet's inhabitants." All nonsense, of course. They found remains of the passengers who were on the plane that hit the Pentagon--teeth and other bits traced through DNA. In fact, as I've written before, hundreds of people saw the plane, people who know the difference between a plane and a cruise missile. The wreckage of the plane was hauled out from the site.

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About Alexander Cockburn

Alexander Cockburn has been The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist since 1984. He is the author or co-author of several books, including the best-selling collection of essays Corruptions of Empire (1987), and a contributor to many publications, from The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal to alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. With Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch, which have a substantial world audience. more...
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