on the topic of WTC Demo

 A legitimate point of view?  Hardly.  I know, he says "even in the official account", but still, my LIHOP spider sense tingles when I read any kind of validation of the blowback theory that makes it seem like, duh--of course arab muslims did it--they have EVERY REASON to hate America.  That's a classic non-sequitur, not a legitimate POV, Dr. Roberts!

Elements of the American left-wing are also frustrated by 9/11 doubters. CounterPunch, for example, views 9/11 as blowback from an immoral US foreign policy and as retribution for America’s past sins in the Middle East. Manuel Garcia shares this viewpoint. In the September 12, 2007, CounterPunch, Garcia writes that "rationalists and realists" are people who see 9/11 "as blowback from decades of inhuman US foreign policy." Viewing 9/11 as a government conspiracy, whether in deed or coverup, lets US foreign policy off the hook.

This is a legitimate point of view.  But it has a downside.  September 11 was the excuse for committing yet more inhuman deeds by initiating open-ended wars on both Muslims and US civil liberties.  Defending the government’s account, instead of pressing the government for accountability, was liberating for the Bush administration.

Even in the official account, the story is one of massive failures: the failures of US intelligence services, the failures of airport security, the failures to intercept the hijacked airliners, the failures to preserve evidence.  If a common front had taken the Bush administration to task both for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks and for an explanation of 9/11 so inadequate that its plausibility depends on outside experts, Bush could not have so easily shifted the blame to Afghanistan and Iraq.  Most 9/11 doubters do not insist on the US government’s complicity in the deed.  Failure to protect, or incompetence, is a sufficient charge to deter an administration from war by turning it against itself with demands for accountability.