Wag the Scholar

Hired by the University of Wisconsin to teach “Islam: Religion and Culture,” this fall at the Madison campus, Kevin Barrett believes that the 9/11 attacks on America were planned and executed by the U.S. government and not the work of terrorists. Barrett co-founded Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth.

Barrett’s views have caused a divide in Wisconsin. Barrett and university officials have stated that Barrett’s personal views will not be discussed or taught in the class. Supporters of Barrett argue that he has the right to academic freedom. Some state legislatures called for the university to fire Barrett immediately. So which side is right?

In the introduction to the organization’s website, Barrett calls the events of September 11th, the “9/11 Big Lie.”

“From a Muslim perspective, it hardly seems worthwhile to engage in dialogue with non-Muslims who believe that 9/11 was an act of ‘Islamic terrorism,’ Bates is a convert to Islam. He goes on to say, “Either we discuss the compelling evidence that 9/11 was an inside job, or there is precious little to talk about.”

“If non-Muslims persist in allowing the 9/11 Big Lie to stand, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, Muslims will be tempted to find something other than words with which to defend themselves.” He goes on to say, “In a future without 9/11 truth, ‘Islamic terrorism’ may well become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Barrett states the 9/11 attacks were “designed by non-religious, Machiavellian-Straussian cynics who believe that hatred and hostility are what move the world,” and that “For them, it was just a minor special effects extravaganza, put together by Hollywood specialists to manipulate audience emotion and pave the way for war—a slightly more realistic version of Wag the Dog.”

The movie Wag The Dog (1997), released during President Clinton’s tumultuous second term, told the story of a political consultant who tried to distract attention from a presidential scandal by manufacturing a war in Albania. The movie capitalized on the bombing raids ordered as in the wake of inquiries into the exact nature of President Clinton’s relationship to White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Barrett asks if “the architects of 9/11 really think they could tell the whole world what they were going to do—in Brezhinsky’s The Grand Chessboard and PNAC’s Rebuilding America’s Defenses—pretend to train the ‘hijackers’ at phony CIA-drug-mob ‘flight schools,’ set off explosions in the WTC right in front of dozens of witnesses who would survive to tell the tale, confess on national television to demolishing WTC-7, have the Secret Service leave Bush dallying in a known location for an hour during an alleged surprise attack, prevent the Air Force from intercepting the attack planes, and then give three equally absurd, utterly contradictory stories explaining that ‘failure’?”

“Non-religious folks may react to all this with an uneasily cynical chuckle,” Barrett remarks later. “But religious people—and by this I mean people capable of experiencing religious feelings, regardless of their attachment to a particular tradition—can only feel awe and amazement at the grand eloquent shoddiness of the performance, and at the historical situation it leaves us in.”

Matthew Murphy is an intern at Accuracy In Academia.