The conspiracy theory that wouldn't die

Ultimately, it may be impossible to know who is telling the truth about what happened in the July meetings. There were at least five other diplomats in Berlin, but they've all stayed silent. Attempts to contact them, through the U.N. and other means, have failed. Unless there is some kind of formal investigation, which Brisard and Dasquie call for in one of their revised paragraphs, the silent players will likely stay out of the fray. The battle between the Naik defenders and debunkers seems destined to continue.

Certainly the casual nature of the U.N. talks provides some fodder for those who've argued that the Bush administration failed to reckon adequately with Afghanistan and al-Qaida before Sept. 11. The country was harboring bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, and yet the second-tier nature of the discussion participants -- self-described "retired old farts" who may or may not have gotten a little "mischievous" after a few drinks -- would seem to show that Afghanistan wasn't a front-burner issue for the Bush administration. (Last week's Time magazine story about how Bush passed up Clinton administration plans to take out bin Laden last year provides more evidence of that). Hindsight certainly indicates that it should have been a much higher priority.

But the left-wing conspiracy theories about the Berlin meeting at this point don't stand up under scrutiny. Most damning of that view is the fact that even Naik says the oil-and-gas pipeline -- the supposed motive for the Bush administration's renewed interest in the country -- never came up. Certainly there's plenty of reason to charge that Bush is beholden to big business, particularly big oil. And in many areas of policy, from energy to global warming, critics have more than enough evidence to prove their case. Not so with Afghanistan in the months before Sept. 11. The facts point to quite the opposite -- an acknowledgement by everyone involved that a pipeline through Afghanistan was a dead issue. There was never enough oil in the Caspian region to make it work, some observers say. Others, like Rashid, insist there was too much chaos to justify the installation of a pipeline that would be vulnerable to attack.

Conspiracy theorists may be heartened by the fact that in May, the government of Hamid Karzai inked a deal with the governments of Pakistan and Turkmenistan to build a pipeline between those two countries through Afghanistan. But as Ken Silverstein points out in the American Prospect, no company is clamoring for the right to build it, given the instability of the region as well as changes in the regional oil market.

And while it's possible that Naik is sincere, and that he heard talk of reprisals for the Cole bombing that he took as a military threat to the Taliban, it's still a huge leap to say that Sept. 11 was a preemptive strike triggered by such threats. Although Brisard has tried to soften that allegation, first in an interview with Salon, andthen in the revised English edition of "Forbidden Truth" -- his earlier assertion that the attacks were not just tragic but also "foreseeable" in light of the diplomats' alleged threats is the one that's gained widest circulation. Yet it fails to stand up under examination. Government officials have too much evidence showing that the Sept. 11 plot had been hatched and put in place before Naik and the other diplomats began meeting in Berlin. Vague threats from retired Track 2 diplomats, passed on through a Pakistani intermediary, wouldn't likely inspire such a colossal response, anyway. The fact that this theory hinges on only Naik's story, and a booze-related loophole left open by Simons, casts further doubt on its veracity.

It's possible the American diplomats are lying, of course. But for now no one has marshaled sufficient evidence to justify doubting their word. The "forbidden truth" about Bush, bin Laden and Afghanistan appears to be more obvious than conspiracy theorists claim: inattention to the Taliban-al-Qaida menace, not calculated threats, led to Sept. 11. This point alone should be enough to inspire outrage. But some on the left, like many on the right, seem unable to accept it.

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