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Seven years later, it remains conventional wisdom here that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda could not have been solely responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that the United States and Israel had to have been involved in their planning, if not their execution, too.

This is not the conclusion of a scientific survey, but it is what routinely comes up in conversations around the region -- in a shopping mall in Dubai, in a park in Algiers, in a café in Riyadh and all over Cairo.

"Look, I don't believe what your governments and press say. It just can't be true," said Ahmed Issab, 26, a Syrian engineer who lives and works in the United Arab Emirates. "Why would they tell the truth? I think the U.S. organized this so that they had an excuse to invade Iraq for the oil."

I also don't believe what our government and press say. First off, the government lies alot about their intentions and what they're doing and what they have done and why. The government is made up of politicians, and another conventional wisdom is that all politicians are liars. Just look at Palin with her Bridge to Nowhere thing, Larry Craig and his "wide stance," Clinton and his "I didn't inhale," and Cheney on just about everything. As for the press, they're too stupid and too busy kissing ass to do more than repeat what they're told to repeat. Lots of countries have dictators. We decided to go after the one sitting on an oil field. I can see how someone might possibly think the two are related.

The rumors that spread shortly after 9/11 have been passed on so often that people no longer know where or when they first heard them. At this point, they have heard them so often, even on television, that they think they must be true.

First among these is that Jews did not go to work at the World Trade Center on that day. Asked how Jews might have been notified to stay home, or how they kept it a secret from co-workers, people here wave off the questions because they clash with their bedrock conviction that Jews are behind many of their troubles and that Western Jews will go to any length to protect Israel.

"The Jews" being in on it and not going to work on the 11th is out there, even for me. But i remember exactly where i heard the rumor about our govt being involved in the attack - it was in my brain on the day of the attack. The only reason i don't completely believe it is because after 8 years of these bumblefucks, i can't believe that they're smart enough to have hatched such a plot. They're just too incompetent. It seems more likely they got lucky and seized on a opportunity. Manipulation they can do. Disinformation they can do. Pre-planning, not so much.

That these rumors might hold sway in the Arab world is a very telling example of just how badly our government has completely failed on the international front. Remember all the sympathy we got initially? Thanks to our policies and the quick shift to go into Iraq (which had nothing to do with the WTC attacks), we've turned the goodwill that could have been ours for the asking into suspicion.

Mebbe where there's smoke, there isn't always fire. Mebbe sometimes people add 2 and 2 and get 5. But it should have been obvious how the government's actions would be construed by people who didn't really love us to start but were willing to feel bad for us in light of the tragedy we experienced. The real tragedy is it wasn't obvious to more than 50% of the voting population 4 years ago when they had a chance to undo the mistake they made in the first place by electing Bush and Co.