flag terrorism. It looks to me like, you
know, not only 911, but also uh Madrid
77, the Bali hotel bombing, and probably
uh most of these so-called Darkawi style
uh bombings in Iraq are all false flag
operations being carried out by, you
know, a special wing of uh probably US
or Western military intelligence. That
was University of Wisconsin professor
Kevin Barrett who has recently drawn
criticism for plans to teach an Islamic
studies course next fall that will
incorporate conspiracy theories that the
US government was involved in the events
of September 11th. Professor Barretts
joins us now. Professor, can you give us
the context within which you teach this?
Well, yeah, sure. I'm teaching an
introductory course on Islam and I think
it's really important uh to cover these
contemporary political issues and one of
them is of course the so-called war on
terror. Now the fact is that the great
majority of the world's Muslims believe
that 9/11 was an inside job. That's your
opinion, right? You're offering your
opinion that there was an inside job. Uh
well after studying the evidence pretty
intensively for uh two and a half years,
I am convinced that 911 was in fact an
inside job. Are students required to
regurgitate that in a in some way in
order to do well in your class? That's
ridiculous. No, I I don't I'm not
interested in making students
regurgitate anything. I'm interested in
training people how to use critical
thinking skills to look at the evidence
any in any area and come to their own
conclusions. Is this required to be able
to do that? Uh no, it's not. So, this is
basically an elective class. How much of
how much of the time is spent focusing
on who caused 9/11? Uh only about one
week. We're looking at the war and
terror for one week. And in fact, it's
not focusing on who caused it. It's
looking at the uh main interpretations
of 9/11. And uh there are really several
different ways of looking at 9/11. And
one of them, of course, is the standard
American story of the war on terror that
changed everything. It set us at war. Uh
it took rolled back our civil liberties.
It doubled our military. All those
things have been planned before 911.
Every one of those things put in place
before 91. objectively put forth that
view as well as the view of how you
perceive Muslims viewing us. Are they
presented in a fair and balanced manner?
Of course, in the classroom, I always
present things in a fair and balanced
manner. Outside the classroom, when I'm
an activist or a satist, uh, I'll tell
it like it is. Inside the classroom,
I'll present all of the defensible
interpretations and let the students uh,
use their own critical reasoning skills
to come to their own conclusions. All
right, Mr. Barrett, Sean Hannity here.
Do you really believe that 9/11 was an
inside job? Not just 9/11, but Madrid
and Bali and the Zakawi operation. I'm
hang on a second. Do you believe
personally that these are inside jobs?
Yes or no? Uh, it's not quite that
simple. I'm I do know I don't believe I
know that 911 was an inside job.
Professor Steven Jones has found residue
of the on steel samples from the World
Trade Center. We now know that it was
taken down in a control demolition. All
right. So, you believe that the
buildings came down in a controlled
demolition, right? Well, I don't believe
it. I've looked at the evidence. The
evidence is overwhelming. All right. The
evidence is overwhelming to you because
you're a conspiracy nut. But, you know,
I ask your viewers to take a look at
this evidence for themselves. They can
go to uh
st911.org.org. That's for 911 truth.
Take a look. Take a look at the at the
demolitions. Morgan Reynolds, a former
Bush administration official, says
here's the quote. The Bush
administration blew the World Trade
Center to kingdom come. That's a direct
quote from a member of the Bush
administration itself. They said that
the Jews were told to leave. We've heard
a lot of these sick bizarre theories and
I don't believe any of them, but you're
allowed to believe what you want, but
that's not what's at hand here. The
issue is whether or not you with your
bizarre theories are the best. I think
you have the bizarre. You think it was
19 guys with box cutters led by a guy on
diialysis in a cave in Afghan in
Afghanistan? That's ridiculous. I mean,
that's the craziest conspiracy theory of
all of them. Mhm. Okay. I wish I had the
Twilight Zone music. Now, here's my next
question. The issue that is at hand
here, you're entitled to have your
opinion. I don't really care what you
believe, but if we're talking about a
captive group of students in a
classroom, the question we got to ask,
Hang on a second. Well, they're they're
sitting in your classroom and and you
have a position of authority. I'm I'm
wondering it's what the question is
whether or not you're the most competent
to teach them. And most people think
you're a nut. Most people think you're
more than We just uh had a poll here in
Madison and we found that 90% of the
respondents of Channel 3000 poll uh said
that I should be allowed to teach. Only
10% said I
should agreed with me about the
questions I'm raising about 911. 60% of
the respondents I think to speak. I
don't think this is the proper forum
though for people that hold extremist
views like yourself. Reasonable you guys
are extremist views as the biggest bunch
of extremists on the planet. But
reasonable people see you as an
extremist and I don't think you're the
most appropriate guy to teach that
class. My but my guess I don't think
you're the most appropriate guy to be on
the airways spewing your venom
throughout this country. I think you
guys should be taken off the
airwaves. We don't want to silence
anybody. You teach. Thank you,
professor. You're coming up. We'll have
a we'll