Why does the UN hire 9/11 conspiracy nuts????

Israel has finally said no to Falk, and is not allowing him in the country...

Millions of Americans believe the Sept. 11 attacks were not the work of Muslim fundamentalists. They like to call the strikes "false flag" operations - a conspiracy planned and executed by the Bush administration. Why? Under this unusual theory, the attacks provided President Bush and his aides the pretext to launch international wars and to enact policies that "led to widespread denials of rights under the pretext of homeland security."

So writes Richard Falk, a professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University - and also a special representative of the U.N. Human Rights Council, who is charged with investigating Israeli abuses against the Palestinians.

Anything believed by millions of Americans, according to (perhaps suspect) public opinion surveys, can hardly be called an underground movement. But I, for one, had never heard of this until a row broke out last month between Falk and U.N. monitors who try to defend Israel.

What does this have to do with Israel and the Palestinians? Nothing, really - except that the U.N. monitors who already view Falk with grave distrust are now throwing up his advocacy of the 9/11 conspiracy theory as further evidence that he is not qualified to serve as an important U.N. envoy. (The Islamic nations chose Falk for the position early this year in large part because he once compared Israel to Nazi Germany.)

Of course, Falk's supporters on the council - Egypt, Pakistan and other members of the Islamic conference - are not bothered by any of this. That should be no surprise. If the Bush administration actually perpetrated the Sept. 11 attacks, then the world's distrust of Islam would be largely unfounded.