Thierry Meyssan

Thierry Meyssan

Thierry Meyssan (born 18 May 1957 in Talence, Gironde) is a French journalist and political activist.

He is the author of investigations into the extreme right wing (particularly about the National Front Militias, which are the object of a parliamentary investigation and caused a separation of the extreme right wing party), as well as into the Catholic Church (Opus Dei, for example). Openly gay himself,^[1][2] he has also been an activist against anti-homosexual discrimination.

Meyssan is best known for his controversial book 9/11: The Big Lie (L'Effroyable imposture), in which he presents evidence challenging the official account of events of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Career

In 1994, Meyssan became a staff member of the Parti Radical de Gauche, a center-left political organization, and he participates in the campaign of Bernard Tapie (1994 European elections) and Christiane Taubira (2002 presidential elections).

In 1994, he founded Voltaire Network and also created Project Ornicar, associations promoting freedom of expression and thinking, of which he is currently president.

From 1996 to 1999, he worked as substitute coordinator of the National Committee of Surveillance against the extreme right, which held weekly meetings with the 45 major political parties, unions and associations belonging to the French left wing in order to draw up a common response to escalating intolerance.

Between 1999 and 2002, Meyssan replaced Emma Bonino in the leading post of the Anti-prohibitionist Radical Coordination, an international organization aiming to decriminalize drug use as a means to cut organized crime's main source of income.

Publication of The Big Lie

In 2002, he published the controversial work on the September 11 terrorist attacks—9/11: The Big Lie—in which Meyssan argues that such attacks were organized by a faction of what he calls "the US military industrial complex" in order to impose a military regime. The book was translated into 28 languages[1];it was followed by Le Pentagate, a book arguing that the attack against the Pentagon was not carried out by a commercial airliner but a missile.

The central thesis of Le Pentagate, that a Boeing 757 did not hit The Pentagon, has been heavily criticised by other prominent 9/11 conspiracists such as Jim Hoffman.^[3][4][5]

He started a campaign at the United Nations to initiate an international investigation commission to revisit the general consensus regarding the 9/11 attacks, but he was not able to reach his objective. There was little support, except from the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Reaction by the United States Government

According to statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security in June 2005, more than 3,000 works have been published around the world in favor of or against the thesis stated by Thierry Meyssan. In July 2005, the US State Department published a document alleging Meyssan and his Voltaire Network to be "major sources of anti-American misinformation." The US State Department has allegedly declared him a persona non grata in the United States.^{[citation needed]}

Later Activities

Some believe that by taking advantage of his large participation in the world media, he stigmatizes the ideas of Leo Strauss, Bernard Lewis and Samuel Huntington (the “clash of civilizations”) and instead he calls for unity beyond philosophic and religious divisions in order to resist what he calls “the US global supremacy project”.

In November 2005, Thierry Meyssan presided over the Axis for Peace 2005 Colloquium, which gathered over 130 participants from 37 nations in order to discuss the international situation and call a people’s mobilization in favour of international law and world peace and against the neoconservative trend.^{[citation needed]}

Other areas of research

Meyssan also believes the Beslan massacre was thought out and perpetrated by the CIA, through the terrorist leader Shamil Basayev, who Meyssan insists was a CIA strawman. The purpose of the massacre in Beslan had been, claims Meyssan, an attempt by the USA to gain control of the resources of the Caspian Sea.^[6]

Works

• La Protection des homosexuels dans le droit européen de Collectif, Projet Ornicar éd. (Paris), 1993, (ISBN 2-910209-00-8).
• L'Intégration des transsexuels de Collectif, Projet Ornicar éd. (Paris), 1993, (ISBN 2-910209-01-6).
• Charles Millon, le porte-glaive de Collectif, Golias (Lyon), 1999, (ISBN 2911453395).
• L'Énigme Pasqua, Golias (Lyon), 2000, (ISBN 2911453883).
• Terrorisme en soutane : Jean-Paul II contre l'IVG par le Réseau Voltaire pour la liberté d'expression, L'Esprit frappeur (Paris), 2000, (ISBN 2844051413).
• 9/11 The Big Lie, Carnot Publishing (London), 2002, ISBN 1-59209-026-5.
• Pentagate, USA Books (New York), 2002, ISBN 1-59209-028-1.
• Os Senhores da Guerra, Frenesi (Lisboa), 2002, ISBN 972-8351-67-4.
• Foreword (with Jean Ziegler), Le Cartel Bush, Timéli (Genève), 2004, ISBN 2-940342-05-9.
• Politicamente Incorrecto, with Noam Chomsky, postface by Fidel Castro, Ciencias sociales (Cuba), 2004, ISBN 959-06-0640-7.
• Foreword (with José Saramago), El Neron del siglo XXI, Apostrofe (Madrid), 2004, ISBN 84-455-0258-1.
• L'Effroyable imposture 1 & Le Pentagate, Nouvelle édition annotée, Demi-lune (Paris), 2007 (ISBN 978-2-952557-16-0)
• L'Effroyable imposture 2. Manipulations et désinformation, Editions Alphée-Jean-Paul Bertrand (Paris), 2007 (ISBN 9782753802391).

References

• Henley, Jon (2002). "US invented air attack on Pentagon, claims French book". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,677112,00.html. Retrieved 2006-03-01. 
• Presentation by Thierry Meyssan under the auspices of the Arab League, Zayed Center, April 8, 2002.
• French author calls for probe into September 11 attacks, Khaleej Times, April 9, 2002.
• James S. Robbins 9/11 Denial. The French bestseller and its company, National Review, April 9, 2002.
• Thierry Meyssan, The "Clash of Civilizations", Voltaire Network, June 4, 2004.
• Did a Plane Hit the Pentagon? French Conspiracy Theorist Claims It Did Not, U.S. Departement of State, June 28, 2005.

External links

• Voltaire Network Official Web Site
• Axis for Peace, Official Web Site
• snopes.com
• Pentagon missile hoax
• The Pentagon No-757-Crash Theory Booby Trap for 9/11 Skeptics