Prophet or Charlatan?

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To many interpreter's, the Centuries of Nostradamus are rife with prophesies of the violent and savage events of our own day - from the rise of Hitler to the assassinations of both President John.F. Kennedy and his younger brother, Robert. The supposed references to the third Reich were so widely believed in Germany, in fact that both England and the Nazis created counterfeit quatrains favorable to their side and dropped from planes as tools of propaganda. On the other hand, one of the authentic quatrains struck many as prefiguring the war itself: "Living fire and death hidden in globes will be loosed, horrible, terrible; by night enemy forces will reduce the city to powder"A flurry of renewed interest in the Renaissance seer came because of the climatic events in Iran when the ruling shah was forced off Peacock Throne by a populace devoted Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been exiled to France. According to one translation, Nostradamus had written: "Rain, famine, and war will not cease in Persia; too great a faith will betray the monarch. Those{actions} started in France will end there, a secret sign for one to be sparing." An accurate prediction or tortured interpretation?For the early 19th century, it seemed that Nostradamus had predicted that Napoleon would successfully invade England and rule Britannia long and serenely. In fact, of course, he died a prisoner of the victorious British. Controversial Celebrity One of France's greatest poets, Pierre de Ronsard, wrote: "Like an ancient oracle, he has for many years predicted the greatest part of our destiny" Clearly, the prophet delighted in the respect paid by royalty and the fame that continued to grow until his death in 1556. Inevitably, many remained highly skeptical of his work or, worse, considerate him nothing but a clever charlatan, preying on the credulous. Nostradamus also predicted the manner of his own death: "Close to the bench and bed will I be found dead." After announcing one evening that he would not survive the night, he succumbed to goat and was discovered dead the next morning alone in his bedroom, near his writing desk. Did Nostradamus Predict the 9/11 Attacks?"In the City of God there will be a great thunder,Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb",The third big war will begin when the big city is burning" - Nostradamus 1654 Nostradamus didn't write the passage. He died in 1566, nearly a hundred years before the date of attribution. The quatrain in question is nowhere to be found. Can it be that a Nostradamus -like passage can be so cryptically composed as to lend itself to myriad interpretations?