-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)
9-11 Memorial.
(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: 9/11 Memorial and Museum) Details Source DMCA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction: This is the second part of a three-part retrospective series of selections from the set of articles that I have published over the years on this topic. The series is being published now, in 2021, in remembrance of that awful day, 9-11-2001, on the three days leading up to that 20th anniversary, Sept. 8, 9, and 10. The original version of the column below was published on the webmagazine of the time, BuzzFlash at Truthout, on Sept. 24, 2010*. It is slightly edited for reproduction in this space. The question of "what is patriotism" was being raised on various sites at the time, especially in the context of a) the BushWars on both Afghanistan and Iraq (continued, of course, too a greater or lesser extent by Pres. Obama), and b) the variety of conspiracy theories that were being bruited about to explain the events of that day. This is, of course, my response to that question and its follow-ups.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The 9/11 remembrances and memorials seem to have come and gone very quickly this year (2010), except to the extent that the GOP/Tea-Party led campaign for Islamophobia had gained strength and will continue on, to what ends and endings no one at this point can say with certainty. But the 9/11 controversy has not gone away, that is, the controversy over what were the real causes of the disaster. It will not, at least, it would appear, until there is another investigation of the tragedy bringing in many more witnesses and testifiers from many different points of view and perspectives with an opportunity to raise so many questions that have yet to be answered and to offer for consideration scientific evidence about cause and effect that was not considered in the first investigation. (See below for a lengthy list of prominent government officials who would support [or would have supported] such an effort.)
What we know for
sure is that the tragedy was caused by a group of conspirators working closely
together, operating at a level of secrecy that few, if any, of their kind had
ever been able to achieve in mounting an attack of such large
proportions. And it was the result of a conspiracy, that is according to
the World English Dictionary, "a secret plan or agreement to carry out an
illegal or harmful act, esp. with political motivation; plot." For a
significant number of observers, the question remains: whose conspiracy
was it and who were the conspirators. At the beginning the finger pointed
at Osama bin Laden. After all, President Bush had been warned by the CIA
on August 5, 2001 that Osama was determined to carry out an attack in the
United States. So, that conspiracy theory goes, bin Laden pulled together
20 Muslims, mainly Saudis, who were willing to die for the cause (whatever that
cause happened to be, a question which still does not have an agreed-to answer).
They then managed to get themselves trained to do some major kinds of complicated
flying in large, complicated airliners. And you know the rest.
As it happens, there are a whole bunch of conspiracy theories about how what
happened happened to happen, and who on fact pulled together, and then pulled
off, the whole thing. Osama bin Laden planned it, financed it, staffed
it, and then managed to manage it from half-way around the world in the mountains
of Afghanistan. The Israelis did it. Bush and Cheney managed it.
Cheney managed it without involving Bush. Some Neocon grouping that no
one has ever heard of, before or since, managed somehow to create the "New
Pearl Harbor" that the Project for the New American Century was already
calling for/hoping for publicly in the 1990s. The Twin Towers were
brought down not by the aircraft that hit them but by explosives pre-planted by
--- well, by you name them. Building 7, not hit at all, came down in a
free-fall caused by, well you name it. Or not. So, it's not really that there's one "set of
facts" and then a bunch of conspiracy theories. In fact, every
possible cause, including that set forth by the 9-11 Commission Report, would
be the result of one conspiracy or another. But somehow, on the
GOP/Tea-Party/Right, stated loudly and clearly during the 9/11 remembrances each
year, and in particular during the Campaign for Islamophobia, anyone who didn't
support the particular Bush/Cheney/9-11 Commission Conspiracy Theory was
"not a patriot." We'll come back to this point.
I published my first columns on the subject of 9/11 on the old "The
Political Junkies.net" on June 3 and 24, 2004. In them I speculated
that the WTC attack would be for the Bush Administration what the "Reichstag
Fire" had been for Hitler and the Nazis. (Those articles are no longer
available on-line. It happens that on the 15th anniversary of
"9-11" I published an article on the relationship between the two events on The
Greanville Post, click here)
Returning to the politics of the time, I noted that in 2001: a) the
Republicans knew that their man didn't really win (except 5-4 in the Supreme
Court), and further, that in terms of the popular vote he was a minority
President (a fact the media have completely ignored); b) their
guy was considered to be a weakling; c.) there was a recession underway;
d) they had lost control of the Congress through the defection to the
Democrats by Sen. Jeffords of Vermont. Since that was the political
reality of the time, none of their programs, from energy/environmental policy (favoring
the petrochemical industry, of course) to more tax-cuts for the wealthy and the
large corporations, and not much else, were going through. So, the Republicans had a major to-do list,
to meet their political and economic needs. It included:
A) In the mind of the public (or at least the Republican public) replacing
a weak chief executive with a strong one, either literally or functionally; B) Finding
an excuse for the recession that was then underway, so that it didn't get
blamed on this Bush and the Republicans, as was the last one (different Bush,
of course); C) Bypassing or having a compliant Congress on measures that
were important to them, since they couldn't possibly win votes on stuff like
invading Afghanistan to secure a route for the oil pipeline from the Caspian to
the Arabian Sea through Pakistan, or securing major, retroactive tax cuts for
the large corporations, or trashing the environment on their own; D) Being able
to ignore the judiciary which, despite their best efforts since the Reagan
years, still had some judges who knew what the Constitution is, e.g., the one
who put a stay on then-Attorney General Ashcroft's repeal-by-decree of the
Oregon law permitting people control over the end of their lives; E) Giving
the President the possibility of presiding over a "permanent war"
against terrorism. Hmm. Some motivations to "do something," no.
So tons of questions about the officially accepted conspiracy theory (the one
from the 9-11 Commission Report) have been raised. I will not go through
all of them here. I will just raise a few of my favorites (none of which
have anything to do with pre-set explosives; the physicists and engineers can
deal very well with those), in no particular order of importance. Why has
there never been an investigation of the Pentagon bombing? What about
that 16 ft. in diameter symmetrical hole in an interior Pentagon wall with no
surrounding wreckage of which there is (or at least was) photographic evidence?
According to the official conspiracy theory it was made by a hollow aluminum
tube that managed to penetrate not just one reinforced Pentagon wall but
two.
What was Bush
thinking for the famous seven minutes that he continued to sit in front of the
class to whom he had been reading a story? Let's see: "Ohmigod, they
never told me being President meant having to deal with this kind of
thing." "Ohmigod, Osama hinted at stuff and we knew it, but he
never let on that he had something like this in mind?"
"Ohmigod, how did Cheney manage this one?" Whatever he
was thinking, why did Bush label it a "terrorist" attack right away,
after the first plane hit, before there was a scrap of real evidence that it
was? Why were various bin Ladens et famille flown out of the
country during the three-day period following the disaster when US airspace was
totally shut down, without being questioned by the FBI? Why were Bush and
Cheney not interviewed separately by the Commission and why were they not
required to testify, singly or as a two-some, not under oath? Why did
Bush oppose the establishment of any Commission so vigorously? Why was
the WTC wreckage removed by the direct order of New York City Mayor Giuliani
before forensic examination of it could occur? N And so on and so forth.
As to folks much more important than I who have raised their own serious
questions about the Commission Report and findings, the list includes (thanks
to Allen Roland, Ph.D., weblog and website and email
of 9/12/10): 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton; 9/11 Commissioner
Timothy Roemer; 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland (who resigned under protest from
the Commission when its scope of inquiry was being limited; 9/11 Commissioner
Bob Kerrey; Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer; Daniel
Ellsberg; 27-year CIA veteran Raymond McGovern (who handled National
Intelligence Estimates); 29-year CIA veteran, former National Intelligence
Officer (NIO) and former Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political
Analysis William Bill Christison; CIA Operations Officer Lynne Larkin;
decorated 20-year CIA veteran Robert Baer; Division Chief of the CIA's Office
of Soviet Affairs Melvin Goodman;, Co-Chair of the Congressional Inquiry into
9/11 and former Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham; Senator
Patrick Leahy; Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich; Republican Congressman
Jason Chafetz; former Democratic Senator Mike Gravel; former
Republican Senator Lincoln Chaffee; former U.S. Democratic Congressman Dan
Hamburg; and former U.S. Republican Congressman and senior member of the House
Armed Services Committee, Curt Weldon. All of the above people have
all raised serious questions about the official conspiracy theory, as have many
other current and former intelligence and law enforcement operatives.
And finally getting to the "patriotism" question. Just what is it, in general. And specifically
in relation to "9-11" and "just what happened, really." Well, there's the GOP/Tea-Party/Right-wing
telling us that anyone who challenges in any way the official Bush/Cheney 9/11
Commission conspiracy theory is not a patriot. Golly gee. According to them, accepting the official
Bush-Cheney-Republican line is "patriotism." Anything else just isn't, donchaknow. Well, in basic terms, patriotism can be defined as love of country and
devotion to its best interests. Would not one think that the patriotic
thing to do is to answer all of the lengthy list of questions presented above?
Hey, maybe the official conspiracy theory is the correct one. But
shouldn't that be proven to just about everyone's satisfaction? Isn't it
unpatriotic not to and let the suspicions fester, on and on? Well, to
this old-fashioned patriot, the answer to that last question is
"yes." And maybe someday there will be some true patriots in
high enough places to get at those answers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* This original version of this column was published on BuzzFlash/Truthout on 09/24/2010, http://blog.buzzflash.com/jonas/204
(Article changed on Sep 09, 2021 at 8:59 PM EDT)
