Could the U.S. government and all its agencies have been incompetent enough that 19 terrorists were able to hijack four planes, penetrate the air defense systems and hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001? As a Hollywood movie script it seems improbable.
In fact books, videos and websites are devoted to proving that the disasters, resulting in the death of almost 3,000 people, could not have occurred as the official story recounts. The sleuthing has led to alternative theories that have been embraced both by rightwing bloggers and by people who consider themselves radical.
The temptation for seeing 9/11 as a plot carried out by the Bush administration is the fact that the event did create a sense of terror that provided a rationale for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Neoconservatives connected to the Project for a New American Century had previously talked about the need for “a new Pearl Harbor” in order to allow them to move ahead with their plans to military dominance in the Middle East and South Asia. It certainly provided the platform for passage of the PATRIOT Act, which curtailed the democratic rights of Americans. Congress was stampeded into approving a bill that probably no legislator had time to read, let alone debate.But as every reader of mystery stories knows, it isn’t enough to establish a motive.
Most conspiracy theorists point to many anomalies in the official story. They attempt to “prove” that the planes that hit the Twin Towers were actually military planes. They refute the official story that the Twin Towers collapsed from fire damage, claiming that hydrocarbon fires aren’t hot enough to cause a steel building to collapse. They assert that the World Trade Center’s building number six seemed to have been blown up from the inside, presumably by explosives. Building number seven, not hit by a plane or debris, had only small fires on a couple of its floors, yet it also collapsed--they claim that it was a controlled demolition. They examine photographs, quote witnesses, and point out that one of the flight school trainers thought the alleged Saudi terrorist who flew Flight 77 was completely incompetent. As for the Pentagon, theorists suspect it was actually hit by a small drone or missile. They cite a number of “coincidences”--one is that “put options” on American and United Airlines just before 9/11 reveal that someone was betting that the stock prices would fall precipitously.
But all these “facts” don’t so much add up to a case as deepen the mystery.
Such a plot would have involved at least dozens of operators targeting the centers of U.S. finance, trade and the military, yet the government’s own account didn’t even try to connect Saddam Hussein to the crime--and it was Iraq, not Afghanistan, that was the administration’s obsession. Until 9/11 they thought they could deal with the Taliban.
Almost a decade after the American 9/11, no one has “spilled the beans” on what, if one believes the conspiracy theorists, had to have been a massive conspiracy perpetrated by the Bush administration. As someone who was initially inclined to believe that Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy, I followed all of the ins and outs of the case, reading articles and books, and attending lectures. While I could agree with the theorists that the commission set up to investigate had not followed covered all the evidence satisfactorily, I was never able to conclude that one section of the government or one disgruntled group had organized to bring Kennedy down for one motive or another.
In the late 1960s I got to know Vincent Hallinan, a San Francisco lawyer who defended many accused and actual murderers. He had a long radical history, including running for U.S. president in 1952 on the Progressive Party ticket (an independent party). One day I mentioned the Kennedy assassination and he pointed out to me that not one single person had confessed their part in the killing. He also had pondered the case, but concluded that if after a period of years no one came forth, it probably wasn’t a conspiracy.
Other conspiracies have fallen apart over the years, most importantly the Reagan administration’s contra scam. Government incompetence has also been revealed, particularly in the case of Katrina, where the federal agency in charge of relief was totally unprepared for the disaster. And government “secrets” have been revealed, whether we are talking about the discussion last year about General Motors moving its headquarters out of Detroit--the Obama administration vetoed that idea--or the Bush and Obama administrations’ discussion about how to handle the bank bailouts.
However concluding that the various conspiracy theories can’t pass the test of reality, one certainly doesn’t have to “accept” the 9/11 Commission Report. It failed to investigate many roads and did not challenge the administration’s arrogance in refusing to answer questions.
The Commission didn’t have a mandate to pursue the most likely real “9/11 coverup” of how much information the U.S. intelligence forces had and overlooked, and how much was known to Middle Eastern intelligence services, Israeli and Arab, that was not passed to the United States or most likely wasn’t properly handled. The most explosive truth might be simply how preventable the 9/11 attacks might have been.
Clearly the Bush administration benefited from the 9/11 attack in that it gave them a crusade, an unending “war on terror”. Listening last night to an interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, I was struck by how hard he was on the need to pursue this war. He does not apologize for the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, but urges “the West” onward. Similarly President Obama’s August 30th speech on the “withdrawal of all combat troops” while 50,000 more U.S. troops remain was a justification for the invasion. Commentators were a bit taken back by how Obama announced that U.S. liberals and the right could unite on how wonderful U.S. soldiers had performed, even finding praise for Bush! For Obama the past is past and there is certainly going to be no talk of holding the previous administration accountable for its war crimes. And I imagine he is trusting that a future administration will not hold him accountable either!
The one thread still left hanging as the war in Afghanistan continues, as U.S. soldiers occupy almost 100 bases in Iraq, as drones attack Pakistan’s border regions, and as air strikes expand over Yemen is whether the Bush administration had some reason to suspect a possible attack and saw it as a unique opportunity to turn it to its own advantage.
As we approach the 9th anniversary of the 2001 attacks, it is amazing to see how right-wing politicians have attempted to capture media attention with their hollow denunciation of an Islamic center being set up blocks from ground zero, and how weak the liberal response to that outrageous behavior has been.
Readers wishing to take a look at a broad coalition of forces opposing xenophobic and anti-Muslim forces that are against the building of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee will find an interesting report at http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/2954.
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Dianne Feeley is a retired autoworker who lives in Detroit. She is an editor of Against the Current (www.solidarity-us.org/atc/). She can be reached at: |
