Views on 9/11 and “the War on Terror” – Part 1: An Overview August 15, 2006
Posted by Joshua in Uncategorized.trackback
I have referred to the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the War on Terror a number of times in my last few posts. Thus far I have made reference to 9/11 and terrorism mainly as they may pertain to current events, statements and/or attitudes within the media and government. I plan to continue to do this of course in the interest of shedding light on the deceptive and distracting jingoistic propaganda and scaremongering coming from our media and leaders. That said, there is just so much to say about the issues and views surrounding 9/11 and the War on Terror, I feel I should attempt to give an overview of the differing views of the events of 9/11, the actions following 9/11, and what all of this has meant for the world and what it might mean for the future.
Scholar David Ray Griffin has nicely boiled down the major 9/11 theories into four interpretations of what happened on that day and why. I will share them here in my own words.
The first interpretation is the acceptance of the official government story (which, yes, can also be called a theory) that, in a surprise attack, 19 men, in conjunction with the terrorist group Al Qaeda, boarded four airplanes and, after hijacking them and taking over the cockpits, flew two of them in the two towers of the World Trade Center, flew the third into the Pentagon, and were forced to crash the fourth plane in a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers allegedly decided to rush the cockpit to take back the airplane.
The second interpretation is also an acceptance of the official gov’t story of a complete surprise attack, but is also a belief that the attacks were immediately exploited by the Bush administration and used as an excuse to carry out previously laid plans (i.e. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq) and expand executive power.
The third interpretation goes much further as a theory that high-ranking elements* of the United States gov’t knew the attacks were coming beforehand and simply let them happen anyway – if not helped them to happen by standing down security.
The fourth interpretation pushes the idea of leaders wanting attacks for exploitation purposes to its furthest conclusion in its full assertion that elements* of the U.S. gov’t not only knew attacks were coming, but actually fully orchestrated and caused the attacks to happen.
Currently I float back and forth in the land between the third and fourth interpretation (I will discuss why in part 2). I realize the third and fourth interpretations may seem quite preposterous particularly without listing reasons for such theories. I assure you, though, there is a great deal of compelling information and independent investigation on this, much of it quite convincing to an open mind. I have alluded to some of this information in the past and I will continue to share more in limited amounts as it seems appropriate. I have felt it more important, though – as far as this blog is concerned – to focus more on the harmful actions and propaganda perpetuated since and directly because of 9/11. It really should be clear to everyone, regardless of what really happened on 9/11, the Bush administration (and other administrations around the world) have used the attacks consistently to justify expanding the size and power of the government and have exaggerated the new “threat” from terror for political gain and to achieve what I believe are ulterior agendas.
It should be noted, though, that this concern of ever-growing abuse of power under the guise of “fighting terror” is very much at the heart of the 9/11 truth movement. Those who are fully convinced that the administration somehow had a hand in the 9/11 attacks focus on spreading that message in the hopes of exposing the perpetrators to strip away their power. While I believe a good case can be made against the Bush administration’s “War on Terror” doctrine, as it is, with or without proving any complicity in the 9/11 attacks, we must realize, solely because of 9/11, many people have been effectively indoctrinated to believe nearly all means are justified by the end goal of wiping out the perceived threat of terrorism (however long it may take). This makes examining the problems with the official 9/11 story quite important as breaking it apart could help diminish the manipulative fear of terrorism and strengthen the case against the administration’s scaremongering and disproportionate and expansive reactions.
In part 2, then, I will reflect on my thoughts and conclusions concerning 9/11 and try to examine the four interpretations as independently as possible.
*(the word elements here can mean anything from shadowy rogue high-ranking officials within various agencies all the way up to the president and vice president themselves.)
interesting. I don’t really know any of the arguments regarding theories 3 and 4, so I’ll wait to see your post.
I guess the other topics this brings up in my mind are:
1) If the government was involved in the attacks (in some way) they have probably been involved in similar events in the past.
2) Is it bad that the government expands its influence?
3)Once we’ve settled on a theory. Where do we go from there?
Very good questions John.
I just typed up fairly long responses to each question you posed; But there was an error when I tried to publish the comment, so I lost it all. How enfuriating.
Well, anyway, I’ll try to respond again later today because they are very intriguing questions which give me a lot to think about.
Ok, try #2; Here are my thoughts:
1) If the government was involved in the attacks (in some way) they have probably been involved in similar events in the past.
Yes. It seems quite plausible. I know of no certain evidence of culpability in domestic attacks or disasters, but we do now know of a proposed Dept. of Defense plan in the 1960s called Operation Northwoods. This, in order to give a pretext for military action against Cuba, involved plans to stage “false flag” terrorist attacks which they would blame on Cuba. One of these suggested plans was to destroy an unmanned drone aircraft made to look like a commercial plane which was supposed to be full of college students and, of course, blame the Cuban gov’t for the attack.
The plans were apparently never executed, but clearly we can see the idea of gov’t staged real or simulated attacks is certainly not unheard of. And many believe the CIA has long engaged in false flag terrorism in other countries. Generally speaking, it is no secret that the CIA has historically used covert manipulative and deceptive action around the world to achieve strategic goals which includes supporting and arranging coups and assassinations, funding armies to either dispel rebellion or overthrow regimes, and more subtle tactics designed to cause suffering and economic strangulation to stir up dissent against governments who are at odds with U.S. interests. The real point to see here is that for over 50 years the U.S. government, via the CIA and Defense Dept. etc., has seemed to be willing to go to extraordinary lengths to maintain special interests and secure economic “stability”; i.e. control. One question to ask regarding 9/11 is what motives could there be to cause the gov’t to make that leap of attacking their own land and people. This is something I will tackle in the next post.
2) Is it bad that the government expands its influence?
The first thing that comes to my mind is the answer to this question lies in the individual’s perception of what is really going on behind closed gov’t doors. There is also a great divide over what is good gov’t expansion and what is bad. To give a generalization, many on the far right frown upon all forms of government expansion except when it comes to defense and military; then it is ok and proper. While most on the left generally want to see greater domestic and social program improvement and expansion and may lament the potential deprivation of such goals by exorbitant defense spending and ongoing wars.
As far as foreign policy goes, government expansion is seen as very good and necessary to those who believe the U.S. only expands its influence and uses force out of a benevolent desire to spread freedom and democracy. On the other hand, such expansion is negatively seen as imperial and very harmful to many around the world to those who believe the U.S. expands its presence and uses force out of self-interest to maintain and extend their global superpower status. So I think to answer the question we first must decide what we think the real motives are and what we think the possible consequences of expanding power for any reason may be. I think the same goes for domestic concerns as well, particularly concerning the debate over intelligence gathering.
3)Once we’ve settled on a theory. Where do we go from there?
This is indeed the big question. When it comes to 9/11, there are many engaged in intense underground activism. People who wholeheartedly believe the U.S. government manufactured the 9/11 attacks are spreading that message, fighting to have a new investigation (this time truly independent), and hoping to expose the perpetrators so they will have to be kicked out of office – hoping all of this will turn everything around. Personally, if there is a government cover-up here, it is hard for me to fully believe it possible to expose the truth and have the criminals held accountable. If the gov’t is responsible for the attacks, the Bush appointed 9/11 commission has already closed the case and, for now, affectively covered up the conspiracy. With the help of the dutiful, unquestioning corporate media, their official story has been unquestioningly accepted by the majority of Americans. With evidence or without, it is certainly tough to turn the tide on that.
I’m really not sure what we can do with all this information. I suppose we can start by learning and deciding for ourselves what we think is right and important and help others around us to see that as well. I think there has always been a great disparity between the ruling elite and the people. Unfortunately, that disparity seems to be growing ever larger in this country. I’m not sure how and to what extent we can fight that at this point. Perhaps our first best course of action is to live the best lives we can for ourselves and for the others we have the oppurtunity to impact and be impacted by. We can start by sharing information and knowledge and encouraging critical thinking and proper priorities. These are things we can do no matter where we live or what perverted agendas and selfish interests may be ruling the world.
Just some quick thoughts. What do you think?
I really want to comment on this but there’s a lot to say, too much right now.
All I will say is very good, I look forward to the next part and I think you put forward a interesting conspiracy theory, compelling.
For my own part, I don’t think your government engineered the actual attacks, however it’s clear they ignored the intelligence (perhaps an asymetrical engineering ie. allowing it to happen).
I certainly think they have manipulated the attacks to their own end. It has already been discussed and proved that Bush + Cronies wanted to test American power in the Middle East- this was a perfect opportunity.
Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts Alex.
I really hope, overall, I can give a thoughtful overview of the ideas surrounding this and my own thoughts as well. Naturally, some bias will be unavoidable in my conclusions, but I really hope to mainly be able to encourage the reader to think and ask themself some questions. And also check out the information and ideas for themselves; perhaps even start a dialogue here. It seems the topic has already inspired some thinking and questions so that is positive.
I appreciate what you wrote, and I definitely agree that the attacks have been manipulated/exploited. Clearly 9/11 provided opportunities for the Bush cabal’s interests and strangely seemed to provide something of a wish fulfillment for the administration and their cronies.