A Secret Conspiracy Within the US Government

It was June, 2003. I was taking a graduate class in economic sociology at Cal State Hayward. Our guest speaker for the evening was one Don Paul, author of "'9/11' Facing our Fascist State". His lecture was a pivotal moment for me in my attitude towards what will be the seminal day of our generation.

"I'll just come right out and say it," Paul said at the beginning of his talk, "I believe that the events of September 11th were planned and carried out by a secret conspiracy within the United States government." A collective gasp of disbelief escaped from the graduate students gathered that evening. At the time, this was a mind boggling idea.

Paul then began to lay out his evidence. First, an examination of the protocols for the defense of US Capital, something as we might imagine to have been well thought out and prepared for by our military leaders, were not only not followed, but altered in such a way that one has to wonder if it was just for show. Flight 77, the one that hit the Pentagon, impacted 25 minutes after it first deviated from its flight plan. The USAF fighters stationed at Edwards AFB can intercept any plane violating our capitol's airspace within minutes; the fighters launched (20 minutes after a threat was detected) came form Langley AFB, 120 miles south of the capital. Mysteriously, these planes then traveled at 1/5th their top speed on their way to Washington, and as we know, did nothing to stop any attacks.

The next bit of evidence Paul produced had to do with how the WTC ultimately collapsed. Burning jet fuel can produce temperatures a maximum of 700F. The structural steel in the WTC would require temps of close to 1500F to melt and cause the "pancake effect" cited to be the cause of the collapse. We all remember the way the second plane hit WTC2. It hit obliquely, on a corner. If WTC2 were to collapse, it would fall sideways and cause billions of dollars in additional property damage. The controlled straight down collapses were reminiscent of a professional demolition. According to Paul, multiple emergency personnel report hearing explosions just before the collapse. Even Peter Jennings, the anchor of the coverage I watched as I sat at in the breakroom of my workplace, said when the first tower unexpectedly collapsed, "that is a collapse caused by additional explosives." Maybe he heard something in his ear, because he soon afterwards retracted his supposition.

The Bushies and their clan benefited tremendously in the aftermath of 9/11. He got re-elected, his pro-corporate policies passed without question as the congress rubber stamped everything from out first "war time" president in 30 years. His elite family buddies made out like bandits not only from the insurance collected from the events themselves, but more importantly, for the billions of dollars in our tax money being spent in Iraq, Afghanistan and at home as part of our "war on terror."

Back in 2003, the idea that 9/11 was actually orchestrated by elements with the Bush administration seemed akin to the far out Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists. Yeah, right, that's so far out there, how can I possibly believe it? Over the years, as the policies of this administration seemed to continuously be geared towards increasing the animosity between the US and the Middle East, Paul's theory starts to become more and more believable.

DO I believe that Bush,. Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld planned 9/11? No. I don't believe it. Not for sure. Is it possible that they did? Absolutely. It is within the relam of possibity? Absolutely.

Back in 1990, as the Cold War was winding down, I remember vividly the concluding lecture of a course in "American Sociology" I took at UCSD. The professor presented the premise that America needs an "enemy" to focus on in order to survive and thrive. By that point, communism, the thing we had fought as a country for 50 years, was disappearing. We needed a new enemy. At our birth, we fought colonialism. Then our enemy became the land peoples of the frontier. We fought Spain, alcohol, poverty, and in WWII, the Axis powers. Now that communism was disappearing, what would take its place for our national animosity? Some people said drugs. Some people said China. No one thought of Islam, but from s sociological point of view, if Paul is right, that is why the Project for a New American Century has led us down this path. We need an enemy.

Our War on Terror has made a lot of people very very rich (or richer).

In conclusion, I don't know if I really believe that the Bushies actually carried out 9/11. It is certainly possible. Right now, liberals are questioning whether or not the Bush was complicent in the attacks, which is a far cry from actually perpertrating them. I think that the theory Paul lays out in his book (to buy a copy, Googlesearch "Don Paul"), will become like the Kennedy assassination theories of the previous generation. It will be something that a lot of people believe but can't prove, eventually becoming a conventional wisdom that there was a lot more going on than what the official story tells us.