Saturday, August 19, 2006

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.

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:09 AM

    I'm glad to see you're as awake as I knew you had the capacity to be, vis-a-vis the rather obvious involvement of the de facto Bush administarion with the treasonous crimes of Sept. 11, 2001. You aren't certain, yet the evidence is sufficient to be quite certain; that cute in a quaint sort of way. Not to be condescending (although it is one of the few things I'm good at), but I think you know damn well that the de facto Bush administration engineered 9/11 ("cui bono?"), yet are just a wee bit too much part of the contemporary American intellectual consensus to be willing to fully admit it. Its times like this I thank Zeus (not Odin, mind you; I'm even a black sheep amongst neo-Nazi pagans, if you can believe that) I'm an ideological black sheep and am thus not called upon to to even pretend to swear fealty to murderous lies; its considered a given that people like me are pieces of shit.

    PS: I hate John Kerry, but he IS the President of the United States, electoral fraud not withstanding. Always remember that; John Kerry is President, not that buffoonish criminal Bush. Bush is fit only for the gallows or prison, not for public office.

    Kevin Riley O'Keeffe

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  2. Kevin O'Keeffe,

    So you hate Bush and you hate Kerry, and as a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, you probably hate a lot of other people for no reason other than the color of their skin and what ethnicity they happened to be born into.

    We were great friends, you and I, at one time. My sympathies are with you in these difficult times. Squishy (Zeus Shmoos) knows, I've been through some self created drama myself lately too, but I don't want HATE in my world.

    Can you lose the hate? Maybe if you could, then one day we could be friends again, but you've identified yourself so strongly with a hateful philosophy for so long now, I doubt you could.

    Your Old High School Drinking Buddy,

    Gillis The Fish Magillicuddy

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  3. Anonymous9:08 PM

    National Socialism isn't about hate. Hell, I have friends of various races, and Dave, the guy I hang out with most often, is Jewish; I don't give a shit about stuff like that at the individual level. I never really have. My friend Louie (a Serbo-Croatian immigrant) tells me I shouldn't hang out with this Paulie, 'cause Paulie's gay. I still hang out with Paulie. I sometimes correspond with this Black lady who's a member of the Nation of Islam, and she and I agree; there's a natural feeling of kinship amongst all Nationalists, irrespective of one's given nationality, because we're all working towards the same goal; the betterment of our tribalist slice of humanity (its sort of the unPC version of 'think globally, act locally'). Most people of all ethnic backgrounds are stupid, and I think leftists tend to be people who are disproportionately irritated by the stupidity of their own people, while rightists tend to be people who are disproportionately irritated by the stupidty of other racial & ethnic groups (similar dynamics apply to genders, sexual orientations, and religions). The very use of the term "disproportionate" implies both groups are wrong, but the way that people on the right are wrong is much less tolerated today than the way that people on the left are equally wrong (not to mention, as a registered Democrat for the last 3.5 years, one who voted for Ralph Nader in the 2004 Presidential election, and who believes in socialism, my standing as a rightist is not without a degree of ambiguity). And needless to say, there's nothing wrong with hating individual evil-doers (or if there is, then be prepared to reject the entire human race, because everybody does it, no doubt including you).

    Ta-ta!

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  4. I've never heard of the political spectrum being defined in terms of who gets irritated by whom. Again, you're defining reality in terms of hate (irritation is a mild form of hate).

    I've always thought of the difference between left and right in terms of the opposite of hate, namely love. Empathy and compassion being mild forms of love.. Liberals have compassion for everyone. Conservatives only for themselves and those in their immediate friends and family.

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  5. Anonymous4:01 AM

    I wasn't defining the political spectrum, but merely noting a psychological tendency that seems to associate itself with the left & right wings of the conventional political spectrum. And I think I was right. Take a liberal Catholic; almost all of them are highly critical of the Catholic Church, while conservative Catholics tend to address their ire towards Protestants, Muslims, Atheists, Pagans, and, if they're really feeling wild, Jews.

    It was really more intended as a humorous-yet-true observation, rather than an attempt to define reality in terms of hatred, for crying out loud.

    I'm just not the Cartoon Nazi you seem to want to imagine me to be. Which is a good thing.

    So, just out of curiousity, who did you vote for in the last two Presidential elections? I missed the 2000 Republican primary, due to being in jail, but voted for Reform Party nominee Patrick J. Buchanan (of course) in November. I was pleased Bush defeated Gore that year, but soon felt foolish for having felt that way, and genuinely wish now that Gore had won (though I have no use for Kerry). I've actually grown to rather like the former Vice President, and if he runs against Hillary next year, I may well remain a registered Democrat in order to vote for Gore. In 2004, myself, Karin, and David B. were all super enthused about the Howard Dean candidacy. But by the time the primary rolled around, his campaing had fallen apart, alas. Dave boycotted the election in protest, Karin voted for Dean anyway, and I protested by voting for Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, whom I'd met the previous fall, and can personally vouch for; he's a real nice guy. Not every ultra-leftist congressman is going to be nice to a guy wearing a "Buchanan 2000" t-shirt, but he definitely was. I was leaning in favor of voting for Michael Peroutka of the Constitution Party, but was so incensed by the fact Nader was kept off the ballot in California, that I wrote him in to spite the elites.

    My dad is living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, by the way. Just thought I'd mention that unlikely fact.

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