42

The American left and the reality of 911: Beyond their wildest dreams

by Graeme MacQueen

Noam Chomsky: Bastion of the intellectual left in the US – and hopelessly ignorant of 911

On November 23, 1963, the day after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Fidel Castro gave a talk on Cuban radio and television.[1] He pulled together, as well as he could in the amount of time available to him, the evidence he had gathered from news media and other sources, and he reflected on this evidence.

The questions he posed were well chosen: they could serve as a template for those confronting complex acts of political violence. Were there contradictions and absurdities in the story being promoted in the U.S. media? Who benefitted from the assassination? Were intelligence agencies claiming to know more than they could legitimately know? Was there evidence of foreknowledge of the murder? What was the main ideological clash in powerful U.S. circles and how did Kennedy fit in? Was there a faction that had the capacity and willingness to carry out such an act? And so on.

But beneath the questions lay a central, unspoken fact: Castro was able to imagine—as a real possibility and not as mere fantasy—that the story being promoted by the U.S. government and media was radically false. He was able to conceive of the possibility that the killing had not been carried out by a lone gunman on the left sympathetic to Cuba and the Soviet Union, but by powerful, ultra-right forces, including forces internal to the state, in the United States. Because his conceptual framework did not exclude this hypothesis he was able to examine the evidence that favored it. He was able to recognize the links between those wishing to overthrow the Cuban government and take more aggressive action toward the Soviet Union and those wishing to get Kennedy out of the way.

In the immediate wake of the assassination, and after the Warren Commission’s report appeared in 1964, few among the elite left leadership in the U.S. shared Castro’s imagination. Vincent Salandria, one of key researchers and dissidents, said:

“I have experienced from the beginning that the left was most unreceptive to my conception of the assassination.”[2]

I.F. Stone, a pillar of the American left leadership, praised the Warren Commission and consigned critics who accused the Commission of a cover-up to “the booby hatch.”[3] The contrast with Castro is sharp. Speaking well before the Warren Commission’s emergence, Castro mocked the narrative it would later endorse. Several other prominent left intellectuals agreed with I. F. Stone, and declined to criticize the Warren Commission’s report.[4]

Noam Chomsky, resisting serious efforts to get him to look at the evidence, said at various times that he knew little about the affair, had little interest in it, did not regard it as important, and found the idea of a “high-level conspiracy with policy significance” to be “implausible to a quite extraordinary degree.”[5] He would later say almost exactly the same thing about the 9/11 attacks, finding the thesis that the U.S. administration was involved in the crime “close to inconceivable,”[6] and expressing his disinterest in the entire issue.

Not everyone on the American left accepted the FBI and Warren Commission reports uncritically. Dave Dellinger and Staughton Lynd, for example, encouraged dissident researchers.[7] In fact, several of the leading dissident investigators, such as Vincent Salandria, Mark Lane and Sylvia Meagher, were themselves, at least by today’s standards, on the left of the political spectrum. But they were not among the elite left leadership in the country and they were, to a great extent, unsupported by that leadership during the most crucial period.

Chomsky’s use of the terms “implausible” and “inconceivable” has stimulated me to write the present article. I have no new evidence to bring to the debate, which is decades old now, as to how his mind and the other great minds of the U.S. left leadership could have failed to see what was obvious to so many. My approach will assume the good faith of these left leaders and will take as its point of departure Chomsky’s own words. I will explore the suggestion that these intellectuals were not able to conceive, were not able to imagine, that these attacks were operations engineered by intelligence agencies and the political right in the U.S.

Why would Castro have had less difficulty than the U.S. left leadership imagining that the assassination of Kennedy had been carried out by and for the American ultra-right and the intelligence community?

What we imagine to be true in the present will surely be influenced by what we have intimately experienced in the past. Castro’s imagination of what U.S. imperial powers might do was shaped by what he had witnessed them actually do, or attempt to do, to him and his country.

Castro referred in his November 23 talk not only to the economic warfare against Cuba, but to the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But, of course, the CIA’s Operation Mongoose had been active in the interim between these two latter events, and he was familiar with its main lines. Perhaps he was not familiar with all its components. As far as I am aware, he did not know on November 23, 1963 of the 1962 Operation Northwoods plan, endorsed by the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to create a pretext for an invasion of Cuba through a multi-faceted false flag operation that included terrorist attacks in Miami and Washington, to be falsely blamed on Cuba.[8] Had he been familiar with this scheme he might have cited it on November 23 to bolster his case.

Castro was certainly familiar with many plans and attempts to assassinate him, which were eventually confirmed to the U.S. public by the Church Committee’s report, “Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.”[9]But, to the best of my knowledge, he was not aware when he gave his November 23 talk of an assassination-planning meeting that had taken place the previous day. On November 22, the day Kennedy was killed, while Castro was meeting with an intermediary who conveyed Kennedy’s hope that Cuba and the United States would soon be able to work out a mode of peaceful coexistence,[10] members of the CIA were meeting with a Cuban to plot Castro’s death.

The would-be assassin was not only given poison to use in an assassination attempt; he was also promised support by the CIA for a shooting, such as was taking place at that very time in Dallas. He was assured that “CIA would give him everything he needed (telescopic sight, silencer, all the money he wanted).”[11]
The Church committee used the term “ironic” to refer to the fact that the shooting of John Kennedy took place on the very day a Kennedy-Castro peace initiative was being countered by a CIA plan to kill Castro.[12] Why was there no discussion of the significance of the fact that the same people who were working for the overthrow of the Cuban government considered Kennedy and his peace initiatives serious obstacles to their plans?

Castro noted in his November 23 talk that Latin American rightwing forces might have been involved in the Kennedy killing. These forces, he said, had not only openly denounced Kennedy for his accommodation with Cuba but were pushing for an invasion of Cuba while simultaneously threatening a military coup in Brazil to prevent another Cuba. Castro could not know at the time what we now know, namely that the threatened coup in Brazil would indeed take place soon—on April 1, 1964. It would lead to a wave of authoritarianism and torture that would spread throughout Latin America.

If, therefore, we try to make the case that Castro’s critique of the mainstream account of Kennedy’s assassination was the result of paranoia, denial, and a delusional tendency to see conspiracies everywhere, we will have a hard row to hoe. Almost all the operations he mentioned in his talk, and several operations he did not mention, did involve conspiracies. Cuba was at the center of a set of actual and interconnected conspiracies.

I am not suggesting that because Castro imagined a particular scenario—ultra-right forces killing John Kennedy—it must have been true. That is not the point. The point is that only when our imagination embraces a hypothesis as possible will we seriously study that hypothesis and put it to the test.

The evidence accumulated over many years has shown, in my view, that Castro’s view of who killed John Kennedy was correct. In fact, I think the evidence presented by the first wave of researchers fifty years ago settled the matter.[13] However, it is not my intention to try to prove this in the present article. My topic is the left imagination.

The silencing, by an elite American left, of both dissident researchers and those who have been targets of Western imperial power has reached an unprecedented level in the interpretation of the events of September 11, 2001. The inability of the Western left leadership to imagine that these events were fraudulent—that they involved, as Fidel Castro put it in 1963, people “playing a very strange role in a very strange play”—has blocked understanding not of only of 9/11 but of actual, existing imperialism and its formation and deformation of world politics.

9/11 and state officials facing imperial power

Talk about blaming the victim. Three days after 9/11 the eminent economist Celso Furtado suggested in one of Brazil’s most influential newspapers that there were two explanations for the attack. One possibility, Furtado implied, was that this savage assault on America was the work of foreign terrorists, as the Americans suspected. But a more plausible explanation, he asserted, was that this disaster was a provocation carried out by the American far right to justify a takeover. He compared the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon to the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 and the rise of the Nazis to power in Germany.
[14]

Kenneth Maxwell wrote this paragraph in 2002. At the time he was the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. The paragraph is from an article written for the Council entitled, “Anti-Americanism in Brazil.” In writing his article Maxwell clearly felt no need to give evidence or argument as he dismissed Furtado. He must have felt his readers would agree that the absurdity of Furtado’s remarks was self-evident. Furtado’s claim would be off their radar, beyond their imagination.

Certainly, Furtado’s imagination had a wider scope than Maxwell’s. Could his personal experience have had something to do with this? Furtado was more than an “eminent economist;” he was an extremely distinguished intellectual who had held the position of Minister of Planning in the Goulart government when it was overthrown in the April 1, 1964 coup in Brazil. Furtado said in a 2003 interview:

The United States was afraid of the direction we had been taking; this phase ended and we entered—as someone put it—the peace of the cemeteries, it was the era of the dictatorship. Thirty years went by without real thinking, without being able to participate in movements, with the most provocative and courageous young people being hunted down.[15]

Did Celso Furtado have a wild imagination when he implied there was U.S. support for the coup? Not at all. The coup was not only hoped for, but prepared for and offered support at the highest level in the U.S. [16]

Furtado has not been the only sceptical voice on the Latin American left. On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, himself a major target of U.S. imperial force, entered the public debate. The Associated Press reported on September 12, 2006:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Tuesday that it’s plausible that the U.S. government was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Chavez did not specifically accuse the U.S. government of having a hand in the Sept. 11 attacks, but rather suggested that theories of U.S. involvement bear examination.
The Venezuelan leader, an outspoken critic of U.S. President George W. Bush, was reacting to a television report investigating a theory the Twin Towers were brought down with explosives after hijacked airplanes crashed into them in 2001.

“The hypothesis is not absurd … that those towers could have been dynamited,” Chavez said in a speech to supporters. “A building never collapses like that, unless it’s with an implosion.”

“The hypothesis that is gaining strength … is that it was the same U.S. imperial power that planned and carried out this terrible terrorist attack or act against its own people and against citizens of all over the world,” Chavez said. “Why? To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq.”[17]

Actually, scepticism in Venezuela about the 9/11 attacks was not new. In March of 2006, for example, well known survivor and eyewitness of the September 11, 2001 attacks, William Rodriguez, had spent time with high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Chavez, and had given talks on television and in universities in that country.[18]

The culmination of this Venezuelan scepticism was a statement in a legislative resolution of the country’s National Assembly. The resolution, apparently passed unanimously in the fall of 2006, referred to the 9/11 attacks as “self-inflicted.”[19]

In a sneering attack on the Chavez government in the Miami Herald, journalist Phil Gunson felt no need to support, with evidence or reason, his claim that Chavez was merely engaging in “anti-imperialist rhetoric.”[20] Presumably he knew the imaginations of Floridians could be trusted to block out the possibility that the insane rhetoric about 9/11 might have some truth to it.

One year later, on the sixth anniversary of the attacks, Fidel Castro, at that point ill and retired from government but still keeping up with political events, made his own conclusions known. “That painful incident,” he said, “occurred six years ago today.”

“Today,” he said, “we know that the public was deliberately misinformed.” Castro listed several anomalies and omissions in the official reports. For example, he said: “The calculations with respect to the steel structures, plane impacts, the black boxes recovered and what they revealed do not coincide with the opinions of mathematicians, seismologists…demolition experts and others.”

Referring to the attacks generally, and the attack on the Pentagon specifically, Castro said: “We were deceived, as were the rest of the planet’s inhabitants.”[21]

This was a poignant admission by the man who had grasped the falsity of the Lee Harvey Oswald story one day after Kennedy’s assassination.

Reporting on Castro’s remarks in the Guardian, journalist Mark Tran said: “Fidel Castro today joined the band of September 11 conspiracy theorists by accusing the US of spreading disinformation about the attacks that took place six years ago.”[22]
Tran seems to have worried that the dismissive “conspiracy theorist” term might not put an end to the matter for readers of the Guardian, so he added two brief factual claims, one having to do with DNA evidence at the Pentagon and one having to do with a 2007 video allegedly showing Bin Laden giving an address.

The contempt for Castro’s intelligence, however, was breathtaking. Tran implied that his “facts,” which could have been found in about fifteen minutes on the Internet and which were subsequently questioned even by typically uncritical mainstream journalists, were beyond the research capabilities of the former President of Cuba.[23]

Indeed, much of the Western left leadership and associated media not only trusted the FBI[24] while ignoring Furtado, Chavez, the Venezuelan National Assembly and Fidel Castro; they also, through silence and ridicule, worked to prevent serious public discussion of the 9/11 controversy.

Among the U.S. left media that kept the silence, partially or wholly, are:

    Monthly Review
    Common Dreams
    Huffington Post
    Counterpunch
    The Nation
    The Real News
    Democracy Now!
    Z Magazine
    The Progressive
    Mother Jones
    Alternet.org
    MoveOn.org

In the end, the most dramatic public challenge to the official account of 9/11 by a state leader did not come from the left. It came from a conservative leader who was, however, a target of U.S. imperial power. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2010, President Ahmadinejad of Iran outlined three possible hypotheses for the 9/11 attacks.[25] The first was the U.S. government’s hypothesis — “a very powerful and complex terrorist group, able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security, carried out the attack.”

The second was the hypothesis that “some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime.” The third was a somewhat weaker version of the second, namely that the assault “was carried out by a terrorist group but the American government supported and took advantage of the situation.”

Ahmadinejad implied, though he did not definitively claim, that he favoured the second hypothesis. He went on to suggest that even if waging war were an appropriate response to a terrorist attack—he did not think it was—a thorough and independent investigation should have preceded the assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq in which hundreds of thousands of people died.

He ended his discussion of 9/11 with a proposal that the UN set up an independent fact-finding group to look into the 9/11 events.

In reporting on this event, The New York Times noted that Ahmadinejad’s comments “prompted at least 33 delegations to walk out, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, all 27 members of the European Union and the union’s representative.”[26]

The Times’ report was given to remarks that sidestepped the Iranian president’s assertions. Ahmadinejad’s remarks were made to endear himself to the world’s Muslim community, and especially to the Arab world. Ahmadinejad was playing the politician in Iran, where he had to contend with conservatives trying to “outflank him.” Ahmadinejad wanted to keep himself “at the center of global attention while deflecting attention away from his dismal domestic record.” Ahmadinejad “obviously delights in being provocative” and “seemed to go out of his way to sabotage any comments he made previously this week about Iran’s readiness for dialogue with the United States.”

The possibility that Ahmadinejad might have been sincere, or that there may have been an evidential basis for his views, was not mentioned.

Meanwhile, the reported response to Ahmadinejad’s talk by the United States Mission to the United Nations was harsh:

Rather than representing the aspirations and goodwill of the Iranian people, Mr. Ahmadinejad has yet again chosen to spout vile conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic slurs that are as abhorrent and delusional as they are predictable.

Where were these anti-Semitic slurs? In his talk the Iranian President condemned Israeli actions against Palestinians and included as one of the possible motives of a 9/11 inside job the saving of “the Zionist regime” by U.S. government insiders. But how is either of these an anti-Semitic slur? He said nothing in his speech, hateful or otherwise, about Jews. He did not identify Zionism, as an ideology or historical movement, with Jews as a collectivity.

He did not identify the state of Israel with Jews as a collectivity. He did not say “the Jews” carried out the 9/11 attacks.

And what did the U.S. Mission mean when it said that Ahmadinejad did not represent the views of Iranians? His views on 9/11 were probably much closer to the views of Iranians than were the views of the U.S. Mission. As will be explained later, the great majority of the world’s Muslims reject the official account of 9/11.

In his address to the General Assembly the following year, Ahmadinejad briefly revisited this issue, saying that, after his 2010 proposal of an investigation into 9/11, Iran was put “under pressure and threat by the government of the United States.” Moreover, he said, instead of supporting a fact-finding team, the U.S. killed the alleged perpetrator of the attacks (Osama bin Laden) without bringing him to trial.[27]

In 2012 another leader in the Muslim world made his position on 9/11 known. Dr. Mahathir Mohamad had been Prime Minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003 and was still in 2012 a significant power in his country and a major figure in the global south. By then he had spent considerable time discussing 9/11 with several well-known members of the U.S. movement of dissent (including William Rodriguez and David Ray Griffin)[28] and had indicated that he questioned the official account. But on November 19, 2012 he left no doubt about his position. In a 20-minute public address introducing a day-long international conference on 9/11 in Kuala Lumpur, he noted:

The official explanation for the destruction of the Twin Towers is still about an attack by suicidal Muslim extremists, but even among Americans this explanation is beginning to wear thin and to be questioned. In fact, certain American groups have thoroughly analyzed various aspects of the attack and destruction of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon building, and the reported crash in Pennsylvania. And their investigations reveal many aspects of the attack which cannot be explained by attributing them to attacks by terrorists—Muslims or non-Muslims.

He went on to give details of the official narrative that he found especially unconvincing, and he concluded that the 9/11 attack:

…has divided the world into Muslim and non-Muslim and sowed the seeds of suspicion and hatred between them. It has undermined the security of nations everywhere, forcing them to spend trillions of dollars on security measures…Truly, 9/11 is the worst manmade disaster for the world since the end of the two world wars. For that reason alone it is important that we seek the truth because when truth is revealed then we can really prepare to protect and secure ourselves.[29]

There is no need to quote Western media coverage of Mahathir’s remarks because, as far as I can tell, there was none—an outcome Mahathir had predicted in his talk.
Now, of course, it is possible that these current and former state officials had not seriously studied 9/11 and were simply intoxicated by anti-imperial fervour. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Those who visited Venezuela well before the public pronouncements in that country in September of 2006 noted that officials had collected books and other materials on the subject of 9/11.[30]

And Malaysia’s Mahathir had been meeting people to discuss the issue for years. There is no reason to doubt what he said in his 2012 talk: “I have thought a lot about 9/11.” The dismissal of these leaders by the Western left is puzzling, to say the least.

Educator Paulo Freire, himself a victim of the 1964 coup in Brazil, pointed out years ago that when members of an oppressor class join oppressed people in their struggle for justice they may, despite the best of intentions, bring prejudices with them, “which include a lack of confidence in the people’s ability to think… and to know.”[31] Is it possible that the left leadership in the U.S. has fallen into this trap?

The dismissal of 9/11 sceptics has been carried out through a silence punctuated by occasional outbursts. The late Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch was given to outbursts. Not content to speak of the “fundamental idiocy of the 9/11 conspiracists” and to tie them to the decline of the American left, Cockburn even took the opportunity to go beyond 9/11 and pledge allegiance once more, as he had in previous years, to the Warren Commission’s Lee Harvey Oswald hypothesis[32]—a hypothesis that had, in my opinion, been shown to be absurd half a century ago.

In a January 2017 article entitled, “American Psychosis,” Chris Hedges continued the anti-dissent campaign. Crying out that, “We feel trapped in a hall of mirrors,” Hedges announced that:

The lies fly out of the White House like flocks of pigeons: Donald Trump’s election victory was a landslide. He had the largest inauguration crowds in American history… We don’t know “who really knocked down” the World Trade Center. Torture works. Mexico will pay for the wall. Conspiracy theories are fact. Scientific facts are conspiracies.[33]

The hall of mirrors is real enough but Hedges’ rant offers no escape. As far as I can discover, Hedges has made no serious study of what happened at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and has, therefore, no idea who knocked down the buildings.[34] Moreover, he appears never to have seriously thought about what a “conspiracy theory” is and what he is denouncing when he denounces such theories. Does he really mean to suggest that the American ruling class, in pursuing its interests, never conspires?

And thus the U.S. left leadership sits in the left chamber of the hall of mirrors, complaining about conspiracy theories while closing its eyes to actual conspiracies crucial to contemporary imperialism.

9/11 and public opinion

If state leaders familiar with Western imperial power have questioned the official narrative of the September 11, 2001 attacks, what about “the people” beloved of the left?

Actually, sorting out what portion of the world’s population qualifies, according to ideological criteria, as “the people” is a difficult task—an almost metaphysical exercise. So let us ask an easier question: what, according to surveys undertaken, appears to be the level of belief and unbelief in the world with respect to the 9/11 narrative?

There have been many polls. Comparing and compiling the results is very difficult since the same questions are seldom asked, in precisely the same words, in different polls. It is, however, possible to set forth grounded estimates.

In 2008, WorldPublicOpinion.org polled over 16,000 people in 17 countries. Of the total population of 2.5 billion people represented in the survey, only 39% said they thought that Al-Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks.[35]

The belief that Al-Qaeda carried out the attacks is, I suggest, an essential component of belief in the official narrative of 9/11. If only 39% is willing to name Al-Qaeda as responsible, then a maximum of 39% can be counted as believers of the official narrative.

This WorldPublicOpinion.org poll is, for the most part, supported by other polls, suggesting that the U.S. official narrative is, globally, a minority view. If these figures are correct, of the current world population of 7.5 billion, roughly 2.9 billion people affirm the official view of 9/11 and 4.6 billion do not affirm it.

Now, of the 61% who do not affirm the official view of 9/11, a large percentage says it does not know who carried out the attacks (by implication, it does not know what the goals of the attackers were, and so on). But the number of those who think the U.S. government was behind the attacks is by no means trivial. The figure appears to be about 14% of the world’s population.[36]

If this is correct, roughly 1 billion people think the U.S. government was behind the attacks. Of course, this figure includes children. But even when we exclude everyone under 18 years of age we have 700 million adults in the world who think the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks.

It is not clear if the Guardian’s “band of September 11 conspiracy theorists,” which Castro was said to have joined, consists of this 700 million people or if it consists of the entire group of 4.6 billion non-believers. Either way, we are talking about a pretty large “band.”

Do these poll results prove that the official narrative is false? No. Do they prove that blaming elements of the U.S. government is correct? No. But these figures suggest two things. First, the official story, despite its widespread dissemination, has failed to capture the imaginations of the majority of people on the planet. Second, the minds of 700 million adults have no trouble embracing the possibility that elements of the U.S. government were behind the attacks.

What can be said about the views of that segment of the world population that is most clearly targeted by Western imperialism today?

The so-called Global War on Terror, announced shortly after the 9/11 events, has mainly targeted countries with Muslim majorities.

The 2008 WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of people in 17 countries included five countries with majority Muslim populations. Of the total Muslim population represented in the survey (399.6 million people in 2008), only 21.2% assigned guilt to Al-Qaeda.[37]

In 2011 the Pew Research Group surveyed eight Muslim populations. Of the total Muslim population represented (588.2 million in 2011), only 17% assigned guilt to Arabs.[38]
The evidence suggests that scepticism toward the official account among Muslims has been growing. In December of 2016 a published poll of British Muslims indicated that only 4% of those polled believed that “Al-Qaeda/Muslim terrorists” were responsible for 9/11, whereas 31% held the American government responsible.[39] This is remarkable given the unvarying, repetitive telling of the official story by British mainstream media and political parties.

Are British Muslims wallowing in feelings of victimhood, which have made them prey to extremists peddling “conspiracy theories?” As a matter of fact, the British think tank that sponsored the 2016 poll has drawn this conclusion. But the think tank in question, Policy Exchange, has a special relationship to the UK’s Conservative Party and appears to have carried out the poll precisely in order to put British Muslims under increased scrutiny and suspicion.[40]

Cannot the left, in its interpretation of the views of this targeted population, do better?

Most peculiar and disturbing is the tendency of left activists and leaders to join with state intelligence agencies in using the term “conspiracy theory” to dismiss those who raise questions about official state narratives.

There seems to be little awareness among these left critics of the history of the term.[41] They seem not to realize that they are employing a propaganda expression, the function of which is to discourage people from looking beneath the surface of political events, especially political events in which elements of their own government might have played a hidden and unsavory role.

In the case of the 9/11 attacks it is important to remember, when the “conspiracy theory” accusation is made, that the lone wolf alternative, which was available for the John Kennedy assassination, is not available here. Everyone agrees that the attack was the result of multiple persons planning in secret to commit a crime. That is, the attack was the result of a conspiracy. The question is not, Was there a conspiracy? The question is, Who were the conspirators? Defamation cannot answer this question.

Conclusion

Suppose our imaginations can embrace the possibility that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by elements in the U.S. government. In that case what do we do next? There is no mystery. Once the imagination stops filtering out a hypothesis and allows it into the realm of the possible, it can be put to the test. Evidence and reason must now do the job.[42] Imagination cannot settle the question of truth or falsity any more than ideology, morality, or “common sense.”

I am not concerned in this article to demonstrate the truth of the “inside job” hypothesis of the 9/11 attacks. Ten years of research have led me to conclude that it is correct, but in the present paper I am concerned only with the preliminary, but vital, issue of imagination. Those who cannot imagine this hypothesis to be true will leave it unexamined, and, in the worst of worlds, will contribute to the silencing of dissenters. The left, in this case, will betray the best of its tradition and abandon both the targets of imperial oppression and their spokespeople.

Fidel Castro sounded the warning in his November 23, 1963 speech:

Intellectuals and lovers of peace should understand the danger that maneuvers of this kind could mean to world peace, and what a conspiracy of this type, what a Machiavellian policy of this nature, could lead to.

(*l would like to thank Ed Curtin for his inspiration and advice.—GM)

This article first appeared in sott.net

NOTES:

[1] Martin Schotz, History Will Not Absolve US: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy (Brookline, Massachusetts: Kurtz, Ulmer & DeLucia, 1996), Appendix II.
[2] Michael Morrissey, Correspondence with Vincent Salandria 1993-2000 (Michael D. Morrissey, 2007), 436.
[3] Schotz, History Will Not Absolve US: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy, 241.
[4] Schotz, History Will Not Absolve US: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy, 14ff., Appendices VII and VIII.
[5] Morrissey, Correspondence with Vincent Salandria 1993-2000 (Chomsky’s position is a continuing theme in the book); Schotz, History Will Not Absolve US: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy, Appendix VIII; Barrie Zwicker, Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11 (Canada: New Society Publishers, 2006), chap. 5, p. 206.
[6] Zwicker, Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11, 208 and throughout chapter 5.
[7] Morrissey, Correspondence with Vincent Salandria 1993-2000, 421.
[8] “ANNEX TO APPENDIX TO ENCLOSURE A: PRETEXTS TO JUSTIFY US MILITARY INTERVENTION IN CUBA (OPERATION NORTHWOODS, pp. 137 ff.),” 1962, http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=1244&relPageId=137.
[9] “Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders,” Church Committee Reports (Assassination Archives and Research Center, 1975), http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/contents.htm.
[10] Mark Lane, Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK (Skyhorse Publishing, 2012), 275.
[11] “Interim Report: Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders.”
[12] Ibid.
[13] Examples of first wave researchers are Salandria, Lane, Meagher, and Weisberg. Several important early articles by Salandria are found in Schotz, History Will Not Absolve US: Orwellian Control, Public Denial, and the Murder of President Kennedy, while Mark Lane’s first book was Rush to Judgment (New York, N.Y.: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1992; originally 1966). Sylvia Meagher’s early book was Accessories after the Fact: The Warren Commission, the Authorities & the Report (New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, 1976; originally 1967), and Harold Weisberg’s first major work was Whitewash: The Report on the Warren Report (Skyhorse Publishing, 1965).
[14] Kenneth Maxwell, “Anti-Americanism in Brazil,” Council on Foreign Relations, 2002.
[15] “Developing Brazil Today: An Interview with Celso Furtado – ‘Start with the Social, Not the Economic’,” NACLA Report on the Americas 36, no. 5 (2003).
[16] “Brazil Marks 40th Anniversary of Military Coup: Declassified Documents Shed Light on U.S. Role” (The National Security Archives, The George Washington University, March 2004).
[17] “Chavez Says U.S. May Have Orchestrated 9/11: ‘Those Towers Could Have Been Dynamited,’ Says Venezuela’s President,” Associated Press, September 12, 2006.
[18] “Venezuelan Government to Launch International 9/11 Investigation: Truth Crusaders Walter and Rodriguez to Appear on Hugo Chavez’s Weekly TV Broadcast,” Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com, March 31, 2006.
[19] For this information I have depended on Phil Gunson, “Chávez Attacks Bush as ‘genocidal’ Leader,” Miami Herald, November 9, 2006.
[20] Ibid.
[21] “The Empire and Its Lies: Reflections by the Commander in Chief,” September 11, 2007, Discursos e intervenciones del Commandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, Presidente del Consejo. de Estado de la Republica de Cuba.
[22] Mark Tran, “Castro Says US Lied about 9/11 Attacks,” Guardian, September 12, 2007.
[23] Sue Reid, “Has Osama Bin Laden Been Dead for Seven Years – and Are the U.S. and Britain Covering It up to Continue War on Terror?” The Mail, September 11, 2009.
[24] The FBI was officially in charge of the investigation of the crimes of 9/11, and the Bureau bears ultimate responsibility for the official narrative of 9/11, which was adopted uncritically by other state agencies and commissions.
[25] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, “Address by H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Before the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly” (United Nations General Assembly, New York, N.Y., September 23, 2010).
[26] Neil Macfarquhar, “Iran Leader Says U.S. Planned 9/11 Attacks,” The New York Times, September 24, 2010.
[27] Daniel Tovrov, “Ahmadinejad United Nations Speech: Full Text Transcript,” International Business Times, September 22, 2011.
[28] Richard Roepke, “Last Man Out on 9/11 Makes Shocking Disclosures,” COTO Report, August 10, 2011, https://coto2.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/last-man-out-on-911-makes-shocking-disclosures/. The information about David Ray Griffin’s 30-60 minute discussion with Mahathir is from my personal correspondence with Dr. Griffin.
[29] Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, President of the Perdana Global Peace Foundation and Former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Opens the “9/11 Revisited: Seeking the Truth” Conference in Kuala Lumpur on November 19, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HZdgaViIyI.
[30] Roepke, “Last Man Out on 9/11 Makes Shocking Disclosures.”
[31] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York, N.Y.: Seabury Press, 1970), 46.
[32] Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracists and the Decline of the Anmerican Left,” Counterpunch, November 28, 2006. For a critique of Cockburn see Michael Keefer, “Into the Ring with Counterpunch on 9/11: How Alexander Cockburn, Otherwise So Bright, Blanks Out on 9/11 Evidence,” 911Review.com, December 4, 2006.
[33] Chris Hedges, “American Psychosis,” Truthdig, January 29, 2017.
[34] Those interested in the destruction of the buildings may consult the website of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. And see Ted Walter, BEYOND MISINFORMATION: What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7 (Berkeley, California: Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc., 2015); and Steven Jones et al., “15 Years Later: On the Physics of High-Rise Building Collapses,” Europhysics News 47, no. 4 (2016): 21 – 26
[35] “International Poll: No Consensus On Who Was Behind 9/11” (WorldPublicOpinion.org, September 10, 2008), https://majorityrights.com/uploads/who-did-911-poll.pdf.
[36] Ibid.; “Why the 9/11 Conspiracies Have Changed,” BBC News Magazine, August 29, 2011.
[37] “International Poll: No Consensus On Who Was Behind 9/11.” The figures I give have been arrived at by using data from the poll in combination with country population data for 2008 from the Population Reference Bureau.
[38] “Muslim-Western Tensions Persist: Common Concerns About Islamic Extremism” (Pew Research Center, July 21, 2011), http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/07/21/muslim-western-tensions-persist/4/. The figures I give have been arrived at by using data from the poll in combination with country population data for 2011 from the Population Reference Bureau.
[39] “Unsettled Belonging: A Survey of Britain’s Muslim Communities.” (London: Policy Exchange, December 2, 2016); “‘What Muslims Want:’ A Survey of British Muslims by ICM on Behalf of Policy Exchange.” (London: Policy Exchange, December 2, 2016).
[40] Graeme MacQueen, “9/11 Truth: British Muslims Overwhelmingly Reject the Official 9/11 Story,” Global Research, December 29, 2016.
[41] Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America (Austin, Texas: Univ. of Texas Press, 2013).
[42] Civil society researchers have, of course, already begun the job. Good books to begin with are: David Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, Second edition (Northampton, Mass.: Interlink Publishing, 2004); David Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, The Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton, Mass.: Interlink Publishing, 2008); James Gourley, ed., The 9/11 Toronto Report: International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001 (International Center for 9/11 Studies, 2012). Additional sources include the websites of Consensus 9/11 and the Journal of 9/11 Studies.
Dr. Graeme MacQueen is the former Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University in Canada. He was an organizer of the Toronto Hearings on 9/11, is a member of the Consensus 9/11 Panel, and is a former co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

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oscaronlineme
oscaronlineme
May 1, 2017 11:24 PM

There is one enemy here

chrisb
chrisb
Apr 5, 2017 12:07 PM

To answer those who ask, ‘how come if 9/11 was an inside job, no one has spilled the beans?’ a few points …
Thousands of US citizens with expertise from being retired military figures through to air controllers, engineers and architects through to people involved in the event have questioned the official version in highly detailed and specific manners. These are people who would describe themselves as patriots and most are not people who could be described as Hard Left. It is simply that the MSM in the US do not give their views backed by expertise rigorous but balanced analysis. (The same happened in the UK with the death of Dr David Kelly. In a public and joint statement, many doctors questioned the suicide verdict on the grounds that so little blood was found at the scene. This has never been adequately considered by the MSM in the UK).
Silence is bought by threatening people’s careers and pensions.
The full conspiracy need only be known by a relatively small number of people. Most people who played minor roles would only have been following orders, the full significance of which they didn’t know.
One possible reason why WTC7 was brought down was because it housed the control centre for 9/11 and therefore the evidence.

michaelk
michaelk
Apr 4, 2017 8:35 PM

I suppose the dangers for ones credibility of being smeared with the ‘conspiracy nut’ label are simply too damaging for most leading leftist intellectuals to risk going anywhere near the ‘problems’ relating to the events of 9/11. Who needs that amount of grief? Chomsky’s stance on Kennedy and 9/11, is, though, hard to take seriously. The idea that these events weren’t massively significant, is, frankly, bizarre. For a scientist and intellectual to admit to knowing next to nothing about them and having even less interest, yet at the same time expressing strong views about the same events, is a bit odd, not to say un-scientific. To be proud of having a closed mind and bragging about ones ignorance is… perculiar.

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
Apr 5, 2017 11:49 AM
Reply to  michaelk

Yeah, he’s had ample time and provocation to get over his conceptual framework limitations. He’s just a dishonest gatekeeper. I read this email exchange between Chomsky and Jared Israel (linked to from an article in Off Guardian – forget which) where his dishonesty about Albania is pointed out. How much credibility can someone who is intellectually dishonest have and how dangerous is that person when so many people follow him?

nondimenticare
nondimenticare
Apr 4, 2017 8:10 PM

To add to this excellent analysis, I think there is among political thinkers an absence of grounding in “hard” sciences. Not up to being experts in trajectories, demolition technology, etc., they eschew study of or even reading in the disciplines which are essential to arriving at the truth in such matters.

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
Apr 5, 2017 2:27 PM
Reply to  nondimenticare

But 9/11 worked because of magical propaganda and an “inside job” being outside people’s conceptual framework. No one would believe that two 110 storey buildings collapsed to the ground from kerosene fires in less than 12 seconds or that a third building collapsed in 6.5 seconds – that hadn’t even been hit by a plane –
– except for these two phenomena.

mog
mog
Apr 4, 2017 12:51 PM

I am interested in that so many of the prominent 911 an JFK researchers and campaigners have expressed some affinity for a religious outlook. Griffin, Ryan, Scott, MacQueen, Douglas draw upon a non-rational or trans-rational perspective in seeking to understand human nature and within that our capacity for evil acts. I think that the Left’s alignment with rationalist, materialist frameworks of thinking has contributed to the hobbling of thought such as that seen in its response to JFK and 911.
If a new politics emerges to replace the defunct conservative/ liberal/ socialist order, it will surely have to be based on a deep understanding of human psychology, of the effect of concentrated power on individuals and groups, of the need for privacy in democracy, of the effectiveness and extent of perception management and manipulation. The left lacks a moral drive; as currently formulated, they only draw upon the philosophies of the 19th century which have been superseded by a century of psychological insights, quantum mechanics, the spread of mystical traditions to the West etc. etc.
The Left need to get their heads around the organised evil that dwells in the corridors of power.

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
Apr 4, 2017 1:18 PM
Reply to  mog

I think you have something there.

BigB
BigB
Apr 5, 2017 8:28 AM
Reply to  mog

@mog: Beautifully put; also any future political or socio-economic order will have to include – or have as its core value – what Professor McMurtry calls ‘life capital’. That is human life itself, including the global commons that sustain the bio-diversity of life and give it value. At the moment, these are valueless ‘externalities’ to the prevailing neo-liberal system.
In the structure of our society, we appear to have an ‘organised’ psychosis; where the most psychotic are the most valued and powerful members of society. Clearly, the lunatics are running the asylum.
Collectively owning up to that means re-evaluating who we are, beyond our socio-cultural paradigms. That is not a challenge that the herd is willing to undertake. That a society may choose to remain invested in its received paradigm – even when it is demonstrably murderous and corrupt – may seem insane, that is because it is insane! We are told (by the insane) that “there is no alternative”, the ‘TINA’ mantra that the herd are inculcated to believe.
Nietzsche declared God dead, but rational philosophy and materialist science failed to fill the moral vacuum. You use the terms non-rational and trans-rational, but I’m going to drop the ‘S-bomb’. I would go as far to say that at this juncture, at a societal level, we are so completely devoid of spirituality that we simply do not know who we are any more. Or where we are going. Profit is the prevailing religion – the purblind are leading the blind over the precipice.
I do not mean at all that on an individual basis, or even a localised community basis, people cannot share a deep sense of interbeing: but as an organisational principle it has been stifled. What are we to say of a society that murders its President in broad day, then shields the perpetraitors for over 50 years? Or a society that murders 3,000 of its own in order to justify global murder? Clearly we need a new society.
A new society or a new consciousness – one that has transcended death? Behaviourally and psychologically we are an immature species. Basically, we are Stone Age psyches with WMDs. If the current Western (neo)Liberal Democracy is the apogee of mans socio-political achievement, the “end of history”, to which “there is no alternative” – we are Fukayamed! (To be fair, even Fukayama realised he spoke to soon.)
Life Capital v Money Capital: the relentless pursuit of money capital has brought into vision our own demise. In the current state of our ‘development’ we are cannibalising entire societies to maintain the outer semblance of ‘growth’ and ‘stability.’ Time to mature into a more developed consciousness, and organise a society that reflects this outwardly. Easy to say, unfortunately the demonstrably insane have all the big bombs and minimal psychological maturity to prevent there use! Peace will not come from without, only within.

Jen
Jen
Apr 5, 2017 1:03 PM
Reply to  mog

I disagree that spiritual belief and particular political / economic ideologies are related in the way that Mog suggests. Some of the most extremely rationalist / materialist thinkers have been neoliberal or inclined in that direction: Ayn Rand may have been a good example of such a thinker. Classical liberal economics has always assumed that Homo economicus is a rational thinker and all such individuals of that abstract species have equal access to information that enables them to make economic decisions based on pure self-interest and free of emotion in markets lacking in historical and cultural background.
In fact, so much propaganda as practised by The Powers That Be these days presumes that people are essentially driven by emotion and feelings that they can’t control, and cannot be taught or encouraged to be rational thinkers. Advertising and public relations work on that presumption and it was an advertising man, Edmund Bernays, who pretty much designed the template on that presumption and others in the 1920s with the release of his book “Propaganda” (of which the Nazis and the Soviets alike were enthusiastic fans). Bernays was a nephew of Sigmund Freud and used his uncle’s psychoanalytic theories about the conscious versus the unconscious aspects of the mind in his work which culminated in his public relations campaign in 1954 to convince the US public that tiny impoverished Guatemala was a dangerous threat to the US and needed to be invaded to rid it of nascent Communist tendencies.
A new politics will need to acknowledge that humans are both emotional creatures and beings capable of self-improvement, insight and enlightenment. This is a view that classical liberal economics and its neoliberal bastard offspring actually deny.

CF
CF
Apr 4, 2017 10:04 AM

Arrby.
Could I recommend; JFK and the Unspeakable, Why he Died & Why it Matters
by James W. Douglass.
I think it will answer most of your questions.

Arrby
Arrby
Apr 4, 2017 6:57 AM

I’ve read enough about JFK to know that he hated Castro and wanted him assassinated. I don’t recall any mention of a Kennedy peace initiative in regard to Castro. Inform me please. As for Kennedy peace initiatives, plural. I think not.

mog
mog
Apr 4, 2017 12:21 PM
Reply to  Arrby

I second CF’s recommendation (above).
Kennedy was a cold warrior for most of his political career, but Douglas makes the case convincingly that the experience of the Cuban Missile Crisis (and subsequent events) fundamentally changed his outlook.
This is a very well documented book and convinced me of the complexity of Kennedy’s character and his situation – it was a remarkable time that set the course for so much that followed.

Dead World Walking.
Dead World Walking.
Apr 4, 2017 1:18 AM

In a nation where patriots are thick on the ground, how was the world biggest inside job kept a secret?
Sixteen years and not one insider or high government official has come forward.
Chomsky has a point.
The US needs no pretext to invade foreign countries. They’ve been doing it since the Korean War.
The paranoid psychopaths that rule Israel on the other hand _ _ _ _

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
Apr 4, 2017 5:33 AM

It’s true they can always manufacture a pretext but 9/11 was a massive conspiracy involving, ironically, among other people, rogue elements within the US, Israeli, Pakistani and Saudi Arabian governments and intelligence agencies (maybe more countries were involved) and there was a lot more to it than pretext for war. Plus you’ve got to understand that the power elite are crazy and you can’t apply normal reasoning to them. The way they’re into their Freemasonry symbols and all the rest of it – they’re bona fide crazy.
These two films talk about the money – from completely different angles if memory serves correctly:
9/11 Conspiracy Solved: Names, Connections, & Details Exposed! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_fp5kaVYhk
9/11 Trillions: Follow the Money https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3xgjxJwedA&t=7s
You really have to drop the paradigms of “people would talk” and “too many people”. That’s what stopped me looking at 9/11 for 12 years … as well as another completely laughable one, “The US government wouldn’t have the confidence they could get away with it.” They soooooo had the confidence because they understand the power of propaganda waaaayyy better than us schmucks. I’ve gone back to look at the fable of The Emperor’s New Clothes a couple of times since cottoning on to 9/11 (and now the spate of false-flag hoaxes with the most recent, Westminster (just go to YouTube and look up Westminster hoax – you’ll find a goldmine of hoaxery)) – but it wasn’t till my recent review of the fable that I noticed the very important propaganda element, namely, “the clothes would become invisible to unusually stupid people or those not fit for their office.” “Conspiracy theorist” works exactly the same way in the modern day. It is utterly amazing how journalists will quote claims from “conspiracy theorists” without feeling the slightest obligation to analyse the claims … because conspiracy theorists have zero credibility and, of course, anyone claiming a conspiracy has occurred can’t possibly be basing the claim on evidence but only on “elaborate” (to quote Noam Chomsky’s use of the word) theories. It seems these days conspiracies never occur except in the deluded minds of conspiracy theorists.
I agree with the writer that you need to have the imagination for the hypothesis before you can take it on. What got me started was randomly clicking a link on Facebook to the 3.5 hour film, JFK to 9/11 Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM). Getting a history of what led to 9/11 made it much easier to comprehend as a possibility. There isn’t actually that much about 9/11 in this film but it’s what got me started researching. The film led me to completely change my view of the world and, because it shows things that were alien to my thought, I needed to watch it a few times.
Another excellent film is The Conspiracy “Theory” Conspiracy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sB0MF3Ozs) – you could probably skip the first 20 minutes unless you really want it hammered home to you how much they bombard and bamboozle us with their “conspiracy theory”/”Conspiracy theorist” propaganda weapons.

StAug
StAug
Apr 4, 2017 6:13 PM
Reply to  flaxgirl

“They soooooo had the confidence because they understand the power of propaganda waaaayyy better than us schmucks.”
Totally. Does the following sound like the musings of the not-too-confident…?
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

flaxgirl
flaxgirl
Apr 4, 2017 10:20 PM
Reply to  StAug

Interesting that the article the quote comes from was published in the NY Times (Ron Suskind, 17/10/2004).
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html?_r=0

StAug
StAug
Apr 4, 2017 10:44 PM
Reply to  flaxgirl

“What got me started was randomly clicking a link on Facebook…”
They did not design Facebook to perform that function! laugh

StAug
StAug
Apr 4, 2017 5:52 AM

“In a nation where patriots are thick on the ground, how was the world biggest inside job kept a secret?”
You clearly don’t understand the mindset of the “patriot”. The “patriot” is not loyal to the notion of the little people (aka the pawns/ Serfs/ victims), the “patriot” is loyal to the notion of a “higher” ideal and authority embodied by “duty” to one’s country, for which any sacrifice is “worth it”. The people who concocted Operation Northwoods (designed to sacrific innocent American civilians in a False Flag) were “patriots”, as were the people who sacrificed thousands of lives in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, et al. That’s the problem in this “debate”: too many people try to understand the actions of an Alien Other (psychopathic man/woman of “action”) by the lights of their own psychology: it doesn’t work.

Manda
Manda
Apr 4, 2017 10:40 AM
Reply to  StAug

This video sprang into my mind reading your comment, with which I concur. Hedges, giving a small insight into the super rich mind set in general. I imagine the ideological “patriots” are far more extreme, single minded and committed to their vision.

StAug
StAug
Apr 4, 2017 6:50 AM

“The US needs no pretext to invade foreign countries.”
You need a better grasp of history. From “Remember the Maine” to “A Day of Infamy” to “Gulf of Tonkin” and “WMD” (et al), they always use a (spurious) pretext to dupe the Serfs into sacrificing their children (and the children of “the enemy”) to increase/ maintain corporate profits with the high-tech meat-grinder (in goes flesh and blood, out comes gold and now oil) called War. “9/11” was a massive spurious pretext for the past 16 years of intercontinental piracy.

BigB
BigB
Apr 4, 2017 2:41 PM

@Dead World Walking: a couple of points – Bush the Lesser Evil was initially a more unpopular President than Trump – probably three quarters of the country rightly thought he stole the 2000 election. Other than that, I can think of 2.3 trillion reasons why his regime needed a pretext for the wars they had planned – the Pentagon deficit – announced on the 10th by Rumsfeld. On the 11th, both sets of records – in the Pentagon and the backup, in WTC 7 – disappeared. Unless you believe in fairy tales, that is beyond coincidence. Finance, and the pretext for the American jihad was secured, as if by magic.
Mossad had around 120 ‘art students’ engaged in surveillance – according to the infamous banned Fox News cover (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbkQddEDPs0). As for if they could have carried out the attack, see my comment to @tubularsock below – but the NORAD standown, 46 drills and source of the anthrax – point to the heights of the US Executive political and military command – not Israel – and most definitely not to a cave in Afghanistan! This was a very American coup.

Schlüter
Schlüter
Apr 3, 2017 10:53 PM

See also:
“Nine Eleven a Dozen Years ago – Stirred it the Third World War?” http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/nine-eleven-a-dozen-years-ago-stirred-it-the-third-world-war/
&
„USA and Israel, the Helpless Giant and his Mad Dog: are there more dirty secrets?“ http://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2014/08/12/usa-and-israel-the-helpless-giant-and-his-mad-dog-are-there-more-dirty-secrets/
regards

John
John
Apr 3, 2017 8:35 PM

My conclusion on the 911 events is that the Israelis at least knew about it, as evidenced by 5 of their intelligence operatives witnessed “high-fiving” as the planes slammed into the WTC1 and WTC2 buildings.
When interviewed (after being released by the FBI within 2 weeks of being apprehended) on Israeli TV, one of them claimed they were only there to record the event.
How could he have known he should be there to ‘record’ the event without pre-existing knowledge of it?
One other thing that strikes me now: interesting that both Oswald (who self-described himself as “the patsy”) and bin Laden were both bumped off before they had an opportunity to have the cases against them scrutinised.
It seems a dead apparent so-called “assassin” can be even more useful than a live one!
The American Left died the day they started saying nothing about drone strikes.
State sanctioned and organised murder – especially of innocents – violates all progressive values.
The American Left failed to understand this fact.

bill
bill
Apr 3, 2017 8:19 PM

truly outstanding,brave,penetrating,highly researched and insightful essay worthy in itself of real study…. that a number of British journalists outstanding in other fields have immediately pursued and over years repeated the conspiracy theory ad hominem obviously without the slightest inquiry or reflection, as a kneejeck analysis, is deeply depressing, disturbing and shameful,but in their defence- yes its stretching it a bit- they know any dissenting views would never be published so why bother research as it wont pay the bills? American citizens are daily battered with freedom propaganda throughout their media and even in their churches which corrodes imagination and have become blinded by their false patriotism barely noticing that they are members of a war state.It is to some extent fear of believing that their Government could in fact have even covered up 9/11 that has blocked their ears, most unaware their lives are being oppressively controlled by a political duopoly and with no obvious cohesive political salvation remotely in sight merely more discord,division and inequality….

Jerry Alatalo
Jerry Alatalo
Apr 3, 2017 7:53 PM

Reblogged this on THE ONENESS of HUMANITY and commented:
The 9/11 events which occurred on September 11, 2001 remain the world’s greatest unsolved crime.
The ongoing moral and ethical failure of humanity to gather the will and determination necessary to address the crime which birthed 15 years of literal hell on Earth – destroying the lives of untold millions of innocent men, women and children – represents the most disturbing assault on human integrity, common decency, and respect for life of the 21st century.

Brandon Fouts
Brandon Fouts
Apr 5, 2017 12:33 AM
Reply to  Jerry Alatalo

https://youtu.be/4fUT7XgLiTY
Professor Daniele Ganser (Switzerland) – 10 Years After 9/11

StAug
StAug
Apr 3, 2017 6:49 PM

“But beneath the questions lay a central, unspoken fact: Castro was able to imagine—as a real possibility and not as mere fantasy—that the story being promoted by the U.S. government and media was radically false. ”
Castro was used to “blackwash” (taint by association) JFK conspiracy theories from very early on; because the people who do these things are adept at manipulating the masses, and the Mainstream and the (mainstream component of) The Left tend to be rather naive, the trick always works. Very large chunks of “The Truth” can be found on the more absurd websites for this reason. One of the important side-jobs of any Bogeyman in The Movie we call Normal Life is to establish the limits on acceptable beliefs, speech and behavior. The tiny subset of The Left that would actually consider Fidel a viable role model (or father figure) were falling into a trap as well, as they made themselves easy to identify and easy to goad into actionable gestures; if you felt honor-bound to exhibit “revolutionary” speech and gestures during the first part of the Cold War, you were no match for the liars, tricksters and killers who run these things… you were as Boyscouts fighting the Mafia. Except it wasn’t The Mafia, it was the Institutions in charge of The Mafia you were and are up against. Jack Palance versus Elisha Cook, over and over again…

tubularsock
tubularsock
Apr 3, 2017 6:00 PM

Left?
Progressive?
Meaningless terms in today’s world.
When you have the “right” claiming that the New York Times is “left-leaning”.
When Killary and Obomber are called “Progressive”.
These terms have been hijacked to mean NOTHING any longer!
The Gate-Keeper’s of the “Left” have lost all meaning as well. When I.F. Stone, Chomsky, and your list of “left” U.S. media all failed to investigate 9/11 or just kept silent one could surmise a “conspiracy-theory right there!
Americans in general, from Tubularsock’s experience, lack imagination on so many levels. And are pretty oblivious to the rest of the world. So for the general populous to believe any thoughts “outside-the-bubble” is pretty close to impossible.
And what has been so clearly shown, whoever grabs the first NARRATIVE of any event controls the thought of that event. And if that NARRATIVE was planned and orchestrated …….. no contest!
And not to be redundant but as Tubularsock has often said, “9/11 Was Not An Inside Job …. if was an out-sourced job! We out-source terrorism … it’s THE AMERICAN WAY!”

Simon Roberts
Simon Roberts
Apr 3, 2017 8:37 PM
Reply to  tubularsock

Good points but you missed out on “Liberals” who like to judge and tell everyone else what to do/think/say/put in their bodies.

BigB
BigB
Apr 4, 2017 12:45 PM
Reply to  tubularsock

@tubularsock: the NORAD standown; the 46 Drills (Amalgam Virgo 01,02; Vigilant Warrior;etc) that Webster Tarpley has identified; or the smoking gun – the strain of the AMERITHRAX anthrax points to highly secure US military installations – not Ft Detrick, but the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground or the Battelle Corporation (which manages Dugway) which in turn points to CIA involvement. No Mossad, Pakistani ISI or Saudi intel involvement there. Or are you suggesting that ‘terrorists’ infiltrated the US chain of command to the highest level – including the beyond Top Secret Continuity of Government planning? This was a very American coup.
http://tarpley.net/2011/08/24/the-last-secret-of-911-truth/
https://www.911tap.org/557-news-releases/641-anthrax-attack-spawned-in-military-bioweapons-lab

John
John
Apr 4, 2017 1:49 PM
Reply to  BigB

I can recall being given a flyer by a guy in the street, in which it was claimed that AIDS was developed in a US military laboratory as a potential weapon against Soviet and other “hostile” forces. At the time, it was thought it would only affect blacks, non-Christians and homosexuals.
The AIDS virus either accidentally escaped from the military laboratory or it might have been field-trialed in Haiti (remember all the black homosexual Haitians who initially appeared to be the only ones infected by the virus) but spread more rapidly than the field experiment was supposed to control.
Does anyone else know more than this?
I which now I had held on to that flyer!

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Apr 5, 2017 12:09 AM
Reply to  John

Hi, John,
There is no such thing as “AIDS” caused by a virus (HIV). I’m not kidding. Just a couple of (serious) references for you:
The chemical bases of the various AIDS epidemics: recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy and malnutrition
&
THE BIG LIE ABOUT AIDS — By Gary Null, Penthouse, April 1994
Just the first two paragraphs from Gary Null’s piece to entice your curiosity:

Ten years ago Dr. Duesberg was a lone voice in the world of AIDS research. At that time, the molecular biologist, world renowned virologist, and U.C.L.A. professor began asking a question that seems like heresy to this day: Is it possible that we were wrong when we equated HIV with AIDS? While any scientific discussion should allow such a challenge, others have tried to silence Dr. Duesberg. AIDS research continues to be driven by the hypothesis that HIV is its cause, with virtually all our medical and scientific resources invested in this hypothesis. But several outstanding scientific voices are joining Dr. Duesberg in denouncing this approach. Witness the report published in mid-1993 by a group of Australian researchers led by Dr. Eleni Papadopoulos-Eleopulos. In this break-through report, the scientists raise serious questions about the accuracy of HIV-antibody tests and, more important, the very relationship between HIV and AIDS. They show that the HIV tests produce inconsistent results, both within one laboratory that tested a sample twice and between two labs that tested the same sample. What’s more, it’s nearly impossible to determine the rate of “false positives” because there is no “gold standard” to independently verify test results, as reported in the New York Native.
And that’s not all. Among other things, the researchers also found that HIV cannot be isolated in all AIDS patients, but HIV can be found in people who are HIV-antibody negative. They found that people with non-AIDS diseases have antibodies that can register a positive result on the HIV-antibody test. They found that the p24 antigen is not, as is widely believed, an indicator of HIV infection or AIDS. Indeed, people with multiple sclerosis, T-cell lymphoma, generalised warts, and other diseases have the p24 antigen.

Norman Pilon
Norman Pilon
Apr 4, 2017 11:54 PM
Reply to  BigB

If the “job” was outsourced, by definition it was an “inside job,” or as you put it, ” a very American coup.”
The point Tubes is making is that “all” of that so-called “Islamic terror” is really “American (sponsored and engineered) terror,” whether it occurs in the U.S., the Middle East, or Europe. It’s Operation Gladio all over again, only on a slightly larger and more refined scale, or rather, depending on what you already know, on a more brazen scale.
I don’t think there’s any disagreement between you and him. 😉

rtj1211
rtj1211
Apr 3, 2017 5:26 PM

You do not have to be ‘on the left’ to have a robust, intellectual, enquiring mind. Left vs Right is about economics in the main, not about conquest and domination. Both the far left and far right are authoritarian in nature, after all.
I wish people would leave outdated labels alone where morally indefensible acts of mass murder are concerned. It is nearly as bad as ‘Christian Good, Muslim Bad’ nonsense….
Other than that, a superb article worthy of a very wide audience……

paulcarline
paulcarline
Apr 3, 2017 5:03 PM

Excellent. There is really no excuse for not knowing that the official story of 9/11 is entirely false. Anyone with an open, honest mind, who seriously cares about the truth, would be able to convince themselves very quickly (certainly within an hour, if they are presented with the key facts) that the official account cannot be true. As with the assassination of JFK and with numerous other crimes of this kind – such as the “Gladio” bombings and shootings in Europe in the 1970s and ’80s – it is not necessary to know exactly who did it (in the absence of a key whistleblower, we may never know exactly who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks). All that is necessary is to accept the inconsistencies in the official stories, and in particular the ‘small’ facts which are often ignored – such as the multiple instances on 9/11 of a cover-up throughthe planting of fake evidence, or the faked impossible phone calls.
My recent favourite is the incontrovertible evidence that no real planes were hijacked or crashed – because real 757s cannot fly at more than 500 mph at the relevant heights (ground level at the Pentagon, around 700 feet at the WTC), as alleged by the US authorities. This simple fact dispenses with much of the usual questioning about hijackers, planes, passengers etc.
McQueen suggests that one of the reasons why many people still refuse to accept the facts is “a failure of imagination”. I would prefer to call it “wilful ignorance”. The important question then is: what motivates this?

Jen
Jen
Apr 4, 2017 12:14 AM
Reply to  paulcarline

One motivator for what you call “wilful ignorance” is the context in which the attacks on the WTC buildings took place. Before 9/11, there had been no major terrorist attacks in a major US city apart from the truck bombing of the Alfred P Murrah government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, and responsibility for that was sheeted home to a disgruntled US Gulf War veteran who was executed in June 2001.
Also the way in which the attacks took place and were grouped together on the one day was deeply unsettling for everyone. Civilian passenger jets were used as weapons. There was real panic and the US was in virtual lockdown (where domestic and international flights were concerned, save for an apparent El Al flight from NYC to Tel Aviv) for two days. During the time when everyone in the West was in a daze or a funk, the corporate media relentlessly replayed the events and repeated the mantra about foreign hijackers having carried out the attacks.
http://911caper.com/2010/03/17/full-el-al-flight-took-off-on-911-from-jfk-to-tel-aviv/
This was the mass equivalent of electric shock treatment combined with mass hypnosis. Once the repetition had done its work and the template had etched itself irrevocably into our brains, a new mental paradigm had taken over. The world would never be the same again.

Jen
Jen
Apr 4, 2017 12:17 AM
Reply to  Jen

I should have qualified the second sentence in the first paragraph to say that no successful major terrorist attacks had taken place in a major US city like NYC or Los Angeles – I’d forgotten about the bomb attack on one of the WTC buildings in 1993 in which the FBI had a hand in supplying the more incendiary parts for the bomb to their informant in the bomb plot.

John
John
Apr 4, 2017 12:26 AM
Reply to  Jen

Wasn’t there also one other flight allowed to fly members of the bin Laden family out of the USA to Saudi Arabia?

Jen
Jen
Apr 4, 2017 12:58 AM
Reply to  John

That 911caper.com article does mention two flights: one Lear jet flight flew three Saudis from Tampa in Florida to Lexington in Kentucky on 13 September 2001 (when private flights were grounded until 14 September) and the other flight by Northstar Aviation flew four Saudis to Paris on 14 September. These may have been private flights.
You are right, there was possibly one flight apparently approved by the US government that took members of the Saudi royal family and the bin Laden family from Texas to Washington so they could leave the US as soon as the nation-wide air curfew was lifted. They could have been driven all the way from Texas as well but that seems unlikely.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/September_11,_2001:_Evacuation_of_Saudi_Nationals

John
John
Apr 4, 2017 12:33 AM
Reply to  Jen

I followed the 911 caper hyperlink to read the article (which confirmed bin Laden flights in the US and Europe) but when I clicked on ‘Click to read the rest of the article regarding the flight from New York to Tel Aviv on 9/11.’, the page the link went to read ‘Not Found – The requested URL /artman/publish/article_5691.shtml was not found on this server.’ Curious – or what?

adambaumsocal
adambaumsocal
Apr 3, 2017 4:36 PM

#AIPAC #PUPPET #Trump’s #Israel First Policies : Our Dishonest President….Foreign Interventions have only expanded http://getrightorgetout.blogspot.com/2017/04/our-dishonest-president-if-china-wont.html?spref=tw