Yet, as South African writer Nadine Gordimer recognizes, "the facts are always less than what happened."
Other "facts" soon began dribbling out, unofficial facts to contradict the official ones. They added up to "Inconvenient Truths" as in the gospel according to Al Gore. And suddenly two new theories offered a widely believed "counter-narrative"--even as this one has yet to fully penetrate the mass media guardians of public order and understandings.
The first is the incompetence theory, the by now accepted reality of screw-ups without end that, when taken together, would in any other society lead to prosecutable crimes and misdemeanors. Surely a country which spent three years embroiled in the Clinton witch trial should be capable of going after a real abuse of power.
This shameful record will no longer stay buried as we learn of failures to act despite as many as 60 warnings, fatally flawed intelligence procedures, agencies not communicating or consciously deceiving each other and themselves, of billion dollar Air Defense Systems not defending the country, of a lack of emergency planning, and as in the case of the World Trade Center an absence of preparedness, police and fire radios that didn't work, and "America's Mayor" more consumed with his image and "legacy" than it protecting the responders who were allowed and encouraged to work in conditions known to be dangerous without safety provisions.
All you will need are three sources to persuade you of the colossal "f*ck-up that was 9/11: two new books, Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, and "Grand Illusion" by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins exposing Rudy Giuliani's fraudulent heroism, and, now, the new Globalvision assisted documentary 911: Press for Truth on the 911 Commission cover-up and the pernicious role played by our media.
Beyond all this is the "Bush Did It" counter-conspiracy theories propounded in different form on a thousand books websites and films like "Loose Change" that claim to "connect the dots" by identifying the long and nefarious hand of government complicity--not just duplicity-- behind 911.
Some of those propounding these views sometime seem fanatical as if they are waging their own Jihad based on an almost fundamentalist certainty that they know what happened. Everyone has heard the claims of controlled demolitions and missiles used to stage a new Pearl Harbor. There may be truth here--and how do we know for sure AND is it the only truth?
It seems clear that even if the government did not prepare 911, they were prepared to use it to political advantage and to have it economically benefit their many donors and "partners."
And the fear-mongering and war making is continuing to this day even as a once sympathetic world soon had enough of the cynical self-serving victimology--and 'patriotically correct' posturing. This has fueled abuses of our constitution and hatred of Muslim peoples. It has fueled terrorism, not contained it.
In the weeks ahead, let us call for the media, that part of it anyway that is least compromised to shed prior assumptions and safe conclusions and become open to investigating all these narratives as some did finally about the phony claims of WMD's in Iraq.
More than two towers collapsed on 911. Our democracy has fallen with them. In years past, in similar mysteries of history, it has taken more than 5 years for the truth to surface. (Example: it took 50 years to learn that an engine room explosion brought down the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1998, not Spanish sabotage. That false "attack" was used as pretext for the bloody Spanish American War.)
The only danger today is that we may not have the time to wait. Fascism-- real fascism, as defined not as religious Muslims but as autocratic corporate rule--has a funny way of becoming irreversible. To see the signs, many seem to need that new kind of decoder ring.
Other "facts" soon began dribbling out, unofficial facts to contradict the official ones. They added up to "Inconvenient Truths" as in the gospel according to Al Gore. And suddenly two new theories offered a widely believed "counter-narrative"--even as this one has yet to fully penetrate the mass media guardians of public order and understandings.
The first is the incompetence theory, the by now accepted reality of screw-ups without end that, when taken together, would in any other society lead to prosecutable crimes and misdemeanors. Surely a country which spent three years embroiled in the Clinton witch trial should be capable of going after a real abuse of power.
This shameful record will no longer stay buried as we learn of failures to act despite as many as 60 warnings, fatally flawed intelligence procedures, agencies not communicating or consciously deceiving each other and themselves, of billion dollar Air Defense Systems not defending the country, of a lack of emergency planning, and as in the case of the World Trade Center an absence of preparedness, police and fire radios that didn't work, and "America's Mayor" more consumed with his image and "legacy" than it protecting the responders who were allowed and encouraged to work in conditions known to be dangerous without safety provisions.
All you will need are three sources to persuade you of the colossal "f*ck-up that was 9/11: two new books, Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower, and "Grand Illusion" by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins exposing Rudy Giuliani's fraudulent heroism, and, now, the new Globalvision assisted documentary 911: Press for Truth on the 911 Commission cover-up and the pernicious role played by our media.
Some of those propounding these views sometime seem fanatical as if they are waging their own Jihad based on an almost fundamentalist certainty that they know what happened. Everyone has heard the claims of controlled demolitions and missiles used to stage a new Pearl Harbor. There may be truth here--and how do we know for sure AND is it the only truth?
It seems clear that even if the government did not prepare 911, they were prepared to use it to political advantage and to have it economically benefit their many donors and "partners."
And the fear-mongering and war making is continuing to this day even as a once sympathetic world soon had enough of the cynical self-serving victimology--and 'patriotically correct' posturing. This has fueled abuses of our constitution and hatred of Muslim peoples. It has fueled terrorism, not contained it.
In the weeks ahead, let us call for the media, that part of it anyway that is least compromised to shed prior assumptions and safe conclusions and become open to investigating all these narratives as some did finally about the phony claims of WMD's in Iraq.
More than two towers collapsed on 911. Our democracy has fallen with them. In years past, in similar mysteries of history, it has taken more than 5 years for the truth to surface. (Example: it took 50 years to learn that an engine room explosion brought down the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1998, not Spanish sabotage. That false "attack" was used as pretext for the bloody Spanish American War.)
The only danger today is that we may not have the time to wait. Fascism-- real fascism, as defined not as religious Muslims but as autocratic corporate rule--has a funny way of becoming irreversible. To see the signs, many seem to need that new kind of decoder ring.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
