Analyzing conspiracy theories after September 11 attacks

Recently television’s THE HISTORY CHANNEL aired a special analyzing the various conspiracy theories that have emerged since the events of September 11, 2001 (hereinafter 9/11), when passenger airplanes commandeered by hijackers, allegedly operating under the directions of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, struck the World Trade Center in New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Although this special initially claimed that it would present “both sides” of the issue, it quickly became clear that its sole purpose was to debunk the conspiracy theorists.

Photo: Analyzing conspiracy theories after September 11 attacks

However, in its zeal to do so, this special glossed over the fact that two schools of thought have emerged to challenge the “official” version of 9/11. The first school, which this special took great pains to discredit, has argued that the Bush dictatorship played an active role in the planning and execution of the events that occurred on that fateful day. The second school has argued that the Bush dictatorship’s culpability in the 9/11 attacks was not through act, but through omission, by allowing the 9/11 attacks to occur.

Both schools appear to agree that the Bush dictatorship had two motives for desiring the attacks of 9/11: 1). To create the fear and outrage necessary so Americans would unquestioningly swallow the lies that led to the Iraqi war; 2). To compel Americans to sacrifice their civil liberties by making them more concerned about “safety” and “security” than freedom and democracy.

It is this second school of thought that this HISTORY CHANNEL special failed to debunk, and ironically it is the one that has the most evidence supporting it.

First there are the characters of two of the principal players: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Many pundits have argued that these two men are not “evil” enough to sacrifice the lives of thousands of Americans for self-serving political and economic gain.

However, Bush’s cavalier attitude regarding the potential death of innocents rebuts this argument. While governor of Texas, Bush presided over the executions of more than one hundred and fifty people. While vile enough in itself, Bush also routinely denied thirty day reprieves to death row inmates so DNA testing could be conducted that might exonerate them. Also, while governors in other states were permitting such testing, or declaring moratoriums on the death penalty altogether because of the number of wrongfully convicted people cleared through DNA tests, Bush was boasting that “no innocent person had been executed under his watch,” a relatively easy boast to make considering that in Texas all evidence is destroyed immediately after an execution, thereby making posthumous DNA testing impossible.

Meanwhile Cheney is the paradigm of a bullying coward, who demands sacrifices of others he refused to make himself, and who lusts for the blood of those weaker than him. To avoid serving in the Vietnam War, Cheney received five deferments, because he lacked the courage to face an adversary who could shoot back. Now Cheney “bravely” engages in the “sport” of caged hunts, where helpless animals are penned in with no means of escape while Cheney and his ilk gun them down.

Then there are the actions of the Bush dictatorship. These were people who lusted for power so badly they were willing to defy the will of the American people and undermine democracy to steal not one, but two elections. And the bellicose cries for war against Iraq echoed throughout the Bush dictatorship long before the events of 9/11 even occurred.

After 9/11, the Bush dictatorship eagerly, and without compunction, lied about Saddam Hussein’s alleged involvement in 9/11, and Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” in order to start the war it had covertly clamored for since the election theft of 2000.

To date thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, have died because of these lies. So do Bush and his minions sound like people who would hesitate to sacrifice a few thousand lives on American soil to infect the nation with the fear and anger necessary to launch their illegal war?

And one should not forget that the now disgraced, and possibly perjurious, former Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, was so desperate to carry out the Bush dictatorship’s directive to undermine civil liberties in the United States that he actually visited his hospitalized predecessor John Ashcroft in the intensive care unit, where he was recovering from gallbladder surgery, in order to force Ashcroft to recertify a domestic spying program that the Justice Department had determined was illegal.

Add to this the CIA torture chambers, secret prisons and detention camps the Bush dictatorship has scattered throughout the world, and mix in the willingness to imprison and torture American citizens that the dictatorship labels “enemy combatants,” and it is not difficult to conceive that Bush and his minions are capable of doing anything to achieve their corrupt political ends.

However, as I’ve argued in previous Pravda.ru articles, even if one does not believe that George W. Bush and his minions are capable of destroying the lives of American citizens on a mass scale, this does not mean that the Bush dictatorship escapes all guilt for the events of 9/11. After all, the use of airplanes in the United States in the manner employed on 9/11 was unprecedented. In the past, terrorist actions using aircraft either involved force or threat of force to compel a plane to fly to a country that the hijacker(s) believed harbored a sympathetic government, or became a hostage taking scenario where hijackers demanded certain concessions in exchange for the release of captives.

Therefore it was highly probable that the Bush dictatorship, having knowledge of a pending terrorist action involving airplanes, simply concluded that any hijacking would be of the “traditional” variety, and that this style of hijacking alone would be enough to whip Americans into the jingoistic frenzy necessary to launch the illegal invasion of Iraq. Unfortunately, by the time the magnitude of the 9/11 events became evident, it was too late to do anything about them.

Whatever the explanation, one fact is clear: the events of 9/11, as nightmarish as they were, tragically blinded far too many Americans to the greater nightmare that had hijacked the nation one year earlier, during the infamous coup of 2000—the nightmare known as the “presidency” of George W. Bush.

David R. Hoffman
Legal Editor of Pravda.Ru