911-Is This What You Think?
There have been thousands of articles written on the events
surrounding 9/11, and the avalanche does not seem to be slowing
down.
There are basically four main streams of thought surrounding
9/11, each with its own group of followers who are convinced
they know the truth.
The first group believes the official version of 9/11 : the
attack was done under the direction of Saudi mastermind Osama
Bin Laden by 19 Arab hijackers who used box cutters to hijack
four passenger jets and turn them into flying bombs. United
Airlines flights 11 and 175 crashed into the twin towers of the
World Trade Center while a third, American Airlines flight 77,
hit the Pentagon. A fourth airplane, United Airlines Flight 93,
was heading towards the White House but crashed into a
Pennsylvania field after several heroic passengers said "Let's
roll" and struggled with the hijackers. The twin towers burned
and collapsed due to the stress of the impact and the heat
generated by burning jet fuel. Warnings which might have allowed
the authorities to prevent the attack were lost in the
bureaucratic maze of large, overburdened intelligence agencies
such as the CIA.
People in this group feel that the government does its honest
best to preserve the security of the nation, but that determined
and unconventional terrorists are difficult to stop even with
the greatest vigilance. Intelligence agencies can be cumbersome
and should be streamlined, but officials have displayed enough
care and attention that no-one should be blamed for egregious
negligence. This is the version of events presented by the US
government and the mainstream news media such as Fox and CNN.
The second group believes most of the official version, with a
few minor caveats. The main difference is that the second group
supports a round of firings to deal with what they feel are
incompetent government officials.
They excoriate the President for continuing to read "My Pet
Goat" to school children instead of instantly responding to the
tragedy, and blame the Vice President for going into hiding
instead of standing in solidarity beside the president and
rallying the public at the time of the attacks. They feel that
intelligence agencies displayed indifferent attitudes to
important information warning of an impending terrorist strike,
that airport security was overly lax, and that proper diligence
by the authorities would have prevented the entire scenario.
They support radical improvements in the way foreign
intelligence is collected and handled, and feel that with enough
surveillance, America can be made safe from the threat of
foreign terrorist attacks.
People in both the first and second groups are likely to see the
Patriot Act and wiretapping without warrants are necessary evils
in the fight against a foreign enemy. Both groups display a
basic faith in the soundness of America's government and
institutions. Islamic fundamentalists have a well-documented
penchant for violence, and the 9/11 attacks are just another
manifestation of what Samuel Huntington has called "The Clash of
Civilizations". Many of these people feel that since America is
innocent of any role in fomenting the attacks, it is futile to
engage in dialogue with Arab malcontents; only military action
can stop an enemy which hates America for its democratic values.
The third group is much more critical of the role of American
foreign and domestic policy in causing terrorism. Islamic
fighters in Afghanistan received American financial backing
during the 1979-1988 Soviet-Afghanistan war. These mujahadeen,
who fought the Soviets with training and weapons supplied by the
CIA, were the forerunners of the Taliban, a group of radical
Wahabi clerics who sheltered Al -Queda and Osama Bin Laden.
Followers of this school of thought point out the close links
between the Bush government and the Bin Laden family (and of
course, the Saudi regime generally). Immediately after 9/11,
when all other planes were grounded, members of the Bin Laden
family were allowed to leave America without being interrogated
for information about their prodigal relative. In addition,
American has a history of overthrowing democratic governments in
the Middle East which oppose American policies (such as Iranian
Premier Mossedeq in 1953), to install pliant dictatorships in
their place. These actions create hostility which leads to
terrorism, and Americans could and should have seen the attacks
coming.
According to this group, the Islamic world dislikes America more
for what it does than for what it is; America gives unwavering
support to Israel and supports dictatorial Arab regimes as long
as they service America's need for oil. American dependence on
foreign oil insures further entanglement with dangerous,
resentful Islamic fundamentalists. This group feels that
America's corrupt foreign policy is largely responsible for the
attacks, and support broad changes in American policies and
disengagement from the Middle East.
Examples of this school of thought are film maker Michael Moore,
whose film "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed many examples of government
malfeasance surrounding the attacks. These people are less
likely to support increased security; they feel existing laws
and agencies, as long as they function correctly, are more than
adequate to deal with foreign threats. They heap scorn on
airport security officers who search grandmothers in the name of
political correctness, and are unlikely to support widespread,
intrusive security. Terrorism is seen as a structural
phenomenon, unlikely to disappear regardless of any military or
security-related actions until the root causes are eliminated.
The fourth group consists of conspiracy theorists who
forthrightly accuse the government of committing the attack, and
use slogans such as "9/11 was an inside job". They believe that
rogue elements in the CIA and the Pentagon orchestrated the
entire event in order to provide an excuse for the pre-planned
invasion of Iraq, and that Arabs, if they were involved at all,
were not the masterminds.
They point to architectural and scientific evidence that the WTC
was built to withstand more stress than would be generated by
the impact of two airplanes, and that jet fuel does not burn at
sufficiently high temperatures to melt steel. The collapse of
the Twin Towers and the identical collapse of a third building
nearby (the Seven World Trade Center, which was never hit by a
plane) , are said to be due to a controlled demolition set up by
explosives experts. They cast doubt on the idea that 19
non-military amateurs armed only with boxcutters could
successfully commandeer 4 large commercial aircraft. The 8-mile
long debris field left by Flight 93 points to the plane coming
apart or exploding in midair (or even, more ominously, being
shot done by a missile), not hitting the ground intact. A host
of other irregularities in the mountain of available forensic
evidence and eyewitness accounts are scrutinized as well.
These people have a decidedly unsavory opinion of America's
government. They point out the long history of American military
involvement in false-flag attacks planned and performed for the
sole purpose of manipulating public opinion in favor of various
wars, such as the attack on the battleship Maine, the Gulf of
Tonkin Incident, and Operation Northwoods.
This group sees the increasing levels of security and public
surveillance as not only unnecessary (given the absence of
foreign enemies), but as signs of incipient police state. They
hold a general distrust of the American military-industrial
complex, and speak fearfully of a "New World Order", an elite
cabal of globalists who have no concern for the lives of
ordinary members of the public.
People in this group, regardless of the merit of their claims,
receive no exposure on mainstream media because their statements
are so incendiary that the ramifications would destroy public
faith in government. However, this lobby is a growth industry on
the Internet; a search for "9/11 Conspiracy" yields 10,200,000
results.
Of course, there is considerable cross-pollination between the
four groups. It is entirely possible to believe, for instance,
that American security agencies functioned properly on 9/11 (the
first group) while also believing that the nation is too
dependent on foreign oil (the third group). However, these broad
categories generally describe the different opinions about what
happened on 9/11, and often people hold collections of views as
a "package deal". Someone who supports the government's domestic
policy is also likely to agree with foreign policy, while
skeptics are often generally distrustful of authority.
So there you have it : one event, and four radically different
interpretations and worldviews. When it comes to 9/11, everyone
has a pet theory. Like the Kennedy assassination, this will keep
both amateur and professional historians occupied for many years
to come.