To Sonali Kolhatkar and Joshua Holland; Re: 9/11

It's time to unpack this term "conspiracy theory." I listened with interest to your interview this morning with Joshua Holland of AlterNet, aware of your predilections around 9-11. I thought Holland’s comment “How can you do activism against a bunch of shadowy actors behind the scenes” was particularly telling, smacking of intellectual laziness. Perhaps a  story would help.

On a dark night an individual searches the ground under a lamppost. A good Samaritan passing by offers to help.
“What are you looking for?”
“I lost my keys.”
“Where did you lose them?”
“Over there by the alley.”
“Why then are you looking over here!?”
“The light’s better.”

 I’m not someone who believes in conspiracy theories necessarily; neither do I dismiss them. They are, after all, theories, which means an explanation of certain facts awaiting proof. Often they arise  because the ‘official story’ ignores facts the officials would rather not see examined.

Did the U.S. Navy battleship Maine sink in Havana harbor due to a Spanish conspiracy? Current historians think not, it was the heat combined with improper storage of volatile armaments. Did William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate, use his position and power to push the American population into war with Spain? This is no longer theory but historical fact; a conspiracy involving him and his many employees. Did Orson Wells base his groundbreaking film Citizen Kane on the life of Hearst? Fact: a conspiracy, involving Wells, the actors, the production company, and the exhibitors, to expose Hearst, and make money. Did Hearst use his power to suppress and discredit the film, by running negative reviews in the hundred or so newspapers under his control,  threaten exhibitors, and subsequently attempt to ruin Wells’ career? Conspiracy, yes, theory, no.

We are willing to entertain the idea that figures within our government conspire to kidnap people off foreign streets and torture them at various undisclosed locations throughout the world. We must accept at this point that figures with government sanction have purposefully injected African Americans with syphilis and GIs with plutonium without their knowledge, in order to study them, that viral agents were released in the surf and subways of San Francisco in order to track the spread of disease. Is this indicative of the majority of those who serve in government? No, but that these events occurred is a matter of public record, if one cares to look, exposed in documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a law which the George W. Bush administration summarily ignored and attempted to dismantle.

Ditto the lie of the Tonkin gulf attack used to justify the war in Vietnam, exposed by the Pentagon Papers. Two million Vietnamese dead, and 60,000 US counting only those killed in direct combat, not the aftermath, so Lyndon Johnson’s friends could make money. Presidential candidate Nixon prolonged the war to help get elected, sending his emissary Kissinger to scuttle Paris peace talks in 1968. Presidential candidate Reagan cut a deal with the Iranians not to release the U.S. embassy hostages in order to ensure Jimmy Carter's defeat.

A million and a half Afghans died as a result of our policies before 2001, and a half million Iraqi children from our sanctions, but that must be okay because Madeline Albright said it was. Do we remember? Do we know? Do we care?

But those are foreign dead, right, not Americans, our government would never do that to its own people, you say. Well what about the Tailwind report from award winning journalist April Oliver that got her fired from CNN in 1998, which according to the book Into the Buzzsaw was confirmed in a sworn deposition by a retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, causing her employers to settle her wrongful termination suit. That story— that the United States targeted defectors in Laos with sarin nerve gas during the Vietnam war.

What about the soldiers— soldiers always die, so they don’t count? Please. If you choose to believe that the murders of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and others were the result solely of the lone gunmen punished for the crime, and conclude that for the most part justice is alive and well, what then of the National Guardsmen at Kent State, Jackson State, or for that matter the Blackwater sharpshooters at New Orleans, none of whom have seen the inside of a courtroom or even been identified. Huey Newton's murder at the hands of the FBI and Which is only to say that bad things happen, especially when people of like mind get together.

The history of our nation is replete with examples of those with power using the means at their disposal to manipulate the public and the government to their bidding. Exceptions (Teddy’s trust busting, FDR) are notable, but serve mainly to prove the rule. The people with power and vested interest are identifiable, but are rarely connected with their actions because they successfully use the means at their disposal to conceal their activities from the public at large. Union leaders and political activists, by contrast, are only capable of performing successfully by attracting public awareness, and they often suffer for their actions with their life. Which might form an argument, subconsciously at least, for not probing too deeply, too publicly.

I am not an architect, engineer, or scientist. Do I think the towers were brought down by Chinese space lasers or an atom bomb? No. Do I think they were brought down solely by aircraft and nineteen hijackers? Possibly; taking into account that their funding came from the CIA redirected through Pakistani intelligence (and some Saudis), and some in a position to know chose to make money off the attack by over-insuring the buildings and placing put options on the airline stocks affected, and putting down the quashing of FBI investigations and the erasure of a vast database of terrorism investigation solely to incompetence and ass covering and currying favor with those in power (sucking up to Bush protecting the Saudis), and I’d need to hear some kind of explanation for those little puffs of smoke that certainly look like ‘squibs,’ the trails of smoke that jut out from sequentially timed explosives in a controlled demolition—possible. Do I think that some in a position to know this attack was coming sought to make it even more sensational, by assisting the demolition of the Towers and loss of life with planted explosives, in order to further political ends they believed would fabulously increase their power and wealth? Possible, taking into account credible eye-witness reports of events from several weeks prior to and including the day of, including firemen in the building reporting explosions, whose reports were omitted when the "official" story was prepared.

Lyndon Johnson himself remarked  he didn’t believe a word of the Warren Report. While still touted as gospel in some quarters with convoluted explanations to support it, it is widely regarded as a whitewash in others. Photographs of the presidential limo taken the day of the incident clearly show the impression of a bullet imbedded in the front of the chrome above the windshield. The limo was later destroyed. Explain that with your single bullet theory.

The 9-11 Commission Report has numerous flaws. I say let those with the expertise who feel motivated to do so pursue their investigations, hopefully one day with government sanction, without the need to prejudice our opinions one way or the other. To which I say good luck, but I mean that. Our track record in this area is not so great. Those of us without such expertise could use our intellect to more accurately make connections in the social realm. Do I think the dark powers who possibly participated but certainly profited from 9/11 are vulnerable on this issue? Absent a whistleblower from within, not really. Forensic evidence remains somewhat inconclusive and eye-witness reports, while compelling, are not enough to prove the issue. So I guess I agree with Holland, but not with his inference, that since we cannot prove it therefore is not true.

There are certainly more obvious, and larger crimes, that lack the emotional resonance of 9/11. Like, all the nasty business that's gone on for years that would make us a target in the first place, which most are content to ignore. Chalmers Johnson predicted such an event in Blowback, written in 1999.

Do I think that keeping photos of torture secret will protect our troops? No. Keeping them secret will protect the torturers, and continue the practice. Being seen as torturers with or without photos to prove it will not protect our troops. Quite the contrary. Exposing the photos to the public would hopefully result in outrage and revulsion at what has been allowed to transpire in our name, resulting in a push for a change of policy, and prosecutions, which by his actions is obviously something Obama fears, perhaps out of concern for his own safety. This would, by the way, do more to protect the troops, but then they're expendable, right? Not so ex-presidents, regardless their crimes.

Exposure dis-empowers the guilty, and forces a change of policy. What we need is more light, but it’s got to be in the right place. There’s plenty of work to go around. Most of the time you do a pretty good job with your microphone, but not always. The original meaning of the word ‘sin’ came from archery, meaning simply, to miss the mark. We all need to improve our accuracy, if we are to resolve our difficulties.