{"id":237957,"date":"2023-06-26T12:00:33","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T11:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=237957"},"modified":"2023-06-24T11:25:53","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T10:25:53","slug":"9-11-whodunnit-and-why-it-matters-to-the-peace-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/06\/9-11-whodunnit-and-why-it-matters-to-the-peace-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"9\/11: Whodunnit? and Why It Matters to the Peace Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI have chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived–yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

— President John F. Kennedy, American University speech, 10 Jun 1963<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sixty years later it behooves us more than ever to penetrate the tenacious ignorance of which Kennedy spoke.\u00a0 To honor my friend and colleague, TRANSCEND member Prof. Graeme MacQueen<\/a>, who passed away in April, this editorial addresses topics he was passionate about, namely peace, justice and truth, in particular 9\/11 truth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re not willing to open our minds to the abundant evidence refuting the narrative, fed to us mere minutes after the heinous crimes of 9\/11 unfolded before our eyes, that a band of foreign militants from the Middle East was solely responsible for those crimes, then we risk continuing to fall prey to propaganda leading to unending wars and suffering.<\/p>\n

Johan Galtung introduced me to Graeme at a 2011 TRANSCEND symposium in North Carolina.\u00a0 9\/11 was not on the formal agenda, but came up in side conversations as the 10-year anniversary approached.\u00a0 Galtung has always promoted open dialog on challenging topics, bucking the penchant of academic institutions and major media platforms to ignore dissenting views on 9\/11 and dismiss them as crazy conspiracy theories. \u00a0He thus proposed adding a session on 9\/11 to the symposium and opening it to the general public.\u00a0 Three of us presented our views, followed by Q and A.<\/p>\n

Galtung accepted the official narrative that 9\/11 was perpetrated by foreign Muslim extremists, viewing it as blow-back from the many injustices the US had inflicted on the Middle East.\u00a0 He called it a public execution of 3 buildings (World Trade Center 1 and 2, and the Pentagon) that symbolized the US military-financial complex.<\/p>\n

Graeme and I enumerated unexplained anomalies pointing to complicity of key agents within the US Government and cast doubt on the culpability of Al-Qaeda operatives. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, alleged mastermind of 9\/11, confessed involvement only after being subjected to prolonged torture via waterboarding, while videos of Osama bin Laden claiming credit for the attacks look suspiciously fake.<\/p>\n

We all agreed, however, along with most peace activists, that the US response to the events of 9\/11 was reprehensible: declaring the unending war on terror, fomenting widespread Islamophobia, curtailing civil liberties, decades-long military incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq that ruined both countries and cost countless lives.\u00a0\u00a0 The US leadership justified its violent response by the fear, outrage and desire for revenge that swept across much of the nation, horrified at the shock and awe it had witnessed that fateful day.\u00a0 How could that have been prevented?<\/p>\n

Imagine what our world might look like if the propaganda machine set in motion the morning of 9\/11 had failed.\u00a0 What if most journalists, commentators, engineers, pilots, firefighters, police, and politicians on mainstream media had pressed for answers to valid questions, like:<\/p>\n

How could damage and fires on the upper floors have caused both twin towers to explode and disappear into their footprints?\u00a0 How could World Trade Center 7<\/a>, a third skyscraper not hit by a plane, have imploded symmetrically at free fall speed? How could an alleged hijacker who flunked flight school on small planes have executed a harrowing maneuver to ram a passenger jet into the Pentagon going 500 mph at ground level? How did the US, with its hundreds of billions in defense spending, fail to defend the nerve center of its military headquarters in the nation\u2019s capital?<\/p>\n

Once it was announced hijacked planes were crashing into buildings, why did Secret Service agents allow President Bush to remain in a Florida classroom with children, leaving them vulnerable to attack?\u00a0 Who made money on a significant increase in stock market betting right before 9\/11 that prices of American and United Airline stocks would drop?<\/p>\n

What if honest eye-witness journalists<\/a>, who in the morning had reported explosions both before and during the destruction of the towers, had continued to develop that thread and ask deeper questions throughout the day and following days, rather than being diverted by select experts and pundits who silenced the \u201cexplosion\u201d theme, supplanting it with unproven assertions that Osama bin Laden did it.<\/p>\n

Had these questions–many raised also by 9\/11 victims\u2019 family members<\/a>–been relentlessly pursued, the flimsy tale of Muslim extremists from remote parts of the world with no ties to any government being the lone perpetrators of this apocalyptic theatrical display would have soon disintegrated.<\/p>\n

Forensic evidence of explosives would have been scrutinized, along with records of who had access to the buildings and could have installed sophisticated controlled demolition charges. Partially destroyed metal beams would have been preserved for forensic analysis rather than shipped off to China for recycling within days. \u00a0Key leaders of air defense and air traffic control would have been fired for dereliction of duty.\u00a0 A public investigation into the many exercises simulating terrorist attacks that occurred nearly simultaneously with the real ones would have been undertaken.\u00a0 Records of who benefitted from stock trades demonstrating foreknowledge would have been daylighted.<\/p>\n

The public would have demanded real answers and would have rejected the knee jerk decision to invade another country that was not at war with us and had not attacked us.\u00a0 No Patriot Act, no war in Afghanistan, no war in Iraq, no destabilizing Syria, no endless war on terror, no surging military budgets, no increasingly invasive security procedures at airports, no more \u201cSorry to curtail your rights, but in the post-9\/11 world we have no choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

To peace activists clinging to the conviction that, while the US response to 9\/11 was unacceptable, the official story of who did it is sound, I join MacQueen in asking if it is possible for you to even imagine<\/a>, purely hypothetically, that powerful individuals in key positions within the highly secretive and hierarchical US military-intelligence apparatus, backed by shadowy unnamed oligarchs, might ever conspire to commit unspeakable atrocities and blame them on someone else in order to advance self-serving agendas without critical resistance from the general populace?\u00a0 If not, why not?<\/p>\n

If such a chilling scenario were possible, would it shake your foundational world view such that you can\u2019t even consider it?\u00a0 Only when your conceptual framework does not exclude this hypothesis can you avoid ignoring the evidence that favors it. The day after President Kennedy\u2019s 1963 assassination, Fidel Castro sounded this warning:<\/p>\n

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.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To those who would end the discourse by hurling the CIA-coined epithet \u201cconspiracy theorist:\u201d do you really mean to suggest that the US ruling class, in pursuing its imperial interests, has never conspired?\u00a0 Consider the military-intelligence apparatus track record of exercising tight control over key agencies and consolidating mass media ownership in order to mislead us, both before and after 9\/11.<\/p>\n

What we were repeatedly told and was widely believed:<\/em>\u00a0 After North Vietnam attacked a US ship in the Tonkin Gulf we must escalate fighting against North Vietnam.\u00a0 Otherwise, the dominos will fall and the evil communist empire will sweep across the world, destroying our American lifestyle.<\/p>\n

What happened:<\/em>\u00a0 North Vietnam won the war after millions (mostly Vietnamese along with tens of thousands of US soldiers) were killed. Daniel Ellsberg exposed the lie of the Tonkin Gulf incident.\u00a0 Communism didn\u2019t sweep across the world.<\/p>\n

What we were repeatedly told and was widely believed:<\/em>\u00a0 If we don\u2019t intervene militarily in Afghanistan, Iraq (with its weapons of mass destruction), and Syria, the terrorists who flourish there will continue to threaten us.<\/p>\n

What happened:<\/em>\u00a0 Post 9\/11 wars killed<\/a> an estimated 4.5 million people, displaced millions more, while terrorist organizations were strengthened.\u00a0 Iraq didn\u2019t have any weapons of mass destruction, as insiders knew before that war started.<\/p>\n

What we were told repeatedly and was widely believed:<\/em>\u00a0 In 2020 a lethal virus has spontaneously emerged that could kill us all if we don\u2019t hide in our homes, keep children out of schools and submit to being injected with a \u201csafe and effective\u201d vaccine developed at warp speed.<\/p>\n

What happened:<\/em>\u00a0 The CIA and pharmaceutical industry led multiple exercises before 2020 rehearsing hypothetical pandemic response, designed to suppress dissent and maximize vaccine uptake.\u00a0 The infection fatality ratio of covid-19 proved miniscule for all but the very elderly.\u00a0 The extreme anxiety and stress during lockdowns exacerbated poor health outcomes.\u00a0 The new vaccines caused record numbers of death and adverse events and were not particularly effective.<\/p>\n

What we are now being told repeatedly and is widely believed<\/em> (at least in the West):\u00a0 Russia is an evil empire that invaded defenseless Ukraine without provocation.\u00a0 It will expand the war and threaten us all unless we keep supplying Ukraine with massive weapons shipments and intelligence support.<\/p>\n

What is happening<\/em>:\u00a0 For the last 30 years Russia has tried every peaceful and diplomatic means to resolve its security concerns regarding NATO expansion, as well as protecting the rights and self-determination of ethnic Russians in southern and eastern Ukraine. It will no longer tolerate NATO\u2019s bullying.\u00a0 A draft peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine had been reached over a year ago, but was scuttled by US and UK, which continue to pour fuel on the flames of this proxy war that is bringing death, destruction and displacement to Ukraine and is dangerously close to becoming a nuclear conflagration.<\/p>\n

Once you\u2019re aware of the devious tactics used to push war on otherwise unwilling decision makers, they become easier to recognize. MacQueen elucidates here<\/a> how the classic T-U-R, or Threat-Unity-Response device has intimidated lawmakers.\u00a0 On 9\/11, US Congressmembers felt threatened by attacks on their own turf by alleged foreign terrorists. They then banded in unity on the Capitol steps, singing God Bless America and hugging across party lines. The understandable unity gestures sprang from an emotionally fragile state, rendering lawmakers vulnerable to being manipulated into responding by repressing dissent, nearly unanimously authorizing President Bush to invade Afghanistan and passing the pre-written Patriot Act.<\/p>\n

The more we recognize T-U-R, the better we can withstand manipulation. When perceiving a grave threat, let us closely examine the nature of that threat, looking for any contradictions or inconsistencies in how it is reported, reserving judgment on who might be responsible until all evidence can be analyzed.\u00a0 Let us be unified in striving to safeguard our rights while avoiding violence or harm to anyone.\u00a0 Let us respond by welcoming a diversity of voices in a thoughtful decision-making process on how to resolve the threat and prevent future ones.\u00a0 As MacQueen exhorted us: \u201cWe need to find our courage, find community with each other, find our intelligence and use it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Exposing uncomfortable truths is risky, and leaders who do so can face targeted executions masqueraded as random isolated assassinations. \u00a0John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy all paid the ultimate price for calling out the military-industrial complex, but those who planned and carried out their murders have successfully avoided prosecution or even widespread suspicion, thanks to the tightly controlled media message.\u00a0 Numerous meticulously researched analyses debunk the lingering myths that provide cover for the actual culprits.[i]<\/a>\u00a0 Spoiler alert:\u00a0 It is abundantly clear that neither Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, nor James Earl Ray fired the fatal shots.<\/p>\n

While likely suspects\u2019 individual identities may be elusive, systemic inside complicity can be demonstrated, as with the CIA\u2019s involvement in the two Kennedy murders.\u00a0 In 1999, the jury in a civil trial<\/a> brought by the King family concluded that certain government agencies (notably the Memphis Police and US Army) conspired in the civil rights leader\u2019s murder.\u00a0 He was, after all, calling for an end to the Vietnam war that was so profitable to President Johnson\u2019s friends in the arms industry.<\/p>\n

So, whodunnit on 9\/11?\u00a0 As a starting point, chemist and researcher Kevin Ryan<\/a> offers names and evidence for some of the prime insider suspects in his 2013 book Another Nineteen: Investigating Legitimate 9\/11 Suspects<\/a>.\u00a0 All are connected to impenetrable agencies within the deep state.\u00a0 Both the individuals and the alphabet soup they operated within (CIA, FBI, DOD, FAA, COG, SAIC, and more) warrant close examination.<\/p>\n

As more people raise questions, and distrust of corporate media on these issues grows, high quality independent resources are increasingly available.\u00a0 The International Center for 9\/11 Justice<\/a>[ii]<\/a> \u00a0is a repository of scholarship to help unravel the illusive threads of the elaborate regalia the emperor purports to be wearing but that dissolve into thin air upon scrutiny.\u00a0 We must empower ourselves to critically evaluate information sources for whichever current events concern us most.<\/p>\n

Broader awareness of the treachery and betrayal of perpetrators from within the US military-intelligence complex committing mass murder on US soil will be a shock to the system.\u00a0 But it needn\u2019t be fatal.\u00a0 Most people have a strong moral compass and want to live in a country where fair, robust constitutional structures are actually adhered to.\u00a0 They will want to ensure they are no longer fooled or grievously taken advantage of.\u00a0 They will insist on breaking up news monopolies and demand wide distribution of media ownership.\u00a0 They will reject false narratives that drive the proliferation of weapons and wars.\u00a0 They will demand a reduction in the obscene wealth gap that enables those with hegemonic aspirations to purchase hearts, minds, souls, loyalty and obedience\u2014attributes that should never be for sale.<\/p>\n

An honest conversation in the public sphere about the US role in complex acts of political violence could lead to a complete restructuring of the US security apparatus, including but not limited to:<\/p>\n