IngramSpark - 9/11 The Awful Truth

Woe unto you, ye lawyers! Ye have not entered in at the Gates of Knowledge, and them that would enter have ye hindered...

Jesus of Nazareth, Luke, 12:24 (Gideon)

INTRODUCTION

The law case which is a story within the story told in this book was built on a shocking accusation about the events of September 11, 2001 a full-bore Conspiracy Theory in every wayalleging that the attack in its essence was an inside job, in which the vice president, the secretary of defense, the top military chief and other U.S. officials high and low were variously involved in aiding and abetting the hijackers in a variety of ways, thereby helping and enabling the infamous Attack on America to succeed. Part and parcel of the plot was also, naturally, that they and others subsequently by various ways and means would carry on a cover-up; as they have done. The accusation was and remains based primarily on undeniable, publicly established facts, as intrepid readers will realize, andonce you get past the horrors of the Very Idea of such a heinous plot, and the seeming impossibility of such great iniquity, and treason, and above all, the culprits getting away with itthere is copious additional evidence, and powerful inferences, which, in the view of many sober and reputable, open-minded people, form an overwhelming case.

As lawyers, we came to believe, from careful research, investigation and analysis, and so alleged in our complaint, that the attack was indeed a false flag action with whatever amount of witting or unwitting involvement of the nineteen Arab guys, et al (Osama, Al Qaeda, ISI, Mossad, whoever)that was permitted and facilitated, where not engineered outright, by Americans, including these leading officials, to ensure its success. We said their purpose was to generate the great public fear and fervor of a new Pearl Harbor, in the spirit and cover of which they could then swiftly bring about huge, jarring, radical alterations in the Countrys military and foreign policyand domestic political and police, or (what came to be known as) homeland security programs, actions, plans, laws, and secret operationsto say nothing of super-aggressive supporting propaganda activities in all spheres. We said the official Commission carried out a whitewash, and issued a report full of falsehood, as part of the cover-up.

Only think: was it not indeed an expansive and fecundating sequel, all told, to the first-stage coup detat, accomplished in the 2000 election via Bush v. Gore? Was there not a profound, double disaster in American history in those few months, which we lived through, definitively book-ending the days of our grown-up years, us older ones, with the coup that occurred on November 22, 1963...?

But many Americans, probably a good majority, would regard such a theory as far-fetched, and hare-brained; and members of the Establishmentincluding the judges in our casealso uniformly find it outrageous, and despicable; unimaginable on its face, and so beneath serious consideration. Some people even believe that to seriously suggest the possibility is altogether unacceptable, and that questions and disputes such as those David Ray Griffin has been raising now for many [several] years, shouldnt be allowed, should be classified as an offense of some kind, and forbidden, even punished. Indeed, that was exactly the position of the judges in our case, in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, who indeed punished us severely, as Bill describes here, with a $15,000 fineas seen in their wretched Ordersfor daring to utter it.

Generally, there are two or three forms of automatic response people typically have to the false flag conspiracy theory: 'They would never do such a thing, the very idea is outrageous'; or, 'They could never have gotten away with it; somebody would have told; or, obtusely, as from the late, eminent commentator, Alexander Cockburn, The U.S. Government is too incompetent; they never could have pulled it off. In each case, there is a reflexive reaction, or snap judgment, often colored with scorn or anger, or both; but at bottom, Don't trouble me with facts is the order of the day.

The Nobel laureate Daniel Kahnemann has written of what he calls cognitive illusions. A cognitive illusion is a belief in something one instinctively feels sure of, but which is in fact false, where the illusion of assured truththough in a given case unfoundedactually stems from an abiding belief in the reliability of ones own judgment. So it is here: people feel they just know it couldnt have happened. Or, as in one striking variation, a woman said she didnt want to even talk about it, because, I dont want to live in a country where that could happen... The cognitive illusion is a simple, pre-emptive negation: No way.

Actually, everyone pretty much starts right there, or did start there, back in 2001, because, coming out of the shock and horror and astonishment at what had occurred, the population was bombarded with the trumped-up, trumpeted official version: nineteen suicide bombers, fanatical Islamic jihadists who hate us for our freedoms, were sent by the terrorist evil genius, Osama bin Laden, to hijack the four planes and crash them into the buildings, which spectacularly collapsedexcept that on the fourth plane the passengers heroically fought back, resulting in a fatal crash in a country fieldand now, the President said, We are at war. Its to be a War on Terror, global in scope, which may well take a generation to win, or indeed may never end. That was the explanation, and the outlook, and the entire content of public discourse: an immediate world-wide war against the terrorists and those who harbor them; and we were sending an invading army to central Asia forthwith. Who can forget this stunning turn of events?

Everything was changed, and the portents in our own country were ominous indeed, and soon blossomed hideously in sweeping round-ups of Arab-Americans, U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan, a torture prison at Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, renditions, and a war of mass murder and lies against Iraq: Shock and Awe, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha, uncounted other American atrocities, and a full civil war, still continuing, between local Arab peoples who had previously lived at peace together for centuries. These horrors, in the stunned, freaked-out atmosphere that blew up, literally, unstoppably, in those first days, flowed directly from and were enabled by this veritable Pearl Harbor moment in the life of the nation. These and so many more: only think for yourself of what happened and has happened since, and is still going forward, militarily and otherwise, world-wideand is even today being extended and refocused in mounting provocations against Russia, and the ominous Pacific Pivot of our countrys death-dealing, nuclear armadas, in an aggressive close encirclement of Chinato confront the two ultimate adversaries who haunt the febrile, jut-jawed, neocon dreams of all-out war.

So, anyone who comes merely to question the official version, or major parts of it, let alone conspiracy theorists of whatever school, must first set aside the overweening official accountwhich is of course much more elaborate, in its lying way, than what is stated herewhich we set out to expose, and did substantially expose, in our lawsuit. And it should help to keep in mind that the weird, implausible alternative to the false flag conspiracy, surely equally hard to swallow if you think about it, is that the attack succeeded because of widespread, eerily fortuitous, across-the-board bungling time-coordinated blunders at all stations, on that day and for weeks and months beforehandwhich has never been plausibly described, let alone explained, by half. Moreover, no one has given or taken any blame for any of it; and no one at the Top, including our defendants, has ever shown any interest in finding out who in fact was responsible for any of it.