Eighteen years ago today, nearly 3,000
Americans lost their lives when both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center
were attacked by terrorists. The official narrative is that the terrorists were
a group of nineteen Arabs armed with box cutters and plastic knives. The prevailing
view in the anti- establishment world is that the terrorists were associated
with the U.S. government.
While
our leaders did absolutely nothing on the day in question, in response to
hijacked planes being crashed into buildings, for some hour and a half, after
it was over they reacted quite aggressively. The consensus was that 9/11 had
“changed the world forever,” and that we were now battling an unclear,
unidentifiable enemy, referred to conveniently as the “war on terror.”
According
to the ACLU, some 762 “suspects” were arrested in the wake of 9/11, and none of
them were found to have any ties to “terrorism.” Anyone named Mohammad became
suspect in the public’s eye. An Arabic fellow I worked with at the time was
absolutely terrified, and seriously considered changing his name to something
that sounded less “terrorist.”
Less than a month after the
attacks, the U.S. began bombing alleged “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda” targets in
Afghanistan. When Bradley/Chelsea Manning exposed the atrocious behavior of
U.S. troops there (as well as in Iraq), the response was not a hero’s parade or
a Congressional Medal of Honor, it was instead a long prison sentence for
whistle blowing.
On October 26, 2001, our Congress passed
the completely unconstitutional Patriot Act. It is still difficult to
tabulate all the violations of our civil liberties that stem from this odious
legislation. In 2002, Congress approved the Homeland Security Act, which
created the most monstrous bureaucracy imaginable- the Department of Homeland
Security- and our rights became further eroded. The secret NSA spying grew out
of this climate of secrecy, fostered by the approval of our leaders, and led
directly to the disclosures of Edward Snowden, who like Manning was considered
a traitor instead of a hero by
much of the dumbed down, deluded public.
Iraq was invaded by U.S.
forces in 2003, under the presumption that their leader Saddam Hussein had been
involved in the 9/11 attacks. Eventually, it would be acknowledged that there
was no evidence tying Iraq to 9/11, and Hussein’s mythical “weapons of mass
destruction” were never found. Very few asked why such a diabolical dictator, having
accumulated these deadly weapons, would fail to use them against an invasion by
the world’s greatest military power. Exactly when was he planning to use them? What was he saving
them for?
The
9/11 Commission served the same purpose as the Warren Commission had forty
years earlier. Stacked with predictable, insider names, their conclusions were
preordained. None of the myriad of questions raised by those denigrated as
“truthers” were investigated or even honestly addressed.
I covered the events of 9/11
in some depth in my book Hidden History. We
have yet to see a single unbiased documentary or news report aired on any
television network, questioning the ludicrous official story. Even celebrities
who have dared to question the impossible narrative, like Rosie O’Donnell and
Charlie Sheen, have been mocked and ridiculed by the mainstream media. There
are countless unanswered and unexplained aspects of the events of September 11,
2001. I will go over a few briefly.
Before September 11, 2001, no
steel-framed high-rise building had ever been known to collapse from a fire. On
9/11, three did, including WTC Building 7, which was not struck by any planes
or debris. Since 9/11, there have been no more such collapses. In 1991, a 38
floor building in Philadelphia was in flames for 18 hours, but never fell. A
2004 fire in a Venezuelan skyscraper raged on 26 different floors for more than
17 hours, but the building remained intact. In 2013, a high-rise in Chechnya
burned for 29 hours without collapsing.
There are
a multitude of photographic studies, still widely available on the internet,
which show conclusively that the plane alleged to have struck the Pentagon
simply couldn’t have done so. There should have been a great deal of
debris seen in photos taken immediately afterward the crash. Instead, we see
virtually nothing. Since the hole made from the impact of whatever hit the
Pentagon is far too small to have been Flight 77, and there are no marks where
the wings hit the building or any large chunks sheared off and left outside, we
are left with an impossible resolution. If Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, what
happened to the wings?
On
this anniversary, the usual crowds will gather at New York’s Memorial Plaza.
There will, as always, be an absolute absence of doubt about the official
story. Such “negativity” will never be permitted at these ceremonies. The dead
will be “honored” by an adherence to an impossible fairy tale. President Obama
started his morning off by observing a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time
when the first hijacked plane had hit the World Trade Center’s north tower.
There will be no moments of skepticism, no moments of questioning the unending
flaws in the official narrative, or the subsequent loss of our civil liberties.
The
world did indeed “change forever” with the events of September 11, 2001. The
already burgeoning authoritarianism in America greatly accelerated, resulting
in the evolving police state we must presently endure. As President George W.
Bush admonished us, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us.” In this new
kind of “war,” every critic of the state, every individual or group that
questions authority, becomes a potential “terrorist.” And we thought the old
WWII veterans were unreasonable when they advised the hippies to “love or leave”
America.
What has been constructed in the wake of 9/11 is more frightening than
any images of crafty Muslims gathering secretly behind closed doors, plotting
revenge in the name of Allah. Whether the constantly changing name of the enemy
is Al Qaeda, Isis, Isil, or “Islamo-Fascists,” they don’t threaten our
liberties, our rights, and our freedom the way our own leaders do.
Imagine
life today, if the events of 9/11 had never occurred. No Patriot Act. No
Homeland Security. No invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. No drones. No
assassinations of American citizens, with the deplorable, ensuing boasting from
the assassins. No smearing of any dissent with references to “terrorism” and
how we must give up our liberties in order to stay secure. I believe Benjamin
Franklin made an insightful remark about that a very long time ago.
Donald
Trump seemed to hint at distrusting the official story of 9/11 during his
campaign. He certainly went out of his way to denigrate George W. Bush in this
regard, confronting Jeb Bush directly, and declaring “The World Trade Center
came down during your brother’s reign. Remember that,” during the Republican
Party presidential debates. But as in other areas, Trump has been a monumental
disappointment here, ranting against the “terrorists” as passionately as any of
his opponents. Back in 2001, businessman Trump had noted that there had to have
been some kind of explosives in the twin towers.
In
the typically flag-waving memorial ceremony outside the Pentagon today, Trump
warned the Taliban, “They thought they would use this attack to show strength
but what they actually showed is unrelenting weakness,” after cancelling a
scheduled meeting with Taliban leaders, which seems to have precipitated the
sudden departure of his warmongering National Security advisor John Bolton
yesterday. “If for any reason they come back to our country, we will go
wherever they are and use power the likes of which the United States has never
used before,” Trump went on to say, sounding much more like the neocon leader
he has proven to be than anyone interested in 9/11 truth.
If we can avoid getting caught up in
the media-fueled emotion, it would be prudent to question what really happened
that day. If we were lied to about the events of 9/11, that makes everything
that resulted from those events at least as questionable. It’s a badge of honor
to be a “truther,” or one who seeks the truth. If you aren’t a “truther,” then
what are you?
Donald
Jeffries [send
him mail] is the author of the best seller "Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes,
Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics," and Survival of the Richest. Also author of the
2007 sci-fi/fantasy novel "The Unreals," which has been described as
a cross between The Wizard of Oz and The Twilight Zone, and compared to A
Confederacy of Dunces and classic Russian literature. Long time JFK
assassination researcher. His latest book is "Crimes and Cover Ups in
American Politics: 1776-1963," which features a Foreword by Ron Paul.
Copyright © 2019 Donald Jeffries