The American Empire and 9/11 - Journal of 9/11 Studies

Bacevich mocked the idea that such power in America’s hands“is by definition benign.” 9The historical evidence clearly supports this nonbenignview of the American empire. Part of this evidence isthe fact that U.S. political and military leaders havearranged “false-flag operations” as pretexts for war. We didthis to begin the wars with Mexico and the Philippines andto begin the full-out attack on Vietnam. 10Also important is Operation Northwoods, a plansubmitted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedycontaining “pretexts which would provide justification forU.S. military intervention in Cuba.” Some of the ideas, suchas the proposal to “blow up a U.S. ship in Guantánamo Bayand blame Cuba,” 11 would have required killing Americans.This history shows that U.S. military and politicalleaders have not been averse to using the same tricks asmilitary and political leaders in other countries withimperial ambitions, such as Japan, which in 1931manufactured the Mukden incident as a pretext for takingcontrol of Manchuria, 12 and Nazi leaders, who in 1933 setthe Reichstag Fire as a pretext for rounding up leftists andannulling civil rights, 13 then in 1939 had German troops9 Ibid., 133, 52.10 On Mexico, see Richard Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (1960;New York, Norton, 1974), 143. On the Philippines, see Stuart CreightonMiller, Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of thePhilippines, 1899-1903 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 11, 57-66, 237, 245-47. On Vietnam, see Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars1945-1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 116-21, and George McT.Kahin, Intervention: How American Became Involved in Vietnam (GardenCity: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1987), 220-23.11 See James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-SecretNational Security Agency (2001: New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 82-91.12 See Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-Japanese Religions throughoutHistory (New York: Norton, 1997), 164-66.13 See William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York:Simon and Schuster, 1990), 191-93, whose position has been substantiatedin Alexander Bahar and Wilfried Kugel, Der Reichstagbrand: Wie3