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

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magazines about U.S. imperialism know that there has longbeen abundant evidence for this assessment. But the publicrevelation of the truth about 9/11 could have an educativevalue extending far beyond the circles of those who readpolicy-oriented books and magazines. If Americans came tosee that the attacks of 9/11 were, in the minds of those whoplanned them, justified by the goal of creating an allencompassingempire, this realization could lead towidespread revulsion against the goal itself and the valuesimplicit in it---values that are diametrically opposed tobasic values embedded in all the world’s religions andethical systems.AfterwordPrior to 2006, the 9/11 truth movement, with its claim that9/11 was an inside job, was largely ignored by defenders ofthe official conspiracy theory. In 2006, however, the factthat this movement spoke for a significant portion of theAmerican public became widely known. A Zogby poll indicatedthat 42 percent of the American people believe thegovernment and the 9/11 Commission had covered up evidencecontradicting the official account. 93 A Scripps/OhioUniversity poll indicated that 36 percent think it likelythat “federal officials either participated in the attackson the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no actionto stop them ‘because they wanted the United States to go towar in the Middle East.’” 94 A story in Time magazine,93 Zogby International, “A Word about Our Poll of American Thinkingtoward the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks,” Zogby International, May 24, 2006(http://www.zogby.com/features/features.dbm?ID=231). For aninterpretation, see “Zogby Poll Finds Over 70 Million Voting AgeAmericans Support New 9/11 Investigation,” 911Truth.org, May 21, 2006(http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060522022041421).94 Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III, "Anti-Government AngerSpurs 9/11 Conspiracy Belief," NewsPolls.org, Scripps Survey ResearchCenter at Ohio University, August 2, 200632
eporting the latter result, wrote: “Thirty-six percent addsup to a lot of people. This is not a fringe phenomenon. Itis a mainstream political reality.” 95Perhaps not merely coincidentally, 2006 was a year ofunprecedented publications intended to undergird theofficial conspiracy theory and of unprecedented attacks inthe press intended to discredit the alternative theory. Themain efforts to reinforce the official theory---in additionto the Bronner article and the Kean-Hamilton book mentionedearlier---were Debunking 9/11 Myths, put out by PopularMechanics, 96 and NIST’s “Answers to Frequently AskedQuestions,” in which NIST sought to rebut the claim that theTwin Towers were brought down by explosives. 97 I respond toall four of these efforts in my Debunking 9/11 Debunking,showing that whereas these writings may seem impressive ifone has not studied the facts, they are completelyunimpressive if one has.The attacks in the press came not only from themainstream but also from the left. Although I discuss bothin Debunking 9/11 Debunking, I will here simply discuss twoof the most prominent attacks from the left, “The 9/11 FaithMovement” by Terry Allen (In These Times) and “The 9/11(http://newspolls.org/story.php?story_id=55). The title of the story,incidentally, is the pollster’s inference, not a conclusion supported bythe answers.95 Lev Grossman, “Why the 9/11 Conspiracies Won’t Go Away,” Time,September 3, 2006.96 David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths: WhyConspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts: An In-DepthInvestigation by Popular Mechanics, Foreword by Senator John McCain (NewYork: Hearst Books, 2006). This book is an expansion of an article,“9/11: Debunking the Myths,” Popular Mechanics, March 2005.97 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” August 30, 2006(http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm).33
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The American Empire and 9/11 - Journal of 9/11 Studies

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