The River

Thursday, May 27, 2004

9/11 Ruminations

It seems to me that every since Bush has been elected, the official lies have been so blatant as to accelerate what is part of our environment from the beginning -- the truth is always hidden in plain sight.

Case in point: The collapse of the WTC towers on 9-11. Actually, 9-11 in general. But the collapse of the towers never made sense to me except as a controlled demolition.

In The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, author David Ray Griffin sees it that way too, as pointed out in a book review on the Counterpunch site:

Much of the material Griffin cites has been long circulated on the internet. What is less commonly understood are the strange details of the WTC collapse, implausibly explained as "jet-fuel fire melting structural steel." The pattern of destruction and fall is more consistent with the air attacks plus controlled demolitions. Griffin parses the material, with many notes from firefighting and architectural sources. Times, temperatures, visual and seismic evidence simply do not support the melting of steel as the sole cause of the observed failures. Further, what but explosions can account for reports of same from survivors, and for powdered concrete and building parts being ejected horizontally three times the width of the buildings? Steel in both towers was broken at the joints, and molten steel found at sub-basement levels -- inconsistent with melting from top floor fires whose debris crushed the floors below. The WTC wreckage was spirited away as quickly as possible and no forensics permitted.

Later, the reviewer asks:

2. Most difficult of all, perhaps, is the question of how the administration -- if indeed it was complicit in 9/11 at some or several levels -- could be so incompetent at scripting a plausible story. Why not punish a few scapegoats in the intelligence community, instead of promoting those responsible for "lapses"? Why the needless, obvious lies, and continuingly changing statements? Why such massiveness to the conspiracy, requiring silence from many individuals in the White House, Justice Department, FBI, CIA, NSA, and the Pentagon, as well as in civilian security operations? Why risk demolition of buildings beyond the flight attacks? Why bring down WTC 7? Why order interceptor planes to stand down, and deny SOP readiness? Why have the president play unconcern for half an hour? So as not to upset second-graders? Why claim that human flesh could withstand temperatures which would vaporize stainless steel? There are better minds than Bush's who have been concocting covert operations for many years. Where were they? Or was it just this confounding of critics that was intended?

I think the incompetence that is obvious to those that haven't fallen for propaganda is explained by the fact that those in charge recognize something most people do not: there is no need for this type of competence. If the U.S. were a democracy with an informed citizenry, then, yes, they would need to be more careful, more competent. But while we suspect and fear that democracy in the U.S. is going away, they assume it is already gone. And they act accordingly. For example, is it incompetence that Bush can trumpet his "Saddam's torture and rape rooms are gone" line even after the Abu Ghraib scandal? Or is it the same thing as pretending terrorist-piloted jet planes caused the WTC to fall? i.e. we in the administration know the truth, but we don't operate with the truth; that would imply a democracy, and this is far from that; therefore, we can make the story whatever we want even as your eyes tell you it's the opposite of the truth. This is our great gift. This is our competence. The more blatant, the better. The more you will look upon it and despair.

We keep looking for competence in a world that doesn't exist.

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