Before the dust settled [on 9/11], it was generally agreed that this was a watershed event that would change the world, as only wars and acts of war can do. It seemed a monstrous piece of fiction to me, and all that has happened since, this war on terrorism and its political baggage, seems like a theater of the macabre, the fantasy of a deranged, paranoid mind. Had I been living in New York on 9/11, and been one of those fleeing from the billowing dust tsunami of the collapsing towers, I’d have been outraged like other New Yorkers, but for different reasons. What happened was unbelievable because it shouldn’t have happened, not in the most guarded and controlled airspace in the world, not in the most sophisticated national security state in the world!

The subsequent explanations are not plausible. One can’t deny the fact, and one mourns the loss of so many lives, but mourning alone will not satisfy our debt to those who died. We do owe them a debt. It is a debt to ourselves. Tears, grief, anger, righteous retribution, flag waving, and monuments are not enough. The very least that we owe them, as if they were our own brothers and sisters, our own children and parents, is a thorough, nay, a ruthless examination of the reasons why this event, which shouldn’t have happened, did happen. No one has lost his job for dereliction of duty. No head in any high place has rolled on account of security failures on 9/11. It is as though we, as a nation, hold our government blameless just because it is our government, which is like holding the husband blameless for the murder of the wife just because he is the husband. No serious examination of the causes of this massacre of the innocent has yet taken place more than two years after the fact, and this event has since become the justification for our slaughter of many more innocents in other lands, as well as the abrogation of our sacred Constitutional rights.

And. Barbara Kingsolver, angelic environmentalist, bears some responsibility for this state of affairs, as do all those members of the American intelligentsia who were struck dumb by the shock & awe of 9/11 and can no longer think. Her sorrow, her outrage over the deaths of the innocent seem hollow. She is not willing to undertake the due diligence required, unwilling to do so much as question, let alone challenge, the official explanation, in spite of the fact that there are many glaring inconsistencies and contradictions in this official story, in spite of the fact that George Bush & Co., Inc, will not answer questions publicly and have done all they can to prevent the 9/11 Commission from coming into being. The lack of transparency in our government and the lack of accountability from our leaders is an outrage that goes unchallenged and will certainly not be addressed by any report the Warren Commission, oops!, I mean, the 9/11 Commission offers the public. The insanity of our time is indeed contagious if it can infect the minds of even our self-styled dissidents and holy roller environmentalists and render them intellectually paralyzed. Grief is no excuse.

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