According to a Diana Johnstone in CounterPunch ...
http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone09152006.htmlThe "spreading popularity of the 9/11 conspiracy hypothesis" is attributed to:
"Distrust and hatred of the Bush administration and of the "neo-conservatives" of the Program for a New American Century (PNAC)"
Johnstone argues that the Bush administration "may well be morally capable of every conceivable crime" ...
"The test of the conspiracy hypothesis is not the character of the alleged conspirators,
but the plausibility of the conspiracy in both practical and political terms."
The "conspiracy" is not plausible, she says, and begins by asking:
"Who profits from the crime?"
Her answer is "the Bush administration can rightly be said to have profited from the crime ... to justify a repressive domestic policy and an aggressive war policy abroad" to which she adds, " ... so did Osama bin Laden [and] numerous other Islamic extremists"
Correct, as far as that logic goes, but then Johnstone derails, saying:
"If both sides profited, one profited opportunistically and the other actually designed the attacks to fit its purpose [1].
So the attacks should be examined to see which set of aims it was designed to serve."
[1. Of course, one feature or conspiracy theories is to stress the connections between Osama bin Laden and the CIA.
Their interests and activities converged in the war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But Osama bin Laden's
fortune and connections put him out of reach of effective CIA control. And this would scarcely be the unique instance
of a temporary collaboration turning into "backlash".]
Why does Johnstone think "connections between Osama bin Laden and the CIA" are a "temporary collaboration" ... ?
You see, the difficulty for such "analysts" is inability to look *beyond* the U.S. administration to find the real decision makers. We have known for 30 years and more, thanks to John Stockwell, William Corson, and others, that the majority of "covert operations and activiites are not reviewed by anyone "outside of the group, agency or service which initiated them" (Armies of Ignorance 1977 p 350)
We all DO want to really, really believe that our system of government is still the same old system, still working just as it was set up to work; that the president actually IS the "decision maker"
Has been a long time since that was reality in America, yet to tell anyone who is "old school" will get a response such as:
"I wouldn't believe that even if it was true."
None of us want to believe such stuff, even as we are increasingly aware how true it is.
_
I depart from a critical analysis of Johnstone's article to point out what I believe is a major weakness in the 911 Truth Movement - a weakness which sends so-called "debunkers" such as Johnstone into tailspins when their goal is to deflate the 911 Truth Movement.
No U.S. president since Franklyn Roosevelt has been effective in implementing his own policies because anything he arrived with when he first set foot in the Oval Office has been subverted by actions of the *unelected government* - those agencies and their non-government *controllers* which have exercised their power since the end of World War II, and earlier.
The Bush Administration is no more than a tool for those "controllers" and the idea that BA "designed the attacks to fit its purpose" (according to Johnstone) is wishful thinking, and daft. The Bush cabal had no more power than did Clinton: all they could do was follow orders, keep watch on the "perpetrators" (who were tracked for over a decade prior to 911); facilitate their activities, including exits and reentries to U.S. - in other words, "stay out of their way" while tracking them, from Hamburg or Phillipines or Indonesia, and back to U.S., making sure they had acceptable entry visas so as not to attract attention, etc.
The Bush Administration did not PLAN 911 - their role was only to make sure it went down as planned. They were facilitators - not designers.
This is a MAJOR shift in thinking which HAS to occur for ALL of us so that we begin to look at who is really behind current events, behind 911 and other related events of recent decades; for instance, realizing the "official story" of Flight 800 is also a coverup, and why - what was "hidden" by that coverup (800) and how it relates to facilitating what happened September 11, 2001.
If you have not yet read Peter Lance, it is not yet too late to do so ... and then read Jayna Davis' "The Third Terrorist" and you begin to see how the stage was set for 911 - but do not stop there ! Keep going !
_
Back to Johnstone: "The targets and the message"
Yes - the very "symbolism of the targets" is exactly why those targets were chosen roughly a decade prior to 911, when the plan at that time was only to crash small, single-engine planes into CIA headquarters and Pentagon, when it was realized that a truck bomb under Twin Towers would not work, and could not be repeated. The Twin Towers had been settled on when it was realized planting a dozen different bombs in NYC area was unworkable. 911 has its roots in Bojinka.
The strategists in all those "think tanks" do not get paid the big bucks for being stupid, and it does not take any genius to realize that the problem of the great white elephant which was the World Trade Center - specifically the Twin Towers - which was not only no longer profitable, but faced multi-billion dollar renovation if it was to remain in place at all ... that *problem* had a ready solution waiting because it was KNOWN that so-called *extremists* wanted to attack it, and if the attackers were successful, maybe SO successful they actually demolished the Towers, so much the better for everyone !
Do not look to the Bush Administration, however, for such activities as setting charges in WTC buildings - look at FEMA: look at the black part of the government; look at the very roots of FEMA, and ask yourself whether FEMA is as "accountable" to the government, to the president, or to the adminstration, as is the CIA ? ... and you begin to understand the *design* of the stage on which the main act of 911 was played out.
Patients diagnosed with late-stage cancers are much more likely to live, and die, in denial - feeling it too late to take aggressive action, simply not possible for them to have a positive outlook:
"I wouldn't believe that even if it was true."
Johnstone is correct suggesting "we in the West might do well to drop the obsession with bin Laden" - a man who was no more "knowing" of what was actually to occur September 11, 2001, or the degree of its success, than were any of the so-called "hijackers" who we can only assume were on board any of those aircraft, though videos *convince* us they boarded, since there is no evidence - no proof they actually did board, or died.
OBL is not living - has been dead more than two years now ... but when he was alive, he only signed on the choices of targets, which had already been selected by others. OBL supplied money to fund operations, wanted U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, wanted to strike a blow against the Great Satan, but even he was surprised at what happened September 11, 2001.
Why all the rush of secrecy to hide and remove evidence from a crime scene ? If 911 was really the ultimate act of Islamic extremists to "bring down the Great Satan" then surely our government would want to make its case against them - including a SOLID *body of evidence* including proof of which plane crashed where (there were abundant video records); presenting detailed, incontrovertible evidence of how U.S. landmarks were damaged or destroyed by the attack (on a level equal to detailing how and where U.S. Navy vessels sunk in Pearl Harbor); sorting out discrepancies in identifying "hijackers" - some of whom may still be alive (since we knew who those men were for years prior to 911), unless ...
Unless revealing the TRUTH about what happened September 11, 2001, would begin to unravel the more than 3000 illegal wars and incursions the United States government has perpetrated around the world, causing the death of more than 6 million people - since the Holocaust.
If we have ANY sense, we will wake up one day to realize who IS the enemy, that we are essentially on the same side as the so-called "hijackers" - we just want our freedoms and rights maintained and illegal government intrusion into our affairs, whereever we live in this world, ENDED.
The "hijackers" were hijacked. U.S. agencies knew who they were, what they were up to, where they were, when they would move ... and they were used - used to serve the purposes of the same Jekyll Island capitalist overlords which have us all (including women) by the balls ... and if you think that makes me a communist, then you do not know the difference between Mani and Machiavelli.
