The "Truth" of 9-11

Originally, I intended my blog to be more philosophical. Somehow it always seems to tie into world events lately. But then, I suppose that's a big part of life, especially in this day and age. I feel a philosophical masterpiece coming on in the near future - but I'm afraid I'm going to be "political" again for today. The recent announcement of John Negroponte as the first US National Intelligence Director, which was certainly no suprise, inspired me. Many of you probably remember Negroponte emphatically denying that he had no knowledge of the hideous human rights abuses that took place in Honduras on his watch.

Gee, where did we hear that one recently?

As the War on Terror progresses, many people are focusing on attempting to stop one or two tentacles of the beast that is the American Neocon Empire. For example, many want Rumsfeld fired for the "isolated incidents" of torture at Abu Ghraib. But what if we could just jab that darn monster in its giant, bloodshot eye? The beast would have a much, much harder time manipulating things if it couldn't see anything.

Enter 9-11.

It is generally accepted that the War on Terror began after September 11th. So what would happen if one could show that 9-11 was not the type of attack that we were told it was? What if it wasn't Arab terrorists who conducted the attacks that day? Obviously, that would probably change people's minds quit a bit about everything that has happened since then.

There are a number of groups and individuals who are working in this direction. They have uncovered a lot of evidence which, even if much of it is circumstantial, raises enough questions that more thoroughly official inquiries should certainly have been conducted. But as it stands, government officials can simply point to the "nutball 9-11 conspiracy theorists" whose crazy ideas conflict with those of the more rationally-minded researchers. It also seems to be true that some of those "rational" researchers may not be so rational after all. The problem as far as I can tell is that the entire movement to seek the truth of 9-11 is buried in the same type of problems that seemed to be so characteristic of social, political, and anti-war movements from past decades. That got me to thinking about one of the factors in those groups trying to affect change: COINTELPRO. For those of you who don't remember COINTELPRO, here's a little recap from our good friends at Wikipedia:

COINTELPRO is an acronym ('COunter INTELligence PROgram') for a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at attacking dissident political organizations within the United States. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's of 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against organizations that were (at the time) considered politically radical, such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Background

The origins of COINTELPRO were rooted in the Bureau's operations against hostile foreign intelligence services. Counterintelligence, of course, goes beyond investigation; it refers to actions taken to neutralize enemy agents. "Counterintelligence" was a misnomer for the FBI programs, since the targets were American political dissidents, not foreign spies. In the atmosphere of the Cold War, the American Communist Party was seen as a serious threat to national security. Over the years, anti-Communist paranoia extended to civil rights, anti-war, and many other groups.

The FBI addressed the threats from the militant New Left as it had those from Communists in the 1950s and the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960s. It used both traditional investigative techniques and counterintelligence programs (Cointelpro) to counteract domestic terrorism and conduct investigations of individuals and organizations who threatened terroristic violence. Wiretapping and other intrusive techniques were discouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director in the mid-1960s, and eventually were forbidden completely unless they conformed to the Omnibus Crime Control Act. Director Hoover formally terminated all "Cointelpro" operations on April 28, 1971. [...]

Methods

The COINTELPROs used a broad array of methods, including:

• Infiltration: Both by informants and agents provocateur, who would waste time, sabotage campaigns, suggest or carry out dangerous, illegal, or divisive activities, or seduce and blackmail leaders.

• Intimidation: Sending threatening letters and packages, breaking and entering into houses and offices, etc.

• Propaganda: Feeding damaging information to friendly journalists, writing anonymous leaflets against organizations, or writing damaging leaflets or letters claiming to be from the organization.

• Framing: Framing activists for crimes which the FBI committed, prosecuting them for genuine crimes they didn't commit, or "bad-jacketing," planting falsified documents or other "evidence" which made it appear that they were FBI informants.

• Lawsuit harassment: Tying up organizations or individuals in court with frivolous prosecution of every possible offense, real or imagined.

• Murder: Directly assassinating or hiring rival groups to assassinate prominent leaders.

After thinking about the possible application of COINTELPRO-type activities against the American people today, I noticed a new article on one of my favorite alternative news sites. It is a thoroughly well-written and well-reasoned article basically debunking two popular 9-11 investigators, Mike Ruppert and Daniel Hopsicker. This article on the 9-11 Truth Movement is a must-read for any of you out there who don't buy the official tale that has been spun by Washington. The following is a brief excerpt that relates directly to the idea of COINTELPRO:

Looking at the current infighting going on at present, it would appear that CoIntelPro agents have done a fine job. No one knows who is who anymore, everyone suspects everyone else, and those members of the public whose minds are not, as yet, welded shut will be the ones to suffer most from the lack of coherent information about what really happened on 911, who really is to blame, or what the real issue is.

For any 9-11 investigator to come out and say that a 757 plane definitely hit the Pentagon is to rob the public of the singularly most important aspect of 9-11 and the one that has the chance to blow the whole dastardly plot wide open.

I think the author definitely has a good point about the strike on the Pentagon. We all saw the airplanes hit the WTC towers. NO ONE saw the strike on the Pentagon repeated endlessly on the evening news, or anywhere else for that matter. Why not? The Pentagon has lots of security cameras. There are other cameras nearby that would have recorded the "airliner" as it flew down towards the Pentagon. Where's the footage? Why can't we see it?

Many people say that the theory that something other than a plane struck the Pentagon simply cannot be true unless you explain what happened to Flight 77 and the people on board. But logically, we do not have to explain what happened to the real airliner and the real people first; if we can somehow prove that the flight didn't hit the Pentagon, we can certainly band together and demand the rest of the answers from whomever orchestrated the plot. Likewise, we don't have to prove that it was a missile or a drone or the Easter Bunny that struck the Pentagon; all we have to prove is that it wasn't Flight 77.

The trouble so far is that this is easier said than done, of course. But if all those who are doubtful of the official story could overcome the bickering and BS of many 9-11 researchers such as Mike Ruppert and Daniel Hopsicker, the entire process could rightly be called the 9-11 Truth Movement, and maybe it would actually get somewhere.