CONSPIRACY OF CYNICISM
(April 5, 2006)

          Here is a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Seven-11 did it. All those clerks in turbans with the funny accents—when they smiled as you bought your 32 oz. coffee, Big Gulp, glow-in-the-dark hot dog, and churro, they were really thinking, “death to the Great Satan!”
          The motive? Payback for “The Simpsons.” Forget Osama Bin-Laden. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon was the mastermind. Right now he’s hiding out in an animated cave eating animated spiders with Matt Groening. The U.S. government knows exactly where he is, of course, but does not want to galvanize the billions of worldwide “Simpsons” fans into launching further attacks.
          Okay, enough satire.
          Charlie Sheen did it. Charlie and all his other commie Hollywood lefty America-hating cronies. They set the whole thing up, and forked over the big bucks for the box-cutters. Sentence him to life in bed with Anne Coulter.
          Actually, I think Dr. Phil is the culprit here. Oh, he doesn’t realize it, but Osama and Al-Zawahiri and the rest could never have done it without embracing his “you’ve got to star in your own life” advice.
          Well. . .
          Here’s another conspiracy theory for you. A disaffected Saudi, trained in combat and armed by the U.S. in a proxy war with Russia, enlisted a bunch of impressionable Arab kids and one or two hardened west-hating maniacs into a suicide mission in which they hijacked commercial jetliners and flew them into major U.S. landmarks. And did it all with razor blades and a few flying lessons in Florida.
          It’s a pretty wild plot, real Grisham/Koontz material. But it's too simple even for the American public, just as the lone gunman theory in the Kennedy assassination was too simple. Hell, the U.S. congress rejected that one, concluding (and I think correctly) that larger forces, possibly involving the mob, were at work. No, the American public wants something more insidious, grand, less Simpson-Bruckheimer and more Syriana---something along the lines of 9/11 being a “hit” set up by our own government, or at minimum that the official account of that day is as credible as O.J.’s alibi.
          With Sheen and a growing chorus of 9/11 naysayers now making headlines, gee, guess you could say there almost seems to be a. . .conspiracy. . .to discredit the official story.
          Right! Maybe there is a conspiracy to put together a conspiracy to expose those who conspired to create a non-conspiratorial cover story, which is a conspiracy of conspiratorial government and military who conspired to cover-up the military and government conspiracy to conspire a conspiratorial-looking terrorist hit in a conspiracy to get the public in lock-step with the conspiracy to uh. . .
          Well, to uh. . .do something bad.

          But I like Sheen, and I support him and everyone who bravely questions the administration line on 9/11. At minimum, it duly focuses shame and doubt on Bush/Cheney's disgusting and cynical handling of the whole mess. Think about this alone: when a colossal failure of intelligence leads to disaster, what should a government do? Investigate, fire or discipline those who loused up, shore up security.
          So who has been held accountable for 9/11? Who has been fired?
          No one. Why? Simple.
          The accountability is in the White House.
          There is a conspiracy, all right.
          I’m not going to deal with the business about why WTC Building 7 burned down, or why flight 77 didn’t leave any noticeable wreckage at the Pentagon, or how its pilot supposedly flunked Piper Cub school. Or why most of the jets that could have promptly responded on that morning were engaged in terrorist hit exercises, and were left confused as to what was real and what was fiction. Although I think these are fair questions that merit frank explanations---long and mysteriously ducked.
          And I’m not going to deal with the notion that the WTC and Pentagon were deliberately blown up, that the WTC could not possibly collapse as claimed (please see the totally credible and convincing PBS “NOVA” that explained the building collapse), or how the planes were missiles in disguise. (What then, of the passengers who died? Were they crash-test dummies?)
          Why concoct fantastic conspiratorial explanations when plain ones are fantastic enough?
          There was, for starters, a conspiracy by the Bush administration to exploit 9/11 for its fear value, in order to rally the country to support the insane and bankrupting invasion (read: permanent occupation) of the Middle East, and to support every freedom-suffocating, Constitution-busting tenet of the so-called “PATRIOT” Act.
          Doubt it? Then where were the “we have nothing to fear but fear itself” speeches from our elected leaders after 9/11? All those color-coded alerts, all the talk of duct tape and WMD and mushroom clouds and mysteriously thwarted alleged plots---these were all deliberate lies and distortions, tools of stoking paranoia and maintaining fear. To anyone who honestly suggests that the Iraq invasion, “PATRIOT” Act and sprawling Department of Homeland Security have made this country safer, I give you two words:
           Borders, ports.
          They should have been sealed on 9/12. They are wide open.
          At minimum, the 9/11 attacks were facilitated by a conspiracy of neglect, stupidity, arrogance, cynicism, corruption of a type unimaginable to the average person who gets his/her reality from CNN and Fox. Let’s tick them off:
          Neglect: the Bush administration did nothing about the dire threat of terrorism in its first nine months. Nothing.
          Stupidity: inter-agency and inter-office rivalry in intelligence led to ignoring information about Saudis in U.S. flight schools, and ample data suggesting planes could be flown into the WTC and other targets. (Please see PBS Front Line's "The Man Who Knew.")
          Arrogance: the Bush administration ignored constant warnings that a terrorist hit was imminent---it’s not too much to call them pleas for action---from Richard Clarke, a terrorism expert who served under Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton. It ignored the same warnings from outgoing Clinton administration officials, chiefly Sandy Berger.
           Cynicism: John Ashcroft flew on private jets for the entire summer of 2001 due to threats of hijacking, yet no warnings issued to the American public.
           Corruption: The Bush administration instituted a policy toward Saudi immigration in June, 2001, called "Visa Express." Under this bent rule, Saudis could obtain U.S. visas without being photographed or having to apply in person. Repeat: without even being photographed or having to apply in person. Three of the 9/11 terrorists came into this country on Bush's "Visa Express" policy.
          These tip-of-the-iceberg examples alone are enough to warrant the firing, impeachment, and prosecution of this deranged administration. And were it not for Bush and Cheney’s masterful manipulation of the public through fear, it might have already occurred.
          But I’m afraid I don’t think that’s all there is to it, by a longshot. Move over, Charlie.
          I believe there was a conspiracy, all right, and it begins with the Project for a New American Century. Dismissed by mainstream media as merely a “conservative think tank,” this was the Neocon frat-club that conceived and advanced the cantankerous theory of “Global Pax Americana,” the stated first step of which was the permanent occupation of the Middle East on behalf of oil, U.S. “strategic interests,” and Israel.
          As is well known, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz (now president of the World Bank) were among the PNAC main signators. Bush Administration foreign policy is virtually a carbon copy of the PNAC thesis, which was published in the late ‘90’s.
         When Bush was elected, PNAC-savvy international affairs experts, authors and columnists warned that an invasion of the Middle East was a foregone conclusion---as well as domestic loss of freedom and privacy in the name of security (a PNAC tenet calls for “seizing the commons of cyber-space.”) It was all obvious to anyone who paid attention objectively to the PNAC's agenda---yet such claims were vilified and dismissed as “conspiracy theory” by the rabid right-wing, slavering for 9/11 vengeance.
          This salient and now infamous passage of the PNAC document is really the smoking gun in the conspiracy: that what it termed a “Pearl Harbor-like event” was needed to unite people in supporting the policy of militarily imposing “democracy” on any country that the U.S. chooses. 9/11 was Pearl Harbor, and we see the sorry results of this messianic, megalomaniacal doctrine in Iraq.
          Once in power, I believe that old Nixon aides Cheney and Rumsfeld---who really control and direct this presidency---deliberately ignored the dire warnings of impending terrorist attack, in order to “take a hit” at home and have their “Pearl Harbor-like event.” A conspiracy of cynicism. It could have been done with a wink, or no conversation at all, given the yearning that Neocons had for such a galvanizing event. Perhaps they did not expect an attack of the magnitude of 9/11. Perhaps they “only” expected a hijacking or a McVeigh-like detonation of a public building. Or perhaps they had an inkling of exactly what was coming. We'll probably never know.
          But ignore the warnings, they most certainly and most unconscionably did.
          Conspiracy enough for you?

Additional Reading:
Former "Star Wars" Head Calls Cheney Main 9/11 Suspect
Jon Carroll
Whitewashing the Project For A New American Century
Recommended Viewing:
Why The Towers Fell
The Man Who Knew
Recommended Listening:
Cakewalk to Baghdad

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