Attack facts

George Monbiot created quite a stir a couple of weeks back with his put-down of the 9/11 conspiracy video, Loose Change. Having watched the film myself, I knew it had some loony notions about that fateful day. But not everything in it was off base. Nonetheless, Monbiot, not usually given to bouts of credulity when it comes to government hacks, appears to base his argument upon the logical fallacy that because the Bush administration has been demonstrably incompetent, they couldn't possibly have carried off the attacks of 9/11 or, in the least event, covered their tracks in allowing the hijackers to carry out the devilish plan. The truth will out! Monbiot, unfortunately, fails to address many of the basic questions that have never been answered by officialdom, regardless of the accuracy of Loose Change. In fact, Loose Change has nothing whatever to do with many people's continuing consternation regarding the official tale of days and months leading up to 9/11 and the outright weird behaviour of officials after the event.

There are two problems with Monbiot's argument, which has become standard amongst everyone who would deny the likelihood that the Bush administration could have pulled off such a caper. First is the conviction that the Bush administration is incompetent and the second is that Monbiot is simply employing the logical fallacy, argument from personal conviction. This fallacy is the refuge of those who have no explanation for particular events and refuse to form conclusions from a vast body of evidence that suggests something other than the acceptable storyline. C'mon George, you're better than that!

It is almost accepted fact that the Bush administration is incompetent. This is another leap of credulity that refuses to recognize the simple facts we see daily. Quite simply, the Bush administration has done everything they have wanted to do. The band of neocons in the White House, after gunning for Iraq for years, have illegally invaded and stationed 140,000 US troops in the most crucial geopolitical stage on the planet. We hear frequently that this was a "mistake." Of course, the litany of other crimes that have been supported to some degree or another by Congress and an ever-shrinking segment of the country is almost too large to detail. Though we do know of illegal warrantless wiretapping, secret prisons around the world, illegal programs of kidnapping, indefinite detention of hundreds of prisoners without trial -- with Congressional blessing -- torture -- with Congressional blessing -- diktats of mail surveillance, broad swath electronic telephone surveillance, this remains only the stuff we do know about. And when it comes to government perfidy, I tend to apply the cockroach rule: if you see one, there are a hundred somewhere you don't see.

That the Bush administration has done all this -- oftentimes with enthusiastic support (gitmo t-shirt anyone?) -- without the slightest recrimination hardly strikes me as an administration that doesn't know what it's doing. They deliberately pursued these markers, for whatever nefarious purpose, exacted the programs and have paid no price at all. Now, one may argue in the larger sense that of course particular administration officials are ultimately incompetent because they suffer under a delusional and criminal ideology, one that is consequently doomed. But that's not what they think. They've gotten every criminal thing they've wanted without fine or forfeit. Whatever you might call the Bush administration, incompetent is not a term that strikes me as apropos. But I digress.

Back to the subject of 9/11. Those particular events -- not 9/11 itself -- but events leading up that day and of days subsequent to 9/11 have been catalogued by John Doraemi of Crimes of the State in direct response to Monbiot's benighted argument. It is quite a catalogue. Everyone should read and be familiar with this stuff. There are many things in this list that I didn't know; 70 bullet points of information generally unknown or suppressed. It only made me shake my head more than I have already about the Bush administration. But more so at how so much information about 9/11 has been buried, not only by the White House, not only by the mainstream media but now, even by people like George Monbiot.