There are no Conspiracies, Just Smoke and Mirrors

I remember several years ago an amateur documentary going viral called Zeitgeist, which was a conspiracy theory on 9-11. Essentially, the US government deliberately let 9-11 happen, and, more so, they created 9-11. I can't agree with the former, and I partially agree with the latter. I say we, the entire corpus of the Unites States of America created that fatal Tuesday morning in 2001.

I have often said that conspiracy theorist are people with incredibly creative imagination, but they don't know the first thing about research. I have discussed in a previous posting on Little Syria, which was a predominantly Arab neighborhood in Lower Manhattan (what later became the WTC), was a factor in targeting the towers. But, obviously, the roots go much deeper than evicting an entire neighborhood by imminent domain for capitalism.

I've been digging into a few sources on American imperialism (primarily Berman's Dark Ages America), which inevitably leads me to information on 9-11 and what lead to the attacks. What have found has pissed me off more than I have ever been before in my life. I just hang my head in shame, literally.

The story starts with the Soviet Union, and our complete obsession with defeating it, and we have committed some horrific atrocities in our obsession in battling communism... all in the name democracy! In 1979 the USSR invaded Afghanistan. Iran began funding terrorists there, and the CIA backed these Muslim extremist. The CIA supplied Afghanistan weapons, funding, and military training (in fact, we began sending them weapons six months prior to the USSR's invasion). And it wasn't just how to hold a gun. The CIA sent agents and Green Berets to Afghanistan to train them in usage of high-tech weaponry. Why? Because it posed a threat to Mother Russia. And the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Right? What started out as a simple invasion turned into a full-out war, and a phony one at that. There was no need for the US to get involved, but we just had to stop communism.

Eventually the USSR pulled out of Afghanistan, and with that millions of refugees, millions dead or dying, and a completely devastated country. So what did the US do? We left (1992). Mission accomplished. Why stick around to clean up the mess? Afghanistan never really forgave us for that, which lead to the rise of the Taliban. A good deal of the CIA's funding was channeled to these rebel forces through who other than... *drum roll*... Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was actually indirectly trained through the CIA (he was trained by people who were trained by the CIA in the 1980s). In fact, in 1987, and on into the 1990s, the CIA began illegally issuing visas to persons under bin Laden's supervision to visit the United States and receive training under the CIA in means of terrorism. BBC reports that five of the hijackers in the 9-11 attacks were trained in United States.

Now I must ask: what the fuck did we do? We were so obsessed with the Soviet Union that we didn't think giving training, weapons, and money to extremists wouldn't be a very good idea. We left their country a complete disaster and walked away. Why do they hate us? Hmm... I fucking wonder why! We never thought in a million years a bunch of towel-heads (say it with a redneck accent adequately expresses our stupidity) would ever try anything to hurt did, did we?

3000 people died because we never considered the consequences. And it's not just the government or the CIA, it is every American who stood on the sidelines and turn their heads. And no generation is immune to the blame (even those born after the attacks). This is our culture, or country, our foreign policy, our diplomacy, our arrogance, ignorance, and negligence. We didn't just let this happen, we did this to ourselves; all because we needed an enemy (e.g. the Soviet Union). And now we have a new one: those ever evasive terrorists.

Forget the conspiracies. Will anyone with an I.Q. over 15 actually entertain the idea for one minute that the White House, FBI, CIA, NSC, Pentagon, DoD, and all the other organizations in Washington can actually worked together (ha!) and plot a master plan (ha!) in secret (ha!)? Every organization in Washington is disorganized, and none of them seem to work together, ever! Much less can any of them keep a secret. Quite simply, we let this happen, everyone of us, through our arrogance, nationalism, and our joke of democracy. And then we all turned our heads as the atrocities by our own hands became the substance nightmares are made of.

I often rhetorically ask: are you justified? (Which I take from the Dream Theater song "The Great Debate"). None of this is justified. 3000 deaths are not justified on a Tuesday morning, nor are the deaths of millions of Muslims for thirteen years. They can never justify their actions against us, nor us to them. I am simply ashamed to be a human being.

"How many times must a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"
~Bob Dylan