Understanding the Events of 11 September

by Richard K. Moore

ARE WE BEING TOLD THE TRUTH ABOUT THE TRADE CENTER ATTACKS?

First of all, I'd like you to understand that I don't have any secret
information, or leaked documents, about the horrific events of 11 September
in New York City.
I'm writing this article while on the
road, without my usual reference books, and I'm working from U.S.
television reports and from articles that people have sent me over
the Internet. 
What we're going to do in this article is to look at
the events in the same way we'd investigate a murder mystery: what
are the possible scenarios? What are the relevant clues? Which
scenario best fits the facts?

I'm not claiming this analysis is true, I'm only asking you to
consider the possibility. 
As we review the historical background,
I'll be giving you my best understanding of events - but I am not
claiming that every statement is an established fact. 
This article
represents my _opinion as to 'most likely scenarios'. Due to the
scope of the material, much of the presentation is highly
abbreviated.
A recommended reading list is provided at the bottom for
those who wish to investigate the ideas in greater depth.

For all I know, the scenario presented by the U.S. 
corporate- government- media- elite Establishment might be correct.
Perhaps the attacks came as a shocking surprise, and the U.S.
response has been hastily determined in subsequent emergency
meetings. But this default scenario opens many questions...

(1) Within hours of the attacks we were already being told that the
FBI knows who the hijackers were, and that they are linked to Bin Laden.
If this is true, then why were they allowed to buy tickets in
their own names and travel together on commercial flights? One of the
suspects who bought a ticket in his own name, a TV report said, was
on the FBI's most-wanted list! 
And only a week before, we are told,
Bin Laden had threatened that a major U.S. target was going to be attacked.
Could security really be that lax?

(2) In the first day of media coverage there seemed to be a huge gap
in the reports we were receiving.
Why were we being told nothing
about air-traffic controllers,
and their attempts to contact the planes? 
Wouldn't that have made for dramatic television?...
"Flight 11, please come in.
Flight 11, do you read me?" Why were we told
nothing about scrambling fighter planes, and of attempts to intercept
the hijacked airliners? On September 15 the New York times published
an 'explanation' of the events by Matthew Wald, and reported that
some fighters did scramble. 
But why was this completely omitted from the early reports?
The initial coverage seemed to be designed to give us the impression
that no one knew what was going on until the
first plane actually struck the World Trade Center.

(3) And the NY Times explanation doesn't make sense.
The following excerpts are from an analysis
of that article by Jared Israel, which can be found on the web at:

"In an analysis of the 9-11 nightmare, which we have been preparing,
one of the things we asked is: how could the so-called third plane
stay in the air, hijacked, for almost an hour after two other
hijacked planes had struck the WTC Towers, and not be seen and
intercepted by U.S. air defense forces? How could it fly to the
Midwest, turn around and fly back to Washington, to the Pentagon,
undisturbed?

"Apparently it occurred to someone On High that ordinary folks might
harbor such thoughts, hence the following article has been published
by the 'N.Y. Times,' with the apparent intention of defusing such doubts.

"But the cure is worse than the doubts. It is one thing to say the
plane was not spotted. But to say, as this article does, that the
plane was spotted, that it was tracked from the time it turned back
from the Midwest until it struck the Pentagon, and yet nothing was
done because they "didn't know what to do" - this is simply unbelievable.

"If they knew the plane was coming, why didn't they force it down and
failing that, shoot it down? Before you say 'They wouldn't do a thing
like that,' note that whoever edited the 'N.Y. Times' article left in
the following damning sentences, regarding the fourth plane, the one
that, we are told, crashed in Pennsylvania:

"'Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, said today that the
Pentagon had been tracking that plane and could have shot it down if
necessary; it crashed about 35 minutes after the Pentagon crash.'M
(From article posted below)

"So if they "could have shot" down the fourth plane, why didn't they
shoot down the third? Why didn't they shoot down the first three, or
at least planes # two and three? Once they "knew" these were suicide
hijackings what were they waiting for them to do, hit the WTC Towers
and the Pentagon?

Or a nuclear power plant?"

(4) If the attacks really came as a complete surprise, one would
expect initial confusion at the highest government levels. 
One would have expected days to go by while information was gathered and
options were considered.

Instead, we began seeing a coherent and final response within hours.
Within a day or two the perpetrators were known, $40 billion had been
allocated by Congress, a protracted war was being announced, we were
being told to expect major cutbacks in civil liberties, and the U.S.
Senate had approved the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001".

And within a few days after that, a multi-billion dollar airline
bailout was being announced.

There are other objections that can be raised to the official
scenario, but I am not trying here to prove that scenario to be
wrong. I wish only to express doubt, suggesting that other scenarios
deserve consideration. When seeking to identify the perpetrator of a
crime, as we all know from countless mystery dramas, one looks for
motive, opportunity, and modus operandi - as well as at 
circumstantial and physical evidence. 
For the scenario I'd like you to consider, let us begin with modus operandi, 
or "standard behavior of the suspect". 
U.S. history - a series of suspicious warpath 'incidents'

As we look back at history, we find that every time the U.S. has
entered into a major military adventure, that has been enabled by a
dramatic incident which aroused public sentiment overwhelmingly in
favor of military action. These incidents have always been accepted
at face value when they occurred, but in every case we have learned
later that the incidents were highly suspicious. And in every case,
the ensuing military action served some elite geopolitical design.

Consider for example the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which gave
President Lyndon Johnson an excuse to begin major escalation of the
Vietnam War. Supposedly, in that incident, a North Vietnamese boat
launched torpedoes in an attempt to sink an American warship. It is
now generally accepted by historians that the attack did not in fact
occur, and that Johnson had been preparing to escalate all along.

One of my correspondents on the Internet summarized the situation this way:

"The U.S. Government lied to the American People about the following
events. Each of these incidents led the United States into War....

"1898..THEY LIED about the sinking of the battleship Maine.
(Spanish American War)

1915..THEY LIED about the sinking of the ocean liner Lusitania
(World War I)

1941..THEY LIED about the attack on Pearl Harbor. 
(World War 2)

1964..THEY LIED about the Gulf of Tonkin affair. (Vietnam War)"

In the media coverage of the recent WTC attack, the comparison with
Pearl Harbor has been frequently raised.

Thousands of American troops were killed in the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and thousands of American civilians were killed in the attack
on the WTC. 
In both cases the American people responded (quite understandably)
with deep shock and outrage. In both cases,
overwhelming public sentiment was for retaliation, and for giving the
President total support for whatever course he chose. In 1941, as
now, any suggestion that the U.S. government knew in advance of the
attacks, and could have prevented them, would have been met by angry
disbelief by almost any American. Nonetheless, the evidence now
seems to favor the view that President Franklin D. Roosevelt
_did know about the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, and that he
could have mounted an effective defense.

We now know that elite U.S. planners, during the period 1939-1941,
had come to the conclusion that the Japanese conquest of Asia had to
be stopped. The planners determined that Southeast Asia, in
particular, was critical to U.S. economic interests. But U.S. public
opinion was overwhelmingly against entering the war. It now seems
that FDR figured out a way to get the U.S. into the war, and that
Pearl Harbor was the key to his plan.

When the Japanese began to threaten Southeast Asia, FDR froze
Japanese assets in U.S. banks, resulting in a cutoff of Japanese oil
supplies. This was considered an act of war by Japan, and Japanese
retaliation was expected by American planners. As the Japanese fleet
approached Pearl Harbor, intelligence services in Britain and the
U.S. evidently knew of that approach. Prime Minister Churchill
notified his Pacific commanders that the Japanese were heading for
Pearl Harbor. FDR, on the other hand, did not notify his commanders. 
Instead, he sent the most strategic ships (the aircraft carriers) out
to sea where they would be safe, and instructed key observation
outposts on the island of Kauai to stand down.

It seems that FDR intentionally set the stage for a 'surprise' attack
- shocking the nation and instantly shifting public opinion from
non-interventionism to war frenzy. I am suggesting that this same
scenario must be considered in the case of the recent WTC and
Pentagon attacks. Unbelievable as this may seem, this is a scenario
that matches the modus operandi of U.S. ruling elites. These elites
show callous disregard for civilian lives in Iraq, Rwanda,
Yugoslavia, and dozens of other places around the world. Is it so
surprising that they would sacrifice a few thousand American
civilians if they considered that necessary in order to pursue their
geopolitical objectives?

Let us now consider in more detail the possible motives for such a
crime scenario.

Global capitalism in crisis

Capitalism must have growth and change in order to operate.

The engine of capitalism is driven by wealthy investors who put their
money into the economy in order to increase their wealth. If the
economy offers no growth opportunities, then investors withdraw their
money and the whole system collapses. A minor collapse is called a
recession, and a major collapse is called a depression. The history
of capitalism is punctuated by such collapses.

Capitalism came into existence along with the Industrial Revolution
in the late 1700s in Scotland and northern England. Before that time
societies were not based on growth. Certainly there were people
before then who sought to increase their wealth, but economies as a
whole did not require growth in order to operate. Societies were
ruled by aristocratic elites whose wealth was measured by the estates
they owned, and the peasants who worked their land. Such aristocrats
were more interested in stability than change, and more concerned
with maintaining their estates than with economic growth.

When the Industrial Revolution came along then all this began to
change. With the steam engine and other new technologies, it became
possible for an entrepreneur to make a great deal of wealth rapidly.
A new wealthy elite began to emerge made up inventors,
industrialists, bankers, and traders. These were the people who
built the factories, invested in them, and figured out ways to get
the new products to markets.

The interests of this new elite clashed with those of the old
aristocratic elite. The aristocrats favored stability, and laws
which provided stability - such as tariffs, price controls, etc. The
new elite, on the other hand, wanted change and growth - they wanted
to develop new products, build new factories, and capture new
markets. While aristocratic wealth was based on land and stability,
industrial wealth was based on investment, development, change, and
growth.

This new kind of economics, based on investment and growth, is
capitalism. And the new elite, gaining its wealth through change and
growth, is the capitalist elite. At first capitalism existed along
side aristocracy, competing with it to control the laws of society. 
But then in Britain, and later in other nations, the capitalist elite
won out. Laws, economies, and societies were transformed to favor
capitalism and growth over stability and land-based wealth. Banking,
monetary systems, and taxation were re-engineered so as to compel
businesses to seek growth whether they wanted to or not.

No one can deny that capitalism and its growth have brought many
kinds of benefits to some people. America was based on capitalism
from its very founding, and American wealth and prosperity are
legendary. But there is a fundamental problem with capitalism. How
is it possible for an economy to grow endlessly? How can growth be
forever achieved in a finite world? Is capitalism, in the final
analysis, sustainable?

In fact, providing for ongoing growth has been the primary challenge
faced by every nation that has adopted capitalism.

The history of the 19th and 20th centuries has been primarily the
story of how nations have competed for markets and resources to
support growth. Our history books tell us about noble causes and
evil enemies, but in truth every significant war since 1800 has been
about competition among Great Powers for economic growth.

Before capitalism, nations built empires because kings or individuals
were greedy and wanted more territory and wealth. After capitalism,
nations developed empires out of necessity. If they didn't expand
their markets and access to resources their economies would collapse.
As industrial capitalism got into high gear in the late 1800s, that
was accompanied by an unprecedented expansion of imperialism on a
global scale.

From 1800 until 1945 the world system was a matter of competition
among Great Powers for empires, in order to provide for capitalist
growth. In each empire there was a core nation which ruled over
peripheral territories. The peripheral territories were exploited in
order to provide growth for the core ruling nation. The populations
of the core nations were convinced by propaganda that they were
helping or aiding the periphery to develop. This propaganda was
lies. The fact was suppression, exploitation, and the prevention of
healthy development in the periphery - so as to enable capitalism to
flourish in the core Great Powers.

In 1945 this global system was radically changed. Under American
leadership, with the help of both incentives and coercion, a new
paradigm of capitalist growth was launched.

Instead of competitive imperialism, a regime of cooperative
imperialism was instituted. Under the protection of the American
military, the so-called "Free World" was opened to exploitation by
capitalism generally. This led to the rise of immense transnational
corporations, who were no longer limited in their growth to a single
national empire. This new post-1945 system was invented in order to
provide another round of growth to capitalism.

Under the post-1945 system, part of the scheme was to provide
prosperity to the Western middle classes. In Europe, the USA, and in
Japan as well, populations experienced unprecedented prosperity.
Cooperative imperialism provided immense growth room for capitalism,
and the wealth was being shared with the core-nation populations.

But no matter what system might be set up, growth eventually runs
into the limits of that system. The post-1945 system was no
exception. By the early 1970s the growth machine was beginning to
slow down. Recessions began to replace prosperity. As a consequence,
the global capitalist elite designed yet another system, offering yet
another round of capitalist growth. This new system goes under the
name 'neoliberalism', and it was launched under the auspices of
Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK.

The purpose of neoliberalism was to rob the wealth of the prosperous
capitalist nations and transfer that wealth to the capitalist elite
and the corporations which they own and control. That's what
privatization, deregulation, and other so-called 'reforms' were all
about. In addition, neoliberalism was aimed at disempowering
democracy itself - because it was the democratic nations which were
implementing laws which limited the power of corporations.

Any limit on the power of corporation is a limit on their ability to
grow. And the one thing capitalism cannot tolerate is limits to its
growth. That is a matter of life and death to capitalism.

Again, as must ALWAYS happen, the neoliberal system also began to run
out of growth room. In this case, the system only provided growth
for about ten years, the decade of the 1980s. And thus we were
brought to the era of GLOBALIZATION. Propaganda tells us that
globalization is simply the continuation of 'natural' trends in
technology, trade, and commerce. This is not true. Globalization
represents an _intentional and _radical policy shift on the part of
the global capitalist elite.

Globalization amounts to four radical changes in the world system.
These are
(1) the destabilization of and removal of sovereignty from Western nation states,
(2) the establishment of an essentially
fascist world government under the direct control of the capitalist
elite,
(3) the greatly accelerated exploitation and suppression of the third-world, and
(4) the gradual downgrading of Western living
conditions toward third-world standards.
By these means, elites hope
to achieve yet another round of capital growth.

During most of the decade of the 1990s globalization proceeded almost
unnoticed by the world's population. The WTO and IMF began to
establish their tentacles of power without publicity. Government
leaders worldwide, under the pressure of capitalist elites, were
quietly signing their sovereignty over to the new global
institutions. When globalization was mentioned at all in the media,
it was described in propaganda terms as sharing 'progress' with the
downtrodden of the world. Lies as usual from the capitalist elite
and the media outlets which they control or own.

And then in December 1999 the people of the world began to wake up. 
The demonstrations in Seattle marked the beginning of a new global
movement. In fairness, one must acknowledge that there were earlier
signs of the movement, in Europe and the third world. But only when
the movement reached the USA did it become 'real' in the eyes of the
world. And ever since Seattle the movement has been growing by leaps
and bounds on a global scale.

The movement does not yet have well-defined goals, but it is a very
promising and very radical movement. It is based on a clear
understanding that global capitalism is leading us to ecological
disaster and to tyranny. The movement does not have a clear
organizational structure, but that itself is promising. The
decentralized nature of the movement points to the way to a new kind
of genuine, grass-roots, locally-based democracy - a democracy that
is not subject to elite manipulation as have been our Western
pseudo-democracies with their manufactured 'majorities'.

Having presented this (highly abbreviated) historical background, I
can now describe the nature of 'the global crisis of capitalism'. On
the one hand, the capitalist elite must accelerate the pace of
globalization in order to continue providing room for capital growth.
On the other hand, the people of the world, notably in the West, have
begun to wake up and oppose the dangerous and ominous path of
globalization. The elite know that as the path of globalization is
pursued more vigorously, more and more people will rise in
opposition. The crisis of globalization is a crisis of population
control, requiring the subjugation of the people of Europe and North
America. 
People in the third world have been subjected to imperialist tyranny
for centuries, and this has been possible because of suppression by
Western military force. If the people of the West arise in
opposition to globalization, then the hegemony of the capitalist
elite is seriously threatened. THIS IS THE CRISIS OF GLOBAL
CAPITALISM.

"War on Terrorism" - a solution to capitalism's crisis 

[In writing this section, I refer frequently to the 
President Bush calls it a "War on Terrorism", but what is it really?
Let's look at some of the specifics...

* Congress has authorized the President to do "whatever is * necessary".

* Congress has allocated 40 billion dollars to do "whatever".

* The $40 billion came from Social Security funds.

* $15 billion is being allocated to bail out the airline industry.

* For the first time, NATO has invoked the treaty clause which says
"an attack on one nation is an attack on all".

* We've been told to expect significant curtailment of civil liberties.

* Bush declared that "Every nation in every region now has a decision
to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists."

* Fleets, planes, and ground troops have been dispatched to the
Middle East to do "whatever".

* We are to expect a long, protracted war, much of which will be
covert and we won't be told what happened even after it's all over.

* After Bin Laden is dealt with, Secretary of State Colin Powell
tells us "we will then broaden the campaign to go after other
terrorist organizations and forms of terrorism around the world."

* Bush tells us that "We will use every necessary weapon of war", and
"Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign
unlike any other we have ever seen."

* The Pentagon specifically refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons.

* Bush tells us that "God is not neutral".

This is a very comprehensive list. Bush has a blank check to do
whatever he wants, wherever he wants, using whatever means he
chooses. He has made it clear he intends to pull no punches and that
he will keep drawing on this blank check for a long time to come. 
From such an agenda, one cannot easily predict where it will all
lead. In such a case, it is instructive to look at the historical
precedents.

Pearl Harbor aroused the wrath of Americans against the Japanese...
but as soon as the blank check was signed, it was Europe that
received the initial focus of American military attention. After the
Battleship Maine was blown up (from an internal explosion we have
since learned), the thirst for revenge was translated into the
imperialist capture of the Philippines. In other words, when one of
these outrage incidents occurs, the modus operandi of the U.S. elite
is to pursue whatever objectives are most important to it -
regardless of the incident that provided the blank check.

And the most important issue before the elite at this point in
history is the preservation of global elite rule, the acceleration of
globalization, and the suppression of the anti-globalization
movement. They must deal with the crisis of global capitalism.