With only ten percent of the 21st century under our belts, it’s still too early to give the appellation of ‘Crime of the Century’ to the hijacking and kamikaze crashing of airliners into the twin towers of the World Trade Center complex and into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, but it most certainly was a crime of gigantic proportions. And despite the ridicule heaped upon any explanation — ignominiously called conspiracy theories — other than the official one, there can be no doubt that there was indeed a conspiracy at work on that day. Unless you believe that the separate hijackings were unrelated, the very fact that four different planes were hijacked is proof that a criminal conspiracy existed. The extent of that conspiracy is the real question, and unfortunately for those who want to see truth prevail, that question is just one of many for which we will likely never be given satisfactory answers.
It has now been ten years since the catastrophic and catalyzing events1 of that modern day of infamy, and the government has given no indications that it plans to reinvestigate the crime. In fact, the actions of government throughout the entire episode evinces an intent to conceal, rather than reveal, the facts surrounding what it has referred to as the worst terrorist attack on American soil. Indeed, its continuing obfuscation of the truth — whether through error or willfulness, or both — is one of the factors that may ultimately assure that the attack will remain in the running for crime of the century. Just like any case where investigation of a crime is conducted by those who have a vested interest in the outcome, if not actual participation in the crime itself, truth is always a victim.2
As I said, the extent of the criminal conspiracy involved in the 9-11 attack is a central question that needs to be answered, as so many other questions come back to that one. Besides the actual hijackers (whether they were properly identified or not), every person who knowingly aided or abetted the commission of this series of crimes, no matter how small a part they played in the whole scheme of things, is a coconspirator, and as such, they should rightly share in the criminal responsibility for the result, which was the murder of thousands of people. This is where foreknowledge comes into play, and of course, why such foreknowledge is always vehemently denied. If government agents knew of the plan, and allowed it to go forward, that’s bad enough;3 if they not only knew, but orchestrated circumstances to make it more likely to succeed, that makes them complicit in those murders. This type of orchestration can occur so far behind the scenes that it may be virtually impossible to discover; but sometimes hints of it come through. One such hint, to my mind, in the 9-11 attack is the training exercises that were going on at the same time as the hijackings.
Although they didn’t get a whole lot of press, Vanity Fair did a great job in reporting on them.4 Officials in our air defense establishment admitted that these exercises — which included simulated hijacking of airliners — were being conducted at the same time as the actual hijackings. General Ralph E. Eberhart, USAF Commander of NORAD, was quoted as claiming that the exercises actually enhanced the response to the real threat, because everybody was already in a more alert status.5 Given the near-total failure of any military response to the hijacked planes, this seems like a pretty serious indictment of our air defense readiness. Aside from that, however, this simultaneous existence of actual hijackings and training exercises on hijackings comes down to one of two options: either it was mere coincidence that both the real and simulated hijackings occurred at the same time; or one of them must have been based on foreknowledge of the other. Now, I’m no statistician, but I have to think that the odds of the first option are pretty long. But suppose for a minute that it was just a coincidence. Then, according to General Eberhart, the hijackers picked the worst of all possible times for their crimes, because our federally-controlled air security apparatus was more ready than usual to thwart their evil plans. And yet, despite this heightened readiness, 75 percent of the hijackers' plot was accomplished without any interference from the feds whatsoever.6 Given that it was managed by groups of four and five men armed with nothing but boxcutters,7 that would probably put the chances at about 50/50 for a pair of hijackers armed with pea-shooters to do the same on a normal day. Then, there's the second option — foreknowledge. Perhaps the reason why such a precarious plan succeeded so far as it did was because people who knew of the plot maneuvered circumstances in such a way as to make the chances of success greater. This could work in either direction. That is, if the hijackers knew of the training exercises, then perhaps they picked the same day in hopes of confusing those involved in them (instead of them being more focused, as General Eberhart claims); or, if the plot was known by those who have an interest in exploiting disasters (tyrants, for example), then perhaps the exercises were scheduled for the same day, and for the same reason. In the former case, though, it seems unlikely that the hijackers would have access to enough details of the planned exercise scenarios to determine that it would enhance their chances of success, since even the participants would be mostly kept in the dark, in order to maximize the usefulness of any evaluation of their performance.
On the other hand, with the government's known predilection for infiltration of dissident groups (think COINTELPRO), it's not much of a stretch to believe that there could have been an informant (or even an agent provocateur) involved in the plot, feeding suggestions to the conspirators, while simultaneously leaking the plans to their government handlers. I realize that to many people, this sounds crazy (or at least, I sound crazy), but pushing unstable people to engage in criminal behavior is a common ploy of the FBI in its War on Terrorism, as revealed by the New York Times in an article from November 29, 2010.8 In the same way, exploiting crises is a universal ploy of tyrants to gain greater power and control. This makes for a powerful incentive to exacerbate such crises, because the greater the crisis, the greater the demand for (or at least the acquiescence in) more power to prevent another in the future. Thus, foreknowledge is a powerful tool for power-grabbers. And one of the beauties of high-level behind-the-scenes manipulation is that it can be done under the cover of legitimate preparedness. Sending fighter planes off to another part of the country to engage in training is not, in and of itself, a criminal thing. Quite the contrary, it's generally a good thing to have well-trained pilots defending our land. So, what blame could possibly be laid on the person who instigated the training, or scheduled it; unless, of course, it was done to further a criminal conspiracy. But alas, how would you ever prove such a criminal intent by anyone evil enough to execute a plan like that?
Making it even tougher to ferret out, the influence exerted might be so light of touch that those being manipulated never even know it's been done. This is a central premise of the movie Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, where an idea to be implanted in a target's subconscious mind must seem to originate from the target himself in order to take hold. I've heard it said that Colonel Edward Mandell House, advisor to President Woodrow Wilson, among others, had such a gift — that he could suggest ideas to someone in a way that made the recipient believe he had thought of it himself. Is this what happened with the various training exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001, or was it truly just a coincidence? We will likely never know the answer to that question. But as for anybody who played a part in furthering that murderous conspiracy of ten years ago, we can rest assured that Christ sees what's in their hearts, and come judgment day, there will be hell to pay.
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[1] Could it be that this was the sort of event envisioned by The Project for the New America Century? See page 51 of Rebuilding America's Defenses: www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf..
[2] Police officers routinely cleared by internal police investigations of any wrong-doing in brutality or illegal use-of-force cases is an excellent example.
[3] In the 1993 WTC bombing, the FBI, after being informed of the plot by one of the participants — who requested that they supply him with fake explosives — instead let the bomb be built as planned, resulting in the death of six people. A CBS news video about this can be viewed at http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/wtc_bombing3.wmv.
[4] www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608.
[5] Eberhart, when asked by the 9-11 Commission whether the training exercises helped or hurt the response, testified:
“Sir, my belief is that it helped because of the manning, because of the focus, because the crews -- they have to be airborne in 15 minutes. And that morning, because of the exercise, they were airborne in six or eight minutes. And so I believe that focus helped. The situation that you're referring to, I think, at most cost us 30 seconds -- 30 seconds.” http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-06-17.htm
[6] According to the official story, the other 25 percent was thwarted by unarmed passengers who, by an unsuccessful 5-minute assault to breach the cockpit door, convinced the hijackers to crash the plane in Shanksville, Penn., rather than continue the 20-minute flight to Washington, D.C. The report also documents that the cockpit crew had received a warning from United Airlines about cockpit intrusions at least 4 minutes before the hijackers attacked, which should have given them ample time to secure the door, but apparently didn't do so. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 11.
[7] Personally, I find it rather incredible that dozens of adult passengers would let a few guys with box-cutters (or even regular size knives, for that matter) order them around and take over the cockpit of their plane in the first place. A bus full of children, maybe, but grown men and women? But then again, the FBI did report that they “collected 14 knives or portions of knives at the Flight 93 crash site,” (Report, p. 457, FN 82.) so maybe they were carrying 3 or 4 each, and the people just felt overwhelmed by all that weaponry.
[8] “In U.S. Sting Operations, Questions of Entrapment,” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/us/politics/30fbi.html
