Here we are again, at another mournful anniversary of that tragic day that transformed the citizens of the United States into obedient, compliant sheep willing to be shepherded by our saviors in the White House, Congress and Pentagon. Seven years after our country collectively stood in shock and awe on Sept. 11, with mouths agape, fear remains the force that herds us in whatever direction our leaders demand. And it is fear that has held the citizenry captive within a prison of ignorance, afraid even to acknowledge the facts we do know … or to stand up in revolt against the lies and deception disseminated by our leadership that has caused catastrophic consequences both here and abroad.
I remember that fateful day, Sept. 11, 2001. It was the day I watched and listened as mass media became mouthpieces for government propaganda, regurgitating information from anonymous official sources, interviewing government “experts” who conveniently appeared within moments of the attacks on America.

I was told that two passenger airliners plunged into New York’s World Trade Center towers and caused them both to collapse at free-fall speed, as though neither were outfitted with dozens of internal steel columns. I was told the planes completely disintegrated - the buildings’ steel shattered. Nothing was left … except the passport of one of the hijackers found at the scene, scorched but intact. The miracle paper - apparently in the possession of a hijacker aboard one of the planes - managed to survive the catastrophe that completely devoured two aircraft, engines and all, along with much of the steel frames in both buildings.
I was not told by national media on Sept. 11 that a third World Trade Center tower had collapsed in exactly the same manner later that same evening, without the benefit of any plane crashing into it. The official explanation would come years later - a government office explaining that for the first time in the history of mankind, a steel-framed building completely collapsed solely due to fire.
The government couldn’t explain, however, why the holes in the walls of the Pentagon were symmetrically circular and much smaller than the passenger plane reported to have disintegrated within its walls. It could not, and would not explain why it took five years for any video footage of the plane approaching the Pentagon to be released. What the public eventually received was merely an indescribable streak across a screen. And to this day, no one can explain what happened to the plane that disappeared in a scorched field in Pennsylvania.
Over the course of years, the American people have begun to ask questions - inquiries initially ignored by the government when four widows from New Jersey pushed hard for an investigation. But the public pressure was too great, and the 9/11 Commission was formed. It turned out to be a chaotic concoction created by the executive branch — designed to buy time, deter deeper probes and cast aspersions upon those who refused to accept the government’s paltry explanations. It worked … for a while.

However, it could not keep a lid on the secrets indefinitely. Dozens of organizations seeking the truth behind the events of 9/11 have since sprung up and blossomed. At first, they were grassroots efforts by concerned citizens with no real credentials or expertise. That eventually changed. Today, numerous organizations, many with credible experts from the military, aeronautics and architecture industries, demolition, metallurgy and firefighting fields, and the list goes on. Former government officials, journalists and legal experts have all joined in the growing mob that hungers and thirst for one thing … truth. Dozens of books have been written on the subject and polls show the American people do not believe the government’s official explanation.
Three major societal entities still refuse to join the public’s impassioned search for truth: media, and the legislative and judicial branches of government. The press (aka the Fourth Estate) has joined forces with the two balancing legs of the federal triune to form a triangulation of inaction and information suppression. In a concerted effort, mass media and legislators have stood by while ordinary Americans have invested money, time and energy into efforts to bring truth to light. The power inherent in Congress and national media has proved to be a stumbling block for truth-seekers, however, as legislators have refused to lead, follow or get out of the way.

Meanwhile media has targeted truth-seekers and undermined their efforts rather than lead the investigations of those who have sequestered truth and offered deception instead.

Today, Americans have no doubt that our executive branch of government cannot be trusted. Admissions of illegal spying (on American citizens, foreign citizens and even allied heads of state) add fuel to the fire of public mistrust. Secret government operations that include kidnapping, secret foreign prisons, torture and murder remind American citizens of Nazi operations in WWII - yet, these are the stories we read about our own government in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
The Bush administration has been under rapid fire from a barrage of books by former government officials, journalists and even legal experts that reveal the executive branch deliberately deceived the American public and led this nation into an ill-advised, illicit, unnecessary war that former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski described as a “choice” by the Bush administration. Such aggression by our government was confirmed in the Senate Intelligence Report, released this year following a five-year investigation.

To add insult to injury, national media discovered they were duped for years by Pentagon plants posing as pundits and experts on the war. The press proliferated propaganda, helping the government deceive the masses.
And if the government-caused collapse of our housing industry, ratcheted up aggression toward Iran and Russia, and a flat-out refusal by the executive branch to cooperate with Congressional subpoenas aren’t enough to give you pause to wonder what happened to the idea of democracy in America, nothing short of outright murder in broad daylight will be enough to convince you that something is dreadfully awry.
Then there are those recent claims of 90 civilian deaths (including numerous women and children) in Afghanistan caused by U.S. attacks that the military denied, claimed to investigate, denied again and finally admitted. The formula is one repeated by the Pentagon many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was even used to cover the murder of former NFL star Pat Tillman, who was convinced that serving his country in the military was an honorable thing to do.

Today, Reuters newswire is reporting George W. Bush secretly gave the order for a clandestine attack by U.S. special forces inside Pakistan. But, of course he did! The question is what will we do about it, if anything?
With all of that doom and gloom hanging over our heads from just one administration, it is difficult to understand how the first woman Speaker of the House could announce prior to pounding her first gavel, that “impeachment is off the table.” Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats were ushered into Congress in a sweeping election based upon mistrust of the republicans, led by the Bush administration. First on the list of lies was the war in Iraq. The only power provided to the people to remove an elected Commander in Chief is the process of impeachment. When Pelosi announced she would protect the Bush-Cheney regime by preventing the people from exercising our will, she ostensibly sentenced more people to die in Iraq - both Iraqis and American troops. And, of course, many more injuries and deaths have occurred since her announcement.
Still, despite Pelosi and her cohort in crime John Conyers, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee that is responsible for investigating the veracity of articles of impeachment, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has managed to wage a one-man war in the House and obtain a 251-166 favorable vote to send articles of impeachment to the Judiciary Committee. The Committee has held hearings on the matter. Of course, the majority of the public is unaware of such proceedings and the status of the effort to bring Bush and Cheney to justice. The sole reason is due to media relegating Kucinich’s efforts to short briefs and buried articles. The television media isn’t interested. The vote on sending impeachment articles to the Judiciary hardly raised an eyebrow in national newsrooms, much less made anyone’s front page. The Senate Intelligence Report met a similar fate.

The lineup of authors toting books that expose the administration as a fraud has been directed to the backdoor of media organizations. The authors haven’t been regarded as credible sources, nor have the sources used by the authors. Instead of the media using the information as a foundation upon which to launch its own investigations, it has interviewed authors and reported what has appeared in the books, while offering a presumed balanced response from the administration officials targeted by the books. Thus, media organizations have sought to relieve themselves of any guilt, basking the notion that the issue was covered.

It is no wonder the public does not trust its own ally. Media has become little more than a lapdog, while legislators little more than cheerleaders for one party or the other. Is it any wonder that the two central figures today who are most responsible for preventing the impeachment and removal of a republican administration are top leaders in the Democratic Party?
On this seventh anniversary of 9/11, with our nation involved in wars on two fronts and seeking wars on two more, I am hopeful that somehow we, the people, may find a way to regain control over the power we lost. With an executive branch that controls the judicial branch and half of the legislative, I wonder in what institution can we still have some hope? The other half of Congress seeks solely to regain control over the White House so it can replace the republican powers who control both the executive and judicial branches. Meanwhile, that once venerable Fourth Estate is deep in a mortgage crisis of its own, having long ago sold out and bankrupted the public’s power to seek and expose the truth.
The result has been a dictator-like rule of U.S. foreign policy. Oil has long been at the forefront of U.S. policy in the Middle East, particularly in Iran and Iraq. The Bush administration is purported to have been planning another ground invasion of Iraq (the first U.S. ground invasion was in 1991) before 9/11. While U.S. oil companies purchase the rights to lands in Iraq and Bush decrees a billion dollars to Georgia while ushering troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, the media turns its attention to the next administration … content to let this one ride out the final months in office doing as it desires.
The American people have been ignored by Bush, Congress and the press. Despite constant calls for truth behind the façade of 9/11, the media and Congress have turned a blind eye and deaf ear. Despite massive protests and consistent cries to remove our troops from Iraq, both Congress and the media have failed to focus on what the people want.

Seven years after 9/11, the one thing that has remained as constant as the fear that blanketed the nation that day, America appears committed to driving down the road of wrong until it turns right.

Posted on September 11th, 2008 by MikeGreen
Filed under: America in the MidEast

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