Counter-Currents
436 words
For the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Counter-Currents published a symposium (linked below) which is just as relevant today. These are my opening remarks.
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The tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks is approaching. Frankly, I plan to ignore the official commemorations and mainstream commentary. I felt the horror, mourned the victims, and pitied their loved ones in healthy measure, thank you very much. But that was almost ten years ago.
I want to look back at 9/11 coldly now. I want to save my emotions for the hundreds of thousands killed and wounded and the millions who have suffered because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (our people and theirs) — suffering and death that dwarf what happened on 9/11 — suffering and death that are supposedly justified by what happened on 9/11 — suffering and death that are not ten years old but that are happening to this day. We have to look back at 9/11 coldly, or the same horrors will be occurring ten years from now as well.
The narcissism, bad faith, and bad taste of America’s 9/11 commemorations have taken on an almost Jewish quality. The official line is: We were entirely innocent. We were hated for our virtues. And because we are such good and innocent people, when we are wronged, that entitles us to do anything we want to our enemies. And lest our persecuting zeal flag, well we must never forget and never forgive, for we are the true victims, the only victims who matter. Thus we must forever commemorate our victimhood, not to avoid future horrors but to make them inevitable, so that blood may flow without ceasing.
Where have we heard all that before?
Well, I just don’t have to stomach to watch it, even if they throw in an Albert Speer light show.
Instead, I have asked a number of regular Counter-Currents contributors to share their reflections on 9/11 ten years later. I will also share my thoughts in a separate piece. My single ground-rule is that these reflections be honest. Honestly angry, honestly sympathetic, honestly high-minded, honestly cold-blooded, honestly indifferent, honestly brimming with Schadenfreude — but above all honest.
I doubt we will ever have 9/11 “truth,” because we do not control access to the truth. But 9/11 honesty is completely within each individual’s power, starting right here, right now. Join us.
- Kerry Bolton, “Karma 9/11”
- Andrew Hamilton, “Reflections on 9/11, One Decade After”
- Greg Johnson, “9/11, Ten Years Later”
- Pentti Linkola, “Bull’s Eye”
- John Morgan, “Islamism: Putting the Right to Shame”
- Matt Parrott, “Twin Towers and Evil Twins”
- Michael Polignano, “September 11th Warrants Reflection, then Retaliation”
- Ted Sallis, “Thoughts on September 11, 2001”
13 comments
I recommend also Paul Craig Roberts’ piece today; he continues to be the best [non-CC] writer on the intertubes.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2012/09/11/the-11th-anniversary-911-paul-craig-roberts/
“You only have to know two things.
“One is that according to the official story, a handful of Arabs, mainly Saudi Arabians, operating independently of any government and competent intelligence service, men without James Bond and V for Vendetta capabilities, outwitted not only the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency, but all 16 US intelligence agencies, along with all security agencies of America’s NATO allies and Israel’s Mossad. Not only did the entire intelligence forces of the Western world fail, but on the morning of the attack the entire apparatus of the National Security State simultaneously failed. Airport security failed four times in one hour. NORAD failed. Air Traffic Control failed. The US Air Force failed. The National Security Council failed. Dick Cheney failed. Absolutely nothing worked. The world’s only superpower was helpless at the humiliating mercy of a few undistinguished Arabs.
“It is hard to image a more far-fetched story–except for the second thing you need to know: The humiliating failure of US National Security did not result in immediate demands from the President of the United States, from Congress, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from the media for an investigation of how such improbable total failure could have occurred. No one was held accountable for the greatest failure of national security in world history. Instead, the White House dragged its feet for a year resisting any investigation until the persistent demands from 9/11 families for accountability forced President George W. Bush to appoint a political commission, devoid of any experts, to hold a pretend investigation.”
Paul Craig Roberts is a typical 9/11 conspiracy theorist (see also what I say about how screwed nationalist conspiracists, even the German, are—here).
Chechar,
The official story is 19 Muslims with box cutters did 911 because they hate us for our freedom. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to disbelieve that.
A mosque lies about half of a mile down the road from my current dwelling. Hopefully they fly one of those grotesquely large American flags. What a humorous twist that Muslims now must mark their doors for Patriotic Passover. Semites never cease to amuse.
As a Canadian, when 9/11 happened I felt an incredible kinship with Americans. Even going to fight in Afghanistan with the US was not anathema, as it could be rationally justified. But, I was so glad that Jean Chretien, our Prime Minister at the time refused to go to Iraq. Despite Ann Coulter’s historical revisionism, we did not go there. I think our US Jewish concubine Harper would have gone there as his expulsion of Iranians from Canada seems to prove that. This is why I love the French Canadians and especially the Parti Quebecois. They save us from the puritanical colonial English attitude that is so dependent on approval from the other.
I would be good if one of the Counter-Currents writers did a rational critical review of the 9/11 truth movement and the theories that they are promoting that I think frankly are a deliberate distraction to asking real questions about the hijackers history especially Mohammad Atta, their financial backers and money trial and how they were able to travel freely in Europe, Mid East and enter the US despite being on terrorist watch lists and why obvious leads were not investigated.
Apparently no one actually read what the pre-9/11 warnings said.
9/11 truth movement seems to be exclusively focused on the physical aspects of 9/11 offering pretty ludicrous theories from a missile hitting the Pentagon to rigged thermite explosives in the towers that offer impossibly convoluted theories as to why there were no hijackers and the planes were remotely controlled despite all the contradictory evidence no less from Bin Ladin himself in his confession video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhctMpvszqQ
It would be good to know exactly who is financing about promoting the main 9/11 theories with people like Steven Jones, David Griffin, James Fetzer, Richard Gage, etc.
John (and you too Lew):
I’d love to see Counter-Currents’ contributors writing rational critical reviews of the 9/11-truth movement. Unfortunately, that requires nitty-gritty, nose-to-the-grindstone level of full-time, professional debunking. (Ask me: who did exactly that when I researched the miraculous claims about the Turin Shroud!)
When I was involved in the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, I realized that in order to debunk the sort of pseudosciences that are closely rationalized with, literally, thousands of books, journal articles and newsletters, you need a professional debunker for every crank field: one skeptical professional specializing in parapsychology, another in UFOlogy, another in the Shroud, etc.
The same goes with conspiracy theories. Vincent Bugliosi had to spend 20 years of his life researching the most diverse literature about JKF assassination theories. Only that way he could write a mammoth work refuting every crank claim.
With the vast amount of crank claims in the 9/11-truth movement to date, some rather technical, a specialist who wants to match Bugliosi’s magnum opus on JFK would need the same amount of time…
Provisionally, all we got today are Popular Mechanics articles and full-time bloggers that specialize in debunking 9/11 CTs (e.g., Screw Loose Change). I look forward for the hero who follows Bugliosi’s steps but this time demystifying 9/11 conspiratorial myths.
Chechar, what is your stance on Holocaust revisionism?
The official explanations and narratives invariably are constructed by the US government and/or mass media. That is, they are constructed by malicious people with an agenda who are proven liars. They have no credibility with me.
Can I ask are you suggesting people simply accept the explanations they are given?
I’m not trying to be a wiseguy or rude. I don’t see where you distinguish between healthy skepticism of unreliable sources and responsible speculation on alternative scenarios based on inferences and logic versus conspiracy theorizing.
@ Lew,
To my mind, it is a little paranoid to suppose that every “official” explanation (JFK assassination, 1947 “UFO” Rockwell incident, 9/11 or the Moon landing of 1969) must, perforce, be an invention.
Before the US government pointed the finger at Al Qaeda in September 2001, I was in a Spanish-speaking country where a radio interviewee explained at length why he believed that Osama bin Landen was probably behind the attacks. I never changed my opinion since then and I don’t have TV: the interviewee’s cathedra in my native language stroke me as very plausible.
The term “official story”, so common in the truther movement, is deceiving. The generally accepted account of 9/11 is made up of a multitude of sources: “thousands of newspaper, TV, and radio reports produced by journalists from all over the world; investigations conducted by independent organizations and institutions, including the American Society of Civil Engineers, Purdue University, Northwestern University, Columbia University, the National Fire Protection Association, and Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.; eyewitness testimony from literally thousands of people; recordings and transcripts of phone calls, air traffic control transmissions, and other communications; thousands of photographs; thousands of feet of video footage; and, let’s not forget the words of Osama bin Laden”.
Like the radio interview I listened eleven years ago, none of these people are related to the US government, the Mosad, etc.
@ Bilbo,
Take a look at my extensive quoting of a “revisionist” book. Rather than substantially revise the Holocaust story, the author demonstrates that the Allied forces murdered more civilian Germans after the war formally ended (!!) than the crimes attributed to the Reich during the war.
I wasn’t clear. I meant to ask a general question about the role of skepticism. Putting aside 911, JFK and UFOs, I’m asking as a general rule do you think we should just automatically accept US gov/mass media explanations for things?
I don’t mean to ask if you think people are justified in automatically assuming whatever they say is a lie. I’m mean to ask if you think it reasonable to be skeptical of what they say, that is, make no automatic assumption that it’s false but no automatic one that it’s true either.
The US government has a long history of lying which provides a rational basis for skepticism. Perhaps this history is not apparent to non-Americans. This is understandable.
They lie. Western governments lie all the time. But the generally accepted account (btw, there’s a spelling above: I should have written “the Roswell UFO incident”) by non-government people ought not automatically put us in skeptical mode. Also, the larger the conspiracy (CIA; FBI; MSM, US & Israeli governments all acting together), the more it strains our credulity. Real conspiracies (e.g., the Iran-Contra affaire that exploded when I lived in California) are always exposed.
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