The Register-Guard's Sept. 11 editorial about folks questioning the official history of Sept. 11 was headlined "The unbelievers." When did the story of Sept. 11 become a religious one, requiring belief? It is healthy to question an official story that has been used as the constant drumbeat to unconstitutionally unleash the dogs of war and initiate secret and open repression at home, all the while accompanied by a barrage of mistruth, mistakes and misdeeds from a tenuously elected administration.
That there are those who question the official story at least shows that our republic may yet still have some life in it, and that because of such dissent, someday, we may actually have an understanding of what happened on that fateful day. For as Albert Einstein said, "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
As one who has prevailed in U.S. District Court in a case pitting an official story against what really happened, and as a son of a repentant CIA branch chief, I can say with some conviction that the official story is not always what it's cracked up to be. Many times the official story may be easier for us to understand, easier for us to digest, easier for us to believe - but that does not make it true.
And we, as a people - the people of whom Abraham Lincoln said, "... you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" - have a right and duty to question the official story. Not to be simply ignored or derided and marginalized as "nuts" and "conspiracy theorists."
Time has shown that many official versions of historical events have been exposed to be falsehoods. Some have even been used as casus belli: the explosive sinking of the USS Maine, whose "Remember the Maine" became the rallying cry for the Spanish-American War; the infamous Gulf of Tonkin incident that sparked the Vietnam War; the false congressional testimony about Iraqis snatching babies from incubators in Kuwait during the run-up to the first gulf war; and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction of our current fiasco.
The official "history" of Sept. 11 is, itself, a conspiracy theory, with several competing official versions, including the politically contrived 9/11 Commission Report. Sept. 11 has been waved like the proverbial bloody shirt, compelling our compassion, demanding unwavering obedience, spreading unnerving terror - and decimating our democratic checks and balances.
As President Woodrow Wilson said, "No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth... ." And as he also noted, "... all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the world - no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men... ."
And that domination has seemingly become much worse in the 80-plus years since those words were penned. In sociology, there is current research into a human behavior called "elite deviance" which posits that there are elites who see themselves as above the law.
From "Elite Deviance," by David Simon:
"Because of the Vietnam conflict, Watergate, the Iran/Contra scandal, the S&L bailout, and numerous recent incidents involving corporate and governmental wrongdoings, elite deviance has become a major public concern. Closer examination reveals that the deviant acts of economic and political elites are not random events. They are related to the very structure of wealth and power in the United States and to the processes that maintain such structures.
"Moreover, aside from being illegal or unethical, elite deviance has several basic characteristics:
"1) It occurs because it furthers the goals of economic and political organizations - namely, the maintenance or increase of profit and/or power.
"2) It is committed with the support of the elites who head such organizations. Such support may be open and active, or covert and implied.
"3) It may be committed either by elites and/or employees acting on their behalf."
With billions of taxpayers' dollars currently being spent on black operations such as the Defense Department's Proactive and Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG), where covert operations using Special Forces and psychological warfare experts are designed to "stimulate reactions" from terrorist groups, which could then lead to a "counterattack" by the U.S. military, there are many reasons to question the "day America changed."
Are not our liberty, freedom and children's future worth a few questions?
Kris Millegan of Walterville is publisher of TrineDay.