On a few occasions here I’ve ventured into the unspeakable – that the events of 9/11 are mysterious and unexplained by the official investigative body, the 9/11 Commission. I don ‘t know what the real explanations are, as it is all hidden from view, but do know that the cellular phone calls, the un-invterviewed witnesses, the highly unlikely coincidences … the very fact that everything went right for a guy in a cave 7,000 miles away while everything went wrong for the most powerful and sophisticated military in the world … that a passport with a hijacker’s name on it survives a towering inferno … c’mon. You guys know this too. You know something’s up.
And that is why I am writing this – not because I know the answers, as I do not. I am addressing the various reactions that people have when they come across the same anomalies. It’s understandable. I get it. I was there at one time.
I remember well the moment that I finally faced the ugly fact that my country had killed three million innocent people in Southeast Asia. I had choices. I could turn away and think about other stuff. I could blame the victims, demonizing them. I could buy into the larger lie, that we were involved in a global war against an evil force with those countries merely collateral damage.
Or I could face reality – my country did really nasty shit for unstated reasons. Figuring out the reasons became a quest. I am so arrogant now that I think I understand the reasons. We attacked Vietnam for the same reason we attacked tiny Grenada* – no one is allowed to escape.
So as over time the official 9/11 story disintegrates, I don’t have the cognitive dissonance that most people are dealing with. I’ve already paid my dues. People will say “I don’t want to live in a country that does things like that.” Tough. You do. “I have to believe that our leaders would not deliberately harm their own citizens.” No you don’t. “That kind of evil does not exist here.” It does. It’s everywhere. We are not the exception to the rule.
Most often people who are in cognitive dissonance react with ridicule and anger. They use the word “debunk” to mean “someone has given me some bullshit comfort, and I’m easy that way.”
It’s not wishful thinking so much as fear – this inner turmoil you feel, the urge to strike out at people … I don’t feel it. I solved that problem long ago. My country is not different from others in history that found themselves in dominating positions. Power must be restrained. When it is not (as when the USSR no longer (mildly) restrained the US in its global ambitions), it seeks to conquer everything it can by every means available. Murder of 3,000 Americans is not the worst crime committed. It’s fairly modest by American standards. We’ve butchered millions upon millions in other places. 9/11 is not a big deal.
Deal with that.
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*It’s also why we have tormented and terrorized Cuba for 50 years.
Piece of Mindful 
It is first of all hard to accept the 9/11 Commission as the sole “official investigative body.” What other investigations have occurred? By whom? What did they find? What reports are there? What investigative bodies have not investigated 9/11? And why not? There are many, many investigative institutions with capabilities that don’t duplicate for all sorts of inane things. We spend hundreds of billions investigating things that don’t amount to squat.
Someday, it — answers to all the Ws — will leak out and Hollywood, or Bollywood, will make a movie about it. Until then, we are treated like the mushrooms that we have become — living in constant darkness on a steady diet of steaming horse manure.
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