WHAT DO WE KNOW NOW?

The question now becomes, was 9/11 truly an unprovoked and surprise attack by a handful of Muslim zealots or was it yet another case of the Hegelian method being used to promote a pre-existing secret agenda?

Undoubtedly, the primary groups of conspirators behind 9/11 were: (1) those who perpetrated the actual attack upon the United States, i.e., directed the planning for the many details and contingencies involving the hijackings, worked to hand off essential “match” details to the hijackers, planted bombs at the WTC and Pentagon, and flew or controlled the planes; (2) those who must have acted from the inside to suppress or alter normal defense and security precautions at the moment of crisis, through the confusion caused by multiple simultaneous war games or some other method; and (3) powerful insiders who acted to create and narrate a fraudulent official story, remove evidence through the premature and hasty cleanup of the 9/11 crime scenes, and thwart or slow official investigations, including the blocking of antiterrorism efforts for years within the FBI and CIA.

We've seen that the goal of powerful rogue interests within the US must have been to create this provocation, and then breed an atmosphere of fear behind which to push a predetermined foreign policy and domestic security agendas—including an agenda that amounts to the theft of American civil liberties and even the theft of trillions from the federal treasury—through a confused and panicky Congress. And we have also considered the evidence that covert entities within the governments of Israel, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia must surely have had foreknowledge of the attacks and may have had a hand in supporting the perpetrators.

If all this is so, how have we reached this dark place in our history?

The record is clear that since the National Security Act of 1947, the United States has slowly been turned into a national security state with more and more power being concentrated in the federal government, particularly the executive branch. Laws are being enacted by presidential orders rather than through reasoned debate and careful study by our elected representatives. And no one seems to notice, especially since the news media has now come under the total control of a mere handful of international corporations. Trained and dedicated newsmen, in the mold of a Walter Cronkite, have been replaced by on-air personalities who are more conscious of ratings than world and national events. Citizens therefore have not choice but to study and learn for themselves, drawing from a variety of non-traditional news sources.

What specifically have we learned from this close examination of the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath?

We know that mere incompetence cannot explain the systematic failure of the normal security protections codified in both the civilian aviation and military sectors and we know that not one single person has yet been reprimanded for this failure. Why did it take a year or more to learn that Cheney's antiterrorism task force was alerted to the problem, that President Bush saw a briefing paper stating bin Laden was preparing to strike in August 2001, and that war game exercises involving the idea of planes crashing into buildings were scheduled for 9/11?

The evidence of foreknowledge of the attacks, particularly within the FBI and CIA, is overwhelming. This raises the question as to who precisely blocked this information and why. Why was there no warning to the public or beefed up security? Who had the power to misdirect and block official investigations?

We also know that actions against the Taliban in general and Osama bin Laden in particular were well under way long before the attacks. How is it that bin Laden remains at large as of this writing despite what we are told are the best efforts of the world's foremost superpower? Does anyone truly believe that the Mossad and the Pakistani ISI, and hence the CIA, have no clue as to bin Laden's whereabouts, especially at a time when every American can be tagged by computer?

It is now clear that the bombing of Afghanistan had more to do with oil and gas pipelines and restoring the poppy fields than with catching bin Laden. And the War on Terrorism shifted from finding those responsible for the attacks to enforcing a “Pax Americana” on the world, exactly as articulated by the neo-cons Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and Wolfowitz—even before Bill Clinton was elected. And unlike every past American administration, this group has actually proposed a first-strike use of nuclear weapons in this new war for domination.

We know now that Bush spurned more international treaties than any other world leader and released funds for North Korea's nuclear program at a time when he was preparing to seek war with Iraq, claiming that Saddam Hussein might be capable of building a weapon of mass destruction. This issue seemed to indicate a schism within the ranks of the New World Order. The Bush forces pushed hard for an attack while the United Nations worked hard behind the scenes to ensure compliance by Saddam Hussein of UN demands.

Subsequent statements by administration officials including Colin Powell coupled with the now-public Downing Street memo make it clear that the Bush White House knew well that its evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was weak at best and that the intelligence was “fixed” around a policy of invasion. This could easily fit the definition of a lie.

We now know that plans to circumvent the Constitution were laid as far back as the Nixon years and that the new Department of Homeland Security carries within it concepts and programs which would have been greeted with howls of protests just a few short years ago. And the new technology to identify and classify each individual citizen is now in place. Administration critics cannot be summarily dismissed for using terms like “dictatorship,” “1984” and “totalitarianism.”

Bush and Cheney consistently fought any truthful investigation into the tragedies of 9/11 and when popular opinion in this matter turned against them, they turned to one of the leading lights of the secret societies—Henry Kissinger, a leading luminary of the Council on Foreign Relations. Again, a groundswell of public opinion as well as the possibility of dredging up old war crime charges prompted Kissinger's resignation even before he began work. Nevertheless, the two men Bush selected to replace Kissinger—Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton—are both members of the secretive Council on Foreign Relations and elite insiders. The executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, was a White House foreign policy insider, and also the principal author of the administration's National Security Strategy statement of 2002 that first articulated the concept of preemptive warfare based on the threats posed by 9/11. This was the pre-eminent doctrine that led to the attack on Iraq and the War on Terrorism.

It can also be seen that President Bush is trying to place persons sympathetic to his worldview on the Supreme Court, the place where his father's friends handed him his office. And shifting to a Democrat won't make things better as most of the groundwork for the current “War on Freedom” was laid during the CFR-dominated Clinton administration.

We now know that Bush and most other members of his cabinet are too locked into the monopolies of energy, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and military/aerospace to allow alternative views to be heard. Bush, Cheney and many others are guilty of the same corporate shenanigans they were forced to criticize in the summer of 2002 following the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and other major corporations.

We now see clearly that the privatization of US industry, energy and institutions to include health care and education does not fulfill the promise of better service at less cost.

If the game plan of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks was to curtail American freedom, centralize more power in the federal government and set back the social agenda of the United States in favor of an open-ended military and intelligence buildup, then they succeeded admirably. To many long-time researchers, it all has a familiar ring to it.

In many ways, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks fit the same template as the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963:

■ Within hours, despite a lack of real evidence, one man was blamed for the event along with hints that he was connected to foreign enemies.

■ Official pronouncements were widely publicized only to be quietly admitted as errors later on.

■ Although within the jurisdiction of the local authorities, the entire case was usurped by the FBI and CIA, both agencies under the control of a president who benefited from the tragedy.

■ A group of specialists (medical in the JFK’s case and engineers in that of the WTC) was convened but limited in what they could view and study, blocked from conducting an objective probe by federal officials.

■ Evidence in the case was hastily removed and destroyed, forever lost to an impartial and meaningful investigation.

■ More evidence was locked away in government files under the excuse of “national security.”

■ Federal malfeasance was excused by claiming lack of manpower and resources and no one was disciplined or fired. Federal agency budgets were increased.

■ Any alternative to the official version of events was decried as “conspiracy theory” and “unpatriotic.”

■ The federal government used the event to increase its own centralized power.

■ A foreign war (Vietnam in JFK’s case and Iraq and Afghanistan today), which otherwise would have been opposed, was supported by a grieving population.

■ A top government leader (then LBJ and now Bush), formerly under suspicion for election fraud and corrupt business dealings, was suddenly propelled to new heights of popularity.

■ Many citizens knew or suspected that the official version of events was incorrect but were afraid to speak out.

■ A compliant and sycophantic mass media was content to parrot merely the official version of events and studiously avoided asking the hard questions that might have revealed the truth.

One major difference in the two cases is that following JFK’s death, less than 10 days went by before President Lyndon Johnson appointed a special commission to investigate the crime. Well more than a year after the events of 9/11, there was still only talk of creating some sort of investigative body, the time lag due primarily to pressure from President Bush and Vice President Cheney not to convene such an inquiry. It was almost two years before an official 9/11 commission was selected and put to work and by then, most of the primary evidence, such as the steel from the World Trade Center, was long missing or otherwise unavailable.

In the case of the Pearl Harbor attack, the JFK assassination and 9/11, a common denominator was the failure of normal security precautions. This is the tip off.

As Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, former Pentagon-CIA liaison officer, stated in regards to the Kennedy assassination, “The active role is played secretly by permitting it to happen. That was why President Kennedy was killed. He was not murdered by some lone gunman or by some limited conspiracy, but by the breakdown of the protective system that should have made assassination impossible…This is the greatest single clue to the assassination—who had the power to call off or reduce the usual security precautions that are always in effect whenever a president travels? Castro did not kill Kennedy, nor did the CIA. The power source that arranged that murder was on the inside. It had the means to reduce normal security and permit the choice of a hazardous route. It also had the continuing power to cover that crime for…years.”

The same question could be asked regarding the tragedies of September 11, 2001:

Who had the power to call off or reduce normal airline and NORAD security procedures and who had the power to deflect any meaningful investigation into the events? This kind of power can only be found at the highest levels of government and corporate control. Today's big time criminals no longer worry about what the government might do to them because they are the government. It therefore becomes essential to identify and connect the inner core elite of the world's secret societies, to demonstrate their ownership and interlocking control over the multi-national corporations that dominate our national life.

“Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all,” noted Internet commentator Michael Rivero.

But the time has come for persons of good heart and conscience to stand up and regain the country handed down to them by men and women who not only were discomforted by fighting for a free and democratic republic but risked their very lives and fortunes.

Look to local leaders as they are the ones more likely to care about the public welfare. Our democratic republic, with its Constitution and Bill of Rights, is without a doubt the greatest form of government ever initiated in the written history of this planet. Let's make it work as it was intended.

By the time you read this, there is every likelihood that other major terrorist attacks may be in the offing and that some new war may have broken out in some far corner of the world, most likely Iran. There will be more “experts” brought forward to generate fear and instruct us on the need to curtail freedom to save democracy.

Do not be stampeded.

We all agree that the true culprits, of this or any future tragedy, must be identified and punished. But we must make certain through an objective investigation and cool reasoning that we indeed have the true culprits. We must not be played for suckers as so many times in the past.

The corporate mass media has bombarded the public with facts, statistics, personal opinion and commentary to the point of distraction and confusion.

Viewed in its broadest perspective, however, the picture is both clear and appalling:

The United States today is under the control of a dynastic family, blood relatives to virtually all European monarchs, whose patriarch can be shown to have been both in sympathy and in business with Hitler and his Nazis. The Bushes control three of the nation's most populous and powerful states—Florida, Colorado and Texas, as Gov. Rick Perry is considered little more than a surrogate Bush. Considering the close connections between Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Bushes, Karl Rove and other New World Order luminaries, one could argue that they control California.

And the Bushes are blood relatives to the royal family of England, as were Al Gore and John Kerry as documented by the prestigious genealogical publication Burke's Peerage. The Windsors originated in Germany and trace their ancestry to many major European royals.

The Bush family has been involved with the CIA since before the time of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, with all that implies regarding covert wars, drug smuggling and assassinations, not mention the creation of Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network. One would imagine that the public would finally catch on after realizing that the same family financed three major world evildoers—Hitler, Hussein and bin Laden.

And each generation has belonged to a secret college society linked to the Bavarian Illuminati as well as prominent members of other such societies whose avowed purpose is to end United States sovereignty in favor of globalism. The family has even been linked to accused assassins, John Hinckley and Lee Harvey Oswald. What are the odds?

At least two Bush sons were at the heart of the savings & loan debacle, which cost every man, woman and child in the United States thousands of dollars. The eldest son, not elected but selected by a Supreme Court packed by previous Republican presidents including his father, has been linked to Enron, Harken and other shady oil company dealings and has surrounded himself with men of questionable ethics and truthfulness.

Collectively, this family and their corporate cronies are today seeking what amounts to dictatorial powers to combat the proclaimed War on Terrorism, despite the growing evidence that the attacks which launched this war were known in advance and allowed to happen to bring about the erosion of individual rights and the centralization of even more power unto themselves. And that view is putting the very best possible light on the affair. Considering the longstanding connections between this family, its political supporters, the secret societies, the CIA, overseas intelligence agencies, war-profiteering corporations, the energy industry, the bin Laden family, Saddam Hussein and the al Qaeda network, a case can be made that the 9/11 attacks were instigated by persons other than Osama bin Laden.

The nature of public life in the US today has begun to resemble the very despotic societies—Hitler's Third Reich, Stalinist Russia, Communist Eastern Europe and China—that America contested during the last century.

Such totalitarian regimes stemmed from centralized governments that serve themselves rather than the people, that respond more swiftly to policies of the central government than evidence of criminal activities or public need and use every means at their disposal to spy on and intimidate their citizens. Thoughtful observers see much that same trend in the United States today.

These are not conjectures or conspiracy theories. These are the facts.

The questions regarding the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath bring only further questions. These questions concern what the American people intend to do about all this.

Will they continue to be led by a corporate mass media that deceives by omission more than commission and distracts them from the real issues?

Will they continue to reelect politicians who have been in office while all the causes of current problems were put into place?

Will they continue to blindly follow the standards of the two major political parties that have demonstrated that precious little difference exists in their major policies?

Will they continue to support a foreign policy that angers and alienates peoples all across the globe with its thinly-disguised neo-colonialism?

Will they allow the US military to continue enforcing this foreign policy while gaining unwarranted control over their own nation and lives?

Will they continue to permit their nation to be the primary seller of arms to the world and then bemoan the fact that those same arms are used against them?

Will they finally take a look behind the green curtain of media spin to identify the globalists who own and control that media as well as the government and, hence, the military?

Will they stand up and exercise their own individual power or stand idly by, frozen by fear, intimidation or confusion, while their remaining liberties are lost?

Only you, the reader, can answer these questions.