Thinking the Unthinkable

by Professor Thomas Naylor, Vermont

The degree of sophisticated planning, organization, training, coordination, discipline, and control required to implement the highly sychronized four-jet, 9/11 attack on New York City and Washington is hard to imagine. Yet from the outset our government has tried to convince us that this tragic event was orchestrated by a charismatic, sinister-looking Arab named Osama bin Laden from a cave in the mountains of Afghanistan, and that it was executed by a network of Muslim extemists known as Al Qaeda. Surely, they’ve got to be kidding!

Without any proof whatsoever that bin Laden was the culprit or that he was living in Afghanistan, our government then proceeded to bomb the tiny impoverished country relentlessly.

Few Americans had ever heard of bin Laden until President Bill Clinton first introduced us to him during the midst of the Monica Lewinsky affair in 1998. Osama took the rap for the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania thus providing the justification for Clinton’s pre-emptive missile strikes against alleged terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a Sudanese chemical plant. Since Saddam Hussein had lost some of his demonic luster, Clinton soon transformed bin Laden into ”Global Enemy Number One”.

The White House has never explained how a wealthy, CIA-trained, Saudi exile and Muslim fundamentalist living in a remote cave could muster the technical, intellectual, and financial resources to commit what many consider to be the greatest act of terrorism of all time. But if not bin Laden, who?

At least five high-profile groups possessed the necessary resources and incentives to mastermind 9/11. They include the White House, the Pentagon, the CIA, high priests of Corporate America, and the Mossad—the Israeli equivalent of the CIA.

The aim of the first four groups is clear—full spectrum dominance both at home and abroad. Their strategy calls for the use of the war on terrorism to snuff out all forms of political dissent and to provide the justification for pre-emptive strikes against any country which does not play by our rules. The objective of the Israelis is nothing less than the demonization of the entire Arab world.

But is Osama bin Laden a real person or merely the creation of Bill Clinton and enhanced by George Bush? Is he still connected to the CIA? If so, what is his role? Who really controls Al Qaeda? Towards what end’

Most of bin Laden’s video messages to the United States have been transmitted via Al Jazeera, the so-called independent Arab television network based in Qatar. Touted by the White house as a model Arabic country, Qatar also plays host to the United States Central Command for Operation Iraqi Freedom. Just how independent of the U.S. government is Al Jazeera?

The anthrax scare gave added credence to President Bush’s warning that, ”thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us, and this terrible knowledge requires us to act differently”. Many of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s anti-terrorist proposals are all too similar to those found in Poland in the 1980s under martial law, as well as in the former Soviet Union.

After months of whipping the American public into a near frenzy over fear of Osama bin Laden, Bush precipitously replaced him with Saddam Hussein. Within a few weeks Saddam had reclaimed the title of ”Public Enemy Number One”. Al Qaeda was said to be directly linked to the Iraqi leader. Osama seemed to fade into the woodwork, almost as though he never existed. In the meantime anthrax hasn’t even been mentioned for months, and no one has been arrested in conjunction with its use as a terrorist weapon.

Since 9/11 our government has bombarded us with a barrage of information and misinformation about the threat of terrorism. We have repeatedly been assured by President Bush that the only way to keep America free is by taking out Saddam Hussein.

But once Saddam is gone, who will be our next demon? Our bet is that it will be North Korean leader Kim Jong II. And he is not even an Arab.

Did either Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein bring down the Twin Towers? Don’t bet your life on it!

Professor Naylor is co-author of The Chosen State: The Compelling Case for Vermont Independence soon to be published by The Public Press.