Crisis in the U.S.

Rice admitted, “We only expected a traditional hijacking.” The Bush administration ignored warnings from France, Egypt, Israel, and England that a terrorist action was imminent; it ignored warnings from FBI agents in Arizona and Minnesota of possible airplane hijackings by terrorists training as airline pilots, and it ignored a CIA briefing to President Bush on August 6, 2001 stating that al Qaeda was planning a hijacking. 

Most observers believe that with so many warnings converging from so many responsible sources to high level Bush officials (according to Condoleeza Rice), there is another explanation: the Bush/ Cheney/Rumsfeld regime was prepared to allow a “traditional” hijacking to take place—in order to exploit it for both narrow and global political interests. They did not suspect that the terrorists would attack the WTC and the Pentagon. 

Several other issues raise suspicion that high officials in the Bush administration were involved in facilitating the hijackings: the terrorist leaders had multiple entry visas—not easy to obtain for ordinary tourists. The terrorists functioned openly—entering flight schools and seeking U.S. Department of Agriculture loans to buy “crop-duster” airplanes. Thirdly, many received their visas from Saudi Arabia, where a former U.S. Consul official has stated that many visas were issued under pressure from the CIA—probably to recruits for U.S.-sponsored Islamist wars in Bosnia, Kosova, Chechnya, and Central Asia. There is a good possibility that at least some of the terrorists were “double agents”—one reason for the so-called “intelligence failures” and the refusal after 9/11 to reveal prior knowledge. 

There is a large body of historical study on U.S. foreign policy, which demonstrates that Washington “manufactures crises” to justify war. The examples range from the “bombing of the Maine” as a prelude to the U.S.-Spanish-Cuban War to Roosevelt’s foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor to President Johnson’s infamous “Tonkin Incident” during the Vietnam War to Bush’s father’s invention of the Iraqi destruction of infant incubators in Kuwait. In each case, the president declared an “unprovoked attack” and mobilized the public for large-scale warfare of conquest and colonization. In the case of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, it is public record that on September 10, 2001, the Bush administration had a plan to attack the Taliban and al Qaeda, which it fully implemented after September 11. 

War has been an essential instrument of empire building for the last four U.S. presidents. President Reagan’s successful wars against Grenada and Panama contributed to his popularity, weakened the “Vietnam Syndrome,” and allowed his regime to reverse progressive social legislation. 

This pattern was repeated and extended by Bush (father) in the U.S. war against Iraq—the military victory led to the proclamation of a “new world order” based on Washington’s supremacy. Clinton’s war against Yugoslavia and the continuation of the bombing of Iraq was accompanied by the total deregulation of the economy, the savaging of the remnants of the welfare program, and the information technology, bio-tech, fiber optics speculative bubble. 

Bush (son) as a minority president, elected through voter fraud in Florida, used the Afghan war to increase public backing, vastly expand military and secret police budgets and powers, and to subsidize big business and vastly increase U.S. political and military empire throughout Asia, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union. The initial terrorist act, and the cover-up of U.S. involvement, has led to serious decline in democratic freedoms and the constant threat of new terrorist plots to increase police state intervention in all aspects of civil society. 

Both the admissions of “mistakes” by the Bush administration and the Congressional critics’ charges of “incompetence” have served the police-military apparatus well. “Home defense”—extended police powers and personnel—received an additional $37 billion dollars, on top of the original $29 billion dollars. The newly created Department of Homeland Security will have 170,000 agents and staff. 

As state spending on the police and military skyrockets, private investors are pushed aside, budget deficits soar, foreign investors turn to more lucrative sites, and the U.S. economy destabilizes. 

There are no corrective mechanisms in sight. Unlike previous epochs when large-scale corporate-banking scandals occurred, major reforms were implemented. Today there is neither a popular reform movement nor congress- ional opposition. The reason for the lack of a corporate reform movement is that the same corrupt banks and corporations—like Enron, Merril Lynch, etc.—contribute to and finance both political parties. 

Washington’s cover-up of its linkages leading to 9/11 is related to their cover-up in the anthrax attacks. Leading journalists and micro-biologists have identified the U.S. military research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland as the source and have identified two U.S. micro-biologists as likely suspects. The FBI has refused to act. The reason is that the scientists were engaged in weaponizing anthrax and other chemical and biological agents—work that violates the Chemical and Biological Treaty of 1991. No Congressional investigation. No mass media expose. No public outcry. The crisis deepens and apologists for the empire brush off systemic critics as “conspiracy theorists.” But critical intellectuals and activists continue to prod the public conscience, hoping for more democratic politics to emerge.                      Z 

James Petras teaches sociology at SUNY Binghamton. He is the author of numerous articles.