In William Wellman’s riveting 1943 drama “The Ox Bow Incident“, we find parallels to many illegal and immoral acts committed by those who are supposed to ‘Lead Us‘. In the film, a rancher is ‘supposedly‘ murdered by rustlers. A group of townspeople decide to form a posse without the sheriff, who is out of town for a few hours. They are informed that only the sheriff can legally choose and deputize a posse. The mob, as they should rightly be called, decides that the deputy sheriff is good enough to legalize things, and off they go. Over 20 of them search out the territory for ‘strangers‘ and come upon three men camping. With but circumstantial evidence, the posse determines the guilt of these men and votes to lynch them. Seven members of the posse vote NO, asking for time so that the sheriff will arrive and take control. “No“, the posse votes them down and hangs the men. Of course, as with most ‘rushes to judgment‘ the facts come out that A) the rancher was shot but not killed and B) the sheriff found and arrested the culprit who shot him. At the end of the film, in a powerful scene, one of the seven dissenters reads a note that one of the accused men wrote to his wife as he awaited his fate. The key part of the note states: “Man just can’t take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurting everybody in the world, because then he’s not just breaking one law, but ALL laws!“
So we have an anniversary coming up next month, and not a very cheerful one except for those who love war and empire. The acts of terror upon the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were direct segues into our attacks and invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Sadly, many Americans still do not realize that 9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. Yet, the posse which cowboys Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld conducted had already decided to go in and occupy the region. The subsequent Shock & Awe carpet bombing campaign destroyed more than just tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, including young children and infants. It destroyed the most advanced infrastructure and civil society in that region. That invasion and occupation of another sovereign nation destroyed everything that made America a great nation. We were just like those individuals on that posse who yearned for payback in blood and guts! In that condemned man’s note from the ‘Ox Bow Incident‘ if you substitute the word invasion for the word hanging, you have my point. Yet to this day so few of us actually understand that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was both illegal and immoral. Many more of our fellow citizens believe that we have to ‘Fight them there so they won’t come here’, or ‘Well, we should never have invaded, but… Now that we are there, we just cannot leave until we stabilize the country’.
On this upcoming 10th anniversary of the horrific events of September 11, perhaps it is time to look into what may have really transpired and why and how. Many scholars and scientific experts have come forth over the years to dispute what was fed to America and the world by the 9/11 Commission. The commission was created to be more of a political event than it was a truly investigative one. Having a commission made up of entirely political operatives, whether they are Republican or Democratic Party members, in itself was a travesty. As we have now seen by the performance of Mr. Obama as President, it really doesn’t matter which of the two parties occupies the seat of government. A stooge is a stooge no matter what affiliation he or she wears.
Anthony Summers was one writer who I always enjoyed reading. His books exposing both J Edgar Hoover and Richard Nixon were fantastic. Sadly, his most recent book, The Eleventh Day, is a poorly written and presented work. He refutes almost all of the investigative research that many scientists presented to show that those Twin Towers could not have been pan caked down by burning jet fuel alone. He also refutes the theory that the Pentagon attack could not have been by an American Airlines 767, that it had to be most likely a missile or drone. Summers, along with his wife as co author, dismisses the theory that Bldg 7 was most likely detonated with explosives and not taken down by the debris from the Twin Towers. He dismisses the theory that flight 93 over Pennsylvania was most likely shot down by our own military.
It is not my place to go over a whole book filled with conspiracy theories and Summers’ rebuttals etc. What really set my red warning light off was one key bit of information that Mr. Summers just glanced right over. It was exactly on the same day that the terrorists hijacked four planes, September 11th, that NORAD, along with the Pentagon, was conducting its annual exercises using simulated plane hijackings! One day a year and it just happened to be that day! From the tape logs of air traffic personnel we can hear many individuals asking “Is that one on my screen another fake one, or is real?“
Now I ask you, did the Pentagon publicly announce such exercises well in advance? Surely, in a climate as the one we had been in for years involving Bin Laden and acts of terror, wouldn’t that information be kept Top Secret? Yet, these Arabs a half a world away would have needed that info far in advance so as to plan the best day for the hijackings etc. Come on Anthony Summers! Give me a break! What Summers bases his whole book on, in reality, is to sell the same **** that has been sold through the mainstream media AND both political parties since the attacks. It was the incompetence of the FAA and NORAD, oh yes, and the lackadaisical attitudes of the Bush gang that allowed 9/11 to happen so easily. That was as far as Summers and wife would dare to venture in this book. A disgrace! I mean, come on, the most important leader in the world is sitting in a classroom at a school in Sarasota, Florida that the whole world knows he is going to be in that morning. Before he arrives at the school he is told about the first plane, thinking it was some small aircraft that had pilot error. Then, while in the classroom, he gets whispered into his ear “The other tower just got hit by a jumbo jet… we’re under attack! “And he remains in his seat and continues to read to the kids for another five minutes!? You have all seen the movies… for years! At the slightest hint of trouble, the Secret Service surrounds and grabs the President and rushes him away. Anthony Summers, instead of disparaging David Ray Griffin and his work, answer the question: Why no such actions by the Secret Service and the President’s staff? Why?
Ten years after 9/11, and almost nine years after the invasion and ongoing occupation of Iraq, and what have most of our fellow Americans learned from it all? They still display the flag and slap on the yellow and red ribbons on their cars. They still believe what Hitler himself laughed about as The Big Lie, that our nation has never done anything wrong to the world… rather the other way around. “Why do the hate us? “is the mantra sold by the media and politicians over and over? They refer to our young soldiers as brave warriors, when in retrospect; they are merely pawns being used on the great Military Industrial Complex’s chessboard, the one that Ike himself warned against over 50 years ago! This empire is going broke as do all empires eventually. You see, you cannot send armies and navies to occupy a large portion of the world, decade after decade, without finally paying the piper. It seems the ‘piper ‘now speaks Chinese, and he is owning us more each day. Why not? He spends less than 10% on his military budget as we do, and he has a hell of a lot more stomachs to feed. So, American fools out there, keep saluting this empire until you hands become numb as will your wallets and your very hearts and souls!