From the Treetop

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened." --Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

The Merriam-Webster New Collegiate dictionary (my favorite) describes the word conspire thusly:

Such a simple word, isn't it - stripped of all the rhetoric and tinfoil hats that generally get attached to it? Basically it's a plot to do something wrong. History is filled with such plots.

• In 44 BCE, sixty Romans conspired to kill Julius Ceasar and they succeeded.
• On July 20, 1944, German officers lead by Oberst Claus Schenk, Count von Stauffenberg conspired to kill Hitler with a bomb placed inside Hitler’s “Wolf’s Lair.” They failed.
• In 1995, Timothy James McVeigh and others conspired to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. Tragically, they succeeded.
• From 1972 to 1974, Richard Nixon and his cohorts conspired to cover up their bungled break in at the Watergate Hotel. They failed.

And according to the "official" story, 19 hijackers conspired to bring down the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

This is not the stuff of science fiction. These things happen in real life, not just in the realm of fantasy. So why the tinfoil hats? Why is anyone who questions the "official" account of any cataclysmic or tragic event instantly branded a "conspiracy theorist?"

There is nothing wrong with developing a theory either. This word also has a perfectly respectable dictionary definition:

1. the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2. abstract thought : SPECULATION
3. the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art (music theory)
4. 1. a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action (her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn)
   2. an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances -- often used in the phrase in theory (in theory, we have always advocated freedom for all)
5. a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena (the wave theory of light)
6. 1. a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
   2. an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE
   3. a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject (theory of equations)

All of this serves as a preamble for my thoughts on the events of September 11, 2001 - 5 years later. I'm posting this today rather than on Monday, because I'd like to keep that day as a memorial to those who died - needlessly.

I am one of a growing number of people who do not completely accept the findings of the 911 commission. Were it not for the efforts of the "Jersey Girls" - Kristin Breitweiser, Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, Patty Casazza, and Monica Gabrielle - all 911 widows, we would not even have had an investigation at all. The worst crime committed in the history of the United States, and no one in any official capacity thought we should investigate. Astounding.

Make no mistake about that - this was a crime of the highest magnitude - all acts of terrorism are crimes. Terrorists are not soldiers in the army of some country. Terrorist organizations are not countries with whom we can go to war. They are criminals and should be treated as such.

I am also one of a growing number of people who believe that our government, either let the events of September 11, 2001 unfold, or that our government - yes the Government of the US of A - took an active role in those events.

Actually all these people are now joining me in my belief, because i have believed this since I read through the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) web site just a few weeks after 9/11/01. Right there on page 63 of this document, I found these chilling words: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor. "

What was 911 if not a "new Pearl Harbor?" How nice of those 19 hijackers (and not an Iraqi among them) to provide exactly what the members of PNAC longed for. And who are these conveniently fortunate fellows? Why they fill various important positions in George Walker Bush's administration!

The Statement of Principles on their web site is signed by the following: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen, Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz. Notice any familiar names?

So armed with that alarming bit of information, I began noticing events, and the people involved in those events. I began listening to who was calling for war with Iraq - a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, despite what some in this government would have you believe. I began to wonder just exactly what was transpiring before our very eyes.

There simply are too many convenient coincidences. Now, I'm not one who thinks that coincidences don't happen. I just get very suspicious when they are not only convenient, but serendipitous as well.

If you read this exceptionally thorough and precise explanation by David Ray Griffin, a retired professor of theology. I think you will see why I think the way I do, and I think that you will draw the same conclusions as well.

Dr. Griffin does not believe in some of the flagrantly bizarre theories such as: No planes flew into the buildings, missiles hit the buildings, the buildings were brought down by explosives, etc - and neither do I. I just think that when it comes to the events of September 11, there are fat too many unanswered questions and they are very disturbing questions, indeed. We need the answers, no matter how disturbing they are. We need the truth.