[lbo-talk] Democracy Now 5/26

[Joseph Wanzala]

A letter from Howard Zinn.

May 14, 2004

To All Those Working for a Peaceful, Just & Environmentally Sustainable 
Society:

Whether one views the 9/11 "terrorist" attacks as blow back, a wake-up call, 
or an unjustified outrage, they have deeply affected the American psyche and 
our attitudes toward war, the future, and the world. As a historian trying 
to understand this phenomenon, I tend to view the government's behavior, 
before and after 9/11, in the context of its leaders' past actions.

Before 9/11, Bush's inner circle of neoconservative advisors proclaimed the 
need for a dramatic expansion of U.S. military might entailing "full 
spectrum dominance" over all other nations and regions (including outer 
space), long term petro-resource control with permanent Middle East bases, 
and a preemptive First Strike policy against recalcitrant states. In 
September 2000, however, the neocon's flagship think tank, the Project for a 
New America Century, warned that this "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."

After 9/11, this administration systematically nurtured the fear of further 
homeland attacks to justify its own assaults on constitutional rights as 
well as social and environmental programs that protected "the people" but 
fettered corporate power and control.

David Ray Griffin's book "The New Pearl Harbor -- Disturbing Questions About 
The Bush Administration and 9/11" asks "Were these tragedies simply the 
result of unprecedented failures and incompetence as the government 
maintains, or were there elements of foreknowledge and implicit welcome 
involved?" He attempts to answer this question, reviewing the facts, 
studying other possible interpretations of these facts, and observing the 
breakdown of the official story over time.

Griffin's status as a renowned theologian and his systematic approach to the 
documented evidence lend this work unique importance and authority. Although 
still shunned by the mainstream media, his book has already encouraged many 
thousands to debate the case for possible government complicity and at the 
very least to demand a full, transparent and truly independent public 
inquiry.

Democracy requires citizen vigilance, informed debate and official 
accountability. In that spirit, David Ray Griffin's book deserves to be 
widely read.

Howard Zinn

http://www.septembereleventh.org/alerts/zinn.php