Doug wrote: "The problem isn't with the first part of this forumulation - it's the conclusion that repression and war are the proper responses. You seem to think that if you can disprove the official story, repression and war will stop. But most people will think you're nuts."
Joe W retorts: Doug, your assumption is absolutely wrong. My underlying interest in looking at events like 9-11 is purely epistemological; that is: I am interested in how we know what we know, what are the issues that define our parameters of knowledge, how open are we to perceiving reality from different vantage points, and so on and so forth.
Your reading of my statement is also wrong. I did not 'conclude' that war and repression are the proper responses. Part of my working hypothesis about 9-11 is that the USG made or allowed 9-11 to happen in order to justify war and repression (an m.o. which is not without historical precedent). Whether or not it is true that they did allow/make it happen, it is clear that they have used it to justify war and repression.
The idea that disproving the official story would somehow stop war and repression is silly. (and is your idea, not mine) However, I think that disproving the official story would have, (and indeed has had) a significant impact on how people around the world percieve and react to war and repression. Just as a 'belief' in the 'human rights violations' as a justification for the war in Yugoslavia created a split in the progressive community over that war; a difference in views of the official story has created a split in the progressive community between those who on the one hand are horrified at the draconian proscriptions of civil liberties, but at the same time do not question the 'terrorism' trope, and those in the progressive (and not so progressive) community for whom the entire official story about 'terror attacks' is as counterfiet as the supposed necessity for the far ranging civil rights proscriptions.
Disproving the official story is not any kind of silver bullet; in fact the work of the official story has already been done. It doesn't really matter what anyone believes at this point. It might have made a difference if a belief in the propaganda around the terror attacks (including the still mysterious anthrax attacks) had not stampeded Congress into passing the Patriot Act without even reading let alone debating its merits - but the Congress was already in large part predisposed to do what it did.
What has happened in the US since 2001 was a reply of what happened after the Oklahoma City bombing and the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The now forgotten Militias and their milieu were the 'Al Qaeda' of the 1990s. Many of the same questions raised about 9-11 were raised about the authorship of the OK City bombing.
It is not a matter of waving a magic wand of 'truth' over Alberto Gonzales head to turn him into a decent human being, it is a matter of developing an understanding of the political reality that we live in - for whatever that's worth....
Joe W.