On September 11, 2001, a group of men hijacked four commercial airplanes in the United States. Two of the planes were then flown into office buildings in New York City. One of the planes crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. One of the planes crashed into some part of the Pentagon.I don't have any inside information about what really happened that day. Any adult American who witnessed the events of that day will likely carry the trauma of the horror of watching our neighbors die in such a barbaric fashion to the grave. Can't get that picture out of your mind, because it could have been any one of us up on Floor 100 of a high-rise frantically waving a curtain or jacket or anything out the window, screaming for help, then realizing none was possible and hurling yourself out the window 100 floors down to a horrendous death on the pavement to escape death by incineration. It could have been anyone of us, our friends or family. The images are still too painful to bear.
But it's an exaggeration to say "The U.S. Was Attacked on 9/11." Not really. Four airplanes were hijacked. It was a criminal act, concerted, a conspiracy. But no boats landed on our beaches, no tanks crossed our borders, no air forces began systematically bombing our cities, no marching armies burned down the homes in their path, shooting civilians, raping, looting, pillaging at random, installing some phony leader and claiming he was now in charge of our country. The exaggeration of the 9/11 hijackings serves only to allow the government to mislead the public into believing that we are at war, that all our money must go to the defense corporations and to Halliburton and Blackwater to fight our war. Four airplanes were hijacked. It was a crime. The wars were of our choosing. Now that those terrible choices were made in a time of chaos and despair, now that 8 years have passed, it is time for the U.S. to end those wars that we started, bring our troops home, and repair the damage done to our own country by our own government.
I don't know who was responsible for setting up the 9/11 hijackings. It could have been Cheney and Bush and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Pearle and all the neocons, all the fascists, all the Republicans, the CIA, the mercenaries, their trained assassins from the School of the Americas. The official story is that there is an international cult named Al Queda which conducted the hijackings. Supposedly their leader, Osama bin Laden, is angry because the U.S. has its military in the middle east. That cult wants to murder or convert every Westerner and install an essentially fascist government in the world, to force everyone to become Muslims and live according to some bizarre set of oppressive laws.
That's the official story. Maybe it's true. I don't know. But if Osama bin Laden really did this, then why didn't we go get him and kill him? Is it because the Bush family has made so much money representing the Saudi upper classes, W didn't want to offend his sugar-daddy? Or is it because Osama bin Laden is now, and has been since the 1980s, when he was hired by Reagan, a CIA agent, or at least a double-agent? If he is, then who in the CIA told him to set up these hijackings?
The U.S. government has covered up much information, refused to cooperate with the committee set up to investigate what happened, they lied, they told stories that make no sense, they wanted war, they wanted to invade the middle east to steal the oil, the wanted to steal the treasury of this country for their corporate friends, they wanted to destroy democracy, and have largely succeeded in doing so all because of the 9/11 attacks.
Amiri Baraka wrote a poem shortly after the 9/11 attacks, excerpted below. I'm not even sure who he thinks did it. The rich people, I guess generally. Mostly white men, and rich people. Sounds right to me. They're usually the ones who murder, kill, steal, enslave, start wars, lie. His poem was titled "Somebody Blew Up America." Again, it was written close in time to the attacks and reflect the perception at the time. I think we need to start thinking of this tragedy as four hijackings, in order to get some measure of sanity in our history accounts.
3000 Americans were killed in the 9/11 hijackings. Over 4000 American military people have died in the wars that Bush and Cheney started immediately after the 9/11 hijackings. Some sources (Lancet at 600,000, plus projections forward from that point) estimated over One Million Iraqi people have died because of the war the U.S. has waged against their country, and Four to Five Million Iraqi people have either become refugees, and left their own country, or are now "internally displaced," meaning their homes are gone but they are hiding in other parts of Iraq, fleeing death squads run by the police and financed by the U.S.
The evidence is overwhelming and undisputed that Iraq had no involvement in, no responsibility for, the four hijackings in the U.S. on 9/11. As for Afghanistan, of course, a nation of dire poverty and rubble, no one in our government can articulate one sane reason why our troops continue to occupy that country and murder those people. Except for the fact that the U.S. oil corporations want to run a pipeline across their land.
Somebody Blew Up America
by AMIRI BARAKA
(excerpts only)
Somebody Blew Up America
They say its some terrorist,some barbaric
A Rab,in Afghanistan
It wasn't our American terrorists
It wasn't the Klan or the Skin heads
Or the them that blows up nigger
Churches, or reincarnates us on Death Row
It wasn't Trent Lott
Or David Duke or Giuliani
They say (who say?)
Who got the bux out the Bucks
Who got fat from plantations
Who genocided Indians
Tried to waste the Black nation
Who live on Wall Street
The first plantation
Who cut your nuts off
Who rape your ma
Who lynched your pa
Who got the tar, who got the feathers
Who the smartest
Who the greatest
Who the richest
Who say you ugly and they the goodlookingest
Who define art
Who stole Puerto Rico
Who stole the Indies, the Philipines, Manhattan
Australia & The Hebrides
Who forced opium on the Chinese
Who own them buildings
Who got the money
Who run the army
Who the fake president
Who the ruler
Who the banker
Who? Who? Who?
Who you think need war
Who own the oil
Who do no toil
Who own the soil
Who is not a nigger
Who is so great ain't nobody bigger
Who own this city
Who own the air
Who own the water
Who own your crib
Who rob and steal and cheat and murder
and make lies the truth
Who call you uncouth
Who live in the biggest house
Who do the biggest crime
Who go on vacation anytime
Who killed the most niggers
Who killed the most Jews
Who killed the most Italians
Who killed the most Irish
Who killed the most Africans
Who killed the most Japanese
Who killed the most Latinos
Who? Who? Who?
Who own the ocean
Who own the airplanes
Who make the laws
Who made Bush president
Who want more oil
Who killed Malcolm, Kennedy & his Brother
Who killed Dr King,
Who would want such a thing?
Who overthrow Chile and Nicaragua later
Who killed David Sibeko, Chris Hani,
the same ones who killed Biko,
Cabral, Neruda, Allende, Che Guevara, Sandino,
Who tried to keep the Vietnamese Oppressed
Who put a price on Lenin's head
Who put the Jews in ovens,and who helped them do it
Who said "America First"and ok'd the yellow stars
Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebneckt
Who murdered the Rosenbergs
And all the good people iced,
tortured, assassinated, vanished
Who got rich from Algeria, Libya, Haiti,Iran, Iraq, Saudi, Kuwait, Lebanon,
Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine,
Who cut off peoples hands in the Congo
Who make dough from fear and lies
Who want the world like it is
Who want the world to be ruled by imperialism and national
oppression and terror violence, and hunger and poverty.
Who is the ruler of Hell?
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