Their's not to reason why - Their's but to do and die

Dangerous Myths

The new movie “United 93” is leading Amerika into very dangerous mythology. Myths are stories that a particular culture believes to be true and are used to promote perceptions of events or characters that are beyond ordinary understanding. Once again BushCo is on the inside of the story with Ben Sliney, who on 9/11 was on his first day as the Federal Aviation Administration's operations manager, playing himself in the movie at the FAA command center in Herndon, Virginia. The public does not know what happened on 9/11 other than the facts that buildings were destroyed and many people died on that day. Here’s what Lorie Van Auken, one of the “Jersey Girls” who lost her husband on 9/11, had to say at a Congressional Hearing on 7/22/05 critiquing the 9/11 Commission Report. This comment is from the Congressional Record -

Ms. LORIE VAN AUKEN: A thorough and definitive investigation by the Commission ... would have subpoenaed for the information it required and examined the plethora of information that other citizens and groups responsibly provided. ... it would have reported all of its findings with its redactions blacked out and submitted to the American people. In essence, the Commission could have produced a final product where the resulting conclusions and recommendations could be trusted. Instead, at the end of the day, what we got were some statements that truly insulted the intelligence of the American people, violated our loved ones’ memories, and might end up hurting us one day soon.

One such statement was that 9/11 was a failure of imagination: a failure of whose imagination? What exactly does that mean? When you have a CIA Director with his hair on fire, a system blinking red, 52 FAA warnings, an August 6, 2001 PDB (Presidential Daily Briefing) entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States,” leads on several 9/11 hijackers … warnings from many foreign governments, a Phoenix memo, warning of Islamic extremists taking flying lessons, the arrest of would-be terrorists Zacarias Moussaoui, and facts imparted to one agent, Agent Frasca, at the RFU (Radical Fundamentalist Unit) of the FBI. 9/11 was truly a failure, all right, but I would certainly not call it a failure of imagination.

Another outrageous statement made at the time of the release of the 9/11 final report that got a fair amount of media coverage was the one “Everyone’s to blame, therefore, no one’s to blame.” The problem with that assumption is that it creates a no-fault Government, and a no-fault Government does nothing to ensure that things will be different or better in the future. When you hold people accountable, it serves as a deterrent for those that would repeat that same behavior in the future. For the record, I would like to see that assumption restated to read, “Everyone’s to blame, therefore, everyone’s to blame.” In fact, the fact that there has been no accountability for the failures that led to the deaths of almost 3,000 people is truly unconscionable and irresponsible on the part of all of our nation’s leaders. The tools of democracy available to the citizens of America to address these issues are incredibly limited. We asked for an independent commission to investigate 9/11 because that was the only tool that we, as American citizens, had access to, and hoped that our leaders, the members of Congress and the American public, would ensure its validity and that its ensuing recommendations would make us all safer, as safe as we could reasonably expect to be in the event of another attack. Sadly, as Americans, we have all been let down. http://reprehensor.gnn.tv/blogs/11995/Lorie_Van_Auken_July_22nd_2005

The movie “United 93” is well reviewed as an exciting drama. But is it factual? We don’t know. This movie is promoting the “official” conspiracy theory that 19 semi-literate Arabs marshaled an attack through the air against the greatest military ever know, with the most highly trained personnel, and the best technology that was designed to track an attack of ICBMs from the Soviet Union. This “official” conspiracy theory has never been proven therefore it constitutes a dangerous myth.

Thomas Pynchon in “Gravity’s Rainbow” says “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”