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Theories, Facts, and Conjecture about the War on Terrorism

© Ken Goldstein

Since September 11 we've all been subjected to endless reminders that over 90% of Americans are behind the president in the "war on terrorism." Perhaps because of groups I belong to, I've also been subjected to daily warnings that everything we hear in the press is nothing but lies and propaganda. Personally, I've never been one to accept anything I'm told, regardless of its source, without doing some thought and analysis of my own.

There are only two things I can say are without a doubt completely true:

1. The information available to me, and to 99.8% of the people sending me articles every day, is one small fraction of the information available to the administration in Washington. While others claim unlimited access to the truth, I humbly admit that I don't know everything.
2. Even the information available to the folks in Washington is often incomplete, false, misinterpreted, or ignored out of prejudice, malice, stupidity, or carelessness. That's no slur against this administration, just an observation on human nature.

That's it for the facts. The rest of this article concerns various theories I've read, and my personal take on whether they're true or not. My fellow progressives will think I'm a traitor for the first few items. Mainstream Americans may think I'm a traitor by the end. Warning: I could very well be wrong about any of this, but so could you.

The Theories:

• The twin towers were blown up by (take your pick) - I've heard it told that everybody from the CIA to Israel to America's own religious right was behind the 9-11 tragedy. These same theorists tell me that even suggesting that any Muslim could be behind it is proof of my own racism.

  My opinion: Rubbish. Just about every sender of these types of theories has their own agenda, either to trash the group they accuse, or to defend the goals of terrorism. Everything from the cockpit recordings to the luggage left behind clearly point to radical Islamic groups. I'm sorry, but it's true: Every religion that I'm aware of has produced a small percentage of extremist criminals, including Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam.

• Osama is your environmentalist buddy - Osama bin Laden, I've read, is fighting for all oppressed peoples against the greed of an America that steals the resources of the third world and gives only television, disease, pollution, and laundry soap in return. All we need to do to stop terrorism is ride our bikes to work!

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