Conspiracy Theories

The "War on Terror" is said to have begun on September 11, 2001. But is it possible that the war began before this date Some people point to U.S. government complicity in the events of 9/11, either by not doing enough to prevent it, or more ominously by actively planning for it. Whatever the truth may be, there is plenty of conjecture that what happened on that day doesn't add up to the popular version of the events.

What is not in dispute is that public support for the War on Terror was far greater after these attacks than it would have been on September 10, 2001. Could it be that the attacks were allowed to happen to create public clamor for a war that would otherwise have been inconceivable Many people have pointed to the possibility that 9/11 was a clone of Pearl Harbor, an attack on the U.S. that was deliberately allowed to take place in order to further the war aims of a president. But a more sinister comparison has been made by those skeptical of the motives of the Bush administration. They claim that what happened was more akin to Adolf Hitler's burning of the Reichstag, the German Republic's parliament, on February 27, 1933. Hitler blamed the fire on Communists plotting against the state. But historians widely accept the view that a member of the Prussian interior ministry set fire to the building deliberately, on Hitler's orders. Immediately after the fire Hitler announced an emergency decree which suspended the normal civilian rights and liberties of citizens and gave the government enormous authority to impose order. This was the beginning of the end for democratic values and the rise of Nazi dictatorship.

On October 3, 2001 Congress approved Bush's Patriot Act, a similar bill which reduced the civil liberties of Americans and allowed the detention without trial of anyone the government deemed a potential "security threat." Furthermore, the public and political pressure for retaliation for the attacks was intense, and neatly tied into the agenda of the "Project for a New American Century." This was a strategic document put forward by a group of neo-conservatives in September 2000 outlining a new strategy for American global dominance in the twenty-first century. This think tank included Dick Cheney, the vice president; Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense; Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy; Jeb Bush, brother of George and governor of Florida; and Lewis Libby, the leader of Bush's 2000 election campaign team now working in the White House.

The most intriguing part of the document concerns the readjustment of American forces across the globe. The report states that only an incremental approach can be taken to this radical restructuring owing to political and public constraints, unless there was "some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."

Despite all this, however, there is still the question of how such an elaborate attack could have been prepared and executed by the government and its agencies without the media becoming deeply suspicious. The most likely explanation is that the attacks were planned by Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda but that U.S. intelligence agencies did not act upon the information they received to adequately prevent them. Evidence of their failure, whether deliberate or through incompetence, has been widespread following Congressional investigations but without any smoking gun. Furthermore, the CIA and New York City counterterrorism offices were based in Building 7 of the World Trade Center and were therefore destroyed, along with any potentially incriminating evidence.