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Derangement - part 2A

The simplest definition of a Truther is probably someone who believes that the US government shared some complicity, whether direct or indirect, in the 9/11 attack.
 
In a broader sense, most Truthers believe the culprits to be a bund of neoconservatives that include Bush, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz and is organizationally represented by groups like the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). These neocons first secured the White House by means legal and illegal (with the Florida fiasco of 2000 greatly aiding their rise to power) and then set into motion a plan to launch a series of wars in the Middle East, a plan that involved either covertly aiding or actively participating in the bombing of the World Trade Center.
 
Some believe in little more than the matador-defense LIHOP theory (in which Bush & Co. simply allowed the attacks to happen), others believe that the Pentagon was hit by a missile instead of a plane, while still others believe that the "planes" that crashed into the towers were not planes at all but high-tech holograms or video tricks (the "no-planes" theory).
 
But almost all Truthers seem at least to accept one central idea, which is that the collapse of the towers was caused not by the planes but by a controlled demolition, planned long in advance and timed to coincide with the impact of the hijacked jets.
 
As proof of motive, Truthers, like the ones I met in the diner [see part 1a], often point to a document called "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a policy paper about future defense strategies crafted by PNAC in September 2000. In particular, Truthers highlight a passage late in the document that reads as follows:
 
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event --like a new Pearl Harbor.
 
This single passage is considered a smoking gun in 9/11 Truth circles. The amazing thing is that the "transformation" envisioned in the PNAC document has absolutely nothing to do with the launching of energy wars in Mesopotamia or the institution of repressive domestic security laws like the Patriot Act.
 
In fact, if you actually read "Rebuilding America's Defenses," what you find is a rather drab and conventional conservative policy paper seemingly written by a group of people who played too much Risk as kids, one that indulges heavily in masturbatory and oftentimes wildly inaccurate speculation about the shape of future military conflicts around the world and America's ability to fight and win them. It is a paper about reconfiguring the cold war fighting force for the challenges of the twenty-first century, and while it spends a lot of time worrying about maintaining American preeminence, there's no evidence in it for anything like the evil plan Truthers insist is in there.
 
So a "new Pearl Harbor" was needed to justify the invasion of Iraq? Not according to "Rebuilding America's Defenses," which not only did not argue for a need to overthrow Saddam Hussein, but confidently asserted that little needed to be done to ensure security in the region. "Kuwait itself is strongly defended," the paper's authors conclude. "With a minor increase in strength, more permanent basing arrangements, and continued 'no fly' and 'no drive' zone enforcement, the danger of a repeat short-warning Iraqi invasion...would be significantly reduced."
 
The paper moreover argued that the strong ground presence in Kuwait obviated the need for increased naval activity in the region. "With a substantial permanent Army ground presence in Kuwait," PNAC writes, "the demands for increased Marine presence in the Gulf could be scaled back as well."

The paper made a wide variety of suggestions with regard to it's vision for a "transformation" of the armed forces, including but not limited to:

1. Reducing the size of the National Guard.
2. Reducing or eliminating spending on aircraft carrier programs.
3. Reducing or eliminating spending on the Joint Strike Fighter.
4. Instituting a global missile defense system (this is heavily emphasized in the paper).

Yes, the paper argued for increased spending on defense, using the age-old Republican trick of showing how defense spending as a percentage of GDP had fallen in the Clinton years. And yes, the paper argued vaguely for an increased emphasis on building capability to fight "constabulatory" wars to police potential challenges to American preeminence.
 
But when they talked about America needing a "new Pearl Harbor" to "transform" the military, what they were talking about was transforming the old cold war military designed for combat against the Russians in Europe into a new, modern military designed to fight localized wars across the globe against nonstate actors like terrorists and rogue groups, particularly those that might acquire long-range missiles.
 
Yet after 9/11 occurred, did this "transformation" take place? Did we reduce the size of the National Guard? Reduce spending on aircraft carriers? Remove carrier groups from the Gulf? Institute a global missile defense system? No. In fact, in some cases, 9/11 actually scuttled these very plans.
 
Condoleezza Rice, for instance, was scheduled on 9/11 to give a speech at Johns Hopkins outlining the need for missile defense --but the speech was postponed. A year later, Rice finally gave her Johns Hopkins speech, but this time only mentioned missile defense, which by then had fallen off the Washington radar completely, in passing. If PNAC and its neocon villains bombed the World Trade Center in order to institute a missile defense system, they sure gave up on their dreams pretty quickly.
 
Moreover, the actual sentence so frequently referenced in the document is taken completely out of context. If you read the entire passage, you'll find that it says that the "transformation" is probably going to take a long time. "Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions," it reads. "This report advocates a two-stage process of change --transition and transformation-- over the coming decades." They then go on to outline "transition" and "transformation."
 
Does this sound like the work of a group of people planning the "next Pearl Harbor"? Or was this laborious outlining of the decades-long two-stage process just a clever cover story, designed to throw readers off the trail of the senselessly candid admission about a "new Pearl Harbor" made two sentences previously? Any way you look at it, it’s lunacy.
 
But beyond that...what the fuck? Only a generation born and raised on the Internet could possibly believe that the motive for a political mass killing would be paraded openly in a document like "Rebuilding America's Defenses."
 
Who would think that the likes of Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz would openly confess their motives for a monstrous criminal conspiracy in a position paper? How could anyone think such a thing would even get into print? Did Dick Cheney sidle up to the report authors Thomas Donnelly, Don Kagan, and Gary Schmitt after a meeting and mumble something like, "You know, I think the World Trade Center thing is a go. Write us up a paper saying that the only thing we need to transform the military is a new Pearl Harbor or something."
 
Or was it the other way? Did Donnelly, Kagan, and Schmitt write their paper first, only the have Cheney/Wolfowitz/Bush read it later and think, Dangit, they’re right! We do need a new Pearl Harbor! And then immediately start hitting the phones, calling their munitions people, arranging fake passports and stick-on beards, etc.
 
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