The first priority of government is to act so that society is largely stable and is protected from enemies, foreign and domestic. In a democracy, voters choose the individuals who lead the government based on whether their promises to deliver stability and protection are believable. Failure to deliver on those promises mixed with a great deal of self-centered corruption will destroy all trust in the government. 9/11 shook the American trust in capability of the Bush administration conservatives to deliver that protection and the 9/11 Commission report - stonewalled by the Bush administration until they were forced into the appearance of marginal grudging cooperation rather strongly suggest that the Bush administration knew enough in advance to have prevented the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. The bellicose statements by Dick Cheney, repeatedly proven to be untrue and excessive, together with the writings of his mostly NeoCon advisors who were strongly influenced by or members of the the Project for the new American Century strongly suggest that if the administration had known of an impending attack they would have preferred to let the terrorist incident happen to provide an excuse to achieve their long term dream of attacking Iraq.
Supporting this theory is the extreme secrecy the Bush administration has operated under, as well as the active repression of individuals who dare to question government statements. Further support is found in the refusal of the Bush administration to cooperate with Congressional oversight activities until forced to do so.
The only part of the theory not supported by the above evidence is whether the conservatives of the Bush administration, together with he Congressional Republicans who support them in lockstep manner, are working to benefit America or just themselves. The refusal of the Bush administration to even acknowledge that Enron had illegally manipulated power markets in California and intentionally ripped off consumers in those markets was a strong indication that the government was not going to protect Americans from predatory big business. The repeated tax cuts aimed specifically at the very wealthy (with fig leaves thrown to the middle class) gave similar evidence that the conservative motivation was to empower the predators and keep the rest of Americans powerless. But the most stark evidence that the Bush administration intended to hand America to predatory big business came when in early 2005 Bush announced his plans to dismantle the finest single program to come out of the New Deal, Social Security, and hand the money over to Wall Street vultures.
According to The free dictionary a conspiracy theory is "A theory seeking to explain a disputed case or matter as a plot by a secret group or alliance rather than an individual or isolated act." Wikipedia adds that the common use of the term "conspiracy theory" suggests that the apparent plot offers an explanation for events as being caused by a secret alliance of powerful individuals working in collusion behind the scenes to deceive others using power, fame, money or sex for their own personal gain.
It is hard to read of the way Bush's close friend Alberto Gonzales worked to politicize the Justice Department, the various sex and bribery scandals by Randy "Duke" Cunningham (CA - R), Jack Abramoff (See particularly the People convicted in Abramoff probe (as of June 9, 2007)), Tom DeLay, and the various forms of "voter suppression" (click the label below for a series of reports) that the Republican Party has been and continues to practice and not see the corruption of government by an alliance of social and economic conservatives. And the list could continue for a number of pages.
It is easier to believe that the Republicans, with a history like this, is guilty of allowing the 9/11 terrorist attack to occur so they could use it to justify an attack on Iraq than it is to believe that O.J. Simpson murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994.
The Republican history explains this report from Scripps Howard News Service:
By KEVIN CROWE and GUIDO H. STEMPEL IIIIt is clear that the conspiracy theories that the Bush administration had evidence that 9/11 was going to occur but simply didn't want to act on it because they could use if for their own purposes reflects an high level of distrust for the Republican government.
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, November 23, 2007
Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings, according to a Scripps Howard News Service/Ohio University poll.
A national survey of 811 adult residents of the United States conducted by Scripps and Ohio University found that more than a third believe in a broad smorgasbord of conspiracy theories including the attacks, international plots to rig oil prices, the plot to assassinate President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the government's knowledge of intelligent life from other worlds.
The high percentage is a manifestation, some say, of an American public that increasingly distrusts the federal government.
"You wouldn't have gotten these numbers a year or two after the attacks themselves," said University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster. "You've got an increasingly disaffected public that is unhappy with the administration."
Fenster, author of the book "Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture," attributed the high percentage in part to the findings of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (also called the 9/11 Commission), which concluded federal officials failed to prevent the attacks, but did not have specific knowledge of the date of the attacks.
An earlier Scripps Howard/Ohio University survey, conducted in July 2006, revealed that more than one-third of Americans thought federal officials assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East.
"What (the recent survey) could mean is that people are thinking that the Bush administration is incompetent, that there were warnings out there and they chose to put their attention on other things," Fenster said.
At a time when the price of crude oil has neared $100 per barrel, 81 percent of Americans also said it was "somewhat likely" or "very likely" that oil companies conspire to keep the price of gasoline high.
"It shows that the oil companies are not trusted by a lot of people," said Tyson Slocum, director of the Energy Program of Public Citizen, the consumer watchdog organization founded by Ralph Nader.
Record-breaking quarterly profits stir the pot, too.
"People look at the huge profits and put two and two together," he said. "'Those high prices I'm paying are fueling those profits.'"
It is unfortunate that the Democratic Party leadership in Washington, D.C. refuses to confront the Republican incompetence, corruption and malfeasance in office directly for fear that they will be tarred with the same brush. Their refusal to act has led many of us to believe that they are part of the problem, much like the Republicans are. The Republicans in the Senate, using the threat of the filibuster, have literally paralyzed Congress, and Bush has used the veto to finish the job.
The result is that America now has a disastrously conducted occupation of Iraq which requires political action by the Shiite government of Iraq to achieve success, while that government refuses to act to unify their nation. That is a festering political wound that distracts some attention from the paralyzed and incompetent government in Washington, D.C. The public wants action, and sees that this already untrustworthy government cannot act and cannot even tell the truth because of White House censorship and refusal to provide accurate reports. This is compounded by the paralysis of Congress. The conservative-dominated federal courts have proven that they are generally a joke, again acting more to restrict government actions than to allow them. The only question about the Supreme Court is how long it will take them to lead the way back to the Gilded Age and the economy of the Robber Barons in a nation which has forgotten what Civil Rights are.
So why is it that nearly two-thirds of the American public believes that the federal government could have prevented 9/11 but decided not to?
Trust.
There is no longer a sane person in the U.S. that trusts our government. That's why.
[ h/t to Thers at Firedoglake. ]
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