Indications add up to government conspiracy

The case for complicity begins with motive and benefit. In his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard," Zbigniew Brzezinski argues that the key to global dominance in the 21st century lies in control of Central Asian oil and gas reserves. Establishing a U.S. presence there would require the kind of military deployment that only "a direct external threat" could justify.

And in a 2000 paper titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," Project for a New American Century, whose founding members were Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, argued for vast increases in military spending to assure American global dominance. Such a process, PNAC said, would take time absent "a catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor." Military deployment into Central Asia followed 9/11, as well as their desired increases in military spending.

The symmetry between the 9/11 attacks and U.S. policy goals is but the backdrop to the case for government complicity. The picture becomes clearer through considering the following:

Gen. Mahmoud Ahmed, the head of the Pakistani intelligence service, was in Washington when the attacks occurred, conferring with government officials. The Indian press subsequently implicated him in wiring $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker. When the story broke, he was pressured into retirement at U.S. insistence. His link to the attacks was never pursued.

Two FBI agents approached attorney David Schippers with specific foreknowledge about the attacks. His repeated calls to Attorney General John Ashcroft were never returned. An article in New American on March 11, 2002, corroborated the agents' story. They claimed that knowledge of the plot was widespread within the FBI for months before 9/11.

The air defense system breakdown on the day of Sept. 11 was unprecedented. Well-practiced protocols for dealing with suspected hijackings failed to function for an astonishing 90 minutes. The little-known existence of "coincidental" military war games has since been exposed, which undoubtedly caused confusion. And now, the chairman and vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission claim (in a new book, "Without Precedent") that the military was less than completely honest.

The collapse of steel-frame buildings -- such as the World Trade Center Towers -- due to fire is unprecedented. The collapse of Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, is especially inexplicable. Its collapse late in the afternoon of Sept. 11 exhibited 10 specific features of a controlled demolition, as did the collapse of the Twin Towers. More important, numerous eyewitnesses attest to hearing multiple explosions at the time. And, Steven Jones, a professor at Brigham Young University, discovered Thermate, an incendiary compound, in two molten steel samples taken from the site.

From the beginning, the Bush administration delayed and otherwise impeded the investigation, preferring to focus on the foreign invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq enabled by the attacks.

Those are but some of many indications that together add up to government complicity. In the words of David Ray Griffin, world-renowned theologian and truth advocate, the agenda and events surrounding 9/11 reveal a "deeply perverted value system" at odds with that of the American people. For the sake of the common welfare, the truth behind 9/11 must be exposed.

James Morgante is with Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, Seattle (www.mujca.com). Other contributors were Rebecca Em Campbell, Deborah Crowe, Connie Eichenlaub and Roger Herbst, all of the Seattle 9/11 Visibility Project; and Richard Curtis, Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

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