Why and how I talk about 9/11

In my darker moments I sometimes wonder what’s worse: our age of an endless ‘war on terror’ ushered in by the events of September 11, 2001, or the fact that for the rest of my life I will be subjected to yearly anniversary commemorations of those events, replete with jingoistic absurdities.

It’s impossible to converse at any gathering of people anywhere about politics and the new world order without mentioning 9/11: sooner or later, someone, somebody, whoever, wherever, will bring it up, and sooner or later I will decide whether to bite my tongue or to attempt to present my views, which are at variance with the 9/11 Commission Report. So the question arises: how can I best discuss this heinous catastrophe without being written off as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ or ‘madman’?

At this stage of my life I am long past the desire to change or even advise people—even when my advice appears to be sought. But I am still not yet beyond the belief that truth may have its day, if not now, then at some point in the future, so I generally choose to describe why the official story should be questioned and how such questioning will naturally lead to a more realistic assessment of the powers of the State.

I describe how I had first learned of the plane crashes on the day, from a patient who asked to cut short our meeting. Hitherto, I had been working in my office in Philadelphia, oblivious to the news. I rushed out and headed for the local Starbucks, where I thought to engage with my fellow citizens and figure out what was going on. No such luck. Center City Philadelphia was a ghost town: nothing was open, everyone had left work early, and as I myself walked home I merely wondered “Where was the Air Force, where was our air defence?” Perhaps one hijacked plane might have sneaked through its net, but four?

Safely ensconced at home I then watched the many replays of the jets crashing into WTC 1 and 2, registering horror and disbelief, but it was only a year or two later that I pondered the destruction of WTC 7, which was NOT hit by a jet. And here is where I am usually met with a quizzical look, because very many people to this day have no knowledge about WTC 7.

So I have ‘honed’ my discussion to several talking points, as indicated below, following what we call in medicine the principle of Occam’s razor, that is, limiting myself to some very basic and relatively incontrovertible details, and creating a simple narrative based upon them.

1. Why and how could the United States Air Defence system have disappeared so thoroughly?
2. How could WTC 7, which was not hit by a jet, have collapsed onto its own footprint as only buildings in controlled demolitions are capable of?
3. If you suspect that WTC 7 was destroyed by controlled demolition, then look at the collapses of the Twin Towers: why didn’t they sway or topple? How could such massive structures have come down in freefall, nearly as quickly as an unhindered bowling ball might drop?
4. How could passenger jets have been flown with such pinpoint accuracy into the Towers and particularly into the Pentagon, which required a manoeuvre that would have been the envy of the greatest flight pilot at the helm of a fighter jet?
5. Why did the president and vice president of the United States insist upon no recording or formal transcription of their testimony before the 911 Commission, and why did they place such strict limits on their testimony, agreeing to meet only with the panel’s top two officials, with Mr. Bush testifying for only an hour?
6. And by the way, what does one think of the coincidental discovery of an alleged hijacker’s passport less than a week later, two blocks from the towers?

It is generally at this point that I stop. Tempted as I may be to speak about thermite and molten metal and the melting point of steel, I believe that these are better left for real experts to discuss, so I refer my acquaintances to the books of David Ray Griffin and the website of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. As someone with a scanty knowledge of physics, I can understand that others would glaze over at the mention of the structural properties of high-rise buildings.

And in response to the inevitable question, why would a government do such a thing? I would ask them to consider who has benefited from the resultant diminution of citizen rights at home and the expansion of endless war abroad, and to read a little about the history of empires. Athens, Rome, Persia, the Ottomans, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the United States: to vary a phrase of Tolstoy’s, they are all alike. They are all capable of the most heinous of deeds grown from the richly terrible soil of Power.

Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born poet, novelist and physician who now resides in New Zealand. He may be contacted at emanuelegarcia@gmail.com. He likes to describe himself as a coincidence rather than conspiracy theorist.