People are disinclined to believe monstrous crimes, especially since monstrous crimes are usually camouflaged by Big Lies. Hitler knew about the value of the Big Lie, and he wrote about it in Mein Kampf.
Stalin too was aware of the power of monstrous crimes. He is said to have observed that "when one man dies it is tragedy, when thousands die it's statistics."
People are even less inclined to believe that their own country perpetuates these crimes. On a subterranean level, people associate the search for truth as being somehow unpatriotic, even as it means a struggle for freedom from the totalitarian shackles of undemocratic governance that advances secret agendas through its manipulation of the masses.
Silence in the face of the lies of totalitarianism is a form of complicity.
Humanity's inclination to accept monstrous crimes and the lies that camouflage them means that the crimes are perpetuated, time and again, throughout history. Those responsible for engineering the crimes are aware of this.
We now know, for example, that the Bush and his aides lied 935 times in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, and that they provided false evidence as a pretext for the invasion. Despite the fact that about one million people have already died as a result of this massive criminal enterprise, the public somehow remains delusional and ready to accept the next big crime and the next batch of lies.
The open-ended War On Terror is yet another Big Lie. It is used as a cover for on-going imperialism, not only in Afghanistan and Iraq, but also in the Ukraine, Syria, and Palestine. Those who oppose Empire are said to be terrorists, and the monstrous crimes continue unabated. The most recent culprit is Israel -- thought to be an appendage (or driver?) of the U.S empire -- which is currently committing genocide in Palestine. Predictably, much of the world is looking away, apparently lulled by the lies and distortions of the corporate media echo chambers.
In order to break this toxic cycle of delusions and crimes, we need to dig deep, find the money behind the lies, and the truth behind the crimes.
The foundational catalyst for the fraudulent "War On Terror" is 9/11, yet, unsurprisingly, investigations into this monstrous crime have so far been inadequate. As David Ray Griffith argues in The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions About The Bush Administration And 9/11, the conclusions of the political investigations: the 9/11 Joint Congressional Inquiry (of which 28 pages remain redacted), and the 9/11 Independent Commission, need to be re-examined by a sweeping juridical investigation, free from political interference and hasty presuppositions.
It is, for example, unacceptable, that the head of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, was appointed by Bush administration, just as it is unacceptable that both the Joint Congressional hearings and the 9/11 Commission hearings were restricted by presuppositions that the crime was the result of breakdowns -- including incompetence, poor communication, and ignorance -- rather than official complicity.
At the very least, prima facie incidents which point to official complicity should be re-examined. Griffith identifies, in detail, 40 such "smoking guns" that have not been adequately investigated. Three of the more compelling ones are listed below:
•Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) to intercept hijacked airlines were not followed on September 11, 2001 only.
•Forensic evidence -- steel from the collapsed World Trade Center -- was quickly removed, and shipped overseas, before it could be examined.
•Local Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were prevented from professionally performing their duties by FBI headquarters.
A better appreciation of the "money behind the lies" adds urgency to the need for a judicial investigation into the terror of 9/11 that killed 2,996 people immediately, and launched (previously-planned) invasions overseas, all under the cover of the on-going and patently fraudulent War On Terror.
The Bush Administration, the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the military-industrial complex, and the oil industry all benefit from the 9/11 crimes:
• Bush's plans to enlarge the US Empire, and expand its globalized model of predatory economics were accelerated and advanced.
•$48 billion was added to the Pentagon budget.
•CIA funding was increased by 42 per cent.
•Imperial conquests, starting with Afghanistan and Iraq, are now disguised as legitimate, and even "self-defence".
•Legislation to dominate and oppress civilians (i.e the Patriot Act, Homeland Security) continues to flourish.
•Security, policing, and military complexes continue to benefit from more funding and power.
•Oil companies continue to profit and expand in new areas of US control.
Polities that benefit from a crime are not necessarily guilty of the crime; however, it is still reasonable to ask whether they contributed to the crime or whether they were simply unwitting "beneficiaries."
Justice and freedom demand that we ask these questions in the context of a wide-sweeping judicial investigation. Failing that, we should pay heed to George Orwell's assertion: "To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country."
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