by William Skink
16 years ago America was attacked by terrorists and to this day we see the power of America’s propaganda machine at work to persuade us the terrorists were from mostly Saudi Arabia and they pulled it off without any state support.
How many Americans still believe 3 buildings collapsed as the result of two planes hitting the Twin Towers? Today I discovered one of my co-workers–who is more aware of foreign policy issues than many people I talk to–didn’t even know building 7 came down on 9/11.
16 years and the wars of occupation and humanitarian intervention rage on. What Bush started, and Obama continued, is now in the hands of Trump, who immediately gave immense latitude to the military after surrounding himself with Generals.
A Mother of All Bombs can be dropped and no one can conclusively say if Trump even knew it was going to be used in the field.
A lot has happened in 16 years. Many incremental steps have been taken. Not only have we allowed this to happen, in many ways we have demanded it.
With the political crisis that has resulted from the election of Trump, instead of seeing the continuum it’s like zero hour of a collective freakout from a resistance that isn’t actually addressing core realities lurking beneath a vast manipulation of competing narratives.
It was similar after 9/11. The collective freakout didn’t leave space for grasping concepts like blowback from poorly understood Cold War moves, like arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to bleed the Russians.
Three buildings did not fall 16 years ago as a result of two planes hitting two skyscrapers. The fact that that absurdity can still pass as the official story, while skeptics still get smeared as conspiracy theorists, makes me more than a little doubtful a real resistance will ever materialize.
I hope I’m wrong.