Sept 11 & Imperialism & Empire

The truth-telling of the Bush administration's prior knowledge of the 911 Reichstag Fire and planned attack on Afghanistan is directly related to opposing imperialism and organizing labor. See World Socialist Website, 5/22/02, "Why is the New York Times defending Bush’s September 11 cover-up?" By Barry Grey at:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/may2002/nyt-m22.shtml

There is apparently one school of thought among anti-imperialists that the concern over what Bush knew and when he knew it vis-à-vis the September 11, 2001 bombings in New York and Washington is exaggerated and the domain of political nuts who have been cast as "conspiracy theorists."

There is another school of thought that correctly views the understanding and promoting widespread knowledge of the prior information of the Bush administration and their prior war-mongering and anti-civil liberties plans to be just as important as all other anti-imperialist work. This is reflected in the following statement from the above article: "The fact that the Vietnam War was launched on the basis of a lie was critical to an understanding of its imperialist character."

This writer was raised on the Rosenberg-Sobel case, which was the US capitalist class and government's attempt to make Jew, Communist and traitor synonymous so as to promote fascism at home and support for the anti-communist war in Korea abroad. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and Morton Sobel were falsely accused of conspiracy to commit atomic espionage. As the labor lawyer, Clarence Darrow, said, conspiracy charges should have been thrown out with the thumbscrew and the rack as they exact the maximum penalty without proving an overt act. The judge even lectured the Rosenbergs and Sobel on how their "actions" caused the Korean War! The government murdered Julius and Ethel Rosenberg on June 19, 1953 and Morton Sobel spent 19.5 years in prison. It was our peace movement, which had started during the Korean War, and built to a much greater level during the Vietnam War, that made it possible to free Sobel. The Vietnam War was a repeat of the Korean War in goals and carnage.

This writer received a further political-legal education with the assassinations of the 1960s, namely those of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and John and Robert Kennedy, all of whom were victims of the CIA-imperialist agenda. The case of President John F. Kennedy provided the whole country a case study in political frameups and coverups as it was soon obvious that the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, did not kill anyone on November 22, 1963, and was, as he said, a patsy. These were my teenage years, so these assassinations, along with the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, are all seared in my memory.

What I learned from all of the above is that legal cases are just as important as the class struggle and the peace movement as they provide a great deal of instruction as to the nature of the system, who the perpetrators of this bankrupt social order are and why.

So now we have the Sept. 11, 2001 Reichstag Fire. It was immediately obvious to this writer that this was a planned event. The extent of the planning is still mostly on the Internet, but we are now seeing some of that evidence being produced in the capitalist press. The World Socialist Website has written previously on the questions raised by the events of September 11, and now provides an excellent analysis of the recent exposes of Bush's prior knowledge and his planning to invade Afghanistan. The pertinent paragraphs are:

"Once the official version of September 11 is called into question, the political and moral legitimacy of everything the government has done over the past eight months collapses. What then emerges is not merely some 'failure of intelligence,' but rather the existence of a conspiracy organized at the highest levels of the state."

"Were a serious investigation to be conducted, it would rapidly reveal that the Bush administration failed to prevent the terrorist attacks because it had already elaborated plans for war and internal reaction long advocated by the most right-wing sections of the ruling elite, and was looking for a suitable provocation to justify their implementation."

"The United States spends tens of billions a year to maintain the most extensive intelligence apparatus on the planet, employing a network of spy satellites and highly sophisticated electronic eavesdropping devices. It coordinates with spy organizations all over the world, including the Israeli Mossad, and has informants firmly planted in Al Qaeda and every other terrorist group."

"There are historical analogies to September 11—dramatic events that were seized on by governments to implement a radical and predetermined shift in national policy. Hitler had his Reichstag Fire. Closer to home, Lyndon Johnson had his Gulf of Tonkin incident, the 1964 Vietnamese “attack” on US ships that became the pretext for a massive military escalation and undeclared war in Southeast Asia. Subsequent investigations proved that the entire incident was fabricated. The fact that the Vietnam War was launched on the basis of a lie was critical to an understanding of its imperialist character."

"As the Times’ opposition to such an inquiry demonstrates, no section of the political or media establishment, the “liberals” and Democrats no less than the Republican right, can be entrusted with such a task. The prerequisite for an exposure of the political conspiracy at the heart of September 11 is the independent political mobilization of the working class in defense of its democratic rights."