As the media orgy over 9/11 subsides and the President’s speech is still ringing in people’s ears, there is one aspect of 9/11 that has somehow managed to evade examination in 5 years.
The question which is never asked is "why?" Why did so many American citizens die on American soil that day? Why would people want to attack us in such a vicious and grandiose fashion?
No answer? That is because the question is never asked. The reason it is never asked is because most Americans are like my father-in-law. When asked yesterday why he thinks people hate us, his response is that he does not care why and does not want to know. Sadly, neither do most Americans.
Certainly the government does not want you to know the answer to that question. That is why it offers up its own canard: "They hate us because we are free." Yet, a simple examination of other nations which are free demonstrates how thread-bare this explanation is. Canada, Switzerland, Austria, New Zealand: they are all free, and they are all free of "the threat." We are back to "why?"
The 9/11 Commission spent millions of dollars and countless months investigating the cause of 9/11. Despite their publication of volumes of research, there is no answer in their report to the question of "why?" That is because the question was never asked. If the real answer were known, it would lead directly back to Washington like a fuse burns to its point of origin, and the result would be just as explosive.
Of course the easiest source for the answer is to ask the people behind the movement. They are hardly shy, and have on many occasions expressed their motivations for their campaign against this country. Even the Pentagon knows the painful answer to the question of "why?" "Muslims do not hate u2018our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objection to what they see as our one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states….the dramatic narrative since 9/11has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars."
Someone has to answer for 9/11. However, we do not need to go beyond our own shores to find the culprit. The federal government, using tax dollars coerced from its citizens, has pursued foreign policies which are contrary to Americans’ best interests and have infuriated those who are the object of the polices to the point that they are willing to sacrifice their own lives to strike back at America. The cruel irony is that the very same government whose twisted foreign adventures brought about 9/11 was also impotent to protect Americans from the disaster it had sown. Why? The answer lies in the very essence of centralized government. Removed geographically and philosophically from the people it is supposed to serve, it remains absorbed in a perpetual quest to gain and hold power. When the bombs start falling here, the politicians will be the first ones out of town in armored limousines en route to fortified bunkers. Do you really need to ask why?
September 13, 2006
