An entire generation has reached adulthood without the vivid memory of the disastrous events of September 11, 2001. Yet we are all living with the continued ripple effects from that day: altered social norms, endless wars, warrantless surveillance, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the militarization of policing.
As the Peace Action Committee of the Green Party, we are focused on the endless wars that 9/11 spawned through the Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF) signed on September 18, 2001, which gave the President the authority to launch a war on terror anywhere in the world. “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” The AUMF did not have a sunset date.
It is no secret that governments use shocking events to galvanize public support for going to war. Many times, those events are staged, managed for effect, or simply lies. It has taken generations to reveal proof that the Franklin Roosevelt Administration provoked Japan and had prior knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor but kept the intelligence from the commanders of the fleets stationed in Hawaii in a backdoor effort to involve our country in World War II.(1) U.S. administrations have begun to even falsify triggering events more frequently in the service of war: The Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964–a lie that led to authorization of the Vietnam War; the Nayirah testimony about babies being thrown from incubators before the 1st Gulf War in 1991; the allegations of WMDs-weapons of mass destruction that started the Iraq War in 2003.
To gather support for endless wars, surveillance, and permanent changes to societal norms would require a really shocking event. Such an event was prophesied in a document published by The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) dated September 2000: “the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.” The directors of PNAC are notable for their positions in and around the George W. Bush administration: William Kristol-Chief of Staff, John Bolton-Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, Devon Gaffney Cross-Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, Gary Schmitt-Executive Director of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Bruce P. Jackson, VP of the Weapons Division for Lockhead-Martin and Chair of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and, of course, Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States.
The events of September 11, 2001 were so traumatizing that the American public was willing to do almost anything to prevent a future attack. It was an example of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism writ large, outlined in a book by Naomi Klein (2007). “Never let a serious crisis go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s Chief of Staff in 2008. He continued, “That is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.”
In 2003, General Wesley Clark disclosed how shortly after 9/11 he saw a memo from the Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld, that described how “we’re going to take out 7 countries in 5 years starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.”(2)
Martin Luther King Jr. called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” back in 1967, and that quote still holds true today. Our government perpetrates or is complicit in violence throughout the world. While arms manufacturers and their investors profit, millions suffer.
Can Americans wrestle themselves loose from the ripple effects of 9/11? It is heartening that most Americans oppose the war on Iran. Public opinion has turned against the illegal tactics used by ICE, and a majority of Americans believe that Edward Snowden’s revelations of mass surveillance were a noble sacrifice of a whistleblower, not treason.
The Green Party of the United States platform continues to call for “a complete, thorough, impartial, and independent investigation of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the role of the administration of George W. Bush, various U.S. based corporations and interests, and other nations and third parties.”
Although it may seem counterintuitive to re-traumatize the American public by re-examining the official story of 9/11, continuing to turn a blind eye to blatant contradictions, fabrications, and evidence of those who profited from the events of that day risks the perpetration of another trauma on an even grander scale.
If we are to extricate ourselves from this cycle of endless wars and adversarial relationships with countries around the world, we need to be aware of government deception. We need to question the motives of leaders who profess war as the only answer to any provocation. And we need to realize that we are still in the grip of the events of September 11, 2001, which makes us susceptible to dog whistle triggers including “muslim terrorists”, “keeping Americans safe”, “fighting for freedom”, “preventing a terrorist attack”, etc. We are still suffering from mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness caused by the events of that day that are described in a 2019 paper by Sinclair Nicholas.(3) As the paper describes, media intensified the collective trauma through its reporting on 9/11. Perhaps, then, it is through media that it may be possible to dissipate the “spell” we are living under and recover from the collective shock of 25 years ago.
1. https://thenewamerican.com/us/culture/history/pearl-harbor-hawaii-was-surprised-fdr-was-not/
And https://100777.com/node/102
2. https://www.democracynow.org/2007/3/2/gen_wesley_clark_weighs_presidential_bid
3. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/mass-hysteria