Five years after 9/11- Pandora‘s box.

September 11, 2006 will mark the fifth anniversary of the tragedy that brought down the Twin Towers in New York. Should we feel safer now? Should we believe the developments after that incident, such as the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq are producing positive results? Should we trust the government when pointing fingers at Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden and others, declaring that all those and supposedly many others in the Muslim world are our potential enemies? Was the loss of life worth it? How about the loss of credibility the U.S. has suffered all over the World? Do we have more friends than before, or more enemies? Finally, who benefits from all this carnage?

This are some of the many questions people have in their minds, when pondering the events started with 9/11. The answers are not easy to come by and largely depend who you ask. For the neo-cons (the Rumsfeld’s, Cheney’s and others) their response is always positive and upbeat. They keep repeating the same mantra (War on terror) as the only possible explanation in the menu of answers. And they don’t care whether their answer matches any result. It is the way it is because they say so. Bush is no exception when he keeps hanging on to the same responses without making room for any other possibility.

Let’s see. Before 9/11 there was a failed arrangement with the Taliban - then in power in Afghanistan - to construct a very profitable pipeline in that country. Since the neo-cons are nothing but part of the powerful petroleum industry, among other obscene capital ventures, one must wonder if 9/11 wasn’t really “convenient” at the time. Blame the Taliban, make Al Qaeda the criminal party and invade Afghanistan. Sounds plausible.

Now, given the facts, as they were presented to us, we must believe that a rag-tag bunch of Al Qaeda operatives, managed to hijack four commercial airliners armed only with box cutters, flying the planes without the proper training, but great precision, slam two of those planes in the Twin Towers, another one at the Pentagon and, due to the heroism of passengers, fail on the fourth flight presumably en route to destroy the White House, going down in some remote field in Pennsylvania.

Let‘s start with the Twin Towers. Has anyone seen the implosion of a building? I have, dozens of times. Living in Las Vegas, now and then old properties are brought down by this method to make room for new ones. To me, the pictures from 9/11, look very much like those events, with precisely placed charges to avoid unnecessary debris from damaging other buildings. There is a plethora of documents from the past showing large buildings being hit by a plane and catching fire. However, none of those buildings collapsed. And they were built before the Twin Towers presumably using older technologies and materials. Why then, the Twin Towers had to collapse after the hit? Not only that, the collapse was so fast and precise that it’s hard to believe the mere fire was the culprit. What about the melting point of steel? Even if we are to believe that the structures were weakened by fire, most expert discard the fire as the cause of the destruction because airplanes don’t carry the type of flammable fuel capable to the create the temperatures needed to melt steel.

And what about the Third Tower? Nothing hit that building. There were a couple of small fires seen in windows (originated by whom or what?) and yet, it collapsed with military precision, exactly as the others did.

Back to Osama. This guy and the Taliban were involved in the past with some activities dedicated to remove the Russians from Afghanistan. Do you know who armed and trained this guys - Taliban - ? The U.S. And we also provided arms and ammunition in a very generous way. It’s well known the CIA was involved in all this. Later down the road, records show that Osama was in a hospital in Berlin and was visited by CIA operatives. Why? They themselves only know the truth of this but the fact remains that the Taliban, Osama and those fighters were indeed part of a guerrilla sponsored by the United States. Hence, back then; they weren’t our enemies but our allies.
Has Osama been used as a scapegoat for 9/11? Everything points in that direction because nobody knows even if there were associates of him on board of those planes. Some accounts indicate that at least a few of those mentioned as responsible for taking over the planes are alive and well in other countries right now.
The search for Osama has also being a failure - on purpose? - Since, in spite of all our technology, intelligence gathering and might, our government has not found the guy.

From then on (9/11) the battle cry of “War on terror“ took shape and dramatic events evolved, from the loss of many of our personal liberties to the invasion of a country that never threatened the U.S. directly.
Bottom line is, forget Osama for now, and let’s concentrate on something else: How to invade Iraq.

Many accounts exist that indicate a long time desire to move against Sadam in Iraq, even before 9/11. Now, given the hysteria created by the destruction of the Twin Towers, the moment was ripe for the invasion. Who would question the right to fight terrorism abroad instead of in our shores? Sadam is evil, he has weapons of mass destruction, he’s developing nuclear weapons, and he is harboring and plotting with Al Qaeda.

What the heck is Al Qaeda? Well, this is no longer our ally but now is a terrorist organization headed by our former friend Osama, bent on the destruction of the civilized world and most of all the U.S. - Look at what happen in N.Y.! - And we should eradicate this problem by removing a dictator - Sadam - and give that country what has needed all along: freedom, free enterprise and the warm friendship of the U.S. We will be welcomed as heroes and everything will be rosy and nice.

In 2003, our beloved leader - Bush - suited in his weekend warrior uniform, landed on a carrier to proclaim that the Mission was Accomplished. Yeah, right. Here we are 3 years later, having lost more than 2500 soldiers, thousands maimed and wounded and we still fighting and trying to establish some order in Iraq.

This corporate minded administration knew that Iraq was not a unified entity. Three clear and distinct factions have been living there for a very long time and the only reason the country was more or less stable - in their own way - was precisely because someone like Sadam, who by means of force and sometimes generous giving to appease the crowds, manage to control the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites with an iron hand.
They knew that, among other reasons because Sadam, at one point and time, was our ally. When? Well, when we needed him to fight against Iran. We provided weapons, ammunition and logistics to accomplish the goal of repelling Iranian forces.

Now, the question is, if this administration knew that the country was divided in a very dramatic fashion, how in the world they thought a foreign army, like ours, could unify it? Waite a minute, is it that perhaps, they were expecting internal feuds to flare-up like they did and use that as an excuse to establish a more or less permanent force in the region? Could be. Machiavelic as it may seem, nothing that Bush and Co. has done indicates they are guided by the teachings of Dalai Lama.

We know now that, Osama had nothing to do with Sadam. There was never a connection between the Twin Towers disaster and him and Iraq was not even close to developing strategic, chemical or atomic weapons. Did they want to have such weapons? Perhaps. After all, we do as many other countries in the World. But was Iraq a threat? Not by any measure. And the administration also knew that. Since the Gulf War, when Iraq was rebuffed from Kuwait, intense monitoring took place, by means of a so-called buffer zone where our military flew day and night and other resources such satellite surveillance and possibly undercover people inside that country. If there was ever a country that was thoroughly watched in recent times, that was Iraq.

What now? Well, Israel is our ally in the region. Hezbollah took two Israeli soldiers. Why don’t we engage Israel in this, move them forward, destroy some of Lebanon and start all over again with the fight against terrorism, this time, Hezbollah? Good idea perhaps to this mentally challenged administration. Now we can also blame Iran and Syria and maybe, just maybe, we get lucky and establish yet another front of occupation in the area.

The same as Afghanistan was eclipsed by the Iraq invasion, now Iraq is being set aside for the moment and we are all concentrated in Lebanon and Israel. And the game keeps on moving, forever searching for new enemies and evildoers. Is this administration aware of the consequences? Perhaps, but like everything else they do, they only care about what their goal is, never mind the cost of life, the suffering of millions in the region and what the American public thinks and wants. As long as they can keep the machinery in action, arms manufacturing, friendly government contractors and many others will benefit with this mess. That’s what counts for Bush and Co.

They are in the process of prying open the proverbial Pandora’s box and we, as passive onlookers, may get stuck with the content.