Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan? Using the McChrystal Moment to Raise a Forbidden Question, by Dr. David Ray Griffin
by David Ray Griffin
Global Research
There are many questions to ask about the war in Afghanistan. One that has been widely asked is whether it will turn out to be “Obama’s Vietnam.” This question implies another: Is this war winnable, or is it destined to be a quagmire, like Vietnam? These questions are motivated in part by the widespread agreement that the Afghan government, under Hamid Karzai, is at least as corrupt and incompetent as the government the United States tried to prop up in South Vietnam for 20 years.
Although there are many similarities between these two wars, there is also a big difference: This time, there is no draft. If there were a draft, so that college students and their friends back home were being sent to Afghanistan, there would be huge demonstrations against this war on campuses all across this country. If the sons and daughters of wealthy and middle-class parents were coming home in boxes, or with permanent injuries or post-traumatic stress syndrome, this war would have surely been stopped long ago. People have often asked: Did we learn any of the “lessons of Vietnam”? The US government learned one: If you’re going to fight unpopular wars, don’t have a draft – hire mercenaries!
There are many other questions that have been, and should be, asked about this war, but in this essay, I focus on only one: Did the 9/11 attacks justify the war in Afghanistan?
This question has thus far been considered off-limits, not to be raised in polite company, and certainly not in the mainstream media. It has been permissible, to be sure, to ask whether the war during the past several years has been justified by those attacks so many years ago. But one has not been allowed to ask whether the original invasion was justified by the 9/11 attacks.
However, what can be designated the “McChrystal Moment” – the probably brief period during which the media are again focused on the war in Afghanistan in the wake of the Rolling Stone story about General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, which led to his resignation – provides the best opportunity for some time to raise fundamental questions about this war. Various commentators have already been asking some pretty basic questions: about the effectiveness and affordability of the present “counterinsurgency strategy” and even whether American fighting forces should remain in Afghanistan at all. But I am interested in an even more fundamental question: Whether this war was ever really justified by the publicly given reason: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
This question has two parts: First, did these attacks provide a legal justification for the invasion of Afghanistan? Second, if not, did they at least provide a moral justification?
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Any reasonably bright 11-year-old
Any reasonably bright 11-year-old - upon seeing videos of controlled demolitions - can see that building 7 was just that.
A very bright 9-year-old can see it. And a not-so-bright 12-year-old can see it too.
An average 13-year-old can understand what "free fall" means: It means "falling freely". Is that so tough to understand?
I think we need some talented comedians to break the psychological log jam.
The French guy does a really good job of it. Where are the American comedians?
Mark Twain said (In "The Mysterious Stranger"):
"Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand."
Not just buiding 7
but the twin towers also, given their sheer height and the timed rate of "collapse", as well as the explosive nature of their destruction. They were very obviously, blown up, in that case, from the top down.
yes
But the towers present more of a problem to a 9-year-old.
Occam's Razor & A Sysinct Question
I love Dr. Griffin, we all do, but this argument is rife with opportunity for the naysayers to continue to deny the obvious Truth(s) and continue calling us fools and traitors, for not blindly supporting - everything.
The question in regard to Afghanistan is not how we got there. That will only have 911 thrown in your face and you'll be nowhere with anyone, who isn't (legitimately) prepared to put their bias down and look at the facts.
No - the question in regard to Afghanistan is as follows:
Why are we fighting the Taliban? They didn't attack us on 911. They were the ruling government at the time. They were a group of individuals that we installed, via our Pakistani puppets. We trained and funded them, against the Russians. We flew them to Texas in 98, in an effort to negotiate a pipeline; a pipeline they inevitably didn't want and subsequently declined.
Again - Why are we fighting the Taliban? They did not attack us on 911; indeed they used to be our allies. They actually made a movie about them/it - Charlie Wilson's War
As a follow up - Why is there opium being grown in Afghanistan, after 9 years, trillions of dollars and million(s) of men (rotational numbers + mercenaries + other nations)?
How is it possible?
We are asked to believe that we are hunting down a 6'6" (tall) Saudi; one who is seriously ill and in need of regular dialysis...yet, we cannot do anything about a crop that grows static in an open field, for months at a time.
This fact makes me question - the seriousness of the drug war and our (overall) efforts in Afghanistan. And it makes me ask the obvious question - are we involved in the opium/heroin trade?
I can come up with no other rational deduction as to why opium has been allowed to flourish in Afghanistan (every year of our occupation), other then the one that suggests that we are behind that production and that we are the ones benefiting from it; one way or another.
Occam's razor - entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity; the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
Conclusion - we are in Afghanistan fighting a former ally, who had nothing to do with Sept. 11 and we are the world's protector and purveyor of opium. That we have no interest in Afghanistan other then controlling it for the purposes of a pipeline, opium crop and several trillion dollars worth of minerals.
That is what the indicia suggest(s). That is the simplest explanation.
Hey fellow human...
I suggest that you read Ruppert, and if that's not credible enough, then Peter Dale Scott...
The CIA and Pentagon in the drug trade? Puhhhlease...
9/11 Truth for World Peace
Robin Hordon
Kingston, WA
Osama Bin Laden Still Not Wanted By FBI For 9/11
http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm
No further commentary necessary. The above says it all.
Dean Jackson Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC
Clicks needed on Op Ed News version
I have put the article up at Op Ed News for DRG. It has vanished from the front page. Can you take the time to click through on the link below to bring it up in prominence?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Did-9-11-Justify-the-War-i-by-By-Prof-D...
Thanks
You know me, I'm working on it.
"Clicks needed on Op Ed News version"
we will see.
I submitted it to RAW STORY. Who Knows?
I clicked it to #10...
then it mysteriously slipped to #21.
It is now at #8.
Let us see if it "slips" again.
I thought that this was a wonderful article
This is a wonderfully written article. Griffin takes a timely issue and utilizes it to present many of the holes in the official story. If a person unfamiliar with 9/11 Truth starts to read this piece, they can not help but to be alarmed by at least one of the aspects of the official story which doesn't add up. The objective is to get people to investigate 9/11. This article has a great list of items, one of which is sure to strike an interest in a new person who reads the article.
Now at Information Clearinghouse
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25821.htm
agreed...
...as usual, DRG pulls it all together and decimates the official lies in the process. nobody i've come across does it better. great tie-in to the whole mcchrystal affair as well, to make matters current. if the ny times was what it pretends to be, this is the kind of article that would be appearing there.
We are getting better and better...
As any members of the 9/11 Truth Community [for a fair amount of time anyway] can see, David Ray Griffin has been both: repeating the same messages for years and years...and...he is now doing it more sussinctly, affirmatively and persuasivley. He has trimmed down most of the information required for understanding the broad reasoning behind the attacks on 9/11, thus eventually forcing the "corporateindiemedia" and more importantly, the citizenry of the world ...which includes the people within the USofA...to deal with the TRUTH behind the 9/11 attacks.
Thanks David...simply awsome work here...again!
9/11 Truth for World Peace and Justice
Robin Hordon
Kingston, WA
The Puget Sounds's ONLY true "Port of Peace"
The Tillman Story...coming soon
'They lied to the wrong family'
A post at IMDb gives the release date as August 20.
Weinstein Company films usually get a pretty wide distribution, and while the filmmakers doubtless had to place certain bounds around their queries, the trailer looks promising that it will push questions further than many theatrically realesed documentaries do. Certainly further than the government and the major media would like.
A little more beef
This was an excellent article that covered several bases. I would, however, like to see beefed up the section about the illegality of the war, and why, if it is so blatantly illegal, it has not been stopped, and why the criminal element behind the war have not been prosecuted as yet. My understanding is that some soldiers have challenged the legality of the war, and their challenges have been thrown out or ruled against in the courts. For all the talk about the war's illegality, and there has been a lot of it, I have not really seen a lot of meat on the bones on the theory that it is illegal, and besides, there seems to be no legal action, at least in the United States, against the war in Afghanistan, let alone the war in Iraq. So, where's the beef?