We would like to announce the publication, in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, of Matthew Witt’s article, “Morewell than Orwell: Paramilitarization in the United States post-9/11”. Matthew Witt is well known as a member of the group of scholars that has encouraged the study of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). In this article he looks, not at the events of 9/11 themselves, but at the crisis of legitimation that the U.S. state faces and the way it has, since 9/11, chosen to respond to this crisis. The Occupy Wall Street movement is taken as the central example of state response and repression.

As we announce this publication we also want to announce our intention to broaden the scope of the Journal. The historical importance of the Journal lies in detailed, critical examination of the events of the day of 9/11, and we have no intention of abandoning this focus, but there are many disciplines we would like to invite into the conversation and we would like to include studies of the context and meaning of 9/11. We are aware that there are other journals that attempt to deal with these issues, but with few exceptions these journals accept the official narrative of 9/11 and tend to exclude the writings of authors with a critical perspective. In our view this means that the interpretations of 9/11 developed in these journals are bound to be faulty. We want to create a space where researchers working in the humanities, such as John McMurtry, whose recent article on the moral decoding of 9/11 has drawn a good deal of attention, and Matthew Witt can write without the usual pressure to adhere to flawed accounts of 9/11. In this process we also hope that people who have not traditionally read our Journal will find themselves drawn to it and to its critical perspective on recent history.

Please post links to these articles on all relevant websites so that we can invite as many people as possible into a dialogue on these important events.

Kevin Ryan and Graeme MacQueen