So now we know what Michael Meacher has been up to since he left the government – he’s discovered the internet.
After all, the conspiracy theory he gives credence to in a Guardian column today has been doing the rounds on the web for months.
It is not surprising that some have seen the US failure to avert the 9/11 attacks as creating an invaluable pretext for attacking Afghanistan in a war that had clearly already been well planned in advance. There is a possible precedent for this. The US national archives reveal that President Roosevelt used exactly this approach in relation to Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941. Some advance warning of the attacks was received, but the information never reached the US fleet.
The ensuing national outrage persuaded a reluctant US public to join the second world war. Similarly the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into “tomorrow’s dominant force” is likely to be a long one in the absence of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”. The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the “go” button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement.
Now it is undeniable that the PNAC people took advantage of September 11 to push their agenda. No doubt about that. But Meacher goes further than merely pointing out that the neo-cons made the most of their moment.
Where he drifts into conspiracy theory is his suggestion that the US administration may have deliberately ignored warnings about an impending attack in order to create a new Pearl Harbour and allow their push for global dominance.
Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority?
And if so, how come none of the thousands of people employed in national security in the US have since blown the whistle? The odds that not even one person involved in a ‘standing down’ operation to allow Al-quada a free run on September 11 has not since had a slight prick of conscience (or some other motive for telling us of this amazing conspiracy) seems slightly slim to me.
Reading Meacher’s attempt at a theory you also have to wonder what the chances are that the Pentagon would consider a conspiracy that involved attacking their own headquarters and killing their own staff?
I could carry on (and others no doubt will) but really what is the point?
Could it be some people are wondering if Meacher’s article isn’t just a cunning plot by the government to distract our attention away from the Hutton Inquiry?
