Your Opinion: What have we learned from 9-11?

Dear Editor:

The two most important questions that must be asked on this 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks are: What have we learned and how have we changed in the intervening years?

The greatest tragedy of 9/11 is its aftermath. We seem to have learned nothing. There seems to have been a massive unlearning underway. The members of the American fourth estate, our politicians and even the great recorders of truth - our academics seem to (in Rilke's words) "... know with perfect accuracy a past that never existed."

Not only are we woefully ignorant of the predisposing causes of 9/11, but we are misled even as to those responsible. I used to think Bush and key members of his administration bore a large share of the responsibil- ity for the attacks - a kind of falseflag/Reichstag fire operation.

I am now convinced that the 9/11 truth conspiracy theories are without rational foundation. That is not to say that there are not many unanswered questions that have never been explained.

In spite of that, we will all be considerably disenfranchised by never hearing a full accounting (under oath) by Bush and company as to their complicity in these events.

There seems to be even a massive disinformation campaign concerning who in the Muslim world was the actual "mastermind" behind 9/11. It is almost certain that Osama bin Laden bore no direct operational responsibility for the attacks.

It is almost as if he was a necessary construct - a created persona like Emmanuel Goldstein in Orwell's 1984 - to frighten the uninformed and the credulous.

Finally, how have we changed in the past 10 years? Sadly, much for the worse. Our reaction to the attacks has transformed worldwide sympathy for us to worldwide revulsion for our imperialism. The anti-Muslim fear mongering has only increased under Obama and his stooge Eric Holder.

The judicial system has been irredeemably corrupted. It has launched an increasingly audacious campaign to entrap young Muslim men by highly illegal means.

All this is intended by Obama as it was by Bush to feed the fear. "Be afraid and let us protect you. All we ask is you surrender a few little freedoms and some inconsequential rights." Vilifying of Muslims here in the US and in Europe reminds me of the scapegoating of Jews during the decline of the Weimar Republic.

"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme." - Mark Twain.