Initially, the Bush administration said that it had no warning that jet airplanes could be used as missiles to attack buildings in the United States. Then, CIA and FBI documents came to light indicating that they had investigated this possibility, and the Bush administration was forced to back off on this assertion of ignorance. Even more disturbing is the fact that after the first plane was hijacked and deviated from its prescribed course, more than an hour transpired with no fighter jets being dispatched to protect the nation's Capitol. As a comparison, after the jet carrying golfer Payne Stewart flew off course, the response time for F-16 fighters was only 21 minutes. Only after two jets had crashed into the World Trade Center and another one was headed toward the Pentagon were F-16s sent up to intercept and then from Langley Air Force Base, which is 130 miles from the Pentagon, rather than from Andrews Air Force Base, less than ten miles from the Pentagon. Why? These are just a couple of the discrepancies in the official story of what happened on 9-11.

If the Bush administration allowed 9-11 to happen, at least three things need to be analyzed. What would the motivations be, is there a history of the US government planning or actually doing similar things and could such a conspiracy be covered up?

The events of September 11, 2001 were extremely fortuitous for the reactionary agenda of President George W. Bush. I have made a list of the potential advantages.

1. 9-11 provided a perfect excuse for a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, which had already been planned for October 2001 because of the refusal of the Taliban to allow the Unocal gas pipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. The numerous meetings between US representatives and the Taliban are described in a book called Bin Laden-the Forbidden Truth by French intelligence analysts Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie.

2. It provided an alibi to build military bases in Central Asia to control the enormous oil and gas reserves present there. Also, it allowed the introduction of American troops and military advisors into numerous countries to maintain "stability." "Stability" is a media code word meaning a favorable investment climate for corporations-no unions, no taxes, no environmental restrictions, a repressive police and military to put down popular uprisings, a puppet government, etc.

3. Anticapitalist revolutionaries like the FARC in Colombia, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, the Maoists in Nepal and the New People's Army in the Philippines could now be more convincingly labeled terrorists and destroyed.

4. Anticapitalist protesters like those at the demonstrations in Seattle and Genoa could conceivably be called terrorists at future demonstrations (particularly if there were violent acts by agent-provocateurs) and imprisoned under new laws that remove all their civil liberties.

5. Huge tax breaks for the rich and an increase of nearly 100 billion dollars in the military budget could easily be pushed through a very patriotic US Congress. In addition, Star Wars could be funded completely. Contrary to popular opinion, Star Wars is an offensive system, involving lasers and particle beam weapons on orbiting satellites.

6. The increase in military spending would act as a stimulus to an economy in recession and a stock market in free fall. Military contracts are a guaranteed market for capitalists, highly profitable and independent of consumer demand.

7. US citizens possible anger over billions more going to the Pentagon while hospitals and libraries close, students lack textbooks in schools, the infrastructure crumbles, etc. could be diminished by continuing the terrorist alarms.

8. The risk of increasing dissent over the recession, corporate scandals and unending war could be reduced by a flag-waving fervor and United We Stand slogans.

9. Under the pretense of the need for increased homeland security, strikes could be broken and attacks on unions made. President George W. Bush wants all new jobs created under the Office of Homeland Security to be nonunion and he wants to privatize many civil service jobs, effectively breaking their unions. He has already invoked the Taft-Hartley law against the dockworkers.

There are so many discrepancies in the official story about 9-11 and so many advantages to the reactionary agenda of President George W. Bush that does one really have to be a "conspiracy theorist" to have serious doubts about what really happened?

Those who deny the possibility of a conspiracy occurring involving the US government, often claim that there is little likelihood of the US government being complicit in the deaths of its own citizens. Even some leftists make this claim, believing that although the United States has done atrocious, despicable things to Third World people, that they would never do the same to American citizens.

One has to conveniently forget a lot of history to come to this conclusion. There were the GIs forced to walk across ground zero after nuclear explosions, the downwinders in Utah, the unsuspecting people injected with plutonium, the syphilis experiments at Tuskegee, the assassinations of dozens of members of the Black Panthers and American Indian Movement, Waco and Ruby Ridge, the American soldiers exposed to Agent Orange and depleted uranium and the germ experiments conducted over US cities and states. Then, there was the Joint Chiefs of Staff plan called Operation Northwoods to provoke a war with Cuba by sinking a ship with US military personnel at Guantanamo Bay or conducting terrorism in US cities, involving civilian casualties, and blaming it on Cuba. Incidentally, this was reported by David Ruppe on November 7, 2001 on ABC news.com- hardly a website of the black helicopter crowd. In addition, there are the millions of citizens of capitalist nations, including the United States, who have been used as cannon fodder in wars for control of natural resources and cheap labor or to eliminate alternative economic systems. I have not mentioned the even more significant crimes committed against foreign populations.

Another criticism of conspiracies involving the US government is the idea that a lot of people would know, causing great difficulty in covering up the conspiracy. I think the JFK assassination disproves this theory. The lone gunman with the magic bullet is so implausible that a conspiracy is very likely. The Zapruder film shows that the gunshot which destroyed the front of Kennedy's skull came from the front and not the back. How did they cover it up for nearly forty years? Witnesses suffer mysterious deaths, other people who know the truth get old and die and the corporate media is certainly going to be unreceptive to anyone who comes forward with evidence to contradict the official story. The Church Committee discovered that many editors and journalists at major American newspapers were in fact CIA employees. It is a matter of public record, although rarely discussed.

Finally, the Sunday Herald of Glasgow, Scotland has discovered two US government documents, which prove there were plans for US global domination and control of oil well before 9-11 happened. One document was prepared for Vice-president Dick Cheney and others in the Bush administration by the conservative think tank, Project for the New American Century. It states the need for the United States to dominate the Persian Gulf region, to control space and cyberspace and to eliminate any competition from Europe in this global domination. Another document called Strategic Energy Policy Challenges For The 21st Century openly admits that the reason for war with Iraq is to secure US access to, and control of, Middle Eastern oil fields.

The American people have been brainwashed by the corporate media, but are they gullible enough to accept this Bush plan for global domination, involving a whole series of foreign wars against recalcitrant countries at enormous expense, without a tremendous fear-inspiring event like took place on 9-11? I think not. As a person with two degrees in science, I must say that this does not scientifically prove a conspiracy took place. However, all this evidence certainly increases the probability of one. Three things are certain. First, the fear and patriotism induced by the horrifying events of 9-11 had numerous and obvious advantages for the policies of President George W. Bush. As Nazi leader Hermann Goering said: "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." Second, the war against Iraq is about control of oil and not weapons of mass destruction. Third, this is not really a "war on terrorism," but rather a war for empire.

I could not agree more. Even though I live in Canada, I can see where Mister Bush is headed - and it is not likely to be pretty. It is the duty of all patriots, whether American or Canadian, to look deeply into the affairs of their respective states - and do what is best for the country. On occasion, that involves challenging the government of the day.