Why 9-11 Matters

On September 11, 2001, I was the principal/high school English teacher of a very small school district in west Texas. The first part of the morning I spent in the principal’s office or walking around the school. I taught my high school classes in the late morning/afternoon. As I was walking down the hall, a teacher stepped out of her room motioning me in to watch what was happening on television with her and her students.

Like all Americans, I was stunned and appalled by what I saw. After the shots of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, I walked around a bit, and then came back. I happened to be in the classroom watching the TV when the first tower collapsed, so I saw the first live shot of the falling building.

I am a builder. I have built all kinds of things, working with every part of the construction trade including demolition. I know nothing personally about skyscrapers, but I have worked much with concrete. I know what it is, and I know the laws of physics that rule concrete and steel, gravity and fire, firsthand.

It took 9 seconds for the first WTC tower to fall from the moment the top began to collapse, 1000 feet above the ground, until the moment that all of it lay in ruins upon the ground. Nine seconds. About half way through those nine seconds my brain, distinctly and loudly, by the evidence of my eyes, told myself, “I am watching a controlled demolition.” I have not changed that understanding of fact since.

The rest of that day, I spent the class periods explaining to my students what was happening from a world perspective. By mid-day, the television sets had put into our minds the probability of involvement by Osama Bin Laden, a theory that I had no reason - that is, no evidence had been provided to us - to accept or deny.

First, I explained to my students that terror is a strategic weapon. Modern terrorism was developed in pre- and communist Russia. It was how the Bolsheviks won. Hit your enemy with crimes so dastardly, so evil, so terrible, that they are stunned. Stunned and dazed, they will strike here and there in confusion, and then you have them. You see that often in movies in fights between a big guy and a little guy. The little guy pretends to be weak, to fall back hurting. Then, in that weak state he mocks the big guy. The big guy, confident that he must win, hurls at the little guy in rage. The little guy suddenly perks up, steps aside, and kills the big guy with one blow.

I explained all this to my students that afternoon. I wanted them to see the larger perspective, to understand what was really going on.

Then, I drew a map of the Middle East on the board that showed all the countries including Afghanistan and Iraq. I assumed the theory that Bin Laden was, in fact, responsible. I asked the question, “If Osama Bin Laden did this, what is his purpose, what does he want the US to do in response?” My answer was clear; it is classical war theory. Bin Laden would want the US to come raging into the Middle East, against Afghanistan, yes, but primarily, Bin Laden wants the US to conquer and occupy Iraq. That way, the US is off base, striking blindly, and easily targeted. I explained that by using terror, Bin Laden might hope actually to get the US to make this most stupid and detrimental of moves. America can never control the Middle East, but it certainly can destroy itself there.

I said this, went through it four times for four different grades, 9-12, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. This was a Tuesday. On Wednesday, I read the reports of other people, engineers - educators, who were stating that the fall of the twin towers was obviously controlled demolition and that there needed to be an investigation into how the terrorists were able to get bombs into the building. No one assumed it was anyone other than Bin Laden and his pals. One of these calls for further investigation into the controlled demolition of the WTC came from a professor of engineering at a university in nearby New Mexico.

The days passed, on Monday of the next week, I believe, less than a week after the event, I began to read reports that sent a cold chill down my spine. Stunned, confused, and frightened to my core, I read more and more of these reports over the next several days. I read a second article by the engineering professor from New Mexico, a demolitions expert, in which he deliberately, in a stone-faced tone, recanted from any idea that the fall of the twin towers was due to controlled demolition. He apologized, and claimed that he had been completely wrong. I read reports of teachers in other schools who had explained things to their students in similar ways to what I did, called into the principal’s office and fired on the spot. I read the official statement of the president, George W. Bush, that no investigation of the WTC would be allowed, none whatsoever, by his presidential decree. I read the confused protest of the NYC firefighters to the president saying, “Mr. President, our fellows died in the collapse of that building, we want to know exactly how the structure failed so we never have to face such a disaster again.” It is illegal to interfere with a criminal investigation, including for the president; the president used dictatorship power to prevent any such investigation.

At this point, a couple of weeks after the event, I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that something evil had descended upon America while I was sleeping. I asked myself, “Just who is this George W. Bush that I voted for because he claimed that he would reduce American violence against other countries? And who are these people he brought into power underneath him?”

If you would like to read the remainder of this article, please send me an email and I will send it to you as an attachment. Because truth is being shut down on the Internet, I do not want to jeoparidize the life and truth that is on this website by including things of slightly lesser importance.