Jaclyn Stine
ENGL 121: 8am
Professor Goffene
13 March 2012
WE#4: Mini Essay
As two planes crashed into the twin towers there were many questions going through people’s minds. Why did this happen? How did such event happen to the United States? And the most important question, that this paper is mainly about, who did this terrible attack? The official and accepted version of these questions is that terrorist from Al-Qaeda hijacked four planes of our planes, two of which hit the twin towers, and set off to attack. Even though the government did tell this to us, there are groups of people who do not believe that was the true story such as the 9/11 Truthers. The 9/11 Truthers believe that the attack was a cover up from the government and that it wasn’t the terrorist that attacked the World Trade Center. Many of the government’s claims didn’t add up, but when asked again for the truth, they received nothing. What is the true story to this attack or was what the government told us to be true?
In one of the websites I found, http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-08-05/news/bush-s-9-11-secrets/, there were many things that supported 9/11 Truthers and that the government could still be hiding some more information from us about the attack. It talked about how the Bush administration knew about the threat of Al-Qaeda and did nothing about it. Al-Qaeda made many threats to the United States all somewhat related to the 9/11 attack. James Ridgeway, the author, had stated, “We do know that despite years of warnings from the intelligence community, the government apparently had taken no steps to protect the eastern seaboard or any other American border from attack.” So if it was the terrorist who were going to attack then why didn’t the government try to prevent it from happening? Ridgeway also said that, “…Bush has invoked executive privilege to withhold from Congress this key briefing on August 6, 2001.” This gives evidence of some amount of information being hidden from America and the world, which supports the 9/11 Truthers belief of a cover-up. This source uses quotes and actual proof of their arguments.
Another example for the 9/11 Truthers mistrust in the government is that they could have done it themselves to start the war since they are known to create a lot of scandals in the past. The source I found is a book called Scandal: How “Gotcha” politics is destroying America. In this book it explains all the scandals of the government and how they are not to be trusted since they are destroying America because of it. Like the first source, this source focuses on the government and how they are not to be trusted. But it focuses mostly on past events/scandals of the government instead of the current 9/11 attack like the first source portrays. This book goes into detail of the governments past scandals and how it is destroying America’s people and culture. This book helps the first source with describing the ways and reasons why people don’t trust the government such as the 9/11 Truthers. This source looks at the past scandals, which will help me figure out any connection between them and the 9/11 attack. The strategies they use to prove their point was to look at past information of the government, quotes, journals, newspapers, and magazines of when the event actually happened.
In another website that was considered a scholarly journal was from http://danturkel.com/papers/911conspiracies.pdf, it was considered against the Truthers idea and theory all together. Turkel, the author, states that the Truthers are stupid and that their view is wrong. The websites goes into detail of the actual attack and the 9/11 Truthers. This document also is on the side of the government. It discusses what the first source was stating about the government having knowledge about the attack coming but didn’t do anything about it. Unlike the first source, Turkel believed the government wasn’t at fault and stated, “The Bush administration had advanced knowledge that Bin Laden was planning some sort of attack, but had little information and little way to do anything to prevent it. Saying that it intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen is certainly a stretch of reasoning.” (10) This article focuses more to do with the 9/11 Truthers than the government like the other two sources. Turkel showed a different opinion than the other two sources by going for the government and against the Truthers ideas. With the second source this article goes on to talk about why the 9/11 Truthers believe the government could be having a cover-up for the attack. It does not go into as much detail as the book does in the second source, and mainly focuses on the 9/11 attack and how it could be another scandal. This journal strategies to prove their point was through reports from the United States government, quotes from famous people, Zeitgeist movie, the 9/11 Commissions report, and many more.
In summary, these three sources discuss the government involvement in scandals and in the 9/11 attack. All three tell different stories: One about the past scandals of the U.S. government; the other one talks about the government’s lies with the 9/11 attack; and the other one discusses the 9/11 Truthers wrongs of accusing the government. They all connect to each other by the way the government is involved with corruption and if they have anything to do with the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. These sources give evidence for and against the 9/11 Truthers ideas and the “official” story of the attack. With these sources, the truth will come out about the 9/11 attack within the research paper.
Works Cited
Davis, Lanny J. Scandal: How “gotcha” Politics Is Destroying America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Print.
Ridgeway, James. “Bush’s 9-11 Secrets.” The Village Voice [New York] 5 Aug. 2003. The Village Voice News. 2012. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-08-05/news/bush-s-9-11-secrets/>.
Turkel, Daniel G. “The Significance of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories in Understanding the Sociopolitical Climate of the 21st Century.” The Significance of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories in Understanding the Sociopolitical Climate of the 21st Century (2010): 1-26. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. <http://danturkel.com/papers/911conspiracies.pdf>.
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