By Steven T. Jones
Do we really know the full truth about what happened on 9/11, the devastating attacks that occurred eight years ago today? Based on my research and assessment of the inquiries that followed that horrific event, I don’t think anyone can claim to know the full truth. But that hasn’t stopped conservatives and know-it-all pundits from demonizing and belittling skeptics of the official 9/11 theory in an aggressive fashion in recent weeks.
The most disturbing example was the truly scary right-wing propagandist Glenn Beck’s successful crusade against Van Jones, forcing his resignation from the Obama Administration mostly for having signed a letter calling for an investigation of whether the Bush Administration ignored warnings about the attacks and then used them to further their foreign policy goals.
Why is that suggestion so outrageous? As even the ludicrously narrow 9/11 Commission investigation (which Harper’s Magazine and other respectable voices dismissed as a whitewash) showed, top Bush officials were warned of impending al Qaeda attacks in the month before they occurred, they did nothing, and then used the attacks to launch their so-called “War on Terror,” even discussing invading Iraq (which wasn’t involved in 9/11) as the World Trade Center still smoldered.