�We condemn this brutal attack in the strongest possible terms . . . A terrible reminder that the Lebanese people must be able to pursue their aspirations and determine their own political future free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation.��White House spokesman Scott McClellan commenting on the murder of Rafiq Hariri, former Lebanese prime minister. (Source) [Italics added].

The central theme that is still dominating the American ideological discourse since 9/11 is that the attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) and the Pentagon were not like any other attacks. Specifically, the Bush administration argued that 9/11 was an indication of U.S. vulnerability against an implacable enemy, hence confronting this �enemy� requires a radical approach: war without borders against Arabs, Muslims, Islam, and their entire history, all perceived as an embodiment of �terrorism.�

This apparently ideological but substantially imperialist approach has resulted, so far, in the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the killing of tens of thousands of people, while the threat to use force against Iran and Syria continues unabated.

Based on a long history of U.S. interventionist policy, it is pointless to state that 9/11 is just another pretext for military and imperialist expansion. To counter the propaganda theme employed by the administration and ancillary think tanks, I previously explored the ideological motives for which, the U.S. government treated 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing as two events different in nature, therefore, each necessitated a different response.

As per norm in the culture of imperialism, behind the claims of different nature and different response, a structured rationale is always lurking. While the U.S. considered the Oklahoma attack as internal and treated it as a criminal case, it considered the WTC attack as a mortal attack and permanent threat against its national security and existence, therefore requiring massive intervention at the �source of that potential danger.�

In other words, the administration fashioned 9/11 into a hyper-alibi to attack the Arab Middle East, as well as to expand its imperialism and physical domination through direct military occupation.

At the end of Part 27, I questioned, �Because both attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing (internal attack) and the WTC attack (assuming it is external) are �terrorist� attacks, is it conceivable then they could share basic similarities?� The following is a comparison to investigate such a possibility:

Oklahoma City Attack

1. It is internal and, for a variety of political motives, is hostile to the federal government of the United States.
2. It targeted the Murrah federal building as a symbol of the U.S. government to demonstrate that hostility.
3. The attack did not consider the human aspects, age, race, color, or gender of the victims it killed.
4. The perpetrator used explosives to carry out the attacks.
5. Number of victims was not a relevant factor, as presence of people inside the building was fortuitous, circumstantial, and depended on numerous factors and variables.
6. The resulting economic damage was not a relevant factor, as the attackers could only guess the extent of damage they could inflict.

WTC Attack

1. It is �assumed� external and, for a variety of political motives, is hostile to the federal government of the United States.
2. It targeted both towers of the World Trade Center, a symbol of U.S. financial power, to demonstrate that hostility.
3. The attack did not consider the human aspects, age, race, color, or gender of the victims it killed.
4. According to the official version of the U.S. government, the perpetrators used airplanes to carry out the attacks.
5. Number of victims was not a relevant factor, as presence of people inside the building was fortuitous, circumstantial, and depended on numerous factors and variables.
6. The resulting economic damage was not a relevant factor, as the attackers could only guess the extent of damage they could inflict.

By examining both columns of comparison, we can make the following observations: Items identified as # 1 are fundamentally different because of the qualifiers, internal vs. �external.� Items identified as # 2 are only apparently different. Since the financial power creates the political power to represent it, therefore, the political symbol of Oklahoma City is inherently equivalent to the financial symbol of the WTC. Symbolically, therefore, items # 2 of both columns are exchangeable. Items identified with # 3, 5, and 6 are identical. As for items identified with # 4, they are only apparently different, but in reality are identical since both are forms of warfare.

Conclusively, the sole structural factor that distinguishes between the subjects of comparison is, external vs. internal. This factor, alone, determined the ideological alibi and course of action of the Bush administration. Knowing what we know about 9/11, we have to ask a fundamental question� If shortly after 9/11 it had been determined that the attack was internal, could that determination have halted the onslaught on the Middle East and on Iraq?

The answer is no. Blair, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld were already in Afghanistan before any investigation began, before anyone knew anything about who attacked the United States and why. And as widely reported, Bush ordered plans to invade Iraq just a few hours after the WTC came under attack. Categorically, 9/11 as an internal or external factor was inconsequential in relation to the premeditated response that Bush and Zionists gave to the attack. In other words, the decision to occupy Iraq, as well as the decision to declare permanent war against the Asian Arab Middle East under the pretext that Arabs, Islam, and Muslim traditions are violent was already moving on tracks regardless of who committed 9/11.

By opting to trash the law and discarding serious investigation of 9/11, the Bush administration has, in fact, scrapped the Constitution, the authority and principles of the courts (one is innocent until proven guilty,) and, in effect, declared the final transformation of the United States into a fascist state that no law can bind.

Is it not strange that the system which permitted Kenneth Starr to spend four years and $40 million (source ) investigating Clinton�s sexual conduct, never required the White House to explain: How was it possible that a �hijacked� airplane entered Washington, D.C., airspace without confrontation from military jetfighters of the hyper-empire? Moreover, if no jetfighters attempted to stop the attack, who ordered them to stand down and why? Is it not strange that the neoconservatives, who wrote and filled a voluminous 9/11 governmental report with Zionist ideology and rationalizations, never answered that simple question?

Answer: no jetfighters intercepted the hijacked airplane, because there was no airplane to intercept�namely, on 9/11/2001 no hijacked airplane flew into Washington airspace. If I am speculating, then what were U.S. spy satellites doing when the attack occurred? What happened to permanent vigilance against sudden Russian or other foreign attacks? Since Powell and Cheney claimed they videoed a small pick-up truck moving around Iraq "carrying WMD," why could they not spot a moving airplane in the skies of Washington D.C.? If such video exists, and it must exist, then where is it? Besides, did any one see rescue crews remove remnants of that airplane or dead passengers from inside after it collided with the Pentagon? Did that airplane vaporize to its molecular level?

Consequently, the importance of 9/11 is that the U.S. ruling classes used it as a pretext to seize two strategic countries in Asia, and to blackmail the entire Arab and Islamic states. This seizure prompts us to debate Bush and Cheney�s pretext to use 9/11 as they did. Suppose that a group of Russians (avenging the collapse of the Soviet Union, since the U.S. claimed it defeated it in the Cold War) carried out that attack: Would the U.S. dare to attack or occupy Russia? While the answer is an absolute no when Russia is involved�it is a nuclear state�, it is definitely yes when it comes to the Arabs. By their own political retardation and obedience to U.S. diktat, the Arabs have become the weakest link in the international system, thus easy prey to Zionist and imperialist ambitions that populate the American Power elites.

No doubt, therefore, by qualifying the Oklahoma attack as a criminal case and the attack against the WTC as an attack against the national security of the United States, U.S. imperialists made the strategic decision to use 9/11 as springboard for empire. To carry out that decision, Bush, exploiting a country partly in sorrow, declared permanent war against the Arab nations, who, curiously, although alien to that crime, they are by historical coincidence either still hostile to Zionism or came to terms with it under imperialist coercion and wars. This was reason enough for a Zionist-controlled U.S.A. to declare them perpetual enemies.

Let us assume, however, that it was a group of Arab Muslims who committed the crime of 9/11, then why did the U.S. involve all Muslims, all Arabs, and Islam in a crime that only 19 men committed?

There can be but one answer: our considerations are meaningless to the imperialist mafia controlling the U.S., because the objective is not finding the truth about 9/11 but something else. If 9/11 proves anything, it would be that the hostility toward Arabs, Muslims, and Islam is fictitious from top to bottom. What makes the U.S. move in the world is imperialist greed and ideology of empire regardless of who is the victim.

In addition, religion or culture is irrelevant to colonialism and imperialism. Hypothetically, would the U.S. end its hostility toward Saudi Arabia should the Saudis decide to flatten the city of Mecca, tear down the Kaaba, renounce Islam, embrace Christianity, outlaw the Arabic language, and make English the only language of communication?

The answer is no. Saudis as individuals or as a society will still own oil. And oil is a strategic asset to U.S. imperialism.

Nine-Eleven, therefore, is only a pretext, and to unravel it, let us reprise, once again, the argument that Arab Muslim fanatics who hated the U.S. because �it is free and prosperous� attacked the United States. But, if Iraq and Iraqis did not do it, then why invade Iraq?

Consider another example; assume that a group of Latin-American Nicaraguans committed 9/11 in retaliation for U.S. interference in the affairs of Nicaragua and Latin America. As per this hypothesis, should the U.S. retaliate by invading, oil rich Latin-American Venezuela?

Logically, though the answer should be no, a caveat is in order: if Latin America were in direct conflict with Zionism, the answer would be yes, and Venezuelan oil would be the trophy. Consequently, when the ideology of imperialism merged with that of Zionism in a powerful country such as the United States, a new class of fascist ideologues became the sole arbiter of the interpretation of 9/11.

How should have the U.S. reacted if: 1) Nine-Eleven was indeed an external attack, or 2) was an internal attack

Nine-Eleven as External Attack

If political coherence and logical attitudes, but not imperialism, crusading religious chauvinism, or Zionism guided the response to 9/11, then the U.S. should have opted to do two things�a legal solution and a rational strategy:

• Solution: the United States should have treated 9/11 as it did the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, that is, a criminal case.
• Strategy: The U.S. government, the Congress, or the American people should have required the investigation of the roots and motivation of the attack, and that the underlying causes be confronted and eliminated.

Nine-Eleven as Internal Attack

Many modalities of the WTC attack do not coincide with the version given by the Bush administration. These modalities include but are not limited to timing, mechanics, building engineering, rapid collapse, official propaganda, machinations to eliminate valid enquiries, the supersonic speed with which Arabs or Muslims have been implicated, the juggling of post-attack fact-findings, the lack of democratic discussion, and, most importantly, intimidation, leading us to have strong reasonable doubt that the attack was not external. Most likely 9/11 was a masterfully staged internal attack. How could this be so? Are those Arabs hijacking the airplanes figments of imagination?

To answer these questions, one can only cite the countless Hollywood movies where a person kills his victim, but then hides his gun in the apartment of the person that he wants to implicate for the murder. While in the movies, Colombo, Mason, Monk, and Crime Scene Investigation�s team always find the real killer, the U.S. government would never reveal the truth about 9/11 or the identity of the perpetrators.

Remember, a system will never commit suicide by telling the truth. And if it tells the truth, it is always does that after everything has been said and done, i.e., when the truth has lost its practical consequence. Lyndon Johnson�s lies about the Gulf of Tonkin incident came to the surface after over 3 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans lost their lives. The lies about Iraq�s WMD came out after the U.S. slaughtered over 100,000 Iraqis; after it completed the building of four permanent military bases, and after it created the conditions with which it hopes to stay in Iraq.

Will we ever know who committed 9/11? The answer is not while Zionism is ruling America.

Based on myriad contradictions in the government�s version, strong intuitive conclusions backed by logic indicate that exclusively American internal forces may have committed 9/11, or, at least, American internal forces in association with unidentifiable external forces that could be from any nationality, including Arabs, were responsible for the planning and execution of the attack.

In all cases, if the U.S. were a state of law and order, it should have seriously investigated 9/11, without launching wars of imperialism disguised as wars of �liberation� as advocated by U.S. Zionists and by a crusading coalition comprised of extremist imperialists and Christian zealots.

Pretexts as Policy for Empire Building

Since its inception, the US thrived on pretexts to expand imperialistically. U.S. motives to invade Iraq and kill tens of thousands of its citizens are complex and require elaborate studies, because many domestic forces shaped these motives and gave them impetus. In addition, besides U.S., Zionism, and Israel, other international forces, each for its own motives, joined the American project for unhindered world hegemony. Among the forces that are hoping to collect the crumbs of U.S. colonialism are Britain, Australia, Italy, Japan, the entire former communist bloc, many poor Latin American countries, and countless unprincipled Muslim and Arab governments, as well as a substantial number of Iraqis trying to have �power� under the bloody grip of the occupation regime.

But the main player, who has the allegiance of the rest and who used the pretext of 9/11 to implement colonialism in Iraq, is not Israel or U.S. traditional imperialists but the powerful and ubiquitous class of U.S. Zionists. We shall discuss this matter in the upcoming parts.

A question: Is the pretext to occupy Iraq unique in the history of U.S. imperialist expansion, colonialism, or violence?

Next, Part 29: Iraq Occupation, anatomy of pretext