Like a highly skilled magician, the government of the United States knows how to direct the attention of its audience. The wool has not merely been pulled over our eyes, but has been stuffed into our eye sockets displacing our eyeballs far from any useful position.
Bear with me as I revisit the recent attacks.
Evidence suggests that U.S. officials knew in advance of the terrorist attacks and they purposefully let them occur. But why? Why would the United States allow thousands to die and lives to be ruined forever? The answer can be found if we can muster the strength to remember what happened in our country one year ago.
But first, realize that our government had sufficient warning of the terrorist attacks and did nothing.
German intelligence officials told the CIA this June that terrorists from the Middle East were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American Culture," according to the Sept. 14, 2000, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
This summer, an Iranian man called U.S. officials and warned of a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center the week of Sept. 9. This call was confirmed by German Intelligence; however, the Secret Service would not reveal any information about the call.
A key member of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was arrested in August. According to Reuters, the FBI discovered that the man had been taking flying lessons and had been collecting technical information about Boeing planes.
In an MSNBC interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he revealed that in August, Russian Intelligence warned the United States of the attacks.
According to CNN, The New York Times and many other credible news sources, the actions taken by the government immediately following the attacks are highly suspicious. The FAA and the military knew shortly after 8 a.m. of the simultaneous hijackings; however, the president was not notified and military planes waited 75 minutes before deploying to investigate the hijacked planes.
And this is what we are supposed to forget:
One year ago, our beautiful "democracy" was proven to be not democratic at all. Patriotism was extremely low. Respect for the government was declining.
One year ago, George W. Bush vied against Al Gore for the presidency of the United States. But a political crisis occurred. Do you remember now? The contest came down to the discrepancy of a few hundred ballots in Florida. The Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 that George W. Bush is the new president of the United States. But the popular vote favored Gore by something like half-a-million votes. A lot of citizens were outraged to discover just how non-democratic our election process really is.
Former U.S. Sen. Fred R. Harris, who is now a professor at the University of New Mexico, said the president who lost the popular vote "would not be considered legitimate by a sufficient percentage of Americans and that such a president's leadership would thereby be dangerously weakened and undermined."
People were asking for a reconsideration of our "democratic" process. Many people were unwilling to support George W. as president and were pushing for policy change to improve the democratic integrity of our elections.
Many people were doubting the United States of America. What good is each individual's right to cast one vote if half-a-million makes no difference? The president's approval rating hovered somewhere around 40 percent.
And now, only a year later, 90 percent of the population supports the president, and no one seems to remember the incidents only one year ago. The energy of America has shifted from repairing the cracks in our political structure to repairing the cracks caused by the terrorist attack.
I realize that mine is yet another conspiracy theory in a plethora of like ones, and if you don't think it's even the slightest bit feasible, I'd like to point out one thing: Just because now we're at "war" politics doesn't get any less dirty. It's a shame that in times of war America thinks its government can do no wrong.
Like a skilled magician, the government of the United States has pulled a sleight of hand, averting the eyes of the audience from a mistake and focusing all its attention on a new and wowing event. David Copperfield can make the Statue of Liberty disappear. Let's just hope our government isn't that skilled.
Sabrina Fladness is a journalism and political science senior. Reach her at ihatesabrinafladness@hotmail.com.
