The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin

The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 – David Ray Griffin, Olive Branch Press (2004) 214pp. (OBT) ***

Most writers know their limits and work within them. But isn’t it the writer who pushes the proverbial envelope who we tend to learn the most from? Working from the margins, Griffin has attempted to do just that, to extend the consciousness of the reader. As he rightly notes, “it might seem prudent simply to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ If the suspicions are correct, however, these dogs are not sleeping, but are using the official story of 9/11 for various nefarious purposes, both within our country and the rest of the world.”(p. 160) Since the “official” 9/11 script seems to have already been written and archived, some might justly ask, why bother with a closer examination. Surely the American public had no role or say in the decision to make 9/11 the linchpin of U.S. foreign policy (a massive breakdown in national security if there ever was one). Just as we were unasked toward what purposes this tragedy could be manipulated, so must we demand of ourselves to seek the rigorous answers, not allowing those with ulterior motives to speak for us.

Interestingly, one area where Griffin chooses to take his investigation, is the U.S. Space Command. Rumsfeld was chairman of the commission to assess U.S. national security space management and organization, which subsequently published a report in the second week of 2001. The report, “recommended substantial changes, including the subordination of all the other armed forces and the intelligence agencies to the Space Force.”(p. 99) The report also stated the need for a “galvanizing” event like a “space Pearl Harbor.” Given this wider, trans-global/extraterrestrial agenda, one can understand why the American flag patches on the right shoulders of U.S. service personnel, would be backward. To the confused reader, this is simple, basic iconoclasm 101. Before you substitute one symbol for another, you first must make the symbol being replaced, lose all its meaning. Improper flag display is just such a method.

For his references and notation, Griffin is largely dependent upon Paul Thompson’s 9/11 timeline and Nafeez Ahmed’s War On Freedom. Notably absent from Griffin’s text is any mention of the possible hand of Israel or the Mossad in the attacks, as in the Israeli “art students” who were allegedly shadowing the 9/11 hijackers. Nor is there any mention of the anthrax letters, and while there are plenty of references to “the Big Lie,” there is no note of its originator and espouser, Leo Strauss. Altogether, these are fairly petty bones to pick over a work that overall is fairly complete. Griffin has boldly brought to light some of the undercurrents to 9/11, now it is up to you reader to connect the dots.