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"Pax Americana"
In suggesting motives for the US government to have carried out the attacks, Professor David Ray Griffin claims that a global
"Pax Americana" was a dream held by many members of the Bush Administration. This dream was first articulated in the Defense
Planning Guidance of 1992, drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a document that has
been called "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony"and has been echoed in the writings of the neoconservatives.
In his lecture, "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," Griffin states that:
"Achieving this goal (American global hegemony) would require four things. 1. One of these was getting control of the world's
oil, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the Bush-Cheney administration came to power with plans already made
to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. 2. A second requirement was a technological transformation of the military, in which fighting
from space would become central. 3. A third requirement was an enormous increase in military spending, to pay for these new
wars and for weaponizing space. 4. A fourth need was to modify the doctrine of preemptive attack, so that America would be
able to attack other countries even if they posed no imminent threat. These four elements would, moreover, require a fifth:
an event that would make the American people ready to accept these imperialistic policies."
Some of the most widely cited writings of the neoconservatives come from the think-tank the "Project for a New American Century".
This group contained numerous members of the Bush Administration including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and
Jeb Bush. A document published in 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" called for increased spending in order to
transform the military. It goes on to say:
"This process of transformation... is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like
a new Pearl Harbor."
The War on Terror is seen by many as the pretext for achieving the goals of the neoconservatives. Jim Hoffman is among those
who claim that a key motive for 9/11 may have been to create a "perpetual threat", terrorism, to function in a similar way
to communism during the Cold War. He cites an article in the Washington Post in which Dick Cheney says of the War on Terror:
"It may never end. At least, not in our lifetime."
Since 9/11, the US government have introduced numerous acts of congress which, some people say, is an invasion of their civil
liberties and are "in direct contradiction with the US constitution". These claims normally refer to the PATRIOT Act, the
Homeland Security Bill, the militarisation of the police force, the nullification of the Posse Comitatus Act, and the changes
in laws relating to rights of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.
The New World Order
The perpetrators of the attacks are sometimes thought to be a "shadow government" controlling the White House and both major
political parties. They are also said to control certain foreign governments, global corporations and the mainstream news
media, and are referred to as the "New World Order". Some of the individuals believed to be working for this group are members
of such groups as the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group.The term itself gained
popularity following its use in the early 1990s, first by President George H W Bush when he referred to his "dream of a New
World Order" in his speech to congress on September 11, 1990, and second by David Rockefeller in a Statement to the United
Nations Business Council in September 1994:
"We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New
World Order."
The concept of this shadow government pre-dates 1990 and they are accused of being the same group of people who, among other
things, created the Federal Reserve Act (1913), supported the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), and supported the rise of the Nazi
Party in Germany, all for their own agenda. Indeed, the domestic agenda of the Bush Administration since 9/11 has been compared
to that of the Nazi Party following the Reichstag Fire of 1933.The World Bank and national central banks are said to be the
tools of the New World Order; war generates massive profits for central banks, as government spending (hence borrowing at
interest from the central banks) increases dramatically in times of war.
Oil and corporate profits
Michael Ruppert, a former narcotics officer who created the alternative news organization From the Wilderness, presented a
lecture The Truth and Lies of 9/11 in which Ruppert asserts that "the primary motive for 9/11 and subsequent wars was the
need for a pretext to launch a war for the last remaining sources of oil." He also highlights "the importance and value of
the drug trafficking industry to the global economy, estimating it to be worth almost $600 billion to Wall Street and U.S.
banks which launder the money." Ruppert speculates that "the Afghanistan opium industry, which the Taliban had practically
eliminated in 2000-2001, may have been a reason that that country was chosen as the starting point for "oil wars" in the Middle
East."
The War on Terror, particularly the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, generates massive profits for the oil, security, weapons,
insurance and defense contracting industries. Military, intelligence and security budgets have soared since 9/11. It is alleged
that drug traffickers and money launderers have benefited greatly from the invasion of Afghanistan and its opium fields. It
is thought that all these factors may be significant in explaining the success of the operation and its continued cover-up.
It has also been suggested that Larry Silverstein, the owner of the World Trade Center, may have benefited from the insurance
payouts. Silverstein purchased a 99-year lease on the complex in July 2001. Following the attacks, he sought a $7.1billion
payout, claiming that the two plane impacts were two separate attacks.The World Trade Center also contained a large amount
of asbestos that was required to be removed; some claim that the cost of carrying out this task would have been in excess
of $1 billion. It has also been claimed that the office space within the building was unprofitable and the area was in need
of urban renewal.
Plans for invasions
There are claims that the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was being planned before 9/11. On June 26, 2001, the Indian public
affairs magazine News Insight revealed plans for a joint US-Russian invasion of Afghanistan to remove the Taliban government.
It reported that India and Iran would 'facilitate' the invasion.The BBC reported on September 18, 2001 that Niaz Naik, a former
Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would
go ahead by the middle of October.MSNBC reported on May 16, 2002 that unspecified "U.S. and foreign sources" said President
George W. Bush received plans to begin a worldwide war on al-Qaeda on September 9, 2001.
Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch
a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks,
or allowing them to take place. For instance, Andreas von Bülow, a former research minister in the German government, has
argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The role of 9/11 in prompting the Afghanistan
invasion has been widely acknowledged; Tony Blair said to the Commons Liaison Committee in July 2002 that "To be truthful
about it, there was no way we could have got the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign on Afghanistan but for
what happened on September 11".
It has also been suggested that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was on President Bush's 'to-do' list from the time he was elected
into office and even before. Although the pretext for the war was that Saddam was in possession of 'weapons of mass destruction,'
some say that 9/11 was part of a plan to create a 'climate of fear' to win support for an invasion, followed by a long period
of occupation. Paul O'Neill, George Bush's first Treasury Secretary, reported that in a meeting in January 2001, the president
discussed an invasion and occupation of Iraq. "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president
saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’" O'Neill told CBS.
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