The 2010 lecture “9/11: The Blueprint for Truth — The Architecture of Destruction”, presented by Richard Gage, an engineer who is also a member of the organization Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, questions the official government and mainstream media narrative surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2011. The majority of the video is dedicated to arguing against the government’s position from the perspective of engineering and science, questioning the possibility that the Twin Towers in New York City could have collapsed in the manner they did after being struck by passenger airline jets. In particular, the video argues for some type of explosives contained within the Twin Towers, which contributed to their collapse in such a spectacular and cinematic fashion. The ascertainment of the credibility of Gage’s scientific and engineering arguments clearly rely upon expertise in these areas. However, Gage’s argument is not entirely based on such arguments. At the very outset of the speech, he mentions that the 9/11 attacks were used as a “pretext for two wars” (Gage, 2010), namely, the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, the 9/11 events served as a catalyst for aggressive American foreign policy decisions. From this perspective, the 9/11 terrorist attacks can be argued to provide a ius ad bellum for the American administration, apparently giving it the right to attack other countries from an ethical perspective, while also infringing on individual rights. In this regard, the official narrative of 9/11 becomes questionable, in so far as the U.S. is no longer the “victim” from this perspective, but rather, in Gage’s terms, a “pretext” is established for U.S. political authorities to increase their political hegemony.
After the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. declared a “War on Terror.” The ambiguity of the phrase of “War on Terror” itself suggests the extent to which the terrorist attacks served as a pretext: who or exactly what is a terrorist? Gage makes this point when he states in his lecture that it is possible, to paraphrase, for the government to potentially accuse anyone of being a terrorist. Accordingly, precisely who the U.S. government was at war with in a “War on Terror” is unclear: in this sense, this supports the “pretext” thesis, since, because of these attacks, the U.S. can take an aggressive position towards any state, organization or individual, who it deems to be a terrorist. From the perspective of power politics, the War on Terror increased U.S. hegemony, giving it a right to invade foreign countries or even waive constitutional rights, such as in the Patriot Act. In other words, the 9-11 attacks satisfy what we can call the “pretext” theory, to the extent that the U.S. government gained in terms of real political power as a result of these terrorist attacks. The question is: who was the real “victor” of these attacks, who did they benefit the most? If this is answered in terms of the U.S. government, then the official narrative about the U.S. being the “victims” of these attacks seems entirely debatable.
Use your promo and get a custom paper on
"9/11: The Blueprint for Truth".
The counterargument to such a position is that the U.S. took entirely reasonable steps after such a devastating attack. The focus of U.S. policy, from this perspective, is based on prevention of further such attacks. However, a closer analysis of the U.S. decisions after 9-11 places this narrative in question. For example, the War on Iraq was promoted by the U.S. on the basis of Hussein’s attachments to terrorism and possession of weapons of mass destruction, whereas the latter were never found and the former are dubious. Furthermore, as Gage notes, if the engineering evidence does not hold up, then the official U.S. government statements become dubious, and, logically, we must question the other policy decisions directly related to 9-11.
In this respect, there are two compelling reasons to question the 9-11 attacks and the official narrative of the U.S. government. The first, as Gage focuses on, is to concentrate on the scientific weaknesses in the official accounts of, for example, NIST, about what happened. The second is to place these scientific events in a greater political perspective, which asks the question: who benefitted the most from the terrorist attacks? To the extent that 9-11 has led to the U.S. inciting war and chaos worldwide for over a decade now, the answer to this latter question appears obvious.
- Gage, Richard. “9/11: The Blueprint for Truth — The Architecture of Destruction.” Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth: 2010.
