Guest blogging can plunge one into strange waters. Wanting to live up to Matt, I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to hear David Ray Griffin, a well-known process theologian (no, I didn’t know what that was until I looked up) who is currently better known for his book The New Pearl Harbor and his work with the 9/11 Truth Movement .

The 9/11 Truth Movement could be said to embrace everyone who still has questions about what really happened on 9/11 (which includes me and almost everyone I know), so I found this article helpful in surveying the range of beliefs and the disagreements within the movement. I went to the speech believing that we don’t know everything about 9/11, and that there are legitimate questions still to be answered. I had not seen much in Dr. Griffin’s interviews or comments that convinced me his approach was likely to yield reliable information, but since many articles said he was a persuasive speaker, I thought hearing him “live” might be fascinating or at least challenging. I was disappointed.

My original plan was to respond, not so much to Dr. Griffin’s theories as to his thinking process in arriving at those theories (though he often claims not to have a theory, but just questions). I can’t do it. He spoke for an hour and a quarter, and practically every other sentence involved a reasoning error. He concentrated on one topic (and one certainly worth further investigation): how was it that none of the four hijacked planes was intercepted on 9/11? His conclusion – that NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) had to have been ordered either to stand down or “slow down” in order to permit the 9/11 attacks to occur was based largely on the rather shaky premise that the FAA and NORAD regularly function at such high levels of efficiency and cooperation that the errors and confusions documented simply could not have occurred in the absence of such an order.

I agree that failing to intercept even one of four hijacked flights within a span of a few hours, in a relatively limited geographical area, on a single day, is astonishing, disgraceful, and worthy of further investigation. What I can’t rely on is the belief that only an extraordinary order could cause confusion, inefficiency and error among many people in different government agencies. Dr. Griffin, let me murmur two words in your ear: Hurricane Katrina. (Yes, I am indeed truncating Dr. Griffin’s lengthy arguments, but I am also truncating what would have been my equally lengthy responses. Be thankful. Be very thankful.)

No, this post isn’t really about Dr. Griffin’s work or the larger issue of exposing all the truths about 9/11. I left Dr. Griffin’s speech feeling that he was a distraction – seductive, glittering, and convoluted – from the sad, repetitive truth about the all too obvious crimes of the Bush administration. We know this administration could and should have known enough to prevent much, if not all, of what happened on 9/11. We know that someone, possibly several someones, leaked the name of a CIA agent – endangering her, and everyone she had contact with in her work abroad. We know intelligence was “fixed” to lead a shamefully compliant Congress to support an illogical and illegal war. We know there was never a credible plan for that war past its initial attacks. We know that the money to provide health care, education, housing and food to many who desperately need all these things has been sucked up by the war. We know our economy is foundering on an incredible deficit built on the theory that “to [them] that hath, more shall be given.” We know that four years, a new cabinet-level agency, and huge amounts of money after 9/11, our government could not manage the most basic tasks in response to a long-anticipated natural disaster – even with a week’s notice. And we know that all these crimes – whether of omission or commission – are the result of a corrupt response to the contract our government makes with us: that our officials, and the people they put in positions of power and responsibility are here to “form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…”

Elaborate conspiracy theories are compelling: they involve our creative thinking and mine our deep fears. Corruption is boring: it happens so often, on so many levels, for such tawdry reasons. We are tired of vigilance, investigation, the slow process of the judicial system and the indifference of the mainstream media. Why not focus on something that really grabs attention?

We have forgotten the oldest meaning of corruption: “decomposition as a consequence of death.” Matt posted disturbing pictures of Katrina’s dead to remind us. The results of the illegal, unethical, immoral actions of this administration — the cronyism that gives the incompetent and uncaring the power to let helpless people die — the eagerness to “drown in a bathtub” the governmental services promised to protect us? Thousands of rotting bodies. A mound of putrefaction. An ineradicable stench of death. And it’s not over.

We will not — we cannot — get an unfettered investigation of 9/11 while George W. Bush or any of his cohort hold power. Surely our first obligation, our focus now, must be to arrest the death and destruction caused by this indifferent, incompetent and malevolent administration. Yes, I want to know what happened on 9/11. But first I want to be sure that our government is not still sending more victims to join those already sacrificed.

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