Most Americans Believe Administration Ignored 9/11 Warnings? [Updated]

By D. Cupples |  The basic definition of "conspiracy": an agreement by at least two people to do something unlawful.  That includes two men planning to rob a Circle-K or two teenagers planning to egg a house (assuming vandalism is illegal).

Despite how common conspiracies are, the phrase "conspiracy theory" evokes images of people hiding in shadows and hugging their guns, eyes constantly scanning for danger. We consider people who think  government-related conspiracy is possible as a small minority.  Apparently, such people aren't on the fringes. In an article titled "Many Americans Still Believe in Conspiracies," Scripps Howard News Service reports:

"Nearly two-thirds of Americans think it is possible that some federal officials had specific warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but chose to ignore those warnings, according to a Scripps Howard News Service/Ohio University poll." (Scripps)

Two-thirds is big: in an election, 66% of the votes is considered a landslide.  In 2004, President Bush got only 50.73% of the popular vote, and he considered that a "mandate." (FEC-1)  In 2000, Bush got only 47.87% of the popular vote, compared to Gore's 48.38% -- and Bush considered it a solid victory. (FEC-2)

If the Scripps Howard poll truly reflects American public opinion, then one of the most horrific "conspiracy theories" has made it into the mainstream. 

I don't know whether any government official intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen, but it's the Bush Administration's own fault that it has become so distrusted that Americans would even wonder. It's similar to the distrust of government that Americans felt after multiple conspiracies were exposed during the Watergate scandals.

Americans were unified by the shock and horror of 9/11, and President Bush could have strengthened that unity.  Instead, the Bush Administration (and many of its media supporters) chose to divide our nation with a you're-either-with-me-or-against-America attitude. 

A year after September 11, 2001, President Bush politicized 9/11 to the point of publicly proclaiming that Senate Democrats who criticized Bush's policies simply didn't care about national security
(CNN citing Washington Post). 

Again, agree with me all the way or you're against America. That attitude trickled down to ordinary folk: many of us were afraid to even question the president, fearing that people would point and shriek "traitor," sort of like those ghouls in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The Bush Administration even used 9/11 to persuade us ordinary folk that the U.S. had to invade Iraq, strongly implying that Saddam Hussein was linked to the 9/11 attacks.  President Bush, himself, later said that there were no links between Iraq and 9/11 (Cox News and BBC).  Unfortunately, he waited until months after we attacked Iraq to debunk that myth.

Before the Iraq invasion, Administration officials kept telling us that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, which we still haven't found after 4+ years of occupation.

As we now know, recently declassified pre-war intelligence reports that were given to the Bush Administration indicated that a war in Iraq would, in fact, be a long term endeavor. (Report pdf)  Despite the reports, President Bush had promised that the Iraq war would be short (USA Today). Two months after we invaded, he even sent the message "Mission Accomplished." (USA Today and BN-Politics)

Here we are, 4+ years later, still struggling to accomplish missions.  Worse yet, Administration officials said in September that they envisioned a long-term occupation -- kind of like Korea, where we've been for 50 + years (Washington Post).

It's not without cause that most Americans simply don't believe that they're getting the truth from the Bush Administration -- and it's not just about the war. Consider the Administration's --

- Failure to competently handle Hurricane Katrina's aftermath

- Apparent politicization of the Justice Department

- Refusal to comply with congressional subpoenas

- Legally questionable domestic surveillance programs

- Outing of a covert CIA agent after her husband criticized Bush's war policies

- Favoring of drug makers & Insurers over the taxpayers re: Medicare

- Manipulative push to privatize Social Security (to benefit Wall Streeters)....

In short, the Bush Administration has given Americans many reasons to doubt its honesty and its commitment to acting in our nation's best interest.

Law professor Mark Fenster wrote a book that I plan to buy: Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture.

Update: Along with reminding readers that some Administration officials (e.g., George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice and staff at FBI headquarters) had received warnings that Osama bin Laden planned to strike the U.S., Think Progress commented:

"The alarming nature of the Scripps poll is not that 62 percent of Americans believe the government ignored warnings of 9/11; it’s that nearly 40 percent still aren’t aware of that fact." (via Memeorandum)

Memeorandum has other bloggers' reactions to the Scripps-Howard poll: Liberal Values, Hot Air, The Van Der Galiën Gazette, Weasel Zippers, Say Anything, alicublog and Screw Loose Change.

Other BN-Politics Posts:

* Ex-CIA Officers Say there Were No WMDs &  Bush Knew It

* Experts Pooh-Pooh War Rhetoric, Candidates Still Use it

* Why do They Keep Changing Troop-Withdrawal Deadlines?

* Private Companies Milking Medicare

* Katrina Taxbreaks Go Toward Luxury Condos

* FEMA: Poor Management or Corruption?

Comments

[Charles]

I'm puzzled by this piece.

There were a at least a dozen and probably more like two dozen articles in mainstream media stating that warnings had been given to American officials published prior to 2003. Minister of Parliament Michael Meacher states that "It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks, and I am sure he's right because I have copies of newspaper articles from that period listing them out. " Even the Taliban warned American officials! (Whether American officials deliberately ignored those warnings is a judgment call, of course, but there's no conspiracism in believing that we we warned. We were.

I think the conspiracy theory is that we have a free press.

[Next: Most Americans believe Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable offenses!]

____________________________
References

1. observer.guardian.co.uk/waronterrorism/story/0,1373,788198,00.html

2. politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

[D. Cupples]

Charles -- I remember a few of those MSM articles, so you're right: there's no conspiracy involved in believing that we were warned.

I interpreted the Scripps article as suggesting that poll participants believe that some of the people who received the warnings had conspired (for their own reasons) to not respond to the warnings -- as opposed to simply not putting stock in the warnings. Of course, such beliefs are not provable.

Admittedly, I might have misinterpreted the Scripps article.

[Charles]

Typo alert: The quotes around Meacher's comment above should fall as "It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks."

DC: If the US received 11 warnings, as Meacher says, and heeded none of them, one can suspect either gross incompetence or conspiracy. Granting that such beliefs are unprovable, precisely because a complete and independent investigation of 9/11 was blocked by the Administration, it seems entirely logical for people to believe that conspiracy was "possible." The Scripps poll doesn't seem to indicate HOW likely people thought conspiracy was.