As mentioned in previous reviews, I find Griffin's books dealing with the destruction of the World Trade Center and other events of 9/11 profoundly important and completely convincing. Although I have not read them all, the two that I have reviewed for Amazon, "Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11" (reviewed July 16, 2013) and "9/11 Ten Years Later" (reviewed August 10), share in the general superior quality of Griffin's presentation.
There is an inevitable redundancy in Griffin's narratives. As the evidence accumulates that the "official conspiracy theory" produced by the government's "9/11 Commission" is a complete fabrication, and yet the mainline media flagrantly ignore this evidence, Griffin and others in the 9/11 Truth Movement feel compelled to continue to reiterate the obvious in the hope that somehow, somewhere, there will be a breakthrough. I am very familiar with that feeling. Both as a parent and as a teacher, I often found myself trying "just once more" to get a point across by repetition despite the obvious "psychic deafness" of those I was trying to inform and persuade. The only reason I did not award this book five stars is that I believe that redundancy could be a bit "off-putting" to the "already convinced".
This book is in fact written as a rebuttal of an essay entitled "Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures" which was published in the Journal of Political Philosophy in July, 2009 by Cass R. Sunstein, co-authored by Adrian Vermuele. As Griffin notes in his introduction, Sunstein has extraordinary credentials, having been the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, and subsequently named by President Obama as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
On the surface, or "exoterically" as Griffin explains, Sunstein's essay is totally lacking in either scholarly integrity or legal validity. As other commentators have asserted, it can only serve to throw a terrible pall over this law professor's entire academic credibility. Sunstein's main recommendation, which is what gives rise to the title of Griffin's book, is that the government should attempt "cognitive infiltration" of a group proposing an alternative "conspiracy theory" to the officially accepted story - in this case, of course, the 9/11 Truth Movement. This would, presumably, involve placing federal undercover agents into various branches of the Movement in an attempt to either sway their beliefs or neutralize their efforts by causing dissention and confusion.
After a point-by-point analysis of Sunstein's entire essay, in which he suggests the possibility that it is a cleverly-coded statement of the exact opposite of what it purports to be, and is in fact a clandestine attack NOT on the Truth Movement but rather on the "9/11 Commission Conspiracy Theory", however, Griffin admits that this is rather more wishful thinking than reality. In his concluding comment, though, he says:
"In view of the falsity of Sunstein's argument and the illegality of his proposals, must defenders of the official 9/11 conspiracy theory not ask themselves: If this is the best plan for dealing with the growing influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement that can be devised by `the pre-eminent legal scholar of our time,' is it not time to throw in the towel?"
It has been my profound hope since the election of President Obama that there would indeed by a new, TRULY INDEPENDENT commission appointed to re-open the investigation of the alleged Al Qaeda attacks of 9/11. I read and was convinced by Griffin's masterful "Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11" BEFORE the 2008 election that eliminated the immediate threat of the neocons of the Bush-Cheney administration. I have been profoundly saddened that no such effort appears to have occurred, and indeed, that such things as the Patriot Act and the predations of Homeland Security and the NSA have perhaps even escalated on domestic soil, while the drone program and other abuses have not abated in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Unlike the conspiracy to murder President Kennedy, which only now on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of that event is beginning to receive some major attention, the 9/11 event was not so much an act of private ambition and/or revenge, but truly a SCAD - a state crime against democracy. As such, I believe, it is absolutely essential that the truth be investigated and discussed, if we have any hope whatsoever of salvaging the political soul of the United States of America.
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