The Undetectable Suspect 

Whoever invented the “whodunit”?  None other than the famous Edgar Allen Poe.  Criminous literature, as it is referred to, had mainly focused on examining society’s flaws.  But in a kind of story-verité, the writer Poe, ever fond of analysis, delved into (by way of a serialized magazine publication) the unsolved murder of Mary Rogers – the real-life disappearance and brutal bludgeoning of a tobacconist’s assistant whose body was discovered on July 28, 1841 on the New Jersey shoreline near Hoboken.

 This was the first (and perhaps only) instance of trying to solve a crime by writing about it.  But in a surprising real-life twist as Poe was approaching his finale, the shady Mrs. Frederica Loss, a tavern owner, was accidentally shot by one of her own sons.  Her deathbed confession shed a confusing new light on Mary’s murder – an abortion gone bad, and an ensuing cover-up.  It was not what Poe had expected.

 In those early days, detective endeavors were referred to as “ratiocination,” defined as “the process of exact thinking: reasoning.”  If muddling through the details of Mary’s death and deducing who the villain was involved a process of “exact thinking,” then muddling through the evidence of the terror attack of 9/11 to determine who exactly did it would call for some ratiocination as well, would it not?  “What Poe cared about,” wrote reviewer Arthur Krystal for Harper’s January 2007 magazine, “was the unriddling or the cerebral pursuit of truth.”  In today’s mystery novels, the trail of circumstantial evidence overtly points to the wrong individual, while in suspense stories we know who the villain is and wait with baited breath for his next misdeed.

 “The formal detective story is basically one of delayed recognition,” Krystal points out.  It takes a while to get the gist of what’s happening, and one has to survey a lot of information to take the first analytical dive.  The lazy reader moseys along with the narrator, rarely jumping ahead and second-guessing the plot.  The armchair gumshoe, however, continually leaps forward, wondering this, that or the other thing.  In its essence, detection is about problem-solving, not – as psychology would have it – solving the problems of society.

 The Mystery of September 11th

 Eight years ago, we woke up to airplanes hitting the Twin Towers and their subsequent 10-second collapse.  Both of them.  Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice ... it’s not a coincidence.  While the average Joe believes what the mainstream media has blared to him about Arabs with boxcutters and the power of jet fuel, he has never stopped to wonder whether Arabs knew jet fuel fires could bring down the tallest buildings in the world when it had never happened before.  Was the disappearance of the towers a matter of luck?  The cherry on top of the sundae?

 Delayed recognition.  What that means is it takes us a while to figure it out.  And some of us have not even come close to figuring it out.  We are repeating what we have heard – a refrain: “That’s why we need a new investigation.”  We are willing to hand the deduction over – to another body of “experts” appointed by those other than ourselves.  Why not puzzle through the clues – those of identity, for a change, not causality?  For the 9/11 movement has been obsessed with proving to Joe America that the buildings came down by way of a plan, not by accident.  Not by faulty construction.  Not by a “terrorist” act that produced a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for landlord Larry Silverstein.

“The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things ... of steel and heat and terror attacks, of hidden global kings.”  A not-exactly-the-original quote from the famous pinniped of Lewis Carroll’s poem, who, along with his carpenter friend, wept at the “quantities of sand” blanketing the seashore:  “If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year – do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?  I doubt it, said the carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.”  These are the original words, and they might also pertain to the vast amounts of metaphorical “sand” artfully swept over the terrain of 9/11 such that the average reader cannot make out the key to the mystery.

 The two main rules of detective fiction: (1) When the impossible has been eliminated, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, has got to be the answer.  (2) The stranger the crime, the simpler the solution.

 In the various alternative 9/11 stories, we have Arab-patsy hijackers and a corrupt government ordering an air-defense standdown as explosives go off in the Twin Towers, the “wrong” tower being leveled first.  We also have remote-control aircraft being switched for passenger airliners or (even more bizarre) nothing at all being “flown into” the towers, with media footage altered to show “planes.”  Factions of self-proclaimed researchers and their fans argue long and loud on forums and websites, driving newcomers away.  Who are these people with their funny names and bellicose natures?

Thinking Things Through

Detective fiction joins an expert (the gumshoe) with a willing but not-so-sharp narrator who “somewhat uncomprehendingly follows the action,” Krystal notes.  “The [detective’s] intelligence, recondite interests, and specialized knowledge make him superior to the local constabulary” ... meaning it takes a Ferrari to finish this race.  The detective’s mega-cylinder engine, working in and through its vehicle – the narrator – chauffeurs us to the story’s surprising destination: an answer we never in a million years would have arrived at ourselves.  But it is the narrator who controls the journey, whose release and arrangement of facts in the story’s paragraphs, pages and chapters feed us – the reader – with the building blocks for the temple of revelation, the final unveiling of which is the long-awaited and unforgettable prize.  So it is with the genre of mystery – a selective construction: He who offers his attention must wait for the picture to become clear, but he will not be shown the correct picture until he has been made to wait nearly longer than he can bear.

 They say you really find out what’s happening by reading the small articles buried in the back pages of the newspaper.  Developments that are deliberately given little attention, while the headlines consist of information someone badly wants you to know.  It takes a bit of ratiocination to reverse the significance of these two kinds of articles – imagining a different front page with an entirely different selection of stories.

 On September 11th, 2001, “Middle Eastern” men were arrested in a van containing “Arab” clothing and explosives.  Instead of being the screaming lead story of the following day – for we had our terrorists, did we not? – the incident was of little significance to the authorities, who were busy making plans to look for Osama bin Laden.  Following September 11th, dozens of “Middle Eastern” individuals were rounded up by the FBI and held in custody for some 60 days.  Who were these Middle Easterners?  Israeli spies – tracking Al Qaeda – we were finally told.  The van full of Middle Easterners also turned out to contain Israeli spies – Mossad agents who had been operating from a fake business in New Jersey known as Urban Moving Systems.

The “Art Students”

Let us think “exactly” here, as ratiocination requires.  The Mossad is Israel’s intelligence service.  Mossad agents, dozens of them, were actually arrested in America on and after 9/11, held in custody and then quietly returned to Israel.  They had been posing as artists.  They had even penetrated security at the Pentagon and were spotted walking around with their “portfolios.”  Landlord Larry Silverstein of the Twin Towers had given permission for a group of them to come in and out of the towers with security passes to work on an “art project,” which involved building a balcony on one of the towers’ upper floors.  Now as a detective with a big, powerful brain, you might pause and give this some thought.  “Hmm – that’s a bit strange.  Why were ‘spies’ walking in and out of the Twin Towers?  If they were spies and only posing as artists, then they were engaged in spying activities in the Twin Towers, undoubtedly, but what would they be spying on?  What happened at the Twin Towers?  Why, they were blown up!  Now, could it be possible that the Mossad ‘spies’ were ‘spying on’ the demolition activities?  Well, it’s possible!  But that would mean they had foreknowledge of the demolition, wouldn’t it?  And foreknowledge is ... Well, foreknowledge means they knew about it.”

 So now, as the ratiocinating detective, let’s look at another little thing that was in the back of the newspaper somewhere.  This was before 9/11/01, when Israel warned America that a terrorist attack on American soil was in the works.  How did they know?  More of that foreknowledge again.

 Let’s continue our ratiocination.  Israel’s intelligence agents were spying in the Twin Towers and officially warned America of the impending terror attack that took 3000 lives (and more, because those who cleaned up are now dying from the toxic debris).  Could they have ratiocinated the terror attack?  Another funny bit of news: Israeli companies renting space in the Twin Towers moved out right before 9/11/01.  Were the Israeli spies kind enough to warn the Israeli tenants?  Why did they not warn anyone else?

 Oh, but they did.  The Mossad told the American government, but President Bush paid no attention.  The difference between the warning to Israeli tenants in the towers and to the White House was a matter of specifics: Obviously, the warning to the WTC tenants was a little more detailed – e.g., “better find other offices – something’s going to happen here.”

Follow the Money

There are other bits and pieces that made it to the back of the papers.  For instance, the Rabbi Dov Zakheim, who was CFO of the Pentagon and on whose watch some $2.3 trillion disappeared.  Donald Rumsfeld announced this missing money to the world on September 10, 2001, and joked about it.  The following day, a wing of the Pentagon was destroyed in one of the 9/11 “attacks,” and it just happened to be unoccupied – except for a few offices in which investigators were looking into the missing funds.  Thirty-four accountants lost their lives.

 Coincidence?  Our megawatt detective would surely have his doubts!  By this time, clues to Rabbi Dov Zakheim can be seen piling up.  He was also in charge of the U.S. military’s flight termination systems – otherwise known as remote-controlled aircraft technology.  The name of the subcontractor: Systems Planning Corporation.  What kind of systems would these be?  9/11 analysts have posited that whatever hit the towers was operated by remote control and might not have been passenger planes, as none of the right kind of airplane debris was found in the rubble or dust.

 Speaking of “spies,” could it be that the hijacker Arab patsies were from a little non-Arab country?  A back-page newspaper story mentioned the hijackers’ “stolen identities,” and nine of the supposed villains indignantly informed the BBC that they were still alive and well in their native Arab countries – not dead by any means!  Did any U.S. news agency look into this?

 Curiouser and curiouser, as Lewis Carroll would say.  Our detective, in the manner of any good detective, might wish to question the Rabbi Dov Zakheim – just for the sake of curiosity.  After all, the art of detection calls for one to eliminate.  Where is the good Rabbi Dov Zakheim today?  Well, not very long after 9/11, he took off for Israel, where he lives to this day.  And we have never found out what happened to all that missing money.

 Landlord Larry Silverstein leads to another tidy cash pot.  He who took care to re-craft his insurance policies before taking possession of his new acquisition.  Insurance and re-insurance!  A special clause for “acts of terrorism.”  Who would have thought of that?  Well, Watson, after the basement bomb in 1993 ...  Ah, yes, but ... when a “husband” takes out a large insurance policy on his wife and she is soon found dead under suspicious circumstances, doesn’t one look carefully at the hubby for motive?  Silverstein’s “wives” (the Twins) did meet a rather speedy and peculiar demise, did they not?

 And yes, another red herring – Securacom!  The Twins’ landlord engaged the Kroll Security Group to take care of his property.  Securacom, my dear Watson, was over and done with in 2000, but for some reason people annoyingly keep pointing at it.  Why isn’t anyone taking notice of Kroll?  And whatever happened to John O’Neill? We know that his counter-terrorism work at the FBI brought him damn close to sniffing out the real meaning of “Al Qaeda,” but suddenly he was given an entirely different job!  Security director at the Twin Towers, scheduled to start on the auspicious day of September 11th.  He didn’t get very far, needless to say.  Awfully convenient, that was!  And, did you know his body was one of only 13 found intact in the rubble?  Do you suppose someone might have put it there?  Taking no chances that he might get out alive ...

 A New Pearl Harbor

Following the edict of history’s second grand mystery writer, Arthur Conan Doyle, our hero – the detective – functions as the arrow to “the truth.”  It is the writer, disguised as the narrator, who leads us in his own (sometimes irritating) peripatetic way to this center-of-the-earth crystalline gem.  Says Krystal: “As Poe saw it, and as Arthur Conan Doyle restated it, the pure story of detection is about problem-solving.”  In other words, who did it?  Not why did he do it, or how did he do it – just who the heck did it?

 As long as the writer/narrator does not wish to lead us to the true villain, we will not know who [the heck] he is.  As long as the writer/narrator desires to yank us around with a clutch of red herrings (false clues) we will snatch them up like good little readers and have that many more puzzle pieces rattling around in our minds.  He may throw in plenty of false suspects – the Saudis, the Pakistani ISI, the British MI5 – and have us imaginatively trying to make these pieces fit ... while he enjoys our gullibility, our manipulability, our willingness to let him lead us by the nose.  Far, far away from who did it.

 A new Pearl Harbor.  The biggest names in the 9/11 movement have often quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski’s thinly veiled prediction/recommendation, never mentioning that these famous words came whipping out of a Leo-Straussian hat – from the mouths of students (Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith) training for their future Neocon days.  The “new Pearl Harbor” served as a launching pad for the Global War on Terror, also referred to constantly by 9/11 researchers, but never are we reminded that “terrorism” was fathered by Zionists in Palestine and proudly proclaimed so by Menachem Begin after the attack on British security at the King David Hotel.  The year was 1946.  Such were the colors of unborn Israel.

 Upon being informed that 9/11 clues lead rather strongly to one now 61-year-old nation (usually referred to as a “state” – either the 51st American state or a Rothschild-created state for 20th-century political purposes), one New Yorker retorted: “I’m a Jew, and I’m offended that you’re saying Israel was involved in 9/11.”  Hmm, our detective muses.  “I find that offensive.”  Readers are not going to like this new direction.  How do I convey that the clues lead to a suspect my audience has been conditioned to be nice to?

 And now it makes sense to him that his narrator has been yanking him this way and that.  Eight years after the crime, the sidetracking has certainly been dragging on.  But he finally gets it, our fine detective!  Himself a bit of a Johnny Come Lately, he understands why his narrator has repeated the red herrings with so little regard for that crucial element of every story – the building of suspense.  It is simply not kosher to let this particular wildcat out of the bag.  Vicious?  Dangerous?  All that, and protected.

The Bottom Line

A readership repeating the drum roll for truth – but unable to stomach the bottom line.  “If seven maids with seven mops swept it for half a year – do you suppose, the walrus said, that they could get it clear?”  In this particular tale, the detective comes to realize it might not be possible for all to make it to the ending – one might have to sack the narrator and go it alone.  What then, my dear Watson, is our narrator’s agenda?

 Well, sir, it does seem like he wants to keep us from solving the mystery!  Whatever for, Watson?  We must have a cigar to ponder this!

 Some stories are never ended.  Some stories circle forever like a dog biting its tail.  The 9/11 tale may be one of those closed circuits – a feedback loop that keeps returning to its point of origin.  When told that 9/11 was “an inside job” – a turn of phrase often used to denote false-flag or state-sponsored terror – most ordinary Americans want to know who did it.  Just like any reader of a mystery story, albeit in a rush for the answer.  Tougher than nails it is to have them believe it was their own government – murdering its very own people.  For this reason alone, most good Americans dismiss well-intentioned conspiracy theorists anxious to wake their countrymen up.

 “Why would our government do that?” the tin-foil-hatter is indignantly asked.  Responses about the War on Terror (for oil and expansion of empire) and the Patriot Act (for the police state) are too far-flung, possibly because the Middle East itself is distant and the police state has not noticeably arrived.  Thus the well-intentioned conspiracy theorist must stubbornly return to the subject of controlled demolition and the need for a new investigation, neither of which – with eight years gone by – compels his listener’s understanding or sympathy.  “I want to know who did it,” his listener insists.  “I want to know who in our government did it.  Who put the bombs in the buildings?”  And the Truther dolefully shakes his head.  “We don’t really know who did it – that’s why we need a new investigation.”

 New York Truthers recently resolved to put their energies into arranging for a new investigation with subpoena power.  Two years of signature gathering for a petition to introduce a ballot initiative that City voters could support resulted in the proverbial door shutting with a big bang – not once but twice – as the City Clerk disqualified half the signatures and a judge disallowed the petition itself in a New York State court on so-called “legal grounds.”  Sorry.  No.  Truthers across the country were demoralized, even outraged.  “The will of the people is again ignored!” emails protested as they flew about the Internet.

 Apparent in the real story – which is a mystery story, at its font – is the architecture of this closed-loop repetition: The need for an investigation and the prevention of that investigation.  Will 9/11 recede into history trailed by a dismal refrain?  “We need a new investigation, but we were never allowed to have an investigation.”  Ah, yes.  So we have never found out who, because a proper investigation would have undoubtedly led to who.

 Strangely, the leaders of the movement seem much more interested in how than in who, lamely explaining that if we determine how it will then show us who.  But is that true?  So far our ranks have only succeeded in arguing about how – all kinds of how’s and their discussions taking up server space.  And because the wandering path of the mystery continually trails the red-herring suspects, we have not spent much time arguing about who until the emergence of the video “9/11 Missing Links.”  And now comes the silence.  One truth-group leader announced it “very dangerous” to discuss the subject of a certain country having ties to the false-flag attack of September 11th.  A certain country America has given billions in aid to, known to the world as America’s best friend.  What did Caesar say?  Et tu, Brute?

 Very dangerous.  The presumption would be that it is not so dangerous to discuss the implication of “our own government” in the attacks of 9/11?  Why?  Because it’s not as true?

 One must stop to wonder.  I say, Watson, this narrator seems to be avoiding the stones we should be lifting up and having a look under.  From the famous book by Thomas Harris titled “The Silence of the Lambs,” we now have “The Silence of the Narrator,” and as the detective himself unearths yet more clues pointing to a particular suspect, we again have “The Silence of the Lambs.”  For the well-meaning Truthers never expected to have discoveries lead to quite so dangerous a suspect, or quite such an undetectable one.

 Cui Bono

 Who benefits, as they ask in Latin.  Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “We are benefitting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.”  Is he also saying: “We have successfully pointed the finger at the wrong suspect, away from us?”  The lambs have been nicely conditioned.  They cannot turn their heads toward an entirely different ending to the story.  Et tu, Brute.  It was Caesar’s last breath as he died.

 Impassioned cooks will tell us, “If you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen.”  A cook does not desert his own kitchen because of a little heat.  He is compelled to keep cooking.  He is there to cook.  As dedicated detectives immersed in the mystery of September 11th, we should summon up the courage (if we lack it at all) to follow the evidence and clues where they lead us.  As readers of the mystery story, we should try to withstand the heat – or the danger – of the discoveries.  And as narrators, we should not avoid the unmistakable direction of particular clues.  A good whodunit always has a surprising ending.  Working backwards, it makes a pile of sense.  If only you could have seen it going in!  But such is the effect of a masterful cover-up ...