I post this diary with full knowledge that it will apparently result in my being banned from Daily Kos. If critical discussion of the roots of U.S. foreign policy and its contradictions are sufficient to get me banned from Daily Kos, then all I can say is, I really want nothing more to do with Daily Kos. In fact, if this gets me banned, then whoever is making this judgement is anything but progressive, but instead, geared towards simply reinforcing conventional wisdom.
The impetus behind this diary is a notice that I would be barred from posting on Daily Kos until I acknowledged the warning for posting the following comments in response to This diary by La Feminista (thanks btw to La Feminista for taking the time to respond my diary in a thoughtful way).
Firstly, as is clear from my comments, I did not advocate anything remotely resembling a "truther" or "conspiracy theory" of 9/11. I made it quite clear in fact that I rejected what are standard "conspiracy theory" interpretations of 9/11. Either, whoever reads and determines what constitutes violation of the "conspiracy theory ban" can't understand the difference between genuine inquiry based in theories of International Political Economy, or there is some kind of filter that just does word searches instead of actually reading a diary.
For the record (as I said before): the following are my views on 9/11. The U.S. was attacked by a network of radical extremists whose ideology is shaped by Salafist revivalism (otherwise known as Al Quaeda). As I said in my diary I reject the hypothesis that any entity knowingly detonated explosives inside the twin towers, or that the operation was planned, carried out, or executed by any entity other than Al Quaeda. Furthermore, I reject the validity of "conspiracy theories" as valid social science inquiry for many reasons. And I made this quite clear in my diary.
In place of conspiracy theories I would suggest instead that we look to theories based on C. Wright Mill's concept of The Power Elite. Also, as I stated in my diary, I think that we can examine and understand international geo-political events best through the concepts of World Systems Theory and from the better parts of Realism as articulated by historians such as Paul Kennedy.
If we put 9/11 in the context of International Political Economy theory and of what evidence we do have, we can reject the neo-con narrative of "they hate us for our freedom" (is this what gets me banned until I "acknowledge" the "correction"? Pop quiz to Kos-what arm of the U.S. government helped to midwife the birth of death squads in Vietnam, Guatemala and El Salvador? And how does Obama's recent defense of the U.S. right to Entirely disregard the Constitution and Law of War fit into this? And why is Kos apparently defending the neo-can narrative?
For the record: U.S. intelligence, Saudi intelligence and Pakistani intelligence did in fact sponsor and "gin up" Salafist revivalist extremists in the 1980's. And while Pakistani intelligence was busy sponsoring AQ and the Taliban, as amply documented by Ahmed Rashid, the U.S. did in point of fact continue to support Pakistan's military establishment. And in point of fact, the U.S. government did indeed receive a memo entitled "Osama determined to strike within the U.S." and since that strike, as Glenn Greenwald has so ably demonstrated, the Republic began to die. That does not mean that I believe that the U.S. government or Mossad carried out 9/11 as I made clear.
But the policy seems to be that only should people deemed "kooks" or "wackos" be banned from posting, but that sober, evidence based analysis rooted in IPE theory of the events of 9/11 will not be allowed either.
So, sorry Kos-we were not attacked on 9/11 because as the Neo-Cons assert "they hate us for our freedom", but as many more thoughtful analysts and academics such as Juan Cole have documented because of complex geo-political reasons about the long, complex history of U.S.-MidEast relations.
So, if thinking that people who seem to have reason to doubt the official narrative of "they hate us for our freedom" such as Sibel Edmonds gets me banned, then so be it.
If posting these ideas on Daily Kos gets me banned-then again, fuck you Kos-you are showing an amazing capacity to fail to distinguish between geo-political analysis and "conspiracy theories". And if you are going to ban me, then at least read what I say.
And to those who assert that Kos has the right to ban anyone he wants for whatever reason he wants, I never said otherwise.