Karl Klockars

Preface:  I don’t actually believe in all the loopy “second gunman on the grassy knoll” or “9/11 was an inside job” beliefs out there, lest anyone get confused.  I’ve written about the Truthers plenty before this but I’m sure the following hunk of text might imply I could believe the rantings of crazy folks.  Untrue.  I prefer to make up my own crazy and dispense with the middleman.

When the news broke about the shootings in Fort Hood, it was early in the afternoon and news was coming out hard and fast.  While national reporters were rushing to get their cameras to the front gate for their morning-show standup reports, the local guys were moving fast and furious to get the information out by hook, by crook or by Twitter, which was where I was getting most of my updates that I was feeding into our newsroom.

The one thing that’s stuck in my head was the information that there was (at the time) “most likely” two or three shooters.  Here we sit a few weeks out from the event, and can you tell me how many times you’ve heard that information discussed – or even denied?  I cannot, and I don’t even recall hearing anyone even mention that information 24 hours after the event.  Not even to clarify.

This lead the paranoid hunk of my brain to start thinking:  What if it’s a plot?  What if the truth is that they had the other two guys, and there’s been a complete blackout – to keep us from being afraid?  What if they’re shoving this news under the rug just to keep the opposition from achieving their true goal: actual terror?

I first had this idea this summer when an Air France plane went down in the middle of the ocean and basically disappeared.  There was no radio transmissions, no info, no hope for the black box to be recovered.  Things were so confusing that it even took a few days for commentators to start throwing around the idea that it could have been terrorism.  It was then that I thought, “If it was, and no one ever knew that it was a violent act, would it be the worst thing in the world to cover up?”

Religious sideline:  Granted, if you take the people committing terrorist acts in the name of Islam at their face value, what they really want is to achieve paradise through the twisted agenda of loopy clerics.  They may or may not have the idea in the front of their mind that they’re “terrorizing” anyone.  They’re just doing what they’re told.

But:  out here in the real world, the act of blowing something up with innocent victims as the targets – that’s a pretty terrorizing thing.  So if the most potent outcome of one of these attacks is their political effects via said fear and terror…if it never happens in the eyes of the rest of the world, it completely neuters the effect of the act.

So would it be a bad thing to hide it?  Would the truth of the situation, even if it affects dozens of families, be better to hide if the effect of the act would have longterm effects for a state, a province, a nation?  Would removing the heart of their violent act be better in the long run, even if it involves some skullduggery and treachery in the short term?

If, in 30 years, someone files a Freedom of Information Act and finds out that there were 3 shooters at Fort Hood and that there was an explosive device on that airline, but they were hushed up so that the world wouldn’t collectively freak out – there’s a chance that I could get behind that.

Then the part of my brain that extrapolates crazy ideas like this gets moving.  What happens when the original masterminds, tired of being swept underneath the rug, decide enough is enough and plan out and commit an attack that can’t be ignored?  Would it build to that? 

And is it right to lie to people about the circumstances in which their loved ones actually died?  God knows that we’ve spent enough time haggling over JFK – nothing is perfect, no “conspiracy” to hide an act of terror would ever be free of loose ends, and do we need decades of handwringing about our Government lying to us over and over again?

No, I don’t.

Even though the idea to neutralize the intended effect of a terror attack is tempting, in the end I think it’d be more trouble than it’s worth.  Something would break down along the way, and then on top of the implications of the actual act, we’d once again have to face a situation where our Government wasn’t up front with us.  Even if they could completely sweep 9/11 off the face of our collective memories and claim it was just a terrible aviation accident, it wouldn’t be worth it.  Because the truth would eventually come out.

Unfortunately, we live in reality, which is imperfect and often unfair.  Conspiracy theories are often attempts to make sense of the insane and to try to find a little bit of control in an off-the-rails world, or just to feel better having someone to blame.  Even though my own personal good-at-heart conspiracy theory might have its intentions in the right place, I can’t actually pull the trigger and choose to believe it. 

Not until I file that FOIA in 2039, that is.