State Crimes Against Democracy

New research in the journal American Behavioral Scientist (Sage publications, February 2010) addresses the concept of “State Crimes Against Democracy” (SCAD). Professor Lance deHaven-Smith from Florida State University writes that SCADs involve highlevel government officials, often in combination with private interests, that engage in covert activities for political advantages and power. Proven SCADs since World War II include McCarthyism (fabrication of evidence of a communist infiltration), Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (President Johnson and Robert McNamara falsely claimed North Vietnam attacked a US ship), burglary of the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist in effort to discredit Ellsberg, the Watergate break-in, Iran-Contra, Florida’s 2000 Election (felon disenfranchisement program), and fixed intelligence on WMDs to justify the Iraq War.1

Other suspected SCADs include the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooting of George Wallace, the October Surprise near the end of the Carter presidency, military grade anthrax mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, Martin Luther King’s assassination, and the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The proven SCADs have a long trail of congressional hearings, public records, and academic research establishing the truth of the activities. The suspected SCADs listed above have substantial evidence of covert actions with countervailing deniability that tend to leave the facts in dispute.2

The term “conspiracy theory” is often used to denigrate and discredit inquiry into the veracity of suspected SCADs. Labeling SCAD research as “conspiracy theory” is an effective method of preventing ongoing investigations from being reported in the corporate media and keep them outside of broader public scrutiny. Psychologist Laurie Manwell, University of Guelph, addresses the psychological advantage that SCAD actors hold in the public sphere. Manwell, writing in American Behavioral Scientist (Sage 2010) states, “research shows that people are far less willing to examine information that disputes, rather than confirms, their beliefs . . . pre-existing beliefs can interfere with
SCADs inquiry, especially in regards to September 11, 2001.”3

Professor Steven Hoffman, visiting scholar at the University of Buffalo, recently acknowledged this phenomenon in a study “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification.” Hoffman concluded, “Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as ‘motivated reasoning,’ which suggests that rather than
search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe. In fact, for the most part people completely ignore contrary information.”4

Sometimes even new academic research goes largely unreported when the work contradicts prevailing understandings of recent historical events. A specific case of unreported academic research is the peer reviewed journal article from Open Chemical Physics Journal (Volume 2, 2009), entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust for the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe.” In the abstract the authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled
demolitions of buildings.5

National Medal of Science recipient (1999) Professor Lynn Margulis from the Department of Geosciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is one of many academics who supports further open investigative research in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Margulis recently wrote in Rock Creek Free Press, “all three buildings were destroyed by carefully planned, orchestrated and executed controlled demolition.”6 Richard Gage, AIA, architect and founder of the non-profit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Inc. (AE911Truth), announced a decisive milestone February 19, 2010 at a press conference in San Francisco, CA. More than 1,000 architects and
engineers worldwide now support the call for a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center complex on September 11, 2001.7

Credible scientific evidence brings into question the possibility that some aspects of the events of 9/11 involved State Crimes Against Democracy. Psychologically this is a very hard concept for Americans to even consider. However, ignoring the issue in the context of multiple proven SCADs since World War II seems far more dangerous for
democracy than the consequences of future scientific inquiry and transparent, fact-based investigative reporting. Anything short of complete, open discourse based on all the evidence about these critical issues in our society relating to the possible continuation of SCADs is simply a matter of censorship.8
________________________________________________________________________

Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University, President of Media
Freedom Foundation/Project Censored, former director of Project Censored, and coeditor
of Censored 2010.
Mickey Huff is associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, Director of
Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation, and co-editor of Censored 2010.

________________________________________________________________________

1 Lance deHaven-Smith, “Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in
American Government,” American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February,
2010): pp. 795-825. For more studies on SCADs and related issues see all articles for
American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010),
online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/.

For more background reading on this subject with specifics on the controversial
cases mentioned in this paragraph, see the following scholarly works: Robert Abele, The
Anatomy of a Deception: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq
(New York: University Press of America, 2010); Bob Coen and Eric Nadler, Dead
Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2009);
Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (New York:
Viking Adult, 2002); Steve Freeman and Joel Bleifuss, Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Exit Polls, Election Fraud, and the Official Count (New York: Seven Stories Press,
2006); Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate.
(Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987); David Ray Griffin, The
Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11
Is Unscientific and False (New York: Olive Branch press, 2008); Mark Crispin Miller,
Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 (New
York: Ig Publishing, 2008); Kenneth O’Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans: The FBI,
HUAC, and the Red Menace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983); Robert
Parry, Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery (New York: Sheridan Square
Press, 1993); William Pepper, An Act of State: The Execution of Marin Luther King
(Updated) (New York: Verso, 2008); Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of
Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York: Tarcher
and Penguin, 2003); selected works of Peter Dale Scott, including Deep Politics and the
Death of JFK (1993, 1996), Drugs Oil and War (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield,
March 2003), The Road to 9/11 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and The
War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11, and the Deep Politics of War (Ipswich, MA: Mary Ferrell
Foundation Press, 2008); Norman Solomon, War Made Easy: How Presidents and
Pundits Keep Spinning us to Death (New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2005);
Lawrence Walsh, Firewall: The Iran-Contra Conspiracy and Cover-up (New York:
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997); Gary Webb, Dark Alliance: The CIA, The
Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2nd Edition,
2003);
2 Ibid.
3 American Behavioral Scientist, Sage publications, February, 2010, Vol. 53, No. 6,
online at http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6/. Specifically, see Laurie A.
Manwell, “In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for Public
Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11,” American Behavioral
Scientist, Vol. 53, No. 6, (February, 2010): pp. 848-884.
4 “How We Support Our False Beliefs,” Science Daily (Aug. 23, 2009) online at
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090821135020.htm. For the full study see
Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., et al, “There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred
Justification,” Sociological Inquiry, Volume 79 Issue 2, (2009): pp. 142-162.
5 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel
Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen, “Active Thermitic
Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” Open
Chemical Physics Journal, Vol. 2 (April 3, 2009): 7-31, online at
http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm.
6 Lynn Margulis, “Two Hit, Three Down, the Biggest Lie,” Rock Creek Press, February
2010, Vol. 4, No. 2, p. 6, and online at
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-biggest-lie
7 Richard Gage, AIA, Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, Press Conference,
February 19th, 2010, SF, CA, online at http://www.ae911truth.org/info/160. See the
Conference announcement video online at
http://www.youtube.com/ae911truth#p/c/891B0945A34D98F7/0/R35O_QQP8Vw
8 For more on issues of media censorship see Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, eds.,
Censored 2010 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2009).