How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Welfare State

a book by Paul Craig Roberts

(our site's book review)

Paul Craig Roberts was the Assistant Secretary of US Treasury in the Reagan administration, associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week, the Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He was awarded the US Treasury’s Meritorious Service Award as well as the French Legion of Honor by the Mitterrand government. Roberts has held academic appointments in six universities, including Stanford and the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown. Since he has been in the belly of the beast and knows how it operates, perhaps we are wise to heed this courageous commentator.

Few American commentators have cut more clearly through the deepening deceit, hypocrisy and outright criminality that has infested official Washington since 9/11 than Paul Craig Roberts. His scathing critique sheds much-needed light on the country’s impending nightmare—economic collapse, internal repression, ongoing wars, and rising rejection by friends and foes alike. The American wars on terror and the pressure that the budget deficits put on the dollar’s value have put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block—which would be an absolute disaster for the majority of American citizens.

"With civil liberty sacrificed to the 'war on terror,' the liberty and prosperity of the American people have been thrown into the trash bin of history," says Roberts. The man does not mince words. In essence, the book's subtext is that the greatest threat to the freedom of the American people comes from their own government and not from an imaginary terrorist threat. The war on terror is alarmist rhetoric that serves as a pretext for America’s wars of aggression—whose hidden function is empire building.

World Trade Center attack on 9/11

If the U.S. had a free press, it would be very torn about the whole 9/11 thing. People find it inconceivable that our own government could be behind such an atrocity, yet good reporters want to print the TRUTH which they cannot do unless they first investigate the matter thoroughly. Of course, the shadow government controls the press—which is by no means "free"—so they all march in robotic lockstep, reporting what the ass clowns of the shadow government tell them to, so if they are "torn," they keep it to themselves.

A free press would be doing investigative journalism rather than reading administration-prepared press releases like cowards


A news anchor obediently reading administration-prepared press releases like a coward

So instead of investigating, the mainstream media waited until the "government" commission published the results of their "study" which said the hijackers' two planes started fires that knocked everything down and that is all there is to it. Like the Warren Commission report after the JFK shooting, the report was nothing but thinly veiled damage control for a suspicious event followed by an extensive cover-up operation. In both cases, evidence was lost or destroyed or investigators were kept away from it for "national security" reasons, and in both cases, the conclusions were ridiculous given the evidence and investigators that doubted their stories were kept away from ways of double-checking things and the original investigators just simply said: "trust us."

According to Bush, reading stories is more important than terrorists attacking our cities

Also in both cases, intelligent people easily drank the Kool-Aid because they simply found themselves unable to emotionally accept that there's a shadow government in the U.S. that is willing to perpetrate the unthinkable to further their own ends: killing JFK, setting up 9/11, assassinating or exiling leaders who are pro-citizen so we can install dictators who are pro-corporatocracy. Check the facts: the U.S. has done this latter all over Latin America, Africa, and the Mideast, plunging countries into debt and ravaging not just the environment but people's lives as well. See A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption.

Intelligent people easily drank the Kool-Aid because they simply found themselves unable to emotionally accept that there's a shadow government in the U.S. that is willing to perpetrate the unthinkable to further their own ends

Rest assured—it wasn't our "government" per se, but a few of the worst thugs in the shadow government that perpetrated the 9/11 tragedy. How do we know? Before we answer that, see the video below.

Watch a WTC7 video. It is physically impossible for normal office fires to collapse a steel-framed building at the acceleration of gravity, as all architects and engineers know and 1500 have even signed a petition about, demanding a REAL investigation. Only planned controlled demolition can do this, and this take months to plan and setup. Therefore, the shadow government knew about 9/11 or planned it months or years before the event. See Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World and The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government and A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption.

Okay, here are the facts: The fire did NOT make WTC7 collapse the way it did—we know a bit about engineering, but even the layman that knows nothing about science or physics or engineering will clearly see that the building did not come down because of a fire but because of controlled explosions. (See hard facts about 9/11: WTC Building 7.) Fires do not simultaneously send explosion smoke out of over a dozen corner windows at the very same instant, nor do they allow buildings to collapse in freefall. It is impossible. Therefore, the explosions were planned and set up way ahead of time by engineers. But if the government was not in on it, why didn't they see the controlled explosion evidence and conclude the terrorists had snuck into the buildings and set this stuff up, and investigate that? Why keep investigators away from the evidence and then ask them to figure it out blindly? Worse, why whip out a contrived cover-up report that says that impossible things happened? Why ignore the hundreds of engineers that studies the videos and knew as an absolute fact that controlled explosions knocked down the buildings? Did our government stop believing in science? What a horrible end to a horrible American tragedy: an ugly, foolish, cover-up that smelled to high heaven! Is THAT the best this country can do to honor the memory of those who died on 9/11?!

The original WTC investigators test the official story of neatly pancaking floors—note that because they're blind, they're unable to hit the pancakes—or even melt the butter

Okay, follow the logic. The fires did not collapse the buildings. Explosions did. But evidence is removed or destroyed before investigators can examine it, and every single investigator pretended not to see the obvious controlled explosion evidence—including the evidence that controlled explosions simultaneously sent explosion smoke out of over a dozen corner windows at the very same instant, and the evidence that fires do not and cannot make buildings collapse in freefall and pancake downwards neatly. It has never happened in history because it is impossible. So now we have two facts: fires did not take down these buildings and the commission ignored the most relevant evidence and pretended to conclude that white is black, red is blue, and the Pope is not Catholic. In other words, they pulled a Warren Commission type cover-up. There is no doubt about it at all.

Following the logic, we now have the fires did not collapse the buildings, therefore the terrorists did not collapse the buildings, and the investigators pulled another one of those cover-ups the government is famous for. Fact: neither the fires nor the terrorists collapsed any buildings and yet the commission says that both things are true, knowing full well that they are not—obviously they had access to videos like the one linked to above. So the logic leads to this: someone (not terrorists or the fire) brought down the buildings and someone made the commission lie. Terrorists and fires cannot make investigators lie. Only the shadow government can do that. The fact that the commission wasn't told to investigate who set up the obvious controlled explosions but were instead told to rubber-stamp the Bush Administration's ridiculous version of the affair, where terrorists knocked down buildings with fire and no explosions were involved, tells us a LOT. Either Bush's goons did it or the shadow government did it and forced Bush and the mainstream media to report their version of the matter and then participate in a transparent cover-up. See WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III), where NIST refuses to let scientists check their work—implying it is a cover-up, but just says: "just trust us." Guess what? We don't! See David Chandler 9/11 Interview in Eugene OR.

Look, folks, we don't like this any more than you do. We are U.S.-loving patriots who want very much to trust our government. We at least want to feel they're above the 9/11 atrocity. But how can we? The Bush people either did it or the shadow government did it and made everyone go along with a ridiculous, impossible version of the crime. In either case, the version you've been told is a rotten lie, so either the shadow government or the Bush people—or both—are horrid people and, folks, we are not in Kansas anymore and clicking our heels together won't get us back to a time of innocence for the United States of America! We hate this, but like all the scientists, physisists and engineers in the country who've seen the videos (the people not threatened by the shadow government to make sure they parrot the official story), WE ARE NOT BLIND AND WE ARE NOT STUPID! The "official" version of 9/11 is pure crap, and they know it.

The official version of 9/11 stinks as bad as the version where an alien zaps the buildings from a saucer

Unless the people who built the WTC complex used rubber-coated styrofoam for beams, the fires couldn't have collapsed the buildings, especially into freefall. But this styrofoam idea wouldn't have caused the visible explosions, nor would the building have stood up without collapsing during initial construction. So we are down to an invisible alien ray from aliens in invisible saucers or a miracle of destruction performed by a laughing god as he stood on the moon if we are seeking plausible alternative theories of the crime. The official version sucks as bad as the alien from a saucer or god on moon versions. They all stink on ice. We realize it's a real heartbreaker, folks, but this was an inside job. Was there a cover-up? Check THIS out: The 9/11 Commission was formed to answer the tons of questions suggested by the suspicious 9/11 affair, the MOST suspicious of which is the collapse of WTC7. But, incredibly, the Commission did not even mention Building 7, or the absurd collapse of Building 7 in their reports! The most suspicious event in American history apparently got "forgotten" about. You tell US if there was a cover-up!

One reviewer (Robert David STEELE Vivas) summarizes the book like this:

1. We the People have a right to the truth and the truth is not to be found in America today, at least not from our own government or the mainstream media.
2. We have become a police state at home and a predatory power abroad, imposing over one million injuries on our own troops and hundreds of thousands of deaths on others, as well as trillions of dollars in cost to the American taxpayer and others.
3. "Washington does not represent the American people. Washington represents about six powerful private interest groups."

Dick Cheney singing the Willy Wonka movie's 'I want the whole world—give it to me Now!'


It sure was much cuter when the adorable little girl in the Willy Wonka movie sang that song!

The above reviewer believes Dick Cheney orchestrated the 9/11 events to create a false Pearl Harbor. In 2000 a report from a neo-conservative organization, New American Century, called Rebuilding America’s Defenses, outlines the ideas behind global dominance and empire in the form of a global Pax Americana. The report says that “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” Brave, wise, award-winning journalist John Pilger notes that the terrorist attacks of September 11 was that new Pearl Harbor that was "needed." (He also suggests that extreme right wing think tanks have been stuck in a mind-set of war and conflict from the Cold War era. Bush was known to have planned to invade Iraq even before becoming president. What an astounding coincidence that 9/11 came to pass at precisely the moment he wanted and needed it!)

A catastrophic and catalyzing event (9/11), like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, came to pass at precisely the moment Bush wanted it!

Roberts reminds us that "The Bush and Obama regimes have committed crimes against numerous peoples and laws comparable to those committed by members of Germany's National Socialist government who were executed for their crimes." Did someone just say "war crimes trial"? [9/11] " . . . has launched the US on interminable wars of aggression and created a domestic police state, but 9/11 is a taboo topic for investigation in the media. It is pointless to complain of war and a police state when one accepts the premise upon which they are based. . . . Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere 'scrap of paper'." The NSA has a very distinctive opinion of this "scrap of paper":

The NSA has a very distinctive opinion of the US Constitution


Fly #353242252 reporting: Citizen #312,756,972 doesn't seem to be hiding a thing—my conclusion is that she's clean; but just to be sure I think I'll hang around a bit longer!

If we let the shadow government spy on our every move, knock down buildings for a war pretext, take away our rights and freedoms and money, and sit there in a stupor doing and saying nothing, our future will be a nightmare. There have been many insightful wake-up calls in our history. Rod Serling, in 1970, said that "These are the things that scream for a response. And if we don’t listen to that scream – and if we don’t respond to it – we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us – or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name."

U.S. is a police state and a predatory power abroad, imposing thousands of deaths on our troops and hundreds of thousands of deaths on others, and wasting trillions of dollars of American taxpayers' money

And as John W. Whitehead said (while in a very Twilight Zone mood), "We’re hurtling down a one-way road toward the Police State at mind-boggling speeds, the terrain is getting more treacherous by the minute, and we’ve passed all the exit ramps. From this point forward, there is no turning back, and the signpost ahead reads 'Danger.'" (Source: The US Has Become A Worse Police State Than Orwell Could Imagine)

Rod Serling


Democracy in the USA is degenerating rapidly, but perhaps the shock of the coming collapse will be the wake-up call we need to reestablish a balanced new democracy based on wisdom, humanism, respect for knowledge and learning, and vigilant responsibility