October 13, 2002
Crimes of Silence
Five days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, George W. Bush said, "Never [in] anybody's thought processes . . . about how to protect America did we ever think that the evil doers would fly not one but four commercial aircraft into precious U.S. targets . . . never."Joyce Lynn, writing in Online Journal, explains that the conspiracy law used against John Lindh could also be used against members of the administration who knew an attack was coming and did nothing about it.
"Earlier this year, the U.S. Justice Department charged John Walker Lindh with conspiracy to commit murder for remaining silent during a prison uprising in which one CIA agent was killed," says Lynn.
The prosecutor's brief against Lindh says, "By well-established conspiracy law, the murder of Mr. Spann . . . is attributable to all conspirators, and that is true whether they fired guns themselves or even knew that the uprising would take place."
Since Bush's categorical denial of "anybody's thought processes" ever containing thoughts about planes flying into U.S. targets, it has come out that in fact the idea had been in many people's thought processes, including his, since he was briefed about just such a possibility only weeks before September 11.
Read the whole argument at Law of conspiracy, conspiracy of silence.
-- By David Cogswell