They’re still lying about 9/11. Why?

With another 9/11 anniversary coming up this week, many of us will reflect on where we were that day and the impact those events had on our lives.

But beyond remembrance, it’s important that we recognize how that day became a launchpad for political agendas that have driven our country far from its roots.

You see, back in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, a new breed of so-called “conservatives” made their way to the helm of the Republican Party. These folks weren’t interested in limited government, fiscal restraint, or non-interventionism—the bedrock of true conservatism. Instead, they were laser-focused on expanding military power and projecting American force across the globe, all while spending trillions of dollars and growing the government’s power over our daily lives.

These neo-cons found their golden opportunity on September 11, 2001.

As Americans sat stunned and heartbroken in front of their TVs, grieving the nearly 3,000 lives lost that day, these insiders were plotting a course to reshape the Middle East and extend U.S. military dominance worldwide.

They framed the 9/11 attacks as an unprovoked assault by those who “hate us because we’re free,” but the real story is far more complicated.

Just a year before 9/11, a think tank called the Project for a New American Century—led by figures like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz—published a report lamenting that America’s global influence was waning and suggesting the need for “a new Pearl Harbor” to justify a vast expansion of U.S. military presence abroad.

Then 9/11 happened, and suddenly they had all the justification they needed.

Immediately after the attacks, we were told that our enemies hated us because of our freedoms.

President Bush compared the attacks to Pearl Harbor, calling it a call to arms to “rid the world of evil.”

And that’s precisely what they did—they took us to war, not against a nation or a military, but against a vague, unending concept: “terror.”

This is how they got us to accept things like the Patriot Act, which gave the government the power to spy on its own citizens, or the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which has only grown in size and scope since then.

But while Americans were sold on the idea of these wars being in defense of freedom, the reality was much more about defending interests—namely, the interests of the military-industrial complex that profits off of endless conflict.

Think about it—why have we seen both major parties in Congress unite to approve nearly every opportunity to engage in or fund conflict? They approve billions in foreign aid to Ukraine while American families are struggling with inflation, crumbling schools, and a weakened economy. 

It’s the same old trick.

Just like in the days following 9/11, those in power use fear and uncertainty to push for more spending, more intervention, and more control. Today, they tell us we need to support endless spending to promote “democracy” through war overseas, just like they once told us we needed to “fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.”

And who profits from all of this?

Defense contractors and political elites whose power grows with every new conflict.

Here’s just one of many things that they didn’t want you to know: Osama bin Laden didn’t orchestrate 9/11 because he “hated our freedom.”

In a letter published a year after the attacks, he laid out specific grievances that led to the 9/11—retaliation for decades of U.S. intervention in the Middle East, for propping up corrupt regimes, and for sanctions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.

Of course, I’m not justifying his horrific methods—I’m not even saying that what he said was necessarily true—but we certainly need to be clear-eyed about the reasons those responsible claimed were the motivation for their actions.

We explore this “New Pearl Harbor” depth in The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies. It sheds light on the uncomfortable truths that the media and government have tried to bury.

Did you know there were multiple intelligence warnings from allies about an impending attack that were ignored? Or that just days before 9/11, there were suspicious stock trades against American Airlines and United Airlines, which of course plummeted after the attacks?

And what about Building 7, the third tower that fell that day? It wasn’t hit by a plane, but it somehow imploded neatly into its own footprint. And strangely, it wasn’t even mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

These aren’t crazy conspiracy theories—these are historical facts that demand answers.

But we don’t get answers; instead, we get more wars, more government surveillance, and more of our freedoms taken away in the name of “safety.”

Just look at the news today—while our leaders talk about defending democracy abroad, they’re quick to curtail freedoms at home. More red tape, more censorship, and more control over how we educate our kids or run our businesses.

But people are waking up to it now.

More true conservatives, especially younger ones, are tired of being told that we must sacrifice our values, our freedoms, and our wallets to fund endless wars that have nothing to do with our security.

The neocons and war-hawk left try to dismiss us as isolationists; we’re not. We never were. And more and more people are waking up to the fact that we do not have to be at perpetual war in order to be free.

Finally, people are ready to call out the neo-cons for who they are—unprincipled power-seekers who have been hiding behind the mask of conservatism for far too long.

If you’re tired of being fed the same old story, if you want to understand how these narratives are constructed and used to keep us in a state of fear and compliance, then you should grab a copy of The Tuttle Twins Guide to True Conspiracies to read with your family. 

It’s a chance to learn what really happened and to equip yourself and your kids with the knowledge to see through the spin.

This 9/11, we can best honor those we lost by committing to teach the truth about what happened to them, and by educating our kids to think critically about the methods and agendas of those in power.

We can teach them to and ask hard questions, and demand real answers.

For a generation that can’t imagine a time that they didn’t have to take off their shoes to go through airport security, or fear that they would be cancelled for telling the truth, the lessons we can teach them open up a whole new world of hope and possibility.

Our generation dropped the ball on fighting back hard enough against the fearmongers and death-dealers who rose to power after 9/11. But it’s not too late to educate and embolden our kids to be better. 

The future of freedom depends on it. 

— Connor