Remember how the U.S. ship The Maine blew up in Havana harbor in 1898? Remember how the Spanish were immediately blamed, causing us to fight the Spanish-American war? Remember how no one knows to this day exactly what happened, whether it was really the Spanish or perhaps it was an accident or faulty ship design. (Read more here or here.)

And, remember how in the early 60s, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, wanted to start a war with Cuba by staging fake terrorist attacks to be blamed on the Cubans?

Lemnitzer even - hold onto your seats - wanted to fake the Cubans shooting down a civilian airliner. He had it all planned out: a dummy, empty plane and a plane full of the supposed victims would take off at the same time; the dummy plane would fly over Cuban airspace and get shot down, while the plane containing the supposed victims would secretly and safely fly back home.

Interesting, no?

Now, God only knows what's in the congressional report on 9/11. Remember, it's sealed for, what, 20 years? Maybe it's 30, maybe it's 40. But, it will be a long time before all the facts concerning 9/11 come out.

This post is a roundabout way of response to the "Wild Monk," whose hawk/dove survey I took in the preceding entry to this blog. I scored a 5 out of 10 on the rationality score, because I agreed with the statement "It has not been proven that the World Trade Center / Pentagon attacks were committed by Muslims." I'm about 98% sure that they were, but it certainly hasn't been proved, and it would be difficult to prove it in a legal sense.

It's good to keep an open mind, and consider all actors involved and their motivations. In fact, I'd consider that the height of rationality.