Whether one views the 9/11 "terrorist" attacks as blow back, a wake-up call, or an unjustified outrage, they have deeply affected the American psyche and our attitudes toward war, the future, and the world. As a historian trying to understand this phenomenon, I tend to view the government's behavior, before and after 9/11, in the context of its leaders' past actions.

Before 9/11, Bush's inner circle of neoconservative advisors proclaimed the need for a dramatic expansion of U.S. military might entailing "full spectrum dominance" over all other nations and regions (including outer space), long term petro-resource control with permanent Middle East bases, and a preemptive First Strike policy against recalcitrant states. In September 2000, however, the neocon's flagship think tank, the Project for a New America Century, warned that this "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."

After 9/11, this administration systematically nurtured the fear of further homeland attacks to justify its own assaults on constitutional rights as well as social and environmental programs that protected "the people" but fettered corporate power and control.

David Ray Griffin's book "The New Pearl Harbor — Disturbing Questions About The Bush Administration and 9/11" asks "Were these tragedies simply the result of unprecedented failures and incompetence as the government maintains, or were there elements of foreknowledge and implicit welcome involved?" He attempts to answer this question, reviewing the facts, studying other possible interpretations of these facts, and observing the breakdown of the official story over time.

Griffin's status as a renowned theologian and his systematic approach to the documented evidence lend this work unique importance and authority. Although still shunned by the mainstream media, his book has already encouraged many thousands to debate the case for possible government complicity and at the very least to demand a full, transparent and truly independent public inquiry.

Democracy requires citizen vigilance, informed debate and official accountability. In that spirit, David Ray Griffin's book deserves to be widely read.

About Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn is a historian and a playwright. He taught at Spellman College in Atlanta, Georgia, then at Boston University. He was active in the civil rights movement, and in the movement against the Vietnam war. He has written many books, his best known being A People's History of the United States. His most recent books include You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train (a memoir), The Zinn Reader, The Future of History (interviews with David Barsamian) and Marx in Soho (a play).