From reports around the nation of events last Friday held to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., there was a sad, detached quality which came through in many of the reports, reflecting an acceptance of the belief by participants at the events that the truth about what actually happened will never be known. It exposed an unnatural fatalism of acceptance of the “official” story of teams of hijackers deployed by a Saudi fanatic living in a cave in Afghanistan as responsible for the bloody act of terror. This is generally accepted, because it has been repeated so often, and any other theory is ridiculed as a “conspiracy theory.”

So the gatherings had a pro forma quality, including sharing memories of those who perished on that day or from injuries related to it, and giving thanks to those first responders who did their best to aid the victims of the attacks. Some tears were shed and pledges were made to never allow such an event to happen again, conveyed in some cases by the same individuals who acted to prevent a thorough investigation of what happened, while accepting the surveillance state ushered in by those events.

A notable exception to this pattern were two events in which members of the LaRouche movement played a leading role. This should not be surprising, as it was LaRouche who first debunked the Bin Laden cover story in a radio interview with Jack Stockwell of Utah station KTKK on September 11 as the attack was ongoing, and who subsequently repeatedly intervened to insist that this false narrative must be recognized as part of the misdirection operation to prevent a full investigation from occurring. (It is noteworthy that the same Jack Stockwell interviewed LaRouche Independent presidential candidate Diane Sare to discuss that famous interview as part of his recollection of 9/11.)

The first exception was provided by prominent activist and national chair of 9/11 Families United Terry Strada, who addressed attendees at the national 9/11 memorial in New York. Strada, whose husband died in the attacks, was forcefully blunt when she said, “For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families. They withheld evidence, they vetoed JASTA, they broke promises—both public and private. It has been one betrayal after another.”

This statement was a direct challenge to those in attendance who have presided over the twenty-five years of cover-ups, including former presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who were all in attendance. She also appealed to Vice President Vance, who was there, to convey this message to President Trump.

A second exception was a town meeting in Manhattan convened by Independent Congressional Candidate Jose Vega, who was joined by LaRouche Presidential candidate Diane Sare. They conducted a “cross-generational forum” called “9/11 Plus 25: The Endless War Turned on You,” joined by 9/11 National Security Agency whistle blowers Tom Drake, Kurt Wiebe, Bill Binney, and Marc Milleur. They had been part of a team—the Thin Thread team—which developed a surveillance capability which did not require violations of privacy to track suspected terrorists, but which had been rejected by Dick Cheney’s collaborators committed to a more brutal version of the “War on Terror.”

Tom Drake raised the level of thinking with his thoughtful personal challenge to the younger people attending. “My inspiration, my strength, and my purpose on an everyday level is standing in the future of the next generation, and particularly the youngest generations…. They’re poised, as they’re living now, to inherit [this].

“The question is: What are you willing to give up? What will you commit to in order to restore the nation to its original purpose of a sovereign federal republic?”

This personal sense of profound urgency, which was communicated by Strada, Drake, and his former NSA collaborators, is essential to break the passivity that has allowed those engaged in the coverup of 9/11 to use that event to keep the U.S. tied up in Permanent Wars.