Michael C. Ruppert (1951–2014)

This book is a little bit of a runaway train, in the sense that the focus of the book seems to have gotten away from the author. In this particular case, I think that is a good thing. Michael Ruppert has produced a painstakingly methodical examination of the events of September 11, 2001 as they relate to a perceived world energy crisis. Central to his thesis is the idea of "Peak Oil", which essentially says that we are now passing a point where it will soon no longer be cost-efficient to extract oil from the ground. From the title, and from much of the text, it is apparent that this book is foremost intended to be a book about Peak Oil. Much more alarming, however, are Ruppert's conclusions about 9/11. In as far as it goes, the research here is stunning, showing that regardless of what DID happen on September 11, it didn't go down the way the official story says it did. Skeptics like to say "conspiracy theory" with a disbelieving sneer, but most of them can't exactly tell you what a conspiracy is. It is what you have when two or more people agree to commit a crime together. By that definition, nobody disputes that 9/11 was a conspiracy of some sort or another. I'm not sure whether Ruppert shows anything beyond any reasonable doubt, but coming down a step in rigor, he makes a very strong case by at least a preponderance of the evidence that, yeah... it looks like there were American officials in on it, maybe all of it, although specifically who and why is left as a topic for another book. That's a lot for one book to deliver. If half of what Crossing the Rubicon (CTR) claims is true, it is destined to be one of the most historically significant works since Woodward & Bernstein. Given the densely cited research and bountiful primary sources in Ruppert's research, that isn't a very big "if". As for the question of Peak Oil: there seems to be less here to support that idea, and nothing CTR advances along the lines of 9/11 requires you to believe in Peak Oil.… (altro)