It’s been four years since the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, and more than a year since the U.S. government concluded its official investigation of the attacks. But for many, questions still remain about the events leading up to, and following, the Sept. 11 attacks.

While various vigils and memorial services were held last weekend to honor the victims killed on Sept. 11, members of the Seacoast 9-11 Questions Committee, most of whom are part of Seacoast Peace Response, gathered for a different kind of memorial. Holding signs with questions like “Who benefitted from 9-11?” and “Why didn’t Bush leave the school at once?”, a dozen members of the group gathered in Market Square last weekend.

“The basic reason for questioning the story of 9-11 is that a lot of the worst things the Bush administration has done are based on 9-11,” said David Diamond, a member of SPR.

Diamond said the U.S. is “worse off” because the war in Iraq has turned “the U.S. against the world.” If enough people question the official story, Diamond thinks “ … it will be inevitable, these questions will be answered.”

The group sponsored a series of demonstrations in Portsmouth and Dover throughout the weekend, as well as a screening of the film “Truth and Politics: Unanswered Questions about 9/11” on Sunday night.
Pat Galloway of Eliot, Maine, attended events in both Portsmouth and Dover. She said response to the questions was good.

“I’m so surprised. I think questions about what might have really gone on about 9-11 is billed by the government as unpatriotic,” she said. “People have thanked us for doing this.”

For Galloway, asking questions “is patriotic, asking questions is supporting the troops.”

“Heaven forbid we’ve sent (the troops) out needlessly, or for some corporate agenda,” she said. “To me, this is very much in support of the troops.”

Some in Market Square were unhappy with the demonstration. One woman sitting in front of the North Church yelled at the group to go home and shouted at passing motorists not to honk their horns.
“Half their signs are contradicting themselves,” said the woman, who did not wish to be named, she says, because police have a warrant for her arrest. 

Greg Llewellyn, also sitting in front of the North Church, thought the demonstrators should be more proactive. “It’s one thing if they were grouping together to help people in the flooding (in New Orleans), but I don’t think standing here is gonna help anything except hold up traffic.”

That’s exactly what happened moments later when a woman stopped her car in the middle of Market Square and confronted the group, leaning out her window and repeatedly shouting “How’s Sandy Berger?” After blocking traffic for about three minutes and shouting at the group, the woman drove off.
Berger, the former National Security Advisor under President Bill Clinton, was fined $50,000 last week for illegally removing classified documents from the National Archives in 2003. The documents dealt with terror threats surrounding the millennium celebrations in 2000.

“We’ve had more pros than cons,” said Jo Ann Paradis, who held a sign that read “Why was the 4th plane shot down in Pennsylvania?”

Others in the area are looking at the events of Sept. 11 with a broader point of view.

Ellen Fitzpatrick, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire, is organizing a conference that will examine the effects of the attacks from a historical perspective. The conference, titled “Historical Lessons for a Post 9/11 World: The Impact of Crisis, Terror and War on Liberal Democracy,” will be held at UNH on Thursday and Friday, Sept. 29-30.

“There’s a great deal of talk very often about how the U.S. is living through events unprecedented in modern history,” Fitzpatrick said. However, other countries like Israel, the United Kingdom and Italy have dealt with terrorism in the past, and those lessons can help the United States, according to Fitzpatrick.

“We were sort of looking at major liberal democracies and part of the question has to do with how you deal with terrorism and also maintain a society that’s founded on liberal values (and) civil liberties,” she said.

Guest speakers include New York Times’ White House correspondent David Sanger, Ha’aretz columnist Tom Segev, and Richard English from Queen’s University in Belfast. All sessions are free and open to the public. For more information, call 603-862-1764.