ALBERT McKEON/Nashua Telegraph August 24 2006A Republican candidate for this area’s congressional seat said Wednesday that the U.S. government was complicit in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In an editorial board interview with The Telegraph on Wednesday, the candidate, Mary
Maxwell, said the U.S. government had a role in killing nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center and Pentagon, so it could make Americans hate Arabs and allow the military to bomb Muslim nations such as Iraq.
Maxwell, 59, seeks the 2nd District congressional seat. The Concord resident opposes the incumbent, Charles Bass of Peterborough, and Berlin Mayor Bob Danderson in the Republican primary Sept. 12.
Maxwell would not specify if she holds the opinion that the government stood by while terrorists hijacked four domestic airliners and used them as weapons, or if it had a larger role by sanctioning and carrying out the attacks.
But she implicated the government by saying the Sept. 11 attacks were meant “to soften us up . . . to make us more willing to have more stringent laws here, which are totally against the Bill of Rights . . . to make us particularly focus on Arabs and Muslims . . . and those strange persons who spend all their time creating little bombs,” giving Americans a reason “to hate them and fear them and, therefore, bomb them in Iraq for other reasons.”
She said this strategy “would be normal” for governments, citing her belief that the British government – and not the Germany military – sank the Lusitania ocean liner in 1915. The deaths of Americans on the cruise liner helped galvanize U.S. support to enter World War I, and benefited England, she said.
In turn, the Sept. 11 attacks “made the ground fertile” for more stringent laws, such as the Patriot Act, and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, Maxwell said.
Near the end of the interview, Maxwell pounded her fist on the table and asked editors of The Telegraph why they weren’t publishing more stories about the government’s role in the terrorist attacks or proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Maxwell has no political experience. She lived abroad for the past quarter-century with her husband, George, a pediatrician, and only recently returned to the U.S., she said.
In the hour-long interview, Maxwell spoke at length about Constitutional law, U.S. law, nuclear weapons proliferation, and other domestic and foreign policy issues.
Maxwell said the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. She also questioned whether Congress authorized the war and said its members can’t explain that 2002 vote. (Congress authorized the use of force to defend this country’s security and enforce United Nations resolutions on Iraq.)
“Legally, we shouldn’t have gone to Iraq if Congress can’t explain why,” she said.
Maxwell described herself as a strict Constitutionalist, a candidate who wants to bring the country “back to basics.” The Constitution grants more power to the legislative branch than the other two branches, but Congress has allowed the executive and judicial branches to diminish its influence, she said.
She also said the U.S. shouldn’t immerse itself in the international community by signing trade and security pacts. These agreements have weakened national sovereignty, she said.
