GUESTS OF THE NATION

Art by Russell Brutsche

“Once again, Palecek leads us sleepwalkers through Nightmerica, the twisted beyond corruption conspiracyland of a million fears. Our tour begins in the nooks, crannies, and crawl-spaces necessarily accessed to bring a building down in its footprint.
“Before George W. Bush’s bloody rampage across the world could commence there need be a ‘catalyzing’ event. Enter the crime of the century on the eleventh day of the ninth month of the first year. Palecek goes among the real 9/11 conspirators to prove fiction is no stranger to truth.

“Palecek chronicles better than anyone America’s legion nobodies, shocked, awed, and
standing appalled as their president careens around the globe, death and hellfire marking his passage.
“From headless corpses bobbing down the Tigris, to Louisiana’s unidentified ‘floaters,’
Palecek reminds, we’re all little people in this not so brave Neo World; no more citizens, but
merely ‘guests’ serving at the pleasure of the president.

— Chris Cook, Gorilla Radio, Vancouver, British Columbia

Art by Michael Paul Miller

“I believe one hundred percent that the U.S. orchestrated 9/11
with the help of other agencies around the world. But my blame goes
to the United States because it happened in the U.S. There’s people
within the U.S. that knew it happened, that planned this to happen.
...”
— Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, Assistant Vice
President, Merrill Lynch, WTC North Tower, 106th floor. Former
school teacher. Interview by Evan Solomon, CBC News 8/30/06

Guests of the Nation
by Mike Palecek

Illustrations by
Russell Brutsche
Michael Paul Miller
Allison M. Healy

To Paul Wellstone, Sheila Wellstone, Marcia Wellstone, Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, Richard Conroy, Michael L. Guess.

Also murdered by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, John Ashcroft  et al., in order to start a war, in order to gain profit from war, from killing, from death.

Also by Mike Palecek
Killing George Bush [KGB]
Joe Coffee's Revolution
Twins
The Truth
The Last Liberal Outlaw
Looking For Bigfoot
Terror Nation
The American Dream
Iowa Terror

Guests of the Nation
A Seventh Street Press Book
Published by Seventh Street Press
702 6th Avenue
Sheldon, IA 51201
Text Copyright ©2008 Mike Palecek
Cover Art Copyright ©  2008 Russell Brutsche
Illustrations Copyright ©2008 Michael Paul Miller
Illustrations Copyright ©2008 Allison M. Healy
Several of the quotes cited in this work were borrowed from www.patriotsquestion911.com.
Excerpt on page 7 “I asked them ... We’re living in Zelikow’s ‘after.’” courtesy of Kevin Barrett,
www.truthjihad.com.
ISBN 13: 978-0-9801354-1-1
ISBN 10: 0-9801354-1-9
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without
expressed written permission from the publisher. For more information contact Seventh Street Press, 702 6th
Avenue, Sheldon, IA 51201.
Printed in the U.S.A.

ONE

Art by Michael Paul Miller

“It was an interesting day.”
“Looks like I hit the trifecta.”
“That’s one bad pilot.”
“Today we had our Pearl Harbor.”
— George W. Bush

Boom.
Boom-boom.
In his sleep John saw flashes and explosions, and home movies of blowing on birthday candles,
and then more rapid-fire bursts, and sitting in shop class in his underwear, and burned, stiff bodies.

All the components of an American dream.

Too many bodies.

____________________

Each year on the first day of class Mr. Shoemaker would name the saws by firing out the fingers
of one hand, the band saw and radial arm saw being half and three-quarters length because of an
ancient band saw accident, or perhaps separate accidents.

____________________

The bodies were stacking up in the shop area of Mr. Shoemaker’s class, next to the “croshcut shaw,” the band shaw, the radial arm shaw, and the circular shaw.

Each year on the first day of class Mr. Shoemaker would name the saws by firing out the fingers of one hand, the band saw and radial arm saw being half and three-quarters length because of an ancient band saw accident, or perhaps separate accidents.

Outside the class door John smelled the lunchroom and a whiff of Sue McCarthy’s perfume.
He heard the rumble of the changing classes.
He saw Sue sitting in the next row, and since this was a dream he smiled wide and reached over
to pull her hand to his crotch.
John’s hand hit something before reaching Sue.
He opened his eyes and saw his own fingertips touching a knee wearing dark blue pants.
Some sort of tweed?
WTF is tweed?

John uncrossed his legs and sat up in the tight little blue airport seat.
Blood rushed through his body, filling his face and ears.
He looked up and saw three people looking down on him, shoulder to shoulder, all wearing vari-
eties of dark and white, as if three stern Catholic playground monitors had showed up to haul him to
time out.

“Are you a terrorist?” said the white-haired man in the middle.
What happened to “with Folgers in your cup”?
He was tall and successful looking, the same as the younger ones, the black-haired man on the
right, and the blonde babe on the left.

The young man flipped open a wallet with an FBI identification.
Probably came with the cheap billfold.
John couldn’t believe his eyes. They were really here. Like finally having an alien sighting.
All stern and serious and dark and white.
John sat next to his bag, in the waiting area to board his flight at Kennedy for home after attend-
ing the 9/11 Truth anniversary events.

He wore a red and white “Investigate 9/11” T-shirt with the letters and numbers in the shape of
the smoking twin towers. He styled fairly new jeans and very new brown Skechers.
The woman agent held in her hands a green flyer that John recognized from the conference.
She pulled it to her waist, gripped it by the edges with her fingertips and held the front toward
John.
He nodded.
He knew his name was there as a speaker. One of the first things you learn is you keep track most
efficiently from the front of the crowd.
The younger man bent down and squinted to read the button on John’s shirt.
The older man put his hand on his waist, pulling back his coat to reveal a black pistol.
Smooth move.
John still had not spoken.

He consciously noted.
He had heard their voices.
They had not heard mine.
Not that I knew of.

And so I thought that gave me a semblance of control.
“Sir,” said the woman in a deep, beautiful, tough woman voice that was not unnatural.
Her hair was coarse from too much swimming.
Well, too much, that’s not my judgment to make, maybe it was just right, for her.
Nice tits.
Very, very nice.

She stepped in and took me by my underarm in a grip that with just a small change in pressure
points could have brought me to my knees.
So would the tits.

Black Haired Boy shook his mane back the way cool kids do and leaned to pick up my bag.
“What have I done?” I said as I rose to stand, trying to sound uninhibited, not perturbed, non-indig-
nant, unafraid, truthful, trustworthy, brave.

Chief White Haired Guy stepped right in. I smelled the cherry Lifesaver in his cheek.
His eyebrows were white and bushy and his face worn.
In his killer cool brown eyes I saw all the way to Quantico and Fred Hampton and Wounded Knee
and Dillinger and too many whiskies after golf, four successful kids, a retirement lake home.
“John,” he said. The voice underlined all my assumptions.
You cannot make this stuff up. These guys, when you actually meet them, they walk fully dressed
right out of your midnight imagination.
“John.”

The four of us formed a huddle, surrounded by the eyes and ears now beginning to find us.
Again he showed me the gun, the persuader, a subtle aside.
“We need to visit with you,” said the voice of Marshal Dillon.
He took me by the other arm.

We fell in behind Blacky carrying my grayish bluish bag, uniquely designed for two purposes in life,
same as ol’ Blonde’s ass, to look good and fit into a tight space.
Whitey and Blonde had me securely by the arms.

Blacky never got too far ahead.
We attracted plenty of stares, gawks, leers.
Scenarios developed instantly by those passing, milling, waiting: drugs being smuggled, terror
being averted, security being maintained, threats being assuaged.
Assuaged?

Did I say that?
Secret Service. FBI. CIA. NSA. PTA. XYZ.  ATT. NFL. ABC.
Saudi. Argentine. Italian. Israeli.
Wary eyes, cross looks, whispers.
Taps on shoulders.
Look at that.

I tried to match their pace, did match it, no choice. Keep my eyes ahead, not be embarrassed,
afraid, angry, must not get angry.
Terrorists are angry people. I am American, happy, jovial, love to chat, eat burgers.
The ambient sound included a mix of pop music and announcements from omnipresent speak-
ers.

We arrived at a grey door, not unlike a hundred other unmarked grey doors leading to supplies of
Pine Sol and Windex.
We entered, now in single file, Blacky, Blonde, me, Whitey, down a white-tiled hall with grey block
walls. Nothing on the walls.
To another grey metal door with silver knob.
We entered and stood in our group for a moment.
Maybe they had not worked together much, or had not used this room before, or they didn’t real-
ly want to be here.

There was a long grey metal table and behind that a grey metal folding chair.
On this side of the small grey painted concrete block room with grey painted concrete floor were
two grey metal folding chairs, and maybe that’s what the deal was, they didn’t know where to find
another grey chair.

A silver metal ashtray, clean, sat on the table. A smell of 1970s cigarettes hung in the air like
moldy, mildewed laundry, bell-bottoms.
We all walked around a bit, shuffled sideways and back, checked out the pattern of the blocks,
head joints, bed joints, the dearth of dirt in the corners, until Whitey spoke.
“Ron. Have John sit over there,” nodding toward the chair on the other side of the grey metal table.
So I walked around to sit over there as Ron tried to catch me to direct me and ended up coming
around the other side and beating me to the chair.
I sat.

It was cold and not close at all to the table or to the wall, this particular chair.
The speakers hacked into the high corners came from the sound system of a '66 Mustang
owned by a seventeen-year-old gearhead from Sandusky.
Not feeling I possessed sufficient cachet to move the chair, I sat where it was, out in the open, no-
man’s land, no-person’s land, my hands on my knees, feeling my billfold, wondering if I turned off the
stove, and whether it made any difference.

Perhaps sensing a possible security breach, Ron sidled around the table and hustled to the door.
He fiddled with the big silver knob, trying to see if it would lock.

“Just leave it,” said Whitey. “If you fuck it up, how we gonna get out?”
Ron put his back to the door, his hands behind his back.
Whitey scraped up one of the chairs on their side and sat right up close, laying his elbows on the
table like a full house.

He pushed the ashtray toward me.
“John,” he said.
“My name is Bill.”
“Cosby?” I said.
He did not smile.
“This is Ron, Laura.” He fired thumbs over each shoulder.
Ron and Laura were not smiling.
I put both hands up to say I didn’t smoke.
“What do you have against the United States of America?” Laura asked.
Because she just had to.

Art by Allison Healy

TWO

“It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban air-
craft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner enroute from the United
States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. … The passengers could be a
group of college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common
interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight.
“… We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute to Florida (real or simulated). We could
foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of
wounding in instances to be widely publicized.”
A “Remember the Maine” incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.”
Use of MIG type aircraft by US pilots could provide additional provocation. Harassment
of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by
MIG type planes would be useful as complementary actions. An F-86 properly painted
would convince air passengers that they saw a Cuban MIG, especially if the pilot of the
transport were to announce such fact. The primary drawback to this suggestion appears
to be the security risk inherent in obtaining or modifying an aircraft. However, reason-
able copies of the MIG could be produced from U.S. resources in about three months.”
— Operations Northwoods plan, United States Joint Chiefs of Staff 1962

“Are you a terrorist?”
Are you an idiot? 
To answer that, we have to agree first on what terrorism is. Freedom Fighter, Terrorist. Depends
on who has the money to pay whom to sit in the news anchor chair, right?
“Do you belong to any terrorist group? Have you been to Iraq?”

I asked them what they thought of Osama’s fancy new beard, and they just sort of shook their
heads.
Hitting my stride, I explained to them that Philip Zelikow, the main author of the preposterous
9/11 Commission Report, is a self-described expert in “the creation and maintenance of public
myths.”
Good man.

I pointed out that Zelikow co-authored a 1998 Foreign Affairsarticle on the likely political and cul-
tural effects of a massive Pearl Harbor style terrorist event such as the destruction of the World Trade
Center. In that article, Zelikow noted that such a mythic event would split time into a before and an
after. The after, of course, was the “whole new world” of post-9/11 terror hysteria.
“That’s why we’re here in this room right now,” I said. “We’re living in Zelikow’s ‘after’.”
Cozy, isn’t it?
“Are you a member of a terrorist group?” asked Laura.
I looked at her.

For some stupid reason I winked.
I’ve never been able to wink. Maybe it was a twitch. Maybe she thought it was a twitch. Myself,
I’m not for certain.
“Who are the Citizens for 9/11 Truth?” asked Ron.
“Well,” I began. I looked at my hands as a guilty person might.
I shook my head and counted my digits.
“If you know enough to ask that, then you already have your answer.”
I looked up.
“Right?”
“Why do you wear that shirt?” asked Ron.
I feel naked without it, I grinned and winked.

THREE

“Your countrymen have been murdered and the more you delve into it the more it
looks as though they were murdered by our government, who used it as an excuse to
murder other people thousands of miles away.”
— Lt. Col. Shelton F. Lankford, USMC (Ret.) U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot
• Hani Hanjour [Flight 77/Pentagon] paid a $100 traffic ticket three weeks before
911.

Well, I said, it’s because I know something most people don’t, and maybe I want to talk about it.
It’s a cry for help, for understanding, for someone to pay some fucking attention to me.
Maybe I’m bragging that I know what really happened. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe I’m
just dazed and confused.
You ever have days like that?
They kind of all pushed back, against the chair, against the door, into the corner.

Getting comfortable, getting away, seeking a better view of this fucking terrorist in their fucking
midst.

Midst?

“Well, what really happened then?”
“I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you,” I said, making eye contact, looking for signs of
connection, a commitment, an agreement to go on.
“Whatever,” said Ron.
“Okay, then, I’ll take that as a big yes,” I said.
Bill flipped his chair around backwards to be able to lean on the backrest.
Laura took the empty chair.

Ron stayed by the door, at attention.
I put my hands on the table, folded them and did the eye contact thing all around.
Cui bono... means Sonny & Cher in Italian, right?
The whole thing was planned from the beginning.
The New World Order, the Project For The New American Century. Global Power for America.
That about says it.

Do I need to go on?
They stared, hard. Tough room. Tough mo-fo’s, these three.
Absurd conspiracy theory – nineteen brown young men with box cutters – how did they get
through?
And their fearless leader is a man with a towel wrapped around his head like an old woman in
Omaha just out of the tub on a Sunday night.
Dangerous Muslim.
Dang’rous Injun.
Dang’rous Negroes.
Criminals.
Russians.
Dragons.
Big Bees.

FOUR

“On 9/11 I was jogging. I heard about it on my headphones. I kept going. It was
a day off, I told myself. But it didn’t take me long to sit down by a tree and start cry-
ing. I don’t know why. I just cried.” — Laura
“I was at my mother’s. She just had surgery. We watched it all day on the TV. My
brothers and sisters came over.” — Bill
“My fucking brother went right down to the recruiting station the same day. My
dad tried to talk him out of it. I didn’t. I think he’s a fucking hero.” — Ron

We, they, needed a new Pearl Harbor.

George Bush Jr. was governor of Texas. His father had all the contacts, all the inside information.
Compassionate conservatism.

They just needed someone to put through with all the money in the world.
Well, Thomas “Bobby” Wooster ran down the steps of the dorm, eschewing the elevator as too
slow. He could not wait to meet the men of the Miami-Dade Republican Club, maybe actually work with them.
He had met some of them the past summer as organizer of the summer retreat on campus as
president of the Miami University Republican Club.

Thomas jumped into his father’s very grey Audi and squealed out.
He joined interstate traffic and quickly conquered it, on his way to the Wyndham Hotel.
Thomas pulled hard into the parking lot and took off chugging across the lot, touching his tie,
breathing fairly hard.

He nodded to the tall black bellman in the maroon and gold uniform.
The man pointed toward Suite B.
Inside Bobby saw it, the rows of tables with blue table clothes and vases of fresh flowers.
Nerd Nirvana.

He shook hands and smiled, greeted, took his seat.
Bobby listened to the speaker and then accepted an invitation to the hotel bar.
He joined the others in the way back around another cloth table, away from the jazz band.
Bobby drank whiskey sours and accepted an assignment.
Or a couple of assignments.

He was to find and recruit “team members” to challenge the black voters in the district.
He was allowed to listen and make comments about the vote counting machines and heard the
name Die-Bold a few times.
He was allowed to drink as many whiskey sours as he liked.
He was told to forget he ever spent the night in the Wyndham Hotel bar, which was not that diffi-
cult a task, for the most part.

FIVE

“Further, the 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.”
— Section V, Rebuilding America’s Defenses, entitled “Creating Tomorrow’s
Dominant Force,” by Project For The New American Century

Art by Michael Paul Miller

Jose Sanchez, Robert Gordon and Darnell Brown.
They coulda been anybody.
They could have been the first three cells in D Block in the county jail. They could have been the
double play combination on the local minor league team. They could be the dads in the three hous-
es from the corner on down on Juniper Street.
Their coveralls said they worked for Alamo Elevator Company in New York City, which did not exist.
They worked for the U.S. Army, which did exist.

___________________

Their coveralls said they worked for Alamo Elevator Company

in New York City, which did not exist.

They worked for the U.S. Army, which did exist.

___________________

They had come from California, Pennsylvania and Texas, along with special forces demolition training at Camp Grafton, North Dakota.
They worked the summer of 2001 placing shaped charges up and down and up again in the north
tower, along the elevator shafts.
They closed down one and then another, rode the tops of the elevators, with their equipment all
spread out, having lunch break inside the elevator cars.
It was an adventure, ninety floors above the earth in this dark shaft and on this secret fucking
mission or something.

While they were on break they talked about the elevators, the Yankees, the Mets. They were not
to talk too loud about that which they were to know nothing about, but that they could not help but
knowing.
Don’t think there are bad folks in the United States?

Look at me. Look at me! I am not invisible!
Don’t think we are capable of the very worst that lies in the soul of mankind, that has lived there
since all the wars and massacres and murders we have committed by the millions?
Look at the maniac driving behind you or the idiot in front of you. Given the means at just the right
moment wouldn’t you hurt them badly or worse?
Think of your boss.

Think of the absolute asshole Mr. Perfect from high school who now owns homes in Vail, Jackson
Hole, Manhattan and Paris.
How did he get his money? Did he kill? Or injure or let others go without, children die? I dunno,
just askin’.

Would he kill to get some more?
He’s here. He’s real. He’s now. He is happening.
Look at yourself.
What are your real feelings, the worst thoughts and desires you have, that you don’t tell anyone
about, even yourself.
They are there, and you are here, for real.
In America.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, an E-4B taxied for takeoff from Andrews Air Force Base. Three
of them from Offutt Air Force Base were taking part in Operation Global Guardian.
Music played – everywhere ... Chopin ... Military Polonaise ... headphones, speakers, iTunes, cut
out to hear commands, then cut back in ... even in WTC, Pentagon, target areas – on jets.
Ever hear that?
Dun-dun-dun ... dundundundundundun ... DUN-DUN-DUN.
Like that. Not real, not happening, boom, what was that? That happened?
The pilots, well, we don’t know their names, but we do know they had a full crew on board that
morning.

They sat and talked and prepared for the day’s work. They thought about home and getting away.
Our boys took off and headed up into the blue yonder, circling, checking, listening.
While on the main deck, in the command work area, a special forces group that had been work-
ing together for over a year for this day began to sit down, get papers arranged, checking live images
on the screens on the walls, opening up computers, throwing down last remnants of a quick coffee
and rolls breakfast.
Getting ready for their big day.
Is this real world or exercise?

SIX

“It is not pleasant to think of them as consciously participating in an
enormous lie.
“But we have no choice.”
— David Ray Griffin, Debunking 911 Debunking

Art by Michael Paul Miller

“Shut the fuck-up,” growled Ron from the door as Laura scooted up to the edge of her chair.
“You don’t know all that,” said Bill.
“Do you?” asked Laura.

“How do you know that’s true?” said Ron.
Geezuz-god, so many excellent questions.
I pushed back in my chair, stretched out my legs and said, well, nothing.
I took the time to look each one of them in the eye.
“I read a lot ... on the Internet,” I said. “I take long walks. I’d be better off watching TV, I know.
“Do youbelieve me?”

They looked at me.
Laura and then Bill pulled out packs of cigarettes, matches. I pushed the ashtray toward them.
Ron gritted his teeth. I could see his jaw bones through his zero body fat face.
He had sunglasses in his shirt pocket, nice ones. I used to have some just like that.
Bill sucked hard on his smoke and tilted his head back to exhale toward the ceiling.
“And so,” I crossed my legs and folded my arms.

I felt like an old professor with former students who had stopped by the office to chat.
American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Dulles headed to Los Angeles.
Early in the morning.
“Eight forty,” says Ron. He puts weight on one leg.
Boeing 757.
And Flight 11 from Boston, headed to L.A.
And 175 from Boston to L.A.
And Flight 93 …
“Newark to San Francisco,” says Laura.

She scoots back into her hard metal chair, crosses her legs, puffs, then uncrosses her legs and
leans forward to knock the ash off into the tray. Kind of that one movie thing, Sharon Stone. I forget
the name. I never actually saw it.

Meanwhile, our two pilots, let’s call them Bert and Ernie, they are also heading into the same general air space, joining the morning commute on a beautiful almost-fall day. Behind them the plane is buzzing with activity, the hive fully engaged.
President Bush, who, whom, Bobby Wooster helped to put into office, is about to arrive at that ele-
mentary school in Florida.

And by the way, Bobby Wooster was promised, sort of, a spot in the White House.
You think he didn’t feel uncomfortable, scared, on Inauguration Day and he hadn’t heard any-
thing?
Here he was, a guy, “the” guy, for all he knew, who had managed to place Bush in the White
House.
He even organized that young Republican riot to stop the counting of the votes.
Go ahead and look for Thomas Wooster in the student body list at the University of Miami.
Look for him anywhere.
You’re the FBI, right?

_________________

Well, anywho, we’ve got all this activity going on while Mom and Pop American are heading off to
school with the kids and hurrying to work.

_________________

Well, anywho, we’ve got all this activity going on while Mom and Pop American are heading off to
school with the kids and hurrying to work.
We’ve got four … four fucking war games taking place involving … attacks by planes, disasters,
what have you.
We’ve got air traffic controllers asking each other what kind of a day it’s going to be with all this
shit on their screens.
Okay.

The four planes we’re talking about, they are filled to less than fifty percent capacity. When’s the

last time you took a trip across the country with that kind of room to spread out?

And each one of our planes is the same thing.

Well, they wanted to kill some folks, but only some, not everybody, these guys and gals who were

in charge of planning our day that day.

Some is less than many.

Right?

Or is it fewer?

_____________________

Next Week: Chapters 7-15