Fifth Anniversary Thoughts on 9/11/01
What follows is a letter I sent to my local paper that it did not print. Written on that day of endless, empty remembrances, to the cynical drumbeat of politics as usual, it has not been edited to conform with this subsequent post.
September 11, 2006. Five years ago today,the world began to change, maybe significantly, although it did not have to. Terrorism had been with it a long time, so instead of treating the awful events of that morning as a new war, with all the wasted resources implied, the U.S. could have set about tracking those responsible -- quietly, relentlessly, legally, using law enforcement and with the support of the world -- instead of sending armies after criminals. In lieu of that, cheered and egged on -- lest current poll numbers make us forget -- by a large majority of the American people, the Bush administration squandered the nation's military might in a war on terror in which the enemy has successfully and consistently refused to become a military target, thus frustrating the chest-thumping fantasies of the neo-conservative war machine. Along the way, it squandered a promising beginning in Afghanistan, where the Taliban resurgence is pronounced, by shifting resources needed there Iraq, the first domino to be toppled in its mad scheme to recreate the Middle East. It thereby helped Iranian ambitions immeasurably and started an Iraqi civil war. Saddam Hussein hadn't much changed his treatment of Kurds, Shiites, and other opponents since the days when we were supplying him with all the materials he needed to make poison gas to use against them when Bush decided to attack. The given justifications, as we know now, and had every reason to know then, were all lies. But scorning a "reality based" foreign policy on the advice of neo-conservative ideologues, Bush managed to lose the respect of the rest of the world while flouting international and domestic law, assuming unprecedented powers for the executive branch, and waging a full frontal assault on the Constitution.
Now reality has caught up with those who scorned it. There has not been another attack here, but security experts know it is just a matter of time. The United States is more hated and less safe than at any time during the last sixty years, and the theocratic murderers that attacked us have gained prestige among hundreds of thousands of new enemies we have made. With an arrogance of mythic proportions, claiming that the U.S. would make its own reality, Bush & Co have helped to create a whole class of jihadist super-stars, whose forbidden but ubiquitous images help focus hatred on America and act as recruitment posters for their cause.
It did not have to be like this, and it is time, in November’s elections, to hold to account the makers of this fake war based on lies and waged with a psychotic level of pride. It is time to stop letting the Bush administration used 9/11 as it's own political bludgeon, dishonoring the dead of that morning, and to demand a true accounting of the dangerous and unnecessary consequences it has imposed.
September 11, 2006. Five years ago today,the world began to change, maybe significantly, although it did not have to. Terrorism had been with it a long time, so instead of treating the awful events of that morning as a new war, with all the wasted resources implied, the U.S. could have set about tracking those responsible -- quietly, relentlessly, legally, using law enforcement and with the support of the world -- instead of sending armies after criminals. In lieu of that, cheered and egged on -- lest current poll numbers make us forget -- by a large majority of the American people, the Bush administration squandered the nation's military might in a war on terror in which the enemy has successfully and consistently refused to become a military target, thus frustrating the chest-thumping fantasies of the neo-conservative war machine. Along the way, it squandered a promising beginning in Afghanistan, where the Taliban resurgence is pronounced, by shifting resources needed there Iraq, the first domino to be toppled in its mad scheme to recreate the Middle East. It thereby helped Iranian ambitions immeasurably and started an Iraqi civil war. Saddam Hussein hadn't much changed his treatment of Kurds, Shiites, and other opponents since the days when we were supplying him with all the materials he needed to make poison gas to use against them when Bush decided to attack. The given justifications, as we know now, and had every reason to know then, were all lies. But scorning a "reality based" foreign policy on the advice of neo-conservative ideologues, Bush managed to lose the respect of the rest of the world while flouting international and domestic law, assuming unprecedented powers for the executive branch, and waging a full frontal assault on the Constitution.
Now reality has caught up with those who scorned it. There has not been another attack here, but security experts know it is just a matter of time. The United States is more hated and less safe than at any time during the last sixty years, and the theocratic murderers that attacked us have gained prestige among hundreds of thousands of new enemies we have made. With an arrogance of mythic proportions, claiming that the U.S. would make its own reality, Bush & Co have helped to create a whole class of jihadist super-stars, whose forbidden but ubiquitous images help focus hatred on America and act as recruitment posters for their cause.
It did not have to be like this, and it is time, in November’s elections, to hold to account the makers of this fake war based on lies and waged with a psychotic level of pride. It is time to stop letting the Bush administration used 9/11 as it's own political bludgeon, dishonoring the dead of that morning, and to demand a true accounting of the dangerous and unnecessary consequences it has imposed.
posted by Lawrence Austin at 9:56 PM
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