I just watched Bill Moyers’ PBS special on 911, and it brought back a wealth of memories, things that somehow have evaporated from our collective consciences — Richard’s Clarke’s very specific warning about Osama Bin Laden’s intent to attack America, John Ashcroft seeking to get funds for anti-terrorism reduced days before 911, Condi Rice’s grotesque evasions before the 911 commission, bush clearing brush and sawing wood during his 23-day vacation as 911 loomed and as the CIA was being flooded with reports of terror cells about to wreak massive destruction on American soil. If you’re in China, I don’t know if you can see it, but it’s amazing.
How did we forget all this? How did we let ourselves be deluded into believing the least qualified, most irresponsible cipher on the planet is the only man who can “keep us safe”? Seeing these video clips and watching the frightening timeline drove it home so vividly. When, in early 2001, Clarke warned that the attack on the USS Cole was an Al Qaeda action and that more were to follow, the bush people actually told him, almost verbatim, “That happened on Clinton’s watch — it’s not our concern.” And what did Clarke get for his “hair-on-fire” warnings to Condi and the president? He was demoted, and barred from meetings on terrorism. meetings at which it was agreed there were no action items to be taken on terrorism. And bush is the man who will keep us all safe. He is the wartime president whom we must elect or face annihilation. A coke-snorter, draft-dodger, and failure in everything he ever attempted, who picked up a bullhorn and gave a good speech and is thus elevated to near Messiahnic status while he drags us ever deeper into a needless war that bleeds the treasury and slits the throats of our young servicepeople who believe they are dying for something better, something noble.
And why shouldn’t we throw the scoundrel out of office on his ass? What a stupid question! It’s because his opponent was in Cambodia in January, when he said decades ago that he was there in December. Obviously, the decorated veteran and hero isn’t fit to serve. It’s so strange, so twisted, a fiction writer couldn’t ever conceive of it. And this is what I came home to. This is America. And it just may continue, like a long-term sickness, for yet another four years. The very thought makes me nauseous.
Sorry for the venting, but after a hard day at work and a deluge of bad news on Iraq, the elections and the economy, I don’t know what else to do.
Update: Further proof for the skeptical.
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By Lisa
Boy, your thoughts mirror my own so exactly I don’t have anything much to add. Except that I was still surprised just how upsetting it was watching that special and seeing those images again. And thinking about what a whirlwind was unleashed upon the world by this whole thing.
Personally I’m hosting a debate party for Kerry because I have to maintain some hope. We can’t take four more years of this…
September 10, 2004 @ 11:00 pm | Comment
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By richard
Thanks Lisa — it’s good to know I’m not alone.
September 11, 2004 @ 12:02 am | Comment
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By pete
For sure you are not alone. Keep battling, fighting the good fight, you may just turn a few or many minds about the infamous George.
Here is a couplet from Rudyard Kipling on the event of his son’s death in WWI:
“If any question why we died
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”
September 11, 2004 @ 1:20 am | Comment
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By tom beta 2
Just wandered over from Gweilo Diaries and thought I’d look around. I really like the site design.
My one comment, richard, Lisa, and pete, is that you seem to have lived in an entirely different world from myself, connected by a few points of reference like 9/11.
I do respect your feelings about this, and although I’ll be voting for Bush, if Kerry wins the election, more power to him.
I have a hard time seeing how NOT overthrowing Saddam could be justified. As much as you feel deeply about each American soldier killed in Iraq, richard, I felt the same way for 12 years about every Iraqi butchered by Saddam, the same way about the probably more than a 150,000 children younger than 5 that Saddam allowed to die because he spent his Oil-for-Food money on palaces, massive mosques (dedicted to himself), and weapons.
I was also angry that we had to risk our pilots over the no-fly zones to protect the Kurds from Saddam. How long would that have lasted? Until the sanctions were lifted. Then Saddam would have butchered many of them like he did the Shiites in ’91.
I cheered when Clinton finally did something about the carnage in the former Yugoslav states. I cheered when we liberated Iraq. We may not achieve all our goals in either, but both are, to my mind, certainly better off now.
Respectfully,
tom
September 11, 2004 @ 4:02 am | Comment
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By vaara
But that’s not how the war was marketed to the American people. Instead of telling us that the sole purpose of the war was to liberate the Iraqi people from the grip of a murderous tyrant, the Bushies created the impression that the invasion was aimed at ridding the Middle East of unauthorized WMDs; striking a blow at al-Qaeda; and transforming the entire region into an America-loving haven of freedom and democracy.
As we now know, the first two reasons were completely bogus. And as for the third goal, even though it has the virtue of being (relatively) sincere, the events that have transpired since the “mission” was “accomplished” make it increasingly unlikely that it will be attained anytime soon, at least not without further massive expenditures of American blood and treasure.
What we object to is not the fact that Saddam was deposed — how could we? — but rather the fact that the Bushies so sordidly and unabashedly lied to us about their reasons for wanting to do so.
September 11, 2004 @ 4:44 am | Comment
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By Kevin
It’s interesting how easily people overlook the possibly disastrous consequences of the Iraq war. Rather than contribute to a decline in terrorism, Iraq is becoming and will continue to be an incubator for terrorists. How many members of Al Qaeda were Iraqis before the war began? How many exist now? And how many more terrorists have been created across the Muslim world because of this misguided and disastrous war?
It’s also interesting how easily people buy the belief that Saddam posed some kind of imminent threat to us. Saddam was an old, paranoid nutcase who would have never given WMDs to terrorists. Why? Because dictators fear losing power more than anything else and WMDs in the hands of any other group would be a direct threat to his monopoly of violence in Iraq. We all know that there were no proven links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Maybe the Bushies misread the country of origin for the 9/11 terrorists, although “Saudi Arabia” doesn’t really like “Iraq.”
Finally, it shoulud be noted that History demonstrates that occupying powers are never particularly loved by the people whom they control. This is regardless of how the occupying power fought its war and of how they conducted their occupation. There will always be a sizable percentage of the population that hates the occupier. That will be a major legacy of the war for many years to come. The administration demonstrated an extraordinary amount of naivete by believing that we would be welcomed with open arms. This is a naivete that will, unfortunately, continue to inform their foreign policy unless Bush is kicked out of office.
September 11, 2004 @ 9:54 am | Comment
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By richard
Vaara: “What we object to is not the fact that Saddam was deposed — how could we? — but rather the fact that the Bushies so sordidly and unabashedly lied to us about their reasons for wanting to do so.”
But even more than that, we were led to believe all the legwork had been done, that if Saddam was gone we were ready to install democracy right away, and that the Iraqis would embrace us. In fairness, some did embrace us at first, but when they saw we cared more about fixing the pipelines than providing drinking water, those hearts and minds were lost forever. Then of course, we had little “ancillary incidents” like, um, Abu Ghraib. If we had a chance of winning in May 2003, we can never win now, and every single soldier who dies there is a life lost in vain, a prop to boy george’s ego and his dreams of power and vengeance. Saddam was a monster and I always supported doing what it takes to get him out. But the ground in iraq is now fertile for creating more Saddams, even worse than the original, thanks to the blind hatred and anger we have fomented. Oh, and we brought something else to Iraq — it’s now a hotbed of terrorism, something it never was before. Can anyone see the irony?
September 11, 2004 @ 10:42 am | Comment
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By Lisa
Successful interventions – and I too supported the intervention in Bosnia – are most possible and necessary in situations where you have a failed state and an international commitment to the intervention. This was not the situation in Iraq. NOW we have a failed state, to be sure. There are entire cities in Iraq that are under the control of various militias and factions at war with an occupying power and with each other. Also, you can’t bring democracy to people that don’t necessarily want it. Before the US invasion, the Kurds had a defacto state of their own, with the beginnings of democratic institutions, a free press, rights for women, etc. The US/Coalition no-fly zone gave them the opportunity to develop these things, but the Kurds did it for themselves. What kind of a future do they have in post-invasion Iraq that could very easily be dominated by religious fundamentalists?
I’m rambling here, but the point is, bad as Saddam was, he wasn’t a danger to us; we had him in a box. We intervened with no clear plan to keep order on the ground and a very poor understanding of what the situation was in Iraq. We – and I don’t mean “we”, I mean the Bush Administration – trusted a con-man and probable Iranian spy Chalabi to guide a post-war Iraq. And now the country has collapsed into utter chaos. This Administration is INCOMPETENT not to mention corrupt.
I like to see evil dictators gone as much as the next person. But why Iraq? Why not North Korea? Why not, geez, name your tyrant? We may have the mightiest military in the world but that doesn’t mean we have the power to intervene at will and install governments more to our liking. It doesn’t work very well. We have to choose our international interventions with extreme care. There needs to be a clear and present danger to the United States or there needs to be a genocide in progress that we have a hope of stopping (which generally requires international support of some kind).
Finally, how in the world can anyone argue that invading Iraq has made us “safer”? It’s a documented fact that we pulled resources out of Afghanistan and that Afghanistan is on the verge of being a failed state, run by warlords and Taliban, creating the very conditions that gave Al Qaeda and Osama refuge in the first place. Why didn’t we finish that job? We just went in, smashed more stuff up and left. In terms of Homeland Security, we haven’t secured our ports. Haven’t installed bomb detectors in our airports. Haven’t secured our nuclear or chemical facilities. Are willing to let assault rifles be sold in this country that could easily end up in the hands of terrorists, both foreign and domestic. What the hell is this administration doing?! The clock could be ticking on another 9/11 while they are awarding billion dollar contracts rebuilding Iraq to their corporate cronies.
Okay. Enough now. Excuse the rant.
Lisa
September 11, 2004 @ 12:31 pm | Comment
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By Anonymous
hear hear
January 22, 2005 @ 6:59 pm | Comment