Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Thoughts on 9/11

From Meryl Johnson at The American Street:

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What did Bush have to do with 9/11 except to allow it to happen because he was too arrogant and ignorant to pay attention to Clinton's warnings about al Qaeda? The 9/11 Commission seems to have been able to find plenty of indications that something major was about to happen. Even strong indications that whatever was about to happen would involve hijacked planes. To not have enough airport security to prevent four -- count em, four -- planes from being hijacked at the same time, and then to not even notice that four planes had been hijacked until they began to crash into buildings -- and then, once aware that something was amiss, not be able to figure out what to do about it, has to mean that those responsible for protecting public safety were not only asleep but in a deep coma.

And what has he done since then for this city besides showing up three days later for a photo-op? His immediate REAL response was to betray us by not allowing the REAL reports on air quality at the WTC site to be released, thus poisoning all who worked there and everyone who lived near there. How many of the workers at the site, who could have been protected by at least wearing a mask, are now sick, probably damaged for life? Yeah, now he calls them heros. I guess they just weren't heroic enough or important enough to protect their safety by telling them the truth. The police and firemen who sacrificed so much that day certainly aren't being rewarded like heros -- they've been working without a contract for two years. Or, in the Bush every-man-for-himself ideology, they should have figured out for themselves that the air was poisonous and not believed the reports that the air was safe? Oh, there's a long list of sins against the city, a history of utter contempt for the city and its suffering, the most recent being that remark about the "unseemly scramble for money" by city officials afterwards. Only a bunch of psychopaths could act like this and then come to this wounded city to claim credit for how noble their response has been. Their response? Establishing the huge, incredibly expensive, meaningless "Homeland Security" department, taking away the workers' rights to do it, which seems mainly tell us to buy lots of duct tape, to issue dubious terrorist alerts based on a color scale -- and, of course, the amazing decision to attack Iraq while ignoring the real terrorist danger. [my emphasis]

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