The reviews are in on Bush's speech. Well, sort of.

Born at the Crest of the Empire has a buncha links to reviews of Bush's obnoxious speech yesterday evening. I didn't watch it because I don't like being lied to, but everything he says is obnoxious.

I list all this as example that the speech failed. The press aren't buying it; it's not on the top of every page. This "major address on the anniversary of 9/11" is not being panned. Far worse for the Bush administration, it is being largely ignored.

This was supposed to be a major speech that rhetorically retied Iraq and the "war on terror" for the run in of the '06 campaign, but quite evidently that effort has failed.

Lying and bragging about your accomplishments when there are none has a way of catching up to you when you try, vainly and in vain, to perpetuate them.

I hope he does it on the witness stand when a real Justice Department catches up to him.

Recap of all the erroneous lies & propaganda

Go see The Best War Ever. Basically a book ad, but a good reminder about

November

What We Really Lost After 9/11

Pensito Review

Today's New York Times marks the empty, token sacrifice we've made since 9/11, and names what we were really cheated of.

It was a time when the nation was waiting to find out what it was supposed to do, to be called to the task that would give special lasting meaning to the tragedy that it had endured. But the call never came.

The attacks themselves have begun to acquire the aura of inevitability that comes with being part of history. We can argue about what one president or another might have done to head them off, but we cannot really imagine a world in which they never happened, any more than we can imagine what we would be like today if the Japanese had never attacked Pearl Harbor.

What we do revisit, over and over again, is the period that followed, when sorrow was merged with a sense of community and purpose. How, having lost so much on the day itself, did we also manage to lose that as well?

The time when we felt drawn together, changed by the shock of what had occurred, lasted long beyond the funerals, ceremonies and promises never to forget. It was a time when the nation was waiting to find out what it was supposed to do, to be called to the task that would give special lasting meaning to the tragedy that it had endured.

But the call never came. Without ever having asked to be exempt from the demands of this new post-9/11 war, we were cut out. Everything would be paid for with the blood of other people's children, and with money earned by the next generation. Our role appeared to be confined to waiting in longer lines at the airport. President Bush, searching the other day for an example of post-9/11 sacrifice, pointed out that everybody pays taxes.

That pinched view of our responsibility as citizens got us tax cuts we didn't need and an invasion that never would have occurred if every voter's sons and daughters were eligible for the draft. With no call to work together on some effort greater than ourselves, we were free to relapse into a self-centeredness that became a second national tragedy.

What the Times doesn't say is that it could have been no other way with a leader as morally vacant as ours, a president whose first words of inspiration were to buy, buy, buy and show our patriotism and courage by indulging in mindless consumerism.

There was a time when America could do better than this, and I'm still not convinced we chose the alternative. It's a plain fact that George Bush received less of the popular vote in 2000, and from everything I've read about Ohio in 2004, I think the chances are good he did that year also. Those of us who want something finer are still out here. We just have to get better at claiming it.

We can claim it in November, '06 and '08 both.

Lemme hear an AMEN!

WaPo

Along with such other progressive evangelicals as Washington-based anti-poverty activist Jim Wallis and educator Tony Campolo, McLaren is openly critical of the conservative political agenda favored by many evangelicals.

"When we present Jesus as a pro-war, anti-poor, anti-homosexual, anti-environment, pro-nuclear weapons authority figure draped in an American flag, I think we are making a travesty of the portrait of Jesus we find in the gospels," (my em) McLaren said in a recent interview.

The phony christians need to hear more of this shit from actual practicing Christians.

Tongue-lashing. Whee!

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe on Keith Olbermann's latest telling-off of Bush. See Fixer's post.

I sometimes find myself as awestruck of Keith Olbermann's verbal artistry as Slim Pickens' "Blazing Saddles" character Taggart is of Hedley Lamarr's ("It's not *Hedy*, it's *Hedley*. Hedley Lamarr.").

Olbermann (many times over the last couple of months) has eloquently expressed the disgust which many of us feel about the Bush Administration, especially when they and their ilk malign those who would question their misdeeds, misadventures and crimes against humanity.

The title of this piece is what got me:

God darnit Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

Please leave the chrome on the trailer hitch!

Bush's Phony War

Robert Dreyfuss in Rolling Stone via Hoffmania

President Bush not only created a fake "War on Terror" to scare voters into supporting his policies -- he is failing to address the real threat facing America

The problem is, almost everything that President Bush understands about his own war on terrorism is wrong.

According to nearly a dozen former high-ranking officials who have been on the front lines of the administration's counterterrorism effort, the president is not only fighting the wrong war -- he is fighting it in a way that has actually made the threat worse. The war on terrorism, they say, has been mismanaged and misdirected almost from the start, in no small part because the president simply does not understand the nature of the enemy he is fighting.

"I hate the term 'global war on terrorism,' " says John O. Brennan, a CIA veteran who served as the first director of the National Counterterrorism Center, the primary organization set up by Bush to analyze all intelligence about terrorism and coordinate strategic operational planning. "I hate the tough talk, you know, the 'we're gonna kill these guys' stuff."

Brennan is not alone. In a survey conducted this summer, more than 100 top foreign-policy experts -- including former secretaries of state, CIA directors and high-ranking Pentagon officials -- were asked if the president is "winning the War on Terror." Eighty-four percent said no.

Five years after the attacks of September 11th, the administration has failed to grasp the shifting realities of terrorism. If the United States is to have any chance at preventing another terrorist attack -- as the British government apparently did in London last month -- there are five essential lessons the president needs to learn:

1. AL QAEDA HAS BEEN VIRTUALLY ELIMINATED AS A THREAT

In Afghanistan, the CIA reaped an intelligence bonanza, seizing Al Qaeda's computers, files and organizational records. "Once we got Al Qaeda's hard drives, our knowledge expanded exponentially," says a retired CIA station chief. That intelligence has enabled counterterrorism officers to target Al Qaeda operatives around the world, all but eviscerating the group's foreign presence. "We've killed or captured at least one or two terrorists a day for five years, all over the world," says an experienced CIA hand. "More than 4,000 in all." A relentless crackdown in 2003 by authorities in Saudi Arabia virtually eliminated Al Qaeda there, and a terrorist group in Algeria allegedly tied to bin Laden was smashed.

2. WHAT WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT AL QAEDA CAN STILL HURT US

If the president had kept his focus on capturing bin Laden, top officials say, he might have been able to declare a swift victory. Instead, Bush shifted from going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to going after Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- a decision with fateful consequences for U.S. security. "Iraq broke our back in the War on Terror," says Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Al Qaeda unit until 2004.

"They're inspired by the great fucking leader," says a former CIA station chief with wide experience in the Middle East. "And we need the great fucking leader's head on a pike."

I can think of another great fucking leader's head that needs to be on a pike next to bin Laden's...

3. THE THREAT HAS GONE VIRAL

By failing to "smoke out" bin Laden as promised, the president has given hope to a new generation of freelance terrorist cells, Islamist copycats and Al Qaeda wanna-be's. "We let them get away," says a retired CIA station chief. "We took a relatively centralized organization and turned it into a generalized virus. Before Afghanistan, we were facing somewhat of a unified threat. We now have the equivalent of a phantom that we're fighting."

4. FIGHTING TERRORISM IS FOR COPS AND SPIES, NOT SOLDIERS

or President Bush, the way to stop terrorism is to wage a war. But isolated terrorists who conspire in the suburbs of London and coordinate their attacks on jihadist Web sites can't be defeated by armies -- they can only be stopped by a combination of patient, old-fashioned police work and good intelligence. Indeed, the success of the British police and Scotland Yard in halting the recent threat in London represents a textbook example of how terrorists can be thwarted.

Over the past two years, as the CIA has been forced to do the bidding of the Pentagon, scores of top agency officials have been fired or have quit in disgust. In addition, Rolling Stone has learned, the Defense Department has even blocked efforts by the agency to produce a National Intelligence Estimate -- a formal, top-secret analysis of the threat posed by Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups. Five years after the attacks of September 11th, the administration still lacks a unified, up-to-date analysis of who the enemy is and how best to fight him.

5. TERRORISM CAN'T BE DEFEATED -- EVER

Terrorism is not an enemy, but a method. As such, it can never be defeated -- only contained and reduced. Even if the United States were to wipe out every terrorist cell in the world today, terrorism would be back tomorrow, because new grievances and new cries for revenge will continue to create new terrorists. In addition, there will always be violence-prone, armed insurgent groups that use terrorist methods in conflicts around the world, from Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon to rebel and dissident groups in Kashmir, Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Spain, Colombia, the Philippines and the Congo.

In the longer term, with each passing day, the heavy-handed U.S. involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israel-Palestine conflict is producing new terrorists. By his very policies, President Bush is spreading the virus, not quarantining it. The war in Iraq has radicalized Muslims all over the world, and it has allowed them to portray the invasion of Iraq as an attack on Islam. "The president says Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism, but Iraq has turned out to be the central front because we've made it so," says Wilkerson. "Osama bin Laden is probably chuckling in his cave. We gave it to him on a platter, with a knife and fork." (my em)

That, in the end, is the most important lesson of all to be learned from the campaign against terrorism. The hatred inflamed by the Bush administration cannot be fixed by cops, spies or soldiers. It can be fixed only by a more unified and coordinated stance toward the rest of the world -- one that creates allies rather than inspiring hatred.

"We need a healthier foreign policy," says Brennan, the former counterterrorism head. "It will take a diplomatic track to address this problem -- in ways other than killing people."

Not only have Bush and his fellow criminals done all the wrong things, they've done all the things wrong. Evil and Incompetent: a recipe for disaster, and that is exactly what's happening.

Gaping Holes in the 9/11 Narrative

Robert Scheer

What we still don't know about 9/11 could kill us. By "we" I mean the public that has been kept in the dark for five years by a president who may know the truth but has chosen to ignore it. Instead of grappling with the thorny origins of that disaster, George Bush willfully turned the nation's attention and resources to a totally unrelated and disastrous imperial adventure in Iraq.

Just how unrelated was definitively established last Friday with the belated release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's second report, which concluded that there not only was zero connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, but that Iraq was the one country in the region where Osama bin Laden could not operate.

Despite this sorry record of neglect in Southwest Asia and the creation of a quagmire and recruiting poster for terrorism in Iraq, Bush once again arrogantly asserts that his policies have made us safer, even as he has undermined our domestic freedoms and mocked the U.S. commitment to international law, particularly concerning the treatment of prisoners.

After five years of official deceit, it is not too difficult to believe that the isolation of those prisoners was done less for reasons of learning the truth about 9/11 and more in an effort to politically manage the narrative released to the public.

In short, the most cited source that we have on what happened on 9/11, the much celebrated 9/11 Commission Report, was stage-managed by the Bush administration, just as it has controlled and distorted so much other information.

In light of that sorry record of the propagandistic exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy for partisan political purpose, is it any wonder that large numbers of Americans have doubts about all of it and that a considerable industry of documentaries and investigative reports has sprung up with alternative theories ranging from the plausible to the absurd?

Press for Truth.

Vote.

November.

Press For Truth:9/11

I hesitate to write alot about 9/11 simply because I was not in any of the locations where planes became weapons that day,no one I know died or lost someone,and while I was sickened,stunned and saddened on that day,I never had to see,smell,hear or live with the aftermath of that madness.I feel like this part of our history should be told by those impacted most,my offerings for that day are really not that relevant.I was at home,nearly a thousand miles from NYC,my husband was in Houston on bidness,and our little guy had got on the school bus early that morning,around 7am.It was probably only once out of a handful of days I went back to bed after Atilla left for school.The phone rang,waking me up.It was my husband asking me if I had the TV on(the TV is never on in the daytime at my house unless something big happens).I rolled out of bed,and turned on the TV in the living room just moments before the second plane smashed into the WTC.All the air left my lungs and my husband's voice faltered.He told me he and his boss were on their way to rent a vehicle before the mad rush began and they'd be driving home,and that he'd call me back when they got on the road.I think we hung on the phone,mostly quiet,both of us sobbing softly,for about half an hour before we decided I should go pick up our son from school.At the school,the front office knew what was happening,but no one in the classrooms did.Lots of parents were freaking out jamming the phones,a few of us took our kids home.I wasn't afraid our school would be hit,I just wanted my baby home with me,it's a Mom Thang I guess.See? I told you my reflections weren't all that exciting.I started getting pissed off maybe a month or so after 9/11,as my shock wore off and I wanted to know why this happened,HOW it could happen.

Nate over at Get In Their Face! is hosting the almost 90 minute documentary(run time is 1:24,scroll down the page just a bit,it's there,and linked on his sidebar.He's got quite the collection of films there) Press For Truth: 9/11, I just finished watching it. Let me give you a feel for the film in my immediate after viewing opinion:

You must see it. You must try to get as many people as you can to see it.You might even be able to convince any"moderates"you know to watch it,hard core righties won't like this film one bit and will attack it.Let'em try,once you watch it,you'll see how difficult it will be to pick apart.

There are no tinfoily conspiracy theories here.In fact,most of the information presented is open source,with each point made often having several sited resources.This makes it quite easy to fact check,the information has been open source from day one.Paul Thompson constructed a time line using all(or mostly,I have not looked at the whole timeline yet)open source information,his work is a large part of this film.Timelines are extremely useful in constructing a look at any part of the historical record,it makes events much easier to connect and understand.As laid out,this particular timeline(actually,it's a series of timelines) is simply STUNNING in how it connects the dots.

Here's the thing though,this information has been let out in teeny,tiny little pieces.Little pieces scattered all over the media in it's various forms.Sometimes it's front page or prominent information,sometimes it's tucked away in smaller city papers,internet sites,magazines,or audio and/or video clips,etc.But none of it has ever been pieced together to tell the story with no other motive than to tell the Truth.Until Thompson and his volunteers began digging.And digging.I cannot imagine the thousands of hours spent on this project.

Nate's also got some other really good documentary films on his site,all free for the viewing if your computer will co-operate.Go visit him,and thank him too.

The right wing has made it impossible to discuss the darkness at the heart of our nation today openly,without fear of retribution,intimidation,or even physical harm.If we can't even talk about what's wrong without fighting,lying and ad hominem attacks,we will never,ever be able to identify and fix what is broken.We must not let them do this anymore,not if we expect to survive as a country.IMO,that is one of THE most insideous things today's conservative"movement"has done.We must look into the activities and backrounds of those in power,so we can decide if the people in charge of the world are people of character and strength or criminals,murderers and cowards.We simply must be allowed to have that choice and decide if the costs of what our country does(or doesn't do) is too great to us,and to others.Democracy cannot survive without this,and right now,that's going away faster and faster with every hour we stand silent.

Lessons

Olbermann at Ground Zero last night:

...

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation.
There is, its symbolism - of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.
The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it ... was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.
Those who did not belong to his party - tabled that.
Those who doubted the mechanics of his election - ignored that.
Those who wondered of his qualifications - forgot that.
History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government, by its critics.
It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.
The President - and those around him - did that.

...

When those who dissent are told time and time again - as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus - that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American ...
When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11" ... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:
Who has left this hole in the ground?
We have not forgotten, Mr. President.
You have.
May this country forgive you.

The entire transcript, of course, at Crooks & Liars.

Personally, I'm not in a forgiving mood. When dealing with this President and his minions, I'm looking toward vengeance.

Primary Day in NY

Polls open in 45 minutes. Get out there and pick your candidates, dammit.

And an aside: We'll be getting our 100,000th visitor sometime in the next week. Yes, I realize Atrios and Kos get more hits than that in half a day, but for a buncha folks who all have lives and jobs far removed from the profession of journalism, I think it's pretty good. My great thanks to my blog partners past and present, without whom the Brain wouldn't be half the blog it is.

Free parting gift: If I can figure out who our 100,000th visitor is, I'll send you a signed copy of my latest novel Technocracy, which can be used as a doorstop, paperweight, or as a form of home protection (hit somebody with it, you'll see what I mean).

Gordon

Heh ... They named one after the old man.



That's how you know you've made it.

Alterman canned by MSNBC

9/11: America attacked twice

It would be impossible to do justice here to the legacy of 9/11 at year five and I'm not going to try. This nation was doubly cursed on this day five years ago; first by the attack itself, and second by the reaction of our dishonest, incompetent and corrupt leadership's exploitation of it for their own naked political and ideological purposes. As every single global poll during the past four years indicates, we are a less admirable nation than we were five years ago. We are more warlike, more arrogant, more ignorant, less compassionate, less generous, less free, and thanks to the Bush administration's catastrophic invasion of Iraq, far less safe.

P.S., I'm Fired...

He'll soon be at Media Matters. Good.

Some things never change...

Go see Mickey Mouse presents the Reichstag fire. Watch it for a minute or so. The captions change.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Blair Leaving, Won't Say When
Hasn't received instructions from Bush.

House Panel: Intel on Iran Weak
But good enough to warrant preemptive nuclear strike, says Cheney.

Senate Report: Saddam Had No Ties to Al Qaeda
But he was close to Rumsfeld.

Republicans Concerned Spy Agencies Playing Down Iran Threat
Fear voters not sufficiently scared.

CORRECTION

We reported that President Bush had referred to busting the Miami terrorist plot as a great success. In fact, FBI informants provided the money, video cameras, plans, warehouse, cellphones, targets, a van and the Al Queda "swearing in" ceremonies, while the captured terrorists provided only the marijuana, so Bush must have been referring to the great success of busting some other terrorist plot. We apologize for any confusion caused by our mistake.

In the old days, you brought the weed, the cops brought the money, and you were busted. Later, the cops brought the weed, you brought the money, and you were busted. Nowadays, the cops bring the weed and the money, and you're busted. Sometimes the cops bust other cops this way. They all have guns, so sometimes it's funny.

Five Years After 9/11, Drop the War Metaphor

A guest editorial at BuzzFlash. Two 'must reads' in one day. Amazing. Must be an election year.

The war metaphor was chosen for political reasons. First and foremost, it was chosen for the domestic political reasons. The war metaphor defined war as the only way to defend the nation. From within the war metaphor, being against war as a response was to be unpatriotic, to be against defending the nation. The war metaphor put progressives on the defensive. Once the war metaphor took hold, any refusal to grant the president full authority to conduct the war would open progressives in Congress to the charge of being unpatriotic, unwilling to defend America, defeatist. And once the military went into battle, the war metaphor created a new reality that reinforced the metaphor.

Once adopted, the war metaphor allowed the president to assume war powers, which made him politically immune from serious criticism and gave him extraordinary domestic power to carry the agenda of the radical right: Power to shift money and resources away from social needs and to the military and related industries. Power to override environmental safeguards on the grounds of military need. Power to set up a domestic surveillance system to spy on our citizens and to intimidate political enemies. Power over political discussion, since war trumps all other topics. In short, power to reshape America to the vision of the radical right - with no end date.

9/11 was a crime - a crime against humanity - and terrorism is best dealt with as crime on an international level.

It is time to toss the war metaphor into the garbage can.

Bush is an occupation president, not a war president, and his war powers should be immediately rescinded. Rep. Lynn Woolsey's resolution to do just that (H.R. 5875) should be taken seriously and made the subject of national debate.

Finally, openly discussing the war metaphor as a metaphor would raise the question of the domestic effect of giving the president war powers, and the fact that the Bush administration has shamelessly exploited 9/11 to achieve the political goals of the radical right - with all the disasters that has brought to our country. It would allow us to name right-wing ideology, to spell it out, look at its effects, and to see what awful things it has done, is doing, and threatens to keep on doing. The blame for what has gone wrong in Iraq, in New Orleans, in our economy, and throughout the country at large should be placed squarely where it belongs - on right-wing ideology that calls itself "conservative" but mocks real American values (my em).

Metaphors cannot be seen or touched, but they create massive effects, and political intimidation is one such effect. It is time for political courage and political realism. It is time to end the political intimidation of the war metaphor and the terror it has loosed on America.

I couldn't have put it better myself. Go read the rest.

Cheney's influence waning

Good. The last paragraph of a three-page article in WaPo:

Mr. Cheney maintains that what matters now is convincing the country that it is really at war and that defeat is not an option. And at 65, he seems willing to wait for his vindication. As Mr. Cheney recently told NBC, "History will decide how I did."

It already has, motherfucker. Hopefully it won't be too long before the Devil collects on your deal with him.

Promises not kept. Duh.

Paul Krugman via Welcome to Pottersville, with an intro by Jurassicpork:

Still, when you consider the Bush family's cozy corporate relationship with the bin Ladens, you'd think the appearance of impropriety and conflcit of interest alone, if not because of the 3000 innocent lives taken five years ago today, would've given the Bush administration incentive to capture Osama bin Laden long before now.

But I'll let Paul Krugman have his say...

And so he does.

Five years ago, the nation rallied around a president who promised vengeance against those responsible for the atrocity of 9/11. Yet Osama bin Laden is still alive and at large. His trail, The Washington Post reports, has gone "stone cold." Osama and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are evidently secure enough in their hideaway that they can taunt us with professional-quality videos.

Meanwhile, much of Afghanistan has fallen back under the control of drug-dealing warlords and of the Taliban, which sheltered Al Qaeda before it was driven from Kabul. [...]

The path to this strategic defeat began with the failure to capture or kill bin Laden. Never mind the anti-Clinton hit piece, produced for ABC by a friend of Rush Limbaugh; there never was a clear shot at Osama before 9/11, let alone one rejected by Clinton officials. But there was a clear shot in December 2001, when Al Qaeda's leader was trapped in the caves of Tora Bora. He made his escape because the Pentagon refused to use American ground troops to cut him off.

At the same time, the administration balked at giving the new regime in Kabul the support it needed. As he often does, Mr. Bush said the right things: the history of conflict in Afghanistan, he declared in April 2002, has been "one of initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. We're not going to repeat that mistake."

But he proceeded to do just that, neglecting Afghanistan in ways that foreshadowed the future calamity in Iraq. During the first 18 months after the Taliban were driven from power, the U.S.-led coalition provided no peacekeeping troops outside the capital city. Economic aid, in a destitute nation shattered by war, was minimal in the crucial first year, when the new government was trying to build legitimacy. And the result was the floundering and failure we see today.

But Iraq doesn't explain it all. Even though the Bush administration was secretly planning another war in early 2002, it could still have spared some troops to provide security and allocated more money to help the Karzai government. As in the case of planning for postwar Iraq, however, Bush officials apparently refused even to consider the possibility that things wouldn't go exactly the way they hoped.

These days most agonizing about the state of America's foreign policy is focused, understandably, on the new enemies we've made in Iraq. But let's not forget that the perpetrators of 9/11 are still at large, five years later, and that they have re-established a large safe haven.

The first 'comment' is killer:

Yeah: a large safe haven bunkered in Maryland, run by the Vice President.

If this administration ever kept one of its promises other than the ones it's made to rich people, it might give me a heart attack out of sheer surprise. I'm in no danger.

The Day That Changed Everything Wasn't 9/11

Today's 'must read', from TomDispatch. As always when reading Tom, take a lunch.

When, back in the 1960s, Senator J. William Fulbright wrote of "the arrogance of power" as a defining trait of America's leaders, few in power took him seriously. So many years later, the question is: Do our present arrogant leaders have the faintest idea how limited their powers really are? As Ira Chernus, author of Monsters To Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror and Sin, suggests below, on this fifth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the leadership of an increasingly cornered empire continues to put its emphasis not just on striking back, but on striking first... and wherever. This is the most dangerous, the most blinding and fearful legacy of the 9/11 attacks. In the long run, it threatens a world in rubble. Tom

Yes, it changed everything -- not September 11, 2001, when the Twin Towers collapsed, but November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell and left the U.S. at sea, drifting without an enemy in a strange new world.

The neoconservatives understand all this perfectly well -- and well before September 11, 2001. For years, they had dreamed of preserving American virtue (and American global dominance) by flaunting American military might. They just needed an ongoing series of excuses to do the flaunting. The attacks of 9/11 gave them their chance.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice (all products of the Cold War era) said it clearly in the weeks following the attack. Their new war would not be a straightforward World War II-style march to victory. It would be more like… well, the war they knew, the Cold War, with its endless string of conflicts, crises, containments, and battles in the frontier lands of what used to be called the Third World. And it would be forever.

Here's the irony. Unlike the nuclear-armed Soviet Union in the Cold War years, terrorists cannot actually threaten to obliterate our country or destroy the planet. But each apocalyptic warning of war to the death by the Bush administration only hastens another kind of loss -- the loss of the American imperial power they so prize.

This is the vicious circle from Hell. The Bush administration's aggressive policies weaken U.S. power. Then its officials try to frighten the public into supporting the very same aggressive policies. We were stuck in a similar cycle, only half-recognized, throughout the Cold War years, and there's no end in sight. So far, it looks like not much has changed at all since 9/11.

Already, there is a growing awareness that the Bush Global War on Terror is doing more harm than good. Even from the foreign policy elite we can hear (though still often faintly) voices saying it's time to call it off. For now, the talk is narrowly focused on our imperial well-being -- the weakening of U.S. power and interests around the world.

Perhaps, as losses mount, Americans will eventually see the more important truth: Simplistic moralism and a pervasive fear of apocalyptic disaster weaken our society here at home. They make every step toward positive change look like a looming danger and that plays right into the hands of conservatives who are dedicated to preventing the change we need so badly. If the failed war on terror eventually teaches us this lesson, 9/11 will turn out to be the day that did indeed change everything.

To paraphrase Monsieur de Tocqueville, "America is great because she is good. When she stops being good, she will cease to be great."

We're well on our way to being neither unless we get rid of this administration and their neocon enablers. We need to re-invent ourselves in the realization that we live on this planet with neighbors, good and bad both. We don't own it. That is the true 'generational' battle.

Quote of the Day

From the ground in Baghdad:

As things stand, many 4-23 members say the sweeps are no more than a temporary fix. Some argue that the aim is only to make Iraq look good before the Nov. 7 U.S. elections - "fighting for the House of Representatives," as Sgt. Brian Patton describes it. [my em]

Tip o' the Brain to Xan.

9/11

[I think I might have posted this before. It's a letter my wife wrote to my family in Germany a few days after 9/11, recounting her experience and to get it down as some sort of record:]

14 September 2001


I wanted to tell you what has happened here, from my vantage point. This is not to scare you, but to let you know what I have been through and that I have made it out ok.

My office is directly across the street from the World Trade Center. As Birgit [my cousin who'd visited NYC 6 weeks before] may have told you, my office faces the Trade Center, and the Towers are the only thing I truly see from there. If you have seen any of the local maps, they refer to the World Financial Center and the American Express and Merrill Lynch Buildings. My office was on the 44th floor of the Merrill Lynch Building.

I arrived at work at 06:40 hours and was preparing to leave the office at 09:15 with two co-workers to visit a client in New Jersey. We were to have left the building at 09:15 to get the car to drive there. At 08:45, the office was quiet as not everyone had arrived for the day. We heard, what I thought was the sonic boom of a military plane. [Fixer] and I had heard the same sound on one of our cruises when a Coast Guard plane "buzzed" the ship. The next thing after the boom, the building shook. Since all of our windows faced the towers, someone began to cry out, "My God, the plane is going to hit the Tower". Everyone raced to the windows to open the remaining blinds and I was no exception. I watched, in horror as the tail end of the first plane disappeared into the North Tower. At the same time it was disappearing, pieces of the fuselage were falling out of the plane while a huge fireball was coming out of the opposite side. We all stood there for about 45 seconds in total disbelief, thinking this was not real and rather a stunt for a movie script. At this time, I still was unaware the plane was a commercial jet and not a military plane. We believed this was a "freak accident".

My Vice President (the big boss of the department) was of sound mind enough to call out for everyone to evacuate the office. I grabbed my things and ran out, following my co workers through the suite of our office space. We considered this an emergency and walked down the entire 44 floors of the building, only to reach street level, almost directly under the burning North Tower. It appeared to me that my company were the only ones on the stairs. We have over 225 people working for the company, and with everyone coming out at the same time, the exit area was getting crowded. We had some people who had heart conditions. We tried to help them as much as possible down the stairs and out of the building.

We kept moving outside, to allow everyone an area to exit the building. While walking outside, I started to see pieces of the burning building floating down, seeming like a feather, until it impacted the street, and exploded like fireballs on the pavement.

I passed two people, who had apparently been pedestrians on the street, who were struck by burning debris. They were burned so badly, their bones were exposed. They were burned almost beyond recognition.

After being on street level, not more than 2-3 minutes, I kept saying , "We shouldn't be here. We are too close to the area." Just after I said this, I heard the second sonic boom, and the second plane impacted the South Tower, and debris again began to rain down on us. At this time, I was certain we were under attack by terrorists. All of this transpired in just 18 minutes.

We ran through my office building towards the Hudson River, on the West side of "downtown" Manhattan. I kept my wits together enough to know we had to continue to get away, moving North of the area. People were in a panic and many of us knew people who worked in the towers. One of the girls who worked in my accounting department had a boyfriend who worked in the Tower, apparently on the floor that was struck first. She was paralyzed with horror.

In the midst of all the confusion, I was able to locate my two immediate bosses. We stayed together and continued to walk North and away from the area. We continued about 15-20 blocks on foot as there were no vehicles to be seen with the exception of emergency vehicles.

We soon saw a taxi cab, that was locked with the driver standing by and watching with horror of his own. We were able to convince him to drive us to Penn Station. We were trying to get on a train to get out of the City as soon as possible.

It took us a long time driving, but we made it to Penn Station by 9:40. I made my way inside and called [Fixer] to tell him I was alive. It was now 0945. People were in a daze trying to figure out what was going on. No one that was in the Midtown area knew exactly what was happening, but they knew it was not good.

There was a train scheduled to leave Penn Station for my home at 10:15. My Manager and I were able to get on the train. We were packed into the train with no room, all hoping against hope to get out of the City.

At 10:30, an announcement was made that the train was cancelled; Penn Station was closed; and we would have to exit the train and get out of Penn Station, only to have to go out on the streets of New York City.

I was trapped in a City under attack, with no hopes of getting home in the immediate future.

My boss and I started walking away from Penn Station in case it was the next to be hit. We were also only two blocks away from the Empire State Building. We feared this may be the next target.

[Rumors were running rampant in the hours following the attack and if you listened to the news, bombs were going off everywhere ~ F]

There was no traffic in the streets because the City had effectively been closed. It was surreal to walk in the streets of New York City with no sounds of cars, trucks, busses or overhead planes. People were wandering aimlessly, walking in the middle of the major streets of NYC, without knowing what to do or where to go.

We made our way to 42nd street, and watched, on the large exterior televisions as the Towers collapsed.

All businesses and stores had closed by this time; however; there had been people working on construction sites who had radios on. They allowed us to listen to the news. We walked a little further and stopped by a truck who was stopped with his door open allowing us to listen to a bit more of the news as we continued to walk on.

We attempted to find a hotel to stay in, however, there were none to be found, nor did I really want to think about spending the night in the City.

After wandering for hours, we were told that one of the bridges leading out of the City and towards home would be opened to pedestrians. This was on the East side of town, and "uptown" from where we were. We continued to walk towards the bridge among the masses of people just wandering. We were on a "mission" to get home and out of the City, no matter how far we had to walk.

After a while, we were now at 53rd Street and 3rd Avenue, almost on the East River, and at the midpoint of the island. The subways began working again and we were among the first to get on and get safely out of Manhattan. It took another few hours before I finally made it home at 16:30.

We have remained in the house for the past few days, glued to the television, trying to get as much news about what is happening as possible. The death toll is expected to rise to almost 10,000, if not more. Entire companies of 1500 people or more have been lost. We have no information whether my building, which is considered to be in "ground zero", will ever be able accessible again or not. Telephones are sporadic coming into and out of NY. We are awake now, Friday, since 05:30.

There have been several arrests overnight, where they believe there were three different groups, attempting to get on planes out of Kennedy airport and LaGuardia airport in NY, who were going to try to do more damage.

The World Trade Center was truly a world in itself. There were businesses from at least 15 different countries who had companies and people in the Towers. Japan had 31 companies, most of which were clients of my company. Deutsche Bank had offices there and 4 German nationals are confirmed dead with numerous others listed as currently missing.

What you see on television, if you have been watching, is nothing compared to having been there. It still seems like a bad dream, however, it is not. I have had a lot of pain in my legs from all of the stairs I walked down, and all of the additional walking, however, I sit here and say, "thank goodness I am here to feel the pain".

The people of New York and the surrounding states have pulled together for the rescue efforts. We will get past this and we will come back bigger and better than we were, once we have had the opportunity to grieve and heal.

I wanted you to know that I am ok. That is all for now.

We send our love to you all.

[As you can see, not long after New York's blackest day, we, and I speak for most NYers, were already looking to the future. We are an irrepressable bunch and as history has proven, 5 years later we are back in stride, back to our old form. I am proud, honored, and privileged to call myself a born and bred New Yorker and will be until I die, regardless of where I choose to live. ~ Fixer]