Where were you when the planes hit the Twin Towers? --- laughing at everyone's dismay did they really think a US interventionist/pre-emptive war policy would stand unopposed?
who will be surprised during the next attack? On Sep 9, 11:34 am, MJ <[email protected]> wrote: > A Bloody Decade of Fear and Vauntingby Anthony GregoryOn September 10, 2001, > many who thirsted for liberty smelled hope in the air. The Clinton era was > over and the new Bush era showed signs of being less eventful, even more > peaceful. The Republican had won on a platform of a humbler foreign policy > than Clinton-Gore’s, and had by late 2001 pushed through his tax cut. More to > the point, he already seemed an impotent president, having just barely won > after one of the most contentious rounds of recounts and court challenges in > electoral history. The Senate was split down the middle. Much of Bush’s > domestic policy, itself an unconvincing continuation of Clintonian > moderation, seemed doomed, and on foreign policy – such as in his handling of > the China spy plane affair – he was refreshingly calm compared to the more > hawkish elements of his party. > Clinton hadn’t even been that bad, even considering the steady expansion of > regulations, a horribly unjust war (though not one as terrible as Operation > Desert Storm), and the largest single federal law enforcement atrocity in > living memory. But he was not the LBJ or FDR he wanted to be, and yet he > helped awaken a new distrust in government, especially on the right, that had > been asleep throughout the Reagan-Bush wrap-up of the Cold War years. For > people to hate even Clinton’s generally milquetoast tyranny so much was a > wonderful thing to witness. All in all, throughout the 1990s, government had > grown at a manageable pace compared to the economy, there was even a nominal > surplus in 1998, and the growing Internet pointed to new opportunities for > technology and freedom. U.S. foreign policy had been steadily aggressive, > especially in the Middle East, but this did not pose the direct threat to > liberty at home that would come to distinguish the years that followed. > On September 10, 2001, I was a 20-year-old American history student in my > junior year at UC Berkeley, hopeful that the next decade would be as > relatively placid as the Clinton years. My friends and I sat and watchedThis > Is Spinal Tapthat night, embodying that pre-9/11 mentality that has been so > viciously derided ever since. > A phone call from my dad woke me up the next morning. A few of my roommates > were already watching the news. Talking heads on Fox, which I had preferred > to the statist liberals on CNN, were calling for blood, saying it was time to > let loose "the dogs of war." It was the beginning of a nightmare that has so > far lasted ten years. > Although my college buddies and I lived in the pre-9/11 bubble, having come > of age in the boom times of the 1990s, we were not ignorant of the conditions > that likely led to this attack – one-sided support for Israel, the U.S. > troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, the sanctions that killed half a million > Iraqi children. Libertarians and others had warned for years aboutthe threat > of blowback. Berkeley was a fairly safe place to be a peacenik and that month > I was glad to be where I was. Nevertheless, it was depressing that virtually > no one in the wider culture was drawing the clear connection between > terrorism and America's brutal policy of wars, sanctions, and occupations. > With very few exceptions, war fever swept the nation in September 2001. The > entire right, barring a few voices in the wilderness, reverted to full-blown > jingoist nationalism. Most progressives were at the best ambivalent on the > prospect of war against the Taliban. Even many libertarians clung to the > state for protection. Prominent Objectivists demanded that the U.S. nuke ten > countries as a show of force. > All of a sudden Bush was a hero. His approval rating shot up dramatically, > even though all he did, at the very best, was fail to stop 9/11. This massive > failure on the part of U.S. intelligence and security policy would never be > looked at seriously in the mainstream media or in the top echelons of U.S. > politics. The fact that the FBI had been infiltrating al Qaeda in the United > States since 1989 and had tracked Zacarias Moussaoui in the summer of 2001 is > barely remembered, along with the Taliban’s offer after 9/11 to hand over bin > Laden if proof of his guilt was offered. > The immediate aftermath was surreal to observe. Throughout September I was > still under the impression that Gore would have reacted worse to the crisis – > and to this day I’m not 100% convinced otherwise, although it’s much harder > to believe. The anthrax scare came – another incident that has since gone > down the memory hole. The bombs began falling on Kabul in October, and > victory over the Taliban was declared. (Nearly ten years later, we are still > hearing about how the Taliban will eventually be defeated once and for all.) > Then came the Patriot Act, the destruction of almost all that remained from a > Fourth Amendment previously abused for years in the war on drugs. Support for > the onslaught on our freedoms was almost unanimous on the Hill. > I hoped this hysteria would soon subside, but throughout 2002 we heard the > war drums beating, at rising intensity, for Iraqi blood. It was a most > ominous year, a sense that we were trapped in an alternate universe > permeating everything, because anyone paying the least bit of attention could > have told you that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Even Afghanistan was > virtually unrelated, at least in any way that would make the war there > logical. But Iraq? Saddam was Osama bin Laden’s enemy. The regime was > secular. Its WMD were non-existent, we had good reasons to believe, and the > only reason we should fear any that did exist was if the U.S. were to invade > – as the CIA reminded us up until the unleashing of Shock and Awe. > In March 2003, the U.S. government opened a whirlwind of terror upon the > people of Iraq, duplicating the destruction of 9/11 many times over. > Thousands of bombs were dropped, including some weighing in at a ton, such as > the celebrated Joint Direct Attack Munition that got all the press that week. > The obscenity of war ecstasy gripped the nation even greater than it had when > the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. I vividly remember a homeless guy on a bus > attentively studying a newspaper article featuring photographs and > descriptions of the major weaponry deployed by the U.S. He pointed it out to > a fellow derelict, who was disgusted by this morbid fascination. "Don’t show > me that. All they have is rocks and shit! We’re gonna go in there and kill > them. They’re poorer than us. They ain’t no threat to us. We’re just gonna go > and run them over." This exchange was intellectually superior to almost > anything on the networks in those days. > Another odd thing I noticed was how much the political dynamic had shifted, > not just temporarily in the brief aftermath of 9/11, but all the way through > the opening of the Iraq war, with the metamorphosis seemingly progressing by > the day. The conservative movement no longer saw government as a major threat > at all. The socialists, meanwhile, protested the war. As a libertarian in > Berkeley, I was greatly frustrated by this situation. But the way that the > War Party was even more enthusiastic about Iraq than Afghanistan demonstrated > that the problem was a long-term cultural one that would likely persist for > generations. > By 2004 there were some signs of hope.Fahrenheit 9/11was an antiwar movie > with popular reach. The torture scandal that erupted in April, when photos > from Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, a notorious torture facility run by Saddam and > now reopened for business by Americans, demonstrated the depths of U.S. > depravity, there was a silver lining: Many were genuinely disgusted. Around > the same time the Supreme Court began questioning some of Bush’s most > presumptuous claims of unlimited detention power, at Guantánamo and at home. > Maybe these excesses would be reined in. Maybe the war on terror itself would > end. > That was over seven years ago. Everyone at the top responsible for those > atrocities have been shielded by the current administration, and most of > their injustices continued. > In August of 2004, the 9/11 Commission published its superficial report, the > last such federal investigation of any significance. Almost all of its > recommendations were for a more active federal role in stopping terrorism, > rather than ratcheting back or even seriously rearranging its failed > intelligence approaches. > The Democrats put up John Kerry, quite the hawk compared to Howard Dean, but > at least he was raising some good questions in the debates on Iraq, even if > he was essentially a dedicated interventionist, especially on Afghanistan. > When Bush won reelection in 2004, every American peacenik’s heart sank. It > was a horrible pill to swallow. He had proudly run promising to stay the > course after the worst four years for American liberty since Richard Nixon, > and won by a larger margin than in 2000. > More scandals emerged in 2005. An increasing number of Americans saw the Iraq > war for what it was – a crusade fought in vain built on a mountain of lies. > The new Iraq constitution was obviously not a triumph for freedom, given its > socialism and blow against secularism. The terrible response to Katrina in > September 2005 made the Bush administration fair game for mainstream > criticism. In December 2005 we found out that the Bush administration had > been using the NSA to spy on telecommunications without even the > lackadaisical warrants authorized by FISA. For a few days, there was outrage, > and it continued to be a talking point among Bush’s political opponents for a > couple more years. It was good to see that the newly reelected presidential > team was discredited a year into their second term. By the end of 2005, > pundits were even musing about the possible downfall of Dick Cheney, although > it never happened. > In 2006 Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, essentially authorizing > the president to do what he had been doing with detention policy at > Guantánamo. The Supreme Court had struck his detention policy down a couple > times, instructing him to go to Congress before he continued on his > extraordinary course. He did so, and the Republican Congress rubberstamped > one of the greatest erosions of habeas corpus in American history. > In was also in 2006 that we saw the last gasp of hope that the post-9/11 > flurry of statism and war would take a step back due to a shake-up of the > establishment, the last hint that the neocon stampede toward totalitarianism > was something of an aberration. The Democrats won Congress that November, in > many cases running against the Republicans’ record on war and civil > liberties. But in 2007 the betrayal became clear. The Democrats came to power > and continued to finance the wars enthusiastically, no strings attached. Bush > was rewarded for his warrantless wiretapping with the passage of the Protect > America Act of 2007. > Americans were particularly tired of the Iraq war, and so Bush and co. > responded throughout 2007 with "the surge" – a ridiculous strategy that > "worked" in quelling violence mostly due to bribery and the fact that the > Iraqi civil war sparked by the U.S. invasion was finally ending. Yet the > American people came to see this policy as a huge success, the lesson being > that when a U.S. war isn’t doing so well, the answer is indeed to step up the > killing. > In the 2008 campaign season, thanks especially to Ron Paul, there was some > serious talk about the problems with America’s policy of permanent, mindless > war. In particular, for the first time since 2001 Americans heard the > dispassionate suggestion that perhaps Americans are attacked because the U.S. > government bombs, invades, and occupies foreign countries; and bribes, props > up, and overthrows foreign regimes. Bush had gotten away with this > preposterous propaganda that 9/11 had awoken a sleeping giant, rather than > being a painful but relatively small hornet bite resulting from the giant > actively stamping on nests all day and night. > Yet the elections also marked the Republicans’ and mainstream conservative > movement’s final consummation of their marriage to the warfare state. > Celebrating imprisonment without trial became the measure of a good > conservative. Movement conservatives questioned McCain’s credentials because > he had slight compunctions about torture. No longer could anyone pretend Bush > was some kind of anomaly in his party. > When the election came down to McCain and Obama, many saw in Obama some hope > that on foreign policy and civil liberties we would finally see something > resembling a return to normalcy. But Obama had already shown his hand, by > voting to legalize warrantless wiretapping, calling the surge in Iraq a > success "beyond our wildest dreams," and repeatedly promising to expand the > war in Afghanistan. > As president, in his first month, Obama gave a nod to civil libertarians with > some executive orders shutting down black sites, suspending military > commissions, and setting a schedule to close down Guantánamo. Two and a half > years into his presidency, we see this was all a trick: Obama has completely > entrenched the worst of Bush’s policies into permanence. Warrantless > wiretapping is the law of the land. Torturers are protected by the president; > whistleblowers are jailed without charge. Indefinite detention without trial > or meaningful habeas corpus review is bipartisan, official policy. The notion > that the president can unilaterally declare someone an enemy combatant, even > a U.S. citizen, and order him killed, is no longer very controversial, if > it’s even recognized. Obama signed the renewal to the Patriot Act without > most people even taking notice. > The president has also expanded the war on Afghanistan – the first major > element to Bush’s war on terror abroad – by about three-fold, with no end in > sight. As for the doctrine that the president can decide to go to war with a > country even without congressional approval or a clear threat to the United > States, Obama did it without shame in Libya. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands > of corpses later, the war in Iraq continues, on much the same schedule as we > might have expected from McCain. One of Obama’s only crumbs thrown to the > progressives who campaigned for him is the overturning of Don’t Ask, Don’t > Tell – opening up the franchise for America’s armies to wage pointless, > aggressive wars. > And the civil libertarian left’s disapproval of the rapid disintegration of > our constitutional rights? An indicator of the decline came last November, > when most progressives sided with Big Brother against civil disobedience > concerning the Transportation Security Administration. Created by Bush, the > TSA has been one of the most insidious developments of the last decade, not > just for its direct attack on our liberties but also for its transformative > effect on our culture. Today’s young Americans will grow up not remembering a > time when being groped or irradiated by a federal official seemed the least > bit unusual. The police-state regimentation at our airports foreshadows a > frightening fascist trajectory in this nation. And although a Republican > invention, birthed in the midst of left-liberals warning about the Bush > administration’s erosions of our civil liberties, it is now a bipartisan > component of the state whose biggest defenders are now left-liberals > condemning any who protested as rightwing Tea Party opponents of Obama. > Along with all the restrictions on our rights and all the destructive wars > (including ones in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere of which Americans are > virtually unaware), the post-9/11 atmosphere of statism has been > characterized by a huge expansion of government generally. This often > happens, as it did during Vietnam: Logrolling and political expediency make > it harder for the opponents of big government at home to put up a fight when > their commander in chief is sending the young out to die. And so in the wake > of 9/11 we have seen the passage of Medicare Part D, great expansions of farm > subsidies, the TARP bailout (itself coming in the midst of a financial crisis > in no way mitigated by the war spending), and Obamacare. The federal > government enforced martial law in New Orleans after Katrina, and there was > hardly a peep of protest. U.S. drug policy has chewed up tens of thousands of > lives in Mexico, which might be on the media’s radar if not for the fog of > war. The police at all levels of government have become increasingly > belligerent, incompetent, and militaristic. The federal budget has doubled, > from $1.9 trillion for fiscal year 2001 to $3.8 trillion ten years later. > Even in the one-third of my life since 9/11 I have seen freedom in almost all > quarters take a major hit. > Garet Garrett referred to America’s paradoxical "complex of fear and > vaunting" – the U.S. empire’s tendency to pump itself up as the greatest > nation in the history of the world, dwarfing the mere mortal nations that dot > the globe, only to shrink back into a state of hysteria, worried hopelessly > that someone, somewhere, will destroy the country if not every precaution is > taken. Both orientations, the hubris and the paranoia, make for a belligerent > foreign policy and an unfree people, and Garrett’s insight rings even truer > today. Americans are so quick to pat themselves on the back for defeating the > Taliban, or Saddam, or Gaddafi, or hearing that bin Laden was shot in the > head as he stood unarmed. Yet we will take our shoes off at the airport and > walk through an invasive pat-down procedure out of concern that the grandma > at the next line over is really a terrorist. Americans see all motivation to > hurt us as proof that we are the best, the freest, the bravest, the > strongest, the invincible. Yet the prospect of some dictator without a navy > flying balsa wood planes over and bombing us with anthrax will lure us into > supporting a multi-trillion-dollar war that grinds up thousands of bodies. > The decade since 9/11 is the real lost decade for America. We lost the chance > to maintain relative peace and quiet in the years since the Cold War, respond > to 9/11 sanely and thoughtfully, and spare trillions of dollars, many > thousands of lives, and an immeasurable wealth of our liberties. The full > opportunity cost of how the U.S. under both parties’ leadership has responded > to the events ten years ago is chilling even to ponder. The recession we > still suffer could have possibly been avoided if ten years ago peace were > chosen rather than war – a choice very few were willing to defend then, and > too few are willing to consider today. > We are still told that we can never revert back to our ways before that > Tuesday morning one decade ago. Americans still romanticize that day. > Left-liberals call it a squandered opportunity for thoughtful albeit forceful > diplomacy and central planning. Conservatives join the September 12 > Coalition, wanting to forever remember that blasted week when 90% of > Americans thought the state and especially the president could do no wrong. > For many years to come, Americans will ask one another: Where were you when > the planes hit the Twin Towers? But I want to know, Where were you on > September 10? I was watchingSpinal Tapwith my friends. And our state of mind > – that pre-9/11 mentality, even in that naïve and isolated blur of > college-aged frivolity – was certainly no less thoughtful or mature than the > fear and vaunting that have characterized America’s bloody and lost decade > ever since.http://lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory240.html -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
