Asking the Tough Questions
November 2, 2001
by Ian Lohr
Who has benefited from the criminal disasters of September 11?
1. The former Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, whose approval ratings in the office he was not elected to were under 50% on September 10 and is now the most popular President in American history, with a mandate to force his formerly unpopular radical reactionary agenda down our throats.
2. Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose Justice Department now has the expanded police powers he said he wanted during his confirmation hearings.
3. The entire United States Military Industrial Complex, who now have a practically infinite budget.
4. General Pervez Musharref, Totalitarian Military Dictator of Pakistan, who now enjoys the official support of the United States, and several billion dollars in American foreign aid.
5. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and other hardliners in Israel, who now enjoy the support of the United States in their Jihad against the Palestinians.
6. The Carlyle Group, a military consulting firm owned by Osama Bin Laden's family which employs former President George Bush Sr. and received this week the largest defense contract in history, over $200 Billion.
7. Enron Oil, owners of the incomplete Afghanistan Pipeline, whose project was threatened with nationalization by the Taliban, and will soon be pumping billions of barrels of oil per day out of US-occupied territory in Central Asia.
8. President Andres Pastrana Aragano of Colombia, who was facing intense competition for his nation's only significant export from cheap Afghanistani heroin.
9. Every anti-democracy nutball with an axe to grind, who can now accuse their opponents (the usual suspects, including liberals, feminists, the entertainment industry, teacher's unions, environmentalists, religious minorities, sexual minorities and advocates of sexual freedom) of being unpatriotic, or worse, bringing down the wrath of god by misbehaving.
10. Everyone who sold airline stock short on September 11. The SEC has reported over $23 billion in unclaimed profits from short sales which could not be cashed in due to the market closures that week. These transactions were set in motion up to a week before, which indicates that the person or persons responsible had foreknowledge of the attacks.
Who has been victimized?
1. The Fallen, their families, friends, co-workers, and the entire population of New York City.
2. The employees of major airlines, the tourism and hotel industries, and others who have or will lose their jobs, without any assistance or compensation from the government.
3. The families of our valiant men and women in uniform, who have seen their loved ones sent halfway around the world to get killed in another desert.
4. Patriotic Muslim, Arab, Sikh and Central Asian Americans, who have been subjected to widespread public hostility and violence, and more than 1,000 of whom have been 'detained' without trial in the justice department's terror investigation due to racial and religious profiling.
5. Patriotic pacifists, liberals, feminists, members of the entertainment industry, public schoolteachers, environmentalists, atheists, agnostics, sexual minorities and advocates of sexual freedom, who have been unfairly blamed for bringing down the wrath of god by misbehaving.
6. The innocent people of Afghanistan, who had enough problems before the United States began bombing their schools, hospitals, nursing homes and residential neighborhoods in a frantic attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden and members of his organization, or at least somebody with the same color skin.
7. The innocent people of Palestine, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and other 'state sponsors of terrorism' who will probably also have their schools, hospitals, nursing homes and residential neighborhoods bombed very soon.
8. Middle class American workers, who face hefty increases in payroll taxes to foot the bill for the runaway military and law enforcement budget.
9. American schoolchildren and senior citizens, who will suffer because federal funding for education and health care has vanished into the ever-increasing military and law enforcement budget.
10. The Constitution of the United States of America, which is now under attack from a government that was relatively hostile to it in the first place (except the second amendment of course.)
