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20
Things We've Learned Nearly a Year After 9/11
August 1, 2002
By Bernard Weiner
 As
we approach the first anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
it might be useful to see how far an ordinary citizen's knowledge
has progressed one year on. So here, in the way of a summing-up,
based on journalistic documentation, is a list of things we
Americans have learned since last September - some of which
might prove useful in the run-up to the November elections.
1. We've learned that Bush&Co.'s "war on terrorism"
has morphed from finding and destroying those responsible
for the 9/11 mass-murders to a worldwide campaign to install
a Pax Americana, by force if necessary. In other words, neo-imperialism,
reminiscent in many ways of the old Roman Empire or, closer
to our own time, the British Empire.
2. We've learned that Bush&Co. has no desire to rethink
any of its policies abroad, the same policies that isolate
it and that generate hatred, suspicion and terrorism in so
many regions of the globe. Rather than reconsider its policies,
or try to accomplish its ends through diplomacy and alliances
and cultural/economic initiatives, in its arrogance it continues
to bully and threaten others, insult its European and other
allies, disregard international treaties and courts, engage
in unilateral actions without regard to the national interests
of others, and, in general, simply throw its massive weight
around. The prevailing attitude seems to be: we are the one
Superpower, get used to bending to our will.
3. We've learned that Bush's national security leadership
was alerted months ahead of 9/11 (and, it has admitted, no
later than August 6) that a major air attack from al-Qaeda
was in the works, along with the likely targets, but did nothing
to try to prevent those attacks or warn anyone about them.
Caught in their own lies, they blame "the system," especially
elements in the FBI, for "not connecting the dots." More than
3000 Americans died as a result of this malfeasance.
4. We've learned that plans already were in the works
prior to 9/11 for the evisceration of Constitutional guarantees
of due process of law. The White House hustled the so-called
USA PATRIOT Act through a frightened Congress in a patriotic
blur, just a few days after the attacks, with few, if any,
of the legislators having had time to read the final version.
5. We've learned that prior to September 11, the Bush
administration was negotiating with the Taliban about a pipeline
desired by a U.S.-led energy consortium that would cross through
Afghanistan. When the Taliban balked, the U.S. negotiators
told them they either could accept a "carpet of gold" or face
a "carpet of bombs." The Taliban backed away from the deal
and refused to hand over Osama bin Laden; shortly after the
terror attacks of 9/11, the U.S. began bombing in Afghanistan.
6. We've learned that now with the Taliban having
been overthrown, and a U.S.-friendly regime installed in Kabul,
the pipeline project is back on track, designed to carry energy
supplies across Afghanistan from the Caspian Sea area to near
India. Hamid Karzai, the new leader of Afghanistan, formerly
was a consultant on the payroll of the pipeline folks; likewise,
the new U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan.
7. We've learned that Bush&Co.'s Homeland Security
Act includes programs that bear an amazing resemblance to
totalitarian programs from the fascist/communist end of the
spectrum: getting the military (restricted heretofore to activity
outside the U.S.) involved in domestic policing, signing up
neighborhood and block snoops to work for the central government,
investigating what books citizens are checking out and buying,
denouncing those deemed insufficiently patriotic or suspicious
because of their views, etc. Remind you of Stalin's Russia,
Castro's Cuba, Hitler's Third Reich, the Stasi of East Germany?
(There also are prototypes of patriotic youth leagues being
tried out in cities, which could become a national program.)
A kind of martial-law coming to a neighborhood near you.
8. We've learned that Ashcroft/Bush are shredding
Constitutional due-process guarantees in their move toward
total control: already they have compromised attorney-client
privilege, removed habeus corpus protections, locked up folks
with no charges, secreted citizens at military installations
which puts them out of reach of the judicial system, violated
privacy in rifling through personal telephone and email communications,
etc. etc. When the ambiguously-worded PATRIOT Act was first
brought up, Ashcroft and Bush told us not to worry, promising
that these rules would affect only non-citizens. Since that
time, American citizens have been handled in similar fashion.
Coming to a neighborhood near you.
9. We've learned much about the dangers of religious
fundamentalism in Islam, but we've also learned about dangers
posed by our own religious fundamentalists - eager for a Christian
theocratic society, symbolized most recently by a Secret Service
agent scrawling on a Muslim suspect's refrigerator "Islam
Is Evil, Christ Is King" - and the extraordinary power they
wield within the Bush Administration, represented most openly
by John Ashcroft, who in frame-of-mind resembles a Taliban
mullah.
10. We've learned that the FBI, focusing now on foreign
terrorists, doesn't seem energized with the same zeal to catch
domestic terrorists, such as abortion-clinic arsonists - and
especially the anthrax-dispenser. Though the FBI seems to
know that the anthrax villain probably worked at a government
bio-lab, nobody has been arrested, or even targeted as a prime
suspect. It may not be likely, but the unsaid is finally being
asked: Could this dangerous terrorist actually be working
for the government?
11. We've learned that the HardRight of the Republican
Party has taken control - of the House leadership, of the
Supreme Court, of the White House, of much of the conglomerate-owned
media - and has demonstrated its willingness to do nearly
anything to maintain that power. (Only the courageous defection
of Sen. Jim Jeffords from GOP ranks is standing in the way
of HardRight total control of all three branches of government.)
More and more truly objectionable HardRight judges are being
nominated by Bush in an effort to stack the judiciary for
decades to come. This by a man who lost the election by more
than half-a-million votes, coming into his White House residency
with no popular mandate, only because his supporters on the
Supreme Court installed him there.
12. We've learned that to break the momentum of the
HardRight, all energy for the upcoming November elections
(less than 90 days away, let us not forget) must be expended
in electing Democrat candidates and defeating Republican ones.
The objective conditions are just not ripe yet for anything
more than trying to move the country back toward the middle
of the political spectrum. We progressives more in tune with
the Greens (Green candidates are being supported secretly
in many states by the Republicans, to try to defeat Democrats)
will have to wait. The difference between Democrats and Republicans
may seem small to Greens and others, but, as we've learned
in a painful way under Bush&Co., that difference is immense
when it comes to foreign and domestic policy and its actual
effects on real people, here and abroad.
13. We've learned that Cheney is up to his ears in
Halliburton irregularities, and may well be liable for indictment
for participating in financial fraud. In addition, we've learned
that Cheney, who was the head of the task force that came
up with a corporate-friendly rather than a consumer-friendly
energy policy, has refused to turn over to Congress the requested
documents that will reveal how that policy was arrived at
and which industry leaders (other than Enron's Kenny Boy)
helped shape it.
14. We've learned that Bush knew in advance, as a
member of the Harken Audit Committee, that Harken Oil was
going to release negative financial news, and sold his shares
before that, reaping a fortune. He may be liable for indictment
for insider-trading and other Harken irregularities. (Even
if Bush and Cheney are not indicted, they are the last people
on earth who should be speaking about corruption in the corporate
financial world, as these hypocrites benefitted from that
very corrupt system. As did most of Bush's corporate-derived
cabinet.)
15. We've learned that Bush&Co. were mightily opposed
to any reform of corporate financial reporting, but when more
and more companies were caught in such corrupt practices and
the mood of the country shifted - mainly because so many folks,
especially seniors, lost huge chunks of their pensions and
portfolio holdings when the Stock Market tanked as a result
of investors' losing confidence in the numbers provided by
corporations - they jumped on the bandwagon and pretended
they were reformers all along. In the background, they are
trying to help their corporate supporters water down, and
otherwise get around, the new rules. To that end, Bush&Co.
have appointed Harvey Pitt and Larry Thompson, two tainted
corporate types, to head up the "investigations" of corporate
wrongdoing. Break out the whitewash.
16. We've learned that Bush&Co., having placed its
chips on Ariel Sharon, continues to have no real desire for
a just peace in the Middle East. All it wants is for the area
to be quiet and controlled (thus giving carte blanche to the
Israeli Army's police-state occupation and oppression), so
that it can continue its plans for overthrowing Saddam Hussein
in Iraq. And, of course, there has been no declaration of
a State of War by the Congress, neither against Afghanistan
nor against Iraq, and no real debate about the wisdom of a
war against Saddam - even when the top brass at the Pentagon
and in Great Britain have expressed their opposition to such
military adventurism.
17. We've learned that there will be no peace now
in the Middle East because the U.S. is not fully engaged in
the peace process, also because neither extreme in the area
wants peace: Sharon thrives on war and brutality, Hamas needs
Sharon's bloody policies to justify its campaign of terror.
There are signs that moderate Palestinians finally are starting
to speak out in favor of a peaceful solution, and there are
plenty of land-for-peace Israelis (supported by many liberal
Jews in the U.S.), so the outlines of a peace are out there.
But until the U.S. and U.N. make the commitment to separate
the warring extremists and arrange an equitable treaty both
Israel and the Palestinians can live with - secure borders
for Israel (and an end to suicide bombing), a viable state
for the Palestinians, abandoning of the settlements by Israel,
reparations for Palestinians who lost their homes and property
- there will be only more bloodshed. And more fertile ground
for new generations of terrorists, in the Middle East and
elsewhere in the Islamic world.
18. We've learned that Bush&Co. has been a total disaster
for the environment, in every way: from reneging on its campaign
promise to cut carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse emissions,
to backing away from higher fuel-efficiency in cars (we could
cut our dependence on foreign oil 20% just by increasing fuel
efficiency by 5%), to giving breaks to corporate polluters
all across the country, to permitting increased arsenic levels
in the water, etc. etc.
19. We've learned that Secretary of State Colin Powell
- who sees the world in something other than simplistic black-and-white,
us-versus-them dichotomies - is a man imprisoned in the Bush
Cabinet, forced to alter his principled opinions in the service
of Bush&Co.'s stupidly aggressive and ultimately self-defeating
foreign policies. Powell, a moderate conservative, looks like
a raving progressive when measured against his masters. He
should resign but probably won't.
20. We've learned that the tax-cuts provided to the
most wealthy are not only payoffs to the corporate sector
that provides support for Bush&Co. By locking in those tax
cuts for ten years (and with humongous chunks of the budget
spent on the "war on terrorism") Bush&Co. have ensured that
innumerable social programs that aid the less well-off will
be cut or eliminated. In short, a rollback of New Deal/Great
Society programs, so hated by the HardRight. (The HardRight
movement to detach prescription drugs for seniors fr om the
Medicare program, and, especially, to privatize Social Security
- even in the face of recent stock-market disasters - is part
of this same desire.)
Even after all the above shorthand summaries, no doubt I'm
leaving out lots of Bush&Co. dirt, but this list can provide
a starting point, and a handy compilation of enough low and
high crimes and misdemeanors to warrant their removal from
power, either through the ballot box or by resignation or
impeachment.
Finally, as we enter August, we know that one of two things
will happen in the summer-doldrums, with the Congress on vacation:
Either Bush&Co. will start its Iraq war and carry out more
under-the-radar attacks on important American programs, or
the media, bereft of their usual Beltway stories, will use
the down time to engage in hard-hitting investigative reporting
that will reveal in even more stark relief the machinations
of Bush&Co. illegalities and other scandalous behavior. But,
given the corporate nature of our corporate-owned media, don't
count on it. Instead, we'll probably be flooded with this
summer's Condit-like sex scandal.
Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught American politics and
international relations at Western Washington University and
San Diego State University; he was with the San Francisco
Chronicle for nearly 20 years.
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