The BBC has a series "On This Day" at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/26/newsid_2516000/2516469.stmIt reminds us that on 26 Feb 1993, a group of radical Muslim fundamentalists packed a van with explosives and left it to explode in the parking garage of the World Trade Center, in an attempt to destroy both buildings (they hoped that one tower would fall into the other, and placed the bomb accordingly). Six people were killed and 100 injured, and our national sense of security -- not to say invulnerability -- was shaken. As traumatic as that event was, it did not lead to a President claiming that we were at war with an abstract noun, or suspending most of our Constitutional rights, or claiming the authority to declare virtually anyone, anywhere, an "enemy combatant" devoid of any rights to justice or trial in a court of law, or even access to the world outside his secrecy-shrouded prison. Nor did our Congress grant him virtually unquestioned authority to initiate unrestricted combat wherever and whenever the whim took him. Nor did our security agencies find it necessary to begin massive eavesdropping on the communications of millions of Americans to prepare against the possibility that someone, somewhere, was up to something more. And yet.
And yet, despite the lack of these sweeping powers, our Democratic President and his administration managed to locate, imprison, and convict four of the henchman involved in the actual construction and placement of the bomb within fifteen months. In another eighteen months, the "mastermind" of the bombing plot was convicted for his role in the crime, as well as for other crimes(!). A heightened awareness of the danger presented by small, but pathologically zealous hate groups had begun to pervade the intelligence and law enforcement organs of the US gov't. And they managed to do all this without confusing the extremists responsible with the larger community of Muslims who had no connection to radical fundamentalists.
And when our Democratic President left office, he bequeathed to the incoming administration the experience and accumulated intelligence of those years, together with a clear warning that the #1 security threat to the US in the future would lie with groups like al Qaeda, not the conventional forces of the former Eastern bloc.
The incoming Republican President* chose to ignore this advice, and to let the intelligence reports lie unread. Then, on 11 Sept 2001, thousands of Americans died because of his deriliction of duty. Thousands more have died fighting for this President*'s misguided plan to reshape the Middle East to suit American oil interests under the guise of "defeating the terrorists". And innocent men, women, and children have died by the hundreds of thousands for the crime of being in this President*'s way.
This President* has had more than the fifteen months it took to convict the WTC bombers. He has had more than the thirty-three months it took to convict the mastermind behind that bombing. And he has nothing to show for it but the lynching of a military strongman who had outlived his usefulness, a drastically destabilized Middle East, and some very, very wealthy war profiteers. Oh, and of course, casualties. Almost uncountable casualties.
Where are our Representatives? What do they have to do that is more urgent than bringing this man to justice?
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