Why Did It Happen?

As I followed the coverage of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Tuesday, a number of thoughts occurred to me. I have seen very little, if any, coverage of these items by the mainstream media:

The intelligence failure by the federal government was total and complete. The primary raison d’etre given for the State is that it protects us from those who would do us harm. But in this case, it couldn’t even protect the headquarters of its own protection agency.

The security failure by the government was total and complete. The government operates and provides security for virtually every major airport in America. How could four airplanes be hijacked in one morning? How much time, money and energy does the government spend searching passengers and luggage for drugs, cash and other harmless contraband when it should be looking for guns and knives?

President Bush said the federal government would find the perpetrators and punish them (the focus is always on retribution instead of trying to understand why it happened in the first place). But it seems that many, if not most, of those people are now dead. Bush said that freedom had been attacked and that freedom would be defended. I cringed when I heard those words, because they sounded like Newspeak. No, it was hegemony that was attacked, and freedom will be sacrificed to defend hegemony.

Hawks such as Senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel have already started beating the war drum, calling the attacks "an act of war" and "a second Pearl Harbor." Of course they’re an act of war; our government has been at war with other countries and peoples since the beginning of the 20^th century. Only after a battle takes place on American soil do we realize this. "Hey, tonight’s baseball game has been canceled. What’s going on?" Of course, politicians love war since it always results in the expansion of state power. As Randolph Bourne said, "War is the health of the State."

September 11 was a black day for Liberty. I am extremely concerned that politicians will use these attacks as Hitler used the Reichstag fire to suspend civil liberties and consolidate his power. I can only imagine what kind of legislation New York’s senators – who happen to be two of the most tyrannical members of Congress (if Hillary were President, she would have already suspended the Constitution and imposed martial law) – will propose "to prevent something like this from happening again." As Claire Wolfe wrote on Tuesday, "They--Rudman, Hart, Gingrich, FEMA, the military, and all the creepy corporations who sell them their spy cameras, their bio-war supplies, their retina scanners, their metal detectors, and the other gear of the crushing Big Brother state--have been waiting for something like this to happen." Whatever Schumer & Co. propose – war, more police power, censorship of the Internet, gun registration – Congress will approve it so they can be seen as "doing something," and the American sheeple will gladly surrender what few rights they have left in return for their newfound "security."

Doesn’t this make the idea of spending $100 billion or more on a missile defense shield seem awfully foolish? It seems that individuals armed with knives and box cutters pose a more immediate threat. But the politicians will point to these attacks as proof that we need a missile defense shield more than ever.

What surprised me the most about the attacks was not that they were carried out, but that they were conventional in nature. For the last several years, I have been expecting a nuclear, biological or chemical attack on a large American city. If you thought there was panic on Tuesday (911 operators were flooded with calls, there was fear of a bank run, the price of gas shot up to $5 a gallon in some places, etc.), wait until they attack a city with Sarin or anthrax.

It seems to me that the vast majority of Americans reflexively want to "respond," presumably militarily, instead of trying to understand why this happened in the first place. As long as they can strike back with a few hundred cruise missiles, they’re not really interested in why they were attacked.

I was disturbed by the almost mindless jingoism I heard on Tuesday, which I last saw after the Gulf War. One veteran said this made him want to "re-up" (re-enlist in the military). Why? So he could be sent overseas by politicians to kill people he didn’t know, and perpetuate the cycle of violence? It is one thing to love your country. It is quite another to want to kill people who have never done you any harm. I now see how FDR could manipulate a populace that was much less educated and informed into wanting to go to war. One caller to a radio show described how a woman was standing on the side of the road, waving an American flag (Why?), and reiterated that this was "one country, indivisible." The talk show host responded by saying that everyone should fly an American flag every day anyway, and implied that a lack of patriotism contributed to the attacks. I submit that the truth is just the opposite. It is our unthinking, unquestioning patriotism that causes us to mindlessly support the politicians every time they want to bomb another country. The more patriotic we are, the more the politicians bomb, and the more the rest of the world despises us.

I have heard virtually no discussion about the motive of the attackers. It seems to me that it would be the key to understanding why this happened and preventing something like this from happening again. I don’t know which group is responsible, but given the way Palestinians were celebrating in the streets, I would not be surprised if it was a Middle Eastern group that was violently opposed to the state of Israel. Assuming that’s the case, why did they come halfway around the world to attack America? They attacked America because America has been attacking them on almost a weekly basis since at least the 1970s. From Libya to Afghanistan, we have bombed, shelled, invaded, occupied, sanctioned, embargoed, spied on, inspected and otherwise meddled in the affairs of virtually every country in the Middle East. The U.S. government has two basic policies for countries in the Middle East: either it’s giving them billions of dollars in aid each year or it’s bombing them; there is no in-between, no neutrality. They also attacked America because the U.S. government has been giving billions of dollars of economic and military aid to the Israeli government, which has used that aid to repress and kill Palestinians.

When will we learn to have, as Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none"? You reap what you sow, and on September 11, America finally reaped its bitter harvest.

Or perhaps Christian killing is more to your taste ala Serbia?
I guess we should applaud our AF most of all, for ridding the world of so many disgusting Christians, and erecting Islamic states in Europe where Churches once stood.
A greatful nation salutes you.

I'm doing what I can to stop us on the course you have set, which led us here to begin with.

So...are you doing anything aside from shouting "Baby killer!" or is this it? Patriotism is a punch line for you people. So ignorant of the irony that it's the very freedoms that this horrible country provides and protects that allow you to drag its name through the mud. People like you will never know what freedoms you had until they are gone.

The difference between what those Godless bastards did last week and what we've done in the past is that we do not intentionally target civilians. Civilians die in every war...it is unavoidable in any war. We did not target Christians in Serbia...it's absurd for you to think or say otherwise. But then again, thinking is not your forte...emotion and utopian thinking are.

Wake up. The world is a violent place. It's my government's job to keep that violence outside our borders and, hopefully, prevent it from happening at all.

I quit.

You win.

Go bomb whoever the Hell you want, just quit that phoney sissy act whenever the bombs come home to roost, you brought em.

Nothing I do or say here makes any difference anyway, so I'm going to go get a pizza.

PS the silly lies/propaganda (your last post) are just as transparent as they ever were.

It's only propoganda when you disagree with it...because after all, truth is all relative, right?

Enjoy that pizza. And remember with every bite that part of the sales tax you paid purchasing it is helping to fund the war you so vehemently oppose.

So are the taxes you'll pay on the Rolaids for the heartburn that'll bring...

I served in the Marine Corps. I still have friends there and my nephew is a CO of an Attack Squadron out of Miramar. Being in or out of the military doesn't necessarily prove or disprove anyone's patriotism. Some thought should be given to the name-calling about a person's patriotism or apparent lack of patriotism.

I don't blame any of the servicemembers for the actions of this government in Serbia. I would look to our leaders and their willing accomplices in the 4 star ranks. That being said, we were bombing Christians, no matter how imperfect, for the benefit of Muslim terrorists. Those Albanians are known to be linked to Usama Bin Laden.

It is just another reason to stand in awe of the wisdom of General George Washington. I would recommend reading his Farewell Address, if you do you will see that we have failed to heed his warnings and that is why we are in the situation that we are in.

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