The 9/11 story

http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister...le_1272238.php

(Eckolaker: This is my local newspaper. This is what I get delivered to my house. This was posted on 911blogger but I thought I would make sure you guys saw it. One thing I have tried to do here locally is put in many calls, and daily emails to the writers and editors of this paper. I cant Stress enough how conservative the majority of the residents of this county are. So to see this article is very surprising.)

Tuesday, September 12, 2006
The 9/11 story

There is, in fact, no national consensus on the terrorist attacks and their aftermath

The commemorations and endless coverage Monday highlighted an interesting fact. Five years on, America still has not come to terms with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Despite the attacks being televised and despite a moment of stirring unity, life has returned to a "new normal" involving inconvenience but little sacrifice, except among members of the armed forces. The invasion of Iraq was supported enthusiastically at first but is increasingly divisive.

Politicians generally stick to pious platitudes, praising American resilience and the heroism of first responders – justifiably enough – but falling short of a comprehensive appreciation of what the 9/11 attacks mean and how we should go forward from them.

Perhaps this is because we Americans still don't agree, in the sense of having a widely accepted narrative approaching a national consensus, on almost every aspect of this most deadly foreign attack ever on American mainland soil.

Our differences begin at the most fundamental level. Do we think the terrorists attacked us because of who we are, a free democracy in which some manifestations of freedom are vulgar or offensive? Because we are the most powerful country in the world, and jihadists seek power themselves? Or because we have maintained troops in and exercised undue influence in Muslim countries?

Americans answer that question differently, and on those answers entire worldviews about the appropriateness of what has been done since – worldviews that are often self-reinforcing systems that deny any legitimacy at all to differing views – are often built.

Was the success of the attacks (from a terrorist's tactical perspective) due to complacency by high officials and intelligence bungling or cleverness on the part of al-Qaida? Was the al-Qaida threat as obvious as it seemed to a few high officials at the time while fools and charlatans ignored it? Or was it only one concern among many that understandably didn't rise to the highest priority until 9/11 happened? Were there really enough dots to be connected that the attacks could have been thwarted, or is such talk 20/20 hindsight?

In a more sinister vein, did the government consciously let the plot go forward – or do it itself – to unite the populace behind war plans, as a surprising number of Americans are coming to believe?

If you don't have immediate, definitive answers to some of those questions, you are hardly alone. Furthermore, the attacks were followed quickly by a shooting war that is still ongoing, and wartime is seldom felicitous to dispassionate deep thinking about the longer-range implications of events.

It seems inevitable, however, that an inability to settle on a consensus narrative about what precipitated the 9/11 attacks has affected and will affect policies and debate. Sets of attitudes about 9/11 have fed into differences over immigration, for example, as well as drawn the dividing lines on ongoing issues such as globalism and protectionism, interventionism and more modest foreign policies, security and liberty. Amid the confusion, some politicians have been tempted to manipulate us through scaremongering.

So how to judge the peril explicit in President Bush's words Monday evening: We're in a "struggle for civilization" and "We are in a war that will set the course for this new century and determine the destiny of millions across the world." And, "If we do not defeat these enemies now, we will leave our children to face a Middle East overrun by terrorist states and radical dictators armed with nuclear weapons."

It is symptomatic of the national uncertainty that a significant portion of the American public will endorse such sentiments without restraint and that others will think them the worst of the political scaremongering we mentioned. It will take years to sort out the truth.

Excellent post, Eckolaker!

It's great to see this kind of piece showing up in local newspapers. I hope that the trend continues.

Just pray that it doesn't start a trend that gets used by the Mainstream Media to usher the Dems into office. They're nothing but the opposite side of the same empirical coin.

As far as the area being conservative, don't worry to much about that. Once they realize that the GOP and the Dems are building a socialist global system that trashes the Constitution, many will jump aboard. Right now they're in a transitional phase. Not quite comfortable with Bush, but too afraid to vote third party because they think the Dems are worse. Once they realize that both are ultimately aiming to destroy our country, they'll join those of us who are already pushing for truth, not party.

Quote:

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socialist global system

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Puh-leaze!

Western Imperialism has done everything it could to stifle any attempt at socialism during the 20th Century.

After the 1917 revolution, 14 Imperialist armies (including the US & Britain) invaded the fledgling USSR in what is laughably called a 'civil war'. The 'cold war' in reality began at this time, not in the post-1945 period. (See the 'Red Scares' of the 1910's, 1920's and early 1930's).

In the late 1930s the big Western Powers (US, Britain, France) stood idly by while the fascists (Spanish, Italian & German) crushed the Spanish Revolution.

After WWII the US pumped millions into the Chinese Civil War on the side of the nationalist anti-communist Kumintang.

In the post-WWII period Operation Gladio was enacted to undermine the Communist & Socialist left in Western Europe - this included flase flag operations blamed on leftists.

Between 1948 and 1960 the British fought bitterly against the Malaysian communist uprising.

In 1953 a CIA/MI6 backed coup ousted the progressive Mossadeq in Iran.

In 1954 a CIA assault ousted the leftist Arbenz in Guatemala.

Beginning in 1955 and continuing until 1973, the US was embroiled (on teh Anti-Communist) side in the Vietnam conflict.

Between 1960 and 1962 (and no dount it has continued long after) the US conducted a terrorist war against Cuba.

In 1964 US Marines invaded the Dominican Republic to quell a revolution.

In 1967 the CIA backed a bloddy coup in Indonesia which ousted the progressive Sukarno.

In 1973 the CIA instigated a bloody coup that ousted the slightly pro-Moscow Allende in Chile.

From the 1970's the US was a bitter opponent of the Palestine Liberation Organisation - while it still had a left-populist outlook. During the 90's they largely abandoned this perspective, and now they are the US's preferred 'partners' in Palestine.

In the 1980's the CIA backed the Contras fighting the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

In the late 1970's and 1980's the CIA funded and trained Islamic fundamentalists fighting first the pro-Moscow government, and then the Red Army in Afghanistan.

The US has been involved covertly and overtly in fighting leftist FARC and ELN guerrrillas in Colombia's civil war.

Since the election of the left-populist Chavez in Venezuela, the US has constantly tried to destabilise and oust him. they have thankfully thus far been incapable of this.

In 2004 a CIA backed coup ousted the leftist Liberation Theologist Aristide in Haiti.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of Western Imperialism's efforts to crush any kind of leftwing social movement wherever it arises (within teh US itself too, see COINTELPRO operations against teh Black Panthers and others during the 60's and 70s - not to mention the Red Scares already mentioned, and McCarthyism from the late 40 to the early 60s).

Perhaps the one major diversion from this policy of anti-leftism on behalf of Western Imperialism was Yugoslavia under Tito. The US did in fact, for a decade (1948-58), provide economic and military aid to Tito's regime. But this must be seen in the context of the Cold War. In 1948 Tito had broken with the Moscow dominated Cominterm, and attempted to establish a 'Balkan Soviet Bloc' - consisting of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria & Albania (Albania would also later break with Moscow, but become a pro-Chinese state at the time of the Sino-Soviet split). He didn't succeed, but it seems the US ruling class thought that by aiding Tito as an 'independent communist nation', they could similarly lure other USSR satellite states away from Moscow's orbit. They failed, and they failed to even control Tito who always kept the US at arms length. Still, an indpendent Yugoslavia was better than one aligned with Moscow (which is what probably would have happened had any covert actions been tried). And we can see what the West was willing to do to Yugoslavia once it no longer served its 'purpose' (ie, after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc).

I love how he ended his peice---suggesting that we do not know the truth about what happened but that we need to search for it.
i know for some, this may seem realy weak--which it is, but i understand that in some communities (like mine) this realy is a leap in the right direction--and a big change from the norm.

hey, keep track to see if this writer gets canned...

this is very good indeed. you have given me a push to keep on trying with my local paper---i can't give up trying