September 13, 2001Posted on 09/13/2001 5:44:30 AM PDT by sendtoscott
Why Did It Happen?
by Rob Moody
Crisis is the rallying cry of a tyrant. ~ James Madison
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 20th 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."
I’m sure the neocon warmongers at National Review and The Weekly Standard are berserk with rage right now, and will call on Bush to nuke some Third World country, lest America be "humiliated" again like it was with China. Meanwhile, the unindicted war criminals Henry Kissinger, Sandy Berger and Richard Holbrooke called on the U.S. to "respond" by committing the same crimes they have committed.
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.
September 13, 2001
Rob Moody [send him mail] is a financial planner in Atlanta and lives in Kennesaw, where every household is required to own a gun. He also edits Strike The Root.
What a nest of vipers.
Idiots like Moody can speculate on the why all they want. We'll have years to do that.
Right now we help the victims, seek the perpetrators and stand together as Americans. If Moody is seeking the "reason this happened" it can be found in the fact that thousands of Americans died Tuesday (and countless numbers in our 200+ years) because America gives people like him the freedom to spew their imbecilic swill without having their sorry clymers hauled off to the pokey.
Wasn't it Jefferson who declared war on the Barbary Pirates when they were attacking our merchant marine? Wasn't it Jefferson who was President during our Quasi-War with France, when they didn't want us trading with Britain? I don't recall, in either event, we were doing anything except minding our own business in those events.
I guess, by your definition, it was our fault then as well. Mightn't it be that there is evil in the world and it just doesn't like us because we stand in its way?
This dude is right. It could not have happened in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia.
I think someone has played T ball with this guys head. I hope they didn't damage their bat.
You sound a little stressed. Maybe you could use a vacation. Take a few weeks off and go overseas for awhile...get away to an exotic destination. I hear Afghanistan is lovely this time of year...
Another thanks is due...and a bump.
The image of Libertarian smugness, naivete, and hubris all rolled into one.
Why is everything so reactive? Why is it not reasonable to be proactive.. to go to the root of the problem and correct it.... rather than having to use military power after the fact. Is there any possibility in your mind that American foreign policy needs to be changed? And why are you so afraid of the ideas of others?
Balderdash. There's plenty of treason going on in this country, but this article is not part of it.
Good point. Let's mount an attack now on Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and any other nation known to harbor and/or sponsor terrorists. Why wait until they do this again? Solve the problem.
The truth is these people covet the power and influence of the United States. Given the same power, do you honestly think these people would bring peace to the world? Does our foreign policy need to change? Absolutely...we need to stop treading so lightly and take firmer positions. Stop worrying about what the European Socialist Union or anyone else will think and focus on doing the right thing.
Just as soon as pigs fly out of your naive, paranoid ass. Putz.
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