Not So Fast

On the cover of today’s New York Times is a story that critics of the war (and the media’s coverage of it) have been dying to read. Maybe its because a large majority of the population now can be described as a “critic of the war,” thus decreasing the risk of running stories that put the president in a bad light, but the Times, at least to my eyes, really calls it like it is – and in more blatant a way than I can remember seeing in quite some time.

Two weeks ago, I pointed out with approval that The Los Angeles Times had made a point of distinguishing that the group that calls itself “Al Qaeda in Iraq” has only the most tenuous of connections to Osama bin Laden or any other part of the Al Qaeda that attacked America. I felt it was an important distinction to make, partly because the administration often blurs the two in an attempt to gain popular support for the war in Iraq.

Well, the Times, in an article titled, “Bush Distorts Qaeda Links, Critics Assert,” both points out how the president tries to confuse his audiences into thinking they are the same, and shows what little proof there is that they have any connection to one another. It opens with this typical quote from the president: “The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America on September the 11th, and that’s why what happens in Iraq matters to the security here at home.”

For some reason it feels shocking (but refreshing nonetheless) to then read the following lines on the cover of the Times: Bush’s “references to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, and his assertions that it is the same group that attacked the United States in 2001, have greatly oversimplified the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and its relationship with the Qaeda leadership.”

And finally this: “There is no question that the group is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. But Mr. Bush’s critics argue that he has overstated the Qaeda connection in an attempt to exploit the same kinds of post-Sept. 11 emotions that helped him win support for the invasion in the first place.”

Read the rest of the piece to get a nuanced understanding of a distinction that often gets jumbled in the president’s mouth.

– By Gal Beckerman

Popularity: 1% [?]

Please try to consider the possibility that one can be sane and yet doubt that the attacks of 9/11 were a false flag operation. In an event of this scale there will always remain a number of strange anomalies which can’t be explained, and I’ll readily admit the Bush administration has only succeeded in thickening the cloud of suspicion by its dogged refusal to cooperate with investigators or release evidence. Is it possible there was advance knowledge of the attacks, at least in certain quarters? Maybe. They sure seem to be hiding SOMETHING… although conceivably it’s just the extent of their own incompetence.

But I am pretty well convinced that assertions about the buildings having been brought down by explosives, or the planes being switched, or a missile hitting the Pentagon, or the Air Force missing an opportunity to shoot down the planes, etc. are almost certainly groundless. Anything requiring the involvement of large numbers of people seems implausible — there’d be too much danger of someone exposing the plot. It’s one thing to leave open the possibility that Washington somehow had a hand in the attacks, another to claim that this is provable or even probable.

As I see it, our focus should be on rescuing this country from the disastrous war in Iraq and from the dictatorial pretensions of the administration here at home. Even if 9/11 really was a false flag attack, you’re not going to convince the majority of Americans that this is true anytime in the immediate future. So let’s not allow this issue to divide us or sap energy and attention from the more pressing job at hand. (This is the same reasoning I would use to argue that this is not the moment to pursue Ralph Nader’s critique of the two-party system or the campaign to extend fundamental “human” rights to chimps, gorillas and dolphins.)

It’s bizarre to contemplate that even if the President and his crew were guilty of the murder of 3000 people on 9/11 — an act regarded as one of the most heinous crimes in American history — it would not constitute a statistically significant alteration to their cumulative body count, given that they’ve directly or indirectly racked up well over half a million victims in Iraq alone over the past four years, of whom probably a hundred thousand at least were innocent civilians killed by U.S. bombs.

Peter,,,
I stand corrected–thank you.

Being in denial is not quite the same as insanity. It is a defense mechanism of sorts, as it wards off feelings of guilt and responsibility for one’s actions while providing a pretext for the next war. We would have to admit a history of false-flag operations under presidents of both stripes which have killed many millions of innocent people in many nations over much of the earth.

Most of all, it would mean that we would have to stop this immoral madness.

If anyone is interested in an evolving game plan to neuter both major political parties, the work-in-progress can be seen at http://neitherparty.blogspot.com/2007/07/progressive-democratic-republican.html and www.neitherparty.org where your active participation and (hopefully financial) support is sought and your intelligent input is sought after and needed.

The alternative to the above plan is the present-day destructive and destabilizing status-quo.

Regards,,,John
( john_rice@neitherparty.org )