News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Sept. 9, 2011: This week it is all 9/11 all the time.
As it should be on the 10th anniversary because of the singular nature of those attacks. This will be the height of remembrance. It is unlikely the 15th, 20th or 25th anniversaries will bring quite as much attention as even memories of 9/11 become more distant.
So what is the problem President Obama and everyone else is not addressing on this 10th anniversary?
Just this – all we are doing is remembering the event both in ways graphical and lyrical. We are still not learning and likely will never
learn the real messages and lessons of 9/11.
One it should never have happened.
Two how the government’s response has added to the tragedy and made our nation weaker as Officialdom has made bad decision after bad decision in the name of 9/11.
In fact, even subtle, increasing a “problem” with the 10th anniversary coverage and activities. In completely ignoring the other all important message of the attacks and only focusing on the victims and the destruction the result provides even more cover for those who made bad decisions who should be held to account beyond the dastardly acts of these terrorists.
Of course President Obama does not have a clue. Add it to a very long list for our clueless President. Or if he does understand, it doesn’t matter because he will play to the crowd he thinks will get him 4 more years of ultimate luxury at our expense no matter the truth or anything resembling it.
So the problem with the sentimentality, the poignancy, the beautiful music, the many touching ceremonies is not these events or the coverage but in government and the media consuming us in meaningful spectacle with no room and no thought is left to examine what 9/11 wrought.
In the wake of 9/11 we have seen ….
1) A mindless wasteful huge expansion of the U.S. military;
2) Crazy haphazard creation and growth of new government
agencies without any careful study and justification so politicians
could look like they were doing something anything;
3) Senseless duplication of “security” measures that are counterproductive, and unjustifiably expensive and that add to the kind of confusion that led to the /11 plot not being uncovered;
4) The loss of important American liberties in the name of security;
5) The unrelated invasion and occupation of two countries at the
cost of trillions, and a tremendous loss of life and limb;
6) Our diversion from many important and pivotal issues in the U.S. in favor if diverting our attention to “terrorism;”
7) A very visible decrease in the American image worldwide and
our clout in many nations these last 10 years;
8) The U.S. govt and the American people being linked to torture, degrading excesses and secret prisons;
9) An American economy that has clearly deteriorated and is on the brink of even worse;
10) The rise of new American demagogues who abuse 9/11 to spew their messages of hate and intolerance.
You will hear none of this this week and President Obama will not
even hint at any of these issues for fear of upsetting right wing voters who he still thinks might vote for him. If he has a Clue about all these other issues at all?
What really happened on 9/11?
The single worst failure of America’s even then vast security apparatus that should have readily uncovered this large plot and should have had no trouble connecting the dots and preventing 9 /11 from ever taking place so that there would be no sad 10th anniversary on September 11, 2011.
Some have drawn a parallel to the other most significant “intelligence” failure in American history and the second most deadly attack on Americans Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
Whether they actually share many characteristics is not important, except to note like 9/11 had the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor been prevented our history since would be quite different.
What the Pearl Harbor comparison does speak to should have been the determination first and foremost of our government and elected officials to uncover the failures of our government itself that led to the 9/11 attacks taking place.
Instead, and this truly is beyond bizarre, the Bush Administration “led” (sic) by VP Dick Cheney, coupled with the horrendous complacency of the Democrats avoided any kind of review of 9/11 until years later …..
…… and with a very limited scope and a lack of adequate resources. How is it possible that the decision of both the Republicans and Democrats the very next day September 12, 2001, was NOT to put together the most impressive panel in the history of our nation, give it unlimited resources, and command it to issue a report with all possible speed detailing the FAILURE of the American security apparatus that allowed the single worst case of terrorism on American soil ever by far.
How is it conceivable that was not the very first order of business following 9/11? It should have been inconceivable that it was not.
All that lack of interest in getting to the bottom of 9/11 did was feed the mindless conspiracy advocates around the world.
Even more, how is it possible that President Bush would rather heap endless new billions on the military, CIA, and all kinds of other agencies in our already huge “security” apparatus without finding out where the flaws were and in effect rather pouring many more billions into the very same agencies that FAILED us so grievously on 9/11?
And with painful irony providing those agencies many new billions $$$$ that could and was used for all practical purposes to hide their “original sins” of mismanagement, incompetence and worse that led to 9/11.
OR did I just answer my own question!!
So in this week long “tribute” to 9 /11, is President Obama, or anyone else, not even the families whose relatives and friends were murdered on 9/11 – calling for the FULL investigation of 9/11 that has never taken place nor the companion investigation we so desperately need – an objective review of the result of the billions call it trillions if you include Iraq and Afghanistan our government has spent the last 10 years as a result of 9/11 in the name 9 /11.
Without any such studies, thank God, we still now clearly if only partially can know how ravenous and unsettling many of the results have been as detailed in an important new book written by two senior reporters at the Washington Post. Dana Priest, an
investigative reporter with two Pulitzers under her belt, and the book’s co-author William Arkin, another experienced reporter and columnist. Their new book “TOP SECRET AMERICA.”
Here is how this new book in described in a review on Amazon ..
“The top-secret world that the government created in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks has become so enormous, so unwieldy, and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs or exactly how many agencies duplicate work being done elsewhere. The result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe may be putting us in greater danger ….. A landmark exposé of a new, secret “Fourth Branch” of American government, “TOP SECRET AMERICA” is a tour de force of investigative reporting-and a book sure to spark national and international alarm.”
President Obama read this book!
We should all read this book.
This is one very useful way for all Americans to honor the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by doing something all the other worthwhile activities will not and all the media coverage will not ….
Teach us a very VALUABLE lesson. For right now!
