1976 – Soviet pilot Belenko lands a MiG-25 jet fighter on the island of Hokkaidō, Japan and requests political asylum from the US.
August, 2011 - Bush and NSC Chair Rice are repeatedly warned about planned attacks on US territory.
COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
"We don't all agree on everything. I don't agree with myself on everything."
Rudi 911lianni
" What would we do without Fox News? I don't know."
Sarah Palin
You just know it is coming. A thunderous storm, like an unstoppable tsunami with the innocent American T&V viewer squarely targeted in its sights. Every cable, every local, and every national program is considering just how they can out do everyone else with their upcoming orgy of flags, patriotic music, photomontages of the twin towers collapsing, crying firemen, injured soldiers, and the aftermath, filled with dust, destruction and fire. It is a contest unlike any other in our history.
After Pearl Harbor, there was anger, reflection, and a quiet determination. Sure, there were a few voices screaming for justice and vengeance, but there were far more voices simply swearing an oath as they volunteered for military service. Ten years after the fact, the brutal, bloody, and ghastly image of war was so inedibly etched into so many millions of Americans, even though few actual battles took place on or near our territory, that the 10 year anniversary was mentioned, but not "celebrated." Not like 9/11 will be.
For myself, anything over the top (TV pharmaceutical ads, Reality shows, Sarah Palin, Pro Wrestling, and the like) gives me gas, or this feeling of urgency to find the remote. I suspect that the next week will be the worst ever experienced.
Why, if so many people wish to remember their loved ones in the Twin Towers, or their sons and daughters who died or were seriously injured in Iraq and Afghanistan, why would I dare suggest that too much is simply too much? Let them celebrate, let them grieve, let them go all out in the most hollywood-styled way, let it all hang out. Let it be.
At risk of pissing off a few people, I totally disagree. This is just wrong. Here's why.
A. It serves little purpose. People can and should grieve in their own ways. Privately. Let them do so, without shoving it down our throats, especially on a commercial basis. This is not a professional ceremony, where professional criers were hired for color and background noise.
B. Public Displays of 9/11 Memories (or whatever you wish to call this orgy) without research into the pre-existing causes of 9/11, the failures of our multi billion dollar entities tasked with protecting us from precisely such an event, and reasons for the attack are worse than counter productive. They give us a false sense of security in three ways:
First, it makes people think that the danger is over. We are now safe.
Next, the root causes for the attack will never happen again. After all, we killed Osama Bin Laden.
Third, this reinforces the bald and very uncomfortable fact of how little of an investment can cause a trillion dollar result against the USA. Talk about efficiency in investment.
The plain truth is far worse. Instead of being patriotic, instead of reminding us of our loss (as if we forgot or can ignore it), this kind of overdone, faux Patriotic display makes us weaker and more vulnerable. It teaches future terrorists that we are easily deluded and confused, that we can be easily scared with the slightest of threats, and that we are weak, ineffective, and impotent as a nation.
Even worse, it will drive the idiots among us, the racists, the anti-Muslim Christian cultists and functionally illiterate, gun toting TeaBaggers into acts of domestic violence, simply because their targets have darker skin, speak with a mid eastern accent, and cherish their god with a different name. Too many brews, too little brains, and an IHOP in Atlanta can soon be the site of death, even against loyal, patriotic Arab-Americans. It has happened before. It will happen again.
C. Lastly, this faux patriotism is corporate media's way of attacking the democrats, and in a rather underhanded way, the President. Not once during the next week of orgy-like fawning over our loss, will democrats be credited for any success. Bush, his cronies, and the military will be shown, ad nauseum. Each and every program will try to outdo every other station, while missing the big pictures and big questions.
So, let's ask a few of these questions now:
Why did bin Laden target the US?
Just what happened in Afghanistan leading up to the attack? How did he end up there, and was an invasion actually necessary? (Not according to the Taliban, W's erstwhile partners while he governed Texas) Why did we cut aid to those who needed it, simply because the Soviets left with their broken helicopters between their legs? And what impact did a misguided idea to station troops in the land of Saud have to do with this mess?
Why do we continue to step in steamy piles of camel dung, when we navigate the diplomatic sands of Arabia and the Muddle East? Why did American policies (often without the knowledge or approval of the American people) create such hatred and tension with people who now should be our natural allies. After all, the Arab Spring has seen despot after despot tossed out. They want to pick their own futures, much like our American colonialists wanted to pick their own future in 1776.
Not one journalist working for corporate media dared ask these questions before. (although the Nation, Mother Jones, and some librul, socialist, progressive, America-hating, arab-loving traitors tried) Not one will dare ask it over the next week. Not one will ever think of asking it in the future. Which says a lot about our MSM.
Why were so many warning signs ignored?
Moderators, please note, this is no conspiracy theory. It is merely a question. Why were the bin Ladens allowed out under such questionable, special circumstances? Why did the 9/11 commission deliberately avoid some serious topics and potential witnesses? Why did Condi Rice ignore terror, bin Laden, al Qaida, and threats to America, even though we had been attacked every single year since the initial bombing of the World Trade Center many years before? How on earth could she ignore her own terror expert, as he begged for her obviously deficient attention? Why did Bush ignore his CIA and his terror experts, and their daily briefing given to him a month earlier? How on earth could the FBI ignore its own people and the strong warnings they raised.
Lastly, we all agree this was the worst attack on the US psyche since Pearl Harbor. WHY WAS NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON PUNISHED FOR DERELICTION OF DUTY? NOT ONE! I would have started with firing Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and cheerily thrown in Condi Rice just because she deserved it. I would have had heads roll in the NSC, NSA, CIA, FBI, DIA, and half a dozen other agencies within a month of the attack. Instead, they kept their jobs, some got promoted, and others made millions in the private sector.
WHY?
Why is the FBI run by imbeciles and idiots who ignored their own people?
Even now, the FBI fails to have a national database that can be accessed by those who need the information. It still has information and power "silos" in which one office seems to be in competition with other offices. Anti-Terror work is considered punishment, prevention is left to those agents who fucked up elsewhere. Even if you thrive at this job, your chances for promotion do not exist.
And why do the CIA, NSA and FBI still fail to communicate with one another?
Why were those charged with our security coddled and protected, instead of being researched, then fired where appropriate?
How could our NSA Miss This?
The NSA gets an inordinate share of our budget. The number is so big that it remains classified. It is real ugly, as budgets go. They listen in to every phone call, see every email, and watch what we do on the intertubes. They hear everything, see everything and claim to know all the critically important stuff. We must continue to fund it at this or higher levels, to protect our nation! Oh really?
Did the NSA know about 9/11 in advance? If not, why not? Either fix the problems or shut them down as waste of trillions in tax payer money.
If they did know in advance, why did the NSA take absolutely no action to stop the attacks? Either fix the problem or shut them down. Either way, they fucked up as did the CIA, the FBI and most other terror "experts" hired to prevent the very event from happening. Spending millions on USSR directed spying is just so practical and efficient, isn't it?
Are we safer now?
The 911 commission whitewashed much of what happened. They ignored leads, facts and reports. But they also found enough truths that should worry the ever loving camel dung out of you. Of their 40+ recommendations, most of the major ones remain unreached. Yet, we stupidly and in our very quaint sheep-like ways, take off our shoes, limit liquids on flights to 1 ounce, and agree to having electronic cavity searches of ourselves, our children and our loved ones, each time we fly.
We are delayed, searched, and inspected when we enter government and private commercial buildings. OnStar listens in to your most secret conversations IN YOUR CAR, whenever the government wants to do so. Without a warrant.
Some might argue that doing something, even something stupid counterproductive and silly, is better than doing nothing. That is for others to decide. Even if there is a slight improvement in safety, then the answer is, yes. We Are Safer now.
But is it worth the price paid in tax dollars, loss of privacy, loss of constitutional rights, or loss of freedoms? Those losses have been growing incrementally, almost invisibly, until you wake up, turn around, and realize that Chicago's downtown has 1,240 cameras spying on you every instant of every day. Yet crime downtown continues at the pre-9/11 levels. So much for safety.
A real cost benefit analysis would consider the losses of our freedoms, as well as the cost in tax dollars. Yet, this huge issue, one costing us hundreds of billions, is being ignored. And this is the question that begs the best answer.
A few misguided fools might say, we don't need to dig up these answers. This is a day for honoring our dead and injured, a day of mourning. A day to remember.
Bah. Utter bullshit. Faux patriotism at its absolute gutter worst. If it takes you ten solar orbits by this mostly iron, wet rock, for you to mourn the dead, miss the loved ones, and to find a way to honor their memories, then the problem is yours, not mine. Anyone honest enough about their emotions, memories and thinking will do so on their own, in their own good time. Some will do it privately, others, in public. Any way Americans (and others) choose to mourn, should be in THEIR way, on their own terms, not led by some orchestrated MSM hollywood production.
Instead, I suggest that this ten year anniversary would be far better spent by America digging up, searching for and finding some of the answers to the few questions I pose above, and to many far better questions that I did not list or could not think of in this diary.
On a final note, if you do not believe that millions of Americans are wondering the same thing, asking the same questions, uncomfortable with the coming spectacle, and worried about current policies, just look to the sales figures of the 9/11 commission Report.
Here's the link to a scary report. Read it and weep. Status on the 9/11 report recommendations