9/11: Did It Work?

I am not in favor of what happened, and I am just as angry that we did not allow anything positive to come about from the tragedy. It seems now that to engage in any criticism of the US is unpatriotic, even though the whole point of America is that it is a place where we can criticize freely!
Sorry that this post is worded so badly, but I am really angry!

Let's be very clear: Palestinians have adopted suicide bombing as a strategic choice, not out of desperation. This threatens all civilization because if suicide bombing is allowed to work in Israel, then, like hijacking and airplane bombing, it will be copied and will eventually lead to a bomber strapped with a nuclear device threatening entire nations. That is why the whole world must see this Palestinian suicide strategy defeated.

etc.

as to the question: short-term yes. assuming the goal was basically to start some shit. some shit got started. too soon to assess long-term effects.

One thing though: Wasn't the biggest reason people were angry at America because they viewed it as selfish and self-righteous and didn't like it monopolising the world? And hasn't GWB's reactions pretty obviously persuaded a lot of the world that this may well be true?

Ill stop waffling but Aaron Im not so sure I agree with all your sentiments, re a moralistic/religious? material reassessment of US values but hey Im not American so what the hell do I know.Their aims, a "holy jihad" (sp) implies a war to me but maybe Ive bought the media line.

Outcomes I agree with Ron.

In answer to the question: short term- very good, medium term(which I take to mean up to this point or so)- ???Did they expect to destabilize our government and economy and military by hitting the Pentagon, WTC, and Capitol building? Did they expect to put up a fight in Afghanistan? If that WAS the case, big failure. Long term goal- probably failure here too. I'm guessing the goal here is to get the US out of the Arab world while inflicting as many casualties upon us as possible. Soon we'll have bases in Iraq, so unless we're falling into some huge trap laid pre-9/11 this can't be good from Al-Qaida's perspective.

Question: Why does anti-suicide boming mean pro-Israel? Can we all agree that strapping explosives on your chest, walking into a crowded restaurant, market or mall and BLOWING EVERYBODY UP is inexcusably and always wrong??

I would love it, love it if patriotism were more often expressed as a willingness to destroy our enimies out of hand, without concern for what they might be trying to tell us, but since it is instead constured as some foggy pride in our ability to take it up the ass without striking back: well then I can't see why you liberals complain about it so much.

"There is a sense among some on the right (who happen to be controlling the government at this time, of course) that America is a special place that shines the light of god-fearing liberty to the rest of the world."

Is this really just limited to the religious reich in America? Or is it more closely linked to individual rights and freedoms? Could not an athetist liberal Democrat also believe that America is a special place that shines the light of democracy to the world.

In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit. Ayn Rand

Pfaff concludes the real success of Osama Bin Laden is altering the geopolitical outlook of the USA for the worst. Using an illuminating comparison between the USA and pre-WW1 Germany he notes Washington's unrealistic geopolitical ambitions, preemptive strategies, and increasing tendency to alienate allies and make enemies of former friends.

The long term goals of ObL and his band of theocratic thugs, as I understand it, are to establish Fundamentalist Islamic control firstly in the Islamic world, secondly the world over. The USA, with its support for Israel and corrupt regimes in the region, is seen as a number one opponent against the sort of changes they would like. It
has been knocked out of balance by 09/11, and is fast developing an increasingly unilateral foreign policy re-Iraq that has the potential to be massively counterproductive and leave the USA more isolated than ever.

On these terms I fear many an Al-Qaida sympathiser will view 09/11 as a success.

Surely that fairly massive achievement would have had them thinking it was a success no matter what.

It's quite possible that the strike will prove counter-productive to the perpetrator's long term goals - the USA has sided more and more overtly with Israel, and are threatening to invade all anti-USA countries in the middle east - but t-heads have no monopoly on actions counter-productive to longterm goals, as future students of Bushi's war on Iraq will note.

with the exception of afghanistan (currently shut down) and pakistan (one of several embattled factions), al qaeda has no significant *mobilised* popular following ANYWHERE: it has massive doctrinal divisions with iran (wrong kind of islam) AND iraq (secular), and unresolvable political differences with its homeland, saudi arabia => the presence of active and murderous fundamentalist orgs in, say, egypt, is not much more revealing of that nation's complexion than, say, the activities of the Red Army Faction in West Germany in the 70s.

what's astonishing about (say) anti-brit politicking within the british islamic community is not how mnuch there is, but how little (compared even with the activity round the early salman rushdie stuff)

(refugees flood to the west for a reason, however obnoxiously and gracelessly they are treated when they arrive: i'm not suggesting that they wouldn't prefer to stay at home, if their homes were war-free and wealthy, but i am saying that life in the western democracies currently also offers some OTHER things that can't be found in the places they fled, and that anyone who's benefitted from them is going to be torn at best when it comes to identifying politically with orgs that announce they intend to bury the West)

This was disproved, I thought.

These parties may oppose Al-Quaeda terrorism as much as Iran does but it would still mean a 180 degree shift in how these states are run, especially in foreign policy. By comparison West Germans felt little for the new-left (of which RAF were the lunatic/violent fringe) and responded to their violence by voting in the CDU/CSU governments.

there was a good piece in the lrb abt this maybe a month ago, reviewing a book by one of the great scholars of modern political islam, whose name i've totally forgotten (i'm basically rehashing his position): i'll link it later if i can find it (may not be online)

And also that Americans should
"...destroy our enimies out of hand..."

I'd like to suggest that many Palestinians, Iraqis, and other members of Middle Eastern countries probably feel the same way and hence they indulge in suicide bombings and airplane hijacking-and-crashing. Funny that.

Brian also goes on to say:
"...Read the writings of Islamic fundamentalist militants: it's all 'destroy Isreal', 'destroy USA'."

Gee, this sounds astonishingly like the writings of the American media [i.e. Christian Capitalist Fundamentalist militants]: 'destroy Iraq', 'destroy Afghanistan', 'destroy the Taliban'.

On weighing the two up as objectively as I can, the Islamic fundamentalists appear to have a lot more justification for their behaviour. I still can't work out why it's any business of the USA what goes on in the Middle East. If they had kept away from there in the first place I suspect that the World Trade Centre would still be standing (unless the engineering really was as crap as has been reported, or the Serbians decided to get some revenge - but then what the hell was the USA doing there anyway they must have noticed that there were some muslims in the community).

For what it's worth, at school (in my Hot Deformation of Metals class), we were told that the building was actually very well built. You could probably easily find more information about this elsewhere from someone who knows more about it than I do but here goes anyway: In regards to fire, the building was meant withstand office fires (which would be mostly paper) and burn far less hotly than a jet-fuel fire. The support beams in the structure were coated with (I think) fire-resistant tiles which would have worked just fine in an office fire. Due to the intense heat, the steel softened as it underwent the ferrite to ausenite transition (NOT melted as reported) and couldn't bear the weight of the building causing the collapse. The building was actually pretty sturdy as it had a central core + more than the usual number of reinforcing beams. It held up for a much longer amount of time than if it hadn't had the extra reinforcements thus allowing more people to escape. The construction of the building took into account all the usual considerations, ex. fire, earthquakes, high winds.... but no engineers/architects could ever predict a plane crashing into the building.

I urge you to find out more about this subject 'cause it's really interesting!

Aaron:
>There is a sense among some on the right (who happen to be
>controlling the government at this time, of course) that America is
>a special place that shines the light of god-fearing liberty to the
>rest of the world. It is never stated in that fashion, but subtle
>hints are there.

I think it's stated pretty directly in that fashion, in the pledge debate and in almost anything from John Ashcroft (his song comes particularly to mind). One of the most striking things about the last year is that more people are aware not only that Americans consider the US to be God's Chosen Land (as many people do of their homelands), but they have no idea that the rest of the world doesn't share that view.

Brian:
>I would love it, love it if patriotism were more often expressed as
>a willingness to destroy our enimies out of hand, without concern
>for what they might be trying to tell us, but since it is instead
>constured as some foggy pride in our ability to take it up the ass
>without striking back

You, on the other hand, are just on crack.

>they also got us to celebrate, and honor, the blackest day of our
>histroy.

They don't actually celebrate it, not in the was Australia does (and
it's done them no harm)

I do believe that America is evil and I do believe that it is doing an enormous amount of harm - the insidious destruction of Australian culture.

I want to know why Johnny is interested in getting into a war against Iraq on the basis that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction but has neglected to go to war against America, France, Russia or anyone else for the same offence.

I want to live in a world where there is diversity. I want there to be Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Christian, Jewish etc. places. At the moment I believe the greatest threat to a world of diversity is America. 100 years ago it was Britain, 200 years ago it was the Jesuits.

oh no: attack of the chimera! (Oh, no.)

Culture: the way of life, esp. the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time

Australia has its own cultural identity, which is very different from that of Britain.

Cultural cringe is the fear that your own country's culture is not as good as that of other countries. The cultural cringe has faded over the past few decades as Australia has been rethinking its role in the world.

I suppose it involved playing cricket on Christmas day, footy & meat pies, bbqs, beaches, sheep, Yacht races on boxing day, beer, hard-work, dust, Chinese, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese & Japanese food etc. It is so different in each state due to the different climate, different types of British settlers and different groups of refugees and other immigrants.

It's always been fluid and heavily influenced by each lot of immigrants but the problem with the Americanisation of it is that they only came here for a couple of years for rec. leave during the war and via film & telly. That's why I don't consider the Americanisation of Australian culture to be valid. There are (almost) no people with a history of American culture here.

It could have been so easily avoided too, if different media quotas had been in place, but it's almost too late now.

If it was America specifically then he has done pretty well, america already started war one one Islamic nation, and is trying to start it in another, in the process alienating the other Islamic nations, including those that once allies, as well as pretty much everyone else, other than Tony Blair (AFAICT very few of the english people support the idea of a war).

terry

you = anti-American

so A-A != chimera / which is bad for my initial claim (at top of this post)

So, is the Pinefox saying that to be anti-American is a chimera because there are so many different Americas that the phrase is meaningless? Or is he saying anti-Americans are weird fire-breathing she-monsters usually represented as a composite of a lion, goat, and serpent?

ie: I think a-A'sm is the fantasy of (= a chimera fabricated by) so-called pro-Americans like Ian Buruma or C Hitchens: to boost Bush's repellent war they knock sneering anti-Americans, but you (or I) have never met anyone who is anti-American in the way they claim; and while you (or I) are (predictably) sceptical (to say the least: personally I hate them) of US leaders we also love many US things, and consider 'anti-Americanism' foolish. All this is very familiar, old stuff, from Vietnam or earlier no doubt.

BUT folk like Toraneko and the Vicar then disturb this view (mine) by coming out and saying they hate America!

Just skim-read the top of this thread, but this sentence leapt out at me as being the truest description of the American mindset I've seen in a long time.

I don't hate America, although I do find its self importance comical. I find the leaders it keeps choosing tiresome and I resent their tendency to try and order the world to their own advantage (through blatantly unfair trade treaties etc.). And I don't like the hypocrisy of a political elite than wage a war on terrorism while allied with Ariel Sharon. But (cliche) I have American friends who I like. And I have made several enjoyable visits to the land of the free. And like most people here I love much American music. etc.

America was populated by freaked out religious fanatics, Australia mostly by criminals and bored people (I can't think of any other reason for them to have come here, it's not there was any good reason to).

America has two huge groups to be racist against, the Indians and the Blacks whereas Australia sent home (almost) all it's Islander slaves when slavery was abolished, leaving only the Aboriginals to be predjudiced against.

America had a war to get independence from Britain. Australia has continued to keeps close links to Britain, the Queen is still our head of state. We most certainly do not respect either the Queen or our Prime-Minister, whereas some Americans do respect their President, or at least think he's important.

Australia had free education and health services until very recently, I don't think America ever has.

It's compulsary to vote in Australia meaning that there is far less corruption and media bullshit surrounding elections than in America and "I smoke & I vote", "I hunt & I vote" & "I'm a gun owner & I vote" stickers have no relevance here.

But those are not the differences that worry me. It's the fact that people wear clothes with American flags on them (I think they should be shot for treason) and wear American baseball & basketball clothing even though they've never even seen a game and in the last year or two Hershey's and Whitman's chocolates have turned up and people drink Coca-cola and Dr Pepper (even though they taste absolutely disgusting). Also, the American way of saying and spelling words is starting to turn up and the dodgy grammar and people have started harping on about freedom of speech and seem to think that we have the same legal system as America.

From a personal point of view I hate the beast America. From a philosophical point of view I do not consider it to be better or worse than Australia but I do consider them to be different and that is how they should stay.

I don't think Rupert Murdoch owning lots of US & UK media has made many changes to their respective cultures, has it? Or is he to blame for the Americanisation of Britain too?

I especially like http://www.honestreporting.com/Critiques/2002/01_photo.asp.

At least they admit to their bias on the page http://honestreporting.com/a/about.asp - Brian in particular might like to note that this lot actually take the credit for the labelling by the media of Palestinians and others as terrorists!

Yes.

Letter-Writing Campaigns: Classic Or Dud?

I never took a good history class, so I have lots of questions.

I wonder what percent of current Americans are actual spawn of the religious fanatics? What percentage are spawn of the economic immigrants of the late nineteeth and early twentieth centuries? What's the percentage of recent immigrants? Were all the first settlers religious fanatics, or were there lots of merchants, or people seeking an exciting lifestyle change? Were the religious fanatics actually fanatics, or were the people who caused them to want to move away the fanatics?

What is actually a very good history book that I could buy to find answers to these questions(attn: history majors)? I'm not trying to be defensive to Toraneko's post, I just found myself reading her Aussie/Yankee facts very arched eyebrows and then realized that I wanted to read a history book. :) Like when I read a whole bunch of English/Scottish history books last year and then felt less dumb, so I could actually discuss these things with people in a smart and informed sort of way.

The funniest thing happened before I got married. My scottish/protestant uncle-in-law kept asking my polish-american family questions about our ancestors. So, when did your ancestors move to America... 1940's? We answered, "No, 1910s". You could see him thinking, are they or aren't they Jewish? I think he was very shocked when he found out that the family was all Catholic. He was even more shocked when told that we weren't getting married in a religious ceremony.

(I personally thought the fact that Palestinians celebrated was well-established, and was a bit surprised when Mark S brought it up. I'd be astonished if none of them had celebrated.)

Please spare me the "nodding along with an editorial" stuff - I am totally undecided what I think about the situation in the Middle East or how to deal with it, and I think most of the Guardian's columnists are infuriatingly pious on the topic. The problem with honestreporting.com for me is this: I go to the site wanting information. I am a liberal Guardian reader who is undecided about a lot of the issues involved. Honestreporting.com quotes the paper which I do read out of context, presents a highly selective impression of it and generally gets it wrong. Why then should I trust the site to tell me about the things I don't know about? And yes I avoid leftist sites for exactly the same reason: disinfo.com leaves me infuriated because it's smarmy-paranoid tone is so obviously shooting whatever good its doing in the foot.

I repeat: "Incidentally, I think a site existing to counter anti-Israeli inaccuracies is a good thing." If you'd like to direct me to an Israeli site which concentrates on the facts and respects the right of fellow journalists to have opinions, I would love to go there: I'm sure there are many.

Let's see, the US government keeps their boats a little too close, infringing on good-'ol sovereignty. The US hath thrown its weight around when it hath smelt oil (the oil we gave ME governemts in the first place, note). I am leaving out many go ahead and name them it will be informative.

On the other side, many Middle Eastern governments have been dictatorships or have acted as such, exerting direct control over the lives of their peeps, have turned women and Palestinians and other minorities into sub-classes, have commited occasional genocide against Palestinians or their own peeps. Once again, I encourage you to correct inaccuracies, lest they make it impossible for you to take my point seriously: if the people of the Middle East cared about their rights, they would aim their anger at their own governments, not ours. Palestine is so telling: Isreal, of their neighbors, has been the kindest to them this half-century, but Isreal is Jewish.

We have not brought this upon ourselves. If we wanted to prevent Septenmber 11th, a perfect policy record would have done far less than our conversion to an Islamic dictatorship.

So, I just wish militancy weren't equated with jingoism, please. I don't believe I should have to feel like I'm no more worthy of life than the person threatening me, if I decide the stop them. It is my life I am concerned about, you know, not my country: and certainly not Mr. Jesus.

Further: what, precisely, is the argument for "preserving" a culture against the inclinations of large numbers of people who perform or prefer a different one? Would you apply your complaint consistently across nations? If Australians with American flags should be shot for treason, should we also execute the Mexicans in my neighborhood who fly their flags? Should we behead my mother for having an Ethiopian flag on her car? Or is it that people are allowed to choose their cultural affiliations, so long as they don't choose the one that bothers you?

That said I had to ask about this:

(the oil we gave ME governemts in the first place, note)

Oil as I understand it is found under the ground i.e. it was there anyway. The US didn't 'give' the Middle East to the people who've always lived there, so I'm assuming that's not what you were trying to say. But I can't work out what you were trying to say!

this point fails if i. the CNN footage was what it said it was, or ii. if there was city-wide celebration but journalists were everywhere stopped from covering it => but if it only occurred in select places where journalists were kept out or scared away, in other words, if the celebration was not in part a mass public act of joyous unity w.al qaeda, then my point stands, which is that islam is hugely divided against itself, even in highly embattled and desperate communities, and that 9-11 did little to reverse this

bnw is i think quite correct that israel is demonised by regimes in many middle-eastern countries as the cause of ills it has little or no responsibility for (on the back of things it is responsible for), and also by those in those countries who dislike those regimes but aren't in a direct position to challenge them (al qaeda being a case in point: its true foe being the saudi royal family) => it also seems possible to me that the palestinians are somewhat used as a focus for at least SOME anxieties they are not responsible for within israel, which is a fairly tiny (and new) country currently absorbing a vast range — i think possibly historically unprecedented — of cultural inputs, thanks to the law of return

This is something US speechwriters really don't seem to understand: that preaching democracy in theory while taking steps to hinder it in practise does not make many friends. Even the bizarre racial theories that Arabs are somehow fundamentally unsuited to democracy are less patronising.

(Really what it comes down to is that: a powerful democracy is actually able to inflict the whims of its voters -- irrational or uninformed as they may be -- on the world at large. What's galling is that U.S. voters are by and large not-very-knowledgable about foreign affiars, which makes them (us) easily led in these respects: I can think of very few reasons that so many people in this country would support an invasion that informed parties throughout the rest of the world all concur just isn't so wise of an idea.)

And isn't the answer to the above discussion actually pretty much what U.S. leaders actually say it is -- that our decisions in this regard are a blend of national interest, promoting democracy, and trying not to commit U.S. forces to too many pursuits? U.S. leaders only claim that freedom and democracy are our goals rhetorically, in State of the Union addresses and stump speeches: in any serious context any one of them will say it's a matter of weighing that "national interest" (read as "oil" in plenty of cases) versus the effort and the principle. This was, in fact, something Bush stressed during his campaign, with the attendant implication that namby-pamby Clinton was somehow running all over the world futzing with situations that weren't the average American's problem. (He's changed his tune on this, obviously.)

Spencer -- at least part of the oil issue was speculative: would you prefer the oil in the hands of an erratic radical dictator with apparently little respect for international law, or in the hands of a benign-ish monarchy who happily cooperate with western systems? (For instance: which would you rather bank with?) It even gets more general as a stability issue: allowing one nation in the region to annex another stirs the whole pot, and the overarching point is that stirring the pot can only disrupt the flow of energy out of it.

(NB this is all just rationale: I'm not saying that I personally think it's ethically sound to support whatever arrangements are most beneficial to our economic stability.)

One example of policies designed to bring about a change of administration in a democratic country are the measures taken against Austria following the election of the Freedom Party to their coalition government.

I doubt that very much, given that Indians work as laborers/managers in all sorts of Arab countries. Not sure how it could be a religious dispute either; there are far more muslims in India than in any Arab country and it's not as if India has any sort of official religion. It was simply an empirical point anyway. Were Zimbabwe to invade democratic and relatively wealthy Botswana, does anyone think the US would lift a finger?

Anyway, that is a bit irrelevant anyway. Sorry!

Were I aware how much my hold on the facts had eroded in a mere four months of not arguing about this stuff (and I used to be the shit, the king of the Middle Eastern history bee), I probably wouldn't have started up again. It made me sad, sad.

Um, I'm not really concerned with Arab-on-the-street's feelings, I guess. Their governments are supporting terrorists, their governments should be brought down with force. That's really my only point, really.

You know, the FT front page is missing an end link tag or something, and one of the headers is messed up. Word, aye.

Tom: Good point. It's a bit odd with the U.S., though, since other nations have so little leverage in terms of affecting U.S. policy. Or possibly have it but can't afford to use it, which is basically the same thing.

The principle that governments which support terrorism should be brought down by force is worthless unless generally applied, and since a number of Western governments, including the US, have funded and trained terrorist groups, I assume you don't believe this.

I am not sure that B / C have your 'national interest' at heart, either; I think they have some kind of very cynically calculated local oligarchical interest (ie: continuation of power and wealth for them and those they associate with), cloaked in national interest, double-cloaked in abstract / internationalist principle. So, there are three layers of effective motivation:

1) oligarchical interest: drives Bush / Cheney

2) national interest: drives Joe American

3) abstract / international interest: maybe drives Jean Francais and Klaus Deutscher - though I'm not too sure about them. Where do Blair and *his* lieutenants fit in? Either 1): they think backing war is good for their own political prospects; or a twist on 2): they think Uk interest is dependent on following US interest. But maybe some 3), too - maybe Blair really does believe that he's acting in the name of moral principle (as, no doubt, he has sometimes done in the past).

I don't think the right-wing oligarchs' "objective interests" are the same as "the American people's".

which would lead to Bush's defeat in the next elections, no?

of course they are driven by what they consider to be their interests, which include not being voted out of office, not catalysing angry megamobs hunting for their blood, not destroying the political environment they know well and can make good money in

(i'm not actually sure what wd constitute "objective" interests, anyway)

I'm not trying to be blindly optimistic about political motivation, but I do know this; there are easier ways to make/control money in America than to hold elected office.

I think this is one of the funniest things I have ever read.

Still funny?

mainly because i can't believe that anyone could conceive of the president's paycheque as being his sole potential source of income while in office (without even touching on how future 'business opportunities' would be enhanced by a previous stint in office).

that said, maybe "blindly optimistic about political motivation" is being a bit harsh on yourself - i think you're essentially correct when you say "most elected officials are interested in civil service". but who is being served so very civilly? certainly not "a large portion of their constituents".

like reagan, dubya is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he doesn't need to be. just like lee harvey oswald didn't need to be a good shot with a rifle (though it's worth noting that he still fell foul of "that pesky assasination [sic] danger").

i mean, you can't be suggesting that dubya woulda been better off relying on his keen business acumen to build on his family fortune? honestly?

Pinefox: the thing that makes them "right-wing oligarchs" is that they think they are the same.

And Spencer is absolutely right: a person interested solely in financial gain would be completely ill-served by holding public office; this is why Jack Welch and Ken Lay have more money than Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. Even when it looks that way, the motivation is basically the same as the above: a firm belief that what they want, whether noble or ignoble in our view, is what's good for the nation as a whole. It's impossible to be a leader of any sort without believing this, even if you're "wrong."

Over on ILM we find ourselves giving people this benefit of the doubt with music all the time -- i.e., "there's no reason to think they don't actually believe what they say they believe" -- and I'm a little unsure why it shouldn't be applied to at least some political concerns. Saying the administration is motivated purely by personal interest not only gives the administration way too much credit but misses what's genuinely wrong with it -- that they firmly believe they are making the right decisions.

besides though, it's true there is also the sense of civil service, just a very reduced sense, in most cases, of the community or (gasp) class they serve.

btw, how is it giving the administration _too much_ credit to say they're purely motivated by personal interest (which i'm not sure anybody actually said up to this point)?

Er, why? Are you talking about a mental/spiritual sense of leadership, or are you really saying that you can't get elected without that firm belief?

It gives them too much credit insofar as it assumes they're making rational, "right" decisions, only their interests differ from yours. Surely it'd be worse to conlude that they really were acting in your interest, only their approaches and solutions were just wrong?

Are you talking about a mental/spiritual sense of leadership, or are you really saying that you can't get elected without that firm belief?

No, I'm saying that the reason people desire to become leaders is the following: they think they know what's good for everyone else. That's not even a criticism, it just happens to be what leaders are: they have strong beliefs, and they're confident that acting on those beliefs will make the nation a "better" place. I find it hard to think of anyone who doesn't believe this, anywhere -- that's what having a political opinion is all about!

Are you saying that someone who just wants power for power's sake wouldn't think of looking for it in the political arena?

Eh? Okay, sure I'm not there and all, but he's got to have *some* sort of take on things. A good example I can think off the top of my head is devolution and how that's been put into place -- he may well have had ulterior motives, but it was still a major change.

I find it ludicrous that heads of state should be assumed to have any less of an opinion on politics than the average citizen. And I think that even if it were always true, constantly focussing on people's ulterior motives for supporting something only serves as a distraction from the actual question of whether or not the thing itself is a good idea.

i don't think that these ideas need be mutually exclusive.

the point is that ken lay and his ilk need a 'political wing' and that's the role the bushites fill. yes, the ceo's will make more money than the man in the whitehouse but this should only surprise someone with a naive view of the functioning hierarchy.

again, is bush the kinda guy who could rely on his smarts to make his millions?

That's part of the appeal of power, but I think some of its appeal is just having power, and being able to exercise it, and being able to exercise it how and when you want to. Someone (can't be bothered researching this) said that the lust for power should disqualify the person from ever getting it, but the world is not remotely constructed that way. This problem is by no means restricted to politics, obv - it's a debate I've had a few times with a very intelligent cousin of mine who is a policeman, except it's not much of a debate, because he agrees that there are loads of police like that.

But Bush is a very special case anyway, in that he is also following in his dad's footsteps, which adds several threads of explanation as to his motives that aren't there for most. I'm not sure that this is much worth expanding, unless he is needed as a particular example.

I hope you're not referring to me.

i didn't say that ('turning... into... straw...'). i'm only saying that being the kind of president that bush is has not hurt his hypothetical non-presidential earning potential and, therefore, does not preclude his being motivated purely by personal gain.

true, ceo's do not epitomise society's 'intellect' but they are intelligent, by and large. and although, as i've said, he's as smart as he needs to be, i doubt many would say the same for bush.

http://jj.am/gallery/d/167-1/Eagle911.gif

I wrote this on Sept. 27, 2001 and posted it to a message board:

Assuming Osama bin Laden is the major figure behind the WTC and Pentagon attacks, I think he is well-pleased at everything that has happened so far, including the American reaction.

Here is what I think is going on.

First, it is important to grasp that bin Laden is playing a long shot. He may have millions of dollars, but that is a small bankroll for what he wants to accomplish. More than the money, he has a plan. With some luck, he wants to set events in motion that will lead to the emergence of a strong, unified Islamic power - not just to rival the West, but to overshadow it, just as we have overshadowed Islam for several centuries.

Everything is going exactly as he expected. Maybe even a bit better than he hoped for.

The coordinated attacks of Sept. 11 were meant to be massive enough in their effects to enrage us, galvanize us, make us bellow with pain and to make us leap into action. He did lose one plane over Pennsylvania, but the spectacular collapse of the WTC and the sense of crisis that engendered was too good to be true.

So far, so good. He wanted that.

He must have known that most of the governments of the world, including the moderate Islamic governments would line up behind the USA to come after him. After all, he saw the coalition during the Persion Gulf war. Rather than be upset, I am sure he wanted this.

From what I can see, bin Laden despises the moderate Islamic governments. He sees them as weak, as puppets for the West, as un-Islamic and the biggest obstacle to the Islamic power block he wants to catalyze into existence.

Bin Laden is counting on his belief that these moderate governments are ripe to be swept away by the same sort of revolution that took place in Iran. He sees them as so many Shahs waiting to be toppled. Bin Laden believes that the ordinary citizens of Egypt, Pakistan, Algeria and other Islamic countries are already disgruntled at their government's pro-West policies and their oppression of dissent at home.

How can he stir up these populations? He won't. He wants us to do the job for him.

Osama bin Laden is hoping and praying that the USA , in its rage and in the arrogance of our power, will over react to his deliberate provocation, overstep all limits of respect and decency, and overplay our position of strength so badly that our actions will backlash against us in the Islamic world.

In fact, this is his confident expectation. He feels certain we will act the part he has planned for us.

If we behave badly enough, if we bomb indiscriminately enough, if we trample on Islamic pride arrogantly enough, we will be doing his work in the world. Then we will see the pro-Western Islamic governments completely discredited by their association with us and start to fall.

The more the Islamic world unites behind fundamentalist governments, with ourselves as the enemy, the more bases he will have to operate from, the more fires we will be forced to put out. If Osama bin Laden can manage to spark revolt in places like Saudi Arabia (oil) or Pakistan (nuclear bombs), he will be more than halfway home. He'll have us by the short hairs.

You gotta admit, for man starting with a few million dollars and a few hundred fanatical recruits, he has figured out a plausible path to get where he wants to go: a billion Mulims united against the West, controlling most of the world's oil and protected by nuclear bombs. And our power vastly diminished.

Have you seen anything happening yet that shows he is much off course? I don't.

Given the way the Bush administration has mishandled the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and the growth of al-Qaeda in numbers and prestige, I'd say that Osmama bin Laden's plan is still on track.

He still hasn't managed to sieze control of the government of an Islamic nation, but he has re-established himself in northwestern Pakistan and the new government there is not averse to letting him be unmolested for the time being.

I'd give Osama a well-earned B+ so far. Bush/Cheney get a D-, until you consider that they are much more concerned with consolidating power in the USA by suppressing citizens's rights than in piddling around with bin Laden. On that front they earn a solid B. Their dreams of controlling Iraqi oil and cowing the Middle East through conquest in Iraq gets about a c- though.

I think that's a little too generous. I think you could argue that Bin Laden has successfully contributed to the overall relative weakening of the United States in the world (although I think it's WAY too generous to imagine he predicted every misstep Bush would make), and even there he's got help from China, Russia, India, a variety of economic factors and again, a blundering president.

**shrug** If I could easily foresee the ripe possibilities for U.S. blunders just two weeks after 9/11, and predict the direction they were likely to take, then it seems reasonable to think that bin Laden or his advisors might have, too.

Taken from the other end, what else could the attacks on 9/11 have been designed to accomplish? Certainly the destruction of a few targets in the USA, no matter how valuable they were, couldn't have been part of an ordinary war of conquest. The USA is far too vast, too strong and too populated for a small band of terrorists to conquer.

It was a spectacular political act, meant to have purely political effects. If not the ones I predicted, then which ones?

Or, to put it another way: Have you seen anything happening yet that shows he is much off course? I don't.

it "worked" insofar as it made the US do a bunch of stupid shit. However, Bin Laden is nowhere near his goal of a global Islamic revolution, and the majority of the Islamic world has either turned against him or is involved in its own internecine squabbles. Where Bin Laden miscalculated was in thinking that Muslims could be united by facing a singular enemy, ie the US - he failed to take into account the deep-rooted divisions in Islam that are not so easily swept away in the face of the latest western imperialist aggressor (ie Sunni vs Shi'a, Persian vs Arab, modernists vs anti-modernists, etc.)

(as far as predicting what would happen after 9/11 don't make me bring my wife on here to verify that the first thing I said was "oh shit, this means we're going to invade Iraq")

also Bin Laden's largely broke, he doesn't have his "millions" anymore

he wants to set events in motion that will lead to the emergence of a strong, unified Islamic power - not just to rival the West, but to overshadow it, just as we have overshadowed Islam for several centuries.

I don't see evidence that we're any closer to this.

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It's still much too early in the game for that particular goal.

http://www.edu-negev.gov.il/bs/makif7/english/nostradamus2.jpg

lol

I think the central problem is that unifying a diverse group of communities against a common enemy only works in the short-term - and it hasn't even really worked in the short-term in this case (the Muslim world is still pretty politically weak, disorganized, and filled with infighting). Bin Laden's method is flawed, it can't resolve the disparities between Muslim communities in the narrow way that he wants.

The global economy did not collapse, plunging us into a new dark age. Hence, it didn't accomplish its stated aims.

really I think Bin Laden is largely a bozo who got colossally lucky with 9/11 and he is likely to go down in Muslim history as just one of a long line of ineffectual but loudmouthed "martyrs", who will garner equal parts praise and scorn depending upon the audience.

Very good about the spectacles!

At the moment, he is working toward establishing a national power base in an Islamic country. He can't possibly get to his end goal without it. His best bets today seem to be Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He seems to be working much the hardest in Pakistan. Complete control of Pakistan's government would give him control of nuclear weapons. The fact that he can operate there with impugnity keeps his chances of success alive.

It is still true that he's playing a long shot, but he is stronger today than he was in 2001, or even in 2005. The fall of Musharraf provides him with room to wiggle further into a Pakistani power base.

Bozo? The signifigance of Osama is not that he is the brightest bulb in the bin, or that he is the mastermind of al Qaeda. I think he is more of a figurehead, a brand name, the face-on-the-box for al Qaeda. They need his name on the marquee. He has some smart people working in the background. If Osama buys the farm, it won't much affect his role as logo. But al Qaeda's prestige would take a hit.

I have no idea whether al Qaeda will go forward or backward in the next couple of years, but I would feel a whole lot better if al Qaeda were shrivelling up and losing prestige. They do not seem to be doing that. The contrary, rather.

Bozo? The signifigance of Osama is not that he is the brightest bulb in the bin, or that he is the mastermind of al Qaeda. I think he is more of a figurehead, a brand name, the face-on-the-box for al Qaeda.

http://www.clown-ministry.com/images/bozo-boppers.jpg

Complete control of Pakistan's government

so not gonna happen. India would nuke Pakistan into the stone age, so to speak.

I would feel a whole lot better if al Qaeda were shrivelling up and losing prestige. They do not seem to be doing that. The contrary, rather.

what makes you say this...? their power base is shrunk, they haven't had anything they can claim as a serious success since, what, the London bombings...? The Islamic world on the whole has not united behind them or supported them, most are either too busy with their own problems or actively against him. Pakistan's instability is endemic to the country and predates Al Qaeda's presence in the region by decades, the likelihood of Bin Laden seizing some kind of legitimate political role is close to nil, methinks. Afghanistan was his best bet, and he fucked that up right and proper (Mullah Omar and Bin Laden had a very strained relationship at best). Right now what they need is a lawless region to fluorish and build infrastructure, the Afghan-Pakistani border is the most convenient place since its been lawless for centuries.

and btw I agree his role is more of a PR one and it always has been - he was the posterboy and the fundraiser, but the brains is definitely Al-Zwahiri, who would probably rather seize control of Egypt than be stuck in a cave in Pakistan.

(also important to note that while they may cooperate and share a number of goals, the Taliban /= Al Qaeda)

The global economy did not collapse, plunging us into a new dark age. Hence, it didn't accomplish its stated aims.

Well no but it did affect the US financial policy over the next few years which has had significant effect on where we are right now. Whether this inflationary path (and resulting war) was an aim of 'al qaeda' (whoever they are) or the US administration is another matter

Did it work? Did it work for who?

Bin Laden knew that by attacking the World Financial Center, he was putting the nail in the coffin of the tech bubble, thus requiring a new outlet for investor money. Master strategist that he was, Bin Laden recognized that the most likely place for this money to go was into fishy new mortgage products. I think you know the rest.

lololol

War is a tried and trusted tool for reflation and partly why the US has almost constantly been at war since the end of the depression

um the US has been almost constantly at war for its entire existence

Yeah, but that's mostly down to the Rand Corporation.

but he has re-established himself in northwestern Pakistan

What you have in North-Western Pakistan, is a group of very poor, semi-independant Pakhtun tribes that have had it with the Pakistani government. All this "Al Qaeda Sanctuary" nonsense is just a lame excuse for the American military's incompetence in Afghanistan, the same way that Iran is a scapegoat for their incompetence in Iraq.

http://untzuntz.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/mastermind1.jpg

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b367/Euphrates1/silly%20stuff/cookiemonster.jpg

ctw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjGJPPRD3u0

They're too late! AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!

"...and to celebrate that murder they want to build a mosque at ground zero."

The simple fact is, this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship, and the government has no right whatsoever to deny that right. And if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: Should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here.

“This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions or favor one over another. The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

-Michael Bloomberg

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/03/mayor_bloomberg_on_mosque/index.html

http://hotchickssmilingatgroundzero.com/

sixteen year olds smiling at ground zero

They're smiling because they can see Century 21

http://www.thenation.com/article/14-years-after-911-the-war-on-terror-is-accomplishing-everything-bin-laden-hoped-it-would/

ISIS is in certain ways a realization of Bin Laden's strategic plan, maybe not exactly how he would have wanted it, but it's impressive in a way.

That's actually a pretty dumb article btw.

it is dumb. but OBL was a rich kid with a bad track record of predictions about the great satan (bush i didn't topple baghdad; clinton RESCUED the muslims in bosnia) until rich kid bush ii came along and made OBL look oracular

I don't think he was oracular, but he was trying to provoke us into a protracted conflict in the middle east in order to destabilize the region, mire us in war and radicalize muslims, and he eventually made that happen.

I do kind of like imagining him after WTC I going "DAMNIT! SHIT! Ok...ok, fuck car bombs, here's what we're going to do...we're gonna...we're gonna get...fuckin...PLANES...that's it...yeah...we'll crash fuckin PLANES into the towers, THAT'S gonna be a spectacle."

"THEN we'll run SHRUB against Gore . . . and though of course SHRUB will lose to Gore . . . Ok . . ok, fuck car bombs, the SCOTUS will go full partisan and award BUSH the WHITE HOUSE . . . then with an idiot rich fuck in charge . . . boom, game on"

it was not hard that morning to imagine the horrors of the years afterward, not precisely, but in general.

i'm naive - it didn't occur to me until mccain dubbed it an "act of war" on camera, that night or the next day

it was not hard that morning to imagine the horrors of the years afterward, not precisely, but in general.

i was flying to los angeles on 9/11, ended up stranded in canada for a week, and was genuinely surprised missiles weren't already in the air when our plane landed at edmonton.

the missiles would have been flying, if they'd known where to aim them

I definitely thought some kind of protracted war would follow. I don't think I saw Iraq coming though.

it absolutely worked, this seems indisputable. OBL's specifics prognostications aside, it dragged the US directly into wars into the middle east, which has upended the political stability of the region, radicalized Muslims the world over, etc.

it was not hard that morning to imagine the horrors of the years afterward, not precisely, but in general.

it was p easy imo, Iraq invasion was practically a foregone conclusion by the time the 2nd tower was down

people were saying "well W is going back into Iraq" even before 9/11

yup 9/11 was just what made it inevitable

my memory is fuzzy, makes sense though

"the day that America finally went mad"

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37846/legacy-of-september-11/