First a word of advice for all the GOP hopefuls who will never read this and could not care less about my thoughts but here goes:
If you are in a debate with Rudy Guiliani, unless you are secretly working for him, DO NOT bring up 9/11! You can be as right as rain on this one — and I personally believe our presence in Iraq has only created a fertile ground for terrorists to recruit and train, which does NOT mean I think the Iraq war caused 9/11 BUT it saved his career. As a NYer, I lived under him and HATED him as a Mayor. He was awful. Police brutality was up by about 30 percent (and real shoot first and ask questions later kind of brutality, like the two people shot 20 times or more when they were ASKED TO GET THEIR ID). He was a 'tough on crime' kind of guy, so his police broke down the wrong door several times a week? You wanna safer city, or what? Whatchu gonna do about it? But mention 9/11 and he gets to hit one out of the ballpark so do not give him that chance.
As for my position on that day, it's a little complicated. Being from NY and having lived in both cities that were attacked (ps. all you 9/11 conspiracy theorists who think your data is backd up by the WAY the towers fell, how EXACTLY does the Pentagon or PA planes figure into your process?) I consider that say to be the worst of my life (to date, hope nothing worse happens). When I needed comfort — and I was willing to give Dubya a lot of leeway but when he finally emerged, he looked like a deer in the headlights. I desperately misses President Clinton and was genuinely comforted by Rudy. I never voted for him, wrote letters to his city hall, hated him as Mayor but that day he was the comforting figure I needed, and I am not alone in that. But it has been six years. Truth be told I cannot look at the Manhattan skyline without getting a little sick and get lost when I get out of the subway because I have always used those buildings as sort of my compass — get out, see them and know which was south was. Downtown is different and nothing would make me happier than putting those buildings back EXACTLY as they were. I digress because for a long time people said that I was too close to this. My home city was hit so I was personally invested, and I remain so but New Yorkers (sorry DC, people still consider this a NYC traredy despite the Pentagon deaths and injuries and the PA flight) were not the only ones impacted. I have met people all over the country who changed their lives — moved, bought guns, built shelters, whatever to be safe. It made us feel — and no joke two days or so before the attacks I remember thinking It's a good thing we have two giant oceans protecting us from terrorists. We lost that sense of secuity that day. The problem is we were living in a post 9/11 world long before 9/11.
Tom Friedman (look it up, he has said this a million times) has said, "If you don't visit the bad neighborhoods, hey will visit you." That is what happened on that day. I cannot believe that as bad as Bush Jr. is that he knew about tthat attack and did nothing rather he was so focused on Saddam Hussein (Paul O'Neill, Treasury Secretary number one under him said in his book their first Cabinet meeting started with a discussion of how to 'get rid of Saddam') thhreat the real threats were ignored. Sandy Berger said that he told Condi Rice her biggest issue would be Al Qaeda but she did not get her marching orders from him. Moreover, her expertise was in the Soviet Union, which does not exist anymore plus Dubya said he wanted 'to be the 'anti-Clinton' and ended our work in Middle East, a mistake most experts think led to the intense violence there in the first 18 months of his presidency.
Back on point, 9/11 made Dubya a President. On 9/10 he was unpopular with the country and had little political capitol on the Hill. He was weak and vulnerable. This attack made us all feel we were those things and made him a war time President and could not come at a better time politically (Any Card, former Chief of Staff there did say "You don't roll out new products in August" — he was talking about the plans to sell the Iraq war but I think it is applicable.) This is why so many liberals see a conspiracy theory.
So what do we do? Hawks will say that the 'terroorists hate us because we are free.' I have two responses to that:
1. No they do not. They hate us because we are the Microsoft of the planet, seriously — doesn't everyone hate Microsoft? Moreover we have a tendency to see things only from our perspective and can be bullies. Many parts of the world really belive we plan to colonie them and turn everyoene there Christian (happened in Somalia). We see ourselves as this benevolent giant who just wants everyone to get along. Others see us as a behemouth military power out to end their way of life. (When Dubya dropped Christian pamplets on the troops in Iraq, it did us no favors).
2. Even if they do hate our freedom, is the best way to beat to take it away ourselves? They want to end our way of life so we're going to beat them to the punch? WTF? If we ar a beackon of freedom, democracy and rule of law then we have to stay that way. We also need to stop treating people like dirt and close Gitmo.
3. Last point: Gitmo and torture and Abu Grahib. So you watch Jack Bauer save America, one hour at a time, and honestly his life must suck because I spent at least several hours a day sleeping and I take it he does not. TORTURE DOES NOT WORK IN GETTING GOOD INFO. Recently (this was either in the New Yorker or Nation) high ranking military officials went to FOX and asked them to stop all the torture on the show because military personnel now ask: Jack Bauer did it, why can't I? (How reassuring is that our military is taking its cues from a fictional show, nice). They were ignored because the head of entertainment at FOX didn't think they were right about torture and we all know highly paid network execs probably know best how to keep our civilians safe. Bottom line though: when we do something, we set a precedent. Because I think this is such an important point I am going to painstakingly spell it out. The US starts to torture people, any crazy dictator (and Saddam was far from the worst of the lot) can then say, "Hey, the US — that beacon of rule of law and freedom does it, why shouldn't I? And while I am at it, maybe I can torture some Americans. That sure would be fun." WE DO NOT CONDONE ACTS AGAINST OTHERS THAT WE DO NOT WANT PERPETRATED AGAINST OUR PEOPLE AND FOR ALL THE CHRISTIANS OUT THERE I THINK YOU HAVE RULE ON THAT, IT GOES DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.
Wow. I feel better now. I wonder if Jack Bauer wears a 'What would Jesus do?" bracelet. I bet he does.
For the record, I do not blame Jesus for anything. I think if he were around today he would be APPAULED by what people do in his name but that's just my opinion.
Anyway, our world is not different, we are not as ignorant as we were. We need a government that can deal with this reality.
AlysonChadwick.com 