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Statement on the Second Anniversary of 9/11
http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/voices/voices.php?id=P211
Two years ago today our loved ones were tragically murdered in an act of
terror that shook the United States and the world. In the time since
their deaths, as we continue our personal paths of grieving, we are
comforted by the thoughtful and compassionate response of people all
over the world who have offered sympathy and support to the victims of
these terrible attacks. But much about the US governments approach to
responding to our loved ones deaths stands in stark contrast to the
common sense words and comforting actions of ordinary people. On this
two-year anniversary, we stop to reflect on the dangerous course of
current policies and to call for a new approach to 9/11 that is focused
on bringing about true security and justice.
Our loved ones' deaths prompted the US government to attack Afghanistan
and overthrow the repressive Taliban government with the objective of
catching Osama Bin Laden and other members of Al Queda thought to be
responsible for the attack. While military efforts to overthrow the
Taliban were initially successful, Bin Laden is still unaccounted for,
and recent reports indicate that the Taliban and Al Queda are resurging
in Afghanistan even as the central government pleads for more funds for
stabilization and rebuilding. Our military campaign in Afghanistan did
one thing for certain: it created more bereaved families just like ours.
Ordinary Afghans were killed by US bombs, injured by cluster bombs, and
displaced by fighting, adding to the suffering of 23 previous years of
wars. On our travels to Afghanistan we have met some of these families
and hold them in our hearts today as another set of victims created by
the tragedy of 9/11.
Shortly after 9/11/01, the US congress passed the USA Patriot act,
ostensibly to improve security in the United States, with little time
for examination of its consequences. In this climate of fear and panic,
the Patriot Act and other measures have eroded basic American civil
liberties and threatened our immigrant populations in particular. Today,
unnamed people languish in unidentified locations on unknown charges
under the guise of American justice. Yet there is no evidence that these
measures have made us any safer. At the same time, the administration
stalls on efforts to provide an open and honest investigation of the
events of 9/11.
Last year at this time, President Bush used the occasion of the one year
commemoration of our loved ones' deaths to begin a marketing campaign to
sell the war against Iraq. Despite the lack of a link between Saddam
Hussein and the events of 9/11, the Bush Administration's insinuations
of a connection played upon the publics fears of 9/11 and led the
country into an unnecessary war in Iraq, invoking our loved ones' deaths
as justification. While the deceptions behind the stated reasons for
going to war are coming to light, ordinary Iraqis and US soldiers in
Iraq continue to suffer, with the death toll mounting every day. Today
we pause to mourn the Iraqi dead and all the casualties of the war, and
to call upon our leaders to bring our troops, who have put their lives
on the line, safely home from this misguided mission and to turn control
of Iraqs rebuilding to the authority of the United Nations.
One of our members wrote to the New York Times on Sept 14, 2001 "I pray
that this country which has been so deeply hurt not unleash forces that
it does not have the power to call back." Have we unleashed these
terrible forces? After 9/11 America had the sympathy of the entire
world. Since war with Iraq, international sympathy and support has
turned to hatred and despair. Anti-American sentiment is on the rise all
around the worldwhat better recruiting tool for terrorist can we provide?
As grieving family members, we know that feelings of fear and anger are
a natural part of the healing process. But we have learned that it is
not healthy or constructive to act on these emotions. The governments
response to 9/11 has kept us stuck in the fear and panic that we all
shared from the shocking events of 9/11. Rather than basing our policies
on fear and anger, we call upon the government to act in the best
interest of the American public by rejoining the community of nations to
work together constructively in solving the issues of worldwide
terrorism and war.
While September 11 stands as a unique tragedy in the American
experience, the sad reality is that people in other countries have been
experiencing their own September 11ths with much less fanfare all the
time. Peaceful Tomorrows members have met with other victims of violence
around the world who are a guiding light in our efforts to put our grief
to work as action for peace. From Israeli and Palestinian parents who
lost children to violence, to victims of the US Embassy bombing in Kenya
to the mothers of the disappeared in Central and South America to the
survivors of the ultimate violencethe atomic weapons dropped by the US
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Peaceful Tomorrows members have found
ourselves to be part of a worldwide family of those who have known
terror and who have responded with peace. September 11 taught us that
human beings have the capacity to commit terrible violence against each
other. But it also taught us that the human heart is capable of
overcoming fear and hatred to build a world in which there are no more
September 11ths anywhere in the world. It is this hope is that we must
build upon as individuals and as nations.
On February 15, 2003 a great worldwide shift was made apparentso
obvious in fact that the New York Times reported it on the front page.
The millions of people in the streets around the world marching against
war in Iraq demonstrated that there are now two superpowers in the
world: the Bush Administration and global public opinion. We are honored
to stand with our brothers and sisters around the world who know that we
the people must find another way to live together on this planet.
So today as we mourn, reflect and remember, we ask that you join with us
in pursuit of true peace, security, and justice. We owe it to the dead,
we need it for the living and we must do it for the generations to
follow. Let us move forward together to build a future of peaceful
tomorrows.
Sep 09, 2003
_____________________________________________________
Path of Lies: 9/11 to Iraq
*By Lakshmi Chaudhry and Christopher Scheer, AlterNet
<http://www.alternet.org>*
September 9, 2003
On the second anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, George Bush will publicly
mourn the nearly 3,000 men and women we lost on that terrible day. But
there are others who have paid an equally high price for that tragedy
whose names the president is not likely to include in his speeches. The
288 American soldiers and countless Iraqis who have since died in a
pointless, bloody war will not be mentioned, nor will the
administration's own responsibility in their deaths.
For those in the White House who have long supported regime change in
Baghdad, the national tragedy was a window of opportunity through which
they aggressively, repeatedly, and ruthlessly rammed their plans for a
spectacular sequel to the first Gulf War.
The story of the war in Iraq begins on Sept. 11. It is a story of how a
small group of men within the Bush administration led a frightened
nation down a long, treacherous road from Ground Zero to a bloody,
no-exit war on the streets of Baghdad.
*Turning Tragedy into War*
Until 9/11, despite Saddam's many excesses, there was simply no cosmic
argument to spend precious taxpayer money to overthrow a blustering
paper tiger who roared and ranted as he paced behind his bars. But then
the twin towers came crashing down, and "changed everything."
In the aftermath, even many liberals discovered their inner hawks,
beating their chests in rage and seeking hot, bloody revenge against the
murderers. Shocked out of their post-Cold War illusion of omnipotence,
many Americans sought reassurance of their security, revenge on a
hostile, invisible enemy, and affirmation of their own goodness. The
White House offered them the perfect panacea to all their needs the
endless war of terror, the new crusade that would wreak havoc on
America's enemies.
The Iraq war, however, was no gimme. To steer the balky U.S. citizenry
and ship of state toward war with a country 6,000 miles away that most
Americans saw as little more than a sad, battered joke would require a
systematic campaign of carefully chosen lies.
To sell a war to the American people, presidents need at least two basic
ingredients: self-defense and moral duty. In terrorism, the Bush
administration found the perfect enemy shadowy, insubstantial, and
infinitely malleable to interpretation. In his 2002 State of the Union
speech, flushed with the resounding victory in Afghanistan, Bush
proclaimed: "Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of
murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the
world like ticking time bombs, set to go off without warning. ... So
long as training camps operate, so long as nations harbor terrorists,
freedom is at risk and America and our allies must not, and will not,
allow it."
Forget the Taliban. It was now time for a full-blown "axis of evil" a
wish-list of targets who could be picked off one by one in this unending
war.
Unfortunately for Saddam, Iraq was number one on the list. Within four
days of the 9/11 attacks, the gears were already in motion. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld told the President and his assembled National
Security Council that there simply weren't enough good targets to hit in
Afghanistan.
Why not target Iraq as well, he suggested.
Over the coming year, the Bush administration would work to convince the
American public that: one, Saddam has already attacked the United States
through his connections with Al Qaeda; and two, he plans to do so again
using his biological and chemical weapons, or if we waste any more time,
a nuclear bomb.
The leading members of the administration would continually string
together "9/11," "Al-Qaeda," and "Iraq" in the same sentence, rarely
making a direct connection, but always implying it. When Sen. Mark
Dayton, of the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Donald Rumsfeld
why the U.S. needed to invade Iraq "now," he snapped back, "What's
different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed."
The lie proved highly effective. Shortly before Congress voted to
authorize U.S. military action against Iraq, a CBS News poll found 51
percent of Americans believed that Hussein was involved in the 9/11
attacks, and soon afterwards, the Pew Research Center reported that
two-thirds of the U.S. public agreed that "Saddam Hussein helped the
terrorists in the Sept. 11 attacks."
While establishing Saddam's credentials as a bona fide WMD-carrying
terrorist required the "imaginative" use of intelligence, the moral card
was much easier to play in the post-9/11 era. The national tragedy
brought out the less attractive side of American exceptionalism: the
need to objectify entire nations as "evil." Whatever the motives for
war, we Americans have always needed to believe in our essential
goodness in waging it. That's why Ronald Reagan described the Soviet
Union as the "evil empire." Not coincidentally, the words, "evil" and
"evildoers," became the hallmark of a Bush speech after 9/11, especially
when he spoke of foreign policy.
If the looming threat of a bomb-dealing Saddam and self-inflated moral
rhetoric were not enough to seal the deal with the American people, the
Bush White House also threw in an added incentive: The invasion of Iraq
was not just necessary and good; it would also be a "cakewalk."
The stupendous military success of the war in Afghanistan, buttressed by
the seemingly easy-as-pie Gulf War, had left Americans under the
dangerous impression that they could simply bomb countries into
submission; that missiles could not just win the war but also impose the
peace. We had become accustomed to television wars, carefully sanitized
of bloodshed and loss, thanks to the media's infatuation with the
Pentagon's high-tech gadgetry.
If the desire for blood fueled support for the Afghan war, the ease of
victory made such support easier to marshal the next time around. Unlike
the first Gulf War, a majority (58 percent) of Americans supported
invading Iraq on the eve of war despite reservations about the costs
of going it alone. The 9/11 attacks only hardened our blind faith in the
power of Predator drones, Tomahawk missiles and NightHawk fighters
technology would set us free. All we needed to conquer our fears was the
right kind of smart bomb.
*Betrayal of Faith*
Of all the lies this administration has told its people, one false
promise resonated most deeply with frightened Americans the promise
that a war with Iraq would make us safer.
On the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the high price of
betrayal is painfully obvious. The reality is that the billions of
dollars and hundreds of lives lost in the Iraq war have left Americans
more vulnerable than ever. Not only has the war in Iraq not advanced the
fight against terrorism, it has helped Al-Qaeda to regroup and recover.
While Iraq remains in chaos, terrorist cells are regrouping in
Afghanistan and along its border with Iran. There is no doubt that many
of them will try to find their way into Iraq.
The White House is right in describing the U.S. presence as a "terrorist
magnet." As former Clinton national-security official Jessica Stern
pointed out in the New York Times, "America has taken a country that was
not a terrorist threat and turned it into one." The president who
taunted the terrorists to "bring 'em on" from the safety of the White
House has turned his soldiers into human bait. Poorly manned and
equipped, they are mired in a country that may become the epicenter of a
global war.
In the months to come, the president will no doubt make the necessary
adjustments to resuscitate his plunging approval numbers. Perhaps the
U.S. will broker a deal with the United Nations, soothe our allies, and
put an Iraqi face on the occupation to bring more of our soldiers home.
But neither he nor the ideologues who surround him are willing to take
responsibility for betraying a nation in its greatest hour of need. Not
once has Bush admitted any error or wrongdoing or the high price the
rest of us are paying for his failure. It is now clear that the greatest
obstacle in the very real war against global terrorism is the president
himself.
/This article is adapted from the forthcoming book "The Five Biggest
Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq" by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer and
Lakshmi Chaudhry. The book is due out in early October via Seven Stories
Press and Akashic Books in conjunction with AlterNet and in part
supported by AlterNet readers./
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