Below is today’s brief essay in the Los Angeles Times that is part of a series called Reflections on 9/11. I was asked that day after the attacks to write a column for the newspaper, which ran on September 13, 2001. As I wrote the piece, I could still see smoke rising from the Pentagon. The plane in Washington hit just behind my car a minute or so after I passed the Pentagon on my way to work from Alexandria. On that day, my greatest concerns were two-fold: a change in the definition of war and the expanded use of assassination. Unfortunately, my worst predictions were exceeded by the Bush Administration and later the Obama Administration. It is shocking to think that this was ten years ago. The images and feelings remain so vivid. My car was forced into a curb by a careening car that morning and I had to replace my tire as the smoke bellowed from the Pentagon. The thought of all the innocent people lost in Washington, New York, and Pennsylvania remains an open wound for so many of us. The sheer savagery and inhumanity of the attacks shocked the conscience — a feeling only magnified later when Bin Laden was shown gloating over how he personally advised the terrorists on the best place to hit the buildings. The cautionary piece on September 13th was not meant to take away from the legitimate and collective anger that we felt — and still feel. However, it was already clear within two days of the attacks that Bush officials were going to seek the radical expansion of presidential powers and were already referencing our civil liberties as an impediment to our safety. My heartfelt sympathy to all who lost friends and family on that day.
In his September 13 Op Ed (“Cries of “war” stumble over the law”), Turley warned against the government seeking “greater flexibility” in responding to terrorists by treating criminal attacks “as a matter of war.” “Our system,” he wrote, “requires that legal means be used to achieve legal ends. We decide those means and ends within the general confines of the Constitution.” How has the founding document fared?
As the smoke was still rising from the Pentagon and World Trade Center, it became quickly evident that some of the greatest damage from the September 11th attacks would not come from without but from within our nation.
There was an almost immediate effort by Bush officials to change the definition of war. Rather than declare war on Afghanistan (where Bin Laden was sheltered), President George W. Bush wanted to declare war on terrorism. It was no rhetorical triviality. Bush decided to invoke the heightened constitutional powers of a wartime president by declaring war on what was a category of crime. Because there could never be a total, final defeat of terrorism, this “war” would become permanent – as would the heightened powers of the president.
Ten years later, the country remains “at war,” with President Barack Obama expanding many of the national security powers of his predecessor and, in the Libyan war, claiming his own re-definition of war: “a time-limited, scope-limited military action.”
Of course, the ominous signs in 2001 were realized in a myriad of other ways, from the establishment of the first American torture program to the widespread use of targeted assassinations, including operations killing American citizens. Ironically, I wrote then of the possibility of a new law that could govern the use of assassination, one that would deny a president unilateral authority to kill individuals and would reduce the need to invoke war powers. Instead, the Bush administration claimed full wartime authority as well as radically expanding the use of assassination as an unchecked presidential power. The claim of unilateral presidential authority to kill even United States citizens has been embraced by Obama.
What ultimately fell on that terrible day proved to be some of our most important constitutional structures. Tragically, it is a degree of damage that cannot be claimed by Al Qaeda alone.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.
Paul Krugman 9/11 Blog Post Stokes Controversy
Huffington Post
9/12/2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/paul-krugman-911-blog-pos_n_958137.html
Excerpt:
Paul Krugman drew conservative outrage on Sunday when he wrote that the anniversary of 9/11 had become a marker of “shame” for the U.S.
The New York Times columnist wrote a blog post called “The Years of Shame,” in which he said that “what happened after 9/11” was “deeply shameful.” Krugman castigated people like Rudy Giuliani and President Bush as “fake heroes” who exploited the attacks for their own personal, political or military gain. He also said that many in the media had “[lent] their support to the hijacking of the atrocity.”
Krugman concluded, “the memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And, in its heart, the nation knows it.” He said he had turned off the comments on the post “for obvious reasons.”
Conservative commentators quickly seized on Krugman’s post. Blogger Michelle Malkin called him a “smug coward.” Writer Glenn Reynolds called the post “an admission of impotence from a sad and irrelevant little man.” A writer at the Big Journalism site called Krugman “vile.” And former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that he was cancelling his subscription to the Times.
However, some progressives defended Krugman. Blogger Glenn Greenwald vociferously backed the post on Twitter.
“Michael Moore & The Dixie Chicks were just as right back then as Krugman is today – but today the taboos (& their enforcers) are much weaker,” he wrote.
the taboos (& their enforcers) are much weaker,” he wrote.
And, on Crooks & Liars, Nicole Belle said that Krugman was simply telling the truth. “That day was the impetus for us to attack and invade Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks and posed no threat to us,” she wrote. “To date, we’ve lost 4,752 allied service members in Iraq and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians. How is this not a black mark of shame on the legacy of 9/11?”
September 11, 2011, 8:41 am
The Years of Shame
By Paul Krugman
New York Times
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/the-years-of-shame/
Excerpt:
Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?
Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.
What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
Great clip Elaine.
Sherman Alexie on 9/11 (2007)
Is Barack Obama an Illegal Alien?
U.S. Government’s E-Verify System Verifies Potential Employees as LEGALLY Available to Work. Barack Obama’s Social Security Number DOES NOT MATCH Government Records!
According to the government’s own system Barack Obama does not qualify to legally hold a job in the U.S.
According to affidavit, the SSN number that Barack Obama is using is 042-68-4425. That is the same number that appears on the fraudulent Selective Service Record, and doesn’t match his name in E-Verify. Now he has used it on an IRS document.
http://wtpotus.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/barack-obama-doesnt-pass-e-verify-system/
“Mossad – The Israeli Connection To 911”
“U.S. investigators and the controlled media have ignored a preponderance of evidence pointing to Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, being involved in the terror attacks of 9/11.”
http://www.rense.com/general64/moss.htm
W=c:
:=)))
A sad day remembering a tragic day. I had time to think about 9/11 during my 6 hour drive home from a college reunion in southern Illinois. Mike S., that PNAC statement haunts me to this day.
eniobob1, September 11, 2011 at 9:21 pm
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if I thought I was ‘being kissed first’ so that I could be deceived, it would only serve to make it easier to return the violence.
I don’t normally do violence but even I could muster a good swift kick to the balls….
Obama’s Birth Certificate is a Forgery!
Fraud has been committed against your county elections. Contact your sheriff for an investigation.
On 9/7/11 former AZ Sheriff Richard Mack stated, “My good friend and colleague, Sheriff Arpaio from AZ, is now investigating Obama re. the birth certificate. It is entirely proper. Should charges develop, then yes, he would file the charges. The President is not above the law.”
The Surprise, AZ Tea Party has assembled and presented to the sheriff’s office the published reports of 20 experts with established credentials who conducted a forensic examination of the computer PDF file published on the White House website and the Xerox copies of the Obama birth certificate handed out by the White House to the press during the April 27, 2011 press conference.
The analysis of the 20 experts suggests the Obama document is a forgery!
Obama can be Arrested – No Impeachment is necessary
W=c
That’s true,but now a lot of the boats that rose or sinking fast and a lot of the life preservers that were available then,Clinton had a hand in making the lines to those preservers shorter. Again it made it easier for you thought you were being kissed first.
Following the horror of 9/11 came the anthrax letters. Biosecurity expert Jonathan B. Tucker’s mysterious death at age 56(7?) happened earlier this year.
http://www.thebulletin.org/content/media-center/announcements/2011/08/03/jonathan-b-tucker-noted-biosecurity-expert-1954-2011
“I was conscious and I was constantly in thought, but my reactions to outside stimuli slowed down significantly and I would ponder the simplest questions endlessly.” Mike S.
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Yes, but is this not the ultimate of creative self-preservation in the face of gross physical impact….Merlins Crystal Cave, or a time out of time…
Becker takes it a step further I think when he talks about the use of creative projection.
@eniobob1, September 11, 2011 at 6:00 pm , but didn’t it also happen that all boats rose in Clintons tide??? and if it happened then, why would anyone want to disrupt that?
“The basic premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism.”
Woosty,
I haven’t yet but this first line from his Wiki article is something I can believe in. Human knowledge of their own mortality must be coped with or disaster mentally beckons those unable to do so. Last summer when I was close to death for a while, I went into a state often that psychologists describe as “reverie”. I was conscious and I was constantly in thought, but my reactions to outside stimuli slowed down significantly and I would ponder the simplest questions endlessly. For instance if my wife asked me a question I might think of what to answer her, but I would be wrapped up in thought and not follow through in my intention to reply, until she had to ask me again.
I was aware that I was dying but somehow this state of “reverie” kept fear at bay. It probably is an innate human defense mechanism that kicks in as the bodies systems fail. It was almost like being an observer of my own demise, with interest, but little emotional turmoil. So much of ourselves is perforce invested in our life and the lives of our loved ones, that it is hard to conceive of our non-existence. Yet at the same time we all know it is inevitable. Death is the ultimate unknown and therefore is so frightening that to just get through our lives we must ignore the fate that will engulf us all. My guess then is Becker takes off from there.
W=c:
“When President Bill Clinton was elected, the national deficit was at $300 billion. While he ended his term with a surplus (the first in decades), he still participated in the transfer of wealth, specifically in his “ending welfare as we know it.”
“As Senate Republicans blocked a bill designed to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” even the man who put the controversial policy in place says he wishes he hadn’t.
“Do you ever regret it as a policy?” CBS News Anchor Katie Couric asked former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday, hours after a GOP filibuster prevented Democrats from advancing a defense spending bill tied to repealing the ban on openly gay soldiers serving in the military.”
“Billionaire Sanford I. Weill, who according to Louis Uchitelle made “Citigroup into the most powerful financial institution since the House of Morgan a century ago,” has what I call the Wall of Me leading to his office, which he has decorated with tributes to him, including a dozen framed magazine covers. A major trophy is the pen Bill Clinton used to sign the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, a move which allowed Weill to create Citigroup. Fittingly, Citigroup is a major contributor to guess which current Democratic Presidential candidate?”
At least people thought they were being kissed.
The most striking thing about the attack of 9/11 is not how much it has changed life in this country but how little.”
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I disagree, I think it made this possible without the probable bringing to light resistance that would normally have occurred without the event.
http://underthemountainbunker.com/tag/transfer-of-wealth/
Mike S. have you read ‘Denial of Death’ by Ernest Becker ?
Whistleblower ‘Bunny’ Greenhouse wins settlement near $1 million
After years of fighting the government, Bunnatine (Bunny) Greenhouse, a whistleblower who was demoted after exposing problems with a sole source contract related to the invasion of Iraq, has won an almost $1 million settlement.
The U.S. District Court in Washington on Monday approved awarding Greenhouse $970,000 in full restitution of lost wages, compensatory damages and attorneys fees, said her attorney, Michael D. Kohn.
http://www.whistleblowers.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1264&Itemid=140
Louis Farrakhan on Obama: ‘That’s a Murderer in the White House’
“So far that is my basic understanding of Ellis….”
AY,
By George I think you’ve got it. Beats hell out of trying to figure out if you wanted to kill Daddy and screw Mommy. When in my teens I first began to read Freud, because even then I knew I’d have to work on my personal strangeness/alienation, I found some of his theories, like Oedipal and female penis envy, hard to find credible. Ellis, Perls, Carl Rogers and other existentialists seem to have a better handle on it. By the way Perls started out as a Viennese Trained Psychoanalyst and in his book his section on meeting his idol in Paris in the 30’s is a hoot and says much about Sigmund.
Thank You Mike,
I really do mean it…I will look into the book recommended, I can say that I am an avid reader….So far am comfortable with Ellis’ approach….I specifically like the ABC’s….I have deduced that for my simple mind a rational approach….
Activating event= Shit happens, Beliefs= are they Rational or Irrational, shaped by the Shit you learned to believe….(Your own personal spin on the Shit), Consequence= Shit happens, what are you going to do about it, just deal with it….
So far that is my basic understanding of Ellis….