On the Internment of American Prisoners: II

It was clear from the very beginning that Bush was a figurehead for the forces that had previously been arrayed during his father's tenure. There was clearly going to be a war since what the Bush forces had put together was a war cabinet consisting of essentially the same cast of characters that had been assembled for the Moral/Military Rearmament Campaign known as Desert Storm. More than likely the dunes of Southern Iraq would once again be trod by U.S. boots. Daddy, (the old CIA preppie-avenger with the pose of a Methodist minister wed to a white-haired matron out of central casting), or probably more accurately, the forces behind Daddy were now back in the catbird seat. You just knew all kinds of hell was about to break loose, but we never imagined... And then, on that beautiful autumnal morning, out of the crystal clear skies blessing the American landscape, all hell did break loose. Now, almost as soon as the attacks occurred, there were conspiracy theories coming out of the woodwork. Did the government plan this? Did they know about it in advance and let it happen? Was this just another Tonkin Gulf? Maine? Lusitania? Pearl Harbor? Just another way to get us involved in a war whose real agenda would not and could not be admitted to? Now, you know, in a sense this whole conspiracy business is just silly. Putting all the minor tactical details of the attack aside, just a review of what is public record on the 9/11 tragedy should be enough to turn the scoundrels out of power. To begin with, let's say it was "bungling" on the part of the intelligence apparatus that allowed the attack to occur. No one has ever been fired for what is clearly criminal negligence. And then the whole nation heard a name few had ever heard before and his picture was posted on dart board all across the nation. Bin Laden. The Bin Ladens, some of the richest of the Saudi oligararchs, were old buddies of the Bush family. As for Sadaam Hussein, (and it was clear his prime position on the administration hit list had just been enhanced), some U.S. citizens could still remember photos taken when he was one of our allies in which he is cordially accepting a bible from none other than Donald Rumsfeld. Usama Bin Laden, of course, had also been a U.S. ally, recruited for his highly religious scruples in the war against atheistic communism. It's really a very old story. Western capitalists blithely allowed a psychotic like Hitler to take power in the highest of mittel European cultures so that he could eliminate the red menace. The plan is, after the hatchet man has done his work, he will meet the fate of all hatchet men and get hatcheted himself. That plan did not work out quite as planned in the 1930s and 40s. Frankenstein's monster has a habit of turning on Frankenstein. We see this now occurring all over the former colonies of both the U.S. and Soviet empires. The author Chalmers Johnson spelled out this process in a book written shortly before 9/11 titled Blowback--which I am pleased to say I read before it became the best seller it would after 9/11. As Johnson makes clear, "blowback" is the name given to the phenomenon of attacks that only appear to have no cause because the causes have been largely covert. Nevertheless, within months of the Bush cabal's putsch into the White House, my country was being referred to as "the Homeland." At least it wasn't "the Fatherland." The last time I had gotten a shock like this was when I looked at front page photographs of our troops fighting their heroic battle in Grenada wearing new helmets that had a frightening resemblance to those worn by the troops of the Third Reich.