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Today's
Stories
April 15, 2005
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting
in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion Story: We Rule; You
Die
April
13, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Ill, Old and Young of Fallujah Ask:
"Do We Look Like Fighters?"
Stan
Goff
The Bridge: a Rant
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non--Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti--Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al--Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
April
14, 2004
Will the 9/11 Widows Bring Bush Down?
Follow
the Families, Not the Script
By GREG MOSES
Thanks
to the families of 9/11, our expectations of democracy are suddenly
raised up. Is it possible that an energized global community may finally
intervene democratically into the history being made by the Executive
Branch of the USA?
Family
members claim credit for the abrupt, Easter weekend release of the Presidential
Briefing Memo. And the families are surely correct to take the credit,
unless the rest of us are wrong to expect so little from the other players
in this televised historical drama, such as Congress, the President,
and mass media.
What
seemed new about the news last week was that the script of official
Washington was finally being written by people who brought genuine questions
from outside the agenda of the Executive Branch. What is crucial for
the coming weeks is to stay with the families as they continue to push
their questions beyond where the scripts are today.
Of
course, some prominent Republicans, such as Texas Senator John Cornyn,
would have us believe that the most significant events of last week
were displays of partisan attitude from members of the 9/11 Commission.
"Individual members have certainly displayed an attitude which
is very troubling," said Cornyn to the Christian Science Monitor.
And he has a point.
Former
Senator Bob Kerry, for example, was so intent on pressing his prepared
line of questions, that he confused the name of the doctor he was actually
talking at. Kerry reminds us that the hubris of power works both ways.
No doubt, Mr. Kerry has made a smooth transition to college administrator.
But
Cornyn discredits his own discernment when he says that, "Even
through the lens of hindsight, I find it difficult to see how anything
in the briefing could or should have led to a specific action that would
have prevented the tragedy of 9/11."
Instead
of denying what he sees with his own eyes, Cornyn should consider joining
the rest of the world in asking many, many further questions. Republican
sympathizers who wail that last week was too partisan are really complaining
that for the first time in recent memory, questions were being asked
of, not by, a well-heeled Executive Branch machine. The cries of partisanship
remind us that over the past few years "partisan" has come
to mean anything un-Republican.
And
what does Cornyn means by "specific action"? It seems that
his vocabulary is related to "actionable intelligence," a
term that has been used by our otherwise inarticulate President to excuse
himself from responsibilities attached to the memo. It is interesting
to see the President’s vocabulary get so technical all of a sudden.
It appears the office, with its neo-conservative legal scholarship,
has instructed the man somewhat.
Perhaps
the President could work out a tenured position with Mr. Kerry in advance
of the November vote count in Florida. Bush's theory of "actionable
intelligence" would attract grave approval from peer review committees
throughout the academic world. And it would be helpful for the former
President to further sharpen his mind among students who talk back.
Yes, yes, perhaps the President, as professor at the New School, could
even be asked to read up on Adorno.
So
we’re all waiting to hear how this concept of "actionable
intelligence" gets constructed and deployed as basic literacy among
those who read memos from the Central Intelligence Agency.
But
for the time being, we can move on to the next question: after reading
the memo during his Texas vacation, what did the President do?
The
memo says that terrorist cells were inside the USA, behaving like they
were planning a hijacking or something; they had visited federal buildings
in New York; and there had been sufficient years for planning.
Responses
on the Easter Sunday talk shows seemed to press the President about
his further communication with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Since it is axiomatic in politics that you don’t ask a question
unless you know the answer in advance, and since so many immediate questions
were broadcast about the FBI on Easter Day, we have good reason to look
forward to the answers that are coming.
I’d
be last to get off the train that the Commission has planned for the
coming week, but we should not forget the families. By leveraging their
questions into Washington’s agenda, they hold out hope that we
can do still more.
For
instance, there are other questions that we can ask about civil defense.
Did
the President prepare civil defense authorities in New York? Did the
President ask for a review of hijacking defenses and responses? Did
the President beef up security at airports, on airplanes, and around
the Manhattan skyline? It would seem the President could do all these
things without having to delegate the FBI.
Did
the President study the causes and conditions that produce terrorist
cells?
And since Easter weekend was also "Swordfish weekend" at TNT
network,
starring John Travolta three nights in a row, let me add the next question
as a bonus: did the President take any interest in the expertise of
the New York anti-terrorist coordinator, who was so fed up with Washington
that he decided during August 2001 to take a job as security chief of
the World Trade Center?
Thanks
to the families of 9/11 the world has suddenly raised its hopes of getting
a clear account of the way that the President manages his Executive
Branch. And once the administration starts answering questions about
the way they make history, and once the script of questions gets put
in the hands of the people, well, who knows?
Democracy
might come home to roost.
Greg
Moses can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net
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