Call Me Cassandra - on the Anniversary of 9/11
I NY
by Diane V. McLoughlin, mcloughlinpost.com, September 11, 2011
First, an important public service announcement from
the International Action Center:
There is a rally against racism, war and anti-Muslim bigotry today, Sunday,
September 11th, at 1 P.M., at New York City's City Hall, Broadway at Pl.:
'Extreme right-wing, racist forces, who last year whipped up a climate of hate
against the Islamic Prayer Center at 51 Park Place, have announced ugly new
plans for this year — the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — at the same location near
the World Trade Center site. This year it is more important than ever that we
do not allow these racist hate mongers to be the only voices speaking to the
media and to the world. It is especially important to counter, in this period of
economic crisis, the forces that want to blame immigrants and Muslims for the
growing cutbacks in social ser- vices, rising unemployment and continuing
wars.'
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One of the messages coming from New York is that New Yorkers are suffering
from 9/11 fatigue. For ten years it's been an ongoing, daily thing. I cannot
imagine being forced to remain in mourning forever; to wear my widow's
weeds or black armband, or what have you, and be reminded of my loss, every,
single, day.
If that were me, I would think, for the love of god, pour me a drink and put on
some music. Or, tell me a joke, and make me laugh. I want to delight in the joy
of life with people. Yes? Life is for the living. So I, for one, would like the
families to be able to get on, without having the emotional wound torn open
all the time. Enough. Plus, the constant reminders are not for their benefit,
anyway. What's behind the curtain using 9/11 as a prop doesn't give
a damn about them.
On CNN last night, Piers Morgan was talking to a survivor. I liked him and
felt bad for him. He lost hundreds of friends and colleagues. All of them were
at their desks at work when the tower was hit. His brother was up there, too.
Just like every 9/11 story, it tears your heart out. He found renewed purpose
resurrecting his business in order to help the families. A good man.
In another segment, we learn that some 9/11 family members have developed
an educational package to facilitate discussion about terrorism in classrooms.
Kids are encouraged to open up and share what they believe a terrorist looks
like. Then, the class would learn about white guys like Timothy McVeigh
(homegrown American terrorist) or that blond, blue-eyed Norwegian lunatic
who murdered dozens of innocent young people, recently. Their point: people
who turn to violence to achieve political objectives surface in all different
religions, cultures and regions of the world.
The 9/11 families who started the educational project do not want the legacy of
those they lost, to be more hate spreading in the world. I love these guys.
When it happened, I was at home watching television in the morning and, like
the rest of the world, I just couldn't believe my eyes. I'm standing in my socks
in the middle of the living room yelling, yelling, oh my god oh my god. Then...
they're going to need help. What do they need, and I spent hours on the phone,
and eventually I got through to a way station down there, got some info,
and tried to relay back here what kinds of things could help the rescuers.
I have blood relatives down there. Not close. But they are still part of my
extended family. They could have been in there, and I couldn't do anything for
them - or anybody else. That was the worst part of it.
Tied for worst was what I knew the Bush administration would try to pull off
next. I mean, I knew.
It was absolutely vital that all the questions were explored, both by the
country's political leadership, and the mainstream press. A crime was
committed. The evidence needed to be laid out, as it would be in any criminal
investigation. Evidence is tweezed, first, with questions.
It became immediately clear that the question 'why?' was MIA; a cover-up. It's
scary how much of America's elite went along.
If I come across a badly injured person, bleeding, clothes torn, weak and in
distress, the first human response is, 'Oh my god! What happened to you, are
you ok? Do you need help?'
Next person comes along as you're calling 911, you ask: 'Do you know what
happened? Did you see anything?'
At some point after that, somebody will be asking the victim himself, 'Do you
have any enemies? Why did this happen? Why would somebody want to do
this to you?'
But in the case of 9/11 'why?' was absent. It was absent in the press, and it
was absent from the White House. And I will tell you that anyone who posted
comments pointing out the obvious, after newspaper propaganda pieces, was
immediately censored, including me.
Bush's, 'They hate us for our freedoms - now, if you love your country - go
shopping' - was amazing, in its horror. This was not just a little white lie.
This was a whopper, out of which a nightmare - war based on lies; the
fostering of racist hate - would be fanned into a raging inferno, When so much
carnage had been committed already, do they not see what they've done?
A shadow cabinet embedded within the highest echelons of U.S. power had for
several years leading up to 9/11 discussed what future they dreamed of for
America. And their dream was that the U.S. should become a world empire;
seizing the whole thing, one Middle East country at a time, beginning with
Iraq. One individual is on record wistfully noting that a Pearl Harbor would
be a gift. A crisis would get the people to rally around anything.
And so the imbroglio to occupy Iraq was soon enough launched, even though
Iraq didn't have anything to do with 9/11 whatsoever.
Also, if I recall correctly, the civil liberties-shredding 'Patriot Act' just
happened, miraculously, to be ready for Congressional perusal within days of
9/11 - a bound book of proposed changes to federal law roughly the size of a
fifty-pound turkey. Michael Moore made hay over the fact that no
Congressman did his due diligence to even read the constitution-bending
Patriot Act before voting in favor of the entire thing.
The fact of the matter is that it wasn't Iraq that was any kind of real threat, it
was the U.S. government itself that had turned into the enemy domestic.
Conspiracy theories are unnecessary to make the case that the inner sanctum of
government was as guilty as if they had flown those planes into the twin towers
themselves. Although, I will say that it is a very strange thing that three
skyscrapers miraculously dropped into their footprints, straight down, within
seconds. It is my understanding that hundreds of architects and engineers have
gone on record to say that this is an absolute impossibility outside of
controlled and preplanned demolitions. Building Seven wasn't hit by anything
at all, of course, and yet it fell straight down exactly the same way.
What is odd to me is that not one of the three buildings ended up falling over to
the side on their way down. Structurally, that, to me, would have made more
sense. Possible explanation? For the sake of limiting massive damage to
neighboring structures and to save lives otherwise, an executive order may
have been issued to discharge pre-placed demolition devices. For this to
happen the devices may have had to have been built in; a strange thing to do.
So maybe the buildings just defied all the odds and dropped. But I see the
point of so-called conspiracy theorists on the question, so far as how the
buildings actually fell.
343 New York City firefighters died on 9/11 trying to save people, in part
because police and fire did not have the communications equipment they
needed. It is a travesty, if true, that ten years later this situation has still not
been rectified.
What the government of the United States did to provoke the 9/11 attack
For ten years before 9/11 the U.S. and a few coalition partners held Iraq under
military siege and committed genocide. In a desert nation they deliberately
bombed out all electrical plants, water treatment facilities, and sewage
treatment plants. Then, John Bolton, U.S. representative at the United Nations,
argued that along with everything else on the list, childhood vaccines should be
barred from import.
Get it? When a private American citizen, Bert Sacks, tried to do whatever he
could to save even a few Iraqi children from dying from preventable, U.S.-
caused disease by arranging to import vaccines himself, the U.S. government
fined him $10,000 for his egregious offense.
500,000 Iraqi children died.
We broke the law. There was no justification for putting Iraq in a lock-down in
the first place.
One reason why we destroyed Iraq is Israel. Israel has held Palestinians
captive under brutal military occupation since 1948 - gradually, slowly,
ethnically cleansing the native Palestinians from their homes. It's illegal,
immoral, and the rest of the world doesn't like it, including the Arab world.
Rockets were fired from Iraq into Israel, causing panic. Sadaam Hussein held
tremendous sympathy for the suffering of the Palestinian people. The Israeli
occupation had been permitted to fester for too long.
Image: What once was
a Palestinian child.
In reaction to growing Middle Eastern restiveness, Western diplomacy could
have gone the other way. The issues could have been brought forward, and a
peace deal hammered out. Resolution to the Israel-Palestine unrest could have
been brought to bear. But that didn't happen, because too many people in the
U.S. are blind to the situation. So, rather than do the right thing, perhaps partly
out of the natural sympathy the West feels over the Holocaust, the U.S. utterly
destroyed Iraq, instead.
Iraq and Palestine aren't the only issues that Osama bin Laden raised in his
'Letter to America'. But they are at the top of the list.
The attack on the World Trade Center was a clear-cut act of terror. But the
evil empire is still up and running, still occupying Iraq and Afghanistan; still
bombing Pakistan and Yemen; still thinking about attacking Iran; having words
with China, and encircling Russia, while continuing to prop up the apartheid
regime of Israel.
Americans are wonderful people. I believe most of the world is willing to cut
the average American some slack. At the same time, the government has been
trying to overrun the world, drunk on its own power, deluded with a belief in
its own invincibility with hundreds - hundreds! - of military bases, including
some thirty alone in Muslim countries.
The only way world history will change course is if Americans vote in a party
that will pull back from foreign entanglements and stop the madness.
Otherwise, horrifying as it was, I fear that 9/11 was a cakewalk compared to
what we can expect sooner or later down the road.
It is high time for Americans to begin to think about the fact that they wouldn't
put up with it for one second if the shoe were on the other foot and America
were occupied by a foreign power. If the country wants to survive as a
democratic state free from fear, it will have to take on the military and order
that the soldiers be brought back home. When President John F. Kennedy, and
his brother Robert after him, looked like they might try to do just that, they
were both assassinated, one after the other. War is big business.
Cassandra - a cursed mythical figure who could see the future but was unable
to get anyone to listen to what she had to say. She knew what would happen.
She just could not do anything about it.
