The Nightmare Since 9/11 — 14 Years of War, Torture and Kidnappings - Tom Engelhardt

[polly7]

Over a decade later, we've learned nothing and gotten infinitely more barbaric.

By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch September 8, 2015

Fourteen years later and do you even believe it? Did we actually live it? Are we still living it? And how improbable is that?

Fourteen years of wars, interventions, assassinations, torture, kidnappings, black sites, the growth of the American national security state to monumental proportions, and the spread of Islamic extremism across much of the Greater Middle East and Africa. Fourteen years of astronomical expense, bombing campaigns galore, and a military-first foreign policy of repeated defeats, disappointments, and disasters. Fourteen years of a culture of fear in America, of endless alarms and warnings, as well as dire predictions of terrorist attacks. Fourteen years of the burial of American democracy (or rather its recreation as a billionaire’s playground and a source of spectacle and entertainment but not governance). Fourteen years of the spread of secrecy, the classification of every document in sight, the fierce prosecution of whistleblowers, and a faith-based urge to keep Americans “secure” by leaving them in the dark about what their government is doing. Fourteen years of the demobilization of the citizenry. Fourteen years of the rise of the warrior corporation, the transformation of war and intelligence gathering into profit-making activities, and the flocking of countless private contractors to the Pentagon, the NSA, the CIA, and too many other parts of the national security state to keep track of. Fourteen years of our wars coming home in the form of PTSD, the militarization of the police, and the spread of war-zone technology like drones and stingrays to the “homeland.” Fourteen years of that un-American word “homeland.” Fourteen years of the expansion of surveillance of every kind and of the development of a global surveillance system whose reach -- from foreign leaders to tribal groups in the backlands of the planet -- would have stunned those running the totalitarian states of the twentieth century. Fourteen years of the financial starvation of America’s infrastructure and still not a single mile of high-speed rail built anywhere in the country. Fourteen years in which to launch Afghan War 2.0, Iraq Wars 2.0 and 3.0, and Syria War 1.0. Fourteen years, that is, of the improbable made probable.

Fourteen years later, the 9/11 attacks and the thousands of innocents killed represent international criminality and immorality of the first order. On that, Americans are clear, but -- most improbable of all -- no one in Washington has yet taken the slightest responsibility for blowing a hole through the Middle East, loosing mayhem across significant swathes of the planet, or helping release the forces that would create the first true terrorist state of modern history; nor has anyone in any official capacity taken responsibility for creating the conditions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, possibly a million or more people, turned many in the Greater Middle East into internal or external refugees, destroyed nations, and brought unbelievable pain to countless human beings. In these years, no act -- not of torture, nor murder, nor the illegal offshore imprisonment of innocent people, nor death delivered from the air or the ground, nor the slaughter of wedding parties, nor the killing of children -- has blunted the sense among Americans that we live in an “exceptional” and “indispensable” country of staggering goodness and innocence.

Fourteen years later, how improbable is that?

Full article: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/911-torture-wars-and-kidnappings

[DaveT]

1. Great Essay

It is hard for us as Democrats to come to terms with what our party has done over the last 14 years in the name of Homeland Security. I am not calling for a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth -- just a sober realization that the policy course set by the W Bush Government in 2001, backed at the time by something like 90% of the public, has been unwise. I agree with Englehardt that several other adjectives are accurate -- wrong and crazy I think are appropriate. But as citizens who don't want to live in a bankrupt police state, we are not going to get anywhere lecturing that 90% about how evil they were to support the War on Terror.

For now, we need for the Ship of State to change direction, away from the unwise attempt to dominate the globe through force of arms, toward a rational national security policy. Rather than look at the politicians and try to figure out whom to follow, we need to address our fellow citizens to get them to understand that it does not really HAVE to be this way.

Then we the people can tell the politicians that this perpetual war shit has to stop.

[Hydra]

3. I really don't think it was 90%

There were a lot of us who saw what was happening, and tried to stop it. We were blocked by not only Bushco, but the DLC. Had our party not been co-opted by Bushco's partners in crime, I think a lot of this could have been avoided.

Honestly, engaging the citizens that support it still is impossible- they are supporting crimes against humanity, and anyone who can do that and sleep at night is either oblivious or some sort of reptile. You can't argue rule of law to them.

And that's what it really comes down to- the Neocons are tearing down rule of law for rule of power. Who's for law of the jungle?

[DaveT]

6. I agree that the 90% number is shaky

but I remember those horrible days clearly. Comedians could not make fun of Bush without getting booed. In those preposterous "security screening" lines at airports, you would spend two hours inching toward the metal detector, under the glare of soldiers dressed in camo, sporting automatic weapons. And all the talk in the line was about how we all have to grin and bear it because this will keep us safe. Bill Maher, The Dixie Chicks -- there was a real "Political Correctness" in command of our pubic discourse.

The Shrub approval ratings that reached the 90% level may not have accurately reflected how many people understood the policies they told a pollster that they supported, but it was the closest thing to a genuine consensus that I have seen in my 62 years. It was very lonely resisting the hysteria.

We, as a nation, went through a self imposed lobotomy.

The policy set in motion without benefit of facts or common sense very predictably led to disaster for our nation.


I have to disagree when you say that engaging citizens who "support it" is impossible. I will agree that it is a formidable task that we face, just getting things back to the way they were in the Clinton Era -- which wasn't all that cool to begin with.

My point was simply to urge us not to attack our fellow citizens for supporting crimes against humanity. My family is chock full of such ignorant people. Most of them simply do not believe that our government has done any such thing. There are a few, of course, who are more or less fascists who want to slaughter brown people out of an illogical lust for revenge. ]

Ignorance, we can deal with. Psychopathic xenophobia, I agree, is not so easy to confront.



Thanks for responding.

[Paka]

2. Bookmarking to read fully later.

Thanks for posting.

[Hydra]

4. Always blistering to see how bad things have gotten care of both parties

And how little we've been able to stop the madness.

[Judi Lynn]

5. "Barbaric" is exactly right. Hard to imagine, when we needed to live down VietNam so much, already.

The world has become extremely ugly very quickly.

If only people had the concern to imagine what life is like in these countries which are being tortured, tormented, terrorized, what the people have to confront daily, what life is like with no future any longer, only the hope of survival of what's left of your family, or far less than your family, after the wars of choice have destroyed everything for the corporations and their whores in Washington.

Do people realize what has been taken away from so many in the interests of so few?

This article is so needed. We need to see this quality of courage, concern, and steadfastness forever. Then we'd have a chance. I don't doubt the author has made a lot of enemies for having a moral position on the governing death wish toward resistance in the human race to its own torment. We're all supposed to take a beating, lose everything, never complain, and hope for the best. Why, we have religion to comfort us, don't we?

Sure, we do. Those who complain must be muslins or commies!

Thank you for posting this article, Polly.

[billhicks76]

7. I'll Always Believe Cheney and Co. Facilitated It

[KoKo]

8. Recommend... Tom Points out how much has changed in America

in these 14 Years and with the 2016 Election heating up it seems past time for reflection on how we can begin to reverse the terrible policy that inspired these endless wars and continuing interventions which have drained resources from our domestic programs and cause great harm to "the People" with militarization of our police, decline in our living standards and lack of equal opportunity that's leading to civil strife and violence as people try to push back against the aggressive government polices we've had to deal with since "9/11."

We just can't afford this bloated MIC any longer with its monetary & human costs the world over and here at home.

[bobthedrummer]

9. There is a longer view, consider a "Final Report" of the Interagency Working Group/IWG delivered to

Congress in 2007 in the context of this quote from Part 3: "One of the IWG's aims was to uncover documentation that would shed light on the extent to which the U.S. Government had knowingly used and PROTECTED war criminals for intelligence purposes."

Nazi War Crimes & Japanese Imperial Government Records: Interagency Working Group Final Report to the United States Congress April 2007 (Federation of American Scientists/FAS archives pdf)
http://fas.org/sgp/library/iwg2007.pdf

K&R.