http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/004407.html
9/11 didn't bring us together. It's true that in the immediate aftermath of the event that we all felt sadness and rage. But not about the same things.
Some of us felt sadness at the terrible loss of lives in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, and rage at the killers.

Others felt sadness at the terrible loss of life amongst those killed by America and its puppets over the decades, in South America and "Palestine" and Viet Nam, and rage at the blind self-centered Americans who had stood by without caring.

We were all anguished. Some of us were anguished because we feared that there might be further and more devastating terrorist attacks against us. Others were anguished because they feared that this might inspire an entirely new round of bloody military aggression by America against innocent people around the world, and conversion of America into a police state.

We all saw clearly. But some of us were looking in a different direction. Some of us clearly saw the remorseless and ruthless murderers behind the attack, and knew that they were our mortal enemies who would attack us again if they possibly could, no matter what we did. Others were looking inward, and saw what they viewed as an ugly need for revenge amongst Americans.

We all vowed never again. Some of us vowed that we would do whatever it took to make sure that the terrorists didn't strike us again. Others vowed that they would do whatever it took to make America stop doing all the evil things that had inspired the attack in the first place.

The only consensus on 9/11 was that a terrible tragedy had occurred. There was no consensus as to who was truly responsible. And that is why within hours we began to hear, "Ask yourselves why they hate you." They knew that America had brought this onto itself; deep down they knew that we deserved it.

We all knew that reform was needed. Some of us thought it was the Arab/Islamic world which needed to reform. Others knew, deep down, that America was the true problem. To try to force reform onto the Arab world would be to renew the very mistakes which had caused the attack in the first place. And to even make the attempt would inspire more and more young Arab men to become terrorists against us, increasing the danger to us.

Some of us felt that the "root cause" of this war was Arab failure, and Arab shame at their failure. The others knew that the "root cause" was American failure, and America's refusal to feel shame at its failure.

We were not united on 9/11 and we have not been united on any day since. But that is not a weakness. If the people of America are ever 100% united on anything whatever, I will know that the country I love has died.

Excuse me while I throw up.
EDIT:
After reading this again, I've changed my opinion on the article.
It is well written. It presents both sides of the issue very well.
I just don't agree that America is to blame for what happened on 9/11.
Even if it was, the people that died on that day had nothing to do with what was wrong with America.

I had a bad problem reading that article. Anytime anything came up about outrage against the muslim attackers/muslim world, it was a 'feeling.' Any time he brought up people against the US, it was 'knowing.'

It is the obvious pervading idealism in this article that ultimately lead to the attacks on 9/11.

They knew that America had brought this onto itself; deep down they knew that we deserved it.

The sentiment is clear...our freedom is our strength. However, I don't see it so black and white. Clearly we did not "deserve" the attack, but also, the US has done things the inspire hate. But I also beleive we'd still be hated simply for our belief, as a country, that Israel has a right to exist...that will always be at odds with the terrorists. I think what we did in Afghanistan was the right thing to do...and our invasion of Iraq was the wrong thing to do.

I think Americans are unified, with some looney exceptinos of course, against the acts of these evil radical muslims and their henous acts of terror. I think Americans are unified in our gratefulness and support for the work of our troops in some of the worst circumstances possible.

So, there wasn't real unity because .001% of the population had the "blame America" feelings the writer suggests? And akipt derided L2's posting of old Freeper comments fearing a unitary Executive "power grab" by Clinton...

Very self-muddled essay. I suspect you posted it as an head-on-a-stake sort of example of those crazy crackpot lefties who cry every day over photos of little brown kids missing limbs because of American Bombs (cue ominous piano), but you really need to find one with a bit more factual reference and witty vitriol to get the full effect.

So, there wasn't real unity because .001% of the population had the "blame America" feelings the writer suggests?

0.001% indeed...

http://www.sungazette.net/articles/2006/09/11/arlington/news/nws868.txt

U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, D-8th, lauded the “perfect professionalism” of Arlington's public-safety personnel, who responded to the Pentagon after the crash and won worldwide accolades for containing the damage with no additional loss of life.

He also praised the community-wide outreach effort that occurred after the attacks.

“Arlington has woven together the fabric of a community that can't be torn apart,” he said.

But Moran then maneuvered into more sensitive ground, suggesting that the country was not safer and intimating that the Bush administration's foreign policy was headed in the wrong directions.

“More people hate us,” Moran said, a comment that drew an outburst from the crowd.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/07/60minutes/rooney/main1980801.shtml

Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us. We seem so nice to ourselves. They do hate us though. We know that and we’re trying to protect ourselves with more weapons.

We have to do it I suppose but it might be better if we figured out how to behave as a nation in a way that wouldn’t make so many people in the world want to kill us.

Dear Akipt:

I think you are confusing the public attitude towards the 9/11 *event* (and the climate in the short term afterwards) with the attitude a significant number of Americans have after five years of this administration orchestrating the worst possible response to an attack of this nature, and the accompanying cynicism.

Very, few people, right after 9/11, thought that we 'deserved it' or that we had brought the catastrophe upon ourselves; and it was only a *very* few extremists that celebrated in the streets; indeed, we had the sympathy and the support of the world as far as going after the perpetrators of this horrific act went.

We didn't choose to do that. Instead of thoroughly rooting out the Saudi-derived and funded conspiracy to commit this act (yes, perpetrated by Al Qaeda, but the personnel and money involved were Saudi), we went on this insane war against Iraq, expanded it into a ill-defined 'war against Islamofacism', which, ironically, we systematically both enabled and inflamed via our staggeringly inept invasion of the only major secular nation in the region. We, rather than isolating and extinguishing a relatively small extremist fire, poured gasoline on it.

Americans, and much of the world, *was* unified in both its horror at what had happened, and its resolve to make sure it never happened again. Don't confuse that with the 'lack of unity' exhibited now, after having been lied to, used, and abused under the pretext of 'never again' since.

I'm almost tempted to say that this article looks like a backhanded attempt at the 'Why do liberals hate America?' smear, posted by a plant...

Sorry for the abrupt closure, I'm 10 minutes late for lab already.

Regards,
Nydia

Akipt...

Thinking that more people hate us now because of the actions of history's worst US administration is FAR FAR different than blaming the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. In fact they are almost completely and wholey unrelated.

I'll agree there are more people who think along those lines than .001%, but IMO, they can start packing and head to a country they want to live in. Is that to say we haven't done things in the past have lead many in the world to hate us...no. You'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise....but to say we deserved the attacks is even more idiotic.

More people in the world hate us now than right after the 9/11 attacks, I believe that to be fact. Some justifiably so....many more not.

It has bothered me for a long time that less attention was payed to what caused the attacks, as was paid to retaliation. Nothing excuses the horrible tragedy of 9/11, of course, no sane person can ever justify an attack like that. OBL made it very clear that they wanted the US/Western world to stop interfering in Arab affairs, and instead of at least stopping to consider that we've interfered even more. I could understand us going into Afghanistan, but Iraq falls into the lines of exactly what OBL was talking about. That and, ya know, funding terrorist groups when it suits us, and then fighting them later. Like, ya know, OBL himself.

There is a big difference between understanding how we engendered the situation and taking responsibility for our actions (versus say, George "I refuse to apologize for US military forces shooting down passenger airliners" Bush Sr) versus blaming people caught up the WTC attack for their own deaths. We have repeatedly earned world enmity -- in 2001 there were millions demonstrating in support of the US after the WTC attack (including something like a hundred thousand in Tehran), but by 2003 there were millions demonstrating against us in nearly every nation, including our own. This is not because we talk about Freedom(tm)(r). Who exactly is defeating unity?


Americans are puzzled over why so many people in the world hate us.

Hint: It's not because we go fishing on weekends and have our choice of 31 flavors of ice cream. We didn't "deserve" 9/11, but neither did Nicauarga, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Timor, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Bolivia, Grenada, Panama, et al, deserve what we did or allowed our satellites to do to them.

Akipt.

You may want to add the Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, all their subordinates and even the Grand Poobah Donny "Gosh Golly" Rumsfeld to so called "Hate/Blame America" crowd.

Consider the infamous 2004 "Snowflake" memo which asked wether we are Arresting, Detaining, or killing Terrorists faster than the Madrassas are producing them.

The answer was no.

Any examination of the facts of why people radicalized vs the United States are coming online at such an accellerated rate has to take our actions into account and realize that we have failed in our grand Iraq scheme and are now suffering the backfire from its disasterous planning.

Any examination of the facts of why people radicalized vs the United States are coming online at such an accellerated rate has to take our actions into account and realize that we have failed in our grand Iraq scheme and are now suffering the backfire from its disasterous planning.

So how do you fix it?
What can we do to make the world Love us again?
Have another "9/11"?

For starters, write a very strict foreign policy regarding which conflicts we'll get involved in, as some frankly are none of our business.

Second, stop backing people we're going to fight later on. This goes nicely with #1, and would probably do great things for our reputation. The fact that whoever we're at war with these days is usually someone we equipped/trained is getting rediculous.

Finish our damn conflicts. Iraq was supposed to be finished the first time around, Bush Sr. make promises to (the Kurds?) that never came through. In many ways this really was finishing daddy's war, even if that was never one of GW's reasons. In addition to training our own enemies, we keep leaving half finished projects behind. Can't imagine why people don't like us.

Reduce dependency on foriegn resources. Gee, don't like us? We don't need your oil, so we're taking our money elsewhere. Have fun stuck in the middle ages (or evolve, learn to play nice, and join the world scene).

For starters, write a very strict foreign policy regarding which conflicts we'll get involved in, as some frankly are none of our business.

In today's global economy, that's just not possible. A war in Zimbabwei can effect the price of plastics half a world away, because the raw materials come from there. (just an example, I don't know if Zimbabwei exports anything of the sort, but you get my point)

Second, stop backing people we're going to fight later on. This goes nicely with #1, and would probably do great things for our reputation. The fact that whoever we're at war with these days is usually someone we equipped/trained is getting rediculous.

So, you have a crystal ball that will tell you who we should back, and who we shouldn't, based future aggression against us? Can you also tell me which stocks will do well tomorrow?

Finish our damn conflicts. Iraq was supposed to be finished the first time around, Bush Sr. make promises to (the Kurds?) that never came through. In many ways this really was finishing daddy's war, even if that was never one of GW's reasons. In addition to training our own enemies, we keep leaving half finished projects behind. Can't imagine why people don't like us.

The Arab coalition that we had put together told the Sr Bush Administration, that if he went after Saddam, they would not support it, and more than likely would turn on us. None of the nations in the coalition wanted the Kurds to have power, and none of them wanted Americans iniating a regime change on an Arab country. You could look at it as finishing up a conflict that was started 10 years ago, though. Regardless, we provided relief to the Kurds, after the fact. I was flying on the missions into Northern Iraq for Operations Provide Comfort I/II/III.

Reduce dependency on foriegn resources. Gee, don't like us? We don't need your oil, so we're taking our money elsewhere. Have fun stuck in the middle ages (or evolve, learn to play nice, and join the world scene).

Well, tell the environmentalists to relax on the building of more refineries in the US, and tell the "Representatives" from Florida to stop blocking the bills that allow the opening of the resources found offshore to be opened for exploration. Just because there's a one in a million chance of an oil spill reaching the Florida coast and doing "irreperable damage to Florida's tourist industry", doesn't give them the right to hold the rest of America hotsage.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/09/12/do1202.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2006/09/12/ixopinion.html
Certainly it's true that, five years ago, Tony Blair spoke of standing "shoulder to shoulder" with America, that Iain Duncan Smith (remember him?) echoed him, and that Jacques Chirac was on his way to Washington to say the same.

But it's also true that this initial wave of goodwill hardly outlasted the news cycle. Within a couple of days a Guardian columnist wrote of the "unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population". A Daily Mail columnist denounced the "self-sought imperial role" of the United States, which he said had "made it enemies of every sort across the globe".

That week's edition of Question Time featured a sustained attack on Phil Lader, the former US ambassador to Britain – and a man who had lost colleagues in the World Trade Centre – who seemed near to tears as he was asked questions about the "millions and millions of people around the world despising the American nation". At least some Britons, like many other Europeans, were already secretly or openly pleased by the 9/11 attacks.

And all of this was before Afghanistan, before Tony Blair was tainted by his friendship with George Bush, and before anyone knew the word "neo-con", let alone felt the need to claim not to be one.

The dislike of America, the hatred for what it was believed to stand for – capitalism, globalisation, militarism, Zionism, Hollywood or McDonald's, depending on your point of view – was well entrenched. To put it differently, the scorn now widely felt in Britain and across Europe for America's "war on terrorism" actually preceded the "war on terrorism" itself. It was already there on September 12 and 13, right out in the open for everyone to see.

Kayli...


For starters, write a very strict foreign policy regarding which conflicts we'll get involved in, as some frankly are none of our business



Haa haa.. we had that policy once, and were criticized for not helping defeat Germany until after Japan attacked us..


Finish our damn conflicts. Iraq was supposed to be finished the first time around, Bush Sr. make promises to (the Kurds?) that never came through. In many ways this really was finishing daddy's war, even if that was never one of GW's reasons. In addition to training our own enemies, we keep leaving half finished projects behind. Can't imagine why people don't like us.



Maybe we could if the media and anti-war pukes let us. Lets look at every conflict since Vietnam and tell me one that did not recieve critism that the media started or some peace group or opposition politcal branch was not spearheading. If there was not political and media pressure bearing down at every turn, then maybe we would not handcuff ourselves in this fight. Once again.. every one of you armchair generals can sit back and critize.. but I have not heard of any solutions.... If we bring the troops home... then what is next??

Wether it is accusations of " those poor Iraqi's are being slaughtered... ie the road of death", "wagging the dog" or "He lied to us", every one of the last 3 presidents have been critized during military operations by our own fucking people... that is the shit that prevents us from completing the mission.

Aliwon..


Thinking that more people hate us now because of the actions of history's worst US administration is FAR FAR different than blaming the U.S. for the 9/11 attacks. In fact they are almost completely and wholey unrelated.



I would have to say that the worst adminstration is US history is Carter's.. but hey.. he did win the Nobel....

Now that I have a few minutes to actually say something useful instead of linking and quoting a blog post and leaving it to everyone else to figure out just what the hell I had in mind... I don't have to.

What caught my attention in the original post was the very last paragraph. I suspect few of you actually managed to get that far and that's my fault. I should have simply quoted that one and been done with it...

Anyway...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_ferguson&sid=amIl8INqGABw

But of course we don't all agree. And that's where politics comes in. In response to this impressive series of speeches, Bush's political opponents accuse him of ``playing politics.''

``We think there's a lot of politics in the president's speeches,'' Dean said on Sunday.

We should hope so. It is one of the terrible ironies of U.S. democracy that the term ``politics'' -- which is, after all, the process by which free people govern themselves -- should have become a dirty word.

Bush has a belief about what the war means and how it should be fought. His political opponents have a different view. The two sides need to engage and argue, and then the public, with congressional elections this fall, will weigh in as well.

That's politics -- yet another thing that the attacks of 9/11 didn't change. We should be grateful they didn't.

I would have to say that the worst adminstration is US history is Carter's.. but hey.. he did win the Nobel....

Just a matter of opinion and perspective...Carter did suck, IMHO he's way better than this adminisration.

Everyone hates a winner...

You didn't ask for a perfect solution, Sixee simply asked how do we make the world love us again. The four things that I threw out are the reasons we're not liked as a global superpower. We interfere where we aren't wanted, are starting a trend of not finishing what we start, and in terms of backing people, we tend to back the wrong folks for the wrong reasons - usually short term economic/political gains. We also still fail to realize that the middle east is a land of conflicts going back hundreds of years, and that something started now can likely last in people's minds for just as long. This is not a land of short, easy wins. No wonder someone like OBL turns around on us later, when we fail to understand that culture so completely.

Isolationism is not a perfect ideal either, but global action needs to be considered far more carefully. Or we need to go 100% and become the world's police force. People tend to not like the cops either, but someone has to do that job. What gets us in the most trouble are half hearted actions.

Incidentally, I was speaking of the world scene, again, as Sixee asked, so for the moment lets leave our fool media out of things. They will criticize no matter what course of action we take.

Iraq has become the perfect example of what we should not do, and why. On one hand we are finishing something we started in the first war, but the question today is whether we'll have the stomach to go through with it in the long term. If we can pull this off, great, but politicking back in the States and anti-war folks will prevent us from finishing, I think. Saddam needed to be out of power, but were we the right force to do that? There's a dozen other threads on the board pointing to Arab nations that are uncomfortable with us next door, and there are going to be consequences for this lasting generations.

And as a side note, there's a real humor in anyone participating in these threads referring to others as armchair generals. I don't mind the insult, since that's exactly what we're doing, but if that's how you feel why are you posting as well?

My personal view would be that the US, and other wealthy countries, do have some obligation to aid in world affairs. Failure to address the middle east now could result in an extremest superpower with nukes in twenty or thirty years, and at that point it's too late. However many of our decisions are made with short term (gee, say about four years seems to be an odd coincidence) goals in mind, and we fail to consider the repercussions. It was one thing to pick on North Korea, for example, when they were using old equipment the Russians were slowly supplying. Now suddenly we have an enemy with potential nuclear capability who hates us, largely because of the outcome of the Vietnam war.

In Iraq, we removed Saddam, who provided the region with a Sunni led buffer between some of the extremist Shiite (Iran and Syria), albeit he was holding on to his power with brutal methods.

We backed the wrong players in Moga Dishu, paying no heed to the elected government leaders who were begging us to change our direction, and now we have Muslim extremists of the taliban genre taking control of that region.

We meddled in South American countries' affairs, tossing money and arms and in some cases military support, all with the goal of achieving our aims rather than the aims of those countries' leaders, and now they have elected leaders who are allying themselves with Iran.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union, we had a great opportunity to step in and create partnerships and trade agreements that would have benefitted both sides in jobs and economic gains, but we insisted on tieing conditions based on our ideals to everything, and ended up not only losing opportunities but hardening some folks anti-U.S. positions.

Our missteps on the global stage can be traced through each Presidency back to Carter, and beyond. Party is irrelevant, as both have made mistakes by perpetuating a dominating role rather than one of cooperation.
We consistently try to tell other countries that we will only aid them if they have the proper record of human rights, while at the same time we show our own shortcomings by ignoring the the genocide in Rwanda and Darfur and countless other atrocities within the African continent.

There is no perfect solution to offer, but recognizing our history and the mistakes that have brought us to where we are is a start to moving in other directions.

(And, the President in many cases may want to do something different, but Congress is great at tying up legislation unless compromises are made in the form of pork, or appeasing a few differing opinions.)

Sorry for rambling.....coffee not kicked in yet.

Bly, it sounds as if you and Kanyli are advocating either longer terms for the President, or a Line Item Veto power.
As for hypocrisy, every country is guilty of that. So we are hated because of it? Or our refusal to aknowledge it?
Why should we stick our noses in, unless it benefits the country in some way? Why should it be a bad thing to place the importance of our country before the importance of others?

Not longer terms (please please please make Bush and Co go away?). More over that many decisions seem to come and go based on election season. Some of this makes sense as parties change, but a lot of it comes as a politician or a party (not just the president) will make some snap action to make themselves look good for the polls. If interfering in some country drops the price of oil short term, go for it. A quick battle against some tyrant somewhere makes the leaders of this country look good, so they can get reelected. But it's short sighted, and neglects the long term effects. Many of the items in Bylimet's list demonstrate that.

There isn't a perfect solution at all, but we need to consider the long term outcome (or, perhaps as a fancy term, 'exit strategy') before sticking our noses in someone else's business.

Nope, I'm not in favor of longer terms, but I wouldn't mind seeing and end to the two party system/partisan politics in this country.

A real plurality government instead of two sides of the Big Business Welfare party would go further than any possible law to restoring America to democracy.

So would shooting all the lawyer's!

Line Item Veto would be a great tool to not only balance the budget, but to restore the idea of legislation being passed for the purpose of the legislation rather than for a multitude of add-ons. The major problem however, is that we have become so partisan that it could be misused as a form of punishing members of the opposing party.

I have though about the party idea and voting lately alot since partisianship etc causes so much problems. I could see somehow some way doing away with parties alltogether. Screw party ideas let people come up with thier own. No more majority leader no more minority leader just a melting pot of people with ideas. Yes allys will be formed but instead of touting the party line or risk alienating yourself it would cause people to think for themselves and what5 thier voters want. I have not though about how this would be acconplished since both parties would fight for control. In other words bring the state and federal governments down to a local level where party line do not mean much rather what you represent.

The major problem however, is that we have become so partisan that it could be misused as a form of punishing members of the opposing party.

I like the idea of line-item veto as well, but this is exactly what would happen.

Clinton didn't get it - I hope Bush doesn't either.

Party affiliations suck, espically when the American People are held hostage to an ideology that isn't what they subscribed to.
A strong, 3rd party would be the best solution, but who? The Libertarians? The Green Party? The American Communist Party? The American Nazi Party?

I think the most viable third party would be a combination of Democrats and Republicans that are more centrist, though I have no idea what you'd call the party. Republicrats? Would their mascot be a chimera of some sort?

The party idea would work if they were focused on smaller ideas. I forget who writes about this, some famous sociologist. The Republicans and Democrats have such a broad, sweeping ideology that has almost encompassed any issue that might come up. The result is that people who affiliat themselves with either party often feel the need to vote strictly as their party does, both in the general public and in Congress. Yet almost anyone who's even briefly studied ethics knows that issues simply are not black and white.

Maybe smaller parties, with one issue. Or voters with common sense who would vote against their party when it made sense, and vote with it other times. And remove this crap about controlling the House or Senate. Pick leaders by random number or something.

And presidents should have to be true independents.

Okay, so maybe I'm out of good ideas now.