Jeremy Hammond on ideology and the post-9/11 WMD lie

When I first started on the path that led me to doing journalism, it was after 9/11, and I was speaking out against the coming Iraq war, warning people how the government was lying about WMD.  My own parents and older brother refused to listen to me and supported the war effort, even though I was providing them with all the information I had so they could see the truth that there was no evidence Iraq still had WMD.  My brother at one point at least conceded that I’d refuted all the claims and that no credible evidence was publicly available, but then his argument became: "well, I’m sure the government has classified intelligence that Iraq really is a threat and just can’t publicly release it." 

For a long time, I just couldn’t understand it.  I just assumed that facts and logic matter to people.  But the truth is that beliefs often matter more, so that reason is suspended if necessary to maintain a belief system.  The idea that the government would lie to start a war was just so incompatible with their view of the government as “the greatest on Earth”, and even though there are bad actors within it, the system itself is fundamentally benevolent, a beacon of light shining democracy and freedom on the world.  It’s a belief system, a matter of faith.  The state religion.

~ Jeremy Hammond

 

Steve Forbes after 9/11: "The Fed should keep this money hose on"

The Federal Reserve has admirably pumped significant liquidity into the economy, thereby easing the increasingly deadly deflation that we've been undergoing for at least three years.  But the benefits of this, other than avoiding immediate panic, won't be fully felt until the Fed publicly announces that this reliquidity is permanent, not temporary.  The dollar gold price, the most sensitive measure of monetary stability or instability, has moved from roughly $270 to $290 an ounce.  The Fed should keep this money hose on until the yellow metal reaches $300 to $325 an ounce.  Don't stop now, Alan.  You're almost there.

~ Steve Forbes, "Not There Yet," Forbes, October 15, 2001

David D'Amato on the war on terror and growth of the surveillance state

In the United States, particularly in the hysterical environment of the post-9/11 War on Terror, terrorism has been the convenient, go-to pretext for violating the civil and human rights of political dissidents and activists.  In the years following 9/11, the national security state carefully cultivated an environment of fear and paranoia, a social atmosphere in which Americans would be billing to abandon high-minded ideals of civil liberties and due process in favor of safety.  If we were to be safe, those suspected of terrorism couldn’t have rights, not the same rights anyway.  A new, exceptional kind of war required new, exceptional powers—and, besides, those pesky constitutional safeguards were for real Americans, not suspected terrorists.  It is at this juncture that the racial and religious dimensions of terrorism as a concept played their critical role, buttressed by “a pervasive media and political discourse that insisted the disciplinary techniques available to the state were insufficient for dealing with the threat that terrorism posed.”  The terrorist or suspected terrorist becomes an “exceptional figure,” dehumanized and subject to different rules, to “excess levels of state power” and disciplinary actions that would not be permissible absent this context of race.  The War on Terror became the primary means through which an imperial ruling class could consolidate its real and psychological power by punishing the other.  Policing at home could become ever more militarized and oppressive, surveillance more pervasive—justified by an omnipresent threat that has already infiltrated the homeland.

~ David S. D'Amato, "Power and Punishment in the Construct of Terrorism," CounterPunch, November 24, 2023

Michael Moore compares Israel's response to October 7 Hamas attack to Bush's response to 9/11

There was an attack on October 7th that was reprehensible and so people have a right to defend themselves, but that's not what's going on now.  If you're killing children in my name with my money, that's not a war to defend yourself.  That's something else.  That looks like there's a group of people - 2 to 2 1/2 million people of color - that are being pushed, as they say, into the sea, or into the desert, or to get rid of them in some way.  Certainly is what it looks like.  And you can't wake up every morning and see the bodies of these dead children being pulled from the rubble.

I think a lot of what Netanyahu is doing was very similar to what Bush was doing.  He messed up; Bush paid no attention.  He knew an attack was going to happen.  They didn't prepare for it.  Then Bush tried to save himself by "let's go to war, let's defend America."  We're not any safer now as Americans than we were back then.  And yes, there hasn't been another "9/11" here in the U.S., but none of us are safe if our response is more killing and more death.

~ Michael Moore, "Michael Moore on Gaza: 'We Need to Stop the Slaughter,'" UpFront on Al Jazeera English, 12:00 mark, November 4, 2023

Ryan Grim on how George W. Bush condemned Israel's killing of seven civilians in order to take out Hamas commander

Somebody pointed out that in 2002, or maybe 2003, very soon after 9/11, Israel struck the leader of Hamas and a founder of Hamas and killed him along with seven civilians.  George W. Bush put out one of the sternest statements condemning the action, condemning the loss of civilian life, saying that there's no justification, even if you're attacking the commander - the commander.  Not a battalion commander, but the head of Hamas.  "Killing seven civilians along the way is an unacceptable price to pay."  That's George W. Bush who later would have more blood on his hands than probably any president in a hundred years.  For him to say that "this is too much" and now to get very little reaction from the White House to who knows how many civilian casualties we're going to have, and it's kind of untoward to be quibbling over the numbers when you look at those images [of the Jabalia refugee camp being bombed in Gaza]...

~ Ryan Grim, "Israel Admits to Bombing Refugees Live on CNN," Breaking Points, 7:00 mark, November 1, 2023

President Biden urges Israel not to repeat its mistakes after 9/11

Justice must be done.  But I caution this: while you feel that rage, don't be consumed by it.  After 9/11 we were enraged in the United States.  While we sought justice and got justice, we also make mistakes.

~ President Joe Biden, televised address, October 19, 2023

(Biden's televised address was in response to the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians.)

Joe Murphy on twin threats to freedom: 9/11 and Covid

9/11 did not wake up Americans to the danger they faced in a corrupt and despotic government that could create money out of thin air, fund whatever wars they wanted, perpetrate heinous crimes in full view, and brainwash millions to believe that it is all for their good when in fact all of those things are threats and detrimental to freedom and peace. It didn’t wake Americans up. It did the opposite. People embraced the national governments call to action to punish those they blamed, to wage war on Iraq and Afghanistan based on completely false claims, to wage an endless “Global War on Terror” to allow government more power in the National ID act, the Homeland Security Act, the Military Commission Act, and so on. Americans didn’t wake up, they cheered on the despots, dutifully complied to more restraints on their freedom. Americans yawned and went back to work. 

Twenty years later, 2021. The despots are marching to a pre-planned and choreographed script. It is in full view and the propaganda machine is well oiled and more insidious and powerful than it ever was in 2001. Those that study history and the lessons of history can see the step by step march that bring us to the tyranny that we are experiencing in the name of Covid19 not only since 9/11 but since the ratification of the Constitution of these united States of America. At this juncture we are not just facing some more tyrannical government agencies, a few more losses of freedom, and a call for more foreign wars. We are facing the loss of all of our freedoms: The right to control your own body, the right to private property, the right to travel, the right to converse freely, the right to buy and sell, and even the right to make a living.

~ Joe Murphy, "What Was 9/11 Then and What Is It Today?," LewRockwell.com, September 13, 2021

Osama bin Laden on the 9/11 attacks

I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons…  I have been living in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders’ rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations.

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States.  As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie.  Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.  Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. 

I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.  The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. 

Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country or ideology could survive.  Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year…  They need an enemy.

~ Osama bin Laden, interviewed by the Urdu newspaper Karachi Ummat, September 28, 2001

(As quoted by Pepe Escobar, "9/9 and 9/11, 20 Years Later," LewRockwell.com, September 11, 2021.)

Tom DiLorenzo on precedents set by the Civil War

Americans are still fascinated by the war because many of us recognize it as the defining event in American history.  Lincoln’s war established myriad precedents that have shaped the course of American government and society ever since: the centralization of governmental power, central banking, income taxation, protectionism, military conscription, the suspension of constitutional liberties, the "rewriting" of the Constitution by federal judges, "total war," the quest for a worldwide empire, and the notion that government is one big "problem solver."

Perhaps the most hideous precedent established by Lincoln’s war, however, was the intentional targeting of defenseless civilians.  Human beings did not always engage in such barbaric acts as we have all watched in horror in recent days [9/11].  Targeting civilians has been a common practice ever since World War II, but its roots lie in Lincoln’s war.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Targeting Civilians," LewRockwell.com, September 17, 2001

Eric Snowden on his post-9/11 reaction

September 12 was the first day of a new era, which America faced with a unified resolve, strengthened by a revived sense of patriotism and the goodwill and sympathy of the world.  In retrospect, my country could have done so much with this opportunity.  It could have treated terror not as the theological phenomenon it purported to be, but as the crime it was.  It could have used this rare moment of solidarity to reinforce democratic values and cultivate resilience in the now-connected global public. 

Instead, it went to war. 

The greatest regret of my life is my reflexive, unquestioning support for that decision.  I was outraged, yes, but that was only the beginning of a process in which my heart completely defeated my rational judgment.  I accepted all the claims retailed by the media as facts, and I repeated them as if I were being paid for it.  I wanted to be a liberator.  I wanted to free the oppressed.  I embraced the truth constructed for the good of the state, which in my passion I confused with the good of the country.  It was as if whatever individual politics I’d developed had crashed—the anti-institutional hacker ethos instilled in me online, and the apolitical patriotism I’d inherited from my parents, both wiped from my system—and I’d been rebooted as a willing vehicle of vengeance.  The sharpest part of the humiliation comes from acknowledging how easy this transformation was, and how readily I welcomed it. 

I wanted, I think, to be part of something.  Prior to 9/11, I’d been ambivalent about serving because it had seemed pointless, or just boring.  Everyone I knew who’d served had done so in the post–Cold War world order, between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks of 2001.  In that span, which coincided with my youth, America lacked for enemies.  The country I grew up in was the sole global superpower, and everything seemed—at least to me, or to people like me—prosperous and settled.  There were no new frontiers to conquer or great civic problems to solve, except online.  The attacks of 9/11 changed all that. Now, finally, there was a fight.

~ Eric Snowden, "9/12: The Greatest Regret of My Life," September 11, 2021

Doug Casey on George W. Bush's war on terror

It’s a pity that Bush, when he was in office, made such a big deal of evil.  He discredited the concept.  He made Boobus americanus think it only existed in a distant axis, in places like North Korea, Iraq and Iran, which were and still are irrelevant backwaters and arbitrarily chosen enemies.  Bush trivialized the concept of evil and made it seem banal because he was such a fool.  All the while, real evil, very immediate and powerful, was growing right around him, and he lacked the awareness to see he was fertilizing it by turning the U.S. into a national security state after 9/11.

~ Doug Casey, "The Ascendance of Sociopaths in U.S. Governance," International Man, April 28, 2021

Peter Klein on a future world of "pandemic theater"

Actions by the Fed, by the Treasury, by Congress, by the President, that are really striking and distressing to people in extraordinary times can quickly become the new normal.  And I worry that, in a future age which might be constituted by all kinds of crises - real or imagined - the notion that bold, decisive action by the state is necessary to protect us and keep us safe is just going to become more and more part of peoples' expectations.

You know how we use the term "security theater" to describe all of these policies since 911, you know no liquids, more than 3 ounces, taking our shoes off and going through the corn house scanners and so forth.  Young people today have grown up in that environment and don't know what it was like to travel before 911.

I wonder what kind of pandemic theater we'll have to live through after this is all over.  Will you have to have your temperature taken by some TSA-equivalent worker every time you enter a public building?  Will there be random health checks?  I just worry that socially, culturally people are becoming more acclimated to a world in which the state controls the movements of persons and goods and the division of labor is retarded and so forth because it's just too dangerous to allow for a global division of labor.  And maybe I'm overly pessimistic on that score, but I think we need to be especially vigilant, those of us who care about liberty, and try to push back on those things in the months and years to come.

~ Peter Klein, "The Economics of the Shutdown," The Tom Woods Show, March 26, 2020

George W. Bush encouraging consumers to spend after 9/11

Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed.

~ President George W. Bush, September 22, 2001

Rudy Giuliani encouraging consumers to spend after 9/11

Come here and spend money, just spend a little money. Go to a store, do your Christmas or holiday shopping now, this weekend. … buy your birthday gifts for the next three or four months. We’re the best shoppers in the world.

~ New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, September 21, 2001

Butler Shaffer on justice and 9/11

One of the emptiest words in our culture is "justice." Its vacuous quality is what makes it so popular: it requires little in the way of focused, intelligent explication to employ it. To those on the political "left," justice" gets translated into a demand for money to be taken from some and bestowed upon others. Those on the political "right" use it as a plea for the building of more prisons and the hiring of more police officers to ferret out more persons to fill them. When people tell me "I demand justice," my response is to warn them to temper their insistence, as they might just get it!

When pressed for a definition, I reply that justice is the redistribution of violence. In its simplest form, X commits a wrong upon Y, for which Y demands retaliation against X. In its more complex form in our collectivized world, fifteen Saudis, two men from the United Arab Emirates, one Egyptian, and one Lebanese join in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings. As these men were killed in the process, the demands for "justice" led most Americans to accept the bombing and killing of innocent men, women, and children in such unrelated places as Afghanistan and Iraq! Justice and rationality have little to do with one another.

~ Butler Shaffer, "What Is Justice?," LewRockwell.com, July 13, 2009

Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva on the outcome of 9/11

The attacks of September 11 produced exactly the results the terrorists desired - the Bush administration panicked, got out the duct tape, and created what Leif Wenar at the University of Sheffield cleverly calls "a false sense of insecurity."

In short, they created panic - even terror - in the American people, which, of course, is precisely the aim of terrorists. In the language of the Marxist terrorists of the late 1960s, their real aim is to radicalize onlookers, moving them to join the cause. That is just what the Bush administration seems to have done. Rather than calmly and quietly proceeding to track down the perpetrators, it blundered right into Iraq and stirred up terrorist ambitions all over the Middle East. Where previously there had been only a handful of fanatics to worry about, now there are thousands of them.

~ Bill Bonner and Lila Rajiva, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, p. 57