Eleven years since 911

Each of us, the citizens of the United States alive and aware on September 11, 2001, has his own intimacy with that day.  I know I do.

An early morning phone call.  That is how the day began.  I was still abed.  Awake, but abed.  It was a reckless time in life.  Mahatma Candy daze.

The call was my roommate's mother.  Calling from Texas to speak to her son.  "They've flown a plane into the Trade Towers!" 

I flicked on the tube and watched while I got dressed for work.  Two horrific smudge towers, belching Void-black smoke.  My first thought:  "My God!  There are people in there!"  Then, realizing this was not a bizarre chance event but an act of savagery, this brain-freezer:  "The people who did this really hate us."

At work, people watched the television in the weight room.  'Twas a day of Fate.  I watched for a bit. 

Human memory is a malleable substance; we do the best we can with Truth.  But I believe even as I watched the towers burn, I knew what to expect from my people --the people of the United States --and I dreaded it.

Strike up the band and people will dance.  Not all, but many.  There are always dancers, waiting for someone to call the tune.

Not me.  I won't dance.

I'll sing, though.

Eleven years have delivered fear to reality.  Eleven years of war.  Eleven years of jingo-hooliganism.  Eleven years of Islamophobia.

I wonder:  what did bin Laden hope to achieve?

Nothing good has come of 911.  There is no silver lining to it. 

Death revelry

Spontaneous celebration at the news of Osama bin Laden's death

I suppose I'm portraying myself as a joyless scold, but whatever.

I'm uncomfortable with all the revelry on display in reaction to the news about Osama bin Laden's death. Chants of "USA!  USA!" and cacophonous public renditions of "The Star Spangled Banner" strike me as unseemly, even crass.

I grant that bin Laden's death was necessary.  Just like a grizzly bear that has taken to raiding human garbage pits, some people are simply too dangerous to live.  I certainly think Osama bin Laden fit the bill on that score.

But when society determines that it must take a life, I believe it should be done soberly and purposefully and without passion.

The death of bin Laden evokes emotion.  I understand that.  I can understand relief.  I can understand satisfaction.  But this is not a sporting event.  It is death. 

New York Times financial writer Diana Henriques said of  Bernie Madoff  "...he is not inhumanly monstrous; he is monstrously human."  It was thus with Osama bin Laden as well.  

So, I'm not going to be joining the triumphant, chest-thumping conversations springing up in offices and schools all over the country today.  Instead, I'll quote Nietzsche:  "If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you."

Take a good look, America.  What are we staring at?

A dangerous man is no more

Scratched.

Strange news.  You will have heard it before you read this.

A dangerous man is dead. What does it mean?

There is a story I've heard repeated about John Lennon.  Perhaps you've heard it.  (Osama bin Laden to John Lennon... how's that for a jarring segue?)

The story takes place in that period when John was living as a recluse, in an apartment in New York, where he kept little company and mostly stayed hidden with Yoko and their son.  The legend goes that one day as he was wandering around Manhattan, taking advantage, perhaps, of one of the last places on Earth that afforded him any anonymity, he happened upon a hotel or a convention hall (the story is not specific) where was being held a Beatles convention.  On a lark, he went inside.  Among the activities, and the vendors selling Beatles memorabilia, someone was organizing a John Lennon Lookalike contest.  According to the story, John entered the contest... and in a sublimely ironic twist, was awarded third place!

Seems plausible, doesn't it?  Would you have recognized the authentic John Lennon?  Or would the myth of John Lennon overwhelm the man?  Although John Lennon the man has been dead for over 30 years, John Lennon the legend lives on.  Has grown, in fact. 

Now, about Osama bin Laden...

Al Qaeda: neo-conservative marketing tool

What is al Qaeda?

Can anyone answer that question? To be sure, there are many interested parties that are very eager to do so. Junior Bush and the neo-conservatives have a neatly packaged definition of al Qaeda that they pitch to gullible Americans in order to reshape the United States into their idyllic totalitarian state. Rudy Giuliani is basing his entire presidential campaign on that definition.

But what is al Qaeda, really?

First, there is the history

We know that a group of militant Muslims, the mujaheddin, came into being back in the 1980s as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Using a program dubbed Operation Cyclone, the Central Intelligence Agency (what a nice group of people, eh?) armed and funded these Afghani mujaheddin, who were conducting guerrilla operations against the Soviets.

Bin Laden: son of privilege and heir to power

One of the military leaders of the mujaheddin was Saudi prince Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, the son a a billionaire Saudi businessman, "made his bones" conducting military operations in the rugged Afghani terrain. (And, say what you want about him, Osama bin Laden showed a lot more physical courage fighting in Afghanistan than did Junior, getting drunk in the National Guard barracks in Alabama and staying far, far away from the war he claimed to support in Vietnam.)

But, throughout the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, there does not appear to have been an organization known as "al Qaeda."

When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden was left with a structure and an army of followers. Rather than squander (from his point of view) these resources, or allow them to dissolve, like all power-hungry men, he looked for a new set of causes against which to direct them. It is hard to know his motivation, and impossible to know the secret alliances and betrayals that brought about the transition, but bin Laden eventually set his sights on Islamic resentment toward the United States for its imperialistic hegemony over the Middle East and its support of Israel, for which many Arab Muslims reserve their hottest hatreds.

The first time the name "al Qaeda" came to prominence in American public perception was in the trial of bin Laden and four other individuals for the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In order to try bin Laden in absentia, the US Department of Justice employed the Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which required that there be a criminal organization of which bin Laden was the head. Prosecutors pointed to a loose association of veterans of the struggle against the Soviet Union who were attracted to bin Laden's anti-imperialist, pro-Islam message as evidence of such an organization. Voila! Al Qaeda was born.

Junior gets a royal gift

On September 11th, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization struck at the US again, killing over 3000 people in an horrific attack. It was at that point that "al Qaeda" was transformed from a nebulous and obscure entity used as a legal term to seek justice into a phantom threat, a bloody shirt, and a rally point for simple minds.

Junior: son of privilege and heir to power

Junior and the neo-conservatives recognized that bin Laden had given them a royal gift. And what an apt gift between sons of privilege! Immediately Junior's gang began to use al Qaeda, that shadowy, undefined enemy that "hate[s] us for our freedom," to justify unprecedented powers for the executive branch of government, to curtail personal freedoms, and to bring about their wet dream of an invasion of Iraq.

And, boy, did it work! Look at where we are today: Junior has admitted to tapping phone calls in the United States without a court warrant, torture is now being debated as a legitimate interrogation tactic, ostensible members of "al Qaeda" (including American citizens) are being held in American military prisons without access to legal counsel or judicial review. And with over 600,000 people dead, we are still bogged down in the Iraq misadventure. All in the name of fighting "al Qaeda" and terrorism.

Politically, the term "al Qaeda" is used like a cudgel to beat cravens like Nancy Pelosi back into their corners whenever they start to display any signs of listening to their constituents. And "al Qaeda" is the verbal ejaculate that all Bush supporters spit out in their red-faced apologies for this disastrous presidency.

"Al Qaeda" has also been used to tag any number of the Bush gang's military adventures, stretching all the way from the Phillipines to Iran. Other countries have even gotten into the act. Marshal law in Pakistan, anyone?

And, every so often, a video tape of Osama bin Laden finds its way into the world media from some shadowy, unidentified sources, wherein he supposedly makes threats and denunciations. Often, these tapes appear at politically convenient times, from a Bush perspective.

But don't think that all the benefits flow in one direction. The Bush reaction to 911 and its hyper-vilification of bin Laden has endowed bin Laden with a heroic status among angry Muslims. Bush and bin Laden, brothers in privilege, are each empowered by the actions and banter of the other.

Conclusion

If we consider that the Bush administration consists largely of business executives and corporatists, it becomes all the more apparent: "al Qaeda" is just a marketing term that the neo-conservatives are using to sell fear.

To be sure, Osama bin Laden and his gang of criminals are still out there, doing whatever it is they are doing. But it is not at all clear, in fact, it's doubtful, that they have any real network that extends beyond their own petty but dangerous gang. They're just another gaggle of criminals that should be found and prosecuted. There is one thing of which we can be sure: Junior and the neo-conservatives don't want to catch him. (Case in point, Tora Bora.) If they did, it would rob them of perhaps the last arrow in their quiver of lies.

The hopeful factor in all of this is that Junior and his people may have gone too far. Indeed, there are some indications that terms like "terrorism" and "al Qaeda," having been so thoroughly over-used, they may be losing their effectiveness.

As Americans slowly awaken to the realization that they don't need to be afraid, there is going to be a reckoning. That's bad news for Junior, bad news for Osama bin Laden, and bad news for the plutocrats and corporatists that brought all this to pass.

Ultimately, the Bush gang's enthusiastic and greedy abuse of people's horror and fear will destroy them.