| Subj: | Re: Here we are: CIA |
| Date: | 10/15/01 12:04:17 AM Pacific Daylight Time |
Dear Kent,
Goff's tirade is too long to respond to in detail for now. I have a tax return and a trial for which to prepare. Many of the individual facts he cites are true. However, his remarks about the persons in the Administration, except for their ties to Big Oil, are just silly and a little stupid. The fact is that the Bush team is a far cry better than the rampant incompetents installed by Clinton, who was himself at sea as to foreign and defense issues. Also, anyone who quotes the commie bitch Rosa Luxembourg as if anything she said made sense is a suspect quantity for that reason alone. The left has given us the social welfare quagmire and political correctness, high taxes and uncontrolled Hispanic and Asian immigration. The left has no call on our loyalty or respect. The Democratic Party is almost single-handedly responsible for the degradation of the quality of life in America with the exception of environmental, banking and energy issues, for which we can thank the Republicans. Anyone who identifies himself as a leftist might as well sit down and shut up, as far as I am concerned because he has just disqualified himself as someone to be listened to.
Having said that, I believe that we agree on at least the following:
1. The new Antiterrorism Bill is actually an effort to expand federal prerogatives in law enforcement and to demonize anti-globalism groups, offering a net increase in government intrusion and control without offering the touted increase in ability to fight terrorists. This is very bad. See my e-mail on the ACLU's bullshit attack on Breen Elementary School. The big, bad ACLU goes after a grammar school principal while looking on as the President tightens the noose around American freedom. Well, we know they have THEIR priorities straight.
2. The United States has been working on creating a military and political presence along the southern flank of Russia for a long time (at least five years, starting with your boy Clinton), both to protect and control access to the newly discovered Central Asian oil reserves and also to complicate Russia and China's problems in the event that either decide to become assertive militarily. It's also helpful in the event that Saudi becomes hostile or Pakistan destabilizes (both of which events may happen very soon). I think that this is a lousy and very dangerous strategy which stands at least an even chance of getting us all killed and ruining the Earth in the bargain.
3. Military action against Iraq, et al., was being planned long before 9/11.
4. The current and anticipated actions of the Administration in Central Asia seem very dangerous indeed, far more so than any attack of which bin Laden seems currently capable (although the truth is that ex-Sgt. Goff and you and I have no idea just how much destruction bin Laden can command in our country). All of his remarks about the dangers I agree with completely, as you know.
I agree with Goff that this appears to be opportunism on Bush's part in order to advance all of the agendas identified in Goff's piece. I do not, however, agree with you that the crash was a set-up in the fashion of Roosevelt's actions before Pearl Harbor. There is not a shred of evidence to support your and Goff's speculations in this regard. And, as a pilot, I can tell you that it is easier to fly (not necessarily to land) a modern passenger jet than a Cessna 152, so it does not amaze me at all that with some training the pilots were capable of doing this. Indeed, I think that the conspiracy theorists are guilty of their own unconscious racism in believing that these motivated bin Laden minions could not pull this mission off without help from somebody much more sophisticated (CIA, Russian Mafia, China, who?). That's just bullshit. It takes only a watch and a few dozen hours of training to fly a 767 to a destination once it is already airborne, and crashing it into a building is pretty much point and shoot.
I remind you again, there are no Arabs willing to die for a CIA plot. The only Arabs willing to die on the side of the terrorists. Hence, this was indeed a terrorist operation.
I do not for moment doubt that our government is at the beck and call of Big Oil. And I do not doubt oil is at the center of our entire set of concerns in Central Asia. The fact remains that however it came about, terrorists attacked our country and have already promised to do so again. We need to deal with that and stop being distracted with paranoid fantasies. The questions which should be raised and which deserve energy expenditure are whether all of these security measures are really fascism in disguise and whether they will do any good against terrorism at all, and whether our open-ended operations are about to create problems for us and the world much larger than anything which the terrorists themselves could do. Personally, I think that the Antiterrorism Bill is fascist bullshit and should be defeated. I also think that we should be very careful about creating instability in Pakistan and should avoid putting ground troops in Afghanistan. On the other hand, I would make it clear to the Arab countries and the rest over there that we regard this as their problem that they helped to create. If they do not bring it to an end, we will hold them responsible militarily. They either solve it or suffer the consequences.
Once we are reasonable assured that we will not be facing more terrorist attacks at home, due to doing sensible things like greater airport security that works and not the nonsense currently implemented, as well as sealing the damn borders like every other country does, then we can undertake to investigate and examine how we got to 9/11 specifically, and whether we really need to be so over-extended in the Mideast and Central Asia generally. I do not think that the American people will support an endless war against radical Islam or a huge buildup in our presence in Central Asia, oil or no oil. In any case, our Chinese cousins may give us a little help in this by banging the Taiwan drum again in a way that reminds of us of where the real threats to national security lie, which is the same places where they have always been: Russia, China and North Korea, in that order, as it was twenty and even thirty years ago. It is hard to imagine that a little shit country like North Korea can actually pose a nuclear threat to us, but they do.
The left is bankrupt in every way, which is why no one with a lick of sense listens to them anymore. But for the left, we would not have 23 million illegal immigrants in this country. But for the left, we would have much lower taxes and actually keep what we earn. But for the left, we would not have to waste time and energy over horseshit issues like campus free speech codes, and worthless con artists like Jesse Jackson would actually have to get a real job. But for the left, we would not be backing Israel with all the cost and angst that has caused us over the years, including the Arab enmity we are discussing now. But for the left, we would not have a federal government so huge that one out of every nine Americans works for the government, and each of us works half the year to support them. But for the left, our youth would not be sliding into troglodytic ignorance and crudity unmatched since before the rise of Sumer or at least the Dark Ages. But for the left, we would not have third generation welfare recipients and the incredibly named National Welfare Rights Organization. But for the left, this would be a better country in which to live, the same country most of us grew up in, with unlocked doors, keys in the ignition, walking through town at night, kids who learned more than their parents and who had very little to fear. The left has ruined this country and many others, such as Russia, all of Eastern Europe, China, Korea, Vietnam, etc. The left is a bad joke on those who believe in it.
Again, never trust anyone who quotes Rosa Luxembourg with sincerity.