What follows is an article I wrote for an alternative left-oriented paper. It was written pretty much in the midst of the initial media blitz and has not been updated to reflect subsequent events or information. This may or may not be part of a section on the WTC/Pentagon attacks.
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September 11, 2001--As I write this, the television in the background is blaring away the millionth rehash of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers and the burning of the Pentagon. The full realization of the shock and horror of this tragedy, of the cost in human life, hasn’t even begun to manifest. What is manifest, however, is the plan of the Bush administration to use this tragedy to force through a political agenda that’s in utter opposition to progressive concerns.
Politically, these attacks could not have come at a better time for George W. Bush. The country’s fiscal year ends October 1. At this writing, Congress has not passed a single one of the appropriations bills needed to keep the government operating beyond that date. One of the big sticking points is the budget for the Department of Defense, including appropriations for further research and testing of the “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative missile shield.
Almost from the moment it became clear that today’s events were a terrorist attack, while Bush from a vantage point above the fray made statements about attacks on freedom, his political surrogates declared war, almost literally, on the air. More than one congressional Republican referred to the acts as “an act of war” and at least one went so far as to state that Congress should “declare war.” He did not specify against whom the United States should declare war, nor explain how one declares war against someone other than another nation-state.
There is no doubt that there will be a military reprisal by the United States against someone. As of this writing, the most likely candidate is Osama bin Laden. It will undoubtedly be called a battle in the “war on terrorism.” Waging war requires a military. Militaries require money, and lots of it. With the national treasury depleted by the ill-conceived tax cuts and rebates, that money will come from other government programs. Medicare? Social Security?
The mainstream media has lost no time in lining up behind the inevitable military buildup. “The Social Security lockbox, the finger-pointing over tax cuts, all that has become meaningless,” according to NBC’s Tim Russert, summing up the sentiments of the bulk of the TV chattering heads. “America is in a state of war, we just don’t know who the enemy is yet,” parrots MSNBC’s Brian Williams.
Ironically, these attacks could become a rallying point for the left against one of the more egregious wastes of military money, namely “Star Wars.” The call for missile defense in its current incarnation is that it’s necessary to defend the United States from so-called “rogue states.” No clearer example of a “rogue state” or a “rogue group” could be conceived than the state or group responsible for these attacks. Even if SDI were in place and fully operational and 100% effective, these attacks wouldn’t have been deterred or prevented or diminished in any way by it. It’s doubtful this simple truth will stand in the way of the rush to throw money at any and every military boondoggle in the name of “national security” and “the war on terrorism.”
It’s been said that the first casualty of war is the truth. If that’s so, then the second casualty is undoubtedly civil rights. We’ve already seen our freedoms diminished in the name of safety, every time we walk through an airport or into the City-County Building here in Madison. Unfortunately, too many people are willing to trade freedom for security, and in the numbed aftermath of these tragedies, fear will almost certainly lead many to be even more willing to make that swap. Former Secretary of State James Baker, in a refreshing burst of honesty, admitted that he expects Americans will “have to live with fewer civil liberties.”
It will take a lot of political courage to stand up in the face of what will undoubtedly be overwhelming support for these outlandish programs. I can already hear the cries from the Bush administration, echoing his father’s “he said they died in shame” cawing regarding Michael Dukakis and the Marines killed in Lebanon, to be marshaled against anyone who dares to speak against pointless spending and loss of freedoms. But it is no dishonor to oppose hysteria. What is dishonorable is exploiting the deaths of thousands and “attacks on freedom” to justify the continued waste of money and erosion of American liberty.
Even politicians hate semantic arguments!