As someone who worked near the World Trade Center (years before 9/11), I can feel every word of Richard Cohn’s op-ed in today’s Washington Post. I’ve visited where the Towers once stood. Cohen’s words evoke the emotions I felt then. Like me, you don’t have to agree with his every word to appreciate his words of tears.
President Bush is starting to look beyond his presidency. His focus is on his legacy, which he is sure will vindicate his decision to go to war in Iraq. But his most fitting memorial is likely to be where I was Sunday: the immense gash in Lower Manhattan known as Ground Zero. More than 4 1/2 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the hole has yet to be filled.
Tourists come and look. The selling of souvenirs is prohibited at the site itself, but around the corner, on Vesey Street, peddlers hug the shadows. The proper souvenir to take away from this place, though, is the memory of its immense emptiness. It’s a hole filled with broken promises and silly rhetoric, an inverted monument to the Bush administration’s unfathomable failure even to capture Osama bin Laden.
Where is this killer? Still in Afghanistan or nearby Pakistan, is the unofficial answer. Certainly not caught, is the official answer. This terrorist, this madman, this mass murderer of clerks and stockbrokers, of deliverymen and cooks, of IT guys and shoeshine men, is still on the loose. Bin Laden was the guy Bush was going to get, dead or alive, or something like that, but he is still at large, mocking us with his occasional tapes and his insufferable freedom. Even Afghanistan, liberated from the Taliban, is receding into chaos. The Taliban, it turns out, never left.
The failure to capture or kill bin Laden is the failure of Bush and his Pentagon team of incompetents—Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the former commander of the Afghan and Iraq wars, Tommy Franks. One is still in office, the other is getting rich on the lecture circuit, and neither offers much of an explanation for why the mass killer of Americans still has not been caught. “Wherever he is, if he is, you can be certain he is having one dickens of a time operating his apparatus,” Rumsfeld once said. Yes, this is comforting. And tell me also that bin Laden’s mail is often late.
More Sept. 11 tapes surfaced last week. These were recordings of 130 calls to New York’s 911 emergency operators. Mostly you could hear only one side of the conversation, the operators’, but at least one family released a tape of their son making his last call from the World Trade Center. The awful helplessness of the operators as the immensity of the tragedy dawned on them, the impeccably calm voice of a man about to die—all this parted the memory curtain many an American had draped around the event, and the pain returned. The other shoe has not dropped. Bin Laden giggles in his mountain lair.
Little wonder Bush focuses on posterity. The present has to be painful. His embrace of incompetents, not to mention his own incompetence, is impossible to exaggerate. Rummy still runs the Pentagon. The only generals who have been penalized are those who spoke the truth. (They should get some sort of medal.) Victory in Iraq is now three years or so overdue and a bit over budget. Lives have been lost for no good reason—never mind the money—and now Bush suggests that his successor may still have to keep troops in Iraq. Those of us who once advocated this war are humbled. It’s not just that we grossly underestimated the enemy. We vastly overestimated the Bush administration.
This hallowed ground, this pitiless pit, has become Exhibit A on the inability of government to function. Plans get announced, news conferences held, breathtaking models shown of buildings reaching for the sky—and nothing happens. George Pataki, the governor of New York, supposedly fashions himself a presidential candidate, yet he cannot even get this development underway. He is at loggerheads with the site’s developer, and so nothing happens. In a city where developers are king—this is Donald Trump’s home town, after all—you can still go to Ground Zero and see zero. This is 16 acres of Katrina and all it taught us about feeble political leaders.
Maybe we should leave Ground Zero as it is. The imagination can provide a fitting memorial to those who died. “We dig a grave in the breezes,” Paul Celan wrote in his Holocaust poem “Death Fugue.” We can dig ours as deep as the World Trade Center once was tall. The ugly emptiness will remind us always to be wary of the grand schemes of politicians. They can’t build a building. They cannot capture a mass murderer. They cannot wage war in Iraq. This is their hole. It is, by dint of failure, George Bush’s presidential library. His proper legacy is a void.
very selfish sounding.richard talks like 9?11 the greatest crime in history.like catching bin ladin is the main aim of americas war.thats very guliible.the war is for control over the worlds oil resources and the countries unfortunate enough to be possesing them at this time.if this was a war against al-qaida saudi arabia would have been attacked and the war would be over by now.but the major tagets of this war are
1.afghanistan:gateway to central asia.a region with tremendous oil resources.control of afghanistan would allow the construction for oil and gas pipelines for central asia to pakistani ports via afghanistan.something america has wanted to do for a very long time.
2.iraq,a country located centrally in the middle east.a pro-american iraq would not only be an oil gushing bonanza it would also be a good place for big time military bases for any policing action agaisnt force which might try and upset the status quo.
3.iran, a country with huge resrves of oil,america wants iran to become a lackey state again as it was in the shahs time and for some reason thinks that iranian people would like that.America listens too much to those spoilt dissident exiles if u ask me.those guys are rats.
taking over and totally controlling all three countries gives america control over majority of the worlds oil resources,thus giving it a never before seen control of the worlds economy.it would be a modern,high tech version of the roman empire.that is a VERY bad thing
now who care about bin ladins,when u can get all that power and control.the 9/11 thing was just used by ur government as a ruse to get this plan going.
this not a conspiracy theory,its americas strategic docterine.to establish and maintain hegemony on the world and its resources and quash any emerging power which could become a threat to it in the future.freedom and democracy are just publicity gimmicks.if america was so concerened about democracy it would have respected the choice of the palestinian people and recognized the hamas government.so what if it dosent recognize isreal,any one here condemn isreal for occupying palestine hmmmm?
ur peoples silence on this issue shows ur deep rooted bigotry and hypocracy.
I don’t agree that the US as a modern Roman empire would be a “very bad thing”. The Roman culture and civilisation was probably not the most agreeable there was at that time and certainly not the most just one. But, their economic and military backed that culture and made it so relevant globally that we can benefit from it even today.
I personally think that the Roman world was a great investment into humanity’s future, which had – of course – some costs. Along the same lines, I do believe that America can become the same thing.
Of course we may not like cultural and military hegemony and the homogeneity that it brings, but that’s called natural selection and it is a great thing, when judged by its results.
On the other hand, I also think that a government who says: “look, this guy killed a lot of innocents and humiliated our nation” and then makes no serious efforts of delivering justice is illegitimate. Maybe Bush shouldn’t be put on trial, but indeed, his memory will not be exactly glorious either.
Romans followed their leaders to the bitter end (while they were in office), but did not shy away from calling them tyrants afterwards (at that time they used to assassinate them opportunistically, as well). If the US want to become the new Roman empire, they know what to do.
I still vividly remember being in Washington Square park lokking down La Guardia Place, watching events unfold before my eyes that sunny Tuesday morning. I remember as one of my classmates, whom I ran into as the first tower was aflame screamed as the second plane hit. I don’t really remember the sound, just my friend’s screams, as she said “my uncle works there!”
We wanted bin Laden, and I remember what the President said as he stood on the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center as construction workers and relief workers looked for survivors, and told him that they couldn’t hear him speak and he replied “I hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down, will hear all of us soon.’
Reading that excerpt from Cohen’s piece, captures my feelings, and doubts regarding the current administration’s policies, as is evident from our dicussions on this blog. I mean, I understand the larger strategic framework under which this war must be fought, but cannot help but question why it has taken so long to nab bin Laden, and why the rhetoric never seems to match the reality on the ground. We hear about Afghan democracy, even as a convert to Christianity faces the death at the hands of the government we helped to bring into power. Violence in Afghanistan continues to increase, and Iraq is at a stalemate that is not quite civil war, but nowhere near peace either.
This is not to say that I think the dems would do a better job, mostly because I haven’t heard a real plan from them, nor from the party in power, other than stay the course, don’t criticize, don’t focus on the negative no matter how much of it there is, stay positive, stay the course. We have no leadership other than stay the course Reps and “criticize for criticisms sake” dems. We continue to fight a war against “terror,” when we shouldbe fighting an insurgency campaign against a global insurgent movement that combines religion and nationalism to achieve its ends, that subverts globalization for its own nefarious ends.
Many things to think about, I think its time for a reevaluation of where we are, and where we are going. Are we winning? Losing? Can we even tell? What’s the measurement to gauge success? Well, I think I will go now, much to think about.
As far as OBL is concerned, I don’t know why we haven’t gotten him. But, his capture would only serve as a “feel good” solution. Yes, that is important for the mind, but it is not the solution.
I feel that the biggest mistake that has been made regarding the WOT is lack of knowledge. Everybody from the top down had no real idea of what we were dealing with when this all began. We still see evidence of this today in what happened recently in Afghanistan. An Islamic government should never have been allowed. I don’t give a damn anymore about the politically correct, feel good bullshit anymore. The fact is, if an Islamic government is allowed to government we will not have solved this problem. We will have the same problems and so will the innocent of the ME. It is way past time for our government and quite frankly, everybody to start learning the truth about this enemy we are facing. If we don’t, we will go down in history with the title, Death due to the PC Virus. There is a reason that Japan and Germany are functioning countries today, and it wasn’t because we tried to keep the status quo and allowed them to keep their rogue ideology. No, backing out, just persuing OBL and leaving them alone will not work. For those who believe this, you are suicidal.
I’d like to comment on “not catching Bin Laden.”
If you haven’t read it, I suggest reading the book, “Killing Pablo.” It is the story of the CIA/DEA chase of hunting down and assassinating Columbian drug kingpin, Pablo Escobar.
In short, finding a figure of such stature and influence with the connections he’s developed over the years is MUCH, MUCH harder than you think. It took years and hundreds of millions of dollars to catch Escobar, and he didn’t have an open border in another sovereign country to run to. If we’ve learned anything about out intelligence agencies over the years, we’ve learned that we are short supply of HUMINT (human intelligence) and long on technology. HUMINT is ultimately what is needed to catch a high value target that doesn’t want to be found.
I’m all for discussing and criticizing aspects of the execution of the war, however I find Cohen’s critizism, on this issue, to be unreasonable and coming from a position of rancorous ignorance of just what it takes to get a job like this done. Frankly, I’m glad that our efforts are more focused on taking out the networks and lieutenants operating on the ground with the limited resources we have. Ultimately, we’ll catch the bastard, but there isn’t a policy decision that can make it happen any faster.
The WTC site is owned by the NY Port authority. Government owned.
It’ll be a hole for 10 more years at least.
I am afraid that the whole issue of “Why have we not nabbed Bin Laden” is simply another variant of the view that “Terrorism is simply a crime and should be treated like that and no more.”
It is an issue suitable for simpletons and others who cannot construct their own strawmen. It empowers the Enemy, because it sets a standard for victory that they can rather easily deny. Indeed, by this “standard†we have lost every war we have ever fought. It was not a strategic basis for fighting either WWII or the Cold War and is not one suitable for fighting this one.
It is undeniable that Cohen is an eloquent writer. It is also clear that he is an idiot.
Frankly, I’m glad that our efforts are more focused on taking out the networks and lieutenants operating on the ground with the limited resources we have. Ultimately, we’ll catch the bastard, but there isn’t a policy decision that cut an make it happen any faster.
You are corect, that’s the larger strategic framework I was referring to. However, given the fact that we withdrew ru have resources from Afghanistan to capture Hussein and the leaders of the Baath (the infamous deck of cards) in Iraq, you have to wonder whether or not we would have caught bin Laden.
Christine said:
his capture would only serve as a “feel good†solution. Yes, that is important for the mind, but it is not the solution.
I disagree. Given the fact that he is the leader of an insurgency movement, everyday he is out there he wins a small but important battle. Mainly, he is proving to the world that the greatest superpower on earth cannot catch one man. Yes, as many of you pointed out, particularly with regard to “Killing Pablo” it takes alot of resources to do it. However, in the end, our inability to catch bin Laden gives him mythological status in a Muslim world so bereft of leaders, or glorious victories (in recent history) that they will take anything that looks like it. Since bin Laden is trying, and has cultivated that image of himself, as a mythological being that rivals Saladin, and subsumes his struggle in the larger narrative of Islam’s past as a way of legitimizing it catching him would deal a huge blow to the insurgency. Killing him in battle would give him what he wants, to die as a martyr and through his death further the cause, but parading him around and having a doctor check him for fleas in his undies would serve to de-mythologize the image that al Qaeda has so carefully tailored of its leadership. That is far much more than a feel good measure.
I am afraid that the whole issue of “Why have we not nabbed Bin Laden†is simply another variant of the view that “Terrorism is simply a crime and should be treated like that and no more.â€
It is an issue suitable for simpletons and others who cannot construct their own strawmen. It empowers the Enemy, because it sets a standard for victory that they can rather easily deny.
i disagree. First it is about fighting an insurgency, not run of the mill crim as I’ve elaborated above. Second, how do we empower the enemy by recognizing a necessary component necessary to win. What you are saying is tantamount to saying, “we shouldn’t talk about the goals and objectives necessary to win, because that lets the enemy know that we know and thereby empowers him!” As if the enemy doesn’t already know how valuable their leadership is! Further, the logic you are using is the same logic which says that we shouldn’t criticize the president, or the strategy for whatever reason because somehow our pointing out weaknesses in the strategy or the fact that a specific strategy or plan is a bad one (ducktape and plastic on your windows comes to mind) is unpatriotic because it lets the enemy know we are weak and undecisive. That is a fallacy and denotes your lack of faith in the democratic process.
In that debate I side with TR.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” President Theodore Roosevelt, 1918”
Catalin Tilimpea the romon empire was a good thing for the romans but not for those people and nations which were enslaved and exploited by the romans.the senate of rome,that symbol of roman glory was built by slaves,the roman economy functioned on slavery,people who were not given any freedom compared to the roman citizen who was given quite a lot of rights for that time.similarly the U.S also deals with weakers countries under its influence the same way(like slaves).it says it wants to spread democracy but for countries which it wants under its thumb popular fair democracy is a no-no.countries of strategic importance to america are not allowed to have true democracy or elect rulers which work for for the intrests of their people and not americas.if such rulers do come into power they are hounded and demonised and pressure is put on that country to make it reject it elcted ruler.examples of such leader are the hamas govt in palestine,ahmadinejad in iran,chavez in venezuela.and im also mentioning zulfiqar ali bhutto of pakistan(thats where i live)and the way the us conspired against him and contributed to him beingoverthrown and killed was shameful,the same thing happened to mossedeq of iran.and america has now propped up nd supports musharraf ,its the same old story happening again in pakistan.it seems just like whenever civilian rule seems to be gradually developing in pakistan,some international situation develops making america again put my country under it’s thumb via military rule.musharraf may be your man in pakistan but he does not represnt me or my political beliefs or my intrests.thank u america!ull put me under the yoke to make the world a better place for everyone.
and it look slike u just didnt get what i said earlier.that osamam thing is a ruse to spread american influence in the region.killing or capturing osama is something of NO CONSIEQUENCE WHATSOEVER in the big scheme of things
al-qaida is NO REALISTIC THREAT to america.it is america which is a threat to asia.
ur attitude to rome just shows the deep differences between me and u.i think humanitiy should learn from history.romes contribution was 2000 years of violence and oppression for the attainment of wealth and power.roman culture and arts were something the romans developed simply to pass their time,no big deal.repeating the empire thing on a larger scale as america’s strategic doctrines point towards doing,will repeat the same old story on a much larger scale.remember rome fell hard but america empire’s fall will be much much much(add more much,s)harder.
give ur greedy ambitions a break and learn to get along,instead of being so stuck up and interfearing.by oil at a fair price like everyone else doeas instead of trying to steal it.thats why no one likes u people.
P.S: u people all talk like u know something about the muslim world and whats going on there,but reading what u have to say,or what ur media has to say shows that u now nothing about the muslim world.ur knowledge about the muslim world is very little and u usually just believe what u like to believe.reading the blogs on this site makes me feel like slapping u people,really.
I, too, wish there were honest debate about the real war on terror. As you can see from most of these comments, there is not. As Vanderleun says below, it will kill many of us whether we acknowledge it or not. I condemn bitterly the Katrina jibe. How much more suffering the MSM visited upon that part of the world in their shameful politicizing of disaster.——————-
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/006236.php
The issue of not capturing Bin Laden is simply a way for lefties to bray about the imperfections of the works of others, covering for the fact that they have advanced no solutions of their own that have not already been discredited by bitter reality.
Canada beckons, children: answer its call and lovingly reminisce there for your lost Bubba-world, whose ineffectuality actually created OBL for us adults to deal with.
Oh wait, the Canucks have turfed their lefties out too. Damn, where’s a twit to go hide these days?!