© 2008 Eric Margolis

Archives > September 12, 2005

9/11, IRAQ, KATRINA. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH


Hurricane Katrina confirmed the long-held suspicion that President George W. Bush and his administration have what East Africans call `bad mogambo’ – that is, terrible fortune.

After the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington four years ago this week, Bush insisted `there was no way we knew they were coming’. Just before the attacks, the Bush Administration actually cut spending on anti-terrorism.

This week, Bush insisted, `I don’t think anyone anticipated the breeching of the (New Orleans) levees.’ Last year, the administration cut spending on levee heightening and ignored warnings from numerous government and civil agencies that New Orleans was in peril.

Welcome to no-fault government.

We now know from administration insiders that the Bush White House and National Security Council received a stream of warnings of imminent al-Qaida attack but were asleep on guard duty.

Bush and then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice kept spurning warnings about the danger of al-Qaida while they obsessed about Iraq – which, of course, had nothing at all to do with promoting terrorism.

A `black’ surveillance operation, `Able Danger,’ run by US Army intelligence inside the US has been leaking out. In early 2000, it identified 9/11 ringleader, Mohammed Atta, and warned he was plotting to use civilian aircraft in a massive terrorist attack.

But the Sept 11 Congressional Commission - a shameless political whitewash – claimed there was no evidence of Atta or his plans. Not a single Bush Administration official was found responsible for 9/11. The rigged commission exonerated the White House, CIA and Congress of blame for the 9/11 disaster. Two architects of the Iraq disaster, former CIA chief George Tenet and Pentagon neocon Douglas Feith, who concocted and transmitted most of the lies about Iraq, were given medals by Bush.

If a US Navy vessel runs aground, its captain is relieved of duty and court-martialed. But not the US commander-in-chief. As usual, the gelded US media meekly accepted the Bush-orchestrated whitewash.

A federal commission warned flooding of New Orleans was the third gravest disaster facing America. But as Katrina bore down on the Gulf Coast, the White House remained fixated, as ever, on its faux war on terrorism. The main National Guard units of the three Gulf states were in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Compare the humiliating, horribly botched New Orleans hurricane fiasco with a powerful typhoon that lashed Japan last week. Over 300,000 people were efficiently evacuated by its government from coastal areas. There was no panic, disorder or looting. Another typhoon also hit China last week: one million people were efficiently evacuated ahead of the storm.

The Bush Administration has now presided over three national debacles: 9/11; the $6.5-billion monthly, unwinable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are costing as much as Vietnam war; and now, strike three, New Orleans.

Yet the White House claims the right and duty to bring good government to benighted foreign nations. Nation-building begins at home. Better US troops should bring clean water and food to the American South’s wretched blacks.

The only good thing to come out of Katrina is that for the first time since 9/11, members of the US mainstream media began to act like journalists and sharply question, or even debunk, posturing government officials. This was a welcome development. But had it come after 9/11 and before the Iraq invasion, the whole disaster in Mesopotamia and a ruinous, ongoing war would have been averted.


The 9/11 attacks plunged normally humane America into a period of temporary madness. Beating war drums allowed the White House to usurp national power, paralyzing the other two arms of government, Congress and the judiciary. America’s democratic system stopped working.

Anyone who opposed the trumped up war in Iraq or criticize its promoter, President Bush, was branded a traitor. Mainstream media became as a mouthpiece for the White House and war party. The Orwellian Patriot Act was enacted to curtail liberties and free speech.

National war fever and lust for revenge that followed the 9/11 attacks allowed a small group of closet totalitarians, a cabal of neoconservatives whose first loyalties were not always to America, and end-of world religious fanatics to assume a dominant role in the Bush Administration. They hijacked its foreign policy, and steadily pushed the US into war against the Muslim World.

We now know the entire Iraq War was based on lies concocted by neoconservatives. Those CIA veterans, regional experts and veteran journalists, like this writer, who dared oppose the Big Lie campaign were scourged and often silenced.

None of the media pundits and so-called intelligence analysts who promoted the Iraq War and misled the public lost their jobs. They continue to mislead the public.

By next spring, Iraq and Afghanistan will have cost a least US $260 billion. Add some $200 billion for 9/11; and now a $100 billion plus cleanup bill for Katrina, and even the mighty US is staggering under huge financial blows. These, and Bush’s reckless deficit spending, are producing an onrushing tsunami of inflation.

We may even be seeing the fulfillment of Osama bin Laden’s oft-stated strategic plan, begun by the 9/11 attacks, of goading the US into overseas wars that bleed it financially until it can no longer afford to deploy power across the globe. Bush swaggered right into this trap.

Final irony: Iraq’s oil exports plummeted because of the US invasion, contributing to today’s shortages and high prices. Consider this when next refilling your car.

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2005


WRITER’S NOTEBOOK


*The president of the world’s most populous nation, and a major market for North American exports, is coming this week to the US. Unfortunately, it seems President Bush could not find time in his busy schedule to invite President Hu Jintao of China to a formal state dinner. There will be a Rose Garden reception of the type accorded to every visiting head of state, but no dinner.

That is clearly a slap in the face to President Hu and a slight to China’s honor that will cause deep consternation in Beijing. Hard liners will take Bush’s rude behavior as evidence that the neoconservatives guiding US foreign policy are set in a pattern of dangerous confrontation with China.

Stupid, petty and utterly unnecessary.


*I’ve just finished reading `Pakistan – Between Mosque and Military’ by Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and, most lately, a professor at Boston University.

I’ve known Haqqani for two decades. He used to serve as press secretary to three Pakistani prime ministers, including Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and as ambassador to Sri Lanka. Haqqani was always known for his quick mind, sharp wits and ability to get his prime ministers out of trouble.

Haqqani has written an excellent book on Pakistan that covers its turbulent politics from independence in 1947 to the present military regime of Pervez Musharraff. The author examines in great detail the role played in Pakistan by its powerful armed forces and intelligence service, ISI, and how both power centers have used Islam to advance their own ambitions and policies.

This book is scholarly, carefully researched and filled with a wealth of detail about the murky workings of Pakistani politics and state policy. The author, who is very well known in Pakistan, is clearly positioning himself by this important book to assume a key position in a future Pakistani civilian government that eventually replaces military rule.

While this writer has rather more sympathy for the Pakistani military, ISI and the late strongman, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, than does Haqqani, I strongly recommend this fine work to anyone seeking in-depth understanding of the way this critically important nation works.




Posted by Eric Margolis on September 12, 2005 01:23 PM
Comments:

I’m not a religious person myself, more of an agnostic. But if I were, I just might be tempted to believe that Hurricane Katrina was sent by God to make it financially impossible for the US to get involved in any more conflicts, say in Iran or Syria.

Of course, I don’t really believe that, but sometimes you just have to wonder…

Posted by kevin at September 12, 2005 09:14 PM

Mr Margolis,

I read your article in the Sun today, and though it was in the Comment section so was obviously an editorial and not a hard hitting news piece, was simply astounded at how full of misinformation it was. While not technically lying, the omissions of context and additional detail were breath taking coming from someone who reports to be a journalist.

Starting with Bush’s claim about the breachs. You use a complete non- sequiter to somehow make him seem out of touch. His statement is clearly about the fact the levee systems was breached, which in fact no one had predicted, as he claimed. Your statement about budget cuts, at best relates to over-topping, which had been predicted but would not have led to nearly the damage that the breaches did as the water would have ceased entering the city after the storm passed.

In addition to that you failed to mention a few points. First off, Federal funding for the levee system has been steadily decreasing for the past 30 years (in fact Bush has spent more on flood control in the area, over the past 5 years than did the Clinton administration during it’s last 5), in part because the state funding portion of the projects has consistently fallen short, and in part because of the political pork-barreling . The State of LA has the received more funding for Army Corp of Engineers projects than any other state in the Union, $1.9 Billion over the past 5 years alone (compared to #2 California at only $1.4 billion) and often for projects with little real benefit.

Secondly, the main levee breach occurred in a portion of the system that had already been fully completed. Simply put, there was no further work to be done there no matter how much money the ACOE was given.

Then you make a quick remark about ‘Able Danger’ and a whitewashing at the 9/11 commission. You may have wanted to mention that the main reasons ‘Able Dangers’ information was not widely known prior to 9/11 was that one of the policies put in place by Jamie Gorelick, Deputy AG under Clinton, was a ‘wall’ between the intelligence and criminal investigative communities making the information gathered by the US Military essentially useless except for military purposes. This would be the same Jamie Gorelick who was also a sitting member of the 9/11 commission itself. The same Commission that essentially ignored Able Danger’s existence.

Now on to one of the worst ‘lies’ in your article, your implication that the WOT affected the National Guard response. As a journalist with Internet access, I’m sure you were well aware that despite having members of the affected states National Guard deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 60% remain in state, including some of the best engineering divisions in the Guard. The numbers from the Pentagon are 6,500 National Guard troops in Louisiana, 7,000 in Mississippi and nearly 10,000 in Alabama. They also mention the 8,200 in Florida in case you were wondering. For comparison, only about 3,700 LA Guardsmen are currently deployed to the Middle East.

The point is actually moot anyway because while they were available, the Governor, who as you know is actually in charge of any rescue and recovery efforts within her States borders, delayed mobilizing the bulk of the force until after the storm had done it’s damage. I’ve seen numbers as low as 300 Guardsmen in New Orleans as of Sunday.

And speaking of the Governor, I failed to read the point in your article where you mentioned her federalizing the Guard to give any actual authority to the feds to take direct control of the situation. Of course that is most likely due to the fact that despite repeated requested from the President himself, she has refused to do so. As you are no doubt aware, even a declared state of emergency does not transfer control from a state government to the federal government, it merely opens up the taps of federal aid. For instance, although FEMA was getting accused of failing to get supplies into the thousands of evacuees stuck in the Superdome and Convention Center, they had the supplies ready to go but it was in fact a direct order from the Governor that prevented the relief trucks from entering the city (just look at the Red Cross or Salvation Army’s statements on the subject). So while you seem to be pointing fingers at the Bush administration, you may want to consider that even for disaster of this magnitude, they do not have the authority to violate a states rights (and the fact they didn’t seems to negate much of you later arguments about how heavy handed they are).

As for the rest of the article, it is filled with over the top rhetoric the likes of which are rarely seen outside of left wing extremist enclaves like Daily Kos. Can you actually point out the this wide spread abuse of the Patriot Act that has taken away Americans freedoms (actual cases of things done under the PA that were not legally possible before please, not just hypotheticals) or people being destroyed because they oppose the war. In fact several prominent Democrats have successfully run on little but their opposition to the war (or their opposition to Bush in general).

And finally, while Iraq’s oil production did take a hit, post war, for the past several months oil production and export has exceeded pre-war levels by over 300,000 barrels/day. The main difference is this money is now going to the Iraqi people instead of into the pockets of a homicidal dictator. But as the last few paragraphs of you article focus mainly on the economic hit to the US economy, and not the fact that 55,000,000 people have been freed from oppressive regimes and now have a chance for self governing like never before, I guess that is beside the point.

Honestly, I’ll have to admit that while your article did ‘get on my last nerve’ (for lack of a better term), at least part of the animosity that may be coming through in this comment is due to the fact that I have been having this debate, or one similar to it, for several days now with people who are unwilling to simply look at any fact that may exonerate the federal governments role in the Katrina aftermath, or Bush in particular. Not that they were blameless’ there were especially a lot of public relations mistakes made if nothing else, but most of their actual responsibilities for disaster relief and recovery do not begin until after the people have been evacuated from the city. Please try to limit your criticisms to things they actually control, for example that poorly thought out $2000 debit card system they tried to implement. It was well intentioned but they just tried to put it into action before setting up the necessary controls, as large bureaucracies are wont to do. Those types of multi-million dollar federal screw ups could be an almost daily occurrence as they try to get things under control.

Sorry for being so long winded.

Posted by Bic at September 12, 2005 11:54 PM

Hey eric.
1st be short bic,you sucked.’leave leeve’.well eric made an awesome article without any argue.”Mugambo Kush Howa” means I’m Happy to read his comment which seems perfect.He said that US doesnt really pay attention bout al-qeade attacks,always spurning the danger of al-qeada attacks.they’re overwhelm actually,they exaggerate emselves.well thats why they’ve got beaten so badly 1st by al-qaeda and 2nd by natural disaster.well later ya comment on Osama plan that he wants to keep busy to bush and his arm forces in overseas bloody battle and spend generously on his arms till itz bankruptcy.which is apparent now.and in the end ya finally spoke bout ‘husain haqqani’ M’M.who’s very well-known author in Pak.
well his ‘M’M’ is all bout military march on poor pak people for half of its history.Gen pervez is nothing but pure puppet of US.hez gonna go to do ‘Hat Trick’.History is the best answer of it.History does repeat itself.Gen Ayun and Gen.Zia both had ruled pak for bout almost 11 years and Gen.pervez is spending his 6th year in command.I bet he will be 5 year more rule out till he assasinate by US.Like Zia many assumed that zia had been assasinated by US govt.whcih is already renowned in assasinating to many country leader’s and scholar’s like Hugo Chavez yelling that US govt wanna assasinate me.
God Bless/Blast to US in His Best Style.

Posted by Gallant-guYasir at September 13, 2005 02:32 AM

BIC, I sure do not agree with everything, but your thoughts are lucid and well-laid (and with facts as you see them). I enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoy reading Mr. Margolis….

Mr. Gallant-guYasir, do you know what “irony” means? …especially as it relates to your first two sentences?

Posted by JonnyBoy0416 at September 13, 2005 06:48 AM

I think there is plenty of blame to spread around for everyone. I also think tough questions need to be asked at all levels of government about why this tragedy occurred.

However, I have the perception that while the staff from the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana were floundering out of control, it appears the federal government was not doing everything it could to step in and provide the necessary leadership to avoid compounding the problems. Perhaps President Bush was practicing a hands-off management style and allowing his minions to do their jobs. Maybe he was on the phone at all hours of the day and night trying to get immediate aid to New Orleans. I don’t know and I may never know. All I know is that he is on the top of the accountability chain. If you tried to measure the desired outcomes based on the federal goverment’s own guidelines, you couldn’t help but conclude that not starting the evacuations until 3 days after the flooding was a failure no matter what criteria you use.

Posted by Myriad at September 13, 2005 05:09 PM

We have words and no charachter thats why we will keep on falling untill we touch the bottom.

Posted by Peace at September 14, 2005 12:49 PM

I want to reiterate comment 1 by Kevin. Its called the law of karma, or as the Bible says, you reap what you sow. The reaping started with 9/11. I am amazed at the lack of insight into the dynamics that motivated this expression of long-simmering rage. The response has been repress repress repress, rather than to address underlying causes. Now Katrina, a force more powerful than the US military, has devastated New Orleans, leaving it looking like post-invasion Bhagdad. We can be comforted or alarmed, depending on our deeds, by the notion that what goes around comes around.

The US will now be seriously fiscally constrained in its ability to wage war on other countries. This fact may be what sparked the recent scary comment from the White House that the US feels free to employ its nuclear arsenal proactively. This would be a more cost effective means to devastate unfriendlies, real or perceived. Some folks never learn.

Finally, one of Eric’s comments deserves more attention — (paraphrasing) …. 9/11 was used as an excuse by “a cabal of neoconservatives whose first loyalties were not always to America” … to push for a war against Muslim countries. This begs the question: Was a Pearl Harbour-like event pernmitted, even facilitated, to create the public support for an invasion of oil rich countries unfriendly to the US and Israel? Strangely and sadly, this is not a bizarre thought.

Posted by ghawley at September 15, 2005 03:34 PM

Well guys, leave poor BIC alone. He appears to be one of those from “Christian Right” majority of whom are neither true Christians, nor are they Right. Actaully they must rename themselves as “Non-Christian Wrongs”.

Another of the handicap of these folks is “Clinton-phobia”: You talk on ANY topic of the world, regarding current’s administrations is Poor Performance, they will drag it to compare with Clinton…..!!! even a 5-year old clearly understands the way below standards performance of FEMA and this administration, these “Christian Wrongs” will come up to defend it and saying that “Clinton did it….”

Guys just leave him alone couple of falls from now, first Woman will be president and yes, it will be Clinton….who else can take us out of this biggest deficit in the history of USA…??

Terry

Posted by Terry at October 19, 2005 11:07 AM

Dear Mr.Margolis,
We are two eighth grade students working on a Social Studies fair project at our school. We have come upon your article and find your opinions on these subjects quite interesting and useful for our topic. Our topic is based on the cyclical patterns in America’s 20th century. From this article, we have noted your view points and want to take them under consideration. If you don’t mind, we would like to ask you some questions about this. It would be greatly appreciated Our e-mail address is
thefines@mindspring.com
Thank you for your time!
Rissa and Yura

Posted by riss and yura at October 19, 2005 05:40 PM

Post a comment

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?