Category Archives: War Commentary

The Long War

[Note: This post will remain at the top all day, so if you’re on a return trip, you might want to scroll down to see if there’s any new stuff below.]

Michael Ledeen is still angry. I never was. But then, I didn’t lose anyone I personally knew.

It’s always chancy to try to recollect emotions from an event five years on, but thinking back to that day in San Juan, watching the first tower burning, I don’t recall anger. When I saw the second plane strike the second tower, the only feeling that I had, I think, was resignation, along with the instant knowledge that we were now at war, in a way that we had never been in my lifetime. This, I thought, was what it was like for my grandparents (whose age I was closest to when the event occurred for them) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I remember a sense of foreboding, and wondering what the future held. On a more practical and personal note, I remember wondering when and how I would get back to California, since all flights in the US would surely be grounded soon, including the one that I was about to depart to the airport to catch.

That earlier war, at least for my parents and grandparents, lasted less than four years (though for Asia and Europe it was much longer). Last year I wrote an essay on the fourth anniversary comparing the two wars. I still think it holds up well (or at least as well as it did the last time). Here’s a replay:

Continue reading The Long War

The Luxury Of Nonresponsibility

Instapunk has some useful thoughts on the deranged Bush haters.

Only one of the 300 million people who live in America wake up every day to a briefing from the nation’s intelligence agencies about what threats might become reality today. That’s a fact. The man’s name is George W. Bush.

I’m NOT saying this makes him immune from criticism. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Forget all the invective about his cowardice or shirking of military duty when he was a twenty-something. Five years of such briefings would be enough to give most of us Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s probably the case that the President of the United States has been damaged by what he’s been through. It’s the most obvious explanation conceivable for why the White House seems so slow to respond to the daily firestorms the mass media engender. My guess is, not too many of us would want to be living inside George W. Bush’s head right now. It’s too much. For anyone. He needs advice and constructive criticism and thoughtful opposition. But who — and I’m including all of you in this — is served by characterizing the advice, criticism, and opposition as the obvious response to a criminal idiot?

Though I myself am slow to anger, and relatively unemotional, I’m glad that I didn’t have to make the decisions for the past five years.

Into Whacked-Out Conspiracy Theories?

Brendan O’Neill has found some folks who are turned all the way up to eleven on them:

Sitting on the comfy couch, their cups of tea in hand, they try to convince me that the 11 September 2001 attacks were executed by elements in the west who wanted to launch wars and “make billions upon trillions of dollars”.

“We know for certain that the official story of 9/11 isn’t true,” says Shayler. “The twin towers did not collapse because of planes and fire; they were brought down in a controlled demolition. The Pentagon was most likely hit by an American missile, not an aeroplane.” Machon nods. In black trousers and black top, this sophisticated blonde in her late thirties comes across more like a schoolmarm than a 9/11 anorak. “The Pentagon’s anti-missile defence system would definitely have picked up and dealt with a commercial airliner. We can only assume that whatever hit the Pentagon was sending a friendly signal. A missile fired by a US military plane would have sent a friendly signal.” She says this in a kind of Anna Ford-style newsreader’s voice, as if she were speaking the truth and nothing but the truth. She takes another sip of tea.

Say the phrase “conspiracy theorist” (but don’t say it to Shayler and Machon if you can help it, because they angrily deny being conspiracy theorists) and most people will think of those nutty militiamen in redneck areas of America who hate Big Government, or of taxi drivers with possibly anti-Semitic leanings in some hot, dusty backwater of the Middle East who revel in telling western clients in particular: “America and the Jew did 9/11.” Yet, here in Highgate, I am talking to a man and woman who have worked in the British secret services and who, together with their landlady Belinda, a professional linguist, truly believe that American elements facilitated 9/11 in order to “justify their adventurism in oil-rich countries in the Middle East”, in Shayler’s words. Here we have a new kind of conspiracy theorist: the chattering conspiracist, respectable, well-read, articulate, but, I regret to report, no less cranky than those rednecks and misguided Kabul cabbies.

Amazing.

[Late afternoon update]

Jim Robbins finds another refugee from Toontown:

Meyssan’s purpose is to uncover a much deeper plot of the United States against the world. He reveals other interesting facts, like bin Laden was an agent of the U.S. who was used by President Bush to destroy secret CIA offices in the World Trade Towers. Seems like a lot of effort

He’s Dead, Jim

I agree with Jonah:

While I don’t subscribe to so-called ass-brained theories that Bin Laden never existed, I am coming around to the view that he’s dead as Michael Ledeen has suggested. I mean why wouldn’t Bin Laden issue a video for the five year anniversary of 9/11?

He’s Dead, Jim

I agree with Jonah:

While I don’t subscribe to so-called ass-brained theories that Bin Laden never existed, I am coming around to the view that he’s dead as Michael Ledeen has suggested. I mean why wouldn’t Bin Laden issue a video for the five year anniversary of 9/11?