This is the much-belated World Trade Center rant. It will probably go on for pages. You have been warned.

I am generally of the opinion - and I spent a week in Anchorage unexpectedly; I get to have my opinion, thankyouverymuch - that the attack was a less-sophisticated piece of planning than anyone so far seems to think. I figure it'll probably turn out that there are less than 10 people left on the ground who were involved in planning the attacks. All it would take would be four people who can crash a plane - not as complicated as actually landing one - and a number of footsoldiers, all of whom are willing to die for their beliefs. If bin Laden was in fact behind this, the contacts in the US already existed, and how hard is it to forge a passport, honestly?

But it's been a while now since the actual attacks themselves. I didn't know anyone who died, at least not that I know of yet. I assume that I didn't know anyone in any of the sites. So I've moved beyond the original anger and frustration of the first few days, (apart from saying that I am appalled that some people felt the answer should be basically abrogating the freedoms that differentiate America from a nice little fascist regime like, say, the Taliban) and have moved into total shock at the stupidity of the Bush Administration's response to the situation.

Ever since the speech - I think it was Wednesday week after the attacks - where Bush announced the creation of the Office of Homeland Security (Sieg heil!), I have been frankly alarmed by the statements Bush made in his speech.

He blatantly tied the creation of jobs and the revitalization of the economy to the attack on terrorism.

What this says to me is that the "war" (if one can actively justify calling it a war when you're bombing a country that, between the Soviet occupation and the Taliban is already back in the Stone Age, and there's nothing of value left to flatten other than the people) is going to go on long enough to accomplish three things. Those three things are 1. the re-election of Bush; 2. the gearing up of the American defense industry; and 3. justify the vast increases in defense spending that Bush intends to pass. All of these goals are being accomplished through the suffering of people that had little to nothing to do with the terrorist attacks.

As Edward Abbey said, "A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government." Now is clearly the time for patriots to come forward.

I heard somewhere that this "war" has to go on for 78 months to use up the current surplus of American war materiel and spin up the defense industry. And, of course, in the process, rehire all the defense workers who were laid off after the Cold War ended. (For a fascinating look at who these people are, read Stiffed by Susan Faludi.) 78 months, last time I checked, is six and a half years. Roughly speaking, that's March of 2008. March! Of 2008! That's longer than the U.S. involvement in all phases of World War II - where we were actually fighting a real, organized, governmental entity, rather than one man and a stupid, right-wing regime that we didn't care about until about 9:00 AM on September 11th, by the way - by about 33 months, or almost three years.

Bear in mind the facts that of course we're not going to kill bin Laden in this unless we get real lucky and drop a bomb right on his cave by accident, and the Taliban is not going to give him up.

There is literally no reason for us to be carrying out this action. We will not be able to kill bin Laden (or even find him) unless something amazingly lucky for us happens. We will most likely not be able to topple the Taliban. And honestly, the only reason we're pissed at the Taliban, nice folks that they are, is because they are harboring bin Laden. I mean, these are some of the nice Boy Scouts that we funded in an attempt to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, an event that was only successful when the Soviets decided it was time to get out. These are the gentlemen who continued fighting for another five-odd years until they overthrew the "legitimate" post-Soviet government. These are the people who've basically made life hell for everyone in Afghanistan, particularly women. These are the people who supposedly fought to bring freedom for "everyone" (defined in an earlier rant as "myself and my friends"), yet have basically eliminated every shred of rights the common people may have had, said people who are living in rubble, basically, while the Taliban has spent such money on restoration as they have to spend on themselves and their residences.

Did we care about the Taliban when they removed all rights that women had and instituted a repressive Islamic regime that gave the Ayatollah's Iran serious competition (probably left Iran in the dust, actually)? Did we care about them when they basically closed the border to foreigners, abrogating all rights to their own embassy's protection that foreigners are presumed to have? Did we care about the Taliban when they decided, among other nice ways of destroying any shred of religious freedom, that they were going to destroy two of the largest Buddha icons in the world?

No.

Sadly enough, the only reason we care about the Taliban is because they are harboring bin Laden, which is exactly the sort of unpredictable thing our fundees like to do when they get into power (Saddam Hussein, anyone? No? How 'bout Manuel Noriega?). We care about bin Laden because he crashed planes into various places to get rid of the regime that he has stated explicitly and repeatedly that he hates.

So we've decided that the way to handle this is to bomb the fuck out of a country that has nothing left to be bombed. There is nothing there that's worth a shit. All we are going to do is kill civilians, support bin Laden's stated goal of a pan-Arab state allied against the US (whatever Pakistan and our other friendlies in the Middle East may say, they are a) hoping to settle their own scores out of this, as a quid pro quo - for example, Pakistan hopes that we will support them in their dispute with India over Kashmir if they support us - and b) the common people frequently seem to have a different idea about whether the US is nice ol' Uncle Sam or The Great Satan.) and gear up our own economy, an idea which has been plaguing ol' GW.

Because, let's face it, the primary goal of any politician is to remain in office. Especially in Bush's case, as he's too stupid to do anything else. So the economy, which tanked roughly concurrently with the handover of power, is very, very important to politicians, particularly those who make it an issue during their campaign, which everyone does lately. I'm not saying that the economy wouldn't have tanked if Gore had been elected. I am saying that in the eyes of Bush's reelection team and political watchdogs, the economy is going to be a big issue in 3 years, mainly because Bush himself promised, somewhat like his daddy promised no new taxes, to create jobs and revive the economy, and his lil' ol' tax rebate just didn't seem to have the effect he wanted it to have (and I hope that the people who voted for the bastard in the first place really, really urgently need the services that are going to wind up getting cut as a result of the tax rebate.).

So, in the US we have a politician who wants to fulfill his campaign promise of creating more jobs and revitalizing the economy. In the Middle East, we have a regime that doesn't really give a fuck what the US wants and a man who is prepared to stop at nothing in creating a pan-Arab state to bring back the Islamic Empire and topple the US. Bin Laden wants this war. Every single person who is killed by a bomb has a family who can read very clearly that the US is attacking them for something that they, personally probably had nothing to do with.

So there is no possibility of a moderate response from the US. Moderation doth not createth jobs. There is no hope that Afghanistan will back down on this one. They are now pissed off at the US. And there is no point in even positing that bin Laden will back down either.

So what we're actually looking at here has nothing whatsoever to do with the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are looking at three figures engaged in a pissing contest hoping that no one will back out before their goal is accomplished. The bastards couldn't have set it up better if they had sat down at Camp David and talked about the best way to achieve their goals.

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, will allow our government to fuck us over, slowly, painfully, and with great loss of life, in the interests of keeping their jobs.

My heart goes out to all those who lost loved ones on September 11th. I wish that those people could be seen as martyrs to freedom and the American way of life, as people who - unfortunately unknowingly - were involved in action against the enemies of freedom.

Instead, they're martyrs to G.W.'s need to keep his job. Not quite the same, is it?

Don't be seduced by the rhetoric of the politicians. Don't let them carry out their vicious plans without a fight. It can be done. It must be done. This is what makes us different from the Taliban. We can change our government's policies, without overthrowing the government.

No snappy sign off this time.

Channon