This letter is a stunning and heartbreaking account of our nation’s unraveling and it’s architects.
George Bush plays the wise elder statesmen today, but, he was complicit in using a tragedy to foist war and undemocratic policies on our nation.
Twenty years later we still “reap the whirlwind.”
I saw this same idea somewhere else--it may have been Dan Rather--who remarked that one of the last things the passengers on Flight 93 did before they consigned themselves to their own deaths was to take a vote. Even in the face of certain death, they voted. That's it right there. That's the lesson we should remember.
All the media blather about elder statesman Bush painting Iraq veterans makes me ill. Scroll back and re-see and re-hear Shrub for the war criminal and tool of the truly evil Cheney machine that he was. Bush played a lot of golf while he was in the WH. Sound familiar?❤️🤍💙
I wept when President Bush declared war. I can also be very grateful for his comments yesterday. One does not cancel the other. We need absolutely everyone who can and is willing to speak out against the attempts to dismantle Democracy in the United States.
As a side note here. I 100% support disagreement. What I cannot support is name calling. Name calling in politics became full blown during the last Administration. I had hoped it would fade away but unfortunately it has become imbedded in our American consciousness.
As we rise up to defend against tyranny I propose we restore civility to our public discourse also.
And I remember getting mad at such a declaration of war without reason, especially knowing how we needed to especially not get involved in that region. And I thought of the college students from Iran that I had met.
By declaring a "war on terror" and first selecting a country not even involved in the 9/11 attacks, it was quite confusing to those of us who couldn't understand the connections.
It’s why my husband and I bought a house in Nova Scotia for an escape. We were ashamed snd outraged at the Bush/ Cheney/ Rumsfeld cabal and those who blindly went along. We felt sorry for Powell while being angry that he didn’t listen to others before allowing himself to be so used (as the only trusted person) by representing the lying administration at the UN.
In a technical light, I don't believe Bush Jr. even declared war. I don't remember which mitigating term he used for our invasion, but presidents and congress have avoided making declarations of war since 1942 when the U.S. declared war against a few countries which then joined the Axis alliance of WWII. It's easier to get public to accept it if war is not declared when we invade and exploit another country.
I read of a press conference President Truman gave in 1951, I believe. To closely paraphrase a reporter's question:
"Mr. President, how are things going in the Korean War?"
Truman replied, "Well, first, I wouldn't call it a war exactly."
The reporter asked back, "Well, what would you call it? A police action?"
Truman replied, "Yes, a police action. That sounds about right."
Since then, our invasions of foreign countries have not been government-declared wars.
There are so many things that I have trouble forgiving W for, but I think the biggest overall grievance was how the Bush administration, in roughly a month or two, managed to squander every single bit of good will and solidarity we had been receiving from the rest of the world. Once the bombs started dropping in Afghanistan, and then subsequently in Iraq, I remember my Dutch colleagues were very much against these actions, because civilians were being killed as well. The group I was singing with was due to begin an American tour in early November 2001, and the week before we were to leave two colleagues refused to go, partly out of concern for their own safety (we were to sing in NYC and in Washington DC), but also because of America's bombing. I found it very hard to defend the actions, so frequently held my tongue. I remember a rather contentious meeting the group had where there were a lot of my colleagues really running down America and things got pretty heated. Our then director, an Estonian, listened to it all and after a while said, in his halting English, "I think America need our music right now. Music can heal and they need us and our music." That pretty much settled it then & there, because he was right. The tour went on and was successful, but it showed me how quickly the world's opinions changed from one of compassion for what America was going through right after 9/11, but then a 180-degree turn in a matter of days and weeks when the bombs started falling. I laid this whole sorry state of affairs at the feet of the Bush administration and that, to me, was the real beginning of the end of America's loss of stature in the eyes of the rest of the world.
And the commonly used phrase “May God Bless America” irks me still, even when President Biden uses it. It contradicts the intent of the separation of church and state, and ignores the melting pot of religions, or non-religions, in this country.
Yes. Much as I really like Biden and what he's doing, and that he's a sincere Christian, I cringe when even he uses that phrase. It sounds blasphemous, implying that God prefers America when we know that isn't true. God loves all peoples. It's the traditional thing to say, I understand, but maybe it's time to retire it. Instead, say something like, "God bless those who can talk us out of war." Then reward those people in a big way when they are succeed.
When Bush decided to bomb Afghanistan's training camps for al Qaeda, I felt that it was a reasonable reaction to their attack. While the Taliban wasn't a terrorist group, they were giving safe harbor to bin Laden and the terrorists. As time went on, and we discovered that Bush had intelligence that bin Laden was in Tora Bora, it was frustrating that he didn't try to go after him. By then the training camps had been decimated, and since bin Laden was in the wind, I became angry that we were still carrying on the "mission," and it soon became clear that we were actually "nation building." We know how long it took to extricate ourselves.
When we began bombing Iraq, on questionable "intelligence" of Hussein's WMD and relationship with bin Laden, I voiced displeasure of the whole operation to co-workers. One friend flatly said that I was unpatriotic. I let her know that it wasn't my patriotic duty to stay silent when I had good reason to disagree with our military ventures. a few days later, we visited Italy with friends, and when the hotel's driver picked us up at the airport in Rome, his first question was what we thought of the Iraq invasion. After saying that I was opposed to it, one of our companions said, "Well, Hussein is a bad guy." I held that although it was the truth, it is not our responsibility to remove all of the world's bad guys, and we had some of our own. Needless to say, the trip was somewhat uncomfortable from that point on, and with all of the "PACE" banners everywhere we went, it was clear that the Italians seemed to agree with me. We have been playing defense since then, and although my instincts were vindicated, George Bush and his "advisors" began our downhill slide.
Powell had also been played and had been given misleading and false information by the CIA and DoD in preparing his remarks. He clearly regrets his gullibility now.
I don’t buy it. Many didn’t believe the “weapons of mass destruction” story. The story was suspect from the beginning. Powell went along to get along. Another useful idiot willing to look the other way.
I don't buy it either. Powell's guilt is on a lower level than the deadly trio, but it's there. I believe he had his own agenda for taking the role he did in endorsing Bush Jr.'s rush to war.
Stunning. "...investigators believe that before the passengers of Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, throwing themselves between the terrorists and our government, and downed the plane, they all took a vote."
The 9/11 attack did not come out of nowhere. The United States was not a randomly chosen victim, blameless, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly that distinction belongs to the actual people who were killed. They were absolute unfortunates going about their day who paid the price of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The convenient myth that “they hate us for our freedoms”. They hated America for its meddling, its bullying, and its endless self-aggrandizement.
Bin Laden’s attack was a success beyond his wildest dreams. 3000 Americans died that day. America has been dying in slow motion since.
Many Americans were humiliated and longed for revenge. Those of a more comprehending nature were humbled and have since sought to make your country the “shining light on the hill” again.
Time is running out. America needs a unifying, moral hero with a political voice to make the country whole again. The day has grown long and the sun is setting on the horizon.
It is usually the innocents who die, isn’t it Eric. The politicians & generals unleash the dogs of war and then sleep in soft beds. They lie and manipulate, taking us places we don’t belong. This country that I love so dearly breaks my heart again and again. What moral hero can even survive our toxic political process? Those who do are hamstrung immediately or assonated. We the people, all of us, will either rise up and demand change or we will go the way of all empires. The sun is setting indeed.
You must have had many, many times of feeling morally dissociated when the people you share the country go off on some unthinking jingoistic tangent. The disconnect is so huge as to be unbearable I would think.
My wish for a hero is delusional. You let me down gently. :)
The one true *weapon* is a general strike. And that’s a fantasy as well. But if the the poseurs and Macon types were hit in the pocketbook, it would slow them down.
I also think that America needs a military draft. If there was one, it would be many, many years before a war would be supported enough to be declared and fought.
Thank God Canada refused Vietnam and Iraq. I hated that we compromised by going into Afghanistan. But sympathy was high and the pressure immense.
Still I saw lots of blather about how great our soldiers were, how we stood on moral high ground vis-vis the Taliban.
And of course most of this came from older men with soft bellies.
I would remind you that back in January and February, more people were dying EVERY DAY than died on 9/11, and they were just as innocent and just as much "in the wrong place at the wrong time". I think people forget that.
“W” Bush never should have been handed the nomination. It was commonly acknowledged that Jeb Bush was the Bush with the brain. “W’s” brain had been wasted by drugs and alcohol when he was a young man.
However, those who make such decisions wanted someone who was more malleable than Jeb so “W” got picked.
Jeb Bush was a gifted politician. He’s intelligent and charismatic. I met him in person 30 years ago through Republican friends. He was charming. But, make no mistake, he was a right wing ideologue even then.
It’s always interesting how wealthy, well connected people appear genteel and reasonable even as they gut you. The banality of evil can be breathtaking.
It's not too late for the neocon Republican base, even moderate Republicans. They lap it all up like mother's milk. For many of them, the Bush years, like the Reagan years, give them the "warm fuzzies"...ah, the good old days when "America could kick ass". They simply can't see, WON'T see, or recognise, or admit, what has happened to this country since 9/11. W will not be thought of by history as a great President, that much is certain. I think that even as more time elapses since then this will become more and more apparent. The man was a joke then AND now...we "misunderestimated" (one of my fave Bush-isms) just how bad he was.
This letter is a stunning and heartbreaking account of our nation’s unraveling and it’s architects.
George Bush plays the wise elder statesmen today, but, he was complicit in using a tragedy to foist war and undemocratic policies on our nation.
Twenty years later we still “reap the whirlwind.”
Heather’s last sentence pierced my heart with the words “they took a vote.”
The very core of democracy is now in peril.
I saw this same idea somewhere else--it may have been Dan Rather--who remarked that one of the last things the passengers on Flight 93 did before they consigned themselves to their own deaths was to take a vote. Even in the face of certain death, they voted. That's it right there. That's the lesson we should remember.
And, I suspect NOT ONE Member of Congress would have had the stones . . . .
I wonder how that vote went? But I agree: the power of the vote!
All the media blather about elder statesman Bush painting Iraq veterans makes me ill. Scroll back and re-see and re-hear Shrub for the war criminal and tool of the truly evil Cheney machine that he was. Bush played a lot of golf while he was in the WH. Sound familiar?❤️🤍💙
I wept when President Bush declared war. I can also be very grateful for his comments yesterday. One does not cancel the other. We need absolutely everyone who can and is willing to speak out against the attempts to dismantle Democracy in the United States.
As a side note here. I 100% support disagreement. What I cannot support is name calling. Name calling in politics became full blown during the last Administration. I had hoped it would fade away but unfortunately it has become imbedded in our American consciousness.
As we rise up to defend against tyranny I propose we restore civility to our public discourse also.
And I remember getting mad at such a declaration of war without reason, especially knowing how we needed to especially not get involved in that region. And I thought of the college students from Iran that I had met.
By declaring a "war on terror" and first selecting a country not even involved in the 9/11 attacks, it was quite confusing to those of us who couldn't understand the connections.
I remember feeling, Oh no! We are going to retaliate. Shit.
And retaliation against the wrong enemy made it worse.
It’s why my husband and I bought a house in Nova Scotia for an escape. We were ashamed snd outraged at the Bush/ Cheney/ Rumsfeld cabal and those who blindly went along. We felt sorry for Powell while being angry that he didn’t listen to others before allowing himself to be so used (as the only trusted person) by representing the lying administration at the UN.
"...when President Bush declared war...."
In a technical light, I don't believe Bush Jr. even declared war. I don't remember which mitigating term he used for our invasion, but presidents and congress have avoided making declarations of war since 1942 when the U.S. declared war against a few countries which then joined the Axis alliance of WWII. It's easier to get public to accept it if war is not declared when we invade and exploit another country.
I read of a press conference President Truman gave in 1951, I believe. To closely paraphrase a reporter's question:
"Mr. President, how are things going in the Korean War?"
Truman replied, "Well, first, I wouldn't call it a war exactly."
The reporter asked back, "Well, what would you call it? A police action?"
Truman replied, "Yes, a police action. That sounds about right."
Since then, our invasions of foreign countries have not been government-declared wars.
Thanks. Yes, it's much easier to slide it past the American people if it's not called "war." Another form of deception.
Yes.
There are so many things that I have trouble forgiving W for, but I think the biggest overall grievance was how the Bush administration, in roughly a month or two, managed to squander every single bit of good will and solidarity we had been receiving from the rest of the world. Once the bombs started dropping in Afghanistan, and then subsequently in Iraq, I remember my Dutch colleagues were very much against these actions, because civilians were being killed as well. The group I was singing with was due to begin an American tour in early November 2001, and the week before we were to leave two colleagues refused to go, partly out of concern for their own safety (we were to sing in NYC and in Washington DC), but also because of America's bombing. I found it very hard to defend the actions, so frequently held my tongue. I remember a rather contentious meeting the group had where there were a lot of my colleagues really running down America and things got pretty heated. Our then director, an Estonian, listened to it all and after a while said, in his halting English, "I think America need our music right now. Music can heal and they need us and our music." That pretty much settled it then & there, because he was right. The tour went on and was successful, but it showed me how quickly the world's opinions changed from one of compassion for what America was going through right after 9/11, but then a 180-degree turn in a matter of days and weeks when the bombs started falling. I laid this whole sorry state of affairs at the feet of the Bush administration and that, to me, was the real beginning of the end of America's loss of stature in the eyes of the rest of the world.
And the commonly used phrase “May God Bless America” irks me still, even when President Biden uses it. It contradicts the intent of the separation of church and state, and ignores the melting pot of religions, or non-religions, in this country.
Yes. Much as I really like Biden and what he's doing, and that he's a sincere Christian, I cringe when even he uses that phrase. It sounds blasphemous, implying that God prefers America when we know that isn't true. God loves all peoples. It's the traditional thing to say, I understand, but maybe it's time to retire it. Instead, say something like, "God bless those who can talk us out of war." Then reward those people in a big way when they are succeed.
As an atheist, that bothers me too. A lot.
When Bush decided to bomb Afghanistan's training camps for al Qaeda, I felt that it was a reasonable reaction to their attack. While the Taliban wasn't a terrorist group, they were giving safe harbor to bin Laden and the terrorists. As time went on, and we discovered that Bush had intelligence that bin Laden was in Tora Bora, it was frustrating that he didn't try to go after him. By then the training camps had been decimated, and since bin Laden was in the wind, I became angry that we were still carrying on the "mission," and it soon became clear that we were actually "nation building." We know how long it took to extricate ourselves.
When we began bombing Iraq, on questionable "intelligence" of Hussein's WMD and relationship with bin Laden, I voiced displeasure of the whole operation to co-workers. One friend flatly said that I was unpatriotic. I let her know that it wasn't my patriotic duty to stay silent when I had good reason to disagree with our military ventures. a few days later, we visited Italy with friends, and when the hotel's driver picked us up at the airport in Rome, his first question was what we thought of the Iraq invasion. After saying that I was opposed to it, one of our companions said, "Well, Hussein is a bad guy." I held that although it was the truth, it is not our responsibility to remove all of the world's bad guys, and we had some of our own. Needless to say, the trip was somewhat uncomfortable from that point on, and with all of the "PACE" banners everywhere we went, it was clear that the Italians seemed to agree with me. We have been playing defense since then, and although my instincts were vindicated, George Bush and his "advisors" began our downhill slide.
Thank you.
Bush was no mental match for Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice.
Probably a nice guy to have a beer with at the ballpark but mentally not up to the job.
I pin the blame more on his three puppeteers.
President Bush was their lackey, but he was the Commander-in-Chief.
And then Dubya listened to the speech given at the UN by the world famous General Powell.
As it turns out, Powell was part of the con job that the puppeteers were pulling on him.
Powell had also been played and had been given misleading and false information by the CIA and DoD in preparing his remarks. He clearly regrets his gullibility now.
I don’t buy it. Many didn’t believe the “weapons of mass destruction” story. The story was suspect from the beginning. Powell went along to get along. Another useful idiot willing to look the other way.
I don't buy it either. Powell's guilt is on a lower level than the deadly trio, but it's there. I believe he had his own agenda for taking the role he did in endorsing Bush Jr.'s rush to war.
Everything else aside, that's what it is about: they took a vote.
and that is what we are fighting for. Think about those Republicans rushing to take the vote away from us.
Stunning. "...investigators believe that before the passengers of Flight 93 stormed the cockpit, throwing themselves between the terrorists and our government, and downed the plane, they all took a vote."
The 9/11 attack did not come out of nowhere. The United States was not a randomly chosen victim, blameless, just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly that distinction belongs to the actual people who were killed. They were absolute unfortunates going about their day who paid the price of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The convenient myth that “they hate us for our freedoms”. They hated America for its meddling, its bullying, and its endless self-aggrandizement.
Bin Laden’s attack was a success beyond his wildest dreams. 3000 Americans died that day. America has been dying in slow motion since.
Many Americans were humiliated and longed for revenge. Those of a more comprehending nature were humbled and have since sought to make your country the “shining light on the hill” again.
Time is running out. America needs a unifying, moral hero with a political voice to make the country whole again. The day has grown long and the sun is setting on the horizon.
It is usually the innocents who die, isn’t it Eric. The politicians & generals unleash the dogs of war and then sleep in soft beds. They lie and manipulate, taking us places we don’t belong. This country that I love so dearly breaks my heart again and again. What moral hero can even survive our toxic political process? Those who do are hamstrung immediately or assonated. We the people, all of us, will either rise up and demand change or we will go the way of all empires. The sun is setting indeed.
Beautifully put. Thanks for writing this.
You must have had many, many times of feeling morally dissociated when the people you share the country go off on some unthinking jingoistic tangent. The disconnect is so huge as to be unbearable I would think.
My wish for a hero is delusional. You let me down gently. :)
The one true *weapon* is a general strike. And that’s a fantasy as well. But if the the poseurs and Macon types were hit in the pocketbook, it would slow them down.
I also think that America needs a military draft. If there was one, it would be many, many years before a war would be supported enough to be declared and fought.
Thank God Canada refused Vietnam and Iraq. I hated that we compromised by going into Afghanistan. But sympathy was high and the pressure immense.
Still I saw lots of blather about how great our soldiers were, how we stood on moral high ground vis-vis the Taliban.
And of course most of this came from older men with soft bellies.
That was well said, Diane.
I would remind you that back in January and February, more people were dying EVERY DAY than died on 9/11, and they were just as innocent and just as much "in the wrong place at the wrong time". I think people forget that.
“W” Bush never should have been handed the nomination. It was commonly acknowledged that Jeb Bush was the Bush with the brain. “W’s” brain had been wasted by drugs and alcohol when he was a young man.
However, those who make such decisions wanted someone who was more malleable than Jeb so “W” got picked.
Jeb Bush was a gifted politician. He’s intelligent and charismatic. I met him in person 30 years ago through Republican friends. He was charming. But, make no mistake, he was a right wing ideologue even then.
It’s always interesting how wealthy, well connected people appear genteel and reasonable even as they gut you. The banality of evil can be breathtaking.
It has been increasingly in peril since Reagan and Gingrich.
"George Bush plays the wise elder statesmen today...."
Exactly. Bush Jr. is trying to ameliorate his image for history, but it's far too late for that.
It's not too late for the neocon Republican base, even moderate Republicans. They lap it all up like mother's milk. For many of them, the Bush years, like the Reagan years, give them the "warm fuzzies"...ah, the good old days when "America could kick ass". They simply can't see, WON'T see, or recognise, or admit, what has happened to this country since 9/11. W will not be thought of by history as a great President, that much is certain. I think that even as more time elapses since then this will become more and more apparent. The man was a joke then AND now...we "misunderestimated" (one of my fave Bush-isms) just how bad he was.
He has been Trumped.