Tuesday's onslaughts on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are being
likened to Pearl Harbor, and the comparison is just. From the point of view
of the assailants, the attacks were near miracles of logistical calculation,
timing, courage in execution and devastation inflicted upon the targets.
Not in terms of destructive extent, but in terms of symbolic obliteration
the attack is virtually without historic parallel, a trauma at least as
great as the San Francisco earthquake or the Chicago fire.
There may be another similarity to Pearl Harbor. The possibility of a
Japanese attack in early December of 1941 was known to U.S. Naval
Intelligence and to President Roosevelt. Last Tuesday, derision at the
failure of U.S. intelligence was widespread. The Washington Post quoted an
unnamed top official at the National Security Council as saying, "We don't
know anything here. We're watching CNN, too." Are we to believe that the $30
billion annual intelligence budget, immense electronic eavesdropping
capacity and thousands of agents around the world produced nothing in the
way of a warning? In fact, Osama bin Laden, now a prime suspect, said in an
interview three weeks ago with Abdel-Bari Atwan, the editor of the
London-based al-Quds al-Araby newspaper, that he planned "very, very big
attacks against American interests."
Here is bin-Laden, probably the most notorious Islamic foe of America on
the planet, originally trained by the CIA, planner of other successful
attacks on U.S. installations such as the embassies in East Africa, carrying
a $5 million FBI bounty on his head proclaiming the imminence of another
assault, and U.S. intelligence was impotent, even though the attacks must
have taken months, if not years, to plan.
The lust for retaliation traditionally outstrips precision in identifying
the actual assailant. By early evening on Tuesday, America's national
security establishment was calling for a removal of all impediments on the
assassination of foreign leaders. Led by President Bush, They were endorsing
the prospect of attacks not just on the perpetrators but on those who might
have harbored them. From the nuclear priesthood is coming the demand that
mini-nukes be deployed on a preemptive basis against the enemies of America.
The targets abroad will be all the usual suspects: rogue states, (most of
which, like the Taliban or Saddam Hussein, started off as creatures of U.S.
intelligence). The target at home will, of course, be the Bill of Rights.
Less than a week ago, the FBI raided Infocom, the Texas-based Web host for
Muslim groups such as the Council on Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society
of North America, the Islamic Association for Palestine and the Holy Land
Foundation. Palestinians have been denied visas, and those in this country
can, under the terms of the CounterTerrorism Act of the Clinton years, be
held and expelled without due process.
The explosions of Tuesday were not an hour old before terror pundits like
Anthony Cordesman, Wesley Clark, Robert Gates and Lawrence Eagleburger were
saying that these attacks had been possible "because America is a
democracy," adding that now some democratic perquisites might have to be
abandoned? What might this mean? Increased domestic snooping by U.S. law
enforcement and intelligence agencies; ethnic profiling; another drive for a
national ID card system.
Tuesday did not offer a flattering exhibition of America's leaders. For
most of the day the only Bush who looked composed and in control in
Washington was Laura, who happened to be waiting to testify on Capitol Hill.
Her husband gave a timid and stilted initial reaction in Sarasota, Fla.,
then disappeared for an hour before resurfacing at a base in Barksdale, La.,
where he gave another flaccid address with every appearance of being on
tranquilizers. He was then flown to a bunker in Nebraska, before someone
finally had the wit to suggest that the best place for an American president
at time of national emergency is the Oval Office.
The commentators were incapable of explaining with any depth the likely
context of the attacks; that these attacks might be the consequence of the
recent Israeli rampages in the Occupied Territories, which have included
assassinations of Palestinian leaders and the slaughter of Palestinian
civilians with the use of American aircraft; that these attacks might also
stem from the sanctions against Iraq that have seen upward of a million
children die; that these attacks might, in part, be a response to U.S.
cruise missile attacks on the Sudanese factories that had been loosely
fingered by U.S. intelligence as connected to bin-Laden.
One certain beneficiary of the attacks is Israel. Polls had been showing
popular dislike here for Israel's recent tactics, which may have been the
motivation for Colin Powell's few bleats of reproof to Israel. We will be
hearing no such bleats in the weeks to come, as Israel's leaders advise
America on how exactly to deal with Muslims. The attackers probably bet on
that, too, as a way of making the United States' support for Israeli
intransigence even more explicit, finishing off Arafat in the process.
"Freedom," said George Bush in Sarasota, Fla., in the first sentence of his
first reaction, "was attacked this morning by a faceless coward." That
properly represents the stupidity and blindness of almost all of Tuesday's
mainstream political commentary. By contrast, the commentary on economic
consequences was informative and sophisticated. Worst hit: the insurance
industry. Likely outfall in the short-term: hiked energy prices, a further
drop in global stock markets. George Bush will have no trouble in raiding
the famous lockbox, using Social Security Trust Funds to give more money to
the Defense Department. That about sums it up. Three planes are successfully
steered into three of America's most conspicuous buildings, and America's
response will be to put more money in missile defense as a way of bolstering
the economy.
Alexander Cockburn is coeditor with Jeffrey St. Clair of the muckraking
newsletter CounterPunch. To find out more about Alexander Cockburn and read
features by other columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate
Web page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2001 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
