http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2006/09/other-terror-anniversary.html
excerpt:
Other agendas, unfortunately, have also played a significant role in our
failure to track down and identify the killer. Foremost among these have
been the Bush administration's agenda, whose failures in the case are
probably not something it wants to remind the public about, especially since
its incompetence has become an increasing subject of discussion in recent
years.
More to the point, Bush's dedication to using the "war on terror" as
justification for promoting nearly every component of its political agenda
has led it to promulgate the notion that terrorism is primarily a product of
turban-clad foreigners.
After all, it probably doesn't help build a case for invading Iraq and then
maintaining a permanant force there when the reality that we have our own
pack of eager and willing white terrorists is placed before the public, does
it? Nor, for that matter, does it help make the case that "Islamofascism" is
our most dire enemy, when in fact the terrorists most likely to aid these
radical fundamentalists are our own radical fundamentalists.
More precisely, these are the terrorists most likely, like the anthrax
killer, to piggyback off of large-scale terror attacks like 9/11, creating
an "echo" effect that heightens and deepens the nation's sense of
fearfulness.
That's how terrorism is supposed to work: It's not the actual damage it
inflicts -- say, the 3,000 deaths on 9/11 -- but our reaction to them that
is most significant. If we react fearfully, panicked into invading other
nations and taking out our anger on the perceived perpetrators with acts of
even greater and more resonant violence, then the terrorists' objectives are
being met. So far, we're doing a great job all around of playing into their
hands.
It's not, as I've said before, that domestic terrorism should be the focus
of our anti-terrorist program. Rather, the failure to focus on it at all, to
give it any kind of serious role in the "war on terror," leaves us
vulnerable in a way that also reveals the incoherence of our antiterrorism
policy.
After all, the killer who had the entire nation on edge in the wake of 9/11,
like Osama bin Laden himself, is still at large. And it is equally telling
that no one in the Bush administration seems to consider finding either of
them a significant priority.
--
....with a big ol' lie and a flag and a pie and a mom and a bible most folks
are just liable to buy any line, any place any time...
.
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