Larry, I think we can all be glad that, to quote your phrase, «cooler heads prevailed» . . .
Henri, we are all glad, believe it or not.
. . . for example, that 15 of the 19 hijackers on the four flights were from Saudi Arabia, two from Egypt, and two from the United Arab Emirates ; i e, none were from Afghanistan (which, as I said above, is not an Arab country) and none from Iraq.
Yes, and Iranians, such as their current President (with whom a small goup of 52 has their own
issues) who is
calling for Israel to be wiped off the face of the Earth, are Persians, not Arabs. And if the Shah had taken up the French on their offer to arrange a "lethal accident" for
Khomeini, the Ayatollah would have died an embittered old man in France, and the son of the Shah, with the help of SAVAK, might still be upon the Peacock Throne, 52 Americans might not have been held hostage, and Ted Koppel might be just another late-night news anchor.
If countries were to have been held responsible for this criminal act, it would seem to me that the most likely candidates would thus have been Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the UAE. But those «cooler heads» to which you refer decided otherwise, and war, even though not nuclear - let us be thankful for that ! - was unleashed on Afghanistan . . .
And yes, Afghans are not Arabs either, but the
Arab (unblessed be his name now and until forever), born in Saudia Arabia from a Yemeni family, who instigated and financed the attack, had long been given sanctuary by the Taliban, which makes them complicit in the 9/11 attacks as well as earlier attacks by his gang of henchmen. President Clinton tried to get him there once, but it took too long to re-target a cruise missle in those days. If George W. had been President at that time, he, too, would have sent a million-dollar missle into an empty tent.
and Iraq, hitherto killing about as many US persons (and wounding vastly more) as the 11 September attacks themselves and about 50 times that number of Iraqis and Afghans.... . . .
We lost many more during WWII than we did at Pearl Harbor, but I don't know anyone who thinks we should have said "OK, Japan, maybe it was our own fault. Would you like us to give you some more steel so you can rape the rest of China when you're finished with Nanking?" Perhaps we should start funding
Hezbollah (حزب من الشيطانة, although perhaps they should be called by their correct name, حزب من الشيطانة, to whom they should go)?
. . . My conclusion is that the «cooler heads» had another agenda in mind - one in place long before the events described above - and were swift to mobilise the fear and the anger that the attacks had given rise to in the US public to move that agenda forward. . . .
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me!"
. . . domestically it was to turn the US presidency into an imperial institution in open violation of the Balance of Powers doctrine enshrined in the US Constitution (for good reasons - its writers had had direct experience of George III). . . .
Which is one reason we have quadrennial elections and the
Second Amendment to our Constitution.
Yoo notes that while the nation has been involved in approximately 125 military conflicts, Congress has declared war only five times.
I'm aware of that. For Father's Day about two years ago I received a copy of
Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power by Max Boot. It's an excellent read. You, in particular, Henri, would like U. S. Marine Corps Major General
Smedley Butler in his later years.
(Even I didn't know about the
White House Putsch until today!)
. . . All this has been possible in large part due to fear (and anger, an equally poor counselor when it come to policy) ; I think FDR and the US Founding Fathers would recognise the situation....
Henri
I'm not worried about an Imperial Presidency. If the White House doesn't change hands next election, it will some other time. Plus, we always have our ace in the hole: the Second Amendment.
Of course, when it comes to World Domination and oppression of Third-World peoples, we've yet a lot to learn from the Masters: Spain, France, Germany, and the Mother Of All Empires, Britain.