Re: Re: Identity of Hijackers.

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 09:44 PM 09/21/2001 -0500, you wrote:
> The author of the piece seems to be interested in
> linking George W. Bush to Osama Bin Laden. For a host of reasons, I
> think it's unlikely they are friends or associates. A more interesting
> angle would be if OBL regards GWB as a particularly hated rival because
> of their mutual connections to the oil industry. Perhaps OBL does not
> merely hate the US. Maybe he hates in particular GWB, or the sees GWB
> as a personification of the US/Saudi Arabian oil industry. Is GWB aware
> of any personal enmity? If yes, he had a duty to tell voters during the
> campaign. The President must not be swayed by personal prejudices in
> the performance of his duties. I hope that is not occurring here. In
> any event, more evidence would be required to make such a charge.

but who really is President? I would guess that the role is shared between
Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, but that misses the main issue.

The fact is, that the "defenders of Islamic purity" (personified, perhaps,
by OBL [Osama bin Laden]) needs "Yankee Judeo-Christian crusaderism"
(personified by George Dubya Bush and once Bill Clinton). And vice-versa:
the "defenders of the civilized West" need a swarthy "perpetrators of
middle-eastern terrorism" to hate and attack (while any "collateral damage"
only kills people who don't matter). The two sides feed on each other,
using each other as justifications for their crimes. It's a little like
what E.P. Thompson was talking about when he wrote about the Cold War
taking on a life of its own and dominating its participants (the US and the
USSR).

Speaking of such, there's an article by David Gibbs in the current MONTHLY
REVIEW (published before September 11) about the new interventionism being
engineered by the power elite in DC. The new "humanitarian" interventionism
(the war against Serbia, etc.) helped the US maintain its hegemonic status
vis-a-vis the other rich countries (and of course the poor ones). Well, it
seems to me that the new "war against evil (and/or terrorism)" is even
better as a way for the US to maintain and extend its hegemony, while
helping the military/industrial complex and other powerful interest blocs.

Speaking of which, I've been wondering why the date September 11 felt
spooky to me. There was an article in today's L.A. TIMES by Ariel Dorfman
which clears up the mystery: Salvadore Allende (the democratically-elected
Socialist Party president of Chile) was overthrown on September 11, 1973.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine