Never Fight a Land War in Asia: The Terrorists Win

The Terrorists Win

Adolph Hitler: To the Rescue!

A terrorist attack created the atmosphere the Nazi party needed to suppress its most unwavering foes, the Communists. Soon after the legislature voted its power into Hitlers hands. Although there was a four-year limit on the deal, Hitler was within his authority (seeing as how it was unlimited) to revoke that provision.

D'oh!

There is credible evidence to show that the Nazi's committed the act themselves, which shows the precision with which Hitler could confidently manipulate the political realm.

George W. Bush: Taking Action Against Evildoers

On September 11^th, 2001, President George W. Bush, was scheduled to spend his morning at a fluffy photo-op in a Sarasota Florida elementary school.

History had other plans.

Of course, George W. Bush — never much of a history buff — wasn't paying too much attention to those other plans, as we'll see here.

As President Bush recalled in a December, 2001 press conference, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower — the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it."

Actually, the President didn't depart until after the second plane crashed. Unaware of the scope of the situation, President Bush entered the classroom and began to listen to the children read a story about a goat. A few minutes later, everyone would see Chief of Staff Andrew Card dart into the room and whisper into the President's ear, informing him of the second crash. Card described how "seconds later," Bush excused himself from the room to join his staff.

Indeed, as the leader of a country experiencing the worst terrorist attack in history, George W. Bush had a lot of important things to do. In a speech later that day Bush explained, "Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans."

School teacher Sandra Daniels later recalled the confusion left in the wake of President Bush's sudden departure, "My kids were so happy that morning — imagine the president of the United States sitting there shooting the breeze, and then poof, suddenly he's gone. What do you say to a bunch of second-graders?"

She went on to explain what she told her students, as they watched the second crash on television, just minutes later.

"I didn't want to collapse right there in front of my class, so I decided to treat the tragedy as a learning tool," she said. "I explained what a hijacking is and what a terrorist is. I told them how innocent people who went to work that morning, just like your parents, were dying because some people hated America because we're so free."

What a dramatic... wait a minute.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

I'd like to make clear that the above descriptions of the events of 9/11 are official. The initial quote from President Bush was a story he repeated several times. [example] The teacher's tale appeared in the New York Post on September 12, 2002. [ref]

Bush's story, — despite the fact that he repeated it in great detail several times — can't be true. Quite simply, Bush claims he saw footage of the first plane crashing into the tower, but footage of the first crash was not broadcast until the next day.

Big deal, so Bush's precise recollection isn't all that important — after all, he wasn't under oath or anything. As Bush's story illustrates, there are some variations in the description of events that morning, and that shouldn't surprise anyone; but, of course, some elements are undisputed. One of these is that the President was listening to the children read a story when the news of the second crash was told to him by a whispering Andrew Card. This raises a couple of disturbing issues regarding the teacher's recollection.

Her ad hoc lesson about about "people who hated America because we're so free," should strike anyone with a functioning brain stem as dubiously similar to the sloganeering drivel dished out by the Whitehouse in the aftermath of the attack. But if that didn't tip you off, then — despite the fact that you are pretty fucking stupid — you might notice that the teacher claims her children were watching TV at a time when everyone else's timeline has them reading to President Bush.

What should disturb the thoughtful reader is not her unabashed dishonesty — we should all be pretty numb to that by now — but that this story was reported, without any critical remarks in a major American Newspaper. Assuming that the editors at the New York Post, knew the main points of the morning of 9/11 — the New York Post is allegedly a newspaper — the only reason they'd let such a humongous fabrication go to print was if they expected their readers to believe it.

Since the New York Post has a largely conservative, pro-Bush readership, it's safe to assume they bought it hook, line and sinker.

What We Really Learned on 9/11

Whatever the merits of his subsequent performance as our Fearless Leader™, Bush's performance in the first hours of 9/11 made one thing clear: George W. Bush is not running this country. We know this for a fact because of two things that didn't happen on 9/11.

Don't worry, I'm not going to dig into the minutiæ of various people's conflicting timelines. First of all, I'm above that kind of "he said, she said," conspiracy mongering. Second of all, the events I'd like to highlight were conveniently videotaped by several news organizations. This documentation hasn't deterred Bush administration officials — noticably Andrew Card, as you'll see — from issuing conflicting timelines, but let's just pretend we're all capable of rational thought and just accept the objective video footage, Okay? Okay!

At 9:03AM, our President began listening to school children read a story about a goat. You can see this on the video tape. Let me tell you what you can't see.

You can't see Vice President Dick Cheney, in the Whitehouse, being grabbed by Secret Service agents and whisked to a secure underground bunker — apparently, this action was conducted with such urgency, that Cheney's feet were barely touching the ground. You can't see any evidence of the fact that almost every element of our nation's defense infrastructure knew that we were under a terrorist attack.

You should be able to see that there's something "up" on the video tape, because a noteworthy component of our national defense, the Commander in Chief, is on camera, but he didn't know. Now, I also didn't know we were under terrorist attack after only the first plane hit, but I wasn't the President of the United States, nor was I on an intelligence agency's "list of people to tell things."

But what is more important than what was revealed by analyzing Bush's appearance on camera was what was revealed by the fact there was an appearance on camera to analyze.

Anyone in the world with access to the Whitehouse web site (which rules out only the Amish), knew exactly where the President of the Unites States was supposed to be at that time — it was on his announced schedule. So, while the Vice President was being rushed to safety from an unlikely attack on the Whitehouse, the President was left, as publically scheduled, in an elementary school in Sarasota.

Also keep in mind that this elementary school was, coincidentally, near a major base of operations for the hijackers.

After Bush had spent about three minutes listening to the goat story, Andrew Card, whispered to Bush about the second plane. After a delay, the President left the children. How long a delay? In an article recalling that day, Card says, "it was only a matter of seconds, but it seemed like minutes." [ref]

You know, Andrew, sometimes you should just go with your gut feelings — it was a matter of minutes. In fact, it was six to ten minutes. Bush waited a few minutes until he excused himself? Did I say he excused himself? No, after at least five more minutes of unbroken photo-op, when the reading lesson was over, Bush took a couple of questions from the press and the children, and then exitted the room normally. Depending whose exact times your believe, Bush spent ten to fifteen minutes conferring with his minions and addressed the press at 9:30 AM — as originally planned. Instead of the rehearsed fluff, however, Bush issued a statement confirming that he now knew what everyone on the Earth with a television, radio or cell phone had already known for half an hour: America was under terrorist attack.

Obviously others, including Andrew Card, remember things differently than I describe them, but I'm not going to argue with them — they'll have their hands full refuting video footage showing president Bush casually interacting with second grade students for nearly several minutes after he's been told the nation is under terrorist attack.

Is what you'd expect the Leader of the Free World™ to do in this situation? Do you believe that in this situation, the Leader of the Free World™ would have been left conducting a photo-op with 7-year-olds?

One bit of political tripe I've seen dished out repeatedly since 9/11 is the ominous intoning of, "I'm glad we didn't have Al Gore running the country on September 11^th!" God knows what dire consequences would have been wrought by a Commander in Chief who hadn't spent the first fifteen minutes of the greatest crisis in national history sitting on his ass, listening to children read a story about a goat.

Contact:
Winston Smith