Makes No Sense at All

As a resident of the city that was attacked on 9/11/01, and as an American who witnessed the black smoke pour out of the giant, crooked gash in the WTC’s North Tower first hand (and was almost dumbfounded by the realization that people were dying in there on such a beautiful, blue sky day), I find myself almost completely drained of outrage five years later. Don't get me wrong, the event itself still saddens me to the core, but all I feel is anger toward Bush and his henchmen for hijacking the real meaning -- the truth -- of that day for their own political, power hungry ends.

Let’s review some of what has transpired over the past five years: 9/11 has been used to justify our war in Iraq that has nothing whatsoever to do the 9/11 attack (or weapons of mass destruction for that matter), and the subsequent deaths of thousands of US soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children; to justify the illegal torture and open-ended imprisonment of people who may or may not be terrorists (let’s put them on trial in a court under existing civilian or military laws if our case against them is so legit – and if our interrogation of them is not torture and completely legal, why did all of this need to transpire in secret CIA prisons overseas or on a military base in Cuba); to justify the suspension of the Bill or Rights and the Constitution in regard to domestic spying on US citizens; to justify the wholesale expansion of Presidential powers to such a degree that Bush can declare himself so above the law that he can choose to ignore part or all of any legislation that Congress enacts – and to act in direct violation of existing laws and declare what he is doing is completely legal (for Pete’s sake, he believes he can unilaterally declare a US citizen an “enemy combatant” and toss them in jail indefinitely, without any legal recourse whatsoever); to justify the run-up of unprecedented national debt (while slashing taxes for the richest of rich Americans and corporations)…you get the idea (and know all this if you’ve been diligently reading the papers all this time).

Even though I was unhappy with him for waiting three whole days to visit Ground Zero (Dubya didn't come to NYC until September 14th) -- Clinton or Gore would not have waited that long -- and I hated his politics, I was willing to rally behind him during this extraordinary national crisis. When Bush announced that he was attacking the Taliban for harboring bin Laden and al Qaeda, I remember telling my wife that Dubya should “bomb the sh*t” out them for their part in making 9/11 possible. This from a generally anti-war kind of guy. I also told her that I might make an exception to my anti-death stance for bin Laden. (Though killing him in combat or executing him after trial only will make him a martyr to the cause, so it’s almost better that he dies of cancer or some natural cause instead.)

I now find myself angrier at Bush for what he has done to our country in the name of protecting it than I am with Osama bin Laden for attacking the city that I love and murdering thousands of my fellow citizens.

And that’s not right.

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("Makes No Sense at All" is on Husker Du's "Flip Your Wig" album. The band's name comes from a Danish board game, "Do You Remember?')