|
September 6, 2011
The commentary around the anniversary of 9/11 is filling the airwaves again. It is ten years on, a part of history now. Then the western media, with few exceptions, was totally in favour of western intervention in the Muslim world and a long war against Islam, Iraq including a civil war in Afghanistan. It was called the war against terrorism
Steve Bell
It was called the war against terrorism and it was characterised by lies about Saddam Hussein's links to al Qaeda and WMD in Iraq; the Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib prisons; "extraordinary renditions"; torture and spin that the 9/11 was an attack on western "freedom" and our "way of life". Qaddafi was hand in glove with Bush (and maybe Blair?) regarding the “interrogation” of the prisoners sent him from Washington. Bush sent people he had kidnapped (“rendition”) to Libya to be “questioned” by Libya’s interrogators and almost certainly to be tortured.
The critics were right. Iraq was a blood-drenched disaster; and Afghanistan has become a long drawn out failure; a complicity in torture by western governments; and loads of anti-terrorism legislation by the national security state that undermines individual freedom and our democratic way of life.
That is the legacy of Bush, Blair and Howard---the United States and its allies lost the war in Iraq and they are going to lose the war in Afghanistan.
|
A couple of quick thoughts....
I'm sad, but hardly surprised, that the 10th anniversary of the Al-Qaeda attacks is all about the American victims. I've yet to hear a work about the "collateral" damage in the years that followed.
It's worth remembering that the events of 2001 (and the political clout it gave our leaders) went a long way towards "legitimising" the foolish, short-sighted decisions that landed us in our current economic shithole.
Maybe bin Laden actually got what he wanted....