[lbo-talk] The Cultural Anthropology of 9/11

Shane Mage shmage at pipeline.com
Wed Apr 15 08:44:45 PDT 2009


On Apr 14, 2009, at 11:55 PM, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
> I think my reaction to 9/11 was sublime. I think many, maybe even
> most the world who watched it on tv had something very similar to a
> sublime reaction...A few hours after and when the immediate
> sublimity of the events wore off a little, I felt something like an
> earthquake after shock...

A few hours after, and my immediate shock gave way to an explicit statement: it had to be a very effective intelligence service. KGB was out of business, so it had to be either Mossad or CIA--or the overlapping "rogue element" of both.


> ...I realized these bastards (Bush et al)... just reacted, with
> little or no thought about what they were doing or why. It was only
> about how. The only issue was how to fight this awesome sublimity
> they felt, and crudely tried to pin on some target, out there,
> somewhere in the Muslim and Arab world.
>
> Of course the administration found the concrete [ie.,"usual"]
> suspects. The most obvious and rational policy at that point was to
> assemble the necessary mostly covert military and police, set up an
> international group with the EU and the Arab allies and go get these
> guys. That didn't happen. So the question is why?...

If you aren't chasing the "sublime" or some such nonsense neither the question nor the puzzlement is appropriate. The *only* "obvious and rational policy at that point" was to conduct two thorough investigations--a criminal investigation to determine who had carried out the crime, and a political investigation to uncover how and why the US air-defense system came to fail so catastrophically that identified hostile aircraft could fly unimpeded into the nation's political and economic capitals.

When "That didn't happen," the answer to the question "why" became self evident.

Shane Mage


> This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> kindling in measures and going out in measures."
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos



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