Sunday, July 6, 2008

Cartoon for July 7

Why haven't we been attacked since 9/11?

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16 comments:

  1. GeoduckJuly 6, 2008 at 10:32 PM

    Maybe it's a side issue, but it's also long been a sore point of mine: we -were- attacked after 9/11. Some bastard dumped anthrax letters into the mail and killed several people. He evidently got away scot-free, and the whole incident was pushed down the memory hole.

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  2. DennisJuly 6, 2008 at 11:32 PM

    Ted,

    Right on. The voodoo analyses of the current administration vis the 'inhibition effect' of indiscriminate war in the name of putting down terror are wishy washy at best, dangerously misleading at worst.

    More likely the urban Mujahideen out there are having more trouble with bus connections than they are with any complications caused by the fighting in either Iraq or Afghanistan.

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  3. chris s.July 6, 2008 at 11:42 PM

    Great cartoon.

    Something that's always bothered me: Isn't it a little strange that people in places that have been/are most likely to be attacked by Islamic terrorists are most opposed to the Bushist foreign policy, and people in places which face virtually no threat of a terrorist attack are more likely to support it?

    Those of us who ride the subway have a lot more to worry about than someone driving their SUV down a road 50+ miles from the nearest major city. I'm not being "elitist." It's just a fact.

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  4. Aggie DudeJuly 7, 2008 at 5:49 AM

    Or maybe.....they haven't attacked us again because they have everything from the Americans they could possibly want...incompetent foreign policy, angering the world, financially going bankrupt...we're doing a fine job of dismantling our own nation and the overall stability of the nation-state system without them having to commit to another attack.

    Terrorist attacks help right wingers get elected in America, so when we start electing normal people to leadership again, they might attack us.

    See, Ted, not everyone in the world thinks in terms of next quarter's earnings report.

    Or maybe....they have been attacking us, and, as prior to 9/11, we're just not paying attention to it.

    Or maybe, if we stop taking a racialized view of this and look at the wealth of threats to our safety and security, we will realize we're still under assault, but instead of it being from Al Qaeda, it's from different perpetrators, some of whom are truly nameless and faceless, like your ill-fated run-in with a road side enchilada.

    I think we ought to take a more holistic approach to safety, security and the future. Only then can we put international terrorism in its place, behind far more immediate problems like economics, social services and clean drinking water; and far more epic challenges like environmental catastrophes.

    From the beginning, 9/11 needed a law enforcement response. Instead we got John Wayne, or at least the lobotomized version of John Wayne...drawing lines in the sand, threatening people, unzipping his pants and showing off his nukes.

    It was a child like response to an adult problem.

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  5. Ted RallJuly 7, 2008 at 7:20 AM

    Good point, Geoduck. Didn't some guy open fire at LAX, too? Oh, and while we're at it, that Dominican Republican-bound flight that crashed south of JFK a few months after 9/11 still seems suspicious.

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  6. TonyJuly 7, 2008 at 9:00 AM

    Let's see... Anthrax attacks on two Democratic senators who were holding up the Patriot Act... Anthrax proved to be acquired or produced from US sources... yeah, that sounds within the realms of Allah-inspired mayhem.

    Then, after years of attempts by senators to get updates into the investigation, they are stymied by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who refused to cooperate.

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  7. Aggie DudeJuly 7, 2008 at 12:20 PM

    Don't forget the convenient elimination of Paul Wellstone. No investigation at all.

    People in my family claimed that perhaps he staged his own death to embarrass conservatives...or something like that....that's always the way it goes.

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  8. KevinJuly 7, 2008 at 2:45 PM

    I lived in Michigan in 2001. I wasn't attacked *on* 9-11, either.

    Not everybody out in the hinterlands is pro-Bush. From my perspective lying on the beach in Muskegon that afternoon, September 11th felt like another media-fueled instance of NYC forcing the rest of us to accept their insanity.

    Then suddenly everyone else went apeshit for no reason and it started to seem like a bad idea to point this out.

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  9. AnonymousJuly 7, 2008 at 4:33 PM

    I wish I'd marked the site (ever said that?) that detailed just how tough it is to produce weapons-grade anthrax. It requires expert-level knowledge in several disparate areas and large expenditures for fairly specialized (read: traceable) equipment.

    I'm a little nervous about Googling for "production of weapons-grade anthrax" until I can use someone else's computer. So, I can't provide a link just now, sorry.

    My point is: it couldn't possibly have been a single maniac, nor a small group of ignorant zealots, nor yet a whole bunch of people hiding out in caves. It absolutely requires the existence of a large, well-funded, well-educated group with untraceable access to considerable funds and sophisticated suppliers.

    The fact that they used anthrax narrows the list of suspects to a bare handful in the whole world. In fact, it might even have served as a virtual signature on the act, for those in the know. I mean, any nut job could have used a sniper weapon, but weapons-grade anthrax? It was chosen to let someone know who was behind it.

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  10. JXCJuly 7, 2008 at 8:38 PM

    If you drive wait until you need to fill your gas tank from a near empty state, you'll be lucky to get away for less than $50. Still feel like you haven't been attacked?

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  11. AnonymousJuly 8, 2008 at 10:49 AM

    Kevin,

    Muskegon is nice; I ought to be there on vacation soon. Its a nice place to visit.

    So says the guy who was looked at as a fool and unpatriotic because 9/11 was a clear example of why people use passions and emotions to destroy the Constitution; which was supposed to be free from both.

    The biggest irony of it all? 9/11/1812, when the British Army burned Washington down. Did they freak out and give their freedoms away for a little safety? Why did this generation allow it? We'll never know for sure...

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  12. AndersJuly 8, 2008 at 12:19 PM

    Anon @ 7/7/08 7:33 PM : Nothing to it. Don't be paranoid.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=%22production+of+weapons-grade+anthrax%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2GGFB_enNO242

    First two hits are about how the anthrax used is notably similar to what the US Army use.

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  13. AnonymousJuly 8, 2008 at 5:27 PM

    Thanks, anders, I'm probably over-cautious.

    What I remember was a fairly detailed account, with illustrations. I think even getting the payload into the envelopes without killing everyone in the building required considerable expertise and equipment.

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  14. GeoduckJuly 8, 2008 at 11:14 PM

    I was not claiming that the anthrax attacks were committed by Islamic terrorists. I was clumsily complaining about the use of the phrase "we haven't been attacked since 9/11" since it buys into the BushCo reference frame, something we have to resist at all costs. (We haven't been attacked since 9/11? You guys pissed away every chance to avert 9/11 in the first place! And we're supposed to be -grateful-?)

    If it matters, it has long been my personal belief that the anthrax attacks were carried out by some rogue ultra-conservative employed within the US biological-warfare industry. The biggest proof it wasn't an official BushCo operation is the very fact that such a -terrorizing- event has been so thoroughly swept down the memory hole.

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  15. IncitatusJuly 9, 2008 at 3:49 PM

    Geoduck,

    You're right about the anthrax attacks, but Justin Raimondo - who does with prose and reason what Ted does with ink and gut emotions - insists in digging up the memory hole:

    http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13090

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  16. AnonymousJuly 9, 2008 at 9:43 PM

    No, geoduck, that wasn't my point. I wasn't that much on topic. Sorry if my drifting around looked like a response to your post. It wasn't; your post just brought the whole incident back to mind.

    I can't get the official version past the smell test, and was wondering aloud about it again.

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