By VIC RATSMA
The United States is in crisis. The federal government of George Bush is racking up the largest budgetary deficit in the history of the nation and the State governments are all but bankrupt. Tens of thousands of workers are being dismissed from their jobs, education funds cut, lights are being turned off, tens of thousands of poor people are losing access to healthcare, Ohio alone is planning to cut 50,000 people from their healthcare coverage, and on and on it goes.(1)
None of this appears to bother President Bush too much, as he steadfastly continues to provide huge tax cuts for the wealthy and awards Iraq reconstruction contracts to his corporate friends. In fact, after all of the hullabaloo about security and implementation of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, said to be needed to safeguard the nation from future terrorist attacks, Bush appears to have done nothing to implement even the faintest measures to improve safety in the country. In an article in " The Nation" on April 17, 2003, Eric Alterman points out Bush and Vice President Cheney" have not merely ignored "homeland" protection, they have sabotaged it.(2) Alterman provided ample evidence to prove his point:
* A January Brookings Institute report explains: "President Bush vetoed several specific (and relatively cost-effective) measures proposed by the US Congress that would have addressed critical national vulnerabilities. As a result, the country remains more vulnerable than it should be today."
* Power plants constitute obvious terrorist targets but they are frequent operated by private or semi-private corporations who are unwilling to pay to protect them. According to Brookings, the Administration has done nothing- repeat, nothing-to help or encourage "private sector firms-even ones that handle dangerous materials – toward improving their own security."
* Last year (2002), the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review discovered a frightening series of security lapses at three separate chemical plants in Houston and Chicago, which, if attacked, could endanger over 1 million people each.
* The New York Daily News found one plant in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where an attack could threaten the lives of more than 7 million people. And it employed virtually no security at all.
* Spencer Abraham, Bush’s Energy Secretary, worried in a March 2002 letter to OMB director Mitch Daniels that "firms are storing vast amounts of materials that remain highly volatile are subject to unthinkable consequences if placed in wrong hands." However, he added, due to insufficient funding, "the Department now is unable to meet the next round of critical security mission requirements…Failure to support these urgent security requirements," he concluded," is a risk that would be unwise." Nevertheless, The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait reports, Bush agreed to propose a mere 7 per cent of what Abraham said would be needed jut to get started.
* Chait has more: Bush refused to compensate healthcare workers injured or killed by the smallpox inoculation program. His budget is squeezing the Coast Guard, in charge of port security. He is starving "first responders"---the very heroes of the 9/11 to whom he dishonestly promised so much. And the Customs Service got not a single penny in new funding in the Administration’s budget. With everyone loosing sleep over "loose nukes" falling into terrorist hands, Bush even tried to cut overseas nuclear security funding by 5 per cent.
None of the foregoing information has been given much attention in the major media in the USA, as they faithfully continue their gloating over the president’s quick victory in the war against Iraq. But you can’t help but wonder what’s going on here. During the past 18 months since September 11, 2001, Internet news sources have been full of reports about the Bush administration foreknowledge – if not complicity – in the attacks of that date. No serious investigation into these events has been undertaken and any attempts to do so have been frustrated by the regime. There can be little doubt that President Bush has used Sept. 11 to his full advantage, first as a justification for attacking Afghanistan and later his war against Iraq, whom hew accused of harboring and aiding terrorists.
However, the fact that Bush now not only ignores but even frustrates his own so-called security measures seems just too much like "leaving the door open for the next September 11 to occur." This has great similarities to what happened before September 11, 2001, when all warnings (and there were many) also were thrown into the wind. Bush, in order to win the next election, or, if not "win" to find some way of remaining president for at least another term, may need the assistance of another "terrorist" attack in order to remain as the head of State. If, as suspected, Bush is indeed implicated in the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, is it then so farfetched to assume that he would use these tactics again? The nation, once again feeling threatened and vulnerable will mass to the president’s support to defend the country and hunt down the culprits. In such a scenario, September 11, 2004, just before the presidential election of November 2004 seems like such perfect timing.
Could it be?
(1) Published on Thursday, April 24,2003 by the Times/UK: http://www.timesonline.co.uk
(2) http://www.truthout.org/docs-03/042503G.shtml
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