An obvious choice for remembering those who have done all the liberating in the Persian Gulf since 1990 would be, of course, a mock oil rig (sponsored by Halliburton)...but I think it might be more appropriate to hire the geniuses who created the mini-versions of New York and Paris in Las Vegas.

Yeah, I can see it now: A virtual Iraq theme park smack dab in the middle of Washington, D.C. where patriotic Americans can park their SUVs and honor OIL (Our Iraqi Liberators).

Genuine desert sand shipped in from the Gulf, an actor playing Dubya will fly in a fake fighter jet to deliver a fake Thanksgiving dinner.

Don't forget the giant plastic statue of Saddam Hussein-ready to be pulled down every hour on the hour for those who take the guided tour. Mission Accomplished everyone...now keep moving, we have five minutes till the WMD Search begins.   more »

>Racism against Arabs and Muslims long preceded the 9-11 terrorist attacks and has much of its roots in Western imperialism in the Middle East, especially Israel's colonization of Palestine.

Yet, the escalation that we witness today can be traced to the war on terror launched after 9-11 by Bush and his neoconservative ideologues with the backing of the Democrats.

Anti-Arab/anti-Muslim racism has helped sell the detentions, wars, gulags, and occupations of US imperialism's latest and boldest venture into the Middle East and South Asia. In turn, this imperial venture has further inflamed racist views of Arabs and Muslims.

What makes this growing racism so frightening is its wide acceptance in US society, particularly by the left.

With the latter, it is not as much conscious racism as not doing enough to fight it. Part of this may be due to ambivalence, but it also stems from a lack of a dynamic understanding of Islamism.   more »

The report in the September 12 New York Times on the previous day’s 9/11 observances is a particularly obnoxious example of the type of pseudo-journalism that characterized the US media’s handling of the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

It was, for the most part, an exercise in image-making and word-spinning crafted to evoke the enduring grief and shock felt by millions about the events of that day, but in such a manner as to exclude any examination of the myriad unanswered questions and contradictions in the official version of 9/11, or even hint at the exploitation of the tragedy for utterly reactionary political ends.

The senses and intellect were bombarded by wall-to-wall coverage whose essential purpose was to stifle all critical thought and suppress, at least for the moment, the popular mood of opposition to the policies of war and repression instituted by the Bush administration, with the support of the Democrats and the media, in the name of 9/11 and the “war on terror.”

The “elegiac” tone adopted by the media, often descending into bathos, served to obscure an uncritical acceptance of the basic claims of the government about the attacks on New York and Washington and the legitimacy of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, for which 9/11 served as the casus belli.   more »

With a truce between the Pakistani Taliban and Islamabad now in place, the Pakistani government is in effect reverting to its pre-September 11, 2001, position in which it closed its eyes to militant groups allied with al-Qaeda and clearly sided with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

While the truce has generated much attention, a more significant development is an underhand deal between pro-al-Qaeda elements and Pakistan in which key al-Qaeda figures will either
not be arrested or those already in custody will be set free.

This has the potential to sour Islamabad's relations with Washington beyond the point of no return.

On Tuesday, Pakistan agreed to withdraw its forces from the restive Waziristan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in return for a pledge from tribal leaders to stop attacks by Pakistani Taliban across the border.   more »

Orwell’s Thought Police used psychology and surveillance to find and eliminate members of society who were capable of the mere thought of challenging ruling authority.

In Britain today, the ruling authority is not using thoughtcrime so much as a way to stamp out all deviant thought, but rather as a mechanism to create the specter of pervasive terrorism and thus erect, piece by piece, the scaffolding of a police state.

A similar process is at work in America, albeit not as advanced, for in America the bulwark of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights stand in the way.

However, our unitary decider, the frat boy hailing from a crime family with an affinity for Nazis and fascism, who has declared a dictatorship would make things a whole lot easier, is well on the way to emulating the Brits, who have no such guarantees to downgrade.   more »

12 SEPTEMBER

From Commies to Terrorists: The US Needs 'Evil' to Justify The Military State

Doomsday Looms for Bush

Jihadi Websites Comment on 9/11 Anniversary

Iraq PR Spin - Oh! What a Lovely War!

John Tierney: Osama's Spin Lessons - Bush Pays Homage to bin Laden

Making America 'Safe': A Booming Business Worth $130bn