Veteran Journalist Robert Scheer on “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11

Veteran Journalist Robert Scheer on “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America”

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AMY GOODMAN: You write it costs between $400,000 and $500,000 for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda to pull off the 9/11 attacks, according to the authoritative estimate of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission appointed by President Bush. But within days of the hijacking, Bush demanded 50,000 times that amount: $20 billion in emergency appropriations from Congress.

ROBERT SCHEER: Right. I think we—I think people have trouble. We all know that from school. What’s $1,000, what’s $1 million, what’s $1 billion, and what’s $1 trillion, you know? And people have trouble keeping track of the money. But the $20 billion that he got right away, that’s nothing. I say, we had a situation where Bush vetoed an extension of child healthcare that would have involved $7 billion, OK? That’s two subs that we don’t need that are built every year. Alright? We have the F-35, an airplane that’s a $300 billion program. Why do we need new planes? The F-22, a $65 billion program. So we are wasting trillions of dollars on this old-fashioned defense budget that benefits Boeing, benefits Lockheed. Everyone knows it’s a scam. Everyone knows there is no military function for this, there’s no national security. And what happened is they got a license to steal. 9/11 was their license to steal.

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http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/30/veteran_journalist_robert_scheer_on_the#

The people that get so amped up about Social Security spending, but are oblivious to distributing national security money to our fellow citizens are fools.

The Busholini Regime fed that monster.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3365782

The Free Market for everyone else.

The Law of the Jungle for everyone else.

Defense contractors will get theirs, no matter what.

It was excellent, and the man is correct!

or.... how they didn't have to hijack it because it was arranged for their convenience.

:(

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

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Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

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And not because of the 3,000 killed in the attack. although it was an attack that rivalled Pearl Harbor (2403 dead) in it's scope. And 9/11 remains the largest single loss of life in a single terrorist act and one of the greatest crimes ever.

No, the WORST part was that it happened during the George Bush administration, the most rabid and bloodthirsty collection of warhawks and neocons (redundancy, I know) ever to inhabit the halls of American power.

I remember thinking that as I saw those towers fall - Oh shit, America and the world are going to be SAVAGED by these foaming-at-the-mouth reactionaries in the White House. I even remember the not-so-veiled threats of using NUCLEAR DEVICES in those few days after the attack.

But I had no CLUE that 9/11 would be used as the excuse for the biggest theft of Constitutional rights and freedoms since the country began. It was spelled out in the PNAC document - a new Pearl Harbor would be required to enact the final stages of world domination.

America lost SO MUCH more than those 3,000 innocent lives that day. The "great experiment" is in grave danger and world opinion could not be much lower than it is today.

And as the Romans found out, military and economic sumpremacy are NOT enough to maintain an Empire.