How Did America Get Into This Mess? 911

How Did America Get Into This Mess?    911

Bush became President in January 2001, soon came September 11,2001.  Americans were in shock.  The world was in shock.  It was the saddest day in modern times.  

It was 8:30 in the morning; the trading day had just started.  I was watching the markets on my computer and had one eye on the TV screen above me and to the right.  It hung from the ceiling in my office.  All of a sudden we saw the pictures of a plane hit the World Trade Center.  I remember at the time that I thought it was odd.  I mean the thought did run thru my mind that this was no accident, because I couldn’t figure out how any pilot could not see that tall building. The sky was clear and it was a bright sunny morning.  Then a second thought came into my head; maybe somehow the plane’s controls went haywire and the pilot couldn’t control it.  I mean it was a thought.  I never thought of a terrorist attack.

 But when I saw the second plane hit. For me there was no mistake. I cleaned up my desk.  Told my boss I was leaving.  I mean I was in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, directly kitty-corner, and across the street from the Sears Tower.  No way was I staying at work.  This appeared to be some kind of attack and I needed to get out of the downtown area.  I went to an ATM and withdrew a few thousand dollars.  I thought I might need the money in case things got really bad and I needed to leave the state.  I had no car so I would need transportation.  And cash always goes a long way.  You never know if the ATMs in this kind of emergency will continue working or if you would be able to use a charge card.  I mean the financial systems could go down. Actually later that day, at least in Chicago, you could not use your charge cards; I think the system was over-loaded.  I could not find a cab.  I walked 8 blocks to my apartment, picked up a backpack, filled with my charger for my cell-phone, some food and change of clothes for me.

 I left my place heading to a friends place farther north of the city, where I thought it would be safer.  I tried to catch a cab outside my building but none were empty as they drove by. I walked another 8 to 10 blocks, lugging the backpack and my purse full of things I had grabbed to take with me.

 I finally came up to an intersection, where people were lined up on the sidewalk, around the building, waiting in line to rent-a-car.  A cab stopped there to drop someone off and I jumped into it. 

 The streets were jammed with cars, cabs, trucks, just tons of traffic of people trying to leave town, and I was giving the cab driver directions on how to get around all the traffic by taking side streets.

 I got a few blocks from my friends condo when he pulled over and tried to make me get out of the cab. By now people were getting news that Chicago was a target and that this was a terrorist attack.  He too was afraid and wanted to go home. He was of Arab descent and I think he was in fear for his life.  But so was I.  I told him it was just a few more blocks and I would like him to continue driving me there.  He finally dropped me off at my friends place.  When I got there I dropped everything off and my friend and I  walked down the street to a grocery store where I bought, lunch meat, bread, and then some canned fruits, crackers, batteries, flash light, wipes for our hands and gallons of water. 

I bought items so that if there was a run on food, we would have enough to eat.  And if there was an electricity outage we could store them and they would not spoil.  I personally thought I did a good job of preparing for the worst-case scenario. We went back to my friends after shopping and started watching TV, to get up-dated on what was going on.  I of course, called my family out of state to let them know I was alright and to check on them too.

 We stayed home from work for a few days.  Watched the news on TV.  It was the first time in history that the exchanges were closed for more than 3 days in a row.  I think everyone in the country was in shock mode.  People didn’t talk to one another on the street or in the stores.  Most went pretty much on their way and didn’t bother to look around. 

 For the next few weeks, there seemed to be no cab drivers of Arabic descent on the streets of Chicago.  And the one thing that was so obvious to me, something that I really noticed only because I lived downtown, was that for at least two weeks I never heard a cab driver honk his horn.  People on the street did not raise their faces to look at anyone else; there was no eye contact.  It was actually quite eerie. 

 In the weeks and months after 9/11, there was so much fear, and the government played on that fear by constantly talking about whether or not they should raise the color on the Terrorist alert, and this went on daily. Up and back down again this terrorist alert would go.  Speeches from the White House would put more fear into the people.  Nineteen terrorist were to blame for 9/11, 15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from Jordan, 1 from Lebanon and 1 from Yemen, none came from Iraq.  Yet, the White House decided, based on its Intel that Iraq was to blame and we were going to war.  Anyone with half a brain could have figured out that this didn’t add up.  But we were told that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and therefore we needed to take Sadam Hussein out.

Many of the Congress went right along with thinking.  The fact that 16 out of 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia was never given another thought.  I mean they were our ally’s.  Americans didn’t want to think about any of it, they just wanted the fear to go away. But the government needed to keep them afraid so that they could start a war; by the way, this was the first time in America’s history that we started a war.  But, hey, we were retaliating.  It didn’t matter that in the days after 9/11, the Government was running ads on TV for Arabic speaking Americans to come forward as translators for them.  The government agencies didn’t have enough people working for them who could decipher Intel, tapes, and conversations among potential suspects or to spot terrorists.  Yet, they supposedly had enough Intel, to know that Iraq was involved with weapons of mass destruction, and that we knew where these weapons were and that somehow, Iraq was involved in 9/11 and therefore we were going to get them.  Both parties in Congress went along with this propaganda, without doing any investigating on their own.  This war was started on Blind Faith.  We as Americans should, with out question, be able to have Faith in the White House and our Congress, without having to second-guess their motives, without considering that they may have another agenda.  We should be able to have faith that they were truly living up to their responsibility of taking care of our National Security.

 So, to war and “Shock and Awe” we went.  Of course, everything was televised so the world could see the mighty Americans fight back against terrorism.  The fact that Sadam Hussien had nothing to do with 9/11 really had nothing to do with it.  They kept the illusion going so that they could take down Iraq.  (Remember the PNAC?  In 1997, way before Bush was elected President, they said that their main purpose was to take down the infrastructure in Iraq and rebuild it).  So, in my opinion, this war was a forgone conclusion.  The attack on 9/11 gave the White House and the Bush administration it’s excuse to invade Iraq, even though it was based on lies.  How could this have happened?  Well, I don’t know.  It certainly was not based on the facts.

 At least 11 of the original signers of the PNAC pact were in the Bush White House, or in a prominent place in the Federal Government.  They had the power. Our government assured us that we were doing the right thing, we would take down Sadam Hussien, the Dictator, the Iraqi government, find the Weapons of Mass Destruction, destroy them, and give the government back to the people, so that they could set up a Democracy.  We were told that the Iraqi’s would be soooo, grateful that they would line up along the streets and throw flowers at our soldiers as the marched along.  I mean what fairy-tail were these guys reading?

 The war began; it was bloody, American soldiers, our young men and women died.  No one knows the count on how many have actually been injured for life.  Even now, they don’t talk about it.  You would think someone in the news media, or what is left of it, would try and find out how many of our young patriots will suffer for life because they went to fight in a war which was based on lies. 

 To me it was evident right from the beginning.  This was neither a war about Weapons of Mass Destruction, nor a war based on the fact that Iraq had something to do with 911.  This war was for personal reasons, for those of the PNAC in addition to Bush junior who actually came out and said that the fact that “Sadam Hussein tried to kill his Daddy” was enough of a reason.  This was a war to make Money, lots of it, and to gain Power in the Middle East, and lot’s of it, by those in power in America and those in power around the world. 

 Cheney and the rest of the PNAC group got not just rich off the war, but over-the-top, disgustingly wealthy because of the Iraqi war.  Halliburton, the company that Cheney was CEO of before he became Vice President, were the General Contractors on a “No Bid” contract to basically run everything American over in Iraq. They even hired the Security Company, Blackwater, to protect American dignitaries, businessmen and private contractors brought in to help rebuild (and get filthy rich while doing so).

As I recall, Halliburton was given a 10 year no-bid Contract with the US Army to build all it’s bases, supply food, and everything else the Army need for it’s men. 

Everyday the headlines of the papers, the Internet, and the TV news; all-day, and all-night ran updates on the war. Back home here, it appeared to me, that the White House would constantly be discussing as to whether or not the terrorist level should be raised.  I think they wanted to portray a sense of urgency when they (the White House or Congress) wanted to push a bill thru Congress, and then it would be lowered after the bill was passed.  This type of fear mongering behavior continued during the rest of the Bush Administration.  All of a sudden Obama’s in the White House and you never hear anything about the terrorist threat level.  Strange isn’t it?

 What amazes me is that this fear mongering lasted for 7 years after 911, during the Bush White House.  During the Bush administration there was always a potential terrorist attack by secret cells that have been hiding under the radar in our country, or sneaking in over our borders.  Even now we are finding secret terrorist cells planning and trying to implement bombings in our cities.  Yet in all this time, and even though Congress approved it, and that approximately $700 Million has been designated for it, we still have not completed building the wall on our Southern Border. Why didn’t the people stand up and demand the government secure the Southern Border?  It would have just been common sense.  Or is it that we never were in any real danger, it was just made to look like it by the powers that be?  I don’t know, it’s just a thought, but that would explain why we didn’t finish the wall.

During this same period, government fear-mongering had been used to keep Americans believing that secret terrorist cells were infiltrating the country, and that many were already here and just waiting to do some terrorist act.  People stopped flying on planes, destroying the Airline industry and they stopped taking trips overseas.  Americans were constantly checking out their surroundings. They were afraid to go into shopping malls for fear some Al Qaida terrorist would be there and blow it up.  People worried about going to sports events, which could be prime targets for terrorist to do a lot of damage. 

During this same time the big city governments started putting camera’s, on top of light polls, at street intersections to concentrate on drivers who ran red lights, possibly causing accidents.  At first there were just a few of these cameras at what one would consider a potentially high-risk intersection.  Soon cameras were put up all over these cities.  Then this idea spread throughout the country.  Now, there are cameras everywhere.  When Americans complained about this being intrusive, or more like spying on American citizens, they were assured that this was for traffic safety purposes only.

 Soon on the nightly news, we began to see stories about how these cameras were catching other activities, like bank robberies. They would show last sightings of people who disappeared or children who were kidnapped. They began to be used as spying equipment.  You could actually follow a car on camera from one inter-section to another, and see the direction they were headed in, and this would assist police in catching the perpetrators.

Yes, this is all helpful information, but what about the intrusiveness on private citizens who just happen to be somewhere near where a camera is mounted on a building, or near an entrance way to an apartment building, or even the camera on an ATM machine?  What about someone in the private sector leaving a doctors office, or an attorneys office or how about leaving an FBI building where he just gave information to the FBI about some criminal activities that someone else was involved in and some camera on the building across the street caught him leaving the FBI building?  Then some minimum wage security guard reviewing the tapes would recognize him and give the info to some gossip magazine or maybe the mob? 

I mean really this is a far-fetched story, but is it really?  With Face-book, Twitter, Blogs and You Tube, news travels through out the Internet and the world in nano seconds.  Yes, these cameras were never intended to just catch people running red lights.  This was just the beginning of Big Brother watching YOU!

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