When One Bucket Empties:
Meet Marwan
September 11, 2012
In the years following September 11, 2001 America has progressively morphed into something resembling an insane asylum.
Marwan's Corner
Al-Qaeda spent no more than $500,000 for the planning and execution of 911 with the stated goal to “bleed America until bankruptcy”. To date, the US has spent more than $5 Trillion…with no end in sight.
To put this in perspective, al-Qaeda has received at least a Billion percent return on its investment. It’s as if you invested $10 dollars in an annuity that paid out $100 Million in ten years. Not even Bernie Madoff could dream up these returns..
And what has America received for a return on its investment?
For starters, over 600o American troops have been killed and almost 42,000 wounded. But we get some bonus points… “After an eight-month investigation, three Marines were punished Monday for urinating on dead Taliban terrorists….”
And let’s not forget how the TSA (which Americans own and pay for) has gifted Americans, “TSA Forces A 95-year-old, Cancer-Stricken, Wheel-Chair bound Woman To Remove Her Adult Diaper, TSA Sexually Assault Miss USA, TSA Sexually Assaults Six Year Old Girl…well, you get the idea but here is a Top Ten List.
The 10 year cost of finally killing bin Laden has been the bankrupting of America; the creation of US police state; the destabilization of the already unstable Middle East; Iran about to become a nuclear nation; the verge of defeat in Afghanistan à la Viet Nam; further North Korean weapons development and…you get to pay historically high prices for gasoline.
How did we get here from there?
It still feels like it happened yesterday and yet…it simultaneously feels like a lifetime ago.
The lifetime since that shocking, and contemptuous day in 2001 is already and, only, 11 years old. It’s hard to imagine that there is an entire American generation bumping up against adolescence that wasn’t even born on the day that the Twin Towers fell and America was forever violated…both from without and from within.
Like all Americans, I rode a rollercoaster of emotion on 911. First there was confusion, disbelief and shock. Then came the outrage that was hungry and impatient for revenge. And, finally, came the pragmatic logic.
The comparisons to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor were unavoidably tempting.
Both were sneak attacks. Both produced causalities in the 2500 to 3000 range. And both outraged America. But that is where the similarities end.
In the case of Pearl Harbor, we immediately knew the nation of Japan attacked us. And, simultaneous with that attack, came a continuous stream of Japanese attacks on American and Western European strategic targets worldwide. War had been waged and almost unrestricted war would ensue until there was a victor.
On 911, America had a big and largely undefined problem. “Somebody” had attacked us. Nobody knew the extent of the attack. And nobody, except those responsible, knew who or what the “Somebody” was.
We had clues and suspicions but, mostly, we had questions. But…we had no definitive answers. There was no clear picture…no clear retaliatory target. And…America was a different country in 2001 than it was in 1941.
Even if we knew exactly who and where the culprits were, there would be no fire-bombing of Tokyo this time around. Our political leaders had spent decades trading national security for the silly notion that the World Court or the U.N. or some politically correct human rights dogma could govern a new doctrine of “limited” warfare.
That’s the cloud America slept under on the night of September 11, 2001.
As intelligence information evolved in the days immediately following 911, an outline of our attackers came into focus and it was the worst of all possible scenarios…a war on terror. A “war” on an amorphous multi-national group of religious fanatics interspersed throughout mostly sympathetic third world civilian populations. Could it get any worse?
Yes…and it did.
Aside from our external armed enemies, we would also be in conflict with their useful idiots…the plethora of political opportunists, human rights NGOs and anti-war activists, both foreign and domestic, who would attack America each time America attacked its enemies. Yet, these same anti-war nabobs never found fault with the terrorists, dictators and populations that supported the terrorism.
I realized this dilemma early in the process and wrote many articles cautioning against the pitfalls of symmetrical logic on an asymmetrical battlefield.
Not to bore the kind reader with the minutia, the article archives on this website are full of opinion cautioning against a knee-jerk attack on Afghanistan; the economic un-sustainability of the US mirroring the development of an Israeli-styled defensive state and the sins of sending American youth into combat handicapped by rules of engagement that would get them killed but allow State Department professionals to be welcome at international cocktail parties.
As was pointed out in Talk Is Cheap on September 22, 2001:
“The Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve 1979 with some of the heaviest armed and equipped divisions known to military history. During ten years of warfare utilizing some of the world’s best weapons, artillery and combat aircraft the Soviet Union inflicted a ruthlessness on the Afghan people few in America would understand or tolerate…
Ten years later, in 1989, the Soviets withdrew in humiliating defeat from Afghanistan minus almost 500,000 Soviet casualties and combat losses.”
On October 1, 2001 in Just Calm Down, it was observed that:
“The admitted goal of the terrorists is to destroy the United State’s economy…
The dream of the terrorists is for the American people to panic. Panic leads to a crash of the stock markets. Panic leads to the demise of many American businesses. Panic leads to soaring unemployment. Panic leads to political instability. Panic leads to a loss of faith. Panic spells victory for Bin Laden and all enemies of America and its great people.”
By March 2, 2007, Mittyesque Wardreams got right to the point:
“My apprehension about a quick military response to 9-11 was a fear of half-measures by those making the decisions. Simply stated, I did not think that America understood the nature of terrorism nor would the country’s leadership (and intelligentsia) have the stomach to fight a real war.
I was afraid that American troops would be bogged down in an un-winnable quagmire similar to Viet Nam. Un-winnable not because our military couldn’t do the job but, sinfully, because our politicians and politically correct crowd wouldn’t let them.
I was afraid that brave American troops would land in harm’s way handcuffed by Byzantine rules of engagement which left them more afraid of their own JAG officers than they were of the enemy.”
Enough said.
I first met my buddy Marwan about 15 years prior to September 11, 2001. I always find conversation with a thought-provoking non-Western, non-American “interesting”. It helps me to escape my bubble of commonly held assumptions and think about international affairs in a more asymmetrical fashion.
Although Marwan is a very likable and inoffensive individual, I never have been completely certain of his leanings or motives…hence his asymmetry. Both pre and post 911 I always interacted with him in a semi-guarded manner.
Today, I introduce him to you through the first in a series of videos that might be as thought provoking to you as they are to both Marwan and me.
Marwan’s curiosity about America and its policies is the attraction and caution that defines my friendship with him.
He claims he loves America and its sophistication but is simultaneously confused by the outcomes that seem a bit less than well thought out.
He would ask me why America takes seriously the complaints of terrorist prisoners when those complaints were just the parroting of instructions from the al-Qaeda handbook. Or, he would ask how America could possibly allow its economy to be destroyed both directly and indirectly by the aftermath of the 911 attacks while knowing that the purpose of those attacks was the destruction of the American economy.
I would look at him and answer that those are some of the unanswerable questions that made me take a serious sabbatical from writing.
Many times I would tell Marwan that Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity was “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” And that is why I took a break from writing.
I was sick of watching America’s leaders cutting off the American people’s noses to spite their faces.
To try something a bit different, I welcome Marwan. Perhaps his questions will be as thought provoking and, at times, consternating to you as they have been to me.
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