Bush's Tragic Legacy: How 9/11 Triggered America's Decline

[marmar]

from Der Spiegel:



The events of Sept. 11, 2001 led to a wave of solidarity with the US. But the superpower has lost that goodwill over the course of the wars it subsequently waged. Now America is mainly seen not as the victim of terrorism, but as a perpetrator of violence itself.

The smoke was still rising from the rubble of the World Trade Center when Richard Armitage, at the time the US deputy secretary of state, spoke in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. "History begins today," he said.

In the coming decade, Armitage would turn out to be right -- except the politician could not have foreseen how tragic the history would be following the epochal event.

It is the history of the decline of the USA as a superpower. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,785405,00.html

[sakabatou]

1. If only Gore were president...

Fuck.

[Old and In the Way]

3. If Gore had been President...

(1) No President spending 40% of his time on vacation, clearing brush and disregarding the intel of an impending attack.
(2) No Cheney conducting secret energy meetings to plan the hostile takeover of Iraqi National Oil
(3) No Cheney in the bunker to make sure our military was no where in site to obstruct the attack
(4) No trillion dollar tax cut that did nothing to create jobs
(5) No Big Pharma giveaway legislation
(6) No trillion dollar+ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that accomplished nothing except killing innocent Iraqis and US soldiers.

How then that, not a dime's bit of difference...

[SnakeEyes]

6. Umm...

1) maybe not. All presidents "vacation"
2) correct
3) i dont understand this one. But trutherism is crap
4) Tax cuts are politically popular. The portions that went to the middle class could have existed.
5) Big pharma is in many pockets.
6) Likely have gone to Afghanistan but not Iraq. Afghanistan depends on if the attack still happened. All depends on the weighting of intel by whomever was advising prior to it.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Umm...

Yes but some Presidents instinctively know when or when not to take time off

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/09/05/145709/-Al-Gore-shows-true-leadership-on-Katrina

and others don't.

[texshelters]

9. Perhaps the attacks would not have succeeded

if Gore had won.

He wouldn't have ignored the Clinton security team's warning about "plane attacks".

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[ixion]

2. I would use the word "accelerated" rather than "triggered"

because thanks to the so-called 'war' on (some) drugs, we were already well into the decline phase.

[saras]

4. The trigger is a useless bit of metal unless someone has built the whole gun.

The Project for the New American Century.

They started building it a decade before someone volunteered to pull the trigger.

[bemildred]

5. We have embraced our own decline.

[xchrom]

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