“Vanity Fair” magazine 9/06 editorial:

whistle

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Fri Aug-18-06 07:40 PM
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“Vanity Fair” magazine 9/06 editorial:

<snip>
“Vanity Fair” magazine 9/06
Editor’s Letter: “The Fall of Summer”

“The $290 billion spent evicting one Iraqi dictator could have housed
America’s 3.5 million homeless…forever. Are you putting us on?”

Not a whole lot seems to make much sense these days.

In July it was reported the CIA had quietly disbanded its Osama
bin Laden unit – code-named Alec Station – following 10 years
of bringing him in neither “dead” nor "alive,” in the tough-talking
words of President Bush.

Congress was set to go into its summer recess – “recess” being an
ill-advised and peculiarly childish term, given the infantile tantrums
so many of its members throw on the floors of the House and Senate.
They were preparing to scurry out of the capital with stacks of unfinished
business, but not before rewarding themselves with a 2 percent pay
increase.
This is the same body that hasn’t raised the minimum wage of $5.15
per hour in more than eight years.

The most vacationed chief executive in the nation’s modern history –
he’s a lot more like the French than he would care to admit – was at
the time of this writing planning to take off on his own annual month-
long August recess. But not before urging diplomacy in the Israel-
Lebanon war zone.
Having spent the military, his nation’s patience, and the world’s
respect on the disastrous invasion of Iraq, diplomacy is about the
only tool the president has left. He has to walk softly, because the
big stick he used to carry is lodged in the desert sands of Baghdad.

The panic to leave Israel and Lebanon during this summer’s bombings
brought back memories of New Orleans a year ago, when the administration’s
lack of interest, will, or ability resulted in a ragtag exodus from the
flooded city following Hurricane Katrina. The ineptitude resulted in
scenes that showed that the poorer precincts of the U.S. are just one
disaster away from looking like the Third World. In Haifa and Beirut,
American citizens had to stand by whole those from other nations were
efficiently moved to safer shores. U.S. citizens sat for days, with little
in the way of help or leadership from the embassies in Tel Aviv and Beirut
or the administration at home. The fortunate ones who were first moved to
Cyprus by chartered cruise chip had to sign promissory notes to pay for the
voyage, though the State Department later rescinded the fees in the face of
heavy criticism.

Back to Washington, where we have a president who continues to argue
the finer points of what is, or is not, torture…on this, the fifth anniversary
of 9/11, perhaps it’s time to review the administration’s assertion that
that was the day the world changed. It really wasn’t; 9/12 was.
That was the day the neocons in the White House began using this
devastating attack on American soil to further their own dreams of taking
over Iraq. That was the day the world began its downward spiral.
That was the day the administration began plotting to remove a dictator
over there and to create one here.
–Graydon Carter

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