The Arrogance Of Power

The Bush Administration believes it has a lock on all wisdom, it knows what is best for us Americans, andfor everyone else in the world -- because, as Bush told us in his State of the Union address, America acts inthe world under God's divine protection, and he, Bush, is the representative of the nation and thus, we areled to believe, operates under God's aegis as well.

Given this arrogant, we-know-it-all, attitude, there was no reason, then, for Bush and his subordinates tolisten to the technical experts who warned early last year ¹, and even as recent as last August ²about the disaster-in-the-making for the Space Shuttle and its crews unless certain procedures and processeswere fixed. These NASA experts were ignored by Bush and his advisors ², and removed from theirpositions ¹.

And, given this same arrogant tone, there is no reason to listen to the millions of Americans, and to mostof our allies abroad, who tell Bush and his war-bent cronies that attacking Iraq at this moment, more or lessunilaterally with no U.N-authorized international coalition at our side, is the height of folly, and willbring ruin and chaos not only to Iraq but to the United States as well.

Let's start with the shuttle disaster. As with everyone else, I'm appalled too by the tragedy of theColumbia explosion. But let's put things in perspective here. This is a a tragedy for the nation, to be sure-- and especially for the families involved -- and, while there are budgetary and other implicationsassociated with the disaster (including the Bush arrogance that leads to such tragedies), it pales incomparison to what's about to go down in the Persian Gulf.

There, when the U.S. begins the wave of missile attacks and the ground invasion to follow, we can be surethat more than seven brave American soldiers will die, along with thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. Andthe war could drag on for a long time. And, even if the battle is over quickly, the after-effects will takeyears to sort out, with billions spent and untold dead and maimed.

A shuttle flames into destruction and the major media, the public, editorialists and columnists demand, andare getting, a quick investigation into why this happened and how it can be prevented in the future.

Nobody begrudges the victims and their grieving families the wide scale coverage (though the exploitationof this story by the media is more than unusually over-the-top), and the immediate moves toward a fullinvestigation of the tragedy. But the attacks that killed 3000+ on September 11, 2001, have yet to yield afull and politically-neutral investigation and that was more than 15 months ago!

You do remember that both Bush and Cheney quietly asked the then-leaders of the House and Senate, Gephardtand Daschle, not to investigate the pre-9/11 period for reasons of "national security." Perhaps oneof the things they'd like to keep hidden was the fact that they were warned by the outgoing ClintonAdministration specifically about the enormous dangers posed by Osama bin Laden/Al Qaida, but, in theirarrogance, the incoming Bush Administration decided not to pay any attention to those warnings; instead, theysaid they were going to set up their own commission to look into terrorism, with Dick Cheney as head. Cheney-- too busy putting together an energy policy with Kenneth Lay's Enron and the other energy companies -- didnothing and the promised report on terrorism never materialized.

When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, when Ronald Reagan was shot at, when the Watergate crimes wereunearthed, when the Iran/Contra scandal broke -- when these and other major catastrophes happened in ourcountry, blue-ribbon panels and commissions were appointed and given a mandate to get to the bottom of thetragic events.

A chairman already has been appointed for the probe of the Columbia disaster, and is at work. Bush foughtfor many months an independent commission to investigate 9/11, but, under heavy public pressure, finally gavein. But whom did Bush first appoint to chair the 9/11 probe1? Blood-on-his-hands Henry Kissinger! The stinkwas so great from the victims' families and others around the country that Kissinger bowed out. So whom didBush appoint in his place? A former New Jersey governor with business connections to two Mideast oil mogulswho are suspected of ties to Al Qaeda -- indeed, one is the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden.

Will we ever learn the truth of the pre-9/11 events, and get answers to key questions? Here are just a fewto start out with.

1. Since Bush and Condeleeza Rice were receiving fairly detailed warnings from about 20 governments aroundthe globe in the summer of 2001 -- that an attack, by air, was on its way, aimed at American icon targets --why did the Bush Administration do nothing in the way of advance preparations?

2. The Bush administration admits it knew as early as August 6 that an attack was imminent. Why was nothingdone to take steps to deal with it at that late date, a month before the attacks? Such as alerting the aircarriers -- the photos of hijacker suspects was released the following day, so why couldn't these and otherphotos and names been sent to the airlines? Such as putting fighter jets into the skies around Washington andNew York? Such as putting border agents on high alert?, etc. etc.

3. Why, during the period immediately after the attacks, when no civilian aircraft were permitted to takeoff or land, were 18 members of the bin Laden family permitted to fly back to Saudi Arabia, over FBIobjections since they hadn't been interviewed yet?

4. Why were no fighter jets scrambled over New York and Washington, D.C., when the FAA already knew aboutthe hijacked planes at least one hour earlier?

5. Why did Bush take a sudden month's vacation at his Texas ranch in August of 2001? And why did AttorneyGeneral Ashcroft suddenly stop flying commercial aircraft in July of 2001? The Bush Administration certainlyseemed to be taking the many mid-Summer warnings seriously, for themselves, but none of that concern seems tohave been passed on to those who might have prevented the awful events.

6. Why did Florida Gov. Jeb Bush declare martial law in his state on September 7th? Why did he say(overheard by a reporter), "Was it the terrorists?" when informed about the WTC attacks?

7. Why, after his chief of staff whispered in his ear that the U.S. was under terrorist attack, did GeorgeW. Bush continue listening to schoolchildren read a storybook for a half-hour?

8. Somebody was making a fortune off the sale of airline stock "puts" just prior to 9/11, theimplication being that someone, perhaps lots of someones, knew in advance about the impending terror attacks.Who made those sales, and why haven't they been brought forward to testify?

I'm not suggesting that any or all of these, and other, questions necessarily would yield definitiveanswers that prove a conspiracy on the part of the Bush government to look the other way when they knew anattack was coming, but the point is that none of these, and similar, questions have been fully andindependently investigated.

It was fitting and proper that an investigation began immediately into the Columbia tragedy. It was fittingand proper that Congressional and independent, blue-ribbon investigations began after the other nationalscandals and disasters mentioned above.

But it is a civic disgrace -- and gives the appearance of a grand cover-up on the part of the BushAdministration -- that it has fought and delayed all attempts to mount a truly hard-hitting investigation ofour nation's most horrific tragedy in recent years: Why more than 3000 citizens and resident aliens had to dieon September 11, 2001, when the government knew that something like the air attacks was coming and decided,apparently for its own political ends, to look the other way.

(1) "When an expert NASA panel warnedlast year that safety troubles loomed for the fleet of shuttles if the agency's budget was not increased,NASA removed five of the panel's nine members and two of its consultants. Some of them now say the agency wastrying to suppress their criticisms.

(2) From Don Nelson to Mr. Bush: "I am a recently retired NASA aerospace engineer and it is my duty toinform you that our space shuttle astronauts are in imminent danger. Your intervention is required to preventanother catastrophic space shuttle accident. NASA management and the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel havefailed to respond to the growing warning signs of another shuttle accident." (August 25, 2002, www.nasaproblems.com/#Moritorium)

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., Co-Editor of The Crisis Papers,has taught at Western Washington University, San Diego State and San Francisco State Universities. He was awriter/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years.