| Posted 1am, Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Whew, what a year. This has been a weird twelve months for me. Let’s go down the list… I was in New York, ten blocks from Ground Zero, on 9-11. I shared a unique experience with that city, an experience unlike that which was going on here in San Francisco. I don’t think you can fully appreciate what New Yorkers went through that day and over the last year. Selfishly speaking, I almost thought it was worse for us, the out of towners. After all, at least New Yorkers had their homes, their loved ones. Us outsiders were stuck in hotels, with no way to get home. Being stuck in the restricted area, we had no phone service in the hotel. My cell wasn’t working because of our proximity to the fallen signal towers. We had to trek 20 blocks north to get a call out. No laundry service. All the restaurants were closed and the hotel was only serving appetizers (boo hoo for the ad man… cry me a fucking river, Ron). In April, I left North America for the first time. I went pretty much as far as you can go... practically the other side of the world. I spent five weeks in Cape Town, South Africa shooting and editing a spot. I saw a lot of rich people and a lot more poor people. I went to Robbin Island where they imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 26 years. I looked into the small cell where they kept him all those years. I walked in the yard he walked in. I saw the limestone quarry where he labored, day after day.
I ate lots of shellfish at ridulously low prices. I saw lions, springbok, elephants, hippos, giraffes and zebras... lots of zebras. Hell, I ate springbok. I saw great white sharks. I walked alongside penguins at the tip of South Africa. My wife and I bought our first home. Big mortgage payments mean big worries with each shift in the economic landscape. Worry, worry, worry. Buying furniture should be fun, but it is hard, time-consuming work. Ask any homeowner. One of my best friends died last month. We’ve known each other since high school. I was a pallbearer. Last night, at the one month mark, we did Navajo chants at his house to help him along to the next world. I smoked a pipe. The first smoking I've done since the fourth grade. What a year. It’s been weird.
So one year later, less than six hours away from the anniversary, what does 9-11 all mean? It means a corrupt White House is using American’s current state of mind to fuel war sentiment. I was supported the war in Afghanistan, but it appears that little if anything was accomplished. The only result seems to be a total destabilization of the Middle East. The Arab world is more pissed at the U.S. than ever. Our European allies are deserting us, save for lapdog Blair. What results can they point at to make us believe our war on the Taliban was successful? Do they have Bin Laden? Do you feel safer? Tonight they're parking surface to air missiles all over Washington, D.C. I'm not exactly sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Let's say a plane gets hijacked. They shoot it down. Hooray! The White House is saved! Meanwhile, big hunks of planes are falling over residential neighborhoods. Feel better? Yeah, yeah, we’re breaking up their financial pipeline and freezing assets. Where’s the infrared shots of bridges blowing up? We’re eating our frozen dinners on TV trays and want our missile footage dammit! The United States is past the time when we can bully around the rest of the world. Like a middle aged man going through his fifth wife, we need to take a good long look in the mirror. We need to ask ourselves why everyone hates us? Maybe we are assholes. I’m not excusing 9-11. What happened was a reprehensible act of animals. Murder is inexcusable. But until we can point the fingers at ourselves, we are hypocrites. Dubya’s street gang doing all it can to start an unprovoked war with Iraq. Sure, Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction. Yes, they need to be stopped. The issue is that when Iraq seems most open to re-admitting to U.N. inspections, Cheney is huffing his chest out and proclaiming that war is the only solution to the situation. What gives us the right to go around issuing “final warnings?” How is that any more legitimate than Al Qaeda issuing final warnings? They say Al Queda is lead by a madman. Well, we’re being lead by George W. Bush. What they forgot to tell you is that Iraq isn’t the only country developing chemical warfare. North Korea is doing it. And China. Um, and Iran too. Oh yeah, and the United States. Yup. We’re making chemical weapons of mass destruction. Probably testing them on puppies too. I was in New York on 9-11-01. I heard the first plane roar overhead and watched the impact of the second plane. I saw both towers fall. I was outraged. I called for Bin Laden’s head. I’m still waiting. Habeas corpus. So until we satisfy American’s need for (lack of a better word) “revenge,” I don’t think we should be invading any more countries, especially when unprovoked. Last time out, we were fighting for the Kuwaitis, not oil (wink, wink). Okay, a stretch, but I can see how to make that one work. What the Hell are we fighting for this time? What Dubya is saying is this: we gotta get them, before they get us. Yeah, but what if the Muslim countries banded together against the U.S.? What is all those Muslims decide that the United States have been developing weapons of mass destruction (well, we have) and need to be stopped. What if the used the same rhetoric… “we can’t wait until a burning mosque is our smoking gun!” Um, by the way, Muslims outnumber Christians, like two-to-one. In a Holy War, we’d be totally fucked. I’m not necessarily advocating peace at any cost; I’m no hippie. I’m just saying, one war at a time.
The Rationale for Invading Iraq Why Bush and Co. must be stopped now Iraq and the Bush Administrations How we got here:
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