A wildly gyrating estimate of those killed in Hurricane Maria after it struck Puerto Rico on Sept. 20, 2017, ranges from 3,000 to 5,000. Either way, it's a hell of a lot of Americans. Either way, there seems to be an untold lack of support for those Americans or those they left behind. So it seems fair for a columnist to relegate the governmental reaction to the "scandal" folder. A year later, these Americans are still struggling for water, electricity and other basic services. It is hard not to imagine that the fact that Puerto Ricans are largely brown had something to do with the clusterfuck of relief ... relief that came swiftly to mainland locations similarly afflicted by Maria.
And why should the demolition of the World Trade Towers be lumped in with the ignoring of Puerto Rican Americans? I am among those who believe that the science does not support a World Trade Center conclusion that "terrorism" -- or at least "terrorism" from the Middle East -- had much to do with the demolition. I really haven't got the energy to collate the evidence that convinces me and I guess I am willing to be tossed into some conveniently located 'conspiracy' trash can, but I'm not interested in convincing someone else. I simply don't believe the sound-bite party line.
There were too many neat assertions that don't wash -- from neatly clipped I-beams to pancaking structures, to an $8 billion insurance payout to ... oh hell, the list goes on and on for me. I realize that the alternative scenario -- the murder of Americans -- is so enormous a crime as to (literally) defy the energies and imagination, but that's not a reason for saying it's not true.
And as a bit of collateral benefit to the neat assertions, the words "terrorism" and "terrorist" got a worldwide springboard from which any number of world leaders have since gleefully jumped.
Murdering Americans.
Is that hyperbole?
I know I wouldn't often use the phrase -- it's to bare and bald and horrific, but....
Don't worry -- no one's got the nerve to look into it. 9/11 is in the rear-view mirror. Transposing it to the microscope, like transposing the tragedy in Puerto Rico, is old news: Donald Trump demands our attention.
The ruling class has no qualms about killing those of the lower classes. They continue to make lots of money from the war on terror. Dead Americans equates with good business.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to a great memory and a certain way of thinking, one needs organized and cross referenced resources to go back and reconstruct cases like the likely motivation behind something like the 9/11 disaster.
ReplyDeleteI share your feelings of conspiracy. I used the “who benefits” method: Neither Osama, the Taliban, nor the common Muslim benefitted from the multiple bombings on 9/11. As it turned out (and had it been thought through) the large scale act of terror failed miserably. If anything it seriously harmed the Muslim community at large, Osama was killed and the Taliban seriously set back. Further, sadly, large parts of Afghanistan was reduced to rubble.
Shortly after 9/11 it seemed that Dick Cheney’s Halliburton benefited the most, as did GW Bush’s presidency for a while. I imagine that other relatively small interests benefited incidentally as well.
As to whether the benefits came from some intentional conspiracy or from the application of what Naomi Klein called the “Shock Doctrine” I have no idea.
I’d like to remove one of the common reasons for thinking the WTC’s destruction was not terrorism: the implosion. I’ve both read and discussed with two architects the implosion aspect. Given its size and location in a highly populated with many buildings, the Towers were designed and built with a plan for the towers to implode on themselves and not topple over in the event of some unforeseen disaster.
Given the size of the two Towers and the population density, that only some 3,000 people died is a great tribute to the architects and builders.
We're spending $45billion per year in Afghanistan, the least of which pays and feeds troops. Humvee's get lousy mileage so some oil company is cleaning up as an example of where the money goes. But the real winners are the banks. We're fighting this war on credit.
ReplyDeleteAfter all the Afghanistan pipeline must be protected.
Deletehttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan_Oil_Pipeline?wprov=sfti1
Back to conspiracies, heard a radio show years ago about the state of Afghanistan. Guy claiming to have been in Afghanistan called in stating that the bombings ran parallel to the pipeline.
I remember a bit of a fuss in Bosnia not so long ago. Seem to recall Hitler kept drew oil from the refineries there. We bombed the crap out of 'em at the time. Oil is the new gold, and the wars tend to follow resources even more than markets. Oil offshore of Vietnam just east of the Mekong delta, etc.
ReplyDeleteHope the oil-ligarchs don’t try to bring back the Draft.
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