Is Sept. 11 a date to unify us all, or a date for critics to ‘shut their pieholes’

It has been 17 years since that date when nut cases acting in an irrational way to show their Islamic religious faith staged their attack on the secular western world by inflicting damage upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This became fish wrap in the coming days

That’s the way I recall the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – even though others are inclined to want to think in different ways to justify their own irrational hang-ups along religious and ethnic lines.

IN SHORT, THE bigoted amongst us in society want to remember the happenings of all those years ago as evidence that their warped way of thought is somehow correct; and that those of us who view life in a more rational manner somehow ought to pipe down and keep our crazy thoughts to ourselves

Yes, I remember the happenings of that day and the national mood that followed as a scary time, largely because it bolstered the level of absurdity that already existed in our society.

There were those people who claimed then (and still try to claim now) that our nation was unified – people put aside their partisan leanings and saw ourselves as one.

What actually happened is that the right-wing elements of our society (including many of those who have admiration for this Age of Trump we’re now in) became more outspoken in their thought process – and the rest of us felt a sense of intimidation.

IT’S AS THOUGH many people felt too scared to have thoughts of opposition and felt they needed, as actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character would often tell wife Edith, to “stifle” themselves.

The fact that many of us haven’t permanently silenced ourselves may be the ultimate evidence that the “terrorists” of Sept. 11 didn’t prevail. If they had, we probably would have become a nation of people where the majority of us currently agree with whatever irrational thoughts get spewed out via the current president’s Twitter account.

So when I think of all the happenings that will occur on Tuesday (most timed to coincide with 8:48 a.m. and 9:29 a.m. – the moments that day when the World Trade Center towers were struck by hijacked jet planes), to me the focus ought to be less on all the pseudo-military ritual that will take place.

Yes, there will be those who will gather at many a City Hall across the nation to watch uniformed police officers salute and national anthems be played out of some sense that we’re showing we weren’t beaten down by those people who wanted to show contempt for our society because it is a multi-cultural place.

BUT I’D BE inclined to argue that we’re really showing our survival as a society by supporting those of us who differ from the “norm,” or what certain people would like to think ought to be the norm for all of us to follow.

Yes, Sept. 11, 2001 was a date of confusion – many of us didn’t have a clue what was really happening. Our lives seemed thrown all out of kilter.

Yet from the perspective of a Chicagoan, what I recall was that many downtown businesses shut down for the day as the area evacuated. For the most part, life returned to as close to normal as people of certain ideological leanings tried to use the chaos to impose their own thoughts upon all of us.

Perhaps the last thing we ought to be doing is getting obsessed with minute details of pseudo-patriotism. Personally, I think the people who get all upset that someone didn’t show the proper degree of respect for singing a national anthem or reciting a Pledge of Allegiance are the ones who are a real threat to the freedoms upon which our society is supposed to be based.

NOT THAT I’M going to be offended by those of you who feel compelled to attend one of the many ceremonies being held Tuesday to remember what happened 17 years ago. If it makes you feel comfortable, the better for you.

Although you thinking that Tuesday is an excuse to force your thought processes on others – if you think about it, that’s a downright un-American concept to have.

  -30-

Assuaging Trump backers’ egos create incidents at O’Hare, airports elsewhere

It was a depressing mood that spread this weekend at airports throughout our nation, including at Chicago's O’Hare International Airport. What with the number of people suddenly impacted by the executive order imposed by new President Donald J. Trump.

Welcome to Chicago? More like, Drop Dead!!!!! from Donald Trump, if you happen to be Arab

As in the one that put sudden restrictions on people from select Arab and Middle Eastern nations being able to enter the United States.

THIS WEEKEND BECAME the first practical impact of the new era that our nation has moved into – and which is one that is totally in line with the sentiments of the 46 percent of the electorate that actually voted for Trump to be president.

All across the nation at airports that accept international flights there were people being stuck in customs and detained indefinitely. A federal judge in Brooklyn, N.Y., issued an order Saturday night preventing them from being deported and they eventually were released and allowed to disperse amongst the U.S. populace, but their long-term fate is uncertain.

It didn’t matter that many of these people had relatives living within the United States with valid visas or full citizenship. Or that some of them had dual citizenship with other nations (such as Great Britain) that are full-fledged U.S. allies.

Saturday night, there were reports of some 18 people being stuck at O’Hare for hours on end, with similar numbers being found at other airports across the country. There was bureaucratic nonsense, and some even had their Facebook accounts inspected to get clues as to their political leanings. Activists upset about this had the International terminal blocked Saturday night, complicating the ability of people to get into, and out of, the airport. They didn't leave until the early hours of Sunday.

TRUMP: Appeasing the 46 percent

WHAT A GREAT way for our nation – which likes to hold itself up as the ideal that nations around the globe ought to strive to be like – to greet people.

“Drop dead, rag head!,” is what we might as well be telling them. Barack Obama felt like a long-distant memory Saturday night.

It’s not just people of Middle Eastern ethnic backgrounds who got detained (out of suspicion that they’re Islamic, which just naturally makes them subversive to the U.S. way of life, according to the nativist kooks). There were news reports of anybody coming from Iran getting extra scrutiny, regardless of who they are or what their backgrounds may be.

OBAMA: Did he ever really happen?

All of this is coming about because of the executive order that Trump signed a couple of days following his orders (border walls and sanctuary cities) aimed at harassing the Latino segment of our society.

THESE ARAB-ORIENTED ORDERS are the result of the Trump action that singles out people of seven specific nations – Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen – who will not be able to legally enter the United States for at least 90 days, and Trump on Sunday insisted his order remains in effect although aides are now talking down some of its enforcement provisions.

In theory, that measure is because U.S. officials will spend the next three months concocting policies concerning immigration and travel back and forth from Middle Eastern nations. Just like they're supposedly abolishing the Affordable Care Act and we should trust them to come up with a replacement policy in the future.

Although I suspect many of those who think healthcare reform was subversive also are of a particularly nativist and xenophobic bent want who want to believe these Middle East nations are producing all the “radical Islamic terrorists” who are a threat to our society’s existence.

Words of advice particularly relevant this weekend

And you had better use that particular “radical Islamic terrorist” phrase to describe those people, or else face the wrath of the ideologues as they concoct a policy to restrict your further existence within this society!

IN THE LONG run, I realize this is a short-term series of incidents this weekend. Although we shouldn’t think these are moments that these individuals impacted now will someday be capable of laughing about. Even though the Department of Homeland Security is trying to downplay Saturday's harassment by saying fewer than 1 percent of international travelers were impacted.

It’s embarrassing to our national reputation. It undermines any claims to superiority we might try to make about ourselves. It really is pathetic that we’re giving in to the most paranoid people of our society and letting their fears dictate our federal policy.

It’s giving reinforcement to the notion that the campaign phrase “Make America Great Again” really means some warped vision of what our nation never was, except in the minds of those with the most nativist of extremes. To which Trump is now working in high gear to appease; and which groups like the ACLU will have to work overtime to combat.

And the sad part will be those people amongst us who not only knowingly voted for this, but fully approve. Because it fits their vision, to which the only phrase I can truly think of to describe it is, “un-American!”

  -30-

A “new” news outlet in Chicago?

At a time when many people are downgrading the local newsgathering scene for having one newspaper being incapable of paying its printing bills and the other having been so weakened by bankruptcy that the only people now interested in buying it are ideologues more intrigued by political possibilities than reporting; it’s almost encouraging to see someone talking about creating something new.

Will we watch Chicago on Al Jazeera?

But that “someone” is Al Jazeera, the broadcast network funded by the government of Qatar, that most people became aware of in recent years as a source of propaganda for the Middle Eastern interests who viewed the U.S. military and western society as their enemy.

NOT THAT WE’LL be seeing any such programming here any time soon.

For in recent years, there has been an English version of Al Jazeera. Aside from the fact that its stories don’t center around the United States (their worldwide weather forecast usually spends just a few seconds on U.S. storms and spends the bulk of its time on Arab countries), it doesn’t differ much in tone from the network newscasts many of us don’t pay much attention to.

But the Al Jazeera folks have hopes of expanding their programming in the United States. They see a market that could help them make even more money, IF they can tap into it.

I have to praise the Al Jazeera types for one thing – they realize that producing an improved product means having more staff. Crain’s Chicago Business reported Tuesday that they plan to have a Chicago bureau of six reporters and producers – along with the rest of their world-wide staff.

MANY NEWSPAPERS AND networks have reduced their Chicago bureaus, or erased them altogether (the Washington Post is in the latter category) – all in the name of saving money. Going along with that old cliché, “You can’t spend what you don’t have.”

Although it would seem the Al Jazeera people are following the other old cliché, “You need to spend money in order to make money.”

After all, a worthwhile product is what is most essential to make any money from the news business. Nobody wants to read something that is cheap and shallow in terms of content.

So the answer is “yes.” I think it is a good thing that somebody is thinking in terms of hiring people to report the news. Considering the number of people who’d like to remain in the business after being told they were damaging some other company’s financial “bottom line,” they probably won’t have much problem finding qualified people to work.

BUT I’M ALSO wary of Al Jazeera – even though I don’t think their political spin is any more harmful than the nonsense we’d get if the Koch brothers really do take over the Chicago Tribune and make it in their own image.

Spin over fact is harmful in all circumstances – regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with the viewpoint being expressed!

The English-language versions of their newscasts that I have seen (usually broadcast on PBS affiliates) try to make themselves seem like a version of the BBC. Except that instead of thinking of England as the center of the universe, they focus on Arab nations.

But that may be because those were programs meant to air on other networks. We’re talking about a separate cable television channel they would control – and some of the observations I have heard are that Al Jazeera in English is much more neutered than the versions being broadcast in the Middle East.

WHICH COULD MAKE this whole effort an attempt to cleanse their own image around the world. Which is something the company desperately has to do.

Because there is the chance that these newly-hired people won’t get seen much. There are few cable television systems in this country that even include the channel in their lineups.

It may well be nativist paranoia that makes many people reluctant to even consider such a channel. But if Al Jazeera can’t overcome it, it will be the “Capitalist Way” – that causes it to fail.

  -30-

War’s over! Where’s all the celebration? Or do we see Part Three forthcoming?

He is going to be restrained by the economy (the federal government can’t afford to do many of the things Obama dreams of) and an ongoing war in Iraq (whether we like it or not, we’re stuck in it. I wouldn’t be surprised if U.S. troops remained there on Inauguration Day in January 2013).

Chicago Argus, Nov. 5, 2008

  -0-



Part 3 someday? Image from Indymedia Ireland

Perhaps it goes to show you just how little I know at times.

Because it seems this prediction that I published in this weblog on the “Day After” Election Day in 2008 when Barack Obama woke up realizing he had managed to beat John McCain and become president-elect turned out to be inaccurate.

FOR THIS WEEKEND, the Iraq War that began back in the presidency of George W. Bush officially came to an end. History will record that the last U.S. troops left the country on Sunday, although because of the time difference it was actually late Saturday in Chicago at the moment those troops crossed over the border into Kuwait – the nation whose invasion back in the early 1990s by Saddam Hussein triggered the whole notion that we were “at war” in Iraq.

And just out of a sense of disclosure, I have a cousin, Carlos, who was in the Army back in the late 1980s and early 1990s and wound up spending a year of his service fighting to “liberate” Kuwait.

But back to the present. Weekend news broadcasts were filled with lots of feature stories showing us soldiers in their tan fatigues (the famed “chocolate chips”) saying how pleased they were to know that they survived the war and that it truly is over.

OBAMA: Ended this Iraq war. Who begins the next?

These men likely will tell stories for the rest of their lives about how they were the absolute last U.S. troops to leave the Middle Eastern nation – for now.

BECAUSE I WON’T be surprised if conditions arise in future years that cause our military to think that U.S. troops will have to return. In fact, it may well turn out that what we’re calling the second Iraq War is really just the latest chapter of tensions that have been ongoing in that part of the world for centuries, and will continue for long after this weekend.

It makes me think that the idea of considering this war “over” is a little bit short-sighted. That very mentality was running through my mind back when Obama got elected president in large part by appealing to the people who always despised the notion that U.S. troops were located anywhere in the Middle East.

But for now, I will give Obama some credit (even though I’m sure the ideologues of our society will not want to do so). He brought this military conflict to an end. For now, the body count ceases to rise.

The point I tried to make all those years ago was that anybody who voted for Obama expecting there to be an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops truly was being naïve. I knew all those years ago that a withdrawal from Iraq would take years to complete – and even then only if absolutely nothing went wrong.

THAT IS WHY I implied that the process might still be taking place in January 2013 as Obama either prepares to take a second oath to serve a four-year term as president – or tries to hold back a look of anguish as one of the GOP dreamers actually manages to take that oath while Obama looks on – just before getting the final plane ride on Air Force One that brings him back home to Chicago.

Instead, it seems to be over. All combat troops left Iraq by this weekend, and all U.S. troops are supposed to be out of the country by Dec. 31. The soldiers will be returning home in streams – and we’re likely to see countless accounts of soldiers in fatigues being mobbed by family and friends, along with some cute wife or child at the center of the mix for them.

Yet for the life of me, I’m not sure what was really accomplished by this military action of the past few years. The reports already are cropping up of political “crisis” and tensions arising. I literally won’t be surprised if Iraq War Three crops up in the next decade.

The only real question is whether it will be a “President Obama” who has to start it in a second term, or if it will be some future chief executive who gets the credit/blame for the military mess.

YES, YOU PROBABLY out early from the tone of this commentary that I was never a proponent of this particular “war,” which as far as I was concerned was declared because of the feeling by the most recent President Bush to take on “unfinished business” from the administration of George Bush, the elder.

When George W. Bush got elected president in that mess of political maneuvering that passed for an election cycle in 2000, I knew that circumstances would arise that would be used to justify an Iraq War. Even if no such airplanes had ever struck the World Trade Center or Pentagon some 10 years ago, I believe the end result would have been similar in terms of military involvement in Iraq.

So because I “expected” it, I wasn’t shocked or offended when it occurred. And as far as getting out, it always struck me that the “war” was the equivalent of a “break it and buy it” policy.

We “broke” it by getting involved with military force. I want to believe (in fact, I desperately hope) that we have fixed it well enough to justify calling this military conflict over.

BUT SOMEHOW, I suspect (and fear) that the quickie glue job that we did to repair this symbolic artifact will soon some undone.

Is somebody bound to pick this “artifact” up off the shelf and notice that it is all chipped on the side that we turned toward the wall and face away from the potential customer?

  -30-

EXTRA: As I lie in my bed with a laptop computer, a television set tuned to CNN tells me that Osama bin Laden is dead

I’m a little hesitant to get too excited, unlike the crowds gathering outside the White House late Sunday into early Monday to celebrate the death of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

OBAMA: Will ideologues apologize?



My television set was tuned to CNN when President Barack Obama made the announcement that an attack in Pakistan by U.S. military forces resulted in bin Laden being killed – and that U.S. officials had control of his body.

I HAVE HEARD commentary offered up that bin Laden’s death is a moment comparable to the instant when we learned that Adolf Hitler was dead (which resulted in the end of the European portion of the Second World War).

In fact, looking at the video images being offered up live outside the White House, you’d think that people were trying early Monday to create 21^st Century versions of the V-E Day celebrations that burst out around the nation back in 1945 when the Nazis went from being a legitimately elected government entity to just a batch of malcontent kooks with a particularly sadistic streak. All we needed was a sailor bending a nurse over backward while giving her a smooch (an image I'm sure bin Laden would claim was an example of western decadence).

I did get my giggle from the one person in the crowd who prominently waved his “Latinos for Obama” campaign sign left over from the ’08 campaign season.

But my fear is that too many people are going to think that this “War on Terror” is now over, and that “we” won. One pundit on CNN literally came out and said “the war on terror is over.” Nonsense. The ideas and images of this current conflict are bigger than any one man.

WE MAY WELL prevail. I certainly hope so. But this fight is far from over for us. If you want a World War II analogy, this is the death of Mussolini. The war continued for another two years.

I fear too many people are going to let their guard down, which only makes us susceptible to whatever form of retaliation that bin Laden’s followers will try to drum up – all in the name of Islam and the prophet Mohammed.

That was actually the one point Obama brought up during his roughly 10-minute address that I liked – he pointed out that bin Laden was NOT really a Muslim. His actions were criminal, and that many true Muslims were among bin Laden’s victims throughout the years. Obama said, "bin Laden was not a Muslim leader, he was a mass murder of Muslims."

That is a statement that I’m sure will upset the conservative ideologues – those very people who like to believe that Obama himself is some sort of Muslim (that is, when they’re not accusing him of being a “socialist”).

HISTORY IS GOING to wind up “crediting” Obama for the downfall of bin Laden, similar to how George Bush the elder gets credit for the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall – all because he was in the position at the right time.

Talk about good timing!

What will the ideologues complain about now? What will Donald Trump rant about next? Or is he still going to try to claim that Obama really wasn’t worthy of an “Ivy League” education? I’d think that the actions of Sunday show just how irrelevant a campaign “issue” that truly is.

Actually, I think I know what it is they will try to use against Obama – the fact that Libya leader Moammar Gadhafi is still alive. Don’t forget that a U.S. military operation meant to kill him a few days ago failed – although it seems that Gadhafi’s son and other relatives are dead.

PERHAPS THEY’LL CLAIM he’s a failure, although I’d claim that U.S. forces came through on the big one. Because quite frankly, Gadhafi is a third-rate threat that we all too often exaggerate into a significant power.

Although I suppose Gadhafi himself will now issue some sort of statement denouncing U.S. imperialism. He may even call our nation a “criminal” state.

Which would be about as absurd a statement as some of the Obama-bashing rhetoric we get from people who want to think they’re on “our” side.

  -30-

Obama saw the sights of Europe, Middle East, but will he get the U.S. votes?

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama appears to have made it through a foreign tour of the Middle East and Europe without doing or saying anything so blatantly stupid that he would forevermore have been mocked (remember Michael Dukakis riding around in a tank?)

So the perception of how Obama did during his visits to hot spots in Iran and Afghanistan, along with the touristy spots in France and Germany, depends largely on how one viewed Obama before he went.

PEOPLE WHO ARE inclined to support Obama are going to talk up how he gained first-hand experience in the ways of the world, and now has a better understanding of international affairs that will make him a better president.

Those individuals who are ABO backers (Anybody But Obama) are going to trash the trip as a trivial excuse to take a mid-campaign vacation. Many of those who are inclined to back a Republican for president are of an ideological leaning that makes them distrust other nations’ governments, and some people have spouted out talk that they wish Obama would focus his attention on the U.S., rather than other countries.

The truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.

The simple fact is that if a candidate seeks the political position known informally as Leader of the Free World, he had better have some interest in the happenings of the world. One can make a legitimate argument that George W. Bush’s shortcomings as president were due to a lack of interest in anything related to the job – except when the little kids came to the White House to play t-ball games on the presidential lawn.

I PERSONALLY DON’T think Obama got to see the true circumstances involved in Iran or Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East. He got the guided tour with minders who made sure to take him to specific sites and see only certain things.

But it put him in a position where he had to immerse himself in foreign affairs, almost like he was cramming for an exam (as if four years as president could be compared to taking a test). I’m sure the Ivy League student in Obama (or the University of Chicago academic) felt completely comfortable under such circumstances.

It also gave him a chance to appear as though he was internationally oriented to those few people in this country who truly have not yet made up their minds about who to support come the Nov. 4 elections.

If anything, the Middle East portion of the trip was most important for Obama. Yet the public will likely remember the European segments much more.

FROM WATCHING THE man who got model/actress Carla Bruni to say “yes” to his marriage proposal suddenly fawn all over Obama when the junior senator from Illinois met with the president of France, to seeing the hundreds of thousands of German citizens cram the streets of Berlin to hear Barack speak, it gave the impression of increased respect for our country – if only Obama is able to win the general election.

Such respect has definitely been lacking in this decade, as all too many see the Bush years as those of an international bully running amok. Even though McCain is not George Bush by any definition, too many people around the world see him as tainted by the incumbent president.

It should be no surprise that Gallup Organization surveys released earlier this week showed at least 60 percent of European people of English, French and German nationalities all felt their country’s interests would gain if Obama defeats Republican John McCain.

Of course, some will argue that such sentiment is outweighed by the percentage of U.S. citizens who will distrust Obama because the “foreigners” like him. Others will note that the “foreigners” do not vote in U.S. elections, so we should not care what they think.

BUT THERE IS some evidence that what little bit of support Obama will lose because of his foreign interest will be outweighed by those who see it positively.

On Friday, Gallup officials came out with their latest tracking poll, showing Obama with a 6-percent lead over McCain. At 47 percent support for Barack compared to 41 percent for McCain, it is significantly larger than the 3- or 2-percent leads that Obama usually has over McCain.

Did the sight of Obama, with allusions to Ronald Reagan’s address at the Brandenburg Gate, suddenly sway a number of undecideds into the Obama camp?

The trick will be to see the polls of early next week to figure out how much of that increase he holds onto. The simple fact is that tracking polls show how we the potential electorate have a sheep-like mentality. We will follow the whim of the day.

WHEN THE REPUBLICANS have their nominating convention in St. Paul, Minn., McCain’s name is going to be in the news so often that he will gain the support of people who figure he must be worth voting for, if he’s getting covered. He may very well tie Obama in the polls.

Likewise, when Obama gives that speech at Invesco Field in Denver accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, his rhetoric likely will push his favorable ratings so high that the polls with have him with such a huge lead that people will wonder how McCain could ever have been delusional enough to think he could defeat Barack.

In short, winning an election is about hanging on to the support of the few people in our country who sincerely are willing to give both candidates a chance. One Gallup poll from earlier this week showed that only about one of every 16 voters seriously is willing to consider Obama or McCain – the others have either already made up their minds for one, the other, or feel disgust for both.

If Obama can keep the positive aura going that he has helped generate this week, then he has gone a long way toward becoming this nation’s first biracial president.

BUT THE TRIP was successful in one other way. It reduced the McCain campaign to the status of Second Story in the news cycle for over a week.

John McCain was reduced to trying to feed off the Obama attention by staging trivial stunts such as eating wienerschnitzel in Columbus, Ohio, and airing negative Obama radio ads in various rural U.S. towns that happen to be named Berlin.

His public comments during the week came off as petty rants, jealous that everybody was paying attention to the opponent and not him. It reinforced the notion that the Obama campaign is setting the agenda of the 2008 presidential election and that McCain is merely a follower.

Unless Obama literally tumbles down the steps of his airplane when arriving Sunday in Chicago (a la Chevy Chase’s impersonations of former President Gerald R. Ford) to speak to the UNITY convention of minority news media officials, John McCain is going to have to come up with something drastic to make up for the public perception ground he lost this week.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Barack Obama doesn’t seem to have hurt his campaign by visiting the Middle East (http://www.gallup.com/poll/109105/Gallup-Daily-Obama-There-Europe-Effect.aspx) and Europe, where locals (http://www.gallup.com/poll/109018/Britons-French-Germans-Solidly-Back-Obama.aspx) are in love with his persona. What do U.S. voters think?

Combining French glamour with tough talk on Iran (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/25/AR2008072501970.html?hpid=topnews), Obama is trying to appear like a knowledgable man of the world in speaking against the concept of Iran having access to nuclear weapons.