[Peace-discuss] Perspective on "What Bush Knew"

[David Green]

ZNet Commentary
What Did Bush Know, When? May 22, 2002
By Michael Albert 

The above question screams from mainstream newspapers.
It froths from 
liberals' lips. What troubles me more, however, is
that some leftists 
also find it important.
 
Prevalent Question: What did Bush know and when did he
know it 
regarding possible terrorism threats preceding
9/11--and what did Bush do in 
light of his knowledge?

Absent Question 1: What did Bush know and when did he
know it regarding 
the likely effects of bombing Afghanistan after
9/11--and why did Bush 
go ahead and bomb in light of his knowledge?

Absent Question 2: What did Bush know and when did he
know it regarding 
the impact of the Iraq Embargo--and why does Bush
persist with the 
embargo in light of his knowledge?

Absent Question 3: What did Bush know and when did he
know it regarding 
the impact of his globalization policies, his arms
shipments and 
production, his repressive civil legislation, his
economic and cultural 
policies, his UN vetoes and ecological isolationism,
and so on and so 
forth--and why does Bush persist with these policies
in light of his 
knowledge?

Supposing we had the means to answer the question
about Bush's 
foreknowledge of 9/11, it would at most reveal that
U.S. intelligence services 
lack competence. But these are the U.S. same
intelligence agencies that 
can't find the perpetrator of the recent anthrax
attacks, even though 
the anthrax came from Fort Detrick, Maryland, and even
though, given the 
skills required, the number of possible culprits is a
handful. 

Of course these agencies lack competence. Moreover,
what good does 
demonstrating the incompetence of U.S. intelligence
agencies do peace and 
justice? Should bolstering surveillance budget
allotments be a new 
progressive program plank?

In contrast to the difficulty of knowing Bush's
foreknowledge of 
terrorist tactics, it's easy to know what Bush knew
and when he knew it about 
bombing Afghanistan, about the Kyoto Accords, about
Mideast policy, 
about implications of embargoes on Iraq and Cuba,
about globalization, and 
so on. And knowing this would reveal important truths
profoundly 
relevant to peace and justice concerns. 

So why is any leftist caught up in the hypocritical
democratic party 
and media maven hoopla? When TV news allots massive
time to a story 
vaguely correlated to progressive concerns, must we
immediately hop on 
board?

The irony is that the question "what did Bush know
before 9/11?" may be 
the only "what did he know" question that Bush can
answer without 
revealing a grotesque value system. 

Bush can say, for example, "I knew that our
intelligence services 
reported numerous threats, just as they have reported
at all other times. I 
did not, in response, shut down transportation and
communication 
because if I did, the next day I would have heard ten
times as many threats, 
and thereafter I would have had to permanently shut
down all 
communications and transportation, if I accepted that
approach." 

This is also the answer Democrats would give, were
Democrats in the 
White House for the event. And it is the answer the
media mavens would 
give, were the media not concerned to put some brakes
on the Bush 
juggernaut. 

Okay, if the government knew that planes might soon be
flown into the 
sides of skyscrapers, then instructions to pilots and
even to passengers 
should have been different, sure. And maybe some
politicians are 
sincerely concerned to correct these failings--it's
possible. But none of 
that makes expanding CIA spending a leftist agenda. 

Hold on. The media want to restrain the Bush
juggernaut?

Yes, the Bushite maniacs in Washington have
sufficiently worried 
sectors of our ruling elites elements of the media
have begun seeking 
self-serving ways to slow down the madness. Why don't
the media just call it 
immoral, call it imperial, call it warmongering,
repressive, vile? They 
don't do that because they like those features, and
they don't want to 
draw attention to them, much less ridicule them. 

They worry that the Bush approach has gone a little
over the top--but 
not that it is immoral or imperial. They want to curb
the excesses, but 
they don't want to point the populace toward
system-defying insights. 

Not surprisingly, therefore, democrats and media
commentators ask what 
Bush knew regarding 9/11, rather than asking how
markets, private 
ownership relations, and government bureaucracy compel
horrible outcomes 
regardless of what Bush or anyone else knows.

The left should not climb aboard as a barely audible
echo to a 
crescendo of hypocrisy. 

The left should direct public attention back on the
plight of 
Palestinians, on the Iraq embargo and impending
invasion of Iraq, on the 
enlarging war in Colombia, and on the horrors of
globalization, racism, 
sexism, and wage slavery.



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