watto
10.12.03, 19:09
Sunday October 27, 2002
Gore Vidal, 77, and internationally renowned for his award-winning novels and
plays, has long been a ferocious, and often isolated, critic of the Bush
administration at home and abroad. He now lives in Italy. In Vidal's most
recent book, The Last Empire, he argued that 'Americans have no idea of the
extent of their government's mischief ... the number of military strikes we
have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.'
Vidal's highly controversial 7000 word polemic titled 'The Enemy Within' -
published in the print edition of The Observer today - argues that what he
calls a 'Bush junta' used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to enact a
pre-existing agenda to invade Afghanistan and crack down on civil liberties at
home.
Vidal writes: 'We still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous
Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil
libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights
but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow
the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and
replaced a popularly elected President with the oil and gas Bush-Cheney junta.'
Vidal argues that the real motive for the Afghanistan war was to control the
gateway to Eurasia and Central Asia's energy riches. He quotes extensively
from a 1997 analysis of the region by Zgibniew Brzezinski, formerly national
security adviser to President Carter, in support of this theory. But, Vidal
argues, US administrations, both Democrat and Republican, were aware that the
American public would resist any war in Afghanistan without a truly massive
and widely perceived external threat.
'Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our
long-contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan ... [because] the
administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can
deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable, lone, crazed killer
(this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he
hates us because we're rich 'n free 'n he's not.' Vidal also attacks the
American media's failure to discuss 11 September and its consequences:
'Apparently, "conspiracy stuff" is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.'
'It is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life.
Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America
had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since - well, at
least the bright dawn of the era of Reagan and deregulation.'
Vidal draws comparisons with another 'day of infamy' in American history,
writing that 'The truth about Pearl Harbour is obscured to this day. But it
has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be
investigated if Bush has anything to say about it.' He quotes CNN reports that
Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit
Congressional investigation of the day itself, ostensibly on grounds of not
diverting resources from the anti-terror campaign.
Vidal calls bin Laden an 'Islamic zealot' and 'evil doer' but argues that
'war' cannot be waged on the abstraction of 'terrorism'. He says that 'Every
nation knows how - if it has the means and will - to protect itself from thugs
of the sort that brought us 9/11 ... You put a price on their heads and hunt
them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia;
and no-one has suggested bombing Palermo.'
www.cpa.org.au/garchve5/1116vidal.html
