changes

in this weekend's independent newspaper there was a story by robert fisk about not letting the 19 murderers change the world.
fisk was of course referring to the hijackers of the planes that crashed into the twin towers and the pentagon.
i thought it was a bit rich referring to them as murderers as if they were in the same class as jack the ripper, charlie manson, bundy or shipman. by calling them murderers you can pretend that they were no more than the lone gunmen of dunblaine or columbine. but they were not. they were terrorists (and yes we can debate the one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist - but in this case we shall skip over that...) and their attack was not on an individual that they knew, or someone unlucky enough to be chosen at random - it was planned and calculated and it was aimed at an idea an ideology. in doing so 3000 lives were lost.
and i think in that moment when the first plane hit the world changed.

fisk for all his dodging around the issue by calling them murderers as if that was it end of story no more to worry about - seems to ignore this fact.
he also seems to ignore the fact that (and i am happy to be corrected on this) that bush had not done much in his period of government - other than not solve the middle east situation. so exactly what had bush done to bring on the attack ?

it is easy to see how the attack on afghanistan can be justified, it is a shame to see the fact that there the american forces seem to have lost the ability to turn the victory into something meaningful and lasting. kabul is only partly under control and outside this the country is back in the hands of the various warlords.

when the war on terror moved onto iraq there was a big sense of this was unfinished business and that bush junior was trying to prove that he was more of a man than his dad was. and the quick victory over the forces of saddam (hands up who thought that this was going to be another vietnam ?) they have decided to let the peace slip through their hands and now there is a growing feeling that this is going to be a protracted campaign.

meanwhile the conflict drags on and bush and cheney can argue that a kerry government would be open to a terrorist attack (conveniently ignoring that the twin towers took place on their watch) can talk big about the war on terror and how they will root terrorists out wherever they are.
and now russia has joined in!
do you feel safer ?
i don't.