"Critics Warn Withdrawal From Afghanistan Paints Entirely Accurate Picture Of U.S. Government"

"'The collapse of a nation following its occupation by the United States sends the international community a message that we're a big powerful country that goes around the world blundering into lengthy imperial misadventures,' said Douglas Reisenthaler of the nonpartisan Institute for Federal Policy, one of many detractors who argued that by exiting Afghanistan, the U.S. military was giving the completely spot-on impression that America invades foreign countries on dubious grounds, enters aimless, prolonged conflagrations that it refuses to leave out of pride, and then retreats after a humiliating defeat."

From The Onion.

"An Augury of the Anti-Liberal Politics and Virulent Nationalism That Would Soon Reach Around the World, Even to America"

"Two decades after September 11, we're no longer those Americans who believed such things would never happen to us, and who, when they did happen, went boldly overseas to rid the world of monsters. Experts now see white-nationalist terrorism as a greater domestic threat than Islamist terrorism. The new fight is for our own democracy. It will require all the restraint and purpose and wisdom that we struggled to muster when the enemy wasn't us."

George Packer at The Atlantic writes that 9/11 "was the first sign that the 21st century would be a period of shock and disaster."

And Calvin Woodward, Ellen Knickmeyer, and David Rising of the AP discuss the event's impact.

"Rest of Country Temporarily Feels Deep Affection for New York"

"I'm happy people think it was brave and bold and brilliant—I've been told it's those things. I feel like it was more that we were tapping into something so powerful that it was more about the hugeness of the event, which is what made it probably feel bolder and braver than it was. We were just doing what we did every week, and we had to do it to keep the lights on in the office."

Brian VanHooker at Mel presents "An Oral History of The Onion's 9/11 Issue."

"We Can and We Must Pursue a Different Option"

"Neither do we want a foreign policy that is based on the logic that led to those wars and corroded our democracy: a logic that privileges military tools over diplomatic ones, aggressive unilateralism over multilateral engagement, and acquiescence to our undemocratic partners over the pursuit of core interests alongside democratic allies who truly share our values. We have to view the terrorism threat through the proper scope, rather than allowing it to dominate our view of the world. The time has come to envision a new form of American engagement: one in which the United States leads not in war-making but in bringing people together to find shared solutions to our shared concerns. American power should be measured not by our ability to blow things up, but by our ability to build on our common humanity, harnessing our technology and enormous wealth to create a better life for all people."

Bernie Sanders in Foreign Affairs writes that "[t]he American people don't want endless war."

"The Nation's Only Existing Memorial to Its Middle Eastern Wars"

"Those whose names are engraved on the wall in Marseilles died in service to their country. Of that there is no doubt. Whether they died to advance the cause of freedom or even the wellbeing of the United States is another matter entirely. Terms that might more accurately convey why these wars began and why they have persisted for so long include oil, dominion, hubris, a continuing and stubborn refusal among policymakers to own up to their own stupendous folly, and the collective negligence of citizens who have become oblivious to where American troops happen to be fighting at any given moment and why. Some might add to the above list an inability to distinguish between our own interests and those of putative allies like Saudi Arabia and Israel."

For Memorial Day weekend, Andrew Bacevich at MintPress News writes about visiting the Middle East Conflicts Memorial.

"One Is Struck by the Continuing Relevance of His Writings"

"As for the future, Foner denounces the divisive politics of Donald Trump, but he also laments the failure of Barack Obama to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the Great Recession of 2008 to make fundamental changes in the nature of American capitalism. While disappointed with Obama as a mainstream Democrat who refused to challenge established corporate and banking interests, Foner sees promise in the 2016 Presidential campaign of democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, observing that the type of fundamental change advanced by the Senator from Vermont is evidence of how American radicalism and a usable past have persisted into the present day. In discussing his teaching of a class on the radical tradition in America, Foner cautions that the key is to emphasize movements to promote social change and freedom rather than to concentrate upon individuals. Foner has retired from Columbia University, but let us hope that we will continue to benefit from his observations as a public intellectual in the pages of the Nation and other influential publications."

Ron Briley at History News Network reviews Eric Foner's Battles for Freedom: The Use and Abuse of American History.

"Crazy Nut Donald Trump Thinks George W. Bush Was President on 9/11"

"In fact, Trump has not claimed that Bush had specific knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. He said, 'George Bush had the chance, also, and he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA.' That is correct. Bush was given numerous, detailed warnings that Al Qaeda planned an attack. But the Bush administration had, from the beginning, dismissed fears about terrorism as a Clinton preoccupation. Its neoconservative ideology drove the administration to fixate on state-supported dangers—which is why it turned its attention so quickly to Iraq. The Bush administration ignored pleas by the outgoing Clinton administration to focus on Al Qaeda in 2000, and ignored warnings by the CIA to prepare for an upcoming domestic attack. The Bush administration did not want the 9/11 attacks to occur; it was simply too ideological and incompetent to take responsible steps to prevent them."

Jonathan Chait at New York responds to conservative reactions to Donald Trump's description of George W. Bush.

And David Frum at The Atlantic wonders if Republicans are members of "a functional political party."

The End of Jeb!?

"Donald Trump is not noble. Jeb Bush is going to be questioned on this and he's going to need a better answer than saying his brother kept the country safe. He didn't. And he didn't do any better in the aftermath. He made some good speeches and, to his credit, he cautioned Americans not to blame Muslims in general for the attacks (which may be the best thing he did). Other than that, it's not a good record, no matter how you look at it. In fact, it's astonishing that Jeb ever thought he could run without having to answer for it. Trump is going to make sure he does."

Heather Digby Parton in Salon looks at how "the Donald finally pushed a button that was too much for Jeb to bear."

"Should Obama Pardon Bush?"

"ACLU director Anthony Romero offered a different approach: instead of prosecuting, Obama could pardon a highly visible group of Bush administration officials - including former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Bush and Cheney themselves. Romero mentions three important instances of 'preemptive pardoning,' when presidents have issued pardons in order to heal a national division: Lincoln and Andrew Johnson's pardons of Confederate soldiers, Ford's pardon of Nixon, and Carter's pardon of Vietnam draft-dodgers. The latter two are widely seen as having been politically costly, and Ford's pardon of Nixon even as a serious lapse in executive accountability. Writing last year about the political use of pardons, Leon Neyfakh suggests that a number of twentieth century presidents have used pardons to signal disagreement with existing policies."


Julia Azari at The Washington Monthly explores the question.

"Fourth-Grader Drawing Big Blank On Which Year 9/11 Terror Attacks Occurred"

"'I know it begins with a two, and I remember it was near "Barack Obama becomes president" on our study timeline, but was it 2005? 2007?' said Ackerman under his breath, squinting down at his fill-in-the-blank test and firmly pressing his small fist against his forehead as he tried to recall whether the largest terrorist attack in American history happened before or after the Iraq War. 'Think, think, think. It’s got to be 2011, right? Yeah, that sounds right.'"


From The Onion.

"This Is a Book about America's Demons"

"Americans fear mobs: They are the dark force lurking inside 'Enemy Below' conspiracy theories, one of several categories of 'primal myths' Walker explores. Over time, blacks, immigrant laborers and Jewish radicals have all been the protagonists in imagined 'Enemy Below' conspiracy theories. A mythical group of black intellectuals called 'The Organization' was said to be behind the 1965 Watts riots, Walker writes."

Hector Tobar in the Los Angeles Times reviews Jesse Walker's The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory.

"To Understand Edward Snowden's Motivations, Look to Aaron Swartz"

"Snowden’s mindset seems similar to me. He told The Guardian that, as a teenager, he considered the Internet 'the most important invention in all of human history' because it connected him to 'people with all sorts of views that I would never have encountered on my own.' But, as an adult, he increasingly worried that surveillance was destroying the Web. The same invention he believed could liberate mankind was becoming a tool of oppression."

Noam Scheiber at The New Republic reacts to the National Security Agency leaks.

And Alec MacGillis "welcomes the uproar."

"He Brings Home the Fundamental Rashness and Recklessness of the American Response to the Sept. 11 Attack"

"A more deadly consequence of this heedlessness was the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the false belief that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. An exchange from that time conveys the mind-set of the Bush administration. When Stephen Hadley, the deputy national security adviser, told Paul Wolfowitz, then the deputy defense secretary, that there was no intelligence linking Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein, 'Wolfowitz tightened his lips,' Eichenwald writes. '"We’ll find it," he said with certainty in his voice. "It’s got to be there."' The run-up to the Iraq war also elicits one of the most pungent lines in the book. After Bush told Jacques Chirac that biblical prophecies were being fulfilled and specifically that 'Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East,' the French president decided, in Eichenwald’s words, that 'France was not going to fight a war based on an American president’s interpretation of the Bible.'"

In The New York Times, Thomas E. Ricks reviews Kurt Eichenwald's 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars.

"9/11 Truther Convinced Government Destroyed Past 11 Years Of His Life"

"'Meanwhile—and this is where it really gets interesting—on four separate occasions in 2002 I recorded my mother saying she thought my research was "interesting" and "worth thinking about,"' continued the man, who confirmed he has watched the film series Loose Change seven or eight times in the past week. 'How was it, then, that by November of the following year she was calling it "crazy" and "sad," a complete reversal of her original stance?'"

From The Onion.

"Yet, the White House Failed to Take Significant Action"

"But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat. Intelligence officials, these sources said, protested that the idea of Bin Laden, an Islamic fundamentalist, conspiring with Mr. Hussein, an Iraqi secularist, was ridiculous, but the neoconservatives’ suspicions were nevertheless carrying the day."

In The New York Times, Kurt Eichenwald reports on still-classified documents from the spring and summer of 2001 that warned the Bush administration of an impending attack by Al Qaeda within the United States.

"A Record of an Agency That’s Failed"

"The harder truth is that most presidents since Woodrow Wilson have been less intimidated by the F.B.I. than seduced by it. Under the rubric of protecting the nation, they secretly authorized the F.B.I. to open mail, infiltrate political parties, tap phones, perform 'black bag' break-ins of homes and institutions, and draw up vast lists of Americans eligible for 'custodial detention' during a crisis.

"Or at least Hoover said they did."

Kevin Baker in The New York Times reviews Tim Weiner's Enemies: A History of the FBI.

Stuff Happened

"A group of Republican neoconservatives and other political and government figures quickly gathered not only to respond to the 9/11 attacks but also, as they saw it, to restore the nation’s confidence and ideals. Cheney and Rumsfeld had privately deplored the decline of American power in the Nixon and Ford administrations during the Vietnam War. They saw in 9/11 an opportunity to revive American power and superiority, or as Cheney put it, to 'get it right this time.' Much of what happened after the attacks would very likely have occurred no matter who was in charge—the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the building up of intelligence organizations and other changes. But from the start, Cheney and Rumsfeld began pushing for a much wider change, what the president called a 'war on terror.'
"But what did a 'war on terror' mean?"

Alan Brinkley in The New York Times reviews two recent memoirs from Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

"Our Solution Was Not to Shrink from Its Scale but to Embrace It"

New York magazine presents "The Encyclopedia of 9/11."

And Jeremy Stahl in Slate writes a series on the rise and fall of 9/11 Truthers.

An End for the "Peddlers of Paranoia"?

"The current round of paranoid politics got started in the 1990s, with bizarre stories about drug-running, murder plots, and other pseudo-scandals committed by Bill Clinton, the president who first targeted bin Laden and narrowly missed killing him in Afghanistan in 1998. But the paranoia ramped up after September 11, as the so-called architect of permanent Republican domination, Karl Rove, then President George W. Bush’s White House aide, informed the Republican National Committee that its strategy for political power centrally involved exploiting terrorism. Only the GOP should be depicted as serious about terrorism, while the Democrats should be cast as weak and soft. In the 2002 midterm elections, Republicans campaigned with a vengeance on the stark appeal to fear—remember the attacks on Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a triple amputee Vietnam veteran?—and they regained the Senate in 2002. Paranoia was gold."

Sean Wilentz in The New Republic wonders if Osama bin Laden's death will end "the long cycle of outrageous attacks, innuendo, and conspiracy-mongering" in American politics.

But Ed Kilgore disagrees.

"Osama Bin Laden Found Inside Each Of Us"

"'There is a part inside each of us that makes us throw recyclable items in with the rest of our trash, let Mom go to voicemail, and eat coworkers' food out of the refrigerator,' Tenet told the council. 'It is a dark, dank, shameful place, and it is my belief that the man responsible for the events of Sept. 11 lurks therein.'"

From The Onion, 2004.