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Sunday, May 02, 2004

Bremer Takes Back Critical Comments About Bush on Terrorism
Let me give you two topics-- revising history and how high would you jump with a gun to your head. Discuss.

This is most bizarre from the AP today:

L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said Sunday he regrets a statement he made more than six months before the Sept. 11 attacks that the Bush administration was "paying no attention" to terrorism.

Bremer said any implied criticism that President Bush was not acting against terrorism was "unfair."

Ahead of the November election, Bush is facing criticism he didn't make terrorism his No. 1 priority before the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and then weakened the war on terror by invading Iraq and shifting the focus from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The resurfacing of Bremer's comments added to administration frustrations.

At a McCormick Tribune Foundation conference on terrorism on Feb. 26, 2001, Bremer said, "The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'

"That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it."

Bremer made the speech after he had chaired the National Commission on Terrorism, a bipartisan body formed by the Clinton administration to examine U.S. counterterrorism policies.

In a statement Sunday, Bremer said his remarks three years ago "reflected my frustration" that none of his commission's recommendations had been implemented by Clinton or the new Bush administration.

"Criticism of the new administration, however, was unfair. President Bush had just been sworn into office and could not reasonably be held responsible for the Federal Government's inaction over the preceding 7 months," Bremer's Sunday statement said.

"I regret any suggestion to the contrary. In fact, I have since learned that President Bush had shared some of these frustrations, and had initiated a more direct and comprehensive approach to confronting terrorism consistent with the threats outlined in the National Commission report.

"I am strongly supportive and grateful for the President's leadership and strategy in combating terrorism and protecting American national security throughout his first term in office."

10:12:34 PM | COMMENT [] | TRACKBACK []

Thoughts about War and Cold Mountain
One of these days, I'd like to tell you about Anthony Minghella's film Cold Mountain-- how it reminded me of Homer's classical war epic, The Odyssey; how it is an anti-war film; that Ada's line "I suppose God is tired of being called down on every side of the argument..." is one of the most prescient lines in light of the US invasion of Iraq; and why I consider it one of the best films of 2003.

I was thumbing through Charles Frazier's novel, in which the film is adapted from, and I came across a quote that I had marked in red but nonetheless forgot about anyway. The character Inman is writing a letter to Ada who is home in Cold Mountain; he's describing how things have changed, how he has changed. As he writes, he witnesses an immense flock of pigeons flying south. There were so many of them that as they crossed the path of the sun, they darkened it. Inman explains "At least that much remain unchanged," birds flying.

Then Inman explains how his perception of war has changed since four years earlier when the promise of war "made up a war frenzy."

The powerful draw of new faces, new places, new lives. And new laws whereunder you might kill all you wanted and not be jailed, but rather be decorated. Men talked of war as if they committed it to preserve what they had and what they believed. But Inman now guessed it was boredom with the repetition of the daily rounds that had made them take up weapons. The endless arc of the sun, wheel of seasons. War took a man out of that circle of regular life and made a season of its own, not much dependent on anything else. He had not been immune to its pull. But sooner or later you get awful tired and just plain sick of watching people killing one another for every kind of reason at all, using whatever implements fall to hand.

Today, the season of Spring has shown a blooming of uprisings, bombings, atrocities toward Iraqi detainees, and deaths of US troops. Because of this, the silver lining of war seems to be fading away.

Many Americans were immune to the pull of this war, the promise to rid Iraq off its weapons of terrible destruction, the promise to rid it of its despotic dictator, the promise to liberate its people, and the promise that peace in Iraq and the region was simply an invasion away. Indeed, many got sucked into it on rallies of patriotism, loyalty to a president, fear of imminent destruction, and the ideal to spread peace and democracy. But as Inman explains, there comes a time when the soul grows tired and sick of it. Is this time soon coming for us?

11:26:33 AM | COMMENT [] | TRACKBACK []