Krugman: 9/11 is "occassion for shame"

[courts]

We should also think about all those heroes who can't attend ceremonies because they were put on a watch list

Name one.

You mean the 9/11 first responders who are getting screened and forced through a ridiculous process that if they object to will bar them from getting any benefits? The ones the disgusting specimens we call politicians said weren't invited to the ceremonies because of 'security and space issues'?

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2011/08/15/first-responders-snubbed-not-invited-to-911-ceremony/
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/9-11-first-responders-left-out-of-10th-anniversary-event.html
http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-philadelphia/9-11-first-responders-banned-from-ceremony-commemorating-9-11-first-responders
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/911_first_responders_will_be_checked_against_fbi_t.php
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/21/911-responders-screened-for-terror-ties_n_852198.html

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Yes, because obviously the thing we ought to be thinking about on 9/11 isn't those who died, their families, or the heroes who sacrificed so much that day to save the lives of others in trouble. Nope, it's a day to reflect on the War in Iraq and how stupid George W. Bush is.

You're correct, thinking about how we needlessly killed many times over the amount of people that died in 9/11 and totally surrendered what little pretense of belief in privacy, individual rights or basic human dignity we had is too limiting. We should also think about all those heroes who can't attend ceremonies because they were put on a watch list or have crippling medical bills that are uncovered or simply weren't invited. Or the families that had their life insurance coverage revoked because there were no bodies to bury.

Republican opposition to the Zadroga says everything about how their faux patriotism is just a ploy to politicize 9/11 for votes. They don't have genuine concern for the victims.

[greenforest32]

In all seriousness, what did this sympathy produce, in terms of tangible effects?

Two pointless wars, Bush re-election, and the collapse of the economy.  (well in fairness the economy was going to collapse anyway because of the neo-liberalism, but the wars hastened it).  Basically the Republicans played right into Al-Queda's master plan.

[CJK]

No, 9/11 is not a time to feel shame for Americans. Maybe the Republican party, but not Americans. 9/11 was exploited to take America into the war in Iraq, which cost more in every way (fiscally, morally, and most importantly the lives of American soldiers and the citizens of Iraq) than the more understandable war in Afghanistan (which should have been conducted in a different way but something needed to be done). Americans should remember clearly how 9/11 was exploited, but it's nothing to be ashamed of. Angry maybe, but not ashamed.

Another liberal myth. It really astonishes me how people forget that a majority of Americans favored war with Iraq BEFORE 9/11.

Do you have proof of this statement?

Gallup Poll, February 19-21 2001

Would you favor or oppose sending American troops back to the Persian Gulf in order to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq?

Favor: 52%
Oppose: 42%

http://www.gallup.com/poll/1633/Iraq.aspx#4

The "Favor" position rose to 74% after 9/11 but by August 2002 it had fallen back to 53%.

Before 9/11, that was a very theoretical question though. I doubt that if Bush ramped up for war without it, it never would have happened. The Democrats wouldn't have capitulated like they did and the media wouldn't have pushed for it/not questioned the legitimacy of the invasion.  

Also:
Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks, or not?
August, 2002
Yes 53%
No 34%
Not Sure 13%

March, 2003
Yes 51%
No 41%
Not Sure 8%

Aren't most political questions theoretical? It was certainly less theoretical than invading Iran or even Afghanistan. First, there was unfinished business after the Gulf War and people still remembered the easy victory of 1991. Second, we were already fighting Iraq in 2001. Look at this newspaer article http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/17/world/attack-iraq-overview-us-british-jets-strike-air-defense-centers-iraq.html.

As for the Democrats, it was a Democratic President who first said the U.S. sought regime change in Iraq back in 1998. The media thought that Iraq had WMDs before 9/11, so that rationale might not have been challenged.

The reason that people thought Saddam was involved in 9/11 was because they thought he was a menace. They did not think he was a menace just because they thought he was involved in 9/11.

It would be legitimate to accuse Bush of exploiting 9/11 if he attacked Iraq in the immediate months following. In fact, Rumsfeld wanted to launch a limited invasion of southern Iraq scheduled to begin in February 2002 that would have set up Shiite enclave, seized most of Saddam's oil, and prepared the way for a later piush to Baghdad either by American troops or American trained Shiite and Kurdish fighter (this was in "Cobra II"). But Bush rejected that option.

[minionofmidas]

Want to share, don't want to start a thread... just read an article on a german onion-ripoff-style website, posted yesterday, that claimed there is a new conspiracy theory that 9/11 was actually perpetrated by... the truthers.
Because, let's face it, cui bono? Certainly not Al Qaeda and not the US Government. But a lot of truthers have been making a lot of money with their books.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Krugman is a joke and a coward......

[opebo]

...Conservatives believe the worst aspect about 9/11 was the senseless terrorism.

'Senseless'? How is it senseless?  It worked very well, and all that has happened since has worked very well for them.

I believe with hindsight one could say, for example, that Pearl Harbor was a grievous error on the part of the Japanese (though not 'senseless'), awakening the Sleeping Giant and leading to the destruction of Japan; or, to a lesser extent, pretty much the same thing about the American involvement in Vietnam.  But the 9/11 strike - though one naturally abhors its perpetrators for their religiosity - must be admitted as a masterful and ingenious bit of David-and-Goliath strategy, and about as far from 'senseless' as a human action could be.

[Landslide Lyndon]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/about-that-paul-krugman-allegation-of-911-shame/2011/03/03/gIQAdwBMNK_blog.html

But is it really a controversial assertion to say that conservatives seized on the intense focus on terrorism as a major national issue in the wake of 9/11 in order to gain political advantage?
Here’s Karl Rove in the runup to the 2002 midterm elections (via Nexis):

    President Bush’s top political adviser said today that Republicans will make the president’s handling of the war on terrorism the centerpiece of their strategy to win back the Senate and keep control of the House in this year’s midterm elections.

    “We can go to the country on this issue because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America’s military might and thereby protecting America,” Karl Rove said at the Republican National Committee meeting here.

Here’s Rudy Giuliani, at the 2004 Republican National Convention (via Nexis):

    I looked up and seeing the flames of hell emanating from those buildings and realizing that what I was actually seeing was a human being on the 101st, 102nd floor that was jumping out of the building, I stood there; it probably took five or six seconds. It seemed to me that it took 20 or 30 minutes. And I was stunned. And I realized in that moment and that instant, I realized we were facing something that we had never, ever faced before...At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and I said to him, ‘’Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president.’’ I say it again tonight, I say it again tonight: thank God that George Bush is our president.

Here’s top McCain adviser Charlie Black, during the 2008 campaign:

    A top adviser to Sen. John McCain said that a terrorist attack in the United States would be a political benefit to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a comment that was immediately disputed by the candidate and denounced by his Democratic rival.

    Charles R. Black Jr., one of McCain’s most senior political advisers, said in an interview with Fortune magazine that a fresh terrorist attack “certainly would be a big advantage to him.”

By the way, as some on the left have conceded, the “politicization” of national security issues isn’t necessarily a bad thing — the parties should be presenting sharply contrasting visions about these issues. And I wouldn’t tar all Republicans with this brush, either. During Obama’s presidency, current GOP leaders have for the most part kept the debate clean on topics such as Guantanamo Bay and terrorism. But as Dave Weigel notes, to deny that terrorism was used as a wedge issue after 9/11 is tantamount to “denying a few years of political history.” There’s no denying that in the wake of 9/11, and in the four elections that followed, some Republicans and conservatives viewed the terrorism debate as a way to gain political advantage and to sow gut-level fear of the opposition. This isn’t a controversial assertion. To parahprase Weigel, what’s controversial (in addition to his language) is Krugman’s timing in making it.