I download the podcast and I’m a few weeks behind. This comment is for Mr. Danner.

Early in the interview, you quoted Condeleeza Rice as saying that the purpose of our military action was to convince potential jihadists not to wage jihad. You said that the Bush administration failed in thier intended purpose and created the opposite effect.

I find this construct very naive. I submit that the Bush administration knew exactly what they were doing and succeeded in several of their primary goals. They created a gold mine for their contractors and political allies: their base. They created fear and uncertainty in the American population. They succeeded brilliantly in cowing the Congressional Democrats. They intimidated the media into slanted coverage (while continuing to insinuate that the media continued to be liberal). They passed the Patriot Act. They unbalanced the budget in the same way that Ronald Reagan and David Stockman did in the 1980s, thereby decreasing the proportion of Americans who benefited from domestic social and educational spending. They desensitized Americans to the suffering and pain of non-American persons.

I, for one, don’t believe that they had any intention of building democracy. Ever.

The entire exercise was not about Afghanistan and Iraq. It was about us, and shifting the American people in order to secure and hold political and economic power through a narrative of national victimhood, pride and power. Is it not tyrue that the American people identify with US military power more than ever?

I await a mainstream journalist who has the courage to stop apologizing for the supposed misconceptions of the Bush administration, and present an explanation in terms of the American context.

I use the word “evil”. I am convinced that response to 9/11 was about retaining power regardless of law and morality. At that, at very great expense. I mean human life. The monetary figures are important to give us a sense of our powerlessness. We should keep talking about the costs and effectiveness/ineffectiveness of war until it sinks in better.

The 9/11 attack revealed our collective vulnerability ( stripping the body?) on the emotional level after the deaths and material damage. If we are brave enough to look at it, our own evil has been revealed (Arendt). This was one of Bin Laden’s points. how we were allowed ourselves to be victims of demagoguery and fear mongering, easily taken in. Many also believed and I can’t imagine do not still believe in American supremacy and marching off to war to protect that.

If Obama should somehow decide to simply pull out there will be those who will say that we were never allowed to “finish the job” ( as they did and do still about Viet Nam). There are still those in Congress. You will hear from them cries to save the honor of all the already dead by more killing. And you will hear I am sure ” yet again not finishing the job” /”abandoning what we started” and about our weakness. And then continued fear-mongering to gain politically.

I don’t think the harm that has been done has sunk in yet, and that “we are all torturers now” has hardly been heard or taken to heart.

I heard Mark Danner also on Bill Moyers recently. Riveted to the interview and recommending it, I thought to write you to get ahold of him for this series but had not done so yet. Thank you for being so alert.