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Sunday, 11 September 2011

Countering Rhetorical Tricks - "9/11 and the Successful War"


 
(Washington, DC) Stratfor Global Intelligence just published an essay announcing that the nation's rulers have conducted a "successful war" on terror following the events of 9/11. The author, CEO and Stratfor founder, George Friedman, dressed up the standard Bush - Cheney justification for the past ten years of foreign misadventures and domestic decline: 

"One of the most extraordinary facts of the war that begin on 9/11 was that there have been no more successful major attacks on the United States." George Friedman, September 6

That's the argument pure and simple.

How do you counter that?

First, the statement excludes the most important fact about 9/11. It was a "successful major attack on the United States." The event caused human tragedies accompanied by the shock that the most powerful nation on earth left its centers of governance and finance unprotected.

Friedman and those he defends have one overriding imperative in discussing 9/11, exclude the event itself as a topic of discussion. Move on as though history starts after the successful attacks. Never ever let the topic focus on Bush administration's command negligence surrounding 9/11.

Second, keep in mind that the rhetorical imperative of the successful war argument requires that the following question is rarely asked and never considered at any length. How on earth could these attacks have been planned and executed without discovery? That question must be excluded at all costs. If asked, the clear answers obliterate claims for a successful war that supposedly followed 9/11. The answers completely undermine the arguments supporting the usurpation of the Constitution, the dire costs of the national security state, and endless wars.



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