Never Forget the horrors that 9/11 unleashed

From torture and indefinite detention to wars of aggression and random drone strikes, humanity continues to pay the price of American belligerence.

For 21 years, America’s global empire has used a set of attacks on U.S. soil as the pretext for wars of aggression and human rights abuses including torture, indefinite detention without charge of trial, and mass surveillance.

What do you recall on 9/11?

Many today recall the tragedies of September 11, 2001. I am more driven to recall the vastly greater horrors unleashed by the bipartisan response that continues to drive international conflict today, a generation later.

I've done so much writing, speaking, and organizing challenging the constitutional crises resulting from so-called “national security” efforts that my concerns are frankly difficult to summarize. From wars for profit to threats to freedom of conscience and evasions of congressional oversight—and from institutional corruption to the pattern of civil liberties abuses insulating programs like corporate fossil fuel extraction from grassroots critique, resistance, and accountability—these issues are frankly much more serious than mere life or death.

What hangs in the balance is the legacy of our civilization. Will the words that we have committed to paper (and even stone) have any meaning? Or will they instead remain rhetorical flourishes providing a veneer of legitimacy to a system that has grown sadly rotten to its core?

My critiques of the national security racket are vast, spanning dozens of articles and interviews, as well as a chapter in a book published by Project Censored, dozens of songs and poems, a music video, and countless speeches and public performances. 

In 2015, I shared a poem at a Witness Against Torture event in Washington, DC decrying the anniversary of indefinite detention & torture at Guantanamo Bay. My poem recalled how “the presidents change, but the abuses go on” from impunity for torture to arbitrary drone strikes.

My latest song is a tech-house diss track for the Criminal Intelligence Agency. I’d hoped to post it today, but still need a few more days before it’s ready for public consumption. Stay tuned….

Why all this matters

Democrats in Washington have spent no end of time and energy decrying the authoritarian aspirations of the GOP. Looking beyond their partisan theater, however, reveals that the authoritarianism they fear has already taken far deeper root than most realize.

A 2012 article conveying my comments at a law symposium in Chicago explained how, a full decade ago, the dystopian whole was sadly worse than the sum of its sordid parts. I addressed a then-recent speech by President Obama’s Attorney General attempting to justify the use of drone strikes to kill even American citizens without charge or trial. I also explained forgotten histories stretching from Vietnam to the south side of Chicago, and from Nicaragua to Los Angeles and Miami, that too many Americans overlook when commemorating anniversaries like today’s.

Much of why I write is to empower others to better advocate for the principles that we share. Any of the articles to which I link above offer insights, but this particular article presents my widest-ranging published analysis of the civil liberties crisis that threatens democracy in America and reinforces the mounting global climate catastrophe.