9/11 and other distractions

The Quadrennial Presidential Circus has refocused my thinking on how overblown and distracting all of the noise about 9/11 and Bush's Iraq adventures have become. 9/11, in and of itself, is just a tiny flea bite on an enormous elephant. Certainly we should scratch a bit and seek to crush the flea, that goes without saying. But, the current policies are clearly headed in the wrong direction and obscuring much more important matters.

Although it would be nice to find Osama bin Laden and his brethren, the Bush approach is leading us away from increased security:

• A tramp ship floating into Boston Harbor with a nuclear device purchased in Russia nestled amidst its otherwise innocuous cargo. There are thousands and thousands of nuclear devices and tons of nuclear material floating around the former Soviet Union's successor states. No one can be sure who is in charge or for how long? Where are the policies and programs to control and irradicate nuclear arms?

• Repeat the first scenario but instead the device is loaded into one of the millions of containers that float into US harbors every year without any system in place to inspect them.

• The US continues to support the activities of our client-states Israel and Egypt, thus, on the one hand, supporting Israel's ongoing expansion, and, on the other hand, propping up a dictatorial regime in a core Muslim country. In general, we should be looking closely at exactly what kinds of regimes we are propping up, e.g. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Columbia.

• With the US a lead source, the world is afloat in armaments of every description. Virtually every developed country is making money from this arms trade. Other players include our client-state Israel, Brazil, Russia and China.

• The US is busy deploying a so-called antimissile system allegedly to shoot down missles from "rogue" states. China and Russia are very likely looking at this as an opening in a new US-inspired arms race.

• US drug laws support a global system of production and distribution that provides 24/7/365 service throughout the US. This drug production system is only possible because our drug laws support astronomically high prices while clearly failing completely to even marginally reduce the rate of comsumption.

I could go on. 9/11 was an unpleasant, tragic, symbolically huge event. In response, the Bush administration, supported by the whole politico-media machinery of our life, has chosen policies that are proving unsuccessful on their own terms while distracting us from larger more significant issues.