Gorillas in Our Midst
The great ape was invoked more conventionally back in August 2002 by cartoonist “Tom Tomorrow” on his blog at thismodernworld.com: “As we gear up for a war with a country with, to date, no provable link to Al Qaeda, the Washington Post reports that the administration–or at least its brain trust–is beginning to acknowledge the 900 pound gorilla in the middle of the room–Saudi Arabia’s ties to terrorism.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The 90s were the decade when Osama bin Laden sent America a message. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed. In February 1998 bin Laden declared that Muslims had a religious duty to kill Americans wherever they found them, and in August the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania–two symbols of American global power–were blown up and thousands killed or injured. Clinton responded by firing cruise missiles at targets in Afghanistan and Sudan and was “widely criticized” for doing even that, as Clarke reminded the commission.
On October 12, 2000, the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, and 17 American sailors were killed. America didn’t respond. “CIA and FBI were…unwilling to state that those who had conducted the attack were Al Qaida,” Clarke testified.
Rumsfeld: “We would have heard objections to preemption similar to those voiced before the coalition launched Operation Iraqi Freedom. We would have been asked, ‘How could you attack Afghanistan when it was Al Qaida that attacked us, not the Taliban? How can you go to war when countries in the region don’t support you? Won’t launching such an invasion actually provoke ‘terrorist attacks against the United States’?…History shows that it can take a tragedy like September 11th to waken the world to new threats and to the need for action.”
“I’ve been a leader,” Bush replied. “I got a strategy for the Middle East. And first let me say that our nation now needs to speak with one voice during this time.” He went on to say that America “must be strong to keep the peace” and that Saddam Hussein “still is a threat in the Middle East.” He summed up: “So to answer your question, it requires a clear vision, a willingness to stand by our friends, and the credibility for people, both friend and foe, to understand when America says something, we mean it.” He had nothing to say about al Qaeda or the Cole.
Last Sunday on Meet the Press, Richard Clarke told Tim Russert that neither Bush nor Gore nor the media made an issue of the Cole after it was attacked. Richard Ben-Veniste of the 9/11 commission said in passing at the recent hearings that he didn’t remember “terrorism being much if even an issue at all in the 2000 campaign.”
