Rodent Regatta

Nobody can teach us more about bureaucracy and how to uproot it than Craig Cantoni. Craig is the author of Corporate Dandelions: How the Weed of Bureaucracy Is Choking American Companies And What You Can Do About It. It’s time for him to write another book and call it Government Kudzu: How Bureaucracy is Choking America.

Craig’s latest essay uncovers root causes of 9/11 far better than any commission. It’s a must read!

Hearings On 9/11 You’ll Never See
by Craig J. Cantoni

The 9/11 hearings are a circus in which congressional clowns act surprised that the government is bureaucratic and that its many fiefdoms don’t cooperate and communicate with each other. The cirucus should be closed and replaced by serious hearings that examine the decades of foreign policy blunders that led up to 9/11 and the culpability of both political parties in increasing the likelihood of the United States being a terrorist target.

For example…

a hearing could be held on why the United States kept troops in Saudi Arabia for so long and openly sided with the corrupt and undemocratic Faud monarchy. The hearing could examine if that was a blunder that gave Saudi extremists, including Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11, a raison d’etre for targeting the U.S. instead of another nation.

Another hearing could be held about our financing of the Taliban during the Afghan-Soviet conflict.

Still another could be held on our support of Saddam Hussein before and during the Iraq-Iran war.

There also could be hearings that enlighten Americans about the history of their nation. For example, a hearing could be devoted to the foreign policy of super-patriot George Washington, who feared getting involved in foreign wars and intrigues, and who wanted the United States to restrict its foreign relations primarily to trade. The hearing could pose the question of whether America’s national interest and security would have been better served if it had followed the first president’s advice in the Middle East for the last 50 years.

In addition, the history lesson could explain how the Seventeenth Amendment shifted the Senate from focusing on long-term issues of national importance to a legislative body that debates such weighty matters as how much water American toilets should hold. Because of the Amendment, Senators are elected by citizens instead of state legislators and are thus subject to the populist passions of the day.

Another hearing could address the role of European imperialism in the early 20th century, especially that of Britain and France, in fueling Islamic animosity towards the West and in creating artificial nations like Iraq out of warring tribes and religious sects. The hearing could detail Britain’s large loss of national treasure and troops in trying to pacify the ersatz nation of Iraq after World War I. It also could ask why we left Europe off the hook for solving the problems it created in the Middle East and, in the process, shifted Islamic enmity from Europe to us. Was that in our national interest? Did that make us more secure?

But the most enlightening hearing of all would be on Israel. It would pose the question of whether it has been in our national interest to support the beleaguered nation, which is seen in the Arab world as a hired gun for the United States and, rightly or wrongly, is a catalyst for Islamic extremism.

Pro-Israel witnesses could testify that Israel is the only democracy in the region, that it shares our Western values and heritage, and that it provides a military and intelligence-gathering presence in the Middle East that we would have to provide ourselves if Israel did not exist. Other witnesses could present the opposite view—that Israel does not share our values, because it is largely socialist and was founded for religious reasons instead of democratic ones by Zionists, many of whom were Bolsheviks.

Analysts from the Congressional Budget Office could testify that Israel receives $84 billion in annual welfare from American taxpayers, or $14,630 per Israeli.

Historians could give the sordid facts about Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917, which laid the groundwork for a Zionist state in Palestine, a state that 90 percent of Britain’s Jews did not support at the time. The historians also could show that when the Declaration was written, Arabs, Jews and Christians were living peacefully together in Palestine, as they had for centuries.

CIA analysts could be asked to estimate how many Arabs have become anti-American terrorists because of our support of Israel, and how the increased numbers have increased the odds that a terrorist will eventually detonate a nuclear ”dirty” bomb in Manhattan, creating economic chaos and mass hysteria.

In addition, Dr. Alvin Rabushka, a director of an Israeli economic research institute, could testify about his efforts to endow ”Israelis with the same freedom enjoyed by Americans.” He claims that ”for the better part of the last century, every prime minister and government of Israel have concentrated on strengthening the State at the expense of individuals and families.” He further claims that Israel has evolved into a socialistic system ”that denies fundamental freedom to its residents.”

Unfortunately, such views will not be heard and such hearings will not be held on Capitol Hill. The United States will continue to ignore the foreign policy lessons of history as Congress continues acting like clowns in a three-ring circus in the city that is named after George Washington, who had more wisdom than all of the bozos put together.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author and columnist. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com