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Osama bin-who?
We are down the rabbit hole
BY DAVID S. BERNSTEIN
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2004, NEW YORK -- Once upon a time, an evil man named Osama bin-Laden and other evil men with him led an organization called al-Qaeda, and they repeatedly attacked the United States in well-planned, coordinated, financed, and executed attacks. They attacked our embassies overseas, they attacked our Navy in Yemen, and they attacked us here at home, slaughtering nearly 3000 innocent people in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC. All of this was once true; it has now vanished. There is no such person, no such group. I have listened carefully. I have scoured transcripts. I have read newspapers. I have asked around; it is as if a memory has been erased, or maybe I have simply gone mad and it never really happened. I feel like I have gone down the rabbit hole. People are speaking, and everyone else seems to understand what is being said, but it is jabberwocky to me. This entire convention is an orgy of grief and fury over the attack that smashed a vertical city of people just four miles south of the speakers' podium, and yet the name of Osama bin-Laden has not been uttered. Not once. Just four speakers of all the dozens spake the once-ubiquitous term al-Qaeda, a total of six times. They attacked us, they ripped our hearts out, they hit the very target they had openly aimed at for years, and they chortled with glee over it afterwards, taped themselves bragging about it, and we have not got them, we have not punished them, we have not stopped them, they live and they plan their next assault. Three years later. And nobody is angry about it. Nobody speaks of it. Nobody seems to remember. These concrete enemies who killed our people have been forgotten, and in their place is something called terror, some insect species for which we are mixing pesticides to spray where infestations are found. I have just sat through the fourth and final Democratic response press conference of the week, and I have not heard Osama's name here either. They have quibbled over whether the war on this terror insect can be won or not, but they have not lamented the failure of our President to get bin-Laden and stop his troops. Can you imagine the withering criticism if a Democratic President sent emissaries to boast, after three years of war, of " seriously injuring al-Qaeda?" That " the al-Qaeda leadership is on the run?" I thought we were going to hunt these bastards down, rip their heads from their necks, show the world you don't fuck with the United States of America. Nobody used to think that the wretched squeezing pain in our guts would be satisfied with al-Qaeda seriously injured, on the run -- plotting the next attack. The media has forgotten bin-Laden -- He Who Cannot Be Named has virtually disappeared from my newspapers, magazines, television, radio. Today's New York Times compares how often words like " jobs" and " war" were spoken in the first three days of each party's convention, and the Times did not think to include, in its list of 19 terms, either Osama bin-Laden or al-Qaeda. The Republican speakers, according to this survey, have mentioned war 45 times, terrorism 38 times, Iraq 14 times, September 11 15 times, Saddam Hussein six times. Did we leave anything out? Was there once something we cared about more than all other things? Gone, like the names of those erased by Stalin from Soviet history books. On the convention floor yesterday, I asked six different Massachusetts delegates to define the war on terror for me. They had much to say, and their enemies are widespread. Not one mentioned Osama or al-Qaeda. Two of the six specifically cited the Chechens. I am at the Mad Hatter's table. I am in New York City, looking up at skyscrapers, imagining two buildings even bigger than any of these towering monoliths imploding, recalling that video -- it existed once, I know that it did -- in which Osama bin-Laden is talking to some Saudi about the great success of his attack. And people are talking about the threat from Chechens.
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