Fires of History
14th November 2002, 14:36
I've always loved Gore Vidal, but instead of some cheesy intro, I'll let the man speak for himself.
Gore Vidal spoke to Salon from his home in Los Angeles.
Salon: Let's start with your new book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated." One of the main themes in your work is the perniciousness of what you call the American empire. What it is about America in particular, whether you call it a superpower or an empire, that inspires hatred, not just with bin Laden, but among others? Do you think that we're more hated than other empires in the past have been?
Well, I don't know that we are unique in the fact that we do inspire a good deal of hatred around the world because of the way we throw ourselves about. But the whole story in Afghanistan is not about Osama and his religious views, although they have some bearing, but is about a great coup on the part of the United States to grab all of the oil and natural gas of central Asia. And that is what we set out to do. Mr. Bush Sr. secured the Persian Gulf oil, which is Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, the Emirates, and so on. But far larger than the Persian Gulf is the Caspian Sea oil, and Uzbekistan, and all the other -stans that used to be part of the Soviet Union. We have been deliberately encircling that section of the world -- which is why we were in Vietnam.
We asked "Where's Osama?" because we always have to personalize everything. Everything is always one evil man, and if we get him, we've ended the drug trade. Remember Noriega? If we got him, that was the end of the drug trade. Well, we got him, and it didn't end.
So with Osama, we say, we will get revenge for the horrible thing he did -- if he did it. Now there is considerable doubt -- he certainly was in on it, and he helped finance what happened on 9/11, but it could well have been somebody else. What we have been looking for is a trigger. We had already planned to go into Afghanistan in October of '01. We have been desperately trying to put in a pipeline that runs through Afghanistan, Pakistan, down to Karachi and the Indian Ocean. The Taliban were just too scatter-brained and too crazy to deal with any longer, although we dealt with them for a long time.
And so we went in there to try and stabilize the place in order for Unocal to build a pipeline. So all of this is about oil. For once we really are doing something practical and not trying to wipe out evil, a task too large even for a Bush.
Are you saying that oil was more of a concern than terrorism?
Well, the giveaway was, when Tommy Franks, the commanding general of our forces there, arrived in Afghanistan, people kept asking, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" And he said, well, it would be nice if we found Osama bin Laden, but that's not really why we're here. And suddenly, it was put on a back burner, and we've sort of forgotten about it, because other things have taken its place.
Ordinarily we'd have hearings. You'd think that after being hit as we were in New York, there would be hearings immediately, as there were after Pearl Harbor, an investigation into why we spend $30 billion a year on intelligence and we didn't know about what was obviously a plot that took about four years, they now estimate, to get those planes on target to destroy our buildings and people. We would have an investigation. There is none.
And Bush went to Daschle and said, no, no, we can't have one now. I don't know what reasons he gave, but they haven't had one. Well, any sane country is going to investigate, particularly with such a vast and proud military as we've got, why it took 90 minutes before the planes were in the air, our fighters. An ordinary hijacking, they would be up there in about five minutes, in any part of the U.S. But it took 90 minutes before they were in the air. Something is going on.
Source (http://www.salon.com/people/interview/2002/04/24/vidal/index_np.html)
And from another source: (http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,819932,00.html)
These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.
'By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8.15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.'
Vidal asks why Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, stayed in a Florida classroom as news of the attacks broke: 'The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.' He also attacks the 'nonchalance' of General Richard B Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, in failing to respond until the planes had crashed into the twin towers
Gore Vidal spoke to Salon from his home in Los Angeles.
Salon: Let's start with your new book, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated." One of the main themes in your work is the perniciousness of what you call the American empire. What it is about America in particular, whether you call it a superpower or an empire, that inspires hatred, not just with bin Laden, but among others? Do you think that we're more hated than other empires in the past have been?
Well, I don't know that we are unique in the fact that we do inspire a good deal of hatred around the world because of the way we throw ourselves about. But the whole story in Afghanistan is not about Osama and his religious views, although they have some bearing, but is about a great coup on the part of the United States to grab all of the oil and natural gas of central Asia. And that is what we set out to do. Mr. Bush Sr. secured the Persian Gulf oil, which is Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, the Emirates, and so on. But far larger than the Persian Gulf is the Caspian Sea oil, and Uzbekistan, and all the other -stans that used to be part of the Soviet Union. We have been deliberately encircling that section of the world -- which is why we were in Vietnam.
We asked "Where's Osama?" because we always have to personalize everything. Everything is always one evil man, and if we get him, we've ended the drug trade. Remember Noriega? If we got him, that was the end of the drug trade. Well, we got him, and it didn't end.
So with Osama, we say, we will get revenge for the horrible thing he did -- if he did it. Now there is considerable doubt -- he certainly was in on it, and he helped finance what happened on 9/11, but it could well have been somebody else. What we have been looking for is a trigger. We had already planned to go into Afghanistan in October of '01. We have been desperately trying to put in a pipeline that runs through Afghanistan, Pakistan, down to Karachi and the Indian Ocean. The Taliban were just too scatter-brained and too crazy to deal with any longer, although we dealt with them for a long time.
And so we went in there to try and stabilize the place in order for Unocal to build a pipeline. So all of this is about oil. For once we really are doing something practical and not trying to wipe out evil, a task too large even for a Bush.
Are you saying that oil was more of a concern than terrorism?
Well, the giveaway was, when Tommy Franks, the commanding general of our forces there, arrived in Afghanistan, people kept asking, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" And he said, well, it would be nice if we found Osama bin Laden, but that's not really why we're here. And suddenly, it was put on a back burner, and we've sort of forgotten about it, because other things have taken its place.
Ordinarily we'd have hearings. You'd think that after being hit as we were in New York, there would be hearings immediately, as there were after Pearl Harbor, an investigation into why we spend $30 billion a year on intelligence and we didn't know about what was obviously a plot that took about four years, they now estimate, to get those planes on target to destroy our buildings and people. We would have an investigation. There is none.
And Bush went to Daschle and said, no, no, we can't have one now. I don't know what reasons he gave, but they haven't had one. Well, any sane country is going to investigate, particularly with such a vast and proud military as we've got, why it took 90 minutes before the planes were in the air, our fighters. An ordinary hijacking, they would be up there in about five minutes, in any part of the U.S. But it took 90 minutes before they were in the air. Something is going on.
Source (http://www.salon.com/people/interview/2002/04/24/vidal/index_np.html)
And from another source: (http://www.observer.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,819932,00.html)
These procedures, says Vidal, determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9.40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.
'By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8.15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.'
Vidal asks why Bush, as Commander-in-Chief, stayed in a Florida classroom as news of the attacks broke: 'The behaviour of President Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to not unnatural suspicions.' He also attacks the 'nonchalance' of General Richard B Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, in failing to respond until the planes had crashed into the twin towers