Thursday, May 12, 2011






1.

நான் நரமாமிசபட்சணியாக மாறிவிட்டேன்

எனது வசிப்பிடத்தில் உணவுக்குப் பஞ்சம் இல்லை என்றபோதிலும்

மனிதர்களைத் தின்னப் பழகிக்கொண்டுவிட்டேன்

 

முதலில் பிணங்களைத் தின்னுவதிலிருந்துதான்

இது ஆரம்பித்தது

அசைவமாயிருந்ததால்

செத்துப்போன பறவைகளை, கால்நடைகளை

உண்ணும்போது மனிதர்களைமட்டும் ஏன் விலக்கவேண்டும்?என்று

எனக்கு நானே

சமாதானம் சொல்லிக்கொண்டேன்.

கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சமாக என்

பொறுமை போயிற்று

மனிதர்கள்

சாகும்வரைக்கும் காத்திருப்பது

கஷ்டமாகிவிட்டது

எனவே

உயிருள்ளவர்களை உட்கொள்ள ஆரம்பித்தேன்

அதிலொரு சிக்கல்

நமது இரை நம்மைவிடப் பலவீனமானதாய் இருக்கவேண்டும்

அல்லது அதைப் பலவீனப்படுத்தும் உபாயம்

நமக்குத் தெரிந்திருக்கவேண்டும்

 

சொற்களைக்கொண்டு

பலத்தைப் பறிக்கும்

சூட்சுமங்கள் வசப்படலாயிற்று

அதைப் பழகிக்கொண்டபோது

'மதியூகி' என்று ஆர்ப்பரித்தனர் மக்கள்

 

இப்போதோ

'என்னைச் சாப்பிடு' 'என்னைச் சாப்பிடு'

என்கிறது கூட்டம்

அஜீரணத்தை எண்ணி

அச்சம் கொள்கிறேன் நான்

 

2.

 

தரையை ரத்தத்தால்

மெழுகும்போது

வீடு மிளிர்கிறது

அதுவும்

குழந்தைகளின் ரத்தமாயிருந்தால்

ரொம்பவும் நல்லது

நிச்சயம் அவை உங்கள் குழந்தைகளாக இருக்கப்போவதில்லை

உங்கள் உறவினர்களின்

அல்லது மதத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவர்களின்

குழந்தைகளாகவும் இருக்காது

அப்புறம் ஏன் தயங்கவேண்டும்?

 

வீடுகளை மட்டுமல்ல வீதிகளையும்

நகரங்களையும் ரத்தத்தால்

மெழுகுங்கள்

தசைகளைப் பிய்த்துத் தெருக்களை

ஜோடியுங்கள்

தலைமுடியைப் பொசுக்கி வாசனையூட்டுங்கள்

கவனமாயிருங்கள்

குழந்தைகளின் ரத்தத்தைப் பிடிக்கும்போது

அவை அலறுவதைக் கேட்காதீர்கள்

அந்த ஒலி உங்கள் காதுகளில் விழாமலிருக்க

தெய்வங்களின் பெயர்களை முழங்குங்கள்

சாகும்வேளையில் கடவுளின் பெயரைக்கேட்டால்

அவற்றுக்கும் புண்ணியம்தானே.

 

 

 

 




Wednesday, May 11, 2011

மீந்துகிடக்கிறது இரவு





கண்களுக்குள் உருளும்
நட்சத்திரங்களை
சேகரிக்க
உன்னுள் பயணித்தேன்
வனங்களில் நுழைந்து
மேகங்களில் மிதந்து
மலைகளில் ஓய்வெடுத்துத்
தொடர்ந்தேன் தேடலை

கண்ணீர்த் துளிகள்
பனித் துகள்களாய்ச் சிதறி
போர்வைகள் ஜொலித்தன

தோட்டத்துச் செடிகளும்
கொடிகளும்
ஜன்னல் வழியே
அறைக்குள் இறங்கின

நாம் ஒளிந்து விளையாடிய
ஆறு
கூரையைத் திறந்து
மழையாய்ப் பொழிந்தது 

உன்
தலைக்குக் கீழே
நசுங்கிக் குலைந்து
மீந்துகிடக்கிறது இரவு
பால்குடிக்கும் குழந்தையைப்போல்
பசித்து அழுகிறது நிலவு


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

ஹிரோஷி கவாசாகி ( 1930 - 2004) கவிதைகள்










ஹிரோஷி கவாசாகி ( 1930 - 2004)  கவிதைகள்
தமிழில் : ரவிக்குமார்

1.

சொற்கள் சொற்களுக்குள்
விழைகின்றன
சொற்களாய் பிறக்ககூடாதென.
மாறாக
நெடிதுயர்ந்த மதில் சுவராய்ப்
பிறக்கவேண்டும்
பிறகு
பெருமூச்செறிகின்றன
அது சொல்லாக வெளிப்படவில்லை.

2.

அந்தப் பறவை
சிறகை அடித்துக்கொண்டு
எழும்புவதற்கு முன்பே
வானம் பறக்கிறது
அந்தப் பறவை
அலகைத் திறந்து
பாடுவதற்கு முன்பே
உலகம் பாடத் தொடங்கிவிடுகிறது
அதுதான் பறவை

3.

அந்த அறை
பட்டு போன்ற இருளால்
நிரப்பப்பட்டிருந்தது
கருணைமிக்க கரமொன்று
உள்ளிருந்து
கவனமாக அதைத் தாளிட்டுக்கொண்டது

இருள் அவ்வளவு இருள்
ஒரு புயலுக்காக
அறை காத்திருந்தது

இடி மின்னல்
இடையே சிறு தருணம்
அந்த அறை சற்றே
வெளிச்சம்பெறும்


Monday, May 9, 2011

Dalits can't keep male dogs





"... Apart from the two-tumbler system and denial of temple entry, Mr Sampath said dalits are not allowed to watch TV programmes in village panchayats or speak or sing at any public platform. In some villages, he said the postmen do not deliver letters to dalit houses and the dalits have to obtain them from the post office. Dalits are also prevented from rearing cattle or keeping male dogs. ..."


               Untouchability taking new forms, says study

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/chennai/untouchability-taking-new-forms-says-study-480

G. Jagannath, May 5, 2011

Caste discrimination in Tamil Nadu appears to have moved with the times and stayed abreast of new developments.

An attack on a dalit in Villoor village in Madurai, for riding a motorcycle in the streets where caste Hindus reside, is not an isolated incident.

A survey conducted by Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF) in 22 districts has revealed the prevalence of 86 forms of untouchability in the state's villages.

Dalits are not even allowed to use ringtones of movie songs. "A dalit in Coimbatore was beaten by caste Hindus for using MGR movie song Naan Aanaittal Adhu Nadanthu Vittaal as his ringtone," TNUEF convenor P. Sampath said.

The discrimination against dalits even exists in matrimonial websites. "We have come across entries made by upper caste persons stating that dalits need not apply," he said.

In the survey, Mr Sampath said they come across the practice of dalits being prevented from walking on the public road wearing slippers, riding bicycles, wearing dhotis folded or polyester dhotis, wearing towels on their shoulder, wearing cloth headgear, sporting thin line moustaches and getting clothes washed or ironed.

Apart from the two-tumbler system and denial of temple entry, Mr Sampath said dalits are not allowed to watch TV programmes in village panchayats or speak or sing at any public platform.

In some villages, he said the postmen do not deliver letters to dalit houses and the dalits have to obtain them from the post office. Dalits are also prevented from rearing cattle or keeping male dogs.

Mr Sampath said untouchability is widely prevalent in the state as the DMK government failed to take any concrete steps to eradicate the practice.

"Even when we staged an agitation in Uthapuram, Kangiyanur and Gudiyatham to seek action against dalit discrimination, the DMK suppressed the struggle by arresting the protesting dalits," he said.



--

Friday, May 6, 2011

ஒரு சொல்




மழை ஓய்ந்து நீர்வடிந்த நிலத்திலிருந்து
மண்புழு ஒன்றை 
அறுந்துவிடாமல் உருவி எடுப்பதுபோல
எடுக்கிறேன் ஒரு சொல்லை

ஒரு சொல்லை வைத்துக்கொண்டு 
என்ன செய்வது? எனத் 
திகைக்கும்போது
ஒரு சொல்லால் உலகையே வாங்கலாம் 
என்கிறாய்

அந்த சொல் 
’தண்ணீர்’ என்றால் பலரின் 
தாகம் தீரும்
அது ‘உணவு’ என்றால் 
பசியை ஆற்றும்
‘புரட்சி’ என்றால் சுதந்திரம் கிடைக்கும்
உன்னிடம் இருப்பது என்ன சொல் எனக் கேட்கிறாய்

பிசுபிசுப்போடு நாவில் புரளும் அந்த சொல்லை 
உச்சரித்துப் பார்க்கிறேன்

ஏன் சிரித்துவிட்டுப் போகிறாய்?

Thursday, May 5, 2011

ஒசாமா கொலை: தகவல்களில் மாற்றம்

http://www.worldservice.com/tamil
04 மே, 2011 - பிரசுர நேரம் 15:43 ஜிஎம்டி


பின் லாடன் கொல்லப்பட்ட சம்பவம் தொடர்பில் அமெரிக்க வெள்ளை மாளிகை தாங்கள் முதலில் வெளியிட்ட விபரங்களை மாற்றிக்கொண்டுள்ளது.
முதலில் சொல்லப்பட்டதுபோல தாங்கள் துப்பாக்கிச் சூடு நடத்திய போது பின் லாடன் ஆயுதம் எதனையும் ஏந்தியிருக்கவில்லை என்று வெள்ளை மாளிகை இப்போது கூறுகிறது.
அப்படியானால் வேண்டுமென்றே சுட்டுக் கொல்வதற்காக நடத்தப்பட்ட ஒரு நடவடிக்கை இதுவா என்ற கேள்வி தற்போது எழுந்துள்ளது.
மேலும் பில் லாடனின் மனைவிகளில் ஒருவர் கொல்லப்பட்டார் என்று முதலில் தெரிவிக்கப்பட்டது. ஆனால் கொல்லப்பட்டது பின் லாடன் மனைவி அல்ல என்று பிற்பாடு தெளிவுபடுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளது.
ஒஸாமா பின் லாடன் தன் மனைவியை முன்னால் பிடித்துக்கொண்டு அவரை மனிதக் கேடயமாகப் பயன்படுத்தி துப்பாக்கி சூட்டில் இருந்து தப்பிக்க முயன்றிருந்தார் என்று முன்னர் கூறப்பட்டது. ஆனால் அவர் அப்படி செய்திருக்கவில்லை என்றும் இப்போது கூறப்பட்டுள்ளது.
அவசர அவசரமாக நிறைய தகவல்களை வெளியிட வேண்டி வந்ததால் விபரங்களில் இவ்வாறான திரிபுகள் நிகழ்ந்துவிட்டிருக்கலாம் என்று அமெரிக்க அதிபரின் ஊடகத்துறைச் செயலர் ஜே கார்னி தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.
"பின் லாடனின் மனைவி ஒருவர் அமெரிக்காவின் தாக்குதல் அணிச் சிப்பாய் ஒருவரை நோக்கி வேகமாகப் வந்தபோது அவரது காலில் சுடப்பட்டது. ஆனால் அவர் சாகடிக்கப்படவில்லை. பிற்பாடுதான் பின் லாடன் சுட்டுக் கொல்லப்பட்டுள்ளார். அவர் அச்சமயம் ஆயுதம் ஏந்தியிருக்கவில்லை." என்று ஜே கார்னி தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.
பின் லாடன் கையில் துப்பாக்கி எதுவும் அச்சயமம் இருந்திருக்கவில்லை என்றாலும் பொதுவாக அந்த இடத்தில் பெருமளவான எதிர்ப்பை அமெரிக்கச் சிப்பாய்கள் சமாளிக்க வேண்டியிருந்தது என்றும், அந்த இடத்தில் கடுமையான துப்பாக்கி சண்டை நடந்திருந்தது என்றும் ஜே கார்னி கூறியுள்ளார்.
பின்லாடனின் இரண்டு சகோதரர்கள் மற்றும் பெண்ணொருவர் கட்டிடத்தின் கீழ்ப் பகுதியில் வைத்து கொல்லப்பட்டுள்ளனர் என்று தற்போது தெரிவிக்கப்படுகிறது. பின்லாடனின் மகன் ஒருவர் கொல்லப்பட்டதாக முதலில் அறிவிக்கப்பட்டிருந்தது. ஆனால் பிற்பாடு சொல்லப்பபட்டுள்ள விபரங்களில் அது பற்றி எவ்விதக் குறிப்பும் இல்லை.
இப்படிப்பட்ட குழப்பங்களால், பின் லாடனை உயிரோடு பிடிப்பது என்ற எண்ணமே அமெரிக்காவுக்கு இருந்திருக்கவில்லை என்ற சந்தேகம் ஏற்பட்டுள்ளடது.
பின் லாடன் சடலத்தின் புகைப்படத்தை வெளியிடுவது பற்றி அமெரிக்க அரசு இன்னும் முடிவெடுக்கவில்லை என்று தெரிகிறது. மோசமான அந்தப் புகைப்படம் வெளிவந்தால் உணர்வலைகள் தூண்டப்படலாம் என்று வெள்ளை மாளிகைப் ஊடகத் தொடர்பாளர் ஜே கார்னி தெரிவித்துள்ளார்.

நான் பிறந்த கிராமம்


நான் பிறந்த கிராமமான மாங்கணாம்பட்டில் எடுக்கப்பட்ட படங்கள் இவை. நான் எனது மொபைல் போனில் எடுத்தவை. சிதம்பரம் சீர்காழி சாலையில் கொள்ளிடம் பாலத்தைக் கடந்ததும் கிழக்கே மகேந்திரபள்ளிக்குப் போகும் சாலையில் ரயில்வே பாதையைக் கடந்து போனால் என் கிராமம் தொடங்கிவிடும். முப்போகம் விளைந்த ஊர். பசி என்பதே என்னவென்று தெரியாமல் வளர்ந்தோமென்றால் அதற்கு எங்கள் ஊரின் வளமைதான் காரணம். அந்த ஊரிலும் நிறைய மாற்றங்கள்.





முதல் படத்தில் இருப்பது எங்கள் வயல் இருக்கும் இடம். அங்கே ஒரு குளம் இருந்தது. அதில் ஏற்றம் போட்டு நீர் இரைத்து கேழ்வரகும், மிள்காயும் விளைவித்த நாட்கள் என் நினைவில் ஓடின. அந்த குளத்தில் கோடையில் பிடிக்கும் விரால் மீன்கள் கண்களில் பாய்ந்தன. அந்தக் குளம் இருந்த இடத்தில் பச்சையாக செடி முளைத்துக் கிடக்கிறது. அதுதான் இப்போது மீந்திருக்கும் அடையாளம்.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bin Laden’s Death: Triumph or Tumult Ahead?


Adele M. Stan: Bin Laden’s Death: Triumph or Tumult Ahead?

May 3, 2011


The killing of Bin Laden will win Obama kudos at home, but will it further destabilize Pakistan?
By Adele M. Stan
By arrangement with AlterNet.Org.
On September 11, 2001, I stood on the perimeter of Lafayette Park, gazing across the lawn to the White House for a good long while, on my walk home from a temp job in the National Press Building. The subways were shut down in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The workers of Washington filled the streets, tuned out of their office buildings, many with no way home, moving dazedly along the pavement on a brilliant fall day against a sonal backdrop of screaming sirens.
As I write in the wee hours of Monday morning, the screaming outside the White House comes from a gathering of hundreds of young people waving American flags, hooting and hollering gleefully, in celebration of the death of Osama bin Laden, whose demise at the hands of U.S.troops was announced very late Sunday night by President Obama.
It’s hard to overstate the symbolic victory, both for the Obama administration, and for the American people, of the news of Bin Laden’s death. And for the family members and friends of those whose lives were taken by the al Qaeda attacks, a sense of justice is no doubt felt by most. All the same, one thing that is easy to overstate is whatever negative impact the Bin Laden killing will have on the daily operations of the terrorist organization he founded, which, according to national security experts, he wasn’t really running himself anymore, anyway. Meanwhile, his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawarhiri, remains at large.
Those who think the killing of Bin Laden signals an end to theU.S. war in Afghanistan may want to think again, for it’s quite possible that Pakistan will be further destabilized by Bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. forces on a compound so close to the capital.
But it’s also hard to estimate the amount of blowback (or lack thereof) the U.S. and its allies will encounter as a result of the killing. Already there are calls for photos of the body, of which Obama said the U.S. has custody, to be released, an act that would likely serve as an incitement to extremists. Those who think the killing of Bin Laden signals an end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan may want to think again, for it’s quite possible that Pakistan will be further destabilized by Bin Laden’s death at the hands of U.S. forces on a compound so close to the capital. At this point, the Afghan war is no longer about Afghanistan, which many believe to be a lost cause; it’s about the nuclear-armed Pakistan, and maintaining a U.S. presence in a tinderbox region that could blow up a good part of the world.
The U.S. could not have gone in to the compound in Abbottabad, where Bin Laden was found, without the acquiescence of Pakistan’s President Zardari, already a weak figure whose reputation is unlikely to be enhanced by any role he may have had in allowing the U.S. to conduct a military operation on his nation’s soil. The U.S. was unpopular in Pakistan long before it began launching drone attacks on villages in the hinterlands of Waziristan, but repeated operations that yielded civilian deaths have soured even moderate Pakistanis on their government’s rather tortured alliance with the Western superpower.
Yet while U.S. intelligence operatives likely located Bin Laden’s location via government insiders, the location of Bin Laden’s hideout suggests that the late al Qaeda leader had more than a little help from inside the Pakistani intelligence community, where he had always found a significant measure of support. On a reporting assignment in 1998, I arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, where Bin Laden had set up headquarters. Already in the sights of he Clinton administration for bombings in Saudi Arabia and threats against the U.S., the al Qaeda leader had just issued a de facto fatwa against all Americans and their property. The local paper, theFrontier Post, was rife with breathless stories of CIA operatives darting through the local bazaar. The operatives, it was said, knew where Bin Laden was, but he was untouchable because of the support he had in the Pakistani intelligence community.
There was a time, of course, when Bin Laden also had the support of the American intelligence community—back when the U.S. was arming Afghan warlords and jihadis to take on the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden used his fortune as the scion of a Saudi construction magnate to gather a force of foreign, mostly Arab, fighters to fight alongside the Afghans, and the CIA was only too happy to help Bin Laden’s fighters get the arms they needed.
While Bin Laden’s death by U.S. bullets may not operationally change the function of al Qaeda, it changes dynamics around the world.
Pakistan was the conduit for the supply chain of rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs supplied by the U.S., and through its madrassahs, sustained by both the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence operation, young men were turned into fighters. However noble the cause of Afghans reclaiming their nation from the Soviet invaders, the U.S. was not in it for the nobility of the cause; America was fighting its own proxy war against the Soviets, and the devastation America’s Cold War foe endured at the hands of the Afghans surely facilitated the Soviet Union’s demise as a nation.
But after the Afghans all but won the Cold War for America, the U.S. turned tail and left, leaving stockpiles of arms in the hands of unscrupulous warlords. The Taliban was initially born as an antidote to rapaciousness of the warlords, only to become its own brand of oppression, aided and abetted by Osama Bin Laden, who, until yesterday, was more than a living, breathing symbol of extremism; he was a living, breathing creature of the blowback to America’s first intervention in the region.
Now that he is gone, the question of blowback re-opens. While Bin Laden’s death by U.S. bullets may not operationally change the function of al Qaeda, it changes dynamics around the world. Barack Obama will forever be the guy who got Bin Laden, surely a triumph for him at home. But in a part of the world where U.S. arms have killed children, and where U.S. history is too often the story of alliances with dictators, the outcome is far less certain.
Copyright 2011 Adele M. Stan 
http://www.guernicamag.com/blog/2634/adele_m_stan_bin_ladens_death/

The decade of bin Laden politics


The decade of bin Laden politics

The decade of bin Laden politics
AP/CNN
It was three years before 9/11 that Americans first met Osama bin Laden, back in 1998, when their summers were (briefly) interrupted with news that a terrorist group called al-Qaida had launched deadly attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa. The domestic reaction consisted mainly of fleeting expressions of sadness and concern, nothing more.
When President Clinton, days after admitting that he had, in fact, had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, launched airstrikes on targets linked to bin Laden in Sudan, the press responded by obsessing over whether Clinton was taking a page from the movie "Wag the Dog" -- in which a president manufactures an overseas crisis to distract attention from a sex scandal back home.
This was the extent of bin Laden's role in American politics -- and in American life -- right up until 8:45 in the morning on Sept. 11, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower. Within hours, three more hijacked planes would crash, nearly 3,000 Americans would be dead, and the country's politics would be radically changed.
It was out of this tragedy that the Bush presidency was truly born. And it was out of the response of Democrats to the Bush presidency -- a response that was frustratingly slow to develop -- that Barack Obama ultimately emerged.
Public apathy had defined the previous year's presidential race, with neither George W. Bush nor Al Gore stirring much passion among voters. ("Gush and Bore," they were sometimes derided as.) To many Americans, Bush was still a joke eight months into his presidency -- a lazy son of wealth and privilege who'd taken four decades to grow up and who owed his "victory" to voter confusion, a friendly Supreme Court, and the archaic Electoral College system. But he was the only president they had, and as the reality of 9/11 sunk in, they instinctively looked to him for comfort, reassurance and leadership.
At first, Bush dropped the ball. News of the attacks reached him while he was taking part in an elementary school reading lesson in Florida. The footage would haunt him for years -- seven minutes of sitting, staring, fidgeting and flipping through "The Pet Goat" after hearing what had just happened from Andy Card, his chief of staff. Was it a display of poise, a president taking care not to project panic? Or was it proof that he was in over his head, shocked into paralysis by news he didn't know how to process? That it was even an issue underscored the lack of moral authority Bush carried into 9/11. He seemed steadier in a televised address to the nation later that day, but still unsure of himself, a man struggling to convince his countrymen that he meant the words others had written for him.
"These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat," Bush declared. "But they have failed."
The turning point finally came three days later, when Bush faced a skeptical, maybe even dismissive, crowd of rescue workers at ground zero. He recited his prepared remarks and they talked over him and told him they couldn't hear him. He raised his voice and ad-libbed: "I can hear you! I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" With one confident, unscripted and eloquent line, Bush had won over the men and women of ground zero -- and across the country.
Just before the attacks, Bush's approval rating had hovered around 50 percent, the lowest it had been during his first eight months in office. He'd taken some heat for governing as if he'd received a mandate in the '00 election (when Gore had actually received more popular votes), alienating a moderate Republican senator, Vermont's James Jeffords, who left the GOP and handed control of the chamber back to the Democrats. The Bush agenda had been focused on domestic policy: tax cuts, the "No Child Left Behind" bill, limits on stem cell research, and industry-friendly energy policy. International affairs had barely been an issue in the '00 campaign, with Bush promising a "humble" foreign policy and no "nation-building."
But now, Bush felt emboldened. His approval rating soared to 95 percent -- a few points better than the record-shattering mark his father has set in early 1991. But Bush 41's high mark had represented a collective national sigh of relief -- the successful end of Operation Desert Storm, which had evicted Saddam Hussein from Kuwait (and defied widespread predictions that it would result in another Vietnam quagmire). Bush's 43's poll numbers represented the nation's profound, unprecedented anxiety; Americans weren't celebrating his achievements -- they were expressing their support as they waited for him to make a move.
Bush didn't have to choose the path he took. But in the hours, days and weeks after 9/11, he was won over by those in his administration who had long advocated aggressive, military-led efforts to overhaul the Arab and Muslim worlds. Bush embraced the concept of a "war on terror," vowing to confront not just bin Laden and his lieutenants, but the government in Afghanistan that had supported them -- and any government anywhere that made a home for any element that might post the same kind of threat to the United States as al-Qaida.
Speaking to a joint session of Congress nine days after the attacks, Bush offered an ultimatum to Afghanistan's Taliban leaders: Give up bin Laden and his men or face an invasion. Then he went further: "From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
Today, this kind of language would set off all sorts of alarms. But not in the America of 2001. That fall, as the Bush doctrine formed, Americans went about their lives convinced that the next deadly attack was just weeks, days or even hours away. They sat glued to cable news channels, where the bottom-of-the-screen "news crawls" -- which popped up in the frantic hours immediately after the 9/11 attacks and never disappeared -- kept them updated on the latest Anthrax case. The best that Tom Ridge, Bush's newly appointed Homeland Security czar, could tell them was that the U.S. mail was safe -- "by and large." Polls found that wide majorities of Americans believed the question was when -- and not if -- al-Qaida would strike again, a sentiment that leaders from both parties stoked.
This overwhelming fear left little room for debate. Days after 9/11, Bush asked Congress to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force" against anyone who -- in Bush's determination -- had anything to do with 9/11. The vote in the Senate was 98-0. In the House, it was 420-1. The lone dissenter, California Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee, received a flood of death threats.
On television, Bill Maher -- whose "Politically Incorrect" show was airing late nights on ABC -- tried to make a philosophical point about the 9/11 terrorists, arguing that "we have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary, responded that, in the wake of 9/11, "people have to watch what they say and watch what they do." Maher's show was canceled soon thereafter. 
On Oct. 7, Bush announced that the invasion of Afghanistan had begun. On the same day, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear that this was just the start. "Our aims are much broader," he said. Three weeks later, the Patriot Act sailed through Congress, by a vote of 357-66 in the House and 98-1 in the Senate. The nation continued to find enormous comfort in its president, who now carried himself with a confidence and swagger that had previously been absent. The whole country, it seemed, cheered for Bush when he was called to throw out the first pitch of Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 30 -- and delivered a perfect strike.
By 2002, the campaign to roll the "war on terror" into Iraq was well underway. In his State of the Union address at the end of January, Bush -- with Dick Cheney sitting behind him, the first time since 9/11 that the president and vice president had appeared in public together -- told Americans that "our war against terror is only beginning" and singled out three new potential targets: Iran, Iraq and North Korea, "the axis of evil."
"For too long," Bush said, "our culture has said, 'If it feels good, do it.' Now, America is embracing a new ethic and a new creed: Let's roll."
Bush's approval rating was still over 80 percent -- and support for invading Iraq was nearly as high. The case was easy to make to most Americans, who had spent the previous decade being exposed to one story after another about how Hussein represented the second coming of Hitler. Sure, there was no proof that Saddam and Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11, but to Americans who badly, dearly wanted to avoid another attack on their homeland, it didn’t take much convincing to satisfy them that they'd be safer without this bad man running a Middle East nation.
Moreover, the popular consensus was that toppling Saddam would be an easy operation. The example of the '91 Gulf War, when victory was achieved quickly and American casualties were tiny, was still fresh in the public's mind. And Afghanistan seemed to be going well, too (even if bin Laden had managed to elude capture in the late '01 battle for Tora Bora). The hubris that Bush and his team were feeling was shared by most Americans.
This was not a climate conducive to the opposition party playing its role. In the run-up to the first Gulf War, most Democrats in Congress had sided against George H.W. Bush's request for military authorization, warning Americans that engagement in the Gulf could lead to massive casualties -- the next Vietnam, many suggested. In that war's aftermath, they'd all eaten crow (and some of them stayed off the 1992 presidential campaign trail because of their "no" votes). As Bush and his team ramped up their push for war with Iraq in '02 -- first subtly, then blatantly -- many Democrats in Congress resolved not to make the same mistake twice. The economy still seemed fragile; if Bush was going to be vulnerable in 2004, they reasoned, it would be because of that -- not his post-9/11 foreign policy.
When Bush asked Congress in the fall of '02 to authorize action, the two top Democrats on Capitol Hill -- Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt -- lined up with him and predicted smooth passage. Both were eyeing runs for president. Bush's popularity was still comfortably over 60 percent -- much higher in red states. Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a decorated veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam, learned this the hard way when his '02 Republican opponent launched an ad highlighting Cleland's votes against the Bush White House -- implying that the senator had sided with bin Laden and other terrorists.
The war resolution cleared both chambers with ease: 297-131 in the House, and 77-23 in the Senate (where a majority of Democrats supported it, too). In the November midterms, Bush's Republicans actually gained seats in the House and Senate -- only the second time since the Depression that a president's party had actually picked up seats in a midterm.
That U.N. weapons inspectors still couldn't find any of the weapons of mass destruction Bush and his team had assured Americans were in Iraq didn't matter: The invasion began on March 19, 2003, the U.N. be damned. It had been 18 months since 9/11, and Bush's popularity had yet to drop below 60 percent -- and in the weeks after the invasion, as Baghdad fell, Saddam fled and his statue was toppled, it climbed back over 70 percent. Democrats despaired: Even a plurality of their own voters didn't want the party's budding presidential field to challenge Bush's leadership on Iraq. The president who had come to office a widely ridiculed man had guided the country through one of its darkest hours, turning a terrible tragedy into an opportunity to assert America's might like never before, and to reclaim its pride and dignity in the process. Oh, and he'd also thoroughly marginalized the opposition party.
- - - - - - - - - -
That, I suppose, is how the story of the Bush presidency would have been written if history had frozen on May 1, 2003 -- the day Bush dressed up like a pilot, landed on an aircraft carrier and delivered his "Mission accomplished!" speech. But time plowed forward, and as it did, it steadily revealed the ugly consequences of Bush's 18-month hubris binge. America was totally unprepared for the post-invasion phase in Iraq. Sectarian violence flourished, a civil war broke out, American casualties mounted, and the administration tried to dismiss it all with excuses and empty promises.
Meanwhile, Democrats found their voice: first in the form of Howard Dean, who emerged in the spring of '03 as the only major presidential candidate in the party to oppose Iraq from the start. On paper, Dean never should have gone anywhere, but as the bad news from the battlefield mounted, Democratic voters struggled to digest the explanations from John Kerry, John Edwards and Gephardt for why they'd supported the war in the first place. After putting a profound scare into the party's establishment, though, Dean collapsed and Democrats settled on Kerry, betting that his decorated Vietnam service would inoculate him from the GOP's foreign policy attacks. It was a bad bet: There was just enough fear left for Bush to pull out a three-point victory. A late-campaign cameo from bin Laden, in the form of a videotaped message released the weekend before Election Day, may have helped tip the scales.
But Bush's '04 win merely prolonged the inevitable. The worst was yet to come in Iraq, and the president's poll numbers sunk ever lower in 2005 and 2006. Why did we ever listen to this guy in the first place? Americans seemed to wonder. Democrats stormed back in the 2006 midterms, reclaiming the Senate for the first time since '02 and the House for the first time since 1994. Then they set out to elect a new president, and the same base that had rallied around Dean in '04 quickly found its candidate: Barack Obama, whose keynote speech had been the '04 Democratic convention's brightest note.
It's fitting that it was Obama who announced the killing of bin Laden on Sunday night. It was a moment that Bush and his team had planned -- and yearned -- to enjoy themselves. But it was Obama who'd built his own campaign around a critique of Bush's original post-9/11 sin: the decision to pursue an ill-defined, borderless and resource-exhausting "war on terror" -- instead of focusing on finding the one man who really was at the heart of America's darkest day. 
  • Steve Kornacki is Salon's news editor. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More: Steve Kornacki