Global terrorist organisation commemorates terrorist atrocity. posted by Richard Seymour

Oh look, they're commemorating. A wreath has been laid by the don and his bride. A military band serenades the boss with a dirge of some kind. Something is said about the victims, whose names are always taken in vain by statesmen with enough blood on their hands to suckle a million baby vampires. News organisations have taken to "remembering 9/11" with painfully inept memorial dioramas. Eyes moisten. Lips tremble. Newscasters' faces glow with grim orgasm. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Strange, is it not, that media outlets and government officials choose to commemorate a massive crime by entertaining the public with farce and self-satire? Why would the Observer, so protective of their own probity, resort to scandalising readers with some terrible fiction from Martin Amis that easily outdoes Thomas Harris' sell-out in 'Hannibal' for asininity and supercilious contempt, as well as an utterly clueless essay that casually asserts this and that idiocy about the West and Islam with evidently no more thought than the average Sun leader writer? It is tempting to see Amis morphing into his father, but even Kingsley never came across as this much of a fuckwit. And we have had the curious spectacle for five years of Bush reminding everyone of 9/11 every time he opens his smirking maw, while at the same time remarking that he's not all that bothered about the location of those alleged to have planned, funded and ordered the attacks. Then there was that charming Bush video of him sneaking around the White House, searching under cushions for weapons of mass destruction. No WMD - remember 9/11. Torture - remember 9/11. Illegal detention, secret prisons - remember 9/11. Bush ratings down - remember 9/11. Sort of makes you yearn for 11/5. For those of you who are sick to death of the same old sitcom, here are some invigorating reads:

"It's completely barking mad" - top soldier quits over Afghanistan campaign.
"America's warrior nation" by Gore Vidal.
John Pilger - "Breaking the Silence".
Tortured screams in Abu Ghraib
9/11 was good for capital.
Remembering 11/9.
"The New York City Council's education committee approved a curriculum on Israel initiated by the public relations department of the Israeli Consulate in New York."
US-UK illegal mercenary operations in Africa.
Slavoj Zizek: a failure of cognitive mapping.