Interesting post on the Rigorous Intuition discussion board.
http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessage?topicID=4873.topic
There’s this revealing transcript of Kissinger on the day of 9/11, while Bush was still hopping from Barksdale to Offut (US strategic command headquarters)
CNN BREAKING NEWS 13:55
(September 11, 2001 Tuesday)
Transcript # 091129CN.V00
LENGTH: 924 words
HEADLINE: America Under Attack: Henry Kissinger Discusses Terrorist Attack on the U.S.
GUESTS: Henry Kissinger
BYLINE: Judy Woodruff, Aaron Brown
HIGHLIGHT:
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger discusses this morning’s terrorist attack on the United States.
BODY:
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: We are told President Bush just about to be wheels up from the Barksdale Air Force base in Louisiana, and now let’s go back to Aaron Brown in New York.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Judy, thank you. I believe we have former Secretary Henry Kissinger on the phone. The secretary is in Germany today, and he joins us on the phone from there.
Mr. Kissinger, can you hear me OK?
HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes, I can.
BROWN: Just quickly, sir, your reactions to what is unfolding in the United States today?
KISSINGER: Well, it’s obviously a shocking event. It was — I was giving a speech when somebody came in and interrupted the question period to make that announcement, and nobody in the room believed it. They all thought it had to be a mistake.
Well, it’s, obviously — it’s an integrated attack and must be dealt with in an integrated way.
(Is that just Henry’s quick thinking?)
BROWN: Well, when you say an integrated attack and dealt with in an integrated way, tell me — tell me what that means, sir?
KISSINGER: Well, it’s obviously — any organization that can plan such a coordinated attack within a very brief period of time
(How does he know how long it took to plan?)
must have substantial resources and must have very capable organizations. And must have a haven where it’s planning these things. You can’t do that in the back room.
(Very true. I wonder whom he’s talking about.)
BROWN: And — and when you talk about an integrated response?
KISSINGER: Well, the integrated response is obviously — first of all, I want to say, like every American right now, I am behind the president.
(Setting the stage. With us or against us.)
And this — the response right now has been exactly what is needed. And the first necessity has to be to go through the tragedy, to help the — to help the families and to clean up the immediate situation.
(After all, we are not monsters.)
And then, the next step will have to be a program to attempt to eradicate the source of this and to bring pressure, and serious pressure, on governments that harbor this kind of an organization, and especially governments where we suspect that these organizations are located.
(Right on the `governments that harbor them’ meme. Although his grammer is a bit off. Shouldn’t it be `governments which harbor’? Or is this possibly a case of memorizing the talking points, grammatical errors and all. Or maybe he wrote the talking points.)
BROWN: Sir, for a long time, there’s been a kind of cat-and- mouse game, and I don’t — I don’t make light of this in any sense when I say game — between the governments that harbor terrorists and our government and other Western governments.
(Brown quickly reinforces the `harbor’ meme.)
It’s all changed today, hasn’t it? I mean, the stakes have changed enormously, the response likely will change enormously. It’s all different, isn’t it?
(Brown seems to be in on the talking points. `Everything changed on September 11′. That ones still in heavy use today.)
KISSINGER: That’s correct. When — when these terrorists do attack the territory of the United States, it then becomes a question of the functioning of our society. And we have to protect ourselves, and I am sure we will. And I think it — it’s not an isolated attack, it’s not just an attack on an embassy, which is bad enough. And it can’t be dealt with with one retaliatory blow.
(The long war meme.)
BROWN: It cannot be dealt with with one retaliatory blow?
KISSINGER: No. It has to be a systematic attack. I don’t know what that means.
(Then why is he saying it?)
BROWN: I — I understand…
(All of the sudden he understands what it means, or that it’s time to move on in the talk?)
KISSINGER: I am not sitting here with a great plan. I am saying this is what I would think our government will want to work toward.
BROWN: And would you expect that we, the United States government, will find enormous international support for whatever actions the United States government chooses to take, or will there be those important governments that resist here?
(`Enormous international support for whatever actions’? `Resist’? Brown seems to have his part of the script down. Will the US be able to do whatever it wants in the world, or will there be opposition, say from France and Russia?)
KISSINGER: Well, first thing is we have to protect ourselves. We will, of course, like to get as much support as we can. And we will be able to judge our friends by the degree of support that we get.
(This will be Condi’s part of the script later. With the same language. `Judge our friends’. `Punish France. Forgive Germany. Ignore Russia.’ I think that’s what she said.)
But there will be some governments who say we have to understand the conditions that produced this.
(I would think that’s a reasonable thing to try and understand. It’s motive. But this case won’t be treated in a lawful manner, and it’s important for the American people to start understanding this.)
There will come a time to deal with these circumstances, but the immediate thing is, these organizations have to be put on the run.
(Little details like who’s really responsible will have to wait. We really just want to start attacking places.)
If they have to spend all of their time trying to survive, they have less time for terrorism.
(Common sense.)
BROWN: And Mr. Secretary, we heard — and I am not sure you were able to — but a few moments ago, Chris Dodd, Senator Dodd of Connecticut, compared this to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
(Let’s not forget the Pearl Harbor meme.)
Can you give me any historical context for what has taken place today, or are we a bit too close to it all to understand it yet?
KISSINGER: Well, the attack was — I guess it was — it was certainly the first attack from across the seas on the territory of the United States, but it was not yet the mainland. And I agree with Senator Dodd, this is comparable to an attack like Pearl Harbor, and we must have the same response.
(Emotionally?)
And the people who did it must have the same as the people who attacked Pearl Harbor.
(For such a smart guy he seems to be struggling to equate this attack with Pearl Harbor. Of course in doing so he must not mention that one was a state and the other, uh, not a state. Yet his rhetoric attempts to build parallels: `the people who did it’ and `the people who attacked Pearl Harbor.)
But it isn’t just the people who did it, it’s the people who make it possible.
(The `people that Harbor them’ meme is the connective tissue to this rather tenuous comparison he’s trying to make.)
BROWN: These are the governments that harbor those that carry out these attacks?
(Thanks for clearing that up, Aaron.)
KISSINGER: Harbor, or encourage them with their propaganda.
(And the introduction of the rest is here. We’ve heard this extension of the `Harbor” meme to “encourage” qualification a lot since this time. This of course sets the stage for going after just about anyone who doesn’t agree with them.)
BROWN: Mr. Secretary, thank you. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger who joins us from Germany where he was attending a conference. When he heard the news, he said it was silent, unbelievable, people simplify could not believe what they are hearing.
I think that’s a term, a phrase, you will hear a lot over the days and weeks to come
(I’ll bet he knows that all of the phrases in this interview will be heard over and over again.)
what has happened here in New York and in Washington and in other parts of the country — unbelievable. A national tragedy — Judy. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
So, Kissinger’s got all the talking points within hours of the attacks:
- governments that harbor
- everything changed on Sept. 11 (actually Brown’s part of the script)
- the long war (not just one strike – a dig at Clinton?)
- judge our friends by the degree of support (with us or against us)
- don’t be a pansy and try and ‘understand’ the terrorists (this will not be about “motive” or “rule of law”)
- Pearl Harbor
- not just those who harbor, but those who encourage (the next phase of the plan?)
Then there’s Bush on the same day.
Bush, in the classroom in Florida is supposedly told by an Ari Fleisher, `don’t say anything yet.’ [Washington Times, 10/7/02] And he doesn’t.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayaninterestingday
Then, at the appointed time he makes his speech at the school.
“Today we’ve had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911.html
Bush flies to Barksdale.
Here’s his speech from Barksdale. It’s pretty generic. Working hard (maybe that’s his own personal talking point) to save lives and punish those responsible. We’re on high alert. And so on.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-1.html
From Offut he makes no speech.
Once back at the White House
“We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” [Washington Post, 1/27/02]
So. Just when did Bush get the memo?