Listen Up Media: Jersey Widow Demands Accountability from Bush re 9-11!

[flpoljunkie]

As posted by Dick Bell on the John Kerry official blog...

http://blog.johnkerry.com/blog/archives/002636.html#more

Holding Bush Accountable for 9/11

After all the emphasis on 9/11 on the opening day of the Republican convention, the New York Daily News published a biting letter from Lorie Van Auken, a 9/11 widow, criticizing President Bush for not having held a single person accountable for the intelligence failures of 9/11 or the ensuring debacle in Iraq.

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New YorkDaily News
August 31, 2004

Jersey widow demands some accountability
BY LORIE VAN AUKEN

With their convention set here in the city, the Republicans want to send a message that America should remember 9/11. I am reminded, though, that Nov. 2 is Election Day and that accountability should be our top priority.

Forgive me, but I don't consider 9/11 or the thousand-plus days since then the best example of our nation's greatness. Sadly, three years since the day of my husband Ken's death, I still find myself praying for some strong leadership. I would have hoped that President Bush would have held the responsible individuals accountable for decisions that cost those nearly 3,000 innocent lives.

We have yet to find Osama Bin Laden, thereby making it impossible to hold him accountable. In fact, Afghanistan remains just the sort of environment that invites terrorists. Where is the accountability?

According to the 9/11 commission's report, Iraq had no connection to 9/11. Weapons of mass destruction have not been found there, yet no one has been held accountable for that. Perhaps if we had fixed our intelligence community on Sept. 12, 2001 - by firing the people who failed to do their jobs and by reorganizing our intelligence apparatus - we might not have made the mistake of taking our focus off Afghanistan by going into Iraq in the first place.

No one has been held accountable for underestimating the cost, troop strength or enemy's fury in Iraq. No one in charge at the Department of Defense has been held accountable for the lack of training, and the confusion, that led to the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. There has been no acknowledgment that the Iraq war probably has increased our risk of terrorist attack by increasing hatred of Americans.

No one in our intelligence community has been held accountable for the failures before, on or after 9/11. We had the African embassy bombings, the Khobar Towers bombings, the destroyer Cole attack and the faulty intelligence that brought us to Iraq. People have been promoted, but no one has officially been held to account.

Three days after 9/11, Bush stood on a pile of rubble at Ground Zero with a megaphone. Rescue workers yelled out, "We can't hear you!" he replied, "Well, I can hear you!"

Nearly three years after 9/11, America has yet to hear Bush on the issue of accountability for the failures that occurred before and after 9/11.

--Lorie Van Auken

[the Kelly Gang]

1. good letter and brave Lorie

[mumon]

2. That's how Kerry should respond:

9/11 Families for Truth

Doing "My Pet Goat," "Bush AWOL on 9/11," "Bush let Osama go," and on and on and on.

[seabeyond]

3. i love this woman, and as bush brings back pain of vietnam

he brings it back to this woman.

i am sorry, and i thank you lorie for speaking out

[nodictators]

4. Were the Jersey Widows banished from TV?

As soon as the 9/11 Cover-up Commission released its whitewash report, the Jersey Widows all but disappeared from TV as far as I could tell.

It was, of course, the Jersey Widows who fought to have an independent investigation of 9/11. They all did a great job.

Unfortunately, the 9/11 Commission final report was just a rehash of old news and a change-of-focus to the supposed systemic failures. How convenient for BushCo.

The Truth was flushed down the toilet by Kean and Hamilton.