Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced yesterday that the Pentagon will celebrate -- and really, there's no other word for it -- the fourth anniversary of 9/11 with a country music concert and an "America Supports You Freedom Walk."
We are not making this up.
You might think that the secretary of defense could come up with a more tasteful way to reflect on 9/11. And you might think that the Bush administration would be able to refrain, just this once, from linking the war in Iraq back to the attacks on 9/11. You'd be wrong on both counts. As the New York Daily News reports, Rumsfeld is planning a Fourth of July-style "support the troops" extravaganza for Sept. 11, 2005. The day will start with a march from the Pentagon to the National Mall, and it will culminate with a concert by Clint Black.
Black is the man behind "I Raq and Roll," a country ditty that conflates Saddam Hussein with "the devil" who attacked the United States on 9/11: "We can't ignore the devil, he'll keep coming back for more ... If they won't show us their weapons, we might have to show them ours. It might be a smart bomb -- they find stupid people, too. And if you stand with the likes of Saddam, one just might find you."
Did we mention that we're not making this up?
If Rumsfeld really wants to commemorate the attacks of 9/11 in some kind of meaningful way, we've got an idea for him: He could tell the truth to the 9/11 Commission about a report that the U.S. military had identified Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers as potential threats more than a year before the attacks.
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