John Whitehead's Commentary
2001: Year Of Extremes
2001--the first official year of the Third Millennium--will no doubt go down in history as one of the most extreme and fantastic years in American history.
The national election for the presidency came down to a few hundred votes in Florida, and contender Al Gore challenged the results in court. The case wound its way all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the Florida Supreme Court, thus essentially appointing George W. Bush President of the United States--even though Gore won the popular election.
Bush had only been in office two weeks when he was forced to form a Cabinet-level committee in February on energy policy. With California's electric system on the brink of collapse, oil prices soaring and gas prices exceeding $2.00 a gallon in some areas, Bush was forced to act.
In what now seems an eerie forecast of events to come, Dick Cheney, in his previous incantation as CEO of the energy giant Halliburton (with 100,000 workers deployed in over 130 countries), delivered an address to the conservative Cato Institute in 1998. The man who would one day help conduct a war in Afghanistan in hot pursuit of alleged terrorists told his audience about the oil that lay beneath the waters there and the importance of somehow wrenching it from the politically volatile countries. "The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States," Cheney noted. He then went on to condemn the U.S. sanctions placed on potentially oil-rich countries like Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Libya. In fact, as he was to say later that year, "You've got to go where the oil is."
While the energy crisis, due to American reliance on Mid-East fuels, raised international concerns, the new president was immediately thrown into a large-scale conflict with China. On April 1, a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese interceptor collided, breaking off U.S.-China talks and causing a rift between the governments as anti-American and anti-Chinese rhetoric flew from both sides.
While international intrigue swirled through the cauldrons of time, President Bush faced a challenge to his leadership with the defection of Vermont Senator James Jeffords from the GOP. With relations between the U.S. and its allies at a low point and an approaching economic recession, Jeffords' departure placed control of Senate committees, such as the Foreign Relations Committee, in the hands of the Democrats. The net effect of Jeffords' switch was that it forced the Bush administration to seek consensus on key policy matters. The President had been challenged, and it looked as if any mandate that Bush may have had was lost.
America was also preparing to execute terrorist and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. As some 1,400 members of the media swarmed to Terre Haute, Ind., to witness the execution, the country was enthralled in a debate over McVeigh's fate. The FBI was accused of hiding information from McVeigh's lawyers, and there was a delay of the execution date. Death penalty advocates and those opposed to it dominated the airwaves. Finally, on June 11, McVeigh was lethally injected, as defiant in death as he had been in life. McVeigh's last words, quoted from a poem, were: "My head is bloody but unbowed. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."
Before dusk could completely settle over Terre Haute, Bush was thrown into the midst of the debate over stem cell research. Avowedly pro-life on such issues, Bush finally relented and in August approved $250 million in federal funding for such research. He also quietly removed the strict ethical guidelines governing the procurement of stem cell-laden embryos from fertility clinics. This meant that colonies of cells that would not have passed muster under the Clinton administration's ethics guidelines were now eligible for use in federally funded studies.
With the United States embroiled in domestic and international issues of great magnitude and a president who seemed at times under siege, the horrible tragedy of September 11 rocked the country. And as American troops were fighting abroad, the Bush administration, in an over-zealous attempt to fight terrorism, came under fire from civil liberties groups for some decidedly broad, sweeping attempts to deal domestically with the terrorists. Anti-terrorism legislation, which gave extensive powers to the federal government to search businesses and homes, use roving wiretaps and detain permanent residents indefinitely without charging them with a crime, among other things, was ram-rodded through Congress. The president also created, by executive order, secretive military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that federal agents would be listening in on attorney-client conversations of suggested terrorists already in custody. Unfortunately, all these measures, and others, are so broad that they cast a net that pulls virtually everyone, including American citizens, into the federal government's surveillance grasp.
Closely on the heels of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the anthrax outbreak added a new level of anxiety to a society and government on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Fearful and on alert as the stock market stumbled, Americans moved into a recession. And the beleaguered airline industry needed federal money to stay afloat. It was the fall of the year, but the country had moved into economic winter.
Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts announced that they had cloned a human embryo. It now seemed that the assault on human integrity was reaching a boiling point. President Bush responded by urging a ban on cloning.
Then came the news of the dirty bomb and, thus, the possibility of a renegade nuclear device that could be used as the next wave of terrorism. Then as November faded into its last days, former Beatle George Harrison died. As part of the quartet that said "All You Need Is Love," it almost seemed quite ironic that in a world so starved for love, Harrison should finally breathe his last breath.
Finally, John Walker Lindh's be-whiskered face was revealed on television. As he spoke of his work with the Taliban and al Qaeda, the nation was shocked. An American was fighting side-by-side with the enemy against his countrymen.
Angst-ridden and emotionally starved Americans have now moved into the New Year. Winston Churchill once said, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." Indeed, the twentieth century--much like our present century--began with great turmoil and violence, which eventually led to the massacres that came to be the two world wars that so ravaged the world. So let us pray, as we look backward to 2001, that we are not seeing the future.
The national election for the presidency came down to a few hundred votes in Florida, and contender Al Gore challenged the results in court. The case wound its way all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the Florida Supreme Court, thus essentially appointing George W. Bush President of the United States--even though Gore won the popular election.
Bush had only been in office two weeks when he was forced to form a Cabinet-level committee in February on energy policy. With California's electric system on the brink of collapse, oil prices soaring and gas prices exceeding $2.00 a gallon in some areas, Bush was forced to act.
In what now seems an eerie forecast of events to come, Dick Cheney, in his previous incantation as CEO of the energy giant Halliburton (with 100,000 workers deployed in over 130 countries), delivered an address to the conservative Cato Institute in 1998. The man who would one day help conduct a war in Afghanistan in hot pursuit of alleged terrorists told his audience about the oil that lay beneath the waters there and the importance of somehow wrenching it from the politically volatile countries. "The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratic regimes friendly to the United States," Cheney noted. He then went on to condemn the U.S. sanctions placed on potentially oil-rich countries like Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq and Libya. In fact, as he was to say later that year, "You've got to go where the oil is."
While the energy crisis, due to American reliance on Mid-East fuels, raised international concerns, the new president was immediately thrown into a large-scale conflict with China. On April 1, a U.S. surveillance plane and a Chinese interceptor collided, breaking off U.S.-China talks and causing a rift between the governments as anti-American and anti-Chinese rhetoric flew from both sides.
While international intrigue swirled through the cauldrons of time, President Bush faced a challenge to his leadership with the defection of Vermont Senator James Jeffords from the GOP. With relations between the U.S. and its allies at a low point and an approaching economic recession, Jeffords' departure placed control of Senate committees, such as the Foreign Relations Committee, in the hands of the Democrats. The net effect of Jeffords' switch was that it forced the Bush administration to seek consensus on key policy matters. The President had been challenged, and it looked as if any mandate that Bush may have had was lost.
America was also preparing to execute terrorist and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. As some 1,400 members of the media swarmed to Terre Haute, Ind., to witness the execution, the country was enthralled in a debate over McVeigh's fate. The FBI was accused of hiding information from McVeigh's lawyers, and there was a delay of the execution date. Death penalty advocates and those opposed to it dominated the airwaves. Finally, on June 11, McVeigh was lethally injected, as defiant in death as he had been in life. McVeigh's last words, quoted from a poem, were: "My head is bloody but unbowed. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."
Before dusk could completely settle over Terre Haute, Bush was thrown into the midst of the debate over stem cell research. Avowedly pro-life on such issues, Bush finally relented and in August approved $250 million in federal funding for such research. He also quietly removed the strict ethical guidelines governing the procurement of stem cell-laden embryos from fertility clinics. This meant that colonies of cells that would not have passed muster under the Clinton administration's ethics guidelines were now eligible for use in federally funded studies.
With the United States embroiled in domestic and international issues of great magnitude and a president who seemed at times under siege, the horrible tragedy of September 11 rocked the country. And as American troops were fighting abroad, the Bush administration, in an over-zealous attempt to fight terrorism, came under fire from civil liberties groups for some decidedly broad, sweeping attempts to deal domestically with the terrorists. Anti-terrorism legislation, which gave extensive powers to the federal government to search businesses and homes, use roving wiretaps and detain permanent residents indefinitely without charging them with a crime, among other things, was ram-rodded through Congress. The president also created, by executive order, secretive military tribunals to try suspected terrorists. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that federal agents would be listening in on attorney-client conversations of suggested terrorists already in custody. Unfortunately, all these measures, and others, are so broad that they cast a net that pulls virtually everyone, including American citizens, into the federal government's surveillance grasp.
Closely on the heels of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the anthrax outbreak added a new level of anxiety to a society and government on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Fearful and on alert as the stock market stumbled, Americans moved into a recession. And the beleaguered airline industry needed federal money to stay afloat. It was the fall of the year, but the country had moved into economic winter.
Researchers at Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts announced that they had cloned a human embryo. It now seemed that the assault on human integrity was reaching a boiling point. President Bush responded by urging a ban on cloning.
Then came the news of the dirty bomb and, thus, the possibility of a renegade nuclear device that could be used as the next wave of terrorism. Then as November faded into its last days, former Beatle George Harrison died. As part of the quartet that said "All You Need Is Love," it almost seemed quite ironic that in a world so starved for love, Harrison should finally breathe his last breath.
Finally, John Walker Lindh's be-whiskered face was revealed on television. As he spoke of his work with the Taliban and al Qaeda, the nation was shocked. An American was fighting side-by-side with the enemy against his countrymen.
Angst-ridden and emotionally starved Americans have now moved into the New Year. Winston Churchill once said, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see." Indeed, the twentieth century--much like our present century--began with great turmoil and violence, which eventually led to the massacres that came to be the two world wars that so ravaged the world. So let us pray, as we look backward to 2001, that we are not seeing the future.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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