http://www.randomhouse.com/pantheon/graphicnovels/towersTerror.html

Art Spiegelman's feelings immediately after 9/11 can't be summed up in any single statement or cartoon, but this page from his book seems apt for today.

We should all try to be less terrorized, now. Terrorism can drive us into hasty, poorly considered, decisions.

http://dir.salon.com/topics/tom_tomorrow/

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/oct13.html

Unbeknown at the time to USA citizens, under Richard Nixon their country embarked on a nuclear-armed military operation codenamed Operation Giant Lance. Nixon ordered a worldwide nuclear alert – one of the largest secret military operations in US history, and not discovered until 1983.

“Only Nixon, his special adviser for national security affairs Henry Kissinger, Kissinger's National Security Council aide Col. Alexander Haig, and White House chief of staff H. R. ‘Bob’ Haldeman, knew that the underlying purpose of the alert, known as the ‘Joint Chiefs of Staff Readiness Test,’ was to convince the Soviets that helping to end the war in Vietnam was in their best interests.

“The alert began on October 13, 1969, when U.S. tactical and strategic air forces in the United States, Europe, and East Asia began a stand-down of training flights to raise operational readiness; Strategic Air Command (SAC) increased the numbers of bombers and tankers on ground alert; and the readiness posture of selected overseas units was heightened. On October 25, SAC took the additional step of increasing the readiness of nuclear bombers, and two days later SAC B-52s undertook a nuclear-armed ‘Show of Force’ alert over Alaska, code-named ‘Giant Lance.’ Three days later, U.S. intelligence detected Soviet awareness of the heightened nuclear alert and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird ordered commanders to terminate the test at the end of the month.

“The alert, along with Nixon's orders to launch it, remained secret from much of the government as well as the public until 1983, when journalist Seymour Hersh reported on one of its phases and speculated about the reason behind it. Hersh suggested that it was a manifestation of Nixon's strategy in Vietnam, related in some way to ‘Duck Hook’-- a massive mining and bombing operation Nixon had threatened to unleash against North Vietnam if Hanoi did not yield to Washington's terms at the Paris peace negotiations.

“Hersh's report was an investigative coup, but his version of events was brief, fragmentary, and partially incorrect. Inexplicably, it was little noted, even at the time.

“The declassification of documents in the 1990s, however, confirmed that the readiness test had in fact occurred ...

“Despite the scale and scope of the readiness test, Nixon, Kissinger, and Haig made only indirect and cryptic references to it in their memoirs. Perhaps they thought it was too sensitive or wondered whether their hastily improvised effort would withstand public scrutiny. Perhaps Nixon and Kissinger did not care to revisit the desperate and wishful thinking that encouraged them to think that the pressure of nuclear alerts would induce Moscow to give greater assistance on the Vietnam problem.”

- - Source: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

And there's also another story about Nixon, that he seriously considered nuking the Vietnam-China border and/or the Vietnam-Cambodia border, but J. Edgar Hoover talked him out of it by arguing that the American public would riot and revolt. (Maybe all that illegal FBI domestic surveillance had some benefit, after all.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050202-11.html

February 2, 2005
State of the Union Address
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, fellow citizens: As a new Congress gathers, all of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege: We've been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve. And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly-elected leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories, Ukraine, and a free and sovereign Iraq.
[applause from members of Congress waving purple fingers]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050624.html

June 24, 2005
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Mr. Prime Minister, I am honored to welcome you to the White House. As the leader of Iraq's first democratically elected government in more than 50 years . . .

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070524.html

THE WHITE HOUSE
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 24, 2007
Press Conference by the President
Rose Garden

11:01 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Please be seated. Thank you, all. Good morning . . .

. . . the Iraqis are recovering from decades of brutal dictatorship. Their democratic government is just over a year old . . .