Can I just ask US readers to spare a thought tomorrow for John O'Neill?

And as he led the charge out of Elaine's to Stage 3 at the China Club, his friends remember John O'Neill looking over and saying, "At least on my watch, I can say that there was never a terrorist attack in New York City."

'We were laughing that morning," remembers Valerie James, his girlfriend of eleven years. For once, John was in his own eleven-year-old Buick LeSabre, not a Bureau car, so he was permitted to drop her off at her job as sales director for the fashion line Sunny Choi.

He'd made it home from China Club at 2:30 -- typical -- but he was up now, and happy, and ready to take her to an 8:15 meeting she had for Fashion Week before heading to his office on the thirty-fourth floor of the north tower. "He was in a really good mood that day," James says.

James heard about the attack on the radio; it wasn't until 9:17 that a call finally came from John.

"There are body parts everywhere," he shouted. "Do you know what hit it?"James said the radio said it was a 747.

"I'll call you in a little bit," he said.

O'Neill also spoke to his 29-year-old son, J.P., who had taken the train in to visit his father at his new job but had made it only as far as Saint Vincent's Hospital. "As soon as you make it down here," he told him, "call me and I'll come and get you."

One FBI agent remembers talking with O'Neill in the lobby of Tower One, helping the Bureau and the Fire Department set up a command center. O'Neill asked him if they really got the Pentagon. He was last seen walking in the general direction of Tower Two minutes before it collapsed.

Link at my sig.

By your logic, Glenn Greenwald is an idiot because you posted here.

Actually, that should be:

By your logic, YOU are an idiot because you posted here.

Q.E.D.

...that a lot of the good-hearted people who feel impelled to vent their daily sensitivities on this blog might want to channel their output in a more useful way?

I mean, if you have a point to make, sure, go ahead. But if you just feel the need to vent a bit of frustration, why not at least go over to a rightwing blog and leave a comment there?

You will of course be labelled a troll and subjected to all kinds of ridicule, but it's the lurkers who don't say anything who might be impelled to consider your arguments, verify your facts, and/or follow the links you provide, and maybe even change their vote.

This episode brough back painful memories of Haditha. And the Massacre of Fallujah. All lies, all quickly covered up by the US military and media, all quickly forgotten by the US public.

How many supposedly liberal US commentators can even bring themselves to cite the true number of dead Iraqis: over one million (confirmed by multiple independent surveys). How many still pretend Afghanistan is "the good war"?

You could write a whole book about how many Bush 43 staffers were involved n Bush 41's shameful death squad wars in Honduras and Nicaragua. Check out Otto Reich and Juan Negroponte for starters. And we are supposed to imagine that the US did not provoke civil war in Iraq by similar means? It's standard modus operandi for these guys.

And did you mention that Karl Rove is now a "respected" media pundit writing Op-Eds for Murdoch's Wall Street Journal?

We still pay the price for not imprisoning Ollie North.

Actually, the USA is still paying the price for cutting short the Church Commission. Guess who was hiding under the desk back then? Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

When things like MK-Ultra and Operation Hummingburd started coming out, everybody just decided it was time to close shop.

And then, when Ollie North was in the dock, you let Bush 41 off the hook.

Next time you have a chance - if there is a next time - please do the job properly.