in hopes that he will see us as an ally and join us.

However knowledgable on the Middle East, however interesting to listen to on a host of topics, his incisive critique of the U.S. ruling elites strangely lapses when he received a question about 9/11. All he does is bemoan how 'tragic' it was that the U.S. government responded to 9/11 in a way that, he says, played right into the hands of those who (so he understands) perpetrated the attacks; rather than understand that the Bush administration responded precisely as THEY wished to, in ways of their own choosing, as they had desired to even before 9/11, for reasons that had nothing to do with counterterrorism or 'protecting the American people,' to the benefit of themselves and their cronies. In other words, responding in ways that were entirely in keeping with the practices of the ruling elites that in other areas he seems to understand very well--nothing 'tragic' about it. It's what they do, and they do very well for themselves.

As is so often the case with left intellectuals when it comes to 9/11, he espouses the same simplistic blowback perspective first expressed on the left (mostly) in the days immediately following the events--as though nothing at all has been learned in the years since concerning the soundness and consistency of the official account. Pointing to arguments which would likely not impress him still leaves questions: Someone as incisive as he is in his views on the US ruling elites (he endorses the term 'inverted totalitarianism'), and he seemingly is satisfied with their account of the one event which has enabled those same elites to get away with one thing after another from that day to the present? He requires for a movement to do 'house cleaning' before he can look at those events more critically, rather than generate questions on his own?

Oh well, I did enjoy the rest of the interview anyway.