Terrorist Action 11/9/2001 - Thread 6

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOU.

sorry, i just had to get that out.

This is not the kind of fame I would want for starting a net thread. Indeed, right now I'm envisioning a universe where nothing I posted had to be in such an article and Mike's name never had to come up because the article itself need not have been written. *growl*

"[X] was trying to get out of Manhattan yesterday and two military planes went by. Someone freaked and the next thing you know she has to run to stop getting trampled on. I am going to try to get home through Manhattan later. Blocked it off below 14st. They ain't showing it all on the news. They still aren't giving figures of the dead but a ferry was leaving Manhattan for Jersey with bodies every 10 minutes last night. This is of course hearsay but quite reliable."

(sorry no html knowledge at all)

at least some people are being rescued. the commentary also appears to be fairly hysteria-free, which is why i like the BBC.

have no clothes no passport or tix. I have no way of getting them. this is not importanat. I just want to cry.

staying with some friends one of whom is a seik (sp. I know please inform) aparently there have been several attack on seik men in brooklyn because they have beards and turbans. things could get very nasty I hope they don't

i knew something like this would happen.

sp = Sikh.

You couldn't see the smoke here, though honestly I haven't cared to look for smoke very hard.

Before: an uneventful train ride. If it was a normal day, I probably wouldn't have had anything to tell Mary at work, except maybe for the loud, smug jerk nattering on a cell-phone. Most likely I would've forgotten it, but I did give him a outraged stare.

After: the minute I got on the connecting train to Flatbush Avenue, there was this chubby man on the train said he just got a call from a friend saying a jet rammed into the World Trade Center.

OK, so it could be a joke. Or maybe not. I mean, I've been scarily close to lower Manhattan before -- how bizarre could an airline mishap be? I forced myself to think it wasn't terrorism. It may not even be real. While we were in the tunnel, I was standing up so I could angle myself for a good view of the Twin Towers, if necessary.

And there it was, outside and getting closer. Indisputable proof. Holy shit. Entire rows of both -- both -- buildings were smoking up. One tower seemed to be burning up towards the top while the other was more towards the middle. How the hell could BOTH buildings be on fire if only ONE plane hit the towers? I tried pointing out the window to the guy in front of me so he'd look, too, but it took the prodding of some of the other guys to follow along. Soon a sea of businessmen heads turned uncomfortably in their seats and registered shock, and then uneasy calm. I gradually stopped resisting the idea of going back home. I thought about e-mailing my mom with my Palm Pilot but I was going to enter another tunnel soon so there was no point.

I had to call my mom. I knew she'd be relieved, but we talked to each other in the morning, briefly, so she knew I was late, so she had that for comfort. Of course, this being New York, only a few phones worked. Lines weren't big, though...not yet, anyway. I had that creeping anger I get when I'm in crowds. I was wishing that the woman in front of me would JUST GET OFF THE PHONE but I soon moved back and thought you know, I can't act this way, because she might be worse off than I am. I couldn't get through anyway.

Maybe there was another phone outside. Above-ground, there was a very clear view of the towers. They were burning, but this time it was a little bigger and a little more alive than before. Or at least I suppose. The crucial memories of the buildings on fire are already fading, possibly being replaced by what I've seen on TV again and again from all angles, the biggest money shot the stag reel of modern media has ever seen. Ironically, the entrance to the Flatbush Avenue is right in front of the Williamsburg Savings Bank, a building my company designed back in the twenties. A woman was crying, but most people were just standing around. There was police and sirens for some reason. I thought at first that I should find a place to sit down and send an e-mail on my Palm. I changed my my mind and walked back -- actually ran back, jaywalking -- knowing this would mean I wouldn't be in touch. I'd like to remember what I was thinking, but I tried thinking as little as possible.

I had to wait a while before the next train to Babylon left. I was hoping the train wouldn't be filled with many people and their chatter. I just wanted to be alone. I asked a woman if I could use her cell phone; she said sure. I told my mom to try to call Dad and Fred and Dan to tell them I was alright. I made sure I wasn't facing the World Trade Center.

There were more people in Jamaica than usual for noonday, yet less than I would've imagined. I used my Palm Pilot to get some hard news. ABC.com had some vague stuff about the two planes and a fire at the Pentagon. USA Today had something over a week old about Anne Heche.

Someone was on a cell phone, hysterically giving the familiar litany of targets but adding "...and Chicago..." and nothing more. God, not Chicago. All the bases. Surely there'd be more as 9:00 reached each time zone. Maybe San Francisco and Los Angeles were next. I had to get out. Further from Jamaica...maybe it was a target, too. It was near an airport, after all. The sky would be lousy with planes on a normal day.

The streets were more crowded than I had ever seen, but then I never go to Jamaica during noon. I was looking for a TV. It only took less than a block to find one. There was a bar, and bars always have TVs.

They told me a tower collapsed. Surely they got it wrong, hyperbole, of course...no. Only one building was there. Smoke was where the other should've been. I asked for a whisky. I know nothing about alcohol so I said I didn't care which. The glass was cracked so she gave me another. I overtipped her, as I always do.

The news was boring and repetitious. It wasn't saying anything I needed to hear. Fine, the Twin Towers were on fire, I knew that already. But at least there was something I could mentally compare the rumors to. They didn't say anything about Chicago, and said little about the Pentagon at first. That was a relief. I said I worked at the World Trade Center, milking it for all the signifigance it was worth and got some sympathy, I suppose. Every time I looked back I saw a meaty-faced businessman, also coming from Jamaica, just gaping at the TV set.

They showed the second plane in footage nowhere near as pornographically vivid as I'm seeing today. There were the towers, in a state much like I saw from the train. You could see a bit of the plane from the back, a little spiky fleck disappear with a pretty red explosion following a second or two later. I know what most of these horrible Twin Towers interiors look like, so my brain filled in the line from point A to point B it went right through it went through walls windows elevators workstations chairs books files people and the friction of everything eventually stopping it before it blew up. People say with an almost tragic lack of imagination that it was like a movie, but it was more absurd than a movie, even your worst comic book Jerry Bruckheimer nightmare. Jesus. What kind of retard does something as melodramatic as fly a plane into a building that's already burning?

At first I thought it was a trick of the eye, with the smoke rising up against the vertical lines of the building fooling me into thinking that the building was actually moving, but Christ, it was no trick, it was falling down, with me, here, now, in this dark bar, miles away but close enough, with my index finger blindly caressing whiskey I shouldn't have been drinking because I was on anti- depressants that I was so glad I was on. Somebody was sobbing hysterically on the phone. I didn't want to know. I didn't think they would fall down. I thought there would be some damage, and then after a long time, recovery, no doubt with harsher security than before. Just like before.

We're headed for a fascist state.

I thought of one of my co-workers -- a firm principal I always liked. He was an Egyptian by birth, and now a naturalized citizen. I had asked him, just yesterday, to help a co-worker's daughter come up with some ideas for her essay about what it means to be an American.

Something propelled me to leave. I got out looking for another phone, thinking I'd call my parents to have them pick me up here (fat chance) and I walked for a block in a crowded street before I noticed the sizable pee stain by my crotch.

Jesus, when did that happen? I couldn't let myself care too much. I sled my carry-case towards my belly to hide it. It was almost amusing, in fact, but then I was I finding these slim humorous edges around everything. I found a phone but didn't bother.

Heading back to the Jamaica station, I had an urge to get a look. I was already woozy from the whiskey; climbing the stairs was a challenge. I had to negotiate all the shell-shocked people on platforms to the very end, where there were only a couple of construction workers, half-working, half not-working, and a businessman on a cell phone. Nobody could see it. The smoke trailed behind a set of trees.

The train came without much of a wait, so I spent much of the hour on the train, stopping from station to station, relieved that the train was getting further and further away and getting emptier and emptier. But people didn't shut up as much as I would've liked. People spin rumour in spite of themselves, and I just wanted the comfort of the official news. "There's gonna be a CRATER where those fuckers are standing!" Sure. What fucking tweezers you gonna use to find them worms, hoss? Naive people, everywhere. Those Palestinians dancing in the streets...yeah, enjoy this tinseled glory while you can, kids. It won't make one damn bit of difference in your life in the long run, other than to amplify the misery level a tiny bit.

I thought at first that I was so eeriely lucky. (My dad, who worked at 140 Broadway at the time, was on vacation the day of the first bombing back in 1993; if he was at work he told me he probably would've been at the parking garage -- ground zero -- at the time of the bombing.) I woke up late, usually I wake up around 6:15, 6:30, but I left my bed at 7:10. I briefly considered not even coming in at all, because coming in late embarrasses me more than taking a sick day off, but there I was, rushing around to make a 8:00 Bay Shore train which would get me into the World Trade Center at almost exactly 9:40, had everything gone on as normal. Had I not been such a sleepy boo, and come in the normal late time that I do -- 9:10 -- I probably wouldn't have been able to get into the building anyway.

Even after therapy and drugs, my ordinary level of paranoia assumed terrorism was inevitable. After all, I was working in a building that had been bombed before. My friend Colin, who currently works as a lawyer in the land of the Baader-Meinhof, told me just a few years ago when he visted New York: it's gonna happen. It's only a matter of time, but it's gonna happen, and when it does, America won't be ready. I think every single time I left the World Trade Center, for whatever reason, I entertained very brief thoughts about feeling safer, now that I was away from such an obvious target. I didn't like being in Penn Station at 9:00 AM. I always tried getting out of there as quickly as I could. Wherever possible, I would avoid taking trains during the thick of rush hour. It sickens me to think of all that mental energy spent on empty paranoia, and it sickens me to think I was in a sense right: all the scenarios I entertained about escaping the trauma and that's exactly what happened to me.

I may very well be lucky, but I don't think about it anymore. The relief ebbed away. I am just here.

Television changes everything. The World Trade Center was always, always on TV, and yet I never got used to having video intermediary between my eyes and the buildings-in-themselves. And now I have to face familiar scene + dirt and debris, making everything just familiar enough to be sickeningly disorienting. That's the Borders I used to buy books from, and the HSBC Bank I cashed a check in as late as last Friday. Only this time I see it being effaced in angry, billowing debris that people are running from. Those are the windows from Seven World Trade Center that used to reflect sunlight into our windows back at Two World Trade. (I should've known the stone veneer was that thin.) That pit is where I saw the Shangri-Las, Alex Chilton with the Box Tops, and Glen Branca perform, and now (even though I can't see them) there are little bits of bodies everywhere. The arcade with the ridiculous palm trees, the one with the excellent acoustics and the great lunch areas -- you can see the sky through the back now. People I knew once fed their nicotine habits in front of that shard of building. Dad took me to the top of the building when I was a kid. Not once, but twice. They filmed The Wiz there. It was once one way, and now it is another. Repeat to infinite possibilities. Of course this is the way of all flesh, but usually God gives you the luxury to ignore most changes.

Last night my neighbors got into yet another heated argument -- it wasn't about the disaster, but I could tell that the extra venom in their voices, the extra loud door-slams and swear-words -- that all these things were due to the anger and helplessness they felt as a result of watching, worrying and wondering ...

Please, whoever you are and wherever you are, and however you feel about the incredible tragedy that's just taken place : try to find a _constructive_ way to deal with your feelings -- PLEASE don't let your rage boil over into hatred and PLEASE don't unleash it on someone else ...

Ironically, the neighborhood kids (who were what the argument was about), were still gleefully carrying on with their war-games. It was unnerving lying on my bed with the lights off, hearing BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! I GOT YOU! YOU'RE DEAD! every few minutes out the window ...

In the office adjacent to the main entrance (where I'm @ right now), the TV is tuned to CNN, offering information and adjectives, as always. Trying to recast the same brutal facts in different, less numbing packages. I'm going to see if I can donate blood this afternoon, and then maybe catch a movie or do some frivolous shopping - just anything to give myself something else to think about, reclaim (however briefly) some semblance of stability.

You would have to look for groups that are capable of highly skilled and professional operations like this. Your first thought would have to be what is called "the Afghans" -- not necessarily the Afghan government, but that group of people who volunteered to fight with the mujahedin against the Soviet army and received very sophisticated training as well as financing from the CIA. This group would include bin Laden, but there are others as well.

The actions today clearly involved dozens but not hundreds of people. A small enough group to keep their activities secret as they were plotting.

We will desperately look for targets to strike; the pressure for retaliation will be enormous. But it will be hard for us to pinpoint the responsible parties. Groups like the Afghans are stateless. You could strike the Taliban central command, but it's unlikely their top leadership authorized it. These terrorist networks are purposely not highly structured. They're like the right-wing militia types in this country. They may all show up from time to time at the same gun shows, but there is no mailing list or centralized command.

We failed to kill those responsible for the Nairobi embassy bombing when we attacked Afghanistan and the Sudan. I think our chances this time of targeting the right people will also be very slim.

These actions took a tremendous level of precision and sophistication. My guess is this group put all of its resources into this; they've shot their wad. It might inspire other groups that view the U.S. to be the Great Satan to strike, but the numbers who are capable of pulling off something like this are few.

The Palestinians are unlikely to have been involved in something like this. Their rage is directed at Israel, the enemy within their sight. And their military and political apparatus is under immense stress right now; they have their hands full at home.

People are saying this attack was unprecedented, but there have been similar attacks against U.S. targets overseas, of course, like the embassy in Nairobi, the U.S.S. Cole and the military barracks in Saudi Arabia.

This action points less to Palestine than it does to the Saudi Arabia peninsula, where there is a major U.S. military presence and where the U.S. is a powerful backer of the Saudi royal family. Among those like bin Laden who view the U.S. as the Great Satan, in their minds the U.S. military is an occupying force in a sacred land and the Saudi family is corrupt and complicit.

I'm very worried about anti-Arab and anti-Islamic hysteria. And I'm very worried it will radically alter the lives of average Americans. It will be a long time before Americans ever take a plane trip the same way or visit public spaces. The fear will lead to stepped-up security measures and an erosion of our civil liberties.

Americans will struggle with the question "Why us. I thought we were the good guys?" But for many people in the world, we are a symbol of evil and oppression. Our vast wealth and power are bound to create resentment in some quarters. We should ask ourselves what actions our government has taken over the years that have built up this resentment. Such as our close relationship with the Saudi royal family, which many in that country view as hopelessly corrupt and tyrannical. Since there is no ability to oppose the family's rule in a democratic fashion, opposition to their rule is bound to take a terroristic route.

The terrorists involved were many things, but almost by definition were not cowardly.

And by your logic, the CIA would be the most "cowardly" organization on the face of this Earth.

Pinefox -- quite right; I wasn't necessarily defending their aims. Only agreeing that (a) it takes balls to attack the Pentagon under any circumstances, so the "cowardly" is perplexing, and (b) pretending that this is "senseless" and ignoring the very real political factors and motivations behind it seems deliberately ignorant and dangerous. By pretending that there are not reasons for this, we only allow for our country to take more actions that provoke the same problems in the future, when we will theoretically again plead ignorance to the situation that's affecting us.

This lack of information is the worst.

Do you see the gross double standard you're applying just to allow you to call terrorists "cowardly" (when surely "murderous" is enough)? A whole lot of Americans sacrificed their lives in WWII, and we consider that "courageous" and "honorable." Should they have found "worthwhile reasons for living," or can we just admit that people, no matter how extreme or indefensible their views, are not being "cowardly" when they die for things that they -- however wrongheadedly -- believe in?

The guy at the SF office has *already* set up a new firm-wide e-mail system, and apparently all of the principals will be having a pow-wow today.

FYI: Macnini Duffy backs up our entire network every month on computer tape which is sent monthly to an off-site location; in addition, we have three other offices around the country, so it's not inconcievable that we can get back on our feet relatively quickly.

I still have no idea if I have a job, though, and if I still do, when I can go back to...wherever. Mancini-Duffy set up a temporary space in Midtown Manhattan after the 1993 bombing, and I assume we'll do the same this time round.

Frank like you I think atheism is a more courageous option that the alternatives, but BOY is that a can o'worms....

As to WORLD DOMINATION, it occurs to me that (possibly) no one is actually left living of the precise org which undertook this particular attack. For from world dom, they have wiped themselves from the world (of course with countless others).

Today: September 12, 2001 at 9:20:02 PDT

FAA Unsure When Flights Will Resume WASHINGTON- The Federal Aviation Administration continued its ban on flying Wednesday and said it wasn't sure when airline flights would resume.

FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said agency officials were deciding when to allow planes to take off.

Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, a major airline hub, said it would not open at noon, and Delta Airlines said all of its flights would be canceled until 6 p.m. EDT, including commuter flights. Southwest Airlines said it would not fly at all Wednesday.

Another FAA spokesman, Les Dorr, said people should not expect all flights to resume normal travel, since many planes are at the wrong airports.

"I think it is fair to say there is not going to be a mass exodus of planes and passengers that have been on the ground because some of the airlines have airplanes that are literally in the wrong place to fly their schedules," Dorr said.

He declined to discuss increased security measures, but said, "Passengers should expect to have to devote more time to the check-in process."

I'm not arguing that in the least, and I really hate the fact that trying to examine why people do things like this is interpreted as defending what they're doing. I'm only saying that however wrong and unjustifiable, there is still a fairly reasonable logical path leading to this event. I'm only saying that we as an American public seem to ask for a lot more differentiation between governments and civilians than we ask for elsewhere in the world. And I'm only saying that when you train and manipulate terrorists against your Cold War enemies, prop up unpopular totalitarian governments to preserve your military space, and near- unconditionally support the most despicable acts of other nations, you should not be entirely surprised to find that you may be hated for it. This is not a justification; this is just an explanation.

I'm going to have to take some time off work, if they'll let me. It's got to the point where I can't think anymore.

Wonderful Michael Moore piece - nail on the head as so often.

And thankyou so much Mr Daddino.

Mark: I don't think that in itself knowing I'm an atheist tells you anything interesting about my beliefs, or tells you one way or another whether I'm complex or simpleminded. And if I believed in God that wouldn't necessarily make me simpleminded, any more than it made Aquinas, Augustine, Luther, and scores (all right, millions) of others simple-minded.

Also (while in carping mode) I notice an ambiguity in this discussion's use of the word senseless. I.e., senseless meaning the opposite of "sensible," in which case the attack does seem to have been senseless, as opposed to "senseless" meaning "without reason or cause," in which case the attack was not senseless, and thoughtful people will try to make sense of it.

Pinefox - the other Kogan says this about his situation: "As it happens, I work in the CNN building, which has to be the safest building in Washington."

And Nitsuh, I don't have nearly enough information to have an opinion on how courageous or not the terrorists were. My point is that throwing one's life away in and of itself is not necessarily courageous. I can't imagine that you don't understand this.

I believe that Nitsuh's point is that throwing away one's life in and of itself is not necessarily cowardly.

We don't even know who they were yet. Until that time, all bets are off.

On television: A young woman is frantically searching for her missing fiance, tears streaming down her face, the camera shows a list of phone numbers and pieces of information she's collected. A reporter shoves a microphone in her face: "And you were to have a wedding soon?"

Would it be too much to ask for the media to refrain from gratuitous exploitation of grief at this time?