9/11 Twenty Year Anniversary

 I had planned on offering a follow-up to my prior blog on abortion, when 9/11/2021 rolled by.  Looking from my balcony at night, I noticed a large searchlight going directly up to the sky, from the direction of DC.  It turns out that was the local area’s tribute spotlight honoring the Pentagon crash.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I was working as an attorney for a sole practitioner (law firm with only one owner, no partners) whose office was across Route 123 from the Fairfax County (Virginia) court complex.  The Boss himself was down in Richmond for a bar meeting, so it was just me and one of the secretaries.   Sometime in the morning, the secretary notified me that “a plane hit the World Trade Center” (North Tower, 8:46 a.m. EST) and set up the firm’s small TV set, with rabbit ears, to watch the events unfold.  Sure enough, another plane hit the second tower (South Tower, 9:03 a.m.), a third plane hit the Pentagon (9:37 a.m., west side of the building), and a fourth plane crashed somewhere in rural Pennsylvania (10:03 a.m.) once the passengers figured out what was going on and charged the cockpit to take down the hijackers, at the cost of their own lives.

Before the second tower was hit, one of the news reporters remarked that “maybe” [the first] collision was an accident.  But you could see the plane flying directly AT the tower – obviously the pilot was deliberately targeting the tower itself.  When the second tower was hit, any lingering doubts should have been over.

What was really bizarre was watching the towers themselves actually collapse.  Before that point it was more along the lines of, “well, someone hit the building and put it on fire.”  The collapses really were the nail in the coffin.  Those collapses not only doomed the people still inside the buildings, but also the rescue crews who had been trying to save the buildings and the people inside.  The final death toll for all four attacks comes in to just under 3,000. 

Back in summer 1988 we visited NYC, and we got to visit the World Trade Center.  I found it underwhelming, compared to the deck at the Empire State Building (eighty sixth and one hundred and second floors), as the windows are back from the edge of the building.  While I was disappointed that the rebuilt WTC building was a single one instead of a pair, at least its observation deck is much better.

Living in Northern Virginia, Rosslyn to be exact, I had driven past the Pentagon too many times to count, most of them being past the face of the Pentagon (1 out of 5) which was struck on that day.  For awhile thereafter, the hole was there, but has now long since been patched up.

The major impact, so to speak, of 9/11 was to pull EVERYONE together.   Here was a terrorist act so brutal and compelling, our own generation’s Pearl Harbor, that even cynical liberal Democrats – at least most of them – were bludgeoned into sincere patriotism.  When it came to chasing down Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, we were united.  For that matter, foreigners who were inclined to distrust us and look down on us, now took pity on us and we had effectively a blank check to seek revenge.  We liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban, tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden (on Barack Obama’s watch) and soon after took Iraq away from Saddam Hussein.

Back home, Bush Jr. pushed through the Patriot Act and set up the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba to make sure Harold and Kumar weren’t planning any attacks.  Part of the danger of the attacks was goading us into becoming a police state – which we avoided – and overstepping our mandate, which we arguably did in Iraq. 

I don’t recall being any MORE or LESS upset by 9/11 than anyone else.  My hearing was still substandard, so volunteering for military service was no more possible than it was in 1986 when I graduated from high school and could not get into ROTC – or the National Guard.  I had no qualms or dispute about the Afghanistan operation, nor the subsequent Iraqi operation.  I suppose “liberation” still rings truer than “invasion” because notwithstanding our subsequent ball-dropping on nation-building in both countries, we were liberating each from a vile regime: the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.  Of course, the then-threatened weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein supposedly had never materialized, and many would argue that we knew they did not exist when we invaded.  “Donald Rumsfeld” is a name I hear mentioned in that context. 

Did we know it would happen and let it occur?  Well, there were stories that the FBI received reports that the 19 flyers were learning to take off but not land the planes.  I don’t believe anyone has proved, conclusively, that the administration had clear and convincing evidence that 4 jets would be hijacked and crashed into major targets.  These were innovative, unprecedented attacks.  The 1993 WTC bombing may have lulled us into a false sense of security, writing off the terrorists as more inspired than competent.  But a slew of other bombings overseas should have put us on notice that not all terrorists were buffoons.  Bringing back Pearl Harbor, many accused FDR of sitting on evidence of the attack to allow it to go through, but the actual intelligence we had was only that the Japanese were up to something- the fleet maintained radio silence on its way to Hawaii and we had no actual warning of the attack – until it actually occurred.  Fortunately for us, our four carriers were out at sea and escaped the attack. 

The bigger picture is this:  when we ARE attacked, and are legitimately the victim of the attack, how do we respond?   After Pearl Harbor we fought back against the Japanese.  Oddly, Nazi Germany declared war on US, not the other way around.  Nonetheless, we managed to defeat both Axis countries and fight wars on both fronts simultaneously. 

With our recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, obviously the question is: did we waste our time there?  I think the real answer is not that it was a mistake to go in there to begin with, rather the follow-through was botched.  A recent article profiling various US troops who served there from 2001 to the present shows an inconsistent approach to destroying the Taliban.  “Clear and hold” is supposedly the optimal strategy, but that ultimately means you need to surround the enemy completely.  It seems the Pakistani border was too porous to allow us to close it off completely, meaning the Taliban could hide there until we lost patience and left.  Sadly, the Pakistanis themselves were complicit in harboring the Taliban.  How much we could actually accomplish without their full cooperation is a big question.  If anyone has the answer, by all means let me know.   

The biggest success story at shutting down an insurgency was Malaysia, but there the Brits had the ability to shut off the entire country and the rebels were ethnic Chinese, not Malayans.  In Vietnam we did not have the prerogative to shut down Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam up to the Chinese border.  In Iraq, we deposed Saddam but had no plan on what would replace his regime.  Bottom line is, FOLLOW THROUGH.  Do not exceed the moral authority we earned when those Towers collapsed. 

Finally, here’s a discussion of KSM, man behind 9/11.  Unfortunately it seems the FBI and CIA did NOT coordinate effectively.  My impression is that KSM decided to taint his confession to whatever he was actually responsible for by taking credit for many other things he probably had nothing to do with.    

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to being the 9/11 mastermind. 20 years later, he’s still awaiting trial (yahoo.com)

Nine Eleven

 

Wow, the date itself gave me the topic!  How convenient.

At the time I was working as an attorney for an older, experienced sole practitioner attorney in Fairfax, Virginia, hereinafter “Bill”.   Bill was down in Richmond that day for a bar meeting.  One of the secretaries came in my office and told me, “a plane hit the World Trade Center”.  [North Tower, 8:46 a.m. EST]  A reporter suggested this might be an accident, but the footage showed the plane flying directly at the tower.  Soon enough, the second plane hit the second tower [South Tower, 9:03 a.m. EST], the third plane hit the Pentagon [9:37 a.m.], and the fourth plane crashed in western Pennsylvania [10:03 a.m.], brought down by the passengers themselves storming the cockpit, one passenger calling his wife to advise her the circumstances and to say goodbye to her.

My girlfriend at the time, Leila, lived in Pentagon City and worked in Rosslyn, a commute which took her past that face of the Pentagon, but she was at the office when the plane hit. 

I think I speak for everyone who remembers that day that we were ALL angry and upset.   This galvanized everyone, even Democrats who didn’t care much for President George W. Bush.   When he decided that we would liberate Afghanistan from the Taliban and track down Osama Bin Laden, he had pretty much unanimous support.   That’s why I’m puzzled by some people on the Book of Faces alleging protests in support of the people responsible for 9/11.

Where I live, Skyline at Bailey’s Crossroads, has a large segment of Muslims.  Whether they’re Sunni or Shi’ite, I don’t know.  None of them have given me any problems.  Nationwide, Muslims are 1% of the US population, 3 million out of 330 million.   The Fort Hood guy and the Boston Marathon bombers were Muslim, but we have plenty of homegrown, non-Muslim screwups blowing things up and shooting people. 

The liberation of Afghanistan went fairly smoothly (October 7 to December 7, 2001), but the Taliban simply retreated to the hills, and in parts of neighboring Pakistan, and continue to cause problems – helped by bounties from their erstwhile opponents the Russians.  Osama Bin Laden himself was taken out in 2011 by US forces – under Barack Obama’s administration. 

Two years later, upon GWB’s insistence (later disproven) that Saddam Hussein and his regime were involved in the 9/11 attacks, we invaded/liberated Iraq.   There, the much-vaunted Republican Guards vanished into the hills and we took the country fairly quickly – March 1 to May 1, 2003.  Then a protracted guerilla war erupted, presumably those Republican Guards taking to the hills instead of facing us directly.  Saddam Hussein himself was captured in December 2003, hiding in a bunker in the ground. 

Aftermath.  As noted, 9/11 certainly unified the country behind GWB and public support for the liberation of Afghanistan was fairly widespread, if not unanimous.   Saddam Hussein’s connection with 9/11 was somewhat more tenuous.  Ironically, one of the justifications for the invasion, that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction”, later turned out to be bogus, and Saddam’s own generals, when our invasion began, asked him to deploy these alleged weapons – only to be told by him his hints of having them were merely a bluff to prevent the US from invading.  D’oh!   I do recall that support for the Iraq invasion was far less widespread than the previous operation in Afghanistan.  Partly this was due to tempers calming down over the two year period between 9/11/2001 and 2003, and partly was a suspicion that GWB was overplaying his hand on the matter.  Much of the goodwill we earned on 9/11 was squandered by our invasion of Iraq.  Having said that, I’m not seeing any domestic sympathy or support for the Taliban in 2020 or any time earlier – or for Al-Qaeda, for that matter.

Conspiracy.  Yeah, I zone out on the conspiracies that “9/11 was an inside job”, “jet fuel can’t possibly melt the internal structure of the WTC tower”, etc.  I put those in the same category as “the Civil War was about states’ rights” for credibility.  Getting back to that Suicide Pact book I’m reading, I’ve yet to reach Posner’s analysis of the Patriot Act; if 9/11 was orchestrated by the CIA or US forces as an excuse to impose a form of fascism on us, ostensibly to fight terrorism, we’d see something like a fascist regime in our country.  As yet, that hasn’t happened, but much of what Posner talks about concerns holding alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Circa 2020 the main fascists are the President and his “he’s an asshole who gets things done” supporters who believe both the President and the police to be infallible.  Anyhow.

One World Observatory

Last weekend I finally made it back up to the WTC since the observation deck was opened in the new (single) building, One World Trade Center.

Back in the summer of 1988, we visited the observation deck at the prior Twin Towers.   These were originally built in 1974.  We had been to Manhattan a few times in the late 1970s but only visited the Empire State Building (ESB).  

Observation Deck.  This was in the South Tower.   Having previously experienced the ESB, I was disappointed with this.  First off, the ESB is in the middle of Manhattan (34 & Fifth Ave) so the view is more even around.  South of the WTC is mostly ocean, though you can see Liberty Park, Ellis Island, Staten Island, and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the distance.  Second, the windows of the deck were about 50 feet in from the edge of the building.  That took away much of the drama.

1993 Bombing.   A pair of Pakistani yahoos blew up a Ryder truck in the parking garage.  Six people died, and the garage was heavily damaged, but obviously the towers did not collapse.  This lulled us in to a false sense of security.

September 11, 2001.  This time around 19 hijackers learned to fly planes, took over 4 jets with box cutters, and crashed all four of them.  One crashed in the countryside of western Pennsylvania (we drove by the site on our way to Cleveland this summer), another crashed into the Pentagon, and the two others brought down the Twin Towers, as we call them. 

Current Deal.   The site of the original Twin Towers is marked with big square fountains.   The new WTC is a single building, which opened in November 2014, and its Observation Deck (One World Observatory) is finally open.  You take an elevator (?? You don’t walk up 102 stories?) which shows you Manhattan’s development.  Then you come out and browse around.  There’s a gift shop, a café, and a restaurant.  But the best thing is that the glass windows are at the very edge of the building, not 50 feet in.  

Islam Re-Revisited

Another Friday the 13^th.  I hate the films.  And it’s rarely bad luck.  Here’s something completely different.

Obviously Islam is a relevant topic these days.   I can’t turn on the Book of Faces without seeing someone bark and bray about “banning Sharia” or “Muslims taking over America”.  I have a few things to say on this topic, which might be rather provocative.  Bear with me.

Misguided Satanists.   As we know, Islam is the religion founded by Arabian warlord Mohammad in the early 600s.  He claimed Allah told him a bunch of stuff, most (if not all) of which was fairly self-serving.  The most accurate description of this religion is that it was made up by him to justify his military campaigns to take over as much of the known world as he could.  His followers carried on the tradition after his death in 632 and continue worshipping Allah and attempting to spread his Word even to this day.   There are several predominantly Muslim countries, and one (Shi’ite) theocracy, Iran.  The Sunnis of Iraq and Syria have attempted to set up a competing Sunni theocracy in those countries.

C.S. Lewis.  In his The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe series of books, Lewis created a fictional race of Calormenes, who worship a deity named Tash.  These were obviously meant to be Muslims worshipping Allah.  Aslan, the wise and benevolent talking Lion, tells the children that Tash is essentially the Devil.  “Good deeds done in Tash’s name are in fact done in my name, and evil deeds done in my name are actually done in Tash’s name”.  Even Lewis, having identified Allah as Satan, still recognized that there were good Muslims and evil Christians. 

If you don’t believe God or Satan exist, then “Allah” is an imaginary being created by Mohammed to justify his exploits.   Neither option – Satan or make-believe deity – reflects well on Islam.

Reformed Church of Satan.   It’s too difficult for me to conceive that Muslims around the world consciously worship the Devil.  Naturally they view Allah as God.  And Islam has a Devil, Iblis, in their theology.  I’ve yet to hear of any sect of Islam that worships Iblis, as the Devil.

            In the US, we have self-professed Satanists.   In particular, I’m familiar with Anton LaVey, his Church of Satan, and his Satanic Bible, which I own and have read.  Oddly, despite ostensibly worshipping the Devil himself, these “Satanists” are really atheists.  Their brand of Satanism is more accurately described as a deliberately provocative form of atheism which personifies Man and his right to carnal and physical pleasure while he lives his short and brutal life on this planet, followed by eternal oblivion.   LaVey’s positions were extremely close to Ayn Rand’s, and we know she was an atheist too, although I’m not aware of any actual connection between the two.  Rand would have considered LaVey as an arrogant huckster who elevated atheism into a circus sideshow to gain popularity and notoriety for himself.

…so what?   Having said that, I don’t believe Muslims in the United States are any threat to us.  Here is why.

Rome.   This is the capital of world Catholicism.  Rather, I should say, the Vatican City, which has a population of ….557.   Rome itself has a population of 4 million.  There are 1.2 billion Catholics around the world.  The largest Catholic country is Brazil, with 124 million Catholics.   Clearly, 1.2 billion cannot fit in the Vatican, nor in Rome, or even Italy.  I visited Roma and the Vatican myself in 1981 on a school trip, but have no desire to live there.  Nor, it seems, do the Catholics living outside Rome. 

Israel.  There are 14 million Jews worldwide, of which 83% live in Israel and the US.  Zionism aside, not all Jews want to live in Israel.   Half the world’s Jews live in Israel, most of the other half in the US.

Mecca.  Islam’s holy city has a permanent population of 1.6 million.  While all Muslims have a duty to make a lifetime pilgrimage to Mecca, living there permanently appears to be neither required nor expected.   Worldwide there are 1.7 billion Muslims.

Muslims in the US.  Less than 1% of the US population is Muslim.  There are far more Buddhists and atheists – plus Jews, of course – than there are Muslims.  The US is almost 80% Christian.  Of a population of 321 million, that means 256 million Christians and 3 million Muslims.  By numbers alone, it would be almost impossible for Muslims to establish a majority in this country.  And I don’t even think they want to do this.  Why?

Someone posted an infographic on how the world’s Muslim countries are the poorest, shittiest, countries.  Maybe true for Bangladesh, less so for Turkey or Saudi Arabia.  Iraq and Syria are unlikely to get better any time soon.  Egypt isn’t too bad.  Libya is having problems.  Anyhow.

Islam has different varieties:  at the very least there is Sh’ite vs. Sunni, and even the Sunnis have different sects.  If you live in Iran, you have to be Shi’ite.  Presumably living in ISIS controlled territory you have to be Sunni.  When Muslims get uptight about their religion, they are particularly harsh on fellow Muslims who don’t worship Allah quite the same way. 

We take our religious freedom in the US for granted.  We don’t have to worry that our church will blow up, that strangers will accost us on the street and threaten us if we don’t convert to Mormonism, or receive thinly veiled anonymous threats of violence.  Christians in Egypt come to the US to escape persecution, and Muslims come to the US for similar reasons.  (Also, to leave places where suicide bombers and rocket attacks, or all-out war, are a daily risk.)

Again, here in the US, which is less than 1% Muslim?  No one gives a damn.  If Abdul wants to get a bacon cheeseburger at McDonald’s or Burger King, or drink alcohol, or do any of the things which Islam declares “haram” (forbidden), who will stop him?  Who will even care?  Abdul and his family are free to do as they please, without being harassed by the locals about how they practice Islam.  They get to enjoy the benefits of living in a huge, rich country with no Civil War (since 1865), no suicide bombings, no Sharia, no Imams, none of the hassles Muslims have to deal with in Muslim countries.  And most likely they came here for THAT REASON.  So turning the US into a Muslim country is not only impossible, it’s highly undesirable – it defeats the purpose of why they came here, which is not to turn the US into another screwed up Muslim country, but to live somewhere that isn’t a screwed up Muslim country. 

Suicide bombers.   Ok, take away the risk of an outright takeover.  Muslim suicide bombers could still cause problems, right?  Not really. 

            Aside from 9/11, we haven’t seen any suicide bombings in the US.  That Muslim guy in Texas – the Army guy who went BSI – didn’t even blow himself up, nor did the idiots who tried to blow up the World Trade Center back in 1993.  It looks like the shooting spree yahoos who do shoot themselves at the end were all non-Muslims.  The guy at Initech with the unpronounceable name isn’t blowing himself up.  And I don’t see Arab oil sheiks who already have harems of 72 women on this worldly planet blowing themselves up.  Mostly it’s loser virgin boys from Loserstan who do that.  Muslims in the US know they’re well off.  They have too much to lose.  Not gonna happen. 

9/11 & ISIS.   The attack on 9/11 was definitely a bad one.  19 Saudis learned to fly jumbo jets and took down the World Trade Center, knocked a hole in the Pentagon (now fixed), and messed up the Pennsylvania countryside – plus all the crew and passengers on all 4 flights and many firemen and first responders on the ground.  To date, ISIS remains dominant in much of northwest Iraq and northeast Syria.  The Taliban looks like it’s taking back much lost ground in Afghanistan.  The crazies are definitely NOT done yet.  However, those theaters are on the other side of the world from us and no threat to the continental US.

            Closer to home, and more relevant to our concerns here, among all those “peaceful” Muslims coming to the US, who knows how many are truly peaceful and how many are Al Qaeda sleeper cells?  It might be arrogant to assume that 100% of them succumb to the charms of American society.  The FBI needs to remain vigilant at home (while respecting our Constitutional rights, a balance we can acknowledge is not always easy or obvious to make), and the cowboys from Langley better be on top of their game overseas.  Aside from the yahoo in Fort Hood, Texas, and the Boston bombings, all of our mass shootings since 9/11 have been home grown nutjobs with non-Islamic agendas.  But that doesn’t mean there’s not another cell of the same caliber as the 19 from 9/11 cooking up a scheme to do something bad.  However, we’ve seen those to be few and far between.  We have far more to worry about in our daily lives from the mundane dangers of cancer, highway accidents, or random, good old American street crime, to make it sensible to worry about the extremely remote odds of another terrorist attack from Muslims.  They are, in fact, the least of our worries. 

So if you’re obsessed about Muslims invading from Mexico or another 9/11…get a massive clue and CHILL OUT.  They may be Satanists but they’re really no threat to us.