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Further Updates On Terrorist Attack
Contradicting earlier reports, reader Adam Brookman writes: "I can guarantee that no car bomb went off in front of the State Dept. in DC. My father is part of the critical personel at State dept. When I read that I called him. He said he heard the same thing and he also heard that the building was hit by a plane, but neither were true."
Worth reading is this analysis of the motives and some possible suspects in today's violence, at Jane's International Security News. They've picked three plausible attackers. Motive aside, Jack Bryar has a convincing take on who is really most hurt by the attacks today.
babyruth writes: "amazon.com has a Red Cross Relief fund set up on their homepage, where you can contribute online. Only several hundred have contributed so far, let the power of /. help!" Iridium provides a link straight to the donations page, noting that "All standard fees are waived -- all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross." Of course, the Red Cross is -still- in desperate need of blood. If you can donate, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find the donation center nearest to you.
iggyflashbulb writes: "CNN reports some oddball group not associated with bin Laden is attacking Kabul at night. Are they taking advantage of the NY situation or did they create it?"
An anonymous reader writes: "Following the sad (and outrageous) mess of these terrorist attacks, results are already starting to impact the country. When a RSM failed on one of our 5500 Ciscos, we recieved the following notice
'Due to a national emergency completion of your case, delivery of your parts or engineer will be delayed until further notice. Several areas of the country have restricted transportation and currently no air traffic is available. Cisco will notify you as soon a we are able to dispatch your order.'
There doesn't seem to any information on Cisco's site."
CERT is in action as well: SilentTone writes: "Ween Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University was evacuated today so the the Computer Emergency Response Team could go into action."
Many readers have been assembling mirrors for the overloaded news sites of the world. Jon Anhold writes: "I've compiled more photos and what not, mirrored many of the sites around to help the load. They're available here: http://ziggy.dreamland.net/wtc/"
Owen Bossola writes: "This is a simple webpage I put up with shots I took all day of the World Trade Center. I go to school across the river at Stevens Institute of Technology and I watched the whole thing from campus. It is absolutely nuts, I'm looking out my window and for the first time, downtown NYC is dark, and there aren't two large buildings gleaming back at me."
rhyder writes: "I was last in the World Trade Center and the attached World Financial Center on Saturday evening. Many people I know work in those buildings, even more live and work in the shadow of those 2 towers.
From the Port Authority of NY and NJ:
- The Port Authority
- Trade Center Concourse Level Map
- Trade Center Plaza Level Map
- Trade Center Complex Overview
- Area Map showing southern tip of Manhattan and the Trade Center location."
Anyone else able to confirm this rumor?
Jon Bishop asks: "Why Today? Why did this attack happen on September 11, 2001. Here is a guess. I played with the date commonly used for programming. YYYYMMDD returns 20010911. 911...in 2001. Is this play on numbers intentional or coincidence?" It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.
Carl Merritt writes: "Since many sites seem to be creaking under the load today I've dumped every relevant picture and video I can find onto my server, please feel free to suck up some of my unused bandwidth with downloads or links: http://www.binaryvista.com/WTC/ I'll probably leave it up for a couple weeks, or until CNN asks me to remove their pictures ;-)."
An Anonymous Coward writes "I just want to remind everyone that there is still active air cover over at least Chicago. A tanker is orbiting O'Hare and at least what appear to be two F-15s are making the rounds. If you would like more information including frequencies I suggest subscribing to the CARMA mailing list at QTH.net for up to date monitoring information."
Disheartening news from Egypt: soulflakes points to this story of some Egyptians celebrating the attacks today. Here's a BBC piece which indicates the feeling is shared in some other African countries. This doesn't mean that all or most people in any country feel the same way.
yoda389 writes: "I'm getting reports from friends that gas prices are jumping to as much as $5.00 a gallon. There are huge lines at all gas stations here in my hometown someplace in Wisconsin." And ikohl1 writes: "A friend just informed me of how gas prices were raised to $3.50 in a town near where i live. I didn't believe him at first but I found this article on Yahoo."
Gas prices may fluctuate in the short term, but in the long haul, effects on exports of goods physical and abstract may be affected just as drastically: elliotj writes: "MSNBC has a Steven Levy opinion piece on the possible implications of today's attack on America and governmental policy on encryption export restrictions. Personally, I think we need to determine exactly what happened before blaming physical or electronic security measures for a role in the tragedy. I heard the planes were hi-jacked with knives ... that doesn't sound very high-tech or a sign of significant security failings to me. It is the act itself that is so shocking and sickening."
The van contained no explosives, but the three people involved have been detained for questioning.
High-speed Road Trip (18.000KPH)
The CNN news feed will be open again at 8AM ET. It just shut off a few minutes ago.
Jeremy
From
m l
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,34190,00.ht
September Anniversary of Several Past Attacks, Events
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
September marks the anniversary of several noted political events and terrorist attacks.
On Sept. 11, 1922, a British mandate was proclaimed in Palestine, despite Arab protests. It lasted until 1948, after the United Nations authorized a partition of the territory and the state of Israel was established.
On Sept. 6, 1970, three planes from TWA, Swissair and BOAC carrying more than 400 hostages were hijacked and ordered to the Jordanian airport by the PFLP, in what is known as "Skyjack Sunday." Another terrorist team tried to hijack an El Al Boeing over London but security staff foiled the attempt and captured one of the hijackers, Leila Khalid, alive. The German, Swiss and British Governments all agreed to the PFLP's demands and released a number of terrorists, including Khalid, held in their jails.
On Sept. 11, 1972, the troubled Munich Summer Olympics, also remembered as "the Olympics of Terror," ended. For 21 hours under live television cameras,hooded gunmen of the Palestinian faction "Black September" held Israeli athletes hostage, killing 11 of them duringa botched getaway and airport firefight with German antiterrorism squads.
On Sept. 28, 2000, the eve of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), Ariel Sharon, then- leader of the opposition right-wing Likud party, visited the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. Sharon, accompanied by an entourage of security officers, claimed he was exercising his right to visit the Mount, but his visit angered many Arabs, both Israeli and Palestinian. The day after the visit saw the beginning of what is known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
John 17:20
There were no explosives in the van.
I was on top of that building two weeks ago. I got the pictures that I took there yesterday. I can't really bring myself to open the package again. I don't think it has really sunk in for me yet. It all seemed so big, larger than life when I was standing there looking up at it and then when I was at the top staring down. I can't believe that the place is gone. I'm thinking of the French kid that took my picture in front of the rest of the Manhattan skyline. I'm angry, but I think I'm too shaken up to be as angry as I will be later.
I'm not a religous person, but God be with the victims and protect the rescue workers as they do their best. I don't think I will ever forget the images of those people jumping from the top floors. I won't sleep well tonight.
God bless you all.
1) DC Special Operations Police Channel is streamed at http://www.penguinradio.com/
2) This is a posting from the DC Police Scanner mailing list (qth.net). Very interesting on air cover over DC.
---
FW:------
--
All,
These are my own observations based only on my hand notes taken at the time.
I started listening to the events around 1030 EDT. The Trade Towers and the
Pentagon had already been attacked. By that time there was not a peep of
civil air traffic in the area. One of the first things I heard was Andrews
tower announcing on their VHF & UHF freqs that their airspace was closed and
that all intruders would be shot down. That certainly put an exclamation
point on what I was to hear for the rest of the day.
Throughout the day the Regan National controller (125.65) was the overall
controlling authority for the DC area. He authorized all departures and
entries into the Class B airspace. That role still remains as of 2200 EDT.
As of 2100 EDT Andrews is starting to return to normal with Airevacs and some
helos and VIP jets starting to fly in.
Fighters:
By 1030 there were two flights of DC ANG F-16s (Wild & Caps) up in Combat
Air Patrol (CAP). At that time there were news reports of another, missing
airliner, so I assume the F-16s were up protecting the DC area from that
possibility. Soon these F-16s were joined by three more F-16s from Langley,
North Dakota ANG aircraft normally deployed to Langley in an air defense
mode. The DC ANG flight leader assumed the role as CAP commander trying to
keep all the aircraft straight. DC ANG F-16s assumed control the airspace
below 23,000 ft and the Langley F-16s and alter, F-15s took the airspace
above that.
After about an hour, two Langley F-15s (First) joined the CAP and took up
position high above the area. They were also joined by some F-18s up from
Oceana. This caused some problems as far as refueling was concerned. The
KC-10s, who had the drogue capability, were ready to RTB and were out of
fuel. One of the KC-10s (Team 23) took it upon himself to set up to refuel
his aircraft from the available KC-135 (Tazz) so that he would be in a
position to refuel both the boom aircraft (F-16s & F-15s) and the drogue guys
(F-18s).
In the early afternoon, a flight of two VA ANG F-16s (Fury) came up to the DC
area to join the CAP group. The CAP commander later sent them back to the
Richmond area because there were too many aircraft in the DC area. After
about 30 minutes the VA ANG guys decided to end their CAP around Richmond and
RTB'ed to Harry Byrd International.
Tankers:
By 1030 there were two McGuire KC-10s (Team 23 & 24) up in the area. I'm not
sure if they were already in the general area when the events unfolded or
they were scrambled from McGuire. They started refueling the DC & Langley
F-16s so they could stay in the area. For awhile, in the morning, Team 23
also assumed the role of an AWACS giving target and vectoring information to
the CAP fighters. Team 23 eventually recovered at Andrews and refueled and
went back up in the late PM (1740). What a crew. They deserve a medal.
They've been up there since at least 1030 this morning.
Around the same time as the McGuire tankers were noted, two KC-135s from the
Maine ANG (Maine 85 & 86) were also in the area working with the McGuire
tankers. I believe that these guys had been up off the East Coast and were
diverted to the area to support operations.
Later in the morning and in the early afternoon two OH ANG KC-135s (Tazz &
Flop) and two PA ANG KC-135s (Steel) also joined the support crowd.
AWACS:
About an hour after I started listening, an AWACS (Bandsaw Kilo) was noted
off the MD/VA coast and started taking control of the airspace. However, the
DC ANG CAP commander continued to control the immediate airspace around
downtown DC. Later in the afternoon he was joined by another AWACS
(Chalice). I'm assuming that these aircraft were deployed from Langley or
possibly Seymour-Johnson. Bandsaw and Chalice were both in the area until
quite late in the evening.
Helos:
They were so many medevac helos trying to get into the Pentagon area to
extricate the wounded that I couldn't keep track of all of them.
Interspersed among the medevacs were several 1st Helo Sqdn (Mussels) getting
into the Pentagon area to take out some of the military VIPs (JCS).
There were also a couple of US Navy helos (HU-720) and another ) that came up
to Andrews from Norfolk. I'm assuming that these were carrying VIPs from
CincLant. News reports said that the area of the Pentagon that was struck by
the plane housed mostly USN & Marine offices.
Late in the PM there were several Nighthawk helos operating back & forth
between MCAF Quantico and Andrews. I'm assuming that they were shuttling
military VIPs.
NCS:
Huntress assumed NCS role sometime in the late morning and set up on 255.8,
228.9 & 234.6. Huntress assumed responsibility for designating targets and
releasing fighters to prosecute these targets.
The DC ANG F-16s and Langley F-15s as well as the AWACS and tankers have
been up continuously, -all day. They are still up and it's 2200 EDT. They
must be bushed.
These crews certainly have shown a very high level of professionalism and
devotion to duty. I for one am glad they are up there looking over us. Those
of you who support our military you can be VERY PROUD of their actions on
this day.
Wasn't there a story on \. the other day about the Govt. raiding an ISP that mostly served Islamic sites? I have searched for it here, but cannot find it now. I was wondering now if they did that because they had some idea that something big was about to go down??
"You can't play with my yo-yo"
I can confirm that a second plane was reported on the local DC television stations, and it was described as detailed above.
i could easily say something about palestinian squirrels or Osama Bin Koala, but i just am not in the mood. this type of event depresses hell out of me. i know one can easily consider the loss of life and death toll and think "this is horrible". but it is when i think about the small things that really bother me. imagine, everyone on their way to work, listening to the stereo, just rocking out, never expecting that today was the day they die. or the little kid who kisses his mommy goodbye when he leaves for school. it was the last time. and to even begin to consider how the families and friends of those who have died and are missing feel. there are people going to sleep tonight not knowing if they will ever see their spouse, kid, or best friend ever again. so i will try to get my mind off all of this.
No we can't. We must fight this TOOTH AND NAIL. We can't change our (americans) lives because of the terrorist attack. If we lose even the slightest amount of freedom the terrorists have WON.
We must fight the good fight and not let people in congress pass new laws. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.".
It is a tragic and sad thing that has happened. This is an attack on humanity and civilization and the world as a whole, especially americans tne symbol of freedom and capitalism CANNOT bend, we cannot break, we cannot even flex.
Will I still fly American Airlines? Yep. I always have and always will.
I am not going to change my ways of exercising my freedoms for terroists, not now, not ever.
I think something like this should give everyone new perspective, but I don't think new laws will protect us at all. Just take away our freedoms and let the terrorists win.
Jeremy
According to USA Today, this attack was all in the making if Bin Laden is the case. The article is only about 3 months old, but it details on how Osama Bin Laden used encryption inside of pictures most likely to hide possible attacks. They say this is Bin Laden's latest encryption scheme to convey terrorist information. So when the CIA says did not know this was going to happen, really maybe they are covering up the fact that they sort of knew this but didn't think it would amount to anything.
A group known as the Northern Alliance, an Afghan group opposed to the Taliban and associated with Shah Massooda, has taken credit for the explosions in Afghanistan.
From skyscraper.org
World Trade Center History and Stats
The World Trade Center
Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting
Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting
The World Trade Center is more than its signature twin towers: it is a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The towers, One and Two World Trade Center, rise at the heart of the complex, each climbing more than 100 feet higher than the silver mast of the Empire State Building.
Construction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. Architect Minoru Yamasaki was selected to design the project; architects Emery Roth & Sons handled production work, and, at the request of Yamasaki, the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson served as engineers.
The Port Authority envisioned a project with a total of 10 million square feet of office space. To achieve this, Yamasaki considered more than a hundred different building configurations before settling on the concept of twin towers and three lower-rise structures. Designed to be very tall to maximize the area of the plaza, the towers were initially to rise to only 80-90 stories. Only later was it decided to construct them as the world's tallest buildings, following a suggestion said to have originated with the Port Authority's public relations staff.
Yamasaki and engineers John Skilling and Les Robertson worked closely, and the relationship between the towers' design and structure is clear. Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extending across to a central core. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 18 3/4" wide and set only 22" apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all.
Also unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildings' high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. For the elevators, to serve 110 stories with a traditional configuration would have required half the area of the lower stories be used for shaftways. Otis Elevators developed an express and local system, whereby passengers would change at "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, halving the number of shaftways.
Construction began in 1966 and cost an estimated $1.5 billion. One World Trade Center was ready for its first tenants in late 1970, though the upper stories were not completed until 1972; Two World Trade Center was finished in 1973. Excavation to bedrock 70 feet below produced the material for the Battery Park City landfill project in the Hudson River. When complete, the Center met with mixed reviews, but at 1,368 and 1,362 feet and 110 stories each, the twin towers were the world's tallest, and largest, buildings until the Sears Tower surpassed them both in 1974.
Interesting, but fortunately Nostradamus made a number of predictions which turned out to be incorrect.
Here is some more information about the Northern Alliance and Shah Massoud.
I'm sorry the code is a little rough around the edges (be sure you fill out the forms completely), but I wasn't expecting to go public with it so soon.
Please don't mod this down. I'm really not trying to spam; Just giving a place for those without their own websites to publish their accounts without getting lost in the thousands of Slashdot posts. Thanks.
Got Rhinos?
Did anybody look up today? Here in the Midwest, while this tragedy can seem so close on the TV it almost vanishes into the background when you step outside and see everything and everyone going about their business normally. Until you look up. When the FAA shut down all domestic air travel, they almost turned off the sky. It was a pure blue here in Iowa today, interrupted only by the occaisional cirrus cloud. Right now, the stars wink alone. The contrails, the glints of silver in the sunset, all gone. Routes out of DSM, STL, Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis crisscross the sky daily, but not today. It felt very strange to look up at that barren sky. It's a sight that hasn't been seen in many decades, and I don't expect to see it again.
My condolences go out to the friends and family of the victims of this horrific crime. Attending an east coast college, I have talked with many people who are from the areas where the attacks occured. This has hit close to home. I really have no words to describe what I am feeling.
With that said, I refer you to the excellent salon.com. Their coverage of this event has been extraordinary. I especially hope you read the first-person accounts of the terror. A number: that is difficult to identify with. A person, however, is much different. Remember each one of those thousands was a person, with his/her own life and nothing should be taken for granted.
please say your just being an ass here and trying (not succeeding) to make a joke.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Everyone just assumes this came from the Middle-East. That's what we thought when OKC happened, and it turned out to be something entirely different.
dinner: it's what's for beer
It is very important that we all get back to 'business as usual' as quickly and calmly as possible. If we give in to terrified speculation, hording gas, selling our stock or other panic moves that will fsck our country then we may as well throw up our hands and say, "Terrorists Win!"
If we get back to business and focus on providing support for families and blood for the wounded we will come out of this OK.
God Bless,
Jason Henriksen
It is more likely that old fashioned counterintelligent-style phone tricks were used rather than fancy encryption.
After all, if the NSA can probably defeat any encryption if they have reason to suspect they need to. It's nearly impossible to screen the entire Muslim/Islamic community for suspicious rug orders that may or not be instructions.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Yeah, and the village idiot will ascend to the throne (a widely-distributed fake Nostradamus prophecy).
Nostradamus wrote his "prophecies" in a language that only he knew in fear of death. Scholars have been trying to translate his ramblings for hundreds of years and every once in awhile they try and take their "translations" and compare them to modern events. Heck, most studies of his work said that he had no further predictions after 2000/05/05 which was widely viewed to be his prediction of the end of the world. Guess what? We're still here.
The approach recommended by Cohen, ironically, complements very well the classic strategy pursued by terrorists. Marxist militant Carlos Marighella, whose tactical blueprint has been followed by terrorists worldwide, explained that terrorists attack innocent people in order to provoke governments "to intensify repression. The police roundups, house searches, arrests of innocent people, make life unbearable.... Rejecting the 'so-called political solution,' the urban guerrilla must become more aggressive and violent, resorting without letup to sabotage, terrorism, expropriations, assaults, kidnappings, and executions, heightening the disastrous situation in which the government must act." Marighella went on to explain how this cycle continues until the existing political order is completely subverted, and a revolutionary regime takes power.
The gravest danger presented by today's terrorist attacks is that the effort to find and punish perpetrators will become a war upon the liberties of the American people. Yes, those responsible for the attacks must be found and punished with pitiless severity. But at the same time Americans must demand an immediate end to our interventionist foreign policy, which exacted such a tragic price in American blood on this terrible day.
Seastead this.
Gotta love those whacky Russian hackers.
My family has a business drilling and blasting rock when new roads or buildings are put in. They can't do any blasting for 48 hours due to a lock-down on all explosive materials.
Over at yahoo news there is a story that states that the terrorists on the flight rosters were names of members of Bin Ladin's terrorist group...check it out for yourself:o o.com/h/nm/20010911/wl/crash_binladen_dc_4.html
http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yah
This is a false quote this is not an original quatraine from Nostredamas it is a made up quatrane that was used to prove a point about how easily Nostredamas and predictions could be applied. Search the net again or the newsgroups and you'll find this out.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I'm certain that I am not the only one receiving frantic phone calls from friends and relatives around the country about $5-8/gallon gasoline prices. Usually these alerts are retold third- or fourth-hand accounts.
I drove around town just for kicks, and all the stations had the same prices that were posted Tuesday morning.
This reminds me of a real-world version of an email hoax, only this one has the potential to be self-fufilling: At each station there were lines of cars waiting to fill up on $1.75 gas.
Like alot of stories today, this one is getting out of control. Do your part: do not spread these rumors, and challenge the information of those who do.
Information wants to be Free. Useful Information will cost you.
What freaked me out was the collapse of the twin towers...I know a bit about structural engineering, and knew that these buildings were designed to withstand a passenger jet hitting them. But what really got to me is how they collapsed, like a controlled explosion where the fold the building in on itself.
One Declan McCullagh's mailing list, someone posted a much better analysis of the collapse than what has been seen in the media...most of the media engineers were mostly wrong. Take a gander at this url: http://www.pfarrell.com/rants/archtower.html.
This article talks about how the outside latticework of the WTC was actually a load-bearing member, and there were no internal support columns...and this explains why it collapsed the way that it did.
We can only theorize that the extreme heat of the jet fuel weaking the steel coupled with the fact that these jets were going fast enough to destroy the lattice work on almost all four sides of the structure where they hit caused the eventual collapse of the structures.We can only that what dieties you pray to that they fell in the manner the did...if they had fallen sidewas, in different directions...the death toll would have gone up by possibly an order of magnitutde!
ttyl, Farrell J. McGovern (No relation)
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
The Towers did exactly what they were supposed to do. They were engineered to fold in on themselves so that they do not take our multiple blocks in the City. The amount of fuel that was expended burned a typical 4 hour fire in about 10 min. That fatigued the girders enough that the floors that were affected started falling in on themselves. Each floor is designed to hold two floors worth of debris before they buckle. The floors that eventually gave way were holding much more than that. The buildings did exactly what was needed. They did not take out more than was minimal in a horrible situation. BTW, I am 10 min outside of the city, and the New Jersey Turnpike was shutdown, including all bridges in the area. All ways in and out were shutdown for a while. They are still not letting anyone into the City. It is 12:30AM now.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
Something for us all to note that many many families lost parents tonight - and we should not forget the firemen and police - over 300 estimated in various media outlets - attempting to rescue people - these are tru non combatants whose only thought was for the injured and dying.
S C. html
There is a n NY time story here - but i have copied the text into this post to attempt to cope with the massively overloaded servers they have today
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12RE
Firefighters Dash Into Towers; Many Do Not Return
By JANE FRITSCH
New York firefighters, impelled by instinct and training, rushed to the World Trade Center yesterday to evacuate victims. Then the buildings fell down. The firefighters never came out.
More than 100 were unaccounted for, possibly making this the worst disaster in the New York Fire Department's history, explosions having collapsed the two main towers onto the first wave of rescuers as they snaked through stairwells and hallways. In the tumult, the temporary command center set up on a nearby street to deal with the calamity was buried in a rolling wave of concrete chunks.
Among those who died there were Chief of Department Peter J. Ganci, and First Deputy Fire Commissioner William M. Feehan. Also killed was one of the department's Roman Catholic chaplains, Michael F. Judge, who had rushed to the scene to comfort victims.
There was no trace of three of the fire department's most elite units, Rescues 1, 2 and 4, officials said last night.
A police official said last night that some officers at the scene were also unaccounted for, but "we don't have numbers." The official denied reports of 60 missing officers from the department's Emergency Services Unit, and 18 from the Brooklyn North Task Force.
Police officials said that as the day unfolded, several officers who had been presumed lost had surfaced. "The numbers are not that extravagant," said Assistant Chief Thomas P. Fahey. As night deepened, officials were able to bring in cranes and heavy shovels to begin moving rubble in hopes of finding survivors. At the same time, they had to contend with several fires that were still burning in adjacent buildings, officials said.
But hours earlier, the notion of a rescue effort seemed remote.
"We will be lucky if we don't lose 200 or 300 guys," said Michael Carter, the vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, who was on the scene. "There are entire companies we can't find. At this point, it's less of a firefighting operation and more like a war."
Like dazed and bloodied soldiers, thousands of firefighters and police officers wandered helplessly throughout the afternoon and evening on the West Side Highway, blocked by the danger of further catastrophe from attempting to enter the scene. Officials feared the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, another high-rise burning in the complex. It finally fell in the early evening.
By 9 a.m., about 200 firefighters had already arrived at the scene, many of them racing up stairways to reach people trapped on the upper floors, fire officials said. Many of the rescuers were from six-person units that specialize in building collapses, and many are now missing, presumed to have died when the buildings collapsed.
Marite Anez, who was working in an office on the 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, said that as she and hundreds of others scrambled down stairways, she passed many firefighters climbing up.
When she reached the first floor, she said, the building collapsed. "You couldn't see anything," she said. "That's when everyone panicked. Everyone was pushing. The fire people gave us light, showed us the way out. The ones who were going up, I'm sure they died."
Edward Fahey, among the first firefighters to arrive, said he had to dodge bodies that were being propelled from windows on the upper floors.
Robert Byrne, from a fire company on Houston Street, said he was on the 30th floor when the second plane hit. "We were trying to evacuate civilians," he said. "The hallways were filled with dust and smoke. The whole building was shaking. We feared it would collapse, and the chief said to get the hell out of there."
Like many survivors, Mr. Byrne seemed oblivious to the soot and dust that covered his body. He stared blankly and spoke haltingly.
"I managed to get out of the building just a few seconds before it collapsed," he said. "I hugged the wall with a couple of people. We got very lucky. I don't know what happened to the company. Just me and the lieutenant got out."
From the beginning, the city's emergency response was hampered. Soon after the first plane hit, the command center for the Office of Emergency Management at 7 World Trade Center was evacuated.
Fire officials set up a mobile unit outside the complex, on Vesey Street, but that was destroyed when the buildings came down. After that, fire officials moved their command post to a firehouse in Greenwich Village, at Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas.
There were conflicting reports about whether people in the second building were told to evacuate after the first tower was hit. Several people said they heard an annoucement over the building's public address system saying they should stay put, and that the building was secure. Others said they did not hear any announcements.
One former Port Authority official said that according to procedures drawn up with the Fire Department, evacuations would only be conducted on the floors immediately above and below the fire. With a capacity of 50,000 workers, simultaneous evacuation could lead to chaos, the former official said.
For many, the only help had to come from colleagues and others who were fleeing.
A woman who worked for Morgan Stanley on the 64th floor of Tower 2 -- able to walk only with crutches -- was carried down by fellow employees. "It was incredibly difficult," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. "They had me over their shoulder for 5 or 10 flights and just couldn't do it."
Another co-worker she knew only as Louis came upon the struggling group, lifted the woman to his shoulder and carried her by himself, she said, adding that the temperature in the stairwell was at least 90 degrees.
At about the 15th or 20th floor, the woman recalled, a security guard said they were out of danger, and urged Louis to leave the woman and continue on his own. Louis refused.
"He carried me down all 54 flights, and then out of the building," she said, "all the way to the E.M.T. guys, and he stuck with me until we got one who said I could go in an ambulance."
After the first building collapsed, people began looking everywhere for survivors amid the rubble. Flames popped out of an ambulance; taxis slammed into buildings. One man walked around calling out, "Is anyone there? Show me an arm. Show me an arm." He got no response.
Someone asked a firefighter, "Is there anything I can do?"
"There's nothing anybody can do," the firefighter replied. "There's nothing anybody can do."
Firefighters appeared utterly dejected and dumbfounded, standing around with their hands on their hips.
Mike Fitzpatrick, 38, said he and seven other firefighters were in the lobby of the first building to collapse when one became trapped. They had begun trying to cut him out when the second building collapsed, and they couldn't get hear him anymore. Then they had to leave.
"We stayed because one of our officers was trapped," he said. "We were trying to dig him out -- we were trying to dig him out. He was alive. It collapsed on him."
By 11 a.m., hundreds of dazed firefighters were on the scene. Many were on their knees; some were crying, their heads in their hands, sitting on piles of debris.
No one raced toward the wreckage, afraid that more would fall. Some called their families on borrowed cell phones.
"I love you too," one said. "I'll come home safe -- don't worry."
A sea of firefighters and police officers slumped against building or sat dejectedly on the West Side Highway for most of the afternoon. Many refused to talk. Many were in tears.
Lines of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles sat covered with a thick coating of dust and office papers that had floated out of the sky. They had come from Passaic, N.J., Hicksville, N.Y., all over the region, but mostly they had to sit and wait.
Frank Carino, 36, a New York firefighter, said he had tried to rescue men on the seventh and eighth floors of one building but the ladder of his aerial truck did not reach high enough. "They had broken the windows and they were yelling out at us the stairways were on fire," he said. "One of the men was using a megaphone." He added that he believed the two were rescued by firefighters within the building.
Another firefighter, who declined to give his name, knelt on the asphalt, a towel over his shoulder and his eyes bloodshot.
"I saw at least 10 people jump," he said. "I heard even more than that land and crash through the glass ceiling in the atrium. We could hear them crash. We thought the roof was crashing down but then we looked up and saw that people were falling through the glass. Some people fell right onto the pavement." He stopped, unable to continue talking.
He said he entered the lobby of 2 World Trade Center with his company, but was immediately blown across the lobby. "We did our best to crawl out," he said. "My company is still missing two guys. They went back in to help people."
By early evening, hundreds of firefighters stood and watched as ladder trucks poured water onto sections of the towers still belching black smoke. The sense of shock and urgency of earlier in the day was gone. As daylight faded, a handful of firefighters, constructions workers and police officers still scrambled over the rubble with flashlights, but found the same thing as teams earlier in the day -- no sounds, no voices, little sign of life.
The three blocks of Church Street that border the World Trade Center were lined with the burnt hulks of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars left where their drivers had abandoned them.
At the corner of Liberty and Church Streets, a five-story section of the top of a building loomed over the road, causing firefighters to stare anxiously above them as they walked below. A New York State flag still flew in front of 7 World Trade Center but the building was a blackened mass. Six inches of ash and office paper covered the graves at the St. James Cathedral, across the street from the towers.
The chaplain who died, Father Judge, 68, was found by firefighters on the street along with his driver. They recognized him and took him to St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street, where they laid his body at the altar. "The church was there and they figured it was a safe place to put him," said Brother Thomas Cole of the St. Francis Friary on 31st Street, where Father Judge lived.
His body, wrapped in sheets, was later moved to the empty firehouse across the street from the friary. Later, two dozen friars and firefighters, some weeping, held an impromptu service for him there, reciting the blessing of St. Francis: "May the Lord bless you and keep you and show his face to you, and have mercy on you."
Brother Cole said that Father Judge's morning prayer had been for "peace and joy in our city."
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, also a Fire Department chaplain, recalled that Father Judge gave a sermon recently, "a homily about how you have to enjoy each day with your friends and family. He was a remarkable human being."
*********
Lets not forget those people who help us when we need them - these guys are truly heroes
I refuse to argue with Anonymous Cowards - if you want a discussion get an account....
And exactly what freedoms are we talking about giving up? Right to privacy - you'll still have it, when your at home... in private. Right to free speech, you'll still have it. Right to congregate, right to bare arms, right to freedom of religion... exactly which right is it that you think you might lose from this? No matter what laws they pass I don't believe that I'm losing any rights afforded to me by the current constitution so what constitution are you going by? Are you afraid that you might be detained at an airport for a more thorough search, would that be an inconvenience? Yes. But there is no greater inconvenience than death.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
This is quite a nice page on why the WTC collapsed.
Im surprised how quick the response is to write these articles.
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm
If we remove the Taliban from Afghanistan this will all be worth it. They have caused far more suffering on their own people than this attack has caused, or any of Bin Laden's (other?) attacks.
I tried to give blood, but they don't want it because I am diabetic. I wish I could do something, but I'm persona non grata in this situation.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
This might be off-topic but In my book it's not, since its about the information covered.
Slashdot has been my primary source of information, just about all the biggest news feed were jammed, didn't have any tv to watch, and the progress at which people posted here and all the links given, plus the overall stability of the site, I mean, I'm impressed.... I was sure at some point when the server started being overloaded that it would be down for hours, instead, it was just for minutes or simple slowdown but nothing critical like the big feeds which were totaly busted.
Unfortunately. this is not the kind of event you'd want to happen to test the overall stability of a server and the quality of it's content, but at least it hanged in there, where others that have way more financial power and supposely professionnal staff to do the job, failed.
Thanks to all the Slashdot team, and us, readers/contributors.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
All I saw was "bin laden is linked...bin ladin is linked...." and never a "linked by" or "linked because of". Is speculation passed through yahoo now considered almost concrete proof? Scary...
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god." - Thomas Jefferson
This is an urban legend. Even though it was just 'born' today, it's totally fabricated.
Here's the debunking.
Kevin Fox
It is more than just rights lost now. It starts a trend, it sets a mindset. It changes pressures and ploys people will use to pass oppresive measures. Don't underestimate the ways people will use this to their advantage. For one I can see bubbling to gun control and several other things. Maybe the chatter will die down but I can see many opportunity seekers trying to "protect" america from things like "guns, terrorists, etc", I mean Hey whats the difference?
:(
It happens. There are already people whop preach the "restrict encryption use" so that "evil people" can't "secretly" communicate using encryption. Come on laws like the DMCA pass in peacetime! This is still peacetime but people are in a state of shock and sadness and a need to "fix" what is now "broken". People with an agenda will be glad to use anything to their advantage and no I don't think im over-reacting
Jeremy
Uhmm, cute but incorrect. I don't believe nostradamus's prophecies, but to follow it correctly.
City of God... Definately not NYC, Jerusalem is the city of God === Jerusalem
Where the two brothers... 3 buildings fell, and they weren't brothers, they were 1 center with MANY workers and separate offices, if you're going to follow that logic, the brothers must be the people at war. This could be the Palestinians vs Isreali, or perhaps the civil war being played out in Afghanistan. Brothers don't have to love each other, they are just "related" some how. (in prophecies at least, I love my brother) == Inconclusive, but it's 2 political factions
Fortress... Pentagon, eh, maybe, but that's an office building. Note that they didn't crash into a military BASE where there would be missiles and such to attack them. This is perhaps the US as a whole more accurately, since the US has not suffered an attack on their soil of this magnitude for a long time, but is a symbolically important target to many groups. Of course, the US is very open. Crossing boarders in other countries is much more difficult. Perhaps this could be viewed as the World Trade Center, the warground of what was until not long ago, and I am sure will remain the modern warfare, that is fought at a terminal in stock shares, not with guns. == Also inconclusive
Great Leader... GWB, Congress, The US... Keep giong, it could even be someone on the other side, the Great Leader of the attack (though I don't think he's so great) == Still inconclusive
Big City... Eh, NYC
Still, this is pretty ambiguous. I don't really follow nostradamus nor do I think that this is one of the signs of the end of the world. This is bad, this sucks, this is a shock to us, this isn't apocalyptic prophecy. OBL (not to cast this on him until it's known) is not the sort of charismatic leader to start the kind of war that gets printed in the bible in the end of days. Whoever did this will be brought to justice swiftly and forcefully. This isn't a war they can win. The one in the Bible is one that drags out and is fought hard by both sides. Not to sound overconfident, but I haven't seen the sort of military force yet that I would expect from such a power. Until planes fly over my house that aren't from the US, and start carrying out surgical strikes against us, I won't believe that it is that sort of war. This will not stand, they can not win. The sort of war in the bible, I would be standing out front with my hunting rifles right now gunning down an invasion.
Let me be very clear, everything that follows is speculation. It will probably be days if not weeks before we have a good idea what has happened today. We may never really know all that has led up to this tragedy, but what is the likely scenario?
We know that 4 planes were hijacked and 3 slammed into buildings.
Almost certainly all the hijackers on the planes are now dead as well as many many victims. By targeting the WTC and Pentagon they have attacked buildings with both actual and symbolic value to the American way of life. These are places presumably intended to produce as many casualties as possible and demonstrate the vulnerabilities of even our greatest organizations.
Clearly these people hate America and Americans and are perfectly happy to give their lives to hurt us and create terror. Multiple people prepared to give their lives in the assault suggest a religious group with beliefs that their souls will be honored after their death. Essentially all major religions (e.g. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism) share a fundamental respect for life, but at many times and places their teachings have been corrupted to justify killing in God's name. In the current case Islam seems the most likely, not because they are especially vulnerable, but because people in Islamic regions seem the most likely to hate Americans at this point in history.
We must bear partial responsibility for the hate they feel towards us. At some point there was a failure to connect with these people and address their concerns in a reasonable way. Now the world has stepped down a path that will almost certainly lead to even greater destruction. Of course, our unseen attackers bear the greatest responsibility and will hopefully be called to account, but we must wonder if there was anything society could do to redress their grievances before they grew to the point that they perceived violence as their only option.
What does it take to do this? Most likely you need pilots trained on these planes or one's like them. This ensures that the pilot will in fact fly directly into the target, and minimized the chance of the original pilot conveying that something is wrong. Probably it would be easier to find suicide bombers and send them to flight school than to recruit pilots to be bombers.
Terrorists would also need weapons. This means either being able to conceal them through security or being able to go around security. If you have money it is probably easier to get weapons that can be walked through a metal detector than to research ways to breach security. This is especially true if you plan to go through more than one airport. Hard plastics and ceramics can be made into some nasty things if cost is not a concern. Alternatively, a sharp obsidian or glass knife with wooden handle could probably be made for a bargain.
Once on the plane you want to be able to take control and get into the locked cockpit. Threatening passengers might get one to open the cockpit but it's not totally reliable and they would certainly send distress signals first. More preferably one would want to practice breaking into cockpits and have a tool or ram that could do it quickly. A slightly modified piece of luggage might serve as a ram. (I don't know what the locking mechanisms are like but someone taking the time to train as a pilot certainly would have access to them and perhaps figure out how to quickly defeat them.)
A single terrorist is somewhat likely to be overpowered in the tight quarters of an airliner, and is at greater risk if he has to pilot the plane himself while in a cockpit that can no longer be secured properly. This suggests that you need multiple suicidal terrorists per plane. Two might be enough, but three would be safer because that still gives them a backup even after your pilot takes the controls.
To continue speculating, we are talking about 8-12 hijackers, at least 4 of which pilots. They would probably want some financial backers and other organizers. It would make sense to have associates to recruit the next generation of terrorists. If they're foreign nationals you need an identity and papers, or some other way to get into the country. Of course securing entrance into the country wouldn't require telling the person you get the false papers from what you intend to do. While they do want some people in support positions, they wouldn't want too many as it increases the opportunities of leaks that would kill the whole project. I'm guessing that somewhere between 10 and 30 people knew about this attack in advance.
The main cost is in preparation time and finding the right people to go through with it. The point is that you don't actually need an army, expensive weaponry, or lots of financial backing to accomplish this. Of course, having financial backing and encouragement is perhaps rather likely and would make things easier, especially if they come from third world nations where the relative income is quite low.
Obviously we will have to wait until the facts are known to see how accurate my speculations are, and truth is often stranger than imagination.
If you have The Learning Channel on your television sets you will be able to view coverage of the tragedy from the BBC as of 21:34 Pacific Time. Interesting to see what information comes out over there, along with their opinions.
http://russnelson.com/wtc.html has pics off the wallstreetitalia.com webcam, on the 73rd floor of the Empire State Building. One of them was just moments before the first tower collapsed.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I find it interesting that just this past Friday, (September 7th) the U.S. Department of State issued the following "Worldwide Caution" travel bulletin for the benefit of US travelers:
"Over the last several months, the U.S. Government has learned that U.S. citizens and interests abroad may be at increased risk of a terrorist action from extremist groups. In addition, we have received unconfirmed information that terrorist actions may be taken against U.S. military facilities and/or establishments frequented by U.S. military personnel in Korea and Japan. We are also concerned about information we received in May 2001 that American citizens may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups with links to Usama Bin Ladin's Al-Qaida organization. In the past, such individuals have not distinguished between official and civilian targets. As always, we take this information seriously. U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert."
[From: http://travel.state.gov/wwc1.html ]
When I worked at American Express I wrote a filter to check credit card applications against the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) database. The database has names (real names) of terrorists and drug dealers who have had their assets seized by the courts to compensate their victims. The joke at the time was "what terrorist is going to use their real name?" The filter I was required to write checked against the real names of the terrorists.
So, perhaps you are another person who thinks that terrorists are too dumb to not give a real name. A bastard like Bin Ladin has more enemies than just the US, believe me.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
"The Americans have forgotten that God exists. They have us by the throat and now they find themselves in a science fiction film scenario, but this time Rambo's not there to save the White House."
I don't understand the people watching the bombings and celebrating, how can they have such a skewed view of Americans? Is it just because they see us as rich?
I don't know if anyone is interested in this, but maybe. When my dad died about a year ago, one of the mementos I got was this army knife that my Grandpa used in World War 2 (It's a Kabar knife - I think they're still standard issue in the armed forces). These things are pretty big, maybe 2/3 my arm length, and if you look at them you can see that they're designed to kill someone.
So, when I flew home, I threw this in my bag and didn't really remember that I shouldn't bring this on the plane. But it went right through all the security checks, and none of the security people noticed it in my bag. I was kind of surprised that I got it through so easy.
Anyway, I thought I'd mention it since people are saying that the hijackers used knifes to take over the plane. It can't have been too hard to get them on.
A> Commercial availability does not equate to being legal. Many items are "commercially available" but have restrictions on them as to be warranted illegal (IE radar detectors, beer, etc.) Linux for quite some time was not a commercially available product... does that make it illegal and since it has the original code that was available during this non-commercial period is that illegal also?
B> Can you prove what you say about hex edited code. I have seen several people make this claim and not one has been able to substantiate it with code, proof, a site, or a lawsuit from Microsoft to back up the claim. If DivX were in fact "stolen" pirate ware MS would be all over DIVX.COM.
C>And since when does anyone (especially on Slashdot) consider Microsoft or Intel either trustworthy or respectable?
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.
Yeah, approximately 1 out of every 365 events that has ever happened happened on this day.
This can't be true.
:)
GW is NOT a great leader
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
People are comparing this disaster to the bombing of Peal Harbor by the Japanese. That was a bad time to be a Japanese American. I understand they were sent to interrment camps. It's just as well becuase if they had been outside the camps they might have been lynched.
Now is not a good time to be of Arabian descent. I haven't heard anything yet, but I predict there will be murder.
Also, politicians are debating on television how to balance the principles of the bill of rights with the threat that is facing us today. What are they calling for, if not interrment camps.
I am certain it will be bad. I know that foriegners are about to suffer, but will it become to bad that I will be forced to withold my liberal views for fear of violent retaliation?
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
You are on the right course. It's a JIHAD.
Ahem...
I propose that Sept 11 was selected because the team was in place for weeks waiting for good weather over all targets at the same time.
Only saw video of WTC 2 strike. If all of the terrorist pilots had that skill level, they needed good visibility, i.e., he was too wobbly to be a seasoned instrumet pilot.
I suspect that the whole bunch laid in wait until the weather was right in both DC and NYC before they even left for Logan, Newark and Dulles.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
According to theregister.com some one put the WTC on Ebay. It was pulled quickly.
Little 5" copper statues of the WTC can be found on Ebay for $130.
Tomarrow you will see parts of the WTC listed on Ebay.
Next week you will be able to buy commemoritive $5 coins minted by The American Mint which will be leagal tender in Libiria.
21 days from now you will be able to get a 11" x 17" coffie table book detailing the history of the World Trade Center in living color.
Within a month the insurance policies and wills of those killed will put money in the hands of people not mentaly equiped to handle the responsablitiy of the new money.
Within the month Pres Bush will sound like an idiot by saying that we need his Missel Defence Shield more than ever.
Within the year our constitutional rights will be slightly limited in the name of freedom.
30 years from now no one will have as of yet taken credit for this attack and we will see our freedomes striped down to fight a nonvisable enamy. Any one ever see the movie Brazil?
I will spare you the darker side of what I see, but I think that these things should hold you over for a while.
Ascii artist &
A few simple steps that could lessen the risk of skyjackings.
1. Cockpit door locked from the inside at all times. (Flight attendants must knock to deliver food and coffee).
2. Peephole in cockpit to verify who is knocking.
3. bullet-proof cockpit bulkhead.
4. As a last resort, all cockpits equiped with shotguns loaded with beanbag ammunition, (to avoid hull peircings).
These 4 simple safety measures would have prevented this tragedy. Cardboard cutters would not do much against a bulletproof bulkhead. Granted, some passengers may have been killed, but I would postulate that such a mission would not even have been hatched if these safefty measures were in place.
Dag Maggot
I have no pants and I must scream
I just got off the phone with my friend whose girlfriend has a nearly miraculous survival story.
She arrived at work on the 81st floor of the north tower at 8:45am EDT today. The first plane crashed into this tower at about 8:55am EDT about 5 floors above her. After the initial confusion and chaos, everybody on her floor headed towards the exits and began the slow evacuation down the stairs.
While the first building was being evacuated, the second plane hit the south tower at about 9:05am. An hour later while still making her way down the stairs of the north tower, the south tower collapses at 10:07am. 20 minutes after that at 10:27am, and nearly an hour and a half after the first plane crashed into her building, she makes it to the bottom floor as the north tower begins to collapse down onto her. (Sadly, I assume everybody in floors any higher than 81 probably didn't make it out of the building.)
She was one of the last people to make it out of the building, but she did not make it far before a door fell on top of her and pinned her to the ground. In retrospect, she was very lucky because the door shielded her from glass and other falling objects.
After the dust settled somewhat, she was discovered by police and taken to the hospital. She is in stable condition and is being treated for bruises, cuts, and broken bones.
I can only imagine how she must feel to have been at ground zero and still be alive to tell about it.
I really don't buy the red scare theory you've just tossed out. Right-wingers, especially those with military experience would be suspect number one for domestic terror. They're organized in militias, have the will and equipment to do it, have the rhetoric, etc.
Where are the leftist militias?
Just another weird coincidence? I hope so.
---
"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
So there's no country to go to war with. It's another mess like Bosnia. There are 25 million people in an area the size of Texas, some of whom hate the US and some who don't. Now what?
Formally submitting my first diff patch, I fired this letter off to the Federal Aviation Administration, the overbearing bureaucracy whose oversights led to four plane crashes and thousands killed. The trip I took was to Defcon 9.
I took a trip to Las Vegas in July. My flight from Phoenix went normally except for one serious, disturbing mistake made by Phoenix security checkpoint staff. I thought it was funny at first that such as a glaring lapse of policy occured, but after the tragic events in New York and Washington, I revistited this story and I wonder whether four lapses in "Airport Security" caused the deaths of so many people today.
Suitcasenuke is the name of a computer I jerryrigged in an old Samsonite suitcase for portability. I have edited this account for clarity, the original is at http://telconnect.net/~sean/suitcasenuke/
Transporting:
The finished product is rather heavy and bulky--65 pounds give or take. It barely fit as a carryon. I took America West flight 113 from Phoenix Sky Harbor International to Las Vegas McCarran on a busy Thursday afternoon.
Approaching "SECURITY CHECKPOINT A," I cut in line by 10 people hollering out to the security staff that I could nto have suitcase nuke X-rayed as the machine is a very sensitive piece of electronic equipment.
Preparing for this, I had all the fixins to prove to them this frightening apparatus wasn't a bomb. Packed in there were my keyboard, mouse, power cord, vga cable so I could plug it into one of their terminals if need be. The screener blatantly ignores my request to pass it through and I'm eventually in front of the walk-through metal detector. This staffer does not understand English very will and I do not understand his natiove Swahili. Thankfully my brother had already gone through and was also trying to get through to the screener. Five minutes of this, and there are easily sixty people behind me in line.
Pressed with the queue, he grabbed the suitcase and fit it through the little gap between the metal detector and the X-ray machine and flailed his hand behind him, motioning me to 'go over there.'
I found myself staring at an unstaffed table with a plane to Vegas to catch, not blow out of the sky. My impatient brother didn't feel like further embattling the screeners and rigamorol. Off we went.
They didn't plug it in. They didn't swab it for explosive residue. They didn't even open it.
I smuggled--if that's the right word--a 70 pound suitcase right passed "Airport Security."
Makes me wish it were a suitcase nuke.
Now before you go out and arrest me, I beg of you to reconsider airport security policies. For example, arresting people who make bomb jokes at the gate is the embodiment of stupidity and maligned priorities. If I was really going to blow up the plane, would I be talking about it at the security checkpoint?
How hard would it be to smuggle an 18" polycarbonate machete onto a plane by maybe taping it to your thigh or sandwiching it in your suitcase between a lead plate? Even if I obviously brought contraband aboard, what's the chance the underpayed, undereducated, understaffed, and overly apathetic security screener overlook it or not know what it is? Or would he be too lazy and not even get up and make a fuss about it if he did recognize it? Don't say it's not possible. It happened to me. I did it at an airport with one of the best records in the industry. Phoenix Sky Harbor had two violations last year. Is this one Number 3? Which other violations do you not know about?
The FAA failed in its security measures four times the morning of 11th Septembenr and as a result, our nation mourns. Could that 18" polycarbonate machete worn by a survivalist or a law-abiding american concerned only with the defense of his legitimate fellow passengers ultimately ensure their safety? Barbara Olson's plane was taken down by two hijackers armed with cardboard cutters. Could a right to self-defense have saved United Flights 99 and 175 and American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 and prevented this atrocity?
Does the FAA honestly think it will stop a suicidal hijacker on a mission for Allah by having a ticket clerk ask "Have any unknown persons been in the possession of your baggage?"
Don't cast this off. Please. THe Administration's policies have failed America. I want to see them changed.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
Being a dot.commie who was recently downsized I had spent a lot of time looking through employment classifieds.
Wanna know how much those fine folks who run the security checkpoints make per hour? Here's what they make in Seattle.
Makes you wonder why it didn't happen sooner.
It is a t-shirt that states "I flew a plane into the world trade center, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt", with an image of a plane hitting one of the towers.
This is pathetic.
the problem was the way you phrased it.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I *swear* my newsfeed (CBC TV, Canada) reported a crash in Colorado. There was never a retraction, nor was there any mention of it again.
NORAD is out in Colorado, although it wouldn't be even scratched by this sort of attack.
Can anyone authoritatively confirm or deny? There were enough rumours flying around in the AM that it's probably just another... but CBC was pretty good about dispelling the rumours once they were known to be false.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Pretty much a realtime conversation right now...
r
http://www.livejournal.com/community/wtcdisaste
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
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the killing of the opposition leader against the Taliban. He is said to have secretly helped the U.S. get spies into Afghanistan to watch Bin Laden. So the bombing 3 days ago would have been a nice way to prepare for today's events, and the rockets tonight are thought to be the work of opposition supporters.
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
I think there's a very good chance that they're going to discover that the terrorist organization -- almost certainly Osama bin Laden -- had the cooperation of a national government.
The consequence of which is almost certainly all-out, no-holds-barred war against that country. And rightly so. There will be civilian casualties, but that's an acceptable consequence of modern war.
One hopes that a longer-term consequence of any action that's taken will be the creation of a spirit of cooperation toward resolving the problems in the mid-East.
[yes, I'm assuming that a mid-East faction is to blame. I don't think there's anyone else in the world that hates the USA enough to have done it, nor any others organized enough to pull it off.]
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Check out:h tm l
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/currentmail.
for one uncorroborated story - it claims passengers fought back on the PA flight.
---
Book(n): Utensil used to pass time while waiting for the TV repairman
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All that I heard was there was a HELICOPTER in the vacinity (not a prop driven fixted wing), that moved to the opposite side of the Pentagon as the commercial flight was crashing.
Look up my name and see other threads.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
"All the activities of Osama bin Laden are under the tight control of the Taliban," Usman Shaharyar, a Taliban foreign ministry official, told The Associated Press.
www.bergen.com/morenews/osama25200106248.htm
From a newspaper article on June 25th.
The Taliban seems to belive that bin Laden did not, and would not have had the capability to, perform these terrorist attacks. Are they right? Does bin Laden have them fooled? Are they willing accomplises? Does bin Laden's popularity with the Afgani people cause the Taliban to belive that moving against him would collapse their fragile hold on the country? I'm sure we'll find out more as the investigation continues.
If it turns out, as it is now being reported, that "box cutter" knives were the weapons used to take control of the plane then the sophistication needed to have pulled this coordinated terror attack would not have been as high as originally thought*. It would, however, have required considerable "out of the box" thinking by the terrorists. It seems the most dangerous weapon in the terrorist's arsenal is creativity.
* It would still almost certainly have required the terrorists themselves to be able to pilot the aircraft, and that would certainly have required some sophisticated training; but without the need to smuggle weapons on board all the planes simultaneously, the logistics of this act become MUCH simpler.
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As the baader meinhof boys said, "The greater the atrocity, the greater the value." You are utterly naive if you don't understand why the killing of innocents is justified to these people, and far preferable to the killing of soldiers.
Yes, I mourn for the loss of life. But not greatly. I've lost too many family members these past two years to feel sincere grief for strangers. This incident is only outstanding for it's location and it photogenic nature. It will not be helped by me pretending to be touched, like the drama queens who are flooding this site. The reactions I'm seeing are the reactions of people whose lives have made them so numb, that when a major incident takes place they feel alive again, and begin to crave more disaster.
Did you know it is a common practice in parts of Africa to crack holes in fuel pipelines to steal petroleum? Did you know that this often results in huge explosions? These explosions often kill thousands -- literally thousands -- of africans. If I go through my life feeling soulful grief for those whose lives are foreshortened by incomprehensible catastrophe, I will be paralysed.
Innocent people die. Get used to it. The US has never been squeamish about murdering innocents. Over 2000 civilians died in Panama.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
It's when people only think in terms of revenge and violence that these kinds of things happen. I understand that today's events are very personal to a lot of people, and you're allowed to be disgusted. You're allowed to be angry. You're allowed to be frustrated.
However, it is NOT a good thing to be bloodthirsty or hateful, no matter how justified you feel.
I am an American, and I have taken these events very personally. I don't know anybody that was involved, but I can put myself there. I can imagine being in one of those planes. I can imagine my beloved mother, father, or siblings being one of the thousands killed. It hurts, undeniably, but I hate no one.
Reciprocating violence with violence only perpetuates the problem. Unfortunately, violence the only language far too many people in this world speak.
-WM
I do not really think one would need a fully-trained pilot to crash-land an airplane. The hijackers could have told the pilots to fly the plane to New York without revealing they were planning on leveling a building with it. I would guess the pilot would cooperate if he thought the hijackers would merely force the plane to land and then negotiate with the government over their grievances and the hostages, as most hijackers do. Instead, when the plane was within sufficient proximity of the towers, where anyone who knows how to use a steering wheel could operate it, the terrorists could have then wrested control from the pilot and simply aimed the plane in the right direction. Knowledge of how to read the numerous gauges and operation of equipment such as the landing gear would have been quite superfluous.
It has already been revealed that the terrorists overtook the plane with common knives and cardboard shears (box cutters), which probably anyone could have gotten on board legitimately.
I would also point to an Arab nation as the source of the attacks, not because of the Islamic religion, but because nearly every Arab nation has more than sufficient temporal reasons for justifiably hating the United States. We are allied with Israel; more than enough cause for the Palestinians. In the 1960s and 70s, Israel invaded several of its neighbors, with our help. We betrayed Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, then went to war with him when he invaded Kuwait. We currently maintain a dictatorship in Saudi Arabia for economic goals. Prior to Ayatollah Khomeini, we maintained a similar dictatorship in Iran. We have bombed Libya on numerous occasions, and even killed Mohammar Qadaffis own daughter in one raid. We supported the Afghani Mujahadeen in their war against Russia, then withdrew after our goals were satisfied (defeat the communists), leaving them to fight their civil wars themselves.
Finally, there are numerous stories in the Old Testament (mythology shared by both Christians and Jews) of people killing in Gods name. In fact, one could argue that in several stories, Yahweh was in fact a Hebrew war god much like Mars or Ares from GræcoRoman mythology. The ancient Hebrews prayed to Him before going to battle, He saw them to victory, and they sacrificed much of their spoils to Him afterward. The phenomenon is not a corruption by rulers but, historically, the norm for many religions. Few religions are, under the surface, about universal love and peace.
Liberty in your lifetime
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This has got to stop. Islam, at least as far as I understand it, is a religion of peace and devotion . Just look at the tens of millions of the true Islamics, the decent American citizens who love this land and in times of crisis like this unfaitly bear the brunt of our typical narrow-minded hostilities. Our tendency to blame an entire culture for the actions of one nut indicates that we're still carrying Segrigationist-era prejudices.
Fanatics like Osama bin Laden and what I fear to be a growing proportion of the Arab world follow a bastardized and corrupt version of Islam that somehow justifies horrendous atrocities like September 11th--I think a New York Times columnist called it Islamism, the -ism to indicate it's juvenile delinquency.
Islamism, Islamist, Islamistic. Let's adopt this term and end an injustice against our fellow Americans.
"[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
If any of you don't have a PayPal account yet, you can sign up and get $5 free. My first act: give give it to the red cross fund. Go to PayPal now and sign up!
You can't see this if you have sigs turned off.
Why does stuff like this have to happen? I'm just trying to live my insignificant life peacefully and quietly. I become upset enough over insignificant things without having to deal with stuff like this and all the potential ramifications. Maybe I should move to Antarctica.
Know someone who is stealing cable? Report them!
The mayor was prepared to announce that Habeus Corpus and Freedom of Assembly would be suspended along with the scheduled Primary Election.
Then an aide reminded him they were already suspended.
Ben Masel: 51,282 votes for US Senate in the Wisconsin Democratic Primary
Just a small nit-pick, but it's "kamikaze", not "kamakazi". The word kamikaze (meaning "divine wind") is comprised of two kanji characters, kami (meaning god or divine), and kaze (meaning wind). Tell a Japanese person that these terrorist attacks were "kamikaze" attacks and watch how pissed off they get. :-)
Picked up this list of potentially involved organizations from some dude on IRC.
Everyone seems to be blaming Osama bin Laden. I hope people do their research completely before resolving to that conclusion. Just imagine we get him extradited to the U.S., try him, convict him, and summarily inject him; only to have the Sears Tower impaled by a Concorde the following day.
It could be anyone. This thing sucks, but justice is only sweet when it's 100% confirmed to be imposed on those who instigated the original offense.
www.dedserius.com
VB != VisualBasic
I know the feeling. Here in Wichita, KS we've got a couple of little airports, McConnel AFB, and two semi-decent sized airports. And, of course - Beech Aircraft (er - Raytheon now), Boeing, Cessna, and some smaller aircraft companies. Normally, it's so busy that when Cessna wanted to expaned, they decided on a different site - there's just too much normal air traffic here!
But today - after they grounded commercial traffic, there was nada. It's so normal to hear the comming and going of commerical aircraft that you never really notice it, until now when it's completely gone.
However, there's the sounds of aircraft again now - we've got the B1B's, Kansas Air National Guard, and even more importantly, the refuling wing just a couple miles from the house. There's a fairly good amount of traffic comming from ther for the last couple hours, probably mostly from the refuling wing.
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I'll bet the rubble is cleared out within a month, and new construction starts next spring. Bigger.
The UN was evacuated as a security precaution.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Please mod this up, as I feel my collection and connection is one of the best out there [bucknell.edu]:
1 _In_America/images/gallery/index.html
http://www.students.bucknell.edu/ekrout/images/91
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Is it just me or does this article suddenly take on new meaning?
8 21 5
Hosting Provider Shut Down By FBI
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/07/004
My hopes and prayers go out to everyone affected by this tragic event.
I wouldn't think much expertise would be needed as long as the hijackers don't have to take off themselves, then they could force the pilots to navigate towards NY and when close enough kill the pilots and take over the controls. Read this BBC article:
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
...and if you think that's funny, come visit me here in sunny Western Australia and I'll show you just how hard Wandoo wood is. If you know Jarrah, try twice as dense. PNG has stuff locally called Ironwood which is even harder. It eats steel sawblades (a sharp high-tensile saw might get three, maybe four inches into a log before it gets too blunt to cut anything). This kind of stuff is dead easy to conceal in other plastic/wooden innocuous-looking items such as walking sticks. There is no defense against it.
The defense should be in the people. If a hijacker was stupid enough to stand up in an Israeli aircraft, he would be dead before he took ten steps.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Read this. It's a comment by a very strange dude about numbers... There are other comments. This guy seems to know something, or I'm a troll victim, for sure!!
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Several cameras at the doors (all angles) and a couple of concealed remote-control instant-acting dart guns would be a better idea, plus a R/C slug-thrower carefully limited to not putting holes in the aircraft's skin.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Oh yeah sure..
Just in case, we will do that even if they were from the States, right Commander?
We here at school have begun collecting images and video to help out with the bandwidth problem the news sites are having... Here Also feel free to send anything in...
The following is from an email I once received. I think it is appropriate to post it at this time.
This, from a Canadian newspaper, is worth sharing.
America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television Commentator.
What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:
"This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.
When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.
When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 5 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.
The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering America.
I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes?
Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japan technology, and you get radios. You talk about German technology, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technology, and you find men on the moon--not once, but several times--and safely home again.
You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.
I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles.
I hope Canada is not one of those."
Stand proud, America! Wear it proudly!!
This is one of the best editorials that I have ever read regarding the United States. It is nice that one man realizes it. I only wish that the rest of the world would realize it. We are always blamed for everything, and never even get a thank you for the things we do.
I would hope that each of you would send this to as many people as you can and emphasize that they should send it to as many of their friends until this letter is sent to every person on the web. I am just a single American that has read this, I SURE HOPE THAT A LOT MORE READ IT SOON.
The civil engineering faculty at Sydney University has another (quite informative) analysis here:
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm
engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core.
This would explain the huge quantity of dust involved.
In #coverage on irc.slashnet.org our operators are posting the latest news on the events. The channel is +m, so please message opers with your (validated) news sources.
--
If code was hard to write, it should be hard to read
This is hard to say but I feel like I have to say something.
It goes without saying that this has been a terrible day.
The loss of life, and a horrible way to die.
However, I'm even more terrible than the acts of terrorism
are the possible reactions to these acts.
We cannot afford to become reactionary. We cannot afford to lose
our heads. I overhead some co-workers making racist comments today.
Being multi-ethic and Jewish that rather upset me. Well, I don't
have to be Jewish to be intolerant of racial prejudice, but it does
make me feel even more threatened since some people are equally
racist against Jews as Arabs and Muslims. So I take it personally.
Anyway, above all, as Americans in this crisis,
_WE NEED TO KEEP OUR HEADS_
This is a crisis but we must not let our emotions get out of control
or the reaction will be worse than what happened today.
At the very least we need to wait for due process of law and
have proof of who really committed these atrocities. We cannot tolerate
harassment and violence against ethnic minorities who may be blamed.
If it does turn out that the Osama Bin Ladin is responsible for this
that we cannot tolerate the bombing of civilian populations in Afghanistan.
The Taliban is a fascist government. Many of the Afghanistan people
are against the Taliban but they do not exactly have the same freedoms
of free speech and assembly that we enjoy in this country. Bombing
civilian targets in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Yugoslavia etc. etc. etc.
is just as bad as the atrocities American experienced today.
Understand that the mainstream corporate media does not widely report
what our government has done to countries around the world. Also consider
that our government is partially responsible for placing the Taliban in
power by supporting them during the Soviet Union's war with Afghanistan.
Most likely the terrorists who committed these atrocities today
are only out for revenge. They have no other motive and they feel
like they have nothing to lose. We cannot win a war against small
groups of people who are only out for revenge. We need to think
very thoroughly about the calls to war and what it will really mean.
This has been a terrible terrible day. History might show this to be
a day of great change. Now we must decide whether that change will
be for better or for worse. We need to mourn our losses. I hope
that I can appeal to our better nature. That we as Americans will
not give into the madness of this terrible day. I hope that we will
rally around the call for peace instead of the call for revenge
that would be the downfall of us all.
I know that some may take my statements as derogatory.
Please think about what I have said. While I am critical of
some of the actions of our government, I do love this country.
I say what I say is because despite what has happened today
and in the past I still hope for the best.
My prayers go out for the victims, their friends and family,
the spirit of our country, and for the entire world.
This signature used to contain a cute kitty virus with ansii art. Please set the slashdot editors on fire. Thank you
I hate to say this at a time like this, but I'm not so sure about the Pearl Harbor analogy. Pearl Harbor was a military target, and the attacks on WTC were definately civilian.
I would think the better analogy would be the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with a tremendous toll on human life. Perhaps this is a step below and to the side.
No media outlet seems to mention this much, it seems.
I'm agnostic, so I can say a prayer for those in New York and Washington without being hypocritical. I'll do the same when America chooses inevitably to take it's vengeance out on other innocent civilians in retaliation.
Please let me be wrong. There's been enough death already today.
There have been a few posts here about lax security & speculating about how the hijackings were undertaken. Here's my theory: it was a lot simpler than a lot of security & terrorism experts are saying, and even the terrorists are surprised by the magnitude of the devastation they've wrought. Let me explain.
When I first heard about this at 7am one thing bugged me. How did 4 planes, from 3 airports, belonging to 2 airlines, get hijacked within minutes of each other? I was making a mistaken assumption, however -- the same one that our airport security systems have been making that allowed this tragedy to occur. I assumed you'd need a gun to effectively or meaningfully hijack a plane
I heard later Tues. that the planes, as far as is yet known, were hijacked by men with KNIVES. Some reports referred to them as "box knives," which implies to me improvised &/or small tools, rather than specialized and combat-oriented weapons.
Do you know how many times I've gotten on a plane with a 3-inch Spyderco knife on my person? And in my carry-on luggage? For hiking trips in Alaska or just because I carry it most days? It's easy to do. I've even taken a 3" Spyderco through the Boston airport on the way to Westchester NY. So I know first hand that you don't need special ceramic weapons to get a blade past Boston airport security.
I think that this was a relatively small-time operation, at least compared to what some "experts" are saying. You get 4 guys willing to die for the cause, some luggage, plane tickets, and knives. Train them in the basics of flying these planes (which has been said to be easy once they're airborne), teach them how to kill the pilots quickly with their toys, get them into the US, and send them on their way. It could take as little as a dozen people to plan & execute it, with, say, $20k for direct expenses. A few weeks, plus however long you want to train them with the knives & planes.
I heard a professional commercial pilot say on NPR tonight that a 180-pound man could break into one of those cockpit doors easily. No battering ram necessary. So the single hijacker gets up 15 minutes before NYC, as if to go to the lavatory, then busts down the cockpit door and kills both pilots. Within 2 minutes of getting out of his seat, he's flying the plane. No one is going to fuck with him at this point because 1) they're afraid of causing the plane to crash, and 2) they're terrified in general, and 3) on some level they expect these guys to behave like all the hijackers we've ever heard of, which is to say that they'll try to negotiate the release of political prisoners or something -- not crash the plane in the next 20 minutes. This theory also explains the reports that no emergency messages were sent from the crashed planes -- the pilots were killed or incapacitated immediately and lost control from that point onward. Thus, also, the frantic calls passengers "were told" to make (according to headlines on washingtonpost.com) to inform unaware authorities of the hijacking underway.
My conclusion: the hijackers got lucky in that this was totally ruthless, audacious, innovative, and unexpected. I don't think anything like it will happen again.
"It's an erotic, spectacular scene that captures the thrusting, violent, vibrant world Bohemian spirit..."
Besides the suspects mentioned in one of the links, (3 mentioned: Palestinian group, Iraq, Osama), I think a fourth should not be ruled out in advance. Right extremist americans (i.e. T. McVeigh followers).
I intend to live forever, so far so good.
The Boston Globe is reporting that a car was found at Boston airport (name?) with Arabic flight manuals. Apparently they got into an altercation with someone in the parking lot. That person notified authorities about the incedent after hearing of the tragedy when he landed at his destination leading them to this car. They are fairly certain that passports, the flight training manuals, and possibly other information in the car link these people to Bin Laden's "base". One of the suspects was a trained pilot and a member of the Arabic something Leage (?).
No shit?
Americans probably won't find this very comforting right now, but I'll give a short newsbreak: Unless you haven't noticed, you are in war, have been for a long time!
Look, for the last 50 years, Americans have been bombing cities here and there all over the world, leaving hundreds of thousands if not millions people dead, charred, mothers and brothers wailing over their graves. Sure, Americans were always the good guys, and sure, American bombs only killed soldiers. But hey, even innocent people do die in wars. America just got it first civilian casualties in 50 years!
So, we can now wait to see how the American reaction will be different from the reaction of those rag-head mad-dog arabs, who cry for eternal revenge after their relatives have been killed and homes bombed to ground.
Really, get over it.
IIRC, iraq also prices its oil in euros..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I heard, there where still some people surviving but locked in by debris. Some of them even used mobiles. I wonder if it might be possible to get easier access through some subway or sewer tunnels, especially since i read, that one subway tunnel passed very close and even had to be considered when building the WTC.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Someone has probably already said this (there are 4 pages of comments jesus christ) but has anyone started making plans to rebuild the towers?
It seems symbolically like the right sort of thing to do..especially if we rebuilt them taller than those malasian towers.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
"Have you noticed the way people's intelligence
capabilities decline sharply the minute they
start waving guns around?" (Dr. Who)
What do you people thin of stewardesses (and stewards) being given the power of being armed with a stun gun or something like a projectile to knock out terrorists? Of course, additional training would be required but I nobody is talking about what should be done to prevent future disasters like this (in any country).
Do your best, hope for the best, suspect the worst.
I may hurt your feelings, though I try just speak my mind up. I know I'm touchy now, so try to take the following casually. I trust on the moderators to view this as a foreigner's honest, differing viewpoint.
1. US Citizens have not had war in their own continent/country for a few, what, hundred years. It shows somewhat in the shockedness of the commentary. Of course this is awful. It does not happen only to someone else somewhere else, neither is what happens to you unique in this day and age. A few surprise attacks and -strikes from last century come to mind. Some of them out of scale, some changing our world for ever.
2. JFK: one mad US citizen. OKC: a few mad US citizen. Yet every time the foreigners get blamed before the attackers are found.
I am shocked and afraid of the future now. I live on the other side of the world from there. Most of us do. Live in fear of the US reaction and what that will do for the world. The world we all have to live in. There is no escape from this planet just yet, not even for chosen few US citizens. We must get along. Focus on anything else, and the nature will take care of us for good.
Sorry if I hurt your feelings; this is just critique that comes to mind while trying to work over the shock by absorbing as much information and commentary about the situation as possible.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Even more panic and havoc could have been caused by spreading some nasty infectious diseases. Viruses keep killing indefinitely, and with an incubation period. You don't even know if you've got it until you break out. This would cause _real_ panic. The West Nile virus caused some panic, and it's barely a threat at all. Imagine Ebola outbreaks on a couple stock traders who'd been in the stock exchange that day...
This terrorist attack hit symbols of power, and killed a couple thousand people. I just hope that nobody tossed some Anthrax or something into the mix. We won't know for a while whether any bio-weapons were used, because of the incubation period.
Terrorist threats are the major threat to the world these days, AFAIK. None of them would be insane enough to use ICBMs, because they couldn't deny involvement very easily if the missile was launched from their base. Screw missile defence. (It's not useless, since a missile could be fired by accident or something. I just don't think it's worth the money it would cost, and that that money could be better spent on health care and stuff.)
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
an online condolence register has been opened at http://newyorkcondolence.com/ or http://nycondolence.com/
> Everyone claims that this was sophisticated, planned for months, etc.
That's exactly what I thought when I heard the dudes on the news going on about how this attack required massive amounts of resources, etc. I have no idea how they justify that. They talk about it as if that fact were self-evident. Just because it killed a lot of people doesn't mean it required a lot of resources.
If I was trying to pull this off, I'd get four groups of hijackers. We'd try to get some stuff we could use as weapons onto the planes. We'd call each other on cell phones to make sure all four planes were ready for hijacking. If not, try again the next day. If we were ready, just take over and fly the planes into something important. How is this hard? With an internet connection, a laptop, and good encryption, the authorities wouldn't have a clue.
I'm not actually a terrorist, so maybe I'm missing something here... The only thing I can think of is that maybe you would need a big organization to get enough suicide hijackers, and ones who could fly as well. With parachutes, some of the hijackers might even figure out a way to pull it off and survive.
The only way to defend against this kind of thing once the plane is hijacked is to have SAM sites protecting important buildings. I don't think you could scramble fighters fast enough, unless you have a huge no-fly zone over your important buildings.
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
It was just on the news.
Even one well-trained and armed security guard on each plane - preferably incognito - would be sufficient to make such an attack very difficult, if not impossible. Also pilots need to be able to defend themselves.
If the airlines can pay for 10 flight attendants, then paying for one extra person shouldn't make a huge difference to their operating costs.
Given that screening does not work, it's the only thing to do.
"All you need is love" John Lennon.....
/. really kept the lines open!
Hope nothing else goes down,Grab some sleep if you can. Tomorrow I'm gonna finish this old farmers truck so he can get groceries. I'll have a wake for all those poor souls when it's time and I'm gonna go back to work and help a few people keep it together. I'm not going to give up one day to fear or hate. God bless the US
Right on
They are in Europe. I don't think they ever did suicide missions. Nor do the right wing terrorists, which make me believe it is religious groups. Suicide missions are so much more compelling when you believe paradice waits as a reward.
So you are suggesting a nutter with a knife could have taken on the other nutter with a knife. So the solution is that there are no security checks and arm all the passengers.
The solutions is to monitor internal flights in the same way that they are required to monitor international flights. US internal security sucks, plain and simple. This disaster was created by the US consumer and the airlines desire for cheap hassle free flights. Prices must rise to pay for the security required.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
First of all, I am sorry for all those who have become a victim in any way to these attacks. Said that...
1. Defenetely, these attacks were counterstrikes to US politics in Middle East and Europe.
2. I strongly disagree with Bush claiming these attacks being "cowardly acts". I think, that organizing and implementing such plan takes extreme courage, even if performed by a mad man, which I don't think is a case. One should have a clear head to plan all this.
3. Targets are defenetly symbolic - world's economy center, "world's" military center. Both destroyed within one day, showing that US is not actually such a strong giant as many may think.
4. Responding fast is doubtly even half a deal. It's like saying "I respawn very fast in Q3". I get killed in the first place anyway.
5. It is shocking to which extent of globaliztion US can go... as usual... everything shut down nationwide...
6. Counterstrike from US will cause only more attacks. US is still too powerfull to fight in open space, especially by small countries.
...once again, I am sorry for all those who became a victim...
Leonid Mamtchenkov
It seems to me that this could have been prevented by any number of simple precautions on the part of the airlines.
Hijackings have been a real threat for deecades, yet there has been little done to planes to make it difficult. security in airports has gone up, but once onboar, security is nearly non-existant.
How to be more secure without unduly troubling passengers?
-Isolate the cabin. On takeoff, the pilot, copilot and navigator are locked in. Remodel the plane a little so they have a micro-fridge and a toilet. Or, the pilots simply use a different door to enter the plane. If hijackers have to go through a bulkhead to reach the controls, they'll have a lot harder time of it.
-Prepare the crew. Train random (or volunteer) stedardess in armed and unarmed combat. Train and certify pilots the same way you would a security guard, and issue them a sidearm. Rather than being helpless victims, flight crews can be proactive.
-Plainclothes safety marshalls. Armed security personnel ride random flights providing for uncertainty in the minds of hijackers. Will this flight be easy? Or will it be "Passenger 57"?
-Pilot's Panic button/silent alarm. The pilot presses the button, starting a broadcast of black box info, audio/video cockpit monitors, and automatically switches control to a ground station. All this happens silently and instantly.
-And finally, more vigilant security at airports. A larger security force, cycling through positions will be more effective than a smaller force assigned to the same posts, day after day. If 50 people setting off the metal detector forget their keys, #51 probably did, too. Right?
After all, nothing happened yesterday. Complacency is the greatest friend of any criminal.
Anyway, these are just my ideas to prevent this kind of horror from happening again. Take 'em or leave 'em.
Total Collected: $204,504.35
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only several hundred had donated at the time this was linked to
way to go slashdotters!
don't know where to donate? you do now
He observed a second airplane immediately swing behind the first in a follow like manner and swoop down on the Pentagon only to pull up at the last second, out of the smoke cloud, and fly away
This is very important. Pictures, taken at NYC also clearly shows the presence of ANOTHER SMALL PLANE of the same type as described above.
Please note, that the area in NYC (and, I believe, also over Washington is closed for flights.) Coincidence ???
See photos here:
http://www.cyberus.ca/~stany/
I donated as much good old AB as I could yesterday. If you have a rare blood type please donate I have been the recipiant of too many needed transfusions to not yesterday. Get a donor card, donate often!!
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I wouldn't say totally civilian though. Think about the hundreds of companies that were contained within those buildings.
+----------- - - - . auximage
I am so profoundly sad for the people and families of those who died.
I want my old world back.
Speak truth to power.
Too late to get noticed, but not too late to fuck for some karma. I just meta-moderated a whole lot of fucking losers down to hell for "Insightful" garbage mods on bullshit comments.
I abhor and reject and am fucking pissed at what happened yesterday. By the same token, I detest what a bunch of assholes our politicians are turning out to be. When its a fucking Hollywood movie, everything's AOK , right? But when it's for-fucking-real they're telling parents to TURN OFF THE TV SO THE KIDS DONT SEEIT?
Now we have hundreds of pussy mealy mouth politicians who (a) ran for office to get rich and who (b) lost themselves and have friends who lost BIG $$$ in the stock market and (c) have been bought and sold by corporate lobbyists - let's see what the fuck they can do about this situation...
I love this country but make no mistake about it - if the entire US congress were in the wtc today we'd be better off. God help us.
What in nine hells was being DONE by air traffic control when the deviation (and subsequent lack of communication) was noticed? WHEN was it noticed? WHERE the fuck was the NY Air National Guard during the 18 minutes after the first impact? Is anyone going to try and sell the idea that 20 minutes wasn't enough time to get LOCAL jets in the air for intercept? Take a gander at the locations of NY squadron locations.
I'll buy the explanation that noone believed the first one would actually hit. I'm not gonna buy it for the second WTC hit. That plane should have been downed in the river.
Hannan Ashrawi (sp???), former Palestinian spokeswoman back when it seemed the peace talks were going somewhere, but since not seen as often in public anymore because she disagrees with the way Arafat is running the Palestinian Authority, just spoke on CNN about the "Palestinians dancing in the street" footage we've all seen.
She claimed the people shown celebrating and dancing are a *very* small minority group and do not in any way represent Palestinians as a whole. Moreover, though small groups of people may have been celebrating when they heard America was hit, celebrations soon subsided when it became clear that possibly thousands had been killed. The general attitude in the West Bank and Gaza is one of horror, disgust and sympathy with American victims.
Bear in mind that Ashrawi (I really should've looked this up, sorry) is one of the most moderate Palestinians around and that she's also one of very few Palestinians with some authority who's got any idea about pr Western style (as in, she knows it's not a good idea to scream "I will sacrifice *all* of my sons for Allah to make Israel suffer the way we suffer" when a suicide bomber's just blown up a kiddie disco in Tel Aviv - it doesn't do the Palestinian cause any good in the Western eye) so she's bound to say something like this.
However, if you think about it, she may, partly, be right. I myself have only seen that footage with the guy handing out free food to passersby (you know which footage I mean). Consider that in the 22 hrs since it happened, there hasn't been any new footage of Palestinians dancing in the street. It's always the same clip. If this celebration was going on on any substantial scale, I should think we would've seen more footage of it.
Disclaimer: I'm not Palestinian, nor am I Israeli, nor am I sympathetic to either cause (in the sense that I don't believe either people should be destroyed to give the other Lebensraum)
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Its at times like this that it becomes particularly painful that the American Red Cross does not allow gay men to donate blood.
www.crystalflame.net is mirroring as much as I can possibly find, and linking to the large mirrors that aren't easily mirrorable.
I believe that was the Korean airliner forced down in Canada. It did NOT crash. Its emergency beacon was activated, reportedly for a 'low fuel' indicator, and someone with common sense AND authority had it landed & checked out. Good show.
Actually, they believe the White House was a target but apparently it's difficult to discern from the air AND it has SAM implacements on the roof :)
It is believed that the Pentagon was a secondary target and MUCH easier to see from the air.
I logged this from CNN's IRC live feed [edited slightly for readability], while I was watching it on TV. He says that the evnts of yesterday wouldn't be believable in a book (and he's right, of course). I especially love the way they switch to New York as soon as he points a finger at them...
Session Start: Tue Sep 11 17:20:07 2001
*** Now talking in #CNN_Newsfeed
*** Topic is 'Live CNN Closed Captioning'
JOINING ME HERE IN THE
WASHINGTON STUDIO, A
FAMILIAR NAME, A FAMILIAR
FACE, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF
SO MANY NOVELS.
TOM CLANCY.
MYSTERIES AT THE HEART, TOM
CLANCY, AT THE MILITARY
COMMUNITY, THE INTELLIGENCE
COMMUNITY, PEOPLE IN OUR
NEWSROOM HAVE BEEN SAYING
WHAT IS THINK IS LIKE RIGHT
OUT OF A TOM CLANCY NOVEL.
BUT HAVE YOU -- COULD YOU
POSSIBLY IMAGINE SOMETHING
LIKE THIS TO WRITE ABOUT?
>> NO.
ONE OF THE PROBLEMS WITH
BEING A WRITER OF FICTION,
IS YOU CAN'T KEEP WUP ALL OF
THE MAD MAN IN THE WORLD, AS
MUCH AS YOU TRY.
AND I -- I FRANKLY WOULD
HAVE THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS
NOT A CREDIBLE THREAT TO THE
HAVE FOUR SEPARATE PEOPLE TO
DECIDE TO COMMIT SUICIDE IN
THE SAME WAY IN THE SAME
MORNING.
JUDY: WHY NOT?
>> BECAUSE GIVING UP YOUR
OWN LIFE IS NOT WHAT YOU DO.
EVERYONE IS ASSUMING THAT
THESE ARE ISLAMIC TERRORIST,
IF SO, THEY HAVE DEFIED
THEIR OWN RELIGION.
ISLAM DOES NOT PERMIT
SUICIDE, IT SAYS THAT YOU GO
TO HEATING OIL IF DO YOU
SOMETHING LIKE THIS.
JUDY: WE HAVE SEEN THE
SUICIDE BOMBINGS IN THE
MIDDLE EAST AND ISRAEL.
>> JUDY WE SAW PEOPLE IN
NORTHERN IRELAND CATHOLICS
ACTING LOOISH LIKE SAVIDGES
AND PROTESTANTS ACTING LIKE
SAVIDGES AND MUSLIMS ACTING
LIKE SAVIDGES.
IT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE FOOLS.
JUDY: WHAT DOES THIS SAY
NOW?
YOU'VE -- YOU'VE DONE A LOT
OF REPORTING.
NOT NOT ONLY WRITE FICTION,
YOU DO A LOT OF REPORTING
FROM INSIDE OF THE
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.
INSIDE OF THE MILITARY
COMMUNITY.
WHAT SDL DOES THIS SAY HOW
WELL-PREPARED AS A COUNTRY?
>> EVERYONE ASK THAT KIND OF
A QUESTION WHEN THINGS GO
WRONG, AND YOU DON'T ASK THE
QUESTION WHEN THINGS DON'T
GO RIGHT AND THE REASON IS
YOU CAN'T TELL WHEN THINGS
GO RIGHT IN THE BUSINESS.
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I
HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS,
WE NEED TO UPGRADE THE HUMAN
CAPABILITY -- THE HUMAN
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITIES IN
THE CIA.
BECAUSE YOU CAN DO A LOT OF
SATELLITES AND A LOT OF
EAVESDROPPING TECHNIQUES,
BUT YOU CAN'T -- YOU CAN'T
FIND OUT WHAT IS IN A
PERSON'S MIND EXCEPT BY
TALKING TO THAT PERSON.
AND SO THE AGENCY NEEDS TO
INCREASE ITS HUMAN -- IT'S
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
CAPABILITY.
THE CIA HAS ABOUT 20,000
EMPLOIT ELESS OF A -- IT
SHOULD BE DOUBLED.
BUT AMERICA AS A NATION
DOESN'T LOVE OR INTELLIGENCE
COMMUNITY.
AND CERTAINLY THE NEWS MEDIA
DOESN'T LOVE OUR
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.
JUDY: I WILL HAVE TO
INTERRUPT TOM CLANCY, I AM
TOLD AARON BROWN IN NEW YORK
HAS A DEVELOPMENT.
AARON?
AARON: WELL, JUDY, ANOTHER
IN THE LAST FEW SECOND,
ANOTHER BUILDING, WE WILL
SPECULATE CAREFULLY HERE
THAT THERE WAS BUILDING
NUMBER 7.
ONE OF THE BUILDINGS IN
SUPPORT OF THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER TOWERS HAS COLLAPSED.
THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN
WITH US FOR A WHILE, YOU CAN
SEE, INDEED, THE SMOKE COLOR
HAS CHANGED, GOTTEN MUCH
LIGHTER.
SO WE BELIEVE THAT YET
ANOTHER BUILDING, THIS WOULD
BE THE THIRD BUILDING HAS
COLLAPSED.
LIKELY, BUILDING NUMBER
SEVEN.
ALTHOUGH, WE ALSO HEARD THAT
THERE WERE PROBLEMS AT
BUILDING NUMBER FIVE.
AND IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THAT
ONE WENT DOWN, TOO.
AGAIN, ANOTHER BUILDING IN
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
COMPLEX APPEARS TO NOW HAVE
CAVED IN.
AFTER THESE ATTACKS.
JUDY?
JUDY: AARON, WE'RE LOOKING
AT THESE PICTURES, TOM
CLANCY AND I AS WE SIT HERE
IN THE WASHINGTON STUDIO,
AND JUST AS A COME BACK TO
TOM CLANCY.
I WANT TO READ JUST A
PORTION OF THE STATEMENT
ISSUED BY SECRETARY OF STATE
POWELL, COLIN POWELL CALLING
THESE ATTACKS A TERRIBLE
TRAGEDY, TERRIBLE TRAGEDY
BEFALLEN NOT JUST MY NATION,
BUT ALL OF THE NATIONS OF
THIS REGIONAL, THE NATIONS.
WORLD.
ALL THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN
DEMOCRACY.
TOM CLANCY, YOU WERE SAYING
SURE, WE CAN ASK THESE
QUESTIONS ABOUT FAILED
SECURITY, FAILED
INTELLIGENCE, WHEN THINGS GO
WRONG.
BUT WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO
THE ASK THESE
QUESTIONS, DON'T WE?
>> HAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO THE
SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT.
IT'S A PRACTICAL MATTER OF
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU
WANT TO DO, IF YOU OF THE
WANT TO PREVENT THIS IS TO
BUILD UP YOUR LINE OF THE
DEFENSE.
AND FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE IS
THE INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITY.
WHEN OF THE LAST TIME THAT
THE CNN OR THE NEWS MEDIA
ISF SAID IN GENERAL TO PUT
MORE MONEY OF THE
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY INTO
THE CIA.
YOU WOULD NEVER DO THAT.
JUDY: WE WOULDN'T TAKE THE
SIDE IN THAT IN TERMS OF
WHAT DO YOU FUND.
>> THAT YOU HAVE FAILED.
WHY NOT HELP THEM SUCCEED
FOR A WHILE.
JUDY: ARE YOU SAYING THAT
THEY ARE SIGNIFICANTLY
UNDERFUNDED IN THAT AREA NOT
JUST THE CIA BUT THE FBI?
>> HUMAN INTELLIGENCE IS
DEEMPHASIZED.
THE FBI'S JOB -- IS --
>> SPYING IS WHAT WE ARE
TALKING ABOUT.
>> THAT'S WHAT THE
INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS DO, IS
THEY SPY.
ANDEI HAS 20,000 EMPLOYEES.
ABOUT 700 OF WHOM ARE
ACTUALLY SPOOKS.
AND OF THEM AS MANY AS
TWO-THIRDS GET OUT AND GET
OUTSIDE AND DO THE SPOOK
OPERATIONS AND WE NEED TO DO
BETTER THAT, MORE THAN THAT
YOU GATHER THE INFORMATION
OF THIS TYPE OF PUTTING
PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS.
SEEING THE COPS GATHERED
INFORMATION FROM THE
INFORMANTS.
THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE.
A NUMBER OF HIRING THE
PEOPLE AND LETTING THEM DO
THE WORK.
I HAVE TO TURN IT BACK OVER
TO THE AARON.
I found this link last night when /. was /.ed
http://www.asce.org/news/pr042900_opalfasullo.cfm
It's a link about the main engineer involved in the construction of the Twin Towers.
Although some people may think his team's design was fatally flawed, I believe that the design did it's job. The structure held long enough for what at this time appears to be at least a partial evacuation.
This morning, Wednesday, I can still hear, and see, pairs of them overhead every 15 minutes or so. You know, an F-16 lit by the dawn looks very pretty for being such a deadly machine.
Best Slashdot Co
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I can't help but think the fireman in the video was probably one of the first on the scene and one of the casualties.
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
Maybe I'm being slow, but how does that show otherwise? If I and my five mates had decided to try this, we could also claim to have a bomb. Actually that was one of the first options to spring to mind.
Xenu loves you!
On the radio in to work today they were interviewing Michigan's Attorney General, Jennifer M. Granholm, about the sharp raise in gas prices. According to the major gas distributors, the price of gas at the retail level should NOT be affected. Any gas stations that have raised their prices significantly are doing so illegally.
She encouraged everyone that drives past gas stations, in Michigan, that have raised their prices greatly to report it to the attorney general website so that they can take action against said gas stations.
She also said to remember which gas stations are doing it and never by gas from them again.
I am also sure that the Attorney Generals of other states will also be looking in to similar cases in their states.
A better idea may be to have planes controllable from the ground. In the vent of a hijacking, the ground can take over.
How do you design such a system which cannot itself be used to turn planes in to guided missiles?
People saw the PA plane crash..they didn't see any missile hit it.
If 4 other planes are missing that will be pretty hard to hide. How would the missing people be explained?
You're close. The actual number of people required is eight. One person distracts while the other kills the pilot. Then the distractor stands guard at the door, reassuring all the passengers while the killer pilots the plane into the designated area. This act could have been accomplished by eight very determined terrorists. Consider this when you cry out for the blood of thousands of innocent muslims.
There was a rumor of a 5th crash near Camp David that turned out to be false.
If an extra plane goes down they won't be able to hide it. A lot of people will be missing.
It's that simple. As a general rule, we don't care. The average American has no idea how much aid we send to Israel. They have NO idea why there is a "war" going on in the Middle East. They don't understand why they are fighting for the same land or how long it has been going on. Ask people on the street about the Jews and Palastinians and at least 90% of the time you'll get a blank stare.
What they do understand is people killing innocent citizens. If people in the Middle East want to change our policy they picked the WRONG WAY TO DO IT. Sure, this is a great way to get news coverage, but you'll get bombed, bad. We're now backed in a corner and the American public DEMANDS a military response. Nothing else will do.
This was posted to Jerry Pournelle's site.
...
Dear Jerry,
Following is a message which my one of my best friends passed along with permission to distribute to those who might be interested. It fills in the details that I missed in my original conversation with him and attempted to relate to you.
Tom has given me permission to distribute the message - please feel free to post it if you deem it appropriate.
Sincerely,
Art Russell Major, US Army (Retired)
Message Follows:
Today was a tragedy for all of America and to my family, a very personal one. Lynn and my Niece Liz's husband, Jeremy Glick was on United flight 93 this morning. When the Hijackers took control of flight 93. Jeremy called my niece who in-turn conferenced him to 911. Jeremy relayed to the police what was happening as the hijacking unfolded. As our niece Liz listened, Jeremy told the police there were three Arab terrorists with knives and a large red box that they claimed contained a bomb. Jeremy tracked the second by second details and relayed them to the police by phone. After several minutes of describing the scene, Jeremy and several other passengers decided there was nothing to lose by rushing the hijackers. Although United Flight 93 crashed outside of Pittsburgh, with the loss of all souls. Jeremy and the other patriotic heroes saved the lives of many people on the ground that would have died if the Arab terrorists had been able to complete their heinous mission.
Please offer your prayers for all of those who perished or were injured in this tragic of all days and to our niece Liz Glick and her 2-month-old child, Emerson, who are left without their loving Husband and Father.
May we remember Jeremy and the other brave souls as heroes, soldiers and Americans' on United flight 93 whom so gallantry gave their lives to save many others.
Lynn, our four adult children and I are headed to New York to be with our family during this time of great sadness
All of my best,
Tom
We find
Does anybody else find it odd that we've heard nothing from Senator Clinton on this?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Not really. The only provision for violence in Islam is Jihad (Holy War). There are similar provisions in Christianity that were used to justify the Crusades. Both "clauses" are left over from a time when the world was a less civilized place, and fighting wasn't something out of the scope of daily life.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
He probably read Clancy's "Executive Orders." In it, a secret service agent was a "sleeper" and tried to assasinate the president.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Thanks, Allism.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Even if they did use electronic communication, maybe it was encrypted.
However any organised terrorist, the people involved here certainly are organised, is going to be well aware that their communications are likely to be intercepted.
Thus they are more likely to use code systems most including bogus communications and communications intended to mislead.
The Democrats started the "low cost housing" idea--besides ruining the lives of many poor people and increasing crime rates--each apartment is worth about $20. Well, school funding is based on property taxes and local millages....
>>>>>>>>>
If there were no "low cost housing," then there would be more homeless and you'd have set of problems.
If you want fair schools, take funding entirely to the state level so every school gets equal dollars per student or have free private school charters for everyone. (Republican ideas.)
>>>>>>>>>
Taking funding to the state level wouldn't change anything. Many states (VA for example) are even less competent than the national government. Every school getting equal tax dollars would work better, but
A) Rich suburbanites would never agree to it
B) Its a socialist idea.
As for free private school charters, you might as well say "give all schools enough money." There is no practical difference between the government paying for private schools (what charters would amount to) and the government paying public schools, and most private schools are not in locations that would be easily accessible to the poor.
As for the US bombing everyone... We only do what the UN says. And it's not just the US that's the army of the UN. Most Democratic countries bomb along with us--you just don't hear anyone complaing about it. It's in style to hate the US.
>>>>>>
Bullshit. The UN *is* the US. Who is there to stand against us? France! Ha! In the UN, whatever the US says, goes. While people might complain, and the US might make a few concessions to keep someone in the security council from voting something down, the US gets its way in the big issues. Take economic sanctions against Iraq for example. France, China, and Russia favor easing or lifting economic sanctions on Iraq. France, China, and Russia are three of the five permanent members of the UN security council, and all have veto powers.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Lack of good support? Those buildings showed exemplary support since they were able to withstand not only collisions with large aircraft traveling several hundred miles an hour but were also able to support the upper levels despite having large holes blown in them. One civil engineer I saw being interviewed said that the twin towers had supports spaced 3.5 ft apart, whereas normal buildings have 10 ft between supports. The building eventually collapsed because the intense heat from the fires weakened the supports at the upper levels, causing those levels to fall onto levels below. To give an example, level 110 fell onto level 109, the support below level 109 is now holding twice the weight than it was designed to hold and the support was also weaked by the heat. Level 109 collaped onto 108, 108 is also weakened by heat and is now supporting 3x the weight, so it collapsed. And so on down to the bottom. Without the fire, those buildings likely would still be standing. Goes to show that these terrorists had this thing planned down to the smallest detail.
Lack of coverage might be do to the fact that the other planes causes the most carnage in recent American and world history, while the PA plane hit some trees...
It would appear that the FDR and CVR from this plane would be the most easily recoverable.
Assuming that is that the terrorists did not disable them as they did with the transponders...
it's not exaggeration to say that America is forever changed by the tragedy.
... i dont know.
We should actively keep it in our minds.
I made a few small logos/slogans which i'd like to share:
9-11
(as in september 11, and emergency)
Remember the Skyline
WTC 2002
(as in, rebuild)
do copy it and pass it on to others if you think its worth sharing. these
are meant as an expression of solidarity, of remembrance
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Large aircraft are, by themselves, dangerous weapons of mass destruction, we can see this plainly now. It is necessary to design and install safety overrides on all large aircraft, so that control can be taken away from the pilot in the event of just such an emergency.
Everybody reading this is intelligent enough to understand the necessary design elements of such an override system, such as the guarantee of secure operation (encryption, authorization, physical security, etc) so I won't go into it further. But we, the techies, are the ones responsible for pushing this forward, for the protection of everyone, including ourselves. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, obviously the control system software must be open source, the entire design must be open. Imagine the consequences of the security system itself being compromised.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
I desperately hope that these events mean we grow up- we've GOT to be better citizens of the world.
Was it me, or did Bush declare War in his latest speach (10:55 EDT) ?
It sounds like he wants enough money to run war opps (as well as relief efforts).
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
I seriously doubt they expected it to completely collapse. They probably intended to gut it with the fire. But I don't give fucking terrorists much credit for that level of intelligence. They knew they would cause a world of hurt with a lot of fuel and fire. I doubt they thought much beyond that.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Nice job speculating based on nothing, you uninformed self-righteous slashdot loser.
--
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
It is now just a "plain white t-shirt" for $15.00... I think it worked... :)
Andrew
Anyway - THIS is the 'correct' interpetation
"In the City of God there will be a great thunder, Two Brothers torn apart by chaos, while the fortress endures, the great leader will succumb. The third big war will begin when the big city is burning."
It's quite clear that he was referring to Man U's downfall in the Premiership.
City of God = Stadium of Light (Sunderland)
Great Thunder = Kevin Philips hat trick - Crowd go wild
Brothers torn apart by chaos = The Nevilles can't defend - No change there
The fortress endures = Sunderland unbeaten at home
Great leader will succumb = Alex Ferguson throws a tantrum and quits
The third big war will begin = Arsenal V Leeds United FA cup final
Big city is burning = Arsenal win 2-0 - Leeds United fans go on the rampage
heh
Tequila - drink of the gods.
The nature of air piracy has changed. Before this, if you were the unfortunate victim of a hijacking, you would have a reasonable chance of living through the event if you kept your head down.
No more.
After watching yesterday's video I know one thing, I'd rather go out in a hail of bullets than cowering in the back of the plane, while it slams into a building. Give every passenger a gun and the scumbags wouldn't even make it to the cockpit door.
You're using her as bait, Master!
How about Mossad? An effective way to eliminate your enemy is to get another nation pissed-off at them...
You're using her as bait, Master!
...but have you noticed that you never see Osama bin Laden and Bill gates together?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Adequacy has an account (from Jerry Pournelle's site) about passengers attempting to overpower the terrorists on United flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Probably not a coincidence.
I used to work in nuclear safety in Canada, and I know that the containment building (the big dome that surrounds the reactor core) is designed to take a direct hit from a large passenger jet. I would assume that US reactors are designed the same way.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I'm sorry that I can't substantiate this at all, but during one of the news reports, a reporter mentioned that the US will be using what he called a "Black hole" that will capture thousands and thousands of phone call conversations which they will then go on to analyze for specific keywords. Did anyone else see this? Is this an admission of Echelon?
Sure, there's a trade-off between light weight and ultimate strength. You can ALWAYS build a building stronger. The trick is to build is strong enough, because otherwise you're wasting money and construction time.
If the building had been twice as strong, it might still be standing. However, it might also not have been built. This is the engineer's dilemma: How strong is strong enough? It's a tough call.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Errr... I happen to work in Wean Hall. Classes were cancelled at CMU yesterday, and managers in SCS were encouraged to let their groups go (and across campus, in other schools, likewise AFAIK). However, Wean was not 'evacuated' - I was there for several hours, and there were a few other people there as well. Slashdot, please update this claim - Wean was not evacuated.
--Matthew
That's okay. Lots of the rest of us will hold and keep buying through our 401K's. Anyone with a little knowledge of history knows that war is as likely to improve the economy as hurt it.
flight larger than a 727.
Also flight attendants probably are aware of a
hijacking well before the pilot is. Pilot cabin
doors should be locked by default, and attendants
should probably be able to signal the pilot that a
hijacking is underway. Then a simple policy
response would probably be sufficient to guarantee
that a hijacking takeover attempt would fail.
In person I can easily see how a terrorist
could use a bomb threat or helpless hostage to
persuade a pilot to leave the flight controls,
but through a policy response that effort would
(nearly) always fail making it useless to try.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Our enemy isn't Afganistan, but the terrorists operating there and the Taliban who support them. They have plenty of enemies themselves, and we can support them. If we're smart, we'll also help the country rebuild.
That's my point. While people might advocate violence in the name of religion, it doesn't not mean that the religion condones it. Both Islam and Christianity were minor religions at one point and the "Holy War" clauses were needed to defend the religion. Neither religion advocates violence against innocent people.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Sorry to tell you this but in many parts of the world, fighting still isn't something out of the scope of daily life.
Just because we can all cuddle together at night doesn't mean everybody else gets to do so.
>>>>>>>
The rest of the world should just wake up and join the times. Where I come from, one party winning an election would prompt the other party to call for rioting of the populace. This type of behavior is no longer acceptable in the modern world. People's attitudes need to change, and change fundementally. It is easy to say, "Americans can afford to think differently," but honestly, there are several poor countries that enjoy a degree of political and social stability. Besides, those in the middle east don't really have the excuse of poverty, since most middle eastern countries have adequate resources.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
unfortunately our society and country as a whole is getting soft. Valor has been replaced with rhetoric, honour has been replaced with egotism, and courage replaced with bravado and posturing.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
That's a damn good thing. Back when "valor" and "honor" ruled humanity, politics was one big pissing contest between world leaders. It is "valor" that encourages a suicide bomber to take out a club, and "honor" that keeps those in the middle east at each other's throats. At least developed countries now do "sissy" things like politcal mudslinging, rather than "manly" things like try to kill each other...
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I sent this to my friends:
_________________
Everyone,
As is often the case, the Economist seems to have the best story: America under Attack
Also see The Economist front page
Stratfor provides interesting and more complete analysis.
Lax Security One of the important points made in the article is that security in U.S. airports and on U.S. airplanes before the bombing was lax compared to the security in Europe.
George Bush had Increased Support for Israel. The Economist article does not mention that the Bush Administration in the U.S. had recently increased its support for the Israeli government and therefore also Israeli violence. The Clinton administration, in contrast, was more careful not to do things which could be interpreted as an incitement to violence.
Once again, intelligence agencies were useless. It is amazing to me that "intelligence" authorities claim that they did not have any idea that there would be an attack like this. Below is a link to an album cover from a band called "The Coup". It is black American "Party Music". The album was sold long before today's bombing. The album cover shows both towers of the World Trade Center in New York in flames:
The Coup -- Party Music, album cover shows the World Trade Center towers burning.
If black rap artists can have this idea, why didn't the intelligence agencies have it? The idea was not particularly innovative, since the World Trade Center had already been bombed once. Did the intelligence agencies think that those who did it would just stop trying?
From one of the Stratfor articles: "Reuters is reporting that Arabic satellite television channel MBC warned Sept. 8 that followers of suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden were planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks."
Violence is Assumed. Commentators on three of the largest U.S. TV networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, have made comments that assume without debate that the U.S. will engage in military action in retaliation. One U.S. senator said on TV that the U.S. response should be comparable to the U.S. response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the U.S. responses at the time of Pearl Harbor was to be the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons. Is the senator suggesting that?
This is my reply to the many people who are recommending violence as an answer to violence:
Do you have any thought that violence in retaliation might be a mistake, and might just invite further violence? Those who say no may change their minds after they consider the following issues:
The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer. The U.S. government killed 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and maybe 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed were in any way directly threatening the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, friends and families and wives.
Most of the citizens of the U.S. had, and have, no idea of the beliefs of the people that their government killed. Most people in the U.S. cannot even locate the countries the U.S. government bombed on a map of the world. People cannot be thought to have chosen violence when they do not come close to understanding the issues. It is often the government that chooses violence, not the people.
No matter how violent a country is, or how many people a violent country kills, there is still an inexhaustible supply of people in other countries who also want to engage in violence. Violence can be unending. Do you want that?
No matter how angry you are, there are thousands of people who are more angry than you. Do you want them to attack you?
As was mentioned above, the Bush administration recently increased U.S. support for the violence of the Israelis. This was sure to make the people being killed by the Israelis unhappy. Do you find it surprising that some of them are motivated to violence also?
There are many countries where people are severely distressed by Israeli violence. Recently there was a TV news story about street violence in which Israelis were killed. The Israeli counter-attack was shown on TV: A helicopter fired rockets at a building, causing huge explosions. It is not important in this instance whether the Israelis are the aggressors. What is important is that a significant number of people in the world think they are the aggressors.
The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,300 years. The Jews say that they are the "chosen people" of God. The Jews say that Arabs are descended from an illegitimate child of their tribal founder, Abraham, and a slave girl.
It is not difficult to understand the thoughts of the Arabs. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live next to a group of people who claim that they are superior, and that Arabs are inferior. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live near people who claim that you are a descendent of a bastard and that God doesn't like you as much.
It is also not difficult to understand that the constant claims of the Jews of superiority over everyone else (including people of European descent like me) are mentally de-centering to Arabs who happen to be psychologically conflicted.
Violence is caused by mentally de-centered people. Mentally de-centered people engage in violence. It's that simple. Being violent toward them makes mentally de-centered people even more mentally de-centered. That's why violence is not a good answer to violence.
The U.S., and all those who hate violence, should take very strong action. But the action must be designed to cure the problem of highly-conflicted, mentally de-centered people. Whatever that response is, it must be more sophisticated than violence.
The terrorists are extreme examples of mentally disturbed people. Remember that those who crashed airplanes into the buildings cannot possibly benefit from their own actions. They are dead. Someone who is willing to commit suicide is about as mentally de-centered as it is possible to be.
Does the U.S. really have a place in a dispute that began 3,100 years before the founding of the country? How many people here really understand this dispute? What percentage of the citizens of the U.S. can even find Israel on a map of the world? I think the percentage is low.
I find the arrogance of my Jewish friends annoying, too. However, there are many differences between myself and the terrorists. I am less conflicted. I am better educated. It doesn't matter to me what other people have been saying for thousands of years; I don't believe Jews actually are superior. I don't live in an area where I am at risk of being killed by Israelis. I am not Arab, so I am not the target of the strongest claims of Jews that they are superior.
I can also understand why Jews would find Arabs annoying. There is an element of the Arab culture that allows Arabs to think that lies are sometimes acceptable. My Arab friends have sometimes lied to me over trivial issues. To someone who values careful thought, lies are extremely repugnant.
Should we be giving Israel money when that will be seen as us a choosing to enter a 3,300 year-old conflict? The U.S. government gives billions of dollars every year to Israel. If anything, this money seems to have made Israel weaker. The Israelis have spent money they didn't earn; this is always a corrupting influence; they have had problems with inflation. It can hardly be said that the people of the U.S. give the money; most have no idea that money is going to Israel. So, the people pay the money, but the government gives it away. Rightly or wrongly, sensibly or crazily, the Arabs see this money as encouragement of Israel's violence toward them.
On this particular issue both cultures are crazy! They've been killing each other since the time of the Pharaohs! What does this have to do with the U.S.? Do we walk into bars and take part in any fight that is happening there?
The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries. We often hear about secret activities of the U.S. government after it is too late to object. The U.S. supported the killing of president Mossadegh of Iran, and then supported an extremely weak man, the Shah of Iran. (See Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings) [thirdworldtraveler.com], for example.) This provoked a revolution in Iran that was hostile to the United States. Citizens of the U.S. were kept hostage.
The U.S. secret agencies' secret answer to the anti-U.S. sentiment was to support Saddam Hussein of Iraq against Iran. We supported Saddam Hussein's violent war against Iran. However, when Saddam Hussein became violent toward another country in the region, we spent billions of dollars to kill an estimated 150,000 Iraqis and destroy their property.
When executives do things openly they make lots of mistakes, and are sometimes held accountable, usually in a very peaceful way, and usually by their own staffs. When executives do things in secret, there is little accountability, and the mistakes can become huge.
Anyone interested in the activities of secret U.S. agencies may have been interested in a segment of the CBS show "60 Minutes" about the secret involvement of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the killing of Chilean General Rene Schneider. The show aired on Sunday, September 9, 2001. General Schneider was a strong supporter of democracy. Here are links to information about U.S. interference with democracy in Chile:
National Security Archive Chile Documentation Project [gwu.edu]
PBS News Hour: "... evidence of a policy to undermine democracy in Chile and to support dictatorship there" [pbs.org]
Hinchey Report, CIA Activities in Chile [state.gov]
Iran, Iraq, and Chile are just three of the countries that have suffered from secret U.S. involvement. There is some discussion of U.S. government interference in Saudi Arabia below. Also, don't forget Nicaragua. I asked someone who went to Nicaragua during U.S. involvement there whether it was possible to see the wealth that the U.S. government was pouring into that small country. The amount was said to be about $1,000,000 per day. I was told, no, there was no evidence of the money that was spent.
There is a cycle: 1) The U.S. government influences other governments in hidden ways, including arranging the killing of foreign leaders. 2) Some members of the countries with whom the U.S. has interfered want to retaliate violently to the violence of the U.S. 3) The U.S. uses the violent retaliation as a justification for more hidden activity.
Invading countries and killing the residents and destroying their property is not a way of relating I consider socially skilled. Why do the citizens of one country think they can kill the citizens of another? If killing is the answer, can't the U.S. ask a better question?
The interference in the affairs of other countries by the secret U.S. agencies has prompted some people to retaliate. These people who retaliate are called "terrorists" in the U.S. The terrorists make everyone in the U.S. less safe. So, U.S. citizens have, in some ways, gotten less security for the money they spent on secret activities.
The violent attitude toward people outside the U.S. has, predictably, spread to the internal police forces in the U.S. When some religious fanatics decided to do stupid things in Waco, Texas, the U.S. government responded by bringing in very violent-minded people. The result was that people were killed.
There were people who didn't like the activities of the U.S. police forces in Waco. There were people who were psychologically de-centered by these activities. One of them, Timothy McVeigh, bombed a U.S. government building in Oklahoma. So then the U.S. government killed him.
Secrecy encourages people not to trust. Violence encourages violence.
We tend to hear about the activities of secret U.S. government agencies about 30 years after they occur. What are they doing now?
It is 10:00 o'clock. Do you know what the U.S. government is doing? No, it is a fact that you don't. You don't know any other time, either. You cannot even know how much of your money is spent on secret activities, because the budget for secret U.S. government agencies is hidden in other appropriations.
Definition of a terrorist: The other country's CIA.
There is in the U.S. very little attempt at understanding other cultures. Arab friends of mine have described situations in Saudi Arabia that are extremely volatile. Apparently Osama bin Laden, and many average Saudis who live in the U.S., feel very unhappy with U.S. influence in Saudi Arabia. They think that there should be political parties and democracy in Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. government strongly supports the dictatorial regime of the house of Al Saud. Residents of Saudi Arabia, for example, are not allowed to leave the country without an exit visa. They are potentially prisoners of their own country.
Why not ask ourselves why Osama bin Laden is willing to go to so much trouble to promote terrorism? Maybe we would learn something. I am NOT saying Osama bin Laden is right about anything, and definitely his violence is reprehensible. Nevertheless it may help to understand him. According to Arabs to whom I've talked, there is considerable good reason to be dissatisfied with the secret actions of the U.S. government.
As other people have said in the past, the U.S. government has a history of supporting corrupt dictatorships. The U.S. government supported Pakistan against India! India is the world's most populous democracy. It has been suggested that the preference for supporting dictatorships is due to U.S. government corruption. A dictator is almost certain to be willing to support embezzlement of U.S. government money, and to keep it secret. Trying to arrange embezzlement would be very dangerous in a democracy because of the danger of being discovered.
Under the stress of conflict, people show how they truly think. It has always annoyed me that people who call themselves Christian often reveal that they don't really believe in the important messages of Christianity, and that they don't even understand those messages.
Basically, Jesus Christ's idea of not returning violence with violence means that we can vigorously protect ourselves, but that any response must be the true minimum necessary to achieve security. This is a theory that can be recommended even to the majority of people in the world who are not Christian. The theory seems to fit the facts. The facts seem to be that violence always has severely negative side-effects that overwhelm any effect that might be seen as positive.
Answers? Prevention is an answer. Better understanding is an answer. Being charitable long before any problems begin occurring is a good answer. And maybe there are times when we just don't know the answer.
There is often considerable misunderstanding about non-violent methods. One reason to suggest non-violent methods is that they can be extremely powerful. For example, suppose that representatives from the U.S. knew Osama bin Laden's family. Or suppose that you understood how money is transferred to bin Laden. Or suppose the U.S. was so well-liked in the region that bin Laden had difficulty finding supporters. One of the values of non-violent methods is that literally hundreds of them are available, and many of them are far, far cheaper than violence.
The desire for non-violence is a desire to be extremely powerful. Those who are really powerful can have a strong influence just by voicing disapproval.
There are many people who support violence because they want to act out their own personal anger, while at the same time hiding their internal conflict from themselves. It is a fact that such people would be FAR more comfortable if they could be helped to understand and take responsibility for their anger. Acting out anger is like a drug. It provides only temporary relief, and it makes the person who does it more angry. Having un-recognized anger is like carrying a 100-pound sack of cement on your back wherever you go. Un-recognized anger drags you down 24 hours per day.
Violence is not a good answer to violence.
Regards,
Michael Jennings
Michael Jennings
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.
E-Mail: M_Jennings@USA.com
This letter maybe sent to anyone by email without permission from the author, provided that no changes are made. If you print this article with no changes, you may give it to anyone you know. Other use requires permission. Copyright 2001.
Please mention errors and shortcomings to the author.
Bush's education improvements were
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apparently he said no such thing either, it was a student in 1995 (or sometime around then) who was doing an essay and under the infinite monkeys principle said that if you make enough sufficiently vague prophecies, there are enough events that happen in the world for most of them to become "true". The "the third great war" was added later by some unknown person.
Doesn't mean that I should have been modded to -1, Troll. Christ moderators, it's not like _I_ made up the rumour. I could understand a bunch of (-1, Overrated), but not flamebait and troll.
[/gripe]
If God gave us curiosity
The question was: why us?
My answer was to that question, and it is accurate. If you get involved in a conflict with two sides, at least one of them is going to hate you.
Your point that one side usually wants the US there is both completely correct and utterly irrelevant, as the other side doesn't, and as long as you keep policing the world, people will hate and fear you.
And I forgot to add: because many US citizens seem totally unable to comprehend that what they now find absolutely intolerable when applied to them was also absolutely intolerable when applied to others.
This looks like US bashing, but really it isn't. It's just that so many of us saw this coming for so long that we skipped straight past the shock and the outrage and thought: "Welcome to the way the rest of the world feels. Scared and vulnerable." It's a nasty feeling, isn't it?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Please understand that much of the world isn't jealous of the USA. It hates and fears it. The way you feel now, the revulsion, the outrage, the anger, that's how good, decent family folks in many countries have felt about the USA for years.
They don't want to be you, any more than you want to be them. They just want to see you dead, just as you want to see people who you disagree with you dead.
That's vile, isn't it? Well, welcome to the big wide world.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The USA suffered the inevitable consequences of its actions. The horror and the barbarity is shocking. Just as shocking as it is when it happens in other countries, out of sight of CNN.
Probably
You don't have to. Show that you're a world leader. You can't make people stop hating you by bombing them into submission. You can make a choice, right here and now.
You can take the easy way out, and make the world so afraid of you that other countries will jail or kill anyone who is even likely to draw your attention. Every so often, you'll have to destroy a city or two, just to remind them that you mean business.
Or you can say that enough is enough, pull back the aircraft carriers, and let regional conflicts resolve themselves within that region. It will be tough, it will take a long time, and your arms industry and politicians will have to find other quick fixes to keep them in business.
It's your choice.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You'd be hated and feared a lot less, which is largely the same thing.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
At what price, and with what reliability?
OK, so it was a PR exercise. Pick your reason, but defending a monarchy from a dictorship that was previously being supported against a theocracy, all in the name of God and Freedom is laughable.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The one that ran from 1942-1945 (as I'm now increasingly hearing on gonzo US history programming), or the 1939-1945 one that the USA seriously considered joining on the Axis side before Hitler really lost the plot and it became apparent that Japan wasn't prepared to share the Pacific with the USA?
Check your history before you flame this.
I do agree that the stakes are higher now, which is exactly why the USA cannot keep policing the world. I honestly believe that we are seeing a watershed where the USA can decide whether it wants to get along with everyone, or whether it wants to be a global dictatorship. I can't see a third option, unless you count more of this appalling carnage as an option.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I know "honor" and "valor" don't really mean that. But in the course of history, has honor and valor *ever* meant in reality what it does in the dictionary?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf were minor skirmishes? A higher tonnage of iron bombs was dropped on Iraq during the Gulf conflict (sorry, war, we won that one) than during the whole of WWII! The millions of Iraqi civilian dead (mostly through sanctions and lack of access to basic medical care) is no less of a human tragedy than if they'd been innocent US citizens.
The people who carried out the WTC murders see themselves as soldiers, and have viewed themselves as being at war with the USA for years. They point out that the USA has been deliberatly targetting civilian populations since 1943, and that they are retaliating in kind using the only means available. Their actions are vile and cowardly, but that doesn't excuse similar actions by the USA.
The hijackings were utterly abhorent, but no more so than what the US has been doing to civilian populations for the past 50 years directly and indirectly, all in the interests of avoiding a direct military confrontation with an equally matched opponent.
I just point this out, I'm not necessarily condemning it. The fact is that by policing the world and maintaining the balance of power, the USA has stopped the middle east or Balkans going up in flames and dragging everyone in. It probably was lesser of two evils, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't evil, or that we should pretend that the USA isn't also guilty of appalling crimes against humanity.
This looks like USA bashing, but that's not the intention. The only aim is to ask US citizens to take a good long honest look at what the US has been doing, and ask themselves whether they are ready to step up to the line again and keep making enemies as well as friends every time that they pick a side to support.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I said 1943. At that time, the European powers were still trying to precision bomb targets. It was the USA that introduced the idea of area bombing in civilian areas. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just the ultimate evolution of that, unless you count the large scale use of chemical weapons in Vietnam as being equally abhorent.
I'm sorry? The fuck? You tell that to the good, decent family folks dying in Iraq right now through lack of basic medical care. You ask them who they blame, Saddam or the USA, and then tell me that sanctioning a country back to the stone age on the deranged belief that they will blame their own government is "a simple matter".
Yes. What's your problem with that? If the aim of the USA was to resolve the situation rather than just restore the status quo, why stop at the Iraqi border? The loss of civilian life could hardly have been higher than it has been under the sanctions, and with the continuing genocide of the marsh arabs.
Stop creating straw men. My preference is the other way; if you're going to set up Hussein as the Big Bad Wolf, then the situation isn't resolved until you remove him. Anything else is rank hypocrisy.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
See the latest version of the letter above at What Should be the Response to Violence?
One of the headings: "The CIA trained Osama bin Laden."
Bush's education improvements were
I'm saying: pick one.
The rank hypocrisy of the US government (not the people, stop making that confusion) sickens me. They'd rather have a million civilians die off camera in Iraq than lose one US serviceman on camera.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.