Slashdot Mirror
More News And Links On Yesterday's Terrorist Attack
Ian Peon writes: "SF Gate has a short article on how the Internet "proved its mettle as a communications facilitator in a time of crisis." Kudos to all those who kept things running!"
An anonymous reader writes: "The who, what, and how are detailed in this Boston Herald story. The weapons were smuggled in the razor cases. And in order to get to the cockpit, they terrorized the stewardesses, killing a few in order to lure the pilot out. Once the pilot was out, they took control of the plane. They have identified a car driven by 5 arabs had flying instruction in arabic. The men have been traced back to different arab countries."
This WorldTribune.com story claims that Israeli intelligence reports favor the idea that the attacks may have had the backing of Saddam Hussein's Bagdhad government. According to a submission from UberOogie ,Osama bin Ladin denies involvement in the attacks. The claims, speculation and disclaimers will no doubt continue.
Connord D writes: "View the Survivor's Register Please, PLEASE go to the survivor registers, register that your looking for your family, tell your friends, pass the word around and identify those that have survived and those that are missing. Help worried families either confirm the fates of their loved ones so that they can mourn, or help them find those people that are missing." And Brian Mears, LAN Systems Operations Manager for Computer Sciences Corporation, writes: "I have created a forum on my website to allow families and friends of survivors to post messages and communicate with each other concerning this most tragic period." Here's the link: http://www.ntadmin.net/forum/.
It would be a godsend if the various survivor registries would pool their data, or if someone sets up a google-like search engine to reach all of them at once.
oo7 writes: "CNN has a stream of the first plane crash. If you'd like to download it you can from the videos section of this site; it has news updated as fast as I can and streams as fast as I can capture. Please forward any unknown news and links that you may have."
pKa writes: "The last image from WTCs 77th floor webcam is available on a few sites around the net. The original WCTA.org cam-site is dead, but available in Googles cache, where you can see the dark screen (camera already dead, most likely) at 09:52:52, 09/11/01 - just before the buildings crashed. Article (in norwegian) with screenshots available here" The stream of concern that yesterday's events will lead to an illiberal attitude toward privacy is growing into a torrent: vena writes: "CNN reported on television broadcast earlier today that the NSA was now going through volumes of recorded cellular calls for calls made by passengers on the planes. Clear admission."
GothChip writes: "Ananova are reporting that just hours after the terrorist attack on New York, the FBI started approaching ISPs asking for help in installing Carnivore."
mkelley writes: "This is only the beginning folks...looks like the internet is going to be blamed for this...Wired has a story that is sure to cause panic. This is going to be the goverment's way to push wiretapping into your email and web surfing. In this time of crisis, people in high places are going to use this to get their agenda through. "Blame the Internet" is going to be the rallying cry for everything ..." If you're interested in the details of the planes the terrorists chose, a Semi-Anonymous Coward writes: "American Airlines flight 77 confirmed down, crashed into the Pentagon, Washington DC. Flight 77 (Dulles to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 757-200:
Boeing 757-200 data and history:
American Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos:
- American Airlines flight 11 confirmed down, crashed into World Trade Center New York. Flight 11 (Boston to Los Angeles) is scheduled as a Boeing 767-200:
- Boeing 767-200 data and history
- American Airlines Boeing 767-200 photos
- United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos: United Airlines Boeing 757-200 photos"
I have some pictures I grabbed from the WallStreetItalia.com webcam.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Link available on amazons frontpage. So far, $481,726 has been collected. Please help, most of us can spare a dollar...
MSNBC (The TC channel) was saying that two suspects had apparantly attended flight school in Florida last summer. It didn't have any more information on WHO the suspects were however. Here is a related story there.
"You can take our lives, but you can never take our Flerbage!!!!"
Note Iraq's basically unique reaction at http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/12/mideas
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The following was a letter emailed to the President by a friend of mine, and I think you would all be interested in reading it.
I am writing you to express my thanks for your sincere and thoughtful remarks on today's national tragedy. Like you, I offer my condolences to the families and friends of the victims of this horrific attack. I also write you on behalf of potential victims of a growing and unreasoned response to this travesty.
Interspersed with the reports on today's national tragedy, I have been hearing other news that is as disconcerting as the senseless loss of life. Namely, that Federal Law Enforcement Agency spokespersons are talking of limiting not only civil liberties of free passage, but veiled references to endorsing the curtailing of privacy-enabling technologies, all of which are cryptography-based.
It seems that those who truly care about freedom and all that it entails are being afforded no time to mourn this day's losses. I believe it no product of wild speculation to suggest that many policiticians and media pundits will once again renew their calls for limitations on public access to strong cryptography. These movements will be built on the graves of the dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The claim will ultimately be made that if cryptography had not been so readily available, our intelligence agencies would have been able to detect and summarily thwart today's attack on the contintental United States.
Suffice it to say that I can no sooner embrace such notions than I can embrace the terrorists who brought this tragedy to our nation's shores. And anyone suggesting such a course of action should be met with resistance equal to that which you call on us to muster against the forces of terrorism.
The day we sacrifice our liberties in the name of "security" is the day that the terrorists' goals will have been achieved. To reiterate the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin, if we surrender our liberty in the name of security, we shall have neither.
It is unfortunate that it seemed necessary to compose this note less than twelve hours after this day's attack, but it is every citizen's duty to take every possible action to avert national disaster; especially one in the making.
Thank you for your valuable time. It is my hope that the perpetrators of this crime against the United States will be swiftly brought to justice. God bless America.
who sacrified himself to save others, on United Flight 93.
My wife and I were speculating last night: will they rebuild the towers? They will almost certainly fix the Pentagon because only about a fifth of the building was damaged, but what about our landmark center for capatailsm? Thoughts?
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
Numerous editorials in todays NY Post have advocated ignoring the law and using racist, mob logic to correct the injustice of yesterday's attack. These frothing calls to action are not only irresponsible, they are barbarous.
... should be as simple as it is swift - kill the bastards. No, I don't mean hunt them, arrest them, extradite them and prosecute them in a court of law. I mean a far quicker and neater form of retribution for this cabal of cowards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to."
"Who is responsible for yesterday's carnage? That's no great mystery."
- editorial 4006
The law of the land is innocent until proven guilty. Until there is concrete evidence pointing to the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks, there can be no action. If the US attacks without evidence, then we are terrorists as well, and would deserve all the condemnation we are piling on our - still unknown - attackers.
"To hell with Bill Clinton's 'gather the evidence and proceed to court' approach."
- editorial 4022
"The response
- Steve Dunleavy editorial 3999
Both of these editorialists call for dismissing the due process on which our justice system is based. They call for the removal of equal treatment under the law. These demands for extreme measures are demands for the creation of a dictatorship, of a police state. Assassinations, executions without trials, condemnation without evidence - these are the hallmarks of regimes like Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao Tse Tung's China and Hitler's Germany.
Consistent and reasoned responses are imperitive in civilized society. Everything else is barbarism.
Those who are willing to give up freedom for safety, deserve neither safety nor freedom.
Chris
Great articles on Slate right now:
s p? Show=9/11/2001&idMessage=8265
s p? Show=9/11/2001&idMessage=8270
Why the Towers collapsed:
http://slate.msn.com/code/explainer/explainer.a
How good were the Pilots?
http://slate.msn.com/code/explainer/explainer.a
------
Let me give you the lowdown
If some one has a concise report of the damage to the WTC beyound the towers(which buildings, what damage, etc.) it would be of interest to those of use in the hinter lands
I have set up a rather extensive set of image and video mirrors.
http://www.watership.org/media/
I have made tar balls of the images and the movies so everyone will be able to set up their own mirror.
http://watership.org/media/images.tar.gz -(26985k)
http://watership.org/media/movies.tar.gz -(200189k)
i am not sure on the copyright issues. But anyone is welcome to dload and set up content mirrors.
Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public. - Frank Zappa
I noticed that no TV or radio stations were doing ANY commercials around here yesterday. I was thinking how good it would be for some sites that got a LOT more traffic yesterday to donate some of the profit to the Red Cross or another relief organization.
Slashdot mentioned getting 3x as much traffic..how about donating some of the after-expenses profit?
This is interesting:
I'm a reasonably intelligent person, I know that the NSA is basically admitting to recording all cell phone traffic, I know this will include my private calls...
And I don't care. Maybe I will in a week or two, but right now...
Anyway, I'm usually very pro-privacy, so I found my reaction on this one interesting.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
There were many in the media speculating that the destination of the 4th plane was camp david. I believe it went down about 85 miles from camp david. If I am not mistaken, didn't the camp david accord take place in september. (Terrorist usually pick the day of an attack to have a certain meaning).
There were also rumors that the plane was headed for another D.C. area landmark such as the White House or the Capital building. But of course, all of this is speculation by me and the media so take it with a grain of salt.
Perhaps now it is time to think if a big amount of money should be spent on the missile shield, if even the pentagon can be hit by a terrorist attack.
Although the attack was quite well organized, it probably didn't cost too much, and the shield wouldn't be useful against this kind of attacks.
Given the current situation of the middle east, this kind of things are much more probable than a missile attack from some distant country.
This is a horrendous situation and I hope most of the people got out of the buildings before the collapse. As a Canadian they might as well have hit Toronto because it feels the same. While the US media has ignored it there have been lines at blood banks across Canada, and every Canadian city has offered to help however they can (and they are actually offering for real. Toronto prepared 15 EMS teams with ambulances and all of the equipment ready to go on NY's request, and our hospitals and air ambulances prepared to take any overflow that might exist).
Having said that it is INCREDIBLY irritating seeing the natural habit of pointing to easy solutions to get the knee jerk solutions : For instance every report has been making a BIG deal about 2 of the people possibly having come from Canada (though strangely apparently they had New Jersey licenses from preliminary reports). Guess what: They flew FROM US airports, and they apparently had UAE passports, so could someone tell me why this "Canadian connection" is given such relevance? Secondly during the attack all attention was immediately placed on international flights despite the fact that the four flights were originating and destined in the US, but of course it's easy to think of foreign airports as lax versus the super secure impenetrable US airports. I just had to get this off my chest because while I would do anything for New York right now, it's hard to tolerate the habit of looking outwards for blame. As a caucasian I really feel for anyone of Middle Eastern descent as all of them are being painted with the same brush and people should remember that not every Muslim is a terrorist, and not every Middle Eastern descended person thinks this is cool: The vast majority are horrified.
It seems that ESR has written an opinion piece on Newsforge that is sure to get slashdotters up in arms. Sorry couldn't resist the lame pun. Seriously though, it seems like ESR is promoting his personal agenda during this time of crisis. Hardly appropriate.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
It comes down to completely disarmed passengers. If the government has mandated that nobody has a weapon, and you've got something sharp, you're more powerful than everyone else. If guns are allowed on airplanes, brandishing a gun doesn't make you powerful. It makes you a target. Given a sample size of several dozen people, it's very likely that one of them is a better shot than you are. Worse, she knows to shoot you, and you don't know who she is to shoot her.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
If the president chooses to remain on the ground instead of on kneecap (national emergency airborne command post the 747) it's possible that he might relocate here. There would definitely be a crisis team stationed there.
The Internet has no garbage collection
Our organization has been very busy. Check my posts from yesterday. People in Dade County FL can use our site as the day goes on to help in our efforts. Click here or cut and paste [http://ckfonline.org/arc/]. Thanks for everyones help everywhere.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Harry Browne of the libertarian party thoughts:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/browne2.html
When Will We Learn?
by Harry Browne
September 12, 2001
The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But
they shouldn't be a surprise.
It is well known that in war, the first casualty is truth - that
during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda. But sanity was a
prior casualty: it was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first
place.
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It was only a matter
of time until Americans would have to suffer personally for it. It is
a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often have to suffer
for the sins of the guilty.
When will we learn that we can't allow our politicians to bully the
world without someone bullying back eventually?
President Bush has authorized continued bombing of innocent people in
Iraq. President Clinton bombed innocent people in the Sudan,
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Serbia. President Bush Senior invaded Iraq and
Panama. President Reagan bombed innocent people in Libya and invaded
Grenada. And on and on it goes.
Did we think the people who lost their families and friends and
property in all that destruction would love America for what happened?
When will we learn that violence always begets violence?
Teaching Lessons
Supposedly, Reagan bombed Libya to teach Muammar al-Qaddafi a lesson
about terrorism. But shortly thereafter a TWA plane was destroyed over
Scotland, and our government is convinced it was Libyans who did it.
When will we learn that "teaching someone a lesson" never teaches
anything but resentment - that it only inspires the recipient to
greater acts of defiance.
How many times on Tuesday did we hear someone describe the terrorist
attacks as "cowardly acts"? But as misguided and despicable as they
were, they were anything but cowardly. The people who committed them
knowingly gave their lives for whatever stupid beliefs they held.
But what about the American presidents who order bombings of innocent
people - while the presidents remain completely insulated from any
danger? What would you call their acts?
When will we learn that forsaking truth and reason in the heat of
battle almost always assures that we will lose the battle?
Losing our Last Freedoms
And now, as sure as night follows day, we will be told we must give up
more of our freedoms to avenge what never should have happened in the
first place.
When will we learn that it makes no sense to give up our freedoms in
the name of freedom?
What to Do
What should be done?
First of all, stop the hysteria. Stand back and ask how this could
have happened. Ask how a prosperous country isolated by two oceans
could have so embroiled itself in other people's business that someone
would want to do us harm. Even sitting in the middle of Europe,
Switzerland isn't beset by terrorist attacks, because the Swiss mind
their own business.
Second, resolve that we won't let our leaders use this occasion to
commit their own terrorist acts upon more innocent people, foreign and
domestic, that will inspire more terrorist attacks in the future.
Third, find a way, with enforceable constitutional limits, to prevent
our leaders from ever again provoking this kind of anger against
America.
Patriotism?
There are those who will say this article is unpatriotic and
un-American - that this is not a time to question our country or our
leaders.
When will we learn that without freedom and sanity, there is no reason
to be patriotic?
Harry Browne was the 2000 Libertarian presidential candidate. You can
read more of his articles at www.HarryBrowne.org, and his books are
available at www.HBBooks.com.
For those that are interested, the Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN) has recorded the activity that happened at the World Trade Center so you can realistically feel what was felt there and nearby for the impact and collapse of the buildings.
LCSN Link: http://www.ldgo.columbia.edu/lcn.html
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
So, I have 142 average to high-res images on a page I threw together, as well as several videos. The site, http://www.students.bucknell.edu/ekrout/images/911 _In_America/images/gallery/index.html, should be able to take high-abuse in terms of bandwidth, etc. It's a resource, so feel free to use it. Thanks.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
The United States' sky was blue, perfectly blue. Empty, simple, clear, clean, blue. Throughout the country, millions of people looked up at the sky on Tuesday to see the most perfect, cloudless sky that has existed for many, many years.
Except for over New York City. The sky over Manhattan was obscured by thick, black smoke and dust from the remains of the World Trade Center. They did not share our sky, and we did not share theirs.
The rest of us Americans shared something else, too: television. We spent hours glued to our televisions, placing panicked phones calls every few minutes to friends and family, not to share mutually-known news, but to share the thick silence of horror. Every station broadcast the latest news, without interruption. They all used a common title: "Attack on America," sparing us the usual battle over which network's tragedy-moniker will stick.
By afternoon, many of those that had remained home to watch the news realized that they needed some face time, and headed to the streets for some human contact. Those that had spent the day at work had gotten very little done, finding themselves a part of impromptu television communities in neighboring offices. It was, of course, all that anybody talked about. Strangers gathered on street corners, nodding acquaintances traded news tips, people sobbed and prayed on the sidewalk.
All beneath that perfect blue sky. With every last airplane in the United States resting safely on the tarmac, not a single contrail scarred our endless collective ceiling.
The blood drives started by mid-afternoon, setting up cots in office parks, buses, and abandoned shopping malls. The turnout was so tremendous that crowds of people were turned away, asked to return the next day to give of their blood.
Then there were the American flags. Where happy orange pumpkins and brown ice cream cones had flapped in front of homes and businesses, now crisp new star-spangled banners hung. On Charlottesville's Downtown Mall, four girls bearing carnations walked down the street, offering bright yellow flowers to babies and businessmen, homeless women and waitresses. Nearly everybody in sight bore boutonnieres in their buttonholes, and it was impossible not to cry.
Late afternoon brought perhaps the most surreal event of the day. Congress assembled on the Capital steps and sang a verse of "God Bless America." Republicans, Democrats and Independents sang together, slightly off-key, unaccompanied by music. Under our great blue sky.
Janes has made info from their All the World's Aircraft data available online for the 767 and 757.
Your password has expired, please login to change it.
This corresponds to the date of the demonstrations done against the World Economic Forum on September 11 a year ago.
After searching on the Internet (google.com) a site turned up: www.s11.org. After going to the site I saw pages talking about plans in the future to go up against global coporations. S11 appears to be a group that harbors a strong hatred for global corporations and governments.
One thing that struck me as unusual was one of the index pages had something written to the effect of "On September 11, 2000 at 9am we were successful in stopping the World Economic Forum." I found this unusual because on September 11, 2001 around 9am (NYT) the 2 planes crashed into the World Trade Center.
Yesterday I did a whois (Internet) lookup of s11.org. There were a couple of unusual things about the whois record for s11.org. The record (at the time I looked at it) was created on September 11, 2000. The other unusual thing about the record was the expire date was set to September 11, 2001.
I remember the contact for the whois record having a California address. A Los something city I cannot remember the name for.
A few hours ago I attempted to go back to the s11.org site but was getting time out errors. After that I did a whois lookup on the same domain but the domain records had been changed. The whois record now shows a Last Update date of September 12, 2001 and is owned by a domain name squatter.
It is quite unusal that the whois record for this domain name changed so suddenly at this point in time and is now owned by a different organization.
Even though the site has disappeared, you can still see some cached pages of the original s11.org site by going to google.com and searching for s11.
You can also see a graphic of the same 'global justice' graphics used on the S11 site at another site:
www.channel6000.com
One other set of unusual information that seems to indicate a well-planned attack are the relationship easily found between flight numbers of the hijacked planes and the date:
The flights that were hijacked, from United and AA, were numbered as follows:
11, 93, 175, and 77 11 = Yesterday 9+3 = 12 = Today 1+7+5 = 13 = Thursday 7+7 = 14 = Friday
I'd be surprised if anyone is advocating rolling over and playing dead.
Rather, I suspect you're misinterpreting what is being said: be coldly rational and thorough. Identify the guilty and destroy them and, if at all possible, them alone.
This advice is given based on past hysteria:
- The panic after Pearl Harbour resulted in tens of thousands of innocent American and Canadian citizens being imprisoned in internment camps, and the loss of all their possessions. These weren't Japs that were mistreated: they were second- and third-generation Americans.
- The panic after the JFK assasination resulted in immediate finger-pointing against Cuba and Russia. It was a truly nasty time to have Cuban skin in the US.
- The panic after the Oklahoma bombing resulted in many American citizens being mistreated: there was plenty of bullying, name-calling, and threats. All because these citizens had Arab looks and skin.
The public's reaction to the WTC terrorist attack can -- and probably will -- turn just as ugly as before: there are people clamouring to kick out American citizens based on their religion ("Muslims out") and people calling for the complete destruction of the mid-East, even though the mid-East isn't a homogenous society and even though most of the citizens over there aren't guilty.
It's time for Sheriff Uncle Sam to get some fucking serious about destroying the terrorist groups and those who support them
*AND*
to get serious about figuring out why the USA is so thoroughly hated and then figuring out how to gain, if not friendly terms, neutral terms with other nations/cultures/peoples.
*Both* steps are needed to fix the problems. Neither one alone will work.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Considering that Afghanistan hasn't had anything like a free press since at least the days of occupation by the Soviet Union, if ever, the average Afghan civilian probably gets very little information, correct or otherwise, that hasn't been spoon-fed to them by the the people in charge.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Camp david Accords took place on September 11, 1978 i think
Found this link on Slate:
e rrorism.htm
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/visions/Publications/t
Written back in '98 apparently, it gives some good insight into plans for dealing with this sort of thing -- I suspect that the "monitoring" aspect of it will get a huge boost from yesterday's attacks.
Do you personally feel that we should forget about what happened? I think we should all be reminded every day about what these cowards did to the United States, in hopes of rallying the troops, so to speak, against the perpetraitors.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Over at nancies.org, we made a Red Cross banner and put it into rotation, which is (IMHO) even better than donating whatever paltry income that sites make from advertising these days.
f
http://www.nancies.org/images/banners/redcross.gi
Anybody is welcome to use it, of course. We linked it to redcross.org, but the Amazon.com thing may be better.
-Waldo
For the record, I personally am not sure what the United States should do about these attacks. I do however think that some thought should be applied rather then just bombing everyone that moves regardless of civilian casualties.
I live in Brooklyn NY, and I witnessed the second WTC tower fall yesterday from the sidewalk in front of my house. There is a Palestinian refrigeration supply store next door to my apartment. They were as upset about the attacks as you are. However, they also feared for their safety and elected to close there stores and go home for the day (as did all the stores in my neighborhood owned by Arabs).
My point is that if we are to do something, it should be a calculated helpful thing to people, not just the obligatory military response. I'm not saying that a military response is not justified I just thing that calmness (i.e. not calling people cowards that disagree with you) should be the order of the day.
Rudy Giuliani's speech urging restraint and togetherness was the right message.
In the aftermath of yesterday's gruesome terrorist attack, I'd like to recommend that we fly black ad banners on our sites for a few days in memory of the victims and their families.
Our hearts and prayers are with them.
GET FREE APPLE STUFF!
It would not be bad to find out, what organisation / country / people are behind this before shouting out and asking for war. Fighting fire with fire meens bringing other families / people / countries in the same situation you are now - and noone profits anything from it.
Check here for Nasa images of the smoke plume from MODIS.
Krispy Cream is people
FAA keeps flights down... looks like indefintely.g hts/index.html.
- news-95625820010911-070921.html.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TRAVEL/NEWS/09/12/faa.fli
FBI thinks they have names of hijackers...
http://www.theindychannel.com/sh/news/stories/nat
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
Taco's notions of journalism can sometimes be almost as shaky as his spelling, but I think he and Hemos both have an excellent sense of what to do with the tremendous platform they have and they showed it yesterday.
Three other random thoughts:
First, when I went to donate blood yesterday, I was very touched by the number of people who rushed to help, and in particular by all the foreign students there. (Japanese, especially.) We may all have our differences, but it's good to see that almost all of us are basically on the same side.
Second, and this is kind of out of nowhere, hopefully this incident will take some of the steam out of "anarchist" rioting. If you have honest objections to the IMF, World Bank, Starbucks or whatever, by all means protest, demonstrate, get arrested, but please start leaving it at that. The "black bloc" folks may think they're the ultimate badasses with their slingshots and gas masks, but yesterday should have made it clear that there's two kinds of people in the world and they're over here with us.
Finally, and I'm aiming this mostly at myself but encouraging others to join in -- yesterday brought home just how insane it is to get enraged over whether one should say Linux or GNU/Linux or what Craig Mundie said about Linux. The world needs free software, it needs fair use of information but it doesn't need more hate. Certainly not over software.
>You people who think that we are inviting more terrorism have it exactly backwards. That is how the terrorists want you to feel! The want you to feel fear, to give in to whatever demands they make.
No. They want terror. They want disruption. They want us to be so twisted by rage and fear that we can no longer function as a nation.
These are people who believe that America is an evil and terrible nation. I believe they are wrong. But if we go charging into the Middle East without a proper investigation, without being sure that we're going after the right man or group, we WILL be PROVING ourselves to be as bad as they claim.
I'm not saying we shouldn't react to this terrible offense. I'm saying we shouldn't lash out blindly at the first target to present itself.
I know this is off topic for this story, I posted this info on the story about gas prices but with the 700+ +2 comments I doubt many people saw it.
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. The url for your state's attorney general is www.ag.state.$state.us and replace $state with your 2 letter abreviation.
Yes the citizens are as innocent. Many people are starving to death, being confined to their homes, beaten by government officials, and denied basic human rights.
Most people would consider the plight of the Afghani people to be terribly sad. I do not think bombing a bunch of civilians would improve matters much (for them).
Are you trolling with this extremely hawkish angle or are you being genuine? Just asking I will continue to respond if you assure me that this isn't a joke.
All I have to say is thanks to everyone at Slashdot for doing such a great job. Not just the Slashcrew who kept Slashdot alive during tremendous traffic, but to the many contributors that make this place a great community of information and a tremendous resource to us all.
:)
When ABC, CNN, and FoxNews were down Slashdot was there to disseminate mirrors, other official and unnoficial news sites (BBC, etc..), and countless valuable info. I know the servers were a little stressed, but overall I think this is a testament to the planning of the Slashdot site (network, servers, admins, VA Linux, etc..) and shows how the major news sites can learn a thing or two from us nerds
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Unfortunately it's that attitude on both sides that caused this mess. The American government regularly "kicks ass" all over the world and creates a lot of resentment among the poor people who suffer because of it.
Now some of those bitter angry people have found a way to strike back. They probably feel exactly the way you do - eager to "kick some ass".
I'm neither American nor Arabic, so I suppose I can't really understand the anger that these groups feel for each other, but I am sad at what looks like an escalation of needless killing. So now you want to bomb some more Arabs. More angry people will join terrorist organizations, and more Americans will be killed. So when does it end? Does one side have to be totally anihilated? That's crazy.
If the U.S. wants justice the answer is to support international organizations like the international court. Give them the mandate and the resources to pursue international criminals. Unfortunately the current administration is following the opposite policy: witholding money from the U.N., and refusing to support the international court. Sad, but that's what happens when you let cowboys into the Whitehouse.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
AT 12:55 in the Senate today Senator Kerry just suggested that we should rebuild the twin towers. He went on to say that this is the only adequate monument that could possibly be raised, a tribute to our democracy and capitalism. He said to those who would mark the new building as a target: "We have no shortage of tall buildings or monuments; this is not a question of targets, it is a question of our strength and of our national resolve."
Oh wow, you're a true patriot are you ?
I don't think many people would argue with killing those responsible, just make sure you can identify who they are first.
However, if you think the bombing of civilians is going to fix anything, I don't know whether I am more impressed by your hypocracy or your stupidity.
As for saying it is foolish to try and "understand" the terrorists, have you ever heard the phrase "know your enemy" ?
While we're on the subject of "Cowards" every news story calls the terrorists' attacks "Cowardly". Does anyone else find this absurd ? They may be crazed fanatics, but facing certain death in order to further your cause is not how I understand the term. Advocating the use of long-range missiles on civilian center's on the other side of the world seems a little closer to my understanding of the word.
Since when was ignorance a point of view ?
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I don't know. Are civilians in, say, Afghanistan as innocent as the ones in New York? I don't think they are.
Civilians are civilians, and it does not matter where they live.
If you advocate or permit attacks against non-military targets, then there is very little difference between you and the terrorists.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
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, 59 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 Americans.
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 Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, 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 damned 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!
Technoli
I'm not sure how to take this comment. Bush hasn't done anything wrong yet. I don't really understand why anyone would be giving him a hard time. I happened to fully agree with his current game plan. Also, the White House is controlling everything that's going to the media right now. I think they're doing a great job so far. They have yet to officially blame anyone yet, and the FBI, ATF, MassPort, US Marshall Service, US Attorney General, and about every other know law enforcement agency has jumped on board to try and find out who exactly is to blame. I'm sure the majority of American's are convinced that it was a certian Saudi who's haggin out in Afganistan, but until they know for sure the White House hasn't made a statement about it.
Um, this is my sig.
Any country that supports or harbors terrorists on any scale had better sit down and take a long, hard look at what they are doing today, they probably won't last the next decade if they continue. The people that did this must be exterminated including any who support them.
...) own methods.
If (not the *if*) the actions came from Bin Laden, the U.S. has to realize that it is a "country that supports or harbors terrorists" in that it is the CIA that "made" Bin Laden, so he could fight the russians in Afganistan. The U.S. DOES support terrorism, as long as it is against other nations. Now that a U.S. sponsored terrorist turns against the U.S. suddently it becomes someone else's fault. Of course bombing Afganistan is much simpler that rethinking your (US agancies,
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
Your speculation is bullshit. Your claims are groundless. Privacy advocates do not have the blood on their hands. It was lax security at the airports that caused this, and even they are not to blame. Those that are to blame are somewhere in the middle east giving each other high fives that their plan worked as well as it did.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
AP is announcing that a police/FBI raid is occuring at the Westin hotel right now: Story HERE!
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
The first targets were clearly chosen to take out buildings that had as many people as possible in them, were world renowned, and were supposedly indestructable/impenatrable. (The WTC towers were actually designed to withstand having a jet flown directly into them. I bet whoever signed off on that was sure it would never happen)
So why then would Camp David, or any of the other theorized targets make any sense at all?
It seems rather obvious to me, especially from a systems design view, that the 4th plane was headed for the Pentagon as well. Full redundancy. Two targets, two attacks on each. Something is bound to get through. Everything else about this was clearly well planned, and if in fact some courageous passenger on the downed plane was responsible for saving the day, the attack was still succesful.
But of course, that's just more speculation to throw on top of the dogpile.
"I got a half gallon of Jack, and 2 dozen Ant Traps. I'm about to get wild." -me
As my parents taught me when I was quite young, two wrongs do not make a right. (Though three lefts do...)
What is going on in Israel is horrible, no doubt. Our support of Israel isn't synonymous with persecution of Palestinians, though it is convenient and tempting for some to make that connection. Those weapons may be used against Palestinians, but they were not supplied for that purpose -- they were supplied for the purpose of protecting Israel from other Middle Eastern countries.
We're idealistic fools to believe that we can actually introduce peace in an area of the world that is so fundamentally unstable. But that doesn't mean we deserve to have our country attacked by terrorists. America as a country for the last fifty or sixty years has been the equivalent of a man in his teens and twenties, bright-eyed, idealistic and convinced that he can make a difference. Smart, strong and eager to help, but sometimes wrong-headed and certainly inexperienced. I believe the events yesterday are going to be our coming of age and disillusionment. I hope that we will find the organization(s) responsible, destroy them utterly and then learn not to get involved in others' battles.
Honestly, I believe we should simply write the entire Middle East off as unsalvageable and withdraw any support or relations with countries in that area altogether. If they want to kill one another and extract revenge until there are no survivors, fine. It's a cultural, not religious, thing that no amount of intervention will solve. If it weren't for the fact that we're so damn dependant on oil from that region I suspect we would have washed our hands of it long ago.
I've gotten so sick of seeing so-called news about Israelis killing Palestinians or vice-versa. It's not news, it's the status quo. They don't want peace, they don't want to settle their differences. It's age-old hatred and humanity at its worst. It's sickening from both sides, neither side is righteous. I suspect that if there is a God in Heaven he will be harsh indeed on leaders of both factions for the atrocities that they have carried out in His name.
The terrorists attacked WTC for two reasons, the first of which is that it was symbolic. The second reason is that it would cause massive loss of life.
Now, back some decades it apparently seemed important, for some reason, to build the tallest towers, etc. In fact, a similar argument was used to go to the moon. That's all well and good, but haven't we moved past that?
Malaysia is the latest nation to believe that having the tallest building somehow enhances its national prestige. Is the U.S. really so insecure that it feels it has to compete with nations like Malaysia on this basis? Or is it a case of needing to impress the primitive folk, both within and without our country?
Wouldn't it be better to focus our energies on protecting our borders, skies and buildings in a way that doesn't diminish the freedoms of the residents of the U.S.?
I'm not saying symbolism isn't important to the human psyche, but perhaps if we got past the "mine is bigger than yours" phase, it might change the nature of the battle for the better.
Yes, but just because they were guilty before doesn't mean they're guilty now.
That said, I think the situation is something like this: the Taliban probably would never have signed off on something like this (they have their hands full oppressing their own people -- to those who didn't manage to pick out the news stories going on between the WTC/Pentagon coverage, Kabul is burning even as we speak), know they don't have what it takes to take on the US, and are probably wishing this whole mess just goes away. They are scared, and are probably seriously reconsidering the wisdom of harboring bin Laden.
Osama bin Laden, on the other hand... well, he *claims* he had nothing to do with it, but certainly approved of what happened. I don't know if it is necessarily fair to *blame* him per se for what happened (it could be that it was just a handful of his followers doing something they think the boss would like -- this was not a particularly sophisticated attack by my estimation), but we've certainly got more than enough reason to haul his ass in for questioning.
I think that the Taliban will turn him over eventually, especially if the little internal rebellion thing (could be CIA-inspired, you never know, but...) they're dealing with proves a bit too much for them. They're talking the talk right now, but I can guarandamntee you that they're scared shitless.
People thinking we should start bombing now are missing the point. There are nuclear powers in the region, particularly Pakistan and Israel and very possibly Iraq. The people celebrating this act of terror in the streets of the Middle East are as much decieved about us (if not more so) as many of us are about them, for many of the same reasons, and can't be held culpable because their governments try to prevent them from knowing any better. The thing to do is to twist the arms of the Taliban without getting violent, have them turn over bin Laden by convincing them that he's a liability, and let the man rot for the rest of his life in solitary in Colorado.
/Brian
If we want to live in a safe, civilized nation, we need to give up some of our lesser freedoms.
You make me sick.
You clearly have no understanding of the principals this country was founded on.
There are countries where the government watches over everyone, where nothing is private. I'd sugest you move to one of those places; maybe Iraq? Or Afghanistan?
If a terrorist act can get the American govt to take away it's citizens freedom, even "lesser freedoms", then the terrorists have been successfull.
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
if anyone wants to know, here are lists of the buisnessness at the world trade center
t ml
t ml
1 World Trade Center (North Tower): http://www.morrisville.edu/Library/wtc/tenants1.h
2 World Trade Center (South Tower): http://www.morrisville.edu/Library/wtc/tenants2.h
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
In fact, unless I'm mistaken, this is the first time a hijacking has not been essentially a hostage situation - every other hijacking is done to get hostages to force governments to comply with the terrorists' demands. So it's certainly understandable that the pilots would've though this was the same.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Having people brought in so soon (either for questioning or as suspects) worries me a lot. These attacks show a very high degree of sophistication, and not just in their timing (as many news orginizations have bleeted out of late).
First, you have the fly-by-wire system, installed on all big commerical jets, which just plain won't let you fly the plane into a building. This system has to be disabled without completely destroying your ability to manuver. I have been told that there are very few people around who know how to do this. This person would either have to know which planes would be used for the job in advance and then disable those planes while they are sitting on the ground (while also getting around security on the ground and getting into the hanger, and also not doing so much damage that it would be picked up on preflight checks). Alternativly, the person to disable the system could be on the plane during flight, in which case he/she probably knew they were on a suicide mission. The list of people who can carry out such a job AND are willing to commit suicide must be very, very small.
Secondly, there is a matter of how to hit the WTC. Those buildings were designed to take an aircraft smashing into them, so just flying them into a random position isn't enough. What really made the towers collapse (so say the structural engineers) was the fires breaking out and weaking the steel supports at the top, thus forcing the bottom to take on more weight. To do this, you want a plane with lots of gas in it to cause a bigger fire. Indeed, the planes involved were going to the other end of the country, and would thus have lots of gas on board.
There are probably lots of other details I'm missing, but this is enough to show that these attacks are far more sophisticated then a lot of people know.
Now you want to tell me that these highly planned attacks became so sloppy in implementation that people are being rounded up the day after? Given, humans make mistakes (or maybe the FBI got lucky), but this still seems unlikely. This is what worries me. I think the FBI is starting a witch hunt and will arrest anyone, and the American public will back the entire thing.
Not a typewriter
So far the best graphics I've found, far surpassing any of the lousy diagrams I've seen on CNN, come from the Spanish paper El Pais. This page includes two interactive, animated flash documents (Grafico -- currently the first two pictures) which shows the paths of all four planes, the way they hit the buildings, and how the supports in the towers got severed, leading to the collapse.
n tilla10.swf and http://www.elpais.es/multimedia/internacional/estr uc.swf .
Helps if you know spanish (which I don't), but the pictures speak for themselves.
The actual animations are at http://www.elpais.es/multimedia/internacional/pla
While there is a certain amount of complexity involved in this, I wouldn't say that this is beyond Bin Laden's capabilities. Remember that a few years back they managed a coordinated attack on two embassies in Africa within minutes of eachother. So they definitely are capable of the logistics necessary to pull off this kind of attack. Let's look at what is really required to pull this off:
1) Terrorists with the ability to fly an airplane, a skill that can be readily obtained at any number of places given money to pay for it (and certainly Bin Laden has cash).
2) Knives. Knives are VERY easy to get onto a plane. I have more than once wondered why nobody questioned my bringing of a pocket knife, etc, on board. When I heard about what happened my first assumption was that it had been done with knives (not good for taking on counter-terrorists, but if you don't plan to ever land the plane they are very effective).
Now, given that, the actual hard part is setting up the terrorist cells to pull this off and plan the operation. It was probably executed by four seperate cells opeating independently but with a coordinated schedule. It's likely that each cell had NO IDEA that other planes were involved. Somebody centrally plans where to strike, which planes to take, and then just issues orders to the cells.
Don't get me wrong, Iraq is definitely on the top of a short list of suspects, but I don't think Bin Laden can be reasonably rules out given his history. At the same time, I agree that we shouldn't leap to conclusions.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I keep thinking about how these events could have been thwarted. We probably cannot prevent every single hijack attempt, especially not such a sophisticated one. But my mind keeps wandering back to the fact that the hijackers only had razors and knives. I can't believe fellow Americans would allow a few hijackers armed with knives to take over a whole plane, containing 60 or 70 able-bodied persons. A report on Poliglut indicates that people DID attempt to overcome the hijackers on the plane that was headed toward Camp David. The only thing I can think of is that the passangers were not told they were going to be killed, so were just going along with it. However, this is refuted by the calls the flight attendent on flight 77 (I think) made, indicating that the terrorists "put" everybody, including the pilot, at the back of the plane, and then *told* them to call their loved ones to tell them they were going to die. I don't understand how two or three terrorists can simply move the entire 60-70 people to the back of a plane (armed only with knives mind you), and *then* tell them that they were going to die, with not ONE person attempting to overcome them. I'm boggled, and hope that in a similar situation I would do my best to thwart the hijackers. Perhaps, like on the Camp David plane, the hijackers told the passengers they had a bomb and thus the passengers did not want to try anything funny. But if you're being told you are going to die anyway, who cares...might as well try...
I really hope that Americans tried to do something...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Why should we increase our support of Israel ten-fold? So that we can get attacked again? It's high time we realize the we are vulnerable, and will always be vulnerable as long as we maintain an open society. Does that mean that we shouldn't respond to this latest attack? Of course not. But at the same time, we should realize that our foreign policy is literally driving large numbers of people into suicidal frenzys!
Rather than go into a blind rage of fury, we need to look long and hard at how the rest of the world views our policies and talk about whether the risk those policies create offsets the benefits. We may very well find that the lives lost in NYC yesterday are the price we pay for cheap gas. After all, oil is the only reason we give a damn about the middle east. I know I'm being overly simplistic, but the reality is that our actions have consequences. We need to be willing to talk openly and honestly about these things. Letting the rage of the moment cloud our judgement in this time of crisis is the worst thing we can do.
I know that ground support for most such things would be very important, but it really seems like these people wouldn't have needed any help once the planes were in the air, and wouldn't have needed more people in advance.
People have sited the close timing of the attacks, but that would only take an afternoon with a set of flight schedules. Getting groups of people on a set of planes at the same time is the sort of thing that anyone planning, say, a family reunion can pull off, and get on one of the planes themselves.
The weapons seem to have been small blades attached to plastic handles. These are neither hard to come by, nor hard to get in sufficient quantity, nor hard to get by security (someone clean-shaven who doesn't want to check luggage?), nor hard to assemble.
The hard part really would be getting a group of people who could fight effectively with knives and could frighten people into obeying with some people who could fly airliners, who were willing to die intentionally, without tipping off any intelligence agencies; but if the group has formed, there's no need for more people left behind (aside, perhaps, from a spiritual leader; but the leader doesn't need to have any idea what's going on).
Probably the hardest thing would be thinking of the attack in the first place-- noticing that it would be easy to take control of an airplane, and that an airplane would make a very effective weapon. But again, there's no reason that the person who realized this couldn't have been one of the people who went along.
We will probably find out that the terrorists had families and friends, and that some of these had some idea about the plans, because even determined terrorists can't always keep a secret. But, for instance, bin Laden probably actually didn't know what the plans were, or exactly who was involved, even if the terrorists turn out to be from his group, precisely because he wouldn't want to be vital as a living person to the success of this and other acts; he'd want to be able to say that the reason it worked was simply because there are people who are both clever and sufficiently angry at the US, and that, as long as the US behaves badly, this is certain to happen every once in a while, even without any obvious leaders.
Please excuse the consistent use of male nouns and pronouns in the following. It made this easier to write and to understand, so is it that bad this once? Also, please ignore any Owellian reference you think you may see. That's the farthest thing from my intent. Hope this helps a little.
I'm going to write something now that is so thoroughly and utterly Canadian in sentiment, although I'm sure it's a view shared by many other countries and individuals the world over. The United States is like our big brother. That is meant in the most fraternal of ways. It is a role Canada, and many other countries, willingly accept. The analogy is accurate in a number of ways. As the economically and culturally larger, more physically powerful sibling, you sometimes flaunt your power and tease your smaller brethren. But when one of us falls and skins our proverbial knee, you are always first to arrive on the scene, to make sure that everyone is ok, and safe. In return for the safety and protection you provide, we make you laugh, we sing and dance, and make arts and crafts of every kind for your amusement. We do some extra chores for you when the need arises, and we even put up with your teasing. We do this gladly, usually, for the benefit of letting you have your way most of the time, is the ability to fall asleep every night knowing that things aren't going to be so bad tomorrow, because somewhere out there our big brother is looking out for us.
And the best thing is you really seem to relish the situation. America and it's citizens, although as equally capable of being evil and misguided as any population on the planet, inarguably live in the freest and most progressive society in the world. Although other countries all over the earth have certain benefits and advantages over the U.S, when taken as a whole, America is without peer in so many more ways. Have no doubt, you can be cruel sometimes, but you always seem to make up for it in the long run, and certainly you've contributed the most to our home, this beautiful and singular planet we share, and that definitely entitles you to some concessions.
We hate to admit it, and will only do so under a firm twisting of our arm, to make us say uncle as it were, but we do look up to you and we think you're pretty great. Our big brother has done great things; you're the strongest, fastest, smartest, kindest, most noble and good big brother... a little brother or sister could ever ask for. And now you're hurt, someone sucker-punched you when you weren't looking, in your own backyard no less. We are all in shock; we are all hurt, by seeing our protective and kind sibling get rocked back a little bit. Someone snuck up on you from behind and gave you a black eye, and I know I speak for a lot of people around the world, all your loyal brother and sisters, when I say we can't wait to see you get back up again. We can't wait to see you rise to your feet, shake the dust off, and accept our hugs and affection as we try to reassure you that we're right here to offer any help you need. We can't wait to see you gather yourself, re-affirm your bearing, and then go get the guys that did this too you. We can't wait to see you catch up with the bad guys, and wipe them off the face of the earth, once and for all.
We know you'll take your time. We know you're going to make sure you have the right people before you act. We know you'll do your best to protect the innocent as you exact your completely justified revenge. We know you're going to get them this time, no matter what it takes. And we are so happy to know that soon our home, our global neighborhood, will be a whole lot safer for all of us. We are so proud to be your siblings, America. We may argue sometimes, but it's nothing serious... not like this. You really are the best, and we are so grateful for all you've ever done. We couldn't ask for a better friend and brother. Go get them. We've got your back. Peace to each and every one of you.
Years later, a doctor will tell me that I have an I.Q. of 48, and am what some people call "mentally retarded".
Do you personally feel that we should forget about what happened? I think we should all be reminded every day about what these cowards did to the United States, in hopes of rallying the troops, so to speak, against the perpetraitors.
I'm glad to see another viewpoint in the same vein as mine.
After the emotional rollercoaster that was yesterday, a group of us went out en masse to unwind over beer. Our first stop, an Atlanta restaurant/lounge called Mumbo Jumbo, sported not a single television. This was something of a respite, having spent our morning and days surrounded by streaming video on large screens. Six hundred dollars of bar tab later, we moved on to a brewhouse up the street, which had multiple TVs. For a while, a group of us sat outside. After a bit, most of us migrated back in to commune and discuss. Occasionally someone would grab someone else's chin, turn the head, and say "Let it go," but it's a horribly unsimple task. The historic cry of 'Remember the Alamo' crawls to the surface, horribly apropo.
The first few days, we as a country will take the time to save those who were wounded, free those who are trapped, and pray for those who have died.
When the smoke has settled, we as a country will mourn. I myself will be wearing a black armband during this period, and I hope others will do the same. The injured and families of the fallen need to see and know that we support them, and that we care. It may not speed the healing, and it will not erase the scars, but the repairs will be stronger for it.
When the mourning is done, things will change. As a country, we've gotten lax. I travel pretty regularly, and I have no doubt that several of my standard carry on items (such as my Gerber Multitool) will be moved to my luggage. Security inspections will be tougher. Time to travel will be increased.
The coming months will be difficult as things are sorted out. There will be arguments about privacy, and increased pushes for surveillance technologies that could have prevented this. There are many facets to this that will be examined and fought over.
With recently uncovered facts, we now know how these deeds were perpetrated. No guns, no explosions. Simple hand implements and the knowledge of how to use them. Airline staff aren't combat trained, but what if they were? How could things have happened differently if people were better equipped, mentally and physically, to handle a hand to hand attack? Could you defend yourself against someone with a knife? Having studied some martial arts and sword fighting techniques, I'm glad I can say I could hold my own against an untrained attacker or even a slightly capable one.
What about support? How many people reading this are experienced enough to perform first aid or CPR? We have first hand amateur video of a brave doctor rushing into the dense dust and smoke to assist injured people at serious risk to his own life. In his running narrative, he mentions going to assist those who need help, because "he's not one of them." Finding yourself unhurt in a disaster environment, what would you do? What CAN you do?
An interview on CNN yesterday with a security expert who investigated the previous WTC bombing pointed out that this was a 'high concept' attack, as opposed to 'high tech'. We as a country are dependant upon technology to make things easier for us, to take the hard work out life. If not for the macabre aspect of the notion, I'd almost think the Amish were laughing at us now.
To paraphrase a piece of David Eddings fiction (and poorly), the United States reels from crisis to crisis like a drunken sailor. Everything is fine as long as the party is still going, and no one gets hurt. Now, in the wake of tragedy, the entire nation is galvanized into awareness of the world around them. Our populace, as a whole, has likely learned more about foreign policy and U.S. world involvement in the past two days than it has been aware of over the past two years.
Many people have likened this incident to the imfamous day of Pearl Harbor, and it's fitting only in that we are now a united people in the sister causes of mourning and vengeance. Many people I've spoken with take small comfort in knowing there will be a reprisal, and that it will be strong and it will not be forgotten.
Even now, other countries and world organizations are moving their pieces and formulating strategy to insure this doesn't happen again. When the reprisals are done, and justice is delivered, then what? What lessons will be learned and how will we apply them?
- billn
Why not a "panic" mode that puts everyone in the plane but the cockpit to sleep? Couldn't that simply be done with an air pressure change?
Charles Lindbergh's Des Moines Speech of 1941
It is now two years since this latest European war began. From that day in September, 1939, until the present moment, there has been an over-increasing effort to force the United States into the conflict.
That effort has been carried on by foreign interests, and by a small minority of our own people; but it has been so successful that, today, our country stands on the verge of war.
At this time, as the war is about to enter its third winter, it seems appropriate to review the circumstances that have led us to our present position. Why are we on the verge of war? Was it necessary for us to become so deeply involved? Who is responsible for changing our national policy from one of neutrality and independence to one of entanglement in European affairs?
Personally, I believe there is no better argument against our intervention than a study of the causes and developments of the present war. I have often said that if the true facts and issues were placed before the American people, there would be no danger of our involvement.
Here, I would like to point out to you a fundamental difference between the groups who advocate foreign war, and those who believe in an independent destiny for America.
If you will look back over the record, you will find that those of us who oppose intervention have constantly tried to clarify facts and issues; while the interventionists have tried to hide facts and confuse issues.
We ask you to read what we said last month, last year, and even before the war began. Our record is open and clear, and we are proud of it.
We have not led you on by subterfuge and propaganda. We have not resorted to steps short of anything, in order to take the American people where they did not want to go.
What we said before the elections, we say [illegible] and again, and again today. And we will not tell you tomorrow that it was just campaign oratory. Have you ever heard an interventionist, or a British agent, or a member of the administration in Washington ask you to go back and study a record of what they have said since the war started? Are their self-styled defenders of democracy willing to put the issue of war to a vote of our people? Do you find these crusaders for foreign freedom of speech, or the removal of censorship here in our own country?
The subterfuge and propaganda that exists in our country is obvious on every side. Tonight, I shall try to pierce through a portion of it, to the naked facts which lie beneath.
When this war started in Europe, it was clear that the American people were solidly opposed to entering it. Why shouldn't we be? We had the best defensive position in the world; we had a tradition of independence from Europe; and the one time we did take part in a European war left European problems unsolved, and debts to America unpaid.
National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.
The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.
Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.
I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators.
As I have said, these war agitators comprise only a small minority of our people; but they control a tremendous influence. Against the determination of the American people to stay out of war, they have marshaled the power of their propaganda, their money, their patronage.
Let us consider these groups, one at a time.
First, the British: It is obvious and perfectly understandable that Great Britain wants the United States in the war on her side. England is now in a desperate position. Her population is not large enough and her armies are not strong enough to invade the continent of Europe and win the war she declared against Germany.
Her geographical position is such that she cannot win the war by the use of aviation alone, regardless of how many planes we send her. Even if America entered the war, it is improbable that the Allied armies could invade Europe and overwhelm the Axis powers. But one thing is certain. If England can draw this country into the war, she can shift to our shoulders a large portion of the responsibility for waging it and for paying its cost.
As you all know, we were left with the debts of the last European war; and unless we are more cautious in the future than we have been in the past, we will be left with the debts of the present case. If it were not for her hope that she can make us responsible for the war financially, as well as militarily, I believe England would have negotiated a peace in Europe many months ago, and be better off for doing so.
England has devoted, and will continue to devote every effort to get us into the war. We know that she spent huge sums of money in this country during the last war in order to involve us. Englishmen have written books about the cleverness of its use.
We know that England is spending great sums of money for propaganda in America during the present war. If we were Englishmen, we would do the same. But our interest is first in America; and as Americans, it is essential for us to realize the effort that British interests are making to draw us into their war.
The second major group I mentioned is the Jewish.
It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.
No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.
Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.
Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.
We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.
The Roosevelt administration is the third powerful group which has been carrying this country toward war. Its members have used the war emergency to obtain a third presidential term for the first time in American history. They have used the war to add unlimited billions to a debt which was already the highest we have ever known. And they have just used the war to justify the restriction of congressional power, and the assumption of dictatorial procedures on the part of the president and his appointees.
The power of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the maintenance of a wartime emergency. The prestige of the Roosevelt administration depends upon the success of Great Britain to whom the president attached his political future at a time when most people thought that England and France would easily win the war. The danger of the Roosevelt administration lies in its subterfuge. While its members have promised us peace, they have led us to war heedless of the platform upon which they were elected.
In selecting these three groups as the major agitators for war, I have included only those whose support is essential to the war party. If any one of these groups--the British, the Jewish, or the administration--stops agitating for war, I believe there will be little danger of our involvement.
I do not believe that any two of them are powerful enough to carry this country to war without the support of the third. And to these three, as I have said, all other war groups are of secondary importance.
When hostilities commenced in Europe, in 1939, it was realized by these groups that the American people had no intention of entering the war. They knew it would be worse than useless to ask us for a declaration of war at that time. But they believed that this country could be entered into the war in very much the same way we were entered into the last one.
They planned: first, to prepare the United States for foreign war under the guise of American defense; second, to involve us in the war, step by step, without our realization; third, to create a series of incidents which would force us into the actual conflict. These plans were of course, to be covered and assisted by the full power of their propaganda.
Our theaters soon became filled with plays portraying the glory of war. Newsreels lost all semblance of objectivity. Newspapers and magazines began to lose advertising if they carried anti-war articles. A smear campaign was instituted against individuals who opposed intervention. The terms "fifth columnist," "traitor," "Nazi," "anti-Semitic" were thrown ceaselessly at any one who dared to suggest that it was not to the best interests of the United States to enter the war. Men lost their jobs if they were frankly anti-war. Many others dared no longer speak.
Before long, lecture halls that were open to the advocates of war were closed to speakers who opposed it. A fear campaign was inaugurated. We were told that aviation, which has held the British fleet off the continent of Europe, made America more vulnerable than ever before to invasion. Propaganda was in full swing.
There was no difficulty in obtaining billions of dollars for arms under the guise of defending America. Our people stood united on a program of defense. Congress passed appropriation after appropriation for guns and planes and battleships, with the approval of the overwhelming majority of our citizens. That a large portion of these appropriations was to be used to build arms for Europe, we did not learn until later. That was another step.
To use a specific example; in 1939, we were told that we should increase our air corps to a total of 5,000 planes. Congress passed the necessary legislation. A few months later, the administration told us that the United States should have at least 50,000 planes for our national safety. But almost as fast as fighting planes were turned out from our factories, they were sent abroad, although our own air corps was in the utmost need of new equipment; so that today, two years after the start of war, the American army has a few hundred thoroughly modern bombers and fighters--less in fact, than Germany is able to produce in a single month.
Ever since its inception, our arms program has been laid out for the purpose of carrying on the war in Europe, far more than for the purpose of building an adequate defense for America.
Now at the same time we were being prepared for a foreign war, it was necessary, as I have said, to involve us in the war. This was accomplished under that now famous phrase "steps short of war."
England and France would win if the United States would only repeal its arms embargo and sell munitions for cash, we were told. And then [illegible] began, a refrain that marked every step we took toward war for many months--"the best way to defend America and keep out of war." we were told, was "by aiding the Allies."
First, we agreed to sell arms to Europe; next, we agreed to loan arms to Europe; then we agreed to patrol the ocean for Europe; then we occupied a European island in the war zone. Now, we have reached the verge of war.
The war groups have succeeded in the first two of their three major steps into war. The greatest armament program in our history is under way.
We have become involved in the war from practically every standpoint except actual shooting. Only the creation of sufficient "incidents" yet remains; and you see the first of these already taking place, according to plan [ill.]-- a plan that was never laid before the American people for their approval.
Men and women of Iowa; only one thing holds this country from war today. That is the rising opposition of the American people. Our system of democracy and representative government is on test today as it has never been before. We are on the verge of a war in which the only victor would be chaos and prostration.
We are on the verge of a war for which we are still unprepared, and for which no one has offered a feasible plan for victory--a war which cannot be won without sending our soldiers across the ocean to force a landing on a hostile coast against armies stronger than our own.
We are on the verge of war, but it is not yet too late to stay out. It is not too late to show that no amount of money, or propaganda, or patronage can force a free and independent people into war against its will. It is not yet too late to retrieve and to maintain the independent American destiny that our forefathers established in this new world.
The entire future rests upon our shoulders. It depends upon our action, our courage, and our intelligence. If you oppose our intervention in the war, now is the time to make your voice heard.
Help us to organize these meetings; and write to your representatives in Washington. I tell you that the last stronghold of democracy and representative government in this country is in our house of representatives and our senate.
There, we can still make our will known. And if we, the American people, do that, independence and freedom will continue to live among us, and there will be no foreign war.
I'm a citizen of both the US and Canada, and I draw a different conclusion here. If you asked around the world today and said "what country thinks they are the supreme country and their president is the most powerful man in the world", most people would point to the US. If you asked "which country treats the population of the rest of the world like mongrel scum and commits horrendous atrocities on those people", many people would point to the US.
Maybe this will finally wake the people of the US up to the fact that even the most friendly neighbors (Canada and Mexico) are often pissed off at the way the US treats the rest of the world. "The American Way" is not the only way, and isn't the same as "the right way".
Even the fact that you suggest that somehow the US might have the option of enforcing it's views on which religions are "A-OK" and which are "unamerican" shows the kind of arrogance the rest of the world can't stand.
The destruction of the WTC and the Pentagon were horrible tragedies, but they were the direct result of the US pushing the rest of the world around with its monetary and military might.
Instead of asking "who can we kill to avenge this?", maybe you should ask "why would someone hate us enough to do this?"
Bye bye Karma, but this rant was necessary.
The desire for peace and justice is not the same as cowardice.
Cowardice is to be afraid to act. Violence is preferable to cowardice, but it requires much more bravery to remain non-violent in the face of violence. (Gandhi said that.)
Slaughtering innocents in Afghanistan, Palestine or Iraq is no better than slaughtering innocents in New York, nor is it justified by what happened yesterday.
The US should respond, but not with indiscriminate violence. It's too easy for us to be deluded by racist undercurrents and nationalistic propaganda that seeks to restore America's tough image instead of her ideals of freedom and justice.
Those who advise caution want to make sure that the situation does not happen again. We want to make sure that justice is served on the correct parties, not on a scapegoat. We want to ensure that we don't spark fear and hatred in the nations who were not responsible for yesterday's attacks.
If we act in a heavy-handed and indiscriminate manner we will only make more enemies and provoke more attacks. We don't care about angering the terrorists who are responsible for yesterday, we just don't want to create more terrorists by overreacting. By all means prevent those who are responsible for yesterday's attacks from ever doing it again, but let's not strike out prematurely and blindly.
Do not confuse vengeance with justice. Vengeance heals wounded pride but causes more problems. Justice heals wounded spirits and prevents more problems.
As an American, i believe that we must show that we can be strong without being tyrannical to other nations. We must show other countries that we will defend our citizens but we will not indiscriminately harm theirs.
Grown-ups know that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless. (Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi said that.)
Let's take care of our wounded and grieving first and defend ourselves from a repeat as well. When we know who is responsible then we can talk about what to do about it.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Good idea. Now let's blow up Timothy McVeigh's country too.
Sound like our terriorists, hunh? What happens if we actually *made* those terrorists with our own actions? What do we have to say for ourselves?
If the above happened, then we screwed up, big time. And we must learn from this.
I say now is not the time for comdemnation, but a time for reflection. Let us not judge those less we walk in their shoes and drink from their cup. Let us not restrict the freedoms of others less we loose our democracy. Let us follow the doctrine of the second testiment, the god of compassion.
I am a Catholic, and I believe in compassion. That is why I feel we need to destroy those responsible.
I do not ask for vengeance; that's not my call. I ask for whatever action is necessary to prevent this from happening again. Thus we show compassion for the next round of terrorism victims. If you can come up with a more effective way than rendering those responsible incapable of repeating their crimes, I ask you to speak up now.
It's like police. You can sit there, and explain how the Man has beaten you down, how the government has made you into the menace you are. The cop doesn't care, because he does care about the civilians he is protecting. And whatever you say, all he wants is for you to drop the gun. Now.
To some people, this is about vengeance and judgement. To me, this is about prevention. Protecting our civilians is what our military is for. To say that we shouldn't counter is to say that we should never have responded to Japan back in the forties, it is to say that we should let these people walk all over us.
People will die. Innocent people will die. I will gladly kill a hundred to save thousands. That is Christian calculus.
--The basis of all love is respect
That's largely a matter of perception. I think it's more accurate to say that the U.S. fights those who are perceived as a threat its interests. Often they're "bad guys", sometimes they aren't. On the other hand the U.S. often supports bad guys.
I'm not likening anything to anything and I'm not condoning either. I'm saying that that the motivations are similar. The U.S. uses aircraft carriers and hits military targets because it has the ability to do so. Terrorists hijack planes because it works. I didn't say it was right.
I have no beef with Americans. I've been to New York and I love the city. It's horrible to think what's going on there. Yet somehow you've managed to elect some pretty awful leaders. I didn't say the U.S. should give me (or "us") money - I wouldn't see any of it. I said that if you want to see a proper peace you should contribute to an effective international court instead of trying to police the world unilaterally. If you don't want peace then that's really sad. It means wonderful cities like New York are going to keep being hit.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
No, the really skilled terrorists are the ones trained by the CIA to fight the Soviets. Osama Bin Laden is one of them. Maybe arming Moslem fanatics with the best weaponry and teaching them advanced espionage techniques to avoid detection by superpowers wasn't a good idea.
We made him, now it's time to recall him.