Reflections on the World Trade Center Attack

The phone rang. It was early Tuesday morning. I quickly raced through any responsibilities I might have, realized I had none, and so let the machine get it. A few moments later, it rang again. Thinking it might be something important, I answered the phone.

It was my dad. “Just calling to see if you’re still alive.” I restrained a snort: I’d talked to them not more than a week ago. Overprotective parents…

Then he told me about the plane crashes, and I got up to look out my window at the Manhattan skyline. “Holy s***!” One of the towers was clearly on fire, while what looked like a low cloud hung over lower Manhattan.

After turning on the television and realizing what had happened, my first reaction was to scan the sky. “Where the hell are the jets?” I wondered. After all, billions of dollars are stolen from taxpayers every year to “protect” us from foreign attacks. It would seem that if someone were flying planes into Manhattan buildings, that might be a good time to scramble the outrageously expensive fighter jets and put them to use. (I did see an F-16 a little while later, about a half hour after I got up.)

The military is just as inefficient and bungling as every other government agency. It’s just that its operations are usually in foreign lands and shrouded in secrecy, so its screwups aren’t as obvious. If the military can’t even stop American planes – whose positions were known up until the moment of the hijackings – from attacking U.S. targets, do they seriously maintain they can knock down incoming ballistic missiles if we’ll only give them enough money?

Only CBS was working; I couldn’t get reception on the other channels. The news anchors kept repeating the same few facts, and occasionally interviewed “experts.” At one point they talked to a doctor who was warning that there could have been biological agents in the attack. The anchors back in the station quickly made sure that he was not confirming this, just saying it was a possibility. He then startled everyone by predicting 50,000 deaths. Finally he began explaining that the best hospital in New York was only equipped with fifteen beds to deal with a biological attack, and that the response teams were hopelessly unprepared. At this point the news network came up with a “breaking development” and quickly switched away from this guy who was being just a little too candid.

President Bush gave an address to reassure the American people. He pledged to hunt down the “cowards” who were responsible. I found this an inaccurate label. After all, these terrorists had hijacked planes and committed suicide, whereas our top government leaders were busy being evacuated into underground bunkers. Bush promised that “your government” would be kept running at all times. Yes, I had no doubt the government would be ready to protect itself in the event of a terrorist attack.

The most infuriating analysis came from James Kallstrom, the former New York FBI director. He opined that people should not criticize the intelligence agencies, which after all are supposed to prevent these things. When asked why we couldn’t have stopped the attack, Kallstrom explained, “We live in a free society.” In other words, we have a choice: Give the government power to regulate air travel ever more, or else die. Sounds fair to me.

And, contrary to Kallstrom, no we don’t live in a free society. We’ve given the government more and more power so it can “protect” us from terrorism. And of course, after the FBI and the CIA have failed so miserably in their one basic function, we will give them even more power. And they will fail again.

Soon enough, the conventional wisdom had been established, and every guest repeated some variant of two themes. “No one could have imagined this.” Sure they could have. The people who plotted the attack had no problem imagining it. Are they smarter than the strategic wizards in the Pentagon?

“This is an attack on our democracy.” No it isn’t. I don’t see people flying planes into Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower, and England and France are democracies, last I checked. This is an attack on the United States and its global empire.

At what point will the American people realize that their government, far from protecting them, actually causes the hatred that brings on such terrorist attacks? I’m not holding my breath. And because of that, I really hope that doctor was wrong about the biological weapons.

>>>>I really hope that doctor was wrong about the biological weapons<<<<<

there was no biological weapons but maybe there is something else. Depleted Uranium aerosol.
WTC planes turned to fireball (1200 C) and then buiding collapsed.
People were breathing heavily because of the dust. B747 carry DU as ballast ( 1000 lbs) B757 and B767 supposedly not.

I hope this is true.

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