inspired

This web page is
www.oocities.org/rememberseptember11/inspired.html

Subject: Excellent column (submitted by JPV)

"We'll go forward from this moment"
by Leonard Pitts, Jr. of the Miami Herald:

It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words that
help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this
moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only
thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed
to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you
hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our
Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn?

Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a
family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family
nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous
emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae-a singer's revealing dress, a
ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the
ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of
that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are
fundamentally decent, though-peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to
know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of
us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us weak.
You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot
be measured by arsenals.

Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're
still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still
working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from
some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy
novel.

Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final
death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of
terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of
the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us
fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last
time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt
and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible
in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any
suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you,
I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble
with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers
pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be
done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security,
misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this
moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably
determined.

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of
our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On
this day, the family's bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans,
we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that
maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the
case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange:

You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't
know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

From James McCord, relayed to this web site by JPVornle

Mistakes Made the Catastophe Possible

by Daniel Pipes
Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2001

It is likely that more Americans died yesterday due to acts of violence than
on any other single day in American history.

Two parties are responsible for this sequence of atrocities. The moral blame
falls exclusively on the perpetrators, who as of this writing remain unknown.

The tactical blame falls on the U.S. government, which has grievously failed
in its topmost duty to protect American citizens from harm. Specialists on
terrorism have been aware for years of this dereliction of duty; now the
whole world knows it. Despite a steady beat of major, organized terrorist
incidents over 18 years (since the car bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut
in 1983), Washington has not taken the issue seriously.

Here are some of its mistakes:
Seeing terrorism as a crime. American officials have consistently held the
view that terrorism is a form of criminal activity. Consequently, they have
made their goal the arrest and trying of perpetrators who carry out violent
acts. That's all fine and good as far as it goes, but it does not go far
enough. This legalistic mindset allows the funders, planners, organizers, and
commanders of terrorism to continue their work untouched, ready to carry out
more attacks. The better approach is to see terrorism as a form of warfare
and to target not just those foot soldiers who actually carry out the
violence but the organizations and governments who stand behind them.

Relying too much on electronic intelligence. It's a lot easier to place an
oversized ear in the sky than to place agents in the inner circle of a
terrorist group, and so the Central Intelligence Agency and other
information-gathering agencies have put on their headphones and listened.
Clearly, this is not enough. The planning for the events that took place
yesterday requires vast preparation over a long period of time involving many
people. That the U.S. government did not have a clue points to nearly
criminal ignorance. As critics like Reuel Gerecht keep hammering home,
American intelligence services must learn foreign languages, become
culturally knowledgeable, and befriend the right people.

Not understanding the hate-America mentality. Buildings like the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon loom very large as symbols of America's commercial
and military presence around the world. The trade center was already once
before attacked, in a bombing in early 1993. It should have been clear that
these buildings would be the priority targets and the authorities should have
provided them with special protection.

Ignoring the terrorist infrastructure in this country. Many indications point
to the development of a large Islamist terror network within the United
States, one visible to anyone who cared to see it. Already in early 1997,
Steven Emerson told the Middle East Quarterly that the threat of terrorism
"is greater now than before the World Trade Center bombing [in 1993] as the
numbers of these groups and their members expands. In fact, I would say that
the infrastructure now exists to carry off twenty simultaneous World Trade
Center-type bombings across the United States."

The information was out there but law enforcement and politicians did not
want to see it. The time has come to crack down, and hard, on those connected
to this terror infrastructure.

If there is any good to come out of yesterday's deaths and trauma, it will be
to prompt an urgent and dramatic change of course in U.S. policy, one that
looks at the threat to the United States as a military one, that relies on
human intelligence, that comprehends the terrorist mentality, and that closes
down the domestic network of terror.

An easy assumption pervaded the airwaves yesterday that the morning's horrors
will have the effect of waking Americans to the threat in their midst. I am
less optimistic, remembering similar assumptions eight years ago in the
aftermath of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. But that turned out
not to be the wake-up call expected at the time. Perhaps because only six
people died then, perhaps because the bombing was not accompanied or followed
by other incidents, that episode disappeared down the memory hole. We owe it
to yesterday's many victims not to go back to sleep again.

We also owe it to ourselves, for I suspect that yesterday's events are just a
foretaste of what the future holds in store. Assuming that the attacks in New
York and in the Washington area were only what they seemed to be, they killed
and injured only those who were in the buildings under attack or in their
immediate vicinity. Future attacks are likely to be biological, spreading
germs that potentially could threaten the whole country. When that day comes,
this country will truly know what devastation terrorism can cause. Now is the
time to prepare for that danger and make sure it never happens.

It’s cathartic just to tell stories. By sitting in silence, it is difficult to know what to say. By telling what others experienced or by telling our own experience, we can process this event… we can put words to a catastrophe that leaves us speechless…

Steve
-----Original Message-----
From: John Vornle [mailto:LongTermCapital@compuserve.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 10:06 AM
To: INTERNET:globalcooling@pstcomputers.com
Subject: web site for 11 september

Steve:

Even though it's an unofficial web site, maybe you should send a note to
Jonathan Long that it is there. Rumor has it that at least one Aiglon
parent was in the building. I don't know. I also don't know the value of
having a site up. It's a relief, in a way. But it doesn't address the
victims (the actuals and their families), nor the psychological impact.

I paste below a letter I received.

John
Vornle

----received from an acquaintance----------
I am on this list as a friend of David Burgoyne. I hope that no one objects
to my sharing of these personal thoughts:

I have a lot of family in NY and all are ok except my grandmother died on
Thursday of old age (97). Since flying to the funeral was out of the
question, my kids and I drove (640 miles from Michigan). Although, I've
been in Ann Arbor, Michigan since 1976, in my heart I am still very much a
New Yorker. No matter how shocking this has been for all Americans and
others around the world, you
can't fully appreciate the depth of how intense the feelings are in New
York unless you witness it first hand. Before we actually arrived, just the
approach towards the George Washington Bridge at night on Friday and seeing
smoke still rising where the World Trade Center used to be, took our breath
away. I am sure we have all been dazed by this, however, actually being
there was like visiting another world. For me and my kids it was as if we
were hoping that it was all a bad dream, but seeing it first hand finally
drove home just how horrible these events have been. My grandmother's
funeral was Saturday morning and after the burial we all went to a large
restaurant in Queens, New York looking for a table big enough for 18
people. In mourning for my grandmother I wore a black suit and a black tie.
And others in the group were obviously dressed for a funeral.

Everyone who saw us seemed to assume that we had lost someone in the World
Trade Center tragedy. I felt almost guilty at the outpouring of emotion
from total strangers. Naturally we wanted to sit together in the
restaurant. I am used to New Yorkers always being in a hurry and not
seeming to care too much about other people. Tables moved, people got up
and made a place for us to be able to sit together. In the American Midwest
this kind of politeness might seem natural, but in New York this behavior
was a radical
change. This was just a small example of a big shift in behavior and
attitudes that I witnessed. I have a Ph.D. in psychology and I know all too
well that changing people's behavior and attitudes is extremely difficult
to accomplish.

When I grew up in Queens we were the only Hispanic family on a block of
people who were almost all Irish and Italian. When we bought our first
house in the 1950's, some people tried to stop us from moving into the
neighborhood. Although my grandparents were born in this country I have
always felt that many people did not think of me as a "real" American. Even
in the very liberal town of Ann Arbor, Michigan my daughter experienced
incredible problems with public school teachers who labeled her as a
"disadvantaged minority" student because of her last name, despite the fact
that she was an upper middle class, very privileged
kid. When we left the restaurant we drove through Queens on the way back to
my parent's house. Queens today is a place filled with immigrants of every
race and nationality. When my girlfriend would ride the subway to meet me
at my parent’s house, I would joke with her about being the only "little
blond girl" on the subway train. In one part of Queens it may seem like you
are really somewhere in India, while in another neighborhood, every store
for blocks has signs in Korean and you don't see signs in English. But on
Saturday driving home to my parents from the funeral, one thing stood out
load and clear. We were all Americans and
our way of life had received the biggest threat ever in our history.
American flags were virtually everywhere, in store windows, on cars, flying
from people's homes, who probably could barely speak English. New Yorkers
tend to be very cosmopolitan "citizens of the world" and not typically
nationalistic "flag waving" types. Everyone was talking about this
phenomena. Local "hip hop" radio
stations, that in the past have had a lot of talk about racist America,
were talking about how differently they felt white people looked at them on
the street. Some New Yorkers mentioned how they felt safer walking at night
in areas where they previously might have felt in danger. The most striking
thing was the absence of anger about what had happened. I was a college
student during the
Vietnam war and I can clearly remember pro-war Americans being very angry
about something on the other side of the world that they did not
necessarily understand. But in these past few days, first and foremost was
the feeling that we were all in this together and that everyone was willing
to sacrifice to help each other.

These terrorists have struck very deep into the fabric of what makes us
Americans and threatens the freedom we have had as Americans. I have always
been on the side of things like civil liberties, but I recognize that some
of those civil liberties are now in question, particularly the freedoms we
have been used to having when traveling on airplanes. We need to proceed
very carefully about the changes we'll need to make now to protect our
security. But I hope and pray that we can all resolve to address the most
important issue which has been a systemic problem interwoven with what has
culminated in these terrorist acts.

Let this be a wake-up call that civilization itself is under threat and
that we cannot tolerate violence based on religious and ethnic conflict
whether it is in Northern Ireland, the Balkans or the Middle East. Why do
the people who know these terrorists not report them? We must do our best
to understand why an Irish Catholic will stand by and let an IRA member put
a bomb in a public shopping area, why Serbians let their former government
commit the horrors that occurred, etc.

We must hunt down these terrorists and punish them severely, but how are we
to find them? We need the cooperation of the average people who live next
door to these terrorists. We need to understand why average peaceful people
will not report these terrorists to authorities. In certain minority
neighborhoods in the US, people historically have often not reported crimes
to police because the police are sometimes seen as an enemy in their
community. This past weekend I heard "rappers" on New York City Hip-Hop
radio stations telling people that reporting information to the FBI and
other authorities is critical and that people should not think of that as
being a snitch.

These recent events and how we respond to them could very well result in
one of the most significant turning points in human history. Suicide
terrorists pose a threat that is very difficult to fight with a traditional
military approach. What if these suicide terrorists begin to unleash
biological weapons in major cities across the world?

I witnessed a radical change in New York this past weekend examining how
different races and ethnic groups view each other. I don't have any easy
answers for how we can effect changes among the various people involved in
racial and ethnic conflict around the world today, but that fight must be
foremost in the minds of average people and political leaders around the
world, if we are to
protect the future of civilization on this planet.

While the necessary military efforts proceed to improve the security of the
civilized world, we must all demand that our various political leaders
engage in a dialog as to how the world will put into place policies that
will protect the rights of racial and ethnic minorities, so that no human
being with an ounce of compassion for the sanctity of human life will stand
by silently while they know
the identities of anyone committing these acts of terror.

News reports often reveal the connections among terrorist networks from
various countries around the world. Irish Catholics in New York contribute
money that sometimes finds it's way to the IRA which has been known to
engage in trade with Middle Eastern terrorists. Research has shown that the
maximum distance between any two people in the world is no more than six
connections (you know someone who in turn knows someone, etc.). Talk to the
people you know and make sure they talk to everyone they know. Find out why
some people won't report terrorists to the authorities and let us fix that
by beginning to address some of the root
problems of the various religious and ethnic conflicts around the world.
And at the same time let's use all of our various connections to find these
terrorists.

This will be the most complicated endeavor in which humanity has ever
engaged and I have no illusions that solutions will be easy or fast. But if
we are to survive on this planet, we have no other choice.

- Ron Suarez, Ph.D., President, Object Insight, Inc.