My sense is that Americans will want some swift retribution - but against who?

Also, there are intangibles: UN Security Council, Reaction from China and Russia, potential for causing WW III, who the hell knows.

It is most likely an internal attack.

The media has also mentioned an intelligence deficiency. They should be looking at who they elected to be their leader.

There is a large shopping concourse underneath the WTC. How many people were in that?

I don't see, though, how this could have been an internal attack by militias or whoever. They could just have managed the sort of World Trade Centre bombing that took place in 1993 -- ANFO, 6 people dead -- although that was indeed due to Palestinian terrorists.

Many planes hijacked and crashed -- no, that's orders of magnitude beyond what the cranks of the Militia of Michigan et al are capable of.

I'm thinking of the assassination of Indira Gandhi, after which many Sikhs were killed in riots. This indeed led to an increase in miltancy.

I envy my cats today.

He says this means America is going to have to revitalize Ahmed Shah Masood's forces in the Northern Alliance, who are fighting the Taliban. (I think Ahmed Shah is a fantastic character out of another age btw). Nevermind that the US initially backed the Taliban through its client state in Pakistan in the hopes that it would control oil routes from Central Asia. Nevermind that. In any case, if they do get rid of the Taliban that'll be good but meanwhile millions of innocent Afghans will suffer.

I think that's the most likely geopolitical aftermath.

Stock markets around the world will tank and the economy will take a hit.

Internal repression? You know, they try to monitor people like Osama Bin Laden as carefully as possible. But they couldn't manage to see this coming, in spite of the massive amounts of planning it would take. Those who aren't a threat are easy to control, those who are a threat are very difficult to control, as this attack makes clear. Forward looking politics would try to get us beyond the policies that give birth to such animus. The western powers preach to Israel and the Palestinians about the "cycle of violence" but the phrase works elswhere too. Someone has to be magnanimous and far-sighted or this type of thing can only get worse.

"Righteous Might".

I think the US is going to demand something far greater than what is being suggested in this thread.

December 7, 1941- FDR invokes America's "Righteous Might"

Given the level of sophisticated planning this took, I think we can expect an unequivocal statement from those responsible, with supporting evidence, within 24 hours.

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Nevermind that the US initially backed the Taliban through its client state in Pakistan in the hopes that it would control oil routes from Central Asia.

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For that matter, Israel originally supported Hamas, in the hope of draining away prestige from Arafat's PLO, as it then was.

Means are only ends in the making. I don't know when these would-be Machiavels will learn that supporting, trying to "control" these people, is like gripping a rattlesnake by the tail.

This is absolutely not to justify terrorism in general or today's events in particular, of course.

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I think America should forgive those responsible but that is unlikly,Maybe it was Americas turn to suffer greatly

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Why, did the those responsible ask for forgiveness?

I don't think its anybody's "turn". You should be ashamed of yourself.

Those responsible should pay

If Bin Laden is innocent of this specific attack. You think the U.S. will want him around still? No way. He will be eliminated and the U.S. will probably attack any country protecting him. Hear that Afghanistan? Hear that Pakistan?

In February 1989 there was a riot outside the US Consultate in an Indian city (can't remember which one), on the occasion of its planned paperback publication in the US. People were killed. The Ayatollah Khomeini, after watching TV footage of this (and without having read the book, of course), issued his fatwa on February 14.

About two years ago, the Iranian government said it had no intention of enforcing it. But the form of words suggested they didn't utterly repudiate it. Almost immediately, an Islamic fundamentalist organization said that as far as they were concerned, it was still in force.

Rushdie, by the way, recently moved to Manhattan and is living more or less openly there.

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Some people on the West Bank may be cheering as some people cheered during the bombing of Iraq and some people cheered at the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagazaki. So...

There will be enough (more than usual) anti Palestinian and Arab hyseria in the wake of this disaster.

``I send my condolences, the condolences of the Palestinian people to American President Bush and his government and to the American people for this terrible act,''

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there will be pressure to curtail civil liberties

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A temporary limitation on some civil liberties may be justified in stopping 50,000 people from being blown up!

[URL edited out because it was huge and causing major side-scroll - and the article was no longer at that URL anyhow. Michelle.]

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

[Another URL that was causing side scroll - I edited it out since the article was no longer at that URL.]

[ September 04, 2002: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I did say it was dangerous to imply that everyone in The West Bank was cheering. Some may be, but not everyone.

I was trying to add some perspective to the extent that there will be plenty of cheering (not by you personally)as the perpetrators or potential perpetrators are hunted down by the U.S.

I think there will be a military response from the U.S.

I think that Bush will get his military budget increases.

I also think this will greatly affect Canada. There will be speculation about how the terrorists entered the U.S. and Canada's lax attitude towards terrorists entering our country will be scrutinized.

The U.S. will probably tighten up the U.S. Canada border which could disastrously affect our trade and Canadian jobs.

WAGE FUCKING PEACE PEOPLE!! That's what it's all about man!

I am familiar with the image the media likes to send though.

I'm only saying ALL PALESTINIANS ARE NOT REJOICING. THose going to the Mosque or grieving don't quite make the same coverage nor do they excuse the "righteous" retributions that will surely follow.

The Starbucks up my street has closed for the day.

Meanwhile, the kosher bakery-deli next door -- owned and operated by Israeli immigrants, by the way -- remains bravely open.

People do and say the dumbest things after a disaster. I was once on a passenger train that struck, at high speed, a pickup truck, killing both men inside instantly. One man's body was trapped in the truck, the other flung out the window. We could see him lying crumpled on the ground from the window of our car.

One passenger kept saying to the conductor, "I know first aid if it's any help."

[Edited to add: because I admire these two men, and for relief, I just had to go back and read the previous day's installment]

Isn't there an international court system for this? Apparently the US retaliated against the taliban for no reason before, acting, em, unilaterally.

I think the Americans are not the best people to deal with this, wrath of old testament Christian fury and all.
If I remember correctly, a world war started cause of some assinated duke in some country in the Balkans. Not that this would lead to a world war, but it makes me think a bit.

It seems in bad taste to point this out now, when they haven't even established how many are dead and injured. But one thing I think we can expect is more calls to police and control the Internet.

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Malcolm X summarized the situation in one sentence: "The chickens are coming home to roost."

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Yes, and you can't make an omellette without breaking a few eggs.

Alexander haig was on CNN infering that perhaps civil rights must be curtailed in the interests of security. There is some talk of "war measures." I received the followin e-mail:

"Hello everyone,

This is Nicholas Longo, the CEO of CoffeeCup Software. As you may have heard the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked about 45 minutes ago.

The Team at CoffeeCup would like to send our heart felt sorrow to those that perished in these attacks.

We would like to also say on record that if any country is found responsible for these attacks, we call for that country's complete destruction and annihilation.

Do not let terrorism which is designed to create fear and stop production, halt your life or work.

Stay focused and do not stop what you are doing.

-May God bless us all and the decisions we must make.

Nick-"

Should Americans lose civil liberties, should the U.S. lash out in anger and seek to the "complete destruction and annihilation" of any nation to be held responisble, then the terrorists have won and we all have lost.

As the United States raised a Timothy McVeigh and not all Americans should be held responsible for his actions, not all the citizens of some foreign land should be held responsible for the madness of some within their midst.

I sincerely hope the U.S. will act responsibly by seeking out those responsible and bringing them to justice before a court convened through law. As they did with the Lockerbie bombers, as they did with Timothy Mcveigh.

Flip on the TV Vertbatim.
I just saw footage on CTV with the camera on a street looking up at the second tower. There is a guy in the bottom corner. And then, from behind a building closest to the left, the second jet smashes right into it.

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I think America should forgive those responsible but that is unlikly

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But that would be the Christian thing to do. George Bush only displays the Christian qualities that are convenient.

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Want to add irony to the situation? The US helped put the Taliban in power, it was one of the factions we backed against the Soviets during the '80s. (Also, that should be a lesson to stay out of Afganistan.)

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Osman bin Laden also was a CIA operative. Whaddya know, eh?

And the Red Army is claiming responsibility? Interesting. I wonder if the Weather Underground and then the Dairy Farmers will claim responsibility next. The Red Army doesn't have the resources to do this.

This could be anyone. It could be Islamic Fundamentalists like they claim. it could be the opposition in Afghanistan, possibly trying get the US to attack Afghanistan, make the Taliban weaker, and put the opposition in a better place. It could be the Taliban itself. It could also be an American, like we all saw in Oklahoma. It could be someone from one of those American militias. It could be any fundamentalist organization. WHO KNOWS!!!!

Bombs are going off over kabul, and the US says its not them. I'm beginning to think that the Afghanistani opposition has some role in this whole plot, or at least just the bombs over Kabul.

Sorry if my message is just a jumble of incomplete sentences, this is very awkward.

A commentater on CBC said that this may justify the use of a tactical nuclear device, care of the US. THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!! I saw the footage, and it looked like it was straight from a movie, this is just so hard to grip. My Aunt is in Union City, and she had a great view of the WTC from her apartment window. Shw probably watched the whole thing! THis is terrible!

Whoever did this is an enemy to all those who breathe. At the same time, let us not scapegoat, or do any whitewashing. Someone from the Arab-American Association was commenting on CBC radio that there have already been civilian attacks on Arab-Americans, regardless as to wether they are fully assimilated or not. A child in grade 5 was beaten up for being Arab, I heard.

As for the celebrations in parts of the West Bank, he quoted "God forgive them, they know not what they do". He said that the Palestinians are living in hellish, and irrational conditions/surroundings, and that we should not be surprised that a few of them are acting in a hellish or irrational manner.

This is terrible.

"Our financial institutions remain strong."

The US has lost HOW many of its top financial minds? Morgan Stanley Dean Witter is the biggest tenant of the WTC. What about all the documents and data stored in the buildings? Are there backups kept off-site?

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." -- Psalm 23:4

America Loses Its Innocence, Yet Again

As for responsibility...

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I wonder if the Weather Underground and then the Dairy Farmers will claim responsibility next.

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Speaking of the Weathermen, here's an amazingly Ill-Timed Quote of the Day, courtesy of Timothy Noah of Slate:

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"I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."--Weather Underground radical-turned-memoirist Bill Ayers, in the Sept. 11 New York Times.

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He apparently meant that whatever happens should not be taken out of context. In this case, the destruction of US property and lives should not be based on just the destruction – and retaliation – but before one should judge, the whole thing must be put into proper context. For example: what has the US been doing all around the world for the last 56 years? Has it been active in promoting democracy, policies that benefit the common people or has it been acting like a tyrannical colonial power?

The answers can be found by several experts on the subject they are:
The Triumph of Evil – Austin Murphy who details US policies against the American native Indians to world policies to the 1990s .

Rogue State – by William Blum a long time expert on US foreign policy and US globalist interventions.

To Kill a Nation – Michael Parenti – details how such policies are carried out to destroy a nation.

Whiteout – by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair details how the US uses the CIA to sabotage nations – even recuiting Nazi scientists after WWII to arming opium traffickers in Afghanistan.

Even without reading these books, common sense should make a person wonder why the US attacks and invades tiny countries such as bombing Grenada and Panama (bombing the slum districts in totally illegal operations countering several international laws).

Unfortunately, the power of myth and propaganda will now enable the US to commence neo-fascist rule to expand its imperialism (and encourage more retaliation) and get away with it even in its own country!

Hence lets not get carried away with emotion and keep everything in context and perspective -- for a form of retaliation has already been in full force around the world by the US since the end of WWII. Just read the above books.

On the subject of possible Internet/technology crackdowns, here's a piece from Newsweek:

I keep thinking back to that book I read, _Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century_, and how what may have saved us from nuclear holocaust was JFK remembering pictures of people in Hiroshima. He thought he didn't want to see anyone suffer like that, anywhere in the world. He also remembered how, leading up to World War I, the major powers gradually locked themselves into positions from which they could not retreat, and were propelled forward into an orgy of senseless destruction.

The pure horror of today's events, played over and over on our TV screens, is close to us because we can relate to the victims; we can imagine we know someone there, or maybe we really do know people there; because it punctures many of our certainties, the rhythms of our lives; because it's so singular an event in our own lives, as North Americans, that no one I know can recall a parallel. Of course, there have been countless hideous deaths, for many of which America is responsible, all over the world. But this seems different to us, because it is directed at us or those who are like us. We can't imagine being a Chechen woman whose son has just been tortured to death, or a Rwandan butchered by Western-backed Hutu militias.

Yet I am disgusted by the reptilian response of many people I see, the clamour for revenge and senseless retaliation. People filled with hatred because they feel weak and victimized will not be destroyed or deterred by such action, which will only deepen resentment and hostility. It's been tried, and shown to fail, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. It's stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Like the hydra, where one head is cut, two will appear. Wisdom is the only way out of this, in the long term. People get angry when others suggest forgiveness. But wouldn't that be the most radical thing, unprecedented in history, that anyone could do? It might even be Christian, for a change.

But today, we see others trying to dehumanize Palestinians and Arabs by pointing to that segment of their population that also succumbed to the urges of the reptilian brain. The whole thing is depressing. Time to head for the forest with some poetry and a lute. I don't think our current leaders know how to do anything but make it worse.

To be fair to them, though, if I were them, I'd probably think, "we can't let this go unpunished, or we'll be inviting more." Of course, the evidence is that every punishment in turn creates a new retaliation, but I still probably would succumb to this thinking. Probably I'd decide to bomb the hell out of Bin Laden's base 1 hour east of Qandahar, and for that matter Mullah Omar's base one hour north of Qandahar. (Gee how do I know that, you wonder? A friend works in Afghanistan; and in a former job of mine, the weekly reports featured a lot of news from Afghanistan.) Then I'd wreck the only two good roads in Afghanistan, the roads leading from Qandahar to those two houses. Then I'd fund the rebel alliance up the wazoo, though it'd create ever more misery for the Afghan people. And I'd tell Pakistan to get its regulars the f*ck out of Afghanistan and stop supporting the Taliban, right now or else. (Of course, this would only strengthen the already strong fundamentalist forces inside Pakistan.)

But I bet none of that, ultimately, would stop a similar thing from happening. What *would* is what Mario Cuomo said. But he's been pilloried for it. This day is dark in so many ways.

One part of me wants to advocate live-testing a few 100-megaton nukes in the Afghani/Pakistani region, but another wishes that the world were much more civilized to begin with and that the inequities that drive the cycle of hate didn't exist.

Having said that, the USA can still slam the borders shut for all I care. I want no part of a brain-dead stupid culture whose idealization and epitome of existence is a fat, lard-assed, cigar-chomping, fast-food-mashing, SUV-driving moron barrelling down the interstate at 85 MPH who doesn't give a good goddamn about anybody except himself and whether he can stay alive to keep pissing in front and shitting in back. And to put the cherry on top of the sundae, the current President has a serious intelligence and credibility deficiency.

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Even a totalitarian security state cannot deal with this - even if it were to suppress basic civil liberties. It is extremely important to understand this, since there will be two natural reactions to what has happened, both of them essentially futile.
First there will be continuing calls for revenge against whomever is responsible, presuming that the author is eventually identified.

The practical uselessness of revenge has repeatedly been demonstrated, and continues to be demonstrated in the Middle East, since those who employ terrorism are not functioning on a pragmatic scale of reward and punishment. As the Israelis find, making martyrs of your enemies invites further martyrdoms.

The second reaction will be that the United States needs even more elaborate defenses than now exist. Yet the Pentagon, CIA, NSA and the rest of the American apparatus of national security proved incapable of preventing the attacks Tuesday. They are incapable of preventing their repetition in some other version.

There are no technological defenses, as such, against this sort of thing. Surely, if nothing else comes out of the attacks Tuesday, they ought to have demonstrated to Americans the irrelevance of national missile defense.
There are ordinary security measures that can be taken or improved, but the nature of attacks mounted from within the regular functions of society, means that no comprehensive or conclusive defense exists. The entire history of terrorism in both 19th and 20th centuries has demonstrated that.

The final and most profound lesson of these events is one that it will be hardest for government to accept - this government in particular. It is that the only real defense against external attack is serious, continuing and courageous effort to find political solutions for national and ideological conflicts that involve the United States.

The immediate conclusion nearly everyone has drawn about the origin of these attacks is that they come out of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. It is reasonable to think that this is so, although there is as yet no proof.

For more than 30 years the United States has refused to make a genuinely impartial effort to find a resolution to that conflict. It has involved itself in the Middle East in a thousand ways, but has never accepted a responsibility for dealing impartially with the two sides - locked in their shared agony and their mutual tragedy.

If current speculation about these bombings proves to be true, the United States has now been awarded its share in that Middle Eastern tragedy.

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I'm not normally a Polly Toynbee fan, but she turned in a not bad effort today:

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What will it do to America's psyche? That is what the world trembles to discover. Nothing good, everyone fears. The urge to retaliate will be powerful - though until it is known against whom, the scale, size and danger of following that instinct is unknowable. But remember the swift cruise missile retaliation against an Afghan mosque in vain search for Osama bin Laden's lair, and the unguided cruise attack on a Sudan pharmaceutical factory after the bombing of US embassies. They achieved nothing beyond deepening the passionate hatred of America in those corners of the globe. Bad intelligence, bad targeting, aimless firing off of missiles seemed to Clinton a political necessity.

So for the sake of world sanity and limiting the scale of this calamity, around the world people will be fervently hoping that this was another Oklahoma-style militia attack, an all-American home-grown madness. But few realistically imagine a bunch of backwoods rednecks pulled off something like this. Every expert on international affairs out commenting yesterday was filled with foreboding. "Very dangerous, very, very dangerous," one said over and over again, surveying this greatest global shudder since the Cuba missile crisis.

This has set back the cause of liberalism everywhere. Tolerance, negotiation, finding slow but sure solutions to conflict, the rule of reason over madness - these died along with the thousands of victims yesterday. Atrocity is in danger of becoming the common language of disputes, revenge the only response. Anti-Americanism takes on a vile hue as celebrations break out along the West Bank.

Only 10 years ago when the iron curtain came crashing down in Russia, the optimistic talk was all of the peace dividend. How fatally badly the west has managed world affairs since then. How little hope that better not worse will come from this.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,550358,00.html

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Having said that, the USA can still slam the borders shut for all I care. I want no part of a brain-dead stupid culture whose idealization and epitome of existence is a fat, lard-assed, cigar-chomping, fast-food-mashing, SUV-driving moron barrelling down the interstate at 85 MPH who doesn't give a good goddamn about anybody except himself and whether he can stay alive to keep pissing in front and shitting in back. And to put the cherry on top of the sundae, the current President has a serious intelligence and credibility deficiency.

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You, my friend, are making stereotypical statements that usually belong to the worst kind of racist.

Yesterday's attack hardly meets these criteria. "Because the US is bad," is not enough of a justification for anonymous individuals to make such an unprecendented strike against innocent civilians. This is the most extreme kind of example of using force against another party simply because they don't agree with that party's politics. That kind of attack is never justified, IMHO.

Again, these are very emotional times. I ask everyone to not fall into personal attacks.