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 . . . see "EVIL" for related links To the extent possible, in chronological order: The match is about to begin . . . . Tomorrow is zero hour. --Arabic language message (Intercepted by the U.S. National Security Agency on September 10, 2001 but not translated until September 12th. _Washington Post_ [20 June 2002]) People just kept jumping and jumping and jumping and you could still see they were alive because they were flailing around. --Kenny Johannemon, who was inside One World Trade Center when the first plane hit the building. That's what's got to be most upsetting. The firemen and people in the building. 'Cause I know they didn't make it. I know they didn't make it. --Bill Heitman, who was working in the towers at the time of the attack. A New York City emergency response center was in one of the towers. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings, went right there and slammed into the Pentagon. --Mike Walter, a "USA Today" reporter, of the plane that hit the Pentagon. What do you mean they're gone? --Julie Anderson, after escaping her WTC office and learning the Twin Towers had collapsed. [Telephone call to his wife from hijacked airplane:] I know we're all going to die — there's three of us who are going to do something about it. ... I love you honey. --Tom Burnett, a California businessman on UA flight 93 saying goodbye to his wife. Quoted in "S.F. Chronicle" [12 September 2001]. - The limos carrying Bush and his entourage raced to the airport at speeds up to eighty miles an hour. During the ride, Bush learned that a third jetliner had slammed into the Pentagon. Over a secure phone, he consulted with Cheney, who was in an emergency bunker beneath the White House grounds. The vice president urged him to authorize military planes to shoot down any commercial airliners that might be controlled by the hijackers. Bush called Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who had elected to stay in the burning Pentagon, and conveyed the order. "We're going to find out who did this, and we're going to kick their ass," Bush had told Cheney. --Ronald Kessler Jounalist and author of non-fiction. _The CIA at War_ [2003], Ch. 16 - The first thing he said to me, he said that I meant the world to him and he loved me. He said tell the girls he loved them very much. This is what a courageous strong person he was. He was not even concerned about himself at that point. You know what he did? He said now Liz, don't forget about the life insurance. Don't forget about these different programs he had with work. The different contracts — bonus programs. And he went down an A to Z of his life, and what I needed to address. I told him to pray to Michael the archangel. We said we loved each other. And we said goodbye. Supposedly I was in such physical shock, my body was totally shaking. But I was able to talk to him calmly. That's what my friend was telling me. But I got another phone call from him. He called me back to tell me that he felt silly because he had just booked a trip to go to Rome. He said, "Liz, you have to cancel that. You have to take care of that." At that point, I said, "Ed, you're getting out of there." I said the firemen are coming up to get you. I said you are a problem solver. You're going to get out of there. That's when he said to me, "Liz, this was a terrorist attack. I can hear explosions below me." He said stuff about the data center. That's why I think he was on the 97th floor, because the data center was on the 97th floor. Then he said the floor was buckled. And he said it was getting really hot and hard to breath. His voice was actually very calm. It wasn't like someone calling up panicking. He sounded a little winded the first time I spoke to him. The next two times, it was amazing how calmly he was talking to me. In that last phone call, he did whimper. He whimpered once. I just said to him, "Ed, I love you very much." I said I want you to go. I said, "Ed, conserve your energy." I said they are coming up there to get you. And with that we said our last goodbyes. Not once was he concerned about himself. I always look back on it. --Liz, widow of Edmund McNally - - If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow. --Rev. Mychal Judge, 68, of New York, a Franciscan monk and New York Fire Department chaplain, was killed by debris falling from the World Trade Center. Engine Co. One/Ladder Co. 24 in midtown Manhattan is across from St. Francis of Assisi Church, where Judge lived in the friary with his Franciscan brothers. He used to sleep with a radio scanner in his room, and often ate across the street in the firehouse. Judge, a 68-year-old Franciscan priest, died while giving last rites to a firefighter who perished when the twin towers collapsed after two hijacked passenger jets rammed into them on Tuesday. The Franciscan priest had removed his fire hat to pray when he was hit by falling debris. The funeral Mass for Judge took place at St. Francis of Assisi Church, across from the firehouse of Engine Co. 1/Ladder Co. 24, which lost seven firefighters in the disaster. - I saw a piece of metal the size of a football field coming at us... --Richie Murray, Engine 205, Brooklyn. "Men's Journal" We were greeted by a frantic mass of people, covered in gray soot, fleeing the city. Many of them reached out to touch our coats, and a woman said, 'God bless you and may He watch over you.' --Daniel Bivona, Ladder 84, Staten Island, "Staten Island Advance" I was praying to die fast. --Rich Picciotto, Commander, Battalion 11, Manhattan. Survived collapse of North Tower. "Times Herald-Mirror", Middletown, N.Y. Sometimes in this job, good-bye is really good-bye. --Rat Downey, FDNY Chief. Missing. "New York Post" Most guys want to be here. If they can find one person — cop, civilian, it doesn't matter — it's worth it. --anon. Fire Marshall, Manhattan Base. "U.S. News and World Report" They killed all my friends, guys who I grew up with. We were all kids together. --LT. Brian Gillen, Ladder 34, Manhattan. "Philadelphia Inquirer" I know I will probably relive this every day of my life. --Bill Spade, Rescue 5, Staten Island. "Staten Island Advance" In the first one hundred years we filled a wall with the names of fallen firefighters. On the eleventh of September we created a new wall. --Kerry Kelly, Chief Medical Officer, FDNY. Opening Statement to U.S. Senate. - Hit the buildings, Missed America . . . . By: Charles Brennan, Windrose 18, So. Florida Date: 9/11/2001 9:07p.m. An open letter to a terrorist: Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to take out other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America. Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn’t about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers, America isn’t about a place, America isn’t even about a bunch of bodies. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to, live for the most part, like you envisioned living, and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you’ll reach it, but you can sure try!) Go ahead and whine your terrorist whine, and chant your terrorist litany: “If you can not see my point, then feel my pain.” This concept is alien to Americans. We live in a country where we don’t have to see your point. But you’re free to have one. We don’t have to listen to your speech. But you’re free to say one. Don’t know where you got the strange idea that everyone has to agree with you. We don’t agree with each other in this country, almost as a matter of pride. We’re a collection of guys that don’t agree, called States. We united our individual states to protect ourselves from tyranny in the world. Another idea, we made up on the spot. You CAN make it up as you go, when it’s your country. If you’re free enough. Yeah, we’re fat, sloppy, easy-going goofs most of the time. That’s an unfortunate image to project to the world, but it comes of feeling free and easy about the world you live in. It’s unfortunate too, because people start to forget that when you attack Americans, they tend to fight like a cornered badger. The first we knew of the War of 1812, was when England burned Washington D.C. to the ground. Didn’t turn out like England thought it was going to, and it’s not going to turn out like you think, either. Sorry, but you’re not the first bully on our shores, just the most recent. No Marquis of Queensbury rules for Americans, either. We were the FIRST and so far, only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in anger. Horrific idea, nowadays? News for you bucko, it was back then too, but we used it anyway. Only had two of them in the whole world and we used ‘em both. Grandpa Jones worked on the Manhattan Project, told me once, that right up until they threw the switch, the physicists were still arguing over whether the Uranium alone would fission, or whether it would start a fissioning chain reaction that would eat everything. But they threw the switch anyway, because we had a War to win. Does that tell you something about American Resolve? So who just declared War on us? It would be nice to point to some real estate, like the good old days. Unfortunately, we’re probably at war with random camps, in far-flung places. Who think they’re safe. Just like the Barbary Pirates did, IIRC. Better start sleeping with one eye open. There’s a spirit that tends to take over people who come to this country, looking for opportunity, looking for liberty, looking for freedom. Even if they misuse it. The Marielistas that Castro emptied out of his prisons, were overjoyed to find out how much freedom there was. First thing they did when they hit our shores, was run out and buy guns. The ones that didn’t end up dead, ended up in prisons. It was a big PITA then (especially in south Florida), but you’re only the newest PITA, not the first. You guys seem to be incapable of understanding that we don’t live in America, America lives in US! American Spirit is what it’s called. And killing a few thousand of us, or a few million of us, won’t change it. Most of the time, it’s a pretty happy-go-lucky kind of Spirit. Until we’re crossed in a cowardly manner, then it becomes an entirely different kind of Spirit. Wait until you see what we do with that Spirit, this time. Sleep tight, if you can. We’re coming. - Dear America, You supported us in two world wars. We stand with you now. --Londoner Rob Anderson, on a card attached to a spray of roses left outside the U.S. Embassy WE ARE ALL AMERICANS --The French newspaper "Le Monde" I say to our enemies, 'We are coming. God may show you mercy. We will not.' --John McCain (1936— ) American politician and former U.S. Navy pilot who spent five years as a POW in the Hoa Lo "Hanoi Hilton" prison during the Vietnam War. - Osama bin Laden thanked almighty Allah and bowed before him when he heard this news. --Palistinian journalist Jamal Ismail, quoting a close aide of bin Laden's who called him from a hideout in Afghanistan after the attacks. Ismail said the aide told him bin Laden denied involvement. & see Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. --Blaise Pascal (1623—1662) French mathematician, physicist, and moralist. _Pense'es_, #894. & see The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles. --Ayn Rand (1905—1982) Russian-born American writer. _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal_ [1966] - This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. We therefore here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world. --Tony Blair (1953— ) British Labour statesman, Prime Minister [1997-2007]. Statement [11 September 2001]. No matter how hard we try words simply cannot express the horror, the shock, and the revulsion we all feel over what took place in this nation on Tuesday morning. September 11 will go down in our history as a day to remember. --Billy Graham (1918— ) American Christian evangelist. Speech, "National Day of Prayer and Remembrance" [14 September 2001]. It affects us only one way: We're angry as hell. And we have to find these people and kill them. It's very simple, you can't let them get away with this. This is a terrible, terrible thing they've done. --Ray Bradbury (1920— ) American science fiction author. In the "Chicago Tribune" [14 September 2001]. - That's what's so hard to comprehend: They want us to die just for being Americans. They don't care which Americans die: military Americans, civilian Americans, young Americans, old Americans, baby Americans. They don't care. To them, we're all mortal enemies. The truth is that most Americans, until Tuesday, were only dimly aware of their existence, and posed no threat to them. But that doesn't matter to them; all that matters is that we're Americans. And so they used our own planes to kill us. And then their supporters celebrated in the streets. --Dave Barry (1947— ) American humorist. - 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. ... You don't know my people. You don't know what we're about. You don't know what you just started. But you're about to learn. --Leonard Pitts American jornalist. Something else died on [last] Tuesday, in addition to thousands of innocent people. It was the doctrine of moral equivalency — the idea that people everywhere are just like us, or can be made so by meeting their demands. --Cal Thomas American journalist. I think people have spoken much rubbish about that event [9/11]. The poor revenging themselves on the rich! It's nothing but an aspect of religious hatred. And that is so hard to deal with, or even contemplate. You can deal with the poor striking out, but you can't deal with the threat of a universal religious war. --V.S. Naipaul (1932— ) Trinidadian novelist and travel writer. [There is a] united, righteous, deep, seething anger around the world at present. Some of that anger may subside. ... Some may argue that the extra miles that are required to be travelled are not really worth it. ... [However] if those who died last Tuesday are not, in the judgment of history, to have died in vain, there is an obligation on all of us to persevere, to travel the distance, to persist and to root out the evil that brought about those terrible deeds. --John Howard (1939— ) Australian Prime Minister [1996—2007]. In _Sydney Morning Herald_, "Don't Let Go of Your Anger" [18 September 2001]. Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done. --George W. Bush (1946— ) The 43rd President of the United States and a former Governor of Texas. _Speech_ [20 September 2001], to the Joint Session of the US Congress, and the global TV audience. Now a new symbol dominates the New York skyline, and the philosopher Plotinus offers the best account of it. According to Plotinus, evil is neither a demon nor Satan nor any kind of being. Evil is an absence. In the skyline now, there is an empty space where the twin towers used to be. I gaze out my study window, where I am used to seeing the towers, and I can hardly believe what I see. I see nothing. Smoke and sky. It is the symbol of absolute evil. --Paul Berman, "Under the Bridge" - This is a post from a CNN message board: To those extremists that perpetrated this crime against our nation, I have a warning for you. There are those of us who look at your actions as irrational, twisted, and completely inhuman. By all measures, what you have done can only be seen as insane. I have news for you. We're more nuts than you, and it should scare you s***less. You may think that when you die for your cause, you go to Paradise with 72 virgins, can leave reservations for 70 members of your family, all your sins are forgiven, and you sit at the side of Allah. Big deal. We had 39 guys who rented a Beverly Hills mansion, cut off their nuts, built a web site, and proceeded to poison themselves to death to hitch a ride with aliens out on the Hale-Bopp comet. You shoot guns into the sky to celebrate victories over enemies, and people are killed by the bullets raining down on them. We not only do this for New Year's Eve in some cities, but we burn houses down, tear up streets, loot and sack our stores, and beat our selves senseless when our sports teams win championships. Sports teams! We made a sequel to Police Academy 5. We gave an award for singing to two guys who never even sang. We put little sweaters on dogs. We shot John Lennon six times and didn't even aim for Yoko Ono. We think Elvis is still alive. We put Braille on drive-up automatic teller machines. We think that a simple button on a web site that says "Do not click if you're under 21" will do anything but cause a person under 21 to click on it. We take a large chunk of the island on which those buildings you destroyed sat and pretend that it isn't a part of our country after all, let people fly in to our airports that we want to kill, drive them in limousines to speak against us on this "pretend territory" land, let them drive back to our airport, and let them fly them back home without a scratch. We sell hot dogs in packages of ten and the buns in packages of eight. We can't even decide if pitchers should have to bat for themselves or not. All those baseball fields we've got none of them are even remotely the same size. We gave millions of dollars to a guy that told us that God was going to kill him if he didn't raise enough money. When he didn't get enough money, he didn't die. So we gave him more money in celebration of the fact that God didn't make him die. We've managed to keep the formulas for Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken secret for decades, we encrypt the most banal communications on our Information Superhighway, and yet we given away our most important nuclear secrets to the Chinese and Russians at the drop of a hat. And yet, with all this on the A-1 Psycho balance sheet, you still think you're more nuts than us that this won't result in your complete and utter annihilation? One way or another, your way of life will be over, period. Freedom's kind of a crazy, kooky, nutty thing when you look really close at it and all the bizarre and loony things that can result from it, but it's better than any other ideas anybody else has come up with. It's been that way since 1776, and built to last no matter how insanely we try to screw it up on a daily basis. We are even so nuts and ruthless enough as a nation to start insanely tearing at those of ourselves that even remotely resemble you in such rancorous, deplorable, and angry ways that will make you wonder if Allah has enough glue to piece enough of you back together for a flesh paperweight in Paradise. We may not know where you are now, but when we do I guarantee you that the majority of our high school children will still have no idea where on the globe where you are or where you will end up being buried. But we will send them anyway, and we will allow those of them that went into the armed services because they didn't manage to get into college *still* rain down Hell and fire on your worthless hides. It will all come down on you, because we're nuts enough to give all four of our branches of military services extremely powerful and deadly aircraft even though only one of them is actually called the Air Force. Picking a fight with the most insane nation on Earth with the hope that your message and influence will spread throughout the world, well, that's just downright stupid. - There was no intelligence... This is a failure that was caused by a lack of resources and by a complacency that set in in America over the past ten years, a complacency that convinced all of us that with the demise of the Soviet Union there were no more threats. It's a tragedy that it took the loss of thousands of lives to wake this country up and realize that our number one responsibility is not education (and I'm a teacher) and it's not health care (and I'm married to a nurse) — it is in fact the security and the safety of the American people. --Rep. Curt Weldon, speaking on CNN, as quoted in the 24 Sep '01 issue of _The Weekly Standard_, "Scrapbook" feature. Normally you're a pacifist and you don't want any kind of war at all, but occasionally something so atrocious happens there's gotta be some kind of response. I'd like to see the bombing stop, but what are you gonna do, turn the other cheek? ... It's like we used to live with this thing every Christmas in London, where the IRA would say, 'We're doing a bombing campaign.' And we'd go, 'How irksome, I hope it doesn't hit me when I'm shopping.' After the New York attack, my attitude was like, screw you, man, just screw you. I've got kids in London. --Paul McCartney (1942— ) English pop singer and songwriter. Interview in the "Independent." When I was watching TV the other day I saw these people, these little f--king tree people walking around and banging drums and banners saying, 'War is not the answer.' ...if you don't think that war is the answer then you should go to the country that started war on us and walk down f--king Kabul main street and show your bones, and I guarantee you wouldn't get one f--king slogan out before you get somebody [t'] snipe at you in the back of the head. --Ozzy Osbourne, interview with Launch.com [3 October 2001]. I don't know whether in Italy you saw and understood what happened in New York when Bush went to thank the rescue men (and women) who are digging in the ruins of the two towers trying to save some survivor but only coming up with the occasional nose or finger....You saw them, didn't you? While Bush was thanking them all they did was wave their little American flags, raise their clenched fists, and roar: "USA! USA!" In a totalitarian country I'd have thought: "Look how nicely organized this was by the Powers That Be!" Not in America. In America you don't organize these things. You don't manage them, you don't command them....And apart from France, I can't imagine a country more patriotic than America. God! I was so moved to see those workers clenching their fists and waving their flags and roaring USA-USA-USA, without anyone ordering them to. And I felt a kind of humiliation. Because I can't even begin to imagine Italian workers waving the tricolor and roaring Italia- Italia....today you see the Italian flag only at the Olympics if you happen to win a medal. Worse: you see it only in the stadiums, when there's an international soccer match. Which is also, by the way, the only time you'll ever hear a cry of Italia-Italia. Well let me tell you something. There's a big difference between a country in which the flag is waved only by hooligans in a stadium and a country where it's waved by the entire population. --Oriana Fallaci (1929—2006) Italian journalist and author. I never thought I'd see the World Trade Center pass by me in a dump truck. --Craig Chester, a volunteer rescue worker - I am a New Yorker I do not live in the five boroughs or on the Island or Upstate I may live hundreds or thousands of miles away Or I may live just over the GW Bridge But I am a New Yorker I am a New Yorker Whatever took me out of New York: Business, family or hating the cold did not take New York out of me. My accent may have faded and my pace may have slowed But I am a New Yorker I am a New Yorker I was raised on Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and Rockefeller Plaza, The Yankees or the Mets (Giants or Dodgers) Jones Beach or Rye Beach or one of the beaches on the sound (Orchard Beach) I know that "THE END" means Montauk. Because I am a New Yorker I am a New Yorker When I go on vacation, I never look up Skyscrapers are something I take for granted The Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty are part of me Taxis and noise and subways and "get outa heah" don't rattle me Because I am a New Yorker I am a New Yorker I was raised on cultural diversity before it was politically correct I eat Greek food and Italian food, Jewish and Middle Eastern food and Chinese food Because they are all American food to me. I don't get mad when people speak other languages in my presence Because my relatives got to this country via Ellis Island and chose to stay They were New Yorkers I am a New Yorker People who have never been to New York have misunderstood me My friends and family work in the industries, professions and businesses that benefit all Americans My firefighters died trying to save New Yorkers and non-New Yorkers They died trying to save Americans and non-Americans Because they were New Yorkers. I am a New Yorker I feel the pain of my fellow New Yorkers I mourn the loss of my beautiful city I feel and dread that New York will never be the same But then I remember: I am a New Yorker And New Yorkers have: Tenacity, strength and courage way above the norm Compassion and caring for our fellow citizens Love and pride in our city, in our state, in our country Intelligence, experience and education par excellence Ability, dedication and energy above and beyond Faith - no matter what religion we practice Terrorists hit America in its heart But America's heart still beats strong Demolished the steel in our buildings, but it doesn't touch the steel in our souls Hit us in the pocketbook; but we'll parlay what we have left into a fortune End innocent lives leaving widows and orphans, but we'll take care of them Because they are New Yorkers Wherever we live, whatever we do, whoever we are There are New Yorkers in every state and every city of this nation We will not abandon our city We will not abandon our brothers and sisters We will not abandon the beauty, creativity and diversity that New York represents Because we are New Yorkers And we are proud to be New Yorkers REMEMBER THE WTC --anon. - Only a month ago I laid on a bench outside the World Trade Center and marveled at what man could create; now I stare in disbelief at what man can take away. --bdolin72 on ABCnews - I was in Manhattan today. I crossed the Hudson River on the George Washington Bridge just as Ari Fleischer came on the radio to confirm that the US and Britain have begun retaliatory strikes against cities in Afghanistan. The local New York radio host then informed us that Mayor Guiliani had warned that when the attacks began, New Yorkers should be prepared for the possibility of a lockdown of Manhattan. In Midtown, around 35th and 9th, where I parked, you could have thought that nothing had happened a month ago. Tourists craned their necks to take pictures of the Empire State Building, sidewalk vendors hocked Sabretts, two homeless men played chess in Bryant Park. It was just another beautiful day in New York City. I rode my bike around midtown, taking pictures, thinking about finding out the hours of operation for the Empire State building observation tower, just enjoying being in the city. Times Square was as loud as ever. The cabbies blared on their horns, giving the other cars they're own sort of "New York Hello". A police car sirened by. I didn't plan on going downtown so early in the day, but I found myself heading that way, watching the street signs count down until I was in Greenwich Village, north of the WTC site. You can get surprisingly close to the site. The National Guard and NYPD have sectioned it off as what it is: a disaster site, a clean-up, a crime scene. I saw the walls of fliers posted with pleas for information about the missing. I saw children's drawings, black outlines of two identical towers, scratched over with red crayon fire. The air got a little colder in the cavernous streets of lower Manhattan. The wind whipped around corners, making the fliers and police tape flap frantically, in contrast to the near motionless group of people making their way to the site. On some of the darker buildings, you could see the dust still clinging to the side. On the streets, it looked like the floor of a bakery, a blanket of fine white dust marked by footprints. I stayed to the back of the groups, back from the amateur photographers crowding against the metal barriers set up by the police. I let them take the pictures. I simply looked around, taking it in, making it real. I thought of it not as a memorial or a tourist attraction. My thought was that this is a place where people *live*, where they *work*. This is not a destination to them, it's a part of their daily lives that fades into the background. Rather, it *was*. What made it real to me wasn't the crushed hulls of the mammoth buildings. It wasn't the steel girders hanging precarious from the roofs of buildings. It wasn't looking up to the sky and not seeing the towers, like seeing your mother with her front teeth punched out. What made it real for me was the store awning still covered with dust and debris. What made it real was the fire escape strewn with paper, dust, and a cracked flower pot. What made it real is that someone lives on the other side of that broken window. Someone will have to clean that awning. Someone works in that windowless jewelry store with the mannequins fallen over. Someone planted that flower. What made it real is that in that hulking pile of rubble, underneath the steel and concrete of more than 200 stories, underneath the remains of the buildings that fell on them from above, there are more than 5000 bodies. The bodies of people who can't plant flowers anymore, or wear jewelry, or see the skyline of the city they were working to maintain. On my way back I read a flyer posted on the fence at City Hall Park. It admonished the "vultures" who came to see the latest New York attraction. It said that we profaned the lives of the people who died by seeking pleasure from the wreckage. We didn't show a sign of care for those people before September 11th, it said, so what right did we have to trample over their graves now? We didn't go to seek pleasure.We didn't go to gawk. It wasn't just another sight to see on a tour, like Times Square, the Empire State Building, the U.N. We went for the same reason you go to the Vietnam Memorial, even though you're twenty-four and never knew anyone who died in the war. For the same reason you go to the Holocaust Museum, even though you're not Jewish and World War II is little more than a multiple-choice test and a documentary on the History Channel. We went because it's our experience, our way of life, *our* greatest city in *our* greatest country. We went because it could have been us. We went to make it real. --Michael Conover, alt.quotations -- Thoughts about the WTC and terrorism from, or about, the _LEFT_ flanked by quotes from George Washington and Winston Churchill: Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die. --George Washington (1732—1799) American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution [1775—1783] and first president of the United States [1789—1797]. _Address to the Continental Army before the battle of Long Island_ [27 August 1776]. Our defense budget can and should be more efficient and must be re-designed for the twenty-first century, post-Cold War world. To be secure in this world, we must educate our children, house the homeless, and feed the hungry. We must work to promote peace and attack fundamental threats to global security such as AIDS and other profound health threats. These are national security issues, and they must be addressed as such. --Rep. Lee (D-CA) only "no" vote on the H.R. 94 Homeland Defense bill I'd like to teach the world we're nice, And live in harmony, with terrorists and communists — one happy family. I'd like to give the world our nukes and start a peaceful song. To have such might is just not right — America is always wrong. I'd like to give the world our nukes and furnish all their plans. To Red Chinese and Iraqis and crazies in Iran. I'd like to see the world as one, all havin' lots of fun, nukes everywhere, but hey who cares? at least they're not handguns! --Paul Shanklin, parody of the song "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California — these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them? --Michael Moore American propagandist and jackass. One way to respond to terrorists is to listen to the message they are trying to send. --Gar Smith, editor of the "Earth Island Journal" Every war seems to have its comic side, and in the United States many a campus is hosting a round-the-clock standup shtick these days in the form of protests by the Bash-America Left. These pro- Taliban protesters are the same characters who tear up cities in the name of "anti-globalization" every few months, with their Nike shoes, designer jeans, and cellular phones, and who marched to defend Saddam Hussein from "American aggression and imperialism" back during the Gulf War. The main motivating force behind the American Left has always been anti-Americanism, and this has never been so apparent as during the current war against terrorism. The great psychologist Eric Ericsson once remarked that radical politics represent an infantile rebellion against one's parents, and these campus Talibansters illustrate the point wonderfully. --Steven Plaut, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-plaut102901.shtml - We know there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September 11th. . . . What did this administration know and when did it know it, about the events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did they not warn the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered? . . . What do they have to hide? --Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) & see: When confronted, McKinney backpedaled a few millimeters. In a statement she explained: "I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case." I see. Well, just let me just say that I am not aware of any evidence that Ms. McKinney has murdered several children or that she personally profited from sleeping with the entire defensive squad of the Atlanta Falcons. However, a complete investigation might reveal that to be the case. [...] McKinney's hypocrisy is so concentrated it could eat through metal. The only politician I know of who actively tried to profit from Sept. 11, was Cynthia McKinney herself. She's the one who went whoring after Saudi Arabia's blood money after the attacks. --Jonah Goldberg (1969— ) American conservative commentator and author. http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg041202.asp - Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival. --Winston Churchill (1874—1965) British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955]. -- Thoughts from the _RIGHT_ : It's good that we have a healthy skepticism about the actions of our own government and our intentions as a people. But, never forget, "Who are we to judge?" is not an answer. It is a question. And there is a response to it. We are the United States of America, a free society and a free nation which has been, and continues to be, along with a few other comrades- in-arms like Great Britain, the greatest force for good in the history of the world — even after you deduct our considerable mistakes and shortcomings. Through our ideas, enterprise, and generosity we have done more, in the words of Francis Bacon ...to relieve man's estate than any other nation or people in human history. To refute this is not a sign of sophistication; it is a sign of ignorance. --Jonah Goldberg (1969— ) American conservative commentator and author. - One of the most telling things I have seen since the Sept. 11 massacre was an early "peace movement" e-mail. It listed three major demands: stop the war; stop racism; stop ethnic scapegoating. A liberal friend had appended a sardonic comment to the bottom. "Any chance we could come out against terrorism as well?" --Andrew Sullivan (1963— ) Anglo-American journalist. "The Agony of the Left: Forced to choose between the West and the Taliban" Of course the initial response of left-wing intellectuals to Sept. 11 was one jerking of the collective knee. This was America's fault. From Susan Sontag to Michael Moore, from Noam Chomsky to Edward Said, there was no question that, however awful the attack on the World Trade Center, it was vital to keep attention fixed on the real culprit: the United States. Of the massacre, a Rutgers professor summed up the consensus by informing her students that "we should be aware that, whatever its proximate cause, its ultimate cause is the fascism of U.S. foreign policy over the past many decades." Or as a poster at the demonstrations in Washington last weekend put it "Amerika, Get a Clue." --ibid Leftists would like to pretend that any criticism of their views raises the specter of domestic repression. But in a country with a First Amendment, no suppression from government is likely, and in the citadels of the media and the academy, the far left is actually vastly overrepresented. The real issue, as pointed out this week by Britain's Labour prime minister, is that some on the left have expressed "a hatred of America that shames those that feel it." --ibid - Let those who say we must understand the reasons for terrorism come with me to the thousands of funerals we are having in New York City and explain those insane, maniacal reasons to the children who will grow up without fathers and mothers, to the parents who have had their children ripped from them for no reason at all. --Rudy Giuliani (1944— ) Mayor of New York City [1994—2001]. The evidence of terrorism's brutality and inhumanity, of its contempt for life and its contempt for peace, is lying beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center less than two miles from where we meet today. Look at that destruction, that massive, senseless, cruel loss of human life, and then I ask you to look in your own hearts and recognize that there is no room for neutrality on the issue of terrorism. --Rudy Giuliani (1944— ) Mayor of New York City [1994—2001]. In an address to the United Nations. - Michael Kelly (1957—2003) Editor-at-large of the "Atlantic Monthly" and a columnist for the "Washington Post." He died covering the invasion of Iraq. On November 14, 2001 he wrote the following in the "Wahington Post": Perfectly modulated voice of reason: "Good evening, and welcome to 'All Is Lost,' the nightly public affairs program produced by National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corporation. Tonight, we discuss what has been called America's war against terror. I am your host, Perfectly Modulated Voice of Reason. "With me, in our Washington studio, are: Fabled Newsman Who Was There When Saigon Fell ... Scientifically Trained Impartial Scholar ... and Bureau Chief of Second-Rate Regional Monopoly Newspaper Who Is Desperate to be Hired by The New York Times. From London, we are joined by our European affairs analyst, Loathes America and Prays for its Swift Destruction. "First, today's war news. Tens of thousands of Afghans in liberated Kabul greeted President George W. Bush with wild cheers and much waving of American flags. The mayor of Kabul, in a traditional Afghan gesture of welcome, presented President Bush with the head of Osama bin Laden on a pike. Accepting the gaily decorated head, Mr. Bush quipped: 'This shall not stand — at least not without this handy pike!' Meanwhile, across the Middle East, news of the so-called allied victory in Afghanistan appeared to be producing remarkable changes in the political dynamic. Radical Islamic fundamentalism, as Western critics perhaps unfairly call it, seemed under attack. ... "In Iran, tens of thousands of men lined up at barber shops for shaves and Western-style haircuts, with the majority favoring the 'mullet' look, which is popular, we are informed, with young men in some American regions where we have actually never been. ... In Iraq, President Saddam Hussein remained for the fifth day under siege in his summer palace as hundreds of thousands of students gathered outside chanted 'Hey hey, ho ho, the Great and Maximum Leader for Life has got to go.' "The governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait pledged today to develop armies sufficient to protect themselves without American assistance, pointing out that it was wrong to ask the United States to shoulder the burden of defending their wholly corrupt oligarchies. 'After all, we are obscenely rich, and you can only spend so much money on escort services,' noted Kuwaiti emir Sheik Jabir Ahmed Sabah. ... In Israel, newly appointed tourism minister Yasser Arafat announced a new policy of 'peace at any cost.' Saying 'I must have been meshugenah,' Arafat declared: 'Of course, Jerusalem must be the capital of the Jewish homeland, any fool can see that.' "Gentleman, given all this, the question is obvious — Is there any reason to even go on?'' Chorus: "No ... no ... utterly hopeless ... doomed ... repudiation of entire U.S. strategy. ... A colossal failure ... no hope.'' Perfectly Modulated: "Scientifically Trained, why doomed?" Scientifically Trained: "Well, it is important to put all this into context. In the Islamic world, things are never what they seem. As the great Hashemite warrior Abdullah the Less Than Brilliant expressed it, 'The victory of my enemy is my victory.' This is how this week's events will be seen in what I like to call the Arab street — as a prelude and a catalyst to a great uprising against American interests, led by an entire new generation of martyrs inspired to jihad by U.S. belligerence." Perfectly Modulated: "Fabled Newsman, what says the view from inside the Beltway?" Fabled Newsman: "Been there before. Best and brightest. Tet. Vietnamization. No light at the end of the tunnel." Perfectly Modulated: "And would you go so far as to say ... Fabled Newsman: "Yes. Absolutely: Quagmire. Quagmire. Quagmire. Quagmire. Waist deep in the Big Muddy. Quagmire." Perfectly Modulated: "Desperate to be Hired by The Times, what's your take?" Desperate to be Hired: "Please, call me Desperate; all my friends do. Whatever Fabled Newsman said goes double for me. With bells on. You bet. Count me in. Ditto." Perfectly Modulated: "Now let's go to our European analyst, Loathes America, for the insight from over there. Loathes, what is the mood of Europe tonight?" Loathes America: "Bleak, of course. And properly so. I mean, one does not wish to say that this debacle is what America deserves for its arrogance, its vulgarity, its bullying ways — well, actually one does wish to say it, doesn't one rather? Really, one just hates America. Really, one always has, ever since one was just a little chap. You and your bloody Big Macs. I mean, it's about time you lot got the thrashing you damned well deserve, isn't it?" Perfectly Modulated: "Thank you, Loathes America. A valuable insight as always. Gentlemen, last thoughts?" Scientifically Trained: "Things could hardly be worse." Loathes America: "Nonsense. That Pollyanna optimism so typical of you naive colonials. Things could always be worse. And will be. Thank God." Fabled Newsman: "Quag ..." Desperate: "... mire." Perfectly Modulated: "And that wraps up another edition of 'All Is Lost.' Good night, and pleasant dreams." -- Was the WTC, or similar attack, inevitable? Harold Smith, who was working in the War Assets office on the sixty- second floor, knew the sound of revving engines, having served in the army in North Africa. He heard the sound, looked up, saw the plane about two hundred feet away and seemingly coming straight at him, and he ran. From the safety of the south side of the building, he looked up, and saw three women at a window high above him. Smoke was billowing out from behind them. He grabbed whatever first-aid equipment he could find, and started up the stairs, to be turned back at the sixty-fifth floor. He returned to the sixty-second floor, looked out the same window again, this time to see only flames where before there had been three women. Undeterred this time, he raced to the seventy-ninth floor, to encounter Lt. Edward Buchanan, of the New York fire department, and two firemen. Smith identified the office where he thought the three women were trapped. The wall was hot, the door hotter. The fireman doused both the door and Smith, knocked down the door, poured water on the fire, and Smith pulled two women to safety. The heat from the fire had been so intense that the nylon blouse of one of the women had melted onto her chest. Another story, and another classic of heroism and humility, likewise stands out. A coast guard hospital apprentice saw the crash and rushed into the [nearby] Walgreen Drug Store. . ., where he summarily ordered first-aid kits. Without hesitation, and with no financial transaction, the clerk handed over two hypodermic needles, eight grams of morphine, ten tubes of burn ointment, bandages, and alcohol, and the apprentice rushed out. The elevator cable in shaft six had snapped, causing the cab, with two female elevator operators aboard, to land in the subbasement. The hospital apprentice crawled into the cab to discover that the two women, although badly injured, were alive. . . .After applying first aid and carrying out the injured women, the hospital apprentice went up to the seventy- eighth and seventy-ninth floors, where he applied first aid to victims who were suffering from burn and shock. Then, like the Lone Ranger, he walked off without a word, with people wondering who that uniformed man was. --John Tauranac, relaying stories of July 28, 1945, when a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the seventy-eighth and seventy-ninth floors of the Empire State Building. in _The Empire State Building: The Making of a Landmark_ [1995] Ch. 16., "The War". - The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of mortality is part of New York now; in the sounds of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest editions. . . . In the mind of whatever perverted dreamer might loose the lightning, New York must hold a steady, irresistible charm. --E.B. [Elwyn Brooks] White (1899—1985) American essayist and literary stylist. "Here is New York" [1949] - Do you wonder how and why exactly we have it so different, so nice compared to thousands of years of peasants eating rocks? Is it possible that we, the people of the world, are being given a last great gift before everything changes? To me it feels like a gift. [...] It has been said that when an idea's time has come a lot of people are likely to get it at the same time. In the same way, when something begins to flicker out there in the cosmos a number of people, a small group at first, begin to pick up the signals. They start to see what's coming. [...] Something's up. And deep down, where the body meets the soul, we are fearful. [...] Everything's wonderful, but a world is ending and we sense it. ... We live in a world of three billion men and hundreds of thousands of nuclear bombs, missiles, warheads. It's a world of extraordinary germs that can be harnessed and used to kill whole populations, a world of extraordinary chemicals that can be harnessed and used to do the same. Three billion men, and it takes only half a dozen bright and evil ones to harness and deploy. What are the odds it will happen? Put it another way: What are the odds it will not? Low. Nonexistent, I think. When you consider who is gifted and crazed with rage . . . when you think of the terrorist places and the terrorist countries . . . who do they hate most? The Great Satan, the United States. What is its most important place? Some would say Washington. I would say the great city of the United States is the great city of the world, the dense 10-mile-long island called Manhattan, where the economic and media power of the nation resides, the city that is the psychological center of our modernity, our hedonism, our creativity, our hard-shouldered hipness, our unthinking arrogance. [...] We must take the time to do some things. We must press government officials to face the big, terrible thing. They know it could happen tomorrow; they just haven't focused on it because there's no Armageddon constituency. --Peggy Noonan (1950— ) Speechwriter for U.S. presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "There Is No Time, There Will Be Time" _Forbes ASAP_ [30 November 1998] - Muslims love to live in the US but also love to hate it. Many openly claim that the US is a terrorist state but they continue to live in it. Their decision to live here is testimony that they would rather live here than anywhere else. As an Indian Muslim, I know for sure that nowhere on earth, including India, will I get the same sense of dignity and respect that I have received in the US. No Muslim country will treat me as well as the US has. If what happened on September 11th had happened in India, the biggest democracy, thousands of Muslims would have been slaughtered in riots on mere suspicion and there would be another slaughter after confirmation. But in the US, bigotry and xenophobia has been kept in check by media and leaders. In many places hundreds of Americans have gathered around Islamic centers in symbolic gestures of protection and embrace of American Muslims. In many cities Christian congregations have started wearing hijab to identify with fellow Muslim women. In patience and in tolerance ordinary Americans have demonstrated their extraordinary virtues. --M. A. Muqtedar Khan http://www.ijtihad.org/memo.htm It is the protean ability of Western civilization to be self- critical and self-correcting that constitutes its most decisive superiority over any of its rivals. And it is protean not least in its ability to detect what other societies do better, and incorporate such methods into its own armory. All the other systems in the world, notably the Japanese, the Chinese, and the Indian, have learned much from the West in turn, and benefited thereby. The Islamic world has been the least willing to adopt the West's fundamental excellences. That is why it remains poor (despite its wealth of raw materials), unfree, and unhappy. --Paul Johnson (1928— ) British historian. "Why West is Best" _National Review_ [3 December 2001] - For more than five months now, a continuous stream of preposterous criticism of the Americans has had at its core the assumption that such a demotic culture must necessarily be a profoundly stupid one. Yet funnily enough, it's the sophisticates who keep getting everything wrong: the Arab street will rise up! Musharraf will be overthrown! The Taleban will never surrender! Millions will starve! Thousands of Afghan civilians are dead! [...] There's evidently a powerful psychological need among the non- American Western elites to believe that, if America is big, it must also be blundering; if it's powerful, it must also be clumsy; if it's technologically superior, it must also be morally inferior. Hence the frenzied rush to accuse America of "torture"; in Guantanamo, a camp where the medical staff outnumber the prisoners. Atrocious, eh? --Mark Steyn (1959— ) Canadian journalist. "On the right side of history" - We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions — by abandoning every value except the will to power — they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. --George W. Bush (1946— ) The 43rd President of the United States and a former Governor of Texas. - I went to Brooklyn Heights on the evening of March 12th [2002], the day after the lights went on for the first time. There were many, many people out on the promenade. Many of them had cameras of all types. There are wreaths and memorials and candles all along the length of the railing. There were people talking, people crying, people sitting together and sitting alone and staring at the sky. As I stood at the rail contemplating the light, which was very beautiful, a little girl walked up to the rail and stood no more than three feet away from me. She was very young and very dressed up. She also had a little camera. She had come to take a picture of her father. Her father was the light. Her mother had told her that her father was the light. The light was her father. She was dressed up to take a picture of her father. I can hardly write about it now. . . --Written by the designer of the project, Richard Gould [The Tower of Light shone from where the WTC once stood.] - The Air Force has maintained that fighter jets that had belatedly been sent aloft to intercept the hijacked planes would have shot down Flight 93 before it reached Washington. "We are not so sure," the Sept. 11 commission said. "We are sure that the nation owes a debt to the passengers of United 93. Their actions saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the Capitol or the White House from destruction." --"San Francisco Chronicle" "When government failed: Passengers of Flight 93 saved America from even greater horror" [23 July 2004] --- In memory: No man knows when his hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so men are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them. --Bible "Ecclesiastes" 9:12 NIV He made no resistance whatever, and was stabbed in the back...I must not dwell upon the fearful repast... Words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality. --Edgar Allan Poe (1809—1849) American poet and short-story writer. _The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym_ ch. 8 [1838] No more to build on there. And they, since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. --Robert Frost (1874—1963) American poet. We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall. --Robert Graves (1895—1985) English poet. _The White Goddess_ - Remember the WTC, the Pentagon, the heroes on Flight 93, the innocent people on the planes and in the buildings, and the firefighters who gave their lives so that others might live. Please, don't ever forget. --kap end page | UGLY - UNICORNS | UNHAPPINESS | UNIONS - USELESS | VACATION - VENGENCE | VENICE - VICTORY | VIGILANCE - VIRGINITY | VIRTUE - VULGARITY | WAGES - WAR & PEACE | WAR (THE CIVIL) - WAR (THE REVOLUTIONARY) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (THOUGHTS ABOUT) - PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WAR (VIETNAM) | WAR (WORLD WAR I) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 1 (A-M) | WAR (WORLD WAR II) PAGE 2 (N-Z) | WASHINGTON (D.C.) - WEAK/WEAKNESS | WEALTH - WEASELS | WEATHER - WELLS (H.G.) | WEST (THE OLD/WILD) - WILDE (OSCAR) | WILL - WINNING | WINTER - WISDOM | WISHING - WIVES | WOMEN - WOMEN'S LIB | WOMEN'S RIGHTS - WORDS | WORK - WORLD | WORLD TRADE CENTER & PENTAGON DISASTER, 11 SEPTEMB | WORRY - WRONG | WRITING | YESTERDAY - ZOOS | | R | S | T | U - END | | Return Home | The Credits | The Cast | Act 1 | Act 2 | Act 3 | The End | The Reviews | Photos | |
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