Saturday 11 September 2010

Nine Years On….

So, it’s the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Centre atrocity. I can’t quite believe it.

It seems it was only a few years ago I was sitting in my office, having had a particularly stressful morning dealing with cretins from a (sadly unnameable!) firm of so-called ‘professional consultants’, when the call came in.

My mother had seen the report on TV, and rang me to tell me that ‘A small aircraft had crashed into one of the Twin Towers!’. That was, at the time, the assumption; the newsreaders were speculating that the pilot had been dazzled by the brilliant sunshine, and the mental image that came to mind was of a small private jet, a Cessna or Lear, off-course. An accident.

While she was still on the phone, another report came in, and she relayed to me that they were replaying the film of it…

Of course, it wasn’t a replay. It was the second plane.

And immediately, we both grasped that this was no accident, even while the newsreaders were scrambling to catch up with what had happened. Work stopped as calls were made, the office internet went down (it was Before Twitter and Before Smartphones), and it was a time I hope never to see repeated.

Even 7/7 didn’t have that frantic, almost dreamlike quality – it was awful, yes, but it was bombing. Londoners, having lived and worked through the IRA, knew bombing, even if suicide bombing was unknown. But maniacs flying passenger jets into buildings? No, that was unheard of. That was different. That told us the world had changed...

As I walked home that evening, I saw a cluster of people around the local TV showroom (now demolished) watching the replay of the towers falling in total silence. Another sign that the world had changed.

And a couple of years later, I was watching 'The West Wing', episiode three 'A Proportional Response'. In it, the new President's staff doctor is killed in a terrorist attack and his reaction is to angrily deny that a 'proportional response' (blowing up a few non-occupied targets) is the correct way forward.

He cites ancient history:

President Bartlet: "Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civus Romanus -- I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens."

Of course, this being a drama series about liberal wish-fulfilment he's quickly confronted with enormous casualty figures and the likely consequences of such action, and quickly backs down (It's noticable that a sign of the awfulness of his dilemma is when he begs a cigarette from one of the Joint Chiefs - would that scene be allowed today?).

But I come back to that scene again and again. How
many British and American lives have been lost not in the initial actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the rebuilding afterward? The media loves heartwrenching pictures of children playing football and accepting sweet from soldiers, yet the reality is often quite different.

And we see that - despite the pundits assuring us that the 'moderate Muslims' do not endorse the actions of the extremists - they clearly either have no control over them, or no desire for control over them.

And I wonder again if that initial impulse for a non-proportional response, so decried in the modern world where we like to think ourselves 'better than them', isn't right after all. How are we better than them, if we needlessly spill our own blood in futile attempts to win over people who cannot be won over? Who do not want our freedom?

If 'bridge-building' and 'hearts and minds' and all the other concessions haven't brought about a halt to the actions of the few extremists, perhaps it's time to see if abject, pants-wetting fear of the dreadful consequences of NOT checking them will do the trick with the general population...

32 comments:

The Filthy Engineer said...

Personally, I would write an open letter stating that if there are any further atrocities on the scale of 9/11, then a nuclear weapon would be the means of reply. Target, Mecca.

(Only a small one, of course)

Or am I going over the top?

Furor Teutonicus said...

How many British and American lives have been lost not in the initial actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the rebuilding afterward?

And THAT was their main mistake.

"Rebuild"?

We should wipe the shit holes from the face of the earth, not "rebuild" them. And that goes for the ENTIRE middle East, minus Israel.

dickiebo said...

Your last paragraph sums it up nicely.

Trevor said...

Following on from The Filthy Engineer's idea, perhaps there could be a sliding scale of retribution: the initial response, for minor transgressions, could be spraying Mecca with pork fat.

I'm with Furor about the 'rebuilding' projects: just as feckless individuals in this country should not be kept in luxury at the expense of others, neither should there be a sort of international welfare system for failed states. Let them enjoy the fruits of their precious 'cultures' and learn that savagery, corruption, inbreeding, self-deceit and grovelling in the dirt five times a day will not lead to prosperity.

IanF4 said...

What Furor T said, the "rebuilt" nations of Afghanistan and Iraq are just re-established Sharia states, and hardly beacons of liberty and equality that the "brave new world" was supposed to be like, their western inspired constitutions still allow the murder and persecution of non-Muslims with impunity, much like the regimes that were forcibly removed.

So what was the mission again ?

Trevor said...

I was at home that day and sat transfixed by the images on the tv. I had the sound turned down in order to listen to local (Birmingham) radio. One of the first callers was a moslem worried about a backlash against his co-religionists. In retrospect, this was telling as at that time there had been hardly any speculation about the perpetrators. I assume that most people at that early stage were, like me, simply too stunned to do anything other than feel horror at the sight of fellow humans jumping to certain death from a burning building. That this caller was inspired to phone in not to express even faux sympathy for the actual victims but rather to whinge about the possibility that infidels might not accord sufficient respect to adherents to the 'Religion of Peace' really struck me. Of course, he wasn't in any way unrepresentive: within hours we saw film of crones throughout the Middle East ululating with joy at the death of their enemies. I long for the opportunity to return the compliment.

MrAngryman said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MrAngryman said...

They despise us and our 'decadent' ways. They have no interest in negotiating a 'peace'. I feel that the only way we can be safe is for the governments who support terrorists fear the West more than the Imams who preach hate. Im all for the Nukes we pay so much for being used as an open deterrent. Next terrorist atrocity,tell them to pick a city the Arab world doesn't feel it needs :)

(Wv is Winge: how apt is that)

Anonymous said...

I was in Zambia at the time and lightening had hit the T so it was a few days later that I had heard of the 9/11 carry on, had a lovely time there, sadly 2 of the 3 people I was with have since died.
But very happy memories.

Ranter said...

9/11 - the day a 'stargate' opened from our modern world back 500 years into a medieval mindset. I still cannot understand how, at the start of teh 21st Century, millions and millions of people believe in an all powerful deity and his prophet. Mental. The West proves itself weak and increasingly powerless day after day, there's no mutually assured destruction here and 'GOD' (well he's as good as anyone) help us when the Taliban get their hands on Pakistan's nukes. I'd turn the whole fucking palce (except Israel) into a Goddam beach.

Angry Exile said...

Should have been all or nothing.

Option A - No fucking about, especially not in countries that had nothing to do with it, but just throw the entire might of the US military - all two million of them, or at least as many as possible - at it. And at the same time buy up all the opium that the farmers produced and which the Taliban had banned them from growing, and let them grow even more if they want. Bring lots of food. Bring lots of money. Spend it like a drunken sailor. Make lots of new friends among the locals who lived under Taliban rule and suffered for it. Thank them politely when they tell you, their generous new friends who spend so much money with them, where the Taliban are hiding today before sending a division or two to wipe every single last one of the cunts out, and then thank the locals again. And give them more money. And do the same the next day and the day after until they've told you where all the Taliban are and you've killed all of them apart from the ones you want to put on trial.

Option B - openly laugh at them for putting five years of effort into something that did no long term financial harm to America, had no effect on America's military at all, and caused fewer deaths than six months worth of swimming pool accidents. Note with scorn the need to resort to kamikaze attacks with aircraft due to the lack of any real weapons with which they could harm the US. Rebuild the towers to the original design to send the message (to quote Penn & Teller): "Business as usual, motherfucker!" Show them how insignificant their efforts are with a chuckle and a contemptuous smile, but keep the criminal investigation going and be ready for any opportunity to grab the badger bearded fucktroon and his buddies and put them on trial. Not as the warriors they so desperately need to believe they are and would play to their followers in a big way, but simply as criminals not unlike the Mafia. Start with charging them for the theft of aircraft, since being treated as common thieves will really kick them in the self esteem, and finish with 2,977 counts of conspiracy to murder. Jail or execute per the law in the state of New York.

What Dubya went for was Option C - go in but without enough men or equipment, get distracted by unnecessarily invading Iraq because Saddam might have tried to have your old man assassinated, piss off many of the locals who might otherwise have had incentive to help by destroying their opium crops because your own prohibitive instincts are as bad as the fucking Taliban's, watch opium production rise anyway but to your loss instead of your benefit, waste money on nation building and an unwanted system of government that could have been spent buying enormous support from locals, end up getting twice as many of your and your allies troops killed as were murdered in the original incident, be not noticeably closer to catching Bin Laden than you were on Sept 12th 2001, spend so long arguing about what to build at the site of the attacks that 9 years later you're not a lot closer to that either, make flying anywhere a pain in the arse and deal with the danger to your people's cherished freedoms by incrementally taking them away. Did I miss anything?

How you get from the disaster of Option C to either A or B I don't know. Obviously A is easier and doesn't require much more than political will, but politically it's probably far harder now than it would have been in 2001, not least because it's expensive and the money spent in the last 9 years is already a lot. But going to Option B now would look like surrender, and the Yanks still haven't got over the one in 1975. My feeling is we could be having this conversation again on the fifteenth anniversary.

Anonymous said...

ANother 15 years is indeed a possibility but I don't want to see millions of pounds spunked away on this half hearted effort and I especially don't want to see any more young men and women walking about on metal legs as well as every other hideous injury and they are STILL having to rely on charity whilst the government, the political class and all the other limp dick liberal wankers carry on as if nothing is happening - well none of it affects their everyday lives does it? The present conflict has been a waste of time, money and lives, the latetr being the most dreadful waste. The appeasers are still with us, I mean if Adolf Hitler poped up today, western governments would still fuck about. Even with all this going on it is publicly discussed about withdrawal dates, about the reduction in size of the armed forces and we still grovel so as not to upset the ever growing moss-slem cancer in our midst. It is a fucking disgrace.

Mark Wadsworth said...

"And I wonder again if that initial impulse for a non-proportional response, so decried in the modern world where we like to think ourselves 'better than them', isn't right after all."

Yeah, but actually invading Afgh, or Iraq (which had nothing to do with it) was the wrong kind of non-prop response. I'm with TFE on this. The free world will have to draw up a list of top ten targets, and every time the free world (by majority) agrees that the Islamists have gone too far, yet again, then we nuke the next target up.

I think that if they actually stone that woman to death, a tactical nuclear strike on an Iranian nuclear reactor seems "about right". In exchange for 7/7, maybe blowing up that mosque in East Jerusalem would have been fair, and so on.

Of course, we can debate what the top ten targets are, and whether any particular atrocity merits a NPR, but hey, that's details.

And as a fall back, let's keep up a constant campaign ofridicule. Nothing like a good chuckle.

Jiks said...

I remember that day so clearly, our office gradually ground to a halt as we realised the enormity of what was happening.

My best friend was on a flight to New York at the time and while I knew it was very unlikely she was on one of the planes involved the concern was still there. She ended up stuck in Canada for days and it took just as long to confirm she was OK. Of course a lot of people were not ...

As to what we, as the West, should have done in response, I still don't know. I'm pretty sure all we have done was wrong, however. We turned Iraq into a failed state and hot bed of terrorism, I can't see Afganistan ending well at all either. Far too many of our servicemen have died for no clear purpose. Those two wars have helped radicalise many more muslims increasing the terror threat not reducing it.

At home we have had our liberty reduced in the name of fighting terror, whilst at the same time radical groups are funded by the state and attempts to fight them hamstrung by political correctness. Worst result of our response long term, I think, is that we lost the moral high ground.

It's a depressing picture. What do we do about? Well, stopping Iran getting nukes to then hand off to their proxies should be the top priority but both Obama and Putin seem intent on actively assisting rather than stopping them.

I view muslims (especially the women) as the victims of their religion as much as the rest of us. Most of them just want to get on with their lives just as do most of us in the West. Turning Mecca or wherever to glass is not the answer, it would make as bad as the rabid dogs that flew the planes into the towers and would breed millions more willing to die for revenge.

Stewart Cowan said...

I didn't get to see any TV pictures until about 5.30pm - just after Building 7 had also collapsed. I was watching, gobsmacked, the images of the day in quick succession and thinking - no way did the Americans not know this was going to happen.

Years of study later and I have no doubt that 9/11 was an inside job.

Anonymous said...

Careful, Stewart start going down that road and the 'coincidences' pile up so high you can't see over them anymore.

Who used building 7?

Who held the lease on the WTC and scored massively on the insurance? (Who breakfasted every day at the Windows on the World restaurant, every day except one ;-)

Who suggested the Harbor Authority lease the buildings out in the first?

Whose firm got the contract for that high grade steel scrap?

Who was in chrge of WTC security?

Who was in charge of airport security where the flights originated?

Who persuaded most of the victims families to accept a payout and drop a criminal investigation?

Who headed the investigtion for the remainder?

On and on and on.

Ive no idea what actually happened in detail - but there are way too many people wearing stripey jumpers, facemasks and carrying bags marked 'swag' holding bricks while standing next to shattered jewellers windows and shouting "Not me guv! They went thataway"

Of course these coincidences are just that, coincidences. Israel is our ally in the war on terror. Why its believed as many five Israelis died on 9/11, count 'em, five. Still, thats five more than have died fighting in Iraq or Aghanistan. (By another of those happy coincidence nearly all the other WTC Israelis didnt turn up for work that day.)

JuliaM said...

"Or am I going over the top?"

Nope!

"And THAT was their main mistake."

Indeed.

"...the "rebuilt" nations of Afghanistan and Iraq are just re-established Sharia states, and hardly beacons of liberty and equality that the "brave new world" was supposed to be like..."

Exactly! If that's the sort of society they weant, fine by me. Their country, their rules. Why the hell are we hemorrhaging lives to provide them with anything else?

"In retrospect, this was telling as at that time there had been hardly any speculation about the perpetrators."

I remember asking my mother if AQ had claimed responsibility, and her asking who they were....

"I feel that the only way we can be safe is for the governments who support terrorists fear the West more than the Imams who preach hate."

I'm rapidly coming to that conclusion...

"My feeling is we could be having this conversation again on the fifteenth anniversary."

Me too. If only we had that time machine, eh?

JuliaM said...

"The appeasers are still with us, I mean if Adolf Hitler poped up today, western governments would still fuck about."

Oh, absolutely! The 'Indy' and 'Guardian' would make great reading. wouldn't they?

"The free world will have to draw up a list of top ten targets, and every time the free world (by majority) agrees that the Islamists have gone too far, yet again, then we nuke the next target up."

Do they even HAVE ten targets of value..? ;)

I like the constant ridicule idea though...

"We turned Iraq into a failed state and hot bed of terrorism..."

I think it was that before we went in. The problem is, we thought we could change it. We can't - it has to want to be changed.

Angry Exile said...

Not so much a failed state as one run by a gangster. Annoyingly that might have been preferable to what it is now.

JuliaM said...

"Years of study later and I have no doubt that 9/11 was an inside job."

*sigh*

Stewart, history is littered with events about which even normally-sensible people have driven themselves crazy seeing patterns in this that simply aren't there...

Do you want to come across like this chap?

"Careful, Stewart start going down that road and the 'coincidences' pile up so high you can't see over them anymore."

There follows a long, long list of 'facts' (the mastermind called all the jews and told them not to turn up to work!) that have been debunked and shown to be false time and time again, and co-incidences (the jews profited from the disaster!) that could equally apply to any other large building/event in NYC.

*sigh*

JuliaM said...

"Not so much a failed state as one run by a gangster. Annoyingly that might have been preferable to what it is now."

We always used to deal with the gangsters running foreign states by paying them off, and then, if they got too cheeky, having them bumped off with a subtle message to the next in line not to overstep the boundaries.

But then wer got delusions of grandeur...

Anonymous said...

A brilliant sense of farce maintained over the last few days Julia. I'd be burning Arabic copies of the Koran myself, if it wasn't for the company it attracts (I really can't take fundamentalist Xtians!).
The Franco-British plan on the Middle East in 1956 (Suez) was about right, but the US saw its real enemy as European Imperialism and went off on its own cunning route of domination. Suez was a plan to invade all the ME and I wonder what the current equivalent is. Those who wonder how we would react to Nazis today are missing the plot - we have already re-established failing economies and likely super-inflation and done nothing much to change the solution (large scale war). I would guess oil (more vital in food production than most know) and 'lebensraum' and other raw materials (Africa) are on the agenda, but where would the battle lines be drawn? US, Russia, Europe, China, India, Japan versus the Rest for a grand, 'new' peace?
Where is science in this debate? Still harping on about the existence of god?

Anonymous said...

All this time on, 'who did' 9/11? And 'who' has benefited from the 'rebuilding'? Obama has admitted to a Trillion in war costs and used this as an excuse for US poverty. What are the real dangers in the world to sensible living? Where is any politics demanding answers?

Furor Teutonicus said...

Do they even HAVE ten targets of value..? ;)

They only have to be of value to THEM.

You can make a kid scream and wail quite nicely by kicking in what to you is just a cardboard box, but to them is their castle and kingdom.

I jus had an idea. How about models of "the black rock at mecca, as dissinfectant containers in piss pots?

Stewart Cowan said...

Julia,

Like I said, I have studied this in some detail. There are far too many "coincidences" like Anonymous says, although I don't go with the anti-Israel stuff, although I'm sure Mossad knew. In fact intelligence agencies in various countries were warning the Americans what was on the cards. And bin Laden was a CIA asset.

There had to be an excuse to sell the pre-planned invasion of Afghanistan to the people.

And as allcoppedout said, "And 'who' has benefited from the 'rebuilding'?"

The usual suspects, the "military-industrial complex".

E.g. Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, have made billions out of rebuilding contracts (as usual). If I remember correctly, Cheney got something like a $20 million or more payoff when he left as CEO.

And it was Cheney who ordered NORAD to stand down on 9/11.

I mean really. I don't want to call folk "deniers", because that's a trick of the Righteous, but please look into this, after all, it has been used as an excuse to steal our freedoms.

Mark Wadsworth said...

FT: "How about models of "the black rock at mecca, as dissinfectant containers in piss pots?"

Excellent idea. Keep 'em coming.

The truth will out said...

I have read many of the 'facts' on 9/11 but the one fact that consistently escapes is that there is still no one who has been able to prove it was an 'inside' job. You would think with so many people involved in the WTC cover-up -- and we must be talking thousands -- that just one person might break ranks to reveal something that is demonstrably correct and explode the 'conspiracy.'

I mean, ever been in an office of a dozen people and see how long a supposed secret lasts before everyone knows?

Sorry, but the truth is that while there may be coincidences as such, they are scraps of information trawled over to the tiniest degree in the hope of finding a link.

We alas have to accept that a 'conspiracy involving the Jews' suits various turds to want us the think it was an inside job: the muppets who attacked the WTC on 9/11 were scum from one of the world's most popular psychopathic gatherings. Deflecting our attention from their own stench helps their cause, which is pretty much well-known.

But if you want to think of America killing Americans is more viable than religion-of-peaceniks killing Americans and others, then please go ahead.

The RoP lovers will thank you for it. Probably just before they insist your wife wears a headscarf all the time...

Stewart Cowan said...

The truth will out,

The trick with pulling off a huge conspiracy is that only a few people need to know what’s really going on, e.g certain politicians, industrialists, secret service bosses and their specially chosen psychopaths.

The project is decompartmentalised so that people who are working on it aren't aware.

For example, whoever procured the explosives and wiring, etc., wouldn't need to have known what it was intended for.

And most people are good at obeying orders, whatever they are.

Some who knew what they were doing would have believed that they were doing it for the greater good - sorting out those dirty A-rabs.

And btw, I very much wish it had been them!

JuliaM said...

"I'd be burning Arabic copies of the Koran myself, if it wasn't for the company it attracts.."

Quite!

"There are far too many "coincidences" like Anonymous says..."

Stewart, I know better than to try to argue with someone bent on believing that 'sinister forces are at work'. You see mostly what you want to see.

But as TTWO points out, a lot of the people eager to believe in a mass conspiracy are also the people who are first on the scene claiming that the government couln't organise a party at a beer production facility when it comes to taxes, justice systems, etc, etc.

Both can't be true, can they?

JuliaM said...

"The trick with pulling off a huge conspiracy is that only a few people need to know what’s really going on, e.g certain politicians, industrialists, secret service bosses and their specially chosen psychopaths."

Compartmentalisation works, true, on a small scale. But not on something of this size.

Steve T said...

I remember a comment not long after 911 which I think is still true.

Until they pray 5 times a day that the Americans won't come this day you will not see peace.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan should have gone in smashed the regime down flat, very quick, very easy, then left, just leaving a message that they had better rebuild something more to our liking or we will be back.

Just keep repeating as necessary.

After all they prefer the strong to the weak horse.

Furor Teutonicus said...

Heres one to get them in all of a quandry, how about a "burn pictures of mohamhed day?"

Stewart Cowan said...

Julia,

Like I said, I have studied this in some detail. There are far too many "coincidences" like Anonymous says, although I don't go with the anti-Israel stuff, although I'm sure Mossad knew. In fact intelligence agencies in various countries were warning the Americans what was on the cards. And bin Laden was a CIA asset.


Ach laddie! I solved THAT years ago.

It was a plot using Elvis Presley and Marlyn Monroe as guardians of the 38th floor of the WTC, where Hoover, kept alive by nazi alien zombies from the moon, kept all the REAL photos from Niel Armstrong, showing their secret base. The Masons found out, and employee Jimmy Hendrix, kept alive by Allied alien zombies, to steal the evidence, (Nixon was an advisor)and make it public so they could discredit the F.B.I.

The C.I.A found out but had no time to destroy the evidence, as Wilhelm Mielke was on another project. So, having to act quick, they got a couple of rag head mates to nick a few aeroplanes and fly them into the WTC. In return for which, Saudi gets cheap weapons systems for the next twenty years.

Realising that some evidence may be on computers at building 7, they got another couple of MARTIAN alien nazi zombies to blow that up as well.

Makes more bloody sense than 99% of the shit coming out of the "conspiracy theory" industry.

HEY! Never thought? the "Conspiracy industry" is ENCOURAGED and FUNDED by big Government!

Nothing so good has happened for them since Goebbels re-invented propoganda.

They do not even have to BOTHER denying anything now. YOU tin foil hatters do it all for them....For FREE!!

Dumbfucks.