Tuesday, September 11, 2001 -- Ten Years On

What I remember most is the blue.

The empty blue, and the quiet, of a sky with no jets, undivided by crisscrossing contrails, no engine noise of aircraft going and coming from Midway and O'Hare.

Nancy and I had been married only five months. We lived on the Northwest Side of Chicago just off Irving Park, under the O'Hare flight path. We might as well have been living a century earlier, for all the evidence of the skies.

I had just turned right off Irving Park onto the Kennedy Expressway onramp when the report of the first hit on the World Trade Center came on the radio. I do not have a note on this, but I surely was listening, as I did every morning, to sports-talk radio station WSCR The Score. My recollection is also a little dim on what I listened to the rest of the way downtown, although I think The Score switched its feed to an affiliated news-radio channel, or perhaps even TV audio. If not, then I surely switched over to NewsRadio WBBM 780. For some reason, even in spite of the earliest erroneous reports that it was a small plane or maybe a DC-3 that hit the first tower, I never thought it was an accident. Can’t tell you why, just a feeling.

I was driving south on the Kennedy and toward downtown when the second plane hit.

My eyes went immediately upward – to the Sears Tower, as it was then known, already visible in the distance. The Sears was at 233 South Wacker Drive. My office was in 300 South Wacker -- kitty-cornered from it. It stood with what seems, in retrospect, like a kind of innocence.

Nancy was the principal of an elementary school in a near-northern suburb, with charge of 600 children. I called her from the car and got her out of a meeting. It was the first notice to her school. She recalls that the day proceeded with great professionalism on the part of her staff. The children were not told; Nancy thought it best that the news be presented first by their parents. The most interesting datum: Only one parent asked to take her child out of the school that day.

I had the only TV in our office, a little JVC portable with rabbit ears that had awful reception in the Wacker Drive canyon. Attorneys and staff drifted in and out for updates, disbelieving and understanding at the same time.

I didn't get any work done that day. Out my window I looked directly across the street at the looming Sears. Of course, no one knew how many more symbols of American strength and success the enemy had targeted. Building management didn't mess around. They closed the place and shooed us all out of the place by late morning.

I was struck by how normal everything seemed on the street when I left the building. No obvious evacuations, even from the Sears, no crowds gathering, what seemed like normal traffic and people just walking about as one would see on any other normal workday. The wonder was dispelled when I arrived at the parking garage to find it nearly empty.

*    *    *

With nothing to do, with wanting to do nothing, but watch TV, I began to write. When I began, President Bush was located just a few miles from my childhood home in Bellevue, Nebraska, at the Strategic Air command Underground at Offutt Air Force Base, across the barbed-wire fence from my backyard. (I think SAC had actually been deactivated as a command by that time, but the Underground -- did you see Dr. Strangelove, or that original Star Trek where they had to go back in time and infiltrate the Air Force Base in "Omaha"? – remained a central and highly-secure command center.)

I've gone back for the first time in ten years to what I wrote on that day and in the day or two following. A lot of it was political, and I don’t want to spoil this essay with too much of that. Here’s a sample:

-- The first word that came to mind about the attacks was not "cowardly," it was "pathetic."   I thought the attacks were a spasm -- that was the word I used -- unlikely to be repeated in any form for quite some time.

-- I was prepared to believe that it was Osama bin Laden's cadres, but I also remembered Oklahoma City -- everyone assumed that was a foreign attack, but it turned out to be some white loser. What persuaded me in the short run that the rush to judgment was probably in the right direction was that the dozen-or-so attackers lost their own lives. Not your typical Western strategy.

-- I assumed that I would know some of the victims. I went to law school in New York City. Many of my friends went to work in the Financial District, and my first boss at Kirkland & Ellis had become a senior executive at Morgan Stanley in the WTC. After contacting my New York City friends, I was relieved that I was unable to identify any acquaintance who died in New York.

-- This will sound cold: I wasn't sad or horrified or excited. My primary thought was that we know much more about the world than we knew the day before. It was a supremely clarifying set of actions. “Barbarism will face challenges that it has avoided to date,” I wrote. “This is a good thing.”   (I was surprised then as now that there were some of the political class who found no instruction in 9/11 at all.)
-- “Afghanistan,” I wrote. “The 51st State.”

-- I remarked on the composure of Americans There was no public demand for immediate retaliation.

-- Hundreds of movies were instantly dated. Their New York panoramas included the World Trade Center.

-- As we are moved by the memorials this weekend, we forget – I forgot, anyway – how much brainless crap we had to endure from much of the international (and even some of the American) Left in the days following 9/11. There were those who truly thought that America deserved what it got. They’re still around, and not all of them are beyond our borders.

-- I understood the concern over “destabilization” of Middle Eastern regimes if we made war against the terrorist-sponsoring governments of Araby. But what ended up on the page was: “Well, who with any sense feels invested in the stability of their particular brand of evil?”

-- Something prompted me to write: “I am not ashamed to say that I have not the slightest interest in what teenagers have to say about this conflict.” Also: “I am reasonably certain that pop culture celebrities (Madonna holding forth today, I read, that ‘violence begets violence’) should shut their pieholes for the duration.”

-- I fretted over the Problem of Islam. On the one hand, our large Muslim population was not and had never been a threat. Just as obviously, worldwide (and now domestic) terror was authored almost exclusively by Islamofascists claiming authority through the religion itself.  I could only hope that extreme moral relativism took a hit that day – not all philosophies are created equal, and some of them should die.

*    *     *

My final memory is not a 9/11 memory at all.

It starts in September 1958 in Bellevue, Nebraska.

Nowadays when kids get to first grade, a lot of them can read. Back then, only I and one other kid had this skill when we arrived in Mrs. Duvall’s classroom at Belleaire Elementary School. We could read, if not understand, almost anything you put in front of us. Let me amend that – I’m sure I didn’t understand a lot of what I read, but the other kid – his name was Bryan Jack – probably did. Mrs. Duvall gave us a stack of books and sent us off to the corner to read them while she brought the other kids along. (Our classmates were divided into groups – the Redbirds, the Bluebirds, some Other-Color-birds. Bryan and I, for some reason, were the Snowbirds.)

Bryan was a true prodigy, brilliant even as a skinny little kid. High-strung but quite apparently a “brain,” as we called gifted kids back then. His family lived just a few doors down from us. Thrown together because we could read, we became best friends. His father, like the fathers of many of my friends, was in the Air Force, and after three or four years the Air Force transferred the Jacks to Texas and I had to say goodbye to my supersmart friend.

I kept in touch with Bryan for awhile, but adolescent boys are not good mail correspondents, and the relationship faded. Fortunately, my mother stayed in touch with his mother, so I always knew a little about what Bryan was up to.

He ended up at CalTech and Stanford with multiple degrees and a doctorate.

Eventually, I learned, he went to work at the Pentagon.

As the decades passed, I seldom thought of him.

Oddly, like me, he married for the first time very shortly before 9/11. His wife was New York City artist Barbara Rachko. On her website, she displays a striking, even startling painting of the two of them titled “Us and Them.” (Reproduction is without permission – Barbara, apologies and hoping for your pardon.)

If Bryan had been sitting in his chair at the Pentagon on 9/11, he would have lived through it. He wasn’t.

He was in the plane that hit it.

Revisiting Thoughts on the Future of Israel

    
Sorry for the partial rerun here.  On February 3, I wrote this:

===========

Not Too Early to Ask – How Do You Feel About Israel? Are You Willing to Go to War for It? Egypt. Jordan’s unstable. Yemen is about to go and is a snakepit of al Qaeda conspiracy. The Muslim Brotherhood is on record for Israel’s destruction and jihad against the U.S. We know about Iran. When we leave Iraq, Afghanistan . . . . If those governments become radicalized, how long will Saudi Arabia be able to hold out?

Israel has been a critical U.S. ally for decades. Such a critical ally, that some say it has had an influence on U.S. policy that is disproportionate to its importance. At least until recently, we have been pledged to its survival.


Israel has military expertise, but take a look at the real estate involved

But folks, it is not too early to say that the noose is tightening. It is not too early to imagine Israel with not one single surrounding country with which it is reliably at peace.  

I don’t need to remind you that Iran will soon be nuclear, and Pakistan already is.

And the Islamists -- and, I very strongly suspect, some percentage of Muslims who in other respects would call themselves moderate -- hate Israel and desire its destruction not because it is imperialist, not because it threatens Islam, not because its treatment of Palestinians, but because it is not Islam. And because its founding was midwifed by the victorious WW II allies and placed in their midst. I am not here to debate whether the creation of Israel in 1948 was a good idea or whether Arab perceptions are accurate. I am here to say that diplomacy is not going to change the growing Muslim fundamentalism that holds that Israel must go. I read today that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has repudiated the Camp David accords.

So when the missiles begin to fall – not next year, maybe not for the next five years, but maybe a decade from now, how will the U.S. respond?

Which begs the critical long-term question, really the only important question that is going to come out of this, the question for our grandsons: If the Middle East as a whole decides for Islamist primitivism, and makes Israel its first target, will the U.S. risk a world war with Islam – that is what it would be – to come to Israel’s defense?

========

President Obama today gave a strongly pro-Palestinian address and called for Israel to return to its 1967 borders.   It's an extraordinary position for an American politician to take, but it is utterly unsurprising that this president took it.

Sooner or later, what is happening in this "Arab Spring" is going to be more about Israel's survival, and less about anti-Western terror.  Looks like it is going to be sooner.

My Joke Proposal for World Peace

I recently read a very lengthy and thoroughly engrossing article in The New Yorker centering on a well-known world religion.  This religion has the following characteristics, among others:

     --  It believes in a very colorful founding mythology that is centered on a single charismatic leading figure.

     --  It believes that a single book has all the answers and provides a complete, consistent, and correct guide to all aspects of life and death.

     --  It has millions of believers worldwide.

     --  Some of its acolytes behave as though they have been brainwashed.

     --  Acolytes are willing to suffer all manner of deprivation and degradation for their faith. 

     --  It has a single leader and sub-leaders whose edicts are regarded as infallible and must be followed.

    --   Most significantly:   It cannot stand the slightest criticism of its tenets.  Even the most innocuous questioning of its beliefs or tactics, even parody or other humorous treatment, calls forth a variety of well-organized and severe defensive measures.  These measures include mob action, lawsuits, propagandistic publicity, accusations of discrimination, and even violence.  It sustains itself largely on instilling in its acolytes the belief that the rest of the world is against it, and that those who are not acolytes are condemned.  Believers are expected to sacrifice enormously to advance this religion.

Nope, not Islam.  Nope, not Radical Islam, if that is a different thing from Vanilla Islam (and who the heck knows?  But that's another article). 

You've guessed by now.


A-yup.  Scientology.  (You can find the article here.)

Unhinged Celebrity Scientologist Tom Cruise declaring
his love for Katie Holmes to an apparently hissing Oprah

But read that list again.  It could have been Radical Islam, couldn't it?   Especially that last bit about how touchy-touchy they are about, oh, you know, opposing views in a free society?

Unhappy Muslim



So here's my proposal:

Get the CIA, the FBI, the Secret Service, and Howard Stern's listeners (that last population might be the most effective) to infiltrate Scientology and Radical Islam in large numbers.  Among Scientologists, they spread the idea that the greatest threat to Scientology is Radical Islam, that in fact R.I. has an active program to attack Scientology from without and within, all over the world.

 

Scientology Leader and Accused Serial Batterer Richard Miscavage


You're way ahead of me:  At the same time, the R.I. infiltrators spread the same information about the threat to Islamic fundamentalism represented by Scientology's highly-organized, insanely-motivated worldwide cadres. 

These efforts can be supported by fake websites, propaganda, YouTube, the possibilities are endless.



And then you stand back and watch these two stupendous international nuisances eliminate one another.

 

An Operating Thetan VII

 Result:  World peace.

Or, if not, at least we can go back to arguing with the Russians and the Chinese, which we seem to know how to do, as opposed to suppressing fascistic and imperialistic religions, which we seem to not. 

If you want a nice tidy Cold War, you really need to be dealing with a better class of international thug.

*     *     *

Follow Your Cool Hot Center on Twitter:  @CoolHotCenter



Egypt, Israel -- and Our Grandsons

The Memsahib and I are blessed to have three sensational grandsons and two more arriving in 2011. What’s happening in the Middle East is of the greatest significance for their lives, their parents’ lives and, perhaps, depending on how quickly things move, on the life of the Mem and me. I’m going to try your patience with another blast on the Egypt situations. First, it’s necessary to understand this:

Everyone is Wrong. It is almost impossible – no, it is impossible in fact – to say anything about the situation in Egypt without sounding fatuous – no, without being fatuous. Your Cool Hot Center most assuredly included. I’ve been reading up. Nobody knows anything. Nobody knows exactly how Islamist (i..e, radical) the Muslim Brotherhood is. Nobody knows how influential it might be in a successor government. Nobody knows whether Mubarek’s plan to hold elections in September, when presumably he would exit, can possibly succeed. Nobody knows anything. Nevertheless, please keep reading.

Who Are These Pro-Mubarak Fighters? It seems as though there are some non-military types who are out in the streets fighting in favor of the government. Who are they? (See above paragraph.) I do wonder whether there is a non-military, non-“elite,” non-paid-thug, dare I call it “middle-class” faction in Egypt that maybe isn’t that crazy about Mubarak but who is even less crazy about the prospect of Islamists taking control of Egypt. What other reason would a man-on-the-street Egyptian want to risk life and limb for Mubarak? Alas, they do seem like paid thugs; it appears that they’re fairly well-equipped and rather vigorous fighters.

Looters? Or Commenters on Egyptian History? Some of the fighters – I don’t know which side – have breached the Egyptian Museum. Some King Tut artifacts were damaged, as were some mummies. At this writing, the Museum is secure. But there seems to be a great fear that there will be looting of some of the great Egyptian treasures. I am quite certain that the main motivation here is criminal, and monetary, although where one fences a mummy I’m unsure. It has occurred to me to wonder, however, whether part of the motivation here is that some Egyptians find their Pharaonic history shameful – they’re tired of living under Pharaohs and don’t want to celebrate them any more.

Yeah, but What About the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists? In my last post I came down on the side of the anti-Mubarak guys and assuming the risk of a hostile government in Egypt. That risk about the same today as it was a few days ago. Mubarak is going to be gone – elections have been promised in his deal with the military, although why in September and not in March or April I dunno. I think it’s pretty likely that we are indeed going to end up with a radical-influenced, if not radical-led, government in Egypt, unless the military can take over and stay put. This isn’t a good thing, but if it is inevitable, geez, let’s do what we can to stick our toe in that transition. The Obama administration has dithered, and even Secretary of State Clinton has not exhibited her usual sure-footedness. But see first point – nobody knows quite what to make of all of this.

Whatever Happened to the Enlightened Despot? What is it about being a modern despot in some of these countries that requires him to line his pockets and those of his cronies while utterly devastating his people? Isn’t being a despot likely to create a real darned nice lifestyle for you and your pals without creating conditions so intolerable that they lead to exactly this kind of revolution? Not to mention the political (and in this case, religious) radicalization of the masses.

Not Too Early to Ask – How Do You Feel About Israel? Are You Willing to Go to War for It? Egypt. Jordan’s unstable. Yemen is about to go and is a snakepit of al Qaeda conspiracy. The Muslim Brotherhood is on record for Israel’s destruction and jihad against the U.S. We know about Iran. When we leave Iraq, Afghanistan . . . . If those governments become radicalized, how long will Saudi Arabia be able to hold out?


Will Israel be Poland 1939?

Israel has been a critical U.S. ally for decades. Such a critical ally, that some say it has had an influence on U.S. policy that is disproportionate to its importance. At least until recently, we have been pledged to its survival.

But folks, it is not too early to say that the noose is tightening. It is not too early to imagine Israel with not one single surrounding country with which it is reliably at peace.

I don’t need to remind you that Iran will soon be nuclear, and Pakistan already is.

And the Islamists -- and, I very strongly suspect, some percentage of Muslims who in other respects would call themselves moderate -- hate Israel and desire its destruction not because it is imperialist, not because it threatens Islam, not because its treatment of Palestinians, but because it is not Islam.  And because its founding was midwifed by the victorious WW II allies and placed in their midst.  I am not here to debate whether the creation of Israel in 1948 was a good idea or whether Arab perceptions are accurate.  I am here to say that diplomacy is not going to change the growing Muslim fundamentalism that holds that Israel must go.  I read today that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has repudiated the Camp David accords.

So when the missiles begin to fall – not next year, maybe not for the next five years, but maybe a decade from now, how will the U.S. respond?

Which begs the critical long-term question, really the only important question that is going to come out of this, the question for our grandsons: If the Middle East as a whole decides for Islamist primitivism, and makes Israel its first target, will the U.S. risk a world war with Islam – that is what it would be – to come to Israel’s defense?

But Wait, Cool Hot -- I Thought You Were in Favor of Regime Change in Egypt!  Quite true. And of course I don’t favor a world war with Islam, and by that I mean Islam as it presents itself to the world – accurately or inaccurately – through Islamist governments. But here’s how I figure it: (1) Successful revolution against guys like Mubarak is inevitable. (2) It is inevitable that these revolutions will be fueled by anti-Western sentiments, and that there is likely to be a anti-Western cast to any resulting administration. (3) We will be better off if the anti-Westernism of the Middle East manifests itself in constituted governments that we can talk to, cajole, threaten, sanction, inspect, negotiate with. Who have real representatives to talk to. Who have some chance of exercising authority over the bloodthirstiest among them.

(Which also assumes that we will have restored and continued to elect American presidential administrations and Congresses that believe strongly in American values, that have re-strengthened our military, and are not afraid to threaten American military and economic action to ensure international security under a regime of freedom.)

If it is inevitable that the next world war – be it a fighting war or a cold one – will be with Islam in its political aspect, we will be better off dealing with people with something to lose. And maybe keep Israel safe in the bargain.

As well as those precious grandsons.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Mubarak?

Oh oh, I feel a ramble coming on. I’ll try to keep the paragraphs short so at least it will be easy to read. But ramble on with me for a bit here.

I think the current situation in Egypt presents Americans with one of the central moral dilemmas of our time. One that we’ve seen repeated frequently, and to which we have been frequently accused of having selected the wrong answer. I’m going to try to work it out for myself onscreen here. I’ll be grateful for your company.

The present dilemma is very close to the problem of the “right-wing dictatorship” that the US has struggled with for decades. It is a problem for both liberals and conservatives. It is almost impossible to guess right. Think, for example, of the Shah of Iran. A dictator. And a friend to the U.S. in a part of the world where friends are few and far between. And a bulwark against fanaticism. The U.S. supported the Shah, antidemocratic though he may have been. Then came the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Mmm, maybe not such a bulwark. Shah out, Ayatollah(s) in. Iran now not only unfriendly, but close to a nuclear state, and a haven for anti-U.S. Islamist conspiracy.

So what to do this time around?

You got yourself a prominent Middle Eastern country, Egypt. It is a large country, and could hardly be more strategically located. It has been a prize in many a war.

The leader of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is authoritarian (but not totalitarian), extremely corrupt, and anti-democratic. Oh, Egypt has elections, but they’re corrupt, too. He has ruled for around 30 years, since shortly after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Egypt’s people are very poor and oppressed. He qualifies as a dictator.

The assassination of Anwar Sadat

For themselves, Americans disfavor dictatorship and oppression, and favor democracy and self-determination. As do all peoples blessed with a history of personal freedom.

Egypt is around 90% Muslim. Some Egyptian Muslims, by no means all, are known these days as Islamists, fanatical totalitarian Muslims who want to impose Islam on the entire world, through violence if necessary. While Islamists are less active in Egypt than in some other Middle Eastern countries, they do tend to radicalize the societies in which they are active, through threats of violence against moderate Muslims, if not by the persuasiveness of their ideas.

And by the way, let’s review generally what Islamists want. They believe that a a Twelfth Imam is in hiding and will emerge to save the world after a period of unimaginable chaos throughout the world. The chaos is a necessary predicate to his appearance. The Twelfth Imam will then emerge to establish a worldwide – that includes us – caliphate in which all will live in peace. There’s more, but you get the idea. This isn’t just about local self-determination. It remains unclear, to me at least, what “moderate” Muslims expect to happen and whether they feel called upon to create the chaotic conditions necessary for the Twelfth Imam’s arrival.

There is a small but strong minority of Coptic Christians in Egypt. There has been some Muslim violence against them recently. Both Muslims and Christians have participated in the recent revolt.

Egypt is not now an Islamist state or notable as a hotbed of Islamist anti-Western conspiracy.

Egypt under Mubarak is not a threat to the United States.

Egypt has reached an accommodation with the Jewish state. I can’t tell you the details, but they’re at peace and have been for quite some time.

Given the opportunity to vote, Muslims sometimes install radical governments (Hamas in Palestine, Ahmadinejad in Iran) who are powerfully opposed to America and supportive of the violent spread of Islam. And sometimes revolution goes directly from secular despot to religious despot (the Shah of Iran to the Ayatollah Khomeini). (Iran, like Egypt, is nominally a democracy, but in name only – only those who have demonstrated unquestioned fealty to the theocracy are permitted on the ballot. Like when Saddam Hussein would win elections with almost 100% of the “popular vote.”)

Meet the new boss, worse than the old boss.

So as we view recent events in Egypt: What’s it gonna be?

Support Mubarak and “stability” in Egypt because it tends to suppress the spread of radical Islam, keep Israel safe, provide some security for local Christians, and maintain a generally pro-U.S. presence at that critical world intersection, at the cost of continued economic and political oppression of the Egyptian public accompanied by massive corruption?

Or support the people in their efforts to overthrow Mubarak and introduce some measure of self-determination into Egypt, with the risk that hostile Islamists will eventually take over, destabilize Jordan (also at peace with Israel), possibly also Saudi Arabia (which has condemned the revolution), ally with Iran, and greatly increase the radical Muslim threat worldwide?

The choice, in my view is a moral one: I understand that the following is reductive, but I think it is generally fair to say that the choice is between the short-term certainty of increased freedom for Egyptians (good) and the long-term likelihood of enhanced security for free peoples worldwide (also good)?

Well, I’m going to vote.

I vote for the people and freedom and revolution, for instability and the risk of spreading Islamist influence.

My reasons are not sentimental or a hearkening back to our own American Revolution that turned out so nicely.

-- (1) There’s the obvious: The likelihood of increased freedom and better conditions for Egyptians. Won’t happen overnight, but even in the short run hope is better than hopelessness.

-- (2) Mubarak is going to lose. He has not been effective in quashing dissent, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, nominally illegal but active in Egypt.

-- (3) Is a state with Islamist elements in the government – or expressly Islamist -- worse than one where the government professes cooperation with the U.S. but cannot control the corruption that allows Islamists to conspire under government protection in the intractable interior? Is Iran worse than Pakistan? Aren’t we better off with a government to target – a hostile government that can be credibly threatened with sanctions and the threat of military attack – than with a hypocritical government nominally cooperative with the U.S. that is completely ineffective at quashing the export of Islamic imperialist terror? Aren’t we better off with an enemy we can see than one we can’t?

If Islamism takes over a government as strong and stable as Mubarak’s has been for the past three decades, its face will be revealed even more dramatically for those who aren’t already convinced by events in almost every European country. Creeping Islamism is a palpable threat in France, Germany, England, and the Netherlands, where Sharia “law” threatens liberal Western values; the slightest criticism of radical Muslim totalitarianism calls forth violent demands for silence, and even murder.

-- (4) But I’m not that worried about an Islamist takeover. Unlike Iran, this does not appear to be an Islamic revolution. It is political and economic, with some Islamist participation. The military is strong and is a fair bet to form the new government, one not beholden to the clerics.

-- (5) Mubarak is pretty bad. Islamists are never going to be happy with the U.S., but we may make a few friends by being on the side of political freedom.



On 9/11, a phrase kept going through my mind: The Middle East needs to be seriously reordered. The United States, correctly in my view, began this process in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is true that much of its effort was incompetent, but at least we live in a society that allows us to say it. Whatever the Middle Eastern “street” may think, or claim to think, about the United States, they can see that the people of Iraq are struggling towards democracy, as difficult and fraught with danger and insecurity as that may be. I’m betting that the Egyptians will not trade Mubarak for a mullah, and that in the long run, it will continue to be a force for stability in the Middle East, only this time with a population having some voice in its future – and friends of the United States.