Where I was on 9/11

Oddly enough, I was in Carlisle, a town about 25 miles northwest of Boston, during the 9/11 terror attacks. I had taken a new job that year and was getting ready for my last day of training at a beautiful facility off a rural road. When I pulled into the parking lot a young guy who was also being trained asked if I'd heard that a plane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. I hadn't. My radio must have been off during the drive, probably because it was such a beautiful day and I'd rolled the windows down to feel the fresh country air and didn't want any unnatural sounds to disturb the moment.

We went inside and were joined by the others, maybe seven trainees and our instructor. Moments later someone from the facility stuck their head in and told us about the second plane. Of course, everyone knew what that meant. I think we went back into the lobby to watch the news coverage for a bit, then went back to start our training. We stopped a couple times to decide whether or not to continue on -- especially after the towers fell -- but decided that we'd rush through and get out as soon as possible. A television was wheeled in for a bit and we kept tabs on what was happening, and we did break so that everybody could call their loved ones, and I knew I'd better call my mother or she'd be worried sick. 

The training over, we went our separate ways, and I never saw any of those people again. We'd be working for the same organization, but at different facilities, and I've always felt it strange that I spent the most awful moments of my country's recent history in a place I didn't know very well with people I didn't know very well.

And stranger still, I drove back not to East Boston, but to Somerville, where I had moved just 11 days earlier. I had two roommates and one of them was sitting on the front stairs, crying, when I got home. I barely knew her, but Paula's fiance was scheduled to fly to Los Angeles from Logan Airport on business that morning. She had, just before I arrived, found out that he was not on either of the LA-bound planes that had been hijacked, but on a different flight and was, therefore, fine. I consoled her as best I could, and then went inside to put on the TV and my computer, so I could finally get connected to the information stream -- something I like to do during important events.

The next morning I went out early to get copies of The Globe, The Herald and The New York Times. I'd always saved historically significant newspapers and I needed to add editions from Sept. 12 to my collection.

Asleep at the wheel

It was 10 years ago today that President George W. Bush was handed a morning security briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US." Bill Clinton's transition team later reported that the Bush Administration never seemed too concerned about terrorism, and 36 days after that aptly titled briefing, four planes were hijacked and, well, we all know the rest.

Bush managed to deflect most of the criticism on this issue, but can you imagine if Al Gore was in the White House when 9/11 happened? I am positive that he would have been impeached by Republicans in Congress.

Choosing our own future

Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good riddance. Don't believe Joe Scarborough or other moronic pundits who claim that President Obama went against his supporters on the left by taking out the head of Al-Qaeda. None of us are shedding a tear for Bin Laden. He got what he deserved.

Bin Laden was evil -- but he wasn't stupid. A realistic assessment of his actions suggest that he accomplished some of what he set out to do. The goal was to entice the US into a protracted ground war in Afghanistan in order to bankrupt America and to radicalize the Muslim world against the West. And the result? The US military is approaching a decade in Afghanistan, plus eight years in Iraq, and together those campaigns have cost two or three trillion dollars. Meanwhile, there has been some radicalization of small groups of Muslims.

We're still here, of course, and we can ensure that Bin Laden's goals are not fully accomplished if we wrap things up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and if we use our military a bit more sparingly in the future. This is not a call for demilitarization or isolationism, but only for wisdom and foresight. America cannot go on spending as much as all other countries combined on the military, and America cannot go on deploying its forces all over the world.

Let us regroup at home and lead by example so that the US once again occupies the moral high ground. If America had invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 with a smart plan and an exit strategy and if the country hadn't taken its eye off the ball by getting wrapped up in Iraq, then thousands of lives and trillions of dollars might have been saved. We might have had to wait for a small team of soldiers to take out Bin Laden 10 years after the fact, but that is what happened any way.

Remembering 9/11

It wasn't long into the new decade (and century?) that we witnessed its defining event. The attacks of 9/11 have dictated American domestic and foreign policy since that awful, incomprehensible day nine years ago, and it appears that we will be living in a post-9/11 world for years to come. A pair of related events have driven the news cycle in recent weeks: the Park51 Islamic community center and the proposed burning of multiple copies of the Quran by a minster in Florida.

Two links I want to share today: first is President Obama's response at yesterday's press conference to a question about the Park51 project (starting at about 1:30). I think he nails it. Second is some remarks made by John Hodgman before he was a well-known comedian. As he introduces a literary reading two weeks after the attacks, Hodgman attempts to give some meaning to the world in the wake of 9/11.

Moving forward with an eye to the past

Those who would commit mass murder on American soil don't all live in faraway failed states. Sometimes they are closer than we want to believe.

Fifteen years ago today, Timothy McVeigh -- born in upstate New York and decorated with a Bronze Star for his actions in the US Army during the Gulf War -- killed 168 people and wounded more than 600 when he exploded a truck outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.

America's political atmosphere today is increasingly hostile. The Secret Service is fielding threats like never before, and in February Andrew Joseph Stack flew his single-engine plane into an IRS office building in Texas, killing himself and one federal employee. Conservative talk radio and Fox News bear some of the responsibility for this explosion in anger across the country. They've gone too far and this is the result.

When I see people on TV saying, "I want my country back," I want to tell them to look down at the ground. It's still there. Barack Obama -- unlike George W. Bush in 2000 -- was elected by an undisputed majority of electoral and popular votes. I wish that Obama was as radical a president as those on the right complain that he is. He is a pragmatic incremental moderate and closer to the previous administration on a number of national security, presidential powers and privacy issues than I imagined. He is not a socialist or a fascist -- and most of the people I see using those terms have no idea what they mean. He is, however, the legally elected chief executive of this country.

So, let's have a spirited debate on issues -- one with facts and opinions, but without hysterics and violence.

AP photo via Boston.com

Outrageous antics

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day plot to blow up an airliner, it has been widely reported that Sen. Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, has been holding up President Obama's appointment to head the Transportation Security Administration because the nominee -- Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent -- may allow TSA employees to unionize.

How does this knucklehead get away with this? Unions are, of course, legal in the United States, and workers everywhere should have the right to organize. DeMint is a reactionary demagogue who seems to care little about the security of the nation.

Flying the unfriendly skies

Though I am a strong advocate of personal privacy rights, I don't have a problem with technologies being discussed for airport security in the wake of the failed terrorist attack on a Detroit-bound jet on Christmas Day. I don't think anyone has an absolute right to fly, and it seems to me that with the level of threat that especially faces airplanes, the greater good of security for all outweighs the inconvenience of a small invasion of one's privacy.

The technology that is now the focus of ideas to tighten airport security are backscatter X-ray machines, which show analysts an image of the body beneath clothes. Theoretically, explosives and other weapons are much easier to see using these machines. That's not to say that equipping all US airports with such machines would prevent harm from people flying in elsewhere, as was the case with the most recent attack.

The real question, as with many issues that nation faces, is whether elected officials have the political will and the citizenry has the attention span to completely review the process and to do what actually makes sense. A Canadian newspaper published an interesting story today that discusses the steps that Israel takes to ensure security in its airports and on its planes. Think about it: Israel is the #1 target for Muslim extremist terrorists, yet there hasn't been an airport attack there in many years. Read the story and ask yourself why the US doesn't adopt a system like Israel's, which is clearly effective.

Following through on our obligations

The phrase "Equal justice under law" is carved into the front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, and it sums up an ideal that -- though we often fall short -- most Americans would, I think, agree that we should always strive for. President Obama's decision to release the CIA torture memos was the right thing to do. It might have created some waves, but sometimes the right thing is the most difficult option and sometimes it takes a confident leader to take that step. Obama's actions signal that the principle of justice cannot be permanently pushed aside in the United States.

On the second part of the president's decision, I am open to discussion, but as I see it now, not pursuing legal action against CIA officers and others who may have tortured, within the guidelines set forth in the released memos, those in US custody seems like an acceptable course of action. However, I absolutely believe that those at the top -- those who wrote the memos and those who instructed them to do so -- should be prosecuted. We cannot allow the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions to be ignored. If these documents, and the ideas behind them, are to mean anything they must be respected by all people at all times, no matter the political fallout (which, admittedly, would be nasty).

I agree with Paul Krugman, who writes that "there is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past 8 years as anything but monsters," and with a counter-terrorism expert writing in the Daily News. Alberto Goncalves, John Yoo, David Addington, Douglas Feith and Jay Bybee cooked up arguments that supported their immoral ideology even while trampling the Constitution, and they did so under orders from Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. The whole lot of them should be put on trial.

John Adams said that we live in "a nation of laws, not men." When men, and women, at the highest levels of government ignore those laws, it is not a choice, but an obligation to follow through and bring them to justice.

Update (4/24): New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, in his column today, dissects the pros and cons inherent in an investigation of the Bush Administration's torture policies -- and the march to war in Iraq -- and concludes that this needs to be done because it is "the only way we can regain our moral compass."

Never forget

While we pause to remember the terrorist attacks of seven years ago and to mourn those Americans -- and the nationals of 89 other countries -- who were killed on 9/11, we should also never forget ...

...that a briefing entitled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US" was given to President Bush 36 days before the attacks. The report included this: "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

...that the 9/11 attacks were used as a political tool to win public support for the invasion of Iraq, even though that country had no role in the attacks and despite serious questions being raised throughout the Pentagon and administration as to the veracity of the intelligence put forth to make the case.

...that the Iraq invasion seriously compromised American efforts in Afghanistan and, as of today, Osama bin Ladin, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar have still not been captured.

...that the same president and administration that manufactured a case for war and wraps itself in the flag is not willing to demand the best in medical care and other assistance for veterans when they return home.

...that the world has become more dangerous under the current administration.

Forgetting justice in the process

Yesterday, while the media was still putting into perspective the life of Russian writer and dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn three days after his death, Salim Hamdan was found guilty of "supporting terrorism" by a US military court at Guantanamo Bay.

Solzhenitsyn, who spent time in a Soviet prison camp and was later exiled for his writings, was hailed in the West for bravely and honestly showing the world the violence, hypocrisy and lies of Soviet communism. For most of the two decades outside his native land the Nobel laureate lived in Cavendish, Vermont, writing and shunning the spotlight.

Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden who's been held for six years as an "enemy combatant," is the first person successfully tried by the sloppily-configured US war-crimes court -- the first such proceedings since World War II. The trial has raised many objections from human-rights advocates for the lack of typical legal protections during the trial: testimony gathered using coercion was allowed, hearsay was admitted as evidence, the defense was unable to see all of the evidence, and just a two-thirds vote was needed for conviction.

The judge, jury and almost all of the attorneys were members of the US military -- hardly a prescription for fairness -- but those tasked with defending Hamdan were cited as doing a noble job, and they frequently railed against the unjustness of the process. In the end, regardless of whether he was found guilty or acquitted, Hamdan is likely never to be set free, as the Bush Administration has given itself unlimited power to hold combatants until the end of the "war on terror" -- in essence, permanently.

Solzhenitsyn's words played a role in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. Someone, now or in the future, will write the Guantanamo Bay or Abu Ghraib versions of One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Gulag Archipelago. Let us hope that our nation rises up and recommits itself to justice and equal protection under the law before we become too much like the enemy laid bare in the famed Russian's books.

Update: Salim Hamdan was sentenced today to 5 1/2 years after being convicted yesterday of supporting terrorism. The decision, handed down by a jury at the US military court in Guantanamo Bay, was much less than the 30 years to life that prosecutors asked for. Counting time served, Hamdan could be released in just five months, though it remains to be seen if that will be the case.

Sticking to the rule of law in a dangerous world

Jose Padilla is not a very nice guy. As a juvenile, he once participated in the killing of another gang member by kicking the guy in the head. Still, his arrest, detention and trial on terrorism charges concern me.

Even before the verdict was rendered by a federal jury two days ago, Padilla -- an American citizen arrested on American soil -- clearly had his Sixth ("speedy trial") and Eighth ("cruel and unusual punishment") Amendment rights violated. He was held for more than three years as an "enemy combatant" before being transfered to the civilian court system, and during his stay in the military brig he was tortured.

The trial rested on an application to train at an insurgent camp that Padilla allegedly filled out. The jury deliberated less than two days, and Padilla will likely get life when a sentence is handed down. I'm not saying that this guy isn't dangerous. He may have met with actual terrorists, and he may have been in the process of planning some violent acts. What I'm saying is that there is a process here in the United States, and that the rule of law has to carry the day every day or we risk becoming more like the enemy whose ways we claim to abhor.

Is there an alert higher than red?

"Al-Qaida likely to attack US, intel says," is the headline of an Associated Press story this afternoon, based on the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which is the consensus of the 16 US government intelligence agencies. My first reaction is, "No kidding." The radical Islamists are not going to go away and, in fact, have been empowered by America's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The best part of the story, however, is when Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, responded to a question about the political expedience of releasing some of the classified report while Congress is debating the war in Iraq. "'"We don't keep it on the shelf and say, 'Let's look for a convenient time,'" Snow said."

That's funny, because when George W. Bush's daily security briefing was titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in the summer of 2001, the Administration did exactly that.