Random Thoughts on the WTC/Pentagon Bombings

by Shelton Hull

9:00am: According to preliminary reports, a twin-engine plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center tower in New York City. A witness living in Battery Park reported hearing a “sonic boom” when the plane made impact near the top of the 110-story building, just under an observatory, apparently. The World Trade Center was the site of a terrorist attack in 1993; a truck filled with explosives was parked and detonated in the parking garage beneath the Manhattan pavement, killing six. The plane today hit at a time of day when nearly 10 million people are walking through the most aggressively vertical city ever seen by human eyes, 50 thousand of whom are reportiong for work at the WTC. Thick black smoke is pouring from the building’s north windows, people are screaming on the street, not surprisingly…now they’re talking about a second explosion, a second plane having hit the other tower. New York is in a state of emergency, and GWB has officially declared this a terrorist attack and ended his barnstorming tour of elementary schools in support of his “education reform” agenda. Of course, the markets are frozen to prevent panic from impacting the national economy in ways that could occur elsewhere in the world, given the location of this brutal, brutal assault.

The first plane was a hijacked American Airlines 767, hijacked en route from Boston to California; the second, also a hijacked 767 from Boston to California. Both were filled with fuel to capacity for their cross-country flights, approximately 20,000 gallons each. They hit the twin towers 21 minutes apart during the very peak of Manhattan’s rush-hour crowding. More crowding per square inch than anywhere in the world except maybe Times Square on Saturday night or Beijing at New Year’s. Plane #1 hit tower #1 not far from the top; plane #2 hit tower #2 a little lower. Honestly, the terrorists could have drastically reduced the number of survivors by hitting the towers lower, which would have trapped more people on floors burning about the point of impact. But that’s almost disgusting to even think about, given a death toll that could rise over 10,000 and may never be determined for sure. But that’s the truth. They’ve exposed a massive failing in our web of security and pulled off a coordinated strike that turned civilian aircraft into flying bombs, capable of being delivered to literally anywhere.

I was at the World Trade Center earlier this year during my second NYC trip. I remember becoming disoriented by the number of people all around me as I exited the train into the shopping complex adjacent. I had to stop and squat behind a pillar near a wall and just breathe deeply for a moment. Now John Fund of the Wall Street Journal is first on the air to talk about how he saw bodies dropping from the sky, as doomed WTC occupants chose to jump from lethal heights of over 100 stories, rather than be burned alive. All of Manhattan has been sealed off, the tunnels, bridges and airports are closed–“Manhattan is in lockdown”–a state of martial law is now in effect. . . .

And now there is smoke and fire at the Pentagon, the largest office building in the world, housing members of the world’s largest industry, the United States military. The White House, the Pentagon and all government offices are being evacuated; soldiers are manning anti-aircraft missiles on the White House roof. Reports of an explosion at the Pentagon, perhaps a plane, and a fire burning out of control. This throws a weird slant on the environment coming into S30. The IMF and World Bank meetings scheduled for late Septemer will probably be canceled since much of the American financial hierarchy probably died today. Cancellation is a good thing for the protesters, because the phrase “zero tolerance” has never meant more than now, just after the most arrogantly savage attack in American history. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the United States.

And now both towers have collapsed, one by one, a combined 2,754 feet of top-shelf New York real estate leveled, taking unknown thousands to another world. Some of them were visible on footage shot earlier that day, waving to get our attention–like they didn’t have everyone’s attention by that point. Those who didn’t jump out the windows burned, choked on smoke, or were still in the buildings when they dropped. Tower #2, the most severely hit, fell first, and #1 soon after. (Building #7, only 47 stories compared to 110 in each tower, collapsed about eight hours later.) Early estimates had over 300 firefighters and 100 cops in the towers when they fell, covering all of lower Manhattan in ash, soot, concrete and steel. Nearly one million tons of it. . . . Jesus.

And then comes the fallout: a congressional blank check issued to the President with unlimited authority to act on what was immediately declared “an act of war” on “terrorists and those who harbor them,” quoting Mr. Bush from the Oval Office in prime time on Sept. 11. It was his best speech of the day; the inital remarks in Sarasota were calm and perfunctory, but the riff in Louisiana should not have happened. He was understandably rattled, and no one should have to give a speech after what just happened, let alone the President. Since then, he’s done fine, except a creepy habit of smirking during solemn religious services.

As the country begins trying to reconcile the scope of this incident with their preexisting reality, as the military prepares to punish someone on a level unseen since the Christmas bombings on Hanoi, we the people need to think seriously about how something so flat-out evil could happen, and how to prevent such events in the future. This is America–our reputation precedes us. We are the reigning world champions of bomb-dropping; we’ve played decisive roles in two world wars, killed millions in various conflicts around the globe and even destroyed the previous owners of this land. From Hiroshima to Kosovo, we’ve called our shots and taken them with a minimum of international opposition. (By “we,” I don’t mean me. I had nothing to do with it, besides funding it with my tax dollars, no direct involvement.) Nothing Saddam Hussein ever did offends the American powerbase like what happened on 9/11, so why would anyone, anywhere invite guaranteed death to their homes? Are they stupid, evil, or just frustrated? All fine questions to ask now, while the answers still matter.

Everyone’s saying how this war will be a critical moment for the country, and I agree, especially in terms of its effect on my generation, which has never been exposed to something like large-scale international conflict, let alone domestic terrorism at its most brutally effective. These next few months will define the world as we shall see it, as we have deemed it to be. It will be interesting to see what level of unrest develops resultant from the war. We are all now wrapped in the warm arms of smoldering rage–the need for revenge is strongest in our minds, at least those minds in Control. The usual dissenters from political protocol have spoken out against what seems inevitable now, in the days just before retaliation, but they’re not on TV or in any major newspapers or magazines. Within the mainstream media, opinion is presumed unilateral: kill the motherfuckers that killed those New Yorkers. Even I would advocate the immediate execution of whomever is responsible for 9/11; I’d like them found and deposited right at ground zero, so the city that never sleeps can put them to sleep in true metropolitan fashion. But I’m also against any collateral damage that occurs. There are only two kinds of people in this world: the innocent and the guilty. Of course, we’re all guilty of something, sometime, and it’s just a matter of time before you find yourself on the wrong side of “consensus,” on some issue or another.

Personally, I’ve resolved not to say anything about the war in public, at least not until I can do so without getting myself on some worldwide media blacklist. As it is, I have no money and no reputation outside of a city that I must leave if I hope to ever become anything like what I want to be. To quote the president, “I’m a loving guy,” but I find it awfully hard to care about strangers when I’m broke, and that’s true on both sides of the ocean. There’s simply no point in taking any kinds of risks in this area, since thousands of Arabs are going to die no matter what I say. My worries are purely selfish; I care more about civil liberties than civilians lost. Because, in the end, we’re all going to die–some sooner than others. Death walks beside us all, in silent neutrality, waiting for that one special moment when it takes over and people start talking about you in the past tense. I think it’s a little sick that it took the instant, simultaneous death of more people than may ever be accurately counted for America to start caring about human life, and then only in the vaguest, most selective possible way.

Have a fucking telethon, America. Drag out these celebrities, and bring their agents too, all their “people,” and also the studio heads, the network suits, the record executives, the money-marking bastards who push poison on millions, take their money and spend it on plastic surgery or expensive prostitutes, or drugs they’re too selfish to share. Dig deep, America, give cash to the cause, the “disaster relief,” the limitless war budget, the shattered families, the airline companies . . . the airline companies. Who let 19 hijackers onto planes within an hour of each other. Who forgot to report a batch of stolen ID badges in Rome. Who forgot to warn anybody that four planes had all veered off-course and stopped talking to the ground. Who spent the days immediately after the attack firing 100,000 people and begging for $17.5 billion dollars from the government while also lobbying to have caps placed on damages resulting from the roughly 20,000 lawsuits that could–should–come out of New York. Although relatives of victims are eligible for reduced fares, and maybe extra honey-roasted peanuts, too!

The Rejuvenative Properties of the Bomb

Death is the ultimate unifier. Death walks alongside all of us, waiting for that special moment to embrace us and carry us away. I’ve known this all my life, and I didn’t need some wimpering TV sap to inform me of it. In this time of great national sadness, poised on the brink of what could somewhat plausibly become Armageddon, people are talking about “getting back to normal.” War has been thrust upon us, and we want to dive back into the same shallow, stupid nonsense that put us where we are now to begin with. The deaths of over five thousand people are not enough to make some people think about how the world around them is organized. So what will it take? Nuclear war? A million dead Arabs?

There’s a new world outside. That’s what they’re saying. They’re saying look out! Nothing is the same anymore, because the United States was a victim of high-level terrorism, the likes of which has not been seen in years. Sick, heartless slaughter of good people who did not have that coming. Don’t blame this on God–God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t kill thousands because it’s “his” way. It’s our way. Man is the animal. Man visits death on himself and others daily. A woman is beaten every seven minutes, and the majority of them do not wear veils. Our good decent homeless veterans (the ones too maimed and psychotic to mix with the people they protected) do not die slowly in the streets because God deems it to be. If you want war, death, destruction, go outside and walk in any direction. You’ll find it sooner than you think. None of us are helped here by suspending reality. “Why would they do this?” Well, whomever it is really hates Americans, so much so that their own lives don’t mean much compared to their strong urge to kill Americans. I don’t agree with it–I’m an American myself, and thus a potential victim just like everyone else in the country.

Everyone’s so helpless–they wimper and cry about evil, like evil is new to this world. Good and evil are interwoven in the story of humanity like strands of a double-helix. Jerry Falwell blames liberals–the ACLU, feminists, gays and lesbians, etc–for helping to cause this carnage, which I find hilarious. If anything, the fault falls upon the shoulders of establishment clergy who’ve either overtly (with speech) or tacitly (with silence) endorsed the brutal interventionist policies our government has pursued for decades. Ganc notes that the US has intervened with military force 32 times in the past 20 years, leaving a trail of bodies scattered across the international landscape, and only the Pope has said a word, and then only when his own people were being killed in Latin America, which did nothing to stop it. Thousands of Americans have been killed, thousands more may yet be killed, to say nothing of many thousands elsewhere in the world, not all of whom asked for it, and he’s still talking shit. Not one thought changes in the minds of people like that.

I feel personally disgusted with myself that even now, at the cusp of what could be a third world war, I still cannot pay all my bills by writing. I can’t pocket the piddliest pittance of advance money from anyone in the country–not that I’ve asked, but it takes a specific level of financial motivation to take a teargassing for the sake of Truth. Screw Truth–money is the truth. The arbiters of fiscal truth are expressing guarded optimism because the market only lost 684 points today, the first day of trading after the WTC/Pentagon attacks. I’d have loved to do some daytrading, but I’m broke. The WTO has canceled its Sept. 28-30 meetings in Washington, DC, because such a scene is wild and dangerous enough under normal conditions; to go forward now, after Genoa and after 911, means guaranteed death for someone. My work pays off in fits and giggles, and I mean that literally. Anger and laughter are the twin towers of the human psyche, and what happened on 911 had a roughly coefficient effect on the popular consciousness. I’ve been depressed since it happened–I was depressed before, but then the planes hit those buildings and things got different quick.

Why is anyone even considering giving taxpayer dollars to the airlines? Unknown numbers of people could spend the rest of their lives in debt from the medical bills they incur from the WTC attacks. Is anyone considering that perhaps we should get to insuring some of the 40 million uninsured Americans before we begin the war? Why are we bailing out billion-dollar corporations, especially the airlines, whose failure to recognize obvious problems in their own operations led to a brutal slaughter of innocent Americans. If they go out of business, fuck ‘em–that’s my opinion. Spend the $17.5 billion on health insurance, since we’re all at risk now.

Six percent of Afghanis have electricity, and the per capita income is less than $800 dollars, which is about what the average American makes per week–that’s about what I make every fiscal quarter, because I’m the type of writer who would point out things like that. The attitude toward maintaining civil liberties has been slack, at best, in America, and non-existent in other parts of the world, where the stakes of dissent are considerably higher. Places like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are hardly enthusiastic about having to go along with an attack on other Muslim states, because it brings them into the direct orbit of Al-Qaeda, which can exploit internal dissent to disastrous effect. Musharraf of Pakistan, in particular, is swallowing hard, because he was never elected. Nawaz Sharif was the last popularly elected leader, but his reign lasted long enough to trade nuclear testing photo-ops with India and spontaneously educate many Westerners (including myself) who once knew Kashmir only as the Led Zeppelin song sampled by Schooly D that played during the nun-rape scene in “Bad Lieutenant.” A military coup and show trial followed, and Sharif sits in prison today, waiting for the inevitable moment when he’s busted out by Al-Qaeda or peremptorily beheaded by Musharraf. Our new enemies are offshoots of the crew that assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in 1981 for his role at Camp David.

I spent about six hours of my Labor Day watching an MSNBC special on plane crashes, which felt extremely perverse at the time, but some mysterious force kept me on that channel long enough to discover that the airline I flew to New York last year was owned by the former owners of Valu-Jet, the morons whose improper labeling of oxygen canisters condemned over 100 people to permanent residency in the Okeefenoke Swamp. They should have been banned from ever running another company, but instead were forced to change their names. The sick, powerless feeling in my stomach never really left, and 9/11 cemented the feeling. After a couple weeks watching the fallout, on TV and on the streets of Jacksonville, my worst fears were realized: this country has no driving morality, no commitment to truth and no serious desire to save itself from the evil we helped give birth to.

In this moment of historic importance, as America stands on the verge of entering a conflict that, if botched, could lead to world war or even Armageddon itself, one might hope or even expect for the media to finally start telling us the truth about the world we live in and have helped to shape, for good or ill. One might hope or even expect a serious debate about serious issues; one might hope or even expect a wee little bit of honesty. But no. I considered not writing anything about 9/11 at all; why inconvenience myself on behalf of strangers? But then I reconsidered; it might be useful to be on the record, well in advance, as I tend to be. My job isn’t to make the Big Decisions; my job is to say exactly what I think. And so I do. . . .

In terms of what actually happened, the events of September 11 are fairly transparent. The underlying causes and potential ramifications are much harder to grasp. I could fill this space with words about American mid-east policy and our our own smarmy record of terror; I could mention that we are the only country ever ordered to pay restitution to another country (in this case, Nicaragua) as punishment for the “unlawful use of force”; I could even make the simple point that all the “Islamic fundamentalists” we’re praying to pulverize along with unknown thousands of innocent civilians only exist through US funding and tactical support, but I won’t. The information is out there, but there’s no reason to believe that even the threat of war and the virtual guarantee of decreased civil liberties (endorsed by citizens in recent polls) will get Americans off our couches, out of our SUVs and anywhere near the place of influence that democracy was designed to endow us with. But that entails participation, in ways not entirely restricted to voting, watching TV and listening to NPR.

Our response to what must be interpreted as a slap in our faces has been to turn on each other, in the guise of “unity.” The Bill of Rights could go the way of the jazz banjo as we rush to ferret out the dangerous elements, rousting the “ragheads” in America because 19 out of four million were involved. Arabs have no rights right now–internment is just around the corner. It’s hardly unfeasible that our war on terrorism might require us to lob a few cruise missiles in the direction of Mecca some day, because that’s where Islamic “radicals” will tend to congregate if bin Laden takes over Saudi Arabia. And then we’ll have another holy slaughter, this one in the name of Christ, who might be packing his favorite piece of Samsonite luggage as I write this. He knows things that we do not, which is why he’s nowhere near Earth right now.

A common epithet among the Left lately goes: “Don’t blame me–I voted for Nader.” Older progressives get the real zinger: “Don’t blame me–I voted for Adlai Stevenson, twice.” It reflects a simmering resentment among some who feel the Official Stance on this and other points doesn’t reflect their personal values, “values” being a concept common to the religious and the secular. Fact is, those deaths in DC, NYC and western Pennsylvania, in addition to all the ones yet to occur here and elsewhere, are our fault. My sympathy lies with those poor souls in the World Trade Center, not you, not me. We’re going to send our fathers, sons, husbands, brothers and friends off to maybe die in some desolate mountain region in a war that never should have happened, and the men responsible get honorary degrees. All of our failings as a culture and a society blew back in our faces before most of us were even awake, and that’s very appropriate, since we’ve slept through most of the last 30 years. The only thing we really learned from Vietnam was: no cameras next time.

43 million Americans have no health insurance–because it’s too expensive. We ignore the European model of free education for all citizens–because it’s too expensive. We can’t feed hungry children, can’t provide a living wage to the majority of workers, can’t even begin to discuss these matters–because it’s too expensive. But we can waste $15 billion propping up an airline industry whose cheap incompetence helped kill about eight thousand Americans (most of whom were white) and left the rest of us in desperate fear of the status quo. Is that how it works now? Tacit complicity in mass murder=$$$? Great; let’s see how much Congress votes to give Osama bin Laden, and then let’s see how much they give themselves. Our coddling of the airlines neatly makes the point that, no matter what, the United States will not ever relent in its obsessive quest for convenience.

For me, the most affecting aspect of the recent terrorist attacks, besides the sympathy and wrenching vicarious pain, is how the aftermath has served to utterly and completely expose the failure of our social and intellectual classes to get a handle on anything. As someone who doesn’t publish nearly as much as I’d like to, I’m frankly offended at the slack standards of purported professionals. One can only hope that the dynamic responsible for putting people like Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Henry Kissinger and Ollie North–fine folk all–on TV as “experts” on terrorism (which they certainly are) doesn’t work in reverse, for if the future of our country depended on those who pay their bills by “reporting,” you’d be better off swallowing ground-up glass before the turbanistas getcha.

I write this not because I’m particularly interested in being blackballed, nor because I’m unsympathetic to the victims. As someone whose hopes for long-term literal and literary survival likely depend on the survival of New York City, I’ve got a vested interest in seeing it–and America–withstand the brutality of September 11. But that’s hardly certain if we continue along the present route, with our least intelligent and worst-informed media marks parroting the official line. Never before has a degree in journalism been so clearly worthless, and never before has ownership of media technology been so blatantly wasted. A little well-written truth might be useful, and even profitable, in the present environment, despiute the obvious risks inherent in speaking your mind in a time of mindless “sacrifice.” So-called amateurs like me have been vindicated via violence we never wanted to see, and the mainstream press has proven scarcely as relevant to “the new reality” as paper scraps plucked from the rubble.