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world chaos with one flawless move, sep 7 - sep 15, 2001
this was my knee jerk reaction to sep. 11th. in hindsight, it's pretty emotional and illogical, but such were the circumstances.
September 15, 2001 21:09
first off, someone let me know if scott snelling is ok. he lives in an apartment in manhatten and i lost his address. thanks.
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--capacity of destruction--
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from 10 to 1 tuesday night, i was riveted to what appeared to be a badly filmed action flick. as all of you know, probably better than i, america has just fallen off its precarious perch in peace, crumbling with the world trade center and many innocent lives. i'm not going to make this any longer or dramatic than it has to be, but damn, it's all that has been flying through my head today. the how, the why, the details... and the fact that nobody seems to know what's going on. i've been scouring the passion-driven news of america, the objective news of europe, and the hyped news of japan, and i can't seem to make any sense about anything from it all. here are some links to some good articles that might help put some things in perspective.
- the economist has a great story called "Day of Infamy". (it's not just famous, it's infamous...) check out the main story along with the side stories below, my favorites being the "who did it", "foriegn policy", and the "security: the challenges ahead" articles.
- this story from yahoo tells about some Egyption celebrations of the attack. i also read somewhere about celebrations in Lebanon as well, and i can only imagine people in the UA Emirates, Afghanistan, and others doing the same, though their governments denounce the acts. who knows...
- jang.com.pk is a Pakistani international paper. it has some interesting articles, specifically "The terrorist attack -- a personal perspective". once you get past all the standard i couldn't believe what i saw blah blah blah junk, there are some interesting views about US foriegn policy. also, "People wake up to a different America!", despite it's spelling mistakes, talks about American Muslim reactions. oh, there was also an article about how they thought India was trying to implicate Pakistan in the whole thing.
- janes.com is home to the rather well-known "Jane's Intelligence Digest. there are some interesting things related to events leading up to the attack, US's position in the mid-east, and a 1m res satellite photo of the reckage in NY.
yeah, that should be enough. i'm sure you all have already had your fill of news anyway.
i've been thinking non-stop about all this, and it just doesn't seem to be fitting. the america/brittain/new zealand/australia joint echelon satellite spy network that America has been denying for quite some time suggests that US intelligence had to have known about an immenent attack. they're screening this email as it's being sent as well. the fact that Arab/Isreali conflict has boomed up recently, and even the violence in Northern Ireland is being sparked alive again, suggests that something had to have pushed recent activity...perhaps weapons or funding had been renewed. speaking of funding, the star witness for the embassy bombing in Kenya trial (bin laden's old accountant) says bin laden is running short of funds. so someone had to make the means available, with very very little communication (or we would have known about it). or worse, we did know about it but someone decided not to do anything about it. perhaps someone thought we were getting too comfortable in our state of peace and, like the Egyptian guy said, needed a reason to help Bush build the missile defense system...it turns a paranoid gun-slinging america-first bush into the compassionate, protective america-first bush. speculation, speculation, speculation....the bottom line is something has been brewing for a long time, and complacent america has finally been given a wake up call. and the fact that the US has for the first time in my life been thrown in a state of confusion and realization that we are, indeed, not as safe as we thought we were. as i've thought for a long time, it's about time that america rethought it's position in the world, because like it or not, it has changed as of now.
not to be entirely pessimistic, though. i have a lot of faith in the american people. we're not going to let someone push us around. however, our reaction is going to decide a lot of things to come. i fear congress' and bush's hardass attitude might make us do something we regret. ... i'm tired.....anyway, my thoughts almost always end by going back over sarah's words in her last letter to me: 'the world amazes me in it's capacity to destroy itself'. i just hope someone up in the almighty government knows what's going on. cause they're the dicks that got us into this mess in the first place.
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--in other news--
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i went out drinking last night with some climbing friends. we made a funny decision after a couple of drinks that we were going to speak in only english until the next drink was done. that was friggin hillarious. my friend koizumi (yeah, like the prime minister...) kept on saying "i'm fine, how are you?, i'm fine, how are you?" over and over and over in different voices and a heavy japanese accent. it was so funny i nearly peed my pants...