Wednesday, September 11, 2019

THE 18TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11.

SO NOW IT’S THE 18TH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11.

Back then, InstaPundit was shiny and new new. Now it’s not, and some people have been warning of “blogger burnout.” But I’m still here. On prior 9/11 anniversaries, I’ve given shooting lessons to a Marine, I’ve taken the day off from blogging, and I’ve even gone to a Tea Party with Andrew Breitbart.
This year, as in most past years, it’ll be blogging as usual. And here’s a link to my original 9/11 coverage — just scroll on up. At this late date, I don’t have anything new to say on 9/11. But these predictions held up pretty well. Which is too bad.
The picture above is by my cousin-in-law Brad Rubenstein, taken from his apartment that day. You might also want to read this piece by James Lileks.
And here’s a passage from Lee Harris’s Civilization And Its Enemies.
Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe.
…
They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish.
They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn’t done enough for — yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part — something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means.
The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason — it is his reason, and not ours.
I’ve mentioned it before, but it bears repeating today.
One thing I guess I didn’t believe 17 years ago is that America would elect such a feckless President in 2008, and stand idly by while he flushed our global position, and security, down a left-wing toilet. But we did, and we’ll be paying the price for a long time. That said, for the first time I feel like our diplomacy is on a good track, and that — thanks also to fracking — the problems that led to 9/11 are being addressed.
God bless America. We need it.
65Posted at 8:46 am by Glenn Reynolds   
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9/11/2001

NUCLEAR RETALIATION? MSNBC is reporting that nuclear retaliation has not been taken off the table. Of course, first we have to know who to bomb.
THIS CD COVER featuring an exploding World Trade Center, will soon be a collector's item. It'll be off the shelves tomorrow, I expect.
ANDREW SULLIVAN IS BACK ONLINE, which is good: all day long I've wanted to hear his thoughts. His connection of this act with the Durban conference is particularly on point.
GAS PANICS: One thing that isn't being widely reported is panic over gas. But it's happening. Several stations here in Knoxville ran out earlier tonight, and I'm getting email that it's that way elsewhere. People are topping up, and spreading rumors (which I can't verify, and doubt) that pipelines are being shut down for fear of terrorism. Here's something I do know: if every American tops off his/her tank on the same day, it's enough to completely overload the gasoline distribution system. This should settle down in a day or two. Let's be reasonable here, okay?
ROBERT KAGAN IS CALLING FOR WAR, something that would be less objectionable were he not a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. It's not that I think he's wrong, exactly: this is war, of a sort, and not some picayune law-enforcement matter. But I was remarking earlier today about the phenomenon of "greatest-generation-envy" that the boomers seem to have, and Kagan's repeated invocations of World War Two, etc., worry me a bit.
Generals are always supposed to be preparing for the last war. But as a nation, we can't afford that. This wasn't Pearl Harbor. There were no Japanese airplanes. They were our own airplanes, hijacked by sinister forces. Let's apply a remedy that suits the problem, not Baby Boomer generation envy.
DUMB STORY ALERT: Look for these headlines "A loss of innocence," "America loses its sense of invulnerability," etc. They trot these out every time, from Challenger, to Oklahoma City, to the (previous) WTC bombing, etc. Note to editors: why not skip 'em this time?
A QUIET, UNYIELDING ANGER: Bush seems to be steering the right course, not going over the top and not wimping out. Two important points that he made: these guys hate us because of who we are -- free and prosperous -- not what we do. Second, this isn't just a law-enforcement problem, it is, as the Washington Post editorializes, war.
CLOSING THE BARN DOOR:

"BY REQUEST FROM THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS AND NICS, THE FOLLOWING IS A SPECIAL NOTICE TO ALL FIREARMS RETAILERS

� ATF ISSUE SECURITY ADVISORY . . . The ATF has issued a special request that all federally licensed firearms retailers consider implementing additional security measures tonight and in the near-term to safeguard their inventory following the terrorist attacks launched on the United States today.
� NICS FULLY FUNCTIONAL . . . Officials at the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in Clarksburg, WV, have said that the increased volume of telecommunications usage nationwide has resulted in some retailers having difficulty in obtaining NICS checks. NICS says the system is fully operational and delays retailers encounter are strictly due to the telecommunications system overload. The ATF and NICS appreciate your patience during these difficult times."

Wonder if they're sending this to box-cutter retailers....
PUTIN SUPPORTS TOUGH RESPONSE: Okay, he's probably just hoping we'll forget about Chechnya (like we've paid much attention anyway) but it's more political cover for Bush.
WHEN WILL WE GET BACK TO NORMAL? A colleague asked me that today. "This is normal," I replied. For most of human history, wondering when somebody from another tribe was going to try to kill you was the standard activity. In much of the world, it still is. Three million people have died in the Congo in the past couple of years. Before that, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, the Middle East, Cambodia, -- you get the idea. It's only in comparatively strong and wealthy Western nations that we can pretend that safety is normal. It really isn't all that normal for us, either. In the past hundred years we've had two world wars and a bunch of others. In the 19th Century we had the Civil War, the War of 1812 (in which most of DC was burned), etc., etc.
"Normal" is what we call those brief periods when something normal isn't happening.
TERRIFIC COLUMN BY DEROY MURDOCK: He has it dead right, about reacting and overreacting. Quote:

[O]ver the long term, political leaders must exercise extreme caution about overreacting to these staggeringly severe circumstances. Those who have called for government control of Internet-encryption technology, monitoring of the movements of cell-phone users and similar surveillance techniques will demand these and other steps in the aftermath of these disasters. In the name of fighting terrorism, such steps may be appealing. However, American leaders and voters alike should be very careful about embracing measures today that will leave citizens less free in the long run in an effort to catch criminals in the here and now. The Bill of Rights must not collapse with the Twin Towers.
American officials should feel no such restraint about retaliating against whatever group or nation perpetrated these acts of war. Any country that gave aid and comfort to whomever did these things should be treated as if its president were at the controls of one of the flying bombs that so tragically found its target.

Well said. I should add that holding these countries responsible is appropriate, but there have to be limits. Right now, somewhere in Washington, somebody is probably working on some grandiose scheme to retaliate in a way that will kill most Arabs and annex the oil. I hope that such dumb ideas wind up on the cutting-room floor where they belong.
NO WEAPONS NEEDED: Will Saletan makes an excellent point in Slate: these terrorists needed no weapons. They turned ordinary implements of peace, jet airliners, into deadly devices.
This reminds me of a story. JFK was once asked the difference between the Atlas that launched John Glenn and the nuclear-tipped Atlas missiles aimed at Russia. "Attitude," he said.
Diplomats like arms-control treaties. Domestically, some people like gun control. But ultimately, it is people who are dangerous. As Dan Akroyd said in Driving Miss Daisy, "A car is an object, mama. It does not act. It is acted upon." So, too, a jet plane. And everything else.
JAMES FALLOWS CONCLUDES, PERSUASIVELY that the suicide flights were flown by reasonably expert pilots, in this item in Slate.
OKAY, SO WE'RE NOT BOMBING AFGHANISTAN: At least that's the latest. (Remember what I said about "the fog of war"?). It's just normal gunfire, explosion, etc. in Kabul.
IF THE UNITED STATES' RETALIATION GOES ASTRAY, MOST AMERICANS WON'T CARE: That's because of sentiments like this one from Egyptians: "Bullseye!" For decades, Israelis have told us that Arabs were anti-Western and wished us ill. This is going to cause a lot of people to agree. Coming after the Durban conference, this marks a drastic reduction -- for the foreseeable future -- of any serious concern for what the Arab nations think.
THIS ALSO LIBERATES BUSH: His father worried (unnecessarily) about American public opinion, and thus failed to finish off Saddam Hussein. Clinton was always concerned about looking like a bully. Bush needn't worry about that. It will be open season -- not just militarily, but economically, diplomatically, and every other way -- on any and every Arab country that Bush wants to target.
ARAB COUNTRIES that want to escape the consequences had best start sucking up to Bush right away, and handing over the culprits' heads on a platter (perhaps literally). This isn't like Lockerbie, or any previous event. It's war.
READER EMAIL:

About today:
I'm a deputy attorney general, and essentially act as the general
counsel for the Delaware Department of Transportation. Among other
things, I've worked for several years with my counterparts in the Port
Authority of NY/NJ on the EZPass project (electronic toll collection
systems).
As soon as I heard of the attacks on the WTC, my thoughts went
immediately to my business friends who work for the Port Authority in
Building One. There was no way I could reach them to find out how or if
they made it out safely. Then I thought of all the thousands of others,
with similar thoughts about the thousands of people they know who work
or live in the same area.
The "six degrees of separation" that connect so many Americans may not
be fully appreciated by those not of this country. It'll be one of the
reasons we come together fairly quickly as a people to react in strong,
measured ways to this newest outrage.
My office is near Dover AFB, which went to Delta level along with all
the other military bases. State employees were dismissed early, and as I
drove by the base I was impressed at the line of cars of AFB staff lined
up to enter the base for duty on short notice. It was obvious that many
were interrupted in the middle of living their lives according to the
normal peacetime routine. It was also obvious that these people know
their duty and are prepared to follow through.
Some good will come of this eventually, I'm sure. It's just an awful
price to pay.
SO MUCH FOR THE KLINGONS: Bombs -- or cruise missiles, or something -- are falling on Kabul. Bush visited a major B-52 base and SAC headquarters today. Coincidence? Not likely. Cruise missiles are fine, but this can't be one of those Bill Clinton wham-bam-I've-bombed-you-ma'am specials. Whoever we decide is responsible must be obliterated sufficiently to ensure that this won't happen again. I just hope we know what we're doing on this.
THE PRESS COVERAGE on all this seems to focus on horror and tragedy. I don't think it's capturing how angry people are. Foreigners always forget just how mad Americans get when they're pissed off. The dominant tone I'm getting is pissed off. Even the usually-pacifistic intellectuals are adopting a hard line. That happened after Pearl Harbor, too.
I suppose this Afghanistan bombing means we know, or think we do, that there's an Afghanistan connection. We have some intelligence. I won't post the emails, but apparently multiple passengers (including Barbara Olson, wife of SG Ted Olson) called out on cellphones during the hijackings, which must have provided some useful information. The terrorists were armed, apparently, only with knives and boxcutters. I said below that the Archie Bunker theory of aircraft safety (give everyone a gun when they board) was looking good. I was being facetious then.
VIRGINIA POSTREL has many great posts on her page, including a link to a terrific Jonah Goldberg column that she excerpts.
VIRGINIA IS MAD. So am I. Hell, so is everyone. And the TV footage of jubilant Palestinians just proves what I've always suspected -- they just don't get it. They'll learn. Oh, how they'll learn. Even if it turns out that this was done by the Chinese, or disaffected high school students, their jubilation will be long remembered. The American role as "mediator" in the Middle East is over. Since -- though they don't realize it -- that's the only thing that has kept the Palestinians in the game since 1991, their future is likely to be grim, now.
HAVING SAID THAT, I want to invoke the old Klingon proverb: Revenge is a dish best served cold. Or, if you prefer a different science-fiction universe, we shouldn't give into the dark side of the force, letting our anger run wild.
OF COURSE, as in either of those movies, those considerations don't preclude squashing the offending parties like bugs. But they do suggest that we should do it deliberately. Terrorists WANT to get us off balance, lashing out, and out of control.
SPACE.COM IS REPORTING THAT THE WTC EXPLOSION WAS VISIBLE FROM ORBIT: The story says that the crew could see the billowing smoke clouds as the station passed over the Eastern Seaboard. This seems dubious to me, but conceivable given the very clear weather.
UPDATE: The Dennis Roddy link isn't working. He emailed me the story and link and said it was from a forthcoming "Extra" of the Post-Gazette. It may be up later, or it may have been withdrawn; I'll try to find out. Other news organs have apparently been reporting the same thing.
BLOOD BANKS ARE JAMMED with people who want to donate -- here in Knoxville, and, I'll bet, everywhere. It's a powerful desire to do something to help. I'm going myself, if I can get through the crowds. More later. Scroll down for various items, including Dennis Roddy's breakthrough hijack story.
THERE'S A FIRST HAND ACCOUNT from the World Trade Center in Slate.
TOM CLANCY WAS RIGHT: (Reposted from earlier today) And we're living one of his scenarios right now. Not much is known for sure, but it's obvious that the United States is the target of a major terrorist assault. There's a lot of bloviation on the cable news channels, most of which will turn out to be wrong or misleading later. Here, for your consideration, are a few points to be taken from past experience:
The Fog of War: Nobody knows much right now. Many things that we think we know are likely to be wrong.
Overreaction is the Terrorist's Friend: Even in major cases like this, the terrorist's real weapon is fear and hysteria. Overreacting will play into their hands.
It's Not Just Terrorists Who Take Advantage: Someone will propose new "Antiterrorism" legislation. It will be full of things off of bureaucrats' wish lists. They will be things that wouldn't have prevented these attacks even if they had been in place yesterday. Many of them will be civil-liberties disasters. Some of them will actually promote the kind of ill-feeling that breeds terrorism. That's what happened in 1996. Let's not let it happen again.
Only One Antiterrorism Method Works: That's punishing those behind it. The actual terrorists are hard to reach. But terrorism of this scale is always backed by governments. If they're punished severely -- and that means severely, not a bombed aspirin-factory but something that puts those behind it in the crosshairs -- this kind of thing won't happen again. That was the lesson of the Libyan bombing.
"Increased Security" Won't Work. When you try to defend everything, you defend nothing. Airport security is a joke because it's spread so thin that it can't possibly stop people who are really serious. You can't prevent terrorism by defensive measures; at most you can stop a few amateurs who can barely function. Note that the increased measures after TWA 800 (which wasn't terrorism anyway, we're told) didn't prevent what appear to be coordinated hijackings. (Archie Bunker's plan, in which each passenger is issued a gun on embarking, would have worked better). Deterrence works here, just as everywhere else. But you have to be serious about it.
For now, the terrorists have won. They've shut down the U.S. government, more or less. They've shut down air travel. They're all over TV. But whether they really win depends on how we deal with this; hysterically, or like angry -- but measured -- adults.
CRASHED UNITED AIRLINES PLANE WAS HIJACKED:

The Westmoreland County Emergency Operations Center said it received a cell phone call at 9:58 a.m. from a man who said he was a passenger aboard the flight. The man said he had locked himself in a bathroom and told 911 dispatchers that the plane hadbeen hijacked. He said he thought the plane was going down and told dispatchers that he heard an explosion and saw white smoke on the plane.
Then the line went dead. Dispatchers contacted the FBI. The plane went down near the town of Shanksville, on hillsides dotted with old strip mines.

From a story by Dennis Roddy in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
PENGUIN RADIO is streaming DC & NYC emergency radio channels.
THIS WEBSITE HAS PICTURES OF THE WTC taken by a NYC resident; they seem to be being updated.
THIS IS THE ANNIVERSARY OF CAMP DAVID, more or less (they were 9/5-9/17/78). Is that significant?
MANY MAJOR MEDIA WEBSITES ARE GROANING UNDER THE STRAIN but Slashdot, home of industrial-strength geekdom, seems to be up to the load and is posting steady news updates.
GEORGE BUSH IS NOW THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD: People always say that about Presidents, of course, but usually it's only notionally true. Now, if he wants to nuke Baghdad, there is nobody to say him nay -- and damned few who would want to. That's a danger if he goes off half-cocked, but I don't think there's much risk of that. But I wonder: do the people behind this assault realize what this means?
MORE LOCAL NEWS: Not that anyone cares directly, except as a sign of what's going on in a lot of places. The federal courthouse in Knoxville has been evacuated and is closed. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is under extremely heavy security. Our mayer, Victor Ashe, lost no time in condemning terrorism, which surely strikes fear in the hearts of the responsible parties. Local talk radio features surprisingly measured views: the local host Hallerin Hill is doing a superb job, showing anger but staying cool and stressing that we don't know much yet. Man-in-the-street interviews demonstrate a strong desire to obliterate the responsible parties, but no impulse to go off half-cocked. The nature of the response actually makes me quite proud.
THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT: Hysterical overreaction against American muslims and Arab-Americans. At this point, of course, we don't know who did this, but suspicion naturally runs toward various Islamist fundamentalist groups. Here is a statement from the Muslim Public Affairs Council:

In response to the criminal attacks against targets in New York City and Washington, DC, the Muslim Public Affairs Council issued the following statement: 1) We feel that our country, the United States, is under attack 2) All Americans should stand together to bring the perpetrators to justice 3) We warn against any generalizations that will only serve to help the criminals and incriminate the innocent 4) We offer our resources and resolve to help the victims of these intolerable acts, and we pray to God to protect and bless America

I ate lunch at a venerable Knoxville middle eastern restaurant, where the Arab proprietors seemed a bit nervous (though half the clientele, as usual, was Jewish). Hysterical overreaction is a major danger of terrorism; yielding to it plays into the terrorists' hands. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the people who need to hear this message aren't reading InstaPundit.
MORE BOZOS: The BBC is reporting that Palestinians have taken "credit" for the bombing. If this is true, Israel will soon reach to Damascus.
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