On 2001-09-21 07:34, Bob Butler 54 wrote:
...
Any presentation of the New War as black and white, heroes against villains, is pure (expletive deleted) propaganda. At this point, I would not want to label either Bush or Bin Ladin as representing the future, a shining a light for the world to follow. Anyone sincerely interested in building a just world would have to acknowledge both sides can make points. Anyone buying into Bush?s Big Oil viewpoint 100% should really think thinks through.
...

This is really getting old. This isn't about "Big Oil", OK? It seems just plain weird to get so angry about the idea of heroes vs. villains -- terrorist organizations are villains, OK? I think most of us have "thought things through", and still "buy into" a war against the terrorists.

Why do I keep reading all your posts, they just annoy me.

On 2001-09-21 08:59, Justin'79 wrote:
This isnt the Fourth Turning.
I felt this for a week.
Now the Xer in me is still saying whatever.
Can I ask the other Xers on this list, if they are into all this patriotic stuff.
My gut instinct has been to protect myself and my family. I havent really bought into the American part of it, other than as Americans we are in danger
....
People of my generation have born witness to terrible things our whole lives, from divorce and domestic abuse, to drug use, gang violence. Were used to dealing with the bad daily.
But Millies have been sheltered.
...

I guess I'm just in an irritable mood this morning. Let the hard-to-follow ramblings begin:

The "terrible things" you mention have been around since before Gen X. Plus, they are still here for Millennials. An individual has always been free to rise above those things. A war is a different story, it's not as easy to rise above. Gen X, as well as Silents and Boomers, have it relatively easy (those who were not in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War). War makes the other "terrible things" seem like whining.

The urge to protect oneself, let others fend for themselves, except the core Gen X "friends-as-family" (but aren't most people "friends you just haven't met yet"?), and deride "patriotic stuff", is not only selfish, but is not defensible with the lame Gen X excuse "all my life I've been kicked around, so it's only natural I'll only look out for myself". This is the time for Gen X to grow up. And I say that in full knowledge of a "whatever" (non-)riposte.

Sigh.
I'm not deriding flag waving.
Im just saying Im not particularly feeling the flag waving, and God Bless america.
Some people really need that to get them through this.
But I am more interested in the reality of this situation, and all the godbless americas isnt going to swing my interest from whats going to happen in afghanistan to blind love of god and country.
To me the "American" part of the response
songs, flags, talk of freedom
is just traditional hot air and distractions covering what im really worried about and what im really feeling, which is hoping that we are successful in this mission to root out terrorists, hoping i and my fellow americans stay alive, and that our government doesnt make any tragic mistakes in the events that follow the 911 catastrophe.

OUr local cartoonist, Trever, ran one in today's paper showing both the far right and the far left grinding their axes (God is mad at the gays, the abortionists, the ACLU... we brought this on ourselves with capitalism, support for Israel, racism...) and Uncle Sam, with a nicked & dented sword says "Excuse me, boys -- can you stop your grinding long enough to help me with this one?" The sword is labeled War on Terrorism.

Trever is a libertarian.

Bob Butler 54 wrote

For decades, I?ve held a cynical belief that Big Oil is blocking serious government grants to research fusion power. They wish to maintain the current economic status quo as long as they can. This may be the wild card, an attempt to discover if a fusion ? hydrogen economy is possible

Fusion may well be the "savior" of humanity - some day. The reason that government fusion grants have decreased over the years has nothing to do with oil companies, but rather lack of results. My graduate research in Nuclear Engineering 20 years ago was in fusion (specifically fusion/fission hybrid blankets) so while not an expert, I am more familiar w/ the subject than most. Efficient fusion is just very, very, very difficult. We are also hamstrung by ill advised non-proliferation agreements which prevents the reprocessing of spent fuel from our fission reactors. (Why? Reprocessing produces Plutonium, which is also used in bombs.) A more open approach to the entire nuclear energy debate would allow fusion research to accelarate, while more fission plants would allow us energy independence while leveraging our 80% share of the world's proven uranium supplies.

The term "oil industry" is a misnomer, a more correct term is "energy industry". If Exxon researchers could figure out a way to do fusion, you can bet they would!

I thought Bush's delivery was way above average for him. Rhetorically I could have done without "God is on our side;" I would like to think agnostics have earned a place in the 4T, and my *Millennial son (much more favorable to the speech than I was) thought it lowered us to our enemies' level. And I would prefer not to have our Christian President lecturing the world on what Islam is and what it is not. I don't think we would warm to similar statements by non-believers about Christianity or Judaism.

I am disturbed by the threat to eliminate the Taliban if they don't open their country to us. I don't know whether this operation really is worth the effort it would take, assuming it can be done at all. I would rather have him say that we would do what was necessary one way or another, whether they cooperated or not.

And following on the remarks of my contemporary Ted, one could (if one was on this site) put another cast on those remarks: we are going to make sure that everyone else's 4T turns out the way we want it to. That strikes me as a prescription for MAJOR trouble.

Let me throw a new analogy into the hopper: the Second World War in the Pacific. We identified Japan as a threat, correctly, and decided to destroy them and liberate the territories (huge) they controlled. We did that and turned Japan into an ally. But we could not control what happened in territories they had occupied, such as Indonesia, Indochina, China, and Korea. Things in those countries often didn't go as we had hoped, and we fought, in fact, two big wars, with success ranging from 50% to 0%, trying to make things go as we want.

A campaign against terrorism and the regimes that support it is BOUND to have lots of unintended consequences. It's really impossible that all of them will be to our liking.

Maybe this talk about Blue and Red Zone is irrelevant if the Millennial Crisis is Western Values versus ?????

One thought is that the feminist establishment (Ms. Magazine, National Organization for Women, etc...) has long hated the Taliban for its cruel and oppressive treatment of women. For example, women are not allowed outside of their home unless accompanied by a male relative. They can not work (even if they are widows and the sole support of their families). Girls cannot go to school. When women go outside, they must completely cover themselves except for some mesh covering their eyes -- even their mouths are covered. Etc... And even our ally, Saudi Arabia doesn't allow women to drive!

Another Blue Zone bloc, gays, hate Islamic governments that jail and otherwise persecute homosexuals.

Obviously, Jews are opposed to Islamic governments for obvious reasons (any other Jews posting on this board feeling jumpy about the upcoming Yom Kippur?)

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Regarding the analysis of Bush's speech, and the suggestion that he's targeting a tactic rather than a specific enemy: I got a different impression.


Although he used the word "terrorism" frequently, it was fairly obvious that he was referring specifically to Islamic terrorist groups. Consider this passage particularly:

Americans are asking: Why do they hate us?


They hate what they see right here in this chamber, a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms, our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.


They want to overthrow existing governments in many Muslim countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. They want to drive Israel out of the Middle East. They want to drive Christians and Jews out of vast regions of Asia and Africa.


These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way.


We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the twentieth century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

In other words, Bush is targeting an ideology of radical Islam, which happens to employ terrorism as a tactic. He is not, despite some statements, targeting terrorism as a tactic no matter who uses it. He is identifying radical Islam as the heir to Nazism and Communism as the Shadow of Democracy, the Enemy Against Whom We Strive. That's a powerful mythical statement.


Incidentally, I thought it was a superb speech. I don't even have to add, "for Bush." It would have been a very good speech for Roosevelt or Kennedy. For Bush, it was positively surreal.

The point of listing all the terrorist groups I could think of (Virgil, thanks for the helpful additions...) was twofold.

First, to indicate the enormity of the task ahead.

Second, to hint at an intellectual fallacy of the Bush approach that may leave us open to criticism and may create a rallying point for the terrorists to recruit more and more Muslims to their cause: that we are targeting MUSLIMS but not our fellow Christians (like the IRA, etc.). Sure, we can respond that we seek to destroy only INTERNATIONAL terrorist organizations, but reason does not seem to be be of much use in dealing with the unreasoning recruitment base for the bin Ladens of the world.

Unless our cause is worldwide ethnic cleansing, extermination of Islamic humanity, it seems to me that to reach a Permanent Solution we have to learn to think like they do, to understand their grievances, justified or unjustified.

Ted, I agree that we have to understand their grievances, justified or unjustified. I don't agree, however, that we have to lump all Muslims in with the Taliban, any more than we have to lump all Christians in with Falwell and Robertson.


The problem is that, once we've understood their grievances, justified or unjustified, the inevitable conclusion is that some of the aren't justified. Sure, we can adjust our foreign and trade policies to benefit the human race more and short-term American corporate profits less, and we should. But would that satisfy them? It's a legitimate grievance, but I don't even think it's what al-Qaida is mainly steamed about.


The only way we could accommodate them is to become a Muslim theocracy -- or, at minimum, a Christian one -- ourselves. In other words, we would have to change the fundamental nature of our society, and become something most Americans would find abominable, in order to have peace.


I am not willing to do that. Are you?

Random thought on a tactic:

In thinking about the Japanese-American experience in WWII (Manzanar and all that), it occurred to me that an unintended consequence of our racism and segregation in those days was to give Japanese-Americans a unique chance to PROVE their American-ness and patriotism. Military units that were all Japanese-American were among the most highly decorated and valorous of all our units, AS UNITS.

Which led me to this "what if." What if we had a unit or units that were all Muslim-American? Or Afghan- or Iraqui-American? Perhaps they would be more effective on the ground in those countries than would be Euro- or African- or East Asian-American soldiers.

Here's something that relates to the earlier discussion about the protests against corporate globalism, in relation to the current war.


Interesting thought, Ted. However, I don't think current law allows the creation of segregated units. You can't have all-Muslim units any more than you can all-white units or all-black ones.

It has struck me that it may be in their best interest for American Arabic-Muslims to freely encourage very temporary incursions on their personal freedoms. Something on the order of: "We abhor what other Arabic-Muslims have done. We understand that many people are now emotionally afraid of us, even though we are Americans. Therefore, we understand if we get a more thorough check at the airport, etc."

While patently unfair, I think it would impress most Americans as an "American" thing to do, particularly in these circumstances.

I live in a neighborhood that's 25% or more Pakistani. They are Ismali Shiite and have a very large mosque (Jamakthani Center) near hear. The news reported that in Richardson, a town near here, that on Monday 9/10/01, a 5th grade boy told his teacher, "WWIII is starting tomorrow in America, and America is going to lose". The boy has now withdrawn from school and his parents are being investigated. I'm sure that this kind of thing is revolting to other Arabic-Americans. I'm sure that my Pakistani neighbors are just as outraged as I am. Unfortunately, they LOOK just like the bad guys, and that makes for a very difficult situation. What the answer is, I don't know.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cecilalb on 2001-09-21 10:57 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: cecilalb on 2001-09-21 10:58 ]</font>

Many who post here who feel this is the 4T give a changed national mood as one reason. This mood is usually described as a resurgance in American pride and people behaving nicer to one another. An increased since of unity.
In my location (western Kentucky on the border between the South and the Mid-West), this type of behavior is not all that different. Most people already flew flags. Yes, many of those who didn't now are, but that was true during the Gulf War as well.
I wonder if the changed national mood we hear so much about in the media is not really just a changed mood in the media. These events hit very close to home for most national commentators, correspondants, and entertainers. Not to mention beltway politicians. Are they leading the rest of the country into a 4T? What would have happened if a major attck had occured in, say, Chicago, with an equally devestating loss of life? Would the reaction be the same?

Richt writes? This is really getting old. This isn't about "Big Oil", OK? It seems just plain weird to get so angry about the idea of heroes vs. villains -- terrorist organizations are villains, OK? I think most of us have "thought things through", and still "buy into" a war against the terrorists.

I will make no claim that you or the majority of Americans are fighting to maintain Big Oil?s profits, or even consciously fighting to maintain a world order favorable to this country at the expense of the Third World. Most Americans are just gut reaction angry, and ready to use force in self-defense. However, oil has a great deal to do with America?s policies towards the Middle East. America?s policies have a great deal to do with why some Middle Eastern natives are willing to give their lives to change the current economic, political, cultural and religious situation. A notion that the 911 plots were not launched for cause, that they occurred only because the perpetrators were inherently villainous, does not indicate one has thought things through.

This is the wrong time to ask everyone to understand and respect their enemies. I have heard much on how they may have underestimated us. Do not underestimate them. From their cultural perspective, they have good and adequate reasons for jihad. They have good and adequate reason to label us the ?Great Satan.? This could easily become a war of wills. I am anticipating any strikes on their home ground will short term only increase their desire to resist, even as the 911 attacks only increased US resolve. They invited us into a spiral of violence. We seem intent to accept the invitation. It would be wise to go in eyes open.

On 2001-09-21 11:02, DOC 62 wrote:

In my location (western Kentucky on the border between the South and the Mid-West), (m)ost people already flew flags. Yes, many of those who didn't now are, but that was true during the Gulf War as well.
I wonder if the changed national mood we hear so much about in the media is not really just a changed mood in the media. These events hit very close to home for most national commentators, correspondants, and entertainers. Not to mention beltway politicians. Are they leading the rest of the country into a 4T? What would have happened if a major attck had occured in, say, Chicago, with an equally devestating loss of life? Would the reaction be the same?

Well, I live near and work in Washington, DC, but I'm sure I would feel about the attack exactly the same if it had occurred in Chicago or St.Louis or San Francisco. It was the senseless loss of life and the ENORMITY of the method used to cause that loss of life that most offended me.

I have put a little flag up on my office cubicle and in our front garden at home. I did not do so during the Gulf War. We weren't attacked in the Gulf War.

During the Gulf War I wore my "Black Stewart" mourning necktie every day. Three days before the bombing started, I sent a long letter to Bush "per" with detailed arguments why he should hold off on military action and pursue sanctions instead. I included a long list of predicted consequences of going to war, among which were environmental destruction, increased anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, vast increases in terrorism ("more of our planes being bombed", I think I said), and assassinations of moderate middle-eastern leaders like Mubarak. (I also took a look at a map of Iraq, and predicted a long and bloody campaign to drive Saddam Hussein from power--little did I know Bush would pull THAT punch.) Of those four chickens, three have come to roost, two of them with horrible vengeance in the time of Bush "fils". Wish I could find a copy of that letter.

Another consequence of Desert Storm I did NOT predict was Timothy McVeigh/Terry Nichols. The Lost Generation had WWI. I'm afraid the 13th might have Desert Storm/Infinite Justice.

I just went to lunch with my GI friend. Naturally, we talked about 911. She's never been receptive to the generational theory and I didn't bring any of it up. I just told her that I really wanted to talk to her because she was someone who had been through this sort of thing. I asked her if she thought everyone had changed because of this and she said, "Oh, yes! You know, this reminds me of 1930, the way everything was so different from the Roaring '20s after the Crash. People stopped behaving the way they had. People went back to family and to God. Everybody got serious. You had to."

I just found it interesting that she made the connection herself without me saying anything about cycles.

One thing about Bush's speech last night was that, in mentioning all the international response and support and whatnot the U.S. had received, he didn't mention Canada. This was widely noted north of the border, but just in a 'side-note' kind of manner. 'Oh, by the way.' Most news entities focused on the content (and quality) of the speech.

Except the Toronto Sun. The Sun's headline this morning was, 'BUSH SNUBS US'. Yeah, 'cause that's the main point. Never mind World War III; how 'bout we talk about how much our feelings are hurt? I can't stand the Sun; it's such a rag.

I think Bushes speech was effective and to the point. The goal is to eliminate terrorist organizations with a global reach. Every regime that currently helps or harbors them will have to decide whether they are going to cooperate in ending their support or be the enemy of an enraged United States.

The goals are clear, the means are clear, and the costs are clear. Those costs would have been considered too high, even in 1993 when they tried, but did not yet succeed, in destroying the World Trade Center.

What generation is Bin Laden?

LIS
I don't quite remember the depression but I remember my parents (and theirs)talking about how everything changed after the crash. And they were farmers in Montana, far removed from Wall St. I think that the only thing that will prevent this from bringing in the 4T is if the response is mishandled, or if we have misjudged the mood of the rest of the world, and this turns into a Holy War. Then all bets are off because our fate would be tied to the rest of the worlds reaction not our own.

Jenny, a bunch of posts back (and I think it was you -- so many posts to digest) you wondered whether the Millenial Crisis was Western culture v. ????

An interesting thought and one that I am starting to have myself. To add to your list of bad things the Taliban has done to women here are some more: the public stoning of women who show a sliver of wrist; the shooting death of a woman for being out in public without a male relative (she was trying to take her seriously ill toddler to the doctor); and the prohibition of women from seeing male doctors or being doctors themselves (basically women are not allowed access to any health care). Clearly this is not what Islam is about, but what is it? A reaction of 20 years of war and a generation raised in refugee camps? What? BTW, were you ever on the circulation list of an anti-Taliban Internet petition to the UN that has been going around for about 2-3 years started by a woman at Brandeis? I have received it several times over the past few years and I wonder if others have as well.

The other thought I keep having has to do with the historic tension between "Western" Christianity and Islam. I need to think more about it, but there may be something going on here that is much more ancient than our young country. Perhaps my Xer ignorance of history is showing, but the last big holy war I recall like this was the Crusades. That time it was Islam that had the "modern" culture of science and Christian fanatics that destroyed all of that and booted Muslims out of Spain, etc, and into Turkey and North Africa. The people who became Sephardic Jews were also booted out to many of the same places as Muslims.

Sorry for the blank post above here is what I meant to say.

The New Rules

Life has changed after September 11, 2001 in many fundamental ways. For the most part prior to that date Americans and others went through their lives in a blissful naivete. We can no longer behave that way, and I thought it useful to enumerate a few of the ways things have changed.

I applaud the changes now being made to increase airport and air travel safety, but as my mother would say, ?This is closing the barn door after the cow is gone.? There will be no more hijacking of airplanes for three very good reasons.

1. One hour after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, passengers on the fourth plane apparently took matters into their own hands. Unfortunately while trying to re-take control of the plane, it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The passengers knowing they were dead if they did not act chose to fight back. Every set of passengers must understand this new rule and act accordingly.
2. We now know that fighters were scrambled to intercept the fourth plane with orders to shoot it down if it threatened Washington D.C. In fact, significant numbers of people believe that is really what happened to the fourth plane. In any case in the post September 11 world the US has planes flying Combat Air Patrol over the major cities to prevent further suicide hijackings whether of passenger planes or other aircraft.
3. The terrorists know and understand the above. They have moved on to other tactics.

What then are their next targets? As on Hollywood type commented these attacks were low-tech (box cutters and knives, tools legal at the time) and high concept (maximum damage and publicity for minimal effort and risk). One future area of risk is anywhere large numbers of people gather, sporting events, entertainment events, public ceremonies and buildings, malls at Christmas time, etc. Does this mean we should not go to the ballgame, the concert, the courthouse, shopping, etc? No, then they win by default. But we cannot go blindly. We must have our eyes and ears open and report anything we see that is out of the ordinary. Sometime before the fateful day the actor, James Woods, was reportedly on a flight from Boston where he noticed some passengers filming their flight. To Woods trained eye they seemed to be too interested in the cockpit door. He reported what he saw to the authorities, but no one understood what the full consequences would be. Another new rule, therefore, is watch for the unusual and report it to the authorities. Include why you think it is unusual and for what purpose it might be used, if you think you know.

There is a corollary to the above situation. After the first tower was hit anyone above the point of impact was dead or waiting to die. There was nothing they could do. Nothing could be done to rescue them. The same was not true in the other tower. Some people on the topmost floor of the other tower made it out alive, while some located many floors lower did not. The reason for this is those who lived recognized the event happening to the first tower as being far outside the normal range of events. They believed their own eyes and heeded their own council. They decided to walk to the bottom thinking they would wait a few minutes and then return to work sheepishly. Unfortunately for those who listened to and obeyed authorities who reported that the other tower was not damaged and safe, both those facts were true and irrelevant. Another new rule is to judge events yourself and determine for yourself if what your are being told matches what you see. Is the event with in the scope the authorities can control or is it beyond them? After all even without a second plane would the second tower have withstood the collapse of the first tower? Could the authorities know this with any certainty? Be your own judge for the safety of yourself, your family, your friends. You can always apologize later for being too careful, or as Mom would say, ?Better safe than sorry.?

Another set of potential targets are the infrastructure. The list includes power plants, refineries, airports, etc. In Los Angeles one of the major power plants, Scattergood, is located on the ocean. Just to the north of it is the Hyperion sewage treatment plant, just to the south is the Chevron refinery. All these sites and LAX are vulnerable from the sea. A shoulder launched rocket in the power plant or the refinery would cause a real mess. Beyond these problems are the two nuclear plants at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon both located on the ocean to use the water for cooling. I hope that nuclear containment vessels can withstand a certain amount of attack, but since this terrorists do not care if they live, the Coastguard, the police, and the companies must be ready to destroy them before they can destroy their targets. In retrospect locating nuclear power plants on the ocean, immediately up wind of population centers was naively foolish (Distributed Solar looks cheaper every day).

A final note

So, is this the definitive list of changes and challenges facing us all? Of course not. The CIA, the FBI, the President do not know exactly what form the future threats will take, nor could they. However, you work somewhere, at a job you understand. You play somewhere at a place you understand. You know what is normal and what is odd at your job. We now know that several flight schools thought it was odd that someone wanted to pay for simulation time on commercial jets, but they were not interested in takeoffs and landings, the two most difficult things. Those people were only interested in level flights and making turns. The instructors thought it odd, but did nothing. After September 11 we no longer have the luxury of doing nothing. In fact, we should both look ahead and back. Is there something odd that happened at work? If there is talk about it and if it has dangerous potential take it to the authorities. We used to think such things were none of our business, the last new rule is that everything is your business. Most cases will be nothing of course and bringing them up will embarrass us, but we must continue to do so. This new world appears more dangerous than ever, but it is not, we are just seeing it clearly for the first time in a long while.

On 2001-09-21 13:56, Doug Saxon 47 wrote:
1. One hour after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, passengers on the fourth plane apparently took matters into their own hands...
2. We now know that fighters were scrambled to intercept the fourth plane with orders to shoot it down if it threatened Washington D.C. In fact, significant numbers of people believe that is really what happened to the fourth plane...

I've taken the above out of context, I know. It raises a 4T question...We may never know the "truth" about this incident, perhaps, but I am reminded of John Ford's <u>The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance</u>: "when the legend becomes truth, print the legend."
Would such a situation (controlling information to maximize America's resolve) be 3T, or 4T? Just curious.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin1952 on 2001-09-21 15:19 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Kevin1952 on 2001-09-21 15:20 ]</font>