Day: May 27, 2002

The New York Times has a piece today the last hours and moments of the Twin Towers, which people I trust speak highly of. I haven’t read all of it yet, but certainly will soon.

If you find that story compelling, I also would recommend listening to the broadcasts on the emergency radio channel of the NY fire and police departments, which are available on the ‘net here.

A few warnings/notes about that link: first, you will probably hear an advertisement before the actual clip starts. It’s entirely possible that it will be for products that are staggeringly inappropriate to be hawking on such a serious broadcast. Second, this outfit seems to think they are a real radio station, and so when you open the link you apparently get dumped into a broadcast “in progress” with no ability to control start/stop time. Many months ago, I found a much better site that allowed you to review individual chunks of the broadcasts at will, but I can’t seem to find it now — if anyone else has a a better link, please send it my way.

But, if you can get past those issues, the broadcast is riveting, and if you had begun to lose that sharp feeling of anger and sadness from last September, is guaranteed to bring it back in full force.

Need more? WavSource.com has audio clips. Try this 911 call from the morning of the attacks. Or David Letterman’s concise, moving summary of the attacks on his first broadcast following them. And if you need to be reminded of the resolve necessary for the fight ahead, try President Bush’s statement to Congress, or even better, John McCain’s simple declaration of September 12th.

For me, today is a deeply appropriate day to review material like this. For although those that lost their lives on September 11th were not, for the most part, soldiers, they were without question causalities in a war. A war which started long before September 11th, and which stretches ahead of us into the future to an end we cannot now know: except that we know it will most certainly end with our victory.

What we also know is that we must remember those we have lost, and that the only way to truly honor their memories and their sacrifice is to continue the fight against the cowards who robbed them of their lives. The fight will take us on a long road; one which merely began in Afghanistan, and which winds through the capitals of Islamabad, Baghdad, Riyadh, and others. The pressure to allow the regimes who solemnly claim to be our allies in public to remain in power, quietly supporting the murderers in the darkness through funds, arms, or simply words of hatred against our nation; that pressure will be great. There will never be sufficient evidence to convince the world that these regimes are evil. There will always be those who cry “racism”; “oppression”, and “national sovereignty” in defense of the tyrants, the religious fascists, and the murderers.

But to reject those voices, and press on with the fight, is simply what we must do. And it is the only way to truly remember our lost from this war, and those that came before, with honor.

Update 5/31: I’ve removed the actual .wav sound files which the links above; I had temporarily stored them on my personal server but need to conserve bandwidth (it costs $$$) — especially with the flood of Salon folks coming through today. If you want to hear them, go directly to the WavSource site above — they are all there.

The BBC has some early reaction to Musharraf’s speech on Pakistani television today, in which (the BBC indicates):

General Musharraf answered Indian claims that Islamabad was allowing militants to carry out attacks by saying that Pakistan would not allow terrorism to be launched from its soil…He said no infiltration was taking place into Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Hmmm. That statement about “not allowing terrorism” from their soil would sure be a lot more reassuring if I had any faith that the statement about “no infiltration taking place” was true. Which I don’t.

The BBC also shows here that they do know how to do things right on the web with excellent background coverage surrounding the main article here, including a grim little map which shows the striking range of both Pakistan and India’s missiles, along with data on the nuclear payloads which can be mounted on them. (Bottom line: Both sides have the capability to nuke any site in the other’s territory, as well as quite a bit of real estate in surrounding countries if they chose).

CNN also covers the story (with background that isn’t so shoddy either), and includes this quote from the general:

He said Pakistan wanted dialogue, but he added: “If war is thrust upon us, every Muslim is bound to respond in kind.”

I find it worrisome that Musharraf is using this kind of vaguely Islamist rhetoric in his call-to-arms. I’ll confess up front that I haven’t paid nearly as much attention to the general as I probably should have (and there are lots of people out there who know more than I on the subject, including this fellow ). But isn’t he supposed to be the secular guy holding the fundamentalists in check?

Tonight on FOX: Who Wants to Marry a Terrorist?

Corner (whose permalink seems busted, but whose main page is here) points out a story in a Portuguese newspaper which describes one of the 13 Church of the Nativity exiles as “Single, with a free house and a reliable allowance, all he needs is a bride”, quoting a PA spokescritter as stating: “He is not married, he does not have a girlfriend. We are looking for a bride for him.”

David Grant, call your office! This is a reality show begging to happen. “We’ve provided this handsome gunman with twelve sexy infidel daughters of the Great Satan. Which will he choose to make his bride?”

This is totally Lair’s schtick, so I leave it to him to pick up from here…

By the way, in poking around for this piece I came across this page from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which provides detail on exactly who each of the 13 men are and what they are accused of. It’s not an objective source, of course. But it provides a convincing level of detail (even includes sources, in some cases) and frankly, I’m far more inclined to take the Israeli’s statements at face value than those of the PA. I would, however, like to see a similar document from the PA perspective (or any other opposing view) — so if it anyone has a pointer, send it my way. You don’t have to agree with it, just pass it on, I’ll post it, and intelligent people can make up their own minds. The wonders of a free market of ideas in action, baby.