We should have learned a simple lesson on 9/11 from al-Qaeda. What do you do if you want to go to war, but you don’t have B-2 bombers or F-22 fighters or M-1 Abrams tanks or Bradley armored personnel carriers or smart bombs or guided missiles or 155 mm howitzers?
What a wonderfully droll column, because the titanosaur behind every sentence is what dear old Ike warned us about in 1961--- we are in thrall to the "military-industrial complex," for which multi-billion dollar contracts to buy B-2 bombers, F-22 fighters, and M-1 Abrams tanks are the be-all and end-all of national defense. Consider the flip: militarily, we have become the British, c. 1775-1783, and our enemies have learned to be the equivalent of American farmers with muskets. H P Lovecraft nailed it: "From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent."
That's so true, and we never learn. Look at Vietnam, our hi-tech weapons couldn't compete with a determined adversary using home made weapons hidden in the jungle. Apocalypse Now illustrates the futility of our hubris. The lesson now is that we are right to stay our of the Ukraine but fully support the war there to keep it from coming to us.
I read Gary Webb's articles at the time, what specifically was Robert Parry adding, Cal? I would like some guidance in searching, since the google algorithms and all the rest seem to be carefully constructed to sell product rather than spread enlightenment about really controversial topics, thanks! for any help you might offer on this.
Well, that was scary, not to mention eye-popping. Ace Hardware and toy trucks: DIY warfare.
As for "a few weeks of flight school," it was known, pre-9/11 that the (mostly) Saudi student pilots did not particularly care to learn how to land ... just to take off. Hello? Also that Condi did not know what to make of reports of planes flying into buildings. One doesn't know what to say.
Condi's whowouldathunkit remains her legacy. She shoulda stuck with playing the piano for Col. al-Gaddafi.
To answer her absurd question his name is Abdul Karim, better known by his alias Rami Yousef, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. After Karim picked the wrong parking space for his truck bomb in the basement of the WTC North Tower in 1993 he realized it would be easier to target US symbols using fully fueled aircraft. Keep in mind he escaped the US after the 93 WTC bombing and went to SEA to experiment with using bombs on international aircraft. He successfully did dry runs and then like his near miss at the WTC detonated a bomb on an international flight but had it under the wrong seat. He did get captured by the US by the DSS and his famous for his retort to the FBI SA (whether true or not) who made certain he saw the still standing WTC from the air only for Karim to reply "for now". His chosen #1 target other than the WTCs was CIA HQ. Was in the journal seized in his apartment in SEA.
So, on this day some inc 911 Commission credits UBL and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the masterminds of 911 mainly cuz they didn't want Karim's ingress and egress on an obvious forged Ir passport followed by him being granted temporary asylum to pop back up. Credit W's Dad, GHWB Adm for granting a Karim enough time to put together the first WTC Bombing, then poof! All the while claiming they ended the threat with the arrest of the Blind Sheik and accomplices.
Only a few knew the final destination for the 4th aircraft. 911 should never ever guessed and that includes insisting it had to be inside DC. The Pentagon was not in DC, it's across the river. Just as CIA HQ is. Or in the alternative the same double tap on the Pentagon as was done to the WTCs. What the WTCs and the Pentagon had in common was a high number of people. UBL and others read the WTC brochures that upwards of 250,000 people come and go on a typical day. Like other errors, forgot the simple fact 9AM is not the time of day of high people traffic. As far as the WH as a potential target, not a high number of people inside, W's schedule was published in advance and most of all from the air is a small target compared to the WTCs and the Pentagon. The USCB is a large target yet is not filled with people who are widely dispersed across the complex. 911 Commission ignored the bloodthirst of the mofos. No surprise there. Same old yt men who only saw the Blue Marble thru their narrow aperture or as Connie observed, whowouldathunkit.
PS. There is at least a 50-50 chance there was a 5th plane and 20% chance more than 5.
911 is not only a trigger for many it is an inflection point ushering in non-stop war (there are no grades of war, only war and its internecine). Bush Adm leveraged 911 in all the wrong ways after NOT preventing it. Embracing failure became the new Republican/conservative norm and who can forget how it manifests with not one but two near simultaneous proclamations of Mission Accomplished in 2 war theaters?
And yes, there was some whitewashing of all-things 911. And by playing the OMG look at the today's color on the Terrorist Warning Lights, hurry up and buy plastic sheathing and duct tape, there was little space for hard questions. After all there was the drum beats of war to drown whatever ones could break through.
The Bojinka plot (Arabic: بوجينكا; Tagalog: Oplan Bojinka) was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States,[1] with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.[2]
Despite careful planning, the Bojinka plot was disrupted after a chemical fire drew the attention of the Philippine National Police – Western Police District (PNP-WPD, now known as Manila Police District PNP-MPD) on January 6–7, 1995. Yousef and Mohammed were unable to stage any of the three attacks. The only fatality resulted from a test bomb planted by Yousef on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, which killed one person and injured 10 others. They also planted two other bombs in a shopping mall and theater in the southern Philippines. Elements of the Bojinka plot (including the plan to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters) would be used in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, six years later.
Terminology and etymology
The plot is also known as Oplan Bojinka, Operation Bojinka, Project Bojinka, and Bojinga. FBI officials described Operation Bojinka as "48 hours of terror".[3]
Several news media outlets, including Time Asia,[4] incorrectly stated that the word Bojinka means "loud bang" or "explosion" in the Serbo-Croatian language. Endnote 7 of Chapter 5 of the 9/11 Commission Report states that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "says bojinka is not Serbo-Croatian for 'big bang', as has been widely reported, but rather a nonsense word he adopted after hearing it on the front lines in Afghanistan."[5]
**** The Wiki article continues, I post from them because however flawed or outright misleading they can be, at least there are usually plenty of sources cited in the footnotes so anyone interested can follow the leads elsewhere.
To be fair, Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State, not Defense or the Director of the CIA. Beyond that, I can name dozens of other more responsible government agencies who also “did not know what to make of planes flying into buildings”.
Wow. I went to a liberal arts college, and when I read that *middle easterners* were at a flight school to learn only one thing (!) I knew what that meant. The religion of these people promises other worldly goodies for martyrs.
Yes. Something like 71 virgins. They did this for sex! Also the airlines were useless at critical moments. Boxcutters were on the list of items NOT allowed. There was even a photo of a boxcutter for agents.
The entire psychosexual farrago would delight Freud and all of his students, even the ones who would reinterpret the info as reaching into Jungian Archetypes, there is so much bizarre wish fulfillment, not just the virgins, but somehow martyring oneself into fulfilling a plan for a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient Deity - how could a hypothetical entity like that NEED any `help' in the first place?
Humans at their most ferocious in the service of dogmas they don't even understand, it's beyond belief!
Lol. So tell me about the "religion of these people" who are doing their damndest to undermine democracy in this country and occasionally going on shooting sprees at the same time.
Every theistic religion promises other worldly, post-shuffling off the mortal coil and boogieing into Eternity goodies, unless you can cite an exception.
Btw I have DISCUSSED EXACTLY THIS with several sincere Muslims, one from Sierra Leone, Mohammed Bah, a co-worker eight years ago for Hennepin County Volunteer Services, and another whose name was "typically generic," John Robinson, lived across the hall from me and was also enrolled at the U.
Also this is a standard topic (promises, rewards for "martrydom," that came up in several philosophy of religion courses).
Those Muslims think it makes total sense and were quite content with the Koranic injunctions, just like so many believers. They believe and that's it!
You can usefully pay attention to the incredible amount of the Koran which covers the topic of "Unbelievers," that is "Infidels," and how to treat them. Salman Rushdie is quite eloquent on the topic, as you might expect, also Ayan Hirsi Ali, as in this 6 minute snippet from the Aspen Ideas Festival, 2007.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an outspoken defender of women's rights in Islamic societies. Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992, and served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006.
In parliament, she worked on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society, and on defending the rights of women in Dutch muslim society. In 2004, together with director Theo van Gogh, she made Submission, a film about the oppression of women in conservative Islamic cultures. Ms. Hirsi Ali is currently a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ***** So she is connected with right-of-center think tank, not "Trumpism," at least as far as I know. *****
Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic and chief Washington commentator of The Financial Times. In addition, he writes a column for National Journal and serves as chief editorial adviser to David Bradley, the chairman of Atlantic Media Group. He was formerly on the staff of The Economist, latterly from 1993 to 2005 as deputy editor. A graduate of Oxford and the London School of Economics, he has served as a consultant to The World Bank and worked as an official in the British Treasury. He lives in Washington, DC. *****
And if no promises of benefits for joining up with this or that theistic cult, what would the contrast be, "Follow OUR religion, we can promise you absolutely nothing after you die, not even avoiding Hades, Hell, bad outcomes in general"?
" I can see your attention wandering, brothers and sisters, now fork over some money, we can use that to spread our message anyway!"
Not even Elmer Gantry could convince anyone with that material,
you need to hornswoggle them a la the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with your pedigree of having told the fortunes of the Crowned Heads of Europe or something with some razzmatazz and sizzling eschatology to blind their sense of critical skepticism, if any!
Correction: Rice was NOT SECSTATE on 911, she was APNSA. She only saw Rus, Ru, Ru during her time as APNSA. Same with W, Cheney and a host of others. Couldn't be bothered with (not my terms) rag heads and goat herders.
And you are omitting the fact Mullah Omar's [American] Emissary was spat out when he can to DC in March or April 2011 (Edit 2001) . Goes beyond Af culture to Islamic and beyond to what is wrongly referred to as tribal culture. Is brown and black culture or better said non-yt. And Connie is just another R/con Oreo.
Been my experience if ya start right ya got a leg up on finishing right v. those who start all wrong. Is best captured by the Downeast Mainers from the state of my birth with ya can't get there from here. The W Bush Adm, as was in the GWHB (edit GHWB) Adm, was dominated by group think. They too started all wrong and it is a historical fact they ended in all the wrong places. Worst Adm evah. (2hot shooting wars, a not so "Great" Recession. GITMO, torture ny memo, no UBL. and destroyed budget surpluses "as far as the eye could see. That is the shat list, Good Man)
Lesson: nevah evah be an apologist for abject failures nor shift the blame elsewhere. And if one is going to defend a failed (irrespective of the causation) person, make certain to receive payment for it. Needn't be in $$$$. Nor upfront.
Re: Bush-Cheney-Rice treated Gen Powell as their house negro. Ruined his legacy by positioning him to preach puke to the UN. ~never forget~
Margo seems to me you knew what to say, we are are mystified at the monumental hubris, the appalling incompetence, and it's because it makes no damn sense for them, either, our putative "best and the brightest" foreign policy geniuses, to blunder around so obtusely from the point of view of history's judgment on their careers, and was disastrous unintended help for some of the most malign people who ever trod the earth, real-life "Bond Villains," only without even a smidgen of the sinister charm some of them could exude!
This is chilling in its how-to-fight-a-war logic. Surely clear eyes (not bought by established arms manufacturers) are looking at Ukraine as a laboratory in much the same way as they’ve always have, squint eyed obsessing on new ways to deliver death - but at a much higher price.
Long said men need to stand down, stand back and shutdafuq about wimmin reproductive health. Same applies with (ret) FOGOs on present day wars. Am grateful to SECDEF Austin for how he has gone about reining in the hawks at DoD and resisted giving P-Zelensky the biggest and baddest toys because that is all he knows about war. Uk mil is figuring it out like all mil must or else. (Is a dig at playbook GOs)
The Ukrainians don't need any "toys," although maybe the Pentagon "hawks" are so detached from the carnage, which of course Zelensky has been having to deal with in ways no other human being in or outside of Ukraine has been positioned to experience as directly, from the very beginning, when Putin bombed Kyiv and sent a detachment to try to execute him and substitute their own puppet.
They just need to be able to defend themselves against genocide, I see what you mean - I think I do, anyway - about simply allowing a precipitous escalation when there's no need for more help than that, though. As it IS, the Russians have been able to engage in the targeted mass slaughter of civilians in ways a better missile defense system and fighter aircraft would have coped with far better, maybe even ending the war, allowing for Putin to claim victory and retreat.
You know as well as I do there's always a cost in non-action. In August 1945 in East Asia and the Pacific, the cost to allowing the Imperial Japanese fascist clique calling the shots to extend the war for several months longer, or even forcing Operation Downfall - with components Operations Coronet and Olympic - to take the war into 1946, has been calculated at about 100,000 dead per month, in all the millions of square miles under their control, from starvation through food being diverted to Japanese troops and the Home Islands, killing the local rebels and their families, including "suspected" resistance fighters and their helpers, untreated diseases among the occupied civilian populations, neglecting prisoners of war (and much worse, under Colonel Iiishi's Unit 731* with its fiendish experiments rivaling Mengele), etc.
Yet the atomic bombs dropped were as horrible a way to "end the war now" and avoid that ongoing mass murder and other deaths and suffering, as was available, so there will always be doubts they were necessary.
EDIT! I finished the day's last cup of coffee and realized I weakened this argument, about the costs /benefits of allowing the Japanese military clique to extend the war, by completely failing to mention the predicted casualties among both side's troops as well as Japanese civilians, should the war move to a final showdown invasion in stages of Japan! That's millions more lives lost.
And this was a relatively "Good War," with arguably the most barbaric political systems around, with heavy armaments, against basically everyone else - sooner or later, the Nazis and Japanese would have been at each other's throats and claiming the Arctic and Antarctic along with every shred of other territory. I am speechless and everyone on here knows how verbose I can be.
Unit 731 (Japanese: ７なな３さん１いち部ぶ隊たい, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai),[note 1] short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment[3]: 198 and the Ishii Unit,[5] was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China, formerly named Manchuria) and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. It routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as "logs." Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ procurement, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. The victims also came from different nationalities, with the majority being Chinese and a significant minority being Russian. Additionally, Unit 731 produced biological weapons that were used in areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces, which included Chinese cities and towns, water sources, and fields. Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived. In the final moments of the Second World War, all prisoners were killed to conceal evidence.
***** The rest of this is undoubtedly not for the squeamish, it does serve as yet one more reminder why it's so important to teach peace instead of "war as the first option"!
Glad you brought up inaction. The inaction began with President Zelensky (a) refusal to accept the intel and reality of an impending Ru mil invasion. The rule is prepare for the worst, hope for the best. He chose unwisely. 1000s of civs died in the first weeks as did 1000s of Uk mil died due to being left to their own druthers. 100s of 1000s were trapped inside border cities. Sometimes death is preferable to the slow death of being under siege. Takes less than 2weeks for society to completely breakdown. President Zelensky had more than 2weeks forewarning to order the evacuation of border regions. And he has prior knowledge of Ru mil campaigns in Sy and Chechnya. And if he wasn't aware he was told.
Don't care what he says directly to NATO members in private. Nor what NATO members say to him in private. Do know he spits at them in public and by doing so spits at each nation and its people. He has not stopped demanding toys (weapn systems etc) that he says is needed while blaming NATO and partners for not delivering on his schedule. Again, it was NATO who established the logistic pipeline where none existed. Juxtapose that pipeline w/the Ru failure to take logistics into account during the opening of the invasion. In war, one must capitalize on the errors and mistakes of the opponent, immediately. Had a national mobilization occurred during the 2weeks of forewarning it is safe and logical to say Ru mil wouldn't have advanced as swiftly and as deep as they did in border regions or be in a position to hold what they have now.
As far as particulars those decisions are in the capable hands of people with eyes on and in Uk and beyond its border. The same people who scratched their heads as months (5-8) went wasted allowing the Ru mil to build fortifications and to seed obstacles across the front, unchallenged. Yes, inaction matters. And adds up.
War atrocities are NOT limited to war fighters. When society comes apart it is every person for themselves. Some to most do their best to remain hooman as we know it. Not all. Survival drives everything, not manmade laws of any type. All choices are from a list of bad choices. Should I send my child[ren] to Ru territory so they can eat and not be killed by indirect or direct fire? Should I steal from a neighbor because they have food and I don't? Should I kill the cats, dogs, rats, and horses from neighbors, strangers and farmers so I can feed my family? And should I kill anyone who resists my needs to feed my family and self? Should I collaborate with the invader in exchange for food and water knowing it will lead to people being tortured, raped and/or killed? Should I withhold food and water from other people rather than share? And on and on. And unlike a classroom test these and more happen minute by minute, day after day, week after week, month after month.
NATO forces were officially inside Uk since 2014. Not as a force, as trainers and as important, observers. During those years both sides used non-precision muntions. Both sides didn't have to deliberately target civs, is a by-product of the weapon systems and their munitions. There are of shortage of Euro journos videos of destruction in villages and cities in the Donbas. There is no masking the edict handing down from 1 Uk President to kill all civs siding w/Ru. (is Googleable).
Churchill's firebombing of German cities and towns began before Germany started targeting English population centers and even then, is nowhere comparable. Dropping of those 2 A-Bombs will be debated forever. Keep in mind population centers were targeted, not mil targets. Nor was a sample drop made to forewarn the Japanese people and their leaders. So, all the what ifs and estimates of allied loses from an invasion omit the choices that were available.
War is intercenine and develops its own barabaric momentum. It never gets trending to the civilized side by any side or party or at any level. It ain't about the weapons, it is all about those weilding them and those issuing orders. And so-called defensive weapons are dual purposed into offensive weapons w/o much thought. Empasis much thought because thought is a rara avis in war cuz firepower doesn't require much thought until it's too late.
Am opposed to Uk mil or intel services attacking Moscow simply to give the civs a taste of war. Is a roll of the dice due to affecting different civs differently. No way of knowing how it is affecting Muscovites. So, makes no sense to do it.
As an ~indigenous~ have a good feel for atrocities and genocides. Know well the history here on Turtle Island of my kind, my African sisters and brothers and the native people of Central and South America. Few have learned the right lessons and fewer have unlearned all the wrongs that come with war. As long as killing continues to get easier and easier wars will continue to appear to be a good choice.
Georgia Descendants of enslaved people fight against ‘erasure’ of their historical land
Community of Gullah-Geechee people in Georgia protest vote for lifting protective laws, threatening a 230-year-old heritage
Edwin Rios
@edwin_d_rios
Tue 12 Sep 2023 21.35 EDT
For more than 230 years, a small community of Gullah-Geechee people have called Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia home. Hogg Hammock, the area on the island where these descendants of enslaved people live, is a 427-acre coastal community of 40 residents and has been designated as a historic site since 1996. That means that the construction of houses more than 1,400 sq ft and any road paving or demolition of property are strictly prohibited to preserve the island community.
And mentioned here, another example:
{A woman protests at the site of ‘Cop City’ in Georgia on 7 September.
Atlanta police arrest five activists chained to bulldozer at ‘Cop City’ site}
On Tuesday, McIntosh county commissioners, who preside over Sapelo, voted to remove zoning restrictions in Hogg Hammock. Gullah-Geechee residents fear that wealthy transplants who want to develop larger homes and who could force a rise of property taxes there will displace them and upend their livelihoods.
The county, which is 65% white, has voted to remove official language that acknowledges Hogg Hammock as an area with “unique needs in regard to its historic resources”. It will also strike language that states it should prevent “land value increases which could force removal of the indigenous population”.
The vote represents the latest dispute between county officials and the small historic Black community. Back in 2012, Hogg Hammock residents protested against the county’s raising of property taxes – which the county then rolled back. And in 2015, the community sued the county in federal court alleging that it had racially discriminated against residents by failing to provide them with adequate services. The island’s residents had paid county taxes for schools, police and fire departments, and trash collection services – none of which extended to Sapelo Island. The county settled the lawsuit last year, agreeing to give emergency and road services and freeze property taxes for some residents. *****
"No Taxation Without Representation!"
I think this is also a distinct contrast from bringing in - by implication, anyway, although it seems as if you are thinking it makes a direct and persuasive point and not merely by deduction on a reader's part - a dubious theory: trans-historical collective guilt, as if the currently living descendants of the Aztecs, for example, bear some "guilt" for an enslavement tradition that was ended centuries ago.
Instead, I propose everyone do what the are able, advocate to the best of their ability, for
respecting everyone's universal human rights, while at the same time, paying close attention to the existence of, and remedies for, systemic oppression based on (sociologically defined) "race," ethnic origins, gender, marital status, economic class - to the extent that's clear, anyway - also, invidious, unreasonable discrimination against political views that do not directly engage in credible threats of imminent violence and/or great bodily harm, etc. "Et cetera," because I haven't even mentioned medical conditions, "disabilities" or being "differently able," age, native language, immigration status, and plenty of other factors that could lead to controversies and terrible injustices connected with people's rights and responsibilities.
So while I recognize, and agree with what I understand to be your basic purpose in mentioning the squalid, relentless treaty violations and oppression of indigenous peoples living in what is now the USA, by every conceivable colonial empire - and "free-lance pirates" as well - none of us who are descended from any of these groups can really do more than acknowledge the sordid, violent history, and work to better the situation now, as in the "fierce urgency of now."
It won't be fair to the children of Putin's oligarchs that they are stigmatized, either, but it's almost inevitable they will be, unless they choose as individuals to take serious steps to differentiate themselves from what their morally bankrupt elders have been up to.
So somehow Zelensky and Ukraine are as culpable as the genocidal Putin? You can believe that if you like - I am not clear whether or not you are really equating them - based on the past regime's order to execute collaborators?
What is new about that, that's standard operating procedure, whether it's the Norwegian Quislings, Vichy French collaborators, whoever.
The "inaction" that "allowed" Ru to build those fortifications were clearly due to being deprived of useful air cover, and other weapons.
The case for the atomic bombs begins with the argument that they saved millions of lives, lives that would have been lost had the war extended indefinitely, into at least the early winter of 1945, and probably into 1946. The opponents of using them have to take on the burden of ignoring the needless, avoidable death and suffering in the occupied territories. Inaction has costs, and the argument works both ways!
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets, which the fascists cynically protected by deploying civilians (many of whom worked in military and munitions connected jobs) as human shields, and ignoring the hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning them to evacuate. All those deaths were completely avoidable --- just surrender and the war ends. But they preferred to hold on to the millions of square miles invaded across East Asia still held in 1945 - from Burma north to China, through Indochina, across the Western Pacific to what was then the "Dutch East indies."
Hiroshima WAS the "sample drop," the Japanese ignored it! There was a move to keep fighting AFTER both bombs were dropped, a palace coup that failed.
Meanwhile the US and ANZAC soldiers were being targeted and killed as well, their lives also matter. Don't leave them out, it weakens your side of the argument.
Be that as it may, the warnings Zelensky got of a REAL invasion he did not necessarily "ignore," but likely believed Putin wasn't that stupid, that it was a bluff. Instead, we discovered Putin IS that reckless, stupid, overreaching, believed his own propaganda!
The Ukrainians are entirely within their rights to bomb Moscow, with drones or whatever else they can use. And neither you nor anyone else can vicariously surrender any territory or any military options on their behalf, fortunately. Besides, there's a very real chance the Russians will turn on Putin, as the scale of his blundering becomes increasing hard on their living standards.
You didn't explain how crimes committed in wartime by civilians are anything remarkable, what's remarkable is the war crimes that have made Russia an international pariah.
Not sure at all what the native ethnic outright genocidal wars fought by Europeans have to do with any of this - it isn't as if there was no genocidal wars between indigenous peoples before 1492! Slavery as well, the only reason Cortez could conquer Mexico with several hundred men against tens of thousands was help from the people the Aztecs had reduced to chattel slavery, after all.
If you have to go back over five hundred years to ramp up a supposedly plausible set of reasons to demonize Zelensky - and for what, leading his people to a remarkable defense against a vicious genocidal sociopath like Putin? - it looks like sheer desperation, as it becomes increasingly clear Ukraine will win this on the battlefield. They don't need carping critics with zero stake in the game, Shadowcloud, not even one as usually astute as you!
-Re-read what I wrote rather than what you claim I did. You know better than attempt to put your words iithah in my mouth or in my writing.
The edict was not individual field executions of collaborators. It was how he classified Uk civs in the separatist movement. Painting a bulls-eye on all of them.
-FTR: I have no beliefs.
-The party making the assertions bears the burden of proof. Logic and Law 101. Full Stop. So, you have it backwards with the dropping of A-Bombs. -Those claiming it would save millions made the assertion without ever showing their work. Falls under sounds good while lacking all soundness.
Man o-Man, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets." They are cities. Under your definition DC is a valid military target as is NYC, Phoenix, Boston, New London, Bath ME all because each one includes mil connective tissue. Reminds me of other US mass to carpet bombing "logic" in other theaters and how civs morphed into mere collateral damage.
-Glad you brought up evac. Zelensky had 2weeks give or take to evac civs from major cities, cities, towns and villages. He did not. Since there is no good death in war, being vaporized by USA A-Bombs or torn into chunks of flesh and bone by Ru hot sharp steel from dumb bombs, dumb rockets, and dumb artillery munitions over days, nights, weeks is just collateral damage.
Dropping leaflets claiming to having a "doomsday" weapon on Japanese civs falls under Ripley's Believe It or Not. No such weapon had previously existed nor was a demonstration made for the Japanese civs to witness. There were 3 A-Bombs. 2 were dropped on non-military targets. Ground Zero for both are...common knowledge. There was no sample drop, it was live. Did the US test the A-Bomb in a remote desert or did they drop a sample on an American city? The 2A-Mombs were rationalize, never justified. Ya are trained in Philosophy, you know well the distinction with all its differences. Eg. A nearby mil installation is not same-same with targeting the mil instillation with the city itelf simply being in the blast radius. Civs were the primary target in both drops. A sample demonstration was nixed after discussions. And it doesn't take much to understand how Pearl Harbor was factored in as well as 4years of constant war. War does that to most people. Gives them license to kill and keep killing w/little thought. Dropping 2 A-Bombs that were incompressible to Japan's mil and civs contributed to the US changing its approach to weaponry. From that point forward it began publishing the capability of weapons and weapon systems. A backdoor attempt at atonement. Nothing atones for the fact only the USA ever committed such an act.
-War is not fought by laws or rules as if it were a chess match, boxing match or football/fuutball match. There is no prior agreement as when or under what conditions to Cry Uncle whether it be a nation, an entire army, a single naval vessel, or a single fighter. Even the term unconditional surrender is fully conditional upon all participants agreeing, not just high level people. That is one reason some Japanese soldiers continued to fight and it is one reason way too many southerners in this wonderful country claim the War of Yankee Aggression never ended after Lee betrayed them. Or the Sunni-Shia-Khawarij war that has gone on since 681, better known as the 1400 Year War. One that metastasized around the globe and beyond the religious schism.
-Going to close with this, Richard.. This discussion of war, A-Bombs, Uk-Ru involves 2parties with dissimilar life experiences. War is not links on Google or chapters in textbooks. It is not about being D-tached from its horrors including sights, scents, sounds, tastes, and touches. Chuckle when some attempt to reduce war to theory or argument. War doesn't fit iithah. It literally is ramming and pounding a square peg into a round hole. It is violent and destructive beyond words. From the inside, the goal is to avoid and sometimes evade both while protecting the living and non-living things while wrestling with and attempting to suppress human emotions to different degrees. Those who allow their emotions to surface often die first and fast, are the causation of the deaths/maiming of others and are more likely to return back to civ life a shell of self.
Just the fact that 9/11 has cost us trillions of dollars if not directly then just in time wasted at the airport I swear to christ bin Laden has won...
Think Too Big To Fail. Been the US mil mindset since the end of WW2. Been pushed back from the inside to no avail. It is one of many reason our mil service academies and war colleges (another source of ignorance is bliss) need to be shutdown for a few years, then reconstituted and then the present and future mil can reimagined. Will NOT happen with the present pipeline. And kill dat Space Force chit.
Proffer in the form of a question: How long did it take to question, then begin changing monikers of bases named after traitorous Confederates? It's not like those base names were done in fine print.
Oh you mean like the fleet headed for the trash pile that cost hundreds of millions of dollars? How is it that Defense’s budget is always ALWAYS out of control?
US miltary ought to buy 10,000 radio controlled model airplanes owned by hobbyists and outfit them as bomb-drones and FEDEX them to Ukraine - "stung to death by gnats" btw elevators do diffent things than flaps. elevators are used to trim / pitch an aircraft up or down, flaps are used to add lift when plane slows down to prevent a stall not participating in pitch action- flaps only provide extra lift when speed is slow during takeoff and landing. Aelerons, invented by Wilbur Wright after watching seagulls at Kitty Hawk, control roll by lifting up one wing while dropping the other wing. Aelerons are outboard on the wings.
The military mind. We both know it, you better than I, and it never changes. Fight the last war--we're good at that. Spend tons of money on too expensive weapons that don't work all that well. Send people to the arms factories to oversee what's being done, but don't train them very well. Ignore combat experience. You know the rest.. The very best commanders know that wars are won in the mind; they know you have to outhink your enemies. I was trained as a forward observer, and I was extremely good at it. Now all that is obsolete; it's safer and better done by drones. What I was trained to do is obsolete.
I posted this on another Stack, but I think it's appropriate for Mr. T.'s column today.
I always have an odd and sad feeling on 9/11. My daughter, now the senior forensic pathologist in the Manhattan OCME, was a 4th year medical student when a doc in her apartment in Brooklyn phoned and asked if she would go with her to the twin towers. She had a police escort. Without thinking what was involved, she said yes. Mercifully, she was removed after four days -- so no illness befell her later on. Of course there was nothing to do, medically, so for four days her job was to help the firemen on breaks rinse their eyes. (Being a dog person, she tried to cheer up the sniffer dogs, depressed because they couldn't do their jobs. The way she did this was to inveigle one of "her" firemen to play dead so the dog could feel he'd accomplished something. She went to reunions of first responders for five years, until she could no more deal with the emotions. Although she'd not yet graduated, I knew, then, she was a real doctor.
I live within walking distance, so got there as usual by foot myself, pausing briefly at Canal Street to watch the North Tower disappear from our skyline in a black doughnut cloud. St Vincent's, then my neighborhood hospital, has been displaced by luxury condos, leaving a medical desert. Since I understand the subject to be weaponry I think I'll skip further remembrances of that day and the months of recovery, civic and personal.
I know. Flood of memories. Several of my sisters and my brother were born there. My granddaughter, too, in 2007! The only reason the rest of us were born at Columbia Pres, was that my mother’s doctor moved!
It was months, maybe a year, before I stopped crying every time I looked across the river (we lived in Weehawken then) or looked downtown as I walked to work.
Too many of the Pile doggos met the same fate as the 2-legged, a premature and preventable death. Am grateful your daughter was wise enough not to get caught up in what went on with The Pile.
My best to your daughter. As her proud Mum rightly observed, a healer of body and soul (doggos).
Lucian, no one expands my awareness of our current world like you do. This excellent column reinforces my impression that modern warfare is the stupidest thing humans do and is mankind's Achilles heel.
A very ominous and timely column on this anniversary.
Yes and no to "you too can becomes a weapons company and it's all perfectly legal," but clearly if you're willing to (1) build drones and (2) engage in warfare through "cut-outs" or illegal sales, or (3) violate laws against arms trafficking - which would be applied one way or another, perhaps with the newly convicted felons appealing to higher courts and discovering that, yes Virginia, there ARE "cases of first impression" such that the statutes appellant argues cannot possibly be applicable to selling drones AND explosives, or one but not the other, yet being shown by clear and convincing evidence to have been well aware of the intended use of what they sold as a key component of armed attack drones, those statutes will survive in the case being appealed.
Then the legislators will hop to the task of drafting something more directly on point.
But even though something like that would be a foreseeable result for certain kinds of "do it yourself off the shelf" weapons startups, it doesn't by any means defeat the main argument of Lucian's column: if you're actually willing to do it no matter the legal risks, it has never been simpler to construct fantastically dangerous, deadly, really really inexpensive weapons.
Jesus wept.
Two Minnesota connections worth recalling, irrespective of your own residence now or on September 11, the first: the incredible "missed opportunity" to just possibly foil all or most of the
"In the hours after September 11th, FBI agents in Minneapolis shared a macabre joke. For weeks prior, they had tried to interest FBI headquarters in Washington in Zacarias Moussaoui, now known as the 20th hijacker. They had begged FBI Headquarters to give them permission to seek a search warrant of Moussaoui's computer. They were denied. In their frustration, they joked that headquarters back in Washington must be infiltrated by agents of Osama Bin Laden. Why else would their work have been thwarted?
This disturbing story is told in a 13-page, single-spaced letter written to FBI Director Robert Mueller by Colleen Rowley. The letter, portions of which TIME magazine has obtained, chronicle the efforts of Rowley, the Minneapolis Chief Division Counsel, to get the FBI interested in Moussaoui. Moussaoui was arrested in August on a visa violation after the Minnesota flight school at which the French national was taking lessons notified the FBI about his suspicious behavior." Read the rest, HUMAN BEINGS still matter as the guardians against heinous death and destruction, but if their insights and well-founded suspicions are ignored?
And one of the authentic heroes of United Flight 93:
Known for Leading revolt on United 93 in the September 11 attacks
Spouse Deena Burchfield (m. 1992)
Children 4
Thomas Edward Burnett Jr. (May 29, 1963 – September 11, 2001) was an American who was the vice-president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company based in Pleasanton, California; he resided in nearby San Ramon, California.[2] On September 11, 2001, Burnett was a passenger on board United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked as part of the September 11 attacks. He, along with other passengers, formed the plan to retake the plane from the hijackers, and led the effort that resulted in the crash of the plane into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thwarting the plan of the hijackers to crash the plane into a building in Washington, D.C., most likely either the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House.
Early life and education
Thomas Burnett was born on May 29, 1963, the son of Thomas Burnett Sr. and Beverly Burnett.[3] Burnett and his sisters[4] grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota. He attended Ridgeview Elementary School, then Olson Middle School.[4] At Thomas Jefferson Senior High School, where he wore jersey No. 11 and then No. 10, he led the Jaguars to the state finals as their starting quarterback in 1980. He graduated in 1981.[2][4]
Burnett studied Economics at Saint John's University in Minnesota, where he was a quarterback on the football team. After two years, an injury shortened his football career and he transferred to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He was named president of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity, then later graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance. He went on to earn a Master of Business Administration degree at Pepperdine University.[2][5]
Career
In 1996, Burnett joined Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company, as vice president of sales and marketing. In November 1999, he was promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer.[6]
Personal life
In 1985, Burnett became the biological father to a daughter who was given up for adoption. Her name is Mariah Mills Jacobsen.[7] In July 1989, Burnett met his future wife, Deena, in Atlanta, where she had just completed flight attendant training for Delta Air Lines.[8] They married in April 1992[5][9] and had three daughters, Halley Elizabeth, Anna Claire, and Madison Margaret,[10] and lived in San Ramon, California,[11] where Deena worked as a stay-at-home mother,[5] beginning when she first became pregnant in 1995.[9] Thomas Burnett had attended mass daily in the year prior to the September 11 attacks, attempting to address a sense of foreboding which he had expressed to his wife.[11] Burnett had busts of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill in his office.[12]
United Airlines Flight 93
Main article: United Airlines Flight 93
The plaque that rests beneath the memorial flag dedicated to Burnett in Bloomington, Minnesota
On September 11, 2001, Burnett boarded United Airlines Flight 93, returning home to San Ramon, after a business trip.[13] Burnett sat next to passenger Mark Bingham. Burnett called his wife, Deena, after hijackers took control of the plane. He made several phone calls to her beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row four.[14][15] Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb, and also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers.[15] During his second call to her, she told him about the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane...Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."[16] He began pumping her for information about the attacks, interrupting her from time to time to tell the others nearby what she was saying. Then he hung up.[17] Upon learning of the situation, Deena, a former flight attendant, recalled her training and urged Burnett to sit quietly and not draw attention to himself. However, Burnett instead informed her that he and three other passengers, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, were forming a plan to take the plane from the hijackers, and leading other passengers in this effort.[5][6][18] He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something."[17][19][11] Burnett and several other passengers stormed the cockpit, foiling the hijackers' plan to crash the plane into the White House or Capitol Building.[5][20] To prevent the passengers from gaining control of the plane, the hijackers crashed it in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board.[5][6]
Lucian your column triggered many emotions and reminded me of the insanity of war. I highly recommend to all to view the outstanding 1966 anti war movie King of Hearts staring Alan Bates. The message of the movie is beautifully underscored in a scene where the left behind residents of an insane asylum are freed by the Bate’s deserter character but the mental patients choose not to leave; instead, they watch from the sidelines as two converging armies attack each other. Of, course, the premise is “who are the crazy ones?”
Wow! This was pretty terrifying. I wonder what the domestic terrorist community (Oath Keepers--Proud Boys) could accomplish with some of this information. Am hopeful that their being as bright as a nightlight may save us!
"The growth of robotics, remotely piloted vehicles, low probability of intercept communications, and artificial intelligence may offer a potential for radically altered tactics. In turn, growing dependence on such technology may open the door to new vulnerabilities, such as the vulnerability to computer viruses.
"Small, highly mobile elements composed of very intelligent soldiers armed with high technology weapons may range over wide areas seeking critical targets."
"Leaders will have to be masters of both the art of war and technology, a difficult combination as two different mindsets are involved."
"Television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions."
"The contradiction between the military culture and the nature of modern war confronts a traditional military Service with a dilemma."
" (Specific to section on the future of terrorism) Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers. A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk—a car that looks like every other car."
Just a sampling from 4GW (4th Generation Warfare) from...1989. 1989. Gathered dust on the shelves at the Pentagon until the abject failures of 911, Af, Ir. Was too late, again. Was used to some degree during O Adm against daeshbags only for Trump to return to let's bomb the shit out of them. DoD couldn't say "not invented here" because it was. Still is ridiculed by the prevailing US mil culture aka give me bigger and give me more of bigger, fuck trying to outsmart the enemy, we already are smarter, everybody and every nation knows that.
What your excellent column makes transparently clear is that the billions and trillions we spend on ‘national defense’ has rather little to do with actually defending us against the bad guys, and much more to do with keeping the expensive defense industries making obscene profits from our tax dollars producing useless equipment. This scam has been going on for decades, and Americans love it. The political inertia that keeps it going is probably impossible to stop. Just think about what better things could have been done with that mountain of money if a more realistic defense strategy had been deployed.
Yes. Who needs good schools, national health care, functional transportation infrastructure, secure power grids, road or bridges that aren't crumbling, that sort of folderol?
The Saudi crime syndicate financed 9/11 and to this day, they act with impunity, continuing to violate human rights and not a peep of indignation is heard from any administration since the attacks.
What a wonderfully droll column, because the titanosaur behind every sentence is what dear old Ike warned us about in 1961--- we are in thrall to the "military-industrial complex," for which multi-billion dollar contracts to buy B-2 bombers, F-22 fighters, and M-1 Abrams tanks are the be-all and end-all of national defense. Consider the flip: militarily, we have become the British, c. 1775-1783, and our enemies have learned to be the equivalent of American farmers with muskets. H P Lovecraft nailed it: "From even the greatest of horrors, irony is seldom absent."
That's so true, and we never learn. Look at Vietnam, our hi-tech weapons couldn't compete with a determined adversary using home made weapons hidden in the jungle. Apocalypse Now illustrates the futility of our hubris. The lesson now is that we are right to stay our of the Ukraine but fully support the war there to keep it from coming to us.
Ike was my man.
He saw the future.
The Presidents that followed were and are blind.
The future is past.
"Some of the Dead are Still Breathing."
The current insanity of eight billion humanoids will be cured by planet earths Superiority.
Eisenhower; unlike everyone who succeeded him (with possible exception of Jimmy Carter)…’was not on the payroll.
He had taken an oath to a higher ethic.
Thanks Frank. I agree.
And Jimmy Carter was a good guy in my book who got fucked by the bad guys.
In memory of Gary Webb and Robert Parry
I read Gary Webb's articles at the time, what specifically was Robert Parry adding, Cal? I would like some guidance in searching, since the google algorithms and all the rest seem to be carefully constructed to sell product rather than spread enlightenment about really controversial topics, thanks! for any help you might offer on this.
See the incisive refutations of the "Kennedy as Cold Warrior Myth" posted above.
Well, that was scary, not to mention eye-popping. Ace Hardware and toy trucks: DIY warfare.
As for "a few weeks of flight school," it was known, pre-9/11 that the (mostly) Saudi student pilots did not particularly care to learn how to land ... just to take off. Hello? Also that Condi did not know what to make of reports of planes flying into buildings. One doesn't know what to say.
Condi's whowouldathunkit remains her legacy. She shoulda stuck with playing the piano for Col. al-Gaddafi.
To answer her absurd question his name is Abdul Karim, better known by his alias Rami Yousef, the nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. After Karim picked the wrong parking space for his truck bomb in the basement of the WTC North Tower in 1993 he realized it would be easier to target US symbols using fully fueled aircraft. Keep in mind he escaped the US after the 93 WTC bombing and went to SEA to experiment with using bombs on international aircraft. He successfully did dry runs and then like his near miss at the WTC detonated a bomb on an international flight but had it under the wrong seat. He did get captured by the US by the DSS and his famous for his retort to the FBI SA (whether true or not) who made certain he saw the still standing WTC from the air only for Karim to reply "for now". His chosen #1 target other than the WTCs was CIA HQ. Was in the journal seized in his apartment in SEA.
So, on this day some inc 911 Commission credits UBL and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the masterminds of 911 mainly cuz they didn't want Karim's ingress and egress on an obvious forged Ir passport followed by him being granted temporary asylum to pop back up. Credit W's Dad, GHWB Adm for granting a Karim enough time to put together the first WTC Bombing, then poof! All the while claiming they ended the threat with the arrest of the Blind Sheik and accomplices.
Only a few knew the final destination for the 4th aircraft. 911 should never ever guessed and that includes insisting it had to be inside DC. The Pentagon was not in DC, it's across the river. Just as CIA HQ is. Or in the alternative the same double tap on the Pentagon as was done to the WTCs. What the WTCs and the Pentagon had in common was a high number of people. UBL and others read the WTC brochures that upwards of 250,000 people come and go on a typical day. Like other errors, forgot the simple fact 9AM is not the time of day of high people traffic. As far as the WH as a potential target, not a high number of people inside, W's schedule was published in advance and most of all from the air is a small target compared to the WTCs and the Pentagon. The USCB is a large target yet is not filled with people who are widely dispersed across the complex. 911 Commission ignored the bloodthirst of the mofos. No surprise there. Same old yt men who only saw the Blue Marble thru their narrow aperture or as Connie observed, whowouldathunkit.
PS. There is at least a 50-50 chance there was a 5th plane and 20% chance more than 5.
Did you write your Ph.D thesis on this subject?! Well done.
No. Have written only for others over the decades. Much preferred whispering, though.
Thisclose to having AI write for me if only it would listen to my whispers. Alas, it doesn't. Am grateful it doesn't.
And am humbled by your kind words.
Truly...quite incredible.
911 is not only a trigger for many it is an inflection point ushering in non-stop war (there are no grades of war, only war and its internecine). Bush Adm leveraged 911 in all the wrong ways after NOT preventing it. Embracing failure became the new Republican/conservative norm and who can forget how it manifests with not one but two near simultaneous proclamations of Mission Accomplished in 2 war theaters?
And yes, there was some whitewashing of all-things 911. And by playing the OMG look at the today's color on the Terrorist Warning Lights, hurry up and buy plastic sheathing and duct tape, there was little space for hard questions. After all there was the drum beats of war to drown whatever ones could break through.
In America, whowouldaevahthunkit.
Yes and yes and yes, still not enough attention paid by our "mainstream media national security gurus" to the Bojinka plots:
{Posting a link not for you but for anyone else who might happen on this part of the comments!}
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bojinka_plot
The Bojinka plot (Arabic: بوجينكا; Tagalog: Oplan Bojinka) was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States,[1] with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.[2]
Despite careful planning, the Bojinka plot was disrupted after a chemical fire drew the attention of the Philippine National Police – Western Police District (PNP-WPD, now known as Manila Police District PNP-MPD) on January 6–7, 1995. Yousef and Mohammed were unable to stage any of the three attacks. The only fatality resulted from a test bomb planted by Yousef on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, which killed one person and injured 10 others. They also planted two other bombs in a shopping mall and theater in the southern Philippines. Elements of the Bojinka plot (including the plan to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters) would be used in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, six years later.
Terminology and etymology
The plot is also known as Oplan Bojinka, Operation Bojinka, Project Bojinka, and Bojinga. FBI officials described Operation Bojinka as "48 hours of terror".[3]
Several news media outlets, including Time Asia,[4] incorrectly stated that the word Bojinka means "loud bang" or "explosion" in the Serbo-Croatian language. Endnote 7 of Chapter 5 of the 9/11 Commission Report states that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "says bojinka is not Serbo-Croatian for 'big bang', as has been widely reported, but rather a nonsense word he adopted after hearing it on the front lines in Afghanistan."[5]
**** The Wiki article continues, I post from them because however flawed or outright misleading they can be, at least there are usually plenty of sources cited in the footnotes so anyone interested can follow the leads elsewhere.
whew.
an entirely different breed of "9/11 truther."
that was sort of a joke. and very much a compliment.
She was a disaster maybe?
She was Bush Jr’s Explainer in Chief, which seems to prove that a little knowledge can be dangerous.
emphasis little. well-played
"It was not actionable intelligence" I wanted to puke.
I don't think it was understood. Amazing ... a Secretary of State with a military attache.
To be fair, Condoleezza Rice was Secretary of State, not Defense or the Director of the CIA. Beyond that, I can name dozens of other more responsible government agencies who also “did not know what to make of planes flying into buildings”.
Wow. I went to a liberal arts college, and when I read that *middle easterners* were at a flight school to learn only one thing (!) I knew what that meant. The religion of these people promises other worldly goodies for martyrs.
Yes. Something like 71 virgins. They did this for sex! Also the airlines were useless at critical moments. Boxcutters were on the list of items NOT allowed. There was even a photo of a boxcutter for agents.
Oh, right. I forgot about the virgins. 🤨
The entire psychosexual farrago would delight Freud and all of his students, even the ones who would reinterpret the info as reaching into Jungian Archetypes, there is so much bizarre wish fulfillment, not just the virgins, but somehow martyring oneself into fulfilling a plan for a supposedly omnipotent, omniscient Deity - how could a hypothetical entity like that NEED any `help' in the first place?
Humans at their most ferocious in the service of dogmas they don't even understand, it's beyond belief!
dontcha think the not understanding part is pretty essential to the ferocious service part?
Lol. So tell me about the "religion of these people" who are doing their damndest to undermine democracy in this country and occasionally going on shooting sprees at the same time.
On second thought, I would say their religion is Trumpism.
A very large generalization, but I would say Evangelical. Certainly Christian.
You wrote "The religion of these people promises other worldly goodies for martyrs." A very large generalization, don't you think?
Every theistic religion promises other worldly, post-shuffling off the mortal coil and boogieing into Eternity goodies, unless you can cite an exception.
Btw I have DISCUSSED EXACTLY THIS with several sincere Muslims, one from Sierra Leone, Mohammed Bah, a co-worker eight years ago for Hennepin County Volunteer Services, and another whose name was "typically generic," John Robinson, lived across the hall from me and was also enrolled at the U.
Also this is a standard topic (promises, rewards for "martrydom," that came up in several philosophy of religion courses).
Those Muslims think it makes total sense and were quite content with the Koranic injunctions, just like so many believers. They believe and that's it!
You can usefully pay attention to the incredible amount of the Koran which covers the topic of "Unbelievers," that is "Infidels," and how to treat them. Salman Rushdie is quite eloquent on the topic, as you might expect, also Ayan Hirsi Ali, as in this 6 minute snippet from the Aspen Ideas Festival, 2007.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0txwUT8Csh4
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an outspoken defender of women's rights in Islamic societies. Ms. Hirsi Ali was born in Mogadishu, Somalia. She escaped an arranged marriage by immigrating to the Netherlands in 1992, and served as a member of the Dutch parliament from 2003 to 2006.
In parliament, she worked on furthering the integration of non-Western immigrants into Dutch society, and on defending the rights of women in Dutch muslim society. In 2004, together with director Theo van Gogh, she made Submission, a film about the oppression of women in conservative Islamic cultures. Ms. Hirsi Ali is currently a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ***** So she is connected with right-of-center think tank, not "Trumpism," at least as far as I know. *****
Clive Crook is a senior editor of The Atlantic and chief Washington commentator of The Financial Times. In addition, he writes a column for National Journal and serves as chief editorial adviser to David Bradley, the chairman of Atlantic Media Group. He was formerly on the staff of The Economist, latterly from 1993 to 2005 as deputy editor. A graduate of Oxford and the London School of Economics, he has served as a consultant to The World Bank and worked as an official in the British Treasury. He lives in Washington, DC. *****
And if no promises of benefits for joining up with this or that theistic cult, what would the contrast be, "Follow OUR religion, we can promise you absolutely nothing after you die, not even avoiding Hades, Hell, bad outcomes in general"?
" I can see your attention wandering, brothers and sisters, now fork over some money, we can use that to spread our message anyway!"
Not even Elmer Gantry could convince anyone with that material,
you need to hornswoggle them a la the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, with your pedigree of having told the fortunes of the Crowned Heads of Europe or something with some razzmatazz and sizzling eschatology to blind their sense of critical skepticism, if any!
No. It is a tenet of their religion.
Correction: Rice was NOT SECSTATE on 911, she was APNSA. She only saw Rus, Ru, Ru during her time as APNSA. Same with W, Cheney and a host of others. Couldn't be bothered with (not my terms) rag heads and goat herders.
And you are omitting the fact Mullah Omar's [American] Emissary was spat out when he can to DC in March or April 2011 (Edit 2001) . Goes beyond Af culture to Islamic and beyond to what is wrongly referred to as tribal culture. Is brown and black culture or better said non-yt. And Connie is just another R/con Oreo.
You’re factually right about one thing; Colin Powell was Secretary of State on 9/11/2001.
Been my experience if ya start right ya got a leg up on finishing right v. those who start all wrong. Is best captured by the Downeast Mainers from the state of my birth with ya can't get there from here. The W Bush Adm, as was in the GWHB (edit GHWB) Adm, was dominated by group think. They too started all wrong and it is a historical fact they ended in all the wrong places. Worst Adm evah. (2hot shooting wars, a not so "Great" Recession. GITMO, torture ny memo, no UBL. and destroyed budget surpluses "as far as the eye could see. That is the shat list, Good Man)
Lesson: nevah evah be an apologist for abject failures nor shift the blame elsewhere. And if one is going to defend a failed (irrespective of the causation) person, make certain to receive payment for it. Needn't be in $$$$. Nor upfront.
Re: Bush-Cheney-Rice treated Gen Powell as their house negro. Ruined his legacy by positioning him to preach puke to the UN. ~never forget~
Margo seems to me you knew what to say, we are are mystified at the monumental hubris, the appalling incompetence, and it's because it makes no damn sense for them, either, our putative "best and the brightest" foreign policy geniuses, to blunder around so obtusely from the point of view of history's judgment on their careers, and was disastrous unintended help for some of the most malign people who ever trod the earth, real-life "Bond Villains," only without even a smidgen of the sinister charm some of them could exude!
This is chilling in its how-to-fight-a-war logic. Surely clear eyes (not bought by established arms manufacturers) are looking at Ukraine as a laboratory in much the same way as they’ve always have, squint eyed obsessing on new ways to deliver death - but at a much higher price.
Long said men need to stand down, stand back and shutdafuq about wimmin reproductive health. Same applies with (ret) FOGOs on present day wars. Am grateful to SECDEF Austin for how he has gone about reining in the hawks at DoD and resisted giving P-Zelensky the biggest and baddest toys because that is all he knows about war. Uk mil is figuring it out like all mil must or else. (Is a dig at playbook GOs)
The Ukrainians don't need any "toys," although maybe the Pentagon "hawks" are so detached from the carnage, which of course Zelensky has been having to deal with in ways no other human being in or outside of Ukraine has been positioned to experience as directly, from the very beginning, when Putin bombed Kyiv and sent a detachment to try to execute him and substitute their own puppet.
They just need to be able to defend themselves against genocide, I see what you mean - I think I do, anyway - about simply allowing a precipitous escalation when there's no need for more help than that, though. As it IS, the Russians have been able to engage in the targeted mass slaughter of civilians in ways a better missile defense system and fighter aircraft would have coped with far better, maybe even ending the war, allowing for Putin to claim victory and retreat.
You know as well as I do there's always a cost in non-action. In August 1945 in East Asia and the Pacific, the cost to allowing the Imperial Japanese fascist clique calling the shots to extend the war for several months longer, or even forcing Operation Downfall - with components Operations Coronet and Olympic - to take the war into 1946, has been calculated at about 100,000 dead per month, in all the millions of square miles under their control, from starvation through food being diverted to Japanese troops and the Home Islands, killing the local rebels and their families, including "suspected" resistance fighters and their helpers, untreated diseases among the occupied civilian populations, neglecting prisoners of war (and much worse, under Colonel Iiishi's Unit 731* with its fiendish experiments rivaling Mengele), etc.
Yet the atomic bombs dropped were as horrible a way to "end the war now" and avoid that ongoing mass murder and other deaths and suffering, as was available, so there will always be doubts they were necessary.
EDIT! I finished the day's last cup of coffee and realized I weakened this argument, about the costs /benefits of allowing the Japanese military clique to extend the war, by completely failing to mention the predicted casualties among both side's troops as well as Japanese civilians, should the war move to a final showdown invasion in stages of Japan! That's millions more lives lost.
And this was a relatively "Good War," with arguably the most barbaric political systems around, with heavy armaments, against basically everyone else - sooner or later, the Nazis and Japanese would have been at each other's throats and claiming the Arctic and Antarctic along with every shred of other territory. I am speechless and everyone on here knows how verbose I can be.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
Unit 731 (Japanese: ７なな３さん１いち部ぶ隊たい, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai),[note 1] short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment[3]: 198 and the Ishii Unit,[5] was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China, formerly named Manchuria) and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia.
Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. It routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as "logs." Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ procurement, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. The victims also came from different nationalities, with the majority being Chinese and a significant minority being Russian. Additionally, Unit 731 produced biological weapons that were used in areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces, which included Chinese cities and towns, water sources, and fields. Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived. In the final moments of the Second World War, all prisoners were killed to conceal evidence.
***** The rest of this is undoubtedly not for the squeamish, it does serve as yet one more reminder why it's so important to teach peace instead of "war as the first option"!
Glad you brought up inaction. The inaction began with President Zelensky (a) refusal to accept the intel and reality of an impending Ru mil invasion. The rule is prepare for the worst, hope for the best. He chose unwisely. 1000s of civs died in the first weeks as did 1000s of Uk mil died due to being left to their own druthers. 100s of 1000s were trapped inside border cities. Sometimes death is preferable to the slow death of being under siege. Takes less than 2weeks for society to completely breakdown. President Zelensky had more than 2weeks forewarning to order the evacuation of border regions. And he has prior knowledge of Ru mil campaigns in Sy and Chechnya. And if he wasn't aware he was told.
Don't care what he says directly to NATO members in private. Nor what NATO members say to him in private. Do know he spits at them in public and by doing so spits at each nation and its people. He has not stopped demanding toys (weapn systems etc) that he says is needed while blaming NATO and partners for not delivering on his schedule. Again, it was NATO who established the logistic pipeline where none existed. Juxtapose that pipeline w/the Ru failure to take logistics into account during the opening of the invasion. In war, one must capitalize on the errors and mistakes of the opponent, immediately. Had a national mobilization occurred during the 2weeks of forewarning it is safe and logical to say Ru mil wouldn't have advanced as swiftly and as deep as they did in border regions or be in a position to hold what they have now.
As far as particulars those decisions are in the capable hands of people with eyes on and in Uk and beyond its border. The same people who scratched their heads as months (5-8) went wasted allowing the Ru mil to build fortifications and to seed obstacles across the front, unchallenged. Yes, inaction matters. And adds up.
War atrocities are NOT limited to war fighters. When society comes apart it is every person for themselves. Some to most do their best to remain hooman as we know it. Not all. Survival drives everything, not manmade laws of any type. All choices are from a list of bad choices. Should I send my child[ren] to Ru territory so they can eat and not be killed by indirect or direct fire? Should I steal from a neighbor because they have food and I don't? Should I kill the cats, dogs, rats, and horses from neighbors, strangers and farmers so I can feed my family? And should I kill anyone who resists my needs to feed my family and self? Should I collaborate with the invader in exchange for food and water knowing it will lead to people being tortured, raped and/or killed? Should I withhold food and water from other people rather than share? And on and on. And unlike a classroom test these and more happen minute by minute, day after day, week after week, month after month.
NATO forces were officially inside Uk since 2014. Not as a force, as trainers and as important, observers. During those years both sides used non-precision muntions. Both sides didn't have to deliberately target civs, is a by-product of the weapon systems and their munitions. There are of shortage of Euro journos videos of destruction in villages and cities in the Donbas. There is no masking the edict handing down from 1 Uk President to kill all civs siding w/Ru. (is Googleable).
Churchill's firebombing of German cities and towns began before Germany started targeting English population centers and even then, is nowhere comparable. Dropping of those 2 A-Bombs will be debated forever. Keep in mind population centers were targeted, not mil targets. Nor was a sample drop made to forewarn the Japanese people and their leaders. So, all the what ifs and estimates of allied loses from an invasion omit the choices that were available.
War is intercenine and develops its own barabaric momentum. It never gets trending to the civilized side by any side or party or at any level. It ain't about the weapons, it is all about those weilding them and those issuing orders. And so-called defensive weapons are dual purposed into offensive weapons w/o much thought. Empasis much thought because thought is a rara avis in war cuz firepower doesn't require much thought until it's too late.
Am opposed to Uk mil or intel services attacking Moscow simply to give the civs a taste of war. Is a roll of the dice due to affecting different civs differently. No way of knowing how it is affecting Muscovites. So, makes no sense to do it.
As an ~indigenous~ have a good feel for atrocities and genocides. Know well the history here on Turtle Island of my kind, my African sisters and brothers and the native people of Central and South America. Few have learned the right lessons and fewer have unlearned all the wrongs that come with war. As long as killing continues to get easier and easier wars will continue to appear to be a good choice.
Here's something ongoing, current, relevant, that could be changed through action and stymied by inaction:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/12/slave-descendants-preservation-land-georgia-gullah-geechee
Excerpt:
Georgia Descendants of enslaved people fight against ‘erasure’ of their historical land
Community of Gullah-Geechee people in Georgia protest vote for lifting protective laws, threatening a 230-year-old heritage
Edwin Rios
@edwin_d_rios
Tue 12 Sep 2023 21.35 EDT
For more than 230 years, a small community of Gullah-Geechee people have called Sapelo Island off the coast of Georgia home. Hogg Hammock, the area on the island where these descendants of enslaved people live, is a 427-acre coastal community of 40 residents and has been designated as a historic site since 1996. That means that the construction of houses more than 1,400 sq ft and any road paving or demolition of property are strictly prohibited to preserve the island community.
And mentioned here, another example:
{A woman protests at the site of ‘Cop City’ in Georgia on 7 September.
Atlanta police arrest five activists chained to bulldozer at ‘Cop City’ site}
On Tuesday, McIntosh county commissioners, who preside over Sapelo, voted to remove zoning restrictions in Hogg Hammock. Gullah-Geechee residents fear that wealthy transplants who want to develop larger homes and who could force a rise of property taxes there will displace them and upend their livelihoods.
The county, which is 65% white, has voted to remove official language that acknowledges Hogg Hammock as an area with “unique needs in regard to its historic resources”. It will also strike language that states it should prevent “land value increases which could force removal of the indigenous population”.
The vote represents the latest dispute between county officials and the small historic Black community. Back in 2012, Hogg Hammock residents protested against the county’s raising of property taxes – which the county then rolled back. And in 2015, the community sued the county in federal court alleging that it had racially discriminated against residents by failing to provide them with adequate services. The island’s residents had paid county taxes for schools, police and fire departments, and trash collection services – none of which extended to Sapelo Island. The county settled the lawsuit last year, agreeing to give emergency and road services and freeze property taxes for some residents. *****
"No Taxation Without Representation!"
I think this is also a distinct contrast from bringing in - by implication, anyway, although it seems as if you are thinking it makes a direct and persuasive point and not merely by deduction on a reader's part - a dubious theory: trans-historical collective guilt, as if the currently living descendants of the Aztecs, for example, bear some "guilt" for an enslavement tradition that was ended centuries ago.
Instead, I propose everyone do what the are able, advocate to the best of their ability, for
respecting everyone's universal human rights, while at the same time, paying close attention to the existence of, and remedies for, systemic oppression based on (sociologically defined) "race," ethnic origins, gender, marital status, economic class - to the extent that's clear, anyway - also, invidious, unreasonable discrimination against political views that do not directly engage in credible threats of imminent violence and/or great bodily harm, etc. "Et cetera," because I haven't even mentioned medical conditions, "disabilities" or being "differently able," age, native language, immigration status, and plenty of other factors that could lead to controversies and terrible injustices connected with people's rights and responsibilities.
So while I recognize, and agree with what I understand to be your basic purpose in mentioning the squalid, relentless treaty violations and oppression of indigenous peoples living in what is now the USA, by every conceivable colonial empire - and "free-lance pirates" as well - none of us who are descended from any of these groups can really do more than acknowledge the sordid, violent history, and work to better the situation now, as in the "fierce urgency of now."
It won't be fair to the children of Putin's oligarchs that they are stigmatized, either, but it's almost inevitable they will be, unless they choose as individuals to take serious steps to differentiate themselves from what their morally bankrupt elders have been up to.
So somehow Zelensky and Ukraine are as culpable as the genocidal Putin? You can believe that if you like - I am not clear whether or not you are really equating them - based on the past regime's order to execute collaborators?
What is new about that, that's standard operating procedure, whether it's the Norwegian Quislings, Vichy French collaborators, whoever.
The "inaction" that "allowed" Ru to build those fortifications were clearly due to being deprived of useful air cover, and other weapons.
The case for the atomic bombs begins with the argument that they saved millions of lives, lives that would have been lost had the war extended indefinitely, into at least the early winter of 1945, and probably into 1946. The opponents of using them have to take on the burden of ignoring the needless, avoidable death and suffering in the occupied territories. Inaction has costs, and the argument works both ways!
Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets, which the fascists cynically protected by deploying civilians (many of whom worked in military and munitions connected jobs) as human shields, and ignoring the hundreds of thousands of leaflets warning them to evacuate. All those deaths were completely avoidable --- just surrender and the war ends. But they preferred to hold on to the millions of square miles invaded across East Asia still held in 1945 - from Burma north to China, through Indochina, across the Western Pacific to what was then the "Dutch East indies."
Hiroshima WAS the "sample drop," the Japanese ignored it! There was a move to keep fighting AFTER both bombs were dropped, a palace coup that failed.
Meanwhile the US and ANZAC soldiers were being targeted and killed as well, their lives also matter. Don't leave them out, it weakens your side of the argument.
Be that as it may, the warnings Zelensky got of a REAL invasion he did not necessarily "ignore," but likely believed Putin wasn't that stupid, that it was a bluff. Instead, we discovered Putin IS that reckless, stupid, overreaching, believed his own propaganda!
The Ukrainians are entirely within their rights to bomb Moscow, with drones or whatever else they can use. And neither you nor anyone else can vicariously surrender any territory or any military options on their behalf, fortunately. Besides, there's a very real chance the Russians will turn on Putin, as the scale of his blundering becomes increasing hard on their living standards.
You didn't explain how crimes committed in wartime by civilians are anything remarkable, what's remarkable is the war crimes that have made Russia an international pariah.
Not sure at all what the native ethnic outright genocidal wars fought by Europeans have to do with any of this - it isn't as if there was no genocidal wars between indigenous peoples before 1492! Slavery as well, the only reason Cortez could conquer Mexico with several hundred men against tens of thousands was help from the people the Aztecs had reduced to chattel slavery, after all.
If you have to go back over five hundred years to ramp up a supposedly plausible set of reasons to demonize Zelensky - and for what, leading his people to a remarkable defense against a vicious genocidal sociopath like Putin? - it looks like sheer desperation, as it becomes increasingly clear Ukraine will win this on the battlefield. They don't need carping critics with zero stake in the game, Shadowcloud, not even one as usually astute as you!
-Re-read what I wrote rather than what you claim I did. You know better than attempt to put your words iithah in my mouth or in my writing.
The edict was not individual field executions of collaborators. It was how he classified Uk civs in the separatist movement. Painting a bulls-eye on all of them.
-FTR: I have no beliefs.
-The party making the assertions bears the burden of proof. Logic and Law 101. Full Stop. So, you have it backwards with the dropping of A-Bombs. -Those claiming it would save millions made the assertion without ever showing their work. Falls under sounds good while lacking all soundness.
Man o-Man, "Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets." They are cities. Under your definition DC is a valid military target as is NYC, Phoenix, Boston, New London, Bath ME all because each one includes mil connective tissue. Reminds me of other US mass to carpet bombing "logic" in other theaters and how civs morphed into mere collateral damage.
-Glad you brought up evac. Zelensky had 2weeks give or take to evac civs from major cities, cities, towns and villages. He did not. Since there is no good death in war, being vaporized by USA A-Bombs or torn into chunks of flesh and bone by Ru hot sharp steel from dumb bombs, dumb rockets, and dumb artillery munitions over days, nights, weeks is just collateral damage.
Dropping leaflets claiming to having a "doomsday" weapon on Japanese civs falls under Ripley's Believe It or Not. No such weapon had previously existed nor was a demonstration made for the Japanese civs to witness. There were 3 A-Bombs. 2 were dropped on non-military targets. Ground Zero for both are...common knowledge. There was no sample drop, it was live. Did the US test the A-Bomb in a remote desert or did they drop a sample on an American city? The 2A-Mombs were rationalize, never justified. Ya are trained in Philosophy, you know well the distinction with all its differences. Eg. A nearby mil installation is not same-same with targeting the mil instillation with the city itelf simply being in the blast radius. Civs were the primary target in both drops. A sample demonstration was nixed after discussions. And it doesn't take much to understand how Pearl Harbor was factored in as well as 4years of constant war. War does that to most people. Gives them license to kill and keep killing w/little thought. Dropping 2 A-Bombs that were incompressible to Japan's mil and civs contributed to the US changing its approach to weaponry. From that point forward it began publishing the capability of weapons and weapon systems. A backdoor attempt at atonement. Nothing atones for the fact only the USA ever committed such an act.
-War is not fought by laws or rules as if it were a chess match, boxing match or football/fuutball match. There is no prior agreement as when or under what conditions to Cry Uncle whether it be a nation, an entire army, a single naval vessel, or a single fighter. Even the term unconditional surrender is fully conditional upon all participants agreeing, not just high level people. That is one reason some Japanese soldiers continued to fight and it is one reason way too many southerners in this wonderful country claim the War of Yankee Aggression never ended after Lee betrayed them. Or the Sunni-Shia-Khawarij war that has gone on since 681, better known as the 1400 Year War. One that metastasized around the globe and beyond the religious schism.
-Going to close with this, Richard.. This discussion of war, A-Bombs, Uk-Ru involves 2parties with dissimilar life experiences. War is not links on Google or chapters in textbooks. It is not about being D-tached from its horrors including sights, scents, sounds, tastes, and touches. Chuckle when some attempt to reduce war to theory or argument. War doesn't fit iithah. It literally is ramming and pounding a square peg into a round hole. It is violent and destructive beyond words. From the inside, the goal is to avoid and sometimes evade both while protecting the living and non-living things while wrestling with and attempting to suppress human emotions to different degrees. Those who allow their emotions to surface often die first and fast, are the causation of the deaths/maiming of others and are more likely to return back to civ life a shell of self.
Just the fact that 9/11 has cost us trillions of dollars if not directly then just in time wasted at the airport I swear to christ bin Laden has won...
Who among us knows our KTN, Known Travel Number?
You mean by heart?
Not me!
Explain. I’m lost.
Think Too Big To Fail. Been the US mil mindset since the end of WW2. Been pushed back from the inside to no avail. It is one of many reason our mil service academies and war colleges (another source of ignorance is bliss) need to be shutdown for a few years, then reconstituted and then the present and future mil can reimagined. Will NOT happen with the present pipeline. And kill dat Space Force chit.
Proffer in the form of a question: How long did it take to question, then begin changing monikers of bases named after traitorous Confederates? It's not like those base names were done in fine print.
Was Bin Laden's goal.
Beyond his wildest dreams...
As if any of this mattered to military contractors, K Street, the Pentagon, or congresspersons from defense industry districts. Money talks.
They'll take a garage project and turn it into the most expensive weapons system possible.
Oh you mean like the fleet headed for the trash pile that cost hundreds of millions of dollars? How is it that Defense’s budget is always ALWAYS out of control?
Brilliant Lucian. Your information is fantastic and no one is touting it but you. I love your column
US miltary ought to buy 10,000 radio controlled model airplanes owned by hobbyists and outfit them as bomb-drones and FEDEX them to Ukraine - "stung to death by gnats" btw elevators do diffent things than flaps. elevators are used to trim / pitch an aircraft up or down, flaps are used to add lift when plane slows down to prevent a stall not participating in pitch action- flaps only provide extra lift when speed is slow during takeoff and landing. Aelerons, invented by Wilbur Wright after watching seagulls at Kitty Hawk, control roll by lifting up one wing while dropping the other wing. Aelerons are outboard on the wings.
Didn't people do that early on, send radio controlled model planes? or were those just drones?
The military mind. We both know it, you better than I, and it never changes. Fight the last war--we're good at that. Spend tons of money on too expensive weapons that don't work all that well. Send people to the arms factories to oversee what's being done, but don't train them very well. Ignore combat experience. You know the rest.. The very best commanders know that wars are won in the mind; they know you have to outhink your enemies. I was trained as a forward observer, and I was extremely good at it. Now all that is obsolete; it's safer and better done by drones. What I was trained to do is obsolete.
I posted this on another Stack, but I think it's appropriate for Mr. T.'s column today.
I always have an odd and sad feeling on 9/11. My daughter, now the senior forensic pathologist in the Manhattan OCME, was a 4th year medical student when a doc in her apartment in Brooklyn phoned and asked if she would go with her to the twin towers. She had a police escort. Without thinking what was involved, she said yes. Mercifully, she was removed after four days -- so no illness befell her later on. Of course there was nothing to do, medically, so for four days her job was to help the firemen on breaks rinse their eyes. (Being a dog person, she tried to cheer up the sniffer dogs, depressed because they couldn't do their jobs. The way she did this was to inveigle one of "her" firemen to play dead so the dog could feel he'd accomplished something. She went to reunions of first responders for five years, until she could no more deal with the emotions. Although she'd not yet graduated, I knew, then, she was a real doctor.
Really nice post Margo.
Your daughter deserves a medal: commitment and bravery!
I live within walking distance, so got there as usual by foot myself, pausing briefly at Canal Street to watch the North Tower disappear from our skyline in a black doughnut cloud. St Vincent's, then my neighborhood hospital, has been displaced by luxury condos, leaving a medical desert. Since I understand the subject to be weaponry I think I'll skip further remembrances of that day and the months of recovery, civic and personal.
hugs
I know. Flood of memories. Several of my sisters and my brother were born there. My granddaughter, too, in 2007! The only reason the rest of us were born at Columbia Pres, was that my mother’s doctor moved!
My friend was a doctor at St Vincent’s. All were prepared for injuries as it was the closest trauma hospital...no one came.
Would you believe the Boston hospitals were told to prepare, as well? My spouse, a surgeon, told me no one would be flown in ...
Sheesh!
I think Gouverneur is closer (Lower East Side), and I know it didn't get any actual patients either.
It was months, maybe a year, before I stopped crying every time I looked across the river (we lived in Weehawken then) or looked downtown as I walked to work.
Too many of the Pile doggos met the same fate as the 2-legged, a premature and preventable death. Am grateful your daughter was wise enough not to get caught up in what went on with The Pile.
My best to your daughter. As her proud Mum rightly observed, a healer of body and soul (doggos).
Lucian, no one expands my awareness of our current world like you do. This excellent column reinforces my impression that modern warfare is the stupidest thing humans do and is mankind's Achilles heel.
A very ominous and timely column on this anniversary.
Yes and no to "you too can becomes a weapons company and it's all perfectly legal," but clearly if you're willing to (1) build drones and (2) engage in warfare through "cut-outs" or illegal sales, or (3) violate laws against arms trafficking - which would be applied one way or another, perhaps with the newly convicted felons appealing to higher courts and discovering that, yes Virginia, there ARE "cases of first impression" such that the statutes appellant argues cannot possibly be applicable to selling drones AND explosives, or one but not the other, yet being shown by clear and convincing evidence to have been well aware of the intended use of what they sold as a key component of armed attack drones, those statutes will survive in the case being appealed.
Then the legislators will hop to the task of drafting something more directly on point.
But even though something like that would be a foreseeable result for certain kinds of "do it yourself off the shelf" weapons startups, it doesn't by any means defeat the main argument of Lucian's column: if you're actually willing to do it no matter the legal risks, it has never been simpler to construct fantastically dangerous, deadly, really really inexpensive weapons.
Jesus wept.
Two Minnesota connections worth recalling, irrespective of your own residence now or on September 11, the first: the incredible "missed opportunity" to just possibly foil all or most of the
Al-Qaeda plot:
content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,249500,00.html
"In the hours after September 11th, FBI agents in Minneapolis shared a macabre joke. For weeks prior, they had tried to interest FBI headquarters in Washington in Zacarias Moussaoui, now known as the 20th hijacker. They had begged FBI Headquarters to give them permission to seek a search warrant of Moussaoui's computer. They were denied. In their frustration, they joked that headquarters back in Washington must be infiltrated by agents of Osama Bin Laden. Why else would their work have been thwarted?
This disturbing story is told in a 13-page, single-spaced letter written to FBI Director Robert Mueller by Colleen Rowley. The letter, portions of which TIME magazine has obtained, chronicle the efforts of Rowley, the Minneapolis Chief Division Counsel, to get the FBI interested in Moussaoui. Moussaoui was arrested in August on a visa violation after the Minnesota flight school at which the French national was taking lessons notified the FBI about his suspicious behavior." Read the rest, HUMAN BEINGS still matter as the guardians against heinous death and destruction, but if their insights and well-founded suspicions are ignored?
And one of the authentic heroes of United Flight 93:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Burnett
Born Thomas Edward Burnett Jr.
May 29, 1963
Bloomington, Minnesota, U.S.
Died September 11, 2001 (aged 38)
Somerset County, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Cause of death Plane crash
Resting place Fort Snelling National Cemetery[1]
Education Thomas Jefferson Senior High School
Alma mater Saint John's University
University of Minnesota (BS)
Pepperdine University (MBA)
Employer Thoratec Corporation
Known for Leading revolt on United 93 in the September 11 attacks
Spouse Deena Burchfield (m. 1992)
Children 4
Thomas Edward Burnett Jr. (May 29, 1963 – September 11, 2001) was an American who was the vice-president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company based in Pleasanton, California; he resided in nearby San Ramon, California.[2] On September 11, 2001, Burnett was a passenger on board United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked as part of the September 11 attacks. He, along with other passengers, formed the plan to retake the plane from the hijackers, and led the effort that resulted in the crash of the plane into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thwarting the plan of the hijackers to crash the plane into a building in Washington, D.C., most likely either the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House.
Early life and education
Thomas Burnett was born on May 29, 1963, the son of Thomas Burnett Sr. and Beverly Burnett.[3] Burnett and his sisters[4] grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota. He attended Ridgeview Elementary School, then Olson Middle School.[4] At Thomas Jefferson Senior High School, where he wore jersey No. 11 and then No. 10, he led the Jaguars to the state finals as their starting quarterback in 1980. He graduated in 1981.[2][4]
Burnett studied Economics at Saint John's University in Minnesota, where he was a quarterback on the football team. After two years, an injury shortened his football career and he transferred to the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. He was named president of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity, then later graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance. He went on to earn a Master of Business Administration degree at Pepperdine University.[2][5]
Career
In 1996, Burnett joined Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company, as vice president of sales and marketing. In November 1999, he was promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer.[6]
Personal life
In 1985, Burnett became the biological father to a daughter who was given up for adoption. Her name is Mariah Mills Jacobsen.[7] In July 1989, Burnett met his future wife, Deena, in Atlanta, where she had just completed flight attendant training for Delta Air Lines.[8] They married in April 1992[5][9] and had three daughters, Halley Elizabeth, Anna Claire, and Madison Margaret,[10] and lived in San Ramon, California,[11] where Deena worked as a stay-at-home mother,[5] beginning when she first became pregnant in 1995.[9] Thomas Burnett had attended mass daily in the year prior to the September 11 attacks, attempting to address a sense of foreboding which he had expressed to his wife.[11] Burnett had busts of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill in his office.[12]
United Airlines Flight 93
Main article: United Airlines Flight 93
The plaque that rests beneath the memorial flag dedicated to Burnett in Bloomington, Minnesota
On September 11, 2001, Burnett boarded United Airlines Flight 93, returning home to San Ramon, after a business trip.[13] Burnett sat next to passenger Mark Bingham. Burnett called his wife, Deena, after hijackers took control of the plane. He made several phone calls to her beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row four.[14][15] Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb, and also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers.[15] During his second call to her, she told him about the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane...Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."[16] He began pumping her for information about the attacks, interrupting her from time to time to tell the others nearby what she was saying. Then he hung up.[17] Upon learning of the situation, Deena, a former flight attendant, recalled her training and urged Burnett to sit quietly and not draw attention to himself. However, Burnett instead informed her that he and three other passengers, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, were forming a plan to take the plane from the hijackers, and leading other passengers in this effort.[5][6][18] He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something."[17][19][11] Burnett and several other passengers stormed the cockpit, foiling the hijackers' plan to crash the plane into the White House or Capitol Building.[5][20] To prevent the passengers from gaining control of the plane, the hijackers crashed it in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board.[5][6]
Lucian your column triggered many emotions and reminded me of the insanity of war. I highly recommend to all to view the outstanding 1966 anti war movie King of Hearts staring Alan Bates. The message of the movie is beautifully underscored in a scene where the left behind residents of an insane asylum are freed by the Bate’s deserter character but the mental patients choose not to leave; instead, they watch from the sidelines as two converging armies attack each other. Of, course, the premise is “who are the crazy ones?”
Wow! This was pretty terrifying. I wonder what the domestic terrorist community (Oath Keepers--Proud Boys) could accomplish with some of this information. Am hopeful that their being as bright as a nightlight may save us!
Dusted off my shelf and ...
"The growth of robotics, remotely piloted vehicles, low probability of intercept communications, and artificial intelligence may offer a potential for radically altered tactics. In turn, growing dependence on such technology may open the door to new vulnerabilities, such as the vulnerability to computer viruses.
"Small, highly mobile elements composed of very intelligent soldiers armed with high technology weapons may range over wide areas seeking critical targets."
"Leaders will have to be masters of both the art of war and technology, a difficult combination as two different mindsets are involved."
"Television news may become a more powerful operational weapon than armored divisions."
"The contradiction between the military culture and the nature of modern war confronts a traditional military Service with a dilemma."
" (Specific to section on the future of terrorism) Today, the United States is spending $500 million apiece for stealth bombers. A terrorist stealth bomber is a car with a bomb in the trunk—a car that looks like every other car."
Just a sampling from 4GW (4th Generation Warfare) from...1989. 1989. Gathered dust on the shelves at the Pentagon until the abject failures of 911, Af, Ir. Was too late, again. Was used to some degree during O Adm against daeshbags only for Trump to return to let's bomb the shit out of them. DoD couldn't say "not invented here" because it was. Still is ridiculed by the prevailing US mil culture aka give me bigger and give me more of bigger, fuck trying to outsmart the enemy, we already are smarter, everybody and every nation knows that.
Orwell
What your excellent column makes transparently clear is that the billions and trillions we spend on ‘national defense’ has rather little to do with actually defending us against the bad guys, and much more to do with keeping the expensive defense industries making obscene profits from our tax dollars producing useless equipment. This scam has been going on for decades, and Americans love it. The political inertia that keeps it going is probably impossible to stop. Just think about what better things could have been done with that mountain of money if a more realistic defense strategy had been deployed.
Yes. Who needs good schools, national health care, functional transportation infrastructure, secure power grids, road or bridges that aren't crumbling, that sort of folderol?
The Saudi crime syndicate financed 9/11 and to this day, they act with impunity, continuing to violate human rights and not a peep of indignation is heard from any administration since the attacks.