9/11, Bin Laden, and what-ifs

One thing that many people remember on this 5th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania is where they were when the planes struck. I remember, we left our then duty station and temporary home in Cottesmore, England on 5 September 2001 for a 9 day vacation in Yuma and Tucson, Arizona. Our plan was to return to England on Friday, September 14th, leaving Yuma on Thursday, September 13th.
As usually, my husband was up earlier than me. He followed the usual morning routine turning on CNN for a quick check on the news. When I woke up, while walking into the kitchen to get some coffee, he informed me that one of the towers of the WTC in New York City was on fire, apparently after having been struck by an airplane. I was stunned. I have flown into New York from both JFK and La Guardia in the past, and always had to strain my neck in order to catch a quick view of the beautiful and magnificent Manhatten skyline. I also remember way back in 1998, during my first trip to the Big Apple, asking a flight attendant whether we would be able to see Manhatten. She informed me "only when the weather is very nice" and also that Manhatten was pretty much a n0-fly zone because of the skyscrapers. So, immediately, I thought that something must have been very wrong, but at this point, had no idea how wrong and how many more wrongs would happen that fateful day.

Just about as our then 1.5 year old son woke up, a second plane hit the other tower of the WTC, then the news reports started to get even more confusing. President Bush, at some school in Florida, responded to the incident, referring to them as an act of terrorism against the United States and he promised to "hunt down and find these folks who committed these attacks against the United States." Then more reports of attacks, the Pentagon, reports of explosions heard somewhere else, FBI investigating another plane hijacking, the Pentagon in flames and being evacuated, then evacuation of the White House, Capitol Hill, a plane crash in Pennsylvania. Then Aaron Brown on CNN interrupting another reporter moments after what appeared to be the collapse of the first of the two towers. Reports of people jumping out of windows, people running, sirens in background.

My first reaction was to vomit, just the thought of all those people in those towers, their sense of helplessness and desperation, to much to bear. Then the second tower collapsed. Eyewitnesses at this time (on both CNN and Fox News) referred to hearing explosions when the towers collapsed literally upon themselves, almost like in some of these planned explosion of old, derelict buildings ...

Whilst the attack was happening, Bush was reading a story about a goat to elementary school children in Florida, not reponding for seven minutes. Then, immediately afterwards, the "knowledge" that it was a terrorist attack, and then shortly after that, photos of the alleged hijackers where made public. I always struck me as odd, that it took years to find the Unabomber, but within 24 hours we not only have the names, but also photos of the hijackers.

Meanwhile, air traffic has been suspended, and the Tucson skies, that are usually buzzing with the sound of both commercial and Air Force Planes, were very quiet. We have tried to phone United to get some info with regard to our now cancelled flight back to London, and after two days, finally were able to speak to someone, and the earliest we could return was on Saturday, September 22. The rental car place didn't even care anymore where we would drop off the car as long as we dropped it off. No questions asked.

The world literally became one, the French declaring "Nous toutes sommes Americaines", flowers at American Embassies and military bases across the world, a NATO meeting in Brussels, during which the leadership invoked Article V of the NATO treaty, apparently the first time ever ...(http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2001/s010920a.htm), but the President for some reason turned the offer for military help from other NATO member states down. He also turned down French's President Chirac's offer of all of France's aircraft carrier in support of any possible military actions against terrorist targets (the word Afghanistan could be heard louder and louder at this point as well.)

Then we heard the name of Bin Laden, and saw posters of his turban covered head with the words, "Wanted, Dead or Alive". Initially, there was tough talk from the President about "smoking them out of their holes" and then in the beginning of October 2001, Afghanistan, then under Taliban leadership was attacked.

After the initial tough talk about Bin Laden and his cohorts of hijackers and whoever else, President Bush stated that he "wasn't concerned about" Bin Laden, that he doesn't know where he was etc. WHAT? Was this really the same president we saw shortly after the attacks, dealing with the largest attack in recent American History, not being concerned about the mastermind of a massmurder of about 3,000 people???

Now, lets fast-forward to the week before the 5th anniversary of these tragic events (the five years since then will be covered in another musing). Our president, who has lost lots of support for any of his (failed) policies at this point in history, gave yet another speech, this time invoking Bin Laden again. Four years or so after neither "thinking about him (bin Laden) or being concerned about this mass-murder's whereabouts much, Bin Laden now is elevated to the same level as Hitler. WOW. I am not sure that I am or ever will be able to understand such a leap of logic and common sense, such a non-sequitur of argument, it literally blew me away. I was at one point planning on blogging my thoughts about this comparison, but have thus far not been able to put my thoughts into words, simply because I would not have been polite to say the least and again, because I am completely unable to understand.

A blog that I occasionally follow is the "Rude Pundit". He or She, wrote an excellent, alas pretty rude, commentary on said speech, expressing pretty much how I felt and still feel. I will include the link to his blog here, but as a disclaimer, if you object or mind rude language, don't read it, you might be offended. http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2006/09/message-to-president-were-not-that.html.

Now, what IF the president has taken up the NATO offer and allowed for the execution of Article V? What if Bush had capitalized on the worldwide sympathy for the United States and offer of military support from all kinds of other nations to help "capture dead or alive" the masterminds behind 9/11? What if good old-fashioned police work and undercover work would have been used to capture bin Laden and his henchmen? What if the War on Terrorism would have been executed with an international force well-versed in fighting terrorism, e.g. the British SAS or German GSG 9 or that French Group (I am not sure if they even have a name, but they are good) or the Israelis? All these nations have had their share of terrorism in the past and have hunted down, killed or captured terrorist, all them with combined decades of experience, what if the US had listened instead of going it alone, when a coalition of the willing emerged without any diplomatic effort after 9/11? What if Bush had not attacked Iraq over non-existing WMDs or non-existing ties between Saddam and Al Queda? What if those precious resources had not been diverted from finding bin Laden? What if, indeed. General Clark's description of NATO troops in former Yugoslavia might provide some answers(I just find this after writing this blog, I am amazed). http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0209.clark.html