Looking back

[mrph]

Five years already? I guess so. I was sitting at work when the news came in.

Alan, who sat opposite me, had the BBC News tickertape running - his first comment was something like "some idiot's managed to fly a plane into a skyscraper". Then the details started to arrive. BBC live news was on one of the big screens in one of our meeting rooms. People drifted in and out, watching snippets, looking a little dazed.

People said that there might be 50,000 dead; that there were more dead than Hiroshima; that this must be Iraq. There were other planes, but nobody knew how many. Lots of rumours and misinformation.

Despite all the news footage, it took a little while to understand that this was real.

[I was already on LJ at the time. There are a few posts from 11/09/01 and the days that followed in the archives. It's strange for me to look back at that sort of thing, to see just how events have shifted]

Comments

[paul-sticks.livejournal.com]

It was a strange period in our lives. Let's hope that we don't have to relive it again.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I remember my mother telling me and I just laughed, because I thought she was joking, until she turned on the news and there it was. We just sat there for hours watching it all happen, appalled.

[hex61.livejournal.com]

It was a nice day. OK weather in Auburn Hills. There was a bit of a fiasco in NYC and DC. A crash in PA. Nothing really worth noting. These things happen after all. Very sad for the families and co-wrokers. Hard work for the clean up.

And that's how the news should have covered it, how the people could have been told about it, and how the memorial should be remembered.

Or so it seems to be implied by so many who cite this as the beginning of fear mongering and a US conspiracy against the world. Or perhaps what those folks mean to say is that they are very upset that they blamed the US gov't for inaction, which in turn felt it must act to defend itself by taking all action, and thus led to a massive deployment of US troops and diplomacy around the world.

*sighs*

In any case I feel sad about this. I know that in truth it was a momentus event for many people. But I also know that in other parts of the world it would be considered fairly commonplace hostility even given the scale of sorts things. What is difficult for many people to accept - even today - is that there was an unprovoked attack on innocent civilians, and the only people to blame are the ones who planned and carried out the attack.

*shrug*

But people are idiots. So rather than put the blame on the people who planned and did this they would rather blame the people who didn't prevent it or didn't some how coddle and spoon feed such people to prevent them from being hostile or whatever. Maybe someday people will learn. After another bombing in London, or attack on Frankfurt or Paris. Maybe after the crazy people start killing BBC journalists in Bristol or Manchester. Or after they blow up Detroit from their bases in Dearborn.

We'll just have to see.

[lougarry.livejournal.com]

I think there were a couple of little things that could have been done that could (well, who can say) have prevented it. Apparently before 9/11 passengers were allowed [up to] 4 inch knives on flights, but not six inch knives...despite knowing that a lot of damage could be done with either.

[hex61.livejournal.com]

I could concuss if not mortally wound someone with my big US to UK power transformer I pack. I could immobilise and blind someone with bleach in a bottle of water. Martial arts teaches us how to kill without anythng but our hands. Etc.

Not that any of that would matter either - after all, in a hostage situation people were educated to stay calm, don't struggle, the hijackers will make demands and eventually the passengers will be freed in exchange for those demands.

So I disagree. The only thing I can think of that could have been done would have been to actively enforce immigration laws in the US (that would have nailed half the hijackers) and to possibly pursuing a foreign policy that replaced failed nations with functional ones. Perhaps educating people in self defense and crisis management might have helped - but the risk is that the circumstances might have been escalated to compensate for that.

The first the US still doesn't have the will to do. The second requires a lot of commitment, forethought, and planning, which is not the forte of lawyers turned politicians and armchair viewers.

And the third... depends on an educated, self-supporting, and focused population. Something that doesn't exist in most western nations.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like Alan, I checked the news regularly. At first I assumed it was anti-globalisation protestors in a light aircraft. Then the second plane hit, and my then editor said we ought to get to a telly. One of the PlayStation mags had theirs on and we all stood around watching.

One of my friends works at the Pentagon, and when the news came out that it had been hit, I was desperate to find out what had happened to him. The plane hit an area that was cleared and being renovated, so the damage wasn't as bad as it might have been, but I was so scared for him and his family. Bringing it down to one person made it seem more real, more within my grasp, than trying to comprehend thousands of people.