September 11, 2001... 

... a date which, in future, we will remember as vividly as December 7, 1941, or November 22, 1963, or January 28, 1986. On these rare occasions, something so shocking, so stunning, so horrid happens that everyone who lives through it will always remember. I didn't live through Pearl Harbor or the Kennedy Assassination, but I know much of those days. Those of us who didn't live through major world shaping events can now understand the feelings felt by those who did.

What did these people think they would accomplish? Striking a blow at the United States is not a very smart idea. You see, Americans don't cower in fear when things get rough. They are not told what to think by their leaders. They get angry. Very angry. And when the American people get angry, things happen. Remember the Gulf War? Remember World War 2? Does nobody learn from history anymore?

America will retaliate. America will get even. If the response to this is less than "surgical", not a lot of Americans will be very concerned. You see, whatever it takes to feel a sense of closure, that is what will be done. America does not rush headlong into war. They plan, they calculate, and when they are sure that they can win with minimal losses, they act. Again... remember the Gulf War.

As I write this, television channels have cautiously begun regular programming. The story is still the vast majority of my 70 channels. No jetliners have flown over me for two days now, and the silence is eerie. Life is just beginning to return to normal, as people realize that things are okay for now, our lives will carry on.

I made a poster in Corel 10 today, just for something to do to fill some time and give me something else to think about. It's an American flag, the date, a few lines from President Bush's speech yesterday, and some particularly representative pictures of the devastation at the World Trade Center. If you print this on good paper on a good color printer, it may well be frameable. Click Here to get it.

The last time I entered the United States was August 29. I drove across an undefended border, a guard casually glanced at me and typed my license plate into his computer before waving me in. My vehicle was not searched, no probing questions were asked, and I felt a good feeling about living close enough to cross the border to shop occasionally. Those days are gone now, it may be years before they ever return.

Is there a way to prevent this sort of thing? Of course there is. Equip all commercial aircraft with knockout gas and make them all operable by remote control. But then, someone will figure out how to hack into the remote control systems and start crashing them that way. All right, arm the flight crew. Nope, hijackers would then have easy access to better weapons. Okay, if you are on a hijacked aircraft, you must at all costs overpower the hijackers and regain control of the plane. Hmmm... that happened to aircraft number four which was a smoking crater. Are there easy answers? Of course not.

Next time you are waiting at the airport for what will be time consuming and expensive security, remember this. The measures that will be put in place are to prevent you from being "one of the passengers" in another situation. I fully intend to be searched and carefully scrutinized before my next air flight, and welcome the affirmation of something proactive being done.   - Sep12/2001

I was at a store today pricing out digital cameras. To my utter surprise, I was informed by a store worker that it didn't matter, since we'd all be killed in the war. "Which war is that?" I asked. "The war that is about to begin," he replied. I asked him exactly who the war would be against, and he said "It will be a world war." I was rather amazed. Amazed that someone has utter certainty that a terrorist attack on the United States would result in World War III, destroying humanity. I think I managed to help this man get past his fears, at least, I talked with him for a while.

Who in the world are the Superpowers? Depending on how you define the term, I say it's The United States, Russia, and China. All three of these Superpowers are of one mind in this situation. Whoever did this will be hunted down. Would China cooperate if they turned out to be hiding there? I firmly believe so. Would Russia? Of course!

Attacking a civilian target without a declaration of war is something that can not be done. None of the large powers would condone or support such an act. As I said above, The United States does not randomly attack in anger, they plan and ensure probability of victory first. They follow the rules as set out in various international agreements, such as NATO and The United Nations. This is the nature of a democratic society. No one person or small group has the power to commit the tremendous forces available in the US, it requires a large group of people, all of whom are accountable to their electors.

For those who do not remember 11 years ago, this same unease was felt when Iraq invaded Kuwait. And I suspect it was also felt in 1939 and 1914 as well. But hey, cooler heads prevailed, and the war efforts were controlled, specific, and successful.

I'm not quoting anyone I've seen speaking on CNN this week, these are my own thoughts. There is no target. There is no country to attack. The people responsible for this are dirt poor and have no real estate that can be converted to radioactive slag. This is why when people have said "The United States will go to war" I have asked: "With who?"

Many terrorists are desperate people who feel the only way to improve their situation is to inflict pain and suffering on others. There are huge numbers of people on this world other than Americans, and many have what appear to them to be valid complaints against American actions. In actual fact, The United States have provided financial and other assistance to an incredible percentage of the world. The truly evil ones are those who control the oppressed nations, consolidating their control and power with US funding.

Anyone reading this who knows who I am are probably thinking "What the hell do you know, you're Canadian!" Well... let me explain this. Canada's relationship to The United States is similar to that of Alaska. We live in the shadow of the most powerful nation in the world, we watch mostly American television, drive American cars, and enjoy the same freedoms as Americans do. Most of the products on our store shelves are the exact same as on American store shelves. When I travel in the US, people are often surprised if I tell them I am Canadian. "You have no accent!" Well of course not! I can assure you, the reaction to the terrorist attacks here in Calgary (a city of about a million) was not any different than the reactions in anyplace in the US. Our air was empty of jets, we all sat and watched CNN, and the streets were silent on Tuesday as people watched in shock as the events unfolded. Our large downtown buildings were evacuated, and since we are a very oil-industry dependent city, we also worry about being attacked by radicals. It could happen. -Sep14/2001

The Memorial Service was today, and a little while ago I watched the President take a bullhorn and tell rescue workers that "the people who brought these buildings down will hear ALL our voices". I heard New Yorkers state that now that the shock is over, they want revenge. They want to hurt those who did this to the same extent that they have been hurt.

I agree with this sentiment. Unfortunately, it is difficult to understand the mindset of people who would kill themselves and take thousands with them. What motivates them? Where do they come from? Who backed them? These are questions that will be answered, and soon. The United States, the sleeping giant, has been awakened.

I want to ask some questions. How many similar plots have been foiled? How about the 4 who allegedly were attempting to board an airliner on Tuesday morning that ran away when their ID was shown to be false? How many of these were supposed to happen? Four that we know of, it could just have easily have been 40 or 400. While I was watching the carnage live on TV, an airliner flew low over my home on final approach to Calgary International Airport. How many of you understand the way my stomach clenched up at that moment? It was very unlikely, we know that now, but at the time anything seemed possible.

No, no world war will come from this, thankfully the right people are in control of the really powerful armed forces. There is no country in this world that wants to be associated with this attack, they know that the American people are angry enough to extract the ultimate revenge.

It is still interesting to hear the theories, the fears on television as people wonder what is next. America must act, some action must be taken. It will be interesting to see what form of action will be taken. I, for one, am not afraid of a global conflict. I pray that the terrorists realize that their game is over, the time has come to end their misguided Jihad. -Sep 15/2001

Thank God for shock. A built-in response that numbs and disassociates us from what could otherwise be overwhelming emotion. Shock is the mechanism at work when you have been in a car crash and are able to extract people from the wreckage before the enormity of what happened sinks in. Shock allows us to feel things just a little at a time, after the fact.

Little by little, stories of Tuesday September 11 2001 are told. The President ordered military action on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, and of course this was prudent considering what had already happened. They didn't get there in time, but the unknown heroes in the plane did the job themselves. This person didn't go to work at their office in the World Trade Center because things just felt "wrong", that person's daughter did go to work that day. These people just want to know, what happened to their husband, father, mother, daughter, son, cousin, friend, wife.

As the shock wears off, and people are able to absorb the reality of what happened a few days ago, it is replaced by emotions. Those emotions are grief, anger, hate. It is okay to feel those emotions. It is all right to allow yourself to give in to blind rage against the monsters who would do these things. But it is also your responsibility to get past those, and ensure that a clear target exists before striking out. "Arabs" or "Moslems" in America are far more likely to be real people than "terrorists". Making one suffer for the acts of another is playing right into the designs of the perpetrators of these foul acts. They must not be given the opportunity to say "See? America strikes at all our brothers!"

IN the future, it will be very difficult for this sort of attack to occur. I'm confident that the occupants of those aircraft figured they were in for an unexpected journey, perhaps a flight to Cuba or maybe a landing and negotiation session on some secluded runway. I would wager that some were excited, anticipating the prospect of being on the news, breathlessly describing their emotions as their plane was hijacked. How many people on Monday September 10 would have believed that someone would have flown a planeload of people into a building? Thankfully the passengers in a commercial airliner can't really see forward, and hopefully most of them didn't know they were about to hit something.

But in the future, a hijacker will have to physically battle the entire passenger load. Not a man, woman or child is likely to sit idly by, worried about the threat from a plastic knife. Would you rather have surgery to remove a knife, or know that your aircraft smashed into a "target"? I think we all know the answer to that.

"We prepare for war like precocious giants and for peace like retarded pygmies." Lester B. Pearson, in his acceptance speech upon presentation of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1957

If terrorists are willing to sacrifice their lives to cause bloodshed and chaos, we as free people must be willing to sacrifice ours to stop them. Perhaps that is the true nature of "America's New War"... the realization that while we have freedoms unprecedented in human history, we might be called upon at any time to defend those freedoms for others.

Freedom, Liberty, these are words that we often just think of as words... part of the "American Ideal", outmoded thoughts that men over 200 years ago wrote about. These events should remind us that these words exist for a reason. We must treasure our freedoms, and appreciate the liberty we have. There are countries, in this world, in this age, where you can't wear whatever you want, you can be shot for speaking about the wrong religion. You can do jail time for enterprising. You can have your land given to someone else for growing the wrong crops.

The "Free World", including The United States, Canada, Europe, Russia, Australia, and most others, exists because hundreds of years ago people were tired of being owned by Kings. They rebelled against callous disregard of the life of the "common man". As a result of these rebellions, today the world is run by the "common man". We have elections to determine who operates our country's finances and military. If we don't like how the job is being done, we choose another. Very few single people have ultimate power, for example, the American President must have the approval of hundreds of elected people before he can commit to military actions.

This is the way it should be. It's tragic that we had to witness the horrifying events of last Tuesday to be reminded. The degradation of our military and intelligence organizations must stop. Everyone knows the old saying "To ensure peace, you must prepare for war". It is essential that we realize this is more than a cliché. The price for peace is eternal vigilance.

Tragically, Canada has dismantled her military forces in the interest of cost savings. - Sep17/2001

It absolutely amazes me how ignorant some people are. To the selfish and downright stupid people who bailed on their airline stocks in the first day of trading after the event, I would like to say "You should be ashamed". It proves to me that you do not have to have a brain in your head to be involved in the stock market. The one thing that everyone who knows anything about the markets knew was that a rapid sellout would make things worse, but these morons went ahead and did it anyway. I would say that these people are not very patriotic, since they placed their own selfish interests ahead of the good of the country.

And speaking of stupidity, let's think about the wisdom of attacking "Arabs" in America.

An open letter to a terrorist: Well, you hit the World Trade Center, but you missed America. You hit the Pentagon, but you missed America. You used helpless American bodies, to takeout other American bodies, but like a poor marksman, you STILL missed America. Why? Because of something you guys will never understand. America isn't about a building or two, not about financial centers, not about military centers. America isn't about a place. America isn't even about a bunch of bodies or people. America is about an IDEA. An idea, that you can go someplace where you can earn as much as you can figure out how to honestly; live, for the most part, like you envisioned living; and pursue Happiness. (No guarantees that you'll reach it, but you can sure try!) (view entire text here) - author unknown

The "radical terrorists" are to the Moslem world about equivalent to the kinds of "Christians" who bomb abortion clinics. Think about how abortion clinic bombings make you feel. Do you support them? Do Christian teachings say it's all right to bomb abortion clinics? Or assassinate an abortion doctor? Of course not. Should all Christians be hated because of those few? Of course not. The same applies to the other situation.

A true Moslem may have different beliefs in some details, but ALL religions teach Peace. Even if you are not religious, it should be obvious that Peace is a desirable goal in any society. There are legal means to accomplish any goal. Continuing the example above, if you don't believe that abortion is acceptable you should at least understand that there are peaceful and legal means to make your beliefs known, and eventually even have the rules changed.

America recently made official and long-overdue apologies to the Japanese Americans who were mistreated during WW2. A war has now been declared, and it's important to not fall into the same old patterns.

Christ taught that you should turn the other cheek. The way I figure it, you have four cheeks. Eventually you run out, and when there isn't another cheek left to turn then go ahead and strike back. -Sep 18/2001

If you don't understand the international nature of an attack on the World Trade Center, take a look at this chart from FEMA. It shows the number of nationals from several countries who are missing or known dead. The World Trade Center is not strictly an American thing, it is truly international in scope. When NATO calls these attacks an attack on everyone, this chart should demonstrate a good reason as to why.

I had an interesting email sent to me today, showing scans of the ticket stubs for the top of the World Trade Center dated September 8, 2001. A friend of a friend was up there just 3 days earlier. One can only imagine the thoughts going through your head if you were just there. And I don't envy New Yorkers having to drive past the downtown core and see their two largest buildings missing every day.

Once again, panicky low-IQ investors drop the value of the stock markets by selling everything off. Those who are intelligent, meanwhile, are buying up all these dropped stocks, fully aware that they are artificially low. A late rally made the day less catastrophic, but at one point it was looking fairly ugly.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, would enrage the perpetrators of these acts more than for America to escape unscathed from this tragedy. This can't be allowed to cripple or wound the American way of life! - Sep 19/2001

Gordon Sinclair was a Canadian who wrote a very stirring piece called "The Americans". It has been widely circulated lately as representative of Canadian feelings on the United States. Many people have misquoted this piece, and the one I got in my email was altered to sound more dramatic. If you go to this link, you can find out who this man was, what he did, and read the full script of the piece, and hear the actual radio broadcast. Ronald Reagan, when he was President, visited with Gordon Sinclair and told him that when he was discouraged, he would listen to "The Americans". The original piece was from 1973 and was referring to the American involvement in Vietnam. - Sep 22/2001

July 22, 2002:

Well, time has passed and a little perspective is shown. Since I wrote the above, the US has gone into Afghanistan and restored an Afghani government, the WTC debris has been completely removed, the Canadian military expedition to Afghanistan has returned (yes, we had one! 800 personnel.) There are plans for the new development on the WTC site, New Yorkers are voting on them. The Pentagon has been restored, I watched them place the memorial last brick in place a few weeks ago. People are flying again, things are returning to normal.

There is still a scar, a deep wound in the American psyche that may never heal, at least not in this generation. The same kind of wound that Pearl Harbor was, it will always be remembered. There is every possibility that there will be other terrorist attacks, but the possibility always existed. Most Americans were blind to it.

In one way, it's good the see that people are back to normal... the petty squabbles, the political partisanship, etc. On the other hand, many have not learned anything. Some Americans have learned from this that when things suck, they can rely on the military to go "kick butt" and solve everything. It didn't work that way, and I'm going to stand on my soapbox here for a moment.

I firmly believe that the September 11 attacks were a fairly direct result of the Cold War. Afghanistan was left in ruins after the Soviets left it, and a country left in shambles attracts the element that we have all learned to hate. Postwar countries need a little help, of the sort that Japan and Germany got. There was a definite attitude toward Afghanistan that it was a Soviet problem.

There are other countries in chaos right now, and don't kid yourself, there are the same element in those areas. The US would be wrong to "go in and kick butt", that would just stir up more resentment in more countries. What is needed is a UN mandate to deal with this. Being a U2 fan, I listened to Bono's "debt relief" ideas, at first with skepticism, then with a growing realization that it is needed. Apparently I'm not the only one, Paul O'Neill, US treasury secretary, recently toured Africa with Bono to discuss it.

As I mentioned above, there are no easy answers. With no more Cold War, the US is the only remaining superpower that takes an interest in the west. That is a responsibility, not a free hand. I know that ultimately, the US will do what is right.

September 11, 2002:

As I write this, it's hard to believe that an entire year has passed. I've spent most of the day watching the memorial services and it is good to see the healing under way. I am impressed by the display of caring and concern being shown by everyone, especially the official events.

We can never forget September 11, 2001, for most of us it was the most significant event to happen in our lives. If we are lucky, it will remain that way.

Some images courtesy of CNN.com and Time.com