Tragedy in the Twenty-First Century

It took a moment for her words to sink in, and when they did, I was still confused. Who were “they?” What had they blown up? I knew there had been an attempt to plant a bomb in the basement of the World Trade Center in New York City several years earlier. Was this a second attempt, or was there also a building in Washington also called “World Trade Center”?

I turned off the car motor and went back into the house. When I reached the family room, the television was on and everything was confused. Apparently an airliner had struck one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. There were the photos on the screen showing flames pouring out of some of the upper floors. Had the plane accidentally crashed into the tallest building in New York City? Although the commentator asked the question, the answer seemed obvious. The New York morning was sparklingly clear. No pilot could have mistaken where he was.

So had a hijacker taken over the plane and forced the pilot to fly into the tower? This was the theory being advanced when we began watching, but that too seemed foolish. How could a pilot have been forced to crash into the tower? He would have known his own death was inevitable. Would he have caused the deaths of hundreds of others under such a circumstance? No—the plane must have been piloted by a terrorist. But this added an entirely new dimension to hijackings as we had known them. Terrorists couldn’t pilot commercial airliners, could they?

These were all thoughts that Dawn and I passed back and forth as we watched the images on the screen with horror. The scene switched to Washington, D.C., and the pictures showed smoke pouring out of the Pentagon. The announcers seemed as confused as we were. A plane had apparently crashed into the Pentagon, they said, but they couldn’t get a good camera angle on the damage, so it was difficult to say how serious it was. Now it was clear to us that terrorist attacks were being coordinated.

The scene shifted back to New York City, where the television images were clear and unambiguous. Suddenly, another airliner appeared in the picture and smashed into the second tower. We gasped in disbelief. Could this be real? Were we watching the Twenty-First Century equivalent of “War of the Worlds?” Surely someone would soon tell us this was a television drama, not reality.

But it was real. It was September 11, 2001, a day that would set in motion changes that would affect the daily life of all Americans from that day forward. For my parents’ generation, the bombing of Pearl Harbor served as the most memorable image in their lifetimes. For my generation, it was the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, or perhaps the first walk on the moon. For our children, it will be 9/11.

We continued watching, riveted with what was happening on the other side of the country. Were other planes in the skies at this very moment flying toward other targets? All flights across the country had been cancelled. Rumors flew. Reports were coming in of an airliner that had crashed in Pennsylvania. “We have no indication that this had anything to do with the other hijackings,” the television commentators said, but we who watched knew otherwise. Of course it did. And why had it crashed? Because the passengers or crew had challenged the hijackers. It was the most sensible explanation, but the ultra-cautious network news people seemed reluctant to advance speculation. But what other explanation could there be? Where was the fourth plane going? Nobody seemed to know, but logic suggested it was headed for Washington. What better place for terrorists to target than a public building in the United States capital? The only question on our minds was whether the target had been the White House of the Capitol building.

The cameras were back in New York City showing long shots of the burning buildings, with smoke billowing out and blowing across all of Manhattan. The commentators were telling us some people were jumping from the upper floors of the towers, preferring to die that way rather than being burned to death. No jumpers were shown on television, but the horror these people must have faced made us queasy and brought tears to our eyes. People were pouring out of the towers, we were told, and firefighters were helping, though it seemed impossible that they could be of any use to the people trapped in the floors above where the planes had hit.

Then, as we watched, the south tower suddenly collapsed. The scene was surreal—as though the collapse was being telecast in slow motion. One moment a 110-story tower stood with smoke and flames pouring out, and the next moment there was nothing but thick smoke billowing through the streets of Manhattan. People were screaming and running away as fast as they could. It was like a horror movie, but it was real. The collapse was shocking—nobody had predicted it. Why would it collapse? Had bombs been planted at the base? Would the second building follow suit?

That last question was answered about a half hour later when the north tower also collapsed. What had been the signature buildings of New York City were suddenly gone. And how many hundreds, perhaps thousands of people had perished in the disaster? Later we learned that almost 3,000 civilian victims had died—people who had nothing to do with whatever wrongs the terrorists were seeking to avenge.

Several hours later I went to work. Dawn questioned whether it was safe to go up in an office tower, but I reasoned there were much more attractive buildings for terrorists to hit than a 21-story tower in Orange County, California. By then we knew that all flights had been grounded. The attacks seemed to be over for the time being, but what would be the fallout?

Over the next few days the extent of the horror became apparent, as we saw images of the rubble that buried countless bodies, saw still photos of the jumpers, and saw interviews of tearful New Yorkers looking for lost husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. Work was disrupted for everyone and travelers were stranded throughout the country. We had no personal acquaintances who were killed and for that we were thankful.

During the first few days following the tragedy our focus was on the grief-stricken families of the victims and on trying to understand who was behind the killings. President George W. Bush declared a “war on terrorism,” but what did that mean in practical terms? Four days after the attack, I wrote the following:

There are no easy solutions to this problem. A free society such as ours makes it easier for people to use terror for their own ends. We cannot put an end to terror without compromising some of our freedoms. The delicate question yet to be answered is: how much of our freedom we are willing to relinquish in order to stop the terror? Or perhaps it would be better to say, to curtail the terror?

Many people are calling for us to “attack,” but it is unclear whom or what we should attack. No sovereign nation will take credit for this, and so there is no country to invade, nobody on whom to drop bombs. The individuals who carried out the terrible missions are all dead. Afghanistan is the only government in our gun sights at the moment. Its “crime” seems to be that it is harboring Osama bin Laden, the person most of the world blames for masterminding the attacks. We have demanded that they give up bin Laden, but it is not at all clear that the leaders of Afghanistan have the ability to hand him over, even if they wanted to.

War fever seems to be in the air, but I wonder if people understand what war will mean. Have people forgotten our experience in Viet Nam? I don’t think the nation is ready for an all-out war unless the target nation has attacked us first. I know I’m not.

I don’t think enough thought has been given as to why so many people hate the United States with an intensity that would drive them to commit suicide-murder. Those who planned and carried out these attacks apparently were well-educated and otherwise well-mannered individuals. Many are characterizing them as “crazy” or “insane,” but it does not seem they were. It is unlikely that such a well-organized and well-coordinated attack, the planning for which must have taken months, if not years, could be carried out by insane people. President Bush referred to them as “cowards,” but their actions do not fit the mold of cowards. They believed strongly in a principle and were willing to die for it. It is interesting that in all of the television coverage I have seen, I have never heard any clear explanation of exactly what these terrorists were trying to accomplish. Was it revenge for some specific thing we did? Was it a misguided attempt to call attention to a particular cause? Was it an anti-Israel statement?

It will be interesting to see where we go from here. One thing seems certain. The date of September 11, 2001, will go down in the history of our country as a day of infamy, much as December 10, 1941 has. Things will never be the same again. Just how much different is yet to be determined.

Dawn and I were facing one problem that needed immediate resolution. We had been planning a two-week vacation to Great Britain and were scheduled to leave on September 21, just ten days after the attack. Mary Kaye and Terry were to meet up with us. Should we call it off? Was it too risky to be travelling?

After considering the pros and cons, we decided to go ahead with our original plans, although many of our friends thought we were crazy. We reasoned (or rationalized) that air travel was safer in the wake of the World Trade Center attack than it had been before because of the heightened precautions that were being instituted. Therefore, we went as planned and had a delightful two weeks travelling through southern Wales and England.

We rented a car and stayed in the Welsh towns of Merthyr Tydfil in Glamorganshire and Amroth in Pembrokeshire, the homes of my Rees and Reese ancestors. In Pembrokeshire we were guided by the wonderful friendly local author, Roscoe Howells and his wife, Margaret. We stayed in charming bed and breakfast houses and met pleasant, helpful people wherever we went. We toured the Museum of Welsh History, the Welsh version of Williamsburg. We saw the beautiful ruins of Tintern Abbey and visited Hay on Wye, famous for its bookstores. We also spent a night in Torquay in Devonshire, home of my favorite fictional innkeeper, Basil Fawlty. We toured the port town of Plymouth, from whence so many famous British explorations departed--Sir Francis Drake, Captain James Cook and the Pilgrims. We drove to the pleasant seaside towns of Penzance and St. Ives in Cornwall on the English Riviera.

During our second week we were joined by Mary Kaye and Terry and made our base at the Marriott Tudor Court Hotel in Maidstone, Kent. We made daytrips throughout southern England, visiting Canterbury, the Dover shores, and Stonehenge on the Salisbury plains. We also made a day trip into London and took in some shopping and a play. One of the highlights of our week was a trip to the Isle of Wight, just off the coast of southern England, where we stayed the night with Clay and Joy Nutter, friends of the Gardners. We drove all over the lovely island, where Britishers often come to vacation, and visited Osborne House, the summer home of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and their large family.

Our travels diverted our attention from the tragedy at home and raised our spirits. It seemed strange (and pleasant) to hear so few voices with American accents during the two weeks. In fact, we could recall only a couple of times, outside the airport, when we ran into any other Americans.

Our flight back to Los Angeles was on Sunday, October 7. When we transferred planes in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, we were brought sharply back to the reality of a world of hate and war. We learned that while we had been in the air, the United States and Great Britain had begun bombing Afghanistan. I wrote at the end of my travel diary, “Can we achieve our objective of getting rid of bin Laden and helping to make the world a safer place? Only time will tell.”

I wasn’t strongly opposed to the bombing of Afghanistan. The newspapers made it seem like we were mainly attacking terrorist strongholds and that there would be a minimum of fighting in large cities. Also, it appeared that there were many segments of Afghan society who wanted to be rid of the Taliban. If we could capture or kill Osama bin Laden, which didn’t seem like an unreasonable goal, perhaps it would be worth the cost. At the time I didn’t understand how connected Pakistan and Afghanistan were, and how easy it would be for bin Laden to slip across the border into Pakistan and elude our forces.

Now, six years later, it is unclear just what we have accomplished in Afghanistan. Many Afghans have been killed in bloody battles and massacres. Many were members of the Taliban, but many others were civilians. It appears that the Taliban are now regrouping. The production and sale of heroin has dramatically increased and has served as a major source of funding for the Taliban. We have completely failed in our mission to capture Osama bin Laden.

A year and a half later, on March 20, 2003, the United States and Great Britain launched an attack on Iraq—a war that the administration disingenuously called “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” The rationale for this war was that Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi president, had “weapons of mass destruction.” Another rationale, largely believed by most Americans and seemingly encouraged by our administration, was that Hussein was somehow responsible for the 9/11 tragedy. The truth, however, was that there were no weapons of mass destruction and Hussein had nothing at all to do with 9/11.

We watched television and observed the “shock and awe” strategy of our armed forces. It was entertaining to Americans, but how was it seen by Muslims through the middle east? We watched the inevitable occupation of Iraq by US and British forces. We saw a group of Iraqis cheering as a statute of Saddam Hussein was pulled down. We wondered why so few were there. Was it a staged event? How did the average Iraqi citizen feel about the invasion by United States troops. Gradually we learned that there were opposing factions in Iraq—Sunnis (who generally supported Saddam) and Shiites (who did not). But was one faction inherently better than the other? Weren’t the Shiites even more radical than the Sunnis? Soon the rise in sectarian killings by both factions showed there were no good guys. The people we support today are likely to become our enemies tomorrow, armed with guns and training we have provided.

Almost all of my friends were strong supporters of the war and I had numerous arguments with them. I contended that Iraq posed no serious threat to the United States, even if they possessed so-called “weapons of mass destruction,” which I seriously doubted. How stupid would Saddam Hussein have to be to use WMDs against the United States? An attack by Iraq against the United States would mean immediate annihilation of the country. Why would Saddam, sitting on his piles of money and power, want that? And besides, what was the evidence that any WMDs actually existed?

My friends had lots of reasons they supported the war. Here are four of the most prominent:

• Hussein was a terrible dictator and had caused enormous suffering among his own people, who wanted him deposed. (I didn’t doubt that he was an evil man who deserved to be deposed, but was it up to the United States to do the job? What about the many other evil dictators who lead countries around the globe, some of whom we support?)

• By getting rid of Hussein we would be reducing the threat of terrorism. (But there was no evidence that Iraq posed any significant threat of terror to the United States. None of the 9/11 terrorists were from Iraq. Wouldn’t terrorists be even more galvanized if the United States were the aggressors in a war against an Islamic nation? Wouldn’t they see it as a power grab by the United States to control the flow of oil? Wouldn’t that lead to the recruitment of more terrorists?)

• This war would have an outcome like World War II. Afterwards our enemies would become friendly nations, like Germany and Japan. (We were not the aggressors in World War II. There are major differences between Iraq today and the Axis powers of the 1940s. Iraq’s Islamist allies are motivated by religious fanaticism, not by the power lust of a few leaders like Hitler and Mussolini. By attacking Iraq, did we not risk our existing alliances with Islamic nations?)

• This war would bring freedom to the region. Christian missionaries would be free to preach the peaceful teachings of Christ to the infidels. (My friends didn’t use the word “infidels,” of course, but they believed there were millions of people who were just waiting to hear about Christianity, but who were prohibited from doing so by repressive regimes. But by being the aggressors in this war, didn’t we risk alienating the citizens of these countries and drive them further towards Islamic fundamentalism, which doesn’t tolerate religious freedom?)

So the arguments went until we became tired of talking about it. In the years since the United States attacked Iraq, my sadness has only heightened. I cannot see a favorable outcome to the situation. Our young soldiers are dying for a questionable cause. Iraqis are dying at far greater rates. They seem not much closer to a peaceful democracy than they were when we attacked. It seems inevitable that we will have to leave the country sometime, and that when we do great unrest will prevail and a civil war may well break out.

Just as distressing is the effect of the war on the survivors. We hear reports of terrible atrocities committed by our soldiers. They may not be as common as the atrocities committed by Islamic fundamentalists, but they illustrate how character-destroying war can be. How many of our returning soldiers will be stricken with long-term illnesses, either physical or mental? How much of the violence will be imported back to the United States?

Last week Dawn and I saw the movie, “In the Valley of Elah.” It is a movie I would recommend to anyone, though it is rated “R,” which means that many of my friends won’t see it. That is a shame. The movie tells the story of a murder committed almost casually by returned soldiers. It is supposed to be “based on” a true story, which means that the facts have most certainly been substantially altered. But that doesn’t matter—it is clear that the message of the film (that the horrors of war can permanently warp the minds of participants) is a true one. We’ve experienced it before with Vietnam and will experience it again. Incidentally, the star of the film, Tommy Lee Jones, does a wonderful job of playing the father of a murdered soldier. He should get nominated for an Academy Award.

How will history judge George W. Bush? Will he become a hero like Franklin Roosevelt and, to a lesser extent, Harry Truman? Or will future generations look at this as one of the low points for the United States? In my opinion, no other president would have launched the Iraq war. George W. Bush’s father fought a military action against Saddam Hussein, but did not destroy Iraq. This was the son’s chance to out-do the father—to finish the job the father started. We’ll never know how much that fact played into the attack, but I believe it was significant. I doubt that future generations will revere the younger Bush.

One of the things a personal history should do is tell the feelings of the writer about major events that happened in his or her lifetime. That is the reason I’ve written this piece. I wanted to put it down on paper now, while events are still unfolding, without the smoothing out of opinion that long hindsight and great distance brings. If history suggests my conclusions are wrong, so be it. At least my descendants will know how I felt.

Not all readers of this blog will agree with my conclusions, of course, but that’s all right. Fortunately, in our country, we still are free to express an opinion without undue fear of retaliation. These are freedoms worth defending, even if it means war, as it did when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In my opinion, however, they are not freedoms we should be forcing at the point of a gun on another sovereign nation.