Looking back on 9/11, ten years later.

[A more clinical and objective view can be found here.]

When I first walked into English class at St. John's University, it was a little before 9am. The professor was one Dr. Robert Forman.  He was always entertaining, and there's something about him that tells you he cares that you learn something in his class.

The first person I saw was my classmate Tony.  I said hello, and he asked, "Did you hear something about a plane running into the World Trade Center?"

And I laughed.  All I could think is what idiot could have missed noticing that there were two rather large buttersticks in the sky right in front of him?

I explained that to Tony.  He agreed, and I gave it no thought at all for the rest of the 90-minute class.

I went from one class to another -- Christian Spirituality and Mysticism, 10:40am, taught by a priest whose name I can't recall right this moment.  He was not only pleasant, but happy.  He was also very Italian, and joked about it often.

When I arrived, the professor wasn't there, and someone came into class saying that classes were canceled.

Huh.  That's odd.

I went to the nearest inter-university phone and called my father -- who was an Assistant Dean at SJU.  I called, told him my class was cancelled, and how are you doing?

"Come to the office."

Ok .... click.

Walking from one building to the other required that I cross from Marillac Hall, past Council and Newman Halls -- a narrow corridor outside that was as well directed as any sidewalk intersection without a traffic stop.

Ironically, it was afforded the best view of the Manhattan skyline that the University had to offer, without going into the university library --- SJU is, for the record, the highest point in Queens.

But, I didn't stop for a second. My pace was quick and even, mainly because there were so few people in my way -- for once.

Though there was one odd bit of business going on at the time, something I found odd even before I made it to my father's office: there were clusters of people with their cell phones out.  After the third such group, I felt like I was in a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

I walked into my father's office at the other side of the library, and before I could even open my mouth, my father said, "Planes have crashed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.  The twin towers are gone, and the Pentagon is burning."

And I remember this quite clearly, because I had a little red notebook with me at the time ... my first thought was "Didn't Tom Clancy already write this novel?"

My father suggested I go to the library, and observe the skyline.  by the time I got there, the library was locked.  So I walked back to the terrace I had just gone over.

Instead of a skyline, there were ground based storm clouds running from south to north.  I stood there for an unknown length of time, completely focused on it.  I didn't even notice my acquaintance Andy walk up next to me.

"I can't wrap my mind around it," he said.  "I can't believe they're gone."

 If I replied to him, I don't remember.

Image Comics & The Big Lie

The first time I had ever heard of Image Comics, it was in a column by Peter David called But I Digress.  It was all mostly a matter of the strange and wonderously stupid things done in the comic book industry, as well as writing, and structure of stories, and why doesn't anyone ever stay dead already?

What I recalled of Image Comics was that it was art-focused. Essentially, all of the artists decided that they didn't need anything stupid like, oh, writers, for example. Because, after all, writers are just those people who fill in the word bubbles after the artist is done with the pictures, right?

Tell it to Joss Whedon, or JM Straczynski, or Peter David.

Now I digress ....

Anyway, with this background, I read about Image Comics trying to do a Twilight Zone episode.

Okay, goody.  I always like it when people try to imitate better writers. It's worked for some people better than others.

The Twilight Zone episode they wanted to mimic was one of their few hour long episodes, No Time Like the Past. A time traveler named Paul Driscoll tries to stop major events in history from going wrong.

Driscoll tries to evacuate Hiroshima.  The Japanese take one look at this anglo, and throw him in jail.

Driscoll tries to shoot Hitler. He is stopped because an annoying cleaning lady just won't leave him alone, and then becomes suspicious and calls the men in black trench coats on him.

He even tries to stop the Lusitania from being sunk.

At the end of the day, Paul Driscoll says to heck with it all, goes back in time to the old west. He knows a tragedy is about to happen, and tries to stop it ... but by screwing around with events, he is actually the cause of the tragedy.

Okay, great. If a comic book is going to mimic this, then great.  This looks like an interesting idea.  So, what does image comics do?

September 11th, 2001

Evil Religions 1: Allahu Akbar.

An evil religion blog post.

When I first proposed the "Evil Religions" series of blogs, I figured I would make it ironic. You may all remember the "first" Evil Religion post back on April 1st. This is the real one.

Before you get your panties in a twist, I warned readers of this blog quite some time ago that there would be a series of “Evil Religion” blog posts, and that it wouldn't be what you think it is. Guess what, it's still not going to be what you think it is. Read the rest of this preface here.

Now, let's start with our first “Evil Religion.”  The following can be footnoted in the works of Bernard Lewis, David Dalin, Ralph McInerny, or Roy Schoeman’s “Salvation is from the Jews”

The Middle East has a problem, and it's not Islam. It's their culture... which is also not Islam.

Yes, sorry, hate to break it to all of you, the culture of the Middle East was not substantially altered by The Prophet. Mainly because there were no real fundamental building blocks for the culture to be altered …

The trouble with the Middle East, in part, can be traced to the Nazis.

No, I am not being allegorical, but literal.

If you're a newcomer to this blog, you may not have heard of the term “Hitler’s Pope”: that Eugenio Pacelli, aka Pope Pius XII, worked with, for, or around Hitler in support of the final solution of the Holocaust.

What I'm almost certain you never hear about is what has been labeled Hitler’s Mufti.

Osama's death. One week later.

If you are sick and tired of listening to anything to do with Osama bin Laden, I recommend my short story from Saturday, "One Way to Stay Out of Jail." It has action, humor, and staying one step ahead of both cops and robbers.  Enjoy.

Now, onto this week ......


As more and more details leak out about Osama bin Laden's death, the situation becomes more, um, interesting.

I will, for the moment, ignore conflicting reports.  One report had Osama using a wife for a human shield. Another said he was simply shot outright, and the wife was still alive. We had help from Pakistan. Pakistan knew nothing about it. Pakistan supports our efforts, Pakistan threatens to blow us out of the sky if we ever do that again .....  One report by Eric Holder said that bin Laden's assassination was in "national self-defense." Bin Laden wasn't olding launch codes to a nuclear arsenal, and, to some accounts, didn't even have a weapon inside the mansion he was living in. If this was "national self defense," it must have been a "preemptive strike."  Or it was simply an assassination. So, we'll see exactly how the details shape up in the long run.


Fun Facts: Assassination

When I say assassination, I don't mean that as a derogatory term. There is a defense in Texas that is known as "he needed killing." I'm relatively good with that idea. I'm going to cry no tears for bin Laden. I personally believe all life is sacred up to the point when one person desecrates that sanctity. I don't care if you call it the code of Hammurabi, justice, revenge, or retribution (meaning "to repay," or "to pay someone what they are owed," or "payback"). My preference, as stated last week, is that we might have taken bin Laden alive. He had intelligence we could have found a use for.

However, I think justice was served. As I noted last week, Osama himself would have been put to death under Koranic law, if some people weren't just using it for their own convenience. And in a modern fashion ... where would we have put him? Solitary confinement in Guantanamo Bay for the rest of his life?  Maybe in general population somewhere in New York ...

Given those options, two to the head is the most merciful anyone could have been to him.

What is odd for me is the general reaction.  While it is not V-AQ day (as opposed to V-E or V-J day), I have the feeling this is as close as we're going to get. There will be no signing of a peace treaty with al-Qaeda, they keep saying as much.  So, the War on Terror will probably end with what's left of al-Qaeda hiding in the mountains in a few more years, and no one will notice.

German's Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has taken fire because she was "glad" the mission was a success. Some Europeans castigated her because the attitude wasn't "Christian" -- which is odd coming from a continent that told Pope John Paul II to shove Christianity where the sun don't shine.  And they're obviously ignorant of Christianity, since St. Thomas Aquinas even admitted that there is an argument for tyrannicide. And since Osama was the tyrant of his own little terrorist empire, I'm thinking he qualifies.

Germany's Siegfried Kauder said "I would not have formulated it in that way. Those are thoughts of revenge that one should not harbor. That is from the Middle Ages."  So is Maga Carta, movable type, an a whole bunch of other nifty stuff. Call it the "Dark Ages" all you like, buddy, but ignoring everything that happened from the fall of Rome to Rousseau is to miss a lot of stuff. Then again, he also said it was against international law .... and that the UN should create international law.  When international law is created, Mr. Kauder, get back to us.

Even the Dali Lama said it was okay the nail the bastard.

Fun Facts: Waterboarding.

How many people has the United States waterboarded? With all of the political jabbering, I figured that the CIA must have waterboarded every last person in Guantanamo Bay, and every prisoner in Iraq, Afghanistan, and whoever we could kidnap.

The final number .... Three.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.(The CIA says that KSM was waterboarded over 183 times. KSM himself says it was only 12 ... someone's math is screwed up.)


With a little research, I've discovered that nobody of consequence on the Right has argued that waterboarding, or any other form of coercive interrogation, should be even the first recourse in interrogation (or at all with legitimate prisoners of war). It's something in an interrogator’s toolkit for hard-core senior terrorist leaders, that's about it. And when I say nobody of consequence, I mean no one from the head of the RNC, down to friggin Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

The usual critics of waterboarding have insisted that the tradeoffs involved don’t need to be debated, because coercive interrogation never yields any information of any use in any situation....

By waterboarding in 2007, the US got the name of a certain bin Laden courier. It was by following this courier that the US was able to find bin Laden.
So, never say never.

I don't know if you've ever been waterboarded. It's simple. Basically, put yourself into a position where you are upside down, or at least slanted on an angle so you're close enough. Pour water down your nose. Not a lot, maybe an ounce or two. Breathe through your mouth. Congratulations, you've been waterboarded. I've waterboarded myself once, and possibly more than the time and water limit suggested by CIA guidelines. It sucks, but it's not lethal, and there is no possibility of drowning.
Yes, I waterboarded myself for research. I'm a little wierd.

Fun Facts: Iraq.
 
Okay, KSM was waterboarded into getting us the courier who we followed to Osama. Iraq was an utter waste of time ....
 
Umm.....
 
According to Wikileaks, there was a fellow named Hassan Ghul (does anyone else want his first name to be Naz?) who added the final bit of intelligence that led us to the courier, and to Osama.
 
Where did we get this Ghul?  Iraq.
 
Damnit, more politics.
 
I know I'm going to get branded as being a member of some sort of right-wing organization, be it the Taxed Enough Already party, the Republican, the Glenn Beck party, what have you.  I've made my political statement, so you can label me what you will.
 
I am a very traditional person.  You could say I follow the Geneva convention, which states that illegal combatants have no rights.  However, that is a position under the traditional rules of war. Anyone who works for the enemy, who operates in your terrotory, and does not wear a traditional uniform, used to be given the label of "spy," and was eligible for a quick ticket to the afterlife.  And I don't mean a trial, I mean a field execution.  The traditional rules of war made certain everyone played by the rules, because violation meant death.

During the Cold War, we developed the concept of spy swaps. Everyone came home alive. But that was during a non-shooting war, and, somehow, those rules have expanded to every aspect of war.
 
I've been told by people I respect, that the United States is the civilized country, therefore we should give terrorists trials, and all the rights afforded to US citizens under the constitution. Considering that every other country on the planet does not extend their rights to non-citizens, I think that's a little daft, but what the hell.
 
The problem is that we it is a historical oddity to give trials to soldiers for acts of war. War criminals, even in Nazi Germany, were mostly civilians, or operating non-military organizations. We tried people who operated death camps, not soldiers fighting against other soldiers.

Most terrorists are not soldiers. They are illegal combatants. Had the Iraqi army stood and fought during the Iraq war in 2003, they would have fought other soldiers, and no one would have been prosecuted for defense against an incoming army.... unless, of course, they spent their time under Saddam killing unarmed civilians, in which case, they were screwed either way.

But I'm the sort of person who waterboards myself for research, so I'm a different sort of daft.
 
Personally....

Back to bin Laden a moment.
 
Can I at least be glad that we have checked Osama off the "to do list"? My first thought is more a matter of "About bloody time. We got the sucker. Whew."  Can I be glad that he won't be planning anything more? He won't be killing anyone else anytime soon? Assuming he's been doing anything lately? That this is the closest to justice he's ever going to get?

Though I am curious. How much of this exuberance is that he's dead, and how much is V-J day, 2011? How many are under the mistaken impression that his death means the end of every terrorist extremist psycho out there? Because that overblown rhetoric is the real danger. "Osama is dead, the threat is over." If that's the case, reality is going to become most unpleasant.  It's not V-J day. Or V-AQ day. It's a good start, though.

El-Alamein was the middle point of World War II, when things started to look good for the Allies. What Churchill said "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
The end of Osama is not the end. But this may, hopefully, be the beginning of the end.

And, while it will not be V-AQ day for at least a few more years, I suspect this will be the only time to have a party. Osama's death is a milestone. I'd have a party if he was captured. That he is taken off of the chessboard of the war is a reason for partying, no matter the method.

Osama is now a martyr.  But martyrs can't release video tape.

Postscript

Last week Nancy Pelosi credited President George W. Bush for getting Osama bin Laden. 

He was castigated for allowing waterboarding.... It got the name of the courier.

He was castigated for taking his eye off the ball and going into Iraq. It gave the US the "linchpin" to getting close to the courier.

Nancy Pelosi is saying good things about George Bush.... It may be the end of the world.

Osama Got Me Published ... Sort of

My agent suggested that I start building up name recognition by submitting Letters to the Editor of various and sundry Newspapers.  We have a paper around New York called Newsday.  Apparently, they saw fit to publish my letter today.
I would have posted a link, but Newsday wants to charge me money so I can read my own article online.  I have the original, I can settle for that.

It's not much, but it's a start.

To the editor.


While many have celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden, I am somewhat saddened, and disappointed. In my research into intelligence work, killing terrorists of bin Laden's level is a waste of material. Interrogating him would have led to a deep well of valuable intelligence, which may not be easily discovered by a forensic investigation of the material around him. Whether bin Laden was water boarded, or even if he was sat down for milk and cookies, he was valuable alive. One almost hopes that the conspiracy theories are correct, and bin Laden's death was faked by the US government -- a public capture would encourage his colleagues to change plans, and a death would reassure them that everything bin Laden knew died with him. But this is not a Vince Flynn novel, or even my novel, A Pius Man (under review). One only hopes that all of his secrets did not die with him, but were written down and lying about in plain sight, so our Navy SEALs could collect all of them.

It's not much, but it's a start.

Osama Is Dead: Requiem for a Terrorist

Osama bin Laden is dead.

Last week, a man who has been a plague on mankind was put out of our misery by some US Navy Seals via a gunshot to the head; if I hear correctly, Osama had been using a woman as a human shield at the time.  It was a fitting end -- Osama wanted a culture that would require women to wear nothing but burka and veil, an outfit that would make a Catholic nun look like she was wearing a slinky dress in comparison, and he died hiding behind a woman.

At the very end, the man went out showing his true colors.  He could send the poor, the desparate, the starving, and the mildly insane to their deaths, but he couldn't try for a standup fight with soldiers.  Considering he came in at the last minute of the Soviet war with Afghanistan, and made himself into the John Kerry of the Talbian ("I fought in Afghanistan against the first Great Satan!"  When he fired a few rounds at the Soviet's retreating backs).  In the end, he went out like a cowardly movie villain, and the noble hero gets to make an impressive killshot.

Osama bin Laden is dead .... Now what?


To start with?  There are going to be numerous thriller authors in mourning, seeking a new bad guy. The fiction post-Saddam Hussein went into a tailspin, trying to come up with someone else to beat up on.


After that, there's a little issue of where he was found: in a mansion, in a city just outside of Islamabad.  A town filled with miltary personnel.  Conflicting reports state that the Pakistanis were in on the kill, others state that they were informed after the fact.  In either event, the man was living there for at least six months. Someone is going to want to explain that.  I suspect there will be several some bodies on the ground, with their heads in a separate corner of the room.

I am a little sad that Osama is dead.  Why?  Because I think there will be people who will use Osama's death to say "Great, the war on Terror is over, let's go home and pretend this never happened."  Which would be nice if Osama didn't have, you know, an entire terrorist network.  And if Osama has really been a figurehead for years, as some have suggested, then the work isn't over.  It's a good start though.

Also, I'm even more worried about the intelligence issue.  If I were in charge of intelligence on this, the press release about Osama's death would be ... premature.  I would have sent in SEALS with orders to capture bin Laden alive, then ship him off to one of the fabled "Black Sites," where he could be interrogated for as long as possible.  There are that state that the interrogated would lie through their teeth; to start with, perhaps, but that's why (again, if I were running things) I would say Osama was dead, so that everyone he knows personally would feel safe and secure knowing that Osama couldn't talk to anyone. Facts could be corroborated, and then repeat the process until the truth comes out.  If this were the case, I would have released photos of Osama "dead," covered with Hollywood makeup.  And frozen in place with a hint of curare.

But that would be me.  I don't mean to spread conspiracy theories.  I'm probably ahead of the curve on the tinfoil hat brigade.  And if they aren't there yet, they have a conspiracy, gratis.  That he's dead means that we would have to rely on whatever paperwork was lying around in his immediate vicinity.  I'm not encouraged, but I may just be a pessimist.

Now, there have been philosophers who have argued there must be a Hell, if only because there are some crimes so insidious that it cries out for justice.  If there weren't an afterlife, the sheer horror of these crimes would create one, just for those particular bastards.

I believe that Osama is in for a surprise.  Not even for a Christian deity.  But for something else. 

Looking at the Koran a moment, there is Sura 81, “When the girl, buried alive, is asked what what crime she is slain … ” and it goes on for a very long while. Sura 81 is “the Cessations,” and deals with the punishment of the wicked on Judgment day … and it has nothing to do with Skynet.

I've read that particular verse (Sura 81: 8-9) interpreted by a mullah as being a matter of "God will punish the murderer of children, for children have committed no crime." In Sura 5, “the Table”, that those who fight against God or "His Apostle," thereby bringing disorder to the world should be exiled, or be crucified. Considering how many Islamofacist terrorists have butchered plenty of children, and their fellow coreligionists, if they were to be looking at the whole thing literally, Osama would have been nailed to a set of 2x4s by his own people.  And does inviting the United States military to come down on parts of the Middle East like the hand of God count as spreading disorder?

But, at the end of the day, Osama was just a guy conveniently clipping lines from the Koran for his own convenience.  He didn't like Western Culture.  And the way he went about it, if anyone were honest, would have gotten him killed under the culture he claimed to fight for.

If atheists are right, Osama is nothingness now.  If believers are right, he is either in a purgatory for the insane, or in Hell.  Unless he discovered a sudden desire for forgiveness before the end.  It's possible.

Though I doubt it.

Osama. Death. Events. Superman... a Strange week.

Yup, the title's a little odd, but then again, so have been my last few days.

So....

First things first:  Osama bin Laden is sort of dead ... So, to the soldiers of the US military: Thank you for blowing him straight to Hell.  Expect "Osama tapes" to keep being broadcast on al-Jazeera for a few more weeks, at least.  I suspect that, like Stephen J. Cannell, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Parker, bin Laden still has a postmortem career ahead of him.

However, I talked about Osama yesterday. Let's move on.

The rest of post will be short.  There's a death in the family.  Please, no condolences; I have a strange reaction to death: there's either Heaven, Hell, or Nothing.  If Heaven is the option, the dead have it better than we do.  If there's Nothing, then, well, the cancer is over.  If the other option ... well, then, there's nothing to be done about it, is there?

Moving on ....

I had partially considered starting my "Evil Religions" series, which I had mentioned before Lent first started.  However, after the whole Snarky Theology series, I think I'm going to take a break from posting non-fiction.  You'd be surprised at how work intensive it can get.... also, my first "Evil Religion" post is ten pages long, and that's after constant editing and revision.

I had considered the latest Disaster to Marvel At ... and it's not a Marvel disaster.  For once.  No, it seems that Quesada disease has infected DC.  In an attempt to be relevant, they are having Superman renounce his American citizenship to join the United Nations.  Because "truth, justice, and the American way just isn't enough anymore" ...

Funny, "the American way" didn't work very well for Osama, when it landed on him in the form of a SEAL team.

I have plenty to say on the Super-idiocy, much of it utilizing words that are inappropriate for a PG-rated blog.

And I wanted to discuss that Pope John Paul II is on his way to becoming a Saint, and that his day will be ... May Day.  Funny, that a guy who fought the Soviet Union until it's dying day now gets to take over their feast day.  How's that for a souvenir of war? But, non-fiction is rather work intensive. Maybe next year.

So, that leaves me free to mention a few upcoming items.

1) This upcoming Saturday is Free Comic Book Day.  I will be posting an online short story called "One Way to Stay Out of Jail."  The star of this story is one Sean Ryan, who appears in A Pius Man and has already had a few short stories all his own: The Pirate King, the surprisingly popular Boys of the Old Brigade, and God Hates .... Superman?.  He's one of my more colorful characters.  Unlike Scott "Mossad" Murphy, who likes to go unnoticed, Sean has a tendency to leave behind evidence of his presence.  One can usually follow him if one just runs towards the screaming.... Oh, wait, wrong blog.

And, for the record, the complete list of stories is here.

2)  Now, a while ago, I had mentioned that I try to keep busy.  I do this mainly by writing other novels.  And since I've written a whole trilogy around A Pius Man, there's only so much I can do since the first book may or may not survive its first form.

Right now, it's starting to look like vampires might be a good idea.  How many people would like to see a novel of vampires where: A) It all makes sense? B) Vampires all follow the rules laid down in Dracula? And C) THEY DON'T SPARKLE?

I'm going to talk with my agent about it, obviously, but I would like to know: if I write this, will you, kind reader, want to come and play?  I can promise you that I will make fun of certain cliches running rampant right now. I can promise that I will include philosophy, history, theology, and enough action to make the Blade movies seem slow and ponderous. And I try to make fighting vampires practical in a modern age.....  I just really wanted to use the Throwing Stars of David and Vatican Ninjas. 

So, what do you think?  Please comment below.... and keep it clean.

Terrorists are stupid.

Yes, the title is exaggerated, but you're reading, aren't you?

I must say, though, for the most part, terrorists are not the brightest lights in the night sky.

Think about it. I can plan a better terrorist attack than any of these bozos. So could you.

For example....You want terror? Screw blowing up the World Trade Center—over fifty thousand people worked there, and the WTC could have upwards of 100,000 visitors per day (the magic notebook sees all and retains all). Infect all of them with the bio-weapon of your choice. A little smallpox, for example, maybe plague in the HVAC system. Have it running all day, and you infect both employees and tourists. They, in turn, infect people while going to lunch, on the subway, the ferry, their families, and when tourists go home, they bring it back with them. Being a smart terrorist, you tell the states friendly to you that they should really restrict travel to and from New York, and possibly all of America, period.

By the time the penny drops at the CDC, most of New York City now needs to be quarantined. The economy starts drying up, slowly. Tourism is dead. Fifty thousand jobs in the two buildings are lost, assuming that the employees are not all simply dead.

And I'm not even thinking hard.

Ironically, despite the Wyle E. Coyote explosive in Times Square, the attack itself was the right idea from their point of view. If terrorists want to inspire terror, then small, but frequent, attacks are the way to go. People are scared, frightened, uncertain about what may come around the next corner.

However, a word to al-Qaeda, et al, upon looking at the Time Square incident: when you're acquiring explosives, avoid the ones marked ACME....

As I was saying—thus far, when terrorists can't come up with ideas that I can in my spare time, they should probably reconsider their career goals.

And they are not necessarily uneducated. Osama bin Laden, last I checked, had a degree in engineering—and if I'm mistaken, his family is fill with engineers so he should have some idea. Mohammed Atta, one of the 9-11 pilots, had an upper middle class education in Egypt.

Though it does make me wonder why, thus far, a lot of the terrorists coming our way seemed to have come out of the Wyle E. Coyote school of home explosives.

The Underwear Bomber whose bomb caught fire without going off.

The Times Square bomber, with a Rube Goldberg timer.

The best answer I can come up with is that we're getting all the cannon fodder, who seem as bright as cannonballs. Not to mention that they have few experienced fighters—when you encourage martyrdom in your ranks, you have few people around who can share hard won combat experience. It didn't work well for the kamikaze, I can tell you that.

If I were going to do a terrorist attack....