BuzzMachine

The poll
- Some write-ins so far for the utterly meaningless poll (to the right) about the Time Person of the Year (see yesterday):

“To me it’s a shoo-in: the passengers of Flight 93. –Thomas Nephew” … New York City police and fire fighters … Richard Gere …

Memo to journalists: Get the hell out of there
- MSNBC says in a crawl on its screen that the Taleban is trying to kidnap foreign journalists to use as bargaining chips. At the same time, US News reports that a car loaded with explosives was stopped outside the hotel used by journalists in Kabul. [via Drudge] Add to this yesterday’s report that Mullah Omar offered a $50,000 bounty on the heads of journalists shot in Afghanistan. And a death toll of eight journalists so far. And a Canadian journalist kidnapped and still not found yet. A bad scene all around.

Now, add this conspiracy twist: The media connection. The Taleban’s going after journalists there. The anthrax attacker went after them here. I’d call that a pattern, eh?

- British TV correspondent wounded while reporting at “the most dangerous place on earth” tells her story.

Mid-life mope:
- So the Beatles are half-dead. I have white hair. I live in the suburbs. I have serious conversations about accounting methods. And worst of all, I suddenly find I’m a hawk. I’m no longer a child of the ’60s. I’m the remains of the ’60s. And now, to add insult to insult, the economy is a mess so I have to choose between a convertible and a shrink.

- Rest in peace, George Harrison. You brought enough of it to the world when you lived.

The Portland ruckus
- Here’s complete coverage on Portland’s refusal to interview foreigners from Oregonlive.com.

- Portland takes it on the chin — as well it should — for it stance. The LA Times quotes some email scolds sent to the city:

“I am appalled and embarrassed to be an Oregonian,” wrote one local man. “You . . . have completely lost perspective and what appears to be any remnant of common sense.”

And another: “We are disgusted and saddened. . . . We consider the city of Portland and the state of Oregon to be a haven for terrorists. We will discontinue traveling there as a company.”

Ready, aim…
- OK, anti-anti-war bloggers, have at ‘im. I missed this from the Boston Globe but found it via Victory Coffee: Columnist James Carrol argues that the war is not just and that we’re basically a bunch of ignorant sluts for supporting it because we don’t really know what’s going on inside Afghansitan and we don’t understand the true context and besides: “This war is not ‘just’ because it was not necessary. It may be the only kind of force the behemoth Pentagon knows to exercise, but that doesn’t make it ‘just’ either. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 could have been defined not as acts of war, but as crimes.” He doesn’t stop there, arguing that the government decided to blame anthrax on foreign terrorists (how about blaming logic, bub?) only so we’d get all fired up, a la Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution:

For a crucial moment, they effectively played the role in this war that the Gulf of Tonkin ”assault” played in the Vietnam War, as sources of a war hysteria that ”united” the nation around a mistake. In such a context, the more doubt is labeled disloyal, the more it grows. The more this war is deemed ”just,” the more it seems wrong.

Poison
- A plot to poison people in France with gas is broken up with arrests in Italy. Authorities also got a bin Laden code book:

Turkey, or chicken = bomb

To be tired = to be under police surveillance

The town hall = prison

Get married = to escape or flee

Trousers = false identity papers

Open a shop, or restaurant = commit a terrorist attack

Couscous = nails (used in a bomb)

Poison = identity control

A book = false passport

- Something to keep you up at night: The CIA Chemical/Biological/Radiological Incident Handbook. A few tips:

> If inside, and the incident is outside, stay inside. Turn off air conditioning, seal windows and doors with plastic tape….

> If radiological material is suspected, remember to minimize exposure by minimizing time around suspected site, maximizing distance from the site, and trying to place some shielding (e.g. buildings, vehicle, land feature such as a hill, etc.) between yourself and the site….

> Proceed to a shower and thoroughly wash your body with soap and water. This needs to be accomplished within minutes. Simply flushing water over the body is not enough. You need to aggressively scrub your skin and irrigate your eyes with water. In the case of biologicals, this is often sufficient to avert contact infection. If available, for suspected biological and chemical contamination the contaminated areas should then be washed with a 0.5-percent sodium hypochlorite solution, allowing a contact time of 10 to 15 minutes. To make a 0.5-percent sodium hypochlorite solution, take one part household bleach such as Clorox, and 10 parts water. Do not let this solution contact your eyes….

> Physical symptoms: Numerous individuals experiencing unexplained water-like blisters, wheals (like bee stings), pinpointed pupils, choking, respiratory ailments and/or rashes….

> Unexplained odors: Smells may range from fruity to flowery to sharp/pungent to garlic/horseradish-like to bitter almonds/peach kernels to new mown hay. It is important to note that the particular odor is completely out of character with its surroundings….

Franzen follies
- Ken Layne on almost (almost) finishing his novel: “The book is so spectacular, I’m already working on my ‘refuse to go on Oprah’ speech.”

- Speaking of Jonathan Franzen’s hyperhyped book, I made mention of it in a post long ago. I was carrying my copy in my briefcase the day I escaped the black cloud of terrorism at the World Trade Center. It was not just covered in concrete dust; it was infused with concrete dust; every page opened and coated. I threw it away. I bought another. I have tried and tried to pick it up and finish it and finally decided I can’t. It seems so self-indulgent and irrelevant now. Think I’ll sell it on Amazon.

And more…
- PakNews says that Pakistani law-enforcement officials are delighted that the deadly prison riot and other fighting in Afghanistan is cleaning up their list of most wanted Pakistani terrorists.

- Debka says Arafat thumbs his nose at America’s peace efforts: “Arafat has a long and cynical history of making American diplomats laughing-stocks at the expense of Israeli lives. The better he succeeds, the closer he comes to attaining his ambition of challenging Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar as hero of the Arab and Muslim world. His way of bidding for popularity in the Arab arena is to escalate his anti-Israeli terror war in time with the US anti-terror battles in Kandahar. Even the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the extremist Lebanese Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah are wary about directly affronting America, but not Arafat.”

- Washington Post has the story of a top-level Taleban defector who says he spied for us: “There wasn’t anybody who had power over Osama,” Khaksar said. “He did whatever he wanted.”

Person of the Year, this year, of all years…
- So who will Time’s Person of the Year be? You can expect the usual controversy: Will the bad guy be the guy? Would they consider bin Laden? Yes, they’ll consider him. Time’s managing editor said so today. Sometimes, Time does pick the bad guy for impact: because that guy had the most impact on the year and because the story has impact itself. But they’ve played that card before. So I’ll bet they won’t do that this year. Back when I worked at the company, I remember that they really did take great care to consider all the candidates and the reasons for each one; it’s quite a deliberative process. I was at People then and when we picked the 25 Most Intriguing, it was less deliberative and more of a long, loud lunch. (If I were there this year, I’d be arguing to break the formula and pick 25 American Heroes!) Anyway, you know that Christmas is coming when it’s time to speculate with your friends on the Person of the Year and so we provide that service here on this interactive Internet: the unscientific, meaningless, but fun poll: Vote at the right.

CIA death
- The Times of India says our first battlefield casualty, the CIA’s Mike Spann, may have inadvertantly caused the prison uprising that cost him his life:

Even as the CIA saluted its slain colleague, the first American fatality in Afghanistan, “American hero” Johnny ëMikeí Spann, who died in the prison revolt, British journalists in Mazar-i-Sharif have begun reporting that Spann was less an innocent victim than the one who allegedly provoked the riot….
On Wednesday night, the BBCís authoritative domestic television programme Newsnight interviewed Oliver August, correspondent for The Times, London, in Mazar-i-Sharif, who said that Spann and his CIA colleague, Dave, were thought to have set off the violence by aggressively interrogating foreign Taliban prisoners and asking, “Why did you come to Afghanistan?”. August said their questions were answered by one prisoner jumping forward and announcing, “Weíre here to kill you”.
The Guardianís Mazar-i-Sharif correspondent said the CIA “operatives had apparently failed on entering the fort to observe the first rule of espionage: keep a low profile”.
The Timesís August said Spann subsequently pulled his gun and his CIA colleague shot three prisoners dead in cold blood before losing control over the situation.
Spann was then “kicked, beaten and bitten to death,” the journalists said, in an account of the ferocity of the violence that lasted four days, leaving more than 500 people dead and the fort littered with “bodies, shrapnel and shell casings”.

How the buildings collapsed
- CBS says a miracle saved people at the Pentagon: “Even though 125 people were killed in the Pentagon on Sept.11, there was something miraculous about that day. The plane obliterated the first and part of the second floor, but the third, fourth and fifth floors remained suspended in midair for 35 minutes. Hundreds of people escaped. How is that possible?… In an astonishing stroke of luck, the terrorists had hit the only section of the Pentagon designed to resist a terrorist attack.”

- And engineers find what made 7 World Trade Center collapse hours after 1 and 2: diesel fuel stored for emergency generators: “Experts said no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire, and engineers have been trying to figure out exactly what happened and whether they should be worried about other buildings like it around the country.”

Civil rights? Maybe later
- I keep worrying that I should be worried about civil rights — but I’m not. Same for most Americans. A Post/ABC poll says: “Six in 10 agree with President Bush that suspected terrorists should be tried in special military tribunals and not in U.S. criminal courts… Seven in 10 Americans believe the government is doing enough to protect the civil rights of suspected terrorists. An equally large majority believe the government is sufficiently guarding the rights of Arab Americans and American Muslims as well as noncitizens from Arab and Muslim countries.”

- Via Lake Effect, the official presidential order on military tribunals for terrorists: “Having fully considered the magnitude of the potential deaths, injuries, and property destruction that would result from potential acts of terrorism against the United States, and the probability that such acts will occur, I have determined that an extraordinary emergency exists for national defense purposes, that this emergency constitutes an urgent and compelling government interest, and that issuance of this order is necessary to meet the emergency.”

- Bin Laden on trial tonight (on Court TV): Times story.

And more…
- Pesky anthrax spores won’t sit still for investigators — they keep floating into the air.

- Afghan woman killed when airlifted humanitarian supplies drop on her house. [via Rantburg]

- Turkey would consider backing Iraq strikes under the right circumstances.

- Geraldo in Kunduz: video.

- Charlotte Church, the kid singer with the eerie voice (but no soul, I’ve always said) complains that New Yorkers are self-absorbed about 9/11. Harumph.

- Times of London says bin Laden is in Tora Bora caves: “Defence sources are increasingly sure that bin Laden is in the Tora Bora complex. ‘Weíre now convinced this is where he is and where the 1,000 or so al-Qaeda fighters with him will make their last stand,’ said one.”

- A Times graphic of the Tora Bora complex.

- A Times visit to Tora Bora: “In their ten-year war against the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, the Russians never did strike a serious blow at Tora Bora. The place seemed as enduring as the rock from which it was carved. It is hardly surprising that it should endure as a warrior headquarters.”

- The Telegraph’s Tora Bora tale.

- Just looked to register ToraBora.com. I was three days too late. Could have made a fortune when the movie’s made.

- 13 bin Laden fighters reportedly flown to Wake Island, ready for tribunal.

- Scarey story (or scare story — not sure) from Janes: “Ominous news from Pakistan and Iran indicate that at best a viral pandemic may be brewing among Afghan refugees, at worst that former Soviet biological weapons have possibly made their first appearance. In Pakistan, at least 75 people have been diagnosed … with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever in the largest outbreak of the disease ever recorded. Eight have already died. All the infected are refugees recently arrived from Afghanistan or people living close to the border.”

- Piece of drek column by Robert Fisk in the Independent: “We are the war criminals now.” He says that the Afghans killing each other is our fault. It would be nice if we were ready with a sane government and an international terrorist babysitting force but we’re not and they’re murdering each other and we can’t stop them. So tough. Our goal is to stop them from killing us. If we can stop them from killing each other, that’s merely a fringe benefit. He says we’ve gone mad. No, we’re trying to stop the madmen. And in the final analysis, it is their country: They either can or cannot be civilized.

- Fisk should at least concede that getting rid of the Taleban is moral progress: Horrors from the BBC.

- The government’s buying enough smallpox vaccine to protect 286 million — all of us … but not until the end of next year. Keep fingers crossed. Inhale now and hold it.

- You don’t hate us, you really don’t hate us: A new Pew survey says the public is thinking a lot higher of the media post 9/11: “Almost two-thirds now say those in the news business stand up for America and help protect democracy, says the poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. These are the highest levels on those measures in the center’s 15 years of polling on the news industry. Fewer than half felt that way before the attacks.”

- Our first American battlefield casualty: CIA agent and ex-Marine Michael Spann from Alabama. From his home-state newspaper (before his death was confirmed).

- I was just justly scolded in email: There is no such thing as an ex-Marine. Yes, sir! Semper fi.

- Arrest of a suspect in Germany; he’s said to have funded the flight training of one of the hijackers. German version at Netzeitung. English at BBC [via Layne].

- News organizations — BBC, AP, Reuters, Washington Post — pulling out of Afghanistan following death of Swedish cameraman. Can’t blame them. The news is vital but right now it’s not worth more lives.

- God Bless America: Below, I wrote a screed on fundamentalism vs. modernity (read: inflexibility vs. flexibility). Now comes a survey of American religious behavior that finds — to the research firm’s surprise, but not mine — that after 9/11, American are less — less — likely to believe that “there are moral truths that are absolute, meaning that those moral truths or principles do not change according to the circumstances.” That is, Americans recognize the dangers of fundamentalism; Americans are flexible and open and tolerant and civilized. Americans are also, I think, ready to kick bin Laden’s ass and willing to give up a few absolute moral truths along the way… [via Relapsed Catholic]

- The tale of a secular Muslim in England, Sarfraz Manzoor:

“Bruce Springsteen gave me the promise of America. With it came the civil rights movement, the speeches of Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Emmett Till and Public Enemy. I felt that I was on the same side as those who marched in Selma and Montgomery. I found it easier to be a black American by empathy than to be British…. [America] represented a broader sense of identity. To my father, this adoration of Americana was confirmation of his worst fears. The Faustian pact of coming to Britain had played out: the souls of his children had been robbed by the west. Even years later he would express regret he had ever come.”

After 9/11, he returns to his British hometown to meet young Muslim students, who are appalled at his secular life: “Just because I listened to Bruce Springsteen and read Philip Roth and watched Woody Allen did not mean I was ‘denying’ anything,” he tells them. “I just chose to expose myself to a broader set of influences than some of the people I grew up with. I told my class that they couldn’t box people up so neatly. Islam is about tolerance, I added weakly.”

- The Christian Science Monitor says Congress is getting ready to fight Bush about the license he has taken regarding civil rights and war tribunals and such. But the Monitor also starts with the important caveat: “If history is any guide, wartime Congresses are usually irrelevant. They may thunder and roar, but in the end, the president decides the conduct of a war – including curtailing cherished liberties when deemed necessary.”

- An Afghan woman general says education, not burkas, are the real issue for Afghan women.

- OK, more God: A provocative and smart column by Thomas L. Friedman in today’s NY Times says that fundamentalism as the real enemy in this war:

If 9/11 was indeed the onset of World War III, we have to understand what this war is about. We’re not fighting to eradicate “terrorism.” Terrorism is just a tool. We’re fighting to defeat an ideology: religious totalitarianism. World War II and the cold war were fought to defeat secular totalitarianism ó Nazism and Communism ó and World War III is a battle against religious totalitarianism, a view of the world that my faith must reign supreme and can be affirmed and held passionately only if all others are negated. That’s bin Ladenism. But unlike Nazism, religious totalitarianism can’t be fought by armies alone. It has to be fought in schools, mosques, churches and synagogues, and can be defeated only with the help of imams, rabbis and priests….
The future of the world may well be decided by how we fight this war. Can Islam, Christianity and Judaism know that God speaks Arabic on Fridays, Hebrew on Saturdays and Latin on Sundays, and that he welcomes different human beings approaching him through their own history, out of their language and cultural heritage?…
We patronize Islam, and mislead ourselves, by repeating the mantra that Islam is a faith with no serious problems accepting the secular West, modernity and pluralism, and the only problem is a few bin Ladens. Although there is a deep moral impulse in Islam for justice, charity and compassion, Islam has not developed a dominant religious philosophy that allows equal recognition of alternative faith communities.

- I don’t intend to go off on a religious bent but here’s another question: Is 9/11 leading to more religious seeking or not? The NY Times said the other day that worship attendance is returning to its pre-9/11 norm, quoting random clergy and the editor of the Gallup poll, and a research firm that tracks “13 key measures of religiosity.” On the other hand, we have the random clergy quoted below saying attendance — and talk of religion — are up. Today, the NY Post reports that Warner Music is thanking the heavens that it bought a religious music label because it’s going gangbusters after 9/11; mainstream music is off 2 percent but religious music is up 11 percent. Bottom line: It will take time to tell what if any impact the terror and fear and sorrow and confusion of 9/11 will have on our collective spiritual life. Religion (as opposed to one-time worship attendance) is not an impulse buy, a sudden hunger for a chocolate; it’s more like a vitamin deficiency (I know I’m getting a cold when I crave a second glass of orange juice); it’s subtle.

- British conservatives join with American conservatives to push for an attack on Iraq.

- The value of real reporting: I’ve been meaning to mention something for a few days, since Bjoern Staerk gave thanks for weblogs: “Some of my optimism for the future comes from knowing that, from this year on, every major conflict involving a nation connected to the web will have tens, or houndreds, or thousands of warblogs, covering it from left, right, inside, outside, ahead and behind. I don’t like to boast, but I’m a bit proud of this: They tore down the World Trade Center, and we responded by creating something new. They attacked us with ignorance, we replied with curiosity and informed criticism.”

I don’t disagree — and I’ve written my own odes to blogdom (see This Wonderful Web). But what I’ve been meaning to add is that it’s very important for our society of bloggers to remember that while we try to add perspective to the news, we would have nothing to say if there were not real reporters and photographers out there bringing in the real news — and risking their lives in Afghanistan to do it. I’m moved to say this because a Swedish journalist’s death brings the toll to eight. The media suffer many attacks — willingly; comes with the turf — but we all and especially we on the Web need to be grateful for the courage of the reporters who fill ouf free press and free Internet with the news.

- Amazing efforts to save that Swedish journalist via satellite phone: “Cradling the wounded cameraman in his lap, Bo Liden frantically telephoned his wife, a doctor, to ask her for advice on how to save his friendís life… She put them in touch with a cardiologist in Helsingborg who calmly explained to the journalists how to rip down curtains to make a compress to stem the bleeding and give cardiac massage.” He died en route to the hospital.

- I went to the Here Is New York gallery — filled with donated photos of 9/11 — and picked up my first prints, images to remember. I can’t recommend the gallery highly enough.

- Chomsky compers have at him: He wins an award from Dawn in Islamabad, presented by the director of the “Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation” (insert punchline here). This after he gives a lecture and “accused the United States and Britain of being above the international law and using ‘unlawful force’ in their so-called fight against terrorism.” More: “Chomsky says US couldn’t convict Bin Laden.” Enjoy.

- Ken Layne has surely given himself a good case of carpel tunnel syndrome these last 48 hours; lots of good posts.

- 9/11 baby boom coming: “While the trend may be strongest in New York, doctors say people nationwide seem to be shunning talk of a world gone wrong and pursuing pregnancy not just in spite of, but because of, the Sept. 11 attacks. ‘It’s the ‘carpe diem’ mode,’ says Dr. Michael Silverstein, an obstetrician and gynecologist at NYU Medical Center in Manhattan. ‘They’re saying, ‘Life’s too short — who knows what’s down the road.’ ”

- Investigators look at chemical samples, other evidence from 40 sites in Afghanistan to look for proof that bin Laden was building weapons of mass destruction.

- The Times says Michigan is “inviting” Middle Eastern men to come in for interviews. This alleged racial profiling “controversy” about the “racial profiling” of Middle Eastern men has gone too far. There is nothing wrong with law enforcement talking to Middle Eastern men and they don’t need to be “invited.” If a neighbor of yours is murdered, it would be wrong — illegal, immoral — for you to refuse to talk to the police, to whine that it’s not your fault you happen to live next to a victim and why should they bother you afterall. It’s your duty as a citizen in a civilized world to help the police and talk to them whether or not you know anything. Well, 4,000 of our neighbors have been murdered and I want to cops to find the murderers. So they should be talking to Middle Eastern men who may have been the object of recruitment by bin Laden et al and who may have known something relevant — or may not. What’s the harm in talking to the police? Is it racial profiling to ask Middle Eastern men these questions? No. It’s police work. Obvious police work. This is political correctness gone stupid.

- Worse idiocy from out West.

- Hendrik Hertzberg says in today’s New Yorker that the big difference between this war and others is that there is no antiwar movement to speak of.

- Amazing transcript of a satellite phone call from a Time correspondent 200 yards from the fierce fighting in the Afghan jail: a mere dozen U.S. and British troops fighting alongside the Northern Alliance against 800 Taliban; dramatic rescues from the jail; explosions going off as he tells the tale.

- A fine Matt Welch column in Reason on 9/11′s impact on the right: “Long after the brief ‘national unity’ has given way to the usual political squabbling, newly warmongering liberals and libertine conservatives may remember how much sensible common ground they found after September 11. It will be harder than ever to demonize one-half of the electorate, and surprising new coalitions may be possible.”

- Welcome back from Thanksgiving. I didn’t take off from blogging, so there’s plenty new below…

- I was thinking yesterday about religion and the war, because it was Sunday (and, of course, that’s the day for it), because I posted the brief screed on fundamenatalism below, and because I got some email on the topic.

I believe that maturity — as a person or as a culture — comes down to knowing how to be flexible, or call it open. To be a fundamentalist — religious or ideological — is to be inflexible, dogmatic, bound and ruled by one’s rules, unable to see or act beyond them. We’re all inflexible when we’re young; life’s easier that way. As we begin to grow, we can still be inflexible — dogmatic now — but about haughtier topics; I was dogmatic (and not wrong) about the Vietnam war and pacifism and racism and all our ’60s causes. But as I grew yet older, the causes faded from black to gray and the everyday issues I faced, especially in work but also in my communities, were never so obvious; life became a matter of compromise, of finding peace, of doing what was necessary to accomplish goals. Call that politics, fine; that flexibility is also a mark of maturity in individuals, a mark of modernity in cultures. It’s what people and communities and countries need to do to live together. The key, of course, is to be able to compromise and bend and be open and flexible without losing one’s moral compass, one’s standards, one’s soul — to know what rules can and cannot be moved, but the rules do change. That’s not fundamentalism.

I’m not good at this. I struggle with religion. I stayed away for 25 years and returned because I had kids and wanted to give them the same choice I had. I left one church when it proved to be a bastion of homophobia; I left another when it became a laboratory for hate; I landed at my new, small, open church and got drafted into all manner of alien activities (committees, bad bass singing, even giving amatuerish summer sermons about obvious topics: evil — which I would update now — and the word). I’m actually embarrassed about this. But just as I find September 11 suddenly making me a patriot (complete with lapel pin), I find these events making me want to at least admit to religion (though not to proseletyze!) so I do not cede the turf to the fundamentalists.

Last night, I got email from Ray Eckhart about all this and pointing me to a very good column in the Washington Post by Henry Brinton, pastor of the Fairfax, Va. Presbyterian Church, who’s struggling with all this. Read on:

In response to an attack on our country that was perpetrated partly in the name of religion, people have been turning to religion in droves. Most worshipers are coming to Fairfax Presbyterian in search of hope and assurance and a supportive community as they struggle with what it means to live with constant tension. But they are also coming with some more complex concerns: Many are seeking solace in a faith that preaches forgiveness, for example, while expressing their conviction of the need for a punitive military response. Members of my congregation are talking more openly about their faith, asking questions about justice, the morality of violence and the role of the church in responding to conflict….
So, much of what my parishioners and I are doing now is trying to find a context for dealing with — and responding to — evil… Exploring the morality of warfare has been the biggest of these challenges for me — and the area in which my own thinking has changed the most as I try to guide my congregation. Until Sept. 11, I would have described myself as a pacifist. I grew up inspired by the nonviolent teachings and strategies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., and my preaching consistently opposed the use of violence. That is, until I learned about the passengers who downed the hijacked airplane in Pennsylvania….
In an effort to bring greater clarity to my own thinking as the United States engages in war, I’ve been asking colleagues how they believe such notions fit within their understanding of theology. A divinity school classmate, John Lentz, who is now a pastor in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, persuaded me that “violence is always an immoral act.” John argues, though, that there may be times when immorality requires an immoral response. That reminded me of what Martin Luther wrote 480 years ago: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.” A realist, Luther believed that every one of us is destined to sin, no matter how hard we try to avoid it.
So I’ve begun articulating the notion that a faithful response to terrorism is to sin boldly, never forgetting that violence is sinful, and that true righteousness lies beyond the realm of human effort: No matter how many bombs we drop or bullets we fire, international harmony is not going to be realized by military action. War cannot, by itself, create a lasting peace. In an imperfect world, I say, resisting evil through violence may sometimes be a necessary evil.

- Send in the Marines: hundreds land.

- Time correspondent’s Thanksgiving dinner with the Taliban: “With a few colleagues, I spent my Thanksgiving meal squatting on the floor of an Afghan passport office, talking to Taliban fighters about miracles and Judgement Day…. I leave thinking that maybe this evening wasn’t very different from the original Thanksgiving: people from two warring cultures sharing a meal together and realizing, briefly, that we’re not so different after all.”

- The Ames anthrax strain — the one used in every attack — was not as widely distributed as first thought, says the Washington Post: “In following the trail, investigators have had to face the possibility that Ames may have slipped through an informal network of scientists to Iraq, which sought the strain from a British biodefense institute in 1988 but whose application was rejected because of concerns that it would be used to manufacture biological weapons.”

- Leahy says the anthrax letter sent to his office could have killed 100,000 people.

- Calling John Wayne: The Telegraph says bin Laden is now on horseback. The touches of cinematic drama are getting too good. The camp where he last allegedly hid out is called Tora Bora (Tora! Bora!). In earlier stories, he was reported to walk surrounded by a score of tall bodyguards. We come across the results of white board brainstorming sessions (hey, let’s put anthrax in balloon!).

- From Al-Ahram: “Don’t hold your collective breath, comrades. There’ll be no Vietnam in Afghanistan,” says columnist Hani Shukrallah, “Kandahar is no Stalingrad…. So this particular party is, for all practical purposes, over. And we might as well admit it; it’s been very neatly done.” But don’t get giddy hawks; this is no compliment. “So let’s not fool ourselves. This war was never about ‘eradicating terrorism,’ ” he says; it’s about trampling on rights and bolstering power and making money. “On both sides of the battle lines in this war of civilisations, however,,” he conclused, “democracy is being put to the slaughter.”

- In the ’90s, we called this validation: The Greens go to war: After an emotional appeal by Joschka Fischer, the German party votes to support troop deployment in our war. Thus the liberal/Green coalition and government avoid collapse — but that’s not why this is a big deal. It’s a millenial thing: If Fischer, a major ’60s radical, and if his Greens, the most politically correct liberal party there is, can support this war, then we all us American children of the ’60s should feel OK about turning into hawks lately.

- More on this from Thomas Nephew, who actually speaks German (I barely fake it) and knows what’s going on.

- The FAZ.net story in English.

- Via Relapsed Catholic, a Washington Post Charles Krauthammer column (relevant to the post on religion, below): “Imagine if 19 murderous Christian fundamentalists hijacked four airplanes over Saudi Arabia and, in the name of God, crashed them into the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, destroying the holy Kaaba and killing thousands of innocent Muslim pilgrims. Could anyone doubt that the entire Christian world — clergy and theologians, leaders and lay folk — would rise as one to denounce the act? Yankee Stadium could not hold the trainloads of priests and preachers, reverends and rectors — why, even rabbis would demand entry — that would descend upon a mass service of atonement, shame, ostracism and excommunication. The pope himself would rend his garments at this blasphemous betrayal of Christ. And yet after Sept. 11, where were the Muslim theologians and clergy, the imams and mullahs, rising around the world to declare that Sept. 11 was a crime against Islam? Where were the fatwas against Osama bin Laden? The voices of high religious authority have been scandalously still.”

- John Cornwell in the Times of London on the dangers of fundamentalism — which, in my view, is the real enemy here. Quoting:

Since the end of the cold war, religious-inspired terrorism has replaced East-West antagonism to become a principal threat to the future of the planet. The barbarism of the attacks in America on September 11 raised further profound questions about the dark face of religion. When people commit barbarous acts in the name of God, it explodes the view that religion makes for a better world….

One international think tank ó RAND-St Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism ó claims that religious groups accounted for half of the worldís 60 terrorist groups listed in the late 1990s, more than double the proportion at the beginning of the decade. Mainstream religions have grown markedly antagonistic towards western secularism, which has been linked in the religious mind with globalisation and moral relativism. Pope John Paul II has repeatedly blamed secularism for the decline of faith, the breakdown of families and the mass apostasy of the young. His words have been echoed by monks, imams and gurus the world over. There is more than a grain of truth in the charge. But sociologists of religion insist that young people in the West have not so much abandoned religion as relocated their sense of the sacred in caring for the environment, the poor, the homeless. Young people have retained spiritual instincts but have ceased, according to many surveys, to receive religion and moral guidance from top down. Most religious leaders are neither impressed, nor assuaged, by these arguments. Rejected authority lies at the angry heart of fundamentalism, prompting calls for a return to ìbasicsî and tensions with the moderate mainstream.

For a long time — back to my days as a TV critic — I have had a running fit about mainstream religion conceding the pulpit of popular culture, media, and the masses to the nuts of fundamentalism. We do not see mainstream preachers on TV in this country; we see the edge of religion. Mainstream religion sees TV and the masses it represents as beneath them. Big mistake.

When you get to the core of it, this war isn’t just about America defending its way of life, it is about mainstream (read: sane) religion (both clergy and laity, Christian, Jewish, Muslim) defending no less than God against those who would murder in His name, those who would rob people of their rights in His name, those who would stifle religion in His name — those who would give God a bad name. Those in the mainstream who see religion as tolerant and open and forgiving and full of grace and humility have to speak up — or the meek shall lose the earth.

- Observer: The cat-and-rat game of chasing bin Laden: “It was to this wrecked compound that the American cruise missile came for him, tipped off to his presence, missing bin Laden by a matter of hours…. ‘He arrived at night, it was after eight, he came in a big convoy of jeeps with 120 bodyguards. When he came into our camp he was completely surrounded by a wall of very tall men. They were so close together you could not see him at all – they were arranged so they could fire in three different directions.’ ”

- Andrew Sullivan on turkey…. on Thanksgiving amidst war: “In this, you have a truly American combination: the deployment of extraordinary effort to achieve an ordinary existence. This is perhaps the singular achievement of this particular civilisation. And it is never better expressed than in the quiet possibility of a ritual family meal in a sleepy suburb, with Old Glory fluttering with promise and menace in the garden outside.”

- Next: Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, say the Times of London and the Guardian.

- Because of anthrax, I’m getting my mail late and thus I didn’t get my Economist and couldn’t read the story on anthrax that Little Green Footballs found there about abandoned apparent efforts to build an anthrax bomb, quoting:

What appeared to be a Russian rocket had been disassembled, and a canister labelled ìheliumî had been left on the worktop. On the floor were multiple copies of documents about anthrax downloaded from the Internet, and details about the American army’s vaccination plans for its troops. The number of copies suggests that seminars were also taking place there.

One of the downloaded documents featured a small picture of the former American defence secretary, William Cohen, holding a five-pound bag of sugar. It noted that he was doing this ìto show the amount of the biological weapon anthrax that could destroy half the population of Washington, DC.î

On the floor was a small bag of white powder, which this correspondent decided not to inspect. It may have contained nothing more deadly than icing sugar, but that could be useful for experiments in how to scatter powder containing anthrax spores from a great height over a city, or to show students how to do this. The living room contained two boxes of gas masks and filters.

On a desk was a cassette box labelled ìJihadî, with the name of Osama bin Laden hand-written along the spine. Most chilling of all, however, were the mass of calculations and drawings in felt pen that filled up a white board of the sort used in classrooms. There were several designs for a long thin balloon, something like a weather balloon, with lines and arrows indicating a suggested height of 10km (33,000 feet). There was also a sketch of a jet fighter flying towards the balloon alongside the words: ìYour days are limited! Bang.î This, like the documents, was written in English.

Since UTN was run by one of Pakistan’s top scientists, a man with close links to the Taliban and, it is said, close ideological affinities with Mr bin Laden, the circumstantial evidence points to only one conclusion. Whoever fled this house when the Taliban fell was working on a plan to build a helium-powered balloon bomb carrying anthrax. Whether it was detonated with a timer or shot down by a fighter, the result would have been the same: the showering of deadly airborne anthrax spores over an area as wide as half of New York city or Washington, DC.

- The strains of anthrax in New York, Washington, and now Connecticut are the same. Add that to the item above. Ever more diabolical.

- So Slobodan Milosevic is officially indicted for genocide. Now imagine the same scene with bin Laden in the defendant’s chair. Hard to picture, eh? He’d be spouting his faux ideology; he would attract dangerous nuts; the U.S. would insist on trying him solo; the U.S. would then have to figure out how to carry out his sure sentence. All quite inconvenient. No wonder Rumself just wants him dead.

- Buy Nothing Day seems downright unpatriotic now. It was merely stupid before. And the official site is borderline tasteless, tying together the monumental tragedy of Sept. 11 with their quasi crusade aimed at telling us how (not) to spend our own damned money: “A strange and wonderful thing has happened since September 11th – the anti-consumerism and peace movements have started to come together. Buy Nothing Day 2001 could be our first opportunity to go global and make some much-needed noise.” That’s what I call exploitation. But being (liberal?) blowhards, these people love an argument, even on their site, so I’m enjoying the negative comments there:

I don’t normally bother corresponding with terrorist sympathisers, but here we go. I have never seen such a pathetic, cowardly and witless bunch as you lot. Wave a flower at Osama, I’m sure he’ll stop (or perhaps it’s the people risking their lives overseas who’ll stop him, I’m not sure). Feel deeply ashamed.

Steve B, Norfolk UK

This has got to be the silliest idea of the new millenium. Capitalism is the ultimate freedom. Without the buying and selling of goods, there would be advances in civilization. Without economic activity, there would be no jobs. Without jobs, there would be no money for education – illiteracy would dominate. Without education, there would be no advances in medicine nad therefore disease would be rampant and life expectancy would continually drop. Gee, sounds like current conditions in Afghanistan, doesn’t it. Maybe after the US finishes liberating the Afghan people, the Afghans can receive the greatest freedom of them all – capitalism.

jnc, thornwood

The BND is a silly idea, particularly in light of the events of September 11. Within the past two months, thousands of Americans have lost their lives at the hands of terrorists. The American economy has stagnated. The president of the United States requests that America purchase more goods and services to boost the economy. To suggest that this is a bad idea is normative, value laden judgement that defies logic- no matter how cold that logic might be. Perhaps it would be helpful if some of the Liberal writers here had more knowledge of how a sustainable economy works. Yes, president Bush wants you to buy. No, this is not a bad thing. At best, in such a context, BND is in poor taste. A quarter pounder with cheese please.

Derek Meester, Ottawa

As for me, we’re spending less this year on fellow grownups not because of any idiot ideology but because we’re just depressed and don’t feel like malling. But we’re determined, as most Americans are, to give our kids a great Christmas. I feel a little guilty but what I buy is by choice, my freedom, after all. I will always remember the day I first came out of East Berlin — parched in the summer sun, having had nothing but warm, flat commie cola — and the happiest site I could imagine was a Coke sign. It’s not liberalism to tell me what I should not buy — or watch or say or read; it’s just fundamentalism of another flavor. This is what we are fighting against.

- Der Spiegel says (if I’m translating correctly — always doubtful) that actor and playwright Israel Horovitz is premiering a “supercurrent” piece of theater in Dresden on Dec. 8: Three Weeks after Paradise — a Voice from New York City. I can’t find a thing about this in English, oddly, except these notes from Horovitz regarding his September 11th: “Oliver, my youngest son, was in music class at Stuyvesant High School, just across the road from the WTC, throughout the attack and ensuing catastrophe. He watched the towers fall, all of it. Like many NYC kids, he saw too much. Hannah, Oliver’s twin sister, was in class in LaGuardia High School, uptown. A classmate of Hannah’s got a cell-phone call from her mother, who worked on the upper floors on the North Tower. ‘Thank God you’re alright!’ cried the young girl. ‘I’m not,’ wept the mother. ‘I’m calling to say goodbye.’ Our children are not in Kansas, anymore. They have been jerked from innocence to the worst kind of Experience.” Spiegel says Horovitz’ play about Sept. 11 — a monologue — begins: “It is gone. So long as I’ve been a New Yorker, It was there, but now it is gone.” He’s not referring to the World Trade Centers, but to the paradise New York was for him. As his children watched the catastrophe envelop their lives, he and his wife sat in a sunny kitchen, enjoying the last seconds of that paradise. The CD is already being produced and Spiegel says it it headed here in time for Christmas.

I’m of two minds about this speed (just as I am about the talk of observation platforms and memorials, below). On the one hand, I know it’s too soon for art to bring perspective to these wounds; they are still bleeding. So I am relieved that I have not heard of movies-of-the-week in production (though maybe that’s just because I’m too busy ready about war to read Variety); I’m similarly relieved not to see too many instant books in the bookstores. Too soon, I keep repeating. On the other hand, I crave other views and other experiences of the tragedy — thus this weblog; I cannot get away from the story, I fear leaving it. So the truth is, I would buy those books. I would be first in line to buy a ticket to Horovitz’ play, if it were here.

- The latest Rossi Rant: She writes about an old friend, Wolf, who moved from NY to LA and came back to visit… Ground Zero. “Wolf always had, well, a little too much edge. Let’s just say he was the one guy I knew who got PMS … a lot. But he wasn’t like that last night.

He was sweeter and softer. As we all are, I suppose. I’ve always been an angry woman, well except for the time in my life when I was an angry girl and then before that, an angry baby. Could be a past life thing, or I just inherited the angry-as-hell gene, but damn, I’ve had a fire brewing. I assumed after the towers went down that I’d be the poster child for rage. … and … yeah, some of that came, but really … I don’t feel so angry anymore. Maybe it’s because I’ve now seen firsthand what anger can do.”

She is good, this Rossi. I don’t know a thing about her; what little there was on her site is gone. She’s a caterer by day but she should give up that day job and write.

- The online editor at Arab News discovers the wonders of web interactivity. He gets hatemail; he responds; dialogue ensues: “Once I had responded thoughtfully to some of the more emotional and critical e-mails, I was amazed at what followed. The writers toned down their rhetoric; they were no longer abusive and ideas began to circulate and be exchanged.”

- The Mirror visits Iraq, says they expect bombs from us.