Eighteen years ago today I was sitting in the back of my Chemistry class making jokes with a Chinese friend of mine when an announcement was made over the school loudspeakers that ‘the Twin Towers were just attacked.’ Everybody was in shock at what happened. A look of terror came over my chemistry teacher’s face, she said she had a son who works in New York, and that she had to go. She immediately walked into her office and shut the door, and she would not open it. The class naturally dispersed. Given that some time was until the next class, I went to the cafeteria. You could feel the anxiety in the school’s air, it was a thick yet lively at the same time, buzzing like electricity.
When I reached the cafeteria, many students were in panic and full displays of emotional distress. I heard the news of the attacks, and I immediately knew it was the Afghan Taliban, for I had already been studying Islam for three years at that point and while still much younger, I knew something of the politics in that area. I remember saying “It was the Taliban” and a student said “What is that?”
We had school for the rest of the day, but nobody paid attention or cared save for our math teacher, who was young and when she realized nobody cared, she relaxed too.
9/11 changed the tone of the entire nation. In so far as school was concerned, a lot of students signed up for the military to fight in Afghanistan and later, when it was announced, for the Iraq War.
I did not support the Iraq war because unlike 9/11, where one could argue that the US was attacked even in spite of the strong evidence suggesting there was far more that happened there than what many want to discuss, Iraq was an outright invasion that the government was having to lie about in order to cause. Yet many supported the invasion because it rode on the wave of populism generated by 9/11.
It has been eighteen years since 9/11. The results have been clear- Two-thousand years of Christian history in Iraq was annihilated along with the genocide (as the word can include cultural destruction) of Iraq’s 1.5 million strong Christian population, the execution of Operation Timber Sycamore in Iraq which followed in the same pattern as Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan but even larger and brought about the creation of ISIS, the destruction of Syria as a sovereign nation, the overthrow of legitimate Libyan leader Muammar Gaddhafi, the forced refugee crisis, and countless people dead or permanently wounded, soldiers and civilians alike.
Many of the soldiers who signed up for the US military were quickly dismayed because they signed up to serve their country out of a love for her, not to fight an unclear war against an enemy created and backed by US Special Operations and the intelligence agencies for geopolitical projects. Unfortunately, for many of these soldiers, when it came time that they could leave the military, the laws were changed so that many could not and were recalled to active duty for up to ten years. This did not help with the problems, and it served generally to anger those who entered because they felt used, and this worsened the crisis with recruiting, as an empire- which the US is -cannot be maintained without a steady supply of soldiers.
It is not a surprise therefore that the anger generated by former servicemen, who were deceived into something evil, has had a serious effect on recruiting efforts, which continue to flounder in spite of the military’s best efforts to attract people:
After a Herculean effort to get the active-duty force up to 476,000 in 2017, the Army hit a stall in 2018: Tasked to grow by another 7,500 troops, the service ended up breaking even.
The plan was to continue with a 4,000-troop bump over the next four years until the active component hit 500,000, but the Army’s latest budget is cutting that growth in half, Army Undersecretary Ryan McCarthy told Army Times on Thursday.
“500K is the objective,” he said. “It’s just the pace to get there has slowed.”
Starting from this year’s 476,000 figure, the new plan is to add 2,000 a year through 2024, to hit 488,000 in the active component, with proportionate grown in the Army National Guard and Army Reserve. (source, source)
Likewise, in the years since 9/11, interest in the topic has wanted. It is now at a point where 9/11 is, like many of the “never forget” moments of American history, being flushed down the toilet of social memory:
Seventeen-plus years later, the flame of remembrance is flickering. Remember when people around the world said “We are all New Yorkers”? You don’t hear that much anymore.
Some of it’s understandable. A whole generation has grown up having never known the pre-9/11 world. They weren’t born at the time of the attacks. They don’t remember the terror of that day. The anger. The thirst for vengeance. To them, 9/11 is literally something that they’ve only read about in history books, like Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination and the fall of the Soviet Union.
They can’t forget something they never knew in the first place.
And we’re seeing the result: Muted or non-existent outrage as lawmakers drag their feet when it comes to taking care of those sick first responders. Memorial services that are more low-key. The fact that John Walker Lindh, an American who saddled up with Al Qaeda and the Taliban and who took up arms against his own country on the battlefield, is freed from federal prison.
9/11 is shamefully becoming just another day. (source, source)
I don’t say this to dishonor the dead in 9/11. Rather, this speaks to my larger criticism of America as a society, where having no past and no future in a sense of a solid culture, the people float throughout time and space, unsure of their place in history and just consuming all the way until death.
Likewise, the military is not making her recruitment numbers, and she is not going to stop fighting in wars.
There is talk of reviving the draft, but that might not work because many people simply do not want to fight in what or objectively pointless wars for evil causes.
This is why for today, I am going to re-print an article that I wrote last year, which you can read here about a possible future terrorist attack and how it may look.
I do not wish for terrorism at all. Likewise, it must be said that terrorism has been historically proven to be a vehicle of social policy, and it was 9/11 that drove recruitment into the Armed Forces for the purpose of going to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Consider also the situation with the “manliness” and “masculinity” movement, vis-a-vis the seemingly public and forced image of the “soy boy” and the “cuck”. There is much to be said about this (something that Ted and I are looking into), and we can say that it bears a semblance to the “strategy of tension” used by the US in foreign nations, but this within the country in order to attempt to provoke a certain response.
But returning to the main topic, one may want to keep an eye out for a future 9/11, because if recruitment numbers are not met, one must not exclude the possibility that an even worse attack may come sooner than expected. For Americans, enervated from constant war and inclined to various forms of nationalism, may be provoked to fight if there was an attack so horrible, so violent, so deranged, that it made the events of eighteen years ago seem to be nothing in comparison.
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(First published in October 2018)
There is always much speculation about how another terrorist attack may look. Some have speculated that just at the attack at the World Trade Center was meant to represent “America,” so would another major icon of “Americanism” be attacked.”
The following is an exercise in precisely this. What could such an attack look like, and what would be the results?
Let’s take the Denver Broncos, as they are a team with a history of Superbowl wins but a lot of losses that incites the passion of her fans in the same way that the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry did for baseball.
Picture the following scenario.
It is the Superbowl weekend, one of the most important holidays in the American pagan religious calendar. It’s Denver vs. Dallas, being played at Mile High Stadium in Colorado. Both sides are filled with zeal for their teams, and you can feel the tension, the passion, and the fervor in the air. There are the lines of people with their fan signs and noisemaking trinkets, the fat guys who have painted their faces and chests to show their tribal support, the smell of cheap hot dogs and soda permeating the air in a combination of sweat, cheap alcohol from those who snuck drinks into the game, various snacks with the sweat of thousands of people all yelling and moving with a frenzied excitement.
They game is playing, and the score is 7-7 and it is about two-thirds way through the game. It may be winter in the Rockies but everyone’s body heat is overwhelming, and the constant energy and adrenaline rushes have pushed the spectators into a combination of exhaustion, disorientation, and excitement. Nobody knows who could win as this has been one of the closest games in recent NFL history. The sports commentators of ESPN, NBC, ABC, CBS, and the other stations are giving their coverage of what is happening when suddenly as the ball is hiked for the second down, there is a massive explosion followed by horrified screams, followed by a cloud of dust and flying debris. A flying piece of wood hits one of the NFL players in the head, knocking him over with clear injuries, but nobody stops to care because they are still trying to figure out what is happening.
A second explosion goes off, followed by what sounds like machine gun fire. The stadium is completely in panic, people want to flee but they have no idea what is happening and are straining forward to look at what thing might be taking place. Are they going to live or die? What is going on??
Then suddenly across the stadium there are more horrified screams, and people’s heads begin to explode from what looks like rapid fire bullets coming through the crowd. Then a flash, and a bang, and what looks like a massive firework shoots out of the cloud sending a Stinger missile right into the stadium and hitting a family of four, vaporizing them instantly and killing at least a hundred immediately surrounding them. Body parts are flying everywhere, and the crowds get up and like crabs in a bucket desperately try to escape over each other, yet all moving so hard and fast they trample each other and are unable to exit because of the motion. During the chaos they fail to see that following the smoke trail from the missile just burst through the crowd a humvee with Arabic writing on it and a black flag with Arabic letters, fully outfitted with two 50 caliber machine guns, two men with rocket launchers, and other men with AK-47s. Their vehicle is filled with enough ammunition to fight a small war that they intent to wage jihad on all 75,000 people in attendance at the game.
A man shouts in a language that sounds like Uzbek something, and they pull a lever on their machine guns and just let fire. Thousands of people are falling like leaves in autumn, blood is everywhere, the reporters are panicking as they try to cover it and flee, and many die in the chaos, including some of them on live television. A bullet goes through the chest of a major ESPN anchor and explodes his guts before hitting the camera and the station transmission being stopped. Rockets are being fired in what feels like an endless barrage of firepower as more and more perish.
After a minute or two of what seems like an eternity the terrorists put down the machine guns and jump down into the field. They grab as many of the survivors as they can and, coincidentally, two surviving cameramen named Doug Smith and Aaron Silverfarb, and drag them with their cameras to the field and force them to broadcast that they are about to do to the survivors.
One of the terrorist leaders, who calls himself Abu Umar, walks boldly over to a bleeding and obviously in pain Denver Broncos football player, a Heisman trophy winner in college and at his first season in the NFL and at the Superbowl. Abu Umar pulls out a foot-long dagger, grabs the player by this hair and holding dagger in the air he recites in what sounds to be his Chechen-accented Arabic:
“In the name of Allah the merciful, the lord of the worlds, we are the members of the Army of Al-Islam and Al-Iraan, and we have been sent to punish the infidels of Amreeka and to bring the justice of Allah subhana wa ta’alaa before the whole world for her evils against the Muslims. I Abu Umar, the commander of the faithful decree that we demand and Islamic state in the land of Al-Faarsi. Dead to Donald Traamp, death to Amreeka, and death to democracy.”
Abu Umar then takes his knife and viciously saws off the head of the young football player as he gurgles for help but cannot scream and blood pours out over his jersey. Umar then takes a football, places it in the player’s arms and places his decapitate head on top of the ball before the Muslims should “Allahu Akbar,” all the while Mr. Jones is filming.
One by one the terrorists go through the crowd, shooting or hacking the wounded and the fleeing with swords. An injured young blonde woman tries to get away, and as Mr. Aaron Silverfarb is being force to film, another Muslim terrorist who calls himself Jamal and appears to be of a darker, perhaps Pakistani-ish descent, grabs her by her hair and she screams, and he says “I am going to f*ck you now you infidel!”, when then the camera cuts off.
“Security cameras” continue to catch the massacre as it happens around the stadium. Some people who are fleeing and managed to survive also livestreamed to Facebook and Twitter some of what happened. The world watches in horror and shock, helpless at what to do, the news media has interrupted all broadcasting to cover the event, and the world is awaiting on the word of the President. School has been cancelled across America, people are being sent home early from work, the phone lines are so busy they are all jammed and few can call, every store and place where people meet without exception is filled with pain, panic, and chaos.
Within an hour of the attack, the SWAT and military are dispatched to the stadium to do battle. No helicopters are called and no bombs dropped, nor any air attacks done, but instead a full ground assault is put forward. The terrorists yell something in Uzbek or Chechen, and then pull out a Persian flag and yell something again before getting to the machine guns and start firing them and Stinger missiles at areas they think are SWAT or military troops. Hundreds of soldiers die, and at one point the cameras go out on all sides. A few minutes later they re-emerge and what looks like the bodies of the dead terrorists are shown strewn about the field and humvee they came into the stadium on, and a SWAT soldier praying over his rifle on the body of a dead terrorist is taken by Mr. Silverfarb, and it goes international instantly.
Less than a day after the attack happens, President Trump convenes an emergency meeting of Congress, which blames Iran and with the support of the entire world goes for “immediate military action” against Iran. Bombs fall on Tehran, Tabriz, Qom and Isfahan. The country is turned into a wasteland, and American troops from across the Middle East and the USA with British, French, German, and even Japanese and Turkish help rush into Iran and seize the country.
Back at home, American flags are sold out everywhere and flying. People have flags on their cars. At least a dozen elderly Pakistani men walking home have been beaten by mobs of angry Americans while shouting “USA USA, damn Islamic terrorists”, three Syrian gas station attendants have been shot by a man named Travis who said he did it because “I though he was going to kill me,” and a man named Jeffrey burns down a local vegan Kebob shop owned by a white lady name Judy and her computer programmer husband Bill from the suburbs because of “terrorist food.”
Toby Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” along with “God Bless the USA” become the #1 song overnight as country song artists belt out hit-after-hit of patriotic songs eulogizing the dead and justifying American militarism. On FOX News, a commentator during a “roundtable” discussion says “Weren’t those people speaking Uzbek or Chechen and not Persian?”, and immediately Sean Hannity shouts “WHY DO YOU LIBERALS HATE AMERICA SO MUCH???”
The survivors are interviewed and being called by talk radio stations around the country and world. Aaron Silverfarb and Doug Jones’ photos and video are all over the world, and immediately money flows in as well as fame. Everybody wants to know them and meet them, and the two are just “amazed” about what has happened. The soldiers who “took down the terrorists” are also treated the same, and bare-breasted women thrown themselves at them as though it was a rock concert.
The massacre is eventually called the “Mile High Massacre” in American history textbooks.
But amid the chaotic emotions and frenzy, there are still questions.
Why were these men speaking Chechen and Uzbek, not Farsi?
How did they get 50 caliber machine guns and Stinger missiles, which a New York Times journalist later discovers were found to be “stolen” US military property three months ago from Redstone Arsenal and Fort Hood but NOBODY DID ANYTHING ABOUT IT?
Doug Jones talks about his life, and says that his grandfather was in the OSS and his father worked for Voice of America. Aaron Silverfarb says he is a dual US-Israeli citizen who served in the IDF and has a cousin in the Mossad.
Why is it from the film taken the terrorists are not short men with black hair, but tall, bulky men with reddish-brown hair or Asiatic eyes, and a few are almost as dark as Pakistanis?
Why is it that the photos and pictures of the bodies of the dead terrorists released look completely different, and do not even match the terrorists caught on live film from those fleeing the attack?
Why is it that the same day that Congress authorized war with Iran they also passed the “Make America Great Again Act”, a 2,000 page document in tiny font that authorizes for the government to seize, detain, torture, and kill anybody anywhere, US citizen or not, if it is done in the name of “stopping terrorism,” as well as authorize “enhanced centers for terrorist detainment and labor-centric internment” for the same accusations of a crime?
But none of these questions will be asked, and anybody who asks them will be accused of SUPPORTING THE ENEMIES OF AMERICA AND TERRORISTS.
Now all of the above has been an exercise in fiction. None of it is real, and hopefully none of this will ever happen. It would be a terrible tragedy if it did.
But this is an example of what happens when “situations” are mapped out. It is a known fact that governments use terrorism for political purposes, and the US government is perhaps the most infamous example of doing this, as she has consistently used terrorism for this reason going back to the Spanish Civil War, and even before.
Ask yourself, were the events of September 11th just isolated, that the government did not know anything, and did nothing at all that may have assisted said terrorists to carry out their plans?
In Operation Northwoods, which was rejected by President Kennedy, there was a plan to have CIA operatives pose as Cuban terrorists that would kidnap and murder Americans during a hostage situation, at which point the US would use it as a reason to invade Cuba.
Now the scenario above does not have to be the Superbowl. It doesn’t have to be in the USA. It could be another place or time, or a different set of circumstances. However, it is to illustrate that just as how one sets up the scene for a play, one can set up, knowing and understanding human behavior and reactions to said situations, how to manipulate a crowd to support a specific cause. In the hands of a person who has a darwinian view of life and work, death does not matter so long as it justifies a cause, for “the ends justify the means.”
It is unlikely that such a plan would be used in the immediate future. However, one must not say that it cannot be used, because in the event that a plan REALLY wants to get pushed through, and be “creative” enough as to be believable as well as palpable to the American palate, one should not put it aside. Think of such things as a “red button” plan, used to force a decision through when most options are out.
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