September 10, 2001
What I knew on September 10 and what I did not know.
I knew Osama Bin Laden, though I did not know it was just as proper — if not more so — to say Usama Bin Laden. One thing I remember is listening to a rant from local sports radio host (who diverged from sports quite regularly because who the hell can talk about sports for three hours?) Colin Cowherd — a somewhat depressingly parachial screed along the lines of “Ain’t America Great?” with the cynical lesson to “the kids” that the idea that you should know about the world at large was Bs. “Our greatest enemy? Osama Bin Laden. Some nutcase in a cave. How can you be scared of that?”
I knew the Taliban. On September 10 their chief claim to fame amongst Americans was blowing up a set of historic Buddhist idols. Also of note, but largely forgotten from the American people (if they even caught it at the time), except perhaps from a certain class of fundamentalist Christian activists, was this persecution of Christian missionary relief workers in Afghanistan. It was (and probably still is, or is again) illegal for religious missionaries to proseltyze. The Christian missionaries claimed to not be “spreading the word” of Jesus Christ, but it has since came out quite definitively that they did. I don’t know, but it is a little difficult to sympathize with law breakers who go into a competing religion’s theocratic government seemingly seeking martyr status.
I did not know the name “al Qaeda”, and would not know that name until the following Sunday.
I knew the Hart — Rudman Report. I knew who Gary Hart was, and still have only the vaguest idea that Warren Rudman was a fellow Senator. I knew that the news of the Hart — Rudman Report had popped up to the top of the news cycle maybe two times during the previous spring through summer, before being drowned out by the Summer Infotainment news spectacles, Shark Attacks were that Summer’s News Du Jour. It was here that I came to largely loathe the news media.
I knew The Cole Attack. I remember talking politics and the 2000 presidential election campaign with my parents. Their sense was that war was beckoning, and perhaps this would show itself in the election with a “Don’t Change Horses in mid-stream.” My response was a “Yeah, but the public may look at Bush and basically see his father’s cabinet.” These were the ‘grown ups” we were supposed to revere and look past Bush’s flimsy record and see. I suppose in the end the Cole ended up being awash in terms of electoral advantages. Policy wise, your view depends on your partisan inclinations, and revisionist history dampens any serious discussion.
I did not know that Afghanistan’s major export is Heroin. The Taliban was pretty good at keeping the crop down — for religious reasons you see– although the 10 percent of the country controlled by that which was called “The Northern Alliance” pumped it out and out. Today the Taliban in Afghanistan has no qualms about growing Heroin — that classic sign that in the end, money for expediency trumps Religious ideology.
I believe my new roommate had moved the evening of September 9. It was probably technically breaking my lease — I ended up basically subletting a Korean student who was not taking any classes for a couple of terms (thus not eligible for housing), he giving me a check every month for half the rent thus getting around College Housing. So I went into the shower. In the next room, a student who I never did get to shut down his loud music at nighttime — was on the phone. The conversation from his side went like this, as I was stepping into the shower. “NA — UH!! […] Those goddamned Arabs! […] Hey, I’m sorry. Really.” It is likely he was talking on the phone with an Arab student down the hall, name escapes me… a man who disappeared for the next two weeks, who when he came back gingerly said, “Yeah, I’ve been laying low.”
The phone conversation told me the vaguest outline of what had happened, and I knew I would have to turn the television on when I came out. My roommate already had the television on, and turned to me to say, “Airplanes struck the World Trade Center in New York.”
The news regurgitated itself with no real development, thus telling me it was best to move on. Bush would signal to me that it was still okay to distrust him when answered the question of what Americans can do at this time in crisis with “Go Shopping!” Today the average savings rate of Americans has fallen to roughly ZERO. I suppose this cynical answer made some some sort of sense, though I’ve always thought it pointed to the great paradox of our economic system: that which is good for the individual economy can be quite bad for the overall economy and vice versa — at least in the short term. So it is that if I were to have ever been polled, I would have settled my way into that 10 percent of the public who would give Bush a negative approval rating through his entire presidency.
There’s a strange irony regarding Saddam Hussein and Iraq — the war that was sold in the shadows of 9/11 as — at best — a trajectory “front” to make the Middle East Safe for Countries that Do Not Harbor Terrorists, and at worst a War to defeat Osama Bin Laden. Before 9/11, I would have been likely more supportive of military action in Iraq. For one thing, I knew that Saddam Hussein had chemical and biological weapons — I do not believe that the somewhat numb-minding term “weapons of mass destruction” had been brought into general American parlance as of yet. I would reassess this false knowledge throughout 2002 as the Bush Administration kept opening up their mouths and saying things that were demonstrably false, and as their assessments came out as hopelessly unrealistic. The strange reality is that in terms of American politics, I have since 9/11 become more dovish — though the definition of “dove” has seriously been watered down.