"Barbara Olson kept her cool. In the hysteria and terror of hijackers herding passengers to the rear of the plane, she retrieved her cell phone and called her husband, Ted, the solicitor general of the United States. She informed him that he had better call the FBI the plane had been hijacked. According to reports, Barbara was still on the phone with Ted when her plane plunged in a fiery explosion directly into the Pentagon.
"Barbara risked having her neck slit to warn the country of a terrorist attack. She was a patriot to the very end." (National Review On-Line)
This article starring:
Barbara Olson
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 11:52 ||
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So whom was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld targeting when he went on a tirade Wednesday against those who leak classified information? Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. Senate, intelligence, and Pentagon sources say that Rumsfeld and other national security officials were outraged that the senator talked with reporters about intercepted secret information about the terror attacks into the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Hatch discussed intercepts between associates of chief suspect Osama bin Laden about the attacks. The worry: leaks that that will dry up sources of information about the bin Laden gang, which may retaliate if it can figure out who the source was. (US News & World Report: Washington Whispers)
This article starring:
Donald Rumsfeld
Orrin Hatch
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The Mayor -- who if he ran for office today could be elected Emperor for Life -- has sternly warned against group blame, though there have been a few pointless incidents. Unpoliticianlike, Rudy seems utterly devoid of spin. Just the facts. While some other politicos twinkle and preen for their photo ops or seem embarrassingly unable to control their gestures, he at least manages to behave like a grownup. (Virginia Postrel)
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Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI has determined that a total of 18 hijackers were on the four hijacked planes. There were five on each of two planes and four each on the other two. U.S. officials said all the hijackers have been identified but they have not released any identities. (By STEPHEN GRAHAM The Associated Press)
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A bomb scare at the US Capitol, seat of the US Congress, which resulted in its evacuation, was proved to be a false alarm. It is only the second time in history it has been evacuated but officials are taking all threats seriously. Suspicious packages were found inside the building, in the Senate. Earlier in the day Vice President Dick Cheney was moved to Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, as a security measure. Officials said they needed to put some distance between him and the President because of "yet another threat on White House grounds". (Sky News)
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As authorities say they have identified every person involved in the hijackings, Secretary of State Colin Powell identified Osama bin Laden as a prime suspect in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (CBS)
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Secretary of State Colin Powell became the first senior Bush administration official to say that Osama bin Laden is suspected of engineering the attacks.
Saying the administration had not yet publicly identified the organization it believed responsible, Powell added: "When you look at the list of candidates, one resides in the region." Asked whether he was referring to bin Laden, the Saudi expatriate who runs a terrorist network from Afghanistan, Powell replied: "Yes."
"We will go after that group, that network and those who have harbored, supported and aided that network to rip the network up," he said. U.S. officials say they are drafting plans to attack not just bin Laden, but the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan who allow him to operate from their territory either killing bin Laden and destroying his camps or forcing the Taliban to turn him over. And, said Powell, that's not all.
"When we're through with that network, we'll continue with a global assault on terrorism in general." A senior official named the Iranian backed group Hezbollah, which in 1983 killed more than 200 American Marines in Lebanon, and Hamas, which sends suicide bombers against Israeli civilians, as two of the terrorist groups the U.S. intends to go after. (CBS News)
This article starring:
Colin Powell
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 ||
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Names of suspected terrorists with possible ties to bin Laden's organization were found on the passenger rosters of the hijacked planes and intelligence intercepts showed affiliates of bin Laden saying they had hit two targets, sources said. There appears to have been very little effort if any to hide their identities. At least seven of them, for example, purchased their tickets out of Boston with the same credit card. Those credit cards and the flight manifests have provided the most significant evidence so far, and have led to what is said by high level federal law enforcement official to be "an ocean of names."
Authorities say they have every reason to believe the hijackers were assisted and sheltered by associates in the United States, but it's not known if those associates still in the U.S. Some of the hijackers were in this country "for more than one year." (CBS News)
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09/13/2001 ||
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One danger is that, like the pilots on those doomed airliners, President Bush will do what the hijackers expect him to. He will launch a retaliatory raid against some defenseless people thereby creating blood enemies of the United States. This is a step that even Israel, despite every provocation, has been wise to avoid.
Another danger is that President Bush will appear to be doing nothing at all, that he will lack the fire for this task.
The goal here is not to get mad but to get even. That said, getting mad is not a bad place to start. (Chris Matthews)
This article starring:
Chris Matthews
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 ||
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Howard Fineman's Newsweek story on the president's response to Tuesday's attacks contains an telling throwaway detail. Writes Fineman, "In an extra line he apparently penciled in after the speech was hurriedly drafted by aides, Bush vowed to make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." That was the most important line of the speech, the one that took it beyond comforting boilerplate to serious foreign policy. And it apparently came from Bush himself. (Virginia Postrel)
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On the whole, the domestic backlash against Arabs, Muslims, and people who look like Arabs or Muslims hasn't been as bad as I fearedwhich is not to say that it hasn't been disturbing, especially here in North Texas. A third mosque in the Dallas area was hit last night with a Molotov cocktail, doing an estimated $2,500 in damage. Elsewhere, the UPI reports that "a Pakistani-American, a native of Brooklyn, was attacked and hit across the face with a two-by-four Tuesday in Manhattan. Police officers pulled his two attackers off him." (No link is available.) MSNBC reports that a 75-year-old drunk tried to run over a Pakistani woman in a Huntington, NY, parking lot and followed her into a store, threatening to kill her for "destroying my country." In Gary, Indiana, someone shot at a Yemen-born gas station owner. The Gary, Indiana, Post Tribune also reports that a Jordan-born restaurant owner had his car windows shot out. (The victim, however, isn't quick to blame hate; he says the gunfire could have come accidentally from hunters in the nearby woods.) (Virginia Postrel)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 11:51 ||
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In what could be the first break in the investigation into the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in rural Pennsylvania, authorities announced Thursday that they have recovered the flight data recorder from the crash scene. Forty-five people were killed aboard the jetliner. An FBI agent says the recorder was found in the late afternoon in the eight-foot-deep crater caused by the crash. The "black box" will be analyzed by the National Transportation Safety Board. (CBS News)
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09/13/2001 ||
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A man carrying false identification papers and a pilot's licence has been arrested at New York's JFK airport. "Five or six" others - some Arabs - were also arrested. The FBI has shut down all three New York airports - JFK, LaGuardia and Newark. Neither flights from New York nor New York-bound flights can take off. (Sky News)
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09/13/2001 ||
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The Boston Globe reports that investigators "recovered from a car rented by a suspected hijacker a so-called 'ramp pass,' which gives the holder access to restricted areas at Logan Airport. Evidence also suggests the rental car was used to case the airport during the week leading up to the attack." Both planes that hit the World Trade Center took off from Logan. (JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL Best of the Web Today, WSJ On-Line)
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A Venice, Fla., man said FBI agents told him that two men who stayed in his home while training at a local flight school were the hijackers. Charlie Voss said the agents identified the men as Mohamed Ata and one known as Marwan. The FBI interviewed Voss about two men who stayed with him and his wife for a week in July 2000 while taking small-plane flight training at the municipal airport. FBI agents "informed me that there were two individuals that were students at Huffman Aviation, my employer, and FBI told me they were involved in yesterday's tragedy," Voss said. The couple accepted the two men as house guests as a favor to the company, Voss said. The men, who stayed just a few days, trained at the airport and came to the house to sleep, he said. (CBS News)
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FBI agents obtained information from Internet providers, conducted searches, and questioned people in Florida and Massachusetts. Early evidence, including communications among Osama bin Laden supporters, indicated the attacks were tied to the wealthy Arab and accused terrorist. (CBS News)
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The Newark Star-Ledger reports that federal agents yesterday sealed off the fourth floor of a hotel at Newark Airport where the hijackers of United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, are believed to have stayed. FBI agents also descended upon a postal box outlet in Fort Lee, N.J., seeking clues to the identity of several other hijackers. The Boston Herald quotes sources who identify the hijackers as "Egyptian and Saudi citizens who spent months planning the attack from all corners of the nation." (JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL Best of the Web Today, WSJ On-Line)
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The FBI arrested a man on Thursday after a telephoned bomb threat sparked temporary evacuation of rescue teams from an area of the Pentagon shattered by a terrorist attack, a U.S. official said. A man with an Arabic accent said in a telephone threat at about 5:55 a.m. EDT that a bomb had been placed near the Pentagon. "The guy said the bomb would go off in about two hours," the official said. (Reuters) Hopefully he spent lotsa time after being arrested falling down the stairs.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 ||
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The good news is that the word has gone out from just about every politician and pundit that Arab and Muslim Americans should not be ostracized and punished for crimes against our country, which is also theirs. The specter of the Japanese internment haunts our consciences, reminding us of just how wrongly this country can behave in a crisis. You can hear the vow, Never Again.
The bad news is that jerks and hotheads will always be with us, ready to lash out against the nearest available targets. Now the reports of anti-Arab, or anti-Muslim, attacks are coming in. Fortunately, most of the attacks are verbal, not violent. But here in Dallas, two local mosques had their windows shot out. A local Hindu man told police he'd been attacked by men who thought he was an Arab. Things will undoubtedly get worse. (Virginia Postrel)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 ||
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"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." (Ann Coulter, National Review On-Line) Somehow, and it may be because I like Ann Coulter so much, I take this as a cry of grief rather than as a call to viciousness.
This article starring:
Ann Coulter
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09/13/2001 ||
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Federal investigators said on Thursday that they have not ruled out the possibility that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania, after three other hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (Reuters)
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House and Senate leaders plan to push the U.S. Capitol Police to review and drill their emergency evacuation plans after panic swept through congressional buildings Tuesday amid reports that a fourth suicide jet was headed their way. Congressional sources say that the police have a plan but have never briefed lawmakers on it or practiced evacuation drills... Eventually, an evacuation began, but only for some leaders, such as Speaker Dennis Hastert, taken to Andrews Air Force Base. Other bigs, like House Majority Whip Tom DeLay and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, as well as some Senate leaders where taken to police HQ just blocks from the Capitol. All leaders were eventually moved by chopper and limo to hideouts in West Virginia and Virginia, like Mt. Weather, a high-tech underground communications center near Round Hill, Va., some 75 miles from Washington. (US News & World Report: Washington Whispers)
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Another report from the amazing Tama Starr to her "Friends in the Outer Boroughs," by which she means all of us outside Manhattan:
Another thing I never noticed, perhaps because they are so outnumbered, is that there are hundreds of thousands of Arabs in New York. The shopkeepers and news vendors we run across look distinctly non-happy. Heads down, concealing their accents, pretending they're Greeks. But radio callers-in report -- I haven't seen this in media -- that in Bay Ridge and Astoria there was dancing in the streets. Adults distributed candy to children to help them remember the happy occasion. (Virginia Postrel)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/13/2001 ||
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In his first messages to the country George Bush spoke well, balancing reassurance and resolve. It did seem a mistake, perhaps a sign of the country's innocence in these affairs, that Mr Bush should be hurried to safety in Nebraska in the first instance, rather than to the White House or to the ruins in Manhattan or Washington. At such times the president's security ought not to be the overriding priority: exercising leadership, and being seen to do so, must come first. But if it is fair to call that a momentary mis-step, it was soon put right. The commander-in-chief was quickly seen to take command, and then acquitted himself with credit. (The Economist)
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09/13/2001 11:50 ||
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Fox News, picking up an Associated press report, puts the death toll in perspective: "New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said 4,763 people had been reported missing. That number, if added to the deaths from Tuesday's terrorist plane crashes at the Pentagon and in a grassy field southeast of Pittsburgh, would be higher than the death toll from Pearl Harbor and the Titanic combined. A total of 2,390 Americans died at Pearl Harbor nearly 60 years ago, and the sinking of the Titanic claimed 1,500 lives." (JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL Best of the Web Today, WSJ On-Line)
This article starring:
Rudolph Giuliani
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An Afghan Taliban radio station said Taliban authorities were ready to hand over Osama bin Laden to an Islamic court if the United States could prove his guilt in the terror attacks on the U.S: "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has honestly asked America to give clear and substantial evidence for what it considers Osama to be responsible for, and the IEA will hand him over to one of the Islamic courts of the world in order to be tried... The IEA condemns the (terror) act once again and expresses its sympathy for the American people....'' It said Afghanistan did not expect the United States to ''resort to irreparable measures before discovering the facts.'' The Taliban have consistently said they did not believe bin Laden was involved in the attacks. (Reuters)
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We know, after all, what Canada's official response to its reported role in Tuesday's events is. "Our concern isn't who may have left the country," said Colette Gentes-Hawn of Canada Customs. "It is the people that are coming in."
Almost right, Colette. Canada's concern isn't who may have left the country or who may have entered the country. Canada isn't concerned either way. We stand on guard at neither end. When an Ahmed Ressam is stopped by a canny U.S. Customs officer en route to bomb LAX, Ms. Gentes-Hawn and her colleagues go into make-believe mode, beefing up security on the 49th parallel to promote a false equivalence -- that Canada is at as great a risk from those entering from America as America is from those entering from Canada.
But the moment passes and normal service is resumed: If you're a self-proclaimed terrorist, if you can get here, you can stay here. Should our easy-come-easy-stay immigration policy be found to have played any part in what happened, we should be ashamed, and at the very least discover some limits to our much vaunted "tolerance." (Mark Steyn, National Post)
This article starring:
AHMED RESAM
al-Qaeda
Colette Gentes-Hawn
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German investigators said that three hijackers aboard the planes in the U.S. terror attacks once lived in Hamburg and were part of an organization formed this year to destroy American targets. German authorities also said that they had detained at least one man in connection with Tuesday's attacks and were searching for another. Two of the men identified by Hamburg police as having perished in the attacks were Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, both from the United Arab Emirates. Both had earlier been named as former students of a Florida flight school and are suspected of having flown two of the hijacked jets. (By STEPHEN GRAHAM The Associated Press)
This article starring:
MARWAN ALSHEHI
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED ATTA
al-Qaeda
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More representative, I fear, was Alexa McDonough's demand that we reaffirm "our commitment to pursuing peaceful solutions to the tensions and hostilities that breed such mindless violence."
The violence wasn't mindless, only Ms. McDonough's reaction to it. When the NDP next offers her up to the Canadian people as a potential Prime Minister, it's worth giving some thought to the kind of world she'd have us live in. In The Ottawa Citizen, in a column headed At Times Like This, We Thank God That We're Canadians, Susan Riley was at least honest enough to skip the peacenik fluffiness and acknowledge the feeble self-interest behind Alexa's brave "commitments": "Our best protection," writes Ms. Riley, "may be distancing ourselves a little more explicitly from U.S. foreign policy. That doesn't mean insulting our largest trading partner, or countenancing terrorism, but pursuing a reasonable and moderate course in the world's trouble spots." (Mark Steyn, National Post)
This article starring:
Alexa McDonough
Susan Riley
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Germany's Gerhard Schroeder got it right: Tuesday was "a declaration of war against the entire civilized world." So did Tony Blair: "The democracies of this world are going to have to come together and fight it together." (Mark Steyn, National Post)
This article starring:
Gerhard Schroeder
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09/13/2001 ||
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In the United Arab Emirates authorities called in people familiar with a Emirates man named Marwan Alshehhi for questioning. Quoting an unidentified official source, the state-run Emirates News Agency said security authorities had yet to confirm that the Emirates national identified as Marwan Alshehhi was the person with the same name suspected by German police. Another Emirates official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said all those called in, including relatives and friends of Alshehhi, were released following questioning. The man being sought was suspected of murder and air piracy as well as membership in a terrorist organization. (By STEPHEN GRAHAM The Associated Press)
This article starring:
MARWAN ALSHEHI
al-Qaeda
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The Associated Press reports that a freelance cameraman on assignment for AP Television News was "summoned to a Palestinian Authority security office" and told that film of Palestinian Arabs celebrating Tuesday's atrocity must not be aired: Calls in the name of the Tanzim militia, an armed group associated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah group, warned him he would be held responsible and made what he interpreted as threats on his life. Several Palestinian Authority officials spoke to AP in Jerusalem urging that the material not be broadcast. Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Arafat's Cabinet secretary, said the Palestinian Authority "cannot guarantee the life" of the cameraman if the footage was broadcast. The cameraman then requested that the material not be aired. In light of the danger, APTN has not released the footage of the rally in Nablus. (JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL Best of the Web Today, WSJ On-Line)
This article starring:
AHMED ABDEL RAHMAN
Palestinian Authority
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
