My own experience of 9/11/2001 hardly compares with anyone who was in New York City at the time, let alone someone in Lower Manhattan - I was right where I am today, on the other side of the country in Southern California. But what my story lacks in personal drama, it makes up for in a dawning awareness of certain facts of national and international importance, particularly as the days, weeks, and months wore on following the attacks. I would also like to reflect on something perhaps blasphemously trivial, and yet to me nonetheless significant - the architectural beauty of the lost Towers, and the pathetic frailty and mediocrity of what's under construction to replace them.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was a depressed and discouraged 18-year-old living at home with no plans for the future. One day blended into the next, an undifferentiated fog of fleeting ideas I lacked the energy to explore, minimal shadows of emotions I didn't have the motivation to actually feel, and a vague though mentally-censored impression that my destiny lay in a homeless shelter, a jail, or a grave from some trivial illness my depression allowed to run uncontrolled. The 2000 coup had briefly awakened my outrage, but I had no sense of what to do about it, so I'd retreated in disgust from politics and the increasingly surreal Republican propaganda of the Los Angeles Times.
Like every other day, on the morning of 9/11 I was asleep, and dreaming an incoherent pastiche of meaningless images - in particular, I recall, that morning I was wandering through a mall hewn out of brown rock like one would see in a Flintstones episode. Had nothing happened, I would have probably slept until 11 o'clock or noon - 2 or 3 in the afternoon in New York, where the dead of the attacks would have been quietly digesting their lunches while doing whatever it is they did. But the flimsy fabric of my dream world was punctured when my mother woke me up to tell me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
For the life of me, I couldn't imagine why she had woken me up to tell me this. In my head, I pictured some little two-seat, one-engine Cessna denting a couple of windows on one of the towers, tragically killing the pilot, maybe a passenger, and maybe one or two pedestrians on the sidewalk below. Sad enough, but accidents of that sort happen constantly around the world, and the only distinctions would have been irrelevant: That it involved a plane, and that it hit a famous building.
I was aware of the historical incident in the 1930s of a much larger plane having hit the Empire State Building, with the tower having survived the resulting fire, so I didn't think there was much likelihood of any size of Cessna or even Gulfstream-class plane taking out a skyscraper built in the 1970s. None of this was a coherent thought so much as just an automatic understanding, so I went back to sleep completely unperturbed, albeit annoyed that my mother would disturb my sleep for something totally irrelevant to me. As anyone with an experience of depression can attest, sleep is the best part of the day, and not to be lightly interfered with.
There were no specific dreams after that, as far as I can recall, but I slept for an unknown (though surely brief) period of time. And then my mother woke me up again to tell me another plane had hit the World Trade Center. Now, this was a lot more confusing than frightening. Still picturing light, private planes, I wondered how improbable it was for something like that to happen accidentally. The thought that it might be terrorism was disturbing, but not enough to make me wake up - after all, if some fundie idiots wanted to give their lives to dent a couple of windows and occupy the fire-suppression system in the WTC for ten minutes, hell if I would let that break my precious slumber. I went back to sleep again.
Some unknown time later, my mother - who it must be said is not the most reality-minded person, or the most accurate bearer of information - came into my room and told me "The Pentagon is gone." At this point I leapt out of bed without hesitation, because the implications of the statement were obvious. The Pentagon is a huge building that could not possibly have been completely destroyed by anything other than a nuclear weapon or an overwhelming airstrike by a foreign military power. If either of those two had occurred, I personally was in immediate danger even on the other side of the country: If a nuclear attack, retaliation and answering volleys might already be in the air. Even if it was a conventional strike, given the people in charge in Washington at the time, it might very easily turn nuclear at a moment's notice. But even if they were restrained, it meant that war was at hand - real war, with a draft, under a psychotic regime.
Even knowing that my mother is not a reliable source of information, I couldn't help but believe what she said, given the context - two planes crash into the World Trade Centers, and then the Pentagon is completely destroyed? The best case scenario given this information was that it was a terrorist attack that got lucky and had a nuclear weapon, whereas I could all-too-easily imagine it to have been a diversionary prelude to a general attack by China, perhaps as the opening move in some play for global strategic dominance.
Granted this was not a very high-probability scenario, and the strategic basis for such a move would have been dubious at best, but in the instant I heard that "the Pentagon is gone," it seemed there were only two scenarios: A lucky terrorist group that got hold of a nuclear weapon, or an opening move by China toward broader regional ambitions. And even if the government in Beijing were supremely rational, I knew the people in Washington were not, so things could escalate even if they had begun relatively modestly.
The very fact that a nuclear attack by China (and, gulp, a resulting World War, if not nuclear apocalypse) was a serious possibility had my heart racing in a split-second. First of all, living on the West Coast a few dozen miles from Los Angeles, I would probably be one of the first targets in a Chinese ICBM strike - there was a nontrivial, albeit still small possibility (given the information at hand) that I was minutes away from being vaporized.
So I ran into the living room to see the TV turned to CNN, and saw a huge cloud of smoke hanging over Lower Manhattan. You couldn't see the buildings through it, so they might all have been gone, and the cloud might have been the remnants of a mushroom cloud. For about 30 seconds my heart raced out of control, and I had trouble breathing, but then the news crawl informed me that a third plane was responsible for the Pentagon, and that it had only damaged part of the building.
I calmed down, and realized that it was clearly a terrorist attack - in other words, I was relieved to hear that it was terrorism. And once the smoke began to dissipate a little, and I could see that plenty of buildings right near where the WTC towers had been were relatively undamaged, it became clear it was a totally conventional attack. This was even more of a relief. Now, I hope it doesn't make me sound indifferent to the human cost, but that wasn't even close to being apparent yet, so all I could do was be intellectually curious about the particulars of what was going on. I was no longer afraid in the least: Unlike most people, who border on total irrationality, I knew the possibility of terrorism reaching me in the suburbs was essentially nil.
For the next hour or so, it was pure spectacle for me. I didn't see any of the carnage to inspire my compassion and outrage, and George W. Bush was still nowhere to be heard from, so I wasn't yet worried about how he and his cadre of homicidal maniacs were going to respond to the situation. It was just a matter of curiosity, as details trickled in about what exactly had happened, how it had happened, and who had done it. I had already concluded within a few minutes of hearing it called terrorism that it was al Qaeda - they're the only ones who had a jones for the WTC, and they had merged with the group that had attacked it before in 1993, so who else would it be? The coordinated nature of the attacks further reinforced this suspicion.
But I was curious about details, and about how events were going to shape up. Being a history enthusiast, I had a detached interest in witnessing events unfold, seeing how the various elements of a society, a government, and a military industrial infrastructure responded to an event of such magnitude and yet, speaking cold-bloodedly, such unimportance: It was incredibly unlikely that al Qaeda was anywhere near as powerful as the drama of the attacks suggested, and I thought it probable they had simply been lucky and exploited our inattentiveness. I greatly hoped (though did not expect) that, however vicious and criminal the regime was, an attack on the country would stir some latent patriotic impulses and cause them to start giving a shit about America. In other words, I hoped they would spontaneously revert to being Churchillian conservatives rather than the treasonous psychopaths I knew them to be.
Then I saw the images of people leaping from the buildings, and instantly identified with them. At that point my rage overpowered every other sensibility, and I simply wanted every single person remotely involved in this atrocity dead. Capital punishment is plainly wrong, and war for revenge serves no purpose - I know these for facts, and I know them to be fundamentally true on a deep level when I am calm - but at that moment, I wanted to pull a trigger.
There is nothing, nothing of moral consequence different between an al Qaeda terrorist and a Nazi death camp commander - nothing of consequence different between the people responsible for 9/11 and whoever most awakens your outrage. They terrorize and murder innocent people in service to their hate, and as much as I knew that America was probably fucked to be in this situation under a Republican, it was a significant consolation knowing that at least some of the al Qaeda members responsible were going to die very soon in fire, fear, and pain like what they had just inflicted.
I allowed myself these vengeful emotions because I was in no position to make any decisions related to them, but had I been in some office of authority, I would not have permitted them: On a strictly rational basis, I knew that the responsibilities of American leadership were first and foremost to prevent further attacks in the immediate future, secure the situation in Lower Manhattan, rescue survivors, and reassure the American people. The Bush regime didn't really do that so much as flail around making bombastic statements and looking for excuses to claim it was Saddam Hussein while subordinates in various agencies took responsibility to secure the country themselves.
There were many lies, outrages, and treasonous conspiracies born that day, nearly all of them on the part of America's closer and more dangerous enemy - the Republican Party. But I nonetheless, in my mind, granted them a truce, knowing all too well that protecting the country was the furthest thing from their minds, and that they had no intention of a free, prosperous, and united America fighting violent extremism. I knew that power was their only concern; knew that they would use public fear to shred the Constitution, enhance their personal power, and loot the Treasury in order to enrich their campaign contributors. But as I say, I granted them a truce in my thoughts - I would regard them as fellow Americans right up to the moment they (inevitably) proved once again that they are anything but.
Had I been privy to their inner consultations, that moment would have been almost immediately after the attacks, when they were scrounging for ways to spin them as somehow involving Iraq to justify invading it. I shouldn't have to note that this was treason, pure and simple. But the public didn't hear about that until years later, and the media immediately following 9/11 certainly wasn't going to report anything that wasn't verbatim stenography of regime proclamations.
So for about a week, I stomached what I knew to be the utterly insincere flag-waving and jingoistic rhetoric of Republicans; the gut-wrenchingly phony displays of faux-patriotism; and George W. Bush's obvious enjoyment of the situation, and simply gave them the benefit of the doubt. Yes, they had nullified an election and seized power in a coup. Yes, they were criminals. Yes, they were liars. Yes, they were religious fanatics. Yes, they were insane. But I was going to pretend these animals were an American government until they proved otherwise, for the sake of my own sanity and moral accountability. I was not going to be a bigot who refuses to acknowledge changed circumstances, and rigidly defines people by the past.
Unfortunately, the moment their status a parasitic dictatorship with no concern for the national interest became public knowledge was only about two weeks after 9/11. After all their bullshit about unity and patriotism, they implied that Democrats were endangering national security by opposing some minor tax cut measure being considered in Congress. Thus was born the "If you _______, the terrorists win" mantra that would define the regime for the next half-decade, marking one of the silliest, pettiest, and most comically mendacious propaganda campaigns in human history.
The two weeks leading up to that point were relatively pleasant, though - notwithstanding the infuriating stupidity, paranoia, and gullibility of the general public with respect to the extent of the terrorist threat. I understood that the biggest threat to America was not terrorism, but the Bush regime's response to and exploitation of terrorism - in other words, we had an opportunistic infection in our government, and it was waiting for just such a set of events to spread its disease. So I was pleasantly surprised when for several weeks, no bombs had yet dropped on another country in response - I knew that we had to go into Afghanistan to get the 9/11 conspirators, but I had been worried they would go in haphazardly, stupidly, and recklessly without achieving the objective. This allowed me to delude myself that they were being careful.
In point of fact, it was just that they had no interest in Afghanistan, and were devoting only a fraction of their resources to dealing with it. They were primarily focused on Iraq, and didn't yet know what could be stolen from Afghanistan, which contractors could be enriched, what regional gangsters could be brought into alliance for the purpose, etc. Actually killing al Qaeda was something like #371 on their list of priorities, so naturally it took them a while to get going. Even then it was very small, limited operations - after all, they had to keep most US military resources in reserve for the eventual treasonous conquest of Iraq.
Basically, 9/11 was the story of two infamies, and there is no question of which has done the most damage to America and the world: One was an attack by a terrorist group with about a thousand members that killed a few thousand people, and basically destroyed its own future as anything more than a cultural fad for angry Islamic teenagers. The other was a monstrous authoritarian regime whose crimes and "policies" would ultimately claim over a million lives, eviscerate the global economy, gut the Constitution, annihilate American moral authority, and soak an entire decade of American history in blood, lies, and fear. The abyss was so deep, we couldn't even see the end of it until we were already out.
We are still having to oh-so-slowly clean up the aftermath of the latter, while the aftermath of the former - though also depressing - is largely just a matter of damaged national pride. Still, I would like to address the symbolism of both the old and new WTC, because such intangibles do bear consideration both for what they reveal and what they promote. What do you see when you look at these buildings:
A lot of pretentious, superficial architecture critics deplored them as bland mediocrities symbolic of the banality of American corporate culture. But I and many others saw them for what I think they were intended to convey: Strength, simplicity, solidity, and confidence; a kind of assertive, unadorned grandeur that is so profound that it doesn't need to be flashy to inspire awe. They were like two Doric columns holding up the sky, and I think the builders of the Parthenon might very well have appreciated them.
In fact, a case could be made that it was precisely this design - and not merely its height and prominence - that made the Towers such an attractive target to al Qaeda. The strength, grandeur, and simple solidity of the architecture was bound to be infuriating to the inferiority complex and bigotry that drives their hate-based ideology. This is why attacks that might have killed more people and been easier to carry out were eschewed in favor of the more dramatic and symbolic act - the toppling of our great pillars, the chopping down of Yggdrasil. It is always the most tangible, obtrusively visible evidence of a people's greatness that most infuriates the rage of bigots. If they are incapable of creation, they will assure that you don't outshine them by destroying what you build.
When the subject arose of reconstruction, I knew immediately what approach I favored - the only appropriate one, as far as I was concerned: They had attacked not only our people, peace of mind, and economy, but our boldness and grandeur - they had, in other words, dared us to show them and the world that such acts of destruction were futile; to show that our spirit is indomitable. Clearly the only proper response to the loss of two world-class skyscrapers, is to build four (or at least two) world-class skyscrapers substantially higher than the originals, and exhibiting even more of the grandness and confidence that had so enraged their destroyers - and do it quickly. Only then would they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that terrorism against America is a fool's errand.
This was my deepest hope for the reconstruction process, and I had a lot more to hope for given that the federal "government" would be much less involved than in national policies. Despite Giuliani et al being scumbags, I at least thought they had the balls to understand what was required of them: A bigger, bolder, and even more impressive WTC that would have Osama Bin Laden weeping in frustration at the failure of his ambitions by the third or fourth anniversary of the attacks - huge projects that would employ thousands, awaken the volunteer spirit of Americans from across the country, and unite us in common purpose. Or, at the very least, I thought we would rebuild the towers as they were with some safety improvements.
But no. A lot of Americans seemed to have been suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, and adopted the attitude of the terrorists that our Towers were somehow "arrogant" and that the site should be turned into a "humble" little park for children and animals to play and frollick. Meanwhile, the "bidnessmen" of the City who dictate all things done by Republicans were only concerned with real estate prices, and saw no particular reason to quickly restore - let alone greatly exceed - the previous supply of office space in Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority was demanding fortress-like security precautions, and the Bush regime, after Glorious Leader's little photo op on the WTC rubble pile, was basically content to let NYC rot with only perfunctory federal support. Still, it appears most New Yorkers were in favor of rebuilding the Towers as they were, or something similar but bigger - a point in their favor.
You can Google "WTC Proposals" under the Images tab to get a sense of some of the crap that was being put forward, and the lack of any real sense of balance, grandeur, or beauty was depressing enough. Some of them were plenty big, but they were virtually all worthless. Even the design that was ultimately selected - by Daniel Libeskind - was awful, and had to undergo a long series of revisions to even look decent on its own merits, let alone as a WTC. The finalized result, which would look great if not for being a replacement for the WTC, is this:
If the image were taken completely out of context, I would say it looks quite nice. There are only a few problems: (1)None of them even approach the original Twin Towers in grandeur and confidence. (2)None of them are Twin Towers - they're all singular. (3)The new 1 WTC is designed like a fortress, and the fear in its construction is blindingly apparent. (4)There are fewer total floors in WTC 1 & 2 than in the originals. (5)WTC 2 doesn't even go up to the full height of its structure - the top is an empty design element. (6)WTC 1 looks misplaced because it's tilted off the street due to fears of a truck bomb. (7)None of the buildings are on the site of the former Twin Towers - it's preserved as a perverse, neurotic kind of shrine, with the foundations kept as pools. And (8)by the time 1 WTC is completed in 2013, the process of rebuilding will have taken 12 years (the originals took about 4 years), and the tower will be the fifth or sixth tallest in the world - some "Freedom Tower."
In other words, the terrorists' appraisal of our country as weak at least appears to have been symbolically confirmed by the reconstruction process. We did not come together as a nation to rebuild; we did not devote our resources to it; we did not do it in a timely, efficient manner; we did not select worthy designs that would have symbolically and aesthetically reaffirmed the very things about the original Towers that so enraged our enemies; and we remain neurotically attached to the actual site of the original towers, as if tragedies rather than achievements are what make a site sacred. It is as if we believe that turning the ground into a manicured park rather than building something even greater than occupied it before is a more fitting tribute to the victims. These are the attitudes of a weak, past-oriented, neurotic people incapable of dreaming, working together, or moving forward boldly.
But I don't believe in the least that this is true of our country generally, only that our greatness suffers from a lack of effective avenues of political expression - in other words, that it lies dormant, in lieu of connections among our people that would allow it to flourish and be more clearly seen by its output. The new WTC is an example of how things that are great in themselves can, together and in context, be less than the sum of their parts, and how decisions need to be made holistically rather than as cheap, reductionist accumulations of business interests, NIMBY politics, and social neurosis.
The terrorists showed their true colors by striking not only at what they claimed to actually object to - our foreign policy - but at symbols of our greatness, and it is precisely in the area of greatness that our reconstruction should have excelled. But it didn't. There are some great skyscrapers being built in NYC today - Carnegie 57 comes to mind - I only wish they were being built at the WTC, at twice their size. I suppose, however, that I should follow my own advice and not be attached to the WTC center site - its greatness arose only by virtue of how great the towers were, and maybe someday soon some other part of Manhattan will claim the mantle by similarly inspired architecture.