This is a story I have had sitting around in my brain for many years. It’s about how Rudy Giuliani got away so remarkably in his role as a “mass murderer” at ground zero. It came back to me post-Whistleblower/Ukraine, because of Rudy’s despicable role there and all over Europe. It’s a role he could play because he got away with extreme incompetence at 9/11 that left people dying. From CBS:
Nearly 3,000 people were killed on 9/11 and since then, more than 2,000 have died of 9/11-related illnesses. It's estimated that 400,000 were exposed to toxins at ground zero, and not just first responders.
However, it’s the first responders I am most concerned with.
Consider the environment just after the collapse of the buildings. It was clear that the air was massively poisoned with ground up material from the buildings—glass, asbestos, various metals, whatever else. Breathing that poisonous air HURT—which should have been a sign. The pile and the area around it was in chaos—and the Mayor and his team were supposed to be in charge, at least in large part. What was needed was logistical organization, thorough, ongoing testing of the air, and protections for anyone breathing that air.
On the logistical side, I had an acquaintance, a full bird colonel in the Army Reserve with expertise in logistics, who saw what a mess things were, and tried to help out, and was told to back off. The City ultimately got the Army to drum him out based upon a bunch of lies.
Did we know quite how poisonous the air was? No, but there ought to have been at least a “just in case” attitude that led the city and connected organizations to take a careful strategy, and provide exquisite protections to everyone working on or around the pile. That would include the best possible air filtering face masks, and whatever other protective gear might have helped. So, instead the city did diddley. I had another acquaintance who had a brownstone on Spring Street who was supplying first responders with basic masks, boots, water and the like, based upon contributions, because the city wasn’t barely trying—except trying to shut her down.
So, this is where the mass murder comes in. The city, under the primping, preening, “leading” Giuliani, didn’t do NEARLY what it could have to protect people working on or near the pile from breathing in too much poison. Though Rudy was praised at the time, I am truly shocked that apparently almost no one has picked up on the idea that protections for people working down there were spectacularly inadequate. They were, people continue to die as a result, and the titular leader of the entire effort—our mayor at the time—had to take some responsibility at least for getting experts to figure out what was needed, and then telling his leadership to follow through. He never did that. And that left people poisoned enough to ultimately suffer from fatal illnesses. With 2000 dead and many more with fatal illnesses, that feels like mass murder to me.
I realize that “mass murder” is a strong descriptor. But, what else would you call it, “mass criminal negligence?” And why has practically no one noticed this failure? I’m befuddled.