From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Warning
in America
No one has forgotten 9/11, but does anyone remember 2/26? On Feb. 26, 1993,
10 years ago today, Muslim terrorists drove a truck bomb into a parking lot
of the World Trade Center. They failed to destroy the complex, but killed six
and, according to the next day's New York Times, left at least 650 injured.
"The explosion also trapped hundreds of people in debris or in smoke-filled
stairwells and elevators of the towers overhead and forced the evacuation of
more than 50,000 workers from a trade center bereft of power for lights and
elevators for seven hours."
And then life went back to normal. A few people sounded the alarm, like Laurie Mylroie in The National Interest's Winter 1996 issue:
According to the presiding judge in last year's trial, the bombing of New York's World Trade Center on February 26, 1993 was meant to topple the city's tallest tower onto its twin, amid a cloud of cyanide gas. Had the attack gone as planned, tens of thousands of Americans would have died. Instead, as we know, one tower did not fall on the other, and, rather than vaporizing, the cyanide gas burnt up in the heat of the explosion. "Only" six people died.
Few Americans are aware of the true scale of the destructive ambition behind that bomb, this despite the fact that two years later, the key figure responsible for building it--a man who had entered the United Stares on an Iraqi passport under the name of Ramzi Yousef--was involved in another stupendous bombing conspiracy. In January 1995, Yousef and his associates plotted to blow up eleven U.S. commercial aircraft in one spectacular day of terrorist rage. The bombs were to be made of a liquid explosive designed to pass through airport metal detectors. But while mixing his chemical brew in a Manila apartment, Yousef started a fire. He was forced to flee, leaving behind a computer that contained the information that led to his arrest a month later in Pakistan. Among the items found in his possession was a letter threatening Filipino interests if a comrade held in custody were not released. It claimed the "ability to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas . . . for use against vital institutions and residential populations and the sources of drinking water."
Not all the lessons of 2/26 went unlearned. The Port Authority, which ran the trade center, improved its emergency plans, and this saved probably thousands of lives when the terrorists succeeded in destroying the complex 8 1/2 years later. But it took a second attack to drive home the lesson that keeping Americans safe on American soil requires striking the terrorists where they live.
The
Epitome of Stupidity
Earlier this month, 21 people were trampled to death in a Chicago nightclub
called The Epitome. From reading Jim
Fusilli's piece in today's Wall Street Journal, we're rather surprised there
aren't more such tragedies; the combination of alcohol, overcrowding and other
safety violations would seem to be a recipe for disaster.
But according to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Joan Ryan, the Chicago tragedy is the fault of . . . Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge:
Suddenly an acrid fog of chemicals filled the room, stinging their their eyes and filling their noses. They didn't know it was just pepper spray, discharged by guards breaking up a fight. They thought: poison gas.
What should have been a minor, if irritating, incident turned into a panicked stampede. When it was over, 21 people had been suffocated or crushed to death.
The grisly tragedy ought to make Secretary Ridge rethink what it means to prepare a nation for terrorist attacks.
And how is Ridge supposed to avert further nightclub disasters? "How about a national campaign calling on each of us to be personally responsible for knowing the exit routes when we're inside public places--and for helping others out if the need arises?" A lot of good that would do if the emergency exits are locked--which, as Fusilli points out, they were in Chicago.
Entre
Nous
"The United States and Saudi Arabia have reached new agreements that will
allow expanded U.S. air operations from Saudi territory," the Washington
Post reports. "A source said there . . . is a tacit agreement
that will allow the United States to conduct bombing missions from Saudi Arabia
in the days after an initial wave of U.S. air attacks as long as no public announcement
was made." So please keep quiet about this. We wouldn't want it to end
up on the front page of the Washington Po--uh, never mind.
'Antiwar'
Is Pro-Saddam
The Christian Science Monitor carries an unusual anonymous op-ed from an Iraqi-American
whose name is secret to protect his extended family in Baghdad. It's an open
letter to "peace" protesters:
Will you show concern about the brutal silencing of the "Iraqi street"? Or are you only worried about the orchestrated noises of "Arab and Islamist streets" outside Iraq?
Will you hear the cries of Iraqis executed in acid tanks in Baghdad? the Iraqi women raped in front of their husbands and fathers to extract confessions? Or of children tortured in front of their parents? Or of families billed for the bullets used to execute military "deserters" in front of their own homes?
No. I suspect that most of you will simply retire to your cappuccino cafes to brainstorm the next hot topic to protest, and that you will simply forget about us Iraqis, once you succeed in discrediting President Bush.
Please, prove me wrong.
Michael Kelly poses a similar question:
I understand why some dislike the idea, and fear the ramifications of, America as a liberator. But I do not understand why they do not see that anything is better than life with your face under the boot. And that any rescue of a people under the boot (be they Afghan, Kuwaiti or Iraqi) is something to be desired. Even if the rescue is less than perfectly realized. Even if the rescuer is a great, overmuscled, bossy, selfish oaf. Or would you, for yourself, choose the boot?
It's something for the "antiwar" crowd to think about--should they ever decide to think.
Yet
Another Brilliant Strategy
Jesse Jackson, fresh from keynoting London's pro-Saddam rally, showed up at
the University of Chicago, where, according to the Chicago Maroon, he described
his efforts to solve the crisis:
Recently, in a letter to Saddam Hussein, Jackson asked that Iraq replace secrecy with transparency. While Jackson has yet to hear back from Hussein, representatives from the region have since communicated with him.
"Iraq's in a very defensive mode. The cycle of kill and be killed must be broken by some force civil," Jackson said, calling on the United States to pursue an alternative to war. "I hope that one of our appeals to Saddam and to Bush will be heard."
You
Don't Say
"U.S. May Target Iraqi Leader in War"--headline, Associated Press,
Feb. 25
Oregon
State Flower: The Narcissus
A lot is at stake in the war with Iraq: thousands of lives, both American and
Iraqi; the Iraqi people's aspirations for freedom; the prospects for democracy
in the Middle East; the credibility of the United Nations as a force for order
and international law. But that's not all, as Frank Stahl, a professor of biology
at the University of Oregon, explains:
If the United States were imminently threatened by Iraq, the university would, of course, support the war, either outspokenly or by its silence. In the absence of that justification, however, the university must stand opposed to an unconstitutional war of aggression, which will destroy its very soul.
Iraqi lives seem cheap indeed when the very soul of the University of Oregon is at stake!
The Guardian Imitates Scrappleface
"The news media's biggest 'get' of the year promises to launch the career of Dan Rather, a reporter for CBS News."--Scrappleface.com, Feb. 24
"Veteran American broadcaster Dan Rather has again scooped the world by getting an interview with Saddam--13 years after his first one. Oliver Burkeman reports on how the 73-year-old pulled it off."--Guardian (London), Feb. 26
Not
Too Brite--LIX
"A Philadelphia man angered by a children's snowball fight retaliated with
a drive-by shooting that left a 10-year-old girl critically injured with a gunshot
wound to the head," Reuters reports.
Oddly Enough!
She'll
Have Fun Fun Fun Till Her Daddy Takes the A-Bomb Away
Under the heading "Fun Facts," the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports
that "more than 333,000 people were killed by the two atomic bombs that
the United States dropped on Japan. This is actually not factual; according
to the Department
of Energy, the actual death toll was 110,000 (70,000 at Hiroshima and 40,000
at Nagasaki).
But in any case, what in the world is "fun" about mass wartime death?
When
We Were Young, a Pint Was Plenty
"Teens Said to Drink a 5th of U.S. Alcohol"--headline, Associated
Press, Feb. 25
For
Want of a Nail
Ever have one of those days when nothing goes right? Wait till you hear Leslie
Strickland's tale of woe. The 49-year-old Port Charlotte, Fla., woman hit an
alligator with her car on Friday night. Stricken with guilt, she went back the
next day to rescue the critter. She put it in her car, drove it home, watered
it down with a hose, and phoned the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission,
which was closed for the weekend.
Strickland's neighbors pointed out to her that it's illegal to possess an alligator, so "she loaded it in the car again and drove off in search of a pond to release it." In the back seat it "started to thrash its tail." A distracted Strickland ran off the road and hit a mailbox. She tried to drive off, but her car got stuck in a ditch. So she walked home.
Police showed up at Strickland's home to arrest her, "adding a charge of resisting arrest after she struggled with officers who tried to handcuff her." She ended up spending a night in jail.
Oh, and the alligator died.
(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Michael Segal, Daniel Goldstein, Jeff Williamson, Andrei Muresianu, Robert LeChevalier, Skip Weitzen, Drew Anderson, Jenifer Sawicki. Jarrod Musser, Barry Kaplovitz, Leanne Shain, Gary Petersen, Arnold Nelson, Jennifer Ray, William Young, David Beebe, Robert Eleazer, Rob Cunningham, Joe Mann, Phil Wheeler, Wayne Brown,Julie Beck, Brian Crouch, Richard Simmons, Mike Hohman, Dan Friedman, Cliff Harker and Barak Moore. Note: Because of a bureaucratic foul-up, all e-mails sent overnight were deleted before we could read them. If you sent a tip and didn't get credit, please accept our apologies. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)
Today on OpinionJournal:
- John Howard: Australia's prime minister explains why you can't "contain" Saddam.
- Collin Levey: Visa cracks down on kid porn.
- Jim Fusilli: Why so much carnage at rock 'n' roll nightclubs?
