From the WSJ Opinion Archives
Palestinians Whoop It Up--II
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.
USA Today confirms the AP account, reporting:
Palestinian Cabinet Secretary Ahmed Abdel Rahman used tougher measures to avoid an international backlash in response to apparent Palestinian jubilation. Abdel Rahman called international news agencies and said the safety of their staff could not be guaranteed unless they withdrew the embarrassing footage of Palestinian police firing joyfully in the air.
Such threats appeared to succeed in suppressing immediate release of video showing large street celebrations in Ramallah, Bethlehem and other West Bank towns.
Jeremy
Glick, American Hero
The Washington Post carries a gripping account of a phone call 31-year-old Jeremy
Glick, a passenger on Flight 93, made to his wife in the final minutes of his
life. Glick's brother-in-law, Douglas Hurwitt, tells the Post that Glick's wife,
Lyzbeth, told him that a plane had already hit the World Trade Center:
Glick said he and others aboard the plane had decided to rush the cockpit and try to subdue the terrorists--a display of resistance that may have staved off a much worse catastrophe.
"They were going to stop whoever it was from doing whatever it was they'd planned," Hurwitt said. "He knew that stopping them was going to end all of their lives. But that was my brother-in-law. He was a take-charge guy."
The New York Times' William Safire (link requires registration) writes that this act of resistance "may have saved the White House." Safire also reports that President Bush was eager to return to Washington but was dissuaded when the Secret Service received "a threatening message . . . that 'Air Force One is next' ":
The most worrisome aspect of these revelations has to do with the credibility of the "Air Force One is next" message. It is described clearly as a threat, not a friendly warning--but if so, why would the terrorists send the message? More to the point, how did they get the code-word information and transponder know-how that established their mala fides?
That knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of secret procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White House--that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A.
Shame of the Times
John Podhoretz writes in the New York Post: "Tuesday's New York Times hit
doorsteps at about 7 a.m. with a lead article [link requires registration] in its Arts section that
must have made even its own author bow her head in shame only three hours later.
For the subject of Dinitia Smith's adulatory profile was a proud and cocksure
American terrorist who bragged lightheartedly about his involvement with the
group that designed and carried out the 1972 bombing . . . of the
Pentagon":
It was only one of 14 bombings for which he and the Weather Underground claimed responsibility.
Here's what The New York Times has to say about Bill Ayers:
"He still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure. . . . Today [he and his wife] seem like typical baby boomers."
His wife is Bernardine Dohrn, with whom he went on the lam for years in the 1970s. And how does this wonderful couple keep it all going? "Happily for me," Bernardine told the Times, "Billy keeps me laughing, he keeps me growing."
On Tuesday Slate's Timothy Noah took note of this Ayers quote in the Times: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."
Following the Trail
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."
And Reuters
reports that "Germany has detained an airport worker in connection with Tuesday's
U.S. terror attacks and three of the suicide hijackers may have belonged to
a Hamburg-based extremist group," Reuters reports.
Missing Airline Uniforms, Badges
Fox News reports that two weeks ago, "American Airlines issued a memo to
their employees to be on alert for imposter [sic] pilots after an incident in
Rome a few months ago. In the incident, an American Airlines crew had their
rooms broken into, their uniforms and ID badges stolen."
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.
A Grim Body Count
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."
Even
Football
Along with most financial markets and air travel, Major League Baseball has
been shut down since Tuesday. But then, they shut down baseball when it rains.
The National Football League, on the other hand, has a nearly perfect record
of playing games when scheduled. Pearl Harbor didn't interrupt the NFL schedule,
and the league played on Nov. 24, 1963, two days after JFK's assassination.
The San Francisco 49ers played a home game at nearby Stanford five days after
the 1989 San Francisco earthquake. The Washington Post erroneously reports that
the NFL has never called off games "except for strike-related issues."
In fact, a Sept. 6, 1992, Miami matchup between the Dolphins and the Patriots
was posponed for six weeks because of Hurricane Andrew.
It was probably inevitable that the NFL would cancel this weekend's games; with air travel almost completely suspended, getting 15 teams to distant cities (the Arizona Cardinals to Washington, the New York Jets to Oakland, the Buffalo Bills to Miami, and so on) would have been a logistical nightmare.
A weekend of football is, of course, one of the lesser sacrifices we'll be called upon to make in the months ahead. All the same, the suspension of America's indestructible sport is a measure of the enormity of Tuesday's events.
