If I knew it would be the last time
That I'd see you fall asleep,
I would tuck you in more tightly
And pray the Lord, your soul to keep.
If I knew it would be the last time
That I see you walk out the door,
I would give you a hug and kiss
And call you back for one more.
If I knew it would be the last time
I'd hear your voice lifted up in praise,
I would video tape each action and word,
So I could play them back day after day.
If I knew it would be the last time,
I could spare an extra minute
To stop and say "I love you,"
Instead of assuming you would KNOW I do.
If I knew it would be the last time
I would be there to share your day,
Well I'm sure you'll have so many more,
So I can let just this one slip away.
For surely there's always tomorrow
To make up for an oversight,
And we always get a second chance
To make everything just right.
There will always be another day
To say "I love you,"
And certainly there's another chance
To say our "Anything I can do?"
But just in case I might be wrong,
And today is all I get,
I'd like to say how much I love you
And I hope we never forget.
Tomorrow is not promised to anyone,
Young or old alike,
And today may be the last chance
You get to hold your loved one tight.
So if you're waiting for tomorrow,
Why not do it today?
For if tomorrow never comes,
You'll surely regret the day,
That you didn't take that extra time
For a smile, a hug, or a kiss
And you were too busy to grant someone,
What turned out to be their one last wish.
So hold your loved ones close today,
And whisper in their ear,
Tell them how much you love them
And that you'll always hold them dear
Take time to say "I'm sorry,"
"Please forgive me," "Thank you," or
"It's okay."
And if tomorrow never comes,
You'll have no regrets about today.
It sits like a precious gemstone on a blue tablecloth, the object of lengthy stares and clicking cameras. The curator hovers over it with white gloves, guarding it jealously. It took him four months and a trip to the donor's house in Jersey City to procure this item.
"I popped the question as we sat there with my wife and daughter," curator David Shayt says of that first meeting with the donor. "He said, 'Wait a minute.' He goes into the bedroom and brings it out. He says, 'I thought I would sleep with this under my pillow because it saved my life.' "
Shayt glances nervously over his shoulder now, once, twice, thrice. A camera operator is filming dangerously close to the blue tablecloth.
"I just have to keep an eye on the object," Shayt says, excusing himself.
The Object. It is neither art nor weapon nor precious substance. It is not -- at ignorant glance -- the sort of thing you'd expect the National Museum of American History to covet. It is a hardy tool, a triumph of pragmatism, a thing meant to spend much of its time wet, made of brass so it will not rust, an object whose particular fame -- in this case -- is derived from a use utterly different from its intended purpose. It is a squeegee handle, and on Sept. 11, 2001, it -- and the coolheaded MacGyver thinking of a humble window washer -- saved the lives of six men.
"It's collected not as a squeegee handle itself," Shayt says, "but as evidence of life's affirmation."
With the help of his squeegee handle, the metal fixture that connects blade to broomstick, Polish immigrant Jan Demczur and five others escaped from a smoke-filled elevator by tearing through drywall and punching a hole in a bathroom wall on the 50th floor, then racing down flight after interminable flight of stairs and out of the World Trade Center's north tower within five minutes of the building's collapse.
The 48-year-old window washer, who came to the United States in 1980, is a short, chubby-cheeked man with a serene smile. For months, he kept that squeegee handle in his closet, plaster dust still stuck to it -- evidence of his harrowing escape. That handle is now the embodiment of a 14-year career that -- ever since that fateful day -- he has been unable to return to. After Shayt contacted him, Demczur agreed to donate the tool to the Smithsonian's growing collection of Sept. 11 artifacts, some of which will go on display on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
At first, Demczur (pronounced DEM-shur) had difficulty telling of that day. But by now, at this media conference announcing his donation, he speaks of Sept. 11 at length, stopping to describe the details -- smell, sight, sound -- of his 95-minute ordeal in 40 minutes. He is calm, patient and meticulous, and perhaps that is part of why he is alive. Panic would not have aided his escape.
It was just before 9 a.m. and Demczur -- who'd already been cleaning windows that day -- had stopped to take a coffee break. Now he boarded an express elevator with his squeegee and bucket and was riding up with five other men when the car suddenly rocked from side to side. Then it began to fall. One man pressed an emergency stop button, then a voice came over the intercom speaker inside the elevator car.
"We have a problem, 91st floor," Demczur recalls the voice saying. Then the intercom failed.
Smoke began to fill the cab. They had to get out. The men pried open the elevator doors to find:
A wall.
This was, after all, the express elevator, designed to stop only on certain floors. And since Floor 50 was not on the route, there was simply this barrier with the number 50 on it, a claustrophobic's nightmare.
Demczur propped the doors open with the long stick of his squeegee. And then the window washer, who'd once been a plumber and once done construction work, poked at the wall and realized it was drywall. Not so bad. Breakable. The men began to kick at the wall, but Demczur knew they needed something sharp to carve through the three sheets, each an inch thick.
"I turned to my bucket. I said, 'Eh, let me use the squeegee.' " Demczur says. "It's like, not so smart person but the instinct: What you have left to try."
He took the blade out of his squeegee and began to saw at the wall. He sawed and sawed. He passed the squeegee blade around, and the men took turns cutting a hole. At one point, when Demczur had the blade, he lost his grip and it dropped down the elevator shaft.
Gone. Forever gone.
He looked around: What did he have left? The squeegee handle. He began to scratch at the drywall with that.
"It's like, you know, you put dog or cat in some box and put smoke there, how he gonna fight for life? Same we did."
By scratching and kicking and kicking and scratching, the men got through the first, the second, the third layer of drywall. They pushed at the wall and heard tiles falling on the other side. They stepped through the hole and into a bathroom. From there, firefighters directed them down the stairs. They kept wet rags over their noses and mouths and choked through the smoke. On the 12th floor, they heard "a loud explosion. I said, 'Oh, that's probably electrical transformer or something.' "
It was the south tower collapsing.
Demczur is humble to the last. He says of those six lives saved: "I don't say I did myself. We all was working, but this tool save our life."
When he finishes his speech, the crowd moves in. Shayt, the curator, puts the squeegee handle in a plastic bag and takes charge of Demczur's other donations: the uniform, and work shoes Demczur was wearing that day. Assorted dignitaries of the window-washing world have their pictures taken with the man of the hour. They are people like Diane Smahlik, chairwoman of Ettore Products of Oakland, Calif., which made the tools Demczur was using that day. After she heard Demczur's story, Smahlik flew him to the International Window Cleaning Association convention in Reno, Nev., in February, and gave him a small 14-karat gold squeegee pin with three sapphires in it.
"Window cleaners get looked down on, they really do," Smahlik says. "They're hard-working people. They put their lives in jeopardy, hanging from buildings."
Then the window washer is ushered toward the cameras. He smiles warmly, like he is greeting guests at a party. The Smithsonian staffers are surprised by how many reporters have shown up -- 20? 30? -- and they buzz anxiously about Demczur, eyes to wristwatches, ready to whisk him away to the next interview when the time is up. His wife, Nadia, and two children, Pavlo, 10, and Olesia, 14, leave, then come back, then leave again. The window washer tells his story over and over. Once he starts talking, it's hard for him to stop.
He says he's still in counseling for his trauma. He says his wife has been giving him small tasks around the house. "Wife say, 'Okay, water the pots and flowers,' " he says.
He has a slow, patient manner, just the sort of quality you imagine a window washer would need. You imagine him with a long-handled squeegee stroking the length of a tall window, drawing what Shayt calls "beautiful arabesques in water and suds."
Maybe someday.
"You probably missed it in the rush of news last week, but there was actually a report that someone in Pakistan had published in a newspaper an offer of a reward to anyone who killed an American, any American. So I just thought I would write to let them know what an American is, so they would know when they found one.
An American is English, or French, or Italian, Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian or Greek. An American may also be Mexican, African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian, Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan. An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage, Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache, or one of the many other tribes known as native Americans.
An American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or Buddhist, or Muslim. In fact, there are more Muslims in America than in Afghanistan. The only difference is that in America they are free to worship as each of them chooses. An American is also free to believe in no religion. For that he will answer only to God, not to the government, or to armed thugs claiming to speak for the government and for God.
An American is from the most prosperous land in the history of the world. The root of that prosperity can be found in the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes the God given right of each man and woman to the pursuit of happiness.
An American is generous. Americans have helped out just about every other nation in the world in their time of need. When Afghanistan was overrun by the Soviet army 20 years ago, Americans came with arms and supplies to enable the people to win back their country. As of the morning of September 11, Americans had given more than any other nation to the poor in Afghanistan. The best products, the best books, the best music, the best food, the best athletes.
Americans welcome the best, but they also welcome the least. The national symbol of America welcomes your tired and your poor, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores, the homeless, tempest tossed. These in fact are the people who built America Some of them were working in the Twin Towers in the morning of September 11, earning a better life for their families. [I've been told that the people in the Towers were from at least 30, and maybe many more, other countries, cultures, and first languages, including those that aided and abetted the terrorists.]
So you can try to kill an American if you must. Hitler did. So did General Tojo, and Stalin, and Mao Tse-Tung, and every bloodthirsty tyrant in the history of the world. But, in doing so you would just be killing yourself. Because Americans are not a particular people from a particular place. They are the embodiment of the human spirit of freedom. Everyone who holds to that spirit, everywhere, is an American.
So look around you. You may find more Americans in your land than you thought were there. One day they will rise up and overthrow the old, ignorant, tired tyrants that trouble too many lands. Then those lands, too, will join the community of free and prosperous nations.; And America will welcome them!
Every time you fill up the car, you can avoid putting more money into the coffers of Saudi Arabia. Just buy from gas companies that don't import their oil from the Saudis.
Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that every time I fill-up the tank, I am sending my money to people who are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends. I thought it might be interesting for you to know which oil companies are the best to buy gas from.
Major companies that imported Middle Eastern oil (for the period9/1/00 8/31/01).
Shell 205,742,000 barrels
Chevron/Texaco 144,332,000
Exxon/Mobil 130,082,000
Marathon 117,740,000
Amoco 62,231,000
If you do the math at $30/barrell, these imports amount to over $18 BILLION!
Here are some large companies that do not import Middle Eastern oil:
Citgo 0 barrels
Sunoco 0
Conoco 0
Sinclair 0
BP/Phillips 0
All of this information is available from the Department of Energy and can be easily documented. Refineries located in the U.S. are required to state where they get their oil and how much they are importing. Theyreport on a monthly basis.
Keep this list in your car; share it with friends. Stop paying for terrorism.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
On a Wednesday in September, I traveled south for the funeral of my grandfather. It was a day of sadness, but also one of rejoicing for the wonderful human being I had had the opportunity to know. It was also a time of great sorrow for all Americans. It had been only days since the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Driving along a Canadian prairie road, I saw a long caravan of trucks and other vehicles and, as I got closer, people on horseback. Cowboys and cowgirls were riding horses out in the middle of nowhere! The group was traveling south, toward the border, and they were flying two flags ? the Canadian and the American. They were going to meet up with a group of American riders at the border between the two countries. Along the way, the Canadian cowboys were collecting cash, which they were going to give to their American counterparts. They were just one of many Canadian groups who had found a way to help and show they cared after the attacks in the U.S.
Later that day, when I was driving home from my grandfather's funeral, the sky opened and a driving rain poured down from the heavens. Visibility was so bad that I had to slow to a crawl. It was then that I saw it. Large and glorious, whipping in the wind, perched atop an irrigation system, the water still pumping out, flew a flag! It was an American flag, raised to honor the thousands who died on September 11.
I began to cry. I thought about all those lives ending so abruptly. I also cried because I was so touched by the warm act of love demonstrated by a simple Canadian farmer. By flying the American flag he was sending out a message of love and respect to his American neighbors. His actions spoke louder than words ever could: "We are with you, dear friends. We are with you in spirit. We ache for you. We cry for you. We pray for you. We will not forget."
The storm passed as suddenly as it had started, and I found myself driving through the most glorious sunshine. I felt like God was sending a promise for better things to come.
Reprinted by permission of Margaret Eleanor Braun-Haley © 2001 from Chicken Soup for Soul of America by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Matthew E. Adams. All rights reserved.
May today there be peace within you.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
"I believe that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet
when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."
New York City is planning to erect a statue depicting the famous photo of the flag raising at Ground Zero. They want to change what the photo shows (three white male firefighters) and instead include an African-American and a Hispanic. The website URL below is for a petition to have the statue depict the flag raising exactly as it actually occurred ... to make it historically accurate, not politically correct. Would you please pass it on?
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/flgraise/
As the soot and dirt and ash rained over us,
We became one color.
As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building,
We became one class.
As we lit candles of hope and remembrance,
We became one generation.
As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the
inferno,
We became one gender.
As we fell to our knees in prayer and strength,
We became one faith.
As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement,
We spoke one language.
As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,
We became one body.
As we mourned together the great loss,
We became one family.
As we cried tears of rage and grief,
We became one soul.
As we shared with pride the sacrifice of heroes,
We became one people.
We are
One color,
One class,
One generation,
One gender,
One faith,
One language,
One body,
One family,
One soul,
One people.
We are the Power of One.
We are United.
We are America.
Reprinted by permission of Cheryl Sawyer, Ed.D © 2001 from Chicken Soup for Soul of America by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Matthew E. Adams. All rights reserved.
Here are overlooked facts in the current Middle East situation. A Christian university professor compiled these. I have not verified them myself, but some of them I know to be true from other sources.
Nationhood and Jerusalem.
The main thing to remember is to keep the main thing the main thing.
OCTOBER BULLETIN SAID TERRORISTS THOUGHT TO HAVE 10 KILOTON NUCLEAR WEAPON TO BE SMUGGLED INTO NEW YORK CITY Sun Mar 03 2002 10:40:24 ET **TIME MAGAZINE**
New York -- In October, an intelligence alert went out to a small number of government agencies, including the Energy Department's top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team, based in Nevada. The report said that terrorists were thought to have obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal, and planned to smuggle it into New York City, a special TIME magazine investigation reveals.
Publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT, the next cover story of TIME will headline: "Can We Stop the Next 9/11?"
The report hits newsstands Monday, March 4th.
The source: a mercurial agent code-named DRAGONFIRE, who intelligence officials believed was of "undetermined" reliability, TIME reports. But DRAGONFIRE'S claim tracked with a report from a Russian general who believed his forces were missing a 10-kiloton device.
That made the DRAGONFIRE report alarming. So did this: detonated in lower Manhattan, a 10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more, flattening everything in a half-mile diameter.
Counterterrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert, TIME reports. "It was brutal," a U.S. official told TIME.
It was also highly classified and closely guarded.
Under the aegis of the White House?s Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security Council, the suspected nuke was kept secret so as not to panic the people of New York. Senior FBI officials were not in the loop. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani says he was never told about the threat. In the end, the investigators found nothing, and concluded that DRAGONFIRE'S information was false. But few of them slept better.
Counterterrorism experts and government officials interviewed by TIME say that for all the relative calm since Sept. 11, America?s luck will probably run out again, sooner or later. "It's going to be worse, and a lot of people are going to die," warns one U.S. counterterrorism official. "I don't think there's a damn thing we're going to be able to do about it."
The DRUDGE REPORT has been briefed on other revelations coming from TIME's investigation:
The Coast Guard is arming itself against a possible terrorist attempt to destroy a major U.S. coastal city by detonating a tanker loaded with liquified natural gas.
The Administration has recalled old CIA hands with experience in Central Asia. Says an Administration official: "You ended up going back to retirees because the bench was so light on Afghanistan. We?re still trying to get up to speed."
This week, Tom Ridge?s office plans to announce a new color-coded alert system to warn local law enforcement and the public about threats within U.S. borders, sources tell TIME.
While there is a genuine debate inside the government about whether Osama bin Laden is still alive, there is far less argument about what will happen after Washington is able to confirm that he is dead. A U.S. official told TIME last week that it is widely presumed that al-Qaeda sleeper cells will take retaliatory action once the terrorist leader is killed or proven dead.
"We're as vulnerable today as we were on 9/10 or 9/12," says presidential counselor Karen Hughes. "We just know more."
Developing...
-----------------------------------------------------------
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereportArchives.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2002
It's 10:30 P.M. on September 11, and I am pumping up a double air mattress with a manual air pump at Halifax's Exhibition Park. Along with many other Haligonians, I arrived here around 8 P.M. to see if I could help make life a little easier for the stranded passengers. I think it's my fifteenth mattress, and I'm tired, hot and sweaty. An older woman lying on a mattress in a donated sleeping bag looks up at me and says something. All I hear is the word "tea." I stop my pumping and say, "Sure, I'll definitely find you a cup of tea." She looks up at me and says, "Not for me, for you."
I tell her that I appreciate the offer but that I am fine for the moment. She looks rather solemn as she lies there, by herself, amidst hundreds of other airline passengers who are wandering in and trying to find beds. She is lying on her back and staring up at the ceiling. I comment that it must have been a long day for her.
She is from New York and had been visiting England. She was on a British Airways plane that was rerouted to Halifax in the wake of the terrible events taking place in New York. She begins to tell me about her husband and two daughters who live in New York, and how she would imagine that one of her daughters and her fiance must be terribly busy as they are both doctors.
Then I ask her the inevitable question, "Have you been in touch with your family?"
Her eyes move from looking at me, to looking at the ground. She says that she hasn't been able to get in touch yet, but that she is confident they're okay, and that they know she's okay. As she talks, I can hear the hesitation and worry on her voice.
I quietly sit next to her and tell her that I work for the local cell-phone company, and offer her my phone to call her husband. A smile spreads across her face as I ask her for the number. It takes us four tries to get through, but finally, I hear ringing on the other end of the phone. I hand her the phone, she takes it, and I don't think I'll ever forget the quivering voice that I heard next...
"Joseph, I'm safe. I'm in Halifax."
She talks for about five minutes and finds out that her family is fine. As Joseph describes the day's events to her, she listens silently with widened eyes and a hand covering her mouth. She asks him to let her daughters know she's okay and before she hangs up, she says, "The Canadians are wonderful. I am so impressed with Halifax." I smile as she hands me the phone. I squeeze her hand, say good-bye and, as I'm walking away, she says, "Thank you so much. Now I can sleep tonight."
As I gather my pump and head towards my next air mattress, I think about how impressed and proud I am of Halifax, too. I am proud of my mom for helping me to find sleeping mats for people at the Dartmouth Sportsplex; I am proud of my brother who stood in line for more than three hours with eight of his colleagues from Mountain Equipment Co-Op to donate blood; I am proud of my boyfriend who helped prepare Mount Saint Vincent University for stranded passengers; and I am proud of my colleagues at MTT Mobility who scrambled around the office all afternoon gathering cell phones to donate to the cause.
In the wake of tragedy like the world experienced on September 11, everyone feels helpless. My experience at Exhibition Park has reminded me of the truth in the old saying, "Every little thing counts." It could be a two-dollar phone call, a thought, a prayer, a donation or a hug ? no matter what it is, please remember that it does count.
The smallest gestures clumped together and piled on top of each other can make a world of difference.
Reprinted by permission of Deanna Cogdon © 2001 from Chicken Soup for Soul of America by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Matthew E. Adams. All rights reserved.
Prayer Wheel
Let's see the devil stop this one!
Here's what the wheel is all about.
When you receive this, say a prayer for America and the person that sent it to you....That's all you have to do....There is nothing attached....This is so powerful....Just send this to seven people and watch God's answer to prayer work in your life.
Father, I ask you to bless my friends reading this right now. I am asking You to minister to their spirit at this very moment. Where there is pain, give them Your peace and mercy. Where there is self doubting, release a renewed confidence in Your ability to work through them. Where there is tiredness, or exhaustion, I ask You to give them understanding, patience, and strength as they learn submission to your leading. Where there is spiritual stagnation, I ask You to renew them by revealing Your nearness, and by drawing them into greater intimacy with You. Where there is fear, reveal Your love, and release to them Your courage. Where there is a sin blocking them, reveal it, and break its hold over my friend's life. Bless their finances, give them greater vision, and raise up leaders, and friends to support, and encourage them. Give each of them discernment to recognize the evil forces around them, and reveal to them the power they have in You to defeat it. I ask You to do these things for my friends and I ask you to bless and protect America,
in Jesus' name.
In love, Your Friend.
By David Talbot
May 16, 2002
Well, there goes Karl Rove's strategy of using 9/11 to sell the Republicans as the party of national vigilance in the midterm elections.
Just one day after the GOP tried to shake the money tree with a photo of President Bush evincing "gritty determination" as he was shuttled around the country on Air Force One after the terror attacks, the administration was forced to admit that while Bush was relaxing at his Crawford ranch in early August, he was briefed about a potential Osama bin Laden hijacking plot. And yet the Bush team, which believed that President Clinton had fruitlessly overpersonalized the struggle with bin Laden, did not go into high alert.
There are many vexing questions about this stunning news, but one of the biggest is why it took eight months for the White House to admit it had received early warnings about the day of infamy. Immediately after 9/11, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told the press that Bush officials had "no warnings" of the al-Qaida offensive. Now it turns out they were awash in clues, from the CIA briefing given to Bush, to the flare sent up by an FBI agent in Phoenix about the suspicious number of Middle Eastern men in flight training schools, to the silent scream from a Minneapolis FBI agent, who flat-out warned that suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui was the type who "could fly something into the World Trade Center." With Moussaoui now facing trial as the so-called 20th hijacker, it's clear the Minneapolis agent pretty much nailed the plot on the head. And yet no one "connected the dots," in the words of Sen. Bob Graham, the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman.
Graham is not the only one on Capitol Hill today wondering why "lights, firecrackers, rockets" did not "go off in their head that this is something that is really important." The shock and anger over the news that "Bush Knew!" -- in the New York Post's blaring words -- is crossing party lines, as is the demand for aggressive investigations. For months, the Bush administration has resisted calls for a congressional probe of 9/11 security failures. Now we know why.
The Bush administration has been adept at spinning itself out of trouble in the past. Enron? That's not a political scandal, it's a business story -- and in any case, didn't Kenny Boy give some Democrats money too? Those secret meetings with energy moguls -- it's essential that they stay private if the vice president is ever to get "unvarnished" opinions from his corporate friends. California electricity price-gouging -- we knew nothing, nothing. Osama bin Laden -- yes, he got away but he's no longer Fugitive No. 1, our anti-terror war is much broader than any one villain.
Whenever faced with bubbling political problems, the Bush strategy has been to tough and bluff it out -- which has worked well in the face of a supine opposition party, a compliant press and poll numbers borne aloft by patriotic fervor. But that was yesterday. Today talk radio is crackling with the angry voices of 9/11 victims' families. This time, not even blaming it all on Clinton is going to work for them.
It's true that the Bush administration did take some security steps before 9/11. For instance, as CBS News first reported in July, Attorney General John Ashcroft was suddenly advised to fly exclusively on private jets instead of commercial airliners, after receiving a "threat assessment" from his FBI security detail. (Today the attorney general's office, in full spin mode, insisted Ashcroft's FBI warning had nothing to do with the subsequent terror attacks, but those who now view Justice Department pronouncements with sharply raised eyebrows must be forgiven their skepticism.) Unfortunately for the passengers of United Airlines Flights 93 and 175 and American Airlines Flights 11 and 77, they were not given the same option afforded the attorney general before they boarded their planes.
About the writer
David Talbot is Salon's founder and editor in chief.
Copyright 2002 Salon.com
Scare offensive: The White House tries to change the 9/11 subject with a series of chilling, if vague, terror warnings.
By Eric Boehlert
May 22, 2002
Here we go again.
On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney warned that another al-Qaida terrorist strike in America is virtually guaranteed. Not if, but when, according to the V.P. On Monday, FBI director Robert Mueller added to the sense of pending doom by suggesting that Palestinian-style suicide bombings are "inevitable" on American soil and unstoppable. And Tuesday saw Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld testify before Congress about the real and present danger of terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction.
The warnings came against a backdrop in which "intelligence analysts have noted a surge in communications among al-Qaida terrorist operatives regarding an assault," reported the New York Times.
On one level it's impossible to hear these dire assessments and, with charred images of Sept. 11 still fresh in our minds, not recoil. And only a fool would dismiss them out of hand. Still, skeptics must be allowed to ask the obvious out loud: Don't these hair-raising warnings come at a convenient time for the White House, as it tries both to fend off criticism for its mishandling of terrorist intelligence and to squash an expansive inquiry on Capitol Hill?
Supporters argue that the administration is simply being vigilant and answering critics who've suggested the White House isn't sharing enough information. But the mostly useless, vague data Cheney and others cite ("chatter," intelligence officials have dubbed it) makes last summer's ignored FBI terrorist memos look like detailed blueprints.
While the White House clearly hoped that last week's report about Bush's botched pre-9/11 briefing was a nonstarter, with new revelations coming out daily it's obvious the story has developed sturdy, Emmett Smith-type legs. All the more reason for the White House to try to change the topic.
For instance, this week's Newsweek paints a devastating portrait of the Bush administration and its lack of interest in counterterrorism pre-Sept. 11. The magazine reports that incoming Attorney General John Ashcroft, determined to set a new agenda of fighting violent crime and drugs, "didn't want to hear about" the urgency surrounding terrorist threats, and that on Sept. 10 "Ashcroft submitted his budget request, barely mentioning counter-terrorism." Meanwhile, Rumsfeld was so enamored with Star Wars technology that he "vetoed a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counter-terrorism."
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice denies that the barrage of recent administration warnings is an attempt to deflect criticism from the White House's handling of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence. She told reporters that this is "not the first time [White House officials] have talked about vulnerabilities."
She's right. The last time we saw this kind of orchestrated scare campaign was in late January, when normally tight-lipped Bush officials paraded in front of reporters, detailing a slew of grave and startling terrorist scenarios.
FBI director Mueller warned that undetected al-Qaida "sleeper cells" may still be operating on American soil. The FBI also issued an alert to public utilities warning them that Osama bin Laden's operatives were eyeing dams and reservoirs. Rumsfeld advised Americans to prepare for other attacks that "could grow vastly more deadly than those we suffered" Sept. 11. And CIA director George Tenet sent a report to Congress saying agents found crude diagrams of nuclear weapons in a suspected al-Qaida safe house in Afghanistan. (Upon close scrutiny, it was clear that the administration's unnerving scenarios were based on vague and, at times, dubious sources.)
Why the rash of very public warnings from the notoriously secretive administration? They came just as President Bush proposed a $48 billion increase in defense spending, and just when an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that nearly half of Americans felt the nation was back to normal, or nearly normal.
Perhaps most important, they came just in time for Bush's hawkish State of the Union address. Pundits predicted the speech would touch on the war but focus on domestic affairs; the opposite was true as Bush dwelled on the war and introduced the infamous "axis of evil" phrase. He also revealed that U.S. intelligence officers had found in Afghan caves "diagrams of American nuclear power plants and public water facilities, detailed instructions for making chemical weapons, surveillance maps of American cities, and thorough descriptions of landmarks in America."
With its sobering call for an unlimited war on terrorism and its proposal for a massive buildup in the Pentagon budget, the Bush administration knew it needed to rally public support -- and there was no better way to do this than to strike fear into the nation's heart. Its terror revelations dominated the news for a week as reporters dutifully noted each possible doomsday prediction, while Democrats obligingly shrunk from noting "a whiff of politics" in the air.
Now, with its back against the wall, the White House is trying to play the same card.
If officials wanted to frighten the American people, they've succeeded. According to the new Washington Post/ABC News poll, only 46 percent of Americans think the government can stop future terrorist attacks. That's down 20 points from last September. And the actual confidence level may even be lower; the poll was conducted last Saturday and Sunday, just as the White House launched its latest scare offensive.
The real danger, noted a New York Times editorial Tuesday, is that the warnings, "which have already lost much of their power to command public attention, will become meaningless if they are perceived merely to be a way of changing the subject."
Further undermining the administration's credibility was the fact that the increased al-Qaida "chatter" being intercepted by U.S. intelligence actually stretched back "over the last few months," according to the New York Times. So why was the White House trumpeting them now? Tim Russert was too polite to ask Vice President Cheney this on Sunday's "Meet the Press." Nor did Russert dwell on the administration's low level of vigilance before Sept. 11, allowing Cheney to focus instead on the White House's latest fear campaign.
In general, though, the press this time is not simply taking we're-at-war dictation from the White House. There's a new level of skepticism about this latest round of official alarms. As Mark Halperin and Marc Ambinder wrote in their ABC.com column the Note: "Is there a way to read (the recent terrorism) disclosure other than as a ham-handed attempt to (1) change the subject from the pre-9/11 flap; and (2) to fight off an investigation by buttressing the Cheney-Rice argument that an investigation could help the enemy?"
What's so strange about the White House's strategy is that by stressing increased activity by al-Qaida and bracing Americans for suicide bombers at home, the Bush administration is practically advertising its incompetence in the war on terrorism. After spending billions of dollars since Sept. 11 on the war in Afghanistan, why on earth is the government still hearing "the chattering" of al-Qaida terrorist operatives? Shouldn't that band of mountain bandits be rolled up by now?
Apparently the White House is so desperate to change the topic, it's willing to invite fresh scrutiny on that underexamined but politically explosive question: Why haven't we captured Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants?
And here's another question raised by the administration's scare offensive: Is FBI chief Mueller really suggesting that the bureau, which employs 27,000 people and operates on an annual budget of $3 billion, is powerless to stop a small group of foreign radicals from launching attacks on American soil?
Next time White House political operatives try to change the subject of public debate, they ought to make sure they don't raise equally troublesome questions in the process.
About the writer
Eric Boehlert is a senior writer at Salon.
Copyright 2002 Salon.com
Associated Press
May 23, 2002 08:03:00
WASHINGTON - A new e-mail scam from a purported American "Special Forces Commando" in Afghanistan who needs help getting terrorist drug money out of the country is making the rounds on the Internet.
The Secret Service says it is the latest incarnation of a fraud scheme that targets hundreds of people each day.
The e-mail starts simply - a request to respond to the e-mail to get a phone number - but authorities say it is the first step of a long con that takes in victims looking for easy cash. Other versions of the con involve wiring funds overseas or even traveling to an African nation to claim the nonexistent money.
"The one common link remains with all these letters - they are always a fraud attempt to steal your money," Secret Service Special Agent Brian Deck said Wednesday.
The scam is best known as the "Nigerian e-mail scam" or "419 scam," a reference to Nigerian penal code against fraud. Authorities now call it "advance fee fraud."
According to an FBI report, about 2,600 Americans said they were victims of the scams in 2001. Sixteen reported losses totaling $345,000; two individuals lost over $70,000 each.
The original scam takes the form of a plea from a government official or some other person overseas who wants help moving money - anything from an inheritance to overpayment on a government contract. The victim is promised a cut of the total, which is in the millions of dollars.
Soon, the perpetrators claim there are problems that require the victim to pay lawyers' fees, shipping costs, taxes or bribes.
"Then they'll probably tell you to wait for this package, and then it's never going to show," Deck said.
The Afghanistan e-mail, claiming to be from special forces soldier "Bradon Curtis," says he found $36 million in drug money during a patrol. The e-mail asks the recipient for help moving the cash, kept in a suitcase, out of Afghanistan.
"We will thus send you the shipment waybill, so that you can help claim this luggage on behalf of me and my colleagues," the e-mail reads. "Needless to say the trust (placed) in you at this junction is enormous. We are willing to offer you an agreeable percentage of (these) funds."
Deck said the newest e-mail is the first his office has seen that claims to be from a soldier in Afghanistan, but the scam evolves with technology and current events.
"The letters used to be mailed. Then faxing became the choice of the scammers. Now we are increasingly seeing e-mail being used," Deck said.
More recent scam letters refer to deaths from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including unclaimed cash found in the rubble of the World Trade Center or the inheritance of a fallen serviceman at the Pentagon.
The Secret Service gets about 13,000 advance fee scam letters forwarded to its office every month and about a hundred calls from victims or potential victims daily. Authorities estimate that the scammers collect millions of dollars each year.
On the Net:
Secret Service Advance Fee Fraud Warning: http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml