DEATH IS EASY by Russell Madden

FREEDOM,  As If It Mattered by Russell Madden

The Guardian Project by Russell Madden

RaNdoM by Russell Madden

 

Today, the United States may have entered the future of a true police state.

Just a couple of hours ago, I watched a live feed of a jet plane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City. Less than half an hour before that tragedy, another plane had slammed into the twin of that tower. No one knew at first whether the initial collision had been some weird accident or a deliberate terrorist assault. Rumors flew of a bomb or a missile being possible explanations for what happened.

That uncertainty vanished a short while later in the white heat of the fireball that blossomed like some obscene rose from the sides of the second tower. A large jet -- possibly an Airbus, a suspected hijacked plane -- flew along the Hudson River. According to one eyewitness, the jet veered sharply to the left and slammed into the premiere symbol of capitalism in our country.

Along with millions of other Americans, I watched in horror as tongues of orange flame and billowing clouds of gray and black smoke shrouded the tops of the twin towers like ominous omens of a dark future that will soon engulf us. Images of the bombing in the basement of the World Trade Center in 1993 flitted through my mind. I empathized with the horror of those dead and dying; the workers in the building scrambling to escape down long stairways; the dazed visages of bystanders and rescue workers. People literally leaped from the first burning tower, screaming, to a certain but quicker death. Better that end, perhaps, than facing the hellfire that had trapped them into an even more gruesome demise.

Just when we thought that the catastrophe had reached its appalling climax, the second tower that had been attacked collapsed before our eyes, a bizarre, real-life, twisted mirror of countless Hollywood films that had depicted similar, though far smaller-scale calamities. The "Towering Inferno" brought to grisly, stark fact.

Numbly, I shied from the concrete consequences of the thousands of people who had been crushed and burned and destroyed by the massive weight of the crumbling structure. Who knew how many rescuers -- fire fighters and ambulance workers -- had been caught in the tumbling shower of concrete and steel?

Then, piling the hideous upon the grotesque, the second tower -- the first one struck -- accordianed upon itself, a groaning behemoth, the tall pinnacle of the TV tower topping the building plunging into the obscuring dust and smoke like the mast of a ship sinking valiantly yet forlornly beneath the stormy waves of a concrete ocean.

Reports circulate that secondary explosives were on the second plane or perhaps planted in the building or buildings themselves that completed the job of killing the weakened and crippled structures. Thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- of innocent people are dead or injured. The businesses housed in the Twin Towers employed close to 50,000 individuals.

The attack on the Pentagon -- again, reportedly by a plane targeting the five-sided building -- and the subsequent explosion and fires there came almost as a perigee of disaster given what we had already endured. Unconfirmed reports of a car bomb near the State Department, of bombs secreted in other Manhattan buildings, failed to elicit any sense of heightened outrage. After a certain point, emotional overload shuts down our ability to comprehend or feel any more.

Multiple hijacked planes -- at least four, maybe five -- simultaneously seized. A jet crashed near Pittsburgh, its intended target unknown, perhaps the Sears Tower in Chicago.

For the first time in aviation history, the entire United States airline system has been shut down. Buildings and businesses all over the country are closing for the day and the people there evacuated. The country is slowly but inexorably grinding to a stunned halt. Other nations are reacting to this attack, curtailing their own flights and activities, hardening their security, going on maximum alert.

These disheartening events echo eerily with the details of a novel I am reading. In Transfer of Power by Vince Flynn, terrorists attack the White House. Penetrating Secret Service security, terrorists capture the White House while the president is trapped in a bunker below. There are also unfortunate similarities here to Tom Clancy's book, Debt of Honor, in which a jet crashes into the U.S. Capitol as an act of revenge against America and essentially wipes out the United States government.

I sit here and marvel in macabre wonder at the surreal scene playing endlessly on the screen before me. I find it incredible to realize that my wife and I stood and walked and ate in those very buildings barely three months ago. My first trip to New York City. My first vision of a monument to human ingenuity and achievement. My first exposure to a symbol of the best in America.

That symbolism, of course, is precisely why the terrorists chose these particular targets. These were not attacks per se on the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. The real objectives for these coordinated offensives are capitalism and the American culture and the freedom that forms the foundation for both.

I fear these terrorists -- rumored to be directed by Usama Bin Laden (the spelling of his first name varies according to different sources) -- may succeed beyond their wildest dreams.

Already, I have seen video footage of Palestinians grinning and cheering at what has been done to the Great Devil, the United States of America.

Whoever is responsible for what has happened today, September 11, 2001, should be hunted down and destroyed. Whether individuals or groups or governments are to blame, such blatant transgressions of justice -- killing not soldiers but instead murdering thousands of innocents -- must be met with force. You do not negotiate with animals.

And yet...

As tragic and sickening as the loss of life is and will be resulting from today's events, what I truly fear is the potential response our government will make to these cowardly depredations. Past history leads me to feel uneasy. In every crisis that has confronted our country, the statists and the collectivists have snatched eagerly at the opportunities for mischief. A paralyzed nation is ripe for demagoguery and emotional responses during a period when the utmost objectivity is required. The true welfare of the citizens of the United States is merely a pretext to shield the power-grab of unscrupulous politicians. Even well-meaning authorities will play into the hands of those who have designs on our liberty.

Given the excessive limitations on our freedom imposed by the Feds after merely suspected terrorist attacks on passenger jets and after the Oklahoma City bombing, today's onslaughts may lead to further clamping down on the citizens of this country. How those restrictions will be imposed, I cannot say. Explicit internal ID cards. More citizen tracking via cameras and phone monitoring. Travel restrictions. Who knows? In any event, past history strongly suggests that we will not come out of this nightmare with more freedom than we had going into it.

Already I hear the talking heads speaking glibly of "profound changes" in our lifestyles and the need for "increased security." I shudder at the subtle implications of such casual statements.

We have witnessed today the bleak evidence of failure on the parts of our leaders. All the airline baggage checks, all the metal detectors, all the infringements on our freedom accomplished exactly zero. How could not one of these hijackings be prevented? Did these terrorists kill or incapacitate the crews? How could they take over all those planes? Did they fly the planes themselves into their targets? Perhaps the black boxes from the airplanes can be recovered and offer us some clues. We may, however, never know...or be told the truth.

The massive national and worldwide military mobilization bordering on a war footing (and never forget that "war is the health of the State"); the potential passage of stifling new legislation; the widespread fear and increased susceptibility of the populace; the destruction of our sense of security and the openness that is a hallmark of a free society; these results, no doubt, are integral parts of what the terrorists are seeking to accomplish. They want revenge against what they see as the unjust actions of U.S. foreign policy.

Sadly -- without excusing in the least the evil done today -- the United States government has, indeed, increased the likelihood of just such attacks as occurred in New York City and Washington, D.C. By meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and imposing our will on resistant countries and peoples, we have cultivated the seeds of this destruction we reaped today. Unjustly or not, these small groups of individuals and the rogue nations supporting them take the real and imagined slights committed against their interests by our government and use them as excuses for pouncing upon their unsuspecting civilian victims.

If and when our country retreats closer and closer into the iron grip of a burgeoning police state, the terrorists will truly have won.

I weep for our future.