[Nettime-bold] It was supposed to be such a beautiful day

["Ivo Skoric" <ivo@reporters.net>]

Yesterday, it was such a beautiful sunny September day in New 
York city that the only cloud in the sky was the one raising from 
the rubble of the World Trade Center. 

I don't think we can be sure as of yet who did it. Osama bin Laden 
and his group are obvious suspects - because they already 
attacked WTC, and maybe they just came back to finish the job. 
Hezbollah on the other hand has the history of trying to crash a 
hijacked passenger plane in a building. And nobody even mentions 
the non-Arab, non-Palestine related options, because they are 
simply to scary to contemplate: like what if this is 'domestic' 
terrorism?

Regardless, of who did it, however, this was an act of war. This 
was the single largest atrocity committed against the U.S. on its 
soil since the Declaration of Independence. It is also important to 
note that the DoD's beloved Space Shield would do absolutely 
nothing to protect the U.S. from such an attack that came from 
inside and was executed by the tools of American corporate 
business (2 passenger jets owned by the American Airlines and 2 
passenger jets owned by the United Airlines), used against the 
symbols of American economic and military might. Doesn't it look 
improbable that Pentagon got a direct hit? That was sure enough to 
humble American arrogance. Yet, that was not enough for the 
terrorists.

That's why I agree with Ruth Wedgwood, a Yale University law 
professor and terrorism expert, that this is not only an act of war, 
but also a war crime. Crashing a plane full of passengers in a busy 
city district at the beginning of a workday should classify clearly as 
a war crime, on pair with what people in former Yugoslavia or 
Rwanda did to each other. New York yesterday and today feels like 
Sarajevo felt after shelling the markeplace. Public transportation did 
not run, exits from the city were closed down, schools are closed, 
markets are closed, all airports around the country are shut down, 
4000 daily flights are grounded, hospitals in the city are 
overwhelmed with hundreds, thousands of injured, and we don't 
even know yet the number of victims. People are eerily calm. Black 
teenagers here on my corner are unusually quiet and still. It seems 
that all passengers in subways got a few more wrinkles on their 
faces than they had yesterday, and everybody is paying the fare, 
regardless of the service doors being left wide open. The 'hyper-
power' is on its knees. UN, World Bank, Capitol, White House, 
Treasury, State Department and Pentagon are evacuated. And New 
York will probably never be the same again. I feel the same 
emptiness as I felt when Mostar lost the Old Bridge. Holy shit - 
UPS just this moment delivered a package to me - functioning 
parcel service suggests return to 'normalcy', that's encouraging.

About the perpetrators, there are several technical things that are 
kind of clear: some of them had to be trained pilots capable of 
driving most modern US passenger jets precisely (Iraqis?). The 
research of the US flight schedules was done meticulously, as to 
get a couple of wide fuselage planes, well filled with fuel (intended 
to fly accross the continent), hitting the twin towers from various 
points of origins within half an hour. Everything points to terrorists 
being well rehearsed and well informed. 

I don't see any other way but to have perpetrators and their 
supporters brought to justice. Nobody quite expected such a 
massive, well co-ordinated (4 airliners hijacked simultaneously at 4 
different airports) and, unfortunately, highly succesfull attack on the 
land of the law, such as happened yesterday morning. September 
11th will perhaps be remembered in the world's history, because I 
can't imagine world ever be the same after today in regards to 
fighting terrorism. I am obviously afraid that citizens will have to put 
up with even more curtailing of their freedoms to assure their 
safety. I am just thinking of what nightmare it is going to be to fly 
inside the US now, with all the increased security that would be put 
in place to prevent of this happening again - that's why, obviously, I 
would prefer that the perpetrators are caught sonner than later.

As for the reasons - for quite a while we were all aware of how the 
rule of American law may convey injustice to some people. It is 
this feeling of injustice and the feeling of helplessness to prevent 
that injustice, that breeds anger, rage and hate, and ultimately it 
breaks out in irreversible acts of horrific terrorism. It is true that 
Palestinians were and still are victims at the hands of the world. 
And the routes for them to obtain redress are clogged on purpose 
for a long time. So, for a quite a while they resort to terrorism, 
including suicidal terrorism. It is true that during NATO's bombing 
campaign over Yugoslavia, many innocent Yugoslav citizens died. 
And it is also true that during the Gulf War a much larger number of 
innocent Iraqis died. Judging by the celebratory mood on streets of 
Gaza (and even some e-mail messages that came from Belgrade), 
there are people who do feel a sense of poetic justice in using 
American passenger planes as cruise missiles to 'punish' the 
cruise missiles makers. There is no doubt that in some people's 
minds the U.S. 'deserved' such a reckoning. I hope the U.S. would 
take this into consideration in its search for the perpetrators and in 
whatever action it choses to take against them.

>From Manhattan:
ivo skoric



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