the morning after (empire state building web cam, 7am local time).
paul auster: "wir alle wussten, dass dies geschehen könnte. nun ist es viel schlimmer".
a simple slogan that depicts the direction i would like to see the world heading now: fighting terrorism means fighting poverty.
yesterday's ongoings probably have nothing to do with terrorism anymore since the pentagon was a target (i am curious about the opinions of people with expertise in terrorism research). it definitely has nothing to do with the burning of the reichstag in 1933. come on!
it's still not clear how many people lost their lives in this slaughter. i heard about two other buildings of the world trade center complex being collapsed in the meantime.
currently i am reading too many words about that the world is awaiting a war, about lost dreams, high stakes and whatever. words filled with too much pathos. i think many writers would like to commit a symbolic act themselves. but just like a head- and reckless strike-back of vengeance this leads to nowhere at this point. however, writing down all those news yesterday helped me a lot to cope with them myself. at least a little something i could do at that moment.
press reviews from throughout the world. listening and watching carefully.
something's happening in kabul, the capitol of afghanistan, but apparently it is not related to the terror attacks in the states.
this might be hard to swallow, but those who planned and executed the attacks were insanely clever and frightingly successful. america experiences another trauma, probably bigger than vietnam (which was the most recent one as far as i know). don't mention the wtc...
but this is not intended to be mischievous. it just sketches the estimated extent of an insomuch enacted nation's possible reactions. this tuesday has hit a hypersensitive nerve of "god's own country" and the damage will remain.
although i definitely won't accept terror as a measure of political action, there are certainly parallels between a non-declared war of nato invading kosovo and the surprising "alien" attack of the u.s.a. both parties believe they have the right to take these steps, both believe they are right and justified.
actually, i do not expect the worst (ie. an increasing battlefield), but a heavy renaissance of conservative security trends in the way that throughout western countries exorbitant steps will be taken to monitor and control the people at the expense of their privacy.
anti-defamation league: terrorism.
kai hirschmann: "veränderung des weltweiten terrorismus".
issue 1/2001 of "die friedenswarte", the "journal of international peace and organization", has some articles about terrorism (unfortunately, there are just some abstracts online).
recommended readings are the publications by walter laqueur, his books and articles on terrorism, postmodern terrorism and "the new terrorism".
dudley knox library: terrorist group profiles.
the new east-west conflict: east coast – west bank.
viva and mtv (europe) interrupted their show programs due to the incidents in the u.s.
horrifying pictures at sueddeutsche.de.
grant barrett: "my story is not one of death and drama, not yet".
the register: "u.s. terrorist attacks knock news sites off internet". or let them look like in 1996.
screenshots of news sites on 11 september 2001, 17:33 cest.
btw. this september is the 23rd anniversary of the camp david accords.
cnn: "terror attacks hit u.s." – and probably the whole world... i think i'll take a walk.
the guardian: "chronology of terror" and "bush weighs off his options".
will the u.s. ever again train another ethnic or political group to get support for their fight against america's most wanted? reminder: bin laden and his fellows were trained by the u.s. in the eighties just to fulfill the same duty...
planes crashing into world trade center towers: the roof is on fire, the news sites are jammed...
it is currently reported that also the pentagon is burning... bill seitz has more information.
the guardian server is responding quite reliably (at least from vienna), so is the one of skynews.
one of the wtc towers has collapsed. the server of der standard couldn't handle the load and collapsed, too.
the second tower is told to be collapsed.
mike donellan: "the shit has hit the fan".
screenshot of the new york times home page, 7am pacific time.
john robb: "the teams i used to work with in special ops are going to be very busy. there will be a very high body count on the other side. we are going to look a lot like israel after this gets through". sigh.
the ministry of foreign affairs in washington is burning, another plane is reported to be crashed in pennsylvania, the pentagon was wrecked by a second blast.