We don’t need another 9/11

August 10, 2007

The Philadelphia Daily News’ Stu Bykofsky, one of the city’s most widely-read columnists, devoted his latest column to a provocative idea: he wants another 9/11-style attack to “help” America. As Bykofsky sees it, “we have forgotten who the enemy is,” and the murder of thousands of Americans would help us get back on track.

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are “safer” now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting “flying imams,” whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze.

America’s fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater. What would sew us back together? Another 9/11 attack.

The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

Yes, Bykofsky actually lists some recommended targets.

I’ve read his piece a few times, trying to keep an open mind, and hoping to see some shred of coherence. It eludes me. Everything about this column is wrong — the diagnosis of what ails America, the description of the symptoms, the proposed cure. Bykofsky couldn’t be more wrong if he tried.

He initially tries to explain why the nation is fractured.

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

Most Americans today believe Iraq was a mistake. Why? Not because Americans are “anti-war.”

Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don’t have the patience for a long slog. We’ve been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century…. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war…. America likes wars shorter than the World Series.

Wrong. Americans disapprove of the war not because it’s been long, but because the war is itself a disastrous idea. The nation was misled, repeatedly, and the result is a conflict that has left us weaker. Impatience has nothing to do with it.

Is there any doubt they are planning to hit us again?

If it is to be, then let it be. It will take another attack on the homeland to quell the chattering of chipmunks and to restore America’s righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.

First, welcoming the slaughter of thousands of innocents is pure insanity. Second, and this is the problem I have with every piece calling for increased unity, what, pray tell, should our “singular purpose” be?

Our political system is premised on the notion that people are going to disagree with one another. To borrow a phrase, “That’s a feature; not a bug.” Americans have substantive policy disagreements about national security and foreign policy. The past several years have, thanks to an intentional White House strategy, driven people apart, which leads us to the contemporary debates Bykofsky seems troubled by.

But he’s missing the point of the national discourse. Bykofsky wants another attack to bring us together, but he lazily skips over the hard part — together around what? He notes that the left and right have different ideas, but he stays on the sidelines, takes a pass on saying which side is right and why, and simply waits for the day when everyone gets along better.

This is indolent, second-rate writing, and more importantly, it’s impossible to take seriously. We should have “righteous rage,” but he doesn’t say how we should channel that anger into something productive. We should “quell the chattering of chipmunks,” because Bykofsky apparently prefers not to listen to political debate.

This is not only a prescription for inviting mass murder, it’s also a call for unity for unity’s sake, which is hollow and meaningless.

I keep wanting to email the paper since I saw this yesterday, and haven’t found a way to phrase things properly.

This man should be fired. He is literally hoping for a slaughter, expressing it openinly, approvingly, and even making suggestions. It’s one of the most vile things I’ve seen.

This needs to be shoved down the media’s throat to draw attention to how INSANE our national dialogue is.

  • Is Fredo listening to this guy’s phone calls and reading his emails? Probably not. But the 9/11 Truth Movement is a bigger threat to national security according to the alternate reality imposed on us by Dear Leader.

    And I’m sure that our friend Bykofsky would want a thorough investigation if there were another frame-up attack.

  • I’m sure the Administration as we speak is trying to figure out a way to put this man in Chertoff’s position. They could go miles with this guy.

    And our ‘shared purpose,’ at least as I see it, and notwithstanding any current national struggle with whomever it happens to be–Al Qaeda, Bush et al.–fighting it smartly and, in so doing, ensuring that our basic principles are upheld (e.g., rule of law, freedom of speech–those pesky principles that stand in the way of totalitarianism).

  • Ten years ago, this article never would have made it into print, and if it did the writer would have been fired that day. But that’s pre-Bush911 thinking on my part, my bad.

  • First, I live in the Philly area and have had the opportunity to interact with Bykofsky a few times over the years. I knew he was sort of a dickhead, but I didn’t realize he was this unhinged. The obvious question is how many of his friends and relatives is Stu willing to sacrifice. None? I see.

    Second, there are any number of great ideas – most would be termed “progressive” and would thus be rejected outright by some people – around which this great nation can and should rally and work very hard toward achieving. None are too likely, and all are good ideas irrespective of whether a bunch more innocent people are murdered.

    Hm, let’s see. Providing all children with decent education that prepares them for a shot at a good career. Check. Creating an economy that is humane enough to allow opportunities for people to succeed at multiple levels. So a person can reasonably expect to work hard and be rewarded, rather than downsized. Healthcare? For everyone? Yes, I think so. Get to the root causes of crime and violence (hopelessness, lack of future opportunities, availability of weapons and drugs, etc.) and focus as much energy as we can on ending these.

    I’m no hippie, but I love Kurt Vonnegut’s two proposed amendments to the Constitution. First, all newborns will be sincerely welcomed and cared for until maturity. Second, every adult who needs it shall be given meaningful work to do, at a living wage. I should have quotes around this.

    What’s wrong with some people that they need a major catastrophe to be shocked into giving a damn?

  • Makes as much as sense as the KGB guy the right was so enamored with a few days ago.

    “See, if we they kill more of us, we will really get serious!”

    Stu Bykofsky is yet another gormless, craven fool who shouldn’t be allowed to address the public in any way, shape or form.

  • I suggest that the writer “take one for the team” and do the dirty job himself. Just think, the ultimate patriot (or is that idiot) who is willing to kill us to save us. What a guy. With any luck, his act will be as ill concieved and implemented as his screed of an article, no damage, no injuries just a nice long jail term for Mr Byfosky.

    Schumck

  • Well sure, if you kill 3000 Americans every few years, the country will pull together to some degree. My question for this dolt, what comes of it? After 9/11, the country pulled together and Bush claimed a license to invade the wrong country. After Katrina, the country pulled together again, and what came of it?

    Even with a blank slate I can’t think of a single thing that I would willingly trade 3000 lives for. Given our recent track record with such tragedy, the idea is beyond cynical, monstrous, or anything approaching sanity.

  • Aside from the total insanity of what this guy is wishing for, I think the American public might take issue that his idea of shared purpose would also be theirs.

    Yes, Americans did come together in the days and weeks after 9/11 – as did a considerable portion of the rest of the world – on our behalf. But I think what we see with the perspective of the passage of time is that this communal and patriotic spirit was turned on its head fairly quickly, great heapings of fear were stirred into the mix, and the whole concoction was used to take us into a war that squandered the collective sympathy and made us less safe in the long run. Along the way, rights and privileges and freedoms that have stood the test of time and been strengthened as a result, have been systematically eroded and encroached upon, and the only thing another attack would do is give those in charge the excuse to further weaken those rights.

    What’s really sad is that we have been so divided as a nation – as a direct result of the policies and tactics and agenda of this administration – that some people can actually look back with fondness and have a strange longing for the spirit of togetherness that had to come as a result of an attack. How sad that this guy can’t think of other ways to bring the nation together – unless he is just longing for some way to rev up the war machines and get that neocon agenda back on track.

    I would hope that enough Americans are over being used this way, but nothing would surprise me.

  • For one thing something on the scale of 9/11 will not happen again. That strike had way too many elements of luck in it for the perpetrators. (Although my naivete has taken quite a few hits during the Bush era, I can’t quite wrap my mind around the conspiracy theory that it was an inside job.)

    CB is right. There is no “chattering of chipmunks”, the issues being discussed and battled over are substantial and important.

  • I thought the country was pretty much unified? Isn’t an overwhelming majority of us ready for this war to end?

  • Like DragonScholar @1 I tried writing the paper last evening and gave up. This Bykofsky Bozo thinks America needs to be taught a lesson — disciplined if you will — in order to behave as good children and do whatever daddy says and never question why. His prescription for America is more irrational action based on more fear.

    Can’t anyone in his family get this guy a good shrink?

  • … the left and right have different ideas ….

    I believe that a major problem we have in America stems from our wrong-headed belief that there really is a viable left-right division in this country. There is not a Left. Nothing even resembling a Left.

    There is a definite, conscious-of-itself Right. On the surface, the Right is Christian and “patriotic” and paternalistic/authoritarian. The Right regards everything in black-and-white terms (i.e., it’s puritanical). The Right is evangelical: every thing which falls outside its purview and control is evil incarnate. Thought is anathema to the Right. So is humor and criticism.

    Virtually everyone else simply “goes along”, not wanting to raise the hackles of the Right. In this “silence gives consent” atmosphere, those few who express really Liberal/Left thought, or who propose Liberal/Left policies are marginalized as kooks, laughable circus sideshow figures, the talk-show mocking of whom provides a further means of solidifying the Right.

    The final day in which there could be said to be a Liberal/Left in America was the 12th of April, 1945. It should be declared an annual, national day of mourning.

  • If anyone is looking for an idea to “sew us back together”, it should be respecting and adhering to the U.S. Constitution. If those people then look at who has divided us from that purpose, they can look to the Bush/Cheney White House and their systematic lies and shredding of our constitution.

  • Does this jerk really think we need another attack to agree that we need to rid the world of terrorism?

    Would another attack really unify the country behind a nuclear attack on Iran/Pakistan/Iraq/whereever? I don’t think so.

    And who would be faulted if a terrorist attack occured in the USA? Some would blame bushco or Congress Rs or Dems, the righties would blame the “libruls”, others would blame the media, or a combination thereof.

    As someone said above, if we can’t unite after 9/11 and Katrina, I doubt anything would. Heck, the MN bridge collapse hasn’t convinced everyone that we need more tax dollars for infrastructure in this country. GW says no, for starters.

  • “Americans have turned their backs because the war has dragged on too long and we don’t have the patience for a long slog. We’ve been in Iraq for four years, but to some it seems like a century…. Americans are impatient. We like fast food and fast war…. America likes wars shorter than the World Series.”

    Bullshit. Americans will support a war that shows progress.
    Imagine if the Union Army hadn’t advanced past Maryland by the fall of 1864, or if by 1945 the farthest the Allies had made in WWII was Sicily and Tarawa.
    I’m sure public support would for those wars would miiro what it is for this war.

    It was the Bush administration and their supporters who said this would be a cakewalk, that US troops would be greeted as liberators, that the occupation would be short, and that the oil revenue would pay for most of the reconstruction.
    To turn around and say that Americans need to have more intestinal fortitude is both insulting and patronizing.

    In conclusion, Mr. Bykofsky, on behalf of the American people, I would like to say:

    Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

  • What is sad is that most people, even here at TCR, do not perceive the true purpose of this mouth-foamers “opinion” –a psychological attack and a veiled threat, all in the name of the No Peace, More War Movement sponsored by Corporate Military Industrial Imperialists.

    9/11 was as much a psychological attack upon the Good People of America as it was a physical attack. It is unconscionable that members of the media, such as this piece of work, as well as many elected representatives of the Federal Government and those campaigning for office, practice the art of manipulating and exploiting the fear, hatred, and lust for vengeance brought about by 9/11. These attacks only serve to prolong the psychological trauma of 9/11 upon the American Psyche.

    Case in point, the institutionalized “Global War On Terror” or “Global War On Terrorism” –as if there were a tangible mission that could be accomplished waging “war” against a psychological state (terror) or a nefarious tactic (terrorism). Unless of course, that mission were to provoke fear –because in that sense, Mission Accomplished.

    However, fear does not serve the interests of national security. Leadership that preserves, protects, and defends The American Way of Life –the universal commonalities, regardless of political stripe, of the freedoms and rights guaranteed by the Constitution– does.

    Pardon me, Mr. Bykofsky, but to save America, we need to prevent another 9/11, not invite it.

  • Lots of good comments above, but something Ed Stephan wrote particularly struck me:

    On the surface, the Right is Christian and “patriotic” and paternalistic/authoritarian. The Right regards everything in black-and-white terms (i.e., it’s puritanical). The Right is evangelical: every thing which falls outside its purview and control is evil incarnate. Thought is anathema to the Right. So is humor and criticism.

    Now, there’s a lot going on in that statement, but it leads me to a critical flaw in liberal thinking that just happens to be it’s greatest strength — the more nuanced, more tolerant and self-critical inclinations of the left keep it from engaging the right effectively. They can pop off with anything and it’s immediately understandable. Our positions take longer to formulate and are more difficult to grasp. We are indeed left studying what they do as they continue to play the role of history’s actors, creating their new “realities” based upon what best will serve their ends.

    Collectively, CB and us readers have spent more time thinking about what this idiot Bykofsky wrote than he spent writing it — and in the meantime, he’s on to his next outrageous act.

    Playing catch-up as we are is a losing strategy.

  • Dale @11, I respectfully disagree with you that something on the scale of 9/11 can’t happen again. Railroad cars filled with chemicals such as chlorine go through major cities every day and the 109th CongrAss refused to do anything. There are enough rail lines in the US that this could be prevented but the lobbyists for the chemical industries had their way and nothing was done to reroute them. Additionally, I have a relative that works at a site where spent nuclear fuel is stored and after 9/11, heightened security amounted to a state trooper sitting in his car in the parking lot. Money to lobbyists influencing Congress always wins out over innocent blood spilled until the bodycount rises to over a 1000.
    I sincerely hope that we never ever have anything like 9/11 again but if we experience something on the scale of Bhopal, India, I hope it’s origin is across the street from Bykofsky or his ilk. If another nut like McVeigh is incited to act because of the rantings of Bykofsky, Bykofsky should be charged as an accomplice. I’m reminded of the very old case in the UK when a hoodlum shot and killed a policeman after an accomplice yelled “shoot him”. The hoodlum that fired the shot was found mentally unfit to stand trial but the accomplice was tried, convicted and executed. I see no difference.

  • We are experiencing slo-mo 9/11 daily. Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost 4000 have died. For their families, the towers have fallen, the Pentagon is aflame, and an isolated field is now a mass grave. And this _______ (insert perjorative du jour) thinks we need more?

  • Idiots like this think of everything in terms of black and white and the mushy feeling they got after 9/11 when everybody sang the star spangled banner at sporting events and all the atheletes were crying. Feebs like him, for the first time, felt like they belonged to something bigger and felt like their focused outrage made a difference. Somebody needs to let this guy into their pick-up basketball game so he can feel like he is part of something again and so he can stop dreaming about the pick-up war where, for a year or so, everybody around him felt the same way he did.

    I think when he refers to unity, this is all he is considering.

    Maybe he just needs a hug.

  • I can’t believe Stu is serious. It has the feel of “A Modest Proposal.” Having said that, the events of 9/11 were intended to divide us as a nation and ultimately isolate the US from the rest of the world. The perps and Bin Laden knew how a frat-boy government would react. Wildly. Wrecklessly. Stupidly. Well, to borrow a phrase, “Mission Accomplished.”

    The next 9/11 is most likely being planned to further shake people’s faith in the US government and taunt our bully nation into more irrational behavior, fear mongering and the wholesale waste of lives and money. If the terrorists thought for a second that a monumental act of terror would unite the American people, they’d never have considered it in the first place.

  • 21. On August 10th, 2007 at 12:31 pm, tko said:
    Dale @11, I respectfully disagree with you that something on the scale of 9/11 can’t happen again. Railroad cars filled with chemicals such as chlorine go through major cities every day and the 109th CongrAss refused to do anything.

    You’re right. More lives could be taken and more widespread damage could be done. The chemical trains are an excellent example of our unaddressed vulnerabilities. 9/11 was sort of a perfect storm of symbolism, damage and drama that it will be hard to surpass in terms of impact.

    22. On August 10th, 2007 at 12:31 pm, GaPeach103 said:
    We are experiencing slo-mo 9/11 daily.

    Excellent point. Chronic or acute makes little difference.

  • When I read that, I checked the dateline. As it didn’t read “April 1” – I felt ill.

    Yep – another September 11 attack is JUST what we need! That will unite us behind the war in Iraq! We will all forget that Iraq wasn’t responsible for the worst terrorist attack in history, and we will all stop letting those pesky facts get in the way, and we’ll all rally ’round the flag and return the Republicans to the prominence and respect they so richly deserve!

    Good Lord, the desperation is thick.

  • How sad for Stu that he is so desperate for another hit (literally) to feed his “righteous rage” and war jones. Is there a detox unit available we could get him to?

    The remarkable thing about the period after 9/11 wasn’t about knowing who our enemy was, it was about knowing who our friends were. The day-to-day political tensions between nations were set aside by shared worldwide shock and horror at the murder of innocents, the destruction of a symbolic landmark, and the conversion of a symbol of modernism and global communication into a brutal weapon. Across the globe, people faced a choice between siding with civilization and barbaric extremism.

    The Bush administration turned that moment into even more brutal violence and extremism when it attacked a nation who wasn’t even a threat to us, using lies and deception, and violated the most basic norms of civilization itself.

    The American people, deep down, still believe in truth, generosity, human decency and peace, not lies, greed, dehumanizing torture and war.

    What could sew us back together? Reaching for our highest aspirations, not trying to generate more rage and fear.

  • I thought it was pretty clear what he thought America should rally around:

    “…to restore America’s righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail.”

    We are meant to rally around being psychotically angry at Brown People. It always suprises me that the left seems to have problems realizing that people on the right say exactly what they mean. He thinks we are frothy enough. Period. End of Article.

  • Oh come on, people. Can’t you see that he’s engaging in the classic ruse of reverse psychology? He knows how many Muslim terrorist extremists read his column. He’s fully aware that the Philadelphia Daily News is delivered to all the best caves in Pakistan. And he’s using that knowledge to convince the terrorists that if they attack us, it will only make us stronger. He’s not inviting anyone to attack us. He’s out-psyching our enemies. Can’t you see that? By asking for another attack, he’s ensuring that one never happens.

    So we should be here to praise Stu, not to bury him. After all, he just saved Mount Rushmore. Perhaps some day we’ll be adding his face to it. It’s the least we could do.

  • Dear Stu,

    Let me suggest that perhaps is isn’t “the country” that has forgotten the lessons of 9/11; could it be that using the attacks on the WTC to force a war in Iraq was the madness of Neo-Conservative Ideology.

    Let me also posit that ,many of us realized in that moment that sometimes the Costs of Freedom are extremely high and that those of us who are are unhappy nowwith the leadership vacuum understand that the GOP and not a few Democrats are not willing to do the hard work to protect our Liberty – that some saw 9/11 as THE opportune moment to sieze power unconstitutionally.

    We don’t need another 9/11, we need sanity and a willingness to do what’s right even if it’s difficult.

  • 32. On August 10th, 2007 at 1:33 pm, Lame Man said:
    Is there a Mount Assmore? We could put his keister up on that.

    LOL. Butt we could still put his face up there.

  • My god, how do you come across such deluded pieces of journalistic crap. America is not divided on anything except the presidents abuses of power and infringing on our personal freedoms. The majority of Americans want out of Iraq because they consider it wrong to be there or to have gone there in the first place. The only thing that divided is his perceptions. America knows who the enemy is and we are watchful in every way we can be. What Bykofsky wants is some united military front to kill all people from the Middle East and parades in the streets afterwards behind one King.

    What a fruitcake. Really, do you have some “stupid and pointless” radar helmet that beams in on such ridiculous articles. There’s hardly a sentence in that piece that isn’t easily refuted or stands up to reason. Shame on those who allow such garbage to be printed. BYKOFSKY…THE VOICE OF GOOBERISM.

  • “It will take another attack to quell the chattering of the chipmunks……”

    Hey, I like chipmunks!

    Great comments y’all:-)

  • In Polish, “Byk” means “bull” (“-ofsky” means “from” or “of”). In jargon, it also means “major mistake”. I know that ad hominem attacks based on someone’s name are the lowest of low, but, not in a long time had there been a better match between a man and his name…

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