|
In chalk on the sidewalk of New York
Out of the experience of
An extraordinary human disaster
That lasted too long
Must be born a society
Of which all humanity
Will be proud
Nelson Mandela 1994
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Thomas Merton
> ----- Original Message -----
> Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 2:37 PM
> Subject: No Subject
> > Dear All:
> >
> > What have we wrought........? Like it or not, we are all part of a global
> > system that led to what happened yesterday. As the Dalai Lama says, there
> > can be no outer peace, until there is inner peace. As long as we,
> personally
> > and collectively continue to polarize and project out blame and not claim
> the part of ourselves that has the need for revenge, nightmare days like
> > yesterday remain a possibility. When I get this righteous, I'm glad to be
> > reminded as I was by a friend lately of this quote from Merton which nails
> me completely!
> >
> > "There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the
> > idealist.......most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and
> > pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its
> > innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by the multitude of
> > conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself
> to too many project, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to
> > violence.........It destroys the fruitfulness of one's own work, because
> it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful."
> > ................Thomas Merton
> >
> >
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> > YESTERDAY....
> >
> > Post the Resurgence (www.resurgence.com) conference last weekend at Omega
> > which was wonderfully successful, I was driving to NYC to meet with Satish
> > Kumar. As you may know, he is the man who walked from Ghandi's grave to
> > JFK's grave with no money in his pocket for world peace. An eight and a
> half thousand mile journey.
> >
> > While I was driving across the Tappanzee Bridge y'day en route for
> Manhattan
> > at about 9.45 am I got a call from a friend who told me what had happened.
> I didn't believe him til I looked down the river to the Manhattan skyline
> and there was the WTC smothered in smoke. The towers had not yet fallen. I
> turned back before the police stopped all traffic into the city. All phone lines
> > were jammed, I couldn't get through to Satish until he called me early
> this morning.
> >
> > Satish was staying in the Village with a friend (he is scheduled to go
> back to England tomorrow). They had gone out onto Bleecker Street and Seventh
> > Avenue after the first hit, and were direct witness to the second one, the
> > plane hitting WTC 2, the fire bomb, the smoke, the devastation. As Satish
> > said, this morning it is like a nuclear winter down there.
> >
> > Last night instead of his scheduled talk at the Open Center, Satish led a
> > prayer vigil. When I talked to him this morning, like all of us, he was
> > shattered, had barely slept but he said that more than ever now he wants
> to get the message out for a nonviolent response to yesterday. He talked of
> it being "time for profound change, and in spite of the horror and heartbreak
> to acknowledge the need for a new culture of nonviolence, a new awareness, a
> new ability to respond with compassion and grace so that the world can move
> > forward in a new way"
> >
> > Jane Goodall is also in NYC after the Resurgence conference and the
> signing
> > of the Earth Charter with Satish. I talked to her assistant this morning,
> as they were scheduled for interviews planned with the major networks for her
> > new children's book. Jane echoes Satish's position, they are both
> consistent with their plea for nonviolence, whether it be to animals, to the planet,
> to others, or to ourselves. I also spoke to Peter Matthiessen who is stranded
> in Traverse City, Michigan and he too wants to add his voice to this.
> >
> > So on behalf of all of Jane and Satish and Peter I've been hard at it this
> > morning to try to get some media coverage for this plea for peace. There's
> > been a nibble fromNPR news, and I am ever hopeful that Charlie Rose might
> > pick up on it. University of Oklahoma news will get it out on the
> university
> > newswires, so that's something. Long shot tho' it might be, I have
> contacted Peter Jennings, CNN, GMA, 20/20, and Moyers.....
> >
> > Please keep your fingers crossed, if anyone can do any magic, for of
> course none of your are muggles, please do.
> >
> > If ever there was a need for
> > Peace
> > and love
> > and compassion
> > and grace
> > and forgiveness
> > it is now
> >
> > Jude
> > for Resurgence
> > 845 679 0830
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Nuclear Medicine
By Jodi Sherman, MSIV
Nuclear Medicine, the department in Kings County
Hospital where I was when I heard the news just a few
minutes after 9:00 AM on September 11th. Along with
my fellow radiology students, I rushed to the TV in
the patient waiting area to watch the attack on the
World Trade Center that had just transpired. I told
my preceptor I couldn't stay, and rushed to the O.R.
to get paper scrubs since I wasn't prepared for
clinical work that day. Fortunately, I had decided to
wear my surgical clogs that morning. Next I ran to
the Emergency Department. The first person I saw was
my attending from the rotation I just finished, Trauma
Surgery. I told him I was back.
Approximately one and a half miles south east of the
World Trade Center, Kings County Hospital resides in
the center of the borough of Brooklyn, one of the five
boroughs that comprise the City of New York. Kings
County is one of the nation's busiest Level 1 Trauma
Centers. US military personnel train in our Emergency
Department . Not that anyone could ever be fully
prepared for a disaster like this, we were one of the
best equipped hospitals in the City.
By 9:30 AM, every surgical and emergency resident and
attending on site made their way to the Emergency
Department. With a clear view of the Manhattan
Skyline, some of the residents reported they'd just
watched from the hospital rooftop as one of the Towers
collapsed. Having undergone disaster training,
department heads swiftly and admirably organized the
entire hospital. All elective surgeries were
cancelled and clinics were closed. All non-critical
patients who could walk and had a home to go to were
discharged to free up beds and staff. The hospital
was to prepare as many critical care beds as we had
the equipment and staff for. IV bags, test tubes,
central line kits, foleys, thoracotomy trays were by
each gurney in the E.D. Extra respirators were
prepared. The emergency and surgery services
organized into teams of five. The ambulance bay was
transformed into a massive triage area. Kings County
received word by radio that 200 patients were already
on their way to us by ferry since the bridges and
tunnel were closed. It was 10:00 AM. We were ready.
With news that both Towers had collapsed, we were
realizing the extent of the destruction. Although we
are about equidistant to the crash site as Bellevue
Hospital, we knew there'd be no easy way for the major
criticals to make it to Brooklyn. We expected mostly
smoke inhalation and minor trauma. Our trauma
surgeons desparately wanted to go to Manhattan where
they'd be the most useful. The Trauma Department Chair
reported that Manhattan radioed for us to stay put.
We had no idea how many victims we'd get, and stable
patients can quickly decompensate. We were needed at
the County.
So we waited. And waited. And waited. Where were
the 200 patients we expected? Even worse, where were
the 10,000 victims the news reports estimated? Our
worst fears were coming true--that there were no
survivors.
Our entire hospital was mobilized, but there was
nobody to help. It seemed like such a waste of
resources. So many trained professionals, prepared to
help. We desparately wanted to help. Our city, our
home, our neighbors, our family--on some deep level we
lived for a moment like this, to help. If ever I
questioned why I chose to become a medical doctor
rather than an acupuncturist or a naturopath, it was
clear to me now because I wanted critical care skills.
I was aching to do something useful.
By 4:00 PM the official word came for our hospital to
stand down. With the exception of a few stragglers,
we weren't going to be seeing any WTC victims.
Exhausted from the events of the day, I slept on a
gurney in the Emergency Department for two hours,
still hoping to help a victim. The Trauma attending
told me to go home, there was nothing for me to do.
I left the building to discover an eerie silence. The
streets were empty. The air was filled with smoke
that reaked of burning rubber. I walked to the
subway. The 2 train was shuttling up and down
Brooklyn only, and I made it home to Park Slope in 20
minutes. I exited the underground at Grand Army Plaza
to discover a cloud of smoke obscuring the sunlight,
and bits of charred paper floating in the air. Upon
arriving home to my apartment I immediately shut all
the windows to keep the polluted air out. I hugged my
cat and tried calling all those I could not reach
throughout the day. So far as I knew, no one close to
me was hurt. I turned on channel 2, the only station
my TV could receive, and cried from the images of the
heinous acts of violence committed on my city, to my
neighbors.
As a New York City resident, and as a physician in
training, I've struggled desparately with the desire
to be useful throughout this disaster. Although a
blessing that so many from so far have come to help,
donating their services and goods, I and others are
truly frustrated by the unfulfilled desire to help in
our own city. I could be forceful. I could be
creative. It has taken me days to come to terms with
the fact that, as difficult as it is, the best way for
me and others to help is to stay out of the way. I
have to concentrate on my studies so now.
Today the news reported that Osama Bin Ladin likely
has uranium. This is not the Nuclear Medicine I was
learning about on September 11th.
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Op-ed from Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post
9/14/01
NOTHING HAS REALLY CHANGED AT ALL by Joel Achenbach
Dawn came quietly this morning in the capital. Normally the planes fly through the heart of the region along the Potomac River corridor, taking off and landing at National Airport. It's my own personal alarm clock, an overhead droning that tells me it's about 6:35 or maybe 6:40. This time there was only birdsong. The traffic on the boulevard nearby was so light as to be imperceptible.
It wasn't a pleasant silence.
Many of us probably are thinking the same thing: Did that awful day really happen? Can it be possible that an airliner crashed into the Pentagon and two more leveled the World Trade Center towers and a fourth plunged into western Pennsylvania? That we're in a state of war against an unseen enemy?
It would be easier to grasp if there was a shred of reason behind it ― reason in the sense of logic, rationality, coherence. But this was just about hate. There are people who hate us.
They will always hate us.
If we kill them, more will take their place.
If we arrest their leaders and throw them in jail, new leaders will emerge.
What we have here is an unfortunate fact of our planet: Its dominant species combines extreme cleverness with an unreliable morality and a persistent streak of insanity. Thus it has ever been; thus it shall ever be.
One of the tropes of this tragedy is that "life will never be the same again." But nothing has changed at all. Human nature is immutable. People have been using every bit of their ingenuity to kill one another since the dawn of time.
In this case we have slim information about the attackers, and should be reluctant to jump to conclusions or assign blame to the innocent. Colin Powell this morning rightly pointed out that no one should blame "Islamic fundamentalism," as these acts have nothing to do with any legitimate religious doctrine. These people are just terrorists, plain and simple, and terrorists come in all stripes, as we saw in Oklahoma City. It appears that Tuesday's attack came from people who would like to return the world to the 8th or at most the 9th Century A.D. They have no demands. They ask for no money. It's not at all clear what they would like us to do other than hunt them down and terminate them. There's a saying that you never negotiate with terrorists, but in this case it's hard to imagine even having a brief conversation with them. This is subverbal, subhuman. The terrorists are opposed to all things American, to capitalism, to democracy, to civilization.
The conundrum we find ourselves in is that we do not have a closed, police-state society that roots out ideologues and locks them up. Free speech isn't a minor value. Cultural diversity isn't trivial to us. This is what we believe in. We believe in it as strongly and as fiercely as our enemies believe in their own agenda (whatever it is).
Some superficial things may change after Tuesday's disaster. There will be yet more security restrictions on air travel, more cops checking underneath cars with mirrors, more bomb-sniffing dogs. Maybe we'll have a new sense of vulnerability, particularly here in communities painted with bulls eyes. But human nature didn't change. The human spirit is what it has always been: magnificent but flawed.
It is easy to get discouraged. Let's not. Let us take stock of what is good around us.
On Tuesday morning in New York City, something like 400 firefighters and dozens of police officers raced into burning buildings to save their fellow citizens -- and never made it out. There is a word for such people: Heroes. They are members of a society that the enemies claim is Satanic and corrupt and despicable. We will always cherish them.
Humankind's ascension is due in part to a capacity for altruism. Yes -- lest we not forget -- we are people capable of great acts of love. Altruistic creatures proliferate more than selfish ones. Unfortunately it's not a precise, linear process, and this propensity to help others may not be our most important biological adaption. We also make tools. The tools can be used for good or evil. The simple truth is that the only reason a nuclear bomb didn't detonate yesterday in New York and Washington is that the murderers don't yet have one.
What does change over time is the visual imagery of disaster. We have never before seen anything quite so transfixingly horrifying as what happened in Washington and New York. We'll surely see such events again, so long as we have the technology to build iconic structures and capture their destruction on tape. Fueled by medieval fury, the events of Tuesday were highly modern.
By satellite we saw images of 110-story buildings wasted by fabulous airships. Even the horrible subplots -- passengers using cellphones to call their loved ones just before their deaths -- was testament to the miracle of technology. We are a marvelously talented form of animal, yet strangely unevolved.
It's hard to know what to tell children about the events of the last day or so. We can tell them that there are some bad people out there, and they hate us for complicated reasons, but we will find them, and put them in jail. That's what I've been saying. The harsher truth is one that a young person need not be told. Let them dream of a world that is merely blemished, a fixable place -- perfectable, even. Let that dream live on.
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Awakening to become a greater species
From: Bobbie Sandoz, Hawai’i
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 4:37 PM
> Dear Friends and Colleagues,
>
> My son lost one of his best friends, a beautiful young father and husband, a
> Yale graduate with several degrees and the kind of person anyone would want
> for a son, a husband, a father, or a friend. He was as handsome as they come,
> an accomplished scholar and athlete who sang like an angel and filled my
> condo during his frequent visits with his tall physical presence and large
> loving heart. Along with so many others, we have been weeping inconsolably
> over this gaping loss to our lives.
>
> Yet, none of wants revenge, nor do we want to beat the savage drums of
> retaliation. We do want ALL questions answered in order to determine exactly
> who commited this dark act of violence and to then incarcerate them with life
> sentences so that they are no longer free to hurt any others. But we know
> that their deaths, or the deaths of civilians in the countries where they
> hide, drawn by the swords of vengeance infecting our own hearts is not the
> answer...and in fact is the anti-answer.
>
> If we look at other patterns of revenege and retaliation, we can see that
> they become a looping ping ponging that results in an endless pattern of
> infectious hatred held within the hearts of all the players, and eternally
> drawing the likeness of that energy back to them until the energy can be
> released. This pattern is most visibly played out in our world in Ireland and
> the Middle East. Thus, rather than engage in this futile, ultimately self
> destructive pattern, or draw the rest of the world into it with us, it is my
> hope that America will seek ways to find new more evolved answers.
>
> I further hope that this 9/11 tragedy will serve as a true "911" wake-up call
> to America and the world to now face how much it is in all of our best
> interest to become a greater, more evolved humanity who will respond from a
> higher place within ourselves. And I hope that this painful event will
> inspire us to actively address specifically what steps we must take to become
> that greater species....and to do this as a critical priority, rather than
> passively continue down the road of self-destruction we currently travel.
>
> First steps include a coalescing of our collective desire to do better and go
> higher, to then find each other on the Internet and elsewhere in order to
> bring power and synergy to our urge to call light to our hearts instead of
> vengeance, to pray instead of beat war drums, and to send love into the world
> to fill it with healing, caring, and kindness, rather than the kind of anger
> that will fill it with more darkeness and souless deeds....which will in turn
> find their way back to us in this magnetically driven universe.
>
> Now is the time to also direct our energy toward dreaming together of new
> ways to be in the world. For example, I am developing a conference on "New
> Visons in Education" that I describe on my website which will offer one piece
> of healing to this enormous puzzle. Others can come up with their various
> visions, and together we will create a new picture of the world we truly want
> and to then dream and build that world into existance. If we all focused the
> enormous amount of energy triggered by our shared tragedy on becoming a
> greater species and building a better world, these goals could be realized
> quickly and magically.
>
> To have the power to be all we want to be we can also do something very
> concrete when our stock market reopens. With love in our hearts and holding
> the intention of using our economic and other powers for good, we can buy,
> rather than sell stock. By doing this, we hold onto and can even increase the
> economic power we have enjoyed, while adding to that power the intent to put
> it to even higher use. In this regard, I am including below a copy of
> something I received in my email this morning.
>
> I write this note and have dedicated my remaining years to honor the life of
> of our lost friend Rich Lee. I also send forth my great aloha and love for
> all of the species, including my own...and my deep hope that we will focus
> our desire on becoming our as yet unrealized potential as greater human
> beings and a kinder humanity.....
> Bobbie Sandoz
> www.bobbiesandoz.com
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THE GREAT AMERICAN STOCK REVIVAL
America's blood banks are overflowing with people who want to help America in this time of crisis. So many are volunteering to donate blood that some donors are being turned away. But there is a way that you can make a difference. You can fight terrorism, help America get back on its feet and memorialize those who died: BUY STOCK WHEN THE STOCK MARKET REOPENS AND HOLD IT.
If everyone bought just one hundred shares we could make America's stock market soar. Many of those who died in the World Trade Center made their living financing the American dream. They created and traded stock in American companies. If you buy stock when the markets reopen you will show the terrorists that their attack failed to destroy America, you will help our economy spring back to life, and you will honor the profession of many who died.
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From Joseph Mercola, MD
Optimal Wellness Center
http://www.mercola.com/2001/sep/15/prayers.htm
Prayers & Thoughts About the Tragedy
By A.V. Krebs
EditorPublisher The Agribusiness Examiner
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Yesterday, September 11, 2001, a day that began, where I live, under a bright sunny blue sky, similar to that same one that greeted people arriving for work in New York City and Washington D.C., was going to be the day that I finally after innumerable delays was to be about the business of posting Issue #125 of The Agribusiness Examiner.
But just as I still see in my mind's eye exactly where I was standing and who I was with when on those other days of infamy -- December 7, 1941 and November 22, 1963 -- so to will I remember my disbelief when first I began making my check of the several online major daily newspapers that I puruse each day for relevant news items, and the first paper I examined left me stunned with the news of the unspeakable terror that had been visited upon the Big Apple and our nation's capital.
For the next 36 hours, just as I listened to the radio continuously for 24 hours in those dark days of December, 1941 and those four disbelieving days in November, 1963, I listened and watched the news on TV unfold from lower Manhattan and the Pentagon.
Watching speechless as those twin 110-story monuments to capitalism imploded and became the burial grounds for thousands of innocent men and women, I could not help but think of the time that I worked for the National Sharecroppers Fund, with offices in lower Manhattan and each morning about that same time, commuting from Central New Jersey, I would emerge from the "tubes" below the Trade Center and transfer to the subway line that would take me to my office.
And as I continued watching the news and listening to the commentary in the hours that followed that horrendous event I found myself, maybe even perhaps as an emotional defense mechanism, becoming more and more of the journalist than just an idle television viewer, impatient at times with the incompleteness of the news and the inane comments by many of the nation's so-called experts on international "terrorism" and military affairs.
The most frustrating aspect, however, of the reporting that I was witnessing during that time was due to the fact that I still think of myself as an ol' school journalist -- principally I still believe any good news stories should contain the "5W's and H!!!" -- Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?
Throughout the agonizing hours of the "attack on America" most every story and commentary that I saw fulfilled to varying degrees only four of the five W's... and, of course, by simply viewing the unbelievable pictures and film television provided us throughout the day and night the public -- saw the how?
The fact though that for the most part TV made little effort to answer that all-important fifth W -- why? -- called into serious question in my mind whether we as a nation were actually learning anything from the events of September 11, 2001???
For to truly understand what happened on that day it is essential that we deal with the question -- why? -- why this carnage took place? For we need as a nation, as a self-proclaimed "global power," to ask what have we done to inspire such hatred, .such anger, such contempt, to motivate fellow human beings to be so cold-blooded and unrepentant killers?
Make no mistake about it, the perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon carnage should stand condemned and brought to justice before the world, but at the same time the words of the Washington Post's outstanding sports columnist Thomas Boswell rings true. He writes: "For many Americans, including me, our lives have been conducted in a society where nearly all forces are benign. Our tragedies, of health or accident, are the inescapable sort that no society can prevent. The rest of the world looks at our wealth, our distance from their problems, even our self-absorption, with a wide range of responses. One of those responses is hatred. Hate begets hate. Killing begets killing. And the totality of the accumulated pain makes rationality almost impossible. The agony that Americans feel right now is relatively small compared with the pain and fury for revenge that entire regions of the world drink by the gallon each day like mother's milk."
We decry, just as we did yesterday, when hate takes innocent lives. We voice our collective national puzzlement and condemnation when our fellow human beings in the world community say that to achieve their own narrow self-serving interests that taking the lives of innocent civilians is simply the end justifying the means.
But does by simply waving our K-Mart American flags and lighting candles in the window, as this out take of a May, 1996 interview with former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright , somehow give us the right to consider ourselves the Great Exception in international relations???
Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes: "We have heard that a half million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima and you know, is the price worth it?"
Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it."
Television reporters, political and national defense pundits, and newspaper headline writers have had a field day with the use of the word "terror" and "terrorism" to describe the events of yesterday, but as my respected colleague Sam Smith points out in his Progressive Review Undernews: "The media and politicians call what happened terrorism. This is a propagandistic rather than a descriptive term and replaces the more useful traditional phrases, guerilla action or guerilla warfare. The former places a mythical shroud around the event while the latter depicts its true nature. Guerillas do not play by the rules of state organization or military tactics. "This does not make them cowardly, as some have suggested, but can make them fiendishly clever. The essence of guerilla warfare is to attack at times and places unsuspected and return to places unknown. You can not invade the land of guerillas, you can not bomb them out of existence, you can not overwhelm them with your technological wonders. "This was a lesson we were supposed to have learned in Vietnam but appear to have forgotten... Our war against `terrorism' has been in many ways a domestic version of our Vietnam strategy. We keep making the same mistakes over and over because, until now, we could afford to. One of these has been to define the problem by its manifestations rather than its causes. "This turns a resolvable political problem into a irresolvable technical problem, because while, for example, there are clearly solutions to the Middle East crisis, there are no solutions to the guerilla violence that grows from the failure to end it," Smith continues. "In other words, if you define the problem as `a struggle against `terrorism' you have already admitted defeat because the guerilla will always have the upper hand against a centralized, technology-dependent society such as ours... There is one way to deal with guerilla warfare and that is to resolve the problems that allow it to thrive. "As we have shown in the Middle East, one need not even reach a final solution as long as incremental progress is being made. But once that ceases, as happened in the past year, the case for freelance violence is quickly strengthened and people simply forget that peace is possible."
If we as a justifiable angry nation now allow ourselves to not learn from history, realizing that violence only begets violence, then we are destined to continue to make the same mistakes that leads only to more violence.
The words of novelist Ken Kesey might well provide us with not only thoughtful commentary on what happened on an unforgettable late summer day in New York and Washington, D.C. that has left a whole nation and world in shock, sorrow, and prayer but his words might also give us some context and a sad but true perspective on the events of that tragic day.
"When God wants to really wake up a nation,
He has to use somebody that counts.
When God wants to get your attention,
He always has to use blood."
Agribusiness Examiner September 12, 2001
Dear Friends,
>
> The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an
> Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I
> know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen.
> Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
> -Gary T.
This is from Tamim Ansary, a writer and columnist in San Francisco who is a native of Afghanistan. It's both interesting and chilling....
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps."
It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rat's nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food.
There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers.
If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the West would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
From Joseph Mercola, MD
Optimal Wellness Center
http://www.mercola.com/2001/sep/15/prayers.htm
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: Mary Kathryn Saville
Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 11:39 AM
Subject: ANTI-TERRORISM TACTICS FOR THE ORDINARY AMERICAN
Last evening I attended a two-hour service at the local Muslim church. It was attended by our mayor, one of our Senators and clergy from every religion in our city – plus their wives and children.
We heard from the mouths of Muslim leaders what we already knew in our hearts : the Koran is absolutely against violence. As with all religions, the Muslim faith calls for restraint, discipline, patience and forgiveness even when retribution is justified for self-defense.
These people are so gentle that instructions for the treatment of animals were specified 1400 years ago ! This surpasses legislation currently in effect in the United States.
Many who had been invited to share this time of unity with our Muslim American friends were too afraid for their personal safety to come because sick individuals are already using the events of September 11, 2001 as an excuse to unleash their own hatred on others.
The evil-doers who orchestrated such horrors were diabolical, but what can be said about men and women who use this dark energy to fuel their existing prejudices and pass on the evil by attacking their fellow Americans because of their chosen religion ?
These are terrorist acts, too !
How would each of us feel if these bombers had been members of our OWN religious community ? Or atheists ? Or if they had been Americans such as McVey ? Or Germans, such as Hitler ? Or Japanese, such as at Pearl Harbor ? Would it justify retaliation against any and all who happen to share heritage, lineage, faith ? NO !
It never has, and it never will.
More innocent lives are in danger today than at any previous period in the history of mankind; the entire world is jeopardized. Every life is endangered by a mentality which allows hate to manifest in violent acts.
Terrorists win when they can set off events which turn us against each other : " Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and no town or house divided against itself will stand." Matthew 12 : 25.
If you want to counter terrorism in this country, begin NOW :
Oppose generalizations against Muslim and Arab peoples,
just as you would oppose generalizations against all Whites.
Oppose persecution against dark-skinned peoples,
just as you would oppose persecution against blond-haired,
blue-eyed folk.
Promote kindness and mercy at all times,just as the firefighters,
medics and police at the World Trade Center did.
Put yourself in the way of hate directed against innocents,
just as you protect your own children and family.
While you pray for the leadership of our country and our military,
focus your personal efforts in your own community :
don’t let fear and hate and injustice be acted out against anyone.
My name is Mary Kathryn Saville, and I am a nurse.
I have learned techniques to balance opposing emotions and
energies which I will share with anyone who needs help dealing
with these events.
I will stand shoulder to shoulder with my Muslim friends.
I will worship with them, knowing that we are All
children of the same God.
When those bricks come,
When that gun is fired,
I will be the one to step in front of the little girl I stood next to last night -
I will take it so that she doesn’t have to.
While their church is pulled down around them,
I will go inside to help them out.
And all that time, I will carry in my mind and heart
The images of New York’s finest,
Who gave it all without regard for race, creed, color
OR nationality.
This is how I will counter terrorism in my own community,
While my leaders, in whom I trust
Because they, too believe in God
Handle the bigger picture.
May God bless All of us,
and give us the strength we need to save our world.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Lycos crisis contacts
http://direct.lycos.com/redir/_September_11
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Friday's Progress Notes
Mental Health Information
September 14, 2001 - Vol. 5 Issue 19
Published by athealth.com - http://www.athealth.com
This week's topic: PTSD
****************************************
In memory of America's innocent victims . . .
****************************************
1. Primary care treatment of PTSD.
2. Societal costs of PTSD.
3. Psychiatric dimensions of disaster.
4. Comorbidity of PTSD and other psychiatric disorders.
5. How to communicate with children during times of crisis.
6. Treatment guidelines for children and adolescents with PTSD.
7. Law enforcement and traumatic stress.
8. Supporting survivors, families, and loved ones in the aftermath.
**************************************************
Dear Colleagues,
This week our country experienced the single worst terrorist
attack in history. Many of us, literally, watched the horrifying
destruction in real-time, and most of us have vivid images of
fireballs and crumbling skyscrapers forever etched in our memories.
In the days ahead we will learn more about the profound pain caused
by these unspeakable events. We mourn for the innocent victims who
lost their lives or who were injured, and our hearts go out to
those who grieve for friends and loved ones unaccounted for or
known dead.
Many of us concerned with mental health are offering our support to
those touched by this terrible tragedy. Some of us will treat those
who were deeply wounded, emotionally, by fear, confusion, pain, and
death. A few of us will be called upon to treat colleagues who have
lost loved ones or who live and practice near the epicenters of
these attacks.
This special issue of Friday's Progress Notes provides a few
resources to help you meet the needs of those you will treat in
the days, weeks, and months ahead.
If you find the newsletter helpful, please forward Friday's Progress
Notes (FPN) to your colleagues. Newsletter subscriptions are free at
http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/Newsletter/fpn_subscribe.html
May God Bless America as we heal and help heal.
Jack
John L. Miller, MD
jlm@athealth.com
*************************************************
1. AMERICAN FAMILY PHYSICIAN
Primary Care Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000901/1035.html
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can affect a wide range
of patients in family practice, regardless of culture, age,
sex, or socioeconomic class.
2. THE JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder:
The Burden to the Individual and to Society
http://www.psychiatrist.com/supplenet/v61s05/02index.htm
PTSD is a highly prevalent and impairing condition. Early and
aggressive outreach to treat people with PTSD could help reduce
the enormous societal costs of this disorder.
3. AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster: Patient Care,
Community Consultation, and Preventive Medicine
http://www.psych.org/pract_of_psych/disaster.cfm
This paper examines posttraumatic responses of direct concern
to clinicians working in a community exposed to a disaster.
4. THE JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY
Comorbidity of Psychiatric Disorders and PTSD
http://www.psychiatrist.com/supplenet/v61s07/61s07.pdf#nameddest=brady
Data from epidemiologic surveys indicate that the vast majority
of individuals with PTSD meet criteria for at least one other
psychiatric disorder.
5. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/disastercomm.htm
The American Academy of Pediatrics offers advice on how to
communicate with children and adolescents during times of crisis.
6. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRY
Practice Parameters for the Assessment and Treatment of Children
and Adolescents with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
http://www.guideline.gov/VIEWS/summary.asp?guideline=000314
The guidelines include sections on diagnostic assessment,
differential diagnosis, subtypes of PTSD, and treatment.
7. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF EXPERTS IN TRAUMATIC RESPONSE
Law Enforcement Traumatic Stress:
Clinical Syndromes and Intervention Strategies
http://www.aaets.org/arts/art87.htm
Law enforcement and emergency services personnel are
highly prone to PTSD.
8. AMERICAN ACADEMY OF EXPERTS IN TRAUMATIC RESPONSE
Down the Long Road of Grief:
Supporting Survivors, Families and Loved Ones in the Aftermath
http://www.aaets.org/arts/art98.htm
In the aftermath of tragedy, individuals, families, responders,
schools, workplaces, neighborhoods and the community reverberate
in grief.
*********************************************************************
EARN ONLINE CE CREDITS
New courses on PTSD, OCD, Aging, Anger Management.
http://www.athealthce.com
*************************************************
PTSD TREATMENT RESOURCES
If you are looking for PTSD treatment resources, please
visit our Directory of Mental Health Practitioners at
http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/directory/
and our Treatment Center Directory at
http://www.athealth.com/Consumer/tcenter/tcenter.html
*************************************************
If you have trouble opening the links in this newsletter, you can
view FPN at http://www.athealth.com/Practitioner/Newsletter/
You will need the Adobe Reader to access some of the resources
in today's newsletter.
*************************************************
The material in this newsletter is provided for educational
and informational purposes only. The appearance of any
product, service, or Web site link in this newsletter does
not imply endorsement, approval, or warranty by At Health.
At Health, Inc., has no control over the accuracy, content,
or availability of other Web sites.
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Copyright (c) 2001 - At Health, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.
This publication is registered in the Library of
Congress, Washington DC - ISSN: 1520-3662
ah-fpn 1939
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From: Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.cybernaute.com/earthconcert2000
(While I find much on this list that is alarmist and unsubstantiated, there are nuggets worth considering, and it is helpful to know the views of alarmists.)
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001
From: Kalama Hawkrider
Subject: Re: Crisis in America #2: Startling Revelations Coming Out
Dear Jean,
Thanks for your inspirational and revealing compilations, which bring us
together in a true global spiritual community holding a vision of hope and
peace and plenty for all.
As a citizen of the United States of America, the greatest country on
Earth, I would like to say... Let us indeed be great. Let us be so great
that we act out of such great compassion towards the innocent others who
would be killed by our revenge; let us be so great that we act with great
forgiveness towards the perpetrators of this offense, both the visible ones
who carried out the acts and those behind the scenes behind the scenes; let
us be so great that we act with great wisdom deciding how to proceed; let
us be so great that we act with great intelligence and understanding,
reflecting upon our own actions on the planet and the repercussions we are
now facing; let us be so great we act with great humility, also seeking
forgiveness for the wrongs we have committed; and let us be so great that
we act with great creativity and love, forging a new partnership amongst
the diversity of our planet so that ALL LIFE may benefit.
Let the greatest war of all, the third world war as predicted (or hoax
predicted) by Nostradamus be indeed the greatest war, the war within. Let
compassion win the war over anger; let forgiveness win the war over
revenge; let intelligence win the war over passive acceptance; let truth
win the war over lies; let love win the war over hatred; let creativity win
the war over continuing on a well worn and tired path of karmic "eye for an
eye" belief and activity.
Let this indeed be the Apocalypse... the apocalyptic change of connecting
with our brothers and sisters across the globe from heart to heart and
spirit to spirit and mind to mind to end the madness of fighting and create
a different world of higher vibration, values, hopes and reality. Let the
greatness that was the vision that originally created this United States
propel us forward into this different world; let this greatness be shared
with the planet unconditionally and prove how great we really are!
With gratitude for the beauty of our Oneness, despite our scars,
Kalama
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- September 1, 1939
- by W. H. Auden
- I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have, - Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
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