New Republic, Oct. 1
The issue is devoted to “mourning and strategy.”… A piece argues that “until now, U.S. commercial aviation has assumed that airborne peril came from incompetent criminals and political nuts hungry for attention.” Not anymore. A few common-sense safety measures: outfit the cockpit like a vault, with steel doors, hinges, and bulkheads; arm pilots with Mace or Tazers; and install a cockpit “panic button” to foil renegade pilots. … A piece, written by an academic who spent time in Afghanistan, argues that the “Taliban are weak.” How so? They gained control of Afghanistan not by fighting, in most cases, but by cutting deals with local warlords. Taliban leadership—as responsible as anyone for Afghanistan’s miserable condition—doesn’t enjoy strong support within its own ranks, much less the rest of the country. And Pakistan, the group’s major supplier of weapons and cash, is slowly drifting in line with the United States.—B.C.
Economist, Sept. 22 An editorial says that for Europe “to fail to support, and in some cases fight alongside, America would be folly, grand scale: it would not only encourage further terror, but would also shatter American willingness to do anything to help defend Europe in the future.”… An editorial fervently rejects the notion that America somehow brought terrorism upon itself. The only precipitating causes of last week’s attacks were “envy, hatred and moral confusion.”… An obituary eulogizes Ahmad Shah Masoud, the charming, well-dressed leader of Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban resistance movement. Masoud was assassinated four days after the attacks on America.— J.F.
Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 24
The newsweeklies all go cover-to-cover on the terrorist attacks against the Pentagon and World Trade Center. … Newsweek and Time lead with pieces about how the attacks have unified the nation: The flag-waving and candle ceremonies represent what one Bostonian called “a re-United States.”… U.S. News goes with a longer cover story pointing out how American foreign policy is forever changed. Retaliation could entail invasions of as many as 10 countries known to harbor terrorists. … Time’s great article on Osama Bin Laden isolates a few events in his life that could have turned him to terror. He was reared in Saudi Arabia, with enough money to fund a terrorist empire but without the social prestige to prevent him from going off the reservation. One of his college professors, later assassinated, helped lead the radical Pan-Islamic movement. Bin Laden came to see America as cowardly after the military withdrew from Somalia in 1993 in response to the slaughter of 18 soldiers.
U.S. News runs a piece assigning blame for lax airport security. The airlines are desperate to save money: They have resisted a post-Pan Am 103 proposal to match luggage to passengers for 13 years because it would cost $300 million. But passengers are at fault too: They insist on inexpensive tickets and limited delays. … Newsweek looks at how the economy will be affected by the attacks. Specific industries, especially tourism-dependent airlines and hotels, will suffer in the short term, and uncertainties could weaken the market for big-ticket items. But insurance money and government aid could help awaken the already sleeping economy. The major unknown: Will American consumers respond to crisis by spending as usual or by holding on to their money?—J.D.
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New York Times Magazine, Sept. 23 The issue is filled with essays about Tuesday’s terrorist attacks. Michael Lewis asks why target the financiers? Because they “do not suffer constraints on their private ambitions, and they work hard, if unintentionally, to free others from constraints. This makes them, almost by default, the spiritual antithesis of the religious fundamentalist.”… Andrew Sullivan writes that on Tuesday, the innocence, safety, and regularity of American life “passed away. Another world began that day.”… A photo essay records pictures and voices from a Brooklyn mosque. … Caleb Carr points out a historical parallel: the British attacks during the War of 1812. Women and children were mutilated. Washington, D.C., filled with “obnoxious symbols of American values,” burned. In a sense, Carr writes, “we have been in this new world before.”—B.C.
The New Yorker, Sept. 24 In “Talk of the Town,” 10 big names meditate on what happens next.… Hendrik Hertzberg says the American declaration of war on terrorism is the wrong metaphor. Rather, America should assemble a world police force to pursue criminals against civilization.… Susan Sontag scolds American leaders for their “reality-concealing rhetoric.” The public has to come to terms with the fact that Tuesday’s violence was “an attack on the world’s self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions.”… A “New York Journal” argues that while “symbolic” New York, the city at the center of the universe, seems more vulnerable now, the real city of 8 million real people, “the city beneath … seemed somehow to increase in our affection, our allegiance.”… A heavily reported account of the attack gives snapshot perspectives from different segments of world society: Jesse Jackson, President Bush, firefighters, survivors from inside the World Trade Center, the intelligence community, Arab people abroad. The most harrowing quote, from a former national security adviser, about the future of anti-terrorism: “We can’t do racial profiling? Like hell. Nobody is going to trust anybody looking like an Arab. They’re done.”—J.D.
Weekly Standard, Sept. 24 The lead editorial frets that, with time and returning normalcy, America may lose its resolve to fight a drawn-out war against terrorism. … An article contends that the way to crack the holy-warrior spirit of Islamic fundamentalists is to inspire awe of America through decisive military action. The author identifies numerous historical examples in which Islamic holy warriors have been defeated by “demonstrating with frightful clarity the indefatigability of the triumphant power.” Most recently, Saddam Hussein was able to do it against Iran. … An article insists that new, beefed-up airport security measures are “a double dose of the medicine that didn’t work.” What’s needed is “not just changing a procedure here and there, but altering a mindset.” That means reconsidering racial profiling and giving pilots handguns.— J.F.
The Nation, Oct. 1 An editorial gloomily asserts, “There is no technical solution to the vulnerability of modern populations to weapons of mass destruction.”… Eric Alterman wonders how liberal CNN (“The Communist News Network” to Tom DeLay) really is. Its commentators aren’t particularly radical, its coverage isn’t particularly one-sided, and its guests are more often conservatives than liberals. So, what gives? “CNN counts as ‘liberal’ only in a universe where conservative political hegemony” is dominant. … A piece examines the clubby and conservative Federalist Society, whose student chapters are a breeding ground for right-wing jurists. A sort of “affirmative action for conservatives,” the society provides students with the opportunity to powwow with prominent judges and attend high-profile conferences. Not to mention granting them access to federal clerkships, positions in top law firms, and jobs in the Bush administration.— J.F.
