Osler's Razor

I spent my day observing and assisting at a grant writing workshop for a non-profit group (total coincidence).

I also spent a good amount of time wondering how many of my former co-workers from Salomon, who worked in 1WTC, 2WTC, 7WTC and other immediately surrounding buildings are doing. None of them died that day although for some it was a very close call (89th floor of 1WTC). But all of their lives were forever altered by the events they witnessed first hand.

I worked at 7WTC when I was in NYC and lived in Battery Park City so the Trade Center was some place I travelled through daily. I only went back once after the attacks to see the site. The only thing standing was a staircase I would walk up from Vesey Street so I could cross into 7WTC.

I know that now that reconstruction is nearing completion I would like to go back and spend time reflecting on that day at the memorial and re-experience the city I grew to love.
 

The sky is empty where it shouldn’t have ever been…at least in my lifetime. Remember experiencing awe in the presence of something which feels it will outlast you, same as it outlasted a lot of people before you? I had that feeling every time I craned my neck looking up at the Twin Towers. I will forever remember looking out the window from my lab in Upper Manhattan seeing the smoke billowing from the North Tower. And I will forever remember those moments transfixed at seeing only dust and empty sky. Cannot imagine a more gut-wrenching painful, literal way for what “dust to dust” looked like…soul scarring for life.
 

Phyllis and I had the same memory of that day. The silence. No planes and little traffic.On television the repeated showing of the planes striking the towers. We received calls from our friends from France, who were in tears for our nation's loss.. That night Bill Moyers gathered a group of leaders from all faiths to discuss and comment on the events. All faiths agreed that fear ,anger and hate of the perpetrators would fill our hearts. They cautioned that we should not act while under the influence of these base emotions.
Our hearts filled with hope and we thought that our country had an opportunity to stop the deadly cycle of violence that we were in.

Our country didn't have the strength. In the next few days we heard planes in the skies again, but they were from Selfridge Air Force Base. Banners proclaiming " WAR ON TERROR" filled our TV screens. Terror prevailed. The cycle continued.

Reasonable men were silent and silenced. If only we had not promoted the fear and anger so much, maybe we would have been more clear headed and our actions would have better honored those who perished on 9/11.
I also remember Mark's immediate advice that this should be a police response and not a military action. He was so right.
 

Mr. J.O.

It has never occured to me that any action or inaction in response to the hijackings and crashes, thousands of deaths and billionsof dollars in property damage might present an opportunity for the country to "stop the deadly cycle of violence we were in." "We" did not then, nor have we now, the power to accomplish such a lofty goal. A "police action," whatever that might might mean, could not possibly have been non-violent.

I was enroute to North Louisiana to visit a troubled young man who would eventually go to prison. I was not listening to the radio. My secretary called me on my cell with the news, and just as I turned the radio on, the second plane struck the second tower. There was nothing unique about my feelings. I think they mirrored the feelings of most Americans, excepting those who were sympathetic with the attackers.

Had I any clue as to how to turn these events into an "opportunity" to end the violence, I would have advanced it. I heard Moyers. He had no clue either, not then, not now. Obviously, I can't logically fault him for this.

If you were slenced by somone or something at the time, surely you are not now. Surely by now you are clear headed. What could we have done to have ended the cycle of violence?

I write in a direct and blunt style, even when i write routine letters. Please don't take my questions as a personal attack, explicit or implicit. I do think you and Mark are well intentioned.
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Mr. J.O.

It has never occured to me that any action or inaction in response to the hijackings and crashes, thousands of deaths and billionsof dollars in property damage might present an opportunity for the country to "stop the deadly cycle of violence we were in." "We" did not then, nor have we now, the power to accomplish such a lofty goal. A "police action," whatever that might might mean, could not possibly have been non-violent.

I was enroute to North Louisiana to visit a troubled young man who would eventually go to prison. I was not listening to the radio. My secretary called me on my cell with the news, and just as I turned the radio on, the second plane struck the second tower. There was nothing unique about my feelings. I think they mirrored the feelings of most Americans, excepting those who were sympathetic with the attackers.

Had I any clue as to how to turn these events into an "opportunity" to end the violence, I would have advanced it. I heard Moyers. He had no clue either, not then, not now. Obviously, I can't logically fault him for this.

If you were slenced by somone or something at the time, surely you are not now. Surely by now you are clear headed. What could we have done to have ended the cycle of violence?

I write in a direct and blunt style, even when i write routine letters. Please don't take my questions as a personal attack, explicit or implicit. I do think you and Mark are well intentioned.
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Having worked the swing shift the night before, I was asleep in my dorm room on Offutt AFB. My girlfriend from NJ called, waking me up, and alerting me to what was happening. "I have to go to work" I said, after struggling to understand her, and then making sure everything was ok on her end.

Five minutes later a sergeant banged on my door to wake me up and give me a ride to the unit.

But there was nothing for us to do. We were an intelligence unit, but what did we know? It wasn't an Air Force Intell kind of thing. After standing around for a few hours, staring at the TV like every other American, our commander sent us home. (I doubt many would do that, but he was different.) Not just for the day, but for several days. "Go spend time with your families" he said, "we will be called on soon enough."

Unfortunately, he was right.

I was standing on the lawn in front of my dorm room when Air Force One touched down later that day.

Another thing I will always remember, September 11th was a Tuesday. The reason that always comes back to me is because I distinctly remember having Monday Night Football on in the background at work the night before. And oddly, I remember the details of the game in a way one rarely remembers the details of an unimportant game that they don't really have a rooting interest in.

The Giants were playing Denver in the first game at the new Mile High stadium. The Giants were looking good, but then Ed McCafree, of the Broncos suffered a season ending injury. That motivated the Broncos and it was all Denver from there on out, but of course the win was bitter-sweet as they had just lost a key player for the season.

I suppose I remember it in part because it was one of the last news worthy things (even if just for entertainment purposes) that happened prior to 8:46am est the next day.

It seems odd, reflecting back now, to think of all the things that were of such importance that Monday night. And then were not.
 

Mark's dad is right (he always is, I think).
You stop the cycle of violence by choosing not to respond with violence. In other words, you conduct a dogged, thorough investigation and apprehend and prosecute those responsible for this monstrous crime . That is a lawful exercise of legal authority, not the kind of violence Mr. Osler rightly decries.
He is right about the silencing, too; I remember the grim warning the American people received to be careful what we say post-9/11.
My memory of that day: my downtown church, which opened its doors to all who wanted to come in and sit, reflect, pray.
Seraphim
 

Ernest; You have asked the right question "what should we have done". Certainly not more billions of $s down the drain.and untold deaths hardship and suffering that has followed.

At the time I was deeply influenced by Martin Luther King Jr's sermon on the the cycle of violence as a descending spiral. It concluded " Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

We had the power but not the will nor strength to act. I had a vision of flooding Afghanistan with aid and international good will, and in so doing isolate,capture and try those responsible for 9/11. These are the tactics used by Hamas and Hezbollah who ingratiate themselves with the local populations with good deeds.

Ernest, I applaud your desire to find alternatives to military action to make our country more secure. After experiencing our missteps, it is much easier today to have a more creative discussion.

Lets brainstorm ideas for alternative actions.


 

John Osler

I love your vision for what might have been, following 9/11, but I have a good faith question. Can you help me understand the difference between military violence and police violence?

Assuming those responsible for 9/11 would not have gone willingly to court, might it have required a military level action to pull them out of their caves?

Maybe what you are saying is that the soldiers should have acted under the color of law, and a more civilian version of the law at that. (As apposed to international law governing war.)

As one example, I'm thinking about the events surrounding ToraBora, the large battle where Osama is alleged to have gotten away because even the military was overwhelmed by the armed response of those surrounding BinLaden

Another example that may give us an insight into the nature of law, power, and violence are routine civil actions, like evictions. These are ultimately carried out through the coercion of an armed sheriff. I am not saying evictions usually require violence, but if it were not for both the courts and the sheriffs office, disagreements between landlords and tenants might well turn violent. And should the landlord or tenant resort to a court with no sheriff in the background, it is questionable how effective the court would be. The fact that the sheriff has a gun and a bottle of mace usually means that tenants are ejected from the property without violence. But if there was not the implicit threat...

These are just examples. Can you help me understand your position better?
 

David: I believe there will always be violence and the necessity for a protective police presence.

Violence is violence whether it is used by the military or the police. In countries where the police are unarmed there is less violence. We don't life in a perfect world but we should favor less use of violence rather than constantly raising the ante.

The military was not equipped to get Bin Laden nor was that their purpose. I recall that we sent 38 marines into ToraBora to flush out the leaders of Al Qaeda late in the conflict. We didn't have the approval nor the help of the local population.
The world could have taken a police action that would have identified the criminals and used what measures that were necessary to bring them to justice. Yes, there probably would have been violence, but more restrained than the heavy handed use of war, as you state they would have been " under the color of law".

I just read that 500,000 of the young American men and women who fought our War On Terror in the Gulf are living with impairments mentally and/or physically. Many struggle daily with the memory of the violence they witnessed or committed. What a tragedy. There must have been a better way to respond to 9/11.

Is the threat of violence by armed police in an eviction a violent act?
 

Mr. J.O.

Thanks for making your position clear. At least, I think it is clear.

I beleive you and MLk are wrong, because I now hear you saying that if someone attacks you, or attacks those you care about, or those with whom you are affiliated, a response which involves violence is inappropriate on an ethical plane and on a practical plane as well.

To my ear "this is pasing strange."

I would never argue war is a good thing. But, in the world we live in, sometimes the only way to contain a violent man, gang or nation is to overwhelm them with force, that is, violence.

Violence carried our revolution. It did not, in the long run, make the Brits hate us. After the War of 1812, we began a period of longstanding good relations, good enough to have kept us from each other's throats to this day, and to make us as good friends as nations can be.

Violence was used effectively in WWII to squelch the Nazis. As time has passed, the Germans, who bore the brunt of his and our violence , have reconciled to our views, and have become allies.

Japan is a sterling example of violence in response to aggresion leading to good relations between victor and vanquished.

Bill D., later an Epicopal priest, teased a fellow in my 6th grade class and challenged him to a fight because when the school year began, he was the last boy still in short pants. A preemptive stike ulimately made life for each of them more agreeable. Bill D. got over his bloodied nose and hurt feelings, and their pre-fight friendship was eventualy rekindled, without further bullying.

Retaliation involving violence as a response to violence may not always be ruled out, or so I believe based upon my reading of history and my own experience.

Sometimes the threat of violence backed by the wherewithal to follow through if necessary can reduce the likelihood of violence. I was a SAC piiot in the 50's. SAC was a force to be reckoned with, and the Russians knew it. We would not have been much a threat with a bomb bay filled wih care packages and Hershey bars, methinks. Such a pacific payload would have invited violence, or so I and many others believed then as now.

I think that you may be on the right side of this argument: aggressive war is problematic for all the reasons you suggest. Of course, sometimes it is difficult to determine who is the aggressor, and in what is the aggression. But, this dilemma is just that, not a categorical answer to the question you raise.

I do wish Jesus had clarified for us the "turn the other cheek" question, so that it would not be possible to equivocate. but he didn't. That's just as well. For if he was enjoining violence as a response to insult, who could question his wisdom. On the other hand if he were atempting by this "rule" to enjoin violence and retaliation even as means of self-defense or the defense of others, not only his wisdom," but also his divinity may be justifiably questioned. What kind of a god would require us to stand by and refrain from a violent response to preserve life?

If I have missed yur point, please clarify. I may have missed your point.

All the best,

ELO'B
 

Ernest;
I grew up believing that violence was a cowardly act. It was used by those who were unable to cope. It shows weakness to initiate violence and often unadvised as a response. I still believe this. I had, as a kid, the physical ability to contain but not hurt my classmates. I never looked at John Wayne as a role model. However, it is true that I still cheer for the heavily armed good guy to save the day.

America has the same strength but we have become an extremely violent nation. It is a part of our culture and economy.

You carried bombs for SAC, but did you use them? Would having used them have changed your thinking?

It was not the US fire bombing of German civilians in WW2 that created an ally of Germany but rather the Marshall Plan, where we bombed them with money and opportunity. They learned that their strength would not come from military power and have, like the Japanese, since refused to rebuild their defense establishment. Countries that spend the least on defense are often the most successful and secure.
This idea is taught at our Defense Colleges that advise emerging countries.It is economically and morally more astute.

My point is that sometimes a violent response becomes necessary but it is a declaration of failure and to be avoided. It is hard when others don't play fair and you have the ability to destroy them, but that is the test. There are no winners in war. Our strength will come, some day, when we invest in peace what we now invest in war.

God gives us choices. We have seen since Jesus inspired us to turn our cheek many examples of both violent and non violent solutions. Today , we have many more successful non violent resolutions than violent solutions. Ltets keep on working on this.
 

John Osler,

The following is one of the ways I have thought about force and violence. But I want you to know I deeply respect the pacifist position.

At numerous points in history, people of good will have risen up to oppose limited oppression, often using non-violent techniques. This is the preferred way to oppose injustice, and it works where there is some sense of restraint. (South Africa, British India, and the United States circa 1890-1965) This is in contrast to the unlimited systematic use of violence, rape, torture, and war to hold on to power through any means possible. (Nazi Germany, Rwanda, and the Black Slave's experience in the United States circa, 1625-1865) These latter examples of terror and oppression required an armed response. i.e. Just War.

Something that has always bothered me is the fact that as a 17 year-old thinking about joining the military, no one in my church suggested that may not be a good idea. There was no dialog with other positions. It was just assumed this was an honorable undertaking, never mind the fact that like most prior to 9/11, I joined for the money for college, the training, all of that, not for any altruistic purposes.

It was after serving for four years, 3 of which were after 9/11, that I attended Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, where there were plenty of peace-nicks. One of them was a modern Mennonite women who taught ethics, and as it turned out, she was far and away my favorite proff.

So I find myself in this inbetween. On the one hand, I agree with you and don't believe that violence conforms to the ways of Christ. And on the other, my concern for the "other" the threatened and the weak suggest that in some limited circumstances, it may be the only effective means to limit and stop the worst kinds of injustice.

For me, military violence while usually different than police violence, is none-the-less on the same continum. As the badguys level of force increases, so too must the states. At some point it starts looking more militeristic than civilian. SWAT teams are an example of this. Getting BinLaden. That seems like it would take military tools, even if it was done under the color of civilian law.

Just my two cents.

Thanks for your thoughts. Lord knows you have more experience in these things than I do.
 

David; I have all the same conflicts that you have. I am more of a inbetweener than I let on. I would just like us all to push for solutions that come from our loftier instincts rather than fear, hate,anger and envy.
I have enjoyed this discussion.
 

Mr. J.O.

I must have misunderstood you.I now take it that you do not eschew the use of force/violence in all situations, that albeit an unhappy choice, it is nonetheless an option which should be on the table.

If I now read you right, then we are largely in agreement.

The Marshall Plan (and the way in which we "reconstructed" Japan), is a wonderful example of how to treat former enemies, both because it is the right thing to do, and because of its salutary practical effects.

But, first came the violent overthrow of the Nazi regime, a necessity because of its very nature and its demonstrated contempt for the appeasement policies of the Western Democracies prior to the invasion of Poland. Britain could have reneged on its commitment to Poland, but it did not. Theoretically, we might have succeeded in making the same kind of non-aggression agreement with the Nazis as that confected by Ribbentrop and his Russian conterpart. I doubt that Hitler would have abided his treaty with Japan had he been able to secure our agreement to stay out of the "Internal affairs" of Europe. I think only that dotty representative from Wyoming, or was it Montana, would have thought leaving the Brits and the French to the tender mercies of the SS ethically the better option.

All of this is the long way 'round of saying that sometimes the use of force/violence is the better option, and its use in extreme circumstances is not the cowardly way out, but is the highest and best use of power. I will concede that there is merit to the notion that having to resort to force/violence is a sign of failure. But, death, taxes and failure have a least common denominator: certainty! If we shall have the poor always, so shall we have failure.

You ask rhetorically whether we ever dropped our bombs. No, of course not. Had we, this conversation might never have taken place. You ask whether my thinking would have been different had we had to drop them.

You'll have to deal with an admittedly self-serving answer. The short answer is that having done such a thing, had there been enough left of me to feel anything, I imagine I would have felt just plain awful, on many levels. Whether my "after-the-fact" thoughts and reactions would have mirrored those of Col Tibbets, I cannot say. I hope, however, that whatever regrets I had would not have flowed from a sense that we had understimated our opponents, and, as at Pearl Harbor, were under prepared and had succeeded in emboldening the enemy.

All the best, and "30."

ELO'B
 

I remember the silence; that no one was on the streets; how that morning of September 11 was the first day that felt like fall.

I had bought a huge bag of fresh basil the SAturday before (9/11 was a Tuesday, I remember), and I stood in my kitchen in Charlottesville for hours that evening, making pesto and listening to the news. Or listening to the absence of planes descending toward the little Charlottesville airport.

This year, I didn't do anything to mark the occasion. Driving home from work, I realized I'd forgotten to remember it during a hectic day. And wondered if my forgetting was a good thing, or a bad thing. It was the day after Obama's speech, after the move to attack Syria had been stalled, and it was almost a relief not to remember it.