Is Sept. 11 a date to unify us all, or a date for critics to ‘shut their pieholes’

It has been 17 years since that date when nut cases acting in an irrational way to show their Islamic religious faith staged their attack on the secular western world by inflicting damage upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

This became fish wrap in the coming days

That’s the way I recall the events of Sept. 11, 2001 – even though others are inclined to want to think in different ways to justify their own irrational hang-ups along religious and ethnic lines.

IN SHORT, THE bigoted amongst us in society want to remember the happenings of all those years ago as evidence that their warped way of thought is somehow correct; and that those of us who view life in a more rational manner somehow ought to pipe down and keep our crazy thoughts to ourselves

Yes, I remember the happenings of that day and the national mood that followed as a scary time, largely because it bolstered the level of absurdity that already existed in our society.

There were those people who claimed then (and still try to claim now) that our nation was unified – people put aside their partisan leanings and saw ourselves as one.

What actually happened is that the right-wing elements of our society (including many of those who have admiration for this Age of Trump we’re now in) became more outspoken in their thought process – and the rest of us felt a sense of intimidation.

IT’S AS THOUGH many people felt too scared to have thoughts of opposition and felt they needed, as actor Carroll O’Connor’s “Archie Bunker” character would often tell wife Edith, to “stifle” themselves.

The fact that many of us haven’t permanently silenced ourselves may be the ultimate evidence that the “terrorists” of Sept. 11 didn’t prevail. If they had, we probably would have become a nation of people where the majority of us currently agree with whatever irrational thoughts get spewed out via the current president’s Twitter account.

So when I think of all the happenings that will occur on Tuesday (most timed to coincide with 8:48 a.m. and 9:29 a.m. – the moments that day when the World Trade Center towers were struck by hijacked jet planes), to me the focus ought to be less on all the pseudo-military ritual that will take place.

Yes, there will be those who will gather at many a City Hall across the nation to watch uniformed police officers salute and national anthems be played out of some sense that we’re showing we weren’t beaten down by those people who wanted to show contempt for our society because it is a multi-cultural place.

BUT I’D BE inclined to argue that we’re really showing our survival as a society by supporting those of us who differ from the “norm,” or what certain people would like to think ought to be the norm for all of us to follow.

Yes, Sept. 11, 2001 was a date of confusion – many of us didn’t have a clue what was really happening. Our lives seemed thrown all out of kilter.

Yet from the perspective of a Chicagoan, what I recall was that many downtown businesses shut down for the day as the area evacuated. For the most part, life returned to as close to normal as people of certain ideological leanings tried to use the chaos to impose their own thoughts upon all of us.

Perhaps the last thing we ought to be doing is getting obsessed with minute details of pseudo-patriotism. Personally, I think the people who get all upset that someone didn’t show the proper degree of respect for singing a national anthem or reciting a Pledge of Allegiance are the ones who are a real threat to the freedoms upon which our society is supposed to be based.

NOT THAT I’M going to be offended by those of you who feel compelled to attend one of the many ceremonies being held Tuesday to remember what happened 17 years ago. If it makes you feel comfortable, the better for you.

Although you thinking that Tuesday is an excuse to force your thought processes on others – if you think about it, that’s a downright un-American concept to have.

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¿Un enemigo? Methinks Trump needs to find himself a hobby for amusement

Much rhetoric has been spewed from all angles with regards to President Donald J. Trump’s need to go on a rant last week in which he labeled those people who work in the newsgathering business as “the enemy.”

TRUMP: Does majority listen?

Which amuses me, in a sense. Because it does not come as a shock to me to learn that certain political-type people are basically insecure enough in their own existence that they see great conspiracies at work by those who serve to keep the public informed as to what takes place in our society.

HECK, I HAVE been called worse. I know of a rant that exists somewhere on the Internet that labels me a subversive and suggests I have no business being in this country.

The person who wrote that did so after I wrote a commentary for a former employer pointing out his own crackpot nature. Besides, I later discovered that the website he used to publish his rant was also filled with rants lambasting several television news anchors and reporters – and in fact the entire Telemundo television network.

I felt in good company then, and I’m going to feel like I’m on the right side of things now by having the Trumpster tremble at the very thought of my news brethren. I can make people of his ilk tremble and quake in their pants just by pulling out my notepad and pen and taking down what they say.

Which is what really bothers the people who have such negative sentiments. The idea that they can’t control every thought they spew out into the world – although the truth is if they only put a little thought into what they said, there’d be no reason for them to be fearful.

JUST LIKE TRUMP’S most recent rant – the one about the terrorist attack in Sweden that apparently never happened. I suspect that what really happened is that Trump became aware of reports indicating an increase in the number of non-native people coming to Sweden.

They're not supposed to be presidential 'friends'

And if they’re foreigners, of course they have to be up to no good. So naturally, there has to be terrorism at its root.

At the very least, it could turn out that a Swedish bikini team (remember those ads for Old Milwaukee beer?) of the future wouldn’t be filled exclusively with blondes whom Trump could fantasize about grabbing by their most personal of body parts.

Oh, the horrors!

IF IT SEEMS like I mock the people who are most critical of my professional life, you’d be correct. It’s just too difficult to take them seriously.

The extent to which Trump likely comprehends Sweden

Besides, I find enough government officials who are secure enough in their personalities that they comprehend the nature of the give-and-take of dealing with a reporter-type person. I’ve also been encouraged by the sense of support I have read coming from many people who are offended at how paranoid our president appears to be.

There may be that poll of a few weeks ago that said some 90 percent of people who voted for Trump back in November were satisfied with his behavior. But I sense that the 54 percent who voted for Hillary Clinton or someone else because they absolutely did NOT want the concept of a “President Donald J. Trump” are emboldened even further.

Society as a whole has the right idea. Besides, I know personally that as a reporter-type person, I’ve never viewed my work as a potential source of material for making friends. Being able to tolerate each other is the best I often hope for in my professional dealings.

Obama relegated to lesser role with each passing day

SO DO I fear being labeled “the enemy” (or the “opposition party,” as Trump aide Steve Bannon put it a few weeks ago)? I do realize that Trump has shown signs of being unstable enough to try to go too far. But I also believe that sense will prevail in our society.

There have been too many times during the three decades I have covered news that government officials have surprised me by doing the right thing. Who knows, it may even turn out to be Trump himself who comes to his senses? Maybe, maybe not!

All I know is that I now find humorous that Columbia Journalism Review study of 2014 that found former President Barack Obama’s press relations to be terrible – he “gives long answers, leaving little time for other questions and rarely makes news.”

Somehow, I sense many now feel a longing for the good ol’ days of a month ago – and the Trump legacy could be that it makes many realize how much more sane and sensible the Days of Obama truly were!

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Congress should have accepted veto; lawsuits won’t bring back loved ones

Honestly, the biggest surprise about the fact that Congress voted Wednesday to override a veto by President Barack Obama is that it took them so long to do so.
 

OBAMA: Congress should have listened

Obama is in the final year of his presidency and has encountered for most of his two terms a Congress controlled by Republican interests that has made it clear they see their purpose as political obstructionism.

YET IT IS only now that Congress could get its act together to put together the 60 percent majority needed for an override – by which it will get its way on an issue despite presidential objections.

It’s a shame because this particular issue is one time that Obama may have got it right, and the members of Congress will wind up giving in to the base sentiments of people whose own perspective might not be entirely calm and rational.

In this case, the issue at hand relates to the ability of people in this country to file lawsuits against foreign interests in our courts as they relate to alleged terrorist activity.

There are those who’d like to file lawsuits against Saudi Arabia interests whom they want to believe are involved with the actions of Sept. 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon.

THEY HAVE FANTASIES of a court issuing a financial judgment against somebody that they believe will provide vengeance that makes up for the loved ones they had who were killed in the violence of that day.

I don’t doubt they hurt. I’m just not sure what the point is of such lawsuits, since I can’t envision any Saudi interests or any other nation is going to care in the least what a U.S. court thinks, or rules!

Just as people here would be more than willing to disregard any foreign court that tried issuing a ruling against people here.

Which means that these court rulings wouldn’t really mean a thing – other than letting the people who file such lawsuits vent a little of their anger. A clogged court system isn’t worth it, even if it makes some people feel a little better about themselves.

THAT WAS THE basis of Obama issuing his veto of the bill that Congress previously passed. That, and the official reason given by diplomatic experts that all such a law would do is encourage people in other countries to file lawsuits in their countries’ home courts against U.S. citizens and business interests.

Which would mean a global collection of legal morass. Letting the lawyers loose to wreck havoc on each other. Just what the world really needs!

Because Congress – first the Senate, then the House of Representatives – want to go along with the people who dream it is possible to ever fully make up for the bad that happened some 15 years ago.

It was an overwhelming pair of votes that occurred Wednesday – to the point where it can be called a bipartisan measure to override Obama, Which is the reason there aren’t more overrides against this president – Republicans on their own aren’t large enough to blatantly reject everything presidential; no matter how much they fantasize about doing so,

THE PROBLEM WITH going along with this measure is that it encourages the vengeance mentality. Which, if you’re honest about it, doesn’t work. For people to recover from their pain, they need to let go of their hate.

It’s kind of like the death penalty, where you can put someone to death yet there will be family members of the “victim” who will persist in being angry. It may be the one aspect of the Catholic church teachings that makes the most sense; its opposition to capital punishment because of its opposition to vengeance.

The people who wind up filing these lawsuits that will now be permitted will wind up with nothing more than a hollow court ruling. It certainly won’t do a thing to bring back their loved ones.

Or ease their pain; which is supposed to be the whole point to begin with.

  -30-

Great Lakes an “island” of ignorance? Or was ISIS really on Michigan Ave.?

Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin – along with Illinois.

Were ISIS followers really here?

Those are among the 13 states across the nation that have decided to take a stand against Syria that really shows just how clueless our state government official can be.

PERSONALLY, I FIND it embarrassing that the Great Lakes region is so overwhelmingly in favor of this nitwit-ish gesture that won’t do a thing to make us any safer than we were last week.

As much as I like to think of Illinois as the one piece of the Great Lakes region that shows some common sense, it now seems that Minnesota is the piece of sanity. Heck, I have several aunts who live in the greater Minneapolis metropolitan area.

Perhaps I ought to think of moving there! It would make as much sense as anything else – even if I’d have to start thinking of Fran Tarkenton as some sort of athletic legend.

I’m finding myself discouraged by the political reaction to the attacks last week throughout Paris. We truly seem determined to give in to our fears and ignorance. Because the reality is that we don’t have much of a clue (just a few suspicions) about what actually happened last week.

OR WHAT MOTIVATED people to think that trying to cause mayhem would actually accomplish something toward swaying people toward their “cause.” Which truly isn’t clear anyways.

The idea of anyone willing to kill on behalf of their religious beliefs is something I will never be able to comprehend. And I don’t care if it’s someone whose deadly actions are on behalf of Christ and Christianity.

None of it seems to have any sense attached to it.

Why do we have to be center of nitwit-isms?

With regards to our governors thinking they can ban Syrian refugees from actually locating in our states, it seems like a futile gesture. Particularly in the case of Illinois and Chicago, where we have so many ethnic groups having settled into the city.

A PLACE LIKE Chicago is exactly where newcomers to this country ought to be located. Of course, I suspect that’s also what makes the xenophobic amongst us so fearful of our wonderful city.

We don’t get all paranoid about people who aren’t like us. Well, actually, we do. We just know how to glare at each other, as opposed to thinking we can use the letter of the law to ban people.

We laugh at buffoons like Donald Trump when he says that he’d close mosques across the nation if he becomes president. We certainly don’t turn out in force to vote for him!

What is most pathetic about these whole circumstances is that we’re giving aid and comfort, so to speak, toward those people who really do have their ideological and religious hang-ups toward western society. Our paranoia is making those people feel stronger as though we fear them and make them feel stronger about themselves.

WHICH IS WHY I refuse to give in to those news reports about the Twitter posts that tell us ISIS sympathizers are amongst us – including outside of buildings right on Michigan Avenue.

In part because the news organizations that seem determined to play them up are places like the Washington Times, which probably would enjoy the idea of Chicagoans rising up in arms to chase out anyone who looks a little too Arab for the ideologues’ preference. (Or the ones who semi-seriously say that Dearborn, Mich., ought to become the front of our effort to “fight back” against Islam).

All of this fear-mongering does little more than make us ignorant of the true threats that exist toward our society – one that is something we ought to be concerned about preserving.

And I certainly wish my own Great Lakes region weren’t so willing to be at the heart of this ignorance.

  -30-

Will Syria restrictions really do a thing to make Illinois any more safe?

I spent the past weekend visiting cousins I haven’t seen in awhile – in large part because they choose to live in Indiana (near Chesterton and Portage, to be exact).

Red Eye touts unity, governors don't

So I had an initial reaction of “What a dink!” when I learned this weekend that Hoosier Gov. Mike Pence was engaging in a knee-jerk reaction being taken by many Republican gubernatorial types – people who are citizens of Syria are being banned from resettlement efforts into Indiana.

IT SUPPOSEDLY MAKES the Hoosier State “more safe” from the type of activity that occurred on Friday (on 11/13/15, to be exact) in Paris. After all, one of the people who may have been involved in that terroristic act was a Syrian citizen.

But now that I’m back in Illinois, I learn that our very own governor – the one who claims he’s not interested in partisan politics but just cares about the good of the people – feels compelled to do the same, exact thing.

Gov. Bruce Rauner made his own statement during the morning hours, with the initial news reports going out during the noon hour on Monday.

People who might be trying to flee Syria and have hopes of going into exile in the United States are going to have certain places forbidden to them – all because some people want to gain political points for themselves by taking the knee-jerk negative reaction. Even if it might be a Syrian refugee who is trying to escape the nonsense that has overtaken his home nation.

NO MORE SYRIA. Even though I suspect many of these same ideologues wouldn’t have a clue where on the map Syria is, or anything about that Middle Eastern nation.

Rauner follows lead of Pence, ...

Excuse me for thinking that I don’t feel any more (or less) safe now than I did on Sunday, or last week or even last year.

I just happen to believe that the kind of people who coordinated the sorts of activities that took place in Paris on Friday (or in New York and suburban D.C. some 14 years ago) aren’t formal activities of any government. Thinking we can do anything based off nationality or citizenship is so short-sighted!

I’d have more respect for Bruce Rauner if he didn’t just follow his political party’s ideological line. If it appeared he put some real thought into this issue!

... while Pence follows GOP overall lead

BECAUSE I HONESTLY believe this action without any real thought behind it merely creates the camouflage that we’re somehow seriously reacting to an international incident without doing a real thing that would make us more safe.

If anything, it comes across as a more shallow gesture than all the political rhetoric that got spewed in the early 2000s when people were eager to bash about France when the perception among the ideologues of our society was that France wasn’t being tough enough to support our interests.

If I never hear the tacky “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” line, it will be too soon. What amazes me is that when that line originated in an episode of “The Simpsons,” it was meant to be so ridiculously over-the-top that no one could possibly take it seriously.

Instead, way too many people did, along with coming up with all kinds of other tacky epithets and sentiments.

IT MAKES ME wonder if any of those individuals are feeling any differently these days, particularly now that France’s military engaged in its own offensive strikes against places in Syria – chosen largely because of their ties to the ISIS group of people who think they’re promoting Islam in the same way the Ku Klux Klan claims to advance Christianity in this nation.

I don’t think many of us really understand a thing about what happened last week in Paris, or what is going on in the Middle East. We just want to rant! I don’t think we even care who we’re ranting about; so long as we can turn the volume up loud.

And while Rauner spent some time Monday morning doing a little ranting, he may have made himself feel better.

But that was a little less time spent trying to figure out how to resolve the state’s financial problems and budget status for real. Except that to many of us prefer to just rant and rage about that issue as well.

  -30-

EXTRA: We’re all flying blind. But that won’t stop us from rants and rages

How long will it be before we think of Paris in such a cutesy way again?

As I write this, I must confess to not knowing the scope of the violence that occurred Friday night in Paris.

At least 100 people who were hostages-turned-targets killed in one lone theater, while it seems there were explosions in a sports stadium and at least four or five other incidents.

THE DEATH TALLY was at about 140. But by the time you read this, it could be higher. Much higher. A part of me is cynical enough to wonder how close to 1,000 fatalities we’ll see. If we’re talking multiple incidents, it could go high – particularly if there are more incidents yet to come.

Of course, we’re all suspecting Arab terrorists – which is a phrase too many nincompoops string together too easily. I’ve heard way too much speculation about ISIS. Way too much in that I have yet to hear a fact about who might have done this, or for what motivation.

The group in the Middle East that, to my mind, puts in my memory banks that silly mid-1970s TV show about a woman who fought crime by summoning the strength of the Egyptian goddess Isis.

Perhaps we could unleash her on the people who have coordinated these attacks? Problem solved!

MY BIGGEST HOPE is that people appreciate the scope of what appears to have happened, and the significance.

A part of me already wonders if the happenings of Sept. 11, 2001 in New York and Rosslyn, Va. (never forget the Pentagon) have been surpassed in significance. Will the same ideologues who liked getting worked up with their “Proud to be an American” song lyrics and “U.S.A.” chants (which ought never to be used outside of an Olympics athletic event) realize this event was meant to take a shot at the entirety of the Western World?

Could the power of Isis defeat ISIS?

That date just over 14 years ago would have been just as bad if the target had been the Tower of London or Buckingham Palace rather than the World Trade Center or the Capitol building (which was spared because of those passengers who attacked their attackers, remember?)

Perhaps it is likely in coming hours and days we’ll learn stories of how the violence could have been much worse – but how people made their bones (and perhaps gave their lives) to save others.

THAT WOULD AT least give Friday’s events some significance.

Because as things stand now, Friday will be just a gruesome day that will get some people all worked up as they camp out in front of their televisions and argue over which station they want to “spin” the factual tidbits that are spilling out of Paris while officials try to seal off their borders.

Which I think is a petty reaction, in part because I’m already reading the anonymous reactions on assorted Internet sites from crackpots who are determined to turn Fridays happenings into some sort of anti-immigration diatribe.

Yes, there are those who are already spewing trash about how “all those Mexicans” are now going to follow up what happened in Paris, France with (perhaps) an attack on Paris, Texas.

SOME PEOPLE WILL spew ideology no matter what the circumstance.

They’re the ones we really ought to be concerned about as we try to figure out what happened in France and as we join in the international mourning scene.

From 9/11 to 11/13 – which date will be next to gain an “infamous” stain?

  -30-

EXTRA: How quickly we forget!

I wasn’t planning on writing anything noting Friday’s date – 14 years since the day those airplanes got hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center and Pentagon – with another one intended for the Capitol missing because passengers managed to overpower the would-be hijackers.

One of few Ill. papers to do much w/ Friday front page

So much for what was supposed to be a statement in the name of the great Allah against the decadence of Western culture. What it really did was gave the Far Right in this country motivation to tell everyone else (for a while, at least) to just shut up and do what they told us to do.

FEAR OF WHAT we don’t understand has a way of bringing out our national sense of paranoia!

Some of us are going to never forget details of that day, and some of us are probably going to become grossly offended at the fact that not everyone around them is all whipped up into a pseudo-patriotic fury on this day.

Yet time does pass. Take the Washington Post, which reported on a new Census Bureau study that shows nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population these days either wasn’t born on Sept. 11, 2001 – or was so young that the day didn’t mean a thing to them, other than what they’ve been told about it since by their parents.

That percentage is only going to increase with the passage of time. Come the 25^th anniversary of the event in 2026 (I suspect by then I’ll be pushed into news business retirement) we may be at a point where a slight majority of the country will think of the event as something they’ve seen news footage of – rather than as an actual event that took place in real life.

PERSONALLY, I STILL remember the paranoia of that morning some 14 years ago, when I was trying to get to the downtown offices of my employer United Press International, while many others were trying to flee the Loop out of fear that Chicago was the next target.



Remembering target that wasn't hit

I also recall the sight of police riding around downtown on motorcycles with lights and sirens flashing; to discourage anyone who thought this might be the time to start looting.

Then, there was the sense of abandonment later in the afternoon – after all those people had fled and the Loop was a ghost town for the day.

But I’m sure there also will be some kids who will hear such stories, and wonder when I’ll shut up and talk about something interesting – something like Justin Bieber, or perhaps all those lesbians that Howard Stern always likes to talk about.

IT’S GOING TO get even worse in the future. Probably like one of my older Facebook friends who posted a note earlier this week complaining that there wasn’t a lot of remembrance of the fact that the Second World War officially ended 70 years ago.

“I guess too busy posting bull shit. No respect for their fathers,” he wrote.

How long until the day comes when something similar is written about the day when most of us got a half-day off of work because everybody was afraid the next out-of-control jetliner might be headed for the (then-still) Sears Tower?

Or worse, becomes so long ago that nobody remembers – just like I doubt most people could tell you what exactly was being talked about when people used to say, “Remember the Maine!”

  -30-

EDITOR’S NOTE: Following is the official proclamation made Friday by Gov. Bruce Rauner to mark the significance of the date.

WHEREAS, on September 11, 2001, tragedy unfolded on American soil as four commercial airlines were hijacked by terrorists and began a journey of destruction; and,

WHEREAS, at 8:46 a.m. (EST), American Airlines Flight 11, carrying 92 people, struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City; and,

WHEREAS, at 9:03 a.m. (EST), United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 65 people, flew into the south tower of the World Trade Center; and,

WHEREAS, at 9:37 a.m. (EST), American Airlines Flight 77, carrying 64 people, hit the western façade of the Pentagon in Washington D.C.; and,

WHEREAS, at 10:03 a.m. (EST) further loss of life was prevented when passengers and crew members heroically crashed United Airlines Flight 93 into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, killing all those on board; and,

WHEREAS, nearly 3,000 innocent men, women and children were tragically killed in the heinous attacks; and,

WHEREAS, tens of thousands emergency personal including firefighters, police officers and military personnel came to the aid to help their fellow man, including volunteers from across the country; and,

WHEREAS, in the aftermath of these horrendous acts, the United States of America bound together with courage and resolve and emerged more united as a people; and,

WHEREAS, on November 30, 2001, after passing the United States House and Senate, President George W. Bush proclaimed September 11 as Patriot Day, a day of remembrance and national mourning; and,

WHEREAS, the day of September 11 will forever be etched in the memory and hearts of all Americans; the victims will never be forgotten, and the heroism displayed by first responders, service men and women, and countless Americans who aided in humanitarian relief efforts and search and rescue operations will serve as a lasting model for all; and

THEREFORE, I, Bruce Rauner, Governor of the State of Illinois, do hereby proclaim September 11, 2015, as PATRIOT DAY in Illinois, and order all persons or entities governed by the Illinois Flag Display Act to fly their flags at half-staff from sunrise to sunset on this day, in honor and remembrance of the heroes of September 11, 2001, and all of those who lost their lives.

Real terror occurred two decades (and a day) ago in Oklahoma City

Perhaps it was the sight of the former World Trade Towers collapsing into rubble after being hit square-on by two aircraft that elevated the 14-year-old attack to its level of prominence over what happened at the one-time Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

But I still have to say that what happened two decades ago in Oklahoma City strikes me as being so much worse than what occurred in New York – perhaps because the perpetrator is someone who on the surface appeared to be the “ideal” American.


IT WAS TWENTY years ago Sunday that a truck loaded with explosive substances was detonated; taking down the federal government building in Oklahoma City and killing some 168 people.

By pure dumb luck, the man believed to be the ringleader of the plot to strike at the U.S. government was arrested that very day – and law enforcement authorities were able to connect the dots quickly enough before Timothy McVeigh was able to post bond for the offense of driving a vehicle without a valid license plate and possession of a loaded firearm.

That resulted in the criminal proceedings that ultimately wound up with McVeigh’s execution at the federal prison near Terre Haute, Ind., and accomplice Terry McNichols remaining in prison to this day.

I can recall the paranoia in the early moments following word of the explosion spreading. Way too many people were convinced that this had to be some sort of Arab thing. Some foreign plot to strike at the heart of our nation.

IT WAS A plot to undermine our society. But it came from within, and from an individual who on the surface would have had many of the credentials that would have caused the conservative ideologues of our society to think he was an upstanding citizen.

McVeigh wasn’t a genius. After finishing high school, he went the military route.

He was a combat veteran – having been among the U.S. troops sent to Kuwait to support the efforts to drive Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein out of that country. He failed in his efforts to become a part of Army Special Forces, but he did receive a Bronze Star, a National Defense Service Medal, a Southwest Asia Service Medal, an Army Service Ribbon and the Kuwaiti Liberation Medal before being honorably discharged near the end of 1991.

I can think of a lot of people with those same credentials who would be regarded as promising young men and women, and whom some would be willing to claim deserve some sort of privilege in our society.

I’M SURE EVEN McVeigh felt the same say about himself, probably thinking he and people like him were the only “true” Americans. But as we now know, he had his own contempt for the ideals upon which our society was based.

Even his military record included a reprimand for having purchased a “White Power” t-shirt that he considered a response to black soldiers who chose to wear “Black Power” shirts around the army base.

Perhaps that was a clue that should have received more attention. For McVeigh went on to become one of the people who became grossly offended when an FBI siege at a cult compound resulted in an explosion and fire that killed all the occupants inside.

I recall that incident near Waco, Texas as being one where religious radicals chose death at their own hand rather than surrender to FBI agents who were concerned about the level of firepower those people were packing. Twisted logic on their part!

HECK, EVEN ACTOR Chuck Norris (never known as liberal) had some agreement – I recently stumbled across the “Walker, Texas Ranger” episode in reruns where his character had to take down a David Koresh-like character who believed himself to be Messiah-like.

Instead, McVeigh plotted an attack on the U.S. government that occurred two years to the day after Waco – and some 220 years to the day after the start of the American Revolution.

It took a serious amount of delusion to think of oneself as a revolutionary for driving a Ryder rental truck loaded with explosives, then triggering them off as a truck-sized bomb.

Even though McVeigh himself is gone, what can be scary is the idea that his ideals were not solitary – there are others amongst us delusional enough to think him a martyr. Making him more terrifying than any Middle Eastern buffoon who thinks Allah would reward their own violent actions.

  -30-

Is this the NATO Summit legacy?

Terrorists? Or three guys who should never have moved to Bridgeport? Photographs provided by Chicago Police Department.

The NATO Summit held last month at McCormick Place convention center fizzled out to a whole lot of nothin’ when it came to civil disobedience – just the usual few people acting up in a large crowd and not the large-scale rioting that some feared.

Nonetheless, we have a “NATO Three” – as in a set of defendants whom prosecutors are going to hold up as the ultimate example of bad behavior resulting from the type of people who feel the need to complain about conditions around them.

RATHER THAN JUST accepting the status quo!

It seems like some people are so determined to have a story line from this year that parallels the insanity that cropped up back in 1968 and the following year with the trial of the ‘Chicago Seven” (or Eight, or Ten, or however you choose to count the people involved in the criminal conspiracy that wasn’t all those years ago).

That’s why we’re getting this “NATO Three” rhetoric, which seems determined to portray the element that was going to use the protest activity (which on the whole really was so mellow and low-key) as a cover for their own subversive plot to overthrow Chicago, and possibly the world!!!!!!

Insert the sinister-sounding cackling from a criminal mastermind at this point.

ALTHOUGH WHEN I read about this particular plot, it comes across as sounding like something that “Dr. Evil” from the Austin Powers films concocted up – just like his “Preparation H” and his demand for “One Millllion dollars” in those silly parodies of the James Bond series of films.

This plot has three men facing criminal indictment for putting together the mechanism to create Molotov cocktails – those crude explosives – that would have been used to attack police squad cars and district police stations, along with the campaign office of President Barack Obama and perhaps even the Ravenswood Manor home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Of course, there are still those who insist that all the equipment that was confiscated when their Bridgeport neighborhood home/headquarters was raided was merely nothing more than beer-making equipment.

This raid created a stink when it took place in the days leading up to the NATO Summit, and it still smells.

LARGELY BECAUSE OF the fact that prosecutors are going out of their way to treat these defendants as though they were would-be terrorists being held at Guantanamo – no real charges, no trial, not much of a legal process, and unlike traditional prisoners of war, no sense that they’re going to be released when the war’s over.

I’m sure if they could get away with it, there are those who would want these three to be held indefinitely.

It seems they have been indicted, but this is the case where prosecutors refused to tell the defendants what charges they will face. They are not to be told until their next court hearing on July 2 – which is the date scheduled for arraignment.

Which literally means these three will be told in one instant what the charges against them are, and will be expected in the next instant to enter their plea of “not guilty” before being assigned to a trial judge.

IN FACT, THE Associated Press gets some bonus points (rare for a former Unipresser like myself to concede) for coming up this week with a copy of the indictment. This is very rare behavior, although I’m sure some people will think it adds to the sinister-ness of the overall case.

Perhaps learning that all three men face 11 charges each, ranging from the conspiracy to commit terrorism and material support for terrorism – along with more mundane charges such as attempted arson, solicitation to commit arson, conspiracy to commit arson and unlawful use of a weapon.

But the degree to which the legal process is working in bizarre ways (I have covered the courts in the Chicago area for more than two decades, and have never seen anything happen like this case) can’t help but create suspicions in my mind. Almost as though the crackpots who are complaining about a frame-up and conspiracy by law enforcement types might actually be correct this one time!

Sunshine, as in plenty of public disclosure, would go a long way toward convincing the masses that those people are off their rocker, and that there is some legitimacy to what is happening in the courts these days.

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Did we care about terrorism trial?

Chicago can be so parochial at times.

We are, after all, the city that initially greeted the idea of a genuine Picasso statue outside our civil courthouse by suggesting it be replaced with an image of Ernie Banks in all his Cubbie-ness.

WE’RE ALSO NOW the city that had a criminal trial related to an international terrorist conspiracy take place in our federal court district – only for us to get more worked up over Milorod, the Sequel.

Whether or not our former governor’s nonsense and stupidity rose to levels that are criminal was more important to us than whether terrorist plots were somehow coming out of our fair city.

For the record, Tahawwur Rana was found guilty of charges related to plans made to attack a newspaper in Denmark that puiblished cartoons that Islamic religious extremists took to be offensive to their religion.

Rana is a long-time Chicago resident, although he actually has Canadian citizenship.

HENCE, ANY ACTIVITIES he did were coming from Chicago, which is why the G-men of the Second City who usually spend their time going after mob bosses and third-rate political hacks were now involved with trying to prosecute a case.

The most serious charges against Rana were the ones for which he was acquitted – the ones that said he helped plan a series of bombings in 2008 in Mumbai, India, on behalf of Pakistanis who are eager to have the conflict between their two nations turn into a global conflict.

Those are the ones that would have ensured that the 50-year-old man would have spent the rest of his life locked away in a federal correctional center with so much attention drawn to him that the rest of his life would have been a hell-ish experience.

We once thought Ernie Banks more significant than Pablo Picasso. Do we now really believe Rod Blagojevich to be more ineresting than Tahawwur Rana? Illustration compiled with help of photograph from State of Illinois.

Not that it’s going to be that pleasant anyway. Because the charges for which he was convicted could get him up to 15 years each in prison, with some legal observers speculating that the judge will wind up giving him consecutive sentencing.

THIRTY YEARS. AT his age, that could be a life sentence too.

You know it is bizarre when some attorneys speculate that Rana “won” this legal battle by only getting the potential for 30 years in a federal prison. But that is the level of high stakes that were at play in this particular trial – which locally got little more public attention during the newscasts than the Chicago Sky typically do during the sports segment.

I’m sure a part of Rana is pleased that Blagojevich got all the public attention, and that he wasn’t immediately turned into Public Enemy Number One on the streets of Chicago. Chances are most people will move on after Friday and forget about this particular round of legal activity.

After all, that jury considering the fate of Blagojevich began its deliberations, which led to such detailed reports about how they would have to sort out their notebooks and pick a jury foreman before they could even begin to start discussing the 20 charges and voting on their verdicts for each.

IT’S OUR PAROCHIAL attitude, which is just as much a part of Chicago’s character as the summer heat and the bad baseball perennially played at Clark and Addison streets.

I suppose I am just as guilty, on account of the fact that I didn’t seriously contemplate writing anything about the trial while it was ongoing, while I wrote several commentaries about the mind-numbing testimony that emanated from el proceso Blagojevich.

For most of us are used to thinking of the Dirksen Building as the place where Outfit guys and aldermen wind up if/when they get caught in the act of whatever mischief they were trying to commit.

In fact, about the only other legal proceeding at the federal courts in Chicago I can recall as comparing to this in terms of international scope was the libel trial of journalist Sy Hersh – who offended former Indian Prime Minster Morarji Desai by writing in one of his books about Desai’s CIA ties.

THAT LAWSUIT GOT heard in the federal courts in Chicago because of an Indian custom that required Desai to try to “shame” Hersh – a suburban Evergreen Park native – in the place of his birth. That was the trial that saw former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director Richard Helms (both of whom had their own distrust for Hersh) appear on the witness stand to testify that Hersh was wrong about Desai.

It means even that relatively-minor case had “bigger” names than did this particular case. Which is sad. Because it reinforces the idea that too many people in our society don’t seem to care about the problems associated with terrorism until it hits our back yard.

It almost seems like too many people who live in this country think that “terrorism” was invented on Sept. 11, 2001, and that any violent acts committed in other parts of the world just don’t matter as much.

The lesson we ought to learn from the Rana trial is that there may be actions in our own back yard that impact the greater world, and we really are all tied in together whether we want to admit it or not.

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When is it right to “spike” the football?

It has been just over one full workweek since the moment that most of us learned that Osama bin Laden was killed during a raid on his compound in Pakistan by Navy SEALS – a fact that even al Qaeda now concedes to be truth.

Was this headline the week's highlight?



During that week, I have seen people celebrate the death in public (all too similar to the despicable public displays from various Middle East cities at the thought of the World Trade Center collapsing on Sept. 11, 2001), and have also heard those who want to rant and complain about the fact that U.S. officials did not desecrate bin Laden’s body.

OF COURSE, OTHERS believe we didn’t show enough respect to the corpse – and al Qaeda officials themselves cited that fact as their justification for the retribution they say WILL be forthcoming.

Some even cite recent news reports that claim these people offering up a radical interpretation of Islam were cooking up a scheme to derail trains across the United States (including in the Chicago metro area, which is still a rail hub for the nation) on the upcoming 10^th anniversary of those attacks in New York that were – for many – the first time they ever gave a thought to the Islamic faith.

There has been public argument over whether we should be able to see the photographs that were taken of bin Laden’s body just before it was given the “burial at sea” with Islamic overtones that some people say just wasn’t Islamic enough.

Just in case you had forgotten, this Annapolis, Md.-based newspaper gave us a lower-right corner reminder of why bin Laden is relevant.

And we even got to see President Barack Obama appear in New York for a memorial service where we got to see him lay a wreath to the memory of those thousands of people who were killed. The result is an Obama with an approval rating that shot up as high as 52 percent; although the Gallup Organization had him falling "back" to 51 percent by Friday.

ALL OF THIS activity just makes me believe all the more that anybody who celebrated in the late hours of May 1 thinking that the “war on terrorism” is over and “WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” was being short-sighted.

Some people in our society have been too willing to engage in knee-jerk reactions, and are going to scream when their view does not prevail.

In fact, that is why the moment this week that made me most reassured about our society was when Obama spoke. No, I don’t mean when he addressed the nation to make the initial statement that bin Laden was dead.

I’m talking about his Wednesday session when he explained why the photographs of bin Laden’s corpse (with a piece of its skull blown off by gunfire and his brain matter exposed) would remain “classified,” and therefore unavailable for public viewing.

AS MUCH AS I think information of all types ought to be made public in as many cases as possible and I’m not sure I buy the argument that the photographs would instigate religious radicals into retribution, I like the sense of calmness that Obama was trying to convey.

“We don’t trot this stuff out as trophies,” Obama said. “We don’t need to spike the football.”

It’s not like federal officials are somehow denying us details about the raid and death. It’s just a matter of how graphic they want to be.

Of course, the conservative ideologues who have always had a misguided sense of what this conflict against western society and the 21^st Century is all about are the ones who want nothing more than to “spike” that football. I’m glad we’re not giving in to them – although a part of me is curious to know how long it will take for someone to get those photos and provide for their “unauthorized” publication?

THAT SENSE OF needing to impose “shame” is ultimately what most of this week comes down to. Such as the moment when now-retired major league pitcher Curt Schilling got himself interviewed on a Boston radio station, and he complained about the fact that U.S. officials felt compelled to provide Muslim aspects to what became bin Laden’s funeral.

I don’t want to say that Schilling called for the desecration of bin Laden’s body. But hearing him complain about “political correctness” being behind the need to follow Islamic funeral rituals made me thankful that Schilling never pitched for a Chicago ballclub.

It would have to be embarrassing to think we once cheered for that knucklehead. If anything, the fact that such rituals were followed even partially ought to be seen as the sign of our society’s superiority.

We should keep in mind that there are some people who are claiming about bin Laden’s burial at sea (which really isn’t desired in Islamic faith) in order to keep a gravesite from becoming some sort of place for the crazed to worship.

NOT THAT I believe that it would have made much difference what had been done with bin Laden’s body. I’m sure the people predisposed to follow him would have found another reason to try to plot out some sort of violent act on Sept. 11, 2011 (this year, it’s a Wednesday).

After all, this “fight” is ongoing. Nothing came to an end on Sunday.

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