Washington Post Article Friday, September 14, 2001; 5:03 PM
Financial Contributions
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The United Way of Washington D.C. The September 11 Fund will provide immediate support to established emergency assistance agencies. Contributions may may be sent to:
United Way, 95 M Street SW,
Washington D.C., 20024,
or call: (202) 488-2000.
The designation code for donations in Washington D.C. is 9011.
The United Way of New York and the New York Community Trust have established a fund to help the victims of the attacks and their families. The September Eleventh Fund will provide support to emergency assistance agencies.
Contributions may may be sent to
United Way, 2 Park Ave,
New York, New York, 10016,
or call: (212) 251-4035.
The designation code for donations from Washington for the New York efforts is 9012.
American Red Cross, National Capital Chapter Anyone wishing to contribute may send their donations in care of the
Red Cross, National Capital Chapter,
2131 K St. NW, Washington D.C., 20037,
or call: 202-728-6400.
Introduction - "What Warped Logic?" During the Abacha June 12 crisis, I once got an email from a frustrated Nigerian who suggested that the pro-democracy community collect enough money to hire a Palestinian suicide terrorist to take Abacha out from Aso Rock. I graciously declined the suggestion, stating that while I was also anxious to see Abacha vacate Aso Rock, I did not think that suicidal terrorists did what they did for money and without a just cause not defined by themselves. I never heard from the suggester again.
There was also a more profound understanding that I had about suicide bombers: that these were desperate, hopeless young men (and a very few women) who decided on the spur of the moment that life was no longer worth living, and within a day or two or even just a week after they might have senselessly lost a loved one or their entire family, they volunteered to be strapped with a bomb, and walked to their death, taking usually innocent victims with them.
I believed that "desperate, hopeless" theory until September 11 and thereafter, when I learnt that as many as 19 hijackers had taken part in suicide plane bombings of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, taking down with them hundreds of innocent commercial plane passengers as well as thousands of others in those buildings. Horrific as that was, what was also even more horrific to me was that many of these terrorists had taken pilot certificate classes in the US for as long as one year, preparing to pilot a plane into their sure death and that of others ONE FULL YEAR after they began their first pilot classes.
That is frightening.
What cause will make you plan so meticulously for a mission IN WHICH YOU WERE SO BOUND not to return if "successful" - successful according to one's warped logic? What could be achieved
here on Earth by the killing of innocent people? It could ONLY mean one thing: that the perceived REWARD, possibly in heaven after the success, was far more enamoring that continuing to live after that one year of preparation.
But more about that later on.
Minimizing Air Hijackings - "Working from the Inside Out" If in a single day 19 hijackers can divert four planes within minutes of each other from three different cities in the United States - the most powerful and possibly most security conscious nation - who the heck in the world is safe?
But the world CAN be made safer from air hijackings if we apply some common sense steps of prevention, which one presumes should have been applied before now. Better late than never.
Such common sense steps should however work FROM INSIDE THE PLANE where the hijackings occur to OUTSIDE THE PLANE from where the hijackers plan their hijackings and do get into the plane. IT will involve the redesign of airplanes and airports, without inconveniencing passengers
too much.
I now proceed to outline some of them:
A hijacking occurs only when the hijackers make physical contact with the COCKPIT, following which either the hijackers force the pilots to do their bidding, or after completely displacing the pilots and taking over the maneuvering of the planes, as apparently happened on September 11.
Thus, it appears that the first order of business in minimizing hijacking is to:
improve the forewarning of the pilots that something strange is happening behind them.
reduce or even eliminate completely contact between the pilot of the rest of the passengers.
trained armed guards (marshals) inside the plane to take out hijackers.
Removing the surprise element of pilots would mean that cameras (some obvious, others hidden) should be placed in the passenger compartments, which the pilots can then monitor their feeds from the cockpit for normal and strange activities.
This feature will then give them a few
minutes to take any preventive actions that may be deemed necessary like electronic sealing of their cockpit, informing of ground staff of distress, and turning of airplane towards a safe harbor. Periodically, such still or live video feeds could be transmitted back to ground for record keeping.
Quite frankly, I have always been surprised at the ease with which one can gain access during flight to the cockpit by all and sundry, including by smart-aleck 11-year olds whose parents simply wish to satisfy their curiosity. The cockpits should be protected in flight from the rest of the cabin by a steel door which can only be opened by a combination from the inside of the cockpit, and which has a one-way keyhole from which the pilot can have a panoramic view of the cabin.
Egress from and entry to that cockpit (either by any of the flight pilots or a flight attendant) should only be via a small video-monitored side compartment which in itself can be accessed FROM the passenger cabin ONLY via a combination lock, and from which one can gain access into the cockpit ONLY from a combination known to the pilot.
About armed guards inside the planes: theoretically this sounds like a good idea, to occasionally wrestle hijackers to the ground before they wreak their havoc, particularly if they are covert, as is done by El-Al airlines. The federal government, the airlines and/or the flight
insurance carriers should be made to bear this cost, so as not to increase the cost of travel to passengers who will now have to pay for this non-traveler. However, I am skeptical of its value, since hijackers could simply ratchet up their own surveillance of passengers and take out those who show themselves obviously as marshals.
Let us now proceed to the passengers inside the cabin. One of the privileges of passengers is the ability to carry hand luggage, including two categories: those that can fit UNDER the seat in front of you, and those that can fit in the overhead luggage compartment. During flight, all such luggage is available to you.
I believe that with increased security, it should be stipulated that ALL the OVERHEAD LUGGAGE will become available ONLY AT THE END OF THE FLIGHT, and hence those overhead cabinets should be TIGHTLY SHUT, and the keys handed over to the pilots in their secured cabins so that they
are not wrested from flight attendants by hijackers, which keys are then released at the end of the journey.
Passengers will still have the advantage of early departure with their luggage after disembarking, but will face the inconvenience of not having access to knives and guns etc.
that they might have inadvertently placed in such luggage!
What about passengers ENTERING the plane? It is quite interesting that once you have checked through the security with your hand luggage, you are free to roam the airport restaurants (where you can choose to eat with steel cutlery and hide one or two forks and knives in your bag) and shops, sometimes buying sharp objects that suit your fancy. There is hardly any security check until you get into the plane.
The deal here is that there should be installed, within minutes of boarding each flight, new security points of no return for all passengers, manned by experienced security personnel, where ALL man and material entering the plane are given a final thorough security check (complete with a show of a government-issued ID to match the name on their ticket) without danger of taking on new cargo. I have sometimes wondered about the possibility of that airline fellow who takes over my "too heavy hand luggage; we need to put it in the checked-in luggage" colluding to hand me a gun as I hand him my luggage.
About cutlery: since food will continue to be served, especially in long flights, we will never be able to eliminate the possibility of airlines actually inadvertently supplying dedicated hijackers the needed "ammo". Maybe we should all eat rice and mashed potato(e)s with our
fingers?
About electronic E-tickets (very convenient), curb-side checking (also convenient), curb-side dropping-off (convenient), and well-wishers seeing one off as close to boarding time as possible: I believe that ALL of these conveniences can be retained at airports
WITHOUT compromising security if the three steps outlined earlier are done. Unfortunately, the heightened security steps announced so far by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seem to involve PRECISELY banning these conveniences.
Finally, whatever steps taken should also be considered not just by the United States, or the developed world, but ALL THE WORLD OVER, because what happened on September 11 can easily happen ANYWHERE in the world.
Epilogue - "The Last Word" On September 11, I watched on CNN, AS IT HAPPENED live, the second plane slamming into the second tower, and could not believe my eyes because I first thought it was just a media plane trying to get a close shot, or just passing by and making a silhouette on the scene. At that precise moment, a second cousin of mine, completing an internship in Nantucket from his
studies in England, was in a bus headed for Penn Station to take the Amtrak to visit my family in Washington DC, and saw the plane overhead minutes before the dastardly deed. He arrives from New York today, five days late.
Another friend informed me just yesterday that he had a meeting at Building No. 5 (which collapsed on September 12) for any time after 9 am that Tuesday morning, and would possibly have gotten to the World Trade Center area about the same time that the first hit was done if only he did not miss a relative arriving at JF Kennedy airport at 6:30 am from Nigeria on that same day.
We praise God for their lives, and for many other lives spared.
Some have asked what manner of God allows such a dastardly act to occur. I have retorted by stating that 5,000 people dying in a single day from terrorist attacks are 5,000 people too many, but we must remember that 30,000 people have died in a single earthquake before, and millions of Africans have died from AIDS - more silently one must admit. We must always
remember that it is the same God who spares the rest, and the same devil who ravishes the Earth.
Very importantly, we must remember that death, which comes to ALL without exception, is a gate to Heaven - or to Hell for those who choose it. We have no choice in when that gate is opened, but each of us has a choice of WHICH of the gates is opened.
After the September 11, the World will not be the same again, but I pray that you do not allow the September 11 tragedy to make that choice of gates for you.
This is where the religious angle comes in. "Heaven is our home, and Earth is our footstool" as the song goes. Any sect of a religion that promises a harem of 40 wives if martyred for God, and occasionally provides a PHYSICAL KEY to would-be suicide terrorists to take with them on
their heaven-bound journey to open up such a mansion is a dangerous one.
Those of that religion - and I am specifically writing about the Muslim religion now - who condemn both the terrorist action AND the warped beliefs of these extremist sects as being un-Islamic must do so UNEQUIVOCALLY - no ifs, ands or buts - and publicly EXCOMMUNICATE all of those who support such acts. Otherwise, all the bromides about such terrorists being un-Christian (if they are IRA bombing trains in London, say) or un-Islamic (as in the bombing of the WTC and the Pentagon) sound hypocritical. Not only must the security officials not give them any place to hide, but the churches and the mosques must also deny them hiding places.
Finally, hijackers and terrorists have political messages to send, whether we like to hear them or not. The US and the world may retaliate - as we inevitably must and will - but we cannot afford to ignore their messages of desperation and hopelessness that are sent, whether about Palestine, or Northern Ireland, or Pakistan, or Iran or Iraq - or in my native country Nigeria.
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