Thomas Friedman: “The terrorists actually want to provoke attacks on Arabs or Muslims in the U.S., because if the American communities start going after each other, if we see America fragment, then you destroy that special thing that America stands for. That’s what the terrorists want ? they want to be able to turn to your friends here and say, `Look, this is all a myth.'” (quoting Jordan’s King Abdullah.). New York Times

Pentagon said to eye nuclear attack against terrorists: ‘On ABC television’s “This Week” program Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Rumsfeld, who is notoriously tight-lipped with the press, avoided answering a question on whether their use could be ruled out. To a similar question, a Pentagon official also replied, “We will not discuss operational and intelligence matters.” ‘ Japan Times

The diplomatic sources said the Pentagon recommended using tactical nuclear weapons shortly after it became known that the terrorist attacks caused an unprecedented number of civilian casualties.

Who’s Who in the Terror War: “a who’s who of the countries in the terror war: which side they’re on and why, and whether they’re likely to endorse any American military campaign.” David Plotz, Slate Washington Bureau chief

Telesurgery realized: surgeons in NY perform cholecystectomy on woman in Strasbourg, France, via high speed data link and robot arms. New Scientist

After the Horror, Radio Stations Pull Some Songs —

Clear Channel Communications, the Texas-based company that owns about 1,170 radio stations nationwide, has circulated a list of 150 songs and asked its stations to avoid playing them because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Some listed songs would be insensitive to play right now, such as the Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” and Soundgarden’s “Blow Up the Outside World,” but other choices, critics and musicians say, are less explicable because they have little literal connection to the tragedies.

These include “Ticket to Ride” by the Beatles, “On Broadway” by the Drifters and “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John. Even odder, some songs on the list are patriotic, like Neil Diamond’s “America.” Others speak of universal optimism, like Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” and others are emotional but hopeful songs that could help people grieve, like “Imagine” by John Lennon, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel, “Peace Train” by Cat Stevens and “A World Without Love” by Peter and Gordon. New York Times

U.N. Official: Opium Cuts May Hit Afghan Capability — “Until last year, Afghanistan was the world’s largest producer of heroin… Smuggling the drug to western markets was seen as a major source of funding for the Taliban… Afghanistan began cutting back opium production in the summer of 2000, following a Taliban view that it was unIslamic. But it also cut off a crucial source of funding that has undermined its military capabilities.” Reuters

Natalie Angier: Of Altruism, Heroism and Nature’s Gifts in the Face of Terror

Altruism and heroism. If not for these twin radiant badges of our humanity, there would be no us, and we know it. And so, when their vile opposite threatened to choke us into submission last Tuesday, we rallied them in quantities so great we surprised even ourselves…

“For every 50 people making bomb threats now to mosques,” he said, “there are 500,000 people around the world behaving just the way we hoped they would, with empathy and expressions of grief. We are amazingly civilized.”

True, death-defying acts of heroism may be the province of the few. For the rest of us, simple humanity will do. New York Times

Troops Deployed To Persian Gulf, starting with air force controllers. By the way, the ‘war on terrorism’ is called ‘Operation Infinite Justice.’

Attorney General Ascroft says that it is “pretty clear” that a “variety of foreign governments” were involved in supporting and protecting what he describes as “the networks that conduct these kind of events”; he’s not mentioning names but the incipient meme is of Iraqi involvement. Hard to know how to evaluate this new ‘spin’, since suspicions that Dubya means to finish off Bush Sr.’s Desert Storm project abound. TheBostonChannel

NPR Watch: The rumor is that guest host Neal Conan will be appointed next permanent host of NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Reasonable choice, IMHO, and it’ll be an improvement on the lacklustre (and sometimes rude) Juan Williams.

And: will those other NPR voices sound the same after you’ve seen what they look like? A Slate quiz.

In Disaster’s Aftermath, Once-Cocky Media Culture

Disses the Age of Irony : ‘Editors and writers predict that the prevailing sensibility of celebrity

idolatry and self-conscious knowingness will dissolve. Says Vanity Fair editor Graydon

Carter: “Things that were considered fringe and frivolous are going to disappear.” ‘ Inside How long will this post-frivolity last, d’you think?

And how long will bipartisanship and polite avoidance of dissent in Washington last, while we’re on the subject? The Washington editor of the libertarian Reason says not long:

If grief is bipartisan, however, action is inherently political. Everyone agrees that the perpetrators must pay and that we have to prevent such attacks in the future, but beyond that nothing is certain.

Whom should we attack, and how? How are we going to fix the obviously flawed security systems we have in place? How are we going to pay for it, and what civil liberties are we willing to sacrifice? How do you conduct foreign policy in a places vehemently opposed to U.S. actions and interests?

When the candlelight vigils are over and the camouflaged humvees are gone, people on opposite ends of the political spectrum will answer these questions in fundamentally different ways. How the nation resolves those differences may well be the true legacy of September 11, 2001.

And, from the Washington Post:

A host of suspicions and resentments make it likely, said many Democrats, that the fractiousness that has defined modern politics could soon reappear.

Democrats, and even some Republicans, have expressed concern that the necessity to give broad powers to the White House could go too far, robbing what they said was Congress’s constitutional authority to appropriate money and hold the administration accountable for policy decisions it makes to meet the crisis.

On a less philosophical plane, there is already private grousing about intelligence briefings — considered by some lawmakers to be inadequate — about the attacks and Bush’s intentions for responding. And while virtually every Democrat is publicly expressing support for Bush, there is considerable not-for-attribution criticism among lawmakers and political operatives about the sense of command he has conveyed in public performances.

A petition asking President Bush to publicly condemn hateful remarks made by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. As of my signing, 12,290 signatures since the petition was put up on 9-14. Not much of a chance Dubya will agree with the petitioners, but enough signatures would certainly place him in a dilemmatic position relative to the Far Right, no?

Rush Limbaugh, of all people, called Falwell and Robertson’s position “indefensible… Suggestions of this kind are one of the reasons why all conservatives get tarred and feathered with this extremist, bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic label or image that isn’t true. The words of Robertson and Falwell are not the words of all conservatives – they are the words of Robertson and Falwell.” [via MetaFilter]

Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view — “Israel’s military intelligence service, Aman,

suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the

suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and

the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the

mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the

world’s foremost terrorist masterminds: the

Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special

overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the

Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of

Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing

Osama Bin Laden.

The two men have not been seen for some time.

Mughniyeh is probably the world’s most wanted

outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has

undergone plastic surgery and is unrecognisable.

Zawahiri is thought to be based in Egypt. He could

be Bin Laden’s chief representative outside

Afghanistan.” Jane’s Security

Martin Amis comments in The Guardian:

‘Their aim was to torture tens of thousands, and to terrify

hundreds of millions. In this, they have succeeded. The

temperature of planetary fear has been lifted towards the

feverish; “the world hum”, in Don DeLillo’s phrase, is now

as audible as tinnitus. And yet the most durable legacy has

to do with the more distant future, and the disappearance

of an illusion about our loved ones, particularly our

children. American parents will feel this most acutely, but

we will also feel it. The illusion is this. Mothers and fathers

need to feel that they can protect their children. They

can’t, of course, and never could, but they need to feel

that they can. What once seemed more or less impossible

– their pro-tection – now seems obviously and palpably

inconceivable. So from now on we will have to get by

without that need to feel.

…Our best destiny, as planetary cohabitants, is the

development of what has been called “species

consciousness” – something over and above nationalisms,

blocs, religions, ethnicities. During this week of incredulous

misery, I have been trying to apply such a consciousness,

and such a sensibility. Thinking of the victims, the

perpetrators, and the near future, I felt species grief, then

species shame, then species fear.’

In the death zone: “If it comes to a ground war, I believe the western forces will

have a very slim chance of victory. The last army to win in

Afghanistan was that of Alexander the Great; everyone

else has got mauled and pulled out. The CIA made an

awful lot of maps when they were there, but a map is only

as good as the person using it, and there is no safe way to

get troops in. The Afghans are a formidable enemy. I

should know. We in the west pointed them in the right

direction and with a little bit of training, they went a long

way.” Guardian UK