AMERICA UNDER ATTACK
Posted: 01 Feb 2026, 03:07
AMERICA UNDER ATTACK
Northfield, Tuesday 11 September. 2001
It all started like a normal Mid West day. I got up early, brewed a coffee and did a few emails for home. When I sent them I logged on to Guardian Online just to see how you lot were minding the shop when my eye was caught by a stop press notice; ‘Reports are coming in of a terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers in New York’.
I switched the TV on and sat there riveted as I watched the first tower burning where the airliner had crashed into it and then saw, in real time, the second plane fly into the North Tower. Then the scene switched to Washington where another plane had crashed on the Pentagon, the nerve centre of the US armed forces and then back to New York to see the towers collapse.
It was like watching a Spielberg movie, it all seemed so unreal but of course I knew that this was real life and I was seeing thousands of people being killed. Twelve hours later the ruins are still blazing and no one can get anywhere near the debris to fight the fire or search for survivors.
The terrible thing is of course that mainland America has not seen destruction on this scale since the Civil War. I was brought up under the threat of German bombing and spent more nights than I care to recall sat in an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the back garden listening to bombs dropping in Stockport as the Germans tried to hit the enormous railway viaduct over the Mersey which carried the main West Coast railway line which was half a mile from us. I learned from a very early age what bombs could do to buildings and people and I suppose I still have scar tissue from this experience. After all, what I was watching was just the natural consequence of three direct hits by 1000lb. bombs.
America has never had this experience and the result was a tremendous defensive reaction. All public transport, all the bridges and tunnels and all business stopped in New York. Further afield, all air transport was stopped right across the States, incoming Atlantic flights were diverted to Canada and basically, the whole of the East Coast closed down. President Bush was in Florida and was immediately flown to a bomb proof defence facility in Omaha while the Secret Service assessed the situation. He’s back in the White House now and has broadcast to the nation. The fleet has sailed from Virginia but nobody is saying why or where to.
So what does it all mean? I cast my mind back to the early 80s when I was in New York and happened to be watching the TV when President Reagan was shot. Exactly the same thing happened today as then, the anchor men on all the TV stations swung into action and broadcast news of the event solid for eight hours even though they hadn’t a clue what was going on. The same obvious facts were repeated over and over again. It was just as though they felt that they had to communicate even though they actually didn’t have anything to say. Much of this is due to the fact that there are so many news organisations competing and they all wanted to be on the air when the next piece of news broke.
The really frightening aspect of the situation soon surfaced when people began looking for someone to blame. All the usual suspects were paraded but by far the favourite is Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Taliban were quick to say it wasn’t him but there is little doubt he is seen as the most likely culprit. Only three weeks ago he was reported to have said that he would shortly launch an attack on the US which would shake the world. If it was him, he certainly succeeded. However, to an outside observer like myself, the interesting and frightening thing is what the US response will be if they get proof that he was responsible.
In the last few months we have seen Israel pursuing a policy of ‘an eye for an eye’ against the Palestinian terrorists and I am very afraid that this is exactly what the US will do in response to this attack. We shall just have to wait and see where they will strike and what the consequences will be.
What of ordinary Americans? On the whole the response has been very calm and sensible. There is a deep sense of outrage but the vast majority of people are recognising that these attacks were meant to induce panic and they are not going to let them succeed. However, deep well-springs of national pride and reasonable outrage have been tapped and as the casualty figures mount over the next days and weeks this is going to become a powerful force driving the Presidency to act. I only hope that whatever measures are taken will be carefully thought out and sensibly prosecuted. The worst thing that could happen would be a blind strike designed more for public consumption than effective and just retaliation.
America suffers in many ways from the same ills that beset the UK. We have had a long period of peace and people have lost the ability to manage risk. We see this every day in the fears expressed by parents about their children walking to school, scares about food, allergies and outbreaks of disease. About five years ago the IRA planted a small bomb under a bridge on the M6 and the whole motorway system was thrown into chaos by closures. At the time I said I couldn’t understand it, we never closed roads during the war even though we were dealing with 1000lb. bombs. Of course, the difference was that we had grown used to them, we knew the risks and made up out own minds about whether we fancied our chances or not. The US has no such experience and so has reacted in a fail safe mode. Close everything just in case.
One thing is certain, things will never be the same again. America will waken up tomorrow morning a different country. Dare I say that they may have grown up a bit? If there was another ‘normal’ size terrorist bomb somewhere in the States tomorrow it would have nowhere near the effect it would have done prior to today. Perhaps that is one positive thing that will come out of this, hard-won though the experience is.
One of the men who was asked to comment on TV was Henry Kissinger. I couldn’t help but reflect that this was the man who sat down with Richard Nixon and with no authority from the Senate, decided to bomb Cambodia ‘back into the Stone Age’. It was these raids which destabilised the country and allowed Pol Pot to get ascendancy and the Killing Fields followed. Over a million people lost their lives. Were these lives less valuable than the ones lost in Manhattan today? Two wrongs don’t make a right and I pray that whatever the US response is, it doesn’t make things worse.
So, it’s been a hard day for America, a worse day for New York and Washington and hundreds of families tonight will be stricken with grief. The politicians are right, it is a second Pearl Harbour and an act of war against a great country. These same politicians now have a duty to make sure that whatever form America’s response takes it is measured, lawful and precise. If it isn’t, it could be just as great a crime as the attack on the Trade Towers.
It’s a sad day for me. I like this country and admire the people. I hate to see them hurt like this. But then I reflect that at least this will bring home to them the reality of war and mass destruction. It is a terrible lesson to learn and a horrible way to get the experience but good might come of it. What happened today was real life, not Dream Works and it will be years before the scars heal. I wish them all the best and a quick recovery.
SCG/11 September 2001
1385 words
Northfield, Tuesday 11 September. 2001
It all started like a normal Mid West day. I got up early, brewed a coffee and did a few emails for home. When I sent them I logged on to Guardian Online just to see how you lot were minding the shop when my eye was caught by a stop press notice; ‘Reports are coming in of a terrorist attack on the World Trade Towers in New York’.
I switched the TV on and sat there riveted as I watched the first tower burning where the airliner had crashed into it and then saw, in real time, the second plane fly into the North Tower. Then the scene switched to Washington where another plane had crashed on the Pentagon, the nerve centre of the US armed forces and then back to New York to see the towers collapse.
It was like watching a Spielberg movie, it all seemed so unreal but of course I knew that this was real life and I was seeing thousands of people being killed. Twelve hours later the ruins are still blazing and no one can get anywhere near the debris to fight the fire or search for survivors.
The terrible thing is of course that mainland America has not seen destruction on this scale since the Civil War. I was brought up under the threat of German bombing and spent more nights than I care to recall sat in an Anderson shelter at the bottom of the back garden listening to bombs dropping in Stockport as the Germans tried to hit the enormous railway viaduct over the Mersey which carried the main West Coast railway line which was half a mile from us. I learned from a very early age what bombs could do to buildings and people and I suppose I still have scar tissue from this experience. After all, what I was watching was just the natural consequence of three direct hits by 1000lb. bombs.
America has never had this experience and the result was a tremendous defensive reaction. All public transport, all the bridges and tunnels and all business stopped in New York. Further afield, all air transport was stopped right across the States, incoming Atlantic flights were diverted to Canada and basically, the whole of the East Coast closed down. President Bush was in Florida and was immediately flown to a bomb proof defence facility in Omaha while the Secret Service assessed the situation. He’s back in the White House now and has broadcast to the nation. The fleet has sailed from Virginia but nobody is saying why or where to.
So what does it all mean? I cast my mind back to the early 80s when I was in New York and happened to be watching the TV when President Reagan was shot. Exactly the same thing happened today as then, the anchor men on all the TV stations swung into action and broadcast news of the event solid for eight hours even though they hadn’t a clue what was going on. The same obvious facts were repeated over and over again. It was just as though they felt that they had to communicate even though they actually didn’t have anything to say. Much of this is due to the fact that there are so many news organisations competing and they all wanted to be on the air when the next piece of news broke.
The really frightening aspect of the situation soon surfaced when people began looking for someone to blame. All the usual suspects were paraded but by far the favourite is Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The Taliban were quick to say it wasn’t him but there is little doubt he is seen as the most likely culprit. Only three weeks ago he was reported to have said that he would shortly launch an attack on the US which would shake the world. If it was him, he certainly succeeded. However, to an outside observer like myself, the interesting and frightening thing is what the US response will be if they get proof that he was responsible.
In the last few months we have seen Israel pursuing a policy of ‘an eye for an eye’ against the Palestinian terrorists and I am very afraid that this is exactly what the US will do in response to this attack. We shall just have to wait and see where they will strike and what the consequences will be.
What of ordinary Americans? On the whole the response has been very calm and sensible. There is a deep sense of outrage but the vast majority of people are recognising that these attacks were meant to induce panic and they are not going to let them succeed. However, deep well-springs of national pride and reasonable outrage have been tapped and as the casualty figures mount over the next days and weeks this is going to become a powerful force driving the Presidency to act. I only hope that whatever measures are taken will be carefully thought out and sensibly prosecuted. The worst thing that could happen would be a blind strike designed more for public consumption than effective and just retaliation.
America suffers in many ways from the same ills that beset the UK. We have had a long period of peace and people have lost the ability to manage risk. We see this every day in the fears expressed by parents about their children walking to school, scares about food, allergies and outbreaks of disease. About five years ago the IRA planted a small bomb under a bridge on the M6 and the whole motorway system was thrown into chaos by closures. At the time I said I couldn’t understand it, we never closed roads during the war even though we were dealing with 1000lb. bombs. Of course, the difference was that we had grown used to them, we knew the risks and made up out own minds about whether we fancied our chances or not. The US has no such experience and so has reacted in a fail safe mode. Close everything just in case.
One thing is certain, things will never be the same again. America will waken up tomorrow morning a different country. Dare I say that they may have grown up a bit? If there was another ‘normal’ size terrorist bomb somewhere in the States tomorrow it would have nowhere near the effect it would have done prior to today. Perhaps that is one positive thing that will come out of this, hard-won though the experience is.
One of the men who was asked to comment on TV was Henry Kissinger. I couldn’t help but reflect that this was the man who sat down with Richard Nixon and with no authority from the Senate, decided to bomb Cambodia ‘back into the Stone Age’. It was these raids which destabilised the country and allowed Pol Pot to get ascendancy and the Killing Fields followed. Over a million people lost their lives. Were these lives less valuable than the ones lost in Manhattan today? Two wrongs don’t make a right and I pray that whatever the US response is, it doesn’t make things worse.
So, it’s been a hard day for America, a worse day for New York and Washington and hundreds of families tonight will be stricken with grief. The politicians are right, it is a second Pearl Harbour and an act of war against a great country. These same politicians now have a duty to make sure that whatever form America’s response takes it is measured, lawful and precise. If it isn’t, it could be just as great a crime as the attack on the Trade Towers.
It’s a sad day for me. I like this country and admire the people. I hate to see them hurt like this. But then I reflect that at least this will bring home to them the reality of war and mass destruction. It is a terrible lesson to learn and a horrible way to get the experience but good might come of it. What happened today was real life, not Dream Works and it will be years before the scars heal. I wish them all the best and a quick recovery.
SCG/11 September 2001
1385 words