WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Cally Crossley This is the Cali Kosslyn show. As we near the 10 year mark of September 11th this week we're looking at how 9/11 has changed the world. Today we check in with Brown University home of the cost of war project economists political scientists and anthropologists have calculated the costs associated with America's military response to the attacks on 9/11 from the loss of human life to the erosion of civil liberties to the hazards to wars that have wreaked on the environment. We'll examine that in quantifiable terms. But the cost of waging the war on terror has been. From there we continue the 9/11 conversation with youth lead a group based in Sharon Massachusetts. We'll hear from teens about what it means to grow up in a post-9 11 world. Up next 9/11 from the cost and consequences to coming of age. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi saying stocks are down

sharply on the return back from the long Labor Day weekend with ongoing fears the U.S. and European economies will keep slowing at last check the Dow is down more than 200 points or 1.8 percent at eleven thousand thirty eight. Nasdaq was off one and a half percent. Twenty four thirty nine S&P 500 down one in three quarters percent at eleven fifty three. More than 50 wildfires are burning across Texas where more than a thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed. Officials say most were burned by one out out of control fire in Bastrop County near Austin. Thousands of people were forced from their homes. Governor Rick Perry says even though property losses have been excessive in Bastrop he could have been worse. Even with this tragedy the the good news is that there are no wives lost in these neighborhoods. The flames were fueled by tinder dry conditions and high winds generated by Tropical Storm Lee. Winds are supposed to be calmer today delivering a welcome break to firefighters in the thick of it. The fires in Texas spread in the last week with help from high winds from

then Tropical Storm Lee a storm that's developing far wetter conditions points north. Blake Farmer of member station reports flash flood watches and warnings remain in effect along the Appalachian Mountains into New England. Rain continues to fall on already saturated soil causing some trees to topple. Chattanooga Tennessee measured record precipitation yesterday with as much as 11 inches falling in some areas. Schools are closed some roads are under water. Area creeks are already several feet above flood stage. The Hydro meteorological Prediction Center says to expect flooding from the Tennessee Valley into New England. In Alabama the slow moving storm caused a roof to collapse at Pinson Valley High School outside Birmingham. Storms spawned afternoon tornadoes north of Atlanta yesterday damaging roughly 100 homes. For NPR News I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville. The mayor of Orange Beach Alabama is reporting small tar balls washing up on the state's beaches as a result of heavy surf from Lee. No word yet on whether they might be remnants of

last year's BP oil spill. The postmaster general will tell Congress today about the financial crisis the Postal Service is facing. NPR's Paul Brown reports the losses are due in part to the popularity of e-mail over snail mail. The Postal Service faces a second year in a row of losses exceeding eight billion dollars. Its officials say business continues to slide because of competition from the Internet and a loss of advertising mail during the economic downturn. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe who has said that this month the agency won't be able to make a payment to cover future employee health care costs. He's already proposed cutting up to 100 20000 jobs closing more post offices and ending Saturday mail delivery. Paul Brown NPR News Washington. From Washington this is NPR News. Anti-government activists in Syria are reporting more attacks from Syrian troops and homes today. They say two people including a teenager were killed as reports of violence

at the hands of government forces mount United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki moon is issuing what may be his strongest announcement yet of President Bashar al-Assad's actions. President Assad takes an immediate and board then decisive measures of reform interest people. It is too late. Bon Ki moon speaking to New Zealand broadcaster TV 3 the former head of the Yugoslav army is getting nearly three decades behind bars for his role in the Balkan wars of the early 1990s. Teri Schultz reports on the wrap up of a war crimes trial that took nearly three years to complete. General mam Cee-Lo Pettit maintains that even as the most senior official in the Army of the former Yugoslavia he was innocent of any responsibility for the mass killings and torture of non-Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia. Judges at the UN court in The Hague did not agree as does a book on a mulatto announced Pettit's would receive a 27 year sentence for his crimes medal as a crime against humanity into relation to study.

NET as a violation of the laws or customs of war in relation to study pitches was also found guilty of failing to punish subordinates who committed such crimes. For NPR News I'm Teri Shultz. Service firms that account for the majority of the American workforce in health care hospitality and financial service companies is showing signs of improvement. The Institute for Supply Management finds a sector rose at a slightly faster pace in August than the month before. I'm Lakshmi Singh NPR News in Washington. Support for NPR comes from the George Lucas Educational Foundation celebrating 20 years of being a source for what works in education. More at Edgewood topia dot org. Good afternoon I'm Cally Crossley. All this week we'll be looking at 9/11 and how the terrorist attacks on the trade towers have reverberated here and beyond. Ten years ago when America went to war it was really as a response to

attacks of 9/11 and those attacks cost nearly 3000 American lives. And in the wake of those deaths I think it's fair to say that many Americans thought no cost too high to win a military victory on what became known as the war on terror. But here we are 10 years later with millions of dollars spent and two wars under way and many are wondering if the cost was too high. But until recently there was no quantifiable way really of looking at all of the costs of war. But today this hour there is a way to look at it. And we'll be examining that right now. Joining us from Brown University is Catherine let's. She's the co-director of the cost of war study out of the Watson Institute. It's one of the most if not the only comprehensive assessment of what the human economic social and political costs of the war on terror have been. Catherine let's welcome. Thanks for having me Kelly.

First look just a little bit of context because your comprehensive study tackles a broad spectrum of cause so we're not just talking about what Congress approved to fight the war and I think sometimes when you think about cost of war that may be where everybody's mind goes so if you could define what you and your co-author mean by costs of war well it's a group of twenty two of us from universities across the country. My co-director and Crawford and I put together the team and included economists among others and economists told us well you have to look much farther than simply the war allocations you have to look to additions to the Pentagon base budget that occurred as a result of the war or the war climate in Congress. You have to include interest on the debt that we've already been paying. You have to include veterans medical and disability payments and on and on and other aspects of the federal budget. Also you have to count you have to look forward you have to say what have we obligated ourselves to pay to take care of the wounded veterans.

And look forward to potential interest payments that will continue far into the future and. And then you come up with a much larger number. So bottom line it for us because you click on your website and you see these numbers and they're frankly staggering. They are it's a it's a big chunk of change and it is. Moderately estimated at about 4.5 trillion dollars that has been paid if you include all of that that I just mentioned as well as what we can anticipate what has already been estimated to be the costs of over the next several years of the continuing operations in occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan. And you say two hundred twenty five thousand killed. Explain that. Well that's a very very conservative estimate. Our report suggests that you have to multiply that figure by orders of magnitude in order to come up with the true figure because what that number represents is a very conservative estimate of how many

people have been counted already as having died from the violence in a direct way. But you have to also add the number of people who died as an indirect result of the war who. I became sick and died for lack of health care that they would have otherwise had it had they not been dislocated by the war who had suffered malnourishment as a result of being dislocated from their farmland and so on so that the true number is is quite staggering as well. But 250 million includes very conservatively the civilians and the service members who have died. Allies us and others who have died in the last 10 years. When you thought about putting this together you really. The aim was to have it ready for the tenth anniversary of 9/11 so one could really use that as a marker to see what are we doing here. One of the things that you say in your report is that what we understand the cost to be is quite small and that

and I'm quoting here under counted and counted and even suppressed are just many more layers of cost so that we really still don't have a real full sense of what we're talking about. Yeah this is really just a beginning of an effort to continue to really get a full sense of what the last 10 years have have involved. And I think one of the things that we we tried to do in starting this was to get beyond some of the hype and we know that governments in general try to oversell wars when they first launch them. They'll be cheaper more effective quicker in government estimation then in fact they turn out to be. No one I think ten years ago could have guessed that things would have been this that we would have invaded Iraq. That the war would have extended into so many countries around the world and that it would have lasted this long. But I think one of the reasons why we wanted to be able to put this together is that citizens need to have that information in order to

evaluate the claims that they're being made safe and that they're being made safe at or at a reasonable in reasonable ways. There's also often an over estimation of the utility of force by people who. Plan wars and I think one of the things that this study shows is how the utility of force has to be gauged in relationship to these costs as well. So when you say utility of course you mean the effectiveness of it whether or not you know putting all of the money the energy the human resources and every other attending cost to the task of of really fighting a quote war on terror is effective right. Wow well that's a lot of money too. While we're still considering whether or not that can be effective what kind of response are you getting from your study. It as we've said there have been some other pieces of this done. You know there have been

a couple books looking at the cost of war. There have been some narrowly defined studies looking at one aspect of it. Wired magazine did a piece looking at waste and abuse with the number of contractors hired to be a part of of the the war effort in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And it was that in and of itself was a staggering amount so what are people saying now as you lay out this in a very layered and comprehensive way. Well I think 10 years out people are really hungry for information we've had a tremendous interest in the study from around the world I think people really want to know you know what these major investments have been and what you know who's been bearing the cost the costs are invisible to a lot of people outside of Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan and outside military families in the U.S.. And so I think it's really people people do want to know they do want to

understand what has been done in United States what's been done in their name and. I think that's that's been one of the reasons there's been such attention to it. Now how difficult it was for you to get. I mean as you point out you have many many people working on this effort to get the information that you've gotten. Even with the access to the Internet and a very determined person to uncover some of the information it seems to me as I'm getting from your report that it would be quite difficult to find its characterize one way here another way there. It's not counted in this in this column but counted over here. Give us a sense of of the kinds of obstacles research obstacles were in your way as you try to put this together. Well first of all the human costs these are is that the U.S. has not at least publicly tried to keep a tally of the number of civilians who have died. We know

to a person. How many Americans have died in the war zones. We don't have a full accounting of how many Americans veterans have died since coming home of war related disability or mental illness and the form of suicides and other things car crashes which we know are occurring at higher rates among distressed veterans. And so I think. One of the things that we need to ask is Why isn't the U.S. government collecting this kind of information this is crucial for policymakers and the public to know. And when signing on to yet another year of occupation and war here's how many people people can be expected to die. Here's how many people can expect to be wounded. And here's how much money it's going to cost so that the government is not collecting that information because I don't think they anticipate that people won't be that happy to find out what the tally consists of.

You're listening to a 9.7 WGBH an online at WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley and we're talking about 9/11 this hour with a look at the costs of the U.S. military response to the attacks on 9/11. My guest is Catherine Lutz. She's the co-director of the cost of war study out of the Watson Institute at Brown University a comprehensive look at the actual costs of war. Is there a bit of naivete going on I mean what you just expressed to you not wanting to put all the figures out because people would be shocked surprised whatever at the actual cost. But there is there are also some naivete about the real cause. You know for so long it seems to me maybe I'm just naive as well as I hear about the cost of the war. I know I'm only hearing about it in terms of the allocation from Congress and that seems large to me. But having read your report now this is nothing. It's like a drop in the bucket. Well I think there's two things about which people

are under informed and the first is that these wars unlike previous wars have been paid for mainly with borrowed money and that entails huge interest costs almost 200 billion so far and another trillion potentially into the next 10 years of interest payments. So in the past war bonds increased taxes were the device of paying for wars so that's one thing. We have a vision of war that in some cases is outdated but the other thing is that as in the past wars are never over when they're said to be over so in the lives of veterans in the lives of civilians in the war zones. Recovery takes a very long time and in some cases is a lifelong process so just to take us veterans. There are so many people who are coping and will be coping into 2050 with their injuries. In some cases the

injury will intersect with the aging process in a way that makes them even more challenging. And so Linda Bilmes at Harvard estimates for us that the projected cost of medical and disability for it into 2051 will be almost a trillion dollars. And then there's a lot of costs that are outsourced to military families of people who leave their job in order to stay home and be caretaker for their injured family member not reimbursed for that and that's another. Several hundred billion dollars that we have to add to the total not not federal spending but one could say should be federal spending. And it is not. That's how late in I want to pick up a couple of things that you said. You just said there. The the last thing about these costs continuing your reports is the peak cost could be increased 40 years from now as veterans of these wars aging need services.

Yeah absolutely. The peak war costs for disability and medical for a war to veterans was one thousand nine hundred two. So for this these wars will be looking in 2040 and 2050 one still at some numbers that are on the increase. Well and now let me go back to this borrowing that these wars the money for to support these wars were borrowed and you say the interest alone is would you say 200 billion. Did I hear you correctly. So far yes. So when the debt ceiling debate was happening this summer. How did how were these costs considered Was this a good thing to have this kind of rigorous debate in which lots of people then said Well let's look at some of our big cause and where where we are paying interest high interest. And part of that is the wars or was that a did it serve to just add to the cover up so to speak so that people sort of looked away from those costs and said that's not something we can touch still.

Well no people are beginning to look at the Pentagon budget and say you know wow is this really is this really money that needs to be spent and what are the consequences. So no I think it's helpfully opened up that discussion about what is the proper role of government and what and in terms of keeping Americans safe what is what might be a much more effective and cost effective and less deadly way to do that. And I think you know some of the alternative methods that are available of policing and. Are much less expensive and much less costly in human life and obviously keep civilians. The protection of civilians from the violence from the attempt to keep Americans safe keep them from being harmed in the process. Now you've stressed all through as I looked through your website very carefully. You and your CO directors and the other experts who worked on this massive study have

stressed that the study is not taking a position about whether the cost is worth it. I mean I said that in my beginning remarks but I'm just posing the question. But that is not what your study was attempting to do. What you wanted to do is just. Here are the numbers. Here's the accountability now. American citizen citizens can decide however they decide through their representatives or otherwise whether or not this is worth it to them. So I'm wondering because when you hear stuff like what happened this weekend we capture of the Americans. In cooperation with the Pakistani military capture a high senior al Qaeda leader and a couple of other operatives are there folks that would say OK well yeah this is an outrageous amount of money but it takes 10 years before we finally make the kind of inroads where we can see some return on investment and the return on investment is finally getting to the senior al Qaeda leader types. And so therefore that's one way of saying it is worth it. Are you hearing that.

No actually because I think many people recognize that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with with the attempt to find the people who perpetrated the crimes of 9/11 so. And that's still the great majority of the deaths and the dollars have come from from that sector. In addition again some of these small raids I think that's a whole nother method that doesn't necessarily involve Again the kinds of occupational occupation and and other operations the counterinsurgency that was targeting you know wider swaths of Afghan society. So that's I think a completely different question about our goal really was to try and understand. What was hidden. What has been hidden from from view up to this point which is you know the scale of these operations the scale of the investments the scale of of harm that's been caused in Iraq Afghanistan and Pakistan. Seven point eight

million people displaced from their homes. That's equivalent to the population of Connecticut and Kentucky being forced from their homes and I think that that scale of human suffering is something that we really need to have in mind when we talk about capturing one or two or even several dozen operatives. Let me ask also this question for the first time in August there were no U.S. deaths in the Iraq war and we're drawing down from Iraq understanding that what you put on the table is that these costs are multiplying like crazy and they're already in numbers that I can hardly imagine. Do any of these kinds of events help to reduce or keep costs from escalating of the even further I guess is the question. The reductions of troop levels yes and then also the fact that we didn't have any. There were no U.S. deaths in August in that which was a first in the Iraq war. So any time that perhaps we're reducing the number of deaths does that also help to reduce the costs overall.

Well you know some of these costs are our standing costs that don't reduce proportionally to the number of troops being being withdrawn from from each of these countries but United States still has dozens of military bases in Iraq still has many many troops there many many contractors. We need to also pay attention to deaths and injuries among contractors and among our allied allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan where deaths continue among Iraqi security forces fighting alongside the United States. So I think you know when we look beyond U.S. service members we find that the death of civilians and other military contractors continue to be quite significant. Now understanding that your role as a leader of this kind of project is to really be a kind of you know keep your eye on the figures expert but was there anything that

startled you in putting together these numbers that you just were startled that it was this guy whatever it was. Well the number of refugees. The idea that again people are displaced and when conditions don't improve when they they remain displaced. So the violence can go down but if if there is nowhere to return to either because one's been ethnically displaced or because there are not stable stable food supply or other things that one would need to reestablish home that you could have ongoing you know really tragic situation for the these two nations and for large swaths of Pakistan as well are really an acknowledged war has been going on in the frontier of Pakistan as well with many Pakistani security forces and civilians dying. One of that's surprising to me to see you know again that that scale of social dislocation.

One of the things that you say is that citizens need to be not only know this information so they can understand make a decision about whether it's worth its name but understand what the tradeoffs are in terms of when war is chosen or the support of wars are chosen. What other things are not happening. Given the amount of resources that are being directed toward the war then you speak to that. Yeah absolutely. The opportunity cost economists talk about the opportunity costs of various kinds of spending and the opportunity costs of the wars has have included the various kinds of macroeconomic effects. The last jobs alone this was one of the more surprising findings that you know military spending is often thought to be a boon to the economy but it creates far fewer jobs than other kinds of federal spending. That's because it's less labor intensive and often those jobs go overseas a lot of the contractors are are foreign. And

what are economists estimated was that there might have been if the same amount of money that was spent on the war was spent on home construction or health care or education or whether ization home whether ization there would have been hundreds of thousands of new jobs created in health care alone eight hundred thousand jobs permanent jobs would have been created with that same amount of federal investment. So that's a significant way in which the wars have made the recession much worse than it would have otherwise been. Also the rise in the price of oil the rise in interest rates estimated by economists at a half of one percent induced by the war borrowing that scale of war borrowing means that the air average American paid $600 more on their mortgage. Last year as a result of that so there's there's some very significant cost to the American public and economy as a result of this both individual

and societal. Right. All right. We're talking about we've been talking about the costs of war in a very comprehensive way looking at the comprehensive study headed by Catherine Lutz. She's a professor at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University and co-director of the costs of war study to learn more about the cost of war project you can check out our website or log on to the cost of war dot com. Thank you so much Catherine let's hear it actually that costs costs of course more dot org. OK we have at it again. I mean how much for having Oh you're welcome. I'm Kelly Crossley we're marking the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 with a look at what the war on terror has cost us. Up next we'll continue the 9/11 conversation with local teens whose worldview has been reshaped because of what happened that day. We'll be back after this break. Keep your dial on WGBH. WGBH programs exist because of you. And Davis mom and

Augustine PC attorneys at law at Davis mall they make your business their business on the web at Davis mom dot com. D A V I ass a l m dot com. And Skinner auctioneers and appraisers of antiques and fine art. You might consider auction when downsizing a home or selling a collection 60 auctions annually 20 collecting categories Boston and Marlborough online at Skinner and dot com. And Frontline on WGBH to examining America's war on terror a decade of fighting terrorism has reshaped the country but has it made us safer. Watch Top Secret America on Frontline tonight at 9:00 on WGBH too. On the next FRESH AIR we talk with Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post reporter Dana Priest about her new book Top Secret America exposes a hidden world created after 9/11 an unwieldy network without thorough oversight comprised of thousands of government organizations and private companies related to programs on counterterrorism and homeland security. Join us.

This afternoon at 2:00 an eighty nine point seven GPA. WGBH sustaining membership is easy. You can amount you want to give each month and month. Automatically renews. In fact. If WGBH here is from 2012 new sustainers by December 3rd 1st not only will eighty nine point seven eliminate the first fund raising campaign of the new year but you'll see the new season of Downton Abbey on WGBH television fundraiser for him. Take the 2012 challenge online at WGBH dot org. September 11 WGBH shares our voices. It's been 10 years and it's still as important as it was yesterday. A day of reflection a decade of stories. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston Public Radio. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. This week we're marking the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. Earlier we talked about the monetary cost of the war.

Since 9/11 there's no question by any experts has been an emotional and psychological toll. And so now we're turning our attention to what it means for the young people who experienced it who came of age in a post 9/11 world. Joining us today is Janet Penn executive director of the youth league lead stands for leaders engaging across differences youth leaders a Youth Leadership Program based in Sharon Massachusetts. Also with us are three members of youth Lee Donna rang Amal Cima and Nicky Chung. Thank you all for joining us today. No prob.. One of the things the emphasis for youth lead is to really look at religion its religious tolerance and diversity. You all were featured on a special on Nickelodeon and I was taken with just a little clip of all of the students talking and the young people talking about how they saw

themselves in terms of being American and who they were and how they identify from a religious perspective. I'm a pagan and I'm an American. I'm Hindu. And I'm American. I'm a Scientologist and I'm an American. I am Muslim and I am an American. I'm a Christian. And I'm going to work and. I make no mistake and I'm an American I'm a jank and I'm an American. I mean atheist and I'm an American. I'm a Buddhist. And I'm an American. So those weren't you the specific you guys said who are in that special. But they were representing what you worked toward in your organization and your effort in youth lead and that religious tolerance has become really important in the wake of 9/11 because it's some of the studies have proven pew and others have taken a look at how attitudes have

really kind of hardened. So I wondered if we could just start off with your putting yourself in where you were at 9/11 and then tell me how being a part of youth lead has helped you in the work that you do to try to increase religious tolerance. And I want to start with you. Hi everyone. It's a sure thing that one of the days I remember most about my childhood was the day of 9/11. At that time I was in my first grade class or my teacher was reading a bock. When she got the call on her on the telephone telling her about it and I just remember her being so shocked she had her hand to mouth and she said oh my god. The rest of the conversation she had with the helper teacher but it was behind a piece of paper to prevent us young children from listening. The more interesting thing was that right after that she came over and she asked me if everything was alright. Was anyone giving me a hard time.

And I said no because it was just my classmates and I didn't see why they did that and I thought I was a pretty random question. My mom ended up coming early to school to pick me up and my dad came home early from work and he started telling me about the Twin Towers and I just thought as a little child that so many bad things happen in the world and this is probably just one of those. It wasn't till like years later that I forgot that I found out that all that attention I was getting it was because on that day there were prize alls and those against minorities and specifically against Muslim and that's why schools were so concerned about their Muslim population because that they thought that they might get bullied and. I guess that's what caused me to like drawing you say because after the presidential election when you heard all these people saying that oh I won't like President Obama because he is Muslim. And when I heard that man on CNN say that no young Muslim child should ever dream of being president because it's virtually impossible for them to get elected.

That's why I joined do you think because I thought that if I personally if I could start with myself to make a difference and learn more about other cultures and become a more understanding person then people my friends and people in my class or people who I meet can also pick up the same things. Nikki how about you that's pretty powerful from a model. Do you remember the 9/11 and then how it how did it impact your moving toward joining you sleep. Well. I actually don't remember 9/11 very clearly it was just another day for me. No teachers approached me like it wasn't. Of course when I got home it was like a really big deal and everybody was like oh. Like I was freaking out my mom was everywhere my dad was everywhere. At that time my grandparents were watching the TV and I walked in on them like watching the news and it was just

I didn't know it was going on because I saw a plane and that's it. So I I think like it was a big deal and now I know it was a big deal. But at that time it was just another day and because I was so young and I was like when I was young I was really young so like. You were young young. Yeah. OK. OK. Nothing ever mattered and it was all just innocence and everything was just another day like I got a cut. Oh I got a cut and that was it. But then like as I grew up I started thinking about 9/11 and I started thinking about that day. And then I watched a video online and it was like on YouTube actually and it was it was like a person videotaping the plane crashing and else like holy cow that happened. And I knows it was really crazy after watching it I was like How do I not remember any of this and not know any of this. So I guess that was why because I watched the video and then I

was just mind boggled that something happened like this and I couldn't do anything about it because I was that young. But now you can yeah I know I have something to do like I can prevent it. I can I can do everything. And that's nice. All right Ashleigh. So when I actually heard the news I had the similar experience as Nagy. I didn't hear it at school I'd come home and I was told then. But I lived in a town where I mean there was just a mainly Christian population. I don't even think I knew what a Jew was so I think of three years later I moved to Sharon now and from there it's just it's just the feeling of the town you know there's so many different kinds of people and with youth lead I now have a friend possibly like every single fifth you know. And it's kind of it's an

environment where you can ask people questions if you don't know something and get an answer without having any you know. Oh my gosh I can't believe you don't know that or something like that. Why is that important since 9/11. Well I think it's very reiterated throughout our community that all these problems are caused by ignorance. People don't know about other people's faiths and motivations and things like that. And because of you know extremists and things of 9/11 people think that the religion Islam is very violent when it's actually the opposite of that. And if you had just gone on you know what the events were maybe you would have believed that too but when you actually have the courage and the environment to ask somebody about like something going on in the news or just something you heard and get it you know tonight like saying no that's not what my faith is. It's just it gives you more knowledge and it gives you more acceptance and I think a lot of problems can be solved that way.

OK get a pen. Five years nearly five years ago youth league was established in Sharon Massachusetts. That's five years after 9/11. What was going on in Sharon or what were what were the teens at that time as what kind of questions were they asking to lead to the formation of this organization. Usually it actually started under the auspices of another organization in 1909 so we had built on that foundation actually from the Anti-Defamation League. So there was a group that had started what was different that happened for a few years and then we became independent. Was my vision that young people really need to it's not enough for adults to say this is important you should look at this young people themselves have to learn how to how do you ask the questions how do you seek to understand someone that's different because otherwise I think the natural tendency is to stay with your community that looks like you that has similar ideas and it can be uncomfortable hearing ideas that are very different from one's own. So my vision

is what if you can at a young age help young people not just engage in conversation around a table but learn how to ask the questions because I think I know for myself there are questions that can make me feel very defensive and closed down and other questions that even if I know the person has a very different point of view for me when they ask it in such a way it's like oh they really want to understand me. And I think that understanding isn't enough but it's the place to start. And we need to have the courage and the skills to be able to say you know wow I see that really differently but I'd like to understand what does this mean to you. And it's an unbelievably beautiful thing if there's 50 young people very diverse group of of of of teens sitting around a table. Having a dialogue with questions that they develop themselves and they learn how to ask the questions they dig deeper. Then when you once you have that common ground you can go from there and say OK what's broken in our community how can we fix it or how do we want to celebrate together. One of the things that I thought was very interesting in the Nickelodeon special which was anchored

by Linda Ellerby called free to believe or not and use lead was featured in this documentary. There was a little piece that showed one of your exercises called I Am. So let's listen to that. And people get a sense of how you begin to have the conversation. What we do is we have different sheets of paper with religion on there and fight down any stereotypes you know anything that heard about that kind of thing someone of that faith has to go up and read all those stereotypes and say I am I am cheap. I am strict. I'm smelly. I'm a motel owner. I'm anti-U.S. and that's how I'm addicted to Chinese food. Back breaking down that wall of stereotypes. The audience realizes that those stereotypes are so wrong that it's funny. Nikki I think it should be clear to everybody who's listening that you all are not goody goodies. I mean you know you like regular teenagers I assume you're nice kids but

what. But you're not wearing a halo every time you walk around so you know there are some working through when you do this kind of exercise and when you get to the end of an I am exercise other than I thought it was interesting that people were laughing because they realized how silly it is some of the stereotypes. What do you feel like at the end of the exercise. Personally I feel like it's just weird how people can come up with stuff like this like how somebody can say that. I think the last person to say that I am was Jewish. Right. And they said they were addicted to Chinese food. I'm like how. Where does that come from what does that. And it just makes me question some of the stereotypes that happened. And that's how I leave the activity is just questioning everything like why. Why are stereotypes there what kind of stereotypes are these and where did they originate. Like how could somebody come up with that Chinese food

one. How could somebody come up with like there's a. Well as the questioning that. Yeah right here right at it. Yeah actually I was thinking as Nicky was speaking that if you're questioning everything some might say well gee if I really firmly believe in my own religious practices how can I be open to accepting and being tolerant of anybody else's because I believe in money that's what I really think the real story is. How does that work. Well something that we go by is you know the rules of dialoguing that's something that we do a lot with the youth league and it's accepting the fact that though you think you're right there may be other approaches to a situation and the same with dialoguing is you can leave the dialog and still think that your values your faith your like way of looking at life is the way that works for you. But just knowing that for since everybody's different just different approaches to how they want to

live their own life. And I think if that's known then then really you can overcome anything that challenges you. If you're firm in your own beliefs but are willing to you know except what other people are saying even if you don't take it and change your views then I think that that just works for everybody. You want to weigh in. OK I agree with like on that idea that as long as like it's kind of like if you learn more about someone else's faith you start to look more at yourself and you wonder well how much do I really know about my faith like I have this question. When I started usually like I thought I knew like a lot about Islam like I went to Sunday school every Sunday since I was like three years old I knew how to read the ground. When I got to you people started asking me questions about my faith. I didn't know how to answer and that just motivated me to learn more about what I want to know about what Islam actually was and

the reasons why and even like if you look more into like religious attacks like in the granite advocates like interfaith like getting along with community members and. I guess like if you believe in a religion there is. You see that there are certain reasons why or if you don't believe in a religion then you see the benefits of interacting with people of other cultures. Because by looking into their own religion or by looking into their culture you understand more about them and then you're able to communicate better able to cooperate better and the results of anything you're working on does become more or more beneficial and more productive. Well we've got a lot more to talk about with this young group. I'm Kelly Crossley we're talking about 9/11 this hour with a look at what it means for years to come of age in a post-9 11 world. Talking with some local teens from Sharon Massachusetts from Youth League. We'll continue the conversation on the other side of the break. Stay with us. This program is on WGBH thanks to you. And Huntington Theatre

Company presenting Conde dede Leonard Bernstein as glorious Broadway musical September 10th through October 16th. You can find tickets and information online at Huntington Theatre dot org. And gentle giant moving company in business since 1980 offering local long distance and international moving services proud sponsor of the head of the Charles regatta October 22nd and 23rd info at Gentle Giant dot com. It's hard to be in two places at once but our reporters are in hundreds of places right now for the world I'm Laura Lynch in Accra. I'm Matthew Bell in the Golan Heights. I'm Mary Kay Magistad in Beijing. I'm Marco Werman PR as the world brings you a global perspective on the news with a world wide network of correspondents. In past Morocco Cairo in Mexico City joined us here at the

world. Coming up at 3:00 here on eighty nine point seven WGBH. If you've recently volunteered a financial gift of support to WGBH. Thanks. New investment has gone straight to work powering the programs you depend on. And if you're looking for a way to become even more involved consider signing on as a WGBH volunteer help post in-studio events become a WGBH tour guide and join the behind the scenes team at WGBH radio in television. Details online at WGBH dot org slash volunteer September 11th WGBH shares our voices. Terrorism unfortunately takes a generation or so to burn out a day of reflection a decade of stories. Eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston Public Radio. Welcome back to the Calla Crossley Show. If you're just joining us we're talking about 9/11 and

what it means for young people to grow up in a post 9/11 world. We're joined by Janet Penn executive director of youth lead a Youth Leadership Program based in Sharon Massachusetts. Also with us are three members of us leave Washington orang Amal Cima and Nicky Chung. I wondered if you all would share your teens some of what I call my guest flare ups that happen or have happened to you personally as other young people your age cope with coming of age in post 9/11. So I'm 11 happens. You you guys are little kids lots of attitudes shifting and changing. And I'm all you've spoken about people responding to you in weird ways when small things happen. And I wondered if you would share that. Well the example I'm thinking right now it's not a small thing. It happened recently when last year actually when I was a software and high

school exam in junior one of my classmates who I'd been with for about past seven years asked me how I was feeling after sama bin Laden died. And at that point I'm guessing like a few years back I have a very like argumentative nature. So but for some reason I didn't blow it over I didn't get angry rather I just started talking to him about what it meant to me how I personally thought. Like yes the world is better off without him. But then again I'm not an advocate to speak for a whole group of people or an entire religion. The only person I can really speak to about is myself and any of my opinions. And I think that's something I learned along the way ever since 9/11 happened because a lot of the times we've heard all these stereotypes where. Because like according to human nature we like to group things in the most simplest fashion and I don't like that and I didn't want to be nice and upset any of it so I thought

that if anyone ever asked me a question like that I would respond in a way that would profess that idea that I'm not the advocate for entire group and it was your was your classmate responsive to them. I think well the intention of it as question to start with wasn't bad. He's a really nice fellow but I think he did understand what I was trying to say and I think you responded positively like he hadn't been involved with the youth league where so it was it would be very irresponsible for me to expect that he would automatically like give this really diplomatic not offensive question. Yeah so what do you do now when when it's clear that people have. Either a stereotypical or hardened view about who they believe is responsible for America's insecurity in the world.

They look at you as an exe as a member of a group that might be responsible for it. Actually yeah like an example of that is at the airport you know they do like the random selection but really they're just picking all the brown people out of the group you know to go to the pat down or whatever. Most of the time with things like that I mean if it's take the airport example if it's for people's safety then I don't you know give a fighter anything. But when given the chance to actually voice my opinions I do try to make it clear that because one person did this are one group of people one like entire you know just extremists you know. That doesn't mean that an entire faith or just all brown people or you know any group of people that may have been represented by something that wasn't exactly good that people aren't like that. It goes against human nature just to assume that and I think that

just being not overbearing because then people automatically close up that way but listening and listening to them and have them listen to me making sure that it's not just you know keep talking I'm not listening to you but actually getting points across. Then I think that's just the best way of dealing with it. Now Mickey you've been brave enough to say that getting him to use lead you came in with them mild case of bias. You would you want to address actually by being a part of the group talk about that. OK so when I was younger my family was very cautious My mom was very is than a very like protected or not protected environment she was in Hong Kong so. And it was during like I think sometime after World War Two I think. So everybody was very like a.. People were stealing people or mugging people. My mom was followed a bunch of times home by people like

they held the newspaper behind their back. But anyways my mom was very cautious so she brought me up very very cautiously so like whenever somebody didn't look safe it would be very very like it would be very difficult for her to cross right in front of her right in front of them. And then most of the people who didn't look safe to my mom was just like people who looked like they were dirty. People like you look different from you. Yeah like different. And then. I would. I was raised with that mentality that like everybody else was possibly dangerous and some more dangerous than others. So even now I'm still slightly cautious but it's just after after youth lead and after interfaith or you know youth lead it. It's become it's become less of a villain I think. And everything is just it's less about who you are or know it's less about what you look like and more about who you are. And I get I try to get to

know everybody. I really love getting to know everybody and I think that that's how I changed I guess. OK. Some people say pin How can a small effort like this have meaning when we're talking about a big seminal event like 9/11. How can these few If you want to call them ambassadors make a difference. What how do you answer that. I have two answers. One is that each one of them is a ripple in a pond. We've got scores of graduates now who have started really spectacular programs on their college campuses where they didn't exist before programs like this that seek to dialogue that seek to bring people together across difference. So that's one very real thing. The second is is that we're looking now to build youth lead communities across the country and where working with local YMCA is because they've got a lot of youth diverse groups of youth. There are folks in Oklahoma City that have approached us and we're going to be building youth lead communities and our whole perspective

is this is long term work attitudes and behaviors don't change in a weekend on a weekend workshop. And so the way that we're looking to build communities is to do it over a period of four years and engage people and have young people get together on an ongoing basis in their town using a very community grassroots community organizing model because each community is different. But the feeling is is that if the basic skill set is there if kids can communicate respectfully if they can facilitate those conversations and then they can organize together. Then they can address what's what's broken in their town. And so that's how I you know it is one drop but then if we we did some training in Staten Island we go to Oklahoma we go to California we do things in Boston over time you can get thousands of young people who who know how to ask questions that deep in the conversation. And when you see a human being then I think anything is possible. Well there's a commemoration this weekend and Sharon and you know you will be a part of for 9/11 and the victims

and just a commemorative thing to remember everything that's gone on and you're increasing your numbers as you go. That's right. So good luck to you. Thank you. We've been talking about what it means to grow up in a post-9 11 world I've been speaking with Janet Pinn executive director of Youth League a Youth Leadership Program based in Sharon Massachusetts. We were also joined by three members of youth Lee Washington arang Amal Cima and Vicky Chung. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. To learn more about Youth League visit our website Toona WGBH all week long for our special 9/11 coverage. You can also keep up to date on our September 11th special reports on WGBH dot org. I'm Kelly Crossley Today Show was engineer by Jane pic produced by Chelsea Mertz. Well Rose lip and Abbey Ruzicka. We are a production of WGBH radio.