Seven Days; Terrorist Attacks: How They Changed Our Lives

zero i am stefani valerie <unk> seven days are talking this week the terrorist

attacks the change they will force and our allies and the damage they're inflicting on an already struggling state and national economy it's been nice to patients richard beary is the state editor for the salem statesman journal david rhinehart is associate editor at the oregonian how so hearing is the editor of the albany democrat harold and mark susman is the editor of willamette week in portland everyone knows that our lives as individuals and as a nation changed forever on tuesday september eleventh but none of us is quite sure just what form that change will take or still trying to absorb the unfathomable loss of more than six thousand americans were still trying to understand how anyone could hate us that much were still trying to

figure out what an appropriate response should be and were still cataloguing the wounds to our collective identity richard mchugh say americans won't ever be the same would you think of me i think they need a range of things that has not only as a society not only in effect our economy on the nation's psyche so in a sense of who we are many people in this part of the country in and then the state would identify themselves first as oregonians and i don't think that happened the last ten days i think were more seeking identity as a single nation is as americans but the impacts that are really being felt in oregon or in some sense can be hard to differentiate between the impacts it'll be happy anywhere else i chop couple that i would like to mention of the top this is of course a possibility and probability that oregonians addition the dining the war on terrorism as george bush's describe the effects that will be felt and changes in security

places like portland international airport in salem airport in other places and of course the economic impacts of a week that just ended with the worst stock market losses in since nineteen forty in a fourteen percent drop in value that hit northwest stocks particularly hard so it's so hard to extricate between what's happening nationally and in oregon but people don't feel it and feel it for a long time mr brian richard i think the most fundamental changes taking place in the heisman people to the extent that what it would used to matter a great deal to mailer's suddenly it doesn't matter much all and some things that have to do with possessions and with careers have with advancements and the sort of time coming nowadays when you think about that sort of stuff as hank really who cares the things that care does seem to me at least have to be a lot more important are the recognition of time that they do you can use it any time that your life at a time knowing that nobody

intellectually would've known that all the time but but this i think has really shocked people are realizing that and the kinds of things that that you can really easily replace of such as a militia but your family on cousin cites what to do it on time every time what you do at work too but mostly what to do with me on time suffragette want to do that suddenly i think has become much more important and i think you'll find in the next item for a little as long as a submission less you'll find that people will act based on that that question based on the change will be less striving they'll be less contentious maybe in public life and in every other way and they'll be more inward directed and more toward more paying attention to what it is that makes allies with winning it's a little bit too soon after the events of september eleventh that to really have a crystal clear sense of what the long term meaning of this will be but it i doubt there's anybody in the studio or any of our listeners who doesn't believe that this is ultimately an extremely

pivotal moment in american and world history he was recalling the thing about the point you were making how so in the sixties when john kennedy was assassinated and the phrase was used about the end of camelot an expression of talk about this end of this most romantic notion of their little soul of the american dream that doesn't compare it to it to twist to any extent to the notion that the sense of vulnerability that americans now face it particularly stark given i think it's partially you're alluding to that it comes so soon twelve months after a sense of absolute in vulnerability on the part of america an economy that was stronger than any in the history of the globe shape geopolitical situation in which we were the only superpower that has all been shattered you could argue in a few hours on september eleventh and it strikes me that well it is hard to sort of look for them whether long term that will be returned to the spirituality that you allude to that this

is where the antidote that without it the most part historical moment of my life or i think it pales in comparison to anything in my life and i think if you ask a lot of them folks who were around at the time of pearl harbor and even through world war two it pales because the american homeland has been hit and we are not facing as has been set off an eight by an enemy with out with a face and it's in an enemy that is worldwide that as that seems to have insinuated itself deeper in order in our society and that we're not quite sure even write even yet how we're going to handle this and then we tend to continue the military strikes that will inevitably happen are the easy part really of his

trip and i have been full of this much losses they will be armed but well how do we root out the year i root out the cells in this country that we are we're now learning exist and are rare well i think you'll find david that people are likely due to overlook in some ways when they remember that the protector barbarians that while wearing what one of the things i think it does change so profound is to protect the nature of this attack and i think people have been people all around the world have been bombed in railway stations bomb hundreds of people killed at one time song but the the particular cruelty and the barbarity of the role of running the adult popular app was a pit with one episode people into buildings and then having thousand people inside the old parish at the same time that i think has been some precedence far as i know but i think what what what that their take on what the nature of

this act does is it will sort of take the edge off certain measures that i think the country will have to take in order to do what they would do which is talk about trying to find the kinds of terrorists or the terrorists who represent the threatening although that these are suspects that not all are terrorists died in this attack these people play and as far as we can tell from the paper's plan to stay for years certainly there are others probably in this country also planning similar things and what makes most of us worried the next thing we'll have to be better to make any kind of pressure and the point is we need to find those people before they get there that don't think that the gravity of the situation is exacerbated also because i'm you know you know the adage of fool me once shame on you fool me to a shame on me and you know it strikes me that we should've known this was coming there is a long standing history of terrorist attacks

outside of the united states there's certainly no ignorance on the part of central people in other states that are a lot of people who don't like us to have been the numerous congressional studies and other intelligence reports indicating the ability of a terrorist to do what they did and it strikes me that i think there is almost as collective sense of how could we have been so stupid like this take place and cannot listen to what we have been listening to because for the last ten years instead of listening to those concerns we have been engaged in pursuing other interesting because we've had other priorities of course in i mean if you look just a couple weeks ago the debate over the so called social security lock box and does really pale in comparison to what's going on now but there were people who were sounding the warning about this long ago we all remember storage during the millennium and the threats that were ever over the knee the people that were trying to sneak into vancouver and with explosive devices so i think there are people who are trying to sound the alarm it just was as big a priority for many people

including our leaders like a bit of a parallel here although i believe that has held on the head with a constant warnings again in an office especially about the big earthquake that is comic con liane we have been told over and over again the tens of thousands of people are gonna die in the public parts of our local our region when those ten point where it is richter scale earthquake hits us as it that five hundred years ago or something else lives and yet does anybody worry about no not all the people do very much about it not not much they strike the rancher and any refurbished bolling there but always in a pack about know what is really urgently concerned about the what the store's ten weeks of food as we've been advised to do because i didn't take that long to get the infrastructure will again because i just unbelievably been worn over and over again it takes a dramatic but the really dramatic reminder such as we just have to make people pay attention while it a great and here we are with that aren't we have had if you if you think back

on the last number of years we have had some dramatic and incidents the world trade center bombing in nineteen ninety three the court nine know the explosion on the on the uss cole court in nineteen ninety eight the perhaps they weren't big enough to do engender this kind of response on the part of the administration of laughter and maybe they should have and maybe if we had if we have looked and look called play out we might have responded but i don't think anybody right today is interested in going back and casting casting blame bug which time to to really move forward because wherever not hard questions to answer ira's collection our system with the tough part is going to return to channel his general suspicion or this gentle or possession sale or awareness of banal have channel it in the right direction the channel of the way isolated instances including in oregon where in one case as some people when a turban or

harris to have a rest stop outside eugene on interstate five where intimate valley of the width of the willamette valley but dr live with a muslim name has seen his patients disappear because it alive there are many more legal with patients the ones that come forward say he's a wonderful guy and the caring man and he looks at their body really well the persistence the street in center in the northwest orient in northwest flight from detroit where four americans were denied access to the plane because of the pesticide we don't wanna fly with them and the airline side with a majority of passengers except in this case here is that they are standing in a line i mean look at the spectrum that are spending their after the seven and boysen arms i was worried and suddenly four guys who looked really strong come join the line it'll soon be attached a bicycle is now supporting that oh you think a chance no matter how how how tolerant you are no matter how you despise profiling eyes

anything of that kind you say well you know i don't know i think they're not justify the line it is is that unreasonable is reasonable to be suspicious were worried by the other night i came out of a building rv parking lot attendant was i was a middle eastern extraction and the guy that i was with and it took special pains to talk with two twists a whole lot because this must be an awful time for him is that those people who had nothing to do with this on the other hand there were going to be learning and over the next weeks that varies in that works are so ns that they're so deep and and part of our lives should we simply ignore that reality it's like what are willing to sacrifice in terms of our freedoms or civil liberties in order to act

maybe not sure our security that at least give us a sense of security and show their be a difference between profiling in an airport and ten days after this happened and murdering someone has to be wearing a turban and a gas station which is what happened in an arizona there's a range of responses in an analogous what i would say is is a more sophisticated response to the fact that a few of these people who landed a boarding these kinds of hijacked or alert less who had put in some question arrest in the case of a major lapses security it seems to me that that's a major level first but something like profiling it's easy for people who are not potentially affected to say we have to put up with a little bit of a loss because of the four panelists year i become a person who they would take a look at and as someone who's mexican americans but it's been asked many times are you a ring and it does resonate more with me because your backside research mike bergsma the surface much of an option for a couple of days to

sew so it is easy to say we'll have to put up with a little bit because religion and the search you're not at the crossword looks europe that have flooded and an extra attention to you know the most i thought important and frankly strategic things that that the president has done since september eleventh was his visit the mostly muslim cultural center in which long you know you made it clear symbolically that this is not a war against the islamic religion this is this is a battle against terrorists who are least as far as they can tell appear to be from arab american descent but in in the two weeks since your favorite inappropriate a near times described us as a post complacency america there clearly is going to be an attempt to tighten up and in some case to challenge some of our very civil liberties and i think it's very important for all these people is journalist to be careful not to go too

far in one direction or another year saying that there cannot be any breaks in any attempt to challenge this in the pursuit of these terrorists or that there can't be any change and what it is they're talking about is the ability to deport to detain immigrants before you decide whether to arrest them for forty eight as opposed to twenty four it's in my mind that's not an unreasonable response other talk about loosening wiretap laws i don't know what the details are yet but it seems to me it's an it's incumbent upon us to get a clear sense of exactly what you're talking about before we with a broad brush say that we can't do this or we could one other point you know there's a wonderful book that's written by a journalist who used to live in oregon who now works for the wall street journal and greg zachary called the global me who points out that the financial strength of this country forget you know how it feels how we feel about it and the women and we just feel that the financial strength of this country is the great melting pot the fact that this country unlike no other in the history of the globe has been able to embrace

different cultures and different traditions and frankly to some extent it is what threatens some of the lions of the world we can hold of the need to embrace and that that is our strength and i think within that we're going to have to work out the details but i think the whole point and you alluded to just now is to be reasonable about the whole thing when you have a meat and you can construct all kinds of top experiment so you can have somebody who you know looks middle eastern of the oven and they'll encounter who has much insight into three days of to take a sample of a lonely world boo her which was going to be subjected to the more intense of questioning about her intentions and her aunt who had for days and paula poundstone well is it in the end if there is a difference in the treatment of these two people is that particularly unreasonable it is not unreasonable estimate it all and anna gets hijacked by two of three little early i learned that was of course you have to change again but in the meantime i think you ought to pay some attention to

what the reality is and i think the reality is so far as we can as we've been reading about a case was that the that the terror network that we're talking about is of middle eastern orange is working as a middle east origin so it makes sense to try to have some middle eastern component to the investigation of that war to the effort to counteract that it just makes it it makes no sense to ignore them altogether and to subject well all over the world now there are certain things that have to be done or the fire and dozens of the nativity where did it reasonably that'd be ignored by the now suggesting is that we have now reached a of a state of sophistication in this country with the as advanced electronic technology to be a libby stop on calls right now to be able to search phone records and computer records and if art ministration which is now sing with confidence they know who did it and where they are i think the only thing that set that i'm suggesting is that we should be more targeted in our approach and not

cass such a wide net that we infringe on the rights of the people to travel freely and free associations and it doesn't mean that was an element that makes sense unless a reasonable approach to try to get a technological answer first along and try to detect it jack lures and assassins and bombers and oliver try to detect with all possible but you know we've been told a lot of the difficulty in in their approach and there's the old encryption issue that has to do with that the computer communications and with privacy issues of all us worst of their system even if they get too much involved in a debate then hung up on the sort of thing that a debate on just exactly how far we can go all kinds of things can go on in the next year or six ones that the you don't want to go on the sacrifices that that every citizen the country with when really is probably going to require to make in terms of their freedom and they're on their own sense of privacy is it that the activities of the federal government law enforcement

agencies know i think if we take the whole model on israelis and the israeli airline model we are definitely going to be all of us prone to more questioning vaguely their interviews that you go through it and then i understand sometimes coming sometimes going wherever they can last up of the forty five minutes had a half hour to forty five minutes and some people will be more prone to being interviewed than others and i'll that's that's part of i think a lot of this week we've had a we've we've had a good run a lot of a number of decades been concerned about our individual rights and and kind of five focusing on are our individual in an group grievances and not looking at the larger hole and i think that ended some leeway on the

on the city on the eleventh of september and we are going to be much more concerned about the larger public good or where if it and maybe the voices of caution will have their day for a while maybe until they've ever realistically i don't think there's an american who's gonna view having to spend another thirty minutes at the airport frankly as a sacrifice for me and i'm gonna feel safe around a plaintiff i have to do that i think the sacrifices that perhaps or implicit and perhaps are raising some concerns i think we talked about a little bit but i'm thinking of for example during the sixties but sacrifices with an expansion of wiretap laws or one where intrusion by the federal government and people who opposed the vietnam war or go back for that who who were in favor of civil rights and had their lives upright upon if there are people in this country who believe that we shouldn't go to war against the turks part of what makes this

country great is the belief for those people to talk whether they're right or wrong and if the expansion of our law enforcement mechanism somehow limits their ability to express themselves and that way in my mind that's the kind of sacrifice but i think now we're greeted the back when i think of work as a career progressed to the point where that is like it'd be impossible that sort of thing is going to be impossible to do they've already saying even in this and this up well a lot of popular support for their ingenuity around the country we have seen people not be afraid to step forward and say look i think that it will slow or go do something else and salt it was a sense of this is that this whole issue has been to have the forefront that nobody paid any attention to and in fact of the word has not come up at least that i ever have before his homeland defense and it seems like something out of the thirties and the forties at that that's a saint but it is something that especially intellectual proms oregon too my benefit from in the sense that we might be more prepared for all kinds of things once you start thinking

about the sorts of things that they have to do in the sky action but that also appears on a mother's dearest they commissioned or just some giant fire for one again and the sort of thing and even the story of supplies to coronation of them are just the people and all the cost of that that that happens now on paper very much in that it's a shelf somewhere in the way those tensions will get some new attention in an optimistic that that would be the case i think that would be great if it were running salem a city of salem voters have twice turned out that's what i think a very reasonable request by firefighters to upgrade the emergency systems that they have they have more equipment to add more firefighters to have more police officers with low levels now than we've done we've had a phd is it with that album and i guess the question is will it that would hit this time when people are many increasingly suffering lay offs and job losses and when oregon slips deeper into what's likely to be in recession it'll be harder i think the absence of a clear and

compelling cases can actually be made that the sacrifices have to be made i think it gets much clearer even in salem oregon far from marco washington dc the pentagon far from the trade towers then it became on september oh well if you got to take a nice sense of complacency still here in oregon and their service doesn't you know whistling in the dark and five thousand dollars to your interview probably have all explains what i have which are sort of awkward social situation since beloved the september and as journalists were the difference for northern if you will for salama i have been engaged in social situations we assume that all this is all he would talk about and there's almost an avoidance of that which is in part due to the discomfort but i do think frankly part of it so that's dc in new york and no one would ever admit that but there is a part of me that

thinks there is an article of paris' ornate as an artist and learn about a part of activity anywhere started or anything and i think that this may be some people who feel that way that is through someone else's problem but i think oh wasn't that have been inundated with letters from the roof to the air lately i mean really innovative as i've never been before from people who work hard cor out that parsons in a way that makes you think that they care more about the fate of the victims of this attack and they haven't returned via tales they identify with them they identify with the with the damage that it was done not to new york a washing up wrestling or airplanes i think not the market but to the country as a one hour before i think you find at least i get the sense from all these letters maybe thirty forty fifty million or didn't really count on that people really are pulling together in a way that i've never seen before the i will agree in the genesis the majority had never received anything like the outpouring of the sense of the support your talk about

as well as people who have this yearning desire to do something we just want to be part of helping somebody do something to get us through this and we don't know what can we do we do you know how to play and are any of our cities our state government to help us protect ourselves in the event of another terrorist attack and many of people who know a lot more than that i do suggested the next one is the more likely to be biological or were chemically oriented then seemed to really take a whole lot of his drop little something in and blowing reservoir destroy this city or any other city is no water supply in you what sixteen days since september eleventh this country has not yet developed an appropriate response to even another enemy that i was talking before the studio i went to seattle to see american with my son earlier this week the levels attorney was no more rigorous this is is i think this is the idea that this has been given to have to do something

the president appointing his cabinet department for homeland defense i think every local state and the oregon where our budgets are puzzling out the languages of the budget situation is annoyed letters by are they gonna be some some efforts made to try to prepare for something obviously we've been processing a lot of information over the last week in the week and a half of what i do think we have seen and i think it is sustainable and will be sustained note is this this longing almost to work together to two to put away our car our individual paul watson needs i think you've seen in the way people respond to each other on the highways or in the year in the grocery store and let's remember we've we've gone through a period over the last maybe ten years five five to ten years where we've looking longingly at the greatest generation and their sacrifice and it's it's something that we've we've looked at we lavish praise on

these on these folks and i think there's something that this is tapping into it and hopefully we can learn lessons from from that greatest generation because i share your your sense that there is a different spirit about it but i don't think there's a spirit to return and no repeats mistakes that were made by the greatest generation but but to learn and maybe to try different responses because i think but what the president is warning against is that this is going to have to be a different kind of a war and sustained war and just my sense of what this country those patients is not one of our bridges and so what happens to this country to this country what happens to americans were expecting you know and an almost demanding some sort of visible retaliation and that that makes them you know nobody's six hundred thousand sixty four hundred have been a tangible nothing happens unless there's a book

they were given that i think the problem is is what happens after this retaliation which will happen there's another tact than what happens there well i think you know i think maybe we ought to have some confidence and that i think the special so far is a lot of confidence and it's and that we can reason we can resist an end spring back on all kinds of stuff that happens to us as long as we are doing something as not just attacks overseas i think people of the bennet that i think an ally with what you said i think it was asked also asking to be asked to make some sacrifice where's the taxes on sales and we are being prepare it seems to me by our leadership republican and democrat than the president of a congressional leaders for all along he struggled for a long fight and a flight that will have that designated an inpatient people don't know what to do and we have we have endured long struggles before the war were too was was that

chemistry of the cold we're works okay that's it the analogy gary david reinhard marx as newcastle harry thanks for joining us this week and seven days and thank you for watching it's better to pay his bills