Tuesday September 11th, 2001
Dear friends,
was supposed to fly today on 4:30 pm American Airlines flight from Angeles to JFK. But tonight I myself stuck in L.A. with an range of emotions over what has on the island where I work live in New York City.
My and I spent the first hours the day - after being awakened phone calls from our parents at :40 am Pacific Time - trying to our daughter at school in New and our friend JoAnn who works the World Trade Center.
I called at her office. As someone picked , the first tower exploded, and I hear it in the background, and person answering the phone screamed and out, leaving me no clue as whether or not she or JoAnn live.
It was a sick, horrible, day.
On December 27, 1985 I myself caught in the middle of terrorist incident at the Vienna airport which left 30 people dead, both and at the Rome airport. The of passengers in each city was to occur at the same moment.
do not feel like discussing that tonight because it still brings up much despair and confusion as to and why I got to live ... fluke, a mistake, a few on the tarmac, and I am here, there but for the grace God or whatever...
Safe. Secure. I'm American, living in America. I like illusions. I walk through a metal , I put my carry-ons through an machine, and I know all will well.
Here's a short list of experiences lately at airport security:
At Newark Airport, the plane is late boarding everyone. The counter can't find seat. So I am told to "go ahead and get on" - a ticket!
At the Detroit Airport, I don't want to put lunch I just bought at the through the x-ray machine so, as pass through the metal detector, I the sack to the guard through space between the detector and the machine. I tell him it's just sandwich. He believes me and doesn't to check. The sack has gone neither security device.
At La Guardia New York, I check a piece luggage but decide to take a plane. The first plane leavers without , but with my bag, no-one knowing is in it.
I have brought , razors and once my travelling companion a hammer and chisel - we on the way to the Berlin back in 1989. No-one stopped us.
course, I've gotten away with all because the airlines consider my safety important they pay rent-a-cops 5.75 an to make sure the bad guys 't get on my plane. That's what life is worth, less than the of an oil-change.
oo harsh you . Well, chew on this. A first pilot on American Eagle, the commuter of American Airlines, receives between 15 17 thousand dollars a year in pay. That's right. 15 to 17 dollars for the person who has life in his hands. There was guy, an American Eagle pilot, who four kids so he went down the welfare office and applied for stamps - and he was eligible! on welfare is flying my plane? this for real? You're telling me the person flying the plane makes than the kid down at Taco .
So spare me the talk all the precautions the airlines and FAA is now taking. They, like businesses, are concerned about one thing the bottom line and the profit .
Four teams of 3-5 people each able to penetrate airport security on same morning at 3 different airports pull off this heinous act? My response is - that's all?
Well, pundits are in full diarrhoea mode, on about the "terrorist threat" and 's scariest dude on the planet - bin Laden. Osama bin Laden. You what I want to know is why is it that all day I've heard everything about this guy for one fact: We created the known as Osama bin Laden.
did he go to terrorist school? the CIA!
Don't take my word it - I saw a piece MSNBC last year that laid it out for you. When the Soviet occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him his buddies in how to commits of terrorism against the Soviet forces. it worked! The Soviets turned and . Bin Laden was grateful for what taught him and thought it might fun to use those same techniques us.
We abhor terrorism - at that's what we say - unless 're the ones doing the terrorizing.
We and trained and armed a group terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s killed over 30,000 civilians. That was work. You and me folks. Thirty murdered civilians and who the hell remembers them?
We fund a lot oppressive regimes that have killed a of innocent people, and we never the human suffering that causes to our day one single bit.
We orphaned so many children, tens of around the world, with our taxpayer-funded - in Chile, in Vietnam, in , in Salvador - that I suppose shouldn't be too surprised when those grow up and are a little in the head from the horror have helped cause.
Of course our big domestic terrorism bombing on our was not conducted by a guy the desert but rather by our citizens: a couple of ex-military guys hated the federal government and went rented a Ryder truck
Maybe it's the Arabs are just that much of a foil for us. A ingredient in getting Americans whipped into frenzy against this new enemy is all-important race card. It's much easier get us to hate when the of our hatred doesn't look like .
Congressmen and Senators spent the day for more money for the military; Senator on CNN even said he 't want to hear any more talk more money for education or health - we should have only one : our self-defense.
Will we ever get the point where we realize we be more secure when the rest the world isn't living in poverty we can have nice running shoes?
let us mourn and let us when it's appropriate. Let's examine our to this unsafe world in which live. It doesn't have to be this.
It doesn't have to like this.

This is Michael Moore, from Columbus, Ohio.