Arms and influence

The link (sort of)

IN THE NEWS
Yesterday, I wrote that I was concerned if the two London attacks were coordinated as part of a single operation. Today, British authorities are claiming to have made a link between the two bombings.

It's not quite the link I had in mind--which is good news. I was worried that Al Qaeda was learning how to expand the terror quotient by timing operations close together, much like Palestinian suicide bombers do. According to the British government, the same Al Qaeda "patron" may have met with both groups, in an effort to pool their efforts. That's a picture consistent with how Al Qaeda operates, and it also makes it less likely that Al Qaeda and its local allies can execute the sort of  tightly-coordinated, close-in-time attacks that Palestinian groups have perfected during "Intifada II." There's also evidence that the groups behind the two bombings may have used a white water rafting trip as cover for a meeting.

The British finding is still tentative, so we're a substantial distance away from finding out exactly what happened.

What worries me

IN THE NEWS
What's the most important counterterrorism campaign today? I'd nominate the ongoing investigations of the second London bombings and the horrific attack in Sharm el-Sheik, Egypt. These investigations are vital because they'll indicate whether or not (1) Al Qaeda has the global reach we often attribute to them, (2) Al Qaeda's ability to refine and coordinate attacks, and (3) what phase of their own campaign the Al Qaeda leaders believe them to be.

Right now, we don't have enough information to do much more than speculate--which, again, is what makes the investigations vital. We have a good idea, however, what conclusions we'd rather not reach.

If the second, unsuccessful London attacks were part of the original plan, Al Qaeda tactics have achieved a disturbing but not wholly unsuspected refinement. Thus far, recent Al Qaeda operations--the 9/11 hijackings, the Bali bombings, the Khobar attacks--have been single strikes with no follow-up. The carnage has been terrible, but the terror has been limited by the feeling that, once each attack was over, it was over. Of course, people looked over their shoulders a bit, but the fear of follow-on attacks is nothing like what Israelis face in the aftermath of terrorist attacks.

Palestinian suicide bombers learned that immediate follow-on attacks are a huge "force multiplier" for terror. An attack occurs in a crowded restaurant, market or other public place; people are wounded and killed; emergency response workers and concerned bystanders rush to the scene. That's when another car bomb or other device explodes, killing even more people. The terror factor--compounded by the anguish felt when trying to do the right thing--is much greater with these immediate follow-on attacks.

It would be surprising if Al Qaeda hadn't studied the methods of Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade. Although the second attacks occurred days, not minutes, after the 7/7 London bombings, they would have much the same effect, if they were part of the plan. They may not be--which is one of several important questions that the British investigation will address.

The Sharm el-Sheik attack has different portents. First, it may be a sign that Al Qaeda is trying to coordinate nearly-simultaneous operations across national boundaries. To date, it hasn't done so--in large part because of its dependence on local groups in which it invests. Coordinating groups in separate countries, who share little beyond the backing of the core portions of the Al Qaeda network, may be more trouble than it's worth. My own speculation (and that's all it's worth) is that the timing of the London and Sharm el-Sheik attacks isn't significant. Of course, bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders may want to make a point about the reports of their demise having been greatly exaggerated. But the operations themselves make that point already.

However, the choice of target--a prominent resort on the Sinai Peninsula--does have one clear implication: Al Qaeda feels comfortable continuing attacks against the "near enemy," the regimes of Middle Eastern countries like Egypt. Although Al Qaeda attacks on Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries haven't received much press in the United States, it's worth remembering how more difficult these operations can be. The local security forces (and their paid informants) are more likely, on average, to identify the people involved in an attack than, say, the Boston or Detroit police departments. (No slight intended to the men and women in blue in these cities, by the way. It's just a fact of life that they have limited contacts among local Islamist groups, plus a significant language barrier.) The security forces may have significant background information on the terrorist operatives--who may have been born and raised in the country in question. Terrorist messages like, "The Saudi royal family is corrupt," have greater resonance in these countries--which means the regime's reponse is that much more ferocious. Continued attacks on the near enemy show confidence and determination. Escalated attacks against the near enemy show that Al Qaeda is moving into the next phase of its strategy.

I wish I could say more, but I can't. We'll just have to wait to learn more about these attacks before drawing any further conclusions.

You just noticed?

IN THE NEWS
The lead story in this morning's electronic edition of The Washington Post informs us that suicide attacks are now the norm for terrorist incidents.

No kidding. That trend has been obvious for a while. Maybe it's a good idea that the Post is trying to broadly educate its readership on these issues, but where has this story been since 9/11? When airliners hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, terrorism experts both inside and outside government had already noted terrorists' increasing reliance on suicide attacks--not just among the groups you've heard of, like the Al Aksa Martyr's Brigade, but those you might not have read about before, like the Tamil Tigers.

What gets under my skin about an article on this topic, this many years after 9/11, is the public reaction that could have been avoided had the Post and other news outlets decided to pay more attention to the threats that really existed in the pre-9/11 world already. For anyone who had been watching Al Qaeda, the 9/11 attacks were surprising in only one respect: that the team attempting as highly ambitious an operation as the simultaneous hikacking of four airliners got as lucky as they did. Otherwise, the attacks were perfectly consistent with Al Qaeda's methods and goals--which had recently shifted greater attention to "the far enemy," the United States and Europe.

Of course, writing that story immediately after 9/11 would have been an admission of journalistic failure. Reporters, like governments, choose to pay attention to particular topics of interest. In 2000 and 2001, Al Qaeda wasn't among the news items that caught the interest of various editorial boards, just as it was far less of a concern to the new occupants of the White House than "rogue states" and possible nuclear threats they posed.

Therefore, the major newspapers in the United States expressed astonishment at the attacks, and talked about how "the world has changed." To be fair, the sidebars about Al Qaeda that appeared in every newspaper and news magazine contained a list of previous attacks against American targets in the Middle East and Africa. What they presented, however, were puzzle pieces that fit together into an obvious picture.

John Gibson, you're fired

IN THE NEWS
We've all known someone--a co-worker, a relative, a college friend--who thought he was funnier than he really was. Sometimes, they really don't know when to shut off the bad joke machine, even when their endless prattle is making an already painful moment that much worse.

Where do those people go? Sometimes, they grow up and get a job at Fox News.

John Gibson is obviously one of those people who have enjoyed making fun of the French. The 9/11 attacks didn't give an excuse for the typical round of French jokes (they don't like Americans, they pretend they don't understand English, they surrender at the first opportunity, blahblahblah), particularly since Americans received an outpouring of genuine sympathy from the French. The Iraq invasion did, because of the friction between the French and American governments. Now, the Jhn Gibson's don't know when to shut up.

Long before we suddenly became the world's experts on terrorism, the French had lots of experience. Depending on how loose a definition you want to make, terror has been part of French history since--well, The Terror. France gave up its Algerian colony because of attacks by FLN insurgents. During the 1970s and 1980s, Islamic terrorists attacked targets in France itself, setting off bombs in public places like markets and Metro stations. (In one of the more gruesome twists, some attacks were deliberately timed for afternoons when French children were let out of school early.) In December 1994, French commandos stopped a terrorist from crashing an airliner into the Eiffel Tower. Over the last few decades, French soldiers, aid workers, doctors, diplomats, journalists, and engineers, working in some of the most impoverished and violent parts of the world, have been threatened, kidnapped, or killed.

If you were a real journalist, and not just a snotty know-nothing, you might know this bit of history. You don't have to admire every French foreign policy decision (I don't) to understand that France has suffered its share of casualties from terrorist attacks. However, this all is lost on John Gibson, who uses last week's tragedy as an excuse for unfunny, heartless wisecracks like this one:

First, the French think they are so good at dealing with the Arab world that they would have gone out and paid every terrorist off. And things would have been calm.  

Or another way to look at it is the French are already up to their eyeballs in terrorists. The French hide them in miserable slums, out of sight of the rich people in Paris.

So it would have been a treat, actually, to watch the French dealing with the problem of their own homegrown Islamist terrorists living in France already.

And later:

It would have been a delight to have Parisians worried about security instead of New Yorkers. It would have been exquisite to watch.      

But, alas, they picked London. I like the Brits. I like London. I hate to see them going through all this garbage when it would have been just fine in Paris.

Of course, no one deserves the suffering the British just faced. But Gibson's comments aren't merely cruel--they're astoundingly uninformed.

The French government is already quite aware of the Islamic extremists living in the Paris suburbs--just as the British, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German authorities are monitoring similar groups within their borders. In spite of the tiny fraction of terrorists in their midst, European governments have kept their borders open to all the other Muslim immigrants who just want a better life. Obviously, if you follow European news at all, you know that immigration has been a very hot political topic. That's something with which we can sympathize, as we ask the same questions the Europeans have been posing: How many immigrants we should accept? What are the conditions we should set for residency or citizenship? Does the risk that a tiny number of immigrants may pose justify closing the borders to everyone else?

In spite of public insults like the idiotic "freedom fries" incident, French and American counterterrorism specialists continue to collaborate. They share an interest in fighting the terrorists cells throughout Europe, not just France. They're smart enough to know the difference between a lunkhead Congressman grabbing for the headlines and the dedicated professional sitting across the table, reviewing intelligence reports with you.

In my fantasy world, news organizations fire people for comments like Gibson's. However, during the first Gulf War, I quickly realized, during my brief career as a talking head, that I was free to say almost anything I wanted. No one in the studio could fact-check me on the spot, and there weren't any real penalties for being wrong. (Go back to the transcripts and op-ed pieces during Operation DESERT SHIELD and count the number of military experts who expected tens of thousands of US casualties during the liberation of Kuwait. Nearly all of them were invited back to comment during Operation DESERT STORM, long after it was clear no such bloodbath was occurring.)

Even though I could have, I didn't shoot my mouth off. In fact, I stopped myself from making a comment about Patriot missiles that I wasn't 100% sure was accurate. (As it turned out, I was right anyway.) I assumed that, as long as I occupied the public podium, I was responsible for making my time there worthwhile for those listening.

John Gibson's heartless, stupid comments are cause for termination. I don't expect it to happen, but I can fantasize.

Terrorism database

IN THE NEWS
Thanks to Draft Zinni! for this pointer to the Terrorism Knowledge Base.

Songs for St. Patrick's Day

I'm married to a woman of Irish descent, so I've learned to dread St. Patrick's Day. Americans treat nearly every holiday as an excuse for beer and/or barbecue, but the message for St. Patrick's Day is, Remember the Irish—get stinking drunk! Most Irish people I know, my wife included, would rather honor the Irish a bit differently.

I'm passing the day listening to music by contemporary Irish bands. No, not groups with names like The Dashing Dubliners, crooning yet again about Danny Boy—I'm talking about bands like The Pogues and Black 47. U2 may have earned a lot of good press with their song about the violence in Northern Ireland, "Bloody Sunday," but there are better songs about that and other aspects of the Irish experience. On just one album, If I Fall From Grace With God, The Pogues gave us painful songs about the British occupation of Northern Ireland ("Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six"), the exploitation of the Irish as cannon fodder in Britain's wars ("Recruiting Sergeant"), and the great waves of emigration to the United States ("Thousands Are Sailing"). Like most Irish bands, The Pogues balanced their grim tunes with some extremely funny songs. If I Fall From Grace With God featured the unforgettable "Fairytale of New York," which I defy anyone to hear for the first time without laughing out loud.

For St. Patrick's Day, there are also the lesser-known bands worth seeking out, like one of my favorites, Black 47. Their songs range from the political ("Bobby Sands MP") to the hilarious ("Czechoslovakia" and "Maria's Wedding"). As a New York-based band, Black 47 also bridges two worlds of terrorist calamities, in Northern Ireland and Manhattan. Their latest album includes one of the best songs I've heard about 9/11, "New York Town," which includes the following lyrics:

Too man friends, too many heroes
Dust in the wind - Ground Zero
Too many cowboys, too many martyrs
Too many questions, not enough answers
Was no one lookin' out for us, is that so simplistic
Brothers and sisters all becomin' statistics

All the balladeers of Northern Ireland's sad history—Shane McGowen of The Pogues, Larry Kirwin of Black 47—plus the novelists, artists, and filmmakers who have depicted the same topic, show us Americans how 9/11 really wasn't the day that changed the world. The British and Irish can tell us all about what it's like to live in fear of being killed while you're waiting for the subway train, or how violence sharpens the differences between factions to a jagged, uncompromising edge. They can tell you about how a government can flail when fighting terrorists, while insisting all the while that naked brutality, vengeance, and error were all vaguely necessary. They can also tell how terrorist groups like the Provisional IRA can be even more stupid, savage, and heartless than the government. What can you say about anyone so blinded by ideology and rage that they believe blowing to bloody bits schoolchildren and pensioners will create a socialist utopia? The British and Irish can also give a few pointers about fighting terrorists without sacrificing open government and the rule of law. (And they can tell you the price paid when judges and politicians violated these tenets in the name of security.)

The song that really has its hooks in me today, though, is "The Gulf of Araby" by Katell Keineg, performed with power and passion by Natalie Merchant on her live album. Before you grab another pint, take a moment to reflect on the people in Ireland (and other countries) living in the world this song describes:

The Gulf of Araby      
If you could fill a veil with shells from Klinney's shore
And sweet talk in a tongue that is no more
And If wishful thoughts could bridge
The Gulf of Araby
Between what is
What is
What is
And what can never be

If you could hold the frozen flow of New Hope Creek
And hide out from the one they said you might meet
And If you could unlearn all the words
That you never wanted heard
If you could stall the southern wind
That's whistling in your ears
You could take what is
What is
What is
To what can never be

One man of seventy whispers free at last
Two neighbors who are proud of their massacres
Three tyrant's torn away in a  winter's month
Four prisoners framed by a dirty judge
Five burned with tires
Six men still inside
And Seven more days to shake
At the great divide
The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby
The gulf, the Gulf of Araby

Well, we would plow and part the earth to bring you home
And harvest every miracle ever known
And if they laid out all the things
that these ten years were to bring
we would gladly give them up
to bring you back to us
There is nothing we would not give
to kiss you and to believe we could take what is
What is
What is
from what can never be.

One man of seventy whispers not free yet
Two neighbors who wake up knee-deep in their dead
Three tyrant's grab the reigns in the summer's heat
And four prisoner's lost in the fallacy
Five on my life
Six I'm dead inside
And seven more days to shake
At the great divide
The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby
The Gulf, the Gulf of Araby

[All copyrights acknowledge to Black 47 and Katell Keining.]

Why do terrorists want nukes?

IN THE NEWS
Some of the recent postings on national security-related blogs--Armchair Generalist, Global Guerrillas, and Liberals Against Terror--touch on the same question: will the current American grand strategy for counterterrorism effectively stop terrorist cells from acquiring nuclear weapons and using them against the United States? Since the Pentagon seems poised to draft a new National Military Strategy (NMS) for counterterrorism, it's a timely topic to discuss.

Although we've had years since 9/11 to "get inside the head" of terrorist groups like al Qaeda, few public discussions of counterterrorism actually try to do that. It's essentialy, since counterterrorism, like any type of warfare, is an exercise, in large part, in understanding your enemy's goals and means, finding out what you can about the enemy's strategy,  and anticipating what the enemy might do in response to whatever actions you take. As Edward Luttwak said in his book on strategy, warfare is not engineering. You're dealing with a live opponent, not inert matter. You can't succeed unless you can understand and outwit the enemy.

In contemporary terms, that means stopping the assumption train about terrorists and nukes, instead of letting it hurdle on forwards. The standard American thinking about the terrorist threat follows this track:

1. Terrorists are determined to defeat the United States.
2. In their minds, the more often they can attack within the United States, and the larger the carnage, the more successful they will be.
3. Therefore, nuclear weapons are extremely attractive, so al Qaeda and like-minded groups will do everything they can to acquire and use them against us.

For people horrified by the 9/11 attacks, that seems to make perfect sense. Why question the train of logic, if al Qaeda hijacked four air liners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

What's missing, of course, is al Qaeda's own grand strategy. The preceding argument skips ahead a few steps, straight to what we presume al Qaeda is doing at a theater or operational level. However, it may be completely wrong, including about how much al Qaeda cells want nuclear weapons, and why.

For al Qaeda and similar Islamist terrorist groups, the final battlefield isn't New York City. Instead, it's Jerusalem, Baghdad, Cairo, and other places where they want their militant, intolerant version of Islam to succeed. They want the entire umma, the body of the Islamic faithful, to live under their interpretation of Islamic law. The United States and the rest of the Western world are powerful figures in this drama, but they're not major players in its final act. (In fact, al Qaeda hopes we won't appear at all.) Of course, al Qaeda wants what they see to be the corrupting influences of the West--secularism, imperialism, etc.--removed from Dar al-Islam, the abode of the faithful--in other words, Islamic countries. They also want to stoke the revolutionary fires in the Dar al-Islam by making big, successful, inspiring attacks against powerful countries like the United States. Ultimate victory, however, is not defined by detonating a backpack nuclear weapon in Times Square.

Does that mean we don't have to be worried about al Qaeda or other groups acquiring nuclear technology? Absolutely not. However, looking inside al Qaeda's grand strategy does change our own strategy significantly.

Yes, there are a few rabid haters of the United States within al Qaeda, eager to make major bonus points by attacking us somehow, somewhere. However, there are also a lot more of what you might call "pragmatists," leaders who are ready to shift strategy to make it easier to reach their ultimate goal, revolution in the Dar al-Islam, faster and more successfully. Nuclear weapons may be attractive, but they may also be a liability, if they create alliances among al Qaeda's enemies that would otherwise not exist. "Terrorist nukes" that unite the overt and covert efforts of the American, European, Egyptian,  Israeli, Syrian, Saudi, and Indian governments are far less attractive than military and political measures that keep these regimes divided. As events in post-invasion Iraq show, the more chaotic and contentious the situation in any part of Dar al-Islam, the more ground al Qaeda can make.

Therefore, American strategy can (and should) have two prongs. The first is what you hear most frequently: Defeat terrorist cells and deny them access to nuclear technology. The second is what you almost never hear: Keep nuclear weapons from being attractive to al Qaeda. The second prong can succeed without achieving total victory along the first.

That should be good news, since we can "secure the homeland" with far less effort than the traditional strategy requires. You are not necessarily fighting an enemy dedicated heart and soul to the nuclear option, so complete physical, mental, and moral isolation (to use the Boyd language) is not required.

If Abu Musad al-Zarqawi had to choose between (1) nuking Washington, DC, and (2) Islamist revolution in Iraq and elsewhere, which do you think he would choose? Keeping the first choice separate from the second is what our counterterrorism strategy, in whatever form (like the NMS), should do.

Slouching further toward Beslan

IN THE NEWS
To follow up on my earlier post about the Beslan massacre, I recommend reading this article in today's Washington Post. Be warned: it will break your heart. However, it is one of the best articles I've seen in the mainstream press for depicting (1) the ethnic animosities that have been boiling over in the Caucasus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and (2) the reasons why local residents are furious with the Russian government. Topping the list of outrages: the official number killed in the massacre at Middle School Number One doesn't match the actual number missing (and presumed dead).

Slouching toward Beslan

IN THE NEWS

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

--Robert Burns, To a Louse

As I've mentioned before I'm a great believer in the outsider's perspective. We all give a nod to the idea that unstated assumptions skew our vision of the world and ourselves, but most of the time, we act as though our vision is self-evidently clear and accurate. However, the foreign observer often notices things that we miss, or express discomfort with things the we accept without question. Think of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, one of the most perceptive books about American politics. Or, to take another Frenchman, think of Voltaire's Letters Concerning the English Nation. V.S. Naipul's observations about the West in general are equally noteworthy.

Americans, too, can look at another society's strengths and foibles in ways the citizens born and raised in that cultural thicket cannot. It's a rare and valuable moment when Americans can learn lessons about that other society that apply to ourselves.

I haven't written about the Beslan massacre yet because it was an event that needed time to digest. The aftermath, too, was as important as what happened on that horrible day.

The Chechen rebels are, of course, dangerous fanatics. Chechnya may indeed deserve its full independence from Russia. Like many portions of the former Soviet Union, Chechnya is the inheritor of Stalin's ugly legacy of demographic confusion. To keep the non-Russians in line, Stalin moved some groups, like the Tatars, and deliberately intermingled others, often through internal migration and colonization. If you think the political boundaries in the Caucasus don't make sense, you're right: Stalin wanted them to make no demographic sense. As long as intertwined ethnic groups continued to choke each other, they didn't threaten Moscow's power.

This leads us to the first observation we can make about Beslan: The situation is more complex than the leadership portrays. Putin's fulminations about the Beslan massacre—including a four-hour session in which he buttonholed the international press—talk about a simplistic universe of Russians and terrorists. In fact, Beslan and the region around it are home to Chechens, Ossetians, Russians, and the Ingush. The Ossetians are divided, thanks to Stalin, between the North Ossetians in Russia, and the South Ossetians in Georgia. Among the ethnically Persian Ossetians, the majority are Christian, but a minority are Muslims. The majority of Chechens are Sunnis, and they share historical roots with the Ingush. Few of these groups believe the Russians belong in the Caucasus; few could agree on what should replace Russian rule. It appears that the terrorists who seized Middle School Number One were a mix of Chechens and Ingush.

The larger populations of Chechans, Ossetians, and Ingush don't support the terrorists, however. The larger population doesn't think that terrorism will win independence; it will ensure brutal Russian reprisals. In fact, during the Beslan hostage crisis, Russian troops took Chechen families hostage, which gives new meaning to the phrase counter-terrorism. This leads to the second observation about Beslan: The majority of the local population may not be on the side of the government, but they're also not on the side of the terrorists.

The "counter-hostages" incident shows that the Russian strategy for Chechnya hasn't gone after the most violent groups with surgical precision. Brutal operations like the siege of Grozny may frighten the "gentleman insurgent," but they don't deter the most ruthless, violent groups, like the militia headed by Amir Abu al-Walid. Events like Grozny and the political blacklisting of Aslan Maskhadov outrage and radicalize enough people to keep a sufficient level of recruits joining the terrorist groups. Here, then, is the third observation: Ham-handed counterterrorist tactics distill the enemy into smaller, more dedicated, and more violent groups.

Whatever happened at Beslan, these groups are far from defeated. They'll continue to bomb subway stations in Moscow, take hostages in the Caucasus, and assassinate Russian military officers. Since the Russian government has yet to account for exactly what led to the deaths of over 300 people. Clearly, the Russian security services have done a poor job infiltrating and monitoring the Chechen militants, for a terrorist operation on this scale to have caught the Russian government flat-footed. (Putin has admitted as much, stating that corruption and inefficiency hampered intelligence efforts.) No one excuses the terrorists, but nearly everyone n Russia believes that the government bears some responsibility for the disaster.

One of Putin's first responses, however, had nothing to do with counterterrorism. Ending the direct election of regional governors won't help catch Chechen and Ingush terrorists; its only purpose is Putin's continued consolidation of power and destruction of his political opposition. The seizure of all media outlets, the legal and economic attacks on political opponents like Yukos president Mikhail Khodorkhovsky, and now the elimination of gubernatorial elections are all steps toward building a post-Soviet autocracy, not preventing another Beslan. In fact, as long as the "gentleman insurgent" or non-violent separatist believes that it's ridiculous to believe in anything the Russian government says about self-government, the militants will keep the political high ground in Chechnya. (Especially since the Putin administration's first instinct is to lie during a crisis.) This points to our last observation: Restricting freedoms is an irrelevant and ineffective strategy for counterterrorism.

Now, let’s look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and the PATRIOT Act for a moment. Would the following statements also apply to the recent actions of the United States?

• The situation is more complex than the leadership portrays.


• The majority of the local population may not be on the side of the government, but they're also not on the side of the terrorists.


• Ham-handed counterterrorist tactics distill the enemy into smaller, more dedicated, and more violent groups.


• Restricting freedoms is an irrelevant and ineffective strategy for counterterrorism.

If you were a Russian, Canadian, Zimbabwean, South Korean, or Brazilian, you'd probably answer yes more readily than the average American. But again, they have the benefit of the outsider's perspective. Perhaps they don't have our cultural blinders, or our discomfort to admit our own mistakes, but that's a real benefit, unlike the whining complaint that the rest of the world just doesn't understand us.

George W. Bush once said that he looked into Vladimir Putin's soul. If so, did he see anything recognizable?

Carnage kitsch

IN THE NEWS
I somehow missed the passage of Public Law 107–89 on December 18, 2001, when the US Congress officially designated every September 11 on future calendars as "Patriot Day." As I wrote earlier, I try to pass that anniversary quietly, or even act as though it's a normal day. I was shocked, therefore, to find out that Patriot Day is more than a token statement by American politicians, lost somewhere in the Congressional Record. No, unfortunately, Patriot Day is more than a bizarrely-named remembrance of mass murder: it's a merchandiser's dream.
I first caught wind of the merchandising bonanza while watching The Daily Show (fake news that's better than the "real" broadcast news). Lewis Black was fuming about the 9/11 merchandising, including Hallmark cards, a Beanie Baby, and worst of all, a commemorative coin minted from, we're told, silver recovered from Ground Zero.

I wasn't in New York City when the 9/11 attack occurred, but did visit Ground Zero some time afterwards. I've never encountered anything like it. Ground Zero felt like the place where an demonic god struck the earth with a hammer forged from despair, leaving behind a never-fading echo of the moment when that hammer struck. It was the perfection of evil, the absence of life, a breach into the realm of death that will never close. I can't imagine wanting a doll, coin, T-shirt, collector's plate, or anything else "commemorating" this mass grave. But that's just me.

One of the unfortunate costs of a market economy is that you can't stop people from turning tragedy into profit. But how indecent or inappropriate can it get? Out of curiosity, I did a search on eBay and found a cornucopia of 9/11 merchandising, such as jewelry (including a Disney pin, complete with a quotation from the dear, departed Walt himself), sewing patterns, figurines, plates, patches, T-shirts, caps, and of course, the coins.

I've seen some of these items before, but they seemed to be part of the immediate reaction to 9/11, a statement of collective sympathy, grief, and outrage. The items that gave particular attention to firefighters, police, EMTs, and other emergency workers honored the risks they took, the lives they saved, and the many of these public servants who died. Three years later…

I can't say when the "right" time it is for people to stop needing the talismanic power of a T-shirt, and the comfort it elicits when someone gives a sympathetic nod. Undoubtedly, some people still need it, and perhaps some of us are clinging to that grief and outrage a bit too long. There was never a time—not 9/11, the day after, a year after, or now—when I could imagine someone describe these commemorative items as being "collectible."

During the Middle Ages, there was a brisk business in holy icons. Rulers searched and bartered objects that purported to be the lance that pierced Jesus' side, the Holy Grail, and other. Louis IX of France built the chapel of St. Chapelle in Paris as a reliquary for what he believed to be the genuine Crown of Thorns. Eventually, however, people realized the stunning volume of fakes that received such honored placement in cathedrals, shrines, churches, monasteries, and castles. (If someone were to collect all the alleged pieces of the True Cross, one medieval wag observed, you could build a ship bigger than Noah's Ark.) The Catholic passion for iconography led to a Protestant reaction against it. The Church, according to the Protestants (and, to be fair, other schismatics before them) rested on a solid foundation of faith, compassion, charity, and other virtues, not bones and splinters of dubious origin.

There is, as I said, something otherworldly and terrible about Ground Zero. Its presence in our national life touches an emotional or spiritual reality that flows like a dark current through many of us. As with any great passion, it can inspire us to nobility, or deceive us into great mistakes. It should never, however, be collectible.