The Human Side of 9/11

"I was on a flight from London to New York and landed in Heaven."

I came across this book titled, “The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland,” by Jim DeFede. Now many have dissected, analyzed and covered 9/11 in every possible way, even myself in the paper on “Rhetoric of Terrorism” based on 9/11 and Mumbai 26/11 terrorist attacks. However, it is difficult for many to believe that anything written about the events of September 11, 2001 could make you smile and happy, but Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede has penned a book that is all that, and more.

`The Day the World Came to Town: 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland' describes what happened when more than 250 aircraft, prohibited from entering U.S. airspace due to the terrorist attacks, were diverted to Canadian airports. Of those, 38 planes bearing 6,595 passengers landed in Gander, Newfoundland, a town with a population of barely 10,000.

What followed goes a very long way to restore the faith in humanity and shake the cynics. So I decide to share some experiences I came across about the other side of 9/11, called ‘the human side.’ 

On 9/11, the US has shut down all air space; subsequently, planes that were supposed to land in NYC or DC were stranded in airspace, all planes were grounded in the United States, and that any planes flying into the U.S. airspace would simply be shot down. The situation was as brutal as that.

"They shut down U.S. airspace, period, and we had to pick up the pieces. I don't fault them for that. It was an absolute tragedy," recalls David Collenette, former transport minister of Canada. (AFP)

The Gander International Airport in yesteryear, when long haul flights were not possible was an important refueling point for transatlantic flights. On 9/11, around 40 aircrafts holding more than 6000 passengers landed in Gander, a piney little town of about 10,000 people on the northeastern end of Newfoundland, Canada.

With no exception, the communities of Gander (They call themselves `Newfies') opened their doors to welcome the stranded travellers of an unexpected refugee crisis. The buildings were hastily converted into makeshift shelters and townspeople opened up their homes, came out with food and gave up their own beds to strangers from almost 100 countries. They poured out such warmth and compassion that one passenger later remarked, "I was on a flight from London to New York and landed in Heaven."

"For the better part of a week, nearly every man, woman, and child in Gander and the surrounding smaller towns stopped what they were doing so they could help. They placed their lives on hold for a group of strangers and asked for nothing in return. They affirmed the basic goodness of man at a time when it was easy to doubt such humanity still existed." 

The responses of people of Gander were truly extraordinary. They showed great generosity and kindness of the human spirit during that time. At such short notice they set up an emergency shelter for overnight stay, provided cots and clothes, and helped people contact loved ones.

A child, who turned four in Gander soon after 9/11, all his gifts were stuck on the plane he had been on, so to make him feel better, a local Gander family threw him a party.

Oz Fudge, the town constable, searched all over Gander for a flight-crew member so that he could give her a hug as a favor to her sister, a fellow law enforcement officer who managed to reach him by phone. 

Eithne Smith, an elementary-school teacher, helped the passengers staying at her school, and put together letters to family members all over the world, which she then faxed. 

Bonnie Harris, Vi Tucker, and Linda Humby, members of a local animal protection agency, crawled into the jets' cargo to feed and care for all of the animals on the flights. Hundreds of people put their names on a list to take passengers into their homes and give them a chance to get cleaned up and relax.

After all the planes had landed or turned back to Europe, Gander's air traffic controllers switched to cooking meals in the building nonstop for three days. "We went from air traffic controllers to cooks and cleaners of pots and pans," said Dan O'Brien, a supervisor with Nav Canada, the civil air navigation service, who brought passengers home to shower.

Doug Dillon switched from controlling traffic to delivering medical prescriptions to passengers in need. His father, Des, led the efforts for the Canadian Red Cross and his brother and mother, joined in the efforts to make the guests comfortable.

So did neighboring communities such as Gambo and Lewisporte.

One man gave the keys to his car to a young couple so they could have a break away from the emergency shelter.

The ‘Plane People’ recalls:

The stranded travellers of 9/11 are called the ‘plane people’ in this part of the world. Many of those “plane people” recalled their experiences.

Hannah and Dennis O'Rourke, who had been on vacation in Ireland, were helped to receive updates by telephone on the search for their son Kevin, who was among the firefighters missing at the World Trade Center. 

A family of Russian immigrants, on their way to the Seattle area to begin a new life, dealt with the uncertainty of conditions.

"We were completely taken care of," recalls the passenger. "For everyone else, 9/11 has a heavy connotation. But for me it was when I was reminded what humanity is."

"Our whole world was in chaos. We didn't even know where we were except that we were in some weird time zone in Canada. I didn't know when I was getting home, but these people basically put their lives on hold. I mean, their kids couldn't go to school because we were using the schools as shelters,” another passenger.  

"Bus drivers came off strike to drive us. Pharmacists came to the shelters and said 'What do you need?' and nobody asked for money. It's pretty incredible that they were able to respond like that, especially with short notice," another passenger.

“It still makes me cry when I think about it. They were incredible," recalls Barbara Groh-Wahlstrom, who stayed with the Salvation Army in Gambo and met her future husband there. "They had people working in the kitchen 24 hours a day and it turned out to be for five days. We were 187 passengers and they fed us three meals a day. They celebrated us like we were five-star guests. They were so full of love."

Diane Kirschke, a Texan, met Nick Marson, an Englishman. They married, and honeymooned in Newfoundland on the first anniversary of 9/11.

“We feel like we’ve healed a little bit more because we’ve had Gander,” remarked a passenger.

But the story doesn't end here; one of the Americans coming back was Shirley Brooks-Jones. She was so overwhelmed by the experience of 2001 that when her flight left Gander, she told her fellow passengers over the cabin address system that she wanted to set up a scholarship fund for students in Lewisporte, where they stayed.

The Lewisporte area Flight 15 scholarship fund is now worth close to $1.5 million and has put 134 students through school. Brooks-Jones has been back 20 times, to present the scholarships every June and to attend each anniversary.

"Since nobody would take any money from us there, we wanted to do something so that those people there would never forget what they had done for us," she explained. "They just put their lives on hold to take care of the plane people."

Even a decade later, that huge, comforting hug of Gander, Newfoundland still warms the memories of the 6,600 passengers who descended without warning on the town of 10,000. Many of them have made deep friendships with the islanders who cared for them, and some kept going back to that town.

The Day the World Came to Town is a positively heartwarming account of the citizens of Gander and its surrounding communities and the unexpected guests who were welcomed with exemplary kindness. This book abounds with human stories, such as: the fire engine racing to the next town with sirens blaring, to bring back toys for the "plane children"; the American family returning from Kazakhstan with a newly-adopted daughter; ... and many, many more.

I think it’s important to remember such responses to a humanitarian crisis, to keep our faith in humanity. 

Be the Change, Mr. Obama. Be the Change...

When the people beyond America cheered the victory of an American presidential candidate in 2008 who evoked the words of Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see,” the cheer was a sigh of relief, hoping that the world will get rid of the Bush’s recklessness in foreign policy.

Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize even before locating where all the White House bathrooms were; for sure it is a demanding and deeply uncomfortable position. “Perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the commander-in-chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars,” Obama said in his acceptance speech. He was elected on a wave of anti-war, economic crisis and contempt for George W. Bush over Iraq, but now finds himself dragging U.S. and the World to what could be worst than Iraq.

Just a decade after the Iraq invasion Obama is facing the choice himself to start another war or not? A war where the Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama might be fighting side by side with… al-Qaeda. Analysts warn that even a short-term engagement, most likely a couple of days of missile strikes, could draw the U.S. into the kind of “dumb” war Obama opposed; an illegal and reckless intervention, which was something that he railed against in his 2008 campaign.

The Syrian intervention is a choice between vigilantism and the rule of law. Certainly, in many cases, vigilantism is generally easier, and sure, it can save lives in the short run. But each time it is allowed, it erodes the rule of law. So, the question here is, in the long run, which one of these choices will save more lives?

It is not an easy choice, it is time for Obama to stand up and be the change he proposed and break this cycle of wars. When Hillary Clinton left the office as the secretary of state, we had something on the table that looked like a solution for the Syrian conflict called ‘Geneva 2’, a follow up of the Action Group on Syria, which met in Geneva in June 2012. The whole process was a rare phenomenon since the dawn of the Cold War; the U.S and Russia were working together towards resolving a complicated multi-layered sectarian and religious conflict. Now again it sounds like a fairy-tale.

Its time for him to standby with the commitment of the Geneva meeting on Syria, “Action Group members are committed to the sovereignty, independence, national unity and territorial integrity of Syria. They are determined to work urgently and intensively to bring about an end to the violence and human rights abuses and the launch of a Syrian-led politicalprocess leading to a transition that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people and enables them independently and democratically to determine their own future.”

One cannot deliver peace, human rights and democracy on cruise missiles. I hope Obama’s presidency does not turn out to be one of those ‘amazing trailers of a bad film’.

Looking at the Qatar office fiasco by the Indian perspective.

The abrupt closure of the Taliban’s Qatar office and the Karzai government’s edginess over the whole fiasco since the opening ceremony of the office, the flag the name, and the blame game must have brought some sigh of relief in the power quarters of New Delhi over some hot chai in monsoon.

Last week, India extended its support to the Afghanistan's reconciliation process with the Taliban, but warned that the process must not undermine the legitimacy of the Karzai government and should be within the internationally accepted "red lines."

This shift in Indian policy came after the visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry to Delhi. However, while India did support the peace talks in Doha, it also made it clear that the differences that cropped up between Kabul and Washington regarding the Doha talks, New Delhi’s sympathy rests with Karzai.

To make its position clear, Delhi expounded the imperative need of an inclusive ‘Afghan-led, Afghan-owned’ peace process and stressed on the “red line” that the international community prescribed as the basis for any reconciliation with the Taliban should not be undermined. Namely, the Taliban has to end their long-standing relationship with the al-Qaeda, bidding farewell to arms, violence and respecting the Afghan constitution and, of course, abandoning the past practices of human rights abuse. In the nutshell, India does not want any grey zone to remain in Afghan regime post 2014 to be exploited for non-state violence against India.

This Indian position could be understood by India’s past experiences with the Taliban regime, it was hardly felicitous. Pre-2001 era Afghanistan, during Taliban regime, not only became a breeding ground for any number of Pakistan-based terrorist organizations to inflict non-state violence in India, but also became the site of the infamous hijacking of IC-814 and its humiliating spectacle.

While New Delhi agreed to Kerry’s assurances regarding the India’s legitimate security concerns, is still far from certain that the Taliban is anywhere near bidding farewell to violence and morphing into a peaceful political actor willing to share power under the current Afghan constitution. Nor does New Delhi share the enthusiasm voiced by Washington that there is a genuine shift in the Islamabad’s policy. Knitted into all this is the profound concern in India regarding national security interests, which might be threatened if the US strikes a deal with the Taliban in self-interest that might overlook its genuine security concerns.

It can be argued that India has made a virtue out of inevitability by accommodating the American approach ensuring that no serious contradictions arise with Obama administration. New Delhi stayed modest about projecting its capacity to influence the current peace process, especially given that Washington recognizes Islamabad as the “core actor.”

India realized that despite the forging and evolution of India’s strategic partnership with the United States, the George W. Bush and Obama administration, while in the thrall of yet another military dictator in Pakistan, followed by the civilian government, pursued to keep India at an arm’s length from Kabul. Islamabad’s and indeed, Rawalpindi’s bromides in regard to the “strategic depth” and “Indian encirclement” forced Washington to keep New Delhi away from having any strategic role in the Afghanistan.

Indians by their past experiences knows that Americans have paid scant heed to India’s concerns and periodic calls for its inclusion in various diplomatic discussions on future of Kabul. As a consequence, all India could do was to provide developmental assistance to Kabul. Though New Delhi kept periodically grumbling about its role being confined to reconstruction and developmental assistance while being deprived of a seat at the diplomatic high table, for the most part, it went along with these arrangements and made itself closer to the Karzai administration to secure its interests.

In his visit to India, Kerry made it clear that the US sees a very limited political role for New Delhi in the Afghan transition as such, restricted to providing “technical assistance” to Kabul to hold the presidential election due in coming April, and then Kerry hastily clarified, “Obviously, India is not going to interfere” in the forthcoming election leading to a political transition in Afghanistan.

Simply put, Kerry proposed that “whatever India can do in its close alliance with President Karzai” should be confined to persuading him to free the presidential palace for smooth transition of power by conducting a credible election in April.

This may have come as a bitter pill for the New Delhi policymakers who aspire a greater role for New Delhi in the Afghan endgame. What is evident from Kerry’s talks in New Delhi is that while the US will do what is realistically possible to pay heed to India’s legitimate security concerns, it will not allow India to play any political role in Qatar or Afghanistan in league with the “core players”, as Washington recently identified, namely, Kabul, Doha and Islamabad.

All India can do is to politically maneuver a position for itself, where it can keep enough influence on Kabul to ensure that a neo-Taliban regime does not come back to the fore in a post-2014 Afghanistan, it needs to create this role, and now. This security concerns are legitimate given that, even US intelligence officials, in public testimony before Congress, revealed that the Taliban attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008 had involved the support of Pakistan’s secret services Inter-Services Intelligence and also, recently, the infiltration by militants on India-Pakistan Line of Control has started again.

Given the messy situation India was due to possible Taliban talks, it could not have wished for a better scenario than the derailed Doha talks and the fiasco it created. New Delhi can use this vacuum in the peace process to reposition itself in Kabul to protect its interests, if not Washington. The jolt of fear the flag and name plaque in Doha gave to Karzai administrations and the rise of anti-Pakistan sentiments in Kabul should be more than enough for New Delhi to rekindle its old affairs with the anti-Taliban power actors of Northern Alliance groups and pro-Karzai players in Kabul to protect India’s security interest.

With the time ticking for the drawdown and with no concrete solution in regard to the Taliban the best possible option for the current Afghanistan administration is to strengthen its own security forces, modern weaponry and to train Afghan troops. Now this gives New Delhi an edge given the fact that some of these purposes are already being ably served by India. In 2011, New Delhi and Kabul inked a strategic agreement that authorized Indian army to increase training of Afghan security forces that had begun in 2007. Suggestively, at the very moment Washington was acknowledging the gravity with which it’s considering the drawdown, a delegation of Indian civilian and military officials was in Kabul to discuss training programs. An Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman acknowledged, “the training of the Afghan army in India is on-going, this training is effective in increasing the capacities of the forces.”

At any rate, India’s capacity to influence the reconciliation process with the Taliban is very limited. At best it can only appeal to the US’ goodwill. Or use its trump card in Afghanistan, the wonderful equation with Karzai, but then, the US’s principal objective in the coming ten-month period is to ensure that the Afghan leader denounces his job and walks into the sunset, so that a fresh start is possible in Kabul. As for the erstwhile Northern Alliance groups, they no longer eat out of Indian hands and have dealings with other benefactors, including the US and Pakistan.

In this whole Afghan debacle India is poised to play a political role in the Kabul’s efforts to become a stable, democratic and pluralistic state, but then is India ready for the substantial burden that it will bring? Is New Delhi ready to raise its stake in Afghanistan, can it provide advance weaponry to Karzai administrations, which India has formally rejected? If the Obama administration neglects the Indian security concerns in its exit strategy, will it go back to its erstwhile ally Russia, to make sure that Kabul does not fall back into Taliban’s clutch? If the rumours are true that Karzai might not go for the election until 2015, will India try to break a deal between Karzai and Putin, given that Moscow had offered help under the Collective Security Treaty Organization, assuming that Washington will have limited influence on Kabul’s policies post 2014? With the general elections due next year in India, and growing speculation about the rise of right-wing nationalist party to power, the story will truly unfold in 2014 when the new government will take on New Delhi, and Kabul will be on its own.

Play on! Snowden, Putin and Obama...

By requesting for Russian asylum, Snowden has pulled up a chair at an on-going game of high stakes Texas Hold 'Em between Putin and US. The ex-KGB (if there is such a thing) seems to have the best card, but as we all know that the shrewdest bluff often wins this nerve-wracking game... and the game is on… and they are now locked in it, with a bundle on the table and cards yet to be turned up. The NSA leaker has just placed his opening bet and now its Putin’s turn to make a move.

The problem is, Snowden’s hole cards are not that strong. The game now shifts to Putin's favor. Obama can only watch. The wily former KGB operative has a number of ways to strip Snowden, a former low-level NSA and CIA technician, of his chips. One could be a double-cross. He can accept Snowden's asylum bid and then swap him for Victor Bout, the Russian arms dealer languishing in a U.S. prison, who Moscow wants back. However, if Putin makes this move, he might face a strong blow within his home turf, where he won the so-called election by playing the nationalism card, which at the end is an anti-American, anti-West sentiment. This is not an assumption given that some 56 percent of respondents in an opinion poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation said they backed Putin and did not want Americans adopting Russian children. A denial to Snowden’s request, given that he has accepted Putin’s only condition for the asylum may also make Putin appear weak against the US. Again, not a very favorable option for him.

If he let Snowden stay in Moscow, many analysts argue that it will jeopardize the bilateral relationship between Moscow and Washington, with which Putin has been playing a game of poker since sometime now, namely, banning of the adoption of Russian child by Americans, keeping his support to the Assad regime and so on… This game is not new between Putin and US; the game is on for a while with Capitol Hill passing The Magnitsky Act, Kremlin banning the adoption of Russian babies by American couples and then Moscow had imposed an entrance ban on 18 US citizens who are alleged to have participated in torture practices in Guantanamo prison, or who are said to have violated the rights of Russian citizens in retaliation to the Washington’s list of, 18 Russian officials facing penalties for alleged human rights violations, as American authorities can freeze their bank accounts and ban the officials from entering the US.

The game got bigger, stakes got higher and gorier in Syria, where both the players are bluffing over weapon supply, while they showed genuine interest globally in organizing the peace negotiation in Geneva. For an erstwhile diplomat the recent few months may have been a cruel reminder of the Cold War, maybe this is now the version 2.0.

Putin in last five years or so have raised Russia from the Soviet ashes, remarkably, exactly the same time when the West was trying to write Moscow off from the global high table of power. Putin has renewed the Russian influence on global politics all over again and is emerging as the big brother in the BRICS bloc.

Snowden, who badly gambled on a Hong Kong refuge, seems to be betting that a facedown card, the outrage of much of the world should he be mistreated will turn up in his favor. My sense is that if Putin allows Snowden to stay in Moscow, both Washington and Moscow have a long history of compartmentalizing these kinds of issues when you've got spies or … defectors and they can fence that off from the rest of the relationship, eventually.

Given the power politics now. Ironically, if you remember history well, with what end did the Indian born British double agent Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby met by seeking his exile in the Soviet Union. He was doomed to live out his life as a burnt-out shell in a dreary Moscow apartment, under the virtual house arrest. No amount of alcohol and philandering could stifle his bile. Given all the scenarios, Snowden's worst fate could be, Putin allowing him to stay in Russia.

Syrian Civil War: What’s So Civil About it Anyway?

What started, as an uprising of oppressed population against an authoritarian regime soon became a multi-layer international proxy-war; and it is going to get worse with the possibility of a fresh weapon supply. This makes the upcoming G8 meet very crucial for more than economic reasons, especially as the West is looking to press Russia on Syria.

What we see today in Syria is a conflation of a proxy war being fought out at various levels; from an uprising it became an Iran versus Saudi Arabia conflict, followed by Sunni versus Shia religious sectarian war with minorities within the country such as Alawites and Christians against the radical Islamic groups; and now this is turning out to indeed be the West versus Russia and China.

While the West, for its part, is busy deciding between ideological arrangements to create a ground for political judgment, by highlighting the “revolting nation” and “oppressing regime” with over dramatization of the chemical gas discourse to justify its military action, even if it is just a supply of weapons. Selective as always, the West has been in accepting and dispersing information to justify its actions, and has finally found the ground for intervention in Syria on the alleged use of chemical gas by the Assad regime to kill 100-150 people; in a conflict that has claimed, by latest UN numbers, 93,000 lives.

This ‘conclusive research’ of the intelligence agencies is not so conclusive, as per the Russians. However, for the politics of convenience, we will ignore the atrocities committed by the Syrian rebels, who all are among them, and the threat they pose to the secular structure of Syria.

Many experts say that Obama’s decision to arm the rebels is realpolitik, justifying that it is in the interest of US to supply ‘just enough’ weapons to keep the two sides fighting. The Assad regime is increasingly relying on Hezbollah and the rebels for their part, are relying on Jihadist in the Middle East and Al Qaeda allies to fight back. Now in some circles keeping two of the United States’ most active terrorist enemies fighting each other might be seen as not such a bad strategy.

I believe that this is the similar circle that once believed in creating Al Qaeda and the army of Mujahidin in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets in ’80s. It is the same circle that exclusively understands the logic of fighting the Al Qaeda allies in Mali and once these allies crosses the border and enters Syria; supply them with arms and aid.

Adding to the global adventure in Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood joined the wagon by allowing Egyptian citizens to join the Rebels in the battle for the Sunni cause. Somehow this again gives me the feeling of nostalgia of Soviet war in Afghanistan. Israel with this whole chaos at its doorstep and with a genuine threat to its internal security, unlike all the actors involved in the Syrian conflict, is, against its own strategic culture, acting very sensible by resisting a direct participation.

Israel a couple of weeks ago got a bit adventures and conducted airstrikes in the Syria, targeting the arms shipment to the Hezbollah. However, soon after the airstrike the news of S-300 Russian defense missile system started to make the headlines. Israel realized the dynamics of the Syrian proxy-war and implication of direct involvement. They know the price of getting involved in this conflict, and they will not, at least until the price is truly worth paying. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "Israel is not getting involved in the civil war in Syria, as long as the fire is not directed at us.”

The Noble Peace prizewinner EU, on the other hand, sabotaged the Russian initiated peace talks “Geneva 2” by lifting the arms embargo in Syria, at the same time that the US and Russia were trying hard to bring everyone on the negotiations table for a political solution. With the changing dynamics of the war, and looking at the victories of Assad regime with the help of the Hezbollah, now another Noble Peace prizewinner, Obama, has joined the wagon to escalate the conflict by supplying the weapons to the rebels and pushed peace way beyond the agenda. Now Geneva 2 should be forgotten for the recent future, or at least until a stalemate is reached.

Either these Noble Peace prizewinners fail to recognise, or prefer to ignore, that such a realpolitik approach could invite repercussions beyond Syria. Even the warmongers like Rep. John McCain have accepted the fact that allowing the war to continue could dangerously threaten the regional security by spilling over into neighboring countries, like Jordan and Turkey. “This is a regional conflict,” McCain said after his secret trip to Syria, “Jordan is destabilized.  Lebanon is about to erupt into sectarian violence. Jihadists are flowing in from all over the Middle East”. As per my belief eruption of a regional conflict in Middle East will eventually affect the global oil market, and consequently all the economies dependent on Arab oil, including some of the BRICS.

Now that the West has started to open its cards in Syria, the ball is in the Russian court. How far will Russia go to defend its interest in Syria? During the Russia-EU conference earlier this month Putin had said, “On our side, I underline once again that any attempts to solve the situation [in Syria] by force, by a direct foreign intervention are doomed to fail and would inevitably lead to grave humanitarian consequences.”

The West’s decision to supply arms to the rebels, and escalate the violence, could be a blunder of historic proportions. In response, even if the Kremlin only honors its existing defense agreements and contracts with the Assad regime, including S-300 defense missile system, and has no direct military aid or fresh defense deals, we will witness the disastrous conflict of our lifetime, which will subsume more than just the Gulf region in it.

The fears are entirely legitimate among analysts regarding the future of this conflict, and no matter how the war ends; stability is a matter of the past. Regardless of who takes the power, or whether the transition of power is smooth or riotous, the former Syria as we knew no longer exists. The best the international community can do is to make sure the conflict does not escalate to a position that the world will regret. Therefore, we should all be looking forward to the upcoming G8 meeting and its impact on Syria.