9/11 +6

I doubt I’ll write about September 11th again. Six years on, everything that can be said on the subject has already been said. (Except for, “I’m sorry for using 9/11 as an excuse for an unjustified war against Iraq.” But that’s really hoping for too much.) I know I pretty much wrote my share last year.

And with the passage of time, the day is slowly losing its impact. On September 11th, 2002, I wrote a pained editorial for The Daily Sundial asking, “When will we laugh again on this tragic date?” Twelve hours later, David Letterman answered that question by doing a short tribute to the Twin Towers, then launching into a Top Ten list that skewered New York City. September 11th has been much less somber since, and I’d say that’s a good thing.

While the September 11th anniversary will likely top our local and national news coverage, I’m not aware of any major prime time tributes this year. In another six years, there will be junior high school students who weren’t even born when the 9/11 attacks happened. To them, 9/11 will be like Pearl Harbor Day: a date that was to live in infamy forever, but is really only talked about by old people.

If you want to know how much things have changed, look no farther than the latest Osama bin Laden tape. They used to have the power to send oil prices through the roof, but this latest one almost seems a little silly. In it, bin Laden didn’t threaten the U.S. with any more attacks, but he did urge all Americans to convert to Islam.

It appears Osama has learned that a decades long campaign of murder and terror hasn’t earned him many converts here in the states. So it’s time to soften the message. I know a little something about all this, as I was once a Mormon missionary and spent two years trying to convince people to convert to my religion.

Our early attempts at terror-based conversion had limited results.(You have a lot of questions about this picture, but I don’t have time to answer them. Suffice it to say that everything in the above image would make sense if you had all the background.)

But then we softened our message a little bit, ran some very touching TV ads, and things went a lot better. For instance, instead of putting threatening videos on TV, might I suggest bin Laden produce a 30 second spot that goes a little like this:

“Sure, you know about Christ’s ministry in Jerusalem 2000 years ago, but did you know about another book that mentions Jesus: the Koran! Call this toll free number now and we’ll sent you your very own copy of the Koran free of charge. If you’d like, two nice, non-threatening young men can come by your home and tell you more about the Koran.”

Laugh if you want but there’s an urban legend floating around that bin Laden was spotted in Utah. Can it be much longer before his minions start going door-to-door?

“Hello, I’m Elder bin Laden, and this is Elder Atta. We’re representatives of… well, that’s not all that important. We’re going around your neighborhood sharing a brief message about…”

I don’t know what happens next because that’s generally when people shut the door. But this new era of proselytizing by al-Qaeda could lead to a promising new era where extremists are merely annoying instead of deadly. An if that happens, perhaps we don't have to devote much time to commemorating 9/11 in the future.

And if they need any ill-fitting white shirts, I’ve got plenty in a box somewhere.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, IRAQ WAR!

First off, apologies for neglecting this space for the past two weeks. My schedule hasn’t permitted much writing lately, but there is “product in the pipeline” as the “industry types” “say.” For now, I offer up something I wrote on the eve of the Iraq war. I was in Washington DC interning at CNN when the war started. (At the time, I didn’t want to name the organization, for obvious reasons.)

With the war’s birthday just past, it seems a good time to revisit.

Originally printed March 12, 2003

Well, it’s final, we’re going to war. Technically, it’s not really final. The United Nations will do some voting and the French will stomp their feet and the protesters will do some marching, but it’s really a moot point. We’re going to war.

If you saw President Bush’s press conference last Thursday, he said the final decision had not yet been made about military action against Iraq. But he smirked every time he said it, so you knew he was lying. The decision has been made, the troops are in place, the news stations have their cameras in the best locations. We’re going to war.

At Unnamed News Organization (hereafter referred to as UNO), the 24-hour news channel where I’m interning, we’re in full war mode. After Thursday’s presidential news conference, (in which the Washington Post described Bush as appearing “medicated”), several UNO reporters were informed they were leaving for Kuwait. Plans were unveiled for elongated work schedules once the war begins. Somewhere, someone was composing the theme song for the new war.

Those who are to remain in Washington have been issued protective suits in case of chemical attack. We interns were not issued protective suits; we perform the important “canary in the coal mine” function. If the interns keep dropping dead, the reporters know it’s not safe to take off the chemical suits.

People in the newsroom disagree about just when the war will start. The U.N. vote on the second resolution is on March 17, and most expect the war will start shortly after that. A few reporters think the United States will try to “shock and awe” Iraq by striking a day or so before March 17. One guy actually thinks we’re just posturing and we’re not going to war at all. UNO is putting him on a plane to Kuwait next week.

Those of us in the prestigious UNO intern corps are divided about the war. Most interns at UNO are the kind of bleeding-heart lefty peaceniks you’d expect to find in journalism. As you can imagine, most of us oppose the war. But there’s one catch: Being a news intern during a war looks great on your resume, so we all have something to gain by the U.S. going to war. That’s right, if our government kills thousands of people on the other side of the world, it will help us advance professionally.

This, I’m learning, is one of the great dilemmas of journalism. The worse things are, the better your job is. When there is relative peace and there’s not much going on, journalists have to do stories on stupid things like El Nino or what the president does with his cigars. Journalists make their reputations covering war, disasters, and mass murders. The worse the story, the better it is professionally for the journalist, assuming the story doesn’t personally affect the reporter.

So the march to war is on, and the careers of many journalists may be made or ruined by what happens in the next month. Back in the UNO newsroom, we’re taking bets on what the war will be called. Some think it will be called the “Iraq War,” while others figure the war will spread and be named the “Middle East War.” I nose into the debate by saying it will be called “Gulf War II: Electric Boogaloo.”

After everyone stops laughing at that hilarious joke I’ve told 1,000 times before, someone offers another possible name: World War III.

We all get uncomfortable and go back to our desks.