The case of Mohammad Salman Hamdani

Well, Happy New Year, everybody. I said goodbye to 2011 and greeted 2012 watching Coldplay perform on television here in Las Vegas, after which I took my young cousin out into the cold (mid-30s at that point) and watched the spectacular pyrotechnics from a safe and sane distance. This was apparently a record-setting New Year's Eve, which is a welcome sign for Nevadans.

Had I been in Seoul, I would have marched from my apartment down to Chongno to either watch or hear the new year literally being rung in. One thing that was cool, though, was that NBC Nightly News highlighted the Seoul celebration in their December 31 broadcast.

Anyway, I'm still on the Mainland stamping out sparks and putting out fires in what has become a sometimes amusing but sometimes hair-pullingly galling health, financial, and emotional drama. Some day I may write about my big adventure in prose form; in the spirit of Shakespeare, whether t'is ultimately a comedy or a tragedy will depend on whether we all get out alive. 

I will be back to regular posting more either later in the week or by the middle of the month. The odd thing is, though, that Kim Jong-il's death and Kim Jong-un's cosmetic rise has pushed my hit rate up far higher than usual, even though I'm hardly writing any new stuff.

In the meantime, though I'd like to nudge you toward this story in the New York Times, about a Muslim Pakistani-American who was killed in the 9/11 terror attacks when he was responding to the emergency:

He was buried after the Sept. 11 attacks with full honors from the New York Police Department, and proclaimed a hero by the city’s police commissioner. He is cited by name in the Patriot Act as an example of Muslim-American valor.

And Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, one of two Muslim members of Congress, was brought to tears during a Congressional hearing in March while describing how the man, a Pakistani-American from Queens, had wrongly been suspected of involvement in the attacks, before he was lionized as a young police cadet who had died trying to save lives.

Despite this history, Mohammad Salman Hamdani is nowhere to be found in the long list of fallen first responders at the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan.

Nor can his name be found among those of victims whose bodies were found in the wreckage of the north tower, where his body was finally discovered in 34 parts.

Instead, his name appears on the memorial’s last panel for World Trade Center victims, next to a blank space along the south tower perimeter, with the names of others who did not fit into the rubrics the memorial created to give placements meaning. That section is for those who had only a loose connection, or none, to the World Trade Center.

A tragedy on top of tragedy that, frankly, reminded me of this bit of satire I wrote in August 2010 during the "Ground Zero Mosque" nonsense.

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It's all a bad Dream Hub

In an update to this story, it appears that the Korean media has discovered the outrage — outrage! — that many in America are feeling over what they are convinced is a deliberate attempt to mock the United States by way of a building that its architects insist depicts clouds but which those critics are certain is a nod to the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11.

But the planners are not budging, according to AFP:

A South Korean developer said on Monday it would not alter the design of a twin-tower project despite complaints in the United States that it mimics the explosions at New York’s World Trade Center in 2001.

The towers, one with 54 floors and the other with 60, are designed by Dutch architects MVRDV and will be built at the entrance to Seoul’s redeveloped Yongsan business district by 2016.

The towers will be connected midway up by a cloud-shaped bridging section that will house amenities including sky lounges, a swimming pool and restaurants.

But families of victims of the 9/11 attacks see a marked resemblance between the project known as

The Cloud and the clouds of debris that billowed from the World Trade Center after hijacked airliners ploughed into the towers.

“Allegations that it (the design) was inspired by the 9/11 attacks are groundless,” said White Paik, spokesman for the Yongsan Development Corp.

“There will be no revision or change in our project,” he told AFP, adding that construction would begin in January 2013 as scheduled.

You go, girl. (The Wall Street Journal, however, is reporting that they're saying nothing is written in stone.)

And while we're at it, I want to point out the interesting name White Paik, given that paek/paik means white, and that that person is defending a building called cloud.

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Look up, in the sky! It's a growth! It's a plane! It's a superbly botched architectural design!

Skycrapers are modern-day Rorschach tests. Hugely expensive Rorschach tests. Take the above picture. Some, as I did, see two high-rises enshrouded in a "cloud." Others might see genital warts (not having had them, I don't know what they look like, so I'll take that commenter at his word). Some might see an "H."

Apparently others see an image that evokes the 9/11 attacks that brought down the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in 2001. And that has them pissed off.

This site, from which I get mailings ever since I bought an anti-Obama bumper sticker as a gag gift three years ago, tries to explain that it is in fact supposed to represent clouds but from lower angles people understandably might imagine the 9/11 attacks.

It was, however, the comments section that prompted me to write this up, as it quickly devolved (comments on this site often devolve, almost as if it's a means to disprove evolution) into attacks on South Korea. With this design the ROK was showing it isn't really an ally, we should boycott South Korean goods until they cancel plans for this building, etc.:

And these are our supposed friends? These are the people we saved from invaders back in the early fifties, at great cost in American lives and money? How many billions do the get from us in foreign aid each year? Mayby Ron Paul is right – pull our troops and money out of there until they correct insults like this.

Using American military or economic pressure was a common theme:

Sounds to me like skorea’s become a liberal state. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear obama gave them the idea. Cut off trade untill they get rid of the cloud.

In fact, Obama Derangement Syndrome reared its ugly head a few times:

what sick demented mind would even hand in a design like that. wouldn’t happen if we had a strong leader in the oval office who had ALL our interests at heart . you’d probably need an mri to find it eh.

Sigh. I tried to be the voice of reason, but some still said it doesn't matter that it is supposed to be clouds:

Regardless of the intent, the outcome ‘is what it is’. The designers need to see what millions around the world will see, then scrap the idea and come up with something else.

If they’re so insensitive as to move forward with this design when everyone else is saying it’s too reminiscent of 9/11/01, then you have to look at it as if it’s their intent.

I'm a bit troubled by this idea, that even though the original intent is pretty clear, that doesn't matter if a whole bunch of other people wrongly assume it's something else and can't be appeased except by said object's destruction. If that's the case, are we going to see mass euthanization of all the Hitler cats?

Yikes, would that ever be an overreaction. (Not to mention argumentum ad hitlerum et absurdum.)

And for that reason, I don't think those two skyscrapers will be scrapped simply because it offends the sensibilities of people who don't get it. I mean, after all, in downtown Seoul, at the head of Ch'ŏngyech'ŏn Stream, we have a gigantic sculpture that makes people think of a giant swirl of excremental soft serve (see here and the last and third-from-last photos here; if you start from the bottom and you've scrolled up to the Marmotress dry-humping a hipster haetae, you've gone too far).

I mean, if we don't get rid of that, why would we get rid of anything?

[UPDATE: Here's a past post, Der Führry, on cats who look like Hitler.]

Similarly, I don't think anyone's calling for the massive Yongsan redevelopment project along the Han River to be discarded, even though it's pretty clear (to those inclined to see it) that those buildings are giving us the finger. In fact, maybe they're giving the US the finger. Pull out or troops now!

Seriously, the brouhaha over this structure sounds like those "It hurts our pride" Korean nationalists who saw the Japanese kanji for Japan in the rooftops of just about every building constructed during the Colonial Period and demanded their destruction. I mean, come on, 日 (the ni in Nihon) is so common and basic a shape that you would see it everywhere if you're looking for it.

Is it the same now with basic rectangular buildings with anything coming out of them? That could represent a plane attacking it or the resulting explosion? I mean, that this is 9/11 is a bit of a stretch in that the two explosions from the planes hitting and then the collapse were toward the top.

Moreover, the two explosions nor their smoke and debris fields did not really join as one, as depicted in the Korean building design. The smoke coming from them was also way toward the top, so that they looked like chimney stacks. And when the buildings collapsed, the cloud of debris was also toward the top. This architecture mock-up has the pixelated clouds mid-rise.

I don't know. I can see why people would imagine 9/11, but after knowing what the building is supposed to be, I think people can let it go. After 9/11, Fox pulled, I believe, two episodes of The Simpsons, one where the Back Street Boys thwart an attack on a New York City skyscraper (which sorta makes sense, given the sensitivities of the day), and another which simply depicted Homer Simpson visiting the two towers to retrieve his car (kinda inexplicably overreaching). Though the move was meant to be "permanent," they quietly brought back both later on.

This outcry over the towers in Seoul seems to be about as silly as the latter.

But in the interest of finding common ground, would it help things if the towers were colored, say, green or dark gray while the "clouds" remain white?

UPDATE:
The New York Daily News says the architects have apologized for the design. But after reading that paper's take, I realized some of the respondents are hopeless emotional to the point of being irrational:

Jim Riches, a retired FDNY deputy chief whose son was killed on 9/11, said he didn’t believe the architects.

“I think it’s a total lie and they have no respect for the people who died that day,” he said. “They’re crossing a line.

“It looks just like the towers imploding,” he said. “I think they’re trying to sensationalize it. It’s a cheap way to get publicity.”

They're acting like, I don't know, South Korea made an eleven-year comedy series out of an American national tragedy or something. I may have to whip out some satire I used the last time that happened.

Don't get me wrong. 9/11 was a terrific tragedy for our country, and even more unimaginably so for those who lost friends and family on that date. I've never even been to New York City and yet I feel a sharp tinge of anger and regret when I see the NYC skyline without those towers, and I'm ecstatic that Osama bin Laden can do no more harm. I would be ready to take down (figuratively) anyone who was actually mocking the tragedy or taking advantage of it.

But see, what's happened is that it's not the South Koreans who have done any of that, at least not with this tower design, but instead it's those who evoked 9/11 to get us into Iraq or to turn against our fellow Americans who are of the Muslim faith (or just Arab or Arab-looking).

UPDATE 2:
The Los Angeles Times is now carrying this story as well, but it looks like the commenters there are much more mellow and accepting about the whole thing. Could it be because they're farther from New York City, or maybe because they're closer to South Korea?

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Where were you?

The lead-up to the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks are inescapable. It's everywhere I typically go to for news: on NBC News, PBS, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, etc., etc. International students I know have asked me what I will do to mark the occasion. Even they realize that the September 11 attacks may be the defining moment of Gen-Xers and Gen-Y.

Here in Honolulu, we are about as far away from New York City, the Pentagon, or rural Pennsylvania as you can get and still be in an US state. But the obvious parallel between that infamous date and December 7, 1941, inevitably draws this island into the 9/11 mindset.

I was taking a nap when the first plane hit the towers. At the time I had a job that required me to get up at 4:30 a.m. every Monday through Saturday, and I often found myself taking a late evening siesta in order to make it to 10 or 11, when my friends would want to meet.

My boss called me, which woke me up. "Did you see what happened?" he asked. "Go turn on the news. A plane hit the World Trade Center." Frankly, I don't even know if he said it in English or Korean, but I seem to have remembered the conversation in the latter.

I also don't remember if I was watching CNN or AFN Korea, or both, but I had found one or two stations that were staying on what had happened in New York, and then Washington. I called a close friend in Nebraska who had been to New York just a few months earlier; she was getting ready for class and she hadn't heard about the plane hitting the WTC until I called. We were both watching together when the second plane hit.

There was this sickening feeling deep in my stomach when I saw that. A visceral response as I realized what was happening. There was no escaping the fact that this was not an accident.

I stayed up, eyes glued to the television. Halmŏni came in and asked if I shouldn't be in bed, why was I watching TV, what is that on the TV, did the North Koreans do that? Halmŏni hates North Koreans.

No, I told her. We don't know. It could be anyone. I then went to work on doing a news write-up for a local news program, something that would go on the air. It was heart-wrenching, trying to navigate my own tumultuous emotions while actually doing work related to the incident.

I ended up having thirty minutes of sleep that night. The next day I was constantly reminded of the horrific incident. When my own recollection of the horror wasn't plaguing my thoughts, I had to deal with so many people coming up to me and offering condolences and asking if I'm okay. Any Korean who knew that I'm an American. At my grad school classes that day, at least a dozen conversations between myself and other Americans began with, "Oh, my god!"

When I was finally able to, I called my family to see how they were doing. All were on the West Coast, but they were as rattled as I was. Everyone. I also learned from my sister that my brother-in-law had been on one of the flights to Los Angeles that had been hijacked, but a day earlier. My mom wanted me to come to California, thinking it would be safer. No, I told her, Seoul was probably the better choice, but heading for the US was no option either for the next two weeks.

The evening of September 12, Korean time, I had to deliver a speech of sorts and the events came up. Try as I did to maintain my composure, my voice kept cracking. It was all I could do to keep myself from weeping at the thought of all the death and destruction.

At that point we thought as many as ten thousand might have died. It would be weeks, I think, before we realized it was only three thousand.

And everyone stood in a unified stance, behind the president, waiting to see what he would do. Afghanistan was a no-brainer, if the Taliban was not going to give up Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Iraq was a complete surprise to me; I thought that Cheney and Bush were rattling sabers to scare Saddam Hussein. I never though they'd really attack. At least, I thought, we might be finally rid of that horrible dictator. That was a consolation prize over a war I had hoped would never begin, and one that quickly became mismanaged and caused the other one — the justifiable one — to go off the rails.

I'd been expecting packages from the US Mainland, including my International Driving Permit. The grounding of all flights meant a delay of weeks.

I still feel a sense of anger, loss, and melancholy about a brighter future that slipped from our fingertips. In the end our unity became polarization. Our war(s) to avenge and definitively assure "never again" ended up bringing us to the edge of financial ruin.

So, what about you? Where were you on 9/11?

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9/21 terror

The date was September 21, 2011, ten days after the 9/11 terror attacks by Islamist followers of Osama bin Laden:

Stroman was on a shooting spree, targeting people who appeared to be Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent. Stroman is due to be executed July 20; Bhuiyan, the only survivor of the attacks, is fighting to save his life.

When Stroman entered the gas station, Bhuiyan initially thought it was a routine robbery.

"I opened the cash register, offered him the cash, and requested him not to shoot me," Bhuiyan tells weekends on All Things Considered host Laura Sullivan. "In reply he asked me, 'Where are you from?' And the question seemed strange to ask during a robbery. And I said, 'Excuse me?' And as soon as I spoke, I felt the sensation of a million bees stinging my face, and then heard an explosion."

Bhuiyan required medical attention for years after the attack. The bullet hit him on the right side of the face, leaving severe injuries, particularly to his right eye.

This story was highlighted a couple weeks ago on NPR because Mr Bhuiyan is trying to save the life of his attacker:

"According to my faith in Islam, there is no hate, no killing. It doesn't allow anything like that," says Bhuiyan. "Yes, Mark Stroman did a horrible thing, and he brought a lot of pain and disaster, sufferings in my life. But in return I never hated him."

Bhuiyan has created a website called World Without Hate to educate others about hate crimes as a means of preventing them. He's also working with Amnesty International and Stroman's defense attorney, who has filed several appeals on Stroman's death sentence.

"I strongly believe executing him is not a solution. We will just simply lose a human life without dealing with the root cause, which is hate crime," Bhuiyan says. "In Islam it says that saving one human life is the same as saving the entire mankind. Since I forgave him, all those principles encouraged me to go even further, and stop his execution and save another human life."

I am strongly opposed to capital punishment, even for people we know are guilty of the crimes they've been convicted of. But were someone to kill a loved one of mine, I honestly wouldn't know how I'd feel. Here is a man whose life was forever altered when he was shot in the face by a killer who singled him out because of his looks and his faith.

Here also is a man who takes his Islamic faith and goes in a completely different direction from the hirabi who killed thousands on 9/11.

Korean Airlines faux hijacking and landing at Whitehorse Airport

I only vaguely remember reading about this story in the aftermath of 9/11, what with the sadness and anger over so much death and then the march to war in Afghanistan when the Taliban would not give up Osama bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda who were using their country as a base.

It is the story of how two Korean Airlines jumbo jets were forced to land at Whitehorse International Airport way up in the Yukon when someone flying the plane or directing air traffic sent messages indicating they had been hijacked:

One of the double-decker planes first raised an alarm at 9:06 a.m. PT, three hours and 21 minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 plowed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

That was when the United States Federal Aviation Administration was informed that a text message containing the international code for hijacking — HJK — had passed between the cockpit of Flight 085 and Korean Air's ground control at 8:09 a.m. Although it was, and still is, unclear which end was sending the message, it was remarkable as it was the only such text message sent that day.

It was also remarkable for those monitoring the plane at the time because when ground control spoke to the plane's pilot, he reported all was well.

Meanwhile in the U.S., then-vice-president Dick Cheney had authorized his country's war planes to "intercept civilian tracks of interest and shoot them down if they seem to be threatening a U.S. city. Clearance to shoot is authorized to save lives on the ground."

In other words: If the Air Force brass believed a plane full of people was going crash into another American building, they were to blow it out of the sky.

The 230 souls on board Flight 085 had no idea they were being tracked by two fighter jets with shoot-to-kill authorization, and only the crew knew what had happened in New York City to justify such an order.

The residents of Whitehorse (the capital of the territory but with only twenty thousand folks) were evacuated and this apparently left a very indelible mark on the collective memory. Enough that someone made a documentary out if it, Never Happen Here — the Whitehorse 9/11 Story.

Here's the trailer for the documentary:



I'm interested in this in part due to the obvious Korea connection. Imagine if American or Canadian military had shot down a plane full of civilians and it turned out there was no hijacking emergency whatsoever. That could have led to ill will of such colossal proportions it might have tipped the political balance in Northeast Asia.

Anti-American Terrorist Home Videos

Apparently Osama bin Laden liked to watch himself.

At least, that's what's being revealed as some of Osama's Abbottabad booty is released for public consumption:

From a shabby, makeshift office, he ran a global terrorist empire. The world's most wanted man watched newscasts of himself from a tiny television perched atop a rickety old desk cluttered with wires.

For years, the world only saw the 54-year-old Osama bin Laden in the rare propaganda videos that trickled out, the ones portraying him as a charismatic religious figure unfazed by being the target of a worldwide manhunt.

On Saturday, the U.S. released a handful of videos, selected to show bin Laden in a much more candid, unflattering light. In the short clips, bin Laden appears hunched and tired, seated on the floor, watching television wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing a knit cap. Outtakes of his propaganda tapes show that they were heavily scripted affairs. He dyed and trimmed his beard for the cameras, then shot and reshot his remarks until the timing and lighting were just right.

I wonder if he shared cinematography tips with the Dear Leader.

Anyway, some of the newer videos show him watching stuff that should provide conclusive evidence to all but the most die-hard deathers that Osama bin Laden died recently and not five or ten years ago. (Seriously, what benefit could Bush/Cheney possibly have had in withholding that kind of information from the public as they faced a tough re-election campaign and Dubya saw his approval numbers plummet? That kind of conspiracy theory makes as much sense as an eighteen-year-old ultra-pregnant White woman in 1961 traveling halfway around the world to give birth to a child in a rundown Kenyan hospital in front of the wife she didn't know her bigamist new husband already had.)

In fact, Al Qaeda themselves have confirmed his demise. And what possible benefit would they have in making that up? Losing the charismatic OBL has got to hurt in the fundraising side of the business.

Anyway, we should expect more interesting tidbits as they go through the treasure trove of media they captured and release what they can to the public.

Their biggest problem so far? All the DVDs are Region 5.

I am waiting to see if they discover planned or considered attacks on South Korea or neighboring Japan. A lot of people forget this, but on the Saturday before the 9/11 attacks back in 2001, the Joongang Daily carried a story about the US being very concerned about indicators they got pointing to an attack on US interests in South Korea and/or Japan. The oh-so-clever headline writer (maybe the guy who wrote this) entitled the piece “In Case Anyone Cares, It’s Something About Terrorism.”

Well, the following Tuesday, the two main towers of the World Trade Center were hit in New York City, one of two cities attacked that day. Since then, I have always wondered if what was really going on was that Korea and Japan were code for either the two towers or for New York City and Washington DC.

(The ill timing of the jokester headline writer's glib headline was unfortunate; I guess the message there is don't make up stupid headlines for serious news just because you're too much of a duckweed to realize it's serious.)

Anyway, both Korea and Japan have been lulled into a sense of security, enough that it might not be that hard to launch a bombing attack. I won’t say anymore than this, but there are vulnerable buildings that, post-Oklahoma City, should not have been built how and where they were.

I'd be curious whether al Qaeda ever picked up on that and thought the heavily Christian ally of the United States would be a good target.

A mosque at Ground Zero

Satire meets reality.

In this "crap I make up" piece, I mocked the media and national leaders who have demonized Muslims at the expense of American values while conveniently ignoring the dozens of followers of Islam who were also murdered by the Islamist terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. In the same vein in the New York Times today, this article reminds us of the Muslim presence at the World Trade Center back in 2001.

Fekkak Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who was head waiter, attended a worship service just weeks after the attacks that honored the estimated 60 Muslims who died. Far from being viewed as objectionable, the service was conducted with formal support from city, state and federal authorities, who arranged for buses to transport imams and mourners to Warren Street.

There, within sight of the ruins, they chanted salat al-Ghaib, the funeral prayer when there is not an intact corpse.

“It is a shame, shame, shame,” Mr. Mamdouh, 49, said of the Park51 dispute. “Sometimes I wake up and think, this is not what I came to America for. I came here to build this country together. People are using this issue for their own agenda. It’s designed to keep the hate going.”

According to the same article, the closest thing to an actual mosque at Ground Zero was destroyed in the 9/11 attacks by the Islamist terrorists who took down the towers. It was a prayer room on the 17th floor of the South Tower:

On any given day, Mr. Abdus-Salaam’s companions in the prayer room might include financial analysts, carpenters, receptionists, secretaries and ironworkers. There were American natives, immigrants who had earned citizenship, visitors conducting international business — the whole Muslim spectrum of nationality and race.

It is gone now, of course.

In an age of demonization of Muslims and their faith (helped along, deliberately and by design, by those Islamist terrorists themselves), it's as if history has been rewritten so that such things as Muslims who peacefully worshipped in the WTC dying on 9/11 can be conveniently forgotten.

The result is that most Americans oppose "a mosque at ground zero" even though it's not quite a mosque and it isn't quite at Ground Zero. Would-be presidential leaders seem to want to trample the First Amendment in the rush to save our Judeo-Christian republic.

On a completely related note, I wonder how many Americans support the burning of the Koran today. Actually, I do. Well, sort of. Not exactly. But yes.

You see, I loathe the hate-mongering of the so-called pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida who planned to have a Koran-burning. As a Christian, I wonder (as do others) if he actually understands the New Testament. Jesus would kick his ass out of the temple. (And Gainesville would like to boot him out of town.) I'm glad some Christians are publicly taking a different tack.

But at the same time, I stand up for his right to do it (assuming the Supreme Court doesn't count Koran-burning as "fighting words" or some such).

After all, this is America. We have a First Amendment that is extended to hated Muslims and hate-filled duckweed supposed Christians.

So go ahead, "Minister" Terry Jones. It is your right as an American to do something so incendiary (literally and figuratively), so foolish and ignorant, and so hate-filled.

I am dismayed, however, that so many people seem to see the Florida minister and Imam Rauf (the man behind the Cordoba House that has been called "Ground Zero Mosque") as equivalents. The minister's acts are the essence of bigotry and religious animosity, while it is (many in) the Imam's opposition that is acting out of bigotry and religious animosity.

Sigh. At least President Obama got it right today:

I think I've been pretty clear on my position here, and that is, is that this country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal; that they have certain inalienable rights. One of those inalienable rights is to practice their religion freely. And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.

Now, I recognize the extraordinary sensitivities around 9/11. I've met with families of 9/11 victims in the past. I can only imagine the continuing pain and anguish and sense of loss that they may go through. And tomorrow we as Americans are going to be joining them in prayer and remembrance. But I go back to what I said earlier: We are not at war against Islam. We are at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts.

And we've got to be clear about that. We've got to be clear about that because if ... we're going to successfully reduce the terrorist threat, then we need all the allies we can get.

Why does that have to be spelled out? Were Barry and I the only ones paying attention in 12th grade Civics class?

Do those who see all Muslims as enemies not realize that they are playing into the hands of Islamists like Osama bin Laden who want us to toss aside our freedoms and values and blindly join in their endeavor to create a clash of civilizations?

Whither my country?