Terrorists have thrown America into paranoia – and unity

NEW YORK CITY – Hope has collapsed at "Ground Zero," the site of the doomed Twin Towers, but they still dig. The fact that the families of the "missing" are now being allowed to apply for "death certificates" from City Hall indicates that the inevitable has been accepted.

The World Trade Center attacks were horrible for the victims and their bereaved families. Many "wakes" or "viewings" (as they call it here) have been conducted in the past few days here without any bodies. The idea is to honor a loved one, even if his or her corpse (or pieces thereof) has not been recovered.

There is widespread mourning, too, among the insurance companies. The renowned Lloyd’s of London – in whose headquarters in England, legend says, a bell is tolled everytime a ship sinks at sea – is drowning in losses. The firm announced the other day that it may suffer the biggest losses in its 300-year history, an estimated 1.7 billion pounds or US $1.9 billion. With regard to the other insurance firms, the insurance bill from the attacks is expected to come to as high as $40 billion.

Right now, Americans are bracing themselves for a "biological warfare" attack by the same terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden. They’re not waiting to prove to the rest of the world that it was Bin Laden who mounted the operation. They say that they simply know it.

In what shape or form retaliation will come, thankfully, nobody can say, although there are may "talking heads" on television, including former Russian officers who had fought the mujaheedin in Afghanistan and British SAS experts, speculating about it. How can you zap an elusive enemy which can hide in caves, or the many tortuous mountain valleys of the Hindu Kush?

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The US military strategists, the reports say, hope to precision-guide "smart bombs" utilizing the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system to locate and zone in on Afghan airfields and installations, or the lairs and training camps of Bin Laden. In an Afghan war, forget "technology." The GPS works only in civilized countries.

In the United States, for instance, my cousin Richie Silverio has a modern ACURA car (the top of the line of Honda) with a GPS. All Richard has to do is enter a specific address in his car GPS computer, and a map will appear, complete with street names and the route to follow. If he deviates from the route, the computer will tell him in a lady’s voice that he’s off-course, but instruct him to "turn right" at the next intersection, then "left", then "right again", to get back on course. When he’s near his programmed destination, the voice says (with a slight Japanese accent): "Destination just ahead," then, "destination here."

Richard says this GPS works all over the US. Not in the Philippines, l’d say. Otherwise, every Filipino aficionado who loves gadgetry and toys for the big boys would already have one. And, besides, our congressmen and local councils keep on changing street names, in praise of obscure politicians or their own family members. Surely, even the most sophisticated satellite would be confused. No, sir, the GPS won’t work at home.

As for the GPS working in Afghanistan? Forget it. There’s usually not even a road at all. And you can’t just punch in: "Target Osama bin Laden."

Incidentally, yesterday’s headline asked: "50 Filipinos among bin Laden fighters?" Probably more.

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The fact that some of the terrorists who skyjacked those four large American passenger jets, then used them as flying bombs against the WTO and the Pentagon carried false papers, demonstrates that there is a booming fake I.D. racket everywhere. Any state-of-the-art computer can "forge any I.D. The racket in the US is to steal somebody else’s "identity" or his or her "Social Security Number."

The US government, through its Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement agents, "armed with arrest warrants," has seized and are detaining 200 persons who can "help" in tracking the spoor of the terrorists. The usual "excuse" is that these men are being taken into custody as "material witnesses" in the ongoing investigation.

Some of those seized have been released after spending two weeks in jail, without explanation.

This nation is witnessing a unprecedented amount of police action and "secrecy" on the part of government. Almost nobody talks of human rights these days; otherwise, the dissenter faces being beaten up or subjected to insult or suspicion at the very least. In sum, in the world’s most high-class democracy, Americans, – who used to be the most contentious and prickly over individual rights – believe that when America is under attack and their own lives are at stake, what "human rights" should be allowed to interfere with the right of self-preservation?

The terrorists have accomplished one of their aims. They’ve slowed America down. For all its show of defiant bravado, New York isn’t as lively a town, a "city that never sleeps" as it was before the World Trade assaults. The formerly less-than-popular Mayor Rudy Giuliani has transmogrified into a political icon, and although term limits say he can’t run for a third term, the public is chanting, "Four more years! Four more years!" Whether this can happen, only the N.Y. state legislature can say.

The consensus (owing to 40 percent write-in vote for him in this week’s Democratic primary) is that his experienced hand is needed at the helm in this time of troubles.

The US airlines will get an initial five billion dollars in"bail-out" funds but continue to lay off employees and workers. Delta was the latest to announce a cut of 17,000 jobs.

Scared of flying, many Americans are staying home. Many airline reservations were cancelled in the wake of the Sept. 11 "bombings", and the urge to travel has been stifled up to now. Sure, New York hotels are full — of relief and rescue operation volunteers and others, such as reservists and national guardsmen called to the colors. That’s all. The carefree tourist has become as scarce as the Philippine "bald eagle" or Haribon.

Airline flights to Hawaii from the US mainland, which used to be bursting at the seams, are running almost empty. Media feeds this frenzy and apprehension. There’s more talk about biological attack, anthrax in the water system (reservoirs, dams and rivers have been placed under heavy guard), and other terrible "possibilities" of terrorist attack.

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to try to scare us into good behavior by threatening that if we weren’t good, the heavily-bearded and turbaned intinerant "Indian" (Bombay) salesman would get us and put us into his sack. Those were the days when these Bombays — long before 5/6 — went house-to-house peddling a variety of goods, from combs to silks to eye-pluckers and toilet articles. Today’s bogeyman in America is the heavily beaded, sad-eyed Osama bin Laden. If they can’t exorcise that "ghost" of a devil, Americans won’t be able to sleep peacefully at night.

Can they? Americans, the way I see it, are united more than ever before. What they need is a target to hit, and you can bet on it: They’ll deliver the Sunday punch. The question is — where is Bin Laden? Perhaps in New Jersey?