More on 9-11-01

A lot of bloggers are pointing to this list of Twenty Unanswered Questions About 9-11-01, so I might as well join the crowd. I'd like to know the answers to a lot of these, myself.

I find #7 a bit troubling, though. Try as I might to get mad at President Bush about this, I really can't do it. I have wondered why the Secret Service did not immediately intercede and insist on moving the President to a secure location, but that probably falls into the realm of military response and that kind of thing of which I have little knowledge. My suspicion is that, in times like that, a President will generally defer to the people around him - - his security people, his generals, et cetera. If their word was "We don't know what the hell's going on yet", it seems clear to me that they'd keep him there.

The article asks, "Why didn't he take more decisive action?" I'm really not sure at all what action he could have taken in those moments. As for sitting there reading with the children, well - - the placement looks bad by virtue of contrast between where he was, at that moment, and what was happening in Lower Manhattan (and soon to unfold at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania). Mr. Bush's position was probably "Until we know what's going on and what we're doing, let's not scare these kids unnecessarily." And I really can't fault him for that.

Ultimately, this list of questions makes me realize that although we think we know exactly what happened on that day, because we were alive and we watched it on TV and in some cases we were there, we really don't know. I commented on Thursday that we are going to see 9-11-01 become, unavoidably, less "our day of infamy" and more an object of historical study, and this list of questions points the way. Twenty, thirty, forty years from now -- and longer than that, really -- people will write about 9-11-01, and they will ask questions about it. Government documents will be examined. Histories will be written. Multiple theories as to what occurred, and why, will arise, and some of them will be in conflict. Those of us who lived through that day will likely have a hard time reconciling those histories with our memories, but that's the way it will be. It always is.