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M
RICHARDS (1992), JOSHUA ROSENTHAL (1979), CHRISTINA RYOOK (1998), META FULLER WALLER
(1973), SCOTT WEINGARD (1993), MEREDITH WHALEN (2000), MARK ZEPLIN (1990)
4B Friday, September 9, 2011 9/11 Special Commemorative Edition
Juan Cole
University History Professor
Besides the destruction and
tragedy that resulted from the
Sept.11 attacks, University His-
tory Prof. Juan Cole, sees another
harmful outcome - stripping away
Americans' civil rights.
Cole, who is the author of a blog
titled Informed Comment in which
he discusses Middle Eastern and
U.S. politics, said the attacks ini-
tially had a unifying effect on the
nation.
"Of course everybody was
shocked that this happened and
confused as to why, but initially
oninionrolls suenestedr that there
wasn't any great hostility towards
Muslims in general as a result of
the attacks," he said. "Itwas under-
stood by the American public that
that was done by a terrorist group."
However, as Americans banded
together, they also experienced a
decrease in personal liberties, Cole
said.
"Among the more troubling out-
comes of September 11 was a will-
ingness of the American public to
acquiesce in terms of their own
civil rights and acceptance of prac-
tices such as torture that I think
would not have been acceptable
pre-9/11," he said.
Cole became the subject of
national media attention when it
surfaced that members of George
W. Bush's administration had
allegedly launched an investiga-
tion of him due to his criticisms of
the former president and the Iraq
War on his blog.
While Cole said Americans have
seen temporary losses of certain
civil liberties in the past - as in the
post-World War I repression and
the McCarthy period in the 1950s
- the policies made after Sept. 11
seem more permanent.
"In the case of the aftermath
of 9/11, many of the changes have
been institutionalized and the
activities of the National Security
Agency, which engages in signals
intelligence and the creation of
secret spy cams inside the U.S. gov-
ernment, makes it more difficult to
roll these particular abuses back
than in the past," Cole said.
He added that as the United
States becomes further removed
from the events of 9/11 with time,
the political leverage of the tragedy
is weakened.
"I think the emotions have sub-
sided to the point where it would
be very difficult to use September
i1 to launch a war," he said.
Instead, Cole said he believes
the ongoing legacy of Sept. 11 will
be the policies the public agreed to
in the aftermath of the tragedy.
"(9/11 made Americans) more
willing to accept domestic surveil-
lance of various sorts. I think many
of the rights and the Bill of Rights
have been weakened," Cole said.
"And this has been made possible
by public acquiescence and govern-
ment actions."
-SABIRA KHAN
Former University President James Duderstadt flew to New York days after the
Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
FJames Duderstadt
Former University President
Friday, September 9, 2011 // 9/11 Special Commemorative Edition 5
Editor's Note: The following article appeared on the front page of The Michigan Daily on Sept. 12, 2001.
America in crss"rd
Center collapses after attack
Students were left stunned, saddened and frantic to reach
friends and family yesterday morning after a pair of hijacked
airliners slammed into and demolished both towers of New
York City"s World Trade Center. The attack is the worst ter-
rorist episode ever carried out in the United States.
Television stations carried live footage of the buildings"
collapse, including pictures of a hijacked Boeing 757 slam-
ming into the south tower. The attack began at about 8:45
a.m., and by 10:30 a.m. both buildings were absent from the
city"s skyline. In Washington, about 100 people died when a
plane crashed into the Pentagon.
"Our society changes as of today. This is a watershed
event," said Law Prof. Robert Precht, the attorney for one of
the four men convicted of bombing the World Trade Center
in 1993.
"I'm overwhelmed. I kind of wish I was back in the city I
can"t reach my friends, the lines are down. I used to work
down there, on the 82nd floor of the World Trade Center. I
don"t know if any of my co-workers actually survived," said
Phillip Ng, an LSA sophomore from New York.
Classes for the day were canceled around noon. About
15,000 students attended a vigil in the Diag last night, short-
ly after President George Bush made his first address from
the Oval Office.
"I'm a former student from (New York University) and I"m
still waiting to hear from people," said LSA sophomore Anna
Szymanski at the vigil. "One NYU dorm is a block away from
the trade center I"m praying everyone is safe."
At the Michigan Union shortly after the bombing, LSA
freshman Aubair Simonson purchased a poster of the New
York City skyline.
"I'm going to hang it. I'm never going to forget this day," he
said. "All we have left now of the World Trade Center, which
is almost the centerpiece of the New York skyline which I
love, is just pictures."
In Ann Arbor, city and federal buildings also closed around
noon. So many people responded to a call to donate blood,
hospitals were forced to turn them away. More than 15,000 students assembled on the Diag for a candlelight vigil on the night of Sept.t/, 2001. y
FILE PHOTO/Daily
Prof. Juan Cole, an expert on Middle
Eastern affairs.
Vandal Heuvel
N ROTC Commanding Officer
Captain R.E. Vanden Heuvel,
commanding officer and profes-
sor of navel science in the Univer-
sity's Naval Reserve Officer Training
Corps, was an executive officer of an
E-2C commanding control squad in
Northern Virginia at the time of the
9/11 terrorist attacks.
His squad was planningto attend
a final briefing regarding their six-
month deployment, which was
scheduled for October, when his wife
called and told him that a plane had
hit the World Trade Center.
"(I) didn't necessarily think any-
thing of it, to be honest," Heuvel
said. "(I) presumed it was just a small
airplane, an accident, that kind of
thing."
However, as Heuvel approached
the military installation gate in Vir-
ginia Beach, the alarms went off and
the guards had been told to close the
gates.
"We were watching TV, saw the
first tower that was still on fire, and
looked up, and (saw) the second air-
plane hit," he said. -
The briefings stopped when news
arrived that the third plane hit the
Pentagon, and the squad was told to
return to their units and standby for
further instruction. Heuvel's squad
eventually received direction to take
off and fly over the Atlantic to assist
the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion controllers identify incoming
airplanes and make sure they were
landing where instructed.
Despite his participation, Heuvel
recalled that he did not quite under-
stand the full situation at the time.
"We knew obviously that there
was a problem, because the F-16
(planes were) all flying next to us, all
fully armed, so we realized that this
wasn'tanexercise," he said.
The incident altered Heuvel's
deployment cycle and led to a shorted
preparation timeline for his squad.
"I looked at my wife and my kids
and I said, 'I have a feeling that I'm
leaving soon - I don't know what's
going on, butI have a feelingthat I'm
.going to be leavingsoon."'
Heuvel was deployed on Septem-
ber 24 or25, he recalled.
Among many things, the 9/11
attacks affected the military in giv-
ing them a more specific training
focus, Heuvel said.
"We knew for a while that we
needed to train differently and think
differently," he said. "We just weren't
exactly sure how or why, or what we
were really goingto face."
Heuvel said he believes that
after 9/11, the public developed a
new understanding of the military.
Because previous attacks targeted
the military overseas and did not
affect domestic civilians, terrorist
attacks were not in everybody's fore-
front prior to 9/11, he said.
-YOUNJOOSANG
Ten years after the 9/11 terror-
ist attacks, some people still have
a fear of flying. But former Univer-
sity President James Duderstadt
isn't one of them. In fact, he flew to
New York City just a few days after
the attacks.
In 2001, Duderstadt - who was
the University's president from
1988 to 1996 - was serving on the
board of directors of information
technology company Unisys. The
company had scheduled a board
meeting in Manhattan the week-
end followingthe tragedy and they
decided to proceed with it.
"Our board believed it was very
important not to cancel the meet-
ing to convey a sense of confidence
in the ability of New York City to
recover from this shock," Duder-
stadt wrote in an e-mail interview.
But the passengers on the flight
to New York's LaGuardia Airport
were sparse, as Duderstadt was
only one of two people on the
plane.
"There were only a couple of
passengers on my 757, along with
the flight crew. Our final approach
into LaGuardia took us right up the
river by the World Trade Center. It
was a very strange experience,"
Duderstadt wrote, adding that he
took a photo of Ground Zero from
the plane.
When the first plane crashed
on Sept. 11, 2001, Duderstadt was
in his office and, like many people
across the country on that day,
watched on television the second
plane crash and the subsequent
collapse of the towers. _4
"Throughout the day I remem-
ber the urgency, the tragedy and
the constant speculation about
other threats -some real, many
imagined," Duderstadt wrote.
In addition to the obvious mon-
umental impact the attacks had on
the nation, Duderstadt noted that
9/11 also affected the University.
Duderstadt said he canceled a Uni-
versity alumni trip to Kenya that
was supposed to take place three
weeks later. He wrote that he and
other participants were concerned
for the alumni's safety since there
was a possibility of "political
disruption" around the world if
the United States were to invade
Afghanistan.
"Clearly the attack had a major
impact on America just as it had
on the University," Duderstadt
wrote. "It also had an impact on
my own activities, which have
shifted to a more active role in
national security activities since
2001."
-ADAMRUBENFIRE