Art Bell and callers dissect 9/11’s lingering threats, from fake pilot arrests at LaGuardia/JFK to Flight 93’s passengers—potential Medal of Honor recipients—while questioning low passenger counts (266–267) on downed planes. Tom Clancy’s CNN interview frames the horror as cinematic, but retired military caller Don/Buck warns of ongoing risks, including a Philippines raid and toxic NYC air. Anger over retaliation grows, with some advocating nukes on Afghanistan/Pakistan or blaming Arab Americans, while others reject scapegoating. Bell dismisses "New World Order" conspiracy theories but highlights biblical references and energy shifts like hydrogen power. Shock turns to rage as listeners debate war’s nature—ground troops vs. missiles—while insisting freedoms mustn’t be sacrificed, underscoring 9/11’s seismic impact on global security and American psyche. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, I think I picked this song to open this hour, and yes, we've already been on for an hour.
Surprise, surprise to those of you joining at this hour.
May do the same thing tomorrow night.
Begin an hour early.
just changing the schedule a little so we can have further network continuous coverage.
Well, I've been watching the coverage nonstop all day long, and I...
I have a feeling of pending trouble.
So I thought this song would be just right.
I really, in watching the coverage all day today, that's the conclusion I'm personally coming to.
I've got a feeling of something really big and bad pending.
I don't want to seem to be on the negative side here, but having watched the coverage all day long, we're clearly headed to war.
No question about that.
We're headed to war.
Having watched the coverage all day today, I'm going to have to say it ain't over yet, and not by a long shot.
In fact, I think the danger continues.
And I don't want to scare anybody, but the news has just been full today of people trying to get on aircraft, impersonating pilots, that kind of thing, Middle Eastern people.
And the reports are just too many, and they're all over the place.
LaGuardia and JFK had to close again after eight individuals were arrested at those airports trying to get on airplanes, one with a pilot's ID.
And there are more reports of that sort of thing at this hour and more arrests.
There are arrests and raids and searches going on all over the place.
The number of people involved in this would appear to be many, many.
So I think it would indeed be premature to say it's over.
And I'm talking about the attack on America.
I don't think the attack on America is over at all and the war has not yet begun.
So many things we could talk about.
I've watched just about every inch of coverage.
So anything you would like to pick up on, I did a more thorough open that you'll hear later if you're up late.
But I have this pending feeling of something about to happen, and I would like to believe that it's over and we're safe, but it's not, and we're not.
Just one more thing.
I wonder how many of the rest of you are beginning to experience this.
I come to you tonight with about three hours sleep.
That's all I had from about 5.30 yesterday morning now until about 8.30 this morning.
And I haven't slept since.
And the reason is I have been glued, glued to this coverage.
And it's definitely affecting me doing these programs with all of you and being so intimately involved with every single aspect, every single report, every single hope that then becomes dashed about survivors.
It's affecting me, and I bet it's affecting a lot of you, too.
And that may be one of the reasons for my somewhat troubled outlook with respect to the immediate future.
I really feel this ain't over.
Not by a long shot.
And I'm talking again about the danger to America.
I think that it's being understated.
Although if you actually watch behavior, you watch airports closing, people being arrested all over the place.
Concern, it's obvious to the authorities that the danger is not yet over.
But one of the things that I wanted to say about this terrible, terrible tragedy, one of the things that I've seen is that the news brief is saying that the security and the safety of America was not there.
One of the things that they're saying now today in about the security and the safety is that they're telling everybody that Cheney is now down in Camp David.
Because if you have a radio on in the background, turn it off, please.
Oh, okay.
It's very confusing to everybody concerned.
unidentified
Right, right.
Okay, good.
Well, one of the things is that they said that they want the president and the vice president in separate areas for safety concerns, which is understandable.
But what they don't need to do is they don't need to tell the world over their broadcast that the world listens to, they don't need to tell the world where these guys are staying at?
As I've said in previous nights, I could recite to you and sit here and sort of do a reporting job and try to do a weak CNN, but they're doing a great job.
Just a great job of what they're doing.
And so instead, I thought just to give you a voice and to sort of take the temperature of America.
That's what I'm doing.
Taking the temperature of the nation.
And I think it's up two or three degrees already this morning.
My question is on the MSNBC news article, it's talking about a DOD official saying that they have a great hammer or something like that that they can unleash.
And they wouldn't give his name or anything else about it.
I've been on the air during several wars and problems now the U.S. has had, and inevitably we had many, many incredibly heated debates with the majority of people calling up and saying, I wouldn't fight for that, you know, referring to oil or a lot of other things that they wouldn't fight for.
But let me tell you something.
Inevitably, those people came back and also said, if they were to attack America, by God, I'd fight.
And so they have attacked America.
unidentified
I will put my Birkenstocks in the closet and I'll give up the granola.
You know, send me where I need to go.
And I think that's the general attitude of most so-called laid-back Californians is they have made us very angry.
Second point that I'd like to make is that I don't think we have any illusions about what war is.
We heard those stories on the knees of our grandfathers.
And people forget that we are the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of the greatest generation this country's ever seen.
And sometimes I get irritated when I hear people say, well, can you imagine this generation going to war?
They wouldn't be able to make the sacrifices.
Yes, we would.
And I would also like to encourage any Muslim family out there that's feeling persecuted to start within their mosque, to gather together their young men, take them down to the local recruiting office, get a news camera down there, and say, we're willing to have our sons and daughters fight for America.
And with a couple of shots like that, you'd stop seeing the persecution, and people would be questioning the loyalty.
A lot of the people who showed those scenes are receiving death threats by the bucket full.
You know, they either stop showing that or you're dead.
Yeah.
I appreciate the call.
That's a whole other issue.
Arab Americans are having a rough day and days ahead.
There's a lot of nasty stuff going on out there, and I don't know how to curb it.
I don't know how we can curb it.
I think that most of you, intelligent adults, my listeners, would not be the sort to do that.
I would like to think that, anyway.
Though I must say I don't know that to be true for sure.
I think the majority of you certainly would feel that way, would harbor no ill will towards somebody who is here as a citizen or even soon-to-be citizen.
You wouldn't take out your anger and frustration at those people, would you?
But apparently there are a lot of people across the nation that are doing that.
I said to myself, I wouldn't ask that, and what did I do?
I just told you, it's an honor to talk to you, and I really think you're providing a valuable service to the nation, and not only about this subject, but many others.
And I think they would understand what kind of reaction the country would have to what they did, which would be the grounding of the planes.
At least they would have had anticipated that, because I'm sure they're semi-intelligent.
True.
The other thing that concerns me is you notice just about the time that the airlines decide to start flying again, a group of, like you said, I'm not sure if they were Afghan or Israeli or whatever, the Middle Eastern people that got arrested trying to abort a plane.
Well, first of all, I would think you'd have to be a total idiot to be a Middle Eastern person and have a fake idea of a pilot and try to expect that you're going to be able to get on a plane at this time.
So my concern is that, of course, they're willing to give away their life for things like that.
So why wouldn't one of them agree to be arrested just to keep our planes on the ground?
In other words, I don't think that pilot or any of them intended on actually getting through, but knew that they would get arrested and caught.
It's a possibility that this would keep our planes on the ground even longer if they knew that the planes would be grounded again.
Well, it sure did close up LaGuardia and JFK quick enough, didn't it?
unidentified
Absolutely.
And it makes me wonder what they would have to gain by keeping our planes on the ground.
And I don't think it's a matter of disrupting air traffic.
And I'm afraid that if their network is a lot larger than we think, there may be some things going on on the ground to the planes that may cause issues later.
I had a hard time believing that so many could have been involved.
Now I'm thinking it's more than they even presently imagine, that it's a pretty damn big conspiracy, and so it's not over.
unidentified
Right, and it seems so obvious to me that you would have to be an idiot to think you would be able to get on a plane with a fake ID and be a Middle Eastern that I know your listeners are intelligent and I would like everyone out there to kind of, you know, that's as far as I can go with this theory, but I'd like anyone out there to think about what they could possibly gain by keeping our planes on the ground for just a few more days.
I've seen, you know, I noticed a lot of times in buildings during peacetime, I would say, they have people going in and cleaning up asbestos, and they usually wear those masks and the filters and everything.
And I would urge, instead of money, any of the manufacturers of any of these filters and masks would like to donate those to the people helping with the recovery.
There were dire warnings earlier today crawling across the screen of most of the news networks about lung damage.
And of course, you've seen the Paul.
I'm sure you've seen the Paul above New York, which has been there now since this occurred and will no doubt be there for quite some time to come yet.
They were saying they weren't so much worried about asbestos, but they were worried about lung damage from particulate material, and that would probably apply to the rescuers first, and then, of course, New Yorkers who are breathing this in as well.
I think what a lot of people are missing here in Australia and also the United States is that this is a psychological war.
You know, the more people that they can put on planes and sluggish people that got arrested and so forth, the more that they will cripple the West economically.
Well, in a way, you're saying what the last caller said, that they may never have intended to actually get on an aircraft in the first place to just essentially shut down the airports and stop the planes again.
And, of course, to some degree, it's been successful.
Those two airports are closed.
unidentified
Well, that's exactly right, because, I mean, really, if we go to battle, who are we going to fight?
We're fighting shadows.
I mean, we're not fighting armies like, you know, the Japanese or the Germans.
Earlier in the day, I watched CNN as a young lady interviewed people on the street in New York, hundreds of them with photographs begging to get airtime to have their loved one, I don't know, noticed, has anybody seen my husband, my wife, my children, that kind of thing.
It was heartbreaking, and at the end of it, she cried, just broke down into tears.
That kind of thing is going on all over the place.
Now we hear that the Fox report that 10 had been found alive is inaccurate.
They're saying now it's not true.
As earlier today, the five firefighters who were supposedly in the SUV, that one turned out to be wrong as well.
Absolutely heartbreaking stuff.
This whole thing is heartbreaking, and I've got this awful feeling about what lies directly ahead, and I hope, I really hope I'm wrong.
I just don't have a good feeling.
After watching all day long today, and maybe it's my lack of sleep, but it doesn't feel good at all.
Boy, the truth is a pretty slippery thing, isn't it?
Those of you who have joined me, and I'm sure it's a legion out there in watching non-stop this coverage, you know exactly what I mean.
Well, you know, I kind of gave up, but now, you know, I mean, just in the last couple of years, I was involved with the movement against police brutality.
And, you know, they never understood that I wasn't anti-police.
It was all about police brutality and the abuse of power.
That's amazing, and it's amazing how times change to go from where you were to where you are.
There are obviously new, fresh fears out there about flying and about planes and about security and about, you know, they're moving the vice president around.
And I'm telling you, this is far from over.
And by that, I mean the attack on America.
I don't think it's over.
I think there are still people who were involved in that same conspiracy who are out there doing something right now.
It's the last thing you want to think.
But that's tonight's feeling.
That's what I've got.
I don't see how you could watch the coverage all day today and not imagine that yourself.
Along, Carline, you're on the air.
Hello.
Yes, you're on the air, ma'am.
unidentified
Okay.
I had a few points that you were discussing earlier about the images of Satan that they felt has come through the clouds of smoke.
And one thing that I found quite poignant was the fact that if we view those images, we are bringing those images of Satan into our own lives and our own world.
And possibly when you start focusing on the people, the survivors, the stories of those who actually have lived through it.
Because if we retaliate against anyone and we even cause one unnecessary death in another country, we are no different than the evil that attacked us.
Well, the people, ma'am, that attacked us, finally today I heard someone come out and say, it was Gephardt, as a matter of fact, Representative Gephardt said that this attack was worse than Pearl Harbor.
And I've been saying that since the very beginning.
It's worse than Pearl Harbor because at least the Japanese targeted, went after primarily military targets to try to stop us, even though it was a surprise-harbor attack, from projecting power into the Pacific, right?
In the attack that occurred on the Twin Towers on New York, it was an attack intended to kill civilians.
Now, that's a big difference.
That's a really big difference.
And if we attack another country, whether it be Afghanistan, Pakistan, or whoever, we will not go in with the intent of killing civilians.
We will go in with the intent of killing the people who did this to us and punishing the countries probably by blowing up their infrastructure, punishing them for harboring these people.
Now, that seems completely reasonable to me if you're talking about war, and that is what we're talking about here, war.
So if some innocents are killed, that's very unfortunate.
It's called, the PC term is collateral damage.
It's very unfortunate, but that's war.
And that's the way we fight war.
We don't fight war the way they tried to come at us, not tried, did come at us by killing, targeting civilians.
We don't target civilians.
That is a difference.
unidentified
Yeah, that does make a difference.
Now, I think the curiosity that everybody has is whether or not we can actually get to Osama bin Laden if he is the one that is in charge.
You can even just have people with enough strength to break necks.
And you can sit back in the back of the plane breaking the necks of stewardesses until somebody comes.
And then you rush the cockpit.
So I don't for one second think taking steak knives away from first-class passengers and not allowing pocket knives onto airplanes, maybe it's an okay idea, but it's not going to change anything.
Perhaps making the doors absolutely impenetrable from the rear of the plane, the cockpit doors, that might have some effect.
getting sky marshals on planes might have some beneficial effect.
But as they always do, they're...
But they have to be seen doing something, so they're doing something.
I've been pondering the same thought because normally you would expect a claim of credit and a demand for some sort of change in our national policy toward the Middle East or whatever.
In this case, they have said nothing.
They have demanded nothing.
And so you can only imagine that it is terror for the sake of terror.
unidentified
Well, Dick, well, since we pay bombed the tank on, isn't that an act of war right off the bat?
It'll be the first war of the 21st century, and I wonder what it's going to be like, don't you?
On the face of it, it seems as though we are just going to go in and bang up some infrastructure, take out military capability, and go after one guy, right?
Or one guy and his guys, Osama bin Laden, if it turns out he's the one.
And increasingly, it's obvious he is.
Why do I think that somewhere between our beginning to do that and this whole thing ending, it'll be more than that?
I don't know.
I just have this horrid little feeling.
West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
Hello.
Hello?
And by the way, don't interpret that to mean that I don't think we ought to do it because I do.
I've been through the seven stages of grief many times in the last few days.
There's a lot I'd like to say, but obviously there's not time.
What I would like to say is: you know, during World War II, we did some things with Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and German Americans that maybe weren't exactly the right thing to do.
I have a question, and I've been up for two days watching this stuff, and it's just an amazing, it's unbelievable.
I had a question as to why or if the United States government or whoever would put up a reward of some staggering amounts of money to have somebody go get these people.
Well, as a general reward for turning in terrorists, I think that's a really good idea.
unidentified
And, you know, if this hasn't been thought of, at least in the future, maybe it'd be a good idea after the United States gets done with the initial wave of getting these things out of society.
And, you know, as you would give a reward for a lot of other crime reporting, then why not give a reward for reporting a possible and a good big monetary one for reporting acts of mass death, mass terrorism?
Sure.
Pretty good idea, actually.
A first-time caller line, you're on the air.
Hello.
Going once.
Going twice, gone.
I think that was a cell phone.
Here's another one.
Wildcard line, you're on the air.
unidentified
Hey, Art.
This is Brian.
I'm a truck driver.
I'm a little north of Dallas, Fort Worth Splint right now.
You know, I'm thinking, I've often thought that it was rather odd that nobody, you know, we used a nuke in World War II, and nobody's used one in combat since.
I would not doubt that this, I mean, there was a, there was a show on, I don't know, something yesterday, CNN or one of them, they were interviewing some fellow from, he was a Russian war consultant or something like that.
Anyway, he was talking about all the different countries, British and Russians.
Well, they all went to war there in, oh, whatever the hell it is, this guy's there.
But, you know, none of them have been because of the terrain and just the people.
None of them have been able to get in there and take this place over.
We can send in all the cruise missiles we want, do offshore bombardment, all the things we normally do.
And it's going to cause bin Laden and company to get their heads down.
You know, they'll go flying into their caves.
Make no mistake about it.
After the bombs fall, after the cruise missiles cruise, this time, if you want to get the job done, you're going to have to send Marines, U.S. Marines, and other service people in on the ground.
I think it's the most positive thing that I've heard when you consider the American the typical, oh, America has no morality, America is being punished by God, I got a call like that earlier.
But you look at what those men in that aircraft did.
They had a series of cell phone calls, they knew one of the other planes had already been, had collided with the, or been driven into, more likely, one of the Twin Towers.
They knew what they were on their way for.
They got in the back of the plane, they held a vote, and they rushed the terrorists.
This is one of those reports that we know to be true.
And I think it'll be certainly confirmed by the black box, which they're now, no doubt, listening very carefully to.
The black box recovered earlier in the day today on Flight 93.
And if it is proven to be true, and I fully expect it, will those people deserve to be honored with the highest honor we could possibly give?
And if you want something to fill your heart with a little bit of joy when things are pretty bleak, you think about what those men did with their families on that plane when they knew where they were going.
Well, I was thinking, I looked up a bunch of things, and I was thinking, if you have problems on an aircraft, and it's an emergency where somebody has to be subdued, why not just use a sleeping agent and knock everybody out?
Now, I recognize the fact that certain people, you know, depending on their weight, if they get too much of something, well, you have to ask yourself, would they have time to push a button?
I don't know if you happen to catch it, whether you've got CNN running in the background.
I would really like a copy of that picture, that photograph.
CNN just really had one that blew me away.
They showed a live picture from a distance of the skyline of New York.
And like a mouthful of teeth with the two front teeth missing, there was a gigantic gap where the World Trade Center buildings had been, eerie enough all by itself.
Add to that the pall of smoke coming up, which of course has been there for days since all of this began.
And add to that, behind all of it, branch lightning with one of the biggest storms you've ever seen bearing down on New York City.
And that was the photograph they showed at the top of the hour.
I would really love to have a copy of that, get it up on the website.
Maybe CNN can provide it, or I don't know.
They just happened to catch it at that moment.
What a visual that was.
This horrendous thunderstorm bearing down on those who are trying to rescue the people that may be left alive.
Although hope for that certainly is fading as we've had any number of stories today, just astounding stories, of people suddenly found in SUVs or 10 police persons found alive as a result of a cell call.
All of these stories reported, I'm sure, in good faith, have just blown up and been totally false.
They're not finding anybody alive.
Not yet, anyway.
So we will continue with open lines, but I've got to get a copy of that picture that CNN showed at the top of the hour.
Maybe somebody listening at CNN can in some way provide it to me.
Email it to me.
That'd be a way to go.
I'm Art Bell at mindspring.com.
That was the eeriest photographed piece of video I've seen.
I'm Art Bell at mindspring.com.
Love to get a copy of that.
That was really something.
And we're really in the middle of something, aren't we?
So, stay right where you are.
All right, back to my caller, West of the Rockies.
You're back on the air, sir.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
The other day you had a gentleman on who I guess was a pilot indicating that the bulkhead between the cabin area and the pilot area is rather flimsy.
Cut, if you want to kill somebody, there are so many ways.
unidentified
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Being that they're in the cabin and they're secure, something goes wrong and they have a disturbance in the passenger area that cannot be controlled by usual means, you hit a button, everybody goes to sleep, they take that aircraft down right now.
Inside a SUV, they said, several of them able to walk, they said.
And then the story is false.
How does it get that far?
unidentified
One of the things I was wondering about is I was talking to a family member out in Washington, and they were talking about a story that they saw on TV about a plane in Canada.
And I don't recall where, but it was a news story.
A plane that was shot down on Tuesday, shortly after the bombing, after the crash is here.
I mean, knowing what had happened in New York already, knowing the trajectory of that plane, knowing, and certainly the controllers knew where that plane was headed.
After it made its 180-degree turn, they knew exactly where it was coming, or very close to where it was coming.
And so it's something in the back of your mind.
I don't know who could give an order to shoot down a civilian U.S. airliner.
unidentified
That's true.
I mean, you know, they have the airports here shut down as well.
We've just received word that we're waiting for folks to pick up technical equipment that we need, and the Secret Service has informed us that we won't be able to get off.
They're going to be closing off the island once the president gets here, so we need to change our staffing around.
But we've been told that we need to get our work done now because at some point when he does get here, and that's understandable, that the island won't be accessible and we won't be able to head out for some time while he's here, which I was kind of hoping to get out of here before that because that just makes us a bigger target having him here, but you never know.
Yes, you know, I think the credibility that we ought to be very suspicious about over small issues like firemen being saved ought to be really projected on a larger screen to the, I think the role of the corporate media in this country actually.
Can I mention the fact that the Taliban and bin Laden were considered by our American government and the American media as great noble freedom fighters when we were sending billions of dollars to them to perpetrate exactly these same kinds of terrorism in Afghanistan back in the 80s during the Reagan Bush administration when they were blowing up civilian and Afghan and Soviet airliners in Afghan markets.
So I think the fact that at that time when they were serving the purpose of doing this kind of dirty work and the media was depicting them as noble heroes, I don't give us a little pause right now.
Yeah, I won't argue with you, but bin Laden and company were not the only ones that were part of that struggle.
And we were not just solely arming bin Laden.
We were arming the entire resistance movement at that time.
That's compiled of a lot more than bin Laden and company.
unidentified
They were clones of bin Laden.
They were the mujahideen, of which he was a part, and were fighting against a government that was trying to pull the country out of the dark ages.
But I really think that this is going to be used by some very sinister people within the military-industrial elite to push back and repress our right to dissent against these kinds of policies and then go on a rampage of framing up any country that's on the list, the hit list of the CIA or the Pentagon.
Well, as long as you're following me up like this and sing this tune, you can be pretty sure that your rights are still in place.
unidentified
Well, you know, when you put words in my mouth last night after I had been cut off and said that I somehow thought this was what we had coming, and I said exactly the opposite when I first came on the line, I think that's pretty cool.
And I said it was stupid, even from the point of view of these bastards who perpetrated it.
And I think it plays right into the hands of the very forces in this country that are really involved in some real terrorism around the world, even supporting on our soil altar-right exiled Cubans, CI connected who have perpetrated bombings of airliners in Cuba, bombings of hotels.
Why isn't any of this mentioned within our own media, within our own country?
You know, I could drag you into a conversation about U.S. policies, and you would prove my point very well, but I don't intend to have that long a conversation with you.
I know exactly what you think, and what I said last night, I stand by.
Given the opportunity, he would rage on about corporate America and the dastardly deeds we've done to the world and how awful we are.
So I didn't put any words in your mouth, sir, that weren't there long ago, nor thoughts in your head that haven't been circling around almost exclusively, I might add, for probably a decade or more.
Well, look, when we bombed Japan, we were faced with a choice.
We were prepared to put at risk perhaps a million American men who, in all likelihood, would have lost their lives taking the mainland of Japan.
We knew that.
And so...
Yeah, that's not quite the same situation we're facing today.
unidentified
If you've heard or listened, the first reason they'll tell you is because if you take like Afghanistan, well, you'd be blowing up a bunch of holy sites.
And they go, well, you can't replace that.
You know what I mean?
So even if you considered dropping another nuclear weapon over there and try to wipe out that terrorism, they wouldn't let you do it.
If we were faced with the same decision today and we were going to have to invade a country where in all likelihood we would lose a million men, I would not hesitate for one second to make the same decision and drop that bomb to end whatever conflict had brought that kind of choice on.
And as I've been sort of fretting about all night long since I began the program, an hour earlier tonight, I might add, I've got this foreboding feeling that even I sort of believed for a while that, well, you know, maybe it is over.
Maybe as horrible as this is, we will retaliate.
We'll get them.
And it'll be over.
It's not over.
Every little fiber inside of me says it's not over.
And I mean the present attack on us.
I don't think it's over.
They're extending the security of the White House because they're concerned.
They're moving the vice president and president around because they're concerned.
They have reason for concern.
Northwest Airlines decided not to fly until now, they say tomorrow, because they have concern.
People have been arrested in New York and around the world.
A man presenting a pilot's ID, that sort of thing, trying to get on an airplane just as they begin to barely fly again, and then LaGuardia and JFK close again.
This is not over.
First time callers, area code 775-727-1222.
We don't allow last names on the air.
Number two, turn your radio off all the way if you would, please.
unidentified
No problem there.
Smith's good enough alias, so you never really know if it's legitimate or not, I suppose.
There's a strange point that I think people are failing to recognize, and that's the total number of passengers that have deceased on the four airlines that have gone down.
I absolutely agree with you, and that's something I've been meaning to bring up for days, the incredibly low number of passengers.
unidentified
Well, actually, after this all happened, I was one of the passengers from another airline that got stranded, flew out of Washington, D.C. on the 11th at 7.30, and we were diverted to Kansas City, Missouri.
And so we got down, and you hear all these things about turning any information or things like that with the FBI.
Feeling a little reluctant to do that, I called a couple of my buddies that work in the law enforcement field.
It's a remarkably, for that size aircraft, a remarkably low number.
unidentified
Well, my point is simply, if there's that many people and these terrorists are actually only able to use knives or shanks, something of that nature to take these planes hostage, what they're going to have to do is figure a way to keep a low number of people on those planes in order to prevent what happened in the Pittsburgh area.
And the one thing that I've found is, well, it's only a theory.
If these people went out and actually booked up a tremendous amount of, say for the one flight, there's 300 seats, and it's hypothetical, but they booked 200 seats, and they do it over a period of months.
That really should not be difficult for the FBI to get onto right away, if true.
But that may be one of the things they're not talking about right now.
And I think you're right on the money.
unidentified
Well, and to further point, make the point, if you do that with each one of these airlines, and so right at departure, they've got, say, if the terrorists booked 200 seats and then left the airlines to book another 60 or what have you, and in fact they do that, and right before they go to take off, you know, they've got this tremendous no-show.
The one thing that I made it clear was, if, in fact, these terrorists have done this, they've done this because they've tried it in the past.
So there's going to be a paper trail from the past because they're not going to try this for a first time to pull this off.
But, sir, in the case of, I've got to leave because we've got a break coming up.
In the case of four airliners, to have that low a number, I think, absolutely causes suspicion about what you just talked about.
Did they try it in the past?
I don't know.
But it would be immediately obvious to investigators looking into the manifests of these aircraft.
I'm Art Bell in Open Lines all night long.
unidentified
Nights in white satin, never reaching the end.
Letters of written moon, never meaning to send beauty at all with these eyes before just what the truth is.
Down around the corner Half a mile from here See them folding run And watch them disappear Without love Where would you be now?
Without love Without love No awesome is loose Down along the track She lost a home and a family And she won't be coming back Without love Where would you be right now?
To recharge Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Networks.
We just, at the moment, wouldn't have Much at all, would we?
It's an important commodity.
Boy, they're doing it again.
CNN has been showing these images of hundreds and hundreds of relatives who are down near the scene in New York, and they're all clamoring with pictures of their loved ones, you know, husbands and wives and children.
And oh my God, it's sad.
It is so sad.
It's hard to watch.
It's honestly hard to watch.
It's hard to assimilate.
We've seen that in other countries, haven't we?
But here in America?
Not very frequently.
Never on this scale.
It is so sad.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hi.
unidentified
Hi, this is Mark from Brighton, Colorado, about 20 miles north of Denver.
You wouldn't imagine how many people just had their sets on in the background without sound particularly going, and they saw it, and they actually dismissed it because they thought it was a scene from a movie.
Well, until just recently, I was reading today that if you are coming across the Canadian border, for example, you can presently expect about a 12-hour wait.
unidentified
Wow, I go into Canada myself and deliver loads and come back out again.
I've never, well, actually, if my paper worker is ready, sometimes I'd be more than 24 hours.
But lately, my company does a real good job of getting all the paperwork and import ready to go and all it's about to do.
You know, in a passenger vehicle, we all may refer to them as the good old days when you would come to the American border and they would stop and ask you what you're bringing in or something, perhaps, or they'd just wave you through or say, hey, where are you from?
And you'd tell them where you're from.
They'd wave you through, and that'd be all there is to it.
Now, you might expect 12 hours and lots of questions.
unidentified
Absolutely.
Well, I know you've got a lot of people waiting to get in there, but there's one thing I wanted to ask you and say, do you ever want a free ride?
I've got one of these great, big, blue trucks.
I won't tell you what company is, but we're about the fourth or fifth largest trucking company in the United States.
We need to concentrate our focus away from New York and look around the country and see what else is going on.
Now, terrorism is a sneaky business.
And you've got to have some pals.
And I think that old bin Laden there and Mr. Saddam Hussein are sneaky pals.
Now, if you all remember back there in the Gulf War, afterwards, we had a Marine captain in there, supposed to be in there kicking over cans and digging up weapons and biological agents and so forth.
Well, what makes sense from my point of view and what makes sense toward it.
Okay, sure.
Let's try and follow the illogic of a terrorist from our point of view.
All right?
We already know what they have done and what they're willing to do.
Would this be the end of it?
Would you think, from their point of view, no.
What would be next?
Well, I would imagine that as soon as the airlines get going again, they would try and bring down another airplane.
Or perhaps many in different locations, no doubt big cities.
That's what I would imagine, probably in my worst nightmare, that the nightmare would itself continue, and there's every possibility it may.
Our nation's leaders are doing their dead-level best to address it nationally, not just New York.
It's the focus because of what happened, but look around you, my friend.
Airplanes are grounded nationwide and have been, and maybe we're headed toward more groundings.
If there's more apparent attempts at terror or more terror actually carried out, God help us, it will again bring the airline industry to its knees to a halt.
So if I were the terrorist responsible for orchestrating this terror, I would certainly attempt to continue it, wouldn't you?
It's hard to follow that twisted path, or maybe not so hard.
Yeah, I just wanted to say that I think it's, you know, a shame what's gone on.
But if all those buildings would have been filled with as many people as work in there that morning, they would have killed as many people as it took in Vietnam.
And I think that we should have went and took care of Mr. Saddam when they had the chance.
Yes, and because people are angry and they're frustrated, they're beginning to just get outright angry.
unidentified
And they're looking for a place to direct it.
They don't have one, and so they're going to the wrong places.
And people, there was a report about a guy trying to run over a woman with a shawl on her head in New York City.
And people need to understand that if you are willing, if you feel like, well, they did it to us, so it's okay for us to do it to them, and to nuke them all, and if a bunch of civilians die, well, big deal.
And, you know, this guy over here that runs the convenience store who wears a turban may have had nothing to do with it, may feel as bad about it as we do, but, you know, he came from there, so I'm going to take it out.
That's wrong.
That's wrong.
You can't shoot at a mosque.
You can't try to hurt these people because it's a small minority of people from that area who feel this way.
Well, that's why I think it was last hour or the hour before, I can't remember now, somebody was talking about the Japanese internment camps and how we treated the Japanese drugs in the Second World War.
And I'm not so sure.
I mean, I know that as a nation, we would like to think that we have grown greatly since the internment camps and then subsequently the apology and the reparations and all the rest of it.
But I don't think the situation now is any different than it was then.
And I think emotions are as strong now as they were then.
And if this blows up into a full-fledged war, conflict, dragging on for a long time, I don't think you'll see our behavior be very much different than it was then.
I wish I could say otherwise, but I'm afraid...
unidentified
Because if we react in that way, we are showing that we are no better than the people who did this to us.
This would be the same group that was out on the lawn today after a bomb threat.
unidentified
Okay, okay.
And also, you know, I love this country.
I do think we need to take a look at the Constitution and maybe change, you know, I know everyone says freedom of the speech, but I don't believe burning a flag, an American flag in this country, constitutes freedom of the speech.
I, too, have a problem with anybody who burns a flag.
Of course.
I think most of us do.
However, conceptually, I understand why the court has ruled its speech.
Well, it's not.
It's action, really.
And I used to argue that.
I used to feel that myself.
That there should be a law.
But I've thought it over and thought it over, and I do agree with the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although painfully, because, you know, unlike anybody else, I'd like to go sock somebody in the jaw, at the very least, who burns a flag in front of me or close enough to me so I can react.
However, such an action, disdainful as it is, is part of what we are, this thing that we're protecting.
We can't ever forget what we're protecting.
We're protecting free speech.
We're protecting our privacy rights, such as they are, lingering as they are, sporadic as they may be these days.
We're protecting all kinds of things that unfortunately you've got to take out to the limit sometimes.
You've just sort of got to grit your teeth and say, well, it's part of what we are, and we don't really want to change that because then we'll be something else.
But listening to an earlier caller speaking about the imposter pilots that were recently arrested at the area airports, what they could be possibly up to.
I saw images of those pilots or so-called pilots being arrested.
And they seem pretty smug on TV, like they accomplished their mission.
If it took hitting The Pentagon and the Twin Towers being taken out to get all the aircraft out of the American skies, then it didn't take much more than one or two guys or a few guys to walk up and try to get on an airplane with some ID to keep them out of the skies.
I'm hoping authorities are listening because it's my impression that they want to keep the area free of airplanes because the president's coming tomorrow.
And if they have any SAMs or anything along those lines, I mean, he'd be the only plane in the sky.
And, I mean, if they kept the other planes down, they know where their target is if the other planes are down.
And I'm hoping that, you know, somebody who knows somebody that's with the FBI or relatives or anybody in government, you know, please, please, you know, take that into consideration.
Because, you know, why else would they do that?
And they seem very smug on TV looking at them.
They were smiling, being cuffed and put into the police cars.
And I'm concerned about that.
And, you know, I mean, there aren't too many airplanes flying.
And I know we have fighter cover, so on and so forth.
I mean, they see military felt so bad because, you know, I really don't want to feel anything toward those people except for the people who actually haven't done this.
Although, from his point of view, the fact that even out of compassion you had to say that to him no doubt reminds him of what a position he's in and all the other Arab Americans.
Yikes.
Well, we're already into this pretty deeply, aren't we?
And it has only just begun, I'm afraid.
I wonder what kind of war this is going to be.
No doubt about it now, huh?
We're going to war.
You can feel it cranking up.
The UN people are leaving Afghanistan.
We're having some pretty serious, you better do it type talks with Pakistan.
The military is beginning to move.
The funds are being allocated.
As a matter of fact, I think they started the day talking about $20 billion.
And now it's $40 billion by the end of the day.
And they're saying that is but the tip of the iceberg.
Well, that's some iceberg directly in front of us, Captain.
Yeah, back to those four that was just sentenced here a few months back for the 93 Trade Center bombings.
Yes.
I had an airy feeling when they first arrested those guys, or, you know, sentenced them.
They just sentenced them here a while back that they better be on high alert, you know, with them four being sentenced because they spread that all over the news media and then you didn't see it.
And on Afghanistan, I don't condone what Bin Laden did or anything, but if anybody thinks that the Afghani people hasn't been suffering, those people have been suffering a great deal over there already.
However, sir, that does not excuse the Taliban's harboring of the person who did this to us, if in fact that turns out to be the way it has occurred, and certainly looks that way.
They're going to have to understand that we're going to take their infrastructure apart, we're going to take their military capability apart, and we're going to go in there and we're going to kill that son of a bitch.
unidentified
Yeah, right.
But I still think the key to this thing could be with them four that they have in prison already.
I understand that there's got to be retaliation to something.
But to those four that's in prison, that they might be able to negotiate something with them to get this thing out on the front line to come to something better than an all-out war.
I don't think there's going to be any negotiating about this.
Now I'm very careful about the kind of response that we make.
But make no mistake about it, I want these people dead.
Once we have concrete proof of who did it, I'm really not interested in a trial at The Hague or anybody being dragged back here for court or any of the rest of it.
This is WAR war.
And in war, you go to kill your enemy.
As our enemy came to kill us, so we shall go to kill him.
In that process, I don't condone nor do I expect that we will go and intend to kill innocent civilians because that's not what we're about.
But, you know, I think the American people, there's a bumper sticker, and when this happened, the answer was obvious.
The bumper sticker says, who put a stop payment on my reality check?
And I think a lot of the American people, I'm an ex vet, and I think a lot of people all of a sudden, this is the first time it's happened on our soil.
Bin Laden screwed up.
He attacked the World Trade Center.
When the bodies are sorted, he killed people from all over the world, not just the United States.
And it's worth reminding everybody out there that New York is the biggest melting pot in America.
And that just about every race you can imagine would have been in the Twin Towers when they came down.
And now all those races and all of those people are buried beneath the rubble without respect to race or religion.
So when we avenge this, we're avenging it not just for white guys.
We're avenging it for everybody who got killed.
unidentified
We're avenging it for everybody in the world because we have NATO, we have countries that have never been behind us before now all of a sudden saying, hey, wait a minute.
I just was, earlier I heard you talking to a couple of people, you know, about the ups and downs of the day, how one minute you'll hear that a few people have been rescued and then you find out later they haven't or, you know, such as that.
There was one bright spot today, at least for me.
The last time I can recall this level of patriotism was, obviously, during the Gulf War, there was, you know, probably was the last time that they sold as many flags as they had in the last couple of days.
And I was just wondering, did you see on the live coverage of the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace in England today?
Because it's going to get worse before it gets better.
That's our America.
unidentified
Only in America.
And a kid without a set.
It'll break and make me grow up to be present.
Only in America.
Land of opportunity.
Yeah.
In the trees, the ground reveals When the ash had took a never to you Dressed in ribbon's fear An hour, a cold, breathless moon In the proofing of the night In the shun of sun, the dreams appear Mids the lantern light, my eyes
To rechart bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Networks.
If you're following the news minute to minute, it looks as though a thunderstorm, severe, has actually stopped the search in New York for victims, at least temporarily.
And again, I would like to make a plea.
If anybody out there is at CNN or happened to catch the CNN photograph, they had one hell of a photograph up there a couple hours ago.
It was of the New York skyline at a distance.
You could see the missing twin towers, like a couple of missing teeth.
The smoke was, as it has been since the incident, rising.
And in the background, there was a lightning bolt as you could see the storm approaching New York City.
And CNN caught that perfectly.
And I don't know if anybody caught it.
Anybody at CNN can grab it and send it to me.
I really, really would like to have a copy of that photograph.
It was an incredible scene.
Absolutely incredible.
At any rate, the search for survivors temporarily stopped.
Also, they're reporting at this hour that four of those eight that were arrested earlier today were also seen in the airport on the day of the disaster, of the terrorism, of the evil.
The reason I've called you, in fact, was a friend of mine called me and mentioned that you were taking calls internationally.
I'd just like to share with you the sentiment of the Australian people.
We heard about it, of course, late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning because of the time difference.
And it was an absolute abhorrent shock to all of us because I guess for those of you listeners who have been to Australia, we have a very close kinship with the United States that goes back many, many years.
And I guess I was having dinner with some friends on Wednesday night, Sydney Time, and of course that was on the tips of everybody's tongue about what had happened.
And I think it runs deeper than just an attack on the United States and an attack on the United States people and the attack on the United States' biggest city.
It really goes to the core of what Western civilization is all about.
It's what your president said that the United States represents the brightest beacon of liberty and freedom.
And I think that these people who involuntary were martyred by these despicable disciples of death, and it must be so difficult for the families and those people who loved the people who died.
However, we cannot afford as a world to leave one stone unturned in not only the retaliation, but the extermination of the thought processes that allowed this evil act to manifest in the way that it did.
And I think that it's not only could it and did it happen in New York, it could happen in London, Sydney, anywhere else, that this type of mentality is allowed to breed and spawn into these evil acts.
That's why, though it's frustrating for some Americans, if you listen carefully to our leaders, they're talking about coalitions.
They're talking about a protracted war that is going to stamp this out completely.
That really is what they're talking about.
I hope they mean what they say.
unidentified
Well, I think due diligence needs to be paid perpetually to this because it's not only an act against the United States, it's an act of not only insult, but an attack on humanity.
Well, I think that these are questions that you could imagine would be asked without imagining a coincidence.
You know, if that's where you're going with this.
unidentified
Well, there was another caller also recently who said that our intelligence agencies know considerably more than they would or should tell the general public.
The other day you had a father that had called in saying he was having some trouble communicating to his son due to the aggression he was harboring inside himself.
Probably representing a lot of fathers and a lot of sons, yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
And really, I was hoping I could just make two points and hopefully alleviate some of that, what might be misplaced aggression or anger.
Americans should be aware of Palestinians are Catholics, Muslims, and Jews and comprise a population exceeding 3.5 million people.
And to say a Palestinian is the same as saying an American.
And if an American were to commit a crime, a horrendous, you know, some terrorist act and committed suicide over it, nobody in their right mind rationally would advocate assassinating police officers.
So that's one thing.
And the other thing is politicians are saying we should take a war on terrorism and get to the root cause.
And I totally agree with that, and that's an excellent thing to do.
It's understanding how these people are trained in all these terrorist organizations.
There are certain modus operandi, if you will, of the IRA or any other terrorist organizations.
Essentially what they do is they say, you're a minority, okay.
Or they classify themselves with the label of minority, and they say, you know, are you being denied justice, freedom, and liberty?
And then they make that point and they say, you know, in the case of some of the terrorist organizations around today, they say they are being denied justice by American foreign policy, and that's their opinion or whatever.
There's a much longer way, sir, of saying one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
Yes, you're very well aware of that.
unidentified
Right.
And in all cases, like you can look through all the history, the worst thing you can do in a terrorist situation is play that same game because it only increases it.
But all I'm trying to get at is that there's a segment of society in any country that you could term irrational.
Like you could say, we want to nuke, you know, we've had maybe a couple of them in America, as they do exist in every country, in Palestine and Israel, that'll say, nuke them all, you know.
But they don't recognize that it's irrational, that it's actually condoning the crime that took place.
Because just as the terrorist says, he doesn't have his voice heard in America, and America doesn't talk about the foreign policy, like it's a hush-hush.
You can't talk about why you would deprive 300,000 children of medicine and food, but give Saddam Hussein billions of dollars for oil, like this year.
Now, as I recall, the money for the oil was for aid to the children, the women, the children, the people of Iraq.
That's ostensibly what the UN set up the sales for.
Now, I'm not suggesting that that's where it went, but I am suggesting that on our part, the part of the world, the organized world, civilized world, that's what the intent was.
We'll be right back.
All right, back to the phones we go.
On the wildcard line, you're on the air.
Good morning.
unidentified
Hi.
Hi.
I just wanted to talk about how this has affected me and emotionally.
This morning I woke up and I was so irritable and so snappy at my kids.
And I went to work, got in a fight right away with somebody I work with.
And, you know, and then, you know, I've been listening to people on the radio yesterday.
I mean, I'm just screaming at the radio because this lady was on there saying, how dare, well, Hillary Clinton was there on the steps in New York, and she was blah, blah, blah.
And where the heck was Bush at?
Here he was zigzagging all over the country and not, you know, coming to New York where he should have been or back at the White House, she was saying, you know, it's like, what?
We have a little delay here with such a long-distance call.
Yes, I've seen them, and to add to it, there are people at networks, sir, who have been threatened with death should they continue to run them.
unidentified
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
I just want to let you know, though, that that just doesn't match my experience here in Saudi Arabia.
I've had more than 20 Saudis come up to me with tears in their eyes, wishing me and my family here and in the States better.
Well, you know, we have to be very, very cautious.
I know this is said over and over and over again, but it can't be said enough about overgeneralizing and tarring an entire race or people or religion or country with the same brush.
And the increasing anger that if you've been listening, I'm sure you've been noting and hearing and frustration is really beginning to move now and accelerate exponentially.
And as it does, it's going to get tougher and tougher.
unidentified
Yeah, it's frightening to me, and I'm sure it's frightening to you as well.
I think General Schwarzkopf said it best, and I'm paraphrasing here, obviously.
Minimizing civilian deaths is one of the things that separates the good guys from the bad guys.
First of all, just like that caller said in Saudi Arabia, I think it's important to not misunderstand the reactions of millions of people in different parts of the world based on very limited videotape that we've seen.
I thought it was very interesting that throughout the first day when they would mention that people were cheering in different parts of the world like Palestine, they would continually show this same exact video clip of this little bus filled with people and this same woman in her black outfit smiling and they would just keep showing that same one of that or of men shooting their guns into the air.
It was those two video clips that continually ran and I kept having the thought, well, I don't know what propaganda is used for and I don't know what it may be, whether or not this is part of it, but that could very well have been some other celebration, a videotape done on a holy day many days ago.
We don't have any idea where those videotapes came from.
Well, I do think that our country propagandizes its own people like every other country in the world.
However, I think those probably were legitimate pictures of the news reaching the Palestinians, or at least some of them.
Now, whether it should have been run again and again and again, and whether it's really representative of a whole West Bank celebration or not, that's another question.
unidentified
Okay, and if I may just also address, I know that there's probably many listeners that you have that are Arab Americans, and I've heard a couple callers the last few nights calling and saying whether they're Arab Americans and saying, I don't know whether or not what I can say or how I should act.
Some of them scared.
And I've heard Americans saying that they don't really know what to explain to their children that are maybe noticing that Arab American children are being made fun of or threatened in school.
They don't really know how to explain it to them because they have these same feelings themselves.
I would just say that if I was an Arab American, the only advice I could give would be that if somebody is beginning to give you a hard time or a whole group, if you were in fact born here, I would Just lift my chin up and open your eyes at them and say, I was born here.
And leave it at that.
And that should send a message.
And if you were not born here, then you can equally say, I love this country.
And if that doesn't send the message to them, then they really are blinded.
In other words, if they're taking that tact in the first place, then they probably are blinded, or they wouldn't be doing that in the first place.
It's an irrational action born of frustration and anger and ignorance.
unidentified
Yeah, this is true.
And finally, if I could just take another moment, I want to express that it's true that the rest of the world is dealing with this same problem that we are and has been for a while.
And I think we have their support of major nations that maybe wouldn't have supported us in the past.
For example, Russia has been concerned for a long time about terrorism on the Kremlin coming from bin Laden.
And China itself, actually, has actually resorted to recognizing the Taliban and signed an economic agreement with them only about two weeks ago for the only reason that they did that was because they found out that the Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang province of China were training in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they didn't know how else to deal with it.
But now they're going to be able to join us and Russia and other countries, and we'll see what happens, right?
You know, I think I picked this song to open this hour, and yes, we've already been on for an hour.
Surprise, surprise to those of you joining at this hour.
May do the same thing tomorrow night.
Begin an hour early.
She was brought in by a police officer.
Oh, well, it doesn't matter.
All right.
Port Authority Officer.
All right.
Okay, so she was brought in by a Port Authority Officer and had a cell phone at her husband on the line reporting that he was with 10 police officers trapped two levels down under Tower 1 of the World Trade Center, or what was the World Trade Center.
Now, I caution you, even with, this is being reported by Fox, and I'm reporting it to you, but even with this reporting, a great deal of caution.
Exercise a great deal of caution in what you believe, even as real as this seems, because earlier in the day, CNN and other outlets reported seemingly reliably that five firefighters were found alive in an SUV.
And they had details of what kind of SUV it was.
They even had details saying that two, or I forget, three of the officers were well enough to walk.
And this story lived on for a long time and gave a lot of people a lot of hope.
And then they had to come back later and say, no, it was baloney.
The story was totally false.
So now, within the last 15 or 20 minutes, we're getting reports that, if they're true, would raise a lot of hopes out there and hopefully not to be dashed.
It sounds real, doesn't it?
But it sounded real earlier today.
May God make it so that it is real and that they are finding people and that they can get to them.
I hope so.
Normal, not even close.
Secretary Powell pointing the finger now directly, by name, at bin Laden.
National ID cards are being discussed as something that we may have to do, every U.S. citizen carrying an ID card.
Big news at this hour also that eight individuals have been arrested, one of them, if not more, of Middle East origins, presenting false identification to try to get on planes at LaGuardia and JFK.
Well, they got popped.
They're under arrest.
And one of these men apparently had a pilot's identification.
I repeat, a pilot's identification.
So if you wonder why the polls are showing that Americans believe this is still going on, why it may be justified, there is one story for you.
Now, those airports are closed again.
The big ones are closed again.
Other airports are closing.
Some stories say they're opening.
Washington airport, I've heard, is closed until further notice for quite a while, apparently.
So normal?
Oh, I don't think so.
They're warning now of lung damage for those people working And breathing in the air in New York, which I guess it's, well, I've seen it.
It's horrible.
I've been watching all of this.
I've been watching all of this, as I'm sure many of you have, non-stop all day long, and I believe it's getting to me.
I've got about three hours' sleep right now today.
I got up this morning between about 5:30 Pacific time and 8:30, and that's all I've had.
That's it.
And I think it's all beginning to get to me a little bit.
I'm having a fitful sleep.
It's not good sleep.
It's interrupted by bad dreams, and it's just not much sleep at all.
I just absolutely cannot fall asleep.
Nor can I seem to leave the coverage.
Our stock exchanges are going to be closed now, they say, until Monday, and they'll be testing to see if they can bring them up on Monday.
Everybody will be watching the market, assuming they manage to get it open.
Any foreign airliners headed toward U.S. shores are being turned away.
They're not being allowed into the country.
The pile of debris in New York, 75 feet tall, just going through some of the headlines here, three buildings now are seen to be so structurally unsound that indeed they may collapse, one of them a really big one.
Fires continue, actually rekindled and continuing at the Pentagon.
The black box on board Flight 93, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania, has been recovered.
Now, if that black box substantiates what apparently went on in that airplane, it's time to crank out the civilian equivalent of the Medal of Honor for every man on that aircraft that voted to overwhelm the hijackers and bring that aircraft down at the expense of their own lives, that of their families, some of them on board with them.
Can you imagine what god-awful decision that would have been?
What heroes they are.
I'm going to keep pounding on this and pounding as I have been for the last several nights until, I don't know, until people begin to send messages to their representatives and suggesting this be done right away.
I imagine that is going to be confirmed because, of course, there was a conversation on that airplane, as you well know, between a family member, in fact, I think four separate calls, and even the news that they were voting to go overwhelm the hijackers.
So I would say that did occur.
Mistrustful as I am of reports these days, there's just so much news to give you.
There has been a raid at a hotel in the Philippines that apparently is in some way connected, they say, to the terrorist attacks in our country.
It just, it goes on.
Normal?
No, not even close.
You know, they're talking about the new changes.
Some people are saying that there is a lot of new security.
Some in some airports that are already open are saying not a big deal.
They checked my ID twice.
That's all I saw.
Of course, they're going to stop knives from going on board.
Can't take a knife on an airplane anymore.
But, you know, as I suggested last night to this audience, it's easy to make a weapon.
It's really easy to make.
They do it, and they're called shanks in prison, and they make them all the time and stab people dead with them all the time.
So we've got a lot of work to do, and it's going to cost a lot of money, and we're about to go to war.
So, you know, there are a couple of questions that I've got for you tonight.
One that jumped out at me right away with the talk of a national ID card again.
It reignites the whole controversy of trading security for freedom, freedom for security.
Would you be willing to carry a national ID card that you would be forced to present, I suppose, when you get on an airplane and in a lot of other places to see armed guards with submachine guns around?
By the way, Northwest Airlines was going to start today, and then they said, no, they had credible information of a continuing threat, and so they said now they're saying maybe they'll resume flights tomorrow, maybe.
So, what a mess.
Normal?
No, not even close.
Would you carry a card that would ID you?
And just what kind of war, this first war of the 21st century, what kind of war are we about to wage?
Or maybe do you want us to wage?
Have you thought about that?
An awful lot of people calling for some pretty awful things.
You know, they want nukes.
They want Afghanistan, Pakistan, whatever.
Whoever won't cooperate, turn to glass.
You just would not believe some of the messages.
Here's one agreeing with me.
Ms. Bell, heard you last night state what I had been saying for at least 24 hours.
The passengers on Flight 93, who prevented more mayhem from being committed with their plane, should be given the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Thank you for voicing it.
Who do I call?
I say call your representative.
With regard to the photograph that we've got on my website, if you haven't seen it, you really ought to take a look-see, clearly showing at the moment of impact on the second tower, of the aircraft impacting the second tower, while the fireball is just freshly there, there is an unmistakable picture of a devil, an evil entity, in the smoke of that explosion.
And somebody writes, it's amazing, Art, that people will look for any kind of symbol when a tragedy happens.
The devil depicted in the smoke is a horrible coincidence.
Nothing more.
Whoever did this evil is evil, but hardly the devil incarnate.
Each person should take a good look into their own hearts and minds as they undertake thoughts of hatred, racism, jealousy, or any other Number of negative behavior patterns.
Well, I'm certainly in agreement with that.
But, my friend, I don't think I would be so quick to dismiss the possibility of real evil in this world and real evil at work in the deed that was done.
This isn't war, not war as we know it.
War as we know it means soldiers fighting each other.
It means attacking military targets, munitions, dumps, that kind of thing.
That's war.
This isn't war the way we know it, or the way we've ever known it.
And the world is going to be changed forever.
Normal?
Oh, no, I don't think so.
Not even close.
I understand it would be nice to get back to normal, but we're not there.
So in a moment, I will open up the lines and do what I've been doing every single night that I've done a program.
And that's simply to allow you to say what you want to say.
Everybody else is, you know, it's the march of experts.
And as I said, that's fine.
And I'm not going to try and compete with those putting up the experts.
I'm going to give you all a voice instead.
So we're going to do that all night again tonight and every night until, I guess, you've said what you want to say.
And we'll know when that time is.
I'll know when that time is.
So will you.
Stay right where you are.
All right, here we go.
As promised, we're going to go directly to Open Lines.
Good morning.
On the first time, caller line, you're on the air.
You know, I sort of described how I was doing a little while ago.
I'm not getting much sleep.
I think that I'm getting wrapped up in this story, and it's impossible not to.
I watched CNN earlier today as there was one of the female, you know, there was one of the female reporters in New York City, and she was interviewing these frantic people who were holding up pictures, hundreds of them, pictures of their loved ones and begging for any information at all.
And the lady who was doing this report, at the end of it, she just broke down in tears and cried.
Couldn't take any more of it.
unidentified
It's been rough, I think, on the whole country, obviously.
The first of which, there's been talk of a new memorial, kind of like what they've done in Oklahoma, for all these people that have lost their lives so tragically.
And they have some workers that are currently going through the wreckage and obviously trying to help as much as they can.
And one of these workers was on a program.
I'm not going to mention which one, but he made a direct appeal to Mr. Bush, President Bush, that there be no construction of a monument, but instead that they rebuild the towers bigger and better.
And I thought to myself at first, well, it's kind of rude to say, well, let's not monumentalize these people, but instead I thought it was a very graceful comment to rebuild these and show that the American spirit has not been wrong.
Why not rebuild them and put a gigantic plaque on each one that says this is in memorial to you?
unidentified
Absolutely.
Bigger and better.
And my second comment, there's been arguments over what we should do about this.
Being a young individual, this is kind of pertaining to me more than some others because I may be the one going over there.
I am absolutely 100% ready to do whatever I have to do to protect a way of life that I consider more civilized and more courteous and better in almost every way that I can think of.
Now, I'm not trying to take anything away from their religion, but that's exactly my point.
I have been fortunate, sir, to have traveled all around the world.
I've been around the world several times.
And so I've been in a lot of countries, a lot of countries, and I can tell you right now that even the best, and there are some really good ones out there, as well as really bad ones, but even the best isn't even close to what we have.
unidentified
Yes, sir.
And I'll be brief.
I'm honestly taking up too much time, I understand.
But give me 30 more seconds.
This is going to be very rough.
And with what the President and Secretary of State are saying, the conclusion that I see happening, it's not nuclear war.
It's not laser-guided weapons.
It's people like myself going in there as ground troops.
And I speak for a lot of other people when I say I want to help.
I just can't jump in a car and go up to New York and start looking and stuff.
So I kind of want to issue a challenge to all the Art Bell listeners.
For those who want to help but really can't get up there, let's give blood.
Let's take some water down to our water and clothes, down to our shelters and the Red Cross.
And I was on to the World Trade Center's website.
And if you go there, all it is is a direct link to the Red Cross.
If we could just go there and, you know, in our own towns, you know, give blood, give clothes, give water, you know, we all can do our share and it does, and it will help.
Even the gesture and words like yours, well, they help.
unidentified
Drifted on the sea of heartbreak, trying to get myself ashore for so long.
For so long.
Listening to the strangest stories.
Wondering where it all went wrong for so long.
For so long.
But hold on, hold on, hold on Do what you got Ooh, and it's all right It's coming over Gotta get right back to where we started from Love is good, love can be stronger
gotta get right back to where we started I don't want to take your place And if you get hurt
I have a little things I think I can put that smile back on your face To reach art bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
Or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT ⁇ T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
This is Coast to Coast AM with a bell on the Premier Radio Networks.
You know, I think now when people talk about the good old days, we're going to understand very well indeed what the demarcation line is, because we just met it.
We've got a lot behind us, immediately behind us, and oh Lord, we have a lot in front of us.
It looks like the United States is going to war, and I wonder what kind of war it's going to be.
Don't you?
We'll get back to the phones in just a moment.
To update breaking news, Fox, which had been reporting fire of 10 police had been found underneath rubble because of a cell phone call, now have inserted the word believed to be alive before they said alive.
Now they're saying believed to be alive.
These stories are absolutely incredible in the way they're being handled.
I mean, absolutely.
I noticed that CNN has not picked that story up yet, probably feeling rather burned over the story earlier today.
You can imagine how that would affect the people.
I'm told, hundreds of people waiting with their pictures of their loved ones, crying, trying to get the media to hold up their picture and their telephone number.
You can imagine how this news hits them.
First time caller line, you're on the air.
Hello.
unidentified
Art, how are you?
You're an old friend, even though we haven't talked before.
I don't want to get too specific, but I was discharged from the United States Armed Forces in June of 1971.
I was a PO thereafter.
I left the job in 1977.
And my perspective on this was that I saw the World Trade Center being built.
And, you know, numerous times there were several of us that commented about how that thing stuck up like a sore thumb and how we could not imagine that even planes from JFK or LaGuardia wouldn't wind up flying into it.
And this is my ultimate point.
You know, now we're in the position of war and we're talking about terrorists.
And the thing that irks me the most is that, you know, the United States is going after governments that harbor and protect terrorists.
As a matter of fact, to the contrary, I thought of the World Trade Center Twin Towers as an integral part of the way your brain thinks of New York.
I really, really disagree with you.
It is, I suppose, something people can disagree on, but it was part of the skyline that I have now seen so many times that it was imprinted on my brain, not as an eyesore at all, but as a part of a beautiful skyline.
You know, you watch all the New York shows and they always show the skyline.
Looking at the skyline in the last two or three days has been one damn eerie sight.
And they've shown it again and again because, you know, they get off and they get pictures of the smoke rising at a great distance.
And when they do, they've got the whole skyline in their sights.
And looking at that gap where the Twin Towers were is really eerie to me, completely eerie, like no planes in the sky eerie.
I think the direction the president would like to go here is finally get that implant, that tip too, the ID that they can tell where every citizen is at every minute.
everybody's saying why why why is this happening and it's as simple as You know, if we somehow politically manage to pull that off, you know, there have been discussions about perhaps giving the Palestinians.
So listen to me, sir.
Listen to me for a moment.
There have been discussions about giving the Palestinians part of Jordan, for example.
That's one thing that's been on the table hither and yon every now and then.
But even if we gave the Palestinians a home in Jordan, don't you for one second think that Syria and other Arab nations would not continue to, in every way they could think of, pursue the extinction of Israel?
He said it was the devil depicted in the smoke, according to this emailer, is a horrible coincidence.
I don't think it's that much of a coincidence, and I don't think that it's, I think it's exactly what it seems to be.
Thank you very much for the call.
I think it's a horrendous picture.
I mean, you be the judge.
The young man who emailed me this photograph, this unretouched photograph that was circulated widely in the media, so you certainly are welcome to check it out for yourself.
It is unretouched.
It's just, uh...
And there's no way in the world, folks, in my opinion, and you're welcome to render yours to me or to anybody else you talk to, that this is any sort of coincidence.
It is exactly what it seems to be.
And then I suppose you could say things like, what are the odds?
You know, I hear a lot of people talking what good will it do to, say, bomb a country that might harbor a terrorist say like Afghanistan to just bomb the country.
Well, if you bomb the heck out of a country and that terrorist has to leave there for his life, and then you find out where he is and you bomb that country and he has to leave there, eventually these countries are going to say, don't come here.
We're not going to harbor you.
You know, look what happened to those other countries.
So eventually he's not going to have a place to go.
And don't bring them back unnecessarily for court.
If this is war, then as they killed so many of us, I have no compunction about going over there and shooting them dead, deader than doornails, and then take out the infrastructure of the country that's been harboring them.
I have no problem with that.
The only time and moment I have a problem is people who keep saying we need another Nagasaki or Hiroshima.