War on Terror

A group of Rhode Island State Representatives (Dan Gordon, R-Portsmouth/Tiverton/Little Compton; Jack Savage R-East Providence; Raymond Hull, D-Providence; John Carnevale, D-Providence/Johnston and Donald Lally, D-Narragansett/North Kingstown/South Kingstown) has introduced a resolution into the RI House (H7916) condemning the section of the Federal Government’s 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) pertaining to the detention of persons…

It’s been winding down for months now and today it became official: the War in Iraq is officially over. The Washington Post, perhaps, summarized it most accurately: The American war in Iraq came to an unspectacular end Thursday at a simple ceremony held on the edge of Baghdad’s international airport, not far from the highway…

Like Andrew, I remember all the particulars of that day. I was editing part time from home, and the Providence school system hadn’t called in my wife, five months pregnant with our first child, as a substitute teacher, so we were both home. I had just begun my morning workout on the machine in my…

At work, a co-worker had bought a television and set it up in the break room, so that everyone could follow the news of the attacks. All of the networks were into continuous coverage by now. I remember stopping by the break room at one point and watching a crawl go across the bottom of…

…ten years ago, to the minute, when Islamist terrorists lost the initiative in the war they started.From 9:57, the cockpit recorder picks up the sounds of fighting in an aircraft losing control at 30,000 feet – the crash of trolleys, dishes being hurled and smashed. The terrorists scream at each other to hold the door…

As someone who was not touched directly by the killing on September 11, it was American Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon that led, on a personal level, to my most fearful moments of the day. On the radio, John Dennis relayed an unconfirmed report that smoke was rising from the Pentagon. If the report…

For most of the world including myself, it was United Flight 175 hitting the South Tower that made it clear that what was happening was not a “mere” accident. Two planes hitting the World Trade Center could not be a coincidence. From the hour that followed the second crash, I will always remember Gerry Callahan…

In 2001, I was working at a company that had a very liberal flex-time policy, so by the time I woke up on September 11, John Dennis and Gerry Callahan of WEEI radio were already reporting on a plane that had crashed into the upper floors of the World Trade Center. For a few more…

There’s something peculiar about this new focus on lone wolf terrorists: After 9/11, it was the men who went to radicalized mosques or terror boot camps who were seen as the biggest terror threat. Today, that picture’s changed: Authorities are increasingly focusing on the lone wolf living next door, radicalized on the Internet – and…