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From Los Angeles Times

Osama bin Laden's death removes a cloud that enveloped a generation

For the generation known as the millennials, young adults born after 1980, the 9/11 attacks and the wars that came out of them created a climate of foreboding that shaped their youth.

by Rick Rojas, Larry Gordon and Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times

May 4, 2011

Just as the world was opening up for Luke Watkins' generation, one man's face began to haunt it.

Watkins was a sixth-grader when his mother called him to a television screen where smoke was pouring from the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Accompanying the carnage were grainy images of Osama bin Laden, the sudden embodiment of a terrorist network that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.

For Watkins, now a 20-year-old junior at UCLA, that was half a lifetime ago. It is hard to remember a time before the Al-Qaeda leader, and strange to think of a planet without him.

"There's always been Osama bin Laden," said Watkins, of Orange. The terrorist leader "was the face of those who wanted to hurt us, and could."

For his generation, known as the millennials, terrorism and the American response to it created a climate of foreboding that shaped their youth. For many, the death of Bin Laden marks a defining moment as they enter adulthood.

"It feels as though that arc in American history has come to a close," Watkins said. Acknowledging the strangeness of the analogy, he compared Bin Laden's death to the upcoming last installment of the long-running Harry Potter movies: "It marks the end of our childhood," he said.

The decadelong war on terror and the fears it prompted touched these young people, their families and others in concrete ways that the nuclear threat of the Cold War never did for an older generation.

Nic Cappon, a 22-year-old senior at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, noted that restrictive airport security measures and color-coded threat levels are second nature to people his age.

"We didn't know a time when you could bring shampoo on an airplane," Cappon said.

Unlike Americans 20 or even 10 years older, who grew up in a time of relative peace and prosperity, young people today have spent their youth with their nation at war. They have struggled to understand a hatred so deep that people would strap bombs to themselves to kill Americans.

So, in the celebrations that followed news of Bin Laden's death Sunday, it was the young whose faces filled the late-night crowds. Their jubilation swept through social media. Rallies, large and small, erupted from UC Davis and Stanford to Boston College, Penn State and Ohio State.

Outside the White House, the crowd chanted "USA" and, at times, in a phrase reflective of immediate concerns, "Cancel finals."

For many, this wasn't the death of just another bad guy, but a distant specter who had saturated their adolescence, like the Internet. His threats arrived in snippets, through translators and muffled audio. He seemed infinitely powerful — he had pierced America's armor, after all — and impossible to reach.

He remains a figure of mystery for many.

"I still don't know exactly who he is and what he has done," said USC sophomore Marcus Lau, 20. "All I know is that he was the head of Al Qaeda. His death provided some closure for the victims of 9/11, but I think it's more of a symbolic death or symbolic victory."

Because the Sept. 11 attacks occurred at such an impressionable age for the millennials, considered to be those born after 1980, many have had a lingering sense of worry, experts say.

"They grew up with this constant pressure that something more was going to happen," said Brian Van Brunt, director of counseling at Western Kentucky University, where students celebrated after the news of Bin Laden's death.

The gatherings were "this massive release of tension," as well as an attempt "to create some meaning out of it," said Brunt, who is also president of the American College Counseling Assn.

If 9/11 helped to define childhood for many young people, "perhaps this is a celebration that it may not define their young adulthood," said Linda DeAngelo, assistant director of UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute.

In some ways, several of those interviewed said, Bin Laden was the figure whose threat helped create a surge of patriotism among young Americans, and fed their desire to travel and comprehend a world that suddenly seemed much larger and more complicated. He was also a "common evil" the country could unite against, much as Hitler was for the World War II generation, said Chris Carnabatu, 22, of Burbank, a fourth-year neuroscience major at UCLA.

Carnabatu understands the reasons for celebration.

"Why not?" he said. "It's been 10 years, but we finally got him."

Far from the threat disappearing, however, he worries that the U.S. strike at Al Qaeda may increase terrorism. "It's like a short-term high, and then it's going to go downhill from here," he said.

Steven Biter, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, grew up in Clarksville, Tenn., near Ft. Campbell, a large Army base. One result of coming of age there in an era of terrorism, said the 22-year-old sports management major, is heightened patriotism.

His sister, Erica, who is three years older, joined the Air Force after high school, served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now is stationed in Guam. When his sister served in the war zones for a year, Biter said, he worried a lot about her: "With a sibling overseas, fighting in a war, it's never comfortable." But he said he was proud that "she wanted to serve her country and help protect us at home and abroad."

After the 9/11 attacks, there was a sharp rise in support for the military among American college students, according to researchers. In surveys by the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, 45% of college freshmen in 2002 advocated more military spending, the highest percentage in two decades. That fell to 28% in 2008, after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and no more major terrorism at home.

Over the same decade, students showed a greater interest in exploring the world and less fear of travel abroad. In 2002, about 21% of freshmen nationwide said they would probably study abroad, a figure that had jumped to 31.5% by 2010.

At a young age, people were confronted with media images of the world that left them wanting to learn more, particularly about the Islamic world, said Mahmoud Al-Batal, a Middle Eastern studies professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

"They are trying to understand why 9/11 happened. And they want to know what went on in the minds of the people who committed this heinous crime," Al-Batal said.

Growing up in a remote part of Vermont, Faryn Borella did not feel personally threatened by terrorism. But she grew fascinated by the wider world after 9/11. Now a 19-year-old freshman at Occidental College who is studying diplomacy and world affairs, she is considering a career in international law.

"I want to try to stop this cycle of anti-Americanism and Islamophobia," she said. "It is important to break the cycle in the future."

She worries that all the celebrating may lead to retribution by terrorists. "It's OK to be happy, but to storm the White House and Times Square and cheer may not be the best way to react," she said.

Jason Lifton, the 22-year-old student body president of George Washington University, attended the Sunday night rally outside the White House and said it was more about marking a historical moment than celebrating a man's death.

It was "a group of people who wanted to be together to celebrate America," Lifton said.

Many of the same students, he said, had partied at the same place when Barack Obama won the presidency.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bin-laden-generation-20110504,0,1325844,print.story

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Boy charged in father's death had problems with violence and aggression

The son of Riverside neo-Nazi leader Jeffrey R. Hall apparently shot his father early Sunday at their home, police say. The child and his sister were caught in a bitter divorce nearly a decade ago, court records show.

by Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times

May 4, 2011

A 10-year-old Riverside boy charged with fatally shooting his father, local neo-Nazi leader Jeffrey R. Hall, had past problems with aggression and violence after being caught in the middle of a bitter divorce fraught with abuse allegations, court records show.

Legal experts said it was extraordinarily rare for such a young person to face a murder charge, and legal barriers prohibit detectives and prosecutors from discussing a juvenile case.

Investigators said the boy apparently retrieved a family handgun and shot his father about 4 a.m. Sunday on the living room couch. Police declined to say whether Hall was asleep at the time.

"We believe it was an intentional act," said Riverside police Lt. Ed. Blevins, "and we believe the 10-year-old was responsible."

Detectives "received some statements" about a possible motive, Blevins said, but declined to elaborate because the underlying cause of the attack is still under investigation.

There were no reports of an argument or other incident preceding the shooting, and police have never responded to any domestic disturbance calls at the Hall residence, Blevins said. Hall, 32, and his wife have five children, with the two oldest from Hall's previous marriage.

"Motive is the big question," Blevins said.

The boy is scheduled to appear before a Riverside County Juvenile Court judge Wednesday morning for a detention hearing. Both Blevins and the Riverside County district attorney's office declined to identify the boy, citing legal protections for juveniles.

"Anyone killing a parent is rare. Anyone at that age killing their parent is extremely rare," said Paolo Annino, a professor at the Florida State University School of Law and an expert in juveniles charged as adults. "These are cases our judicial system is not very good at. We usually don't want to hear why this happened."

Hall was the Southwest leader of the National Socialist Movement, the nation's largest neo-Nazi organization, and would often take his children to events, a colleague in the organization said.

The group most recently has targeted illegal immigrants, and Hall and other members had conducted their own patrols along the Mexican border. Hall also made headlines last year when he ran successfully for the local water board, the Western Municipal Water District.

The accused boy's mother, Leticia Neal of Spokane, Wash., on Tuesday said she pleaded with the courts to grant her custody of their 10-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter after learning about her ex-husband's neo-Nazi ties. Neal, during the divorce proceedings nearly a decade ago, accused Hall of abusing their two children, but the charges were never substantiated.

"All I can tell you is that I begged and begged them to please let me have full custody," Neal said in a telephone interview.

Court records show that Hall had been granted full custody of his two children during their divorce. He had accused his ex-wife of abusing and neglecting their son and daughter during custody visits. But a Sept. 19, 2002, child protective services report filed in court stated that those allegations could not be substantiated.

Neal denied the allegations during the court proceeding, and she declined to comment on the matter Tuesday.

In January 2011, a Riverside County judge upheld Hall's full custody of the children, barring her from visiting the children. But Neal and her children were allowed to start undergoing reunification therapy.

In a Nov. 8 court filing opposing Neal's request, Hall stated that his son and daughter had not seen Neal for more than six years, and "not so much as received a phone call, card, birthday present" from their mother during that time. Hall also described his son's troubled past, saying he was just getting back on track.

His son "was removed from several schools for his wild and sometimes violent actions. Both [children] … struggled socially and academically when they were first placed with me," Hall stated.

The family's house, where Hall would often invite fellow neo-Nazis for gatherings, is on a tidy cul-de-sac near UC Riverside. A security camera on the second story monitors the front yard and driveway.

Jason Hiecke of New Jersey, a lieutenant in the National Socialist Movement who knew Hall, described him as a dedicated family man who would occasionally bring his young children to the group's events.

"The death of any member, especially somebody of his standards and high quality to the party, is always a loss," Hiecke said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0504-neo-nazi-20110504,0,7359600,print.story

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Santa Monica synagogue bomb suspect indicted by federal grand jury

A 60-year-old homeless man was indicted Tuesday on federal explosives charges in connection with a blast last month outside a Santa Monica synagogue.

Ron Hirsch faces charges including detonating an explosive device April 7 outside the Chabad House, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles.

He fled California on a bus, but was apprehended several days later in Cleveland.

Hirsch, who is in federal custody, was indicted by a federal grand jury and faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted of the four felony charges, authorities said.

The explosion hurled a 250-pound piece of concrete-encased steel pipe that smashed into a nearby home. The slab tore a hole in the roof above a bedroom where a 12-year-old girl was sleeping, according to papers filed in federal court.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/man-indicted-by-federal-grand-jury-in-santa-monica-synagogue-bomb-blast.html

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11 alleged Central Coast gang members arrested on drug trafficking charges

Eleven members and associates of two Central Coast gangs were arrested Tuesday after being charged in federal indictments with drug trafficking, said U.S Atty. André Birotte Jr.

FBI special agents and local police detectives penetrated the drug trafficking network of a Lompoc-based subset of the Six Deuce Brims Bloods and the Northwest (Santa Maria) street gang, the largest Latino gang on the Central Coast, which is affiliated with the Mexican Mafia prison gang, federal officials said.

The gangs are believed responsible for a significant amount of the region's narcotics dealings and firearms sales, as well as various violent crimes in the coastal communities.

Working undercover, investigators orchestrated controlled purchases of narcotics and weapons from the suspects.

"With this morning's arrests, we have collectively delivered a powerful message to the criminal street gangs and drug dealers who think they can operate in this region," Birotte said. "We will use every tool at our disposal to disrupt this criminal activity so that we can ensure the safety of the people who live and work in our neighborhoods."

Two others were arrested Tuesday morning on state violations in connection with the investigation, and two other state defendants were already in custody. They are expected to be prosecuted by the Santa Barbara County district attorney's office.

The nine federal defendants arrested for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and/or distribution of methamphetamine are: Freddie Sutton, 51, of Oceano; Mike Shepherd, 50, of Santa Maria; Christopher DeLong, 50, of Arroyo Grande; Keshon Cole, 34, of Santa Maria; Randy Fuston, 29, of Santa Maria; Melvin Braddock, 40, of Santa Maria; Eduardo Sanchez, 27, of Santa Maria; Jesus Buenrostro, 23, of Santa Maria; and Sergio Godinez, 30, of Santa Maria.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/11-alleged-central-coast-gang-members-arrested-for-drug-trafficking.html

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From the New York Times

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9/11 Inspires Student Patriotism and Celebration

by KATE ZERNIKE

Ashley Bright was 15 years old and on her way to school in Cottonwood, Ariz., when she stopped at a friend's house and saw the news that two planes had hit the World Trade Center.

At the time, Ms. Bright did not even know what the twin towers were. “I had no concept of what it meant,” she said Tuesday, “except that suddenly we were saying the Pledge of Allegiance again every day and having assemblies about patriotism, and everyone was flying their flags again out of nowhere.”

Young Americans, like many others, had a variety of reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden — sadness and anger at the lives he had destroyed, questions about how much safer his death made the United States. But their response, in some notable instances, was punctuated by jubilant, if not jingoistic, celebrations.

In Washington, college students spilled in front of the White House chanting “U.S.A! U.S.A.!” and puffing cigars. In State College, Pa., 5,000 students waved flags, blew vuvuzelas, and sang the national anthem and the chorus to Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the U.S.A.” Cheering students jumped into Mirror Lake at Ohio State — as they do with big football games — and swelled the Common in Boston.

Some, like Ms. Bright, thought the celebrations excessive. But they were not surprising, she and others said, in the context of how much their young lives had been shaped by Sept. 11. For them, it set off a new emphasis on patriotism, with constant reminders from teachers and parents that it is important to be proud of being an American — a striking contrast to the ambivalence of the Vietnam years that marked their parents' generation.

The attacks were the first time they had considered that people in the rest of the world might harbor ill will toward Americans. The experience established the world in polarities of black and white, with Bin Laden being the new emblem of evil.

“I probably wouldn't be as appreciative of living in America if I hadn't seen 9/11 happen and grown up in this time,” said Ms. Bright, now a graduate student at American University.

“We carry the weight of it more because our entire adult lives have been during a time of war,” she said. “The strong reaction is because it's the first goal that has been met that we can take ownership of.”

Michelle Vered, a senior in an Advanced Placement government class at South Eugene High School in Eugene, Ore., said: “We learned about our identity as Americans through this really horrible tragedy. Even the celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden — we rely on all these bad things to identify who we are.”

Like many her age, Leora Yashari, 18, a freshman at Boston University, called Bin Laden “the villain of our generation.”

“We were always aware and always told he was such a threat to us,” Ms. Yashari said. “He was responsible for all this pain and all this heartbreak — not just when 9/11 happened but anytime you heard a group of soldiers died or hit another anniversary.”

In the world of the so-called millennial generation, said Neil Howe, a writer and historian who is often credited with defining that term for the generation, “Evil is evil, good is good. There are no antiheroes, there is no gray area. This is a Harry Potter vignette, and Voldemort is dead.”

“In a Harry Potter world,” he said, “their mission is to save the world for the rest of society. This is their taking pride in what their generation is able to do.”

Cara Kelly, a 14-year-old high school sophomore in algebra class in Somerville, S.C., when the attacks happened, agreed that her generation likes clear-cut endings. “That's why a lot of people haven't paid attention to Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ms. Kelly said. “It's so convoluted — are we winning? What is winning? We don't even really know.”

Patriotism after Sept. 11, she said, “was something that we could rally behind to kind of make sense of the attacks.”

“Since the attacks,” Ms. Kelly said, “we haven't had something so clear as the objective of finding Osama bin Laden.”

Ms. Kelly and Ms. Bright were among American University students involved in a project called “Growing up in the Shadow of 9/11,” which was completed last week, before Bin Laden was killed. In a video for the project, many college students in the Washington area recalled how teachers and parents were emphasizing the importance of patriotism after the attacks — with classes that had not said the Pledge in years suddenly saying it daily, and singing patriotic songs at weekly assemblies.

In a survey for the project, students defined themselves as more open to the rest of the world, to study foreign languages and foreign relations — a similar trend has been noted by the freshman survey done yearly on campuses nationwide by the University of California, Los Angeles, which found that students post-Sept. 11 are increasingly inclined to study abroad.

But the students in the video for the American University project also said they believed that their generation was more patriotic than previous ones. They saw this for good and bad; a young Muslim woman who began wearing a headscarf after the attacks said, “I feel like regardless of your religion after 9/11, it made everyone question what it was like to be an American.”

Sean Clark, a senior at the University of Oregon, said in an interview Tuesday that before the attacks: “I thought we were the good guys, the best in the world, and that world was perfect. Then people came and threw planes into the towers and shook everyone into believing that there were other things out there.”

Among those barely able to remember the attacks, there was still ambivalence. But ambivalence gave way to celebration.

Margaret Chavez, a 16-year-old sophomore at East High School in Denver, said it was difficult to fathom the significance of a man who to her seemed as much a figure of the distant past as Hitler.

But after her mother had excitedly announced the news to the family on Sunday night, Margaret had quickly checked her Facebook page. All her friends were posting about Bin Laden's death, and she wanted to join them.

She wrote one word: “Dead!”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/04youth.html?pagewanted=print

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Security on Higher Alert Across U.S.

There have been no known specific or credible threats received since American troops killed Osama bin Laden this week, but on Tuesday security at public spaces — including mosques, synagogues, train stations and basketball arenas — remained at elevated levels.

Although the Department of Homeland Security has not issued an alert, the agency remains at what the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano , has called a “heightened state of vigilance.” The State Department, on the other hand, has issued a worldwide travel alert to Americans.

In Philadelphia, the police commissioner, Charles H. Ramsey , has placed the department on “high alert,” increased patrols around religious buildings, and intensified security at tourist attractions and shopping malls, the police said.

“We haven't added more personnel; we're just doing more checks and asking our officers and citizens to be more aware,” said Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.

The additional security includes hourly checks at some of the city's synagogues and mosques, as well as arranging meetings with building superintendents and representatives of large businesses and manufacturers to remind them to report suspicious activity to the police, Lieutenant Evers said.

In Phoenix, officials said they had supplemented security at the city's airport, municipal buildings and houses of worship and on its light rail system, said Scott Krushak, the coordinator for Phoenix's Office of Emergency Management .

“We're not doing it because we've had any threats, but because it is part of a ‘lean forward' strategy we have here in the city of Phoenix,” Mr. Krushak said. “We are really relying on the community to tell us if they see anything.”

In Los Angeles, the police sent additional officers to the Staples Center for the Lakers playoff basketball game against Dallas on Monday, and officials said they intended to also supplement police patrols at Dodger Stadium. Even before the death of Bin Laden, security at Dodgers games had been stepped up after a fan of the rival San Francisco Giants was badly beaten in a stadium parking lot last month.

In addition, Lt. Andy Neiman, a police spokesman, said the police were paying particular attention to airports, ports and telecommunications hubs.

At Los Angeles International Airport on Tuesday, Debby Cummings, 44, who was on a flight from Detroit to visit friends in Los Angeles, said the security screening in Detroit seemed normal except that more passengers had been told to go through full-body scanners. Ms. Cummings said that she had not been overly concerned about flying, but that her 15-year-old son had worried the plane might explode.

“In Detroit they had two of the body scanners, which they were sending most people through, but other than that it was the same,” she said. “They only had one scanner before, and they didn't used to make the majority of people go through it.”

In Chicago, the Police Department said it had sent additional officers to patrol around houses of worship, the Richard J. Daley Center, and at the United Center, where arena security personnel checked fans arriving to Monday night's basketball game against Atlanta with handheld metal detectors.

Similar procedures were to be in place for an N.B.A. playoff game in Oklahoma City on Tuesday night and for all remaining basketball playoff games, officials said.

In Miami, the police have added officers with dogs at Miami International Airport, but many airports around the country, including those in San Francisco and Seattle, said they had taken no additional security precautions because the federal government had not issued a threat warning.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/us/04security.html?pagewanted=print

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Five Men Arrested Near Plant In Britain

LONDON — Five men have been arrested near the Sellafield nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the north of England under antiterrorism laws, the police said.

The men were stopped in a vehicle “close to the site” on the Irish Sea coast on Monday afternoon, according to a statement from the West Cumbria police. All were in their 20s and from London, it said.

They were arrested under a provision of Britain's terrorism laws that allows suspects to be questioned without charge, the police said, and they were handed over to the North West Counter Terrorism Unit in Manchester.

A BBC report suggested that the men were of Bangladeshi origin and that they were thought to have been filming near the site.

A spokeswoman for the terrorism unit, which works closely with Britain's domestic intelligence service, MI5, declined to offer details, saying that “the investigation is at an early stage” and that questioning was under way.

The spokeswoman said there was no apparent link between the arrests and the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan early Monday. Some Islamic extremists had warned that Britain would be a target for attacks in retaliation for the killing of Bin Laden by American special forces.

Britain's national terror alert level remains at “severe,” meaning a terrorist strike is “highly likely,” though no specific threats have been detected.

Such is the reach of those concerns that the fee-paying British School of Paris told parents on Tuesday that students should not wear school uniform to avoid being identified by their nationality. The school also said that "all students who are traveling to and from school by themselves or on public transport or while they are on school trips, have been discouraged from displaying 'Britishness' in public."

The Sellafield plant, the largest in Europe, is still “operating as normal,” a spokesman said.

The large complex includes a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant that has long raised concerns in Britain about the costs and hazards of nuclear waste. The closely guarded site is one of few major employers in the region, providing some 10,000 jobs.

The plant was the world's first commercial nuclear power station, operating from 1956 to 2003. Britain's worst nuclear accident took place there in 1957, when the core of a reactor caught fire, releasing radioactive contamination.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/europe/04britain.html?pagewanted=print

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Op-Ed

My Sister, My Grief

“AFTER someone has been murdered, their family members often feel peace when the murderer has been executed,” a friend called to tell me on Monday. “Do you feel peace?” Another friend asked, “Are you going to dance in the streets now and celebrate?”

On Sept. 11, 2001, my sister Karen died while working at the World Trade Center.

In the weeks that followed, my family and I held a memorial service for her, and emptied and sold her apartment. Then, my body gave out. For weeks, I couldn't get out of bed. I lost all interest in watching TV, listening to music or reading.

I thought I had the flu, but friends told me my symptoms were all due to grief. I had trained as a psychiatrist, but grief and the sense of dread I experienced were far more physical than I would have ever expected. Over the months that followed, I began to feel better. My friends asked periodically if I'd had closure. But I did not fully. I still felt haunted. My remaining family spent more time together, feeling closer than we had since my sisters and I were children. Every year since, we have gone on long family vacations, and come to appreciate one another more. We have managed to move on with our lives — though Karen will always remain with us in some way. Then, out of the blue, we learned that Osama bin Laden had died. We were surprised at the large numbers of phone calls and e-mails we received, asking how we felt. We phoned one another. How did we feel?

Decidedly mixed. “It's anti-climactic,” one of my two surviving sisters said.

Yes, the body of the man who, more than anyone else, had caused my sister's death 10 years ago was now at the bottom of the sea. I was glad for that, and that Americans were the ones who had found him and ended his life, and that years of planning had finally succeeded. But the news of his death still feels surreal. I realize now how much our loss is both personal and political. I suppose people who ask us about our reactions are often uncertain how to react themselves — how much to celebrate or still fear. But we do not want to be simply emblems of grieving family members.

Still, I understand that in the chaos of any act of destruction, people need something tangible to hold onto, an embodiment, a story. They need to know who is responsible, and they want to know the responses of those most affected: Have the deaths of 9/11 now been sufficiently avenged? Is it over?

Bin Laden's death was cathartic — his terrorist attacks traumatized all of us — but in large part it is only a symbolic victory. Al Qaeda may even have more cells and members than it did 10 years ago, though no one knows. Certainly, Islamic extremists are vowing to avenge his death. “An eye for an eye” perpetuates a never-ending cycle of destruction. Dangers continue.

My family has struggled to adapt and move forward, and so, too, has everyone else. In the past decade, the world has, of course, drastically changed. As a result of the deaths of my sister and the thousands of others at the trade center and Pentagon, George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, and then under false pretenses invaded Iraq. Thousands of American and foreign soldiers and untold thousands of civilians have been killed or wounded. Politicians have exploited the deaths on 9/11 for their own ends.

When the members of Al Qaeda attacked on 9/11, Americans wondered, “Why do they hate us so much?” Many here believe they dislike us for our “freedom,” but I think otherwise.

There are lessons we have not yet learned. I feel Karen would share my concerns that underlying forces of greed and hate persevere. American imperialism, corporate avarice, abuses of our power abroad and our historical support of corrupt dictators like Hosni Mubarak have created an abhorrence of us that, unfortunately, persists. We need to recognize how the rest of the world sees us, and figure out how to change that. Until we do that, more Osama bin Ladens will arise, and more innocent people like my sister will die.

I hope that the death of Bin Laden will bring closure and peace. I am relieved that this chapter is over, somewhat, for me. But I fear the war will not end.

Robert Klitzman is a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia and the author of “When Doctors Become Patients.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/opinion/04klitzman.html?pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Texas Puts Inmate to Death With New Drug Combo

A man convicted of raping and strangling a woman in 2001 was executed Tuesday in Texas, becoming the state's first inmate put to death using a new three-drug cocktail.

Cary Kerr, 46, expressed love and thanks to friends and relatives, then insisted he wasn't responsible for the crime outside Fort Worth.

"To the state of Texas, I am an innocent man," Kerr said. "Never trust a court-appointed attorney."

Kerr's reaction to the chemicals was similar to most of the 466 inmates executed in Texas since 1982 under the previous drug combination.

"Here we go," he said after a deep breath. He took two more deep breaths, then uttered "Lord Jesus, Jesus," the final words slurred.

He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. CDT, nine minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms.

A late appeal rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court did not challenge the drug switch in the nation's most active capital punishment state. Instead, it focused on a claim that one of his lawyers earlier had failed him during appeals of his conviction and death sentence.

The three-drug chemical cocktail in his lethal injection used the sedative pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental. Texas recently switched from sodium thiopental, a drug it used since 1982, because it is no longer available. Pentobarbital already had been used for recent executions in Oklahoma and Ohio and survived legal challenges there.

State attorneys, in their arguments to the justices, said the appeal was only "a calculated and meritless attempt" to delay Kerr's punishment.

The body of 34-year-old Pamela Horton was found dumped in a street.

Kerr said he first met Horton when they lived in the same trailer park, then ran into her the evening of July 11, 2001, at a bar where he was celebrating passing the test to get his commercial truck driving license.

"I've never denied being with her," he said recently from death row.

Kerr said he was "half drunk" and Horton was drunk when he decided to take her to his place where they had sex and then argued. She left alive, he insisted.

A taxi driver spotted a woman's body about 2 a.m. on July 12, 2001. Emergency medical technicians were at the scene when Kerr arrived and said he might know the woman. When police got there, they found Horton's purse in his car and a strand of long blond hair on him. Police arrested Kerr.

"They looked at me and me only," Kerr, maintaining his innocence, said from prison.

Blood alcohol tests showed Horton's level approached 0.50 — six times the legal limit for driving. Detectives later found pieces of her torn clothing at Kerr's home.

At Kerr's 2003 trial, prosecutors presented evidence showing he had a history of violence toward women, took advantage of Horton's condition and raped, beat and strangled her before throwing her body on the street in Haltom City, about five miles north of Fort Worth.

Jurors agreed and decided he should die.

"I think they're idiots," Kerr said of his jury. "They didn't pay attention."

"We just want to know he's gone," Horton's aunt, Joann Mazyck, said.

Kerr, who lived most of his life in the Dallas area, previously served a year in jail after pleading guilty to a 1999 charge of assault with intent to do bodily harm.

He became the third Texas prisoner executed this year. At least eight others have execution dates in the coming months, including four in June.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=13522409

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Arpaio "Fires" 2 Deputies for Corruption; New Accusations Made of Racism in his Office

May 04, 2011

Fox News

Sheriff Joe Arpaio fired two of his top deputies for alleged corruption, just as reports broke of racist jokes against Mexicans within his department.

Arpaio, already a lightning rod for his tough immigration laws in Maricopa County, is simultaneously dealing with a number of different controversies.

On Tuesday, he accepted the resignations of two of his top deputies, essentially firing his right-hand men when allegations of corruption become too much to bear.

KSAZ Fox 10 in Phoenix reported that David Hendershott, a deputy for three decades, gave notice; deputy chief Larry Black resigned, too, the station reported.

"Dave Hendershott was removed from his duties because he let me down," Arpaio said at a news conference. "When it comes to serious integrity violations, there is no wiggle room for a law enforcement professional."

The normally tough sheriff showed a bit of humility in announcing the firings.

"I think I know how to manage, but probably a mistake I made -- I should've been hooked up more to the administrative part, and taken some action sooner... I have made mistakes, I have rectified my mistakes... no one is perfect."

A Pina County investigation led to the firings. Among the findings, the station reported, investigators found that Hendershott used money to take his family on an eight-day trip to Alaska and took a total of $25,000 from a foundation and another fund.

Meanwhile, Arpaio's department is coming under for alleged offensive jokes deputies made about Mexicans, even as office faces a lawsuit accusing officers there racially profiling Latinos during traffic stops.

An e-mail from someone in the office, according to court filings, included a joke and image that reinforced stereotypes of drinking by Mexicans; another e-mail made fun of perceived Mexican accents; still another included an image showing a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia" with an ID photo showing perceived stereotypical Mexican facial features.

"Sheriff Arpaio was communicating both his agreement with these messages and his intent to see them realized in MCSO's anti-illegal immigration enforcement activities," wrote Stanley Young, an attorney for those who filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit centers on the traffic patrols known as "sweeps" where deputies and posse volunteers flood an area of a city — in some cases heavily Latino areas — to seek out traffic violators and arrest other violators. Arpaio's office has launched nearly 20 sweeps since early 2008.

Some deputies and even members of Arpaio's immigrant smuggling squad used the e-mail system to distribute offensive images of Mexicans, Young said, pointing to a letter from a person asking for a roundup in north Phoenix.

"If you have dark skin, then you have dark skin," the letter said. "Unfortunately, that is the look of the Mexican illegals who are here illegally."

Young said Arpaio sent the letter to a top manager and instructed him to "Have someone handle this."

Young said considerations of race have infected the sweeps and that Arpaio has in effect endorsed calls for racial profiling.

Most of the letters don't describe criminal activity, and Arpaio sent thank-you notes in some cases to people who wrote the letters, Young said.

Arpaio, responding to request for comment Tuesday, said he was not concerned with the case.

"Let's see what the courts say," he said.

The U.S. Justice Department also has launched a civil rights investigation of Arpaio's office in early 2009 on allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.

The federal agency also is examining the sheriff's jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills. The sheriff's office has repeatedly denied allegations of racial profiling.

Timothy Casey, an attorney for the sheriff's office, has asked for the civil lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that those who filed the case lack standing to show they face a threat of future injury from the sweeps and people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had violated a law.

"The undisputed evidence in this case demonstrates that each of the plaintiffs' respective traffic stops was made on either probable cause or reasonable suspicion as required," Casey wrote, noting that there was no evidence that deputies had discriminatory intent in stopping the people who filed the lawsuit.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/04/sheriff-joe-arpaio-fires-2-deputies-reports-racism-office-emerges/ .

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