Patterico's Pontifications

9/11/2019

On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, New York Times Still Can’t Name The Perpetrators

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:17 am



[guest post by Dana]

Today marks the 18th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks:

The September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11) were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.

Everyone of a certain age remembers where they were and what they were doing when the towers were hit. Overwhelmed with disbelief and anger, we talked about it for days and weeks and months until we were eventually forced to concede that everything was changed from that day forward. A modern-day awakening to the very real evil that exists, not just “out there,” but here, in our own small worlds where we quietly go about our business. In this, we no longer see through a glass, darkly; from that day forward, now, face to face.

I read that, just days ago, Gov. Cuomo signed legislation making it the law that all New York public schools hold a moment of silence on the future anniversaries of Sept. 11 so that students who weren’t yet born, would know what happened. In other words, “making remembrance the law”:

On Monday, just two days before the 18th anniversary of 9/11, Cuomo established the “September 11th Remembrance Day.”

“9/11 was one of the single darkest periods in this state’s and this nation’s history, and we owe it to those we lost and to the countless heroes who ran toward danger that day and the days that followed to do everything we can to keep their memory alive,” Cuomo said.

“By establishing this annual day of remembrance and a brief moment of silence in public schools, we will help ensure we never forget — not just the pain of that moment but of the courage, sacrifice and outpouring of love that defined our response,” he continued, adding the law is being put in place to encourage dialogue in classrooms.

One hopes that this keeps each and every generation coming up through the school ranks, at least aware of that fateful day. Of course one also hopes that between parents and teachers, there will be every effort made to accurately inform students of what took place, without whitewashing the evil because we are so desperate to go back to that place of innocence that no longer exists. Perhaps, unlike the New York Times, there will be an effort made toward the blunt truth because knowledge is indeed a powerful tool, and one that every American deserves to have. Clearly, though, judging from this morning’s now-deleted tweet, the New York Times is just not there yet:

Untitled

When are 2,753 deaths not “nearly 3,000 deaths,” but rather “more than 2,000 deaths”? When do airplanes take aim into specific buildings to deliberately kill as many innocent lives as possible? The effort to whitewash the truth on this day is a travesty. After the push back and ridicule began, the tweet was deleted. However, the misleading wording in the article remained:

Finally, shame had its way, sort of:

Eighteen years have passed since terrorists commandeered airplanes to take aim at the World Trade Center and bring them down.

Eighteen years later, and what others think still matters more than the hard truth.

Radical Muslim Extremists. Just say it, NYT.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

88 Responses to “On 18th Anniversary of 9/11, New York Times Still Can’t Name The Perpetrators”

  1. Radical Muslim Extremists. Just say it, NYT.

    Dana (fdf131)

  2. Skynet was responsible.

    JRM (de6363)

  3. This woman can show the NYT how to get it done…

    https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1171644976490569730

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  4. I’ll bet you guys want to know what Cute Crazy Hippy Crystal Chick Marianne Williamson has sent out to her donors today. Here’s her message:

    Dear JVW,

    None of us will ever forget where we were on 9/11, or how we learned about the attacks on our country. Our hearts, and our innocence, were shattered on that awful day.

    One of the kindest women I’ve ever known, Berry Berenson, was on a morning flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Today I think of her, and the thousands like her, who lost their lives in such a horrible way I think of her devastated children, and all the other 9/11 family members who had to endure the harrowing experience of losing them.

    September 11 is a painful anniversary. We share a collective grief on this day, but it is a grief that is significant. Every year, let’s dedicate ourselves more and more fully to creating a world in which such things no longer happen.

    Is it possible to do that? I am reminded of an old rabbinical statement: “You are not obligated to complete the task, but neither are you permitted to abandon it.”

    We might not achieve all we would wish to achieve in our lives, but we can move things closer to the goal. Our lives are not defined by what we achieve so much as by what we try our best to achieve. As citizens of the United States, may we try our best to “achieve a more perfect union.” As citizens of the world, may we try our best to achieve a more peaceful world.

    Today, we live with a meaningful sorrow. May those who lost their lives on 9/11 live on with God in eternal peace, may those who still mourn them be comforted, and may all of us be deepened by the indelible memory, and the painful lessons, of this day in our shared history.

    May we be the ones to change things.

    With love,
    Marianne

    JVW (54fd0b)

  5. JRM beat me to “Skynet,” as if somehow the planes became self-conscious and, without reason, steered the jetliners directly at the financial and political centers of this country.
    The obvious reason they went that way is because the perpetrators were militant Islamists who committed those evils to glorify their god and prophet, and the liberals there have a bad case of Islamophbia-phobia, i.e., they have an irrational fear of being called Islamophobes.

    Paul Montagu (dfd657)

  6. Whoa, Im impressed, Colonel – if there is a Mount Rushmore of “wig wearers”, Rex Chapman is certainly on it.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  7. Making ‘remembrance a law’ is no biggie. See November 11 for details.

    ‘Course, OTOH, “remembrance” is a more or less a generational transient; a matter peculiar to the living at hand. My young niece and nephew- in their 20’s and both smart engineers- and infants for 9/11- have zero interest in contemporary history and have found little use for it- memorizing dates and such- as a practical tool in competing for jobs these days.

    Remember the Crash of ’29? My grandparents did; Wall Street mostly doesn’t and has to relearn it every 20 years or so. Remember the Maine? Not much– if at all, these days. Gettysburg? Without Lincoln’s speech as a benchmark, it’s lost on the living. How about VE or VJ Day? To my grandparents they were marked yearly. To me, just another pair of work days. And Pearl Harbor? Well, the ‘Day of Infamy’ is fading fast into history as well as survivors die off. And to those under 50, remembering Apollo 11 means those that do are old; roughly 70% of Americans alive today weren’t around for it in ’69– and Memorial Day means a three-day-weekend to pretty much everybody. It’s just the way we are.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  8. This woman can show the NYT how to get it done…

    You know, we really need to get over this shaming of peoples who loves their cousins.

    Einstein and Marić married in January 1903. In May 1904, their son Hans Albert Einstein was born in Bern, Switzerland. Their son Eduard was born in Zürich in July 1910. The couple moved to Berlin in April 1914, but Marić returned to Zürich with their sons after learning that Einstein’s chief romantic attraction was his first and second cousin Elsa

    PTw (894877)

  9. Nice post: its lamentable–pathetic–that the NYT can’t name it. Won’t name it. Downplays it. Almost 3,000 of our fellow Americans lost.

    But #8, DCSCA, look on the bright side: schools diligently teach kids that the two things you need to know about WWII, are the internment (show photos and provide anecdotes), and the atom-bombing of Japan (with stories and anecdotes). And you only need to know that the US is racist. So those will be remembered.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  10. Bush flew the planes.

    Dave (1bb933)

  11. 10… The public schools leave a lot of teaching of important historical events to the parents of their students. As a parent, I learned that long ago.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  12. sadly so, but they know all 57 genders, you know the important things, and thanks to the Pulitzer center they’ll know slavery was responsible for subprime mortgages or something,

    narciso (d1f714)

  13. R.I.P. T. Boone Pickens

    Oil$ well that end$ well.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  14. Dear Marianne,

    As citizens of the United States, may we try our best to “achieve a more perfect union.” As citizens of the world, may we try our best to achieve a more peaceful world. But surely we know that the perpetrators of this horrific massacre are not remotely interested in achieving anything but their own perverse goals of killing infidels. Never forget.

    With love,

    Eyes Wide-Open American

    Dana (fdf131)

  15. 15: +++

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  16. @12. In addition to basic U.S. and world history, we were ‘forced’ to learn British history, given our locale, back in the day- which, at the time, seemed quite an unjust burden and utterly useless, particularly as it was lengthy and quite tedious. But then, as much of the construct of it was literally all around us as well– it turned out to be a great education and much of it still retained and appreciated. The niece and nephew told me that in their schools they simply didn’t bother to teach detailed ‘history’ classes and their parents literally taught it to them through some card games and board games.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  17. old habits (from 1972) die hard,

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/268645?

    narciso (d1f714)

  18. When are 2,753 deaths not “nearly 3,000 deaths,” but rather “more than 2,000 deaths”?

    I think the number 2,753 (it’s a little higher – 2,977, not including the
    hijackers) does not include those whow died at the Pentagon and on Flight 93.

    When you subtract them both I thought the number probably goes down below 2,500, but the tota;l is 2,606 – closer to 3,000 than to 2,000.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks

    Why not say “more than 2,500” or “more than 2,600” Somebody couldn’t bother to get more exact figures? The first days after the attaack they weree saying 10,000 bt that was an estimate based on the number of people who had to get out. I think none of the people who went down thought that the buildings could collapse (until very late in the first tower) and that there wss limited time.

    The evacuation went faster than 1993, where it took about 8 hours to empty the buildings. They had rehearsed and changed things, too, like putting tape that illuminsted the area.

    One thing I didn’t like – unlike 1993, they didn’t let any hellicpters rescue people from the roofs.

    The names read out today include the 6 killed in the World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993 and those killed at the Pentagon and on Flight 93. People who worked at thhe site aferwards are now memorialized with inscriptions in a separate new section there, but their names were not read out.

    Sammy Finkelman (8dcc71)

  19. much like the fall out from Hiroshima, the casualties have risen from that dark day, where the towers and all that ground became a funeral pyre of gasoline, asbestos and other toxins,

    narciso (d1f714)

  20. I was watching a 9/11 ceremony once and one of the hosts said “we need to mourn everyone who lost their lives on that day”.

    A few minutes later one of the victims’ daughters got up and said she was only mourning all the people who were murdered that day. They cut to the official and the nitwit was shaking his head like it was the wrong thing to say.

    There are a lot of people out there who think this way. There are even more than a few people who think we deserved it.

    harkin (4a7319)

  21. We get to bomb them, bombing us back is unfair. Never forget bush was given a cia briefing in august 2001 entitled: bin ladin determined to attack in america with airplanes! Dubya’s response ok you have covered your a*s now I off to the ranch!” Congolissa rice said “who could imagine crashing airplanes into building? she was then shown a picture of her walking past an anti aircraft missile battery to shoot down any aircraft trying to crash into the building she was speaking in milan italy august 2001. Never forget the neo-cons like cheney and bolton in progress for a new american century (1999) we will need a second pearl harbor before the american people willow us to attack iraq!

    lany (88aa6b)

  22. 22… That’s as execrable as its author, Tubby Riefenstahl, lany.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  23. You racist, you.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  24. “Congolisa Rice”

    The racism of the Left is remarkable, but no one does.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  25. BTW, the NY Times *does* seem to feel that the attack on the Pentagon wasn’t terrorism and excludes the people killed there (“2753”), and mention of the place, from the list that the “airplanes” attacked.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  26. I think it’s time to crate a site listing all the outright lies of the New York Times. We could call it “The 2753 Project.”

    Kevin M (19357e)

  27. 22: the WTC was bombed in the 90’s; Clinton passed up a chance to do in Osama BL; intelligence received endless tips on proposed use of aircraft to take buildings down; FBI debated longer about accessing laptops of “men” taking suspicious flying lessons, then the Constitutional convention; etc., etc.,

    But yeah: its GWB’s fault that he didn’t do “something” in August to stop an attack in September.

    Harcourt Fenton Mudd (0c349e)

  28. 28 – There used to be a site IIRC run by the Media Research Council called ‘Timeswatch’ that specifically logged the lies from The NY Times.

    Apparently that page was consolidated into their overall site.

    https://www.mrc.org/

    harkin (4a7319)

  29. I was teaching high school in 2001. It was a terrible day, because the overhead television set in the classroom kept playing scenes of the attack, and I couldn’t turn it off. The children were scared.

    What I remember most about that day, however, is the teacher conference some weeks before. It’s the way schools operate these days, at least in Texas anyway–there’s this week of conferences to prepare for the academic year.

    So I’m sitting in this conference, talking with all these other teachers, and the subject of Islamic terrorism came up. How are we to teach about that? I told them a story about a newspaper article I had read, when I was in graduate school.

    Yeah, and this is an absolutely true story. 1995, I picked up a copy of the Austin-American Statesman, and there was this front page story about a terrorist attack that continued to full centerfold map of planes flying into buildings across the United States. Twenty targets were listed, including the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, the White House, and several other targets, like the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Sky Tower in Seattle–it was a map showing planes flying into buildings at major economic and government sites.

    This information had been obtained from the seizure of a laptop found in a terrorist cell in Yemen. But it was all there, the whole attack plan, writ large, in full color, center-fold, dueal-page, hijacked plane flying into buildings on suicide missions all across the country. At the time, I thought, Oh My God! Good thing we know about this plan, so we can prevent it.

    Bill Clinton was president then. GW Bush was governor then. You cannot tell me that they didn’t have knowledge of an impending attack–it was in the freaking newspaper, for God’s sake!

    Yet nothing was done. Terrorists, mostly from Saudi Aria, were allowed to immigrate and attend flight school. Why wasn’t it a red flag that they only took courses for takeoffs but not landings?

    This whole thing stinks to high heaven. It’s an example of ineptitude. You cannot tell me that presidents, governors, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, all the rest, did not know of the imminent threat, because it was reported in the news six years before the event.

    So, I’m talking with these teachers at this conference, and I tell them about this newspaper article I had read, six years before. They laughed at me, thought I was some sort of conspiracy theorist. But then it happened.

    The exact plan that was laid out in the Austin-American Stateman centerfold article took place. Hijacked planes flying into buildings and government sites. They asked, how did you know? I asked, how did you not?

    9-11 was a massive failure of government. All the officials and agencies had all the information they needed to prevent the attack, which they had to know was impending. Yet, they allowed it to happen. Whether that was because of incompetence or ideology is another argument.

    But it looks like ineptitude to me.

    Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1)

  30. 28. There is a website listing all of the NYT’s lies. It’s called “The New York Times website.”

    Gryph (08c844)

  31. 31. “Ineptitude” is putting it quite kindly. Protecting its citizens is one of the most elementary functions of government. The way Rothbardians gloat over the government’s failure in this regard really chaps my hide.

    Gryph (08c844)

  32. Yes, I read that info back then (while in flight on a business trip) and I remember thinking those are some truly evil people to have come up with an ingenious plan like that. And, yes, a total intelligence failure.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  33. It’s beyond absurd that they chose to skirt around even the most neutral, anodyne reference to human agency — and without the kind of rationale that drives the “guns killed people” formula (as I’ll assume they’re not campaigning against airplanes).

    Radegunda (e6c209)

  34. New book, out yesterday: The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, available from Amazon ($14.99 Kindle)

    From the intro:

    Collectively, these narratives help make sense of a day that we, as a country and as a people, are still trying to process. In her oral history of the day, Eve Butler-Gee, who on 9/11 was a clerk in the U.S. House of Representatives, remarked on how fascinated Americans are by their own memories of that day: “I’ve noticed we don’t listen to each other’s stories. We need to tell our story. Someone will start saying, ‘Well, I was such-and-such,’ and the other person will interrupt and talk over and say, ‘Well, I was so-and-so.’ The shock, in many ways, is still embedded in our memories that this thing happened on our shores, in the places where we felt the safest.” Her observation rang true to me throughout this project, as every mention of 9/11 to friends or acquaintances immediately prompted people to pour out their own stories, often with heart-wrenching intimacy. This book is an attempt to listen, to hear others’ stories, to know what it was like to experience the day firsthand, to wrestle with the confusion and the terror.

    The Only Plane in the Sky is not meant to be a precise account of how and why September 11 occurred; groups like the 9/11 Commission devoted years of work and millions of dollars to provide those answers. Instead this book intends to capture how Americans lived that day, how the attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in the skies over Somerset County, Pennsylvania, rippled across lives from coast to coast, from the Twin Towers to an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, and how government and military officials on Capitol Hill, at the White House, in mountain bunkers, at air traffic control centers, and in the cockpit of fighter planes responded in an unprecedented moment to unimaginable horrors.

    As Rosemary Dillard, an American Airlines manager in D.C. whose husband, Eddie, was aboard one of the hijacked flights, said, “I still think that we all walk on eggshells. I don’t think that the young people who will be [reading] this will know the same freedom I knew growing up.”

    Today, that new generation Dillard mentions barely remembers the day itself; 2018 marked the first year military recruits born after 9/11 were deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fall of 2019 will mark the entrance of the first college class born after the attacks. That passage of time makes remembering 9/11 all the more important. Indeed, to understand all that came after, we must first understand what it was like to live through the drama and tragedy that began under the crisp, clear blue skies of Tuesday, September 11, 2001.

    This also ties into the other thread.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  35. there is a method to the madness,

    https://dailycaller.com/2019/09/11/kassam-media-911/

    narciso (d1f714)

  36. 31. What was misisng from that plan was the idea of the hijackers themselves being pilots. No airline pilot, even with agun to his hdead was going to fly his plane intoa building. and besides which, they thought thay had made airplane hijacking impossible.

    Sammy Finkelman (8dcc71)

  37. well they refined the strategy, part of the phillipine constabulary report made it into the 98 pdb,

    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/09/11/seven-year-anniversary-of-september-11th-attack-in-benghazi-libya/

    narciso (d1f714)

  38. I was watching a 9/11 ceremony once and one of the hosts said “we need to mourn everyone who lost their lives on that day”.

    A few minutes later one of the victims’ daughters got up and said she was only mourning all the people who were murdered that day. They cut to the official and the nitwit was shaking his head like it was the wrong thing to say.

    But doesn’t the daughter’s statement exclude, for example, responders who died, like police and firefightgers? Why should we not mourn them?

    Bored Lawyer (423ce8)

  39. The police and firefighters were murdered too.

    nk (dbc370)

  40. now up in Madison, I’m given to understand, they count the hijackers in the casualty count, they should change the name of the place to Guevara or Lumumba,

    narciso (d1f714)

  41. I’ll never forget nor forgive the death cult.

    NJRob (9b9cff)

  42. @44. But you’ll buy and use their petroleum products… you echo the lament of my late grandmother, who refused to own anything ‘Made in Japan’ into the 1980’s– until the day her TV went bad and she had no other choice. Her grandkids just shrugged an plugged in the new Sony for her. And her great-grandkid just vacationed for two weeks… in Japan.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  43. of course, putin along with the French and the germans had made their deal,

    https://freebeacon.com/national-security/biden-tried-to-buy-putins-support-for-iraq-war-with-promise-of-oil-money/

    narciso (d1f714)

  44. So, I’m reading the book I mentioned in #37. It’s really quite good. Between the vignettes of the people involved in NY that day, the recordings from ATC and cell phones, you really get a feeling for the personal heroism and tragedies that happened that day.

    And then there are the ironies, like the woman who was laid off from Cantor Fitzgerald on September 10th, or the guy who had to run out from Windows on the World for something he forgot.

    Kevin M (19357e)

  45. The visit to those towers and the dinner we had one evening at Windows on the World was one of the highlights of a business conference I attended in early Summer of 1988 with my wife along for the trip.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  46. @35. Remember some other “truly evil people who came up with an ingenious plan”…?

    See December 7, 1941 for details.

    These days, they’re a close American ally. Another global buddy set fire to the White House in 1814; do we still damn the British!?!?!

    It’s sadly relative- and transient to generations; time, for better or worse, fogs memories and heals most all wounds. We’re still on speaking terms w/t Saudis– they’re involved with 9/11; Saudi citizens piloted the planes [and more recently, chopped up Khashsoggi.] But lucrative oil and arms deals soothed the pain.

    The world’s a smaller place now, too- and thanks to the 9/11 hijackers targeting the world’s media capitals- NYC and Washington- and not Upper Sandusky, Ohio, they managed a tragic, television spectacular with maximum destructive coverage and reels of replays for years to come– so the deadly details won’t be forgotten or lost to history. But by September 11, 2081, expect that generation to give the 9/11 memory a nod– then press on with the affairs of their time. Doubt very much they’ll spend three hours reading the names of the dead then. It won’t be an event pertinent to their time.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  47. We can apply the NYT‘s method of whitewashing atrocities for lots of things! Like this!

    80 years have passed since trains and gas pellets took aim and brought down Jews in Europe. Today, families will once again gather and grieve at the site where more than 6 million people were killed by inanimate objects.

    Thank you, Paper of Record!

    Paul Montagu (dfd657)

  48. DCSCA That process has been underway and has been led by the mother countries taking an accurate reading of fingers to the wind and getting right. Even farther along than with the Japanese post Ww2 Personally, I think Arabs, Arab Americans, and Muslims (except for Somalis) are less reviled than Hispanics in today’s U.S..

    urbanleftbehind (0d729b)

  49. It’s all relative; the USS Arizona was sunk in 1941– but the memorial to the dead wasn’t erected until 21 years later, in 1962.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  50. 51… no way, José!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  51. @1 It makes the Saudis sad when you call them “Saudi Arabian Wahhabist terrorists.” and then they raise the price of oil, so we can’t do that.

    Nic (896fdf)

  52. The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor was dishonorable, but it was an attack on a military target.

    You can’t compare it to the 9/11 attacks (not even the attack on the Pentagon, which involved deliberate murder of civilians).

    Dave (1bb933)

  53. @55. Except you can, Dave. Civilians were killed in Honolulu. And as 9/11 was considered an ‘act of war’- America used it as an excuse to wage a ‘war on terrorism’ from Iraq to Afghanistan and points in between around the globe.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  54. @55. BTW, Dave, a significant percentage of the ‘office space’ in the WTC complex was leased to U.S. government facilitiesnd departments- which to overseas observers, made it a high profile ‘target.’

    Spent a lot of time at the WTC. Did my banking there; some shopping as well; most folks weren’t aware of how truly large it was and the levels below ground containing a massive mall, the famed ‘escalator wall’ and the mass transit hubs to Jersey, the airports and subways to uptown.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  55. 56… the decision to “go to war” – regardless whether or not one thinks it wise – couldn’t be said to have used the attacks on 9/11 as “an excuse”. What was done that day was an act of war and it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise, there had been warnings for years. The punishment dealt Afghanistan for the Taliban’s support of/shelter provided to the perps was a legitimate response to that heinous act. After the initial phase of this war, in hindsight, the decision to nation build was a mistake, as was (arguably) the decision to wage war in Iraq, IMO.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  56. A side note… last night, my wife and I were treated to a FaceTime session with our granddaughter, who has just started kindergarten. She had learned to sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag” (complete with cute little stepping and hand waving), which was taught to her by a very thoughtful kindergarten teacher. Our granddaughter was so proud of it, she sang it twice.

    Given the significance of the date – and the fact that she is simply adorable – it brought tears to our eyes.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  57. Civilians were killed in Honolulu.

    The Japanese did not target civilians, and their plan took reasonable care to avoid hitting them. Not out of any solicitude for innocent life, of course, but because civilian targets had no value to them.

    And as 9/11 was considered an ‘act of war’

    Irrelevant to my point.

    They were both acts of war, but one was an attack on legitimate military targets that had the means to defend themselves and should have been prepared to do so, and the other was deliberate murder of defenseless civilians.

    Dave (1bb933)

  58. Wonderful coronello, all hope is not lost, i taught in the schools so im a little jaundiced.

    Narciso (9b9220)

  59. Thanks, narciso!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  60. @58. True- they were telegraphing intent over the years -stove-piping intel the flaw- and lack of imagination as well. It was a legitimate ‘excuse’ to retaliate to be sure– just deciding who and where was the fog of it; coddling the Saudis remains wrong-headed; Iraq was the mistake; nation-building a folly but hunting down Bin Laden essential- Bush took his eye off the ball on that element. But a policy of ‘perpetual war’ is unaffordable.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  61. @60. On the contrary, it’s wholly relevant. And BTW, the Japan of that era routinely ‘targeted civilians’- see Manila and Shanghai for details.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  62. Stephen Miller
    @redsteeze
    CNN thought it was a good on 9/11, to run a segment telling everyone the people who murdered 3,000 innocent Americans with hijacked airplanes on 9/11, weren’t actually the real threat. You really love your paycheck
    @JohnAvlon
    __ _

    Randy
    @KiltedRef

    If “right-wingers” are terrorists, then I guess I am in good company. The British started to seize guns and ammunition of the American Colonists in 1774. The Revolutionaries were considered Terrorists by the British. I’ll be happy to be compared to Adams, Washington, & Hancock!
    _

    harkin (58d012)

  63. That’s a great story, Col. Haiku. I’m surprised that they permit a song about the flag! Offensive to non-Americans and all that.
    //
    N. Harkos pretty much told the NYT and the Congresswoman to gth today, and I’m glad of it. I’m surprised Cuomo passed that law, but I’m glad of that too. I refuse to let it be replaced by the goofball “day of service” that Obama started.

    Patricia (3363ec)

  64. Thx, Patricia! Mr. Harkos did NOT hold back, said what needed to be said.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  65. Super awesomeness, Col. grandkids ROCK.

    mg (8cbc69)

  66. Yes they do, mg!

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  67. We should put “Falling Man” on a stamp. With REMEMBER right above FOREVER

    Kevin M (19357e)

  68. Since I told everyone what Crazy Cute Hippy Crystal Chick emailed to her followers earlier today, it’s only fair that I let you know what My Little Aloha Sweetie emailed us earlier this evening:

    JVW –

    Eighteen years ago, our nation was attacked by al-Qaeda.

    Thousands were killed, and today, we honor their memory. Those just getting to work that day. Children getting dropped off at daycare. The first responders who rushed into the crumbling towers. We will never forget the heroes who sacrificed their lives to save others. And we must always honor the memory of those lost on that terrible day.

    After September 11, President Bush stood in the rubble of the Twin Towers and said we would never forget, we would seek out and destroy those responsible, his rallying cry:

    “Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”

    He declared that we would be at war with these terrorists.

    Moved by this rallying cry, like thousands of other patriots, I made the decision to use my life to defend the safety, security, and freedom of the American people, to put on the uniform of our country. I was determined to defeat and destroy the evil that visited us on September 11th.

    But our leaders failed us. They used the attack on 9/11 to set in motion a series of disastrous regime change wars, toppling dictators, and engaged in nation-building overseas.

    We should have focused our attention and the full power of our resources on defeating al-Qaeda. But we didn’t. Instead, we have spent our precious time, money, and lives overthrowing authoritarian governments and nation-building. We toppled Iraq strongman Saddam Hussein; Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi; and are still trying to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — yet none of these dictators had anything to do with the 9/11 attack or posed any threat to the United States.

    These regime change wars have cost us dearly. Countless precious lives lost, families destroyed, trillions of dollars, unimaginable death, pain and suffering in the Middle East. They have created a refugee crisis, and strengthened al-Qaeda — all of which have undermined our national security.

    Now, al-Qaeda and its offshoots and affiliates like ISIS, al-Shabab, HTS, and al-Nusra, are stronger and more dangerous than they were on 9/11. Their strength is not in spite of our best efforts and policies, but rather, because of the shortsighted regime change wars we have undertaken.

    It’s time to stop this insanity.

    Tens of thousands of my brothers and sisters who answered our nation’s call to service have lost their lives and limbs in these wars. As president, I will honor their memory and the thousands we lost on 9/11 by changing course.

    As President, I will end our foolish counterproductive foreign policy of carrying out regime change wars and nation-building. I will work to end the new Cold War and arms race between the United States, Russia, and China — a Cold War which will inevitably result in nuclear annihilation. I will focus our country’s resources on keeping Americans safe and rebuilding our own nation right here at home.

    Regime change wars are wars of choice.

    The war against ISIS, al-Qaeda, and their affiliates is not a war of choice — it’s a war they started and will continue to wage against us. None of us want war. We all want peace. But, unfortunately, it is not possible for us to unilaterally end this war. Either we defeat them, including their ideology, or they will defeat us. But united, we can never be defeated. So, let us come together in the common spirit of love for our country and for each other, to defend our nation, our freedom, our future.

    For the love of our country,
    Tulsi Gabbard

    Now I don’t agree with her 100% on her philosophy, but as she wrote, she answered the call to service so I take her thoughts on the matter much more seriously than I take those of Joe Biden, who is busy lying about his opposition to the Iraq War, the rest of the Democrat clown car, or President Invite the Taliban to Camp David.

    (A quick note on Pete Buttigieg, who has also served the country in uniform: I frankly am more impressed with Little Aloha Sweetie, who joined in 2003 at age 22, than I am with Mayor Tiresome Theologian who joined at age 27 in 2009.)

    ((A second side note: we have two Presidential candidates who were born in the same years as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lil Wayne, and Nicki Minaj. Stop and think about that for a moment.))

    JVW (54fd0b)

  69. I don’t think we actually spent many resources on Gaddafi post 9/11. She’s not wrong on Hussein and Assad though.

    Nic (896fdf)

  70. And BTW, the Japan of that era routinely ‘targeted civilians’- see Manila and Shanghai for details.

    Irrelevant again. We were talking about Pearl Harbor.

    Dave (1bb933)

  71. yet none of these dictators had anything to do with the 9/11 attack or posed any threat to the United States.

    This is like saying we should have left Hitler alone because he had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

    Regime change wars are wars of choice.

    Right, and when the regime supports terrorism and flouts restrictions on WMD possession and research, the choice is: hit them over there or wait for them to hit us over here.

    Dave (1bb933)

  72. never trumpers and the ny times are a match made with the devil.

    mg (8cbc69)

  73. This is like saying we should have left Hitler alone because he had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

    We did. It was Hitler who reluctantly* declared war on the United States pursuant to the Tripartite Pact (Axis) with Japan. Reluctantly, because he was already committed in Russia and he needed a new Western front like he needed a hole in the head. The Japanese repaid him by preserving their nonaggression pact with Stalin, the sneaky little Tojos, which allowed Stalin to divert his troops in the East to oppose the Germans at Moscow and Stalingrad.

    *Hitler had also tried to dissuade Mussolini from invading Greece the previous years but then went in and saved his prosciutto even though it delayed Barbarossa — fatally as it turned out.

    nk (dbc370)

  74. You’ve got that wrong, mg. Trumpkins and Democrats are the Devil’s armies arrayed against all that is good and decent in America.

    nk (dbc370)

  75. We did. It was Hitler who reluctantly* declared war on the United States pursuant to the Tripartite Pact (Axis) with Japan.

    The Tripartite Pact was defensive. If the US had attacked Japan, Germany and Italy were obligated to come to Japan’s defense. Hitler in fact declared war on the US enthusiastically, celebrating the event with a long-winded and bombastic speech in the Reichstag, but apart from pinprick acts of terrorism against shipping in the Atlantic, he was no threat to the US. And yet we still sent millions of troops to Europe and waged a “regime change war” against him and Musso.

    The Japanese repaid him by preserving their nonaggression pact with Stalin, the sneaky little Tojos, which allowed Stalin to divert his troops in the East to oppose the Germans at Moscow and Stalingrad.

    It was really the Germans who jerked the Japanese around diplomatically. First, despite the Anti-Comintern Pact, they signed the infamous non-aggression treaty with Stalin just days after the Russians had finished beating up the Japanese in the border clash at Nomonhan. The pro-German Japanese prime minister resigned as a result. And then in the spring of 1941 they told the visiting Japanese Foreign Minister nothing about imminent attack on Russia, and he went on to sign Japan’s own non-aggression pact with Stalin on his way home.

    Dave (1bb933)

  76. According to my kids, the topic of 9/11 didn’t come up in school yesterday. I think that’s sad.

    Munroe (732181)

  77. Thank you, Dave, for the Nomonhan reference. Enlightening.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  78. My ex-wife, on her game in the classroom, dragooned my daughter into helping her prepare extensive 9-11 commemoratory/educational material….and its a class full of “those da– bilingual kids”.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  79. never trumpers and the ny times are a match made with the devil.

    Always-Trumpers revere the guy who responded to a question on 9/11/2001 by bragging that he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan (which wasn’t even true), and who claimed that he personally went to the site to help out (which no one saw), and who used his most recent commemorative speech and official tweet to boost himself, and who was more focused on complaining about people who didn’t serve his ego than in remembering the victims.

    It’s entirely possible to notice the weird PC evasions in the NYT and to recognize that Donald Trump is a chronic liar and pathological narcissist who lacks empathy and puts an ugly face on the concept of being a conservative, and who is increasingly irrational in speech and unstable in behavior.

    Radegunda (1ad3e8)

  80. they aren’t churning out the Pulitzer 1619 package yet are they,

    narciso (d1f714)

  81. “It’s entirely possible to notice the weird PC evasions in the NYT and to recognize that Donald Trump is a chronic liar and pathological narcissist who lacks empathy and puts an ugly face on the concept of being a conservative, and who is increasingly irrational in speech and unstable in behavior.”

    Yes, you’ve proved that.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  82. @73.Except it’s not. Wasting electrons won’t help your POV.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  83. 87. Radegunda (1ad3e8) — 9/12/2019 @ 9:18 am

    Always-Trumpers revere the guy who responded to a question on 9/11/2001 by bragging that he now owned the tallest building in Manhattan (which wasn’t even true),

    he claimed he now owned the tallest building n Lower Manhattan (the walll Street area and nearby) but that wasn’t correct either.

    The September 11, attacks did destroy his dream of building the tallest building in the world (in Chicago) although of course, that might have nto financial difficulties anyway – maybe not too much/

    But it seems like Donald Trump wasn’t in Chicago on September 11, 2001, in spite of what was reported in TIME Magazine in 2004 and reprinted in TIME Almanac 2006 (I later traced it back to the original 2004 article, but I did not find any other confirmation of that.)

    From page 443, of the TIME 2006 Almanac: (which I stumbled upon by accident)

    On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Adrian D. Smith, a well-known architect in the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, was in a meeting with Donald Trump. The hyperbolic New York City developer was in Chicago to go over the design of a proposed Trump residential tower in that city that he decided should be – what else! – the tallest building in the world, around 2,000 ft. In the midst of their meeting, the two men got word of the first plane that hit the World Trade Center. “When the second plane hit, we all rushed to the television to see what was happening,” says Smith. “That was the end of the meeting.” And also the end of the 2,000 ft tower. A few weeks later, Trump’s people came back with a revised proposal – at 900 ft. or so.

    Of course, insurance and accounting factors were involved.

    The Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago was completed in 2009 at 1,389 feet. It was circa 2015 number 16 on one list of the world’s tallest buildings.

    Unless that is wrong – but TIME magazine had a source, apparently Chicago architect Adrian D. Smith, unless the TIME Maagaxine reporter did not decipher his notes correctly, and Adrian D. Smith was not the source of the claim that Donald Trump was there with him in Chicago.

    Anyway, that story of Donald Trump being in Chicago on September 11, 2001 hasn’t been repeated anywhere, and Trump has seemed to say he was in New York – although he’s only indicated, if you oay close attention, that he was down there near Ground Zero a few days later.

    And the rest he saw on television. But in the Chicago version, they also watched it on television there)

    and who claimed that he personally went to the site to help out (which no one saw),

    He didn’t really say that – that he went to help- and he would have gone down there to assess the damage to his building.

    By the way, the tallest buildings in the world are now in the Far East, or in the Arab world, and
    The World Trade Center towers were not the tallest buildings in the world in 2001. That was the Sears tower (now the Willis tower) which is now ranked number 12 behind also the new 1 World Trade Center. It’s not really a wonder that some people thought the Sears Tower was next. But it wasn’t – it was the Pentagon or the Capitol dome. (I’m not sure of the order in which the last two planes were originally supposed to hit their targets, but there may be a good guess in the report of the 9/11 commission.)

    Sammy Finkelman (8dcc71)

  84. You sure about that:

    https://youtu.be/aoYXihwcp8c

    Narciso (9b9220)

  85. This is a german tv broadcast.

    Narciso (9b9220)


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