Marking 10 Years Since 9/11/2001 804
10 years ago today, coordinated terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. killed nearly 3,000 people. It wasn't the first terrorist attack directed against the U.S., or even on U.S. soil, but it was the deadliest, and came at a time of relative peace. Probably most people reading this remember where and how they heard the news. We've often discussed the consequences of the attack: security cordons, ID checks and metal detectors where none existed before, a reexamination of how U.S. policy affects international perception and attitudes, and the encroachment of surveillance policies and technology, to name a few. Today, we don’t want to inundate you with links to tributes and retrospectives, so we’ll offer the only thing we can: a look back at how the day unfolded here. Our thoughts are with everyone who lost friends and family members.
Nice summary, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I try to remember the thousands upon thousands of civillians in the Middle East who have perished, as well as the poor souls in America.
I'm sick of that aspect being completely ignored so often by Western Media.
My hat is off, hand on heart - to all of the victims of the event, and the consequences.
Would love to be able to fly without being treated like a criminal though.
The original thread (Score:4, Interesting)
10 years later (Score:5, Interesting)
I sure didn't think i'd be spending the ten year anniversary of 9/11 in Afghanistan... but here I am. strange how life works out. i remember on that day, i wanted nothing more then to find the people who'd done it and make them pay... i wasn't in the military back then.
now, i'm here, they know they've won, we've announced our intentions to leave(surrender) and they attack almost daily. their(Islamists) resolve is stronger then ever. ours(average US citizen) is pathetically weak and short sighted. though, it's not like we have any direction or a plan to get behind.
nope, never thought ten years later, this would be happening.
I was reading slashdot that morning... (Score:4, Interesting)
For some reason, this is the only place that it doesn't bother me to see the 10-year anniversary stuff. I can very clearly remember reading slashdot in an office when news of this began to spread.
What a terrible tragedy the event was.
And what a terrible tragedy the last ten years of response to it has been.
Some recollections (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in 10th grade German class when we got the announcement. I remember not grasping the significance of the news until I saw the look of fear on my teacher's face. I hopped on the school network to try to get updates. I was moderately successful... most sites were down, CNN was a 50/50 shot, and so much of my news that day came in through reading updates and comments on Slashdot, at least until we were allowed to go to the library (the one place in our school that had cable TV).
I'm fearful that we've squandered quite a bit of the opportunity (not the right word, I know) that the tragedy bought us in the following months and years. Instead of making amends with the world, I fear we've gotten involved in three endless wars and brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy, both fiscally and morally.
As one commenter put it, in perhaps the most chillingly precognitive Slashdot comment of all time [slashdot.org]: "The biggest casualty will probably be our Constitution. Whenever a tragedy likes this occurs, the government always announces a get tough on terrorists policy that will have no effect on the psychopaths who do this, but will severely limit our rights.
"The huge loss of life is bad enough. The subsequent loss of what truly represents what this country stands for will be intolerable."
Re:and the saddest thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:and the saddest thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The terrorists won, beyond their wildest dreams (Score:5, Interesting)
The Onion has an article joking that Americans enjoy remembering 9/11 more than we enjoy remembering the 10 years since. It's true, and you can hardly blame us. On 9/11, despite the pain and fear, we saw scenes from around the world of people weeping along with us, or standing firmly in solidarity with us, because they saw this attack on the US as an attack on civilized people everywhere. Sure, there were some assholes cheering here and there, but there was also the Queen of England having "The Star Spangled Banner" played at Buckingham Palace, and countless makeshift US flags and signs saying things like "we are all Americans today" being waved at vigils in the streets around the world.
Then George W. Bush – with the support of the American people – pissed all over that goodwill, to the point that the Nobel committee eagerly handed the Peace Prize to the new guy when "regime change" finally happened.
I wrote this [toddverbeek.com] on 9/12/2001. I sent it in to the local newspaper, and they ran it on the front page of the Opinion section the following Sunday, next to a big picture of Osama Bin Laden and an article about what America would do in response. As my words were being read, they were already being ignored. Fear and Hatred won.
Re:Keep Calm and Carry On (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that a referrer link? Are you really trying to make a quick buck off 9-11?
He just made one mistake (Score:5, Interesting)
The Russians had publicity in the west against them so they pulled out of a war that was nothing but negative press to them.
The US was making that bad press and funding the war against the russians.
The Russians may be laughing their ass of at the mess the US has gotten itself into BUT they are not going to aid the taliban just to piss of the Americans.
The US may not be winning the war but they sure as hell are thinning out the Taliban. There is reason the Taliban is using more and more terror tactics in Afghanistan, they are running out of capable recruits.
What you may not have heard is that just after 9/11 the Taliban fielded a fairly capable army and was using traditional war strategies against the Afghani government. They are no longer capable of it. That is not to say the war has been won but you got to have a LOT of hatred to join up for what is practically a suicide mission. Suicide bombers you say? Count them. They have a horrific impact but are totally incapable of being used in any sensible military tactics. Post 9/11 people feared an uprising, the beginning of a new war... but where is the hatred? Just recently Libyan's were shown kissing the US flag for the aid in helping liberate their country. Oh, the US involvement there is far from clean BUT Osama cried for Muslims around the world to rally to a common cause and for 9 years, the answer was silence. There are plenty of individuals with enough hatred but terrorism is hardly new. IRA, Basks, German radicals. There are always going to be people who want to force their minority opinion through violence.
The western world has payed dearly for the war but the price payed on the side of the extremists is far far higher. Their leadership is in ruins, new plots are half-assed and stopped routinely and worsed off all. When the uprising finally started, it was peaceful and directed against Muslim rulers with so far precious little input from extreme Islam. This is not what Osama was dreaming off.
And those who cry about how the west is fighting itself... metal detectors? They have been at airports for decades. Just because the US allowed internal flights to be boarded from the runway by anybody taking anything they wanted doesn't mean that this is the norm. I was search 30 years ago on a boat trip to the UK for crying out load. Maybe the US just needed a wake-up call in general.
As for hatred against the US? There seems to be more hatred amongst rich white boys from the American suburbs then say in Egypt or Tunisia or Libya. Remember the protests in Iran. The ones happening in Syria? Against the evil imparislists! Oh, wait no... they are protesting against their own leaders, leaders who try to use the US as the great Satan and their people are rejecting it.
No, 9/11 saw big changes in the world but I doubt Osama is very pleased with them... even if he was still alive.
But kiddies like you wish to see the world burn and use their own fears to put hatred into other peoples mind, even if those other people got far more important things to worry about. Read the real news for a change, not Fox or the BBC, both are extremists wishing to color the news to suit their agenda but the real news. What real people living real life are thinking.
Hunter S Thompson on 9/11 (Score:5, Interesting)
The best writing I've seen on 9/11 was by Hunter S. Thompson. Hunter knew how the US government worked, and foresaw just about everything that has happened since right from the start:
Re:I was using Yahoo! News at the time. (Score:5, Interesting)
The trucker union, the Teamsters, has some power, but it's not even enough to protect their pensions - let alone force the US to choose roads and airports over rails. The power is in the vehicle makers: car and truck makers, airplane makers. And of course the oil corps. Those corporations have been calling the shots since Henry Ford, and are the ones who tore up America's rail [wikipedia.org] to replace with roads and cars. Those are the orgs that set up Houston, Oil City, the way you hate - not the unions.
You can tell me about how your family oil business knows there's so much oil left to drill, yet despite getting royalty-free drilling land practically wherever they ask, their industry doesn't drill. Except maybe when getting Federal money from the rest of us to multiply their profits. The actual unlimited supply is self-serving lies about where oil is or isn't coming from oil companies with agendas to maximize profit by increasing demand and decreasing supply. I know they're your family, but if they're like mine or any other family I know, they'll tell you the same lies they tell themselves that protect what they do that they know is wrong.
I can tell you from direct experience that NYC building owners don't invest in their operating capital even when the ROI is, as I told you, close to 100% or better, except when the government both forces them and pays them to do it. It doesn't make sense. But that's because economics is not like electronics, where consistency and actual value rule the actors. Economics is a measure of people's exchanges of value with each other and their environment. Which means it's governed by human social psychology, not primarily by the potential and limits of the material being exchanged. Despite their deserved reputation of being the worlds most determined capitalists, NYC building owners refuse to make rational investment decisions all the time. It's not because of property/zoning laws/regulations. It's because they are used to increasing profits only by cutting immediate costs (like cheaper maintenance workers) or by reducing the supply of real estate against the constantly increasing demand for it. Purely rational people would change despite what they're used to when there's double or triple digit ROIs from investing in necessary costs they have to pay anyway (boiler upgrades and fuel). Building owners don't change, because they wait for everyone around them to change, or to be forced to change, or to be paid to change - or all of them usually.
Again, this is not some kind of guess at what might happen. Also, your statement that the rich in NYC are taxed so much that they flee to other states is just a lie. Except for the extremely rich who move across the state line to Connecticut. It's not that they're taxed so much in NYC, but that they're taxed so little in CT. So when rivers overflow in predictable storms, they're surrounded by a moat their private airlifts have to get across with food and diesel for their generators. Because without taxes and working government their infrastructure, like roads, powerlines and drainage, can't withstand the changes their businesses are making. They are the tiny minority. NYC is full of the richest people in the world, not despite the taxation but because of the services it pays for. And every day more rich people come here, to pay the taxes and consume the services.
FYI, NASA is not a good example to contest government leading energy efficiency, because building efficiency is not rocket science. NASA as run by either a Republican president or Congress or both for the past couple of generations is like any other large government procurement system: corporate welfare for those who sell by the part# through their DC lobbyists. NYC law, like practically all energy efficiency regulations these days, requires only performance standards and energy improvement results (or just standardized reporting in physical units).
I'm always fascinated by the people whose entire career
Re:fuck the usa (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:9/11, reflecting on Americans acting the Coward (Score:0, Interesting)
I'm tired of reading and hearing the bogus argument that more Americans are killed by drunk drivers, heart attacks, etc. than terrorist attacks. Of course they are, but that is totally irrelevant. Eating to moderation and getting exercise are personal responsibilities, something that individuals should be able to handle themselves. The government has some responsibility for protecting citizens against drunk drivers and unsafe food and building practices, and that's why we have DWI enforcement, USDA and restaurant inspections, building codes and inspections. The key is that these are localized threats and are well handled by local law enforcement and by the Federal and state government civil bureaucracies.
Terrorism as practiced by groups like Al Qaida is much different. Al Qaida is a military organization with a global reach that has essentially declared war on the United States (as well as dozens of others governments, it seems). One of the core responsibilities of government is to defend its citizenry against military threats. But terrorists don't stop at attacking our military installations; by definition, they aim to kill thousands of civilians at a time as part of a campaign of psychological warfare. To say that we don't need a DHS, greatly increased security at airports and subway stations, etc. is ridiculous. Al Qaida would love it if we went back to our pre-9/11 levels of security (which was mostly aimed at common criminals). They would continue with their 9/11 style attacks on airplanes, the shoe bombing attacks that Richard Reid blew the cover on later, the London subway bombings, the Mumbai hotel massacre, etc, with the goal of getting Americans to believe that government was incapable of protecting them. Like a schoolyard bully, they will continue until they are effectively confronted and stopped.
But wait, some say, that's exactly the behavior the bully was hoping for! That means they won! Well, OK, if "winning" means they got punched in the mouth, I guess they did. Bin Laden can go back to his house in Abbottobad and celebrate.
My last day of work at the WTC was 9/10/01 (Score:3, Interesting)
I left work at 5 WTC at 9 PM on Monday 9/10/01. So I had planned to go to work late on Tuesday. I woke up in Midtown to my phone ringing off the hook on 9/11/01.
It was a beautiful evening that Monday. I remember turning around and looking at a lone guitarist in the dark in the plaza, under that Fritz Koenig "Sphere" sculpture. I looked up at the towers, then got in the subway.
Those who were killed were not responsible for foreign policy. If you cannot comment on this event without prattling away about foreign policy, I think you are part of the problem in the world. You don't champion the suffering of some by denigrating the suffering of others, you are simply choose sides in a stupid tribal chest thumping match. If you are truly a person of principles, rather than just another voice in the endless turf war, you will see all suffering as a moment to reach for nobler sentiments than the heartlessness you see in these comments.
Re:9/11, reflecting on Americans acting the Coward (Score:4, Interesting)
Terrorism as practiced by groups like Al Qaida is much different. Al Qaida is a military organization with a global reach that has essentially declared war on the United States (as well as dozens of others governments, it seems). One of the core responsibilities of government is to defend its citizenry against military threats. But terrorists don't stop at attacking our military installations; by definition, they aim to kill thousands of civilians at a time as part of a campaign of psychological warfare. To say that we don't need a DHS, greatly increased security at airports and subway stations, etc. is ridiculous. Al Qaida would love it if we went back to our pre-9/11 levels of security (which was mostly aimed at common criminals). They would continue with their 9/11 style attacks on airplanes, the shoe bombing attacks that Richard Reid blew the cover on later, the London subway bombings, the Mumbai hotel massacre, etc, with the goal of getting Americans to believe that government was incapable of protecting them. Like a schoolyard bully, they will continue until they are effectively confronted and stopped.
Americans poured out their blood and tears over the past 200+ years to gain essential freedoms and liberties. Ripping up the fourth and fifth amendment because a bunch of sheep herders can on rare occasion kill a few Americans is pure cowardice. We don't respond violently to each and every little trivial threat, and terrorist fall firmly in the 'trivial threat' category. For the same reason why I would HOPE that Americans would be against random warrantless searches of their homes in attempt to capture more normal criminals, I would hope that they can get a handle on their mewing cowardly fright of an extremely rare way to die, and respond in the same way when confront with terrorism.
There are lots of things we could do to marginally increase our safety. We don't do most of them because it isn't worth the cost. A brutal Soviet style police state has less violent crime. We reject that sort of police state because we are willing to tolerate a little more crime in exchange for liberty. Our courts are biased to let guilty people go free because we don't want to jail innocent people. Terrorism is not magically different. Sure, it is the responsibility of the government to make reasonable efforts to stop terrorist. It sure as shit isn't their responsibility to do it at any cost. The amount we pay in terms of money and liberty to defend against terrorism needs to be balanced by the fact that it is an absurdly rare way for anyone to actually die.
The US has a 200+ year history of bleeding to grow and defend its liberties. We faced down the Soviet Union with one hand tied behind our back in terms of counter espionage because we were so insistent about preserving the liberties that we were fighting for. It is sad and pathetic that when faced with fucking sheep herders that are a couple of centuries behind what the USSR was in terms of population, resources, and technological capability, we promptly shit ourselves and couldn't surrender our liberties against a trivial threat fast enough.
If you want to be a coward, fearful of death due to the absurdly rare chance of being struck down by a terrorist (rather than eating yourself to death), do it quietly. Don't mew and bleat for politicians to piss away MY money and liberty because you can't control your bowels. I appreciate the blood and sacrifices that Americans have made over the past 200+ years to grow and defend their liberty. I don't appreciate sniveling cowards rushing to surrender away what other far more deserving men and women have built.
It is not asking much that you honor the blood and sacrifices made by better and braver men and women than you by making your own tiny and nearly effortless sacrifice of not pissing yourself and bleating to politicians to save you on the rare occasion that a terrorist manages to kill a trivial and minuscule portion of the population. If previous Americans co
Re:fuck the usa (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My last day of work at the WTC was 9/10/01 (Score:0, Interesting)
I was working in SOHO very close with a perfect view of downtown that day. I watched the first one collapse on a roof near by then decided I couldn't bare to see the other one go so I went back inside to help everyone else trying to organize what we needed to do and if everyone working for us was alive. For awhile a couple co-workers even stayed with me for awhile since their homes either didn't exist anymore, or there was no way in hell anyone was letting them in. Lucky nobody I knew died that day.
Though I've worked just a few blocks from downtown for the last 14 years, it took me 6 years before I felt emotionally okay going downtown again. Truly an experience that has changed me deeply in ways I probably can't describe or understand yet but New York has a way of doing that!
That all said it's a perfect time to comment on everything about that day and reflect not just on the innocent people who lost their lives but of the consequences that caused this and all that has changed since then, politics and foreign policy included. I'm not content with just building moments to our looses I need to know the world of tomorrow will be a better, more thoughtful, intelligent and peaceful world. I do not expect perfect but I want to leave my children a better world and ignoring failures and blindly clinging to traditions doesn't fit my picture of that world.
People shouldn't stay quiet about the causes (Score:2, Interesting)
Firstly, I'm sorry for your loss.
I disagree with what you said about people 'prattling away about foreign policy'. Today should be a day of remembrance and I hope that everyone would be respectful. That being said, the 10th anniversary of the attacks is also an opportunity to look back over the last decade and consider what followed the attacks, whether good choices were made, and what more can be done in future to stop future attacks.
In the past decade there has been so much discussion about taking military and intelligence action and improving security but so little discussion about the US foreign policy which al-Qaeda itself said prompted its actions. There seems to have been a national vow of silence taken in the US, or at least in its media, about the al-Qaeda's stated foreign policy justifications for the attack, it apparently being easier to just repeat that 'they hate our freedom' until it becomes inconceivable that there were - arguably legitimately held, inarguably inexusably expressed - real grievances.
If we're not going to discuss this now, when?