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20 Years After the World Trade Center Attack, a Nation Remembers (slashdot.org) 197

Posted by EditorDavid from the never-forgetting dept.
I first saw the news on the front page of Yahoo.com. But every American remembers where they were when they heard the news. "The World Trade Towers in new york were crashed into by 2 planes, one on each tower, 18 minutes apart," CmdrTaco posted on Slashdot. "Nobody really knows who did it, but the planes were big ones.

"Normally I wouldn't consider posting this on Slashdot, but I'm making an exception this time because I can't get news through any of the conventional websites, and I assume I'm not alone."

CmdrTaco later posted an update. "Both towers havecollapsed, pentagon hit by 3rd plane. Part of it has collapsed."


It's 20 years later, and there's plenty of hindsight, recollections, and reflection around the web. But today back on the front page of Yahoo.com there's this remembrance from a U.S. airman who'd been dispatched to crash her plane into one of the hijacked jetliners: As the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were unfolding, then-Air Force Lt. Heather Penney was given a mission to intercept hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 before it reached Washington, D.C. The rookie F-16 pilot said she believed she would not come back from that mission.

"[I remember] how crystal blue the skies were that day," she told ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis...

"I had raised my hand and swore an oath to protect and defend our nation," she said. "If this was where the universe had placed me at this moment in time... that this was my purpose. Anyone who had been in our position would have been willing to do the same thing.

"And the proof is in the pudding, because the passengers on Flight 93 did...."

Flight 93 passengers attempted to retake the plane, and in the struggle, the aircraft crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. It was the only one of the four hijacked aircrafts that day that did not reach the terrorists' intended target.
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20 Years After the World Trade Center Attack, a Nation Remembers More

20 Years After the World Trade Center Attack, a Nation Remembers

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  • Remember... as if one could forget (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @02:38PM (#61785717)

    With all the freedoms that eroded away since that day, it's kinda hard to forget about it.

    No matter how hard one tries.

    • Please list the freedoms that are lost?

      • Re:Remember... as if one could forget (Score:5, Informative)

        by Known Nutter ( 988758 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @02:55PM (#61785775)
        https://www.congress.gov/107/p... [congress.gov]
        • Yeah thatâ(TM)s not a list. I can read the act but I donâ(TM)t see the actual list of freedoms we lost.

      • Boring yet oppressive US exceptionalist jingoism (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:29PM (#61785911) Homepage Journal

        I take my shoes off at the airport response to an attack that happened 20 years ago with 3,000 fatalities, and this dude on the bus won't wear a mask to help stop a disease that killed 10,000 people yesterday.

        Ultimately, the events of 9/11/01 were entirely predictable — in fact they WERE predicted — as an almost natural response to the behavior of the United States domination and sponsorship of atrocity, worldwide. The attacks with airliners were spectacular in a visual sense, but microscopic next to the United States' casual commission of atrocities, from year-to-year —Before the events of that day and as accelerated since then.

        A return of those tactics has not been because of US success in a military mission of suppression and disruption of "terrorist" networks. In fact, both directly and through proxy agency, the US has funded and equipped more armed radical militia than ever before - dwarfing efforts with Mujaheddin groups in the 1980's.

        Rather, 9/11 was insignificant and ineffectual as a tactic. An overblown bloody-nose, delivered at great effort and waste of expense, largely produced by the delusions of Osama Bin Laden, who became nearly abandoned by Jihadist/Salafi movements, almost immediately.

        Anyway, happy 20th birthday, USA. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of folks.

        • Re:Boring yet oppressive US exceptionalist jingois (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NFN_NLN ( 633283 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:50PM (#61785965)

          > I take my shoes off at the airport response to an attack that happened 20 years ago with 3,000 fatalities

          Actually you take your shoes off for the "shoe bomber". He killed 0 people.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          "Reid converted to Islam as a young man in prison after years as a criminal. Later he became radicalized and went to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he trained and became a member of al-Qaeda."

          • Of course. Then the "underpants bomber". LOL

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            More specifically, you take your shoes off at the airport because they couldn't be bothered to get the scanners that can detect stuff in the soul of your shoes.

            Some places have them and you don't need to take your shoes off.

          • Reid converted to Islam as a young man in prison after years as a criminal. Later he became radicalized and went to Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he trained and became a member of al-Qaeda.

            That indicates that the prison system is totally fucked, and just a school for villains. And don't have any illusions, radical Islamist organisations recruit crooks quite happily. It was ever thus, whether Christian or Muslim. I can imagine all sorts of villains that did well fighting in the Crusades, and bugger the religion bit.

        • I guess most Americans either never new of have forgotten: the Taliban where founded and funded by the USA to fight the Russians.

          Same for the Mulla regime in Iran. America funded the Mullas because they wanted to get rid of the Shah, and feared that the other - slightly communist - rebel organization could succeed. They did not assume/know that the religious rebel organization would instantly turn anti american after winning. So they tried to keep it a secret that they actually supported and funded them. Th

          • Re:Boring yet oppressive US exceptionalist jingois (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @04:33PM (#61786077) Homepage Journal

            There's a number of simplifications in these histories of the US and covert involvement with Afghanistan and Iran, but pretty much right.

            The US never wanted to get rid of Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi. He himself, thought of giving up more than once - in fact having abdicated and returned once, 23 years earlier - but "The Good President", Jimmy Carter pressed him to stay —even offering US support for using the Iran military to violently suppress demonstrations, as early as 1976-77.

            The US support of the revolution goes to the covert CIA network, tied to arms and heroin trade, which surfaced as the Iran-Contra scandals, and pitched the 1979 "October Surprise". One effect of this illegal alliance was to strengthen the Islamic clerical part of the Iranian revolution, versus the popular element led by University students, the actual embassy captors, who were more decisively leftist and communist.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          What was the goal of 9/11? They wanted a war against the West. They certainly got that, with the rise of ISIS and conflicts in several countries.

          Of course we didn't lose, we are still here... With fewer rights and freedoms, but still here. We didn't win either.

          With Afghanistan the way it is, this probably isn't over and it's too soon to say if they get what they wanted.

          • OBL clearly stated his goals. They were very specific, not a general "war".
            They were consistently misrepresented in the "analysis" and "commentary" by mainstream media, and the supposed "middle east policy" and "military" "experts", for whom they operated as a transcription service ad PR amplifier.

            The goals were, One: US military bases out of KSA, and Two: End to Israeli occupation in Palestine — though I'm not sure if he were clear about '67 borders, or not.

            AFTER some weeks, OBL claimed he wished

        • Re:Boring yet oppressive US exceptionalist jingois (Score:5, Insightful)

          by khchung ( 462899 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @08:32PM (#61786671) Journal

          Rather, 9/11 was insignificant and ineffectual as a tactic. An overblown bloody-nose, delivered at great effort and waste of expense, largely produced by the delusions of Osama Bin Laden, who became nearly abandoned by Jihadist/Salafi movements, almost immediately.

          On the contrary, some would say 9/11 was extremely effective, it triggered extreme over-the-top reactions from the US. The damage to the US in both reputation, money and lives lost in the subsequent invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan hugely dwarfed what Bin Laden could have inflicted otherwise.

          Some of the residual over-reaction, e.g. the TSA, is still here, wasting US resources and harming US citizens well-being day after day, 20 years later.

          You can hardly find another single act that had harmed the US so much for so long.

      • Please list the freedoms that are lost?

        Freedom of travel, for everyone, is the biggest one we have lost. Now we travel with the TSA's permission.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ksw_92 ( 5249207 )

          Er...I can still travel by private car to pretty much any place in the US. With a passport, to CA and MX. No TSA, no shoes removed. I can make snap navigation decisions, too, if there's something interesting or critical to divert for.

          I traveled Amtrak a few years ago and didn't have to go through screening like I do when flying. There's still a certain amount of mid-20th century romance about train travel. More room, dining cars where you can strike up interesting conversations, etc.

          If you think flying is "

    • Yeah, still celbrating my freedoms with the PATRIOT act. The feds at some agencies knew Arabs were training to fly planes but not to land them. This is the top notch talent we have keeping us safe. http:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks%23Prior_intelligence [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: Remember... as if one could forget (Score:5, Interesting)

      by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:13PM (#61785845)
      I was talking on the phone to a lady in the building when the plane hit. So I heard it hit and the people screaming, over the phone.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Holy shit that's intense. Sorry you had that experience.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ikhider ( 2837593 )
        Vietnam remembers, still dealing with the effects of agent orange courtesy of the USA. Laos remembers, still dealing with mines, courtesy of USA. Most of South America remembers, still dealing with dictators and death squads supported by the US. Africa remembers,still dealing with same. Let's not get into the muzzies, because it is commonly agreed their lives have no value. The US had the kind of day that is a mere page in what the rest of the world deals with day-to-day, often courtesy of US foreign policy
      • Sorry to hear, that really sucks. Myself was not as direct as a telephone conversation but where in a mail conversation with some staff at Morgan Stanley about some licensing issues (don't really remember the details any more) and after 9/11 we no longer got any replies. Only later that I realised that they had rented office space at WTC.

      • I got a phone call in the west coast at a very early out, still dark, not sure what time it was. 5 or 6 am. I saw it was from New York. I didn't know anyone from there so assumed it was spam and hung up and went back to sleep. I still wonder who it might have been on the other end.

    • Re:Remember... as if one could forget (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:28PM (#61785907) Homepage Journal

      3000 people died and we got 20 years of war, flying got a lot worse and mass surveillance became the norm.

      In the pandemic 700,000 people died, and...

      • Well, it would probably be different if we just had a few live TV feeds of those that hack and wheeze to death as they drown in their own fluids.

  • A Stunning Victory (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sudonim2 ( 2073156 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @02:49PM (#61785745)
    In retrospect, 9/11 was a stunning victory for Al Qaeda. They got exactly the reaction they hoped for from the US. They both literally and figuratively struck terror into the heart of America. The American overreaction caused us to alienate international allies, waste absurd amounts of blood and treasure, inspire mass radicalization in the Islamic world, completely destabilize the Middle East, and allow said new generation of radicals to sweep into the chaos to make gains unthinkable before.

    • Even more hilariously, the USA did the stupid thing and didn't pursue the Al Qaeda attackers, they left Afghanistan early. Meanwhile, we got bogged down fighting the patchwork of warlords, making a fake government and fake military there, which was pointless. A country so easily distracted and wasting is ripe target for more attacks, the USA needs to wise up.

      • Re:A Stunning Victory (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @04:10PM (#61786007) Homepage Journal

        The Taliban, reprehensible as they are, offered to deliver Osama Bin Laden to the US, and were rebuffed in favor of an illegal invasion, bloody war, and 20 years of slaughtering over 200,000 Afghans.

        It was NEVER a "righteous war", as advertised at the time, and desperately pronounced by so many, still today. Words like these offend any sensibilities - under any circumstances.

        Afghanistan was a war of illegal, elective and convenient adventure. The United States — typically — elected for atrocity, and referred to its elective behavior as a tragedy.

        Wiping tears while whingeing about 9/11 doesn't make anything about the 20-year, illegal adventure by the US in Afghanistan justified. 20 months cannot be justified. Not 20 days or even hours.

        • It was a massive boondoggle, possibly the greatest in history. God, I love that word. Boondoggle. It was a way of slurping funds into completely pointless enterprises. Yes, it was good to build schools and hospitals in Afghanistan. But then just bugger off and leave the locals to run things. Of course the Taliban destroyed all this good stuff as soon as it was made. And the fuckers spending the money knew that. But it did not matter. This was not a war. It was a feeding trough.

          • how was it good to build schools and hospitals and whatnot that would need a perpetual flow of my tax dollars to maintain, to the tune of hundreds of billions a year, e.g. 300 million a day, 9 billion a month? No, it was not good. We could have spent that kind of money on people's health and education, clean energy and other infrastructure here in the USA. Imagine what could have been built.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Misagon ( 1135 )

      The invasion of Afghanistan was already planned in the summer of 2001 for later that year, albeit perhaps at a smaller scale originally. The CIA had been trying to assassinate Osama Bin Laden since 1998.
      The Iraq war was also already on the agenda [wikipedia.org].

      What 9/11 caused in terms of "overreaction" was to provide massive public and political support for the wars.
      This is no conspiracy theory: this has always been official public information ... but these points, and internal documents about "we could need a Pearl Har

    • "Al Qaeda" got nothing. OBL wanted the complete withdrawal of the US from Saudi Arabia, and the disengagement of of the Saudi government from the US as sponsor and ally. He threw in some nearly generic points about the liberation of Palestine, as a bid to attract common cause with the wider Muslim world who were less politically interested in the OBL core issue: how KSA managed a country containing Makkah and Madina.

      "Al Qaeda" itself is a bit of a bogeyman, other than the attacks of 9/11. Despite the frenzi

    • absurd amounts of blood and treasure, inspire mass radicalization in the Islamic world, completely destabilize the Middle East,

      And what did Iraq have to do with 9/11? The invasion was planned beforehand and would be executed regardless.

    • In retrospect, 9/11 was a stunning victory for Al Qaeda. They got exactly the reaction they hoped for from the US. They both literally and figuratively struck terror into the heart of America. The American overreaction caused us to alienate international allies, waste absurd amounts of blood and treasure, inspire mass radicalization in the Islamic world, completely destabilize the Middle East, and allow said new generation of radicals to sweep into the chaos to make gains unthinkable before.

      Yes and no.

      They wanted an invasion of Afghanistan, which they got, but it didn't go nearly they way they expected (at least for the first few years). And if the US had stopped there it might have actually stabilized Afghanistan with a dysfunctional but stable "democratic" government.

      Instead the US invaded Iraq for absolutely no good reason, simultaneously destabilizing the Middle East to Al Qaeda's great delight, eliminating a secular Arab ruler to Al Qaeda's great delight, and distracting the US from Afgha

      • Yes and no.

        They wanted an invasion of Afghanistan, which they got, but it didn't go nearly they way they expected (at least for the first few years).

        It went exactly as Al Qaeda expected. They were a guerilla force. They never harbored any illusions about standing up to the US in a straight fight. The plan was always a long bloody slog. That's mainly the reason the higher ups in the organization fucked off from Afghanistan almost immediately.

        And if the US had stopped there it might have actually stabilized Afghanistan with a dysfunctional but stable "democratic" government.

        Not a chance in hell. We lost the war in Afghanistan on Oct 17th, 2001. To start with, all our allies in the Northern Alliance were Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc. The Taliban was almost all Talibs and those who weren

  • The time after 9/11 was the last time (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:03PM (#61785805)

    that I remember being on the side of the angry and frightened majority.

    I was sitting in high school chemistry class when the announcement was made over the school PA system. In the months after there were stories of classmates' parents who were late to work and still with us, and I'm sure of acquaintances who barely escaped...or didn't.

    And there was anger and fear and condemnation. And desire for and near u questioned aquiescense for vengeful violence. We all supported going into Afghanistan...for revenge, and into Iraq and the rest of the lower-profile places...for the stated reason of preemption.

    The Michael Moores of the world were told to stuff it, and the few Muslim students in my high school were putting on a brave face but in retrospect I'm sure they were walking on eggshells given the conversations that went on in the halls.

    I was on the side of the majority back then. Today with covid, I'm a dissenter (perhaps not a dissident, but a dissenter). But remembering back to being on the other side back then, I have some empathy for the fear and anger and collective need to feel in control of a disastrous situation.

    Let's hope we all learn the right lessons from history. It gets easier to do so with time. I was told this when I was in school and wondering why the history books stopped about 30 years ago. Now I understand.

    • Re:The time after 9/11 was the last time (Score:5, Insightful)

      by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:44PM (#61785945)

      Wow, way to use 9/11 to establish a moral high ground in regards to your opinions about Covid.

      Just because you hold a minority opinion on Covid doesn't mean you're just like the few who said maybe we shouldn't go into Afghanistan.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Thanks for sharing that. But I'd like to ask you something.

      You live up to your username, despite being relatively young for hard core conservatism, and apparently having understand the catastrophic consequences of that ideology.

      Didn't it make you re-evaluate your ideas?

      • It made me more skeptical of people promising to fix my/our/global/philosophical problems with collective action.

        Having seen it fail spectacularly once, and having observed both from outsire and inside, why and how that failure occurred, my skepticism of anything that doesn't rely on distributed decision-making (read: individial initiative and freedom and responsibility), that is to say my skepticism of centralized/command economies, only grew.

    • Let's hope we all learn the right lessons from history. It gets easier to do so with time. I was told this when I was in school and wondering why the history books stopped about 30 years ago.

      You have to let the shit ferment for a bit. My philosophy compost heap is quite mature now, so I think George Orwell and Karl Popper are ready to fertilise new thoughts. There is a problem with what might be called contemporary history, that it very rapidly goes out of date.

  • I'll tell you what I saw (Score:4, Informative)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:05PM (#61785813)

    Documentaries on the Discovery Channels in which, not only did they not have the decency to run the documentaries in full and give the usual barrage of ads a rest for a change, they managed to run ads for life insurance companies and funeral services.

    Utterly disgusting.

    • not disgusting at all, death can happen any time and prep is good. Be more practical and not a snowflake.

  • We know who did it. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    15 were Saudis.
    2 were from UAE
    1 was from Egypt
    1 was from Lebanon

    We also know that the Taliban and their ilk were basically US paid God believing holy warriors who were supposed to destroy those fucking atheist commie Russian bastards, and Reagan invited their predecessors to the Whitehouse.

    We also know that when US decided to turn against its paid holy warriors, that the private Saudi and UAE citizens were continuously donating to the cause of Al Qaeda, ISIS, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Taliban.

  • all the news sites came down as well. (Score:5, Informative)

    by tinkerton ( 199273 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:11PM (#61785833)

    But slashdot kept going. It acted as a backup really, all the news items got posted here instead .

  • That Popular Mechanics is trying to profit off of the incident, releasing a "20th anniversary special report" to debunk the 9/11 myths?

    Ever since they made it a cover story back in an early 2005 issue of their magazine, they've gone on to publish a whole book about it, to argue the Federal goverment's version of everything that happened is 100% correct (complete with a forward written by Senator John McCain). And now they're back, to crush the "truthers" they so dislike for spreading conspiracy theories.

    Th

  • Overreaction (Score:4, Insightful)

    by InterGuru ( 50986 ) <(jhd) (at) (interguru.com)> on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:24PM (#61785889)

    Covid does not directly harm the body, the body's defensive overreaction does the damage.
    Similarly, the damage from 9/11 was contained, our overreaction did all the damage.

    • Covid does not directly harm the body, the body's defensive overreaction does the damage.

      If that were true, then hydroxychloroquine would have worked to treat Coronavirus, because it was aimed at preventing a defensive overreaction.

  • But is this cnn?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      No, it's Slashdot where a post wouldn't be a proper post if no one complained that it shouldn't be one.

  • We did exactly what they terrorists wanted (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:51PM (#61785967)
    The entire point of the attack was to provoke an overreaction that would mire us in wars and weaken us as a nation. Trillions of dollars later that worked out great. We completely took the bait, hook, line, sinker.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      Maybe that was the plan all along. The military industrial complex is a hungry beast.

      • I'd already figured out that that was what the terrorists wanted but a YouTuber by the name of Beau of the fifth column is the one that pointed out to me that the goal of terrorism is always to provoke an overreaction. Overreaction serves two benefits. First it means that the government will inevitably have to oppress its people which will create social friction. And second it means resources will be spent not on making the nation stronger but I'm dealing with the fallout from the overreaction.

        If you'r

    • The entire point of the attack was to provoke an overreaction that would mire us in wars and weaken us as a nation.

      This is inverted. Osama Bin Laden thought that America would run at the first sign of a hard fight (like in the Beirut barracks attack). So he attacked America in the hopes that it would increase his own personal prestige, allowing him to become the ruler of a restored Caliphate across the middle east.

      What you describe is what happened, but was not the intention of the attack.

      • We never once went after the Saudis that were responsible for the attack. Instead we pick the couple of easy fights with Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean I guess technically we never even got to the point where we could run from that battle with the Saudis. And I'm not saying we should have gone to war with them but we should have sanctioned them. We also shouldn't have let dozens of them flee the country on secret flights in the wake of 9/11 because they were connected to the Bushes. By the way the terrorists

  • Gulf of Tonkin (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday September 11, 2021 @03:55PM (#61785977)
    I'm not a 9/11 truther or anything, but I think it's painfully obvious that our intelligence community fucked up. They knew something was going down and they let it happen. It's very likely they did that to scare the American people into more funding.

    There was no shortage of calls to cut military funding back then (and with it Intelligence ), and there'd already been cuts under Clinton (I know some ex-Defense contractors who hate all Dems to this day because they had to go out and get real jobs in the private sector).

    I don't think they thought it would be as big though. But it worked out for them in the end. We spent trillions, and all talk of cutting back military spending went right out the window. We were positively bloodthirsty post 9/11.

    • Imagine how many solar panels one could have bought from China for that money.
      Or imagine: how many solar panel factories one could have build in the US for that money.

      Or do as Blindseer/MadMan suggests: build some nuclear plants.

      Or simply put money into infrastructure. But no: that would be communism. The state of god own's land is only allowed to bomb brown people in foreign countries. Everything else is against god's will that the average american "citizen" has to suffer by living in dystopian shit hole,

    • I'm not a 9/11 truther or anything, but I think it's painfully obvious that our intelligence community fucked up.

      Let's be honest, that is the only thing our intelligence community does. Sometimes they torture people, too.

    • ... our intelligence community fucked up. They knew something was going down and they let it happen.

      I hear that a lot in the UK. When some psycho runs riot, we find out later that they were "known to the police", or "under investigation by security authorities", or whatever. The natural reaction of ordinary folks is "Why the fuck didn't you arrest them then?" Something I learned on BBC news, from a security guy, is that security authorities regularly thwart attempted terrorist attacks, but that is hardly ever reported. So all we hear about is terrorist attacks that slip through the net.

      There is also the

  • I lost two friends that day, one in the tower and one on the flight that plowed into Pennsylvania. About half of the kids in my daughter's middle-school class lost a parent or an aunt or uncle when the tower came down. The school had to hire grief counselors for the class.
    I believe revenge is not a good thing, but retribution is sweet. Too many Americans have decided to roll over and weep a little rather than fighting back against these atrocities. We need to make them pay, and we need to make them know

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