It is the aniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. I remember I was in my first year of high school when it happened and we all went home early that day. Personally I felt that our government failed us then and again now because of hurricane Katrina.

I was thinking of starting a topic like this myself. I find it odd that a major (preventable) disaster happened in the fall of the first year of each of Bush's terms. How coincidental...

it shows buch is bad luck for the US

How exactly is a force 4 hurricane preventable?

@BTA:
The 'disaster' part may not have been preventable (...yet) (http://www.sorcerers.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?/topic/22/778.html#000012) but the 'major' part most certainly was. Though I know W himself had little to do with it, the levees should have been built properly.

@grillen:
Exactly. :pope:

4 years ago on this day, I was sitting in my MS Networking class when someone popped their head in the door and told us to turn on the TV, and that something terrible had happened. For the rest of the class, we watched as the towers fell.

And then our teacher told us he was quitting to work at the Intel building. :bang: :rolling:

4 years ago, I woke up and turned on my usual sports radio station. They discussing some rugby game but kept saying that they felt bad talking about sports given what was happening on the other side of the world. I had no idea what they were referring to, so I turned on the TV in time to see the first tower fall down. At the time, the news stations were having us believe that World War III was about to start.

Anyway, much as I don’t like Bush, I think it’s a bit harsh to hold him solely responsible for terrorists crashing into a building, or for a hurricane hitting New Orleans…..

It was my second day of class in my first year of university, and I remember going to the first floor of the library, where they had set up a TV. I didn't know what was going on, but I remember feeling shocked at how far the world had fallen.

I'm afraid a force 4 hurricane is quite a major disaster in and of itself if you consider the destruciton of the towers on 9/11 a major disaster; and it was the direct cause of the flooding that compounded disaster.

It is a pity 9/11 has not taught a valueable lesson to the US and the West, and they still support muslim radicals in Chechenia and Albania/Bosnia. I dont think the British learned much as well... Facilitating terrorist propaganda with TV broadcasts with the likes of Shamil Basayev is not a good way to combat terrorism.
Also, if the West was a bit more cooperative, extracting criminals such as Ilyas Akhmadov and Akhmed Zakayev, there could be a joint operation to deal with these fanatics, after all, we have a long experience in dealing with these terrorist, which would certainly give us both gain.

Man, we're not going down THAT route again, are we? The World Trade Centre fell down because some lunatics hijacked a plane and flew it into the buildings. No matter what US foreign policy is, it's going to annoy SOMEBODY. It just so happens that this time, it annoyed someone who was nuts enough to pull off this audacious and destructive act.

On 9/11 I was sitting in my 5th grade class, doing math and the principal came in and whispered to the teacher. Our teacher cried. Her sister worked in one of the towers. WE are in PEI in Canada.

After School, my cousin phoned me and said that 8 planes had crashed into the Empire State Building.

He was wrong. :(

I was having my hair done. I have kin and friends in NYC. The response of the rescue teams was excellent and are only to be praised.

I was getting ready to head off to school when I saw on the news that one of the WTC buildings was on fire. At first I thought it was a simple accident or something and then I saw, live on TV, the second plane hit the other tower.

This is the kind of thing you would never expect to happen in your lifetime... and you'd never expect to see it live.

I was in class at high school. The teachers in the Teachers' Lounge saw it first and started spreading the word around the school. Everyone gathered around the nearest TV, and we just watched for what seemed like hours on end. The rest of the day is just a blur.

I'd moved back in with my folks not a week prior, and was getting in a few extra hours of sleepy-time before I headed off to school, when my mother stuck her head in my door and said - I'll never forget this - "Andy, wake up - terrorists have just attacked New York City." I got up, went to the TV, and watched as the news anchor (can't remember which one) was saying they weren't 100% sure at that point if it was a freak accident or a terrorist attack, but hopefully they would know soon.

About 2 minutes later, all doubt was removed. I still remember my mom, covering her mouth and gasping out loud as the 2nd plane hit.

I missed class that day.

Man, we're not going down THAT route again, are we? The World Trade Centre fell down because some lunatics hijacked a plane and flew it into the buildings. No matter what US foreign policy is, it's going to annoy SOMEBODY. It just so happens that this time, it annoyed someone who was nuts enough to pull off this audacious and destructive act. You didnt get my point. I said the US, and the West, are not fighting muslim extremism as it should be dealt.
Dont expect that supporting them in Chechenia and Bosnia/Albania is going to easy their hunger and fanaticism.

I was at work, and someone announced that a plane crashed into one of the blocks (we though stupid pilot at first), but a few minutes later another plane hit a tower block. It was a very strange day.

Hmm - grade 7, we were playing handball (which I think you foreigners know as 'four square') when somebody mentioned it. We stopped playing and discussed, then came to the general consensus that whoever had done it was going to get pwned by America.
... it still hasn't happened ...

I was on my way home from work when i whitnessed hordes of Moroccans celebrating and cheering in the streets. i didn't know what the occasion was, and i remember thinking first that maybe they won an important footballmatch or something. Then i came home and turned on the TV, and saw what happened, and i realised they were actually celebrating the fall of the twin towers. I also remember that i had a hard time getting a grip on my emotions and not go outside to blow a few holes in the first celebrating Arab that crossed my path. It was also amazing that the police didn't interfere and beat the living crap out of them. The law has changed since then, but it's still striking to see how far both cultures have grown apart.

Hmmm... another non-political thread in AoDA with the usual political commentary. How boring. And here I thought this was going to actually be an interesting thread.

On topic: I was attending a conference in Baltimore. The entire day was quite an experience. Security was absolutely nuts in the DC area. All restaurants closed down (so much for dinner). Rental cars were going for $750 per day -- my company wouldn't fork over that kind of money so I waited. The hotel initially raised it's rates for the first night, but then lowered them again when nobody showed for the next day at all. The street were entirely empty in downtown Baltimore.

On the evening of the 12th, I waited for four hours at a Greyhound bus station. Then spent thirty-six hours on buses and in bus stations -- Greyhound really needs to work on their stations. My last leg from Cleveland to Chicago I sat next to family that had been vacationing in New York. They had been running late that morning -- I believe the husband said 'thank God my wife was taking so long getting ready, I'll never complain to her again.' They were going to go up the towers that morning. Instead they left the city with the cloths on their backs and one small case -- the family had come to New York with five large suitcases and left with one carry-on. They were finally able to change their clothes after three days in Cleveland.

I was at home discussing things with my friend when he recieved a text message about it and we immidiately turned on the tv to find out what was going on. To be honest I did not react too strongly about it. I don't know anyone from the USA and have no real emotional attachments there, so it was pretty much "just another disaster" to me. I was surprised by the attack and followed how the situation developed intensly though.

I thought I heard something and woke up, and tho I could see part of one of the towers from my bedroom window, the top of the tower was obscured by the Manhattan Bridge. So I puttered around awhile, noticed my cell had no signal, and looked out the window, where I saw a crowd gathering. So I took the elevator down (I think the 2nd plane hit while I was in the elevator) and walked outside. Watched the whole thing from across the river. Seriously thought, before the towers when down, of riding my bike over the Brooklyn Bridge just to see what I could do. Kindof a lemming-like response (a friend of mine ended up doing that, and then riding straight back covered with dust when the first tower fell). Thankfully another friend of mine who came up to the river to watch talked my out of that idea...

How exactly is a force 4 hurricane preventable? probably going to hate me for this;

it was just god trying to top bin laden

You're right. Hardly a joking matter.

First off, Shoshino, you really need to learn what's not funny. My explanation for the Hurricane? **** happens, Live with it.

As for the Bush Critics, I believe that has been flogged to death in other threads, and the consensus was that King George shouldn't be the only one blamed. We now return to the topic at hand.

Four years ago, My father had just brought home a pick-up truck load of corn to preserve for the winter. My uncle and I were husking it when Dad came out to tell us what happened. He found on the radio a news station from Cleaveland to keep us posted on what was happenning. When the corn was done, I came in the house to watch the CNN coverage of the traumatic event. I honestly thought that WWIII was starting...

I remember waking up and hearing the news - it was one of my rare mornings where I could sleep in during my Honours year, between working at the service station and studying. I thought it was a joke, or a radio serial, until I got up and turned on the TV. Nothing but rubble to see in real-time, but endless replays of the planes striking the towers.

I don't think it really sank in until I could talk about it with someone else at about 10am that morning (time difference - would have been about 6pm in New York, IIRC). It was one of those things, though, when you knew that it marked a definitive moment when something changed. I remember feeling the same way on October 12, 2002, when the Sari Club was obliterated in Bali by a terrorist bomb.

It was something I won't forget. The greater tragedy would be if we did not even learn from it, that it did nothing but continue to incite more and more violence, hatred and suffering, and that we as Westerners gave up the principles of democracy because of it.

I was in 7th grade in physical education class, I heard people murmoring that something serious had happened in NYC, then the teachers tooks us to the locker rooms and some were watching the news, but not much was still known by the students, I remember seeing a girl crying on my way to the next class. In the next class the teacher tunred on the TV and we spent the rest of the time watching TV until we went to lunch, then I got picked up by my mother and I will never forget this: my mother said "at least you got out of school early today" (since I hated school) and I said "I would have rather stayed in school all day then have this happen". I can't remember seeing (live) the planes hit the towers, I think that happened on my way home, a confusing and thoughtful day indeed.

I was at awe by the quickness of the firefighters and police, the images of people jumping off the towers, and the videos of celebrating Arabs.

I remember hearing and seeing many positive reactions due to that disaster on my part, such as my brothers interest into becoming a firefighter, and hearing my religion opening it's doors to people in need to cover from the smoke and other harms in a center located there. Sad how the Horricane disaster had very little positives at all, you'd think people would learn from one disaster on how to deal with the chaos.

[defense of "joke" removed - this is the AoDA, not Whatnots, and this is a serious topic, not a joke thread - constrain yourself - dmc]

[ September 13, 2005, 19:47: Message edited by: dmc ]

I was at work in a building just below the BT Tower (Also known as Telecom Tower or Post Office Tower) in London when I had a phonecall from my partner to look at the BBC website. About two minutes later we were ordered out of the building. We watched the news coverage on a large screen in the window of the nearby Saatchi & Saatchi office before being told to go home.

I was driving past the Pentagon -- no joke -- just before the plane hit. I heard on the television before I left home that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, but I was more interested in the news that Michael Jordan had announced he was coming back to basketball (again).

Then when I got to work they told me about the second plane.

Other than the photos of people jumping from the towers, the images I remember most are the shots of Palestinians cheering and dancing in the streets.

I bought a Palestinian flag the next day and desecrated it.

St. James,
Just out of curiosity: Even though Palestinians had nothing to do with 9/11? Or just to be safe?

For my part, on 9/11 I was learning for an exam and I was going through the living roomm, iirc on my way to get myself some coffee, when I saw the pics of the WTC buildings, one of them burning, on the telly.

I called my mom and my sis and we all agreed that something serious would happen in response. Who could have imagined all the nutty mess that followed.

St James,

I bought a Palestinian flag the next day and desecrated it. Why, may I ask? Sure, I can understand being angry about people celebrating the destruction, about wanting to lash out. However, what motivated you to do that? What did you hope to achieve by it?

You desecrated a flag based on the undesirable actions of a few people you saw on TV? That sounds a little extreme. If everyone did that to the flags representing the country of origin of every person who did something bad, there would be no flags left. There have been some murderers and rapists from New Zealand so even my own flag wouldn't be safe.

Hey, lay off guys. :nono: People do strange things when they're hurting. The price of true understanding is the lives of thousands of your countrymen, and I can't imagine any of you are willing to pay it.

Felinoid,

Respectfully, the Sari Club bombing was comparable, if you consider the populations of Australia and the US and the international reaction to a Jemaah Islamiah cell targeting Westerners and a symbol of Western decadence (the nightclub). I'm not saying people don't do things they regret in the aftermath of that; I just think that people tend to focus on striking back however they can, rather than trying to assimilate that information and look at how the hell this happened. That was my first instinct, in all these instances.

St James can correct me if I'm misreading his statement, but he seems proud of having bought and desecrated a Palestinian flag. Which, I guess, is at the heart of my questions for him, and my concerns that the graver, human lessons of the WTC and Pentagon attacks have not been learned.

If someone flew a plane into the Rialto Tower in Melbourne, yeah, I'd be angry. I'd also have to run like hell, since I work in its shadow. If someone bombed Spencer St Station, again, I'd be pissed off and probably need to be evacuated. But as soon as the shock wore off, I'd want to know how and why it was done.

Of course, I'd probably be labelled an apologist for not wanting blood.

So St. James lashed out in the only way he knew how at the time. People do odd things when they're upset...I don't think it's nice to nail him to the wall over it. The guy was upset.

NonSequitur -- We can never know how we'll react in times like that. And in that case, it really defied anything we had ever experienced to that point, in this country. So who's to say?

Point taken. I guess putting a flag down the waste disposal (or whatever he did) is not really the end of the world. My only point was that it was a bit unfair to lash out at a particular wide group of people on the basis of the actions of a smaller sample of their members. But he didn't actually go and beat up any Palestinians so maybe there was no real harm done.

Fair cop, Spellbound - it's hard to say that you know how you'd react in that situation. Despite the reaction I had to the twin towers falling, my reaction was more contemplative than aggressive - probably because it wasn't my country under attack.

In the (slightly different) example I've given, my reaction was "Holy ****!", followed by "Who did this, and how?", which was closely followed by "Why?". Of couse, I had the benefit of this occurring 13 months after the WTC was destroyed, so my perspective was a little different, I'll grant that. I was happy to see Amrozi sentenced, even more pleased to see Bashir jailed, but it was almost more of a relief that those responsible had been brought to justice than a sense of retribution.

We all react in our own ways, I guess. It was largely unprecedented, and it's hard to say how you can react to the utterly unexpected, much less losing friends and family to it. Still, I don't see why my questions are so objectionable. I'll shut up now until/unless St James replies; maybe the benefit of isolation limits my comprehension, and I'll leave it at that.

If my country had just been attacked, I would probably view a crowd of celebrating people who claimed association with the attackers as enemies of the state, potentially a threat to my family and friends. If they considered this to be war, I would likely do my best to include them in the casualties of that war.

Yeah, but only the specific individuals, not the whole group to which they belong. That would be like burning US flags because some crazy redneck in the hills said on TV that if he had a nuke, he'd use it to "burn those stinking towelheads."

I was in my law school cafeteria when it came on the TV. I remember at the time previously mulling over some personal s*** that I had to deal with. Something like that reminds you in a poignant way that your own plate often pales in comparison to other things that happen.

Well the flag desecration is understandable, as he seen Palistanians celebrating that tragedy, but what is not cool, is that Seikh community are constantly getting threats and beatings in New York. Even if they were Muslims, they do not deserve 'revenge' attacks.

Maybe we could see why the Palistanians are celebrating, as the US favours Israel over the Israel/Palistine conflict.

When we see conflict in the world, we should not choose a champion side, and keep our noses our of other peoples business.

[ September 19, 2005, 09:33: Message edited by: Cúchulainn ]

Some Palestinians celebrated,
I recall Iraq on the other hand sending it's condolences.

lots of people around the world celebrated the destruction at the WTC, the media only showed the palestinians celebrating because it would fuel US anger toward them in support of israel. if you wanted to lash out at every country which had citizens celebrating the event then you would have to burn alot of flags, including the union jack and your stars and stripes.

why do people get upset by something which doesnt effect them?

st james, were any of your family members killed in the wtc incident? any friends? any collegues? did it effect your finances directly?

if not, then why are you upset? people die on a daily basis, do you get upset for the iraqi people dieing in bombings? the isralies or palestinians who die all the time? do you desecate british and american flags for whats happening there?

were all human

After 9/11 broadcast footage depicting Palestinians celebrating was omnipresent on U.S. networks (I remember seeing it on MSNBC and CNN then). The brief footage was typically broadcast cyclically and used as an interview aid, with anchors asking U.S. government officials and others how they felt about the images.

Almost universally the anchors presented the footage failing to note any context to the images.

A number of points must be made, first about the actual footage: There are three million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank including Jerusalem, one million Palestinians living inside the borders of Israel, and another four million Palestinian refugees living elsewhere in the world, including the United States.

The footage in question depicted between 20 and 40 individuals. The Palestinians in the footage were mostly young children. It is IMO questionable if they really understood the impact their act would have in this context. Most of their behaviour in the footage appeared to be no different from how Palestinian children always behave when foreign journalists turn up in their towns, crowding and smiling at the camera and giving the victory sign.

Somewhere in my deep memory there is a note that a tv crew reportedly payed Palestinian kids to burn a U.S. flag ... maybe to provide such footage in a time of need - though I can't provide a link for that.

True, the pics did show genuine rejoicing at the attacks, but anchors interpreting the footage made no effort to offer any context or background to the images. A comparable situation would be television anchors angrily reacting to scenes of the 1991 riots in Los Angeles, lamenting that "blacks do not respect law and order", while failing to note the preceding attack on Rodney King or endemic racial profiling of the black community in the U.S. by police forces.

A good deal of the Israeli military hardware the Palestinians find themselves at the receiving end of comes from the U.S. Having shrapnel made in America in your leg or your aunty or your uncle can cause people being angry at the U.S. So to say, Palestinian disenchantment with America didn't fall out of a blue sky. Proper journalists would have pointed that out, and still would have been able to take offense on the footage.

Leaving it uncommented, however, turns it into a representative Palestinian statement - which is a stretch, to put it mild.

I find it amazing that the public climate seems such that it is a little sensation that a high level conference (http://www.americaspurpose.org/) only stated a week ago that to address grievances exploited by terrorist leaders is not to reward terrorism but that, quite the contrary, addressing these grievances is essential to diminishing support for terrorism. No kidding. It took approx 4 years to be able to spell that out in public without being shouted down as a Saddam loving appeaser. For an OODA loop that is extremely slow ...

About St. James' post I find the wording interesting, it's about 'desecrating' - not just burning, destroying or smearing with excrement or whatever else might come to mind - it was a ritual not just a mere act ... I wonder, too, what makes a flag 'sacred'.

However, in the end, none of the 9/11 goons was Palestinian. Whatever one wants to say about St. James' flag desecration (whatever that means anyway), premature or arbitrary would be rather descriptive. By standards of arbitrariness St. James could have as well desecrated a Chinese, Russian or Singaporian flag for good measure.

The thing with the Sikhs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikhism) is a good example. They are not only not monotheistic Muslims but pantheistic Indians, and not even remotely Arabian but Ayran - if it's about race. After 9/11 white heated jingoism grabbed parts of America and was amplified in the media, namely talk-radio and FOX-News: Sikh of Muslim? Who cares? They're both dark-skinned, bearded towelheads (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Turbanned_man.jpg). The same can be said about Palestinians and other Arabs: Close enough for me ... *whack*

Sure, whacking a person and ritually 'desecrating' a palestinian flag are follies on a different level, but they emerge from the same mindset.

It's a display of empty-headed ignorance in particular and of the ugly side of national sentiment in general. Nothing special, as, sadly, after the underground bombings hate crime also rose in the U.K.

EDIT: Su Tsu taught his men to "know your enemy" before going into battle. For if "you know your enemy and know yourself," he wrote, "you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." But, Sun Tzu warned, "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

I feel tempted to add: "And if you don't know your enemy and hit the wrong guy, you're going to get yourself another enemy." :1eye:

[ September 19, 2005, 14:59: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

Ragusa, I'm going to make this a public warning, and the final one. If you bring politics into AoDA again, I'll have no choice but to remove your posting privileges. You've abused my trust by posting about politics here for the third time or so after I've asked you never to do it again, and even though my patience goes a long way, this is the end. Do it again, and it'll be the last time.

If you feel the need to add anything, PM me.

As for the rest of this topic, if any more posts from this point on try to turn it into a political debate, they'll be deleted. We have a forum specifically for politics, so open a new thread there and feel free to discuss 9/11 and its political implications. But leave this thread on topic (which doesn't include politics!).

[ September 19, 2005, 15:59: Message edited by: Taluntain ]

On that day I was still living in Oregon, preparing to move back east. Hubby was in NJ on a business trip. I had to vacate the house for the day since it was tour day for real estate agents.

I had lolled in bed until Arlyn (then 15 months old) made me get up, then took him downstairs for breakfast. I decided to call my mom and finalize logistics for an interview trip I had at the end of the week, when I would get to see her, too.

She told me to turn on the TV.

For the next hours I couldn't get more than 10 feet from the news. When I finally had to go, I took Arlyn to daycare then went to the library but couldn't settle in and read, so I went to Starbucks. People there were obsessed with the events, logically enough - there was some comfort to be had in the company of strangers. And then Starbucks decided to close early, so their employees could go be with their families. I was struck by the irony between this decision and the Starbucks ad campaign at the time, proclaiming htem to be a valued member of the community. Great, take that community away just when people need a gathering-place most.

I went home early; needless to say there hadn't been much traffic through the house. I still couldn't pry myself away from the TV, even though no new facts were emerging. I had worked in those buildings. I was supposed to be there the next workday after the 1993 bombings. I couldn't help but wonder about the fate of my former boss. I still don't know.

One of our friends was a native New yorker who remembers seeing the Towers being built, and knew people there. He was really shaken up. Pardon me if it's not something I take lightly.

I was at work, in a meeting, and when I came out of the meeting everyone had stopped working. We had been going though layoff after layoff, so I figured that someone or a bunch of someones had been canned while I was in the meeting, and so I walked up to a friend's cube to find out who and was told that an airplane had hit the WTC. He had a radio on, and about that time the second plane hit and we all looked at each other and knew that our world had just changed.

One of the personally amazing things I remember was that I was scheduled to give blood a couple days after the attack, and it was amazing to see the turnout at that drive.

Humans can do great things when our minds are set to it...great good and great wrong. :(

Exactly right, Harbourboy, only those specifically that label themselves as enemies would be targets of my wrath. If they start on a death to infidels routine, please pardon me for being an infidel who would fight to the death to protect those infidels who are among my family and friends...

Too right Gnarf. Though I dispise the war on Iraq, I am sure I would still be the enemy to some extreme Islamic fanatics, and they would happily have me dead. But at the same time, I see no sense in killing innocent Muslims, just because they are easy targets. Some people enact 'revenge' on men that wear turbins, and women that wear veils. Heck, if it was not for my long hair, I would probably look slightly eastern, due to my Irish Traveller heritage. I would probably be beaten in New York if I had short hair, and a beard/mostache!

Ok ok, its been said more than once already that this topic is what you were doing and where you were when 9/11 occurred.