9/11: 20th Anniversary

[D3thray]

I was futzing around before heading in to university classes (I had a late morning start that day, maybe early afternoon); I was literally just waking up and having my morning caffeine, browsing (I think) Fark.com, a news aggregator, when notice of the first plane hit the front page there.

I turned on my TV and watched the second plane strike live.

I had just finished my morning chemistry lecture and walked into the student union. Everyone was milling about the TV and murmuring about a fire at the WTC. 30 seconds later I watched the second plane fly into the south tower. I stayed watching while the south tower fell and the debris cloud rushed thru the concrete canyons of Manhattan.

When they announced we were going to war I wanted to enlist. My mom talked me out of it.

All of a sudden emotional day for me.

[Egomaniac]

I don't think that Bush orchestrated 9/11. He definitely failed to stop it.

Well, once again, I was refering to the guy regurgitating the "Bush did 9/11" conspiracy theory. I am not saying that the way America responded was awesome. The initial invasion of Afghanistan was justifiable... but they should have gotten out a looooooooong time ago. The war against Iraq (and all the lies and misinformation that led up to it) was just W. wanting to finish the fight his pappa started.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I see a lot of people out here don't understand just how much of a puppet Bush was for Dick Cheney in all of this...

[Egomaniac]

I see a lot of people out here don't understand just how much of a puppet Bush was for Dick Cheney in all of this...

A very willing puppet though.

[Queen of Hamsters]

A very willing puppet though.

Oh for sure, but still a puppet. I blame CIA (not sharing intel) and Dick Cheney and his lackeys far more than I do Bush in this context, whiiiiich is probably due to the media I've consumed portraying him as the useful idiot... He was the President though, he should've been better than a puppet.

Before someone asks "What media?":

The Looming Tower
Vice (Christian Bale)
Zero Dark Thirty
Turning Point: 9/11 And the war on terror

[Egomaniac]

Oh for sure, but still a puppet. I blame CIA (not sharing intel) and Dick Cheney and his lackeys far more than I do Bush in this context.

Like I said earlier...pretty much the entire administration should have been brought up on charges. End of the day though, manipulated or not, W. was the Commander-in Chief...and the Buck stops there.

Just to be completely clear...just because I do not hold to the conspiracy of "Bush did 9/11" does not mean I think W. and company don't have a whole lot of blood on their hands. They did not orchestrate the events of 9/11...but they took advantage of them to push their own agendas that were not in the best interests of the country.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Like I said earlier...pretty much the entire administration should have been brought up on charges. End of the day though, manipulated or not, W. was the Commander-in Chief...and the Buck stops there.

Just to be completely clear...just because I do not hold to the conspiracy of "Bush did 9/11" does not mean I think W. and company don't have a whole lot of blood on their hands. They did not orchestrate the events of 9/11...but they took advantage of them to push their own agendas that were not in the best interests of the country.

... I thought people had gotten over the "Bush did 9/11" crap with all the information available these days. Sucks to see it's still being brought up. And yes, I agree with you completely.

Those agendas ended up leading to MORE terror, MORE misery, and Bin Laden knew that would happen.

[Egomaniac]

... I thought people had gotten over the "Bush did 9/11" crap with all the information available these days. Sucks to see it's still being brought up. And yes, I agree with you completely.

Those agendas ended up leading to MORE terror, MORE misery, and Bin Laden knew that would happen.

Yeah, conspiracy theories never vanish completely. They just fade into the background. As long as there are annual remembrances of 9/11..there will be annual remembrances of "Bush did 9/11".

[Gutler]

I was in boot camp in great lakes we had never seen the TVs in the barracks come on until that day.

[PACOX]

I was old enough to know what was going not old enough to understand the complete gravity of the situation. Still vividly remember watching the 2nd plane hit and Towers go down.

I was at school. First plane hit around the end of 1st period. Got the news while walking to class, which spread like a game of telephone in the hallways. Everyone thought it was some sort of bad accident or helicopter at first. We saw the South Tower get hit live. School was basically done for the rest of the week at that point. We spent the day glued to the news. Everyone was kind of surreal moment that only compounded as the Pentagon was hit, Flight 93 went down, and the Towers fell. Some people followed their schedule on autopilot when the bells rang, some people just sat in the class all day, but most of the school was quiet and glued to the TV. I'm not even sure we had lunch that day - we were allowed to in the classrooms for a few weeks after though. A lot of kids got picked up by their parents, some didn't return for a week. One kid that I know of tried to be edgy and made a very stupid remark that only a young kid with no life experience would make, we heard our history teacher curse him out from the other side of the building with some words you never expected to hear a teacher say at our age. Had some relatives that said they had government officials show up their jobs to audit records and for security purposes (Florida). I was too young to remember all the details but I know one relative talked about having to some agency in and out of their place for a bit going through records.

I think some youth sports were cancelled for a while. Moral was weird. I remember there being days where school was canceled or absenses excused due threats and the rumor of threats. I remember people being extra suspicious of the mail and packages due to the Anthrax scare as well. I remember Indian and West Indian kids catching some shit in my area despite not being Arab.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I had graduated from college the May before and September 11th was my first day at my first "real" job. It also happened to be for a major electric provider and the whole thing went into lockdown when I was in orientation because the first plane went into the first tower. So myself and like 3 other new people just sat in the cafeteria under armed guard (we weren't fully cleared to be there so during a lockdown it was tight). We were actually watching live TV of the first tower burning when the second plane came in and went into the other one. Many people were openly crying. One lady was just openly sobbing uncontrollably and I remember being vividly unable to handle that. So I just sat there awkwardly staring at the TV to not slip up. So it was a pretty crazy day. I was just 4 years out from the Navy too (did 4 years before college) so I had that whole "should I go back, will they call me back, how does that even work" thought swimming in my head too.

Was extremely chaotic. Thankfully I didn't know anyone that lost anyone and didn't lose anyone myself during the attacks. Sorry for those that did. Also sorry the whole thing is pretty much just a political bickering match subject now too. Because I know for those that had people in those building or on those planes it means a lot more than the state of Afghanistan 20 years later. For those people.. I remember ya.. even if most people have move on to using the tragedy as a business statement.

[Forogil]

Another misleading statement, those offers were paper-thin and they didn't offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to the US; and they were quickly withdrawn.

What they offered were that bin Laden was tried in an Afghan court or possibly in Pakistan, but under Islamic law, while also spreading wild conspiracy theories about Jews and WTC.

handing over to a third party was an option which the usa didn't want.

It wasn't "a third party"; they were talking about handing over bin Laden to at most an islamic court in Pakistan - while talking about the conspiracy of Jews knowing about WTC. The same Pakistan that had some ties with the Taliban and where bin Laden would later seek refuge.

Wait you call me bad faith and then mention a third party?

The US wanted Osama bin Laden handed over to justice.

The Taliban "offer" was to hand over him to something that had all the signs of a kangaroo court; and it was unworkable for other reasons; you tried to mislead about this by calling it a "third party"; which is just false.

But at least you are no longer going with your original lie about Taliban and al-Qaida being opposed to each other.

Remarkable. Us not liking them doesn't magically mean Pakistan == Afghanistan. Or do you not know how geography works?

Pakistan and both the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida have deep ties, that isn't just due to geography as there are no similar links with Iran and China, but unfortunately there are few states in the region that can be trusted.

There's a reason Osama bin Laden hid in Pakistan.

So, yes, I know geography and geopolitics.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and just a point of clarity for people in the US: Osama bin Laden is normally written with a decapitalized "bin", meaning "son of" (although technically his father was named Muhammed, whose grandfather was Laden).

[Dezerte]

I was in chemistry class, and the teacher interrupted the class so he could turn on the TV and show us the news coverage. One of those things I remember quite clearly from school.

[tehealadin]

I got home from school. It was BBC news that was on, and there was a picture of the Manhattan skyline, smoke everywhere. I remember joking "oh, did they finally legalise weed?". Then the banner at the bottom said there had been attacked and it showed the planes hitting the towers. I felt like a complete asshole. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was all anyone was talking about in school the next day, most of our classes ended up just having people talking about what had happened and what might happen next. We were all in agreement that, to use a Scottish term, "someone was getting it". That someone turned out to be Afghanistan. I wasn't quite old enough to grasp all of the geopolitical complexities and backdrop to it, but I was old enough to know that this was history.

[Themius]

The US wanted Osama bin Laden handed over to justice.

The Taliban "offer" was to hand over him to something that had all the signs of a kangaroo court; and it was unworkable for other reasons; you tried to mislead about this by calling it a "third party"; which is just false.

But at least you are no longer going with your original lie about Taliban and al-Qaida being opposed to each other.


Pakistan and both the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaida have deep ties, that isn't just due to geography as there are no similar links with Iran and China, but unfortunately there are few states in the region that can be trusted.

There's a reason Osama bin Laden hid in Pakistan.

So, yes, I know geography and geopolitics.

- - - Updated - - -

Oh, and just a point of clarity for people in the US: Osama bin Laden is normally written with a decapitalized "bin", meaning "son of" (although technically his father was named Muhammed, whose grandfather was Laden).

None of this is justification. The taliban has sought for international recognition and its the only reason they didn’t kill us as we left. America didn’t want to negotiate with the taliban at all and hence went to war killing hundreds of thousands.

Does Iraq now get to bomb us over black water? And be like “we flattened A city to kill that guy and the USA didn’t do what we wanted”

Stop viewing everything in an American way where America is supposed to be the de jure ruler of the world and therefore do whatever they like and it be “just” because x country didn’t do what we wanted.

[NED funded]

Hmm imagine how things could have been if the CIA didn't destroy Cybersyn and Chile got to experiment with organising a socialist economy with computers.

OT:

I was at school when it happened.Went home early, watched it there. Worried about war for a while, then worried about the people dying overseas (the people who died when America decided to carpet bomb people who didn't do 9/11). Went to school in Manhattan, planes flying overhead used to seriously trigger me when I was downtown.

Ppl defend Allende?? His government was plagued with crisis after crisis which and failed to adress them properly

You cant be againt pinochet or whatever but Allende's government cannot be defended

[Themius]

Ppl defend Allende?? His government was plagued with crisis after crisis which and failed to adress them properly

You cant be againt pinochet or whatever but Allende's government cannot be defended

Wonder how things could have been better is a major world power wasn’t actively trying to sabotage the country….

[NED funded]

Wonder how things could have been better is a major world power wasn’t actively trying to sabotage the country….

I wonder how things would have been if a government didnt have problems?

[JohnBrown1917]

Ppl defend Allende?? His government was plagued with crisis after crisis which and failed to adress them properly

You cant be againt pinochet or whatever but Allende's government cannot be defended

Its very easy to defend, its a democracy and it was miles ahead of any shitty liberal or conservative government. But I suppose that is why the US had to be sure to support a fascist coup, so edge-lord neo-liberals can enjoy making helicopter ride jokes in the future.

[Themius]

I wonder how things would have been if a government didnt have problems?

If you sanction a country and go through with trying to incite internal conflict you can't then say "omg it's so shit there look at all the internal conflict due to those people suffering from our making them suffer!"